authority, and has been usually spoken of with much commendation. Pursuing his legal inquiries, he edited, in 1616, two treatises, one of Sir John Fortescue, the other of Sir Ralph Hengham, and in the same year wrote a ‘Discourse on the Office of Lord Chancellor.’ In the next year he printed a work, ‘De Diis Syris,’ which added to his celebrity, but is not compiled with that attention to the value of the respective authorities cited, so essentially necessary to the accurate consideration of historical questions. His next work was a ‘History of Tithes,’ printed in 1618, which excited against him the bitter hostility of the clergy. The doctrine of divine right, as the foundation of many ecclesiastical claims, was at this time jealously maintained, and was considered to be peculiarly connected with the right of the clergy to tithes. Selden drew no direct conclusion against the divine nature of the right to tithes, but he had so arranged his authorities as to render such a conclusion inevitable. The nature only of the title was contested, and so far from the clergy having had any reason to look upon Selden as an enemy, he in fact strengthened their claim to tithes by placing it upon the same footing as any ordinary title to property. As soon as the ‘History’ appeared it was attacked. The High Commission Court summoned Selden before it, and to this tribunal he was compelled to apologise. The terms of his submission very accurately state the offence, and are expressive of regret that “he had offered any occasion of argument against any right of maintenance _jure divino_ of the ministers of the gospel.” The work received several answers, but Selden was forbidden by James I., under a threat of imprisonment, to notice them. “All that will,” said he, “have liberty, and some use it, to write and preach what they will against me, to abuse my name, my person, my profession, with as many falsehoods as they please, and my hands are tied: I must not so much as answer their calumnies. I am so far from writing more, that I have scarce ventured for my own safety so much as to say they abuse me, though I know it.”