Volume 1

The history of the worthies of England ... / Endeavoured by Thomas Fuller.

  • Thomas Fuller
Date:
1811
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the worthies of England ... / Endeavoured by Thomas Fuller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/626 page 13
    XXIII. Of the Authorities from whence the Work is derived. XXIV. Concerning his Double Division of the English, according to their Nation and Profession. XXV. General Exceptions against the Style and Matter of the Author prevented; by his propositions of, and answers to them, being twenty-four in number, XXVI. An Apology for the involuntary Omissions in this Book. The whole volume, in the original Edition, contains more than a thousand pages ; and seems to have been not quite finished at the end. Though our Author was very diligent, as hath been attested in p. viii, in collecting his materials for this Work ; yet, when several parts of it were written, he had the disadvantage of being unsettled, remote from proper libraries, and intelligent conversation, being as it were a travelling writer, and forced to leave blank spaces, especially for Dates; wherein he has sometimes modestly left his reader rather uninformed than misinformed; and some¬ times again filled them up conjecturally, and without any supposed need of nice recollec¬ tion, as he designed to be more exact upon better opportunites of examination; in several whereof he was prevented by death. But though he looked upon dates as so many little sparkling gems in history, that would reflect the clearest and most sudden light a great way off, he still found or thought them very slippery ware, liable, by the smallest and most imperceptible variations, to lead us greatly astray from truth ; and speaks of Chrono¬ logy, in one of his books, as of a little surly animal, that was apt to bite the fingers of those who handled it with greater familiarity than was absolutely necessary ; yet, he knew there was no giving any satisfactory intelligence without it, especially in the writing of Lives. But, indeed, an accurate regard to the directions thereof was little in use with any Writers in this particular branch of history at those times ; as, among many others, may be observed, to go no further, in the Author of his own Life, whose deficiencies we have here been at much trouble to supply ; one instance only whereof is, that though he gives us the titles of almost all Fuller’s books, and their sizes, he has not given us the date of one. But it was a general or fashionable neglect, especially in the more polite and ornate writers, as if they thought that arithmetical figures would look like so many scars in the sleek face of their rhetorical phrase. But what our Author, in apology for himself, has ingeniously observed further on this topic, we refer to his own words, in one or two of the Chapters, whereof we have before given the heads. As to the historical particulars of these lives, no man could pretend to be very circumstantial, in a work that proposed to revive the famous men in a whole nation; such an undertaking can, or should give but a general and compendious view of them. Suppose here are eighteen or twenty hundred eminent persons charac¬ terized, much after the manner of those in his “ Church Historyto have given a general satisfaction in all parts of the lives, actions, and works, of one or two only in every hundred, might have required more eyes, hands, and years, than Nature allowed this Author; and perhaps more abilities, knowledge, or information, than could be justly pre¬ tended to, by any of his ungrateful cavillers. Then for the errors that must unavoidably occur in the revival of such multitudes in all ages, our Author’s own apology, as it will be equally needful to any other compiler of a numerous collection of lives, is here produced from his own words, upon some objections, made to Mr. Fox the Martyrologist, as follow : “ It is impossible for an author of a voluminous book, consisting of several persons and circumstances, (Reader, in pleading for Master Fox, I plead for myself,) to have such uhiquitary intelligence, as to apply the same infallibly to every particular*.” But there is no winning the favour of those who think they have a licence for detraction, and may spoil an author with impunity, when he is incapable of self-defence, both of his reputation and his labours. Thus we may see some very rash censurers superficially read,, who have often pronounced their anathemas upon many other Historians, from the titles only of their writings, and sometimes without having ever seen so much as them, treating him * See the pfesent Volume, in Berkshire, p. 89. also
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