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FULLER, THOMAS (16o8-1661) , English divine and historian, eldest son of Thomas Fuller, rector of Aldwincle St Peter's, Northamptonshire, was born at his father's rectory and was baptized on the 19th of June 16o8. Dr John Davenant, bishop of Salisbury, was his uncle and godfather. According to Aubrey, Fuller was " a boy of pregnant wit." At thirteen he was admitted to Queens' College, Cambridge , then presided over by Dr John Davenant. His cousin, Edward Davenant, was a tutor in the same college. He was apt and quick
Cambridge .' Fuller's quaint and humorous oratory soon attracted attention. He published in 1631 a poem on the subject of David and Bathsheba, entitled David's Hainous Sinne, Heartie Repentance, Heavie Punishment. In June of the same year his uncle gave him a prebend in Salisbury, where his father, who died in the following year, held a canonry. The rectory of Broadwindsor, Dorset-shire, then in the diocese of Bristol, was his next preferment (1634); and on the nth of June 1635 he proceeded B.D. At Broadwindsor he compiled The Historie of the Holy Warre (1639), a history of the crusades, and The Holy State and the Prophane State (1642). This work describes the holy state as existing in the family and in public life, gives rules of conduct, model " characters " for the various professions and profane biographies. It was perhaps the most popular of all his writings. He was in 164o elected proctor for Bristol in the memorable convocation of Canterbury, which assembled with the Short Parliament. On the sudden dissolution of the latter he joined those who urged that convocation should likewise dissolve as usual. That opinion was overruled; and the assembly continued to sit by virtue of a royal writ. Fuller has left in his Church History a valuable account of the proceedings of this synod, for sitting in which he was fined 200, which, however, was never exacted. His first published volume of sermons appeared in 164o under the title of Joseph's play-coloured Coat, which contains many of his quaint utterances and odd conceits. His grosser mannerisms of style, derived from the divines of the former from churches, old buildings, and the conversation of ancient gossips, for his Church-History and Worthies of England. He compiled in 1645 a small volume of prayers and meditations,the Good Thoughts in Bad Times,which, set up and printed in the besieged city of Exeter, whither he had retired, was called by himself " the first fruits of Exeter press." It was inscribed to Lady Dalkeith, governess to the infant princess, Henrietta Anne (b. 1644), to whose household he was attached as chaplain. The corporation gave him the Bodleian lectureship on the 21St of March 1645/6, and he held it until the 17th of June following, soon after the surrender of the city to the parliament. The Fear of losing the Old Light (1646) was his farewell discourse to his Exeter friends. Under the Articles of Surrender Fuller made his composition with the government at London, his "delinquency" being that he had been present in the king's garrisons. In Andronicus, or the Unfortunate Politician (1646), partly authentic and partly fictitious, he satirized the leaders of the Revolution; and for the comfort of sufferers by the war he issued (1647) a second devotional manual
For the next few years of his life Fuller was mainly dependent upon his dealings with booksellers, of whom he asserted that none had ever lost by him. He made considerable progress in an English translation from the MS. of the Annales of his friend Archbishop Ussber. Amongst his benefactors it is curious to find Sir John Danvers of Chelsea, the regicide. Fuller in 1647 began to preach at St Clement's, Eastcheap, and elsewhere in the capacity of lecturer. While at St Clement's he was suspended; but speedily recovering his freedom, he preached wherever he was invited. At Chelsea, where also he occasionally officiated, he covertly preached a sermon on the death of Charles I., but he did not break with his Roundhead patrons. James Hay, 2nd earl of Carlisle, made him his chaplain, and presented him in 1648 or 1649 to the curacy of Waltham Abbey. His possession of the living was in jeopardy on the appointment of Cromwell's " Tryers "; but he evaded their inquisitorial questions by his ready wit. He was not disturbed at Waltham in 16J5, when the Protector's edict prohibited the adherents of the late king from preaching. Lionel, 3rd earl of Middlesex , who lived at Copt Hall
His last and best patron was George Berkeley, 1st Earl Berkeley (1628-1698), of Cranford House, Middlesex , whose chaplain he was, and who gave him Cranford rectory (1658). To this noble-man Fuller's reply to Heylyn's Examen Historicism, called The Appeal of Injured Innocence (1659), was inscribed. At the end of the Appeal is an epistle " to my loving friend Dr Peter Heylyn," conceived in the admirable Christian spirit which characterized all Fuller's dealings with controversialists. " Why should Peter," he asked, " fall out with Thomas, both being disciples to the same Lord and Master ? I assure you, sir, whatever you conceive to the contrary, I am cordial to the cause of the English Church, and my hoary hairs will go down to the grave in sorrow for her sufferings."In An Alarum to the Counties of England and Wales (166o) Fuller argued for a free and full parliament--free from force, as he expressed it, as well as from abjurations or previous engagements. Mixt Contemplations in Better Times (166o), dedicated to Lady Monk, tendered advice in the spirit of its motto, " Let your moderation be known to all men: the Lord is at hand." There is good reason to suppose that Fuller was at the Hague immediately before the Restoration, in the retinue of Lord Berkeley, one of the commissioners of the House of Lords, whose last service to his friend was to interest
Fuller's wit and vivacious good-humour made him a favourite with men of both sides, and his sense of humour kept him from extremes. Probably Heylyn and South had some excuse for their attitude towards his very moderate politics. " By his particular temper and management," said Echard (Hist. of England, iii. 71), "he weathered the late great storm with more success than many other great men." He was known as " a perfect walking library." The strength of his memory was proverbial, and some amusing anecdotes are connected with it. His writings were the product of a highly original mind. He had a fertile imagination and a happy faculty of illustration. Antithetic and axiomatic sentences abound in his pages, embodying literally the wisdom of the many in the wit of one. He was " quaint," and something more. " Wit," said Coleridge, in a well-known eulogy, " was the stuff and substance of Fuller's intellect. It was the element, the earthen base, the material which he worked in; and this very circumstance has defrauded him of his due praise for the practical wisdom of the thoughts, for the beauty and variety of the truths, into which he shaped the stuff. Fuller was incomparably the most sensible, the least prejudiced, great man of an age that boasted a galaxy of ~r eat men " (Literary Remains, vol. ii. (1836), pp. 389-390). This opinion was formed after the perusal of the Church-History. That work and The History of the Worthies of England are unquestionably Fuller's greatest efforts. They embody the collections of an entire life; and since his day they have been the delight of many readers. The Holy State has taken rank amongst the best books of " characters." Charles Lamb made some selections from Fuller, and had a profound admiration for the " golden works " of the " dear, fine, silly old angel
Lamb's time, mainly through the appreciative criticisms of S. T. Coleridge, Robert Southey and others, Fuller's works have received much attention. There is an elaborate account of the life and writings of Fuller by William Oldys in the Biographia Britannica, vol. iii. (175o), based on Fuller's own works and the anonymous Life of . Dr Thomas Fuller (1661; reprinted in a volume of selections by A. L. J. Gosset, 1893). The completest account of him is The Life of Thomas Fuller, with Notices of his Books, his Kinsmen and his Friends (1874), by J. E. Bailey, who gives a detailed bibliography (pp. 713-762) of his works. The Worthies of England was reprinted by John Nichols
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