tutor did not, however, prevent him from criticising freely Locke's
_Theory of Ethics_, and pronouncing it "a very poor philosophy." Of
the _Essay_, as a whole, notwithstanding his vigorous protest on this
particular point, Shaftesbury seems to have had as high an opinion as
of its author. "It 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." (See the Letters of the third Earl of
Shaftesbury to a Student at the University, Letters I., VIII.)
Of the parliament which met at Oxford on the 21st of March, 1680-81,
Locke was a close, and must have been an anxious, observer. He himself
occupied his rooms at Christ Church, and for Shaftesbury's use he
obtained the house of the celebrated mathematician, Dr. Wallis. The
fullest account we have of the earlier proceedings of this parliament
are contained in a letter from Locke to Stringer, Shaftesbury's
secretary. It was prematurely dissolved on the 28th of March, Charles
having succeeded in obtaining supplies from the French king instead of
from his own subjects, and no other parliament was summoned during the
remainder of the reign.
So suspicious of treachery had the rival parties in the State now
become, that most of the members of the Oxford parliament had been
attended by armed servants, while the king was protected by a body of
guards. The political tension was, of course, by no means relaxed,
when it became plain that the king intended to govern without a
parliament, and we can hardly feel surprised that ministers took the
initiative in trying to silence their opponents. On the 2nd of July,
1681, Shaftesbury was arrested in his London house on a charge of
high treason, and, after a brief examination before the Council, was
committed to the tower. Notwithstanding many attempts, he failed to
obtain a trial till Nov. 24, when he was indicted before a special
commission at the Old Bailey. The grand jury, amidst the plaudits
of the spectators, threw out the bill, and on the 1st of December
following he was released on bail. Shaftesbury's acquittal was
received in London, and throughout the country, with acclamations of
joy, but his triumph was only a brief one. The rest of his story is
soon told. In the summer of 1682, Shaftesbury, Monmouth, Russell, and a
few others began to concert measures for a general rising against the
king. The scheme was, of course, discovered, and Shaftesbury, knowing
that, from the new composition of the juries, he would have no chance
of escape if another indictment were preferred against him, took to
flight, and concealed himself for some weeks in obscure houses in the
city and in Wapping. Meanwhile he tried, from his hiding-places, to