"----a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives."
John Fletcher was a Swiss by birth and education. His name was properly Jean Guillaume de la Fléchère. The origin of the anglicized form that he afterwards adopted is thus explained by himself: "Soon after I came to England my English friends, complaining of the length of my Swiss name, began to contract it by dropping the French syllables of it. So they called me Fletcher, and by that name I have been known among the English ever since." He came of an old and respectable family, not without distinguished connexions. His father had, in early life, held a commission in the French army, but, retiring from the service in order to marry, had returned to his native country, where he became a colonel in the militia, and _Assesseur Baillival_, or assistant judge, of Nyon. Here he resided in a fine old house in the outskirts of the town, not rich, but possessing a modest fortune and considerable local influence; and here John Fletcher, the youngest of eight children, was born on September 12th, 1729.
Nyon is an old town dating from Roman times. It is about fifteen miles from Geneva, on the northern shore of the lake, picturesquely placed at the water's edge, with the Jura Mountains rising in the distance behind, and the mountains of Savoy magnificently visible across the lake in front. The passion for Swiss scenery had not then become common and conventional. Some fifty years later Gibbon mentions it as of recent origin, counting it "a misfortune rather than a merit that the situation and beauty of the Pays de Vaud ... and the fashion of viewing the mountains and glaciers have opened us on all sides to the incursions of foreigners." Fletcher was not before his time with regard to this most modern of sentiments or susceptibilities. There is little trace of impressions made on him either by the grandeur or the loveliness of his native scenery. In a letter written when, at fifty years of age, he was revisiting Nyon, he invites a friend to come to "this delightful country, and share a pleasant apartment, and one of the finest prospects in the world in the house where I was born.... We have a fine, shady wood near the lake, where I can ride in the cool all the day, and enjoy the singing of a multitude of birds." And then he adds, "But this, though sweet, does not come up to the singing of my dear friends in England."