minutes, 31 Dec. 1606: 'Letters to be obtained from K. James to the king of Cambaya, gouernors of Aden, etc. . . . their titles to be inquired of Ralph Fitch' (Sainsbury, State Papers, No. 36). This is the latest mention of Fitch known to us.
In 1606 was produced Shakespeare's 'Macbeth;' there we read (act i. 3) 'Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master of the Tiger.' This line, when compared with the opening passage of Fitch's narrative, is too striking to be regarded as a mere coincidence, and is also one of the clearest pieces of evidence known to us of Shakespeare's use of the text of Hakluyt.
[Chesney's Survey of the Euphrates and Tigris, 1850; Cunningham's India; Archæological Survey Reports, vol. xv., Calcutta, 1882; Hakluyt's Navigations, 1599, vol. ii.; Linschoten's Voyages, London, 1598; Stevens and Birdwood's Court Records of the East India Company, 1599-1603, London, 1886; Sainsbury's State Papers, East Indies, &c., 1513-1616, London, 1862.]
FITCH, THOMAS (d. 1517). [See Fich.]
FITCH, WILLIAM (1563-1611). [See Canfield, Benedict.]
FITCH, WILLIAM STEVENSON (1793–1859), antiquary, born in 1793, was for more than twenty-one years postmaster of Ipswich, but devoted his leisure to studying the antiquities of Suffolk. He made full collections for a history of that county. Most of them appear to have been dispersed by auction after his death, though the West Suffolk Archaeological Association, of which he was a founder, purchased the drawings and engravings, arranged in more than thirty quarto volumes, and they were deposited in the museum of the society at Bury St. Edmunds. Fitch published: 1. 'A Catalogue of Suffolk Memorial Registers, Royal Grants,' &c. (in his possession), Great Yarmouth, 1843, 8vo. 2. 'Ipswich and its Early Mints' (Ipswich), 1848, 4to. He contributed notices of coins and antiquities found in Suffolk to the 'Journal of the British Archaeological Association' (vols. i. ii. iii. xxi.), and contributed to the 'Proceedings of the East Suffolk Archaeological Society.' Fitch died 17 July 1859, leaving a widow, a daughter, and two sons.
[C. R. Smith's Collect. Antiqua, vi. 323-4; C. R. Smith's Retrospections, i. 245-8; Gent. Mag. 1859, 3rd ser. vii. 202; Index to Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. vols. i-xxx.]
FITCHETT, JOHN (1776–1838), poet, the son of a wine merchant at Liverpool, was born on 21 Sept. 1776, and having lost his parents before he attained the age of ten, was removed to Warrington by his testamentary guardian, Mr. Kerfoot, and placed at the Warrington grammar school under the Rev. Edward Owen. In 1793 he was articled to his guardian, and in due time, having been admitted an attorney, was taken into partnership with him, subsequently attaining a high place in his profession. His first published work, 'Bewsey, a Poem' (Warrington, 1796, 4to), written at the age of eighteen, had considerable success. He afterwards wrote many fugitive pieces, which were collected and printed at Warrington in 1836, under the title of 'Minor Poems, composed at various Times' (8vo, pp. ii, 416). The great work of his life was one which occupied his leisure hours for forty years, and in the composition of which he bestowed unwearied industry and acute research. It was printed at Warrington for private circulation at intervals between 1808 and 1834, in five quarto volumes. It was cast in the form of a romantic epic poem, the subject being the life and times of King Alfred, including, in addition to a biography of Alfred, an epitome of the antiquities, topography, religion, and civil and religious condition of the country. He rewrote part of the work, but did not live to finish it. He left money for printing a new edition, and the work of supervising it was undertaken by his pupil, clerk, and friend, Robert Roscoe [q. v.] (son of William Roscoe of Liverpool), who completed the task by adding 2,585 lines, the entire work containing more than 131,000 lines, and forming probably the longest poem in any language. This prodigious monument of misapplied learning and mental energy was published by Pickering in 1841-2, in six volumes, 8vo, with the title of 'King Alfred, a Poem.'
Fitchett died unmarried at Warrington on 20 Oct. 1838, and was buried at Winwick Church. His large and choice library was left to his nephew, John Fitchett Marsh, and was sold, with that gentleman's augmentations, at Sotheby's rooms in May 1882.
[Marsh's Lit. Hist. of Warrington in Warrington Mechanics' Inst. Lectures (1859), p. 85; Palatine Note-book, ii. 168, 175; Kendrick's Profiles of Warrington Worthies; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. x. 215,334; Manchester City News Notes and Queries, iii. 89, 98; Lanc. and Cheshire Hist. and Geneal. Notes, iii. 35, 55.]
FITTLER, JAMES (1758–1835), engraver, was born in London in 1758, and became a student at the Royal Academy in 1778. Besides book illustrations, he distinguished himself by numerous works after English and foreign masters, chiefly portraits. He engraved also landscapes, marine subjects,
