nd it is constantly visible also in his more
consecutive writings.

In the well-known passage on Laughter as "a passion of sudden glory" the
writer may be charged with allowing his fancy too free play; though I, for
my part, am inclined to consider the explanation the most satisfactory yet
given of a difficult phenomenon. But the point is the distinctness with
which Hobbes puts this novel and, at first sight, improbable idea, the apt
turns and illustrations (standing at the same time far from the excess of
illustration and analogy, by which many writers of his time would have spun
it out into a chapter if not into a treatise), the succinct, forcible,
economical adjustment of the fewest words to the clearest exposition of
thought. Perhaps these things strike the more as they are the more unlike
the work in juxtaposition with which one finds them; nor can it be
maintained that Hobbes's style is suitable for all purposes. Admirable for
argument and exposition, it is apt to become bald in narration, and its
abundance of clearness, when translated to less purely intellectual
subjects, may even expose it to the charge of being thin. Such a note as
that struck in the Love passage above given is rare, and sets one wondering
whether the dry-as-dust philosopher of Malmesbury, the man who seems to
have had hardly any human frailties except vanity and timidity, had himself
felt the bitterness of counting on expressions and services, the madness of
throwing away one effort after another to gain the favour of the beloved.
But it is very seldom that any such suggestion is provoked by remarks of
Hobbes's. His light is almost always dry; and in one sense, though not in
another, a little malignant. Yet nowhere is there to be found a style more
absolutely suited, not merely to the author's intentions but to his
performances--a form more exactly married to matter. Nor anywhere is there
to be found a writer who is more independent of others. He may have owed
something to his friend Jonson, in whose _Timber_ there are resemblances to
Hobbes; but he certainly owed nothing, and in all probability lent much, to
the Drydens, and Tillotsons, and Temples, who in the last twenty years of
his own life reformed English prose.

CHAPTER X

CAROLINE POETRY

There are few periods of poetical development in English literary history
which display, in a comparatively narrow compass, such well-marked and
pervading individuality as the period of Ca