From Fuller we pass to Fuller’s new biographer, the only biographer he has hitherto had that at all deserves the appellation.  A completer life-history than that which Mr. Bailey has produced is of rare occurrence in English literature.  There was no motive for his keeping back anything that is known of Fuller; and he has really enabled us to form wellnigh as distinct an idea of the portly and cheery old divine as if we had known him in the flesh.  Faithful to rigid justice while reproducing the warmly eulogistic judgments which have been passed on Fuller, especially in this century, he has given us a circumstantial account of the censures which were denounced on him by microscopic and malevolent criticasters and Dryasdusts among his contemporaries.  Some of the censures referred to were grounded on the multitudinous dedications in which Fuller indulged; and, in truth, it strikes one as rather singular to find, as in his Church History, not only every book, but every section of a book, prefaced by a long string of compliments addressed to a separate dedicatee.  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.  To Mr. Bailey we are beholden alike for a biography of the first excellence, and for a sterling contribution to the history of an era which possesses undying interest for every Englishman, be he conservative, liberal or republican; and for every intelligent American as well.