I have heard some divines say (I know not if maliciously) that 'twas true he was a man of great reading, but gave not his owne sentiment.
He was wont to say 'I'le keepe myselfe warme and moyst as long as I live, for I shall be cold and dry when I am dead.'
[962]John Selden, esq., would write sometimes, when notions came into his head, to preserve them, under his barber's hands. When he dyed his barber sayd he had a great mind to know his will, 'For,' sayd he, 'I never knew a wise man make a wise will.' He bequeathed his estate (40,000 li. value) to four executors, viz. Lord Chiefe Justice Hales, Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, Rowland Jukes, and ... (his flatterer)—from Fabian Philips.
Notes.
[BJ] Sir Thomas Mallet, Justice of the King's Bench 1641-45, 1660-63.
[BK] John Selden matric. at Hart Hall Oct. 24, 1600, aged 15. Giles Mompesson matric. at Hart Hall, same day, aged 16.
[BL] Henry Grey succeeded as 7th earl of Kent in 1623, died 1639. His widow Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Gilbert Talbot, 7th earl of Shrewsbury, died Dec. 7, 1651, bequeathing her estate to Selden.
[BM] It is not clear whether this is 'Sir J. C.' or 'Sir J. H.' (in a monogram). If the former, perhaps 'Sir John Cotton'; if the latter, as is more probable, then perhaps Sir John Hoskyns, son of Sir Bennet, p. [223].
[BN] Anthony Wood adds the note: 'Vide Collect. ex Convoc. 1653,' i.e. Wood's own Collections ex reg. Convoc. Oxon. (MS. Bodl. 594): see Clark's Wood's Life and Times, i. 187, 209.
[BO] Reported slightly more fully by Aubrey, writing April 7, 1673, in MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 199v:—'Mr. Johnson, minister of the Temple, buryed him, secundum usum Directory, where, amongst other things, he quoted "the sayeing of a learned man" (he did not name him) "that when a learned man dies, there dyes a great deale of learning with him," and that "if learning could have kept a man alive our brother had not dyed."'