HOBBES, Thomas, & William Cavendish.

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Horae Subsecivae. Observations and Discourses. First edition, including three essays now widely recognized as the first published work by the great philosopher.By 1620, Hobbes was firmly established as a tutor and adviser to William Cavendish (1590-1628), having entered the family's service soon after graduating from Oxford in 1608. Prior to his publication of a Thucydidean translation in 1629, virtually nothing survives to attest to this formative period in his intellectual development. In 1620, the Horae Subsecicvae volume was published anonymously. As it contains an essay that had previously been published with Cavendish listed as the author, the other essays have historically been attributed to him as well, while acknowledging the probable Hobbesian influence on their thought. In the 1990s, however, a statistical wordprint analysis concluded that the "Discourse of Tacitus", the "Discourse of Rome", and the "Discourse of Laws" so strongly match Hobbes's use of specific non-contextual terms in his other works as to be confidently attributed to him. The essays reflect Hobbes's thought in the earliest period of his professional life and display a particular emphasis on the value of dissimulation and the evils of civil war. They betray the strong influence of the Baconian essay; and there is evidence that Hobbes served as Bacon's secretary in the closing years of the 1610s.The publisher, Edward Blount, achieved bibliographic immortality three years later as the co-publisher of

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