But our ambiguous philosopher had the hard fate to be attacked
even by those who were labouring to the same end.[362] The literary
wars of Hobbes were fierce and long; heroes he encountered, but heroes
too were fighting by his side. Our chief himself wore a kind of
magical armour; for, either he denied the consequences his adversaries
deduced from his principles, or he surprised by new conclusions, which
many could not discover in them; but by such means he had not only the
art of infusing confidence among the _Hobbists_, but the greater one
of dividing his adversaries, who often retreated, rather fatigued than
victorious. Hobbes owed this partly to the happiness of a genius which
excelled in controversy, but more, perhaps, to the advantage of the
ground he occupied as a metaphysician: the usual darkness of that spot
is favourable to those shiftings and turnings which the equivocal
possessor may practise with an unwary assailant. Far different was the
fate of Hobbes in the open daylight of mathematics: there his hardy
genius lost him, and his sophistry could spin no web; as we shall see
in the memorable war of twenty years waged between Hobbes and Dr.
Wallis. But the gall of controversy was sometimes tasted, and the
flames of persecution flashed at times in the closet of our
philosopher. The ungenerous attack of Bishop Fell, who, in the Latin
translation of Wood's "History of the University of Oxford," had
converted eulogium into the most virulent abuse,[363] without the
participation of Wood, who resented it with his honest warmth, was
only an arrow snatched from a quiver which was every day emptying
itself on the devoted head of our ambiguous philosopher. Fell only
vindicated himself by a fresh invective on "the most vain and waspish
animal of Malmesbury," and Hobbes was too frightened to reply. This
was the Fell whom it was so difficult to assign a reason for not
liking:

I don't like thee, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell,
But I don't like thee, Dr. Fell!

A curious incident in the history of the mind of this philosopher, was
the mysterious panic which accompanied him to his latest day. It has
not been denied that Hobbes was subject to occasional terrors: he
dreaded to be left without company; and a particular instance is told,
that on the Earl of Devonshire's removal from Chatsworth, the
philosopher, then in a dying state, insisted on being carried away,
though on a feather-bed. Various motives have