Replies to Minor Queries.
_Hobbes's "Leviathan"_ (Vol. iv., p. 314.).--The meaning of the
frontispiece to the first edition of this work, is, I imagine,
sufficiently obvious. The large figure representing a commonwealth holds
in his right hand a sword, in his left a pastoral crook. He is the
emblem of a commonwealth "ecclesiastical and civil" (as the title of the
book shows us). Ranged down one side of the page, under the
sword-bearing arm, are the weapons and resources which the State
possesses. Down the other side of the page, under the protection of the
pastoral staff, is the corresponding armament of the Church. Thus, a
castle and a church, a crown and a mitre, a cannon and spiritual
thunderbolts, a trophy of guns and spears, &c., and one of dilemmas
(represented by a pair of bull's horns), syllogisms (made like a
three-pronged fork), and the like; these, ending with a battle on one
side, a convention of bishops on the other, show the power which (as
Hobbes would have it) each arm of the commonwealth should be able to
have at its command. The whole picture is at best an absurd conceit, and
very unworthy of the author of the _Leviathan_.