ecause he would not trust his safety with the French
clergy;" insinuating that he was likely to be murdered for his religion,
which would have been a high joke indeed--Tom's being brought to the stake
for religion.

Bounce or not bounce, however, certain it is, that Hobbes, to the end of
his life, feared that somebody would murder him. This is proved by the
story I am going to tell you: it is not from a manuscript, but, (as Mr.
Coleridge says,) it is as good as manuscript; for it comes from a book
now entirely forgotten, viz., "The Creed of Mr. Hobbes Examined; in a
Conference between him and a Student in Divinity," (published about ten
years before Hobbes's death.) The book is anonymous, but it was written by
Tennison, the same who, about thirty years after, succeeded Tillotson as
Archbishop of Canterbury. The introductory anecdote is as follows: "A
certain divine, it seems, (no doubt Tennison himself,) took an annual tour
of one month to different parts of the island. In one of these excursions
(1670) he visited the Peak in Derbyshire, partly in consequence of Hobbes's
description of it. Being in that neighborhood, he could not but pay a visit
to Buxton; and at the very moment of his arrival, he was fortunate enough
to find a party of gentlemen dismounting at the inn door, amongst whom was
a long thin fellow, who turned out to be no less a person than Mr. Hobbes,
who probably had ridden over from Chattsworth. Meeting so great a lion,--a
tourist, in search of the picturesque, could do no less than present
himself in the character of bore. And luckily for this scheme, two of Mr.
Hobbes's companions were suddenly summoned away by express; so that, for
the rest of his stay at Buxton, he had Leviathan entirely to himself, and
had the honor of bowsing with him in the evening. Hobbes, it seems, at
first showed a good deal of stiffness, for he was shy of divines; but this
wore off, and he became very sociable and funny, and they agreed to go into
the bath together. How Tennison could venture to gambol in the same water
with Leviathan, I cannot explain; but so it was: they frolicked about like
two dolphins, though Hobbes must have been as old as the hills; and
"in those intervals wherein they abstained from swimming and plunging
themselves," [i.e., diving,] "they discoursed of many things relating to
the Baths of the Ancients, and the Origine of Springs. When they had in
this manner passed away an hour, they stepped out of the b