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

account will be found in D'Israeli's Quarrels of Authors,' vol. 3. Wallis, however, was an adversary entirely above Hobbes' strength in this department of science.

If Hobbes had confined his exertions to the pursuits of classical literature and physical philosophy, he would have spent a more peaceful, and therefore to him a happier, existence. But in the tumultuous times in which he lived, with a mind habituated to deep investigations, it was scarcely possible that he should do otherwise than fix his attention on the political phenomena which were passing before him, and endeavour to trace their causes and solve their difficulties. After a residence of three years in England, he returned to Paris in 1640, and enjoyed the society of some of the distinguished men who were collected around Cardinal Richelieu. There he wrote his first political work, the book De Cive, which he published in 1646. He then proceeded to compose a much more elaborate treatise on the same subject, which he published in England in the year 1651; this was his Leviathan-a name associated with that of Hobbes in the mind of every reader, though the peculiar principles which are embodied under it are now known to few. Suffice it here to say, that the object of this work was to give a decided support to the monarchical institution to show that there could be no safety without peace, no peace without a strong government; that arms and money were the elements which alone could give that strength; that even arms will scarcely avail to this end, unless placed in a single hand, or if opposed (as is the case in religious dissension), by motives and principles which do not terminate in this world.

Political researches in that age necessarily involved theological, or at least ecclesiastical, principles; and Hobbes had not feared to denounce some of the antient usurpations of the clergy, and to pronounce religious concord to be absolutely essential to the civil happiness of a people and while he broached some principles not well pleasing to the pretensions of the hierarchy of the day, he advanced others which were thought to end, by no violent interpretation, in absolute infidelity. Accordingly, the theologians assailed him from every quarter; and his work, while it divided learned laymen, some of whom thought it a marvel of political genius, others a dangerous and unseemly monster, was condemned by the unanimous indignation of the ecclesiastical body. The churchmen of Rome united in hostility with those of England against doctrines which were dangerous to the common prerogatives of the whole order, if not to the integrity of religion itself. The latter, being more closely attacked, were more

violent in their enmity. They denounced the opinions as false and heretical; and the divines of Cambridge went so far as publicly to stigmatize the author as an atheist. Besides this, he did not even escape the charges of being ill disposed to royalty, and a disguised adversary to the party of the king. These calumnies (such at least he constantly asserted both to be,) deprived him of the patronage of the Court, and seemed at one time even to have endangered his personal safety; insomuch that, under the Commonwealth, he found it expedient to escape from his enemies at Paris, and take refuge among those, whose enmity he had rather deserved, the republicans of England. He escaped however the fate, so common to men of moderation in violent times, of being persecuted by both parties; and only sustained the animosity of that which he had intended to serve.

Hobbes was a decided Episcopalian. He studied in all matters to conform both to the doctrines and the ceremonies of the church established; and avoided, even with a feeling of dislike, the conventicles of the Puritans. Still less did he incline, on the other hand, to the Roman Catholic faith. During a dangerous illness, which he suffered with great firmness at Paris, when he was supposed to be on the point of death, an intimate friend, named Mersenne, a learned Franciscan, approached him with spiritual consolation, and pressed him to depart in communion with the Roman church. Hobbes calmly replied, "Father, I have long ago considered all those matters well, and it would trouble me to reconsider them now. You can entertain me on some more agreeable subject. When did you see Gassendi?"

Yet neither his unmoved adhesion to Protestantism, nor even his affection for episcopal government, could disarm the wrath of the theologians, who continued to wage an unsparing warfare against him, and to inflict on his reputation, and even on his fortunes, such mischief as they were able. On the other hand, his singular qualities and talents failed not to procure him many powerful protectors; and he stood so balanced (says his biographer) between his friends and his enemies, that the former were just strong enough to prevent his destruction, the latter to obstruct his advancement. So that he continued, with a mighty reputation and a slender fortune, to remain, even to the end of his days, under the same noble patronage, under which his first distinctions had been acquired.

But in this comparative obscurity he was consoled by the society of the learned, the courtesy of the great, and the admiration of almost all men. Among his personal friends or acquaintances were numbered Francis Bacon of Verulam, Ben Jonson (who is said to have revised