Directly and indirectly, I have dealt with all these matters in my present work. I mention these facts in order to indicate the absolute necessity I was under of _rewriting_ the whole of my history. And now in reference to Lord Selborne’s works, which, owing to his high position, have influenced the opinions of many, one unsound mode of reasoning runs through many parts of them, especially his “Ancient Facts and Fictions.” I mean his _inferences from negative evidence_. And these inferences are so cleverly and shrewdly expressed, in the special pleading style, that although I knew they were wrong, yet I found it extremely difficult to prove _how_ they were wrong, because they were based on _negative evidence_. This mode of reasoning in the hands of a shrewd, clever lawyer is most powerful, misleading and embarrassing; and is at the same time most difficult to answer from the nature of the evidence. In order to elucidate my meaning, I shall give one out of many examples. He wants, in support of a certain cause, to sweep away the Church Grith law (A.D. 1014) which enacts the tripartite division of tithes, and this is his mode of reasoning:—“Selden and Spelman were well acquainted with the Worcester (Cottonian) manuscript [he calls it “The Worcester Volume” on the same page]; and, as neither of them made mention of this Church Grith document, _it may be inferred that they did not regard it as having the character or the authority of a law_.”[2] The reader of the book would naturally suppose that Selden and Spelman _had seen_ the “document,” although it is an unquestionable fact that _they had never seen it_, simply because it was never in Sir Robert Cotton’s library during his lifetime for them to see. I could not have proved this point if I were not aided by the official catalogue of 1632. I have often thought that Lord Selborne’s error arose in his assuming that all the manuscripts which are now in the Worcester volume, Nero, A. 1, were in the same volume when Selden and Spelman consulted it during the life of Sir Robert. If I am right, it is a clear proof how unsound it is to draw inferences from negative evidence, and how careless he must have been in not having made himself _quite certain_ that the “document” was in the volume for them to see. As this is a vital point in the discussion, I have devoted the whole of chapter x. in defence of this Church Grith law. But the _most unfair_ part adopted by the opponents of this law is, that whilst they parade, with a great flourish of trumpets, the opinions of Price and Wilkins against the law, they carefully omit _material evidence_ furnished by Archdeacon Hale, which is dead against their opinions (see pp. 107, 108). Since my former work was published, there appeared in July, 1887, the Parliamentary Return of the Tithes Commutation of 1836. I have dealt with this important information in Chapter XIX., and also in the Appendices.