in order to expiate the base compliance of their doctors for a foreign prince, and the outrage offered to the dignity of their law, which, in their opinion, was only designed for themselves: 'Non fecit taliter omni nationi. There is no occasion to describe exactly the various observances that accompanied these acts of humiliation, as they are generally known. Their abstinence lasted twenty-seven or twentyeight hours, beginning before sunset and not ending till sometime after sunset the next day. On these days they were obliged to wear white robes, in token of their grief and repentance; to cover themselves with sackcloth, to lie on ashes, to sprinkle them on their heads, and on great occasions to cover the ark of the covenant. In order to complete their abstinence, they eat nothing at night but a little bread steeped in water, seasoned with salt, and bitter herbs and pulse. Some of them continued the following day and night praying in the temple, or synagogue, bare-footed, and occasionally Scourging themselves. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians, neighbors to the Jews, had also their fasts. The fast of the Ninevites, occasioned by the preaching of the prophet Jonas, is too well known to be insisted on. Nor were the Greeks without their fasts. Aristotle informs us, that the Lacedæmonians having resolved to succor a city of the allies, ordained a general fast through the whole extent of their dominions, without excepting the domestic animals; and this they did for two ends, one that they might spare provision in favor of the besieged, and the other to draw the blessing of heaven on their enterprise. The Athenians, among others, had the Eleusinian and Thesmophorian fasts, the observation of which was accompanied with strict fasting, particularly among the women, who spent one whole day sitting on the ground in a mournful dress, without taking any nourishment. The Turks are so scrupulous on the point of fasting, that they will not at those times so much as take the smell of any perfume by the nose. They hold that odors themselves break fast. If they bathe, it is to forbid to put the head under water for fear of swallowing any of it; and as for women, they are forbid to bathe at all on fast days, for a reason peculiar to the sex. Though fasting is not positively enjoined by Christ or his apostles, a practice prevailed among the first Christians of joining abstinence with their prayers, especially when they were engaged in affairs of extraordinary importance. But in the most ancient times we find no mention of any public and solemn fasts, except upon the anniversary of Christ's crucifixion. However, in process of time, days of fasting were gradually introduced, first by custom, and afterwards by positive appointment, though it is not certain what those days were, nor whether they were observed in the first century. FAT. An oily matter contained in the cellular substance of animals, of a white or yellowish color. It seems to answer several important purposes; it facilitates the motion of the various parts where it is lodged; it fills up interstices in different situations; and as it is a bad conductor of heat, it ap pears to contribute to the preservation of the temperature of animals. It is used with other animal substances as an article of food; and where the digestive powers are strong, it proves highly nutritious. Those animals which sleep all the winter, are generally fat at the commencement of their long slumber, and come out of it very lean, owing to the fat having been absorbed and carried into their system for the purpose of nutrition. Fat has a tendency to accumulate very much in some persons who live luxuriously, using great quantities of animal food, with porter and other malt liquors, and who take little exercise. Others, without such causes, seem to get corpulent from peculiarity of constitution. It sometimes proceeds to such an extent as to be a real disease, incapacitating the individual from exercise and from performing the duties of life, besides rendering him liable to apoplexy and the other diseases analogous to it. Such overgrowth of fat is to be counteracted by abridging the quantity of food taken, by abstaining from malt liquors, and by taking constant and regular exercise. Instances are upon record, of persons who have made a sudden and total change in their manner of life, in order to diminish their corpulency; and this without any bad effects; but such sudden transitions from one mode of life to another are not advisable, and it is better to make them gradually, but steadily. FATA MORGANA. A very remarkable aerial phenomenon, which is sometimes observed from the harbor of Messina, and adjacent places, at a certain height of the atmosphere. The name, which signifies Fairy Morgana, is derived from an opinion of the superstitious Sicilians that the whole spectacle is produced by fairies, or such like visionary invisible beings. The populace are delighted whenever it appears, and run about the streets shouting for joy, calling every body out to partake of the glorious sight. This singular meteor has been described by various authors; but the first who mentioned it with any degree of precision was Father Angelucci, who gives the following account of it as quoted by Swinburne: 'On the 15th of August, 1643, as I stood at my window, I was surprised with a most wonderful, delectable vision. The sea, that washes the Sicilian shore, swelled up, and became, for ten miles in length, like a chain of dark mountains; while the waters near our Calabrian coast grew quite smooth, and in an instant appeared as one clear polished mirror, reclining against the aforesaid ridge. On this glass was depicted, in chiaro scuro, a string of several thousands of pilasters, all equal in altitude, distance, and degree of light and shade. In a moment they lost half their height, and bent into arcades, like Roman aqueducts. A long cornice was next formed on the top, and above it arose castles innumerable, all perfectly alike. These soon split into towers, which were shortly after lost in colonnades, then windows, and at last ended in pines, cypresses, and other trees, even and similar. This is the Fata Morgana, which, for twenty-six years, I had thought a mere fable.' As soon as the sun surmounts the eastern hills behind Reggio, and rises high enough to form an angle of forty-five degrees on the water before the with vapor, and dense exhalations not previously dispersed by the action of the wind or waves, or rarefied by the sun, it then happens that in this vapor, as in a curtain extended along the channel to the height of about four or five and twenty feet, and nearly down to the sea, the observer will behold the scene of the same objects not only reflected from the surface of the sea, but likewise in the air, though not so distinct or well defined as the former objects from the sea. ‘Lastly, if the air be slightly hazy and opaque, and at the same time dewy, and adapted to form the iris, then the abovementioned objects will appear only at the surface of the sea, as in the first case, but all vividly colored, or fringed with red, green, blue, and other prismatic colors.' FATHER. By the laws of Romulus, a father had an unlimited power over his children. Among the Lacedæmonians, as we learn from Aristotle's Politics, the father of three children was excused from the duty of mounting guard for the security of the city; and a father of four children was exempted from every public burden. The Poppaan law, amongst the Romans, granted many valuable privileges to the fathers of three children; amongst which one was, that he should be excused from civil offices, and that the mother should have liberty, in her father's life-time, to make a will, and manage her estate without the authority of tutors. city, every object existing or moving at Reggio is 'But if, in addition to the circumstances before repeated one thousand fold upon this marine look-described, the atmosphere be highly impregnated ing glass; which, by its tremulous motion, is as it were cut into facets. Each image passes rapidly off in succession as the day advances, and the stream carries down the wave on which it appeared. Thus the parts of this moving picture will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Sometimes the air is, at that moment, so impregnated with vapors, and undisturbed by winds, as to reflect objects in a kind of aerial screen, rising about thirty feet above the level of the sea. In cloudy, heavy weather, they are drawn on the surface of the water, bordered with fine prismatical colors. The following is the account given by M. Houel: 'In fine summer days, when the weather is calm, there rises above the great current a vapor which acquires a certain density, so as to form in the atmosphere horizontal prisms, whose sides are disposed in such a manner that, when they come to their proper degree of perfection, they reflect and represent successively, for some time, (like a moveable mirror) the objects on the coast or in the adjacent country. They exhibit by turns the city and suburbs of Messina, trees, animals, men, and mountains. They are certainly beautiful aerial moving pictures. There are sometimes two or three prisms, equally perfect; and they continue in this state eight or ten minutes. After this, some shining inequalities are observed upon the surface of the prism, which render confused to the eye the objects which had been before so accurately delineated, and the picture vanishes. The vapor forms other combinations, and is dispersed in air. Different accounts have been given of this singular appearance; which, for my part, I attribute to a bitumen that issues from certain rocks at the bottom of the sea, and which is often seen to cover a part of its surface in the canal of MessiThe subtile parts of this bitumen being attenuated, combined, and exhaled with the aqueous globules that are raised by the air, and formed into bodies of vapor, give to this condensed vapor more consistence; and contribute, by their smooth and polished particles, to the formation of a kind of aerial crystal, which receives the light, reflects it to the eye, and transmits to it all the luminous points which color the objects exhibited in this phenomenon, and render them visible.' Francis Antonio FAUST, or FUST. A goldsmith of Mentz, and Minasi, who observed this curious spectacle three one of the three earliest printers to whom the intimes in 1793, gives the following account of it :-vention of this most useful art has been ascribed. 'When,' says Minasi, the rising sun shines from Some say, he only assisted Guttemberg at Strasthat point whence its incident ray forms an angle burg, in his attempts to make moveable types, in of about forty-five degrees on the sea of Reggio, 1444. Be this as it may, he had the policy to conand the bright surface of the water in the bay is ceal his art; and to this we are supposed to be innot disturbed either by the wind or the current, debted for the tradition of the Devil and Doctor the spectator being placed on an eminence of the Faustus, handed down to the present times. Faust, city, with his back to the sun, and his face to the in partnership with Peter Schoeffer, having, in sea; on a sudden there appear in the water, as in a 1462, printed off a considerable number of copies catoptric theatre, various multiplied objects, viz. of the Bible, to imitate those which were sold in numberless series of pilasters, arches, castles well manuscript, undertook the sale of them at Paris, delineated, regular columns, lofty towers, superb where the art of printing was then unknown. At palaces, with balconies and windows, extended first he sold his copies for so high a sum as five alleys of trees, delightful plains with herds and hundred or six hundred crowns, the prices usually flocks, armies of men on foot and horseback, and demanded by the transcribers. He afterwards many other strange figures in their natural colors lowered his price to sixty crowns, which created and proper actions, passing rapidly in succession universal astonishment; but when he produced along the surface of the sea, during the whole of copies as fast as they were wanted, and lowered the short period of time while the abovementioned the price to half that amount, all Paris was agitated. causes remain. na. FAUNI, FAUNS. Among the ancients, were a species of demi-gods, inhabiting the forests; called also Sylvani, and little differing from the Satyrs. They were said to delight in vineyards; and generally appear as attendants of Bacchus, in the representations of Bacchanal feasts and processions. They were represented as half men, half goats; having the horns, ears, feet, and tail of a goat, a very flat nose, and the rest human. Though the fauns were held for demi-gods, yet they were supposed to die after a long life. Arnobius shows that their father, Faunus himself, lived only 120 years. The uniformity of the copies increased the wonder; informations were given into the police against him as a magician; his lodgings were searched; and a great number of copies being found, they were seized: the red ink with which they were embellished, was said to be his blood; it was seriously adjudged that he was in league with the devil; and, if he had not fled, most probably he would have shared the fate of those whom the ignorance and superstition of the age condemned for witchcraft. Dr. Watkins, in his Biographical and Historical Dictionary, says 'this story is a fable,' but assigns no authority for discrediting it. Faust is said to have died of the plague at Paris, about 1466. we do, use but one table at their feasts; they had generally two; the first was for the services of animal food, which was afterwards removed, and another introduced with fruits; at this last they sung and poured out their libations. The Greeks and eastern nations had the same custom, and even the Jews in their solemn feasts and at sacrifices. The Romans, in the time of Nero, had tables made of citron wood brought from Mauritania; they were varnished with purple and gold, and were raised on feet of carved ivory. It is said that they were more precious than gold. Dion Cassius affirms, that Seneca had five hundred of these, which he made use of one after another; and Tertullian tells us that Cicero had but one. The Romans chose the king of the feast by a throw of the dice. At the conclusion of the feast they drank out of a large cup as often as there were letters in the names of their mistresses. FEAST. We learn from Herodotus, that the ancients had neither cups nor bowls at their feasts, but they drank out of little horns tipt with silver or gold. The Greeks and Romans kept a domestic for the purpose of reading during their meals and feasts. It has been observed by some authors that no Sometimes the chief of the family himself per- nation comes near the English in the magnificence formed the office of reader; and history informs of their public entertainments. Their coronation us, that the emperor Severus often read while his and instalment feasts, their civic charitable dinners, family ate. The Greeks at feasts proposed moral transcend the belief of foreigners; and yet it may topics for conversation, of which Plutarch has pre-be doubted whether those now given are comparaserved a collection. Heroes rarely assembled con-ble to the feasts of former ages. William the vivially without bringing affairs of consequence Conqueror, after he was peaceably settled on the into discourse, or deliberating upon those that re- throne of England, sent agents into different coungarded either present events or future contingen-tries, to collect the most admired and rare dishes cies. The Scythians, while at meat, used to make the strings of their bows resound, lest their warlike propensities might be enfeebled or lost in the season of pleasure. People of rank among the Rhodians, by a fundamental law of the state, were obliged to dine daily with those who had the management of affairs, in order to deliberate with them concerning such things as were necessary or useful for the country; and on this account the principal ministers of the kingdom were obliged to keep open table for all who could be of use to the state. The Persians also generally deliberated on business at table, but never determined, or put their determinations in execution, except in the morning before having eaten. for his table; by which means, says John of Salisbury, that island, which is naturally productive of plenty and variety of provisions, was overflowed with every thing that could inflame a luxurious appetite. The same writer tells us, that he was present at an entertainment which lasted from 3 P. M. to midnight; at which delicacies were served, up, which had been brought from Constantinople, Babylon, Alexandria, Palestine, Tripoli, Syria, and Phoenicia. These delicacies were doubtless very expensive. Thomas a Becket gave five pounds, equivalent perhaps to fifty pounds at present, for one dish of eels. The sumptuous entertainments which the kings of England gave to their nobles and prelates, at the festivals of Christmas, Easter, Among the Romans, the place where they sup- and Whitsuntide, in which they spent a great part ped was generally the vestibule, that a more retired of their revenues, contributed very much to diffuse part of the house might not encourage licentious- a taste for profuse and expensive banqueting. It ness and disorder. There were several laws that was natural for a proud and wealthy baron to imirestricted their meals to these vestibules. When tate in his own castle the entertainments he had luxury reigned in Rome, they had superb halls for seen in the palace of his prince. Many of the their entertainments. Lucullus had many, each clergy too, both secular and regular, being very of which bare the name of some deity; and this rich, kept excellent tables. The monks of St. name was a mark which indicated to the servants Swithins, at Winchester, made a formal complaint the expense of the entertainment. The expense to Henry II. against their abbot, for taking away of a supper in Lucullus's hall of Apollo amounted to fifty thousand drachinas. Singers, dancers, musicians, stage-players, jesters, and buffoons, were brought into these halls to amuse the guests. Plutarch informs us that Cæsar, after his triumphs, treated the Roman people at twenty-two thousand tables; and by calculation it would seem, that there were at these tables upwards of two hundred the great officers of his army, and the kings and thousand persons. The hall in which Nero feasted, by the circular motion of its walls and ceiling, imitated the revolutions of the heavens, and represented the different seasons of the year, changing at every course, and showering down flowers and perfumes on the guests. The Romans did not, as three of the thirteen dishes they used to have every day at dinner. The monks of Canterbury were still more luxurious: for they had at least seventeen dishes every day dressed with spiceries and sauces, besides a dessert. Great men had many kinds of provisions at their tables, not now to be found in Britain. When Henry II. entertained his court, great men of Ireland, in Dublin, at the Christmas feast of A. D. 1171, the Irish princes and chieftains were quite astonished at the profusion and variety of food which they beheld, and were with difficulty prevailed upon by Henry to eat the flesh of cranes. In the remaining monuments of this period, we meet with the names of several dishes, as delle-parted dishes of jellies, one thousand; in plain grout, maupigyrnun, karumpie, &c., the composi- dishes of jelly, three thousand; in cold tarts, baked, tion of which is now unknown. The coronation four thousand; in cold custards, baked, three thoufeast of Edward III. cost at that period two thou-sand; in hot pastries of venison, fifteen hundred ; sand eight hundred and thirty-five pounds, eighteen in hot custards, two thousand; in pikes and breams, shillings and twopence. At the installation of three hundred and eight; in porpoises and seals, Ralph abbot of St. Augustine, Canterbury, A. D. twelve; spiced, sugared delicacies, and wafers, 1309, six thousand guests were entertained with plenty a dinner consisting of three thousand dishes, which cost two hundred and eighty-seven pounds, five shillings. It would require a long treatise (says Matthew Paris) to describe the astonishing splendor, magnificence and festivity, with which the nuptials of Richard earl of Cornwall, and Cincia daughter of Riemund earl of Provence, were celebrated at London, A. D. 1243. We are told that above thirty thousand dishes were served up at the marriage dinner.' One of the most expensive singularities attending the royal feasts in those days, consisted in what they called intermeats. These were representations of battles, sieges, &c., introduced between the courses, for the amusement of the guests. The French excelled in representations of this kind. At a dinner given by Charles V. of France to the emperor Charles IV., A. D. 1378, the following intermeat was exhibited :-A ship, with masts, sails, and rigging, was seen first: she had for colors the The nuptials of Alexander III. of Scotland, and arms of the city of Jerusalem: Godfrey of Bouilthe princess Margaret of England, were solemnized lon appeared upon deck, accompanied by several at York, A. D. 1251, with still greater pomp and knights armed cap-a-pie: the ship advanced into profusion. If I attempted (says M. Paris) to dis- the middle of the hall without the machine which play all the grandeur of this solemnity,-the num- moved it being perceptible. Then the city of bers of the noble and illustrious guests,—the rich- Jerusalem appeared, with all its towers lined with ness and variety of the dresses,-the sumptuous- Saracens. The ship approached the city; the ness of the feasts,-the multitudes of the minstrels, Christians landed, and began the assault; the bemimics, and others whose business it was to amuse sieged made a good defence: several scaling ladand divert the company, those of my readers who ders were thrown down; but at length the city were not present would imagine that I was impos- was taken. Intermeats, at ordinary banquets, coning upon their credulity. The following particular sisted of certain delicate dishes introduced between will enable them to form a judgment of the whole. the courses, and designed rather for gratifying the The archbishop of York made the king of Eng-taste than for satisfying hunger. land a present of sixty fat oxen, which made only one article of provision for the marriage feast, and were all consumed at that entertainment.' The marriage feast of Henry IV. and his queen Jane of Navarre, consisted of six courses; three of flesh and fowls, and three of fish. All these courses were accompanied and adorned with subtleties, as they were called. These were figures in pastry, of men, women, beasts, birds, &c., placed on the table, to be admired, but not touched. Each figure had a lable affixed to it; containing some wise or witty saying, suited to the occasion. The installation feast of George Neville, archbishop of York and chancellor of England, exceeded most others in English history in splendor and expense, and in the number and quality of the guests. The reader may form some idea of this enormous feast from the following list of provisions prepared for it. In wheat, quarters, three hundred; in ale, tuns, three hundred; in wine, tuns, one hundred; in ipocrasse, pipes, one; in oxen, one hundred and four; in wild bulls, six; in swans, four hundred in geese, two thousand; in cappons, one thousand; in pigs, two thousand; in plovers, four hundred; in quailes, twelve hundred; in fowls called rees, twenty-four hundred; in peacocks, one hundred and four; in mallards and teales, four thousand; in cranes, two hundred and four; in kids, two FEELING. Is one of the five external senses, hundred and four; in chickens, two thousand; in by which we obtain the ideas of solidity, hardness, pigeons, two thousand; in connies, four thousand; softness, roughness, heat, cold, wetness, dryness, in bittors, two hundred and four; in heronshaws, and other tangible qualities. Although this sense four hundred; in pheasants, two hundred; in pa- is perhaps the least refined, it is of all others the tridges, five hundred; in woodcocks, four hundred; most sure, as well as the most universal. Man in curliews, one hundred; in egritis, one thousand; sees and hears with small portions of his body, but in stags, bucks, and roes, five hundred and more; he feels with all. The author of nature has bein pastries of venison, cold, four thousand; in stowed that general sensation wherever there are ; FEATHERS. In Comparative Anatomy, constitute the peculiar covering of the class of birds. In no other tribe of animals are they met with; for the plumes which belong to some of the lepidopterous insects are different from the feathers of birds, both with respect to their structure and mode of growth. No bird is entirely deprived of feathers, although some species want them on certain parts of the body. The turkey and vulture have the head and part of the neck uncovered. The ostrich and the wading birds have bare thighs: those birds which have ceres, combs, or pieces of flesh on the head, have those parts without feathers. FEE. An estate of inheritance, or the interest which a man has in land or some other immoveable: this is called a fee simple when it is unconditional, and a fee tail, when limited to certain heirs according to the will of the first donor. FEELERS. Organs fixed to the mouth of insects, which are vulgarly called horns: the feelers are, however, smaller than the antennæ, or horns, in some insects. FELUCCA. A light open vessel with six oars, much used in the Mediterranean. Its helm may be used either at the head or the stern. nerves, and they are everywhere found where crime in this country. The term is generally used, there is life. If it were otherwise, the parts want- however, here, as in England, to signify crimes ing this sense might be destroyed without our know- which are punished with death, the number of ledge. On this account it seems wisely provided, which is very limited, both by the laws of the that this sensation should not require a particular United States and those of the several states. organization. The structure of the nervous papillæ is not absolutely necessary to it: the lips of a fresh wound, the periosteum, and the tendons, when uncovered, are extremely sensible without them, though they serve to the perfection of feeling, and to diversify sensation. Feeling is, perhaps, the basis of all other sensations. The object of feeling is every body that has consistency or solidity enough to move the surface of our skin. To make feeling perfect, it was necessary that the nerves should form small eminences, because they are more easily moved by the impression of bodies than a uniform surface; and it is owing to this structure that we are enabled to distinguish not only the size and figure of bodies, their hardness and softness, but also their heat and cold. To the blind, feeling is so useful a sensation, that it supplies the office of eyes, and in a great measure indemnifies them for the want of sight. FENCING. The art of making a proper use of the sword, as well for attacking an enemy, as for defending one's self. It is necessary in acquiring this difficult art to use foils, or small thin swords, which being blunted at the points, and bending readily, prevents accidental wounds. FERMENTS IN THE EARTH. It is very probable that the natural ferments in the earth may be of more consequence than is generally supposed, and tend to elucidate many things, which at present appear very mysterious. The different fruitfulness of different spots of the same sort of land may be owing to this, as also the different temperature of air at the same time in places very little distant FELO DE SE. In Law, a person that, being from another. The effluvia sent up by some of of sound mind, and of the age of discretion, delib- these, not only dissolve snow that falls on them, erately causes his own death. The laws have but even melt it in the air as it approaches, and considered voluntary suicide a crime, and, as they cause it to fall in rain, not in snow. And often in could not reach the criminal himself to punish him, two places within a mile or two of each other, there have inflicted a punishment on his friends and re-shall be a disparity of heat and cold no way else latives, by ordering that his body should have an to be accounted for, since there is often no differignominious burial. But, as no person of unsound ence of shade or shelter. mind is supposed to be capable of committing a crime, provision was made for a trial by a coroner's inquest, or jury, which, being summoned for the purpose, pronounced whether the deceased killed himself, and also decided whether he was of a sound mind, and capable of being a felo de se, within the meaning of the law. But, as the punishment in this case was strongly repugnant to the feelings of humanity, and the jurors were more disposed to compassionate the relatives of a man who had committed such an act of desperation, than to inflict an additional misfortune upon them, they most frequently, and, indeed, almost uniformly, gave a verdict of insanity, so that it had become a very general sentiment, that the act of deliberate suicide was itself proof of an unsound mind. FELONY. In Law, includes generally all capital crimes below treason. It is a word of feudal origin, and is supposed by Spelman to have been derived from the Teutonic words fee and lon, (price) and meaning the price of the fee, and, accordingly, was applied to those crimes which were punished by forfeiture of lands; so that the crime would, in the common expression, be as much as a man's fee was worth. The term is now applied to some acts for which capital punishment is not inflicted; as suicide is called a felony, and the self-murderer a felon, though it is an offence for which, from the nature of the case, the felon himself could never be punished. According to the derivation of this term, and in its original meaning, there would be no felonies in the United States; for, though fines are imposed for many offences, the direct forfeiture of lands and goods is not a consequence of any In Scotland, there are large tracts of land, where the ferment is so strong, that the earth lets a person up to the ancles as he walks; and generally at about a foot depth under this, there is found a stratum of pebbles, so closely rammed together that they seem an artificial causeway. This land, though of no greater depth than a foot, is found very rich for garden plants, and even for fruittrees. FERMENTATION. An intestine commotion, to which certain substances of vegetable or animal origin are, more or less, liable, from the spontaneous reaction of their constituent elements. The process embraces a series of changes of composition, and terminates in the formation of new products, which differ essentially from the original substance, as well as from one another. Fermentation is accordingly divided into three kinds; and to these, epithets have been applied descriptive of the products to which it gives birth, namely, the vinous, the acetous, and the putrefactive. After making some remarks upon the process in general, we shall consider the subject under these three heads. It appears that no species of fermentation can take place without some portion of moisture, and a certain elevation of temperature. The presence of moisture is necessary, because no chemical action can be displayed by solids, without the intervention of water, to give mobility to their component particles, and allow them to exert their mutual attractions for each other; and hence, vegetable or animal substances which are well dried, and kept free from moisture, may be preserved for many years without suffering any material change in |