3. One of the church of Rome will not come to our prayers. Does that argue he does not like them? I would fain see a catholic leave his dinner, because a nobleman's chaplain says grace. Nor haply would he leave the prayers of the church, if going to church were not made a note of distinction between a protestant1 and a papist.

XVIII.

CHURCHES.

THE way coming into our great churches was anciently at the west door, that men might see the altar, and all the 10 church before them; the other doors were but posterns.

1 Protestant, H. 2] protest, H.

point in the course of a series of lectures to which Selden refers elsewhere. See note on 'Predestination,' sec. 3.

1.9. The way coming &c.] After the narthex (ante-temple) followed that part which was properly called vaós, the temple, and navis, the nave or body of the church ... The entrance into it from the narthex was by the gates, which the modern rituals and Greek writers call Túλaι ¿paîai and Bariλikai, the 'beautiful and royal gates.' Here their kings were wont to lay down their crowns before they proceeded further into the Church. Bingham, Christian Antiquities, bk. viii. ch. 5, sec. I.

These royal gates were usually at the west, since the churches were usually built east and west, with the altar at the east end, but the rule was not always observed. See Christian Antiquities, bk. viii. ch. 3, sec. 2.

Bingham gives, in this chapter, the ground-plan of an ancient church, showing the royal gates at the west, with the altar and all the church in full view in front of them, and the other gates or posterns at the sides. See also Selden's letter to Usher of March 24, 1621 (22), asking 'whether we find that any churches in the elder times of Christianity were with the doors or fronts eastward' (Works, ii. 1707), and Usher's reply of April 16, showing that ancient churches were built in a variety of ways, some 'with the doors or fronts eastward,' some standing north and south; but that for the most part they had the entrance at the west and the altar at the east end. R. Parr's Life of Usher. Letters, p. 81. Letter 49.

ΙΟ

XIX.

CITY.

I. WHAT makes a city? Whether a bishoprick, or anything1 of that nature?

Answer. 'Tis according to the first charter which made them a corporation. If they are incorporated by name of civitas, then they are a city; if by the name of burgum, then they are a borough.

2. The lord mayor of London by their first charter was to be presented to the king; in his absence to the lord 10 chief justiciary of England; afterwards to the lord chancellor, now to the barons of the exchequer; but still there was a reservation, that for their honour they should come once a year to the king, as they do still.

1 Anything, H. 2] any, H.

1. 8. The lord mayor of London &c.] The first notice of the presentment of the lord mayor to the King occurs in the fifth charter, granted by King John, 1215. It grants to the barons of the city of London that they may choose every year a mayor, 'so as, when he shall be chosen, to be presented to us or our justice, if we shall not be present.' By the sixth charter of Henry III, the mayor when chosen is to be 'presented to the Barons of the Exchequer, we not being at Westminster, so notwithstanding at the next coming of us or our heirs to Westminster or London, he be presented to us or our heirs, and so admitted mayor.' Edward I fixes the first presentation to be to the 'Constable of our Tower of London, but to us at our next coming to London.' See Noorthouck, Hist. of London, pp. 778, 782, 784. This rule is not varied in any later charters. For the practice, as it had afterwards been settled, see Maitland's Hist. of London, p. 1193 (fol. 1756). 'The Lord Mayor elect,' Maitland says, 'is presented first to the Lord Chancellor, and afterwards to the Barons of the Exchequer, when he has been sworn into his office.'

XX.

CLERGY.

1. THOUGH a clergyman have no faults of his own, yet the faults of the whole tribe shall be laid upon him, so he shall be sure not to lack.

2. The clergy would have us believe them against our own reason; as the woman would have had her husband against his own eyes, when he took her with another man, which she stoutly denied: What! will you believe your own eyes before your own sweet wife?

3. The condition of the clergy towards the prince, and 10 the condition of the physician is all one: the physicians tell the prince they have agaric and rhubarb good for him and good for his subjects' bodies; upon this he gives them leave to use it; but if it prove naught, then away with it, they shall use it no more; so the clergy tell the prince they have physic good for his soul, and good for the souls of his people; upon that he admits them: but when he finds by experience they both trouble him and his people, then away with them, he will have no more to do with them. What is that to them, or any body else, if a king will not go 20 to heaven?

4. A clergyman goes not a dram further than this: you ought to obey your prince in general. If he does he is lost: how to obey him, you must be informed by those, whose profession it is to tell you. The parson of the Tower (a good discreet man) told Dr. Mosely (who was sent to me, and the rest of the gentlemen committed 3d Caroli, to persuade us to submit to the king) that they found no

1. 6. as the woman would have had &c.] This seems to refer either to the story told in the first of the Adolphi Fabulæ (quoted in the Aldine ed. of Chaucer, vol. i. 232, Introductory Remarks), or to Chaucer's adaptation of the story in the 'Merchant's Tale,' of January and May.

such words, as parliament, habeas corpus, return, tower, &c. neither in the fathers, nor in the schoolmen, nor in the text; and therefore, for his part, he believed they understood nothing of the business. A satire upon all those clergymen that meddle with matters they do not understand.

5. All confess there never was a more learned clergy. No man taxes them with ignorance. But to talk of that, is like the fellow that was a great wencher; he wished God would forgive him his lechery, and lay usury to his charge. 10 The clergy have worse faults.

6. The clergy and treaty together are never like to do

1. 11. The clergy and treaty] This is the clear reading of the three MSS. which I have examined. The printed editions have 'the clergy and laity,' which gives an easier sense for the line, but does not suit so well with the general drift of the section. Selden seems to be referring to some attempted arrangement between two parties, in which the interference of the clergy, on the one side and on the other, was likely in his judgment to do harm by mixing up matters which had better have been left out. There were several attempted arrangements of which this might have been said. There was, e. g., the attempted treaty for peace between the King and the Parliament in 1643, in which one of the proposals was 'that religion might be settled with the advice of a synod of divines in such a manner as his Majesty, with the consent of both Houses of Parliament, should appoint' (Clarendon, History, ii. 477). Again, there was the abortive treaty of Newport, discussed in September, 1648, between the King, with some divines among his advisers, and the Parliamentary commissioners, attended by a body of their divines. In the course of this, questions about the church came prominently forward, and it was mainly on these that the negotiations finally broke down (Clarendon, History, vol. iii. 324, 327, 338-9). The remark in the text, in whichever form it stands, must clearly be limited to some such instance as the above. It is not to be taken as condemning in every case the joint action of clergy and laity. In 'Synod Assembly,' sec. 3, Selden distinctly approves this, and indeed insists upon it as necessary. He was himself a lay member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, a mixed lay and clerical body, for which religious matters were the appointed business: so that 'the apothecary' was in place there, and his rhubarb and agaric were the proper ingredients of the sauce. The reading, therefore,—'the clergy and treaty'—though an awkward collocation of words, seems to give a sense best suited to

well. 'Tis as if a man were to make an excellent feast, and would have his apothecary and his physician should come into the kitchen: the cooks, if they were let alone, would make excellent meat; but then comes the apothecary, and he puts rhubarb into the sauce, and agaric into another sauce and so spoils all. Chain up the clergy on both sides.

XXI.

HIGH COMMISSION.

MEN cry out upon the high commission, as if only clergymen had to do in it; when I believe there are more laymen in commission there, than clergymen. If the laymen will 10 not come, whose fault is that? So of the star-chamber, the people think the bishops only censured Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, when there were but two there, and one spoke not in his own cause.

the whole passage, and most in agreement with Selden's judgment elsewhere.

1. 8. as if only clergymen &c.] The Commissioners present in the High Commission Court on e. g. Nov. 17, 1631, were six clerics and four laymen; on Nov. 24 there were seven clerics and five laymen; on Jan. 26, 1631, six clerics and four laymen; on Feb. 9 there were three clerics and eight laymen. See High Commission Cases (Camden Society), pp. 239, 245, 261, 264. On the popular dislike of the High Commission Court, and on the very good reasons for it, see Clarendon, Hist., vol. i. p. 439. His statement is, in effect, that it had come to meddle with things which did not properly concern it; that it had extended its sentences and judgments, in matters tryable before it, beyond that degree which was justifiable, and had not only neglected prohibitions from the supreme courts of law, but had reprehended the judges for doing their duty in granting them. The growth of these abuses he ascribes to 'the great power of some bishops at court.'

1. 12. people think the bishops only &c.] They were tried, Clarendon says, 'in as full a court as ever I saw in that place.' The bishops present were 'only the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London.' Hist. i. 310. The bishop who spoke was Laud, the arch