A History of English Literature

been used. One side of this end of the room was the door of a closet, wherein stood the

strong beer and wine, which never came thence but in single glasses, that being the rule

of the house exactly observed, for he never exceeded in drink or permitted it. On the

other side was a door into an old chapel not used for devotion; the pulpit, as the safest

place, was never wanting of a cold chine of beef, pasty of venison, gammon of bacon, or

great apple-pie, with thick crust extremely baked .... He lived to a hundred, never lost

his eyesight, but always wrote and read without spectacles, and got to horse without

help. Until past fourscore he rode to the death of a stag as well as any.

John Locke

John Locke(1632–1704) was a key figure in British cultural history. An Oxford

academic, he became physician to Lord Shaftesbury, moved to Holland in the

Monmouth crisis and returned with William of Orange. Publishing after 1689, he

formulated an empirical philosophy which derived knowledge from experience and

a theory of government as a contract between governor and the governed.

He preferred to derive Christianity from reason rather than from revelation, yet

exempted Catholics from his advocacy of religious toleration. His Essay concerning

Human Understandingheld that at birth the human mind was ‘a white Paper, void

of all Characters, without any Ideas’: a blank written upon by experience. Knowledge

comes from the reason reflecting upon sense-impressions, and monitoring the asso-

ciation of ideas. This epistemology and psychology, drawing on the mechanics and

optics of Sir Isaac Newton, became part of the common sense of the 18th century.

Women writers

Among women writers of the 17th century not yet acknowledged are the poets Anne

Killigrew (1660–1685) and Anne, Lady Winchilsea (1661–1720). Katherine Philips,

176 5 · STUART LITERATURE: TO 1700

Anne Bracegirdle, one of the first actresses

on the Restoration stage, playing the Indian

Anne Bracegirdle in The Widow Ranter

(1689). A mezzotint in the Victoria and Albert

Theatre Museum, London.