Fuller's _Worthies of England_, which was begun about 1643 and was
published posthumously in 1662, was the first English compendium of
biography of this aboriginal pattern. Shakespeare naturally found
place in Fuller's merry pages, for the author loved in his eccentric
fashion his country's literature, and he had sought the society of
those who had come to close quarters with literary heroes of the past
generation. Of that generation his own life just touched the fringe,
he being eight years old when Shakespeare died. Fuller described the
dramatist as a native of Stratford-on-Avon, who "was in some sort a
compound of three eminent poets"--Martial, "in the warlike sound of
his name"; Ovid, for the naturalness and wit of his poetry; and
Plautus, alike for the extent of his comic power and his lack of
scholarly training. He was, Fuller continued, an eminent instance of
the rule that a poet is born not made. "Though his genius," he warns
us, "generally was jocular and inclining him to festivity, yet he
could, when so disposed, be solemn and serious." His comedies, Fuller
adds, would rouse laughter even in the weeping philosopher Heraclitus,
while his tragedies would bring tears even to the eyes of the laughing
philosopher Democritus.
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