Have You Read?

My interest in local history and reading books on Essex means that second-hand bookshops and e-bay are a great attraction. So ...

Have you read ... Worthy Dr. Fuller by William Addison (Dent, 1950)?

I was attracted to this book by its cover - which has an ancient picture of Waltham Abbey Church.

Thomas Fuller (1608 to 1661) was born in Northamptonshire and followed his father's footsteps into the clergy. He served in London, Broadwindsor in Dorset then Waltham Abbey, from 1649 to 1658.

His fame though was his hobby: he was a historian. Fuller read the contents of many private libraries writing these records for the first time in our native tongue: English. He wrote a history of Cambridge, where he went to University, and numerous other books. His most famous work was 'The History of the Worthies of England' published after his death in 1662. Samuel Pepys mentions in his diary purchasing a copy of what is a topographical and historical county by county guide of the country. For me, that was the dim recollection of the name: not the last Prior of Waltham Abbey but the writer of 'Fuller's Worthies" as it is known.

Fuller was a popular preacher, standing on the steps of churches to talk - such were the large number of attendees - and he is said to have written and spoken in a particular manner which became known as Fullerisms. The following is an example.

"His books are full of reflections of village life used to point to a moral in this manner. Thus, 'I have observed that children, he says in one place, 'when they first put on new shoes, are very keen to keep them clean ... Yea, rather they wipe the leather clean with their coats; and yet, perchance, the next day they will trample with the same shoes in the mire up to their ankles. Alas, children's play is our earnest.' Or, having watched a servant girl make, kindle, and blow a fire, and afterwards go about her work while the mistress sat by the fire, he noticed that the servant girl was warmer than the mistress, enjoying a 'more general, kindly and continuing heat.' Thus he was able to use for a homely moral".

The book is a biography of the man, written in a lively and engaging manner. It takes the reader back to Stuart England.