Shortly after Locke returned to England, he settled down in lodgings in the neighbourhood of what is now called Cannon Row, Westminster. But the fogs and smoke of London then, as now, were not favourable to persons of delicate health, and he seems to have been glad of any opportunity of breathing the country air. Amongst his places of resort were Parson's Green, the suburban residence of Lord Mordaunt, now Earl of Monmouth, and Oates, a manor-house, in the parish of High Laver, in Essex, the seat of Sir Francis and Lady Masham, situated in a pleasant pastoral country, about twenty miles from London. Lady Masham had become known to him as Damaris Cudworth, before his retreat to Holland, and it is plain that from the first she had excited his admiration and esteem. She was the daughter of Dr. Ralph Cudworth, Master of Christ's College, Cambridge, author of _The True Intellectual System of the Universe_, and of a posthumous work, still better known, _A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality_. The close connexion which, in the latter years of his life, subsisted between Locke, the foremost name amongst the empirical philosophers of modern times, and the daughter of Cudworth, the most uncompromising of the _a priori_ moralists and philosophers of the seventeenth century, may be regarded as one of the ironies of literary history. Damaris Cudworth, inheriting her father's tastes, took great interest in learning of all kinds, and specially in philosophy and theology. There was one point of community between her father and Locke besides their common pursuits, namely, the wide and philosophical view which they both took of theological controversies. Cudworth belonged to the small but learned and refined group of Cambridge Platonists or Latitudinarians, as they were called, which also numbered Henry More, John Smith, Culverwell, and Whichcote. Liberal and tolerant Churchmanship in those days, when it was so rare, was probably a much closer bond of union than it is now, and the associations which she had formed with her father's liberal, philosophical, and devout spirit must have helped to endear Locke to the daughter of Dr. Cudworth. During Locke's absence from England, Damaris Cudworth had married, as his second wife, Sir Francis Masham, an amiable and hospitable country gentleman, who seems to have occupied a prominent position in his county. With them lived Mrs. Cudworth, the widow of Dr. Cudworth, one little son, Francis, and a daughter by the former marriage, Esther, who was about fourteen when Locke commenced his visits to the family. From the first he seems to have had some idea of settling down at Oates, "making trial of the air of the place," than which, as Lady Masham tells us, "he thought none would be more suitable to him." After a very severe illness in the autumn of 1690, he spent several months with the Mashams, and appears then to have formed a more definite plan of making Oates his home. But, though his hospitable