Rev. Phineas Fletcher

The brother of Giles Fletcher the younger and cousin of Fletcher the dramatist, Phineas Fletcher was born at Cranbrook, Kent; from Eton he matriculated at King's College Cambridge in 1600 (B.A. 1604, Fellow 1603-16, M.A. 1608). After his career as a university poet he was later chaplain to Sir Henry Willoughby (1615-21) and rector of Hilgay, Norfolk (1621-50). Fletcher was a close friend of John Tomkins, Edward Benlowes and Francis Quarles. In 1628 his poem Venus and Anchises was published as "by Edmund Spencer" under the title of Brittain's Ida.

TEXT RECORDS:

1603[Untitled, "Now did the sunne like an undaunted Hart."]
1609An Hymen at the Marriage of my most deare Cousins Mr. W. and M. R.
1609 ca.Brittain's Ida.
1609 ca.Venus and Anchises.
1610Elisa, or An Elegie upon the unripe Decease of Sr. Antonie Irby.
1610 ca.To Master W. C.
1610 ca.To my beloved Cousin W. R. Esquire. Calend. Januar.
1610 ca.To my beloved Thenot in Answer of his Verse.
1610 ca.To my ever honoured Cousin W. R. Esquire.
1610 ca.Upon my Brother, Mr. G. F. his Book entituled Christs Victorie and Triumph.
1612 ca.The Locusts, or Apollyonists.
1612 ca.The Locusts, or Apollyonists. Canto II.
1612 ca.The Locusts, or Apollyonists. Canto III.
1612 ca.The Locusts, or Apollyonists. Canto IV.
1612 ca.The Locusts, or Apollyonists. Canto V.
1614 ca.Epithalamium.
1615 ca.Eclogue I. Amyntas.
1615 ca.Eclogue II. Thirsil.
1615 ca.Eclogue III. Myrtilus.
1615 ca.Eclogue IIII. Chromis.
1615 ca.Eclogue V. Nicaea.
1615 ca.Eclogue VI. Thomalin.
1615 ca.Eclogue VII. The Prize.
1615Sicelides. A Piscatory.
1615 ca.The Purple Island, or the Isle of Man.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto II.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto III.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto IV.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto IX.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto V.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto VI.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto VII.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto VIII.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto X.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto XI.
1615 ca.The Purple Island. Canto XII.
1619 ca.To Mr. Jo. Tomkins.

PUBLICATIONS:

Locustae: vel pietas Jesuitica. 1627.
Brittain's Ida. 1628.
Sicelides a piscatory. 1631.
Joy in tribulation: or consolations for afflicted spirits. 1632.
The way to blessedness: or a treatise on the first psalme. 1632.
Giles Fletcher the elder, De Literis Antiquae Britanniae [ed. Fletcher]. 1633.
Sylva poetica. 1633.
The purple island. 1633.
A father's testament. 1670.
Piscatory eclogues, with other poetical miscellanies. 1771.
The purple island ... to which is added Christs victorie and triumph. 1783.
Poetical works [with Giles the younger], ed. F. S. Boas. 2 vols, 1908-09.
Venus and Anchises — Britain's Ida — and other poems, ed. Ethel Seaton. 1926.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Eton College
King's College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts
College Fellow

clergyman
poet
dramatist

Edward Benlowes
Giles Fletcher the Elder
Rev. Giles Fletcher
Francis Quarles

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL; DLB.

Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675); William Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687); Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721); Biographia Britannica (1747-66) 6:3811n; David Erskine Baker, Companion to the Play-House (1764); "The Purple Island" Whitehall Evening Post (15 July, 19, 31 August 1780); Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); William Bagshaw Stevens, "On Phineas Fletcher" Gentleman's Magazine 53 (November 1783) 932-33; Henry Headley, Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry (1787); "Phineas Fletcher" Town and Country Magazine 20 (Supplement, 1788) 622-23 [from Headley]; "Milton and Fletcher's Locustae" European Magazine 16 (December 1789) 397-98; George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Poetry (1790; 1801); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Nathan Drake, in Shakespeare and his Times (1817; 1838); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Retrospective Review 2 (1820) 341-51; Rowland Freeman, Kentish Poets (1821); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); "Leaves from a Manuscript: Phineas Fletcher" The Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette [Portland] 2 (26 March 1829) 103; Robert Southey, English Poets, Chaucer to Jonson (1831); Robert Aris Willmott, Lives of Sacred Poets (1834); Richard Cattermole, Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836); "More old Poetry: The Purple Island" Southern Literary Messenger [Richmond] 4 (April 1838) 246-49; Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Edward Farr, Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847); Edward S. Creasy, Memoirs of Eminent Etonians (1850); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); George Macdonald, "The Brothers Fletcher" in England's Antiphon (1868); A. B. Grosart, Who wrote Brittain's Ida? (1869); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Walter Jerrold, ed., The Spenser of his Age, being Selected Poetry from the Works of Phineas Fletcher (1905); H. E. Cory, Spenser, The School of the Fletchers, and Milton (1912); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27) 1.2.150; K. Weibel, "Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island in Ihrer Abhangigkeit von Spenser's Faerie Queene" Englische Studien 58 (1924) 321-67; Ethel Seaton in Fletcher, Venus and Anchises, Britain's Ida, and other Poems (1926); E. C. Baldwin, "Milton and Phineas Fletcher" JEGP 33 (1934) 544-46; A. B. Langdale, Phineas Fletcher, Man of Letters, Science, and Divinity (1937); Sara R. Watson, "Milton's Use of Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island" Notes and Queries 180 (1941) 258; Bain T. Stewart, "A Borrowing from Spenser by Phineas Fletcher" Modern Language Notes 56 (1941) 273-74; Earl R. Wasserman, "Moses Brown and the 1783 Edition of Giles and Phineas Fletcher," Modern Language Notes 56 (1941) 288-90; Bush, OHEL (1945); Bain T. Stewart, "A Note on Spenser and Phineas Fletcher" Philological Quarterly 26 (1947) 86-87; Harold Jenkins, Edward Benlowes (1952); Thomas B. Stroup, "Milton's Two-Handed Engine and Fletcher's Two-Edged Sword" Notes and Queries NS 6 (1959) 366-67; R. G. Baldwin, "Fletcher: His Modern Readers and his Renaissance Ideals" Philological Quarterly 40 (1961) 462-75; Lloyd E. Berry, "Phineas Fletcher's Account of his Father" JEGP 60 (1961) 258-68; Jerome S. Dees, The Narrator's Voice in The Faerie Queene, Christ's Victorie, and Triumph, and The Locusts, or Apollyonists (Diss. University of Illinois, 1968); Joan Grundy, The Spenserian Poets (1969); Harold F. Brooks, "Oldham and Phineas Fletcher: An unrecognized Source for Satyrs upon the Jesuits" Review of English Studies 22 (1971) 410-22; R. M. Cummings, Spenser: The Critical Heritage (1971); Linda J. F. Redman, "The Purple Island: A Critical Study" (Diss: Oklahoma State University, 1974); Frank S. Kastor, Giles and Phineas Fletcher (1978); Saunders, Renaissance Poets (1983); Lee Piepho, "The Latin and English Eclogues of Phineas Fletcher" Studies in Philology 81 (1984) 461-72; Spenser Encyclopedia, "Fletcher" (1990) 308-09; Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. Phineas Fletcher:

1.	1633  Francis Quarles, "To the ingenious Composer of this Pastorall, the Spencer of this Age" in Fletcher, Purple Island (1633) Sig. ¶¶2.
2.	1633  W. Benlowes, "To the Learned Authour" in Purple Island (1633) Sig. ¶¶v.
3.	1633  Edward Benlowes, "On the excellent moral Poem, entituled the Isle of Man" in Purple Island (1633) Sig. ¶4v.
4.	1633  Francis Quarles, in Purple Island (1633) Sig. ¶¶3v-¶¶4.
5.	1640  Anonymous, "Phineas Fletcher" Wits Recreations (1640) sig. F.
6.	1645  James Howell to Edward Benlowes, 15 August 1645; in Familiar Letters (1737) 392.
7.	1653  Izaac Walton, in Compleat Angler (1653; 1676); ed. Bevan (1983) 334-35.
8.	1653  Thomas Fuller, in Worthies of England (1662) 2:221.
9.	1743  Palaeophilus, Headnote in Gentleman's Magazine 13 (February 1743) 98.
10.	1758  William Oldys?, in Faerie Queene, ed. Church (1758) 1:xlii-xliv.
11.	1771  Alexander Fraser Tytler, in Browne of Tavistock, Piscatory Eclogues (1771) 5n.
12.	1772  John Langhorne, Review of Fletcher, Piscatory Eclogues; Monthly Review 47 (July 1772) 70-71.
13.	1780  Anonymous, "The Purple Island" Whitehall Evening Post (15 July 1780).
14.	1783  Rev. William Bagshaw Stevens, "On Phineas Fletcher" Gentleman's Magazine 53 (November 1783) 932-33.
15.	1794  Robert Alves, in Sketches of a History of Literature (1794) 113.
16.	1795  Robert Anderson, in Works of the British Poets (1795) 4:378-80.
17.	1800  Henry Francis Cary, Literary Journal for 1800; Memoir of the Rev. Henry Francis Cary (1847) 1:160.
18.	1805  Henry Boyd, in The Woodman's Tale (1805) 93.
19.	1810  Samuel Egerton Brydges, in "George Wither" British Bibliographer 1 (1810) 4.
20.	1814  George Dyer, in History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge (1814) 2:195.
21.	1815  Philip Bliss, in Athenae Oxonienses (1815) 2:676n.
22.	1820  William Hazlitt, in Lectures chiefly on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820; 1845) 156
23.	1820  Anonymous, in Retrospective Review 2 (1820) 341-42.
24.	1834  John Wilson, in Blackwood's Magazine 36 (1834) 515.
25.	1834  Robert Aris Willmott, in Lives of Sacred Poets (1834) 38-39.
26.	1836  Richard Cattermole, in Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836) 1:68.
27.	1837  Henry Hallam, in Introduction to the Literature of Europe of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries (1837-39; 1882) 3:244.
28.	1838  J. F. O., in "More Old Poetry: The Purple Island" Southern Literary Messenger [Richmond] 4 (April 1838) 246-47.
29.	1847  Edward Farr, in Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847) xxiv.
30.	1850  Edward S. Creasy, in Memoirs of Eminent Etonians (1850) 61-62.
31.	1860  George Gilfillan, in Specimens with Memoirs of the less-known British Poets (1860) 1:315-16.
32.	1868  George Macdonald, in "The Brothers Fletcher" England's Antiphon (1868; 1890) 155-56.
33.	1882  Edmund Gosse, in "Essay on Pastoral Poetry" Complete Works of Spenser, ed. Grosart (1882-84) 3:xxxvii-xxxix.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. Phineas Fletcher:

1.	1675  Edward Phillips, in Theatrum Poetarum (1675) 153.
2.	1687  William Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) 159-60.
3.	1690  Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721) 1:F 107.
4.	1720  Giles Jacob, in Historical Account of the Lives and Writings of our most considerable English Poets (1720) 56-57.
5.	1747  Anonymous, in Biographia Britannica (1747-66) 6:3811n.
6.	1764  David Erskine Baker, in Companion to the Play-House (1764) 2: Sig. N2v.
7.	1771  Alexander Fraser Tytler, in Fletcher, Piscatory Eclogues (1771) viii.
8.	1787  Henry Headley, in Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry (1787) 1:liii-iv.
9.	1801  George Ellis, in Specimens of Early English Poets (1801; 1845) 3:43.
10.	1810  Alexander Chalmers, "Life of Giles and Phineas Fletcher" in Works of the English Poets (1810) 6:51-54.
11.	1817  Nathan Drake, in Shakespeare and his Times (1817; 1838) 302.
12.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 80-81.
13.	1821  Rowland Freeman, in Kentish Poets (1821) 1:260-66.
14.	1831  Robert Southey, in British Poets, Chaucer to Johnson (1831) 749.
15.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 1:122.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1610  Rev. Giles Fletcher:   Phineas Fletcher, ["Upon my Brother, Mr. G. F. his Book entituled Christs Victorie and Triumph"] Fletcher, Christs Victorie (1610) sig. 2v.
2.	1610 ca.  Bp. Joseph Hall:   Phineas Fletcher, "Upon the B. of Exon. Doct Hall his Meditations" The Purple Island (1633) 83-84.
3.	1623 ca.  Rev. Giles Fletcher:   Phineas Fletcher, "Upon my Brother's Book called, The Grounds, Labour, and Reward of Fath" The Purple Island (1633) 101-02.
4.	1632  Rev. Giles Fletcher:   Phineas Fletcher, "Defuncto fratri" Fletcher, Christs Victorie (1632) sig. ¶3.