In hast,
Your very affectionat brother,
William Aubrey.
Keep a copie of Rogers' pedegree[1664].[1665]
These to my honoured freind,
Mr. John Awbrey
present.

viii. Hon. Charles Hatton to William Crooke.

<MS. Aubr. 9, fol. 26. The letter is written by a secretary, the signature C. Hatton being in a different hand. Crooke has endorsed it (fol. 27v) 'Mr. Hatton's letter about Mr. Hobs': to which Aubrey has added 'scil. the lord Hatton's son.' On fol. 27 is a note, probably by Crooke, of the 'tracts' referred to, viz. 'Life[1666], Rheto<ric>[1667], Considerations[1668], Natural Philosophy[1669].'>

[1670]Mr. Crooke,

I thanke you for the perusall of Mr. Hobbs his tracts which wase a civility I did not expect or desire, for I wou'd not have you at any time deliver any booke to any person who comes in my name unless he then payes you for it. I did desire only to know exactly the particular price of each tract bound apart in marble'd leather, guilt on the backe and ribbed, which pray send me by the bearer by whom I returne you your booke.

I have cursorily looked over Mr. Hobbs his life in Latine which I beleeve will be a very vendible booke both here and beyond sea, for ther is noe lover of learning but will have the curiosity to be particularly informed of the life of soe eminent a person. And truly the reading of it wase very satisfactory to me, for in my apprehension it is very well writ, but I cou'd have wish'd the author had more dilated upon some particulars; and because you intimate a designe to publish it in English I shall hint to you that the author of the life in Latine hath either not taken notice of at all, or too slightingly, some things very remarkeable relating to the temper of Mr. Hobbs his mind or to the infirmity of his body, as his extraordinary timorousnes which he himself in his Latine poem doth very ingeniously confess and attributes it to the influence of his mother's dread of the Spanish invasion in 88, she being then with child of him. And I have been informed, I think by your self, that Mr. Hobbs wase for severall yeares before he died soe paralyticall that he wase scarce able to write his name, and that in the absence of his amanuensis not being able to write anything he made scrawls on a piece of paper to remind him of the conceptions of his mind he design'd to have committed to writing. But the author[1671] of his life in Latine only sa<i>th that about 60 yeares of age he wase taken with a trembling in his hands, the forerunner of the palsy; which in my apprehension deserves to be enlarg'd upon, for it is very prodigious that neither the timorousness of his nature from his infancy, nor the decay of his vital heat in the extremity of old age, accompagnied with the palsy to that violence, shou'd not have chill'd the briske fervour and vigour of his mind, which did wonderfully continue to him to his last; which is a subject fit to be discours'd on by a genious equally philosophicall with Mr. Hobbs, wase that now to be hoped for. It is soe considerable to me that I cou'd not refrayne acquainting you that in my apprehension it wase convenient you tooke notice therof in his life you are setting forth in English.

I am, your assured freind,
C. Hatton.
[1672]Mr. Crooke, at the Green Dragon,
nere Temple-bar.

Notes.

[FF] (P. [323].) On fol. 29v of MS. Aubr. 9, Anthony Wood notes:—'Send to Malmsburie to take out of the register the Christian name of Mr. Hobs' father, when Mr. Hobbs was borne, or when his said father was buried.' [On this Aubrey notes:—'As I remember he dyed at Thistleworth; vide the register booke at Thistleworth, where Mr. Hobbes his father lived in obscurity a reader, and there dyed about 1630.'] Wood goes on:—'I remember when I was there' <in 1676, Clark's Wood's Life and Times, ii. 410, 411> 'there were two inscriptions of the Hobs on brass plates; one dyed 1606, quaere. Take out the names of all the Hobs in the register.' Obedient to this advice, Aubrey sent his brother William to Malmesbury: supra, p. [387].

[FG] (P. [323].) In MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 26, Aubrey puts the substance of this paragraph in a neater form:—