ath; and, having
dried and cloathed themselves, they sate down in expectation of such a
supper as the place afforded; designing to refresh themselves like the
_Deipnosophilae_, and rather to reason than to drink profoundly. But in this
innocent intention they were interrupted by the disturbance arising from a
little quarrel, in which some of the ruder people in the house were for a
short time engaged. At this Mr. Hobbes seemed much concerned, though he was
at some distance from the persons." And why was he concerned, gentlemen?
No doubt you fancy, from, some benign and disinterested love of peace and
harmony, worthy of an old man and a philosopher. But listen--"For a while
he was not composed, but related it once or twice as to himself, with a
low and careful tone, how Sextus Roscius was murthered after supper by
the Balneae Palatinae. Of such general extent is that remark of Cicero, in
relation to Epicurus the Atheist, of whom he observed that he of all men
dreaded most those things which he contemned--Death and the Gods." Merely
because it was supper time, and in the neighborhood of a bath, Mr. Hobbes
must have the fate of Sextus Roscius. What logic was there in this, unless
to a man who was always dreaming of murder? Here was Leviathan, no
longer afraid of the daggers of English cavaliers or French clergy, but
"frightened from his propriety" by a row in an ale-house between some
honest clod-hoppers of Derbyshire, whom his own gaunt scare-crow of a
person that belonged to quite another century, would have frightened out of
their wits.

Malebranche, it will give you pleasure to hear, was murdered. The man who
murdered him is well known: it was Bishop Berkeley. The story is familiar,
though hitherto not put in a proper light. Berkeley, when a young man, went
to Paris and called on Pere Malebranche. He found him in his cell cooking.
Cooks have ever been a _genus irritabile_; authors still more so:
Malebranche was both: a dispute arose; the old father, warm already, became
warmer; culinary and metaphysical irritations united to derange his liver:
he took to his bed, and died. Such is the common version of the story:
"So the whole ear of Denmark is abused." The fact is, that the matter was
hushed up, out of consideration for Berkeley, who (as Pope remarked) had
"every virtue under heaven:" else it was well known that Berkeley, feeling
himself nettled by the waspishness of the old Frenchman, squared at him; a
_turn-up_ was t