Selden Correspondence

352 Pages·2010·2.53 MB·English

by  Gerald Toomer

Selden Correspondence
Note on Ms, Bodleian Library, Selden supra 108 & 109
This volume (for so it is, one volume in two parts, continuously numbered1) of
letters to Selden, with a few drafts and other notes in Selden’s own hand, was
in the hands of the heirs of Matthew Hale2, one of Selden’s executors, until it
was sold to the Bodleian in this century3. It had disappeared from view for many
years, but was known in the earlier 18th century, e.g. to Twells, who quotes
from it as being “in Dr. Mead’s collection”4. Some letters in it were published
about the same time by Hearne in his edition of Leland, De Rebus Britannicis
vol. 5, but these were taken from copies in one of the Smith mss. Selden supra
108/9 also contains, besides letters, a few other items relating to Selden’s
scholarly interests, but these have been omitted from the present collection,
except where they are mentioned in or directly related to one of the letters.
Although I have examined the original, almost all the transcriptions of items in
Selden supra 108/9 were made from a microfilm of the manuscript of inferior
quality, often illegible at the beginnings and ends of lines. This is the principal
reason for the question-marks in the transcription, which indicate uncertain or
missing readings of words. Most of these could probably be corrected or restored
by examination of the original manuscript.

The transcription attempts to reproduce the contractions and abbreviations of
the originals, for the most part. However, the following contractions have
usually been expanded:
µ mm
⁄ am
ē em
‡ um
π per
∏ pro

In the following, letters are arranged by date (although very occasionally a letter
is shifted from its dated position to be adjacent to another letter which refers to
it). Undated letters are placed where internal evidence suggests (although some,
which cannot be even approximately dated, are placed arbitrarily).

1 The last letter in 108 is that of John Price on f. 249.
2 Cf. BL MS Add. 32092,f. 312-313, A Catalogue of Letters written by Severall Learned men to
Jo. Selden Esq contain’d in one volume in Folio now in the Possession of Math. Hale Esq of
Alderly in Gloucestershire [written by Harbin? in order, with name of writer and year of letter,
beginning: “1. Mr. Ralph Cudworth’s date 1647”

3See Bodleian Library Record II (1941-9) pp. 73-4.

4It seems more likely that the MS quoted by Twells was, like Baker’s, a copy of letters in this
ms. Otherwise it is difficult to explain how it got back again into the hands of descendents of
Hale.
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Selden Correspondence
Abbreviations used in the footnotes
Works of Selden:
DS2 De Diis Syris (2nd edn., 1629)
EA Eadmer
HA Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores ed. Twysden
HT The Historie of Tithes
JA Jani Anglorum facies altera
MA Marmora Arundelliana
OO Opera Omnia (ed. Wilkins)
PU1613 Purchas his Pilgrimage (first edn., 1613)
TH2 Titles of Honor (2nd edn, 1631)

Other:
Ath. Ox. Wood, Athenae Oxonienses ed. Bliss
Bekkers J.A.F. Bekkers, Correspondence of John Morris with Johannes
de Laet (Assen, 1970)
Burrows Montagu Burrows, Register of the Visitors of the University of
Oxford (Camden Society, 1881)
Cowley A.E. Cowley, Catalogue of Hebrew Printed Books in the
Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1929)
Hunter Joseph Hunter, Catalogue of Mss. in Lincoln’s Inn (1838)
Kemke Johannes Kemke, Patricius Junius, Briefwechsel (Leipzig, 1898)
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
PO Rijk Smitskamp, Philologia Orientalis (Leiden, 1992)
PRO Public Record Office (now “National Archives”)
RE Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft
Schnurrer C. F. von Schnurrer, Bibliotheca Arabica (Halle, 1811)
Twells Leonard Twells, “Life of Dr. Edward Pocock” in The Lives of Dr.
Edward Pocock etc. Vol. I (London, 1816)
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Selden Correspondence
MS. Cotton Julius C.III, f. 338 Selden to Cotton, Nov. 6, 16155
Sr. my speciall duty to you. In regard of the uncertainty of the iust time when
to find you within noti<ce>6 this Terme, as also upon my own occasions, I am
so bold as humbly to request you to spare mee the use of your historia
Jornallensis7, as also that litle treatise of deducing the church busines of this
kingdome out of Greece. If it please you to spare them so, I humbly desire you to
send them mee by this bearer, my man.
Novemb. VI. M.DC.XV. At your service, euer
J. Selden

Selden supra 108 ff. 64-65 Selden to Ben Jonson, Inner Temple, Feb. 28,
1615/68
To my honor’d & truly worthy freind Mr Ben Jonson
Thus ambitious am I of your loue, but of your iudgment too. I haue most
willingly collected what you wisht, my notes, touching the literall sense &
historicall of the holy text usually brought against the counterfeiting of sexes
by apparell. To omit varietie of translations, the text it self is thus out of the
Originall, word for word, A mans armor shall not be upon a woman, & a man shall not
put on a womans garment. In Deut. xxii. 5 so is it, & not as the Vulgar hath it,
that a woman shall not wear a mans garment, nor a man a womans. That wch the
r3c£d‘h1k0f
woman is forbidden is called Celi geber, i. the Armes or armor of a man,
v7at ,8k}n`!a
that wch the man may not wear is shimlath isha i. a womans gown, or
Stola muliebris. The Greeks, whom they call the Septuagint, follow the Ebrew
truth. O[k ¡stai, say they, skeu| ˙ndròw \pì gunaikì, o[dè m| \ndúshtai ˙n|r
stol|n gunaikeían. So I read in them; rather skeu| than skeúh as the publisht
books haue, although skeúh plurally signify the same which Celi doth in another
notion, that is Vessels or instruments. But the reason why I would alter that in
the publisht Septuagint, is, besides the self matter, because Fl. Josephus
Judaic. Archæolog. IV. cap. VIII. remembers that negative commandment with
the same word. Beware, saith he, lest the woman use ˙ndrik_ skeu_, & for the
womans garment there he uses the self same as the LXX, that is stol_
gunaikeíŸ. I know ˙ndrik} skeu| may be interpreted virilis apparatus generally,
or habitus virilis, but it best here signifies as in Aristophanes his sfêkew where

5Inaccurate transcription in Berkowitz, John Selden’s Formative Years, p. 26. Reproduction and
inaccurate transcription in Greg, English literary autographs, 1550-1650 III, Oxford, 1932,
LXXXV.

6cut off

7Used HT 213 and elsewhere: Cotton Tiberius C.XIII. It was used there for Latin translations of
Saxon laws which it contains. Selden later realized that it should be “Jorevallensis” (HA,
Preface XXXV-VI, OO II.1165-6)

8Printed, fairly accurately, OO II.2 cols. 1690-96 (from this ms., then in Matthew Hale’s
possession), and by Jason P. Rosenblatt & Winfried Schleiner, English Literary Renaissance
29, 1999, 63-74. This letter is in Selden’s hand, and presumably his own fair copy.
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Selden Correspondence
the old scholiast interprets it by panoplía. and if you retain skeúh in the LXX,
yet then too it stands for skeúh polemikà or instrumenta bellica. So that the
text by its words alone hath not so much reference to the sexes using each
others clothes as to the forbidding the Man the womans habite, but the Woman
the mans armor. Although I know the Canon law out of ancient autority
prohibits a woman the mans clothes calling them ˙ndreîon ˙mfíesma. But that I
ghesse proceeded rather from prevention of indecencie than perswasion of this
text. you may see Gratian’s Decree Dist. XXX. cap. VI. which is taken out of the
Councell of Gangra in Paphlagonia held in the yeare CCC.XXV. & the originall
of it is in the Codex Canonum can. LXXII. whereto Photius also in his
Nomocanon tit. XI. cap. XIV. hath reference. Agreeing to the Greek, is the
Chalde paraphrase of Onkelos Let not th[e]re be a mans ornaments of armes vpon a
woman & let not a man adorne himself with a woman’s ornaments. Many expositors
obserue the intent of the precept to be for the publique preseruation of honesty
in both sexes, lest, in corrupt manners, by such promiscuous vse of apparell,
the lustfull forwardnesse of nature might take the easier aduantage of
oportunity. So it is noted by RRR. Aben Ezra, Salomon Jarchi or the autor of
the common Ebrew glosse, & Moses Mikotzi: by the first two on this place, by
Mikotzi in his Precept. Negatiu. LIX. Philo the Jew understands it in his perì
˙ndreíaw as if men were forbidden there euen in the least kind to incline to the
quality of the weaker sex. Fl. Josephus cheifly appropriats it to the warre, &
thus expresses it fulássete dè málista \n taîw máxaiw ∫ste m}te gunaîka ˙ndrik_
stol_ xrêsyai m}te ƒndra stol_ gunaikeíŸ. But a Rabbin of great worth by the
estimation both of Jewes & Christians, hath a very different exposition. I mean
Moses Ben Maimon who is also called (from the sigles of his name after the
Jewish fashion) Rambam; & because his education & studies were cheifly in
Egypt, he is known by the name of Moses Ægyptius, being by birth of Corduba.
This Moses in his Moreh Hanebochim Part. III. cap. XXXVI. makes a division of
the precepts of the old Testament into XIV. kindes. Of them the second is
touching such things as were to prevent Idolatry. & in it he puts those
negatiues against sacrifices to Moloch, against witchcraft, the consulting wth
Ob, Jideoni9, the superstitious part of Astrologie, with diuers more such like;
but amongst them specially he referres this of Apparell & armore to an
Idolatrous use, supposing that, as in the Temple, adoration was constituted
toward the West, hewed stones were not allowed, sacrifices of Beasts were
ordained, the Preists were commanded to wear breeches, & the mixtion or
insition of plants of generall kindes were forbidden, because Idolators
neighbouring to the Jewes, worshipt towards the East (as you well know) & had
their Temples of hewed stone, & gaue diuine honor to beasts (especially ye

9 On these see e.g. DS2 p. 120, for references to Biblical passages; see dictionaries s.v. cut.
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Selden Correspondence
Egyptians) & their Comarim10 or Preists breechlesse (as the Jewes, not without
ridiculous error, think) did sacrifice to Baal-Phegor, & that when of one kind
insition was to be into another the bestial ceremonie was Ut ramus inserendus sit
in manu (so are the Latin words of my autor) alicuius mulieris pulchræ, & quod vir
aliquis cognoscat eam præter morem naturalem & dixerunt quod in tempore illius actus
debet mulier inserere ramum in arbore; supposing that, as in these & diuers more
such like related by him producing the idolatrous customs out of ancient
monuments of the Syrians, so in this of apparell, there was most speciall regard
to the auoiding of a superstitious rite used to Mars & Venus, which was, that
Men did honor & invoke Venus in Womens attire & women the like to Mars in
mans armor, as out of an old Magician, one Centir, he recites. His words are, in
my Latin copy: Istud autem est propter quod Scriptura dicit, Non accipiat mulier arma
viri, neque vir induatur veste muliebri. Invenies autem in libro artis Magicæ quem
composuit Centir, quia dicitur ibi ut vir induat vestem muliebrem pictam, cum steterit
coram stella quæ vocatur Venus, & mulier assumet Loricam & arma bellica cum steterit
ante stellam quæ dicitur Mars. Est etiam hic alia ratio quoniam opus istud suscitat
concupiscentiam & inducit genera fornicationum. these are in the chap. XXXVIII.
What the originall of the autor is I know not. I could neuer see the Arabique or
Ebrew copy, as Buxtorf on the other side saies he could neuer meet wth the
Latin one. For it was first written in Arabique by that Moses, & turned in Ebrew
by R. Samuel Aben Tybbon, the Latin translation also being enough ancient.
Ben-Maimon liu’d about CD. yeeres since. his autority is not of the /f. 64v/
common rank; for the Jewes proverbially say of him that From Moses to Moses
ther was neuer any such as this Moses, & some of great place in the state of
Learning speak of him that he was Judæorum (rather Rabbinorum) primus qui
delirare desiit. He wrote other things, but this work of his Moreh Hanebochim (i. as
the Latin title is Director dubitantium or perplexorum) in his ripest yeers about fifty
& made it as the draught of his last hand in medling wth holy philosophy.
What words he uses for Venus & Mars, I certainly know not. But I know that
it’s certain that those two deities, though under other names, or at least, two
euery way like them, were adored in those Eastern parts & that most anciently.
the whole consent of European writers allow the originall of Aphrodite or Venus
out of Syria, as she is for a goddesse. & I doubt not but that she was worshipt
in the Palestin Dagon, or Astaroth11, or both. you know that of Cicero III. de
Nat. Deorum. Quarta Venus Syria Tyroque concepta quæ Astarte (that is Astaroth)
vocatur quam Adonidi nupsisse traditum est. Ouid, Manilius, Hyginus, others haue
as much in substance. & whence euer the Latin Venus be deriued (which very
name might with litle difficulty be with her rites thence traduced) it’s certain
that the Chaldæans called her by a word euen almost interpreting Aphrodite,
you know, that is usually fetcht from ƒfrow, & they called her Delephat;

10“Cohanim”, absurdly, OO; and Rosenblatt/Schleiner; the reading is clear and correct.

11Cf. Purchas (1613): “Quæ & Veneri, i. Dagoni & A∫tartæ (fortassè Mineruæ) æquè tamen pote∫t
tribui”.
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Selden Correspondence
;3k3s
deriued as it seems from Deleph i. stillatio, which hath affinity enough wth
her shorter name &AfrW in Nicander. Hesychius: Deléfat, ` têw &Afrodíthw ˙st|r
øpò Xaldaívn: her antiquity cannot bee doubted of, seeing indeed shee was
truly the Mater Deum in Mythologie, & somewhere the old Scholiast upon
Apollonius, you may remember, deliuers it for a Greek tradition that shee was
the eldest of Deities. For Mars; he is affirmd the same with Baal or Belus, the
most known & most ancient by name in any memorie of idolatrie; & that by
autority of holy writ: he is rememberd in Num. XXII comm. vltimo: Both Cedren
& the autor of the fasti Siculi, out of ancient monuments now lost, deliuer that
in the Assirian Empire Thurus succeeded Ninus; and that his father Zamis
brother to Rhea, nam’d him *Arhw, or Mars; & that he was the first to whom
that nation erected columnes (columnes were at first the statues for Deities) &
that they named him Baal, which say those autors, interprets *Arhw polémvn
yeów. they misse of the interpretation. for Baal signifies Lord or Dominus. But
in the matter they were right, & doubtlesse, well directed by some Asiatique
autority, for the same Belus or Baal is, by a most ancient historian, Hestiæus,
cited by Eusebius in his IX Proparasc. Evangelicæ & in his Chronicle that’s
only in Greek, called Zeùw \nuáliow or Jupiter Belli præses, where he speaks of
his temple, preists, & reliques of about the time of the confusion of Languages.
What is Zeùw \nuáliow but Mars, in the very particulars of fiction? Josephus
Orig. Judaic. I. cap. VI. cites the same place of Hestiæus, but it’s misprinted
\nuéliow. it’s some fault but euery one sees what it should bee. a greater error
about this name, is in the Loci Ebraici of S. Hierome, as they are publisht;
where the whole translation is of that taken out of Hestiæus (but not so
acknowledged by the Father) & Gemalii Jouis is ridiculously for Enyalii Jouis.
this by the way. & so much for the antiquity of these deities; which being not
made cleer, hinders the autority of that historicall exposition out of Centir &
Ben Maimon. Lesse doubt need be made of that kind of worship, by change of
apparell. the self same was in Europe, where nothing of that kind was, if not
traduced out of Asia. You best know that of Philochorus, an old Greek, in
Macrobius Saturnal. III cap. VIII. Hee makes Venus the same with the Moon
(such confusion of names is frequent( & reports Ei sacrificium facere Viros cum
veste muliebri, mulieres cum virili; quod eadem & mas estimatur & femina. A Masculin &
feminin Venus differs not in the Gentiles theologie from Mars & Venus. For
euery deity was of both sexes and ˙fl]enóyhluw, as the Egyptians held the Moon
to be, which Plutarch reports, & as the old Hermes saies, in his Poimander, of
the true GOD, well agreeing wth that of the Schoolmen, Masculinitas consignificata
hoc nomine Deus, non ponitur circa Deum, as Aquinas his words are. And this very
goddesse, so distinguisht by that sex, whereof she was president, that they
stiled her the fœminin goddesse or Yeàn gunaikeían, & at whose sacrifices no
kind of male creature was to be endured in the temple (for Yeà gunaikeía was
nothing but the Bona Dea; & Bona Dea is the same with Venus; wch, beside
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Selden Correspondence
other testimonie, is iustified out of an [?old] inscription on the Portal of her
temple, the fragment whereof remains among others now in Arundel house,
thus conceiued BONAE DEAE VENERI CNIDIAE) this goddesse so much
nothing but Woman, was yet, of both sexes, mystically. Pollentemque Deum
Venerem, saith Caluus in Macrobius; & there Læuinus: Venerem igitur almum
adorans, siue femina siue mas est, ita vt alma noctiluca est. & in Rome was an armed,
& in Cyprus a Bearded Venus. Neither originally, by all likelyhood, was Venus &
Mars other then, the masculin-fœminin or generatiue power supposd in the
sunne, or sunne & Moon, which were the first creatures idolatrously worshipt.
for wee must here think of these as they were Gods only, not Planets. And why
may not wee collect rationally in their Theologie, that, in regard of the
masculin-fœminin power suppos’d in their worship’t deity, they counterfeited
themselues to be masculin-fœminin in the adoration. Which could not be
better done then by a womans wearing armor, and a man’s putting on a
womans garment. The more willingly I here note this community of sexes in
euery of the ancientest Gods, because also the Seauenty interpreters conferred
with the Ebrew, & with profane Story, doe most specially shew /f. 65r/ that
community, & that not without reference, as it’s probably to be thought, to
those very rites spoken of in Ben Maimon. No man hath not heard of the name
of Astarte or Astaroth. Whom Cicero, Suidas, others make but a Venus; Lucian
& Achilles Tatius12 the moon; Philo of Byblus, in his Phœnician Theologie, out
of Sanchoniathon, both Moon & Venus; S. Augustine upon Judges & Plutarch
in Crassus, Juno or Venus or what els is in that kind fœminin. the Greek
interpreters in both numbers haue her only feminin, & an old inscription is
with YEAÑ ÑIDVNOÑ, for her questionlesse. yet in the originall of I. Reg. cap. XI.
oh1b`s1M h1v`k2t
comm. 5 she is called Elohi Zidonim i. Deus Zidoniorum; the Ebrew
indeed hauing no word, in the holy book, expressing a Goddesse as Dea in
Latin. So, that frequent name of Baal or in the plurall Baalim (not at all
distinguisht by gender in the originall scripture, sauing that it is taken for
masculin, as it signifies Lord, although the Idolaters had their Baaloth or
Beeleth, for the feminin of Baal, wch in Megasthenes, cited by Josephus &
elsewhere13, is Bêltiw) is in the Greek sometimes of one and then of another
gender, as if they would denote the masculin-fœminin quality attributed in the
worship. as in Numer. cap. XXII comm. vlt. toû Baál for Baal-phegor. So is it in
IV. Reg. cap. X. XI. & XVII. and in Hos. XI. tmemate 2. toîw Baaleìm ¡yuon. In
Jerem. L, for Bel (differing from Baal, but by dialect) Bêlow ` ˙ptóhtow, & divers
other such places are all for the masculin. yet in mencion of the same in Hos.
II. comm. 8 is t_ Baàl. so in Jerem II. comm. 28 (where the LXX. exceedes the
Ebrew by a few words) & Zephan. cap. I tmemate 4. and in I. Samuel cap. VII.

12The commentator on Aratus; cf. PU1613 (e.g. ed. Maass p. 261).

13The “elsewhere” is valid here: it is Eusebius, Praep. Evang.
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Selden Correspondence
comm. 13 tàw Baleím. So is the Ammonits Moloch, although usually known for
a masculin Deity, yet nam’d for a Goddesse in the Greek Jerem. cap. XIX.
comm. 5. the words are Ωkodómhsan πchla t_ Baàl toû katakaíein toùw u¥oùw
a[tôn \n purì. and in cap. XXXII. tmem. 35 they turne the text. They built altars \n
t_ Baàl (where \n, I think, abounds) in the valley of the sonne of Ennom that they might
offer their sonnes & their daughters t! Molòx Basileî. are not here t_ Baàl and t!
Molòx for the same? that which they call altars to Baal is in the Originall the
hie places of Baal as here, so in III. Reg. cap. XIX. comm. 18. And I will keep in
Israel seaven thousand all which haue not bowed the knee t_ Baàl, kaì pân
stóma ` o[ prosekúnhsen a[t!. in these two places, you see, in the same verse
they change the sex. this last is in part & more near the Ebrew truth alleaged
by S. Paule to the Romans cap. XI. comm. 4 where hee hath also t_ Baàl, yet
followes not the Septuagint in the rest. I know some would haue e†kóni or
dunámei vnderstood with t_ ioind to Baal, & so saue the diuersity of gender. But
vnder their fauor the scriptures vse will not enough iustify it, although it be
true too that in Tobit cap. I com. 5. you haue ¡yuon toû Baàl t_ dunámei as some
copies are, others being t_ damálei in that place. To this purpose is it, that the
Syrian God Dagon remembred as masculin in the holy text, is feminin to all
European writers. What the Greeks & Latins haue of Adargatis, Derceto,
Atargata, Derce (all one name) & the like, you best know being most conversant
in the recondit parts of humane learning. That Adargatis or Atergatis (the
d8s rh1=s8t
Syrian Deity) was nothing els in origination of her name but Adirdag i.
Piscis sublimis, or potens.14 And as profane story shewes that Adargatis was
mulier formosa superne ending in a fish (Lucian, Diodorus, others iustify it) so
in that text in I. Sam. cap. V.4 where Dagon fell before the ark, & his head &
hands were broken of, it is added, that only the forme of a fish, or so much as
was fish was left of him. so doth D. Cimchi & others vnderstand it; & well,
against such as haue with error fetcht the name from another word signifying
wheat, & took Dagon for Jupiter frumentarius. Dagon then & Atergatis or
Artaga (as Phurnutus15 calls it, somewhat nearer to Adirdag; the other names
being varied rather by transposition of letters then ought else) will fall out to
bee all one, yet of both sexes. The Septuagint make it masculin & aboue what is
in the Ebrew, say that by the fall both the feet of it were broken of, which yet
makes nothing against this being of it partly in forme of a fish. for although
neither the Ebrew speak of any feet it had, nor that European writers, by their
own testimonie, giue this Atergatis more then a fish taile, yet vpon examination
of some Chaldean monuments left by Berosus a Preist of Belus (I mean the true
Berosus) it will appear both that the LXX or who euer were the autors, did not

14 Cf Purchas (1613): “Vbinam Dercitidis siue Atergatidis etymon ∫i non ex rst, & rds, i. pi∫cis
magnificata?”
15 I.e. Cornutus, the same ref. in Purchas 1613.
8
Selden Correspondence
add that of the feet without ground, and also that the ancientest goddesse or
God worshipt by idolatrie in those parts was half of human forme, half fish, but
so that out of the fish taile leggs of human shape came as out of a mans body.
for hee, out of reliques of antiquity left from the eldest of times in Babylon,
reports that when in the beginning of things the Babylonians or Assyrians were
altogether ignorant of what instruction might furnish them with, there came
amongst them out of the red sea a creature called Oannes hauing a body of a
fish and two heads one of a fish another human; & feet like a man growing out
of the taile. that it had a voice like a man. that it taught the Assyrians all arts,
laws, & what els fit for ciuil society. & that to his time (he liued vnder
Alexander) the statue of it was kept. with diuers other most portentous pieces
of relation touching Belus & Omorca, wch, although they be all fabulous, yet
do enough proue both the antique forme supposed by the Septuagint in giuing
Dagon feet, & also their opinion of that marine Deity which in truth was
nothing but Venus, scilicet in Piscem sese Cytherea novauit, saies Manilius.
neither doubt I but that this Oannes, Dagon, & Artaga were originally all one.
You see Baal, Dagon, Moloch, Atargatis, the greatest names in the Eastern
theologie of the Gentiles, were expressely noted by both sexes, & according to
that mysterie of community of sexes, were worshipt. So had the Greeks
&Afróditow & &Afrodíth, /f. 65v/ the Latins Lunus & Luna, which two were so
had in diuine honor in Mesopotamia as Spartian reports in his Caracalla,
where, while the most learned Casaubon supposes the worship of the two sexes
in one Deity among the Eastern people to proceed from nothing but because
their names are from seuerall roots, of both grammaticall genders, he doth not
with tolerable performance second his own worth. Cleerly it was a mysterie of
their theologie concluding upon the masculin-fœminin power which made both
the worship, & grammaticall genders, not the trifles of grammar, their
ceremonies of worship. But thus much of the truth or likelyhood of that
reported rite in change of apparell. which whether it be well applied to the holy
text, I will not affirm. In the connexion of these no vulgar observations, if they
had been to the common learned reader, ther had been often room for diuers
pieces of European Theologie disperst in Latin or Greek autors of the Gentiles &
Fathers of the church too, and often for parts of mythologie, but your own most
choise and able store cannot but furnish you incidently with what euer is fit
that way to be thought of in this reading. with what, ancient fathers as Cyprian
& Tertullian specially haue of this text, or others dealing on it as it tends to
morality, I abstain to medle. what euer this is which I haue collected, I
consecrate to your Loue, & end with hope of your instructing iudgment.
From the Inner Temple this XXVIII. of Feb. M.DC.XV

Selden supra 108 f. 111
9
Selden Correspondence
Thomas Allen, Oxford, to Selden, July 9, 161616
Goode Mr Selden I had sentt yowe this tract of fortescewe17 Before this tyme, yf I
had fownde any fytter means then by the coµon carrier whom I durste not trust
wyth these lyttle pamphlets, for many tymes they be loste nowe hauinge at owre
Acta mett with an honeste frende who will haue ***18 care to deliuer hyt. I have
sentt hyt unto yowe/ ther ys but lyttle in hyt wiche is not in an olde prynte
that I haue yf the remanemt may doe yowe pleasure I shalbe verry gladd/ I am
nowe presently preparynge to goe my wonted progresse into Staffordshyre, wiche
wyll laste19 mee tyll Mychelmas, so that yf yowe come to Oxford in the meane
tyme, I shall mysse yowe wiche I am verry sorry for: so wyth my kyndeste
coµendations, I coµytt yowe to god’s restynge ever youre moste assured poore
frende
Tho: Allen.
Oxforde the .9. of July
1616°.
[addressed:] To the worshipfull my moste kynde frende, Mr John Selden of the
Inner Temple, to be lefte at Mr helms shoppe in St. Dunstans churche yarde,
beynge the corner shoppe

Aix, Bibliothèque Méjanes Tome XII p. 167-8
Peiresc (Paris) to Selden, Jan. 29 1618 [copy made for Peiresc]
A Mons.r Selden a Londres
Mons.r
Il y a long temps que ie deuois m’estre acquise de ce deuoir, car il y a long
temps que M.r Camdenus m’a enuoyé un de vos Liures de Diis Syris de vostre
part. dont je vous dois estre dautant plus obligé que moins j’auois merité en
vostre endroit l’honneur qu’il vous auoit pleu me faire, et des eloges reiterés
tant de vostre propre main, que dans le discours de vostre Liure; desquels ie ne
pouuois estre nullem.t digne. Mais tout cela est pour mieux faire paroitre la
grandeur de votre honnesteté et ma honte propre de ne m’en estre sceu rendre
digne, et d’auoir mesme tant differé de vous en faire les remerciemens dont ie
vous suis redeuable. J’esperois de mois à autre de pouuoir retourner en
Prouence, où c’est que i’ay des choses qui pourroint grandement seruir pour
fortifier les rares obseruations que vous aués faites de ces Antiquités
Orientales, et entr’autres des Medailles tres antiques auec des Images des
Deités que vous aues descrites auec leurs Inscriptions de BAAL mesme, et
autres telles choses que ie sçay bien estre entièrem.t de vostre goust. Mais i’ay
esté retenu en cette Cour insensiblement par des affaires qui me surprennent

16 Published Beddard, The Book Collector 33, 2004, p. 541.
17 Selden published his Fortescue in this year.
18 “a care” Beddard, but the word before “care” looks like “careful”.
19 “halte” Beddard, wrongly.
10