monis partem judicabant) ex pulsu ejusque differentiis seu rhythmo (utrisque manibus carpo et cordi simul admotis), et ex respirationis collatione planè perspexi non pulmonis lobum aliquem, sed cordis conum esse; quem caro fungosa excrescens (ut in sordidis ulceribus fieri solet) exterius, muniminis instar, obtegebat. Concamerationem istam à subnascentibus sordibus adolescentis famulus injectionibus tepidis quotidiè liberabat, laminamque imponebat: quo facto herus sanus, et ad quælibet exercitia ac itinera promptus, tutò et jucundè vitam degebat.

Responsi vice igitur, adolescentem ipsum ad serenissimum Regem deduxi, ut rem admirabilem et singularem propriis ipse manibus tractaret atque oculis intueretur: nempe, in homine vivente et vegeto, citra ullam offensam, cor sese vibrans, ventriculosque ejus pulsantes videret ac manu tangeret. Factumque est, ut Serenissimus Rex, unà mecum, cor sensu tactûs privatum esse agnosceret. Quippe adolescens nos ipsum tangere, nisi visu aut cutis exterioris sensatione, neutiquam intelligebat.

• Simul cordis ipsius motum observavimus; nempe illud in diastole introrsùm subduci et retrahi, in systole verò emergere denuò et protrudi: fierique in corde systolen, quo tempore diastole in carpo percipiebatur, atque proprium cordis motum et functionem esse systolen: denique, cor tunc pectus ferire et prominulum esse, cùm erigitur sursùm et

in se contrahitur?

199

JOHN SELDEN.

[1584-1654.]

THIS illustrious scholar, who on various accounts has been denominated the Glory of England,' was descended from a good family, and born at Salvington† near Terring, in Sussex, December 16, 1584. He was educated at the Free School in Chichester, under Mr. Hugh Barker of New College, and in 1598 sent to Hart Hall, Oxford, where he continued about four years. In 1602, he entered himself of Clifford's Inn, in order to study the law; and between two and three years afterward removed to the Inner Temple, where he speedily acquired great reputation by his learning. Here, in 1606, he drew up his Analecta Anglo-Britannica, or Chronological Summary of English History down to the Conquest; a work,

AUTHORITIES. Wood's Athena Oxonienses, Wilkins' Life of Selden, and Nicholson's English Historical Library.

↑ "Over what was once the front of the house, which was called Lacies, was discovered on removing a shelf this inscription, written by him at ten years old, which I give as I find it on an anonymous paper in my hands, copied 1721;

Gratus, honeste, mihi; non claudar: inito, sedebis.
Fur, abeas; non sum facta soluta tibi.

and to be seen, when Dr. Wilkins wrote his life."

(Gough's Camden, Ed. 1806, I. 291.)

which bore honourable testimony at once to the variety of his acquisitions and the powers of his mind. It did not appear however till 1616, when it was published at Frankfort. His first intimacies were with Cotton, Spelman, Camden, and Usher, all of them learned in antiquities; which was, also, his own favourite object. In 1610, he distinguished himself by two publications of this description: England's Epinomis,' and Jani Anglorum facies altera,' beside his De Duello, or, Of Single Combat.' Two years afterward, he published Notes and Illustrations on the first eighteen songs in his friend Drayton's Poly-Olbion;' and, in 1613, wrote verses in Greek, Latin, and English upon Browne's Britannia's Pastorals:' which, with other introductory poems, occasioned Suckling to give him a place in his Session of the Poets.'* In the year following

6

appeared the most known and esteemed of his English labours, his Titles of Honour;' a volume which, "as to what concerns our nobility and gentry," says Bishop Nicholson, "all will allow ought first to be perused, for the gaining a general notion of the distinction of a degree, from an emperor down to a country gentleman." In 1616, he published his Notes on Fortescue's valuable Treatise De Laudibus Legum Angliæ;" and, in 1617, his De Diis Syris Syntagmata Duo,' which was reprinted at Leyden in 1629, after it had been revised and enlarged by the author. The primary object of this performance was, to treat on the heathen deities mentioned in the Old Testament; but he extended it to an inquiry into the Syrian idolatry in general,

* See the Extracts.

with occasional illustrations of the theology of other nations. About the same time, likewise, he wrote a dissertation on the state of the Jews formerly living in England, which was inserted in Purchas' Collection of Voyages.'

Selden was now not more than thirty-three years of age: yet he had shown himself an acute philologist, a profound antiquary, an able herald, and an accurate linguist; and his name was so highly advanced, even in foreign countries, that he had actually become, what he was afterward stiled, the Great Dictator of Learning of the English nation.' In 1618, his History of Tithes' made it's appearance, in the preface to which he reproaches the clergy with ignorance and laziness, with "having nothing to keep up their credit, but beard,* title, and habit, their studies not reaching farther than the breviary, the postils, and polyanthea." In the work itself he contends, that tithes under Christianity are not due by divine right,' though he allows the right to them, like that to all other property, to be founded upon the laws of the land.' This book, though at first licensed at Lambeth, quickly gave great offence to the clergy, and was animadverted upon by several writers; particularly by Dr. Richard Montagu, subsequently Bishop of Chichester and Norwich, Dr. Tillesley, and Mr. Nettles. The author was also

* If the clergy were bearded, so were also the King and courtiers. T. F. (Nichols' Anecdotes.)

† What were these to a Protestant clergy? T. F. (Ibid.)

They afterward, however, admitted the justice of his argument, as Wotton has fully acknowledged. Selden was called 'an Erastian' upon this account, from Erastus a Swiss physician of little celebrity, who wished to inhibit the ecclesiastical power from civil jurisdiction.

called before the High-Commission Court, and obliged to express his concern for having published a book, by which he had unintentionally given offence, though he did not recant any thing contained in it's pages.

James I. indeed, it is said, offended by his having stepped beyond the line of his profession, forbade his writing in reply to any of his opponents. The royal displeasure, however, could not have been very heavy; as, observing a doubt suggested in his History' respecting the true date of Christ's nativity, he requested him more fully to investigate the matter. The result of his very profound inquiry, presented in less than a month to his Sovereign, was given to the public, under the title of savewos, in 1661.*

In 1621, his Majesty having imprisoned several noble members of his uncomplying parliament who had protested against the doctrine held forth in one of his speeches, that all their boasted privileges were originally only grants from the crown,' ordered Selden likewise to be committed to the custody of the Sheriff of London; as, on being consulted upon the subject, he had given his opinion very strongly in opposition to the court. By the interest, however, of the Lord Keeper Williams† (and, perhaps, of Bishop Andrews) he, with the rest, was set at liberty in five weeks. To this wanton stretch of arbitrary power, and to his recollection of the proceedings of the HighCommission Court, may be attributed the persevering resistance, which he invariably from this time manifested to the measures of the royalists. In 1623,

* See the Extracts.

In gratitude for this kind mediation, he dedicated to Wil liams, in 1623, his History of Eadmer,' a monk of Canterbury, which he had revised in prison.