Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 87, March, 1875Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 87, March, 1875
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
If the
doubts as to the sincerity of his adhesion to Charles were ever
actually thought to have good foundation, they must have been
dissipated by his voluntarily exposing himself to danger, as he did at
one of the sieges of Basing House. Like Isaac Barrow, he would at need
have done duty militant just as effectually with carnal weapons as
with spiritual. No longer required at Basing House, he repaired to
Oxford again, and then to Exeter, where he was nominated chaplain to
the princess Henrietta Anne. But he held his new post for only a short
period. Leaving Exeter, he once more sought Oxford, and thence went to
London. Forbidden to preach there, he retired to Northamptonshire, and
then reappeared at the metropolis, where he was sojourning in the
memorable year 1649. Becoming in that year curate of Waltham Abbey, he
enjoyed an interval of quietude while all around him was turbulence.
Yet he was soon in London afresh, lecturer at various churches from
1651 till near the end of his life. In 1658 he was appointed rector of
St. Dunstan's, Cranford, but we read of him as subsequently journeying
to The Hague and to Salisbury, and as preaching at the Savoy Chapel.
It must have solaced his latter days to reflect that he had survived
to welcome the Restoration. He died, from what is reasonably surmised
to have been typhus fever, on the 16th of August, 1661, and lies
buried in the chancel of the church to which he last ministered, at
Cranford, Surrey.
Considering the unsettled and wandering life which Fuller led for many
years, it may seem almost a marvel that in those very years he should
have accomplished such laborious--nay, all but gigantic--enterprises
as are to be referred to them; for it was then that he composed his
voluminous _Pisgah-sight of Palestine, Church History_ and _Worthies_,
not to speak of many minor writings. But the secret of his
prolificness amidst surroundings which would have paralyzed most men
into stark sterility admits of ready elucidation. Besides being
endowed with great physical vigor and enjoying uninterrupted health.
Fuller never wasted a moment, was an unweariable student at odd hours,
and moreover supplemented the advantage of a matchless memory by the
strictest observance of method. Taken for all in all, he was without
question one of the most remarkable of Englishmen--not of his own age
merely, but of all bygone ages. "Next to Shakespeare," says Coleridge,
"I am not certain whether Thomas Fuller, beyond all other writers,
does not excite in me the sense and emotion of the marvelous....
Fuller was incomparably the most sensible, the least prejudiced, great
man of an age that boasted a galaxy of great men." Others among his
countrymen have been more learned, and others have surpassed him in
this or that special faculty, but the whole that we have in him it
would be hard to find a parallel to. Culeridge emphasizes the equity
of his judgment; and this point is one regarding which there can be no
diversity of opinion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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