BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JOHN LOCKE. JOHN LOCKE was born at Wrington, in Somersetshire, A. D. 1632: his father, Mr. J. Locke, who was descended from the Lockes of Charton Court, in Dorsetshire, possessed a moderate landed property at Pensfold and Bellerton, where he lived. John Locke was the eldest of two sons, and was educated with great care by his father, of whom he always spoke with the greatest respect and affection. He was sent to Westminster school, whence, in 1651, he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where, in the earliest period of his residence, he was distinguished for his talents and learning. But, notwithstanding this early reputation which he acquired at the University, he often expressed his regret that he had been ever sent there, conceiving that the method of instruction there pursued was ill calculated to open the under standing, or prepare the way for any useful knowlege. The earliest of Locke's printed works is the Essay on the Human Understanding.' The original copy in his own hand-writing, dated 1671, is still preserved. Prior to this, however, he had written a work of a political nature, which was never printed, though evidently intended for publication. It was written towards the end of 1660. One of the first and most necessary measures after the Restoration, and one of the most difficult, was the settlement of the church. The king had promised, that endeavors should be used to effect a comprehension; and the tract which Locke wrote was intended to reconcile the low church party to an obedience to the civil magistrate in all indifferent things in public worship, not otherwise commanded by the word of God. It is an answer to a writer who denied the right of the civil magistrate to interfere in matters of religion; and in manner and style it resembles his later controversy with Sir Robert Filmer. The circumstances of the times, however, and the altered policy of the government towards the Presbyterian party, prevented the publication of the tract. Locke's inclination led him strongly to the study of medicine, which seems to have occupied his thoughts to the end of his life. In the dedication prefixed to Dr. Sydenham's 'Observations on the History and Cure of Acute Diseases,' 1676, he boasts of the approbation bestowed on his method by Mr. J. Locke, who, to borrow Sydenham's own words, had exa mined it to the bottom; and who, if we consider his genius and penetration, and exact judgment, had scarce any superior, and few equals now living.' In 1665 Locke accompanied Sir Walter Vane, the king's envoy to the elector of Brandenburg, during the first Dutch war, as secretary. In the same year, he returned to England, and an offer was made him, which he declined, of going in some public capacity into Spain. In 1666, a friend in Dublin undertook to procure for him considerable preferment in the church, from the Duke of Ormond, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. This also he declined. Thus there occurred, in the course of Locke's life, the choice of three distinct roads to fortune, and perhaps to celebrity; viz. the temptation of considerable preferment in the church, the practice of physic, and the opportunity of engaging in diplomatic employments. It appears from Boyle's General History of the Air,' that in the same year Locke was engaged in experimental philosophy; as he began a register of the state of the air in the month of June of that year, and continued it, with many interruptions, till his final departure from Oxford in 1683. In 1666 also, Locke became acquainted with the celebrated Lord Ashley, better known as Lord Shaftesbury, who, at that time suffering under an abscess in his breast, the consequence of a fall from his horse, came to Oxford in order to drink the water of Astrop. He had written to Dr. Thomas to procure the waters for him on his arrival at Oxford; but this physician, |