FLETCHER, GILES and PHINEAS. 



FLEUBY, CLAUDE, ABB& 



parliament as commissioner, or member, for bU native county ; and in 

 that capacity he toon became distinguished ai one of the foremost 

 opponent* of the government After aome time however he deemed 

 it prudent to withdraw to Holland ; on which he was aummoned 

 before the lord* of the council, and when he did not make his 

 appearance was outlawed, and his estates confiscated. He Tentured 

 to come home in 1883, but aoon returned to the continent, and there 

 remained till 1685, when he engaged in the attempt of the duke of 

 Monmonth. But he had scarcely landed in England when he shot .the 

 mayor of Lyme dead in a private quarrel, and found himself obliged 

 precipitately to leave the country. He then proceeded to Spain, and 

 afterwards to Hungary, where he took part in aome military opera- 

 tions against the Turks, and distinguished himself by bis gallantry. 

 When toe scheme of the English Revolution began to be projected, 

 he repaired to Holland to join the councils of bis countrymen there ; 

 and ha came over to England with the Prince of Orange and hia old 

 friend Burntt in 1688. He now recovered possession of bis estate, 

 and again sat as representative for his native county, first in the 

 Scottish Convention, and afterwards in parliament. After a short time 

 however be became nearly as determined an opponent of the govern- 

 ment of King William as he had formerly been of that of Charles II. 

 His last exertions as a public man were directed against the scheme of 

 the union of the two kingdoms. He died in London in 1710. He is 

 the author of the following tracts, all of which, we believe, were 

 originally j.uhli-hed without his name : 1, 'A Discourse of Govern- 

 ment with relation to Militias,' Edinburgh, 1698; 2, 'Two Discourses 

 concerning the Affairs of Scotland, written in the year 1693,' 

 Edinburgh, 169$; 3, ' liiscorso delle Cose di Spagna, scritto nel mese 

 di Lugho, 169*; Napoli, 1698; 4, 'Speeches by a Member of the 

 Parliament which began at Edinburgh the 6th. of May, 1 703,' Edin- 

 burgh, 1703 ; 5, ' An Account of a Conversation concerning the right 

 Regulation of Governments for the Common Good of Mankind ; in a 

 Letter to the Marquis of Montrose, the Earls of Rothes, Roxburgh, 

 and Haddiugton, from London, the 1st of December, 1703,' Edin- 

 burgh, 1704. The original editions of these publications are scarce, 

 bat they were all reprinted at London in an octavo volume in 

 1737, under the title of 'The Political Works of Andrew Fletcher, 

 Esquire.' 



Fletcher writes in a flowing and achoUrlike style, occasionally rising 

 to considerable warmth and energy ; his compositions are interspersed 

 with many sagacious and happily expressed remarks, and they have at 

 all times the charm of earnestness and perfect conviction. But for 

 deep or exte ntive views in the philosophy of politics they will be 

 carched in vain. He is a stern democrat, and violent in his denuncia- 

 tions of the arbitrariness and oppression of kings, yet he professes to 

 provide for the poor by the restoration of some such system of slavery 

 as he conceives existed among the Greeks and Romans. This singular 

 proposal is contained in his Two Discourses on the affairs of Scotland. 

 Among the most curious of his works is his ' Conversation on Govern- 

 ment*, which appears to be a report of a real conversation, the 

 parties being Fletcher himself, the Earl of Cromarty, Sir Edward 

 Seymour, and Sir Charles Musgrave. The part of the dialogue given 

 to Seymour in particular, is highly characteristic. It is in this pro- 

 duction that we find the remark so often quoted about the superior 

 influence and importance of the national ballad-maker to the national 

 law-giver : Fletcher gives it as the observation of a friend. 



FLETCHER, GILES and PHINEAS, were the sons of Dr. Giles 

 Fletcher, who was employed by Queen Elizabeth as ambassador in 

 Kuaria, and cousins of John Fletcher the dramatist. 



GILD FCETCBIR, the elder, was born about 1580, was educated at 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, and died at his living of Alderton, in 

 Suffolk, in 1623. The single poem which he has left, ' Christ's Victory 

 i Heaven, Christ's Triumph on Earth, Christ's Triumph over Death, 

 Christ's Triumph after Death,' will, as Southey observes, " preserve bis 

 name while there is any praise." Its beauty is of a very peculiar cast, 

 uniting many of Spenser's characteristics with a greater regard to 

 antithesis. 



The ' Wooing Song,' in tho second part of the poem, is as perfect a 

 specimen of fanciful elegance as can bo found ; and is the mure striking 

 from being written in ooto-syllabic couplets, while the rest of the 

 poem is in a variation of the Spenserian stanza. 



1'iiixr.As Fi.rrc nut, younger brother of Giles, was born about 1584, 

 and admitted scholar of King's College, Cambridge, in 1600. In 1621 

 bo was presented to the living of liilgay, in Norfolk, where be died 

 about 1600. 



He wrote, in addition to his great work, some Eclogues ; a ' History 

 of the Founder* aud Benefactors of Cambridge University,' in Latin 

 hexameters, and a drama called ' Sioelides.' But the only work for 

 which be is now known is ' The Purple Island, or the Isle of Man,' a 

 description of the human soul and body, but especially tho latter 

 respecting which there is the most extraordinary fulness of what 

 may be celled anatomical detail* much in the style of 'Christ's 

 Triumph.' 



The two Fletchers, with Browne, make up a kind of Spenserian 

 school, poeseasing considerable common resemblances, with origin* 

 qualities enough to procure for each a very high reputation. Thev 

 an the more remarkable as having tended to form the style of Milton s 

 poetry, as may be seen by any one well acquainted with both. 



FLETCHER, JOHN, was born in 1576, and was the son of the 

 lev. Dr. Fletcher, afterwards bishop of Bristol. He waa educated at 

 Cambridge with his friend Francis Beaumont, and is said to have 

 listinguished himself as a good scholar. For an account of his principal 

 works and his literary connection with Beaumont, see BEAUMONT, 

 'RASCIS. Fletcher survived his friend nearly ten years ; he was 

 carried off by a plague which happened in 1625. Between the death 

 of Beaumont and that of Fletcher, eleven of the plays found in their 

 Works ' were produced, and must be assigned wholly to Fletcher ; 

 snd it appears most probable that the pastoral drama of the Faithful 

 Shepherdess is also to be attributed to him alone : but there is nothing 

 n the plays which belong wholly to Fletcher, to distinguish them from 

 such ss are the joint production of the two friends. All that has been 

 said in the article above referred to of the dramas of Beaumont and 

 'letclier, applies equally to those written by Fletcher only. In both, 

 an ever-present licentiousness of thought as well as expression is the 

 >ervading characteristic, but in both there lies beneath this the same 

 rich vein of pure poetry ; and while we repeat what we said under 

 Beaumont, as to their works being such as to render them, for aU but 

 iterary students, less adapted for reading in their entire state than in a 

 selection of passages, where might be found " as refined sentiment, lofty 

 and sweet poetry, excellent sense, humour, and pathos, as any in the 

 anguage, excepting Shakespere and Chaucer," we take the oppor- 

 tunity of supplying an omission in that article, by adding that such a 

 selection has been made, with a very useful introduction and body of 

 notes, by Mr. Leigh Hunt, and that it forms a volume of Bonn's 

 Standard Library. 



FLEURY', ANDRfe HERCULE DE, CARDINAL, was born in 

 1653 at Lodeve in Languedoc, studied at Paris in the college of the 

 Jesuits, was afterwards made almoner to the queen-consort of 

 Louis XIV., and in 1699 bisbop of Frojim, which see he resigned in 

 1715, on account of ill-health. Louis XIV. appointed him also pre- 

 ceptor to bis grandson, afterwards Louis XV., who became greatly 

 attached to him. After the death of the regent in 1723, Floury was 

 made a member of the Council of State, and subsequently prime 

 minister, in which office he continued for seventeen years, till the 

 time of his death. The period of his administration was tho happiest 

 part of the reign of Louis XV. Fltury was honest, economical, dis- 

 interested, a friend to peace, and a patron of learning. He was 

 obliged, against his inclinations, by the court party and Marshal 

 Villars, to take a part in the war of the Palish succession in 1733, in 

 which France engaged chiefly in order to support Stanislaus Lcczinsky, 

 father-in-law of Louis XV. Although that object was frustrated by 

 the united forces of Austria and Russia, yet the war terminated in 

 1736 in a manner advantageous to France, which gained by it the 

 important accession of Lorraine. 



In 1741 Cardinal Fleury found himself driven by court influence 

 into another war, that of the Austrian succession, of which he did 

 not live to see the end. He died in 1743, at eighty-nine years of age ; 

 and from that time the government of Louis XV. fell deeper and 

 deeper into corruption and decay. Fleury amassed no fortune, but he 

 left the reputation of a wise, benevolent, and faithful minister of 

 state. He completed the building for the royal (now imperial) 

 library, which he enriched with a Dumber of valuable manuscripts, 

 especially in the oriental languages. 



KI.Kl'RY, CLAUDE, ABBfi, was born at Paris in 1640, and diod 

 in 1723, sged eighty-three years. All the contemporary writers 

 coincide in the opinion that Fleury possessed all the virtues and 

 qualities requisite to constitute a scholar, an honest man, and a 

 Christian. Having completed in a brilliant manner hia studies at the 

 college of Clermont at Paris, he embraced in 1658 the profession of 

 his father, who waa a distinguished advocate, and he practised at the 

 bar for nine years. To his legal occupations he united the study of 

 literature and history, but tho religious turn of his mind having 

 induced him to enter the church, he thenceforward entirely devoted 

 himself to the study of divinity, the Holy Scriptures, canon law, and 

 the Fathers. In 1674 he waa appointed tutor to the princes Conti, 

 whom Louis XIV. educated with his son the Dauphin. After that 

 tho king intrusted him with tho education of his natural son the 

 Prince of Vermandois. Upon the death of the young prince, Louis con- 

 ferred on Fleury tho abbey of Loc-Dicu, in the diocese of Rhodez, and 

 five years later (1689) he was created sub-preceptor of the king's 

 grandsons the Dukes of Bourgogne, Anjou (afterwards Philip V., king 

 of Spain), and Beni Fleury thus became the associate of Fcuelon. 

 In 1696 be succeeded Labruycro as member of the French Academy, 

 nn I when the education of the three above-mentioned princes was 

 completed (1707), the king bestowed on him the priory of Argenteuil, 

 in the dioceso of Paris. This grant wa< very acceptable to Fleury, as 

 it afforded him a comfortable retirement for the prosecution of his 

 studies, without depriving him of those resources which are found 

 only in a capital. Being however a strict observer of the canon law, 

 which was the particular subject of his study, and which prohibits a 

 plurality of ecclesiastical benefices, he resigned the abbey of IXKJ- 

 Dleu. In his retirement at Argenteuil, notwithstanding he was now 

 sixty-six years old, he conceived tho plan of his grand work the 

 ' Ecclesiastical History,' and began the execution of it. After the 

 death of Louis XIV. (1716), the Regent Due d'Orleans nominated 

 Fleury coufossor to the young king Louis XV., a pout which he held 



