which it was placed was close to the quarters of the Royal Society, and either it or the house next to it was eventually taken by that society for an enlargement of its own library. Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, second secretary to the society, was a persistent enemy of the circulating library till his death in 1752. At some period later than 1755 Fancourt left Crane Court, and, after several changes, moved his library to ‘the corner of one of the streets in the Strand,’ where his various schemes finally broke down. The library was taken by his creditors, and he retired to Hoxton Square, where he was supported by some of the dissenting ministers, till he died at the age of ninety, on 8 June 1768. In the Crane Court library catalogue he offered for twelve guineas to teach ‘any one of a common capacity and diligence’ to read, write, and speak Latin with fluency in a year, by giving them five or six hours' tuition a week.
The following is a list of Fancourt's various writings, which are all, except the ninth, enumerated with long titles and extracts in the Crane Court Catalogue (vol. i. pamphlets, pp. 11, 24, 27, 166–70): 1. ‘Sermon at the Funeral of Mr. John Terry,’ 1720. 2. ‘Essay concerning Certainty and Infallibility, or Reflections on “The Nature and Consequences of Enthusiasm,”’ 1720. 3. ‘Enthusiasm Retorted, or Remarks on Mr. Morgan's Second Letter to the Four London Ministers,’ 1722. 4. ‘Greatness of the Divine Love,’ a sermon. 5. ‘Greatness of the Divine Love Vindicated,’ 2nd edit. 1727. 6. ‘Appendix to the “Greatness &c., Vindicated,”’ 1729. 7. ‘Essay concerning Liberty, Grace, and Prescience,’ 1729. 8. ‘Apology, or Letter to a Friend setting forth the occasion, &c., of the Present Controversy’ (between Fancourt and Messrs. Bliss and Norman), 2nd edit. 1730. 9. ‘What will be must be, or Future contingencies no contingencies, in a Letter to the Rev. John Norman,’ Salisbury, 1730. 10. ‘Appendix to a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Norman,’ 3rd edit. 1732. 11. ‘Greatness of the Divine Love further Vindicated in Reply to Mr. Millar's “Principles of the Reformed Churches,”’ 1732. 12. ‘Free Agency of Accountable Creatures,’ 1733. 13. ‘Nature and Expediency of the Gospel Revelation and of a Public Ministry,’ a sermon with appendices, 1733. 14. ‘Union and Zeal among Protestants,’ 2nd edit. 1745. 15. ‘Seasonable Discourse on a Slavish Fear of Man and a Holy Trust in God, suited to the Alarms and Danger of the Present Time.’ 16. ‘Nature and Advantage of a Good Education, a Sermon preached in St. Thomas's, for the benefit of the Charity School in Gravel Lane, Southwark,’ 1746.
[Gent. Mag. vol. liv. pt. i. pp. 273, 274, ii. 863, iv. 396; Calamy's Life, ii. 428; the date ‘New Sarum, March 10, 1730,’ at the end of the preface to What will be must be; the Crane Court Catalogue, i. 1, 2, 43, 44; manuscript note of the payment of 1l. 1s. for a share in ‘the circulating library in Crane Court’ in August 1755. and 2s. 6d. ‘for quarteridge to January 1756,’ written on the fly-leaf of vol. ii. of the London Library copy of the Catalogue; Ann. Reg. vol. xi. pt. i. p. 134; Bodleian Library Cat. of Printed Books.]
FANE, Sir FRANCIS (d. 1689?), dramatist, was the eldest son of Sir Francis Fane, K.B., F.R.S., of Fulbeck, Lincolnshire, and Aston, Yorkshire, third, but second surviving, son of Francis Fane, first earl of Westmorland [see under Fane, Sir Thomas], by Elizabeth, widow of John, lord Darcy, and eldest daughter of William West of Firbeck, Yorkshire. Sir Francis Fane the elder died in 1681, and was buried in the chancel of Aston Church, together with his wife, who had died before him (will registered in P. C. C. 91, North). His son was created a K.B. at the coronation of Charles II (Le Neve, Pedigrees of the Knights, Harl. Soc. p. 7).
During the latter part of his life he resided on his estate at Henbury, Gloucestershire, where he died (Probate Act Book, P. C. C., 1691). He married Hannah, daughter of John Rushworth [q. v.], by whom he left issue. In his will (P. C. C. 137, Vere), dated 14 Nov. 1689, and proved 15 Sept. 1691, he requests his wife, whom he appoints sole executrix, ‘to pay ffourty pounds to the poore of the parish of Olveston, in the county of Gloucester, being in full and more of the ffines at any time leavied by me on the Quakers without a full deduccōn of charges in leavying them, the Informers parte not defraying the Charges.’ He is the author of: 1. ‘Love in the Dark; or the Man of Business. A Comedy’ (in five acts, in prose and verse), acted at the Theatre Royal, 4to, London, 1675 (Genest, Hist. of the Stage, i. 173–4). In dedicating the play to the Earl of Rochester, Fane observes: ‘I never return from your lordship's most charming and instructive conversation, but I am inspir'd with a new genius and improv'd in all those sciences I ever coveted the knowledge of: I find my self not only a better poet, a better philosopher, but, much more than these, a better Christian, so that, I hope, I shall be oblig'd to your lordship, not only for my reputation in this world, but my future happiness in the next.’ 2. A Masque, written at Rochester's request for his alteration of Beaumont and Fletcher's ‘Valentinian,’ and printed in Tate's ‘Poems by several Hands,’ 8vo, London, 1685
