John Fletcher

“ Thus continually brought face to face with the needs of ignorant and uncared-for men, it was no wonder that Fletcher should return to the thought (suggested to him many times previously) of devoting himself altogether to ministering the gospel of the grace of God Before taking any step towards such a life, however, he asked the advice of John Wesley, whom he already looked upon as his spiritual guide Apparently the answer he received was encouraging, for less than four months after he put the question, John Fletcher was ordained as a clergyman of the Church of England. ”

“ The early Methodist preachers moved joyously and confidently through the land, proclaiming a salvation which the worst might obtain, and which the best must not refuse or neglect.
[Pg 33]
From the time of his conversion to the close of his life Fletcher was a Methodist. The exact date when he joined the society cannot be determined, but in the year 1756 he was a member of a class in London, of which a Mr. Richard Edwards was the leader. His "class ticket," bearing the name "John Fletcher," and the date "Feb., 1757," lies before us as we write. ”

“ John Fletcher sends his best Christian love to the congregation that worships God in the parish church at Madeley. He begs the continuance of their prayers for strength of body and mind, that he may be able (if it be the will of God) to serve them again in the gospel. ”

“ Be honest is the only perfect man.
Upon an “Honest Man’s Fortune,”—John Fletcher.
John Fletcher, the renowned English dramatist, was born in Rye, Sussex, December 20 (?) , 1579 and died in London, August, 1625. A few of his famous plays are: “The Wild Goose Chase,” “The Loyal Subject,” “Monsieur Thomas,” “The Faithful Shepherdess,” “A Wife for a Month,” “Wit Without Money,” “The Chances,” “Bonduca,” “The Mad Lover,” and “Rule a Wife and Have a Wife.” His name has always been associated with that of Francis Beaumont, and together they wrote many plays ”

“ Wid. Why do you laugh sister? I fear me 'tis your trick, 'twas neatly done of you, and well becomes your pleasure.
Isab. What have you done with 'em?
Wid. Lockt 'em i'th' Orchard, there I'le make 'em dance and caper too, before they get their liberty, unmannerly rude puppies.
Isab. They are somewhat saucy, but yet I'le let 'em out, and once more sound 'em, why were they not beaten out?
Wid. I was about it, but because they came as suiters.
Isab. Why did you not answer 'em?
Wid. They are so impudent they will receive none: More yet! how came these in?
Enter Francisco and Lance. ”

“ Once there was a faint splash from somewhere below and behind us.
"There goes a rat," said Fletcher vaguely, and without taking his gaze from the darkness under the distant shore. "It's gone into the cutting at the back of John Ki's."
He ceased speaking and flashed the lamp again several times. Then, all at once out of the murky darkness into which we were peering, looked a little eye of light—once, twice, thrice it winked at us from low down upon the oily water; then was gone.
"It's Weymouth with the cutter," said Fletcher; "they are ready ... now for Jon Ki's." ”

“ It is possible to misinterpret the delicate features, [Pg 13] with their rapt expression, the almost excessive modesty, the language fuller charged with emotion than is quite our English wont. But there was strength, not weakness, beneath these often misread indications of character. The natural man in John Fletcher was a soldier and an athlete, and these qualities of manhood remained with him to the end, though turned to higher issues and manifest in other forms than in these early years. ”

“ Admonished by his conscience, John's hilarity clouded into a sort of semi-humorous gravity, and he advised Mike on the necessity of reforming his life.
"I am very sorry, for there is no one whose society is as attractive to me as yours; there is no one in whom I find so many of my ideas, and yet there is no one from whom I am so widely separated; at times you are sublime, and then you turn round and roll in the nastiest dirt you can find." ”

“ John Fletcher was a marvel, if viewed only on his bodily side At a time when clergymen had far more opportunity than they have even to-day to retire into their own houses and do nothing for the world, he pressed forward, in spite of an almost dying body, to work for God daily, in the most devoted manner That he was able to continue his labours so long was simply by God’s wonder-working mercy. ”

“ Dissolue my life, Let not my sence unsettle,
Least I should drowne, or stab or hang my selfe.
O state of Nature, faile together in me,
Since thy best props are warpt! So, which way now?
The best way is the next way to a grave:
Each errant step beside is torment. Loe,
The Moone is down, the Cryckets chirpe, the Schreichowle
Calls in the dawne; all offices are done
Save what I faile in: But the point is this,
An end, and that is all. [Exit.]
Scaena 3. (Same as Scene I.) [Enter Arcite, with Meate, Wine, and Files.]
ARCITE.
I should be neere the place: hoa, Cosen Palamon. ”

“ This allied him with the Imagist movement, though his work was too individual to conform to any school. The war drove Mr. Fletcher back to America where he remained two years, and in April of 1916 he published in this country "Goblins and Pagodas"; the following month he returned to England and married Miss Florence Emily Arbuthnot. He continues to make England his home and brought out there his latest volume, "The Tree of Life". [John Gould Fletcher won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1939 for "Selected Poems". — A. L., 1998.] ”

“ An important episode in the life of John Fletcher was his association with the College of Trevecca, opened by the Countess of Huntingdon, for young men who desired to devote themselves to the service of Christ A gratuitous education for three years, with lodging, board, and clothing, was provided for each student, the young men being afterwards free to enter whatever church they preferred. ”

“ Thou being but mortall makest affections bend
To Godlike honours; they themselves, some say,
Grone under such a Mastry.
THESEUS.
As we are men,
Thus should we doe; being sensually subdude,
We loose our humane tytle. Good cheere, Ladies. [Florish.]
Now turne we towards your Comforts. [Exeunt.]
Scaena 2. (Thebs) . [Enter Palamon, and Arcite.]
ARCITE.
Deere Palamon, deerer in love then Blood
And our prime Cosen, yet unhardned in
The Crimes of nature ”

“ The righteous live for evermore; their reward also is with the Lord, and the care of them is with the Most High."
In the minutes of the Methodist Conference which met at Bristol, in July, 1786, the following entry occurs:
"Q. Who has died this year?
"A. John Fletcher, a pattern of all holiness, scarce to be paralleled in a century."
Such is the brief record that marks the passing away [Pg 5] of a man whose place in the love and veneration of Wesley and of the Methodists was unique. ”

“ Fletcher's workes by themselves, because single & alone he would make a Just Volume: But since never parted while they lived, I conceived it not equitable to seperate their ashes.
It becomes not me to say (though it be a knowne Truth) that these Authors had not only High unexpressible gifts of Nature, but also excellent acquired Parts, being furnished with Arts and Sciences by that liberall education they had at the University, which sure is the best place to make a great Wit understand it selfe; this their workes will soone make evident. I was very ambitious to have got Mr. ”

“ Not only are some of the characters vile beyond words, but a frigid sensual conception of love runs through the whole play, marring the intended idealisation of chastity, a theme more congenial to Milton than to Fletcher.
Fletcher's most important colleague after the death of Beaumont, and the principal dramatist of the Twenties and early Thirties, was Philip Massinger. [15] His father was a servant in the household of the Earl of Pembroke. He was at Oxford for a short time, but left abruptly, and came to London about 1607, where he collaborated with Fletcher, Dekker, Field, and others. ”

“ FLETCHER, JOSEPH (1582?–1637) , religious poet, son of Thomas Fletcher, merchant tailor of London, was, according to his epitaph, sixty years old at the time of his death in 1637. There can be little doubt that he was four or five years younger. He was entered at Merchant Taylors' School on 11 March 1593–4, and was elected to St. John's College, Oxford, in 1600, matriculating on 23 Jan. 1600–1, at the age of eighteen. ”

“ But you don't intend to bury yourself in the country; you'll come up to town sometimes."
"I feel I must not stay here; the place has grown unbearable." A look of horror passed over John's face. "Hall has the rooms opposite. His life is a disgrace; he hurries through his writing, and rushes out to beat up the Strand, as he puts it, for shop-girls. I could not live here any longer."
Mike could not but laugh a little; and offended, John rose and continued the packing of his Indian gods. Allusion was made to Byzantine art; and Mike told the story of Frank's marriage ”

“ Through all these æstheticisms Lily Young shone, her light waxing to fulness day by day. Mike had written to Frank, beseeching him to forward any letters that might arrive. He expected an answer from Lily within the week, and not until its close did he begin to grow fearful. Then rapidly his fear increased and unable to bear with so much desire in the presence of John Norton, he rushed to London, and thence to Marlow. He railed against his own weakness in going to Marlow, for if a letter had arrived it would have been forwarded to him.
"Why deceive myself with false hopes? ”

“ George Herbert at Bemerton, Augustus Hare at Alton, John Keble at Hursley, represent an element in the historic Church of England, which is to its more imposing aspects what the pastoral scenery amid which they lived, is to the mountains of Westmorland or Wales. Had the providence which shaped Fletcher's course guided him to some such retirement, and made him shepherd of a simple, docile flock, no man would have trodden with greater meekness and fidelity the quiet ways of the country parson ”

“ Swift and complete reaction had come upon him, and choked with the moral sulphur of the last twenty-four hours, he craved the breath of purity. He must talk of Plato's Republic, of Wagner's operas, of Schopenhauer; even Lily was not now so imperative as these; and next day, after lunch, when the question of his departure was alluded to, Mike felt it was impossible to leave John; but persecuted with scruples of disloyalty to Kitty, he resisted his friend's invitation to stay. He urged he had no clothes. John offered to send the coachman into Brighton for what he wanted. ”

“ With heavy doleful clamour, hour on hour, and day on day,
The muddy groundswell lifts and breaks and falls and slides away.
The cold and naked wind runs shivering over the sands,
Salt are its eyes, open its mouth, its brow wet, blue its hands. ”

“ One of the most important letters which he wrote during his absence from England was addressed to "The Rev. Messrs. John and Charles Wesley." It is dated from Macon in Burgundy, May 17th, 1778. The following extracts will show Fletcher's judgment concerning the state of morals and religion in France ten years before the Revolution:
"Gambling and dress, sinful pleasure and love of money, unbelief and false philosophy, lightness of spirit, fear of man, and love of the world, are the principal sins by which Satan binds his captives in these parts. ”

“ The editor and proprietor of this organ of amusement was Escott. His editorial work was principally done in his chambers in Temple Gardens, where he lived with his friend, Mike Fletcher. Of necessity the newspaper drew, like gravitation, art and literature, but the revelling lords who assembled there were a disintegrating influence, and made John Norton a sort of second centre; and Harding and Thompson and others of various temperaments and talents found their way to Pump Court. Like cuckoos, some men are only really at home in the homes of others ”

“ I said decisively. “You be ready at three o'clock. And remember, you're not to say a word about this to anybody—not one word to John William. If you do, there'll be no ten shillings.”
Mr. Johnson nodded his head.
“John Willie's going to the flower show,” he remarked. “He's going with the new servant lass at the Spinney farm. Him and Susan Kate's fallen out. I say, mister!”
“Well?” I replied.
“I'm not a great one for lasses,” said Mr. Johnson. “I don't want Susan Kate to think that I'm courting her. 'Cause I'm not going to.”
“Susan Kate will quite understand matters,” I said. ”

“ Margarita
Weak in your blood you would say,
How wretched is my case, willing to please ye,
And find you so disable?
Duke of Medina
Believe me Lady.
Margarita
I know you will venture all you have to satisfy me,
Your life I know, but is it fit I spoil ye,
Is it my love do you think?
Cacafogo below
Here's to the Duke.
Duke of Medina
It nam'd me certainly,
I heard it plainly sound.
Margarita
You are hurt mortally,
And fitter for your prayers Sir than pleasure,
What starts you make? I would not kiss you wantonly,
For the world's wealth ”

“ Never was life lived more richly, more fully, with more terrible blind intensity than it is being lived at this instant. Never was the noble language which is ours surpassed either in richness or in concision. ”