In 1637 he was recalled to England, but finding the civil war ready to break out, and the Scots in arms against the King, instigated by a mean cowardice, he deferred his country in distress, and returned to Paris, that he might without interruption pursue his studies there, and converse with men of eminence in the sciences.  The Parliament prevailing, several of the Royalists were driven from their own country, and were obliged to take shelter in France.  The Prince of Wales was reduced likewise to quit the kingdom and live at Paris:  Hobbs was employed to teach the young Prince mathematics, in which he made great proficiency; and our author used to observe, that if the Prince’s application was equal to the quickness of his parts, he would be the foremost man in his time in every species of science.  All the leisure hours that Hobbs enjoyed in Paris, he dedicated to the composition of a book called, The Leviathan, a work by which he acquired a great name in Europe; and which was printed at London while he remained at Paris.  Under this strange name he means the body politic.  The divines of the church of England who attended King Charles ii. in France, exclaimed vehemently against this performance, and said that it contained a great many impious assertions, and that the author was not of the royal party.  Their complaints were regarded, and Hobbs was discharged the court; and as he had extremely provoked the Papists, he thought it not safe for him to continue longer in France, especially as he was deprived of the protection of the King of England.  He translated his Leviathan into Latin, and printed it with an appendix in 1668.

About ten years afterwards, the Leviathan was printed in Low Dutch.  The character of this work is drawn as under, by bishop Burnet.

’His [Hobbs’s] main principles were, that all men acted under an absolute necessity, in which he seemed protected by the then received doctrine of absolute decrees.  He seemed to think that the universe was god, and that souls were material, Thought being only subtle and imperceptible motion.  He thought interest and fear were the chief principles of society; and he put all morality in the following that which was our own private will or advantage.  He thought religion had no other foundation than the laws of the land; and he put all the law in the will of the Prince, or of the people:  For he writ his book at first in favour of absolute monarchy, but turned it afterwards to gratify the Republican party.’

Upon his return to England, he lived retired at the seat of the earl of Devonshire, and applied himself to the study of philosophy; and as almost all men who have written any thing successfully would be thought poets, so Hobbs laid claim to that character, tho’ his poetry is too contemptible for crit[i]cism.  Dr. White Kennet in his memoirs of the family of Cavendish informs us, ’That while Mr. Hobbs lived in the earl of Devonshire’s family, his professed rule