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world had a beginning; and, that whether it had or no, is to be
decided not by argument, but by the magistrate’s authority. That
it may be decided by the Scriptures, he never denied; therefore
in that also you slander him. And as for arguments from natural
reason, neither you, nor any other, have hitherto brought any,
except the creation, that has not made it more doubtful to many
men than it was before. That which he hath written concerning
such arguments, in his book De Corpore: opinions, saith he (vol.
I. p. 412), concerning the nature of infinite and eternal, as the
chiefest of the fruits of wisdom, God hath reserved to himself,
and made judges of them those men whose ministry he meant
to use in the ordering of religion; and therefore I cannot praise
those men that brag of demonstration of the beginning of the
world from natural reason: and again (vol. I. p. 414), wherefore I
pass by those questions of infinite and eternal, contenting myself
with such doctrine concerning the beginning and magnitude of
the world, as I have learned from the Scripture, confirmed by
miracles, and from the use of my country, and from the
reverence I owe to the law. This, Doctor, is not ill said, and yet it
is all you ground your slander on, which you make to sneak vilely
under a crooked paraphrase.
These opinions, I said, were to be judged by those to whom
God has committed the ordering of religion; that is, to the
supreme governors of the church, that is, in England, to the
King: by his authority, I say, it ought to be decided, not what
men shall think, but what they shall say in those questions. And
methinks you should not dare to deny it; for it is a manifest
relapse into your former crimes.
But why do you style the King by the name of magistrate? Do
you find magistrate to signify any where the person that hath
the sovereign power, or not every where the sovereign’s officers.
And I think you knew that; but you and your fellows (your
fellows I call all those that are so besmeared all over with the
filth of the same crime, as not to be distinguished) meant to
make your Assembly the sovereign, and the King your
magistrate. I pray God you do not mean so still, if opportunity be
presented.
There has hitherto appeared in Mr. Hobbes his doctrine, no
sign of atheism; and whatsoever can be inferred from the
denying of incorporeal substances, makes Tertullian, one of the
ancientest of the Fathers, and most of the doctors of the Greek
Church, as much atheists as he. For Tertullian, in his treatise De
Carne Christi, says plainly: omne quod est, corpus est sui
generis. Nihil est incorporale, nisi quod non est: that is to say,
whatsoever is anything, is a body of its kind. Nothing is
incorporeal, but that which has no being. There are many other
places in him to the same purpose: for that doctrine served his
turn to confute the heresy of them that held that Christ had no
body, but was a ghost; also of the soul he speaks, as of an
invisible body. And there is an epitome of the doctrine of the
Eastern Church, wherein is this, that they thought angels and
souls were corporeal, and only called incorporeal, because their
bodies were not like ours. And I have heard that a Patriarch of
Constantinople, in a Council held there, did argue for the
lawfulness of painting angels, from this, that they were
corporeal. You see what fellows in atheism you join with Mr.
Hobbes.
How unfeigned your own religion is, may be argued strongly,
demonstratively, from your behaviour, that I have already
recited. Do you think, you that have committed so abominable
sins, not through infirmity, or sudden transport of passion, but
premeditately, wilfully, for twenty years together, that any
rational man can think you believe yourselves, when you preach
of heaven and hell, or that you do not believe one another to be
cheats and impostors, and laugh at silly people in your sleeves
for believing you; or that you applaud not your own wit for it;
though for my part I could never conceive that very much wit
was requisite for the making of a knave? And in the pulpit most
of you have been a scandal to Christianity, by preaching up
sedition, and crying down moral virtue. You should have
preached against unjust ambition, covetousness, gluttony,
malice, disobedience to government, fraud, and hypocrisy: but
for the most part you preached your own controversies, about
who should be uppermost, or other fruitless and unedifying
doctrines. When did any of you preach against hypocrisy? You
dare not in the pulpit, I think, so much as name it, lest you set
the church a laughing: and you in particular, when you said in a
sermon, that σοψίης was not in Homer. What edification could
the people have from that, though it had been true, as it is
false? For it is in his Iliad, XV. 412. Another I heard make half his
sermon of this doctrine, that God never sent a great deliverance,
but in a great danger: which is indeed true, because the
greatness of the danger makes the greatness of the deliverance,
but for the same cause ridiculous; and the other half he took to
construe the Greek of his text: and yet such sermons are much
applauded. But why? First, because they make not the people
ashamed of any vice. Secondly, because they like the preacher,
for using to find fault with the government or governors. Thirdly,
for their vehemence, which they mistake for zeal. Fourthly, for
their zeal to their own ends, which they mistake for zeal to God’s
worship. I have heard besides divers sermons made by fanatics,
young men, and whom, by that and their habit, I imagined to be
apprentices; and found little difference between their sermons,
and the sermons of such as you, either in respect of wisdom, or
eloquence, or vehemence, or applause of common people.
Therefore, I wonder how you can pretend, as you do in your
petition for a dispensation from the ceremonies of the Church, to
be either better preachers than those that conform, or to have
tenderer consciences than other men. You that have covered
such black designs with the sacred words of Scripture, why can
you not as well find in your hearts to cover a black gown with a
white surplice? Or what idolatry do you find in making the sign
of the cross, when the law commands it? Though I think you
may conform without sin, yet I think you might have been also
dispensed with without sin, if you had dispensed in like manner
with other ministers that subscribed to the articles of the Church.
And if tenderness of conscience be a good plea, you must give
Mr. Hobbes also leave to plead tenderness of conscience to his
new Divinity, as well as you. I should wonder also, how any of
you should dare to speak to a multitude met together, without
being limited by his Majesty what they shall say, especially now
that we have felt the smart of it, but that it is a relic of the
ecclesiastical policy of the Popes, that found it necessary for the
disjoining of the people from their too close adherence to their
Kings or other civil governors.
But it may be you will say, that the rest of the clergy, bishops,
and episcopal men, no friends of yours, and against whose office
Mr. Hobbes never writ anything, speak no better of his religion
than you do.
It is true, he never wrote against episcopacy; and it is his
private opinion, that such an episcopacy as is now in England, is
the most commodious that a Christian King can use for the
governing of Christ’s flock; the misgoverning whereof the King is
to answer for to Christ, as the bishops are to answer for their
misgovernment to the King, and to God also. Nor ever spake he
ill of any of them, as to their persons: therefore I should wonder
the more at the uncharitable censure of some of them, but that I
see a relic still remaining of the venom of popish ambition,
lurking in that seditious distinction and division between the
power spiritual and civil; which they that are in love with a
power to hurt all those that stand in competition with them for
learning, as the Roman clergy had to hurt Galileo, do not
willingly forsake. All bishops are not in every point like one
another. Some, it may be, are content to hold their authority
from the King’s letters patents; and these have no cause to be
angry with Mr. Hobbes. Others will needs have somewhat more,
they know not what, of divine right, to govern by virtue of
imposition of hands, and consecration, not acknowledging their
power from the King, but immediately from Christ. And these
perhaps are they that are displeased with him, which he cannot
help, nor has deserved; but will for all that believe the King only,
and without sharers, to be the head of all the Churches within
his own dominions; and that he may dispense with ceremonies,
or with anything else that is not against the Scriptures, nor
against natural equity; and that the consent of the Lords and
Commons cannot now give him that power, but declare, for the
people, their advice and consent to it. Nor can he be made
believe that the safety of a state depends upon the safety of the
Church, I mean of the clergy. For neither is a clergy essential to
a commonwealth; and those ministers that preached sedition,
pretend to be of the clergy, as well as the best. He believes
rather that the safety of the Church depends on the safety of the
King, and the entireness of the sovereign power; and that the
King is no part of the flock of any minister or bishop, no more
than the shepherd is of his sheep, but of Christ only; and all the
clergy, as well as the people, the King’s flock. Nor can that
clamour of his adversaries make Mr. Hobbes think himself a
worse Christian than the best of them. And how will you disprove
it, either by his disobedience, to the laws civil or ecclesiastical, or
by any ugly action? Or how will you prove that the obedience,
which springs from scorn of injustice, is less acceptable to God,
than that which proceeds from fear of punishment, or hope of
benefit. Gravity and heaviness of countenance are not so good
marks of assurance of God’s favour, as cheerful, charitable, and
upright behaviour towards men, which are better signs of
religion than the zealous maintaining of controverted doctrines.
And therefore I am verily persuaded, it was not his Divinity that
displeased you or them, but somewhat else, which you are not
willing to pretend. As for your party, that which angered you, I
believe, was this passage of his Leviathan (vol. iii. p. 160);
Whereas some men have pretended for their disobedience to
their sovereign, a new covenant made, not with men, but with
God; this also is unjust. For there is no covenant with God, but
by mediation of somebody that represented God’s person; which
none doth but God’s lieutenant, who hath the sovereignty under
God. But this pretence of covenant with God, is so evident a lie,
(this is it that angered you), even in the pretenders' own
consciences, that it is not only an act of an unjust, but also of a
vile and unmanly disposition.
 Besides, his making the King judge of doctrines to be
preached or published, hath offended you both; so has also his
attributing to the civil sovereign all power sacerdotal. But this
perhaps may seem hard, when the sovereignty is in a Queen.
But it is because you are not subtle enough to perceive, that
though man be male and female, authority is not. To please
neither party is easy; but to please both, unless you could better
agree amongst yourselves than you do, is impossible. Your
differences have troubled the kingdom, as if you were the
houses revived of York and Lancaster. A man would wonder how
a little Latin and Greek should work so mightily, when the
Scriptures are in English, as that the King and Parliament can
hardly keep you quiet, especially in time of danger from abroad.
If you will needs quarrel, decide it amongst yourselves, and draw
not the people into your parties.
You were angry also for his blaming the scholastical
philosophers, and denying such fine things as these: that the
species or apparences of bodies come from the thing we look on,
into the eye, and so make us see; and into the understanding, to
make us understand; and into the memory, to make us
remember: that a body may be just the same it was, and yet
bigger or lesser: that eternity is a permanent now; and the like:
and for detecting, further than you thought fit, the fraud of the
Roman clergy. Your dislike of his divinity, was the least cause of
your calling him atheist. But no more of this now.
The next head of your contumelies is to make him
contemptible, and to move Mr. Boyle to pity him. This is a way of
railing too much beaten to be thought witty. As for the thing
itself, I doubt your intelligence is not good, and that you
algebricians, and non-conformists, do but feign it, to comfort one
another. For your own part, you contemn him not, or else you
did very foolishly to entitle the beginning of your book, Mr.
Hobbes considered; which argues he is considerable enough to
you. Besides, it is no argument of contempt, to spend upon him
so many angry lines as would have furnished you with a dozen
of sermons. If you had in good earnest despised him, you would
have let him alone, as he does Dr. Ward, Mr. Baxter, Pike, and
others, that have reviled him as you do. As for his reputation
beyond the seas, it fades not yet: and because perhaps you have
no means to know it, I will cite you a passage of an Epistle,
written by a learned Frenchman to an eminent person in France,
a passage not impertinent to the point now in question. It is in a
volume of Epistles, the fourth in order, and the words (page 167)
concerning chemists, are these: Truly, Sir, as much as I admire
them, when I see them lute an alembic handsomely, filter a
liquor, build an athanor, so much I dislike them when I hear
them discourse upon the subject of their operations; and yet
they think all they do, is nothing in respect of what they say. I
wish they would take less pains, and be at less charges; and
whilst they wash their hands after their work, they would leave
to those that attend to the polishing of their discourse, I mean,
the Galileos, the Descarteses, the Hobbeses, the Bacons, and the
Gassendis, to reason upon their work, and themselves to hear
what the learned and judicious shall tell them, such as are used
to discern the differences of things. Quam scit uterque libens
censebo exerceat artem. And more to the same purpose.
What is here said of chymists, is applicable to all other
mechanics.
Every man that hath spare money, can get furnaces, and buy
coals. Every man that hath spare money, can be at the charge of
making great moulds, and hiring workmen to grind their glasses;
and so may have the best and greatest telescopes. They can get
engines made, and apply them to the stars; recipients made,
and try conclusions; but they are never the more philosophers
for all this. It is laudable, I confess, to bestow money upon
curious or useful delights; but that is none of the praises of a
philosopher. And yet, because the multitude cannot judge, they
will pass with the unskilful, for skilful in all parts of natural
philosophy. And I hear now, that Hugenius and Eustachio Divini
are to be tried by their glasses, who is the more skilful in optics
of the two; but for my part, before Mr. Hobbes his book De
Homine came forth, I never saw any thing written on that
subject intelligibly. Do not you tell me now, according to your
wonted ingenuity, that I never saw Euclid’s, Vitellio’s, and many
other men’s Optics; as if I could not distinguish between
geometry and optics.
So also of all other arts; not every one that brings from
beyond seas a new gin, or other jaunty device, is therefore a
philosopher. For if you reckon that way, not only apothecaries
and gardeners, but many other sorts of workmen, will put in for,
and get the prize. Then, when I see the gentlemen of Gresham
College apply themselves to the doctrine of motion, (as Mr.
Hobbes has done, and will be ready to help them in it, if they
please, and so long as they use him civilly,) I will look to know
some causes of natural events from them, and their register, and
not before: for nature does nothing but by motion.
I hear that the reason given by Mr. Hobbes, why the drop of
glass so much wondered at, shivers into so many pieces, by
breaking only one small part of it, is approved for probable, and
registered in their college. But he has no reason to take it for a
favour: because hereafter the invention may be taken, by that
means, not for his, but theirs.
To the rest of your calumnies the answers will be short, and
such as you might easily have foreseen. And first, for his
boasting of his learning, it is well summed up by you in these
words: It was a motion made by one, whom I will not name,
that some idle person should read over all his books, and
collecting together his arrogant and supercilious speeches,
applauding himself, and despising all other men, set them forth
in one synopsis, with this title, Hobbius de se. What a pretty
piece of pageantry this would make, I shall leave to your own
thoughts.
Thus say you: now says Mr. Hobbes, or I for him, let your idle
person do it, and set down no more than he has written, as high
praises as they be, I will promise you he shall acknowledge them
under his hand, and be commended for it, and you scorned. A
certain Roman senator having propounded something in the
assembly of the people, which they misliking made a noise at,
boldly bade them hold their peace, and told them he knew better
what was good for the commonwealth than all they. And his
words are transmitted to us as an argument of his virtue; so
much do truth and vanity alter the complexion of self-praise.
Besides, you can have very little skill in morality, that cannot see
the justice of commending a man’s self, as well as of anything
else, in his own defence: and it was want of prudence in you, to
constrain him to a thing that would so much displease you. That
part of his self-praise which most offends you, is in the end of
his Leviathan (page 713), in these words: Therefore I think it
may be profitably printed, and more profitably taught in the
Universities, in case they also think so, to whom the judgment of
the same belongeth. Let any man consider the truth of it. Where
did those ministers learn their seditious doctrine, and to preach
it, but there? Where therefore should preachers learn to teach
loyalty, but there? And if your principles produced civil war, must
not the contrary principles, which are his, produce peace? And
consequently his book, as far as it handles civil doctrine,
deserves to be taught there. But when can this be done? When
you shall have no longer an army ready to maintain the evil
doctrine wherewith you have infected the people. By a ready
army, I mean arms, and money, and men enough, though not
yet in pay, and put under officers, yet gathered together in one
place or city, to be put under officers, armed, and paid on any
sudden occasion; such as are the people of a great and populous
town. Every great city is as a standing army, which if it be not
under the sovereign’s command, the people are miserable; if
they be, they may be taught their duties in the Universities
safely and easily, and be happy. I never read of any Christian
king that was a tyrant, though the best of kings have been called
so.
Then for the morosity and peevishness you charge him with,
all that know him familiarly, know it is a false accusation. But you
mean, it may be, only towards those that argue against his
opinion; but neither is that true. When vain and ignorant young
scholars, unknown to him before, come to him on purpose to
argue with him, and to extort applause for their foolish opinions;
and, missing of their end, fall into indiscreet and uncivil
expressions, and he then appear not very well contented: it is
not his morosity, but their vanity that should be blamed. But
what humour, if not morosity and peevishness, was that of
yours, whom he never had injured, or seen, or heard of, to use
toward him such insolent, injurious, and clownish words, as you
did in your absurd Elenchus?
Was it not impatience of seeing any dissent from you in
opinion? Mr. Hobbes has been always far from provoking any
man, though when he is provoked, you find his pen as sharp as
yours.
Again, when you make his age a reproach to him, and show
no cause that might impair the faculties of his mind, but only
age, I admire how you saw not that you reproached all old men
in the world as much as him, and warranted all young men, at a
certain time, which they themselves shall define, to call you fool.
Your dislike of old age, you have also otherwise sufficiently
signified, in venturing so fairly as you have done to escape it.
But that is no great matter to one that hath so many marks upon
him of much greater reproaches. By Mr. Hobbes his calculation,
that derives prudence from experience, and experience from
age, you are a very young man; but by your own reckoning, you
are older already than Methuselah.
Lastly, who told you that he writ against Mr. Boyle, whom in
his writing he never mentioned, and that it was, because Mr.
Boyle was acquainted with you? I know the contrary. I have
heard him wish it had been some person of lower condition, that
had been the author of the doctrine which he opposed, and
therefore opposed because it was false, and because his own
could not otherwise be defended. But thus much I think is true,
that he thought never the better of his judgment, for mistaking
you for learned. This is all I thought fit to answer for him and his
manners. The rest is of his geometry and philosophy, concerning
which, I say only this, that there is too much in your book to be
confuted; almost every line may be disproved, or ought to be
reprehended. In sum, it is all error and railing, that is, stinking
wind; such as a jade lets fly, when he is too hard girt upon a full
belly. I have done. I have considered you now, but will not
again, whatsoever preferment any of your friends shall procure
you.
 THE ANSWER
OF
MR. HOBBES
TO
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT’S
PREFACE BEFORE GONDIBERT.

THE ANSWER
TO THE PREFACE TO GONDIBERT.
Sir,
If to commend your poem, I should only say, in general terms,
that in the choice of your argument, the disposition of the parts,
the maintenance of the characters of your persons, the dignity
and vigour of your expression, you have performed all the parts
of various experience, ready memory, clear judgment, swift and
well-governed fancy: though it were enough for the truth, it
were too little for the weight and credit of my testimony. For I lie
open to two exceptions, one of an incompetent, the other of a
corrupted witness. Incompetent, because I am not a poet; and
corrupted with the honour done me by your preface. The former
obliges me to say something, by the way, of the nature and
differences of poesy.
As philosophers have divided the universe, their subject, into
three regions, celestial, aerial, and terrestial; so the poets,
whose work it is, by imitating human life, in delightful and
measured lines, to avert men from vice, and incline them to
virtuous and honourable actions, have lodged themselves in the
three regions of mankind, court, city, and country,
correspondent, in some proportion, to those three regions of the
world. For there is in princes, and men of conspicuous power,
anciently called heroes, a lustre and influence upon the rest of
men, resembling that of the heavens; and an insincereness,
inconstancy, and troublesome humour in those that dwell in
populous cities, like the mobility, blustering, and impurity of the
air; and a plainness, and, though dull, yet a nutritive faculty in
rural people, that endures a comparison with the earth they
labour.
From hence have proceeded three sorts of poesy, heroic,
scommatic, and pastoral. Every one of these is distinguished
again in the manner of representation; which sometimes is
narrative, wherein the poet himself relateth; and sometimes
dramatic, as when the persons are every one adorned and
brought upon the theatre, to speak and act their own parts.
There is therefore neither more nor less than six sorts of poesy.
For the heroic poem narrative, such as is yours, is called an epic
poem; the heroic poem dramatic, is tragedy. The scommatic
narrative is satire; dramatic is comedy. The pastoral narrative, is
called simply pastoral, anciently bucolic; the same dramatic,
pastoral comedy. The figure therefore of an epic poem, and of a
tragedy, ought to be the same: for they differ no more but in
that they are pronounced by one, or many persons; which I
insert to justify the figure of yours, consisting of five books
divided into songs, or cantos; as five acts divided into scenes,
has ever been the approved figure of a tragedy.
They that take for poesy whatsoever is writ in verse, will think
this division imperfect, and call in sonnets, epigrams, eclogues,
and the like pieces, which are but essays, and parts of an entire
poem; and reckon Empedocles and Lucretius, natural
philosophers, for poets; and the moral precepts of Phocylides
Theognis, and the quatrains of Pybrach, and the history of
Lucan, and others of that kind, amongst poems: bestowing on
such writers, for honour, the name of poets, rather than of
historians or philosophers. But the subject of a poem is the
manners of men, not natural causes; manners presented, not
dictated; and manners feigned, as the name of poesy imports,
not found in men. They that give entrance to fictions writ in
prose, err not so much; but they err; for prose requireth
delightfulness, not only of fiction, but of style; in which if prose
contend with verse, it is with disadvantage and, as it were, on
foot against the strength and wings of Pegasus.
For verse amongst the Greeks was appropriated anciently to
the service of their Gods, and was the holy style; the style of the
oracles; the style of the laws; and the style of the men that
publicly recommended to their Gods the vows and thanks of the
people, which was done in their holy songs called hymns; and
the composers of them were called prophets and priests, before
the name of poet was known. When afterwards the majesty of
that style was observed, the poets chose it as best becoming
their high invention. And for the antiquity of verse, it is greater
than the antiquity of letters. For it is certain, Cadmus was the
first that from Phœnicia, a country that neighboureth Judea,
brought the use of letters into Greece. But the service of the
Gods, and the laws, which by measured sounds were easily
committed to the memory, had been long time in use before the
arrival of Cadmus there.
There is, besides the grace of style, another cause why the
ancient poets chose to write in measured language; which is
this. Their poems were made at first with intention to have them
sung, as well epic as dramatic (which custom hath been long
time laid aside, but began to be revived in part, of late years, in
Italy,) and could not be made commensurable to the voice or
instruments, in prose; the ways and motions whereof are so
uncertain and undistinguished, like the way and motion of a ship
in the sea, as not only to discompose the best composers, but
also to disappoint sometimes the most attentive reader, and put
him to hunt counter for the sense. It was therefore necessary for
poets in those times to write in verse.
 The verse which the Greeks and Latins, considering the nature
of their own languages, found by experience most grave, and for
an epic poem most decent, was their hexameter; a verse limited
not only in the length of the line, but also in the quantity of the
syllables. Instead of which we use the line of ten syllables,
recompensing the neglect of their quantity with the diligence of
rhyme. And this measure is so proper to an heroic poem, as
without some loss of gravity or dignity, it was never changed. A
longer is not far from ill prose; and a shorter, is a kind of
whisking, you know, like the unlacing, rather than the singing of
a muse. In an epigram or a sonnet, a man may vary his
measures, and seek glory from a needless difficulty; as he that
contrived verses into the forms of an organ, a hatchet, an egg,
an altar, and a pair of wings; but in so great and noble a work as
is an epic poem, for a man to obstruct his own way with
unprofitable difficulties, is great imprudence. So likewise to
choose a needless and difficult correspondence of rhyme, is but
a difficult toy, and forces a man sometimes, for the stopping of a
chink, to say somewhat he did never think. I cannot therefore
but very much approve your stanza, wherein the syllables in
every verse are ten, and the rhyme alternate.
For the choice of your subject you have sufficiently justified
yourself in your preface. But because I have observed in Virgil,
that the honour done to Æneas and his companions, has so
bright a reflection upon Augustus Cæsar, and other great
Romans of that time, as a man may suspect him not constantly
possessed with the noble spirit of those his heroes; and I believe
you are not acquainted with any great man of the race of
Gondibert, I add to your justification the purity of your purpose,
in having no other motive of your labour, but to adorn virtue,
and procure her lovers; than which there cannot be a worthier
design, and more becoming noble poesy.
In that you make so small account of the example of almost all
the approved poets, ancient and modern, who thought fit in the
beginning, and sometimes also in the progress of their poems, to
invoke a Muse, or some other deity, that should dictate to them,
or assist them in their writings; they that take not the laws of
art, from any reason of their own, but from the fashion of
precedent times, will perhaps accuse your singularity. For my
part, I neither subscribe to their accusation, nor yet condemn
that heathen custom, otherwise than as accessory to their false
religion. For their poets were their divines; had the name of
prophets; exercised amongst the people a kind of spiritual
authority; would be thought to speak by a divine spirit; have
their works which they writ in verse (the divine style) pass for
the word of God, and not of man, and to be hearkened to with
reverence. Do not the divines, excepting the style, do the same,
and by us that are of the same religion cannot justly be
reprehended for it? Besides, in the use of the spiritual calling of
divines, there is danger sometimes to be feared, from want of
skill, such as is reported of unskilful conjurers, that mistaking the
rites and ceremonious points of their art, call up such spirits, as
they cannot at their pleasure allay again; by whom storms are
raised, that overthrow buildings, and are the cause of miserable
wrecks at sea. Unskilful divines do oftentimes the like; for when
they call unseasonably for zeal, there appears a spirit of cruelty;
and by the like error, instead of truth, they raise discord; instead
of wisdom, fraud; instead of reformation, tumult; and
controversy, instead of religion. Whereas in the heathen poets,
at least in those whose works have lasted to the time we are in,
there are none of those indiscretions to be found, that tended to
the subversion, or disturbance of the commonwealths wherein
they lived. But why a Christian should think it an ornament to his
poem, either to profane the true God, or invoke a false one, I
can imagine no cause, but a reasonless imitation of custom; of a
foolish custom, by which a man enabled to speak wisely from
the principles of nature, and his own meditation, loves rather to
be thought to speak by inspiration, like a bagpipe.
Time and education beget experience; experience begets
memory; memory begets judgment and fancy; judgment begets
the strength and structure, and fancy begets the ornaments of a
poem. The ancients therefore fabled not absurdly, in making
Memory the mother of the Muses. For memory is the world,
though not really, yet so as in a looking-glass, in which the
judgment, the severer sister, busieth herself in a grave and rigid
examination of all the parts of nature, and in registering by
letters their order, causes, uses, differences, and resemblances;
whereby the fancy, when any work of art is to be performed,
finds her materials at hand and prepared for use, and needs no
more than a swift motion over them, that what she wants, and is
there to be had, may not lie too long unespied. So that when
she seemeth to fly from one Indies to the other, and from
heaven to earth, and to penetrate into the hardest matter and
obscurest places, into the future, and into herself, and all this in
a point of time, the voyage is not very great, herself being all
she seeks. And her wonderful celerity, consisteth not so much in
motion, as in copious imagery discreetly ordered, and perfectly
registered in the memory; which most men under the name of
philosophy have a glimpse of, and is pretended to by many, that
grossly mistaking her, embrace contention in her place. But so
far forth as the fancy of man has traced the ways of true
philosophy, so far it hath produced very marvellous effects to the
benefit of mankind. All that is beautiful or defensible in building;
or marvellous in engines and instruments of motion; whatsoever
commodity men receive from the observations of the heavens,
from the description of the earth, from the account of time, from
walking on the seas; and whatsoever distinguisheth the civility of
Europe, from the barbarity of the American savages; is the
workmanship of fancy, but guided by the precepts of true
philosophy. But where these precepts fail, as they have hitherto
failed in the doctrine of moral virtue, there the architect Fancy
must take the philosopher’s part upon herself. He, therefore,
who undertakes an heroic poem, which is to exhibit a venerable
and amiable image of heroic virtue, must not only be the poet,
to place and connect, but also the philosopher, to furnish and
square his matter; that is, to make both body and soul, colour
and shadow of his poem out of his own store; which, how well
you have performed I am now considering.
 Observing how few the persons be you introduce in the
beginning, and how in the course of the actions of these, the
number increasing, after several confluences, they run all at last
into the two principal streams of your poem, Gondibert and
Oswald, methinks the fable is not much unlike the theatre. For
so, from several and far distant sources, do the lesser brooks of
Lombardy, flowing into one another, fall all at last into the two
main rivers, the Po and the Adige. It hath the same resemblance
also with a man’s veins, which proceeding from different parts,
after the like concourse, insert themselves at last into the two
principal veins of the body. But when I considered that also the
actions of men, which singly are inconsiderable, after many
conjunctures, grow at last either into one great protecting power,
or into two destroying factions, I could not but approve the
structure of your poem, which ought to be no other than such as
an imitation of human life requireth.
In the streams themselves I find nothing but settled valour,
clean honour, calm counsel, learned diversion, and pure love;
save only a torrent or two of ambition, which, though a fault,
has somewhat heroic in it, and therefore must have place in an
heroic poem. To shew the reader in what place he shall find
every excellent picture of virtue you have drawn, is too long. And
to show him one, is to prejudice the rest; yet I cannot forbear to
point him to the description of love in the person of Bertha, in
the seventh canto of the second book. There has nothing been
said of that subject, neither by the ancient nor modern poets,
comparable to it. Poets are painters; I would fain see another
painter draw so true, perfect, and natural a love to the life, and
make use of nothing but pure lines, without the help of any the
least uncomely shadow, as you have done. But let it be read as a
piece by itself: for in the almost equal height of the whole, the
eminence of parts is lost.
There are some that are not pleased with fiction, unless it be
bold; not only to exceed the work, but also the possibility of
nature; they would have impenetrable armours, enchanted
castles, invulnerable bodies, iron men, flying horses, and a
thousand other such things, which are easily feigned by them
that dare. Against such I defend you, without assenting to those
that condemn either Homer or Virgil; by dissenting only from
those that think the beauty of a poem consisteth in the
exorbitancy of the fiction. For as truth is the bound of historical,
so the resemblance of truth is the utmost limit of poetical liberty.
In old time amongst the heathen, such strange fictions and
metamorphoses were not so remote from the articles of their
faith, as they are now from ours, and therefore were not so
unpleasant. Beyond the actual works of nature a poet may now
go; but beyond the conceived possibility of nature, never. I can
allow a geographer to make in the sea, a fish or a ship, which by
the scale of his map would be two or three hundred miles long,
and think it done for ornament, because it is done without the
precincts of his undertaking: but when he paints an elephant so,
I presently apprehend it as ignorance, and a plain confession of
terra incognita.
As the description of great men and great actions is the
constant design of a poet; so the descriptions of worthy
circumstances are necessary accessions to a poem, and being
well performed, are the jewels and most precious ornaments of
poesy. Such in Virgil are the funeral games of Anchises, the duel
of Æneas and Turnus, &c. And such in yours, are the Hunting,
the Battle, the City Mourning, the Funeral, the House of
Astragon, the Library and the Temple; equal to his, or those of
Homer whom he imitated.
There remains now no more to be considered but the
expression, in which consisteth the countenance and colour of a
beautiful Muse; and is given her by the poet out of his own
provision, or is borrowed from others. That which he hath of his
own, is nothing but experience and knowledge of nature, and
specially human nature; and is the true and natural colour. But
that which is taken out of books, the ordinary boxes of
counterfeit complexion, shows well or ill, as it hath more or less
resemblance with the natural; and are not to be used without
examination unadvisedly. For in him that professes the imitation
of nature, as all poets do, what greater fault can there be, than
to betray an ignorance of nature in his poem; especially, having
a liberty allowed him, if he meet with any thing he cannot
master, to leave it out?
That which giveth a poem the true and natural colour,
consisteth in two things; which are, to know well, that is, to have
images of nature in the memory distinct and clear; and to know
much. A sign of the first is perspicuity, propriety, and decency;
which delight all sorts of men, either by instructing the ignorant,
or soothing the learned in their knowledge. A sign of the latter is
novelty of expression, and pleaseth by excitation of the mind; for
novelty causeth admiration, and admiration curiosity, which is a
delightful appetite of knowledge.
There be so many words in use at this day in the English
tongue, that, though of magnific sound, yet like the windy
blisters of troubled waters, have no sense at all, and so many
others that lose their meaning by being ill coupled; that it is a
hard matter to avoid them. For having been obtruded upon
youth in the schools, by such as make it, I think, their business
there, as it is expressed by the best poet

“With terms to charm the weak and pose the wise,”

Gondibert, Book ii. Canto 5, verse 44.

they grow up with them, and gaining reputation with the

ignorant, are not easily shaken off.
To this palpable darkness, I may also add the ambitious
obscurity of expressing more than is perfectly conceived; or
perfect conception in fewer words than it requires. Which
expressions, though they have had the honour to be called
strong lines, are indeed no better than riddles, and not only to
the reader, but also after a little time to the writer himself, dark
and troublesome.
To the propriety of expression I refer that clearness of
memory, by which a poet when he hath once introduced any
person whatsoever, speaking in his poem, maintaineth in him to
the end the same character he gave him in the beginning. The
variation whereof, is a change of pace, that argues the poet
tired.
Of the indecencies of an heroic poem, the most remarkable
are those that show disproportion either between the persons
and their actions, or between the manners of the poet and the
poem. Of the first kind, is the uncomeliness of representing in
great persons the inhuman vice of cruelty, or the sordid vices of
lust and drunkenness. To such parts, as those the ancient
approved poets thought it fit to suborn, not the persons of men,
but of monsters and beastly giants, such as Polyphemus, Cacus,
and the Centaurs. For it is supposed a Muse, when she is
invoked to sing a song of that nature, should maidenly advise
the poet to set such persons to sing their own vices upon the
stage; for it is not so unseemly in a tragedy. Of the same kind it
is to represent scurrility, or any action or language that moveth
much laughter. The delight of an epic poem consisteth not in
mirth, but admiration. Mirth and laughter are proper to comedy
and satire. Great persons, that have their minds employed on
great designs, have not leisure enough to laugh, and are pleased
with the contemplation of their own power and virtues, so as
they need not the infirmities and vices of other men to
recommend themselves to their own favour by comparison, as all
men do when they laugh. Of the second kind, where the
disproportion is between the poet and the persons of his poem,
one is in the dialect of the inferior sort of people, which is always
different from the language of the court. Another is, to derive
the illustration of any thing from such metaphors or comparisons
as cannot come into men’s thoughts, but by mean conversation,
and experience of humble or evil arts, which the person of an
epic poem cannot be thought acquainted with.
From knowing much, proceedeth the admirable variety and
novelty of metaphors and similitudes, which are not possible to
be lighted on in the compass of a narrow knowledge. And the
want whereof compelleth a writer to expressions that are either
defaced by time, or sullied with vulgar or long use. For the
phrases of poesy, as the airs of music, with often hearing
become insipid; the reader having no more sense of their force,
than our flesh is sensible of the bones that sustain it. As the
sense we have of bodies, consisteth in change of variety of
impression, so also does the sense of language in the variety
and changeable use of words. I mean not in the affectation of
words newly brought home from travel, but in new, and withal
significant, translation to our purposes, of those that be already
received; and in far-fetched, but withal, apt, instructive, and
comely similitudes.
Having thus, I hope, avoided the first exception, against the
incompetency of my judgment, I am but little moved with the
second, which is of being bribed by the honour you have done
me, by attributing in your preface somewhat to my judgment.
For I have used your judgment no less in many things of mine,
which coming to light will thereby appear the better. And so you
have your bribe again.
Having thus made way for the admission of my testimony, I
give it briefly thus. I never yet saw poem, that had so much
shape of art, health of morality, and vigour and beauty of
expression, as this of yours. And but for the clamour of the
multitude, that hide their envy of the present under a reverence
of antiquity, I should say further, that it would last as long as
either the Æneid, or Iliad, but for one disadvantage; and the
disadvantage is this; the languages of the Greeks and Romans,
by their colonies and conquests, have put off flesh and blood,
and are become immutable, which none of the modern tongues
are like to be. I honour antiquity; but that which is commonly
called old time, is young time. The glory of antiquity is due, not
to the dead, but to the aged.
And now, whilst I think of it, give me leave with a short
discord to sweeten the harmony of the approaching close. I have
nothing to object against your poem; but dissent only from
something in your preface, sounding to the prejudice of age. It is
commonly said, that old age is a return to childhood. Which
methinks you insist on so long, as if you desired it should be
believed. That is the note I mean to shake a little. That saying,
meant only of the weakness of body, was wrested to the
weakness of mind, by froward children, weary of the controlment
of their parents, masters, and other admonitors. Secondly, the
dotage and childishness they ascribe to age, is never the effect
of time, but sometimes of the excesses of youth, and not a
returning to, but a continual stay, with childhood. For they that
wanting the curiosity of furnishing their memories with the
rarities of nature in their youth, pass their time in making
provision only for their ease and sensual delight, are children still
at what years soever; as they that coming into a populous city,
never going out of their inn, are strangers still, how long soever
they have been there. Thirdly, there is no reason for any man to
think himself wiser to-day than yesterday, which does not
equally convince he shall be wiser to-morrow than to-day.
Fourthly, you will be forced to change your opinion hereafter
when you are old; and in the mean time you discredit all I have
said before in your commendation, because I am old already. But
no more of this.
I believe, Sir, you have seen a curious kind of perspective,
where he that looks through a short hollow pipe upon a picture
containing divers figures, sees none of those that are there
painted, but some one person made up of their parts, conveyed
to the eye by the artificial cutting of a glass. I find in my
imagination an effect not unlike it, from your poem. The virtues
you distribute there amongst so many noble persons, represent,
in the reading, the image but of one man’s virtue to my fancy,
which is your own; and that so deeply imprinted, as to stay for
ever there, and govern all the rest of my thoughts and affections
in the way of honouring and serving you to the utmost of my
power, that am,
Sir,
Your most humble and obedient servant,
Thomas Hobbes.
Paris, Jan. 10, 1650.
 LETTER TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE EDW. HOWARD.[B]

To the Right Hon. Mr. Edward Howard.

Sir,
My judgment in poetry hath, you know, been once already
censured by very good wits, for commending Gondibert; but yet
they have not, I think, disabled my testimony. For what authority
is there in wit? A jester may have it; a man in drink may have it;
be fluent over night, and wise and dry in the morning. What is
it? Or who can tell whether it be better to have it or be without
it, especially if it be a pointed wit? I will take my liberty to praise
what I like, as well as they do to reprehend what they do not
like. Your poem, Sir, contains a well and judiciously contrived
story, full of admirable and heroic actions, set forth in noble and
perspicuous language, such as becomes the dignity of the
persons you introduce: which two things of themselves are the
heighth of poetry. I know that variety of story, true or feigned, is
the thing wherewith the reader is entertained most delightfully.
And this also to the smallness of the volume is not wanting.
Yours is but one small piece; whereas the poets that are with us
so much admired, have taken larger subjects. But let an English
reader, in Homer or Virgil in English, by whomsoever translated,
read one piece by itself, no greater than yours; I may make a
question whether he will be less pleased with yours than his. I
know you do not equal your poem to either of theirs: the bulk of
the work does not distinguish the art of the workman. [The
Battle of Mice and Frogs may be owned without disparagement
by Homer himself. Yet if Homer had written nothing else, he
never had had the reputation of so admirable a poet as he was.]
[C]
Ajax was a man of very great stature, and Teucer a very little
person: yet he was brother to Ajax, both in blood and chivalry. I
commend your poem for judgment, not for bulk; and am assured
it will be welcome to the world with its own confidence; though
if it come forth armed with verses and epistles, I cannot tell
what to think of it. For the great wits will think themselves
threatened, and rebel. Unusual fortifications upon the borders,
carry with them a suspicion of hostility. And poets will think such
letters of commendation a kind of confederacy and league,
tending to usurp upon their liberty. [I have told you my
judgment, and you may make use of it as you please. But I
remember a line or two in your poem, that touched upon
divinity, wherein we differed in opinion. But since you say the
book is licensed, I shall think no more upon it, but only reserve
my liberty of dissenting, which I know you will allow me.][D] I
rest,
Sir,
Your most humble and obedient servant,
Thomas Hobbes.
Chatsworth,
October the 24th, 1668.

B. This letter is here printed from the autograph of Mr.

Hobbes, now in the possession of Rowland Eyles Egerton
Warburton, Esq. of Arley Hall, Cheshire. The same letter, with
the variations hereafter noticed, was prefixed to Mr. Howard’s
poem, “The British Princes,” published in 1669: it is there
addressed “To the Honourable Edward Howard, Esq. on his
intended impression of his poem of the 'British Princes,'” and is
subscribed,
“I need say no more, but rest,
Your Honour’s most humble and obedient servant,
Thomas Hobbs.
Chatsworth, Nov. the 6th, 1668.”
 C. The passage between brackets is omitted in the letter
prefixed to the British Princes, and the following is substituted
for it: “Besides 'tis a virtue in a poet to advance the honour of
his remotest ancestors, especially when it has not been done
before. What, though you out-go the limits of certain history? Do
painters, when they paint the face of the earth, leave a blank
beyond what they know? Do not they fill up the space with
strange rocks, monsters, and other gallantry, to fix their work in
the memory of men by the delight of fancy? So will your readers
from this poem think honourably of their original, which is a kind
of piety.”

D. This passage is omitted in the “British Princes.”

END OF VOL. IV.

G. RICHARDS, PRINTER, 100, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY JOHN BOHN.

To be completed in 12 Vols. 8vo. each 12s. cloth lettered,

THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

THOMAS HOBBES
OF MALMESBURY,
NOW FIRST COLLECTED AND EDITED

BY
SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH, BART. M.P.

Although the close reasoning of Hobbes, expressed in beautiful

language, has created a host of admirers, yet, owing to the
excessive rarity of his detached writings, many of which have
never been reprinted, no complete set of his works is to be
found in any one of our public or private libraries. To remedy this
evil, and to present an edition worthy of the Author, the Editor
has collected together the various pieces, and at his own cost
has determined to reprint them uniformly, in the best style of
modern typography. Five volumes (I. II. of the Latin, and I. III.
and IV. of the English works) are already published, and the
remainder will follow as speedily as a due regard to correctness
will allow.
As the impression is limited, and the price of each volume
(between 500 and 600 pages, with Engravings) is unusually low,
the Publisher has every reason to expect that within a short
period the whole of the copies will be subscribed for, and
therefore would earnestly recommend an early application, to
prevent disappointment.
An excellent analysis of this author’s writings will be found in
Mr. Hallam’s able Introduction to the Literature of Europe, and
the following testimonies in favour of his style will convey some
idea of the estimation in which his writings are held.
“Hobbes’ language is so lucid and concise that it would almost be as
improper to put an algebraical process in different terms as some of his
metaphysical paragraphs.”—Hallam.
“A permanent foundation of his fame consists in his admirable style, which
seems to be the very perfection of didactic language.“—Sir James Mackintosh.
“Here let us do justice to that great man’s memory, at a time his writings
seem to be entirely neglected, who, with all his errors, we must allow to be
one of the first men of his age, for a bright wit, a deep penetration, and a
cultivated understanding.”—Bp. Warburton.