[1506]I have heard him inveigh much against the crueltie of Moyses for putting so many thousands to the sword for bowing to[1507] ... vide text.
I have heard him say that Aristotle was the worst teacher that ever was, the worst polititian and ethick—a countrey-fellow that could live in the world <would be> as good: but his rhetorique and discourse of animals was rare.
[1508]T. H.'s saying:—rather use an old woman[1509] that had many yeares been at sick people's bedsides, then the learnedst young unpractised physitian.
[1510]☞ I remember he was wont to say that 'old men were drowned inwardly, by their owne moysture; e.g. first, the feet swell; then, the legges; then, the belly; etc.'—This saying may be brought in, perhaps, as to the paragraph of his sicknesse and death.
<From> Elizabeth, viscountesse Purbec. When Mr. T. Hobbes was sick in France, the divines came to him, and tormented him (both Roman Catholic, Church of England, and Geneva). Sayd he to them 'Let me alone, or els I will detect all your cheates from Aaron to yourselves.' I thinke I have heard him speake something to this purpose.
Mr. Edmund Waller sayd to me, when I desired him to write some verses in praise of him, that he was afrayd of the churchmen: he quoted Horace—
Incedo per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso:
that, what was chiefly to be taken notice of in his elogie was that he, being but one, and a private person, pulled-downe all the churches, dispelled the mists of ignorance, and layd-open their priest-craft.
<His writings.>
<Aubrey several times notes his intention of drawing up a list of Hobbes' writings. In MS. Aubr. 9, fol. 53v, is a memorandum 'An exact Catalogue of all the bookes he wrote,' with a mark showing that it was to be brought in before the notice of Hobbes's death, supra, p. [346]. MS. Aubr. 9, fol. 22, is headed 'Catalogus librorum ab autore scriptorum,' and is left blank for their insertion.