S. T. COLERIDGE, one of the most acute critics, has left on record his opinions in regard to Fuller and his works. His criticisms will be found quoted passim. The very high opinion he formed of Fuller seems to have been deliberately arrived at. Two of his comments may be cited here: "Next to Shakespeare, I am not certain whether Thomas Fuller, beyond all other writers, does not excite in me the sense and emotion of the marvellous. . . . Fuller was incomparably the most sensible, the least prejudiced great man of an age that boasted a galaxy of great men." Shakespeare! Milton! Fuller! De Foe! Hogarth! As to the remaining mighty host of our great men, other countries have produced something like them; but these are uniques. England may challenge the world to show a correspondent name to either of the five. I do not say that, with the exception of the first, names of equal glory may not be produced, in a different kind. But these are genera, containing each only one individual." ROBERT SOUTHEY'S writings contain many notices of Fuller and his works. According to Mr. Warter, Fuller was the poet's "prime favourite author.” 3 JAMES CROSSLEY, ESQ., of Manchester, in the Retrospective Review, wrote an essay on Fuller, familiar to all admirers of our worthy. It is an excellent and exhaustive piece of criticism, and skilfully enters into the spirit of Fuller's life and the genius of his writings. "His life," says he, " was meritoriously passed, and exemplary throughout; his opinions were independently adopted and unshrinkingly maintained. In the darkest and gloomiest period of our national history he had the sense and the wisdom to pursue the right way, and to persevere in an even tenour of moderation, as remote from interested lukewarmness as it was from meanspirited fear. Unwilling to go all lengths with either party, he was of consequence vilified by both; willing to unite the maintainers of opposite and conflicting sentiments, he only united them against himself. Secure in the strength of his intellectual riches, the storms and hurricanes which uprooted the fabric of the constitution had only the effect of confining him more to his own resources, and of inciting him to the production of those numerous treatises and compilations for which he received from his contemporaries respect and reputation, and for which posterity will render him its tribute of unfailing gratitude." Notes on English Divines, i. 127. Notes Theological, Political, and Miscelaneous, p. 101. 3 Preface to Common-Place Book, IV. Ser., p. vi. Vol. iii. 70, 71. Mr. Crossley's com PROFESSOR ROGERS, late of the College, Withington, Manchester, more recently wrote an attractive Essay on the Life and Genius of Fuller, a "good work," which also has sent many a lover of worthy old reading to "browse" with a huge contentment in the thick folios of our author. Mr. Rogers expressed his conviction that posterity had dealt hardly by Fuller's memory, and that "there are hundreds who have been better remembered, with far less claims to that honour." "Thus,” adds he, "it is singular that even Mr. Hallam, in his recent History of European Literature, should not have bestowed upon him any special notice; dismissing him with only a slight allusion in a note upon another subject (vol. iii. p. 104). Yet Fuller was not only one of the most voluminous-an equivocal indication of merit, it must be allowed-but one of the most original writers in the language. . . . Like Taylor and Barrow and Sir Thomas Browne, he wrote with a vigour and originality, with a fertility of thought and imagery, and a general felicity of style, which, considering the quantity of his compositions, and the haste with which he produced them, impress us with wonder at his untiring activity and preternatural fecundity." "In a moral and religious point of view, the character of Fuller is entitled to our admiration, and is altogether one of the most attractive and interesting which that age exhibits to us."3 mendation of Fuller's writings is quoted in the Life, p. 224. Edinburgh Review, January, 1842: afterwards republished in 1856 in 16m0., 2s. 6d., in the Traveller's Library (Longmans), with selections from Fuller's writings; for the Essayist observes, justly, that "their digressive, fragmentary character, in general, would almost en title them to be considered, collectively, CHAPTER I. THE FULLER KINDRED. NOMEN ET OMEN."-JOKES ON THE SURNAME BY HEYLYN, FULLER, &c.— DISTINGUISHED MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY: THOMAS FULLER, PILOT; NICHOLAS FULLER, BIBLICAL CRITIC; NICHOLAS FULLER, LAWYER; JUDGE FULLER. HERALDRY OF THE NAME. THE FULLERS OF SUFFOLK; OF ESSEX (ABBOT FULLER); OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE; OF KENT, &C. (DR. THOMAS FULLER, THE PHYSICIAN).—THE BERKSHIRE-LONDON BRANCH. — THE FAMILY OF THOMAS FULLER, SENIOR; HIS COLLEGE-LIFE AND SETTLEMENT IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.-FULLER'S GRATITUDE TO HIS FATHER'S PATRON. "Ager Fullonum-Fullers Field."-PISGAH-SIGHT, iii. 310. T is not often that the appropriateness-one might almost say significance-of a surname is so marked as in the case of "OLD FULLER," as he is familiarly (but not very correctly) called. His name tends to illustrate the Roman proverb, nomen et omen. As Hood puts it"Though Shakespeare asks, 'What's in a name?' (As if cognomens were much the same), There's really a very great scope in it." The surname Fuller is, indeed, strikingly suitable to our Thomas Fuller, being in admirable accord with him as the author of so many sterling, solid, and worthy books: he fully "answers" to his name. Hence one of his editors has said, in quite a Fullerian way, that the writings of our hero compared with others are "not only Fuller in useful matter and varied interest, but (as a punster of his own day would have said) fuller in spirit, and fuller in wit; in fact, Fuller throughout "Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." Like two other famous men of the same baptismal name and of the same sprightliness of spirit-Thomas More and Thomas. Hood, who almost punned their surnames to death-Fuller often rang the changes on his, deriving them mainly from that trade whence the name originated. Thus, among his Epigrams1 we find "A Prayer. "My soul is stainèd with a dusty colour- And again, speaking of his infirmities being known to God, he devoutly says: "As for other stains and spots upon my soul, I hope that He (be it spoken without the least verbal reflection) who is the FULLER'S Sope, Mal. iii. 2, will scour them forth with His merit, that I may appear clean by God's mercy." In that quaint volume, the Pisgah-Sight, Fuller makes another jocular use of his surname. On the engraved plan of the city of Jerusalem (most probably sketched by himself) he places in the left-hand corner, "Ager Fullonum "-(and that there may be no mistake about it, he adds) "FULLERS field !” almost the only English words on the map. This is done without much regard to the actual position of this spot; but as it serves very well for the signature to the plate (it is one way of saying Fuller fecit) the play on the word is irresistible to so practised a punster. There happens to be no engraver's name attached in the usual way to this fanciful plate; and the words, therefore, somewhat confirm the supposition that the industrious author himself etched part if not all of it. But the humorous signature might possibly apply to that "I. FULLER" who puts his name to the copper-plate of the clothes of the Jews in the same volume. There can be no doubt, however, as to the source of the words, Fullers field. Fuller employed one engraver at least who would enter into the pleasantry of such a signature. But the old surname, Fuller, was occasionally a butt for the wit of others. Fuller, however, might often have reminded his would-be witty antagonists of what he has said about the meaning of the surname Huss (a goose), that it was an instrument "ready strung and tuned for the wanton fingers of his enemies," and that " every dull wit was sharp enough to use a 'Grosart's Fuller's Poems, &c., p. 228. 2 Appeal of Injured Innocence (ed. Nichols, 1840), pt. iii. 627. Folio edition (used throughout this biography), bk. iii. 310. 4 My attention was first called to this interesting fact by Mr. Thomas Kerslake of Bristol, who believes that Fuller actually etched the map. Bk. iv. 94-5. Some read this signature "T. Fuller," incorrectly, we think. For more on the subject of Fuller and his engravings, see chap. xvi. jeer made to his hand." Dr. Peter Heylyn, who will closely accompany us throughout this biography, was a great wordcatcher in this respect; and he set Fuller on the same track. In one of his books, 3 to which we shall often have occasion to refer, the former represents Fuller as sitting umpire-like in a chair, and as summing up the arguments on the position of the altar-a matter on which the two divines were at variance. "The Moderator, FULLER of old merry tales than ordinary, thus resolves the business "Know," replies Fuller, "there is another chair which David calls the chair of the scornful;' and it is to be feared that the animadvertor [Heylyn] in this point is too near sitting down therein. If I should retaliate possibly I might render him as ridiculous; but most of all I should abuse myself and my own profession therein." 5 6 66 A story may be found in some of the jest books to the effect that, on one occasion our Fuller, being in the company of one Mr. Sparrowhawk, unwittingly asked him, "What is the difference between an owl and a sparrowhawk?" and it is said that he received the unexpected reply: "An owl is fuller in the head, fuller in the face, and FULLER all over!" Dr. Heylyn endeavoured to annoy his good-natured opponent, Mr. Fuller," by making him the recipient of a similar smart repartee from a lady. The occasion of Heylyn's anecdote was this: In his Church-History Fuller alluded to a lady "(now [1659] living in London, and a countess, whose husband's father the Archbishop [Laud] married"), who sarcastically told Laud that she was about to join the Church of Rome, because she perceived that his Lordship, with many others, was fast hastening thither; and she hated to go in a crowd. On the ground that one story called up another, Dr. Heylyn ("lying Peter," as Carlyle terms him), nowhere more tender of the reputation of Laud, his patron, rejoined thus in his Examen :-" I have heard a tale of a lady, too, to whose table one Mr. Fuller was a welcome, though a frequent guest; and being asked once by her Whether he would please to eat the wing of a woodcock, he would needs put her to the question how her ladyship knew it was a wood-cock, and not a wood-hen. 1 Abel Redevivus (Tegg's ed.), Jerome of Prague, § 7, p. 27. 2 "Aucupes vocum."-Augustine. 3 Examen Historicum. The quotations from this book will always be made from Mr. Nichols' reprint in Fuller's Appeal of Injured Innocence, 1840. This is a hit at Fuller's supposed B 2 inclination to Presbyterianism under the Commonwealth. 5 Appeal, pt. iii. p. 579. It is gravely repeated as authentic in Clarke's Memoirs of the Wesley Family, i. 36. Charles, Earl of Devon.-Appeal, iii. 634. |