ous, and likely consults and confers with his judicious friends; after all which done he takes himself to be informed in what he writes as well as any that wrote before him; if in this the most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abilities can bring him to that state of maturity as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry all his considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expense of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never knew the labor of book writing, and if he be not repulsed or slighted, must appear in print like a puny with his guardian and his censor's hand on the back of his title to be his bail and surety that he is no idiot or seducer, it cannot be but a dishonor and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning.

And what if the author shall be one so copious of fancy as to have many things well worth the adding come into his mind after licensing, while the book is yet under the press, which not seldom happens to the best and diligentest writers; and that perhaps a dozen times in one book? The printer dares not go beyond his licensed copy; so often then must the author trudge to his leave giver, that those his new insertions may be viewed, and many a jaunt will be made ere that licenser, for it must be the same man, can either be found, or found at leisure; meanwhile either the press must stand still, which is no small damage, or the author lose his accuratest thoughts and send the book forth worse than he had made it, which to a diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and vexation that can befall.

And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of teaching, how can he be a doctor in his book as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction, of his patriarchal licenser to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hidebound humor which he calls his judgment? when every acute reader upon the first sight of a pedantic license, will be ready with these like words to ding the book a quoit's distance from him: "I hate a pupil teacher, I endure not an instructor that comes to me under the wardship of an overseeing fist; I know nothing of the licenser, but that I have his own hand here for his arrogance; who shall warrant me his judgment?" "The State, sir," replies the stationer; but has a quick return, "The State shall be my governors, but not my

critics; they may be mistaken in the choice of a licenser as easily as this licenser may be mistaken in an author: this is some common stuff;" and he might add from Sir Francis Bacon, that such authorized books are but the language of the times. For though a licenser should happen to be judicious more than ordinary, which will be a great jeopardy of the next succession, yet his very office and his commission enjoin him to let pass nothing but what is vulgarly received already.

Nay, which is more lamentable, if the work of any deceased author, though never so famous in his lifetime and even to this day, come to their hands for license to be printed or reprinted, if there be found in his book one sentence of a venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal, and who knows whether it might not be the dictate of a divine spirit, yet not suiting with every low decrepit humor of their own, though it were Knox himself, the reformer of a kingdom, that spake it, they will not pardon him their dash; the sense of that great man shall to all posterity be lost for the fearfulness or the presumptuous rashness of a perfunctory licenser. And to what an author this violence hath been lately done, and in what book of greatest consequence to be faithfully published, I could now instance, but shall forbear till a more convenient season. Yet if these things be not resented seriously and timely by them who have the remedy in their power, but that such iron molds as these shall have authority to gnaw out the choicest periods of exquisitest books, and to commit such a treacherous fraud against the orphan remainders of worthiest men after death, the more sorrow will belong to that hapless race of men whose misfortune it is to have understanding. Henceforth let no man care to learn, or care to be more than worldly wise; for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and slothful, to be a common steadfast dunce, will be the only pleasant life and only in request.

And as it is a particular disesteem of every knowing person alive, and most injurious to the written labors and monuments of the dead, so to me it seems an undervaluing and vilifying of the whole nation. I cannot set so light by all the invention, the art, the wit, the grave and solid judgment, which is in England, as that it can be comprehended in any twenty capacities how good soever; much less that it should not pass except their superintendence be over it, except it be sifted and strained with their strainers, that it should be uncurrent without their manual stamp. Truth and understanding are not such wares

VOL. XIV. -5

as to be monopolized and traded in by tickets and statutes and standards. We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the land, to mark and license it like our broadcloth and our woolpacks. What is it but a servitude like that imposed by the Philistines, not to be allowed the sharpening of our own axes and colters, but we must repair from all quarters to twenty licensing forges.

Had any one written and divulged erroneous things and scandalous to honest life, misusing and forfeiting the esteem had of his reason among men, if after conviction this only censure were adjudged him, that he should never henceforth write but what were first examined by an appointed officer, whose hand should be annexed to pass his credit for him that now he might be safely read, it could not be apprehended less than a disgraceful punishment. Whence to include the whole nation, and those that never yet thus offended, under such a diffident and suspectful prohibition, may plainly be understood what a disparagement it is; so much the more, whenas debtors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but inoffensive books must not stir forth without a visible jailer in their title. Nor is it to the common people less than a reproach; for if we be so jealous over them as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what do we but censure them for a giddy, vicious, and ungrounded people, in such a sick and weak estate of faith and discretion as to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a licenser? That this is care or love of them we cannot pretend, whenas in those Popish places where the laity are most hated and despised, the same strictness is used over them. Wisdom we cannot call it, because it stops but one breach of license, nor that neither, whenas those corruptions which it seeks to prevent break in faster at other doors which cannot be shut.

And in conclusion it reflects to the disrepute of our ministers also, of whose labors we should hope better, and of the proficiency which their flock reaps by them, than that after all this light of the gospel which is, and is to be, and all this continued preaching, they should be still frequented with such an unprincipled, unedified, and laic rabble, as that the whiff of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of their catechism and Christian walking.

SELDEN'S TABLE-TALK.

[JOHN SELDEN, one of the ablest of English lawyers, antiquarians, and scholars, and a leader of the moderate constitutional party in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., was born in Sussex, 1584; studied at Hart Hall, Oxford; was a friend of Ben Jonson, Drayton, Camden, Lord Herbers of Cherbury, and the other literary lights of the time, his fame as scholar and author outweighing even his great distinction as a lawyer. He wrote abridgments of parliamentary records, treatises on early English law, "Titles of Honor" (1614), still of prime value, etc.; "De Diis Syriis" (1617), even yet in the first rank of works on Semitic mythology; and in 1618 the famous " History of Tithes," so crushing against the bishops' claims that they got James to suppress it and forbid Selden to reply to the assaults on it. This drew him into political action; he incited the "Protestation" of 1621, and was committed to the Tower; became member of Parliament in 1623, and drew up the Petition of Right in 1628. Later, however, in reply to Grotius' contention that the ocean was free to all nations alike, he wrote "Mare Clausum" and dedicated it to Charles I. Elected a member of the Long Parliament in 1640, he was of the committee that impeached Laud; wrote "De Jure Naturali" (1640), “Privileges of the Baronage of England" (1642). He became master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1646, and died 1654. His "Table Talk" was published posthumously.]

CEREMONY.-Ceremony keeps up all things. 'Tis like a penny glass to a rich spirit, or some excellent water: without it the water were spilt, the spirit lost. Of all people, ladies have no reason to cry down ceremony; for they take themselves slighted without it. And were they not used with ceremony, with compliments and addresses, with bowing and kissing of hands, they were the pitifulest creatures in the world. But yet methinks to kiss their hands after their lips, as some do, is like little boys that after they eat the apple fall to the paring, out of a love they have to the apple.

Competency. That which is a competency for one man is not enough for another, no more than that which will keep one man warm will keep another man warm; one man can go in doublet and hose, when another man cannot be without a cloak and yet have no more clothes than is necessary for him.

Conscience. He that hath a scrupulous conscience is like a horse that is not well wayed, he starts at every bird that flies out of the hedge. A knowing man will do that which a tenderconscience man dares not do by reason of his ignorance; the other knows there is no hurt: as a child is afraid to go into the dark when a man is not, because he knows there is no danger. Councils. They talk (but blasphemously enough) that the Holy Ghost is president of their general councils, when the truth is the odd man is the Holy Ghost.

Evil-speaking. He that speaks ill of another, commonly, before he is aware, makes himself such a one as he speaks against; for if he had civility or breeding, he would forbear such kind of language. A gallant man is above ill words; an example we have in the old Lord of Salisbury, who was a great wise man. Stone had called some lord about court, Fool; the lord complains, and has Stone whipped. Stone cries, “I might have called my Lord of Salisbury Fool often enough before he would have had me whipped."

Speak not ill of a great enemy, but rather give him good words, that he may use you the better if you chance to fall into his hands. The Spaniard did this when he was dying. His confessor told him (to work him to repentance) how the devil tormented the wicked that went to hell: the Spaniard, replying, called the devil "my lord ": "I hope my lord the devil is not so cruel." His confessor reproved him. "Excuse me," said the Don, "for calling him so: I know not into whose hands I may fall, and if I happen into his, I hope he will use me the better for giving him good words."

Faith and Works. - 'Twas an unhappy division that has been made between faith and works. Though in my intellect I may divide them, just as in the candle I know there is both light and heat; but yet put out the candle, and they are both gone; one remains not without the other. So 'tis betwixt faith and works. Nay, in a right conception, faith is works; for if I believe a thing because I am commanded, that is works.

Friends.- Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes: they were easiest for his feet.

Humility. Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice, and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.

If a man does not take notice of that excellency and perfection that is in himself, how can he be thankful to God, who is the Author of all excellency and perfection? Nay, if a man hath too mean an opinion of himself, 'twill render him unserviceable both to God and man. Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up his dignity.

Judgments. We cannot tell what is a judgment of God; 'tis presumption to take upon us to know. In time of plague we know we want health; and therefore we pray to God to give us health; in time of war we know we want peace, and there.