cal occupations were not suffered to divert his mind altogether from literary pursuits. Besides an account, published in 1628, of the celebrated Arunde

House of Selden at Salvington, Sussex. lian marbles, which had been brought from Greece the previous year, he gave to the world various works on legal and ecclesiastical antiquities, particularly those of the Jewish nation; and also an elaborate Latin treatise in support of the right of British dominion over the circumjacent seas. This last appeared in 1635, and found great favour with all parties. A defence of it against a Dutch writer was the last publication before his death-an event which took place in 1654. His friend Archbishop Usher preached his funeral sermon, and his valuable library was added by his executors to the Bodleian at Oxford. After his death, a collection of his sayings, entitled Table Talk, was published by his amanuensis, who states that he enjoyed for twenty years the opportunity of hearing his employer's discourse, and was in the habit of committing faithfully to writing 'the excellent things that usually fell from him.' It is more by his Table Talk' than by the works published in his life-time, that Selden is now generally known as a writer; for though he was a man of great talent and learning, his style was deficient in ease and grace, and the class of subjects which he chose was one little suited to the popular taste. The following eulogy of him by Lord Clarendon, whose politics were opposite to his, proves how highly he was respected by all parties: He was a person whom no character can flatter, or transmit any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of so stupendous a learning in all kinds and in all languages (as may appear in his excellent 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, affability, and courtesy, were 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, 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 style, and too much propensity

Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who was a zealous patron of the fine arts, sent agents into Italy and Greece to collect and transmit to England interesting remains of antiquity. Among other relics so procured were the above-mentioned marbles, brought by Mr (afterwards Sir William) Petty from Smyrna, and on which were found certain Greek inscriptions including that called the Parian Chronicle, from its being supposed to have been made in the isle of Paros, about 263 years before Christ. This Chronicle, by furnishing the dates of many events in ancient history, proved of very great use in chronological investigations.

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, that hath been known. Mr Hyde was wont to say, that he valued himself upon nothing more than upon having had Mr Selden's acquaintance from the time he was very young, and held it with great delight as long as they were suffered to continue together in London; and he was much troubled always when he heard him blamed, censured, and reproached, for staying in London, and in the parliament after they were in rebellion, and in the worst times, which his age obliged him to do; and how wicked soever the actions were which were every day done, he was confident he had not given his consent to them, but would have hindered them if he could with his own safety, to which he was always enough indulgent. If he had some infirmities with other men, they were weighed down with wonderful and prodigious abilities and excellences in the other scale.'

Many of the apophthegms to be found in Selden's Table Talk' are exceedingly acute; many of them are humorous; while some embody propositions which, though uttered in familiar conversation, he probably would not have seriously maintained. As might be expected, satirical remarks on the clergy abound, and there are displays also of that cautious spirit which distinguished him throughout his career. Marriage, for example, he characterises as 'a desperate thing: the frogs in Esop were extreme wise; they had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again.' The following are additional extracts from the Table Talk:

Evil Speaking.

1. He that speaks ill of another, commonly before he is aware, makes himself such a one as he speaks against; for if he had civility or breeding, he would forbear such kind of language.

2. A gallant man is above ill words. An example we have in the old lord of Salisbury, who was a great wise man. Stone had called some lord about court fool; the lord complains, and has Stone whipped; Stone cries, 'I might have called my lord of Salisbury fool often enough, before he would have had me whipped.'

3. Speak not ill of a great enemy, but rather give him good words, that he may use you the better, if you chance to fall into his hands. The Spaniard did this when he was dying; his confessor told him, to work him to repentance, how the devil tormented the wicked that went to hell; the Spaniard replying, called the devil, my lord: 'I hope my lord the devil is not so cruel.' His confessor reproved him. 'Excuse me,' said the Don, for calling him so; I know not into what hands I may fall; and if I happen into his, I hope he will use me the better for giving him good words.'

Humility.

1. 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.

2. 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, it will render him unserviceable both to God and man.

3. Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up his dignity. In gluttons there must be eating, in drunkenness there must be drink

1 Such a thing as a faulty excess of humility.

ing; it is not the eating, nor it is not the drinking, that is to be blamed, but the excess. So in pride.

King.

A king is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness sake; just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat: if every man should buy, or if there were many buyers, they would never agree; one would buy what the other liked not, or what the other had bought before, so there would be a confusion. But that charge being committed to one, he, according to his discretion, pleases all. If they have not what they would have one day, they shall have it the next, or something as good.

nobody else. I, perceiving what an opinion he had of me, and that it was only melancholy that troubled him, took him in hand, warranted him, if he would follow my directions, to cure him in a short time. I desired him to let me be alone about an hour, and then to come again; which he was very willing to. In the in a piece of taffeta, and put strings to the taffeta; mean time, I got a card, and wrapped it up handsome and when he came, gave it to him to hang about his neck; withal charged him, that he should not disorder himself, neither with eating or drinking, but eat very little of supper, and say his prayers duly when he went to bed; and I made no question but he would be well in three or four days. Within that time I went to dinner to his house, and asked him how he did? He said he was much better, but not perfectly well; for, in truth, he had not dealt clearly with me; he had four devils in his head, and he perceived two of them were gone, with that which I had given him, but the other two troubled him still. 'Well,' said I, 'I am glad two of them are gone; I make no doubt to get away the other two likewise.' So l gave him another thing to hang about his neck. Three days after, he came to me to my chamber, and professed he was now as well as ever he was in his life, and did extremely thank me for the great care I had taken of him. I, fearing lest he might relapse into the like distemper, told him that there was none but myself and one physician more in the whole town that could cure the devils in the head, and that was Dr Harvey (whom I had prepared), and wished him, if ever he found himself ill in my absence, to go to him, for he could cure his disease as well as myself. The gentleman lived many years, and was never troubled after.

We quote the following morsel from the preface | to Selden's History of Tithes:'

[Free Inquiry.]

For the old sceptics that never would profess that they had found a truth, yet showed the best way to search for any, when they doubted as well of what those of the dogmatical sects too credulously received for infallible principles, as they did of the newest conclusions. They were indeed, questionless, too nice, and deceived themselves with the nimbleness of their own sophisms, that permitted no kind of established truth. But, plainly, he that avoids their disputing levity, yet, being able, takes to himself their liberty of inquiry, is in the only way that in all kinds of studies leads and lies open even to the sanctuary of truth; while others that are servile to common opi nion and vulgar suppositions, can rarely hope to be | admitted nearer than into the base court of her temple, which too speciously often counterfeits her inmost sanctuary.

JAMES USHER.

The man who, along with Selden, at this time lish learning throughout civilised Europe, was his contributed most to extend the reputation of Eng friend JAMES USHER, archbishop of Armagh, and born at Dublin in 1581, and would have devoted primate of Ireland. This celebrated scholar was himself to the law, had not the death of his father, whose wishes pointed to that profession, allowed him to follow his own inclination for theology. He succeeded to his father's estate, but, wishing to devote himself uninterruptedly to study, gave up to his brother, reserving for himself only a sufficiency for his maintenance at college and the purchase of books. He early displayed great zeal | against the Roman Catholics; and, notwithstanding the mildness of his personal character, continued throughout his life to manifest a highly in

Archbishop Usher.

lion, in 1641, drove him to England, where he settled at Oxford, then the residence of Charles. Subsequently the civil war caused him repeatedly to change his abode, which was finally the Countess of Peterborough's seat at Ryegate, where he died in 1656, at the age of seventy-five. Most of his writings relate to ecclesiastical history and antiquities, and were mainly intended to furnish arguments against the Catholics; but the production for which he is chiefly celebrated is a great chronological work entitled Annales, or Annals,' the first part of which was published in 1650, and the second in 1654. It is a chronological digest, of universal history, from the creation of the world to the dispersion of the Jews in Vespasian's reign. The author intended to add a third part, but died before accomplishing his design. In this work, which was received with great applause by the learned throughout Europe, and has been several times reprinted on the continent, the author, by fixing the three epochs of the deluge, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and their return from Babylon, has reconciled the chronologies of sacred and profane history; and down to the present time, his chronological system is that which is generally received. A posthumous work, which he left unfinished, was printed in 1660, under the title of Chronologia Sacra; it is accounted a valuable production, as a guide to the study of sacred history, and as showing the grounds and calculations of the principal epochs of the Annals.'

WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH.

WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH was a still more prominent, though less bigoted, opposer of the doctrines of the church of Rome, than his contempo

cient state of Ireland and the history of Dublin: these were afterwards inserted by Camden in his 'Britannia. For thirteen years subsequently to 1607, Usher filled the chair of divinity in the university of Dublin, in performing the duties of which he confined his attention chiefly to the controversies between the Protestants and Catholics. At the convocation of the Irish clergy in 1615, when they determined to assert their independence as a national church, the articles drawn up on the occasion emanated chiefly from his pen; and by asserting in them the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation in their broadest aspect, as well as by his advocacy of the rigorous observance of the Sabbath, and his known opinion, that bishops were not a distinct order in the church, but only superior in degree to presbyters, he exposed himself to the charge of being a favourer of Puritanism. Having been accused as such to the king, he went over to England in 1619, and, in a conference with his majesty, so fully cleared himself, that he was ere long appointed to the see of Meath, and in 1624 to the archbishopric of Armagh. Soon afterwards he gave evidence of his intolerant spirit towards the Catholics, by acting as the leading man at the drawing up of a protestation commencing thus :-The religion of the Papists is superstitious and idolatrous; their faith and doctrine erroneous and heretical; their church, in respect of both, apostatical. To give them, therefore, a toleration, or to consent that they may freely exercise their religion, and profess their faith and doctrine, is a grievous sin.' At a subsequent period, Usher's zeal showed itself in a more creditable shape on the occasion of a letter from the king to the Irish archbishops, complaining of the increase of Popery in Ireland. He invited persons of the Catholic persuasion to his house, and endeavoured to convert them by friendly argument, in which attempt his great skill in disputation is said to have given him considerable success. During the political convulsions of Charles's reign, Usher, in a treatise entitled The Power of the Prince, and Obedience of the Subject, maintained the absolute unlawfulness of taking up arms against the king. The Irish rebel