[Abednego Seller was a native of Plymouth, educated at Lincoln College,
Oxford; minister of Combentynhead, in Devonshire, and subsequently
vicar of St. Charles, Plymouth; but was deprived for refusing to take
the oaths to William III. In Hearne's _MS. Diaries_, 1710, vol. xxv.
occurs a notice of him:--"Mr. Abednego Seller was another Nonjuror, and
had also collected an excellent study of books; but as he was a man of
less learning than Dr. Thomas Smith [the editor of Bede], so his books
were inferior to them, and heaped together with less discretion."
Another notice of him occurs in Granger's _Biog. Dict._, vol. iv. p.
11.;--"Mr. Ashby, President of St. John's College, Cambridge, has a
copy of _Konigii Bibliotheca_, interleaved and filled with MS. notes by
A. Seller." He was the author of several works which are given in
Watt's _Bibliotheca Britan._, but the following is omitted: _Remarks
upon the Reflections of the Author of 'Popery Misrepresented,' &c. in
his Answerer, particularly as to the Deposing Doctrine_, Anon., London,
4to. 1686. Another work has also been attributed to him, viz.
_Considerations upon the Second Canon in the Book entitled
'Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical,'_ &c. Lond., 4to. 1693.
Seller died about 1720, aged seventy-three. A letter from Seller to
Humphrey Wanley, concerning Greek music, &c., will be found in the
Harl. MSS. No. 3782, Art. 26. Consult also Wood's _Athenæ Oxon._, vol.
iv. p. 563. edit. Bliss.]
_Martin-drunk._--1. Thomas Nash, in his classification of drunkards,
describes the seventh species as "Martin-drunk, when a man is drunk, and
drinks himself sober ere he stir." What is the origin of the expression
"Martin-drunk?"
2. This passage reminds me of a line, which I fancied I had read in Lord
Byron, but which I am now unable to trace. It is (if I remember aright):
"And drinking largely sobers one again."
Can you give me a reference for this, either in Byron or any other of our
poets?