an English mathematician. He married early. His wife, like his parents, discouraged the pursuit of learning as an unprofitable thing. Turning his attention to botany, Fletcher studied the properties rather than the classification of plants; increased his income by the sale of herbal decoctions, and was known to his neighbours as ‘Doctor Fletcher.’ He also studied judicial astrology, and cast his own nativity, which Hutchinson found in one of his books. ‘This gives,’ says another astrologer, ‘seventy-eight years and fifty-five days’ duration of life.
