Mr Hobbs was born in Malmsbury, Wilts, from whence he obtained the name of Malmsburiensis, and educated in Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts; from whence he was taken into the Earl of Devonshire's family before he was twenty years of age, and soon after traveled with his son into France and Italy. And after variety of travels abroad, he returned into England, and settled in the house of his patron the Earl of Devonshire, where he lived many years in ease and plenty, rather as a friend and confidant, than a tutor or instructor. He was of very extensive genius, improved by great labour and sedulity, and had the reputation both abroad and at home, of a great philosopher and mathematician.
CHARLES II, having learned mathematics of him, at his restoration, allowed him a pension of a hundred pounds a year out of the Exchequer, though he was a contemner of all money and riches. As to his peculiar notions in religion and policy, with which he infected many ingenious gentlemen, they are too difficult to be excused, and too dangerous to be palliated; he died in the ninety-first year of his age.