ten by Thomas Fuller. Being by nature an antiquarian, he was not
inclined to find his material at second hand. He went back always to
the earliest sources for his historical data. It is this fact which
gives their permanent value to the 'History of the Church of Britain'
and to the 'History of the Holy War.' These works bear witness to wide
and patient research, to a thorough sifting of material. The
antiquarian spirit displayed in them loses some of its scholarly
dignity, and takes on the social humor of the gossip, in the 'Worthies
of England.' Fuller's other writings may be of more intrinsic value,
but it is through the 'Worthies' that he is remembered and loved. The
book is rich in charm. It is as quaint as an ancient flower garden,
where blooms of every sort grow in lavish tangle. He considers the
counties of England, one by one, telling of their physical
characteristics, of their legends, of their proverbs, of the princely
children born in them, of the other "Worthies"--scholars, soldiers,
and saints--who have shed lustre upon them. Fuller gathered his
material for this variegated record from every quarter of his beloved
little island. As a chaplain in the Cavalier army, he had many
opportunities of visiting places and studying their people. As an
incumbent of country parishes, he would listen to the ramblings of the
old women of the hamlets, for the sake of discovering in their talk
some tradition of the country-side, or some quaint bit of folk-lore.
He writes of the strange, gay, sad lives of princely families as
familiarly as he writes of the villagers and townsfolk. Sometimes an
exquisite tenderness lies like light upon his record, as in this, of
the little Princess Anne, daughter to Charles I.:--

She was a very pregnant lady above her years, and died in her
infancy, when not fully four years old. Being minded by those
about her to call upon God even when the pangs of death were
upon her, "I am not able," saith she, "to say my long prayer"
(meaning the Lord's Prayer), "but I will say my short one,
'Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, lest I sleep the sleep of
death.'" This done, the little lamb gave up the ghost.

Because of passages like these, Thomas Fuller will always be numbered
among those writers who, irrespective of their rank in the world of
letters, awaken a deep and lasting affection in the hearts of their
readers.

THE KING'S CHILDREN

From 'The Worthies of England'