p>Notes and Queries, Number 37, July 13, 1850
NOTES
THE AUTHOR OF THE "CHARACTERISTICS."
Lord Shaftesbury's Letters to a young Man at the University, on which Mr. SINGER has addressed to you an interesting communication (Vol. ii., p. 33.), were reprinted in 1746 in a collection of his letters, "Letters of the Earl of Shaftesbury, author of the Characteristicks, collected into one volume: printed MDCCXLVI." 18mo. This volume contains also Lord Shaftesbury's letters to Lord Molesworth, originally published by Toland, with an introduction which is not reprinted; a "Letter sent from Italy, with the notion of the Judgment of Hercules, &c., to my Lord –"; and three letters reprinted from Lord Shaftesbury's life in the General Dicionary, which was prepared by Dr. Kippis, under the superintendence of Lord Shaftesbury's son, the fourth earl.
In my copy of the original edition of the Letters to a young Man at the University, two letters have been transcribed by an unknown previous possessor. One is to Bishop Burnet, recommending young Ainsworth when about to be ordained deacon:—
"To the Bishop of Sarum.
"Reigate, May 23. 1710.
"My Lord,—The young man who delivers this to your Lordship, is one who for several years has been preparing himself for the ministry, and in order to it has, I think, completed his time at the university. The occasion of his applying this way was purely from his own inclination. I took him a child from his poor parents, out of a numerous and necessitous family, into my own, employing him in nothing servile; and finding his ingenuity, put him abroad to the best schools to qualify him for preferment in a peculiar way. But the serious temper of the lad disposing him, as I found, to the ministry preferably to other advantages, I could not be his hindrance; though till very lately I gave him no prospect of any encouragement through my interest. But having been at last convinced, by his sober and religious courage, his studious inclination and meek behaviour, that 'twas real principle and not a vanity or conceit that led him into these thoughts, I am resolved, in case your lordship thinks him worthy of the ministry, to procure him a benefice as soon as anything happens in my power, and in the mean time design to keep him as my chaplain in my family.
"I am, my Lord, &c.,
"SHAFTESBURY."
The second letter inserted in my copy is to Ainsworth himself, dated Reigate, 11th May, 1711, and written when he was about to apply for priest's 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 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 Halifax1, (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 Duæ. Adhibitis Epistolis aliisque Scriptis ineditis scripsit atque eruditorum virorum epistolis nunc primum editis auxit Abr. Des Amorie Van Der Hoeven, &c. Amstelodami: apud Fredericum Muller, 1843."
Two letters of Locke are among the MSS. Now it is mentioned by Mr. Martyn, the biographer of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, in a MS. letter in the British Museum, that some of this earl's papers were sent by the family to Le Clerc, and were supposed not to have been returned. I mention this, as I perceive you have readers and correspondents in Holland, in the hope that I may possibly learn whether any papers relating to the first
Two of these—one a letter asking the earl to stand godfather to his son, and the other a short note, forwarding a book (Qy. of Toland's)—are printed by Sir Henry Ellis in his Camden volume,
