od.
The brisk boys of Shaftesbury had not been recompensed according to
their merits. Even the Doctor, such was the ingratitude of men, was
looked on coldly at the new Court. Tory rogues sate at the council
board, and were admitted to the royal closet. It would be a noble feat
to bring their necks to the block. Above all, it would be delightful
to see Nottingham's long solemn face on Tower Hill. For the hatred with
which these bad men regarded Nottingham had no bounds, and was probably
excited less by his political opinions, in which there was doubtless
much to condemn, than by his moral character, in which the closest
scrutiny will detect little that is not deserving of approbation. Oates,
with the authority which experience and success entitle a preceptor to
assume, read his pupil a lecture on the art of bearing false witness.
"You ought," he said, with many oaths and curses, "to have made more,
much more, out of what you heard and saw at Saint Germains. Never was
there a finer foundation for a plot. But you are a fool; you are a
coxcomb; I could beat you; I would not have done so. I used to go to
Charles and tell him his own. I called Lauderdale rogue to his face. I
made King, Ministers, Lords, Commons, afraid of me. But you young men
have no spirit." Fuller was greatly edified by these exhortations. It
was, however, hinted to him by some of his associates that, if he meant
to take up the trade of swearing away lives, he would do well not to
show himself so often at coffeehouses in the company of Titus. "The
Doctor," said one of the gang, "is an excellent person, and has done
great things in his time; but many people are prejudiced against him;
and, if you are really going to discover a plot, the less you are seen
with him the better." Fuller accordingly ceased to frequent Oates's
house, but still continued to receive his great master's instructions in
private.

To do Fuller justice, he seems not to have taken up the trade of a false
witness till he could no longer support himself by begging or swindling.
He lived for a time on the charity of the Queen. He then levied
contributions by pretending to be one of the noble family of Sidney. He
wheedled Tillotson out of some money, and requited the good Archbishop's
kindness by passing himself off as His Grace's favourite nephew. But
in the autumn of 1691 all these shifts were exhausted. After lying in
several spunging houses, Fuller was at length lodged in the King's Benc