world
had been deprived of _a great philosopher_, and learning sustained an
invaluable loss, by the abortion of _so desired a piece_. But since
that _Partus Montis_ is come to light, and found to be no more than
what little animals have brought forth, and that _deformed_ enough and
_unamiable_, he might have sooner gone off the stage with more
advantage than now he is like to do; such is the misfortune for a man
to _outlive his reputation_!

"By this time, perhaps, you may see cause to _pity_ him while you see
him _falling_. But if you consider him _tumbling headlong_ from so
great a height, 'twill make some addition to that _compassion_ which
doth already begin to work. You are therefore next to consider that
when, upon the account of _geometry_, he was unsafely mounted to that
height of vanity, he did unhappily fall into the hands of two
mathematicians, who have used him so unmercifully as would have put a
person of _greater patience_ into _passion_, and meeting with such a
_temper_, have so discomposed him that he hath ever since _talked
idly_: and to augment the grief, these mathematicians were both
divines--he had rather have fallen by any other hand. These
_mathematical divines_ (a term which he had thought incomponible)
began to unravel the wrong end; and while he thought they should have
first _untiled the roof_, and by degrees gone downward, they strike at
the _foundation_, and make the building tumble all at once; and that
in such confusion, that by dashing one part against another, they make
each help to destroy the whole. They first fall upon his _last
reserve_, and rout his _mathematics_ beyond a possibility of
_rallying_; and by _firing his magazine_ upon the first assault, make
his own weapons _fight against him_. Not contented herewith, they
enter the _breach_, and pursue the _rout_ through his Logics, Physics,
Metaphysics, Theology, where they find all in confusion."

This invective and irony from this celebrated mathematician, so much
out of the path of his habitual studies, might have proved a
tremendous blow; but the genius of Hobbes was invulnerable to mere
human opposition, unless accompanied by the supernatural terrors of
penal fires or perpetual dungeons. Our hero received the whole
discharge of this battering train, and stood invulnerable, while he
returned the fire in "Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty,
Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, written by way
of Letter