His grave was about ten foot deepe or better, walled up a good way with bricks, of which also the bottome was paved, but the sides at the bottome for about two foot high were of black polished marble, wherein his coffin (covered with black bayes) lyeth, and upon that wall of marble was presently lett downe a huge black marble stone of great thicknesse, with this inscription:
Heic jacet corpus Johannis Seldeni, qui
obiit 30 die Novembris, 1654.
Over this was turned an arch of brick (for the house would not loose their grownd), and upon that was throwne the earth, etc. and on the surface lieth another faire grave-stone of black marble, with this inscription:
I. SELDENVS, I. C. heic situs est.
This coate[957] ('..., 3 roses on a fess, between 3 swans' necks, erased, collared' [this is the coate of Baker]) is on the flatt marble; but is, indeed, the coate of his mother, for he had none of his owne, though he so well deserved it. 'Tis strange (me thinke) that he would not have one.
On the side of the wall above, is a faire[958] inscription of white marble: the epitaph he made himselfe as is before sayd, and Marchamond Needham, making mention of it in his Mercurius Politicus, sayd 'twas well he did it, for no man els could doe it for him. He was buried by Mr. <Richard> Johnson, then Master of the Temple, the directory way, where Mr. Johnson tooke an occasion to say[BO], 'a learned man sayes that when a learned man dies a great deale of learning dies with him: then certainly in this,' etc.
[959]Joannes Seldenus
heic juxta situs,
Natus est XVI Decembris, MDLXXXIV,
Salvintoniae,
Qui viculus est Terring occidentalis
in Sussexiae maritimis,
Parentibus honestis,
Joanne Seldeno Thomae filio,
e quinis secundo,
Anno MDXLI nato,
et
Margareta filia et haerede unica
Thomae Bakeri de Rushington,
ex equestri Bakerorum in Cantio familia,
filius e cunis superstitum unicus,
aetatis fere LXX annorum.
Denatus est ultimo die Novembris,
Anno Salutis Reparatae MDCLIV,
per quam expectat heic
RESVRRECTIONEM
Felicem.
He would tell his intimate friends, Sir Bennet Hoskyns, etc., that he had nobody to make his heire, except it were a milke-mayd, and that such people did not know what to doe with a great estate. Memorandum:—bishop Grostest, of Lincoln, told his brother, who asked him to make him a grate man; 'Brother,' said he, 'if your plough is broken, I'le pay the mending of it; or if an oxe is dead, I'le pay for another: but a plough-man I found you, and a plough-man I'le leave you'—Fuller's Holy State, p....
He never used any artificiall help to strengthen his memorie: 'twas purely naturall.
He was very tall, I guesse about 6 foot high; sharp ovall face; head not very big; long nose inclining to one side; full popping eie (gray). He was a poet[LXXXIV.], and Sir John Suckling brings him in the 'Session of the Poets.'