mother, overpowered by the national excitement at the coming of the Armada, brought him forth prematurely. He mentions this himself to account for a certain constitutional timidity that never left him. He was a precocious child. He graduated at Oxford in 1608; and being almost immediately appointed half tutor, half companion to the son of the first Earl of Devonshire, he spent the next twenty years of his life in ease, travelling on the Continent, and at home forming the acquaintance of the most eminent men of the time, Bacon, Lord Herbert, Ben Jonson, and others. His pupil and patron died in 1628, and in that year he made his first publication, a translation of Thucydides, undertaken to show the evils of popular rule. From 1631 to 1637 he was tutor to the third Earl of Devonshire, a boy; and travelling in that capacity, made the acquaintance of Galileo, Mersenne, and other eminent men, in whose company he had his thoughts turned towards physical science. For eleven years, from 1640 to 1651, he sought shelter in Paris from the apprehended hostility of the Long Parliament, having by this time become known as a political thinker, and was active, as we have said, in the composition of his leading works. In 1651, fearing persecution at Paris in consequence of his obnoxious opinions, he ventured back to England, and lived unmolested with the Devonshire family through the remainder of the Commonwealth, and the first nineteen years of the restored monarchy. Though free from material discomfort, his old age was not a little troubled. He was assailed by swarms of hostile critics for his obnoxious views of human nature and politics, and his works were formally censured by Parliament in 1666. To add to this vexation, he had provoked a quarrel with mathematicians, Dr Wallis and others, maintaining that he had discovered the quadrature of the circle, and defying the whole race of geometers and natural philosophers with acrimonious contempt. In extreme old age he "wrote in Latin metre a history of the Romish Church and an autobiography; and in his eighty-sixth year, amid other occupations, translated the Odyssey' and 'Iliad' into vigorous, if not elegant, English verse. After his death was published his last work, entitled 'Behemoth; or a History of the Civil Wars from 1640 to 1660.' The merits ascribed to his style are brevity, simplicity, and precision. These merits are sometimes extravagantly overrated. Sir James Mackintosh says:— "A permanent foundation of his fame remains in his admirable style, which seems to be the very perfection of didactic language. Short, clear, precise, pithy, his language never has more than one meaning, which it never requires a second thought to take. By the help of his exact method, it takes so firm a hold on the mind that it will not allow attention to slacken." This is mere reckless hyperbole. The words put in italics describe an ideal that every expositor should try to attain, but which no expositor can hope to reach. Undoubtedly Hobbes took great pains to be simple and precise. He makes an effort to express himself in familiar words, explains his general positions by examples, and his order of exposition is such as can be easily followed. Having a deep sense of the evils of ambiguous language, he is careful to define his terms. Further, he has great powers. of terse and vigorous statement, his figures are studied and apt, and his didactic strain is enlivened by ingenious and occasionally sarcastic point. Yet he is far from being a perfect expositor, as he is by no means always a consistent thinker. When he enters upon details, he is often perplexed, does not keep his main subject prominent, and introduces statements out of their proper order. There are passages in his works that Sir James could not have taken up at first sight without a superhuman quickness of apprehension. The truth is, that Hobbes owes his reputation for simplicity and clearness in a very large measure to the simplicity of his leading ideas. The plain language and exact method would not have made the style so famous had not the matter been simple to the degree of slurring over difficulties. Both upon mind and upon politics he superinduces simple and plausible theories, assembles the facts that support them, and says nothing about the facts that they do not explain. That there is an external world and a mental experience; that thought consists merely in a continuance of movements communicated to the organs of sense by the external world; that man's motives are originally selfish; that the aboriginal men lived in war and anarchy; that government arose when they came to an understanding, and entered into a contract to observe certain rules; that these rules constitute right, and must at all risks be obeyed, such doctrines are simple, immediately and clearly intelligible, but their simplicity is gained by glossing over the complicacy of the actual problems. Not that Hobbes had any conscious desire to skip over difficulties. The inaccurate simplicity of his doctrines is to be attributed to his strong feeling of the vagueness of previous speculations, his endeavour to attain greater certainty by applying the method of mathematics, and his failure to verify his results by an appeal to actual life. Along with Hobbes may be mentioned, as a political speculator, James Harrington (1611-1677), author of Oceana' (published 1656), an ideal republic. In his review of the literature of the period, Hume has the following: "Harrington's 'Oceana' was well adapted to that age, when the plans of imaginary republics were the daily subjects of debate and conversation; and even in our time it is justly admired as a work of genius and invention. The style of this author wants ease and fluency, but the good matter which his work contains makes compensation." Another republican, a more fiery man of action than Harrington, was Algernon Sidney (1622-1683), author of a 'Discourse on Government.' Sidney inherited headstrong blood from both parents. His father was Robert, Earl of Leicester, and his mother a daughter of Percy, Earl of Northumberland. He was a most determined foe to monarchy; engaged vehemently on the side of the Parliament, refused to take office under the usurpation of Cromwell, and fled to the Continent at the Restoration, refusing the mediation of his friends with the restored monarch. Obtaining permission to return in 1677, he threw himself into the opposition to the Government, and in his furious zeal for the accomplishment of his aims, engaged, if the papers of the French Ambassador are to be trusted, in unscrupulous intrigues with France. In 1683 he was condemned, on very partial evidence, upon the charge of conspiring to assassinate the King, and was executed on Tower-hill. He is regarded as a martyr to republican principles. His 'Discourse' was first published in 1698. Marchmont Needham (1620-1678) is the chief representative of journalism in this generation. Public events favoured the growth of newspapers: the Thirty Years' War on the Continent was not concluded when topics of more powerful interest arose at home with the outbreak of the Civil War. Many sheets, with every variety of piquant title, started into existence to meet the public thirst for intelligence. On the 1st of January 1642 the Mercurius Aulicus' was issued from Oxford, avowedly as the organ of the King's party. It was edited by one Birkenhead, then a Fellow of All-Souls, and for a short time Professor of Moral Philosophy. He was appointed licenser of the press after the Restoration. In 1643, Needham, another Oxonian, appeared with an opposition "Mercury," entitled Mercurius Britannicus.' His paper was exceedingly popular; but the Puritans were stern censors of the press, and the gay and restless Needham, after serving them for four years, went over to the King, and turned his wit against his former masters. He stood by the King to the last, and was imprisoned and condemned to death; but being offered his life by the Independents upon condition of giving them his services against the Presbyterians, he accepted the offer, and remained "Parliamentary intelligencer" until the Restoration. Both Birkenhead and Needham are abused for raillery, buffoonery, and want of principle; but facts do not show them to have differed much from their contemporaries, except in a clever faculty of gaining the popular ear. Needham's changes of party are explicable without the supposition that he was worse than other men. He seems to have been a gay, versatile creature, and is mentioned by Anthony à Wood as possessing considerable humour and convivial qualities. 1 Cornhill Magazine, July 1868. 312 CHAPTER V. FROM 1670 TO 1700. SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, 1628-1699. DIPLOMATIST, statesman, and miscellaneous writer, one of the most remarkable men under the reign of Charles II. Swift, not given to over-praising, said: "It is generally believed that this author has advanced our English tongue to as great a perfection as it can well bear." And Johnson is reported to have laid down in conversation that "Sir William Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose. Before this time they were careless of arrangement, and did not mind whether a sentence ended with an important word or an insignificant word, or with what part of speech it was concluded." Spoken in the hurry of conversation, this dictum asserts several merits. Usually the first part is quoted and the second passed over, although the second is the higher compliment. Better general method and greater attention to details of expression, are more valuable improvements than superior regularity of cadence. To the family of Temple belong some of the most eminent names in our political history. The late Lord Palmerston was descended from a brother of Sir William's. In last century three Privy Councillors-Sir Richard Temple, Baron Cobham ; Earl Temple; and Lord Grenville-came from another branch of the same family. "There were times," says Macaulay, "when the cousinhood, as it was once nicknamed, would of itself have furnished almost all the materials necessary for the construction of an efficient Cabinet." The lineal descendants of Sir William himself ended with the third generation. The family has been continued chiefly through the female line. Our author's ancestors did not rise to the highest offices of state, yet they were men of considerable mark. It is interesting to know that his grandfather was the chosen companion of Sir Philip Sidney during the Flemish war, and was present at that hero's untimely death. His father was made Master of the Rolls of Ireland by Charles I., and retained the office, with a short interval, throughout the Commonwealth, dying in 1677, of the same age as the century. Sir William was born in London. His tutor at Cambridge, where he resided two years, was the learned Cudworth. From 1648 to 1654 he travelled on the Continent, making himself master of French and Spanish. His first public employment was as a member of the Irish Convention in 1660: there he gained distinction by taking the lead against an exorbitant tax proposed by the new and popular Government. In 1665 began his career as a diplomatist. In that year he displayed such address as envoy to the Bishop of Munster that he was appointed Resident at the vice-regal Spanish Court of Brussels. In 1668 he accomplished with unparalleled speed the famous negotiation usually coupled with his name, the Triple Alliance between England, Holland, and Sweden. Immediately after this he was made Ambassador at the Hague, and completed the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. In 1670, in consequence of the King's dishonest intrigues with France, he was recalled, and spent three years in retirement at Sheen. In 1673 he concluded the peace that followed upon Charles's second war with Holland; and, declining an offer of the embassy to Spain, and also the Secretaryship of State, was again, in June 1674, appointed Ambassador at the Hague. He had the credit of bringing about during that embassy the marriage between William of Orange and the Princess Mary. In 1678 he represented England in an endeavour to settle the complicated relations of Continental powers; but his efforts to uphold the dignity of our Government as an arbitrating power were baffled by the distractingly crooked policy of the King and his Ministers. He maintained his integrity by refusing to sign the Treaty of Nimeguen. In 1679 he was summoned from Holland to take office as Secretary of State, but ingeniously contrived to evade the hazardous dignity. His only other public service was the plan of a Privy Council of thirty to renew the confidence of the nation in King Charles. When this scheme worked ill from the multiplicity of intrigue at the Court, he retired altogether from public business. He was frequently consulted during his retirement by Charles II., James II., and William; but nothing could induce him to resume office. No man, he said, should be in public business after fifty; and ten years before this |