and that of the Parliament—I thought he was a writer singularly fit to be consulted and cited as a witness of the several events and transactions in those preceding years of King Charles’s reign, which might justly be considered as the causes of the unhappy contest,” &c.
It will be needful, perhaps, to give an explanation of the aged philosopher’s complaint, quoted above (p. viii), as to the ‘foolish title’ prefixed to previous editions of the present work. The fact is that the words, “or the Long Parliament,” now inserted according to the MS., had been left out in those editions, and consequently the meaning of the principal title (viz. Behemoth) failed to be suggested to the reader’s mind; which meaning, as will now be sufficiently evident, implies a relation of contrast to the better known Leviathan, as representing the idea of a lawful government.
- Husum (Schleswig-Holstein),
- March, 1889.
