That famous book of 1651, like its two predecessors of 1650, _Human Nature_ and _De Corpore Politico_, he had found it convenient to publish in London, where the Commonwealth authorities do not seem to have made the least objection.

But by this time Hobbes's infidelity, or Atheism, or Hobbism, or whatever it was, had become a dreadful notoriety in the world; and, when Hobbes presented a fine copy of his great book to Charles II., that pious young prince had been instructed by the Royalist divines about him that it would not do to countenance either Mr.Hobbes or his books any longer.

Charles retained privately all his own real regard for his old tutor, and Hobbes perfectly understood that; but the hint had been taken.

Back in England at last, and permitted to live in the house of his old pupil and patron, the Earl of Devonshire, where his only annoyance was the society of the Earl's chaplain, Jasper Mayne, he had found the Protectorate comfortable enough for all his purposes, and had been publishing new books under it, including his pungent disputations with ex-Bishop Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity and with Wallis of Oxford on Mathematics.[1]--Hobbes's friend DAVENANT had for some time been less lucky.

_His_ return to England had been involuntary.