Part 6

=Foppington= (_Lord_),an empty-headed coxcomb, intent only on dress and fashion. His favorite oaths, which he brings out with a drawl, are: “Strike me dumb!” “Split my windpipe!” and so on. When he loses his mistress, he consoles himself with this reflection: “Now, for my part, I think the wisest thing a man can do with an aching heart is to put on a serene countenance; for a philosphical air is the most becoming thing in the world to the face of a person of quality.”—Sir John Vanbrugh, _The Relapse_ (1697).

The shoemaker in _The Relapse_ tells Lord Foppington that his lordship is mistaken in supposing that his shoe pinches.—Macaulay.

_Foppington_ (_Lord_), a young married man about town, most intent upon dress and fashion, whose whole life is consumed in the follies of play and seduction. His favorite oaths are: “Sun, burn me!” “Curse, catch me!” “Stop my breath!” “Let me blood!” “Run me through!” “Strike me stupid!” “Knock me down!” He is reckoned the king of all court fops.—Colley Cibber, _The Careless Husband_ (1704).

_Foppington_ (_Lord_), elder brother of Tom Fashion. A selfish coxcomb, engaged to be married to Miss Hoyden, daughter of Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, to whom he is personally unknown. His brother Tom, to whom he did not behave well, resolved to outwit him; and passing himself off as Lord Foppington, got introduced to the family, and married the heiress. When his lordship appeared, he was treated as an impostor, till Tom explained his ruse; and Sir Tunbelly, being snubbed by the coxcomb, was soon brought to acquiesce in the change, and gave his hand to his new son-in-law with cordiality. The favorite oaths of Lord Foppington are: “Strike me dumb!” “Strike me ugly!” “Stap my vitals!” “Split my windpipe!” “Rat me!”, etc.; and, in speaking, his affectation is to change the vowel “o” into _a_, as _rat_, _naw_, _resalve_, _waurld_, _ardered_, _manth_, _paund_, _maunth_, _lang_, _philasapher_, _tarture_, and so on.—Sheridan, _A Trip to Scarborough_ (1777).

⁂ This comedy is _The Relapse_, slightly altered and curtailed.

=Forbes= (_Paul_), A travelled man who thinks himself blasé, but finds, to his surprise, new sensations in America. The leading excitement (and surprise) is his falling in love with a rich and beautiful girl and a poor and pretty one at the same time. Miriam, the rich beauty, divines the truth and her plan for freeing him is thus described by Edward Jasper, whom she married out of hand one evening.

“She was not happy—she resolved to throw herself into the abyss. _I_ am the abyss.”

Forbes replies: “Since at this hour yesterday I had the honor to consider myself engaged to Miss Reese, who is now your wife, the most graceful act on my part is apparently, to efface myself. Accordingly, I efface myself.”—Ellen Olney Kirk, _Sons and Daughters_ (1887).

=Ford=, a gentleman of fortune living at Windsor. He assumes the name of Brook, and being introduced to Sir John Falstaff, the knight informs him “of his whole course of wooing,” and how at one time he eluded Mrs. Ford’s jealous husband by being carried out before his eyes in a buck-basket of dirty linen.—Act iii. sc. 5.

_Mrs. Ford_, wife of Mr. Ford. Sir John Falstaff pays court to her, and she pretends to accept his protestations of love, in order to expose and punish him. Her husband assumes for the nonce the name of Brook, and Sir John tells him from time to time the progress of his suit, and how he succeeds in duping her fool of a husband.—Shakespeare, _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (1596).

=Forde´lis= (3 _syl._), wife of Bran´dimart (Orlando’s intimate friend). When Brandimart was slain, Fordelis dwelt for a time in his sepulchre in Sicily, and died broken-hearted. (See FOURDELIS.)—Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_ (1615).

=Fore´sight= (2 _syl._), a mad superstitious old man, who “consulted the stars, and believed in omens, portents, and predictions.” He referred “man’s goatish disposition to the charge of a star,” and says he himself was “born when the Crab was ascending, so that all his affairs in life have gone backwards.”

I know the signs, and the planets, and their houses; can judge of motions, direct and retrograde, of sextiles, quadrates, trines, and oppositions, fiery trigons and aquatic trigons. Know whether life shall be long or short, happy or unhappy; whether diseases are curable or incurable; if journeys shall be prosperous, undertakings successful, or stolen goods recovered.—H. Congreve, _Love for Love_, ii. (1695).

=Forester= (_Sir Philip_), a libertine knight. He goes in disguise to Lady Bothwell’s ball on his return from the Continent, but being recognized, decamps.

_Lady Jemima Forester_, wife of Sir Philip, who goes with her sister Lady Bothwell to consult “the enchanted mirror,” in which they discover the clandestine marriage and infidelity of Sir Philip.—Sir W. Scott, _Aunt Margaret’s Mirror_ (time, William III).

=Forgeries= (_Literary_).

BERTRAM (_C. Julius_), professor of English at Copenhagen, professed to have discovered, in 1747, the _De Situ Britanniæ_ of Richardus Corinensis, in the library of that city; and in 1757 he published it with two other treatises, calling the whole _The Three Writers on the Ancient History of the British Nations_ (better known as _Scriptores Tres_). His forgery was exposed by J.E. Mayor, in his preface to _Ricardi de Cirencestria Speculum Historiale_.

CHATTERTON (_Thomas_), in 1777, published certain poems, which he affirmed were written in the fifteenth century by Thomas Rowley, a monk. The poets Gray and Mason detected the forgery.

His other literary forgeries were: (1) _The Pedigree of Burgum_ (a Bristol pewterer), professed to have been discovered in the muniment-room of St. Mary’s Church, Redcliffe. He accordingly printed a history of the “De Bergham” family, with a poem called _The Romaunt of the Cnyghte_, by John de Bergham (fourteenth century). (2) A forged account of the opening of the old bridge, signed “Dunhelmus Bristoliensis,” and professing to have been copied from an old MS. (3) _An Account of Bristol_, by Turgotus, “translated out of Saxon into English, by T. Rowley.” This forgery was made for the use of Mr. Catcott, who was writing a history of Bristol.

IRELAND (_S. W. H._) published, in folio, 1796, _Miscellaneous Papers and Instruments, under the hand and seal of William Shakespeare, including the tragedy of King Lear and a small fragment of Hamlet, from the original_, price £4 4_s_. He actually produced MSS. which he had forged, and which he pretended were original.

On April 2, 1796, the play of _Vortigern and Rowena_, “from the pen of Shakespeare,” was announced for representation. It drew a most crowded house; but the fraud was detected, and Ireland made a public declaration of his impositions, from beginning to end.

MENTZ, who lived in the ninth century, published fifty-nine decretals, which he asserted were by Isidore of Seville, who lived three centuries previously. The object of these forged letters was to exalt the papacy and to corroborate certain dogmas.

At Bremen, in 1837, were printed nine books of SANCHONI´ATHON, and it was said that the MSS. had been discovered in the convent of St. Maria de Merinhâo by a Colonel Pereira in the Portuguese army; but it was ascertained that there was no such convent, nor any such colonel, and that the paper of this “ancient” MS. bore the water-mark of Osnabrück paper-mills.

=Forgive, Blest Shade= ... This celebrated epitaph in Brading Churchyard, Isle of Wight, is an altered version, by the Rev. John Gill (curate of Newchurch), of one originally composed by Mrs. Anne Steele, daughter of a Baptist minister at Bristol.

=Fornar´ina= (_La_), so called because she was the daughter of a baker (Fornajo), is the name under which Raphael’s mistress is known. Her name is said to have been Margherita. Raphael painted several portraits of this woman, the most famous being in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, and her face appears to have suggested many of his most beautiful faces in other works.

=Forrest= (_George_), Esq., M.A., the _nom de plume_ of the Rev. J. G. Wood, author of _Every Boy’s Book_ (1855), etc.

=Forsythe= (_Dick_), Man of the world who comes to spend a few weeks in a country town with his invalid mother, astonishes and fascinates the natives of Ashwist, and falls in love with Lois Howe, the rector’s daughter. She has the bad taste to prefer a plainer man.—Margaret Deland, _John Ward, Preacher_ (1888).

=Fortescue= (_Ellen_). Orphan niece adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, shy, gentle, timid, and affectionate. Upon her death-bed Ellen’s mother has charged the child to shield her brother from blame everywhere and always. Performance of her promise to do this bring upon the sister a weight of suspicion that humbles her to the dust and nearly breaks her heart. She is cleared by her brother’s confession of his own wrong doing.—Grace Aguilar, _Home Influence_ (1850).

=For´tinbras=, prince of Norway.—Shakespeare, _Hamlet_ (1596).

=Fortuna´tus=, a man on the brink of starvation, on whom Fortune offers to bestow either wisdom, strength, riches, health, beauty, or long life. He chooses riches, and she gives him an inexhaustible purse. Subsequently, the sultan gives him a wishing-cap, which as soon as he puts on his head, will transport him to any spot he likes. These gifts prove the ruin of Fortunatus and his sons.

⁂This is one of the Italian tales called _Nights_, by Straparo´la. There is a German version, and a French one, as far back as 1535. The story was dramatized in 1553 by Hans Sachs; and in 1600 by Thomas Dekker, under the title of _The Pleasant Comedie of old Fortunatus_. Ludwig Tieck also had a drama upon the same subject.

The purse of Fortunatus could not supply you.—Holcroft, _The Road to Ruin_, i. 3.

_Fortunatus’s Purse_, a purse which was inexhaustible. It was given to Fortunatus by Fortune herself.

_Fortunatus’s Wishing-cap_, a cap given by the sultan to Fortunatus. He had only to put it on his head and wish, when he would find himself transported to any spot he liked.

=Fortune= (_Emerson_). Sharp spinster aunt of Ellen Montgomery in Susan Warner’s _Wide, Wide World_. She rules her house, her mother and niece with a hand of iron until she marries her farmer, phlegmatic Van Brunt.

=Fortune’s Frolic=, a farce by Allingham. Lord Lackwit died suddenly, and the heir of his title and estates was Robin Roughhead, a poor laborer, engaged to Dolly, a cottager’s daughter. The object of the farce is to show the pleasure of doing good, and the blessings which a little liberality can dispense. Robin was not spoilt by his good fortune, but married Dolly, and became the good genius of the cottage tenantry.

=Fortunes of Nigel=, a novel by Sir. W. Scott (1822). This story gives an excellent picture of the times of James I., and the account of Alsatia is wholly unrivalled. The character of King James, poor, proud and pedantic, is a masterly historic sketch.

=Fortunio=, one of the three daughters of an old lord, who at the age of four-score was called out to join the army levied against the emperor of Matapa´. Fortunio put on military costume, and went in place of her father. On her way, a fairy gave her a horse named Comrade, not only of incredible swiftness, but all-knowing and endowed with human speech; she also gave her an inexhaustible Turkey-leather trunk, full of money, jewels and fine clothes. By the advice of Comrade she hired seven gifted servants, named Strongback, Lightfoot, Marksman, Fine-ear, Boisterer, Trinquet, and Grugeon. After performing several marvelous feats by the aid of her horse and servants, Fortunio married Alfurite (3 _syl._), the king of her country. Comtesse D’Aunoy, _Fairy Tales_ (1682).

⁂ This tale is reproduced in Grimm’s _Goblins_.

_Fortunio’s Horse_, Comrade, which not only possessed incredible speed, but knew all things, and was gifted with human speech.

_Fortunio’s Attendants_.

Trinquet drank up the lakes and ponds, and thus caught for his master [_sic_] most delicate fish. Lightfoot hunted down venison, and caught hares by the ears. As for Marksman, he gave neither partridge or pheasant any quarter, and whatever amount of game Marksman shot, Strongback would carry without inconvenience.—Comtesse D’Aunoy, _Fairy Tales_ (“Fortunio,” 1682).

_Fortunio’s Sisters_. Whatever gifts Fortunio sent her sisters their touch rendered them immediately worthless. Thus the coffers of jewels and gold “became only cut glass and false pistoles” the moment the jealous sisters touched them.

_Fortunio’s Turkey-leather Trunk_, full of suits of all sorts, swords, jewels, and gold. The fairy told Fortunio “she needed but to stamp with her foot, and call for the Turkey-leather trunk, and it would always come to her, full of money and jewels, fine linen and laces.”—Comtesse D’Aunoy, _Fairy Tales_, (1682).

=Forty Thieves=, also called the tale of “Ali Baba.” These thieves lived in a vast cave, the door of which opened and shut at the words, “Open, Sesamê!” “Shut, Sesamê!” One day, Ali Baba, a wood-monger, accidentally discovered the secret, and made himself rich by carrying off gold from the stolen hoards. The captain tried several schemes to discover the thief, but was always outwitted by Morgia´na, the wood-cutter’s female slave, who, with boiling oil, killed the whole band, and at length stabbed the captain himself with his own dagger.—_Arabian Nights_ (“Ali Baba or the Forty Thieves”).

=Forwards= (_Marshal_). Blucher is so called for his dash and readiness to attack in the campaign of 1813 (1742-1819).

Fosca´ri (_Francis_), doge of Venice for thirty-five years. He saw three of his sons die, and the fourth, named Jac´opo, was banished by the Council of Ten for taking bribes from his country’s enemies. The old doge also was deposed at the age of 84. As he was descending the “Giant Staircase” to take leave of his son, he heard the bell announce the election of his successor, and he dropped down dead.

_Jac´opo Foscari_, the fourth and only surviving son of Francis Foscari, the doge of Venice. He was banished for taking bribes of foreign princes. Jacopo had been several times tortured, and died soon after his banishment to Candia.—Byron, _The Two Foscari_ (1820).

=Fosco= (_Count_), the airy, witty, unconscionable villain of Wilkie Collins’ _Woman in White_. Gallant, audacious and fat.

=Foss= (_Corporal_), a disabled soldier, who served many years under Lieutenant Worthington, and remained his ordinary when the lieutenant retired from the service. Corporal Foss loved his master and Miss Emily, the lieutenant’s daughter, and he gloried in his profession. Though brusque in manner, he was tender-hearted as a child.—G. Colman, _The Poor Gentleman_ (1812).

⁂ Corporal Foss is modelled from “Corporal Trim,” in Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy_ (1759).

=Foster= (_Captain_), on guard at Tully Veolan ruin.—Sir W. Scott, _Waverley_ (time, George II.).

_Foster_, the English champion.—Sir W. Scott, _The Laird’s Jock_ (time, Elizabeth).

_Foster_ (_Anthony_) or “Tony-fire-the-Faggot,” agent of the earl of Leicester at Cumnor Place.—Sir W. Scott, _Kenilworth_ (time, Elizabeth).

_Foster_ (_Sir John_), the English warden.—Sir W. Scott, _The Monastery_ (time Elizabeth).

_Foster_ (_Dr. James_), a dissenting minister, who preached on Sunday evenings for above twenty years, from 1728-1748, in Old Jewry (died 1753).

Let modest Foster, if he will, excel Ten metropolitans in preaching well. Pope.

_Foster_ (_Silas_), the bucolic master of the house that shelters the reformers of The Blithedale Romance. He gulps his tea, helps himself to dip-toast with the flat of his own knife, and perpetrates terrible enormities with the butter-plate, “behaving less like a sensible Christian than the worst kind of an ogre.”—Nathaniel Hawthorne, _The Blithedale Romance_ (1852).

=Foul-weather Jack=, Commodore Byron (1723-1786.)

=Foundling= (_The_), Harriet Raymond, whose mother died in childbirth, was committed to the charge of a _gouvernante_, who announced to her father (Sir Charles Raymond) that the child was dead. This, however, was not true, for the _gouvernante_ changed the child’s name to Fidelia, and sold her at the age of 12 to one Villiard. One night, Charles Belmont, passing Villiard’s house, heard the cries of a girl for help; he rescued her and took her to his own home, where he gave her in charge to his sister Rosetta. The two girls became companions and friends, and Charles fell in love with the “foundling.” The _gouvernante_, on her death-bed, revealed the secret to Sir Charles Raymond, the mystery was cleared up, and Fidelia became the wife of Charles Belmont. Rosetta gave her hand to Fidelia’s brother, Colonel Raymond.—Edward Moore, _The Foundling_ (1748).

=Fountain, Bellamore, and Hare´brain=, suitors to Lady Hartwell, a widow. They are the chums of Valentine the gallant, who would not be persuaded to keep his estate.—Beaumont and Fletcher, _Wit without Money_ (1639).

=Fountain of Life=, Alexander Hales, “the Irrefragible Doctor” (*-1245).

=Fountain of Oblivion.= The student, Hieronymous, is told to seek out a certain fountain and cast a scroll into it, “and he shall find peace.” He obeys, and sees mirrored there his own life, and himself as boy and man, and beside him a maiden whose face is like that of the woman he loves.

“And the name was no longer Hermione, but was changed to Mary; and the student, Hieronymous, is lying at your feet!”—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, _Hyperion_ (1839).

=Fountain of Youth=, a marvellous fountain in the island of Bim´ini (one of the Baha´ma group). It had the virtue of restoring the aged to youth again. In the middle ages it was really believed to exist, and Juan Ponce de Leon, among other Spanish navigators, went in serious quest of this fountain.

=Four Kings= (_The_) of a pack of cards are Charlemagne (_the Franco-German king_), David (_the Jewish king_), Alexander (_the Macedonian king_), and Cæsar (_the Roman king_). These four kings are representatives of the four great monarchies.

=Four Masters= (_The_). (1) Michael O’Clerighe, (2) Cucoirighe O’Clerighe; (3) Maurice Conry; (4) Fearfeafa Conry. These four masters were the authors of the _Annals of Donegal_.

⁂ O’Clerighe is sometimes Anglicized into _Clerkson_, and Cucoirighe into _Peregrine_.

=Fourberies de Scapin= (_Les_), by Molière (1671). Scapin is the valet of Lèandre, son of seignior Gèronte (2 _syl._), who falls in love with Zerbinette, supposed to be a gypsy, but in reality the daughter of seignior Argante (2 _syl._), stolen by the gypsies in early childhood. Her brother Octave (2 _syl._) falls in love with Hyacinthe, whom he supposes to be Hyacinthe Pandolphe of Tarentum, but who turns out to be Hyacinthe Gèronte, the sister of Lèandre. Now, the gypsies demand £1500 as the ransom of Zerbinette, and Octave requires £80 for his marriage with Hyacinthe. Scapin obtains both these sums from the fathers under false pretences, and at the end of the comedy is brought in on a litter, with his head bound as if on the point of death. He begs forgiveness, which he readily obtains; whereupon the “sick man” jumps from the litter to join the banqueters. (See SCAPIN.)

=Fourde´lis=, personification of France, called the true love of Burbon (_Henri IV._), but enticed away from him by Grantorto (_rebellion_). Talus (_power_ or _might_) rescues her, but when Burbon catches her by her “ragged weeds,” she starts back in disdain. However, the knight lifts her on his steed, and rides off with her,—Spenser, _Faëry Queen_, v. 2 (1596).

=Fou´rierism=, a communistic system; so called from François Charles Fourier of Besançon (1772-1837).

=Fourolle= (2 _syl._), a Will-o’-the-wisp, supposed to have the power of charming sinful human beings into the same form. The charm lasted for a term of years only, unless it chanced that some good Catholic, wishing to extinguish the wandering flame, made to it the sign of the cross, in which case the sinful creature became a fourolle every night, by way of penance.

=Fourteen=, the name of a young man who could do the work of fourteen men, but had also the appetite of fourteen men. Like Christoph´erus, he carried our Lord across a stream, for which service the Saviour gave him a sack, saying, “Whatever you wish for will come into this sack, if you only say ‘Artchila murtchila!’” (_i.e._ “come (_or_ go) into my sack”). Fourteen’s last achievement was this: He went to paradise, and being refused admission, poked his sack through the keyhole of the door; then crying out “Artchila murtchila!” (“get into the sack”), he found himself on the other side of the door, and, of course, in paradise.—Rev. W. Webster, _Basque Legends_, 195 (1877).

_Fourteen._ This number plays a very conspicuous part in French history, especially in the reigns of Henri IV. and Louis XIV. For example:

14th May, 1029, the _first_ Henri was consecrated, and 14th May, 1610, the _last_ Henri was assassinated.

14 letters compose the name of _Henri de Bourbon_, the 14th king of France and Navarre.

14th December, 1553 (14 _centuries_, 14 _decades_, and 14 _years from the birth of Christ_), Henri IV. was born, and 1553 added together = 14.

14th May, 1554, Henri II. ordered the enlargement of the Rue de la Ferronnerie. This order was carried out, and 4 times 14 years later Henri IV. was assassinated there.

14th May, 1552, was the birth of Margaret de Valois, first wife of Henri IV.

14th May, 1588, the Parisians revolted against Henri III., under the leadership of Henri de Guise.

14th March, 1590, Henri IV. gained the battle of Ivry.

14th May, 1590, Henri IV. was repulsed from the faubourgs of Paris.

14th November, 1590, “The Sixteen” took oath to die rather than serve the Huguenot king Henri IV.

14th November, 1592, the Paris _parlement_ registered the papal bull which excluded Henry IV. from reigning.

14th December, 1599, the Duke of Savoy was reconciled to Henri IV.

14th September, 1606, the dauphin (Louis XIII.), son of Henri IV., was baptized.

14th May, 1610, Ravaillac murdered Henri IV. in the Rue de la Ferronnerie. Henri IV. lived 4 times 14 years, 14 weeks, and 4 times 14 days, _i.e._ 56 years and 5 months.

14 May, 1643, died Louis XIII., son of Henri IV. (the same day and month as his father). And 1643 added together=14; just as 1553 (_the birth of Henri IV._)=14.

Louis XIV. mounted the throne 1643, which added together=14.

Louis XIV. died 1715, which added together=14.

Louis XIV. lived 77 years, which added together=14.

Louis XV. mounted the throne 1715, which added together=14.

Louis XV. died 1774 (the two extremes are 14, and the two means 77=14.)

Louis XVI. published the edict for the convocation of the states-general in the 14th year of his reign (September 27, 1788).

Louis XVIII. was restored to the throne, Napoleon abdicated, the “Peace of Paris” was signed, and the “Congress of Vienna” met in 1814; and these figures added together=14.

In 1832=14, was the death of the Duc de Reichstadt (only son of Napoleon I.).

In 1841=14, the law was passed for the fortification of Paris.

In 1850=14, Louis Phillippe died.

=Fox= (_That_), Herod Antipas (B.C. 4 to A.D. 39).

Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils.—_Luke_ xiii. 32.

_Fox_ (_The Old_), Marshal Soult (1769-1851).

=Foxley= (_Squire Matthew_), a magistrate who examines Darsie Latimer [_i.e._ Sir Arthur Darsie Redgauntlet], after he had been attacked by the rioters.—Sir W. Scott, _Redgauntlet_ (time, George III.).

=Fracasse= (_Capitaine_), the French Bombastes Furioso.—Theophile Gautier.

=Fra Diavolo=, the sobriquet of Michel Pozza, a Calabrian insurgent and brigand chief. In 1799 Cardinal Ruffo made him a colonel in the Neapolitan army, but in 1806 he was captured by the French, and hanged at Naples. Auber has a comic opera so entitled, the libretto of which was written by Scribe, but nothing of the true character of the brigand chief appears in the opera.