Shaftesbury and Hutcheson

Front matter

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Chapter I. Life And Character

The printed materials for a Life of Shaftesbury are somewhat scanty. They consist mainly of his published letters, of the account of him in the General Dictionary 1 by Dr. Thomas Birch, subsequently editor of Bacon's works, a writer and compiler of considerable reputation in his day, and, lastly, of Toland's Introduction to Letters from the late Earl of Shaftesbury to Robert Molesioorth, Esq. This last work was published, without the permission either of Lord Molesworth, the donor of the letters, or of Shaftesbury's family, who, considering- the character of the contents, were naturally very indignant at their premature publication. I shall recur hereafter to this subject, but I mention the circumstance at once,

1 The General Dictionary (3 734-41) is founded on the Dictionary of Bayle, but contains many additional lives. The principal contributors are J. P. Bernard, T. Birch, and J. Lockman. The original papers from which Dr. Birch's Life of Shaftesbury was printed are contained in the Birch MSS. in the British Museum, No. 4254. Two letters which passed between him and the Fourth Earl, showing that the Life in the General Dictionary was not only extracted from the MS. Life written by the Fourth Earl (see below) but also revised by him, are contained in No. 4318 of the same collection. It is very curious that Dr. Birch makes no acknowledgments to the Fourth Earl in his printed Life. Probably, for some reason or other, he had been requested not to do so..

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because I think that the indignation of Shaftesbury's family and friends at the behaviour of Toland should lead us to view with some misgiving the unqualified condemnation of the " Introduction" expressed by Dr. Birch, who describes it as " chiefly founded on conjecture/' and containing " many things absolutely false." As the document must, however, be regarded with suspicion, I shall never use it as an authority, without expressly citing it.

I have been able, however, by means of the Shaftesbury Papers, now deposited in the Record Office, and admirably arranged and catalogued by Mr. Noel Sainsbury, both to check and to supplement the printed authorities. The papers relating to the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, which are very numerous, and would, I think, well repay a more careful investigation than that which I have been able to give to them, include, besides many letters and memoranda, two lives of him, composed by his son, the Fourth Earl. One of these is a rough draft in the handwriting of the Fourth Earl, accompanied by several loose papers, on which are written still rougher drafts of sentences or paragraphs ; the other a fair copy, occasionally omitting, however, passages or clauses of interest which are contained in the other manuscripts. The fair copy is evidently the original of the Life in the General Dictionary, which usually reproduces it word for word, though several portions of the Earl's account are omitted in the printed biography, and sometimes small details are supplied by Dr. Birch which are not in the original. It would be needlessly tedious, in the following sketch, to discriminate the various authorities for each minute particular; but, speaking generally, it may be understood that, when not otherwise stated, I am following the account of Dr. Birch as extracted from the fair copy of the Life written by the Fourth Earl. This sketch of his Father's Life, says its author, " was

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once intended to have been prefixed to a new edition of the Characteristics, though, upon considering 1 further on it, that thought was laid aside. For the lives of persons who spend most of their time in study can never afford matter to enliven a narrative." We, at this distance of time, can only regret that the writer was so modest and reticent as not to leave us still further details of his father's life and character.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury was born at Exeter House in London, February 26, 1670-1. He was grandson of the celebrated and unfortunate Earl of Shaftesbury, who was Lord High Chancellor of England in the time of Charles II., and son of the second Earl by the Lady Dorothy Manners, daughter of John Earl of Rutland. The marriage between his father and mother, the father being then only seventeen years of age, had been negotiated by no less a person than John Locke, who was a trusted friend of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, and long an inmate of his house. The story is told, with some little exaggerations towards the close of the narrative, by the subject of the present memoir. " My father was an only child, and of no firm health ; which induced my grandfather, in concern for his family, to think of marrying him as soon as possible. He was too young and inexperienced to choose a wife for himself, and my grandfather too much in business to choose one for him. The affair, was nice, for, though my grandfather required not a great fortune, he insisted on good blood, good person and constitution, and, above all, good education and a character as remote as possible from that of Court- or Townbred Lady. All this was thrown upon Mr. Lock, who, being already so good a judge of men, my grandfather doubted not of his equal judgment in women. He departed

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from him, entrusted and sworn, as Abraham's head-servant that ruled over all that he had, and went into a far country (the North of England) to seek for his son a wife whom he as successfully found/'' 2 Locke's commission, however, was not quite of the roving character here represented. It was definitely to the Earl of Rutland's at Belvoir Castle, whither he accompanied his pupil, then Mr. Ashley, in the summer of 1669, and where he seems to have brought the negotiations to a successful issue. This second Lord Shaftesbury appears to have been a poor creature, both physically and mentally ; a born a shapeless lump, like anarchy/' according to what is doubtless the overwrought metaphor of Dryden. Any way, according to the testimony even of the Fourth Earl, as contained in the rough draft of the Life, he " was confined almost altogether within doors/' and, when a man, was still suffering from the medical treatment he had received for " a disorder he had fallen into, when but fifteen years old." At the early age of three, his son was made over to the formal guardianship of the grandfather. Locke, who, in his capacity of medical attendant to the Ashley household, had already assisted in bringing the boy into the world, though not his instructor, was entrusted with the superintendence of his education. The care of the philosopher was extended to his health and bodily training as well as to his mental development. And, if Shaftesbury's memory did not deceive him, when writing in middle life, it was afterwards shared in by his six brothers and sisters. The letter already quoted, proceeds : " Of her " (the wife whom Locke " successfully found ") " I and six more of us, brothers and sisters, were

2 Letter from the Third Earl of Shaftesbury to Le Clerc, preserved in the Remonstrants' Library at Amsterdam. This letter was published in Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. iii. pp. 97 — 99. There are two copies of it amongst the Shaftesbury Papers in the Record Office (Bundle 22, Letter Books 2 and 5).

born ; in whose education Mr. Locke governed according" to his own principles (since published by him) and with such success that we all of us came to full years, with strong and healthy constitutions : my own the worst, though never faulty till of late. I was his more peculiar charge, being, as eldest son, taken by my grandfather and bred under his immediate care : Mr. Lock having the absolute direction of my education, and to whom, next my immediate parents, as I must own the greatest obligation, so I have ever preserved the highest gratitude and duty/' A few lines lower, Shaftesbury styles Locke his " friend and foster-father," though this sentiment did not prevent him, as we shall hereafter see, from severely criticising the principles of Locke's philosophy. The actual instruction was given, ^ot by Locke, but by a Mrs. Elizabeth Birch, daughter ot a schoolmaster in Oxfordshire or Berkshire. This lady, who was a proficient in the learned languages, pursued Locke's method of teaching Latin and Greek conversationally, 3 and that with such success that, at the age of eleven, it is said, on the authority of his son, young Ashley could read both languages with ease. During part of this time, the governess and her pupil were established in a separate house at Clapham. At the age of eleven, Anthony Ashley was sent to a private school, where he remained till his grandfather's death. In November, 1683, some months after that event, " his father carried him to Winchester," and entered him there as a Warden's boarder. In addition to the rough manners, which were common to the English public schools at that time, and which must have been specially repulsive to a shy, retiring boy, like young Ashley, both masters and boys seem to have been addicted to hard drinking. 4 His

3 See Locke's Thoughts concerning Education, §§ 162, 163.

4 A deplorable account of the school is given in a letter written by residence at Winchester, however, was prematurely cut short The boys appear to have taunted him with the opinions and fate of his grandfather, and, rendered miserable by this treatment, he left school in 1686 for a course of foreign travel. His new tutor was Mr. Daniel Denoue, a Scotchman, 1 a very ingenious honest person/' and his travelling-companions Sir John Cropley (with whom he kept up an uninterrupted friendship to the end of his life) and Mr. Thomas Sclater Bacon. This change was probably fortunate for his mental development, as he was thus brought into direct contact with those artistic and classical associations which afterwards exercised so marked an influence on his character and opinions. "My Father," says the Fourth Earl, " spent a considerable time in Italy, where he acquired a great knowledge in the Polite Arts. That he had a sound judgment in Painting the treatises he wrote on that subject plainly evince. He understood Sculpture also extremely well, and could himself design to some degree of perfection. Of the rudiments of Music too he was not ignorant, and his thoughts concerning it have been approved by the greatest masters in that science. He made it his endeavour, while abroad, to apply himself as much as possible to the improving those accomplishments, and for that reason did not greatly seek the conversation of other English young g-entlemen on their travels/'' A youth on his travels, who had imbibed Shaftesbury's tastes, would probably, not even now, be much attracted by the society and conversation of his contemporaries, and the English public-school education of those days probably left fewer traces of culture, and inspired boys

Lord Ashley to his father, on what seemed to he the hopeless case of his brother Maurice, in July, 16S9. A copy of the letter is contained in an Entry Book, marked No. 2, in Bundle 22 of the Shaftesbury Papers in the Record Office,

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less with the love of letters, than it does even in our own. But what Shaftesbury (or, as I ought rather to call him at this period of his life, Lord Ashley) failed to find among- the young- men of his own age, he seems to have been fortunate enough to meet with amongst their tutors. With them, even when he could not learn anything from them, he could at least converse on congenial topics. It must not, however, be inferred from this account that young Ashley was what we should now call a milksop or a prig. " His learning/'' says his son, speaking of a somewhat later period in his life, " though very extensive, was of an ingenious gentleman-like sort, without any mixture of pedantry or conceit." He spoke French so fluently, and with so perfect an accent, that, in France, he was often mistaken for a native ; " and the ease and agility he showed in performing those exercises, in which that nation excel, contributed to the leading them into that opinion/'

In 1689, the year after the Kevolution, Lord Ashley returned to England, and might at once have been returned to Parliament for one of those boroughs in which his family had an interest 5 He preferred, however, for the present, to devote himself to study, and, for nearly five years from this time, he appears to have led a quiet, uneventful, and studious life. There can be no doubt that the greater part of his attention was directed to the perusal of those classical authors, and to the attempt to realize the true spirit of that classical antiquity, for which he had conceived so ardent a passion.

5 It was not till a few years later that an Act of Parliament (7 and 8 Will. III. c. 25, s. 8) was passed, disqualifying minors from being elected to the House of Commons. Even after this time, however, they sometimes sat by connivance, as, for instance, Charles James Fox for Midhurst and Lord John Eussell for Tavistock. See Sir Erskine May's Law of Parliament.

"Perhaps no modern/' says Toland in his Introduction, " ever turned the Ancients more into sap and blood, as they say, than he. Their doctrines he understood as well as themselves, and their virtues he practised better.'" He had no intention, however, of becoming a recluse, or of permanently holding- himself aloof from public life. " But he admired in them nothing so much," proceeds Toland, " as that Love of one's Country, that passion for true Freedom, which they perpetually inspire, and of which they afford such numerous examples." Accordingly, on the death of Sir John Trenchard the member for Poole, he availed himself of the opportunity of entering Parliament, and was returned for that borough, May 21, 1695. This Parliament was dissolved in October of the same year, but Lord Ashley was, as a matter of course, again returned for Poole in the new Parliament which met in November. He soon found occasion for asserting that " passion for true freedom," of which Toland speaks in connexion with his study of the classics. The Bill for regulating Trials in cases of Treason, which had been dropped, in consequence of differences between the Lords and Commons, in 1691, was re-introduced early in the first session of the new Parliament. One of its provisions was that a person indicted for treason or misprison of treason should be allowed the assistance of Counsel. Lord Ashley rose, in his place in the House of Commons, to speak in favour of the Bill. But so overcome was he by shyness and natural modesty, that, according to the account given by his son, he " could not utter a syllable of what he intended, by which he found how true Mr. Lock's caution to him had been not to engage at first setting out in an undertaking of difficulty but to rise to it gradually/' 6 He soon recovered himself, however, suffi-

6 This is much the same advice which Locke subsequently gave to his young cousin, Peter King, who afterwards became Lord King and Lord

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eiently to take advantage of the situation, and, with more effect than if he had made the most eloquent speech, he simplysaid, before sitting- down : " If 1, sir, who rise only to speak my opinion on the bill now depending:, am so confounded, that I am unable to express the least of what I proposed to say; what must the condition of that man be, who is pleading for his life without any assistance and under apprehensions of being deprived of it?" "The sudden turn of thought/'' proceeds the Fourth Earl, " which by some was imagined to have been premeditated, though it really was as I mentioned, pleased the House extremely; and, it is generally believed, carried a greater weight than any of the arguments which were offered in favour of the bill." 7 The Bill passed the Commons on Dec. 18, 1695, and, after the insertion of the Lords' Amendments, was at length agreed to by the Upper House. Another Bill, in which Lord Ashley took an interest, was one imposing a property qualification on Members of Parliament, and incapacitating electors who were guilty

Chancellor : " I cannot forbear saying this much to you, that when you first open your mouth at the bar, it should be in some easy plain matter tbat you are perfectly master of." Locke to King, June 27, 1698, printed in Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors.

7 This story is told of Charles Montague, subsequently Earl of Halifax, in a Life of LLalifax (p. 30), published in 1715, and is repeated of him by Johnson in the Lives of the Poets. The Fourth Earl does not seem to be aware that it had been told of any one but his father, but Dr. Birch adds a reference to the Life of Halifax, and says the story "has been erroneously related of that Earl.'' If we may judge from internal evidence, it is far more appropriate to a shy and retiring man, new to Parliamentary life, like Lord Ashley, than to a practised speaker and debater, like Montague, who had sat in the House of Commons from the Convention of 1688-9 onwards. I may add that the story is related with much detail by the Fourth Earl of his father ("he had prepared a speech which those he showed it to thought a very proper one upon the occasion,"), and that in Horace Walpole's Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors it is told of Shaftesbury and not of Halifax.

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of corruption or treating-. In a letter to Thomas Stringer, who had been his grandfather's steward, dated Feb. 15, 1695 (that is, 1696 N.S.), he complains bitterly of the party-spirit which was then so rampant in the House, aud of the treatment received by any member who asserted his independence. " You could, I believe, scarcely imagine with yourself, who these are in the world, or who they are in the House, who oppose this and all other such bills as this might and main ; and who they are that are condemned for flying in the face of the government, as they call it, by being for such things as these are, and pressing such hard things on the prerogative or court. In short, you would hardly believe that your poor friend, that now writes to you, has sentence (and bitter sentence too) every day passing upon him, for going, as you maybe sure he goes and ever will go on such occasions as these ; whatever party it be that is in or out at court, that is in possession of the places and afraid of losing their daily bread by not being servile enough, or that are out of places and think, by crossing the court and siding with good and popular things against it, to get into those places of profit and management.'" 8 Throughout this Parliament, Ashley seems to have adopted a thoroughly independent line of action. His motto was emphatically " Measures not men.'" Though, in the strictest sense of the term, a Whig, alike by descent, by education, and by conviction, he was always ready to support any measures, from whatever quarter they came, whether from Somers or Montague, or from Godolphin or Harley, provided that they appeared to him to promote the liberty of the subject and the independence of Parliament. Hence, in the tangled politics of that age, when each party was often taking the side which, from its antecedents, might least be expected, he could never, apparently, be 8 Ashley to Stringer, first published in the General Dictionary.

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reckoned on to give a party vote. Of course, he incurred the displeasure and suffered from the disparagement of those whom he opposed. Toland, speaking of the "Apostate Whigs/' who " could not endure him," says : " They gave out that he was splenetic and melancholy; whimsical and eaten up with vapours : whereas he was in reality just the reverse, naturally cheerful and pleasant, ever steady in his principles, and the farthest in the world from humoursome or fantastical." "They gave out that he was too bookish, because not given to play, nor assiduous at court ; that he was no good companion, because not a rake nor a hard drinker, and that he was no man of the world, because not selfish nor open to bribes.'" According to the same authority, who is here supported by independent testimony, "the principal heads which offended him'" in the action of many of his old friends, called by Toland "the Apostate Whigs/ - ' were " their opposing the Bill for Triennial Parliaments, that for regulating trials in cases of High Treason, that for ascertaining the Judges' Commissions and Salaries, that for qualifying Members of Parliament by estates in land and excluding them from offices and pensions, that for reducing the standing forces, and some other bills of the like nature, either explaining or restraining the Prerogative/'' At a time when the newly established order in Church and State was safe neither from foes without nor foes within, it is not so plain that those who were shy of restraining the Royal Prerogative, of increasing the independence of Parliament, and of multiplying the occasions for changing the public policy, were actuated solely by motives of sycophancy or corruption.

There were many cross-currents in the politics of those years, and, perhaps, the pilot who seemed to pursue a vacillating course might not unreasonably claim the favourable judgment of his contemporaries. But that Lord Ashley, who was probably able to see great issues and to realise leading" principles more readily than he was to enter into the ever-shifting" complications of practical politics, acted in perfect good faith, and was inspired solely by an ardent desire for the public interests, there can be no doubt. 9 Unfortunately, his health was so treacherous that, on the Dissolution in July, 1698, he was obliged to retire from Parliamentary life. " The fatigues of attending regularly upon the service of the House (which in those active times generally sat long as well as upon Committees at night) in a few years so impaired my Father's health, who was not of a robust constitution, that he was obliged to decline coming again into Parliament on the Dissolution in 1698/'' l "He was in some little time," says Toland, " from one of the healthiest and most sprightly youug noblemen in England, so violently seized with an asthma, that he could with great difficulty endure the fatigue of Parliamentary attendance; and at last could not bear with the smoke of London, which suffocated him to such a degree that he was forced to quit even the neighbourhood of it." Those who are acquainted with the events of Locke's life will recollect that he too, shortly after his return to England, had been obliged to retire from London, in consequence of the " pestilent smoke of this city," and that he too, like his pupil, suffered from asthma. 2 Many are the subsequent complaints

9 In the rough draft, though not in the fair copy, of the Life by the Fourth Earl, occurs the following paragraph : " Several gentlemen in the House of Commons, who were of the same sentiments with my father, formed a little society by the name of the Independent Club, of which he was a member and had the chief hand in setting up, but this club was of no long duration."

MS. Life by the Fourth Earl.

2 See Locke's Letter to Limborch, March 12, 1689; my Locke in English Men of Letters, p. 56, or Mr. Fox-Bourne's Life of Locke, vol. ii. p. 150.

of Shaftesbury about the " town-smoke," and the east winds which carried it as far as his " little house " at Chelsea. 3 The smoke of London seems to have been more oppressive in those days than even in our own, or perhaps it is an affliction which we have learnt to bear more patiently than oui ancestors.

Lord Ashley, however, was able for a time to escape both from the smoke of the city and from the troubled waters of English politics. " My Father being* then released from the confinement of the House was at liberty to spend his time wherever it was most agreeable to him ; he went directly into Holland, where he became acquainted with several learned and ingenious men who resided in that country, which induced him to continue there about a twelvemonth." Amongst the " learned and ingenious men " with whom he became acquainted, or whose acquaintance he renewed (for a letter written to Furly, June 27, 169 1, 4 commending to his care his brother Maurice, proves that he had himself passed through Holland on his travels as a youth), were Le CI ere (Joannes Clericus), the philosopher, theologian, and critic, who was now engaged in editing the Bibliotlieque Universelle, one of the earliest literary and scientific reviews ; Bayle, then a Professor at Rotterdam, subsequently the author of the celebrated dictionary which bears his name; Benjamin Furly, the English quaker merchant, at whose house Locke had resided during his stay in Rotterdam, and who was always so ready to show kindness and hospitality to his countrymen sojourning in Holland • and probably Limborch and the rest of the literary circle of which Locke had been a cherished and honoured

3 See, for instance, the letters to Molesworth.

4 See Original Letters, 2nd ed., p. 5i, but the letter is there wrongly dated. The original oE this letter is amongst the Shaftesbury Papers in the Record Office (Bundle 20, No. 3).

member nine or ten years before. To Lord Ashley this society was probably far more congenial than the aristocratic and political surroundings which he had left behind him in England. Unrestrained conversation on the topius which most interested him — philosophy, politics, morals, religion — was at this time to be had in Holland with less danger and in greater abundance than in any other country in the world. It is to this period, in all probability, that we must refer a story told of him and Bayle. 5 Lord Ashley, as he would then be, if I am right in referring the story to this visit, had concealed his name and title, passing himself off as a student in Physic, in order that he might pursue his literary avocations with the greater freedom. Towards the end of his stay, however, he wished to be known to Bayle under his real name, and requested Furly, who was in the secret, to invite them both to dinner. Bayle received a formal invitation to meet Lord Ashley. On the morning of the day fixed for the party, he accidentally called upon his friend, the medical student, and was pressed to stay. It was impossible for him to do so, he said, " for I must be punctual to an engagement where I am to meet my Lord Ashley." " The second interview," proceeds the Fourth Earl, "caused some mirth, and their intimacy was rather increased than lessened after the discovery; for they

5 The Fourth Lord tells this story in connexion with his father's visit to Holland in 1703-4, but, after the prolonged visit in 1698-9, Shaftesbury must have been too well known, at all events within his own circle, to have passed off, a second time, under an assumed name. Even had not his name and rank become known in 1699, they were almost certain to transpire within the three or four years which elapsed between the two' visits. Moreover, in one of his letters to Furly (dated Jan. 30, 1701-2), contained amongst the Shaftesbury Papers, he says expressly : " I received lately a present from Mr. Bayle of his Dictionary ; for which pray return him my humble thanks. I shall do it myself in a post or two." In the General Dictionary, the story is assigned to the earlier visit.

never ceased a correspondence together after my Father's return to Monsieur Bayle's death." 6 To the period of this visit to Holland must also probably be referred the surreptitious impression or publication, during" his absence, of an imperfect edition of the Inquiry concerning Virtue. " During my Father's stay in Holland " (though here again the Fourth Earl refers the event to the third visit), " an imperfect edition of his Inquiry after Virtue was printed 7 surreptitiously, taken from a rough draught, sketched when he was but twenty years of age. He was greatly chagrined at this, and immediately bought up the whole impression before many of the books were sold, and set about completing the treatise which he published himself not long after. 8 The person who treated him so unhandsomely he soon discovered to be Mr. Toland, who made this ungrateful return for the favours he had received from him. For my Father then allowed him (at his earnest importunity) an annual stipend, though he never had any great opinion of him. In this manner ray Father frequently bestowed pensions on men of learning who

6 Des Maiseaux, in his Life of Bayle prefixed to the Dictionary, represents Shaftesbury as intervening on Bayle's behalf, in 1706, with Lord Sunderland, who suspected him of maintaining communications with the French Government, and who seems to have been on the point of asking for his expulsion from Holland.