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of-fact air about it, and nothing of the brilliancy that would be felt to mate well a career of such vicissitudes and romance. But only another Raleigh could do complete justice to Raleigh. It is certainly the best guide we have to the literature of the subject, a bibliography of which, from another hand, is promised. And it is the fullest of the one volume biographies, thus far, and probably will be till all the documents, public and private, are accessible. But the remark with which we opened the subject fourteen years ago in these pages is still true: "A life of the most brilliant gentleman and most versatile genius in English history during the reigns of Elizabeth and the first James, which shall be worthy of taking the place of an English classic, is yet a desideratum."

Let us close with one of Mr. Gosse's best pieces of literary criticism, his apt and just observations upon the History of the World.

"It was a folio of 1,354 pages, printed very closely, and if reprinted now would fill about thirty-five such volumes as are devised for an ordinary modern novel. . . The book is brilliant almost without a rival in its best passages, but these are comparatively few, and they are divided from one another by tracts of pathless desert. . . . . It is not fair to dwell upon (its) eminent beauties without at the same time acknowledging that the book almost wilfully deprives itself of legitimate value and the true human interest by the remoteness of the period which it describes, and by the tiresome pedantry of its method. It is leisurely to the last excess. The first chapter, of seven long sections, takes us but to the close of the Creation. We cannot proceed without knowing what it is that Tostatus affirms of the empyrean heavens, and whether, with Strabo, we may dare assume that they are filled with angels. To hasten onwards would be impossible, so long as one of the errors of Steuchius Eugubinus remains unconfuted; and even then it is well to pause until we know the opinions of Orpheus and Zoroaster on the matter in hand. One whole chapter of four sections is dedicated to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the arguments of Goropius Becanus are minutely tested and found wanting. Goropius Becanus, whom Raleigh is never tired of shutting between his critical teeth, was a

learned Jesuit of Antwerp, who proved that Adam and Eve spoke Dutch in Paradise. It is not until he reaches the Patriarchs that it begins to occur to the historian that at his present rate of progress it will need forty folio volumes, and not four, to complete his labor. From this point he hastens a little, as the compilers of encyclopædias do when they have passed the letter B."

"With all this, the History of the World is a charming and delightful miscellany, if we do not accept it too seriously. Often for a score of pages there will be something brilliant, something memorable on every leaf, and there is not a chapter, however arid, without its fine things somewhere. It is impossible to tell where Raleigh's pen will take fire. He is most exquisite and fanciful where his subject is most unhopeful, and, on the other hand, he is likely to disappoint us where we take for granted that he will be fine. . . . By far the most interesting and readable part of the History is its preface, a book in itself."

GEORGE F. MAGOUN.

ARTICLE IV.-MARGINALIA LOCKE-A-NA.

A FEW months ago the Librarian of Yale College purchased for the Library a valuable collection of miscellaneous pamphlets in several volumes-treating of topics theological, political, philosophical, and economical. Such collections are always more or less interesting. On the fly leaf of one of these volumes, containing 41 pamphlets, the following memorandum is written. "This very valuable collection of Tracts came from the United Libraries of John Locke and his nephew Lord Chancellor King." On examining the titles and matter of these Tracts it was found that several of them consisted of a series of critical strictures upon Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding by the celebrated or rather the notorious Thomas Burnet, 1635-1715, Master of the Charter-House and author of the "Sacred Theory of the Earth." These comments are more or less pertinent and pointed and represent many of the current criticisms of the times, upon Locke's doctrines, both theological and philosophical. Of a series of three the first two were written in 1697, seven years after the issue of the first edition of the Essay and the third in 1699, i. e., after the publication of the third edition. The first is written in a deferential and courteous tone and urges a few of the current philosophical and theological queries or objections which oppressed most of Locke's critics and dissentients and which were drawn out at some length by Stillingfleet, the one antagonist of Locke who is now remembered by reason of the fact that a summary of his strictures with Locke's replies has till the present time been republished in every edition of the Essay. To this brief essay of Burnet, the first of the Tracts before us, Locke made a brief and somewhat contemptuous reply of two and a half pages, which was attached to his reply to the Bishop of Worcester's answer to his first letter. Upon this brief notice Burnet issued his Second Remarks with more spirit and ability without eliciting a word of response from Locke. Two years afterwards, in 1699, he published his Third

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Remarks of which the first paragraph indicates that he was still smarting from the silence of the philosopher. He begins thus:

"Sir: I have not yet received the favor of your answer to my second letter or second remarks upon your Essay upon Human Understanding. You ruffled over the first remarks in a domineering answer without giving any satisfaction to their contents but the second being more full and explicit, I was in hopes you would have been more concerned to answer them and to answer them more calmly and like a philosopher." But notwithstanding this challenge he did not draw the fire of Locke in a public reply. But he did move him so far that in the solitude of his own study he filled the liberal margins of the pamphlet with remarks and counter criticisms, in his own handwriting. For several reasons these are an interesting memorial of the past. They are holographic from Locke's own hand as is evident from the well known autograph of the author of which there are several specimens in these pamphlets. They are brief and pointed and spirited, expressing his positions in brief statements which are often corrections of and antagonistic to those of his critic. Now and then they are more clear and explicit than the corresponding statements or reasonings of the Essay, being Locke's explanations of his own meaning by answering questions, the removal of objections, and the introduction of distinctions, the necessity for which could be made necessary only by the test of controversy. At all events we have in these Marginalia Locke's exposition of his own treatise in the solitude of his private thinking, with no thought of any public audience or any tribunal other than that of his own reflective judgment. We fancy some of our readers will not be uninterested to follow these comments of the often vexed philosopher as he thinks aloud his not always patient thoughts, and now and then indirectly answers the inquiry of the perplexed reader, as to what he actually did think, when what he actually believed or intended to say, has long been a matter of dispute or uncertainty. For the gratification of this class of readers and the information of all of Locke's admirers and critics we have copied these marginalia in text and comment, giving the latter always in Locke's own words, which some

times display Locke's own feelings in an unmistakeable fashion, and of the former as much as seemed necessary to explain the commentary.

The first remark of Burnet's which elicits any comment from Locke is in the continuation of the sentence already quoted and is as follows: "You best know the reason of your silence, but as it will be understood in several ways so it may be subject to that construction among others, that you could not satisfy those objections or queries without exposing your principles more than you had a mind they should be exposed." Upon this Locke makes this brief comment.

He y' reads my books with a fair minde could not make such a construction.

Upon Conscience Burnet writes: "Conscience you say is nothing else but our own opinion of our own actions. But of what sort of actions, I pray, in reference to what rule or distinction of our actions? Whether good or evil or as profitable or unprofitable or as perfect or imperfect." Locke retorts:

An ingenuous and fair reader, cannot doubt but that I there meant opinion of their morality.

Burnet reiterates, "But the question is, what laws those are that we ought to obey, or how we can know them without revelation, unless you take in natural conscience for a distinction. of good and evil or another idea of God than what you have given us." Locke replies:

It is not conscience yt makes the distinction of good & evil conscience only judging of an action by yt wch it takes to be yo rule of good & evil, acquits or condemns it.

The next comment of Burnet reads thus: "If they (the Patriarchs) had no other guide to virtue and piety than your idea of God and the Soul with an arbitrary difference of good and evil, I wonder how they could attain to such a degree of righteousness as would bear that eminent character from God and his prophets. Upon this occasion also we may reflect upon Natural Faith and the Nature of it." Now how shall a man in the state of Nature have just grounds of this Faith if he have no other idea of God than that he is an

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