SPECIMENS FROM THE WRITINGS OF

FULLER,

THE CHURCH HISTORIAN.

THE writings of Fuller are usually designated by the title of quaint, and with sufficient reason; for such was his natural bias to conceits, that I doubt not upon most occasions it would have been going out of his way to have expressed himself out of them. But his wit is not always a lumen siccum, a dry faculty of surprising; on the contrary, his conceits are oftentimes deeply steeped in human feeling and passion. Above all, his way of telling a story, for its eager liveliness, and the perpetual running commentary of the narrator happily blended with the narration, is perhaps unequalled.

As his works are now scarcely perused but by antiquaries, I thought it might not be unacceptable to my readers. to present them with some specimens of his manner, in single thoughts and phrases; and in some few passages of greater length, chiefly of a narrative description. I shall arrange them as I casually find them in my book of extracts, without being solicitous to specify the particular work from which they are taken.

Pyramids." The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders."

Virtue in a short person." His soul had but a short diocese to visit, and therefore might the better attend the effectual informing thereof."

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Intellect in a very tall one.—“Ofttimes such who are built four stories high, are observed to have little in their cock-loft."

Naturals." Their heads sometimes so little, that there is no room for wit; sometimes so long, that there is no wit for so much room.

Negroes.-"The image of God cut in ebony. School-divinity." At the first it will be as welcome to thee as a prison, and their very solutions will seem knots unto thee."

Mr. Perkins the Divine.-"He had a capacious head, with angles winding and roomy enough to lodge all controversial intricacies."

The same." He would pronounce the word Damn with such an emphasis as left a doleful echo in his auditors' ears a good while after."

Judges in capital cases." O let him take heed how he strikes that hath a dead hand."

Memory."Philosophers place it in the rear of the head, and it seems the mine of memory lies there, because there men naturally dig for it, scratching it when they are at a loss."

Fancy." It is the most boundless and restless faculty of the soul; for while the Understanding and the Will are kept, as it were, in libera custodia to their objects of verum et bonum, the Fancy is free from all engagements; it digs without spade, sails without ship, flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed; in a moment striding from the centre to the circumference of the world; by a kind of omnipotencey creating and annihilating things in an instant; and things divorced in Nature are married in Fancy as in a lawless place."

Infants."Some, admiring what motives to mirth in

fants meet with in their silent and solitary smiles, have resolved, how truly I know not, that then they converse with angels; as indeed such cannot among mortals find any fitter companions."

Music.-"Such is the sociableness of music, it conforms itself to all companies, both in mirth and mourning; complying to improve that passion with which it finds the auditors most affected. In a word, it is an invention which might have beseemed a son of Seth to have been the father thereof; though better it was that Cain's greatgrandchild should have the credit first to find it, than the world the unhappiness longer to have wanted it."

St. Monica.-" Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven, and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sicknessbroken body."*

Mortality."To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body, no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul."

Virgin.- "No lordling husband shall at the same time command her presence and distance; to be always near in constant attendance, and always to stand aloof in awful observance."

Elder Brother." Is one who made haste to come into the world to bring his parents the first news of male posterity, and is well rewarded for his tidings."

Bishop Fletcher." His pride was rather on him than in him, as only gait and gesture deep, not sinking to his heart, though causelessly condemned for a proud man, ast who was a good hypocrite, and far more humble than he appeared."

"The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decayed,

Lets in new lights through chinks which time has made."

[WALLER.

Masters of Colleges." A little allay of dulness in a Master of a College makes him fitter to manage secular affairs."

The Good Yeoman.-"Is a gentleman in ore, whom the next age may see refined."

Good Parent.—"For his love, therein like a well-drawn picture, he eyes all his children alike.”

Deformity in Children.-"This partiality is tyranny, when parents despise those that are deformed; enough to break those whom God had bowed before."

Good Master." In correcting his servant he becomes not a slave to his own passion. Not cruelly making new indentures of the flesh of his apprentice. He is tender of his servant in sickness and age. If crippled in his service, his house is his hospital. Yet how many throw away those dry bones, out of the which themselves have sucked the marrow!"

Good Widow.—“If she can speak but little good of him [her dead husband] she speaks but little of him. So handsomely folding up her discourse, that his virtues are shown outwards, and his vices wrapt up in silence; as counting it barbarism to throw dirt on his memory, who hath mould cast on his body."

Horses. "These are men's wings, wherewith they make such speed. A generous creature à horse is, sensible in some sort of honor; and made most handsome by that which deforms men most-pride."

Martyrdom." Heart of oak hath sometimes warped a little in the scorching heat of persecution. Their want of true courage herein cannot be excused. Yet many

censure them for surrendering up their forts after a long siege, who would have yielded up their own at the first summons. Oh! there is more required to make one

valiant, than to call Cranmer or Jewel coward; as if the fire in Smithfield had been no hotter than what is painted in the Book of Martyrs."

Text of St. Paul.-" St. Paul saith, Let not the sun go down on your wrath, to carry news to the antipodes in another world of thy revengeful nature. Yet let us take the Apostle's meaning rather than his words, with all possible speed to depose our passion; not understanding him so literally, that we may take leave to be angry till sunset: then might our wrath lengthen with the days; and men in Greenland, where the day lasts above a quarter of a year, have plentiful scope for revenge."*

Bishop Brownrig.-"He carried learning enough in numerato about him in his pockets for any discourse, and had much more at home in his chests for any serious dispute."

Modest Want."Those that with diligence fight against poverty, though neither conquer till death makes it a drawn battle, expect not but prevent their craving of thee: for God forbid the heavens should never rain, till the earth first opens her mouth; seeing some grounds will sooner burn than chap."

Death-bed Temptations.—“The devil is most busy on the last day of his term; and a tenant to be outed cares not what mischief he doth.”

Conversation."Seeing we are civilized Englishmen, let us not be naked savages in our talk.”

* This whimsical prevention of a consequence which no one would have thought of deducing-setting up an absurdum on purpose to hunt it downplacing guards as it were at the very outposts of possibility-gravely giving out laws to insanity and prescribing moral fences to distempered intellects, could never have entered into a head less entertainingly constructed than that of Fuller, or Sir Thomas Browne, the very air of whose style the conclu sion of this passage most aptly imitates.