The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 197

FAUSTINA, ANNIA GALERI, called Faustina, Senior, wife of Antoninus Pius, died three years after her husband became emperor (105-141).

FAUSTINA, ANNIA, JUNIOR, wife of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, daughter of the preceding. Both she and her mother are represented by historians as profligate and unfaithful, and quite unworthy the affection lavishly bestowed upon them by their husbands.

FAUSTULUS, the shepherd who, with his wife Laurentia, was the foster-parent of Romulus and Remus, who, as infants, had been exposed on the Palatine Hill.

FAVART, CHARLES SIMON, French dramatist, born at Paris, where he became director of the Opera Comique; was celebrated as a vivacious playwright and composer of operas; during a temporary absence from Paris he established his Comedy Company in the camp of Marshal Saxe during the Flanders campaign; his memoirs and correspondence give a bright picture of theatrical life in Paris during the 18th century (1710-1792).

FAVONIUS, the G.o.d of the favouring west wind.

FAVRE, JULES CLAUDE GABRIEL, a French Republican statesman, born at Lyons; called to the Paris bar in 1830; a strong Republican, he joined the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848; held office as Minister of the Interior in the New Republic, and disapproving of the _coup d'etat_, resumed practice at the bar; defended the Italian conspirator ORSINI (q. v.), and in 1870, on the dissolution of the Empire, became Minister of Foreign Affairs; mistakes in his negotiations with Bismarck led to his resignation and resumption of his legal practice (1809-1880).

FAWCETT, HENRY, statesman and political economist, born at Salisbury; though blind, it was his early ambition to enter the arena of politics, and he devoted himself to the study of political economy, of which he became professor at Cambridge; entering Parliament, he became Postmaster-General under Mr. Gladstone in 1880; he wrote and published works on his favourite study (1832-1884).

FAWKES, GUY, a notorious English conspirator, born of a respected Yorks.h.i.+re family; having spent a slender patrimony, he joined the Spanish army in Flanders; was converted to the Catholic faith; and on his return to England allied himself with the conspirators of the GUNPOWDER PLOT (q. v.), and was arrested in the cellars of the House of Commons when on the point of firing the explosive; was tried and executed (1570-1606).

FAY, ANDREAS, Hungarian dramatist and novelist, born at Kohany; studied law, but the success of a volume of fables confirmed him in his choice of literature in preference; wrote various novels and plays; was instrumental in founding the Hungarian National Theatre; was a member of the Hungarian Diet (1786-1804).

FAYAL (26), a fruit-bearing island among the AZORES (q. v.), exports wine and fruits; Horta, with an excellent bay, is its chief town.

FAYYUM (160), a fertile province of Central Egypt, lies W. of the Nile, 65 miles from Cairo, is in reality a southern oasis in the Libyan desert, irrigated by means of a ca.n.a.l running through a narrow gorge to the Nile valley; its area is about 840 sq. m., a portion of which is occupied by a sheet of water, the Birket-el-Kern (35 m. long), known to the ancients as Lake Moeris, and by the sh.o.r.es of which stood one of the wonders of the world, the famous "Labyrinth."

FEASTS, JEWISH, OF DEDICATION, a feast in commemoration of the purification of the Temple and the rebuilding of the altar by Judas Maccabaeus in 164 B.C., after profanation of them by the Syrians: OF THE Pa.s.sOVER, a festival in April on the anniversary of the exodus from Egypt, and which lasted eight days, the first and the last days of solemn religious a.s.sembly: OF PENTECOST, a feast celebrated on the fiftieth day after the second of the Pa.s.sover, in commemoration of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai; both this feast and the Pa.s.sover were celebrated in connection with harvest, what was presented in one in the form of a sheaf being in the other presented as a loaf of bread: OF PURIM, a feast in commemoration of the preservation of the Jews from the wholesale threatened ma.s.sacre of the race in Persia at the instigation of Haman: OF TABERNACLES, a festival of eight days in memory of the wandering tentlife of the people in the wilderness, observed by the people dwelling in bowers made of branches erected on the streets or the roofs of the house; it was the Feast of Ingathering as well.

FEBRUARY, the second month of the year, was added along with January by Numa to the end of the original Roman year of 10 months; derived its name from a festival offered annually on the 15th day to Februus, an ancient Italian G.o.d of the nether world; was a.s.signed its present position in the calendar by Julius Caesar, who also introduced the intercalary day for leap-year.

FeCAMP (13), a seaport in the dep. of Seine-Inferieure, 25 m. NE. of Havre; has a fine Gothic Benedictine church, a harbour and lighthouse, hardware and textile factories; fis.h.i.+ng and sugar refineries also flourish; exports the celebrated Benedictine liqueurs.

FECHNER, GUSTAV THEODOR, physicist and psychophysicist, born at Gross-Sarchen, in Lower Lusatia; became professor of Physics in Leipzig, but afterwards devoted himself to psychology; laid the foundations of the science of psychophysics in his "Elements of Pyschophysics"; wrote besides on the theory of colour and galvanism, as well as poems and essays (1801-1887).

FECHTER, CHARLES ALBERT, a famous actor, born in London, his father of German extraction and his mother English; made his _debut_ in Paris at the age of 17; after a tour through the European capitals established himself in London as the lessee of the Lyceum Theatre in 1863; became celebrated for his original impersonations of Hamlet and Oth.e.l.lo; removed to America in 1870, where he died (1824-1879).

FECIALES, a college of functionaries in ancient Rome whose duty it was to make proclamation of peace and war, and confirm treaties.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, in modern parlance is the political system which a number of independent and sovereign States adopt when they join together for purposes of domestic and especially International policy; local government is freely left with the individual States, and only in the matter of chiefly foreign relations is the central government paramount, but the degree of freedom which each State enjoys is a matter of arrangement when the contract is formed, and the powers vested in the central authority may only be permitted to work through the local government, as in the German Confederation, or may bear directly upon the citizens throughput the federation, as in the U.S. of America, and since 1847 in Switzerland.

FEDERALIST, a name in the United States for a supporter of the Union and its integrity as such; a party which was formed in 1788, but dissolved in 1820; has been since applied to a supporter of the integrity of the Union against the South in the late Civil War.

FEDERATION, THE CHAMPS-DE-MARS, a grand fete celebrated in the Champs-de-Mars, Paris, on July 14, 1790, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, at which deputies from the newly inst.i.tuted departments a.s.sisted to the number of 80,000, as well as deputies from other nations, "Swedes, Spaniards, Polacks, Turks, Chaldeans, Greeks, and dwellers in Mesopotamia," representatives of the human race, "with three hundred drummers, twelve hundred wind-musicians, and artillery planted on height after height to boom the tidings all over France, the highest recorded triumph of the Thespian art." Louis XVI. too a.s.sisted at the ceremony, and took solemn oath to the const.i.tution just established in the interest of mankind. See Carlyle's "French Revolution."

FEHMGERICHT. See VEHMGERICHTE.

FEITH, a Dutch poet, born at Zwolle, where, after studying at Leyden, he settled and died; his writings include didactic poems, songs, and dramas; had a refining influence on the literary taste of his countrymen (1753-1824).

FeLICITe, ST., a Roman matron, who with her seven sons suffered martyrdom in 164. Festival, July 10.

FELIX, the name of five popes: F. I., ST., Pope from 269 to 274, said to have been a victim of the persecution of Aurelius; F.

II., Pope from 356 to 357, the first anti-pope having been elected in place of the deposed Liberius who had declined to join in the persecution of ATHANASIUS (q. v.), was banished on the restoration of Liberius; F. III., Pope from 483 to 492, during his term of office the first schism between the Eastern and Western Churches took place; F.

IV., Pope from 526 to 530, was appointed by Theodoric in face of the determined opposition of both people and clergy; F. V., Pope from 1439 to 1449. See AMADEUS VIII..

FELIX, CLAUDIUS, a Roman procurator of Judaea in the time of Claudius and Nero; is referred to in Acts xxiii. and xxiv. as having examined the Apostle Paul and listened to his doctrines; was vicious in his habits, and formed an adulterous union with Drusilla, said by Tacitus to have been the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra; was recalled in A.D. 62.

FELIX HOLT, a novel of George Eliot's, written in 1866.

FELL, JOHN, a celebrated English divine; Royalist in sympathy, he continued throughout the Puritan ascendency loyal to the English Church, and on the Restoration became Dean of Christ Church and a royal chaplain; was a good man and a charitable, and a patron of learning; in 1676 was raised to the bishopric of Oxford; was the object of the well-known epigram, "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell"

(1625-1686).

FELLAH, the name applied contemptuously by the Turks to the agricultural labourer of Egypt; the Fellahin (pl. of Fellah) comprise about three-fourths of the population; they are of good physique, and capable of much toil, but are, despite their intelligence and sobriety, lazy and immoral; girls marry at the age of 12, and the children grow up amidst the squalor of their mud-built villages; their food is of the poorest, and scarcely ever includes meat; tobacco is their only luxury; their condition has improved under British rule.

FELLOWS, SIR CHARLES, archaeologist, born at Nottingham; early developed a pa.s.sion for travel; explored the Xanthus Valley in Asia Minor, and discovered the ruins of the cities Teos and Xanthus, the ancient capital of Lycia (1838); returned to the exploration of Lycia in 1839 and again in 1841, discovering the ruins of 13 other ancient cities; accounts of these explorations and discoveries are fully given in his various published journals and essays; was knighted in 1845 (1799-1861).

FELLOWs.h.i.+P, a collegiate term for a status in many universities which ent.i.tles the holder (a Fellow) to a share in their revenues, and in some cases to certain privileges as regards apartments and meals in the college, as also to a certain share in the government; formerly Fellows.h.i.+ps were usually life appointments, but are now generally for a prescribed number of years, or are held during a term of special research; the old restrictions of celibacy and religious conformity have been relaxed.

FELO-DE-SE, in English law the crime which a man at the age of discretion and of a sound mind commits when he takes away his life.

FELONY, "a crime which involves a total forfeiture of lands or goods or both, to which capital or other punishment may be superadded, according to the degree of guilt."