Notes and Queries, Number 37, July 13, 1850 | Page 2

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orders. But the bulk of this letter is printed, with a different
beginning and ending, in the tenth printed letter, under date July 10th,
1710, and is there made to apply to Ainsworth's having just received
deacon's orders. The beginning, and ending of the letter, as in MS.,
are--
"I am glad the time is come that you are to receive full orders, and that
you hope it from the hands of our {98} great, worthy, and excellent
Bishop, the Lord of Salisbury. This is one of the circumstances" [then
the letter proceeds exactly as in the printed Letter X., and the MS. letter
concludes:] "God send you all true Christianity, with that temper, life,
and manners which become it.
"I am, your hearty friend,
"SHAFTESBURY."
I quote the printed beginning of Letter X., on account of the eulogy on
Bishop Burnet:--
"I believed, indeed, it was your expecting me every day at ---- that
prevented your writing since you received orders from the good Bishop,
my Lord of Salisbury; who, as he has done more than any man living
for the good and honour of the Church of England and the Reformed
Religion, so he now suffers more than any man from the tongues and
slander of those ungrateful Churchmen, who may well call themselves
by that single term of distinction, having no claim to that of
Christianity or Protestant, since they have thrown off all the temper of
the former and all concern or interest with the latter. I hope whatever
advice the great and good Bishop gave you, will sink deeply into your
mind."
Mr. Singer has extracted from the eighth printed letter one or two
sentences on Locke's denial of innate ideas. A discussion of Locke's
views on this subject, or of Lord Shaftesbury's contrary doctrine of a
"moral sense," is not suited to your columns; and I only wish to say that
I think Mr. Singer has not made it sufficiently clear that Lord
Shaftesbury's remarks apply only to the speculative consequences,
according to his own view, of a denial of innate ideas; and that Lord
Shaftesbury, in another passage of the same Letters, renders the
following tribute of praise to the _Essay on the Human
Understanding_:--

"I am not sorry that I lent you Mr. Locke's _Essay on the Human
Understanding_, which may as well qualify for business and the world
as for the sciences and a University. No one has done more towards the
recalling of philosophy from barbarity into use and practice of the
world, and into the company of the better and politer sort, who might
well be ashamed of it in its other dress. No one has opened a better or
clearer way to reasoning; and, above all, I wonder to hear him censured
so much by any Church of England men, for advancing reason and
bringing the use of it so much into religion, when it is by this only that
we fight against the enthusiasts and repel the great enemies of our
Church."
A life of the author of the Characteristics is hardly less a desideratum
than that of his grandfather, the Lord Chancellor, and would make an
interesting work, written in connection with the politics as well as
literature of the reigns of William and Anne; for the third Lord
Shaftesbury, though prevented by ill-health from undertaking office or
regularly attending parliament, took always a lively interest in politics.
An interesting collection of the third earl's letters has been published by
Mr. Foster (_Letters of Locke, Algernon Sidney, and the Earl of
Shaftesbury_), and a few letters from him to Locke are in Lord King's
Life of Locke. I subjoin a "note" of a few original letters of the third
Lord Shaftesbury in the British Museum; some of your readers who
frequent the British Museum may perhaps be induced to copy them for
your columns.
Letters to Des Maizeaux (one interesting, offering him pecuniary
assistance) in _Ags. Cat._ MSS. 4288.
Letters to Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax[1], (one introducing
Toland). Add. MSS. 7121.
Letter to Toland (printed, I think, in one of the _Memoirs of Toland_).
_Ags. Cat._ 4295. 10.
Letter to T. Stringer in 1625. Ib. 4107. 115.
In Watt's _Bibliotheca Britannica_, neither the _Letters to a young Man
at the University_, published in 1716, nor the collection of letters of
1746, are mentioned; and confusion is made between the author of the
Characteristics and his grandfather the Chancellor. Several political
tracts, published during the latter part of Charles II.'s reign, which have
been ascribed to the first Earl of Shaftesbury, but of which, though they

were probably written under his supervision, it is extremely doubtful
that he was the actual author, are lumped together with the
Characteristics as the works of one and the same Earl of
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