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archbidiops of York. The (lately entrance or e;ateway is 

 ftill remaining, on the fummit of which cardinal Wolfey ufej 

 to fit, and enjoy the view of the furronndinjr country. Ca- 

 wood caftle continued in all its fplendour till the commence- 

 ment of the civil war in 1641, when it was feized upon, 

 and garrifoned for the parliament. It fubfequently, how- 

 ever, fell into the hands of the king's party, and fuftained 

 a fiege of ten months before it was retaken by the parlia- 

 mentary troops, when it was ordered to be demoli(hed. 

 The Hiftory of Selby, by James Mountain, l2mo. York, 

 1800. Beauties of England and Wales, vol. xvi. by John 

 Bigland, 8vo. 1812. 



SELCH Skerrie, one of the fmaller Orkney iQands, a 

 little N. of North Ronaldfiia. 



SELCHA, or SELiiCHA, in ylncient Geography, a town 

 of Judsa, fituated in the half tribe of Manaileh, on the 

 other fide of Jordan, according to Jofhua. 



SELDEN, John, in Biography, a very diftingulflied 

 fcholar, and an eminent political charafter, called by Gro- 

 tias "the glory of England," was born at Salvington, in Suf- 

 fex, in 1584. He was educated at the free-fchool at Chi- 

 chefter, whence he was fent to Hart-hall, Oxford, where 

 he refided about four years. He then removed to Lon- 

 don, for the fludy of the law, and with this view entered 

 himfelf in Clifford's-Inn, and about two years after he re- 

 moved to the Inner Temple, wliere he foon acquired great 

 reputation by his learning. He had already made himfelf 

 known by fome works of great merit, and this year he 

 wrote verfes in Latin, Greek, and Englifh, upon Mr. 

 William Browne's Britannia's Paftorals. 



Having been called to the bar, he occafionally pleaded, 

 but was much more employed as a chamber counfellor. The 

 firft: objeft of his private lludies was the hillory and anti- 

 tiquities of his own country, and in 1607 he drew up a 

 work, entitled " Analefton Anglo-Britannicon," which was 

 a chronological fummary of Englilli hillory down to the 

 Norman conquell. This work was followed, in 1610, by 

 •' England's Epinomis," and " Jani Anglorum Facies al- 

 tera," a I^atiii and Englifli treatife on the origin and pro- 

 grefs of Englifli law. By thefe compofitions he became 

 known as a diligent enquirer into the early hillory and con- 

 ilitution of his country, and acquired the ellecm of fcveral 

 eminent literary chara6ler«, among whom were Camden, 

 Spelman, and iir Robert Cotton. He was alfo on familiar 

 terms with Ben Jonfon, Drayton, Browne, and other 

 poets of that period, who feem to have regarded his learn- 

 ing and talents with great refpeft, though his genius ap- 

 pears to have been inclined to poetry. In 1614 he publifhcd 

 his largell Englifh work, a treatife on " Titles of Honour," 

 in which he difplayed a vail extent of reading, dircfted by 

 found judgment. It became a ftandard authority with re- 

 gard to all that concerns the degrees of nobihty and gentry 

 in this kingdom, in which light it is Itill referred to ; and it 

 abounds in hillorical information concerning the origin of 

 fuch dillinftions as he traced through other countries. In 

 the year 1617 he entered upon a wider field of literature, 

 and made himfelf known to the learned throughout Europe, 

 by a celebrated work " De Diis Syris." The chief or 

 leading objeft of this performance was to treat on the hea- 

 then deities mentioned in the Old Tellament, but he ex- 

 tended it to an enquiry into Syrian idolatry in general, with 

 occafional illullrations of the theology ol other nations. 

 This work was received with great applaufe by the learned 

 world, and a new and improved edition of it was printed at 

 Leyden, under the care of Daniel Heiiifius. 



Hitherto Selden had pad'cd his life in the tranquillity of a 

 man of letters, engaged in fubjefts not liable to debate ; but 

 Vol. XXXII. 



his next publication, being "A Hillory of Tythes," 

 printed in 1618, fubjefted him to much angry oppofition, 

 and brought upon him, fays his biographer, " a ftorm from 

 a quarter which has always proved dangerous to free en- 

 quirers." In the work alluded to, he had confidered the 

 qucllion of the divine right to that impoll, advanced by the 

 clergy, and now beginning to be maintained by the Englifli 

 church, and though he only treated ot it as a matter of his 

 hillory, without arguing for or againll the right, yet as the 

 fum of his authorities manifeltly inclined the baUnce to the 

 negative fide of the queflioH, fome of the clergy took of- 

 fence at his freedom, and made an accufation againll him be- 

 fore king James. That fovereign, who was fond of inter- 

 fering in theological difputes, and who was always delirous 

 of keeping on good terms with the church, fcnt tor Mr. 

 Selden, and gave him a lefture on the fubjeft, and being af- 

 terwards called before the archbifhop of Canterbury, and 

 fome other members of the high commiflion court, he was 

 induced fo to degrade himfelf, as to fign a declaration of 

 his forrow for what he had done. He, however, cautioufly 

 avoided retrafting his opinion, or contradiftin^ the fafts 

 which he had produced. Several anfwers to Selden's work 

 were publifhed, to which he was not permitted publicly to 

 reply, though he circulated fome remarks upon them among 

 his friends. This incident unqueftionably confirmed him in 

 that hoflility to civil and ecclefiadical tyranny which ever 

 after marked his conduft. Selden was next to fhine in the 

 charafter of an advocate for conllitutional liberty, with 

 which his name is now fo clofely allied. The parliament 

 which James's necellities had obliged him to convoke in 1621, 

 was foon at illue with him on the point of their powers and 

 privileges, all of which the king aflerted to have been grants 

 from his predecellors and himfelf, while they maintained 

 them to be an inheritance from their ancettors. Selden be- 

 ing reforted to by the parliament as the ablefl legal antiqua- 

 rian of his time, for information relative to the ancient pri- 

 vileges of that body, fpoke fo freely before them againll 

 the praftices of the court, and was lo inllrumental in draw- 

 ing up their fpirited proteflations, that he was feleAed as one 

 of the viftims to the royal refentment, and committed to 

 cuflody. His imprifoiiment was not rigorous, and he was 

 foon difcharged upon his own petition. Refuming now his 

 antiquarian lludies, he edited, in 1723, the hillorical work 

 of Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, with learned notes re- 

 lative to the laws and cuftoms eltabhllied by William the 

 Conqueror. In the following year he was eledled to the new 

 parliament, as one of the reprefentatives for Lancaller, but 

 nothing occurred to call forth his exertions during that fef- 

 iion. He was again a member in the two firft parliaments 

 of king Charles, in the fecond of which he was appointed 

 to fupport fome articles of impeadiment of the duke of 

 Buckingham. He afterwards took up the caufe of fir Ed- 

 ward Hampden, who had been imprifoned for refufing to 

 contribute to a forced loan ; and in 1628 he was tiie perfou 

 whom the houfe of commons employed to produce matter 

 of record to jullify its refolutions in favour of the fubjeft's 

 right to his liberty and property. Thefe ufeful and very ho- 

 nourable labours did not fo entirely engrofs his attention, 

 but that he found time, in 1629, to draw up his learned 

 treatife, entitled " Marmora Arundeliana," the occafion ot 

 which was the importation by the earl of Arundel of fome 

 very ancient Greek marbles, containing infcriptions of great 

 value in the iludy of hiftory and chronology. This was 

 another obligation conferred by Selden on the learned world, 

 which was received with due gratitude. 



On the diflblution of the parliament, on account of its vi- 

 gorous proceedings againll the meafureB of the court, Sel- 



C c den 



