CHAPTER VIII.

THOMAS FULLER.

THE homely quaintness, indomitable cheerfulness and admirable humour of the writings of Thomas Fuller, have awakened in generations of readers a feeling of almost personal affection for their author; but the high place which they vindicate for him among the writers of the age of Milton has not, perhaps, been adequately recognized. Conspicuous for wide learning, immense industry, and unobtrusive goodness, he is not less notable as a writer for the clearness and vigour of his style, and the perspicuity and delicate grace of his thoughts.

He was born in 1608, and at the early age of thirteen entered at Queens' College, Cambridge, whence he subsequently migrated to Sidney Sussex College. Fuller always cherished the warmest feelings of gratitude towards the University to which he belonged. In his Holy State, when delineating The Good Bishop, he writes:

'He is thankful to that College whence he had his education. He conceiveth himself to hear his mother College always speaking to him in the language of Joseph to Pharaoh's butler: "But think on me, I pray thee, when it shall be well with thee.",

In 1830 Fuller was presented by the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College to the perpetual curacy of S. Benet's Church. One of his first duties as incumbent

was to commit to the grave the body of Hobson, the University carrier, whose death in the winter of 1630 is commemorated in two of Milton's early poems. In the follow

ing year, Fuller's uncle, Dr. Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury, bestowed on him the prebendary stall of Netherbury, in the cathedral of Salisbury, and two years later presented him to the rectory of Broad Windsor, a picturesque village in Dorsetshire, where for several years our author strove to carry out his ideal of 'the Good Parson,' which he afterwards sketched in The Holy State.

While at Cambridge, Fuller, like most of the University wits of the time, had made many a clandestine match with the Muses,' and five years before the publication of Cowley's Davideis, he issued his first literary production, David's heinous Sin, heartie Repentance, heavie Punishment. The poem, which was published in a little volume of about forty pages, is of slight literary value, though flashes of poetic fancy sometimes relieve its uncouth and over-elaborated conceits. The following stanza, on the death of Bathsheba's child, is a favourable specimen of the style of the verse:

'As when a tender rose begins to blow

Yet scarce unswadled is, some wanton maide,
Pleased with the smell, allurèd with the show,
Will not reprieve it till it hath displayed
The folded leaves; but to her breast applies
Th' abortive bud, where coffinèd it lies,
Losing the blushing dye before it dies,

So this babe's life, newly begun, did end.'

One memorial of Fuller's ministry at S. Benet's remains in a course of sermons on the Book of Ruth, which he published in 1654, under the title A Comment on Ruth. They shew the same qualities that characterized his maturer work-much quaintness of fancy, moderation of

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views, and earnest though somewhat eccentric devoutness of spirit.

The care of his Dorsetshire parish did not withdraw Fuller from literary pursuits. In 1639 appeared his Historie of the Holy Warre, an entertaining account of the Crusades in four books, followed by a fifth or supplementary book of discussive anecdotes and reflections. None of his works exhibits to greater advantage his admirable way of telling a story, and of introducing the most unlooked-for and incongruous allusions with the happiest effect.

The diligence and discrimination with which he used such original authorities as were then accessible to the historian is also attested in this volume. The Holy Warre passed through three editions in rapid succession, but its popularity seems to have waned after the Restoration, as compared with that of our author's other works,

In 1640 Fuller became preacher at the Chapel of the Savoy in London, where he soon gathered a large and influential congregation. As the political contest grew more intense, his outspoken though moderate royalist opinions made him an object of suspicion to the Parliamentary party, which relied greatly on the influence of the city preachers in winning support to their cause. His efforts were directed to the securing of peace by means of a compromise. Some of his most eloquent sermons were preached at this time, and their keynote is this earnest desire for peace:

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O the miserable condition of our land at this time! God hath showed the whole world that England hath enough in itself to make itself happy or unhappy as it useth or abuseth it. Her homebred wares enough to maintain her, and her homebred warres enough to destroy her, though no foreign nation contribute to her overthrow. Well, whilst others fight for peace, let us pray for peace;

for peace on good terms, yea, on God's terms, and in God's time, when He shall be pleased to give it, and we fitted to receive it. Let us wish both King and Parliament so well as to wish neither of them better, but both of them best— even a happy accommodation.'

When this seemed no longer possible, Fuller forsook London to join the King at Oxford, leaving behind him his library, the loss of which he deeply regretted. While acting as chaplain to the forces in the field, he was occupied in seeing through the press his Holy State (published in 1642), and in gathering materials for his Worthies of England.

The Holy State belongs to a class of literature peculiarly characteristic of the seventeenth century. Bishop Earle's Micro-Cosmographie, and Overbury's Characters are, perhaps, the best known examples of this kind of composition, which attained to great popularity through the satisfaction it gave to the 'Puritan passion for analysis of human character.' But though Fuller's book belonged to this class, the easy flow of his diffuse and conversational style contrasts strongly with the concentration and rigidity of most of the character-sketches of the period. The volume is divided into four books, delineating ideal characters in various walks of life, followed by a fifth, The Profane State, wherein various evil characters are held up as warnings. A number of short biographies of historical persons are introduced as illustrations of the qualities described. This curious collection of essays and characters,' says Mr. James Nichols, is the production of a man possessed of no ordinary grasp of mind, who lived in times of uncommon interest and excitement, and who wrote with the obvious intention to personate a wise and witty moderator" between the two great parties in the State that were then openly at issue.'

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Even in the troubled time in which it appeared, The Holy State attained to an immediate and lasting popularity. As has often been noticed, the shrewd common sense and pithy conciseness of many of its sentences give them the air of current proverbs. It is from this work that ‘elegant extracts' are generally gathered to illustrate the author's quaint and whimsical philosophy.

In 1644 Fuller settled for a while at Exeter, and there published his Good Thoughts in Bad Times-'the first fruits of the Exeter press'-Good Thoughts in Worse Times following five years later. Both are volumes of personal reflections suited to the disturbed and anxious period in which they were written, and designed to lift the reader out of the distracting atmosphere of contest and controversy into the calm of pious meditation. In these writings,' says Mr. Russell, we have a living portrait of their author, both as a politician and as a divine.'

After some years of unsettled life, Fuller became curatein-charge of Waltham Abbey, and while there published one of his most important works, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine. This volume, which appeared in 1650, contains a vivid and picturesque account of the Holy Land, embellished with quaintly designed engravings. The veracity and buoyancy of the description makes the book irresistibly attractive, and the erudition it displays is scarcely less noteworthy. The most varied sources of information are laid under contribution, and the indebtedness of the author duly acknowledged. So, in a description of the city of Tyre, he writes:

'We intend a little to insist both upon the commodities and countries of such as hither resorted. For though I dare not go out of the bounds of Canaan to give these nations a visit at their own homes, yet finding them here within my precincts, it were incivility in me not to take