nd it was probably never much read
outside the cultivated Salisbury circle.

In this year, 1702, the health of Catharine Trotter began to give her
uneasiness, and it was for this reason that she left Salisbury for a
while. She was once more living in that city, however, from May 1703 to
March 1704, making a special study of geography. "My strength," she
writes to George Burnet, "is very much impaired, and God knows whether I
shall ever retrieve it." Her thoughts turned again to the stage, and in
the early months of 1703 she composed her fifth and last play, the
tragedy of _The Revolution in Sweden_; "but it will not be ready for
the stage," she says, "till next winter." Her interest in philosophy
did not flag. She was gratified by some communications, through Burnet,
with Leibnitz, and she would have liked to be the intermediary between
Locke and some philosophical "gentlemen" on the Continent, probably
Malebranche and Leibnitz, in a controversy. But this was hopeless, and
she writes (March 16th, 1704):--

"Mr. Locke is unwilling to engage in controversy with the gentlemen
you mention; for, I am informed, his infirmities have obliged him,
for some time past, to desist from his serious studies, and only
employ himself in lighter things, which serve to amuse and unbend
the mind."

Locke, indeed, had but six months more to live, and though he retained
his charming serenity of spirit he was well aware that the end
approached. Never contentious or desirous of making a sensation, he was
least of all, in his present precarious state, likely to enter into
discussion with foreign philosophers. It does not appear that Catharine
Trotter ever enjoyed the felicity of seeing in the flesh the greatest
object of her homage; but he occupied most of her thoughts. She was
rendered highly indignant by the efforts made by the reactionaries at
Oxford and elsewhere to discourage the writings of Locke and to throw
suspicion on their influence. She read over and over again his
philosophical, educational, and religious treatises, and ever found them
more completely to her taste. If she had enjoyed the power to do so she
would have proclaimed the wisdom and majesty of Locke from every
housetop, and she envied Lady Masham her free and constant intercourse
with so beautiful a mind. Catharine Trotter watched, but from a
distance, the extinction of a life thus honoured, which came to a
peaceful end at Oates on October 28th