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protestants and papists, and Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord chancellor, was appointed to be judge; but the conclusion was, the stronger party carried it. For so religion was brought into kingdoms, so it has been continued, and so it may be cast out, when the state pleases.

14. 'Twill be a great discouragement to scholars, that bishops should be put down. For now the father can say to the son, and the tutor to the pupil, Study hard, and you shall have vocem et sedem in parliamento; then it must be, Study hard, and you shall have an £100 a year if you please your parish.

Objection. But they that enter into the ministry for preferment, are like Judas that looked after the bag.

Answer. It may be so, if they turn scholars at Judas his age. But what arguments will you use to persuade them to follow their books, when they are young?

men of that communion, and certain protestant divines, held in the month of March, 1559, by order of the Queen's privy council, to be performed in their presence, eight on one side and eight on the other.' The Queen orders it to be conducted in writing and the papists to begin. The first day passed off quietly. On the second day, difficulties were raised as to the course of the proceedings and the papists refused to go on, as it had been arranged that they should. The conference thereupon broke up, after some ominous words from the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon. For that ye would not that we should hear you, perhaps you may shortly hear of us.' And so they did, for, as a punishment for their contempt, the Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln were committed to the Tower, and the others, except the Abbot of Westminster, were bound to make their personal appearance before the Council and not to depart the cities of London and Westminster until ordered. They were afterwards compelled to dance attendance every day at the Council from April 5 to May 12, until at length their fines for contempt were settled; 'and so they were discharged, recognizances for their good abearing being first taken of them.'

In the Editor's Preface to the second volume of Laud's Works, numerous instances are given of oral and of written controversies and disputations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, some of them between protestants and papists, others between the champions of different protestant sects.

IX.

BOOKS. AUTHORS.

1. THE giving a bookseller his price for his books, has this advantage; he that will do it, shall be sure to have the refusal of whatsoever comes to his hands, and so by that means get many things, which otherwise he should never have seen. So 'tis in giving a bawd her price.

2. In buying books or other commodities, it is not always the best rule to bid but half so much as the seller asks. Witness the country fellow, that went to buy two shove-groat shillings; they asked him three shillings, and 10 he offered them eighteen-pence.

3. They counted the price of the books (Acts xix. 19), and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver; that is, so many sestertii, or so many three-halfpence of our money; about three hundred pound sterling.

4. Popish books teach and inform; what we know, we

1. 10. two shove-groat shillings.] Shove-groat was one of the names of a game played by driving a smooth coin with a smart stroke of the hand along a table, at the further end of which nine partitions had been marked off, with a number inscribed on each of them. The score was reckoned according to the number on the partition in which the coin rested. See Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, bk. iv. sec. 19. Nares (Glossary, sub voce 'shove-groat') adds that the shove-groat shilling, the coin with which the game was played, was sometimes a smooth shilling, sometimes a smooth groat, sometimes a smooth halfpenny; and that any flat piece of metal would have answered the purpose, and would have passed, therefore, as a shove-groat shilling.

1. 16. Popish books &c.] By 3 James I, ch. 5, sec. 25 the importation is forbidden of popish primers, ladies' psalters, manuals, rosaries, popish catechisms, missals, breviaries, portals, legends and lives of saints containing superstitious matter, and the books themselves are ordered to be seized and burned.

It was one of the charges against Laud that he had connived at the importation of popish books, and had restored them to their owners when they had been seized by the searchers. His answer to the charge is that great numbers of them had been burnt, and that if any of them had been re-delivered to their owners it was by order not from himself, but from the High Commission. Laud's Works, vol. iv. p. 347.

know much out of them. The fathers, church story, school-men, all may pass for popish books; and if you take away them, what learning will you leave? Besides, who must be judge? The customer or the waiter? If he disallows a book, it must not be brought into the kingdom; then lord have mercy upon all scholars! These puritan preachers, if they have any thing good, they have it out of popish books, though they will not acknowledge it, for fear

Whatever Laud may have done, or omitted to do, while he was in power, the Act against popish books was strictly enforced afterwards. See Nalson's Collections, vol. ii. p. 690, Dec. 1, 1641. This day the Bishop of Exon reported to the Lords' House, 'That the Committee formerly appointed by their House, have perused those books which were seized on coming from beyond the seas... and finds them to be of three several sorts.

'Such as are fit to be delivered to their owners and to be sold. The Holy Table, name and thing.

Mr. Walker's Treaty of the Sabbath, &c.

'A second sort, fit to be sold to choice persons.

Thomas de Kempis, Of the following of Christ, &c.

'A third sort of superstitious tablets and books, which are fit to be burnt, as

Missals, Primers, and Offices of Our Lady, &c. ...

'Ordered... the second sort to be delivered over to safe hands, to be sold to Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Scholars, but not to women. 'That the third sort be burned by the Sheriffs of London in Smithfield forthwith.'

Selden's remark was probably made about the date at which this more strict rule was put in force.

1. 4. The customer] A collector and farmer of the customs. Conf. Hakluyt's Voyages, i. 189-191 (ed. of 1809, 4to). In the ancient state of Rome, the tenants of the empire paid for rent the tenth of their corn, whence the publicans that hired it, as the customers do here the king's custom, were called decumani.' Selden, Works, iii. 1098.

1. 4. the waiter] This probably means the tide-waiter, one of the officers of the customs, whose duty it was to watch the landing of goods arriving from abroad.

1.6. These puritan preachers &c.] So the London Petition against bishops, &c., complains of 'the Liturgy for the most part framed out of the Romish Breviary, Ritualium, Mass Book, also the book of Ordination, framed out of the Roman Pontifical.' Nalson, Collections, i. 663.

of displeasing the people. He is a poor divine that cannot sever the good from the bad.

5. It is good to have translations, because they serve as a comment, so far as the judgment of one man goes.

6. In answering a book, 'tis best to be short; otherwise he that I write against will suspect I intend to weary him, not to satisfy him. Besides in being long I shall give my adversary a huge advantage; somewhere or other he will pick a hole.

7. In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually 10 read; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.

8. Quoting of authors is most for matter of fact; and then I write them as I would produce a witness; sometimes for a free expression, and then I give the author his due, and gain myself praise by reading him.

9. To quote a modern Dutchman where I may use a classic author, is as if I were to justify my reputation, and I neglect all persons of note and quality that know me, and bring the testimonial of the scullion in the kitchen.

X.

CANON LAW.

IF I would study the canon-law, as it is used in England, I must study the heads here in use, then go to the practisers in those courts where that law is practised, and know their customs. So for all the study in the world.

XI.

CEREMONY.

I. CEREMONY keeps up all things; 'tis like a penny glass to a rich spirit, or some excellent water; without it the water will be spilt, the spirits lost. OVER

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2. Of all people, ladies have no reason to cry down ceremonies, for they take themselves extremely slighted without it1. And were they not used with ceremony, with compliments and addresses, with legs, and kissing of hands, they were the pitifullest creatures in the world: but yet (methinks) to kiss their hands after their lips, as some do, is like little boys, that after they have eat the apple, fall to the paring, out of a love they have to the apple.

ΤΟ

XII.

CHANCELLOR.

I. THE bishop is not to sit with the chancellor in his court as being a thing either beneath him or beside him, no more than the king is to sit in the king's bench, when he has made a lord-chief-justice.

2. The chancellor governed in the church, who was a layman. And therefore 'tis false which they charge the bishops with, that they challenge sole jurisdiction. For the bishop can no more put out the chancellor, than the 1 Without it, H. 2] without, H.

1. 4. with legs,] The 'leg' is an old-fashioned bow or courtesy, in which the leg is drawn back. The word occurs again in 'Poetry' sec. 4 and in 'Thanksgiving.' Conf. 'I think it much more passable to put off the hat and make a leg like an honest country gentleman, than like an ill-fashioned dancing master.' Locke, Some Thoughts concerning Education, § 196.

1. 10. The bishop is not to sit &c.] This seems aimed at Canon xi. of the Constitutions and Canons of 1640, which ordains 'that hereafter no bishop shall grant any patent to any chancellor ... otherwise than with express reservation to himself and his successors of the power to execute the said place, either alone or with the chancellor, if the bishop shall please to do the same.' Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 551.

The next clause in the Table Talk must have been spoken before this Canon had been put out. The Canon clearly gives the bishop a 'sole jurisdiction,' as often as he chooses to claim it.