Of positive statements respecting Shakespeare's career Fuller is
economical. He commits himself to nothing more than may be gleaned
from the following sentences:--
Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson; which
two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English
man-of-war: master Jonson (like the former) was built far
higher in learning; solid, but slow, in his performances.
Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk,
but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack
about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of
his wit and invention. He died _Anno Domini_ 1616, and was
buried at Stratford-upon-Avon, the town of his nativity.
Fuller's successors did their work better in some regards, because
they laboured in narrower fields. Many of them showed a welcome
appreciation of a main source of their country's permanent reputation
by confining their energies to the production of biographical
catalogues, not of all manners of heroes, but solely of those who had
distinguished themselves in poetry and the drama.[10] In 1675 a
biographical catalogue of poets was issued for the first time in
England, and the example once set was quickly followed.
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