Makes accessible to modern readers the 17th-century rhetorics of Thomas Hobshy;bes (15881677) and Bernard Lamy (16401715) Hobbes'A Briefe of the ArtofRhetshy;orique,the first English translation of Aristotle's rhetoric, reflects Hobbes' sense of rhetoric as a central instrument of self-defense in an increasingly fracshy;tious Commonwealth. In its approach to rhetoric, which Hobbes defines as "that Faculty by which wee understand what will serve our turne, concerning any subject, to winne beliefe in the hearer," theBriefelooks forward to Hobbes' great political worksDe CiveandLeviathan. Published anonymously in France asDe l'art de parler,Lamy's rhetoric was translated immediately into English asThe Art of Speaking.Lamy's long associashy;tion with the Port Royalists made his works especially attractive to English readers because Port Royalists were enshy;gaged in a vicious quarrel with the Jesuits during the last half of the 17th century.