Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/309

 some fine plates of birds from drawings by Casteels and Charles Collins. He engraved some of the vignettes and tail-pieces to the first edition of Voltaire's ‘Henriade,’ published in London in 1728. Among his other works were ‘Bathsheba,’ after Sebastiano Conca; a set of views of Venice, engraved with L. P. Boitard after Canaletto; ‘A View of Stocks Market in 1738,’ and ‘A View of the Fountain in Temple Gardens,’ after Joseph Nichols; ‘A View of Bethlehem Hospital, Moorfields,’ and portraits of Robert Nelson (1715), after Kneller, Ebenezer Pemberton (1727), and the Rev. Robert Warren.

[Dodd's manuscript History of English Engravers; Le Blanc's Manuel de l'Amateur d'Estampes; Cohen's Guide de l'Amateur des Livres à Figures du xviiime Siècle; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]  FLETCHER, HENRY (1727–1807), politician, a native of Cumberland, was born in 1727. Brought up in the service of the East India Company, he successively commanded two of its vessels, the Stormont and the Middlesex. When he retired from his command, after rendering conspicuous services to the company, he was chosen a director of the East India board, and filled that office for eighteen years (1769–87), being always re-elected when he retired by rotation. He was chairman in 1782–3. Fletcher entered parliament in 1768 for Cumberland, where he had fought successfully against a very powerful influence. He joined the whig opposition in the House of Commons, and on the accession of that party to power was rewarded with a baronetcy, 20 May 1782. In 1783 he gave a general approval to the treaty of peace with France, so far as related to the settlements of the East India Company. When Fox introduced his India Bill, Fletcher, then chairman of the company, was nominated one of the seven commissioners for the affairs of Asia. Fletcher declared in the House of Commons in 1783 that it would have been much better for England, and Europe in general, if the navigation to the East Indies had never been discovered. But having once acquired these Indian possessions, the British must never give them up. Fletcher considered the retention and proper government of India of supreme moment, and sacrificed private interests so as to advocate his views in parliament. Fox's measure, however, was lost, and administrative reform in India was postponed. In 1796 Fletcher voted with the great whig leader for a direct censure upon ministers, on the ground of having advanced money to the Emperor of Germany and the Prince of Condé without the knowledge or consent of parliament. He also supported Grey in the following session in his motion on parliamentary reform. Fletcher continued to represent the county of Cumberland until the general election of 1806. He died on 25 March 1807, and was succeeded in the title by his only son of the same name. The character of Fletcher stood high among his contemporaries for generosity and integrity.

[Gent. Mag. 1807; Hansard's Parliamentary Debates.]  FLETCHER, JOHN (1579–1625), dramatist, a younger son of [q. v.], afterwards bishop of London, by his first wife Elizabeth, was born in December 1579 at Rye in Sussex, where his father was then officiating as minister. A ‘John Fletcher of London’ was admitted 15 Oct. 1591 a pensioner of Bene't (Corpus) College, Cambridge, of which college Dr. Fletcher had been president. Dyce assumes that this John Fletcher, who became one of the bible-clerks in 1593, was the dramatist. Bishop Fletcher died, in needy circumstances, 15 June 1596, and by his will, dated 26 Oct. 1593, left his books to be divided between his sons Nathaniel and John.

Fletcher's intimacy with Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) appears to date from about 1607. Aubrey states that there was a ‘wonderful consimility of phansy’ between the two poets; that they lived together on the Bankside in Southwark, near the Globe; and that they shared everything in common. Beaumont probably began his literary career before Fletcher; although the attribution to him of ‘Salmacis and Hermaphroditus’ (anonymously published in 1602, and printed in 1640 among ‘Poems by Francis Beaumont, Gent.’) is doubtful. The earliest of the plays attributed to ‘Beaumont and Fletcher’ is the ‘Woman Hater,’ which was entered in the ‘Stationers' Register’ 20 May 1607 and published anonymously in the same year. It is largely written in a mock-heroic style. Dyce assumed that it was wholly by Fletcher, but later critics more reasonably claim it for Beaumont, who had undeniably a rich vein of burlesque. The versification has none of Fletcher's peculiarities. Beaumont in 1607 prefixed some commendatory verses to the ‘Fox,’ and a similar compliment was paid to Jonson by Fletcher, who also commended ‘Catiline,’ 1611.

‘The Faithful Shepherdess,’ n. d., 4to, the unassisted work of Fletcher, was published not later than 1610 (probably in 1609), for one of the three persons to whom it was dedicated, Sir William Skipwith, died 3 May