FLETCHER. See Beaumont and Fletcher. Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun, a celebrated Scottish patriot and political writer, was descended from an ancient family, who traced their origin to some one of the followers of William the Conqueror. He was the son of Sir Robert Fletcher of Saltoun and Innerpeffcr, and was born in the year 1650. The tuition of young Fletcher was committed by his father, on his deathbed, to Mr, afterwards Bishop, Burnet, then his parish minister, to whose care and attention he was indebted for a pious, learned, and polite education. Being endowed with uncommon genius, and possessed of virtues and abilities peculiarly suited to the times in which he lived, Mr Fletcher quickly shone forth the ornament of his country and the champion of its freedom. Having in the course of his classical studies and historical reading been impressed with an enthusiastic admiration both of ancient and modern republics, he had early contracted an ardent love of liberty, and an aversion to arbitrary rule. Hence his spirit the more readily took alarm at certain measures in the reign of Charles II. Being knight of the shire for Lothian to the parliament where the Duke of York appeared as commissioner, he openly opposed the designs of that prince and the bill of accession; and he had a share with Lord Viscount Stair in framing the test act, by which the Duke of York complained that he had lost Scotland. On these accounts he became peculiarly obnoxious to his royal highness, and was at last obliged to fly to Holland, to avoid the fatal consequences of prosecutions which on various pretences were commenced against him. Being cited before the privy council and justiciary courts, and not appearing, he was declared a traitor, and his estate confiscated.

In Holland, Fletcher and Baillie of Jerviswood were the only persons whom the Earl of Argyll consulted concerning the designs which were then in agitation. In 1681 they came over to England in order to concert matters with their party in that country; and they were the only persons who were entrusted so far as to be admitted to the secrets of Lord Russell’s council of six. Mr Fletcher managed his part of the negotiation with so much address, that the administration could find no pretext for sezing him; nor could they fix upon him those articles on account of which Baillie was condemned; and to the honour of the latter be it remembered, that although offered a pardon on condition of accusing his friend, he persisted in rejecting the proposal with indignation.

Mr Fletcher having joined the Duke of Monmouth upon his landing, received a principal command under him; but the duke was deprived of his services owing to a circumstance which is related by Sir John Dalrymple. Being sent upon an expedition, and not esteeming “times of danger to be times of ceremony, he had seized for his own uding the horse of a country gentleman (the mayor of Lynne), which stood ready equipped for its master. The master, hearing this, ran in a passion to Fletcher, gave him opprobrious [7:9:620]language, shook his cane, and attempted to strike. Fletcher, though rigid .in the duties of morality, having been accustomed to foreign service both by sea and land, in which he had acquired high ideas of the honour of a soldier and a gentleman, and of the affront of a cane, pulled out his pistol and shot him dead on the spot. The action was unpopular in countries where such refinements were not understood. A clamour was raised against it among the people of the country; in a body they waited upon the duke with their complaints; and he was forced to desire the only soldier, and almost the only man of parts, in his army, to abandon him. With Fletcher all Monmouth s chance of success in war left him.” In a manuscript memoir belonging to the family there is the following notice concerning Mr Fletcher’s connection with Monmouth, in which his separation from that prince is very differently accounted for: “To Lord Marischal Mr Fletcher explained the motives which first induced him to join, and afterwards abandon, the Duke of Monmouth. The former he ascribed to the duke’s manifesto in Scotland relating to religion, and in England to liberty. For the latter he accounted by the disgust produced in his own mind, and that of his associates, when the duke declared himself king, and broke faith with all who had embarked with him on his principles. He complained heavily of the account commonly given of the death of the mayor of Lynne; and mentioned to Lord Marischal, in proof of the contrary, that he did not leave the duke till he came to Taunton, where he was proclaimed king, several weeks after the death of the mayor of Lynne.”

Seeing all the efforts of his friends and of himself in favour of liberty frustrated at Taunton, he endeavoured to secure his own personal freedom by taking his passage in the first ship bound to a foreign country. It was his misfortune, however, to land in Spain, where he was immediately arrested, cast into prison, and guarded by three different bands of soldiers, till a vessel could be prepared to carry him a victim in chains to the court of London. But on the morning upon which the ship was to sail, whilst he looked pensively through the bars of his window, he was hailed by a venerable personage, who made signs to speak with him. The prison doors he found open; and whilst his friendly conductor motioned to him to follow,' he passed through three different guards of soldiers all fast asleep. Without being permitted to offer his thanks to his deliverer, he found himself obliged to prosecute with all speed his journey, in which he was directed by a person concerning whom he could never collect any information, and thus he proceeded in safety through Spain.

During his exile he maintained a frequent and extensive correspondence with the friends of liberty at home, and.he partly employed himself in making a curious collection of books. But his genius also prompted him to engage in more active employments. He repaired to Hungary, and served several campaigns with much reputation as a volunteer untler the Duke of Lorrain. At length, understanding that the great design then projected in Holland, and upon the issue of which he considered the liberties of Britain to depend, had obtained a considerable degree of maturity, he hastened thither, and his counsels and address were of eminent service to the cause. He came over with King William; and in zeal, activity, penetration, and political skill, proved inferior to none of the leaders m the Revolution.

Such, however, was his magnanimity, that whilst others laboured to render this grand eventa source of emolument to themsel ves and aggrandisement to their families, Mr Fletcher asked for nothing. His estate had been forfeited, and his house abandoned to military execution; his fortune was greatly shattered, and his family reduced to circumstances of distress; yet nothing was given him in recompense of all his sufferings. On the contrary, he had the honour, along with the Duke of Hamilton, to be distinguished by marks ' of both royal and ministerial dislike. Still, whatever private resentment he might entertain, his ruling principle was the good of his country, and to this grand object of his heart he was willing to sacrifice all personal considerations. Accordingly, in 1692, when the abdicated king meditated an invasion, Mr Fletcher addressed a letter, preserved in Sir John Dalrymple’s collection, to the Duke of Hamilton, in which every argument is employed with skill and energy to engage his grace to forget his injuries, and in the actual crisis to employ the extensive influence which he then possessed in the cause of freedom and of his country. This letter produced its full effect, and the duke returned to his duty, from which he had in some degree begun to estrange himself.

To follow our author throughout all the mazes of his political life subsequently to the Revolution, is beyond our purpose, and would exceed our limits. It will be sufficient to mention one or two additional circumstances illustrative of his character. Being elected a member for the parliament 1693, he showed an uniform zeal for the interest of his country. The thought of England domineering over Scotland was what his generous soul could not endure. The indignities and oppression which Scotland lay under galled him to the heart; and in his learned and elaborate discourses he exposed them with undaunted courage and affecting eloquence. In that great event, the Union, he performed essential service. He got the act of security passed, which declared that the two crowns should not be placed on the same head until Scotland had been secured in her civil and religious liberties. After the queen’s demise, therefore, Lord Godolphin was forced into the Union, in order to avoid a civil war. Although Mr Fletcher disapproved of some of the articles, and indeed of the whole frame of the Union; yet, as the act of security was his own work, he had all the merit of that important transaction.

We must not omit mentioning, that in the ardour of his political career Mr Fletcher forgot not the interests of the place which gave him birth. He esteemed the education of youth as one of the noblest objects of government. On this subject he wrote a treatise, still extant, which is most characteristic of himself; and he established at Saltoun a foundation for the same purpose, of great utility while it lasted. This remarkable person died at London in 1716, at the age of sixty-six, and his remains were conveyed to Scotland, where they were deposited in the family vault at Saltoun.

Mr Fletcher was master of the English, Latin, Greel French, and Italian languages, and well versed in history, the civil law, and other kinds of learning. In his travels he had not only acquired considerable knowledge in the ar of war, but had also become conversant with the respective interests of the several princes and states of Europe, hţ private life he was affable to his friends, and free from al manner of vice. He had a penetrating, clear, and lively apprehension; but is said to have been too much wedde to opinions, and impatient of contradiction. He was by tar the finest speaker in the parliament of Scotland, and tie Earl of Stair alone rivalled him. The latter was famed or a splendid, the former for a close and nervous eloquence·

In 1698 he published a Discourse on Goveru men ^ wt Relation to Militias, and two Discourses concerning the affairs of Scotland . These and some other pieces, together with a few of his speeches, were after his death collecte and published in an octavo volume, entitled Political Works of Andrew Fletcher, Esq. Fletcher, Phineas, an English poet who enjoyed con siderable popularity in his own day, but regarding whom few particulars have descended to posterity. He was [7:9:621] son of Dr Giles Fletcher, who, on account of his abilities, was entrusted by Queen Elizabeth with several important missions, especially one to Russia, in which he negotiated a treaty highly advantageous to England. He published an account of The Russe Commonwealth, which was at first suppressed, but afterwards reprinted in 1643. Phineas, his eldest son, was educated at Eton, and in 1600 was elected to King’s College, Cambridge, where he took the degrees of bachelor and master of arts. Having entered into holy orders, he received the living of Hilgay in Norfolk in the year 1621. It appears from Blomefield’s Norfolk, that he continued to officiate in his clerical capacity for twenty-nine years, and it is probable that he died here. These are all the facts known regarding Phincas Fletcher, a poet who was styled “the Spenser of his age,” but whose fame is scarcely equal to his merit. He -wrote Sicelides, a piscatory drama, which was printed anonymously in 1631. In the year following he printed at Cambridge a work entitled De literatis antiqueε Britannice, prcesertim qui doctrina claruerunt, quique collegia Cantabrigice fundarunt, 12mo. In the year following he printed, in one vol. 4to, his Purple Island, Piscatory Eclogues, and Miscellanies. These poems have all been reprinted, but not frequently. They are, however, to be found in Anderson’s British Poets.

The character of Phineas Fletcher appears to have been mild and amiable, and his contemporaries passed liberal encomiums upon him for his learning and piety. As a poet he possesses more merit than posterity seems disposed to attribute to him. The Purple Island is his longest and his best production. It is an allegorical poem, of which man is the subject. The first five cantos may be entitled the anatomy of the human body in rhyme. In the remainder of the poem the poet quits the dissecting-room for the academic grove of intellectual philosophy, and the learning of the schools. Although the design is bad, and the reader sickens over anatomical details and abstract subtilties, it is impossible not to admire the ingenuity with which the writer has invested them with the flowers of fancy and of poetry. There is a profusion of images; and although, as might have been expected, many of his allegorical personations are too elaborately drawn and too highly coloured, some of them are distinguished by a boldness of outline, a majesty of manner, a brilliancy of tint, a propriety of attribute, and an air of life, which are rarely met with in modern productions, and rival the best things of the kind even in Spencer, the author from whom he caught his inspiration. Too often, indeed, his conceptions are incongruous, and his conceits fantastical; but many beautiful thoughts are interspersed throughout, and the whole is enriched with a vein of genuine poetry.

Fletcher, Giles, brother of the preceding, and of whom also few memorials remain, was born in the year 1558. He was bred at Cambridge, and died at his living at Al-denston in Suffolk, in the year 1623. He is principally known as the author of Christ?s Victory and Triumph over οηd after Death, a poem characterized by a tone of enthusiasm peculiarly solemn. Like his brother, he was an imitator of Spencer, and, with the diction of the latter slightly modernized, he retains much of his melody and luxuriant expression. Giles Fletcher, there can be no doubt, is inferior both to Spencer and Milton, but he frequently reminds us of both; and it seems evident that the latter was indebted to him for hints, particularly with reference to Paradise Regained ; and some of the finest parts of Paradise Lost appear likewise to have been suggested by passages in Christs Victory and Triumph. Although in several parts rather fantastical and quaint, that poem is a fine effusion of genius, and one of the best productions of the kind in the language.

rLETEWOOD, William, an eminent English lawyer and recorder of London in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was very zealous in suppressing mass-houses, and in imprisoning Roman Catholic priests; but having once rushed in upon mass at the Portuguese ambassador’s house, he was committed to the Fleet for breach of privilege. Mr Wood says he was a learned man and a good antiquary, but of a marvellous merry and pleasant conceit. He was a good popular speaker, and wrote well upon subjects of government. His principal works are, ∖ . Annalium tam regum Edwardi V. Richardi III. etHenrici VII. quarn Henrici VIII. ; 2. A Table of the Reports of Edmund Plowden ; 3. The Office of a Justice of Peace. He died about the year 1593.