John Selden, the distinguished legal antiquary, historian, and Oriental scholar, who was styled by his friend Ben Jonson 'a monarch in letters,' and 'vir omni eruditionis genere instructissimus' by Archbishop Laud, was born on the 16th of December 1584 at Salvington, near Worthing, in Sussex. His father was John Selden, a farmer, known as the 'Minstrel' on account of his proficiency in music. Aubrey describes him as 'a yeomanly man of about forty pounds a year, who played well on the violin, in which he took much delight.' Selden was first educated at the free grammar school at Chichester, and afterwards proceeded with an exhibition to Hart Hall, since merged in Magdalen Hall, Oxford. On leaving the university he was admitted a member of Clifford's Inn; but in 1604 removed to the Inner Temple. Wood, in his AthenÆ Oxonienses, says of him that 'after he had continued there a sedulous student for some time, he did, by the help of a strong body and a vast memory, not only run through the whole body of the law, but became a prodigy in most parts of learning, especially in those which were not common or little frequented or regarded by the generality of students of his time. So that in a few years his name was wonderfully advanced not only at home but in foreign countries, and he was usually styled the great dictator of learning of the English nation.... He was a great philologist, antiquary, herald, linguist, statesman, and what not.' Selden devoted his time rather to chamber practice and to legal researches and the study of history and antiquities than to the more active part of his profession. It is said he wrote his first work, Analecton Anglo-Britannicon, as early as 1607, when only twenty-two years of age, but it was not published until eight years later. The Duello, England's Epinomis, and Jani Anglorum Facies Altera appeared in 1610, Titles of Honour in 1614, De Diis Syris Syntagmata Duo in 1617, and The History of Tithes in 1618, wherein he allows the legal, but denies the divine, right of the clergy to the receiving of tithes. The more important of his later works are Marmora Arundeliana, published in 1628, De Successionibus in 1631, Mare Clausum in 1635, De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam EbrÆorum Libri VII. in 1640, and Fleta, seu Commentarius Juris Anglicani, an ancient manuscript which he edited and annotated, in 1647. Among his other literary labours are the notes appended to Drayton's Polyolbion. A volume of his Table Talk was published after his death in 1689, and his complete works in 1726, in three volumes folio. In 1621 Selden was committed to prison for having advised the House of Commons to assert its right to offer advice to the Crown, but was released after an imprisonment of five weeks. He first entered the House of Commons in 1623 as Member for Lancaster, and for some years took a very prominent part in its proceedings. During the later disputes between Charles and the Parliament he acted with great moderation, and it is said that at one time the King thought of intrusting him with the Great Seal. Selden subscribed the Covenant in 1643, and was made Keeper of the Rolls and Records in the Tower. In 1645 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Admiralty, and in the same year he was elected Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, an office he declined to accept. Parliament voted him five thousand pounds in 1647 as compensation for his sufferings during the monarchy; but Wood states that 'some there are that say that he refused and could not out of conscience take it, and add that his mind was as great as his learning, full of generosity and harbouring nothing that seemed base.' Although he remained in Parliament after the execution of the King, he almost entirely withdrew from public affairs, and, it is said, refused to write a reply to the Eikon Basilike when requested to do so by Cromwell. Selden died on November 30, 1654, at Friary House, Whitefriars, the residence of Elizabeth, Countess Dowager of Kent, to whom it was reputed he had been married. He was interred in the Temple Church, where a monument was erected to his memory.

Selden collected a very fine library, 'rich in classics and science, theology and history, law and Hebrew literature,' of which about eight thousand volumes were eventually added to the Bodleian Library. Selden had bequeathed his books to the Bodleian; but it is said he was so offended with the University for refusing the loan of a manuscript except upon a bond for one thousand pounds, that he revoked the bequest, and left them to the free disposal of his executors. They offered the collection to the Society of the Inner Temple, but as no building was provided for its reception, they carried out the original intention of Selden, and gave it in 1659 to the Bodleian, stipulating at the same time that all the books should be chained, and £25, 10s. was expended for that purpose. There is no doubt, however, that a considerable number of the manuscripts came into the possession of that library soon after Selden's death, and the entire affair is involved in some obscurity. The Rev. W.D. Macray, who, in his Annals of the Bodleian Library, goes very fully into the matter, gives another reason for Selden's displeasure. 'In July 1649,' he writes, 'the new intruded officers and fellows of Magdalene College found in the Muniment-room in the cloister-tower of the College a large sum of money in the old coinage called Spur-royals, or Ryals, amounting to £1400, the equivalent of which had been left by the Founder as a reserve-fund for law expenses, for re-erecting or repairing buildings destroyed by fire, etc., or for other extraordinary charges. This gold had been laid up and counted in Queen Elizabeth's time, and had remained untouched since then; consequently, although some of the old members of the College were aware of its existence, to the new-comers it seemed a welcome and unexpected discovery, especially as the College was at the time heavily in debt. They immediately proceeded to divide it among all the members on the foundation proportionately, not excluding the choristers (who were at that time undergraduates), the Puritan President, Wilkinson, being alone opposed to such an illegal proceeding, and being with difficulty prevailed upon to accept £100 as his share, which, however, upon his death-bed he charged his executors to repay. The Spur-royals were exchanged at the rate of 18s. 6d. to 20s. each, and each fellow had thirty-three of them. But when the fact of this embezzlement of corporate funds became known, the College was called to account by Parliament, and, although they attempted to defend themselves, they individually deemed it wise to refund the greater, or a considerable, part of what had been abstracted. Fuller, whose Church History was published in the year following Selden's death, after telling this scandalous story, proceeds thus (Book IX. p. 234):—"Sure I am, a great antiquarie lately deceased (rich as well in his state as learning) at the hearing thereof quitted all his intention of benefaction to Oxford or any place else." ... And Wood (Hist. and Antiq., by Gutch, ii. 942) says that he had been told that this misappropriation was one reason of Selden's distaste at Oxford.'

Besides the books sent to the Bodleian Library, those relating to law were given to Lincoln's Inn, and some medical works were bequeathed by Selden to the College of Physicians. 'Eight chests full of registers of abbeys, and other manuscripts relating to the history of England,' were unfortunately destroyed in a fire at the Temple; and many volumes also were lost during the interval between Selden's death and their arrival at Oxford.