s. Had Fuller, with his mental agility and
his mastery of incisive diction, been poisoned with the bile of Swift,
it is terrible to think what a repertory of biting sarcasms and
envenomed repartees he might have transmitted for the study and
imitation of cynics and sneerers. Bitterer enemies no man ever had to
contend against; and unenviable indeed must have been their
disappointment at finding themselves wholly impotent to discompose his
sage and large-hearted serenity. So impressive, withal, is his spirit
of toleration and benevolence that a diligent reader of his pages is,
as it were, perforce imbued by it. Indeed, we know of few writers whom
we can point to with more confidence as calculated, in antidote to the
fret and chafe inseparable from existence in our day, to induce a tone
of repose and resignation in ourselves, and a disposition to take
charity as our watchword in our dealings with others.

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 o