436 MOLYNEUX. versity there, and continued to do so to the end of his life; that learned body having, soon after his election, conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws. He was likewise nominated by the lord-lieutenant one of the commissioners for the forfeited estates, to which employment was annexed a salary of 500l. a-year; but looking upon it as an invidious office, and not being a lover of money, he declined i t . I n 1698, h e published, “The Case o f Ireland stated, i n Relation t o i t s being bound b y Acts o f Parliament made i n England,” i n which h e i s supposed t o have delivered a l l o r most that can b e said upon the subject with great clearness and strength o f reasoning. This piece ( a second edition o f which, with additions and emendations, was printed i n 1720, 8vo.) was answered b y John Cary, merchant o f Bris tol, i n a book, called, “A Vindication o f the Parlia ment o f England, &c.” dedicated t o the Lord Chancellor Somers; and b y Atwood, a lawyer. Of these, Nicolson remarks, that “the merchant argues like a counsellor a t law, and the barrister strings his small ware together like a shop-keeper.” What occasioned Molyneux t o write the above tract, was his conceiving the Irish woollen manu factory t o b e oppressed b y the English government; o n which account h e could not forbear asserting his country's independency. He had given Mr. Locke a hint o f his thoughts o n this subject before i t was quite ready for the press, and desired his sentiments upon the fundamental principle o n which his argument was grounded; i n answer t o which that gentleman, intimating that the business was o f too large a n extent t o b e the subject o f a letter, proposed t o talk the matter over with him i n England. This, toge ther with a purpose which Molyneux had long formed o f paying that great man”, whom h e had never yet seen, a
We have a n instance o f a singular coincidence o f opinion between Locke and Molyneux. Molyneux had a high opinion o f Sir Richard Blackmore's poetic genius:—“All our English poets, except Milton, (says he, i n a letter t o Locke,) have been mere ballad-makers i n comparison of him.” And Locke, i n his answer, says, “I find, with pleasure, a strange harmony throughout, between your thoughts and mine.”
