largeness of mind proportionable to his other capacities, and yet, than which, nothing was less studied. *

"At his departure he was dismissed with as honourable valedictions, and so he returned in the same company (who had out of their own purse contributed another addition of honour to that solemnity) to his said rectory at Broad Windsor, resolving there to spend himself and the time of his pilgrimage amongst his dear and loving charge."

By the University Subscriptions it appears that Fuller took the degree of B.D. on the 11th of June 1635; and that not three, but double that number took the same degree on that day; John Cornelius, B.D. of Pembroke College; John Vaughan, B.D. fellow of Pembroke College, and ejected thence by the Parliamentarians; John Novell, also of Pembroke College; Gavin Nash, also of that foundation; John Philips, of Magdalen College; George Kindleton, of Jesus College, and Godfrey Rodes, of Sidney College.

John Cornelius was, on the Restoration, made D.D. by royal mandate, and Prebendary of North Kelsey, in the church of Lincoln, and died in 1674, being Vicar of Clavering in Essex. He was previously to the Restoration, Rector of Bildeston in Suffolk, June 1637, and of Helmingham, in the same county, in January 1639.

John Novell, whilst keeping his Act on this oc

On April 29, 1647, a statute was made to abolish the feasts formerly given upon the taking of degrees.

casion was publicly reproved by Dr. Ward, for his novel theology; he was of the school of Laud, and was chaplain to Bishop Wren. He was instituted to Walton and Felixstow, Suffolk, in March 1635; and collated by Bishop Wren to the rectory of Topcroft in Norfolk, 1636, to that of Downham near Ely in 1639, and to Northwold in Norfolk in 1644. He died before the Restoration; and in June 1661, Dr. Wren was instituted to his living of Northwold.

John Philips, B.D. of Magdalen College, was Vicar of Aylsham, Norfolk, whence he was ejected in 1644, but restored in 1661. The only person who can compare with Fuller for celebrity, of all those who at different seasons proceeded to the degree of B.D. in 1635, was Edmund Castell, of Emmanuel College, the compiler of the Lexicon Heptaglotton.

Return we now from this most costly commencement to Broad Windsor, with worthy Master Fuller. And there we may imagine him industriously preparing his once popular history of the Crusades.

The "History of the Holy War" is dated from Broad Windsor, March 6, 1639, and is dedicated to Edward Lord Montagu, of Boughton, and John Lord Poulett of Hinton St. George in Somersetshire. The noble family of Poulett have been settled at Hinton St. George from the reign of Henry VI. Fuller's patron was the son of Sir Anthony Poulett, Governor of Jersey, was raised to the peerage in 1627, and faithfully served his

sovereign in the civil wars. Fuller was, with other of his brethren who adhered to the then despised doctrines of the Reformation, happy in the high esteem and cordial friendship of this illustrious family, especially of Lady Poulett. Her husband died March 20, 1649. Fuller dedicated to this lady the 5th section of his History of Abbies in the Church History, and in a strain of gratitude that only the most unfeigned friendship could have drawn forth. In his "British Worthies " he records that, at her suggestion, Lord Poulett presented to his living of Lympsham, Dr. William Sclater of King's College, son of Antony Sclater, for fifty years incumbent of Leighton Buzzard.

Fuller's anonymous biographer acquaints us that in the retirement of Broad Windsor, he prepared his "Pisgah-Sight," a work abounding with interest and, for the time in which it appeared, of no common value. "In the amenity and retirements of this rural life, some perfection was given to those pieces which soon after blest this age. From this pleasant prospect he drew that excellent piece of the Holy Land, Pisgah-Sight, and other tracts relating thereto; so that what was said bitterly of some tyrants, that they made whole countries vast solitudes and deserts, may be inverted to the eulogy of this Doctor, that he in these recesses, made deserts-the solitudes of Israel, the frequented

* Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of Christopher Ken, Esq. of Ken Court.

path and track of all ingenious and studious per

sons.

99

*

In the course of this (1639) or the following year, Fuller appears to have been on a visit at Norwich; writing in 1660 he thus describes it; "The cathedral therein is large and spacious, though the roof in the cloisters be most commended. When some twenty years since, I was there, the top of the steeple was blown down; and an officer of the church told me, 'that the wind had done them much wrong, but they meant not to put it up,' whether the wrong or the steeple, he did not declare.

"Amongst private houses, the Duke of Norfolk's palace is the greatest I ever saw in a city, out of London. Here is a covered bowling-alley (the first, I believe, of that kind in England) on the same token that when Thomas last Duke of Norfolk was taxed for aspiring (by marriage of the Queen) to the crown of Scotland, he protested to Queen Elizabeth, that when he was in his bowling-alley at Norwich, he accounted himself as a king in Scotland.'+

"As for the Bishop's Palace, it was formerly a very fair structure, but lately unleaded, and new covered with tile by the purchasers thereof; whereon a wag not unwittily,

"Thus palaces are altered; we saw

John Leyden, now Wat Tyler, next Jack Straw."

*Life of Dr. Fuller, p. 12, London 1661.

+ Camden's Elizabeth, anno 1569.

"Indeed there be many thatched houses in the city, so that Luther (if summoned by the Emperor to appear in this place) would have altered his expression, and said instead of ' tiles of the houses,' that, 'if every straw on the roofs of the houses were a devil, notwithstanding he would make his appearance.' However such thatch is so artificially done (even sometimes on their chancels) that it is no eyesore at all to the city."*

The Duke of Norfolk's Palace was in the following century fallen into decay, and "the stabling which might, for the grandeur of its building, be turned into a palace, is now (1746) the city workhouse, and is only parted from the river by a very large garden, which used to be kept in good repair, and resorted to by the most fashionable people in the city."+

Since that period, the whole site has been sold and built on by different proprietors. So the authors of the Beauties of England and Wales, who also inform us that this noble edifice mentioned by Fuller, was commenced on the site of one more antient in the year of grace 1602, by Henry Duke of Norfolk.

* Worthies of England, vol. ii. p. 154. Ed. Nichols. + Simpson's Compleat English Traveller, vol. iii. p. 643.