The Formation of Thomas Fuller's Holy and Profane States (Harvard Studies in English)

INDEX 1 The first quotation (dated July, 1829) is in the Literary Remains, ed. H. N. Coleridge (1836-39), II, 389; the second and third quotations are from Notes, theological, Political, and Miscellaneous, ed. Derwent Coleridge (1853), p. 101. ' Stephen, The Cornhill Magazine, XXV (1872), 33. Saintsbury in 1898 {A Short History of English Literature [1900], pp. 442-443) also noticed the decline of Fuller's inflated reputation. 8 Gibson, A Bibliography of Fuller, pp. 102, 147. « Dean B. Lyman, Jr., the Great Tom Fuller (1935). Theodore Spencer's review (The Saturday Review of Literature [January 18,1936], p. 18) is severe but essentially just. 10 The juxtaposition of Theodore Spencer's reference to Fuller in 1936 as a "figure whom our age has largely forgotten" (preceding note) with Jessopp's evidence in 1892 about Fuller's name being a household word (above, p. 5) is striking evidence of a radical shift in taste. Coleridge and Lamb were responsible for putting Fuller into a critical straight-jacket by their exaggerated praise of his wit and wisdom. The nineteenth century reprinted his work in selections, often no longer than single sentences, and failed to appreciate his true contributions to biography and historiography. Walter Houghton has taken The Holy and Profane States as a test case and has shown that we can judge Fuller much more fairly as soon as we look at entire books, at their contents and their forms. His study, which is the only book of criticism about Fuller that has ever been published, looks into Fuller’s mind just before he began to write and during the time of writing and sees how it was working. The result is a unique contribution to English literary and intellectual history. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. Problem and Method CHAPTER II. The General Drift and Main Scope THE SLEEPING IMAGES CHAPTER III. Social Philosophy and the Literature of Estates CHAPTER IV. Casuistry CHAPTER V. Christian Economy CHAPTER VI. Courtesy CHAPTER VII. Treatises of Policy THE SYNTHESIS CHAPTER VIII. Bacon and The Advancement of Learning CHAPTER IX. Biography CHAPTER Χ. Emphasis and Fuller's Audience CHAPTER XI. Tone and Fuller's Sensibility CONCLUSION CHAPTER XII. The Achievement INDEX