regions in this part of Africa, and may be taken as a specimen of the rest that are less known. Soda, rock-salt, alum, gypsum, saltpetre, and sulphur, are all said to exist. The first three are in sufficient quantities to form articles of commerce. There is said to be one plain of solid salt thirty miles in length. Mourzouk, the capital, is situated in the southern part, and there are three or four more considerable towns, as Sockna, Zuela, and Gatrone, all of which, except Zuela, lie in the common route. Mourzouk is a walled town, with about 2500 inhabitants. The walls consist of mud, and are strengthened by round towers with loop holes for the musketry. See MoURZOUK.

Most of the people here are capable of performing the business of carpenter and mason as far as domestic purposes require, and many work very well in leather. Others make substantial but clumsy articles in iron, and some display tolerable skill in working gold and silver. Some coarse hayks are also woven in the country. A considerable commerce in slaves, and other articles common to these countries, is carried on between Fezzan and the interior of the continent, as well as with Egypt, Bornou, &c.

The government of Fezzan is an absolute monarchy. All the boys are said to be taught to read the Koran, but of every other book they are perfectly ignorant. Dates constitute almost the only article of general subsistence. The Fezzanners are represented as possessing little courage, enterprise, or honesty, and are as completely submissive as their oppressors could wish. Their complexion is quite black, and the females the very reverse of handsome. Neither sex is noted for figure, strength, or activity. A peculiar cast of countenance distinguishes them from all other blacks, their cheek-bones being higher and more prominent; their faces fatter, and their noses less depressed. They have small eyes, wide mouths, but good teeth. Their hair is mostly woolly. The females arrive early at puberty, and have often the appearance of old women at sixteen. They are cheerful people, fond of singing and dancing, and kind and obliging to each other. But their affections are cold and interested; they manifest a general indifference to the common incidents of life; and are particularly devoid of that sudden anger, or determined revenge, which marks the Arab.

A tenth part at least of the population of Mourzouk are slaves. Many of them, however, were brought from their native countries so young, and are so mildly treated, that they are scarcely sensible of slavery. Very little difference can be perceived between the household slaves and the freemen. They are often entrusted with their master's affairs, and, when any of the family die, one of the slaves is generally liberated. The population scattered over this wild waste is estimated by Mr. Horneman to amount only to 70,000 or 75,000 souls, of which Mourzouk, as we have seen, contains, according to Lyon, about 2,500. The government was hereditary in a black family of shreefs for more than five centuries, but tributary to the bashaw of Tripoli. This tribute was collected by Mukni, the present sultan of Fezzan, who

contrived to get the government of the country into his own hands, by promising the bashaw to triple the amount of the annual tribute. For this purpose, in the year 1811, he came upon Mourzouk by surprise, caused the sultan, his brother, and the principal Mameluke, to be strangled, and by his oppressions of the people, but chiefly by the wars which he waged, and still continues to wage with his defenceless neighbours, for the sake of procuring slaves, he has hitherto managed to fulfil his promise, and retain his government. While, however, Messrs. Lyon and Ritchie were at Mourzouk, reports were circulated that another sultan was on his way from Tripoli to supersede him.

These reports, corroborated by one or two private letters,' says captain Lyon, very much alarmed the sultan, and caused him to fall sick and take to his bed. He began, for the first time in his life, to pray at the regular hour ordered by the law; he ceased to swear, talked much of Paradise, and the superiority of the other world to this. Mr. Ritchie was at this time very weak, and began again to be indisposed, but he constantly visited Mukni, and at last succeeded in restoring him to health; thus returning by kindness the ill treatment we had received from him. We both went frequently to the castle, and learnt by degrees that some expressions of Mukni's had come to the ears of the bashaw, whose emissaries he expected would be sent to strangle him, and take all his wealth. Never was a haughty tyrant so completely humbled by his fears as this man; he sat constantly in a dark room, would receive only one or two visitors, aud was nursed by negresses day and night; always speaking in a low voice, and, in his terror, betraying all his secrets.'—p. 164. He determined, however, to try what bribes and promises would do; and with this view despatched his principal man of business to Tripoli with presents of civet, and other articles, ten fine slave girls for the bashaw, and handsome negresses for the bey, his son, for his brothers, and for the principal people about the court; making at the same time secret preparations for flight, such as getting all his horses shod by night, and all his women employed in grinding corn. For some time, however, his agent succeeded in diverting the storm.'

The females are here allowed more liberty than those of Tripoli, and are more kindly treated. The effect of the plurality of wives is but too plainly seen, and their women, in consequence, are not famed for chastity. Though so much better used than those of Barbary, their life is still a state of slavery. A man never ventures to speak of his women; is reproached if he spends much time in their company; never eats with them, but is waited upon at his meals, and fanned by them while he sleeps; yet these poor beings, never having enjoyed the sweets of liberty or affection, are, in spite of their humiliation, comparatively happy. The authority of parents over children is very great, some fathers of the better class not allowing their sons to eat, or sit down in their presence, till they become men; the poorer orders, however, are less strict.'" Specimens of rock collected by captain Lyon,

various parts of his journey, have enabled fessor Buckland of Oxford, to determine the ogical structure of Tripoli and Fezzan; all which may be referred to the three formations, Basalt; 2. Tertiary limestone, of about the me age with the calcaire grossier of Paris; 3. New red sandstone. The Soudah, or Black Yantains, are of basaltic formation; their diron is east and west, and they extend probaacross the continent, Horneman having ed them nearly 200 miles to the south-eastd of Lyon, where they take the name of the Harutsch. Some basalt also appears in the saran Mountains; but this ridge, which runs bably to the borders of Egypt, is composed parently of trap and calcareous rocks, the terry limestone above-mentioned. The rocks san marine shells, particularly two species of um, in a state of delicate preservation. Inmost of the limestone formation, in every Northern Africa, appears to be loaded fragments of organic remains, the most dist of which, brought away by captain Lyon, be referred to the genera ostrea and pecton. are informed by Horneman, that the ruins the temple of Siwah are limestone, containing tractions of shells and small marine animals; from this place, westerly, the face of the y chain, rising abruptly from the sandy set, was so crowded and filled with marine mals, and shells, and white detached mounds, were, wholly composed of shells, that when in connexion with the sea-sand, which es the desert, this vast tract of country, he ades, must have been flooded at a period than the great deluge. Farther south, and to the Black Harutsch, the calcareous hills, steep from the level desert, are so friable, petrified conchs, snail-shells, fish, and other substances, may be taken out by the I found heads of fish', says Horneman, would be a full burthen for one man to The third and last formation appears der its usual form of loose red sand, accomed by rock salt and gypsum, associated with of a calcareous breccia, cemented by maglimestone, and of compact dolomite. The und is composed of extremely minute s of red semi-transparent quartz. Mr. Buckobserves, that the frequent occurrence of springs and of rock salt and gypsum goes identify this sand of the deserts with the red sandstone in the south of England. In also are ferruginous concretions, forming or geodes; the broken fragments of which mpact, sonorous, and of a dark liver color, za shining polished surface; they are dantly found among the sand. A narrow entirely composed of tubular concretions of of similar origin near the pass of Kenair, irregular ramifications through the like the roots of trees, and presented at right the resemblance of lava. Most of the s are strewed with magnesian limestone or site split into small laminated fragments, break and rattle under the feet like pottery. any other varieties of magnesian limestone and donates of lime are associated with the sand sandstone of the hills and plains of this VOL. IX.

out

barren and miserable country. In our general article on AFRICA, par. 254-256, will be found several interesting particulars of the people and manners, supplied by captain Lyon.

FIANONA, a borough and castle of Italy, in the province of Istria, and district of Albona, four miles from Albona, and one from the coast. It has a good harbour, and a rivulet which turns twenty-two mills. It is seated on the Gulf of Carnero, seventeen miles north of Pola, and nineteen east of Rovigno.

FI'AT, n. s. [Lat. i. e. be it so.] Order; de

The difference between bodies fibrous and bodies viscous is plain; for all wool and tow, and cotton and silk, have a greediness of moisture. Bacon.

My heart sinks in me while I hear him speak,
And every slackened fibre drops its hold,
Like nature letting down the springs of life:
The name of father awes me still.

Dryden.

I saw Petreus' arms employed around A well-grown oak, to root it from the ground; This way and that he wrenched the fibrous bands, The trunk was like a sapling in his hands. Id. The fibrous and solid parts of plants pass unaltered through the intestines. Arbuthnot on Aliments.

A fibre, in physick, is an animal thread, of which some are soft, flexible, and a little elastick; and these are either hollow, like small pipes, or spongious and full of little cells, as the nervous and fleshy fibres: others are more solid, flexible, and with a strong elasticity or spring, as the membraneous and cartilaginous fibres: and a third sort are hard and flexible, as the fibres of the bones. Some so very small as not to be easily perceived; and others so big as to be plainly seen; and most of them appear to be composed of still smaller fibres: these fibres first constitute the substance of the bones, cartilages, ligaments, membranes, nerves, veins, arterics, and muscles. Quincy.

The muscles consist of a number of fibres, and each

When strong desires or soft sensations move The astonished Intellect to rage or love; Associate tribes of fibrous motions rise, Flush the red cheek, or light the laughing eyes. Id.

If in a church one feels the floor and the pew tremble to certain tones of the organ; if one string vibrates of its own accord when another is sounded near it of equal length, tension, and thickness; if a person who sneezes, or speaks loud, in the neighbourhood of a harpsichord, often hears the strings of the instrument murmur in the same tone, we need not wonder, that some of the finer fibres of the human frame should be put in a tremulous motion, when they happen to be in unison with any notes proceeding from external objects.

Beattie.

FIBRE, in anatomy, is defined to be a perfectly simple body, being fine and slender like a thread, and serving to form other parts. Some are hard, as the bony fibres; others soft, as those which form all the other parts. The fibres are divided, according to their situation, into straight, oblique, transverse, annular, and spiral; being found arranged in all these directions in different parts of the body. See ANATOMY.

FI'BULA, n. s. Lat. The outer and less bone of the leg, much smaller than the tibia: it lies on the outside of the leg; and its upper end, which is not so high as the knee, receives the lateral knob of the upper end of the tibia into a small sinus, which it has in its inner side. Its lower end is received into the small sinus of the tibia, and then it extends into a large process, which forms the outer ankle.-Quincy.

FIBULA, in antiquity, was a sort of button, buckle, or clasp, used by the Greeks and Romans for keeping close or tying up some part of their cloaths. They were of various forms, and often adorned with precious stones. Men and women wore them in their hair and at their shoes. Fibula are often found in the tombs of the ancient Romans, Gauls, Franks, and the ancient Britons. Many antique fibulæ of bronze are to be found in various cabinets and collections of antiquities, and a few in the British Museum, among other articles of the toilet or of personal decoration.

FIBULA, in surgery, an instrument used among the ancients for closing wounds. Celsus speaks of the fibula as to be used when the wound was so patent as not easily to admit of being sewed. FICHARD (John), was born at Frankfort-onthe-Maine in 1512, and devoting himself to the study of jurisprudence became syndic of Frankfort. He wrote, The Lives of illustrious Men, distinguished for their Talents and Erudition during the fifteenth aud sixteenth Centuries, in

Latin, printed in 4to. 1536. The Lives of celebrated Lawyers, 1565, 4to. A work entitled, Onomasticon Philosophico-Medico Synonymum, 1574. De Cautelis, 1577. And Concilium Matrimoniale, 1580. He died in 1581.

FICHET (Alexander), a Jesuit and able writer on rhetoric, was born about 1589. He became professor of the classics and rhetoric in the college at Lyons, where he published an edition of the Latin poets, under the title of Chorus Poetarum, 1616. He also published a collection called Museum, Rhetoricum et Poeticum; and a work with the title of Arcana Studiorum omnium methodus, et Bibliotheca Scientiarum, 8vo. He also printed Favus Patrum, or Thoughts of the Fathers, 12mo.

FICHTE (John Theophilus), a modern German metaphysician, the son of a riband manufacturer, was born at Rammenau, a village of Lusatia, on the 19th of May, 1762. Young Fichte displayed at school considerable genius, and was patronised by some respectable persons; but becoming impatient of restraint he absconded, and was found sitting on the banks of the Saale, with a map, on which he was endeavouring to trace the way to America. He after this prosecuted his studies in a very desultory manner; occasionally attending the lectures of various professors of Wirtemberg and Leipsic. Theology, however, was his favorite study. Possessing no fortune to enable him to indulge in the luxury of mere speculation, he was compelled by his circumstances to accept the situation of tutor in the family of a Prussian gentleman. Here he was enabled to cultivate the acquaintance of the celebrated Kant, to whose judgment he submitted his first work, the Critical Review of all Revelations, which was published, anonymously, in 1792, and which was for a time ascribed to the pen of that philosopher. Fichte now set out on a course of travels through Germany and Switzerland, and married at Zurich a niece of Klopstock's. In 1793 he published the first part of his very popular work, Contributions towards rectifying the Opinions of the Public respecting the French Revolution. His reputation was now so well established, that he was soon after appointed to the philosophical chair at Jena, and commenced his lectures by a programme, in which. he endeavoured to give an idea of the doctrine of science (wissenschaftslehre), the name by which he distinguished the principles of his philosophical system. Besides the ordinary duties of his professorship, he gave a regular course of lectures, in the form of sermons, every Sunday, in the year 1794, on the literary calling, which were numerously attended. He now endeavoured to extend the application of his principles to the several departments of philosophy; and with this view published, in 1796, his Fundamental Principles of the Law of Nature; and two years afterwards, his System of Morals. In conjunction with Niethammar, he also published a Philosophical Journal, in which several articles were inserted, containing some views of religion which were considered athe istical. Among other objectionable propositions, it was maintained that God was nothing else than the moral order of the universe; and that

1

to worship God as a being who could only be represented as existing in time and space, would be a species of idolatry. One of Fichte's colagues called the attention of the Saxon minister Burgsdorf to these heretical propositions; and the consequence was, the rigorous confiscation of the periodical work in question. Fichte and his friend Forberg wrote an Appeal to the Public, and several Apologies, in order to exculpate selves from the imputation of atheism. The waroversy was carried on with great violence, and excited considerable ferment throughout the whole of Germany. In the mean time Fichte remed his professorship at Jena and repaired to Berlin, where his time was occupied in giving private lectures and in private composition. In 1500 he published a treatise, entitled The exclutive Commercial State. About this period he set with a formidable rival in Schelling, who had formerly been a partizan of the doctrine of ence, but who now separated from his master, ad propounded a new metaphysical theory, which soon acquired a large share of popularity at the German universities. Fichte, indeed, endeavoured to modify his theory of that doctrine, and to present it to the world in a more attrac tre form; but he never again recovered his popularity. Meanwhile, his wish to be re-placed an academical chair was at length gratified M. de Hardenberg, who, in 1805, procured e him the appointment of ordinary professor philosophy in the university of Erlangen. This was accompanied with the especial favor fbeing permitted to pass the winter at Berlin, order to finish his lectures. During the sumof 1805, he lectured at Erlangen on the Essence of the Literary Character (uber das Wesen des Gelehrten.) The following winter he livered to a numerous audience the course ach he afterwards published under the title #Guide to a Happy Life, one of the best exitions of his metaphysical doctrines. Ergen having ceased to be a Prussian univeryin 1806, Fichte returned to Koningsberg, and from thence to Riga. In the summer of 307 he delivered a popular course of philosophical lectures at the former place. The peace on after enabled him to return to Berlin, where he pronounced his famous Orations to German Nation, which were enthusiastically ad and applauded throughout all Germany. the university of Berlin being founded, he brained, through the interest of Humboldt, the tation of rector, which secured to him an horable revenue, and great academical influence. is health, however, had suffered from the vaties of fortune he had experienced, and he Pas just recovering his strength at the waters of hemia, when his wife was attacked with a Servous fever: she recovered; but Fichte, whose dection would not allow him to leave her for a Sment, caught the disorder and died on the 5th of January, 1814.

Fichte was a voluminous writer; and we are debted for the following list of his works to the Supplement of the Encyclopædia Britannica :— Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung. (Criral Review of all Revelation). Koningsberg,

1792, 1793, 8vo. 2. Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre. (On the Notion of a Doctrine of Science). Jena, 1794. 8vo. 3. Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre. (Foundation of the whole Doctrine of Science). Ibid. 1794. 8vo. 4. Grundriss des eigenthumlichen der Wissenscaftlehre. (Sketch of the Peculiarity of the Doctrine of Science). Ibid. 1795. 5. Vorlesungen ueber die Bestimmung des Gelehrten. (Lectures on the Literary Calling). Jena, 1794. 6. System der Sittenlehre. (System of the Doctrine of Morals). Jena and Leipsic, 1795. 7. Beyträge zur Berichtigung der Urtheile des Publicums ueber die Französische Revolution. (Materials for Rectifying the Opinions of the Public respecting the French Revolution). 8. Grundlage des Naturrechts. (Foundation of the Law of Nature). Jena, 1796, 1797. 2 vols. 8vo. 9. Appellation an das Publicum ueber die ihm beygemessenen atheistischen Aeussemrngen. (Appeal to the Public respecting the Atheistical Expressions imputed to him). Jena and Leipsic, 1799. 10. Ueber die Bestimmung des Menschen. (On the Destiny of Man). 11. Der geschlossene Handelsstaat. (The exclusive Commercial State). 12. Sonnenklarer Bericht an das grössere Publicum ueber das eigentliche Wesen der neusten Philosophie. (Luminous Report to the greater Public, on the peculiar Character of the Modern Philosophy). Berlin, 1801. 13. Wissenschaftslehre. (Doctrine of Science.) Tübingen, 1802. 8vo. Vorlesungen ueber das Wesen der Gelehrten. (Lectures on the Literary Character). Berlin, 1806. 15. Die Grundzuge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters. (The Characteristics of the present Age). Ibid. 1806. 16. Anweisung zum seligen Leben. (Guide to a Happy Life). Ibid. 1806. 17. Reden an die Deutsche Nation. (Discourses to the German Nation). Ibid. 1806. 18. Die Wissenschaftslehre in ihrem allgemeinsten Umrisse dargestellt. (The Doctrine of Science exhibited in its most general Outline). Ibid. 1810. 19. Freidrich Nicolai's Leben und Sonderbare Meinungen, herausgegeben von Schlegel. (Life and singular Opinions of Frederic Nicolai, edited by Schlegel). Tübingen, 1801. 20. Antwortschrieben an K. L. Reinhold, auf dessen Beyträge zur leichtern Uebersicht des Zastandes der Philosophie, &c. (Answer to K. L. Reinhold, or his Materials for acquiring a more easy View of the State of Philosophy, &c.) Ibid. 1801. 21. Ueber die einzig mögliche Störung der academischen Freyheit. (On the only possible Disturbance of Academical Freedom). Berlin, 1812. 22. Uber den Begriff des wahrhaften Kriegs, in Bezug auf den Kreig in Jahre 1813. (On the Notion of real War, with Reference to the War in 1813). Tübingen, 1815. Fichte is also the author of numerous essays in periodical publications, and particularly in the philosophical journal, edited by himself and Niethammer.

14.

FICHTELBERG, a mountain, or rather a ridge of mountains, in Franconia, extending nearly from Bareuth to Eger in Bohemia, sixteen miles in length from east to west, and as many in breadth from north to south. Cruttwell styles it' one of the highest mountains in Germany.'

It contains many deserts, bogs, and morasses; and abounds with trees, particularly pines, oaks, elms, and beeches.

FICINUS (Marsilius), a modern philosopher and reviver of letters, was born in 1433 at Florence, where his father was physician to the Medici family. He was educated at Bologna; and persuaded his patron, Cosmo de Medici, to form an academy for the cultivation of the Platonic philosophy. He continued in favor under other princes of that house, and died, after taking orders, in 1499. He published a complete translation of Plato's writings into Latin. His own works were collected in 2 vols. folio, 1641.

Sax. Ficol; Goth. huckul; Belg. ficken; Lat. vacillo, Changeable;

to

waver.

Beware of fraud, beware of fickleness, In choice and change of thy dear-loved dame.

Remember where we are,

In France amongst a fickle wavering nation.

Faerie Queene.

Shakspeare.

Id.

I am a soldier, and unapt to weep,
Or to exclaim on fortune's fickleness.
He would be loth

Us to abolish; lest the adversary

Triumph, and say, fickle their state, whom God Most favours! Milton's Paradise Lost. Neither her great worthiness, nor his own suffering for her, could fetter his fickleness; but, before his marriage-day, he had taken to wife that Baccha of Sidney. whom she complained.

They know how fickle common lovers are ; Their oaths and vows are cautiously believed; For few there are but have been once deceived.

Dryden.

Instability of temper ought to be checked, when it disposes men to wander from one scheme of government to another, since such a fickleness cannot but be attended with fatal consequences. Addison.

We in vain the fickle sex pursue,
Who change the constant lover for the new.

Do not now,

Prior.

Like a young wasteful heir, mortgage the hopes Of godlike majesty on bankrupt terms, To raise a present power that's fickly held By the frail tenure of the people's will. Southern. A few good works gain fame; more sink their price; Mankind are fickle, and hate paying twice. Young.

Fancy now no more

Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies;
But, fixed in aim, and conscious of her power,
Aloft from cause to cause exults to rise,
Creation's blended stores arranging as she flies.
Beattie.

But droop not: Fortune at your time of life,
Although a female moderately fickle,
Will hardly leave you (as she's not your wife)

For any length of days in such a pickle. Byron. FI'CO, ". S. Ital. An act of contempt done with the fingers, expressing 'a fig for you.'

Having once recovered his fortress, he then gives the fico to his adversaries.

Carew.

FICTILE, adj. Lat. fictiles. Moulded into form; manufactured by the potter.

The cause of fragility is an impotency to be extended; and therefore stone is more fragil than metal, and so fictile earth is more fragil than crude earth.

Bacon's Natural History.

Time to those things-gave fictive ornament.

Drayton. These pieces are fictitiously set down, and have no copy in nature. Browne's Vulgar Errours. If through mine ears pierce any consolations, By wise discourse, sweet tunes, or pocts' fictions; If ought I cease these hideous exclamations, While that my soul, she lives in afflictions. Sidney. If the presence of God in the image, by a mere fiction of the mind, be a sufficient ground to worship that image, is not God's real presence in every creature a far better ground to worship it? Stillingfleet.

It is the part of a poet to humour the imagination in our own notions, by mending and perfecting nature where he describes a reality, and by adding greater beauties than are put together in nature, when he describes a fiction. Addison.

Milton, sensible of this defect in the subject of Lis poem, brought into it two characters of a shadowy and fictitious nature in the persons of Sin and Death, by which means he has interwoven in his fable a very beautiful allegory. Addison's Spectator.

With fancied rules and arbitrary laws
Matter and motion man restrains,
And studied lines and fictious circles draws.

Prior.

The human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones; and Belinda resembles you in nothing but in beauty. Pope.

FICUS, the fig-tree, a genus of the triacia order, and polygamia class of plants: natural order fifty-third, scabridæ. The receptacle is common, turbinated, carnous, and connivent; enclosing the florets either in the same or in a distinct one: male CAL: tripartite: coR. none : STAM. three female CAL: quinquepartite: cor. none: pistil one; and one seed.-There are fifty-six species, of which the following are the most remarkable:

F. carica, the common fig tree, with an upright stem branching fifteen or twenty feet high, and garnished with large palmated or hand-shaped leaves Of this there are many varieties; as, The common fig tree, with large, oblong, dark purplish blue fruit, which ripens in August either on standards or walls, and of which it carries a great quantity. The brown or chestnut fig; a large, globular, chestnut-colored fruit, having a purplish delicious pulp, ripening in July and