The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume II.Cibber, Theophilus
History
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume II.
Cibber, Theophilus
Poets, English -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Poets, Irish -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
Some writers of his life maintain, that he had very orthodox notions
concerning the nature of God and of all the moral virtues;
notwithstanding the general notion of his being a downright atheist;
that he was affable, kind, communicative of what he knew, a good
friend, a good relation, charitable to the poor, a lover of justice,
and a despiser of money. This last quality is a favourable
circumstance in his life, for there is no vice at once more despicable
and the source of more base designs than avarice. His warmest votaries
allow, that when he was young he was addicted to the fashionable
libertinism of wine and women, and that he kept himself unmarried lest
wedlock should interrupt him in the study of philosophy.
In the catalogue of his faults, meanness of spirit and cowardice may
be justly imputed to him. Whether he was convinced of the truth of his
philosophy, no man can determine; but it is certain, that he had no
resolution to support and maintain his notions: had his doctrines been
of ever so much consequence to the world, Hobbs would have abjured
them all, rather than have suffered a moment's pain on their account.
Such a man may be admired for his invention, and the planning of new
systems, but the world would never have been much illuminated, if all
the discoverers of truth, like the philosopher of Malmsbury, had had
no spirit to assert it against opposition. In a piece called the Creed
of Mr. Hobbs examined, in a feigned Conference between him and a
Student of Divinity, London 1670, written by Dr. Tenison, afterwards
archbishop of Canterbury, the Dr. charges Mr. Hobbs with affirming,
'that God is a bodily substance, though most refined, and forceth evil
upon the very wills of men; framed a model of government pernicious in
its consequences to all nations; subjected the canon of scripture to
the civil powers, and taught them the way of turning the Alcoran into
the Gospel; declared it lawful, not only to dissemble, but firmly to
renounce faith in Christ, in order to avoid persecution, and even
managed a quarrel against the very elements of Euclid.' Hobbs's
Leviathan met with many answers, immediately after the restoration,
especially one by the earl of Clarendon, in a piece called a Brief
View and Survey of the dangerous and pernicious Errors to Church and
State, in Mr. Hobbs's Book entitled Leviathan, Oxon. 1676. The
university of Oxford condemned his Leviathan, and his Book de Cive, by
a decree passed on the 21st of July 1638, and ordered them to be
publickly burnt, with several other treatises excepted against.
The following is a catalogue of his works, with as full an account of
them as consists with our plan.
He translated into English the History of the Grecian War by
Thucydides, London 1628, and 1676 in fol. and since reprinted in two
volumes in octavo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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