men. In 1857, at the request of some gentlemen of influence, he undertook an inquiry into educational work throughout Great Britain and Ireland, the results of which were published in a large volume entitled ‘The State of our Educational Enterprises,’ embodying important suggestions for educational legislation, which were brought by an influential deputation before the lord advocate, and several of which were made use of in the Education Bill for Scotland. In 1872, as a recognition of his scientific work, the university of Glasgow conferred on him the degree of LL.D. For nearly thirty years he laboured unweariedly on behalf of a literary association and a natural science association in Paisley. In 1850 he instituted a special class for boys who had attended the Sunday-school, in order to give them higher instruction; this class developed into the Paisley Young Men's Bible Institute, which he met with on Sunday evenings without intermission for many years. Some of his prelections were published in a volume called ‘Blending Lights, or the Relations of Natural Science, Archæology, and History to the Bible.’ In 1857 he took on himself the resuscitation of the Paisley Philosophical Society, and besides rendering many other services made valuable collections which became the basis of a free museum in connection with a free library. Having proposed that a free library should be formed for Paisley, and this project being approved of, he was able to intimate on behalf of a wealthy citizen, Sir Peter Coats, a gift of site and buildings both for museum and library. Another of his undertakings was to compile a list of about three thousand volumes and raise a sum of 1,000l. in order to furnish a reference library as an addition to the free lending library. Fraser was twice a member of the Paisley school board. His services obtained more than one public recognition. In 1873, in acknowledgment of his long services as president of the Philosophical Society, he was presented with a microscope and a purse of sovereigns; in April 1879, on the part of the museum and library, with his portrait; and in August 1879, on the part of the community, with a cheque for two thousand guineas. He was highly respected in Paisley. He died 21 Sept. 1879.
[North British Daily Mail, Glasgow News, Paisley Daily Express, all of 22 Sept. 1879; Glasgow Herald, 29 Sept.; Renfrewshire Gazette, April 1879; Free Church of Scotland Monthly Record, January 1880.]
FRAUNCE, ABRAHAM (fl. 1587–1633), poet, was a native of Shropshire, and is said by Oldys to have been educated at Shrewsbury School, but his name not to be found in the register. Sir Philip Sidney, according to the same authority, interested himself in his education, and sent him to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he became a pensioner 20 May 1575, a Lady Margaret scholar 8 Nov. 1578, and a fellow in 1580. He proceeded B.A. in 1579–80 and M.A. in 1583, and in 1580 acted in Dr. Legge's play, ‘Richardus Tertius,’ which was produced at the college. Having been called to the bar at Gray's Inn, he practised in the court of the marches of Wales. So long as Sidney lived he seems to have favoured Fraunce, and when Sidney died in 1586, Sidney's sister Mary, countess of Pembroke, took him under her patronage. To her he dedicated nearly all his works, one of which he called ‘The Countess of Pembroke's Ivychurch,’ from the name of one of his patroness's residences, and another ‘The Countess of Pembroke's Emanuel.’ Her husband Henry, earl of Pembroke, president of the council of Wales, who also treated the poet with unvarying kindness, recommended him to Lord Burghley in 1590 for the office of queen's solicitor in the court of the marches. He seems to have been an officer of that court as late as 1633, when he celebrated in verse the marriage of Lady Margaret Egerton with Sir Gervase Cutler. The lay was daughter of John Egerton, first earl of Bridgewater [q. v.], who was appointed president of the council of Wales in 1631. Fraunce claims to have paid poetical honours to all the earl's daughters.
Fraunce proved himself one of the most obstinate champions of the school which sought to naturalise classical metres in English verse. All his poems are in hexameters, and all are awkward and unreadable. Yet Fraunce gained the highest commendation from his contemporaries. As the protégé of Sir Philip Sidney, he was introduced at an early age into Sidney's circle of literary friends, which included Spenser, Sir Edward Dyer, and Gabriel Harvey. With Spenser he was very intimate, and he was able to quote, in his ‘Arcadian Rhetorike,’ 1588, the ‘Faerie Queene’ before its publication. Spenser refers to him in ‘Colin Clout's come home again’ (1595) as ‘Corydon, … hablest wit of most I know this day,’ a reference to Fraunce's translation from Virgil of Corydon's lamentation for Alexis. Thomas Watson was his closest literary associate. Both translated separately Tasso's ‘Aminta,’ and Fraunce translated Watson's Latin poem ‘Amintas.’ Nashe, in his epistle prefixed to Greene's ‘Arcadia,’ or ‘Menaphon’ (1589), writes of ‘the excellent translation of Master Thomas Watson's sugared “Amintas”’ by ‘sweet Master France.’ Fraunce is apparently
