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LOCKE, John (1632-1704). Autograph letter signed ('J. Locke'), to Nicolas Toinard, Oates, 1 November 1698, in French, 2 pages, 4to, with post-script on verso of integral address leaf (hole in seal area). Provenance: Robert Schuman, included in the sale of part one of his collection by Charavay, Paris, 4-5 March 1965, lot 177, and resold by Pierre Berès in 1966; J.A. Stargardt, 29-30 November, 1977, lot 531A.
FRIENDSHIP, DESALINATION, AND THE ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. Having been prevented by 'le surcharge des affairs et le peu de santé' from writing from London, Locke hastens to write on his arrival at Oates [a moated manor house near High Laver in north Essex, the home of Sir Francis Masham; Locke had been invited to stay in 1691 as a permanent guest]. Toinard's silence is causing him anxiety, especially since he has heard through the Abbé Du Bos in Brussels that 'vous aviez recue la mienne ecrite de Londres en Aout.' He declares 'Votre mort me serait un terrible pert[e], et si vous ne vous souvenez plus de moy ce n'est guers [guère] moins. Je vive en esperance de meilleur[e]s nouvelles de jour à autre.' Locke goes on to revisit Toignard's letter of 8/18 June, in particular the process of desalinating sea-water, on which Locke provides further information: 'je n'ai pas négligé vos commandements pendant que j'étais en ville j'ay taché de m'informer de dulcorata aqua salsa et j'ay trouvé qu'on l'a négligé comme une chose tout à fait inutile ... c'est aussi facile de porter en mer une suffisant[e] quantité d'eau que de porter une suffisant[e] quantité de bois ou des charbons nécessaire pour distiller l'eau.' 'Ma mauvaise santé' has stopped him printing 'une reponce à un de nos Eveques sur un chicanerie qu'il m'a f[a]it sur quelques passages dans mon Essay touchant l'entendement humain'; once it is printed, Du Bos will receive a copy [Locke's third and most massive rejoinder to Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, was published at the end of 1698 though completed in May]. 'Je suis a cette heur[e] dans la revision de mon Essay pour le quatrieme edition qu'on en fera aus[s]itot que je l'aurai achevée mais ma santé fort abatue ne me permette pas travailler à quoi que ce soit que fort lentement. Quant cette besogne sera hors de mes mains je pretend de lire les traités que vous m'avez envoiez sur le paque ....' The letter concludes with responses to Toinard's question about the glass in St Paul's and news of some errors in the 1695 French edition of Some Thoughts concerning Education.
Locke lived in France between 1675 and 1679, and met Nicolas Toinard (1628-1706), natural philosopher and theologian, in about 1677. His first published prose work, 'Une methode nouvelle & facile de dresser des recueuils', included in vol. II of Jean le Clerc's Bibliothèque universelle et historique (1686), took the form of a letter to Toinard, and described the proper method of organising a commonplace book. The present letter forms part of a large correspondence, and reveals the importance which Locke attached to its continuation. Four concurrent literary projects are mentioned, most importantly revisions for the fourth edition of the Essay on Human Understanding, the last to appear in the author's lifetime (December 1699). Though the letter appears in The Correspondence of John Locke, ed. E.S. de Beer (Oxford, 1976-1989, 8 vols., VI, pp. 501-502), the entry is drawn only from the catalogues of Charavay and Berès.
FRIENDSHIP, DESALINATION, AND THE ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. Having been prevented by 'le surcharge des affairs et le peu de santé' from writing from London, Locke hastens to write on his arrival at Oates [a moated manor house near High Laver in north Essex, the home of Sir Francis Masham; Locke had been invited to stay in 1691 as a permanent guest]. Toinard's silence is causing him anxiety, especially since he has heard through the Abbé Du Bos in Brussels that 'vous aviez recue la mienne ecrite de Londres en Aout.' He declares 'Votre mort me serait un terrible pert[e], et si vous ne vous souvenez plus de moy ce n'est guers [guère] moins. Je vive en esperance de meilleur[e]s nouvelles de jour à autre.' Locke goes on to revisit Toignard's letter of 8/18 June, in particular the process of desalinating sea-water, on which Locke provides further information: 'je n'ai pas négligé vos commandements pendant que j'étais en ville j'ay taché de m'informer de dulcorata aqua salsa et j'ay trouvé qu'on l'a négligé comme une chose tout à fait inutile ... c'est aussi facile de porter en mer une suffisant[e] quantité d'eau que de porter une suffisant[e] quantité de bois ou des charbons nécessaire pour distiller l'eau.' 'Ma mauvaise santé' has stopped him printing 'une reponce à un de nos Eveques sur un chicanerie qu'il m'a f[a]it sur quelques passages dans mon Essay touchant l'entendement humain'; once it is printed, Du Bos will receive a copy [Locke's third and most massive rejoinder to Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, was published at the end of 1698 though completed in May]. 'Je suis a cette heur[e] dans la revision de mon Essay pour le quatrieme edition qu'on en fera aus[s]itot que je l'aurai achevée mais ma santé fort abatue ne me permette pas travailler à quoi que ce soit que fort lentement. Quant cette besogne sera hors de mes mains je pretend de lire les traités que vous m'avez envoiez sur le paque ....' The letter concludes with responses to Toinard's question about the glass in St Paul's and news of some errors in the 1695 French edition of Some Thoughts concerning Education.
Locke lived in France between 1675 and 1679, and met Nicolas Toinard (1628-1706), natural philosopher and theologian, in about 1677. His first published prose work, 'Une methode nouvelle & facile de dresser des recueuils', included in vol. II of Jean le Clerc's Bibliothèque universelle et historique (1686), took the form of a letter to Toinard, and described the proper method of organising a commonplace book. The present letter forms part of a large correspondence, and reveals the importance which Locke attached to its continuation. Four concurrent literary projects are mentioned, most importantly revisions for the fourth edition of the Essay on Human Understanding, the last to appear in the author's lifetime (December 1699). Though the letter appears in The Correspondence of John Locke, ed. E.S. de Beer (Oxford, 1976-1989, 8 vols., VI, pp. 501-502), the entry is drawn only from the catalogues of Charavay and Berès.
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