relating to the Baths of the Ancients, and the Origine of Springs. When
they had in this manner passed away an hour, they stepped out of the
bath; and, having dried and cloathed themselves, they sate down in
expectation of such a supper as the place afforded; designing to refresh
themselves like the _Deipnosophilæ_, and rather to reason than to drink
profoundly. But in this innocent intention they were interrupted by the
disturbance arising from a little quarrel, in which some of the ruder
people in the house were for a short time engaged. At this Mr. Hobbes
seemed much concerned, though he was at some distance from the persons.”
And why was he concerned, gentlemen? No doubt you fancy, from some
benign and disinterested love of peace and harmony, worthy of an old man
and a philosopher. But listen,--“For a while he was not composed, but
related it once or twice as to himself, with a low and careful tone, how
Sextus Roscius was murthered after supper by the Balneæ Palatinæ. Of
such general extent is that remark of Cicero, in relation to Epicurus
the Atheist, of whom he observed that he of all men dreaded most those
things which he contemned,--Death and the Gods.” Merely because it was
supper-time, and in the neighborhood of a bath, Mr. Hobbes must have the
fate of Sextus Roscius. What logic was there in this, unless to a man
who was always dreaming of murder? Here was Leviathan, no longer afraid
of the daggers of English cavaliers or French clergy, but “frightened
from his propriety” by a row in an alehouse between some honest
clodhoppers of Derbyshire, whom his own gaunt scarecrow of a person,
that belonged to quite another century, would have frightened out of
their wits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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