'He drives on, in this, the king's prerogative high. Judge <Sir Matthew> Hales, who is no great courtier, has read it and much mislikes it, and is his enemy. Judge Vaughan has read it and much commends it.'
[FV] (P. [355].) Note, however, that on some of the letters from Hobbes in MS. Aubr. 9, viz., those of date March 25, 1679 (fol. 11v, fol. 13v), and that of date Aug. 18, 1679 (fol. 15v), the seal shows a gate or portcullis, with an R turned backwards, i.e. Я, on the left side of it.
James Wheldon's letter of Jan. 16, 1679/80 (fol. 17v), has a seal bearing a man's bust, with helmet and cuirass.
[FW] (P. [357].) In MS. Aubr. 21, p. 19, Aubrey, in his projected comedy, makes use of this verdict on the innate cruelty of some dispositions. He puts into the mouth of his country-justice this speech:—
"If ye talke of skinnes, the best judgment to be made of the fineness of skinnes is at the whipping-post by the stripes. Ah! 'tis the best lechery to see 'em suffer correction. Your London aldermen take great lechery to see the poor wretches whipt at the court at Bridewell."
On which Aubrey goes on to comment: 'Old Justice Hooke gave ... per lash to wenches; as also my old friend George Pott, esq. Vide Animadversions Philosophicall on that ugly kind of pleasure and of crueltie—were it not for the law there were no living; some would take delight in killing of men.'
[FX] (P. [375].) The substance is:—
'Hobbes brought to the investigation of facts an acute intellect and long experience, and carried on, into the next generation, the Baconian spirit.
'He had been Bacon's secretary, and owed much to his master, from whom, in particular, he borrowed his comparative, i.e. inductive, methods. But he had also fine natural gifts.
'He excited the fears, and therefore the hostility, of the clerical party in England, and of the Oxford mathematicians and their supporters. For this reason, Charles II compared him to a bear, worried by mastiffs.