Hobbes did not exaggerate the truth. Aubrey says of Cooper’s portrait of Hobbes, that “he intends to borrow the picture of his majesty, for Mr. Loggan to engrave an accurate piece by, which will sell well at home and abroad.” We have only the rare print of Hobbes by Faithorne, prefixed to a quarto edition of his Latin Life, 1682, remarkable for its expression and character. Sorbiere, returning from England, brought home a portrait of the sage, which he placed in his collection; and strangers, far and near, came to look on the physiognomy of a great and original thinker. One of the honours which men of genius receive is the homage the public pay to their images: either, like the fat monk, one of the heroes of the Epistolæ obscurorum Virorum, who, standing before a portrait of Erasmus, spit on it in utter malice; or when they are looked on in silent reverence. It is alike a tribute paid to the masters of intellect. They have had their shrines and pilgrimages.
None of our authors have been better known, nor more highly considered, than our Hobbes, abroad. I find many curious particulars of him and his conversations recorded in French works, which are not known to the English biographers or critics. His residence at Paris occasioned this. See Ancillon’s Mélange Critique, Basle, 1698; Patin’s Letters, 61; Sorberiana; Niceron, tome iv.; Joly’s Additions to Bayle.—All these contain original notices on Hobbes.
To his Life are additions, which nothing but the self-love of the author could have imagined.
“Amicorum Elenchus.”—He might be proud of the list of foreigners and natives.
“Tractuum contra Hobbium editorum Syllabus.”
“Eorum qui in Scriptis suis Hobbio contradixerunt Indiculus.”
“Qui Hobbii meminerunt seu in bonam seu in sequiorem partem.”
“In Hobbii Defensionem.”—Hobbes died 1679, aged 91. These two editions are, 1681, 1682.