the sceptical
Hobbes, who never dealt in compliment, observed, "That if his own
philosophy were not true, he knew of none that he should sooner like
than More's of Cambridge." His biographer, Ward, concludes his life in
the following glowing terms:--"Thus lived and died the eminent Dr.
More: thus set this bright and illustrious star, vanishing by degrees
out of our sight after, to the surprise and admiration of many, (like
that which was observed in Cassiopeia's chair,) it had illuminated, as
it were, both worlds so long at once." At the lapse of many years I
have not forgotten the impassioned fondness with which the late and
most lamented Robert Southey dwelt upon the memory of the Cambridge
Plato, or the delight with which he greeted some works of his
favourite author which I was fortunate enough to point out to him,
with which he had not been previously acquainted. The sad reverse of
the picture will he seen by those who consult the folio of More's
philosophical works and Glanville's _Sadducismus Triumphatus_, the
greatest part of which is derived from More's _Collections_. His
hallucinations on the subject of witchcraft, from which none of the
English writers of the Platonic school were exempt, are the more
extraordinary, as a sister error, judicial astrology, met in More with
its most able oppugner. His tract, which has excited much less
attention than its merit deserves, (I have not been able to trace a
single quotation from it in any author during the last century,) is
entitled "Tetractys Anti-astrologica, or a Confutation of Astrology."
Lond. 1681, 4to. I may mention while on the subject of More, that the
second and most valuable part of the memoir of him by Ward, his
devoted admirer and pupil, which was never printed, is in my
possession, in manuscript.]

[Footnote 10: See Boyle's letter on the subject of the latter, in the
5th vol. of the folio edition of his works.]

[Footnote 11: I have always considered the conclusion of Bodin's book,
_De Republica_, the accumulative grandeur of which is even heightened
in Knolles's admirable English translation, as the finest peroration
to be found in any work on government. Those who are fortunate enough
to possess a copy of his interdicted _Examination of Religions_, the
title of which is, "Colloquium heptaplomeres de abditis sublimium
rerum arcanis, libris 6 digestum," which was never printed, and of
which very few MSS. copies are in existence, are well aware how litt