FIDDES, fid'dez, RICHARD: English clergyman and author; b. at Hunmanby (34 m. e.n.e. of York), Yorkshire, 1671; d. at Putney (7 m. w.s.w. of St. Paul's, London) 1725. He studied at Oxford, first at Corpus Christi College (1687-90), then at University College (B.A., 1691; B.D., 1713; D.D., 1718), took holy orders in 1694, and in 1696 received the rectory of Halsham, in Holderness. On account of a bad throat he got leave of non-residence, and in 1712 settled in London as a man of letters. His principal works are, A Body of Divinity (2 vols., London, 1718-20); Fifty-two practical Discourses (1820); A General Treatise of Morality (1724), in which he attacks Mandeville; and A Life of Cardinal Wolsey (1724), for which, on account of his disparagement of the Reformation, he was accused of popery, particularly by the assailants of Atterbury.