Hobbes was a decided Episcopalian. He studied in all matters to conform both to the doctrines and the ceremonies of the church established; and avoided, even with a feeling of dislike, the conventicles of the Puritans. Still less did he incline, on the other hand, to the Roman Catholic faith. During a dangerous illness, which he suffered with great firmness at Paris, when he was supposed to be on the point of death, an intimate friend, named Mersenne, a learned Franciscan, approached him with spiritual consolation, and pressed him to depart in communion with the Roman church. Hobbes calmly replied, “Father, I have long ago considered all those matters well, and it would trouble me to reconsider them now. You can entertain me on some more agreeable subject. When did you see Gassendi?”

Yet neither his unmoved adhesion to Protestantism, nor even his affection for episcopal government, could disarm the wrath of the theologians, who continued to wage an unsparing warfare against him, and to inflict on his reputation, and even on his fortunes, such mischief as they were able. On the other hand, his singular qualities and talents failed not to procure him many powerful protectors; and he stood so balanced (says his biographer) between his friends and his enemies, that the former were just strong enough to prevent his destruction, the latter to obstruct his advancement. So that he continued, with a mighty reputation and a slender fortune, to remain, even to the end of his days, under the same noble patronage, under which his first distinctions had been acquired.

But in this comparative obscurity he was consoled by the society of the learned, the courtesy of the great, and the admiration of almost all men. Among his personal friends or acquaintances were numbered Francis Bacon of Verulam, Ben Jonson (who is said to have revised his Translation of Thucydides), the astronomer Galileo, the antiquarian Selden, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Harvey, physician to Charles I., Des Cartes, Gassendi; and his praises were celebrated by the contemporary muse of Cowley. He was sought by distinguished foreigners who visited England, even nobles and ambassadors; especially by Cosmo de’ Medici, then Prince, afterwards Duke of Tuscany, who offered him ample proofs of his esteem; and there were many among his own compatriots who received his opinions with respect, if not with favour.

During the long period of his declining life, Hobbes is related to have pursued with most assiduity his studies in natural philosophy; but the publications of his old age (if we except the Decameron Physiologicum, published in 1676) rather indicate a return to his earliest tastes, which inclined, we are told, to history and poetry. At the age of about 80, he wrote, in English, the Behemoth, or History of the Civil Wars between Charles and the Parliament; besides a long Latin poem on the origin and increase of the pontifical power. At about 86, he translated the Odyssey into English verse, and the Iliad at 87: and he persevered for the four following years, which were his last, in the same peaceful course of literary recreation. A list of his works, forty-two in number, is given in Chalmers’ ‘Biographical Dictionary:’ the great majority of them are forgotten.

He died towards the end of the year 1679, and was buried at Hault-Bucknall, close by the grave of his faithful patroness, the Countess of Devonshire. Respecting his personal character and conversation it is recorded, that he was agreeable and courteous in his familiar intercourse with all, those alone excepted who approached him for the mere purpose of disputation: and these he treated with more severity than was necessary. Above all things, he detested theological controversy, and always strove to turn his hearers away from it to the exercise of piety and the practice of Christian morality. His favourite authors were Homer, Virgil, Thucydides, and Euclid: but his reading was not extensive; as he thought the careful meditation on a few good works more profitable to the understanding than a more abundant draught of indiscriminate learning; and was fond of saying upon this subject, that if he read as much as others he should be as ignorant as they were. He persisted in a life of celibacy, that he might be able to pursue his studies with the less interruption. In his disposition he was generous and charitable; but his means were scanty: for even at the end of his life he had little else but two small pensions, the one from the family of Devon, the other from the king.

RAPHAEL.

Raffaello Sanzio, the greatest of painters, was born in 1483 at Urbino, where the house in which he passed the first years of his life is still preserved, consecrated by a suitable inscription. His first teacher was his father, Giovanni Sanzio, a painter who, allowing for the technical imperfections of the time, was perhaps entitled to more praise than Vasari has awarded him; the evidence of the remaining works of this master has indeed led his recent biographer, Pungileoni, to conclude that he was in many essential points equal to the best of his contemporaries, and that his feeling for expression may have had no unimportant influence on the genius he was destined to instruct. An interesting altar-piece by the elder Sanzio still exists at Urbino, in the church of S. Francesco, representing the Madonna with St. Francis and other saints: the members of the painter’s family are introduced, and among them the infant Raphael kneels by his mother’s side.

Engraved by J. Thomson.
RAFFAELLE.
From a Miniature copy of the original Picture in the Gallery at Florence. In the Possession of the Revd. Horace Cholmondeley Kingston House, Dorchester.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.