Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN 'RY OF OLD AUTHORS. mi. TTV CTRING- the last few years there has been an increasing demand "^ has for the productions of our early literature, and the taste without a to it for been growing corresponding attempt gratify ; writers still continue to be the reprints of early popular expensive and they are published with much diversity of plan, and in every this under variety of size. It is with the view of meeting demand, more desirable circumstances, that the present series of publica- tions has been undertaken. Among the mass of our early literature there are many books which particularly illustrate the character and sentiments or the in were written while others are history of the age which they ; in themselves monuments of literary history, possessing beauties which entitle them to revival. If they have fallen into oblivion, it is only from the antiquity of the language, the various allusions which are not now understood by general readers, or other causes for which it was imagined there would not be a sale sufficient to make their republication profitable,, while, in their original forms, they are too rare or too expensive to be generally accessible. In the series now offered to the public, a careful selection will be made of such works, whether from manuscripts or rare printed editions, as seem, from their interest as illustrations of manners, literature, or history, or as having had a once merited reputation, more to deserve at the especially republication present day ; and these will be with introductions notes carefully edited, and ; and when necessary, with glossaries and indexes. Although each work will form a distinct publication, the series will be issued uniformly, in foolscap octavo, and the price will be so moderate (from 3. to 6s. a volume) as to bring them within the reach of all who take any interest in the study of our older literature. LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. are The following works already published, or in preparation ; several others are in contemplation, and the Publisher will gladly receive any further suggestions. The Dramatic andr Poetical Works of JOHN MABSTON. Now first collected, and edited by J. O. Halliwell. 3 vols. The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman. Edited by Thomas a new with additions to the Notes Wright ; edition, revised, and Glossary. 2 vols. INCBEASE MATHEE'S Remarkable Providences of the Earlier Days ofAmerican Colonization. With introductory Preface by George Offor. JOHX SELDEN'S Table Talk. A new and improved Edition, by S. W. Singer. The Poetical Works of WILLIAM DBUMMOND of Hawthornden. Edited by W. D. Turnbull. The Journal of a Barrister of the name of MANNINGSAM, /or tlie years 1600, 1601, and 1602 ; containing Anecdotes of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Marston, Spenser, Sir W. Raleigh, Sir John Davys, fyc. Edited from the MS. in the British Museum, by Thomas Wright. The Rev. JOSEPH SPEXCE'S Anecdotes of Books and Men, about the time of Pope and Swift. A new Edition by S. W. Singer. The Prose Works of GEOFFREY CHAFCEB, including the Trans- lation of Boethius, the Testament of Love, and the Treatise on the Astrolabe. Edited by T. Wright. King James's Treatise on Demonology. With Notes. GEOBGKE WITHEE'S Hymns and Songs of the Church. The Poems, Letters, and Plays of Sir JOHN SUCKLING. THOMAS CAEEW'S Poems and Masque. The Miscellanies of JOHN AUBEET, F.E.S. Published by JOHN EUSSELL SMITH, 36, Soho Square. THE TABLE-TALK OF JOHN SELDEN. WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE AND NOTES BY S. W. SINGER, F.S.A. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: JOHN RUSSELL SMITH, SOHO SQUARE. 1856. " THERE is more weighty bullion sense in this book, than I ever found in the same number of pages of any uninspired writer." COLERIDGE. ADVERTISEMENT. flattering reception and rapid sale of the former edition of this little book given by the late Mr. Pickering in 1847, has encouraged the present publisher to solicit me to superintend this re-impression; and I have spared no pains to make it at least equally worthy of public favour. The text has been again care- fully revised, and the notes, with some augmenta- tion, are now placed beneath it, instead of at the end of the volume. It has been a source of infinite satisfaction to me to be called upon in the evening of life to revise the text of the dramas of our great poet and that of this little golden manual, and to renew my intercourse with the minds of Shake- speare and Selden. s. w. s. Mickleham, November 19, 1855. 2000272 BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 4* |OTHING can be more interesting than this little book, containing a lively picture of the opinions and conversation of one of the most eminent scholars and most distinguished has at a the patriots England produced ; living period most eventful of our history. There are few volumes of its size so pregnant with sense, combined with the most it is to it profound learning ; impossible open without finding some important fact or discussion, something practically useful and applicable to the business of life. as that It may be said of it, of exquisite little manual, Bacon's Essays, after the twentieth perusal one seldom fails to remark in it something overlooked before. Such were my feelings and expressions upwards of thirty years since, in giving to the world an edition of Selden's Table Talk, which has long been numbered in the list of scarce books, and that opinion time has fully confirmed. It was with infinite satisfaction therefore I found that one whose opinion may be safely taken as the highest authority, had as fully appreciated its worth, b ii BIOGRAPHICAL " Coleridge thus emphatically expresses himself: There is more weighty bullion sense in this book, than I ever found in the same number of pages of any uninspired writer." And in a note on the article Parliament, he writes : " Excellent I O ! to have been with Selden over his glass of wine, making every accident an outlet and a vehicle of wisdom."* Its merits had not escaped the notice of Johnson, though in politics opposed to much that it inculcates, for in reply to an observation of Boswell, in praise of the " French Ana, he said : A few of them are good, but we have one book of that kind better than any of them Selden's Table-talk."t The collector and recorder of these Aurea Dicta, the Reverend Richard Milward, was for many years Selden's he had at Amanuensis ; graduated Trinity College, Cam- bridge, and subsequently became Rector of Little Braxted, in Essex, upon the presentation of its then patron, the Earl of Pembroke. He was also installed a Canon of Windsor, in 1666, and died in 1680. From the dedication to Selden's Executors, it will be obvious that Milward intended it for publication, but it did not issue from the press until nine years after his death. Among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum (1315, pi. 42. 6.) is a written copy of this work, on which * Coleridge's Literary Remains, vol. ii. pp. 361-2. t Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, p. 321. It appears that it was once intended to translate it into Trench, and publish it under the title of SELDENIANA. See Melanges de Litte- rature, par Vigneul Marville (i.e. Noel d'Argonne) tomei. p. 48- PREFACE. in " is the following note by Lord Oxford : This book was given in 168 by Charles Earl of Dorset to a Bookseller in Fleet Street, in order to have it printed, but the book- seller delaying to have it done, Mr. Thomas Rymer sold a copy he procured to Mr. Churchill,* who printed it." The authors of a literary journal gave at the timef an opinion against the authority of the book, on the ground that it contained many things unworthy of a man of Selden's erudition, and at variance with his principles and his practice. Dr. Wilkins, the editor of works, has adopted this opinion, but we may fairly suspect that his own political bias may have influenced this decision. The compilation has such a complete and unaffected air of genuineness, that we can have no hesitation in giving " credit to the assertion of Milward, who says that It was faithfully committed to writing, from time to time, during the long period of twenty years, in which he enjoyed the opportunity of daily hearing his (Selden's) discourse, and of recording the excellent things that fell from him." He appeals to the executors and friends of Selden, for the fact that such was the manner of his patron's conversa- tion, and says that they will quickly perceive them to be familiar illustrations wherewith his by the they are set off, and in which way they know he was so happy. This dedicatory appeal to the most intimate friends of Selden, * No edition that I have seen has the name of Churchill as That which has been publisher. always considered the first, is in small 4to. 60 and to be " pages, professes Printed for E. Smith, in the year MDCLXXXIX." " f The Leipsic Acts of the Learned." iv BIOGRAPHICAL is surely a sufficient testimonial to the veracity of his assertion, and to the genuine authority of the work. It was possibly thought that the familiar and sometimes homely manner in which many of the subjects discussed are illustrated, was not such as might have been expected a scholar but with all his from profound ; Selden, learning, was a man of the world, familiar with the ordinary scenes of common life, and knew how to bring abstruse subjects home to the business and bosoms of men of ordinary capacity, in a manner at once perspicuous and agreeable.