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

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 Shaftesbury.
Some years ago a discovery was made in Holland of MSS. of Le Clerc, and some notice of the MSS., and extracts from them, are to be found in the following work:--
"De Joanne Clerico et Philippo A. Limborch Dissertationes Du?. Adhibitis Epistolis aliisque