PREFACE.

THE author of this book lived and wrote in stirring times. A chaplain in the army during the great civil war in England, he collected, when on his marches and countermarches through the country, materials for his admirable works. He was born in 1608, and died in 1661, so that much of his fifty-four years of life was spent among no very peaceful scenes. He followed the army with a loyal heart and courageous spirit, and wrought earnestly to mitigate the violence of hostile parties. Possessed of extraordinary abilities, the king sought him out, and invited the eloquent minister to preach before him. One of the wittiest and wisest divines who have ever ascended the pulpit, he has left behind him a fame second to none who have laboured to elevate and make their fellow-creatures better. Those who heard him preach in vihis little church in the Strand hung upon his persuasive lips with eager delight, and it was said by a contemporary, that even the windows and sextonry of his small chapel were crowded as if bees had swarmed to his mellifluous discourse.

Whether he lifted up his voice in the tabernacle or in the garrison, he was ever the same earnest advocate of whatsoever he thought was just and true. Once during the war he so animated the troops to a vigorous defence, that they fought the besiegers to the abandonment of their enterprise with the loss of more than a thousand men.

He wrote many books that will always be read and remembered. “Next to Shakespeare,” said Coleridge, “I am not certain whether Thomas Fuller, beyond all other writers, does not excite in me the sense and emulation of the marvellous; the degree in which any given faculty or combination of faculties is possessed and manifested, so far surpassing what we would have thought possible in a single mind, as to give one’s admiration the flavour and quality of wonder. Fuller was incomparably the most sensible, the least prejudiced great man, in an age that boasted of a galaxy of great men. In all his numerous volumes on so many different subjects, it is scarcely too much to say that you will hardly find a page in which some viione sentence out of every three does not deserve to be quoted by itself as a motto or as a maxim.”

Fuller’s best-known writings are “The History of the Holy War,” “The Holy and Profane State,” “The Church History of Britain,” “The History of the Worthies of England,” and “Good Thoughts in Bad Times.” His religion was of a practical kind, and his personal piety ever commended itself as springing from a clean heart. Though a warm advocate of the monarchical form of government, he held “he rights of the people in sacred respect. “A Commonwealth and a King,” said he, “are no more contrary than the trunk or body of a tree and the top branch thereof: there is a republic included in every monarchy.”

An anecdote recorded of Fuller, in Basil Montague’s “Selections,” illustrates the goodness of his heart as well as his ready wit. Dr. Fuller had an extraordinary memory. He could name in order the signs on both sides the way from the beginning of Paternoster Row at Ave-Maria Lane to the bottom of Cheapside. He could dictate to five several amanuenses at the same time, and each on a different subject. The Doctor making a visit to the Committee of Sequestrators sitting at Waltham, in Essex, they soon fell into a discourse and commendation viiiof his great memory; to which he replied, “’T is true, gentlemen, that fame has given me the report of a memorist, and if you please, I will give you an experiment of it.” They all accepted the motion, and told him they should look upon it as an obligation, praying him to begin. “Gentlemen,” says he, “I will give you an instance of my memory in the particular business in which you are employed. Your worships have thought fit to sequester an honest but poor cavalier parson, my neighbour, from his living, and committed him to prison; he has a large family of children, and his circumstances are but indifferent; if you will please to release him out of prison, and restore him to his parish, I will never forget the kindness while I live!”

Fuller died just as his earthly prospects began to look brightest. A bishopric was about to have been granted him, when the chancel of his church at Cranford was opened to receive his remains. The Latin inscription over his body has the rare merit of telling the truth concerning the sleeper below, for he is certainly one of the most illustrious, as well as one of the most original, writers of our language. He is never barren or tedious, and his imagination follows in rank that of Taylor and others among the great names in English literature. One of his biographers says, “He was a kind husband, a tender ixfather to his children, a good friend and neighbour, and a well-behaved, civilized person in every respect.” He used to call the buzzing polemics that were rife in his time “insects of a day,” and he had all the liberal attributes of a great and noble character. He was, as we learn from several authentic accounts, of a joyous temperament and boundless good-nature; endowed with that happy buoyancy of spirit which, next to religion itself, is the most precious possession of man. Untiring humour seemed the ruling passion of his soul. Quaintly and facetiously he thought, wrote, and spoke, preferring ever a jocose turn of expression even in his gravest discourses. With a heart open to all innocent pleasures, and purged from the “leaven of malice and uncharitableness,” it was as natural that he should be full of mirth as it is for the grasshopper to chirp, or bee to hum, or the birds to warble in the spring breeze and the bright sunshine. “Some men,” says he, in his Essay on Gravity, “are of a very cheerful disposition; and God forbid that all such should be condemned for lightness. O, let not any envious eye disinherit men of that which is their portion in this life, comfortably to enjoy the blessings thereof!”

He is described as a person whose physiognomy was an index to his natural character. He had a fine robust frame, light flaxen, curling xhair, bright blue smiling eyes, and a frank, hearty manner. He loved the walks of common life, and was never weary of gossip with the country people. His sympathy went out to meet those who were oppressed, and his large nature embraced all mankind. He will always be honoured and loved, for he had “genuine veneration for all that is divine, and genuine sympathy for all that is human.”

This volume of Good Thoughts in Bad Times is reprinted now in this country because there is much in it of a nature relevant to our own disturbed state. Fuller wrote and practised that he might eradicate error and implant the loftiest virtues in the heart of man. His mission was incomparably the highest God vouchsafes to mortals, and in peace and war he wrote and spoke such wisdom as time treasures for the benefit of the world. In our own days of trial it will be well to remember such words as these, which he penned when his own land was plunged in dangers manifold. “Music is sweetest near or over rivers, where the echo thereof is best rebounded by the water. Praise for pensiveness, thanks for tears, and blessing God over the floods of affliction, makes the most melodious music in the ear of Heaven.”

Boston, January, 1863.