the insects in blighted leaves come there in
electric currents, and that electricity is the
cause of acute rheumatism. This essay with
two others was republished in 1752 as 'A
Treatise on the Nature and Property of Fire.'
Fielding seems to have known Freke, and
twice mentions him, once with his full name,
in 'Tom Jones.' ' We wish Mr. John Fr—
or some other such philosopher would bestir
himself a little in order to find out the real
cause of this sudden transition from good to
bad fortune' (Tom Jones, 1st ed. i. 74), and
in the fourth book, where the contagious effect
of the blows of Black George's switch is described,'
to say the truth, as they both operate by
friction, it may be doubted whether
there is not something analogous between
them of which Mr. Freke would do well to
enquire before he publishes the next edition
of his book.' In 1748 Freko published 'An
Essay on the Art of Healing, in which pus
laudabile, or matter, and also incarning and
cicatrising, and the causes of various diseases
are endeavoured to be accounted for both
from nature and reason.' He had accurately
observed the difficulty of extirpating all
infected lymphatics in operations for cancer of
the breast and the danger of not removing
them. The most original remark in the book
is his recommendation of early paracentesis
in empyema. His method was to divide the
skin and muscles with a knife, to break through the pleura
with his finger, and to insert a canula in the
wound. He married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of his instructor, Richard Blundell. She died 16 Nov. 1741,
and he obtained formal leave from the governors
of St. Bartholomew's to bury her in the
church of St. Bartholomew-the-Less. When
he resigned the office of surgeon he asked
permission to be buried there when he died,
and dying 7 Nov. 1756 was entombed beside
her under the canopy of a fifteenth-century
tomb, the original owner of which was forgotten.
A contemporary bust of Freke in
the hospital library shows him to have had
large irregular features and a somewhat stern
expression.
[Works; Manuscript Minute Book of St. Bartholomew's Hospital; inscription on tomb in church of St. Bartholomew-the-Less; Wadd's Nugæ Chirurgicæ, 1824; Dr. W.S. Church's Our Hospital Pharmacopœia and Apothecary's Shop; St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, vol. xxii. 1886.]
FREKE, WILLIAM (1662–1744), mystical writer, younger son of Thomas Freke or Freeke, was born at Hannington Hall, Wiltshire, in 1662. His mother was Cicely, daughter of Robert Hussey of Stourpaine, Dorsetshire. He was at school at Somerford (? Somerford Keynes), Wiltshire (Divine Grammar, p. 197), and early in 1677, having attained the age of fourteen, he became a gentleman commoner of Wadham College, Oxford. After two or three years he went to study at the Temple, and was called to the bar, but does not seem to have practised. His life was irregular (Paradise-State, p. 356). He became a reader of ‘Arian books’ (Divine Grammar, p. 206), and imbibed their teaching. But he continued to attend the services of the established church as a silent worshipper, holding schism to be a sin, and believing his conduct to be directed by divine guidance. He studied astrology, but was convinced of its unscientific character. In May 1681, after recovering from the small-pox, he had the first of a series of dreams, which he esteemed to be divine monitions. His first volume of essays (1687), ‘per Gulielmum Liberam Clavem, i.e. FreeK,’ is an attempt to moderate between ‘our present differences in church and state.’ A second volume of essays (1693) is remarkable for its ingenious plan (p. 44 sq.) of a ‘Lapis Errantium; or the Stray-Office: For all manner of things lost, found or mislaid within the weekly bills of mortality of the city of London.’ He gives tables of rates to regulate the reward payable to the finder and the fee to the office for safe custody.
About the beginning of December 1693 he printed an antitrinitarian tract containing a ‘dialogue’ and a ‘confutation.’ This he sent by post to members of both houses of parliament. From the style it was supposed to be the work of a quaker. The commons on 13 Dec. 1693, and the lords on 3 Jan. 1694, voted the pamphlet an infamous libel, and ordered it to be burned by the hangman in Old Palace Yard, Westminster. Freke was arraigned at the king's bench on 12 Feb. by the attorney-general. He pleaded not guilty, and the trial was deferred till the next term. On 19 May he was condemned to pay a fine of 500l., to make a recantation in the four courts of Westminster Hall, and to find security for good behaviour during three years.
In 1703 he describes himself as ‘master in the holy language’ and ‘author of the New Jerusalem,’ a work (printed about 1701) which has not been traced. His ‘Divine Grammar’ and ‘Lingua Tersancta’ have no publisher, and only the author's initials (‘W. F. Esq.’) are given. He expounds his dreams, furnishing classified lists of their topics and interpretations. The ‘Lingua Tersancta’ is in fact a dictionary of dreams, in which the language is often as coarse as the images. In spite of his mysticism, he adheres to his strong conviction of the divine authority
