like him, searched for truth freed from the manacles of

received opinions.

Cudworth left his manuscripts to the care of his daughter, Lady Masham, the friend of Locke, who passed his latter days in her house at Oates. Her ladyship was literary, but the reverse of a Platonical genius; she wrote against the Platonic Norris' "Love of God," and admitted in her religion no principles which were not practicable in morals, and seems to have been rather the disciple of the author of "The Human Understanding," than the daughter of the author of "The Intellectual System." For the good sense of Lady Masham erudition lost its curiosity, and imagination its charm; and she probably with some had certain misgivings of the tendency of her father's writings! He had himself been careless of them, for we know of no testamentary direction for their preservation. By her these unvalued manuscripts were not placed in a cabinet, but thrown in a heap into the dark corner of some neglected shelf in the library at Oates. And from thence, after the lapse of half a century, they were turned out, with some old books, by the last Lord Masham, to make room for a fashionable library for his second lady. A bookseller purchased them with a notion that this waste paper contained the writings of Locke, and printing a Bible under the editorship of the

famous Dr. Dodd, introduced the scripture notes, found among the heap, in the commentary, under the name of Locke. The papers were accidentally discovered to be parts of "The Intellectual System," and after having suffered mutilation and much confusion in the various mischances which they passed through, they finally repose among our national collections; fragments on fragments which may yet be inspected by those whose intrepidity would patiently venture on the discoveries which lie amid this mass of theological metaphysics. They are thus described in Ayscough's Catalogue, 4983: "Collection of confused thoughts, memorandums, &c., relating to the eternity of torments-thoughts on pleasure-common-place book of motives to moral duties, two volumes,-and five volumes on free-will." This description is imperfect; and many other subjects, the ground-work of his future inquiries, will be found in these voluminous manuscripts. One volume, still highly valued, was snatched from the wreck, Cudworth's "Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality," which was edited by Dr. Chandler many years after the death of the author.

After all, we possess a mighty volume subject no longer to neglect, nor to mischance. "The true Intellectual System of the Universe," exists without a parallel for its matter, its subject, and its manner.

Its matter

furnishes the unsunned treasures of ancient knowledge, the history of the thoughts, the imaginations, and the creeds, of the profoundest intellects of mankind, on the Deity. Its subject, though veiled in metaphysics more sublime than human reasoning can pierce, yet shows enough for us to adore. And its manner, brightened by a subdued Platonism, inculcates the immutability of moral distinctions, and vindicates the free agency of the human being, against the impious tenets which deliver him over a blind captive to an inexorable

DIFFICULTIES OF THE PUBLISHERS OF CONTEMPORARY MEMOIRS.

THE editors of contemporary memoirs have often suffered an impenetrable mystery to hang over their publications, by an apparent suppression of the original. By this studious evasion of submitting the manuscript to public inspection, they long diminished the credit of the printed volumes. Enemies whose hostility the memorialists had raised up, in the mean while, practised every artifice of detraction, racking their invention to persuade the world that but little faith was due to these pretended revelations; while the editors, mute and timorous, from private motives which they wished to conceal, dared not explain, in their lifetime, the part which they had really taken in editing these works. In the course of years, circumstances often became too complicate to be disentangled, or were of too delicate a nature to be nakedly exposed to the public scrutiny; the accusations grew more confident, the defence more vague, the suspicions more probable, the rumours and the hearsays more prevalent-the public confidence in the authenticity of these contemporary memoirs was thus continually shaken.

Such has been the fate of the history of the Earl of

Clarendon, which, during a long interval of time, had to contend with prudential editors, and its perfidious opponents. And it is only at this late day that we are enabled to draw the veil from the mystery of its publication, and to reconcile the contradictory statements, so positively alleged by the assertors of the integrity of the text, and the impugners of its genuineness. We now can adjust with certainty so many vague protestations of its authenticity, by those who could not themselves have known it, with the sceptical cavils which at times seemed not always doubtful, and with one infamous charge which was not less positive than it proved to be utterly fictitious. The fate and character of this great historical work was long involved in the most intricate and obscure incidents; and this bibliographical tale offers a striking illustration of the disingenuity alike of the assailants and the defenders.

The history of Lord CLARENDON was composed by the express desire of Charles the First. This prince, in the midst of his fugitive and troubled life, seemed still regardful of posterity; and we might think, were it not too flattering to his judgment, that by his selection of this historian, he anticipated the genius of an immortal writer. We know the king carefully conveyed to the noble author many historical documents, to furnish this vindication, or apology, of the calami