W.W.C.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
The Life of Thomas Fuller, D.D., with Notices of his Books,
his Kinsmen and his Friends. By John Eglinton Bailey. London:
Pickering.
By no means to the credit of the nineteenth century, it is hardly
prudent, as yet, to speak to the general public about Thomas Fuller
without formally introducing him. Coleridge and Southey and Lamb were,
to be sure, familiar with his writings, and prized them extremely. But
they did the same by the writings of many another old worthy now
undeservedly slighted; and, for all their eulogies on him, the great
bulk of readers were still content to continue in ignorance of the
treasures he has bequeathed to us. The neglect of him which at present
prevails is, however, in large measure, a delinquency of long
standing. His chief work is undoubtedly his _Church History_; and
Heylin's elaborate impugnment of its accuracy appears to have had
great weight, as with Fuller's contemporaries, so with the generation
which immediately followed, and onward almost to our own time. To
Heylin succeeded Bishop Nicolson in exerting himself to discredit that
valuable work, and it is only within a few years that its character
has been substantially rehabilitated. Together with the reputation of
Fuller as an historian, his reputation in other respects for a long
while underwent eclipse; for, as it is reviving again, we may not say
that it passed away.
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