no person should be suffered to speak with him; nor should word, message, or writing be received by him; and that a gentleman of trust should be appointed to remain with him.” The letter which he addressed to Sir George Calvert, one of the secretaries of state, upon this occasion, is remarkable for the cool firmness which it exhibits. After being kept in confinement for five weeks, he was liberated at the intercession of lord keeper Williams. It was during this imprisonment that he prepared for the press the curious historical work of Eadmer, a Saxon monkish writer, and illustrated it with very learned notes: upon its publication, he dedicated it in grateful terms to the lord keeper, thanking him for having been the cause of his liberation.

From this time he seems to have taken a more active part in the great political events of the period. In 1623 he was returned member for Lancaster, and in the first two years of the reign of Charles the First for Great Bedwin, in Wiltshire. He was one of the committee for forming articles of impeachment against the Duke of Buckingham, and was appointed one of the managers at his proposed trial. He was one of the firmest and most distinguished opposers of the unconstitutional measure of levying money on the authority of the prerogative; and pleaded for Hampden, who had been imprisoned for refusing to pay the ship-money. It was now that his opposition to the corruptions of the government took a decided form and on all important discussions in parliament, he was looked up to, and listened to, with

the greatest reverence. In consequence of the weight of his opinion with the house, and the influence of his speeches on their decisions, the government found it expedient to take measures to prevent his attendance; and, in consequence, a charge of having uttered seditious expressions was preferred against him, and he was committed to the Tower in March, 1628. When he had been imprisoned some months, it was proposed that he should be discharged, on giving security for his future good conduct; but this he would not accede to, and was therefore removed to the King's Bench prison. A prosecution in the Star Chamber was soon after commenced against him for the publication of an alleged libel : this was a work written by Sir Robert Dudley, in the reign of James, under the title of " A Proposition for his Majesty's Service, to bridle the impertinence of Parliaments." By the favor of some powerful friends, his imprisonment was commuted for a nominal confinement in the Gatehouse, Westminster, which enabled him to retire into the country for about three months; he was then again committed to the King's Bench, and remained there until May, 1631, when he was admitted to bail, and continued to be bailed, from term to term, till July, 1634, when he was finally discharged without trial, having repeatedly pressed for a writ of Habeas Corpus without effect. During this period, the fruits of his literary occupations were four very learned treatises on ancient Jewish Law.

In the year 1635, he published, at the king's express desire, his "Mare Clausum," written many

years before in answer to Grotius, who, in his "Mare Liberum," had contended for the right of the Dutch to trade to the Indies, and to fish in the British seas. So important was the work esteemed to the interests of the kingdom, that "Sir William Beecher, one of the clerks of the council, was sent with a copy of it to the barons of the exchequer, in the open court, that it might be by them laid up as a most inestimable jewel among the choice records which concerned the crown." The court now looked upon him, " as a person worth the gaining "; he was, from this time, a frequent and welcome guest at Lambeth-house; and it was then generally believed that he might have chosen his own preferment in the state, had not his political opinions and practice remained inflexibly unchanged.

In the parliaments of 1640-1, he represented the University of Oxford, and was among the most distinguished of those in opposition to the court: he joined in the measures for the prosecution of the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud. For this last part of his conduct he has been censured by some of his biographers, as disdaining the ties of private gratitude. It is true, he had been in habits of intimacy with the prelate; but what were the obligations he had received from him, that should make him forget what he considered his duty to his country, we are not told.

In 1642, Charles wished to have made Selden lord chancellor, but he declined it upon the plea of ill health. In 1643, he was appointed one of the laymembers to sit in the Assembly of Divines at West

minster, "at which time," says Wood, "he took the covenant, and silenced and puzzled the great theologists thereof in their respective meetings." "Sometimes," as Whitelocke relates, "when they had cited a text of Scripture to prove their assertion, he would tell them, perhaps in their little pocket-bibles, with gilt leaves, which they would often pull out and read, the translation might be thus, but the Greek or Hebrew signified thus or thus, and so would totally silence them." A single instance of his wit on these occasions, may amuse the reader. In attempting to ascertain the exact distance between some place on the sea-coast and Jerusalem, one of the ministers suggested, that "as fish was frequently carried from the first to the latter, the interval did not probably exceed thirty miles." This inference was about to be adopted, when Selden unfortunately observed, that in all likelihood it was salt-fish! - Soon after he was appointed keeper of the records in the Tower.

In 1645, he became one of the commissioners of the Admiralty; and the next year five thousand pounds were publicly voted him in consideration of his services and sufferings in the public cause, but with true magnanimity he declined accepting it. While the great mass of his political compeers had been swayed by ambition, vanity, resentment, or avarice, patriotism had been the motive, and the law of the land the index of his conduct. In his political opinions, he seems to have entertained a high respect for the sacredness of the social contract; and he justified the resistance to the Stuarts, on the ground that they had infringed and violated this compact

between the prince and the people. Thus far he had been active in promoting what he deemed a necessary reform in the state; but from the scenes of anarchy and confusion which followed, he retired with a clear conscience, and returned to the prosecution of his beloved studies with eagerness. At this period, he commenced a work of stupendous erudition, which he published in parts, entitled "De Synedriis et Præfecturis Veterum Hebræorum": he lived, but to finish three books. Shortly before his death, he wrote also a preface to the "Decem Scriptores Anglicani," a collection of monkish historians, published by Sir R. Twysden; and a vindication of his "Mare Clausum," which contains some particulars of his own history. Of his works, which are very numerous, a list may be found in the Biographia Britannica. They were collected and published in six volumes, folio, by the learned Dr. Wilkins, in 1726.

"At length," says Wood, "after this great light of our nation had lived to about the age of man, it was extinguished on the last of November, 1654." He died of a gradual decline at the Carmelite, or Friary House, in White Friars, which he possessed, with other property, to a very considerable amount, by the bequest of Elizabeth, countess dowager of Kent, with whom he had lived in the strictest amity, as he had also done with the earl in his life-time. He died very rich, having lived a bachelor, in the exercise of a lucrative profession, with no disposition to expense, beyond the formation of a most extensive and valuable library, which he had once bequeathed to