Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/496

NOTES. 483 Now (1) Wallis had no wrath then to reserve ; (2) it was not he that then (or earlier) first impeached Hobbes's loyalty, but Hobbes that began by insinuations against his ; (3) Hobbes, and not he, reopened the mathe- matical feud ; (4) it was reopened on quite other grounds than any question of loyalty upon either side ; (5) Hobbes never attacked Wallis under the name of H. Stubbe, or other assumed patronymics ; (6) H. Stubbe's actual intervention (does the Reviewer not know who Stubbe was 1} in the Hobbes- Wallis controversy happened three years before the Restoration. These in themselves are no great matters ; but if the Reviewer was to mention them, what need for such stress of invention? The real facts, compendiously stated for his convenience in the little book before him, might have served his turn. Your readers have now had a surfeit of errors ; but I would fain, before closing, take this opportunity of correcting one that stands in the book. On p. 213,n., C. Blount's broadside, The Last Sayings, &c., is de- scribed as issued ' with hostile intent 3 on Hobbes's death. I could explain, but can in no way excuse the ' hostile '. At most Blount was joking. G. GROOM ROBERTSON. So far the letter, which (after three weeks) remains without answer as was perhaps to be expected. Here it might not be out of place to add some not less wonderful specimens of the Reviewer's philosophical manner ; but, though this could be done to any length, it is not worth while. I will only remark that men like Grote, Mill and Austin might at this time of day have been spared such poor detraction as this anonymous writer has been allowed by the Editor of the Quarterly to attempt in their regard. Occasion may, however, be taken to add, from another source, some matters of philosophical interest. In a detailed criticism of the little volume on Hobbes, which Dr. F. Tonnies has recently written in the Philo- sophische Monatshefte (xxiii. 5, pp. 287-306), out of the fulness of his know- ledge, there is much to be learnt concerning the philosopher, if also something to be queried. I do not read the passage in the Vitae Auctariwm, which he refers to at p. 290, as carrying back the composition of the * little treatise ' to 1637, nor am as much inclined as he is to rely upon that authority if it did ; but on the subject of Hobbes's relation to Bacon, so commonly misunderstood, he has been the first to draw attention (pp. 293- 5, n.) to some passages of great interest in Thomas Sprat's Observations on M. de Sorbiere's Voyage to England writtten to Dr. Wren (1665). Says Sprat (from p. 228) : " He [Sorbiere] commends him [Hobbes] indeed for that upon which Mr. Hobbes lays not so much stress, for his good breeding ; but he wounds him in the most dangerous place, his philosophy and his under- standing. He very kindly reports of him that he is too dogmatical in his opinions, &c. . . . But, however, to comfort Mr. Hobbes for this affront, I dare assure him that, as for M. de Sorbiere's part, he understands not his philosophy. Of this I will give an unanswerable testimony, and that is the resemblance that he makes of him to the Lord Verulam, between whom there is no more likeness than there was between St. George and the Waggoner. He says that Mr. Hobbes was once his amanuensis, that from thence he has retained very much of him. . . . This, sir, is his opinion : but how far from being true, let any man j udge that has but tasted of their writings. I scarce know two men in the world that have more different colours of speech than these two great wits. The Lord Bacon short, allu- sive and abounding with metaphors. Mr. Hobbes round, close, sparing of similitudes, but ever extraordinary decent in them. The one's way of reasoning proceeds on particulars and pleasant images, only suggesting new ways of experimenting, without any pretence to the mathematics. The