e fate of REGINALD SCOT, who, in an elaborate and
curious volume,[131] if he could not stop the torrent of the popular
superstitions of witchcraft, was the first, at least, to break and
scatter the waves. It is a work which forms an epoch in the history of
the human mind in our country; but the author had anticipated a very
remote period of its enlargement. Scot, the apostle of humanity, and
the legislator of reason, lived in retirement, yet persecuted by
religious credulity and legal cruelty.

SELDEN, perhaps the most learned of our antiquaries, was often led, in
his curious investigations, to disturb his own peace, by giving the
result of his inquiries. James I. and the Court party were willing
enough to extol his profound authorities and reasonings on topics
which did not interfere with their system of arbitrary power; but they
harassed and persecuted the author whom they would at other times
eagerly quote as their advocate. Selden, in his "History of Tithes,"
had alarmed the clergy by the intricacy of his inquiries. He pretends,
however, to have only collected the opposite opinions of others,
without delivering his own. The book was not only suppressed, but the
great author was further disgraced by subscribing a gross recantation
of all his learned investigations--and was compelled to receive in
silence the insults of Courtly scholars, who had the hardihood to
accuse him of plagiarism, and other literary treasons, which more
sensibly hurt Selden than the recantation extorted from his hand by
"the Lords of the High Commission Court." James I. would not suffer
him to reply to them. When the king desired Selden to show the right
of the British Crown to the dominion of the sea, this learned author
having made proper collections, Selden, angried at an imprisonment he
had undergone, refused to publish the work. A great author like Selden
degrades himself when any personal feeling, in literary disputes,
places him on an equality with any king; the duty was to his
country.--But Selden, alive to the call of rival genius, when Grotius
published, in Holland, his _Mare liberum_, gave the world his _Mare
clausum_; when Selden had to encounter Grotius, and to proclaim to the
universe "the Sovereignty of the Seas," how contemptible to him
appeared the mean persecutions of a crowned head, and how little his
own meaner resentment!

To this subject the fate of Dr. HAWKESWORTH is somewhat allied. It is
well known that this author, h