THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. 17, No. 487.] SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1831. [PRICE 2d.



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[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LOCKE.]


At the village of Wrington, in Somersetshire, in a cottage by the
churchyard, was born JOHN LOCKE. What a simple, unostentatious record is
this of him whom the biographers call "one of the most eminent
philosophers and valuable writers of his age and country." Yet the cottage
is not preserved with any special care;--there is nothing about it to
denote that within its walls the man of whom every Englishman is
proud--first drew breath. The house is now divided into tenements; and,
fortuitously, one of its rooms is used as a school for young children. It
is grateful to know this, even were it only for associating the
appropriation of this apartment with the master-mind of Locke, as
developed in his "Thoughts on Education," and his perspicuous "Essay on
the Human Understanding."

Locke was born August 29, 1632: his father, Mr. J. Locke, who was
descended from the Lockes of Charton Court, in Dorsetshire, possessed a
moderate landed property at Pensfold and Belluton, where he lived. He was
a captain in the Parliamentary army during the civil wars, and his fortune