In 1700 Locke’s weak state of health induced him to retire from public life. He resigned his situation in a personal interview with the King, giving no previous notice of his intention to the conductors of the government, and refusing the pension which his master wished him to accept. He took up his residence at Oates, where he passed the remainder of his life in reading and contemplating the Scriptures. He often regretted that he had not more occupied himself in this study. The piety of his latter years was without formality or ostentation, not arising from that sense of disappointment, or irksomeness for want of employment, which often leads men to seek refuge in a late devotion. Neither Locke’s mental nor bodily senses failed him to his last moments, though the year before his death was passed in extreme weakness. On taking the sacrament he declared “that he was in peace with all men, and in sincere union with the Church of Christ, by whatever name distinguished.” The affectionate attentions of Lady Masham softened the pain of his last illness, and he died gently in his chair while she was reading to him one of the Psalms of David, October 28, 1704, in his seventy-third year. He died, unmarried, from the natural decay of an originally weak constitution. He was buried in the churchyard at High Laver, near Oates, under a decent monument. His epitaph had been written some years before, by himself, in Latin[3]. He left behind him many unpublished works, among which his ‘Conduct of the Understanding’ stands highest. ‘An Examination of Malebranche’s opinion of seeing all things in God; ‘A Discourse of Miracles;’ part of a fourth letter on the subject of Toleration; some imperfect memorial sketches of the life of the Earl of Shaftesbury; a new method for a commonplace-book; and paraphrases of several of the epistles of St. Paul, make up the list of his posthumous works, almost all of which were translated into French by Le Clerc and others, and appeared (together with those published by himself) in three folio volumes, not many years after his death. A great many of his letters to his friends Molyneux and Limborch are also published in this edition. There remain many more which have been given to the world by various hands, addressed to the Earl of Peterborough, Dr. Mapletoft, &c., and to Newton. In Lord King’s life of Locke his correspondence with the latter is given at full length, and is very curious,—chiefly relating to subjects they were both engaged in, the prophecies and miracles. Footnote 3: