ginning with Romulus; "most of the eminent persons in the commonwealth, and Augustus himself among the rest; with an inscription upon the pedestal of every statue, expressing the chief actions and exploits of the person it represented. This forum was restored by the emperor Adrian. FORUM is also used among casuists, &c., for jurisdiction; as In foro legis, &c. The following metaphorical uses of the word are also common in the classics, as Cicero, Suetonius, Florus, &c.

FORUM AGERE denoted the bringing on causes out of Rome, in a Roman province; signifying the same with agere conventum.

FORUM INDICERE was the act of the prætor appointing the place in Rome where causes were to be tried.

FORUM, in ancient geography, prefixed to a proper name, denoted a market town cr borough. Of these there were many; as,

FORUM ALIENI, a place mentioned only by Tacitus; and, from his account of it, thought to be Ferrara in Italy.

FORUM APPII, a town of the Volsci, in Latium, on the Via Appia, a little beyond the Tres Taberna, mentioned by St. Luke, as well as by Cicero. It is set down in the Jerusalem Itinerary as situated near the river Nymphæus; now entirely desolate.

FORUM DOMITII, a town of Gallia Narbonensis; probably built by Ahenobarbus Domitius, who commanded in those parts: now Frontigniac, in Languedoc, near the Mediter

ranean.

FORUM FULVII, a town of Liguria, surnamed Valentinum; from which it is conjectured that it is now Valenza, in the duchy of Milan; which is confirmed by Peutinger's distances.

FORUM GALLORUM, a small town of the Cispadana, on the Via Emilia, eight miles from Mutina, beyond the Scultenna. Here Antony defeated Pansa, and was in his turn defeated by Hirtius.

FORUM JULIUM, a town of Gallia Narbonensis; or Forojulium: now Frejus in France.

FORUM JULIUM CARNORUM, a town north of Aquileia, in Transpadana.

FORUM TIBERII, a town of Gallia Belgica, in the Pagus Tigurinus, on the left or west side of the Rhine; literally the tribunal of Tiberius, which he held there when commander in the Rhetian war.

FORUM VULCANI, the Campi Phlegraei of Pliny, a place in Campania, encompassed with rocky eminences, near Puteoli, and distant from it two miles towards Naples, emitting smoke, and in some places flame, like a large extensive furnace, and yielding sulphur.

FORWARD, adv., adj. &
FORWARDER, n. s.
FORWARDLY, adv.
FOR WARDNESS, n. s.
FOR'WARDS, adv.

forthward. See FORTH. Towards; to a part

or place before; onward; progressively. Crabb says, 'Onward is taken in the literal sense of going nearer to an object; forward is taken in the sense of going from an object, or going further in the line before one; progressive has the sense of going gradually, or step by step before one.' Thus it also signifies anterior; antecedent; not behind hand; not inferior; premature; early; ripe too soon. Applied to the mind, it means warm; earnest; ardent; eager; violent, ready; confident; presumptuous; impudent; quick; hasty. A forwarder is one that promotes an object, or facilitates the execution of any thing. To forward, is to hasten; to quicken; to accelerate in growth or improvement; to patronise; to advance.

Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.

Gul. ii. 10.

First and forward, ye han erred in the assembling of youre conseillours; for ye sholde first han cleped a fewe folk to your conseil, and after ye mighte han shewed it to mo folk if it hadde be nede: but certes ye han sodeinly cleped to your conseil a gret multitude of peple, full chargeant and full anoyous for to here. Chaucer. Tale of Melibeus. From smaller things the mind of the hearers may go forward to the knowledge of greater, and climb up from the lowest to the highest things.

Hooker.

Absolutely we cannot discommend, we cannot absolutely approve either willingness to live, or forward

ness to die.

Id.

thered by ill men of a sinister intent and purpose, Is it so strange a matter to find a good thing furwhose forwardness is not therefore a bridle to such as favour the same cause with a better and sincere meaning. Id.

When fervent sorrow slaked was,
She up arose, resolving him to find
Alive or dead, and forward forth doth pass.
Faerie Queene.

"Tis a perilous boy,
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable;
He's all the mother's from the top to toe.
Shakspeare.

Let us take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quickest decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals, ere we can effect them.
Short Summer lightly has a forward Spring. Id.
My good Camillo,

She is as forward of her breeding, as
She is i' th' rear o' our birth.

You'll still be too forward.

Id.

Id. Winter's Tale.

wander wildly and wearily.

Than, dismayd, I-left all sole,
For-werie-for-wandred, as a fole;
For I ne knewe no cherisaunce.

Chaucer. Romaunt of the Rose.

The better part now of the lingering day
They travelled had, when as they far espied
A weary wight forwandering by the way.

Faerie Queene.

affection.

Bacon.

thers, who were under, the same training, might hold pace with him. Wotton.

Old Butes' form he took, Anchises squire, Now left to rule Ascanius by his sire; And thus salutes the boy too forward for his years. Dryden. The mind makes not that benefit it should of the information it receives from civil or natural historians,

ated 950 fossarii, whom he took out of the companies of tradesmen; he adds, that they were exempted from taxes, services, burdensome offices, &c. F. Goar, in his notes on the Greek Euchologion, insinuates that the fossarii were established in the times of the apostles; and that the young men who carried off the body of

Locke.

Had they, who would persuade us that there are innate principles, considered separately the parts out of which these propositions are made, they would not perhaps have been so forward to believe they were innate.

Id. When in the sweet and pleasant month of May, We see both leaves and blossomes on the tree; And view the meadowes in their best array,

We hopeful are a joyfull spring to see;

Yet oft before the following night be past,

It chanceth that a vapor, or a frost, Doth all those forward bloomings wholly waste, And then their sweetnesse and their beautie's lost. Geo. Withers. In France it is usual to bring their children into company, and to cherish in them, from their infancy, a kind of forwardness and assurance. Addison.

Unskilled to dart the pointed spear, Or lead the forward youth to noble war. Prior. The sudden and surprising turns we ourselves have felt, should not suffer us too forwardly to admit presumption. Atterbury. The Rhodian ship passed through the whole Roman feet, backwards and forwards several times, carrying intelligence to Drepanum.

Whenever I shine,

Arbuthnot.

I forward the grass and I ripen the vine.

Swift. The troops have long arrears of pay oft promised, And murmur deeply-any hope of change Will draw them forward. Byron. Doge of Venice.

FOSSA, in our ancient customs, was a ditch full of water, where women committing felony were drowned; as men were hanged: nam et ipsi in omnibus tenementis suis omnem ab antiquo legalem habuere justitiam, videlicet ferrum, fossum, furcas, et similia. In another sense it is taken for a grave, as appears by these ancient

verses:

Hic jacent in fossa Bedæ venerabilis ossa; Hic est fossatus, qui bis erat hic cathedratus. FOSSA, Foss, in anatomy, a kind of cavity in a bone, with a large aperture, but no exit or perforation. When the aperture is very narrow, it is called a sinus. Foss is particularly used for the cavity or denture in the back part of the

neck.

It was

FOSSANO, a town of Italy in Piedmont, seated on the Stura; famed for its medicinal springs, whence its ancient name Fons Sanus, since corrupted into its modern one. surrounded with walls in 1236. It contains a cathedral, three parish churches, three convents, and about 900 souls. It lies five miles east of Savigliano, seven south-west of Cherasco, and ten north-east of Coni. Long. 7° 56′ E., lat. 44° 45' N.

FOSSARII, in antiquity, officers in the eastern church, whose business was to inter the dead. Ciaconius relates, that Constantine cre

were of the number. St. Jerome assures us, that the fossarii held the first place among the clerks, who had the direction of the interment of the devout.

FOSSE, n. s. Lat. fossa; Welsh fos. A ditch; a moat.

If a second ditch is made before the glacis, it is called the advanced fosse. Muller on Fortification.

FOSSE, a military way in South Britain, begins at Totness, and passes through Exeter, Ivelchester, Shipton-Mallet, Bath, Cirencester, Leicester, the Vale of Belvoir, Newark, Lincoln, to Barton upon the Humber, being still visible in several parts, though of 1400 years standing. It derived its name from the fosses or ditches made by the sides of it.

FOSSET. See FAUCET.

FO'SSIL, adj. & n. s. Fr. fossile; Lat. fossilis. Literally that which is dug out of the earth.

In this globe are many other bodies, which, because we discover them by digging into the bowels of the earth, are called by one common name fossils; under which are comprehended metals and minerals.

Locke.

The fossil shells are many of them of the same kinds with those that now appear upon the neighbouring shores; and the rest such as may be presumed to be at the bottom of the adjacent seas.

Woodward's Natural History. Fossil or rock salt, and sal gemm, differ not in nature from each other; nor from the common salt of salt springs, or that of the sea, when pure. Id.

It is of a middle nature, between fossil and animal, being produced from animal excrements, intermixed with vegetable salts.

Arbuthnot on Aliments. Many fossils are very oddly and elegantly shaped. Bentley.

Those bodies which will melt in the fire are called Pemberton. minerals, the rest fossils.

By the word fossil, used as a denomination of one of three general divisions of natural productions, we understand bodies formed usually within the earth, sometimes on its surface, and sometimes in waters; of a plain and simple structure, in which there is no visible difference of parts, no distinction of vessels and their contents, but every portion of which is similar to and perfect as the whole.

Hill's Materia Medica. FOSSIL ALKALI. See ALKALI. FOSSI PITCH. See PETROLEUM. FOSSILS, in natural history, have been divided into native or extraneous. Extraneous Fossils are bodies of the vegetable or animal kingdoms accidentally buried in the earth by some extraordinary means, as earthquakes, the deluge, &c. Of the vegetable kingdom there are principally three kinds; trees or parts of them, herbaceous plants, and corals; and of the animal kingdom, sea shells, the teeth, or bony palates, and bones of fishes, complete fishes, and the bones of land

animals. These adventitious or extraneous fossils, thus found buried in great abundance in various parts of the earth, have employed the curiosity of several of our naturalists, who have each their different systems to account for these surprising appearances. Some consider these shells, &c. to be real stones, and stone plants, formed after the usual manner of other figured stones; of which opinion was the learned Dr. Lister. Another opinion is, that these fossil shells, with all their foreign bodies found within the earth, as bones, trees, plants, &c. were buried at the time of the universal deluge; and that, having been penetrated either by the bituminous matter abounding chiefly in watery places, or by the salts of the earth, they have been preserved entire, and sometimes petrified. Others think, that those shells, found at the tops of the highest mountains, could never have been carried thither by the waters, even of the deluge; inasmuch as most of these aquatic animals, on account of the weight of their shells, always remain at the bottom of the water, and never move but close along the ground.

Dr. Woodward, in his Natural History of the Earth, pursuing and improving the hypothesis of Burnet, maintains that the whole mass of earth, with every thing belonging to it, was so broken and dissolved at the time of the deluge, that a new earth was formed on the bosom of the water, consisting of different strata, or beds of terrestrial matter, ranged over each other usually according to the order of their specific gravities. By these means, plants, animals, and especially fishes, and shells not yet dissolved among the rest, remained mixed and blended among the mineral and fossil matters; which preserved them, or at least assumed and retained their figures and impressions either indentedly, or in relievo. See farther under the articles DELUGE, ORGANIC REMAINS, and PE

TRIFICATION.

Native Fossils are substances found either naturally existing in the earth, or lying on its surface; of a plain simple structure, and showing no signs of containing vessels or circulating juices. These Dr. Hill subdivides into essentially and naturally simple fossils. Of these some are neither inflammable nor soluble in water; as simple earths, talcs, fibrariæ, gypsum, selenitæ, crystal, and spars: others, though simple and uninflammable, are soluble in water; as all the salts; and others, on the contrary, are inflammable, but not soluble in water; as sulphur, auripigmentum, zarnich, amber, ambergris, asphaltum, ampelites, lithanthrax, naphtha, and pissasphalta. 2. Naturally compound, but unmetallic fossils. Of these some are neither inflammable nor soluble in water, as compound earths, stones, septariæ, siderochita, semipellucid gems, &c.; others are soluble in water, but not inflammable; as all the metallic salts; and, lastly, some are inflammable, but not soluble in water; as the marcasites, pyritæ, and phlogonia. 3. Fossils of a metallic nature. These are bodies naturally hard, remarkably heavy, and fusible in fire. Of these some are perfectly metallic, as being malleable when pure; such are gold, lead, silver, copper, iron, and tin; others are imperfectly

metallic, as not being malleable even in their purest state; such are antimony, bismuth, cobalt, zinc, and quicksilver, or mercury. Of all these substances, descriptions will be found under their respective heads; as well as under CHEMISTRY, METALLURGY, &c.

FOSSIL COPAL, or Highgate resin. A mineral of a pale yellowish-brown color. It occurs in irregular roundish pieces. Lustre resinous. Semitransparent. Brittle. Yields easily to the knife. Specific gravity 1.046. When heated, it gives out a resinous aromatic odor, melts into a limpid fluid, takes fire at a lighted candle, and burns entirely away before the blowpipe. Insoluble in potash lie. Found in the bed of blue clay at Highgate near London. FOSTER, v. a. FOSTERAGE, n. s. FOS'TERER,

Sax, Fortɲian, fosterbroden, fortencild, for

repfader; Goth. Swed.

FOSTER-BROTHER, and Icel. fostra; Belg.

FOS'TER-CHILD, FOS'TER-DAM, FOSTER-EARTH, FOS'TER-FATHER, FOSTER-MOTHER, FOSTER-SON, FOS'TERER.

Το

voedsteren (from vodir, a >father.-Minsheu). nurse; to feed; to support; cherish; train up; to pamper; to encourage. Fosterer is one that takes the charge of nourishing and bringing up. Fosterage is the charge itself; and all the words in composition speak for themselves.

Fader! she said, thy wretched child Custance, Thy yonge doughter, fostered up so soft; And ye, my moder! my soveraine plesance Over all thing (out take Crist on loft); Custance your child hire recommendeth oft Unto your grace; for I shal to Surrie, Ne shal I never seen you more with eye.

Chaucer. The Man of Lawes Tale.

I am a man of little sustenance :
My spirit hath his fostring in the Bible;
My body is, ay so ready and so penible
To waken, that my stomak is destroied.

Chaucer. The Somproures Tale.

Our kingdom's earth should not be soiled With that dear blood which it hath fostered. Id. That base wretch,

Bred but on alms, and fostered wita cold dishes, With scraps o' the court. Id Cymbeline. Some one adjoining to this lake had the charge and fosterage of this child. Raleigh's History.

The duke of Bretagne having been an host and a kind of parent or fosterfather to the king, in his tenderness of age and weakness of fortune, did look for aid this time from king Henry.

Bacon.

With him his nurse, went careful Acoe;

Thomson.

his sentence, and on the day of his execution. His attendance upon this nobleman at the scaffold, is said to have deeply affected his health and spirits. Dr. Foster afterwards published, by subscription, Discourses on all the Principal Branches of Natural Religion and Social Virtue; the first volume of which came out in 1749, and the second in 1752. There were 2000 names subscribed for these volumes, many of them those of persons of distinguished eminence and literary abilities. Before the appearance of the second volume of these discourses his health had been much impaired, and he died in 1753.

FOSTER (Mark), an eminent English mathematician, of the seventeenth century, who published a Treatise on Trignometry.

FOSTER (Samuel), another ingenious mathematician of the seventeenth century, and astronomical professor in Gresham College, was one of that learned association which met for the cultivation of philosophy, during the political confusions under the commonwealth, and which Charles II. afterwards established into the Royal Society. He died, however, in 1652, before this incorporation took place; but wrote a number of mathematical and astronomical treatises.

FOSTER (William), a third eminent English mathematician of the seventeenth century, was a disciple of Mr. Oughtred, and afterwards taught mathematics in London. He distinguished him

him,

And ever since have fostered tenderly;

She never might, she never would, forsake him.

Fletcher's Purple Island.

My father was your father's client, I
His son's scarce less than foster-brother.

Byron. Doge of Venice.

FOSTER (James), D. D., a distinguished and popular dissenting minister, born at Exeter in 1697, and educated there under Mr. Hallet. He began to preach in 1718, but he became ob noxious on account of his opinions concerning the Trinity. His talents were hid among obscure country congregations until 1724, when he was chosen to succeed Dr. Gale, in Barbican, where he labored as pastor above twenty years. The Sunday evening lecture, which he began in the Old Jewry meeting-house in 1728, he conducted till within a short time of his death, and persons of all persuasions and ranks in life flocked to hear him. His eloquence as a preacher was of the first order, and Pope has honored him with the following commendatory couplet in the epilogue to his Satires:

Let modest Foster, if he will, excel Ten metropolitans in preaching well. In 1748 the Marischal College of Aberdeen conferred on him the degree of D.D. He published, in 1720, an Essay on Fundamentals, with a particular regard to the ever blessed Trinity, &c.; in 1731 a valuable work, entitled the Usefulness, Truth, and Excellency of the Christian Revelation against the objections contained in a late book, called Christianity as old as the Creation, &c.; several volumes of sermons in 1734 and 1744; and in 1746 an account of the behaviour of the late earl of Kilmarnock, after

tion, and the Horizontal Instrument; published in 1633 in 4to., and dedicated to Sir Kenelm Digby.

FOSTER (Sir Michael), an eminent English lawyer, born at Marlborough in Wiltshire, in 1689. He received the early part of his education at the free school of Marlborough, from whence he was removed to Exeter College, Oxford, in which he was a commoner. In 1707 he was entered of the Middle Temple, and in regular course called to the bar. In 1735 he was chosen recorder of Bristol; and the same year he published a pamphlet, entitled An Exdown in the Codex of Bishop Gibson. In 1745 amination of the Scheme of Church Power, laid he was appointed one of the justices of the King's Bench, on which occasion he had the 1762 he published a Report of some Proceedhonor of knighthood conferred upon him. In ings on the Commission of the Trial of the Rebels in the year 1746, in the county of Surrey.

He died in 1763.

Westmoreland, 1705, where his ancestors had FOTHERGILL (George), D D., was born in enjoyed a competent estate for several generations. He studied at Queen's College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow; and in 1751 was elected principal of St. Edmund's Hall, and vicar of Bromley in Hampshire. He died in 1760 of an asthma. He was author of a collection of much esteemed sermons, in 2 vols. 8vo. The first volume was published by himself, the second was printed from his MSS.

FOTHERGILL (John), M. D., an eminent physician, was born in 1712, at Carr-End in Yorkshire; his parents being Friends or Quakers. He was the second of five children, and educated under his grandfather. Ile afterwards served