prove that a thing may be done is actually to do it." After the negotiations in 1630 with Vermuyden (to which Fuller may be alluding) were broken off, better progress was made in the work; and hence Fuller, who writes in 1655, says that "of late the fens nigh Cambridge have been adjudicated drained." Cambridge, he says, ever regarded the project jealously, as likely to prove prejudicial, "and within my memory an eminent preacher made a smart sermon before the Judges of the assizes on this text: 'Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream:' wherein he had many tart reflections on the draining of the fennes, inciting the Judges to be tender of the University so much concerned therein. But it seems Cambridge was then more frighted than since it hath been hurt now the project is effected." Fuller states that the draining brought more commodities; and as the county had got more earth, so it had gained better air. "And Cambridge itself may soon be sensible of this perfective alteration. Indeed Athens (the staple of ancient learning) was seated in a morass or fenny place, (and so Pisa, an academy in Italy), and the grossness of the air is conceived by some to quicken their wits and strengthen their memories. However a pure air, in all impartial judgments, is to be preferred for students to reside in."s As regards a foggy air being advantageous for the memory, he has another reference in Holy State: "Some say a pure and subtle air is best; another commends a thick and foggy air. For the Pisans, sited in the fens and marsh of Arnus, have excellent memories, as if the foggy air were a cap for their heads." Be this as it may, Fuller cultivated this faculty and brought it to perfection during his college-life at Cambridge. Other members of his family, however, such as his father and his uncle Townson, were remarkable for vigorous memories.

1 Dr. Matthew Wrenn, as we gather from the Worthies (§ London), p. 208. He was Bishop of Ely in 1638.

"A famous University of this Land was formerly very much infested with Punns; but whether or no this might not arise from the Fens and Marshes in which

2

it was situated, and which are now drained, I must leave to the Determination of more skilful Naturalists." (Addison, Spectator, No. 61.)

Sect. v. ¶¶ 1-10, pp. 69-72. ♦ Page 162.

CHAPTER VI.

"MATCHES WITH THE MUSES." ADVANCEMENT IN THE CHURCH.

HIS

(1631-33.)

PUBLICATION OF "DAVID'S HAINOUS SINNE."-FULLER'S POETICAL MERITS.ODDS AND ENDS OF POETRY."-THE MOUNTAGU FAMILY: LORD MOUNTAGU AND HIS FAMILY.-FULLER'S "OBSERVATIONS OF THE SHIRES. FULLER BECOMES A PREBENDARY OF SARUM.-SERMONS ON RUTH.-DEATH OF THE ELDER FULLER.-JOHN FULLER.-DEATH OF MARGARET TOWNSON : HER FAMILY.-FULLER'S RESIGNATION OF LAUD. "THE TRUE CHURCH ANTIQUARY."

OF HIS CURACY.-INFLUENCE

"Lofty fancies in young men will come down of themselves, and in process of time the overplus will shrink to be but even measure."-The Holy State: Of Phancie, p. 165.

E do not know whether at any time in his younger days Fuller, when engaged in what his maturer judgment deemed "the pleasant, but profitless study of poetry," promised under correction (as it is traditioned Ovid did) "never to make a verse, and made a verse in his very promise;"1 but it is certain that he early turned his attention to poetry. His inclination in this direction was encouraged by the itch of scribbling which, as we have already partly seen, was ruling supreme at Cambridge. "Quicquid tentabam. scribere versus erat." In these his college days, then, he "made many a clandestine match with the Muses;" and the result was that he became an incorrigible versifier. Milton has confessed that he found the bare and shadeless fields about Cambridge very unsuited for the worshippers of Apollo; and Rowland Hill, if we remember aright, was so depressed with the prospects, that he said it seemed as if nature were holding out signals of distress; but the district affected Fuller otherwise. For some time back he had been at work upon a greater subject than those which passing events inspired; and by it he

Good Thoughts in Worse Times: Personal Med., xi. p. 13.

doubtless hoped to attain immortality at a blow. This, his first important effort, took the form of poetry, as is usual with budding literati. So Sir John Davies, Donne, and Bishop Hall, with many others, began their brilliant literary careers. But most admirers of Fuller will, we suppose, be astonished to meet with their author in this apparently new walk of "endeavouring" Parnassus, for the poem alluded to has been utterly forgotten. When it has been offered for sale, it was priced at more than its weight in gold" deadly dear," as Mr. Pepys would say. Short abstracts of it have appeared in some literary collections; and these notices were, until lately, all that the general reader could obtain of the poem. From the interest which must always be attached to the first utterances of genius, a few particulars of this characteristic poem are here given.

The subject was perhaps suggested by the studies in divinity to which Fuller was at this time giving attention. He entitled the production :-David's Hainovs Sinne, Heartie Repentance, Heavie Punishment. By Thomas Fuller, Master of Arts of Sidnye Colledge in Cambridge. London: 1631. After reading this odd and alliterative title one can pretty readily guess what is to follow for Butler has remarked truly that "there is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books, no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as the other." The title-page at once gives Fuller a place amongst the quaint poets of that quaint age-Johnson's "metaphysical" class-which may be said to have begun with Lyly, culminated in Donne, and closed with Cowley. We shall see that Fuller was thoroughly imbued with the mannerisms and spirit of this school of poets, whose example he especially affected even in the titles of his pieces.

Compared with his works published afterwards, this is a very modest and unpretending little book. It contains a gross of verses, of seven lines each, which are divided methodically, as is his wont, into three books; the whole being comprised upon forty leaves.

The subject of Fuller's "maiden muse" has often attracted the attention of poets; but it is one in which they have never been successful. Before Fuller's time it had been dramatised by George Peele, who published in 1599 his Love of King David. and Fair Bat'sabe, with the Tragedie of Absalom; which is said

It is described and priced thus in a late book-catalogue : "Very rare and quite perfect, morocco extra, gilt back, paned sides and gilt leaves, £8 8s. In the British Museum copy, which is

bound in saffron morocco, but cropped, mended, and soiled, there is a memorandum that it had sold for £17 at Brand's sale (whose book-plate is on it)."

See our List of Fuller's Works.

to be the best of his plays. Cowley, too, (whose first volume
of poems-Poetic Blossoms-was written much about this time,
and was published two years afterwards, 1633), wrote a poem
on the same topic, entitled Davideis: a Heroical Poem on the
Troubles of David, published 1636, though written previously.
Fuller's production, which Cowley must have seen, may have
suggested it. Cowley's poem is long and tedious, and shows,
like Fuller's, some amount of study; but, like Fuller's, it also
has long been forgotten. The chief poem of Thomas Ellwood
the Quaker, to whose suggestion we are indebted for Milton's
Paradise Regained, was also upon the Life of David, the piety
of which is said to be more conspicuous than the poetry.
Our author begins by detailing the argument of the poem:

"How Zion's Psalmist grievously offended,
How Israel's Harper did most foully slide,
Yet how that Psalmist penitent amended,
And how that Harper patient did abide
Deservèd chastisement," &c.

which is followed by a reverent invocation for help and furtherHe then describes how David,

ance.

"When on Bathsheba loose eyes

He fixt, his Heavenly half did him dissuade.”

The latter having concluded her plea (st. 6—13), the Flesh confounds the reasoning; and the result is thus described (st. 19):

66

Thus he that conquered men, and beast most cruel,
(Whose greedy paws with felon goods were found,)
Answer'd Goliath's challenge in a duel,

And laid the giant grovelling on the ground;

He that of Philistines two hundred slew,

No whit appalled at their grisly hue,

Him one frail woman's beauty did subdue."

The other incidents of the narrative are then related. The description of the attempt to make Uriah drunk is very amusingly written. "One common cup" is first pledged to the captains at Rabba; then "one specially unto the general," i.e. Joab ;

"Abishay next is drunk-to, Joab's brother,
And this cup to a second paves the way;

That orderly doth usher in another;

Thus Wine, once walking, knows not where to stay;

Yea, such a course methodical they take

In ordering of cups, the same did make

Uriah quite all order to forsake.

His false supporters soon begin to slip;
And if his faltering tongue doth chance to light
On some long word, he speedily doth clip
The train thereof: yea, his deceitful sight
All objects pairèd doth present to him,

As double faces, both obscure and dim,

Seem in a lying looking-glass to swim.”—(25, 26.)

This is followed by as hearty a sentiment as a teetotaller could wish :

"My prayers for friends' prosperity and wealth

Shall ne'er be wanting; but if I refuse

To hurt myself by drinking others' health,

O, let ingenuous natures me excuse.

If men bad manners this esteem, then I

Desire to be esteemed unmannerly,

That, to live well, will suffer wine to die!"-(27.)

This plan not succeeding, the poet passes on to show how (in Bishop Hall's words) "sober David was worse than drunken Uriah." He describes how the treacherous letter was composed, and how Uriah is made to "bear his own mittimus."

"Thus crafty maisters, when they mind to beat

A careless boy, to gather birch they send him ;
The little lad doth make the rod complete,
Thinking his maister therefore will commend him.
But, busily imploy'd, he little thought

He made the net wherein himself was caught,

And must be beaten with the birch he brought."-(34.)

We are now introduced to the besieging army, likened to a
swarm of bees. Affairs in the town are thus quaintly sketched :
"Whilst in the town one with his friend did talk,
A sudden stroake did take his tongue away;
Some had their legs arrested as they walk,
By martial law commanding them to stay;
Here falls a massy beam; a mighty wall

Comes tumbling there; and many men doth maul
Who were both slain and buried by the fall ! ”—(38.)

Here, as indeed is the case all through the poem, are conceits quite in Fuller's vein. In his Holy War he repeats the last idea when he says of Aphec, that its "walls falling down, gave both the death and gravestones to 27,000 of Ben-hadad's soldiers!' Cowley introduced a similar figure (speaking of Cain):

"I saw him fling a stone, as if he meant

At once his murther and his monument !"

Bk. i. cap. 19.—“Which wall, if cruel to kill, was charitable to bury them." (Pisgah-Sight, ii. 126.)