MSS Hobbes Collection 003
Copy, on 216 quarto pages (plus a 26-page list of contents), dated January 1651/2 to December 1653. In the hand of one Francis Hillen, of Yarmouth and Gisleham, Suffolk, whose inscriptions include (p 1) ‘ffrances Hillen 1645’; (p. 4) ‘I Coppied & begun it this 14: Ian: 1651/52 by Fr. Hillen’ and ‘Mr: Ri: Elivin of Yarm: lent mee ye written copie wch I haue undertaken likewise’; (p. 74) ‘6/10 1653’; (p. 112) ‘Frs. Hillen I ended ye Copying this first part ye 8th day of ye 7th. Mon: 1653’, (p. 216) ‘finished ye .1. Decemb: 1653. Praised by ye Lord ye giuer of wisedome’; and (at end of contents page) Copied, Finished, & ended in ye yeare <deleted> & in ye yeare of our Lord. 1653. / In Gisleham Suff. ye 2e. daij of Decembr:/. 1652-3.
HbT 28: Thomas Hobbes, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic
Sotheby's, 2 May 1966, lot 229, to H.A. Levinson. Formerly MS 3063.
First published, dedicated to William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, in two parts, as Humane Nature: Or, The fundamental Elements of Policie, (London, [1649]-1650), and as De Corpore Politico: or The Elements of Law, Moral and Politick (London, 1650). Molesworth, English, IV, 1-76, 77-228. Edited by Ferdinand Tönnies (London, 1889). 2nd edition, with an introduction by M.M. Goldsmith, (London, 1969).
MSS Hobbes Collection 002
Copy of a Latin poem on the movement of the Earth, dedicated to the third Earl of Devonshire, in the hand of an amanuensis, with two words possibly in Hobbes's hand, on ten leaves. c.1645-55?
HbT 4: Thomas Hobbes, De Motibus Solis, Aetheris & Telluris. Praecipuè autem Numeri Dierum In hemisphaerio Boreo, quàm in Australi Majoris, Causa conjecturalis (‘Antiquâ dudum Tellus statione relictâ’)
Formerly bound in a collection of 16th-century treatises on astronomy once owned by the ‘Right Honourable John Earl of Exeter, Baron Cecil of Burghley’. Formerly MS 3064.
Edited from this MS in Jacquot & Jones.
First published in Jacquot & Jones (1973), Appendice I, pp. 439-47.
MSS Hobbes Collection 001
Copy, on twelve folio pages. Late 17th century.
HbT 31: Thomas Hobbes, An Historical Narration concerning Heresy and the Punishment thereof
Thomas Rodd, ‘Catalogue of a collection of manuscripts’ (1838), item 254. Afterwards in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), book and manuscript collector (unnumbered Phillipps MS). Sotheby's, 29 June 65, lot 151, to Hatchwell. Formerly MS 5161.
A tract beginning ‘The word Heresie is Greek, and signifies a taking of any thing...’. First published in London, 1680. Molesworth, English, IV, 385-408.