[FE] Aubrey was most anxious to have these verses inserted, three times directing Anthony Wood to do so. MS. Aubr. 8, a slip at fol. 4:—'Past on Nicholas Hill, in his proper place in part 1st' <i.e. MS. Aubr. 6>, but no copy of the verses is there given. MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 7:—'Insert B. Johnson's verses of Nicholas Hill.' MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 351v: 13 Jan. 1680/1:—'B. Johnson speakes of N. Hill in his "Voyage to Holbourne from Puddle-dock in a ferry boate.
A dock there is ... called Avernus
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . concern us."'
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).
<This, the most elaborate of these 'Brief Lives,' occupies by itself MS. Aubr. 9. For the letters introductory to it, see supra, pp. [17]-20.
The various papers of which the MS. is composed are bound up confusedly, and the separate notes are in some cases entered on a page, or a page and its opposite, in no order. Considerable re-arrangement has therefore been necessary; but the exact MS. references have been given throughout. Some few notes relating to Hobbes, found in other Aubrey MSS., have here been brought into their natural place.>
[1205]The Life of Mr. Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesburie[1206].
<Introduction.>
The writers[1207] of the lives of the ancient philosophers used to, in the first place, to speake of their lineage[1208]; and they tell us that in processe of time severall great[1209] families accounted it their glory to be branched[1210] from such or such a Sapiens.