contrasts affectingly with the hale-heartedness and arrogance of his healthier days. For Selden's was a mind by no means, naturally devout or reverential, and the style in which controversy was conducted in his day did not tend to deepen his veneration for religion or its ministers. Still, his confidence in fundamental truths remained unshaken, and when the king of terrors stared him in the face, he was thankful to have for his retreat the simple and unchanging "faithful saying."

It was a boast of Selden, that "laymen have best interpreted the hard places in the Bible, such as Joannes Picus, Scaliger, Grotius, Salmasius, Heinsius." With the cross-lights of his immense general and legal erudition, he was enabled to throw much elucidation on subjects lying out of the theologian's ordinary track; and his Latin treatises on "The Syrian Gods," "The Hebrew Wife," "The Sanhedrim," are magazines from which students of sacred antiquities will long continue to draw their materials. In an early work, "The History of Tithes," he laboured to shew that a legal maintenance for the ministry is not obligatory under the Christian dispensation. The book, however, not only excited many angry rejoinders, but entailed on the author the displeasure of the Court. The upshot was, that, in order to escape graver consequences, he signed an apology, scarcely retracting its doctrines, but expressing regret for its publication.

Selden was born December 16, 1584, near Tarring, in Sussex, where we believe that the cottage of his father is still standing. From the Free School of Chichester he passed to Hart-hall, Oxford, and afterwards to the Inner Temple, London. By his publications, and in the friendship of men like the antiquaries, Camden and Spelman, and Archbishop Ussher, he soon attained a vast reputation; and in 1621, when King James, in a speech to Parliament, asserted that their privileges were originally grants from the crown, Selden was the lawyer whom the House of Lords consulted; and as his opinion was

adverse to the royal doctrine, as soon as a dissolution took place he was thrown into prison-an incarceration, however, which was of very short continuance. On the accession of Charles I. he was elected member for Bedwin, in Wiltshire; and by pleading for Hampden in the Court of King's Bench, and opposing absolute measures, he made himself so obnoxious to the king, that he was committed to the Tower for eight months, and spent a still longer period in the King's Bench and Gatehouse prisons. In 1643 he was appointed one of the lay members of the Westminster Assembly. His death took place at Whitefriars, November 30, 1654.

In the hearty words of the Earl of Clarendon: "Mr Selden was a person whom no character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds, and in all languages (as may appear in his excellent and transcendent writings), that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant amongst books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability was such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding. His style in all his writings seems harsh, and sometimes obscure, which is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he commonly treated, out of the paths trod by other men, but to a little undervaluing the beauty of a style, and too much propensity to the language of antiquity; but in his conversation he was the most clear discourser, and had the best faculty of making hard things easy, and presenting them to the understanding, of any man that hath been known."*

Of such conversational remarks, his amanuensis, Richard Milward, has preserved an interesting selection in "The TableLife of Clarendon.

*

Talk of John Selden." This book has been lately reprinted.* It does not raise our moral estimate of the author, and it contains too many indications of paradox and special pleading; but on some topics its sayings are valuable, as the utterances of a mind rarely shrewd and wonderfully well-informed.

Occasional Sayings.

Popery.-Catholics say, we, out of our charity, believe they of the Church of Rome may be saved; but they do not believe so of us; therefore their Church is better according to ourselves. First, some of them, no doubt, believe as well of us as we do of them, but they must not say so. Besides, is that an argument their Church is better than ours, because it has less charity?

Faith and Works.-'Twas an unhappy division that has been made between faith and works. Though in my intellect I may divide them, just as in the candle I know there is both light and heat; but yet, put out the candle, and they are both gone; one remains not without the other. So 'tis betwixt faith and works; nay, in a right conception, fides est opus; † if I believe a thing because I am commanded, that is opus.

Humility.-Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.

Excessive Humility.-There is humilitas quædam in vitio. If a man does not take notice of that excellency and perfection that is in himself, how can he be thankful to God, who is the author of all excellency and perfection? Nay, if a man hath too mean an opinion of himself, 'twill render him unserviceable both to God and man.

* Edited by David Irving, LL.D. Edinburgh: 1854.

† Faith is work.

Romish Idolatry.-Though the learned Papists pray not to images, yet it is to be feared the ignorant do, as appears by that story of St Nicholas in Spain. A countryman used to offer daily to St Nicholas's image. At length, by mischance, the image was broken, and a new one made of his own plumtree; after that the man forbore. Being complained of to his ordinary, he answered, 'Tis true he used to offer to the old image, but to the new one he could not find in his heart, because he knew it was a piece of his own plum-tree. You see what opinion this man had of the image; and to this tended the bowing of their images, the twinkling of their eyes, the Virgin's milk, &c. Had they only meant representations, a picture would have done as well as these tricks. It may be with us in England, they do not worship images; because, living amongst Protestants, they are either laughed out of it, or beaten out of it by shock of argument.

Ministerial Apparatus.-There be four things a minister should be at the concionary part, ecclesiastical story, school divinity, and the casuists.

1. In the concionary part he must read all the chief fathers, both Latin and Greek, wholly-St Austin, St Ambrose, St Chrysostom, both the Gregories, Tertullian, Clemens, Alexandrinus, and Epiphanius, which last have more learning in them than all the rest, and writ freely.

2. For ecclesiastical story let him read Baronius, with the Magdeburgenses, and be his own judge-the one being extremely for the Papists, the other extremely against them.

3. For school divinity let him get Cavellus's edition of Scotus or Mayco, where there be quotations that direct you to every schoolman, where such and such questions are handled. Without school divinity a divine knows nothing logically, nor will he be able to satisfy a rational man out of the pulpit.

4. The study of the casuists must follow the study of the schoolmen, because the division of their cases is according to

A MORAL MASTIFF.

165

their divinity; otherwise, he that begins with them will know little, as he that begins with the study of the reports and cases in the common law will thereby know little of the law. Casuists may be of admirable use, if discreetly dealt with, though among them you shall have many leaves together very impertinent. A case well decided would stick by a man, they would remember it whether they will or no, whereas a quaint position dieth in the birth. The main thing is to know where to search; for talk what they will of vast memories, no man will presume upon his own memory for anything he means to write or speak in public.

Moral Honesty.-They that cry down moral honesty, cry down that which is a great part of religion-my duty towards God, and my duty towards man. What care I to see a man run after a sermon, if he cozens and cheats as soon as he comes home? On the other side, morality must not be without religion; for if so, it may change as I see convenience. Religion must govern it. He that has not religion to govern his morality is not a dram better than my mastiff-dog; so long as you stroke him, and please him, and do not pinch him, he will play with you as finely as may be he is a very good moral mastiff; but if you hurt him, he will fly in your face and tear out your throat.

Preaching. First in your sermons use your logic, and then your rhetoric. Rhetoric without logic is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root; yet, I confess, more are taken with rhetoric than logic, because they are catched with a free expression, when they understand not reason. Logic must be natural, or it is worth nothing at all; your rhetoric figures may be learned. That rhetoric is best which is most seasonable and most catching. An instance we have in that old blunt commander at Cadiz, who shewed himself a good orator; being to say something to his soldiers, which he was not used to do, he made them a speech to this purpose: "What a shame will