~ 
£04 
against the protestants, having previously 
taking the clerical habit. 
Of his Journey into Engiand, in Com- 
pany witha few Friends, more will be 
said presently. His works of minor in- 
terest were numerous, and more various 
in their subjects than might be at first 
supposed. 
He died, April 9th, 1670, leaving se- 
veral manuscripts ready for the press be- 
hind him. Serberiana, a Medley of Jests, 
flistorical Facts and Remarks, (in imita- 
tion of several pieces which had before 
appeared under the names of Sealiger, 
Cardinal Perron, and Thuanus,) were 
published by his son after his death, 
The Journe ey to England, is given in 
the form of a Ictter. M. Sorbiere, hav- 
ing left Paris, “in the company of some 
very good humoured gentlemen of the 
Polish nation, who spoke Latin very well, 
and explained themselves inditferently 
wellin French,” arrived at Calais, just in 
time to accompany Madame de Fienne, 
in her passage to Dover; 
Duke of York, afterwards (Jaines If.) 
had sent a vessel. Having reached 
Gravesend, by the way of Canterbury, 
and Rochester, be took the boat, (he 
says,) and the opportunity of the tide, for 
the greater expedition to gv to London. 
“The houses in London, (says M. 
Sorbiere, p. 13,) are not so high as those 
in Paris, nor so full of people, being not 
so commodisus for letting lodsi ings: there” 
is scarce above one family in a house, 
unless it he about the New Exchange, 
and the Court, where there are a great 
many lodgers, and rooms furnished, and 
lett at reasonable rates, and a crowna 
week will serve very well. I tad one at 
that price, one pair of stairs, near Salis- 
bury-house, for I was very desirous to be 
frequently with Mr. Hobbs, 
with the Earl of Devonshire, his patron, 
of whose admirable qualifications I have 
many things to say to you.” 
ft page 35, we have a long and in- 
teresting account of the early meetings 
of the Royal § Society, after 1t had been 
established under the protection of King 
Charles II. at Gresham College. 
Speaking of a model of a floor, made 
by Dr. Wail, the celebrated mathema- 
tician, he observes to his friend, “ I wiil 
shew vou a cut of it, and you cannot Pee 
admire the invention: and indeed, 7 made 
Mr. Hobbs himself even admire it, 
aera he is at no gocd terms nat Dr. 
Wallis, and has no reason to love him. 
For I must tell you, by the by, that the 
Doctor has not used him weil; seeing 
1 
Scarce Tracts, Ke. 
for whom the. 
who lived . 
[Dece I, 
after he had, pursuant to the way of 
learned men, who’ make themselves ris 
diculous to courtiers, by their contro= 
versies and malignity, endeavoured to 
refute Mr.’ Hobbs’s ‘Mathematicks, he 
feli upon his scheme of —politicks, and 
pushed the matter so far, as to make him 
a bad subjects. which very much pro- 
voked the good eld man, who, in the 
beginning of the civil war, had suffered 
fur the Royal cause, and never wrote any 
thing, either upon that occasion, or con- 
cerning any public affairs, but what 
might bear a favourable interpretation. 
And indeed, the king was so far from 
_ Jaying any stress upon Dr, Wallis’s ar= 
guments, that to solace the old gentle- 
man, he gave him a yearly pension of a 
hundred jacobus’s.. His Majesty shewed 
me a copper cut of his picture, i his 
closet of natura!,.and mechanical curi- 
osities; and asked me, If I knew the 
face? and what opinion I had of him? 
T told him what I thought best and most 
proper; and it is agreed on ali hands, 
that if Mr. Hobbs were not so. very dog- 
matical, he would. be very useful and 
necessary to the Royal Society; for 
there are few peoplethat ean see farther_ 
into things than he, or have applied 
themselves so long to the study of Na- 
tural Philosophy : “he is upon the matter, - 
the very remains of Bacon, to whum he 
was amanuensis in his youth; and by 
what I could hear of bim, or observe by 
his sale, he hath-retained very much of 
him 3 he has studied his manner of turne 
ing things, and readily runs his discourse 
iito allegory; but he has naturally mach 
of his good humour, and agreeable mien. 
“J know not how it comes to pass, the 
clergy are afraid of him, and sv are the 
Oxford mathematicians, and their ad- 
herents; wherefore his Majesty was 
pleased to make a very good comparison, 
when he told me he was like a bear, 
whom they vaited with dogs to try him, 
He has in his grounds of politics, un- 
doubtedly, very much obliged crowned 
heads; And if he had fallen upon points 
of religion, or contented himself to write 
against the presbyterians, and the pre- 
tended bishops of his country, I should 
have no room to find any fault with 
him. But his philosophy having had its 
birth and -education in Heresie, he isa 
stranger to just principles, in this re- 
Spect and has not as right an idea, as he ” 
ought to have of the Hierarchy. He 
has no knowledge of the catholick 
church, but what he had learnt from 
protestant books of controversie, which’ 
entertained 
