CHAPTER XVIII. "THE CHURCH-HISTORY OF BRITAIN." (1655) .66 HISTORY OF THE PROJECT.-POPULAR EXPECTATION OF THE "HISTORY."—ITS DESIGN TWICE EXTENDED.-AN HISTORIAN'S DUTY. THE "HISTORY" IMPARTIAL AND LOYAL.-ITS CONTEMPORARY VALUE.-FULLER'S TEMPERANCE OF MIND. FULLER'S CHRONOLOGY: HIS STRENGTH OF MEMORY.-THE HISTORY AN ENDEAVOUR."-ITS ARRANGEMENT.-THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND OTHER NOBLE PATRONS.-" LITERARY MENDICITY."-FULLER'S DEDICATIONS. -HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE LORD KEEPER FIENNES. THE HERALDRY OF THE WORK. THE SUPPLEMENTARY HISTORIES. -THE SOURCES OF THE CHURCH-HISTORY. ."-FULLER'S ANTIQUARIAN FRIENDS.-PRESERVATION OF STATE-PAPERS IN THE HISTORY."-ITS WIT: WALTON AND FULLER.-ITS PROVERBIAL SENTENCES.-ITS DIGRESSIONS.-CONTEMPORARY COMMENDATIONS AND CENSURES. "Were it in my power I would have built a church where I only made my ChurchHistory." (Appeal, pt. i. p. 51.) HE publication of the Church-History soon after March, 1655, was the great literary event of Fuller's life, it being unquestionably his greatest work. The smaller histories and biographies which he had already issued, make it clear that the bias of his mind was towards ecclesiastical story. There is reason to believe that the design of an adequate national History of the Church was conceived by Fuller at an early period in life. By 1642 he had surveyed the whole project, and thenceforward he regarded it as a life-work. In the year named he made prayerful promise that if he fell on better days, it would "then encourage me to count it freedom to serve two apprenticeships (God spinning out the thick thread of my life so long) in writing the Ecclesiastical History from Christ's time to our days, if I shall from remoter parts be so planted as to enjoy the benefit of walking and standing libraries, without which advantages the best vigilancy doth but vainly dream to undertake such a task." His unsettled life during the succeeding eight or ten years, when (as 1 Holy State: To the Reader. he put it) he had rather to study to live than live to study, freed him, in his view, from the self-imposed obligation. "I had ever since," he says, "quitted all thoughts of writing any church-history." His gradual collection of materials shows, however, that he had never wholly laid aside the favourite project, at which at first he only worked fitfully. Two inducements urged him to complete his task. He had, firstly, created an expectation which was not to be easily allayed. The Muse of the Cotswold Hills and the Principal of a Scotch University' had already given expression to a general feeling. Moreover, about the time of its publication, the author was again reminded of the work, already long over due, in the following punning lines: "Vpon Mr. Fullers Baoke called Pisgah-sight. Fuller of wish, than hope, methinks it is, Always in hope a fuller work to see." " There was, secondly, room for an adequate work of the kind; for although, as Fuller pointed out in 1660, our land since the Reformation had yielded ecclesiastical historians "of as tall parts and large performances as any nation in Christendom," a native Eusebius had not yet appeared as the predecessor of Strype, Collier, and Milner, in the succeeding centuries. Many English scholars, during their long leisure in the troubles, made attempts to supply what was a felt want. Among others, Bishop Mountagu, the author of Apello Caesarem, laboured at such a project, but was unable to mature it. "Had it been finished," says Fuller, "we had had Church annals to put into the balance with those of Baronius; and which would have swayed with them for learning, and weighed them down for truth." Elsewhere Fuller regretted that, through the civil distempers, English historians were seldom See pp. 492 and 502. Page 62 of Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets. Being a collection of divers excellent pieces of Poetry, of severall eminent Authors. Never before printed. London. Printed by J. G. for Robert Pollard, at the Ben Johnson's head behind • Worthies, chap. x. 27. apprehended truly and candidly, "save of such of their own persuasion."1 Under such circumstances Fuller kept to his task of writing a sober, pleasant, and impartial history; now answering the remonstrances of his friends by witty excuses, now feeding their hopes by further promises. He often quoted, against his friends, the proverb, "All Church-work is slow." Heylyn, who jeered him for his "starts for recreation in the Holy Land" (referring to the Pisgah-Sight), was answered that that book, indeed, was no part of church building, yet it was "the clearing of the floor or foundation thereof, by presenting the performances of Christ and His apostles in Palestine!"3 Fuller further said, in the Pisgah-Sight, that notwithstanding the difficulties still in his way of completion (1651), he hoped in God to effect his purpose in competent time, "might my endeavours meet with a quiet residence, and proportionable encouragement for such undertakings;" and in the third book he said that in God's due time he was in some hope to finish it by His assistance. When the Pisgah was off his hands, if not before (see Appeal, iii. 629), he began more steadily to prepare the Church-History for the press; and from that time he worked at it with a diligence that would seem remarkable, were the author regarded apart from other well-nigh superhuman literary workers of his days. Allusions in the work,5 as Appeal, pt. i. chap. i. p. 1 (284). Up to this point the modern edition of this entertaining work has been used. Henceforth the passages are quoted from the original folio, H. H. Gibbs, Esq., of St. Dunstan's, London, having lent me his very fine copy. The corresponding page of Nichols' ed. is added, as above, in brackets. on 2 Church-Hist.: To the Reader. Fuller elsewhere quotes this proverb: "The mention of St. Mary's [Camb.] mindeth me of church-work indeed, so long it was from the founding to the finishing thereof." (Hist. of Camb. sect. vi. § 2.) "This siege [of Tyre, A.D. 1187] was church-work, and therefore went slowly." (Holy Warre, iii. 111.) "The Old Knight [Sir Roger de Coverley] turning about his Head twice or thrice to take a Survey of this great Metropolis, bid me observe how thick the City was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple Bar. A most heathenish Sight! says Sir Roger; There is no Religion at this end the Town. The fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect; but ChurchWork is slow-Church-Work is slow!" (Spectator, No. 383.) Appeal, pt. i. 317. 4 "To the Reader." Book iii. p. 432. 5 Fuller had in view a more modern date than when, under the year 1254, he wrote thus: "England began now to surfeit of more than thirty years' peace and plenty, which produced no better effects than ingratitude to God and murmuring at their king. Many active spirits, whose minds were above their means, offended that others beneath them (as they thought) in merit, were above them in employment, cavilled at many errors in the King's Government, being State-Donatists, maintaining, 'the perfection of a Commonwealth might and ought to be attained.' A thing easy in the theory, impossible in the practice, to conform the actions of men's corrupted natures to the exact ideas in men's imaginations." (iii. 66.) He had the conduct of the Londoners during the civil war in his mind when writing his well as occasional actual dates,' indicate a lengthened period of compilation; and they enable us to judge that Fuller began to prepare it for the press about 1648-a date corresponding to his entering upon his "quiet residence" at Waltham Abbey. He himself says that the first three books, which extend to the year 1370, were mainly written "in the reign of the late King, as appeareth by the passages then proper for the government; and that the other nine were made "since Monarchy was turned into a State." By 1652 it was so far advanced that on the 9th of September, John Stafford entered it at Stationers' Hall as "a Tract called The Church Historie of Brittaine," it being licensed by Mr. Joseph Caryl. For some reason the publication of it was interrupted. It was re-entered by Williams (who actually published it) under its full title on the 14th of January, 1655-6. Fuller says himself that, though late, it was "brought with much difficulty to an end." In connection with its long preparation he records a pleasant anecdote in the brief address to the reader. "An ingenious gentleman, some months since, in jest-earnest advised me to make haste with my history of the Church of England, for fear (said he) lest the Church of England be ended before the history thereof!" This witty gentleman was said by Oldys to have been EDWARD WATERHOUSE, ESQ., the author (inter alia) of A Short Narrative of the late dreadful Fire in London, 1667, where he speaks of the "ingenious Dr. Fuller, who will be more valued in after ages, as most are, than in their own." He contributed to Fuller's Worthies the account of Sir Edward Waterhouse; in which the author says, "Reader, I doubt not but thou art sensible of the alteration and improvement of my language in this character, owing both my intelligence and expressions unto Edward Waterhouse, now [1661] of Sion College, Esq., who, to revive the memory of his namesake and great uncle, furnished me with these instructions." Despondent as Fuller occasionally seems as to the condition of the Church and the Clergy, he was not without hope of an ultimate restoration. He hesitates not to say, on almost the first page of his book, "Blessed be God, the Church of England is still (and long may it be) in being, though disturbed, distempered, distracted: God help and heal her most sad condition." And on the engraved plate of the wreck of Lichfield Cathedral, Hist. Camb. (1655), and making allusion to a charter to Cambridge in which London was not prejudiced, he said: “So careful were our kings always of that city; but whether that city reciprocally of them, let others enquire." (Sect. i. §32.) 1651, 1652, 1654, &c. Biog. Brit. iii. 2060. Worthies, § Hartfordsh. p. 22. he has written under the arms of the See the significant prophecy-RESVRGAM.1 One cause of the delay in publication arose from the extension of his plan. Originally he intended to stop at the death of King James. When, indeed, he had ended the reign of Elizabeth, some dissuaded him (as he states) from advancing further, on the plea that the story of modern times must not be written by any living. Fuller combats this opinion (in the admirable dedicatory epistle to the tenth book), deeming it both disgraceful to historians, and prejudicial to posterity. Under the latter head he says that such intentions, long delayed, are at last defeated; and instances the young Greek, who, when moved by his mother to marry, returned that, as yet, it was too soon: and some years after pleaded that then it was too late. "So some say, Truth is not ripe enough to be written in the age we live in; which proveth rotten too much for the next generation faithfully to report, when the impresses of memorable matters are almost worn out; the histories then written having more of the author's hand than footsteps of truth therein. Sure I am, the most informative histories to posterity, and such as are most highly prized by the judicious, are such as were written by the eye-witnesses thereof,-as Thucydides, the reporter of the Peloponesian war." 3 Fuller likens contemporary historians to the two messengers, Ahimaaz and Cushai, who carried tidings to David. He proceeds : "Ahimaaz is imitated by such historians who leave that unwritten which they suspect will be unwelcome. These follow the rule Summa lex salus authoris; when they meet with any necessary but dangerous truth, pass it over with a blank, flourished up with some ingenious evasion. Such writers succeed to plain Cushai in their relations, who give a true account of actions, and, to avoid all exasperating terms (which may make a bad matter worse in relating it), use the most lenitive language in expressing distasteful matter, adventuring with their own danger to procure the information of others" (i.e. that others may be informed). After referring to a just fear that records were not so carefully kept in "these so many and sudden changes," as in former ages, he gives his views as to 1 Bk. iv. 174. 2 Bk. x. p. 90. So also he had said in Holy Warre: "Tyrius, our author, is above exception; for being both a politic statesman and pious prelate, no doubt his pen striketh the true and even stroke betwixt King and Patriarch. Besides, he might well see the truth of this matter, writing in a well-proportioned distance of time from it. Those who live too near the stories they write, oftentimes willingly mistake through partiality; and those who live too far off, are mistaken by uncertainties, the footsteps of truth being almost worn out with time." (Bk. ii. 50.) |