the breaking out of the Civil War, Fuller attached himself to the king's party at Oxford, and he seems to have accompanied the army in active service for some years as chaplain to Lord Hopton. Even in these circumstances, his active mind busied i self in collecting materials for some of the works which he subsequently published. His company was at the same time much courted, on account of the extraordinary amount of intelligence which he had acquired, and a strain of lively humour which seems to have been quite irrepressible. The quaint and familiar nature of his mind disposed him to be less nice in the selection of materials, and also in their arrangement, than scholarly men generally are. He would sit patiently for hours listening to the prattle of old women, in order to obtain snatches of local history, traditionary anecdote, and proverbial wisdom; and these he has wrought up in his work, entitled The Worthies of England, which is a strange melange of topography, biography, and popular antiquities. When the heat of the war was past, Fuller returned to London, and became lecturer at St Bride's Church. He was now engaged in his Church History Old St Bride's Church, Fleet Street. of Britain, which was given to the world in 1656, in one volume folio. Afterwards, he devoted himself to the preparation of his Worthies, which he did not complete till 1660, and which was not published till the year after his death. He had passed through various situations in the church, the last of which was that of chaplain to Charles II. It was thought that he would have been made a bishop, if he had not been prematurely cut off by fever, a year after the Restoration. Fuller possessed great conversational powers, was kind, and amiable in all the domestic relations of life. He was twice married; on the second occasion, to a sister of Viscount Baltinglass. As proofs of his wonderful memory, it is stated that he could repeat five hundred unconnected words after twice hearing them, and recite the whole of the signs in the principal thoroughfare of London after once passing through it and back again. Such stories, however, must be received with considerable allowance for exaggeration. Besides the works named above, Fuller wrote A Pisgah View of Palestine, The Profane State, Good Thoughts in Bad Times, Good Thoughts in Worse Times, and (the Restoration of Charles II. having come) Mixed Contemplations in Better Times. His chief work, the Worthies, is rather a collection of brief memoranda than a regular composition. While a modern reader smiles at the vast quantity of gossip which it contains, he must also be sensible that it has preserved much curious information, which would have otherwise been lost. The eminent men whose lives he records are arranged by Fuller according to their native counties, of which he mentions also the natural productions, manufactures, medicinal waters, herbs, wonders, buildings, local proverbs, sheriffs, and modern battles. The style of all Fuller's works is extremely quaint and jocular; and in the power of drawing humorous comparisons, he is little, if at all, inferior to Butler himself. Bishop Nicolson, speaking of his Church History, accuses him of being fonder of a joke than of correctness, and says that he is not scrupulous in his inquiry into the foundation of any good story that comes in his way. 'Even the most serious and authentic parts of it are so interlaced with pun and quibble, that it looks as if the man had designed to ridicule the annals of our church into fable and romance."* These animadversions, however, are too strong. Fuller's Holy and Profane States contain admirably drawn characters, which are held forth as examples to be respectively imitated and avoided; such as the Good Father, the Good Soldier, the Good Master, and so In this and the other productions of Fuller, there is a vast fund of sagacity and good sense; his conceits, as Charles Lamb says, are oftentimes 'deeply steeped in human feeling and passion.' Thus, he says, 'The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders;' and negroes he characterises as the image of God cut in ebony.' And as smelling 'a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body, no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul.' Indeed, Fuller's observations and maxims are generally expressed in language so pithy, that a large collection of admirable and striking maxims might easily be extracted from his pages. We shall give samples of these, after presenting the character which he has beautifully drawn of on. 6 The Good Schoolmaster. There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be these: First, young scholars make this calling their refuge; yea, perchance, before they have taken any degree in the university, commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were required to set up this profession but only a rod and a ferula. Secondly, others who are able, use it only as a passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to their children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown rich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the proxy of the usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself. 1 *English Historical Library, p. 116. His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men had as well be schoolboys as schoolmasters, to be tied to the school, as Cooper's Dictionary and Scapula's Lexicon are chained to the desk therein; and though great scholars, and skilful in other arts, are bunglers in this. But God, of his goodness, hath fitted several men for several callings, that the necessity of church and state, in all conditions, may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabric thereof, may say, God hewed out the stone, and appointed it to lie in this very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it doth most excellent. And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's life, undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it with dexterity and happy success. He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books; and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it may seem difficult for him in a great school to descend to all particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar of boys' natures, and reduce them all-saving some few exceptions -to these general rules: to him e great This He makes his school free to him who sues forma pauperis. And surely learning is th alms that can be given. But he is a beast who, the poor scholar cannot pay him his wages, pays the scholar in his whipping; rather are diligent lads to be encouraged with all excitements to learning. minds me of what I have heard concerning Mr Bust, that worthy late schoolmaster of Eton. who would never suffer any wandering begging scholar--such as justly the statute hath ranked in the fore-front of rogues--to come into his school, but would thrust him out with earnest1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. The ness-however privately charitable unto him-lest his conjunction of two such planets in a youth presage much schoolboys should be disheartened from their books, by good unto him. To such a lad a frown may be a whip- seeing some scholars after their studying in the university ping, and a whipping a death; yea, where their master preferred to beggary. whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such natures he useth with all gentleness. 2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think with the hare in the fable, that running with snails-so they count the rest of their schoolfellows-they shall come soon enough to the post, though sleeping a good while before their starting. Oh, a good rod would finely take them napping. 3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines, the stronger they be, the more lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddy-headed till they be clarified with age, and such afterwards prove the best. Bristol diamonds are both bright, and squared, and pointed by nature, and yet are soft and worthless; whereas orient ones in India are rough and rugged naturally. Hard, rugged, and dull natures of youth, acquit themselves afterwards the jewels of the country, and therefore their dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boy for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts which are naturally sluggish rise one minute before the hour nature hath appointed. 4. Those that are invincibly dull, and negligent also. Correction may reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world can never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such boys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and boat-makers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which other carpenters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanics which will not serve for scholars. He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching; not leading them rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars may go along with him. He is and will be known to be an absolute monarch in his school. If cockering mothers proffer him money to purchase their sons' exemption from his rod-to live, as it were, in a peculiar, out of their master's jurisdiction-with disdain he refuseth it, and scorns the late custom in some places of commuting whipping into money, and ransoming boys from the rod at a set price. If he hath a stubborn youth, correction-proof, he debaseth not his authority by contesting with him, but fairly, if he can, puts him away before his obstinacy hath infected others. He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a schoolmaster better answereth the name paidotribes than paidagogos, rather tearing his scholar's He spoils not a good school to make thereof a bad college, therein to teach his scholars logic. For, besides that logic may have an action of trespass against grammar for encroaching on her liberties, syllogisms are solecisms taught in the school, and oftentimes they are forced afterwards in the university to unlearn the fumbling skill they had before. Out of his school he is no way pedantical in carriage or discourse; contenting himself to be rich in Latin, though he doth not gingle with it in every company wherein he comes. To conclude, let this, amongst other motives, make schoolmasters careful in their place-that the eminences of their scholars have commended the memories of their schoolmasters to posterity, who, otherwise in obscurity, had altogether been forgotten. Who had ever heard of R. Bond, in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learned Ascham, his scholar? or of Hartgrave, in Brandly School, in the same county, but because he was the first did teach worthy Dr Whitaker? Nor do I honour the memory of Mulcaster for anything so much as his scholar, that gulf of learning, Bishop Andrews. This made the Athenians, the day before the great feast of Theseus, their founder, to sacrifice a ram to the memory of Conidas, his schoolmaster, that first instructed him. [Recreation.] Recreation is a second creation, when weariness hath almost annihilated one's spirits. It is the breathing of the soul, which otherwise would be stifled with continual business. Spill not the morning, the quintessence of the day, in recreation; for sleep itself is a recreation. Add not therefore sauce to sauces; and he cannot properly have any title to be refreshed who was not first faint. Pastime, like wine, is poison in the morning. It is then good husbandry to sow the head, which hath lain fallow all night, with some serious work. Chiefly, intrench not on the Lord's day to use unlawful sports; this were to spare thine own flock, and to shear God's lamb. Take heed of boisterous and over-violent exercises. Ringing ofttimes hath made good music on the bells, and put men's bodies out of tune, so that, by overheating themselves, they have rung their own passing bell. [Books.] It is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning by getting a great library. As soon shall I believe every one is valiant that hath a well-furnished armoury. I guess good housekeeping by the smoking, not the number of the tunnels, as knowing that many of them-built merely for uniformity-are without chimneys, and more without fires. Some books are only cursorily to be tasted of: namely, first, voluminous books, the task of a man's life to read them over; secondly, auxiliary books, only to be repaired to on occasions; thirdly, such as are mere pieces of formality, so that if you look on them you look through them, and he that peeps through the casement of the index, sees as much as if he were in the house. But the laziness of those cannot be excused, who perfunctorily pass over authors of consequence, and only trade in their tables and contents. These, like city cheaters, having gotten the names of all country gentlemen, make silly people believe they have long lived in those places where they never were, and flourish with skill in those authors they never seriously studied. [Education confined too much to Language.] Our common education is not intended to render us good and wise, but learned: it hath not taught us to follow and embrace virtue and prudence, but hath imprinted in us their derivation and etymology; it hath chosen out for us not such books as contain the soundest and truest opinions, but those that speak the best Greek and Latin; and, by these rules, has instilled into our fancy the vainest humours of antiquity. But a good education alters the judgment and manners. 'Tis a silly conceit that men without languages are also without understanding. It's apparent, in all ages, that some such have been even prodigies for ability; for it's not to be believed that Wisdom speaks to her disciples only in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. [Rules for Improving the Memory.] First, soundly infix in thy mind what thou desirest to remember. What wonder is it if agitation of business jog that out of thy head which was there rather tacked than fastened? whereas those notions which get in by 'violenta possessio,' will abide there till 'ejectio firma,' sickness, or extreme age, dispossess them. It is best knocking in the nail over-night, and clinching it the next morning. Overburden not thy memory to make so faithful a servant a slave. Remember Atlas was weary. Have as much reason as a camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory, like a purse, if it be over full that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it: take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof. Beza's case was peculiar and memorable; being above fourscore years of age, he perfectly could say by heart any Greek chapter in St Paul's epistles, or anything else which he had learnt long before, but forgot whatsoever was newly told him; his memory, like an inn, retaining old guests, but having no room to entertain new. Spoil not thy memory by thine own jealousy, nor make it bad by suspecting it. How canst thou find that true which thou wilt not trust? St Augustine tells us of his friend Simplicius, who, being asked, could tell all Virgil's verses backward and forward, and yet the same party avowed to God that he knew not that he could do it till they did try him. Sure there is concealed strength in men's memories, which they take no notice of. Marshal thy notions into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight trussed and packed up in bundles, than when it lies untoward flapping and hanging about his shoulders. Things orderly fardled up under heads are most portable. Adventure not all thy learning in one bottom, but divide it betwixt thy memory and thy note-books. He that with Bias carries all his learning about him in his head, will utterly be beggared and bankrupt, if a violent disease, a merciless thief, should rob and strip him. I know some have a common-place against common-place books, and yet, perchance, will privately make use of what they publicly declaim against. Α common-place book contains many notions in garrison, whence the owner may draw out an army into the field on competent warning. [Terrors of a Guilty Conscience.] Fancy runs most furiously when a guilty conscience drives it. One that owed much money, and had many creditors, as he walked London streets in the evening, a tenterhook catched his cloak: 'At whose suit?' said he, conceiving some bailiff had arrested him. Thus guilty consciences are afraid where no fear is, and count every creature they meet a sergeant sent from God to punish them. [Marriage.] Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the married state. Look not therein for contentment greater than God will give, or a creature in this world can receive, namely, to be free from all inconveniences. Marriage is not like the hill Olympus, wholly clear, without clouds. Remember the nightingales, which sing only some months in the spring, but commonly are silent when they have hatched their eggs, as if their mirth were turned into care for their young ones. [Conversation.] The study of books is a languishing and feeble motion, that heats not; whereas conference teaches and exercises at once. If I confer with an understanding man and a rude jester, he presses hard upon me on both sides; his imaginations raise up mine to more than ordinary pitch. Jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up to something above myself; and a consent of judgment is a quality totally offensive in conference. But, as our minds fortify themselves by the communication of vigorous and regular understandings, 'tis not to be expressed how much they lose and degenerate by the continual commerce and frequentation we have with those that are mean and low. There is no contagion that spreads like that. I know sufficiently, by experience, what 'tis worth a yard. I love to discourse and dispute, but it is with few men, and for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great persons, and to vaunt of a man's wit and eloquence, is in my opinion very unbecoming a man of honour. Impertinency is a scurvy quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex at it, as I do, is another sort of disease, little inferior to impertinence itself, and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself. I enter into conference and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch as opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, and wherein to take any deep root: no propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, though never so contrary to my own. There is no so frivolous and extravagant fancy that does not seem to me suitable to the product of human wit. The contradictions of judgments, then, do neither offend nor alter, they only rouse and exercise me. We evade correction, whereas we ought to offer and present ourselves to it, especially when it appears in the form of conference, and not of authority. At every opposition, we do not consider whether or no it be just, but right or wrong how to disengage ourselves; instead of extending the arms, we thrust out our claws. I could suffer myself to be rudely handled by my friend, so much as to tell me that I am a fool, and talk I * * know not of what. I love stout expressions amongst * * * * [Domestic Economy.] Anger is one of the sinews of the soul: he that wants it hath a maimed mind. Generally, nature hangs out a sign of simplicity in the face of a fool, and there is enough in his countenance for a hue and cry to take him on suspicion; or else it is stamped in the figure of his body: their heads sometimes so little, that there is no room for wit; sometimes so long, that there is no wit for so much room. They that marry ancient people, merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves in hope that one will come and cut the halter. Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost. Is there no way to bring home a wandering sheep but by worrying him to death? Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl-chain of all virtues. Of Fuller's style of narrative in his Worthies we subjoin two short specimens: Declension of Great Families. The 'Tis a dull and hurtful pleasure to have to do with Earl of Huntingdon was lieutenant of Leicestershire, It happened in the reign of King James, when Henry people who admire us, and approve of all we say. that a labourer's son in that country was pressed into the wars-as I take it, to go over with Count Mansfield. The old man at Leicester requested his son might be discharged, as being the only staff of his age, who by his industry maintained him and his mother. earl demanded his name, which the man for a long time was loath to tell-as suspecting it a fault for so poor a man to tell the truth; at last he told his name was Hastings. 'Cousin Hastings,' said the earl, 'we cannot all be top branches of the tree, though we all spring from the same root; your son, my kinsman, shall not be pressed.' So good was the meeting of modesty in a poor, with courtesy in an honourable person, and gentry I believe in both. And I have reason to believe, that some who justly own the surnames and blood of Bohuns, Mortimers, and Plantagenets-though ignorant of their own extraction--are hid in the heap of common people, where they find that under a thatched cottage which some of their ancestors could not enjoy in a leaded castle-contentment, with quiet and security. The most useful and honourable knowledge for the mother of a family is the science of good housewifery. I see some that are covetous, indeed, but very few that are saving. 'Tis the supreme quality of a woman, and that a man ought to seek after beyond any other, as the only dowry that must ruin or preserve our houses. Let men say what they will, according to the experience I have learned, I require in married women the economical virtue above all other virtues; I put my wife to't as a concern of her own, leaving her, by my absence, the whole government of my affairs. I see, and am ashamed to see, in several families I know, monsieur about dinner-time come home all dirt, and in great disorder, from trotting about amongst his husbandmen and labourers, when madam is perhaps scarce out of her bed, and afterwards is pouncing and tricking up herself, forsooth, in her closet. This is for queens to do, and that's a question too. 'Tis ridiculous and unjust that the laziness of our wives should be maintained with our sweat and labour. [Miscellaneous Aphorisms.] It is dangerous to gather flowers that grow on the banks of the pit of hell, for fear of falling in; yea, they which play with the devil's rattles will be brought by degrees to wield his sword; and from making of sport, they come to doing of mischief. Heat gotten by degrees, with motion and exercise, is more natural, and stays longer by one, than what is gotten all at once by coming to the fire. Goods acquired by industry prove commonly more lasting than lands by descent. The true church antiquary doth not so adore the ancients as to despise the moderns. Grant them but dwarfs, yet stand they on giants' shoulders, and may see the farther. Light, Heaven's eldest daughter, is a principal beauty in a building, yet it shines not alike from all parts of heaven. An east window welcomes the beams of the sun before they are of a strength to do any harm, and is offensive to none but a sluggard. In a west window, in summer time towards night, the sun grows low and over-familiar, with more light than delight. A public office is a guest which receives the best usage from them who never invited it. Scoff not at the natural defects of any, which are not in their power to amend. Oh! 'tis cruelty to beat a cripple with his own crutches. Henry de Essex, Standard-bearer to Henry II. It happened in the reign of this king there was a fierce battle fought in Flintshire, at Coleshall, between the English and Welsh, wherein this Henry de Essex animum et signum simul abjecit-betwixt traitor and coward, cast away both his courage and banner together, occasioning a great overthrow of English. But he that had the baseness to do, had the boldness to deny the doing of so foul a fact; until he was challenged in combat by Robert de Momford, a knight, eye-witness thereof, and by him overcome in a duel. Whereupon his large inheritance was confiscated to the king, and he himself, partly thrust, partly going, into a convent, hid his head in a cowl; under which, betwixt shame and sanctity, he blushed out the remainder of his life. The latter passage has elicited an admirable critical note from Charles Lamb, which is well worth transcription: The fine imagination of Fuller has done what might have been pronounced impossible. It has given an interest and a holy character to coward infamy. Nothing can be more beautiful than the concluding account of the last days and expiatory retirement of poor Henry de Essex. The address with which the whole of this little story is told is most consummate: the charm of it seems to consist in a perpetual balance of antithesis not too violently opposed, and the consequent activity of mind in which the reader is kept: 'Betwixt traitor and coward' -baseness to do, boldness to deny'-' partly thrust, partly going, into a convent'-'betwixt shame and sanctity.' The reader by this artifice is taken into a kind of partnership with the writer; his judgment is exercised in settling the preponderance; he feels as if he were consulted as to the issue. But the modern historian flings at once the dead-weight of his own judgment into the scale, and settles the matter. We may add that the phrase, not noticed by Lamb, of hid his head in a cowl,' is also figuratively striking, and seems to have been remembered by Sheridan, who used a similar expression-'to hide his head in a coronet.' IZAAK WALTON. One of the most interesting and popular of our early writers was IZAAK WALTON, an English worthy of the simple antique cast, who retained in the heart of London, and in the midst of close and successful application to business, an unworldly simplicity of character, and an inextinguishable fondness for country scenes, pastimes, and recreations. He had also a power of natural description and lively dialogue that has rarely been surpassed. His Complete Angler is a rich storehouse of rural pictures and pastoral poetry, of quaint but wise thoughts, of agreeable and humorous fancies, and of truly apostolic purity and benevolence. The slight tincture of superstitious credulity and innocent eccentricity which pervades his works, gives them a finer zest, and original flavour, without detracting from their higher power to soothe, instruct, and delight. Walton was born in the town of Stafford in August 1593. Of his education or his early years nothing Izaak Walton. is related; but according to Anthony Wood, he acquired a moderate competency, by following in London the occupation of a sempster or linendraper. He had a shop in the Royal Burse in Cornhill, which was seven feet and a half long, and five wide. Lord Bacon has a punning remark, that a small room helps a studious man to condense his thoughts, and certainly Izaak Walton was not destitute of this intellectual succedaneum. He had a more pleasant and spacious study, however, in the fields and rivers in the neighbourhood of London, Walton's House. From the Royal Burse, Izaak-for so he always wrote his name-removed to Fleet Street, where he had one half of a shop, the other half being occupied by a hosier. About the year 1632, he was married to Anne, the daughter of Thomas Ken, of Furnival's Inn, and sister of Dr Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells. This respectable connection probably introduced Walton to the acquaintance of the eminent men and dignitaries of the church, at whose houses he spent much of his time in his latter years, especially after the death of his wife, a woman of remarkable prudence, and of the primitive piety.' Walton retired from business in 1643, and lived forty years afterwards in uninterrupted leisure. His first work was a Life of Dr Donne, prefixed to a collection of the doctor's sermons, published in 1640. Sir Henry Wotton was to have written Donne's life, Walton merely collecting the materials; but Sir Henry dying before he had begun to execute the task, Izaak 'reviewed his forsaken collections, and resolved that the world should see the best plain picture of the author's life that his artless pencil, guided by the hand of truth, could present.' The memoir is circumstantial and deeply interesting. He next wrote a Life of Sir Henry Wotton, and edited his literary remains. In 1652 he published a small work, a translation by Sir John Skeffington, from the Spanish, The Heroe of Lorenzo, to which he prefixed a short affectionate notice of his deceased friend, the translator, who had died the previous year. His principal production, The Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man's Recreation, appeared in 1653; and four other editions of it were called for during his life-namely, in 1655, 1664, 1668, and 1676. Walton also wrote a Life of Richard Hooker (1662), a Life of George Herbert (1670), and a Life of Bishop Sanderson (1678). They are all exquisitely simple, touching, and impressive. Though no man seems |