Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/187

Franciscus Cecil, dated from Oxford, 11 May 1561 in Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547-80, p. 175). He retired from the provostship in 1563. He was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians, 21 Oct. 1560, at the comitia specially convened for that purpose. He was censor in 1561 and the three following years; was provisionally named elect 30 Sept. 1562 in place of Dr. John Clement, 'a second time gone abroad,' and was definitely appointed to that office 12 May 1564. He was president of the college in 1568, and consiliarius in 1571. Francis was physician in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth, and, according to Wood, much respected by her. While president he had some trouble with the quack Eliseus Bomelius [q. v.], whom he was obliged to prosecute for practising physic without a license from the college. Bomelius in his letters to Cecil offered to expose the ignorance of Francis in Latin and astronomy, but at the prospect of his enlargement apologised for having circulated such false statements (ib. pp. 292, 304). Francis lived in Silver Street, in the parish of St. Olave, London. He died in 1574. By his will, dated 8 April and proved 9 Nov. 1574, though he left his wife Anne comfortably provided for, he was more solicitous for the welfare of one 'Edwarde Marbecke alias ffraunces, a yonge childe, nowe or late withe me in house dwellinge.' He names as his executors Roger Marbeck and John Riche (will registered in P. C. C. 41, Martyn).

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. (1878), i. 61-2.]  FRANCISCUS. [See ]  FRANCK, RICHARD (1624?–1708), captain in the parliamentary service, was born and educated at Cambridge, but probably was not a member of the university, unless it be thought (with Sir W. Scott) that 'some degree of learning was necessary to have formed so very uncommon and pedantic a style' (Memoir, p. 1). When the civil war broke out he left Cambridge to 'seek umbrage in the city of London,' and became a Cromwellian trooper, when he probably obtained the rank of captain, for he is addressed in one of the recommendatory poems prefixed to his Scotch travels as 'my honoured friend, Captain Richard Franck.' He has indeed been thought to have served in the royalist army, but his panegyric on the Protector, his enumeration of the six great patriots of the English nation, Ireton, Vane, Nevill, Martin, Marvell, and Cromwell, together with his flouting of the cavalier angler, Izaak Walton, forbids the supposition. Nor does his name appear among the army lists of the king. In the uncertainty and religious confusions which ensued upon the rise of Cromwell to power, Franck left England for a tour in Scotland. This must have been about 1656 or 1657, and his love of travel led him to the extreme north of the kingdom, 'when,' he says, 'to admiration I inspected that little artick world and every angle of it.' He returned to Nottingham, where he seems to have lived many years. About 1690 he went to America, where his second book was written, and in 1694 was in London at the Barbican. It may be gathered that he had a wife, whom in his 'Northern Memoirs' he calls Constantia. He wrote to her during his journey north. Of his death nothing can be learnt.

The book which has made Franck famous is an excellent specimen of euphuistic literature. Its title runs 'Northern Memoirs, calculated for the Meridian of Scotland. Wherein most or all of the Cities, Citadels, Sea-ports, Castles, Forts, Fortresses, Rivers, and Rivulets are compendiously described. Together with choice Collections of various Discoveries, Remarkable Observations, Theological Notions, Political Axioms, National Intrigues, Polemick Inferences, Contemplations, Speculations, and several curious and industrious Inspections, lineally drawn from. Antiquaries and other noted and intelligible Persons of Honour and Eminency. To which is added the Contemplative and Practical Angler by way of Diversion,' with more of the same character. 'By Richard Franck, Philanthropus. Plures necat Gula quam Gladius, 1694.' The rest of the work is equally cumbrous. No less than four dedications must be confronted, a preface, an address in rhyme to his book, four recommendatory poems by as many writers, and then another poem 'to the poet' by the author, before the book itself is reached. It is in the form of a dialogue between Theophanes, Agrippa (a servant), Aquila (a friend), and himself, under the name Arnoldus, and the style is bombastic, stilted, and pedantic to a degree, 'drawn from the rough draught of a martial pen,' as Franck himself describes it. The author was evidently a mystic, deeply tinged with Böhm's tenets, and not improbably deranged on certain subjects. Sir W. Scott compares his style with that of Sir Thomas Urquhart's translation of 'Rabelais,' but in verbosity and affectation Franck exceeds Urquhart. 'Northern Memoirs' was written in 1658, put together in 1685, and not published till 1694. Its main interest centres in the places which Franck visited in Scotland, and the account of them which he gives.