Of Hobbes as a man, our estimate must be much less favourable. Vain to a ridiculous excess of his talents,―unable to endure contradiction,-contemptuous towards his opponents,-expecting all men to bow implicitly to his decisions, while he himself would listen to none,— pertinacious in adhering to his opinions, even after they had been proved by mathematical demonstration to be incorrect,—an advocate of doctrines in theory which his life denied in practice,—a deserter of his country whenever her troubles began,-a deserter of his sovereign exiled in a foreign land,—in youth, licentious,in manhood, selfish and arrogant,-in old age, morose and obstinate, he presents a lamentable instance of the insufficiency of mere talent to constitute a true philosopher.

As we have already mentioned his principal works, it will be unnecessary to repeat them here. There is no complete edition of them; but the largest collections are the one printed at Amsterdam during his life-time, and one published at London, 1758, in a folio volume, entitled the Moral and Political works of Thomas Hobbes.' Both are now very scarce and valuable. The Leviathan' has been several times reprinted, but not of late years.

John Milton.

BORN A. D. 1608.-died A. D. 1674.

JOHN MILTON, the champion of English liberty, and the glory of English literature, was born in London on the 9th of December, 1608. His ancestry was respectable in descent, and possessed considerable property; but the father of our poet, having displeased his father by embracing the doctrines of the reformation, had been disinherited by him, and compelled to gain his subsistence in the profession of the law, in which, however, he realised such a fortune as enabled him soon to retire from business into the country. The mother of our poet is said by Wood, on the authority of Aubrey, to have been a Bradshaw; but her own grandson, Phillips, in his life of Milton, affirms that she was a Caston, and of Welsh descent. Milton's father had enjoyed the education of a gentleman at Christ-church, Oxford; and that he continued attached to elegant literature throughout his life, is apparent from the beautiful Latin verses in which his son has addressed him. He was

also a capital musician, and a voluminous composer of music. His scientific skill has been praised by Hawkins and Burney, and it would appear that he sometimes composed the words of his madrigals and songs.

Young Milton received his first instruction at the hands of a private tutor. The person selected for this charge was Thomas Young, whom Aubrey contemptuously describes as "a puritan in Essex, who cutt his haire short." That the puritan tutor so conducted himself as to win the respect and affection of his pupil, we have good evidence in the writings of the latter. From the tuition of Mr Young, Milton was re

10 This is very delicately hinted in the Vita Hobbesii, "Etate adhuc intra juventutis terminos constanti (liceat rerum fateri) nec abstemius fuit nec μscoyvvos.”

John Milton

Engraved by S. Freeman!

from a Miniature by Faithorne Anno 1667.

A. Fullarton & Co London & Edinburgh.