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profound antiquity, as things which are seen very deep and far remote; like as the courses, the reaches, the confluences, and the outlets of great rivers are well-known, yet their first fountains and heads lie commonly unknown. I have succinctly run over the Romans' government in Britain, and the inundation of foreign people thereinto, what they were, and from whence they came. I have traced out the ancient divisions of these kingdoms; I have summarily specified the states and judicial courts of the same. In the several counties, I have compendiously set down the limits (and yet not exactly by perch and pole, to breed questions), what is the nature of the soil, which were places of the greatest antiquity, who have been dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, barons, and some of the most signal and ancient families therein (for who can particulate all!) What I have performed, I leave to men of judgment. But time, the most sound and sincere witness, will give the truest infor mation, when envy (which persecuteth the living) shall have her mouth stopped. Thus much give me leave to say-that I have in no wise neglected such things as are material to search and sift out the truth. I have attained to some skill of the most ancient British and Saxon tongues. I have travelled over all England for the most part; I have conferred with most skilful observers in each country; I have studiously read over our own country writers (old and new), all Greek and Latin authors which have once made mention of Britain; I have had conference with learned men in the other parts of Christendom; I have been diligent in the records of this realm; I have looked into most libraries, registers, and memorials of churches, cities, and corporations; I have pored over many an old roll and evidence, and produced their testimony (as beyond all exception) when the cause required, in their very own words (although barbarous they be), that the honour of verity might in no wise be impeached.

For all this I may be censured as unadvised, and scant modest, who, being but of the lowest form in the school of antiquity, where I might well have lurked in obscurity, have adventured as a scribbler upon the I hope it shall be no discredit if I now use again, stage in this learned age, amidst the diversities of reby way of preface, the same words, with a few more, lishes both in wit and judgment. But to tell the truth that I used twenty-four years since in the first edi- unfeignedly, the love of my country, which compriseth tion of this work. Abraham Ortelius, the worthy all love in it, and hath endeared me to it, the glory restorer of ancient geography, arriving here in Eng- of the British name, the advice of some judicious land about thirty-four years past, dealt earnestly friends, hath over-mastered my modesty, and (will'd I, with me that I would illustrate this isle of Britain, nill'd I) hath enforced me, against mine own judg or, as he said, that I would restore antiquity to Bri-ment, to undergo this burden too heavy for me, and tain, and Britain to antiquity; which was (I understood), that I would renew ancientry, enlighten obscurity, clear doubts, and recall home verity, by way of recovery, which the negligence of writers, and credulity of the common sort, had in a manner proscribed and utterly banished from among us. A painful matter, I assure you, and more than difficult; wherein what toil is to be taken, as no man thinketh, so no man believeth but he who hath made the trial. Nevertheless, how much the difficulty discouraged me from it, so much the glory of my country encouraged me to undertake it. So, while at one and the same time I was fearful to undergo the burden, and yet desirous to do some service to my country, I found two different affections, fear and boldness, I know not how, conjoined in one. Notwithstanding, by the most gracious direction of the Almighty, taking industry for my consort, I adventured upon it; and, with all my study, care, cogitation, continual meditation, pain, and travail, I employed myself thereunto when I had any spare time. I made search after the etymology of Britain and the first inhabitants timorously; neither in so doubtful a matter have I affirmed ought confidently. For I am not ignorant that the first originals of nations are obscure, by reason of their

so thrust me forth into the world's view. For I see judgments, prejudices, censures, aspersions, obstructions, detractions, affronts, and confronts, as it were, in battle array to environ me on every side; some there are which wholly contemn and avile this study of antiquity as a back-looking curiosity; whose authority, as I do not utterly vilify, so I do not over-prize or admire their judgment. Neither am I destitute of reason whereby I might approve this my purpose to well-bred and well-meaning men, which tender the glory of their native country; and, moreover, could give them to understand that, in the study of antiquity (which is always accompanied with dignity, and hath a certain resemblance with eternity), there is a sweet food of the mind well befitting such as are of honest and noble disposition. If any there be which are desirous to be strangers in their own soil, and foreigners in their own city, they may so continue, and therein flatter themselves. For such like I have not written these lines, nor taken these pains.

The 'Britannia' has gone through many subsequent editions, and has proved so useful a repository of antiquarian and topographical knowledge, that it has been styled by Bishop Nicolson 'the common

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sun, whereat our modern writers have all lighted their little torches.' The last edition is that of 1789, in two volumes folio, largely augmented by Mr Gough.

them highly valuable, had before this time been unfortunately destroyed by fire. From those which remain, historians still continue to extract large stores of information. During his lifetime, materials were drawn from his library by Raleigh, Bacon, assistance to many contemporary authors. Besides aiding Camden in the compilation of the Britannia,' he materially assisted JOHN SPEED (1552-1629), by revising, correcting, and adding to a History of Great Britain, published by that writer in 1614. Speed was indebted also to Spelman and others for contributions. He is characterised by Bishop Nicolson as a person of extraordinary industry and attainments in the study of antiquities.' Being a tailor by trade, he enjoyed few advantages from education; yet his history is a highly creditable performance, and was long the best in existence. He was the first to reject the fables of preceding chroniclers concerning the origin of the Britons, and to exercise a just discrimination in the selection of authorities. His history commences with the original inhabitants of the island, and extends to the union of England and Scotland under King James, to whom the work

In 1593 Camden became head master of Westminster school, and, for the use of his pupils, pub-Selden, and Herbert; and he furnished literary lished a Greek grammar in 1597. In the same year, however, his connexion with that seminary came to an end, on his receiving the appointment of Clarencieux king-of-arms, an office which allowed him more leisure for his favourite pursuits. The principal works which he subsequently published are, 1. An Account of the Monuments and Inscriptions in Westminster Abbey; 2. A Collection of Ancient English Historians; 3. A Latin Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, drawn up at the desire of James VI.; and, 4. Annals of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, also in Latin. The last of these works is praised by Hume as good composition, with respect both to style and matter, and as being written with simplicity of expression, very rare in that age, and with a regard to truth.' It is, however, generally considered as too favourable to Elizabeth; and Dr Robertson characterises the account of Scottish affairs under Queen Mary as less accurate than any other. Camden died un-is dedicated. In 1606 he published maps of Great married in 1623, at the age of seventy-two, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. Not long before his death, he founded and endowed a history lecture at Oxford.

SIR HENRY SPELMAN-SIR ROBERT COTTON-JOHN

SPEED-SAMUEL DANIEL.

able style, the work became very popular, and soon passed through several editions. It was continued in an inferior manner to the death of Richard III., by John Trussel, an alderman of Winchester. Like Speed, Daniel was cautious in giving credit to narratives of remote events, as will appear from his remarks, here subjoined, on the

Britain and Ireland, with the English shires, hundreds, cities, and shire-towns. This collection was superior to any other that had appeared. SAMUEL DANIEL (1562-1619), who has already been mentioned as a poet, distinguished himself also as a writer of prose. Besides A Defence of Rhyme, published in 1611, he composed A History of England, of which only the first and second parts, extending SIR HENRY SPELMAN, a man of similar tastes, from the Norman Conquest to the end of the reign and who was intimate with Camden, was born of Edward III., were completed by himself. Of these, in 1562 at Congham, in Norfolk, of which county the first appeared in 1613, and the second about he was high-sheriff in 1604. His works are almost five years later. Being a judicious and tasteful perall upon legal and ecclesiastical antiquities. Hav-formance, and written in a clear, simple, and agreeing, in the course of his investigations, found it necessary to study the Saxon language, he embodied the fruits of his labour in his great work called Glossarium Archeologicum, the object of which is the explanation of obsolete words occurring in the laws of England. Another of his productions is A History of the English Councils, published partly in 1639, and partly after his death, which took place in 1641. The writings of this [Uncertainty of the Early History of Nations.] author have furnished valuable materials to English historians, and he is considered as the restorer of kingdom, I had a desire to have deduced the same Undertaking to collect the principal affairs of this Saxon literature, both by means of his own studies, from the beginning of the first British kings, as they and by founding a Saxon professorship at Cam- are registered in their catalogue; but finding no bridge. SIR ROBERT COTTON (1570-1631) is cele-authentical warrant how they came there, I did put brated as an industrious collector of records, charters, and writings of every kind relative to the ancient history of England. In the prosecution of his object he enjoyed unusual facilities, the recent suppression of monasteries having thrown many valuable books and written documents into private hands. In 1600, he accompanied his friend Camden on an excursion to Carlisle, for the purpose of examining the Picts' wall and other relics of former times. It was principally on his suggestion that James L. resorted to the scheme of creating baronets, as a means of supplying the treasury; and he himself was one of those who purchased the distinction. Sir Robert Cotton was the author of various historical, political, and antiquarian works, which are now of little interest, except to men of kindred tastes. His name is remembered chiefly for the benefit which he conferred upon literature, by saving his valuable library of manuscripts from dispersion. After being considerably augmented by his son and grandson, it became, in 1706, the property of the public, and in 1757 was deposited in the British Museum. One hundred and eleven of the manuscripts, many of

off that desire with these considerations: That a
lesser part of time, and better known (which was
from William I., surnamed the Bastard), was more
than enough for my ability; and how it was but our
curiosity to search further back into times past than
we might discern, and whereof we could neither have
proof nor profit ; how the beginnings of all people and
states were as uncertain as the heads of great rivers,
and could not add to our virtue, and, peradventure,
little to our reputation to know them, considering how
commonly they rise from the springs of poverty, piracy,
robbery, and violence; howsoever fabulous writers (to
glorify their nations) strive to abuse the credulity of
after-ages with heroical or miraculous beginnings.
For states, as men, are ever best seen when they are
up, and as they are, not as they were. Besides, it
seems, God in his providence, to check our presump-
tuous inquisition, wraps up all things in uncertainty,
bars us out from long antiquity, and bounds our
searches within the compass of a few ages, as if the
same were sufficient, both for example and instruc-
tion, to the government of men.
For had we the par-
ticular occurrents of all ages and all nations, it might

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rather of the civil war which arose while that parliament was sitting, than of the proceedings of the parliament itself. The work was imposed upon him in his capacity of secretary for the parliament, and was reluctantly undertaken. It gave great offence to the royalists, by whom both the author and his performance were loudly abused. Its composition is inelegant, but the candour displayed in it has been pronounced much greater than the royalists were willing to allow.

Among the minor historians of the time of Elizabeth appears SIR JOHN HAYWARD, who, in 1599, published The First Part of the Life and Reign of Henry IV., which he dedicated to the Earl of Essex. Some passages in it gave such offence to the queen, that she caused the author to be imprisoned. He was patronised by James I., however, and at the desire of Prince Henry composed Lives of the Three Norman Kings of England (1613). After his death, which happened in 1627, was published his Life and Reign of King Edward VI,, with the Beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (1630). He writes with considerable smoothness, but too dramatically, imitating Livy and other ancient historians in the practice of putting speeches into the mouths of the characters. RICHARD KNOLLES, master of a free school at Sandwich, in Kent, where he died in 1610, wrote a History of the Turks, which is praised by Dr Johnson in the 122d number of the 'Rambler' as exhibiting all the excellences that narration can admit. His style,' says Johnson, though somewhat obscured by time, and sometimes vitiated by false wit, is pure, nervous, elevated, and clear. Nothing could have sunk this author into obscurity but the remoteness and barbarity of the people whose story he relates.' This account of the work is, how

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ever, considered to surpass its deserts. As a specimen, we extract the account given of

The Taking of Constantinople by the Turks.

and begun the assault, where shot and stones were A little before day, the Turks approached the walls delivered upon them from the walls as thick as hail, whereof little fell in vain, by reason of the multitude of the Turks, who, pressing fast unto the walls, could not see in the dark how to defend themselves, but were without number wounded or slain; but these were of the common and worst soldiers, of whom the the first force of the defendants. Upon the first apTurkish king made no more reckoning than to abate pearance of the day, Mahomet gave the sign appointed for the general assault, whereupon the city was in a moment, and at one instant, on every side most furiously assaulted by the Turks; for Mahomet, the more to distress the defendants, and the better to see the forwardness of the soldiers, had before appointed which part of the city every colonel with his regiment should assail: which they valiantly performed, delivering their arrows and shot upon the defendants so thick, that the light of the day was therewith darkened; others in the meantime courageously mounting the scaling-ladders, and coming even to handy-strokes with the defendants upon the wall, where the foremost were for the most part violently borne forward by them which followed after. On the other side, the Christians with no less courage withstood the Turkish fury, beating them down again with great stones and weighty pieces of timber, and so overwhelmed them with shot, darts, and arrows, and other hurtful devices from above, that the Turks, dismayed with the terror thereof, were ready to retire.

Mahomet, seeing the great slaughter and discomfiture of his men, sent in fresh supplies of his janizaries and best men of war, whom he had for that purpose reserved as his last hope and refuge; by whose and the terrible assault begun afresh. At which coming on his fainting soldiers were again encouraged, time the barbarous king ceased not to use all possible means to maintain the assault; by name calling upon this and that captain, promising unto some whom he saw forward golden mountains, and unto others in whom he saw any sign of cowardice, threatening most terrible death; by which means the assault became most dreadful, death there raging in the midst of many thousands. And albeit that the Turks lay dead by heaps upon the ground, yet other fresh men pressed on still in their places over their dead bodies, and with divers event either slew or were slain by their enemies.

In this so terrible a conflict, it chanced Justinianus the general to be wounded in the arm, who, losing much blood, cowardly withdrew himself from the place of his charge, not leaving any to supply his room, and so got into the city by the gate called || Romana, which he had caused to be opened in the inner wall; pretending the cause of his departure to be for the binding up of his wound, but being, indeed, a man now altogether discouraged.

The soldiers there present, dismayed with the departure of their general, and sore charged by the janizaries, forsook their stations, and in haste fled to the same gate whereby Justinianus was entered; with the sight whereof the other soldiers, dismayed, ran thither by heaps also. But whilst they violently strive all together to get in at once, they so wedged one another in the entrance of the gate, that few of so great a multitude got in; in which so great a press and confusion of minds, eight hundred persons were there by them that followed trodden under foot, or thrust to death. The emperor himself, for safeguard of his life, flying with the rest in that

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press as a man not regarded, miserably ended his days, together with the Greek empire. His dead body was shortly after found by the Turks among the slain, and known by his rich apparel, whose head being cut off, was forthwith presented to the Turkish tyrant, by whose commandment it was afterward thrust upon the point of a lance, and in great derision carried about as a trophy of his victory, first in the camp, and afterwards up and down the city.

The Turks, encouraged with the flight of the Christians, presently advanced their ensigns upon the top of the uttermost wall, crying Victory; and by the breach entered as if it had been a great flood, which, having once found a breach in the bank, overfloweth, and beareth down all before it; so the Turks, when they had won the utter wall, entered the city by the same gate that was opened for Justinianus, and by a breach which they had before made with their great artillery, and without mercy cutting in pieces all that came in their way, without further resistance became lords of that most famous and imperial city. . . . In this fury of the barbarians perished many thousands of men, women, and children, without respect of age, sex, or condition. Many, for safeguard of their lives, fled into the temple of Sophia, where they were all without pity slain, except some few reserved by the barbarous victors to purposes more grievous than death itself. The rich and beautiful ornaments and jewels of that most sumptuous and magnificent church (the stately building of Justinianus the emperor) were, in the turning of a hand, plucked down and carried away by the Turks; and the church itself, built for God to be honoured in, for the present converted into a stable for their horses, or a place for the execution of their abominable and unspeakable filthiness; the image of the crucifix was also by them taken down, and a Turk's cap put upon the head thereof, and so set up and shot at with their arrows, and afterwards, in great derision, carried about in their camp, as it had been in procession, with drums playing before it, railing and spitting at it, and calling it the God of the Christians, which I note not so much done in contempt of the image, as in despite of Christ and the Christian religion.

ARTHUR WILSON-SIR RICHARD BAKER.

ARTHUR WILSON, another historian, flourished somewhat later, having been born in 1596. He was secretary to Robert, Earl of Essex, the parliamentary general in the civil wars; and afterwards became steward to the Earl of Warwick. He died in 1652, leaving in manuscript a work on The Life and Reign of James I., which was published in the following year. A comedy of his, entitled The Inconstant Lady, was printed at Oxford in 1814.

We shall conclude our survey of the historical writers of this period by devoting a few words to SIR RICHARD BAKER, who lived from 1568 to 1645, and whose Chronicle' was long popular in England, particularly among country gentlemen. Addison makes it the favourite book of Sir Roger de Coverley. Baker was knighted by James I. in 1603, and in 1620 became high-sheriff for Oxfordshire, in which he possessed considerable property. Afterwards having imprudently engaged for the payment of debts contracted by his wife's family, he became insolvent, and spent several years in the Fleet prison, where he died in 1645. While in durance, he wrote Meditations and Disquisitions on portions of Scripture, translated Balzac's Letters and Malvezzi's Discourses on Tacitus, and composed two pieces in defence of the theatre. His principal work, however, was that already referred to, entitled A Chronicle of the Kings of England, from the time of the Romans' Government unto the Death of King James. This work, which appeared in 1641,

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the author complacently declares to be collected with so great care and diligence, that if all other of our chronicles were lost, this only would be sufficient to inform posterity of all passages memorable or worthy to be known.' Notwithstanding such high pretensions, the Chronicle' was afterwards proved by Thomas Blount, in Animadversions' published in 1672, to contain many gross errors; and although an edition printed in 1730 is said to be purged of these to a considerable extent, yet the work must continue to be regarded as an injudicious performance, unworthy of much reliance. The style of Baker, which is superior to his matter, is described, in a letter written to him by his former college friend Sir Henry Wotton, as full of sweet raptures and of researching conceits; nothing borrowed, nothing vulgar, and yet all flowing from you, I know not how, with a certain equal facility.'

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SIR HENRY WOTTON.

SIR HENRY WOTTON, of whom some account has already been given, was himself one of the conspicuous characters of this period, both as a writer and a politician. While resident abroad, he embodied the result of his inquiries into political affairs in a work called The State of Christendom; or a most Exact and Curious Discovery of many Secret Passages and Hidden Mysteries of the Times. This, however, was not printed till after his death. In 1624, while provost of Eton college, he published Elements of Architecture, then the best work on that subject, and the materials of which were no doubt collected chiefly in Italy. His latter years were spent in planning several works, which, from the pecuniary difficulties in which he found himself involved, were never executed. The Reliquiae Wottoniane, a posthumous publication, is a collection of his miscellaneous pieces, including lives, letters, poems, and characters. These display considerable liveliness of fancy and intellec tual acuteness, though tainted with the pedantry of the times. Several of them are here extracted :

[What Education Embraces.]

First, there must proceed a way how to discern the natural inclinations and capacities of children. Secondly, next must ensue the culture and furnishment of the mind. Thirdly, the moulding of behaviour and decent forms. Fourthly, the tempering of affections. Fifthly, the quickening and exciting of observations and practical judgment. Sixthly, and the last in order, but the principal in value, being that which must knit and consolidate all the rest, is the timely instilling of conscientious principles and seeds of religion.

Every Nature is not a Fit Stock to Graft a Scholar on.

undertakes to show what complexion is fit for every The Spaniard that wrote The Trial of Wits,' profession. I will not disable any for proving a scholar, nor yet dissemble that I have seen many happily forced upon that course, to which by nature they seemed much indisposed. Sometimes the possibility of preferment prevailing with the credulous, expectation of less expense with the covetous, opinion of ease with the fond, and assurance of remoteness with the unkind parents, have moved them, without discretion, to engage their children in adventures of learning, by whose return they have received but small contentment: but they who are deceived in their first designs deserve less to be condemned, as such who (after sufficient trial) persist in their wilfulness are no way to be pitied. I have known some who have been acquainted (by the complaints of

governors, clamours of creditors, and confessions of their sons) what might be expected from them, yet have held them in with strong hand, till they have desperately quit, or disgracefully forfeited, the places where they lived. Deprived of which, they might hope to avoid some misery, if their friends, who were so careful to bestow them in a college when they were young, would be so good as to provide a room for them in some hospital when they are old.

the young Earl of Devonshire, with whom he set off, three years later, on a tour through France, Italy, and Savoy. At Pisa he became intimate with Galileo the astronomer, and elsewhere held communication with other celebrated characters. After his return to England in 1637, he resided in the earl's family, at Chatsworth, in Derbyshire. He now devoted himself to study, in which, however, he was interrupted by the political contentions of the times. Being a zealous royalist, he found it necessary, in [Commendation before Trial Injudicious.] 1640, to retire to Paris, where he lived on terms of The fashion of commending our friends' abilities intimacy with Descartes and other learned men, before they come to trial, sometimes takes good effect whom the patronage of Cardinal de Richelieu had with the common sort, who, building their belief on at that time drawn together. While at Paris, he engaged in a controversy about the quadrature of the authority, strive to follow the conceit of their betters; but usually, amongst men of independent judgments, circle, and in 1647, he was appointed mathematical this bespeaking of opinion breeds a purpose of stricter instructor to Charles, Prince of Wales, who then reexamination, and if the report be answered, procures sided in the French capital. Previously to this time, only a bare acknowledgment; whereas, if nothing be he had commenced the publication of those works proclaimed or promised, they are perhaps content to which he sent forth in succession, with the view of signify their own skill in testifying another's desert: curbing the spirit of freedom in England, by showing otherwise great wits, jealous of their credit, are ready the philosophical foundation of despotic monarchy. to suppress worth in others, to the advancing of their The first of them was originally printed in Latin at own, and (if more ingenuous) no farther just than to Paris, in 1642, under the title of Elementa Philosoforbear detraction; at the best, rather disposed to phica de Cive; when afterwards translated into Enggive praise upon their own accord, than to make paying Government and Society. This treatise is regarded lish, it was entitled Philosophical Rudiments Concernment upon demand or challenge.

THOMAS HOBBES.

No literary man excited more attention in the middle of the seventeenth century, and none of that age has exercised a more wide and permanent influence on the philosophical opinions of succeeding generations, than THOMAS HOBBES, born at Malmesbury in 1588. His mother's alarm at the approach of the Spanish Armada is said to have hastened his birth,

as the most exact account of the author's political
system: it contains many profound views, but is
disfigured by fundamental and dangerous errors.
The principles maintained in it were more fully dis-
cussed in his larger work, published in 1651, under
the title of Leviathan: or the Matter, Form, and Power
of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. Man is
here represented as a selfish and ferocious animal,
requiring the strong hand of despotism to keep him
in check; and all notions of right and wrong are
made to depend upon views of self-interest alone.
Of this latter doctrine, commonly known as the
Selfish System of moral philosophy, Hobbes was in-
deed the great champion, both in the 'Leviathan,' and
more particularly in his small Treatise on Human
Nature, published in 1650. There appeared in the
same year another work from his pen, entitled De
Corpore Politico; or, Of the Body Politic.' The
freedom with which theological subjects were handled
in the Leviathan,' as well as the offensive political
views there maintained, occasioned a great outery
against the author, particularly among the clergy.
This led Charles to dissolve his connexion with |
the philosopher, who, according to Lord Clarendon,
was compelled secretly to fly out of Paris, the
justice having endeavoured to apprehend him, and
soon after escaped into England, where he never re-
ceived any disturbance.' He again took up his abode
with the Devonshire family, and became intimate
with Selden, Cowley, and Dr Harvey, the discoverer
of the circulation of the blood. In 1654 he published
a short but admirably clear and comprehensive Letter
upon Liberty and Necessity; where the doctrine of
the self-determining power of the will is opposed
with a subtlety and profundity unsurpassed in any
subsequent writer on that much-agitated question.
Indeed, he appears to have been the first who under-
stood and expounded clearly the doctrine of philoso-

and was probably the cause of a constitutional timi-
dity which possessed him through life. After study-phical necessity. On this subject, a long controversy
ing for five years at Oxford, he travelled, in 1610,
through France, Italy, and Germany, in the capa-
city of tutor to Lord Cavendish, afterwards Earl of
Devonshire, with whom, on returning to England,
he continued to reside as his secretary. At this
time he became intimate with Lord Bacon, Lord
Herbert of Cherbury, and Ben Jonson. His pupil
dying in 1628, Hobbes again visited Paris; but in
1631 he undertook to superintend the education of

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between him and Bishop Bramhall of Londonderry took place. Here he fought with the skill of a master; but in a mathematical dispute with Dr Wallis, professor of geometry at Oxford, which lasted twenty years, he fairly went beyond his depth, and obtained no increase of reputation. The fact is, that Hobbes had not begun to study mathematics till the age of forty, and, like other late learners, greatly overestimated his knowledge. He supposed himself to

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