Dialect.' His song, 'Noo, Jenny, lass, my Bonny Bird,' has been attributed to Burns. He used the vernacular dexterously, and his poems are valuable illustrations of Scottish life and character. For a time, about 1817, he edited the 'Kilmarnock Mirror' for his son (James Paterson, Autobiog. Reminiscences, 1871).
[Information from Mr. R. Brodie and Mr John Lochore, the poet's grandsons; Rogers's Modern Scottish Minstrel; Grant Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland.]
LOCK. [See Locke and Lok.]
LOCKE. [See also Lok.]
LOCKE, JOHN (1632–1704), philosopher, son of John Locke (1606–1661), was born 29 Aug. 1632, at Wrington, Somerset, about ten miles from Bristol, in the house of his mother's brother. He had one brother, Thomas, born 9 Aug. 1637. His mother, Agnes Keene (b. 1597), was niece of Elizabeth Keene, second wife of his grandfather, Nicholas Locke. Nicholas, who died in 1648, is described as 'of Sutton Wick, in the parish of Chew Magna, clothier.' He had previously lived at Pensford, six miles from Bristol, on the Shepton Mallet road. He had a house called Beluton, close to Pensford, but in Publow parish, which before his death was occupied by his son John. He left his house and a good fortune to John, who became an attorney, was clerk to the justices of the peace for the county, and agent to Alexander Popham, one of the justices, whose estates were in the neighbourhood. On the outbreak of the civil war Popham became colonel of a parliamentary regiment of horse, and Locke one of his captains. The regiment, after doing some service at Bristol and Exeter, was apparently broken up at Waller's defeat at Roundway Down (13 July 1643). Locke lost money by the troubles, and ultimately left to his son less than he had inherited. After leaving the army he again settled down as a lawyer. His wife, of whom the younger Locke speaks as 'a very pious woman and affectionate mother,' is not mentioned after the birth of her second child. The elder Locke was rather stern during his son's infancy, but relaxed as the lad grew, 'lived perfectly with him as a friend,' and solemnly 'begged his pardon for having once struck him in his boyhood. The younger Locke was sent to Westminster, probably in 1646, 'and placed on the foundation in 1647,through the interest of his father's friend, Popham, who had been elected to the Long parliament for Bath, in October 1645. The school was then managed by a parliamentary committee, Busby was head-master, and Dryden and South were among Locke's schoolfellows. At Whitsuntide 1652 Locke was elected to a junior studentship at Christ Church, and was matriculated 27 Nov. following. John Owen [q. v.] was then dean of Christ Church and vice-chancellor. Locke's tutor was Thomas Cole (1627?-1697) [q. v.] In 1654 Locke contributed a Latin and an English poem to the 'Musæ Oxonienses,' 'Ἐλαιοφορία,' a collection of complimentary verses, edited by Owen, in honour of the peace with the Dutch. He became B.A. on 14 Feb. 1655-6, and M.A. on 29 June 1658.
Locke, like his predecessor Hobbes and all the rising thinkers of his own day, was repelled by the Aristotelian philosophy then dominant at Oxford. He is reported as saying (Spence, Anecdotes, p. 107) that his aversion to the scholastic disputation led him to spend much of his first years in reading romances. Lady Masham also heard that he was not a 'very hard student,' and preferred cultivating the acquaintance of 'pleasant and witty men.' She also states that his first relish for philosophy was due to his study of Descartes (Fox Bourne, i. 62), then becoming the leader of European thought. He had to attend the lectures of Wallis on geometry, and of Seth Ward upon astronomy. He long afterwards spoke with enthusiasm of the orientalist Pococke, who, though a staunch royalist, was allowed to retain the professorships of Hebrew and of Arabic (letter of 28 July 1703, first published in 'Collection' of 1720). Locke never became a mathematician or an orientalist, but he made acquaintance with the group of scientific men who met at Oxford before the Restoration and afterwards formed the Royal Society. With Boyle, who settled at Oxford in 1654 and became, with Wilkins, a centre of the scientific circles, he formed a lifelong friendship. Most of Locke's friends had royalist sympathies, and in spite of his early training he had become alienated from the puritan dogmatism. He heartily welcomed the Restoration in the belief that a return to constitutional government would be favourable to political and religious freedom.
Locke's father died 13 Feb. 1660-1, leaving his property between his sons John and Thomas. Upon Thomas's death from consumption soon afterwards John probably inherited the whole. Seven years later it seems that he was receiving 73l. 6s. 10d. a year from his tenants at Pensford (ib. i. 82). He continued to reside at Oxford, where he had some pupils in 1661-3. He was appointed Greek lecturer at Christmas 1660, lecturer on rhetoric at Christmas 1662, and censor of
