I believe, Sir, you have seen a curious kind of perspective, where he that looks through a short hollow pipe upon a picture containing divers figures, sees none of those that are there painted, but some one person made up of their parts, conveyed to the eye by the artificial cutting of a glass. I find in my imagination an effect not unlike it, from your poem. The virtues you distribute there amongst so many noble persons, represent, in the reading, the image but of one man’s virtue to my fancy, which is your own; and that so deeply imprinted, as to stay for ever there, and govern all the rest of my thoughts and affections in the way of honouring and serving you to the utmost of my power, that am, Sir, Your most humble and obedient servant, THOMAS HOBBES. _Paris, Jan. 10, 1650._ ------- LETTER TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDW. HOWARD.[B] TO THE RIGHT HON. MR. EDWARD HOWARD. SIR, My judgment in poetry hath, you know, been once already censured by very good wits, for commending _Gondibert_; but yet they have not, I think, disabled my testimony. For what authority is there in wit? A jester may have it; a man in drink may have it; be fluent over night, and wise and dry in the morning. What is it? Or who can tell whether it be better to have it or be without it, especially if it be a pointed wit? I will take my liberty to praise what I like, as well as they do to reprehend what they do not like. Your poem, Sir, contains a well and judiciously contrived story, full of admirable and heroic actions, set forth in noble and perspicuous language, such as becomes the dignity of the persons you introduce: which two things of themselves are the heighth of poetry. I know that variety of story, true or feigned, is the thing wherewith the reader is entertained most delightfully. And this also to the smallness of the volume is not wanting. Yours is but one small piece; whereas the poets that are with us so much admired, have taken larger subjects. But let an English reader, in Homer or Virgil in English, by whomsoever translated, read one piece by itself, no greater than yours; I may make a question whether he will be less pleased with yours than his. I know you do not equal your poem to either of theirs: the bulk of the work does not distinguish the art of the workman. [The Battle of Mice and Frogs may be owned without disparagement by Homer himself. Yet if Homer had written nothing else, he never had had the reputation of so admirable a poet as he was.][C] Ajax was a man of very great stature, and Teucer a very little person: yet he was brother to Ajax, both in blood and chivalry. I commend your poem for judgment, not for bulk; and am assured it will be welcome to the world with its own confidence;