T.

[Footnote 1:]

Dr. William Fleetwood, Bishop of St. Asaph, had published Four Sermons.

  1. On the death of Queen Mary, 1694.
  2. On the death of the Duke of Gloucester, 1700.
  3. On the death of King William, 1701.
  4. On the Queen's Accession to the Throne, in 1702,

with a Preface. 8vo. London, 1712.

The Preface which, says Dr. Johnson, overflowed with Whiggish principles, was ordered to be burnt by the House of Commons. This moved Steele to diffuse it by inserting it in the

Spectator

, which, as its author said in a letter to Burnet, conveyed about fourteen thousand copies of the condemned preface into people's hands that would otherwise have never seen or heard of it. Moreover, to ensure its delivery into the Queen's hands the publication of this number is said to have been deferred till twelve oclock, her Majesty's breakfast hour, that no time might be allowed for a decision that it should not be laid, as usual, upon her breakfast table.

Fleetwood was born in 1656; had been chaplain to King William, and in 1706 had been appointed to the Bishopric of St. Asaph without any solicitation. He was translated to Ely in 1714, and died in 1723.