Part 54 (1/2)

[372] Hobbes did not exaggerate the truth. Aubrey says of Cooper's portrait of Hobbes, that ”he intends to borrow the picture of his majesty, for Mr. Loggan to engrave an accurate piece by, which will sell well at home and abroad.” We have only the rare print of Hobbes by Faithorne, prefixed to a quarto edition of his Latin Life, 1682, remarkable for its expression and character. Sorbiere, returning from England, brought home a portrait of the sage, which he placed in his collection; and strangers, far and near, came to look on the physiognomy of a great and original thinker. One of the honours which men of genius receive is the homage the public pay to their images: either, like the fat monk, one of the heroes of the _Epistolae obscurorum Virorum_, who, standing before a portrait of Erasmus, spit on it in utter malice; or when they are looked on in silent reverence. It is alike a tribute paid to the masters of intellect. They have had their shrines and pilgrimages.

None of our authors have been better known, nor more highly considered, than our Hobbes, abroad. I find many curious particulars of him and his conversations recorded in French works, which are not known to the English biographers or critics. His residence at Paris occasioned this. See Ancillon's Melange Critique, Basle, 1698; Patin's Letters, 61; Sorberiana; Niceron, tome iv.; Joly's Additions to Bayle.--All these contain original notices on Hobbes.

[373] To his Life are additions, which nothing but the self-love of the author could have imagined.

”Amicorum Elenchus.”--He might be proud of the list of foreigners and natives.

”Tractuum contra Hobbium editorum Syllabus.”

”Eorum qui in Scriptis suis Hobbio contradixerunt Indiculus.”

”Qui Hobbii meminerunt seu in bonam seu in sequiorem partem.”

”In Hobbii Defensionem.”--Hobbes died 1679, aged 91. These two editions are, 1681, 1682.

[374] This fact has been recorded in one of the pamphlets of Richard Baxter, who, however, was no well-wisher to our philosopher.

”Additional Notes on the life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale,”

1682, p. 40.

[375] ”Athen. Oxon.,” vol. ii. p. 665, ed. 1721. No one, however, knew better than Hobbes the vanity and uselessness of _words_: in one place he compares them to ”a spider's web; for, by contexture of words, tender and delicate wits are insnared and stopped, but strong wits break easily through them.” The pointed sentence with which Warburton closes his preface to Shakspeare, is Hobbes's--that ”words are the counters of the wise, and the money of fools.”

[376] Aubrey has minutely preserved for us the manner in which Hobbes composed his ”Leviathan:” it is very curious for literary students. ”He walked much, and contemplated; and he had in the head of his cane a pen and inkhorn, and carried always a note-book in his pocket; and as soon as a thought darted, he presently entered it into his book, or otherwise might have lost it. He had drawn the design of the book into chapters, &c., and he knew whereabouts it would come in. Thus that book was made.”--Vol. ii. p. 607. Aubrey, the little Boswell of his day, has recorded another literary peculiarity, which some authors do not a.s.suredly sufficiently use. Hobbes said that he sometimes would set his thoughts upon researching and contemplating, always with this proviso: ”that he very much and deeply considered one thing at a time--for a week, or sometimes a fortnight.”

[377] A small annuity from the Devons.h.i.+re family, and a small pension from Charles II., exceeded the wants of his philosophic life.

If he chose to compute his income, Hobbes says facetiously of himself, in French sols or Spanish maravedis, he could persuade himself that Croesus or Cra.s.sus were by no means richer than himself; and when he alludes to his property, he considers wisdom to be his real wealth:--

”An quam dives, id est, quam sapiens fuerim?”

He gave up his patrimonial estate to his brother, not wanting it himself; but he tells the tale himself, and adds, that though small in extent, it was rich in its crops. Anthony Wood, with unusual delight, opens the character of Hobbes: ”Though he hath an ill name from some, and good from others, yet he was a person endowed with an excellent philosophical soul, was a contemner of riches, money, envy, the world, &c.; a severe lover of justice, and endowed with great morals; cheerful, open, and free of his discourse, yet without offence to any, which he endeavoured always to avoid.” What an enchanting picture of the old man in the green vigour of his age has Cowley sent down to us!

”Nor can the snow which now cold age does shed Upon thy reverend head, Quench or allay the n.o.ble fires within; But all which thou hast been, And all that youth can be, thou'rt yet: So fully still dost thou Enjoy the manhood and the bloom of wit, And all the natural heat, but not the fever too.

So contraries on aetna's top conspire: Th' embolden'd snow next to the flame does sleep.-- To things immortal time can do no wrong; And that which never is to die, for ever must be young.”

[378]

”Ipse meos nosti, Verdusi candide, mores, Et tec.u.m cuncti qui mea scripta legunt: Nam mea vita meis non est incongrua scriptis; Just.i.tiam doceo, Just.i.tiamque colo.

Improbus esse potest nemo qui non sit avarus, Nec pulchrum quisquam fecit avarus opus.

Octoginta ego jam complevi et quatuor annos; Pene acta est vitae fabula longa meae.”

[379] Hobbes, in his metrical (by no means his poetical) life, says, the more the ”Leviathan” was written against, the more it was read; and adds,

”Firmius inde stet.i.t, spero stabitque per omne aevum, defensus viribus ipse suis.

Just.i.tiae mensura, atque ambitionis elenchus, Regum arx, pax populo, si doceatur, erit.”

The term _arx_ is here peculiarly fortunate, according to the system of the author--it means a citadel or fortified place on an eminence, to which the people might fly for their common safety.

His works were much read; as appears by ”The Court Burlesqued,”

a satire attributed to Butler.