released, and allowed to attend the King, who gave him the Deanery of Worcester, then a mere title, and who also offered him the Bishopric of Bristol. Fuller was with Holdsworth "some days before his expiring;" and he relates a passage which he then heard from him, characterising him as an "excellent preacher, both by his pious life and patient death." He was buried at St. Peter's Poor, of which he was Rector, his executors and "worthy friends" Thomas Rich and Richard Abdy, Esquires, "ordering his funeral with great solemnities and lamentation." By his will he also named Dr. Brounrig, Bishop of Exeter, his executor. The portraiture of the divine is thus given: "He was of a comely personage, of a convenient stature, and a graceful aspect; of a most holy conversation, a sprightly wit, a transient anger, but a perpetual zeal." Fuller also thus commemorates his friend: "How eminent an instrument he was of God's glory and the Church's good, is unknown to none, who in the least degree were acquainted with his person and profitable pains. They knew him to be composed of a learned head, a gracious heart, a bountiful hand, and (what must not be omitted) a patient back, comfortably and cheerfully to endure such heavy afflictions as were laid upon him."1 A year or two after Dean Holdsworth's death, Fuller, whose name was already of value to the publishers of the day, was entrapped into writing a preface to a volume of Holdsworth's reputed sermons, twenty-one in number, entitled The Valley of Vision, 1651. The publishers were R. Tomlins at the Sun and Bible, and R. Littlebury at the Unicorn, and they state on the title-page that the sermons were by "that learned and reverend divine." In the address to the reader Fuller gives a straightforward account of his own share in the transaction. The address is characteristic, some admirer of Fuller having in places pencilled in margine of my copy, "Tom Fuller all over," "Tom Fuller again," &c. He regrets that the Dean left no books of his own; an omission which could not, he says, be imputed to "any envy in him as grudging us the profit of his pains (one so open-handed of his alms could not be close-fisted of his labours, for a general good); rather it proceeded partly Ch.-Hist. xi. 215; Hist. Camb. 148; The Valley of Vision (preface). 2 Two volumes of Sermons, by Holdsworth, but not included in The Valley, are (on 20th Feb. 1654) entered by John Stafford on the Registers of Stationers' Hall. They are thus described: "Entred for his Copie under ye hand of Mr. Norton Warden a booke called Heaven upon Earth, or the Transfiguracon of Christ upon the Mount, opened in several sermons by Richard Holsworth, Doctor in Divinity. vjd." "Entred for his Copie under the hand of Mr. Norton Warden a booke called, a Cordiall for the Love Sick soule. Deliverd in ix sermons on Cant. 2. 5. by Richard Holsworth, Dr. in Divinity. vjd." from his modesty, having the highest parts in himself, and the lowest opinion of himself; partly from his judicious observation that the world now-a-days surfeits with printed sermons." After adding that all Holdsworth's MSS. were "only legible to himself," he proceeds: "Yet that the world might not totally be deprived of his worthy endeavours, I trust, his pains will meet with commendation in most, with just censure in none, who being exquisite in the art of Short-Writing (the only way to retrieve winged words, and fix them to stay amongst us) hath with all possible accurateness first taken and now set them forth (by the permission, as I am credibly informed, of the Author's best friends) to public view." Fuller then quaintly discusses the preacher's recognition of his own discourses as printed in the volume; and recommends them to the reader. It was discovered when too late to be corrected that our good-natured author had been imposed upon, only one sermon in the collection being really authentic. The sermon in question (which is paged quite distinct from the following twenty sermons, and was, moreover, "printed by Roger Daniel, 1642," the separate title-pages of the other sermons being all dated 1650) is entitled The People's Happiness, and was the discourse on the anniversary of the King's inauguration in 1642, which brought the preacher into trouble. It was printed by command of the King, to whom it is dedicated. In his notice of Holdsworth in The Worthies, Fuller referred to the spurious sermons in these terms: "Pity it is so learned a person left no monuments (save a sermon) to posterity; for I behold that posthume work as none of his, named by the transcriber The Valley of Vision, a scripture expression, but here misplaced. Valley it is indeed, not for the fruitfulness but lowness thereof (especially if compared to the high parts of the pretended author), but little vision therein. This I conceived myself in credit and conscience concerned to observe, because I was surprised to preface to the book; and will take the blame, rather than clear myself, when my innocency is complicated with the accusing of others."1 Notwithstanding this emphatic and authentic disclaimer of this dishonest compilation, the Valley of Vision still passes under Holdsworth's name in the biographical dictionaries. It is thus further disowned in the address to the reader of Holdsworth's Praelectiones Theologicae, &c., edited in 1661 by his nephew Dr. Richard Pearson: "Unicam concionem edidit eamque non nisi tertio Regis optimi monitu, ipse alioquin religiosissimus authoritatis Regiae observator. Caeterae quae § Northumberland, p. 305. prostant Anglicè venales à praedone illo stenographico tam lacerae et elumbes, tam miserè deformatae sunt ut parum aut nihil agnoscas genii et spiritûs Holdsworthiani." Lowndes erroneously attributes the editorship of this work to Bishop Pearson. 2 The sermons of the great preachers of the day were often thus unduly interfered with. Fuller had once to complain of other short-hand freebooters, who from imperfect notes proposed to print his sermons on Ruth "to their profit, but my prejudice." The practice of taking down sermons in shorthand was, in those days of famous divines and frequent attendance at church, a very general custom. Earle says of his "young raw preacher" that his "collections of study are the notes of sermons, which taken up at St. Mary's, he utters in the country. And if he write brachigraphy, his stock is so much the better." Dr. Nathaniel Hardy likewise animadverted upon the "scribblers, stationers, and printers" who traded thus in the names of eminent divines, instancing two books of sermons falsely coming abroad under the name of his friend Dr. John Hewit, "done too, both against a special caveat entered in Stationers' Hall by his honourable Lady, and advertisements in print by two of his worthy friends, Dr. Wild and Mr. Barwick, whose names have been made use of without their privity or consent, to stand in place of Licensers of those Sermons." Hardy also complains of his name being attached to a printed prayer that he had never made; and also that it had been as wrongly placed in large letters on The Herbal of Divinity. Such treatment, he says, was the lot of many preachers of the Gospel ; adding that he must "needs resent the impudence" of those who in yet another publication had treated him unjustly. By this I plainly foresee what is to be expected when I am dead; the consideration whereof hath been and is one cause inducing me to appear so often in print." Would that the same consideration had moved the complainer to print the much-desired Funeral Sermon which he preached on Thomas Fuller, but which is apparently lost! A Sad Prognostic of Approaching Judgmen Men in Bad Times, 1658. To the Reader. or, The Happy Misery of Good 2 Page 1085. CHAPTER XV. CURATE OF WALTHAM ABBEY. (1649-50.) SETTLEMENT AT WALTHAM-HOLY-CROSS.-THE EARL OF CARLISLE.-THE TOWN AND ABBEY IN FULLER'S TIME. THE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS.—ARCHEP. CRANMER; JOHN FOXE; BISHOP HALL. ALLEGED COMPLIANCE WITH THE TIMES: FULLER'S DEFENCE. HIS INDEPENDENCE.-INTERVIEW WITH SEQUESTRATORS.-FULLER'S TITLED PATRONS: THE EARLS OF MIDDLESEX; THE EARL OF WARWICK.-FULLER ATTACKED BY SMALL-POX.-HIS NEIGHBOUR-PATRONS: DR. BALDWIN HAMEY; MATTHEW GILLY; EDWARD PALMER, ESQRS., ETC.-HIS RELATIONS WITH HIS FRIENDS. THE FULLERS OF ESSEX. "I appeal to the moderate men of these times [1651-5], whether in the heighth of these woful wars, they have not sometimes wisht (not out of passionate distemper, but serious recollection of themselves) some such private place to retire unto, where, out of the noise of this clamourous world, they might have reposed themselves and served GOD with more quiet." (The History of Abbeys in England: Church-History, Bk. vi. 263-) BOUT this time our wandering parson met with an unexpected piece of good fortune, which was the means of giving him, not only a settled home, but also that leisure and quiet to which he had so long been a stranger. Some time before 1649, Fuller had attracted the attention of the Earl of Carlisle, who became greatly attached to him. The nobleman "voluntarily and desirously" bestowed his living of Waltham Abbey (or Waltham-HolyCross) upon the homeless clergyman, who was, we are told, "highly beloved by that noble Lord and other gentlemen and inhabitants of the parish."1 The EARL OF CARLISLE, the son of the gay and profligate first Earl, had taken the King's side on the breaking out of the war, serving as a volunteer at the battle of Newbury, 1643, where he was wounded. About the middle of March, 1644, he "deserted the King's party and came into the Parliament," taking the oath for those that came out of the King's quarters. He compounded for his estate; and it is said that he gave 1 Life, pp. 40, 41. "what he could save from his enemies in largesses to his friends, especially the learned clergy, whose prayers and good converse he reckoned much upon, as they did upon his charities; which completed his kindness with bounty, as that adorned his bounty with courtesy ; courtesy not affected, but naturally made up of humility that secured him from envy; and a civility that kept him in esteem: he being happy in an expression that was high and not formal, and a language that was courtly and yet real." He was one of the noblemen who invited Seth Ward with "proffers of large and honourable pensions to come and reside in their families." His composition cost him £800. The Earl, in right of his barony of Waltham and Sawley, had still in his gift the perpetual curacy of Waltham Abbey. It is a curious feature of the time that in the midst of many ecclesiastical changes during the civil troubles, the ancient right of presentation to benefices not unfrequently remained in the hands of the former patrons. Many of the latter, who had been actually engaged with the Royalists in the war, not only kept possession of their right to nominate to livings, but even exercised the privilege. Sometimes, however, the Presbyterians questioned the selection. Under the Commonwealth Fuller himself thought it was a grievance that ministers were set over parishes without the will of the lawful donors. Waltham Abbey was in the bishopric of Rochester; and Dr. Warner, famous for his advocacy of Episcopacy in the House of Lords and for his generosity to the ejected clergy, thus became Fuller's diocesan as well as intimate friend. But the Bishop. had, of course, very little power in the county, it being then entirely under the presbyterian form of Church-government. For in May, 1646, certain ministers of the county had presented a petition to the Lords for the organisation of that discipline; and by a decree of the following January, signed among others by the Earls of Warwick and Manchester, ministers and elders were named to fourteen classes in the county. This Presbyterian influence soon began to decline; and with the rise of the Independents, there was more religious liberty. Fuller's timely presentation to this vacant benefice was of great service to him. One of his editors speaks of the arrangement which put him into possession of the living as "one of the methods by which Divine Providence at that time preserved several of the eminent episcopal clergy from the common ruin Whitelocke, 83, &c.; Lloyd's Memoires, 676. 2 See the list in David's Nonconformity in Essex, pp. 255—306. |