The closing years of his life Selden spent under the roof of the Dowager-Countess of Kent, whose legal adviser he was, and to whom, it is said, he was privately married. In the summer of 1654, his constitution, never very robust, began to give way; and feeling that his end was near, he sent for two of his old friends, Archbishop Ussher and Dr. Langbaine, with whom he held many discussions upon religious matters. His faith in the promises of Christianity was strong and deep. He said "that he had his study full of books and papers on most subjects in the world; yet at that time he could not recollect any passage wherein he could rest his soul, save out of the Holy Scriptures, wherein the most remarkable passage that lay most upon his spirit was Titus ii. 11, 12, 13, 14. His friend Whitelocke visited him to take his directions relative to his temporal affairs, but Selden was then too weak. He expired on the last day of November, 1654, and on the 14th of December, was buried in the Temple Church, London, the Master of the Temple reading the service, and Archbishop Ussher preaching the funeral sermon.

Selden left a considerable fortune, principally acquired, it is said, through his connection with the family of the Earl of Kent. His valuable library he had intended to bequeath to the Bodleian; but having taken umbrage at the refusal of the loan of a MS., because he had omitted the usual pledge to restore it safely, he left his books to his executors, Edward Hayward, John Vaughan, and Sir Matthew Hale, who, wisely regarding themselves as "the executors not of his anger, but of his will," carried out his original design, and removed them to the Bodleian. There they were arranged by Anthony à Ward, who tells us that he "laboured several weeks with Mr. Thomas

Barlow and others in sorting them, carrying them upstairs, and placing them. In opening some of the books they found several pair of spectacles, which Mr. Selden had put in and forgotten to take out. Wood records that on the title or first page of all his books Selden was accustomed to write his favourite motto—περι παντος την ελευθερίαν.

Though Selden was, as Ben Jonson wittily said, "the law-book of the judges," and though his legal and antiquarian works are written in the driest and crabbedest style that was ever called English, he was something more than a Dryasdust and a lawyer. We have seen that he was an enlightened politician, and, notwithstanding his constitutional timidity, on the whole a steadfast and consistent one. The principle which governed his political conduct was sound and safe: that all reforms should be the natural developments or applications of the ancient laws of England. Thus he became, to use Professor Arber's expression, the "Champion of Human Law," and it is to his immortal honour that, in a time of convulsion and unrest, he adhered, without change or hesitation, to the "law of the kingdom," which embodied the rights and privileges won by generations of Englishmen. He advocated the supremacy of the constitution over the so-called doctrine of Divine right. Against ecclesiastical pretensions he opposed the civil power, and, exalting it to the highest position in the State, denied the existence of any coordinate authority. So strongly did he maintain the supreme power of the nation, that, for the purpose of his argument, he reduced religion almost to a habit of thought, which might be assumed or cast off at pleasure. "So religion," he says, "was brought into the kingdom, so it has been continued, and so it may be cast out, when the State pleases." Again, "The clergy tell the prince they

Upon that

have physic good for the souls of his people. he admits them; but when he finds by experience they both trouble him and his people, he will have no more to do with them. What is that to them, or any one else, if a king will not go to heaven?" The supremacy of the civil power has seldom been more uncompromisingly asserted; but such an assertion of it was not more welcome to the leaders of the popular party than to High Churchmen themselves.

It must not be supposed, from the breadth of Selden's views on the vexed question of Church and State, that he was other than a man of earnest religious feeling. On this point the testimony of Sir Matthew Hale will satisfy everybody; and Baxter has preserved that testimony for us—“I think it meet to remember that because many Hobbists do report that Mr. Selden was at the heart an infidel, and inclined to the opinions of Hobbes, I desired him to tell me the truth herein; and he oft professed to me that Mr. Selden was a resolved, serious Christian, and that he was a great adversary to Hobbes' errors, and that he had seen him openly oppose him so earnestly, as either to depart from him, or drive him out of the room." Baxter adds, though the statement is contradicted by Aubrey, that Selden would not have his friend in his chamber, where he lay on his deathbed, exclaiming, “No atheists!"

Whitelocke says of Selden, that "his mind was as great as his learning; that he was as hospitable and generous as any man, and as good company to those whom he liked." There is evidence of the liberal assistance he gave to Meric Casaubon. As a conversationalist he shone supreme. Over the walnuts and the wine he poured out profuse stores of wit and wisdom. Happily for posterity he had his

H

Boswell; so that we know the author of "Titles of Honour" under his brightest and most genial aspect. Is it the same person? inquires James Hannay; one scarcely believes it. "Dry, grave, and almost crabbed in his writings, his conversation is homely, humorous, shrewd, vivid, even delightful! He is still the great scholar and the tough Parliamentarian, but merry, playful, and witty. The ἀνήριθμον γελασμα is on the sea of his vast intellect. He writes like the opponent of Grotius; he talks like the friend of Ben Jonson."

Selden's "Table-Talk" was published by his amanuensis, Richard Milward, in 1689. Fortunate Milward, in having the opportunity to listen to such talk! Fortunate Selden, in having an admirer discriminating and industrious enough to record it! Dr. Johnson preferred this small but precious volume to all the French Ana. Coleridge found "more weighty hollow sense" in it "than in the same number of pages of any uninspired writer." And as a matter of fact it does not contain one weak or worthless line. We find it a store of "good things," wise or witty, or both witty and wise. It includes the happy illustration that libels and pasquils are like straws, which serve to show how the wind sets. And that forcible suggestion, so much admired by Coleridge, that "Transubstantiation is only rhetoric turned into logic." His friends seem to have been much impressed by the care and spontaneity of his familiar analogies and comparisons. As in his remark on the necessary connection 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." Here is another "happy thought" :-" We

measure the excellency of other men by some excellence we conceive to be in ourselves. Nash, a poet poor enough, as poets used to be, seeing an alderman with his gold chain upon his great horse, by way of scorn said to one of his companions, 'Do you see yon fellow, how goodly, how big he looks? Why, that fellow cannot make a blank verse!'

To induce any of my readers who may unfortunately be ignorant of Selden's "Table Talk" to make immediate acquaintance with it, I shall subjoin a brief selection of striking passages :

"On Equality, and its Advocates.

"This is the juggling trick of the parity; they would have nobody above them, but they do not tell you they would have nobody under them."

[Borrowed by Dr. Johnson when he said to Boswell, “Your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them?"]

"Sermons.

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.

'Nothing is true but what is spoken of in the Bible, and meant there for person and place; the rest is application, which a discreet man may do well; but 'tis his Scripture, not the Holy Ghost's."

"Learning and Wisdom.

"No man is wiser for his learning; it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with a man."