Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Oft it falls out, that while one thinks too much of his doing, he leaves to do the effect of this thinking

J. A long advertent and deliberate connexing of consequents, which falls not in the common road of ordiHale. nary men. When a horse is hungry, and comes to a good pasture, he falls to his food immediately. Id.

I am fallen upon the mention of mercuries.

Boyle. When about twenty, upon the falseness of a lover, Temple. she fell distracted. The odd hours at the end of the solar year, are not indeed fully six, but are deficient 10,'44"; which deficiency, in 134 years, collected, amounts to a whole day and hence may be seen the reason why the vernal equinox, which at the time of the Nicene council fell upon the 21st of March, falls now about ten days Holder on Time, High o'er their heads a mouldering rock is placed, That promises a fall, and shakes at every blast.

:

sooner.

Dryden.

[blocks in formation]

A spark like thee, of the man-killing trade, Fell sick, and thus to his physician said; Methinks I am not right in every part, I feel a kind of trembling at my heart; My pulse unequal, and my breath is strong; Besides a filthy fur upon my tongue. Id. Pers. Upon a great fall of rain the current carried away a huge heap of apples. L'Estrange.

They fell to blows, insomuch that the Argonauts slew the most part of the Deliones. Id.

This book must stand or fall with thee; not by any opinion I have of it, but by thy own. Locke.

Upon lessening interest to four per cent. you fall the price of your native commodities, or lessen your trade, or else prevent not the high use. Id.

Rents will fall, and incomes every day lessen, 'till industry and frugality, joined to a well ordered trade, shall restore to the kingdom the riches it had formerly. Id.

All liquid bodies are diffusive; for their parts, being in motion, have no connexion one with another, but glide and fall off any way, as gravity and the air presseth them. Burnet.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

And you have known none in health who have pitied you? and behold, they are gone before you, Id. eveu since you fell into this distemper He died calmly, and with all the easiness of a man falling asleep. Atterbury. tells us, the As fell

From the pound weight, as Pliny to two ounces in the first Punick war; when Hannibal invaded Italy, to one ounce; then, by the PaId. pirian law, to half an ounce. Cæsar therefore gave orders to build his gallies on Id. the Loir, and the rivers that fall into it.

Birds and fowls, that rest one foot to ease the other, naturally lay their heads under their wings, that the centre of gravity may fall upon the foot they stand on. Cheyne.

I fell in love with the character of Pomponius Atticus; I longed to imitate him. Blount to Pope.

He, careless now, of interest, fame, or fate, Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great; Or, deeming meanest what we greatest call, Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

Pope to Parnel. The swain, in barren deserts, with surprize Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise; And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear New falls of water murmuring in his ear.

Pope.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Blighted when like us you fell,
Hear the lecture we are reading,

'Tis alas! the truth we tell. Bp. Horne.
There as sad Philomel, alike forlorn,
Sings to the night from her accustomed thorn;
While at sweet intervals each falling note
Sighs in the gale, and whispers round the grot;
The sister-wo shall calm her aching breast,
And softer slumbers steal her cares to rest.

Darwin.

Fallen, fallen, a silent heap! her heroes all Sunk in their urns; behold the pride of pomp,

The throne of nations, fullen! obscured in dust; Even yet majestical.

Byron. Up Juan sprung to Haidee's bitter shriek, And caught her falling, and from off the wall Snatched down his sabre, in hot haste to wreak Vengeance on him who was the cause of all.

Id.

To fall away. To decline gradually; to fade; to languish; to apostatise; to sink into wickedness; to perish; to be lost; to revolt.

The fugitives fell away to the king of Babylon. 2 Kings. Say not thou, it is through the Lord that I fell away; for thou oughtest not to do the things that he

hateth. Ecclus. xv. These for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. Luke viii. 13. Still propagate; for still they fall away: Tis prudence to prevent entire decay.

Dryden's Virgil.

In a curious brede of needlework one colour falls sway by such just degrees, and another rises so insensibly, that we see the variety, without being able to distinguish the total vanishing of the one from the first appearance of the other. Addison.

Watery vegetables are proper, and fish rather than flesh in a Lent diet people commonly fall away. Arbuthnot on Diet.

To fall back To fail of a promise or purpose; recede.

We have often fallen back from our resolutions. Taylor.

To fall down. (Down is sometimes added to fall, though it adds little to the signification.) To prostrate himself in adoration; to sink; not to stand; to bend as a suppliant.

He that herith and doith not is lyk to a man bildinge his hous on erthe withouten foundement, into which the flood was hurlid; and anoon it fel doun, and the fallyng doun of that hous was maad gret. Wiclif. Luk 6. Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? Isaiah xliv. 11. All kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him. Psalm 1xxii. 11. As she was speaking, she fell down for faintness. Esther xv.

Down fell the beauteous youth; the yawning wound Gushed out a purple stream, and stained the ground.

Dryden.

To fall from. To revolt; to depart from adherence.

Clarence

Is very likely to fall from him. Shakspeare. Henry VI. The emperor being much solicited by the Scots not to be a help to ruin their kingdom, fell by degrees from the king of England. Hayward.

Through many insensible declinations, do we fall from virtue; and, at the first, are so gently led by vice that we cannot believe our accusers. Bp. Hall. To fall in. To concur; to coincide; to comply; to yield to.

Our fine young ladies readily fall in with the direction of the graver sort. Spectator.

It is a double misfortune to a nation, which is thus given to change, when they have a sovereign that is prone to fall in with all the turns and veerings of the people. Addison.

Any single paper that falls in with the popular taste, and pleases more than ordinary, brings one in a great return of letters. Id.

Objections fall in here, and are the clearest and most convincing arguments of the truth. Wood rd. His reasonings in this chapter seem to fall in with each other; yet, upon a closer investigation, we shall find them proposed with great variety and distinction. Atterbury.

When the war was begun, there soon fell in other incidents at home, which made the continuance of it necessary. Swift. That prince applied himself first to the church of England; and, upon their refusal to fall in with his measures, made the like advances to the dissenters."

[blocks in formation]

Those captive tribes fell off From God to worship calves.

Milton.

Id. Paradise Lost. Languages need recruits to supply the place of those words that are continually falling off through disuse. Felton.

attack: to begin eagerly to do any thing. To fall on. To make an assault; to begin the

Ech that schal falle on that stoon schal be so brisid, but on whom it schal falle it schal alto breke him. Wiclif. Luk. 20.

They fell on, I made good my place; at length they came to the broomstaff with me; I defied 'em still. Shakspeare. Henry VIII. Fall on, fall on, and hear him not; But spare his person for his father's sake. Dryden. Draw all; and when I give the word, fall on. Dryden. Oedipus.

Some coarse cold sallad is before thee set; Bread with the bran, perhaps, and broken meat; Fall on, and try thy appetite to eat. Dryden. Pers. He pretends, among the rest, to quarrel with me, to have fallen foul on priesthood. Dryden.

To fall over. To revolt; to desert from one side to the other.

And dost thou now fall over to my foes? Thou wear a lion's hide! doff it, for shame, And hang a calve's skin on those recreant limbs. Shakspeare. King John. To fall out. To quarrel; to jar; to grow contentious to happen; to befall.

much deceived in others, because we first deceived It many times falls out, that we deem ourselves Sir P. Sidney.

ourselves.

Now, for the most part, it so falleth out, touching things which generally are received, that although in themselves they be most certain, yet, because men presume them granted of all, we are hardliest able to bring proof of their certainty. Hooker

It so fell out, that certain players
We o'er-rode on the way; of those we told him.

Shakspeare

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

The cedar, by the instigation of the loyalists, fell out with the homebians, who had elected him to be their king. Howel. A prince who falleth out with laws, breaketh with his best friends. Saville.

Yet so it may fall out, because their end Is hate, not help to me.

Milton's Agonistes.

If it so fall out that you are miserable for ever, thou hast no reason to be surprised, as if some unexTillotson. pected thing had happened.

There fell out a bloody quarrel betwixt the frogs and the mice. L'Estrange.

Who think you is my Dorus fallen out to be?

Sidney. Little needed those proofs to one who would have fallen out with herself, rather than make any conjec tures to Zelmane's speeches.

A soul exasperated in ills, falls out
With every thing, its friend, itself.

[ocr errors]

Id.

Addison's Cato.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

An infection in town first falls upon children, weak constitutions, or those that are subject to other diseases; but, spreading further, seizes upon the most healthy. Temple.

Man falls upon every thing that comes in his way; not a berry or mushroom can escape him. Addison's Spectator.

At the same time that the storm bears upon the whole species, we are falling foul upon one another. Addison.

To get rid of fools and scoundrels was one part of my design in falling upon these authors. Pope. FALL OF MAN. See THEOLOGY. FALLACY, n. s.

FALLA'CIOUS, adj.

FALLA'CIOUSLY, adv. FALLA'CIOUSNESS, n. s.

French, falláce ; Ital. fallacia; Span. and Port. falacea; Lat. fallacia, fallar,

deceitful. A deceit; sophism; logomachy; deceitful or unfounded argument. Fallacious is misleading or deceitful.

Until I know this sure uncertainty,

I'll entertain the favoured fallacy. Shakspeare. It were a mere fallacy and mistaking, to ascribe that to the force of imagination upon another body, which is the force of imagination upon the proper body.

Bacon.

The force of that fallacious fruit,
That with exhilarating vapour bland
About their spirits had played, and inmost powers
Made err, was now exhaled.

Milton's Paradise Lost.
False philosophy inspires
Fallacions hope.

Id.

[blocks in formation]

Most princes make themselves another thing from the people by a fallacy of argument, thinking themselves most kings when the subject is most basely subjected.

Sidney.

All men, who can see an inch before them, may casily detect gross fallacies. Dryden.

The Jews believed and assented to things neither evident nor certain, nor yet so much as probable, but actually false and fallacious; such as the absurd docSouth's Sermons. trines and stories of their rabbies.

We have seen how fallaciously the author has stated the cause, by supposing that nothing but unlimited mercy, or unlimited punishment, are the methods that can be made use of. Addison.

But as a scale by which the soul ascends From mighty means to more important ends; Securely, though by steps but rarely trod, Mounts from inferior beings up to God, And sees, by no fallacious light or dim, Earth made for man, and man himself for him. Cowper.

FALLACY, in philosophy, false appearance. The Epicureans deny that there is any such thing as a fallacy of the senses. According to them, all our sensations and perceptions, both of sense and phantasy, are true; whence they make sense the primary criterion of truth. The Cartesians, on the other hand, maintain, that we should suspect as false, or at most as dubious, every thing that presents itself to us by means only of the external senses, because they frequently deceive us; and that our senses, as being fallacious,

were never given us by nature for the discovery of truth, or the contemplation of the principles of things; but only for pointing out to us what things are convenient or hurtful to our bodies. The Peripatetics keep a middle course. They say, that, if a sensible object be taken in its common or general view, the sense cannot be deceived about it; but that, if the object be taken under its specific view, the sense may be mistaken about it, from the want of the dispositions necessary to a just sensation, as a disorder in the organ, or any thing uncommon in the medium: thus, in some disorders of the eye, all objects appear yellow: a stick in water appears broken or crooked, &c.

FALLIBLE, adj.

French, faillible, from FALLIBILITY, n. s. Lat. fallo; Gr. opaw. Ainsworth. To slip or slide. Liable to error, or to be deceived.

Do not falsify your resolution with hopes that are fallible: to-morrow you must die. Shakspeare.

He that creates to himself thousands of little hopes, uncertain in the promise, fallible in the event, and depending upon a thousand circumstances, often fails in his expectations. Taylor.

Our intellectual er rational powers need some assistance, because they are so frail and fallible in the Watts.

present state.

There is a great deal of fallibility in the testimony of men; yet some things we may be almost as certain of, as that the sun shines, or that five twenties make a hundred. Id.

To take our religious sentiments only from his gospel, in opposition to all the authoritative dictates of men, who are weak and fallible as ourselves. Mason,

FALLOPIAN TUBES. See ANATOMY. FALLOPIUS (Gabriel), a celebrated physician and anatomist, born at Modena in 1523, and descended of a noble family. He made several discoveries in anatomy, one of which was that of the vessels, called after him the Fallopian tubes. He travelled through the greatest part of Europe: was made professor of anatomy at Pisa in 1548, and at Padua in 1551, where he died in 1562, aged thirty-nine. His writings, which are numerous, were first printed separately, and afterwards collected under the title of Opera genuina omnia, tam practica quam theoretica, in tres tomos distributa.' They were printed at Venice in 1585, and in 1606; at Francfort in 1600, and in 1606, in folio.

FAL'LOW, adj. n. s. & Sax. Faleye; Isl. FAL'LOWNESS, n. s. [v. a. faulur; Bel. faal; Swed. fal; Lat. fulvus, a pale yellow. A fallow field' is so called, according to Minsheu, ⚫ because it looketh of fallow color.' This, however, seems doubtful, as there is a Saxon noun fealga, a kind of plough; and Teut. falgen is to plough; Arab. falaha, is also ploughing; tillage; and the Falahs or Foulahs of Africa,' as Mr. Thomson observes, are boors.' Pale, yellow, or red; unsowed; ploughed but not sowed: hence unoccupied; neglected. As a substantive, fallow is ground in any of these last-mentioned states. To fallow is to plough in order to a second aration; to grow yellow; fade. Fallowness is barrenness; fruitlessness.

How does your fallow greyhound, sir?
I heard say,
he was out run at Cotsale.

Shakspeare.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Then o'er the fallowed ground How leisurely they work, and many a pause The' harmonious concert breaks, till more assured, With joy redoubled the low vallies ring. Somerville. : FALMOUTH, a town of Cornwall, on a fine bay of the English Channel. The town consists principally of one street, extending nearly a mile along the beach, and is tolerably well built. It is the richest sea-port and market town of the county, and larger than any three of its other boroughs. It has so commodious a harbour, that ships of the greatest burden come up to its quay. It is guarded by the castles of St. Mawes and Pendennis, on high rocks at the entrance; both of which are now strongly fortified, and garrisoned by invalids, with an establishment for a governor at £300 per annum, and a deputy governor at £91. The roadstead is deep, and the shelter afforded by the number of creeks in it is so good, that the whole British navy may ride safely here in any wind, it being, next to Plymouth and Milford Haven, the best road for shipping on our coasts. It is well built; and its trade is considerably increased since the establishment of packet boats for Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies. The custom-house for most of the Cornish towns, as well as the head collector, is settled here, where the duties, including those of the other ports, are very considerable. A considerable pilchard fishery is carried on here. It is a corporation, governed by a mayor and alderman; and has a market on Thursday, and fairs July 27th and October 30th. Falmouth is ten miles south of Truro, and 269 west by south of London.

FALMOUTH, a sea-port town of Antigua, on the south shore, between English Harbour and Rendezvous Bay, seven miles south-east of St. John's.

FALMOUTH, a town of Jamaica, called also the Point, on the south side of Martha Brae Harbour. Long. 61° 28′ W., lat. 17° 9′ N.

FALMOUTH, a town of the United States, in the district of Maine, Cumberland county, seated on Casco Bay, 120 miles N. N. E. of Boston.

FALMOUTH, a township of Massachusetts, in Barnstaple county, fifty miles south-east by south of Boston, on the north-east of Vineyard Sound. It was burnt by the British in 1775.

FALMOUTH, a township of Nova Scotia, in Hants county, opposite Windsor, twenty-eight miles north-west of Halifax.

FALMOUTH, a town of Pennsylvania, in Lancaster county, twenty miles west of Lancaster. FALMOUTH, a town of Virginia, in Stafford county, on the north bank of the Rappahannock; twenty-three miles south-west of Dumfries. FALSE, adj., adv. & v. a.) FALSEFA CED, adj.

FALSE HEART,

FALSE HOOD, n. s. FALSE LY, adv. FALSE'NESS, n. s. FALSE'R, FALSIFIABLE, adj. FALSIFICATION, n. s. FAL'SIFIER,

Sax. Falre; Fr. faux, fausse; Ital. Span. and Port. FALSE HEARTED, falso; Goth. fals FALSEHEART'EDNESS, n. s. (from fela, to cover or conceal, says Mr. Thomson); Lat. falsus; deceived. Untrue; supposititious; deceitful; dishonest; treacherous; not FAL'SIFY, v. a. & v. n. according to rule: FAL'SITY, n. s. as an adverb, not truly, honestly, or exactly (a barbarism). To false is an obsolete verb, expressing, to make false (a pledge or promise implied); to deceive; evade: falsefaced, falseheart, and falsehearted, all mean deceitful, the first being applied to appearances, the last two to motives: as our great bard says, False face must hide what the false heart doth know.' Falsehood, falseness, and falsity, are want of, or contrariety to truth; duplicity sometimes falsehood and falsity express simply want of verbal truth; sometimes intentional deception; a lie; counterfeit ; imposture. See the extract from Dr. Paley. (We only hope it will be felt that his list of non-criminal falsehoods is sufficiently copious). Falsifiable is liable to be counterfeited: falsification, the act of counterfeiting or making any thing appear what it is not, as well as that of making the falsehood of any deceitful thing appear; confutation: to falsify is used also in these different senses, viz. it signifies to confute; to counterfeit, forge, or corrupt; as well as to violate a pledge given: as a neuter verb it meaus to tell falsehoods. Dryden's labored defence (see below) of his use of the verb active, seems almost needless: a shield is falsified when it is pierced, in the same sense as an argument when it is confuted, i. e. the falshood of its assumed character is made to appear. Dr. Johnson says, 'Dryden, with all this effort, was not able to naturalise the new signification, which I have never seen copied, except once by some obscure

nameless' writer, and which, indeed deserves not to be received.' We have copied a far more barbarous use of falsify as a substantive, first quoted by Mr. Todd, from Beaumont and Fletcher.

In your answers there remains falshood. Job.
Falsifying the balance by deceit.
Amos.

Can you on him such falsities obtrude?
And as a mortal the most wise delude? Sandys.
Such end had the kid; for he would weaned be
Of craft coloured with simplicity;

And such end, pardie, does all them remain,
That of such falser's friendship been fain. Spenser.
The Irish bards use to forge and falsify every thing
as they list, to please or displease any man. Id.

Fair seemly pleasance each to other makes,
With goodly purposes there as they sit;
And in his falsed fancy he her takes
To be the fairest light that lived yet.

Id. Facrie Queenc.

[blocks in formation]

Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
That has a name.
Id. Macbeth.

What thou wouldest highly,
That thou wouldest holily; wouldest not play false,
And yet wouldest wrongly win.

Id.

May these same instruments, which you profane, Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be Made all of false-faced soothing.

Id CoriolanesS. I am thy king, and thou a falsehearted traitor. Id. King Henry VI. p. 11.

« ZurückWeiter »