Phineas Fletcher

He is as cowardly
Who longer fears to live, as he who fears to die.

Phineas Fletcher (8 April 1582 – 13 December 1650) was an English poet from Kent. He was the elder son of Dr Giles Fletcher the Elder, and brother of Giles the Younger.

Quotes

To be in Heaven the second he disdains:
So now the first in Hell and flames he reigns.

• Thus fell that prince of darkness, once a bright
  And shining star [...]:
  To be in Heaven the second he disdains;
  So now the first in Hell and flames he reigns,
  Crowned once with joy and light: crowned now with fire and pains.
  • Locusts (1627), p. 37

• Drop, drop, slow tears,
  And bathe those beauteous feet,
  Which brought from Heaven
  The news and Prince of Peace.
  • Poetical Miscellanies (1633), "An Hymn"

• In your deep floods
  Drown all my faults and fears;
  Not let His eye
  See sin, but through my tears.
  • Poetical Miscellanies (1633), "An Hymn"

Love's tongue is in the eyes.

• Love’s tongue is in the eyes.
  • Piscatory Eclogues (1633), no. 5, st. 13

Sicelides (1614)

Beauty when most unclothed is clothed best.

• Beauty when most unclothed is clothed best.
  • Act 2, sc. 4

• Love is like linen; often changed, the sweeter.
  • Act 3, sc. 5

• Only in love they happy prove
  Who love what most deserves their love.
  • Act 3, sc. 6

• The coward’s weapon, poison.
  • Act 5, sc. 3

The Purple Island (1633)

In Heaven they scorned to serve, so now in Hell they reign.

• The way to God is by ourselves.
  • To the Reader

• Poorly (poor man) he lived; poorly (poor man) he died.
  • Canto 1, st. 19

• When needs he must, yet faintly then he praises;
  Somewhat the deed, but more the means, he raises:
  So marreth what he makes, and praising most, dispraises.
  • Canto 1, st. 67

• In Heaven they scorned to serve, so now in Hell they reign.
  • Canto 7, st. 10
  • Compare:
    • Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
      • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), Book 1, v. 263

• Who bathes in worldly joys, swims in a world of fears.
  • Canto 8, st. 7

• He is as cowardly
  Who longer fears to live, as he who fears to die.
  • Canto 10, st. 8

• His life is neither tossed in boisterous seas
  Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease.
  • Canto 12, st. 5; quoted in Dinah Craik's John Halifax, Gentleman (1856)

• His little son into his bosom creeps,
  The lively picture of his father’s face.
  • Canto 12, st. 6; quoted in Dinah Craik's John Halifax, Gentleman (1856)

Disputed

• Faint heart ne'er won fair lady.
  • Britain's Ida (1628), canto 5, st. 1
  • An old proverb; sometimes quoted as "Faint heart fair lady ne'er could win."

Quotes about Fletcher

• Since it is a law of nature, admitting only rare exceptions, that the qualities of the ancestors should be transmitted to the race, — the fact seems patent enough, that even allowing equal advantages, a gentleman's son has more chances of growing up a gentleman than the son of a working man. And though he himself, and his father before him, had both been working men, still, I think, Abel Fletcher never forgot that we originally came of a good stock, and that it pleased him to call me, his only son, after one of our forefathers, not unknown — Phineas Fletcher, who wrote the "Purple Island."
  • Dinah Craik, John Halifax, Gentleman (1856), ch. 1

• From the handful of books that usually lay strewn about wherever we two sat, I took up one he had lately got, with no small pains I was sure, and had had bound in its own proper colour, and presented it to me — "The Purple Island," and "Sicelides," of Phineas Fletcher. People seldom read this wise, tender, and sweet-voiced old fellow now; so I will even copy the verses I found for John to read.
  • Dinah Craik, John Halifax, Gentleman (1856), ch. 9

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Phineas Fletcher on Wikipedia