to receive information about offending books, and especially the ‘Leviathan.’ According to Aubrey, Hobbes was so alarmed as to burn his papers. A report given by White Kennett (Memoirs of Cavendish Family) says that he now frequented the chapel and took the sacrament, though he ‘turned his back upon the sermon.’ He argued (in an appendix to a Latin translation of the ‘Leviathan’ in 1668) that since the abolition of the high commission there was no court which could try him for heresy. He found protectors in Arlington and in the king. Charles, however, would not permit him to publish any work of political or religious tendency. ‘The Behemoth’ (finished about 1668) was suppressed by Charles's orders, though a surreptitious edition appeared in 1679, and some other books were silenced. In 1669 the Cambridge authorities forced one Daniel Scargil, who had defended some theses from the ‘Leviathan,’ to recant publicly, and assert that his vicious life had been due to his Hobbist principles. John Fell (1625–1686) [q. v.], dean of Christ Church, introduced some contemptuous remarks upon Hobbes into a Latin translation of Wood's ‘History and Antiquities,’ and persisted, in spite of a remonstrance from Hobbes. Many attacks upon his doctrines by distinguished writers were also appearing; but his fame was spreading abroad, and distinguished foreigners were eager to pay him homage during visits to England. Among them was the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who saw him in 1669, and to whom he dedicated his ‘Quadratura Circuli.’
When eighty-four he wrote his autobiography in Latin verse, and at eighty-six completed his translation of Homer's ‘Odyssey’ and ‘Iliad.’ In 1675 he finally left London, passing the rest of his time between Hardwick and Chatsworth, the seats of the Devonshire family. As late as August 1679 he was still writing, but had an attack of strangury in October. He insisted upon travelling with the family from Chatsworth to Hardwick during November, but soon afterwards was attacked by paralysis, and died quietly on 4 Dec. 1679. He was buried in the chancel of Hault Hucknall Church.
Hobbes's health was weak in youth, but improved after he was forty. He was over six feet high, and in old age erect for his years. He had good eyes, which shone ‘as with a bright live coal’ under excitement. His black hair caused him to be nicknamed ‘Crow’ at school. He had a short bristling auburn moustache, but shaved what would have been a ‘venerable beard,’ to avoid an appearance of philosophical austerity. He took little physic, and preferred an ‘experienced old woman’ to the ‘most learned but inexperienced physician.’ He was generally temperate, though he calculated that he had been drunk a hundred times during a life of ninety-two years. His diet was regular; he drank no wine after sixty, and ate chiefly fish. He rose at seven, breakfasted on bread and butter, dined at eleven, and after a pipe slept for half an hour, afterwards writing down his morning thoughts. He took regular exercise, playing tennis even at seventy-five, and in the country taking a smart walk, after which he was rubbed by a servant. He is said to have had an illegitimate daughter, for whom he provided. He was affable and courteous, a pleasant companion, though it is recorded that he sometimes lost his temper in arguing with Thomas White or ‘Albius’ [q. v.] (Wood, Athenæ, ‘Joseph Glanville’). A common story of his fear of ghosts is denied in the ‘Vitæ Auctarium’ (see also Bayle, s. v., note N). He read not much, but thoroughly, and was fond of saying that if he had read as much as other learned men he would have been as ignorant. He was charitable and very liberal to his relations. His long connection with the Cavendishes is creditable to both, and he appears to have been a faithful friend. He was constitutionally timid, though intellectually audacious, and always on his guard against possible persecution. But the charges of time-serving seem to be disproved. There is a portrait of him by J. M. Wright in the National Portrait Gallery, and two in the possession of the Royal Society. A portrait by Cooper was formerly in the royal collections.
Hobbes produced a fermentation in English thought not surpassed until the advent of Darwinism. While, however, the opponents of Hobbes were countless, his biographer could discover only a single supporter. ‘Hobbism’ was an occasional name of reproach until the middle of the eighteenth century (he is mentioned on the title-page of ‘Deism Revealed,’ 1751), although his philosophy had long been eclipsed by Locke's ‘Essay.’ He is one of Kortholt's ‘three impostors’ (1680) along with Spinoza and Herbert of Cherbury. In Farquhar's ‘Constant Couple,’ 1699, the hypocritical debauchee carries Hobbes in his pocket; and among ‘Twelve Ingenious Characters,’ 1686, is a dissolute town-fop who takes about ‘two leaves of Leviathan’ (D'Israeli, Miscellanies, 1840, p. 262). Atterbury holds him up as a warning in a sermon ‘on the terrors of conscience’ (Sermons, 1734, ii. 112). He was reviled on all sides as the typical atheist, materialist, political absolutist, and preacher of ethical selfishness. Hobbes was in truth a product of the great
