Hobbes' tr. of Thucydides about the time when he was writing the Battle (see Craik, I. 72).
P. 7, l. 6. In these books is wonderfully instilled, &c. Cf. "books . . . do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them" (Milton, Areopagitica, ed. Hales, p. 5).
P. 7, l. 8. to inform them, to animate them.
Cf."A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay."
(Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel, ll. 156-8.)
P. 7, l. 12. brutum hominis. The origin of this phrase is not known. A well-known Scholastic authority writes, 'It is evidently the expression of one who holds a plurality of formal principles in the essence of man. Thus the brutum hominis I should understand to mean practically anima belluina.' See also Craik's note on the phrase (Craik, p. 421).
P. 8, l. 3. Scotus (1265?-1308), the famous medieval theologian: his chief works are commentaries on the Bible, on Aristotle, and on the Sentences of Lombard. He was hostile to the teaching of Aristotle, but he is mentioned here as his pupil probably because of his use of the Aristotelian logic. Plato had been deposed by the theologians in favour of Aristotle long before the time of Duns Scotus.
P. 9, l. 10. the King's Library, see note on p. lxiv., l. 6..
P. 9, l. 15. the urgent importunity of my friends, &c. Swift is fond of ridiculing this sort of affectation. Cf. S. i. 90, " . . . my said several readings (which perhaps the world may one day see, if I can prevail on any friend to steal a copy, or on certain gentlemen of my admirers to be very
