Hobart, Noah, a Congregational minister, was born at Hingham Jan. 12, 1706. He graduated at Harvard College in 1724, and was ordained pastor of the First Congregational Church at Fairfield, Connecticut, Feb. 7, 1733. About this time a controversy arose in the East- ern States respecting the Episcopalians, in which Ho- bart enlisted, and wrote in behalf of the validity of Presbyterian ordination a pamphlet entitled Serious Address to the Episcopal Sepa?-ation (1748; 2d address, 1751 ; 3d address, 1761). His opponents were Dr. John- son and other ministers who had swerved from Con- gregationalism. Of Mr. Hobart's ability and learn- ing. Dr. Dwight, who was one of the men of his time, says : " He possessed high intellectual and moral dis- tinction. He had a mind of great acuteness and dis- cernment ; was a laborious student ; was extensively learned, especially in history and theology ; adorned the doctrine which he professed by an exemplary life, and was holden in high veneration for his wisdom and vir- tue. Among the American writers of the last century, not one has, I believe, handled the subject of Presbyte- rian ordination with more ability or success."' He died Dec. 6, 1773. Besides several sermons, he published Principles of the Congreg. Church, etc. (1754). — Contrib. to Eccl. History of Connecticut, p. 385 ; Smith's Hagen- bach, Bist. of Doctrines, ii, 448; Sprague, Annuls of the American Pulpit, i, 375. (J. H.W.)
Hobart, Peter, a Congregational minister, was born in England in 1604, and was educated at Cam- bridge. After teaching and preaching for a time, he emigrated to this country in 1635, and settled, with his friends who had preceded him, in Hingham, Mass. Af- ter a residence of some years, the people of his former
charge at Haverhill, England, urged him to return to them as pastor, but he declined, and remained with Lis
friends, preaching oidy at times. He died in 1678.
Sprague, Annals of the Avier. J'ulpit, i, 68. (J. H. ^\^.)
Hobbes, Thomas, an English philosopher and de- ist, was born Aj.ril 5, 1588, at Malmesburj', in Wiltshire, and was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. In 160K he became tutor to lord Ilardwick, subsequently earl of Devonshire ; and, after their return from travelling, he resided in the family for many years, during which )it- riod he translated Thucydides, and made a Latin version of some of lord Bacon's works. In 1628 he went abroad with the son of Sir Gervase Clifton, with whom he re- mained some time in France. He returned in 1631 to undertake the education of the young earl of Devon- shire, In 1634 he went with his new pujiil to Paris, where he applied himself much to natural philosojiliy, and afterwards to Italy, where he formed an accjuaint- ance with Galileo. He returned to England in 1637. ;ind soon after wrote his Elementa Philosophica de Cire ( Par. 1642). A second edition was printed in Holland in 1647, under the superintendence of M. Sorbicre. In 1610, after the meeting of the Long Parliament, Hobbes withdrew to Paris. Here he became accpiaintcd with Des Cartes and Gassendi. In 1647 Hobbes was ap- pointed mathematical tutor to the prince of Wales, af- terwards Charles II. His treatises entitled Human Na- ture and De Corpore Politico were publisheil in London in 1650, and in the following year the Leriathan. Of the last work he caused a co]iy to be fairly written out on vellum, and presented to Charles II ; but the king, having been informed by some divines that it contained principles subversive both of religion and civil govern- ment, withdrew his favor from Hobbes, and forbade him his presence. After the publication of the Leviathan Hobbes returned again to England, and publii-hcd his Letter vpon Liberty and Necessity (1654), which kd (o a long controversy with bishop Bramhall. See Bi;aj:- iiALL. It was about this time, too, that he began a controversy with Dr. Wallis, the mathematical prolisfor at Oxford, which lasted until Hobbes's death. By this last controversy^ he got no honor. In 1666 his Lnia- than and De Cive were censured by Parliament. Short- ly after Hobbes was still further alarmed by the intro- duction of a bill into the House of Commons for the punishment of atheism and profaneness; but this storm blew over. In 1672 Hobbes wrote his own hfe in Lr.tin verse, being then in his eighty-fifth year, r.nd in 1(>75 published his translation of the Iliad and Odyssey. This translation is wholly wanting in Homeric fire, bald and vulgar in style and diction ; and it must be allowed that the fame of the philosopher is anything but hciglitened by his efforts as a poet. Hobbes's Diepute with Laney, bishop of Ely, concerning Liberty and Necessity, r.iyvarvd in 1676 ; and in 1679 he sent his Behemoth, or a J/iyfu/y of the Civil Wars from 1640 to 1660, to a bookseller, with a letter in which he requested him not to publish it until a fitting occasion offered. It appears from this letter that Hobbes, being anxious to publish the book some time before, had with that view shown it to the king, who refuseei his permission, and for this reason Hobbes would not now allow the bookseller to publish it. It appeared, however, almost immediately alter Hobbes's eieath, which took place bv paralvsis Dec. 4, 1679.