But these dedications
meant money, and Fuller was poor. Furthermore, if in his necessity he
flattered, his flattery was, for the most part, of a kind not
irreconcilable with due self-respect on the part of the flatterer. It
is a very different thing from the nauseous adulation to which
Dryden--to name but one out of numerous kindred offenders--consented
to abase himself. As auxiliary to a full understanding of Fuller in
his social relations, his dedications are now of prime value. Though
many of them are inscribed to persons else quite unknown to fame, with
a good number of them it is otherwise; and they serve, by the
information which they embody, to show that Fuller was on terms of
familiar intimacy with a whole host of notabilities in Church and
State. Of these personages, and so of many others with whom Fuller
associated, Mr. Bailey, heedful of the adage _noscitur a sociis_, has
compiled very satisfactory sketches, derived in all cases from the
most trustworthy authorities. In addition to a Life of Fuller, he has
thus gone far to give us a sort of biographical dictionary of the
leading men, political and ecclesiastical, who rallied round the
unfortunate First Charles, and who used their most strenuous diligence
to save his desperate cause from shipwreck.
One who has already made acquaintance with Fuller's writings must feel
animated, under the guidance of the new light now thrown upon them, to
renew that acquaintance; and he to whom the wise and witty old worthy
is as yet a stranger must, unless obdurately insensible, be moved to a
suspicion that he ought to remain a stranger no longer.
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