His Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life, his Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and of Holy Dying, and his Golden Grove, are devotional works, well known to modern Christians of all denominations.  He has been praised alike by Roman Catholic divines and many Protestant Christians not of the Anglican Church.  There is in all his writings a splendor of imagery, combined with harmony of style, and wonderful variety, readiness, and accuracy of scholarship.  His quotations from the whole range of classic authors would furnish the Greek and Latin armory of any modern writer.  What Shakspeare is in the Drama, Spenser in the Allegory, and Milton in the religious Epic, Taylor may claim to be in the field of purely religious literature.  He died at Lisburn, in 1667.

FULLER.—­More quaint and eccentric than the writers just mentioned, but a rare representative of his age, stands Thomas Fuller.  He was born in 1608; at the early age of twelve, he entered Cambridge, and, after completing his education, took orders.  In 1631, he was appointed prebendary of Salisbury.  Thence he removed to London in 1641, when the civil war was about to open.  When the king left London, in 1642, Fuller preached a sermon in his favor, to the great indignation of the opposite party.  Soon after, he was appointed to a chaplaincy in the royal army, and not only preached to the soldiers, but urged them forward in battle.  In 1646 he returned to London, where he was permitted to preach, under surveillance, however.  He seems to have succeeded in keeping out of trouble until the Restoration, when he was restored to his prebend.  He did not enjoy it long, as he died in the next year, 1661.  His writings are very numerous, and some of them are still read.  Among these are Good Thoughts in Bad Times, Good Thoughts in Worse Times, and Mixt Contemplations in Better Times.  The bad and worse times mark the progress of the civil war:  the better times he finds in the Restoration.

One of his most valuable works is The Church History of Britain, from the birth of Christ to 1648, in 11 books.  Criticized as it has been for its puns and quibbles and its occasional caricatures, it contains rare descriptions and very vivid stories of the important ecclesiastical eras in England.

Another book containing important information is his History of the Worthies of England, a posthumous work, published by his son the year after his death.  It contains accounts of eminent Englishmen in different countries; and while there are many errors which he would perhaps have corrected, it is full of odd and interesting information not to be found collated in any other book.

Representing and chronicling the age as he does, he has perhaps more individuality than any writer of his time, and this gives a special interest to his works.