The story of the Sun, New York, 1833-1918 / by Frank M. O'Brien.

66

THE STORY OF "THE SUN"

His prose style is noticeable for its concision, luminosity, completeness-each quality in its proper place.
He has that method so generally characteristic of genius
proper. Everything he writes is a model in its peculiar
way, serving just the purposes intended and nothing to
spare.
The Sun's new writer was a collateral descendant of
John Locke, the English philosopher of the seventeenth
century. He was born in 1800, but his birthplace was
not New York, as his contemporary biographers wrote.
It was East Brent, Somersetshire, England. His early
American friends concealed this fact when writing of
Locke, for they feared that his English birth (all the
wounds of war had not healed) would keep him out
of some of the literary clubs. He was educated by his
mother and by private tutors until he was nineteen,
when he entered Cambridge. While still a student he
contributed to the Bee, the Imperial Magazine, and
other English publications. When he left Cambridge
he had the hardihood to start the London Republican,
the title of which describes its purpose. This was a
failure, for London declined to warm to the theories of
American democracy, no matter how scholarly their
expression.
Abandoning the Republican, young Locke devoted
himself to literature and science. He ran a periodical
called the Cornucopia for about six months, but it was
not a financial success, and in 1832, with his wife and
infant daughter, he went to New York. Colonel Webb
put him at work on his paper.
Locke could write almost anything. In Cambridge
and in Fleet Street he had picked up a wonderful store
of general information. He could turn out prose or
poetry, politics or pathos, anecdotes or astronomy.
While he lived in London, Locke was a regular reader