< Verses by him. >

Insert the love verses he made not long before his death:—

1.

Tho' I am now past ninety, and too old
T' expect preferment in the court of Cupid,
And many winters made mee ev'n so cold
I am become almost all over stupid,

2.

Yet I can love and have a mistresse too,
As fair as can be and as wise as fair;
And yet not, proud, nor anything will doe
To make me of her favour to despair.

3.

To tell you who she is were very bold;
But if i' th' character your selfe you find
Thinke not the man a fool thô he be old
Who loves in body fair a fairer mind.

Catalogue of his learned familiar friends and acquaintances, besides those already mentioned, that I remember him to have spoken of.

Mr. Benjamin Johnson, Poet-Laureat, was his loving and familiar friend and acquaintance.

<Sir Robert> Aiton, Scoto-Britannus, a good poet and critique and good scholar. He was neerly related to his lord's lady (Bruce). And he desired Ben: Johnson, and this gentleman, to give their judgement on his style of his translation of Thucydides.He lyes buryd in Westminster Abbey, and hath there an elegant monument and inscription, which I will insert here or so much as may be pertinent.

Memorandum next after ... Ayton should in order be named Sydney Godolphin, esq., who left him, in his will, a legacy of an hundred poundes: and Mr. Hobbes hath left him an eternall monument in lib.... pag.... of his Leviathan.

Lucius Carey, lord Falkland was his great friend and admirer, and so was Sir William Petty; both which I have here enrolled amongst those friends I have heard him speake of, but Dr. Blackburne left 'em both out (to my admiration). I askt him why he had donne so? He answered because they were both ignote to foreigners.

Mr. Henry Gellibrand, Astronomy professor at Gresham Colledge.

James Harrington, esq., who wrote against him in his Oceana.

Henry Stubbes.

Mr. Charles Cavendish, brother to the duke of Newcastle, a learned gentleman and great mathematician.

Mr. Laurence Rooke, Geometry and Astronomy professor.

Mr. ... Hallely, his intimate friend, an old gent.

When he was at Florence (16..; vide vitam) he contracted a friendship with the famous Galileo Galileo, ..., whom he extremely venerated and magnified; and not only as he was a prodigious witt, but for his sweetnes of nature and manners. They pretty well resembled one another as to their countenances, as by their pictures doeth appeare; were both cheerfull and melancholique-sanguine; and had both a consimilitie of fate, to be hated and persecuted by the ecclesiastiques.

16.., Petrus Gassendus, S. Th. Doctor et Regius Professor Parisiis,—vide his titles—whom he never mentions but with great honour and respect, 'doctissimus, humanissimus'; and they loved each other entirely.

As also the like love and friendship was betwixt him and

Marinus ... Mersennus;

Monsr. Renatus Des Cartes;

as also—

<Johan. Franc.> Niceron;

Samuel Sorbier, M. D.—vide his epistle and Gassendus's before his De Cive.

... Verdusius, to whom he dedicates his ... Dialogi (vide my Dialogi for his Christian name—'tis dedicated to him).

T. H. would say that Gassendus was the sweetest-natured man in the world.

Des Cartes and he were acquainted and mutually respected one another. He would say that had he kept himself to Geometry he had been the best geometer in the world but that his head did not lye for philosophy.

Mr. Hobbes was wont to say that had Mieur Des Cartes (for whom he had a high respect) kept himselfe to geometrie, he had been the best geometer in the world; but he could not pardon him for his writing in defence of transubstantiation, which he knew was absolutely against his opinion and donne meerly to putt a compliment <on> the Jesuites.

I have heard Mr. Oates say that the Jesuites doe much glorie that he <Des Cartes> had his education under them. 'Tis not unlikely that the Jesuites putt him upon that treatise.

Edmund Waller, esq., poet.

Sir Kenelm Digby, amicus T. H.

(1648 or 49, at Paris.) Sir William Petty (of Ireland), Regiae Societatis Socius, a person of a stupendous invention and of as great prudence and humanity, had an high esteeme of him. His acquaintance began at Paris, 1648 or 1649, at which time Mr. Hobbes studied Vesalius' Anatomy, and Sir William with him. He then assisted Mr. Hobbes in draweing his schemesfor his booke of optiques, for he had a very fine hand in those dayes for draweing, which draughts Mr. Hobbes did much commend. His facultie in this kind conciliated them the sooner to the familiarity of our common friend.

Mr. S. Cowper aforesayd, at whose house they often mett.—He drew his picture twice: the first the king haz, the other is yet in the custody of his widowe; but he gave it, indeed, to me (and I promised I would give it to the archives at Oxon, with a short inscription on the back side, as a monument of his friendship to me and ours to Mr. Hobbes—sed haec omnia inter nos)but I, like a foole, did not take possession of it, for something of the garment was not quite finished, and he dyed, I being then in the countrey—sed hoc non ad rem.

<Sir William Petty.> I have a very fine letter from Mr. Hobbes to me where he gives him thanks and for his booke of Duplicate Proportion I sent him, which letter I will insert (so much as concerns it). Sir William Petty would keepe the originall honoris ergo and gave me a copie of it, which I have not leisure to looke out.

(At Paris.) Mr. Abraham Cowley, the poet, who hath bestowed on him an immortal pindarique ode, which is in his poems.

(1651 or 52.) William Harvey, Dr. of Physique and Chirurgery, inventor of the circulation of the bloud, who left him in his will ten poundes, as his brother told me at his funerall. Obiit anno 1657, aetat. 80, sepult. at Hempsted in Essex, in their vault.

Mr. Edmund Waller of Beconsfield was his great friend, and acquainted at Paris—I believe before.

When his Leviathan came out, he sent by his stationer's (Andrew Crooke) man a copie of it, well-bound, to Mr. John Selden in Aedibus Carmeliticis. Mr. Selden told the servant, he did not know Mr. Hobbes, but had heard much of his worth, and that he should be very glad to be acquainted with him. Wherupon Mr. Hobbes wayted on him. From which time there was a strict friendship between <them> to his dyeing day. He left by his will to Mr. Hobbes a legacy of ten poundes.

Sir John Vaughan, Lord Chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas, was his great acquaintance, to whom he made visitts three times or more in a weeke—out of terme in the morning; in terme-time, in the afternoon.

Sir Charles Scarborough, M.D. (physitian to his royal highnesse the duke of Yorke), who hath a very good and like picture (drawne about 1655)of him, under which is this distich (they say of Mr. Hobbes's making),

Si quaeris de me, Mores inquire, sed Ille
Qui quaerit de me, forsitan alter erit;

and much loved his conversation.

Sir Jonas Moore, mathematicus, surveyor of his majestie's ordinance, who had a great veneration for Mr. Hobbes, and was wont much to lament he fell to the study of the mathematiques so late.

Mr. Richard White, who writt Hemispherium Dissectum. I have heard Mr. Thomas Hobbes commend Richard White for a solid mathematician and preferred him much before his brother Thomas de Albiis for it.

Sir Charles Cavendish.

Edward, lord Herbert of Cherbery and Castle Island.

Sir William Davenant, Poet Laureat after B. Johnson, and generall of the ordinance to the duke of Newcastle—at Paris (e.g. epistle); perhaps before.

William Chillingworth, D.D.—he would commend this doctor for a very great witt; 'But by G——' said he, 'he is like some lusty fighters that will give a damnable back-blow now and then on their owne party.'

George Eglionby, D.D. and deane of Canterbury, was also his great acquaintance. He died at Oxford, 1643, of the epidemique disease then rageing.

Jasper Mayne, Doctor of Divinity (chaplain to William, marquesse of Newcastle), an old acquaintance of his.

Mr. Francis Osburne, author of 'Advice to a son' and severall other treatises, was his great acquaintance.

John Pell, Dr. of Divinity, mathematicus, quondam professor ... at Breda, who quotes him in his ... contra Longomontanum de Quadratura circuli, for one of his jury (of 12).

Sir George Ent, M.D.—In a letter to Mr. J<ohn> A<ubrey> from Mr. Thomas Hobbes:—

'Worthy Sir,

I have receaved from Mr. Crooke the booke of Sir George Ent of the Use of Respiration. It is a very learned and ingeniose booke full of true and deepe philosophy. I pray you to present unto him my most humble service. Though I recieved it but three dayes since, yet, drawen-on by the easinesse of the style and elegancy of the language, I have read it all over, and I give you most humble thankes for sending it to me. I pray you present my service to Mr. Hooke.

I am,
Sir, your most obliged and humble servant,
Tho: Hobbes.

Chatsworth,
March 25,
1679.'

Ralph Bathurst, S.T.D., now deane of Welles, who hath writt verses before his booke of Humane Nature.

Mr. Henry Stubbes, physitian, whom he much esteemed for his great learning and parts, but at latter end Mr. Hobbs differ'd with him for that he wrote against the lord chancellor Bacon, and the Royall Societie. He wrote in Mr. Hobbes' defence—vide librum.

Walter Charleton, M.D., physitian to his majestie, and one of the Colledge of Physitians in London, a high admirer of him.

Mr. Samuel Butler, the author of Hudibras.

In his ... Dialogi (vide librum) he haz a noble elogie of Sir Christopher Wren, then a young scholar in Oxon, which quote; but I thinke they were not acquainted.

Mr. <Robert> Hooke loved him, but was never but once in his company.

<Sidney Godolphin.>

To conclude, he had a high esteeme for the Royall Societie, having sayd (vide Behemoth pag. 242, part ...) that 'Naturall Philosophy was removed from the Universities to Gresham Colledge,' meaning the Royall Societie that meetes there; and the Royall Societie (generally) had the like for him: and he would long since have been ascribed a member there, but for the sake of one or two persons, whom he tooke to be his enemies. In their meeting at Gresham Colledge is his picture, drawen by the life, 166-(quaere date), by a good hand, which they much esteeme, and severall copies have been taken of it.

Memorandum:—Dr. Isaac Barrow hath mentioned Mr. T. Hobbes in his mathematicall lectures, printed and unprinted.

Edmund Waller, esq., of Beconsfield:—'but what he was most to <be> commended for was that he being a private person threw downe the strongholds (ὀχυρώματα) of the Church, and lett in light.'

Robert Stevens, serjeant at Lawe, was wont to say of him, and that truly, that 'no man had so much, so deeply, seriously, and profoundly considered humane nature as he.'

Mr. John Dreyden, Poet Laureat, is his great admirer, and oftentimes makes use of his doctrine in his playes—from Mr. Dreyden himselfe.

Memorandum he hath no countryman living hath knowne him so long (1633) as myselfe, or <any> of his friends, &c. <who> doth know so much <about him.> When he had printed his translation of Thucydides <1676: edit. 2>, his life is writt by him selfe (at my request) in the third person, a copie wherof I have by me, [to publish after his death if it please God I survive him.]