FLETCHER, Giles and Phineas, two celebrated religious poets of England, were the sons of Dr Giles Fletcher, English ambassador in 1558 at the court of Russia, and the consins of the distinguished dramatist, John Fletcher.
Giles, the elder of the two brothers, was born about the year 1580; was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; took orders in the Church of England, and died in 1623 at his living of Alderton in Suffolk. The only poem which he has left us consists of four several parts, joined together under the common title of "Christ's Victory and Triumphs." It is a kind of narrative of the redemption of man, reminding us to some extent of Milton's epic, and bearing, in form at least, a still more striking resemblance to that of Spenser. The animation of the narrative, the liveliness of the fancy, and the deep pathos that pervades the whole work, contribute to make it in its totality one of the most beautiful religious poems in any language, and, as Southey remarks, "will preserve the author's name while there is any praise." It has been complained that it abounds too much in allegory; and though this charge may be partly true, the interest of the poem is admirably maintained to the last. The work itself is written in a sort of variety of the Spenserian stanza, and its beauties are set in phraseology so marked and peculiar as to be readily recognised wherever quoted. This characteristic is still more striking from the antitheses and apparent paradoxes in which Fletcher delighted. Such lines as the following occur frequently throughout this poem:—
"The silence of the thought loud-speaking hears;"—
"The death of life, end of eternity;"—
"The obsequies of him that could not die."
Phineas, the younger brother of Giles, was born about 1584; entered King's College, Cambridge, in 1600; graduated there and took orders in the church, and in 1621 became vicar of Hilgay in Norfolk, where he died about 1660. His principal work—The Purple Island; or, The Isle of Man—is the nearest thing in English literature to an imitation of Spenser. It is confessedly an allegory, intended to symbolize all the functions of the human mind and body, especially the latter, and is quite unworthy of the fame it once enjoyed. It is wearisome throughout; and though it contains occasional passages of much beauty, it can hardly be said, on the whole, to repay perusal. Phineas Fletcher wrote, besides The Purple Island, some elegues, a drama entitled Sicelides, and a poem in Latin hexameters, called De Literatis antiqua Britannia, praeertim quae doctrinam claruerunt, quique collegia Cantabrigia fundarunt.