HOBBES.

WHEN THOMAS HOBBES was eighty-four years of age he composed an amusing account of his own fortunes in Latin hexameter and pentameter verses; and in these it is mentioned that his birth was premature, owing to the terror occasioned to his mother by a false report of the approach of the Spanish fleet. To this accident he humorously ascribes his patriotic zeal and the peacefulness of his disposition. We quote from a translation made by a contemporary hand, which in elegance of expression is on a par with the original.

"And hereupon it was, my mother dear

Did bring forth twins at once, both me, and Fear.
For this my country's foes I e'er did hate,

With calm Peace and my Muse associate."

It was at Malmsbury, on the 5th of April, 1588, that this very singular man was thus called into an existence, which was continued, in perpetual activity, for ninety-one years.

One of the earliest efforts of his talents was to translate the Medea of Euripides into Latin iambics. At the age of fourteen, he commenced his more serious labours at Magdalen College, Oxford; and employed five years there in the study of logic and Aristotle's Physics. Immediately afterwards he entered into the family of William Cavendish, Baron Hardwick, subsequently Earl of Devonshire, and became tutor to his eldest son. The companion alike of his sports and his studies, Hobbes presently acquired the affection of his pupil and the confidence of the family; and the two young men (for they were of the same age) set out together to travel in France and Italy.

A free intercourse with the learned men of other countries enlarged the mind of Hobbes, and opened new channels to his investigation. And it appears, in the first instance, that when he beheld the contempt in

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which the subjects of his academical industry were generally held, he turned from them to the more diligent study of Greek and Latin. Nor was it his object alone to become master of the languages, but also to meditate on the invaluable records of the history and the wisdom of the antients. He employed his leisure hours in the translation of Thucydides; and he published it in the year 1628, to the end (says his contemporary biographer), that the absurdities of the democratical Athenians might become known to his own fellowcitizens. This was the first of his publications; and it may have been that perhaps to which, in later life, he attached the least importance. Yet has it so fallen out; that after a lapse of two long centuries of slowly progressive knowledge and wisdom, his other works are for the most part consigned to the shelves of the profound and curious student, while the "Translation of Thucydides" is familiar to the acquaintance and respect of every scholar.

It is related that Hobbes, while yet a youth, was present at an assembly of several eminent men of letters, when one of them asked, in a contemptuous manner, And what is sensation? No one attempted to make any reply; and the question was thus silently acknowledged to be inscrutable. This piqued his curiosity and his pride; for he was astonished that those, who through their pretensions to wisdom so despised others, should be ignorant of the nature of their own senses. Accordingly he directed his deepest attention to that inquiry. The first result of his meditation was this position: that if all things were at rest, they would part with all their qualities. Hence, in his mind, it followed, that all the principles of natural science, including the senses of all animated things and all bodily affections, depended on the varieties of motion; and to these, rather than to any inherent or occult qualities, he referred all the phenomena of physics.

This his system of physics is amply developed in the first section (De Corpore) of his book of the Elements of Philosophy;' which failed not to gain him a celebrity more than proportionate to the number of his proselytes. For many admired his ingenuity who did not adopt his conclusions. In conjunction with these pursuits, Hobbes engaged with zeal in the study of mathematics. He flattered himself that he had discovered how to square the circle, and published several treatises in relation to that celebrated problem, which at the time gained for him considerable reputation. In 1647 he was appointed mathematical tutor to the Prince of Wales. He engaged in a long mathematical controversy with Dr. Wallis, of which an amusing