It is true that, in 1790, the Rev. Joshua Gilpin, Vicar of Rockwardine, appended twenty-nine biographical “Notes” to different chapters of Fletcher’s “Portrait of St. Paul;” but the facts they contained, in addition to those which Wesley had already given, were not many.
A year later, in 1791, the Rev. Melville Horne, Curate of Madeley, published “Posthumous Pieces of the late Rev. John William De La Flechere,” a volume of 435 pages, nearly 400 of which are filled with Fletcher’s Letters to his friends. This volume has been of great service to me in the present work. Many quotations are made from it, and are indicated by the footnotes, “Letters, 1791.”
When Fletcher died, some of his admirers wished Mr. Ireland to be his biographer; others desired Fletcher’s widow to undertake the task. Both of them judiciously declined. Wesley was then fixed upon. He asked Mr. Ireland to supply him with materials, but Mr. Ireland refused: Mrs. Fletcher, however, rendered him important help. In unpublished letters to Sarah Crosby, she writes:—
“Mr. Ireland knew and loved my dear husband as scarcely any other person did; and if he chooses to print a journal of their travels and of the great spiritual labours of which he was an eye-witness, it would not be wrong. But this is not his intention. He only wishes to gather materials for me. With a good deal of labour, I have collected some sweet fragments, on different subjects, from little pocket-books, but I have handed them to Mr. Wesley, who, however, tells me he has done nothing towards the Life, and that he has enough to occupy his time for a year to come. Indeed, he seems to be in doubt whether he will be able to write the Life at all. I hope the accounts I have given him will not be shortened; if they be, I shall repent that I did not print them myself.”
This was written on June 20, 1786, and shows that ten months after Fletcher’s death, Wesley had not even begun Fletcher’s biography. Fourteen weeks afterwards, he made a start. An extract from his journal is worth quoting:—
“1786. September 25. Monday. We took coach” at Bristol, “in the afternoon; and on Tuesday morning reached London. I now applied myself in earnest to the writing of Mr. Fletcher’s Life, having procured the best materials I could. To this I dedicated all the time I could spare till November, from five in the morning till eight at night. These are my studying hours; I cannot write longer in a day without hurting my eyes.”
For little more than a month the venerable biographer, now in the eighty-fourth year of his age, devoted all the time he “could spare” in preparing the Life of one whom he pronounced the most “unblameable man, in every respect, that, within four-score years,” he had “found either in Europe or America!” The biography was finished in the month of November, and in December was published with the title “A Short Account of the Life and Death of the Rev. John Fletcher. By the Rev. John Wesley. Sequor, non passibus æquis. London, 1786.” It certainly was a “Short Account,”—a 12mo volume of 227 pages, which would have been much smaller if the type and the space between the lines had been different. This was the first Life of Wesley’s greatest friend, and his “Designated Successor“! The veteran was far too busy to do justice to his great “helper.”
Eighteen years elapsed before another and larger Life was given to the public. This was undertaken in 1801 by the Rev. Joseph Benson, at the request of Fletcher’s widow, and of the Methodist Conference of that year. In 1804 it was published with the following title:—“The Life of the Rev. John W. de la Flechere, compiled from the Narratives of the Reverend Mr. Wesley; the Biographical Notes of the Reverend Mr. Gilpin; from his own Letters; and other Authentic Documents, many of which were never before published. By Joseph Benson.” This is the only Life of Fletcher which, in a separate form, has been circulated during the last seventy-eight years.
Of course, during this long period of nearly fourscore years, many new facts and incidents concerning Fletcher have come to light; and, among these new biographical materials, special mention must be made of the Fletcher MSS. deposited in the Wesleyan Mission House, London, in 1862. Since then, the Methodist “Committee on Book Affairs” has repeatedly expressed the opinion that a new Life of Fletcher ought to be prepared, and, at least, two of the foremost men in Methodism have been requested to undertake the work. One of the two is dead, and the other seems to have as much literary labour in hand as he is able to accomplish. Under such circumstances, I have had the temerity to attempt the task.
I have carefully used all the biographical matter that I have found in the “Short Account” by Wesley; in the Letters published by Melville Horne; in Gilpin’s “Notes;” in the Life by Benson; in the Fletcher MSS., just mentioned; in other MSS. belonging to myself; in MSS. kindly lent to me; and in all the Methodist and other publications relating to Fletcher with which I am acquainted.