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“Nor can the snow which now cold age does shed Upon thy reverend head, Quench or allay the noble fires within; But all which thou hast been, And all that youth can be, thou’rt yet: So fully still dost thou Enjoy the manhood and the bloom of wit, And all the natural heat, but not the fever too. So contraries on Ætna’s top conspire: Th’ embolden’d snow next to the flame does sleep.— To things immortal time can do no wrong; And that which never is to die, for ever must be young.” |
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“Ipse meos nôsti, Verdusi candide, mores, Et tecum cuncti qui mea scripta legunt: Nam mea vita meis non est incongrua scriptis; Justitiam doceo, Justitiamque colo. Improbus esse potest nemo qui non sit avarus, Nec pulchrum quisquam fecit avarus opus. Octoginta ego jam complevi et quatuor annos; Pene acta est vitæ fabula longa meæ.” |
Hobbes, in his metrical (by no means his poetical) life, says, the more the “Leviathan” was written against, the more it was read; and adds,
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“Firmiùs inde stetit, spero stabitque per omne Ævum, defensus viribus ipse suis. Justitiæ mensura, atque ambitionis elenchus, Regum arx, pax populo, si doceatur, erit.” |
The term arx is here peculiarly fortunate, according to the system of the author—it means a citadel or fortified place on an eminence, to which the people might fly for their common safety.
His works were much read; as appears by “The Court Burlesqued,” a satire attributed to Butler.
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“So those who wear the holy robes That rail so much at Father Hobbs, Because he has exposed of late The nakedness of Church and State; Yet tho’ they do his books condemn, They love to buy and read the same.” |
Our author, so late as in 1750, was still so commanding a genius, that his works were collected in a handsome folio; but that collection is not complete. When he could not get his works printed at home, he published them in Latin, including his mathematical works, at Amsterdam, by Blaew, 1668, 4to. His treatises, “De Cive,” and “On Human Nature,” are of perpetual value. Gassendi recommends these admirable works, and Puffendorff acknowledges the depth of his obligations. The Life of Hobbes in the “Biographia Britannica,” by Dr. Campbell, is a work of curious research.