and the mind of man. The intellectual qualities are personified, while the veins are rivers, the bones the mountains of the island, the whole analogy being worked out with great ingenuity. The manner of Spenser is preserved throughout, but without the digressions of The Faerie Queene. The Piscatory Eclogues are pastorals, the characters of which are represented as fisher boys on the banks of the Cam, and are interesting for the light they cast on the biography of the poet himself (Thyrsil) and his father (Thelgon). ... the influence of Phineas Fletcher and his brother Giles is far greater than has generally been realized. Together they founded a distinct school of poetry which outlived the chilling influence of the Restoration.....In Milton's day, most of the Cantabrigians, Crashaw, Joseph Beaumont, Thomas Robinson, and others wrote more or less in their manner. In his boyhood Milton was enlisted in the School of the Fletchers and their influence is traceable even in his mature poems. Any study of Spenserian material in Milton, should include an elaborate examination of the work of the School of the Fletchers. — H. E. Cory, 1912. A complete edition of Phineas Fletcher's works (4 vols.) was privately printed by Alexander Balloch Grosart (Fuller Worthies Library, 1869). The standard work available in print remains Frederick S. Boas, The poetical Works of Giles and Phineas Fletcher (Cambridge University Press 1908). In Dinah Craik's 1856 novel, John Halifax, Gentleman, the fictional characters Abel Fletcher, a tanner, and his son Phineas are descendants of 'Phineas Fletcher, who wrote the "Purple Island"', in which descent they recognise they 'originally came of a good stock'. Notes References Further reading Langdale, Abram Barnett. Phineas Fletcher: Man of Letters, Science, and Divinity. New York, Columbia University Press, 1937. Kastor S. Frank. Giles and Phineas Fletcher. Twayne Publishers, Boston 1978 External links 1582 births 1650 deaths Alumni of King's College, Cambridge 17th-century English poets 17th-century English male writers 17th-century English writers People educated at Eton College People from Cranbrook, Kent English male poets