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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 3 - "Fenton, Edward" to "Finistere"
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 3 - "Fenton, Edward" to "Finistere"" ***
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE FERDINAND V.: "He feared that Jiménez and the 267 Great
Captain would become too independent, and watched them in the
interest of the royal authority." 'Jiménez' amended from 'Ximinez'.
ARTICLE FERGUSSON, ROBERT: "Fergusson's poems were collected in the
year before his death." "Fergusson's" amended from "Fergussons'".
ARTICLE FERMENTATION: "For example, some species hydrolyse cane
sugar and maltose, and then carry on fermentation at the expense of
the simple sugars (hexoses) so formed." 'cane' amended from 'came'.
ARTICLE FERREIRA, ANTONIO: "... and though it has since been
handled by poets of renown in many different languages, none has
been able to surpass the old master." 'different' amended from
'differenc'.
ARTICLE FEVER: "The high temperature seems to cause disintegration
of cell protoplasm and increased excretion of nitrogen and of
carbonic acid." 'disintegration' amended from 'distintegration'.
ARTICLE FIBRES: "Transverse section of stem, × 235, showing bast
fibres occupying central zone." 'Transverse' amended from
'tranverse'.
together the unit threads, which are wound together and suitably
twisted (silk; artificial silk)." 'and' amended from 'aud'.
ARTICLE FIBRES: "Aloe and Agave fibres in their softer forms are
also used for plasterers' brushes." "plasterers'" amended from
"plasterers's".
ARTICLE FICHTE, JOHANN GOTTLIEB: "The disasters of Prussia in 1806
drove Fichte from Berlin." 'disasters' amended from 'diasters'.
ARTICLE FICINO, MARSILIO: "Ficino, like nearly all the scholars of
that age in Italy, delighted in country life. 'life' amended from
'lfe'.
ARTICLE FICINO, MARSILIO: "From these it may be gathered that
nearly every living scholar of note was included in the list of his
friends, and that the subjects which interested him were by no
means confined to his Platonic studies. 'studies' amended from
'sudies'.
ARTICLE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD: "The following days were taken
up with tournaments, in which both kings took part, banquets and
other entertainments ..." 'taken' amended from 'take'.
ARTICLE FIFE: "... at Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy there are high
schools and at Anstruther there is the Waid Academy. 'Kirkcaldy'
amended from 'Kirkclady'.
ARTICLE FIJI: "The Fijians combined with this greediness a savage
and merciless nature." 'nature' amended from 'natures'.
ARTICLE FILELFO, FRANCESCO: "Not satisfied with these outlets for
his mental energy, Filelfo went on translating from the Greek, and
prosecuted a paper warfare with his enemies in Florence." 'Not'
amended from 'No'.
ARTICLE FILTER: "... impurities like ferric oxide, alumina, lime,
magnesia and silica having been removed by treatment with
hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids." 'ferric' amended from
'feric'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME X, SLICE III
Fenton, Edward to Finistère
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
FENTON, EDWARD FEUDALISM
FENTON, ELIJAH FEUERBACH, ANSELM
FENTON, SIR GEOFFREY FEUERBACH, LUDWIG ANDREAS
FENTON, LAVINIA FEUERBACH, PAUL JOHANN ANSELM
FENTON FEUILLANTS, CLUB OF THE
FENUGREEK FEUILLET, OCTAVE
FENWICK, SIR JOHN FEUILLETON
FEOFFMENT FEUQUIÈRES, ISAAC MANASSÈS DE PAS
FERDINAND FÉVAL, PAUL HENRI CORENTIN
FERDINAND I. (Roman emperor) FEVER
FERDINAND II. (Roman emperor) FEYDEAU, ERNEST-AIMÉ
FERDINAND III. (Roman emperor) FEZ
FERDINAND I. (emperor of Austria) FEZZAN
FERDINAND I. (king of Naples) FIACRE, SAINT
FERDINAND II. (king of Naples) FIARS PRICES
FERDINAND IV. (king of Naples) FIBRES
FERDINAND I. (king of Portugal) FIBRIN
FERDINAND I. (king of Castile) FICHTE, IMMANUEL HERMANN VON
FERDINAND II. (king of Leon) FICHTE, JOHANN GOTTLIEB
FERDINAND III. (king of Castile) FICHTELGEBIRGE
FERDINAND IV. (king of Castile) FICINO, MARSILIO
FERDINAND I. (king of Aragon) FICKSBURG
FERDINAND V. (of Castile & Leon) FICTIONS
FERDINAND VI. (king of Spain) FIDDES, RICHARD
FERDINAND VII. (king of Spain) FIDDLE
FERDINAND II. (king of Sicily) FIDENAE
FERDINAND III. (duke of Tuscany) FIDUCIARY
FERDINAND, MAXIMILIAN MARIA FIEF
FERDINAND (duke of Brunswick) FIELD, CYRUS WEST
FERDINAND (archbishop of Cologne) FIELD, DAVID DUDLEY
FERENTINO FIELD, EUGENE
FERENTUM FIELD, FREDERICK
FERETORY FIELD, HENRY MARTYN
FERGHANA FIELD, JOHN
FERGUS FALLS FIELD, MARSHALL
FERGUSON, ADAM FIELD, NATHAN
FERGUSON, JAMES FIELD, STEPHEN JOHNSON
FERGUSON, ROBERT FIELD, WILLIAM VENTRIS FIELD
FERGUSON, SIR SAMUEL FIELD
FERGUSSON, JAMES FIELDFARE
FERGUSSON, ROBERT FIELDING, ANTHONY VANDYKE COPLEY
FERGUSSON, SIR WILLIAM FIELDING, HENRY
FERINGHI FIELDING, WILLIAM STEVENS
FERISHTA, MAHOMMED KASIM FIELD-MOUSE
FERMANAGH FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD
FERMAT, PIERRE DE FIELDS, JAMES THOMAS
FERMENTATION FIENNES, NATHANIEL
FERMO FIERI FACIAS
FERMOY FIESCHI, GIUSEPPE MARCO
FERN FIESCO, GIOVANNI LUIGI
FERNANDEZ, ALVARO FIESOLE
FERNANDEZ, DIEGO FIFE (county of Scotland)
FERNANDEZ, JOHN FIFE (flute)
FERNANDEZ, JUAN FIFTH MONARCHY MEN
FERNANDEZ, LUCAS FIG
FERNANDINA FIGARO
FERNANDO DE NORONHA FIGEAC
FERNANDO PO FIGUEIRA DA FOZ
FERNEL, JEAN FRANÇOIS FIGUERAS
FERNIE FIGULUS, PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS
FERNOW, KARL LUDWIG FIGURATE NUMBERS
FEROZEPUR FIJI
FEROZESHAH FILANDER
FERRAND, ANTOINE FRANÇOIS CLAUDE FILANGIERI, CARLO
FERRAR, NICHOLAS FILANGIERI, GAETANO
FERRAR, ROBERT FILARIASIS
FERRARA FILDES, SIR LUKE
FERRARA-FLORENCE FILE
FERRARI, GAUDENZIO FILE-FISH
FERRARI, GIUSEPPE FILELFO, FRANCESCO
FERRARI, PAOLO FILEY
FERREIRA, ANTONIO FILIBUSTER
FERREL'S LAW FILICAJA, VINCENZO DA
FERRERS FILIGREE
FERRERS, LAURENCE SHIRLEY FILLAN, SAINT
FERRET FILLET
FERRI, CIRO FILLMORE, MILLARD
FERRI, LUIGI FILMER, SIR RORERT
FERRIER, ARNAUD DU FILMY FERNS
FERRIER, JAMES FREDERICK FILON, PIERRE MARIE AUGUSTIN
FERRIER, PAUL FILOSA
FERRIER, SUSAN EDMONSTONE FILTER
FERROL FIMBRIA, GAIUS FLAVIUS
FERRUCCIO, FRANCESCO FIMBRIATE
FERRULE FINALE
FERRY, JULES FRANÇOIS CAMILLE FINANCE
FERRY FINCH, FINCH-HATTON
FERSEN, FREDRIK AXEL FINCH OF FORDWICH, JOHN FINCH
FERSEN, HANS AXEL FINCH
FESCA, FREDERIC ERNEST FINCHLEY
FESCENNIA FINCK, FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON
FESCENNINE VERSES FINCK, HEINRICH
FESCH, JOSEPH FINCK, HERMANN
FESSA FINDEN, WILLIAM
FESSENDEN, WILLIAM PITT FINDLATER, ANDREW
FESSLER, IGNAZ AURELIUS FINDLAY, SIR GEORGE
FESTA, CONSTANZO FINDLAY, JOHN RITCHIE
FESTINIOG FINDLAY
FESTOON FINE
FESTUS FINE ARTS
FESTUS, SEXTUS POMPEIUS FINGER
FÉTIS, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH FINGER-AND-TOE
FETISHISM FINGER-PRINTS
FETTERCAIRN FINGO
FETTERS AND HANDCUFFS FINIAL
FEU FINIGUERRA, MASO
FEUCHÈRES, SOPHIE FINISHING
FEUCHTERSLEBEN, ERNST FINISTÈRE
FEUD
FENTON, EDWARD (d. 1603), English navigator, son of Henry Fenton and
brother of Sir Geoffrey Fenton (q.v.), was a native of Nottinghamshire.
In 1577 he sailed, in command of the "Gabriel," with Sir Martin
Frobisher's second expedition for the discovery of the north-west
passage, and in the following year he took part as second in command in
Frobisher's third expedition, his ship being the "Judith." He was then
employed in Ireland for a time, but in 1582 he was put in charge of an
expedition which was to sail round the Cape of Good Hope to the Moluccas
and China, his instructions being to obtain any knowledge of the
north-west passage that was possible without hindrance to his trade. On
this unsuccessful voyage he got no farther than Brazil, and throughout
he was engaged in quarrelling with his officers, and especially with his
lieutenant, William Hawkins, the nephew of Sir John Hawkins, whom he had
in irons when he arrived back in the Thames. In 1588 he had command of
the "Mary Rose," one of the ships of the fleet that was formed to oppose
the Armada. He died fifteen years afterwards.
FENTON, ELIJAH (1683-1730), English poet, was born at Shelton near
Newcastle-under-Lyme, of an old Staffordshire family, on the 25th of May
1683. He graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1704, but was
prevented by religious scruples from taking orders. He accompanied the
earl of Orrery to Flanders as private secretary, and on returning to
England became assistant in a school at Headley, Surrey, being soon
afterwards appointed master of the free grammar school at Sevenoaks in
Kent. In 1710 he resigned his appointment in the expectation of a place
from Lord Bolingbroke, but was disappointed. He then became tutor to
Lord Broghill, son of his patron Orrery. Fenton is remembered as the
coadjutor of Alexander Pope in his translation of the _Odyssey_. He was
responsible for the first, fourth, nineteenth and twentieth books, for
which he received £300. He died at East Hampstead, Berkshire, on the
16th of July 1730. He was buried in the parish church, and his epitaph
was written by Pope.
Fenton also published _Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems_ (1707);
_Miscellaneous Poems_ (1717); _Mariamne_, a tragedy (1723); an edition
(1725) of Milton's poems, and one of Waller (1729) with elaborate
notes. See W.W. Lloyd, _Elijah Fenton, his Poetry and Friends_ (1894).
FENTON, SIR GEOFFREY (c. 1539-1608), English writer and politician, was
the son of Henry Fenton, of Nottinghamshire. He was brother of Edward
Fenton the navigator. He is said to have visited Spain and Italy in his
youth; possibly he went to Paris in Sir Thomas Hoby's train in 1566, for
he was living there in 1567, when he wrote _Certaine tragicall
discourses written oute of Frenche and Latin_. This book is a free
translation of François de Belleforest's French rendering of Matteo
Bandello's _Novelle_. Till 1579 Fenton continued his literary labours,
publishing _Monophylo_ in 1572, _Golden epistles gathered out of
Guevarae's workes as other authors_ ... 1575, and various religious
tracts of strong protestant tendencies. In 1579 appeared the _Historie
of Guicciardini, translated out of French by G.F._ and dedicated to
Elizabeth. Through Lord Burghley he obtained, in 1580, the post of
secretary to the new lord deputy of Ireland, Lord Grey de Wilton, and
thus became a fellow worker with the poet, Edmund Spenser. From this
time Fenton abandoned literature and became a faithful if somewhat
unscrupulous servant of the crown. He was a bigoted protestant, longing
to use the rack against "the diabolicall secte of Rome," and even
advocating the assassination of the queen's most dangerous subjects. He
won Elizabeth's confidence, and the hatred of all his fellow-workers, by
keeping her informed of every one's doings in Ireland. In 1587 Sir John
Perrot arrested Fenton, but the queen instantly ordered his release.
Fenton was knighted in 1589, and in 1590-1591 he was in London as
commissioner on the impeachment of Perrot. Full of dislike of the Scots
and of James VI. (which he did not scruple to utter), on the latter's
accession Fenton's post of secretary was in danger, but Burghley exerted
himself in his favour, and in 1604 it was confirmed to him for life,
though he had to share it with Sir Richard Coke. Fenton died in Dublin
on the 19th of October 1608, and was buried in St Patrick's cathedral.
He married in June 1585, Alice, daughter of Dr Robert Weston, formerly
lord chancellor of Ireland, and widow of Dr Hugh Brady, bishop of Meath,
by whom he had two children, a son, Sir William Fenton, and a daughter,
Catherine, who in 1603 married Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Harl. Soc. publications, vol. iv., Visitation of
Nottinghamshire, 1871; Roy. Hist. MSS. Comm. (particularly Hatfield
collection); Calendar of State papers, Ireland (very full), domestic,
Carew papers; Lismore papers, ed. A.B. Grosart (1886-1888); _Certaine
tragicall Discourses_, ed. R.L. Douglas (2 vols., 1898), Tudor
Translation series, vols. xix., xx. (introd.).
FENTON, LAVINIA (1708-1760), English actress, was probably the daughter
of a naval lieutenant named Beswick, but she bore the name of her
mother's husband. Her first appearance was as Monimia in Otway's
_Orphans_, in 1726 at the Haymarket. She then joined the company of
players at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where her success and
beauty made her the toast of the beaux. It was in Gay's _Beggar's
Opera_, as Polly Peachum, that Miss Fenton made her greatest success.
Her pictures were in great demand, verses were written to her and books
published about her, and she was the most talked-of person in London.
Hogarth's picture shows her in one of the scenes, with the duke of
Bolton in a box. After appearing in several comedies, and then in
numerous repetitions of the _Beggar's Opera_, she ran away with her
lover Charles Paulet, 3rd duke of Bolton, a man much older than herself,
who, after the death of his wife in 1751, married her. Their three
children all died young. The duchess survived her husband and died on
the 24th of January 1760.
FENTON, a town of Staffordshire, England, on the North Staffordshire
railway, adjoining the east side of Stoke-on-Trent, in which
parliamentary and municipal borough it is included. Pop. (1891) 16,998;
(1901) 22,742. The manufacture of earthenware common to the district
(the Potteries) employs the bulk of the large industrial population.
FENUGREEK, in botany, _Trigonella Foenum-graecum_ (so called from the
name given to it by the ancients, who used it as fodder for cattle), a
member of a genus of leguminous herbs very similar in habit and in most
of their characters to the species of the genus _Medicago_. The leaves
are formed of three obovate leaflets, the middle one of which is
stalked; the flowers are solitary, or in clusters of two or three, and
have a campanulate, 5-cleft calyx; and the pods are many-seeded,
cylindrical or flattened, and straight or only slightly curved. The
genus is widely diffused over the south of Europe, West and Central
Asia, and the north of Africa, and is represented by several species in
Australia. Fenugreek is indigenous to south-eastern Europe and western
Asia, and is cultivated in the Mediterranean region, parts of central
Europe, and in Morocco, and largely in Egypt and in India. It bears a
sickle-shaped pod, containing from 10 to 20 seeds, from which 6% of a
fetid, fatty and bitter oil can be extracted by ether. In India the
fresh plant is employed as an esculent. The seed is an ingredient in
curry powders, and is used for flavouring cattle foods. It was formerly
much esteemed as a medicine, and is still in repute in veterinary
practice.
FENWICK, SIR JOHN (c. 1645-1697), English conspirator, was the eldest
son of Sir William Fenwick, or Fenwicke, a member of an old
Northumberland family. He entered the army, becoming major-general in
1688, but before this date he had been returned in succession to his
father as one of the members of parliament for Northumberland, which
county he represented from 1677 to 1687. He was a strong partisan of
King James II., and in 1685 was one of the principal supporters of the
act of attainder against the duke of Monmouth; but he remained in
England when William III. ascended the throne three years later. He
began at once to plot against the new king, for which he underwent a
short imprisonment in 1689. Renewing his plots on his release, he
publicly insulted Queen Mary in 1691, and it is practically certain that
he was implicated in the schemes for assassinating William which came to
light in 1695 and 1696. After the seizure of his fellow-conspirators,
Robert Charnock and others, he remained in hiding until the imprudent
conduct of his friends in attempting to induce one of the witnesses
against him to leave the country led to his arrest in June in 1696. To
save himself he offered to reveal all he knew about the Jacobite
conspiracies; but his confession was a farce, being confined to charges
against some of the leading Whig noblemen, which were damaging, but not
conclusive. By this time his friends had succeeded in removing one of
the two witnesses, and in these circumstances it was thought that the
charge of treason must fail. The government, however, overcame this
difficulty by introducing a bill of attainder, which after a long and
acrimonious discussion passed through both Houses of Parliament. His
wife persevered in her attempts to save his life, but her efforts were
fruitless, and Fenwick was beheaded in London on the 28th of January
1697, with the same formalities as were usually observed at the
execution of a peer. By his wife, Mary (d. 1708), daughter of Charles
Howard, 1st earl of Carlisle, he had three sons and one daughter.
Macaulay says that "of all the Jacobites, the most desperate characters
not excepted, he (Fenwick) was the only one for whom William felt an
intense personal aversion"; and it is interesting to note that Fenwick's
hatred of the king is said to date from the time when he was serving in
Holland, and was reprimanded by William, then prince of Orange.
FEOFFMENT, in English law, during the feudal period, the usual method of
granting or conveying a freehold or fee. For the derivation of the word
see FIEF and FEE. The essential elements were _livery of seisin_
(delivery of possession), which consisted in formally giving to the
feoffee on the land a clod or turf, or a growing twig, as a symbol of
the transfer of the land, and words by the feoffor declaratory of his
intent to deliver possession to the feoffee with a "limitation" of the
estate intended to be transferred. This was called livery _in deed_.
Livery _in law_ was made not on but in sight of this land, the feoffor
saying to the feoffee, "I give you that land; enter and take
possession." Livery in law, in order to pass the estate, had to be
perfected by entry by the feoffee during the joint lives of himself and
the feoffor. It was usual to evidence the feoffment by writing in a
charter or deed of feoffment; but writing was not essential until the
Statute of Frauds; now, by the Real Property Act 1845, a conveyance of
real property is void unless evidenced by deed, and thus feoffments
have been rendered unnecessary and superfluous. All corporeal
hereditaments were by that act declared to be _in grant_ as well as
_livery_, i.e. they could be granted by deed without livery. A feoffment
might be a tortious conveyance, _i.e._ if a person attempted to give to
the feoffee a greater estate than he himself had in the land, he
forfeited the estate of which he was seised. (See CONVEYANCING; REAL
PROPERTY.)
FERDINAND (Span. _Fernando_ or _Hernando_; Ital. _Ferdinando_ or
_Ferrante_; in O.H. Ger. _Herinand_, i.e. "brave in the host," from
O.H.G. Heri, "army," A.S. _here_, Mod. Ger. _Heer_, and the Goth,
_nanþjan_, "to dare"), a name borne at various times by many European
sovereigns and princes, the more important of whom are noticed below in
the following order: emperors, kings of Naples, Portugal, Spain
(Castile, Leon and Aragon) and the two Sicilies; then the grand duke of
Tuscany, the prince of Bulgaria, the duke of Brunswick and the elector
of Cologne.
FERDINAND I. (1503-1564), Roman emperor, was born at Alcalá de Henares
on the 10th of March 1503, his father being Philip the Handsome, son of
the emperor Maximilian I., and his mother Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand
and Isabella, king and queen of Castile and Aragon. Philip died in 1506
and Ferdinand, educated in Spain, was regarded with especial favour by
his maternal grandfather who wished to form a Spanish-Italian kingdom
for his namesake. This plan came to nothing, and the same fate attended
a suggestion made after the death of Maximilian in 1519 that Ferdinand,
and not his elder brother Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles V.,
should succeed to the imperial throne. Charles, however, secured the
Empire and the whole of the lands of Maximilian and Ferdinand, while the
younger brother was perforce content with a subordinate position. Yet
some provision must be made for Ferdinand. In April 1521 the emperor
granted to him the archduchies and duchies of upper and lower Austria,
Carinthia, Styria and Carniola, adding soon afterwards the county of
Tirol and the hereditary possessions of the Habsburgs in south-western
Germany. About the same time the archduke was appointed to govern the
duchy of Württemberg, which had come into the possession of Charles V.;
and in May 1521 he was married at Linz to Anna (d. 1547), a daughter of
Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, a union which had been arranged
some years before by the emperor Maximilian. In 1521 also he was made
president of the council of regency (_Reichsregiment_), appointed to
govern Germany during the emperor's absence, and the next five years
were occupied with imperial business, in which he acted as his brother's
representative, and in the government of the Austrian lands.
In Austria and the neighbouring duchies Ferdinand sought at first to
suppress the reformers and their teaching, and this was possibly one
reason why he had some difficulty in quelling risings in the districts
under his rule after the Peasants' War broke out in 1524. But a new
field was soon opened for his ambition. In August 1526 his childless
brother-in-law, Louis II., king of Hungary and Bohemia, was killed at
the battle of Mohacs, and the archduke at once claimed both kingdoms,
both by treaty and by right of his wife. Taking advantage of the
divisions among his opponents, he was chosen king of Bohemia in October
1526, and crowned at Prague in the following February, but in Hungary he
was less successful. John Zapolya, supported by the national party and
soon afterwards by the Turks, offered a sturdy resistance, and although
Ferdinand was chosen king at Pressburg in December 1526, and after
defeating Zapolya at Tokay was crowned at Stuhlweissenburg in November
1527, he was unable to take possession of the kingdom. The Bavarian
Wittelsbachs, incensed at not securing the Bohemian throne, were
secretly intriguing with his foes; the French, after assisting
spasmodically, made a formal alliance with Turkey in 1535; and Zapolya
was a very useful centre round which the enemies of the Habsburgs were
not slow to gather. A truce made in 1533 was soon broken, and the war
dragged on until 1538, when by the treaty of Grosswardein, Hungary was
divided between the claimants. The kingly title was given to Zapolya,
but Ferdinand was to follow him on the throne. Before this, in January
1531, he had been chosen king of the Romans, or German king, at Cologne,
and his coronation took place a few days later at Aix-la-Chapelle. He
had thoroughly earned this honour by his loyalty to his brother, whom he
had represented at several diets. In religious matters the king was now
inclined, probably owing to the Turkish danger, to steer a middle course
between the contending parties, and in 1532 he agreed to the religious
peace of Nuremberg, receiving in return from the Protestants some
assistance for the war against the Turks. In 1534, however, his prestige
suffered a severe rebuff. Philip, landgrave of Hesse, and his associates
had succeeded in conquering Württemberg on behalf of its exiled duke,
Ulrich (q.v.), and, otherwise engaged, neither Charles nor Ferdinand
could send much help to their lieutenants. They were consequently
obliged to consent to the treaty of Cadan, made in June 1534, by which
the German king recognized Ulrich as duke of Württemberg, on condition
that he held his duchy under Austrian suzerainty.
In Hungary the peace of 1538 was not permanent. When Zapolya died in
July 1540 a powerful faction refused to admit the right of Ferdinand to
succeed him, and put forward his young son John Sigismund as a candidate
for the throne. The cause of John Sigismund was espoused by the Turks
and by Ferdinand's other enemies, and, unable to get any serious
assistance from the imperial diet, the king repeatedly sought to make
peace with the sultan, but his envoys were haughtily repulsed. In 1544,
however, a short truce was made. This was followed by others, and in
1547 one was concluded for five years, but only on condition that
Ferdinand paid tribute for the small part of Hungary which remained in
his hands. The struggle was renewed in 1551 and was continued in the
same desultory fashion until 1562, when a truce was made which lasted
during the remainder of Ferdinand's lifetime. During the war of the
league of Schmalkalden in 1546 and 1547 the king had taken the field
primarily to protect Bohemia, and after the conclusion of the war he put
down a rising in this country with some rigour. He appears during these
years to have governed his lands with vigour and success, but in
imperial politics he was merely the representative and spokesman of the
emperor. About 1546, however, he began to take up a more independent
position. Although Charles had crushed the league of Schmalkalden he had
refused to restore Württemberg to Ferdinand; and he gave further offence
by seeking to secure the succession of his son Philip, afterwards king
of Spain, to the imperial throne. Ferdinand naturally objected, but in
1551 his reluctant consent was obtained to the plan that, on the
proposed abdication of Charles, Philip should be chosen king of the
Romans, and should succeed Ferdinand himself as emperor. Subsequent
events caused the scheme to be dropped, but it had a somewhat
unfortunate sequel for Charles, as during the short war between the
emperor and Maurice, elector of Saxony, in 1552 Ferdinand's attitude was
rather that of a spectator and mediator than of a partisan. There seems,
however, to be no truth in the suggestion that he acted treacherously
towards his brother, and was in alliance with his foes. On behalf of
Charles he negotiated the treaty of Passau with Maurice in 1552, and in
1555 after the conduct of imperial business had virtually been made over
to him, and harmony had been restored between the brothers, he was
responsible for the religious peace of Augsburg. Early in 1558 Charles
carried out his intention to abdicate the imperial throne, and on the
24th of March Ferdinand was crowned as his successor at Frankfort. Pope
Paul IV. would not recognize the new emperor, but his successor Pius IV.
did so in 1559 through the mediation of Philip of Spain. The emperor's
short reign was mainly spent in seeking to settle the religious
differences of Germany, and in efforts to prosecute the Turkish war more
vigorously. His hopes at one time centred round the council of Trent
which resumed its sittings in 1562, but he was unable to induce the
Protestants to be represented. Although he held firmly to the Roman
Catholic Church he sought to obtain tangible concessions to her
opponents; but he refused to conciliate the Protestants by abrogating
the clause concerning ecclesiastical reservation in the peace of
Augsburg, and all his efforts to bring about reunion were futile. He did
indeed secure the privilege of communion in both kinds from Pius IV. for
the laity in Bohemia and in various parts of Germany, but the hearty
support which he gave the Jesuits shows that he had no sympathy with
Protestantism, and was only anxious to restore union in the Church. In
November 1562 he obtained the election of his son Maximilian as king of
the Romans, and having arranged a partition of his lands among his three
surviving sons, died in Vienna on the 25th of July 1564. His family had
consisted of six sons and nine daughters.
In spite of constant and harassing engagements Ferdinand was fairly
successful both as king and emperor. He sought to consolidate his
Austrian lands, reformed the monetary system in Germany, and reorganized
the Aulic council (_Reichshofrat_). Less masterful but more popular than
his brother, whose character overshadows his own, he was just and
tolerant, a good Catholic and a conscientious ruler.
See the article on CHARLES V. and the bibliography appended thereto.
Also, A. Ulloa, _Vita del potentissimo e christianissimo imperatore
Ferdinando primo_ (Venice, 1565); S. Schard, _Epitome rerum in variis
orbis partibus a confirmatione Ferdinandi I_. (Basel, 1574); F.B. von
Bucholtz_, Geschichte der Regierung Ferdinands des Ersten_ (Vienna,
1831-1838); K. Oberleitner, _Österreichs Finanzen und Kriegswesen
unter Ferdinand I_. (Vienna, 1859); A. Rezek, _Geschichte der
Regierung Ferdinands I. in Böhmen_ (Prague, 1878); E. Rosenthal, _Die
Behördenorganisation Kaiser Ferdinands I_. (Vienna, 1887); and W.
Bauer, _Die Anfänge Ferdinands I_. (Vienna, 1907).
FERDINAND II. (1578-1637), Roman emperor, was the eldest son of Charles,
archduke of Styria (d. 1590), and his wife Maria, daughter of Albert
IV., duke of Bavaria and a grandson of the emperor Ferdinand I. Born at
Gratz on the 9th of July 1578, he was trained by the Jesuits, finishing
his education at the university of Ingolstadt, and became the pattern
prince of the counter-reformation. In 1596 he undertook the government
of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, and after a visit to Italy began an
organized attack on Protestantism which under his father's rule had made
great progress in these archduchies; and although hampered by the
inroads of the Turks, he showed his indifference to the material welfare
of his dominions by compelling many of his Protestant subjects to choose
between exile and conversion, and by entirely suppressing Protestant
worship. He was not, however, unmindful of the larger interest of his
family, or of the Empire which the Habsburgs regarded as belonging to
them by hereditary right. In 1606 he joined his kinsmen in recognizing
his cousin Matthias as the head of the family in place of the lethargic
Rudolph II.; but he shrank from any proceedings which might lead to the
deposition of the emperor, whom he represented at the diet of Regensburg
in 1608; and his conduct was somewhat ambiguous during the subsequent
quarrel between Rudolph and Matthias.
In the first decade of the 17th century the house of Habsburg seemed
overtaken by senile decay, and the great inheritance of Charles V. and
Ferdinand I. to be threatened with disintegration and collapse. The
reigning emperor, Rudolph II., was inert and childless; his surviving
brothers, the archduke Matthias (afterwards emperor), Maximilian
(1558-1618) and Albert (1559-1621), all men of mature age, were also
without direct heirs; the racial differences among its subjects were
increased by their religious animosities; and it appeared probable that
the numerous enemies of the Habsburgs had only to wait a few years and
then to divide the spoil. In spite of the recent murder of Henry IV. of
France, this issue seemed still more likely when Matthias succeeded
Rudolph as emperor in 1612. The Habsburgs, however, were not indifferent
to the danger, and about 1615 it was agreed that Ferdinand, who already
had two sons by his marriage with his cousin Maria Anna (d. 1616),
daughter of William V., duke of Bavaria, should be the next emperor, and
should succeed Matthias in the elective kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia.
The obstacles which impeded the progress of the scheme were gradually
overcome by the energy of the archduke Maximilian. The elder archdukes
renounced their rights in the succession; the claims of Philip III. and
the Spanish Habsburgs were bought off by a promise of Alsace; and the
emperor consented to his supercession in Hungary and Bohemia. In 1617
Ferdinand, who was just concluding a war with Venice, was chosen king of
Bohemia, and in 1618 king of Hungary; but his election as German king,
or king of the Romans, delayed owing to the anxiety of Melchior Klesl
(q.v.) to conciliate the protestant princes, had not been accomplished
when Matthias died in March 1619. Before this event, however, an
important movement had begun in Bohemia. Having been surprised into
choosing a devoted Roman Catholic as their king, the Bohemian
Protestants suddenly realized that their religious, and possibly their
civil liberties, were seriously menaced, and deeds of aggression on the
part of Ferdinand's representatives showed that this was no idle fear.
Gaining the upper hand they declared Ferdinand deposed, and elected the
elector palatine of the Rhine, Frederick V., in his stead; and the
struggle between the rivals was the beginning of the Thirty Years' War.
At the same time other difficulties confronted Ferdinand, who had not
yet secured the imperial throne. Bethlen Gabor, prince of Transylvania,
invaded Hungary, while the Austrians rose and joined the Bohemians; but
having seen his foes retreat from Vienna, Ferdinand hurried to
Frankfort, where he was chosen emperor on the 28th of August 1619.
To deal with the elector palatine and his allies the new emperor allied
himself with Maximilian I., duke of Bavaria, and the Catholic League,
who drove Frederick from Bohemia in 1620, while Ferdinand's Spanish
allies devastated the Palatinate. Peace having been made with Bethlen
Gabor in December 1621, the first period of the war ended in a
satisfactory fashion for the emperor, and he could turn his attention to
completing the work of crushing the Protestants, which had already begun
in his archduchies and in Bohemia. In 1623 the Protestant clergy were
expelled from Bohemia; in 1624 all worship save that of the Roman
Catholic church was forbidden; and in 1627 an order of banishment
against all Protestants was issued. A new constitution made the kingdom
hereditary in the house of Habsburg, gave larger powers to the
sovereign, and aimed at destroying the nationality of the Bohemians.
Similar measures in Austria led to a fresh rising which was put down by
the aid of the Bavarians in 1627, and Ferdinand could fairly claim that
in his hereditary lands at least he had rendered Protestantism
innocuous.
The renewal of the Thirty Years' War in 1625 was caused mainly by the
emperor's vigorous championship of the cause of the counter-reformation
in northern and north-eastern Germany. Again the imperial forces were
victorious, chiefly owing to the genius of Wallenstein, who raised and
led an army in this service, although the great scheme of securing the
southern coast of the Baltic for the Habsburgs was foiled partly by the
resistance of Stralsund. In March 1629 Ferdinand and his advisers felt
themselves strong enough to take the important step towards which their
policy in the Empire had been steadily tending. Issuing the famous edict
of restitution, the emperor ordered that all lands which had been
secularized since 1552, the date of the peace of Passau, should be
restored to the church, and prompt measures were taken to enforce this
decree. Many and powerful interests were vitally affected by this
proceeding, and the result was the outbreak of the third period of the
war, which was less favourable to the imperial arms than the preceding
ones. This comparative failure was due, in the initial stages of the
campaign, to Ferdinand's weakness in assenting in 1630 to the demand of
Maximilian of Bavaria that Wallenstein should be deprived of his
command, and also to the genius of Gustavus Adolphus; and in its later
stages to his insistence on the second removal of Wallenstein, and to
his complicity in the assassination of the general. This deed was
followed by the peace of Prague, concluded in 1635, primarily with John
George I., elector of Saxony, but soon assented to by other princes; and
this treaty, which made extensive concessions to the Protestants, marks
the definite failure of Ferdinand to crush Protestantism in the Empire,
as he had already done in Austria and Bohemia. It is noteworthy,
however, that the emperor refused to allow the inhabitants of his
hereditary dominions to share in the benefits of the peace. During these
years Ferdinand had also been menaced by the secret or open hostility of
France. A dispute over the duchies of Mantua and Monferrato was ended
by the treaty of Cherasco in 1631, but the influence of France was
employed at the imperial diets and elsewhere in thwarting the plans of
Ferdinand and in weakening the power of the Habsburgs. The last
important act of the emperor was to secure the election of his son
Ferdinand as king of the Romans. An attempt in 1630 to attain this end
had failed, but in December 1636 the princes, meeting at Regensburg,
bestowed the coveted dignity upon the younger Ferdinand. A few weeks
afterwards, on the 15th of February 1637, the emperor died at Vienna,
leaving, in addition to the king of the Romans, a son Leopold William
(1614-1662), bishop of Passau and Strassburg. Ferdinand's reign was so
occupied with the Thirty Years' War and the struggle with the
Protestants that he had little time or inclination for other business.
It is interesting to note, however, that this orthodox and Catholic
emperor was constantly at variance with Pope Urban VIII. The quarrel was
due principally, but not entirely, to events in Italy, where the pope
sided with France in the dispute over the succession to Mantua and
Monferrato. The succession question was settled, but the enmity
remained; Urban showing his hostility by preventing the election of the
younger Ferdinand as king of the Romans in 1630, and by turning a deaf
ear to the emperor's repeated requests for assistance to prosecute the
war against the heretics. Ferdinand's character has neither
individuality nor interest, but he ruled the Empire during a critical
and important period. Kind and generous to his dependents, his private
life was simple and blameless, but he was to a great extent under the
influence of his confessors.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The chief authorities for Ferdinand's life and reign
are F.C. Khevenhiller, _Annales Ferdinandei_ (Regensburg, 1640-1646);
F. van Hurter, _Geschichte Kaiser Ferdinands II_. (Schaffhausen,
1850-1855); _Korrespondenz Kaiser Ferdinands II. mit P. Becanus und
P.W. Lamormaini_, edited by B. Dudik (Vienna, 1848 fol.); and F.
Stieve, in the _Allegmeine deutsche Biographie_, Band vi. (Leipzig,
1877). See also the elaborate bibliography in the _Cambridge Modern
History_, vol. iv. (Cambridge, 1906).
FERDINAND III. (1608-1657), Roman emperor, was the elder son of the
emperor Ferdinand II., and was born at Gratz on the 13th of July 1608.
Educated by the Jesuits, he was crowned king of Hungary in December
1625, and king of Bohemia two years later, and soon began to take part
in imperial business. Wallenstein, however, refused to allow him to hold
a command in the imperial army; and henceforward reckoned among his
enemies, the young king was appointed the successor of the famous
general when he was deposed in 1634; and as commander-in-chief of the
imperial troops he was nominally responsible for the capture of
Regensburg and Donauwörth, and the defeat of the Swedes at Nördlingen.
Having been elected king of the Romans, or German king, at Regensburg in
December 1636, Ferdinand became emperor on his father's death in the
following February, and showed himself anxious to put an end to the
Thirty Years' War. He persuaded one or two princes to assent to the
terms of the treaty of Prague; but a general peace was delayed by his
reluctance to grant religious liberty to the Protestants, and by his
anxiety to act in unison with Spain. In 1640 he had refused to entertain
the idea of a general amnesty suggested by the diet at Regensburg; but
negotiations for peace were soon begun, and in 1648 the emperor assented
to the treaty of Westphalia. This event belongs rather to the general
history of Europe, but it is interesting to note that owing to
Ferdinand's insistence the Protestants in his hereditary dominions did
not obtain religious liberty at this settlement. After 1648 the emperor
was engaged in carrying out the terms of the treaty and ridding Germany
of the foreign soldiery. In 1656 he sent an army into Italy to assist
Spain in her struggle with France, and he had just concluded an alliance
with Poland to check the aggressions of Charles X, of Sweden when he
died on the 2nd of April 1657. Ferdinand was a scholarly and cultured
man, an excellent linguist and a composer of music. Industrious and
popular in public life, his private life was blameless; and although a
strong Roman Catholic he was less fanatical than his father. His first
wife was Maria Anna (d. 1646), daughter of Philip III. of Spain, by whom
he had three sons: Ferdinand, who was chosen king of the Romans in
1653, and who died in the following year; Leopold, who succeeded his
father on the imperial throne; and Charles Joseph (d. 1664), bishop of
Passau and Breslau, and grand-master of the Teutonic order. The
emperor's second wife was his cousin Maria (d. 1649), daughter of the
archduke Leopold; and his third wife was Eleanora of Mantua (d. 1686).
His musical works, together with those of the emperors Leopold I. and
Joseph I., have been published by G. Adler (Vienna, 1892-1893).
See M. Koch, _Geschichte des deutschen Reiches unter der Regierung
Ferdinands III_. (Vienna, 1865-1866).
FERDINAND I. (1793-1875), emperor of Austria, eldest son of Francis I.
and of Maria Theresa of Naples, was born at Vienna on the 19th of April
1793. In his boyhood he suffered from epileptic fits, and could
therefore not receive a regular education. As his health improved with
his growth and with travel, he was not set aside from the succession. In
1830 his father caused him to be crowned king of Hungary, a pure
formality, which gave him no power, and was designed to avoid possible
trouble in the future. In 1831 he was married to Anna, daughter of
Victor Emmanuel I. of Sardinia. The marriage was barren. When Francis I.
died on the 2nd of March 1835, Ferdinand was recognized as his
successor. But his incapacity was so notorious that the conduct of
affairs was entrusted to a council of state, consisting of Prince
Metternich (q.v.) with other ministers, and two archdukes, Louis and
Francis Charles. They composed the _Staatsconferenz_, the
ill-constructed and informal regency which led the Austrian dominions to
the revolutionary outbreaks of 1846-1849. (See AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.) The
emperor, who was subject to fits of actual insanity, and in his lucid
intervals was weak and confused in mind, was a political nullity. His
personal amiability earned him the affectionate pity of his subjects,
and he became the hero of popular stories which did not tend to maintain
the dignity of the crown. It was commonly said that having taken refuge
on a rainy day in a farmhouse he was so tempted by the smell of the
dumplings which the farmer and his family were eating for dinner, that
he insisted on having one. His doctor, who knew them to be indigestible,
objected, and thereupon Ferdinand, in an imperial rage, made the
answer:--"Kaiser bin i', und Knüdel müss i' haben" (I am emperor, and
will have the dumpling)--which has become a Viennese proverb. His
popular name of _Der Gütige_ (the good sort of man) expressed as much
derision as affection. Ferdinand had good taste for art and music. Some
modification of the tight-handed rule of his father was made by the
_Staatsconferenz_ during his reign. In the presence of the revolutionary
troubles, which began with agrarian riots in Galicia in 1846, and then
spread over the whole empire, he was personally helpless. He was
compelled to escape from the disorders of Vienna to Innsbruck on the
17th of May 1848. He came back on the invitation of the diet on the 12th
of August, but soon had to escape once more from the mob of students and
workmen who were in possession of the city. On the 2nd of December he
abdicated at Olmütz in favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph. He lived
under supervision by doctors and guardians at Prague till his death on
the 29th of June 1855.
See Krones von Marchland, _Grundriss der österreichischen Geschichte_
(Vienna, 1882), which gives an ample bibliography; Count F. Hartig,
_Genesis der Revolution in Österreich_ (Leipzig, 1850),--an enlarged
English translation will be found in the 4th volume of W. Coxe's
_House of Austria_ (London, 1862).
FERDINAND I. (1423-1494), also called Don Ferrante, king of Naples, the
natural son of Alphonso V. of Aragon and I. of Sicily and Naples, was
horn in 1423. In accordance with his father's will, he succeeded him on
the throne of Naples in 1458, but Pope Calixtus III. declared the line
of Aragon extinct and the kingdom a fief of the church. But although he
died before he could make good his claim (August 1458), and the new Pope
Pius II. recognized Ferdinand, John of Anjou, profiting by the
discontent of the Neapolitan barons, decided to try to regain the throne
conquered by his ancestors, and invaded Naples. Ferdinand was severely
defeated by the Angevins and the rebels at Sarno in July 1460, but with
the help of Alessandro Sforza and of the Albanian chief, Skanderbeg,
who chivalrously came to the aid of the prince whose father had aided
him, he triumphed over his enemies, and by 1464 had re-established his
authority in the kingdom. In 1478 he allied himself with Pope Sixtus IV.
against Lorenzo de' Medici, but the latter journeyed alone to Naples
when he succeeded in negotiating an honourable peace with Ferdinand. In
1480 the Turks captured Otranto, and massacred the majority of the
inhabitants, but in the following year it was retaken by his son
Alphonso, duke of Calabria. His oppressive government led in 1485 to an
attempt at revolt on the part of the nobles, led by Francesca Coppola
and Antonello Sanseverino and supported by Pope Innocent VIII.; the
rising having been crushed, many of the nobles, notwithstanding
Ferdinand's promise of a general amnesty, were afterwards treacherously
murdered at his express command. In 1493 Charles VIII. of France was
preparing to invade Italy for the conquest of Naples, and Ferdinand
realized that this was a greater danger than any he had yet faced. With
almost prophetic instinct he warned the Italian princes of the
calamities in store for them, but his negotiations with Pope Alexander
VI. and Ludovico il Moro, lord of Milan, having failed, he died in
January 1494, worn out with anxiety. Ferdinand was gifted with great
courage and real political ability, but his method of government was
vicious and disastrous. His financial administration was based on
oppressive and dishonest monopolies, and he was mercilessly severe and
utterly treacherous towards his enemies.
AUTHORITIES.--_Codice Aragonese_, edited by F. Trinchera (Naples,
1866-1874); P. Giannone, _Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli_; J.
Alvini, _De gestis regum Neapol. ab Aragonia_ (Naples, 1588); S. de
Sismondi, _Histoire des républiques italiennes_, vols. v. and vi.
(Brussels, 1838); P. Villari, _Machiavelli_, pp. 60-64 (Engl. transl.,
London, 1892); for the revolt of the nobles in 1485 see Camillo
Porzio, _La Congiura dei Baroni_ (first published Rome, 1565; many
subsequent editions), written in the Royalist interest. (L. V.*)
FERDINAND II. (1469-1496), king of Naples, was the grandson of the
preceding, and son of Alphonso II. Alphonso finding his tenure of the
throne uncertain on account of the approaching invasion of Charles VIII.
of France and the general dissatisfaction of his subjects, abdicated in
his son's favour in 1495, but notwithstanding this the treason of a
party in Naples rendered it impossible to defend the city against the
approach of Charles VIII. Ferdinand fled to Ischia; but when the French
king left Naples with most of his army, in consequence of the formation
of an Italian league against him, he returned, defeated the French
garrisons, and the Neapolitans, irritated by the conduct of their
conquerors during the occupation of the city, received him back with
enthusiasm; with the aid of the great Spanish general Gonzalo de Cordova
he was able completely to rid his state of its invaders shortly before
his death, which occurred on the 7th of September 1496.
For authorities see under FERDINAND I. of Naples; for the exploits of
Gonzalo de Cordova see H.P. del Pulgar, _Crónica del gran capitano don
Gonzalo de Cordoba_ (new ed., Madrid, 1834).
FERDINAND IV. (1751-1825), king of Naples (III. of Sicily, and I. of the
Two Sicilies), third son of Don Carlos of Bourbon, king of Naples and
Sicily (afterwards Charles III. of Spain), was born in Naples on the
12th of January 1751. When his father ascended the Spanish throne in
1759 Ferdinand, in accordance with the treaties forbidding the union of
the two crowns, succeeded him as king of Naples, under a regency
presided over by the Tuscan Bernardo Tanucci. The latter, an able,
ambitious man, wishing to keep the government as much as possible in his
own hands, purposely neglected the young king's education, and
encouraged him in his love of pleasure, his idleness and his excessive
devotion to outdoor sports. Ferdinand grew up athletic, but ignorant,
ill-bred, addicted to the lowest amusements; he delighted in the company
of the _lazzaroni_ (the most degraded class of the Neapolitan people),
whose dialect and habits he affected, and he even sold fish in the
market, haggling over the price.
His minority ended in 1767, and his first act was the expulsion of the
Jesuits. The following year he married Maria Carolina, daughter of the
empress Maria Theresa. By the marriage contract the queen was to have a
voice in the council of state after the birth of her first son, and she
was not slow to avail herself of this means of political influence.
Beautiful, clever and proud, like her mother, but cruel and treacherous,
her ambition was to raise the kingdom of Naples to the position of a
great power; she soon came to exercise complete sway over her stupid and
idle husband, and was the real ruler of the kingdom. Tanucci, who
attempted to thwart her, was dismissed in 1777, and the Englishman Sir
John Acton (1736), who in 1779 was appointed director of marine,
succeeded in so completely winning the favour of Maria Carolina, by
supporting her in her scheme to free Naples from Spanish influence and
securing a _rapprochement_ with Austria and England, that he became
practically and afterwards actually prime minister. Although not a mere
grasping adventurer, he was largely responsible for reducing the
internal administration of the country to an abominable system of
espionage, corruption and cruelty. On the outbreak of the French
Revolution the Neapolitan court was not hostile to the movement, and the
queen even sympathized with the revolutionary ideas of the day. But when
the French monarchy was abolished and the royal pair beheaded, Ferdinand
and Carolina were seized with a feeling of fear and horror and joined
the first coalition against France in 1793. Although peace was made with
France in 1796, the demands of the French Directory, whose troops
occupied Rome, alarmed the king once more, and at his wife's instigation
he took advantage of Napoleon's absence in Egypt and of Nelson's
victories to go to war. He marched with his army against the French and
entered Rome (29th of November), but on the defeat of some of his
columns he hurried back to Naples, and on the approach of the French,
fled on board Nelson's ship the "Vanguard" to Sicily, leaving his
capital in a state of anarchy. The French entered the city in spite of
the fierce resistance of the _lazzaroni_, who were devoted to the king,
and with the aid of the nobles and bourgeois established the
Parthenopaean Republic (January 1799). When a few weeks later the French
troops were recalled to the north of Italy, Ferdinand sent an expedition
composed of Calabrians, brigands and gaol-birds, under Cardinal Ruffo, a
man of real ability, great devotion to the king, and by no means so bad
as he has been painted, to reconquer the mainland kingdom. Ruffo was
completely successful, and reached Naples in May. His army and the
_lazzaroni_ committed nameless atrocities, which he honestly tried to
prevent, and the Parthenopaean Republic collapsed.
The savage punishment of the Neapolitan Republicans is dealt with in
more detail under NAPLES, NELSON and CARACCIOLO, but it is necessary to
say here that the king, and above all the queen, were particularly
anxious that no mercy should be shown to the rebels, and Maria Carolina
made use of Lady Hamilton, Nelson's mistress, to induce him to execute
her own spiteful vengeance. Her only excuse is that as a sister of Marie
Antoinette the very name of Republican or Jacobin filled her with
loathing. The king returned to Naples soon afterwards, and ordered
wholesale arrests and executions of supposed Liberals, which continued
until the French successes forced him to agree to a treaty in which
amnesty for members of the French party was included. When war broke out
between France and Austria in 1805, Ferdinand signed a treaty of
neutrality with the former, but a few days later he allied himself with
Austria and allowed an Anglo-Russian force to land at Naples. The French
victory at Austerlitz enabled Napoleon to despatch an army to southern
Italy. Ferdinand with his usual precipitation fled to Palermo (23rd of
January 1806), followed soon after by his wife and son, and on the 14th
of February the French again entered Naples. Napoleon declared that the
Bourbon dynasty had forfeited the crown, and proclaimed his brother
Joseph king of Naples and Sicily. But Ferdinand continued to reign over
the latter kingdom under British protection. Parliamentary institutions
of a feudal type had long existed in the island, and Lord William
Bentinck (q.v.), the British minister, insisted on a reform of the
constitution on English and French lines. The king indeed practically
abdicated his power, appointing his son Francis regent, and the queen,
at Bentinck's instance, was exiled to Austria, where she died in 1814.
After the fall of Napoleon, Joachim Murat, who had succeeded Joseph
Bonaparte as king of Naples in 1808, was dethroned, and Ferdinand
returned to Naples. By a secret treaty he had bound himself not to
advance further in a constitutional direction than Austria should at any
time approve; but, though on the whole he acted in accordance with
Metternich's policy of preserving the _status quo_, and maintained with
but slight change Murat's laws and administrative system, he took
advantage of the situation to abolish the Sicilian constitution, in
violation of his oath, and to proclaim the union of the two states into
the kingdom of the Two Sicilies (December 12th, 1816). He was now
completely subservient to Austria, an Austrian, Count Nugent, being even
made commander-in-chief of the army; and for four years he reigned as a
despot, every tentative effort at the expression of liberal opinion
being ruthlessly suppressed. The result was an alarming spread of the
influence and activity of the secret society of the Carbonari (q.v.),
which in time affected a large part of the army. In July 1820 a military
revolt broke out under General Pepe, and Ferdinand was terrorized into
subscribing a constitution on the model of the impracticable Spanish
constitution of 1812. On the other hand, a revolt in Sicily, in favour
of the recovery of its independence, was suppressed by Neapolitan
troops.
The success of the military revolution at Naples seriously alarmed the
powers of the Holy Alliance, who feared that it might spread to other
Italian states and so lead to that general European conflagration which
it was their main preoccupation to avoid (see EUROPE: _History_). After
long diplomatic negotiations, it was decided to hold a congress _ad hoc_
at Troppau (October 1820). The main results of this congress were the
issue of the famous Troppau Protocol, signed by Austria, Prussia and
Russia only, and an invitation to King Ferdinand to attend the adjourned
congress at Laibach (1821), an invitation of which Great Britain
approved "as implying negotiation" (see TROPPAU, LAIBACH, CONGRESSES
OF). At Laibach Ferdinand played so sorry a part as to provoke the
contempt of those whose policy it was to re-establish him in absolute
power. He had twice sworn, with gratuitous solemnity, to maintain the
new constitution; but he was hardly out of Naples before he repudiated
his oaths and, in letters addressed to all the sovereigns of Europe,
declared his acts to have been null and void. An attitude so indecent
threatened to defeat the very objects of the reactionary powers, and
Gentz congratulated the congress that these sorry protests would be
buried in the archives, offering at the same time to write for the king
a dignified letter in which he should express his reluctance at having
to violate his oaths in the face of irresistible force! But, under these
circumstances, Metternich had no difficulty in persuading the king to
allow an Austrian army to march into Naples "to restore order."
The campaign that followed did little credit either to the Austrians or
the Neapolitans. The latter, commanded by General Pepe (q.v.), who made
no attempt to defend the difficult defiles of the Abruzzi, were
defeated, after a half-hearted struggle at Rieti (March 7th, 1821), and
the Austrians entered Naples. The parliament was now dismissed, and
Ferdinand inaugurated an era of savage persecution, supported by spies
and informers, against the Liberals and Carbonari, the Austrian
commandant in vain protesting against the savagery which his presence
alone rendered possible.
Ferdinand died on the 4th of January 1825. Few sovereigns have left
behind so odious a memory. His whole career is one long record of
perjury, vengeance and meanness, unredeemed by a single generous act,
and his wife was a worthy helpmeet and actively co-operated in his
tyranny.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The standard authority on Ferdinand's reign is Pietro
Colletta's _Storia del Reame di Napoli_ (2nd ed., Florence, 1848),
which, although heavily written and not free from party passion, is
reliable and accurate; L. Conforti, _Napoli nel 1799_ (Naples, 1886);
G. Pepe, _Memorie_ (Paris, 1847), a most valuable book; C. Auriol, _La
France, l'Angleterre, et Naples_ (Paris, 1906); for the Sicilian
period and the British occupation, G. Bianco, _La Sicilia durante
l'occupazione Inglese_ (Palermo, 1902), which contains many new
documents of importance; Freiherr A. von Helfert has attempted the
impossible task of whitewashing Queen Carolina in his _Königin
Karolina von Neapel und Sicilien_ (Vienna, 1878), and _Maria Karolina
von Oesterreich_ (Vienna, 1884); he has also written a useful life of
_Fabrizio Ruffo_ (Italian edit., Florence, 1885); for the Sicilian
revolution of 1820 see G. Bianco's _La Rivoluzione in Sicilia del
1820_ (Florence, 1905), and M. Amari's _Carteggio_ (Turin, 1896).
(L. V.*)
FERDINAND I., king of Portugal (1345-1383), sometimes referred to as _el
Gentil_ (the Gentleman), son of Pedro I. of Portugal (who is not to be
confounded with his Spanish contemporary Pedro the Cruel), succeeded his
father in 1367. On the death of Pedro of Castile in 1369, Ferdinand, as
great-grandson of Sancho IV. by the female line, laid claim to the
vacant throne, for which the kings of Aragon and Navarre, and afterwards
the duke of Lancaster (married in 1370 to Constance, the eldest daughter
of Pedro), also became competitors. Meanwhile Henry of Trastamara, the
brother (illegitimate) and conqueror of Pedro, had assumed the crown and
taken the field. After one or two indecisive campaigns, all parties were
ready to accept the mediation of Pope Gregory XI. The conditions of the
treaty, ratified in 1371, included a marriage between Ferdinand and
Leonora of Castile. But before the union could take place the former had
become passionately attached to Leonora Tellez, the wife of one of his
own courtiers, and having procured a dissolution of her previous
marriage, he lost no time in making her his queen. This strange conduct,
although it raised a serious insurrection in Portugal, did not at once
result in a war with Henry; but the outward concord was soon disturbed
by the intrigues of the duke of Lancaster, who prevailed on Ferdinand to
enter into a secret treaty for the expulsion of Henry from his throne.
The war which followed was unsuccessful; and peace was again made in
1373. On the death of Henry in 1379, the duke of Lancaster once more put
forward his claims, and again found an ally in Portugal; but, according
to the Continental annalists, the English proved as offensive to their
companions in arms as to their enemies in the field; and Ferdinand made
a peace for himself at Badajoz in 1382, it being stipulated that
Beatrix, the heiress of Ferdinand, should marry King John of Castile,
and thus secure the ultimate union of the crowns. Ferdinand left no male
issue when he died on the 22nd of October 1383, and the direct
Burgundian line, which had been in possession of the throne since the
days of Count Henry (about 1112), became extinct. The stipulations of
the treaty of Badajoz were set aside, and John, grand-master of the
order of Aviz, Ferdinand's illegitimate brother, was proclaimed. This
led to a war which lasted for several years.
FERDINAND I., _El Magno_ or "the Great," king of Castile (_d._ 1065),
son of Sancho of Navarre, was put in possession of Castile in 1028, on
the murder of the last count, as the heir of his mother Elvira, daughter
of a previous count of Castile. He reigned with the title of king. He
married Sancha, sister and heiress of Bermudo, king of Leon. In 1038
Bermudo was killed in battle with Ferdinand at Tamaron, and Ferdinand
then took possession of Leon by right of his wife, and was recognized in
Spain as emperor. The use of the title was resented by the emperor Henry
IV. and by Pope Victor II. in 1055, as implying a claim to the headship
of Christendom, and as a usurpation on the Holy Roman Empire. It did
not, however, mean more than that Spain was independent of the Empire,
and that the sovereign of Leon was the chief of the princes of the
peninsula. Although Ferdinand had grown in power by a fratricidal strife
with Bermudo of Leon, and though at a later date he defeated and killed
his brother Garcia of Navarre, he ranks high among the kings of Spain
who have been counted religious. To a large extent he may have owed his
reputation to the victories over the Mahommedans, with which he began
the period of the great reconquest. But there can be no doubt that
Ferdinand was profoundly pious. Towards the close of his reign he sent a
special embassy to Seville to bring back the body of Santa Justa. The
then king of Seville, Motadhid, one of the small princes who had divided
the caliphate of Cordova, was himself a sceptic and poisoner, but he
stood in wholesome awe of the power of the Christian king. He favoured
the embassy in every way, and when the body of Santa Justa could not be
found, helped the envoys who were also aided by a vision seen by one of
them in a dream, to discover the body of Saint Isidore, which was
reverently carried away to Leon. Ferdinand died on the feast of Saint
John the Evangelist, the 24th of June 1065, in Leon, with many
manifestations of ardent piety--having laid aside his crown and royal
mantle, dressed in the frock of a monk and lying on a bier, covered with
ashes, which was placed before the altar of the church of Saint Isidore.
FERDINAND II., king of Leon only (d. 1188), was the son of Alphonso VII.
and of Berenguela, of the house of the counts of Barcelona. On the
division of the kingdoms which had obeyed his father, he received Leon.
His reign of thirty years was one of strife marked by no signal success
or reverse. He had to contend with his unruly nobles, several of whom he
put to death. During the minority of his nephew Alphonso VIII. of
Castile he endeavoured to impose himself on the kingdom as regent. On
the west he was in more or less constant strife with Portugal, which was
in process of becoming an independent kingdom. His relations to the
Portuguese house must have suffered by his repudiation of his wife
Urraca, daughter of Alphonso I. of Portugal. Though he took the king of
Portugal prisoner in 1180, he made no political use of his success. He
extended his dominions southward in Estremadura at the expense of the
Moors. Ferdinand, who died in 1188, left the reputation of a good knight
and hard fighter, but did not display political or organizing faculty.
FERDINAND III., _El Santo_ or "the Saint," king of Castile (1199-1252),
son of Alphonso IX. of Leon, and of Berengaria, daughter of Alphonso
VIII. of Castile, ranks among the greatest of the Spanish kings. The
marriage of his parents, who were second cousins, was dissolved as
unlawful by the pope, but the legitimacy of the children was recognized.
Till 1217 he lived with his father in Leon. In that year the young king
of Castile, Henry, was killed by accident. Berengaria sent for her son
with such speed that her messenger reached Leon before the news of the
death of the king of Castile, and when he came to her she renounced the
crown in his favour. Alphonso of Leon considered himself tricked, and
the young king had to begin his reign by a war against his father and a
faction of the Castilian nobles. His own ability and the remarkable
capacity of his mother proved too much for the king of Leon and his
Castilian allies. Ferdinand, who showed himself docile to the influence
of Berengaria, so long as she lived, married the wife she found for him,
Beatrice, daughter of the emperor Philip (of Hohenstaufen), and followed
her advice both in prosecuting the war against the Moors and in the
steps which she took to secure his peaceful succession to Leon on the
death of his father in 1231. After the union of Castile and Leon in that
year he began the series of campaigns which ended by reducing the
Mahommedan dominions in Spain to Granada. Cordova fell in 1236, and
Seville in 1248. The king of Granada did homage to Ferdinand, and
undertook to attend the cortes when summoned. The king was a severe
persecutor of the Albigenses, and his formal canonization was due as
much to his orthodoxy as to his crusading by Pope Clement X. in 1671. He
revived the university first founded by his grandfather Alphonso VIII.,
and placed it at Salamanca. By his second marriage with Joan (d. 1279),
daughter of Simon, of Dammartin, count of Ponthieu, by right of his wife
Marie, Ferdinand was the father of Eleanor, the wife of Edward I. of
England.
FERDINAND IV., _El Emplazado_ or "the Summoned," king of Castile (_d_.
1312), son of Sancho El Bravo, and his wife Maria de Molina, is a figure
of small note in Spanish history. His strange title is given him in the
chronicles on the strength of a story that he put two brothers of the
name of Carvajal to death tyrannically, and was given a time, a _plazo_,
by them in which to answer for his crime in the next world. But the tale
is not contemporary, and is an obvious copy of the story told of Jacques
de Molay, grand-master of the Temple, and Philippe Le Bel. Ferdinand IV.
succeeded to the throne when a boy of six. His minority was a time of
anarchy. He owed his escape from the violence of competitors and nobles,
partly to the tact and undaunted bravery of his mother Maria de Molina,
and partly to the loyalty of the citizens of Avila, who gave him refuge
within their walls. As a king he proved ungrateful to his mother, and
weak as a ruler. He died suddenly in his tent at Jaen when preparing for
a raid into the Moorish territory of Granada, on the 7th of September
1312.
FERDINAND I., king of Aragon (1373-1416), called "of Antequera," was the
son of John I. of Castile by his wife Eleanor, daughter of the third
marriage of Peter IV. of Aragon. His surname "of Antequera" was given
him because he was besieging that town, then in the hands of the Moors,
when he was told that the cortes of Aragon had elected him king in
succession to his uncle Martin, the last male of the old line of Wilfred
the Hairy. As infante of Castile Ferdinand had played an honourable
part. When his brother Henry III. died at Toledo, in 1406, the cortes
was sitting, and the nobles offered to make him king in preference to
his nephew John. Ferdinand refused to despoil his brother's infant son,
and even if he did not act on the moral ground he alleged, his sagacity
must have shown him that he would be at the mercy of the men who had
chosen him in such circumstances. As co-regent of the kingdom with
Catherine, widow of Henry III. and daughter of John of Gaunt by his
marriage with Constance, daughter of Peter the Cruel and Maria de
Padilla, Ferdinand proved a good ruler. He restrained the follies of his
sister-in-law, and kept the realm quiet, by firm government, and by
prosecuting the war with the Moors. As king of Aragon his short reign of
two years left him little time to make his mark. Having been bred in
Castile, where the royal authority was, at least in theory, absolute, he
showed himself impatient under the checks imposed on him by the
_fueros_, the chartered rights of Aragon and Catalonia. He particularly
resented the obstinacy of the Barcelonese, who compelled the members of
his household to pay municipal taxes. His most signal act as king was to
aid in closing the Great Schism in the Church by agreeing to the
deposition of the antipope Benedict XIV., an Aragonese. He died at
Ygualada in Catalonia on the 2nd of April 1416.
FERDINAND V. of Castile and Leon, and II. of Aragon (1452-1516), was the
son of John I. of Aragon by his second marriage with Joanna Henriquez,
of the family of the hereditary grand admirals of Castile, and was born
at Sos in Aragon on the 16th of March 1452. Under the name of "the
Catholic" and as the husband of Isabella, queen of Castile, he played a
great part in Europe. His share in establishing the royal authority in
all parts of Spain, in expelling the Moors from Granada, in the conquest
of Navarre, in forwarding the voyages of Columbus, and in contending
with France for the supremacy in Italy, is dealt with elsewhere (see
SPAIN: _History_). In personal character he had none of the attractive
qualities of his wife. It may fairly be said of him that he was purely a
politician. His marriage in 1469 to his cousin Isabella of Castile was
dictated by the desire to unite his own claims to the crown, as the head
of the younger branch of the same family, with hers, in case Henry IV.
should die childless. When the king died in 1474 he made an ungenerous
attempt to procure his own proclamation as king without recognition of
the rights of his wife. Isabella asserted her claims firmly, and at all
times insisted on a voice in the government of Castile. But though
Ferdinand had sought a selfish political advantage at his wife's
expense, he was well aware of her ability and high character. Their
married life was dignified and harmonious; for Ferdinand had no common
vices, and their views in government were identical. The king cared for
nothing but dominion and political power. His character explains the
most ungracious acts of his life, such as his breach of his promises to
Columbus, his distrust of Ximenez and of the Great Captain. He had given
wide privileges to Columbus on the supposition that the discoverer would
reach powerful kingdoms. When islands inhabited by feeble savages were
discovered, Ferdinand appreciated the risk that they might become the
seat of a power too strong to be controlled, and took measures to avert
the danger. He feared that Jiménez and the Great Captain would become
too independent, and watched them in the interest of the royal
authority. Whether he ever boasted, as he is said to have boasted, that
he had deceived Louis XII. of France twelve times, is very doubtful; but
it is certain that when Ferdinand made a treaty, or came to an
understanding with any one, the contract was generally found to contain
implied meanings favourable to himself which the other contracting party
had not expected. The worst of his character was prominently shown after
the death of Isabella in 1504. He endeavoured to lay hands on the
regency of Castile in the name of his insane daughter Joanna, and
without regard to the claims of her husband Philip of Habsburg. The
hostility of the Castilian nobles, by whom he was disliked, baffled him
for a time, but on Philip's early death he reasserted his authority. His
second marriage with Germaine of Foix in 1505 was apparently contracted
in the hope that by securing an heir male he might punish his Habsburg
son-in-law. Aragon did not recognize the right of women to reign, and
would have been detached together with Catalonia, Valencia and the
Italian states if he had had a son. This was the only occasion on which
Ferdinand allowed passion to obscure his political sense, and lead him
into acts which tended to undo his work of national unification. As king
of Aragon he abstained from inroads on the liberties of his subjects
which might have provoked rebellion. A few acts of illegal violence are
recorded of him--as when he invited a notorious demagogue of Saragossa
to visit him in the palace, and caused the man to be executed without
form of trial. Once when presiding over the Aragonese cortes he found
himself sitting in a thorough draught and ordered the window to be shut,
adding in a lower voice, "If it is not against the _fueros_." But his
ill-will did not go beyond such sneers. He was too intent on building up
a great state to complicate his difficulties by internal troubles. His
arrangement of the convention of Guadalupe, which ended the fierce
Agrarian conflicts of Catalonia, was wise and profitable to the country,
though it was probably dictated mainly by a wish to weaken the
landowners by taking away their feudal rights. Ferdinand died at
Madrigalejo in Estremadura on the 23rd of February 1516.
The lives of the kings of this name before Ferdinand V. are contained
in the chronicles, and in the _Anales de Aragon_ of Zurita, and the
History of Spain by Mariana. Both deal at length with the life of
Ferdinand V. Prescott's _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella_, in any of its numerous editions, gives a full life of him
with copious references to authorities.
FERDINAND VI., king of Spain (1713-1759), second son of Philip V.,
founder of the Bourbon dynasty, by his first marriage with Maria Louisa
of Savoy, was born at Madrid on the 23rd of September 1713. His youth
was depressed. His father's second wife, Elizabeth Farnese, was a
managing woman, who had no affection except for her own children, and
who looked upon her stepson as an obstacle to their fortunes. The
hypochondria of his father left Elizabeth mistress of the palace.
Ferdinand was married in 1729 to Maria Magdalena Barbara, daughter of
John V. of Portugal. The very homely looks of his wife were thought by
observers to cause the prince a visible shock when he was first
presented to her. Yet he became deeply attached to his wife, and proved
in fact nearly as uxorious as his father. Ferdinand was by temperament
melancholy, shy and distrustful of his own abilities. When complimented
on his shooting, he replied, "It would be hard if there were not
something I could do." As king he followed a steady policy of neutrality
between France and England, and refused to be tempted by the offers of
either into declaring war on the other. In his life he was orderly and
retiring, averse from taking decisions, though not incapable of acting
firmly, as when he cut short the dangerous intrigues of his able
minister Ensenada by dismissing and imprisoning him. Shooting and music
were his only pleasures, and he was the generous patron of the famous
singer Farinelli (q.v.), whose voice soothed his melancholy. The death
of his wife Barbara, who had been devoted to him, and who carefully
abstained from political intrigue, broke his heart. Between the date of
her death in 1758 and his own on the 10th of August 1759 he fell into a
state of prostration in which he would not even dress, but wandered
unshaven, unwashed and in a night-gown about his park. The memoirs of
the count of Fernan Nuñez give a shocking picture of his death-bed.
A good account of the reign and character of Ferdinand VI. will be
found in vol. iv. of Coxe's _Memoirs of the Kings of Spain of the
House of Bourbon_ (London, 1815). See also _Vida de Carlos III._, by
the count of Fernan Nuñez, ed. M. Morel Fatio and Don A. Paz y Melia
(1898).
FERDINAND VII., king of Spain (1784-1833), the eldest son of Charles
IV., king of Spain, and of his wife Maria Louisa of Parma, was born at
the palace of San Ildefonso near Balsain in the Somosierra hills, on the
14th of October 1784. The events with which he was connected were many,
tragic and of the widest European interest. In his youth he occupied the
painful position of an heir apparent who was carefully excluded from all
share in government by the jealousy of his parents, and the prevalence
of a royal favourite. National discontent with a feeble government
produced a revolution in 1808 by which he passed to the throne by the
forced abdication of his father. Then he spent years as the prisoner of
Napoleon, and returned in 1814 to find that while Spain was fighting for
independence in his name a new world had been born of foreign invasion
and domestic revolution. He came back to assert the ancient doctrine
that the sovereign authority resided in his person only. Acting on this
principle he ruled frivolously, and with a wanton indulgence of whims.
In 1820 his misrule provoked a revolt, and he remained in the hands of
insurgents till he was released by foreign intervention in 1823. When
free, he revenged himself with a ferocity which disgusted his allies. In
his last years he prepared a change in the order of succession
established by his dynasty in Spain, which angered a large part of the
nation, and made a civil war inevitable. We have to distinguish the part
of Ferdinand VII. in all these transactions, in which other and better
men were concerned. It can confidently be said to have been uniformly
base. He had perhaps no right to complain that he was kept aloof from
all share in government while only heir apparent, for this was the
traditional practice of his family. But as heir to the throne he had a
right to resent the degradation of the crown he was to inherit, and the
power of a favourite who was his mother's lover. If he had put himself
at the head of a popular rising he would have been followed, and would
have had a good excuse. His course was to enter on dim intrigues at the
instigation of his first wife, Maria Antonietta of Naples. After her
death in 1806 he was drawn into other intrigues by flatterers, and, in
October 1807, was arrested for the conspiracy of the Escorial. The
conspiracy aimed at securing the help of the emperor Napoleon. When
detected, Ferdinand betrayed his associates, and grovelled to his
parents. When his father's abdication was extorted by a popular riot at
Aranjuez in March 1808, he ascended the throne--not to lead his people
manfully, but to throw himself into the hands of Napoleon, in the
fatuous hope that the emperor would support him. He was in his turn
forced to make an abdication and imprisoned in France, while Spain, with
the help of England, fought for its life. At Valançay, where he was sent
as a prisoner of state, he sank contentedly into vulgar vice, and did
not scruple to applaud the French victories over the people who were
suffering unutterable misery in his cause. When restored in March 1814,
on the fall of Napoleon, he had just cause to repudiate the
impracticable constitution made by the cortes without his consent. He
did so, and then governed like an evil-disposed boy--indulging the
merest animal passions, listening to a small _camarilla_ of low-born
favourites, changing his ministers every three months, and acting on the
impulse of whims which were sometimes mere buffoonery, but were at times
lubricous, or ferocious. The autocratic powers of the Grand Alliance,
though forced to support him as the representative of legitimacy in
Spain, watched his proceedings with disgust and alarm. "The king," wrote
Gentz to the hospodar Caradja on the 1st of December 1814, "himself
enters the houses of his first ministers, arrests them, and hands them
over to their cruel enemies"; and again, on the 14th of January 1815,
"The king has so debased himself that he has become no more than the
leading police agent and gaoler of his country." When at last the
inevitable revolt came in 1820 he grovelled to the insurgents as he had
done to his parents, descending to the meanest submissions while fear
was on him, then intriguing and, when detected, grovelling again. When
at the beginning of 1823, as a result of the congress of Verona, the
French invaded Spain,[1] "invoking the God of St Louis, for the sake of
preserving the throne of Spain to a descendant of Henry IV., and of
reconciling that fine kingdom with Europe," and in May the revolutionary
party carried Ferdinand to Cadiz, he continued to make promises of
amendment till he was free. Then, in violation of his oath to grant an
amnesty, he revenged himself for three years of coercion by killing on a
scale which revolted his "rescuers," and against which the duke of
Angoulême, powerless to interfere, protested by refusing the Spanish
decorations offered him for his services. During his last years
Ferdinand's energy was abated. He no longer changed ministers every few
months as a sport, and he allowed some of them to conduct the current
business of government. His habits of life were telling on him. He
became torpid, bloated and horrible to look at. After his fourth
marriage in 1829 with Maria Christina of Naples, he was persuaded by his
wife to set aside the law of succession of Philip V., which gave a
preference to all the males of the family in Spain over the females. His
marriage had brought him only two daughters. When well, he consented to
the change under the influence of his wife. When ill, he was terrified
by priestly advisers, who were partisans of his brother Don Carlos. What
his final decision was is perhaps doubtful. His wife was mistress by his
death-bed, and she could put the words she chose into the mouth of a
dead man--and could move the dead hand at her will. Ferdinand died on
the 29th of September 1833. It had been a frequent saying with the more
zealous royalists of Spain that a king must be wiser than his ministers,
for he was placed on the throne and directed by God. Since the reign of
Ferdinand VII. no one has maintained this unqualified version of the
great doctrine of divine right.
King Ferdinand VII. kept a diary during the troubled years 1820-1823,
which has been published by the count de Casa Valencia.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Louis XVIII.'s speech from the throne, Jan. 28, 1823.
FERDINAND II. (1810-1859), king of the Two Sicilies, son of Francis I,
was born at Palermo on the 12th of January 1810. In his early years he
was credited with Liberal ideas and he was fairly popular, his free and
easy manners having endeared him to the _lazzaroni_. On succeeding his
father in 1830, he published an edict in which he promised to "give his
most anxious attention to the impartial administration of justice," to
reform the finances, and to "use every effort to heal the wounds which
had afflicted the kingdom for so many years"; but these promises seem to
have been meant only to lull discontent to sleep, for although he did
something for the economic development of the kingdom, the existing
burden of taxation was only slightly lightened, corruption continued to
flourish in all departments of the administration, and an absolutism was
finally established harsher than that of all his predecessors, and
supported by even more extensive and arbitrary arrests. Ferdinand was
naturally shrewd, but badly educated, grossly superstitious and
possessed of inordinate self-esteem. Though he kept the machinery of his
kingdom fairly efficient, and was a patriot to the extent of brooking no
foreign interference, he made little account of the wishes or welfare of
his subjects. In 1832 he married Cristina, daughter of Victor Emmanuel
I., king of Sardinia, and shortly after her death in 1836 he took for a
second wife Maria Theresa, daughter of archduke Charles of Austria.
After his Austrian alliance the bonds of despotism were more closely
tightened, and the increasing discontent of his subjects was manifested
by various abortive attempts at insurrection; in 1837 there was a rising
in Sicily in consequence of the outbreak of cholera, and in 1843 the
Young Italy Society tried to organize a general rising, which, however,
only manifested itself in a series of isolated outbreaks. The expedition
of the Bandiera brothers (q.v.) in 1844, although it had no practical
result, aroused great ill-feeling owing to the cruel sentences passed on
the rebels. In January 1848 a rising in Sicily was the signal for
revolutions all over Italy and Europe; it was followed by a movement in
Naples, and the king granted a constitution which he swore to observe.
A dispute, however, arose as to the nature of the oath which should be
taken by the members of the chamber of deputies, and as neither the king
nor the deputies would yield, serious disturbances broke out in the
streets of Naples on the 15th of May; so the king, making these an
excuse for withdrawing his promise, dissolved the national parliament on
the 13th of March 1849. He retired to Gaeta to confer with various
deposed despots, and when the news of the Austrian victory at Novara
(March 1849) reached him, he determined to return to a reactionary
policy. Sicily, whence the Royalists had been expelled, was subjugated
by General Filangieri (q.v.), and the chief cities were bombarded, an
expedient which won for Ferdinand the epithet of "King Bomba." During
the last years of his reign espionage and arbitrary arrests prevented
all serious manifestations of discontent among his subjects. In 1851 the
political prisoners of Naples were calculated by Mr Gladstone in his
letters to Lord Aberdeen (1851) to number 15,000 (probably the real
figure was nearer 40,000), and so great was the scandal created by the
prevailing reign of terror, and the abominable treatment to which the
prisoners were subjected, that in 1856 France and England made
diplomatic representations to induce the king to mitigate his rigour and
proclaim a general amnesty, but without success. An attempt was made by
a soldier to assassinate Ferdinand in 1856. He died on the 22nd of May
1856, just after the declaration of war by France and Piedmont against
Austria, which was to result in the collapse of his kingdom and his
dynasty. He was bigoted, cruel, mean, treacherous, though not without a
certain bonhomie; the only excuse that can be made for him is that with
his heredity and education a different result could scarcely be
expected.
See _Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Naples and Sicily,
1848-1849, presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her
Majesty_, 4th May 1849; _Two Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen_, by the
Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone, 1st ed., 1851 (an edition published in 1852
and the subsequent editions contain an _Examination of the Official
Reply of the Neapolitan Government_); N. Nisco, _Ferdinando II. il suo
regno_ (Naples, 1884); H. Remsen Whitehouse, _The Collapse of the
Kingdom of Naples_ (New York, 1899); R. de Cesare, _La Caduta d' un
Regno_, vol. i. (Città di Castello, 1900), which contains a great deal
of fresh information, but is badly arranged and not always reliable.
(L. V.*)
FERDINAND III. (1769-1824), grand duke of Tuscany, and archduke of
Austria, second son of the emperor Leopold II., was born on the 6th of
May 1769. On his father becoming emperor in 1790, he succeeded him as
grand duke of Tuscany. Ferdinand was one of the first sovereigns to
enter into diplomatic relations with the French republic (1793); and
although, a few months later, he was compelled by England and Russia to
join the coalition against France, he concluded peace with that power in
1795, and by observing a strict neutrality saved his dominions from
invasion by the French, except for a temporary occupation of Livorno,
till 1799, when he was compelled to vacate his throne, and a provisional
Republican government was established at Florence. Shortly afterwards
the French arms suffered severe reverses in Italy, and Ferdinand was
restored to his territories; but in 1801, by the peace of Lunéville,
Tuscany was converted into the kingdom of Etruria, and he was again
compelled to return to Vienna. In lieu of the sovereignty of Tuscany, he
obtained in 1802 the electorship of Salzburg, which he exchanged by the
peace of Pressburg in 1805 for that of Würzburg. In 1806 he was admitted
as grand duke of Würzburg to the confederation of the Rhine. He was
restored to the throne of Tuscany after the abdication of Napoleon in
1814 and was received with enthusiasm by the people, but had again to
vacate his capital for a short time in 1815, when Murat proclaimed war
against Austria. The final overthrow of the French supremacy at the
battle of Waterloo secured him, however, in the undisturbed possession
of his grand duchy during the remainder of his life. The restoration in
Tuscany was not accompanied by the reactionary excesses which
characterized it elsewhere, and a large part of the French legislation
was retained. His prime minister was Count V. Fossombroni (q.v.). The
mild rule of Ferdinand, his solicitude for the welfare of his subjects,
his enlightened patronage of art and science, his encouragement of
commerce, and his toleration render him an honourable exception to the
generality of Italian princes. At the same time his paternal despotism
tended to emasculate the Tuscan character. He died in June 1824, and was
succeeded by his son Leopold II. (q.v.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A. von Reumont, _Geschichte Toscanas_ (Gotha, 1877);
and "Federico Manfredini e la politica Toscana nei primi anni di
Ferdinando III." (in the _Archivio Storico Italiano_, 1877); Emmer,
_Erzherzog Ferdinand III._, _Grossherzog von Toskana_ (Salzburg,
1871); C. Tivaroni, _L' Italia durante il dominio francese_, ii. 1-44
(Turin, 1889), and _L' Italia durante il dominio austriaco_, ii. 1-18
(Turin, 1893). See also under FOSSOMBRONI; VITTORIO; and CAPPONI,
GINO.
FERDINAND, MAXIMILIAN KARL LEOPOLD MARIA, king of Bulgaria (1861- ),
fifth and youngest son of Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was
born on the 26th of February 1861. Great care was exercised in his
education, and every encouragement given to the taste for natural
history which he exhibited at an early age. In 1879 he travelled with
his brother Augustus to Brazil, and the results of their botanical
observations were published at Vienna, 1883-1888, under the title of
_Itinera Principum S. Coburgi_. Having been appointed to a lieutenancy
in the 2nd regiment of Austrian hussars, he was holding this rank when,
by unanimous vote of the National Assembly, he was elected prince of
Bulgaria, on the 7th of July 1887, in succession to Prince Alexander,
who had abdicated on the 7th of September preceding. He assumed the
government on the 14th of August 1887, for Russia for a long time
refused to acknowledge the election, and he was accordingly exposed to
frequent military conspiracies, due to the influence or attitude of that
power. The firmness and vigour with which he met all attempts at
revolution were at length rewarded, and his election was confirmed in
March 1896 by the Porte and the great powers. On the 20th of April 1893
he married Marie Louise de Bourbon (d. 1899), eldest daughter of Duke
Robert of Parma, and in May following the Grand Sobranye confirmed the
title of Royal Highness to the prince and his heir. The prince adhered
to the Roman Catholic faith, but his son and heir, the young Prince
Boris, was received into the Orthodox Greek Church on the 14th of
February 1896. Prince Boris, to whom the tsar Nicholas III. became
godfather, accompanied his father to Russia in 1898, when Prince
Ferdinand visited St Petersburg and Moscow, and still further
strengthened the bond already existing between Russia and Bulgaria. In
1908 Ferdinand married Eleanor (b. 1860), a princess of the house of
Reuss. Later in the year, in connexion with the Austrian annexation of
Bosnia-Herzegovina and the crisis with Turkey, he proclaimed the
independence of Bulgaria, and took the title of king or tsar. (See
BULGARIA, and EUROPE: _History_.)
FERDINAND, duke of Brunswick (1721-1792), Prussian general field marshal,
was the fourth son of Ferdinand Albert, duke of Brunswick, and was born
at Wolfenbüttel on the 12th of January 1721. He was carefully educated
with a view to a military career, and in his twentieth year he was made
chief of a newly-raised Brunswick regiment in the Prussian service. He
was present in the battles of Mollwitz and Chotusitz. In succession to
Margrave Wilhelm of Brandenburg, killed at Prague (1744), Ferdinand
received the command of Frederick the Great's _Leibgarde_ battalion, and
at Sohr (1745) he distinguished himself so greatly at the head of his
brigade that Frederick wrote of him, "le Prince Ferdinand s'est
surpassé." The height which he captured was defended by his brother
Ludwig as an officer of the Austrian service, and another brother of Duke
Ferdinand was killed by his side in the charge. During the ten years'
peace he was in the closest touch with the military work of Frederick the
Great, who supervised the instruction of the guard battalion, and sought
to make it a model of the whole Prussian army. Ferdinand was, moreover,
one of the most intimate friends of the king, and thus he was peculiarly
fitted for the tasks which afterwards fell to his lot. In this time he
became successively major-general and lieutenant-general. In the first
campaign of the Seven Years' War Ferdinand commanded one of the Prussian
columns which converged upon Dresden, and in the operations which led up
to the surrender of the Saxon army at Pirna (1756), and at the battle of
Lobositz, he led the right wing of the Prussian infantry. In 1757 he was
present, and distinguished himself, at Prague, and he served also in the
campaign of Rossbach. Shortly after this he was appointed to command the
allied forces which were being organized for the war in western Germany.
He found this army dejected by a reverse and a capitulation, yet within a
week of his taking up the command he assumed the offensive, and thus
began the career of victory which made his European reputation as a
soldier. His conduct of the five campaigns which followed (see SEVEN
YEARS' WAR) was naturally influenced by the teachings of Frederick, whose
pupil the duke had been for so many years. Ferdinand, indeed,
approximated more closely to Frederick in his method of making war than
any other general of the time. Yet his task was in many respects far more
difficult than that of the king. Frederick was the absolute master of his
own homogeneous army, Ferdinand merely the commander of a group of
contingents, and answerable to several princes for the troops placed
under his control. The French were by no means despicable opponents in
the field, and their leaders, if not of the first grade, were cool and
experienced veterans. In 1758 he fought and won the battle of Crefeld,
several marches beyond the Rhine, but so advanced a position he could not
well maintain, and he fell back to the Lippe. He resumed a bold offensive
in 1759, only to be repulsed at Bergen (near Frankfort-on-Main). On the
1st of August of this year Ferdinand won the brilliant victory of Minden
(q.v.). Vellinghausen, Wilhelmsthal, Warburg and other victories attested
the increasing power of Ferdinand in the following campaigns, and
Frederick, hard pressed in the eastern theatre of war, owed much of his
success in an almost hopeless task to the continued pressure exerted by
Ferdinand in the west. In promoting him to be a field marshal (November
1758) Frederick acknowledged his debt in the words, "Je n'ai fait que ce
que je dois, mon cher Ferdinand." After Minden, King George II. gave the
duke the order of the Garter, and the thanks of the British parliament
were voted on the same occasion to the "Victor of Minden." After the war
he was honoured by other sovereigns, and he received the rank of field
marshal and a regiment from the Austrians. During the War of American
Independence there was a suggestion, which came to nothing, of offering
him the command of the British forces. He exerted himself to compensate
those who had suffered by the Seven Years' War, devoting to this purpose
most of the small income he received from his various offices and the
rewards given to him by the allied princes. The estrangement of Frederick
and Ferdinand in 1766 led to the duke's retirement from Prussian service,
but there was no open breach between the old friends, and Ferdinand
visited the king in 1772, 1777, 1779 and 1782. After 1766 he passed the
remainder of his life at his castle of Veschelde, where he occupied
himself in building and other improvements, and became a patron of
learning and art, and a great benefactor of the poor. He died on the 3rd
of July 1792. The merits, civil and military, of the prince were
recognized by memorials not only in Prussia and Hanover, but also in
Denmark, the states of western Germany and England. The Prussian
memorials include an equestrian statue at Berlin (1863).
See E. v. L. Knesebeck, _Ferdinand, Herzog von Braunschweig und
Lüneburg, während des Siebenjährigen Kriegs_ (2 vols., Hanover,
1857-1858); Von Westphalen, _Geschichte der Feldzüge des Herzogs
Ferdinands von Braunschweig-Lüneburg_ (5 vols., Berlin, 1859-1872); v.
d. Osten, _Tagebuch des Herzogl. Gen. Adjutanten v. Reden_ (Hamburg,
1805); v. Schafer, _Vie militaire du maréchal Prince Ferdinand_
(Magdeburg, 1796; Nuremberg, 1798); also the _Oeuvres_ of Frederick
the Great, _passim_, and authorities for the SEVEN YEARS' WAR.
FERDINAND (1577-1650), elector and archbishop of Cologne, son of William
V., duke of Bavaria, was born on the 7th of October 1577. Intended for
the church, he was educated by the Jesuits at the university of
Ingolstadt, and in 1595 became coadjutor archbishop of Cologne. He
became elector and archbishop in 1612 on the death of his uncle Ernest,
whom he also succeeded as bishop of Liége, Munster and Hildesheim. He
endeavoured resolutely to root out heresy in the lands under his rule,
and favoured the teaching of the Jesuits in every possible way. He
supported the league founded by his brother Maximilian I., duke of
Bavaria, and wished to involve the leaguers in a general attack on the
Protestants of north Germany. The cool political sagacity of the duke
formed a sharp contrast to the impetuosity of the archbishop, and he
refused to accede to his brother's wish; but, in spite of these
temporary differences, Ferdinand sent troops and money to the assistance
of the league when the Thirty Years' War broke out in 1619. The
elector's alliance with the Spaniards secured his territories to a great
extent from the depredations of the war until the arrival of the Swedes
in Germany in 1630, when the extension of the area of the struggle to
the neighbourhood of Cologne induced him to enter into negotiations for
peace. Nothing came of these attempts until 1647, when he joined his
brother Maximilian in concluding an armistice with France and Sweden at
Ulm. The elector's later years were marked by a conflict with the
citizens of Liége; and when the peace of Westphalia freed him from his
enemies, he was able to crush the citizens and deprive them of many
privileges. Ferdinand, who had held the bishopric of Paderborn since
1618, died at Arnsberg on the 13th of September 1650, and was buried in
the cathedral at Cologne.
See L. Ennen, _Frankreich und der Niederrhein oder Geschichte von
Stadt und Kurstadt Köln seit dem 30 jährigen Kriege_, Band i.
(Cologne, 1855-1856).
FERENTINO (anc. _Ferentinum_, to be distinguished from Ferentum or
Ferentinum in Etruria), a town and episcopal see of Italy, in the
province of Rome, from which it is 48 m. E.S.E. by rail. Pop. (1901)
7957 (town), 12,279 (commune). It is picturesquely situated on a hill
1290 ft. above sea-level, and still possesses considerable remains of
ancient fortifications. The lower portion of the outer walls, which
probably did not stand free, is built of roughly hewn blocks of a
limestone which naturally splits into horizontal layers; above this in
places is walling of rectangular blocks of tufa. Two gates, the Porta
Sanguinaria (with an arch with tufa voussoirs), and the Porta S. Maria,
a double gate constructed entirely of rectangular blocks of tufa, are
preserved. Outside this gate is the tomb of A. Quinctilius Priscus, a
citizen of Ferentinum, with a long inscription cut in the rock. See Th.
Mommsen in _Corp. Inscrip. Lat._ x. (Berlin, 1883), No. 5853.
The highest part of the town, the acropolis, is fortified also; it has
massive retaining walls similar to those of the lower town. At the
eastern corner, under the present episcopal palace, the construction is
somewhat more careful. A projecting rectangular terrace has been
erected, supported by walls of quadrilateral blocks of limestone
arranged almost horizontally; while upon the level thus formed a
building of rectangular blocks of local travertine was raised. The
projecting cornice of this building bears two inscriptions of the period
of Sulla, recording its construction by two censors (local officials);
and in the interior, which contains several chambers, there is an
inscription of the same censors over one of the doors, and another over
a smaller external side door. The windows lighting these chambers come
immediately above the cornice, and the wall continues above them again.
The whole of this construction probably belongs to one period (Mommsen,
_op. cit._ No. 5837 seq.). The cathedral occupies a part of the level
top of the ancient acropolis; it was reconstructed on the site of an
older church in 1099-1118; the interior was modernized in 1693, but was
restored to its original form in 1902. It contains a fine canopy in the
"Cosmatesque" style (see _Relazione dei lavori eseguiti dall' ufficio
tecnico per la conservazione dei monumenti di Rome a provincia_, Rome,
1903, 175 seq.). The Gothic church of S. Maria Maggiore, in the lower
town (13th-14th century), has a very fine exterior; the interior, the
plan of which is a perfect rectangle, has been spoilt by restoration.
There are several other Gothic churches in the town.
Ferentinum was the chief town of the Hernici; it was captured from them
by the Romans in 364 B.C. and took no part in the rising of 306 B.C. The
inhabitants became Roman citizens after 195 B.C., and the place later
became a _municipium_. It lay just above the Via Latina and, being a
strong place, served for the detention of hostages. Horace praises its
quietness, and it does not appear much in later history. (T. As.)
See further Ashby, _Röm. Mittell._ xxiv. (1909).
FERENTUM, or FERENTINUM, an ancient town of Etruria, about 6 m. N. of
Viterbo (the ancient name of which is unknown) and 3½ m. E. of the Via
Cassia. It was the birthplace (32 A.D.) of the emperor Otho, was
destroyed in the 11th century, and is now entirely deserted, though it
retains its ancient name. It occupied a ridge running from east to west,
with deep ravines on three sides. There are some remains of the city
walls, and of various Roman structures, but the most important ruin is
that of the theatre. The stage front is still standing; it is pierced by
seven openings with flat arches, and shows traces of reconstruction. The
acropolis was on the hill called Talone on the north-east.
See G. Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_ (London, 1883), i.
156; _Notizie degli scavi_, 1900, 401; 1902, 84; 1905, 31.
FERETORY (from Lat. _feretrum_, a bier, from _ferre_, to bear), in
architecture, the enclosure or chapel within which the "fereter" shrine,
or tomb (as in Henry VII.'s chapel), was placed.
FERGHANA, or FERGANA, a province of Russian Turkestan, formed in 1876
out of the former khanate of Khokand. It is bounded by the provinces of
Syr-darya on the N. and N.W., Samarkand on the W., and Semiryechensk on
the N.E., by Chinese Turkestan (Kashgaria) on the E., and by Bokhara and
Afghanistan on the S. Its southern limits, on the Pamirs, were fixed by
an Anglo-Russian commission in 1885, from Zor-kul (Victoria Lake) to the
Chinese frontier; and Shignan, Roshan and Wakhan were assigned to
Bokhara in exchange for part of Darvaz (on the left bank of the Panj),
which was given to Afghanistan. The area amounts to some 53,000 sq. m.,
of which 17,600 sq. m. are on the Pamirs. The most important part of the
province is a rich and fertile valley (1200-1500 ft.), opening towards
the S.W. Thence the province stretches northwards across the mountains
of the Tian-shan system and southwards across the Alai and Trans-Alai
Mts., which reach their highest point in Peak Kaufmann (23,000 ft.), in
the latter range. The valley owes its fertility to two rivers, the Naryn
and the Karadarya, which unite within its confines, near Namangan, to
form the Syr-darya or Jaxartes. These streams, and their numerous
mountain affluents, not only supply water for irrigation, but also bring
down vast quantities of sand, which is deposited alongside their
courses, more especially alongside the Syr-darya where it cuts its way
through the Khojent-Ajar ridge, forming there the Karakchikum. This
expanse of moving sands, covering an area of 750 sq. m., under the
influence of south-west winds, encroaches upon the agricultural
districts. The climate of this valley is dry and warm. In March the
temperature reaches 68° F., and then rapidly rises to 95° in June, July
and August. During the five months following April no rain falls, but it
begins again in October. Snow and frost (down to -4° F.) occur in
December and January.
Out of some 3,000,000 acres of cultivated land, about two-thirds are
under constant irrigation and the remaining third under partial
irrigation. The soil is admirably cultivated, the principal crops being
wheat, rice, barley, maize, millet, lucerne, tobacco, vegetables and
fruit. Gardening is conducted with a high degree of skill and success.
Large numbers of horses, cattle and sheep are kept, and a good many
camels are bred. Over 17,000 acres are planted with vines, and some
350,000 acres are under cotton. Nearly 1,000,000 acres are covered with
forests. The government maintains a forestry farm at Marghelan, from
which 120,000 to 200,000 young trees are distributed free every year
amongst the inhabitants of the province.
Silkworm breeding, formerly a prosperous industry, has decayed, despite
the encouragement of a state farm at New Marghelan. Coal, iron, sulphur,
gypsum, rock-salt, lacustrine salt and naphtha are all known to exist,
but only the last two are extracted. Some seventy or eighty factories
are engaged in cotton cleaning; while leather, saddlery, paper and
cutlery are the principal products of the domestic industries. A
considerable trade is carried on with Russia; raw cotton, raw silk,
tobacco, hides, sheepskins, fruit and cotton and leather goods are
exported, and manufactured wares, textiles, tea and sugar are imported
and in part re-exported to Kashgaria and Bokhara. The total trade of
Ferghana reaches an annual value of nearly £3,500,000. A new impulse was
given to trade by the extension (1899) of the Transcaspian railway into
Ferghana and by the opening of the Orenburg-Tashkent railway (1906). The
routes to Kashgaria and the Pamirs are mere bridle-paths over the
mountains, crossing them by lofty passes. For instance, the passes of
Kara-kazyk (14,400 ft.) and Tenghiz-bai (11,200 ft.), both passable all
the year round, lead from Marghelan to Kara-teghin and the Pamirs, while
Kashgar is reached via Osh and Gulcha, and then over the passes of
Terek-davan (12,205 ft.; open all the year round), Taldyk (11,500 ft.),
Archat (11,600 ft.), and Shart-davan (14,000 ft.). Other passes leading
out of the valley are the Jiptyk (12,460 ft.), S. of Khokand; the
Isfairam (12,000 ft.), leading to the glen of the Surkhab, and the Kavuk
(13,000 ft.), across the Alai Mts.
The population numbered 1,571,243 in 1897, and of that number 707,132
were women and 286,369 were urban. In 1906 it was estimated at
1,796,500. Two-thirds of the total are Sarts and Uzbegs (of Turkic
origin). They live mostly in the valley; while the mountain slopes above
it are occupied by Kirghiz, partly nomad and pastoral, partly
agricultural and settled. The other races are Tajiks, Kashgarians,
Kipchaks, Jews and Gypsies. The governing classes are of course
Russians, who constitute also the merchant and artizan classes. But the
merchants of West Turkestan are called all over central Asia Andijanis,
from the town of Andijan in Ferghana. The great mass of the population
are Mussulmans (1,039,115 in 1897). The province is divided into five
districts, the chief towns of which are New Marghelan, capital of the
province (8977 inhabitants in 1897), Andijan (49,682 in 1900), Khokand
(86,704 in 1900), Namangan (61,906 in 1897), and Osh (37,397 in 1900);
but Old Marghelan (42,855 in 1900) and Chust (13,686 in 1897) are also
towns of importance. For the history, see KHOKAND.
(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
FERGUS FALLS, a city and the county-seat of Otter Tail county,
Minnesota, U.S.A., on the Red river, 170 m. N.W. of Minneapolis. Pop.
(1890) 3772; (1900) 6072, of whom 2131 were foreign-born; (1905) 6692;
(1910) 6887. A large part of the population is of Scandinavian birth or
descent. Fergus Falls is served by the Great Northern and the Northern
Pacific railways. Situated in the celebrated "park region" of the state,
the city possesses great natural beauty, which has been enhanced by a
system of boulevards and well-kept private lawns. Lake Alice, in the
residential district, adds to the city's attractions. The city has a
public library, a county court house, St Luke's hospital, the G.B.
Wright memorial hospital, and a city hall. It is the seat of a state
hospital for the insane (1887) with about 1600 patients, of a business
college, of the Park Region Luther College (Norwegian Lutheran, 1892),
and of the North-western College (Swedish Lutheran; opened in 1901). It
has one of the finest water-powers in the state. Flour is the principal
product; among others are woollen goods, foundry and machine-shop
products, wooden ware, sash, doors and blinds, caskets, shirts, wagons
and packed meats. The city owns and operates its water-works and its
electric-lighting plant. Fergus Falls was settled about 1859 and was
incorporated in 1863.
FERGUSON, ADAM (1723-1816), Scottish philosopher and historian, was born
on the 20th of June 1723, at Logierait, Perthshire. He was educated at
Perth grammar school and the university of St Andrews. In 1745, owing to
his knowledge of Gaelic, he was appointed deputy chaplain of the 43rd
(afterwards the 42nd) regiment (the Black Watch), the licence to preach
being granted him by special dispensation, although he had not completed
the required six years of theological study. At the battle of Fontenoy
(1745) Ferguson fought in the ranks throughout the day, and refused to
leave the field, though ordered to do so by his colonel. He continued
attached to the regiment till 1754, when, disappointed at not obtaining
a living, he abandoned the clerical profession and resolved to devote
himself to literary pursuits. In January 1757 he succeeded David Hume as
librarian to the faculty of advocates, but soon relinquished this office
on becoming tutor in the family of Lord Bute.
In 1759 Ferguson was appointed professor of natural philosophy in the
university of Edinburgh, and in 1764 was transferred to the chair of
"pneumatics" (mental philosophy) "and moral philosophy." In 1767,
against Hume's advice, he published his _Essay on the History of Civil
Society_, which was well received and translated into several European
languages. In 1776 appeared his (anonymous) pamphlet on the American
revolution in opposition to Dr Price's _Observations on the Nature of
Civil Liberty_, in which he sympathized with the views of the British
legislature. In 1778 Ferguson was appointed secretary to the commission
which endeavoured, but without success, to negotiate an arrangement with
the revolted colonies. In 1783 appeared his _History of the Progress and
Termination of the Roman Republic_; it was very popular, and went
through several editions. Ferguson was led to undertake this work from a
conviction that the history of the Romans during the period of their
greatness was a practical illustration of those ethical and political
doctrines which were the object of his special study. The history is
written in an agreeable style and a spirit of impartiality, and gives
evidence of a conscientious use of authorities. The influence of the
author's military experience shows itself in certain portions of the
narrative. Finding himself unequal to the labour of teaching, he
resigned his professorship in 1785, and devoted himself to the revision
of his lectures, which he published (1792) under the title of
_Principles of Moral and Political Science_.
When in his seventieth year, Ferguson, intending to prepare a new
edition of the history, visited Italy and some of the principal cities
of Europe, where he was received with honour by learned societies. From
1795 he resided successively at the old castle of Neidpath near Peebles,
at Hallyards on Manor Water and at St Andrews, where he died on the 22nd
of February 1816.
In his ethical system Ferguson treats man throughout as a social being,
and illustrates his doctrines by political examples. As a believer in
the progression of the human race, he placed the principle of moral
approbation in the attainment of perfection. His speculations were
carefully criticized by Cousin (see his _Cours d'histoire de la
philosophie morale au dix-huitième siècle_, pt. ii., 1839-1840):--"We
find in his method the wisdom and circumspection of the Scottish school,
with something more masculine and decisive in the results. The principle
of _perfection_ is a new one, at once more rational and comprehensive
than benevolence and sympathy, which in our view places Ferguson as a
moralist above all his predecessors." By this principle Ferguson
endeavours to reconcile all moral systems. With Hobbes and Hume he
admits the power of self-interest or utility, and makes it enter into
morals as the law of self-preservation. Hutcheson's theory of universal
benevolence and Smith's idea of sympathy he combines under the law of
society. But, as these laws are the means rather than the end of human
destiny, they are subordinate to a supreme end, and this supreme end is
perfection. In the political part of his system Ferguson follows
Montesquieu, and pleads the cause of well-regulated liberty and free
government. His contemporaries, with the exception of Hume, regarded his
writings as of great importance; in point of fact they are superficial.
The facility of their style and the frequent occurrence of would-be
weighty epigrams blinded his critics to the fact that, in spite of his
recognition of the importance of observation, he made no real
contribution to political theory (see Sir Leslie Stephen, _English
Thought in the Eighteenth Century_, x. 89-90).
The chief authority for Ferguson's life is the _Biographical Sketch_
by John Small (1864); see also _Public Characters_ (1799-1800);
_Gentleman's Magazine_, i. (1816 supp.); W.R. Chambers's _Biographical
Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen_; memoir by Principal Lee in early
editions of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_; J. McCosh, _The Scottish
Philosophy_ (1875); articles in _Dictionary of National Biography_ and
_Edinburgh Review_ (January 1867); Lord Henry Cockburn, _Memorials of
his Time_ (1856).
FERGUSON, JAMES (1710-1776), Scottish mechanician and astronomer, was
born near Rothiemay in Banffshire on the 25th of April 1710, of parents
in very humble circumstances. He first learned to read by overhearing
his father teach his elder brother, and with the help of an old woman
was "able," he says in his autobiography, "to read tolerably well before
his father thought of teaching him." After receiving further instruction
in reading from his father, who also taught him to write, he was sent at
the age of seven for three months to the grammar school at Keith. His
taste for mechanics was about this time accidentally awakened on seeing
his father making use of a lever to raise a part of the roof of his
house--an exhibition of seeming strength which at first "excited his
terror as well as wonder." In 1720 he was sent to a neighbouring farm to
keep sheep, where in the daytime he amused himself by making models of
mills and other machines, and at night in studying the stars.
Afterwards, as a servant with a miller, and then with a doctor, he met
with hardships which rendered his constitution feeble through life.
Being compelled by his weak health to return home, he there amused
himself with making a clock having wooden wheels and a whalebone spring.
When slightly recovered he showed this and some other inventions to a
neighbouring gentleman, who engaged him to clean his clocks, and also
desired him to make his house his home. He there began to draw patterns
for needlework, and his success in this art led him to think of becoming
a painter. In 1734 he went to Edinburgh, where he began to take
portraits in miniature, by which means, while engaged in his scientific
studies, he supported himself and his family for many years.
Subsequently he settled at Inverness, where he drew up his _Astronomical
Rotula_ for showing the motions of the planets, places of the sun and
moon, &c., and in 1743 went to London, which was his home for the rest
of his life. He wrote various papers for the Royal Society, of which he
became a fellow in 1763, devised astronomical and mechanical models, and
in 1748 began to give public lectures on experimental philosophy. These
he repeated in most of the principal towns in England. His deep interest
in his subject, his clear explanations, his ingeniously constructed
diagrams, and his mechanical apparatus rendered him one of the most
successful of popular lecturers on scientific subjects. It is, however,
as the inventor and improver of astronomical and other scientific
apparatus, and as a striking instance of self-education, that he claims
a place among the most remarkable men of science of his country. During
the latter years of his life he was in receipt of a pension of £50 from
the privy purse. He died in London on the 17th of November 1776.
Ferguson's principal publications are _Astronomical Tables_ (1763);
_Lectures on Select Subjects_ (1st ed., 1761, edited by Sir David
Brewster in 1805); _Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's
Principles_ (1756, edited by Sir David Brewster in 1811); and _Select
Mechanical Exercises, with a Short Account of the Life of the Author,
written by himself_ (1773). This autobiography is included in a _Life_
by E. Henderson, LL.D. (1st ed., 1867; 2nd, 1870), which also contains
a full description of Ferguson's principal inventions, accompanied
with illustrations. See also _The Story of the Peasant-Boy
Philosopher_, by Henry Mayhew (1857).
FERGUSON, ROBERT (c. 1637-1714), British conspirator and pamphleteer,
called the "Plotter," was a son of William Ferguson (d. 1699) of
Badifurrow, Aberdeenshire, and after receiving a good education,
probably at the university of Aberdeen, became a Presbyterian minister.
According to Bishop Burnet he was cast out by the Presbyterians; but
whether this be so or not, he soon made his way to England and became
vicar of Godmersham, Kent, from which living he was expelled by the Act
of Uniformity in 1662. Some years later, having gained meanwhile a
reputation as a theological controversialist and become a person of
importance among the Nonconformists, he attracted the notice of the earl
of Shaftesbury and the party which favoured the exclusion of the duke of
York (afterwards King James II.) from the throne, and he began to write
political pamphlets just at the time when the feeling against the Roman
Catholics was at its height. In 1680 he wrote "A Letter to a Person of
Honour concerning the 'Black Box,'" in which he supported the claim of
the duke of Monmouth to the crown against that of the duke of York;
returning to the subject after Charles II. had solemnly denied the
existence of a marriage between himself and Lucy Waters. He took an
active part in the controversy over the Exclusion Bill, and claimed to
be the author of the whole of the pamphlet "No Protestant Plot" (1681),
parts of which are usually ascribed to Shaftesbury. Ferguson was deeply
implicated in the Rye House Plot, although he asserted that he had
frustrated both this and a subsequent attempt to assassinate the king,
and he fled to Holland with Shaftesbury in 1682, returning to England
early in 1683. For his share in another plot against Charles II. he was
declared an outlaw, after which he entered into communication with
Argyll, Monmouth and other malcontents. Ferguson then took a leading
part in organizing the rising of 1685. Having overcome Monmouth's
reluctance to take part in this movement, he accompanied the duke to the
west of England and drew up the manifesto against James II., escaping to
Holland after the battle of Sedgemoor. He landed in England with William
of Orange in 1688, and aided William's cause with his pen; but William
and his advisers did not regard him as a person of importance, although
his services were rewarded with a sinecure appointment in the Excise.
Chagrined at this treatment, Ferguson was soon in correspondence with
the exiled Jacobites. He shared in all the plots against the life of
William, and after his removal from the Excise in 1692 wrote violent
pamphlets against the government. Although he was several times arrested
on suspicion, he was never brought to trial. He died in great poverty in
1714, leaving behind him a great and deserved reputation for treachery.
It has been thought by Macaulay and others that Ferguson led the English
government to believe that he was a spy in their interests, and that his
frequent escapes from justice were due to official connivance. In a
proclamation issued for his arrest in 1683 he is described as "a tall
lean man, dark brown hair, a great Roman nose, thin-jawed, heat in his
face, speaks in the Scotch tone, a sharp piercing eye, stoops a little
in the shoulders." Besides numerous pamphlets Ferguson wrote: _History
of the Revolution_ (1706); _Qualifications requisite in a Minister of
State_ (1710); and part of the _History of all the Mobs, Tumults and
Insurrections in Great Britain_ (London, 1715).
See James Ferguson, _Robert Ferguson, the Plotter_ (Edinburgh, 1887),
which gives a favourable account of Ferguson.
FERGUSON, SIR SAMUEL (1810-1886), Irish poet and antiquary, was born at
Belfast, on the 10th of March 1810. He was educated at Trinity College,
Dublin, was called to the Irish bar in 1838, and was made Q.C. in 1859,
but in 1867 retired from practice upon his appointment as deputy-keeper
of the Irish records, then in a much neglected condition. He was an
excellent civil servant, and was knighted in 1878 for his services to
the department. His spare time was given to general literature, and in
particular to poetry. He had long been a leading contributor to the
_Dublin University Magazine_ and to _Blackwood_, where he had published
his two literary masterpieces, "The Forging of the Anchor," one of the
finest of modern ballads, and the humorous prose extravaganza of "Father
Tom and the Pope." He published _Lays of the Western Gael_ in 1865,
_Poems_ in 1880, and in 1872 _Congal_, a metrical narrative of the
heroic age of Ireland, and, though far from ideal perfection, perhaps
the most successful attempt yet made by a modern Irish poet to revivify
the spirit of the past in a poem of epic proportions. Lyrics have
succeeded better in other hands; many of Ferguson's pieces on modern
themes, notably his "Lament for Thomas Davis" (1845), are, nevertheless,
excellent. He was an extensive contributor on antiquarian subjects to
the _Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, and was elected its
president in 1882. His manners were delightful, and his hospitality was
boundless. He died at Howth on the 9th of August 1886. His most
important antiquarian work, _Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales,
Scotland_, was published in the year after his death.
See _Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of his Day_ (1896), by his
wife, Mary C. Ferguson; also an article by A.P. Graves in _A Treasury
of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue_ (1900), edited by Stopford
Brooke and T.W. Rolleston.
FERGUSSON, JAMES (1808-1886), Scottish writer on architecture, was born
at Ayr on the 22nd of January 1808. His father was an army surgeon.
After being educated first at the Edinburgh high school, and afterwards
at a private school at Hounslow, James went to Calcutta as partner in a
mercantile house. Here he was attracted by the remains of the ancient
architecture of India, little known or understood at that time. The
successful conduct of an indigo factory, as he states in his own
account, enabled him in about ten years to retire from business and
settle in London. The observations made on Indian architecture were
first embodied in his book on _The Rock-cut Temples of India_, published
in 1845. The task of analysing the historic and aesthetic relations of
this type of ancient buildings led him further to undertake a historical
and critical comparative survey of the whole subject of architecture in
_The Handbook of Architecture_, a work which first appeared in 1855.
This did not satisfy him, and the work was reissued ten years later in a
much more extended form under the title of _The History of
Architecture_. The chapters on Indian architecture, which had been
considered at rather disproportionate length in the _Handbook_, were
removed from the general _History_, and the whole of this subject
treated more fully in a separate volume, _The History of Indian and
Eastern Architecture_, which appeared in 1876, and, although complete in
itself, formed a kind of appendix to _The History of Architecture_.
Previously to this, in 1862, he issued his _History of Modern
Architecture_, in which the subject was continued from the Renaissance
to the present day, the period of "modern architecture" being
distinguished as that of revivals and imitations of ancient styles,
which began with the Renaissance. The essential difference between this
and the spontaneously evolved architecture of preceding ages Fergusson
was the first clearly to point out and characterize. His treatise on
_The True Principles of Beauty in Art_, an early publication, is a most
thoughtful metaphysical study. Some of his essays on special points in
archaeology, such as the treatise on _The Mode in which Light was
introduced into Greek Temples_, included theories which have not
received general acceptance. His real monument is his _History of
Architecture_ (later edition revised by R. Phenè Spiers), which, for
grasp of the whole subject, comprehensiveness of plan, and thoughtful
critical analysis, stands quite alone in architectural literature. He
received the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in
1871. Among his works, besides those already mentioned, are: _A Proposed
New System of Fortification_ (1849)_, Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis
restored_ (1851), _Mausoleum at Halicarnassus restored_ (1862), _Tree
and Serpent Worship_ (1868), _Rude Stone Monuments in all Countries_
(1872), and _The Temples of the Jews and the other Buildings in the
Haram Area at Jerusalem_ (1878). The sessional papers of the Institute
of British Architects include papers by him on _The History of the
Pointed Arch_, _Architecture of Southern India_, _Architectural
Splendour of the City of Beejapore_, _On the Erechtheum_ and on the
_Temple of Diana at Ephesus_.
Although Fergusson never practised architecture he took a keen interest
in all the professional work of his time. He was adviser with Austen
Layard in the scheme of decoration for the Assyrian court at the Crystal
Palace, and indeed assumed in 1856 the duties of general manager to the
Palace Company, a post which he held for two years. In 1847 Fergusson
had published an "Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusalem," in
which he had contended that the "Mosque of Omar" was the identical
church built by Constantine the Great over the tomb of our Lord at
Jerusalem, and that it, and not the present church of the Holy
Sepulchre, was the genuine burial-place of Jesus. The burden of this
contention was further explained by the publication in 1860 of his
_Notes on the Site of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem_; and _The Temples
of the Jews and the other Buildings in the Haram Area at Jerusalem_,
published in 1878, was a still completer elaboration of these theories,
which are said to have been the origin of the establishment of the
Palestine Exploration fund. His manifold activities continued till his
death, which took place in London on the 9th of January 1886.
FERGUSSON, ROBERT (1750-1774), Scottish poet, son of Sir William
Fergusson, a clerk in the British Linen Company, was born at Edinburgh
on the 5th of September 1750. Robert was educated at the grammar school
of Dundee, and at the university of St Andrews, where he matriculated in
1765. His father died while he was still at college; but a bursary
enabled him to complete his four years of study. He refused to study for
the church, and was too nervous to study medicine as his friends wished.
He quarrelled with his uncle, John Forbes of Round Lichnot,
Aberdeenshire, and went to Edinburgh, where he obtained employment as
copying clerk in a lawyer's office. In this humble occupation he passed
the remainder of his life. While at college he had written a clever
elegy on Dr David Gregory, and in 1771 he began to contribute verses
regularly to Ruddiman's _Weekly Magazine_. He was a member of the Cape
Club, celebrated by him in his poem of "Auld Reekie." "The Knights of
the Cape" assembled at a tavern in Craig's Close, in the vicinity of the
Cross; each member had a name and character assigned to him, which he
was required to maintain at all gatherings of the order. David Herd
(1732-1810), the collector of the classic edition of _Ancient and Modern
Scottish Songs_ (1776), was sovereign of the Cape (in which he was known
as "Sir Scrape") when Fergusson was dubbed a knight of the order, with
the title of "Sir Precentor," in allusion to his fine voice. Alexander
Runciman, the historical painter, his pupil Jacob More, and Sir Henry
Raeburn were all members. The old minute books of the club abound with
pencilled sketches by them, one of the most interesting of which,
ascribed to Runciman's pencil, is a sketch of Fergusson in his character
of "Sir Precentor."
Fergusson's gaiety and wit made him an entertaining companion, and he
indulged too freely in the convivial habits of the time. After a meeting
with John Brown of Haddington he became, however, very serious, and
would read nothing but his Bible. A fall by which his head was severely
injured aggravated symptoms of mental aberration which had begun to show
themselves; and after about two months' confinement in the old Darien
House--then the only public asylum in Edinburgh--the poet died on the
16th of October 1774.
Fergusson's poems were collected in the year before his death. The
influence of his writings on Robert Burns is undoubted. His "Leith
Races" unquestionably supplied the model for the "Holy Fair." Not only
is the stanza the same, but the Mirth who plays the part of conductor to
Fergusson, and the Fun who renders a like service to Burns, are
manifestly conceived on the same model. "The Mutual Complaint of
Plainstanes and Causey" probably suggested "The Brigs of Ayr"; "On
seeing a Butterfly in the Street" has reflections in it which strikingly
correspond with "To a Mouse"; nor will a comparison of "The Farmer's
Ingle" of the elder poet with "The Cottar's Saturday Night" admit of a
doubt as to the influence of the city-bred poet's muse on that exquisite
picturing of homely peasant life. Burns was himself the first to render
a generous tribute to the merits of Fergusson; on his visit to Edinburgh
in 1787 he sought out the poet's grave, and petitioned the authorities
of the Canongate burying-ground for permission to erect the memorial
stone which is preserved in the existing monument. The date there
assigned for his birth differs from the one given above, which rests on
the authority of his younger sister Margaret.
The first edition of Fergusson's poems was published by Ruddiman at
Edinburgh in 1773, and a supplement containing additional poems, in
1779. A second edition appeared in 1785. There are later editions, by
Robert Chambers (1850) and Dr A.B. Grosart (1851). A life of Fergusson
is included in Dr David Irving's _Lives of the Scottish Poets_, and in
Robert Chambers's Lives of _Illustrious and Distinguished Scotsmen_.
FERGUSSON, SIR WILLIAM, Bart. (1808-1877), British surgeon, the son of
James Fergusson of Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, was born at Prestonpans,
East Lothian, on the 20th of March 1808. After receiving his early
education at Lochmaben and the high school of Edinburgh, he entered the
university of Edinburgh with the view of studying law, but soon
afterwards abandoned his intention and became a pupil of the anatomist
Robert Knox (1791-1862) whose demonstrator he was appointed at the age
of twenty. In 1836 he succeeded Robert Liston as surgeon to the
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and coming to London in 1840 as professor of
surgery in King's College, and surgeon to King's College Hospital, he
acquired a commanding position among the surgeons of the metropolis. He
revived the operation for cleft-palate, which for many years had fallen
into disrepute, and invented a special mouth-gag for the same. He also
devised many other surgical instruments, chief among which, and still in
use to-day, are his bone forceps, lion forceps and vaginal speculum. In
1866 he was created a baronet. He died in London on the 10th of February
1877. As a surgeon Fergusson's greatest merit is that of having
introduced the practice of "conservative surgery," by which he meant the
excision of a joint rather than the amputation of a limb. He made his
diagnosis with almost intuitive certainty; as an operator he was
characterized by self-possession in the most critical circumstances, by
minute attention to details and by great refinement of touch, and he
relied more on his mechanical dexterity than on complicated instruments.
He was the author of _The Progress of Anatomy and Surgery in the
Nineteenth Century_ (1867), and of a _System of Practical Surgery_
(1842), which went through several editions.
FERINGHI, or FERINGHEE, a Frank (Persian, _Farangi_). This term for a
European is very old in Asia, and was originally used in a purely
geographical sense, but now generally carries a hostile or contemptuous
significance. The combatants on either side during the Indian Mutiny
called each other Feringhies and Pandies.
FERISHTA, MAHOMMED KASIM (c. 1570-c. 1611), Persian historian, was born
at Astrabad, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. While he was still a
child his father was summoned away from his native country into
Hindostan, where he held high office in the Deccan; and by his influence
the young Ferishta received court promotion. In 1589 Ferishta removed to
Bijapur, where he spent the remainder of his life under the immediate
protection of the shah Ibrahim Adil II., who engaged him to write a
history of India. At the court of this monarch he died about 1611. In
the introduction to his work a _résumé_ is given of the history of
Hindostan prior to the times of the Mahommedan conquest, and also of the
victorious progress of the Arabs through the East. The first ten books
are each occupied with a history of the kings of one of the provinces;
the eleventh book gives an account of the Mussulmans of Malabar; the
twelfth a history of the Mussulman saints of India; and the conclusion
treats of the geography and climate of India. Ferishta is reputed one of
the most trustworthy of the Oriental historians, and his work still
maintains a high place as an authority. Several portions of it have been
translated into English; but the best as well as the most complete
translation is that published by General J. Briggs under the title of
_The History of the Rise of the Mahometan Power in India_ (London, 1829,
4 vols. 8vo). Several additions were made by Briggs to the original work
of Ferishta, but he omitted the whole of the twelfth book, and various
other passages which had been omitted in the copy from which he
translated.
FERMANAGH, a county of Ireland, in the province of Ulster, bounded N.W.
by Donegal, N.E. by Tyrone, E. by Monaghan and S.W. by Cavan and
Leitrim. The area is 457,369 acres or about 715 sq. m. The county is
situated mostly in the basin of the Erne, which divides the county into
two nearly equal sections. Its surface is hilly, and its appearance (in
many parts) somewhat sterile, though in the main, and especially in the
neighbourhood of Lough Erne, it is picturesque and attractive. The
climate, though moist, is healthy, and the people are generally tall and
robust. The chief mountains are Cuilcagh (2188 ft.), partly in Leitrim
and Cavan, Belmore (1312), Glenkeel (1223), North Shean (1135), Tappahan
(1110), Carnmore (1034). Tossett or Toppid and Turaw mountains command
extensive prospects, and form striking features in the scenery of the
county. But the most distinguishing features of Fermanagh are the Upper
and Lower Loughs Erne, which occupy a great extent of its surface,
stretching for about 45 m. from S.E. to N.W. These lakes are expansions
of the river Erne, which enters the county from Cavan at Wattle Bridge.
It passes Belturbet, the Loughs Erne, Enniskillen and Belleek, on its
way to the Atlantic, into which it descends at Ballyshannon. At Belleek
it forms a considerable waterfall and is here well known to sportsmen
for its good salmon fishing. Trout are taken in most of the loughs, and
pike of great size in the Loughs Erne. There are several mineral springs
in the county, some of them chalybeate, others sulphurous. At Belcoo,
near Enniskillen, there is a famous well called Daragh Phadric, held in
repute by the peasantry for its cure of paralytic and other diseases;
and 4 m. N.W. of the same town, at a place called "the Daughton," are
natural caves of considerable size.
This county includes in the north an area of the gneiss that is
discussed under county Donegal, and, west of Omagh, a metamorphic region
that stretches in from the central axis of Tyrone. A fault divides the
latter from the mass of red-brown Old Red Sandstone that spreads south
nearly to Enniskillen. Lower Carboniferous sandstone and limestone occur
on the north of Lower Lough Erne. The limestone forms fine scarps on the
southern side of the lake, capped by beds regarded as the Yoredale
series. The scenery about the two Loughs Macnean is carved out in
similarly scarped hills, rising to 2188 ft. in Cuilcagh on the south.
The "Marble Arch" cave near Florence-court, with its emerging river, is
a characteristic example of the subterranean waterways in the limestone.
Upper Lough Erne is a typical meandering lake of the limestone lowland,
with outliers of higher Carboniferous strata forming highlands
north-east and south-west of it.
With the exception of the pottery works at Belleek, where iridescent
ware of good quality is produced, Fermanagh has no distinguishing
manufactures. It is chiefly an agricultural county. The proportion of
tillage to pasture is roughly as 1 to 2½. Cattle and poultry are the
principal classes of live stock. Oats and potatoes are the crops most
extensively cultivated. The north-western division of the Great Northern
railway passes through the most populous portion of the county, one
branch connecting Enniskillen with Clones, another connecting
Enniskillen with Londonderry via Omagh, and a third connecting Bundoran
Junction with Bundoran, in county Donegal. The Sligo, Leitrim & Northern
Counties railway connects with the Great Northern at Enniskillen, and
the Clogher Valley light railway connects southern county Tyrone with
the Great Northern at Maguiresbridge.
The population (74,170 in 1891; 65,430 in 1901; almost wholly rural)
shows a decrease among the most serious of the county populations of
Ireland. It includes 55% of Roman Catholics and about 35% of Protestant
Episcopalians. Enniskillen (the county town, pop. 5412) is the only town
of importance, the rest being little more than villages. The principal
are Lisnaskea, Irvinestown (formerly Lowtherstown), Maguiresbridge,
Tempo, Newtownbutler, Belleek, Derrygonnelly and Kesh, at which fairs
are held. Garrison, a fishing station on the wild Lough Melvin, and
Pettigo, near to the lower Lough Erne, are market villages. Fermanagh
returns two members to parliament, one each for the north and south
divisions. It comprises eight baronies and nineteen civil parishes. The
assizes are held at Enniskillen, quarter sessions at Enniskillen and
Newtownbutler. The headquarters of the constabulary are at Enniskillen.
Ecclesiastically it belongs to the Protestant and Roman Catholic
dioceses of Clogher and Kilmore.
By the ancient Irish the district was called _Feor-magh-Eanagh_, or the
"country of the lakes" (lit. "the mountain-valley marsh district"); and
also Magh-uire, or "the country of the waters." A large portion was
occupied by the _Guarii_, the ancestors of the MacGuires or Maguires, a
name still common in the district. This family was so influential that
for centuries the county was called after it Maguire's Country, and one
of the towns still existing bears its name, Maguiresbridge. Fermanagh
was formed into a county on the shiring of Ulster in 1585 by Sir John
Perrot, and was included in the well-known scheme of colonization of
James I., the Plantation of Ulster. In 1689 battles were fought between
William III.'s army and the Irish under Macarthy (for James II.),
Lisnaskea (26th July) and Newtownbutler (30th July). The chief place of
interest to the antiquary is Devenish Island in Lough Erne, about 2½ m.
N.W. from Enniskillen (q.v.), with its ruined abbey, round tower and
cross. In various places throughout the county may be seen the ruins of
several ancient castles, Danish raths or encampments, and tumuli, in the
last of which urns and stone coffins have sometimes been found. The
round tower on Devenish Island is one of the finest examples in the
country.
FERMAT, PIERRE DE (1601-1665), French mathematician, was born on the
17th of August 1601, at Beaumont-de-Lomagne near Montauban. While still
young, he, along with Blaise Pascal, made some discoveries in regard to
the properties of numbers, on which he afterwards built his method of
calculating probabilities. He discovered a simpler method of quadrating
parabolas than that of Archimedes, and a method of finding the greatest
and the smallest ordinates of curved lines analogous to that of the then
unknown differential calculus. His great work _De maximis et minimis_
brought him into conflict with René Descartes, but the dispute was
chiefly due to a want of explicitness in the statement of Fermat (see
INFINITESIMAL CALCULUS). His brilliant researches in the theory of
numbers entitle him to rank as the founder of the modern theory. They
originally took the form of marginal notes in a copy of Bachet's
_Diophantus_, and were published in 1670 by his son Samuel, who
incorporated them in a new edition of this Greek writer. Other theorems
were published in his _Opera Varia_, and in John Wallis's _Commercium
epistolicum_ (1658). He died in the belief that he had found a relation
which every prime number must satisfy, namely 2^2n + 1 = a prime. This
was afterwards disproved by Leonhard Euler for the case when n = 5.
_Fermat's Theorem_, if p is prime and a is prime to p then a^(p-1) - 1
is divisible by p, was first given in a letter of 1640. _Fermat's
Problem_ is that x^n + y^n = z^n is impossible for integral values of x,
y and z when n is greater than 2.
Fermat was for some time councillor for the parliament of Toulouse, and
in the discharge of the duties of that office he was distinguished both
for legal knowledge and for strict integrity of conduct. Though the
sciences were the principal objects of his private studies, he was also
an accomplished general scholar and an excellent linguist. He died at
Toulouse on the 12th of January 1665. He left a son, Samuel de Fermat
(1630-1690) who published translations of several Greek authors and
wrote certain books on law in addition to editing his father's works.
The _Opera mathematica_ of Fermat were published at Toulouse, in 2
vols. folio, 1670 and 1679. The first contains the "Arithmetic of
Diophantus," with notes and additions. The second includes a "Method
for the Quadrature of Parabolas," and a treatise "on Maxima and
Minima, on Tangents, and on Centres of Gravity," containing the same
solutions of a variety of problems as were afterwards incorporated
into the more extensive method of fluxions by Newton and Leibnitz. In
the same volume are treatises on "Geometric Loci, or Spherical
Tangencies," and on the "Rectification of Curves," besides a
restoration of "Apollonius's Plane Loci," together with the author's
correspondence addressed to Descartes, Pascal, Roberval, Huygens and
others. The _Oeuvres_ of Fermat have been re-edited by P. Tannery and
C. Henry (Paris, 1891-1894).
See Paul Tannery, "Sur la date des principales découvertes de Fermat,"
in the _Bulletin Darboux_ (1883); and "Les Manuscrits de Fermat," in
the _Annales de la faculté des lettres de Bordeaux_.
FERMENTATION. The process of fermentation in the preparation of wine,
vinegar, beer and bread was known and practised in prehistoric times.
The alchemists used the terms fermentation, digestion and putrefaction
indiscriminately; any reaction in which chemical energy was displayed in
some form or other--such, for instance, as the effervescence occasioned
by the addition of an acid to an alkaline solution--was described as a
fermentation (Lat. _fervere_, to boil); and the idea of the
"Philosopher's Stone" setting up a fermentation in the common metals and
developing the essence or germ, which should transmute them into silver
or gold, further complicated the conception of fermentation. As an
outcome of this alchemical doctrine the process of fermentation was
supposed to have a purifying and elevating effect on the bodies which
had been submitted to its influence. Basil Valentine wrote that when
yeast was added to wort "an internal inflammation is communicated to the
liquid, so that it raises in itself, and thus the segregation and
separation of the feculent from the clear takes place." Johann Becher,
in 1669, first found that alcohol was formed during the fermentation of
solutions of sugar; he distinguished also between fermentation and
putrefaction. In 1697 Georg Stahl admitted that fermentation and
putrefaction were analogous processes, but that the former was a
particular case of the latter.
The beginning of definite knowledge on the phenomenon of fermentation
may be dated from the time of Antony Leeuwenhoek, who in 1680 designed a
microscope sufficiently powerful to render yeast cells and bacteria
visible; and a description of these organisms, accompanied by diagrams,
was sent to the Royal Society of London. This investigator just missed a
great discovery, for he did not consider the spherical forms to be
living organisms but compared them with starch granules. It was not
until 1803 that L.J. Thénard stated that yeast was the cause of
fermentation, and held it to be of an animal nature, since it contained
nitrogen and yielded ammonia on distillation, nor was it conclusively
proved that the yeast cell was the originator of fermentation until the
researches of C. Cagniard de la Tour, T. Schwann and F. Kützing from
1836 to 1839 settled the point. These investigators regarded yeast as a
plant, and Meyer gave to the germs the systematic name of
"Saccharomyces" (sugar fungus). In 1839-1840 J. von Liebig attacked the
doctrine that fermentation was caused by micro-organisms, and enunciated
his theory of mechanical decomposition. He held that every fermentation
consisted of molecular motion which is transmitted from a substance in a
state of chemical motion--that is, of decomposition--to other
substances, the elements of which are loosely held together. It is clear
from Liebig's publications that he first regarded yeast as a lifeless,
albuminoid mass; but, although later he considered they were living
cells, he would never admit that fermentation was a physiological
process, the chemical aspect being paramount in the mind of this
distinguished investigator.
In 1857 Pasteur decisively proved that fermentation was a physiological
process, for he showed that the yeast which produced fermentation was no
dead mass, as assumed by Liebig, but consisted of living organisms
capable of growth and multiplication. His own words are: "The chemical
action of fermentation is essentially a correlative phenomenon of a
vital act, beginning and ending with it. I think that there is never any
alcoholic fermentation without there being at the same time
organization, development and multiplication of globules, or the
continued consecutive life of globules already formed." Fermentation,
according to Pasteur, was caused by the growth and multiplication of
unicellular organisms out of contact with free oxygen, under which
circumstance they acquire the power of taking oxygen from chemical
compounds in the medium in which they are growing. In other words
"fermentation is life without air, or life without oxygen." This theory
of fermentation was materially modified in 1892 and 1894 by A.J. Brown,
who described experiments which were in disagreement with Pasteur's
dictum. A.J. Brown writes: "If for the theory 'life without air' is
substituted the consideration that yeast cells can use oxygen in the
manner of ordinary aërobic fungi, and probably do require it for the
full completion of their life-history, but that the exhibition of their
fermentative functions is independent of their environment with regard
to free oxygen, it will be found that there is nothing contradictory in
Pasteur's experiments to such a hypothesis."
Liebig and Pasteur were in agreement on the point that fermentation is
intimately connected with the presence of yeast in the fermenting
liquid, but their explanations concerning the mechanism of fermentation
were quite opposed. According to M. Traube (1858), the active cause of
fermentation is due to the action of different enzymes contained in
yeast and not to the yeast cell itself. As will be seen later this
theory was confirmed by subsequent researches of E. Fischer and E.
Buchner.
In 1879 C. Nägeli formulated his well-known molecular-physical theory,
which supported Liebig's chemical theory on the one hand and Pasteur's
physiological hypothesis on the other: "Fermentation is the
transference of the condition of motion of the molecules, atomic groups
and atoms of the various compounds constituting the living plasma, to
the fermenting material, in consequence of which equilibrium in the
molecules of the latter is destroyed, the result being their
disintegration." He agreed with Pasteur that the presence of living
cells is essential to the transformation of sugar into alcohol, but
dissented from the view that the process occurs within the cell. This
investigator held that the decomposition of the sugar molecules takes
place outside the cell wall. In 1894 and 1895, Fischer, in a remarkable
series of papers on the influence of molecular structure upon the action
of the enzyme, showed that various species of yeast behave very
differently towards solutions of sugars. For example, some species
hydrolyse cane sugar and maltose, and then carry on fermentation at the
expense of the simple sugars (hexoses) so formed. _Saccharomyces
Marxianus_ will not hydrolyse maltose, but it does attack cane sugar and
ferment the products of hydrolysis. Fischer next suggested that enzymes
can only hydrolyse those sugars which possess a molecular structure in
harmony with their own, or to use his ingenious analogy, "the one may be
said to fit into the other as a key fits into a lock." The preference
exhibited by yeast cells for sugar molecules is shared by mould fungi
and soluble enzymes in their fermentative actions. Thus, Pasteur showed
that _Penicillium glaucum_, when grown in an aqueous solution of
ammonium racemate, decomposed the dextro-tartrate, leaving the
laevo-tartrate, and the solution which was originally inactive to
polarized light became dextro-rotatory. Fischer found that the enzyme
"invertase," which is present in yeast, attacks methyl-_d_-glucoside but
not methyl-_l_-glucoside.
In 1897 Buchner submitted yeast to great pressure, and isolated a
nitrogenous substance, enzymic in character, which he termed "zymase."
This body is being continually formed in the yeast cell, and decomposes
the sugar which has diffused into the cell. The freshly-expressed yeast
juice causes concentrated solutions of cane sugar, glucose, laevulose
and maltose to ferment with the production of alcohol and carbon
dioxide, but not milk-sugar and mannose. In this respect the plasma
behaves in a similar manner towards the sugars as does the living yeast
cell. Pasteur found that, when cane sugar was fermented by yeast, 49.4%
of carbonic acid and 51.1% of alcohol were produced; with expressed
yeast juice cane sugar yields 47% of carbonic acid and 47.7% of alcohol.
According to Buchner the fermentative activity of yeast-cell juice is
not due to the presence of living yeast cells, or to the action of
living yeast protoplasm, but it is caused by a soluble enzyme. A.
Macfadyen, G.H. Morris and S. Rowland, in repeating Buchner's
experiments, found that zymase possessed properties differing from all
other enzymes, thus: dilution with twice its volume of water practically
destroys the fermentative power of the yeast juice. These investigators
considered that differences of this nature cannot be explained by the
theory that it is a soluble enzyme, which brings about the alcoholic
fermentation of sugar. The remarkable discoveries of Fischer and Buchner
to a great extent confirm Traube's views, and reconcile Liebig's and
Pasteur's theories. Although the action of zymase may be regarded as
mechanical, the enzyme cannot be produced by any other than living
protoplasm.
Pasteur's important researches mark an epoch in the technical aspect of
fermentation. His investigations on vinegar-making revolutionized that
industry, and he showed how, instead of waiting two or three months for
the elaboration of the process, the vinegar could be made in eight or
ten days by exposing the vats containing the mixture of wine and vinegar
to a temperature of 20° to 25° C., and sowing with a small quantity of
the acetic organism. To the study of the life-history of the butyric and
acetic organisms we owe the terms "anaërobic" and "aërobic." His
researches from 1860 and onwards on the then vexed question of
spontaneous generation proved that, in all cases where spontaneous
generation appeared to have taken place, some defect or other was in the
experiment. Although the direct object of Pasteur was to prove a
negative, yet it was on these experiments that sterilization as known
to us was developed. It is only necessary to bear in mind the great part
played by sterilization in the laboratory, and pasteurization on the
fermentation industries and in the preservation of food materials.
Pasteur first formulated the idea that bacteria are responsible for the
diseases of fermented liquids; the corollary of this was a demand for
pure yeast. He recommended that yeast should be purified by cultivating
it in a solution of sugar containing tartaric acid, or, in wort
containing a small quantity of phenol. It was not recognized that many
of the diseases of fermented liquids are occasioned by foreign yeasts;
moreover, this process, as was shown later by Hansen, favours the
development of foreign yeasts at the expense of the good yeast.
About this time Hansen, who had long been engaged in researches on the
biology of the fungi of fermentation, demonstrated that yeast free from
bacteria could nevertheless occasion diseases in beer. This discovery
was of great importance to the zymo-technical industries, for it showed
that bacteria are not the only undesirable organisms which may occur in
yeast. Hansen set himself the task of studying the properties of the
varieties of yeast, and to do this he had to cultivate each variety in a
pure state. Having found that some of the commonest diseases of beer,
such as yeast turbidity and the objectionable changes in flavour, were
caused not by bacteria but by certain species of yeast, and, further,
that different species of good brewery yeast would produce beers of
different character, Hansen argued that the pitching yeast should
consist only of a single species--namely, that best suited to the
brewery in question. These views met with considerable opposition, but
in 1890 Professor E. Duclaux stated that the yeast question as regards
low fermentation has been solved by Hansen's investigations. He
emphasized the opinion that yeast derived from one cell was of no good
for top fermentation, and advocated Pasteur's method of purification.
But in the course of time, notwithstanding many criticisms and
objections, the reform spread from bottom fermentation to top
fermentation breweries on the continent and in America. In the United
Kingdom the employment of brewery yeasts selected from a single cell has
not come into general use; it may probably be accounted for in a great
measure by conservatism and the wrong application of Hansen's theories.
_Pure Cultivation of Yeasts._--The methods which were first adopted by
Hansen for obtaining pure cultures of yeast were similar in principle to
one devised by J. Lister for isolating a pure culture of lactic acid
bacterium. Lister determined the number of bacteria present in a drop of
the liquid under examination by counting, and then diluted this with a
sufficient quantity of sterilized water so that each drop of the mixture
should contain, on an average, less than one bacterium. A number of
flasks containing a nutrient medium were each inoculated with one drop
of this mixture; it was found that some remained sterile, and Lister
assumed that the remaining flasks each contained a pure culture. This
method did not give very certain results, for it could not be guaranteed
that the growth in the inoculated flask was necessarily derived from a
single bacterium. Hansen counted the number of yeast cells suspended in
a drop of liquid diluted with sterilized water. A volume of the diluted
yeast was introduced into flasks containing sterilized wort, the degree
of dilution being such that only a small proportion of the flasks became
infected. The flasks were then well shaken, and the yeast cell or cells
settled to the bottom, and gave rise to a separate yeast speck. Only
those cultures which contained a single yeast speck were assumed to be
pure cultivations. By this method several races of _Saccharomycetes_ and
brewery yeasts were isolated and described.
The next important advance was the substitution of solid for liquid
media; due originally to Schroter. R. Koch subsequently improved the
method. He introduced bacteria into liquid sterile nutrient gelatin.
After being well shaken, the liquid was poured into a sterile glass
Petrie dish and covered with a moist and sterile bell-jar. It was
assumed that each separate speck contained a pure culture. Hansen
pointed out that this was by no means the case, for it is more
difficult to separate the cells from each other in the gelatin than in
the liquid. To obtain an absolutely pure culture with certainty it is
necessary, even when the gelatin method is employed, to start from a
single cell. To effect this some of the nutrient gelatin containing
yeast cells is placed on the under-surface of the cover-glass of the
moist chamber. Those cells are accurately marked, the position of which
is such that the colonies, to which they give rise, can grow to their
full size without coming into contact with other colonies. The growth of
the marked cells is kept under observation for three or four days, by
which time the colonies will be large enough to be taken out of the
chamber and placed in flasks. The contents of the flasks can then be
introduced into larger flasks, and finally into an apparatus suitable
for making enough yeast for technical purposes. Such, in brief, are the
methods devised by that brilliant investigator Hansen; and these methods
have not only been the basis on which our modern knowledge of the
_Saccharomycetes_ is founded, but are the only means of attack which the
present-day observer has at his disposal.
From the foregoing it will be seen that the term fermentation has now a
much wider significance than when it was applied to such changes as the
decomposition of must or wort with the production of carbon dioxide and
alcohol. Fermentation now includes all changes in organic compounds
brought about by ferments elaborated in the living animal or vegetable
cell. There are two distinct types of fermentation: (1) those brought
about by living organisms (organized ferments), and (2) those brought
about by non-living or unorganized ferments (enzymes). The first class
include such changes as the alcoholic fermentation of sugar solutions,
the acetic acid fermentation of alcohol, the lactic acid fermentation of
milk sugar, and the putrefaction of animal and vegetable nitrogenous
matter. The second class include all changes brought about by the agency
of enzymes, such as the action of diastase on starch, invertase on cane
sugar, glucase on maltose, &c. The actions are essentially hydrolytic.
_Biological Aspect of Yeast._--The Saccharomycetes belong to that
division of the Thallophyta called the Hyphomycetes or Fungi (q.v.). Two
great divisions are recognized in the Fungi: (i.) the _Phycomycetes_ or
Algal Fungi, which retain a definitely sexual method of reproduction as
well as asexual (vegetative) methods, and (ii.) the _Mycomycetes_,
characterized by extremely reduced or very doubtful sexual reproduction.
The Mycomycetes may be divided as follows: (A) forms bearing both
sporangia and conidia (see FUNGI), (B) forms bearing conidia only, e.g.
the common mushroom. Division A comprises (a) the true _Ascomycetes_, of
which the moulds Eurotium and Penicillium are examples, and (b) the
_Hemiasci_, which includes the yeasts. The gradual disappearance of the
sexual method of reproduction, as we pass upwards in the fungi from the
points of their departure from the Algae, is an important fact, the last
traces of sexuality apparently disappearing in the ascomycetes.
With certain rare exceptions the Saccharomycetes have three methods of
asexual reproduction:--
1. The most common.--The formation of _buds_ which separate to form new
cells. A portion of the nucleus of the parent cell makes its way through
the extremely narrow neck into the daughter cell. This method obtains
when yeast is vigorously fermenting a saccharine solution.
2. A division by _fission_ followed by Endogenous spore formation,
characteristic of the Schizosaccharomycetes. Some species show
fermentative power.
3. _Endospore_ formation, the conditions for which are as follows: (1)
suitable temperature, (2) presence of air, (3) presence of moisture, (4)
young and vigorous cells, (5) a food supply in the case of one species
at least is necessary, and is in no case prejudicial. In some cases a
sexual act would appear to precede spore formation. In most cases four
spores are formed within the cell by free formation. These may readily
be seen after appropriate staining.
In some of the true Ascomycetes, such as _Penicillium glaucum_, the
conidia if grown in saccharine solutions, which they have the power of
fermenting, develop single cell yeast-like forms, and do not--at any
rate for a time--produce again the characteristic branching mycelium.
This is known as the _Torula_ condition. It is supposed by some that
Saccharomyces is a very degraded Ascomycete, in which the Torula
condition has become fixed.
The yeast plant and its allies are saprophytes and form no chlorophyll.
Their extreme reduction in form and loss of sexuality may be correlated
with the saprophytic habit, the proteids and other organic material
required for the growth and reproduction being appropriated ready
synthesized, the plant having entirely lost the power of forming them
for itself, as evidenced by the absence of chlorophyll. The beer yeast
_S. cerevisiae_, is never found wild, but the wine yeasts occur
abundantly in the soil of vineyards, and so are always present on the
fruit, ready to ferment the expressed juice.
_Chemical Aspect of Alcoholic Fermentation._--Lavoisier was the first
investigator to study fermentation from a quantitative standpoint. He
determined the percentages of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in the sugar
and in the products of fermentation, and concluded that sugar in
fermenting breaks up into alcohol, carbonic acid and acetic acid. The
elementary composition of sugar and alcohol was fixed in 1815 by
analyses made by Gay-Lussac, Thénard and de Saussure. The
first-mentioned chemist proposed the following formula to represent the
change which takes place when sugar is fermented:--
C6H12O6 = 2CO2 + 2C2H6O.
Sugar. Carbon dioxide. Alcohol.
This formula substantially holds good to the present day, although a
number of definite bodies other than carbon dioxide and alcohol occur in
small and varying quantities, according to the conditions of the
fermentation and the medium fermented. Prominent among these are
glycerin and succinic acid. In this connexion Pasteur showed that 100
parts of cane sugar on inversion gave 105.4 parts of invert sugar,
which, when fermented, yielded 51.1 parts alcohol, 49.4 carbonic acid,
0.7 succinic acid, 3.2 glycerin and 1.0 unestimated. A. Béchamp and E.
Duclaux found that acetic acid is formed in small quantities during
fermentation; aldehyde has also been detected. The higher alcohols such
as propyl, isobutyl, amyl, capryl, oenanthyl and caproyl, have been
identified; and the amount of these vary according to the different
conditions of the fermentation. A number of esters are also produced.
The characteristic flavour and odour of wines and spirits is dependent
on the proportion of higher alcohols, aldehydes and esters which may be
produced.
Certain yeasts exercise a reducing action, forming sulphuretted
hydrogen, when sulphur is present. The "stinking fermentations"
occasionally experienced in breweries probably arise from this, the free
sulphur being derived from the hops. Other yeasts are stated to form
sulphurous acid in must and wort. Another fact of considerable technical
importance is, that the various races of yeast show considerable
differences in the amount and proportion of fermentation products other
than ethyl alcohol and carbonic acid which they produce. From these
remarks it will be clear that to employ the most suitable kind of yeast
for a given alcoholic fermentation is of fundamental importance in
certain industries. It is beyond the scope of the present article to
attempt to describe the different forms of budding fungi
(Saccharomyces), mould fungi and bacteria which are capable of
fermenting sugar solutions. Thus, six species isolated by Hansen,
_Saccharomyces cerevisiae_, _S. Pasteurianus_ I.,[1] II., III., and _S.
ellipsoideus_, contained invertase and maltase, and can invert and
subsequently ferment cane sugar and maltose. _S. exiguus_ and _S.
Ludwigii_ contain only invertase and not maltase, and therefore ferment
cane sugar but not maltose. _S. apiculatus_ (a common wine yeast)
contains neither of these enzymes, and only ferments solutions of
glucose or laevulose.
Previously to Hansen's work the only way of differentiating yeasts was
by studying morphological differences with the aid of the microscope.
Max Reess distinguished the species according to the appearance of the
cells thus, the ellipsoidal cells were designated _Saccharomyces
ellipsoideus_, the sausage-shaped _Saccharomyces Pasteurianus_, and so
on. It was found by Hansen that the same species of yeast can assume
different shapes; and it therefore became necessary to determine how the
different varieties of yeast could be distinguished with certainty. The
formation of spores in yeast (first discovered by T. Schwann in 1839)
was studied by Hansen, who found that each species only developed spores
between certain definite temperatures. The time taken for spore
formation varies greatly; thus, at 52° F., _S. cerevisiae_ takes 10, _S.
Pasteurianus_ I. and II. about 4, _S. Pasteurianus_ III. about 7, and
_S. ellipsoideus_ about 4½ days. The formation of spores is used as an
analytical method for determining whether a yeast is contaminated with
another species,--for example: a sample of yeast is placed on a gypsum
or porcelain block saturated with water; if in ten days at a temperature
of 52° F. no spores make their appearance, the yeast in question may be
regarded as _S. cerevisiae_, and not associated with _S. Pasteurianus_
or _S. ellipsoideus_.
The formation of films on fermented liquids is a well-known phenomenon
and common to all micro-organisms. A free still surface with a direct
access of air are the necessary conditions. Hansen showed that the
microscopic appearance of film cells of the same species of
Saccharomycetes varies according to the temperature of growth; the
limiting temperatures of film formation, as well as the time of its
appearance for the different species, also vary.
In the zymo-technical industries the various species of yeast exhibit
different actions during fermentations. A well-known instance of this is
the "top" and "bottom" brewery fermentations (see BREWING). In a top
fermentation--typical of English breweries--the yeast rises, in a bottom
fermentation, as the phrase implies, it settles in the vessel. Sometimes
a bottom yeast may for a time exhibit signs of a top fermentation. It
has not, however, been possible to transform a typical top yeast into a
permanent typical bottom yeast. There appear to be no true distinctive
characteristics for these two types. Their selection for a particular
purpose depends upon some special quality which they possess; thus for
brewing certain essentials are demanded as regards stability,
clarification, taste and smell; whereas, in distilleries, the production
of alcohol and a high multiplying power in the yeast are required.
Culture yeasts have also been successfully employed in the manufacture
of wine and cider. By the judicious selection of a type of yeast it is
possible to improve the bouquet, and from an inferior must obtain a
better wine or cider than would otherwise be produced.
Certain acid fermentations are of common occurrence. The _Bacterium
acidi lacti_ described by Pasteur decomposes milk sugar into lactic
acid. _Bacillus amylobacter_ usually accompanies the lactic acid
organism, and decomposes lactic and other higher acids with formation of
butyric acid. Moulds have been isolated which occasion the formation of
citric acid from glucose. The production of acetic acid from alcohol has
received much attention at the hands of investigators, and it has an
important technical aspect in the manufacture of vinegar. The phenomenon
of nitrification (see BACTERIOLOGY, AGRICULTURE and MANURE), i.e. the
formation of nitrites and nitrates from ammonia and its compounds in the
soil, was formerly held to be a purely chemical process, until
Schloesing and Müntz suggested in 1877 that it was biological. It is now
known that the action takes place in two stages; the ammonium salt is
first oxidized to the nitrite stage and subsequently to the nitrate.
(J. L. B.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Hansen found there were three species of spore-bearing
Saccharomycetes and that these could be subdivided into varieties.
Thus, _S. cerevisiae_ I., _S. cerevisiae_ II., _S. Pasteurianus_ I.,
&c.
FERMO (anc. _Firmum Picenum_), a town and archiepiscopal see of the
Marches, Italy, in the province of Ascoli Piceno, on a hill with a fine
view, 1046 ft. above sea-level, on a branch from Porto S. Giorgio on the
Adriatic coast railway. Pop. (1901) town, 16,577, commune 20,542. The
summit of the hill was occupied by the citadel until 1446. It is crowned
by the cathedral, reconstructed in 1227 by Giorgio da Como; the fine
façade and campanile of this period still remain, and the side portal
is good; the beautiful rose-window over the main door dates from 1348.
In the porch are several good tombs, including one of 1366 by Tura da
Imola, and also the modern monument of Giuseppe Colucci, a famous writer
on the antiquities of Picenum. The interior has been modernized. The
building is now surrounded by a garden, with a splendid view. Against
the side of the hill was built the Roman theatre; scanty traces of an
amphitheatre also exist. Remains of the city wall, of rectangular blocks
of hard limestone, may be seen just outside the Porta S. Francesco;
whether the walling under the Casa Porti belongs to them is doubtful.
The medieval battlemented walls superposed on it are picturesque. The
church of S. Francesco has a good tower and choir in brickwork of 1240,
the rest having been restored in the 17th century. Under the Dominican
monastery is a very large Roman reservoir in two storeys, belonging to
the imperial period, divided into many chambers, at least 24 on each
level, each 30 by 20 ft., for filtration (see G. de Minicis in _Annali
dell' Istituto_, 1846, p. 46; 1858, p. 125). The piazza contains the
Palazzo Comunale, restored in 1446, with a statue of Pope Sixtus V. in
front of it. The Biblioteca Comunale contains a collection of
inscriptions and antiquities. Porto S. Giorgio has a fine castle of
1269, blocking the valley which leads to Fermo.
The ancient Firmum Picenum was founded as a Latin colony in 264 B.C.,
after the conquest of the Picentes, as the local headquarters of the
Roman power, to which it remained faithful. It was originally governed
by five quaestors. It was made a colony with full rights after the
battle of Philippi, the 4th legion being settled there. It lay at the
junction of roads to Pausulae, Urbs Salvia and Asculum, being connected
with the coast road by a short branch road from Castellum Firmanum
(Porto S. Giorgio). In the 10th century it became the capital of the
_Marchia Firmana_. In 1199 it became a free city, and remained
independent until 1550, when it became subject to the papacy.
(T. As.)
FERMOY, a market town in the east riding of Co. Cork, Ireland, in the
north-east parliamentary division, 21 m. by road N.E. of Cork, and 14 m.
E. of Mallow by a branch of the Great Southern & Western railway. Pop.
of urban district (1901) 6126. It is situated on the river Blackwater,
which divides the town into two parts, the larger of which is on the
southern bank, and there the trade of the town, which is chiefly in
flour and agricultural produce, is mainly carried on. The town has
several good streets and some noteworthy buildings. Of the latter, the
most prominent are the military barracks on the north bank of the river,
the Protestant church, the Roman Catholic cathedral and St Colman's
Roman Catholic college. Fermoy rose to importance only at the beginning
of the 19th century, owing entirely to the devotion of John Anderson, a
citizen, on becoming landlord. The town is a centre for salmon and trout
fishing on the Blackwater and its tributary the Funshion. The
neighbouring scenery is attractive, especially in the Glen of Araglin,
once famed for its ironworks.
FERN (from O. Eng. _fearn_, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf.
Dutch _varen_, and Ger. _Farn_; the Indo-European root, seen in the
Sanskrit _parna_, a feather, shows the primary meaning; cf. Gr. [Greek:
pteron], feather, [Greek: pteris], fern), a name often used to denote
the whole botanical class of Pteridophytes, including both the true
ferns, Filicales, by far the largest group of this class in the existing
flora, and the fern-like plants, Equisetales, Sphenophyllales,
Lycopodiales (see PTERIDOPHYTA).
FERNANDEZ, ALVARO, one of the leading Portuguese explorers of the
earlier 15th century, the age of Henry the Navigator. He was brought up
(as a page or esquire) in the household of Prince Henry, and while still
"young and audacious" took an important part in the discovery of
"Guinea." He was a nephew of João Gonçalvez Zarco, who had rediscovered
the Madeira group in Henry's service (1418-1420), and had become
part-governor of Madeira and commander of Funchal; when the great
expedition of 1445 sailed for West Africa he was entrusted by his uncle
with a specially fine caravel, under particular injunctions to devote
himself to discovery, the most cherished object of his princely master,
so constantly thwarted. Fernandez, as a pioneer, outstripped all other
servants of the prince at this time. After visiting the mouth of the
Senegal, rounding Cape Verde, and landing in Goree (?), he pushed on to
the "Cape of Masts" (Cabo dos Matos, or Mastos, so called from its tall
spindle-palms), probably between Cape Verde and the Gambia, the most
southerly point till then attained. Next year (1446) he returned, and
coasted on much farther, to a bay one hundred and ten leagues "south"
(i.e. S.S.E.) of Cape Verde, perhaps in the neighbourhood of Konakry and
the Los Islands, and but little short of Sierra Leone. This record was
not broken till 1461, when Sierra Leone was sighted and named. A wound,
received from a poisoned arrow in an encounter with natives, now
compelled Fernandez to return to Portugal, where he was received with
distinguished honour and reward by Prince Henry and the regent of the
kingdom, Henry's brother Pedro.
See Gomes Eannes de Azurara, _Chronica de ... Guiné_, chs. lxxv.,
lxxxvii.; João de Barros, _Asia_, Decade I., bk. i. chs. xiii., xiv.
FERNANDEZ, DIEGO, a Spanish adventurer and historian of the 16th
century. Born at Palencia, he was educated for the church, but about
1545 he embarked for Peru, where he served in the royal army under
Alonzo de Alvarado. Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, marquess of Cañeté, who
became viceroy of Peru in 1655, bestowed on Fernandez the office of
chronicler of Peru; and in this capacity he wrote a narrative of the
insurrection of Francisco Hernandez Giron, of the rebellion of Gonzalo
Pizarro, and of the administration of Pedro de la Gasca. The whole work,
under the title _Primera y segunda parte de la Historia del Piru_, was
published at Seville in 1571 and was dedicated to King Philip II. It is
written in a clear and intelligible style, and with more art than is
usual in the compositions of the time. It gives copious details, and, as
he had access to the correspondence and official documents of the
Spanish leaders, it is, although necessarily possessing bias, the
fullest and most authentic record existing of the events it relates.
A notice of the work will be found in W.H. Prescott's _History of the
Conquest of Peru_ (new ed., London, 1902).
FERNANDEZ, JOHN (_João_, _Joam_), Portuguese traveller of the 15th
century. He was perhaps the earliest of modern explorers in the upland
of West Africa, and a pioneer of the European slave- and gold-trade of
Guinea. We first hear of him (before 1445) as a captive of the Barbary
Moors in the western Mediterranean; while among these he acquired a
knowledge of Arabic, and probably conceived the design of exploration in
the interior of the continent whose coasts the Portuguese were now
unveiling. In 1445 he volunteered to stay in Guinea and gather what
information he could for Prince Henry the Navigator; with this object he
accompanied Antam Gonçalvez to the "River of Gold" (Rio d'Ouro, Rio de
Oro) in 23° 40' N., where he landed and went inland with some native
shepherds. He stayed seven months in the country, which lay just within
Moslem Africa, slightly north of Pagan Negroland (W. Sudan); he was
taken off again by Antam Gonçalvez at a point farther down the coast,
near the "Cape of Ransom" (Cape Mirik), in 19° 22' 14"; and his account
of his experiences proved of great interest and value, not only as to
the natural features, climate, fauna and flora of the south-western
Sahara, but also as to the racial affinities, language, script,
religion, nomad habits, and trade of its inhabitants. These
people--though Mahommedans, maintaining a certain trade in slaves, gold,
&c., with the Barbary coast (especially with Tunis), and classed as
"Arabs," "Berbers," and "Tawny Moors"--did not then write or speak
Arabic. In 1446 and 1447 John Fernandez accompanied other expeditions to
the Rio d'Ouro and other parts of West Africa in the service of Prince
Henry. He was personally known to Gomes Eannes de Azurara, the historian
of this early period of Portuguese expansion; and from Azurara's
language it is clear that Fernandez' revelation of unknown lands and
races was fully appreciated at home.
See Azurara, _Chronica de ... Guiné_, chs. xxix., xxxii., xxxiv.,
xxxv., lxxvii., lxxviii., xc., xci., xciii.
FERNANDEZ, JUAN (fl. c. 1570), Spanish navigator and discoverer. While
navigating the coasts of South America it occurred to him that the south
winds constantly prevailing near the shore, and retarding voyages
between Peru and Chile, might not exist farther out at sea. His idea
proved correct, and by the help of the trade winds and some currents at
a distance from the coast he sailed with such rapidity (thirty days)
from Callao to Chile that he was apprehended on a charge of sorcery. His
inquisitors, however, accepted his natural explanation of the marvel.
During one of his voyages in 1563 (from Lima to Valdivia) Fernandez
discovered the islands which now bear his name. He was so enchanted with
their beauty and fertility that he solicited the concession of them from
the Spanish government. It was granted in 1572, but a colony which he
endeavoured to establish at the largest of them (Isla Mas-a-Tierra) soon
broke up, leaving behind the goats, whose progeny were hunted by
Alexander Selkirk. In 1574 Fernandez discovered St Felix and St Ambrose
islands (in 27° S., 82° 7' W.); and in 1576, while voyaging in the
southern ocean, he is said to have sighted not only Easter Island, but
also a continent, which was probably Australia or New Zealand if the
story (rejected by most critics, but with reservations as to Easter
Island) is to be accepted.
See J.L. Arias, _Memoir recommending to the king the conversion of the
new discovered islands_ (in Spanish, 1609; Eng. trans., 1773); Ulloa,
_Relacion del Viaje_, bk. ii. ch. iv.; Alexander Dalrymple, _An
Historical Collection of the several Voyages and Discoveries in the
South Pacific Ocean_ (London, 1769-1771); Fréville, _Voyages de la Mer
du Sud par les Espagnols_.
FERNANDEZ, LUCAS, Spanish dramatist, was born at Salamanca about the
middle of the 15th century. Nothing is known of his life, and he is
represented by a single volume of plays, _Farsas y églogas al modo y
estilo pastoril_ (1514). In his secular pieces--a _comedia_ and two
_farsas_--he introduces few personages, employs the simplest possible
action, and burlesques the language of the uneducated class; the secular
and devout elements are skilfully intermingled in his two _Farsas del
nascimiento de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo_. But the best of his dramatic
essays is the _Auto de la Pasión_, a devout play intended to be given on
Maundy Thursday. It is written in the manner of Encina, with less
spontaneity, but with a sombre force to which Encina scarcely attained.
Fernandez' plays were reprinted by the Spanish Academy in 1867.
FERNANDINA, a city, a port of entry, and the county-seat of Nassau
county, Florida, U.S.A., a winter and summer resort, in the N.E. part of
the state, 36 m. N.E. of Jacksonville, on Amelia Island (about 22 m.
long and from ½ m. to 1½ m. wide), which is separated from the mainland
by an arm of the sea, known as Amelia river and bay. Pop. (1900) 3245;
(1905, state census), 4959 (2957 negroes); (1910) 3482. Fernandina is
served by the Seaboard Air Line railway, and by steamship lines
connecting with domestic and foreign ports; its harbour, which has the
deepest water on the E. coast of Florida, opens on the N. to Cumberland
Sound, which was improved by the Federal government, beginning in 1879,
reducing freight rates at Fernandina by 25 to 40%. Under an act of 1907
the channel of Fernandina harbour, 1300 ft. wide at the entrance and
about 2 m. long, was dredged to a depth of 20 to 24 ft. at mean low
water with a width of 400 to 600 ft. The "inside" water-route between
Savannah, Georgia and Fernandina is improved by the Federal government
(1892 sqq.) and has a 7-ft. channel. The principal places of interest
are "Amelia Beach," more than 20 m. long and 200 ft. wide, connected
with the city by a compact shell road nearly 2 m. long and by electric
line; the Amelia Island lighthouse, in the N. end of the island,
established in 1836 and rebuilt in 1880; Fort Clinch, at the entrance to
the harbour; Cumberland Island, in Georgia, N. of Amelia Island, where
land was granted to General Nathanael Greene after the War of American
Independence by the state of Georgia; and Dungeness, the estate of the
Carnegie family. Ocean City, on Amelia Beach, is a popular pleasure
resort. The principal industries are the manufacture of lumber, cotton,
palmetto fibres, and cigars, the canning of oysters, and the building
and repair of railway cars. The foreign exports, chiefly lumber, railway
ties, cotton, phosphate rock, and naval stores, were valued at
$9,346,704 in 1907; and the imports in 1907 at $116,514.
The harbour of Fernandina was known to the early explorers of Florida,
and it was here that Dominic de Gourgues landed when he made his
expedition against the Spanish at San Mateo in 1568. An Indian mission
was established by Spanish priests later in the same century, but it was
not successful. When Georgia was founded, General James Oglethorpe
placed a military guard on Amelia Island to prevent sudden attack upon
his colony by the Spanish, and the first blood shed in the petty warfare
between Georgia and Florida was the murder of two unarmed members of the
guard by a troop of Spanish soldiers and Indians in 1739. The first
permanent settlement was made by the Spanish in 1808, at what is now the
village of Old Fernandina, about 1 m. from the city. The island was a
centre for smuggling during the period of the embargo and
non-importation acts preceding the war of 1812. This was the pretext for
General George Matthews (1738-1812) to gather a band of adventurers at
St Mary's, Georgia, invade the island, and capture Fernandina in 1812.
In the following year the American forces were withdrawn. In 1817 Gregor
MacGregor, a filibuster who had aided the Spanish provinces of South
America in their revolt against Spain, fitted out an expedition in
Baltimore and seized Fernandina, but departed soon after. Later in the
same year Louis Aury, another adventurer, appeared with a small force
from Texas, and took possession of the place in the name of the Republic
of Mexico. In the following year Aury was expelled by United States
troops, who held Fernandina in trust for Spain until Florida was finally
ceded to the United States in 1821. Fernandina was first incorporated in
1859. In 1861 Fort Clinch was seized by the Confederates, and Fernandina
harbour was a centre of blockade running in the first two years of the
Civil War. In 1862 the place was captured by a Federal naval force from
Port Royal, South Carolina, commanded by Commodore S.F. Du Pont.
FERNANDO DE NORONHA [_Fernão de N._], an island in the South Atlantic,
125 m. from the coast of Brazil, to which country it belongs, in 3° 50'
S., 32° 25' W. It is about 7 m. long and 1½ wide, and some other islets
lie adjacent to it. Its surface is rugged, and it contains a number of
rocky hills from 500 to 700 ft. high, and one peak towering to the
height of 1089 ft. It is formed of basalt, trachyte and phonolite, and
the soil is very fertile. The climate is healthy. It is defended by
forts, and serves as a place of banishment for criminals from Brazil.
The next largest island of the group is about a mile in circumference,
and the others are small barren rocks. The population is about 2000, all
males, including some 1400 criminals, and a garrison of 150.
Communication is maintained by steamer with Pernambuco. The island takes
name from its Portuguese discoverer (1503), the count of Noronha.
FERNANDO PO, or FERNANDO PÓO, a Spanish island on the west coast of
Africa, in the Bight of Biafra, about 20 m. from the mainland, in 3° 12'
N. and 8° 48' E. It is of volcanic origin, related to the Cameroon
system of the adjacent mainland, is the largest island in the Gulf of
Guinea, is 44 m. long from N.N.E. to S.S.W., about 20 m. broad, and has
an area of about 780 sq. m. Fernando Po is noted for its beautiful
aspect, seeming from a short distance to be a single mountain rising
from the sea, its sides covered with luxuriant vegetation. The shores
are steep and rocky and the coast plain narrow. This plain is succeeded
by the slopes of the mountains which occupy the rest of the island and
culminate in the magnificent cone of Clarence Peak or Pico de Santa
Isabel (native name Owassa). Clarence Peak, about 10,000 ft. high,[1] is
in the north-central part of the island. In the south Musolo Mt. attains
a height of 7400 ft. There are numerous other peaks between 4000 and
6000 ft. high. The mountains contain craters and crater lakes, and are
covered, most of them to their summits, with forests. Down the narrow
intervening valleys rush torrential streams which have cut deep beds
through the coast plains. The trees most characteristic of the forest
are oil palms and tree ferns, but there are many varieties, including
ebony, mahogany and the African oak. The undergrowth is very dense; it
includes the sugar-cane and cotton and indigo plants. The fauna includes
antelopes, monkeys, lemurs, the civet cat, porcupine, pythons and green
tree-snakes, crocodiles and turtles. The climate is very unhealthy in
the lower districts, where malarial fever is common. The mean
temperature on the coast is 78° Fahr. and varies little, but in the
higher altitudes there is considerable daily variation. The rainfall is
very heavy except during November-January, which is considered the dry
season.
The inhabitants number about 25,000. In addition to about 500 Europeans,
mostly Spaniards and Cubans, they are of two classes, the Bubis or Bube
(formerly also called Ediya), who occupy the interior, and the coast
dwellers, a mixed Negro race, largely descended from slave ancestors
with an admixture of Portuguese and Spanish blood, and known to the
Bubis as "Portos"--a corruption of Portuguese. The Bubis are of Bantu
stock and early immigrants from the mainland. Physically they are a
finely developed race, extremely jealous of their independence and
unwilling to take service of any kind with Europeans. They go unclothed,
smearing their bodies with a kind of pomatum. They stick pieces of wood
in the lobes of their ears, wear numerous armlets made of ivory, beads
or grass, and always wear hats, generally made of palm leaves. Their
weapons are mainly of wood; stone axes and knives were in use as late as
1858. They have no knowledge of working iron. Their villages are built
in the densest parts of the forest, and care is taken to conceal the
approach to them. The Bubis are sportsmen and fishermen rather than
agriculturists. The staple foods of the islanders generally are millet,
rice, yams and bananas. Alcohol is distilled from the sugar-cane. The
natives possess numbers of sheep, goats and fowls.
The principal settlement is Port Clarence (pop. 1500), called by the
Spaniards Santa Isabel, a safe and commodious harbour on the north
coast. In its graveyard are buried Richard Lander and several other
explorers of West Africa. Port Clarence is unhealthy, and the seat of
government has been removed to Basile, a small town 5 m. from Port
Clarence and over 1000 ft. above the sea. On the west coast are the bay
and port of San Carlos, on the east coast Concepcion Bay and town. The
chief industry until the close of the 19th century was the collection of
palm-oil, but the Spaniards have since developed plantations of cocoa,
coffee, sugar, tobacco, vanilla and other tropical plants. The kola nut
is also cultivated. The cocoa plantations are of most importance. The
amount of cocoa exported in 1905 was 1800 tons, being 370 tons above the
average export for the preceding five years. The total value of the
trade of the island (1900-1905) was about £250,000 a year.
_History._--The island was discovered towards the close of the 15th
century by a Portuguese navigator called Fernão do Po, who, struck by
its beauty, named it Formosa, but it soon came to be called by the name
of its discoverer.[2] A Portuguese colony was established in the island,
which together with Annobon was ceded to Spain in 1778. The first
attempts of Spain to develop the island ended disastrously, and in 1827,
with the consent of Spain, the administration of the island was taken
over by Great Britain, the British "superintendent" having a Spanish
commission as governor. By the British Fernando Po was used as a naval
station for the ships engaged in the suppression of the slave trade. The
British headquarters were named Port Clarence and the adjacent
promontory Cape William, in honour of the duke of Clarence (William
IV.). In 1844 the Spaniards reclaimed the island, refusing to sell their
rights to Great Britain. They did no more at that time, however, than
hoist the Spanish flag, appointing a British resident, John Beecroft,
governor. Beecroft, who was made British consul in 1849, died in 1854.
During the British occupation a considerable number of Sierra Leonians,
West Indians and freed slaves settled in the island, and English became
and remains the common speech of the coast peoples. In 1858 a Spanish
governor was sent out, and the Baptist missionaries who had laboured in
the island since 1843 were compelled to withdraw. They settled in Ambas
Bay on the neighbouring mainland (see CAMEROON). The Jesuits who
succeeded the Baptists were also expelled, but mission and educational
work is now carried on by other Roman Catholic agencies, and (since
1870) by the Primitive Methodists. In 1879 the Spanish government
recalled its officials, but a few years later, when the partition of
Africa was being effected, they were replaced and a number of Cuban
political prisoners were deported thither. Very little was done to
develop the resources of the island until after the loss of the Spanish
colonies in the West Indies and the Pacific, when Spain turned her
attention to her African possessions. Stimulated by the success of the
Portuguese cocoa plantations in the neighbouring island of St Thomas,
the Spaniards started similar plantations, with some measure of success.
The strategical importance and commercial possibilities of the island
caused Germany and other powers to approach Spain with a view to its
acquisition, and in 1900 the Spaniards gave France, in return for
territorial concessions on the mainland, the right of pre-emption over
the island and her other West African possessions.
The administration of the island is in the hands of a governor-general,
assisted by a council, and responsible to the ministry of foreign
affairs at Madrid. The governor-general has under his authority the
sub-governors of the other Spanish possessions in the Gulf of Guinea,
namely, the Muni River Settlement, Corisco and Annobon (see those
articles). None of these possessions is self-supporting.
See E. d'Almonte, "Someras Notas ... de la isla de Fernando Póo y de
la Guinea continental española," in _Bol. Real. Soc. Geog._ of Madrid
(1902); and a further article in the _Riv. Geog. Col._ of Madrid
(1908); E.L. Vilches, "Fernando Póo y la Guinea española," in the
_Bol. Real. Soc. Geog._ (1901); San Javier, _Tres Años en Fernando
Póo_ (Madrid, 1875); O. Baumann, _Eine africanische Tropeninsel:
Fernando Póo und die Bube_ (Vienna, 1888); Sir H.H. Johnston, _George
Grenfell and the Congo ... and Notes on Fernando Pô_ (London, 1908);
Mary H. Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, ch. iii. (London, 1897);
T.J. Hutchinson, sometime British Consul at Fernando Po, _Impressions
of Western Africa_, chs. xii. and xiii. (London, 1858), and _Ten
Years' Wanderings among the Ethiopians_, chs. xvii. and xviii.
(London, 1861). For the Bubi language see J. Clarke, _The Adeeyah
Vocabulary_ (1841), and _Introduction to the Fernandian Tongue_
(1848). Consult also _Wanderings in West Africa_ (1863) and other
books written by Sir Richard Burton as the result of his consulship at
Fernando Po, 1861-1865, and the works cited under MUNI RIVER
SETTLEMENTS.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The heights given by explorers vary from 9200 to 10,800 ft.
[2] Some authorities maintain that another Portuguese seaman, Lopes
Gonsalves, was the discoverer of the island. The years 1469, 1471 and
1486 are variously given as those of the date of the discovery.
FERNEL, JEAN FRANÇOIS (1497-1558), French physician, was born at
Clermont in 1497, and after receiving his early education at his native
town, entered the college of Sainte-Barbe, Paris. At first he devoted
himself to mathematical and astronomical studies; his _Cosmotheoria_
(1528) records a determination of a degree of the meridian, which he
made by counting the revolutions of his carriage wheels on a journey
between Paris and Amiens. But from 1534 he gave himself up entirely to
medicine, in which he graduated in 1530. His extraordinary general
erudition, and the skill and success with which he sought to revive the
study of the old Greek physicians, gained him a great reputation, and
ultimately the office of physician to the court. He practised with great
success, and at his death in 1558 left behind him an immense fortune. He
also wrote_ Monalosphaerium, sive astrolabii genus, generalis horarii
structura et usus_ (1526); _De proportionibus_ (1528); _De evacuandi
ratione_ (1545); _De abditis rerum causis_ (1548); and _Medicina ad
Henricum II._ (1554).
FERNIE, an important city in the east Kootenay district of British
Columbia. Pop. about 4000. It is situated on the Crow's Nest branch of
the Canadian Pacific railway, at the junction of Coal Creek with the Elk
river, and owes its importance to the extensive coal mines in its
vicinity. There are about 500 coke ovens in operation at Fernie, which
supply most of the smelting plants in southern British Columbia with
fuel.
FERNOW, KARL LUDWIG (1763-1808), German art-critic and archaeologist,
was born in Pomerania on the 19th of November 1763. His father was a
servant in the household of the lord of Blumenhagen. At the age of
twelve he became clerk to a notary, and was afterwards apprenticed to a
druggist. While serving his time he had the misfortune accidentally to
shoot a young man who came to visit him; and although through the
intercession of his master he escaped prosecution, the untoward event
weighed heavily on his mind, and led him at the close of his
apprenticeship to quit his native place. He obtained a situation at
Lübeck, where he had leisure to cultivate his natural taste for drawing
and poetry. Having formed an acquaintance with the painter Carstens,
whose influence was an important stimulus and help to him, he renounced
his trade of druggist, and set up as a portrait-painter and
drawing-master. At Ludwigslust he fell in love with a young girl, and
followed her to Weimar; but failing in his suit, he went next to Jena.
There he was introduced to Professor Reinhold, and in his house met the
Danish poet Baggesen. The latter invited him to accompany him to
Switzerland and Italy, a proposal which he eagerly accepted (1794) for
the sake of the opportunity of furthering his studies in the fine arts.
On Baggesen's return to Denmark, Fernow, assisted by some of his
friends, visited Rome and made some stay there. He now renewed his
intercourse with Carstens, who had settled at Rome, and applied himself
to the study of the history and theory of the fine arts and of the
Italian language and literature. Making rapid progress, he was soon
qualified to give a course of lectures on archaeology, which was
attended by the principal artists then at Rome. Having married a Roman
lady, he returned in 1802 to Germany, and was appointed in the following
year professor extraordinary of Italian literature at Jena. In 1804 he
accepted the post of librarian to Amelia, duchess-dowager of Weimar,
which gave him the leisure he desired for the purpose of turning to
account the literary and archaeological researches in which he had
engaged at Rome. His most valuable work, the _Römische Studien_,
appeared in 3 vols. (1806-1808). Among his other works are--_Das Leben
des Künstlers Carstens_ (1806), _Ariosto's Lebenslauf_ (1809), and
_Francesco Petrarca_ (1818). Fernow died at Weimar, December 4, 1808.
A memoir of his life by Johanna Schopenhauer, mother of the
philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, appeared in 1810, and a complete
edition of his works in 1829.
FEROZEPUR, or FIROZPUR, a town and district of British India, in the
Jullundur division of the Punjab. The town is a railway junction
connecting the North-Western and Rajputana railways, and is situated
about 4 m. from the present south bank of the Sutlej. Pop. (1901)
49,341. The arsenal is the largest in India, and Ferozepur is the
headquarters of a brigade in the 3rd division of the northern army
corps. British rule was first established at Ferozepur in 1835, when, on
the failure of heirs to the Sikh family who possessed it, a small
territory 86 m. in extent became an escheat to the British government,
and the present district has been gradually formed around this nucleus.
The strategic importance of Ferozepur was at this time very great; and
when, in 1839, Captain (afterwards Sir Henry) Lawrence took charge of
the station as political officer, it was the outpost of British India in
the direction of the Sikh power. Ferozepur accordingly became the scene
of operations during the first Sikh War. The Sikhs crossed the Sutlej in
December 1845, and were defeated successively at Mudki, Ferozepur,
Aliwal and Sobraon; after which they withdrew into their own territory,
and peace was concluded at Lahore. At the time of the mutiny Ferozepur
cantonments contained two regiments of native infantry and a regiment of
native cavalry, together with the 61st Foot and two companies of
European artillery. One of the native regiments, the 57th, was disarmed;
but the other, the 45th, broke into mutiny, and, after an unsuccessful
attempt to seize the magazine, which was held by the Europeans,
proceeded to join the rebel forces in Delhi. Throughout the mutiny
Ferozepur remained in the hands of the English.
Ferozepur has rapidly advanced in material prosperity of late years, and
is now a very important seat of commerce, trade being mainly in grain.
The main streets of the city are wide and well paved, and the whole is
enclosed by a low brick wall. Great improvements have been made in the
surroundings of the city. The cantonment lies 2 m. to the south of the
city, and is connected with it by a good metalled road.
The DISTRICT OF FEROZEPUR comprises an area of 4302 sq. m. The surface
is level, with the exception of a few sand-hills in the south and
south-east. The country consists of two distinct tracts, that liable to
annual fertilizing inundations from the Sutlej, known as the _bhet_, and
the _rohi_ or upland tract. The only river is the Sutlej, which runs
along the north-western boundary. The principal crops are wheat, barley,
millet, gram, pulses, oil-seeds, cotton, tobacco, &c. The manufactures
are of the humblest kind, consisting chiefly of cotton and wool-weaving,
and are confined entirely to the supply of local wants. The Lahore and
Ludhiana road runs for 51 m. through the district, and forms an
important trade route. The North-Western, the Southern Punjab, and a
branch of the Rajputana-Malwa railways serve the district. The other
important towns and seats of commerce are Fazilka (pop. 8505), Dharmkot
(6731), Moga (6725), and Muktsar (6389). Owing principally to the
dryness of its climate, Ferozepur has the reputation of being an
exceptionally healthy district. In September and October, however, after
the annual rains, the people suffer a good deal from remittent fever. In
1901 the population was 958,072. Distributaries of the Sirhind canal
water the whole district.
FEROZESHAH, a village in the Punjab, India, notable as the scene of one
of the chief battles in the first Sikh War. The battle immediately
succeeded that of Mudki, and was fought on the 21st and 22nd of December
1845. During its course Sir Hugh Gough, the British commander, was
overruled by the governor-general, Lord Hardinge, who was acting as his
second in command (see SIKH WARS). At the end of the first day's
fighting the British had occupied the Sikh position, but had not gained
an undisputed victory. On the following morning the battle was resumed,
and the Sikhs were reinforced by a second army under Tej Singh; but
through cowardice or treachery Tej Singh withdrew at the critical
moment, leaving the field to the British. In the course of the fight the
British lost 694 killed and 1721 wounded, the vast majority being
British troops, while the Sikhs lost 100 guns and about 5000 killed and
wounded.
FERRAND, ANTOINE FRANÇOIS CLAUDE, COMTE (1751-1825), French statesman
and political writer, was born in Paris on the 4th of July 1751, and
became a member of the parlement of Paris at eighteen. He left France
with the first party of emigrants, and attached himself to the prince of
Condé; later he was a member of the council of regency formed by the
comte de Provence after the death of Louis XVI. He lived at Regensburg
until 1801, when he returned to France, though he still sought to serve
the royalist cause. In 1814 Ferrand was made minister of state and
postmaster-general. He countersigned the act of sequestration of
Napoleon's property, and introduced a bill for the restoration of the
property of the emigrants, establishing a distinction, since become
famous, between royalists of _la ligne droite_ and those of _la ligne
courbe_. At the second restoration Ferrand was again for a short time
postmaster-general. He was also made a peer of France, member of the
privy council, grand-officer and secretary of the orders of Saint Michel
and the Saint Esprit, and in 1816 member of the Academy, He continued
his active support of ultra-royalist views until his death, which took
place in Paris on the 17th of January 1825.
Besides a large number of political pamphlets, Ferrand is the author
of _L'Esprit de l'histoire, ou Lettres d'un père à son fils sur la
manière d'étudier l'histoire_ (4 vols., 1802), which reached seven
editions, the last number in 1826 having prefixed to it a biographical
sketch of the author by his nephew Héricart de Thury; _Éloge
historique de Madame Élisabeth de France_ (1814); _Oeuvres dramatiques
_(1817); _Théorie des révolutions rapprochée des événements qui en ont
été l'origine, le développement, ou la suite_ (4 vols., 1817); and
_Histoire des trois démembrements de la Pologne, pour faire suite à
l'Histoire de l'anarchie de Pologne par Rulhière_ (3 vols., 1820).
FERRAR, NICHOLAS (1592-1637), English theologian, was born in London in
1592 and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, graduating in 1610. He was
obliged for some years to travel for his health, but on returning to
England in 1618 became actively connected with the Virginia Company.
When this company was deprived of its patent in 1623 Ferrar turned his
attention to politics, and was elected to parliament. But he soon
decided to devote himself to a religious life; he purchased the manor
of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, where he organized a small
religious community. Here, in 1626, he was ordained a deacon by Laud,
and declining preferment, he lived an austere, almost monastic life of
study and good works. He died on the 4th of December 1637, and the house
was despoiled and the community broken up ten years later. There are
extant a number of "harmonies" of the Gospel, printed and bound by the
community, two of them by Ferrar himself. One of the latter was made for
Charles I. on his request, after a visit in 1633 to see the "Arminian
Nunnery at Little Gidding," which had been the subject of some
scandalous--and undeserved--criticism.
FERRAR, ROBERT (d. 1555), bishop of St David's and martyr, born about
the end of the 15th century of a Yorkshire family, is said to have been
educated at Cambridge, whence he proceeded to Oxford and became a canon
regular of St Augustine. He came under the influence of Thomas Gerrard
and Lutheran theology, and was compelled to bear a faggot with Anthony
Dalaber and others in 1528. He graduated B.D. in 1533, accompanied
Bishop Barlow on his embassy to Scotland in 1535, and was made prior of
St Oswald's at Nostell near Pontefract. At the dissolution he
surrendered his priory without compunction to the crown, and received a
liberal pension. For the rest of Henry's reign his career is obscure;
perhaps he fled abroad on the enactment of the Six Articles. He
certainly married, and is said to have been made Cranmer's chaplain, and
bishop of Sodor and Man; but he was never consecrated to that see.
After the accession of Edward VI., Ferrar was, probably through the
influence of Bishop Barlow, appointed chaplain to Protector Somerset, a
royal visitor, and bishop of St David's on Barlow's translation to Bath
and Wells in 1548. He was the first bishop appointed by letters patent
under the act passed in 1547 without the form of capitular election; and
the service performed at his consecration was also novel, being in
English; he also preached at St Paul's on the 11th of November clad only
as a priest and not as a bishop, and inveighed against vestments and
altars. At St David's he had trouble at once with his singularly
turbulent chapter, who, finding that he was out of favour at court since
Somerset's fall in 1549, brought a long list of fantastic charges
against him. He had taught his child to whistle, dined with his
servants, talked of "worldly things such as baking, brewing, enclosing,
ploughing and mining," preferred walking to riding, and denounced the
debasement of the coinage. He seems to have been a kindly, homely,
somewhat feckless person like many an excellent parish priest, who did
not conceal his indignation at some of Northumberland's deeds. He had
voted against the act of November 1549 for a reform of the canon law,
and on a later occasion his nonconformity brought him into conflict with
the Council; he was also the only bishop who satisfied Hooper's test of
sacramental orthodoxy. The Council accordingly listened to the
accusations of Ferrar's chapter, and in 1552 he was summoned to London
and imprisoned on a charge of _praemunire_ incurred by omitting the
king's authority in a commission which he issued for the visitation of
his diocese.
Imprisonment on such a charge under Northumberland might have been
expected to lead to liberation under Mary. But Ferrar had been a monk
and was married. Even so, it is difficult to see on what legal ground he
was kept in the queen's bench prison after July 1553; for Mary herself
was repudiating the royal authority in religion. Ferrar's marriage
accounts for the loss of his bishopric in March 1554, and his opinions
for his further punishment. As soon as the heresy laws and
ecclesiastical jurisdiction had been re-established, Ferrar was examined
by Gardiner, and then with signal indecency sent down to be tried by
Morgan, his successor in the bishopric of St David's. He appealed from
Morgan's sentence to Pole as papal legate, but in vain, and was burnt at
Caermarthen on the 30th of March 1555. It was perhaps the most wanton of
all Mary's acts of persecution; Ferrar had been no such protagonist of
the Reformation as Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper and Latimer; he had had
nothing to do with Northumberland's or Wyatt's conspiracy. He had taken
no part in politics, and, so far as is known, had not said a word or
raised a hand against Mary. He was burnt simply because he could not
change his religion with the law and would not pretend that he could;
and his execution is a complete refutation of the idea that Mary only
persecuted heretics because and when they were traitors.
See _Dictionary of National Biography_, xviii. 380-382, and
authorities there cited. Also Acts of the Privy Council (1550-1554);
H.A.L. Fisher, _Political History of England_, vol. vi. (A. F. P.)
FERRARA, a city and archiepiscopal see of Emilia, Italy, capital of the
province of Ferrara, 30 m. N.N.E. of Bologna, situated 30 ft. above
sea-level on the Po di Vomano, a branch channel of the main stream of
the Po, which is 3½ m. N. Pop. (1901) 32,968 (town), 86,392 (commune).
The town has broad streets and numerous palaces, which date from the
16th century, when it was the seat of the court of the house of Este,
and had, it is said, 100,000 inhabitants.
The most prominent building is the square castle of the house of Este,
in the centre of the town, a brick building surrounded by a moat, with
four towers. It was built after 1385 and partly restored in 1554; the
pavilions on the top of the towers date from the latter year. Near it is
the hospital of S. Anna, where Tasso was confined during his attack of
insanity (1579-1586). The Palazzo del Municipio, rebuilt in the 18th
century, was the earlier residence of the Este family. Close by is the
cathedral of S. Giorgio, consecrated in 1135, when the Romanesque lower
part of the main façade and the side façades were completed. It was
built by Guglielmo degli Adelardi (d. 1146), who is buried in it. The
upper part of the main façade, with arcades of pointed arches, dates
from the 13th century, and the portal has recumbent lions and elaborate
sculptures above. The interior was restored in the baroque style in
1712. The campanile, in the Renaissance style, dates from 1451-1493, but
the last storey was added at the end of the 16th century. Opposite the
cathedral is the Gothic Palazzo della Ragione, in brick (1315-1326), now
the law-courts. A little way off is the university, which has faculties
of law, medicine and natural science (hardly 100 students in all); the
library has valuable MSS., including part of that of the _Orlando
Furioso_ and letters by Tasso. The other churches are of less interest
than the cathedral, though S. Francesco, S. Benedetto, S. Maria in Vado
and S. Cristoforo are all good early Renaissance buildings. The numerous
early Renaissance palaces, often with good terra-cotta decorations, form
quite a feature of Ferrara; few towns of Italy have so many of them
proportionately, though they are mostly comparatively small in size.
Among them may be noted those in the N. quarter (especially the four at
the intersection of its two main streets), which was added by Ercole
(Hercules) I. in 1492-1505, from the plans of Biagio Rossetti, and hence
called the "Addizione Erculea." The finest of these is the Palazzo de'
Diamanti, so called from the diamond points into which the blocks of
stone with which it is faced are cut. It contains the municipal picture
gallery, with a large number of pictures of artists of the school of
Ferrara. This did not require prominence until the latter half of the
15th century, when its best masters were Cosimo Tura (1432-1495),
Francesco Cossa (d. 1480) and Ercole dei Roberti (d. 1496). To this
period are due famous frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia, which was
built by the Este family; those of the lower row depict the life of
Borso of Este, in the central row are the signs of the zodiac, and in
the upper are allegorical representations of the months. The vestibule
was decorated with stucco mouldings by Domenico di Paris of Padua. The
building also contains fine choir-books with miniatures, and a
collection of coins and Renaissance medals. The simple house of Ariosto,
erected by himself after 1526, in which he died in 1532, lies farther
west. The best Ferrarese masters of the 16th century of the Ferrara
school were Lorenzo Costa (1460-1535), and Dosso Dossi (1479-1542), the
most eminent of all, while Benvenuto Tisi (Garofalo, 1481-1559) is
somewhat monotonous and insipid.
The origin of Ferrara is uncertain, and probabilities are against the
supposition that it occupies the site of the ancient Forum Alieni. It
was probably a settlement formed by the inhabitants of the lagoons at
the mouth of the Po. It appears first in a document of Aistulf of 753 or
754 as a city forming part of the exarchate of Ravenna. After 984 we
find it a fief of Tedaldo, count of Modena and Canossa, nephew of the
emperor Otho I. It afterwards made itself independent, and in 1101 was
taken by siege by the countess Matilda. At this time it was mainly
dominated by several great families, among them the Adelardi.
In 1146 Guglielmo, the last of the Adelardi, died, and his property
passed, as the dowry of his niece Marchesella, to Azzolino d' Este.
There was considerable hostility between the newly entered family and
the Salinguerra, but after considerable struggles Azzo Novello was
nominated perpetual podestà in 1242; in 1259 he took Ezzelino of Verona
prisoner in battle. His grandson, Obizzo II. (1264-1293), succeeded him,
and the pope nominated him captain-general and defender of the states of
the Church; and the house of Este was from henceforth settled in
Ferrara. Niccolò III. (1393-1441) received several popes with great
magnificence, especially Eugene IV., who held a council here in 1438.
His son Borso received the fiefs of Modena and Reggio from the emperor
Frederick III. as first duke in 1452 (in which year Girolamo Savonarola
was born here), and in 1470 was made duke of Ferrara by Pope Paul II.
Ercole I. (1471-1505) carried on a war with Venice and increased the
magnificence of the city. His son Alphonso I. married Lucrezia Borgia,
and continued the war with Venice with success. In 1509 he was
excommunicated by Julius II., and attacked the pontifical army in 1512
outside Ravenna, which he took. Gaston de Foix fell in the battle, in
which he was supporting Alphonso. With the succeeding popes he was able
to make peace. He was the patron of Ariosto from 1518 onwards. His son
Ercole II. married Renata, daughter of Louis XII. of France; he too
embellished Ferrara during his reign (1534-1559). His son Alphonso II.
married Barbara, sister of the emperor Maximilian II. He raised the
glory of Ferrara to its highest point, and was the patron of Tasso and
Guarini, favouring, as the princes of his house had always done, the
arts and sciences. He had no legitimate male heir, and in 1597 Ferrara
was claimed as a vacant fief by Pope Clement VIII., as was also
Comacchio. A fortress was constructed by him on the site of the castle
of Tedaldo, at the W. angle of the town. The town remained a part of the
states of the Church, the fortress being occupied by an Austrian
garrison from 1832 until 1859, when it became part of the kingdom of
Italy.
A considerable area within the walls of Ferrara is unoccupied by
buildings, especially on the north, where, the handsome Renaissance
church of S. Cristoforo, with the cemetery, stands; but modern times
have brought a renewal of industrial activity. Ferrara is on the main
line from Bologna to Padua and Venice, and has branches to Ravenna and
Poggio Rusco (for Suzzara).
See G. Agnelli, _Ferrara e Pomposa_ (Bergamo, 1902); E.G. Gardner,
_Dukes and Poets of Ferrara_ (London, 1904).
FERRARA-FLORENCE, COUNCIL OF (1438 ff.). The council of Ferrara and
Florence was the culmination of a series of futile medieval attempts to
reunite the Greek and Roman churches. The emperor, John VI. Palaeologus,
had been advised by his experienced father to avoid all serious
negotiations, as they had invariably resulted in increased bitterness;
but John, in view of the rapid dismemberment of his empire by the Turks,
felt constrained to seek a union. The situation was, however,
complicated by the strife which broke out between the pope (Eugenius
IV.) and the oecumenical council of Basel. Both sides sent embassies to
the emperor at Constantinople, as both saw the importance of gaining the
recognition and support of the East, for on this practically depended
the victory in the struggle between papacy and council for the supreme
jurisdiction over the church (see COUNCILS). The Greeks, fearing the
domination of the papacy, were at first more favourably inclined toward
the conciliar party; but the astute diplomacy of the Roman
representatives, who have been charged by certain Greek writers with the
skilful use of money and of lies, won over the emperor. With a retinue
of about 700 persons, entertained in Italy at the pope's expense, he
reached Ferrara early in March 1438. Here a council had been formally
opened in January by the papal party, a bull of the previous year having
promptly taken advantage of the death of the Emperor Sigismund by
ordering the removal of the council of Basel to Ferrara; and one of the
first acts of the assemblage at Ferrara had been to excommunicate the
remnant at Basel. A month after the coming of the Greeks, the Union
Synod was solemnly inaugurated on the 9th of April 1438. After six
months of negotiation, the first formal session was held on the 8th of
October, and on the 14th the real issues were reached. The time-honoured
question of the _filioque_ was still in the foreground when it seemed
for several reasons advisable to transfer the council to Florence:
Ferrara was threatened by condottieri, the pest was raging; Florence
promised a welcome subvention, and a situation further inland would make
it more difficult for uneasy Greek bishops to flee the synod.
The first session at Florence and the seventeenth of the union council
took place on the 26th of February 1439; there ensued long debates and
negotiations on the _filioque_, in which Markos Eugenikos, archbishop of
Ephesus, spoke for the irreconcilables; but the Greeks under the
leadership of Bessarion, archbishop of Nicaea, and Isidor, metropolitan
of Kiev, at length made a declaration on the _filioque_ (4th of June),
to which all save Markos Eugenikos subscribed. On the next topic of
importance, the primacy of the pope, the project of union nearly
suffered shipwreck; but here a vague formula was finally constructed
which, while acknowledging the pope's right to govern the church,
attempted to safeguard as well the rights of the patriarchs. On the
basis of the above-mentioned agreements, as well as of minor discussions
as to purgatory and the Eucharist, the decree of union was drawn up in
Latin and in Greek, and signed on the 5th of July by the pope and the
Greek emperor, and all the members of the synod save Eugenikos and one
Greek bishop who had fled; and on the following day it was solemnly
published in the cathedral of Florence. The decree explains the
_filioque_ in a manner acceptable to the Greeks, but does not require
them to insert the term in their symbol; it demands that celebrants
follow the custom of their own church as to the employment of leavened
or unleavened bread in the Eucharist. It states essentially the Roman
doctrine of purgatory, and asserts the world-wide primacy of the pope as
the "true vicar of Christ and the head of the whole Church, the Father
and teacher of all Christians"; but, to satisfy the Greeks,
inconsistently adds that all the rights and privileges of the Oriental
patriarchs are to be maintained unimpaired. After the consummation of
the union the Greeks remained in Florence for several weeks, discussing
matters such as the liturgy, the administration of the sacraments, and
divorce; and they sailed from Venice to Constantinople in October.
The council, however, desirous of negotiating unions with the minor
churches of the East, remained in session for several years, and seems
never to have reached a formal adjournment. The decree for the Armenians
was published on the 22nd of November 1439; they accepted the _filioque_
and the Athanasian creed, rejected Monophysitism and Monothelitism,
agreed to the developed scholastic doctrine concerning the seven
sacraments, and conformed their calendar to the Western in certain
points. On the 26th of April 1441 the pope announced that the synod
would be transferred to the Lateran; but before leaving Florence a union
was negotiated with the Oriental Christians known as Jacobites, through
a monk named Andreas, who, at least as regards Abyssinia, acted in
excess of his powers. The _Decretum pro Jacobitis_, published on the 4th
of February 1442, is, like that for the Armenians, of high dogmatic
interest, as it summarizes the doctrine of the great medieval
scholastics on the points in controversy. The decree for the Syrians,
published at the Lateran on the 30th of September 1444, and those for
the Chaldeans (Nestorians) and the Maronites (Monothelites), published
at the last known session of the council on the 7th of August 1445,
added nothing of doctrinal importance. Though the direct results of
these unions were the restoration of prestige to the absolutist papacy
and the bringing of Byzantine men of letters, like Bessarion, to the
West, the outcome was on the whole disappointing. Of the complicated
history of the "United" churches of the East it suffices to say that
Rome succeeded in securing but fragments, though important fragments, of
the greater organizations. As for the Greeks, the union met with much
opposition, particularly from the monks, and was rejected by three
Oriental patriarchs at a synod of Jerusalem in 1443; and after various
ineffective attempts to enforce it, the fall of Constantinople in 1453
put an end to the endeavour. As Turkish interests demanded the isolation
of the Oriental Christians from their western brethren, and as the
orthodox Greek nationalists feared Latinization more than Mahommedan
rule, a patriarch hostile to the union was chosen, and a synod of
Constantinople in 1472 formally rejected the decisions of Florence.
AUTHORITIES.--Hardouin, vol. 9; Mansi, vols. 31 A, 31 B, 35; Sylvester
Sguropulus (properly Syropulus), _Vera historia Unionis_, transl. R.
Creyghton (Hague, 1660); Cecconi, _Studi storici sul concilio di
Firenze_ (Florence, 1869), (appendix); J. Zhishman, _Die
Unionsverhandlungen ... bis zum Concil von Ferrara_ (Vienna, 1858);
Gorski, of Moscow, 1847, _The History of the Council of Florence_,
trans. from the Russian by Basil Popoff, ed. by J.M. Neale (London,
1861); C.J. von Hefele, _Conciliengeschichte_, vol. 7 (Freiburg i. B.,
1874), 659-761, 793 ff., 814 ff.; H. Vast, _Le Cardinal Bessarion_
(Paris, 1878), 53-113; A. Warschauer, _Über die Quellen zur Geschichte
des Florentiner Concils_ (Breslau, 1881), (Dissertation); M.
Creighton, _A History of the Papacy during the Period of the
Reformation_, vol. 2 (London, 1882), 173-194 (vivid); Knöpfler, in
Wetzer and Welte's _Kirchenlexikon_, vol. 4 (2nd ed., Freiburg i. B.,
1885), 1363-1380 (instructive); L. Pastor, _History of the Popes_,
vol. 1 (London, 1891), 315 ff.; F. Kattenbusch, _Lehrbuch der
vergleichenden Confessionskunde_, vol. 1 (Freiburg i. B., 1892), 128
ff.; N. Kalogeras, archbishop of Patras, "Die Verhandlungen zwischen
der orthodox-katholischen Kirche und dem Konzil von Basel über die
Wiedervereinigung der Kirchen" (_Internationale Theologische
Zeitschrift_), vol. 1 (Bern, 1893, 39-57); P. Tschackert, in
Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_, vol. 6 (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1899),
45-48 (good bibliography); Walter Norden, _Das Papsttum und Byzanz:
Die Trennung der beiden Mächte und das Problem ihrer Wiedervereinigung
bis 1453_ (Berlin, 1903), 712 ff. (W. W. R.*)
FERRARI, GAUDENZIO (1484-1549), Italian painter and sculptor, of the
Milanese, or more strictly the Piedmontese, school, was born at
Valduggia, Piedmont, and is said (very dubiously) to have learned the
elements of painting at Vercelli from Girolamo Giovenone. He next
studied in Milan, in the school of Scotto, and some say of Luini;
towards 1504 he proceeded to Florence, and afterwards (it used to be
alleged) to Rome. His pictorial style may be considered as derived
mainly from the old Milanese school, with a considerable tinge of the
influence of Da Vinci, and later on of Raphael; in his personal manner
there was something of the demonstrative and fantastic. The gentler
qualities diminished, and the stronger intensified, as he progressed. By
1524 he was at Varallo in Piedmont, and here, in the chapel of the Sacro
Monte, the sanctuary of the Piedmontese pilgrims, he executed his most
memorable work. This is a fresco of the Crucifixion, with a multitude of
figures, no less than twenty-six of them being modelled in actual
relief, and coloured; on the vaulted ceiling are eighteen lamenting
angels, powerful in expression. Other leading examples are the
following. In the Royal Gallery, Turin, a "Pietà," an able early work.
In the Brera Gallery, Milan, "St Katharine miraculously preserved from
the Torture of the Wheel," a very characteristic example, hard and
forcible in colour, thronged in composition, turbulent in emotion; also
several frescoes, chiefly from the church of Santa Maria della Pace,
three of them being from the history of Joachim and Anna. In the
cathedral of Vercelli, the choir, the "Virgin with Angels and Saints
under an Orange Tree." In the refectory of San Paolo, the "Last Supper."
In the church of San Cristoforo, the transept (in 1532-1535), a series
of paintings in which Ferrari's scholar Lanini assisted him; by Ferrari
himself are the "Birth of the Virgin," the "Annunciation," the
"Visitation," the "Adoration of the Shepherds and Kings," the
"Crucifixion," the "Assumption of the Virgin," all full of life and
decided character, though somewhat mannered. In the Louvre, "St Paul
Meditating." In Varallo, convent of the Minorites (1507), a
"Presentation in the Temple," and "Christ among the Doctors," and (after
1510) the "History of Christ," in twenty-one subjects; also an ancona in
six compartments, named the "Ancona di San Gaudenzio." In Santa Maria di
Loreto, near Varallo (after 1527), an "Adoration." In the church of
Saronno, near Milan, the cupola (1535), a "Glory of Angels," in which
the beauty of the school of Da Vinci alternates with bravura of
foreshortenings in the mode of Correggio. In Milan, Santa Maria delle
Grazie (1542), the "Scourging of Christ," an "Ecce Homo" and a
"Crucifixion." The "Scourging," or else a "Last Supper," in the Passione
of Milan (unfinished), is regarded as Ferrari's latest work. He was a
very prolific painter, distinguished by strong expression, animation and
fulness of composition, and abundant invention; he was skilful in
painting horses, and his decisive rather hard colour is marked by a
partiality for shot tints in drapery. In general character, his work
appertains more to the 15th than the 16th century. His subjects were
always of the sacred order. Ferrari's death took place in Milan. Besides
Lanini, already mentioned, Andrea Solario, Giambattista della Cerva and
Fermo Stella were three of his principal scholars. He is represented to
us as a good man, attached to his country and his art, jovial and
sometimes facetious, but an enemy of scandal. The reputation which he
enjoyed soon after his death was very great, but it has not fully stood
the test of time. Lomazzo went so far as to place him seventh among the
seven prime painters of Italy.
See G. Bordiga, two works concerning _Gaudenzio Ferrari_ (1821 and
1835); G. Colombo, _Vita ed opere di Gaudenzio Ferrari_ (1881); Ethel
Halsey, _Gaudenzio Ferrari_ (in the series _Great Masters_, 1904).
There was another painter nearly contemporary with Gaudenzio,
Difendente Ferrari, also of the Lombard school. His celebrity is by no
means equal to that of Gaudenzio; but _Kugler_ (1887, as edited by
Layard) pronounced him to be "a good and original colourist, and the
best artist that Piedmont has produced." (W. M. R.)
FERRARI, GIUSEPPE (1812-1876), Italian philosopher, historian and
politician, was born at Milan on the 7th of March 1812, and died in Rome
on the 2nd of July 1876. He studied law at Pavia, and took the degree of
doctor in 1831. A follower of Romagnosi (d. 1835) and Giovan Battista
Vico (q.v.), his first works were an article in the _Biblioteca
Italiana_ entitled "Mente di Gian Domenico Romagnosi" (1835), and a
complete edition of the works of Vico, prefaced by an appreciation
(1835). Finding Italy uncongenial to his ideas, he went to France and,
in 1839, produced in Paris his _Vico et l'Italie_, followed by _La
Nouvelle Religion de Campanella_ and _La Théorie de l'erreur_. On
account of these works he was made Docteur-ès-lettres of the Sorbonne
and professor of philosophy at Rochefort (1840). His views, however,
provoked antagonism, and in 1842 he was appointed to the chair of
philosophy at Strassburg. After fresh trouble with the clergy, he
returned to Paris and published a defence of his theories in a work
entitled _Idées sur la politique de Platon et d'Aristote_. After a short
connexion with the college at Bourges, he devoted himself from 1849 to
1858 exclusively to writing. The works of this period are _Les
Philosophes Salariés, Machiavel juge des révolutions de notre temps_
(1849), _La Federazione repubblicana_ (1851), _La Filosofia della
rivoluzione_ (1851), _L' Italia dopo il colpo di Stato_ (1852),
_Histoire des révolutions, ou Guelfes et Gibelins_ (1858; Italian
trans., 1871-1873). In 1859 he returned to Italy, where he opposed
Cavour, and upheld federalism against the policy of a single Italian
monarchy. In spite of this opposition, he held chairs of philosophy at
Turin, Milan and Rome in succession, and during several administrations
represented the college of Gavirate in the chamber. He was a member of
the council of education and was made senator on the 15th of May 1876.
Amongst other works may be mentioned _Histoire de la raison d'état, La
China et l' Europa, Corso d' istoria degli scrittori politici italiani_.
A sceptic in philosophy and a revolutionist in politics, rejoicing in
controversy of all kinds, he was admired as a man, as an orator, and as
a writer.
See Marro Macchi, _Annuario istorico italiano_ (Milan, 1877);
Mazzoleni, _Giuseppe Ferrari_; Werner, _Die ital. Philosophie des 19.
Jahrh._ vol. 3 (Vienna, 1885); Überweg, _History of Philosophy_ (Eng.
trans. ii. 461 foll.).
FERRARI, PAOLO (1822-1889), Italian dramatist, was born at Modena. After
producing some minor pieces, in 1852 he made his reputation as a
playwright with _Goldoni e le sue sedici commedie_. Among numerous later
plays his comedy _Parini e la satira_ (1857) had considerable success.
Ferrari may be regarded as a follower of Goldoni, modelling himself on
the French theatrical methods. His collected plays were published in
1877-1880.
FERREIRA, ANTONIO (1528-1569), Portuguese poet, was a native of Lisbon;
his father held the post of _escrivão de fazenda_ in the house of the
duke of Coimbra at Setubal, so that he must there have met the great
adventurer Mendes Pinto. In 1547-1548 he went to the university of
Coimbra, and on the 16th of July 1551 took his bachelor's degree. The
Sonnets forming the First Book in his collected works date from 1552 and
contain the history of his early love for an unknown lady. They seem to
have been written in Coimbra or during vacations in Lisbon; and if some
are dry and stilted, others, like the admirable No. 45, are full of
feeling and tears. The Sonnets in the Second Book were inspired by D.
Maria Pimentel, whom he afterwards married, and they are marked by that
chastity of sentiment, seriousness and ardent patriotism which
characterized the man and the writer. Ferreira's ideal, as a poet, was
to win "the applause of the good," and, in the preface to his poems, he
says, "I am content with this glory, that I have loved my land and my
people." He was intimate with princes, nobles and the most distinguished
literary men of the time, such as the scholarly Diogo de Teive and the
poets Bernardes, Caminha and Corte-Real, as well as with the aged Sá de
Miranda, the founder of the classical school of which Ferreira became
the foremost representative.
The death in 1554 of Prince John, the heir to the throne, drew from him,
as from Camoens, Bernardes and Caminha, a poetical lament, which
consisted of an elegy and two eclogues, imitative of Virgil and Horace,
and devoid of interest. On the 14th of July 1555 he took his doctor's
degree, an event which was celebrated, according to custom, by a sort of
Roman triumph, and he stayed on as a professor, finding Coimbra with its
picturesque environs congenial to his poetical tastes and love of a
country life. The year 1557 produced his sixth elegy, addressed to the
son of the great Albuquerque, a poem of noble patriotism expressed in
eloquent and sonorous verse, and in the next year he married. After a
short and happy married life, his wife died, and the ninth sonnet of
Book 2 describes her end in moving words. This loss lent Ferreira's
verse an added austerity, and the independence of his muse is remarkable
when he addresses King Sebastian and reminds him of his duties as well
as his rights. On the 14th of October 1567 he became _Disembargador da
Casa do Civel_, and had to leave the quiet of Coimbra for Lisbon. His
verses tell how he disliked the change, and how the bustle of the
capital, then a great commercial emporium, made him sad and almost
tongue-tied for poetry. The intrigues and moral twists of the courtiers
and traders, among whom he was forced to live, hurt his fine sense of
honour, and he felt his mental isolation the more, because his friends
were few and scattered in that great city which the discoveries and
conquests of the Portuguese had made the centre of a world empire. In
1569 a terrible epidemic of carbunculous fever broke out and carried off
50,000 inhabitants of Lisbon, and, on the 29th of November, Ferreira,
who had stayed there doing his duty when others fled, fell a victim.
Horace was his favourite poet, erudition his muse, and his admiration of
the classics made him disdain the popular poetry of the Old School
(_Escola Velha_) represented by Gil Vicente. His national feeling would
not allow him to write in Latin or Spanish, like most of his
contemporaries, but his Portuguese is as Latinized as he could make it,
and he even calls his poetical works _Poemas Lusitanos_. Sá de Miranda
had philosophized in the familiar _redondilha_, introduced the epistle
and founded the comedy of learning. It was the beginning of a
revolution, which Ferreira completed by abandoning the hendecasyllable
for the Italian decasyllable, and by composing the noble and austere
Roman poetry of his letters, odes and elegies. It was all done of set
purpose, for he was a reformer conscious of his mission and resolved to
carry it out. The gross realism of the popular poetry, its lack of
culture and its carelessness of form, offended his educated taste, and
its picturesqueness and ingenuity made no appeal to him. It is not
surprising, however, that though he earned the applause of men of
letters he failed to touch the hearts of his countrymen. Ferreira wrote
the Terentian prose comedy _Bristo_, at the age of twenty-five (1553),
and dedicated it to Prince John in the name of the university. It is
neither a comedy of character nor manners, but its _vis comica_ lies in
its plot and situations. The _Cioso_, a later product, may almost be
called a comedy of character. _Castro_ is Ferreira's most considerable
work, and, in date, is the first tragedy in Portuguese, and the second
in modern European literature. Though fashioned on the great models of
the ancients, it has little plot or action, and the characters, except
that of the prince, are ill-designed. It is really a splendid poem, with
a chorus which sings the sad fate of Ignez in musical odes, rich in
feeling and grandeur of expression. Her love is the chaste, timid
affection of a wife and a vassal rather than the strong passion of a
mistress, but Pedro is really the man history describes, the
love-fettered prince whom the tragedy of Ignez's death converted into
the cruel tyrant. King Alfonso is little more than a shadow, and only
meets Ignez once, his son never; while, stranger still, Pedro and Ignez
never come on the stage together, and their love is merely narrated.
Nevertheless, Ferreira merits all praise for choosing one of the most
dramatic episodes in Portuguese history for his subject, and though it
has since been handled by poets of renown in many different languages,
none has been able to surpass the old master.
The _Castro_ was first printed in Lisbon in 1587, and it is included
in Ferreira's _Poemas_, published in 1598 by his son. It has been
translated by Musgrave (London, 1825), and the chorus of Act I.
appeared again in English in the _Savoy_ for July 1896. It has also
been done into French and German. The _Bristo_ and _Cioso_ first
appeared with the comedies of Sá de Miranda in Lisbon in 1622. There
is a good modern edition of the Complete Works of Ferreira (2 vols.,
Paris, 1865). See Castilho's _Antonio Ferreira_ (3 vols., Rio, 1865),
which contains a full biographical and critical study with extracts.
(E. Pr.)
FERREL'S LAW, in physical geography. "If a body moves in any direction
on the earth's surface, there is a deflecting force arising from the
earth's rotation, which deflects it to the right in the northern
hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere." This law applies
to every body that is set in motion upon the surface of the rotating
earth, but usually the duration of the motion of any body due to a
single impulse is so brief, and there are so many frictional
disturbances, that it is not easy to observe the results of this
deflecting force. The movements of the atmosphere, however, are upon a
scale large enough to make this observation easy, and the simplest
evidence is obtained from a study of the direction of the air movements
in the great wind systems of the globe. (See METEOROLOGY.)
FERRERS, the name of a great Norman-English feudal house, derived from
Ferrières-St-Hilaire, to the south of Bernay, in Normandy. Its ancestor
Walkelin was slain in a feud during the Conqueror's minority, leaving a
son Henry, who took part in the Conquest. At the time of the Domesday
survey his fief extended into fourteen counties, but the great bulk of
it was in Derbyshire and Leicestershire, especially the former. He
himself occurs in Worcestershire as one of the royal commissioners for
the survey. He established his chief seat at Tutbury Castle,
Staffordshire, on the Derbyshire border, and founded there a Cluniac
priory. As was the usual practice with the great Norman houses, his
eldest son succeeded to Ferrières, and, according to Stapleton, he was
ancestor of the Oakham house of Ferrers, whose memory is preserved by
the horseshoes hanging in the hall of their castle. Robert, a younger
son of Henry, inherited his vast English fief, and, for his services at
the battle of the Standard (1138), was created earl of Derby by Stephen.
He appears to have died a year after.
Both the title and the arms of the earls have been the subject of much
discussion, and they seem to have been styled indifferently earls of
Derby or Nottingham (both counties then forming one shrievalty) or of
Tutbury, or simply (de) Ferrers. Robert, the 2nd earl, who founded
Merevale Abbey, was father of William, the 3rd earl, who began the
opposition of his house to the crown by joining in the great revolt of
1173, when he fortified his castles of Tutbury and Duffield and
plundered Nottingham, which was held for the king. On his subsequent
submission his castles were razed. Dying at the siege of Acre, 1190, he
was succeeded by his son William, who attacked Nottingham on Richard's
behalf in 1194, but whom King John favoured and confirmed in the earldom
of Derby, 1199. A claim that he was heir to the honour of Peveral of
Nottingham, which has puzzled genealogists, was compromised with the
king, whom the earl thenceforth stoutly supported, being with him at his
death and witnessing his will, with his brother-in-law the earl of
Chester, and with William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, whose daughter
married his son. With them also he acted in securing the succession of
the young Henry, joining in the siege of Mountsorrel and the battle of
Lincoln. But he was one of those great nobles who looked with jealousy
on the rising power of the king's favourites. In 1227 he was one of the
earls who rose against him on behalf of his brother Richard and made him
restore the forest charters, and in 1237 he was one of the three
counsellors forced on the king by the barons. His influence had by this
time been further increased by the death, in 1232, of the earl of
Chester, whose sister, his wife, inherited a vast estate between the
Ribble and the Mersey. On his death in 1247, his son William succeeded
as 5th earl, and inherited through his wife her share of the great
possessions of the Marshals, earls of Pembroke. By his second wife, a
daughter of the earl of Winchester, he was father of Robert, 6th and
last earl. Succeeding as a minor in 1254, Robert had been secured by the
king, as early as 1249, as a husband for his wife's niece, Marie,
daughter of Hugh, count of Angoulême, but, in spite of this, he joined
the opposition in 1263 and distinguished himself by his violence. He was
one of the five earls summoned to Simon de Montfort's parliament,
though, on taking the earl of Gloucester's part, he was arrested by
Simon. In spite of this he was compelled on the king's triumph to
forfeit his castles and seven years' revenues. In 1266 he broke out
again in revolt on his own estates in Derbyshire, but was utterly
defeated at Chesterfield by Henry "of Almain," deprived of his earldom
and lands and imprisoned. Eventually, in 1269, he agreed to pay £50,000
for restoration, and to pledge all his lands save Chartley and Holbrook
for its payment. As he was not able to find the money, the lands passed
to the king's son, Edmund, to whom they had been granted on his
forfeiture.
The earl's son John succeeded to Chartley, a Staffordshire estate long
famous for the wild cattle in its chase, and was summoned as a baron in
1299, though he had joined the baronial opposition in 1297. On the
death, in 1450, of the last Ferrers lord of Chartley, the barony passed
with his daughter to the Devereux family and then to the Shirleys, one
of whom was created Earl Ferrers in 1711. The barony has been in
abeyance since 1855.
The line of Ferrers of Groby was founded by William, younger brother of
the last earl, who inherited from his mother Margaret de Quinci her
estate of Groby in Leicestershire, and some Ferrers manors from his
father. His son was summoned as a baron in 1300, but on the death of his
descendant, William, Lord Ferrers of Groby, in 1445, the barony passed
with his granddaughter to the Grey family and was forfeited with the
dukedom of Suffolk in 1554. A younger son of William, the last lord,
married the heiress of Tamworth Castle, and his line was seated at
Tamworth till 1680, when an heiress carried it to a son of the first
Earl Ferrers. From Sir Henry, a younger son of the first Ferrers of
Tamworth, descended Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, seated there in the
male line till towards the end of the 19th century. The line of Ferrers
of Wemme was founded by a younger son of Lord Ferrers of Chartley, who
married the heiress of Wemme, Co. Salop, and was summoned as a baron in
her right; but it ended with their son. There are doubtless male
descendants of this great Norman house still in existence.
Higham Ferrers, Northants, and Woodham Ferrers, Essex, take their names
from this family. It has been alleged that they bore horseshoes for
their arms in allusion to Ferrières (i.e. ironworks); but when and why
they were added to their coat is a moot point.
See Dugdale's _Baronage_; J.R. Planché's _The Conqueror and his
Companions_; G.E. C(okayne)'s _Complete Peerage_; _Chronicles and
Memorials_ (Rolls Series); T. Stapleton's _Rotuli Scaccarii
Normannie_. (J. H. R.)
FERRERS, LAURENCE SHIRLEY, 4TH EARL (1720-1760), the last nobleman in
England to suffer a felon's death, was born on the 18th of August 1720.
There was insanity in his family, and from an early age his behaviour
seems to have been eccentric, and his temper violent, though he was
quite capable of managing his business affairs. In 1758 his wife
obtained a separation from him for cruelty. The Ferrers estates were
then vested in trustees, the Earl Ferrers secured the appointment of an
old family steward, Johnson, as receiver of rents. This man faithfully
performed his duty as a servant to the trustees, and did not prove
amenable to Ferrer's personal wishes. On the 18th of January 1760,
Johnson called at the earl's mansion at Staunton Harold, Leicestershire,
by appointment, and was directed to his lordship's study. Here, after
some business conversation, Lord Ferrers shot him. In the following
April Ferrers was tried for murder by his peers in Westminster Hall. His
defence, which he conducted in person with great ability, was a plea of
insanity, and it was supported by considerable evidence, but he was
found guilty. He subsequently said that he had only pleaded insanity to
oblige his family, and that he had himself always been ashamed of such a
defence. On the 5th of May 1760, dressed in a light-coloured suit,
embroidered with silver, he was taken in his own carriage from the Tower
of London to Tyburn and there hanged. It has been said that as a
concession to his order the rope used was of silk.
See Peter Burke, _Celebrated Trials connected with the Aristocracy in
the Relations of Private Life_ (London, 1849); Edward Walford, _Tales
of our Great Families_ (London, 1877); _Howell's State Trials_ (1816),
xix. 885-980.
FERRET, a domesticated, and frequently albino breed of quadruped,
derived from the wild polecat (_Putorius foetidus_, or _P. putorius_),
which it closely resembles in size, form, and habits, and with which it
interbreeds. It differs in the colour of its fur, which is usually
yellowish-white, and of its eyes, which are pinky-red. The
"polecat-ferret" is a brown breed, apparently the product of the
above-mentioned cross. The ferret attains a length of about 14 in.,
exclusive of the tail, which measures 5 in. Although exhibiting
considerable tameness, it seems incapable of attachment, and when not
properly fed, or when irritated, is apt to give painful evidence of its
ferocity. It is chiefly employed in destroying rats and other vermin,
and in driving rabbits from their burrows. The ferret is remarkably
prolific, the female bringing forth two broods annually, each numbering
from six to nine young. It is said to occasionally devour its young
immediately after birth, and in this case produces another brood soon
after. The ferret was well known to the Romans, Strabo stating that it
was brought from Africa into Spain, and Pliny that it was employed in
his time in rabbit-hunting, under the name _Viverra_; the English name
is not derived from this, but from Fr. _furet_, Late Lat. _furo_,
robber. The date of its introduction into Great Britain is uncertain,
but it has been known in England for at least 600 years.
The ferret should be kept in dry, clean, well-ventilated hutches, and
fed twice daily on bread, milk, and meat, such as rabbits' and fowls'
livers. When used to hunt rabbits it is provided with a muzzle, or,
better and more usual, a cope, made by looping and knotting twine about
the head and snout, in order to prevent it killing its quarry, in which
case it would gorge itself and go to sleep in the hole. As the ferret
enters the hole the rabbits flee before it, and are shot or caught by
dogs as they break ground. A ferret's hold on its quarry is as obstinate
as that of a bulldog, but can easily be broken by a strong pressure of
the thumb just above the eyes. Only full-grown ferrets are "worked to"
rats. Several are generally used at a time and without copes, as rats
are fierce fighters.
See Ferrets, by Nicholas Everitt (London, 1897).
FERRI, CIRO (1634-1689), Roman painter, the chief disciple and successor
of Pietro da Cortona. He was born in the Roman territory, studied under
Pietro, to whom he became warmly attached, and, at an age a little past
thirty, completed the painting of the ceilings and other internal
decorations begun by his instructor in the Pitti palace, Florence. He
also co-operated in or finished several other works by Pietro, both in
Florence and in Rome, approaching near to his style and his particular
merits, but with less grace of design and native vigour, and in especial
falling short of him in colour. Of his own independent productions, the
chief is an extensive series of scriptural frescoes in the church of S.
Maria Maggiore in Bergamo; also a painting (rated as Ferri's best work)
of St Ambrose healing a sick person, the principal altarpiece in the
church of S. Ambrogio della Massima in Rome. The paintings of the cupola
of S. Agnese in the same capital might rank even higher than these; but
this labour remained uncompleted at the death of Ferri, and was marred
by the performances of his successor Corbellini. He executed also a
large amount of miscellaneous designs, such as etchings and
frontispieces for books; and he was an architect besides. Ferri was
appointed to direct the Florentine students in Rome, and Gabbiani was
one of his leading pupils. As regards style, Ferri ranks as chief of the
so-called Machinists, as opposed to the school founded by Sacchi, and
continued by Carlo Maratta. He died in Rome--his end being hastened, as
it is said, by mortification at his recognized inferiority to Bacciccia
in colour.
FERRI, LUIGI (1826-1895), Italian philosopher, was born at Bologna on
the 15th of June 1826. His education was obtained mainly at the École
Normale in Paris, where his father, a painter and architect, was engaged
in the construction of the Théâtre Italien. From his twenty-fifth year
he began to lecture in the colleges of Evreux, Dieppe, Blois and
Toulouse. Later, he was lecturer at Annecy and Casal-Montferrat, and
became head of the education department under Mamiani in 1860. Three
years later he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Istituto
di Perfezionamento at Florence, and, in 1871, was made professor of
philosophy in the university of Rome. On the death of Mamiani in 1885 he
became editor of the _Filosofia delle scuole italiane_, the title of
which he changed to _Rivista italiana di filosofia_. He wrote both on
psychology and on metaphysics, but is known especially as a historian of
philosophy. His original work is eclectic, combining the psychology of
his teachers, Jules Simon, Saisset and Mamiani, with the idealism of
Rosmini and Gioberti. Among his works may be mentioned _Studii sulla
coscienza_; _Il Fenomeno nelle sue relazioni con la sensazione_; _Della
idea del vero_; _Della filosofia del diritto presso Aristotile_ (1885);
_Il Genio di Aristotile_; _La Psicologia di Pietro Pomponazzi_ (1877),
and, most important, _Essai sur l'histoire de la philosophie en Italie
au XIX^e siècle_ (Paris, 1869), and _La Psychologie de l'association
depuis Hobbes jusqu'à nos jours_.
FERRIER, ARNAUD DU (c. 1508-1585), French jurisconsult and diplomatist,
was born at Toulouse about 1508, and practised as a lawyer first at
Bourges, afterwards at Toulouse. Councillor to the _parlement_ of the
latter town, and then to that of Rennes, he later became president of
the _parlement_ of Paris. He represented Charles IX., king of France, at
the council of Trent in 1562, but had to retire in consequence of the
attitude he had adopted, and was sent as ambassador to Venice, where he
remained till 1567, returning again in 1570. On his return to France he
came into touch with the Calvinists whose tenets he probably embraced,
and consequently lost his place in the privy council and part of his
fortune. As compensation, Henry, king of Navarre, appointed him his
chancellor. He died in the end of October 1585.
See also E. Frémy, _Un Ambassadeur libéral sous Charles IX et Henri
III, Arnaud du Ferrier_ (Paris, 1880).
FERRIER, JAMES FREDERICK (1808-1864), Scottish metaphysical writer, was
born in Edinburgh on the 16th of June 1808, the son of John Ferrier,
writer to the signet. His mother was a sister of John Wilson
(Christopher North). He was educated at the university of Edinburgh and
Magdalen College, Oxford, and subsequently, his metaphysical tastes
having been fostered by his intimate friend, Sir William Hamilton, spent
some time at Heidelberg studying German philosophy. In 1842 he was
appointed professor of civil history in Edinburgh University, and in
1845 professor of moral philosophy and political economy at St Andrews.
He was twice an unsuccessful candidate for chairs in Edinburgh, for that
of moral philosophy on Wilson's resignation in 1852, and for that of
logic and metaphysics in 1856, after Hamilton's death. He remained at St
Andrews till his death on the 11th of June 1864. He married his cousin,
Margaret Anne, daughter of John Wilson. He had five children, one of
whom became the wife of Sir Alexander Grant.
Ferrier's first contribution to metaphysics was a series of articles in
_Blackwood's Magazine_ (1838-1839), entitled _An Introduction to the
Philosophy of Consciousness_. In these he condemns previous philosophers
for ignoring in their psychological investigations the fact of
consciousness, which is the distinctive feature of man, and confining
their observation to the so-called "states of the mind." Consciousness
comes into manifestation only when the man has used the word "I" with
full knowledge of what it means. This notion he must originate within
himself. Consciousness cannot spring from the states which are its
object, for it is in antagonism to them. It originates in the will,
which in the act of consciousness puts the "I" in the place of our
sensations. Morality, conscience, and responsibility are necessary
results of consciousness. These articles were succeeded by a number of
others, of which the most important were _The Crisis of Modern
Speculation_ (1841), _Berkeley and Idealism_ (1842), and an important
examination of Hamilton's edition of Reid (1847), which contains a
vigorous attack on the philosophy of common sense. The perception of
matter is pronounced to be the _ne plus ultra_ of thought, and Reid, for
presuming to analyse it, is declared to be a representationist in fact,
although he professed to be an intuitionist. A distinction is made
between the "perception of matter" and "our apprehension of the
perception of matter." Psychology vainly tries to analyse the former.
Metaphysic shows the latter alone to be analysable, and separates the
subjective element, "our apprehension," from the objective element, "the
perception of matter,"--not matter _per se_, but the perception of
matter is the existence independent of the individual's thought. It
cannot, however, be independent of thought. It must belong to some mind,
and is therefore the property of the Divine Mind. There, he thinks, is
an indestructible foundation for the _a priori_ argument for the
existence of God.
Ferrier's matured philosophical doctrines find expression in the
_Institutes of Metaphysics_ (1854), in which he claims to have met the
twofold obligation resting on every system of philosophy, that it should
be reasoned and true. His method is that of Spinoza, strict
demonstration, or at least an attempt at it. All the errors of natural
thinking and psychology must fall under one or other of three
topics:--Knowing and the Known, Ignorance, and Being. These are
all-comprehensive, and are therefore the departments into which
philosophy is divided, for the sole end of philosophy is to correct the
inadvertencies of ordinary thinking.
The problems of knowing and the known are treated in the "Epistemology
or Theory of Knowing." The truth that "along with whatever any
intelligence knows it must, as the ground or condition of its knowledge,
have some cognizance of itself," is the basis of the whole philosophical
system. Object + subject, thing + me, is the only possible knowable.
This leads to the conclusion that the only independent universe which
any mind can think of is the universe in synthesis with some _other_
mind or _ego_.
The leading contradiction which is corrected in the "Agnoiology or
Theory of Ignorance" is this: that there can be an ignorance of that of
which there can be no knowledge. Ignorance is a defect. But there is no
defect in not knowing what cannot be known by any intelligence (e.g.
that two and two make five), and therefore there can be an ignorance
only of that of which there can be a knowledge, i.e. of
some-object-_plus_-some-subject. The knowable alone is the ignorable.
Ferrier lays special claim to originality for this division of the
_Institutes_.
The "Ontology or Theory of Being" forms the third and final division. It
contains a discussion of the origin of knowledge, in which Ferrier
traces all the perplexities and errors of philosophers to the assumption
of the absolute existence of matter. The conclusion arrived at is that
the only true real and independent existences are
minds-together-with-that-which-they-apprehend, and that the one strictly
necessary absolute existence is a supreme and infinite and everlasting
mind in synthesis with all things.
Ferrier's works are remarkable for an unusual charm and simplicity of
style. These qualities are especially noticeable in the _Lectures on
Greek Philosophy_, one of the best introductions on the subject in the
English language. A complete edition of his philosophical writings was
published in 1875, with a memoir by E.L. Lushington; see also
monograph by E.S. Haldane in the Famous Scots Series.
FERRIER, PAUL (1843- ), French dramatist, was born at Montpellier on
the 29th of March 1843. He had already produced several comedies when in
1873 he secured real success with two short pieces, _Chez l'avocat_ and
_Les Incendies de Massoulard_. Others of his numerous plays are _Les
Compensations_ (1876); _L'Art de tromper les femmes_ (1890), with M.
Najac. One of Ferrier's greatest triumphs was the production with
Fabrice Carré of _Joséphine vendue par ses soeurs_ (1886), an _opéra
bouffe_ with music by Victor Roger. His opera libretti include _La
Marocaine_ (1879), music of J. Offenbach; _Le Chevalier d'Harmental_
(1896) after the play of Dumas père, for the music of A. Messager; _La
Fille de Tabarin_ (1901), with Victorien Sardou, music of Gabriel
Pierné.
FERRIER, SUSAN EDMONSTONE (1782-1854), Scottish novelist, born in
Edinburgh on the 7th of September 1782, was the daughter of James
Ferrier, for some years factor to the duke of Argyll, and at one time
one of the clerks of the court of session with Sir Walter Scott. Her
mother was a Miss Coutts, the beautiful daughter of a Forfarshire
farmer. James Frederick Ferrier, noticed above, was Susan Ferrier's
nephew.
Miss Ferrier's first novel, _Marriage_, was begun in concert with a
friend, Miss Clavering, a niece of the duke of Argyll; but this lady
only wrote a few pages, and _Marriage_, completed by Miss Ferrier as
early as 1810, appeared in 1818. It was followed in 1824 by _The
Inheritance_, a better constructed and more mature work; and the last
and perhaps best of her novels, _Destiny_, dedicated to Sir Walter Scott
(who himself undertook to strike the bargain with the publisher Cadell),
appeared in 1831. All these novels were published anonymously; but, with
their clever portraiture of contemporary Scottish life and manners, and
even recognizable caricatures of some social celebrities of the day,
they could not fail to become popular north of the Tweed. "Lady
MacLaughlan" represents Mrs Seymour Damer in dress and Lady Frederick
Campbell, whose husband, Lord Ferrier, was executed in 1760, in manners.
Mary, Lady Clark, well known in Edinburgh, figured as "Mrs Fox" and the
three maiden aunts were the Misses Edmonstone. Many were the conjectures
as to the authorship of the novels. In the _Noctes Ambrosianae_
(November 1826), James Hogg is made to mention _The Inheritance_, and
adds, "which I aye thought was written by Sir Walter, as weel's
_Marriage_, till it spunked out that it was written by a leddy." Scott
himself gave Miss Ferrier a very high place indeed among the novelists
of the day. In his diary (March 27, 1826), criticizing a new work which
he had been reading, he says, "The women do this better. Edgeworth,
Ferrier, Austen, have all given portraits of real society far superior
to anything man, vain man, has produced of the like nature." Another
friendly recognition of Miss Ferrier is to be found at the conclusion of
his _Tales of my Landlord_, where Scott calls her his "sister shadow,"
the still anonymous author of "the very lively work entitled
_Marriage_." Lively, indeed, all Miss Ferrier's works are,--written in
clear, brisk English, and with an inexhaustible fund of humour. It is
true her books portray the eccentricities, the follies, and foibles of
the society in which she lived, caricaturing with terrible exactness its
hypocrisy, boastfulness, greed, affectation, and undue subservience to
public opinion. Yet Miss Ferrier wrote less to reform than to amuse. In
this she is less like Miss Edgeworth than Miss Austen. Miss Edgeworth
was more of a moralist; her wit is not so involuntary, her caricatures
not always so good-natured. But Miss Austen and Miss Ferrier were
genuine humorists, and with Miss Ferrier especially a keen sense of the
ludicrous was always dominant. Her humorous characters are always her
best. It was no doubt because she felt this that in the last year of her
life she regretted not having devoted her talents more exclusively to
the service of religion. But if she was not a moralist, neither was she
a cynic; and her wit, even where it is most caustic, is never
uncharitable.
Miss Ferrier's mother died in 1797, and from that date she kept house
for her father until his death in 1829. She lived quietly at Morningside
House and in Edinburgh for more than twenty years after the publication
of her last work. The pleasantest picture that we have of her is in
Lockhart's description of her visit to Scott in May 1831. She was asked
there to help to amuse the dying master of Abbotsford, who, when he was
not writing _Count Robert of Paris_, would talk as brilliantly as ever.
Only sometimes, before he had reached the point in a narrative, "it
would seem as if some internal spring had given way." He would pause,
and gaze blankly and anxiously round him. "I noticed," says Lockhart,
"the delicacy of Miss Ferrier on such occasions. Her sight was bad, and
she took care not to use her glasses when he was speaking; and she
affected to be also troubled with deafness, and would say, 'Well, I am
getting as dull as a post; I have not heard a word since you said
so-and-so,'--being sure to mention a circumstance behind that at which
he had really halted. He then took up the thread with his habitual smile
of courtesy--as if forgetting his case entirely in the consideration of
the lady's infirmity."
Miss Ferrier died on the 5th of November 1854, at her brother's house in
Edinburgh. She left among her papers a short unpublished article,
entitled "Recollections of Visits to Ashestiel and Abbotsford." This is
her own very interesting account of her long friendship with Sir Walter
Scott, from the date of her first visit to him and Lady Scott at
Ashestiel, where she went with her father in the autumn of 1811, to her
last sad visit to Abbotsford in 1831. It contains some impromptu verses
written by Scott in her album at Ashestiel.
Miss Ferrier's letters to her sister, which contained much interesting
biographical matter, were destroyed at her particular request, but a
volume of her correspondence with a memoir by her grand-nephew, John
Ferrier, was published in 1898.
FERROL [_El Ferrol_], a seaport of north-western Spain, in the province
of Corunna; situated 12 m. N.E. of the city of Corunna, and on the Bay
of Ferrol, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900) 25,281. Together
with San Fernando, near Cadiz, and Cartagena, Ferrol is governed by an
admiral, with the special title of captain-general; and it ranks beside
these two ports as one of the principal naval stations of Spain. The
town is beautifully situated on a headland overlooking the bay, and is
surrounded by rocky hills which render it invisible from the sea. Its
harbour, naturally one of the best in Europe, and the largest in Spain
except those of Vigo and Corunna, is deep, capacious and secure; but the
entrance is a narrow strait about 2 m. long, which admits only one
vessel at a time, and is commanded by modern and powerfully armed forts,
while the neighbouring heights are also crowned by defensive works.
Ferrol is provided with extensive dockyards, quays, warehouses and an
arsenal; most of these, with the palace of the captain-general, the
bull-ring, theatres, and other principal buildings, were built or
modernized between 1875 and 1905. The local industries are mainly
connected with the shipping trade, or the refitting of warships. Owing
to the lack of railway communication, and the competition of Corunna at
so short a distance, Ferrol is not a first-class commercial port; and in
the early years of the 20th century its trade, already injured by the
loss to Spain of Cuba and Porto Rico in 1898, showed little prospect of
improvement. The exports are insignificant, and consist chiefly of
wooden staves and beams for use as pit-props; the chief imports are
coal, cement, timber, iron and machinery. In 1904, 282 vessels of
155,881 tons entered the harbour. In the same year the construction of a
railway to the neighbouring town of Betanzos was undertaken, and in 1909
important shipbuilding operations were begun.
Ferrol was a mere fishing village until 1752, when Ferdinand VI. began
to fit it for becoming an arsenal. In 1799 the British made a fruitless
attempt to capture it, but on the 4th of November 1805 they defeated the
French fleet in front of the town, which they compelled to surrender. On
the 27th of January 1809 it was through treachery delivered over to the
French, but it was vacated by them on the 22nd of July. On the 15th of
July 1823 another blockade was begun by the French, and Ferrol
surrendered to them on the 27th of August.
FERRUCCIO, or FERRUCCI, FRANCESCO (1489-1530), Florentine captain. After
spending a few years as a merchant's clerk he took to soldiering at an
early age, and served in the _Bande Nere_ in various parts of Italy,
earning a reputation as a daring fighter and somewhat of a swashbuckler.
When Pope Clement VII. and the emperor Charles V. decided to reinstate
the Medici in Florence, they made war on the Florentine republic, and
Ferruccio was appointed Florentine military commissioner at Empoli,
where he showed great daring and resource by his rapid marches and
sudden attacks on the Imperialists. Early in 1530 Volterra had thrown
off Florentine allegiance and had been occupied by an Imperialist
garrison, but Ferruccio surprised and recaptured the city. During his
absence, however, the Imperialists captured Empoli by treachery, thus
cutting off one of the chief avenues of approach to Florence. Ferruccio
proposed to the government of the republic that he should march on Rome
and terrorize the pope by the threat of a sack into making peace with
Florence on favourable terms, but although the war committee appointed
him commissioner-general for the operations outside the city, they
rejected his scheme as too audacious. Ferruccio then decided to attempt
a diversion by attacking the Imperialists in the rear and started from
Volterra for the Apennines. But at Pisa he was laid up for a month with
a fever--a misfortune which enabled the enemy to get wind of his plan
and to prepare for his attack. At the end of July Ferruccio left Pisa at
the head of about 4000 men, and although the besieged in Florence,
knowing that a large part of the Imperialists under the prince of Orange
had gone to meet Ferruccio, wished to co-operate with the latter by
means of a sortie, they were prevented from doing so by their own
traitorous commander-in-chief, Malatesta Baglioni. Ferruccio encountered
a much larger force of the enemy on the 3rd of August at Gavinana; a
desperate battle ensued, and at first the Imperialists were driven back
by Ferruccio's fierce onslaught and the prince of Orange himself was
killed, but reinforcements under Fabrizio Maramaldo having arrived, the
Florentines were almost annihilated and Ferruccio was wounded and
captured. Maramaldo out of personal spite despatched the wounded man
with his own hand. This defeat sealed the fate of the republic, and nine
days later Florence surrendered. Ferruccio was one of the great soldiers
of the age, and his enterprise is the finest episode of the last days of
the Florentine republic. See also under FLORENCE and MEDICI.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--F. Sassetti, _Vita di Francesco Ferrucci_, written in
the 16th century and published in the _Archivio storico_, vol. iv. pt.
ii. (Florence, 1853), with an introduction by C. Monzani; E. Aloisi,
_La Battaglia di Gavinana_ (Bologna, 1881); cf. P. Villari's criticism
of the latter work, "Ferruccio e Maramaldo," in his _Arte, storia, e
filosofia_ (Florence, 1884); Gino Capponi, _Storia della repubblica di
Firenze_, vol. ii. (Florence, 1875).
FERRULE, a small metal cap or ring used for holding parts of a rod, &c.,
together, and for giving strength to weakened materials, or especially,
when attached to the end of a stick, umbrella, &c., for preventing
wearing or splitting. The word is properly _verrel_ or _verril_, in
which form it was used till the 18th century, and is derived through the
O. Fr. _virelle_, modern _virole_, from a diminutive Latin _viriola_ of
_viriae_, bracelets. The form in which the word is now known is due to
the influence of Latin _ferrum_, iron. "Ferrule" must be distinguished
from "ferule" or "ferula," properly the Latin name of the "giant
fennel." From the use of the stalk of this plant as a cane or rod for
punishment, comes the application of the word to many instruments used
in chastisement, more particularly a short flat piece of wood or leather
shaped somewhat like the sole of a boot, and applied to the palms of the
hand. It is the common form of disciplinary instrument in Roman Catholic
schools; the pain inflicted is exceedingly sharp and immediate, but the
effects are momentary and leave no chance for any dangerous results. The
word is sometimes applied to the ordinary cane as used by schoolmasters.
FERRY, JULES FRANÇOIS CAMILLE (1832-1893), French statesman, was born at
Saint Dié (Vosges) on the 5th of April 1832. He studied law, and was
called to the bar at Paris, but soon went into politics, contributing to
various newspapers, particularly to the _Temps_. He attacked the Empire
with great violence, directing his opposition especially against Baron
Haussmann, prefect of the Seine. Elected republican deputy for Paris in
1869, he protested against the declaration of war with Germany, and on
the 6th of September 1870 was appointed prefect of the Seine by the
government of national defence. In this position he had the difficult
task of administering Paris during the siege, and after the Commune was
obliged to resign (5th of June 1871). From 1872-1873 he was sent by
Thiers as minister to Athens, but returned to the chamber as deputy for
the Vosges, and became one of the leaders of the republican party. When
the first republican ministry was formed under W.H. Waddington on the
4th of February 1879, he was one of its members, and continued in the
ministry until the 30th of March 1885, except for two short
interruptions (from the 10th of November 1881 to the 30th of January
1882, and from the 29th of July 1882 to the 21st of February 1883),
first as minister of education and then as minister of foreign affairs.
He was twice premier (1880-1881 and 1883-1885). Two important works are
associated with his administration, the non-clerical organization of
public education, and the beginning of the colonial expansion of France.
Following the republican programme he proposed to destroy the influence
of the clergy in the university. He reorganized the committee of public
education (law of the 27th of February 1880), and proposed a regulation
for the conferring of university degrees, which, though rejected,
aroused violent polemics because the 7th article took away from the
unauthorized religious orders the right to teach. He finally succeeded
in passing the great law of the 28th of March 1882, which made primary
education in France free, non-clerical and obligatory. In higher
education the number of professors doubled under his ministry. After the
military defeat of France by Germany in 1870, he formed the idea of
acquiring a great colonial empire, not to colonize it, but for the sake
of economic exploitation. He directed the negotiations which led to the
establishment of a French protectorate in Tunis (1881), prepared the
treaty of the 17th of December 1885 for the occupation of Madagascar;
directed the exploration of the Congo and of the Niger region; and above
all he organized the conquest of Indo-China. The excitement caused at
Paris by an unimportant reverse of the French troops at Lang-son caused
his downfall (30th of March 1885), but the treaty of peace with China
(9th of June 1885) was his work. He still remained an influential member
of the moderate republican party, and directed the opposition to General
Boulanger. After the resignation of President Grévy (2nd of December
1887), he was a candidate for the presidency of the republic, but the
radicals refused to support him, and he withdrew in favour of Sadi
Carnot. The violent polemics aroused against him at this time caused a
madman to attack him with a revolver, and he died from the wound, on the
17th of March 1893. The chamber of deputies voted him a state funeral.
See Edg. Zevort, _Histoire de la troisième République_; A. Rambaud,
_Jules Ferry_ (Paris, 1903).
FERRY (from the same root as that of the verb "to fare," to journey or
travel, common to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. _fahren_; it is connected
with the root of Gr. [Greek: poros], way, and Lat. _portare_, to carry),
a place where boats ply regularly across a river or arm of the sea for
the conveyance of goods and persons. The word is also applied to the
boats employed (ferry boats). In a car-ferry or train-ferry railway cars
or complete trains are conveyed across a piece of water in vessels which
have railway lines laid on their decks, so that the vehicles run on and
off them on their own wheels. In law the right of ferrying persons or
goods across a particular river or strait, and of exacting a reasonable
toll for the service, belongs, like the right of fair and market, to the
class of rights known as franchises. Its origin must be by statute,
royal grant, or prescription. It is wholly unconnected with the
ownership or occupation of land, so that the owner of the ferry need not
be proprietor of the soil on either side of the water over which the
right is exercised. He is bound to maintain safe and suitable boats
ready for the use of the public, and to employ fit persons as ferrymen.
As a correlative of this duty he has a right of action, not only against
those who evade or refuse payment of toll when it is due, but also
against those who disturb his franchise by setting up a new ferry, so as
to diminish his custom, unless a change of circumstances, such as an
increase of population near the ferry, justify other means of passage,
whether of the same kind or not. See also WATER RIGHTS.
FERSEN, FREDRIK AXEL, COUNT VON (1719-1794), Swedish politician, was a
son of Lieutenant-General Hans Reinhold Fersen and entered the Swedish
Life Guards in 1740, and from 1743 to 1748 was in the French service
(_Royal-Suédois_), where he rose to the rank of brigadier. In the Seven
Years' War Fersen distinguished himself during the operations round
Usedom and Wollin (1759), when he inflicted serious loss on the
Prussians. But it is as a politician that he is best known. At the diet
of 1755-1756 he was elected _landtmarskalk_, or marshal of the diet, and
from henceforth, till the revolution of 1772, led the Hat party (see
SWEDEN: _History_). In 1756 he defeated the projects of the court for
increasing the royal power; but, after the disasters of the Seven Years'
War, gravitated towards the court again and contributed, by his energy
and eloquence, to uphold the tottering Hats for several years. On the
accession of the Caps to power in 1766, Fersen assisted the court in its
struggle with them by refusing to employ the Guards to keep order in the
capital when King Adolphus Frederick, driven to desperation by the
demands of the Caps, publicly abdicated, and a seven days' interregnum
ensued. At the ensuing diet of 1769, when the Hats returned to power,
Fersen was again elected marshal of the diet; but he made no attempt to
redeem his pledges to the crown prince Gustavus, as to a very necessary
reform of the constitution, which he had made before the elections, and
thus involuntarily contributed to the subsequent establishment of
absolutism. When Gustavus III. ascended the throne in 1772, and
attempted to reconcile the two factions by a composition which aimed at
dividing all political power between them, Fersen said he despaired of
bringing back, in a moment, to the path of virtue and patriotism a
people who had been running riot for more than half a century in the
wilderness of political licence and corruption. Nevertheless he
consented to open negotiations with the Caps, and was the principal Hat
representative on the abortive composition committee. During the
revolution of August 1772, Fersen remained a passive spectator of the
overthrow of the constitution, and was one of the first whom Gustavus
summoned to his side after his triumph. Yet his relations with the king
were never cordial. The old party-leader could never forget that he had
once been a power in the state, and it is evident, from his _Historiska
Skrifter_, how jealous he was of Gustavus's personal qualities. There
was a slight collision between them as early as the diet of 1778; but at
the diet of 1786 Fersen boldly led the opposition against the king's
financial measures (see GUSTAVUS III.) which were consequently rejected;
while in private interviews, if his own account of them is to be
trusted, he addressed his sovereign with outrageous insolence. At the
diet of 1789 Fersen marshalled the nobility around him for a combat _à
outrance_ against the throne and that, too, at a time when Sweden was
involved in two dangerous foreign wars, and national unity was
absolutely indispensable. This tactical blunder cost him his popularity
and materially assisted the secret operations of the king. Obstruction
was Fersen's chief weapon, and he continued to postpone the granting of
subsidies by the house of nobles for some weeks. But after frequent
stormy scenes in the diet, which were only prevented from becoming
mêlées by Fersen's moderation, or hesitation, at the critical moment, he
and twenty of his friends of the nobility were arrested (17th February
1789) and the opposition collapsed. Fersen was speedily released, but
henceforth kept aloof from politics, surviving the king two years. He
was a man of great natural talent, with an imposing presence, and he
always bore himself like the aristocrat he was. But his haughtiness and
love of power are undeniable, and he was perhaps too great a
party-leader to be a great statesman. Yet for seventeen years, with very
brief intervals, he controlled the destinies of Sweden, and his
influence in France was for some time pretty considerable. His
_Historiska Skrifter_, which are a record of Swedish history, mainly
autobiographical, during the greater part of the 18th century, is
excellent as literature, but somewhat unreliable as an historical
document, especially in the later parts.
See C.G. Malmström, _Sveriges politiska Historia_ (Stockholm,
1855-1865); R.N. Bain, _Gustavus III._ (London, 1895); C.T. Odhner,
_Sveriges politiska Historia under Gustaf III.'s Regering_ (Stockholm,
1885, &c.); F.A. Fersen, _Historiska Skrifter_ (Stockholm, 1867-1872).
(R. N. B.)
FERSEN, HANS AXEL, COUNT VON (1755-1810), Swedish statesman, was
carefully educated at home, at the Carolinum at Brunswick and at Turin.
In 1779 he entered the French military service (_Royal-Bavière_),
accompanied General Rochambeau to America as his adjutant, distinguished
himself during the war with England, notably at the siege of Yorktown,
1781, and in 1785 was promoted to be _colonel propriétaire_ of the
regiment _Royal-Suédois_. The young nobleman was, from the first, a
prime favourite at the French court, owing, partly to the recollection
of his father's devotion to France, but principally because of his own
amiable and brilliant qualities. The queen, Marie Antoinette, was
especially attracted by the grace and wit of _le beau Fersen_, who had
inherited his full share of the striking handsomeness which was
hereditary in the family.
It is possible that Fersen would have spent most of his life at
Versailles, but for a hint from his own sovereign, then at Pisa, that he
desired him to join his suite. He accompanied Gustavus III. in his
Italian tour and returned home with him in 1784. When the war with
Russia broke out, in 1788, Fersen accompanied his regiment to Finland,
but in the autumn of the same year was sent to France, where the
political horizon was already darkening. It was necessary for Gustavus
to have an agent thoroughly in the confidence of the French royal
family, and, at the same time, sufficiently able and audacious to help
them in their desperate straits, especially as he had lost all
confidence in his accredited minister, the baron de Stael. With his
usual acumen, he fixed upon Fersen, who was at his post early in 1790.
Before the end of the year he was forced to admit that the cause of the
French monarchy was hopeless so long as the king and queen of France
were nothing but captives in their own capital, at the mercy of an
irresponsible mob. He took a leading part in the flight to Varennes. He
found most of the requisite funds at the last moment. He ordered the
construction of the famous carriage for six, in the name of the baroness
von Korff, and kept it in his hotel grounds, rue Matignon, that all
Paris might get accustomed to the sight of it. He was the coachman of
the _fiacre_ which drove the royal family from the Carrousel to the
Porte Saint-Martin. He accompanied them to Bondy, the first stage of
their journey.
In August 1791, Fersen was sent to Vienna to induce the emperor Leopold
to accede to a new coalition against revolutionary France, but he soon
came to the conclusion that the Austrian court meant to do nothing at
all. At his own request, therefore, he was transferred to Brussels,
where he could be of more service to the queen of France. In February
1792, at his own mortal peril, he once more succeeded in reaching Paris
with counterfeit credentials as minister plenipotentiary to Portugal. On
the 13th he arrived, and the same evening contrived to steal an
interview with the queen unobserved. On the following day he was with
the royal family from six o'clock in the evening till six o'clock the
next morning, and convinced himself that a second flight was physically
impossible. On the afternoon of the 21st he succeeded in paying a third
visit to the Tuileries, stayed there till midnight and succeeded, with
great difficulty, in regaining Brussels on the 27th. This perilous
expedition, a monumental instance of courage and loyalty, had no
substantial result. In 1797 Fersen was sent to the congress of Rastatt
as the Swedish delegate, but in consequence of a protest from the French
government, was not permitted to take part in it.
During the regency of the duke of Sudermania (1792-1796) Fersen, like
all the other Gustavians, was in disgrace; but, on Gustavus IV.
attaining his majority in 1796, he was welcomed back to court with open
arms, and reinstated in all his offices and dignities. In 1801 he was
appointed _Riksmarskalk_ (= earl-marshal). On the outbreak of the war
with Napoleon, Fersen accompanied Gustavus IV. to Germany to assist him
in gaining fresh allies. He prevented Gustavus from invading Prussia in
revenge for the refusal of the king of Prussia to declare war against
France, and during the rest of the reign was in semi-disgrace, though
generally a member of the government when the king was abroad.
Fersen stood quite aloof from the revolution of 1809. (See SWEDEN:
_History_.) His sympathies were entirely with Prince Gustavus, son of
the unfortunate Gustavus IV., and he was generally credited with the
desire to see him king. When the newly elected successor to the throne,
the highly popular prince Christian Augustus of Augustenburg, died
suddenly in Skåne in May 1810, the report spread that he had been
poisoned, and that Fersen and his sister, the countess Piper, were
accessories. The source of this equally absurd and infamous libel has
never been discovered. But it was eagerly taken up by the anti-Gustavian
press, and popular suspicion was especially aroused by a fable called
"The Foxes" directed against the Fersens, which appeared in _Nya
Posten_. When, then, on the 20th of June 1810, the prince's body was
conveyed to Stockholm, and Fersen, in his official capacity as
_Riksmarskalk_, received it at the barrier and led the funeral cortège
into the city, his fine carriage and his splendid robes seemed to the
people an open derision of the general grief. The crowd began to murmur
and presently to fling stones and cry "murderer!" He sought refuge in a
house in the Riddarhus Square, but the mob rushed after him, brutally
maltreated him and tore his robes to pieces. To quiet the people and
save the unhappy victim, two officers volunteered to conduct him to the
senate house and there place him in arrest. But he had no sooner mounted
the steps leading to the entrance than the crowd, which had followed him
all the way beating him with sticks and umbrellas, made a rush at him,
knocked him down, and kicked and trampled him to death. This horrible
outrage, which lasted more than an hour, happened, too, in the presence
of numerous troops, drawn up in the Riddarhus Square, who made not the
slightest effort to rescue the Riksmarskalk from his tormentors. In the
circumstances, one must needs adopt the opinion of Fersen's
contemporary, Baron Gustavus Armfelt, "One is almost tempted to say that
the government wanted to give the people a victim to play with, just as
when one throws something to an irritated wild beast to distract its
attention. The more I consider it all, the more I am certain that the
mob had the least to do with it.... But in God's name what were the
troops about? How could such a thing happen in broad daylight during a
procession, when troops and a military escort were actually present?"
The responsibility certainly rests with the government of Charles XIII.,
which apparently intended to intimidate the Gustavians by the removal of
one of their principal leaders. Armfelt escaped in time, so Fersen fell
the victim.
See R.M. Klinckowström, _Le Comte de Fersen et la cour de France_
(Paris, 1877; Eng. ed., London, 1902); _Historia om Axel von Fersens
mord_ (Stockholm, 1844); R.N. Bain, _Gustavus III._, vol. ii. (London,
1895); P. Gaulot, _Un Ami de la reine_ (Paris, 1892); F.F. Flach,
_Grefve Hans Axel von Fersen_ (Stockholm, 1896); E. Tegner, _Gustaf
Mauritz Armfelt_, vol. iii. (Stockholm, 1883-1887). (R. N. B.)
FESCA, FREDERIC ERNEST (1789-1826), German violinist and composer of
instrumental music, was born on the 15th of February 1789 at Magdeburg,
where he received his early musical education. He completed his studies
at Leipzig under Eberhard Müller, and at the early age of fifteen
appeared before the public with several concerti for the violin, which
were received with general applause, and resulted in his being appointed
leading violinist of the Leipzig orchestra. This position he occupied
till 1806, when he became concert-master to the duke of Oldenburg. In
1808 he was appointed solo-violinist by King Jerome of Westphalia at
Cassel, and there he remained till the end of the French occupation
(1814), when he went to Vienna, and soon afterwards to Carlsruhe, having
been appointed concert-master to the grand-duke of Baden. His failing
health prevented him from enjoying the numerous and well-deserved
triumphs he owed to his art, and in 1826 he died of consumption at the
early age of thirty-seven. As a virtuoso Fesca ranks amongst the best
masters of the German school of violinists, the school subsequently of
Spohr and of Joachim. Especially as leader of a quartet he is said to
have been unrivalled with regard to classic dignity and simplicity of
style. Amongst his compositions, his quartets for stringed instruments
and other pieces of chamber music are the most remarkable. His two
operas, _Cantemira_ and _Omar and Leila_, were less successful, lacking
dramatic power and originality. He also wrote some sacred compositions,
and numerous songs and vocal quartets.
FESCENNIA, an ancient city of Etruria, which is probably to be placed
immediately to the N. of the modern Corchiano, 6 m. N.W. of Civita
Castellana (see FALERII). The Via Amerina traverses it. G. Dennis
(_Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, London, 1883, i. 115) proposed to
place it at the Riserva S. Silvestro, 3 m. E. of Corchiano, nearer the
Tiber, where remains of Etruscan walls exist. At Corchiano itself,
however, similar walls may be traced, and the site is a strong and
characteristic one--a triangle between two deep ravines, with the third
(west) side cut off by a ditch. Here, too, remains of two bridges may be
seen, and several rich tombs have been excavated.
See A. Buglione, "Conte di Monale," in _Römische Mitteilungen_ (1887),
p. 21 seq.
FESCENNINE VERSES (_Fescennina carmina_), one of the earliest kinds of
Italian poetry, subsequently developed into the Satura and the Roman
comic drama. Originally sung at village harvest-home rejoicings, they
made their way into the towns, and became the fashion at religious
festivals and private gatherings--especially weddings, to which in later
times they were practically restricted. They were usually in the
Saturnian metre and took the form of a dialogue, consisting of an
interchange of extemporaneous raillery. Those who took part in them wore
masks made of the bark of trees. At first harmless and good-humoured, if
somewhat coarse, these songs gradually outstripped the bounds of
decency; malicious attacks were made upon both gods and men, and the
matter became so serious that the law intervened and scurrilous
personalities were forbidden by the Twelve Tables (Cicero, _De re
publica_, iv. 10). Specimens of the Fescennines used at weddings are the
Epithalamium of Manlius (Catullus, lxi. 122) and the four poems of
Claudian in honour of the marriage of Honorius and Maria; the first,
however, is distinguished by a licentiousness which is absent in the
latter. Ausonius in his _Cento nuptialis_ mentions the Fescennines of
Annianus Faliscus, who lived in the time of Hadrian. Various derivations
have been proposed for _Fescennine_. According to Festus, they were
introduced from Fescennia in Etruria, but there is no reason to assume
that any particular town was specially devoted to the use of such songs.
As an alternative Festus suggests a connexion with _fascinum_, either
because the Fescennina were regarded as a protection against evil
influences (see Munro, _Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus_, p. 76)
or because _fascinum_ (= _phallus_), as the symbol of fertility, would
from early times have been naturally associated with harvest festivals.
H. Nettleship, in an article on "The Earliest Italian Literature"
(_Journal of Philology_, xi. 1882), in support of Munro's view,
translates the expression "verses used by charmers," assuming a noun
_fescennus_, connected with _fas fari_.
The _locus classicus_ in ancient literature is Horace, _Epistles_, ii.
1. 139; see also Virgil, _Georgics_, ii. 385; Tibullus ii. 1. 55; E.
Hoffmann, "Die Fescenninen," in _Rheinisches Museum_, li. p. 320
(1896); art. LATIN LITERATURE.
FESCH, JOSEPH (1763-1839), cardinal, was born at Ajaccio on the 3rd of
January 1763. His father, a Swiss officer in the service of the Genoese
Republic, had married the mother of Laetitia Bonaparte, after the
decease of her first husband. Fesch therefore stood almost in the
relation of an uncle to the young Bonapartes, and after the death of
Lucien Bonaparte, archdeacon of Ajaccio, he became for a time the
protector and patron of the family. In the year 1789, when the French
Revolution broke out, he was archdeacon of Ajaccio, and, like the
majority of the Corsicans, he felt repugnance for many of the acts of
the French government during that period; in particular he protested
against the application to Corsica of the act known as the "Civil
Constitution of the Clergy" (July 1790). As provost of the "chapter" in
that city he directly felt the pressure of events; for on the
suppression of religious orders and corporations, he was constrained to
retire into private life.
Thereafter he shared the fortunes of the Bonaparte family in the
intrigues and strifes which ensued. Drawn gradually by that family into
espousing the French cause against Paoli and the Anglophiles, he was
forced to leave Corsica and to proceed with Laetitia and her son to
Toulon, in the early part of the autumn of 1793. Failing to find
clerical duties at that time (the period of the Terror), he entered
civil life, and served in various capacities, until on the appointment
of Napoleon Bonaparte to the command of the French "Army of Italy" he
became a commissary attached to that army. This part of his career is
obscure and without importance. His fortunes rose rapidly on the
attainment of the dignity of First Consul by his former charge,
Napoleon, after the _coup d'état_ of Brumaire (November 1799).
Thereafter, when the restoration of the Roman Catholic religion was in
the mind of the First Consul, Fesch resumed his clerical vocation and
took an active part in the complex negotiations which led to the signing
of the Concordat with the Holy See on the 15th of July 1801. His reward
came in the prize of the archbishopric of Lyons, on the duties of which
he entered in August 1802. Six months later he received a still more
signal reward for his past services, being raised to the dignity of
cardinal.
In 1804 on the retirement of Cacault from the position of French
ambassador at Rome, Fesch received that important appointment. He was
assisted by Châteaubriand, but soon sharply differed with him on many
questions. Towards the close of the year 1804 Napoleon entrusted to
Fesch the difficult task of securing the presence of Pope Pius VII. at
the forthcoming coronation of the emperor at Notre Dame, Paris (Dec.
2nd, 1804). His tact in overcoming the reluctance of the pope to be
present at the coronation (it was only eight months after the execution
of the duc d'Enghien) received further recognition. He received the
grand cordon of the Legion of Honour, became grand-almoner of the empire
and had a seat in the French senate. He was to receive further honours.
In 1806 one of the most influential of the German clerics, Karl von
Dalberg, then prince bishop of Regensburg, chose him to be his coadjutor
and designated him as his successor.
Events, however, now occurred which overclouded his prospects. In the
course of the years 1806-1807 Napoleon came into sharp collision with
the pope on various matters both political and religious. Fesch sought
in vain to reconcile the two potentates. Napoleon was inexorable in his
demands, and Pius VII. refused to give way where the discipline and
vital interests of the church seemed to be threatened. The emperor on
several occasions sharply rebuked Fesch for what he thought to be
weakness and ingratitude. It is clear, however, that the cardinal went
as far as possible in counselling the submission of the spiritual to the
civil power. For a time he was not on speaking terms with the pope; and
Napoleon recalled him from Rome.
Affairs came to a crisis in the year 1809, when Napoleon issued at
Vienna the decree of the 17th of May, ordering the annexation of the
papal states to the French empire. In that year Napoleon conferred on
Fesch the archbishopric of Paris, but he refused the honour. He,
however, consented to take part in an ecclesiastical commission formed
by the emperor from among the dignitaries of the Gallican Church, but in
1810 the commission was dissolved. The hopes of Fesch with respect to
Regensburg were also damped by an arrangement of the year 1810 whereby
Regensburg was absorbed in Bavaria.
In the year 1811 the emperor convoked a national council of Gallican
clerics for the discussion of church affairs, and Fesch was appointed to
preside over their deliberations. Here again, however, he failed to
satisfy the inflexible emperor and was dismissed to his diocese. The
friction between uncle and nephew became more acute in the following
year. In June 1812, Pius VII. was brought from his first place of
detention, Savona, to Fontainebleau, where he was kept under
surveillance in the hope that he would give way in certain matters
relating to the Concordat and in other clerical affairs. Fesch ventured
to write to the aged pontiff a letter which came into the hands of the
emperor. His anger against Fesch was such that he stopped the sum of
150,000 florins which had been accorded to him. The disasters of the
years 1812-1813 brought Napoleon to treat Pius VII. with more lenity and
the position of Fesch thus became for a time less difficult. On the
first abdication of Napoleon (April 11th, 1814) and the restoration of
the Bourbons, he, however, retired to Rome where he received a welcome.
The events of the Hundred Days (March-June, 1815) brought him back to
France; he resumed his archiepiscopal duties at Lyons and was further
named a member of the senate. On the second abdication of the emperor
(June 22nd, 1815) Fesch retired to Rome, where he spent the rest of his
days in dignified ease, surrounded by numerous masterpieces of art, many
of which he bequeathed to the city of Lyons. He died at Rome on the 13th
of May 1839.
See J.B. Monseigneur Lyonnet, _Le Cardinal Fesch_ (2 vols., Lyons,
1841); Ricard, _Le Cardinal Fesch_ (Paris, 1893); H. Welschinger, _Le
Pape et l'empereur_ (Paris, 1905); F. Masson, _Napoléon et sa famille_
(4 vols., Paris, 1897-1900).
FESSA, a town and district of Persia in the province of Fars. The town
is situated in a fertile plain in 29° N. and 90 m. from Shiraz, and has
a population of about 5000. The district has forty villages and extends
about 40 m. north-south from Runiz to Nassirabad and 16 m. east-west
from Vasilabad to Deh Dasteh (Dastajah); it produces much grain, dates,
tobacco, opium and good fruit.
FESSENDEN, WILLIAM PITT (1806-1869), American statesman and financier,
was born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, on the 16th of October 1806. After
graduating at Bowdoin College in 1823, he studied law, and in 1827 was
admitted to the bar, eventually settling in Portland, Maine, where for
two years he was associated in practice with his father, Samuel
Fessenden (1784-1869), a prominent lawyer and anti-slavery leader. In
1832 and in 1840 Fessenden was a representative in the Maine
legislature, and in 1841-1843 was a Whig member of the national House of
Representatives. When his term in this capacity was over, he devoted
himself unremittingly and with great success to the law. He became well
known, also, as an eloquent advocate of slavery restriction. In
1845-1846 and 1853-1854 he again served in the state House of
Representatives, and in 1854 was chosen by the combined votes of Whigs
and Anti-Slavery Democrats to the United States Senate. Within a
fortnight after taking his seat he delivered a speech in opposition to
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which at once made him a force in the
congressional anti-slavery contest. From then on he was one of the most
eloquent and frequent debaters among his colleagues, and in 1859, almost
without opposition, he was re-elected to the Senate as a member of the
Republican party, in the organization of which he had taken an
influential part. He was a delegate in 1861 to the Peace Congress, but
after the actual outbreak of hostilities he insisted that the war should
be prosecuted vigorously. As chairman of the Senate Committee on
Finance, his services were second in value only to those of President
Lincoln and Secretary Salmon P. Chase in efforts to provide funds for
the defence of the Union; and in July 1864 Fessenden succeeded Chase as
secretary of the treasury. The finances of the country in the early
summer of 1864 were in a critical condition; a few days before leaving
office Secretary Chase had been compelled to withdraw from the market
$32,000,000 of 6% bonds, on account of the lack of acceptable bids; gold
had reached 285 and was fluctuating between 225 and 250, while the value
of the paper dollar had sunk as low as 34 cents. It was Secretary
Fessenden's policy to avoid a further increase of the circulating
medium, and to redeem or consolidate the temporary obligations
outstanding. In spite of powerful pressure the paper currency was not
increased a dollar during his tenure of the office. As the sales of
bonds and treasury notes were not sufficient for the needs of the
Treasury, interest-bearing certificates of indebtedness were issued to
cover the deficits; but when these began to depreciate the secretary,
following the example of his predecessors, engaged the services of the
Philadelphia banker Jay Cooke (q.v.) and secured the consent of Congress
to raise the balance of the $400,000,000 loan authorized on the 30th of
June 1864 by the sale of the so-called "seven-thirty" treasury notes
(i.e. notes bearing interest at 7.3% payable in currency in three years
or convertible at the option of the holder into 6% 5-20 year gold
bonds). Through Cooke's activities the sales became enormous; the notes,
issued in denominations as low as $50, appealed to the patriotic
impulses of the people who could not subscribe for bonds of a higher
denomination. In the spring of 1865 Congress authorized an additional
loan of $600,000,000 to be raised in the same manner, and for the first
time in four years the Treasury was able to meet all its obligations.
After thus securing ample funds for the enormous expenditures of the
war, Fessenden resigned the treasury portfolio in March 1865, and again
took his seat in the Senate, serving till his death. In the Senate he
again became chairman of the finance committee, and also of the joint
committee on reconstruction. He was the author of the report of this
last committee (1866), in which the Congressional plan of reconstruction
was set forth and which has been considered a state paper of remarkable
power and cogency. He was not, however, entirely in accord with the more
radical members of his own party, and this difference was exemplified in
his opposition to the impeachment of President Johnson and subsequently
in his voting for Johnson's acquittal. He bore with calmness the storm
of reproach from his party associates which followed, and lived to
regain the esteem of those who had attacked him. He died at Portland,
Maine, on the 6th of September 1869.
See Francis Fessenden, _Life and Public Services of William Pitt
Fessenden_ (2 vols., Boston, 1907).
FESSLER, IGNAZ AURELIUS (1756-1839), Hungarian ecclesiastic, historian
and freemason, was born on the 18th of May 1756 at the village of Zurány
in the county of Moson. In 1773 he joined the order of Capuchins, and in
1779 was ordained priest. He had meanwhile continued his classical and
philological studies, and his liberal views brought him into frequent
conflict with his superiors. In 1784, while at the monastery of Mödling,
near Vienna, he wrote to the emperor Joseph II., making suggestions for
the better education of the clergy and drawing his attention to the
irregularities of the monasteries. The searching investigation which
followed raised up against him many implacable enemies. In 1784 he was
appointed professor of Oriental languages and hermeneutics in the
university of Lemberg, when he took the degree of doctor of divinity;
and shortly afterwards he was released from his monastic vows on the
intervention of the emperor. In 1788 he brought out his tragedy of
_Sidney_, an _exposé_ of the tyranny of James II. and of the fanaticism
of the papists in England. This was attacked so violently as profane and
revolutionary that he was compelled to resign his office and seek refuge
in Silesia. In Breslau he met with a cordial reception from G.W. Korn
the publisher, and was, moreover, subsequently employed by the prince of
Carolath-Schönaich as tutor to his sons. In 1791 Fessler was converted
to Lutheranism and next year contracted an unhappy marriage, which was
dissolved in 1802, when he married again. In 1796 he went to Berlin,
where he founded a humanitarian society, and was commissioned by the
freemasons of that city to assist Fichte in reforming the statutes and
ritual of their lodge. He soon after this obtained a government
appointment in connexion with the newly-acquired Polish provinces, but
in consequence of the battle of Jena (1806) he lost this office, and
remained in very needy circumstances until 1809, when he was summoned to
St Petersburg by Alexander I., to fill the post of court councillor, and
the professorship of oriental languages and philosophy at the
Alexander-Nevski Academy. This office, however, he was soon obliged to
resign, owing to his alleged atheistic tendencies, but he was
subsequently nominated a member of the legislative commission. In 1815
he went with his family to Sarepta, where he joined the Moravian
community and again became strongly orthodox. This cost him the loss of
his salary, but it was restored to him in 1817. In November 1820 he was
appointed consistorial president of the evangelical communities at
Saratov and subsequently became chief superintendent of the Lutheran
communities in St Petersburg. Fessler's numerous works are all written
in German. In recognition of his important services to Hungary as a
historian, he was in 1831 elected a corresponding member of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He died at St Petersburg on the 15th of
December 1839.
Fessler was a voluminous writer, and during his life exercised great
influence; but, with the possible exception of the history of Hungary,
none of his books has any value now. He did not pretend to any critical
treatment of his materials, and most of his historical works are
practically historical novels. He did much, however, to make the study
of history popular. His most important works are--_Die Geschichten der
Ungarn und ihrer Landsassen_ (10 vols. Leipzig, 1815-1825); _Marcus
Aurelius_ (3 vols., Breslau, 1790-1792; 3rd edition, 4 vols., 1799);
_Aristides und Themistokles_ (2 vols., Berlin, 1792; 3rd edition, 1818);
_Attila, König der Hunnen_ (Breslau, 1794); _Mathias Corvinus_ (2 vols.,
Breslau, 1793-1794); and _Die drei grossen Könige der Hungarn aus dem
Arpadischen Stamme_ (Breslau, 1808).
See Fessler's _Rückblicke auf seine siebzigjährige Pilgerschaft_
(Breslau, 1824; 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1851).
FESTA, CONSTANZO (c. 1495-1545), Italian singer and musical composer,
became a member of the Pontifical choir in Rome in 1517, and soon
afterwards _maestro_ at the Vatican. His motets and madrigals (the first
book of which appeared in 1537) excited Dr Burney's warm praise in his
_History of Music_; and, among other church music, his _Te Deum_
(published in 1596) is still sung at important services in Rome. His
madrigal, called in English "Down in a flow'ry vale," is well known.
FESTINIOG (or FFESTINIOG), a town of Merionethshire, North Wales, at the
head of the Festiniog valley, 600 ft. above the sea, in the midst of
rugged scenery, near the stream Dwyryd, 31 m. from Conway. Pop. of urban
district (1901), 11,435. There are many large slate quarries in this
parish, especially at Blaenau Festiniog, the junction of three railways,
London & North Western, Great Western and Festiniog, a narrow-gauge line
between Portmadoc and Duffws. This light railway runs at a considerable
elevation (some 700 ft.), commanding a view across the valley and lake
of Tan y Bwlch. Lord Lyttelton's letter to Mr Bower is a well-known
panegyric on Festiniog. Thousands of workmen are employed in the slate
quarries. The Cynfael falls are famous. Near are _Beddau gwyr Ardudwy_
(the graves of the men of Ardudwy), memorials of a fight to recover
women of the Clwyd valley from the men of Ardudwy. Near, too, is a rock
named "Hugh Lloyd's pulpit" (Lloyd lived in the time of Charles I.,
Cromwell and Charles II.).
FESTOON (from Fr. _feston_, Ital. _festone_, from a Late Lat. _festo_,
originally a "festal garland," Lat. _festum_, feast), a wreath or
garland, and so in architecture a conventional arrangement of flowers,
foliage or fruit bound together and suspended by ribbons, either from a
decorated knot, or held in the mouths of lions, or suspended across the
back of bulls' heads as in the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. The "motif" is
sometimes known as a "swag." It was largely employed both by the Greeks
and Romans and formed the principal decoration of altars, friezes and
panels. The ends of the ribbons are sometimes formed into bows or
twisted curves; when in addition a group of foliage or flowers is
suspended it is called a "drop." Its origin is probably due to the
representation in stone of the garlands of natural flowers, &c., which
were hung up over an entrance doorway on fête days, or suspended round
the altar.
FESTUS (? RUFUS or RUFIUS), one of the Roman writers of _breviaria_
(epitomes of Roman history). The reference to the defeat of the Goths at
Noviodunum (A.D. 369) by the emperor Valens, and the fact that the
author is unaware of the constitution of Valentia as a province (which
took place in the same year) are sufficient indication to fix the date
of composition. Mommsen identifies the author with Rufius Festus,
proconsul of Achaea (366), and both with Rufius Festus Avienus (q.v.),
the translator of Aratus. But the absence of the name Rufius in the best
MSS. is against this. Others take him to be Festus of Tridentum,
_magister memoriae_ (secretary) to Valens and proconsul of Asia, where
he was sent to punish those implicated in the conspiracy of Theodorus, a
commission which he executed with such merciless severity that his name
became a byword. The work itself (_Breviarium rerum gestarum populi
Romani_) is divided into two parts--one geographical, the other
historical. The chief authorities used are Livy, Eutropius and Florus.
It is extremely meagre, but the fact that the last part is based on the
writer's personal recollections makes it of some value for the history
of the 4th century.
Editions by W. Förster (Vienna, 1873) and C. Wagener (Prague, 1886);
see also R. Jacobi, _De Festi breviarii fontibus_ (Bonn, 1874), and H.
Peter, _Die geschichtliche Litt. über die römische Kaiserzeit_ ii. p.
133 (1897), where the epitomes of Festus, Aurelius Victor and
Eutropius are compared.
FESTUS, SEXTUS POMPEIUS, Roman grammarian, probably flourished in the
2nd century A.D. He made an epitome of the celebrated work _De verborum
significatu_, a valuable treatise alphabetically arranged, written by M.
Verrius Flaccus, a freedman and celebrated grammarian who flourished in
the reign of Augustus. Festus gives the etymology as well as the meaning
of every word; and his work throws considerable light on the language,
mythology and antiquities of ancient Rome. He made a few alterations,
and inserted some critical remarks of his own. He also omitted such
ancient Latin words as had long been obsolete; these he discussed in a
separate work now lost, entitled _Priscorum verborum cum exemplis_. Of
Flaccus's work only a few fragments remain, and of Festus's epitome only
one original copy is in existence. This MS., the Codex Festi Farnesianus
at Naples, only contains the second half of the work (M-V) and that not
in a perfect condition. It has been published in facsimile by Thewrewk
de Ponor (1890). At the close of the 8th century Paulus Diaconus
abridged the abridgment. From his work and the solitary copy of the
original attempts have been made with the aid of conjecture to
reconstruct the treatise of Festus.
Of the early editions the best are those of J. Scaliger (1565) and
Fulvius Ursinus (1581); in modern times, those of C.O. Müller (1839,
reprinted 1880) and de Ponor (1889); see J.E. Sandys, _History of
Classical Scholarship_, vol. i. (1906).
FÉTIS, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH (1784-1871), Belgian composer and writer on
music, was born at Mons in Belgium on the 25th of March 1784, and was
trained as a musician by his father, who followed the same calling. His
talent for composition manifested itself at the age of seven, and at
nine years old he was an organist at Sainte-Waudru. In 1800 he went to
Paris and completed his studies at the conservatoire under such masters
as Boieldieu, Rey and Pradher. In 1806 he undertook the revision of the
Roman liturgical chants in the hope of discovering and establishing
their original form. In this year he married the granddaughter of the
Chevalier de Kéralio, and also began his _Biographie universelle des
musiciens_, the most important of his works, which did not appear until
1834. In 1821 he was appointed professor at the conservatoire. In 1827
he founded the _Revue musicale_, the first serious paper in France
devoted exclusively to musical matters. Fétis remained in the French
capital till in 1833, at the request of Leopold I., he became director
of the conservatoire of Brussels and the king's chapel-master. He also
was the founder, and, till his death, the conductor of the celebrated
concerts attached to the conservatoire of Brussels, and he inaugurated a
free series of lectures on musical history and philosophy. He produced a
large quantity of original compositions, from the opera and the oratorio
down to the simple _chanson_. But all these are doomed to oblivion.
Although not without traces of scholarship and technical ability, they
show total absence of genius. More important are his writings on music.
They are partly historical, such as the _Curiosités historiques de la
musique_ (Paris, 1850), and the _Histoire universelle de musique_
(Paris, 1869-1876); partly theoretical, such as the _Méthode des
méthodes de piano_ (Paris, 1837), written in conjunction with Moscheles.
Fétis died at Brussels on the 26th of March 1871. His valuable library
was purchased by the Belgian government and presented to the Brussels
conservatoire. His work as a musical historian was prodigious in
quantity, and, in spite of many inaccuracies and some prejudice revealed
in it, there can be no question as to its value for the student.
FETISHISM, an ill-defined term, used in many different senses: (a) the
worship of inanimate objects, often regarded as peculiarly African; (b)
negro religion in general; (c) the worship of inanimate objects
conceived as the residence of spirits not inseparably bound up with, nor
originally connected with, such objects; (d) the doctrine of spirits
embodied in, or attached to, or conveying influence through, certain
material objects (Tylor); (e) the use of charms, which are not
worshipped, but derive their magical power from a god or spirit; (f) the
use as charms of objects regarded as magically potent in themselves. A
further extension is given by some writers, who use the term as
synonymous with the religions of primitive peoples, including under it
not only the worship of inanimate objects, such as the sun, moon or
stars, but even such phases of primitive philosophy as totemism. Comte
applied the term to denominate the view of nature more commonly termed
animism.
_Derivation._--The word fetish (or fetich) was first used in connexion
with Africa by the Portuguese discoverers of the last half of the 15th
century; relics of saints, rosaries and images were then abundant all
over Europe and were regarded as possessing magical virtue; they were
termed by the Portuguese _feiticos_ (_i.e._ charms). Early voyagers to
West Africa applied this term to the wooden figures, stones, &c.,
regarded as the temporary residence of gods or spirits, and to charms.
There is no reason to suppose that the word _feitico_ was applied either
to an animal or to the local spirit of a river, hill or forest.
_Feitico_ is sometimes interpreted to mean artificial, made by man, but
the original sense is more probably "magically active or artful." The
word was probably brought into general use by C. de Brosses, author of
_Du culte des dieux fétiches_ (1760), but it is frequently used by W.
Bosman in his _Description of Guinea_ (1705), in the sense of "the false
god, Bossum" or "Bohsum," properly a tutelary deity of an individual.
_Definition._--The term fetish is commonly understood to mean the
worship of or respect for material, inanimate objects, conceived as
magically active from a virtue inherent in them, temporarily or
permanently, which does not arise from the fact that a god or spirit is
believed to reside in them or communicate virtue to them. Taken in this
sense fetishism is probably a mark of decadence. There is no evidence
of any such belief in Africa or elsewhere among primitive peoples. It is
only after a certain grade of culture has been attained that the belief
in luck appears; the fetish is essentially a mascot or object carried
for luck.
_Ordinary Usage._--In the sense in which Dr Tylor uses the term the
fetish is (1) a "god-house" or (2) a charm derived from a tutelary deity
or spirit, and magically active in virtue of its association with such
deity or spirit. In the first of these senses the word is applied to
objects ranging from the unworked stone to the pot or the wooden figure,
and is thus hardly distinguishable from idolatry. (a) The _bohsum_ or
tutelary deity of a particular section of the community is derived from
the local gods through the priests by the performance of a certain
series of rites. The priest indicates into what object the _bohsum_ will
enter and proceeds to the abode of the local god to procure the object
in question. After making an offering the object is carried to an
appropriate spot and a "fetish" tree set up as a shade for it, which is
sacred so long as the _bohsum_ remains beneath it. The fall of the tree
is believed to mark the departure of the spirit. A _bohsum_ may also be
procured through a dream; but in this case, too, it is necessary to
apply to the priest to decide whether the dream was veridical. (b) The
_suhman_ or tutelary deity of an individual is not an object selected at
random to be the residence of the spirit. It is only procurable at the
residence of a Sasabonsum, a malicious non-human being. Various
ceremonies are performed, and a spirit connected with the Sasabonsum is
finally asked to enter an object. This is then kept for three days; if
no good fortune results it is concluded either that the spirit did not
enter the object selected, or that it is disinclined to extend its
protection. In either case the ceremonies must be commenced afresh.
Otherwise offerings and even human sacrifices in exceptional cases are
made to the _suhman_. It is commonly believed that the negro claims the
power of coercing his tutelary deity. This is denied by Colonel Ellis.
It is certain that coercion of deities is not unknown, but further
evidence is required that the negro uses it when his deity is
refractory.
The _suhman_ can, it is believed, communicate a part of his powers to
various objects in which he does not dwell; these are also termed
_suhman_ by the natives and may have given rise to the belief that the
practices commonly termed fetishism are not animistic. These charms are
many in number; offerings of food and drink are made, _i.e._ to the
portion of the power of the _suhman_ which resides in them. These charms
can only be made by the possessor of the _suhman_.
On the Guinea Coast the spirit implanted in the object is usually, if
not invariably, non-human. Farther south on the Congo the "fetish" is
inhabited by human souls also. The priest goes into the forest and cuts
an image; when a party enters a wood for this purpose they may not
mention the name of any living being unless they wish him to die and his
soul to enter the fetish. The right person having been selected, his
name is mentioned; and he is believed to die within ten days, his soul
passing into the _nkissi_. It is into these figures that the nails are
driven, in order to procure the vengeance of the indwelling spirit on
some enemy.
In many cases the fetish spirit is believed to leave the "god-house" and
pass for the time being into the body of the priest, who manifests the
phenomena of possession (q.v.). It is a common error to suppose that the
whole of African religion is embraced in the practices connected with
these tutelary deities; so far from this being the case, belief in
higher gods, not necessarily accompanied with worship or propitiation,
is common in many parts of Africa, and there is no reason to suppose
that it had been derived in every case, perhaps not in any case, from
Christian or Mahommedan missionaries.
See A.B. Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, chs. vii., viii. and xii.;
Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, ii. 174; R.E. Dennett in
_Folklore_, vol. xvi.; R.H. Nassau, _Fetichism in West Africa_ (1904);
also Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 143, and M.H. Kingsley, _West
African Studies_ (2nd ed., 1901), where the term is used in a more
extended sense. (N. W. T.)
FETTERCAIRN, a burgh of barony of Kincardineshire, Scotland, 4½ m. N.W.
of Laurencekirk. Pop. of parish (1901) 1390. The chief structures
include a public hall, library and reading-room, and the arch built to
commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861. The most interesting
relic, however, is the market cross, which originally belonged to the
extinct town of Kincardine. To the S.W. is Balbegno Castle, dating from
1509, and planned on a scale that threatened to ruin its projector. It
contains a lofty hall of fine proportions. Two miles N. is Fasque, the
estate of the Gladstones, which was acquired in 1831 by Sir John
Gladstone (1764-1851), the father of W.E. Gladstone. The castle, which
stands in beautiful grounds, was built in 1809. Sir John Gladstone's
tomb is in the Episcopal church of St Andrew, which he erected and
endowed. In the immediate vicinity are the ruins of the royal castle of
Kincardine, where, according to tradition, Kenneth III. was assassinated
in 1005, although he is more generally said to have been slain in battle
at Monzievaird, near Crieff in Perthshire.
FETTERS AND HANDCUFFS, instruments for securing the feet and hands of
prisoners under arrest, or as a means of punishment. The old names were
manacles, shackbolts or shackles, gyves and swivels. Until within recent
times handcuffs were of two kinds, the figure-8 ones which confined the
hands close together either in front or behind the prisoner, or the
rings from the wrists were connected by a short chain much on the model
of the handcuffs in use by the police forces of to-day. Much improvement
has been made in handcuffs of late. They are much lighter and they are
adjustable, fitting any wrist, and thus the one pair will serve a police
officer for any prisoner. For the removal of gangs of convicts an
arrangement of handcuffs connected by a light chain is used, the chain
running through a ring on each fetter and made fast at both ends by what
are known as _end-locks_. Several recently invented appliances are used
as handcuffs, e.g. snaps, nippers, twisters. They differ from handcuffs
in being intended for one wrist only, the other portion being held by
the captor. In the snap the smaller circlet is snapped to on the
prisoner's wrist. The nippers can be instantly fastened on the wrist.
The twister, not now used in England as being liable to injure prisoners
seriously, is a chain attached to two handles; the chain is put round
the wrist and the two handles twisted till the chain is tight enough.
Leg-irons are anklets of steel connected by light chains long enough to
permit of the wearer walking with short steps. An obsolete form was an
anklet and chain to the end of which was attached a heavy weight,
usually a round shot. The Spanish used to secure prisoners in bilboes,
shackles round the ankles secured by a long bar of iron. This form of
leg-iron was adopted in England, and was much employed in the services
during the 17th and 18th centuries. An ancient example is preserved in
the Tower of London. The French marine still use a kind of leg-iron of
the bilbo type.
FEU, in Scotland, the commonest mode of land tenure. The word is the
Scots variant of "fee" (q.v.). The relics of the feudal system still
dominate Scots conveyancing. That system has recognized as many as seven
forms of tenure--ward, socage, mortification, feu, blench, burgage,
booking. Ward, the original military holding, was abolished in 1747 (20
G. II. c. 20), as an effect of the rising of 1745. Socage and
mortification have long since disappeared. Booking is a conveyance
peculiar to the borough of Paisley, but does not differ essentially from
feu. Burgage is the system by which land is held in royal boroughs.
Blench holding is by a nominal payment, as of a penny Scots, or a red
rose, often only to be rendered upon demand. In feu holding there is a
substantial annual payment in money or in kind in return for the
enjoyment of the land. The crown is the first overlord or superior, and
land is held of it by crown vassals, but they in their turn may "feu"
their land, as it is called, to others who become _their_ vassals,
whilst they themselves are mediate overlords or superiors; and this
process of sub-infeudation may be repeated to an indefinite extent. The
Conveyancing Act of 1874 renders any clause in a disposition against
sub-infeudation null and void. In England on the other hand, since
1290, when the statute _Quia Emptores_ was passed, sub-infeudation is
impossible, as the new holder simply effaces the grantor, holding by the
same title as the grantor himself. Casualties, which are a feature of
land held in feu, are certain payments made to the superior, contingent
on the happening of certain events. The most important was the payment
of an amount equal to one year's feu-duty by a new holder, whether heir
or purchaser of the feu. The Conveyancing Act of 1874 abolished
casualties in all feus after that date, and power was given to redeem
this burden on feus already existing. If the vassal does not pay the
feu-duty for two years, the superior, among other remedies, may obtain
by legal process a decree of irritancy, whereupon _tinsel_ or forfeiture
of the feu follows. Previously to 1832 only the vassals of the crown had
votes in parliamentary elections for the Scots counties, and this made
in favour of sub-infeudation as against sale outright. In Orkney and
Shetland land is still largely possessed as udal property, a holding
derived or handed down from the time when these islands belonged to
Norway. Such lands may be converted into feus at the will of the
proprietor and held from the crown or Lord Dundas. At one time the
system of conveyancing by which the transfer of feus was effected was
curious and complicated, requiring the presence of parties on the land
itself and the symbolical handing over of the property, together with
the registration of various documents. But legislation since the middle
of the 19th century has changed all that. The system of feuing in
Scotland, as contrasted with that of long leaseholds in England, has
tended to secure greater solidity and firmness in the average buildings
of the northern country.
See Erskine's _Principles_; Bell's _Principles_; Rankine, _Law of
Landownership in Scotland_.
FEUCHÈRES, SOPHIE, BARONNE DE (1795-1840), Anglo-French adventuress, was
born at St Helens, Isle of Wight, in 1795, the daughter of a drunken
fisherman named Dawes. She grew up in the workhouse, went up to London
as a servant, and became the mistress of the duc de Bourbon, afterwards
prince de Condé. She was ambitious, and he had her well educated not
only in modern languages but, as her exercise books--still extant--show,
in Greek and Latin. He took her to Paris and, to prevent scandal and to
qualify her to be received at court, had her married in 1818 to Adrien
Victor de Feuchères, a major in the Royal Guards. The prince provided
her dowry, made her husband his aide-de-camp and a baron. The baroness,
pretty and clever, became a person of consequence at the court of Louis
XVIII. De Feuchères, however, finally discovered the relations between
his wife and Condé, whom he had been assured was her father, left
her--he obtained a legal separation in 1827--and told the king, who
thereupon forbade her appearance at court. Thanks to her influence,
however, Condé was induced in 1829 to sign a will bequeathing about ten
million francs to her, and the rest of his estate--more than sixty-six
millions--to the duc d'Aumale, fourth son of Louis Philippe. Again she
was in high favour. Charles X. received her at court, Talleyrand visited
her, her niece married a marquis and her nephew was made a baron. Condé,
wearied by his mistress's importunities, and but half pleased by the
advances made him by the government of July, had made up his mind to
leave France secretly. When on the 27th of August 1830 he was found
hanging dead from his window, the baroness was suspected and an inquiry
was held, but the evidence of death being the result of any crime
appearing insufficient, she was not prosecuted. Hated as she was alike
by legitimatists and republicans, life in Paris was no longer agreeable
for her, and she returned to London, where she died in December 1840.
FEUCHTERSLEBEN, ERNST, FREIHERR VON (1806-1849), Austrian physician,
poet and philosopher, was born in Vienna on the 29th of April 1806; of
an old Saxon noble family. He attended the "Theresian Academy" in his
native city, and in 1825 entered its university as a student of
medicine. In 1833 he obtained the degree of doctor of medicine, settled
in Vienna as a practising surgeon, and in 1834 married. The young doctor
kept up his connexion with the university, where he lectured, and in
1844 was appointed dean of the faculty of medicine. He cultivated the
acquaintance of Franz Grillparzer, Heinrich Laube, and other
intellectual lights of the Viennese world, interested himself greatly in
educational matters, and in 1848, while refusing the presidency of the
ministry of education, accepted the appointment of under secretary of
state in that department. His health, however, gave way, and he died at
Vienna on the 3rd of September 1849. He was not only a clever physician,
but a poet of fine aesthetical taste and a philosopher. Among his
medical works may be mentioned: _Über das Hippokratische erste Buch von
der Diät_ (Vienna, 1835), _Ärzte und Publicum_ (Vienna, 1848) and
_Lehrbuch der ärztlichen Seelenkunde_ (1845). His poetical works include
_Gedichte_ (Stutt. 1836), among which is the well-known beautiful hymn,
which Mendelssohn set to music. "_Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rat._" As a
philosopher he is best known by his _Zur Diätetik der Seele_ [Dietetics
of the soul] (Vienna, 1838), which attained great popularity, and the
tendency of which, in contrast to Hufeland's _Makrobiotik_ (On the Art
of Prolonging Life), is to show the true way of rendering life
harmonious and lovely. This work had by 1906 gone into fifty editions.
Noteworthy also is his _Beiträge zur Litteratur-, Kunst- und
Lebenstheorie_ (Vienna, 1837-1841), and an anthology, _Geist der
deutschen_ Klassiker (Vienna, 1851; 3rd ed. 1865-1866).
His collected works (with the exception of the purely medical ones)
were published in 7 vols. by Fr. Hebbel (Vienna, 1851-1853). See M.
Necker, "Ernst von Feuchtersleben, der Freund Grillparzers," in the
_Jahrbuch der Grillparzer Gesellschaft_, vol. iii. (Vienna, 1893).
FEUD, animosity, hatred, especially a permanent condition of hostilities
between persons, and hence applied to a state of private warfare between
tribes, clans or families, a "vendetta." The word appears in Mid. Eng.
as _fede_, which came through the O. Fr. from the O. High Ger. _fehida_,
modern _Fehde_. The O. Teutonic _faiho_, an adjective, the source of
_fehida_, gives the O. Eng. fáh, foe. "Fiend," originally an enemy (cf.
Ger. _Feind_), hence the enemy of mankind, the devil, and so any evil
spirit, is probably connected with the same source. The word _fede_ was
of Scottish usage, but in the 16th century took the form _foode_, _fewd_
in English. The _New English Dictionary_ points out that "feud, fee
(Lat. _feudum_) could not have influenced the change, for it appears
fifty years later than the first instances of _foode_, &c., and was only
used by writers on feudalism." For the etymology of "feud" (_feudum_)
see FEE, and for its history see FEUDALISM.
FEUDALISM (from Late Lat. _feodum_ or _feudum_, a fee or fiel; see FEE).
In every case of institutional growth in history two things are to be
clearly distinguished from the beginning for a correct understanding of
the process and its results. One of these is the change of conditions in
the political or social environment which made growth necessary. The
other is the already existing institutions which began to be transformed
to meet the new needs. In studying the origin and growth of political
feudalism, the distinction is easy to make. The all-prevailing need of
the later Roman and early medieval society was protection--protection
against the sudden attacks of invading tribes or revolted peasants,
against oppressive neighbours, against the unwarranted demands of
government officers, or even against the legal but too heavy exactions
of the government itself. In the days of the decaying empire and of the
chaotic German settlement, the weak freeman, the small landowner, was
exposed to attack in almost every relation of life and on every side.
The protection which normally it is the business of government to
furnish he could no longer obtain. He must seek protection elsewhere
wherever he could get it, and pay the price demanded for it. This is the
great social fact--the failure of government to perform one of its most
primary duties, the necessity of finding some substitute in private
life--extending in greater or less degree through the whole formative
period of feudalism, which explains the transformation of institutions
that brought it into existence. Similar conditions have produced an
organization which may be called feudal, in various countries, and in
widely separated periods of history. While these different feudal
systems have shown a general similarity of organization, there has been
also great variation in their details, because they have started from
different institutions and developed in different ways. The feudal
system with which history most concerns itself is that of medieval
western Europe, and it is that which will be here described.
Roman origins.
The institutions which the need of protection seized upon when it first
began to turn away from the state were twofold. They had both long
existed in the private, not public, relations of the Romans, and they
had up to this time shown no tendency to grow. One of them related to
the person, to the man himself, without reference to property, the other
related to land. There are thus distinguished at the beginning those two
great sides of feudalism which remained to the end of its history more
or less distinct, the personal relation and the land relation. The
personal institution needs little description. It was the Roman patron
and client relationship which had remained in existence into the days of
the empire, in later times less important perhaps legally than socially,
and which had been reinforced in Gaul by very similar practices in use
among the Celts before their conquest. The description of this
institution which has come down to us from Roman sources of the days
when feudalism was beginning is not so detailed as we could wish, but we
can see plainly enough that it met a frequent need, that it was called
by a new name, the _patrocinium_, and that it was firmly enough
entrenched in usage to survive the German conquest, and to be taken up
and continued by the conquerors. In its new use, alike in the later
Roman and the early German state, the landless freeman who could not
support himself went to some powerful man, stated his need, and offered
his services, those proper to a freeman, in return for shelter and
support. This transaction, which was called commendation, gave rise in
the German state to a written contract which related the facts and
provided a penalty for its violation. It created a relationship of
protection and support on one side, and of free service on the other.
The other institution, relating to land, was that known to the Roman law
as the _precarium_, a name derived from one of its essential features
through all its history, the prayer of the suppliant by which the
relationship was begun. The _precarium_ was a form of renting land not
intended primarily for income, but for use when the lease was made from
friendship for example, or as a reward, or to secure a debt. Legally its
characteristic feature was that the lessee had no right of any kind
against the grantor. The owner could call in his land and terminate the
relation at any time, for any reason, or for none at all. Even a
definite understanding at the outset that the lease might be enjoyed to
a specified date was no protection.[1] It followed of course that the
heir had no right in the land which his father held in this way, nor was
the heir of the donor bound by his father's act. The legal character of
this transaction is summed up in a well-known passage in the
_Digest:--Interdictum de precariis merito introductum est, quia nulla eo
nomine juris civilis actio esset, magis enim ad donationes et beneficii
causam, quam ad negotii contracti spectat precarii conditio._[2] This
may be paraphrased as follows:--The _precarium_ tenant may employ the
interdict against a third party, because he cannot use the ordinary
civil action, his holding being not a matter of business but rather of
favour and kindness. It should be noted that from its very beginning the
land relationship of feudalism was not created primarily for the
grantor's income, but that it emphasized in the most striking way his
continued ownership.
As used for protection in later Roman days the _precarium_ gave rise to
what was called the commendation of lands, _patrocinium fundorum_. The
poor landowner, likely to lose all that he had from one kind of
oppression or another, went to the great landowner, his neighbour, whose
position gave him immunity from attack or the power to prevent official
abuses, and begged to be protected. The rich man answered, I can only
protect my own. Of necessity the poor man must surrender to his powerful
neighbour the ownership of his lands, which he then received back as a
_precarium_--gaining protection during his lifetime at the cost of his
children, who were left without legal claim and compelled to make the
best terms they could.[3] Applied to this use the _precarium_ found
extensive employment in the last age of the empire. The government
looked on the practice with great disfavour, because it transferred
large areas from the easy access of the state to an ownership beyond its
reach. The laws repeatedly forbade it under increasing penalties, but
clearly it could not be stopped. The motive was too strong on both
sides--the need of protection on one side, the natural desire to
increase large possessions and means of self-defence on the other.
Frankish development.
These practices the Frankish conquerors of Gaul found in full possession
of society when they entered into that province. They seem to have
understood them at once, and, like much else Roman, to have made them
their own without material change. The _patrocinium_ they were made
ready to understand by the existence of a somewhat similar institution
among themselves, the _comitatus_, described by Tacitus. In this
institution the chief of the tribe, or of some plainly marked division
of the tribe, gathered about himself a band of chosen warriors, who
formed a kind of private military force and body-guard. The special
features of the institution were the strong tie of faith and service
which bound the man, the support and rewards given by the lord, and the
pride of both in the relationship. The _patrocinium_ might well seem to
the German only a form of the _comitatus_, but it was a form which
presented certain advantages in his actual situation. The chief of these
was perhaps the fact that it was not confined to king or tribal chief,
but that every noble was able in the Roman practice to surround himself
with his organized private army. Probably this fact, together with the
more general fact of the absorption in most things of the German in the
Roman, accounts for the substitution of the _patrocinium_ for the
_comitatus_ which took place under the Merovingians.
This change did not occur, however, without some modification of the
Roman customs. The _comitatus_ made contributions of its own to future
feudalism, to some extent to its institutional side, largely to the
ideas and spirit which ruled in it. Probably the ceremony which grew
into feudal homage, and the oath of fealty, certainly the honourable
position of the vassal and his pride in the relationship, the strong tie
which bound lord and man together, and the idea that faith and service
were due on both sides in equal measure, we may trace to German sources.
But we must not forget that the origin of the vassal relationship, as an
institution, is to be found on Roman and not on German soil. The
_comitatus_ developed and modified, it did not originate. Nor was the
feudal system established in any sense by the settlement of the
_comitatus_ group on the conquered land. The uniting of the personal and
the land sides of feudalism came long after the conquest, and in a
different way.
To the _precarium_ German institutions offered no close parallel. The
advantages, however, which it afforded were obvious, and this side of
feudalism developed as rapidly after the conquest as the personal. The
new German noble was as eager to extend the size of his lands and to
increase the numbers of his dependants as the Roman had been. The new
German government furnished no better protection from local violence,
nor was it able any more effectively to check the practices which were
creating feudalism; indeed for a long time it made no attempt to do so.
_Precarium_ and _patrocinium_ easily passed from the Roman empire to the
Frankish kingdom, and became as firmly rooted in the new society as they
had ever been in the old. Up to this point we have seen only the small
landowner and the landless man entering into these relations. Feudalism
could not be established, however, until the great of the land had
adopted them for themselves, and had begun to enter the clientage of
others and to hold lands by the _precarium_ tenure. The first step
towards this result was easily and quickly taken. The same class
continued to furnish the king's men, and to form his household and
body-guard whether the relation was that of the _patrocinium_ or the
_comitatus_, and to be made noble by entering into it. It was later that
they became clients of one another, and in part at least as a result of
their adoption of the _precarium_ tenure. In this latter step the
influence of the Church rather than of the king seems to have been
effective. The large estates which pious intentions had bestowed on the
Church it was not allowed to alienate. It could most easily make them
useful to gain the influence and support which it needed, and to provide
for the public functions which fell to its share, by employing the
_precarium_ tenure. On the other side, the great men coveted the wide
estates of bishop and abbot, and were ready without persuasion to annex
portions of them to their own on the easy terms of this tenure, not
always indeed observed by the holder, or able to be enforced by the
Church. The employment of the _precarium_ by the Church seems to have
been one of the surest means by which this form of landholding was
carried over from the Romans to the Frankish period and developed into
new forms. It came to be made by degrees the subject of written
contract, by which the rights of the holder were more definitely defined
and protected than had been the case in Roman law. The length of time
for which the holding should last came to be specified, at first for a
term of years and then for life, and some payment to the grantor was
provided for, not pretending to represent the economic value of the
land, but only to serve as a mark of his continued ownership.
These changes characterize the Merovingian age of Frankish history. That
period had practically ended, however, before these two institutions
showed any tendency to join together as they were joined in later
feudalism. Nor had the king up to that time exerted any apparent
influence on the processes that were going forward. Grants of land of
the Merovingian kings had carried with them ownership and not a limited
right, and the king's _patrocinium_ had not widened in extent in the
direction of the later vassal relation. It was the advent of the
Carolingian princes and the difficulties which they had to overcome that
carried these institutions a stage further forward. Making their way up
from a position among the nobility to be the rulers of the land, and
finally to supplant the kings, the Carolingians had especial need of
resources from which to purchase and reward faithful support. This need
was greatly increased when the Arab attack on southern Gaul forced them
to transform a large part of the old Frankish foot army into cavalry.[4]
The fundamental principle of the Frankish military system, that the man
served at his own expense, was still unchanged. It had indeed begun to
break down under the strain of frequent and distant campaigns, but it
was long before it was changed as the recognized rule of medieval
service. If now, in addition to his own expenses, the soldier must
provide a horse and its keeping, the system was likely to break down
altogether. It was this problem which led to the next step. To solve it
the early Carolingian princes, especially Charles Martel, who found the
royal domains exhausted and their own inadequate, grasped at the land of
the Church. Here was enough to endow an army, if some means could be
devised to permit its use. This means was found in the _precarium_
tenure. Keeping alive, as it did, the fact of the grantor's ownership,
it did not in form deprive the Church of the land. Recognizing that
ownership by a small payment only, not corresponding to the value of the
land, it left the larger part of the income to meet the need which had
arisen. At the same time undoubtedly the new holder of the land, if not
already the vassal of the prince, was obliged to become so and to assume
an obligation of service with a mounted force when called upon.[5] This
expedient seems to have solved the problem. It gave rise to the numerous
_precariae verbo regis_, of the Church records, and to the condemnation
of Charles Martel in the visions of the clergy to worse difficulties in
the future life than he had overcome in this. The most important
consequences of the expedient, however, were not intended or perceived
at the time. It brought together the two sides of feudalism, vassalage
and benefice, as they were now commonly called, and from this age their
union into what is really a single institution was rapid;[6] it
emphasized military service as an essential obligation of the vassal;
and it spread the vassal relation between individual proprietors and the
sovereign widely over the state.
In the period that followed, the reign of Charlemagne and the later
Carolingian age, continued necessities, military and civil, forced the
kings to recognize these new institutions more fully, even when standing
in a position between the government and the subject, intercepting the
public duties of the latter. The incipient feudal baron had not been
slow to take advantage of the break-down of the old German military
system. As in the last days of the Roman empire the poor landowner had
found his only refuge from the exactions of the government in the
protection of the senator, who could in some way obtain exemptions, so
the poor Frank could escape the ruinous demands of military service only
by submitting himself and his lands to the count, who did not hesitate
on his side to force such submission. Charlemagne legislated with vigour
against this tendency, trying to make it easier for the poor freeman to
fulfil his military duties directly to the state, and to forbid the
misuse of power by the rich, but he was not more successful than the
Roman government had been in a like attempt. Finally the king found
himself compelled to recognize existing facts, to lay upon the lord the
duty of producing his men in the field and to allow him to appear as
their commander. This solved the difficulty of military service
apparently, but with decisive consequences. It completed the
transformation of the army into a vassal army; it completed the
recognition of feudalism by the state, as a legitimate relation between
different ranks of the people; and it recognized the transformation in a
great number of cases of a public duty into a private obligation.
In the meantime another institution had grown up in this Franco-Roman
society, which probably began and certainly assisted in another
transformation of the same kind. This is the immunity. Suggested
probably by Roman practices, possibly developed directly from them, it
received a great extension in the Merovingian period, at first and
especially in the interest of the Church, but soon of lay land-holders.
By the grant of an immunity to a proprietor the royal officers, the
count and his representatives, were forbidden to enter his lands to
exercise any public function there. The duties which the count should
perform passed to the proprietor, who now represented the government for
all his tenants free and unfree. Apparently no modification of the royal
rights was intended by this arrangement, but the beginning of a great
change had really been made. The king might still receive the same
revenues and the same services from the district held by the lord as
formerly, but for their payment a private person in his capacity as
overlord was now responsible. In the course of a long period
characterized by a weak central government, it was not difficult to
enlarge the rights which the lord thus obtained, to exclude even the
king's personal authority from the immunity, and to translate the duties
and payments which the tenant had once owed to the state into
obligations which he owed to his lord, even finally into incidents of
his tenure. The most important public function whose transformation into
a private possession was assisted by the growth of the immunity was the
judicial. This process had probably already begun in a small way in the
growth of institutions which belong to the economic side of feudalism,
the organization of agriculture on the great estates. Even in Roman days
the proprietor had exercised a jurisdiction over the disputes of his
unfree tenants. Whether this could by its own growth have been extended
over his free tenants and carried so far as to absorb a local court,
like that of the hundred, into private possession, is not certain. It
seems probable that it could. But in any case, the immunity easily
carried the development of private jurisdiction through these stages.
The lord's court took the place of the public court in civil, and even
by degrees in criminal cases. The plaintiff, even if he were under
another lord, was obliged to sue in the court of the defendant's lord,
and the portion of the fine for a breach of the peace which should have
gone to the state went in the end to the lord.
The transfer of the judicial process, and of the financial and
administrative sides of the government as well, into private possession,
was not, however, accomplished entirely by the road of the immunity. As
government weakened after the strong days of Charlemagne, and disorder,
invasion, and the difficulty of intercommunication tended to throw the
locality more and more upon its own resources, the officer who had once
been the means of centralization, the count, found success in the effort
for independence which even Charlemagne had scarcely overcome. He was
able to throw off responsibility to any central authority, and to
exercise the powers which had been committed to him as an agent of the
king, as if they were his own private possession. Nor was the king's aid
lacking to this method of dividing up the royal authority, any more than
to the immunity, for it became a frequent practice to make the
administrative office into a fief, and to grant it to be held in that
form of property by the count. In this way the feudal county, or duchy,
formed itself, corresponding in most cases only roughly to the old
administrative divisions of the state, for within the bounds of the
county there had often formed private feudal possessions too powerful to
be forced into dependence upon the count, sometimes the vice-comes had
followed the count's example, and often, on the other hand, the count
had attached to his county like private possessions of his own lying
outside its boundaries. In time the private lord, who had never been an
officer of the state, assumed the old administrative titles and called
himself count or viscount, and perhaps with some sort of right, for his
position in his territories, through the development of the immunity,
did not differ from that now held by the man who had been originally a
count.
In these two ways then the feudal system was formed, and took possession
of the state territorially, and of its functions in government. Its
earliest stage of growth was that of the private possession only. Under
a government too weak to preserve order, the great landowner formed his
estate into a little territory which could defend itself. His smaller
neighbours who needed protection came to him for it. He forced them to
become his dependants in return under a great variety of forms, but
especially developing thereby the _precarium_ land tenure and the
_patrocinium_ personal service, and organizing a private jurisdiction
over his tenants, and a private army for defence. Finally he secured
from the king an immunity which excluded the royal officers from his
lands and made him a quasi-representative of the state. In the meantime
his neighbour the count had been following a similar process, and in
addition he had enjoyed considerable advantages of his own. His right to
exact military, financial and judicial duties for the state he had used
to force men to become his dependants, and then he had stood between
them and the state, freeing them from burdens which he threw with
increased weight upon those who still stood outside his personal
protection. In ignorance of their danger, and later in despair of
getting public services adequately performed in any other way, the kings
first adopted for themselves some of the forms and practices which had
thus grown up, and by degrees recognized them as legally proper for all
classes. It proved to be easier to hold the lord responsible for the
public duties of all his dependants because he was the king's vassal and
by attaching them as conditions to the benefices which he held, than to
enforce them directly upon every subject.
When this stage was reached the formative age of feudalism may be
considered at an end. When the government of the state had entered into
feudalism, and the king was as much senior as king; when the vassal
relationship was recognized as a proper and legal foundation of public
duties; when the two separate sides of early feudalism were united as
the almost universal rule, so that a man received a fief because he owed
a vassal's duties, or looked at in the other and finally prevailing way,
that he owed a vassal's duties because he had received a fief; and
finally, when the old idea of the temporary character of the _precarium_
tenure was lost sight of, and the right of the vassal's heir to receive
his father's holding was recognized as the general rule--then the feudal
system may be called full grown. Not that the age of growth was really
over. Feudal history was always a becoming, always a gradual passing
from one stage to another, so long as feudalism continued to form the
main organization of society. But we may say that the formative age was
over when these features of the system had combined to be its
characteristic marks. What follows is rather a perfection of details in
the direction of logical completeness. To assign any specific date to
the end of this formative age is of course impossible, but meaning by
the end what has just been stated, we shall not be far wrong if we place
it somewhere near the beginning of the 10th century.
Before we leave the history of feudal origins another word is necessary.
We have traced a definite line of descent for feudal institutions from
Roman days through the Merovingian and Carolingian ages to the 10th
century. That line of descent can be made out with convincing clearness
and with no particular difficulty from epoch to epoch, from the
_precarium_ and the _patrocinium_, through the benefice and
commendation, to the fief and vassalage. But the definiteness of this
line should not cause us to overlook the fact that there was during
these centuries much confusion of custom and practice. All round and
about this line of descent there was a crowd of varying forms branching
off more or less widely from the main stem, different kinds of
commendation, different forms of _precarium_, some of which varied
greatly from that through which the fief descends, and some of which
survived in much the old character and under the old name for a long
time after later feudalism was definitely established.[7] The variety
and seeming confusion which reign in feudal society, under uniform
controlling principles, rule also in the ages of beginning. It is easy
to lose one's bearings by over-emphasizing the importance of variation
and exception. It is indeed true that what was the exception, the
temporary offshoot, might have become the main line. It would then have
produced a system which would have been feudal, in the wide sense of the
term, but it would have been marked by different characteristics, it
would have operated in a somewhat different way. The crowd of varying
forms should not prevent us from seeing that we can trace through their
confusion the line along which the characteristic traits and
institutions of European feudalism, as it actually was, were growing
constantly more distinct.[8] That is the line of the origin of the
feudal system. (See also FRANCE: _Law and Institutions_.)
Results in England.
The growth which we have traced took place within the Frankish empire.
When we turn to Anglo-Saxon England we find a different situation and a
different result. There _precarium_ and _patrocinium_ were lacking.
Certain forms of personal commendation did develop, certain forms of
dependent land tenure came into use. These do not show, however, the
characteristic marks of the actual line of feudal descent. They belong
rather in the varying forms around that line. Scholars are not yet
agreed as to what would have been their result if their natural
development had not been cut off by the violent introduction of Frankish
feudalism with the Norman conquest, whether the historical feudal
system, or a feudal system in the general sense. To the writer it seems
clear that the latter is the most that can be asserted. They were forms
which may rightly be called feudal, but only in the wider meaning in
which we speak of the feudalism of Japan, or of Central Africa, not in
the sense of 12th-century European feudalism; Saxon commendation may
rightly be called vassalage, but only as looking back to the early
Frankish use of the term for many varying forms of practice, not as
looking forward to the later and more definite usage of completed
feudalism; and such use of the terms feudal and vassalage is sure to be
misleading. It is better to say that European feudalism is not to be
found in England before the Conquest, not even in its beginnings. If
these had really been in existence it would require no argument to show
the fact. There is no trace of the distinctive marks of Frankish
feudalism in Saxon England, not where military service may be thought to
rest upon the land, nor even in the rare cases where the tenant seems to
some to be made responsible for it, for between these cases as they are
described in the original accounts, legally interpreted, and the feudal
conception of the vassal's military service, there is a great gulf.
The completed system.
In turning from the origin of feudalism to a description of the
completed system one is inevitably reminded of the words with which de
Quincey opens the second part of his essay on style. He says: "It is a
natural resource that whatsoever we find it difficult to investigate as
a result, we endeavour to follow as a growth. Failing analytically to
probe its nature, historically we seek relief to our perplexities by
tracing its origin.... Thus for instance when any feudal institution (be
it Gothic, Norman, or Anglo-Saxon) eludes our deciphering faculty from
the imperfect records of its use and operation, then we endeavour
conjecturally to amend our knowledge by watching the circumstances in
which that institution arose." The temptation to use the larger part of
any space allotted to the history of feudalism for a discussion of
origins does not arise alone from greater interest in that phase of the
subject. It is almost impossible even with the most discriminating care
to give a brief account of completed feudalism and convey no wrong
impression. We use the term "feudal system" for convenience sake, but
with a degree of impropriety if it conveys the meaning "systematic."
Feudalism in its most flourishing age was anything but systematic. It
was confusion roughly organized. Great diversity prevailed everywhere,
and we should not be surprised to find some different fact or custom in
every lordship. Anglo-Norman feudalism attained a logical completeness
and a uniformity of practice which, in the feudal age proper, can hardly
be found elsewhere through so large a territory; but in Anglo-Norman
feudalism the exception holds perhaps as large a place as the regular,
and the uniformity itself was due to the most serious of exceptions from
the feudal point of view--centralization under a powerful monarchy.
But too great emphasis upon variation conveys also a wrong impression.
Underlying all the apparent confusion of fact and practice were certain
fundamental principles and relationships, which were alike everywhere,
and which really gave shape to everything that was feudal, no matter
what its form might be. The chief of these are the following: the
relation of vassal and lord; the principle that every holder of land is
a tenant and not an owner, until the highest rank is reached, sometimes
even the conception rules in that rank; that the tenure by which a thing
of value is held is one of honourable service, not intended to be
economic, but moral and political in character; the principle of mutual
obligations of loyalty, protection and service binding together all the
ranks of this society from the highest to the lowest; and the principle
of contract between lord and tenant, as determining all rights,
controlling their modification, and forming the foundation of all law.
There was actually in fact and practice a larger uniformity than this
short list implies, because these principles tended to express
themselves in similar forms, and because historical derivation from a
common source in Frankish feudalism tended to preserve some degree of
uniformity in the more important usages.
The foundation of the feudal relationship proper was the fief, which was
usually land, but might be any desirable thing, as an office, a revenue
in money or kind, the right to collect a toll, or operate a mill. In
return for the fief, the man became the vassal of his lord; he knelt
before him, and, with his hands between his lord's hands, promised him
fealty and service; he rose to his feet and took the oath of fealty
which bound him to the obligations he had assumed in homage; he received
from his lord ceremonial investiture with the fief. The faithful
performance of all the duties he had assumed in homage constituted the
vassal's right and title to his fief. So long as they were fulfilled,
he, and his heir after him, held the fief as his property, practically
and in relation to all under tenants as if he were the owner. In the
ceremony of homage and investiture, which is the creative contract of
feudalism, the obligations assumed by the two parties were, as a rule,
not specified in exact terms. They were determined by local custom. What
they were, however, was as well known, as capable of proof, and as
adequate a check on innovation by either party, as if committed to
writing. In many points of detail the vassal's services differed widely
in different parts of the feudal world. We may say, however, that they
fall into two classes, general and specific. The general included all
that might come under the idea of loyalty, seeking the lord's interests,
keeping his secrets, betraying the plans of his enemies, protecting his
family, &c. The specific services are capable of more definite
statement, and they usually received exact definition in custom and
sometimes in written documents. The most characteristic of these was the
military service, which included appearance in the field on summons with
a certain force, often armed in a specified way, and remaining a
specified length of time. It often included also the duty of guarding
the lord's castle, and of holding one's own castle subject to the plans
of the lord for the defence of his fief. Hardly less characteristic was
court service, which included the duty of helping to form the court on
summons, of taking one's own cases to that court instead of to some
other, and of submitting to its judgments. The duty of giving the lord
advice was often demanded and fulfilled in sessions of the court, and in
these feudal courts the obligations of lord and vassal were enforced,
with an ultimate appeal to war. Under this head may be enumerated also
the financial duties of the vassal, though these were not regarded by
the feudal law as of the nature of the tenure, i.e. failure to pay them
did not lead to confiscation, but they were collected by suit and
distraint like any debt. They did not have their origin in economic
considerations, but were either intended to mark the vassal's tenant
relation, like the relief, or to be a part of his service, like the aid,
that is, he was held to come to the aid of his lord in a case of
financial as of military necessity. The relief was a sum paid by the
heir for the lord's recognition of his succession. The aids were paid on
a few occasions, determined by custom, where the lord was put to unusual
expense, as for his ransom when captured by the enemy, or for the
knighting of his eldest son. There was great variety regarding the
occasion and amount of these payments, and in some parts of the feudal
world they did not exist at all. The most lucrative of the lord's rights
were wardship and marriage, but the feudal theory of these also was
non-economic. The fief fell into the hands of the lord, and he enjoyed
its revenues during the minority of the heir, because the minor could
not perform the duties by which it was held. The heiress must marry as
the lord wished, because he had a right to know that the holder of the
fief could meet the obligations resting upon it. Both wardship and
marriage were, however, valuable rights which the lord could exercise
himself or sell to others. These were by no means the only rights and
duties which could be described as existing in feudalism, but they are
the most characteristic, and on them, or some of them, as a foundation,
the whole structure of feudal obligation was built, however detailed.
Ideally regarded, feudalism covered Europe with a network of these
fiefs, rising in graded ranks one above the other from the smallest, the
knight's fee, at the bottom, to the king at the top, who was the supreme
landowner, or who held the kingdom from God. Actually not even in the
most regular of feudal countries, like England or Germany, was there any
fixed gradation of rank, titles or size. A knight might hold directly of
the king, a count of a viscount, a bishop of an abbot, or the king
himself of one of his own vassals, or even of a vassal's vassal, and in
return his vassal's vassal might hold another fief directly of him. The
case of the count of Champagne, one of the peers of France, is a famous
example. His great territory was held only in small part of the king of
France. He held a portion of a foreign sovereign, the emperor, and other
portions of the duke of Burgundy, of two archbishops, of four bishops,
and of the abbot of St Denis. Frequently did great lay lords, as in this
case, hold lands by feudal tenure of ecclesiastics.
It is now possible perhaps to get some idea of the way in which the
government of a feudal country was operated. The early German
governments whose chief functions, military, judicial, financial,
legislative, were carried on by the freemen of the nation because they
were members of the body politic, and were performed as duties owed to
the community for its defence and sustenance, no longer existed. New
forms of organization had arisen in which indeed these conceptions had
not entirely disappeared, but in which the vast majority of cases a
wholly different idea of the ground of service and obligation prevailed.
Superficially, for example, the feudal court differed but little from
its Teutonic predecessor. It was still an assembly court. Its procedure
was almost the same as the earlier. It often included the same classes
of men. Saxon Witenagemot and Norman _Curia regis_ seem very much alike.
But the members of the feudal court met, not to fulfil a duty owed to
the community, but a private obligation which they had assumed in return
for the fiefs they held, and in the history of institutions it is
differences of this sort which are the determining principles. The
feudal state was one in which, as it has been said, private law had
usurped the place of public law. Public duty had become private
obligation. To understand the feudal state it is essential to make clear
to one's mind that all sorts of services, which men ordinarily owe to
the public or to one another, were translated into a form of rent paid
for the use of land, and defined and enforced by a private contract. In
every feudal country, however, something of the earlier conception
survived. A general military levy was occasionally made. Something like
taxation occasionally occurred, though the government was usually
sustained by the scanty feudal payments, by the proceeds of justice and
by the income of domain manors. About the office of king more of this
earlier conception gathered than elsewhere in the state, and gradually
grew, aided not merely by traditional ideas, but by the active influence
of the Bible, and soon of the Roman law. The kingship formed the nucleus
of new governments as the feudal system passed away.
Actual government in the feudal age was primitive and undifferentiated.
Its chief and almost only organ, for kingdom and barony alike, was the
_curia_--a court formed of the vassals. This acted at once and without
any consciousness of difference of function, as judiciary, as
legislature, in so far as there was any in the feudal period, and as
council, and it exercised final supervision and control over revenue and
administration. Almost all the institutions of modern states go back to
the _curia regis_, branching off from it at different dates as the
growing complexity of business forced differentiation of function and
personnel. In action it was an assembly court, deciding all questions by
discussion and the weight of opinion, though its decisions obtained
their legal validity by the formal pronunciation of the presiding
member, i.e. of the lord whose court it was. It can readily be seen that
in a government of this kind the essential operative element was the
baron. So long as the government remained dependent on the baron, it
remained feudal in its character. When conditions so changed that
government could free itself from its dependence on the baron, feudalism
disappeared as the organization of society; when a professional class
arose to form the judiciary, when the increased circulation of money
made regular taxation possible and enabled the government to buy
military and other services, and when better means of intercommunication
and the growth of common ideas made a wide centralization possible and
likely to be permanent. Feudalism had performed a great service, during
an age of disintegration, by maintaining a general framework of
government, while allowing the locality to protect and care for itself.
When the function of protection and local supervision could be resumed
by the general government the feudal age ended. In nearly all the states
of Europe this end was reached during, or by the close of, the 13th
century.
Decline and survivals.
At the moment, however, when feudalism was disappearing as the
organization of society, it gave rise to results which in a sense
continued it into after ages and even to our own day. One of these
results was the system of law which it created. As feudalism passed
from its age of supremacy into its age of decline, its customs tended to
crystallize into fixed forms. At the same time a class of men arose
interested in these forms for their own sake, professional lawyers or
judges, who wrote down for their own and others' use the feudal usages
with which they were familiar. The great age of these codes was the 13th
century, and especially the second half of it. The codes in their turn
tended still further to harden these usages into fixed forms, and we may
date from the end of the 13th century an age of feudal law regulating
especially the holding and transfer of land, and much more uniform in
character than the law of the feudal age proper. This was particularly
the case in parts of France and Germany where feudalism continued to
regulate the property relations of lords and vassals longer than
elsewhere, and where the underlying economic feudalism remained in large
part unchanged. In this later pseudo-feudalism, however, the political
had given way to the economic, and customs which had once had no
economic significance came to have that only.
Feudalism formed the starting-point also of the later social nobilities
of Europe. They drew from it their titles and ranks and many of their
regulative ideas, though these were formed into more definite and
regular systems than ever existed in feudalism proper. It was often the
policy of kings to increase the social privileges and legal exemptions
of the nobility while taking away all political power, so that it is
necessary in the history of institutions to distinguish sharply between
these nobilities and the feudal baronage proper. It is only in certain
backward parts of Europe that the terms feudal and baronage in any
technical sense can be used of the nobility of the 15th century.
(G. B. A.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For more detailed information the reader is referred to
the articles ENGLISH LAW; FRANCE: _French Law and Institutions_,
VILLENAGE; MANOR; SCUTAGE; KNIGHT SERVICE; HIDE. For a general sketch
of Feudalism the chapters in tome ii. of the _Histoire générale_ of
Lavisse and Rambaud should be consulted. Other general works are J.T.
Abdy, _Feudalism_ (1890); Paul Roth, _Feudalität und Unterthanverband_
(Weimar, 1863); and _Geschichte des Beneficialwesens_ (1850); M.M.
Kovalevsky, _Ökonomische Entwickelung Europas_ (1902); E. de Laveleye,
_De la propriété et de ses formes primitives_ (1891); and _The Origin
of Property in Land_, a translation by M. Ashley from the works of
N.D. Fustel de Coulanges, with an introductory chapter by Professor
W.J. Ashley. Two other works of value are Sir H.S. Maine, _Village
Communities in the East and West_ (1876); and Léon Gautier, _La
Chevalerie_ (Paris, 1884; Eng. trans. by Henry Frith, _Chivalry_,
London, 1891).
For feudalism in England see the various constitutional histories,
especially W. Stubbs, _Constitutional History of England_, vol. i.
(ed. 1897). Very valuable also are the writings of Mr J.H. Round, of
Professor F.W. Maitland and of Professor P. Vinogradoff. Among Round's
works may be mentioned _Feudal England_ (1895); _Geoffrey de
Mandeville_ (1892); and _Studies on the Red Book of the Exchequer_
(1898). Maitland's _Domesday Book and Beyond_ (Cambridge, 1897) is
indispensable; and the same remark applies to his _History of English
Law before the time of Edward I._ (Cambridge, 1895), written in
conjunction with Sir Frederick Pollock. Vinogradoff has illuminated
the subject in his _Villainage in England_ (1892) and his _English
Society in the 11th century_ (1908). See also J.F. Baldwin, _The
Scutage and Knight Service in England_ (Chicago, 1897); Rudolf Gneist,
_Adel und Ritterschaft in England_ (1853); and F. Seebohm, _The
English Village Community_ (1883).
For feudalism in France see N.D. Fustel de Coulanges, _Histoire des
institutions politiques de l'ancienne France_ (_Les Origines du
système féodal_, 1890; _Les Transformations de la royauté pendant
l'époque carolingienne_, 1892); A. Luchaire, _Histoire des
institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capétiens,
987-1180_ (2nd ed., 1890); and _Manuel des institutions françaises:
période des Capétiens directs_ (1892); J. Flach, _Les Origines de
l'ancienne France_ (1886-1893); Paul Viollet, _Droit public: Histoires
des institutions politiques et administratives de la France_
(1890-1898); and Henri Sée, _Les classes rurales et le régime
domanial_ (1901).
For Germany see G. Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_ (Kiel and
Berlin, 1844 foll.); H. Brunner, _Grundzüge der deutschen
Rechtsgeschichte_ (Leipzig, 1901); V. Menzel, _Die Entstehung des
Lebenswesens_ (Berlin, 1890); and G.L. von Maurer's works on the early
institutions of the Germans.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Digest_, xliii. 26. 12.
[2] _Ibid._ xliii. 26. 14, and cf. 17.
[3] Salvian, _De gub. Dei_, v. 8, ed. Halm, p. 62.
[4] H. Brunner, _Zeitschr. der sav. Stift. für Rechtsgeschichte_,
Germ. Abth. viii. 1-38 (1887). Also in his Forschungen, 39-74 (1894).
[5] See F. Dahn, _Könige der Germanen_, viii. 2, 90 ff.
[6] F. Dahn, _Könige der Germanen_, viii. 2, 197.
[7] G. Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_, vi. 112 ff. (1896).
Most fully described in G. Seeliger, _Die soziale u. politische
Bedeutung d. Grundherrschaft im früheren Mittelalter_ (1903).
[8] F. Dahn, _Könige_, viii. 2, 89-90; 95.
FEUERBACH, ANSELM (1829-1880), German painter, born at Spires, the son
of a well-known archaeologist, was the leading classicist painter of the
German 19th-century school. He was the first to realize the danger
arising from contempt of technique, that mastery of craftsmanship was
needed to express even the loftiest ideas, and that an ill-drawn
coloured cartoon can never be the supreme achievement in art. After
having passed through the art schools of Düsseldorf and Munich, he went
to Antwerp and subsequently to Paris, where he benefited by the teaching
of Couture, and produced his first masterpiece, "Hafiz at the Fountain"
in 1852. He subsequently worked at Karlsruhe, Venice (where he fell
under the spell of the greatest school of colourists), Rome and Vienna.
He was steeped in classic knowledge, and his figure compositions have
the statuesque dignity and simplicity of Greek art. Disappointed with
the reception given in Vienna to his design of "The Fall of the Titans"
for the ceiling of the Museum of Modelling, he went to live in Venice,
where he died in 1880. His works are to be found at the leading public
galleries of Germany; Stuttgart has his "Iphigenia"; Karlsruhe, the
"Dante at Ravenna"; Munich, the "Medea"; and Berlin, "The Concert," his
last important picture. Among his chief works are also "The Battle of
the Amazons," "Pietà," "The Symposium of Plato," "Orpheus and Eurydice"
and "Ariosto in the Park of Ferrara."
FEUERBACH, LUDWIG ANDREAS (1804-1872), German philosopher, fourth son of
the eminent jurist (see below), was born at Landshut in Bavaria on the
28th of July 1804. He matriculated at Heidelberg with the intention of
pursuing an ecclesiastical career. Through the influence of Prof. Daub
he was led to an interest in the then predominant philosophy of Hegel
and, in spite of his father's opposition, went to Berlin to study under
the master himself. After two years' discipleship the Hegelian influence
began to slacken. "Theology," he wrote to a friend, "I can bring myself
to study no more. I long to take nature to my heart, that nature before
whose depth the faint-hearted theologian shrinks back; and with nature
man, man in his entire quality." These words are a key to Feuerbach's
development. He completed his education at Erlangen with the study of
natural science. His first book, published anonymously, _Gedanken über
Tod und Unsterblichkeit_ (1830, 3rd ed. 1876), contains an attack upon
personal immortality and an advocacy of the Spinozistic immortality of
reabsorption in nature. These principles, combined with his embarrassed
manner of public speaking, debarred him from academic advancement. After
some years of struggling, during which he published his_ Geschichte der
neueren Philosophie_ (2 vols., 1833-1837, 2nd ed. 1844), and _Abälard
und Heloise_ (1834, 3rd ed. 1877), he married in 1837 and lived a rural
existence at Bruckberg near Nuremberg, supported by his wife's share in
a small porcelain factory. In two works of this period, _Pierre Bayle_
(1838) and _Philosophie und Christentum_ (1839), which deal largely with
theology, he held that he had proved "that Christianity has in fact long
vanished not only from the reason but from the life of mankind, that it
is nothing more than a fixed idea" in flagrant contradiction to the
distinctive features of contemporary civilization. This attack is
followed up in his most important work, _Das Wesen des Christentums_
(1841), which was translated into English (_The Essence of Religion_, by
George Eliot, 1853, 2nd ed. 1881), French and Russian. Its aim may be
described shortly as an effort to humanize theology. He lays it down
that man, so far as he is rational, is to himself his own object of
thought. Religion is consciousness of the infinite. Religion therefore
is "nothing else than the consciousness of the infinity of the
consciousness; or, in the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious
subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature." Thus God is
nothing else than man: he is, so to speak, the outward projection of
man's inward nature. In part 1 of his book he develops what he calls the
"true or anthropological essence of religion." Treating of God in his
various aspects "as a being of the understanding," "as a moral being or
law," "as love" and so on, Feuerbach shows that in every aspect God
corresponds to some feature or need of human nature. "If man is to find
contentment in God, he must find himself in God." In part 2 he discusses
the "false or theological essence of religion," i.e. the view which
regards God as having a separate existence over against man. Hence arise
various mistaken beliefs, such as the belief in revelation which not
only injures the moral sence, but also "poisons, nay destroys, the
divinest feeling in man, the sense of truth," and the belief in
sacraments such as the Lord's Supper, a piece of religious materialism
of which "the necessary consequences are superstition and immorality."
In spite of many admirable qualities both of style and matter the
_Essence of Christianity_ has never made much impression upon British
thought. To treat the actual forms of religion as expressions of our
various human needs is a fruitful idea which deserves fuller development
than it has yet received; but Feuerbach's treatment of it is fatally
vitiated by his subjectivism. Feuerbach denied that he was rightly
called an atheist, but the denial is merely verbal: what he calls
"theism" is atheism in the ordinary sense. Feuerbach labours under the
same difficulty as Fichte; both thinkers strive in vain to reconcile the
religious consciousness with subjectivism.
During the troubles of 1848-1849 Feuerbach's attack upon orthodoxy made
him something of a hero with the revolutionary party; but he never threw
himself into the political movement, and indeed had not the qualities of
a popular leader. During the period of the diet of Frankfort he had
given public lectures on religion at Heidelberg. When the diet closed he
withdrew to Bruckberg and occupied himself partly with scientific study,
partly with the composition of his _Theogonie_ (1857). In 1860 he was
compelled by the failure of the porcelain factory to leave Bruckberg,
and he would have suffered the extremity of want but for the assistance
of friends supplemented by a public subscription. His last book,
_Gottheit, Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit_, appeared in 1866 (2nd ed.,
1890). After a long period of decay he died on the 13th of September
1872.
Feuerbach's influence has been greatest upon the anti-Christian
theologians such as D.F. Strauss, the author of the _Leben Jesu_, and
Bruno Bauer, who like Feuerbach himself had passed over from Hegelianism
to a form of naturalism. But many of his ideas were taken up by those
who, like Arnold Ruge, had entered into the struggle between church and
state in Germany, and those who, like F. Engels and Karl Marx, were
leaders in the revolt of labour against the power of capital. His work
was too deliberately unsystematic ("keine Philosophie ist meine
Philosophie") ever to make him a power in philosophy. He expressed in an
eager, disjointed, but condensed and laboured fashion, certain
deep-lying convictions--that philosophy must come back from
unsubstantial metaphysics to the solid facts of human nature and natural
science, that the human body was no less important than the human spirit
("Der Mensch ist was er isst") and that Christianity was utterly out of
harmony with the age. His convictions gained weight from the simplicity,
uprightness and diligence of his character; but they need a more
effective justification than he was able to give them.
His works appeared in 10 vols. (Leipzig, 1846-1866); his
correspondence has been edited with an indifferent biography by Karl
Grün (1874). See A. Lévy, _La Philosophie de Feuerbach_ (1904); M.
Meyer, _L. Feuerbach's Moralphilosophie_ (Berlin, 1899); E. v.
Hartmann, _Geschichte d. Metaphysik_ (Leipzig, 1899-1900), ii.
437-444: F. Engels, _L. Feuerbach und d. Ausgang d. class, deutsch.
Philos._ (2nd ed., 1895). (H. St.)
FEUERBACH, PAUL JOHANN ANSELM, RITTER VON (1775-1833), German jurist and
writer on criminal law, was born at Hainichen near Jena on the 14th of
November 1775. He received his early education at Frankfort on Main,
whither his family had removed soon after his birth. At the age of
sixteen, however, he ran away from home, and, going to Jena, was helped
by relations there to study at the university. In spite of poor health
and the most desperate poverty, he made rapid progress. He attended the
lectures of Karl Leonhard Reinhold and Gottlieb Hufeland, and soon
published some literary essays of more than ordinary merit. In 1795 he
took the degree of doctor in philosophy, and in the same year, though he
only possessed 150 thalers (£22: 10s.), he married. It was this step
which led him to success and fame, by forcing him to turn from his
favourite studies of philosophy and history to that of law, which was
repugnant to him, but which offered a prospect of more rapid
advancement. His success in this new and uncongenial sphere was soon
assured. In 1796 he published _Kritik des natürlichen Rechts als
Propädeutik zu einer Wissenschaft der natürlichen Rechte_, which was
followed, in 1798, by _Anti-Hobbes, oder über die Grenzen der
bürgerlichen Gewalt_, a dissertation on the limits of the civil power
and the right of resistance on the part of subjects against their
rulers, and by _Philosophische, juristische Untersuchungen über das
Verbrechen des Hochverraths_. In 1799 he obtained the degree of doctor
of laws. Feuerbach, as the founder of a new theory of penal law, the
so-called "psychological-coercive or intimidation theory," occupied a
prominent place in the history of criminal science. His views, which he
first made known in his _Revision der Grundsätze und Grundbegriffe des
positiven peinlichen Rechts_ (1799), were further elucidated and
expounded in the _Bibliothek für die peinliche Rechtswissenschaft_
(1800-1801), an encyclopaedic work produced in conjunction with Karl
L.W.G. Grolmann and Ludwig Harscher von Almendingen, and in his famous
_Lehrbuch des gemeinen in Deutschland geltenden peinlichen Rechts_
(1801). These works were a powerful protest against vindictive
punishment, and did much towards the reformation of the German criminal
law. The _Carolina_ (the penal code of the emperor Charles V.) had long
since ceased to be respected. What in 1532 was an inestimable blessing,
as a check upon the arbitrariness and violence of the effete German
procedure, had in the course of time outlived its usefulness and become
a source of evils similar to those it was enacted to combat. It availed
nothing that, at the commencement of the 18th century, a freer and more
scientific spirit had been breathed into Roman law; it failed to reach
the criminal law. The administration of justice was, before Feuerbach's
time, especially distinguished by two characteristics: the superiority
of the judge to all law, and the blending of the judicial and executive
offices, with the result that the individual was practically at the
mercy of his prosecutors. This state of things Feuerbach set himself to
reform, and using as his chief weapon the _Revision der Grundbegriffe_
above referred to, was successful in his task. His achievement in the
struggle may be summed up as: _nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege_ (no
wrong and no punishment without a remedy). In 1801 Feuerbach was
appointed extraordinary professor of law without salary, at the
university of Jena, and in the following year accepted a chair at Kiel,
where he remained two years. In 1804 he removed to the university of
Landshut; but on being commanded by King Maximilian Joseph to draft a
penal code for Bavaria (_Strafgesetzbuch für das Königreich Bayern_), he
removed in 1805 to Munich, where he was given a high appointment in the
ministry of justice and was ennobled in 1808. Meanwhile the practical
reform of penal legislation in Bavaria was begun under his influence in
1806 by the abolition of torture. In 1808 appeared the first volume of
his _Merkwürdige Criminalfälle_, completed in 1811--a work of deep
interest for its application of psychological considerations to cases Of
crime, and intended to illustrate the inevitable imperfection of human
laws in their application to individuals. In his _Betrachtungen über das
Geschworenengericht_ (1811) Feuerbach declared against trial by jury,
maintaining that the verdict of a jury was not adequate legal proof of a
crime. Much controversy was aroused on the subject, and the author's
view was subsequently to some extent modified. The result of his labours
was promulgated in 1813 as the Bavarian penal code. The influence of
this code, the embodiment of Feuerbach's enlightened views, was immense.
It was at once made the basis for new codes in Württemberg and
Saxe-Weimar; it was adopted in its entirety in the grand-duchy of
Oldenburg; and it was translated into Swedish by order of the king.
Several of the Swiss cantons reformed their codes in conformity with it.
Feuerbach had also undertaken to prepare a civil code for Bavaria, to be
founded on the Code Napoléon. This was afterwards set aside, and the
Codex Maximilianus adopted as a basis. But the project did not become
law. During the war of liberation (1813-1814) Feuerbach showed himself
an ardent patriot, and published several political brochures which, from
the writer's position, had almost the weight of state manifestoes. One
of these is entitled _Über deutsche Freiheit und Vertretung deutsche
Volker durch Landstände_ (1514). In 1814 Feuerbach was appointed second
president of the court of appeal at Bamberg, and three years later he
became first president of the court of appeal at Anspach. In 1821 he was
deputed by the government to visit France, Belgium, and the Rhine
provinces for the purpose of investigating their juridical institutions.
As the fruit of this visit, he published his treatises _Betrachtungen
über Öffentlichkeit und Mündigkeit der Gerechtigkeitspflege_ (1821) and
_Über die Gerichtsverfassung und das gerichtliche Verfahren Frankreichs_
(1825). In these he pleaded unconditionally for publicity in all legal
proceedings. In his later years he took a deep interest in the fate of
the strange foundling Kaspar Hauser (q.v.), which had excited so much
attention in Europe; and he was the first to publish a critical summary
of the ascertained facts, under the title of _Kaspar Hauser, ein
Beispiel eines Verbrechens am Seelenleben_ (1832). Shortly before his
death appeared a collection of his _Kleine Schriften_ (1833). Feuerbach,
still in the full enjoyment of his intellectual powers, died suddenly at
Frankfort, while on his way to the baths of Schwalbach, on the 29th of
May 1833. In 1853 was published the _Leben und Wirken Ans. von
Feuerbachs_, 2 vols., consisting of a selection of his letters and
journals, with occasional notes by his fourth son Ludwig, the
distinguished philosopher.
See also, for an estimate of Feuerbach's life and work, Marquardtsen,
in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, vol. vi.; and an "in memoriam"
notice in _Die allgemeine Zeitung_ (Augsburg), 15th Nov. 1875, by
Professor Dr Karl Binding of Leipzig University.
FEUILLANTS, CLUB OF THE, a political association which played a
prominent part during the French Revolution. It was founded on the 16th
of July 1791 by several members of the Jacobin Club, who refused to sign
a petition presented by this body, demanding the deposition of Louis
XVI. Among the dissident members were B. Barère; and E.J. Sieyès, who
were later joined by other politicians, among them being Dupont de
Nemours. The name of Feuillants was popularly given to this group of
men, because they met in the fine buildings which had been occupied by
the religious order bearing this name, in the rue Saint-Honoré, near the
Place Vendôme, in Paris. The members of the club preserved the title of
_Amis de la Constitution_, as being a sufficient indication of the line
they intended to pursue. This consisted in opposing everything not
contained in the Constitution; in their opinion, the latter was in need
of no modification, and they hated alike all those who were opposed to
it, whether _émigrés_ or Jacobins; they affected to avoid all political
discussion, and called themselves merely a "conservative assembly."
This attitude they maintained after the Constituent Assembly had been
succeeded by the Legislative, but not many of the new deputies became
members of the club. With the rapid growth of extreme democratic ideas
the Feuillants soon began to be looked upon as reactionaries, and to be
classed with "aristocrats." They did, indeed, represent the aristocracy
of wealth, for they had to pay a subscription of four louis, a large sum
at that time, besides six livres for attendance. Moreover, the luxury
with which they surrounded themselves, and the restaurant which they had
annexed to their club, seemed to mock the misery of the half-starved
proletariat, and added to the suspicion with which they were viewed,
especially after the popular triumphs of the 20th of June and the 10th
of August 1792 (see FRENCH REVOLUTION). A few days after the
insurrection of the 10th of August, the papers of the Feuillants were
seized, and a list was published containing the names of 841 members
proclaimed as suspects. This was the death-blow of the club. It had made
an attempt, though a weak one, to oppose the forward march of the
Revolution, but, unlike the Jacobins, had never sent out branches into
the provinces. The name of Feuillants, as a party designation, survived
the club. It was applied to those who advocated a policy of "cowardly
moderation," and _feuillantisme_ was associated with _aristocratie_ in
the mouths of the sansculottes.
The act of separation of the Feuillants from the Jacobins was
published in a pamphlet dated the 16th of July 1791, beginning with
the words, _Les Membres de l'assemblée nationale_ ... (Paris, 1791).
The statutes of the club were also published in Paris. See also A.
Aulard, _Histoire politique de la Révolution française_ (Paris, 1903),
2nd ed., p. 153.
FEUILLET, OCTAVE (1821-1890), French novelist and dramatist, was born at
Saint-Lô, Manche, on the 11th of August 1821. He was the son of a Norman
gentleman of learning and distinction, who would have played a great
part in politics "sans ses diables de nerfs," as Guizot said. This
nervous excitability was inherited, though not to the same excess, by
Octave, whose mother died in his infancy and left him to the care of the
hyper-sensitive invalid. The boy was sent to the lycée Louis-le Grand,
in Paris, where he achieved high distinction, and was destined for the
diplomatic service. In 1840 he appeared before his father at Saint-Lô,
and announced that he had determined to adopt the profession of
literature. There was a stormy scene, and the elder Feuillet cut off his
son, who returned to Paris and lived as best he could by a scanty
journalism. In company with Paul Bocage he began to write for the stage,
and not without success; at all events, he continued to exist until,
three years after the quarrel, his father consented to forgive him.
Enjoying a liberal allowance, he now lived in Paris in comfort and
independence, and he published his early novels, none of which is quite
of sufficient value to retain the modern reader. The health and spirits
of the elder M. Feuillet, however, having still further declined, he
summoned his son to leave Paris and bury himself as his constant
attendant in the melancholy château at Saint-Lô. This was to demand a
great sacrifice, but Octave Feuillet cheerfully obeyed the summons. In
1851 he married his cousin, Mlle Valérie Feuillet, who helped him to
endure the mournful captivity to which his filial duty bound him.
Strangely enough, in this exile--rendered still more irksome by his
father's mania for solitude and by his tyrannical temper--the genius of
Octave Feuillet developed. His first definite success was gained in the
year 1852, when he published the novel _Bellah_ and produced the comedy
_La Crise_. Both were reprinted from the _Revue des deux mondes_, where
many of his later novels also appeared. He wrote books which have long
held their place, _La Petite Comtesse_ (1857), _Dalila_ (1857), and in
particular that universal favourite, _Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre_
(1858). He himself fell into a nervous state in his "prison," but he was
sustained by the devotion and intelligence of his wife and her mother.
In 1857, having been persuaded to make a play of the novel of _Dalila_,
he brought out this piece at the Vaudeville, and enjoyed a brilliant
success; on this occasion he positively broke through the _consigne_ and
went up to Paris to see his play rehearsed. His father bore the shock of
his temporary absence, and the following year Octave ventured to make
the same experiment on occasion of the performance of _Un Jeune Homme
pauvre_. To his infinite chagrin, during this brief absence his father
died. Octave was now, however, free, and the family immediately moved to
Paris, where they took part in the splendid social existence of the
Second Empire. The elegant and distinguished young novelist became a
favourite at court; his pieces were performed at Compiègne before they
were given to the public, and on one occasion the empress Eugénie
deigned to play the part of Mme de Pons in _Les Portraits de la
Marquise_. Feuillet did not abandon the novel, and in 1862 he achieved a
great success with _Sibylle_. His health, however, had by this time
begun to decline, affected by the sad death of his eldest son. He
determined to quit Paris, where the life was far too exciting for his
nerves, and to regain the quietude of Normandy. The old château of the
family had been sold, but he bought a house called "Les Paillers" in the
suburbs of Saint-Lô, and there he lived, buried in his roses, for
fifteen years. He was elected to the French Academy in 1862, and in 1868
he was made librarian of Fontainebleau palace, where he had to reside
for a month or two in each year. In 1867 he produced his masterpiece of
_Monsieur de Camors_, and in 1872 he wrote _Julia de Tréoeur_, which is
hardly less admirable. His last years, after the sale of "Les Paillers,"
were passed in a ceaseless wandering, the result of the agitation of his
nerves. He was broken by sorrow and by ill-health, and when he passed
away in Paris on the 29th of December 1890, his death was a release. His
last book was _Honneur d'artiste_ (1890). Among the too-numerous
writings of Feuillet, the novels have lasted longer than the dramas; of
the former three or four seem destined to retain their charm as
classics. He holds a place midway between the romanticists and the
realists, with a distinguished and lucid portraiture of life which is
entirely his own. He drew the women of the world whom he saw around him
with dignity, with indulgence, with extraordinary penetration and
clairvoyance. There is little description in his novels, which sometimes
seem to move on an almost bare and colourless stage, but, on the other
hand, the analysis of motives, of emotions, and of "the fine shades" has
rarely been carried further. Few have written French with greater purity
than Feuillet, and his style, reserved in form and never excessive in
ornament, but full of wit and delicate animation, is in admirable
uniformity with his subjects and his treatment. It is probably in
_Sibylle_ and in _Julia de Trécoeur_ that he can now be studied to most
advantage, though _Monsieur de Camors_ gives a greater sense of power,
and though _Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre_ still preserves its
popularity.
See also Sainte-Beuve, _Nouveaux Lundis_, vol. v.; F. Brunetière,
_Nouveaux Essais sur la littérature contemporaine_ (1895). (E. G.)
FEUILLETON (a diminutive of the Fr. _feuillet_, the leaf of a book),
originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of
French newspapers. Its inventor was Bertin the elder, editor of the
_Débats_. It was not usually printed on a separate sheet, but merely
separated from the political part of the newspaper by a line, and
printed in smaller type. In French newspapers it consists chiefly of
non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle
of the fashions, and epigrams, charades and other literary trifles; and
its general characteristics are lightness, grace and sparkle. The
_feuilleton_ in its French sense has never been adopted by English
newspapers, though in various modern journals (in the United States
especially) the sort of matter represented by it is now included. But
the term itself has come into English use to indicate the instalment of
a serial story printed in one part of a newspaper.
FEUQUIÈRES, ISAAC MANASSÈS DE PAS, MARQUIS DE (1590-1640), French
soldier, came of a distinguished family of which many members held high
command in the civil wars of the 16th century. He entered the Royal army
at the age of thirty, and soon achieved distinction. In 1626 he served
in the Valtelline, and in 1628-1629 at the celebrated siege of La
Rochelle, where he was taken prisoner. In 1629 he was made _Maréchal de
Camp_, and served in the fighting on the southern frontiers of France.
After occupying various military positions in Lorraine, he was sent as
an ambassador into Germany, where he rendered important services in
negotiations with Wallenstein. In 1636 he commanded the French corps
operating with the duke of Weimar's forces (afterwards Turenne's "Army
of Weimar"). With these troops he served in the campaigns of 1637 (in
which he became lieutenant-general), 1638 and 1639. At the siege of
Thionville (Diedenhofen) he received a mortal wound. His _lettres
inédites_ appeared (ed. Gallois) in Paris in 1845.
His son ANTOINE MANASSÈS DE PAS, Marquis de Feuquières (1648-1711), was
born at Paris in 1648, and entered the army at the age of eighteen. His
conduct at the siege of Lille in 1667, where he was wounded, won him
promotion to the rank of captain. In the campaigns of 1672 and 1673 he
served on the staff of Marshal Luxemburg, and at the siege of Oudenarde
in the following year the king gave him command of the Royal Marine
regiment, which he held until he obtained a regiment of his own in 1676.
In 1688 he served as a brigadier at the siege of Philipsburg, and
afterwards led a ravaging expedition into south Germany, where he
acquired much booty. Promoted _Maréchal de Camp_, he served under
Catinat against the Waldenses, and in the course of the war won the
nickname of the "Wizard." In 1692 he made a brilliant defence of
Speierbach against greatly superior forces, and was rewarded with the
rank of lieutenant-general. He bore a distinguished part in Luxemburg's
great victory of Neerwinden or Landen in 1693. Marshal Villeroi
impressed him less favourably than his old commander Luxemburg, and the
resumption of war in 1701 found him in disfavour in consequence. The
rest of his life, embittered by the refusal of the marshal's baton, he
spent in compiling his celebrated memoirs, which, coloured as they were
by the personal animosities of the writer, were yet considered by
Frederick the Great and the soldiers of the 18th century as the standard
work on the art of war as a whole. He died in 1711. The _Mémoires sur la
guerre_ appeared in the same year and new editions were frequently
published (Paris 1711, 1725, 1735, &c., London 1736, Amsterdam
subsequently). An English version appeared in London 1737, under the
title _Memoirs of the Marquis de Feuquières_, and a German translation
(_Feuquières geheime Nachrichten_) at Leipzig 1732, 1738, and Berlin
1786. They deal in detail with every branch of the art of war and of
military service.
FÉVAL, PAUL HENRI CORENTIN (1817-1887), French novelist and dramatist,
was born on the 27th of September 1817, at Rennes in Brittany, and much
of his best work deals with the history of his native province. He was
educated for the bar, but after his first brief he went to Paris, where
he gained a footing by the publication of his "Club des phoques" (1841)
in the _Revue de Paris_. The _Mystères de Londres_ (1844), in which an
Irishman tries to avenge the wrongs of his countrymen by seeking the
annihilation of England, was published under the ingenious pseudonym
"Sir Francis Trolopp." Others of his novels are: _Le Fils du diable_
(1846); _Les Compagnons du silence_ (1857); _Le Bossu_ (1858); _Le
Poisson d'or_ (1863); _Les Habits noirs_ (1863); _Jean le diable_
(1868), and _Les Compagnons du trésor_ (1872). Some of his novels were
dramatized, _Le Bossu_ (1863), in which he had M. Victorien Sardou for a
collaborator, being especially successful in dramatic form. His
chronicles of crime exercised an evil influence, eventually recognized
by the author himself. In his later years he became an ardent Catholic,
and occupied himself in revising his earlier works from his new
standpoint and in writing religious pamphlets. Reverses of fortune and
consequent overwork undermined his mental and bodily health, and he died
of paralysis in the monastery of the Brothers of Saint John in Paris on
the 8th of March 1887.
His son, PAUL FÉVAL (1860- ), became well known as a novelist and
dramatist. Among his works are _Nouvelles_ (1890), _Maria Laura_ (1891),
and _Chantepie_ (1896).
FEVER (Lat. _febris_, connected with _fervere_, to burn), a term
generally used to include all conditions in which the normal temperature
of the animal body is markedly exceeded for any length of time. When the
temperature reaches as high a point as 106° F. the term hyperpyrexia
(excessive fever) is applied, and is regarded as indicating a condition
of danger; while, if it exceeds 107° or 108° for any length of time,
death almost always results. The diseases which are called specific
fevers, because of its being a predominant factor in them, are discussed
separately under their ordinary names. Occasionally in certain specific
fevers and febrile diseases the temperature may attain the elevation of
110°-112° prior to the fatal issue. For the treatment of fever in
general, see THERAPEUTICS.
_Pathology._--Every rise of temperature is due to a disturbance in the
heat-regulating mechanism, the chief variable in which is the action of
the skin in eliminating heat (see ANIMAL HEAT). Although for all
practical purposes this mechanism works satisfactorily, it is not by any
means perfect, and many physiological conditions cause a transient rise
of temperature; e.g. severe muscular exercise, in which the cutaneous
eliminating mechanism is unable at once to dispose of the increased
amount of heat produced in the muscles. Pathologically, the
heat-regulating mechanism may be disturbed in three different ways: 1st,
by mechanical interference with the nervous system; 2nd, by interference
with heat elimination; 3rd, by the action of various poisons.
1. In the human subject, fever the result of _mechanical interference_
with the nervous system rarely occurs, but it can readily be produced in
the lower animals by stimulating certain parts of the great brain, e.g.
the anterior portion of the corpus striatum. This leads to a rise of
temperature with increased heat production. The high temperature seems
to cause disintegration of cell protoplasm and increased excretion of
nitrogen and of carbonic acid. Possibly some of the cases of high
temperature recorded after injuries to the nervous system may be caused
in this way; but some may also be due to stimulation of vaso-constrictor
fibres to the cutaneous vessels diminishing heat elimination. So far the
pathology of this condition has not been studied with the same care that
has been devoted to the investigation of the third type of fever.
2. Fever may readily be produced by _interference with heat
elimination_. This has been done by submitting dogs to a temperature
slightly below that of the rectum, and it is seen in man in _Sunstroke_.
The typical nervous symptoms of fever are thus produced, and the rate of
chemical change in the tissues is accelerated, as is shown by the
increased excretion of carbonic acid. The protoplasm is also injured and
the proteids are broken down, and thus an increased excretion of
nitrogen is produced and the cells undergo degenerative changes.
3. The products of various micro-organisms have a toxic action on the
protoplasm of a large number of animals, and among the symptoms of this
toxic action one of the most frequent is a rise in temperature. While
this is by no means a necessary accompaniment, its occurrence is so
general that the term _Fever_ has been applied to the general reaction
of the organism to the microbial poison. Toxins which cause a marked
rise of temperature in men may cause a fall in other animals. It is not
the alteration of temperature which is the great index of the severity
of the struggle between the host and the parasite, but the death and
removal to a greater or lesser extent of the protoplasm of the host. In
this respect fever resembles poisoning with phosphorus and arsenic and
other similar substances. The true measure of the intensity of a fever
is the extent of disintegration of protoplasm, and this may be estimated
by the amount of nitrogen excreted in the urine. The increased
disintegration of protoplasm is also indicated by the rise in the
excretion of sulphur and phosphorus and by the appearance in the urine
of acetone, aceto-acetic and [beta]-oxybutyric acids (see NUTRITION).
Since the temperature is generally proportionate to the intensity of the
toxic action, its height is usually proportionate to the excretion of
nitrogen. But sometimes the rise of temperature is not marked, while the
excretion of nitrogen is very decidedly increased. When the temperature
is sufficiently elevated, the heat has of itself an injurious action on
the protoplasm, and tends to increase disintegration just as when heat
elimination is experimentally retarded. But the increase due to rise of
temperature is small compared to that produced by the destructive action
of the microbial products. In the beginning of a fever the activity of
the metabolism is not increased to any marked extent, and any increase
is necessarily largely due to the greater activity of the muscles of the
heart and respiratory mechanism, and to the muscular contractions which
produce the initial rigors. Thus the excretion of carbon dioxide--the
great measure of the _activity of metabolism_--is not usually increased,
and there is no evidence of an increased combustion. In the later stages
the increased temperature may bring about an acceleration in the rate of
chemical change; but this is comparatively slight, less in fact than the
increase observed on taking muscular exercise after rest. The _rise of
temperature_ is primarily due to diminished heat elimination. This
diminished giving off of heat was demonstrated by means of the
calorimeter by I. Rosenthal, while E. Maragliano showed that the
cutaneous vessels are contracted. Even in the later stages, until
defervescence occurs, heat elimination is inadequate to get rid of the
heat produced.
The toxic action is manifested not only by the increased disintegration
of protoplasm, but also by disturbances in the functions of the various
organs. The activity of the _digestive glands_ is diminished and
appetite is lost. Food is therefore not taken, although when taken it
appears to be absorbed in undiminished quantities. As a result of this
the patient suffers from inanition, and lives largely on his own fats
and proteids, and for this reason rapidly emaciates. The functions of
the _liver_ are also diminished in activity. Glycogen is not stored in
the cells, and the bile secretion is modified, the essential
constituents disappearing almost entirely in some cases. The production
of urea is also interfered with, and the proportion of nitrogen in the
urine not in the urea increases. This is in part due to the increased
disintegration of proteids setting free sulphur and phosphorus, which,
oxidized into sulphuric and phosphoric acids, combine with the ammonia
which would otherwise have been changed to urea. Thus the proportion of
ammonia in the urine is increased. Concurrently with these alterations
in the functions of the liver-cells, a condition of granular
degeneration and probably a state of fatty degeneration makes its
appearance. That the functional activity of the _kidneys_ is modified,
is shown by the frequent appearance of proteoses or of albumen and
globulin in the urine. Frequently the toxin acts very markedly on the
protoplasm of the kidney epithelium, and causes a shedding of the cells
and sometimes inflammatory reaction. The _muscles_ are weakened, but so
far no satisfactory study has been made of the influence of microbial
poisons on muscular contraction. A granular and fatty degeneration
supervenes, and the fibres waste. The _nervous structures_, especially
the nerve-cells, are acted upon, and not only is their functional
activity modified, but they also undergo structural changes of a
chromatolytic nature. The _blood_ shows two important changes--first, a
fall in the alkalinity due to the products of disintegration of
protoplasm; and, secondly, an increase in the number of leucocytes, and
chiefly in the polymorpho-nuclear variety. This is best marked in
pneumonia, where the normal number is often increased twofold and
sometimes more than tenfold, while it is altogether absent in enteric
fever.
An interesting general modification in the metabolism is the enormous
fall in the excretion of chlorine, a fall far in excess of what could be
accounted for by inanition, and out of all proportion to the fall in the
sodium and potassium with which the chlorine is usually combined in the
urine. The fevered animal in fact stores chlorine in its tissues, though
in what manner and for what reason is not at present known.
AUTHORITIES.--Von Noorden, L_ehrbuch der Pathologie des Stoffwechsels_
(Berlin, 1893); _Metabolism and Practical Medicine_, vol. ii., article
"Fever" by F. Kraus (1907); Dr A. Rabe, _Die modernen Fiebertheorien_
(Berlin, 1894); Dr G.B. Ughetti, _Das Fieber_, trans. by Dr R.
Teuscher (Jena, 1895); Dr M. Lövit, "Die Lehre von Fieber,"
_Vorlesungen über allgemeine Pathologie_, erstes Heft (Jena, 1897);
Louis Guinon, "De la fièvre," in Bouchard's _Traité de pathologie
générale_, t. iii. 2nd partie (Paris, 1899); Sir J.B. Sanderson, "The
Doctrine of Fever," in Allbutt's _System of Medicine_, vol. i. p. 139
(London, 1896). (D. N. P.)
FEYDEAU, ERNEST-AIMÉ (1821-1873), French author, was born in Paris, on
the 16th of March 1821. He began his literary career in 1844, by the
publication of a volume of poetry, _Les Nationales_. Either the partial
failure of this literary effort, or his marriage soon afterwards to a
daughter of the economist Blanqui, caused him to devote himself to
finance and to archaeology. He gained a great success with his novel
_Fanny_ (1858), a success due chiefly to the cleverness with which it
depicted and excused the corrupt manners of a certain portion of French
society. This was followed in rapid succession by a series of fictions,
similar in character, but wanting the attraction of novelty; none of
them enjoyed the same vogue as _Fanny_. Besides his novels Feydeau wrote
several plays, and he is also the author of _Histoire générale des
usages funèbres et des sépultures des peuples anciens_ (3 vols.,
1857-1861); _Le Secret du bonheur_ (sketches of Algerian life) (2 vols.,
1864); and _L'Allemagne en 1871_ (1872), a clever caricature of German
life and manners. He died in Paris on the 27th of October 1873.
See Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. xiv., and Barbey
d'Aurevilly, _Les Oeuvres et les hommes au XIX^e siècle_.
FEZ (_Fas_), the chief city of Morocco, into which empire it was
incorporated in 1548. It lies in 34° 6' 3" N., 4° 38' 15" W., about 230
m. N.E. of Marrakesh, 100 m. E. from the Atlantic and 85 m. S. of the
Mediterranean. It is beautifully situated in a deep valley on the Wad
Fas, an affluent of the Wad Sebu, which divides the town into two
parts--the ancient town, Fas el Bali, on the right bank, and the new,
Fas el Jadid, on the left.
Like many other Oriental cities, Fez from a distance appears a very
attractive place. It stretches out between low hills, crowned by the
ruins of ancient fortresses, and though there is nothing imposing,
there is something particularly impressive in the sight of that
white-roofed conglomeration of habitations, broken only by occasional
mosque towers or, on the outskirts, by luxuriant foliage. Except on the
south side the city is surrounded by hills, interspersed with groves of
orange, pomegranate and other fruit trees, and large olive gardens.
From its peculiar situation Fez has a drainage superior to that of most
Moorish towns. When the town becomes very dirty, the water is allowed to
run down the streets by opening lids for the purpose in the conduits and
closing the ordinary exits, so that it overflows and cleanses the
pavements. The Fasis as a rule prefer to drink the muddy river water
rather than that of the pure springs which abound in certain quarters of
the town. But the assertion that the supply and drainage system are one
is a libel, since the drainage system lies below the level of the fresh
river water, and was organized by a French renegade, under Mohammed
XVI., about the close of the 18th century. The general dampness of the
town renders it unhealthy, however, as the pallid faces of the
inhabitants betoken, but this is considered a mark of distinction and is
jealously guarded.
Most of the streets are exceedingly narrow, and as the houses are high
and built in many cases over the thoroughfares these are often very dark
and gloomy, though, since wooden beams, rough stones and mortar are used
in building, there is less of that ruined, half-decayed appearance so
common in other Moorish towns where mud concrete is the material
employed.
As a commercial town Fez is a great depot for the trade of Barbary and
wares brought from the east and south by caravans. The manufactures
still carried on are those of yellow slippers of the famous Morocco
leather, fine white woollen and silk haiks, of which it is justly proud,
women's embroidered sashes, various coarse woollen cloths and blankets,
cotton and silk handkerchiefs, silk cords and braids, swords and guns,
saddlery, brass trays, Moorish musical instruments, rude painted pottery
and coloured tiles. Until recent times the city had a monopoly of the
manufacture of Fez caps, for it was supposed that the dye which imparts
the dull crimson hue of these caps could not be procured elsewhere; they
are now, however, made both in France and Turkey. The dye is obtained
from the juice of a berry which grows in large quantities near the town,
and is also used in the dyeing of leather. Some gold ornaments are made,
the gold being brought from the interior by caravans which trade
regularly with Timbuktu.
As in other capitals each trade has a district or street devoted chiefly
to its activities. Old Fez is the business portion of the town, new Fez
being occupied principally by government quarters and the Jews' mellah.
The tradesman usually sits cross-legged in a corner of his shop with his
goods so arranged that he can reach most of them without moving.
In the early days of Mahommedan rule in Morocco, Fez was the seat of
learning and the empire's pride. Its schools of religion, philosophy and
astronomy enjoyed a great reputation in Africa and also in southern
Europe, and were even attended by Christians. On the expulsion of the
Moors from Spain, refugees of all kinds flocked to Fez, and brought with
them some knowledge of arts, sciences and manufactures, and thither
flocked students to make use of its extensive libraries. But its glories
were brief, and though still "the university town" of Morocco, it
retains but a shadow of its greatness. Its library, estimated by Gerhard
Rohlfs in 1861 to contain 5000 volumes, is open on Fridays, and any Moor
of known respectability may borrow volumes on getting an order and
signing a receipt for them. There are about 1500 students who read at
the Karueein. They pay no rents, but buy the keys of the rooms from the
last occupants, selling them again on leaving.
The Karueein is celebrated as the largest mosque in Africa, but it is by
no means the most magnificent. On account of the vast area covered, the
roof, supported by three hundred and sixty-six pillars of stone, appears
very low. The side chapel for services for the dead contains twenty-four
pillars. All these columns support horse-shoe arches, on which the roof
is built, long vistas of arches being seen from each of the eighteen
doors of the mosque. The large lamp is stated to weigh 1763 lb. and to
have 509 lights, but it is very seldom lit. The total number of lights
in the Karueein is given as seventeen hundred, and they are said to
require 3½ cwt. of oil for one filling. The mosque of Mulai Idris, built
by the founder of Fez about the year 810, is considered so sacred that
the streets which approach its entrance are forbidden to Jews,
Christians or four-footed beasts. The sanctity of the shrine in
particular is esteemed very great, and this accounts for the crowds
which daily flock to it. The Tumiat door leading to it was once very
fine, but is now much faded. Opposite to it is a refuge for friendless
sharifas--the female descendants of Mahomet--built by Mohammed XVII.
It is believed that the foundation stone of Fez was laid in 808 by Idris
II. Since then its history has been chequered, as it was successfully
besieged no fewer than eight times in the first five hundred years of
its existence, yet only once knew foreign masters, when in 1554 the
Turks took possession of it without a siege and held it for a short
time. Fez became the chief residence of the Filali dynasty, who obtained
possession of the town in 1649 (see further MOROCCO: _History_).
The population has been very varyingly estimated; probably the
inhabitants number under one hundred thousand, even when the court is in
residence.
See H. Gaillard, _Une Ville de l'Islam. Fès_ (Paris, 1905); C.
René-Leclerc, "Le commerce et l'industrie à Fez" in _Renseignements
col. comité afrique française_ (1905).
FEZZAN (the ancient _Phazania_, or country of the Garamantes), a region
of the Sahara, forming a "kaimakamlik" of the Ottoman vilayet of Tripoli
(q.v.). Its frontiers, ill-defined, run from Bonjem, within 50 m. of the
Mediterranean on the north, south-westward to the Akakus range of hills,
which separates Fezzan from Ghat, thence eastward for over 400 m., and
then turn north and west to Bonjem again, embracing an area of about
156,000 sq. m.
_Physical Features._--The general form of the country is determined by
the ranges of hills, including the Jebel-es-Suda (highest peak about
4000 ft.), the Haruj-el-Aswad and the Haruj-el-Abiad, which between 14°
and 19° E. and 27° and 29° N. form the northern edge of a broad desert
plateau, and shut off the northern region draining to the Mediterranean
from the depressions in which lie the oases of Fezzan proper in the
south. The central depression of Hofra ("ditch"), as it is called, lies
in about 26° N. It does not form a continuous fertile tract, but
consists of a monotonous sandy expanse somewhat more thickly studded
with oases than the surrounding wastes. The Hofra at its lowest part is
not more than 600 ft. above the sea-level, and in this hollow is
situated the capital Murzuk. It has a general east to west direction.
North-west of the Hofra is a long narrow valley, the Wadi-el-Gharbi,
which trends north-east and is the most fertile district of Fezzan. It
contains several perennial springs and lake-like basins. One of these
basins, the saline Bahr-el-Dud ("Sea of Worms"), has an extent of 600
sq. m., and is in places 26 ft. deep. Southwards the Hofra rises to a
height of 2000 ft., and in this direction lies the oasis of Gatron,
followed by Tejerri on the verge of the desert, which marks the southern
limit of the date and the northern of the dum palm. Beyond Tejerri the
Saharan plateau rises continuously to the Tibesti highlands. (See
further TRIPOLI.)
_Climate._--The average temperature of Murzuk was found by Rohlfs to be
70° F. Frost is not uncommon in the winter months. The climate is a very
regular one, and is in general healthy, the dryness of the air in summer
making the heat more bearable than on the sea coast. An almost perpetual
blue sky overhangs the desert, and the people of Fezzan are so
unaccustomed to and so ill-prepared for wet weather that, as in Tuat and
Tidikelt, they pray to be spared from rain. Water is found almost
everywhere at small depths.
_Flora and Fauna._--The date-palm is the characteristic tree of Fezzan,
and constitutes the chief wealth of the land. Many different kinds of
date-palms are found in the oases: in that of Murzuk alone more than 30
varieties are counted, the most esteemed being named the Tillis, Tuati
and Auregh. In all Fezzan the date is the staple food, not only for men,
but for camels, horses and dogs. Even the stones of the fruit are
softened and given to the cattle. The huts of the poorer classes are
entirely made of date-palm leaves, and the more substantial habitations
consist chiefly of the same material. The produce of the tree is small,
100 full-grown trees yielding only about 40 cwt. of dates. Besides the
date there are numerous olive, fig and almond trees. Various grains are
cultivated. Wheat and barley are sown in winter, and in spring, summer
and autumn several kinds of durra, especially ksob and gafoli. Cotton
flourishes, is perennial for six or seven years, and gives large pods of
moderate length of staple.
There are no large carnivora in Fezzan. In the uninhabited oases
gazelles and antelopes are occasionally found. The most important animal
is the camel, of which there are two varieties, the Tebu or Sudan camel
and the Arabian, differing very much in size, form and capabilities.
Horses and cattle are not numerous. Among birds are ostriches, falcons,
vultures, swallows and ravens; in summer wild pigeons and ducks are
numerous, but in winter they seek a warmer climate. There are no
remarkable insects or snakes. A species of _Artemia_ or brine shrimp,
about a quarter of an inch in length, of a colour resembling the bright
hue of the gold fish, is fished for with cotton nets in the "Sea of
Worms," and mixed with dates and kneaded into a paste, which has the
taste and smell of salt herring, is considered a luxury by the people of
Fezzan.
_Inhabitants._--The total population is estimated at between 50,000 and
80,000. The inhabitants are a mixed people, derived from the surrounding
Teda and Bornu on the south, Tuareg of the plateaus on the west, Berbers
and Arabs from the north. The primitive inhabitants, called by their
Arab conquerors Berauna, are believed to have been of Negro origin. They
no longer persist as a distinct people. In colour the present
inhabitants vary from black to white, but the prevailing hue of skin is
a Malay-like yellow, the features and woolly hair being Negro. The chief
languages are the Kanuri or Bornu language and Arabic. Many understand
Targish, the Teda and the Hausa tongues. If among such a mixed people
there can be said to be any national language, it is that of Bornu,
which is most widely understood and spoken. The people of Sokna, north
of the Jebel-es-Suda, have a peculiar Berber dialect which Rohlfs found
to be very closely allied to that of Ghadames. The men wear a haik or
barakan like those of Tripoli, and a fez; short hose, and a large loose
shirt called mansaria, with red or yellow slippers, complete their
toilet. Yet one often sees the large blue or white _tobe_ of Bornu, and
the _litham_ or shawl-muffler of the Tuareg, wound round the mouth to
keep out the blown sand of the desert. The women, who so long as they
are young have very plump forms, and who are generally small, are more
simply dressed, as a rule, in the barakan, wound round their bodies;
they seldom wear shoes, but generally have sandals made of palm leaf.
Like the Arab women they load arms and legs with heavy metal rings,
which are of silver among the more wealthy. The hair, thickly greased
with butter, soon catching the dust which forms a crust over it, is done
up in numberless little plaits round the head, in the same fashion as in
Bornu and the Hausa countries. Children run about naked until they
attain the age of puberty, which comes very early, for mothers of ten or
twelve years of age are not uncommon. The Fezzani are of a gay
disposition, much given to music and dancing.
_Towns and Trade._--Murzuk, the present capital, which is in telegraphic
communication with the town of Tripoli, lies in the western corner of
the Hofra depression, in 25° 55' N. and 14° 10' E. It was founded about
1310, about which time the _kasbah_ or citadel was built. The Turks
repaired it, as well as the town-wall, which has, however, again fallen
into a ruinous condition. Murzuk, which had in 1906 some 3000
inhabitants, is cut in two by a wide street, the _dendal_. The citadel
and most of the houses are built of salt-saturated dried mud. Sokna,
about midway between Tripoli and Murzuk, situated on a great gravel
plain north of the Suda range, has a population of about 2500.
Garama (Jerma-el-Kedima), the capital under the Garamantes and the
Romans, was in the Wadi-el-Gharbi. It was a flourishing town at the time
of the Arab conquest but is now deserted. Among the ruins is a
well-preserved stone monument marking the southern limit of the Roman
dominions in this part of Africa. The modern Jerma is a small place a
little north of the site of Garama. Zuila, the capital under the Arabs,
lies in a depression called the Sherguia east of Murzuk on the most
direct caravan route to Barca and Egypt. Of Traghen, the capital under
the Nesur dynasty, which was on the same caravan route and between Zuila
and Murzuk, little besides the ruined kasbah remains.
Placed roughly midway between the countries of the central Sudan and
Tripoli, Fezzan serves as a depot for caravans crossing the Sahara; its
commerce is unimportant. Its most important export is that of dates.
Slave dealing, formerly the most lucrative occupation of the people, is
moribund owing to the stoppage of slave raiding by the European
governments in their Sudan territories.
_History._--The country formed part of the territory of the Garamantes,
described by Herodotus as a very powerful people. Attempts have been
made to identify the Garamantes with the Berauna of the Arabs of the 7th
century, and to the period of the Garamantes Duveyrier assigns the
remains of remarkable hydraulic works, and certain tombs and rock
sculptures--indications, it is held, of a Negro civilization of ancient
date which existed in the northern Sahara. The Garamantes, whether of
Libyan or Negro origin, had certainly a considerable degree of
civilization when in the year 19 B.C. they were conquered by the
proconsul L. Cornelius Balbus Minor and their country added to the Roman
empire. By the Romans it was called Phazania, whence the present name
Fezzan. After the Vandal invasion Phazania appears to have regained
independence and to have been ruled by a Berauna dynasty. At this time
the people were Christians, but in 666 the Arabs conquered the country
and all traces of Christianity seem speedily to have disappeared.
Subject at first to the caliphs, an independent Arab dynasty, that of
the Beni Khattab, obtained power early in the 10th century. In the 13th
century the country came under the rule of the king of Kanem (Bornu),
but soon afterwards the Nesur, said to have been a native or Berauna
dynasty, were in power. More probably the Nesur were hereditary
governors originally appointed by the rulers of Kanem. In the 14th
century the Nesur were conquered and dethroned by an Arab tribe, that of
Khorman, who reduced the people of Fezzan to a state of slavery, a
position from which they were rescued about the middle of the 16th
century by a sherif of Morocco, Montasir-b.-Mahommed, who founded the
dynasty of Beni Mahommed. This dynasty, which came into frequent
conflict with the Turks, who had about the same time that Montasir
secured Fezzan established themselves in Tripoli, gradually extended its
borders as far as Sokna in the north. It was the Beni Mahommed who chose
Murzuk as their capital. They became intermittently tributary to the
pasha of Tripoli, but within Fezzan the power of the sultans was
absolute. They maintained a body-guard of mamelukes, mostly
Europeans--Greeks, Genoese, or their immediate descendants. The annual
tribute was paid to the pasha either in money or in gold, senna or
slaves. The last of the Beni Mahommed sultans was killed in the vicinity
of Traghen in 1811 by El-Mukkeni, one of the lieutenants of Yusef Pasha,
the last sovereign but one of the independent Karamanli dynasty of
Tripoli. El-Mukkeni now made himself sultan of Fezzan, and became
notorious by his slaving expeditions into the central Sudan, in which he
advanced as far as Bagirmi. In 1831, Abd-el-Jelil, a chief of the
Walid-Sliman Arabs, usurped the sovereign authority. After a troublous
reign of ten years he was slain in battle by a Turkish force under Bakir
Bey, and Fezzan was added to the Turkish empire. Towards the end of the
19th century the Turks, alarmed at the increase of French influence in
the neighbouring countries, reinforced their garrison in Fezzan. The
kaimakamlik is said to yield an annual revenue of £6000 only to the
Tripolitan treasury.
AUTHORITIES.--The most notable of the European travellers who have
visited Fezzan, and to whose works reference should be made for more
detailed information regarding it, are, taking them in the order of
date, as follows: F. Hornemann, 1798; G.F. Lyon, 1819; D. Denham, H.
Clapperton and W. Oudney, 1822; J. Richardson, 1845; H. Barth,
1850-1855; E. Vogel, 1854; H. Duveyrier, 1859-1861; M. von Beurmann,
1862; G. Rohlfs, 1865; G. Nachtigal, 1869; P.L. Monteil, 1892; H.
Vischer, 1906. Nachtigal's _Sahara and Sudan_, vol. i. (Berlin, 1879),
gathers up much of the information in earlier works, and a list of the
Beni Mahommed sovereigns is given in A.M.H.J. Stokvis, _Manuel
d'histoire_, vol. i. (Leiden, 1888), p. 471. Miss Tinné (q.v.), who
travelled with Nachtigal as far as Murzuk, was shortly afterwards
murdered at the Sharaba wells on the road to Ghat.
FIACRE, SAINT (Celt. _Fiachra_), an anchorite of the 7th century, of
noble Irish descent. We have no information concerning his life in his
native country. His _Acta_, which have scarcely any historical value,
relate that he left Ireland, and came to France with his companions. He
approached St Faro, the bishop of Meaux, to whom he made known his
desire to live a life of solitude in the forest. St Faro assigned him a
spot called Prodilus (Brodolium), the modern Breuil, in the province of
Brie. There St Fiacre built a monastery in honour of the Holy Virgin,
and to it added a small house for guests, to which he himself withdrew.
Here he received St Chillen (? Killian), who was returning from a
pilgrimage to Rome, and here he remained until his death, having
acquired a great reputation for miracles. His remains rested for a long
time in the place which he had sanctified. In 1568, at the time of the
religious troubles, they were transferred to the cathedral of Meaux,
where his shrine may still be seen in the sacristy. Various relics of St
Fiacre were given to princes and great personages. His festival is
celebrated on the 30th of August. He is the patron of Brie, and
gardeners invoke him as their protector. French hackney-coaches received
the name of _fiacre_ from the Hôtel St Fiacre, in the rue St Martin,
Paris, where one Sauvage, who was the first to provide cabs for hire,
kept his vehicles.
See _Acta Sanctorum_, Augusti vi. 598-620; J. O'Hanlon, _Lives of the
Irish Saints_, viii. 421-447 (Dublin, 1875-1904); J.C. O'Meagher,
"Saint Fiacre de la Brie," in _Proceedings of the Royal Irish
Academy_, 3rd series, ii. 173-176. (H. De.)
FIARS PRICES, in the law of Scotland, the average prices of each of the
different sorts of grain grown in each county, as fixed annually by the
sheriff, usually after the verdict of a jury; they serve as a rule for
ascertaining the value of the grain due to feudal superiors, to the
clergy or to lay proprietors of teinds, to landlords as a part or the
whole of their rents and in all cases where the price of grain has not
been fixed by the parties. It is not known when or how the practice of
"striking the fiars," as it is called, originated. It probably was first
used to determine the value of the grain rents and duties payable to the
crown. In confirmation of this view it seems that at first the duty of
the sheriffs was merely to make a return to the court of exchequer of
the prices of grain within their counties, the court itself striking the
fiars; and from an old case it appears that the fiars were struck above
the true prices, being regarded rather as punishments to force the
king's tenants to pay their rents than as the proper equivalent of the
grain they had to pay. Co-existent, however, with these fiars, which
were termed sheriffs' fiars, there was at an early period another class
called commissaries' fiars, by which the values of teinds were
regulated. They have been traced back to the Reformation, and were under
the management of the commissary or consistorial courts, which then took
the place of the bishops and their officials. They have now been long
out of use, but they were perhaps of greater antiquity than the
sheriffs' fiars, and the model upon which these were instituted. In 1723
the court of session passed an Act of Sederunt for the purpose of
regulating the procedure in fiars courts. Down to that date the practice
of striking the fiars was by no means universal over Scotland; and even
in those counties into which it had been introduced, there was, as the
preamble of the act puts it, "a general complaint that the said fiars
are struck and given out by the sheriffs without due care and inquiry
into the current and just prices." The act in consequence provided that
all sheriffs should summon annually, between the 4th and the 20th of
February, a competent number of persons, living in the shire, of
experience in the prices of grain within its bounds, and that from these
they should choose a jury of fifteen, of whom at least eight were to be
heritors; that witnesses and other evidence as to the price of grain
grown in the county, especially since the 1st of November preceding
until the day of inquiry, were to be brought before the jury, who might
also proceed on "their own proper knowledge"; that the verdict was to be
returned and the sentence of the sheriff pronounced by the 1st of March;
and further, where custom or expediency recommended it, the sheriff was
empowered to fix fiars of different values according to the different
qualities of the grain. It cannot be said that this act has remedied all
the evils of which it complained. The propriety of some of its
provisions has been questioned, and the competency of the court to pass
it has been doubted, even by the court itself. Its authority has been
entirely disregarded in one county--Haddingtonshire--where the fiars are
struck by the sheriff alone, without a jury; and when this practice was
called in question the court declined to interfere, observing that the
fiars were better struck in Haddingtonshire than anywhere else. The
other sheriffs have in the main followed the act, but with much variety
of detail, and in many instances on principles the least calculated to
reach the true average prices. Thus in some counties the averages are
taken on the number of transactions, without regard to the quantities
sold. In one case, in 1838, the evidence was so carelessly collected
that the second or inferior barley fiars were 2s. 4d. higher than the
first. Formerly the price was struck by the boll, commonly the
Linlithgowshire boll; now the imperial quarter is always used.
The origin of the plural word fiars (feors, feers, fiers) is
uncertain. Jamieson, in his _Dictionary_, says that it comes from the
Icelandic _fe_, wealth; Paterson derives it from an old French word
_feur_, an average; others connect it with the Latin _forum_ (i.e.
market). The _New English Dictionary_ accepts the two latter
connexions. On the general subject of fiars prices see Paterson's
_Historical Account of the Fiars in Scotland_ (Edin., 1852); Connell,
_On Tithes_; Hunter's _Landlord and Tenant_.
FIBRES (or FIBERS, in American spelling; from Lat. _fibra_, apparently
connected either with _filum_, thread, or _findere_, to split), the
general term for certain structural components of animal and vegetable
tissue utilized in manufactures, and in respect of such uses, divided
for the sake of classification into textile, papermaking, brush and
miscellaneous fibres.
I. _Textile Fibres_ are mostly products of the organic world, elaborated
in their elongated form to subserve protective functions in animal life
(as wool and epidermal hairs, &c.) or as structural components of
vegetable tissues (flax, hemp and wood cells). It may be noted that the
inorganic world provides an exception to this general statement in the
fibrous mineral asbestos (q.v.), which is spun or twisted into coarse
textiles. Other silicates are also transformed by artificial processes
into fibrous forms, such as "glass," which is fused and drawn or spun to
a continuous fibre, and various "slags" which, in the fused state, are
transformed into "slag wool." Lastly, we note that a number of metals
are drawn down to the finest dimensions, in continuous lengths, and
these are woven into cloth or gauze, such metallic cloths finding
valuable applications in the arts. Certain metals in the form of fine
wire are woven into textile fabrics used as dress materials. Such
exceptional applications are of insignificant importance, and will not
be further considered in this article.
The common characteristics of the various forms of matter comprised in
the widely diversified groups of textile fibres are those of the
colloids. Colloidal matter is intrinsically devoid of structure, and in
the mass may be regarded as homogeneous; whereas crystalline matter in
its proximate forms assumes definite and specific shapes which express a
complex of internal stresses. The properties of matter which condition
its adaptation to structural functions, first as a constituent of a
living individual, and afterwards as a textile fibre, are homogeneous
continuity of substance, with a high degree of interior cohesion, and
associated with an irreducible minimum of elasticity or extensibility.
The colloids show an infinite diversity of variations in these essential
properties: certain of them, and notably cellulose (q.v.), maintain
these characteristics throughout a cycle of transformations such as
permit of their being brought into a soluble plastic form, in which
condition they may be drawn into filaments in continuous length. The
artificial silks or lustra-celluloses are produced in this way, and have
already taken an established position as staple textiles. For a more
detailed account of these products see CELLULOSE.
The animal fibres are composed of nitrogenous colloids of which the
typical representatives are the albumens, fibrines and gelatines. They
are of highly complex constitution and their characteristics have only
been generally investigated. The vegetable fibre substances are
celluloses and derivatives of celluloses, also typically colloidal
bodies. The broad distinction between the two groups is chiefly evident
in their relationship to alkalis. The former group are attacked,
resolved and finally dissolved, under conditions of action by no means
severe. The celluloses, on the other hand, and therefore the vegetable
fibres, are extraordinarily resistant to the action of alkalis.
The animal fibres are relatively few in number but of great industrial
importance. They occur as detached units and are of varying dimensions;
sheep's wool having lengths up to 36 in., the fleeces being shorn for
textile uses at lengths of 2 to 16 in.; horse hair is used in lengths of
4 to 24 in., whereas the silks may be considered as being produced in
continuous length, "reeled silks" having lengths measured in hundreds of
yards, but "spun silks" are composed of silk fibres purposely broken up
into short lengths.
The vegetable fibres are extremely numerous and of very diversified
characteristics. They are individualized units only in the case of seed
hairs, of which cotton is by far the most important; with this exception
they are elaborated as more or less complex aggregates. The bast tissues
of dicotyledonous annuals furnish such staple materials as flax, hemp,
rhea or ramie and jute. The bast occurs in a peripheral zone, external
to the wood and beneath the cortex, and is mechanically separated from
the stem, usually after steeping, followed by drying.
The commercial forms of these fibres are elongated filaments composed of
the elementary bast cells (ultimate fibres) aggregated into bundles. The
number of these as any part of the filament may vary from 3 to 20 (see
figs.). In the processes of refinement preparatory to the spinning
(hackling, scutching) and in the spinning process itself, the
fibre-bundles are more or less subdivided, and the divisibility of the
bundles is an element in the textile value of the raw material. But the
value of the material is rather determined by the length of the ultimate
fibres (for, although not the spinning unit, the tensile strength of the
yarn is ultimately limited by the cohesion of these fibres), qualified
by the important factor of uniformity.
Thus, the ultimate fibre of flax has a length of 25 to 35 mm.; jute, on
the other hand, 2 to 3 mm.; and this disparity is an essential condition
of the difference of values of these fibres. Rhea or ramie, to cite
another typical instance, has an ultimate fibre of extraordinary length,
but of equally conspicuous variability, viz. from 50 to 200 mm. The
variability is a serious impediment in the preparation of the material
for spinning and this defect, together with low drawing or spinning
quality, limits the applications of this fibre to the lower counts or
grades of yarn.
The monocotyledons yield still more complex fibre aggregates, which are
the fibro-vascular bundles of leaves and stems. These complex structures
as a class do not yield to the mechanical treatment by which the bast
fibres are subdivided, nor is there any true spinning quality such as is
conditioned by bringing the ultimate fibres into play under the drawing
process, which immediately precedes the twisting into yarn. Such
materials are therefore only used for the coarsest textiles, such as
string or rope. An exception to be noted in passing is to be found in
the pine apple (_Ananassa Sativa_) the fibres of which are worked into
yarns and cloth of the finest quality. The more important fibres of this
class are manila, sisal, phormium. A heterogeneous mass of still more
complex fibre aggregates, in many cases the entire stem (cereal straws,
esparto), in addition to being used in plaited form, e.g. in hats,
chairs, mats, constitute the staple raw material for paper
manufacturers, requiring a severe chemical treatment for the separation
of the ultimate fibres.
In this class we must include the woods which furnish wood pulps of
various classes and grades. Chemical processes of two types, (a) acid
and (b) alkaline, are also employed in resolving the wood, and the
resolution not only effects a complete isolation of the wood cells, but,
by attacking the hydrolysable constituents of the wood substance
(lignocellulose), the cells are obtained in the form of cellulose. These
cellulose pulps are known in commerce as "sulphite pulps" and "soda
pulps" respectively. In addition to these raw materials or "half stuffs"
the paper-maker employs the rejecta of the vegetable and textile
industries, scutching, spinning and cloth wastes of all kinds, which are
treated by chemical (boiling) and mechanical means (beating) to separate
the ultimate fibres and reduce them to the suitable dimensions (0.5-2.0
mm.). These papermaking fibres have also to be reckoned with as textile
raw materials, in view of a new and growing industry in "pulp yarns"
(_Papierstoffgarn_), a coarse textile obtained by treating paper as
delivered in narrow strips from the paper machine; the strips are
reeled, dried to retain 30-40% moisture, and in this condition subjected
to the twisting operation, which confers the cylindrical form and adds
considerably to the strength of the fibrous strip. The following are the
essential characteristics of the economically important fibres.
_Animal._--A. Silk. (a) The true silks are produced by the _Bombyx
Mori_, the worm feeding on the leaves of the mulberry. The fibre is
extruded as a viscous liquid from the glands of the worm, and solidifies
to a cylindrical thread. The cohesion of these threads in pairs gives to
raw silk the form of a dual cylinder (Plate I. fig. 2). For textile
purposes the thread is reeled from the cocoon, and several units, five
and upwards, are brought together and suitably twisted. (b) The "Wild"
silks are produced by a large variety of insects, of which the most
important are the various species of Antherea, which yield the Tussore
silks. These silks differ in form and composition from the true silks.
While they consist of a "dual" thread, each unit of these is complex,
being made up of a number of fibrillae. This unit thread is quadrangular
in section, and of larger diameter than the true silk, the mean breadth
being 0.052 mm., as compared with 0.018, the mean diameter of the true
silks. The variations in structure as well as in dimensions are,
however, very considerable.
B. Epidermal hairs. Of these (a) wool, the epidermal protective covering
of sheep, is the most important. The varying species of the animal
produce wools of characteristic qualities, varying considerably in
fineness, in length of staple, in composition and in spinning quality.
Hence the classing of the fleeces or raw wool followed by the elaborate
processes of selection, i.e. "sorting" and preparation, which precede
the actual spinning or twisting of the yarn. These consist in entirely
freeing the fibres and sorting them mechanically (combing, &c.),
thereafter forming them into continuous lengths of parallelized units.
This is followed by the spinning process which consists in a
simultaneous drawing and twisting, and a continuous production of the
yarn with the structural characteristics of worsted yarns. The shorter
staple--from 5 to 25% of average fleeces--is prepared by the "carding"
process for the spinning operation, in which drawing and twisting are
simultaneous, the length spun being then wound up, and the process being
consequently intermittent. This section of the industry is known as
"woollen spinning" in contrast to the former or "_worsted_ spinning."
(b) An important group of raw material closely allied to the wools are
the epidermal hairs of the Angora goat (mohair), the llama, alpaca.
Owing to their form and the nature of the substance of which they are
composed, they possess more lustre than the wools. They present
structural differences from sheep wools which influence the processes by
which they are prepared or spun, and the character of the yarns; but the
differences are only of subordinate moment.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
FIG. 1.--RAW SILK. _Bombyx mori_. Filament of bave, viewed in length.
× 110.
FIG. 2.--RAW SILK. _Bombyx mori_. Single fibres in transverse section
showing each fibre or "bave" as dual cylinder. × 235.
FIG. 3.--ARTIFICIAL "SILK." Lustra-cellulose viscose process, single
fibres in transverse section × 235. Normal type--polygon of 5
sides--with concave sides due to contact of the component units of
textile filament.
FIG. 4.--WOOL FIBRES. Australian merino viewed in length, × 235.
Surface imbrications--the structural cause of true felting properties.
FIG. 5.--FLAX STEM. _Linum usitatissimum_. Transverse section of stem,
× 235, showing bast fibres occupying central zone.
FIG. 6.--RAMIE. Section of bast region, × 235. Showing bast fibres
bundles but only slightly occurring as individuals.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
FIG. 7.--JUTE. Bast bundles. Section of bast region, × 235, showing
agglomerated bundles of bast fibre, each bundle representing a
spinning unit or filament.
FIG. 8.--MAIZE STEM. _Zea mais_. Fibro-vascular bundle in section. ×
110, typical of monocotyledonous structure.
FIG. 9.--COTTON. FLAX. RAMIE. JUTE. Ultimate fibres in the length, ×
110. Portions selected to show typical structural characteristics.
FIG. 10.--COTTON. FLAX. RAMIE. JUTE. Ultimate fibres--transverse
section, × 110. Note similarity of ramie to cotton and jute to flax.
FIG. 11.--ESPARTO. Cellulose. Ultimate fibres of paper making pulp.
Typical fusiform bast fibres. × 65.
FIG. 12.--SECTION OF HAND-MADE PAPER. × 110. Ultimate component fibres
disposed in every plane.]
(c) Various animal hairs, such as those of the cow, camel and rabbit,
are also employed; the latter is largely worked into the class of
fabrics known as felts. In these the hairs are compacted together by
taking advantage of the peculiarity of structure which causes the
imbrications of the surface.
(d) Horse hair is employed in its natural form as an individual filament
or monofil.[1]
_Vegetable Fibres._--The subjoined scheme of classification sets out the
morphological structural characteristics of the vegetable fibres:--
Produced from
_Dicotyledons._ _Monocotyledons._
A. Seed hairs. D. Fibro-vascular bundles.
B. Bast fibres. E. Entire leaves and stems.
C. Bast aggregates.
In the list of the more important fibrous raw materials subjoined, the
capital letter immediately following the name refers the individual to
its position in this classification. In reference to the important
question of chemical composition and the actual nature of the fibre
substance, it may be premised that the vegetable fibres are composed of
cellulose, an important representative of the group of carbohydrates, of
which the cotton fibre substance is the chemical prototype, mixed and
combined with various derivatives belonging to the subgroups. (a)
Carbohydrates. (b) Unsaturated compounds of benzenoid and furfuroid
constitutions. (c) "Fat and wax" derivatives, i.e. groups belonging to
the fatty series, and of higher molecular dimensions--of such compound
celluloses the following are the prototypes:--
(a) Cellulose combined and mixed with "pectic" bodies (i.e.
pecto-celluloses), flax, rhea.
(b) Cellulose combined with unsaturated groups or ligno-celluloses, jute
and the woods.
(c) Cellulose combined and mixed with higher fatty acids, alcohols,
ethers, cuto-celluloses, protective epidermal covering of leaves.
The letters a, b, c in the table below and following the capitals, which
have reference to the structural basis of classification, indicate the
main characteristics of the fibre substances. (See also CELLULOSE.)
_Miscellaneous._--Various species of the family Palmaceae yield fibrous
products of value, of which mention must be made of the following.
_Raffia_, epidermal strips of the leaves of _Raphia ruffia_
(Madagascar), _R. taedigera_ (Japan), largely employed as binder twine
in horticulture, replacing the "bast" (linden) formerly employed.
_Coir_, the fibrous envelope of the fruit of the _Cocos nucifera_,
extensively used for matting and other coarse textiles. _Carludovica
palmata_ (Central America) yields the raw material for Panama hats, the
_Corypha australis_ (Australia) yields a similar product. The leaves of
the date palm, _Phoenix dactylifera_, are employed locally in making
baskets and mats, and the fibro-vascular bundles are isolated for
working up into coarse twine and rope; similarly, the leaves of the
_Elaeis guineensis_, the fruit of which yields the "palm oil" of
commerce, yield a fibre which finds employment locally (Africa) for
special purposes. _Chamaerops humilis_, the dwarf palm, yields the
well-known "Crin d'Afrique." Locally (Algiers) it is twisted into ropes,
but its more general use, in Europe, is in upholstery as a stuffing
material. The cereal straws are used in the form of plait in the making
of hats and mats. Esparto grass is also used in the making of coarse
mats.
The processes by which the fibres are transformed into textile fabrics
are in the main determined by their structural features. The following
are the distinctive types of treatment.
A. The fibre is in virtually continuous lengths. The textile yarn is
produced by assembling together the unit threads, which are wound
together and suitably twisted (silk; artificial silk).
+----------------+-----------------+----------------------------+------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| | Botanical | | | |
| | Identity. | Country of Origin. | Dimensions of Ultimate.| Textile Uses. |
| | Genus and Order.| | | |
+----------------+-----------------+----------------------------+------------------------+-------------------------------------+
|Cotton, A.a. | Gossypium |Tropical and subtropical |12-40 mm. 0.019-0.025. | Universal. Also as a raw material |
| | Malvaceae | countries | Av. 28 mm. | in chemical industries, notably |
| | | | | explosives, celluloid. |
|Flax, B.a | Linum |Temperate (and subtropical) |6.60 mm. 0.011-0.025. | General. Special effects in lustre |
| | Linaceae | countries, chiefly | Av. 28 mm. | damasks. In India and America |
| | | European | | plants grown for seed (linseed). |
|Hemp, B.a | Cannabis |Temperate countries, chiefly|5-55 mm. 0.016-0.050. | Coarser textiles, sail-cloth, |
| | Cannabineae | Europe | Av. 22. mm. Av. 0.022 | rope and twine. |
|Ramie, B.a. | Boehmeria |Tropical countries (some |60-200 mm. 0.03-0.08. | Coarse textiles. Cost of preparation|
| | Urticaceae | temperate) | Av. 120 mm. Av. 0.050 | for fine textiles prohibitive. |
|Jute, B.b | Corchorus |Tropical countries, chiefly |1.5-5 mm. 0.020-0.025. | Coarse textiles, chiefly "Hessians" |
| | Tiliaceae | India | Av. 2.5 mm. Av. 0.022 | and sacking. "Line" spun yarns |
| | | | | used in cretonne and furniture |
| | | | | textiles. |
| B.b | Crotalaria |India |4.0-12.0. 0.025-0.050. | Twine and rope. Coarse textiles. |
| | Leguminosae | | Av. 7.5. Av. 0.022 | |
|Hibiscus, B.b | Hibiscus |Tropical, chiefly India |2-6 mm. 0.014-0.033. | Coarse textiles. H. Elams has been |
| | | | Av. 4 mm. Av. 0.021 | extensively used in making mats. |
|Sida, B.b | Sida |Tropical and subtropical |1.5-4 mm. 0.013-0.02. | Coarse textiles. Appears capable of |
| | Malvaceae | | Av. 2 mm. Av. 0.015 | substituting jute. |
|Lime or | Tilia |European countries, chiefly |1.5 mm. 0.014-0.020. | Matting and binder twine. |
| Linden,C.b | Tiliaceae | Russia | Av. 2 mm. Av. 0.016 | |
|Mulberry, C | Broussonetia |Far East |5-31 mm. 0.02-0.04. | Paper and paper cloths. |
| | Moraceae | | Av. 15 mm. Av. 0.03 | |
|Monocotyledons--| | | | |
| Manila, D. | Musa |Tropical countries, chiefly |3-12 mm. 0.016-0.032. | Twine and ropes. Produces papers |
| | Musaceae | Philippine Islands | Av. 6 mm. Av. 0.024 | of special quality. |
| Sisal, D | Agave |Tropical countries, chiefly |1.5-4 mm. 0.020-0.032. | Twine and ropes. |
| | Amaryllideae | Central America | Av. 2.5. Av. 0.024 | |
| | Yucca | do. |0.5-6 mm. 0.01-0.02. | do. |
| | Liliaceae | | | |
| | Sansevieria |East Indies, Ceylon, East |1.5-6 mm. 0.015-0.026. | do. |
| | Liliaceae | Africa | Av. 3 mm. Av. 0.020 | |
| Phormium, D. | Phormium tenax |New Zealand |5.0-15 mm. 0.010-0.020. | Twine and ropes. Distinguished by |
| | Liliaceae | | Av. 9 mm. Av. 0.016 | high yield of fibre from green |
| | | | | leaf. |
| Pine-apple, D.| Ananassa |Tropical East and West |3.0-9.0 mm. 0.004-0.008.| Textiles of remarkable fineness. |
| | Bromeliaceae | Indies | Av. 5. Av. 0.006 | Exceptional fineness of ultimate |
| | | | | fibre. |
+----------------+-----------------+----------------------------+------------------------+-------------------------------------+
B. The fibres in the form of units of variable short dimensions are
treated by more or less elaborate processes of scutching, hackling,
combing, with the aim of producing a mass of free parallelized units of
uniform dimensions; these are then laid together and drawn into
continuous bands of sliver and roving, which are finally drawn and
twisted into yarns. In this group are comprised the larger number of
textile products, such as cotton, wool, flax and jute, and it also
includes at the other extreme the production of coarse textiles, such as
twine and rope.
C. The fibres of still shorter dimensions are treated in various ways
for the production of a fabric in continuous length.
The distinction of type of manufacturing processes in which the
relatively short fibres are utilized, either as disintegrated units or
comminuted long fibres, follows the lines of division into long and
short fibres; the long fibres are worked into yarns by various
processes, whereas the shorter fibres are agglomerated by both dry and
wet processes to felted tissues or felts. It is obvious, however, that
these distinctions do not constitute rigid dividing lines. Thus the
principles involved in felting are also applied in the manipulation of
long fibre fabrics. For instance, woollen goods are closed or shrunk by
milling, the web being subjected to a beating or hammering treatment in
an apparatus known as "the Stocks," or is continuously run through
squeezing rollers, in weak alkaline liquids. Flax goods are "closed" by
the process of beetling, a long-continued process of hammering, under
which the ultimate fibres are more or less subdivided, and at the same
time welded or incorporated together. As already indicated, paper, which
is a web composed of units of short dimensions produced by deposition
from suspension in water and agglomerated by the interlacing of the
component fibres in all planes within the mass, is a species of textile.
Further, whereas the silks are mostly worked up in the extreme lengths
of the cocoon, there are various systems of spinning silk wastes of
variable short lengths, which are similar to those required for spinning
the fibres which occur naturally in the shorter lengths.
The fibres thus enumerated as commercially and industrially important
have established themselves as the result of a struggle for survival,
and each embodies typical features of utility. There are innumerable
vegetable fibres, many of which are utilized in the locality or region
of their production, but are not available for the highly specialized
applications of modern competitive industry to qualify for which a very
complex range of requirements has to be met. These include primarily the
factors of production and transport summed up in cost of production,
together with the question of regularity of supply; structural
characteristics, form and dimensions, including uniformity of ultimate
unit and adaptability to standard methods of preparing and spinning,
together with tenacity and elasticity, lustre. Lastly, composition,
which determines the degree of resistance to chemical disintegrating
influences as well as subsidiary questions of colour and relationship to
colouring matters. The quest for new fibres, as well as modified methods
of production of those already known, require critical investigation
from the point of view of established practice. The present perspective
outline of the group will be found to contain the elements of a grammar
of the subject. But those who wish to pursue the matter will require to
amplify this outlined picture by a study of the special treatises which
deal with general principles, as well as the separate articles on the
various fibres.
_Analysis and Identification._--For the analysis of textile fabrics and
the identification of component fibre, a special treatise must be
consulted. The following general facts are to be noted as of importance.
All animal fibres are effectively dissolved by 10% solution of caustic
potash or soda. The fabric or material is boiled in this solution for 10
minutes and exhaustively washed. Any residue will be vegetable or
cellulose fibre. It must not be forgotten that the chemical properties
of the fibre substances are modified more or less by association in
combination with colouring matters and mordants. These may, in many
cases, be removed by treatments which do not seriously modify the fibre
substances.
Wool is distinguished from silk by its relative resistance to the action
of sulphuric acid. The cold concentrated acid rapidly dissolves silk as
well as the vegetable fibres. The attack on wool is slow, and the
epidermal scales of wool make their appearance. The true silks are
distinguished from the wild silks by the action of concentrated
hydrochloric acid in the cold, which reagent dissolves the former, but
has only a slight effect on Tussore silk. After preliminary resolution
by these group reagents, the fabric is subjected to microscopical
analysis for the final identification of its component fibres (see H.
Schlichter, _Journal Soc. Chem. Ind_., 1890, p. 241).
A scheme for the commercial analysis or assay of vegetable fibres,
originally proposed by the author,[2] and now generally adopted,
includes the following operations:--
1. Determination of moisture.
2. Determination of ash left after complete ignition.
3. Hydrolysis:
(a) loss of weight after boiling the raw fibre with a 1% caustic
soda solution for five minutes;
(b) loss after boiling for one hour.
4. Determination of cellulose: the white residue after
(a) boiling for five minutes with 1% caustic soda,
(b) exposure to chlorine gas for one hour,
(c) boiling with basic sodium sulphite solution.
5. Mercerizing: the loss of weight after digestion with a 20% solution
of sodium hydrate for one hour in the cold.
6. Nitration: the weight of the product obtained after digestion with
a mixture of equal volumes of sulphuric and nitric acids for one hour
in the cold.
7. Acid purification: treatment of the raw fibre with 20% acetic acid
for one minute, the product being washed with water and alcohol, and
then dried.
8. Determination of the total carbon by combustion.
II. _Papermaking._--The papermaking industry (see PAPER) employs as raw
materials a large proportion of the vegetable fibre products already
enumerated, and, for the reasons incidentally mentioned, they may be,
and are, employed in a large variety of forms: in fact any fibrous
material containing over 30% "cellulose" and yielding ultimate fibres of
a length exceeding 1 mm. can be used in this industry. Most important
staples are cotton and flax; these are known to the paper-maker as "rag"
fibres, rags, i.e. cuttings of textile fabrics, new and old, being their
main source of supply. These are used for writing and drawing papers. In
the class of "printings" two of the most important staples are wood
pulp, prepared by chemical treatment from both pine and foliage woods,
and in England esparto cellulose, the cellulose obtained from esparto
grass by alkali treatment; the cereal straws are also used and are
resolved into cellulose by alkaline boiling followed by bleaching. In
the class of "wrappings" and miscellaneous papers a large number of
other materials find use, such as various residues of manufacturing and
preparing processes, scutching wastes, ends of rovings and yarns, flax,
hemp and manila rope waste, adansonia bast, and jute wastes, raw
(cuttings) and manufactured (bagging). Other materials have been
experimentally tried, and would no doubt come into use on their
papermaking merits, but as a matter of fact the actually suitable raw
materials are comprised in the list above enumerated, and are limited in
number, through the influence of a number of factors of value or
utility.
III. _Brush Fibres, &c._--In addition to the textile industries there
are manufactures which utilize fibres of both animal and vegetable
character. The most important of these is brush-making. The familiar
brushes of everyday use are extremely diversified in form and texture.
The supplies of animal fibres are mainly drawn from the badger, hog,
bear, sable, squirrel and horse. These fibres and bristles cover a large
range of effects. Brushes required for cleansing purposes are composed
of fibres of a more or less hard and resilient character, such as horse
hairs, and other tail hairs and bristles. For painting work brushes of
soft quality are employed, graduating for fine work into the extreme
softness of the "camel hair" pencil. Of vegetable fibres the following
are used in this industry. The _Caryota urens_ furnishes the Kittul
fibre, obtained from the base of the leaf stalks. Piassava is obtained
from the _Attalea funifera_, also from the _Leopoldina piassaba_
(Brazil). Palmyra fibre is obtained from the _Borassus flabellifer_.
These are all members of the natural order of the Palmaceae. Mexican
fibre, or Istle, is obtained from the agave. The fibre known as Whisk,
largely used for dusting brushes, is obtained from various species of
the Gramineae; the "Mexican Whisk" from _Epicampeas macroura_; and
"Italian Whisk" from _Andropogon_. The _coir_ fibre mentioned above in
connexion with coarse textiles is also extensively used in brush-making.
Aloe and Agave fibres in their softer forms are also used for
plasterers' brushes. Many of the whitewashes and cleansing solutions
used in house decoration are alkaline in character, and for such uses
advantage is taken of the specially resistant character of the cellulose
group of materials.
_Stuffing and Upholstery._--Another important use for fibrous materials
is for filling or stuffing in connexion with the seats and cushions in
upholstery. In the large range of effects required, a corresponding
number and variety of products find employment. One of the most
important is the floss or seed-hair of the _Eriodendron anfractuosum_,
known as Kapok, the use of which in Europe was created by the Dutch
merchants who drew their supplies from Java. The fibre is soft, silky
and elastic, and maintains its elasticity in use. Many fibres when used
in the mass show, on the other hand, a tendency to become matted and
compressed in use, and to restore them to their original state the fibre
requires to be removed and subjected to a teasing or carding process.
This defect limits the use of other "flosses" or seed hairs in
competition with Kapok. Horse hair is extensively used in this industry,
as are also wool flocks and other short animal hairs and wastes.
_Hats and Matting._--For these manufactures a large range of the fibrous
products above described are employed, chiefly in their natural or raw
state.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The list of works appended comprises only a small
fraction of the standard literature of the subject, but they are
sufficiently representative to enable the specialist, by referring to
them, to cover the subject-matter. F.H. Bowman, _The Structure of the
Wood Fibre_ (1885), _The Structure of Cotton Fibre_ (1882); Cross,
Bevan and King, _Indian Fibres and Fibrous Substances_ (London, 1887);
C.F. Cross, _Report on Miscellaneous Fibres_, Colonial Indian
Exhibition, 1886 (London, 1887); Cross and Bevan, _Cellulose,
Researches on Cellulose_, i. and ii. (London, 1895-1905); C.R. Dodge,
_A Descriptive Catalogue of Useful Fibre Plants of the World_ (Report
No. 9, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, 1897); von Höhmel, _Die
Mikroskopie der technisch verwendeten Faserstoffe_ (Leipzig, 1905);
J.J. Hummel, _The Dyeing of Textile Fabrics_ (London, 1885); J.M.
Matthews, _The Textile Fibres, their Physical, Microscopical and
Chemical Properties_ (New York, 1904); H. Müller, _Die Pflanzenfaser_
(Braunschweig, 1877); H. Schlichter, "The Examination of Textile
Fibres and Fabrics" (_Jour. Soc. Chem. Ind._, 1890, 241); M.
Vetillart, _Études sur les fibres végétales textiles_ (Paris, 1876);
Sir T.H. Wardle, _Silk and Wild Silks_, original memoirs in connexion
with Col. Ind. Ex., 1886, Jubilee Ex. Manchester, 1887; Sir G. Watt,
_Dictionary of Economic Products of India_ (London, 1891); Wiesner,
_Die Rohstoffe des Pflanzenreichs_ (Leipzig, 1873); O.N. Witt,
_Chemische Technologie der Gespinnstfasern_ (Braunschweig, 1888); _Kew
Bulletin_; _The Journal of the Imperial Institute_; _The Journal of
the Society of Arts_; W.I. Hannam, _The Textile Fibres of Commerce_
(London, 1902); J. Jackson, _Commercial Botany_; J. Zipser, _Die
Textilen Rohmaterialien_ (Wien, 1895); F. Zetzsche, _Die wichtigsten
Faserstoffe der europäischen Industrie_ (Leipzig, 1895).
(C. F. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See also ALPACA, FELT, MOHAIR, SHODDY and WOOL.
[2] Col. Ind. Exhibition, 1886, _Miscellaneous Reports_.
FIBRIN, or FIBRINE, a protein formed by the action of the so-called
fibrin-ferment on fibrinogen, a constituent of the blood-plasma of all
vertebrates. This change takes place when blood leaves the arteries, and
the fibrin thus formed occasions the clotting which ensues (see BLOOD).
To obtain pure coagulated fibrin it is best to heat blood-plasma
(preferably that of the horse) to 56° C. The usual method of beating a
blood-clot with twigs and removing the filamentous fibrin which attaches
itself to them yields a very impure product containing haemoglobin and
much globulin; moreover, it is very difficult to purify. Fibrin is a
very voluminous, tough, strongly elastic, jelly-like substance; when
denaturalized by heat, alcohol or salts, it behaves as any other
coagulated albumin.
FICHTE, IMMANUEL HERMANN (originally HARTMANN) VON (1797-1879), German
philosopher, son of J.G. Fichte, was born at Jena on the 18th of July
1797. Having held educational posts at Saarbrücken and Düsseldorf, in
1836 he became extraordinary professor of philosophy at Bonn, and in
1840 full professor. In 1842 he received a call to Tübingen, retired in
1867, and died at Stuttgart on the 8th of August 1879. The most
important of his comprehensive writings are: _System der Ethik_
(1850-1853), _Anthropologie_ (1856, 3rd ed. 1876), _Psychologie_
(1864-1873), _Die theistische Weltansicht_ (1873). In 1837 he had
founded the _Zeitschrift für Philosophie_ as an organ of his views, more
especially on the subject of the philosophy of religion, where he was in
alliance with C.H. Weisse; but, whereas Weisse thought that the Hegelian
structure was sound in the main, and that its imperfections might be
mended, Fichte held it to be incurably defective, and spoke of it as a
"masterpiece of erroneous consistency or consistent error." Fichte's
general views on philosophy seem to have changed considerably as he
advanced in years, and his influence has been impaired by certain
inconsistencies and an appearance of eclecticism, which is strengthened
by his predominantly historical treatment of problems, his desire to
include divergent systems within his own, and his conciliatory tone. His
philosophy is an attempt to reconcile monism (Hegel) and individualism
(Herbart) by means of theism (Leibnitz). He attacks Hegelianism for its
pantheism, its lowering of human personality, and imperfect recognition
of the demands of the moral consciousness. God, he says, is to be
regarded not as an absolute but as an Infinite Person, whose nature it
is that he should realize himself in finite persons. These persons are
objects of God's love, and he arranges the world for their good. The
direct connecting link between God and man is the "genius," a higher
spiritual individuality existing in man by the side of his lower,
earthly individuality. Fichte, in short, advocates an ethical theism,
and his arguments might easily be turned to account by the apologist of
Christianity. In his conception of finite personality he recurs to
something like the monadism of Leibnitz. His insistence on moral
experience is connected with his insistence on personality. One of the
tests by which Fichte discriminates the value of previous systems is the
adequateness with which they interpret moral experience. The same reason
that made him depreciate Hegel made him praise Krause (panentheism) and
Schleiermacher, and speak respectfully of English philosophy. It is
characteristic of Fichte's almost excessive receptiveness that in his
latest published work, _Der neuere Spiritualismus_ (1878), he supports
his position by arguments of a somewhat occult or theosophical cast, not
unlike those adopted by F.W.H. Myers. He also edited the complete works
and literary correspondence of his father, including his life.
See R. Eucken, "Zur Erinnerung I. H. F.," in _Zeitschrift für
Philosophie_, ex. (1897); C.C. Scherer, _Die Gotteslehre von I. H. F._
(1902); article by Karl Hartmann in _Allegemeine deutsche Biographie_
xlviii. (1904). Some of his works were translated by J.D. Morell under
the title of _Contributions to Mental Philosophy_ (1860).
FICHTE, JOHANN GOTTLIEB (1762-1814), German philosopher, was born at
Rammenau in Upper Lusatia on the 19th of May 1762. His father, a
ribbon-weaver, was a descendant of a Swedish soldier who (in the service
of Gustavus Adolphus) was left wounded at Rammenau and settled there.
The family was distinguished for piety, uprightness, and solidity of
character. With these qualities Fichte himself combined a certain
impetuosity and impatience probably derived from his mother, a woman of
a somewhat querulous and jealous disposition.
At a very early age the boy showed remarkable mental vigour and moral
independence. A fortunate accident which brought him under the notice of
a neighbouring nobleman, Freiherr von Miltitz, was the means of
procuring him a more excellent education than his father's circumstances
would have allowed. He was placed under the care of Pastor Krebel at
Niederau. After a short stay at Meissen he was entered at the celebrated
school at Pforta, near Naumburg. In 1780 he entered the university of
Jena as a student of theology. He supported himself mainly by private
teaching, and during the years 1784-1787 acted as tutor in various
families of Saxony. In 1787, after an unsuccessful application to the
consistory for pecuniary assistance, he seems to have been driven to
miscellaneous literary work. A tutorship at Zürich was, however,
obtained in the spring of 1788, and Fichte spent in Switzerland two of
the happiest years of his life. He made several valuable acquaintances,
among others Lavater and his brother-in-law Hartmann Rahn, to whose
daughter, Johanna Maria, he became engaged.
Settling at Leipzig, still without any fixed means of livelihood, he was
again reduced to literary drudgery. In the midst of this work occurred
the most important event of his life, his introduction to the philosophy
of Kant. At Schulpforta he had read with delight Lessing's _Anti-Goeze_,
and during his Jena days had studied the relation between philosophy and
religion. The outcome of his speculations, _Aphorismen über Religion und
Deismus_ (unpublished, date 1790; _Werke_, i. 1-8), was a species of
Spinozistic determinism, regarded, however, as lying altogether outside
the boundary of religion. It is remarkable that even for a time fatalism
should have been predominant in his reasoning, for in character he was
opposed to such a view, and, as he has said, "according to the man, so
is the system of philosophy he adopts."
Fichte's _Letters_ of this period attest the influence exercised on him
by the study of Kant. It effected a revolution in his mode of thinking;
so completely did the Kantian doctrine of the inherent moral worth of
man harmonize with his own character, that his life becomes one effort
to perfect a true philosophy, and to make its principles practical
maxims. At first he seems to have thought that the best method for
accomplishing his object would be to expound Kantianism in a popular,
intelligible form. He rightly felt that the reception of Kant's
doctrines was impeded by their phraseology. An abridgment of the _Kritik
der Urtheilskraft_ was begun, but was left unfinished.
Fichte's circumstances had not improved. It had been arranged that he
should return to Zürich and be married to Johanna Rahn, but the plan was
overthrown by a commercial disaster which affected the fortunes of the
Rahn family. Fichte accepted a post as private tutor in Warsaw, and
proceeded on foot to that town. The situation proved unsuitable; the
lady, as Kuno Fischer says, "required greater submission and better
French" than Fichte could yield, and after a fortnight's stay Fichte set
out for Königsberg to see Kant. His first interview was disappointing;
the coldness and formality of the aged philosopher checked the
enthusiasm of the young disciple, though it did not diminish his
reverence. He resolved to bring himself before Kant's notice by
submitting to him a work in which the principles of the Kantian
philosophy should be applied. Such was the origin of the work, written
in four weeks, the _Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung_ (Essay
towards a Critique of all Revelation). The problem which Fichte dealt
with in this essay was one not yet handled by Kant himself, the
relations of which to the critical philosophy furnished matter for
surmise. Indirectly, indeed, Kant had indicated a very definite opinion
on theology: from the _Critique of Pure Reason_ it was clear that for
him speculative theology must be purely negative, while the _Critique of
Practical Reason_ as clearly indicated the view that the moral law is
the absolute content or substance of any religion. A _critical_
investigation of the conditions under which religious belief was
possible was still wanting. Fichte sent his essay to Kant, who approved
it highly, extended to the author a warm reception, and exerted his
influence to procure a publisher. After some delay, consequent on the
scruples of the theological censor of Halle, who did not like to see
miracles rejected, the book appeared (Easter, 1792). By an oversight
Fichte's name did not appear on the title-page, nor was the preface
given, in which the author spoke of himself as a beginner in philosophy.
Outsiders, not unnaturally, ascribed the work to Kant. The _Allgemeine
Literatur-Zeitung_ went so far as to say that no one who had read a line
of Kant's writings could fail to recognize the eminent author of this
new work. Kant himself corrected the mistake, at the same time highly
commending the work. Fichte's reputation was thus secured at a stroke.
The _Critique of Revelation_ marks the culminating point of Fichte's
Kantian period. The exposition of the conditions under which revealed
religion is possible turns upon the absolute requirements of the moral
law in human nature. Religion itself is the belief in this moral law as
divine, and such belief is a practical postulate, necessary in order to
add force to the law. It follows that no revealed religion, so far as
matter or substance is concerned, can contain anything beyond this law;
nor can any fact in the world of experience be recognized by us as
supernatural. The supernatural element in religion can only be the
divine character of the moral law. Now, the revelation of this divine
character of morality is possible only to a being in whom the lower
impulses have been, or are, successful in overcoming reverence for the
law. In such a case it is conceivable that a revelation might be given
in order to add strength to the moral law. Religion ultimately then
rests upon the practical reason, and expresses some demand or want of
the pure ego. In this conclusion we can trace the prominence assigned by
Fichte to the practical element, and the tendency to make the
requirements of the ego the ground for all judgment on reality. It was
not possible that having reached this point he should not press forward
and leave the Kantian position.
This success was coincident with an improvement in the fortunes of the
Rahn family, and the marriage took place at Zürich in October 1793. The
remainder of the year he spent at Zürich, slowly perfecting his thoughts
on the fundamental problems left for solution in the Kantian philosophy.
During this period he published anonymously two remarkable political
works, _Zurückforderung der Denkfreiheit von den Fürsten Europas_ and
_Beiträge zur Berichtigung der Urtheile des Publicums über die
französische Revolution_. Of these the latter is much the more
important. The French Revolution seemed to many earnest thinkers the one
great outcry of modern times for the liberty of thought and action which
is the eternal heritage of every human being. Unfortunately the
political condition of Germany was unfavourable to the formation of an
unbiassed opinion on the great movement. The principles involved in it
were lost sight of under the mass of spurious maxims on social order
which had slowly grown up and stiffened into system. To direct attention
to the true nature of revolution, to demonstrate how inextricably the
right of liberty is interwoven with the very existence of man as an
intelligent agent, to point out the inherent progressiveness of state
arrangements, and the consequent necessity of reform or amendment, such
are the main objects of the _Beiträge_; and although, as is often the
case with Fichte, the arguments are too formal and the distinctions too
wire-drawn, yet the general idea is nobly conceived and carried out. As
in the _Critique of Revelation_ so here the rational nature of man and
the conditions necessary for its manifestation or realization become the
standard for critical judgment.
Towards the close of 1793 Fichte received an invitation to succeed K.L.
Reinhold as extraordinary professor of philosophy at Jena. This chair,
not in the ordinary faculty, had become, through Reinhold, the most
important in the university, and great deliberation was exercised in
selecting his successor. It was desired to secure an exponent of
Kantianism, and none seemed so highly qualified as the author of the
_Critique of Revelation_. Fichte, while accepting the call, desired to
spend a year in preparation; but as this was deemed inexpedient he
rapidly drew out for his students an introductory outline of his system,
and began his lectures in May 1794. His success was instantaneous and
complete. The fame of his predecessor was altogether eclipsed. Much of
this success was due to Fichte's rare power as a lecturer. In oral
exposition the vigour of thought and moral intensity of the man were
most of all apparent, while his practical earnestness completely
captivated his hearers. He lectured not only to his own class, but on
general moral subjects to all students of the university. These general
addresses, published under the title _Bestimmung des Gelehrten_
(Vocation of the Scholar), were on a subject dear to Fichte's heart, the
supreme importance of the highest intellectual culture and the duties
incumbent on those who had received it. Their tone is stimulating and
lofty.
The years spent at Jena were unusually productive; indeed, the completed
Fichtean philosophy is contained in the writings of this period. A
general introduction to the system is given in the tractate _Über den
Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre_ (On the Notion of the Theory of
Science), 1794, and the theoretical portion is worked out in the
_Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre_ (Foundation of the whole
Theory of Science, 1794) and _Grundriss des Eigenthümlichen d.
Wissenschaftslehre_ (Outline of what is peculiar in the Theory of
Science, 1794). To these were added in 1797 a _First_ and a _Second
Introduction to the Theory of Science_, and an _Essay towards a new
Exposition of the Theory of Science_. The _Introductions_ are masterly
expositions. The practical philosophy was given in the _Grundlage des
Naturrechts_ (1796) and _System der Sittenlehre_ (1798). The last is
probably the most important of all Fichte's works; apart from it, his
theoretical philosophy is unintelligible.
During this period Fichte's academic career had been troubled by various
storms, the last so violent as to put a close to his professorate at
Jena. The first of them, a complaint against the delivery of his general
addresses on Sundays, was easily settled. The second, arising from
Fichte's strong desire to suppress the _Landsmannschaften_ (students'
orders), which were productive of much harm, was more serious. Some
misunderstanding caused an outburst of ignorant ill-feeling on the part
of the students, who proceeded to such lengths that Fichte was compelled
to reside out of Jena. The third storm, however, was the most violent.
In 1798 Fichte, who, with F.I. Niethammer (1766-1848), had edited the
_Philosophical Journal_ since 1795, received from his friend F.K.
Forberg (1770-1848) an essay on the "Development of the Idea of
Religion." With much of the essay he entirely agreed, but he thought the
exposition in so many ways defective and calculated to create an
erroneous impression, that he prefaced it with a short paper _On the
Grounds of our Belief in a Divine Government of the Universe_, in which
God is defined as the moral order of the universe, the eternal law of
right which is the foundation of all our being. The cry of atheism was
raised, and the electoral government of Saxony, followed by all the
German states except Prussia, suppressed the _Journal_ and confiscated
the copies found in their universities. Pressure was put by the German
powers on Charles Augustus, grand-duke of Saxe-Weimar, in whose
dominions Jena university was situated, to reprove and dismiss the
offenders. Fichte's defences (_Appellation an das Publicum gegen die
Anklage des Atheismus_, and _Gerichtliche Verantwortung der Herausgeber
der phil. Zeitschrift_, 1799), though masterly, did not make it easier
for the liberal-minded grand-duke to pass the matter over, and an
unfortunate letter, in which he threatened to resign in case of
reprimand, turned the scale against him. The grand-duke accepted his
threat as a request to resign, passed censure, and extended to him
permission to withdraw from his chair at Jena; nor would he alter his
decision, even though Fichte himself endeavoured to explain away the
unfortunate letter.
Berlin was the only town in Germany open to him. His residence there
from 1799 to 1806 was unbroken save for a course of lectures during the
summer of 1805 at Erlangen, where he had been named professor.
Surrounded by friends, including Schlegel and Schleiermacher, he
continued his literary work, perfecting the _Wissenschaftslehre_. The
most remarkable of the works from this period are--(1) the _Bestimmung
des Menschen_ (Vocation of Man, 1800), a book which, for beauty of
style, richness of content, and elevation of thought, may be ranked with
the Meditations of Descartes; (2) _Der geschlossene Handelsstaat_, 1800
(The Exclusive or Isolated Commercial State), a very remarkable
treatise, intensely socialist in tone, and inculcating organized
protection; (3) _Sonnenklarer Bericht an das grössere Publicum über die
neueste Philosophie_, 1801. In 1801 was also written the _Darstellung
der Wissenschaftslehre_, which was not published till after his death.
In 1804 a set of lectures on the _Wissenschaftslehre_ was given at
Berlin, the notes of which were published in the _Nachgelassene Werke_,
vol. ii. In 1804 were also delivered the noble lectures entitled
_Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters_ (Characteristics of the Present
Age, 1804), containing a most admirable analysis of the _Aufklärung_,
tracing the position of such a movement of thought in the natural
evolution of the general human consciousness, pointing out its inherent
defects, and indicating as the ultimate goal of progress the life of
reason in its highest aspect as a belief in the divine order of the
universe. The philosophy of history sketched in this work has something
of value with much that is fantastic. In 1805 and 1806 appeared the
_Wesen des Gelehrten_ (Nature of the Scholar) and the _Anweisung zum
seligen Leben oder Religionslehre_ (Way to a Blessed Life), the latter
the most important work of this Berlin period. In it the union between
the finite self-consciousness and the infinite ego or God is handled in
an almost mystical manner. The knowledge and love of God is the end of
life; by this means only can we attain blessedness (_Seligkeit_), for in
God alone have we a permanent, enduring object of desire. The infinite
God is the all; the world of independent objects is the result of
reflection or self-consciousness, by which the infinite unity is broken
up. God is thus over and above the distinction of subject and object;
our knowledge is but a reflex or picture of the infinite essence. Being
is not thought.
The disasters of Prussia in 1806 drove Fichte from Berlin. He retired
first to Stargard, then to Königsberg (where he lectured for a time),
then to Copenhagen, whence he returned to the capital in August 1807.
From this time his published writings are practical in character; not
till after the appearance of the _Nachgelassene Werke_ was it known in
what shape his final speculations had been thrown out. We may here note
the order of these posthumous writings as being of importance for
tracing the development of Fichte's thought. From the year 1806 we have
the remarkable _Bericht über die Wissenschaftslehre_ (_Werke_, vol.
viii.), with its sharp critique of Schelling; from 1810 we have the
_Thatsachen des Bewusstseyns_, published in 1817, of which another
treatment is given in lectures of 1813 (_Nachgel. Werke_, vol. i.). Of
the _Wissenschaftslehre_ we have, in 1812-1813, four separate treatments
contained in the _Nachgel Werke_. As these consist mainly of notes for
lectures, couched in uncouth phraseology, they cannot be held to throw
much light on Fichte's views. Perhaps the most interesting are the
lectures of 1812 on _Transcendental Logic_ (_Nach. Werke_, i. 106-400).
From 1812 we have notes of two courses on practical philosophy,
_Rechtslehre_ (_Nach. Werke_, vol. ii.) and _Sittenlehre_ (_ib._ vol.
iii.). A finished work in the same department is the _Staatslehre_,
published in 1820. This gives the Fichtean utopia organized on
principles of pure reason; in too many cases the proposals are identical
with principles of pure despotism.
During these years, however, Fichte was mainly occupied with public
affairs. In 1807 he drew up an elaborate and minute plan for the
proposed new university of Berlin. In 1507-1808 he delivered at Berlin,
amidst danger and discouragement, his noble addresses to the German
people (_Reden an die deutsche Nation_). Even if we think that in these
pure reason is sometimes overshadowed by patriotism, we cannot but
recognize the immense practical value of what he recommended as the only
true foundation for national prosperity.
In 1810 he was elected rector of the new university founded in the
previous year. This post he resigned in 1812, mainly on account of the
difficulties he experienced in his endeavour to reform the student life
of the university.
In 1813 began the great effort of Germany for national independence.
Debarred from taking an active part, Fichte made his contribution by way
of lectures. The addresses on the idea of a true war (_Über den Begriff
eines wahrhaften Kriegs_, forming part of the _Staatslehre_) contain a
very subtle contrast between the positions of France and Germany in the
war.
In the autumn of 1813 the hospitals of Berlin were filled with sick and
wounded from the campaign. Among the most devoted in her exertions was
Fichte's wife, who, in January 1814, was attacked with a virulent
hospital fever. On the day after she was pronounced out of danger Fichte
was struck down. He lingered for some days in an almost unconscious
state, and died on the 27th of January 1814.
The philosophy of Fichte, worked out in a series of writings, and
falling chronologically into two distinct periods, that of Jena and
that of Berlin, seemed in the course of its development to undergo a
change so fundamental that many critics have sharply separated and
opposed to one another an earlier and a later phase. The ground of the
modification, further, has been sought and apparently found in quite
external influences, principally that of Schelling's
_Naturphilosophie_, to some extent that of Schleiermacher. But as a
rule most of those who have adopted this view have done so without the
full and patient examination which the matter demands; they have been
misled by the difference in tone and style between the earlier and
later writings, and have concluded that underlying this was a
fundamental difference of philosophic conception. One only, Erdmann,
in his _Entwicklung d. deut. Spek. seit Kant_, § 29, seems to give
full references to justify his opinion, and even he, in his later
work, _Grundriss der Gesch. der Philos._ (ed. 3), § 311, admits that
the difference is much less than he had at the first imagined. He
certainly retains his former opinion, but mainly on the ground, in
itself intelligible and legitimate, that, so far as Fichte's
philosophical reputation and influence are concerned, attention may be
limited to the earlier doctrines of the _Wissenschaftslehre_. This may
be so, but it can be admitted neither that Fichte's views underwent
radical change, nor that the _Wissenschaftslehre_ was ever regarded as
in itself complete, nor that Fichte was unconscious of the apparent
difference between his earlier and later utterances. It is
demonstrable by various passages in the works and letters that he
never looked upon the _Wissenschaftslehre_ as containing the whole
system; it is clear from the chronology of his writings that the
modifications supposed to be due to other thinkers were from the first
implicit in his theory; and if one fairly traces the course of thought
in the early writings, one can see how he was inevitably led on to the
statement of the later and, at first sight, divergent views. On only
one point, the position assigned in the _Wissenschaftslehre_ to the
absolute ego, is there any obscurity; but the relative passages are
far from decisive, and from the early work, _Neue Darstellung der
Wissenchaftslehre_, unquestionably to be included in the Jena period,
one can see that from the outset the doctrine of the absolute ego was
held in a form differing only in statement from the later theory.
Fichte's system cannot be compressed with intelligibility. We shall
here note only three points:--(a) the origin in Kant; (b) the
fundamental principle and method of the _Wissenschaftslehre_; (c) the
connexion with the later writings. The most important works for (a)
are the "Review of Aenesidemus," and the _Second Introduction to the
Wissenschaftslehre_; for (b) the great treatises of the Jena period;
for (c) the _Thatsachen des Bewusstseyns_ of 1810.
(a) The Kantian system had for the first time opened up a truly
fruitful line of philosophic speculation, the transcendental
consideration of knowledge, or the analysis of the conditions under
which cognition is possible. To Kant the fundamental condition was
given in the synthetical unity of consciousness. The primitive fact
under which might be gathered the special conditions of that synthesis
which we call cognition was this unity. But by Kant there was no
attempt made to show that the said special conditions were necessary
from the very nature of consciousness itself. Their necessity was
discovered and proved in a manner which might be called empirical.
Moreover, while Kant in a quite similar manner pointed out that
intuition had special conditions, space and time, he did not show any
link of connexion between these and the primitive conditions of pure
cognition. Closely connected with this remarkable defect in the
Kantian view--lying, indeed, at the foundation of it--was the doctrine
that the matter of cognition is altogether _given_, or thrown into the
_form_ of cognition from without. So strongly was this doctrine
emphasized by Kant, that he seemed to refer the _matter_ of knowledge
to the action upon us of a non-ego or _Ding-an-sich_, absolutely
beyond consciousness. While these hints towards a completely
intelligible account of cognition were given by Kant, they were not
reduced to system, and from the way in which the elements of cognition
were related, could not be so reduced. Only in the sphere of practical
reason, where the intelligible nature prescribed to itself its own
laws, was there the possibility of systematic deduction from a single
principle.
The peculiar position in which Kant had left the theory of cognition
was assailed from many different sides and by many writers, specially
by Schultze (Aenesidemus) and Maimon. To the criticisms of the latter,
in particular, Fichte owed much, but his own activity went far beyond
what they supplied to him. To complete Kant's work, to demonstrate
that all the necessary conditions of knowledge can be deduced from a
single principle, and consequently to expound the complete system of
reason, that is the business of the _Wissenschaftslehre_. By it the
theoretical and practical reason shall be shown to coincide; for while
the categories of cognition and the whole system of pure thought can
be expounded from one principle, the ground of this principle is
scientifically, or to cognition, inexplicable, and is made conceivable
only in the practical philosophy. The ultimate basis for the activity
of cognition is given by the will. Even in the practical sphere,
however, Fichte found that the contradiction, insoluble to cognition,
was not completely suppressed, and he was thus driven to the higher
view, which is explicitly stated in the later writings though not, it
must be confessed, with the precision and scientific clearness of the
_Wissenschaftslehre_.
(b) What, then, is this single principle, and how does it work itself
out into system? To answer this one must bear in mind what Fichte
intended by designating all philosophy _Wissenschaftslehre_, or theory
of science. Philosophy is to him the rethinking of actual cognition,
the _theory_ of knowledge, the complete, systematic exposition of the
principles which lie at the basis of all reasoned cognition. It
traces the necessary acts by which the cognitive consciousness comes
to be what it is, both in form and in content. Not that it is a
natural history, or even a _phenomenology_ of consciousness; only in
the later writings did Fichte adopt even the genetic method of
exposition; it is the complete statement of the pure principles of the
understanding in their rational or necessary order. But if complete,
this _Wissenschaftslehre_ must be able to deduce the whole organism of
cognition from certain fundamental axioms, themselves unproved and
incapable of proof; only thus can we have a _system_ of reason. From
these primary axioms the whole body of necessary thoughts must be
developed, and, as Socrates would say, the argument itself will
indicate the path of the development.
Of such primitive principles, the absolutely necessary conditions of
possible cognition, only three are thinkable--one perfectly
unconditioned both in form and matter; a second, unconditioned in form
but not in matter; a third, unconditioned in matter but not in form.
Of these, evidently the first must be the fundamental; to some extent
it conditions the other two, though these cannot be deduced from it or
proved by it. The statement of these principles forms the introduction
to _Wissenschaftslehre_.
The method which Fichte first adopted for stating these axioms is not
calculated to throw full light upon them, and tends to exaggerate the
apparent airiness and unsubstantiality of his deduction. They may be
explained thus. The primitive condition of all intelligence is that
the ego shall posit, affirm or be aware of itself. The ego is the ego;
such is the first pure act of conscious intelligence, that by which
alone consciousness can come to be what it is. It is what Fichte
called a Deed-act (_Thathandlung_); we cannot be aware of the
process,--the ego _is_ not until it has affirmed itself,--but we are
aware of the result, and can see the necessity of the act by which it
is brought about. The ego then posits itself, as real. What the ego
posits is real. But in consciousness there is equally given a
primitive act of op-positing, or contra-positing, formally distinct
from the act of position, but materially determined, in so far as what
is op-posited must be the negative of that which was posited. The
non-ego--not, be it noticed, the world as we know it--is op-posed in
consciousness to the ego. The ego is not the non-ego. How this act of
op-positing is possible and necessary, only becomes clear in the
practical philosophy, and even there the inherent difficulty leads to
a higher view. But third, we have now an absolute antithesis to our
original thesis. Only the ego is real, but the non-ego is posited in
the ego. The contradiction is solved in a higher synthesis, which
takes up into itself the two opposites. The ego and non-ego _limit_
one another, or determine one another; and, as limitation is negation
of part of a divisible quantum, in this third act, the divisible ego
is op-posed to a divisible non-ego.
From this point onwards the course proceeds by the method already made
clear. We progress by making explicit the oppositions contained in the
fundamental synthesis, by uniting these opposites, analysing the new
synthesis, and so on, until we reach an ultimate pair. Now, in the
synthesis of the third act two principles may be distinguished:--(1)
the non-ego determines the ego; (2) the ego determines the non-ego. As
determined the ego is theoretical, as determining it is practical;
ultimately the opposed principles must be united by showing how the
ego is both determining and determined.
It is impossible to enter here on the steps by which the theoretical
ego is shown to develop into the complete system of cognitive
categories, or to trace the deduction of the processes (productive
imagination, intuition, sensation, understanding, judgment, reason) by
which the quite indefinite non-ego comes to assume the appearance of
definite objects in the forms of time and space. All this evolution is
the necessary consequence of the determination of the ego by the
non-ego. But it is clear that the non-ego cannot really determine the
ego. There is no reality beyond the ego itself. The contradiction can
only be suppressed if the ego itself opposes to itself the non-ego,
places it as an _Anstoss_ or plane on which its own activity breaks
and from which it is reflected. Now, this op-positing of the _Anstoss_
is the necessary condition of the practical ego, of the will. If the
ego be a striving power, then of necessity a limit must be set by
which its striving is manifest. But how can the infinitely active ego
posit a limit to its own activity? Here we come to the _crux_ of
Fichte's system, which is only partly cleared up in the _Rechtslehre_
and _Sittenlehre_. If the ego be pure activity, free activity, it can
only become aware of itself by positing some limit. We cannot possibly
have any cognition of how such an act is possible. But as it is a free
act, the ego cannot be determined to it by anything beyond itself; it
cannot be aware of its own freedom otherwise than as determined by
other free egos. Thus in the _Rechtslehre_ and _Sittenlehre_, the
multiplicity of egos is deduced, and with this deduction the first
form of the _Wissenschaftslehre_ appeared to end.
(c) But in fact deeper questions remained. We have spoken of the ego
as becoming aware of its own freedom, and have shown how the existence
of other egos and of a world in which these egos may act are the
necessary conditions of consciousness of freedom. But all this is the
work of the ego. All that has been expounded follows if the ego comes
to consciousness. We have therefore to consider that the absolute ego,
from which spring all the individual egos, is not subject to these
conditions, but freely determines itself to them. How is this
absolute ego to be conceived? As early as 1797 Fichte had begun to see
that the ultimate basis of his system was the absolute ego, in which
is no difference of subject and object; in 1800 the _Bestimmung des
Menschen_ defined this absolute ego as the infinite moral will of the
universe, God, in whom are all the individual egos, from whom they
have sprung. It lay in the nature of the thing that more precise
utterances should be given on this subject, and these we find in the
_Thatsachen des Bewusstseyns_ and in all the later lectures. God in
them is the absolute Life, the absolute One, who becomes conscious of
himself by self-diremption into the individual egos. The individual
ego is only possible as opposed to a non-ego, to a world of the
senses; thus God, the infinite will, manifests himself in the
individual, and the individual has over against him the non-ego or
thing. "The individuals do not make part of the being of the one life,
but are a pure form of its absolute freedom." "The individual is not
conscious of himself, but the Life is conscious of itself in
individual form and as an individual." In order that the Life may act,
though it is not necessary that it _should act_, individualization is
necessary. "Thus," says Fichte, "we reach a final conclusion.
Knowledge is not mere knowledge of itself, but of being, and of the
one being that truly is, viz. God.... This one possible object of
knowledge is never known in its purity, but ever broken into the
various forms of knowledge which are and can be shown to be necessary.
The demonstration of the necessity of these forms is philosophy or
_Wissenschaftslehre_" (_Thats. des Bewuss. Werke_, ii. 685). This
ultimate view is expressed throughout the lectures (in the _Nachgel.
Werke_) in uncouth and mystical language.
It will escape no one (1) how the idea and method of the
_Wissenschaftslehre_ prepare the way for the later Hegelian dialectic,
and (2) how completely the whole philosophy of Schopenhauer is
contained in the later writings of Fichte. It is not to the credit of
historians that Schopenhauer's debt should have been allowed to pass
with so little notice.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Fichte's complete works were published by his son J.H.
Fichte, _Sämmtliche Werke_ (8 vols., Berlin, 1845-1846), with
_Nachgelassene Werke_ (3 vols., Bonn, 1834-1835); also _Leben und
Briefwechsel_ (2 vols., 1830, ed. 1862). Among translations are those
of William Smith, _Popular Writings of Fichte, with Memoir_ (2 vols.,
London, 1848-1849, 4th ed. 1889); A.E. Kroeger, portions of the
_Wissenschaftslehre_ (_Science of Knowledge_, Philadelphia, 1868; ed.
London, 1889), the _Naturrecht_ (_Science of Rights_, 1870; ed.
London, 1889); of the _Vorlesungen ü. d. Bestimmung d. Gelehrten_
(_The Vocation of the Scholar_, by W. Smith, 1847); _Destination of
Man_, by Mrs P. Sinnett; _Discours à la nation allemande_, French by
Léon Philippe (1895), with preface by F. Picavet, and a biographical
memoir.
The number of critical works is very large. Besides the histories of
post-Kantian philosophy by Erdmann, Fortlage (whose account is
remarkably good), Michelet, Biedermann and others, see Wm. Busse,
_Fichte und seine Beziehung zur Gegenwart des deutschen Volkes_
(Halle, 1848-1849); J.H. Löwe, _Die Philosophic Fichtes_ (Stuttgart,
1862); Kuno Fischer, _Geschichte d. neueren Philosophie_ (1869, 1884,
1890); Ludwig Noack, _Fichte nach seinem Leben, Lehren und Wirken_
(Leipzig, 1862); R. Adamson, Fichte (1881, in Knight's "Philosophical
Classics"); Oscar Benzow, _Zu Fichtes Lekre von Nicht-Ich_ (Bern,
1898); E.O. Burmann, _Die Transcendentalphilosophie Fichtes und
Schellings_ (Upsala, 1890-1892); M. Carrière, _Fichtes
Geistesentwickelung in die Reden über d. Bestimmung des Gelehrten_
(1894); C.C. Everett, _Fichte's Science of Knowledge_ (Chicago, 1884);
O. Pfleiderer, J.G. _Fichtes Lebensbild eines deutschen Denkers und
Patrioten_ (Stuttgart, 1877); T. Wotschke, _Fichte und Erigena_
(1896); W. Kabitz, _Studien zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Fichtehen
Wissenschaftslehre aus der Kantischen Philosophie_ (1902); E. Lask,
_Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte_ (1902); X. Léon, _La Philos.
de Fichte_ (1902); M. Wiener, J.G. _Fichtes Lehre vom Wesen und Inhalt
der Geschichte_ (1906).
On Fichte's social philosophy see, e.g., F. Schmidt-Warneck, _Die
Sociologie Fichtes_ (Berlin, 1884); W. Windelband, _Fichtes Idee des
deutschen Staates_ (1890); M. Weber, _Fichtes Sozialismus und sein
Verhältnis zur Marx'schen Doctrin_ (1900); S.H. Gutman, J.G. _Fichtes
Sozialpädogogik_ (1907); H. Lindau, _Johann G. Fichte und der neuere
Socialismus_ (1900). (R. Ad.; X.)
FICHTELGEBIRGE, a mountain group of Bavaria, forming the centre from which
various mountain ranges proceed,--the Elstergebirge, linking it to the
Erzgebirge, in a N.E., the Frankenwald in a N.W., and the Böhmerwald in a
S.E. direction. The streams to which it gives rise flow towards the four
cardinal points,--e.g. the Eger eastward and the Saale northward, both to
the Elbe; the Weisser Main westward to the Rhine, and the Naab southward
to the Danube. The chief points of the mass are the Schneeberg and the
Ochsenkopf, the former having a height of 3448, and the latter of 3356 ft.
The whole district is pretty thickly populated, and there is great
abundance of wood, as well as of iron, vitriol, sulphur, copper, lead and
many kinds of marble. The inhabitants are employed chiefly in the iron
mines, at forges and blast furnaces, and in charcoal burning and the
manufacture of blacking from firewood. Although surrounded by railways and
crossed by the lines Nuremberg-Eger and Regensburg-Oberkotzau, the
Fichtelgebirge, owing principally to its raw climate and bleakness, is not
much visited by strangers, the only important points of interest being
Alexandersbad (a delightfully situated watering-place) and the granite
labyrinth of Luisenburg.
See A. Schmidt, _Führer durch das Fichtelgebirge_ (1899); Daniel,
_Deutschland_; and Meyer, _Conversations-Lexikon_ (1904).
FICINO, MARSILIO (1433-1499), Italian philosopher and writer, was born
at Figline, in the upper Arno valley, in the year 1433. His father, a
physician of some eminence, settled in Florence, and attached himself to
the person of Cosimo de' Medici. Here the young Marsilio received his
elementary education in grammar and Latin literature at the high school
or studio pubblico. While still a boy, he showed promise of rare
literary gifts, and distinguished himself by his facility in the
acquisition of knowledge. Not only literature, but the physical
sciences, as then taught, had a charm for him; and he is said to have
made considerable progress in medicine under the tuition of his father.
He was of a tranquil temperament, sensitive to music and poetry, and
debarred by weak health from joining in the more active pleasures of his
fellow-students. When he had attained the age of eighteen or nineteen
years, Cosimo received him into his household, and determined to make
use of his rare disposition for scholarship in the development of a
long-cherished project. During the session of the council for the union
of the Greek and Latin churches at Florence in 1439, Cosimo had made
acquaintance with Gemistos Plethon, the Neo-Platonic sage of Mistra,
whose discourses upon Plato and the Alexandrian mystics so fascinated
the learned society of Florence that they named him the second Plato. It
had been the dream of this man's whole life to supersede both forms of
Christianity by a semi-pagan theosophy deduced from the writings of the
later Pythagoreans and Platonists. When, therefore, he perceived the
impression he had made upon the first citizen of Florence, Gemistos
suggested that the capital of modern culture would be a fit place for
the resuscitation of the once so famous Academy of Athens. Cosimo took
this hint. The second half of the 15th century was destined to be the
age of academies in Italy, and the regnant passion for antiquity
satisfied itself with any imitation, however grotesque, of Greek or
Roman institutions. In order to found his new academy upon a firm basis
Cosimo resolved not only to assemble men of letters for the purpose of
Platonic disputation at certain regular intervals, but also to appoint a
hierophant and official expositor of Platonic doctrine. He hoped by
these means to give a certain stability to his projected institution,
and to avoid the superficiality of mere enthusiasm. The plan was good;
and with the rare instinct for character which distinguished him, he
made choice of the right man for his purpose in the young Marsilio.
Before he had begun to learn Greek, Marsilio entered upon the task of
studying and elucidating Plato. It is known that at this early period of
his life, while he was yet a novice, he wrote voluminous treatises on
the great philosopher, which he afterwards, however, gave to the flames.
In the year 1459 John Argyropoulos was lecturing on the Greek language
and literature at Florence, and Marsilio became his pupil. He was then
about twenty-three years of age. Seven years later he felt himself a
sufficiently ripe Greek scholar to begin the translation of Plato, by
which his name is famous in the history of scholarship, and which is
still the best translation of that author Italy can boast. The MSS. on
which he worked were supplied by this patron Cosimo de' Medici and by
Amerigo Benci. While the translation was still in progress Ficino from
time to time submitted its pages to the scholars, Angelo Poliziano,
Cristoforo Landino, Demetrios Chalchondylas and others; and since these
men were all members of the Platonic Academy, there can be no doubt that
the discussions raised upon the text and Latin version greatly served to
promote the purpose of Cosimo's foundation. At last the book appeared
in 1482, the expenses of the press being defrayed by the noble
Florentine, Filippo Valori. About the same time Marsilio completed and
published his treatise on the Platonic doctrine of immortality
(_Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae_), the work by which his
claims to take rank as a philosopher must be estimated. This was shortly
followed by the translation of Plotinus into Latin, and by a voluminous
commentary, the former finished in 1486, the latter in 1491, and both
published at the cost of Lorenzo de' Medici just one month after his
death. As a supplement to these labours in the field of Platonic and
Alexandrian philosophy, Marsilio next devoted his energies to the
translation of Dionysius the Areopagite, whose work on the celestial
hierarchy, though recognized as spurious by the Neapolitan humanist,
Lorenzo Valla, had supreme attraction for the mystic and uncritical
intellect of Ficino.
It is not easy to value the services of Marsilio Ficino at their proper
worth. As a philosopher, he can advance no claim to originality, his
laborious treatise on Platonic theology being little better than a mass
of ill-digested erudition. As a scholar, he failed to recognize the
distinctions between different periods of antiquity and various schools
of thought. As an exponent of Plato he suffered from the fatal error of
confounding Plato with the later Platonists. It is true that in this
respect he did not differ widely from the mass of his contemporaries.
Lorenzo Valla and Angelo Poliziano, almost alone among the scholars of
that age, showed a true critical perception. For the rest, it was enough
that an author should be ancient to secure their admiration. The whole
of antiquity seemed precious in the eyes of its discoverers; and even a
thinker so acute as Pico di Mirandola dreamed of the possibility of
extracting the essence of philosophical truth by indiscriminate
collation of the most divergent doctrines. Ficino was, moreover, a firm
believer in planetary influences. He could not separate his
philosophical from his astrological studies, and caught eagerly at any
fragment of antiquity which seemed to support his cherished delusions.
It may here be incidentally mentioned that this superstition brought him
into trouble with the Roman Church. In 1489 he was accused of magic
before Pope Innocent VIII., and had to secure the good offices of
Francesco Soderini, Ermolao Barbaro, and the archbishop Rinaldo Orsini,
in order to purge himself of a most perilous imputation. What Ficino
achieved of really solid, was his translation. The value of that work
cannot be denied; the impulse which it gave to Platonic studies in
Italy, and through them to the formation of the new philosophy in
Europe, is indisputable. Ficino differed from the majority of his
contemporaries in this that, while he felt the influence of antiquity no
less strongly than they did, he never lost his faith in Christianity, or
contaminated his morals by contact with paganism. For him, as for
Petrarch, St Augustine was the model of a Christian student. The
cardinal point of his doctrine was the identity of religion and
philosophy. He held that philosophy consists in the study of truth and
wisdom, and that God alone is truth and wisdom,--so that philosophy is
but religion, and true religion is genuine philosophy. Religion, indeed,
is common to all men, but its pure form is that revealed through Christ;
and the teaching of Christ is sufficient to a man in all circumstances
of life. Yet it cannot be expected that every man should accept the
faith without reasoning; and here Ficino found a place for Platonism. He
maintained that the Platonic doctrine was providentially made to
harmonize with Christianity, in order that by its means speculative
intellects might be led to Christ. The transition from this point of
view to an almost superstitious adoration of Plato was natural; and
Ficino, we know, joined in the hymns and celebrations with which the
Florentine Academy honoured their great master on the day of his birth
and death. Those famous festivals in which Lorenzo de' Medici delighted
had indeed a pagan tone appropriate to the sentiment of the Renaissance;
nor were all the worshippers of the Athenian sage so true to
Christianity as his devoted student.
Of Ficino's personal life there is but little to be said. In order that
he might have leisure for uninterrupted study, Cosimo de' Medici gave
him a house near S. Maria Nuova in Florence, and a little farm at
Montevecchio, not far from the villa of Careggi. Ficino, like nearly all
the scholars of that age in Italy, delighted in country life. At
Montevecchio he lived contentedly among his books, in the neighbourhood
of his two friends, Pico at Querceto, and Poliziano at Fiesole, cheering
his solitude by playing on the lute, and corresponding with the most
illustrious men of Italy. His letters, extending over the years
1474-1494, have been published, both separately and in his collected
works. From these it may be gathered that nearly every living scholar of
note was included in the list of his friends, and that the subjects
which interested him were by no means confined to his Platonic studies.
As instances of his close intimacy with illustrious Florentine families,
it may be mentioned that he held the young Francesco Guicciardini at the
font, and that he helped to cast the horoscope of the Casa Strozzi in
the Via Tornabuoni.
At the age of forty Ficino took orders, and was honoured with a canonry
of S. Lorenzo. He was henceforth assiduous in the performance of his
duties, preaching in his cure of Novoli, and also in the cathedral and
the church of the Angeli at Florence. He used to say that no man was
better than a good priest, and none worse than a bad one. His life
corresponded in all points to his principles. It was the life of a
sincere Christian and a real sage,--of one who found the best fruits of
philosophy in the practice of the Christian virtues. A more amiable and
a more harmless man never lived; and this was much in that age of
discordant passions and lawless licence. In spite of his weak health, he
was indefatigably industrious. His tastes were of the simplest; and
while scholars like Filelfo were intent on extracting money from their
patrons by flattery and threats, he remained so poor that he owed the
publication of all his many works to private munificence. For his old
patrons of the house of Medici Ficino always cherished sentiments of the
liveliest gratitude. Cosimo he called his second father, saying that
Ficino had given him life, but Cosimo new birth,--the one had devoted
him to Galen, the other to the divine Plato,--the one was physician of
the body, the other of the soul. With Lorenzo he lived on terms of
familiar, affectionate, almost parental intimacy. He had seen the young
prince grow up in the palace of the Via Larga, and had helped in the
development of his rare intellect. In later years he did not shrink from
uttering a word of warning and advice, when he thought that the master
of the Florentine republic was too much inclined to yield to pleasure. A
characteristic proof of his attachment to the house of Medici was
furnished by a yearly custom which he practised at his farm at
Montevecchio. He used to invite the contadini who had served Cosimo to a
banquet on the day of Saints Cosimo and Damiano (the patron saints of
the Medici), and entertained them with music and singing. This affection
was amply returned. Cosimo employed almost the last hours of his life in
listening to Ficino's reading of a treatise on the highest good; while
Lorenzo, in a poem on true happiness, described him as the mirror of the
world, the nursling of sacred muses, the harmonizer of wisdom and beauty
in complete accord. Ficino died at Florence in 1499.
Besides the works already noticed, Ficino composed a treatise on the
Christian religion, which was first given to the world in 1476, a
translation into Italian of Dante's _De monarchia_, a life of Plato, and
numerous essays on ethical and semi-philosophical subjects. Vigour of
reasoning and originality of view were not his characteristics as a
writer; nor will the student who has raked these dust-heaps of
miscellaneous learning and old-fashioned mysticism discover more than a
few sentences of genuine enthusiasm and simple-hearted aspiration to
repay his trouble and reward his patience. Only in familiar letters,
prolegomena, and prefaces do we find the man Ficino, and learn to know
his thoughts and sentiments unclouded by a mist of citations; these
minor compositions have therefore a certain permanent value, and will
continually be studied for the light they throw upon the learned circle
gathered round Lorenzo in the golden age of humanism.
The student may be referred for further information to the following
works:--_Marsilii Ficini opera_ (Basileae, 1576); _Marsilii Ficini
vita_, auctore Corsio (ed. Bandini, Pisa, 1771); Roscoe's _Life of
Lorenzo de' Medici_; Pasquale Villari, _La Storia di Girolamo
Savonarola_ (Firenze, Le Monnier, 1859); Von Reumont, _Lorenzo de'
Medici_ (Leipzig, 1874). (J. A. S.)
FICKSBURG, a town of Orange Free State 110 m. by rail E. by N. of
Bloemfontein. Pop. (1904) 1954, of whom 1021 were whites. The town is
situated near the north bank of the Caledon river and is the capital of
one of the finest agricultural and stock-raising regions of the
province. It has direct railway communication with Natal and an
extensive trade. In the neighbourhood are petroleum wells and a diamond
mine. In the fossilized ooze of the Wonderkop, a table mountain of the
adjacent Wittebergen, are quantities of petrified fish.
FICTIONS, or legal fictions, in law, the term used for false averments,
the truth of which is not permitted to be called in question. English
law as well as Roman law abounds in fictions. Sometimes they are merely
the condensed expression of a rule of law,--e.g., the fiction of English
law that husband and wife were one person, and the fiction of Roman law
that the wife was the daughter of the husband. Sometimes they must be
regarded as reasons invented in order to justify a rule of law according
to an implied ethical standard. Of this sort seems to be the fiction or
presumption that every one knows the law, which reconciles the rule that
ignorance is no excuse for crime with the moral commonplace that it is
unfair to punish a man for violating a law of whose existence he was
unaware. Again, some fictions are deliberate falsehoods, adopted as true
for the purpose of establishing a remedy not otherwise attainable. Of
this sort are the numerous fictions of English law by which the
different courts obtained jurisdiction in private business, removed
inconvenient restrictions in the law relating to land, &c.
What to the scientific jurist is a stumbling-block is to the older
writers on English law a beautiful device for reconciling the strict
letter of the law with common sense and justice. Blackstone, in noticing
the well-known fiction by which the court of king's bench established
its jurisdiction in common pleas (viz. that the defendant was in custody
of the marshal of the court), says, "These fictions of law, though at
first they may startle the student, he will find upon further
consideration to be highly beneficial and useful; especially as this
maxim is ever invariably observed, that no fiction shall extend to work
an injury; its proper operation being to prevent a mischief or remedy an
inconvenience that might result from the general rule of law. So true it
is that _in fictione juris semper subsistit aequitas_." Austin, on the
other hand, while correctly assigning as the cause of many fictions the
desire to combine the necessary reform with some show of respect for the
abrogated law, makes the following harsh criticism as to others:--"Why
the plain meanings which I have now stated should be obscured by the
fictions to which I have just adverted I cannot conjecture. A wish on
the part of the authors of the fictions to render the law as
_uncognoscible_ as may be is probably the cause which Mr Bentham would
assign. I judge not, I confess, so uncharitably; I rather impute such
fictions to the sheer imbecility (or, if you will, to the active and
sportive fancies) of their grave and venerable authors, than to any
deliberate design, good or evil." Bentham, of course, saw in fictions
the instrument by which the great object of his abhorrence, _judiciary
law_, was produced. It was the means by which judges usurped the
functions of legislators. "A fiction of law." he says, "may be defined
as a wilful falsehood, having for its object the stealing legislative
powers by and for hands which could not or durst not openly claim it,
and but for the delusion thus produced could not exercise it." A
partnership, he says, was formed between the kings and the judges
against the interests of the people. "Monarchs found force, lawyers
fraud; thus was the capital found" (_Historical Preface to the second
edition of the Fragment on Government_).[1]
Sir H. Maine (_Ancient Law_) supplies the historical element which is
always lacking in the explanations of Austin and Bentham. Fictions form
one of the agencies by which, in progressive societies, positive law is
brought into harmony with public opinion. The others are equity and
statutes. Fictions in this sense include, not merely the obvious
falsities of the English and Roman systems, but any assumption which
conceals a change of law by retaining the old formula after the change
has been made. It thus includes both the case law of the English and the
_Responsa Prudentum_ of the Romans. "At a particular stage of social
progress they are invaluable expedients for overcoming the rigidity of
law; and, indeed, without one of them, the fiction of adoption, which
permits the family tie to be artificially created, it is difficult to
understand how society would ever have escaped from its swaddling
clothes, and taken its first steps towards civilization."
The bolder remedial fictions of English law have been to a large extent
removed by legislation, and one great obstacle to any reconstruction of
the legal system has thus been partially removed. Where the real remedy
stood in glaring contrast to the nominal rule, it has been openly
ratified by statute. In ejectment cases the mysterious sham litigants
have disappeared. The bond of entail can be broken without having
recourse to the collusive proceedings of fine and recovery. Fictions
have been almost entirely banished from the procedure of the courts. The
action for damages on account of seduction, which is still nominally an
action by the father for loss of his daughter's services, is perhaps the
only fictitious action now remaining.
Fictions which appear in the form of principles are not so easily dealt
with by legislation. To expel them formally from the system would
require the re-enactment of vast portions of law. A change in legal
modes of speech and thought would be more effective. The legal mind
instinctively seizes upon concrete aids to abstract reasoning. Many hard
and revolting fictions must have begun their career as metaphors. In
some cases the history of the change may still almost be traced. The
conception that a man-of-war is a floating island, or that an
ambassador's house is beyond the territorial limits of the country in
which he resides, was originally a figure of speech designed to set a
rule of law in a striking light. It is then gravely accepted as true in
fact, and other rules of law are deduced from it. Its beginning is to be
compared with such phrases as "an Englishman's house is his castle,"
which have had no legal offshoots and still remain mere figures of
speech.
Constitutional law is of course honeycombed with fictions. Here there is
hardly ever anything like direct legislative change, and yet real change
is incessant. The rules defining the sovereign power and fixing the
authority of its various members are in most points the same as they
were at the last revolution,--in many points they have been the same
since the beginning of parliamentary government. But they have long
ceased to be true in fact; and it would hardly be too much to say that
the entire series of formal propositions called the constitution is
merely a series of fictions. The legal attributes of the king, and even
of the House of Lords, are fictions. If we could suppose that the
effects of the Reform Acts had been brought about, not by legislation,
but by the decisions of law courts and the practice of House of Commons
committees--by such assumptions as that freeholder includes lease-holder
and that ten means twenty--we should have in the legal constitution of
the House of Commons the same kind of fictions that we find in the legal
statement of the attributes of the crown and the House of Lords. Here,
too, fictions have been largely resorted to for the purpose of
supporting particular theories,--popular or monarchical,--and such have
flourished even more vigorously than purely legal fictions.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] In the same essay Bentham notices the comparative rarity of
fictions in Scots law. As to fiction in particular, compared with the
work done by it in English law, the use made of it by the Scottish
lawyers is next to nothing. No need have they had of any such clumsy
instrument. They have two others "of their own making, by which
things of the same sort have been done with much less trouble.
_Nobile officium_ gives them the creative power of legislation; this
and the word desuetude together the annihilative." And he notices
aptly enough that, while the English lawyers declared that James II.
had abdicated the throne (which everybody knew to be false), the
Scottish lawyers boldly said he had forfeited it.
FIDDES, RICHARD (1671-1725), English divine and historian, was born at
Hunmanby and educated at Oxford. He took orders, and obtained the living
of Halsham in Holderness in 1696. Owing to ill-health he applied for
leave to reside at Wickham, and in 1712 he removed to London on the plea
of poverty, intending to pursue a literary career. In London he met
Swift, who procured him a chaplaincy at Hull. He also became chaplain to
the earl of Oxford. After losing the Hull chaplaincy through a change of
ministry in 1714, he devoted himself to writing. His best book is a
_Life of Cardinal Wolsey_ (London, 1724), containing documents which are
still valuable for reference; of his other writings the _Prefatory
Epistle containing some remarks to be published on Homer's Iliad_
(London, 1714), was occasioned by Pope's proposed translation of the
_Iliad_, and his _Theologia speculativa_ (London, 1718), earned him the
degree of D.D. at Oxford. In his own day he had a considerable
reputation as an author and man of learning.
FIDDLE (O. Eng. _fithele_, _fidel_, &c., Fr. _vièle_, viole, _violon_;
M. H. Ger. _videle_, mod. Ger. _Fiedel_), a popular term for the violin,
derived from the names of certain of its ancestors. The word fiddle
antedates the appearance of the violin by several centuries, and in
England did not always represent an instrument of the same type. The
word has first been traced in 1205 in Layamon's _Brut_ (7002), "of
harpe, of salteriun, of fithele and of coriun." In Chaucer's time the
fiddle was evidently a well-known instrument:
"For him was lever have at his beddes hed
A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red.
Of Aristotle and his Philosophie,
Than robes riche or fidel or sautrie."
(_Prologue_, v. 298.)
The origin of the fiddle is of the greatest interest; it will be found
inseparable from that of the violin both as regards the instruments and
the etymology of the words; the remote common ancestor is the _ketharah_
of the Assyrians, the parent of the Greek cithara. The Romans are
responsible for the word fiddle, having bestowed upon a kind of
cithara--probably then in its first transition--the name of _fidiculae_
(more rarely _fidicula_), a diminutive form of _fides_. In Alain de
Lille's _De planctu naturae_ against the word _lira_ stands as
equivalent _vioel_, with the definition "Lira est quoddam genue citharae
vel fitola alioquin de reot. Hoc instrumentum est multum vulgare." This
is a marginal note in writing of the 13th century.[1]
Some of the transitions from _fidicula_ to fiddle are made evident in
the accompanying table:
Latin fidiculae
Medieval Latin vitula, fitola.
French vièle, vielle, viole.
Provencal viula.
Spanish viguela, vihuela, vigolo.
Old High German fidula.
Middle High German videle.
German fiedel, violine.
Italian viola, violino.
Dutch vedel.
Danish fiddel.
Anglo-Saxon fithele.
Old English fithele, fythal, fithel, fythylle, fidel fidylle,
(south) vithele.
For the descent of the guitar-fiddle, the first bowed ancestor of the
violin, through many transitions from the cithara, see CITHARA, GUITAR
and GUITAR-FIDDLE.
In the minnesinger and troubadour fiddles, of which evidences abound
during the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, are to be observed the
structural characteristics of the violin and its ancestors in the course
of evolution. The principal of these are first of all the shallow
sound-chest, composed of belly and back, almost flat, connected by ribs
(also present in the cithara), with incurvations more or less
pronounced, an arched bridge, a finger-board and strings (varying in
number), vibrated by means of a bow. The central rose sound-holes of
stringed instruments whose strings are plucked by fingers, or plectrum
have given place to smaller lateral sound-holes placed on each side of
the strings. It is in Germany,[2] where contemporary drawings of fiddles
of the 13th and 14th centuries furnish an authoritative clue, and in
France, that the development may best be followed. The German
minnesinger fiddle with sloping shoulders was the prototype of the
viols, whereas the guitar-fiddle produced the violin through the
intermediary of the Italian bowed _Lyra_.
[Illustration: From Julius Rühlmann's _Geschichte der Bogeninstrumente_.
Minnesinger Fiddle. Germany, 13th Century, from the Manesse MSS.]
The fiddle of the Carolingian epoch,--such, for instance, as that
mentioned by Otfrid of Weissenburg[3] in his _Harmony of the Gospels_
(c. 868),
"Sih thar ouch al ruarit
This organo fuarit
Lira joh fidula," &c.,--
was in all probability still an instrument whose strings were plucked by
the fingers, a cithara in transition. (K. S.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See C.E.H. de Coussemaker, Mémoire sur Hucbald (Paris, 1841).
[2] See the Manesse MSS. reproduced in part by F.H. von der Hagen,
_Heldenbilder_ (Leipzig and Berlin, 1855) and _Bildersaal_. The
fiddles are reproduced in J. Rühlmann's _Geschichte der
Bogeninstrumente_ (Brunswick, 1882), plates.
[3] See Schiller's _Thesaurus antiq. Teut._ vol. i. p. 379.
FIDENAE, an ancient town of Latium, situated about 5 m. N. of Rome on
the Via Salaria, which ran between it and the Tiber. It was for some
while the frontier of the Roman territory and was often in the hands of
Veii. It appears to have fallen under the Roman sway after the capture
of this town, and is spoken of by classical authors as a place almost
deserted in their time. It seems, however, to have had some importance
as a post station. The site of the _arx_ of the ancient town is probably
to be sought on the hill on which lies the Villa Spada, though no traces
of early buildings or defences are to be seen: pre-Roman tombs are to be
found in the cliffs to the north. The later village lay at the foot of
the hill on the eastern edge of the high-road, and its _curia_, with a
dedicatory inscription to M. Aurelius by the _Senatus Fidenatium_, was
excavated in 1889. Remains of other buildings may also be seen.
See T. Ashby in _Papers of the British School at Rome_, iii. 17.
FIDUCIARY (Lat. _fiduciaries_, one in whom trust, fiducia, is reposed),
of or belonging to a position of trust, especially of one who stands in
a particular relationship of confidence to another. Such relationships
are, in law, those of parent and child, guardian and ward, trustee and
_cestui que trust_, legal adviser and client, spiritual adviser, doctor
and patient, &c. In many of these the law has attached special
obligations in the case of gifts made to the "fiduciary," on whom is
laid the onus of proving that no "undue influence" has been exercised.
(See CONTRACT; CHILDREN, LAW RELATING TO; INFANT; TRUST.)
FIEF, a feudal estate in land, land held from a superior (see
FEUDALISM). The word is the French form, which is represented in
Medieval Latin as _feudum_ or _feodum_, and in English as "fee" or "feu"
(see FEE). The A. Fr. _feoffer_, to invest with a fief or fee, has given
the English law terms "feoffee" and "feoffment" (q.v.).
FIELD, CYRUS WEST (1819-1892), American capitalist, projector of the
first Atlantic cable, was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on the
30th of November 1819. He was a brother of David Dudley Field. At
fifteen he became a clerk in the store of A.T. Stewart & Co., of New
York, and stayed there three years; then worked for two years with his
brother, Matthew Dickinson Field, in a paper-mill at Lee, Massachusetts;
and in 1840 went into the paper business for himself at Westfield,
Massachusetts, but almost immediately became a partner in E. Root & Co.,
wholesale paper dealers in New York City, who failed in the following
year. Field soon afterwards formed with a brother-in-law the firm of
Cyrus W. Field & Co., and in 1853 had accumulated $250,000, paid off the
debts of the Root company and retired from active business, leaving his
name and $100,000 with the concern. In the same year he travelled with
Frederick E. Church, the artist, through South America. In 1854 he
became interested, through his brother Matthew, a civil engineer, in the
project of Frederick Newton Gisborne (1824-1892) for a telegraph across
Newfoundland; and he was attracted by the idea of a trans-Atlantic
telegraphic cable, as to which he consulted S.F.B. Morse and Matthew F.
Maury, head of the National Observatory at Washington. With Peter
Cooper, Moses Taylor (1806-1882), Marshall Owen Roberts (1814-1880) and
Chandler White, he formed the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph
Company, which procured a more favourable charter than Gisborne's, and
had a capital of $1,500,000. Having secured all the practicable landing
rights on the American side of the ocean, he and John W. Brett, who was
now his principal colleague, approached Sir Charles Bright (q.v.) in
London, and in December 1556 the Atlantic Telegraph Company was
organized by them in Great Britain, a government grant being secured of
£14,000 annually for government messages, to be reduced to £10,000
annually when the cable should pay a 6% yearly dividend; similar grants
were made by the United States government. Unsuccessful attempts to lay
the cable were made in August 1857 and in June 1858, but the complete
cable was laid between the 7th of July and the 5th of August 1858; for a
time messages were transmitted, but in October the cable became useless,
owing to the failure of its electrical insulation. Field, however, did
not abandon the enterprise, and finally in July 1866, after a futile
attempt in the previous year, a cable was laid and brought successfully
into use. From the Congress of the United States he received a gold
medal and a vote of thanks, and he received many other honours both at
home and abroad. In 1877 he bought a controlling interest in the New
York Elevated Railroad Company, controlling the Third and Ninth Avenue
lines, of which he was president in 1877-1880. He worked with Jay Gould
for the completion of the Wabash railway, and at the time of his
greatest stock activity bought _The New York Evening Express_ and _The
Mail_ and combined them as _The Mail and Express_, which he controlled
for six years. In 1879 Field suffered financially by Samuel J. Tilden's
heavy sales (during Field's absence in Europe) of "Elevated" stock,
which forced the price down from 200 to 164; but Field lost much more in
the great "Manhattan squeeze" of the 24th of June 1887, when Jay Gould
and Russell Sage, who had been supposed to be his backers in an attempt
to bring the Elevated stock to 200, forsook him, and the price fell from
156½ to 114 in half an hour. Field died in New York on the 12th of July
1892.
See the biography by his daughter, Isabella (Field) Judson, _Cyrus W.
Field, His Life and Work_ (New York, 1896); H.M. Field, _History of
the Atlantic Telegraph_ (New York, 1866); and Charles Bright, _The
Story of the Atlantic Cable_ (New York, 1903).
FIELD, DAVID DUDLEY (1805-1894), American lawyer and law reformer, was
born in Haddam, Connecticut, on the 13th of February 1805. He was the
oldest of the four sons of the Rev. David Dudley Field (1781-1867), a
well-known American clergyman and author. He graduated at Williams
College in 1825, and settled in New York City, where he studied law, was
admitted to the bar in 1828, and rapidly won a high position in his
profession. Becoming convinced that the common law in America, and
particularly in New York state, needed radical changes in respect to the
unification and simplification of its procedure, he visited Europe in
1836 and thoroughly investigated the courts, procedure and codes of
England, France and other countries, and then applied himself to the
task of bringing about in the United States a codification of the common
law procedure. For more than forty years every moment that he could
spare from his extensive practice was devoted to this end. He entered
upon his great work by a systematic publication of pamphlets and
articles in journals and magazines in behalf of his reform, but for some
years he met with a discouraging lack of interest. He appeared
personally before successive legislative committees, and in 1846
published a pamphlet, "The Reorganization of the Judiciary," which had
its influence in persuading the New York State Constitutional Convention
of that year to report in favour of a codification of the laws. Finally
in 1847 he was appointed as the head of a state commission to revise the
practice and procedure. The first part of the commission's work,
consisting of a code of civil procedure, was reported and enacted in
1848, and by the 1st of January 1850 the complete code of civil and
criminal procedure was completed, and was subsequently enacted by the
legislature. The basis of the new system, which was almost entirely
Field's work, was the abolition of the existing distinction in forms of
procedure between suits in law and equity requiring separate actions,
and their unification and simplification in a single action. Eventually
the civil code with some changes was adopted in twenty-four states, and
the criminal code in eighteen, and the whole formed a basis of the
reform in procedure in England and several of her colonies. In 1857
Field became chairman of a state commission for the reduction into a
written and systematic code of the whole body of law of the state,
excepting those portions already reported upon by the Commissioners of
Practice and Pleadings. In this work he personally prepared almost the
whole of the political and civil codes. The codification, which was
completed in February 1865, was adopted only in small part by the state,
but it has served as a model after which most of the law codes of the
United States have been constructed. In 1866 he proposed to the British
National Association for the Promotion of Social Science a revision and
codification of the laws of all nations. For an international commission
of lawyers he prepared _Draft Outlines of an International Code_ (1872),
the submission of which resulted in the organization of the
international Association for the Reform and Codification of the Laws of
Nations, of which he became president. In politics Field was originally
an anti-slavery Democrat, and he supported Van Buren in the Free Soil
campaign of 1848. He gave his support to the Republican party in 1856
and to the Lincoln administration throughout the Civil War. After 1876,
however, he returned to the Democratic party, and from January to March
1877 served out in Congress the unexpired term of Smith Ely, elected
mayor of New York City. During his brief Congressional career he
delivered six speeches, all of which attracted attention, introduced a
bill in regard to the presidential succession, and appeared before the
Electoral Commission in Tilden's interest. He died in New York City on
the 13th of April 1894.
Part of his numerous pamphlets and addresses were collected in his
_Speeches, Arguments and Miscellaneous Papers_ (3 vols., 1884-1890).
See also the _Life of David Dudley Field_ (New York, 1898), by Rev.
Henry Martyn Field.
FIELD, EUGENE (1850-1895), American poet, was born at St Louis,
Missouri, on the 2nd of September 1850. He spent his boyhood in Vermont
and Massachusetts; studied for short periods at Williams and Knox
Colleges and the University of Missouri, but without taking a degree;
and worked as a journalist on various papers, finally becoming connected
with the Chicago _News_. _A Little Book of Profitable Tales_ appeared in
Chicago in 1889 and in New York the next year; but Field's place in
later American literature chiefly depends upon his poems of
Christmas-time and childhood (of which "Little Boy Blue" and "A Dutch
Lullaby" are most widely known), because of their union of obvious
sentiment with fluent lyrical form. His principal collections of poems
are: _A Little Book of Western Verse_ (1889); _A Second Book of Verse_
(1892); _With Trumpet and Drum_ (1892); and _Love Songs of Childhood_
(1894). Field died at Chicago on the 4th of November 1895.
His works were collected in ten volumes (1896), at New York. His prose
_Love-affairs of a Bibliomaniac_ (1896) contains a Memoir by his
brother Roswell Martin Field (b. 1851). See also Slason Thompson,
_Eugene Field: a study in heredity and contradictions_ (2 vols., New
York, 1901).
FIELD, FREDERICK (1801-1885), English divine and biblical scholar, was
born in London and educated at Christ's hospital and Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship in 1824. He took orders in
1828, and began a close study of patristic theology. Eventually he
published an emended and annotated text of Chrysostom's _Homiliae in
Matthaeum_ (Cambridge, 1839), and some years later he contributed to
Pusey's _Bibliotheca Patrum_ (Oxford, 1838-1870), a similarly treated
text of Chrysostom's homilies on Paul's epistles. The scholarship
displayed in both of these critical editions is of a very high order. In
1839 he had accepted the living of Great Saxham, in Suffolk, and in 1842
he was presented by his college to the rectory of Reepham in Norfolk. He
resigned in 1863, and settled at Norwich, in order to devote his whole
time to study. Twelve years later he completed the _Origenis Hexaplorum
quae supersunt_ (Oxford, 1867-1875), now well known as _Field's
Hexapla_, a text reconstructed from the extant fragments of Origen's
work of that name, together with materials drawn from the
_Syro-hexaplar_ version and the _Septuagint_ of Holmes and Parsons
(Oxford, 1798-1827). Field was appointed a member of the Old Testament
revision company in 1870.
FIELD, HENRY MARTYN (1822-1907), American author and clergyman, brother
of Cyrus Field, was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on the 3rd of
April 1822; he graduated at Williams College in 1838, and was pastor of
a Presbyterian church in St Louis, Missouri, from 1842 to 1847, and of a
Congregational church in West Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1850 to
1854. The interval between his two pastorates he spent in Europe. From
1854 to 1898 he was editor and for many years he was also sole
proprietor of _The Evangelist_, a New York periodical devoted to the
interests of the Presbyterian church. He spent the last years of his
life in retirement at Stockbridge, Mass., where he died on the 26th of
January 1907. He was the author of a series of books of travel, which
achieved unusual popularity. His two volumes descriptive of a trip round
the world in 1875-1876, entitled _From the Lakes of Killarney to the
Golden Horn_ (1876) and _From Egypt to Japan_ (1877), are almost classic
in their way, and have passed through more than twenty editions. Among
his other publications are _The Irish Confederates and the Rebellion of
1798_ (1850), _The History of the Atlantic Telegraph_ (1866), _Faith or
Agnosticism? the Field-Ingersoll Discussion_ (1888), _Old Spain and New
Spain_ (1888), and _Life of David Dudley Field_ (1898).
He is not to be confused with another HENRY MARTYN FIELD, the
gynaecologist, who was born in 1837 at Brighton, Mass., and graduated at
Harvard in 1859 and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New
York City in 1862; he was professor of Materia Medica and therapeutics
at Dartmouth from 1871 to 1887 and of therapeutics from 1887 to 1893.
FIELD, JOHN (1782-1837), English musical composer and pianist, was born
at Dublin in 1782. He came of a musical family, his father being a
violinist, and his grandfather the organist in one of the churches of
Dublin. From the latter the boy received his first musical education.
When a few years later the family settled in London, Field became the
favourite pupil of the celebrated Clementi, whom he accompanied to
Paris, and later, in 1802, on his great concert tour through France,
Germany and Russia. Under the auspices of his master Field appeared in
public in most of the great European capitals, especially in St
Petersburg, and in that city he remained when Clementi returned to
England. During his stay with the great pianist Field had to suffer many
privations owing to Clementi's all but unexampled parsimony; but when
the latter left Russia his splendid connexion amongst the highest
circles of the capital became Field's inheritance. His marriage with a
French lady of the name of Charpentier was anything but happy, and had
soon to be dissolved. Field made frequent concert tours to the chief
cities of Russia, and in 1820 settled permanently in Moscow. In 1831 he
came to England for a short time, and for the next four years led a
migratory life in France, Germany and Italy, exciting the admiration of
amateurs wherever he appeared in public. In Naples he fell seriously
ill, and lay several months in the hospital, till a Russian family
discovered him and brought him back to Moscow. There he lingered for
several years till his death on the 11th of January 1837. Field's
training and the cast of his genius were not of a kind to enable him to
excel in the larger forms of instrumental music, and his seven concerti
for the pianoforte are now forgotten. Neither do his quartets for
strings and pianoforte hold their own by the side of those of the great
masters. But his "nocturnes," a form of music highly developed if not
actually created by him, remain all but unrivalled for their tenderness
and dreaminess of conception, combined with a continuous flow of
beautiful melody. They were indeed Chopin's models. Field's execution on
the pianoforte was nearly allied to the nature of his compositions,
beauty and poetical charm of touch being one of the chief
characteristics of his style. Moscheles, who heard Field in 1831, speaks
of his "enchanting legato, his tenderness and elegance and his beautiful
touch."
FIELD, MARSHALL (1835-1906), American merchant, was born at Conway,
Massachusetts, on the 18th of August 1835. Reared on a farm, he obtained
a common school and academy education, and at the age of seventeen
became a clerk in a dry goods store at Pittsfield, Mass. In 1856 he
removed to Chicago, where he became a clerk in the large mercantile
establishment of Cooley, Wadsworth & Company. In 1860 the firm was
reorganized as Cooley, Farwell & Company, and he was admitted to a
junior partnership. In 1865, with Potter Palmer (1826-1902) and Levi Z.
Leiter (1834-1904), he organized the firm of Field, Palmer & Leiter,
which subsequently became Field, Leiter & Company, and in 1881 on the
retirement of Leiter became Marshall Field & Company. Under Field's
management the annual business of the firm increased from $12,000,000 in
1871 to more than $40,000,000 in 1895, when it ranked as one of the two
or three largest mercantile establishments in the world. He died in New
York city on the 16th of January 1906. He had married, for the second
time, in the previous year. Field's public benefactions were numerous;
notable among them being his gift of land valued at $300,000 and of
$100,000 in cash to the University of Chicago, an endowment fund of
$1,000,000 to support the Field Columbian Museum at Chicago, and a
bequest of $8,000,000 to this museum.
FIELD, NATHAN (1587-1633), English dramatist and actor, was baptized on
the 17th of October 1587. His father, the rector of Cripplegate, was a
Puritan divine, author of a _Godly Exhortation_ directed against
play-acting, and his brother Theophilus became bishop of Hereford. Nat.
Field early became one of the children of Queen Elizabeth's chapel, and
in that capacity he played leading parts in Ben Jonson's _Cynthia's
Revels_ (in 1600), in the _Poetaster_ (in 1601), and in _Epicoene_ (in
1608), and the title rôle in Chapman's _Bussy d'Ambois_ (in 1606). Ben
Jonson was his dramatic model, and may have helped his career. The two
plays of which he was author were probably both written before 1611.
They are boisterous, but well-constructed comedies of contemporary
London life; the earlier one, _A Woman is a Weathercock_ (printed 1612),
dealing with the inconstancy of woman, while the second, _Amends for
Ladies_ (printed 1618), was written with the intention, as the title
indicates, of retracting the charge. From Henslowe's papers it appears
that Field collaborated with Robert Daborne and with Philip Massinger,
one letter from all three authors being a joint appeal for money to free
them from prison. In 1614 Field received £10 for playing before the king
in _Bartholomew Fair_, a play in which Jonson records his reputation as
an actor in the words "which is your Burbadge now?... Your best actor,
your Field?" He joined the King's Players some time before 1619, and his
name comes seventeenth on the list prefixed to the Shakespeare folio of
1623 of the "principal actors in all these plays." He retired from the
stage before 1625, and died on the 20th of February 1633. Field was part
author with Massinger in the _Fatal Dowry_ (printed 1632), and he
prefixed commendatory verses to Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_.
His two plays were reprinted in J.P. Collier's _Five Old Plays_
(1833), in Hazlitt's edition of _Dodsley's Old Plays_, and in _Nero
and other Plays_ (Mermaid series, 1888), with an introduction by Mr
A.W. Verity.
FIELD, STEPHEN JOHNSON (1816-1899), American jurist, was born at Haddam,
Connecticut, on the 4th of November 1816. He was the brother of David
Dudley Field, Cyrus W. Field and Henry M. Field. At the age of thirteen
he accompanied his sister Emilia and her husband the Rev. Josiah Brewer
(the parents of the distinguished judge of the Supreme Court, David J.
Brewer) to Smyrna, Turkey, for the purpose of studying Oriental
languages, but after three years he returned to the United States, and
in 1837 graduated at Williams College at the head of his class. He then
studied law in his elder brother's office, and in 1841 he was admitted
to the New York bar. He was associated in practice there with his
brother until 1848, and early in 1849 removed to California, settling
soon afterward at Marysville, of which place, in 1850, he became the
first alcalde or mayor. In the same year he was chosen a member of the
first state legislature of California, in which he drew up and secured
the enactment of two bodies of law known as the Civil and Criminal
Practices Acts, based on the similar codes prepared by his brother David
Dudley for New York. In the former act he embodied a provision
regulating and giving authority to the peculiar customs, usages, and
regulations voluntarily adopted by the miners in various districts of
the state for the adjudication of disputed mining claims. This, as Judge
Field truly says, "was the foundation of the jurisprudence respecting
mines in the country," having greatly influenced legislation upon this
subject in other states and in the Congress of the United States. He was
elected, in 1857, a justice of the California Supreme Court, of which he
became chief justice in 1859, on the resignation of Judge David S. Terry
to fight the duel with the United States senator David C. Broderick
which ended fatally for the latter. Field held this position until 1863,
when he was appointed by President Lincoln a justice of the United
States Supreme Court. In this capacity he was conspicuous for fearless
independence of thought and action in his opinion in the test oath case,
and in his dissenting opinions in the legal tender, conscription and
"slaughter house" cases, which displayed unusual legal learning, and
gave powerful expression to his strict constructionist theory of the
implied powers of the Federal constitution. Originally a Democrat, and
always a believer in states' rights, his strong Union sentiments caused
him nevertheless to accept Lincoln's doctrine of coercion, and that,
together with his anti-slavery sympathies, led him to act with the
Republican party during the period of the Civil War. He was a member of
the commission which revised the California code in 1873 and of the
Electoral Commission in 1877, voting in favour of Tilden. In 1880 he
received sixty-five votes on the first ballot for the presidential
nomination at the Democratic National Convention at Cincinnati. In
August 1889, as a result of a ruling in the course of the Sharon-Hill
litigation, a notorious conspiracy case, he was assaulted in a
California railway station by Judge David S. Terry, who in turn was shot
and killed by a United States deputy marshall appointed to defend
Justice Field against the carrying out of Terry's often-expressed
threats. He retired from the Supreme Court on the 1st of December 1897
after a service of thirty-four years and six months, the longest in the
court's history, and died in Washington on the 9th of April 1899.
His _Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California_, originally
privately printed in 1878, was republished in 1893 with George C.
Gorham's _Story of the Attempted Assassination of Justice Field_.
FIELD, WILLIAM VENTRIS FIELD, BARON (1813-1907), English judge, second
son of Thomas Flint Field, of Fielden, Bedfordshire, was born on the
21st of August 1813. He was educated at King's school, Bruton,
Somersetshire, and entered the legal profession as a solicitor. In 1843,
however, he ceased to practise as such, and entered at the Inner Temple,
being called to the bar in 1850, after having practised for some time as
a special pleader. He joined the Western circuit, but soon exchanged it
for the Midland. He obtained a large business as a junior, and became a
queen's counsel and bencher of his inn in 1864. As a Q.C. he had a very
extensive common law practice, and had for some time been the leader of
the Midland circuit, when in February 1875, on the retirement of Mr
Justice Keating, he was raised to the bench as a justice of the queen's
bench. Mr Justice Field was an excellent puisne judge of the type that
attracts but little public attention. He was a first-rate lawyer, had a
good knowledge of commercial matters, great shrewdness and a quick
intellect, while he was also painstaking and scrupulously fair. When the
rules of the Supreme Court 1883 came into force in the autumn of that
year, Mr Justice Field was so well recognized an authority upon all
questions of practice that the lord chancellor selected him to sit
continuously at Judges' Chambers, in order that a consistent practice
under the new rules might as far as possible be established. This he did
for nearly a year, and his name will always, to a large extent, be
associated with the settling of the details of the new procedure, which
finally did away with the former elaborate system of "special pleading."
In 1890 he retired from the bench and was raised to the peerage as Baron
Field of Bakeham, becoming at the same time a member of the privy
council. In the House of Lords he at first took part, not infrequently,
in the hearing of appeals, and notably delivered a carefully-reasoned
judgment in the case of the _Bank of England_ v. _Vagliano Brothers_
(5th of March 1891), in which, with Lord Bramwell, he differed from the
majority of his brother peers. Before long, however, deafness and
advancing years rendered his attendances less frequent. Lord Field died
at Bognor on the 23rd of January 1907, and as he left no issue the
peerage became extinct.
FIELD (a word common to many West German languages, cf. Ger. _Feld_,
Dutch _veld_, possibly cognate with O.E. _folde_, the earth, and
ultimately with root of the Gr. [Greek: platos], broad), open country as
opposed to woodland or to the town, and particularly land for
cultivation divided up into separate portions by hedges, banks, stone
walls, &c.; also used in combination with words denoting the crop grown
on such a portion of land, such as corn-field, turnip-field, &c. The
word is similarly applied to a region with particular reference to its
products, as oil-field, gold-field, &c. For the "open" or "common field"
system of agriculture in village communities see COMMONS. Generally with
a reference to their "wild" as opposed to their "domestic" nature
"field" is applied to many animals, such as the "field-mouse." There are
many applications of the word; thus from the use of the term for the
place where a battle is fought, and widely of the whole theatre of war,
come such phrases as to "take the field" for the opening of a campaign,
"in the field" of troops that are engaged in the operations of a
campaign. It is frequently used figuratively in this sense, of the
subject matter of a controversy, and also appears in military usage, in
field-fortification, field-day and the like. A "field-officer" is one
who ranks above a captain and below a general (see OFFICERS); a field
marshal is the highest rank of general officer in the British and many
European armies (see MARSHAL). "Field" is used in many games, partly
with the idea of an enclosed space, partly with the idea of the ground
of military operations, for the ground in which such games as cricket,
football, baseball and the like are played. Hence it is applied to those
players in cricket and baseball who are not "in," and "to field" is to
perform the functions of such a player--to stop or catch the ball played
by the "in" side. "The field" is used in hunting, &c., for those taking
part in the sport, and in racing for all the horses entered for a race,
and, in such expressions as "to back the field," is confined to all the
horses with the exception of the "favourite." A common application of
the word is to a surface, more or less wide, as of the sky or sea, or of
such physical phenomena as ice or snow, and particularly of the ground,
of a special "tincture," on which armorial bearings are displayed (see
HERALDRY); it is thus used also of the "ground" of a flag, thus the
white ensign of the British navy has a red St George's cross on a white
"field." In scientific usage the word is also used of the sphere of
observation or of operations, and has come to be almost equivalent to a
department of knowledge. In physics, a particular application is that to
the area which is influenced by some agent, as in the magnetic or
electric field. The field of observation or view is the area within
which objects can be seen through any optical instrument at any one
position. A "field-glass" is the name given to a binocular glass used in
the field (see BINOCULAR INSTRUMENT); the older form of field-glass was
a small achromatic telescope with joints. This terms is also applied, in
an astronomical telescope or compound microscope, to that one of the
two lenses of the "eye-piece" which is next to the object-glass; the
other is called the "eye-glass."
FIELDFARE (O.E. _fealo-for_ = fallow-farer), a large species of thrush,
the _Turdus pilaris_ of Linnaeus--well known as a regular and common
autumnal visitor throughout the British Islands and a great part of
Europe, besides western Asia, and even reaching northern Africa. It is
the _Veldjakker_ and _Veld-lyster_ of the Dutch, the _Wachholderdrossel_
and _Kramtsvogel_ of Germans, the _Litorne_ of the French, and the
_Cesena_ of Italians. This bird is of all thrushes the most gregarious
in. habit, not only migrating in large bands and keeping in flocks
during the winter, but even commonly breeding in society--200 nests or
more having been seen within a very small space. The birch-forests of
Norway, Sweden and Russia are its chief resorts in summer, but it is
known also to breed sparingly in some districts of Germany. Though its
nest has been many times reported to have been found in Scotland, there
is perhaps no record of such an incident that is not open to doubt; and
unquestionably the missel-thrush (_T. viscivorus_) has been often
mistaken for the fieldfare by indifferent observers. The head, neck,
upper part of the back and the rump are grey; the wings, wing-coverts
and middle of the back are rich hazel-brown; the throat is ochraceous;
and the breast reddish-brown--both being streaked or spotted with black,
while the belly and lower wing-coverts are white, and the legs and toes
very dark-brown. The nest and eggs resemble those of the blackbird (_T.
merula_), but the former is usually built high up in a tree. The
fieldfare's call-note is harsh and loud, sounding like _t'chatt'chat_:
its song is low, twittering and poor. It usually arrives in Britain
about the middle or end of October, but sometimes earlier, and often
remains till the middle of May before departing for its northern
breeding-places. In hard weather it throngs to the berry-bearing bushes
which then afford it sustenance, but in open winters the flocks spread
over the fields in search of animal food--worms, slugs and the larvae of
insects. In very severe seasons it will altogether leave the country,
and then return for a shorter or longer time as spring approaches. From
_William of Palerne_ (translated from the French c. 1350) to the writers
of our own day the fieldfare has occasionally been noticed by British
poets with varying propriety. Thus Chaucer's association Of its name
with frost is as happy as true, while Scott was more than unlucky in his
well-known reference to its "lowly nest" in the Highlands.
Structurally very like the fieldfare, but differing greatly in many
other respects, is the bird known in North America as the "robin"--its
ruddy breast and familiar habits reminding the early British settlers in
the New World of the household favourite of their former homes. This
bird, the _Turdus migratorius_ of Linnaeus, has a wide geographical
range, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Greenland to
Guatemala, and, except at its extreme limits, is almost everywhere a
very abundant species. As its scientific name imports, it is essentially
a migrant, and gathers in flocks to pass the winter in the south, though
a few remain in New England throughout the year. Yet its social
instincts point rather in the direction of man than of its own kind, and
it is not known to breed in companies, while it affects the homesteads,
villages and even the parks and gardens of the large cities, where its
fine song, its attractive plumage, and its great services as a destroyer
of noxious insects, combine to make it justly popular. (A. N.)
FIELDING, ANTHONY VANDYKE COPLEY (1787-1855), commonly called Copley
Fielding, English landscape painter (son of a portrait painter), became
at an early age a pupil of John Varley. He took to water-colour
painting, and to this he confined himself almost exclusively. In 1810 he
became an associate exhibitor in the Water-colour Society, in 1813 a
full member, and in 1831 president of that body. He also engaged largely
in teaching the art, and made ample profits. His death took place at
Worthing in March 1855. Copley Fielding was a painter of much elegance,
taste and accomplishment, and has always been highly popular with
purchasers, without reaching very high in originality of purpose or of
style: he painted in vast number all sorts of views (occasionally in
oil-colour) including marine subjects in large proportion. Specimens of
his work are to be seen in the water-colour gallery of the Victoria and
Albert Museum, of dates ranging from 1829 to 1850. Among the engraved
specimens of his art is the _Annual of British Landscape Scenery_,
published in 1839. (W. M. R.)
FIELDING, HENRY (1707-1754), English novelist and playwright, was born
at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, Somerset, on the 22nd of April 1707.
His father was Lieutenant Edmund Fielding, third son of John Fielding,
who was canon of Salisbury and fifth son of the earl of Desmond. The
earl of Desmond belonged to the younger branch of the Denbigh family,
who, until lately, were supposed to be connected with the Habsburgs. To
this claim, now discredited by the researches of Mr J. Horace Round
(_Studies in Peerage_, 1901, pp. 216-249), is to be attributed the
famous passage in Gibbon's _Autobiography_ which predicts for _Tom
Jones_--"that exquisite picture of human manners"--a diuturnity
exceeding that of the house of Austria. Henry Fielding's mother was
Sarah Gould, daughter of Sir Henry Gould, a judge of the king's bench.
It is probable that the marriage was not approved by her father, since,
though she remained at Sharpham Park for some time after that event, his
will provided that her husband should have nothing to do with a legacy
of £3000 left her in 1710. About this date the Fieldings moved to East
Stour in Dorset. Two girls, Catherine and Ursula, had apparently been
born at Sharpham Park; and three more, together with a son, Edmund,
followed at East Stour. Sarah, the third of the daughters, born November
1710, and afterwards the author of _David Simple_ and other works,
survived her brother.
Fielding's education up to his mother's death, which took place in April
1718 at East Stour, seems to have been entrusted to a neighbouring
clergyman, Mr Oliver of Motcombe, in whom tradition traces the uncouth
lineaments of "Parson Trulliber" in _Joseph Andrews_. But he must have
contrived, nevertheless, to prepare his pupil for Eton, to which place
Fielding went about this date, probably as an oppidan. Little is known
of his schooldays. There is no record of his name in the college lists;
but, if we may believe his first biographer, Arthur Murphy, by no means
an unimpeachable authority, he left "uncommonly versed in the Greek
authors, and an early master of the Latin classics,"--a statement which
should perhaps be qualified by his own words to Sir Robert Walpole in
1730:--
"Tuscan and French are in my head;
Latin I write, and Greek--I read."
But he certainly made friends among his class-fellows--some of whom
continued friends for life. Winnington and Hanbury-Williams were among
these. The chief, however, and the most faithful, was George, afterwards
Sir George, and later Baron Lyttelton of Frankley.
When Fielding left Eton is unknown. But in November 1725 we hear of him
definitely in what seems like a characteristic escapade. He was staying
at Lyme (in company with a trusty retainer, ready to "beat, maim or
kill" in his young master's behalf), and apparently bent on carrying
off, if necessary by force, a local heiress, Miss Sarah Andrew, whose
fluttered guardians promptly hurried her away, and married her to some
one else (_Athenaeum_, 2nd June 1883). Her baffled admirer consoled
himself by translating part of Juvenal's sixth satire into verse as "all
the Revenge taken by an injured Lover." After this he must have lived
the usual life of a young man about town, and probably at this date
improved the acquaintance of his second cousin, Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, to whom he inscribed his first comedy, _Love in Several
Masques_, produced at Drury Lane in February 1728. The moment was not
particularly favourable, since it succeeded Cibber's _Provok'd Husband_,
and was contemporary with Gay's popular _Beggar's Opera_. Almost
immediately afterwards (March 16th) Fielding entered himself as "Stud.
Lit." at Leiden University. He was still there in February 1729. But he
had apparently left before the annual registration of February 1730,
when his name is absent from the books (_Macmillan's Magazine_, April
1907); and in January 1730 he brought out a second comedy at the
newly-opened theatre in Goodman's Fields. Like its predecessor, the
_Temple Beau_ was an essay in the vein of Congreve and Wycherley,
though, in a measure, an advance on _Love in Several Masques_.
With the _Temple Beau_ Fielding's dramatic career definitely begins. His
father had married again; and his Leiden career had been interrupted for
lack of funds. Nominally, he was entitled to an allowance of £200 a
year; but this (he was accustomed to say) "any body might pay that
would." Young, handsome, ardent and fond of pleasure, he began that
career as a hand-to-mouth playwright around which so much legend has
gathered--and gathers. Having--in his own words--no choice but to be a
hackney coachman or a hackney writer, he chose the pen; and his
inclinations, as well as his opportunities, led him to the stage. From
1730 to 1736 he rapidly brought out a large number of pieces, most of
which had merit enough to secure their being acted, but not sufficient
to earn a lasting reputation for their author. His chief successes, from
a critical point of view, the _Author's Farce_ (1730) and _Tom Thumb_
(1730, 1731), were burlesques; and he also was fortunate in two
translations from Molière, the _Mock Doctor_ (1732) and the _Miser_
(1733). Of the rest (with one or two exceptions, to be mentioned
presently) the names need only be recorded. They are _The Coffee-House
Politician_, a comedy (1730); _The Letter Writers_, a farce (1731); _The
Grub-Street Opera_, a burlesque (1731); _The Lottery_, a farce (1732);
_The Modern Husband_, a comedy (1732); _The Covent Garden Tragedy_, a
burlesque (1732); _The Old Debauchees_, a comedy (1732); _Deborah; or, a
Wife for you all_, an after-piece (1733); _The Intriguing Chambermaid_
(from Regnard), a two-act comedy (1734); and _Don Quixote in England_, a
comedy, which had been partly sketched at Leiden.
_Don Quixote_ was produced in 1734, and the list of plays may be here
interrupted by an event of which the date has only recently been
ascertained, namely, Fielding's first marriage. This took place on the
28th of November 1734 at St Mary, Charlcornbe, near Bath (_Macmillan's
Magazine_, April 1907), the lady being a Salisbury beauty, Miss
Charlotte Cradock, of whom he had been an admirer, if not a suitor, as
far back as 1730. This is a fact which should be taken into
consideration in estimating the exact Bohemianism of his London life,
for there is no doubt that he was devotedly attached to her. After a
fresh farce entitled _An Old Man taught Wisdom_, and the comparative
failure of a new comedy, _The Universal Gallant_, both produced early in
1735, he seems for a time to have retired with his bride, who came into
£1500, to his old home at East Stour. Around this rural seclusion
fiction has freely accreted. He is supposed to have lived for three
years on the footing of a typical 18th-century country gentleman; to
have kept a pack of hounds; to have put his servants into impossible
yellow liveries; and generally, by profuse hospitality and reckless
expenditure, to have made rapid duck and drake of Mrs Fielding's modest
legacy. Something of this is demonstrably false; much, grossly
exaggerated. In any case, he was in London as late as February 1735 (the
date of the "Preface" to _The Universal Gallant_); and early in March
1736 he was back again managing the Haymarket theatre with a so-called
"_Great Mogul's_ Company of _English_ Comedians."
Upon this new enterprise fortune, at the outset, seemed to smile. The
first piece (produced on the 5th of March) was _Pasquin, a Dramatick
Satire on the Times_ (a piece akin in its plan to Buckingham's
_Rehearsal_), which contained, in addition to much admirable burlesque,
a good deal of very direct criticism of the shameless political
corruption of the Walpole era. Its success was unmistakable; and when,
after bringing out the remarkable _Fatal Curiosity_ of George Lillo, its
author followed up _Pasquin_ by the _Historical Register for the Year
1736_, of which the effrontery was even more daring than that of its
predecessor, the ministry began to bethink themselves that matters were
going too far. How they actually effected their object is obscure: but
grounds were speedily concocted for the Licensing Act of 1737, which
restricted the number of theatres, rendered the lord chamberlain's
licence an indispensable preliminary to stage representation, and--in a
word--effectually put an end to Fielding's career as a dramatist.
Whether, had that career been prolonged to its maturity, the result
would have enriched the theatrical repertoire with a new species of
burlesque, or reinforced it with fresh variations on the "wit-traps" of
Wycherley and Congreve, is one of those inquiries that are more academic
than, profitable. What may be affirmed is, that Fielding's plays, as we
have them, exhibit abundant invention and ingenuity; that they are full
of humour and high spirits; that, though they may have been hastily
written, they were by no means thoughtlessly constructed; and that, in
composing them, their author attentively considered either managerial
hints, or the conditions of the market. Against this, one must set the
fact that they are often immodest; and that, whatever their intrinsic
merit, they have failed to rival in permanent popularity the work of
inferior men. Fielding's own conclusion was, "that he left off writing
for the stage, when he ought to have begun"--which can only mean that he
himself regarded his plays as the outcome of imitation rather than
experience. They probably taught him how to construct _Tom Jones_; but
whether he could ever have written a comedy at the level of that novel,
can only be established by a comparison which it is impossible to make,
namely, a comparison with _Tom Jones_ of a comedy written at the same
age, and in similar circumstances.
_Tumble-Down Dick; or, Phaeton in the Suds_, _Eurydice_ and _Eurydice
hissed_ are the names of three occasional pieces which belong to the
last months of Fielding's career as a Haymarket manager. By this date he
was thirty, with a wife and daughter. As a means of support, he reverted
to the profession of his maternal grandfather; and, in November 1737, he
entered the Middle Temple, being described in the books of the society
as "of East Stour in Dorset." That he set himself strenuously to master
his new profession, is admitted; though it is unlikely that he had
entirely discarded the irregular habits which had grown upon him in his
irresponsible bachelorhood. He also did a good deal of literary work,
the best known of which is contained in the _Champion_, a "News-Journal"
of the _Spectator_ type undertaken with James Ralph, whose poem of
"Night" is made notorious in the _Dunciad_. That the _Champion_ was not
without merit is undoubted; but the essay-type was for the moment
out-worn, and neither Fielding nor his coadjutor could lend it fresh
vitality. Fielding contributed papers from the 15th of November 1739 to
the 19th of June 1740. On the 20th of June he was called to the bar, and
occupied chambers in Pump Court. It is further related that, in the
diligent pursuit of his calling, he travelled the Western Circuit, and
attended the Wiltshire sessions.
Although, with the _Champion_, he professed, for the time, to have
relinquished periodical literature, he still wrote at intervals, a fact
which, taken in connexion with his past reputation as an effective
satirist, probably led to his being "unjustly censured" for much that he
never produced. But he certainly wrote a poem "Of True Greatness"
(1741); a first book of a burlesque epic, the _Vernoniad_, prompted by
Vernon's expedition of 1739; a vision called the _Opposition_, and,
perhaps, a political sermon entitled the _Crisis_ (1741). Another piece,
now known to have been attributed to him by his contemporaries (_Hist.
MSS. Comm., Rept._ 12, App. Pt. ix., p. 204), is the pamphlet entitled
_An Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews_, a clever but coarse
attack upon the prurient side of Richardson's _Pamela_, which had been
issued in 1740, and was at the height of its popularity. _Shamela_
followed early in 1741. Richardson, who was well acquainted with
Fielding's four sisters, at that date his neighbours at Hammersmith,
confidently attributed it to Fielding (_Corr._ 1804, iv. 286, and
unpublished letter at South Kensington); and there are suggestive points
of internal evidence (such as the transformation of _Pamela's_ "MR B."
into "Mr Booby") which tend to connect it with the future _Joseph
Andrews_. Fielding, however, never acknowledged it, or referred to it;
and a great deal has been laid to his charge that he never deserved
("Preface" to _Miscellanies_, 1743).
But whatever may be decided in regard to the authorship of _Shamela_, it
is quite possible that it prompted the more memorable _Joseph Andrews_,
which made its appearance in February 1742, and concerning which there
is no question. Professing, on his title-page, to imitate Cervantes,
Fielding set out to cover _Pamela_ with Homeric ridicule by transferring
the heroine's embarrassments to a hero, supposed to be her brother.
Allied to this purpose was a collateral attack upon the slipshod
_Apology_ of the playwright Colley Cibber, with whom, for obscure
reasons, Fielding had long been at war. But the avowed object of the
book fell speedily into the background as its author warmed to his
theme. His secondary speedily became his primary characters, and Lady
Booby and Joseph Andrews do not interest us now as much as Mrs Slipslop
and Parson Adams--the latter an invention that ranges in literature with
Sterne's "Uncle Toby" and Goldsmith's "Vicar." Yet more than these and
others equally admirable in their round veracity, is the writer's
penetrating outlook upon the frailties and failures of human nature. By
the time he had reached his second volume, he had convinced himself that
he had inaugurated a new fashion of fiction; and in a "Preface" of
exceptional ability, he announced his discovery. Postulating that the
epic might be "comic" or "tragic," prose or verse, he claimed to have
achieved what he termed the "Comic Epos in Prose," of which the action
was "ludicrous" rather than "sublime," and the personages selected from
society at large, rather than the restricted ranks of conventional high
life. His plan, it will be observed, was happily adapted to his gifts of
humour, satire, and above all, irony. That it was matured when it began
may perhaps be doubted, but it was certainly matured when it ended.
Indeed, except for the plot, which, in his picaresque first idea, had
not preceded the conception, _Joseph Andrews_ has all the
characteristics of _Tom Jones_, even (in part) to the initial chapters.
_Joseph Andrews_ had considerable success, and the exact sum paid for it
by Andrew Millar, the publisher, according to the assignment now at
South Kensington, was £183:11s., one of the witnesses being the author's
friend, William Young, popularly supposed to be the original of Parson
Adams. It was with Young that Fielding undertook what, with exception of
"a very small share" in the farce of _Miss Lucy in Town_ (1742),
constituted his next work, a translation of the _Plutus_ of
Aristophanes, which never seems to have justified any similar
experiments. Another of his minor works was a _Vindication of the
Dowager Duchess of Marlborough_ (1742), then much before the public by
reason of the _Account of her Life_ which she had recently put forth.
Later in the same year, Garrick applied to Fielding for a play; and a
very early effort, _The Wedding Day_, was hastily patched together, and
produced at Drury Lane in February 1743 with no great success. It was,
however, included in Fielding's next important publication, the three
volumes of _Miscellanies_ issued by subscription in the succeeding
April. These also comprised some early poems, some essays, a Lucianic
fragment entitled a _Journey from this World to the Next_, and, last but
not least, occupying the entire final volume, the remarkable performance
entitled the _History of the Life of the late Mr Jonathan Wild the
Great_.
It is probable that, in its composition, _Jonathan Wild_ preceded
_Joseph Andrews_. At all events it seems unlikely that Fielding would
have followed up a success in a new line by an effort so entirely
different in character. Taking for his ostensible hero a well-known
thief-taker, who had been hanged in 1725, he proceeds to illustrate, by
a mock-heroic account of his progress to Tyburn, the general proposition
that greatness without goodness is no better than badness. He will not
go so far as to say that all "Human Nature is Newgate with the Mask on";
but he evidently regards the description as fairly applicable to a good
many so-called great people. Irony (and especially Irony neat) is not a
popular form of rhetoric; and the remorseless pertinacity with which
Fielding pursues his demonstration is to many readers discomforting and
even distasteful. Yet--in spite of Scott--_Jonathan Wild_ has its softer
pages; and as a purely intellectual conception it is not surpassed by
any of the author's works.
His actual biography, both before and after _Jonathan Wild_, is
obscure. There are evidences that he laboured diligently at his
profession; there are also evidences of sickness and embarrassment. He
had become early a martyr to the malady of his century--gout, and the
uncertainties of a precarious livelihood told grievously upon his
beautiful wife, who eventually died of fever in his arms, leaving him
for the time so stunned and bewildered by grief that his friends feared
for his reason. For some years his published productions were
unimportant. He wrote "Prefaces" to the _David Simple_ of his sister
Sarah in 1744 and 1747; and, in 1745-1746 and 1747-1748, produced two
newspapers in the ministerial interest, the _True Patriot_ and the
_Jacobite's Journal_, both of which are connected with, or derive from,
the rebellion of 1745, and were doubtless, when they ceased, the pretext
of a pension from the public service money (_Journal of a Voyage to
Lisbon_, "Introduction"). In November 1747 he married his wife's maid,
Mary Daniel, at St Bene't's, Paul's Wharf; and in December 1748, by the
interest of his old school-fellow, Lyttelton, he was made a principal
justice of peace for Middlesex and Westminster, an office which put him
in possession of a house in Bow Street, and £300 per annum "of the
dirtiest money upon earth" (_ibid._), which might have been more had he
condescended to become what was known as a "trading" magistrate.
For some time previously, while at Bath, Salisbury, Twickenham and other
temporary resting-places, he had intermittently occupied himself in
composing his second great novel, _Tom Jones; or, the History of a
Foundling_. For this, in June 1748, Millar had paid him £600, to which
he added £100 more in 1749. In the February of the latter year it was
published with a dedication to Lyttelton, to whose pecuniary assistance
to the author during the composition it plainly bears witness. In _Tom
Jones_ Fielding systematically developed the "new Province of Writing"
he had discovered incidentally in _Joseph Andrews_. He paid closer
attention to the construction and evolution of the plot; he elaborated
the initial essays to each book which he had partly employed before, and
he compressed into his work the flower and fruit of his forty years'
experience of life. He has, indeed, no character quite up to the level
of Parson Adams, but his Westerns and Partridges, his Allworthys and
Blifils, have the inestimable gift of life. He makes no pretence to
produce "models of perfection," but pictures of ordinary humanity,
rather perhaps in the rough than the polished, the natural than the
artificial, and his desire is to do this with absolute truthfulness,
neither extenuating nor disguising defects and shortcomings. One of the
results of this unvarnished naturalism has been to attract more
attention to certain of the episodes than their inventor ever intended.
But that, in the manners of his time, he had chapter and verse for
everything he drew is clear. His sincere purpose was, he declared, "to
recommend goodness and innocence," and his obvious aversions are vanity
and hypocrisy. The methods of fiction have grown more sophisticated
since his day, and other forms of literary egotism have taken the place
of his once famous introductory essays, but the traces of _Tom Jones_
are still discernible in most of our manlier modern fiction.
Meanwhile, its author was showing considerable activity in his
magisterial duties. In May 1749, he was chosen chairman of quarter
sessions for Westminster; and in June he delivered himself of a weighty
charge to the grand jury. Besides other pamphlets, he produced a careful
and still readable _Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of
Robbers_, &c. (1751), which, among its other merits, was not ineffectual
in helping on the famous Gin Act of that year, a practical result to
which the "Gin Lane" and "Beer Street" of his friend Hogarth also
materially contributed. These duties and preoccupations left their mark
on his next fiction, _Amelia_ (1752), which is rather more taken up with
social problems and popular grievances than its forerunners. But the
leading personage, in whom, as in the Sophia Western of _Tom Jones_, he
reproduced the traits of his first wife, is certainly, as even Johnson
admitted, "the most pleasing heroine of all the romances." The minor
characters, too, especially Dr Harrison and Colonel Bath, are equal to
any in _Tom Jones_. The book nevertheless shows signs, not of failure
but of fatigue, perhaps of haste--a circumstance heightened by the
absence of those "prolegomenous" chapters over which the author had
lingered so lovingly in _Tom Jones_. In 1749 he had been dangerously
ill, and his health was visibly breaking. The £1000 which Millar is said
to have given for _Amelia_ must have been painfully earned.
Early in 1752 his still indomitable energy prompted him to start a third
newspaper, the _Covent Garden Journal_, which ran from the 4th of
January to the 25th of November. It is an interesting contemporary
record, and throws a good deal of light on his Bow Street duties. But it
has no great literary value, and it unhappily involved him in harassing
and undignified hostilities with Smollett, Dr John Hill, Bonnell
Thornton and other of his contemporaries. To the following year belong
pamphlets on "Provision for the Poor," and the case of the strange
impostor, Elizabeth Canning (1734-1773).[1] By 1754 his own case, as
regards health, had grown desperate; and he made matters worse by a
gallant and successful attempt to break up a "gang of villains and
cut-throats," who had become the terror of the metropolis. This
accomplished, he resigned his office to his half-brother John
(afterwards Sir John) Fielding. But it was now too late. After fruitless
essay both of Dr Ward's specifics and the tar-water of Bishop Berkeley,
it was felt that his sole chance of prolonging life lay in removal to a
warmer climate. On the 26th of June 1754 he accordingly left his little
country house at Fordhook, Ealing, for Lisbon, in the "Queen of
Portugal," Richard Veal master. The ship, as often, was tediously
wind-bound, and the protracted discomforts of the sick man and his
family are narrated at length in the touching posthumous tract entitled
the _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_, which, with a fragment of a comment
on Bolingbroke's then recently issued essays, was published in February
1755 "for the Benefit of his [Fielding's] Wife and Children." Reaching
Lisbon at last in August 1754, he died there two months later (8th
October), and was buried in the English cemetery, where a monument was
erected to him in 1830._ Luget Britannia gremio non dari fovere natum_
is inscribed upon it.
His estate, including the proceeds of a fair library, only covered his
just debts (_Athenaeum_, 25th Nov. 1905); but his family, a daughter by
his first, and two boys and a girl by his second wife, were faithfully
cared for by his brother John, and by his friend Ralph Allen of Prior
Park, Bath, the Squire Allworthy of _Tom Jones_. His will (undated) was
printed in the _Athenaeum_ for the 1st of February 1890. There is but
one absolutely authentic portrait of him, a familiar outline by Hogarth,
executed from memory for Andrew Millar's edition of his works in 1762.
It is the likeness of a man broken by ill-health, and affords but faint
indication of the handsome Harry Fielding who in his salad days "warmed
both hands before the fire of life." Far too much stress, it is now
held, has been laid by his first biographers upon the unworshipful side
of his early career. That he was always profuse, sanguine and more or
less improvident, is as probable as that he was always manly, generous
and sympathetic. But it is also plain that, in his later years, he did
much, as father, friend and magistrate, to redeem the errors, real and
imputed, of a too-youthful youth.
As a playwright and essayist his rank is not elevated. But as a novelist
his place is a definite one. If the _Spectator_ is to be credited with
foreshadowing the characters of the novel, Defoe with its earliest form,
and Richardson with its first experiments in sentimental analysis, it is
to Henry Fielding that we owe its first accurate delineation of
contemporary manners. Neglecting, or practically neglecting, sentiment
as unmanly, and relying chiefly on humour and ridicule, he set out to
draw life precisely as he saw it around him, without blanks or dashes.
He was, it may be, for a judicial moralist, too indulgent to some of its
frailties, but he was merciless to its meaner vices. For reasons which
have been already given, his high-water mark is _Tom Jones_, which has
remained, and remains, a model in its way of the kind he inaugurated.
An essay on Fielding's life and writings is prefixed to Arthur
Murphy's edition of his works (1762), and short biographies have been
written by Walter Scott and William Roscoe. There are also lives by
Watson (1807), Lawrence (1855), Austin Dobson ("Men of Letters," 1883,
1907) and G.M. Godden (1909). An annotated edition of the _Journal of
a Voyage to Lisbon_ is included in the "World's Classics" (1907).
(A. D.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] For a full account of this celebrated case see Howell, _State
Trials_ (1813), vol. xix.
FIELDING, WILLIAM STEVENS (1848- ), Canadian journalist and statesman,
was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 24th of November 1848. From
1864 to 1884 he was one of the staff of the _Morning Chronicle_, the
chief Liberal paper of the province, and worked at all departments of
newspaper life. In 1882 he entered the local legislature as Liberal
member for Halifax, and from 1884 to 1896 was premier and provincial
secretary of the province, but in the latter year became finance
minister in the Dominion administration of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and was
elected to the House of Commons for Shelburne and Queen's county. He
opposed Confederation in 1864-1867, and as late as 1886 won a provincial
election on the promise to advocate the repeal of the British North
America Act. His administration as finance minister of Canada was
important, since in 1897 he introduced a new tariff, granting to the
manufactures of Great Britain a preference, subsequently increased; and
later he imposed a special surtax on German imports owing to unfriendly
tariff legislation by that country. In 1902 he represented Canada at the
Colonial Conference in London.
FIELD-MOUSE, the popular designation of such mouse-like British rodents
as are not true or "house" mice. The term thus includes the long-tailed
field mouse, _Mus (Micromys) sylvaticus_, easily recognized by its white
belly, and sometimes called the wood-mouse; and the two species of
short-tailed field-mice, _Microtus agrestis_ and _Evotomys glareolus_,
together with their representatives in Skomer island and the Orkneys
(see MOUSE and VOLE).
FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD, the French _Camp du drap d'or_, the name
given to the place between Guînes and Ardres where Henry VIII. of
England met Francis I. of France in June 1520. The most elaborate
arrangements were made for the accommodation of the two monarchs and
their large retinues; and on Henry's part especially no efforts were
spared to make a great impression in Europe by this meeting. Before the
castle of Guînes a temporary palace, covering an area of nearly 12,000
sq. yds., was erected for the reception of the English king. It was
decorated in the most sumptuous fashion, and like the chapel, served by
thirty-five priests, was furnished with a profusion of golden ornaments.
Some idea of the size of Henry's following may be gathered from the fact
that in one month 2200 sheep and other viands in a similar proportion
were consumed. In the fields beyond the castle, tents to the number of
2800 were erected for less distinguished visitors, and the whole scene
was one of the greatest animation. Ladies gorgeously clad, and knights,
showing by their dress and bearing their anxiety to revive the glories
and the follies of the age of chivalry, jostled mountebanks, mendicants
and vendors of all kinds.
Journeying from Calais Henry reached his headquarters at Guînes on the
4th of June 1520, and Francis took up his residence at Ardres. After
Cardinal Wolsey, with a splendid train had visited the French king, the
two monarchs met at the Val Doré, a spot midway between the two places,
on the 7th. The following days were taken up with tournaments, in which
both kings took part, banquets and other entertainments, and after
Wolsey had said mass the two sovereigns separated on the 24th. This
meeting made a great impression on contemporaries, but its political
results were very small.
The _Ordonnance_ for the _Field_ is printed by J.S. Brewer in the
_Calendar of State Papers, Henry VIII_. vol. iii. (1867). See also
J.S. Brewer, _Reign of Henry VIII_. (1884).
FIELDS, JAMES THOMAS (1817-1881), American publisher and author, was
born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the 31st of December 1817. At the
age of seventeen he went to Boston as clerk in a bookseller's shop.
Afterwards he wrote for the newspapers, and in 1835 he read an
anniversary poem entitled "Commerce" before the Boston Mercantile
Library Association. In 1839 he became junior partner in the publishing
and bookselling firm known after 1846 as Ticknor & Fields, and after
1868 as Fields, Osgood & Company. He was the publisher of the foremost
contemporary American writers, with whom he was on terms of close
personal friendship, and he was the American publisher of some of the
best-known British writers of his time, some of whom, also, he knew
intimately. The first collected edition of De Quincey's works (20 vols.,
1850-1855) was published by his firm. As a publisher he was
characterized by a somewhat rare combination of keen business acumen and
sound, discriminating literary taste, and as a man he was known for his
geniality and charm of manner. In 1862-1870, as the successor of James
Russell Lowell, he edited the _Atlantic Monthly_. In 1871 Fields retired
from business and from his editorial duties, and devoted himself to
lecturing and to writing. Of his books the chief were the collection of
sketches and essays entitled _Underbrush_ (1877) and the chapters of
reminiscence composing _Yesterdays with Authors_ (1871), in which he
recorded his personal friendship with Wordsworth, Thackeray, Dickens,
Hawthorne and others. He died in Boston on the 24th of April 1881.
His second wife, ANNIE ADAMS FIELDS (b. 1834), whom he married in 1854,
published _Under the Olive_ (1880), a book of verses; _James T. Fields:
Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches_ (1882); _Authors and Friends_
(1896); _The Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe_ (1897); and
_Orpheus_ (1900).
FIENNES, NATHANIEL (c. 1608-1669) English politician, second son of
William, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, by Elizabeth, daughter of John
Temple, of Stow in Buckinghamshire, was born in 1607 or 1608, and
educated at Winchester and at New College, Oxford, where as founder's
kin he was admitted a perpetual fellow in 1624. After about five years'
residence he left without taking a degree, travelled abroad, and in
Switzerland imbibed or strengthened those religious principles and that
hostility to the Laudian church which were to be the chief motive in his
future political career. He returned to Scotland in 1639, and
established communications with the Covenanters and the Opposition in
England, and as member for Banbury in both the Short and Long
Parliaments he took a prominent part in the attacks upon the church. He
spoke against the illegal canons on the 14th of December 1640, and again
on the 9th of February 1641 on the occasion of the reception of the
London petition, when he argued against episcopacy as constituting a
political as well as a religious danger and made a great impression on
the House, his name being added immediately to the committee appointed
to deal with church affairs. He took a leading part in the examination
into the army plot; was one of the commissioners appointed to attend the
king to Scotland in August 1641; and was nominated one of the committee
of safety in July 1642. On the outbreak of hostilities he took arms
immediately, commanded a troop of horse in the army of Lord Essex, was
present at the relief of Coventry in August, and at the fight at
Worcester in September, where he distinguished himself, and subsequently
at Edgehill. Of the last two engagements he wrote accounts, viz. _True
and Exact Relation of both the Battles fought by ... Earl of Essex ...
against the Bloudy Cavaliers_ (1642). (See also _A Narrative of the Late
Battle before Worcester taken by a Gentleman of the Inns of Court from
the mouth of Master Fiennes_, 1642). In February 1643 Fiennes was sent
down to Bristol, arrested Colonel Essex the governor, executed the two
leaders of a plot to deliver up the city, and received a commission
himself as governor on the 1st of May 1643. On the arrival, however, of
Prince Rupert on the 22nd of July the place was in no condition to
resist an attack, and Fiennes capitulated. He addressed to Essex a
letter in his defence (Thomason Tracts E. 65, 26), drew up for the
parliament a _Relation concerning the Surrender_ ... (1643), answered by
Prynne and Clement Walker accusing him of treachery and cowardice, to
which he opposed _Col. Fiennes his Reply_.... He was tried at St Albans
by the council of war in December, was pronounced guilty of having
surrendered the place improperly, and sentenced to death. He was,
however, pardoned, and the facility with which Bristol subsequently
capitulated to the parliamentary army induced Cromwell and the generals
to exonerate him completely. His military career nevertheless now came
to an end. He went abroad, and it was some time before he reappeared on
the political scene. In September 1647 he was included in the army
committee, and on the 3rd of January 1648 he became a member of the
committee of safety. He was, however, in favour of accepting the king's
terms at Newport in December, and in consequence was excluded from the
House by Pride's Purge. An opponent of church government in any form, he
was no friend to the rigid and tyrannical Presbyterianism of the day,
and inclined to Independency and Cromwell's party. He was a member of
the council of state in 1654, and in June 1655 he received the strange
appointment of commissioner for the custody of the great seal, for which
he was certainly in no way fitted. In the parliament of 1654 he was
returned for Oxford county and in that of 1656 for the university, while
in January 1658 he was included in Cromwell's House of Lords. He was in
favour of the Protector's assumption of the royal title and urged his
acceptance of it on several occasions. His public career closes with
addresses delivered in his capacity as chief commissioner of the great
seal at the beginning of the sessions of January 20, 1658, and January
2, 1659, in which the religious basis of Cromwell's government is
especially insisted upon, the feature to which Fiennes throughout his
career had attached most value. On the reassembling of the Long
Parliament he was superseded; he took no part in the Restoration, and
died at Newton Tony in Wiltshire on the 16th of December 1669. Fiennes
married (1), Elizabeth, daughter of the famous parliamentarian Sir John
Eliot, by whom he had one son, afterwards 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele;
and (2), Frances, daughter of Richard Whitehead of Tuderley, Hants, by
whom he had three daughters.
Besides the pamphlets already cited, a number of his speeches and
other political tracts were published (see Gen. Catalogue, British
Museum). Wood also attributed to him _Monarchy Asserted_ (1666)
(reprinted in Somers Tracts, vi. 346 [ed. Scott]), but there seems no
reason to ascribe to him with Clement Walker the authorship of
Sprigge's _Anglia Rediviva_.
FIERI FACIAS, usually abbreviated _fi. fa._ (Lat. "that you cause to be
made"), in English law, a writ of execution after judgment obtained in
action of debt or damages. It is addressed to the sheriff, and commands
him to make good the amount out of the goods of the person against whom
judgment has been obtained. (See EXECUTION.)
FIESCHI, GIUSEPPE MARCO (1790-1836), the chief conspirator in the
attempt on the life of Louis Philippe in July 1835, was a native of
Murato in Corsica. He served under Murat, then returned to Corsica,
where he was condemned to ten years' imprisonment and perpetual
surveillance by the police for theft and forgery. After a period of
vagabondage he eluded the police and obtained a small post in Paris by
means of forged papers; but losing it on account of his suspicious
manner of living, he resolved to revenge himself on society. He took
lodgings on the Boulevard du Temple, and there, with two members of the
Société des Droits de l'Homme, Morey and Pépin by name, contrived an
"infernal machine," constructed with twenty gun barrels, to be fired
simultaneously. On the 28th of July 1835, as Louis Philippe was passing
along the boulevard to the Bastille, accompanied by his three sons and a
numerous staff, the machine was exploded. A ball grazed the king's
forehead, and his horse, with those of the duke of Nemours and of the
prince de Joinville, was shot; Marshal Mortier was killed, with
seventeen other persons, and many were wounded; but the king and the
princes escaped as if by miracle. Fieschi himself was severely wounded
by the discharge of his machine, and vainly attempted to escape. The
attentions of the most skilful physicians were lavished upon him, and
his life was saved for the stroke of justice. On his trial he named his
accomplices, displayed much bravado, and expected or pretended to expect
ultimate pardon. He was condemned to death, and was guillotined on the
19th of February 1836. Morey and Pépin were also executed, another
accomplice was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment and one was
acquitted. No less than seven plots against the life of Louis Philippe
had been discovered by the police within the year, and apologists were
not wanting in the revolutionary press for the crime of Fieschi.
See _Procès de Fieschi, precédé de sa vie privée, sa condamnation par
la Cour des Pairs et celles de ses complices_ (2 vols., 1836); also P.
Thureau-Dangin, _Hist, de la monarchie de Juillet_ (vol. iv. ch. xii.,
1884).
FIESCO (DE' FIESCHI), GIOVANNI LUIGI (c. 1523-1547), count of Lavagna,
was descended from one of the greatest families of Liguria, first
mentioned in the 10th century. Among his ancestors were two popes
(Innocent IV. and Adrian V.), many cardinals, a king of Sicily, three
saints, and many generals and admirals of Genoa and other states.
Sinibaldo Fiesco, his father, had been a close friend of Andrea Doria
(q.v.), and had rendered many important services to the Genoese
republic. On his death in 1532 Giovanni found himself at the age of nine
the head of the family and possessor of immense estates. He grew up to
be a handsome, intelligent youth, of attractive manners and very
ambitious. He married Eleonora Cibò, marchioness of Massa, in 1540, a
woman of great beauty and family influence. There were many reasons
which inspired his hatred of the Doria family; the almost absolute power
wielded by the aged admiral and the insolence of his nephew and heir
Giannettino Doria, the commander of the galleys, were galling to him as
to many other Genoese, and it is said that Giannettino was the lover of
Fiesco's wife. Moreover, the Fiesco belonged to the French or popular
party, while the Doria were aristocrats and Imperialists. When Fiesco
determined to conspire against Doria he found friends in many quarters.
Pope Paul III. was the first to encourage him, while both Pier Luigi
Farnese, duke of Parma, and Francis I. of France gave him much
assistance and promised him many advantages. Among his associates in
Genoa were his brothers Girolamo and Ottobuono, Verrina and R. Sacco. A
number of armed men from the Fiesco fiefs were secretly brought to
Genoa, and it was agreed that on the 2nd of January 1547, during the
interregnum before the election of the new doge, the galleys in the port
should be seized and the city gates held. The first part of the
programme was easily carried out, and Giannettino Doria, aroused by the
tumult, rushed down to the port and was killed, but Andrea escaped from
the city in time. The conspirators attempted to gain possession of the
government, but unfortunately for them Giovanni Luigi, while crossing a
plank from the quay to one of the galleys, fell into the water and was
drowned. The news spread consternation among the Fiesco faction, and
Girolamo Fiesco found few adherents. They came to terms with the senate
and were granted a general amnesty. Doria returned to Genoa on the 4th
thirsting for revenge, and in spite of the amnesty he confiscated the
Fiesco estates; Girolamo had shut himself up, with Verrina and Sacco and
other conspirators, in his castle of Montobbia, which the Genoese at
Doria's instigation besieged and captured. Girolamo Fiesco and Verrina
were tried, tortured and executed; all their estates were seized, some
of which, including Torriglia, Doria obtained for himself. Ottobuono
Fiesco, who had escaped, was captured eight years afterwards and put to
death by Doria's orders.
There are many accounts of the conspiracy, of which perhaps the best
is contained in E. Petit's _André Doria_ (Paris, 1887), chs. xi. and
xii., where all the chief authorities are quoted; see also Calligari,
_La Congiura del Fiesco_ (Venice 1892), and Gavazzo, _Nuovi documenti
sulla congiura del conte Fiesco_ (Genoa, 1886); E. Bernabò-Brea, in
his _Sulla congiura di Giovanni Luigi Fieschi_, publishes many
important documents, while L. Capelloni's _Congiura del Fiesco_,
edited by Olivieri, and A. Mascardi's _Congiura del conte Giovanni
Luigi de' Fieschi_ (Antwerp, 1629) may be commended among the earlier
works. The Fiesco conspiracy has been the subject of many poems and
dramas, of which the most famous is that by Schiller. See also under
DORIA, ANDREA; FARNESE. (L. V.*)
FIESOLE (anc. _Faesulae_, q.v.), a town and episcopal see of Tuscany,
Italy, in the province of Florence, from which it is 3 m. N.E. by
electric tramway. Pop. (1901) town 4951, commune 16,816. It is situated
on a hill 970 ft. above sea-level, and commands a fine view. The
cathedral of S. Romolo is an early and simple example of the Tuscan
Romanesque style; it is a small basilica, begun in 1028 and restored in
1256. The picturesque battlemented campanile belongs to 1213. The tomb
of the bishop Leonardo Salutati (d. 1466). with a beautiful portrait
bust by the sculptor, Mino da Fiesole (1431-1484), is fine. The
13th-century Palazzo Pretorio contains a small museum of antiquities.
The Franciscan monastery commands a fine view. The church of S. Maria
Primerana has some works of art, and S. Alessandro, which is attributed
to the 6th century, contains fifteen ancient columns of cipollino. The
inhabitants of Fiesole are largely engaged in straw-plaiting.
Below Fiesole, between it and Florence, lies San Domenico di Fiesole
(485 ft.); in the Dominican monastery the painter, Fra Giovanni Angelico
da Fiesole (1387-1455), lived until he went to S. Marco at Florence.
Here, too, is the Badia di Fiesole, founded in 1028 and re-erected about
1456-1466 by a follower of Brunelleschi. It is an irregular pile of
buildings, in fine and simple early Renaissance style; a small part of
the original façade of 1028 in black and white marble is preserved. The
interior of the Church is decorated with sculptures by pupils of
Desiderio da Settignano. The slopes of the hill on which Fiesole stands
are covered with fine villas. To the S.E. of Fiesole lies Monte Ceceri
(1453 ft.), with quarries of grey _pietra serena_, largely used in
Florence for building. To the E. of this lies the 14th-century castle of
Vincigliata restored and fitted up in the medieval style.
FIFE, an eastern county of Scotland, bounded N. by the Firth of Tay, E.
by the North Sea, S. by the Firth of Forth, and W. by the shires of
Perth, Kinross and Clackmannan. The Isle of May, Inchkeith, Inchcolm,
Inchgarvie and the islet of Oxcar belong to the shire. It has an area of
322,844, acres or 504 sq. m. Its coast-line measure 108 m. The Lomond
Hills to the S. and S.W. of Falkland, of which West Lomond is 1713 ft.
high and East Lomond 1471 ft., Saline Hill (1178 ft.) to the N.W. of
Dunfermline, and Benarty (1131 ft.) on the confines of Kinross are the
chief heights. Of the rivers the Eden is the longest; formed on the
borders of Kinross-shire by the confluence of Beattie Burn and Carmore
Burn, it pursues a wandering course for 25 m. N.E., partly through the
Howe, or Hollow of Fife, and empties into the North Sea. There is good
trout fishing in its upper waters, but weirs prevent salmon from
ascending it. The Leven drains the loch of that name and enters the
Forth at the town of Leven after flowing eastward for 15 m. There are
numerous factories at various points on its banks. The Ore, rising not
far from Roscobie Hills to the north of Dunfermline, follows a mainly
north-easterly course for 15 m. till it joins the Leven at Windygates.
The old loch of Ore which was an expansion of its water was long ago
reclaimed. Motray Water finds its source in the parish of Kilmany, a few
miles W. by N. of Cupar, makes a bold sweep towards the north-east, and
then, taking a southerly turn, enters the head-waters of St Andrews Bay,
after a course of 12 m. The principal lochs are Loch Fitty, Loch Gelly,
Loch Glow and Loch Lindores; they are small but afford some sport for
trout, perch and pike. "Freshwater mussels" occur in Loch Fitty. There
are no glens, and the only large valley is the fertile Stratheden, which
supplies part of the title of the combined baronies of Stratheden
(created 1836) and Campbell (created 1841).
_Geology._--Between Damhead and Tayport on the northern side of the
low-lying Howe of Fife the higher ground is formed of Lower Old Red
Sandstone volcanic rocks, consisting of red and purple porphyrites and
andesites and some coarse agglomerates, which, in the neighbourhood of
Auchtermuchty, are rounded and conglomeratic. These rocks have a
gentle dip towards the S.S.E. They are overlaid unconformably by the
soft red sandstones of the Upper Old Red series which underlie the
Howe of Fife from Loch Leven to the coast. The quarries in these rocks
in Dura Den are famous for fossil fishes. Following the Old Red rocks
conformably are the Carboniferous formations which occupy the
remainder of the county, and are well exposed on the coast and in the
numerous quarries. The Carboniferous rocks include, at the base, the
Calciferous Sandstone series of dark shales with thin limestones,
sandstones and coals. They are best developed around Fife Ness,
between St Andrews and Elie, and again around Burntisland between
Kirkcaldy and Inverkeithing Bay. In the Carboniferous Limestone
series, which comes next in upward succession, are the valuable
gas-coals and ironstones worked in the coal-fields of Dunfermline,
Saline, Oakley, Torryburn, Kirkcaldy and Markinch. The true Coal
Measures lie in the district around Dysart and Leven, East Wemyss and
Kinglassie, and they are separated from the coal-bearing
Carboniferous Limestone series by the sandstones and conglomerates of
the Millstone Grit, Fourteen seams of coal are found in the Dysart
Coal Measures, associated with sandstones, shales and clay ironstones.
Fife is remarkably rich in evidences of former volcanic activity.
Besides the Old Red Sandstone volcanic rocks previously mentioned,
there are many beds of contemporaneous basaltic lavas and tuffs in the
Carboniferous rocks; Saline Hill and Knock Hill were the sites of
vents, which at that time threw out ashes; these interbedded rocks are
well exposed on the shore between Burntisland and and Seafield Tower.
There were also many intrusive sheets of dolerite and basalt forced
into the lower Carboniferous rocks, and these now play an important
part in the scenery of the county. They form the summits of the Lomond
Hills and Benarty, and they may be followed from Cult Hill by the
Cleish Hills to Blairadam; and again near Dunfermline, Burntisland,
Torryburn, Auchtertool and St Andrews. Later, in Permian times,
eastern Fife was the seat of further volcanic action, and great
numbers of "necks" or vents pierce the Carboniferous rocks; Largo Law
is a striking example. In one of these necks on the shore at Kincraig
Point is a fine example of columnar basalt; the "Rock and Spindle"
near St Andrews is another. Last of all in Tertiary times, east and
west rifts in the Old Red Sandstone were filled by basalt dikes.
Glacial deposits, ridges of gravel and sand, boulder clay, &c.,
brought from the N. W., cover much of the older rocks, and traces of
old raised beaches are found round the coast and in the Howe cf Fife.
In the 25-ft. beach in the East Neuk of Fife is an island sea-cliff
with small caves.
_Climate and Agriculture._--Since the higher hills all lie in the west,
most of the county is exposed to the full force of the east winds from
the North Sea, which often, save in the more sheltered areas, check the
progress of vegetation. At an elevation of 500 or 600 ft. above the sea
harvests are three or four weeks later than in the valleys and low-lying
coast-land. The climate, on the whole, is mild, proximity to the sea
qualifying the heat in summer and the cold in winter. The average annual
rainfall is 31 in., rather less in the East Neuk district and around St
Andrews, somewhat more as the hills are approached, late summer and
autumn being the wet season. The average temperature for January is 38°
F., for July 59.5°, and for the year 47.6°. Four-fifths of the total
area is under cultivation, and though the acreage under grain is smaller
than it was, the yield of each crop is still extraordinarily good, oats,
barley, wheat being the order of acreage. Of the green crops most
attention is given to turnips. Potatoes also do well. The acreage under
permanent pasture and wood is very considerable. Cattle are mainly kept
for feeding purposes, and dairy farming, though attracting more notice,
has never been followed more than to supply local markets.
Sheep-farming, however, is on the increase, and the raising of horses,
especially farm horses, is an important pursuit. They are strong, active
and hardy, with a large admixture, or purely, of Clydesdale blood. The
ponies, hunters and carriage horses so bred are highly esteemed. The
strain of pigs has been improved by the introduction of Berkshires.
North of the Eden the soil, though generally thin, is fertile, but the
sandy waste of Tents Moor is beyond redemption. From St Andrews
southwards all along the coast the land is very productive. That
adjacent to the East Neuk consists chiefly of clay and rich loam. From
Leven to Inverkeithing it varies from a light sand to a rich clayey
loam. Excepting Stratheden and Strathleven, which are mostly rich,
fertile loam, the interior is principally cold and stiff clay or thin
loam with strong clayey subsoil. Part of the Howe of Fife is light and
shingly and covered with heather. Some small peat mosses still exist,
and near Lochgelly there is a tract of waste, partly moss and partly
heath. The character of the farm management may be judged by its
results. The best methods are pursued, and houses, steadings and
cottages are all in good order, commodious and comfortable. Rabbits,
hares, pheasants and partridges are common in certain districts; roe
deer are occasionally seen; wild geese, ducks and teal haunt the lochs;
pigeon-houses are fairly numerous; and grouse and blackcock are
plentiful on the Lomond moors. The shire is well suited for fox-hunting,
and there are packs in both the eastern and the western division of
Fife.
_Mining._--Next to Lanarkshire, Fife is the largest coal-producing
county in Scotland. The coal-field may roughly be divided into the
Dunfermline basin (including Halbeath, Lochgelly and Kelty), where the
principal house coals are found, and the Wemyss or Dysart basin
(including Methil and the hinterland), where gas-coal of the best
quality is obtained. Coal is also extensively worked at Culross,
Carnock, Falfield, Donibristle, Ladybank, Kilconquhar and elsewhere.
Beds of ironstone, limestone, sandstone and shale lie in many places
contiguous to the coal. Blackband ironstone is worked at Lochgelly and
Oakley, where there are large smelting furnaces. Oil shale is worked at
Burntisland and Airdrie near Crail. Among the principal limestone
quarries are those at Charlestown, Burntisland and Cults. Freestone of
superior quality is quarried at Strathmiglo, Burntisland and
Dunfermline. Whinstone of unusual hardness and durability is obtained in
nearly every district. Lead has been worked in the Lomond Hills and
copper and zinc have been met with, though not in paying quantities. It
is of interest to note that in the trap tufa at Elie there have been
found pyropes (a variety of dark-red garnet), which are regarded as the
most valuable of Scottish precious stones and are sold under the name of
Elie rubies.
_Other Industries._--The staple manufacture is linen, ranging from the
finest damasks to the coarsest ducks and sackings. Its chief seats are
at Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline, but it is carried on at many of the inland
towns and villages, especially those situated near the Eden and Leven,
on the banks of which rivers, as well as at Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline and
Ceres, are found the bleaching-greens. Kirkcaldy is famous for its
oil-cloth and linoleum. Most of the leading towns possess breweries and
tanneries, and the largest distilleries are at Cameron Bridge and
Burntisland. Woollen cloth is made to a small extent in several towns,
and fishing-net at Kirkcaldy, Largo and West Wemyss. Paper is
manufactured at Guardbridge, Markinch and Leslie; earthenware at
Kirkcaldy; tobacco at Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy; engineering works and
iron foundries are found at Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline; and shipbuilding
is carried on at Kinghorn, Dysart, Burntisland, Inverkeithing and
Tayport. From Inverkeithing all the way round the coast to Newburgh
there are harbours at different points. They are mostly of moderate
dimensions, the principal port being Kirkcaldy. The largest salmon
fisheries are conducted at Newburgh and the chief seat of the herring
fishery is Anstruther, but most of the coast towns take some part in the
fishing either off the shore, or at stations farther north, or in the
deep sea.
_Communications._--The North British railway possesses a monopoly in the
shire. From the Forth Bridge the main line follows the coast as far as
Dysart and then turns northwards to Ladybank, where it diverges to the
north-east for Cupar and the Tay Bridge. From Thornton Junction a branch
runs to Dunfermline and another to Methil, and here begins also the
coast line for Leven, Crail and St Andrews which touches the main line
again at Leuchars Junction; at Markinch a branch runs to Leslie; at
Ladybank there are branches to Mawcarse Junction, and to Newburgh and
Perth; and at Leuchars Junction a loop line runs to Tayport and Newport,
joining the main at Wormit. From the Forth Bridge the system also
connects, via Dunfermline, with Alloa and Stirling in the W. and with
Kinross and Perth in the N. From Dunfermline there is a branch to
Charlestown, which on that account is sometimes called the port of
Dunfermline.
_Population and Government._--The population was 190,365 in 1891, and
218,840 in 1901, when 844 persons spoke Gaelic and English and 3 Gaelic
only. The chief towns are the Anstruthers (pop. in 1901, 4233),
Buckhaven (8828), Burntisland (4846), Cowdenbeath (7908), Cupar (4511),
Dunfermline (25,250), Dysart (3562), Kelty (3986), Kirkcaldy (34,079),
Leslie (3587), Leven (5577), Lochgelly (5472), Lumphinnans (2071),
Newport (2869), St Andrews (7621), Tayport (3325) and Wemyss (2522). For
parliamentary purposes Fife is divided into an eastern and a western
division, each returning one member. It also includes the Kirkcaldy
district of parliamentary burghs (comprising Burntisland, Dysart,
Kinghorn and Kirkcaldy), and the St Andrews district (the two
Anstruthers, Crail, Cupar, Kilrenny, Pittenweem and St Andrews); while
Culross, Dunfermline and Inverkeithing are grouped with the Stirling
district. As regards education the county is under school-board
jurisdiction, and in respect of higher education its equipment is
effective. St Andrews contains several excellent schools; at Cupar there
is the Bell-Baxter school; at Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy there are high
schools and at Anstruther there is the Waid Academy.
_History._--In remote times the term Fife was applied to the peninsula
lying between the estuaries of the Tay and Forth and separated from the
rest of the mainland by the Ochil Hills. Its earliest inhabitants were
Picts of the northern branch and their country was long known as
Pictavia. Doubtless it was owing to the fact that the territory was long
subject to the rule of an independent king that Fife itself came to be
called distinctively The Kingdom, a name of which the natives are still
proud. The Romans effected no settlement in the province, though it is
probable that they temporarily occupied points here and there. In any
case the Romans left no impression on the civilization of the natives.
With the arrival of the missionaries--especially St Serf, St Kenneth, St
Rule, St Adrian, St Moran and St Fillan--and conversion of the Picts
went on apace. Interesting memorials of these devout missionaries exist
in the numerous coast caves between Dysart and St Andrews and in the
crosses and sculptured stones, some doubtless of pre-Christian origin,
to be seen at various places. The word Fife, according to Skene, seems
to be identical with the Jutland _Fibh_ (pronounced _Fife_) meaning
"forest," and was probably first used by the Frisians to describe the
country behind the coasts of the Forth and Tay, where Frisian tribes are
supposed to have settled at the close of the 4th century. The next
immigration was Danish, which left lasting traces in many place-names
(such as the frequent use of _law_ for hill). An ancient division of the
Kingdom into Fife and Fothrif survived for a period for ecclesiastical
purposes. The line of demarcation ran from Leven to the east of Cults,
thence to the west of Collessie and thence to the east of Auchtermuchty.
To the east of this line lay Fife proper. In 1426 the first shire of
Kinross was formed, consisting of Kinross and Orwell, and was enlarged
to its present dimensions by the transference from Fife of the parishes
of Portmoak, Cleish and Tulliebole. Although the county has lain outside
of the main stream of Scottish history, its records are far from dull or
unimportant. During the reigns of the earlier Stuarts, Dunfermline,
Falkland and St Andrews were often the scene of solemn pageantry and
romantic episodes. Out of the seventy royal burghs in Scotland no fewer
than eighteen are situated in the shire. However, notwithstanding the
marked preference of the Stuarts, the Kingdom did not hesitate to play
the leading part in the momentous dramas of the Reformation and the
Covenant, and by the 18th century the people had ceased to regard the
old royal line with any but sentimental interest, and the Jacobite
risings of 1715 and 1745 evoked only the most lukewarm support.
See Sir Robert Sibbald, _History of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and
Kinross_; Rev. J.W. Taylor, _Historical Antiquities of Fife_ (1875);
A.H. Millar, _Fife, Pictorial and Historical_ (Cupar, 1895); Sheriff
Aeneas Mackay, sketch of the _History of Fife_ (Edinburgh, 1890);
_History of Fife and Kinross_ (Scottish County History series)
(Edinburgh, 1896); John Geddie, _The Fringe of Fife_ (Edinburgh,
1894).
FIFE (Fr. _fifre_; Med. Ger. _Schweizerpfeiff_, _Feldpfeiff_; Ital.
_ottavino_), originally the small primitive cylindrical transverse
flute, now the small B[flat] military flute, usually conoidal in bore,
used in a drum and fife band. The pitch of the fife lies between that of
the concert flute and piccolo. The fife, like the flute, is an open
pipe, for although the upper end is stopped by means of a cork, an
outlet is provided by the embouchure which is never entirely closed by
the lips. The six finger-holes of the primitive flute, with the open end
of the tube for a key-note, gave the diatonic scale of the fundamental
octave; the second octave was produced by overblowing the notes of the
fundamental scale an octave higher; part of a third octave was obtained
by means of the higher harmonics produced by using certain of the
finger-holes as vent-holes. The modern fife has, in addition to the six
finger-holes, 4, 5 or 6 keys. Mersenne describes and figures the fife,
which had in his day the compass of a fifteenth.[1] The fife, which, he
states, differed from the German flute only in having a louder and more
brilliant tone and a shorter and narrower bore, was the instrument used
by the Swiss with the drum. The sackbut, or serpent, was used as its
bass, for, as Mersenne explains, the bass instrument could not be made
long enough, nor could the hands reach the holes, although some flutes
were actually made with keys and had the tube doubled back as in the
bassoon.[2]
The words _fife_ and the Fr. _fifre_ were undoubtedly derived from the
Ger. _Pfeiff_, the fife being called by Praetorius[3]
_Schweizerpfeiff_ and _Feldpfeiff_, while Martin Agricola,[4] writing
a century earlier (1529), mentions the transverse flute by the names
of _Querchpfeiff_ or _Schweizerpfeiff_, which Sebastian Virdung[5]
writes _Zwerchpfeiff_. The Old English spelling was _phife_, _phiphe_
or _ffyffe_. The fife was in use in England in the middle of the 16th
century, for at a muster of the citizens of London in 1540, _droumes_
and ffyffes are mentioned. At the battle of St Quentin (1557) the list
of the English army[6] employed states that one trumpet was allowed to
each cavalry troop of 100 men, and a drum and fife to each hundred of
foot. A drumme and _phife_ were also employed at one shilling per diem
for the "Trayne of Artillery."[7] This was the nucleus of the modern
military band, and may be regarded as the first step in its formation.
In England the adoption of the fife as a military instrument was due
to the initiative of Henry VIII., who sent to Vienna for ten good
drums and as many fifers.[8] Ralph Smith[9] gives rules for drummers
and fifers who, in addition to the duty of giving signals in peace and
war to the company, were expected to be brave, secret and ingenious,
and masters of several languages, for they were oft sent to parley
with the enemy and were entrusted with honourable but dangerous
missions. In 1585 the drum and fife formed part of the furniture for
war among the companies of the city of London.[10] Queen Elizabeth
(according to Michaud, _Biogr. universelle_, tome xiii. p. 60) had a
peculiar taste for noisy music, and during meals had a concert of
twelve trumpets, two kettledrums, with fifes and drums. The fife
became such a favourite military instrument during the 16th and 17th
centuries in England that it displaced the bagpipe; it was, however,
in turn superseded early in the 18th century by the hautboy (see
OBOE), introduced from France. In the middle of the 18th century the
fife was reintroduced into the British army band by the duke of
Cumberland[11] in the Guards in 1745, commemorated by William
Hogarth's picture of the "March of the Guards towards Scotland in
1745," in which are seen a drummer and fifer; and by Colonel Bedford
into the royal regiment of artillery in 1748, at the end of the war,
when a Hanoverian fifer, John Ulrich, was brought over from Flanders
as instructor.[12] In 1747 the 19th regiment, known as Green Howards,
also had the advantage of a Hanoverian fifer as teacher, a youth
presented by his colonel to Lieutenant-Colonel Williams commanding the
regiment at Bois-le-Duc. Drum and fife bands in a short time became
common in all infantry regiments, while among the cavalry the trumpet
prevailed.
For the acoustics, construction and origin of the fife see FLUTE.
Illustrations of the fife may be seen in Cowdray's picture of an
encampment at Portsmouth in 1548; in Sandford's "Coronation Procession
of James II.," and in C.R. Day's _Descriptive Catalogue_, pl. i. (F)
(description No. 42, p. 27). (K. S.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Harmonie universelle_ (Paris, 1636), bk. v. prop. 9, pp.
241-244.
[2] For an illustration of one of these bass flutes see article
FLUTE, Fig. 2.
[3] _Syntagma musicum_ (Wolfenbüttel, 1618), pp. 40-41 of Reprint.
[4] _Musica instrumentalis_ (Wittenberg, 1529).
[5] _Musica getutscht und auszgezogen_ (Basel, 1511).
[6] See Sir S.D. Scott, _The British Army_, vol. ii. p. 396.
[7] See H.G. Farmer, _Memoirs of the Royal Artillery Band_ (London,
1904).
[8] _Id._
[9] _Id._
[10] Stowe's _Chronicles_, p. 702.
[11] Grose, _Military Antiquities_ (London, 1801), vol. ii.
[12] See Colonel P. Forbes Macbean, _Memoirs of the Royal Regiment of
Artillery_.
FIFTH MONARCHY MEN, the name of a Puritan sect in England which for a
time supported the government of Oliver Cromwell in the belief that it
was a preparation for the "fifth monarchy," that is for the monarchy
which should succeed the Assyrian, the Persian, the Greek and the Roman,
and during which Christ should reign on earth with His saints for a
thousand years. These sectaries aimed at bringing about the entire
abolition of the existing laws and institutions, and the substitution of
a simpler code based upon the law of Moses. Disappointed at the delay in
the fulfilment of their hopes, they soon began to agitate against the
government and to vilify Cromwell; but the arrest of their leaders and
preachers, Christopher Feake, John Rogers and others, cooled their
ardour, and they were, perforce, content to cherish their hopes in
secret until after the Restoration. Then, on the 6th of January 1661, a
band of fifth monarchy men, headed by a cooper named Thomas Venner, who
was one of their preachers, made an attempt to obtain possession of
London. Most of them were either killed or taken prisoners, and on the
19th and 21st of January Venner and ten others were executed for high
treason. From that time the special doctrines of the sect either died
out, or became merged in a milder form of millenarianism, similar to
that which exists at the present day.
For the proceedings of the sect see S.R. Gardiner, _History of the
Commonwealth and Protectorate_, _passim_ (London, 1894-1901); and for
an account of the rising of 1661 see Sir John Reresby, _Memoirs_,
1634-1689, edited by J.J. Cartwright (London, 1875).
FIG, the popular name given to plants of the genus _Ficus_, an extensive
group, included in the natural order Moraceae, and characterized by a
remarkable development of the pear-shaped receptacle, the edge of which
curves inwards, so as to form a nearly closed cavity, bearing the
numerous fertile and sterile flowers mingled on its surface. The figs
vary greatly in habit,--some being low trailing shrubs, others gigantic
trees, among the most striking forms of those tropical forests to which
they are chiefly indigenous. They have alternate leaves, and abound in a
milky juice, usually acrid, though in a few instances sufficiently mild
to be used for allaying thirst. This juice contains caoutchouc in large
quantity.
[Illustration: FIGURE 1.--Fruiting Branch of Fig, _Ficus Carica_; about
2/7 nat. size.
1. Unripe fruit cut lengthwise; about ½ nat. size. 2. Female flower
taken from 1; enlarged. 3. Ripe fruit cut lengthwise; about ½ nat.
size.]
_Ficus Carica_ (figure 1), which yields the well-known figs of commerce,
is a bush or small tree--rarely more than 18 or 20 ft. high,--with
broad, rough, deciduous leaves, very deeply lobed in the cultivated
varieties, but in the wild plant sometimes nearly entire. The green,
rough branches bear the solitary, nearly sessile receptacles in the
axils of the leaves. The male flowers are placed chiefly in the upper
part of the cavity, and in most varieties are few in number. As it
ripens, the receptacle enlarges greatly, and the numerous single-seeded
pericarps or true fruits become imbedded in it. The fruit of the wild
fig never acquires the succulence of the cultivated kinds. The fig seems
to be indigenous to Asia Minor and Syria, but now occurs in a wild state
in most of the countries around the Mediterranean. From the ease with
which the nutritious fruit can be preserved, it was probably one of the
earliest objects of cultivation, as may be inferred from the frequent
allusions to it in the Hebrew Scriptures.[1] From a passage in
Herodotus the fig would seem to have been unknown to the Persians in the
days of the first Cyrus; but it must have spread in remote ages over all
the districts around the Aegean and Levant. The Greeks are said to have
received it from Caria (hence the specific name); but the fruit so
improved under Hellenic culture that Attic figs became celebrated
throughout the East, and special laws were made to regulate their
exportation. From the contemptuous name given to informers against the
violation of those enactments, [Greek: sukophantai (sukon, phainô)], our
word sycophant is usually derived. The fig was one of the principal
articles of sustenance among the Greeks; the Spartans especially used it
largely at their public tables. From Hellas, at some prehistoric period,
it was transplanted to Italy and the adjacent islands. Pliny enumerates
many varieties, and alludes to those from Ebusus (the modern Iviza) as
most esteemed by Roman epicures; while he describes those of home growth
as furnishing a large portion of the food of the slaves, particularly
those employed in agriculture, by whom great quantities were eaten in
the fresh state at the periods of fig-harvest. In Latin myths the plant
plays an important part. Held sacred to Bacchus, it was employed in
religious ceremonies; and the fig-tree that overshadowed the twin
founders of Rome in the wolf's cave, as an emblem of the future
prosperity of the race, testified to the high value set upon the fruit
by the nations of antiquity. The tree is now cultivated in all the
Mediterranean countries, but the larger portion of our supply of figs
comes from Asia Minor, the Spanish Peninsula and the south of France.
Those of Asiatic Turkey are considered the best. The varieties are
extremely numerous, and the fruit is of various colours, from deep
purple to yellow, or nearly white. The trees usually bear two
crops,--one in the early summer from the buds of the last year, the
other in the autumn from those on the spring growth; the latter forms
the chief harvest. Many of the immature receptacles drop off from
imperfect fertilization, which circumstance has led, from very ancient
times, to the practice of _caprification_.[2] Branches of the wild fig
in flower are placed over the cultivated bushes. Certain hymenopterous
insects, of the genera _Blastophaga_ and _Sycophaga_, which frequent the
wild fig, enter the minute orifice of the receptacle, apparently to
deposit their eggs; conveying thus the pollen more completely to the
stigmas, they ensure the fertilization and consequent ripening of the
fruit. By some the nature of the process has been questioned, and the
better maturation of the fruit attributed merely to the stimulus given
by the puncture of the insect, as in the case of the apple; but the
arrangement of the unisexual flowers in the fig renders the first theory
the more probable. In some districts a straw or small twig is thrust
into the receptacle with a similar object. When ripe the figs are
picked, and spread out to dry in the sun,--those of better quality being
much pulled and extended by hand during the process. Thus prepared, the
fruit is packed closely in barrels, rush baskets, or wooden boxes, for
commerce. The best kind, known as elemi, are shipped at Smyrna, where
the pulling and packing of figs form one of the most important
industries of the people.
This fruit still constitutes a large part of the food of the natives of
western Asia and southern Europe, both in the fresh and dried state. A
sort of cake made by mashing up the inferior kinds serves in parts of
the Archipelago as a substitute for bread. Alcohol is obtained from
fermented figs in some southern countries; and a kind of wine, still
made from the ripe fruit, was known to the ancients, and mentioned by
Pliny under the name of _sycites_. Medicinally the fig is employed as a
gentle laxative, when eaten abundantly often proving useful in chronic
constipation; it forms a part of the well-known "confection of senna."
The milky juice of the stems and leaves is very acrid, and has been used
in some countries for raising blisters. The wood is porous and of little
value; though a piece, saturated with oil and spread with emery, is in
France a common substitute for a hone.
The fig is grown for its fresh fruit (eaten as an article of dessert) in
all the milder parts of Europe, and in the United States, with
protection in winter, succeeds as far north as Pennsylvania. The fig was
introduced into England by Cardinal Pole, from Italy, early in the 16th
century. It lives to a great age, and along the southern coast of
England bears fruit abundantly as a standard; but in Scotland and in
many parts of England a south wall is indispensable for its successful
cultivation out of doors.
Fig trees are propagated by cuttings, which should be put into pots,
and placed in a gentle hotbed. They may be obtained more speedily from
layers, which should consist of two or three years old shoots, and
these, when rooted, will form plants ready to bear fruit the first or
second year after planting. The best soil for a fig border is a
friable loam, not too rich, but well drained; a chalky subsoil is
congenial to the tree, and, to correct the tendency to over-luxuriance
of growth, the roots should be confined within spaces surrounded by a
wall enclosing an area of about a square yard. The sandy soil of
Argenteuil, near Paris, suits the fig remarkably well; but the best
trees are those which grow in old quarries, where their roots are free
from stagnant water, and where they are sheltered from cold, while
exposed to a very hot sun, which ripens the fruit perfectly. The fig
succeeds well planted in a paved court against a building with a south
aspect.
The fig tree naturally produces two sets of shoots and two crops of
fruit in the season. The first shoots generally show young figs in
July and August, but these in the climate of England very seldom
ripen, and should therefore be rubbed off. The late or midsummer
shoots likewise put forth fruit-buds, which, however, do not develop
themselves till the following spring; and these form the only crop of
figs on which the British gardener can depend.
The fig tree grown as a standard should get very little pruning, the
effect of cutting being to stimulate the buds to push shoots too
vigorous for bearing. When grown against a wall, it has been
recommended that a single stem should be trained to the height of a
foot. Above this a shoot should be trained to the right, and another
to the left; from these principals two other subdivisions should be
encouraged, and trained 15 in. apart; and along these branches, at
distances of about 8 in., shoots for bearing, as nearly as possible of
equal vigour, should be encouraged. The bearing shoots produced along
the leading branches should be trained in at full length, and in
autumn every alternate one should be cut back to one eye. In the
following summer the trained shoots should bear and ripen fruit, and
then be cut back in autumn to one eye, while shoots from the bases of
those cut back the previous autumn should be trained for succession.
In this way every leading branch will be furnished alternately with
bearing and successional shoots.
When protection is necessary, as it may be in severe winters, though
it is too often provided in excess, spruce branches have been found to
answer the purpose exceedingly well, owing to the fact that their
leaves drop off gradually when the weather becomes milder in spring,
and when the trees require less protection and more light and air. The
principal part requiring protection is the main stem, which is more
tender than the young wood.
In forcing, the fig requires more heat than the vine to bring it into
leaf. It may be subjected to a temperature of 50° at night, and from
60° to 65 ° C in the day, and this should afterwards be increased to
60° and 65° by night, and 70° to 75° by day, or even higher by sun
heat, giving plenty of air at the same time. In this temperature the
evaporation from the leaves is very great, and this must be replaced
and the wants of the swelling fruit supplied by daily watering, by
syringing the foliage, and by moistening the floor, this atmospheric
moisture being also necessary to keep down the red spider. When the
crop begins to ripen, a moderately dry atmosphere should be
maintained, with abundant ventilation when the weather permits.
The fig tree is easily cultivated in pots, and by introducing the
plants into heat in succession the fruiting season may be
considerably extended. The plants should be potted in turfy loam mixed
with charcoal and old mortar rubbish, and in summer top-dressings of
rotten manure, with manure water two or three times a week, will be
beneficial. While the fruit is swelling, the pots should be plunged in
a bed of fermenting leaves.
The following are a few of the best figs; those marked F, are good
forcing sorts, and those marked W. suitable for walls:--
Agen: brownish-green, turbinate.
Brown Ischia, F.: chestnut-coloured, roundish-turbinate.
Brown Turkey (Lee's Perpetual), F., W.: purplish-brown, turbinate.
Brunswick, W.: brownish-green, pyriform.
Col di Signora Bianca, F.: greenish-yellow, pyriform.
Col di Signora Nero: dark chocolate, pyriform.
Early Violet, F.: brownish-purple, roundish.
Grizzly Bourjassotte: chocolate, round.
Grosse Monstreuse de Lipari: pale chestnut, turbinate.
Negro Largo, F.: black, long pyriform.
White Ischia, F.: greenish-yellow, roundish-obovate.
White Marseilles, F., W.: pale green, roundish-obovate.
The sycamore fig, _Ficus Sycomorus_, is a tree of large size, with
heart-shaped leaves, which, from their fancied resemblance to those of
the mulberry, gave origin to the name [Greek: Sukomoros]. From the deep
shade cast by its spreading branches, it is a favourite tree in Egypt
and Syria, being often planted along roads and near houses. It bears a
sweet edible fruit, somewhat like that of the common fig, but produced
in racemes on the older boughs. The apex of the fruit is sometimes
removed, or an incision made in it, to induce earlier ripening. The
ancients, after soaking it in water, preserved it like the common fig.
The porous wood is only fit for fuel.
[Illustration: FIGURE 2.--India-rubber Tree, _Ficus elastica_, showing
spreading woody roots.]
The sacred fig, peepul, or bo, _Ficus religiosa_, a large tree with
heart-shaped, long-pointed leaves on slender footstalks, is much grown
in southern Asia. The leaves are used for tanning, and afford lac, and a
gum resembling caoutchouc is obtained from the juice; but in India it is
chiefly planted with a religious object, being regarded as sacred by
both Brahmans and Buddhists. The former believe that the last avatar of
Vishnu took place beneath its shade. A gigantic bo, described by Sir J.
Emerson Tennent as growing near Anarajapoora, in Ceylon, is, if
tradition may be trusted, one of the oldest trees in the world. It is
said to have been a branch of the tree under which Gautama Buddha became
endued with his divine powers, and has always been held in the greatest
veneration. The figs, however, hold as important a place in the
religious fables of the East as the ash in the myths of Scandinavia.
_Ficus elastica_, the India-rubber tree (figure 2), the large, oblong,
glossy leaves, and pink buds of which are so familiar in our
greenhouses, furnishes most of the caoutchouc obtained from the East
Indies. It grows to a large size, and is remarkable for the snake-like
roots that extend in contorted masses around the base of the trunk. The
small fruit is unfit for food.
_Ficus bengalensis_, or the Banyan, wild in parts of northern India, but
generally planted throughout the country, has a woody stem, branching to
a height of 70 to 100 ft. and of vast extent with heart-shaped entire
leaves terminating in acute points. Every branch from the main body
throws out its own roots, at first in small tender fibres, several yards
from the ground; but these continually grow thicker until they reach the
surface, when they strike in, increase to large trunks, and become
parent trees, shooting out new branches from the top, which again in
time suspend their roots, and these, swelling into trunks, produce other
branches, the growth continuing as long as the earth contributes her
sustenance. On the bank's of the Nerbudda stood a celebrated tree of
this kind, which is supposed to be that described by Nearchus, the
admiral of Alexander the Great. This tree once covered an area so
immense, that it was known to shelter no fewer than 7000 men, and though
much reduced in size by the destructive power of the floods, the
remainder was described by James Forbes (1749-1819), in his _Oriental
Memoirs_ (1813-1815) as nearly 2000 ft. in circumference, while the
trunks large and small exceeded 3000 in number. The tree usually grows
from seeds dropped by birds on other trees. The leaf-axil of a palm
forms a frequent receptacle for their growth, the palm becoming
ultimately strangled by the growth of the fig, which by this time has
developed numerous daughter stems which continue to expand and cover
ultimately a large area. The famous tree in the Royal Botanic Gardens,
Calcutta, began its growth at the end of the 18th century on a sacred
date-palm. In 1907 it had nearly 250 aerial roots, the parent trunk was
42 ft. in girth, and its leafy crown had a circumference of 857 ft.; and
it was still growing vigorously. Both this tree and _F. religiosa_ cause
destruction to buildings, especially in Bengal, from seeds dropped by
birds germinating on the walls. The tree yields an inferior rubber, and
a coarse rope is prepared from the bark and from the aerial roots.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Of these the case of the Barren Fig-tree (Mark. xi. 12-14, 20-21:
compare Matt. xxi. 18-20), which Jesus cursed and which then withered
away, has been much discussed among theologians. The difficulty is in
Mark xi. 13: "And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, he came,
if haply he might find anything thereon; and when he came to it he
found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet." These
last words obviously raise the question whether the expectation of
Jesus of finding figs, and his cursing of the tree on finding none,
were not unreasonable. Many ingenious solutions have been propounded,
by suggested emendations of the text and otherwise, for which consult
M'Clintock and Strong's _Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature_ (_sub_
"Fig") and the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ ("Fig-tree"); the former
demurs to the unreasonableness, and contends that the appearance of
the leaves at this season (March) indicated a pretentious precocity
in this particular fig-tree, so that Jesus was entitled to expect
that it would also have fruit, even though the season had not
arrived; the _Ency. Biblica_, on the other hand, supposes that some
"early Christian," confounding parable with history, has
misunderstood the parable in Luke xiii. 6-9, and, forgetting that the
season was not one for figs, has transformed it here into the
narrative of an act of Jesus. The probability seems to be that the
words "for the time of figs was not yet" are an unintelligent gloss
by an early reader, which has made its way into the text. For
authorities see the works mentioned above.
[2] From Lat. _caprificus_, a wild fig; O. Eng. _caprifig_.
FIGARO, a famous dramatic character first introduced on the stage by
Beaumarchais in the _Barbier de Séville_, the _Mariage de Figaro_, and
the _Folle Journée_. The name is said to be an old Spanish and Italian
word for a wigmaker, connected with the verb _cigarrar_, to roll in
paper. Many of the traits of the character are to be found in earlier
comic types of the Roman and Italian stage, but as a whole the
conception was marked by great originality; and Figaro soon, seized the
popular imagination, and became the recognized representative of daring,
clever and nonchalant roguery and intrigue. Almost immediately after its
appearance, Mozart chose the _Marriage of Figaro_ as the subject of an
opera, and the _Barber of Seville_ was treated first by Paisiello, and
afterwards in 1816 by Rossini. In 1826 the name of the witty rogue was
taken by a journal which continued till 1833 to be one of the principal
Parisian periodicals, numbering among its contributors such men as Jules
Janin, Paul Lacroix, Léon Gozlan, Alphonse Karr, Dr Veron, Jules Sandeau
and George Sand. Various abortive attempts were made to restore the
_Figaro_ during the next twenty years; and in 1854 the efforts of M. de
Villemessant were crowned with success (see NEWSPAPERS: _France_).
See Marc Monnier, _Les Aieux de Figaro_ (1868); H. de Villemessant,
_Mémoires d'un journaliste_ (1867).
FIGEAC, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in
the department of Lot, 47 m. E.N.E. of Cahors on the Orléans railway.
Pop. (1906) 4330. It is enclosed by an amphitheatre of wooded and
vine-clad hills, on the right bank of the Célé, which is here crossed by
an old bridge. It is ill-built and the streets are narrow and dirty; on
the outskirts shady boulevards have taken the place of the ramparts by
which it was surrounded. The town is very rich in old houses of the 13th
and 14th centuries; among them may be mentioned the Hôtel de Balène, of
the 14th century, used as a prison. Another house, dating from the 15th
century, was the birthplace of the Egyptologist J.F. Champollion, in
memory of whom the town has erected an obelisk. The principal church is
that of St Sauveur, which once belonged to the abbey of Figeac. It was
built at the beginning of the 12th century, but restored later; the
façade in particular is modern. Notre-Dame du Puy, in the highest part
of the town, belongs to the 12th and 13th centuries. It has no transept
and its aisles extend completely round the interior. The altar-screen is
a fine example of carved woodwork of the end of the 17th century. Of the
four obelisks which used to mark the limits of the authority of the
abbots of Figeac, those to the south and the west of the town remain.
Figeac is the seat of a subprefect and has a tribunal of first instance,
and a communal college. Brewing, tanning, printing, cloth-weaving and
the manufacture of agricultural implements are among the industries.
Trade is in cattle, leather, wool, plums, walnuts and grain, and there
are zinc mines in the neighbourhood.
Figeac grew up round an abbey founded by Pippin the Short in the 8th
century, and throughout the middle ages it was the property of the
monks. At the end of the 16th century the lordship was acquired by King
Henry IV.'s minister, the duke of Sully, who sold it to Louis XIII. in
1622.
FIGUEIRA DA FOZ, or FIGUEIRA, a seaport of central Portugal, in the
district of Coimbra, formerly included in the province of Beira; on the
north bank of the river Mondego, at its mouth, and at the terminus of
the Lisbon-Figueira and Guarda-Figueira railways. Pop. (1900) 6221.
Figueira da Foz is an important fishing-station, and one of the
headquarters of the coasting trade in grain, fruit, wine, olive oil,
cork and coal; but owing to the bar at the mouth of the Mondego large
ships cannot enter. Glass is manufactured, and the city attracts many
visitors by its excellent climate and sea-bathing. A residential suburb,
the Bairro Novo, exists chiefly for their accommodation, to the
north-west of the old town. Figueira is connected by a tramway running 4
m. N. W. with Buarcos (pop. 5033) and with the coal-mines of Cape
Mondego. Lavos (pop. 7939), on the south bank of the Mondego, was the
principal landing-place of the British troops which came, in 1808, to
take part in the Peninsular War. Figueira da Foz received the title and
privileges of city by a decree dated the 20th of September 1882.
FIGUERAS, a town of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Gerona, 14
m. S. of the French frontier, on the Barcelona-Perpignan railway. Pop.
(1900) 10,714. Figueras is built at the foot of the Pyrenees, and on the
northern edge of El Ampurdan, a fertile and well-irrigated plain, which
produces wine, olives and rice, and derives its name from the seaport of
Ampurias, the ancient Emporiae. The castle of San Fernando, 1 m. N.W.,
is an irregular pentagonal structure, built by order of Ferdinand VI.
(1746-1759), on the site of a Capuchin convent. Owing to its situation,
and the rocky nature of the ground over which a besieger must advance,
it is still serviceable as the key to the frontier. It affords
accommodation for 16,000 men and is well provided with bomb-proof cover.
In 1794 Figueras was surrendered to the French, but it was regained in
1795. During the Peninsular War it was taken by the French in 1808,
recaptured by the Spaniards in 1811, and retaken by the French in the
same year. In 1823, after a long defence, it was once more captured by
the French. An annual pilgrimage from Figueras to the chapel of Nuestra
Señora de Requesens, 15 m. N., commemorates the deliverance of the town
from a severe epidemic of fever in 1612.
FIGULUS, PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS (c. 98-45 B.C.), Roman savant, next to Varro
the most learned Roman of the age. He was a friend of Cicero, to whom he
gave his support at the time of the Catilinarian conspiracy (Plutarch,
_Cicero_, 20; Cicero, _Pro Sulla_, xiv. 42). In 58 he was praetor, sided
with Pompey in the Civil War, and after his defeat was banished by
Caesar, and died in exile. According to Cicero (_Timaeus_, 1), Figulus
endeavoured with some success to revive the doctrines of Pythagoreanism.
With this was included mathematics, astronomy and astrology, and even
the magic arts. According to Suetonius (_Augustus_, 94) he foretold the
greatness of the future emperor on the day of his birth, and Apuleius
(_Apologia_, 42) records that, by the employment of "magic boys"
(_magici pueri_), he helped to find a sum of money that had been lost.
Jerome (the authority for the date of his death) calls him _Pythagoricus
et magus_. The abstruse nature of his studies, the mystical character of
his writings, and the general indifference of the Romans to such
subjects, caused his works to be soon forgotten. Amongst his scientific,
theological and grammatical works mention may be made of _De diis_,
containing an examination of various cults and ceremonials; treatises on
divination and the interpretation of dreams; on the sphere, the winds
and animals. His _Commentarii grammatici_ in at least 29 books was an
ill-arranged collection of linguistic, grammatical and antiquarian
notes. In these he expressed the opinion that the meaning of words was
natural, not fixed by man. He paid especial attention to orthography,
and sought to differentiate the meanings of cases of like ending by
distinctive marks (the apex to indicate a long vowel is attributed to
him). In etymology he endeavoured to find a Roman explanation of words
where possible (according to him _frater_ was = _fere alter_).
Quintilian (_Instit. orat._ xi, 3. 143) speaks of a rhetorical treatise
_De gestu_ by him.
See Cicero, _Ad Fam._ iv. 13; scholiast on Lucan i. 639; several
references in Aulus Gellius; Teuffel, _Hist. of Roman Literature_,
170; M. Hertz, De N.F. _studiis atque operibus_ (1845); _Quaestiones
Nigidianae_ (1890), and edition of the fragments (1889) by A. Swoboda.
FIGURATE NUMBERS, in mathematics. If we take the sum of n terms of the
series 1 + 1 + 1 + ..., i.e. n, as the nth term of a new series, we
obtain the series 1 + 2 + 3 + ..., the sum of n terms of which is ½ n ·
n + 1. Taking this sum as the nth term, we obtain the series 1 + 3 + 6 +
10 + ..., which has for the sum of n terms n (n + 1)(n + 2)/3![1] This
sum is taken as the nth term of the next series, and proceeding in this
way we obtain series having the following nth terms:--1, n, n(n + 1)/2!,
n(n + 1) (n + 2)/3!, ... n(n + 1) ... (n + r - 2)/(r - 1)!. The numbers
obtained by giving n any value in these expressions are of the first,
second, third, ... or rth order of figurate numbers.
1 /| 1 /| 1 /| 1 /| 1 /| 1 /| 1 /| 1
/ | / | / | / | / | / | / |
1 /| 2 /| 3 /| 4 /| 5 /| 6 /| 7 |
/ | / | / | / | / | / |
1 /| 3 /| 6 /| 10/| 15/| 21 |
/ | / | / | / | / |
1 /| 4 /| 10/| 20/| 35 |
/ | / | / | / |
1 /| 5 /| 15/| 35 |
/ | / | / |
1 /| 6 /| 21 |
/ | / |
1 /| 7 |
/ |
1 |
Pascal treated these numbers in his _Traité du triangle arithmetique_
(1665), using them to develop a theory of combinations and to solve
problems in probability. His table is here shown in its simplest form.
It is to be noticed that each number is the sum of the numbers
immediately above and to the left of it; and that the numbers along a
line, termed a _base_, which cuts off an equal number of units along the
top row and column are the coefficients in the binomial expansion of
(1 + x)^(r - 1), where r represents the number of units cut off.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The notation n! denotes the product 1 . 2 . 3.... n, and is
termed "factorial n."
FIJI (_Viti_), a British colony consisting of an archipelago in the
Pacific Ocean, the most important in Polynesia, between 15° and 20° S.,
and on and about the meridian of 180°. The islands number about 250, of
which some 80 are inhabited. The total land area is 7435 sq. m. (thus
roughly equalling that of Wales), and the population is about 121,000.
The principal island is Viti Levu, 98 m. in length (E. to W.) and 67 in
extreme breadth, with an area of 4112 sq. m. Forty miles N.E. lies Vanua
Levu, measuring 117 m. by 30, with an area of 2432 sq. m. Close off the
south-eastern shore of Vanua Levu is Taviuni, 26 m. in length by 10 in
breadth; Kandavu or Kadavu, 36 m. long and very narrow, is 41 m. S. of
Viti Levu, and the three other main islands, lying east of Viti Levu in
the Koro Sea, are Koro, Ngau or Gau, and Ovalau. South-east from Vanua
Levu a loop of islets extends nearly to 20° S., enclosing the Koro Sea.
North-west of Viti Levu lies another chain, the Yasawa or western group;
and, finally, the colony includes the island of Rotumah (q.v.), 300 m.
N.W. by N. of Vanua Levu.
The formation of the larger islands is volcanic, their surface rugged,
their vegetation luxuriant, and their appearance very beautiful; their
hills rise often above 3000, and, in the case of a few summits, above
4000 ft., and they contrast strongly with the low coral formation of the
smaller members of the group. There is not much level country, except in
the coral islets, and certain rich tracts along the coasts of the two
large islands, especially near the mouths of the rivers. The large
islands have a considerable extent of undulating country, dry and open
on their lee sides. Streams and rivers are abundant, the latter very
large in proportion to the size of the islands, affording a waterway to
the rich districts along their banks. These and the extensive mud flats
and deltas at their mouths are often flooded, by which their fertility
is increased, though at a heavy cost to the cultivator. The Rewa,
debouching through a wide delta at the south-east of Viti Levu, is
navigable for small vessels for 40 m. There are also in this island the
Navua and Sigatoka (flowing S.), the Nandi (W.), and the Ba (N.W.). The
Dreketi, flowing W., is the chief stream of Vanua Levu. It breaches the
mountains in a fine valley; for this island consists practically of one
long range, whereas the main valleys and ranges separating them in Viti
Levu radiate for the most part from a common centre. With few exceptions
the islands are surrounded by barriers of coral, broken by openings
opposite the mouths of streams. Viti Levu is the most important island
not only from its size, but from its fertility, variety of surface, and
population, which is over one-third of that of the whole group. The town
of Suva lies on an excellent harbour at the south-east of the island,
and has been the capital of the colony since 1882, containing the
government buildings and other offices. Vanua Levu is less fertile than
Viti Levu; it has good anchorages along its entire southern coast. Of
the other islands, Taviuni, remarkable for a lake (presumably a
crater-lake) at the top of its lofty central ridge, is fertile, but
exceptionally devoid of harbours; whereas the well-timbered island of
Kandavu has an excellent one. On the eastern shore of Ovalau, an island
which contains in a small area a remarkable series of gorge-like valleys
between commanding hills, is the town of Levuka, the capital until 1882.
It stands partly upon the narrow shore, and partly climbs the rocky
slope behind. The chief islands on the west of the chain enclosing the
Koro Sea are Koro, Ngau, Moala and Totoya, all productive, affording
good anchorage, elevated and picturesque. The eastern islands of the
chain are smaller and more numerous, Vanua Batevu (one of the Exploring
Group) being a centre of trade. Among others, Mago is remarkable for a
subterranean outlet of the waters of the fertile valley in its midst.
[Illustration: Map of Fiji.]
The land is of recent geological formation, the principal ranges being
composed of igneous rock, and showing traces of much volcanic
disturbance. There are boiling springs in Vanua Levu and Ngau, and
slight shocks of earthquake are occasionally felt. The tops of many of
the mountains, from Kandavu in the S.W., through Nairai and Koro, to the
Ringgold group in the N.E., have distinct craters, but their activity
has long ceased. The various decomposing volcanic rocks--tufas,
conglomerates and basalts--mingled with decayed vegetable matter, and
abundantly watered, form a very fertile soil. Most of the high peaks on
the larger islands are basaltic, and the rocks generally are igneous,
with occasional upheaved coral found sometimes over 1000 ft. above the
sea; but certain sedimentary rocks observed on Viti Levu seem to imply a
nucleus of land of considerable age. Volcanic activity in the
neighbourhood is further shown by the quantities of pumice-stone drifted
on to the south coasts of Kandavu and Viti Levu; malachite, antimony and
graphite, gold in small quantities, and specular iron-sand occur.
_Climate._--The colony is beyond the limits of the perpetual S.E.
trades, while not within the range of the N.W. monsoons. From April to
November the winds are steady between S.E. and E.N.E., and the climate
is cool and dry, after which the weather becomes uncertain and the winds
often northerly, this being the wet warm season. In February and March
heavy gales are frequent, and hurricanes sometimes occur, causing
scarcity by destroying the crops. The rainfall is much greater on the
windward than on the lee sides of the islands (about 110 in. at Suva),
but the mean temperature is much the same, viz., about 80° F. In the
hills the temperature sometimes falls below 50°. The climate, especially
from November to April, is somewhat enervating to the Englishman, but
not unhealthy. Fevers are hardly known. Dysentery, which is common, and
the most serious disease in the islands, is said to have been unknown
before the advent of Europeans.
_Fauna._--Besides the dog and the pig, which (with the domestic fowl)
must have been introduced in early times, the only land mammals are
certain species of rats and bats. Insects are numerous, but the
species few. Bees have been introduced. The avifauna is not
remarkable. Birds of prey are few; the parrot and pigeon tribes are
better represented. Fishes, of an Indo-Malay type, are numerous and
varied; Mollusca, especially marine, and Crustaceae are also very
numerous. These three form an important element in the food supply.
_Flora._--The vegetation is mostly of a tropical Indo-Malayan
character--thick jungle with great trees covered with creepers and
epiphytes. The lee sides of the larger islands, however, have grassy
plains suitable for grazing, with scattered trees, chiefly _Pandanus_,
and ferns. The flora has also some Australian and New Zealand
affinities (resembling in this respect the New Caledonia and New
Hebrides groups), shown especially in these western districts by the
_Pandanus_, by certain acacias and others. At an elevation of about
2000 ft. the vegetation assumes a more mountainous type. Among the
many valuable timber trees are the vesi (_Afzelia bijuga_); the dilo
(_Calophyllum Inophyllum_), the oil from its seeds being much used in
the islands, as in India, in the treatment of rheumatism; the dakua
(_Dammara Vitiensis_), allied to the New Zealand kauri, and others.
The dakua or Fiji pine, however, has become scarce. Most of the fruit
trees are also valuable as timber. The native cloth (_masi_) is beaten
out from the bark of the paper mulberry cultivated for the purpose. Of
the palms the cocoanut is by far the most important. The yasi or
sandal-wood was formerly a valuable product, but is now rarely found.
There are various useful drugs, spices and perfumes; and many plants
are cultivated for their beauty, to which the natives are keenly
alive. Among the plants used as pot-herbs are several ferns, and two
or three Solanums, one of which, _S. anthropophagorum_, was one of
certain plants always cooked with human flesh, which was said to be
otherwise difficult of digestion. The use of the kava root, here
called yanggona, from which the well-known national beverage is made,
is said to have been introduced from Tonga. Of fruit trees, besides
the cocoanut, there may be mentioned the many varieties of the
bread-fruit, of bananas and plantains, of sugar-cane and of lemon; the
wi (_Spondias dulcis_), the kavika (_Eugenia malaccensis_), the ivi or
Tahitian chestnut (_Inocarpus edulis_), the pine-apple and others
introduced in modern times. Edible roots are especially abundant. The
chief staple of life is the yam, the names of several months in the
calendar having reference to its cultivation and ripening. The natives
use no grain or pulse, but make a kind of bread (_mandrai_) from this,
the taro, and other roots, as well as from the banana (which is the
best), the bread-fruit, the ivi, the kavika, the arrowroot, and in
times of scarcity the mangrove. This bread is made by burying the
materials for months, till the mass is thoroughly fermented and
homogeneous, when it is dug up and cooked by baking or steaming. This
simple process, applicable to such a variety of substances, is a
valuable security against famine.
_People._--The Fijians are a people of Melanesian (Papuan) stock much
crossed with Polynesians (Tongans and Samoans). They occupy the extreme
east limits of Papuan territory and are usually classified as
Melanesians; but they are physically superior to the pure examples of
that race, combining their dark colour, harsh hirsute skin, crisp hair,
which is bleached with lime and worn in an elaborately trained mop, and
muscular limbs, with the handsome features and well proportioned bodies
of the Polynesians. They are tall and well built. The features are
strongly marked, but not unpleasant, the eyes deep set, the beard thick
and bushy. The chiefs are fairer, much better-looking, and of a less
negroid type of face than the people. This negroid type is especially
marked on the west coasts, and still more in the interior of Viti Levu.
The Fijians have other characteristics of both Pacific races, e.g. the
quick intellect of the fairer, and the savagery and suspicion of the
dark. They wear a minimum of covering, but, unlike the Melanesians, are
strictly decent, while they are more moral than the Polynesians. They
are cleanly and particular about their personal appearance, though,
unlike other Melanesians, they care little for ornament, and only the
women are tattooed. A partial circumcision is practised, which is
exceptional with the Melanesians, nor have these usually an elaborate
political and social system like that of Fiji. The status of the women
is also somewhat better, those of the upper class having considerable
freedom and influence. If less readily amenable to civilizing influences
than their neighbours to the eastward, the Fijians show greater force of
character and ingenuity. Possessing the arts of both races they practise
them with greater skill than either. They understand the principle of
division of labour and production, and thus of commerce. They are
skilful cultivators and good boat-builders, the carpenters being an
hereditary caste; there are also tribes of fishermen and sailors; their
mats, baskets, nets, cordage and other fabrics are substantial and
tasteful; their pottery, made, like many of the above articles, by
women, is far superior to any other in the South Seas; but many native
manufactures have been supplanted by European goods.
The Fijians were formerly notorious for cannibalism, which may have had
its origin in religion, but long before the first contact with Europeans
had degenerated into gluttony. The Fijian's chief table luxury was human
flesh, euphemistically called by him "long pig," and to satisfy his
appetite he would sacrifice even friends and relatives. The Fijians
combined with this greediness a savage and merciless nature. Human
sacrifices were of daily occurrence. On a chief's death wives and slaves
were buried alive with him. When building a chief's house a slave was
buried alive in the hole dug for each foundation post. At the launching
of a war-canoe living men were tied hand and foot between two plantain
stems making a human ladder over which the vessel was pushed down into
the water. The people acquiesced in these brutal customs, and willingly
met their deaths. Affection and a firm belief in a future state, in
which the exact condition of the dying is continued, are the Fijians'
own explanations of the custom, once universal, of killing sick or aged
relatives. Yet in spite of this savagery the Fijians have always been
remarkable for their hospitality, open-handedness and courtesy. They are
a sensitive, proud, if vindictive, and boastful people, with good
conversational and reasoning powers, much sense of humour, tact and
perception of character. Their code of social etiquette is minute and
elaborate, and the graduations of rank well marked. These are (1)
chiefs, greater and lesser; (2) priests; (3) _Mata ni Vanua_ (lit., eyes
of the land), employés, messengers or counsellors; (4) distinguished
warriors of low birth; (5) common people; (6) slaves.
The family is the unit of political society. The families are grouped in
townships or otherwise (_qali_) under the lesser chiefs, who again owe
allegiance to the supreme chief of the _matanitu_ or tribe. The chiefs
are a real aristocracy, excelling the people in physique, skill,
intellect and acquirements of all sorts; and the reverence felt for
them, now gradually diminishing, was very great, and had something of a
religious character. All that a man had belonged to his chief. On the
other hand, the chief's property practically belonged to his people,
and they were as ready to give as to take. In a time of famine, a chief
would declare the contents of the plantations to be common property. A
system of feudal service-tenures (_lala_) is the institution on which
their social and political fabric mainly depended. It allowed the chief
to call for the labour of any district, and to employ it in planting,
house or canoe-building, supplying food on the occasion of another
chief's visit, &c. This power was often used with much discernment; thus
an unpopular chief would redeem his character by calling for some
customary service and rewarding it liberally, or a district would be
called on to supply labour or produce as a punishment. The privilege
might, of course, be abused by needy or unscrupulous chiefs, though they
generally deferred somewhat to public opinion; it has now, with similar
customary exactions of cloth, mats, salt, pottery, &c. been reduced
within definite limits. An allied custom, _solevu_, enabled a district
in want of any particular article to call on its neighbours to supply
it, giving labour or something else in exchange. Although, then, the
chief is lord of the soil, the inferior chiefs and individual families
have equally distinct rights in it, subject to payment of certain dues;
and the idea of permanent alienation of land by purchase was never
perhaps clearly realized. Another curious custom was that of _vasu_
(lit. nephew). The son of a chief by a woman of rank had almost
unlimited rights over the property of his mother's family, or of her
people. In time of war the chief claimed absolute control over life and
property. Warfare was carried on with many courteous formalities, and
considerable skill was shown in the fortifications. There were
well-defined degrees of dependence among the different tribes or
districts: the first of these, _bati_, is an alliance between two nearly
equal tribes, but implying a sort of inferiority on one side,
acknowledged by military service; the second, _qali_, implies greater
subjection, and payment of tribute. Thus A, being bati to B, might hold
C in qali, in which case C was also reckoned subject to B, or might be
protected by B for political purposes.
The former religion of the Fijians was a sort of ancestor-worship, had
much in common with the creeds of Polynesia, and included a belief in a
future existence. There were two classes of gods--the first immortal, of
whom Ndengei is the greatest, said to exist eternally in the form of a
serpent, but troubling himself little with human or other affairs, and
the others had usually only a local recognition. The second rank (who,
though far above mortals, are subject to their passions, and even to
death) comprised the spirits of chiefs, heroes and other ancestors. The
gods entered and spoke through their priests, who thus pronounced on the
issue of every enterprise, but they were not represented by idols;
certain groves and trees were held sacred, and stones which suggest
phallic associations. The priesthood usually was hereditary, and their
influence great, and they had generally a good understanding with the
chief. The institution of Taboo existed in full force. The _mburé_ or
temple was also the council chamber and place of assemblage for various
purposes.
The weapons of the Fijians are spears, slings, throwing clubs and bows
and arrows. Their houses, of which the framework is timber and the rest
lattice and thatch, are ingeniously constructed, with great taste in
ornamentation, and are well furnished with mats, mosquito-curtains,
baskets, fans, nets and cooking and other utensils. Their canoes,
sometimes more than 100 ft. long, are well built. Ever excellent
agriculturists, their implements were formerly digging sticks and hoes
of turtlebone or flat oyster-shells. In irrigation they showed skill,
draining their fields with built watercourses and bamboo pipes. Tobacco,
maize, sweet potatoes, yams, kava, taro, beans and pumpkins, are the
principal crops.
Fijians are fond of amusements. They have various games, and dancing,
story-telling and songs are especially popular. Their poetry has
well-defined metres, and a sort of rhyme. Their music is rude, and is
said to be always in the major key. They are clever cooks, and for their
feasts preparations are sometimes made months in advance, and enormous
waste results from them. Mourning is expressed by fasting, by shaving
the head and face, or by cutting off the little finger. This last is
sometimes done at the death of a rich man in the hope that his family
will reward the compliment; sometimes it is done vicariously, as when
one chief cuts off the little finger of his dependent in regret or in
atonement for the death of another.
A steady, if not a very rapid, decrease in the native population set in
after 1875. A terrible epidemic of measles in that year swept away
40,000, or about one-third of the Fijians. Subsequent epidemics have not
been attended by anything like this mortality, but there has, however,
been a steady decrease, principally among young children, owing to
whooping-cough, tuberculosis and croup. Every Fijian child seems to
contract yaws at some time in its life, a mistaken notion existing on
the part of the parents that it strengthens the child's physique.
Elephantiasis, influenza; rheumatism, and a skin disease, _thoko_, also
occur. One per cent of the natives are lepers. A commission appointed in
1891 to inquire into the causes of the native decrease collected much
interesting anthropological information regarding native customs, and
provincial inspectors and medical officers were specially appointed to
compel the natives to carry out the sanitary reforms recommended by the
commission. A considerable sum was also spent in laying on good water to
the native villages. The Fijians show no disposition to intermarry with
the Indian coolies. The European half-castes are not prolific _inter
se_, and they are subject to a scrofulous taint. The most robust cross
in the islands is the offspring of the African negro and the Fijian.
Miscegenation with the Micronesians, the only race in the Pacific which
is rapidly increasing, is regarded as the most hopeful manner of
preserving the native Fijian population. There is a large Indian
immigrant population.
_Trade, Administration, &c._--The principal industries are the
cultivation of sugar and fruits and the manufacture of sugar and copra,
and these three are the chief articles of export trade, which is carried
on almost entirely with Australia and New Zealand. The fruits chiefly
exported are bananas and pineapples. There are also exported maize,
vanilla and a variety of fruits in small quantities; pearl and other
shells and bêche-de-mer. There is a manufacture of soap from coconut
oil; a fair quantity of tobacco is grown, and among other industries may
be included boat-building and saw-milling. Regular steamship
communications are maintained with Sydney, Auckland and Vancouver. Good
bridle-tracks exist in all the larger islands, and there are some
macadamized roads, principally in Viti Levu. There is an overland mail
service by native runners. The export trade is valued at nearly £600,000
annually, and the imports at £500,000. The annual revenue of the colony
is about £140,000 and the expenditure about £125,000. The currency and
weights and measures are British. Besides the customs and stamp duties,
some £18,000 of the annual revenue is raised from native taxation. The
seventeen provinces of the colony (at the head of which is either a
European or a _roko tui_ or native official) are assessed annually by
the legislative council for a fixed tax in kind. The tax on each
province is distributed among districts under officials called _bulis_,
and further among villages within these districts. Any surplus of
produce over the assessment is sold to contractors, and the money
received is returned to the natives.
Under a reconstruction made in 1904 there is an executive council
consisting of the governor and four official members. The legislative
council consists of the governor, ten official, six elected and two
native members. The native chiefs and provincial representatives meet
annually under the presidency of the governor, and their recommendations
are submitted for sanction to the legislative council. Suva and Levuka
have each a municipal government, and there are native district and
village councils. There is an armed native constabulary; and a volunteer
and cadet corps in Suva and Levuka.
The majority of the natives are Wesleyan Methodists. The Roman Catholic
missionaries have about 3000 adherents; the Church of England is
confined to the Europeans and _kanakas_ in the towns; the Indian coolies
are divided between Mahommedans and Hindus. There are public schools for
Europeans and half-castes in the towns, but there is no provision for
the education of the children of settlers in the out-districts. By an
ordinance of 1890 provision was made for the constitution of school
boards, and the principle was first applied in Suva and Levuka. The
missions have established schools in every native village, and most
natives are able to read and write their own language. The government
has established a native technical school for the teaching of useful
handicrafts. The natives show themselves very slow in adopting European
habits in food, clothing and house-building.
_History._--A few islands in the north-east of the group were first seen
by Abel Tasman in 1643. The southernmost of the group, Turtle Island,
was discovered by Cook in 1773. Lieutenant Bligh, approaching them in
the launch of the "Bounty," 1789, had a hostile encounter with natives.
In 1827 Dumont d'Urville in the "Astrolabe" surveyed them much more
accurately, but the first thorough survey was that of the United States
exploring expedition in 1840. Up to this time, owing to the evil
reputation of the islanders, European intercourse was very limited. The
labours of the Wesleyan missionaries, however, must always have a
prominent place in any history of Fiji. They came from Tonga in 1835 and
naturally settled first in the eastern islands, where the Tongan
element, already familiar to them, preponderated. They perhaps
identified themselves too closely with their Tongan friends, whose
dissolute, lawless, tyrannical conduct led to much mischief; but it
should not be forgotten that their position was difficult, and it was
mainly through their efforts that many terrible heathen practices were
stamped out.
About 1804 some escaped convicts from Australia and runaway sailors
established themselves around the east part of Viti Levu, and by lending
their services to the neighbouring chiefs probably led to their
preponderance over the rest of the group. Na Ulivau, chief of the small
island of Mbau, established before his death in 1829 a sort of
supremacy, which was extended by his brother Tanoa, and by Tanoa's son
Thakombau, a ruler of considerable capacity. In his time, however,
difficulties thickened. The Tongans, who had long frequented Fiji
(especially for canoe-building, their own islands being deficient in
timber), now came in larger numbers, led by an able and ambitious chief,
Maafu, who, by adroitly taking part in Fijian quarrels, made himself
chief in the Windward group, threatening Thakombau's supremacy. He was
harassed, too, by an arbitrary demand for £9000 from the American
government, for alleged injuries to their consul. Several chiefs who
disputed his authority were crushed by the aid of King George of Tonga,
who (1855) had opportunely arrived on a visit; but he afterwards, taking
some offence, demanded £12,000 for his services. At last Thakombau,
disappointed in the hope that his acceptance of Christianity (1854)
would improve his position, offered the sovereignty to Great Britain
(1859) with the fee simple of 100,000 acres, on condition of her paying
the American claims. Colonel Smythe, R.A., was sent out to report on the
question, and decided against annexation, but advised that the British
consul should be invested with full magisterial powers over his
countrymen, a step which would have averted much subsequent difficulty.
Meanwhile Dr B. Seemann's favourable report on the capabilities of the
islands, followed by a time of depression in Australia and New Zealand,
led to a rapid increase of settlers--from 200 in 1860 to 1800 in 1869.
This produced fresh complications, and an increasing desire among the
respectable settlers for a competent civil and criminal jurisdiction.
Attempts were made at self-government, and the sovereignty was again
offered, conditionally, to England, and to the United States. Finally,
in 1871, a "constitutional government" was formed by certain Englishmen
under King Thakombau; but this, after incurring heavy debt, and
promoting the welfare of neither whites nor natives, came after three
years to a deadlock, and the British government felt obliged, in the
interest of all parties, to accept the unconditional cession now offered
(1874). It had besides long been thought desirable to possess a station
on the route between Australia and Panama; it was also felt that the
Polynesian labour traffic, the abuses in which had caused much
indignation, could only be effectually regulated from a point contiguous
to the recruiting field, and the locality where that labour was
extensively employed. To this end the governor of Fiji was also created
"high commissioner for the western Pacific." Rotumah (q.v.) was annexed
in 1881.
At the time of the British annexation the islands were suffering from
commercial depression, following a fall in the price of cotton after the
American Civil War. Coffee, tea, cinchona and sugar were tried in turn,
with limited success. The coffee was attacked by the leaf disease; the
tea could not compete with that grown by the cheap labour of the East;
the sugar machinery was too antiquated to withstand the fall in prices
consequent on the European sugar bounties. In 1878 the first coolies
were imported from India and the cultivation of sugar began to pass into
the hands of large companies working with modern machinery. With the
introduction of coolies the Fijians began to fall behind in the
development of their country. Many of the coolies chose to remain in the
colony after the termination of their indentures, and began to displace
the European country traders. With a regular and plentiful supply of
Indian coolies, the recruiting of _kanaka_ labourers practically ceased.
The settlement of European land claims, and the measures taken for the
protection of native institutions, caused lively dissatisfaction among
the colonists, who laid the blame of the commercial depression at the
door of the government; but with returning prosperity this feeling began
to disappear. In 1900 the government of New Zealand made overtures to
absorb Fiji. The Aborigines Society protested to the colonial office,
and the imperial government refused to sanction the proposal.
See Smyth, _Ten Months in the Fiji Islands_ (London, 1864); B.
Seemann, _Flora Vitiensis_ (London, 1865); and _Viti: Account of a
Government Mission in the Vitian or Fijian Islands_ (1860-1861); W.T.
Pritchard, _Polynesian Reminiscences_ (London, 1866); H. Forbes, _Two
Years in Fiji_ (London, 1875); Commodore Goodenough, _Journal_
(London, 1876); H.N. Moseley, _Notes of a Naturalist in the
"Challenger"_ (London, 1879); Sir A.H. Gordon, _Story of a Little War_
(Edinburgh, privately printed, 1879); J.W. Anderson, _Fiji and New
Caledonia_ (London, 1880); C.F. Gordon-Cumming, _At Home in Fiji_
(Edinburgh, 1881); John Horne, _A Year in Fiji_ (London, 1881); H.S.
Cooper, _Our New Colony, Fiji_ (London, 1882); S.E. Scholes, _Fiji and
the Friendly Islands_ (London, 1882); Princes Albert Victor and George
of Wales, _Cruise of H. M. S. "Bacchante"_ (London, 1886); A. Agassiz,
_The Islands and Coral Reefs of Fiji_ (Cambridge, Mass., U.S., 1899);
H.B. Guppy, _Observations of a Naturalist in the Pacific_ (1896-1899),
vol. i.; _Vanua Levu, Fiji_ (Phys. Geog. and Geology) (London, 1903);
Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_ (folk-lore, &c.) (London, 1904);
B. Thomson, _The Fijians_ (London, 1908).
FILANDER, the name by which the Aru Island wallaby (_Macropus brunii_)
was first described. It occurs in a translation of C. de Bruyn's
_Travels_ (ii. 101) published in 1737.
FILANGIERI, CARLO (1784-1867), prince of Satriano, Neapolitan soldier
and statesman, was the son of Gaetano Filangieri (1752-1788), a
celebrated philosopher and jurist. At the age of fifteen he decided on a
military career, and having obtained an introduction to Napoleon
Bonaparte, then first consul, was admitted to the Military Academy at
Paris. In 1803 he received a commission in an infantry regiment, and
took part in the campaign of 1805 under General Davoust, first in the
Low Countries, and later at Ulm, Maria Zell and Austerlitz, where he
fought with distinction, was wounded several times and promoted. He
returned to Naples as captain on Masséna's staff to fight the Bourbons
and the Austrians in 1806, and subsequently went to Spain, where he
followed Jerome Bonaparte in his retreat from Madrid. In consequence of
a fatal duel he was sent back to Naples; there he served under Joachim
Murat with the rank of general, and fought against the Anglo-Sicilian
forces in Calabria and at Messina. On the fall of Napoleon he took part
in Murat's campaign against Eugène Beauharnais, and later in that
against Austria, and was severely wounded at the battle of the Panaro
(1815). On the restoration of the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV. (I.),
Filangieri retained his rank and command, but found the army utterly
disorganized and impregnated with Carbonarism. In the disturbances of
1820 he adhered to the Constitutionalist party, and fought under General
Pepe (q.v.) against the Austrians. On the reestablishment of the
autocracy he was dismissed from the service, and retired to Calabria
where he had inherited the princely title and estates of Satriano. In
1831 he was recalled by Ferdinand II. and entrusted with various
military reforms. On the outbreak of the troubles of 1848 Filangieri
advised the king to grant the constitution, which he did in February
1848, but when the Sicilians formally seceded from the Neapolitan
kingdom Filangieri was given the command of an armed force with which to
reduce the island to obedience. On the 3rd of September he landed near
Messina, and after very severe fighting captured the city. He then
advanced southwards, besieged and took Catania, where his troops
committed many atrocities, and by May 1849 he had conquered the whole of
Sicily, though not without much bloodshed. He remained in Sicily as
governor until 1855, when he retired into private life, as he could not
carry out the reforms he desired owing to the hostility of Giovanni
Cassisi, the minister for Sicily. On the death of Ferdinand II. (22nd of
May 1859) the new king Francis II. appointed Filangieri premier and
minister of war. He promoted good relations with France, then fighting
with Piedmont against the Austrians in Lombardy, and strongly urged on
the king the necessity of an alliance with Piedmont and a constitution
as the only means whereby the dynasty might be saved. These proposals
being rejected, Filangieri resigned office. In May 1860, Francis at last
promulgated the constitution, but it was too late, for Garibaldi was in
Sicily and Naples was seething with rebellion. On the advice of Liborio
Romano, the new prefect of police, Filangieri was ordered to leave
Naples. He went to Marseilles with his wife and subsequently to
Florence, where at the instance of General La Marmora he undertook to
write an account of the Italian army. Although he adhered to the new
government he refused to accept any dignity at its hands, and died at
his villa of San Giorgio a Cremano near Naples on the 9th of October
1867.
Filangieri was a very distinguished soldier, and a man of great ability;
although he changed sides several times he became really attached to the
Bourbon dynasty, which he hoped to save by freeing it from its
reactionary tendencies and infusing a new spirit into it. His conduct in
Sicily was severe and harsh, but he was not without feelings of
humanity, and he was an honest man and a good administrator.
His biography has been written by his daughter Teresa Filangieri
Fieschi-Ravaschieri, _Il Generale Carlo Filangieri_ (Milan, 1902), an
interesting, although somewhat too laudatory volume based on the
general's own unpublished memoirs; for the Sicilian expedition see V.
Finocchiaro, _La Rivoluzione siciliana del 1848-49_ (Catania, 1906,
with bibliography), in which Filangieri is bitterly attacked; see also
under NAPLES; FERDINAND IV.; FRANCIS I.; FERDINAND II.; FRANCIS II.
(L. V.*)
FILANGIERI, GAETANO (1752-1788), Italian publicist, was born at Naples
on the 18th of August 1752. His father, Caesar, prince of Arianiello,
intended him for a military career, which he commenced at the early age
of seven, but soon abandoned for the study of the law. At the bar his
knowledge and eloquence early secured his success, while his defence of
a royal decree reforming abuses in the administration of justice gained
him the favour of the king, Charles, afterwards Charles III. of Spain,
and led to several honourable appointments at court. The first two books
of his great work, _La Scienza della legislazione_, appeared in 1780.
The first book contained an exposition of the rules on which legislation
in general ought to proceed, while the second was devoted to economic
questions. These two books showed him an ardent reformer, and vehement
in denouncing the abuses of his time. He insisted on unlimited free
trade, and the abolition of the medieval institutions which impeded
production and national well-being. Its success was great and immediate
not only in Italy, but throughout Europe at large. In 1783 he married,
resigned his appointments at court, and retiring to Cava, devoted
himself steadily to the completion of his work. In the same year
appeared the third book, relating entirely to the principles of criminal
jurisprudence. The suggestion which he made in it as to the need for
reform in the Roman Catholic church brought upon him the censure of the
ecclesiastical authorities, and it was condemned by the congregation of
the Index in 1784. In 1785 he published three additional volumes,
making the fourth book of the projected work, and dealing with education
and morals. In 1787 he was appointed a member of the supreme treasury
council by Ferdinand IV., but his health, impaired by close study and
over-work in his new office, compelled his withdrawal to the country at
Vico Equense. He died somewhat suddenly on the 21st of July 1788, having
just completed the first part of the fifth book of his _Scienza_. He
left an outline of the remainder of the work, which was to have been
completed in six books.
_La Scienza della legislazione_ has gone through many editions, and
has been translated into most of the languages of Europe. The best
Italian edition is in 5 vols. 8vo. (1807). The Milan edition (1822)
contains the _Opusculi scelti_ and a life by Donato Tommasi. A French
translation appeared in Paris in 7 vols. 8vo. (1786-1798); it was
republished in 1822-1824, with the addition of the _Opuscles_ and
notes by Benjamin Constant. _The Science of Legislation_ was
translated into English by Sir R. Clayton (London, 1806).
FILARIASIS, the name of a disease due to the nematode _Filaria sanguinis
hominis_. A milky appearance of the urine, due to the presence of a
substance like chyle, which forms a clot, had been observed from time to
time, especially in tropical and subtropical countries; and it was
proved by Dr Wucherer of Bahia, and by Dr Timothy Lewis, that this
peculiar condition is uniformly associated with the presence in the
blood of minute eel-like worms, visible only under the microscope, being
the embryo forms of a _Filaria_ (see NEMATODA). Sometimes the discharge
of lymph takes place at one or more points of the surface of the body,
and there is in other cases a condition of naevoid elephantiasis of the
scrotum, or lymph-scrotum. More or less of blood may occur along with
the chylous fluid in the urine. Both the chyluria and the presence of
filariae in the blood are curiously intermittent; it may happen that not
a single filaria is to be seen during the daytime, while they swarm in
the blood at night, and it has been ingeniously shown by Dr S. Mackenzie
that they may be made to disappear if the patient sits up all night,
reappearing while he sleeps through the day.
Sir P. Manson proved that mosquitoes imbibe the embryo filariae from the
blood of man; and that many of these reach full development within the
mosquito, acquiring their freedom when the latter resorts to water,
where it dies after depositing its eggs. Mosquitoes would thus be the
intermediate host of the filariae, and their introduction into the human
body would be through the medium of water (see PARASITIC DISEASES).
FILDES, SIR LUKE (1844- ), English painter, was born at Liverpool, and
trained in the South Kensington and Royal Academy schools. At first a
highly successful illustrator, he took rank later among the ablest
English painters, with "The Casual Ward" (1874), "The Widower" (1876),
"The Village Wedding" (1883), "An Al-fresco Toilette" (1889); and "The
Doctor" (1891), now in the National Gallery of British Art. He also
painted a number of pictures of Venetian life and many notable
portraits, among them the coronation portraits of King Edward VII. and
Queen Alexandra. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in
1879, and academician in 1887; and was knighted in 1906.
See David Croal Thomson, _The Life and Work of Luke Fildes, R.A._
(1895).
FILE. 1. A bar of steel having sharp teeth on its surface, and used for
abrading or smoothing hard surfaces. (The O. Eng. word is _féol_, and
cognate forms appear in Dutch _vijl_, Ger. _Feile_, &c.; the ultimate
source is usually taken to be an Indo-European root meaning to mark or
scratch, and seen in the Lat. _pingere_, to paint.) Some uncivilized
tribes polish their weapons with such things as rough stones, pieces of
shark skin or fishes' teeth. The operation of filing is recorded in 1
Sam. xiii. 21; and, among other facts, the similarity of the name for
the filing instrument among various European peoples points to an early
practice of the art. A file differs from a _rasp_ (which is chiefly used
for working wood, horn and the like) in having its teeth cut with a
chisel whose straight edge extends across its surface, while the teeth
of the rasp are formed by solitary indentations of a pointed chisel.
According to the form of their teeth, files may be _single-cut_ or
_double-cut_; the former have only one set of parallel ridges (either
at right angles or at some other angle with the length); the latter (and
more common) have a second set cut at an angle with the first. The
double-cut file presents sharp angles to the filed surface, and is
better suited for hard metals. Files are classed according to the
fineness of their teeth (see TOOL), and their shapes present almost
endless varieties. Common forms are--the _flat_ file, of parallelogram
section, with uniform breadth and thickness, or tapering, or "bellied";
the _four-square_ file, of square section, sometimes with one side
"safe," or left smooth; and the so-called _three-square_ file, having
its cross section an equilateral triangle, the _half-round_ file, a
segment of a circle, the _round_ or _rat-tail_ file, a circle, which are
generally tapered. The _float_ file is like the _flat_, but single-cut.
There are many others. Files vary in length from three-quarters of an
inch (watchmakers') to 2 or 3 ft. and upwards (engineers'). The length
is reckoned exclusively of the spike or tang which enters the handle.
Most files are tapered; the _blunt_ are nearly parallel, with larger
section near the middle; a few are parallel. The _rifflers_ of sculptors
and a few other files are curvilinear in their central line.
In manufacturing files, steel blanks are forged from bars which have
been sheared or rolled as nearly as possible to the sections required,
and after being carefully annealed are straightened, if necessary, and
then rendered clean and accurate by grinding or filing. The process of
cutting them used to be largely performed by hand, but machines are now
widely employed. The hand-cutter, holding in his left hand a short
chisel (the edge of which is wider than the width of the file), places
it on the blank with an inclination from the perpendicular of 12° or
14°, and beginning near the farther end (the blank is placed with the
tang or handle end towards him) strikes it sharply with a hammer. An
indentation is thus made, and the steel, slightly thrown up on the side
next the tang, forms a ridge. The chisel is then transferred to the
uncut surface and slid away from the operator till it encounters the
ridge just made; the position of the next cut being thus determined, the
chisel is again struck, and so on. The workman seeks to strike the blows
as uniformly as possible, and he will make 60 or 80 cuts a minute. If
the file is to be single-cut, it is now ready to be hardened, but if it
is to be double-cut he proceeds to make the second series or course of
cuts, which are generally somewhat finer than the first. Thus the
surface is covered with teeth inclined towards the point of the file. If
the file is flat and is to be cut on the other side, it is turned over,
and a thin plate of pewter placed below it to protect the teeth.
Triangular and other files are supported in grooves in lead. In cutting
round and half-round files, a straight chisel is applied as tangent to
the curve. The round face of a half-round file requires eight, ten or
more courses to complete it. Numerous attempts were made, even so far
back as the 18th century, to invent machinery for cutting files, but
little success was attained till the latter part of the 19th century. In
most of the machines the idea was to arrange a metal arm and hand to
hold the chisel with a hammer to strike the blow, and so to imitate the
manual process as closely as possible. The general principle on which
the successful forms are constructed is that the blanks, laid on a
moving table, are slowly traversed forward under a rapidly reciprocating
chisel or knife.
The filing of a flat surface perfectly true is the test of a good filer;
and this is no easy matter to the beginner. The piece to be operated
upon is generally fixed about the level of the elbow, the operator
standing, and, except in the case of small files, grasping the file with
both hands, the handle with the right, the farther end with the left.
The great point is to be able to move the file forward with pressure in
horizontal straight lines; from the tendency of the hands to move in
arcs of circles, the heel and point of the file are apt to be
alternately raised. This is partially compensated by the bellied form
given to many files (which also counteracts the frequent warping effect
of the hardening process, by which one side of a flat file may be
rendered concave and useless). In bringing back the file for the next
thrust it is nearly lifted off the work. Further, much delicacy and
skill are required in adapting the pressure and velocity, ascertaining
if foreign matters or filings remain interposed between the file and
the work, &c. Files can be cleaned with a piece of the so-called
_cotton-card_ (used in combing cotton wool) nailed to a piece of wood.
In _draw-filing_, which is sometimes resorted to to give a neat finish,
the file is drawn sideways to and fro over the work. New files are
generally used for a time on brass or cast-iron, and when partially worn
they are still available for filing wrought iron and steel.
2. A string or thread (through the Fr. _fil_ and _file_, from Lat.
_filum_, a thread); hence used of a device, originally a cord, wire or
spike on which letters, receipts, papers, &c., may be strung for
convenient reference. The term has been extended to embrace various
methods for the preservation of papers in a particular order, such as
expanding books, cabinets, and ingenious improvements on the simple wire
file which enable any single document to be readily found and withdrawn
without removing the whole series. From the devices used for filing the
word is transferred to the documents filed, and thus is used of a
catalogue, list, or collection of papers, &c. File is also employed to
denote a row of persons or objects arranged one behind the other. In
military usage a "file" is the opposite of a "rank," that is, it is
composed of a (variable) number of men aligned from front to rear one
behind the other, while a rank contains a number of men aligned from
right to left abreast. Thus a British infantry company, in line two
deep, one hundred strong, has two ranks of fifty men each, and fifty
"files" of two men each. Up to about 1600 infantry companies or
battalions were often sixteen deep, one front rank man and the fifteen
"coverers" forming a file. The number of ranks and, therefore, of men in
the file diminished first to ten (1600), then to six (1630), then to
three (1700), and finally to two (about 1808 in the British army, 1888
in the German). Denser formations when employed have been formed, not by
altering the order of men within the unit, but by placing several units,
one closely behind the other ("doubling" and "trebling" the line of
battle, as it used to be called). In the 17th century a file formed a
small command under the "file leader," the whole of the front rank
consisting therefore of old soldiers or non-commissioned officers. This
use of the word to express a unit of command gave rise to the
old-fashioned term "file firing," to imply a species of fire (equivalent
to the modern "independent") in which each man in the file fired in
succession after the file leader, and to-day a corporal or sergeant is
still ordered to take one or more files under his charge for independent
work. In the above it is to be understood that the men are facing to the
front or rear. If they are turned to the right or left so that the
company now stands two men broad and fifty deep, it is spoken of as
being "in file." From this come such phrases as "single file" or "Indian
file" (one man leading and the rest following singly behind him).[1] The
use of verbs "to file" and "to defile," implying the passage from
fighting to marching formation, is to be derived from this rather than
from the resemblance of a marching column to a long flexible thread, for
in the days when the word was first used the infantry company whether in
battle or on the march was a solid rectangle of men, a file often
containing even more men than a rank.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This may also be understood as meaning simply "a single file,"
but the explanation given above is more probable, as it is
essentially a marching and not a fighting formation that is expressed
by the phrase.
FILE-FISH, or TRIGGER-FISH, the names given to fishes of the genus
_Balistes_ (and _Monacanthus_) inhabiting all tropical and subtropical
seas. Their body is compressed and not covered with ordinary scales, but
with small juxtaposed scutes. Their other principal characteristics
consist in the structure of their first dorsal fin (which consists of
three spines) and in their peculiar dentition. The first of the three
dorsal spines is very strong, roughened in front like a file, and
hollowed out behind to receive the second much smaller spine, which,
besides, has a projection in front, at its base, fitting into a notch of
the first. Thus these two spines can only be raised or depressed
simultaneously, in such a manner that the first cannot be forced down
unless the second has been previously depressed. The latter has been
compared to a trigger, hence the name of Trigger-fish. Also the generic
name _Balistes_ and the Italian name of "Pesce balistra" refer to this
structure. Both jaws are armed with eight strong incisor-like and
sometimes pointed teeth, by which these fishes are enabled, not only to
break off pieces of madrepores and other corals on which they feed, but
also to chisel a hole into the hard shells of Mollusca, in order to
extract the soft parts. In this way they destroy an immense number of
molluscs, and become most injurious to the pearl-fisheries. The gradual
failure of those fisheries in Ceylon has been ascribed to this cause,
although evidently other agencies must have been at work at the same
time. The _Monacanthi_ are distinguished from the _Balistes_ in having
only one dorsal spine and a velvety covering of the skin. Some 30
different species are known of _Balistes_ and about 50 of _Monacanthus_.
Two species (_B. maculatus_ and _capriscus_), common in the Atlantic,
sometimes wander to the British coasts.
[Illustration: _Balistes vidua_]
FILELFO, FRANCESCO (1398-1481), Italian humanist, was born in 1398 at
Tolentino, in the March of Ancona. When he appeared upon the scene of
human life, Petrarch and the students of Florence had already brought
the first act in the recovery of classic culture to conclusion. They had
created an eager appetite for the antique, had disinterred many
important Roman authors, and had freed Latin scholarship to some extent
from the barbarism of the middle ages. Filelfo was destined to carry on
their work in the field of Latin literature, and to be an important
agent in the still unaccomplished recovery of Greek culture. His
earliest studies in grammar, rhetoric and the Latin language were
conducted at Padua, where he acquired so great a reputation for learning
that in 1417 he was invited to teach eloquence and moral philosophy at
Venice. According to the custom of that age in Italy, it now became his
duty to explain the language, and to illustrate the beauties of the
principal Latin authors, Cicero and Virgil being considered the chief
masters of moral science and of elegant diction. Filelfo made his mark
at once in Venice. He was admitted to the society of the first scholars
and the most eminent nobles of that city; and in 1419 he received an
appointment from the state, which enabled him to reside as secretary to
the consul-general (_baylo_) of the Venetians in Constantinople. This
appointment was not only honourable to Filelfo as a man of trust and
general ability, but it also gave him the opportunity of acquiring the
most coveted of all possessions at that moment for a scholar--a
knowledge of the Greek language. Immediately after his arrival in
Constantinople, Filelfo placed himself under the tuition of John
Chrysoloras, whose name was already well known in Italy as relative of
Manuel, the first Greek to profess the literature of his ancestors in
Florence. At the recommendation of Chrysoloras he was employed in
several diplomatic missions by the emperor John Palaeologus. Before very
long the friendship between Filelfo and his tutor was cemented by the
marriage of the former to Theodora, the daughter of John Chrysoloras. He
had now acquired a thorough knowledge of the Greek language, and had
formed a large collection of Greek manuscripts. There was no reason why
he should not return to his native country. Accordingly, in 1427 he
accepted an invitation from the republic of Venice, and set sail for
Italy, intending to resume his professorial career. From this time
forward until the date of his death, Filelfo's history consists of a
record of the various towns in which he lectured, the masters whom he
served, the books he wrote, the authors he illustrated, the friendships
he contracted, and the wars he waged with rival scholars. He was a man
of vast physical energy, of inexhaustible mental activity, of quick
passions and violent appetites; vain, restless, greedy of gold and
pleasure and fame; unable to stay quiet in one place, and perpetually
engaged in quarrels with his compeers.
When Filelfo arrived at Venice with his family in 1427, he found that
the city had almost been emptied by the plague, and that his scholars
would be few. He therefore removed to Bologna; but here also he was met
with drawbacks. The city was too much disturbed with political
dissensions to attend to him; so Filelfo crossed the Apennines and
settled in Florence. At Florence began one of the most brilliant and
eventful periods of his life. During the week he lectured to large
audiences of young and old on the principal Greek and Latin authors, and
on Sundays he explained Dante to the people in the Duomo. In addition to
these labours of the chair, he found time to translate portions of
Aristotle, Plutarch, Xenophon and Lysias from the Greek. Nor was he dead
to the claims of society. At first he seems to have lived with the
Florentine scholars on tolerably good terms; but his temper was so
arrogant that Cosimo de' Medici's friends were not long able to put up
with him. Filelfo hereupon broke out into open and violent animosity;
and when Cosimo was exiled by the Albizzi party in 1433, he urged the
signoria of Florence to pronounce upon him the sentence of death. On the
return of Cosimo to Florence, Filelfo's position in that city was no
longer tenable. His life, he asserted, had been already once attempted
by a cut-throat in the pay of the Medici; and now he readily accepted an
invitation from the state of Siena. In Siena, however, he was not
destined to remain more than four years. His fame as a professor had
grown great in Italy, and he daily received tempting offers from princes
and republics. The most alluring of these, made him by the duke of
Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, he decided on accepting; and in 1440 he
was received with honour by his new master in the capital of Lombardy.
Filelfo's life at Milan curiously illustrates the multifarious
importance of the scholars of that age in Italy. It was his duty to
celebrate his princely patrons in panegyrics and epics, to abuse their
enemies in libels and invectives, to salute them with encomiastic odes
on their birthdays, and to compose poems on their favourite themes. For
their courtiers he wrote epithalamial and funeral orations; ambassadors
and visitors from foreign states he greeted with the rhetorical
lucubrations then so much in vogue. The students of the university he
taught in daily lectures, passing in review the weightiest and lightest
authors of antiquity, and pouring forth a flood of miscellaneous
erudition. Not satisfied with these outlets for his mental energy,
Filelfo went on translating from the Greek, and prosecuted a paper
warfare with his enemies in Florence. He wrote, moreover, political
pamphlets on the great events of Italian history; and when
Constantinople was taken by the Turks, he procured the liberation of his
wife's mother by a message addressed in his own name to the sultan. In
addition to a fixed stipend of some 700 golden florins yearly, he was
continually in receipt of special payments for the orations and poems he
produced; so that, had he been a man of frugal habits or of moderate
economy, he might have amassed a considerable fortune. As it was, he
spent his money as fast as he received it, living in a style of
splendour ill befitting a simple scholar, and indulging his taste for
pleasure in more than questionable amusements. In consequence of this
prodigality, he was always poor. His letters and his poems abound in
impudent demands for money from patrons, some of them couched in
language of the lowest adulation, and others savouring of literary
brigandage.
During the second year of his Milanese residence Filelfo lost his first
wife, Theodora. He soon married again; and this time he chose for his
bride a young lady of good Lombard family, called Orsina Osnaga. When
she died he took in wedlock for the third time a woman of Lombard
birth, Laura Magiolini. To all his three wives, in spite of numerous
infidelities, he seems to have been warmly attached; and this is perhaps
the best trait in a character otherwise more remarkable for arrogance
and heat than for any amiable qualities.
On the death of Filippo Maria Visconti, Filelfo, after a short
hesitation, transferred his allegiance to Francesco Sforza, the new duke
of Milan; and in order to curry favour with this parvenu, he began his
ponderous epic, the _Sforziad_, of which 12,800 lines were written, but
which was never published. When Francesco Sforza died, Filelfo turned
his thoughts towards Rome. He was now an old man of seventy-seven years,
honoured with the friendship of princes, recognized as the most
distinguished of Italian humanists, courted by pontiffs, and decorated
with the laurel wreath and the order of knighthood by kings. Crossing
the Apennines and passing through Florence, he reached Rome in the
second week of 1475. The terrible Sixtus IV. now ruled in the Vatican;
and from this pope Filelfo had received an invitation to occupy the
chair of rhetoric with good emoluments. At first he was vastly pleased
with the city and court of Rome; but his satisfaction ere long turned to
discontent, and he gave vent to his ill-humour in a venomous satire on
the pope's treasurer, Milliardo Cicala. Sixtus himself soon fell under
the ban of his displeasure; and when a year had passed he left Rome
never to return. Filelfo reached Milan to find that his wife had died of
the plague in his absence, and was already buried. His own death
followed speedily. For some time past he had been desirous of displaying
his abilities and adding to his fame in Florence. Years had healed the
breach between him and the Medicean family; and on the occasion of the
Pazzi conspiracy against the life of Lorenzo de' Medici, he had sent
violent letters of abuse to his papal patron Sixtus, denouncing his
participation in a plot so dangerous to the security of Italy. Lorenzo
now invited him to profess Greek at Florence, and thither Filelfo
journeyed in 1481. But two weeks after his arrival he succumbed to
dysentery, and was buried at the age of eighty-three in the church of
the Annunziata.
Filelfo deserves commemoration among the greatest humanists of the
Italian Renaissance, not for the beauty of his style, not for the
elevation of his genius, not for the accuracy of his learning, but for
his energy, and for his complete adaptation to the times in which he
lived. His erudition was large but ill-digested; his knowledge of the
ancient authors, if extensive, was superficial; his style was vulgar; he
had no brilliancy of imagination, no pungency of epigram, no grandeur of
rhetoric. Therefore he has left nothing to posterity which the world
would not very willingly let die. But in his own days he did excellent
service to learning by his untiring activity, and by the facility with
which he used his stores of knowledge. It was an age of accumulation and
preparation, when the world was still amassing and cataloguing the
fragments rescued from the wrecks of Greece and Rome. Men had to receive
the very rudiments of culture before they could appreciate its niceties.
And in this work of collection and instruction Filelfo excelled, passing
rapidly from place to place, stirring up the zeal for learning by the
passion of his own enthusiastic temperament, and acting as a pioneer for
men like Poliziano and Erasmus.
All that is worth knowing about Filelfo is contained in Carlo de'
Rosmini's admirable _Vita di Filelfo_ (Milan, 1808); see also W.
Roscoe's _Life of Lorenzo de' Medici_, Vespasiano's _Vite di uomini
illustri_, and J.A. Symonds's _Renaissance in Italy_ (1877). (J. A. S.)
A complete edition of Filelfo's Greek letters (based on the Codex
Trevulzianus) was published for the first time, with French
translation, notes and commentaries, by E. Legrand in 1892 at Paris
(C. xii. of _Publications de l'école des lang. orient._). For further
references, especially to monographs, &c., on Filelfo's life and work,
see Ulysse Chevalier, _Répertoire des sources hist.,
bio-bibliographie_ (Paris, 1905), s.v. _Philelphe, François_.
FILEY, a seaside resort in the Buckrose parliamentary division of the
East Riding of Yorkshire, England, 9-1/2 m. S.E. of Scarborough by a
branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3003.
It stands upon the slope and summit of the cliffs above Filey Bay, which
is fringed by a fine sandy beach. The northern horn of the bay is
formed by Filey Brigg, a narrow and abrupt promontory, continued seaward
by dangerous reefs. The coast-line sweeps hence south-eastward to the
finer promontory of Flamborough Head, beyond which is the watering-place
of Bridlington. The church of St Oswald at Filey is a fine cruciform
building with central tower, Transitional Norman and Early English in
date. There are pleasant promenades and good golf links, also a small
spa which has fallen into disuse. Filey is in favour with visitors who
desire a quiet resort without the accompaniment of entertainment common
to the larger watering-places. Roman remains have been discovered on the
cliff north of the town; the site was probably important, but nothing is
certainly known about it.
FILIBUSTER, a name originally given to the buccaneers (q.v.). The term
is derived most probably from the Dutch _vry buiter_, Ger. _Freibeuter_,
Eng. _freebooter_, the word changing first into _fribustier_, and then
into Fr. _flibustier_, Span. _filibustero_. _Flibustier_ has passed into
the French language, and _filibustero_ into the Spanish language, as a
general name for a pirate. The term "filibuster" was revived in America
to designate those adventurers who, after the termination of the war
between Mexico and the United States, organized expeditions within the
United States to take part in West Indian and Central American
revolutions. From this has sprung the modern use of the word to imply
one who engages in private, unauthorized and irregular warfare against
any state. In the United States it is colloquially applied to
legislators who practise obstruction.
FILICAJA, VINCENZO DA (1642-1707), Italian poet, sprung from an ancient
and noble family of Florence, was born in that city on the 30th of
December 1642. From an incidental notice in one of his letters, stating
the amount of house rent paid during his childhood, his parents must
have been in easy circumstances, and the supposition is confirmed by the
fact that he enjoyed all the advantages of a liberal education, first
under the Jesuits of Florence, and then in the university of Pisa.
At Pisa his mind became stored, not only with the results of patient
study in various branches of letters, but with the great historical
associations linked with the former glory of the Pisan republic, and
with one remarkable institution of which Pisa was the seat. To the
tourist who now visits Pisa the banners and emblems of the order of St
Stephen are mere matter of curiosity, but they had a serious
significance two hundred years ago to the young Tuscan, who knew that
these naval crusaders formed the main defence of his country and
commerce against the Turkish, Algerine and Tunisian corsairs. After a
five years' residence in Pisa he returned to Florence, where he married
Anna, daughter of the senator and marquis Scipione Capponi, and withdrew
to a small villa at Figline, not far from the city. Abjuring the thought
of writing amatory poetry in consequence of the premature death of a
young lady to whom he had been attached, he occupied himself chiefly
with literary pursuits, above all the composition of Italian and Latin
poetry. His own literary eminence, the opportunities enjoyed by him as a
member of the celebrated Academy Della Crusca for making known his
critical taste and classical knowledge, and the social relations within
the reach of a noble Florentine so closely allied with the great house
of Capponi, sufficiently explain the intimate terms on which he stood
with such eminent men of letters as Magalotti, Menzini, Gori and Redi.
The last-named, the author of _Bacchus in Tuscany_, was not only one of
the most brilliant poets of his time, and a safe literary adviser; he
was the court physician, and his court influence was employed with zeal
and effect in his friend's favour. Filicaja's rural seclusion was owing
even more to his straitened means than to his rural tastes. If he ceased
at length to pine in obscurity, the change was owing not merely to the
fact that his poetical genius, fired by the deliverance of Vienna from
the Turks in 1683, poured forth the right strains at the right time, but
also to the influence of Redi, who not only laid Filicaja's verses
before his own sovereign, but had them transmitted with the least
possible delay to the foreign princes whose noble deeds they sung. The
first recompense came, however, not from those princes, but from
Christina, the ex-queen of Sweden, who, from her circle of savants and
courtiers at Rome, spontaneously and generously announced to Filicaja
her wish to bear the expense of educating his two sons, enhancing her
kindness by the delicate request that it should remain a secret.
The tide of Filicaja's fortunes now turned. The grand-duke of Tuscany,
Cosmo III., conferred on him an important office, the commissionership
of official balloting. He was named governor of Volterra in 1696, where
he strenuously exerted himself to raise the tone of public morality.
Both there and at Pisa, where he was subsequently governor in 1700, his
popularity was so great that on his removal the inhabitants of both
cities petitioned for his recall. He passed the close of his life at
Florence; the grand-duke raised him to the rank of senator, and he died
in that city on the 24th of September 1707. He was buried in the family
vault in the church of St Peter, and a monument was erected to his
memory by his sole surviving son Scipione Filicaja. In the six
celebrated odes inspired by the great victory of Sobieski, Filicaja took
a lyrical flight which has placed him at moments on a level with the
greatest Italian poets. They are, however, unequal, like all his poetry,
reflecting in some passages the native vigour of his genius and purest
inspirations of his tastes, whilst in others they are deformed by the
affectations of the _Seicentisti_. When thoroughly natural and
spontaneous--as in the two sonnets "Italia, Italia, o tu cui feo la
sorte" and "Dov' è, Italia, il tuo braccio? e a che ti serve;" in the
verses "Alla beata Vergine," "Al divino amore;" in the sonnet "Sulla
fede nelle disgrazie"--the truth and beauty of thought and language
recall the verse of Petrarch.
Besides the poems published in the complete Venice edition of 1762,
several other pieces appeared for the first time in the small Florence
edition brought out by Barbera in 1864.
FILIGREE (formerly written _filigrain_ or _filigrane_; the Ital.
_filigrana_, Fr. _filigrane_, Span, _filigrana_, Ger. _Drahtgeflecht_),
jewel work of a delicate kind made with twisted threads usually of gold
and silver. The word, which is usually derived from the Lat. _filum_,
thread, and _granum_, grain, is not found in Ducange, and is indeed of
modern origin. According to Prof. Skeat it is derived from the Span.
_filigrana_, from "_filar_, to spin, and _grano_, the grain or principal
fibre of the material." Though filigree has become a special branch of
jewel work in modern times it was anciently part of the ordinary work of
the jeweller. Signor A. Castellani states, in his _Memoir on the
Jewellery of the Ancients_ (1861), that all the jewelry of the Etruscans
and Greeks (other than that intended for the grave, and therefore of an
unsubstantial character) was made by soldering together and so building
up the gold rather than by chiselling or engraving the material.
The art may be said to consist in curling, twisting and plaiting fine
pliable threads of metal, and uniting them at their points of contact
with each other, and with the ground, by means of gold or silver solder
and borax, by the help of the blowpipe. Small grains or beads of the
same metals are often set in the eyes of volutes, on the junctions, or
at intervals at which they will set off the wire-work effectively. The
more delicate work is generally protected by framework of stouter wire.
Brooches, crosses, earrings and other personal ornaments of modern
filigree are generally surrounded and subdivided by bands of square or
flat metal, giving consistency to the filling up, which would not
otherwise keep its proper shape. Some writers of repute have laid equal
stress on the _filum_ and the _granum_, and have extended the use of the
term filigree to include the granulated work of the ancients, even where
the twisted wire-work is entirely wanting. Such a wide application of
the term is not approved by current usage, according to which the
presence of the twisted threads is the predominant fact.
The Egyptian jewellers employed wire, both to lay down on a background
and to plait or otherwise arrange _à jour_. But, with the exception of
chains, it cannot be said that filigree work was much practised by them.
Their strength lay rather in their cloisonné work and their moulded
ornaments. Many examples, however, remain of round plaited gold chains
of fine wire, such as are still made by the filigree workers of India,
and known as Trichinopoly chains. From some of these are hung smaller
chains of finer wire with minute fishes and other pendants fastened to
them. In ornaments derived from Phoenician sites, such as Cyprus and
Sardinia, patterns of gold wire are laid down with great delicacy on a
gold ground, but the art was advanced to its highest perfection in the
Greek and Etruscan filigree of the 6th to the 3rd centuries B.C. A
number of earrings and other personal ornaments found in central Italy
are preserved in the Louvre and in the British Museum. Almost all of
them are made of filigree work. Some earrings are in the form of flowers
of geometric design, bordered by one or more rims each made up of minute
volutes of gold wire, and this kind of ornament is varied by slight
differences in the way of disposing the number or arrangement of the
volutes. But the feathers and petals of modern Italian filigree are not
seen in these ancient designs. Instances occur, but only rarely, in
which filigree devices in wire are self-supporting and not applied to
metal plates. The museum of the Hermitage at St Petersburg contains an
amazingly rich collection of jewelry from the tombs of the Crimea. Many
bracelets and necklaces in that collection are made of twisted wire,
some in as many as seven rows of plaiting, with clasps in the shape of
heads of animals of beaten work. Others are strings of large beads of
gold, decorated with volutes, knots and other patterns of wire soldered
over the surfaces. (See the _Antiquités du Bosphore Cimmérien_, by
Gille, 1854; reissued by S. Reinach, 1892, in which will be found
careful engravings of these objects.) In the British Museum a sceptre,
probably that of a Greek priestess, is covered with plaited and netted
gold wire, finished with a sort of Corinthian capital and a boss of
green glass.
It is probable that in India and various parts of central Asia filigree
has been worked from the most remote period without any change in the
designs. Whether the Asiatic jewellers were influenced by the Greeks
settled on that continent, or merely trained under traditions held in
common with them, it is certain that the Indian filigree workers retain
the same patterns as those of the ancient Greeks, and work them in the
same way, down to the present day. Wandering workmen are given so much
gold, coined or rough, which is weighed, heated in a pan of charcoal,
beaten into wire, and then worked in the courtyard or verandah of the
employer's house according to the designs of the artist, who weighs the
complete work on restoring it and is paid at a specified rate for his
labour. Very fine grains or beads and spines of gold, scarcely thicker
than coarse hair, projecting from plates of gold are methods of
ornamentation still used.
Passing to later times we may notice in many collections of medieval
jewel work (such as that in the South Kensington Museum) reliquaries,
covers for the gospels, &c., made either in Constantinople from the 6th
to the 12th centuries, or in monasteries in Europe, in which Byzantine
goldsmiths' work was studied and imitated. These objects, besides being
enriched with precious stones, polished, but not cut into facets, and
with enamel, are often decorated with filigree. Large surfaces of gold
are sometimes covered with scrolls of filigree soldered on; and corner
pieces of the borders of book covers, or the panels of reliquaries, are
not unfrequently made up of complicated pieces of plaited work
alternating with spaces encrusted with enamel. Byzantine filigree work
occasionally has small stones set amongst the curves or knots. Examples
of such decoration can be seen in the South Kensington and British
Museums.
In the north of Europe the Saxons, Britons and Celts were from an early
period skilful in several kinds of goldsmiths' work. Admirable examples
of filigree patterns laid down in wire on gold, from Anglo-Saxon tombs,
may be seen in the British Museum--notably a brooch from Dover, and a
sword-hilt from Cumberland.
The Irish filigree work is more thoughtful in design and more varied in
pattern than that of any period or country that could be named. Its
highest perfection must be placed in the 10th and 11th centuries. The
Royal Irish Academy in Dublin contains a number of reliquaries and
personal jewels, of which filigree is the general and most remarkable
ornament. The "Tara" brooch has been copied and imitated, and the shape
and decoration of it are well known. Instead of fine curls or volutes
of gold thread, the Irish filigree is varied by numerous designs in
which one thread can be traced through curious knots and complications,
which, disposed over large surfaces, balance one another, but always
with special varieties and arrangements difficult to trace with the eye.
The long thread appears and disappears without breach of continuity, the
two ends generally worked into the head and the tail of a serpent or a
monster. The reliquary containing the "Bell of St Patrick" is covered
with knotted work in many varieties. A two-handled chalice, called the
"Ardagh cup," found near Limerick in 1868, is ornamented with work of
this kind of extraordinary fineness. Twelve plaques on a band round the
body of the vase, plaques on each handle and round the foot of the vase
have a series of different designs of characteristic patterns, in fine
filigree wire work wrought on the front of the repoussé ground. (See a
paper by the 3rd earl of Dunraven in _Transactions of Royal Irish
Academy_, xxiv. pt. iii. 1873.)
Much of the medieval jewel work all over Europe down to the 15th
century, on reliquaries, crosses, croziers and other ecclesiastical
goldsmiths' work, is set off with bosses and borders of filigree.
Filigree work in silver was practised by the Moors of Spain during the
middle ages with great skill, and was introduced by them and established
all over the Peninsula, whence it was carried to the Spanish colonies in
America. The Spanish filigree work of the 17th and 18th centuries is of
extraordinary complexity (examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum),
and silver filigree jewelry of delicate and artistic design is still
made in considerable quantities throughout the country. The manufacture
spread over the Balearic Islands, and among the populations that border
the Mediterranean. It is still made all over Italy, and in Malta,
Albania, the Ionian Islands and many other parts of Greece. That of the
Greeks is sometimes on a large scale, with several thicknesses of wires
alternating with larger and smaller bosses and beads, sometimes set with
turquoises, &c., and mounted on convex plates, making rich ornamental
headpieces, belts and breast ornaments. Filigree silver buttons of
wire-work and small bosses are worn by the peasants in most of the
countries that produce this kind of jewelry. Silver filigree brooches
and buttons are also made in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Little chains
and pendants are added to much of this northern work.
Some very curious filigree work was brought from Abyssinia after the
capture of Magdala--arm-guards, slippers, cups, &c., some of which are
now in the South Kensington Museum. They are made of thin plates of
silver, over which the wire-work is soldered. The filigree is subdivided
by narrow borders of simple pattern, and the intervening spaces are made
up of many patterns, some with grains set at intervals.
A few words must be added as to the granulated work which, as stated
above, some writers have classed under the term of filigree, although
the twisted wires may be altogether wanting. Such decoration consists of
minute globules of gold, soldered to form patterns on a metal surface.
Its use is rare in Egypt. (See J. de Morgan, _Fouilles à Dahchour_,
1894-1895, pl. xii.) It occurs in Cyprus at an early period, as for
instance on a gold pendant in the British Museum from Enkomi in Cyprus
(10th century B.C.). The pendant is in the form of a pomegranate, and
has upon it a pattern of triangles, formed by more than 3000 minute
globules separately soldered on. It also occurs on ornaments of the 7th
century B.C. from Camirus in Rhodes. But these globules are large,
compared with those which are found on Etruscan jewelry. Signor
Castellani, who had made the antique jewelry of the Etruscans and Greeks
his special study, with the intention of reproducing the ancient models,
found it for a long time impossible to revive this particular process of
delicate soldering. He overcame the difficulty at last, by the discovery
of a traditional school of craftsmen at St Angelo in Vado, by whose help
his well-known reproductions were executed.
For examples of antique work the student should examine the gold
ornament rooms of the British Museum, the Louvre and the collection
in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The last contains a large and very
varied assortment of modern Italian, Spanish, Greek and other jewelry
made for the peasants of various countries. It also possesses
interesting examples of the modern work in granulated gold by
Castellani and Giuliano. The Celtic work is well represented in the
Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.
FILLAN, SAINT, or FAELAN, the name of the two Scottish saints, of Irish
origin, whose lives are of a purely legendary character. The St Fillan
whose feast is kept on the 20th of June had churches dedicated to his
honour at Ballyheyland, Queen's county, Ireland, and at Loch Earn,
Perthshire. The other, who is commemorated on the 9th of January, was
specially venerated at Cluain Mavscua, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, and so
early as the 8th or 9th century at Strathfillan, Perthshire, Scotland,
where there was an ancient monastery dedicated to him, which, like most
of the religious houses of early times, was afterwards secularized. The
lay-abbot, who was its superior in the reign of William the Lion, held
high rank in the Scottish kingdom. This monastery was restored in the
reign of Robert Bruce, and became a cell of the abbey of canons regular
at Inchaffray. The new foundation received a grant from King Robert, in
gratitude for the aid which he was supposed to have obtained from a
relic of the saint on the eve of the great victory of Bannockburn.
Another relic was the saint's staff or crozier, which became known as
the coygerach or quigrich, and was long in the possession of a family of
the name of Jore or Dewar, who were its hereditary guardians. They
certainly had it in their custody in the year 1428, and their right was
formally recognized by King James III. in 1487. The head of the crozier,
which is of silver-gilt with a smaller crozier of bronze inclosed within
it, is now deposited in the National Museum of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland.
The legend of the second of these saints is given in the Bollandist
_Acta SS._ (1643), 9th of January, i. 594-595; A.P. Forbes, _Kalendars
of Scottish Saints_ (Edinburgh, 1872), pp. 341-346; D. O'Hanlon's
_Lives of Irish Saints_ (Dublin), n.d. pp. 134-144. See also
_Historical Notices of St Fillan's Crozier_, by Dr John Stuart
(Aberdeen, 1877).
FILLET (through Fr. _filet_, from the med. Lat. _filettum_, diminutive
of _filum_, a thread), a band or ribbon used for tying the hair, the
Lat. _vitta_, which was used as a sacrificial emblem, and also worn by
vestal virgins, brides and poets. The word is thus applied to anything
in the shape of a band or strip, as, in coining, to the metal ribbon
from which the blanks are punched. In architecture, a "fillet" is a
narrow flat band, sometimes called a "listel," which is used to separate
mouldings one from the other, or to terminate a suite of mouldings as at
the top of a cornice. In the fluted column of the Ionic and Corinthian
Orders the fillet is employed between the flutes. It is a very important
feature in Gothic work, being frequently worked on large mouldings; when
placed on the front and sides of the moulding of a rib it has been
termed the "keel and wings" of the rib.
In cooking, "fillet" is used of the "undercut" of a sirloin of beef, or
of a thick slice of fish or meat; more particularly of a boned and
rolled piece of veal or other meat, tied by a "fillet" or string.
FILLMORE, MILLARD (1800-1874), thirteenth president of the United States
of America, came of a family of English stock, which had early settled
in New England. His father, Nathaniel, in 1795, made a clearing within
the limits of what is now the town of Summerhill, Cayuga county, New
York, and there Millard Fillmore was born, on the 7th of January 1800.
Until he was fifteen he could have acquired only the simplest rudiments
of education, and those chiefly from his parents. At that age he was
apprenticed to a fuller and clothier, to card wool, and to dye and dress
the cloth. Two years before the close of his term, with a promissory
note for thirty dollars, he bought the remainder of his time from his
master, and at the age of nineteen began to study law. In 1820 he made
his way to Buffalo, then only a village, and supported himself by
teaching school and aiding the postmaster while continuing his studies.
In 1823 he was admitted to the bar, and began practice at Aurora, New
York, to which place his father had removed. Hard study, temperance and
integrity gave him a good reputation and moderate success, and in 1827
he was made an attorney and, in 1829, counsellor of the supreme court
of the state. Returning to Buffalo in 1830 he formed, in 1832, a
partnership with Nathan K. Hall (1810-1874), later a member of Congress
and postmaster-general in his cabinet. Solomon G. Haven (1810-1861),
member of Congress from 1851 to 1857, joined them in 1836. The firm met
with great success. From 1829 to 1832 Fillmore served in the state
assembly, and, in the single term of 1833-1835, the national House of
Representatives, coming in as anti-Jackson, or in opposition to the
administration. From 1837 to 1843, when he declined further service, he
again represented his district in the House, this time as a member of
the Whig party. In Congress he opposed the annexation of Texas as slave
territory, was an advocate of internal improvements and a protective
tariff, supported J.Q. Adams in maintaining the right of offering
anti-slavery petitions, advocated the prohibition by Congress of the
slave trade between the states, and favoured the exclusion of slavery
from the District of Columbia. His speech and tone, however, were
moderate on these exciting subjects, and he claimed the right to stand
free of pledges, and to adjust his opinions and his course by the
development of circumstances. The Whigs having the ascendancy in the
Twenty-Seventh Congress, he was made chairman of the House Committee of
Ways and Means. Against a strong opposition he carried an appropriation
of $30,000 to Morse's telegraph, and reported from his committee the
Tariff Bill of 1842. In 1844 he was the Whig candidate for the
governorship of New York, but was defeated. In November 1847 he was
elected comptroller of the state of New York, and in 1848 he was elected
vice-president of the United States on the ticket with Zachary Taylor as
president. Fillmore presided over the senate during the exciting debates
on the "Compromise Measures of 1850."
President Taylor died on the 9th of July 1850, and on the next day
Fillmore took the oath of office as his successor. The cabinet which he
called around him contained Daniel Webster, Thomas Corwin and John J.
Crittenden. On the death of Webster in 1852, Edward Everett became
secretary of state. Unlike Taylor, Fillmore favoured the "Compromise
Measures," and his signing one of them, the Fugitive Slave Law, in spite
of the vigorous protests of anti-slavery men, lost him much of his
popularity in the North. Few of his opponents, however, questioned his
own full persuasion that the Compromise Measures were vitally necessary
to pacify the nation. In 1851 he interposed promptly but ineffectively
in thwarting the projects of the "filibusters," under Narciso Lopez for
the invasion of Cuba. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry's expedition,
which opened up diplomatic relations with Japan, and the exploration of
the valley of the Amazon by Lieutenants William L. Herndon (1813-1857)
and Lardner Gibbon also occurred during his term. In the autumn of 1852
he was an unsuccessful candidate for nomination for the presidency by
the Whig National Convention, and he went out of office on the 4th of
March 1853. In February 1856, while he was travelling abroad, he was
nominated for the presidency by the American or Know Nothing party, and
later this nomination was also accepted by the Whigs; but in the ensuing
presidential election, the last in which the Know Nothings and the Whigs
as such took any part, he received the electoral votes of only one
state, Maryland. Thereafter he took no public share in political
affairs. Fillmore was twice married: in 1826 to Abigail Powers (who died
in 1853, leaving him with a son and daughter), and in 1858 to Mrs.
Caroline C. Mclntosh. He died at Buffalo on the 8th of March 1874.
In 1907 the Buffalo Historical Society, of which Fillmore was one of
the founders and the first president, published the _Millard Fillmore
Papers_ (2 vols., vol. x. and xi. of the Society's publications;
edited by F.H. Severance), containing miscellaneous writings and
speeches, and official and private correspondence. Most of his
correspondence, however, was destroyed in pursuance of a direction in
his son's will.
FILMER, SIR RORERT (d. 1653), English political writer, was the son of
Sir Edward Filmer of East Sutton in Kent. He studied at Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1604. Knighted by Charles I. at the
beginning of his reign, he was an ardent supporter of the king's cause,
and his house is said to have been plundered by the parliamentarians ten
times. He died on the 26th of May 1653.
Filmer was already a middle-aged man when the great controversy between
the king and the Commons roused him into literary activity. His writings
afford an exceedingly curious example of the doctrines held by the most
extreme section of the Divine Right party. Filmer's theory is founded
upon the statement that the government of a family by the father is the
true original and model of all government. In the beginning of the world
God gave authority to Adam, who had complete control over his
descendants, even as to life and death. From Adam this authority was
inherited by Noah; and Filmer quotes as not unlikely the tradition that
Noah sailed up the Mediterranean and allotted the three continents of
the Old World to the rule of his three sons. From Shem, Ham and Japheth
the patriarchs inherited the absolute power which they exercised over
their families and servants; and from the patriarchs all kings and
governors (whether a single monarch or a governing assembly) derive
their authority, which is therefore absolute, and founded upon divine
right. The difficulty that a man "by the secret will of God may
unjustly" attain to power which he has not inherited appeared to Filmer
in no way to alter the nature of the power so obtained, for "there is,
and always shall be continued to the end of the world, a natural right
of a supreme father over every multitude." The king is perfectly free
from all human control. He cannot be bound by the acts of his
predecessors, for which he is not responsible; nor by his own, for
"impossible it is in nature that a man should give a law unto
himself"--a law must be imposed by another than the person bound by it.
With regard to the English constitution, he asserted, in his
_Freeholder's Grand Inquest touching our Sovereign Lord the King and his
Parliament_ (1648), that the Lords only give counsel to the king, the
Commons only "perform and consent to the ordinances of parliament," and
the king alone is the maker of laws, which proceed purely from his will.
It is monstrous that the people should judge or depose their king, for
they would then be judges in their own cause.
The most complete expression of Filmer's opinions is given in the
_Patriarcha_, which was published in 1680, many years after his death.
His position, however, was sufficiently indicated by the works which he
published during his lifetime: the _Anarchy of a Limited and Mixed
Monarchy_ (1648), an attack upon a treatise on monarchy by Philip Hunton
(1604?-1682), who maintained that the king's prerogative is not superior
to the authority of the houses of parliament; the pamphlet entitled _The
Power of Kings, and in particular of the King of England_ (1648), first
published in 1680; and his _Observations upon Mr Hobbes's Leviathan, Mr
Milton against Salmasius, and H. Grotius De jure belli et pacis,
concerning the Originall of Government_ (1652). Filmer's theory, owing
to the circumstances of the time, obtained a recognition which it is now
difficult to understand. Nine years after the publication of the
_Patriarcha_, at the time of the Revolution which banished the Stuarts
from the throne, Locke singled out Filmer as the most remarkable of the
advocates of Divine Right, and thought it worth while to attack him
expressly in the first part of the _Treatise on Government_, going into
all his arguments _seriatim_, and especially pointing out that even if
the first steps of his argument be granted, the rights of the eldest
born have been so often set aside that modern kings can claim no such
inheritance of authority as he asserted.
FILMY FERNS, a general name for a group of ferns with delicate
much-divided leaves and often moss-like growth, belonging to the genera
_Hymenophyllum_, _Todea_ and _Trichomanes_. They require to be kept in
close cases in a cool fernery, and the stones and moss amongst which
they are grown must be kept continually moist so that the evaporated
water condenses on the very numerous divisions of the leaves.
FILON, PIERRE MARIE AUGUSTIN (1841- ), French man of letters, son of
the historian Charles Auguste Désiré Filon (1800-1875), was born in
Paris in 1841. His father became professor of history at Douai, and
eventually "_inspecteur d'académie_" in Paris; his principal works were
_Histoire comparée de France et de l'Angleterre_ (1832), _Histoire de
l'Europe au XVI^e siècle_ (1838), _La Diplomatie française sous Louis
XV_ (1843), _Histoire de l'Italie méridionale_ (1849), _Histoire du
sénat romain_ (1850), _Histoire de la démocratie athénienne_ (1854).
Educated at the École normale, Augustin Filon was appointed tutor to the
prince imperial and accompanied him to England, where he remained for
some years. He is the author of _Guy Patin, sa vie, sa correspondance_
(1862); _Nos grands-pères_ (1887); _Prosper Mérimée_ (1894); _Sous la
tyrannie_ (1900). On English subjects he has written chiefly under the
pseudonym of Pierre Sandrié, _Les Mariages de Londres_ (1875); _Histoire
de la littérature anglaise_ (1883); _Le Théâtre anglais_ (1896), and _La
Caricature en Angleterre_ (1902).
FILOSA (A. Lang), one of the two divisions of Rhizopoda, characterized
by protoplasm granular at the surface, and fine pseudopodia branching
and usually acutely pointed at the tips.
FILTER (a word common in various forms to most European languages,
adapted from the medieval Lat. _filtrum_, felt, a material used as a
filtering agent), an arrangement for separating solid matter from
liquids. In some cases the operation of filtration is performed for the
sake of removing impurities from the filtrate or liquid filtered, as in
the purification of water for drinking purposes; in others the aim is to
recover and collect the solid matter, as when the chemist filters off a
precipitate from the liquid in which it is suspended.
In regard to the purification of water, filtration was long looked upon
as merely a mechanical process of straining out the solid particles,
whereby a turbid water could be rendered clear. In the course of time it
was noticed that certain materials, such as charcoal, had the power to
some extent also of softening hard water and of removing organic matter,
and at the beginning of the 19th century charcoal, both animal and
vegetable, came into use for filtering purposes. Porous carbon blocks,
made by strongly heating a mixture of powdered charcoal with oil, resin,
&c., were introduced about a generation later, and subsequently various
preparations of iron (spongy iron, magnetic oxide) found favour.
Innumerable forms of filters made with these and other materials were
put on the market, and were extolled as removing impurities of every
kind from water, and as affording complete protection against the
communication of disease. But whatever merits they had as clarifiers of
turbid water, the advent of bacteriology, and the recognition of the
fact that the bacteria of certain diseases may be water-borne,
introduced a new criterion of effectiveness, and it was perceived that
the removal of solid particles, or even of organic impurities (which
were realized to be important not so much because they are dangerous to
health _per se_ as because their presence affords grounds for suspecting
that the water in which they occur has been exposed to circumstances
permitting contamination with infective disease), was not sufficient;
the filter must also prevent the passage of pathogenic organisms, and so
render the water sterile bacteriologically. Examined from this point of
view the majority of domestic filters were found to be gravely
defective, and even to be worse than useless, since unless they were
frequently and thoroughly cleansed, they were liable to become
favourable breeding-places for microbes. The first filter which was more
or less completely impermeable to bacteria was the Pasteur-Chamberland,
which was devised in Pasteur's laboratory, and is made of dense biscuit
porcelain. The filtering medium in this, as in other filters of the same
kind, takes the form of a hollow cylinder or "candle," through the walls
of which the water has to pass from the outside to the inside, the
candles often being arranged so that they may be directly attached to a
tap, whereby the rate of flow, which is apt to be slow, is accelerated
by the pressure of the main. But even filters of this type, if they are
to be fully relied upon, must be frequently cleaned and sterilized, and
great care must be taken that the joints and connexions are watertight,
and that the candles are without cracks or flaws. In cases where the
water supply is known to be infected, or even where it is merely
doubtful, it is wise to have recourse to sterilization by boiling,
rather than trust to any filter. Various machines have been constructed
to perform this operation, some of them specially designed for the use
of troops in the field; those in which economy of fuel is studied have
an exchange-heater, by means of which the incoming cold water receives
heat from the outgoing hot water, which thus arrives at the point of
outflow at a temperature nearly as low as that of the supply. Chemical
methods of sterilization have also been suggested, depending on the use
of iodine, chlorine, bromine, ozone, potassium permanganate, copper
sulphate or chloride and other substances. For the sand-filtration of
water on a large scale, in which the presence of a surface film
containing zooglaea of bacteria is an essential feature, see WATER
SUPPLY.
Filtration in the chemical laboratory is commonly effected by the aid of
a special kind of unsized paper, which in the more expensive varieties
is practically pure cellulose, impurities like ferric oxide, alumina,
lime, magnesia and silica having been removed by treatment with
hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids. A circular piece of this paper is
folded twice upon itself so as to form a quadrant, one of the folds is
pulled out, and the cone thus obtained is supported in a glass or
porcelain funnel having an apical angle of 60°. The liquid to be
filtered is poured into the cone, preferably down a glass rod upon the
sides of the funnel to prevent splashing and to preserve the apex of the
filter-paper, and passes through the paper, upon which the solid matter
is retained. In the case of liquids containing strong acids or alkalis,
which the paper cannot withstand, a plug of carefully purified asbestos
or glass-wool (spun glass) is often employed, contained in a bulb blown
as an enlargement on a narrow "filter-tube." To accelerate the rate of
filtration various devices are resorted to, such as lengthening the tube
below the filtering material, increasing the pressure on the liquid
being filtered, or decreasing it in the receiver of the filtrate. R.W.
Bunsen may be regarded as the originator of the second method, and it
was he who devised the small cone of platinum foil, sometimes replaced
by a cone of parchment perforated with pinholes, arranged at the apex of
the funnel to serve as a support for the paper, which is apt to burst
under the pressure differences. In the so-called "Buchner funnel," the
filtering vessel is cylindrical, and the paper receives support by being
laid upon its flat perforated bottom. In filtering into a vacuum the
flask receiving the filtrate should be connected to the exhaust through
a second flask. The suction may be derived from any form of air-pump; a
form often employed where water at fair pressure is available is the
jet-pump, which in consequence is known as a filter-pump. Another method
of filtering into a vacuum is to immerse a porous jar ("Pukall cell") in
the liquid to be filtered, and attach a suction-pipe to its interior. A
filtering arrangement devised by F.C. Gooch, which has come into common
use in quantitative analysis where the solid matter has to be submitted
to heating or ignition, consists of a crucible having a perforated
bottom. By means of a piece of stretched rubber tubing, this crucible is
supported in the mouth of an ordinary funnel which is connected with an
exhausting apparatus; and water holding in suspension fine scrapings of
asbestos, purified by boiling with strong hydrochloric acid and washing
with water, is run through it, so that the perforated bottom is covered
with a layer of felted asbestos. The crucible is then removed from the
rubber support, weighed and replaced; the liquid is filtered through in
the ordinary way; and the crucible with its contents is again removed,
dried, ignited and weighed. A perforated cone, similarly coated with
asbestos and fitted into a conical funnel, is sometimes employed.
In many processes of chemical technology filtration plays an important
part. A crude method consists of straining the liquid through cotton or
other cloth, either stretched on wooden frames or formed into long
narrow bags ("bag-filters"). Occasionally filtration into a vacuum is
practised, but more often, as in filter-presses, the liquid is forced
under pressure, either hydrostatic or obtained from a force-pump or
compressed air, into a series of chambers partitioned off by cloth,
which arrests the solids, but permits the passage of the liquid
portions. For separating liquids from solids of a fibrous or crystalline
character "hydro-extractors" or "centrifugals" are frequently employed.
The material is placed in a perforated cage or "basket," which is
enclosed in an outer casing, and when the cage is rapidly rotated by
suitable gearing, the liquid portions are forced out into the external
casing.
FIMBRIA, GAIUS FLAVIUS (d. 84 B.C.), Roman soldier and a violent
partisan of Marius. He was sent to Asia in 86 B.C. as legate to L.
Valerius Flaccus, but quarrelled with him and was dismissed. Taking
advantage of the absence of Flaccus at Chalcedon and the discontent
aroused by his avarice and severity, Fimbria stirred up a revolt and
slew Flaccus at Nicomedia. He then assumed the command of the army and
obtained several successes against Mithradates, whom he shut up in
Pitane on the coast of Aeolis, and would undoubtedly have captured him
had Lucullus co-operated with the fleet. Fimbria treated most cruelly
all the people of Asia who had revolted from Rome or sided with Sulla.
Having gained admission to Ilium by declaring that, as a Roman, he was
friendly, he massacred the inhabitants and burnt the place to the
ground. But in 84 Sulla crossed over from Greece to Asia, made peace
with Mithradates, and turned his arms against Fimbria, who, seeing that
there was no chance of escape, committed suicide. His troops were made
to serve in Asia till the end of the third Mithradatic War.
See ROME: HISTORY; and arts, on SULLA and MARIUS.
FIMBRIATE (from Lat. _fimbriae_, fringe), a zoological and botanical
term, meaning fringed. In heraldry, "fimbriate" or "fimbriated" refers
to a narrow edge or border running round a bearing.
FINALE (Ital. for "end"), a term in music for the concluding movement in
an instrumental composition, whether symphony, concerto or sonata, and,
in dramatic music, the concerted piece which ends each act. Of
instrumental finales, the great choral finale to Beethoven's 9th
symphony, and of operatic finales, that of Mozart's _Nozze di Figaro_,
to the second act, and to the last act of Verdi's _Falstaff_ may be
mentioned. In the Wagnerian opera the finale has no place.
FINANCE. The term "finance," which comes into English through French, in
its original meaning denoted a payment (_finatio_). In the later middle
ages, especially in Germany, it acquired the sense of usurious or
oppressive dealing with money and capital. The specialized use of the
word as equivalent to the management of the public expenditure and
receipts first became prominent in France during the 16th century and
quickly spread to other countries. The plural form (_Les Finances_) was
particularly reserved for this application, while the singular came to
denote business activity in respect to monetary dealings (as in the
expression _la haute finance_). For the Germans the phrase "science of
finance" (_Finanzwissenschaft_) refers exclusively to the economy of the
state. English and American writers are less definite in their
employment of the term, which varies with the convenience of the author.
A work on "finance" may deal with the Money Market or the Stock
Exchange; it may treat of banking and credit organization, or it may be
devoted to state revenue and expenditure, which is on the whole the
prevailing sense. The expressions "science of finance" and "public
finance" have been suggested as suitable to delimit the last mentioned
application. At all events, the broad sense is quite intelligible.
"Financial" means what is concerned with business, and the idea of a
balance between effort and return is also prominent. In the present
article attention will be directed to "public finance"; for the other
aspects of the subject reference may be made (_inter alia_) to the
following:--BANKS AND BANKING; COMPANY; EXCHANGE; MARKET; STOCK
EXCHANGE. See also ENGLISH FINANCE, and the sections on finance under
headings of countries.
Finance, regarded as state house-keeping, or "political economy" (see
ECONOMICS) in the older sense of the term, deals with (1) the
expenditure of the state; (2) state revenues; (3) the balance between
expenditure and receipts; (4) the organization which collects and
applies the public funds. Each of these large divisions presents a
series of problems of which the practical treatment is illustrated in
the financial history of the great nations of the world. Thus the amount
and character of public expenditure necessarily depends on the
functions that the state undertakes to perform--national defence, the
maintenance of internal order, and the efficient equipment of the state
organization; such are the tasks that all governments have to discharge,
and for their cost due provision has to be made. The widening sphere of
state activity, so marked a characteristic of modern civilization,
involves outlay for what may be best described as "developmental"
services. Education, relief of distress, regulation of labour and trade,
are duties now in great part performed by public agencies, and their
increasing prominence involves augmented expense. The first problem on
this side of expenditure is the due balancing of outlay by income. The
financier has to "cover" his outlay. There is, further, the duty of
establishing a proper proportion between the several forms of
expenditure. Not only has there to be a strict control over the total
national expense; supervision has to be carried into each department of
the state. No one branch of public activity is entitled to make
unlimited calls on the state's revenue. The claims of the "expert"
require to be carefully scrutinized. The great financiers have made
their reputation quite as much by rigorous control over extravagance in
expenditure as by dexterity in devising new forms of revenue.
Unfortunately they have not been able to reduce their methods to rule.
As yet no more definite principle has been discovered than the somewhat
obvious one of measuring the proposed items of outlay (1) against each
other, (2) against the sacrifice that additional taxation involves. Of
almost equal importance is the rule that the utmost return is to be
obtained for the given outlay. The canon of _economy_ is as fundamental
in regard to public expenditure as it will appear, later, to be in
respect to revenue. Just application of the outlay of the state, so that
no class receives undue advantage, and the use of public funds for
"reproductive," in preference to "unproductive" objects, are evident
general principles whose difficulty lies in their application to the
circumstances of each particular case.
Far greater progress has been made in the formulation of general canons
as to the nature, growth and treatment of the public revenues.
Historically, there is, first, the tendency towards increase in state
income to balance the advance in outlay. A second general feature is the
relative decline of the receipts from state property and industries in
contrast to the expansion of taxation. Regarded as an organized system,
the body of receipts has to be made conformable to certain general
conditions. Thus there should be revenue sufficient to meet the public
requirements. Otherwise the financial organization has failed in one of
its essential purposes. In order continuously to attain this end, the
revenue must be flexible, or, as is often said, elastic enough to vary
in response to pressure. Frequently recurring deficits are, in
themselves, a condemnation of the methods under which they are found.
Again, the rule of "economy" in raising revenue, or, in other words,
taking as little as possible from the contributors over and above what
the state receives, holds good for the whole and for each part of public
revenue. In like manner the principle of formal justice has the same
claim in respect to revenue as to expenditure. No class of person should
bear more than his or its proper share. In fact the special maxims
usually placed under the head of taxation have really a wider scope as
governing the whole financial system. The recognition of even the most
elementary rules has been a very slow process, as the course of
financial history abundantly proves. Until the 18th century no
scientific treatment of financial problems was attained, though there
had been great advances on the administrative side.
A brief description of the historical evolution of the earlier financial
forms will be the most effective illustration of this statement. The
theory of well-organized public finance is also discussed under TAXATION
and NATIONAL DEBT.
The earliest forms of public revenue are those obtained from the
property of the chief or ruler. Land, cattle and slaves are the
principal kinds of wealth, and they are all constituents of the king's
revenue; enforced work contributed by members of the community, and the
furnishing commodities on requisition, further aid in the maintenance
of the primitive state. Financial organization makes its earliest
appearance in the great Eastern monarchies, in which tribute was
regularly collected and the oldest and most general form of
taxation--that levied on the produce of land--was established. In its
normal shape this impost consisted in a given proportion of the yield,
or of certain portions of the yield, of the soil; one-fourth as in
India, one-fifth as in Egypt, or two separate levies of a tenth as in
Palestine, are examples of what may from the last instance be called the
"tithe" system. Dues of various kinds were gradually added to the land
revenue, until, as in the later Egyptian monarchy, the forms of revenue
reached a bewildering complexity. But no Eastern state advanced beyond
the condition generally characterized as the "patrimonial," i.e. an
organization on the model of the household. The part played by money
economy was small, and it is noticeable that the revenues were collected
by the monarch's servants, the farming out of taxes being completely
unknown. Tribute, however, was paid by subject communities as a whole,
and was collected by them for transmission to the conquerors.
Ancient Greek.
A much higher stage was reached in the financial methods of the Greek
states, or more correctly speaking of Athens, the best-known specimen of
the class. Instead of the comparatively simple expedients of the
barbarian monarchies, as indicated above, the Athenian city state by
degrees developed a rather complex revenue system. Some of the older
forms are retained. The city owned public land which was let on lease
and the rents were farmed out by auction. A specially valuable property
of Athens was the possession of the silver mines at Laurium, which were
worked on lease by slave labour. The produce, at first distributed
amongst the citizens, was later a part of the state income, and forms
the subject of some of the suggestions respecting the revenue in the
treatise formerly ascribed to Xenophon. The reverence that attached to
the precious metals caused undue exaltation of the services rendered by
this property.
One of the characteristics of the ancient state was its extensive
control over the persons and property of its citizens. In respect to
finance this authority was strikingly manifested in the burdens imposed
on wealthy citizens by the requirements of the "liturgies" ([Greek:
leitourgiai]), which consisted in the provision of a chorus for
theatrical performances, or defraying the expenses of the public games,
or, finally, the equipment of a ship, "the trierarchy," which was
economically and politically the most important. Athenian statesmanship
in the time of Demosthenes was gravely exercised to make this form of
contribution more effective. The grouping into classes and the privilege
of exchanging property, granted to the contributor against any one whom
he believed entitled to take his place, are marks of the defective
economic and financial organization of the age.
Amongst taxes strictly so called were the market dues or tolls, which in
some cases approximated to excise duties, though in their actual mode of
levy they were closely similar to the _octrois_ of modern times. Of
greater importance were the customs duties on imports and exports. These
at the great period of Athenian history were only 2%. The prohibition of
export of corn was an economic rather than a financial provision. In the
treatment of her subject allies Athens was more rigorous, general import
and export duties of 5% being imposed on their trade. The high cost of
carriage, and the need of encouraging commerce in a community relying on
external sources for its food supply, help to explain the comparatively
low rates adopted. Neither as financial nor as protective expedients
were the custom duties of classical societies of much importance.
Direct taxation received much greater expansion. A special levy on the
class of resident aliens ([Greek: metoikton]), probably paralleled by a
duty on slaves, was in force. A far more important source of revenue was
the general tax on property ([Greek: eisphora]), which according to one
view existed as early as the time of Solon, who made it a part of his
constitutional system. Modern inquiry, however, tends towards the
conclusion that it was under the stress of the Peloponnesian War that
this impost was introduced (428 B.C.). At first it was only levied at
irregular intervals; afterwards, in 378 B.C., it became a permanent tax
based on elaborate valuation under which the richer members paid on a
larger quota of their capital; in the case of the wealthiest class the
taxable quota was taken as one-fifth, smaller fractions being adopted
for those belonging to the other divisions. The assessment ([Greek:
timema]) included all the property of the contributor, whose accuracy in
making full returns was safeguarded by the right given to other citizens
to proceed against him for fraudulent under-valuation. A further support
was provided in the reform of 378 B.C. by the establishment of the
symmories, or groups of tax-paying citizens; the wealthier members of
each group being responsible for the tax payments of all the members.
The scanty and obscure references to finance, and to economic matters
generally, in classical literature do not elucidate all the details of
the system; but the analogies of other countries, e.g. the mode of
levying the _taille_ in 18th century France and the "tenth and
fifteenth" in medieval England, make it tolerably plain that in the 4th
century B.C. the Athenian state had developed a mode of taxation on
property which raised those questions of just distribution and effective
valuation that present themselves in the latest tax systems of the
modern world. Taken together with the liturgies, the "eisphora" placed a
very heavy burden on the wealthier citizens, and this financial pressure
accounts in great part for the hostility of the rich towards the
democratic constitution that facilitated the imposition of graduated
taxation and super-taxes--to use modern terms--on the larger incomes.
The normal yield of the property tax is reported as 60 talents
(£14,400); but on special occasions it reached 200 talents (£48,000), or
about one-sixth of the total receipts.
On the administrative side also remarkable advances were made by the
entrusting of military expenditure to the "generals," and in the 4th
century B.C. by the appointment of an administrator whose duty it was to
distribute the revenue of the state under the directions of the
assembly. The absence of settled public law and the influence of direct
democracy made a complete ministry of finance impossible.
The Athenian "hegemony" in its earlier and later phases had an important
financial side. The confederacy of Delos made provision for the
collection of a revenue ([Greek: phoros]) from the members of the
league, which was employed at first for defence against Persian
aggression, but afterwards was at the disposal of Athens as the ruling
state. The annual collection of 460 talents (£110,400) shows
sufficiently the magnitude of the league.
Too little is known of the financial methods of the other Greek states
and of the Macedonian kingdoms to allow of any definite account of their
position. In the latter, particularly in Egypt, the methods of the
earlier rulers probably survived. Their finance, like their social life
generally, exhibited a blending of Hellenic and barbarian elements. The
older land-taxes were probably accompanied by import dues and taxes on
property.
Roman.
In the infancy of the Roman republic its revenues were of the kind usual
in such communities. The public land yielded receipts which may
indifferently be regarded as rents or taxes; the citizens contributed
their services or commodities, and dues were raised on certain articles
coming to market. With the progress of the Roman dominion the financial
organization grew in extent. In order to meet the cost of the early wars
a special contribution from property (_tributum ex censu_) was levied at
times of emergency, though it was in some cases regarded as an advance
to be repaid when the occasion of expense was over. Owing to the great
military successes, and the consequent increase of the other sources of
revenue, it became feasible to suspend the _tributum_ in 167 B.C., and
it was not again levied till after the death of Julius Caesar. From this
date the expenses of the Roman state "were undisguisedly supported by
the taxation of the provinces." Neither the state monopolies nor the
public land in Italy afforded any appreciable revenue. The other charges
that affected Italy were the 5% duty on manumissions, and customs dues
on seaborne imports. But with the acquisition of the important provinces
of Sicily, Spain and Africa, the formation of a tax system based on the
tributes of the dependencies became possible. To a great extent the
pre-existing forms of revenue were retained, but were gradually
systematized. In legal theory the land of conquered communities passed
into the ownership of the Roman state; in practice a revenue was
obtained through land taxes in the form of either tithes (_decumae_) or
money payments (_stipendia_). To the latter were adjoined capitation and
trade taxes (the _tributum capitis_). For pasture land a special rent
was paid. In some provinces (e.g. Sicily) payment in produce was
preferred, as affording the supply needed for the free distribution of
corn at Rome.
The great form of indirect taxation consisted in the customs dues
(_portoria_), which were collected at the provincial boundaries and
varied in amount, though the maximum did not exceed 5%. Under the same
head were included the town dues (or _octrois_). Further, the local
administration was charged on the district concerned, and requisitions
for the public service were frequently made on the provincial
communities. Supplies of grain, ships and timber for military use were
often demanded.
The methods of levy may be regarded as an additional tax. "Vexation," as
Adam Smith remarks, "though not strictly speaking expense, is certainly
equivalent to the expense at which every man would be willing to redeem
himself from it"; and the Roman system was extraordinarily vexatious.
From an early date the collection of the taxes had been farmed out to
companies of contractors (_societates vectigales_), who became a by-word
for rapacity. Being bound to pay a stated sum to the public authorities
these _publicani_ naturally aimed at extracting the largest possible
amount from the unfortunate provincials, and, as they belonged to the
Roman capitalist class, they were able to influence the provincial
governors. Undue claims on the part of the tax collectors were
aggravated by the extortion of the public officials. The defects of the
financial organization were a serious influence in the complex of causes
that brought about the fall of the Republic.
One of the reasons that induced the subject populations to accept with
pleasure the establishment of the Empire was the improvement in
financial treatment that it secured. The corrupt and uneconomical method
of farming out the collection of the revenue was, to a great extent,
replaced by collection through the officials of the imperial household.
The earlier Roman treasury (_aerarium_) was formally retained for the
receipt of revenue from the senatorial provinces, but the officials were
appointed by the Princeps and became gradually mere municipal officers.
The real centre of finance was the _fiscus_ or imperial treasury, which
was under the exclusive control of the ruler ("res fiscales," says
Ulpian, "quasi propriae et privatae principis sunt"), and was
administered by officials of his household. Under the Republic the
Senate had been the financial authority, with the Censors as finance
ministers and the Quaestors as secretaries of the treasury. Never very
precise, this system in the 1st century B.C. fell into extreme decay. By
means of his freedmen the emperor introduced the more rigorous economy
of the Roman household into public finance. The census as a method of
valuation was revived; the important and productive land taxes were
placed on a more definite footing; while, above all, the substitution of
direct collection by state officials for the letting out by auction of
the tax-collection to the companies of _publicani_ was made general.
Thus some of the most valuable lessons as to the normal evolution of a
system of finance are to be learned in this connexion. Of equal, or even
greater moment is the failure of the administrative reforms of the
Empire to secure lasting improvement, a result due to the absence of
constitutional guarantees. The close relation between finance and
general policy is most impressively illustrated in this failure of
benevolent autocracy.
Viewed broadly, the financial resources of the earlier Empire were
obtained from (1) the public land alike of the state and the Princeps;
(2) the monopolies, principally of minerals; (3) the land tax; (4) the
customs; (5) the taxes on inheritances, on sales and on the purchase of
slaves (_vectigalia_). One result of the establishment of the Principate
was the consolidation of the public domain. The old "public land" in
Italy had nearly disappeared; but the royal possessions in the conquered
provinces and the private properties of the emperor became ultimately a
part of the property of the Fiscus. Such land was let either on
five-year leases or in perpetuity to coloni. Mines were also taken over
for public use and worked by slaves or, in later times, by convict
labour. The tendency towards state monopoly became more marked in the
closing days of the Empire, the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. Perhaps the
most comprehensive of the fiscal reforms of the Empire was the
reconstruction of the land tax, based on a census or (to use the French
term) _cadastre_, in which the area, the modes of cultivation and the
estimated productiveness of each holding were stated, the average of ten
preceding years being taken as the standard. After the reconstruction
under Diocletian at the end of the 3rd century A.D., fifteen years (the
_indictio_)--though probably used as early as the time of Hadrian--was
recognized as the period for revaluation. With the growing needs of the
state this taxation became more rigorous and was one of the great
grievances of the population, especially of the sections that were
declining in status and passing into the condition of villenage. The
_portoria_, or customs, received a better organization, though the
varying rates for different provinces continued. By degrees the older
maximum of 5% was exceeded, until in the 4th century 12½% was in some
cases levied. Even at this higher rate the facilities for trade were
greater than in medieval or (until the revolution in transport) modern
times. In spite of certain prejudices against the import of luxuries and
the export of gold, there is little indication of the influence of
mercantilist or protectionist ideas. The nearest approach to excise was
the duty of 1% on all sales, a tax that in Gibbon's words "has ever been
the occasion of clamour and discontent." The higher charge of 4% on the
purchase of slaves, and the still heavier 5% on successions after death,
were likewise established at the beginning of the Empire and specially
applied to the full citizens. Escheats and lapsed legacies (_caduca_)
were further miscellaneous sources of gain to the state.
Taken as a whole, the financial system of Imperial Rome shows a very
high elaboration in _form_. The _patrimonium_, the _tributa_ and the
_vectigalia_ are divisions parallel to the _domaine_, the _contributions
directes_ and the _contributions indirectes_ of modern French
administration; or the English "non-tax" revenue, inland revenue and
"customs and excise." The careful regulations given in the Codes and the
Digest show the observance of technical conditions as to assessment and
accounting. In substance and spirit, however, Roman finance was
essentially backward. Without altogether accepting Merivale's judgment
that "their principles of finance were to the last rude and
unphilosophical," it may be granted that Roman statesmen never seriously
faced the questions of just distribution and maximum productiveness in
the tax system. Still less did they perceive the connexion between these
two aspects of finance. Mechanical uniformity and minute regulation are
inadequate substitutes for observance of the canons of equality,
certainty and economy in the operation of the tax system. Whether (as
has been suggested) an Adam Smith in power could have saved the Empire
is doubtful; but he would certainly have remodelled its finance. The
most glaring fault was plainly the undue and increasing pressure on the
productive classes. Each century saw heavier burdens imposed on the
actual workers and on their employers, while expenditure was chiefly
devoted to unproductive purposes. The distribution was also unfair as
between the different territorial divisions. The capital and certain
provincial towns were favoured at the expense of the provinces and the
country districts. Again, the cost of collection, though less than under
the farming-out system, was far too great. Some alleviation was indeed
obtained by the apportionment of contributions amongst the districts
liable, leaving to the community to decide as it thought best between
its members. The allotment of the land-tax to units (_juga_) of equal
value whatever might be the area, was a contrivance similar in
character.
The gradual way in which the several provinces were brought under the
general tax system, and the equally gradual extension of Roman
citizenship, account further for the irregularity and increased weight
of the taxes; as the absence of publicity and the growth of autocracy
explain the sense of oppression and the hopelessness of resistance so
vividly indicated in the literature of the later Empire. Exemptions at
first granted to the citizens were removed, while the cost of local
government which continually increased was placed on the middle-class of
the towns as represented by the _decuriones_, or members of the
municipalities.
The fact that no ingenuity of modern research has been able to construct
a real budget of expenditure and receipt for any part of the long
centuries of the Empire is significant as to the secrecy that surrounded
the finances, especially in the later period. For at the beginning of
the principate Augustus seems to have aimed at a complete estimate of
the financial situation, though this may be regarded as due to the
influence of the freer republican traditions which the reverence that
soon attached to the emperor's dignity completely extinguished.
In addition to its value as illustrating the difficulties and defects
that beset the development of a complex financial organization from the
simpler forms of the city and the province, Roman finance is of special
importance in consequence of its place as supplying a model or rather a
guide for the administration of the states that arose on its ruins. The
barbarian invaders, though they were accustomed to contributions to
their chiefs and to the payment of commodities as tributes or as
penalties, had no acquaintance with the working of a regular system of
taxation. The more astute rulers utilized the machinery that they
inherited from the Roman government. Under the Franks the land tax and
the provincial customs continued as forms of revenue, while beside them
the gifts and court fees of Teutonic origin took their place. Similar
conditions appear in Theodoric's administration of Italy. The
maintenance of Roman forms and terms is prominent in fiscal
administration. But institutions that have lost their life and animating
spirit can hardly be preserved for any length of time. All over western
Europe the elaborate devices of the _census_ and the stations for the
collection of customs crumbled away; taxation as such disappeared,
through the hostility of the clergy and the exemptions accorded to
powerful subjects. This process of disintegration spread out over
centuries. The efforts made from time to time by vigorous rulers to
enforce the charges that remained legally due, proved quite ineffectual
to restore the older fiscal system. The final result was a complete
transformation of the ingredients of revenue. The character of the
change may be best indicated as a substitution of private claims for
public rights. Thus, the land-tax disappears in the 7th century and only
comes into notice in the 9th century in the shape of private customary
dues. The customs duties become the tolls and transit charges levied by
local potentates on the diminishing trade of the earlier middle ages.
This revolution is in accordance with--indeed it is one side of--the
movement towards feudalism which was the great feature of this period.
Finance is essentially a part of _public_ law and administration. It
could, therefore, hold no prominent place in a condition of society
which hardly recognized the state, as distinct from the members of the
community, united by feudal ties. The same conception may be expressed
in another way, viz. by the statement that the kingdoms which succeeded
the Roman Empire were organized on the patrimonial basis (i.e. the
revenues passed into the hands of the king or, rather, his domestic
officials), and thus in fact returned to the condition of pre-classical
times. Notwithstanding the differing features in the several countries,
retrogression is the common characteristic of European history from the
5th to the 10th century, and it was from the ruder state that this
decline created that the rebuilding of social and political organization
had to be accomplished. On the financial side the work, as already
suggested, was aided by the ideas and institutions inherited from the
Roman Empire. This influence was common to all the continental states
and indirectly was felt even in England. Each of the great realms has,
however, worked out its financial system on lines suitable to its own
particular conditions, which are best considered in connexion with the
separate national histories.
Running through the different national systems there are some common
elements the result not of inheritance merely but still more of
necessity, or at the lowest of similarity in environment. Over and above
the details of financial development there is a thread of connexion
which requires treatment under Finance taken as a whole. As the great
aim of this side of public activity is to secure funds for the
maintenance of the state's life and working, the administration which
operates for this end is the true nucleus of all national finance. The
first sign of revival from the catastrophe of the invasions is the
reorganization of the Imperial household under Charlemagne with the
intention of establishing a more exact collection of revenue. The later
German empire of Otto and the Frederics; the French Capetian monarchy
and, in a somewhat different sphere, the medieval Italian and German
cities show the same movement. The treasury is the centre towards which
the special receipts of the ruler or rulers should be brought, and from
it the public wants should be supplied. Feudalism, as the antithesis of
this orderly treatment, had to be overthrown before national finance
could become established. The development can be traced in the financial
history of England, France and the German states; but the advance in the
French financial organization of the 15th and 16th centuries affords the
best illustration. The gradual unification operates on all the branches
of finance,--expenditure, revenue, debt and methods of control. In
respect to the first head there is a well-marked "integration" of the
modes for meeting the cost of the public services. What were
semi-private duties become public tasks, which, with the growing
importance of "money-economy," have to be defrayed by state payments.
Thus, the creation of the standing army in France by Charles VII. marks
a financial change of the first order. The English navy, though more
gradually developed, is an equally good illustration of the movement.
All outlay by the state is brought into due co-ordination, and it
becomes possible for constitutional government to supervise and direct
it. This improvement, due to English initiative, has been adopted
amongst the essential forms of financial administration on the
continent. The immense importance of this view of public expenditure as
representing the consumption of the state in its unified condition is
obvious; it has affected, for the most part unconsciously, the
conception of all modern peoples as to the functions of the state and
the right of the people to direct them.
On the side of receipts a similar unifying process has been
accomplished. The almost universal separation between "ordinary" and
"extraordinary" receipts, taxation being put under the latter head, has
completely ceased. It was, however, the fundamental division for the
early French writers on finance, and it survives for England as late as
Blackstone's _Commentaries_. The idea that the ruler possessed a normal
income in certain rents and dues of a quasi-private character, which on
emergency he might supplement by calls on the revenues of his subjects,
was a bequest of feudalism which gave way before the increasing power of
the state. In order to meet the unified public wants, an equally unified
public fund was requisite. The great economic changes which depreciated
the value of the king's domain contributed towards the result. Only by
well-adjusted taxation was it possible to meet the public necessities.
In respect to taxation also there has been a like course of
readjustment. Separate charges, assigned for distinct purposes, have
been taken into the national exchequer and come to form a part of the
general revenue. There has been--taking long periods--a steady
absorption of special taxes into more general categories. The
replacement of the four direct taxes by the income tax in France, as
proposed in 1909, is a very recent example. Equally important is the
growth of "direct" taxation. As tax contributions have taken the places
of the revenue from land and fees, so, it would seem, are the taxes on
commodities likely to be replaced or at least exceeded by the imposts
levied on income as such, in the shape either of income taxes proper or
of charges on accumulated wealth. The recent history of the several
financial systems of the world is decisive on this point. A clearer
perception of the conditions under which the effective attainment of
revenue is possible is another outcome of financial development.
Security, and in particular the absence of arbitrary impositions,
combined with convenient modes of collection, have come to be recognized
as indispensable auxiliaries in financial administration which further
aims at the selection of really productive forms of charge.
Unproductiveness is, according to modern standard, the cardinal fault of
any particular tax. How great has been the progress in these aspects is
best illustrated in the case of English finance, but both French and
German fiscal history can supply many instructive examples.
In a third direction the co-ordination of finance has been just as
remarkable. Financial adjustment implies the conception of a balance,
and this should be found in the relation of outlay and income. Under the
pressure of war and other emergencies it has been found impossible to
maintain this desirable equilibrium. But the use of the system of
credit, and the general establishment of constitutional government, have
enabled the difficulty to be surmounted by the creation on a vast scale
of national debts. Apart from the special problems that this system of
borrowing raises, there is the general one of its aid in making national
finance continuous and orderly. Deficits can be transferred to the
capital account, and the country's resources employed most usefully by
repaying liabilities contracted in times of extreme need. The growth of
this department, parallel with the general progress of finance, is
significant of its function.
Finally, in all countries though with diversities due to national
peculiarities, the modes of account and control have been brought into a
more effective condition. Previous legislative sanction for both
expenditure and receipts in all their particular forms is absolutely
necessary; so is thorough scrutiny of the actual application of the
funds provided. Either by administrative survey or by judicial
examination care is taken to see that there has been no improper
diversion from the designed purposes. It is only when the varied systems
of financial organization are studied in their general bearing, and with
regard to what may be called their frame-work, that their essential
resemblance is thoroughly realized. Such a real underlying unity is the
reason and justification for regarding "public finance" as a distinct
subject of study and as an independent division of political science.
_Local Finance._--One of the most remarkable features of modern
financial development has been the growth of the complementary system of
local finance, which in extent and complication bids to rival that of
the central authority. Under the constraining power of the Roman Empire
the older city states were reduced to the position of municipalities,
and their financial administration became dependent on the control of
the Emperor--as is abundantly illustrated in the correspondence of Pliny
and Trajan. After the fall of the Western Empire, a partial revival of
city life, particularly in Italy and Germany, gave some scope for a
return to the type of finance presented by the Athenian state. Florence
affords an instructive specimen; but the passage from feudalism to the
national state under the authority of monarchy made the cities and
country districts parts of a larger whole. It is in this condition of
subordination that the finance of localities has been framed and
effectively organized. Though each great state has adopted its own
methods, influenced by historical circumstances and by ideas of policy,
there are general resemblances that furnish material for scientific
treatment and allow of important generalizations being made.
Amongst these the first to be noticed is the essential _subordination_
of local finance. Alike in expenditure, in forms of receipt, and in
methods of administration the central government has the right of
directing and supervising the work of municipal and provincial
agencies. The modes employed are various, but they all rest on the
sovereignty of the state, whether exercised by the central officials or
by the courts. A second characteristic is the predominance of the
_economic_ element in the several tasks that local administrations have
to perform, and the consequent tendency to treat the charges of local
finance as payments for services rendered, or, in the usual phrase, to
apply the "benefits" principle, in contrast to that of "ability," which
rightly prevails in national finance. Over a great part of municipal
administration--particularly that engaged in supplying the needs of the
individual citizens--the finance may be assimilated to that of the
joint-stock company, with of course the necessary differences, viz.
that the association is compulsory; and that dividends are paid, not in
money, but in social advantage. The great expansion in recent years of
what is known as _Municipal Trading_ has brought this aspect of local
finance into prominence. Water supply, transport and lighting have
become public services, requiring careful financial management, and
still retaining traces of their earlier private character.
Corresponding to the mainly economic nature of local expenditure there
is the further limitation imposed on the side of revenue. Unlike the
state in this, localities are limited in respect to the amount and form
of their taxation. Several distinct influences combine to produce this
result. The needs of the central government lead to its retention of the
more profitable modes of procuring revenue. No modern country can
surrender the chief direct and indirect taxes to the local
administrations. Another limiting condition is found in the practical
impossibility of levying by local agencies such imposts as the customs
and the income-tax in their modern forms. The elaborate machinery that
is requisite for covering the national area and securing the revenue
against loss can only be provided by an authority that can deal with the
whole territory. Hence the very general limitation of local revenues to
certain typical forms. Though in some cases municipal taxation is
imposed on commodities in the form of _octrois_ or entry duties--as is
notably the case in France--yet the prevailing tendency is towards the
levy of direct charges on immovable property, which cannot escape by
removal outside the tax jurisdiction. In addition to these "land" and
"house" taxes, the employment of licence duties on trades, particularly
those that are in special need of supervision, is a favourite method.
Closely akin are the payments demanded for privileges to industrial
undertakings given as "franchises," very often in connexion with
monopolies, e.g. gas-works and tramways. Over and above the peculiar
revenues of local bodies there is the further resource--which emphasizes
the subordinate position of local finance--of obtaining supplemental
revenue from the central treasury, either by taxes additional to the
charges of the state, and collected at the same time; or by donations
from its funds, in the shape of grants for special services, or
assignments of certain parts of the state's receipts. Great Britain,
France and Prussia furnish good examples of these different modes of
preserving local administration from financial collapse.
The broad resemblance between the two parts of the entire system of
public finance is seen in another direction. To national debts there has
been added a great mass of municipal and local indebtedness, which seems
likely to equal, or even exceed in magnitude the liabilities of the
central governments. But here also the essential limitations of the
newer form are easily perceptible. The sovereignty of the state enables
it to deal as it thinks best with the public creditor. In its methods of
borrowing, in its plans for repayment, or, in extremity, in its power of
repudiation it is independent of external control. Local debt on the
other hand can only be contracted under the sanction of the appropriate
administrative organ of the state. The creditor has the right of
claiming the aid of the law against the defaulting municipality; and the
amounts, the terms, and the time of duration of local debt are
supervised in order to prevent injustice to particular persons or
improvidence with regard to the revenue and property of the local units.
The chief reason for contracting local debt being the establishment of
works that are, directly or indirectly, reproductive, the governing
conditions are evidently to be found in the character and probable yield
of those businesses. The principles of company investments are fully
applicable: the creation of sinking-funds, the fixing the term of each
loan to the time at which the return from its employment ceases, and the
avoidance of the formation of fictitious capital, become guiding rules
from this part of finance, and indicate the connexion with what the
commercial world calls "financial operations."
Finally, there is the same set of problems in respect to accounting and
control in local as in central finance. Though the materials are
simpler, the need for a well-prepared budget is existent in the case of
the city, county or department, if there is to be clear and accurate
financial management. Perhaps the greatest weakness of local finance
lies in this direction. The public opinion that affects the national
budget is unfortunately too often lacking in the most important towns,
not excluding those in which political life is highly developed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The English literature on finance is rather
unsatisfactory; for public finance the available text-books are:
Adams, _Science of Finance_ (New York, 1898); Bastable, _Public
Finance_ (London, 1892; 3rd ed., 1903); Daniels, _Public Finance_ (New
York, 1899), and Plehn, _Public Finance_ (3rd ed., New York, 1909). In
French, Leroy-Beaulieu, _Traité de la science des finances_ (1877; 3rd
ed., 1908), is the standard work. The German literature is abundant.
Roscher, 5th ed. (edited by Gerlach), 1901; Wagner (4 vols.),
incomplete; Cohn (1889) and Eheberg (9th ed., 1908) have published
works entitled _Finanzwissenschaft_, dealing with all the aspects of
state finance. For Greek financial history Boekh, _Staalshaushaltung
der Athenen_ (ed. Fränkel, 1887), is still a standard work. For Rome,
Marquardt, _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, vol. ii., and Humbert, _Les
Finances et la comptabilité publique chez les Romains_, are valuable.
Clamageran, _Histoire de l'impôt en France_ (1876), gives the earlier
development of French finance. R.H. Patterson, _Science of Finance_
(London, 1868), C.S. Meade, _Trust Finance_ (1903), and E. Carroll,
_Principles and Practice of Finance_, deal with finance in the wider
sense of business transactions. (C. F. B.)
FINCH, FINCH-HATTON. This old English family has had many notable
members, and has contributed in no small degree to the peerage. Sir
Thomas Finch (d. 1563), who was knighted for his share in suppressing
Sir T. Wyatt's insurrection against Queen Mary, was a soldier of note,
and was the son and heir of Sir William Finch, who was knighted in 1513.
He was the father of Sir Moyle Finch (d. 1614), who was created a
baronet in 1611, and whose widow Elizabeth (daughter of Sir Thomas
Heneage) was created a peeress as countess of Maidstone in 1623 and
countess of Winchilsea in 1628; and also of Sir Henry Finch (1558-1625),
whose son John, Baron Finch of Fordwich (1584-1660), is separately
noticed. Thomas, eldest son of Sir Moyle, succeeded his mother as first
earl of Winchilsea; and Sir Heneage, the fourth son (d. 1631), was the
speaker of the House of Commons, whose son Heneage (1621-1682), lord
chancellor, was created earl of Nottingham in 1675. The latter's second
son Heneage (1649-1719) was created earl of Aylesford in 1714. The
earldoms of Winchilsea and Nottingham became united in 1729, when the
fifth earl of Winchilsea died, leaving no son, and the title passed to
his cousin the second earl of Nottingham, the earldom of Nottingham
having since then been held by the earl of Winchilsea. In 1826, on the
death of the ninth earl of Winchilsea and fifth of Nottingham, his
cousin George William Finch-Hatton succeeded to the titles, the
additional surname of Hatton (since held in this line) having been
assumed in 1764 by his father under the will of an aunt, a daughter of
Christopher, Viscount Hatton (1632-1706), whose father was related to
the famous Sir Christopher Hatton.
FINCH OF FORDWICH, JOHN FINCH, BARON (1584-1660), generally known as Sir
John Finch, English judge, a member of the old family of Finch, was born
on the 17th of September 1584, and was called to the bar in 1611. He was
returned to parliament for Canterbury in 1614, and became recorder of
the same place in 1617. Having attracted the notice of Charles I., who
visited Canterbury in 1625, and was received with an address by Finch in
his capacity as recorder, he was the following year appointed king's
counsel and attorney-general to the queen and was knighted. In 1628 he
was elected speaker of the House of Commons, a post which he retained
till its dissolution in 1629. He was the speaker who was held down in
his chair by Holles and others on the occasion of Sir John Eliot's
resolution on tonnage and poundage. In 1634 he was appointed chief
justice of the court of common pleas, and distinguished himself by the
active zeal with which he upheld the king's prerogative. Notable also
was the brutality which characterized his conduct as chief justice,
particularly in the cases of William Prynne and John Langton. He
presided over the trial of John Hampden, who resisted the payment of
ship-money, and he was chiefly responsible for the decision of the
judges that ship-money was constitutional. As a reward for his services
he was, in 1640, appointed lord keeper, and was also created Baron Finch
of Fordwich. He had, however, become so unpopular that one of the first
acts of the Long Parliament, which met in the same year was his
impeachment. He took refuge in Holland, but had to suffer the
sequestration of his estates. When he was allowed to return to England
is uncertain, but in 1660 he was one of the commissioners for the trial
of the regicides, though he does not appear to have taken much part in
the proceedings. He died on the 27th of November 1660 and was buried in
St Martin's church near Canterbury, his peerage becoming extinct.
See Foss, _Lives of the Judges_; Campbell, _Lives of the Chief
Justices_.
FINCH (Ger. _Fink_, Lat. _Fringilla_), a name applied (but almost always
in composition--as bullfinch, chaffinch, goldfinch, hawfinch, &c.) to a
great many small birds of the order _Passeres_, and now pretty generally
accepted as that of a group or family--the _Fringillidae_ of most
ornithologists. Yet it is one the extent of which must be regarded as
being uncertain. Many writers have included in it the buntings
(_Emberizidae_), though these seem to be quite distinct, as well as the
larks (_Alaudidae_), the tanagers (_Tanagridae_), and the weaver-birds
(_Ploceidae_). Others have separated from it the crossbills, under the
title of _Loxiidae_, but without due cause. The difficulty which at this
time presents itself in regard to the limits of the _Fringillidae_
arises from our ignorance of the anatomical features, especially those
of the head, possessed by many exotic forms.
Taken as a whole, the finches, concerning which no reasonable doubt can
exist, are not only little birds with a hard bill, adapted in most cases
for shelling and eating the various seeds that form the chief portion of
their diet when adult, but they appear to be mainly forms which
predominate in and are highly characteristic of the Palaearctic Region;
moreover, though some are found elsewhere on the globe, the existence of
but very few in the Notogaean hemisphere can as yet be regarded as
certain.
But even with this limitation, the separation of the undoubted
_Fringillidae_[1] into groups is a difficult task. Were we merely to
consider the superficial character of the form of the bill, the genus
_Loxia_ (in its modern sense) would be easily divided not only from the
other finches, but from all other birds. The birds of this genus--the
crossbills--when their other characters are taken into account, prove to
be intimately allied on the one hand to the grosbeaks (_Pinicola_) and
on the other through the redpolls (_Aegiothus_) to the linnets
(_Linota_)--if indeed these two can be properly separated. The linnets,
through the genus _Leucosticte_, lead to the mountain-finches
(_Montifringilla_), and the redpolls through the siskins
(_Chrysomitris_) to the goldfinches (_Carduelis_); and these last again
to the hawfinches, one group of which (_Coccothraustes_) is apparently
not far distant from the chaffinches (_Fringilla_ proper), and the other
(_Hesperiphona_) seems to be allied to the greenfinches (_Ligurinus_).
Then there is the group of serins (_Serinus_), to which the canary
belongs, that one is in doubt whether to refer to the vicinity of the
greenfinches or that of the redpolls. The mountain-finches may be
regarded as pointing first to the rock-sparrows (_Petronia_) and then to
the true sparrows (_Passer_); while the grosbeaks pass into many varied
forms and throw out a very well marked form--the bullfinches
(_Pyrrhula_). Some of the modifications of the family are very gradual,
and therefore conclusions founded on them are likely to be correct;
others are further apart, and the links which connect them, if not
altogether missing, can but be surmised. To avoid as much as possible
prejudicing the case, we shall therefore take the different groups of
_Fringillidae_ which it is convenient to consider in this article in an
alphabetical arrangement.
Of the Bullfinches the best known is the familiar bird (_Pyrrhula_
_europaea_). The varied plumage of the cock--his bright red breast and
his grey back, set off by his coal-black head and quills--is naturally
attractive; while the facility with which he is tamed, with his engaging
disposition in confinement, makes him a popular cage-bird,--to say
nothing of the fact (which in the opinion of so many adds to his charms)
of his readily learning to "pipe" a tune, or some bars of one. By
gardeners the bullfinch has long been regarded as a deadly enemy, from
its undoubted destruction of the buds of fruit-trees in spring-time,
though whether the destruction is really so much of a detriment is by no
means so undoubted. Northern and eastern Europe is inhabited by a larger
form (_P. major_), which differs in nothing but size and more vivid
tints from that which is common in the British Isles and western Europe.
A very distinct species (_P. murina_), remarkable for its dull
coloration, is peculiar to the Azores, and several others are found in
Asia from the Himalayas to Japan. A bullfinch (_P. cassini_) has been
discovered in Alaska, being the first recognition of this genus in the
New World.
The Canary (_Serinus canarius_) is indigenous to the islands whence it
takes its name, as well, apparently, as to the neighbouring groups of
the Madeiras and Azores, in all of which it abounds. It seems to have
been imported into Europe at least as early as the first half of the
16th century,[2] and has since become the commonest of cage-birds. The
wild stock is of an olive-green, mottled with dark brown above, and
greenish-yellow beneath. All the bright-hued examples we now see in
captivity have been induced by carefully breeding from any chance
varieties that have shown themselves; and not only the colour, but the
build and stature of the bird have in this manner been greatly modified.
The ingenuity of "the fancy," which might seem to have exhausted itself
in the production of topknots, feathered feet, and so forth, has brought
about a still further change from the original type. It has been found
that by a particular treatment, in which the mixing of large quantities
of vegetable colouring agents with the food plays an important part, the
ordinary "canary yellow" may be intensified so as to verge upon a more
or less brilliant flame colour.[3]
Very nearly resembling the canary, but smaller in size, is the Serin
(_Serinus hortulanus_), a species which not long since was very local in
Europe, and chiefly known to inhabit the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean. It has pushed its way towards the north, and has even
been several times taken in England (Yarrell's _Brit. Birds_, ed. 4, ii.
pp. 111-116). A closely allied species (_S. canonicus_) is peculiar to
Palestine.
The Chaffinches are regarded as the type-form of _Fringillidae_. The
handsome and sprightly _Fringilla coelebs_[4] is common throughout the
whole of Europe. Conspicuous by his variegated plumage, his peculiar
call note[5] and his glad song, the cock is almost everywhere a
favourite. In Algeria the British chaffinch is replaced by a
closely-allied species (_F. spodogenia_), while in the Atlantic Islands
it is represented by two others (_F. tintillon_ and _F. teydea_)--all of
which, while possessing the general appearance of the European bird, are
clothed in soberer tints.[6] Another species of true _Fringilla_ is the
brambling (_F. montifringilla_), which has its home in the birch forests
of northern Europe and Asia, whence it yearly proceeds, often in flocks
of thousands, to pass the winter in more southern countries. This bird
is still more beautifully coloured than the chaffinch--especially in
summer, when, the brown edges of the feathers being shed, it presents a
rich combination of black, white and orange. Even in winter, however,
its diversified plumage is sufficiently striking.
With the exception of the single species of bullfinch already noticed as
occurring in Alaska, all the above forms of finches are peculiar to the
Palaearctic Region. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] About 200 species of these have been described, and perhaps 150
may really exist.
[2] The earliest published description seems to be that of Gesner in
1555 (_Orn._ p. 234), but he had not seen the bird, an account of
which was communicated to him by Raphael Seiler of Augsburg, under
the name of _Suckeruögele_.
[3] See also _The Canary Book_, by Robert L. Wallace; _Canaries and
Cage Birds_, by W.A. Blackston; and Darwin's _Animals and Plants
under Domestication_, vol. i. p. 295. An excellent monograph on the
wild bird is that by Dr Carl Bolle (_Journ. für Orn._, 1858, pp.
125-151).
[4] This fanciful trivial name was given by Linnaeus on the
supposition (which later observations do not entirely confirm) that
in Sweden the hens of the species migrated southward in autumn,
leaving the cocks to lead a celibate life till spring. It is certain,
however, that in some localities the sexes live apart during the
winter.
[5] This call-note, which to many ears sounds like "pink" or "spink,"
not only gives the bird a name in many parts of Britain, but is also
obviously the origin of the German _Fink_ and the English _Finch_.
The similar Celtic form _Pinc_ is said to have given rise to the Low
Latin _Pincio_, and thence come the Italian _Pincione_, the Spanish
_Pinzon_, and the French _Pinson_.
[6] This is especially the ease with _F. teydea_ of the Canary
Islands, which from its dark colouring and large size forms a kind of
parallel to the Azorean _Pyrrhula murina_.
FINCHLEY, an urban district in the Hornsey parliamentary division of
Middlesex, England, 7 m. N.W. of St Paul's cathedral, London, on a
branch of the Great Northern railway. Pop. (1891) 16,647; (1901) 22,126.
A part, adjoining Highgate on the north, lies at an elevation between
300 and 400 ft., while a portion in the Church End district lies lower,
in the valley of the Dollis Brook. The pleasant, healthy situation has
caused Finchley to become a populous residential district. Finchley
Common was formerly one of the most notorious resorts of highwaymen near
London; the Great North Road crossed it, and it was a haunt of Dick
Turpin and Jack Sheppard, and was still dangerous to cross at night at
the close of the 18th century. Sheppard was captured in this
neighbourhood in 1724. The Common has not been preserved from the
builder. In 1660 George Monk, marching on London immediately before the
Restoration, made his camp on the Common, and in 1745 a regular and
volunteer force encamped here, prepared to resist the Pretender, who was
at Derby. The gathering of this force inspired Hogarth's famous picture,
the "March of the Guards to Finchley."
FINCK, FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON (1718-1766), Prussian soldier, was born at
Strelitz in 1718. He first saw active service in 1734 on the Rhine, as a
member of the suite of Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Soon
after this he transferred to the Austrian service, and thence went to
Russia, where he served until the fall of his patron Marshal Münnich put
an end to his prospects of advancement. In 1742 he went to Berlin, and
Frederick the Great made him his aide-de-camp, with the rank of major.
Good service brought him rapid promotion in the Seven Years' War. After
the battle of Kolin (June 18th, 1757) he was made colonel, and at the
end of 1757 major-general. At the beginning of 1759 Finck became
lieutenant-general, and in this rank commanded a corps at the disastrous
battle of Kunersdorf, where he did good service both on the field of
battle and (Frederick having in despair handed over to him the command)
in the rallying of the beaten Prussians. Later in the year he fought in
concert with General Wunsch a widespread combat, called the action of
Korbitz (Sept. 21st) in which the Austrians and the contingents of the
minor states of the Empire were sharply defeated. For this action
Frederick gave Finck the Black Eagle (Seyfarth, _Beilagen_, ii.
621-630). But the subsequent catastrophe of Maxen (see SEVEN YEARS' WAR)
abruptly put an end to Finck's active career. Dangerously exposed, and
with inadequate forces, Finck received the king's positive order to
march upon Maxen (a village in the Pirna region of Saxony).
Unfortunately for himself the general dared not disobey his master, and,
cut off by greatly superior numbers, was forced to surrender with some
11,000 men (21st Nov. 1759). After the peace, Frederick sent him before
a court-martial, which sentenced him to be cashiered and to suffer a
term of imprisonment in a fortress. At the expiry of this term Finck
entered the Danish service as general of infantry. He died at Copenhagen
in 1766.
He left a work called _Gedanken über militärische Gegenstände_
(Berlin, 1788). See _Denkwürdigkeiten der militärischen Gesellschaft_,
vol. ii. (Berlin, 1802-1805), and the report of the Finck
court-martial in _Zeitschrift für Kunst, Wissenschaft und Geschichte
des Krieges_, pt. 81 (Berlin, 1851). There is a life of Finck in MS.
in the library of the Great General Staff.
FINCK, HEINRICH (d. c. 1519), German musical composer, was probably born
at Bamberg, but nothing is certainly known either of the place or date
of his birth. Between 1492 and 1506 he was a musician in, and later
possibly conductor of the court orchestra of successive kings of Poland
at Warsaw. He held the post of conductor at Stuttgart from 1510 till
about 1519, in which year he probably died. His works, mostly part songs
and other vocal compositions, show great musical knowledge, and amongst
the early masters of the German school he holds a high position. They
are found scattered amongst ancient and modern collections of songs and
other musical pieces (see R. Eitner, _Bibl. der Musiksammelwerke des 16.
und 17. Jahrh._, Berlin, 1877). The library of Zwickau possesses a work
containing a collection of fifty-five songs by Finck, printed about the
middle of the 16th century.
FINCK, HERMANN (1527-1558), German composer, the great-nephew of
Heinrich Finck, was born on the 21st of March 1527 in Pirna, and died at
Wittenberg on the 28th of December 1558. After 1553 he lived at
Wittenberg, where he was organist, and there, in 1555, was published his
collection of "wedding songs." Few details of his life have been
preserved. His theoretical writing was good, particularly his
observations on the art of singing and of making ornamentations in song.
His most celebrated work is entitled _Practica musica, exempla variorum
signorum, proportionum, et canonum, judicium de tonis ac quaedam de arte
suaviter et artificiose cantandi continens_ (Wittenberg, 1556). It is of
great historic value, but very rare.
FINDEN, WILLIAM (1787-1852), English line engraver, was born in 1787. He
served his apprenticeship to one James Mitan, but appears to have owed
far more to the influence of James Heath, whose works he privately and
earnestly studied. His first employment on his own account was engraving
illustrations for books, and among the most noteworthy of these early
plates were Smirke's illustrations to Don Quixote. His neat style and
smooth finish made his pictures very attractive and popular, and
although he executed several large plates, his chief work throughout his
life was book illustration. His younger brother, Edward Finden, worked
in conjunction with him, and so much demand arose for their productions
that ultimately a company of assistants was engaged, and plates were
produced in increasing numbers, their quality as works of art declining
as their quantity rose. The largest plate executed by William Finden was
the portrait of King George IV. seated on a sofa, after the painting by
Sir Thomas Lawrence. For this work he received two thousand guineas, a
sum larger than had ever before been paid for an engraved portrait.
Finden's next and happiest works on a large scale were the "Highlander's
Return" and the "Village Festival," after Wilkie. Later in life he
undertook, in co-operation with his brother, aided by their numerous
staff, the publication as well as the production of various galleries of
engravings. The first of these, a series of landscape and portrait
illustrations to the life and works of Byron, appeared in 1833 and
following years, and was very successful. But by his _Gallery of British
Art_ (in fifteen parts, 1838-1840), the most costly and best of these
ventures, he lost the fruits of all his former success. Finden's last
undertaking was an engraving on a large scale of Hilton's "Crucifixion."
The plate was bought by the Art Union for £1470. He died in London on
the 20th of September 1852.
FINDLATER, ANDREW (1810-1885), Scottish editor, was born in 1810 near
Aberdour, Aberdeenshire, the son of a small farmer. By hard study in the
evening, after his day's work on the farm was finished, he qualified
himself for entrance at Aberdeen University, and after graduating as
M.A. he attended the Divinity classes with the idea of entering the
ministry. In 1853 he began that connexion with the firm of W. & R.
Chambers which gave direction to his subsequent activity. His first
engagement was the editing of a revised edition of their _Information
for the People_ (1857). In this capacity he gave evidence of qualities
and acquirements that marked him as a suitable editor for _Chambers's
Encyclopaedia_, then projected, and his was the directing mind that gave
it its character. Many of the more important articles were written by
him. This work occupied him till 1868, and he afterwards edited a
revised edition (1874). He also had charge of other publications for the
same firm, and wrote regularly for the _Scotsman_. In 1864 he was made
LL.D. of Aberdeen University. In 1877 he gave up active work for
Chambers, but his services were retained as consulting editor. He died
in Edinburgh on the 1st of January 1885.
FINDLAY, SIR GEORGE (1829-1893), English railway manager, was of pure
Scottish descent, and was born at Rainhill, in Lancashire, on the 18th
of May 1829. For some time he attended Halifax grammar school, but left
at the age of fourteen, and began to learn practical masonry on the
Halifax railway, upon which his father was then employed. Two years
later he obtained a situation on the Trent Valley railway works, and
when that line was finished in 1847 went up to London. There he was for
a short time among the men employed in building locomotive sheds for the
London & North-Western railway at Camden Town, and years afterwards,
when he had become general manager of that railway, he was able to point
out stones which he had dressed with his own hands. For the next two or
three years he was engaged in a higher capacity as supervisor of the
mining and brickwork of the Harecastle tunnel on the North Staffordshire
line, and of the Walton tunnel on the Birkenhead, Lancashire & Cheshire
Junction railway. In 1850 the charge of the construction of a section of
the Shrewsbury & Hereford line was entrusted to him, and when the line
was opened for traffic T. Brassey, the contractor, having determined to
work it himself, installed him as manager. In the course of his duties
he was brought for the first time into official relations with the
London & North-Western railway, which had undertaken to work the
Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford line, and he ultimately passed into the
service of that company, when in 1862, jointly with the Great Western,
it leased the railway of which he was manager. In 1864 he was moved to
Euston as general goods manager, in 1872 he became chief traffic
manager, and in 1880 he was appointed full general manager; this last
post he retained until his death, which occurred on the 26th of March
1893 at Edgware, Middlesex. He was knighted in 1892. Sir George Findlay
was the author of a book on the _Working and Management of an English
Railway_ (London, 1889), which contains a great deal of information,
some of it not easily accessible to the general public, as to English
railway practice about the year 1890.
FINDLAY, JOHN RITCHIE (1824-1898), Scottish newspaper owner and
philanthropist, was born at Arbroath on the 21st of October 1824, and
was educated at Edinburgh University. He entered first the publishing
office and then the editorial department of the _Scotsman_, became a
partner in the paper in 1868, and in 1870 inherited the greater part of
the property from his great uncle, John Ritchie, the founder. The large
increase in the influence and circulation of the paper was in a great
measure due to his activity and direction, and it brought him a fortune,
which he spent during his lifetime in public benefaction. He presented
to the nation the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, opened in
Edinburgh in 1889, and costing over £70,000; and he contributed largely
to the collections of the Scottish National Gallery. He held numerous
offices in antiquarian, educational and charitable societies, showing
his keen interest in these matters, but he avoided political office and
refused the offer of a baronetcy. The freedom of Edinburgh was given him
in 1896. He died at Aberlour, Banffshire, on the 16th of October 1898.
FINDLAY, a city and the county-seat of Hancock county, Ohio, U.S.A., on
Blanchard's Fork of the Auglaize river, about 42 m. S. by W. of Toledo.
Pop. (1890) 18,553; (1900) 17,613, (1051 foreign-born); (1910) 14,858.
It is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the
Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, the Lake Erie & Western, and the Ohio
Central railways, and by three interurban electric railways. Findlay
lies about 780 ft. above sea-level on gently rolling ground. The city is
the seat of Findlay College (co-educational), an institution of the
Church of God, chartered in 1882 and opened in 1886; it has collegiate,
preparatory, normal, commercial and theological departments, a school of
expression, and a conservatory of music, and in 1907 had 588 students,
the majority of whom were in the conservatory of music. Findlay is the
centre of the Ohio natural gas and oil region, and lime and building
stone abound in the vicinity. Among manufactures are refined petroleum,
flour and grist-mill products, glass, boilers, bricks, tile, pottery,
bridges, ditching machines, carriages and furniture. The total value of
the factory product in 1905 was $2,925,309, an increase of 73.6% since
1900. The municipality owns and operates the water-works. Findlay was
laid out as a town in 1821, was incorporated as a village in 1838, and
was chartered as a city in 1890. The city was named in honour of Colonel
James Findlay (c. 1775-1835), who built a fort here during the war of
1812; he served in this war under General William Hull, and from 1825 to
1833 was a Democratic representative in Congress.
FINE, a word which in all its senses goes back to the Lat. _finire_, to
bring to an end (_finis_). Thus in the common adjectival meanings of
elegant, thin, subtle, excellent, reduced in size, &c., it is in origin
equivalent to "finished." In the various substantival meanings in law,
with which this article deals, the common idea underlying them is an end
or final settlement of a matter.
A fine, in the ordinary sense, is a pecuniary penalty inflicted for the
less serious offences. Fines are necessarily discretionary as to amount;
but a maximum is generally fixed when the penalty is imposed by statute.
And it is an old constitutional maxim that fines must not be
unreasonable. In Magna Carta, c. 111, it is ordained "_Liber homo non
amercietur pro parvo delicto nisi secundum modum ipsius delicti, et pro
magno delicto secundum magnitudinem delicti._"
The term is also applied to payments made to the lord of a manor on the
alienation of land held according to the custom of the manor, to
payments made by a lessee on a renewal of a lease, and to other similar
payments.
Fine also denotes a fictitious suit at law, which played the part of a
conveyance of landed property. "A fine," says Blackstone, "may be
described to be an amicable composition or agreement of a suit, either
actual or fictitious, by leave of the king or his justices, whereby the
lands in question become or are acknowledged to be the right of one of
the parties. In its original it was founded on an actual suit commenced
at law for the recovery of the possession of land or other
hereditaments; and the possession thus gained by such composition was
found to be so sure and effectual that fictitious actions were and
continue to be every day commenced for the sake of obtaining the same
security." Freehold estates could thus be transferred from one person to
another without the formal delivery of possession which was generally
necessary to a feoffment. This is one of the oldest devices of the law.
A statute of 18 Edward I. describes it as the most solemn and
satisfactory of securities, and gives a reason for its name--"Qui quidem
finis sic vocatur, eo quod finis et consummatio omnium placitorum esse
debet, et hac de causa providebatur." The action was supposed to be
founded on a breach of covenant: the defendant, owning himself in the
wrong,[1] makes overtures of compromise, which are authorized by the
_licentia concordandi_; then followed the concord, or the compromise
itself. These, then were the essential parts of the performance, which
became efficient as soon as they were complete; the formal parts were
the _notes_, or abstract of the proceedings, and the _foot_ of the fine,
which recited the final agreement. Fines were said to be of four kinds,
according to the purpose they had in view, as, for instance, to convey
lands in pursuance of a covenant, to grant revisionary interest only,
&c. In addition to the formal record of the proceedings, various
statutes required other solemnities to be observed, the great object of
which was to give publicity to the transaction. Thus by statutes of
Richard III. and Henry VII. the fine had to be openly read and
proclaimed in court no less than sixteen times. A statute of Elizabeth
required a list of fines to be exposed in the court of common pleas and
at assizes. The reason for these formalities was the high and important
nature of the conveyance, which, according to the act of Edward I. above
mentioned, "precludes not only those which are parties and privies to
the fine and their heirs, but all other persons in the world who are of
full age, out of prison, of sound memory, and within the four seas, the
day of the fine levied, unless they put in their claim on the foot of
the fine within a year and a day." This barring by _non-claim_ was
abolished in the reign of Edward III., but restored with an extension of
the time to five years in the reign of Henry VII. The effect of this
statute, intentional according to Blackstone, unintended and brought
about by judicial construction according to others, was that a
tenant-in-tail could bar his issue by a fine. A statute of Henry VIII.
expressly declares this to be the law. Fines, along with the kindred
fiction of recoveries, were abolished by the Fines and Recoveries Act
1833, which substituted a deed enrolled in the court of chancery.
Fines are so generally associated in legal phraseology with recoveries
that it may not be inconvenient to describe the latter in the present
place. A recovery was employed as a means for evading the strict law of
entail. The purchaser or alienee brought an action against the
tenant-in-tail, alleging that he had no legal title to the land. The
tenant-in-tail brought a third person into court, declaring that he had
warranted his title, and praying that he might be ordered to defend the
action. This person was called the _vouchee_, and he, after having
appeared to defend the action, takes himself out of the way. Judgment
for the lands is given in favour of the plaintiff; and judgment to
recover lands of equal value from the vouchee was given to the
defendant, the tenant-in-tail. In real action, such lands when recovered
would have fallen under the settlement of entail; but in the fictitious
recovery the vouchee was a man of straw, and nothing was really
recovered from him, while the lands of the tenant-in-tail were
effectually conveyed to the successful plaintiff. A recovery differed
from a fine, as to _form_, in being an action carried through to the
end, while a fine was settled by compromise, and as to effect, by
barring all reversions and remainders in estates tail, while a fine
barred the issue only of the tenant. (See also EJECTMENT; PROCLAMATION.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Hence called _cognizor_; the other party, the purchaser, is the
_cognizee_.
FINE ARTS, the name given to a whole group of human activities, which
have for their result what is collectively known as Fine Art. The arts
which constitute the group are the five greater arts of architecture,
sculpture, painting, music and poetry, with a number of minor or
subsidiary arts, of which dancing and the drama are among the most
ancient and universal. In antiquity the fine arts were not explicitly
named, nor even distinctly recognized, as a separate class. In other
modern languages besides English they are called by the equivalent name
of the beautiful arts (_belle arti_, _beaux arts_, _schöne Künste_). The
fine or beautiful arts then, it is usually said, are those among the
arts of man which minister, not primarily to his material necessities or
conveniences, but to his love of beauty; and if any art fulfils both
these purposes at once, still as fulfilling the latter only is it called
a fine art. Thus architecture, in so far as it provides shelter and
accommodation, is one of the useful or mechanical arts, and one of the
fine arts only in so far as its structures impress or give pleasure by
the aspect of strength, fitness, harmony and proportion of parts, by
disposition and contrast of light and shade, by colour and enrichment,
by variety and relation of contours, surfaces and intervals. But this,
the commonly accepted account of the matter, does not really cover the
ground. The idea conveyed by the words "love of beauty," even stretched
to its widest, can hardly be made to include the love of caricature and
the grotesque; and these are admittedly modes of fine art. Even the
terrible, the painful, the squalid, the degraded, in a word every
variety of the significant, can be so handled and interpreted as to be
brought within the province of fine art. A juster and more inclusive,
although clumsier, account of the matter might put it that the fine arts
are those among the arts of man which spring from his impulse to do or
make certain things in certain ways for the sake, first, of a special
kind of pleasure, independent of direct utility, which it gives him so
to do or make them, and next for the sake of the kindred pleasure which
he derives from witnessing or contemplating them when they are so done
or made by others.
The nature of this impulse, and the several grounds of these pleasures,
are subjects which have given rise to a formidable body of speculation
and discussion, the chief phases of which will be found summarized under
the heading AESTHETICS. In the present article we have only to attend to
the concrete processes and results of the artistic activities of man; in
other words, we shall submit (1) a definition of fine art in general,
(2) a definition and classification of the principal fine arts
severally, (3) some observations on their historical development.
I. _Of Fine Art in General._
Premeditation essential to art.
According to the popular and established distinction between art and
nature, the idea of Art (q.v.) only includes phenomena of which man is
deliberately the cause; while the idea of Nature includes all phenomena,
both in man and in the world outside him, which take place without
forethought or studied initiative of his own. Art, accordingly, means
every regulated operation or dexterity whereby we pursue ends which we
know beforehand; and it means nothing but such operations and
dexterities. What is true of art generally is of course also true of the
special group of the fine arts. One of the essential qualities of all
art is premeditation; and when Shelley talks of the skylark's profuse
strains of "unpremeditated art," he in effect lays emphasis on the fact
that it is only by a metaphor that he uses the word art in this case at
all; he calls attention to that which (if the songs of birds are as
instinctive as we suppose) precisely makes the difference between the
skylark's outpourings and his own. We are slow to allow the title of
fine art to natural eloquence, to charm or dignity of manner, to
delicacy and tact in social intercourse, and other such graces of life
and conduct, since, although in any given case they may have been
deliberately cultivated in early life, or even through ancestral
generations, they do not produce their full effect until they are so
ingrained as to have become unreflecting and spontaneous. When the
exigencies of a philosophic scheme lead some writers on aesthetics to
include such acts or traits of beautiful and expressive behaviour among
the deliberate artistic activities of mankind, we feel that an essential
distinction is being sacrificed to the exigencies of a system. That
distinction common parlance very justly observes, with its opposition of
"art" to "nature" and its phrase of "second nature" for those graces
which have become so habitual as to seem instinctive, whether originally
the result of discipline or not. When we see a person in all whose
ordinary movements there are freedom and beauty, we put down the charm
of these with good reason to inherited and inbred aptitudes of which the
person has never thought or long since ceased to think, and could not
still be thinking without spoiling the charm by self-consciousness; and
we call the result a gift of nature. But when we go on to notice that
the same person is beautifully and appropriately dressed, since we know
that it is impossible to dress without thinking of it, we put down the
charm of this to judicious forethought and calculation and call the
result a work of art.
The active and the passive pleasures of fine art.
The processes then of fine art, like those of all arts properly so
called, are premeditated, and the property of every fine art is to give
to the person exercising it a special kind of active pleasure, and a
special kind of passive or receptive pleasure to the person witnessing
the results of such exercise. This latter statement seems to imply that
there exist in human societies a separate class producing works of fine
art and another class enjoying them. Such an implication, in regard to
advanced societies, is near enough the truth to be theoretically
admitted (like the analogous assumption in political economy that there
exist separate classes of producers and consumers). In developed
communities the gifts and calling of the artist constitute in fact a
separate profession of the creators or purveyors of fine art, while the
rest of the community are its enjoyers or recipients. In the most
primitive societies, apparently, this cannot have been so, and we can go
back to an original or rudimentary stage of almost every fine art at
which the separation between a class of producers or performers and a
class of recipients hardly exists. Such an original or rudimentary stage
of the dramatic art is presented by children, who will occupy themselves
for ever with mimicry and make-believe for their own satisfaction, with
small regard or none to the presence or absence of witnesses. The
original or rudimentary type of the profession of imitative sculptors or
painters is the cave-dweller of prehistoric ages, who, when he rested
from his day's hunting, first took up the bone handle of his weapon, and
with a flint either carved it into the shape, or on its surface
scratched the outlines, of the animals of the chase. The original or
rudimentary type of the architect, considered not as a mere builder but
as an artist, is the savage who, when his tribe had taken to live in
tents or huts instead of caves, first arranged the skins and timbers of
his tent or hut in one way because it pleased his eye, rather than in
some other way which was as good for shelter. The original type of the
artificer or adorner of implements, considered in the same light, was
the other savage who first took it into his head to fashion his club or
spear in one way rather than another for the pleasure of the eye only
and not for any practical reason, and to ornament it with tufts or
markings. In none of these cases, it would seem, can the primitive
artist have had much reason for pleasing anybody but himself. Again, the
original or rudimentary type of lyric song and dancing arose when the
first reveller clapped hands and stamped or shouted in time, in honour
of his god, in commemoration of a victory, or in mere obedience to the
blind stirring of a rhythmic impulse within him. To some very remote and
solitary ancestral savage the presence or absence of witnesses at such a
display may in like manner have been indifferent; but very early in the
history of the race the primitive dancer and singer joined hands and
voices with others of his tribe, while others again sat apart and looked
on at the performance, and the rite thus became both choral and social.
A primitive type of the instrumental musician is the shepherd who first
notched a reed and drew sounds from it while his sheep were cropping.
The father of all artists in dress and personal adornment was the first
wild man who tattooed himself or bedecked himself with shells and
plumes. In both of these latter instances, it may be taken as certain,
the primitive artist had the motive of pleasing not himself only, but
his mate, or the female whom he desired to be his mate, and in the last
instance of all the further motive of impressing his fellow-tribesmen
and striking awe or envy into his enemies. The tendency of recent
speculation and research concerning the origins of art has been to
ascribe the primitive artistic activities of man less and less to
individual and solitary impulse, and more and more to social impulse and
the desire of sharing and communicating pleasure. (The writer who has
gone furthest in developing this view, and on grounds of the most
careful study of evidence, has been Dr Yrjö Hirn of Helsingfors.)
Whatever relative parts the individual and the social impulses may have
in fact played at the outset, it is clear that what any one can enjoy or
admire by himself, whether in the way of mimicry, of rhythmical
movements or utterances, of imitative or ornamental carving and drawing,
of the disposition and adornment of dwelling-places and utensils--the
same things, it is clear, others are able also to enjoy or admire with
him. And so, with the growth of societies, it came about that one class
of persons separated themselves and became the ministers or producers of
this kind of pleasures, while the rest became the persons ministered to,
the participators in or recipients of the pleasures. Artists are those
members of a society who are so constituted as to feel more acutely than
the rest certain classes of pleasures which all can feel in their
degree. By this fact of their constitution they are impelled to devote
their active powers to the production of such pleasures, to the making
or doing of some of those things which they enjoy so keenly when they
are made and done by others. At the same time the artist does not, by
assuming these ministering or creative functions, surrender his enjoying
or receptive functions. He continues to participate in the pleasures of
which he is himself the cause, and remains a conscious member of his own
public. The architect, sculptor, painter, are able respectively to
stand off from and appreciate the results of their own labours; the
singer enjoys the sound of his own voice, and the musician of his own
instrument; the poet, according to his temperament, furnishes the most
enthusiastic or the most fastidious reader for his own stanzas. Neither,
on the other hand, does the person who is a habitual recipient from
others of the pleasures of fine art forfeit the privilege of producing
them according to his capabilities, and of becoming, if he has the
power, an _amateur_ or occasional artist.
Pleasures of fine art disinterested.
Most of the common properties which have been recognized by consent as
peculiar to the group of fine arts will be found on examination to be
implied in, or deducible from, the one fundamental character generally
claimed for them, namely, that they exist independently of direct
practical necessity or utility. Let us take, first, a point relating to
the frame of mind of the recipient, as distinguished from the producer,
of the pleasures of fine art. It is an observation as old as Aristotle
that such pleasures differ from most other pleasures of experience in
that they are disinterested, in the sense that they are not such as
nourish a man's body nor add to his riches; they are not such as can
gratify him, when he receives them, by the sense of advantage or
superiority over his fellow-creatures; they are not such as one human
being can in any sense receive exclusively from the object which bestows
them. Thus it is evidently characteristic of a beautiful building that
its beauty cannot be monopolized, but can be seen and admired by the
inhabitants of a whole city and by all visitors for all generations. The
same thing is true of a picture or a statue, except in so far as an
individual possessor may choose to keep such a possession to himself, in
which case his pride in exclusive ownership is a sentiment wholly
independent of his pleasure in artistic contemplation. Similarly, music
is composed to be sung or played for the enjoyment of many at a time, and
for such enjoyment a hundred years hence as much as to-day. Poetry is
written to be read by all readers for ever who care for the ideas and
feelings of the poet, and can apprehend the meaning and melody of his
language. Hence, though we can speak of a class of the producers of fine
art, we cannot speak of a class of its consumers, only of its recipients
or enjoyers. If we consider other pleasures which might seem to be
analogous to those of fine art, but to which common consent yet declines
to allow that character, we shall see that one reason is that such
pleasures are not in their nature thus disinterested. Thus the sense of
smell and taste have pleasures of their own like the senses of sight and
hearing, and pleasures neither less poignant nor very much less capable
of fine graduation and discrimination than those. Why, then, is the title
of fine art not claimed for any skill in arranging and combining them?
Why are there no recognized arts of savours and scents corresponding in
rank to the arts of forms, colours and sounds--or at least none among
Western nations, for in Japan, it seems, there is a recognized and finely
regulated social art of the combination and succession of perfumes? An
answer commonly given is that sight and hearing are intellectual and
therefore higher senses, that through them we have our avenues to all
knowledge and all ideas of things outside us; while taste and smell are
unintellectual and therefore lower senses, through which few such
impressions find their way to us as help to build up our knowledge and
our ideas. Perhaps a more satisfactory reason why there are no fine arts
of taste and smell--or let us in deference to Japanese modes leave out
smell, and say of taste only--is this, that savours yield only private
pleasures, which it is not possible to build up into separate and durable
schemes such that every one may have the benefit of them, and such as
cannot be monopolized or used up. If against this it is contended that
what the programme of a performance is in the musical art, the same is a
_menu_ in the culinary, and that practically it is no less possible to
serve up a thousand times and to a thousand different companies the same
dinner than the same symphony, we must fall back upon that still more
fundamental form of the distinction between the aesthetic and
non-aesthetic bodily senses, upon which the physiological psychologists
of the English school lay stress. We must say that the pleasures of
taste cannot be pleasures of fine art, because their enjoyment is too
closely associated with the most indispensable and the most strictly
personal of utilities, eating and drinking. To pass from these lower
pleasures to the highest; consider the nature of the delight derived from
the contemplation, by the person who is their object, of the signs and
manifestations of love. That at least is a beautiful experience; why is
the pleasure which it affords not an artistic pleasure either? Why, in
order to receive an artistic pleasure from human signs and manifestations
of this kind, are we compelled to go to the theatre and see them
exhibited in favour of a third person who is not really their object any
more than ourselves? This is so, for one reason, evidently, because of
the difference between art and nature. Not to art, but to nature and
life, belongs love where it is really felt, with its attendant train of
vivid hopes, fears, passions and contingencies. To art belongs love
displayed where it is not really felt; and in this sphere, along with
reality and spontaneousness of the display, and along with its momentous
bearings, there disappear all those elements of pleasure in its
contemplation which are not disinterested--the elements of personal
exultation and self-congratulation, the pride of exclusive possession or
acceptance, all these emotions, in short, which are summed up in the
lover's triumphant monosyllable, "Mine." Thus, from the lowest point of
the scale to the highest, we may observe that the element of personal
advantage or monopoly in human gratifications seems to exclude, them from
the kingdom of fine art. The pleasures of fine art, so far as concerns
their passive or receptive part, seem to define themselves as pleasures
of gratified contemplation, but of such contemplation only when it is
disinterested--which is simply another way of saying, when it is
unconcerned with ideas of utility.
An objection and its answer.
Modern speculation has tended in some degree to modify and obscure this
old and established view of the pleasures of fine art by urging that the
hearer or spectator is not after all so free from self-interest as he
seems; that in the act of artistic contemplation he experiences an
enhancement or expansion of his being which is in truth a gain of the
egoistic kind; that in witnessing a play, for instance, a large part of
his enjoyment consists in sympathetically identifying himself with the
successful lover or the virtuous hero. All this may be true, but does
not really affect the argument, since at the same time he is well aware
that every other spectator or auditor present may be similarly engaged
with himself. At most the objection only requires us to define a little
more closely, and to say that the satisfactions of the ego excluded from
among the pleasures of fine art are not these ideal, sympathetic,
indirect satisfactions, which every one can share together, but only
those which arise from direct, private and incommunicable advantage to
the individual.
Fine arts cannot be practised by rule and precept.
Next, let us consider another generally accepted observation concerning
the nature of the fine arts, and one, this time, relating to the
disposition and state of mind of the practising artist himself. While
for success in other arts it is only necessary to learn their rules and
to apply them until practice gives facility, in the fine arts, it is
commonly and justly said, rules and their application will carry but a
little way towards success. All that can depend on rules, on knowledge,
and on the application of knowledge by practice, the artist must indeed
acquire, and the acquisition is often very complicated and laborious.
But outside of and beyond such acquisitions he must trust to what is
called genius or imagination, that is, to the spontaneous working
together of an incalculably complex group of faculties, reminiscences,
preferences, emotions, instincts in his constitution. This
characteristic of the activities of the artist is a direct consequence
or corollary of the fundamental fact that the art he practices is
independent of utility. A utilitarian end is necessarily a determinate
and prescribed end, and to every end which is determinate and prescribed
there must be one road which is the best. Skill in any useful art means
knowing practically, by rules and the application of rules, the best
road to the particular ends of that art. Thus the farmer, the engineer,
the carpenter, the builder so far as he is not concerned with the look
of his buildings, the weaver so far as he is not concerned with the
designing of the patterns which he weaves, possesses each his peculiar
skill, but a skill to which fixed problems are set, and which, if it
indulges in new inventions and combinations at all, can indulge them
only for the sake of an improved solution of those particular problems.
The solution once found, the invention once made, its rules can be
written down, or at any rate its practice can be imparted to others who
will apply it in their turn. Whereas no man can write down, in a way
that others can act upon, how Beethoven conquered unknown kingdoms in
the world of harmony, or how Rembrandt turned the aspects of gloom,
squalor and affliction into pictures as worthy of contemplation as those
into which the Italians before him had turned the aspects of spiritual
exaltation and shadowless day. The reason why the operations of the
artist thus differ from the operations of the ordinary craftsman or
artificer is that his ends, being ends other than useful, are not
determinate nor fixed as theirs are. He has large liberty to choose his
own problems, and may solve each of them in a thousand different ways
according to the prompting of his own ordering or creating instincts.
The musical composer has the largest liberty of all. Having learned what
is learnable in his art, having mastered the complicated and laborious
rules of musical form, having next determined the particular class of
the work which he is about to compose, he has then before him the whole
inexhaustible world of appropriate successions and combinations of
emotional sound. He is merely directed and not fettered, in the case of
song, cantata, oratorio or opera, by the sense of the words which he has
to set. The value of the result depends absolutely on his possessing or
failing to possess powers which can neither be trained in nor
communicated to any man. And this double freedom, alike from practical
service and from the representation of definite objects, is what makes
music in a certain sense the typical fine art, or art of arts.
Architecture shares one-half of this freedom. It has not to copy or
represent natural objects; for this service it calls in sculpture to its
aid; but architecture is without the other half of freedom altogether.
The architect has a sphere of liberty in the disposition of his masses,
lines, colours, alternations of light and shadow, of plain and
ornamented surface, and the rest; but upon this sphere he can only enter
on condition that he at the same time fulfils the strict practical task
of supplying the required accommodation, and obeys the strict mechanical
necessities imposed by the laws of weight, thrust, support, resistance
and other properties of solid matter. The sculptor again, the painter,
the poet, has each in like manner his sphere of necessary facts, rules
and conditions corresponding to the nature of his task. The sculptor
must be intimately versed both in the surface aspects and the inner
mechanism of the human frame alike in rest and motion, and in the rules
and conditions for its representation in solid form; the painter in a
much more extended range of natural facts and appearances, and the rules
and conditions for representing them on a plane surface; the poet's art
of words has its own not inconsiderable basis of positive and
disciplined acquisition. So far as rules, precepts, formulas and other
communicable laws or secrets can carry the artist, so far also the
spectator can account for, analyse, and, so to speak, tabulate the
effects of his art. But the essential character of the artist's
operation, its very bloom and virtue, lies in those parts of it which
fall outside this range of regulation on the one hand and analysis on
the other. His merit varies according to the felicity with which he is
able, in that region, to exercise his free choice and frame his
individual ideal, and according to the tenacity with which he strives to
grasp and realize his choice, or to attain perfection according to that
ideal.
Fine arts and machinery: "art manufactures."
In this connexion the question naturally arises, In what way do the
progress and expansion of mechanical art affect the power and province
of fine art? The great practical movement of the world in our age is a
movement for the development of mechanical inventions and multiplication
of mechanical products. So far as these inventions are applied to
purposes purely useful, and so far as their products to not profess to
offer anything delightful to contemplation, this movement in no way
concerns our argument. But there is a vast multitude of products which
do profess qualities of pleasantness, and upon which the ornaments
intended to make them pleasurable are bestowed by machinery; and in
speaking of these we are accustomed to the phrases art-industry,
industrial art, art manufactures and the like. In these cases the
industry or ingenuity which directs the machine is not fine art at all,
since the object of the machine is simply to multiply as easily and as
perfectly as possible a definite and prescribed impress or pattern. This
is equally true whether the machine is a simple one, like the engraver's
press, for producing and multiplying impressions from an engraved plate,
or a highly complex one, like the loom, in which elaborate patterns of
carpet or curtain are set for weaving. In both cases there exists behind
the mechanical industry an industry which is one of fine art in its
degree. In the case of the engraver's press, there exists behind the
industry of the printer the art of the engraver, which, if the engraver
is also the free inventor of the design, is then a fine art, or, if he
is but the interpreter of the invention of another, is then in its turn
a semi-mechanical skill applied in aid of the fine art of the first
inventor. In the case of the weaver's loom there is, behind the
mechanical industry which directs the loom at its given task, the fine
art, or what ought to be the fine art, of the designer who has contrived
the pattern. In the case of the engraving, the mechanical industry of
printing only exists for the sake of bringing out and disseminating
abroad the fine art employed upon the design. In the case of the carpet
or curtain, the fine art is often only called in to make the product of
the useful or mechanical industry of the loom acceptable, since the eye
of man is so constituted as to receive pleasure or the reverse of
pleasure from whatever it rests upon, and it is to the interest of the
manufacturer to have his product so made as to give pleasure if it can.
Whether the machine is thus a humble servant to the artist, or the
artist a kind of humble purveyor to the machine, the fine art in the
result is due to the former alone; and in any case it reaches the
recipient at second-hand, having been put in circulation by a medium not
artistic but mechanical.
Perfected machines: are they works of fine art?
Again, with reference not to the application of mechanical contrivances
but to their invention; is not, it may be inquired, the title of artist
due to the inventor of some of the astonishingly complex and
astonishingly efficient machines of modern-times? Does he not spend as
much thought, labour, genius as any sculptor or musician in perfecting
his construction according to his ideal, and is not the construction
when it is done--so finished, so responsive in all its parts, so almost
human--is not that worthy to be called a work of fine art? The answer is
that the inventor has a definite and practical end before him; his ideal
is not _free_; he deserves all credit as the perfector of a particular
instrument for a prescribed function, but an artist, a free follower of
the fine arts, he is not; although we may perhaps have to concede him a
narrow sphere for the play of something like an artistic sense when he
contrives the proportion, arrangement, form or finish of the several
parts of his machine in one way rather than another, not because they
work better so but simply because their look pleases him better.
Fine arts called a kind of play.
Returning from this digression, let us consider one common observation
more on the nature of the fine arts. They are activities, it is said,
which were put forth not because they need but because they like. They
have the activity to spare, and to put it forth in this way pleases
them. Fine art is to mankind what play is to the individual, a free and
arbitrary vent for energy which is not needed to be spent upon tasks
concerned with the conservation, perpetuation or protection of life. To
insist on the superfluous or optional character of the fine arts, to
call them the play or pastime of the human race as distinguished from
its inevitable and sterner tasks, is obviously only to reiterate our
fundamental distinction between the fine arts and the useful or
necessary. But the distinction, as expressed in this particular form,
has been interpreted in a great variety of ways and followed out to an
infinity of conclusions, conclusions regarding both the nature of the
activities themselves and the character and value of their results.
The play idea as worked out by the English associationists.
For instance, starting from this saying that the aesthetic activities
are a kind of play, the English psychology of association goes back to
the spontaneous cries and movements of children, in which their
superfluous energies find a vent. It then enumerates pleasures of which
the human constitution is capable apart from direct advantage or
utility. Such are the primitive or organic pleasures of sight and
hearing, and the secondary or derivative pleasures of association or
unconscious reminiscence and inference that soon become mixed up with
these. Such are also the pleasures derived from following any kind of
mimicry, or representation of things real or like reality. The
association psychology describes the grouping within the mind of
predilections based upon these pleasures; it shows how the growing
organism learns to govern its play, or direct its superfluous energies,
in obedience to such predilections, till in mature individuals, and
still more in mature societies, a highly regulated and accomplished
group of leisure activities are habitually employed in supplying to a
not less highly cultivated group of disinterested sensibilities their
appropriate artistic pleasures. It is by Herbert Spencer that this view
has been most fully and systematically worked out.
By Plato.
Again, in the views of an ancient philosopher, Plato, and a modern poet,
Schiller, the consideration that the artistic activities are in the
nature of play, and the manifestations in which they result independent
of realities and utilities, has led to judgments so differing as the
following. Plato held that the daily realities of things in experience
are not realities, indeed, but only far-off shows or reflections of the
true realities, that is, of certain ideal or essential forms which can
be apprehended as existing by the mind. Holding this, Plato saw in the
works of fine art but the reflections of reflections, the shows of
shows, and depreciated them according to their degree of remoteness from
the ideal, typical or sense-transcending existences. He sets the arts of
medicine, agriculture, shoemaking and the rest above the fine arts,
inasmuch as they produce something serious or useful ([Greek:
spoudaionti]). Fine art, he says, produces nothing useful, and makes
only semblances ([Greek: eidolopiïke]), whereas what mechanical art
produces are utilities, and even in the ordinary sense realities
([Greek: autopoietike]).
By Schiller.
In another age, and thinking according to another system, Schiller, so
far from holding thus cheap the kingdom of play and show, regarded his
sovereignty over that kingdom as the noblest prerogative of man.
Schiller wrote his famous _Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man_ in
order to throw into popular currency, and at the same time to modify and
follow up in a particular direction, certain metaphysical doctrines
which had lately been launched upon the schools by Kant. The spirit of
man, said Schiller after Kant, is placed between two worlds, the
physical world or world of sense, and the moral world or world of will.
Both of these are worlds of constraint or necessity. In the sensible
world, the spirit of man submits to constraint from without; in the
moral world, it imposes constraint from within. So far as man yields to
the importunities of sense, in so far he is bound and passive, the
subject of outward shocks and victim of irrational forces. So far as he
asserts himself by the exercise of will, imposing upon sense and outward
things the dominion of the moral law within him, in so far he is free
and active, the rational lord of nature and not her slave. Corresponding
to these two worlds, he has within him two conflicting impulses or
impulsions of his nature, the one driving him towards one way of living,
the other towards another. The one, or sense-impulsion (_Stofftrieb_),
Schiller thinks of as that which enslaves the spirit of man as the
victim of matter, the other or moral impulsion (_Formtrieb_) as that
which enthrones it as the dictator of form. Between the two the
conflict at first seems inveterate. The kingdom of brute nature and
sense, the sphere of man's subjection and passivity, wages war against
the kingdom of will and moral law, the sphere of his activity and
control, and every conquest of the one is an encroachment upon the
other. Is there, then, no hope of truce between the two kingdoms, no
ground where the two contending impulses can be reconciled? Nay, the
answer comes, there is such a hope; such a neutral territory there
exists. Between the passive kingdom of matter and sense, where man is
compelled blindly to feel and be, and the active kingdom of law and
reason, where he is compelled sternly to will and act, there is a
kingdom where both sense and will may have their way, and where man may
give the rein to all his powers. But this middle kingdom does not lie in
the sphere of practical life and conduct. It lies in the sphere of those
activities which neither subserve any necessity of nature nor fulfil any
moral duty. Towards activities of this kind we are driven by a third
impulsion of our nature not less essential to it than the other two, the
impulsion, as Schiller calls it, of Play (_Spieltrieb_). Relatively to
real life and conduct, play is a kind of harmless show; it is that which
we are free to do or leave undone as we please, and which lies alike
outside the sphere of needs and duties. In play we may do as we like,
and no mischief will come of it. In this sphere man may put forth all
his powers without risk of conflict, and may invent activities which
will give a complete ideal satisfaction to the contending faculties of
sense and will at once, to the impulses which bid him feel and enjoy the
shocks of physical and outward things, and the impulse which bids him
master such things, control and regulate them. In play you may impose
upon Matter what Form you choose, and the two will not interfere with
one another or clash. The kingdom of Matter and the kingdom of Form thus
harmonized, thus reconciled by the activities of play and show, will in
other words be the kingdom of the Beautiful. Follow the impulsion of
play, and to the beautiful you will find your road; the activities you
will find yourself putting forth will be the activities of aesthetic
creation--you will have discovered or invented the fine arts.
"Midway"--these are Schiller's own words--"midway between the formidable
kingdom of natural forces and the hallowed kingdom of moral laws, the
impulse of aesthetic creation builds up a third kingdom unperceived, the
gladsome kingdom of play and show, wherein it emancipates man from all
compulsion alike of physical and of moral forces." Schiller, the poet
and enthusiast, thus making his own application of the Kantian
metaphysics, goes on to set forth how the fine arts, or activities of
play and show, are for him the typical, the ideal activities of the
race, since in them alone is it possible for man to put forth his whole,
that is his ideal self. "Only when he plays is man really and truly
man." "Man ought only to play with the beautiful, and he ought to play
with the beautiful only." "Education in taste and beauty has for its
object to train up in the utmost attainable harmony the whole sum of the
powers both of sense and spirit." And the rest of Schiller's argument is
addressed to show how the activities of artistic creation, once
invented, react upon other departments of human life, how the exercise
of the play impulse prepares men for an existence in which the
inevitable collision of the two other impulses shall be softened or
averted more and more. That harmony of the powers which clash so
violently in man's primitive nature, having first been found possible in
the sphere of the fine arts, reflects itself, in his judgment, upon the
whole composition of man, and attunes him, as an aesthetic being, into
new capabilities for the conduct of his social existence.
The strong points of Schiller's theory.
Our reasons for dwelling on this wide and enthusiastic formula of
Schiller's are both its importance in the history of reflection--it
remained, indeed, for nearly a century a formula almost classical--and
the measure of positive value which it still retains. The notion of a
sphere of voluntary activity for the human spirit, in which, under no
compulsion of necessity or conscience, we order matters as we like them
apart from any practical end, seems coextensive with the widest
conception of fine art and the fine arts as they exist in civilized and
developed communities. It insists on and brings into the light the free
or optional character of these activities, as distinguished from others
to which we are compelled by necessity or duty, as well as the fact that
these activities, superfluous as they may be from the points of view of
necessity and of duty, spring nevertheless from an imperious and a
saving instinct of our nature. It does justice to the part which is, or
at any rate may be, filled in the world by pleasures which are apart
from profit, and by delights for the enjoyment of which men cannot
quarrel. It claims the dignity they deserve for those shows and pastimes
in which we have found a way to make permanent all the transitory
delights of life and nature, to turn even our griefs and yearnings, by
their artistic utterance, into sources of appeasing joy, to make amends
to ourselves for the confusion and imperfection of reality by conceiving
and imaging forth the semblances of things clearer and more complete,
since in contriving them we incorporate with the experiences we have had
the better experiences we have dreamed of and longed for.
Its weak points.
One manifestly weak point of Schiller's theory is that though it asserts
that man ought only to play with the beautiful, and that he is his best
or ideal self only when he does so, yet it does not sufficiently
indicate what kinds of play are beautiful nor why we are moved to adopt
them. It does not show how the delights of the eye and spirit in
contemplating forms, colours and movements, of the ear and spirit in
apprehending musical and verbal sounds, or of the whole mind at once in
following the comprehensive current of images called up by poetry--it
does not clearly show how delights like these differ from those yielded
by other kinds of play or pastime, which are by common consent excluded
from the sphere of fine art.
Kinds of play which are not fine art.
The chase, for instance, is a play or pastime which gives scope for any
amount of premeditated skill; it has pleasures, for those who take part
in it, which are in some degree analogous to the pleasures of the
artist; we all know the claims made on behalf of the noble art of
venerie (following true medieval precedent) by the knights and woodmen
of Sir Walter Scott's romances. It is an obvious reply to say that
though the chase is play to us, who in civilized communities follow it
on no plea of necessity, yet to a not remote ancestry it was earnest; in
primitive societies hunting does not belong to the class of optional
activities at all, but is among the most pressing of utilitarian needs.
But this reply loses much of its force since we have learnt how many of
the fine arts, however emancipated from direct utility now, have as a
matter of history been evolved out of activities primarily utilitarian.
It would be more to the point to remark that the pleasures of the
sportsman are the only pleasures arising from the chase; his exertions
afford pain to the victim, and no satisfaction to any class of
recipients but himself; or at least the sympathetic pleasures of the
lookers-on at a hunt or at a battle are hardly to be counted as
pleasures of artistic contemplation. The issue which they witness is a
real issue; the skilled endeavours with which they sympathize are put
forth for a definite practical result, and a result disastrous to one of
the parties concerned.
What then, it may be asked, about athletic games and sports, which hurt
nobody, have no connexion with the chase, and give pleasure to thousands
of spectators? Here the difference is, that the event which excites the
spectator's interest and pleasure at a race or match or athletic contest
is not a wholly unreal or simulated event; it is less real than life,
but it is more real than art. The contest has no momentous practical
consequences, but it is a contest, an [Greek: athlos], all the same, in
which competitors put forth real strength, and one really wins and
others are defeated. Such a struggle, in which the exertions are real
and the issue uncertain, we follow with an excitement and a suspense
different in kind from the feelings with which we contemplate a
fictitious representation. For example, let the reader recall the
feelings with which he may have watched a real fencing bout, and compare
them with those with which he watches the simulated fencing bout in
Shakespeare's _Hamlet_. The instance is a crucial one, because in the
fictitious case the excitement is heightened by the introduction of the
poisoned foil, and by the tremendous consequences which we are aware
will turn, in the representation, on the issue. Yet because the fencing
scene in _Hamlet_ is a representation, and not real, we find ourselves
watching it in a mood quite different from that in which we watch the
most ordinary real fencing-match with vizors and blunt foils; a mood
more exalted, if the representation is good, but amid the aesthetic
emotions of which the fluctuations of strained, if trivial, suspense and
the eagerness of sympathetic participation find no place. "The delight
of tragedy," says Johnson, "proceeds from our consciousness of fiction;
if we thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more." So
does the peculiar quality of our pleasure in watching the fencing-match
in _Hamlet_, or the wrestling-match in _As You Like It_, depend on our
consciousness of fiction: if we thought the matches real they might
please us still, but please us in a different way. Again, of athletics
in general, they are pursuits to a considerable degree definitely
utilitarian, having for their specific end the training and
strengthening of individual human bodies. Nevertheless, in some systems
the title of fine arts has been consistently claimed, if not for
athletics technically so called, and involving the idea of competition
and defeat, at any rate for gymnastics, regarded simply as a display of
the physical frame of man cultivated by exercise--as, for instance, it
was cultivated by the ancient Greeks--to an ideal perfection of beauty
and strength.
The play theory in the light of anthropological research.
But apart from criticisms like these on the theory of Schiller, the
Kantian doctrine of a metaphysical opposition between the senses and the
reason has for most minds of to-day lost its validity, and with it falls
away Schiller's derivative theory of a _Stofftrieb_ and a _Formtrieb_
contending like enemies for dominion over the human spirit, with a
neutral or reconciling _Spieltrieb_ standing between them. Even taking
the existence of the _Spieltrieb_, or play-impulse, by itself as a plain
and indubitable fact in human nature, the theory that this impulse is
the general or universal source of the artistic activities of the race,
which seemed adequate to thinkers so far apart as Schiller and Herbert
Spencer, is found no longer to hold water. The tendency of recent
thought and study on these subjects has been to abandon the abstract or
dialectical method in favour of the methods of historical and
anthropological inquiry. In the light of these methods it is claimed
that the artistic activities of the race spring in point of fact from no
single source but from a number of different sources. It is admitted
that the play-impulse is one of these, and the allied and overlapping,
but not identical, impulse of mimicry or imitation another. But it is
urged at the same time that these twin impulses, rooted as they both are
among the primordial faculties both of men and animals, are far from
existing merely to provide a vent whereby the superfluous energies of
sentient beings may discharge themselves at pleasure, but are
indispensable utilitarian instincts, by which the young are led to
practise and rehearse in sport those activities the exercise of which in
earnest will be necessary to their preservation in the adult state. (The
researches of Professor Karl Groos in this field seem to be conclusive.)
A third impulse innate in man, though scarcely so primordial as the
other two, and one which the animals cannot share with him, is the
impulse of record or commemoration. Man instinctively desires, alike for
safety, use and pleasure, to perpetuate and hand on the memory of his
deeds and experiences whether by words or by works of his hands
contrived for permanence. This impulse of record is the most stimulating
ally of the impulse of mimicry or imitation, and perhaps a large part of
the arts usually put down as springing from the love of imitation ought
rather to be put down as springing from the commemorative or recording
impulse, using imitation as its necessary means. Granting the existence
in primitive man of these three allied impulses of play, of mimicry, and
of record, it is urged that they are so many distinct though contiguous
sources from which whole groups of the fine arts have sprung, and that
all three in their origin served ends primarily or in great part
utilitarian. Examining any of the rudimentary artistic activities of
primitive man already mentioned: the decoration of the person with
tattooings or strings of shells or teeth or feathers had primarily the
object of attracting or impressing the opposite sex, or terrifying an
enemy, or indicating the tribal relations of the person so adorned; some
of the same purposes were served by the scratches and tufts and markings
on weapons or utensils; the _graffiti_ or outline drawings of animals
incised by cave-dwellers on bones are surmised to have sprung in like
manner from the desire of conveying information, combined, probably,
sometimes with that of obtaining magic power over the things
represented; the erection of memorial shrines and images of all kinds,
from the rudest upwards, had among other purposes the highly practical
one of propitiating the spirits of the departed; and so on through the
whole range of kindred activities. It is contended, next, that such
activities only take on the character of rudimentary fine arts at a
certain stage of their evolution. Before they can assume that character,
they must come under the influence and control of yet another rooted and
imperious impulse in mankind. That is the impulse of emotional
self-expression, the instinct which compels us to seek relief under the
stimulus of pent-up feeling; an instinct, it is added, second only in
power to those which drive us to seek food, shelter, protection from
enemies, and satisfaction for-sexual desires. According to a law of our
constitution, the argument goes on, this need for emotional
self-expression finds itself fully satisfied only by certain modes of
activity; those, namely, which either have in themselves, or impress on
their products, the property of rhythm, that is, of regular interval and
recurrence, flow, order and proportion. Leaping, shouting, and clapping
hands is the human animal's most primitive way of seeking relief under
the pressure of emotion; so soon as one such animal found out that he
both expressed and relieved his emotions best, and communicated them
best to his fellows, when he moved in regular rhythm and shouted in
regular time and with regular changes of pitch, he ceased to be a mere
excited savage and became a primitive dancer, singer, musician--in a
word, artist. So soon as another found himself taking pleasure in
certain qualities of regular interval, pattern and arrangement of lines,
shapes, and colours, apart from all questions of purpose or utility, in
his tattooings and self-adornments, his decoration of tools or weapons
or structures for shelter or commemoration, he in like manner became a
primitive artist in ornamental and imitative design.
The special qualities of pleasure felt and communicated by doing things
in one way rather than another, independently of direct utility, which
we indicated at the outset as characteristic of the whole range of the
fine arts, appear on this showing to be dependent primarily on the
response of our organic sensibilities of nerve and muscle, eye, ear and
brain to the stimulus of rhythm, (using the word in its widest sense)
imparted either to our own actions and utterances or to the works of our
hands. Such pleasures would seem to have been first experienced by man
directly, in the endeavour to find relief with limbs and voice from
states of emotional tension, and then incidentally, as a kind of
by-product arising and affording similar relief in the development of a
wide range of utilitarian activities. Into the nature of those organic
sensibilities, and the grounds of the relief they afford us when
gratified, it is the province of physiological and psychological
aesthetics to inquire: our business here is only with the activities
directed towards their satisfaction and the results of those activities
in the works of fine art. On the whole the account of the matter yielded
by the method of anthropological research, and here very briefly
summarized, may be accepted as answering more closely to the complex
nature of the facts than any of the accounts hitherto current; and so we
may expand our first tentative suggestion of a definition into one more
complete, which from the nature of the case cannot be very brief or
simple and must run somehow thus: _Fine art is everything which man does
or makes in one way rather than another, freely and with premeditation,
in order to express and arouse emotion, in obedience to laws of
rhythmic movement or utterance or regulated design, and with results
independent of direct utility and capable of affording to many permanent
and disinterested delight._
II. _Of the Fine Arts severally._
Modes in which the five greater arts have been classified.
_Architecture_, _sculpture_, _painting_, _music_ and _poetry_ are by
common consent, as has been said at the outset, the five principal or
greater fine arts practised among developed communities of men. It is
possible in thought to group these five arts in as many different orders
as there are among them different kinds of relation or affinity. One
thinker fixes his attention upon one kind of relations as the most
important, and arranges his group accordingly; another upon another; and
each, when he has done so, is very prone to claim for his arrangement
the virtue of being the sole essentially and fundamentally true. For
example, we may ascertain one kind of relations between the arts by
inquiring which is the simplest or most limited in its effects, which
next simplest, which another degree less simple, which least simple or
most complex of them all. This, the relation of progressive complexity
or comprehensiveness between the fine arts, is the relation upon which
Auguste Comte fixed his attention, and it yields in his judgment the
following order:--Architecture lowest in complexity, because both of the
kinds of effects which it produces and of the material conditions and
limitations under which it works; sculpture next; painting third; then
music; and poetry highest, as the most complex or comprehensive art of
all, both in its own special effects and in its resources for ideally
calling up the effects of all the other arts as well as all the
phenomena of nature and experiences of life. A somewhat similar grouping
was adopted, though from the consideration of a wholly different set of
relations, by Hegel. Hegel fixed his attention on the varying relations
borne by the idea, or spiritual element, to the embodiment of the idea,
or material element, in each art. Leaving aside that part of his
doctrine which concerns, not the phenomena of the arts themselves, but
their place in the dialectical world-plan or scheme of the universe,
Hegel said in effect something like this. In certain ages and among
certain races, as in Egypt and Assyria, and again in the Gothic age of
Europe, mankind has only dim ideas for art to express, ideas
insufficiently disengaged and realized, of which the expression cannot
be complete or lucid, but only adumbrated and imperfect; the
characteristic art of those ages is a symbolic art, with its material
element predominating over and keeping down its spiritual; and such a
symbolic art is architecture. In other ages, as in the Greek age, the
ideas of men have come to be definite, disengaged, and clear; the
characteristic art of such an age will be one in which the spiritual and
material elements are in equilibrium, and neither predominates over nor
keeps down the other, but a thoroughly realized idea is expressed in a
thoroughly adequate and lucid form; this is the mode of expression
called classic, and the classic art is sculpture. In other ages, again,
and such are the modern ages of Europe, the idea grows in power and
becomes importunate; the spiritual and material elements are no longer
in equilibrium, but the spiritual element predominates; the
characteristic arts of such an age will be those in which thought,
passion, sentiment, aspiration, emotion, emerge in freedom, dealing with
material form as masters or declining its shackles altogether; this is
the romantic mode of expression, and the romantic arts are painting,
music and poetry. A later systematizer, Lotze, fixed his attention on
the relative degrees of freedom or independence which the several arts
enjoy--their freedom, that is, from the necessity of either imitating
given facts of nature or ministering, as part of their task, to given
practical uses. In his grouping, instead of the order architecture,
sculpture, painting, music, poetry, music comes first, because it has
neither to imitate any natural facts nor to serve any practical end;
architecture next, because, though it is tied to useful ends and
material conditions, yet it is free from the task of imitation, and
pleases the eye in its degree, by pure form, light and shade, and the
rest, as music pleases the ear by pure sound; then, as arts all tied to
the task of imitation, sculpture, painting and poetry, taken in
progressive order according to the progressing comprehensiveness of
their several resources.
Place of the minor or subordinate fine arts.
The thinker on these subjects has, moreover, to consider the enumeration
and classification of the lesser or subordinate fine arts. Whole
clusters or families of these occur to the mind at once; such as
_dancing_, an art subordinate to music, but quite different in kind;
_acting_, an art auxiliary to _poetry_, from which in kind it differs no
less; _eloquence_ in all kinds, so far as it is studied and not merely
spontaneous; and among the arts which fashion or dispose material
objects, _embroidery_ and the weaving of patterns, _pottery_,
_glassmaking_, _goldsmith's work_ and _jewelry_, _joiner's work_,
_gardening_ (according to the claim of some), and a score of other
dexterities and industries which are more than mere dexterities and
industries because they add elements of beauty and pleasure to elements
of serviceableness and use. To decide whether any given one of these has
a right to the title of fine art, and, if so, to which of the greater
fine arts it should be thought of as appended and subordinate, or
between which two of them intermediate, is often no easy task.
No one classification final or sufficient.
The weak point of all classifications of the kind of which we have above
given examples is that each is intended to be final, and to serve
instead of any other. The truth is, that the relations between the
several fine arts are much too complex for any single classification to
bear this character. Every classification of the fine arts must
necessarily be provisional, according to the particular class of
relations which it keeps in view. And for practical purposes it is
requisite to bear in mind not one classification but several. Fixing our
attention, not upon complicated or problematical relations between the
various arts, but only upon their simple and undisputed relations, and
giving the first place in our consideration to the five greater arts of
architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry, we shall find at
least three principal modes in which every fine art either resembles or
differs from the rest.
First classification: the shaping and the speaking arts.
1. _The Shaping and the Speaking Arts_ (_or Arts of Form and Arts of
Utterance, or Arts of Space and Arts of Time)_.--Each of the greater
arts either makes something or not which can be seen and handled. The
arts which make something which can be seen and handled are
architecture, sculpture and painting. In the products or results of
all these arts external matter is in some way or another manually put
together, fashioned or disposed. But music and poetry do not produce
any results of this kind. What music produces is something that can be
heard, and what poetry produces is something that can be either heard
or read--which last is a kind of ideal hearing, having for its avenue
the eye instead of the ear, and for its material, written signs for
words instead of the spoken words themselves. Now what the eye sees
from any one point of view, it sees all at once; in other words, the
parts of anything we see fill or occupy not time but space, and reach
us from various points in space at a single simultaneous perception.
If we are at the proper distance we see at one glance a house from the
ground to the chimneys, a statue from head to foot, and in a picture
at once the foreground and background, and everything that is within
the four corners of the frame. There is, indeed, this distinction to
be drawn, that in walking round or through a temple, church, house or
any other building, new parts and proportions of the building unfold
themselves to view; and the same thing happens in walking round a
statue or turning it on a turntable: so that the spectator, by his own
motions and the time it takes to effect them, can impart to
architecture and sculpture something of the character of time arts.
But their products, as contemplated from any one point of view, are in
themselves solid, stationary and permanent in space. Whereas the parts
of anything we hear, or, reading, can imagine that we hear, fill or
occupy not space at all but time, and can only reach us from various
points in time through a continuous series of perceptions, or, in the
case of reading, of images raised by words in the mind. We have to
wait, in music, while one note follows another in a theme, and one
theme another in a movement; and in poetry, while one line with its
images follows another in a stanza, and one stanza another in a canto,
and so on. It is a convenient form of expressing both aspects of this
difference between the two groups of arts, to say that architecture,
sculpture and painting are arts which give shape to things in space,
or, more briefly, shaping arts; and music and poetry arts which give
utterance to things in time, or, more briefly, speaking arts. These
simple terms of the _shaping_ and the _speaking_ arts (the equivalent
of the Ger. _bildende und redende Künste_) are not usual in English;
but they seem appropriate and clear; the simplest alternatives for
their use is to speak of the _manual_ and the _vocal_ arts, or the
arts of _space_ and the arts of _time_. This is practically, if not
logically, the most substantial and vital distinction upon which a
classification of the fine arts can be based. The arts which surround
us in space with stationary effects for the eye, as the house we live
in, the pictures on the walls, the marble figure in the vestibule, are
stationary, hold a different kind of place in our experience--not a
greater or a higher place, but essentially a different place--from the
arts which provide us with transitory effects in time, effects capable
of being awakened for the ear or mind at any moment, as a symphony is
awakened by playing and an ode by reading, but lying in abeyance until
we bid that moment come, and passing away when the performance or the
reading is over. Such, indeed, is the practical force of the
distinction that in modern usage the expression fine art, or even art,
is often used by itself in a sense which tacitly excludes music and
poetry, and signifies the group of manual or shaping arts alone.
Intermediate class of arts of motion.
As between three of the five greater arts and the other two, the
distinction on which we are now dwelling is complete. Buildings,
statues, pictures, belong strictly to sight and space; to time and to
hearing, real through the ear, or ideal through the mind in reading,
belong music and poetry. Among the lesser or subordinate arts,
however, there are several in which this distinction finds no place,
and which produce, in space and time at once, effects midway between
the stationary or stable, and the transitory or fleeting. Such is the
_dramatic_ art, in which the actor makes with his actions and
gestures, or several actors make with the combination of their
different actions and gestures, a kind of shifting picture, which
appeals to the eyes of the witnesses while the sung or spoken words of
the drama appeal to their ears; thus making of them spectators and
auditors at once, and associating with the pure time art of words the
mixed time-and-space art of bodily movements. As all movement
whatsoever is necessarily movement through space, and takes time to
happen, so every other fine art which is wholly or in part an act of
movement partakes in like manner of this double character. Along with
acting thus comes _dancing_. Dancing, when it is of the mimic
character, may itself be a kind of acting; historically, indeed, the
dancer's art was the parent of the actor's; whether apart from or in
conjunction with the mimic element, dancing is an art in which bodily
movements obey, accompany, and, as it were, express or accentuate in
space the time effects of music. _Eloquence_ or oratory in like
manner, so far as its power depends on studied and premeditated
gesture, is also an art which to some extent enforces its primary
appeal through the ear in time by a secondary appeal through the eye
in space. So much for the first distinction, that between the shaping
or space arts and the speaking or time arts, with the intermediate and
subordinate class of arts which, like acting, dancing, oratory, add to
the pure time element a mixed time-and-space element. These last can
hardly be called shaping arts, because it is his own person, and not
anything outside himself, which the actor, the dancer, the orator
disposes or adjusts; they may perhaps best be called arts of motion,
or moving arts.
Second classification: the imitative and non-imitative arts.
2. _The Imitative and the Non-Imitative Arts._--Each art either does
or does not represent or imitate something which exists already in
nature. Of the five greater fine arts, those which thus represent
objects existing in nature are sculpture, painting and poetry. Those
which do not represent anything so existing are music and
architecture. On this principle we get a new grouping. Two shaping or
space arts and one speaking or time art now form the imitative group
of sculpture, painting and poetry; while one space art and one time
art form the non-imitative group of music and architecture. The mixed
space-and-time arts of the actor, and of the dancer, so far as he or
she is also a mimic, belong, of course, by their very name and nature,
to the imitative class.
The imitative functions of art according to Aristotle.
It was the imitative character of the fine arts which chiefly occupied
the attention of Aristotle. But in order to understand the art
theories of Aristotle it is necessary to bear in mind the very
different meanings which the idea of imitation bore to his mind and
bears to ours. For Aristotle the idea of imitation or representation
(_mimesis_) was extended so as to denote the expressing, evoking or
making manifest of anything whatever, whether material objects or
ideas or feelings. Music and dancing, by which utterance or expression
is given to emotions that may be quite detached from all definite
ideas or images, are thus for him varieties of imitation. He says,
indeed, _most_ music and dancing, as if he was aware that there were
exceptions, but he does not indicate what the exceptions are; and
under the head of imitative music, he distinctly reckons some kinds of
instrumental music without words. But in our own more restricted
usage, to imitate means to copy, mimic or represent some existing
phenomenon, some definite reality of experience; and we can only call
those imitative arts which bring before us such things, either
directly by showing us their actual likeness, as sculpture does in
solid form, and as painting does by means of lines and colours on a
plane surface, or else indirectly, by calling up ideas or images of
them in the mind, as poetry and literature do by means of words. It is
by a stretch of ordinary usage that we apply the word imitation even
to this last way of representing things; since words are no true
likeness of, but only customary signs for, the thing they represent.
And those arts we cannot call imitative at all, which by combinations
of abstract sound or form express and arouse emotions unattended by
the recognizable likeness, idea or image of any definite thing.
Non-imitative character of music.
Now the emotions of music when music goes along with words, whether in
the shape of actual song or even of the instrumental accompaniment of
song, are no doubt in a certain sense attended with definite ideas;
those, namely, which are expressed by the words themselves. But the
same ideas would be conveyed to the mind equally well by the same
words if they were simply spoken. What the music contributes is a
special element of its own, an element of pure emotion, aroused
through the sense of hearing, which heightens the effect of the words
upon the feelings without helping to elucidate them for the
understanding. Nay, it is well known that a song well sung produces
its intended effect upon the feelings almost as fully though we fail
to catch the words or are ignorant of the language to which they
belong. Thus the view of Aristotle cannot be defended on the ground
that he was familiar with music only in an elementary form, and
principally as the direct accompaniment of words, and that in his day
the modern development of the art, as an art for building up
constructions of independent sound, vast and intricate fabrics of
melody and harmony detached from words, was a thing not yet imagined.
That is perfectly true; the immense technical and intellectual
development of music, both in its resources and its capacities, is an
achievement of the modern world; but the essential character of
musical sound is the same in its most elementary as in its most
complicated stage. Its privilege is to give delight, not by
communicating definite ideas, or calling up particular images, but by
appealing to certain organic sensibilities in our nerves of hearing,
and through such appeal expressing on the one part and arousing on the
other a unique kind of emotion. The emotion caused by music may be
altogether independent of any ideas conveyable by words. Or it may
serve to intensify and enforce other emotions arising at the same time
in connexion with the ideas conveyed by words; and it was one of the
contentions of Richard Wagner that in the former phase the art is now
exhausted, and that only in the latter are new conquests in store for
it. But in either case the music is the music, and _is like nothing
else_; it is no representation or similitude of anything whatsoever.
An objection and its answer.
But does not instrumental music, it will be said, sometimes really
imitate the sounds of nature, as the piping of birds, the whispering
of woods, the moaning of storms or explosion of thunder; or does it
not, at any rate, suggest these things by resemblances so close that
they almost amount in the strict sense to imitation? Occasionally, it
is true, music does allow itself these playful excursions into a
region of quasi-imitation or mimicry. It modifies the character of its
abstract sounds into something, so to speak, more concrete, and,
instead of sensations which are like nothing else, affords us
sensations which recognizably resemble those we receive from some of
the sounds of nature. But such excursions are hazardous, and to make
them often is the surest proof of vulgarity in a musician. Neither are
the successful effects of the great composers in evoking ideas of
particular natural phenomena generally in the nature of real
imitations or representations; although passages such as the notes of
the dove and nightingale in Haydn's _Creation_, and of the cuckoo in
Beethoven's _Pastoral Symphony_, the bleating of the sheep in the _Don
Quixote_ symphony of Richard Strauss, must be acknowledged to be
exceptions. Again, it is a recognized fact concerning the effect of
instrumental music on those of its hearers who try to translate such
effect into words, that they will all find themselves in tolerable
agreement as to the meaning of any passage so long as they only
attempt to describe it in terms of vague emotion, and to say such and
such a passage expresses, as the case may be, dejection or triumph,
effort or the relaxation of effort, eagerness or languor, suspense or
fruition, anguish or glee. But their agreement comes to an end the
moment they begin to associate, in their interpretation, definite
ideas with these vague emotions; then we find that what suggests in
idea to one hearer the vicissitudes of war will suggest to another, or
to the same at another time, the vicissitudes of love, to another
those of spiritual yearning and aspiration, to another, it may be,
those of changeful travel by forest, field and ocean, to another those
of life's practical struggle and ambition. The infinite variety of
ideas which may thus be called up in different minds by the same
strain of music is proof enough that the music is not _like_ any
particular thing. The torrent of varied and entrancing emotion which
it pours along the heart, emotion latent and undivined until the spell
of sound begins, that is music's achievement and its secret. It is
this effect, whether coupled or not with a trained intellectual
recognition of the highly abstract and elaborate nature of the laws of
the relation, succession and combinations of sounds on which the
effect depends, that has caused some thinkers, with Schopenhauer at
their head, to find in music the nearest approach we have to a voice
from behind the veil, a universal voice expressing the central purpose
and deepest essence of things, unconfused by fleeting actualities or
by the distracting duty of calling up images of particular and
perishable phenomena. "Music," in Schopenhauer's own words, "reveals
the innermost essential being of the world, and expresses the highest
wisdom in a language the reason does not understand."
Definition of music.
Aristotle endeavoured to frame a classification of the arts, in their
several applications and developments, on two grounds--the nature of
the objects imitated by each, and the means or instruments employed in
the imitation. But in the case of music, as it exists in the modern
world, the first part of this endeavour falls to the ground, because
the object imitated has, in the sense in which we now use the word
imitation, no existence. The means employed by music are successions
and combinations of vocal or instrumental sounds regulated according
to the three conditions of time and pitch (which together make up
melody) and harmony, or the relations of different strains of time and
tone cooperant but not parallel. With these means, music either
creates her independent constructions, or else accompanies, adorns,
enforces the imitative art of speech--but herself imitates not; and
may be best defined simply as _a speaking or time art, of which the
business is to express and arouse emotion by successions and
combinations of regulated sound_.
Non-imitative character of architecture.
That which music is thus among the speaking or time-arts, architecture
is among the shaping or space-arts. As music appeals to our faculties
for taking pleasure in non-imitative combinations of transitory sound,
so architecture appeals to our faculties for taking pleasure in
non-imitative combinations of stationary mass. Corresponding to the
system of ear-effects or combinations of time, tone and harmony with
which music works, architecture works with a system of eye-effects or
combinations of mass, contour, light and shade; colour, proportion,
interval, alternation of plain and decorated parts, regularity and
variety in regularity, apparent stability, vastness, appropriateness
and the rest. Only the materials of architecture are not volatile and
intangible like sound, but solid timber, brick, stone, metal and
mortar, and the laws of weight and force according to which these
materials have to be combined are much more severe and cramping than
the laws of melody and harmony which regulate the combinations of
music. The architect is further subject, unlike the musician, to the
dictates and precise prescriptions of utility. Even in structures
raised for purposes not of everyday use and necessity, but of
commemoration or worship, the rules for such commemoration and such
worship have prescribed a more or less fixed arrangement and
proportion of the parts or members, whether in the Egyptian temple or
temple-tomb, the Greek temple or heroon, or in the churches of the
middle ages and Renaissance in the West.
Analogies of architecture and music.
Hence the effects of architecture are necessarily less full of
various, rapturous and unforeseen enchantment than the effects of
music. Yet for those who possess sensibility to the pleasures of the
eye and the perfections of shaping art, the architecture of the great
ages has yielded combinations which, so far as comparison is
permissible between things unlike in their materials, fall little
short of the achievements of music in those kinds of excellence which
are common to them both. In the virtues of lucidity, of just
proportion and organic interdependence of the several parts or
members, in the mathematic subtlety of their mutual relations, and of
the transitions from one part or member to another, in purity and
finish of individual forms, in the character of one thing growing
naturally out of another and everything serving to complete the
whole--in these qualities, no musical combination can well surpass a
typical Doric temple such as the Parthenon at Athens. None, again, can
well surpass some of the great cathedrals of the middle ages in the
qualities of sublimity, of complexity, in the power both of expressing
and suggesting spiritual aspiration, in the invention of intricate
developments and ramifications about a central plan, in the union of
majesty in the main conception with fertility of adornment in detail.
In fancifulness, in the unexpected, in capricious and far-sought
opulence, in filling the mind with mingled enchantments of east and
west and south and north, music can hardly do more than a building
like St Mark's at Venice does with its blending of Byzantine elements,
Italian elements, Gothic elements, each carried to the utmost pitch of
elaboration and each enriched with a hundred caprices of ornament, but
all working together, all in obedience to a law, and "all beginning
and ending with the Cross."
Exceptional and limited admission of imitative forms in architecture.
In the case of architecture, however, as in the case of music, the
non-imitative character must not be stated quite without exception or
reserve. There have been styles of architecture in which forms
suggesting or imitating natural or other phenomena have held a place
among the abstract forms proper to the art. Often the mode of such
suggestions is rather symbolical to the mind than really imitative to
the eye; as when the number and relations of the heavenly planets were
imaged by that race of astronomers, the Babylonians, in the seven
concentric walls of their great temple, and in many other
architectural constructions; or as when the shape of the cross was
adopted, with innumerable slight varieties and modifications, for the
ground plan of the churches of Christendom. Passing to examples of
imitation more properly so called, it may be true, and was, at any
rate, long believed, that the aisles of Gothic churches, when once the
use of the pointed arch had been evolved as a principle of
construction, were partly designed to evoke the idea of the natural
aisles of the forest, and that the upsoaring forest trunks and
meeting branches were more or less consciously imaged in their piers
and vaultings. In the temple-palaces of Egypt, one of the regular
architectural members, the sustaining pier, is often systematically
wrought in the actual likeness of a conventionalized cluster of lotus
stems, with lotus flowers for the capital. When we come to the
fashion, not rare in Greek architecture, of carving this same
sustaining member, the column, in complete human likeness, and
employing caryatids, canephori, atlases or the like, to support the
entablature of a building, it then becomes difficult to say whether we
have to do with a work of architecture or of sculpture. The case, at
any rate, is different from that in which the sculptor is called in to
supply surface decoration to the various members of a building, or to
fill with the products of his own art spaces in the building specially
contrived and left vacant for that purpose. When the imitative feature
is in itself an indispensable member of the architectural
construction, to architecture rather than sculpture we shall probably
do best to assign it.
Definition of architecture.
Defining architecture, then (apart from its utility, which for the
present we leave out of consideration), as _a shaping art, of which
the function is to express and arouse emotion by combinations of
ordered and decorated mass_, we pass from the characteristics of the
non-imitative to those of the imitative group of arts, namely
sculpture, painting and poetry.
The imitative arts are arts of record using imitation as their means.
If we keep in mind the source and origin of these arts, we must
remember what has already been observed, that they spring by no means
from man's love of imitation alone, but from his desire to record and
commemorate experience, using the faculty of imitation as his means.
Mnemosyne (Memory) was in Greek tradition the mother of the Muses;
imitation, in the sense above defined, is but their instrument. Hence
we might think "arts of record" a better name for this group than arts
of imitation. The answer is--but a large part of pure architecture is
also commemorative; from the pyramids and obelisks of Egypt down there
are many monuments in which the impulse of men to perpetuate their own
or others' memories has worked without any aid of imitation. Hence as
the definition of a class of arts contrasted with architecture and
music the name "arts of record" would fail; and we have to fall back
on the current and established name of the "imitative arts." In
considering them we cannot do better than follow that Aristotelian
division which describes each art according, first, to the objects
which it imitates, and, secondly, to the means it employs.
Sculpture as an imitative art.
Taking sculpture first, as imitating a smaller range of objects than
the other two, and imitating them more completely: sculpture may have
for the objects of its imitation the shapes of whatever things possess
length, breadth and magnitude. For its means or instruments it has
solid form, which the sculptor either carves out of a hard substance,
as in the case of wood and stone, or models in a yielding substance,
as in the case of clay and wax, or casts in a dissolved or molten
substance, as in the case of plaster and of metal in certain uses, or
beats, draws or chases in a malleable and ductile substance, as in the
case of metal in other uses, or stamps from dies or moulds, a method
sometimes used in all soft or fusible materials. Thus a statue or
statuette may either be carved straight out of a block of stone or
wood, or first modelled in clay or wax, then moulded in plaster or
some equivalent material, and then carved in stone or cast in bronze.
A gem is wrought in stone by cutting and grinding. Figures in
jeweller's work are wrought by beating and chasing; a medallion by
beating and chasing or else by stamping from a die; a coin by stamping
from a die; and so forth. The process of modelling (Gr. [Greek:
plattein]) in a soft substance being regarded as the typical process
of the sculptor, the name _plastic art_ has been given to his
operations in general.
Sculpture in the round and in relief.
In general terms, the task of sculpture is to imitate solid form with
solid form. But sculptured form may be either completely or
incompletely solid. Sculpture in completely solid form exactly
reproduces, whether on the original or on a different scale, the
relations or proportions of the object imitated in the three
dimensions of length, breadth and depth or thickness. Sculpture in
incompletely solid form reproduces the proportions of the objects with
exactness only so far as concerns two of its dimensions, namely, those
of length and breadth; while the third dimension, that of depth or
thickness, it reproduces in a diminished proportion, leaving it to the
eye to infer, from the partial degree of projection given to the work,
the full projection of the object imitated. The former, or completely
solid kind of sculpture, is called sculpture in the round; its works
stand free, and can be walked round and seen from all points. The
latter, or incompletely solid kind of sculpture, is called sculpture
in relief; its works do not stand free, but are engaged in or attached
to a background, and can only be seen from in front. According, in the
latter kind of sculpture, to its degree of projection from the
background, a work is said to be in high or in low relief. Sculpture
in the round and sculpture in relief are alike in this, that the
properties of objects which they imitate are their external forms as
defined by their outlines--that is, by the boundaries and
circumscriptions of their masses--and their light and shade--the
lights and shadows, that is, which diversify the curved surfaces of
the masses in consequence of their alternations and gradations of
projection and recession. But the two kinds of sculpture differ in
this. A work of sculpture in the round imitates the whole of the
outlines by which the object imitated is circumscribed in the three
dimensions of space, and presents to the eye, as the object itself
would do, a new outline succeeding the last every moment as you walk
round it. Whereas a work of sculpture in relief imitates only one
outline of any object; it takes, so to speak, a section of the object
as seen from a particular point, and traces on the background the
boundary-line of that particular section, merely suggesting, by
modelling the surface within such boundary according to a regular, but
a diminished, ratio of projection, the other outlines which the object
would present if seen from all sides successively.
Subjects proper for sculpture in the round.
As sculpture in the round reproduces the real relations of a solid
object in space, it follows that the only kind of object which it can
reproduce with pleasurable effect according to the laws of regulated
or rhythmical design must be one not too vast or complicated, one that
can afford to be detached and isolated from its surroundings, and of
which all the parts can easily be perceived and apprehended in their
organic relations. Further, it will need to be an object interesting
enough to mankind in general to make them take delight in seeing it
reproduced with all its parts in complete imitation. And again, it
must be such that some considerable part of the interest lies in those
particular properties of outline, play of surface, and light and shade
which it is the special function of sculpture to reproduce. Thus a
sculptured representation in the round, say, of a mountain with cities
on it, would hardly be a sculpture at all; it could only be a model,
and as a model might have value; but value as a work of fine art it
could not have, because the object imitated would lack organic
definiteness and completeness; it would lack universality of interest,
and of the interest which it did possess, a very inconsiderable part
would depend upon its properties of outline, surface, and light and
shade. Obviously there is no kind of object in the world that so well
unites the required conditions for pleasurable imitation in sculpture
as the human body. It is at once the most complete of organisms, and
the shape of all others the most subtle as well as the most
intelligible in its outlines; the most habitually detached in active
or stationary freedom; the most interesting to mankind, because its
own; the richest in those particular effects, contours and
modulations, contrasts, harmonies and transitions of modelled surface
and circumscribing line, which it is the prerogative of sculpture to
imitate. Accordingly the object of imitation for this art is
pre-eminently the body of man or woman. That it has not been for the
sake of representing men and women as such, but for the sake of
representing gods in the likeness of men and women, that the human
form has been most enthusiastically studied, does not affect this fact
in the theory of the art, though it is a consideration of great
importance in its history. Besides the human form, sculpture may
imitate the forms of those of the lower animals whose physical
endowments have something of a kindred perfection, with other natural
or artificial objects as may be needed merely by way of accessory or
symbol. The body must for the purposes of this art be divested of
covering, or covered only with such tissues as reveal, translate or
play about without concealing it. Chiefly in lands and ages where
climate and social use have given the sculptor the opportunity of
studying human forms so draped or undraped has this art attained
perfection, and become exemplary and enviable to that of other races.
Subjects proper for sculpture in relief.
Relief sculpture is more closely connected with architecture than the
other kind, and indeed is commonly used in subordination to it. But if
its task is thus somewhat different from that of sculpture in the
round, its principal objects of imitation are the same. The human body
remains the principal theme of the sculptor in relief; but the nature
of his art allows, and sometimes compels, him to include other objects
in the range of his imitation. As he has not to represent the real
depth or projection of things, but only to suggest them according to a
ratio which he may fix himself, so he can introduce into the third or
depth dimension, thus arbitrarily reduced, a multitude of objects for
which the sculptor in the round, having to observe the real ratio of
the three dimensions, has no room. He cam place one figure in slightly
raised outline emerging from behind the more fully raised outline of
another, and by the same system can add to his representation rocks,
trees, nay mountains and cities and birds on the wing. But the more he
uses this liberty the less will he be truly a sculptor. Solid
modelling, and real light and shade, are the special means or
instrument of effect which the sculptor alone among imitative artists
enjoys. Single outlines and contours, the choice of one particular
section and the tracing of its circumscription, are means which the
sculptor enjoys in common with the painter or draughtsman. And indeed,
when we consider works executed wholly or in part in very low relief,
whether Assyrian battle-pieces and hunting-pieces in alabaster or
bronze, or the backgrounds carved in bronze, marble or wood by the
Italian sculptors who followed the example set by Ghiberti at the
Renaissance, we shall see that the principle of such work is not the
principle of sculpture at all. Its effect depends little on qualities
of surface-light and shadow, and mainly on qualities of contour, as
traced by a slight line of shadow on the side away from the light, and
a slight line of light on the side next to it. And we may fairly
hesitate whether we shall rank the artist who works on this principle,
which is properly a graphic rather than a plastic principle, among
sculptors or among draughtsmen. The above are cases in which the
relief sculptor exercises his liberty in the introduction of other
objects besides human figures into his sculptured compositions. But
there is another kind of relief sculpture in which the artist has less
choice. That is, the kind in which the sculptor is called in to
decorate with carved work parts of an architectural construction which
are not adapted for the introduction of figure subjects, or for their
introduction only as features in a scheme of ornament that comprises
many other elements. To this head belongs most of the carving of
capitals, mouldings, friezes (except the friezes of Greek temples),
bands, cornices, and, in the Gothic style, of doorway arches, niches,
canopies, pinnacles, brackets, spandrels and the thousand members and
parts of members which that style so exquisitely adorned with true or
conventionalized imitations of natural forms. This is no doubt a
subordinate function of the art; and it is impossible, as we have seen
already, to find a precise line of demarcation between carving, in
this decorative use, which is properly sculpture, and that which
belongs properly to architecture.
Definition of sculpture.
Leaving such discussions, we may content ourselves with the definition
of sculpture as _a shaping art, of which the business is to express
and arouse emotion by the imitation of natural objects, and
principally the human body, in solid form, reproducing either their
true proportions in three dimensions, or their proportions in the two
dimensions of length and breadth only, with a diminished proportion in
the third dimension of depth or thickness._
Painting as an imitative art.
In considering bas-relief as a form of sculpture, we have found
ourselves approaching the confines of the second of the shaping
imitative arts, the graphic art or art of painting. Painting, as to
its means or instruments of imitation, dispenses with the third
dimension altogether. It imitates natural objects by representing them
as they are represented on the retina of the eye itself, simply as an
assemblage of variously shaped and variously shaded patches of colour
on a flat surface. Painting does not reproduce the third dimension of
reality by any third dimension of its own whatever; but leaves the eye
to infer the solidity of objects, their recession and projection,
their nearness and remoteness, by the same perspective signs by which
it also infers those facts in nature, namely, by the direction of
their several boundary lines, the incidence and distribution of their
lights and shadows, the strength or faintness of their tones of
colour.
Range of objects imitable by painting.
Hence this art has an infinitely greater range and freedom than any
form of sculpture. Near and far is all the same to it, and whatever
comes into the field of vision can come also into the field of a
picture; trees as well as persons, and clouds as well as trees, and
stars as well as clouds; the remotest mountain snows, as well as the
violet of the foreground, and far-off multitudes of people as well as
one or two near the eye. Whatever any man has seen, or can imagine
himself as seeing, that he can also fix by painting, subject only to
one great limitation,--that of the range of brightness which he is
able to attain in imitating natural colour illuminated by light. In
this particular his art can but correspond according to a greatly
diminished ratio with the effects of nature. But excepting this it can
do for the eye almost all that nature herself does; or at least all
that nature would do if man had only one eye since the three
dimensions of space produce upon our binocular machinery of vision a
particular stereoscopic effect of which a picture, with its two
dimensions only, is incapable. The range of the art being thus almost
unbounded, its selections have naturally been dictated by the varying
interest felt in this or that subject of representation by the
societies among whom the art has at various times been practised. As
in sculpture, so in painting, the human form has always held the first
place. For the painter, the intervention of costume between man and
his environment is not a misfortune in the same degree as it is for
the sculptor. For him, clothes of whatever fashion or amplitude have
their own charm; they serve to diversify the aspect of the world, and
to express the characters and stations, if not the physical frames, of
his personages; and he is as happy or happier among the brocades of
Venice as among the bare limbs of the Spartan palaestra. Along with
man, there come into painting all animals and vegetation, all man's
furniture and belongings, his dwelling-places, fields and landscape;
and in modern times also landscape and nature for their own sakes,
skies, seas, mountains and wildernesses apart from man.
The chief forms or modes of painting: line, light-and-shade and
colour.
Besides the two questions about any art, what objects does it imitate,
and by the use of what means or instruments, Aristotle proposes (in
the case of poetry) the further question, which of several possible
forms does the imitation in any given case assume? We may transfer
very nearly the same inquiry to painting, and may ask, concerning any
painter, according to which of three possible systems he works. The
three possible systems are (1) that which attends principally to the
configuration and relations of natural objects as indicated by the
direction of their boundaries, for defining which there is a
convention in universal use, the convention, that is, of line; this
may be called for short the system of _line_; (2) that which attends
chiefly to their configuration and relations as indicated by the
incidence and distribution of their lights and shadows--this is the
system of _light-and-shade_ or _chiaroscuro_; and (3) that which
attends chiefly, not to their configuration at all, but to the
distribution, qualities and relations of local colours upon their
surface--this is the system of _colour_. It is not possible for a
painter to imitate natural objects to the eye at all without either
defining their boundaries by outlines, or suggesting the shape of
their masses by juxtapositions of light and dark or of local colours.
In the complete art of painting, of course, all three methods are
employed at once. But in what is known as outline drawing and outline
engraving, one of the three methods only is employed, line; in
monochrome pictures, and in shaded drawings and engravings, two only,
line with light-and-shade; and in the various shadeless forms of
decorative painting and colour-printing, two only, line with colour.
Even in the most accomplished examples of the complete art of
painting, as was pointed out by Ruskin, we find that there almost
always prevails a predilection for some one of these three parts of
painting over the other two. Thus among the mature Italians of the
Renaissance, Titian is above all things a painter in colour,
Michelangelo in line, Leonardo in light-and-shade. Many academic
painters in their day tried to combine the three methods in equal
balance; to the impetuous spirit of the great Venetian, Tintoretto, it
was alone given to make the attempt with a great measure of success. A
great part of the effort of modern painting has been to get rid of the
linear convention altogether, to banish line and develop the resources
of the oil medium in imitating on canvas, more strictly than the early
masters attempted, the actual appearance of things on the retina as an
assemblage of coloured streaks and patches modified and toned in the
play of light-and-shade and atmosphere.
Technical varieties of the painter's craft.
It remains to consider, for the purpose of our classification, what
are the technical varieties of the painter's craft. Since we gave the
generic name of painting to all imitation of natural objects by the
assemblage of lines, colours and lights and darks on a single plane,
we must logically include as varieties of painting not only the
ordinary crafts of spreading or laying pictures on an opaque surface
in fresco, oil, distemper or water-colour, but also the craft of
arranging a picture to be seen by the transmission of light through a
transparent substance, in glass painting; the craft of fitting
together a multitude of solid cubes or cylinders so that their united
surface forms a picture to the eye, as in mosaic; the craft of
spreading vitreous colours in a state of fusion so that they form a
picture when hardened, as in enamel; and even, it would seem, the
crafts of weaving, tapestry, and embroidery, since these also yield to
the eye a plane surface figured in imitation of nature. As drawing we
must also count incised or engraved work of all kinds representing
merely the outlines of objects and not their modellings, as for
instance the _graffiti_ on Greek and Etruscan mirror-backs and
dressing-cases; while raised work in low relief, in which outlines are
plainly marked and modellings neglected, furnishes, as we have seen, a
doubtful class between sculpture and painting. In all figures that are
first modelled in the solid and then variously coloured, sculpture and
painting bear a common share; and by far the greater part both of
ancient and medieval statuary was in fact tinted so as to imitate or
at least suggest the colours of life. But as the special
characteristic of sculpture, solidity in the third dimension, is in
these cases present, it is to that art and not to painting that we
shall still ascribe the resulting work.
Definition of painting.
With these indications we may leave the art of painting defined in
general terms as a _shaping or space art, of which the business is to
express and arouse emotion by the imitation of all kinds of natural
objects, reproducing on a plane surface the relations of their
boundary lines, lights and shadows, or colours, or all three of these
appearances together_.
Poetry as an imitative art.
The next and last of the imitative arts is the speaking art of poetry.
The transition from sculpture and painting to poetry is, from the
point of view not of our present but of our first division among the
fine arts, abrupt and absolute. It is a transition from space into
time, from the sphere of material forms to the sphere of immaterial
images. Following Aristotle's method, we may define the objects of
poetry's imitation or evocation, as everything of which the idea or
image can be called up by words, that is, every force and phenomenon
of nature, every operation and result of art, every fact of life and
history, or every imagination of such a fact, every thought and
feeling of the human spirit, for which mankind in the course of its
long evolution has been able to create in speech an explicit and
appropriate sign. The means or instruments of poetry's imitation are
these verbal signs or words, arranged in lines, strophes or stanzas,
so that their sounds have some of the regulated qualities and direct
emotional effect of music.
The chief forms or modes of poetry.
The three chief modes or forms of the imitation may still be defined
as they were defined by Aristotle himself. First comes the _epic_ or
narrative form, in which the poet speaks alternately for himself and
his characters, now describing their situations and feelings in his
own words, and anon making each of them speak in the first person for
himself. Second comes the _lyric_ form, in which the poet speaks in
his own name exclusively, and gives expression to sentiments which are
purely personal. Third comes the _dramatic_ form, in which the poet
does not speak for himself at all, but only puts into the mouths of
each of his personages successively such discourse as he thinks
appropriate to the part. The last of these three forms of poetry, the
dramatic, calls, if it is merely read, on the imagination of the
reader to fill up those circumstances of situation, action and the
rest, which in the first or epic form are supplied by the narrative
between the speeches, and for which in the lyric or personal form
there is no occasion. To avoid making this call upon the imagination,
to bring home its effects with full vividness, dramatic poetry has to
call in the aid of several subordinate arts, the shaping or space art
of the scene-painter, the mixed time and space arts of the actor and
the dancer. Occasionally also, or in the case of opera throughout,
dramatic poetry heightens the emotional effect of its words with
music. A play or drama is thus, as performed upon the theatre, not a
poem merely, but a poem accompanied, interpreted, completed and
brought several degrees nearer to reality by a combination of
auxiliary effects of the other arts. Besides the narrative, the lyric
and dramatic forms of poetry, the _didactic_, that is the teaching or
expository form, has usually been recognized as a fourth. Aristotle
refused so to recognize it, regarding a didactic poem in the light not
so much of a poem as of a useful treatise. But from the _Works and
Days_ down to the _Loves of the Plants_ there has been too much
literature produced in this form for us to follow Aristotle here. We
shall do better to regard didactic poetry as a variety corresponding,
among the speaking arts, to architecture and the other manual arts of
which the first purpose is use, but which are capable of accompanying
and adorning use by a pleasurable appeal to the emotions.
Definition of poetry.
We shall hardly make our definition of poetry, considered as an
imitative art, too extended if we say that it is _a speaking or time
art, of which the business is to express and arouse emotion by
imitating or evoking all or any of the phenomena of life and nature by
means of words arranged with musical regularity_.
Relation of poetry as an Imitative art to painting and sculpture.
Neither the varieties of poetical form, however, nor the modes in
which the several forms have been mixed up and interchanged--as such
mixture and interchange are implied, for instance, by the very title
of a group of Robert Browning's poems, the _Dramatic Lyrics_,--the
observation of neither of these things concerns us here so much as the
observation of the relations of poetry in general, as an art of
representation or imitation, to the other arts of imitation, painting
and sculpture. Verbal signs have been invented for innumerable things
which cannot be imitated or represented at all either in solid form or
upon a coloured surface. You cannot carve or paint a sigh, or the
feeling which finds utterance in a sigh; you can only suggest the idea
of the feeling, and that in a somewhat imperfect and uncertain way, by
representing the physical aspect of a person in the act of breathing
the sigh. Similarly you cannot carve or paint any movement, but only
figures or groups in which the movement is represented as arrested in
some particular point of time; nor any abstract idea, but only figures
or groups in which the abstract idea, as for example release,
captivity, mercy, is symbolized in the concrete shape of allegorical
or illustrative figures. The whole field of thought, of propositions,
arguments, injunctions and exhortations is open to poetry but closed
to sculpture and painting. Poetry, by its command over the regions of
the understanding, of abstraction, of the movement and succession of
things in time, by its power of instantaneously associating one image
with another from the remotest regions of the mind, by its names for
every shade of feeling and experience, exercises a sovereignty a
hundred times more extended than that of either of the two arts of
manual imitation. But, on the other hand, words do not as a rule bear
any sensible resemblance to the things of which they are the signs.
There are few things that words do not stand for or cannot call up;
but they stand for things symbolically and at second hand, and call
them up only in idea, and not in actual presentment to the senses. In
strictness, the business of poetry should not be called imitation at
all, but rather evocation. The strength of painting and sculpture lies
in this, that though there are countless phenomena which they cannot
represent at all, and countless more which they can only represent by
symbolism and suggestion more or less ambiguous, yet there are a few
which each can represent more fully and directly than poetry can
represent any thing at all. These are, for sculpture, the forms or
configurations of things, which that art represents directly to the
senses both of sight and touch; and for painting the forms and colours
of things and their relations to each other in space, air and light,
which the art represents to the sense of sight, directly so far as
regards surface appearance, and indirectly so far as regards solidity.
For many delicate qualities and differences in these visible relations
of things there are no words at all--the vocabulary of colours, for
instance, is in all languages surprisingly scanty and primitive. And
those visible qualities, for which words exist, the words still call
up indistinctly and at second hand. Poetry is almost as powerless to
bring before the mind's eye with precision a particular shade of red
or blue, a particular linear arrangement or harmony of colour-tones,
as sculpture is to relate a continuous experience, or painting to
enforce an exhortation or embellish an abstract proposition. The wise
poet, as has been justly remarked, when he wants to produce a vivid
impression of a visible thing, does not attempt to catalogue or
describe its stationary beauties. Shakespeare, when he wants to make
us realize the perfections of Perdita, puts into the mouth of
Florizel, not, as a bad poet would have done, a description of her
lilies and carnations, and the other charms which a painter could
make us realize better, but the praises of her ways and movements; and
with the final touch,
"When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that,"
he evokes a twofold image of beauty in motion, of which one half might
be the despair of those painters who designed the dancing maidens of
the walls of Herculaneum, and the other half the despair of all
artists who in modern times have tried to fix upon their canvas the
buoyancy and grace of dancing waves. In representing the perfections
of form in a bride's slender foot, the speaking art, poetry, would
find itself distanced by either of the shaping arts, painting or
sculpture. Suckling calls up the charm of such a foot by describing it
not at rest but in motion, and in the feet which
"Beneath the petticoat,
Like little mice, went in and out,"
leaves us an image which baffles the power of the other arts. Keats,
when he tells of Madeline unclasping her jewels on St Agnes's Eve,
does not attempt to conjure up their lustre to the eye, as a painter
would have done, and a less poetical poet might have tried to do, but
in the words "her warmed jewels" evoked instead a quality, breathing
of the very life of the wearer, which painting could not even have
remotely suggested.
General law of the relative means and capacities of the several
imitative arts: sculpture.
The differences between the means and capacities of representation
proper to the shaping arts of sculpture and painting and those proper
to the speaking art of poetry were for a long while overlooked or
misunderstood. The maxim of Simonides, that poetry is a kind of
articulate painting, and painting a kind of mute poetry, was vaguely
accepted until the days of Lessing, and first overthrown by the famous
treatise of that writer on the Laocoön. Following in the main the
lines laid down by Lessing, other writers have worked out the
conditions of representation or imitation proper not only to sculpture
and painting as distinguished from poetry, but to sculpture as
distinguished from painting. The chief points established may really
all be condensed under one simple law, _that the more direct and
complete the imitation effected by any art, the less is the range and
number of phenomena which that art can imitate_. Thus sculpture in the
round imitates its objects much more completely and directly than any
other single art, reproducing one whole set of their relations which
no other art attempts to reproduce at all, namely, their solid
relations in space. Precisely for this reason, such sculpture is
limited to a narrow class of objects. As we have seen, it must
represent human or animal figures; nothing else has enough either of
universal interest or of organic beauty and perfection. Sculpture in
the round must represent such figures standing free in full clearness
and detachment, in combinations and with accessories comparatively
simple, on pain of teasing the eye with a complexity and entanglement
of masses and lights and shadows; and in attitudes comparatively
quiet, on pain of violating, or appearing to violate, the conditions
of mechanical stability. Being a stationary or space-art, it can only
represent a single action, which it fixes and perpetuates for ever;
and it must therefore choose for that action one as significant and
full of interest as is consistent with due observation of the above
laws of simplicity and stability. Such actions, and the facial
expressions accompanying them, should not be those of sharp crisis or
transition, because sudden movement or flitting expression, thus
arrested and perpetuated in full and solid imitation by bronze or
marble, would be displeasing and not pleasing to the spectator. They
must be actions and expressions in some degree settled, collected and
capable of continuance, and in their collectedness must at the same
time suggest to the spectator as much as possible of the circumstances
which have led up to them and those which will next ensue. These
conditions evidently bring within a very narrow range the phenomena
with which this art can deal, and explain why, as a matter of fact,
the greater number of statues represent simply a single figure in
repose, with the addition of one or two symbolic or customary
attributes. Paint a statue (as the greater part both of Greek and
Gothic statuary was in fact painted), and you bring it to a still
further point of imitative completeness to the eye; but you do not
thereby lighten the restrictions laid upon the art by its material, so
long as it undertakes to reproduce in full the third or solid
dimension of bodies. You only begin to lighten its restrictions when
you begin to relieve it of that duty. We have traced how sculpture in
relief, which is satisfied with only a partial reproduction of the
third dimension, is free to introduce a larger range of objects,
bringing forward secondary figures and accessories, indicating distant
planes, indulging even in considerable violence and complexity of
motion, since limbs attached to a background do not alarm the
spectator by any idea of danger of fragility. But sculpture in the
round has not this licence. It is true that the art has at various
periods made efforts to escape from its natural limitations. Several
of the later schools of antiquity, especially that of Pergamus in the
3rd and 2nd centuries B.C., strove hard both for violence of
expression and complexity of design, not only in relief-sculptures,
like the great altar-friezes now at Berlin, but in detached groups,
such as (_pace_ Lessing) the Laocoön itself. Many modern _virtuosi_ of
sculpture since Bernini have misspent their skill in trying to fix in
marble both the restlessness of momentary actions and the flimsiness
of fluttering tissues. In latter days Auguste Rodin, an innovating
master with a real genius for his art, has attacked many problems of
complicated grouping, more or less in the nature of the Greek
_symplegmata_, but keeps these interlocked or contorted actions
circumscribed within strict limiting lines, so that they do not by
jutting or straggling suggest a kind of acrobatic challenge to the
laws of gravity. The same artist and others inspired by him have
further sought to emancipate sculpture from the necessity of rendering
form in clear and complete definition, and to enrich it with a new
power of mysterious suggestion, by leaving his figures wrought in part
to the highest finish and vitality of surface, while other parts
(according to a precedent set in some unfinished works of
Michelangelo) remain scarcely emergent from the rough-hewn or unhewn
block. But it may be doubted whether such experiments and expedients
can permanently do much to enlarge the scope of the art.
Means and capacities of painting.
Next we arrive at painting, in which the third dimension is dismissed
altogether, and nothing is actually reproduced, in full or partially,
except the effect made by the appearance of natural objects upon the
retina of the eye. The consequence is that this art can range over
distance and multitude, can represent complicated relations between
its various figures and groups of figures, extensive backgrounds, and
all those infinite subtleties of appearance in natural things which
depend upon local colours and their modification in the play of light
and shade and enveloping atmosphere. These last phenomena of natural
things are in our experience subject to change in a sense in which the
substantial or solid properties of things are not so subject. Colours,
shadows and atmospheric effects are naturally associated with ideas of
transition, mystery and evanescence. Hence painting is able to extend
its range to another kind of facts over which sculpture has no power.
It can suggest and perpetuate in its imitation, without breach of its
true laws, many classes of facts which are themselves fugitive and
transitory, as a smile, the glance of an eye, a gesture of horror or
of passion, the waving of hair in the wind, the rush of horses, the
strife of mobs, the whole drama of the clouds, the toss and gathering
of ocean waves, even the flashing of lightning across the sky. Still,
any long or continuous series of changes, actions or movements is
quite beyond the means of this art to represent. Painting remains, in
spite of its comparative width of range, tied down to the inevitable
conditions of a space-art: that is to say, it has to delight the mind
by a harmonious variety in its effects, but by a variety apprehended
not through various points of time successively, but from various
points in space at the same moment. The old convention which allowed
painters to indicate sequence in time by means of distribution in
space, dispersing the successive episodes of a story about the
different parts of a single picture, has been abandoned since the
early Renaissance; and Wordsworth sums up our modern view of the
matter when he says that it is the business of painting
"to give
To one blest moment snatched from fleeting time
The appropriate calm of blest eternity."
Means and capacities of poetry.
Lastly, a really unfettered range is only attained by the art which
does not give a full and complete reproduction of any natural fact at
all, but evokes or brings natural facts before the mind merely by the
images which words convey. The whole world of movement, of continuity,
of cause and effect, of the successions, alternations and interaction
of events, characters and passions of everything that takes time to
happen and time to declare, is open to poetry as it is open to no
other art. As an imitative or, more properly speaking, an evocative
art, then, poetry is subject to no limitations except those which
spring from the poverty of human language, and from the fact that its
means of imitation are indirect. Poetry's account of the visible
properties of things is from these causes much less full, accurate and
efficient than the reproduction or delineation of the same properties
by sculpture and painting. And this is the sum of the conditions
concerning the respective functions of the three arts of imitation
which had been overlooked, in theory at least, until the time of
Lessing.
The acted drama no real exception to the general law.
To the above law, in the form in which we have expressed it, it may
perhaps be objected that the acted drama is at once the most full and
complete reproduction of nature which we owe to the fine arts, and
that at the same time the number of facts over which its imitation
ranges is the greatest. The answer is that our law applies to the
several arts only in that which we may call their pure or unmixed
state. Dramatic poetry is in that state only when it is read or spoken
like any other kind of verse. When it is witnessed on the stage, it is
in a mixed or impure state; the art of the actor has been called in to
give actual reproduction to the gestures and utterances of the
personages, that of the costumier to their appearances and attire,
that of the stage-decorator to their furniture and surroundings, that
of the scene-painter to imitate to the eye the dwelling-places and
landscapes among which they move; and only by the combination of all
these subordinate arts does the drama gain its character of imitative
completeness or reality.
Things unknown shadowed forth by imitation of things known.
Throughout the above account of the imitative and non-imitative groups
of fine arts, we have so far followed Aristotle as to allow the name
of imitation to all recognizable representation or evocation of
realities,--using the word "realities" in no metaphysical sense, but
to signify the myriad phenomena of life and experience, whether as
they actually and literally exist to-day, or as they may have existed
in the past, or may be conceived to exist in some other world not too
unlike our own for us to conceive and realize in thought. When we find
among the ruins of a Greek temple the statue of a beautiful young man
at rest, or above the altar of a Christian church the painting of one
transfixed with arrows, we know that the statue is intended to bring
to our minds no mortal youth, but the god Hermes or Apollo, the
transfixed victim no simple captive, but Sebastian the holy saint. At
the same time we none the less know that the figures in either case
have been studied by the artist from living models before his eyes. In
like manner, in all the representations alike of sculpture, painting
and poetry the things and persons represented may bear symbolic
meanings and imaginary names and characters; they may be set in a land
of dreams, and grouped in relations and circumstances upon which the
sun of this world never shone; in point of fact, through many ages of
history they have been chiefly used to embody human ideas of
supernatural powers; but it is from real things and persons that their
lineaments and characters have been taken in the first instance, in
order to be attributed by the imagination to another and more exalted
order of existences.
Imitation by art necessarily an idealized imitation.
The law which we have last laid down is a law defining the relations
of sculpture, painting and poetry, considered simply as arts having
their foundations at any rate in reality, and drawing from the
imitation of reality their indispensable elements and materials. It is
a law defining the range and character of those elements or materials
in nature which each art is best fitted, by its special means and
resources, to imitate. But we must remember that, even in this
fundamental part of its operations, none of these arts proceeds by
imitation or evocation pure and simple. None of them contents itself
with seeking to represent realities, however literally taken, exactly
as those realities are. A portrait in sculpture or painting, a
landscape in painting, a passage of local description in poetry, may
be representations of known things taken literally or for their own
sakes, and not for the sake of carrying out thoughts to the unknown;
but none of them ought to be, or indeed can possibly be, a
representation of all the observed parts and details of such a reality
on equal terms and without omissions. Such a representation, were it
possible, would be a mechanical inventory and not a work of fine art.
Completeness not the test of value in a pictorial imitation.
Hence the value of a pictorial imitation is by no means necessarily in
proportion to the number of facts which it records. Many accomplished
pictures, in which all the resources of line, colour and
light-and-shade have been used to the utmost of the artist's power for
the imitation of all that he could see in nature, are dead and
worthless in comparison with a few faintly touched outlines or lightly
laid shadows or tints of another artist who could see nature more
vitally and better. Unless the painter knows how to choose and combine
the elements of his finished work so that it shall contain in every
part suggestions and delights over and above the mere imitation, it
will fall short, in that which is the essential charm of fine art, not
only of any scrap of a great master's handiwork, such as an outline
sketch of a child by Raphael or a colour sketch of a boat or a
mackerel by Turner, but even of any scrap of the merest journeyman's
handiwork produced by an artistic race, such as the first Japanese
drawing in which a water-flag and kingfisher, or a spray of peach or
almond blossom across the sky, is dashed in with a mere hint of
colour, but a hint that tells a whole tale to the imagination. That
only, we know, is fine art which affords keen and permanent delight to
contemplation. Such delight the artist can never communicate by the
display of a callous and pedantic impartiality in presence of the
facts of life and nature. His representation of realities will only
strike or impress others in so far as it concentrates their attention
on things by which he has been struck and impressed himself. To arouse
emotion, he must have felt emotion; and emotion is impossible without
partiality. The artist is one who instinctively tends to modify and
work upon every reality before him in conformity with some poignant
and sensitive principle of preference or selection in his mind. He
instinctively adds something to nature in one direction and takes away
something in another, overlooking this kind of fact and insisting on
that, suppressing many particulars which he holds irrelevant in order
to insist on and bring into prominence others by which he is attracted
and arrested.
Nature of the idealizing process.
The instinct by which an artist thus prefers, selects and brings into
light one order of facts or aspects in the thing before him rather
than the rest, is part of what is called the _idealizing_ or _ideal_
faculty. Interminable discussion has been spent on the
questions,--What is the ideal, and how do we idealize? The answer has
been given in one form by those thinkers (e.g. Vischer and Lotze) who
have pointed out that the process of aesthetic idealization carried on
by the artist is only the higher development of a process carried on
in an elementary fashion by all men, from the very nature of their
constitution. The physical organs of sense themselves do not retain or
put on record all the impressions made upon them. When the nerves of
the eye receive a multitude of different stimulations at once from
different points in space, the sense of eyesight, instead of being
aware of all these stimulations singly, only abstracts and retains a
total impression of them together. In like manner we are not made
aware by the sense of hearing of all the several waves of sound that
strike in a momentary succession upon the nerves of the ear; that
sense only abstracts and retains a total impression from the combined
effect of a number of such waves. And the office which each sense thus
performs singly for its own impressions, the mind performs in a higher
degree for the impressions of all the senses equally, and for all the
other parts of our experience. We are always dismissing or neglecting
a great part of our impressions, and abstracting and combining among
those which we retain. The ordinary human consciousness works like an
artist up to this point; and when we speak of the ordinary or
inartistic man as being impartial in the retention or registry of his
daily impressions, we mean, of course, in the retention or registry of
his impressions as already thus far abstracted and assorted in
consciousness. The artistic man, whose impressions affect him much
more strongly, has the faculty of carrying much farther these same
processes of abstraction, combination and selection among his
impressions.
Subjective and objective ideals.
The possession of this faculty is the artist's most essential gift. To
attempt to carry farther the psychological analysis of the gift is
outside our present object; but it is worth while to consider somewhat
closely its modes of practical operation. One mode is this: the artist
grows up with certain innate or acquired predilections which become a
part of his constitution whether he will or no,--predilections, say,
if he is a dramatic poet, for certain types of plot, character and
situation; if he is a sculptor, for certain proportions and a certain
habitual carriage and disposition of the limbs; if he is a figure
painter, for certain schemes of composition and moulds of figure and
airs and expressions of countenance; if a landscape painter, for a
certain class of local character, sentiment and pictorial effect in
natural scenery. To such predilections he cannot choose but make his
representations of reality in large measure conform. This is one part
of the transmuting process which the data of life and experience have
to undergo at the hands of artists, and may be called the subjective
or purely personal mode of idealization. But there is another part of
that work which springs from an impulse in the artistic constitution
not less imperious than the last named, and in a certain sense
contrary to it. As an imitator or evoker of the facts of life and
nature, the artist must recognize and accept the character of those
facts with which he has in any given case to deal. All facts cannot be
of the cast he prefers, and in so far as he undertakes to deal with
those of an opposite cast he must submit to them; he must study them
as they actually are, must apprehend, enforce and bring into
prominence their own dominant tendencies. If he cannot find in them
what is most pleasing to himself, he will still be led by the
abstracting and discriminating powers of his observation to discern
what is most expressive and significant in _them_, he will emphasize
and put on record this, idealizing the facts before him not in his
direction but in their own. This is the second or objective half of
the artist's task of idealization. It is this half upon which Taine
dwelt almost exclusively, and on the whole with a just insight into
the principles of the operation, in his well-known treatise _On the
Ideal in Art_. Both these modes of idealization are legitimate; that
which springs from inborn and overmastering personal preference in the
artist for particular aspects of life and nature, and that which
springs from his insight into the dominant and significant character
of the phenomena actually before him, and his desire to emphasize and
disengage them. But there is a third mode of idealizing which is less
vital and genuine than either of these, and therefore less legitimate,
though unfortunately far more common. This mode consists in making
things conform to a borrowed and conventional standard of beauty and
taste, which corresponds neither to any strong inward predilection of
the artist nor to any vital characteristic in the objects of his
representation. Since the rediscovery of Greek and Roman sculpture in
the Renaissance, a great part of the efforts of artists have been
spent in falsifying their natural instincts and misrepresenting the
facts of nature in pursuit of a conventional ideal of abstract and
generalized beauty framed on a false conception and a shallow
knowledge of the antique. School after school from the 16th century
downwards has been confirmed in this practice by academic criticism
and theory, with resulting insipidities and insincerities of
performance which have commonly been acclaimed in their day, but from
which later generations have sooner or later turned away with a
wholesome reaction of distaste.
Examples of the two modes and of their reconciliation.
The two genuine modes of idealization, the subjective and the
objective, are not always easy to be reconciled. The greatest artist
is no doubt he who can combine the strongest personal instincts of
preference with the keenest power of observing characteristics as they
are, yet in fact we find few in whom both these elements of the ideal
faculty have been equally developed. To take an example among
Florentine painters, Sandro Botticelli is usually thought of as one
who could never escape from the dictation of his own personal ideals,
in obedience to which he is supposed to have invested all the
creations of his art with nearly the same conformation of brows, lips,
cheeks and chin, nearly the same looks of wistful yearning and
dejection. There is some truth in this impression, though it is
largely based on the works not of the master himself, but of pupils
who exaggerated his mannerisms. Leonardo da Vinci was strong in both
directions; haunted in much of his work by a particular human ideal of
intellectual sweetness and alluring mystery, he has yet left us a vast
number of exercises which show him as an indefatigable student of
objective characteristics and psychological expressions of an order
the most opposed to this. And in this case again followers have
over-emphasized the master's predilections, Luini, Sodoma and the rest
borrowing and repeating the mysterious smile of Leonardo till it
becomes in their work an affectation cloying however lovely. Among
latter-day painters, Burne-Jones will occur to every reader as the
type of an artist always haunted and dominated by ideals of an
intensely personal cast partly engendered in his imagination by
sympathy with the early Florentines. If we seek for examples of the
opposite principle, of that idealism which idealizes above all things
objectively, and seeks to disengage the very inmost and individual
characters of the thing or person before it, we think naturally of
certain great masters of the northern schools, as Dürer, Holbein and
Rembrandt. Dürer's endeavour to express such characters by the most
searching intensity of linear definition was, however, hampered and
conditioned by his inherited national and Gothic predilection for the
strained in gesture and the knotted and the gnarled in structure,
against which his deliberate scholarly ambition to establish a canon
of ideal proportion contended for the most part in vain. And
Rembrandt's profound spiritual insight into human character and
personality did not prevent him from plunging his subjects, ever
deeper and deeper as his life advanced, into a mysterious shadow-world
of his own imagination, where all local colours were broken up and
crumbled, and where amid the struggle of gloom and gleam he could make
his intensely individualized men and women breathe more livingly than
in plain human daylight.
Caricature and the grotesque as modes of the ideal.
It is by the second mode of operation chiefly, that is by
imaginatively discerning, disengaging and forcing into prominence
their inherent significance, that the idealizing faculty brings into
the sphere of fine art deformities and degeneracies to which the name
beautiful or sublime can by no stretch of usage be applied. Hence
arise creations like the Stryge of Notre-Dame and a thousand other
grotesques of Gothic architectural carving. Hence, although on a lower
plane and interpreted with a less transmuting intensity of insight and
emphasis, the snarling or jovial grossness of the peasants of Adrian
Brauwer and the best of his Dutch compeers. Hence Shakespeare's
Caliban and figures like those of Quilp and Quasimodo in the romances
of Dickens and Hugo; hence the cynic grimness of Goya's Caprices and
the profound and bitter impressiveness of Daumier's caricatures of
Parisian bourgeois life; or again, in an angrier and more insulting
and therefore less understanding temper, the brutal energy of the
political drawings of Gilray.
Unidealized imitation not fine art.
Sculpture, painting and poetry, then, are among the greater fine arts
those which express and arouse emotion by imitating or evoking real
and known things, either for their own sakes literally, or for the
sake of shadowing forth things not known but imagined. In either case
they represent their originals, not indiscriminately as they are, but
sifted, simplified, enforced and enhanced to our apprehensions partly
by the artist's power of making things conform to his own instincts
and preferences, partly by his other power of interpreting and
emphasizing the significant characters of the facts before him. Any
imitation that does not do one or other or both of these things in
full measure fails in the quality of emotional expression and
emotional appeal, and in so failing falls short, taken merely as
imitation, of the standard of fine art.
The appeal of the imitative arts depends partly on non-imitative
elements.
But we must remember that idealized imitation, as such, is not the
whole task of these arts nor their only means of appeal. There is
another part of their task, logically though not practically
independent of the relations borne by their imitations to the original
phenomena of nature, and dependent on the appeal made through the eye
and ear to our primal organic sensibilities by the properties of
rhythm, pattern and regulated design in the arrangement of sounds,
lines, masses, colours and light-and-shade. That appeal we noted as
lying at the root of the art impulse in its most elementary stage. In
its most developed stage every fine art is bound still to play upon
the same sensibilities. In a work of sculpture the contours and
interchanges of light and shadow are bound to be such as would please
the eye, whether the statue or relief represented the figure of
anything real in the world or not. The flow and balance of line, and
the distribution of colours and light-and-shade, in a picture are
bound to be such as would make an agreeable pattern although they bore
no resemblance to natural fact (as, indeed, many subordinate
applications of this art, in decorative painting and geometrical and
other ornaments, do, we know, give pleasure though they represent
nothing). The sound of a line or verse in poetry is bound to be such
as would thrill the physical ear in hearing, or the mental ear in
reading, with a delightful excitement even though the meaning went for
nothing. If the imitative arts are to touch and elevate the emotions,
if they are to afford permanent delight of the due pitch and volume,
it is not a more essential law that their imitation, merely as such,
should be of the order which we have defined as ideal, than that they
should at the same time exhibit these independent effects which they
share with the non-imitative group.
Necessity of due balance between conception and technique: the
non-imitative arts and their technique.
So far we have assumed, without asserting, the necessity that the
artist in whatever kind should possess a power of execution, or
technique as it is called in modern phrase, adequate to the task of
embodying and giving shape to his ideals. In thought it is possible to
separate the conception of a work of art from its execution; in
practice it is not possible, and half the errors in criticism and
speculation about the fine arts spring from failing to realize that an
artistic conception can only be brought home to us through and by its
appropriate embodiment. Whatever the artist's cast of imagination or
degree of sensibility may be in presence of the materials of life, it
is essential that he should be able to express himself appropriately
in the material of his particular art. To quote the writer (R.A.M.
Stevenson) who has enforced this point most clearly and vividly,
perhaps with some pardonable measure of over-statement: "It is a
sensitiveness to the special qualities of some visible or audible
medium of art which distinguishes the species artist from the genus
man." And again: "There are as many separate faculties of imagination
as there are separate mediums in which to conceive an image--clay,
words, paint, notes of music." ... "Technique differs as the material
of each art differs--differs as marble, pigments, musical notes and
words differ." The artist who does not enjoy and has not with
delighted labour mastered the effects of his own chosen medium will
never be a master; the hearer, reader or spectator who cannot
appreciate the qualities of skill, vitality and charm in the handling
of the given material, or who fails to feel their absence when they
are lacking, or who looks in one material primarily for the qualities
appropriate to another, will never make a critic. The technique of the
space-arts differs radically from that of the time-arts. So again do
those of the imitative and the non-imitative arts differ among
themselves. The non-imitative arts of music and architecture are in a
certain degree alike in this, that the artist is in neither case his
own executant (this at least is true of music so far as concerns its
modern concerted and orchestral developments); the musical composer
and the architect each imagines and composes a design in the medium of
his own art which it is left for others to carry out under his
direction. The technique in each case consists not in mastery of an
instrument (though the musical composer may be, and often is, a master
of some one of the instruments whose effects he in his mind's ear
co-ordinates and combines); it lies in the power of knowing and
conjuring up all the emotional resources and effects of the various
materials at his command, and of conceiving and designing to their
last detail vast and ordered structures, to be raised by subordinate
executants from those materials, which shall adequately express his
temperament and embody his ideals.
The imitative arts and their technique: painting and sculpture.
In the imitative arts, on the other hand, the sculptor, unless he is a
fraud, must be wholly his own executant in the original task of
modelling his design in the soft material of clay or wax, though he
must accept the aid of assistants whether in the casting of his work
in bronze or in first roughing it out from the block in marble. Too
many sculptors have been inclined further to trust to trained
mechanical help in finishing their work with the chisel; with the
result that the surface loses the touch which is the expression of
personal temperament and personal feeling for the relations of his
material to nature. The artist in love with the vital qualities of
form, or those of his own handiwork in expressing such qualities in
modelling-clay, will never stop until he learns how to translate them
for himself in marble. Proceeding to that imitative art which leaves
out the third dimension of nature, and by so doing enormously
increases the range of objects and effects which come within its
power--proceeding to the art of painting, the painter is in theory
exclusively his own executant, and in practice mainly so, though in
certain schools and periods the great artists have been accustomed to
surround themselves with pupils to whom they have imparted their
methods and who have helped them in the subordinate and preparatory
parts of their work. But the painter fit to teach and lead can by no
means escape the necessity of being himself a master of his material,
and his handling of it must needs bear the immediate impress of his
temperament. His emotional preferences among the visible facts of
nature, his feeling for the relative importance and charm of line,
colour, light and shade, used whether for the interpretation and
heightening of natural fact or for producing a pattern in itself
harmonious and suggestive to the eye, his sense of the special modes
of handling most effective for communicating the impression he
desires, all these together inevitably appear in, and constitute, his
style and technique. If he is careless or inexpert or conventional, or
cold or without delight, in technique, though he may be animated by
the noblest purposes and the loftiest ideas, he is a failure as a
painter. At certain periods in the history of painting, as in the 13th
and 14th centuries in Italy, the technique seems indeed to modern eyes
wholly immature; but that was because there were many aspects of
visible things which the art had not yet attempted or desired to
portray, not because it did not put forth with delight its best
traditional or newly acquired skill in portraying the special aspects
with which it had so far attempted to grapple. At certain other
periods, as in the later 16th and 17th centuries in the same country,
the elements of inherited technical facility and academic pride of
skill outweigh the sincerity and freshness of interest taken in the
aspects of things to be portrayed, and the true balance is lost. At
other times, as in much of the work of the 19th century, especially in
England, painters have been diverted from their true task, and lost
hold of intelligent and living technique altogether, in trying to
please a public blind to the special qualities of their art, and prone
to seek in it the effects, frivolous or serious, which are appropriate
not to paint and canvas but to literature.
Technique in poetry: the magic of words.
Lastly, the poet and literary artist must obviously be the exclusive
master of his own technique. No one can help him: all depends on the
keenness of his double sensibility to the thrill of life and to that
of words, and to his power of maintaining a just balance between the
two. If he is truly and organically sensitive to words alone, and has
learnt life only through their medium and not through the energies of
his own imagination, nor through personal sensibility to the impact of
things and thoughts and passions and experience, then his work may be
a miracle of accomplished verbal music, and may entrance the ear for
the moment, but will never live to illuminate and sustain and console.
If, on the other hand, he has imagination and sensibility in full
measure, and lacks the inborn love of and gift for words and their
magic, he will be but a dumb or stammering poet all his days. There is
no better witness on this point than Wordsworth. His own prolonged
lapses from verbal felicity, and continual habit of solemn meditation
on themes not always inspiring, might make us hesitate to choose him
as an example of that particular love and gift. But Wordsworth could
never have risen to his best and greatest self had he not truly
possessed the sensibilities which he attributes to himself in the
Prelude:
"Twice five years
Or less I might have seen, when first my mind
With conscious pleasure opened to the charm
Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet
For their own sakes, a passion, and a power;
And phrases pleased me chosen for delight,
For pomp, or love."
And again, expressing better than any one else the relation which
words in true poetry hold to things, he writes:
"Visionary power
Attends the motions of the viewless winds,
Embodied in the mystery of words;
There darkness makes abode, and all the host
Of shadowy things work endless changes,--there,
As in a mansion like their proper home,
Even forms and substances are circumfused
By that transparent veil with light divine,
And, through the turnings intricate of verse,
Present themselves as objects recognized,
In flashes, and with glory not their own."
Third classification: the serviceable and the non-serviceable arts.
3. _The Serviceable and the Non-Serviceable Arts._--It has been
established from the outset that, though the essential distinction of
fine art as such is to minister not to material necessity or practical
use, but to delight, yet there are some among the arts of men which do
both these things at once and are arts of direct use and of beauty or
emotional appeal together. Under this classification a survey of the
field of art at different periods of history would yield different
results. In ruder times, we have seen, the utilitarian aim was still
the predominant aim of art, and most of what we now call fine arts
served in the beginning to fulfil the practical needs of individual
and social life; and this not only among primitive or savage races. In
ancient Egypt and Assyria the primary purpose of the relief-sculptures
on palace and temple walls was the practical one of historical record
and commemoration. Even as late as the middle ages and early
Renaissance the primary business of the painter was to give
instruction to the unlearned in Bible history and in the lives of the
saints, and to rouse him to moods of religious and ethical exaltation.
The pleasures of fine art proper among the manual-imitative group--the
pleasures, namely, of producing and contemplating certain arrangements
rather than others of design, proportion, pattern, colour and light
and shade, and of putting forth and appreciating certain qualities of
skill, truth and significance in idealized imitation,--these were,
historically speaking, by-products that arose gradually in the course
of practice and development. As time went on, the conscious aim of
ministering to such pleasures displaced and threw into the background
the utilitarian ends for which the arts had originally been practised,
and the pleasures became ends in themselves.
Among the greater arts, architecture alone exist primarily for
service.
But even in advanced societies the double qualities of use and beauty
still remain inseparable, among the five greater arts, in
architecture. We build in the first instance for the sake of necessary
shelter and accommodation, or for the commemoration, propitiation or
worship of spiritual powers on whom we believe our welfare to depend.
By and by we find out that the aspect of our constructions is
pleasurable or the reverse. Architecture is the art of building at
once as we need and as we like, and a practical treatise on
architecture must treat the beauty and the utility of buildings as
bound up together. But for our present purpose it has been proper to
take into account one half only of the vocation of architecture, the
half by which it impresses, gives delight and belongs to that which is
the subject of our study, to fine art; and to neglect the other half
of its vocation, by which it belongs to what is not the subject of our
study, to useful or mechanical art. It is plain, however, that the
presence or absence of this foreign element, the element of practical
utility, constitutes a fair ground for a new and separate
classification of the fine arts. If we took the five greater arts as
they exist in modern times by themselves, architecture would on this
ground stand alone in one division, as the directly useful or
serviceable fine art; with sculpture, painting, music and poetry
together in the other division, as fine arts unassociated with such
use or service. Not that the divisions would, even thus, be quite
sharply and absolutely separated. Didactic poetry, we have already
acknowledged, is a branch of the poetic art which aims at practice and
utility. Again, the hortatory and patriotic kinds of lyric poetry,
from the strains of Tyrtaeus to those of Arndt or Rouget de Lisle or
Wordsworth's sonnets written in war-time, may fairly be said to belong
to a phase of fine art which aims directly at one of the highest
utilities, the stimulation of patriotic feeling and self-devotion. So
may the strains of music which accompany such poetry. The same
practical character, as stimulating and attuning the mind to definite
ends and actions, might indeed have been claimed for the greater part
of the whole art of music as that art was practised in antiquity, when
each of several prescribed and highly elaborated moods, or modes, of
melody was supposed to have a known effect upon the courage and moral
temper of the hearer. Compare Milton, when he tells of the Dorian mood
of flutes and soft recorders which assuaged the sufferings and renewed
the courage of Satan and his legions as they marched through hell. In
modern music, of which the elements, much more complex in themselves
than those of ancient music, have the effect of stirring our fibres to
moods of rapturous contemplation rather than of action, military
strains in march time are in truth the only purely instrumental
variety of the art which may still be said to retain this character.
Other and minor arts of service subordinate to architecture.
To reinforce, however, the serviceable or useful division of fine arts
in our present classification, it is not among the greater arts that
we must look. We must look among the lesser or auxiliary arts of the
manual or shaping group. The weaver, the joiner, the potter, the
smith, the goldsmith, the glass-maker, these and a hundred artificers
who produce wares primarily for use, produce them in a form or with
embellishments that have the secondary virtue of giving pleasure both
to the producer and the user. Much ingenuity has been spent to little
purpose in attempting to group and classify these lesser shaping arts
under one or other of the greater shaping arts, according to the
nature of the means employed in each. Thus the potter's art has been
classed under sculpture, because he moulds in solid form the shapes of
his cups, plates and ewers; the art of the joiner under that of the
architect, because his tables, seats and cupboards are fitted and
framed together, like the houses they furnish, out of solid materials
previously prepared and cut; and the weaver and embroiderer, from the
point of view of the effects produced by their art, among painters.
But the truth is, that each one of these auxiliary handicrafts has its
own materials and technical procedure, which cannot, without forcing
and confusion, be described by the name proper to the materials and
technical procedure of any of the greater arts. The only satisfactory
classification of these handicrafts is that now before us, according
to which we think of them all together in the same group with
architecture, not because any one or more of them may be technically
allied to that art, but because, like it, they all yield products
capable of being practically useful and beautiful at the same time.
Architecture is the art which fits and frames together, of stone,
brick, mortar, timber or iron, the abiding and assembling places of
man, all his houses, palaces, temples, monuments, museums, workshops,
roofed places of meeting and exchange, theatres for spectacle,
fortresses of defence, bridges, aqueducts, and ships for seafaring.
The wise architect having fashioned any one of these great
constructions at once for service and beauty in the highest degree,
the lesser or auxiliary manual arts (commonly called "industrial" or
"applied" arts) come in to fill, furnish and adorn it with things of
service and beauty in a lower degree, each according to its own
technical laws and capabilities; some, like pottery, delighting the
user at once by beauty of form, delicacy of substance, and
pleasantness of imitative or non-imitative ornament; some, like
embroidery, by richness of tissue, and by the same twofold
pleasantness of ornament; some, like goldsmith's work, by
exquisiteness of fancy and workmanship proportionate to the
exquisiteness of the material. To this vast group of workmen, whose
work is at the same time useful and fine in its degree, the ancient
Greek gave the place which is most just and convenient for thought,
when he classed them all together under the name of [Greek: téktones],
or artificers, and called the builder by the name of [Greek:
architéktôn], arch-artificer or artificer-in-chief. Modern usage has
adopted the phrase "arts and crafts" as a convenient general name for
their pursuits.
III. _Of the History of the Fine Arts._
Current generalizations on the history of fine art: Hegel.
Students of human culture have concentrated a great deal of attentive
thought upon the history of fine art, and have put forth various
comprehensive generalizations intended at once to sum up and to account
for the phases and vicissitudes of that history. The most famous
formulae are those of Hegel, who regarded particular arts as being
characteristic of and appropriate to particular forms of civilization
and particular ages of history. For him, architecture was the symbolic
art appropriate to ages of obscure and struggling ideas, and
characteristic of the Egyptian and the Asiatic races of old and of the
medieval age in Europe. Sculpture was the classical art appropriate to
ages of lucid and self-possessed ideas, and characteristic of the Greek
and Roman period. Painting, music and poetry were the romantic arts,
appropriate to the ages of complicated and overmastering ideas, and
characteristic of modern humanity in general. In the working out of
these generalizations Hegel brought together a mass of judicious and
striking observations; and that they contain on the whole a
preponderance of truth may be admitted. It has been objected against
them, from the philosophical point of view, that they too much mix up
the definition of what the several arts theoretically are with
considerations of what in various historical circumstances they have
practically been. From the historical point of view there can be taken
what seems a more valid objection, that these formulae of Hegel tend too
much to fix the attention of the student upon the one dominant art
chosen as characteristic of any period, and to give him false ideas of
the proportions and relations of the several arts at the same period--of
the proportions and relations which poetry, say, really bore to
sculpture among the Greeks and Romans, or sculpture to architecture
among the Christian nations of the middle age. The truth is, that the
historic survey gained over any field of human activity from the height
of generalizations so vast in scope as these are must needs, in the
complexity of earthly affairs, be a survey too distant to give much
guidance until its omissions are filled up by a great deal of nearer
study; and such nearer study is apt to compel the student in the long
run to qualify the theories with which he has started until they are in
danger of disappearing altogether.
Herbert Spencer and the evolution theory.
Another systematic exponent of the universe, whose system is very
different from that of Hegel, Herbert Spencer, brought the doctrine of
evolution to bear, not without interesting results, upon the history of
the fine arts and their development. Herbert Spencer set forth how the
manual group of fine arts, architecture, sculpture and painting, were in
their first rudiments bound up together, and how each of them in the
course of history has liberated itself from the rest by a gradual
process of separation. These arts did not at first exist in the distinct
and developed forms in which we have above described them. There were no
statues in the round, and no painted panels or canvases hung upon the
wall. Only the rudiments of sculpture and painting existed, and that
only as ornaments applied to architecture, in the shape of tiers of
tinted reliefs, representing in a kind of picture-writing the exploits
of kings upon the walls of their temple-palaces. Gradually sculpture
took greater salience and roundness, and tended to disengage itself from
the wall, while painting found out how to represent solidity by means of
its own, and dispensed with the raised surface upon which it was first
applied. But the old mixture and union of the three arts, with an
undeveloped art of painting and an undeveloped art of sculpture still
engaged in or applied to the works of architecture, continued on the
whole to prevail through the long cycles of Egyptian and Assyrian
history. In the Egyptian palace-temple we find a monument at once
political and religious, upon the production of which were concentrated
all the energies and faculties of all the artificers of the race. With
its incised and pictured walls, its half-detached colossi, its open and
its colonnaded chambers, the forms of the columns and their capitals
recalling the stems and blossoms of the lotus and papyrus, with its
architecture everywhere taking on the characters and covering itself
with the adornments of immature sculpture and painting--this structure
exhibits within its single fabric the origins of the whole subsequent
group of shaping arts. From hence it is a long way to the innumerable
artistic surroundings of later Greek and Roman life, the many temples
with their detached and their engaged statues, the theatres, the
porticoes, the baths, the training-schools, the stadiums, with free and
separate statues both of gods and men adorning every building and public
place, the frescoes upon the walls, the panel pictures hung in temples
and public and private galleries. In the terms of the Spencerian theory
of evolution, the advance from the early Egyptian to the later Greek
stage is an advance from the one to the manifold, from the simple to the
complex, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, and affords a
striking instance of that vast and ceaseless process of differentiation
and integration which it is the law of all things to undergo. In the
Christian monuments of the early middle age, again, the arts, owing to
the political and social cataclysm in which Roman civilization went
down, have gone back to the rudimentary stage, and are once more
attached to and combined with each other. The single monument, the one
great birth of art, in that age, is the Gothic church. In this we find
the art of applied sculpture exercised in fashions infinitely rich and
various, but entirely in the service and for the adornment of the
architecture; we find painting exercised in fashions more rudimentary
still, principally in the forms of translucent imagery in the chancel
windows and tinted decorations on the walls and vaultings. From this
stage again the process of the differentiation of the arts is repeated.
It is by a new evolution or unfolding, and by one carried to much
further and more complicated stages than the last had reached, that the
arts since the middle age have come to the point where we find them
to-day; when architecture is applied to a hundred secular and civil uses
with not less magnificence, or at least not less desire of magnificence,
than that with which it fulfilled its two only uses in the middle age,
the uses of worship and of defence; when detached sculptures adorn, or
are intended to adorn, all our streets and commemorate all our
likenesses; when the subjects of painting have been extended from
religion to all life and nature, until this one art has been divided
into the dozen branches of history, landscape, still life, genre,
anecdote and the rest. Such being in brief the successive stages, and
such the reiterated processes, of evolution among the shaping or space
arts, the action of the same law can be traced, it is urged, in the
growth of the speaking or time arts also. Originally poetry and music,
the two great speaking arts, were not separated from each other and from
the art of bodily motion, dancing. The father of song, music and
dancing, all three, was that primitive man of whom so much has already
been said, he who first clapped hands and leapt and shouted in time at
some festival of his tribe. From the clapping, or rudimentary rhythmical
noise, has been evolved the whole art of instrumental music, down to the
entrancing complexity of the modern symphony. From the shout, or
rudimentary emotional utterance, has proceeded by a kindred evolution
the whole art of vocal music down to the modern opera or oratorio. From
the leap, or rudimentary expression of emotion by rhythmical movements
of the body, has descended every variety of dancing, from the stately
figures of the tragic chorus of the Greeks to the _kordax_ of their
comedy or the complexities of the modern ballet.
Weak and strong points of Spencer's generalization.
That the theory of evolution serves usefully to group and to interpret
many facts in the history of art we shall not deny, though it would be
easy to show that Herbert Spencer's instances and applications are not
sufficient to sustain all the conclusions that he seems to draw from
them. Thus, it is perfectly true that the Egyptian or Assyrian palace
wall is an instance of rudimentary painting and rudimentary sculpture in
subservience to architecture. But it is not less true that races who had
no architecture at all, but lived in caverns of the earth, exhibit, as
we have already had occasion to notice, excellent rudiments of the other
two shaping arts in a different form, in the carved or incised handles
of their weapons. And it is almost certain that, among the nations of
oriental antiquity themselves, the art of decorating solid walls so as
to please the eye with patterns and presentations of natural objects was
borrowed from the precedent of an older art which works in easier
materials, namely, the art of the weaver. It would be in the perished
textile fabrics of the earliest dwellers in the valleys of the Euphrates
and the Nile that we should find, if anywhere, the origins of the
systems of surface design, whether conventional or imitative, which
those races afterwards applied to the decoration of their solid
constructions. Not, therefore, in any one exclusive type of primitive
artistic activity, but in a score of such types equally, varying
according to race, region and circumstances, shall we find so many germs
or nuclei from which whole families of fine arts have in the course of
the world's history differentiated and unfolded themselves. And more
than once during that history, a cataclysm of political and social
forces has not only checked the process of the evolution of the fine
arts, but from an advanced stage of development has thrown them back
again to a primitive stage. Recent research has shown how the Minoan and
Mycenaean civilizations in the Mediterranean basin, with their developed
fine arts, must have perished and been effaced before the second growth
of art from new rudiments took place in Greece. The great instance of
the downfall of the Roman civilization need not be requoted. By
Spencer's application of the theory of evolution, not less than by
Hegel's theory of the historic periods, attention is called to the fact
that Christian Europe, during several centuries of the middle age,
presents to our study a civilization analogous to the civilization of
the old oriental empires in this respect, that its ruling and
characteristic manual art is architecture, to which sculpture and
painting are, as in the oriental empires, once more subjugated and
attached. It does not of course follow that such periods of fusion or
mutual dependence among the arts are periods of bad art. On the
contrary, each stage of the evolution of any art has its own
characteristic excellence. The arts can be employed in combination, and
yet be all severally excellent. When music, dancing, acting and singing
were combined in the performance of the Greek chorus, the combination no
doubt presented a relative perfection of each of the four elements
analogous to the combined perfection, in the contemporary Doric temple,
of pure architectural form, sculptured enrichment of spaces specially
contrived for sculpture in the pediments and frieze, and coloured
decoration over all. The extreme differentiation of any art from every
other art, and of the several branches of one art among themselves, does
not by any means tend to the perfection of that art. The process of
evolution among the fine arts may go, and indeed in the course of
history has gone, much too far for the health of the arts severally.
Thus an artist of our own day is usually either a painter only or a
sculptor only; but yet it is acknowledged that the painter who can model
a statue, or the sculptor who can paint a picture, is likely to be the
more efficient master of both arts; and in the best days of Florentine
art the greatest men were generally painters, sculptors, architects and
goldsmiths all at once. In like manner a landscape painter who paints
landscape only is apt not to paint it so well as one who paints the
figure too; and in recent times the craft of engraving had almost ceased
to be an art from the habit of allotting one part of the work, as skies,
to one hand, another part, as figures, to a second, and another part, as
landscape, to a third. This kind of continually progressing subdivision
of labour, which seems to be the necessary law of industrial processes,
is fatal to any skill which demands, as skill in the fine arts, we have
seen, demands, the free exercise and direction of a highly complex
cluster both of faculties and sensibilities.
Reaction against over-evolution amongst the fine arts.
In the second half of the 19th century a reaction set in against such
over-differentiation of the several manual arts and crafts. This
reaction is chiefly identified in England with the name of William
Morris, who insisted by precept and example that one form of artistic
activity was as worthy as another, and himself both practised and
trained others in the practice of glass-painting, weaving, embroidery,
furniture and wall-paper designing, and book decoration alike. His
example has been to some extent followed in most European countries, and
efforts have been made to reunite the functions of artist and craftsman,
and to set a limit to the process of differentiation among the various
manual arts. In the vocal or time arts also, a reformer of high genius
and force of character, Richard Wagner, rose to contend that in music
the process of evolution and differentiation had gone much too far.
Music, he urged, as separated from words and actions, independent
orchestral and instrumental music, had reached its utmost development,
and its further advance could only be an advance into the inane; while
operatic music had broken itself up into a number of set and separate
forms, as aria, scena, recitative, which corresponded to no real
varieties of instinctive emotional utterance, and in the aimless
production of which the art was in danger of paralysing and stultifying
itself. This process, he declared, must be checked; music and words must
be brought back again into close connexion and mutual dependence; the
artificial opera forms must be abolished, and a new and homogeneous
music-drama be created, of which the author must combine in himself the
functions of poet, composer, inventor, and director of scenery and stage
appliances, so that the entire creation should bear the impress of a
single mind; to the creation of such a music-drama he accordingly
devoted all the energies of his being.
Taine's philosophy or natural history of the fine arts.
It is thus evident that the evolution theory, though it furnishes us
with some instructive points of view for the history of the fine arts as
for other things, is far from being the whole key to that history.
Another key, employed with results perhaps less really luminous than
they are certainly showy and attractive, is that supplied by Taine.
Taine's philosophy, which might perhaps be better called a natural
history, of fine art consists in regarding the fine arts as the
necessary result of the general conditions under which they are at any
time produced--conditions of race and climate, of religion, civilization
and manners. Acquaint yourself with these conditions as they existed in
any given people at any given period, and you will be able to account
for the characters assumed by the arts of that people at that period,
and to reason from one to the other, as a botanist can account for the
flora of any given locality, and can reason from its soil, exposure and
temperature, to the orders of vegetation which it will produce. This
method of treating the history of the fine arts, again, is one which can
be pursued with profit in so far as it makes the student realize the
connexion of fine arts with human culture in general, and teaches him
how the arts of any age and country are not an independent or arbitrary
phenomenon, but are essentially an outcome, or efflorescence, to use a
phrase of Ruskin's, of deep-seated elements in the civilization which
produces them. But it is a method which, rashly used, is very apt to
lead to a hasty and one-sided handling both of history and of art. It is
easy to fasten on certain obvious relations of fine art to general
civilization when you know a few of the facts of both, and to say, the
cloudy skies and mongrel industrial population of Protestant Amsterdam
at such and such a date had their inevitable reflection in the art of
Rembrandt; the wealth and pomp of the full-fleshed burghers and
burgesses of Catholic Antwerp had theirs in the art of Rubens. But to do
this in the precise and conclusive manner of Taine's treatises on the
philosophy of art always means to ignore a large range of conditions or
causes for which no corresponding effect is on the surface apparent, and
generally also a large number of effects for which appropriate causes
cannot easily be discovered at all.
Criticisms and counter-criticisms on Taine's methods.
These considerations have resulted in a reaction against Taine's
theories which goes probably too far. It is no complete confutation of
his philosophy of art-history to contend, as has been done somewhat
contemptuously by Professor Ernst Grosse and others, that the great
artist, so far from representing the general tendencies of his time and
environment, is commonly a solitary innovator and revolutionist, and has
to educate and create his own public, often through years of obloquy or
neglect. This is sometimes true when the traditions and ideals of art
are undergoing revolution or swift experimental change, but hardly ever
true in times of stable tradition and accepted ideals; and when true it
only shows that the tendencies the innovating genius represents are
tendencies which have till his time been working underground, and which
he is born to bring into light and evidence. A new and revolutionary
impulse in art, as in thought or politics, is like a yeast or ferment
working at first secretly, affecting for a while only a few spirits, as
a new epidemic may for a while only affect a few constitutions, and then
gradually ripening and strengthening till it communicates itself to
thousands. In its inception such a ferment is not, indeed, one of the
obvious phenomena of the society in which it takes root, but it is none
the less one of the most vital and significant phenomena. The truth is,
that this particular efflorescence of human culture depends for its
character at any given time upon combinations of causes which are by no
means simple, but generally highly complex, obscure and nicely balanced.
For instance, the student who should try to reason back from the holy
and beatified character which prevails in much of the devotional
painting of the Italian schools down to the Renaissance would be much
mistaken were he to conclude, "like art, like life, thoughts and
manners." He would not understand the relation of the art to the general
civilization of those days unless he were to remember that one of the
chief functions of the imagination is to make up for the shortcomings of
reality, and to supply to contemplation images of that which is most
lacking in actual life; so that the visions at once peaceful and ardent
embodied by the religious schools of art in the Italian cities are to be
explained, not by the peace, but rather in great part by the dispeace,
of contemporary existence, and by the longing of the human spirit to
escape into happier and more calm conditions.
Difficulty of combining the study of the manual with that of the vocal
group of fine arts.
Any one of the three modes of generalization to which we have referred
might no doubt yield, however, supposing in the student the due gifts of
patience and of caution, a working clue to guide him through that
immense region of research, the history of the fine arts. But it is
hardly possible to pursue to any purpose the history of the two great
groups, the shaping group and the speaking group, together. At some
stages of the world's history the manual and the monumental arts have
flourished, as in Egypt and Assyria, when there was no fine art of words
at all, and the only literature was that of records cut in hieroglyph or
cuneiform on palace walls and temples, and on tablets, seals and
cylinders. At other times and in other communities there has existed a
great tradition and inheritance of poetry and song when the manual arts
were only beginning to emerge again from the wreck of an old
civilization, as in the Homeric age of Greece, or where they had never
flourished at all except by imitation and importation, as in Palestine.
In historic Greece all three divisions of the art of poetry, the epic,
lyric and the dramatic, had been perfected, and two of them had again
declined, before sculpture had reached maturity or painting had passed
beyond the stage of its early severity. The European poetry of the
middle ages, abundant and rich as it was alike in France and Provence,
in Germany and Scandinavia, can yet not take rank, among the creations
of human genius, beside the great masterpieces of Romanesque and Gothic
architecture; it was in Italy only that Dante, before the end of that
age, carried poetry to a place of equality if not of primacy among the
arts. Taking the England of the Elizabethan age, we find the great
outburst of our national genius in poetry contemporary with nothing more
interesting in the manual arts than the gradual and only
half-intelligent transformation of late Gothic architecture by the
adoption of Italian Renaissance forms imported principally by way of
Flanders or France, together with a fine native skill shown in the art
of miniature portrait-painting, and none at all worth mentioning in
other branches of painting or in sculpture. If the course of poetry and
that of the manual arts have thus run independently throughout almost
the whole field of history, those of music and the manual arts have been
more widely separated still. In ancient Greece music and poetry were, we
know, most intimately connected, but of the true nature of Greek music
we know but little, of that of the earlier middle ages less still, and
throughout the later middle ages and the earlier Renaissance the art
remained undeveloped, whether in the service of the church or in secular
and popular use, and in both cases in strict subservience to words. The
growth of independent music is entirely the work of the modern world,
and will probably rank in the esteem of posterity as its highest
spiritual achievement and claim to gratitude, when the mechanical
inventions and applications of applied science, which now occupy so
disproportionate a part of the attention of humanity, have become a
normal and unregarded part of its existence.
Moments in history there have no doubt been when literature and the
manual arts, and even music, have been swept simultaneously along a
single stream of ideas and feelings. Such a moment was experienced in
France in 1830 and the following years, when (to choose only a few of
the greatest names) Hugo in poetry, Delacroix in painting, and Berlioz
in music were roused to a high pitch of consentaneous inspiration by the
new ideas and feelings of romanticism. But such moments are rare and
exceptional. On the other hand, it is very possible to take the whole of
the shaping or manual group of fine arts together and to pursue their
history connectedly throughout the course of civilization. By the
history of art what is usually meant is indeed the history of these
three arts with that of some of their subordinate and connected crafts.
Leaving aside the arts of the races of the farther East, which,
profoundly interesting as they are, have but gradually and late become
known to us, and the relations of which with the arts of the nearer East
and the Mediterranean are still quite obscure--leaving these aside, the
history of the manual arts of architecture, painting and sculpture falls
naturally into several great periods or divisions to some extent
overlapping each other but in the main consecutive.
Main divisions of the history of art.
These periods are roughly as follows:--
1. The period of the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Nile,
beginning approximately about 5000 B.C. and ending, roughly speaking
(but some of them much earlier), with the spread of Greek power and
Greek ideas under Alexander. On the main characteristics of the art of
these empires we have already had occasion to touch.
2. The Minoan and Mycenaean period, partly contemporary with the above
and dating probably from about 2500 to about 1000 B.C.; our knowledge of
this is due entirely to quite recent researches, confined at present to
certain points in Greece and Asia Minor, in Crete and other islands in
the Mediterranean basin; enough has already been revealed to prove the
existence of an original and highly developed palace-architecture and of
forms of relief-painting and of all the minor and decorative arts more
free and animated than anything known to Egypt or Assyria. (See CRETE
and AEGEAN CIVILIZATION.)
3. The Greek and Roman period, from about 700 B.C. to the final triumph
of Christianity, say A.D. 400. During the first two or three centuries
of this period the Hellenic race, beginning again after the cataclysm
which had swallowed up the earlier Mediterranean civilizations, carried
to perfection its most characteristic art, that of sculpture, in the
endeavour to embody worthily its ideas of the supernatural powers
governing the world. Putting aside the monstrous gods of Egypt and the
East, it found its ideals in varieties of the human form as presented by
the most harmoniously developed specimens of the race under conditions
of the greatest health, activity and grace. In the figures of Greek
sculpture, both decorative and independent, and no doubt in Greek
painting also (but of that we can only judge from such specimens of the
minor handicrafts, chiefly vase-paintings, as have come down to us)--in
these were set for the whole Western world the types and standards of
human beauty, and in their grouping and arrangement the types and
standards of rhythmical composition and design. Gradually human
portraiture and themes of everyday life took their place beside
representations of the gods and heroes. New schools struck out new
tendencies within certain limits. But in the general standards of form
and design there was in the imitative arts relatively little change,
though towards the end there was much failure of skill, throughout the
whole period. The one great change was in architecture. Greece had been
content with the constructive system of columns and horizontal
entablature, and under that system had invented and perfected her three
successive modes or orders of architecture--the Doric, Ionic and
Corinthian. The genius of Rome invented the round arch, and by help of
that system erected throughout her subject world a thousand vast
constructions--temple, palace, bath, amphitheatre, forum, aqueduct,
triumphal gate and the rest--on a scale of monumental grandeur such as
Greece had never known.
4. The Christian period, from about 400 to about 1400. The decay or
petrifaction of the imitative arts which had set in during the latter
days of Rome continued during all the earlier centuries of the Christian
period, while the Western world was in process of remaking. Free
painting and free sculpture practically ceased to exist. Roman
architecture underwent modifications under the influence of the church
and of the new conditions of life; the Byzantine form, touched at
certain times and places with oriental influences, developed itself
wherever the Eastern Empire still stood erect in decay; the Romanesque
form, as it is called, in the barbarian-conquered regions of the west
and north. Sculpture existed for centuries only in rudimentary and
subordinate forms as applied to architecture; painting only in forms of
rigid though sometimes impressive hieratic imagery, whether as mosaic in
the apses and vaults of churches, as rude illumination in MSS. and
service-books, or as still ruder altar-painting carried on according to
a frozen mechanical tradition. As time went on and medieval institutions
developed themselves, a gradual vitality dawned in all these arts. In
architecture the introduction of the pointed or Gothic arch at the
beginning of the 13th century led to almost as great a revolution as
that brought about by the use of the round or vaulted arch among the
Romans. The same vital impulse that informed the new Gothic architecture
breathed into the still quite subordinate arts of sculpture and painting
(the latter now including the craft of glass-painting for church
windows) a new spirit whether of devotional intensity or sweetness, or
of human pathos or rugged humour, with a new technical skill for its
embodiment. We have not set down, as is usually done, a specifically
Gothic period in art, for this reason. The characteristic of the whole
Christian period is that its dominant art is architecture, chiefly
employed in the service of the church, with painting and sculpture only
subordinately introduced for its enrichment. It makes no essential
difference that from the 5th to the 12th century the forms of this art
were derived with various modifications from the round-arched
architecture of the Empire, and that by the 13th century new forms both
of construction and decoration, in which the round arch was replaced by
the pointed, had been invented in France, and from thence spread abroad
to Germany and Scandinavia, Great Britain, Spain, and last and most
superficially to Italy. The essential difference only begins when the
imitative arts, sculpture and painting, begin to emancipate and detach
themselves, to exist and strive after perfection on their own account.
This happened first and very partially in Italy with the artificers of
the 13th and 14th centuries--with the sculptors Nicola, Giovanni, and
Andrea Pisano; the Sienese group of painters, Duccio, Simone Martini,
and the Lorenzetti; and the Florentine group, Cimabue (if Cimabue is not
a myth), Giotto and the Giotteschi. The development of the rapid and
flowing craft of fresco in place of the laborious and piecemeal craft of
mosaic (henceforth for several centuries almost lost) was a great aid to
this movement. After a period of something like stagnation, the movement
received a vigorous fresh impulse soon after 1400, at about which date
in Italy (not till near a century later in northern Europe) the
beginning of the Renaissance is usually fixed.
5. The Renaissance period, from about 1400 to about 1600. The passion
for classic literature, stimulated by the influence of Greek scholars
into Italy after the fall of Constantinople; the enthusiastic revival of
classic forms of architecture by architects like Brunelleschi and
Alberti; the achievements in sculpture and painting of masters like
Donatello and Masaccio, based on a new and impassioned study of nature
and the antique together; these are the outstanding and universally
known symptoms of the Italian Renaissance in the second and third
quarters of the 15th century. Promptly and contemptuously in Italy, much
more gradually and incompletely in the north, Gothic principles of
construction and decoration were cast aside for classical principles, as
reformulated by eager spirits from a combined study of Roman remains and
of the text of Vitruvius. To the ideal types of devout and prayer-worn,
ascetic and spiritualized humanity (tempered in certain subjects with
elements of the homely and the grotesque), which the spirit of the
middle ages had dictated to the sculptor and the painter, succeeded
ideals of physical power, beauty and grace rivalling the Hellenic. The
personages of the Christian faith and story were brought into visible
kindred with those of ancient paganism. In the hands of certain artists
a fortunate blending of the two ideals yielded results of a poignant and
unique charm, which for us, who are the heirs both of antiquity and the
middle ages, is far from being yet exhausted. At the same time, the love
alike of republics, great princes, churchmen, nobles and merchants for
works of art gave employment to sculptors and painters on themes other
than ecclesiastical. The taste for civic or personal commemoration, for
portraiture, for illustrations of allegory, romance and classic fable,
covered with pictures the walls of council halls, of public and private
palaces, and of villas. The invention of the oil medium by the painters
of Flanders, and its gradual adoption by the Venetians and other schools
of Italy for all purposes except the external decorations of buildings,
added enormously to the resources of the art in rivalry with nature, and
to the splendour of its results as objects of pride and luxury. The
glories of matured Italian art reacted, not always favourably, on the
north. The great days of Flemish painting had been from about 1430 to
1500, before any appreciable influence of the Renaissance had touched
the schools of Brussels, of Bruges or of Antwerp. By about 1520 the
artists of those schools had begun, except in portraiture, to lose their
native vigour and originality by contact with the alien south. Among the
great artists of Germany in the first half of the 16th century the work
of one or two, like Burgkmair and Holbein, shows Italian influence
reconciled not unsuccessfully with native instinct; but Dürer, the
greatest of them, remained in all essentials Gothic and German to the
end. During the last half of the century, the Netherlands and Germany
alike yielded little but work of mongrel Teutonized Italian or
Italianized Teutonic type, until towards its close Rubens accomplished,
in the fire of his prodigious temperament, a true fusion of Flemish and
Venetian qualities, at the same time closing gloriously the Renaissance
period properly so called, and handing on an example which irresistibly
affected a great part of modern painting.
6. Modern period, from about 1600 to the present time. During this
period architecture remained in all European countries, until the 19th
century, more or less completely under the influence of the Italian
Renaissance. The principles of the classical revival had during a
century or more of transition been gradually absorbed, first by France,
then by Germany, the Low Countries, and Spain, and last by England, each
country modifying the style according to its degree of knowledge or
ignorance, its needs, instincts and traditions. Sculpture, which in the
hands of the great masters of the earlier and later Renaissance in
Italy had almost equalled its ancient glories, nay, in those of
Michelangelo had actually surpassed them in the qualities at least of
superhuman energy and intellectual expression--sculpture lost the sense
of its true limitations, and entered, with the work of Bernini and even
earlier, into an extravagant or "baroque" period of relaxed and bulging
line, of exaggerated and ostentatious virtuosity. In this it followed
the lead given by Italian architecture, by Jesuit church architecture
especially, at and after the height of the Catholic reaction. From the
monumental and memorial purposes which sculpture principally serves, it
remained still, except in purely iconic uses, attached to or dependent
on architecture. Not so painting, which asserted its independence more
and more. In Protestant countries the old ecclesiastical patronage of
the art had quite died out; in those that remained Catholic it
continued, and even received a new stimulus from the anti-Protestant
reaction. The demand for religious art was supplied with abundance of
traditional facility, of technical accomplishment and devotional
display, but with a loss of the old sincerity and inspiration. Almost
all painting, even for the most extensive and monumental phases of
decoration in church or palace or civic hall, was on canvas stretched
over or fitted into its allotted space in the architecture, and the art
of fresco, even in Venice, its last stronghold, was for a time neglected
or forgotten. Portable paintings for princely or private galleries and
cabinets became the chief and most characteristic products of the art.
The subjects of painting multiplied themselves. All manner of new
aspects of life and nature were brought within the technical compass of
the painter. Besides devotional and classical subjects and portraiture,
daily life in all its phases, down to the homeliest and grossest, the
life of the parlour and the tavern, of field and shore and sea, with
landscape in all its varieties, took their place as material for the
painter. The truths of indoor and outdoor atmosphere were translated on
canvas for the first time. The Dutchmen from about 1620 to 1670 were the
most active innovators and path-breakers of modern art along all these
lines. The greatest of them, Rembrandt, dealt, as has been said, like a
master and a magician with the problems of human individuality as
revealed in a mysterious colour and shadow world of his own invention.
At the same time a painter of no less power in Spain, Velazquez, viewing
the world in the natural light of every day, showed for the first time
how vitally and subtly paint could render the relief and mutual values
of figures and objects in space, the essential truth of their visible
relations and reactions in the enveloping atmosphere. The achievement of
these two victorious innovators has only come to be fully understood in
our own day. The simultaneous conquest of Claude le Lorrain, on the
other hand, over the atmospheric glow of summer and sunset on the Roman
Campagna and the adjacent hills and coasts, found acceptance instantly,
less perhaps for its own sake than because of the classical associations
of the scenery which he depicted. The vast widening of the field of the
painter's art and multiplication of its subjects, which thus took place
at the dawn of the modern period, were gains attended by one drawback,
the loss, namely, of the sense of high seriousness and universal appeal
which belonged to the art while its themes had been those of religion
and classic story almost exclusively.
Classical and romantic revivals.
During the three hundred or so years of the modern period, academical
schools attempting, more or less unsuccessfully, to carry on the great
Italian and classical traditions of the Renaissance have not ceased to
exist side by side with those which have striven to express new ways of
seeing and feeling. Sometimes, as in France first under Louis XIV., and
again for forty years from the beginning of the Revolution to the dawn
of romanticism, such schools have succeeded in crushing out and
discrediting all efforts in other directions. Between these two epochs,
say from 1710 to 1780, French 18th-century ideals of social elegance and
brilliant frivolity expressed themselves in forms of great
accomplishment and vivacity both in poetry and sculpture, from the days
of Watteau to those of Fragonard and Clodion. At the same time England
produced one of the finest and at the same time most national and
downright masters of the brush in Hogarth; two of the greatest
aristocratic portrait-painters of the world in Reynolds and
Gainsborough, each of whom modified according to his own instincts the
tradition imported in the previous century by Van Dyck, the greatest
pupil of Rubens (Reynolds fusing with this influence those of Rembrandt
and the Venetians in almost equal shares). Pastoral landscape in the
hands of Gainsborough, classical, following Claude, in those of
Wilson--these together with the humble but wholesome discipline of
topographical illustration led on to the ambitious, wide-ranging and
often inspired experiments of Turner, and to the narrower but more
secure achievements of Constable in the same field, and made this
country the acknowledged pioneer of modern landscape art. In the
meantime the wave of classical enthusiasm which passed over Europe in
the later years of the 18th century had produced in architecture
generally a return to severer principles and purer lines, in reaction
from the baroque and the rococo Renaissance styles of the preceding
century and a half. In Italian sculpture, the same movement inspired
during the Napoleonic period the over-honeyed accomplishment of Canova
and his school; in northern sculpture, the more truly antique but almost
wholly imitative work of Thorwaldsen, and the pure and rhythmic grace of
the English Flaxman, a true master of design though scarcely of
sculpture strictly so called. The same movement again was partly
responsible in English painting and illustration from about 1770 to 1820
for much pastoral and idyllic work of agreeable but shallow elegance. In
French painting the classic movement struck deeper. Along with much
would-be Roman attitudinizing there was much real, if rigid, power in
the work of David, much accomplished purity and sweetness in that of
Prud'hon. The last and truest classic of France, and at the same time in
portraiture the greatest realist, Ingres, held high the standard of his
cause even through and past the great romantic revival which began with
Géricault and culminated in Delacroix and the school of landscape
painters who had received their inspiration from Constable. The main
instincts embodied in the Romantic movement were the awakening of the
human spirit to an eager retrospective love of the past, and especially
of the medieval past, and simultaneously to a new passion for the
beauties of nature, and especially of wild nature. Germany and England
preceded France in this double awakening; in both countries the movement
inspired a fine literature, but in neither did it express itself so
fully and self-consciously through literature and the other arts
together as it did in France when the hour struck. The revival of
medieval sentiment in Germany had inspired comparatively early in the
century the learned but somewhat aridly ascetic and essentially
unpainterlike work of the group of artists who styled themselves
_Nazarener_. In England the same revival expressed itself during a great
part of the Victorian age in an enthusiastic return to the early Gothic
ecclesiastical styles of architecture, a return unsuccessful upon the
whole, because in pursuit of archaeological and grammatical detail the
root qualities of right proportion and organic design were too often
neglected.
The pre-Raphaelites.
Allied with this Gothic revival, and stimulated like it by the
persuasive conviction and brilliant resource of Ruskin in criticism was
the pre-Raphaelite movement in painting. Among the artists identified
with this movement there was little really in common except in
impatience of the prevailing modes of empty academic convention or
anecdotic frivolity. The name covered for a while the essentially
divergent aims of a vigorous unintellectual craftsman like Millais,
fired for a few years in youth by contact with more imaginative
temperaments, of a strenuous imitator of unharmonized local colours and
unsubordinated natural facts like Holman Hunt, and of born poets and
impassioned medievalists like Rossetti and after him Burne-Jones.
Meantime in France, putting aside the work of the great Delacroix, the
impulse of 1830 expressed itself best and most lastingly in the
monumental work of Daumier both in caricature and romance, the
impressive and significant treatment of peasant life and labour by J.F.
Millet, the vitally truthful pastoral and landscape work of Troyon,
Corot, Daubigny and the rest.
Contemporary tendencies.
Since the exhaustion of the Romantic movement, the other movements that
have been taking place in European art have been too numerous and too
rapid to be touched on here to any purpose. Both in sculpture and
painting France has taken and held the lead. Mention has already been
made of the special tendency in recent sculpture identified with the
name and influence of Rodin. In painting there has been the fertilizing
and transforming influence of Japan on the decorative ideals of the
West; there have been successively the Realist movement, the movements
of the Impressionists, the Luminists, the Neo-impressionists, the
Independents, movements initiated almost always in Paris, and in other
countries eagerly adopted and absorbed, or angrily controverted and
denounced, or simply neglected and ignored according to the predilection
of this or that group of artists and critics; there has been a vast
amount of heterogeneous, hurried, confident and clamant innovating
activity in this direction and in that, much of it perhaps doomed to
futility in the eyes of posterity, but at any rate there has not been
stagnation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--To attempt in this place anything like a full
bibliography covering so vast a field would be idle. Many of the books
necessary to a first-hand study of the subject are cited in the
article AESTHETICS. The following are some of the most important
writings actually referred to in the text, English translations being
mentioned where they exist: Aristotle, _Poetics_, edited with critical
notes and a translation by S.H. Butcher (1898); S.H. Butcher,
_Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_, with a critical text and
a translation of the _Poetics_ (1902); Plato, _Republic_, bk. x. 596
ff., 600 ff. (Grote, iii. 117 ff.; Jowett, iii. 489 ff.); B.
Bosanquet, _Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art_
(_Ästhetik_), translation with notes and prefatory essay (1896); _The
Philosophy of Art, an Introduction to the Science of Aesthetics_, by
Hegel and C.L. Michelet, trans. Hastie (1886); Schiller, _Briefe über
die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen_ (trans, by G.J. Weiss, with
preface by J. Chapman, 1845; also in Bohn's Standard Library, 1846);
Herbert Spencer, _First Principles_, ch. xxii.; Gottfried Semper, _Der
Stil_ (1860-1863); Hippolyte Taine, _De l'idéal dans l'art_ (1867),
_Philosophie de l'art en Grèce_ (1869), _Philosophie de l'art en
Italie_, _Philosophic de l'art dans les Pays-Bas_ (translations in 5
vols. by J. Durand, New York, 1889); Karl Groos, _Die Spiele der
Menschen_ (1899; trans, by E.L. Baldwin, 1901), and _Die Spiele der
Tiere_ (2nd ed., 1907; trans, by E.L. Baldwin, 1898); Ernst Grosse,
_Die Anfänge der Kunst_ (1894; trans, in the Anthropological Series,
1894); Yrjö Hirn, _The Origins of Art_ (1900); G. Baldwin Brown, _The
Fine Arts_ (2nd ed., 1902); Felix Clay, _The Origins of the Sense of
Beauty_ (1908). For a general history of the manual or shaping group
of arts, C.J.F. Schnasse, _Geschichte der bildenden Künste_ (2nd ed.,
1866-1879), though in parts obsolete, is still unsuperseded. A very
summary general view is given in Salomon Reinach, _The Story of Art
through the Ages_ (trans. by Florence Simmonds, 1904); a general
history of the same group was undertaken by Giulio Carotti (English
translation by Alice Todd, 1909). (S. C.)
FINGER, one of the five members with which the hand is terminated, a
digit; sometimes the word is restricted to the four digits other than
the thumb. The word is common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dutch _vinger_
and Ger. _Finger_; probably the ultimate origin is to be found in the
root of the words appearing in Greek [Greek: pente], Lat. quinque,
_five_. (See SKELETON: _Appendicular_.)
FINGER-AND-TOE, CLUB ROOT or ANBURY, a destructive plant-disease known
botanically as _Plasmodiophora Brassicae_, which attacks cabbages,
turnips, radishes and other cultivated and wild members of the order
Cruciferae. It is one of the so-called Slime-fungi or Myxogastres. The
presence of the disease is indicated by nodules or warty outgrowths on
the root, which sometimes becomes much swollen and ultimately rots,
emitting an unpleasant smell. The disease is contracted from spores
present in the soil, which enter the root. The parasite develops within
the living cells of the plant, forming a glairy mass of protoplasm known
as the plasmodium, the form of which alters from time to time. The cells
which have been attacked increase enormously in size and the disease
spreads from cell to cell. Ultimately the _plasmodium_ becomes resolved
into numerous minute round spores which, on the decay of the root, are
set free in the soil. A preventive is quicklime, the application of
which destroys the spores in the soil. It is important that diseased
plants should be burned, also that cruciferous weeds, such as shepherd's
purse, charlock, &c., should not be allowed to grow in places where
plants of the same order are in cultivation.
[Illustration: Finger-and-Toe (_Plasmodiophora Brassicae_).
1, Turnip attacked by the disease, reduced.
2, A cell of the tissue containing the plasmodium; the smaller cells
at the sides are unaffected.
3, Infected cell, showing spore formation. 2, 3, highly magnified.]
FINGER-PRINTS. The use of finger-prints as a system of identification
(q.v.) is of very ancient origin, and was known from the earliest days
in the East when the impression of his thumb was the monarch's
sign-manual. A relic of this practice is still preserved in the formal
confirmation of a legal document by "delivering" it as one's "act and
deed." The permanent character of the finger-print was first put forward
scientifically in 1823 by J.E. Purkinje, an eminent professor of
physiology, who read a paper before the university of Breslau, adducing
nine standard types of impressions and advocating a system of
classification which attracted no great attention. Bewick, the English
draughtsman, struck with the delicate qualities of the lineation, made
engravings of the impression of two of his finger-tips and used them as
signatures for his work. Sir Francis Galton, who laboured to introduce
finger-prints, points out that they were proposed for the identification
of Chinese immigrants when registering their arrival in the United
States. In India, Sir William Herschel desired to use finger-prints in
the courts of the Hugli district to prevent false personation and fix
the identity upon the executants of documents. The Bengal police under
the wise administration of Sir E.R. Henry, afterwards chief commissioner
of the London metropolitan police, usefully adopted finger-prints for
the detection of crime, an example followed in many public departments
in India. A transfer of property is attested by the thumb-mark, so are
documents when registered, and advances made to opium-growers or to
labourers on account of wages, or to contracts signed under the
emigration law, or medical certificates to vouch for the persons
examined, all tending to check the frauds and impostures constantly
attempted.
The prints depend upon a peculiarity seen in the human hand and to some
extent in the human foot. The skin is traversed in all directions by
creases and ridges, which are ineradicable and show no change from
childhood to extreme old age. The persistence of the markings of the
finger-tips has been proved beyond all question, and this universally
accepted quality has been the basis of the present system of
identification. The impressions, when examined, show that the ridges
appear in certain fixed patterns, from which an alphabet of signs or a
system of notation has been arrived at for convenience of record. As
the result of much experiment a fourfold scheme of classification has
been evolved, and the various types employed are styled "arches,"
"loops," "whorls" and "composites." There are seven subclasses, and all
are perfectly distinguishable by an expert, who can describe each by its
particular symbol in the code arranged, so that the whole "print" can be
read as a distinct and separate expression. Very few, and the simplest,
appliances are required for taking the print--a sheet of white paper, a
tin slab, and some printer's ink. Scars or malformations do not
interfere with the result.
The unchanging character of the finger-prints has repeatedly helped in
the detection of crime. We may quote the case of the thief who broke
into a residence and among other things helped himself to a glass of
wine, leaving two finger-prints upon the tumbler which were subsequently
found to be identical with those of a notorious criminal who was
arrested, pleaded guilty and was convicted. Another burglar effected
entrance by removing a pane of glass from a basement window, but,
unhappily for him, left his imprints, which were referred to the
registry and found to agree exactly with those of a convict at large;
his address was known, and when visited some of the stolen property was
found in his possession. In India a murderer was identified by the brown
mark of a blood-stained thumb he had left when rummaging amongst the
papers of the deceased. This man was convicted of theft but not of the
murder.
The keystone to the whole system is the central office where the
register or index of all criminals is kept for ready reference. The
operators need no special gifts or lengthy training; method and accuracy
suffice, and abundant checks exist to obviate incorrect classification
and reduce the liability to error.
AUTHORITIES.--F. Galton, _Finger Prints_ (1892), _Fingerprint
Directories_ (1895); E.R. Henry, _Classification and Uses of Finger
Prints_; A. Yvert, _L'Identification par les empreintes digitales
palmaires_ (1905); K. Windt, R.S. Kodicek, _Daktyloskopie. Verwertung
von Fingerabdrücken zu Identifizierungszwecken_ (Vienna, 1904); E.
Loeard, _La Dactyloscopie. Identification des récidivistes par les
empreintes digitales_ (1904); H. Faulds, _Guide to Finger-Print
Identification_ (1905); H. Gross, _Criminal Investigation_ (trans. J.
and J.C. Adam, 1907). (A. G.)
FINGO, or FENGU (_Ama-Fengu_, "wanderers"), a Bantu-Negro people, allied
to the Zulu family, who have given their name to the district of
Fingoland, the S.W. portion of the Transkei division of the Cape
province. The Fingo tribes were formed from the nations broken up by
Chaka and his Zulu; after some years of oppression by the Xosa they
appealed to the Cape government in 1835, and were permitted by Sir
Benjamin D'Urban to settle on the banks of the Great Fish river. They
have been always loyal to the British, and have steadily advanced in
social respects. They have largely adapted themselves to western
culture, wearing European clothes, supporting their schools by voluntary
contributions, editing newspapers, translating English poetry, and
setting their national songs to correct music. The majority call
themselves Christians and many of them have intermarried with Europeans.
(See KAFFIRS.)
FINIAL (a variant of "final"; Lat. _finis_, end), an architectural term
for the termination of a pinnacle, gable end, buttress, or canopy,
consisting of a bunch of foliage, which bears a close affinity to the
crockets (q.v.) running up the gables, turrets or spires, and in some
cases may be formed by uniting four or more crockets together. Sometimes
the term is incorrectly applied to a small pinnacle of which it is only
the termination (see EPI).
FINIGUERRA, MASO [i.e. TOMMASO] (1426-1464), Florentine goldsmith,
draughtsman, and engraver, whose name is distinguished in the history of
art and craftsmanship for reasons which are partly mythical. Vasari
represents him as having been the first inventor of the art of engraving
(using that word in its popular sense of taking impressions on paper
from designs engraved on metal plates), and Vasari's account was
universally accepted and repeated until recent research proved it
erroneous. What we actually know from contemporary documents of
Finiguerra, his origin, his life, and his work, is as follows. He was
the son of Antonio, and grandson of Tommaso Finiguerra or Finiguerri,
both goldsmiths of Florence, and was born in Sta Lucia d'Ognissanti in
1426. He was brought up to the hereditary profession of goldsmith and
was early distinguished for his work in niello. In his twenty-third year
(1449) we find note of a sulphur cast from a niello of his workmanship
being handed over by the painter Alessio Baldovinetti to a customer in
payment or exchange for a dagger received. In 1452 Maso delivered and
was paid for a niellated silver pax commissioned for the baptistery of
St John by the consuls of the gild of merchants or Calimara. By this
time he seems to have left his father's workshop: and we know that he
was in partnership with Piero di Bartolommeo di Sali and the great
Antonio Pollaiuolo in 1457, when the firm had an order for a pair of
fine silver candlesticks for the church of San Jacopo at Pistoia. In
1459 we find Finiguerra noted in the house-book of Giovanni Rucellai as
one of several distinguished artists with whose works the Casa Rucellai
was adorned. In 1462 he is recorded as having supplied another wealthy
Florentine, Cino di Filippo Rinuccini, with waist-buckles, and in the
years next following with forks and spoons for christening presents. In
1463 he drew cartoons, the heads of which were coloured by Alessio
Baldovinetti, for five or more figures for the sacristy of the duomo,
which was being decorated in wood inlay by a group of artists with
Giuliano da Maiano at their head. On the 14th of December 1464 Maso
Finiguerra made his will, and died shortly afterwards.
These documentary facts are supplemented by several writers of the next
generation with statements more or less authoritative. Thus Baccio
Bandinelli says that Maso was among the young artists who worked under
Ghiberti on the famous gates of the baptistery; Benvenuto Cellini that
he was the finest master of his day in the art of niello engraving, and
that his masterpiece was a pax of the Crucifixion in the baptistery of
St John; that being no great draughtsman, he in most cases, including
that of the above-mentioned pax, worked from drawings by Antonio
Pollaiuolo. Vasari, on the other hand, allowing that Maso was a much
inferior draughtsman to Pollaiuolo, mentions nevertheless a number of
original drawings by him as existing in his own collection, "with
figures both draped and nude, and histories drawn in water-colour."
Vasari's account was confirmed and amplified in the next century by
Baldinucci, who says that he has seen many drawings by Finiguerra much
in the manner of Masaccio; adding that Maso was beaten by Pollaiuolo in
competition for the reliefs of the great silver altar-table commission
by the merchants' gild for the baptistery of St John (this famous work
is now preserved in the Opera del Duomo). But the paragraph of Vasari
which has chiefly held the attention of posterity is that in which he
gives this craftsman the credit of having been the first to print off
impressions from niello plates on sulphur casts and afterwards on sheets
of paper, and of having followed up this invention by engraving
copper-plates for the express purpose of printing impressions from them,
and thus became the inventor and father of the art of engraving in
general. Finiguerra, adds Vasari, was succeeded in the practice of
engraving at Florence by a goldsmith called Baccio Baldini, who, not
having much invention of his own, borrowed his designs from other
artists and especially from Botticelli. In the last years of the 18th
century Vasari's account of Finiguerra's invention was held to have
received a decisive and startling confirmation under the following
circumstances. There was in the baptistery at Florence (now in the
Bargello) a beautiful 15th-century niello pax of the Coronation of the
Virgin. The Abate Gori, a savant and connoisseur of the mid-century, had
claimed this conjecturally for the work of Finiguerra; a later and still
more enthusiastic virtuoso, the Abate Zani, discovered first, in the
collection of Count Seratti at Leghorn, a sulphur cast from the very
same niello (this cast is now in the British Museum), and then, in the
National library at Paris, a paper impression corresponding to both.
Here, then, he proclaimed, was the actual material first-fruit of
Finiguerra's invention and proof positive of Vasari's accuracy.
Zani's famous discovery, though still accepted in popular art histories
and museum guides, is now discredited among serious students. For one
thing, it has been proved that the art of printing from engraved
copper-plates had been known in Germany, and probably in Italy also, for
years before the date of Finiguerra's alleged invention. For another,
Maso's pax for the baptistery, if Cellini is to be trusted, represented
not a Coronation of the Virgin but a Crucifixion. In the next place, its
recorded weight does not at all agree with that of the pax claimed by
Gori and Zani to be his. Again, and perhaps this is the strongest
argument of any, all authentic records agree in representing Finiguerra
as a close associate in art and business of Antonio Pollaiuolo. Now
nothing is more marked than the special style of Pollaiuolo and his
group; and nothing is more unlike it than the style of the Coronation
pax, the designer of which must obviously have been trained in quite a
different school, namely that of Filippo Lippi. So this seductive
identification has to be abandoned, and we have to look elsewhere for
traces of the real work of Finiguerra. The only fully authenticated
specimens which exist are the above-mentioned tarsia figures, over half
life-size, executed from his cartoons for the sacristy of the duomo. But
his hand has lately been conjecturally recognized in a number of other
things: first in a set of drawings of the school of Pollaiuolo at the
Uffizi, some of which are actually inscribed "Maso Finiguerra" in a
17th-century writing, probably that of Baldinucci himself; and secondly
in a very curious and important book of nearly a hundred drawings by the
same hand, acquired in 1888 for the British Museum. The Florence series
depicts for the most part figures of the studio and the street, to all
appearance members of the artist's own family and workshop, drawn direct
from life. The museum volume, on the other hand, is a picture-chronicle,
drawn from imagination, and representing parallel figures of sacred and
profane history, in a chronological series from the Creation to Julius
Caesar, dressed and accoutred with inordinate richness according to the
quaint pictures which Tuscan popular fancy in the mid-15th century
conjured up to itself of the ancient world. Except for the differences
naturally resulting from the difference of subject, and that the one
series are done from life and the other from imagination, the technical
style and handling of the two are identical and betray unmistakably a
common origin. Both can be dated with certainty, from their style,
costumes, &c., within a few years of 1460. Both agree strictly with the
accounts of Finiguerra's drawings left us by Vasari and Baldinucci, and
disagree in no respect with the character of the inlaid figures of the
sacristy. That the draughtsman was a goldsmith is proved on every page of
the picture-chronicle by his skill and extravagant delight in the
ornamental parts of design--chased and jewelled cups, helmets, shields,
breastplates, scabbards and the like,--as well as by the symmetrical
metallic forms into which he instinctively conventionalizes plants and
flowers. That he was probably also an engraver in niello appears from the
fact that figures from the Uffizi series of drawings are repeated among
the rare anonymous Florentine niello prints of the time (the chief
collection of which, formerly belonging to the marquis of Salamanca, is
now in the cabinet of M. Edmond de Rothschild in Paris). That he was
furthermore an engraver on copper seems certain from the fact that the
general style and many particular figures and features of the British
Museum chronicle drawings are exactly repeated in some of those primitive
15th-century Florentine prints which used to be catalogued loosely under
the names of Baldini or Botticelli, but have of late years been classed
more cautiously as anonymous prints in the "fine manner" (in
contradistinction to another contemporary group of prints in the "broad
manner"). The fine-manner group of primitive Florentine engravings itself
falls into two divisions, one more archaic, more vigorous and original
than the other, and consisting for the most part of larger and more
important prints. It is this division which the drawings of the Chronicle
series most closely resemble; so closely as almost to compel the
conclusion that drawings and engravings are by the same hand. The later
division of fine-manner prints represent a certain degree of technical
advance from the earlier, and are softer in style, with elements of more
classic grace and playfulness; their motives moreover are seldom
original, but are borrowed from various sources, some from German
engravings, some from Botticelli or a designer closely akin to him, some
from the pages of the British Museum Chronicle-book itself, with a
certain softening and attenuating of their rugged spirit; as though the
book, after the death of the original draughtsman-engraver, had remained
in his workshop and continued to be used by his successors. We thus find
ourselves in presence of a draughtsman of the school of Pollaiuolo, some
of whose drawings bear an ancient attribution to Finiguerra, while all
agree with what is otherwise known of him, and one or two are exactly
repeated in extant works of niello, the craft which was peculiarly his
own; others being intimately related to the earliest or all but the
earliest works of Florentine engraving, the kindred craft which tradition
avers him to have practised, and which Vasari erroneously believed him to
have invented. Surely, it has been confidently argued, this draughtsman
must be no other than the true Finiguerra himself. The argument has not
yet been universally accepted, but neither has any competent criticism
appeared to shake it; so that it may be regarded for the present as
holding the field.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See Bandinelli in Bottari, _Raccolta di lettere_
(1754), i. p. 75; Vasari (ed. Milanesi), i. p. 209, iii. p. 206;
Benvenuto Cellini, _I Trattati dell' orificeria_, &c. (ed. Lemonnier),
pp. 7, 12, 13, 14; Baldinucci, _Notizie dei professori di disegno_
(1845), i. pp. 518, 519, 533; Zani, _Materiali per servire_, &c.
(1802); Duchesne, _Essai sur les nielles_ (1824); Dutuit, _Manuel de
l'amateur d'estampes_, vol. i. pref. and vol. ii.; and for a full
discussion of the whole question, with quotations from earlier
authorities and reproductions of the works discussed, Sidney Colvin,
_A Florentine Picture Chronicle_ (1898). (S. C.)
FINISHING. The term _finishing_, as specially applied in the textile
industries, embraces the process or processes to which bleached, dyed or
printed fabrics of any description are subjected, with the object of
imparting a characteristic appearance to the surface of the fabric, or
of influencing its handle or feel. Strictly speaking, certain operations
might be classed under this heading which are conducted previous to
bleaching, dyeing, &c; e.g. mercerizing (q.v.), stretching and crabbing,
singeing (see BLEACHING); but as these are not undertaken by the
finisher, only those will be dealt with here which are not mentioned
under other headings. By the various treatments to which the fabric is
subjected in finishing, it is often so altered in appearance that it is
impossible to recognize in it the same material that came from the loom
or from the bleacher or dyer. On the other hand, one and the same
fabric, subjected to different processes of finishing, may be made to
represent totally different classes of material. In other cases,
however, the appearance of the finished article differs but slightly
from that of the piece on leaving the loom.
All processes of finishing are purely mechanical in character, and the
most important of them depend upon the fact that in their ordinary
condition (i.e. containing their normal amount of moisture), or better
still in a damp state, the textile fibres are plastic, and consequently
yield to pressure or tension, ultimately assuming the shape imparted to
them. The old-fashioned box press, formerly largely used for household
linen, owed its efficacy to this principle. At elevated temperatures the
damp fibres become very much more plastic than at the ordinary
temperature, the simplest form of finishing appliance based on this fact
being the ordinary flat iron. Indeed it may safely be stated that most
of the modern finishing processes have been evolved from the household
operations of washing (milling), brushing, starching, mangling, ironing
and pressing.
_Cotton Pieces._--In the ordinary process of bleaching, cotton goods are
subjected during the various operations to more or less continual
longitudinal tension, and while becoming elongated, shrink more or less
considerably in width. In order to bring them back to their original
width, they are stretched or "stentered" by means of specially
constructed machines. The most effective of these is the so-called
stentering frame, which consists essentially of two slightly diverging
endless chains carrying clips or pins which hold the piece in position
as it traverses the machine. The length of a frame may vary from 20 to
30 yds. On the upper part of the frame the chains run in slots, and by
means of set screws the distance between the two chains can be set
within the required limits. The pieces are fed on to one end of the
machine in the damp state by hand and are then naturally slack. But
before they have travelled many yards they become taut, the stretching
increasing as they travel along. Simultaneously with the stretching, the
pieces are dried by a current of hot air which is blown through from
below, so that on arriving at the end of the machine they are not only
stretched to the required degree but are also dry. The machine used for
stentering is more fully described under MERCERIZING (q.v.). In case the
goods come straight from the loom to be finished, stentering is not
necessary.
Pieces intended to receive a "pure" finish pass on without further
treatment to the ordinary finishing processes such as calendering, hot
pressing, raising, &c. But in the majority of cases they are previously
impregnated, according to the finish desired, with stiffening or
softening agents, weighting materials, &c. Usually, starch constitutes
the main stiffening agent, with additions of china clay, barium
compounds, &c., for weighting purposes, and Turkey red oil, with or
without the addition of some vegetable oil or fat, as the softening
agent. Magnesium sulphate is also largely used in order to give "body"
to the cloth, which it does by virtue of its property of crystallizing
in fine felted needle-shaped crystals throughout the mass of the fabric.
When starch is used in filling, it is advisable to add some anti-septic,
such as zinc chloride, sodium silicofluoride, phenol or salicylic acid,
in order to prevent or retard subsequent development of mildew. The
impregnation of the pieces with the filling is effected in two ways,
viz. either throughout the thickness of the cloth or on one surface only
(back starching). When the whole piece is to be impregnated the
operation is conducted in a starching mangle, which is similar in
construction to an ordinary household mangle, though naturally larger
and more elaborate in construction. The pieces run at full width through
a trough situated immediately below the bowls and containing the filling
(starch paste, &c.), then between the bowls, the pressure ("nip") of
which regulates the amount of filling taken up, and thence over a range
of steam-heated drying cylinders (see BLEACHING). In case one side only
of the goods is to be stiffened--and this is usually necessary in the
case of printed goods,--a so-called back-starching mangle is employed.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Principle of Back-Starching Machine.]
The construction of the machine varies, but the simplest form consists
essentially of a wooden bowl a (Fig. 1) which runs in the starch paste
contained in trough t. The pieces pass from the batch-roller B,
through scrimp rails S and over the bowl under tension, touching the
surface from which they gather the starch paste. By means of the fixed
"doctor" blade d, which extends across the piece, the paste is
levelled on the surface of the fabric and excess scraped off, falling
back into the trough. The goods are then dried with the face side to
the cylinders.
Some goods come into the market with no further treatment after
starching other than running through a mangle with a little softening
and then drying, but in the great majority of cases they are subjected
to further operations.
_Damping._--When deprived of their natural moisture by drying on the
cylinder drying machine, cotton goods are not in a fit condition to
undergo the subsequent operations of calendering, beetling, &c., since
the fibres in the dry state have lost their plasticity. The pieces are
consequently damped to the desired degree, and this is usually effected
in a damping machine in passing through which they meet with a fine
spray of water.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Principle of Damping Machine.]
A simple and effective device for this purpose is shown in section in
Fig. 2. It consists essentially of a brass roller r running in water
contained in a trough or box t. Touching the brass roller is a brush
roller b which revolves at a high speed, thus spraying the water,
which it takes up continuously from the wet revolving brass roller in
all directions, and consequently also against the piece which passes
in a stretched condition over the top of the box, being drawn from the
batch roller B, over scrimp rails S, and batched again on the other
side on roller R. The level of the water in the trough is kept
constant.
_Calendering._--The calender may be regarded as an elaboration of the
ordinary mangle, from which, however, it differs essentially inasmuch as
one or more of the rollers or bowls are made of steel or iron and can be
treated either by gas or steam; the other bowls are made of compressed
cotton or paper. Three distinct forms of calender are in use, viz. the
ordinary calender, the friction calender and the embossing calender.
The number of bowls in an ordinary calender varies between two and six
according to the character of the finish for which it is intended. In a
modern five-bowl calender the bottom bowl is made of cast iron, the
second of compressed cotton or paper, the third of iron being hollow and
fitted with steam heating apparatus. The fourth bowl is made of
compressed cotton, and the fifth of cast iron. The pieces are simply
passed through for "swissing," i.e. for the production of an ordinary
plain finish. The same calender may also be used for "chasing," in which
two pieces are passed through, face to face, in order to produce an
imitation linen finish. Moiré or "watered" effects are produced in a
similar way, but these effects are frequently imitated in the embossing
calender.
The friction calender, the object of which is to produce a high gloss on
the fabric, differs from the ordinary calender inasmuch as one of the
bowls is caused to revolve at a greater speed than the others. In an
ordinary three-bowl friction calender the bottom bowl is made of cast
iron, the middle one of compressed cotton or paper, and the top one (the
friction bowl) of highly polished chilled iron. The last-named bowl,
which has a greater peripheral speed than the others, is hollow and can
be heated either by steam or gas.
The embossing calender is usually constructed of two bowls, one of which
is of steel and the other of compressed cotton or paper. The steel
roller, which is hollow and can be heated either by steam or gas, is
engraved with the pattern which it is desired to impart to the piece. If
the pattern is deep, as is the case in the production of book cloths, it
is necessary to run the machine empty under pressure until the pattern
of the steel bowl has impressed itself into the cotton or paper bowls,
but if the effect desired only consists of very fine lines, this is not
necessary; for instance, in the production of the Schreiner finish,
which is intended to give the pieces (especially after mercerizing) the
appearance of silk, the steel roller is engraved with fine diagonal
lines which are so close together (about 250 to the in.) as to be
undistinguishable by the naked eye.
_Beetling_ is a process by which a peculiar linen-like appearance and a
leathery feel or handle are imparted to cotton fabrics, the process
being also employed for improving the appearance of linen goods. For the
best class of beetle finish, the pieces are first impregnated with sago
starch and the other necessary ingredients (softening, &c.) and are
dried on cylinders. They are then damped on a water mangle, and beamed
on to the heavy iron bowl of the beetling machine.
A beetling machine of the kind, with four sets of "fallers," is shown
in Fig. 3. The fallers are made of beech wood, are about 8 ft. long,
5½ in. deep and 4 in. wide, and are kept in their vertical position by
two pairs of guide rails. Each faller is provided with a tappet or
wooden peg driven in at one side, which engages with the teeth or
"wipers" of the revolving shaft in the front of the machine. The
effect of this mechanism is to lift the faller a distance of about 13
in. and then let it drop on to the cloth wound on the beam. This
lifting and dropping of the fallers on to the beam takes place in
rhythmical and rapid succession. To ensure even treatment the beam
turns slowly round and also has a to-and-fro movement imparted to it.
The treatment may last, according to the finish which it is desired to
obtain, from one to sixty hours.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Beetling Machine (Edmeston & Sons).]
Beetling was originally used for linen goods, but to-day is almost
entirely applied to cotton for the production of so-called _linenettes_.
_Hot-pressing_ is used to a limited extent in order to obtain a soft
finish on cotton goods, but as this operation is more used for wool, it
will be described below.
_Raising._--This operation, which was formerly only used for woollen
goods (teasing), has come largely into use for cotton pieces, partly in
consequence of the introduction of the direct cotton colours by which
the cotton is dyed evenly throughout (see DYEING), and partly in
consequence of new and improved machinery having been devised for the
purpose. Starting with a plain bleached, dyed or printed fabric, the
process consists in principle in raising or drawing out the ends of
individual fibres from the body of the cloth, so as to produce a nap or
soft woolly surface on the face.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Raising.]
This is effected by passing the fabric slowly round a large drum D,
which is surrounded, as shown in the diagram, (Fig. 4), by a number of
small cylinders or rollers, r, covered with steel wire brushes or
"carding," such as is used in carding engines (see COTTON-SPINNING
MACHINERY).
The rollers r, which are all driven by one and the same belt (not
shown in the figure), revolve at a high rate of speed, and can be made
to do so either in the same direction as that followed by the piece as
it travels through the machine or in the opposite one. In addition to
their revolving round their own axes, the raising rollers may be
either kept stationary or may be moved round the drum D in either
direction.
In the more modern machines there are two sets of raising rollers, of
which each alternate one is caused to revolve in the direction
followed by the piece, while the other is made to revolve in the
opposite direction. By passing through an arrangement of this kind
several times, or through several such machines in succession, the
ends of the fibres are gradually drawn out to the desired extent.
After raising, the pieces are sheared (for better class work) in order
to produce greater regularity in the length of the nap. The raised style
of finishing is used chiefly for the production of uniformly white or
coloured flannelettes but is also used for such as are dyed in the yarn,
and to a limited extent for printed fabrics.
_Woollen and Worsted Pieces._--Although both of these classes of
material are made from wool, their treatment in finishing differs so
materially that it is necessary to deal with them separately. _Unions_
or fabrics consisting of a cotton warp with a worsted weft are in
general treated like worsteds.
In the finishing of woollen pieces the most important operation is that
of _milling_, which consists in subjecting the pieces to mechanical
friction, usually in an alkaline medium (soap or soap and soda) but
sometimes in an acid (sulphuric acid) medium, in order to bring about
felting and consequent "fulling" of the fabric. This felting of the wool
is due to the peculiar structure of the fibre, the scales of which all
protrude in one direction, so that the individual fibres can slip past
each other in one direction more readily than in the opposite one and
thus become more and more interlocked as the milling proceeds. If the
pieces contain _burrs_ these are usually removed by a process known as
"carbonizing," which generally, but not necessarily, precedes the
milling. Their removal depends upon the fact that the burrs, which
consist in the main of cellulose, are disintegrated at elevated
temperatures by dilute mineral acids. The pieces are run through
sulphuric acid of from 4° to 6° Tw., squeezed or hydro-extracted, and
dried over cylinders and then in stoves. The acid is thus concentrated
and attacks the burrs, which fall to dust, while leaving the wool
intact. For the removal of the acid the fabric is first washed in water
and then in weak soda. Carbonizing is also sometimes used for worsteds.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Milling Stocks.]
Milling was formerly all done in milling or fulling stocks (see Fig. 5),
in which the cloth saturated with a strong solution of soap (with or
without other additions such as stale urine, potash, fuller's earth,
&c.) is subjected to the action of heavy wooden hammers, which are
raised by the cams attached to the wheel (E) on the revolving shaft, and
fall with their own weight on to the bundles of cloth. The shape of the
hammer-head causes the cloth to turn slowly in the cavity in which the
milling takes place. Occasionally, the cloth is taken out, straightened,
washed if necessary, and then returned to the stocks to undergo further
treatment, the process being continued until the material is uniformly
shrunk or milled to the desired degree.
In the more modern forms of milling machines the principle adopted is to
draw the pieces in rope form, saturated with soap solution and sewn
together end to end so as to form an endless band, between two or more
rollers, on leaving which they are forced down a closed trough ending in
an aperture the size of which can be varied, but which in any case is
sufficiently small to cause a certain amount of force to be necessary to
push the pieces through. A machine of this kind is shown in Fig. 6. It
is evident that for coloured goods which have to be milled only such
colouring matters must be chosen for dyeing that are absolutely fast to
soap.
[Illustration: From Ganswindt, _Technologie der Appretur_.
FIG. 6.--Roller Milling Machine.]
After the pieces have been milled down to the desired degree, they
present an uneven and, undesirable appearance on the surface, the ends
of many of the fibres which previously projected having been turned and
thus become embedded in the body of the cloth. In order to bring these
hairs to the surface again, the fabric is subjected to _teasing_ or
_raising_, an operation identical in principle with one which has
already been noticed under the finishing of cotton. In place of the
steel wire brushes it is the usual practice to employ teasels for the
treatment of woollen goods.
The teasel (see Fig. 7) is the dried head (fruit) of a kind of thistle
(_Dipsacus fullorum_), the horny sharp spikes of which turn downwards
at their extremity, and, while possessing the necessary sharpness and
strength for raising the fibres, are not sufficiently rigid to cause
any material damage to the cloth. For raising, the teasels are fixed
in rows on a large revolving drum, and the piece to be treated is
drawn lengthways underneath the drum, being guided by rollers or rods
so as to just touch the teasels as they sweep past. In the raising of
woollen goods it is necessary that the pieces should be damp or moist
while undergoing this treatment.
After teasing, the pieces are stretched and dried. At this stage they
still have an irregular appearance, for although the raising has brought
all the loose ends of the fibres to the surface, these vary considerably
in length and thus give rise to an uneven nap.
[Illustration: From Ganswindt, _Technologie der Appretur_.
FIG. 7.--Teasel used for Raising.]
By the next operation of _shearing_ or _cropping_, the long hairs are
cut off arid a uniform surface is thus obtained. Shearing was in former
times done by hand, by means of shears, but is to-day universally
effected by means of a cutting device which works on the same principle
as an ordinary lawn-mower, in which a number of spiral blades set on the
surface of a rapidly revolving roller pass continuously over a straight
fixed blade underneath, the roller being set so that the spiral blades
just touch the fixed blade. Before the piece comes to the shearing
device the nap is raised by means of a rotary brush. Shearing may be
effected either transversely, in which case the fixed blade is parallel
to the warp, or longitudinally with the fixed blade parallel to the
weft. In the first case, the piece being stretched on a table, over
which the cutter, carried on rails, travels from selvedge to selvedge.
The length of the piece that can be shorn in one operation will
naturally depend upon the length of the blade, but in any case the
process is necessarily intermittent, many operations being required
before the whole piece is shorn. In the longitudinal shearing machines
the process is continuous, the pieces passing from the beam in the
stretched condition over the rotary brush, under the fixed blade, and
then being again brushed before being beamed on the other side of the
machine. Shearing once is generally insufficient, and for this reason
many of the modern machines are constructed with duplicate arrangements
so as to effect the shearing twice in the same operation. In the
finishing of certain woollen goods the pieces, after having been milled,
raised and sheared, go through these operations again in the same
sequence.
After these operations the goods are pressed either in the hydraulic
press or in the continuous press, and according to the character of the
material and the finish desired may or may not be steamed under
pressure, all of which operations are described below.
New cloth, as it comes into the hands of the tailor, frequently shows an
undesirable gloss or sheen, which is removed before making up by a
process known as shrinking, in which the material is simply damped or
steamed.
_Worsteds and Unions._--The pieces are first singed by gas or hot plate
(see BLEACHING), and are then usually subjected to a process known as
"crabbing," the object of which is to "set" the wool fibres. If this
operation is omitted, especially in the case of unions, the fabric will
"cockle," or assume an uneven surface on being wetted. In crabbing the
pieces are drawn at full breadth and under as much tension as they will
stand through boiling water, and are wound or beamed on to a roller
under the pressure of a superposed heavy iron roller, the operation
being conducted two or three times as required. From the crabbing
machine the pieces are wound on to a perforated shell or steel cylinder
which is closed at one end. The open end is then attached to a steam
pipe, and steam, at a pressure of 30 to 45 lb., is allowed to enter
until it makes its way through all the layers of cloth to the outside,
when the steam is turned off and the whole allowed to cool. Since those
layers of the cloth which are nearest the shell are acted upon for a
longer period than those at the outside, it is necessary to re-wind and
repeat the operation, the outside portions coming this time nearest to
the shell. The principle of the process depends upon the fact that at
elevated temperatures moist wool becomes plastic, and then easily
assumes the shape imparted to it by the great tension under which the
pieces are wound. On cooling the shape is retained, and since the
temperature at which the pieces were steamed under tension exceeds any
to which they are submitted in the subsequent processes, the "setting"
of the fibres is permanent. After crabbing, the pieces are washed or
"scoured" in soap either on the winch or at full width. In some cases
the crabbing precedes the scouring. The goods are then dyed and
finished.
The nature of the finishing process will vary considerably according to
the special character of the goods under treatment. Thus, for certain
classes of goods cold pressing is sufficient, while in other cases the
pieces are steamed under pressure in a manner analogous to the treatment
after crabbing ("decatizing"). The treatment in most common use for
worsteds and unions is hot pressing, which may be effected either in the
hydraulic press or in the continuous press, but in most cases in the
former.
In pressing in the hydraulic press the pieces are folded down by hand on
a table, a piece of press paper (thin hand-made cardboard with a glossed
and extremely hard surface) being inserted between each lap. After a
certain number of laps, a steel or iron press plate is inserted, and the
folding proceeds in this way until the pile is sufficiently high, when
it is placed in the press. The press being filled, the hydraulic ram is
set in motion until the reading on the gauge shows that the desired
amount of pressure has been obtained. The heating of the press plates
was formerly done in ovens, previous to their insertion in the piece,
but although this practice is still in vogue in rare instances, the
heating is now effected either by means of steam which is caused to
circulate through the hollow steel plates, or in the more modern forms
of presses by means of an electric current. After the pieces have thus
been subjected to the combined effects of heat and pressure for the
desired length of time, they are allowed to cool in the press. It is
evident that portions of the pieces, viz. the folds, thus escape the
finishing process, and for this reason it is necessary to repeat the
process, the folds now being made to lie in the middle of the press
papers.
[Illustration: From Ganswindt,' _Technologie der Appretur_.
FIG. 8.--Continuous Press.]
The continuous press, which is used for certain classes of worsteds,
but more especially for woollen goods, consists in principle of a
polished steam-heated steel cylinder against which either one or two
steam-heated chilled iron cheeks are set by means of levers and
adjusting screws. The pieces to be pressed are drawn slowly between
the cheeks and the bowl. A machine of the kind is shown in section in
Fig. 8. In working, the cheeks C, C_1 are pressed against the bowl B.
The course followed by the cloth to be finished is shown by the dotted
line, the finished material being mechanically folded down on the
left-hand side of the machine. The pieces thus acquire a certain
amount of finish which is, however, not comparable with that produced
in the hydraulic press.
_Pile Fabrics_, such as velvets, velveteens, corduroys, plushes,
sealskins, &c., require a special treatment in finishing, and great care
must be taken in all operations to prevent the pile being crushed or
otherwise damaged. Velveteens and corduroys are singed before boiling or
bleaching. Velveteens dyed in black or in dark shades are brushed with
an oil colour (e.g. Prussian blue for blacks), and dried over-night in a
hot stove in order to give them a characteristic bloom. Regularity in
the pile and gloss are obtained by shearing and brushing. Corduroys are
stiffened at the back by the application of "bone-size" (practically an
impure form of glue) in a machine similar to that used for
back-starching. The face of the fabric is waxed with beeswax by passing
the piece under a revolving drum, on the surface of which bars of this
material are fixed parallel to the axis. The bars just touch the surface
of the fabric as it passes through the machine. The gloss is then
obtained by brushing with circular brushes which run partly in the
direction of the piece and partly diagonally. In the finishing of
velvets, shearing and brushing are the most important operations. The
same applies to sealskins and other long pile fabrics, but with these an
additional operation, viz. that of "batting," is employed after dyeing
and before shearing and brushing, which consists in beating the back of
the stretched fabric with sticks in order to shake out the pile and
cause it to stand erect.
For the finishing of silk pieces the operations and machinery employed
are similar in character to some of those used for cotton and worsteds.
Most high-class silks require no further treatment other than simple
damping and pressing after they leave the loom. Inferior qualities are
frequently filled or back-filled with glue, sugar, gum tragacanth,
dextrin, &c., after which they are dried, damped and given a light
calender finish. Moiré or watered effects are produced by running two
pieces face to face through a calender or by means of an embossing
calender. In the latter case the pattern repeats itself. For the
production of silk crape the dyed (generally black) piece is impregnated
with a solution of shellac in methylated spirit and dried. It is then
"goffered," an operation which is practically identical with embossing
(see above), and may either be done on an embossing calender or by means
of heated brass plates in which the design is engraved to the desired
depth and pattern.
The measuring, wrapping, doubling, folding, &c., of piece goods previous
to making up are done in the works by specially constructed machinery.
_Finishing of Yarn._--The finishing of yarn is not nearly so important
as the finishing of textiles in the piece, and it will suffice to draw
attention to the main operations. Cotton yarns are frequently "gassed,"
i.e. drawn through a gas flame, in order to burn or singe off the
projecting fibres and thus to produce a clean thread which is required
for the manufacture of certain classes of fabrics. The most important
finishing process for cotton yarn is "mercerizing" (q.v.), by means of
which a permanent silk-like gloss is obtained. The "polishing" of cotton
yarn, by means of which a highly glazed product, similar in appearance
to horsehair, is obtained, is effected by impregnating the yarn with a
paste consisting essentially of starch, beeswax or paraffin wax and
soap, and then subjecting the damp material to the action of revolving
brushes until dry. Woollen yarn is not subjected to any treatment, but
worsted yarns (especially twofold) have to be "set" before scouring and
dyeing in order to prevent curling. This is effected by stretching the
yarn tight on a frame, which is immersed in boiling water and then
allowing it to cool in this condition.
A peculiar silk-like gloss and feel is sometimes imparted to yarns made
from lustre wool by a treatment with a weak solution of chlorine
(bleaching powder and hydrochloric acid) followed by a treatment with
soap.
Worsted and mohair yarns intended for the manufacture of braids are
singed by gas, a process technically known as "Genapping."
Silk yarn is subjected to various mechanical processes before weaving.
The most important of these are stretching, shaking, lustreing and
glossing. Stretching and shaking are simple operations the nature of
which is sufficiently indicated by their names, and by these means the
hanks are stretched to their original length and straightened out by
hand or on a specially devised machine. In _lustreing_, the yarn is
stretched slightly beyond its original length between two polished
revolving cylinders (one of which is steam heated) contained in a box or
chest into which steam is admitted. In _glossing_, the yarn is twisted
tight, first in one direction and then in the other, on a machine, this
alternating action being continued until the maximum gloss is obtained.
The so-called "scrooping" process, which gives to silk a peculiar feel
and causes it to crackle or crunch when compressed by the hand, is a
very simple operation, and consists in treating the yarn after dyeing in
a bath of dilute acid (acetic, tartaric or sulphuric) and then drying
without washing. Heavily weighted black silks are passed after dyeing
through an emulsion of olive oil in soap and dried without washing, in
order to give additional lustre to the material or rather to restore
some of the lustre which has been lost in weighting. (E. K.)
FINISTÈRE, or FINISTERRE, the most western department of France, formed
from part of the old province of Brittany. Pop. (1906) 795,103. Area,
2713 sq. m. It is bounded W. and S. by the Atlantic Ocean, E. by the
departments of Côtes-du-Nord and Morbihan, and N. by the English
Channel. Two converging chains of hills run from the west towards the
east of the department and divide it into three zones conveying the
waters in three different directions. North of the Arrée, or more
northern of the two chains, the waters of the Douron, Penzé and Flèche
flow northward to the sea. The Elorn, however, after a short northerly
course, turns westward and empties into the Brest roads. South of the
Montagnes Noires, the Odet, Aven, Isole and Ellé flow southward; while
the waters of the Aulne, flowing through a region enclosed by the two
chains with a westward declination, discharge into the Brest roads. The
rivers are all small, and none of the hills attain a height of 1300 ft.
The coast is generally steep and rocky and at some points dangerous,
notably off Cape Raz and the Île de Sein; it is indented with numerous
bays and inlets, the chief of which--the roadstead of Brest and the Bays
of Douarnenez and Audierne--are on the west. The principal harbours are
those of Brest, Concarneau, Morlaix, Landerneau, Quimper and Douarnenez.
Off the coast lie a number of islands and rocks, the principal of which
are Ushant (q.v.) N.W. of Cape St Mathieu, and Batz off Roscoff. The
climate is temperate and equable, but humid; the prevailing winds are
the W., S.W. and N.W. Though more than a third of the department is
covered by heath, waste land and forest, it produces oats, wheat,
buckwheat, rye and barley in quantities more than sufficient for its
population. In the extreme north the neighbourhood of Roscoff, and
farther south the borders of the Brest roadstead, are extremely fertile
and yield large quantities of asparagus, artichokes and onions, besides
melons and other fruits. The cider apple is abundant and furnishes the
chief drink of the inhabitants. Hemp and flax are also grown. The farm
and dairy produce is plentiful, and great attention is paid to the
breeding and feeding of cattle and horses. The production of honey and
wax is considerable. The fisheries of the coast, particularly the
pilchard fishery, employ a great many hands and render this department
an excellent nursery of seamen for the French navy. Coal, though found
in Finistère, is not mined; there are quarries of granite, slate,
potter's clay, &c. The lead mines of Poullaouen and Huelgoat, which for
several centuries yielded a considerable quantity of silver, are no
longer worked. The preparation of sardines is carried on on a large
scale at several of the coast-towns. The manufactures include linens,
woollens, sail-cloth, ropes, agricultural implements, paper, leather,
earthenware, soda, soap, candles, and fertilizers and chemicals derived
from seaweed. Brest has important foundries and engineering works; and
shipbuilding is carried on there and at other seaports. Brest and
Morlaix are the most important commercial ports. Trade is in fish,
vegetables and fruit. Coal is the chief import. The department is served
by the Orleans and Western railways. The canal from Nantes to Brest has
51 m. of its length in the department. The Aulne is navigable for 17 m.,
and many of the smaller rivers for short distances.
Finistère is divided into the arrondissements of Quimperlé, Brest,
Châteaulin, Morlaix and Quimper (43 cantons, 294 communes), the town of
Quimper being the capital of the department and the seat of a bishopric.
The department belongs to the region of the XI. army corps and to the
archiepiscopal province and académie (educational division) of Rennes,
where its court of appeal is also situated.
The more important places are Quimper, Brest, Morlaix, Quimperlé, St
Pol-de-Léon, Douarnenez, Concarneau, Roscoff, Penmarc'h and Pont-l'Abbé.
Finistère abounds in menhirs and other megalithic monuments, of which
those of Penmarc'h, Plouarzal and Crozon are noted. The two religious
structures characteristic of Brittany--calvaries and charnel-houses--are
frequently met with. The calvaries of Plougastel-Daoulas, Pleyben, St
Thégonnec, Lampaul-Guimiliau, which date from the 17th century, and that
of Guimiliau (16th century), and the charnel-houses of Sizun and St
Thégonnec (16th century) and of Guimiliau (17th century) may be
instanced as the most remarkable. Daoulas has the remains of a fine
church and cloister in the Romanesque style. The chapel of St Herbot
(16th century) near Loqueffret, the churches of St Jean-du-Doigt and
Locronan, which belong to the 15th and 16th centuries, those of Ploaré,
Roscoff, Penmarc'h and Pleyben of the 16th century, that of Le Folgoët
(14th and 16th centuries), and the huge château of Kerjean (16th
century) are of architectural interest. Religious festivals, and
processions known as "pardons," are held in many places, notably at
Locronan, St Jean-du-Doigt, St Herbot and Le Faou.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 3 - "Fenton, Edward" to "Finistere"" ***
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