SELI)EN, Joux. honoured by Grotius with the ap pellation of the " Glory of England," was an eminent scholar and politician. He was born at Salvington in Sussex in 1534. Ile was educated at Chichester, and after studying four years at Oxford, he entered the inner temple, where he acquired great reputation by his learning.
Ills first work was entitled./rudekton .1nglo Dritan nicon,a chronological summary of English history down to the conquest. This was followed by England's Epinoynis and Jani .qnglorunt •acies Micro, a Latin and English treatise on the origin and progress of English law. His largest English work, a treatise on Titles of Heroism, which appeared in 1609, obtained him great fame; and in 1617 he entered upon a new field, and made himself known throughout Europe by his work De Diis Syria, a work of great learning and research.
The next work of our author's was a Ili•tory of Tythes published in 1618, in which he opposed the claim of divine right to tythes made by the clergy of those days, and therefore exposed himself to the hos tility of that body. .1le was accused before King James, and being called before the Archbishop of Can terbury, he was induced to sign a declaration of his regret for what he had done. This event seems to have prepared him for that resistance to civil tyranny, which formed a striking feature in the rest of his life.
In the contest between the king and the parliament which he assembled in 1621, Selden was a leading agent in drawing up the splendid remonstrances of that body. Ile accordingly fell under the royal resent ment and was committed to prison. Being dis charged on his own petition, he resumed his peaceful pursuits, and published in 1623, the historical work of Eadmer of Canterbury.
In 1629. he was elected one of the members of par liament for Lancaster, and he also enjoyed a seat in that house in the two first parliaments of Charles I. In the second of these parliaments he was appointed to support articles of impeachment against the Duke of Buckingham. He afterwards took up the cause of Sir Edward Hampden; and in 1628, he was employed by the House of Commons to justify by facts its reso lution respecting the right of the subject to his liberty and property. Amid these engrossing pursuits, he found time to compose his Marynora .drundelianyt, which appeared in 1627.
On the dissolution of parliament, Selden was one of the eight members of the Iiouse of Commons, who were thrown into the Tower. on a charge or sedition.
Having refused to purchase his freedom by the slight est submission, he was removed to the Marshalsea prison, and then to the Gatehouse, and, along with his companions, was allowed to go at large on bail till 1639, when they were fully liberated.* During this confinement, Selden composed his work, De Sucecssionibus in bona Defuncti ad Lees Ebryworum, which appeared in 1631, and was reprint ed in 1636, with a new treatise De Succe•sione in Pontifieutum EbrxOru fl.
A dispute having arisen with the Dutch respecting the herring fishery on the British coast, Selden was induced by Archbishop Land to draw up his treatise, entitled, Mare elausum Sett Dominio Maris, and an other to the work of Grotius, entitled Mare Liberum. King James read and approved of this work, which appeared in 1635. and the object of which was to prove, " that the British have an hereditary unin terrupted right to the sovereignty of their seas, con veyed to them from their earliest ancestors in trust for their latest posterity." Having for some years devoted most of his time to Hebrew literature, he published in 1640 his work De Jure Naturali et Gentium jztxta Disciplinam Ebreorum, which contains a copious digest of the laws and insti tutions of the Jews.
In 1640, Selden was chosen one of the representa tives of the university of Oxford to the long parlia ment. He took an active part in reforming the abuses of the day, but he was well affected to the constitu tion both in church and state, and he opposed the violent attempts of both the contending factions. In 1643, he was appointed by the House of Commons keeper of the records in the Tower, and likewise one of the lay members of the Westminster Assembly of divines.
From this period till the time of his death, our au thor published the following works.
Eutychii Origines Ecclesix sax, a transla tion from the Arabic.
De Ann° Girili Ceteris Ecclesix uxor Ebraica. An edition of Fleta.
De Syncdriis Veterum Ebzworum.
Vindieix de Seriptiore maxis clause, which was the last production of his pen.
Selden died in 1654, in the seventy-first year of his age, and was interred in the temple church, where a monument is erected to his memory.
His works have been collected and published in 1726, in three vols. folio, with a life of the author in Latin, by Dr. David Wilkins.