- 2 pts. 4to, London, 1664; 4th edit., 2 pts. 4to, London, 1667).
- ‘The Yorkshire Spaw, or a Treatise of four famous Medicinal Wells, viz. the Spaw, or Vitrioline-Well; the Stinking, or Sulphur-Well; the Dropping, or Petrifying-Well; and St. Mugnus-Well, near Knaresborow in Yorkshire. Together with the causes, vertues, and use thereof,’ 8vo, London, 1652 (another edit., 8vo, London, 1654).
In 1760 J. Wood of Bradford had received such benefit by using the waters according to the rules laid down in this treatise that he judged fit to republish it as ‘A Pocket Companion for Harrogate Spaw,’ 12mo, Halifax, 1760, ‘that it might be of use to others.’ French may be the ‘J. F.’ who edited, with a preface, ‘The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus in xvii. Books. Translated … out of the Original into English by that learned divine Doctor Everard,’ 12mo, London, 1650 (another edit., 12mo, London, 1657). He also translated ‘The New Light of Alchymy, and a Treatise of Sulphur, by Michael Sandevogius, with Nine Books of Paracelsus of the Nature of Things; with a Chymical Dictionary explaining hard Places and Words, met withal in the Writings of Paracelsus,’ 4to, London, 1650; from J. R. Glauber, ‘A Description of New Philosophical Furnaces, or A New Art of Distilling, divided into five parts. Whereunto is added a Description of the Tincture of Gold, or the true Aurum Potabile; also the First Part of the Mineral Work … Set forth in English by J. F. D.M.,’ 5 pts. 4to, London, 1651–2; from H. C. Agrippa, ‘Three Books of Occult Philosophy … Translated … by J. F.,’ 4to, London, 1651.
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 106, 115; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
FRENCH, NICHOLAS (1604–1678), bishop of Ferns, born in 1604 in the town of Wexford, was educated for the priesthood in the Irish secular college at Louvain, and constituted president of the college. In the reign of Charles I he returned to Ireland, and was appointed parish priest of his native town. He sat as a burgess for Wexford in the general assembly of the confederate catholics at Kilkenny. During the rebellion he was ‘a violent enemy to the king's authority, and a fatal instrument in contriving and fomenting all the divisions which had distracted and rent the kingdom asunder’ (Ware, Writers of Ireland, ed. Harris, p. 166). He took an active share in the deliberations of the first supreme council of the confederates, and was a bitter opponent of the Marquis of Ormonde. He was consecrated to the see of Ferns in or before 1646, in which year he signed a document of the confederate catholics as ‘Bishop of Ferns’ (Brady, Episcopal Succession, i. 377). In 1646 he also became chancellor and chairman of the congregation of the catholic clergy convened at Waterford by the papal nuncio, Rinuccini, and he soon became one of the leaders in the new confederate council which the nuncio had formed. In 1647 he and Nicholas Plunket were sent to Rome to solicit the assistance of Innocent X, but the mission ended in complete failure.
On French's return to Ireland in 1648 the supreme council had just concluded a treaty of peace with Inchiquin. The confederates had by this time been brought to the very brink of ruin, and, while Rinuccini was fulminating excommunications against the council, the council and a great majority of the representatives openly defied him. French deemed it prudent to agree to the peace of 1648, although it had been disapproved by the nuncio, and he induced many to accept it. Subsequently he changed his mind, and in 1650 he attended the ecclesiastic assembly held at Jamestown, and signed the famous declaration condemning the proceedings of Ormonde. In 1651 he was sent to Brussels to obtain the assistance of the Duke of Lorraine, and he offered to constitute that prince the lord protector of Ireland; but the negotiations were broken off in 1652. At Paris he attempted to wait on Charles II, who refused to see him.
From France he went to Spain, and officiated as coadjutor to the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostella in Galicia till 1666, when he removed to San Sebastian with the intention of proceeding to Ireland, as Father Peter Walsh had procured from the Duke of Ormonde a license for his return. But French was unwilling to accept this favour unless he could win the good opinion of the duke, to whom he wrote a long letter justifying the actions of the assembly at Jamestown. This conduct so incensed the duke that he countermanded his license, and ordered Peter Walsh to notify its revocation to his friend. French proceeded to France, and it was probably at this period that he became coadjutor to the Archbishop of Paris. He next went to Flanders, where, through the good offices of the internuncio, Airoldi, he thoroughly reconciled himself to the court of Rome, which till then was displeased with him because he had promoted the peace of 1648, although soon afterwards he was one of the chief infringers of it. Soon afterwards he became coadjutor to D. Eugene Albert Dallamont, bishop of Ghent, in which city he
