_when he was at college, ventured down among the Character-writers in
his two pieces on the University Carrier. Thomas Hobson had been for
sixty years carrier between Cambridge and the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate
Street, London. He was a very well-known Cambridge character. Steele, in
No. 509 of the "Spectator" ascribed to him the origin of the proverbial
phrase, Hobson's Choice. "Being a man of great ability and invention,
and one that saw where there might good profit arise, though the duller
men overlooked it, this ingenious man was the first in this island who
let out hackney-horses.'" [That is a mistake, but never mind.] "He lived
in Cambridge; and, observing that the scholars rid hard, his manner was
to keep a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles, and whips, to
furnish the gentlemen at once, without going from college to college to
borrow. I say, Mr. Hobson kept a stable of forty good cattle, always
ready and fit for travelling; but, when a man came for a horse, he was
led into the stable, where there was great choice; but he obliged him to
take the horse which stood next the stable door; so that every customer
was alike well served according to his chance, and every horse ridden
with the same justice--from whence it became a proverb, when what ought
to be your election was forced upon you, to say 'Hobson's Choice!'"
In the spring of 1630 the Plague in Cambridge caused colleges to be
closed, and among other precautions against spread of infection, Hobson
the Carrier was forbidden to go to and fro between Cambridge and London.
At the end of the year, after six or seven, months of forced inaction,
Hobson sickened; and he died on the first of January, at the age of
eighty-six, leaving his family amply provided for, and money for the
maintenance of the town conduit. At the Bull Inn in London there used to
be a portrait of him with a money-bag under his arm.
Character-writing being in fashion many a character of the University
Carrier was written, no doubt, by Cambridge men after Hobson's death at
the beginning of the year_ 1631 _(new style). And these were Milton's.
Their unlikeness to other work of his lies in their likeness to a form
of literature which was but fashion of the day, and having travelled out
of sight of its old starting-point and forgotten where its true goal
lay, had gone astray, and often by idolatry of wit sinned
against wisdom._