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 et Spicilegium,' and published the work in 1623. In 1629 appeared a yet more important work, the 'Marmora Arundelliana, an account of the ancient works of art collected by Thomas Howard, second earl of Arundel [q. v.] The work was begun in 1627 with the aid of Patrick Junius and Richard James, and was completed in the long vacation of 1628 at Lord Kent's mansion at Wrest. When published in 1629 it had a great and rapid sale. Its most important contents included a chronicle known as the 'Parian Chronicle' (deciphered from the Marmor Parium, the upper half of which has since disappeared), and documents relative to the treaty between the peoples of Smyrna and Magnes, followed by versions in ordinary modern Greek and in Latin. A few Latin and Hebrew inscriptions are also discussed. This work, though it did not escape the censure of Bentley (Dissertation on Phalaris), is one of the highest value; it marks 'a sort of æra,' says Hallam, 'in lapidary learning.' Boeckh, who closely followed Selden, testifies not only to the accuracy of his transcriptions, but to the excellence of his commentary.

At the command, it appears, of James I, Selden had in 1618 composed an essay in support of the English claim to the dominion of the seas. Already in 1609 Grotius had in 'Mare Liberum' maintained, in accordance with the present theory of international law, that the high seas were open to all. Three or four years later some English vessels took from Dutch vessels laden with the spoil of twenty-two walruses, taken in the Greenland waters, all the results and all the instruments of capture, on the ground that the Dutchmen lacked the English king's license to fish in Greenland waters. Holland complained to England, and in 1618 a conference between commissioners of the two powers took place in England, at which Grotius was one of the representatives of Holland. It was on this occasion that Selden prepared his treatise, but at the time the king declined to authorise the publication from a fear that some passages might displease the king of Denmark, to whom James was deep in debt. In 1635 Selden, at the command of Charles I, again took the work up; Laud acted as intermediary, not without the hope that this gleam of court favour would win Selden to the royal side. In this project Laud failed; but it led to an intimacy between him and Selden, who became 'both a frequent and a welcome guest at Lambeth House, where he was grown into such esteem with the archbishop that he might have chose his own preferment in the court (as it was then generally believed), had he not undervalued all other employments in respect of his studies' (, Life of Laud, ed. 1671, p. 303).

In 1636 the work was published under the title of 'Mare Clausum, seu de Dominio Maris libri duo.' It is, like all the works of Selden, replete with learning; but in this case the propositions in support of which that learning is used are so directly at variance with the most elementary rights of men, that the learning was wasted. The first book argues that by the law of nature or nations the sea is not common to all men, but is as much as the land the subject of private property. In the second book he maintains that the lordship of the circumambient ocean belongs to the crown of Great Britain as an indivisible and perpetual appendage. This claim has long since been abandoned. Charles I was so pleased by Selden's performance that, by an order of the privy council, it was directed that one copy should be kept in the archives of the council, another in the court of exchequer, and a third in the court of the admiralty. Meanwhile, in obedience to a command of the House of Lords, Selden prepared his treatise on the 'Privilege of the Baronage of England,' and on 6 Dec. 1641 delivered his work into the hands of the sub-committee for privileges of the house (Introd. ad fin.). The first part relates to privileges enjoyed by the baronage of England, 'as they are one estate together in the upper house,' as e.g. the privilege of voting by proxies; the second relates to privileges enjoyed by them, 'as every one of them is privately a single baron,' as e.g. their right of substituting a protestation upon honour for an oath, and their benefit of clergy though unable to read.

In 1647 Selden published his edition of 'Fleta,' an early English law treatise (based on Bracton), of which a unique manuscript belonged to Cotton [see ]. To this treatise Selden prefixed a dissertation of great and varied learning, travelling over a wide range of subjects ( and, History of English Law, i. 188). He mainly deals with the influence of Roman law on English jurisprudence, and discusses the place of the civil law in the courts martial and the courts of the admiralty, not without a reference to the almost obstinate love of the English people for their common law. Such a work appears an ample justification of the founders (in 1887) of the Selden Society for their selection of Selden as their eponymous hero.

In 1653 Selden assisted Sir Roger Twysden in editing ten works on English his-