<Place and date of his birth.>
Thomas Hobbes, Malmesburiensis, Philosophus, was borne at his father's house in Westport, being that extreme howse that pointes into, or[1249] faces, the Horse-fayre; the farthest howse on the left hand as you goe to Tedbury, leaving the church on your right. To prevent mistakes, and that hereafter may rise no doubt[1250] what house was famous for this famous man's birth; I doe here testifie that in April, 1659, his brother Edmond went with me into this house, and into the chamber where he was borne. Now things begin to be antiquated, and I have heard some guesse it might be at the howse where his brother Edmund lived and dyed. But this is so, as I here[1251] deliver it. This house was given by Thomas, the vicar, to his daughter[XCVII.] ... whose daughter or granddaughter possessed[1252] it, when I was there.[1253]It is a firme house, stone-built and tiled, of one roome (besides[1254] a buttery, or the like, within) below, and two chambers above. 'Twas in the innermost where he first drew breath.
[XCVII.] Quaere William Aubrey if ... Potluck[1255].
The day of his birth was April the fifth, Anno Domini 1588, on a Fryday morning, which that yeare was Good Fryday. His mother fell in labour with him upon the fright of the invasion of the Spaniards—
[[1256]Fama[1257] ferebat enim, sparsitque per oppida nostra
Extremum genti classe venire diem;
Atque metum tantum concepit tunc mea mater
Ut pareret geminos meque metumque simul.]
—[1258]he told me himself between the houres of four and six: but by rectification his nativity is found to be at ...[XCVIII.].
[XCVIII.] See my collection of genitures[FM], where I have it more exact from his owne mouth, viz. 5 h. 2´ mane.
His horoscope[FN] is Taurus, having in it a satellitium of 5 of the 7 planets. It is a maxime in astrologie—vide Ptol. Centil.—that a native that hath a satellitium in his ascendent becomes[1259] more eminent in his life then ordinary[1260], e.g. divers which see in Origanus, etc., and Oliver Cromwell had so, etc.