Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/434

FLE concurred in the proclamation of Richard Cromwell as lord-protector, but soon afterwards joined the combination of the military "grandees" against him, which led to his resignation. The Long Parliament was then resuscitated. Fleetwood, who was very popular with the army, now seems to have entertained the notion that he might seize upon the supreme power; but he wavered and hesitated until the time for action was past. By civilians he was urged to submit to the parliament; by military men, to put them down and govern with absolute power; and in his alternate leanings to this counsel or that, he took a number of weak half measures, by which he only succeeded in disgusting and discouraging all parties. Towards the close of 1659, Whitelock urged him to open a correspondence with Charles at Breda with a view to his restoration. But Fleetwood still doubted, and "sought the Lord," and could not make up his mind, until Monk took the game out of his hands, and induced the greater part of the army to concur in bringing back the exiled prince. Fleetwood, though not a regicide, was excepted from the general amnesty, and it was only with great difficulty, through the intercession of Lord Litchfield, that he escaped with life. He lived in complete obscurity at Stoke-Newington, near London, for the remainder of his days. He was heavily fined as a nonconformist in 1686. He died soon after the revolution of 1688.—T. A. FLEETWOOD,, apparently the nom-de-plume of an English theologian of the latter half of the eighteenth century, author of "The Christian Prayer Book," London, 1772; "Christian Dictionary," 1773; "Life of Christ, and the Lives of the Apostles, John the Baptist, and the Virgin Mary." The "Life of Christ" has had a most extensive circulation, and still maintains its place in the favour of the religious public as a faithful and compendious narrative.—J. E.  FLEETWOOD, : date of birth not recorded; died in 1593 or 1594; educated at Oxford. In 1569 we find him recorder of London, in 1582 sergeant-at-law, and in 1592 one of the queen's sergeants. He published annals of the reigns of Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII., and Henry VIII. After his death a law-book, entitled "The office of a Justice of the Peace," was published with his name.—J. A., D.  FLEETWOOD,, successively bishop of St. Asaph and Ely, was descended from the family of the Fleetwoods of Hesketh in Lancashire, and was born on New Year's-day, 1656, in the tower of London, where his father, Jeffery Fleetwood, resided. He was educated at Eton and King's college, Cambridge, and entered into holy orders about the time of the Revolution in 1688. His eminent gifts as a preacher brought him immediately into notice, not only in the university but at court; and his promotion in the church was for some time rapid. He was made chaplain to King William and Queen Mary; rector of St. Austin's, London; fellow of Eton; and lecturer at St. Dunstan's-in-the-West. Shortly before King William's death in 1702, he was nominated to a canonry of Windsor. In 1705 he gave up his appointments in London, and withdrew into retirement at the rectory of Wexham in Buckinghamshire, and at no great distance from Eton, to which he was much attached. He was fond of antiquarian pursuits, and disliked the noise and hurry of city life. But a man of such superior powers could not be long allowed to live in privacy. Upon Bishop Beveridge's death in 1706, Queen Anne gave him, without solicitation, the see of St. Asaph. He first learned the appointment from the Gazette. He was consecrated June 6, 1708. While he retained as a bishop all his popularity as a preacher at court, before parliament, and in the city, he was equally esteemed for his exemplary diligence and vigilance in the care of his diocese; and although almost the whole of his clergy differed from his views upon ecclesiastical and political questions, they were equally unanimous in the respect and affection which they bore to his person and character. As a moderate churchman and zealous friend of the protestant succession, "he had a very difficult part to act," as his biographer remarks, "coming into the diocese but just before that spirit of rage and madness broke out in 1710, which continued to the end of the queen's reign, when party rage ran higher, and the spirit of jacobitism was more insolent and barefaced, than in any former time since the Revolution, and more in that part of the kingdom than in most others." Disapproving highly of the change of men and measures in the queen's government which took place in 1710, he published in May, 1712, four sermons with a preface, which gave so much offence to the men in power, that they obtained an order of the house of commons that it should be burnt by the hands of the public executioner, which was done on the 12th of May. "The court," says the bishop, "divided 119, and my friends but 54. If their design was to intimidate me, they have lost it utterly; or if to suppress the book, it happens much otherwise, for everybody's curiosity is awakened by this usage, and the bookseller finds his account in it above any one else. The Spectator (No. 384) has conveyed about fourteen thousand of them into other people's hands that would otherwise have never seen or heard of it. In a word," he adds, pleasantly, "when I consider that these gentlemen have used me no worse than I think they have used their own country, the emperor, the states, the house of Hanover, and all our allies abroad, as well as all the bravest, wisest, and honestest men we have at home, I am more inclined to become vain than any ways depressed at what has befallen me, and intend to set up for a man of merit upon this stock." The preface was well worthy of the honour done to it by the editor of the Spectator. It is written with great spirit, and in the truest tone of patriotism and liberty. Fleetwood continued in the see of St. Asaph till 1714, when, upon the strenuous recommendation of Archbishop Tenison, he was preferred to that of Ely, where he remained till his death, August 4, 1723. He died at Tottenham, and was buried in Ely cathedral, where a monument was erected to him by his widow, who did not long survive him. In 1737 was published in one volume folio, "A Compleat Collection of his Sermons, Tracts, and Pieces of all kinds," with a biographical preface by his nephew, Dr. William Powel, dean of St. Asaph; and of this work a new edition in 3 vols. 8vo, was brought out by the University press of Oxford in 1854. Of these works, the tract entitled "The Thirteenth Chapter to the Romans vindicated from the abusive senses put upon it," is a protest against the slavish doctrines of divine right and passive obedience; "The Judgment of the Church of England in the case of Lay-baptism and Dissenters' baptism," is written in the moderate tone of a low-churchman; the "Essay on Miracles," a dialogue, is well worth the attention of scientific theologians. In the department of antiquities he published "Inscriptionum Antiquarum Sylloge," 8vo, 1691; and "Chronicon Pretiosum, or Account of English Money, Price of Corn, and other commodities, for the last six hundred years," 1707.—P. L.  * FLEISCHER,, or , a German scholar, was born at Schandau in Saxony in 1801. He studied at Leipsic, and became a proficient in the Oriental tongues. Resident for some time at Paris, whither he was attracted by the fame of Silvestre de Sacy, he took advantage of his acquaintance with some of the Egyptian youths studying there, to learn to speak Arabic. In 1828 he returned to Germany, taught a few years at Dresden, and in 1835 succeeded Rosenmüller as professor of the Oriental languages in the university of Leipsic. Fleischer is author of a considerable number of learned works.—R. M., A.  FLEISCHMANN,, a Bavarian engraver, was born at Nürnberg in 1791, and died at Munich in 1834. His father was an engraver, but died before the boy had made much progress in his art; by the kindness of a friend, however, he was enabled to complete his education under Gabler, an engraver of reputation. For a time Fleischmann worked for Campe's lithographic establishment; he then made a tour as a portrait painter, and afterwards visited England and Holland, where he drew the likenesses of many of the celebrities of those countries, which he afterwards engraved. Fleischmann was a man of prodigious industry, as well as im question able ability; in all, he is said to have executed nineteen hundred plates with his own hand. Most of them are in the combined line and stipple manner. Among the best of his plates are an "Ecce Homo," attributed to Da Vinci; "Christ on the Cross," and the "Four Apostles," after Albert Dürer; and portraits of Dürer and Vandyck, and of the king and queen of Bavaria, &c. Fleischman is noted as the first among the Nürnberg engravers to work on steel plates, and to adopt the ruling-machine for his skies and backgrounds. He left a son who continues the family profession.—J. T—e.  FLEMING,, a classical scholar, translator, and miscellaneous writer of the sixteenth century; neither the date of his birth nor that of his death is exactly known. He took holy orders, and became rector of St. Pancras. He was a man of great diligence and assiduity, and as an annotator displayed considerable talent and philological acumen. He published in 