wing summer and autumn, the
coins went on dwindling, and the cry of distress from every county in
the realm became louder and more piercing.

But happily for England there were among her rulers some who clearly
perceived that it was not by halters and branding irons that her
decaying industry and commerce could be restored to health. The state of
the currency had during some time occupied the serious attention of four
eminent men closely connected by public and private ties. Two of
them were politicians who had never, in the midst of official and
parliamentary business, ceased to love and honour philosophy; and
two were philosophers, in whom habits of abstruse meditation had not
impaired the homely good sense without which even genius is mischievous
in politics. Never had there been an occasion which more urgently
required both practical and speculative abilities; and never had the
world seen the highest practical and the highest speculative abilities
united in an alliance so close, so harmonious, and so honourable as that
which bound Somers and Montague to Locke and Newton.

It is much to be lamented that we have not a minute history of the
conferences of the men to whom England owed the restoration of her
currency and the long series of prosperous years which dates from
that restoration. It would be interesting to see how the pure gold of
scientific truth found by the two philosophers was mingled by the two
statesmen with just that quantity of alloy which was necessary for
the working. It would be curious to study the many plans which were
propounded, discussed and rejected, some as inefficacious, some as
unjust, some as too costly, some as too hazardous, till at length a
plan was devised of which the wisdom was proved by the best evidence,
complete success.

Newton has left to posterity no exposition of his opinions touching
the currency. But the tracts of Locke on this subject are happily still
extant; and it may be doubted whether in any of his writings, even in
those ingenious and deeply meditated chapters on language which form
perhaps the most valuable part of the Essay on the Human Understanding,
the force of his mind appears more conspicuously. Whether he had ever
been acquainted with Dudley North is not known. In moral character
the two men bore little resemblance to each other. They belonged to
different parties. Indeed, had not Locke taken shelter from tyranny in
Holland, it is by no means impossible tha