Thomas Hobbes

Hobbes's Manuscuscripts and the Devonshire Collection

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury — eminent philosopher, once commonly regarded as the most dangerous political thinker since Machiavelli — has left behind a number of manuscripts of his major works, as well as a body of miscellaneous manuscript writings and letters which provide yet further witness to his thinking. The principal collection of his papers is owned by the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth House, the main seat of the Cavendish family in whose service Hobbes spent the greater part of his life, notably as tutor and secretary to William Cavendish (1590-1628), second Earl of Devonshire, and to his son William (1617-84), third Earl of Devonshire. The Devonshire Collections include, inter alia, an autograph early draft of De Corpore (*HbT 14), the author's corrected or revised scribal manuscripts of The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (*HbT 20) and of the verse Vita (*HbT 7), his signed presentation copy of De Cive (*HbT 18), and the autograph translation of the political pamphlet Altera secretissima instructio recently discovered by Noel Malcolm (*HbT 55).

Some notable manuscripts of works by Hobbes which were evidently once associated with the Cavendish family passed later into the collections of Robert Harley and are now in the British Library. They include yet another scribal copy of The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic with Hobbes's revisions (*HbT 19). Manuscripts of works by Hobbes dispersed through other channels include his corrected scribal copy of Behemoth, now at St John's College, Oxford (*HbT 8), and — most notable of all — the author's corrected scribal copy on vellum of Leviathan, possibly the manuscript presented to Prince Charles (later Charles II), which is now also in the British Library (*HbT 32).

These authorial manuscripts of Hobbes's established works are supplemented in the entries below by a number of extant scribal copies, many of which were prepared at Hobbes's direction by his amanuenses or which plainly derive from copies which he allowed to be put into circulation some years before the texts were published. Yet other works found in manuscript sources were either not published until after his death or else, in many cases, remain unpublished.

Although various bibliographies and checklists of Hobbes's works have been produced — notably Macdonald & Hargreaves (1952) — there is no comprehensive published catalogue of all his manuscript remains. Neither can the present survey make any claim to comprehensiveness; but rather the following principles of selection and categorization have been applied. Entries are given below, in the Prose section (HbT 8-35), to known manuscripts of works published up to three years after Hobbes's death, which occurred on 3 December 1679. They include two works printed posthumously by Hobbes's authorized publisher William Crook, An Historical Narration concerning Heresy (1680: HbT 29-31) and Seven Philosophical Problems (1682: HbT 34-35). Hobbes's few but occasionally notable works in verse, both published and unpublished, have been separately classified (HbT 1-7).

The greater number of his surviving papers have then been relegated to the section ‘Posthumously Published Works and Miscellaneous Papers Probably Written or Used by Hobbes’ (HbT 36-93). They include his major Latin treatise on Thomas White's De mundo, which was discovered in a manuscript owned by Hobbes's friend Marin Mersenne and first published in 1973 (HbT 36), and such partly autograph writings as A Minute or first Draught of the Optiques (*HbT 40), Tractatus opticus (HbT 42) and A Short Tract on First Principles (HbT 43), as well as manuscripts of various other writings on philosophical, scientific, mathematical, legal and linguistic subjects. They also include, somewhat promiscuously grouped together, not only original major treatises by Hobbes which remained unpublished at the time of his death but also a mass of miscellaneous papers, notes and fragments, many of them original compositions, many others constituting his copies of other people's writings, and yet others associated with him by virtue of his role as tutor in the Cavendish household. Most of these papers (which are largely untitled and have been supplied with titles for present purposes) are likely to remain of relevance to Hobbes studies and in certain instances the question of authorship remains controversial.

So indeed does the identity of some of the hands encountered here. A particularly important amanuensis of Hobbes, whose hand is very similar to Hobbes's and has sometimes been misidentified as his, has now been identified as Robert Payne (1595-1651), a member of the Cavendish household, a close friend of Hobbes, and a natural philosopher and mathematician in his own right: see notably Timothy Raylor's articles ‘Hobbes, Payne, and A Short Tract on First Principles’, The Historical Journal, 33 (2001), 29-58, and Noel Malcolm, Aspects of Hobbes (Oxford, 2002), chapter 4, ‘Robert Payne, the Hobbes Manuscripts, and the “Short Tract”’ (pp. 80-145). Another amanuensis, who took over from Payne following his death, is James Wheldon, about whom less is known. Yet another accomplished amanuensis, who copied works for Hobbes during his years in Paris — including the celerated manuscript of Leviathan (*HbT 32) — remains unidentified and is now known as the ‘Parisian scribe’: see Timothy Raylor, ‘The Date and Script of Hobbes's Latin Optical Manuscript’, English Manuscript Studies, 12 (2005), 201-9, and Noel Malcolm, ‘Hobbes, the Latin Optical Manuscript, and the Parisian Scribe’, in the same publication, pp. 210-32.

It may be noted that the majority of entries relating to manuscripts at Chatsworth are indebted to some extent to the unpublished typescript catalogue of the Hobbes Papers prepared in the 1930s by Francis Thompson and Arthur T. Shillinglaw. The Hobbes Papers at Chatsworth are classified by their first letters as follows: (A) ‘Treatises and other systematic writings by Hobbes in finished form’ [most of these are given separate entries in the main Verse and Prose sections]; (B) ‘Treatises and other systematic writings collected by Hobbes or transcribed for him, but not by him’; (C) ‘Mathematical notes and fragments by Hobbes, mostly in his own hand’; (D) ‘manuscripts connected with Hobbes in relation to the Cavendish family’; (E) ‘Personal memoranda’; (F) ‘manuscripts found among Hobbes's papers and having some undefined connection with him’; and (G) ‘manuscripts found among his papers, but obviously not connected with him personally’.

Manuscript Copies

As is evident from the entries below, certain of Hobbes's principal works had some degree of circulation outside the Cavendish family. There are widely dispersed contemporary copies of, particularly, Behemoth or the Long Parliament (HbT 9-13), and of The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (HbT 23-28, in addition to the Cavendish-related manuscripts HbT 19-22). Copies of the latter work seem to have proliferated among booksellers in the nineteenth century, although of course it may be that it was only one or two copies that were sold repeatedly. Manuscript copies, which may or may not relate to those given entries below, were offered, for instance, at Puttick & Simpson's, 17 January 1858, lot 1101; at Sotheby's, 31 March 1859, lot 494; in Kerslake's sale catalogues [for May 1859], item 15, and for February 1860, item 231; at Puttick & Simpson's, 10 July 1861, lot 711, to Jones; in J. E. Cornish's catalogue for [1890], item 304; and at Sotheby's, 13 July 1896 (William Bowen sale), lot 271, and 8 March 1897 (B. R. Heaton sale), lot 818. It is also likely that what was offered on occasions as the ‘Original manuscript of the Leviathan’ was also, in fact, The Elements of Law: notably in William Pickering's sale catalogues for February 1829, item 8, and for 1834, item 21, and which was sold at Sotheby's, 12 December 1854 (Pickering sale), lot 83, to Westell.

Letters

Of Hobbes's personal, and no doubt voluminous, correspondence, the texts — or partial texts — of some 73 of his letters have survived, some 42 of them in the originals. Of the latter, 26 are entirely autograph. It is known, however, that for about the last thirty years of his life (from ‘before the year 1650’) Hobbes suffered from increasingly severe ‘palsey in his hands’, eventually becoming ‘soe paralyticall that he wase scarce able to write his name’. His chief amanuensis in those years was James Wheldon who, for instance, was responsible for a number of the scribal manuscripts recorded in the entries below and who wrote letters about Hobbes's death, about his will, and about the dispersal of his papers, now in the Bodleian (see MS Aubrey 9, ff. 16r-25r, and Clark, I, 381-6, as well as a related account by Charles Hatton on p. 390). Further information about the progress of Hobbes's palsy is provided by various other sources, including letters written to Hobbes by François du Verdus and François Pelleau, who remarked, on 30 October and 1 November 1656 respectively, on the fact that Hobbes had started writing to them in the hand of an amanuensis (Letters Nos. 26 and 27 in the collection of ‘Letters from foreign correspondents’ in the Hobbes papers at Chatsworth).

An extensive (but far from complete) provisional listing of letters by and to Hobbes was provided by E. G. Jacoby in Tönnies, Studien, pp. 363-75. This includes many letters by Hobbes known only from references by correspondents, as well as many of the scores of letters received by Hobbes (preserved at Chatsworth, in the British Library, Boldleian and elsewhere), to which may be added Hobbes's various dedicatory epistles to his formal works, as well as his formal answer to Davenant's Preface to Gondibert on 10 January 1649/50 (HbT 7.8).

Jacoby's once useful list, as well as that given in IELM, ii.i (1987), pp. 569-72, has now been superseded by Noel Malcolm's comprehensive edition of The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes (1994), which includes full texts of both Hobbes's own letters and of those sent to him by correspondents. For reference purposes, the known letters by Hobbes himself that survive in his originals or contemporary copies (including a few not recorded in Malcolm) are all given entries below (HbT 94-173).

Presentation Exempla of Hobbes's Printed Works

A printed exemplum of Elementorum philosophiae sectio tertio de cive (Paris, 1642) presented by Hobbes to his friend Sir Kenelm Digby, who was involved in its printing, is preserved at the Bibliothèque des Universités de Paris à la Sorbonne (R. III. 15) and is discussed in E. Chatelain, ‘Quelques épaves de la Bibliothèque de K. Digby’, Revue des Bibliothèques, 1, No. 2 (May 1891). The leaf containing Hobbes's autograph inscription has, however, ‘disappeared in a recent rebinding’ (Warrender, De Cive: Latin, p. 6n).

Another known presentation volume is an exemplum of Examinatio & emendatio mathematicae hodiernae (London, 1660) inscribed by Hobbes to his ‘noble friend’ John Aubrey. This is preserved at Worcester College, Oxford, and is recorded in Macdonald & Hargreaves, p. xvi.

The presentation volumes of Hobbes's Opera philosophica (3 vols bound in 2, Amsterdam, 1668) which he sent to Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in February 1672/3 (see Malcolm, Correpondence, Letter 193) are now preserved in the library of Hertford College, Oxford ((B) C. 1. 13, 14).

Hobbes's Library

Hobbes's library at Hardwick Hall and at Chatsworth probably comprised some hundreds of books, although it is unlikely that a clear distinction was ever made between his books and those of his patron, the second Earl of Devonshire, who, according to Aubrey, simply ‘stored the [Cavendish] library with what books [Hobbes] thought fitt to be bought’ (Clark, I, 338). Several manuscript library catalogues are preserved among the Hobbes Papers at Chatsworth and throw light on those books available to him. These catalogues may be listed as follows:

Possibly the greater part of the library used by Hobbes is still preserved at Chatsworth, despite occasional despoliation in later years. There is no evidence, however, to associate any specific volumes with him, despite various surmises. According to Hamilton (pp. 448, 450), for instance, Hobbes ‘appears to have annotated the first chapter of the copy’ of Jean Bodin, De republica libri sex, preserved at Chatsworth. However, none of the exempla of the three editions of this work there (viz. Paris, 1577 and 1586, and London, 1606: shelfmarks 258A and 261A, certain of which have occasional marginal annotations by readers) bears any trace of Hobbes's hand. A comparable book is an exemplum of The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon Of the proficiencie and aduancement of Learning (London, 1605: shelfmark 135. B, in the librarian's cabinet), which has been traditionally associated with Hobbes on the basis of a series of marginal annotations on the first twenty-two pages. If this volume could positively be associated with Hobbes it would indeed be of interest, in view of Aubrey's claim that, in his younger days, Hobbes was Bacon's favourite amanuensis (Clark, I, 331). However, the hand responsible for the annotations (which is decidedly degenerate) bears no resemblance to any known examples of Hobbes's hand, while the content of the annotations ‘suggests someone reading the book for the first time’ (Noel Malcolm, private communication).

One or two other books possibly owned by Hobbes may have escaped from Chatsworth. His alleged exemplum of Aristophanes (Basel, 1547), was offered for sale in ‘A Catalogue of Greek and Latin Classics’ by the London bookseller Samuel Hayes in 1823 (this catalogue is in the British Library, 130.k.14 (3)). An exemplum of Walter Charleton's The Immortality of the Human Soul (London, 1657) allegedly bearing the inscription ‘E Libris...Tho: Hobbes — Coll. Magd.’ and a correction and annotation by Hobbes on p. 85, appeared in Brick Row Bookshop, San Francisco, Special List No. 6 (1938), item 631. An exemplum of John Earles's Micro-cosmographie (London, 1630). with the inscription ‘Tho: Hobbes. 1653’, was sold at Christie's, New York, 18 November 1988 (John F. Fleming sale), lot 176, with a facsimile of the inscription in the sale catalogue.

Miscellaneous

Numerous other papers are to be found relating to Hobbes, which have not been given separate entries below. Examples of the numerous tracts discussing (and usually attacking) his ideas are in the following repositories:

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, fonds français 9119, ff. 451-3: Part of a geometrical compilation by François du Verdus, headed ‘De la Teroide ou Aisle de Mons^r hobs’ and beginning ‘Voicy la façon dont Mons^r hobs se sert pour descrire cette ligne’.

Bodleian, MS Rawl. C. 251. An Appeal to Hobbes against heresy and infidelity by a Roman Catholic.

Bodleian, MS Savile 104. Three papers relating to Hobbes's quarrel with John Wallis.

British Library, Add. MS 4394, ff. 30r-1v. Animadversions by John Wallis on geometrical works by Hobbes.

British Library, Add. MS 6193, p. 134. Hobbes's interview with Robert Hooke.

British Library, Add. MS 72898, ff. 89r-105r. William Petty's autograph paper on Hobbes's theory of monarchy.

British Library, Sloane MS 904, f. 14r. ‘The Principles of m^r Hobs’.

British Library, Sloane MS 1012. Extracts from Bishop Bramhall's examination of Hobbes's opinions.

British Library, Sloane MS 2283, ff. 61-5. Animadversions on Leviathan by A. Ross, 1653.

Queen's College, Oxford, MS 204, ff. 132r, 7r. Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln's autograph ‘Animadversions on Mr. Hobbs his historical narration of heresy and its punishment’.

Dr Williams's Library, Baxter Treatises, Vol. 18 [61.14]. ‘An old Disputation written twenty years ago…against…M^r Hobbes’, 1679.

In addition, a treatise, or ‘Reflections’, by the Lord Chief Justice Sir Mathew Hale (1609-76), on Hobbes's The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic is preserved in at least three manuscript copies in the British Library: (i) (Add. MS 18235, ff. 2-40. (ii) Hargrave MS 96. (iii) Harley MS 711, ff. 418r-39r. Edited from the last manuscript in Frederick Pollock, ‘Sir Matthew Hale on Hobbes: An Unpublished MS’, Law Quarterly Review, 37 (1921), 274-303.

A lengthy treatise Of Winds and Tydes, part of which is preserved in the British Library, Sloane MS 3943, ff. 158-66, and which has been conjecturally attributed to Hobbes in the library catalogue, is almost certainly spurious. ‘Its explanation of tides is quite unlike all those given in Hobbes's other discussions of the subject, and it seems to depend on a notion of condensation and rarefaction which Hobbes argued fiercely against’ (Noel Malcolm, private communication).

The original manuscript of John Aubrey's ‘Life of M^r. Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesburie’ — by far the longest of his ‘Brief Lives’ — is in the Bodleian (MS Aubrey 9, with additional material in MS Aubrey 3). It is edited in Clark, I, 321-403.

Various of Anthony Wood's papers in the Bodleian throw light on Hobbes or lie behind Wood's own account of him in Athenae Oxonienses (1691-2: II, 477-83). They are discussed in Allan Pritchard, ‘The Last Days of Hobbes: Evidence of the Wood Manuscripts’, Bodleian Library Record, 10 (1980), 178-87.

A digest of Behemoth made by W.E. Gladstone in 1832 is now in the British Library, Add. MS 44722, f. 20v.

Various printed exempla of Hobbes's works have readers' marginal annotations. An annotated exemplum of Leviathan, for instance, is in Leeds University, Brotherton Library. Another exemplum was once annotated by Jonathan Swift: see The Book Collector, 13 (Summer 1964), p. 214.

Because of additions and inevitable rearrangements, some of the original entries in IELM have been assigned new CELM numbers. The old numbers are nevertheless cited in the relevant entries for clarification.

Peter Beal