Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/136

 shadowed the modern demagogue, the modern party leader, and the modern parliamentary debater. As a demagogue he at the same time swayed the judgment of the House of Lords and the passions of the mob. As a party leader, ‘while sitting in one house of the legislature he organised the forces and directed the movements of a compact party in the other.’ And in him we first meet with ‘that combination of technical knowledge, practical shrewdness, argumentative alertness, aptitude in illustration, mastery of pointed expression, and readiness of retort, which distinguish the first-rate debater of the present day.’ He was a man of wide accomplishments; he spoke Latin with ease and fluency; he was also well acquainted with Greek and French, and especially with the literature of his own country. Ancient and modern history, and the state of Europe and foreign politics, were also favourite studies. Charles is reported to have said that he had more law than his judges and more divinity than his bishops. He had all the tastes of the English country gentleman: estate management, hunting, horse-breeding, gardening, planting, and the like; and he dabbled in alchemy, palmistry, and the casting of horoscopes. Burnet says that ‘he had the dotage of astrology upon him to a high degree,’ and that he told him ‘how a Dutch doctor had from the stars foretold him the whole series of his life’ (i. 175). He was reputed a deist, but the state of his mind is perhaps best represented by the anecdote in Sheffield's memoirs, which represents him as answering the lady who inquired as to his religion, ‘Madam, wise men are of but one religion;’ and when she further pressed him to tell what that was, ‘Madam, wise men never tell.’ Shaftesbury's private life was of rare purity for the age; the charge of licentiousness probably arose from the story told by Chesterfield (Works, ii. 334, Mahon's ed.), and, in different ways by different authors, that Charles once exclaimed, ‘Shaftesbury, you are the wickedest rogue in England,’ and that Shaftesbury replied, ‘Of a subject, sir, I believe I am.’ Christie shows that there is no certainty in the story, and that, even if it be true, there is no reason for thinking that it has the meaning imputed.



COOPER, ANTHONY ASHLEY, third (1671–1713), was born 26 Feb. 1670–1, at Exeter House in London, then the town residence of, the first earl [q. v.] He was the son of Lord Ashley, afterwards second earl, by Lady Dorothy Manners, daughter of John, earl of Rutland. Lord Ashley, a man of feeble constitution and understanding, is the ‘shapeless lump’ of Dryden's famous satire upon the first earl. Locke had acted to some extent as Lord Ashley's tutor, and had taken part in arranging his marriage at the age of seventeen (1669). Locke also attended Lady Ashley on her confinement. In March 1673–4 the guardianship of the infant was formally assigned to his grandfather. Shaftesbury, during his confinement in the Tower in 1677, wrote to Locke, then in France, asking him to discover what books were used for the dauphin's Latin lessons, with a view to procuring them for his grandson. When Locke returned to England in 1680, he superintended the boy's education. In 1674 he had recommended Elizabeth, daughter of a schoolmaster named Birch, to act as governess. She could talk Greek and Latin fluently, and imparted the 