this research convinced me that a clear and unprejudiced account of the services they rendered to letters, and of the conduct they pursued in the momentous transactions of their time, might still be rendered worthy of the public notice.'

The Introduction contains an extremely rapid, but clear sketch of the history of English literature, from the reign of Henry VIII. down to the period when Selden and Usher raised the literary character of the country to the level of the continental nations,-some of which had made a very considerable progress, while England had remained comparatively barbarous. Dr. A. observes,

The returning dawn of polite and critical literature which broke out with so much splendour upon the horizon of Italy and other countries on the continent, shed at its commencement only a faint light upon this island, remote as it was from the usual track of scholars, and little provided with helps and encouragements to learning. A general communication, indeed, between the members of the clerical order was preserved by means of the court of Rome, through the extent of that religion of which it was the centre, and the cultivation of the Latin tongue, as a necessary medium of intercourse for the transaction of public affairs, and as a common language for the purposes of science, was never intermitted in Euro. pean country advanced beyond a state of barbarism. But Grecian literature spread slowly from those regions which first received it after its expulsion from Constantinople; and those profound researches into antiquity which were the base of improved philology, could advantageously be carried on only in countries affording the aid of well furnished libraries and cabinets, and rich in the relics of former ages.'

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We will attempt a very brief abstract of each of these wellwritten memoirs, which are themselves very compressed, and are very moderate in taking privilege for reflection and dissertation. John Selden was born in Sussex in 1584, received his early education at the free-school of Chichester, and was equal to the composition of a Latin distich at the age of ten. This first literary exhibition, however, was not indicative of his vocation, to which nothing could well bear less resemblance than the making of verses. He early commenced the study of law, at the inns of court: 'but the bent of his genius rather inclined him to closet researches into the history and antiquities of the law, than to the practice of it as a pleader. Wood affirms that "he seldom or never appeared at the bar, but sometimes gave chamber counsel, and was good at conveyancing." This inclination was doubtless fostered by the friendship which he cultivated with such men as Camden, Spelman, and Cotton, with whom he became connected on setting out in life.' While quite a youth he wrote a work on English antiquities; from the preface to which Dr. A. quotes a most uncouth and pedantic sentence as a speci

men of his Latin style, which, though afterwards much improved, never attained classical simplicity or grace. A tract which he wrote a few years later, on " Single Combat," furnishes a sample of his English style, which we transcribe.

"Reader, I open not a fence-school, nor shall you here learn the skill of an encounter, nor advantageously in the lists to traverse your ground. Historical tradition of use, and succinct description of ceremony, are my ends; both deduced from the ancients, but without proselenick affectation." After some more sentences, interlarded with learning, he concludes, " Best of the supreme aspects bestow their rays on you." p. 7.

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About the age of thirty, he gave to the public his largest English work, and that which affords the most copious display of his profound research into the history and antiquities of his own and other modern countries; this was his treatise on Titles of Honour.' Three years later appeared his work De Dus Syris, which placed him at once in the rank of the scholars of the age, and introduced him to the men of letters throughout Europe. Its primary purpose was to treat of the false deities mentioned in the Old Testament, but with this he joined an enquiry into the Syrian idolatry in general, and occasional illustrations of the ancient theology of other heathen nations.'

By his next work, the History of Tythes, published in 1618, "he exposed himself,' says Dr. A. to a contest “with the powers that be"-a contest always formidable to those whose only weapons are pen and ink, and whose only alternative becomes apology or patient endurance.'

The clergy, naturally solicitous to render their maintenance as secure as possible, had not been content to rest it upon the sense the laity might entertain of the utility of their profession, and the reasonableness of an adequate remuneration for their serviees, but had endeavoured to implicate their claims with the sanctity of a religious obligation. They had therefore advanced the doctrine of the divine right of tythes, as inherited by the Christian priesthood from the Jewish, and derived to the latter from the patriarchal ages. This doctrine had been maintained by several English divines, and was beginning to be regarded as fundamental to the establishment of a national church.'

Though it is presumed that Selden, like the other lawyers of his time, was an enemy to this doctrine, his book was not written with any avowed intention of controverting it; he insisted that he had written and intended purely and exclusively a history; and that, without at all touching the question, or designedly invalidating any evidence, of the divine right, he had made an ampler contribution towards a proof of the legal right than all other writers. The very rumour, however, of his work excited alarm; and its appearance caused a complaint of the clergy to his Majesty, previously, as it seems, to any trial of

the effect of argumentative censure, the point of, precedence being given to the most efficient critic and polemic. The author was summoned into the presence, held two learned conferences with his Majesty, and had begun to flatter himself that his explanations and his respectful humble deportment had pacified the royal displeasure, when he received a citation to appear before some members of the High-Commission court, where he was reduced to make and subscribe a humble and unfeigned protestation' of grief, and deprecation of anger, on account of the publication and tendency of the obnoxious book. There are various circumstances in his life to prove, that he was very considerably below the level, in point of intrepid inflexibility, of many of the distinguished men of his time: but we will quote the biographer's and Hume's observations, to shew how far the defect of honesty and resolution may in this instance be extenuated.

Before this eminent person is censured for want of firmness on this trying occasion, candour requires us to cast a view on the terrific powers with which the court of High Commission, established by Elizabeth, and then subsisting in all its vigour, was invested. "The Commissioners," says Hume, Eliz. ch. iv. " were empowered to visit and reform all errors, heresies, schisms, in a word, to regulate all opinions, as well as to punish all breach of uniformity in the exercise of public worship. They were directed to make enquiry, not only by the legal methods of juries and witnesses, but by all other means and ways that they could devise; that is, by the rack, by torture, by inquisition, by imprisonment. Where they found reason to suspect any person they might administer to him an oath called ex officio, by which he was bound to answer all questions. The fines which they levied were discretionary, and often occasioned the total ruin of the offender, contrary to the established laws of the kingdom. The imprisonment to which they condemned any delinquent was limited by no rule but their own pleasure. To confront a judicature thus armed required no ordinary share of fortitude; and Selden seems to have thought that he did all that the cause of truth could demand by avoiding any direct retraction of his opinion, or any acknowledgement of error in his statement of facts. After several more exculpatory observations, Dr. A. adds] In all instances in which the arm of power is applied to for taking a controversy out of the proper jurisdiction of argument, and intimidating one of the parties, they who employ such unfair means are primarily chargeable with the deviations from truth and integrity which may be the result."

The book was prohibited: and while all had fall liberty to write whatever they pleased against it, and did write with virulence, the author was forbidden to write in its defence. He himself affirms that at an audience of the king, at the time when Montagu was preparing his Confutation of the History of Tythes, his Majesty sternly forbade him to make any reply, using these words: "If you or any of your friends shall write against this confutation, I will throw you into prison:" a

truly royal way,' says the biographer, of interposing in a literary controversy."

This iniquitous zeal of the monarch in support of that divine right which Selden was deemed to have impugned, was exerted partly as a grateful return, and partly as a new incitement, to that correspondent zeal with which it was very important to him that the ecclesiastics should abet another, divine right-that of kings. And certainly the people were under some little obligation to him for the bold undisguised simplicity of conduct, by which, as in such instances as the one here recited, he was pleased to rid this latter question, as concerning himself, of all complexity arising from any secondary grounds of right. Such a mode of governing might tolerably satisfy them that he had, at any rate, no other rightful claim than that same jus divinum; and the men who had grown above the superstition of believing in that right, could have no questions, but those of prudence, to settle respecting their duty of obedience to a monarch, who would forbid an author to vindicate his book with arguments against its patronized as sailants, and forbid a nation to read the history of its own institutions, TF ! %)9!}

It might have been expected, perhaps, that such treatment! of a man of talents and distinguished fame, would have im pelled him quickly to a decided coalition with those indignant spirits that were now beginning to make some irreverent inroads on the despotism, even through the formidable fence of divine right. But whatever were his opinions or his resentments, he could not help feeling that an enraged monarch was a very fearful object to look at, or to hear; that "the king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion ; but his favour as dew upon the grass;" This benignant dew was invoked to fall by some servile and bypocritical offerings to the literary and theological vanity of the royal pedant, humbly presented,' says the biographer, 'with an address (which cannot be read without a very painful sense of the degradation incurred by literature, when brought in collision with power, unless supported by a proper sense of its own dignity.' In the whole of this sacrifice made to the will and prejudices of the sovereign, we discern that “indulgence to his safety" which Lord Clarendon mentions as a feature in the character of Selden.-It is, at the same time, to be observed in his favour, that this very censurable conduet (and the subsequent course of his life presents one or two more instances of nearly similar demerit) is not to be ascribed to a worse cause than timidity; for, though not qualified for a hero or a martyr, he was not mercenary; nor does be exhibit any thing of that honourable ambition,' as it is usually called, that eagerness for station and office, which

has so often given a character of littleness to men of talent and literary acquirements in recent times. And even these delinquencies resulting from his timidity, were partially redeemed by his general fidelity to the cause of freedom, throughout the course of public conduct into which he was drawn by the great political questions in which he was not allowed to remain neutral. That state of hostility between the parliament and the king, which was leading to such memorable events, had advanced to a rapid and ominous interchange of the respective acts of offence-the remonstrances and royal reprimands, the protestations and dissolutions-when the parlia ment called for the information, which Selden was qualified beyond any other man to give, concerning the ancient privileges of that body. And,

He largely discoursed on the subject, before the house, and giving way to his feelings, digressed to the imminent dangers from popery, and the injurious practices of the courtiers in alienating the King's affection from the parliament. He was also the framer or the adviser of the obnoxious protestation,' (in which they had re-asserted their claims to liberty of speech and interposition with their advice.) On these accounts, when the king, after the dissolution of parliament, thought proper to manifest his resentment against the advocates of the popular cause by imprisoning some of the most distinguished among them, Selden was one of those selected for this honour."

In 1623 he was returned to Parliament by the borough of Lancaster; but had full leisure for the prosecution of his studies-the political warfare languishing, through defect of energy on the royal side, during the last two or three years of James. When it resumed its animation with the commencement of the new reign, we find Selden by no means declining the danger, but actively co-operating with the friends of the people against the tyrannical proceedings of the court, as directed by the unprincipled favourite, the Duke of Buckingham. As an appropriate reward and stimulus, in bis patriotic course, he was, in 1629 and the following year, accommodated for a very considerable time with apartments, first in the Tower, and afterwards in the Marshalsea prison. But we must not regularly attend his progress any further. A few, brief notices may suffice for the sequel of the memoir.-His learned studies were indefatigably and with little interruption pursued during this imprisonment, and for several years afterwards, and resulted in several works on Jewish laws and history, and in the revisal for publication of the treatise, composed many years before, entitled Mare Clausum, which has probably contributed the most to the notoriety of his name. The biographer states at some lentgh the occasion, and the