Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/229

 mora Oxoniensia' published in 1676, nine marbles are identified as forming part of Selden's bequest (Preface). One, if not all, of these sculptures came from Asia Minor ('e Græcia Asiatica,' De Synedriis, lib. iv. c. 14, s. 9). These marbles, like the Arundel marbles and some given by Sir George Wheeler, were originally exposed in the open air within the enclosure of the schools; in 1714 they were removed into the picture gallery; in 1749 into one of the rooms of the ground floor, and in 1888 to the university galleries. They seem to have suffered considerably while in the care of the university (, pp. 190–1).

The story that Selden on his death-bed caused his papers to be destroyed (told by an anonymous writer in a Bodleian scrap-book) appears to be plainly erroneous, for there exist in the library of Lincoln's Inn five volumes of Selden's manuscripts which are partly in his handwriting and partly in that of various amanuenses. They no doubt came to Sir Matthew Hale as executor of Selden, and they were, together with other manuscripts, bequeathed by him to Lincoln's Inn; they appear to have been bound after they came into the hands of the society. They consist of copies and extracts from registers and documents of all kinds, of rough notes, of papers relative to cases in which Selden was professionally engaged, and of a single sheet of autobiography. A catalogue of these manuscripts was prepared by the Rev. Joseph Hunter for the record commissioners, and reprinted by the society (1838). One paper in these manuscripts is interesting as the only trace of Selden's interest in natural history. It is a catalogue in his handwriting of some sixty-four birds.

It was not till 1689, when the revolution had given freedom to the press, that the 'Table Talk of Selden, the book by which he is generally known to fame, was first printed. This work was composed by Richard Milward [q. v.], a secretary of Selden, and contains reports of Selden's utterances from time to time during the last twenty years of his life. Its authenticity was doubted by Dr. Wilkins, but for reasons which have not satisfied the world; and the work may safely be accepted as the most vivid picture extant of the habits of thought and the modes of expression of the great Erastian lawyer. The conversations cover a great range of subjects relative to human life and history; but Selden was never metaphysical and rarely philosophical. The book exhibits him with a great and varied knowledge of life; as a man of strong and somewhat scornful intellect; as delighting to illustrate his discourse by similitudes; as solving all questions in church and state by a reference to one or two simple principles—the sovereignty of the state, and the contract between the sovereign and his people. 'All is as the state pleases;' 'every law is a contract between the king and the people, and therefore to be kept'—are two sentences characteristic of Selden's habitual thought. Such principles are destructive of the claims to jus divinum alike of kings, bishops, and presbyters; and they exclude those theories of natural right to which ardent reformers are wont to have recourse. A comparison of the style of his 'Table Talk' with that of his speeches and written works supports the statement of Clarendon that he was far more direct, simple, and effective as a speaker than as a writer.

Selden's early friend, Ben Jonson, described him as 'living on his own, the law-book of the judges of England, the bravest man in all languages.' To him Jonson addressed a poetical epistle, in which he wrote

You that have been Ever at home, yet have all countries seen, And, like a compass, keeping one foot still Upon your centre, do your circle fill Of general knowledge; watched men, manners too, Heard what times past have said, seen what ours do.

Two other friends have left sketches of Selden's character. 'His mind,' says Whitelocke, 'was as great as his learning; he was as hospitable and generous as any man; and as good company to those whom he liked.' 'Mr. Selden,' says Lord Clarendon (Life, pt. i. p. 16), 'was a person whom no character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds and in all languages (as may appear in his excellent and transcendent 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, courtesy, and affability was 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, and in communicating all he knew, 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 a style, and too much propensity to the language of antiquity; but in his conversation he was the most clear discourser,