FIERI FACIAS, n. s. In law. A judicial writ, that lies at all times within the year and day, for him that has recovered in an action of debt or damages, to the sheriff, to command him to levy the debt or the damages of his goods against whom the recovery was had. FIERY, adj. Önce written firy, from FIERINESS, n. s. FIRE, which see. Containing fire; fire-like; heated: hence, passionate, unrestrained. Scarcely had Phoebus in the gloomy East Yet harnessed his fiery footed team, Ne reared above the earth his flaming crest, When the last deadly smoak aloft did stream. Faerie Queene. The sword which is made fiery doth not only cut by reason of the sharpness which simply it hath, but also burn by means of that heat which it hath from fire. I know, thoud'st rather Hooker. Shakspeare. I drew this gallant head of war, Id. Id. And culled these fiery spirits from the world, To outlook conquest, and to win renown Even in the jaws of danger and of death. Then fiery expedition be my wing, Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king. Will any man put his finger into a fiery crucible, t pull out gold? Bp. Hall. The ashes, by their heat, their fieriness, and thei dryness, belong to the element of earth. Boyle. Through Elis and the Grecian towns he flew ; The' audacious wretch for fiery coursers drew. Dryden. The Italians, notwithstanding their natural fierines of temper, affect always to appear sober and sedate. Addison. See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs Though now with hopeless toil we trace Pope. Collins. Or Roman's self o'erturned the fanc. The Boy was sprang to manhood: in the wilds Of fiery climes he made himself a home, And his soul drank their sunbeams. Byron. FIESCO (John Lewis), count of Lavagna, head of one of the noblest houses in Genoa, became master of a large patrimony at the age of eighteen, and headed a remarkable conspiracy against the Doria family. France and the pope (Paul III.) seem to have favored his plans. On the evening of the 1st of January, 1547, he had prepared a galley under pretence of a cruise against the corsairs, and waited upon Andrew Doria, to request permission to depart from the harbour early in the morning. The same night he assembled a large body of partisans at his house, on the pretence of an entertainment, to whom he made an eloquent appeal on the subject of this undertaking; and then hastened to the apartment of his wife, and acquainted her with his intention. She earnestly, but in vain, entreated him to abandon his desperate enterprise. He took leave of her, saying, 'Madam, you shall never see me again, or you shall see every thing in Genoa beneath you.' He now sallied forth, preceded by 500 armed men, and despatching parties to different quarters, himself proceeded to secure the darsena, or dock, in which the galleys lay. Going on board one of these, from which he was proceeding across the plank to the captain galley, the board gave way; and falling into the water, incumbered with his armour, he sank to rise no more! Thus terminated the life of this able ambitious young noble at the early age of twentytwo. His confederates failed in their attempt on Andrew Doria, but Giannetino his nephew fell beneath their swords. The loss of the leader however proved fatal to their conspiracy; his brother Jerome was deserted, and the whole family was ruined and banished. FIESOLE (the ancient Fæsula), an ancient town of Tuscany, one of the twelve cities of Etruria, and the spot to which Catiline retired on the discovery of his conspiracy. It is a bishop's see, but at present little more than a Thas the gay victim, with fresh garlands crowned, eased with the sacred fife's enlivening sound, ugh gazing crowds in solemn state proceeds. Philips. FIFE, or FIFESHIRE, a county of Scotland, unded on the west by those of Clackmannan Muss, and Perth; on the north and north-east The Tay; on the east by the German Ocean, on the south by the Frith of Forth. Though extends to a much greater length along the at, its mean dimensions are not above thirty1 miles in length, by fourteen in breadth; and mperficial area has been computed at 504 are miles, or 322,560 English acres. The face the country is various. Towards the west it Eountainous having the Lomond hills rising a great height; and a ridge of hills extends wward almost to the coast, occupying the cendistrict; towards the north and south the rice descends gradually to the Friths of Tay Forth, exhibiting the most beautiful prospect fertile and well-cultivated fields. Woods and Catations abound through the whole, and the 4s are covered with sheep, whose wool is in estimation. Agriculture has been greatly improved of late as; and the farms, particularly on the northern cavity, bring very high rents. The rental of Lands, in 1811, was £335,290 14s. 6d. ster, or almost a guinea an acre over the whole, ad of the houses £38,756 1s. 6d. The farms in meral are of a moderate size; few of them are that may be called large, the greater number e small, and the average perhaps about 150 res. But there are many possessions from fifty down to eight or ten acres, occupied by their proPretors, or by manufacturers, tradesmen, and sechanics. In all new leases the rent is made payable in money, though in a few instances the mount may depend upon the price of grain, ad vary therefore from year to year. The comnon length of a lease here, as throughout Scotand, is nineteen years. The farm-buildings present a great variety in regard to their materials and construction; but on the whole have much mproved of late. More than a third of this country is completely and substantially enclosed with dry stone walls or thorn hedges, chiefly the latter. This is one of the Scottish counties where fax is grown to some extent: though it is by no means a favorite with landlords, who, in some instances, have prohibited their tenants from Bowing more than one acre in a year. The cattle of Fifeshire have long been in high repute, both as fattening and dairy stock. The prevailing color is black; horns small, white, turned up at the points; bone small in proportion to the car case; weighing, when fat, from three to four years old, from forty to sixty stone. The cows, when well fed, yield from ten to fourteen Scots pints of milk daily (nearly half as many Engglish wine gallons) during the best of the grass season, and continue long in milk; yet the dairy is here but a secondary object. The oxen were formerly much employed in labor, and were in request for this purpose for the counties along the north-east coast, but they are now very seldom to be seen at work. The horses are much the same as are found in all the lowlands of Scotland. Dunferm The staple manufacture is linen. line has long been famous for its damasks and diapers. In several towns checks, ticks, osnaburgs, and other fabrics are made. In 1812 4,500,000 yards of linen cloth were stamped, of the value of £280,000; and in 1800, 600,000 yards of plain linen were supposed to be made by private families for their own use, which were not stamped. The number of hands employed in all the branches of this manufacture in 1800 was computed to be 23,192. Flax is spun into yarn almost in every family. The other manufactures are spirits, at four distilleries, one of which works for the English market; ship-building at Dysart, Kirkaldy, Wemyss, and Anstruther; salt at the two former places and other towns; leather at Kirkaldy, Cupar, Auchtermuchty, and Falkland; and there are breweries in every town, and most of the villages. At Cupar, Kirkaldy, and Leven, bricks and tiles are made to a large amount; and vitriol or sulphuric acid at Burntisland. The principal rivers are the Eden and the Leven, both abounding with trout and salmon; and on no part of the coast of Scotland is the white fishery more productive than on that of Fife. Many lakes, formerly seen here, have been drained, and converted into arable land; but some of small extent remain, such as the Loch of Lindores, Kilconquhar Loch, together with Lochgellie, Comilla, and Lochpitty. Lead and copper and iron ore have been found here, and the sulphuretted ore of zinc; but coal is the most important and abundant of its mineral productions, and is well known to have been wrought here for above five centuries. There is a charter, dated 1291, allowing a coal-pit to be opened near Dunfermline. Another has been recently mentioned by Mr. Chalmers, which is dated 1284-5, by which it appears that coal was used at Tranent before that period. The greatest limeworks in Scotland are those belonging to the earl of Elgin, at Charles Town on the Forth, from which about 100,000 tons are raised annually; part of which is sold as it comes from the quarry, and 12,000 tons of coals are employed in calcining the remainder on the spot. Stones, resembling the precious garnet, are found in considerable numbers at Elie, and known by the name of Elie rubies. This county is little distinguished by com merce. In 1800, 142 vessels, carrying 13,513 tons, and navigated by 883 seamen, were under the two custom-houses at Kirkaldy and Ans truther, within the county, and about half the number of each was supposed to be under those I have dreamed and slept above some fifteen year and more. Shakspeare. Taming of the Shrew. the A fifteenth part of silver incorporate with gold, wil not be recovered by any water of separation, excep you put a greater quantity of silver to draw up Bacon's Nat. Historyless. London sends but four burgesses to parliament, al though it bear the fifteenth part of the charge of the whole nation in all public taxes and levies. Graunt's Bills of Mortality. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, and be ginning of the sixteenth, all the princes of Europe attacked, as if by concert, the power of their nobles. Robertson's History of Scotland. FIFTH, adj. out of it. These vessels are partly employed in foreign trade with Russia and the ports on the Baltic, but chiefly in the coasting trade. The exports are the manufactures already mentioned, with coal, lime, and grain of all sorts; and the imports from foreign parts, timber, bark, hides, and tallow, flax and flax-seed, hemp, tar, iron, &c.; and coastwise, groceries, and other articles for home consumption. Fifeshire contains thirteen royal boroughs, which still possess parliamentary representations: viz. Cupar, St. Andrews, Inverkeithing, Dunfermline, Burntisland, Kinghorn, Kirkaldy, Dysart, Pittenweem, Anstruther Wester and Easter, Kilrenny, and Crail; besides several which have lost that privilege, from their being unable to bear the expense of sending a commissioner to the Scottish parliament; but which yet retain all their other privileges; such are Auchtermuchty, Strathmiglo, Newburgh, Falkland, Kilconquhar, Elie, Earls-ferry, &c. These are joined with burghs belonging to other counties; Cupar and St. Andrews, with Anstruther, Kilrenny, &c.; and Dunfermline and Inverkeithing, with Stirling, Culross, and Queensferry. Fifeshire thus sends three members to parliament, one for the county and two for its burghs; besides that the latter have a share in the election of two members more. None of these towns are now consider Sax. Fipta. The ordinal FIFTH LY, adv. of five; the next to the fourth. Note: all our ordinals are taken elliptically for the part of which they express: as a fifth, a fifth part; a third, a third part, &c. Fifthly, living creatures have a more exact figure With smiling aspect you serenely move, Dryden. Pope's Odyssey. Just as I wished the lots were cast on four, FIFTH MONARCHY MEN, a set of fanatical Levellers, who arose in the time of Cromwell, and who supposed the period of the Millenium to be just at hand, when Jesus Christ should descend from heaven, and erect the fifth universal mo siasts actually proceeded to the length of pro- Thanne the Jewis seiden to him thou hast not yet fifti yeer, and hast thou seyen Abraham. able, Dunfermline excepted, which is a thriving place. See DUNFERMLINE. Packets and ferryboats ply regularly across the Forth from several places in this county; but the great thoroughfares are between Leith and Kinghorn, or Petty-narchy! Acting under this illusion, these enthucur, and between Queensferry and Inverkeithing, or the North Ferry. Vestiges of royal splendor are still visible at St. Andrews, Dunfermline, Falkland, and Kinghorn, and various monastic remains are scattered throughout the county. Among the most remarkable are the ruins of St. Regulus's chapel and tower, at St. Andrews, said to have been built in the fourth century; the cathedral at the same place, founded in 1161; the abbey of Dunfermline, remarkable for its being a royal cemetery, where the remains of Robert Bruce were lately discovered and reinterred with becoming solemnity. To the county also belong the small islands of May and Inchgarvie. There is a great number of elegant seats in the county, of which ten belong to eight peers, and seven to baronets, besides more than seventy to other proprietors. It is divided into sixty-one parochial districts, having one full synod, and four presbytery seats within itself. Fife affords an Irish title of earl to the Duffs of Braco, the descendants of the ancient Thanes of Fife. Cupar is the county town. FIFE-RAILS, in a ship, are those placed on banisters, on each side of the top of the poop, and so along with hauncers or falls. They reach down to the quarter-deck, and to the stair of the gang-way. FIFTEEN, adj. Į Sax. fyftýne, fifre oða. FIFTEENTH. SFive and ten: fifteenth is the ordinal of fifteen; the fifth after the tenth; containing one part in fifteen. And Bethanye was besides Jerusalem, as it were fiftene furlongis. Wiclif. Jon xi. Wiclif. Jon viii. Judas ordained captains over thousands, hundreds, 1 Mac. iii. 55. fifties, and tens. A withered hermit, five-score Winters worn, Be then desired Shakspeare. Of fifty to disquantity your train; Id. If this medium be rarer within the sun's body than at its surface, and rarer there than at the hundredth part of an inch from its body, and rarer there than at the fiftieth part of an inch from its body, and rarer there than at the orb of Saturn, I see no reason why the increase of density should stop any where. Newton's Opticks. In the Hebrew there is a particle consisting but of one letter, of which there are reckoned up above fifty Locke. several significations. FIG, v. a. See Fico. To insult with ficos, or contemptuous motions of the fingers; to delude. When Pistol lics, do this, and fig me like Fare great subduers of acrimony. Arbuthnot. Pope's Odyssey. Thomson. marigold is succulent, and has the appearance Caseleek; the leaves grow opposite by pairs. Darwin. Miller. Fal not wounding the branch of a pear-tree, which vigorous, prevent the blossoms from falling off; some fig-trees the fruit is said to fall off unless yare wounded by caprification? FG, or FIG-TREE. See FICUS. Figs are siderable article in the materia medica, y employed in emollient cataplasms and oral decoctions. The best are those which from Turkey. Many are also brought from e south of France, where they prepare them in De following manner:-The fruit is first dipped scalding hot lie made of the ashes of the figand then dried in the sun. Hence these stick to the hands, and scour them like lixisalts and for the the same reason they exto stool, without griping. They are modeely nutrimental, grateful to the stomach, and to digest than any other of the sweet-fruits They have been said to produce lice, when eaten a common food; but this is entirely without Bundation. FIGHIG, a town and district of Africa, in the ntry of Sigilmessa, to the south of the greater Atlas and included within the dominions of the Paperor of Morocco. A fine woollen cloth is banufactured here; and the place is a considerLe rendezvous for the Mecca and Tombuctoo Caravans. 240 miles E. S. E. of Mequinez. FIGHT, v. n., v. a. & n. s. Sax. FeohFIGHTER, tan; Gothic, FIGHTING, part. adj., & n. s. vigan, figta; wed. fecta, fegd (war); Teut. fechten; all, as M. Thomson thinks, from the Goth. eiga, to contend. To combat in battle; to war; make var; contend in arms; contend generally; takboth with and against before the party opped: as an active verb, to war against: as substantives, fight and fighting are battle or combat of any kind; contention: fight is particularly used for a screen of the combatants in ships. The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Judges. An host of fighting men went out to war by bands. 2 Chron. Jer Ye fight with the Chaldeans. At mortal battails had he ben fiftene, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, I will return again into the house, and desire some conduct of the lady: I am no fighter. Id. Richard, that robbed the lion of his heart, The hot and cold, the dry and humid fight. Sandys. Gabriel, lead forth to battle these my sons. On the foughten field Himself alone an equal match he boasts, Herilus in single fight I slew, fended with a rage and obstinacy, which nothing but flinger are both names of the contemptible rac horror at such a fate could have inspired. of astrologers. Robertson's Sermon. And when they smiled because he deemed it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretched his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell: He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. Byron. FIG'MENT, Lat. figmentum. A fiction; invention; feigned notion. Upon the like grounds was raised the figment of Briareus, who, dwelling in a city called Hecatonchiria, the fancies of those times assigned him an Browne. hundred hands. Those assertions are in truth the figments of those idle brains that brought romances into church history. Bishop Lloyd. It carried rather an appearance of figment and invention, in those that handed down the memory of it, than of truth and reality. Woodward. FIGUERAS, a town of Catalonia, situated in the middle of a plain near the French frontier. It has a spacious square, with a piazza and wide ill-built streets. In the vicinity is a strong castle erected on an eminence, at an immense cost, in the middle of the eighteenth century. The approaches are all undermined, and every building is bomb proof. This important fortress was delivered over to the French in 1808, but surprised by the insurgent Spaniards in the night of 10th April 1811. The French garrison were made prisoners without firing a shot; but the place being besieged anew was compelled to surrender on 19th August, for want of provisions. Population 4600. Twenty miles north of Gerona, and twenty-five south of Perpignan. FIGURE, n. s., v. a. & v. n.] FIG'URABLE, adj. FIGURABILITY, n. s. FIG'URAL, adj. FIG'URATE, FIGURATION, n. s. FIGURATIVE, adj. Fr. figure; It. Span. Port. and Lat. figura à fingo, to make. Form; shape; outline; appearance: FIGURATIVELY, adv. applied intenFIG'URE-CASTER, n. s. sively to reFIG'URE-FLINGER. markable appearance; eminence; numerical characters; representations of the human form; statues; also to the combination of figures in an astrological horoscope; to theological types and representations; and in rhetoric to various modes of speaking which depart from the literal and primitive sense of words. See FIGURE, in rhetoric, below. To figure is to mould; form into shape; represent in any way; to cover, adorn, or diversify with figures; to form figuratively; to express in numerical or other characters: as a verb neuter to make a figure. Figurable is capable of receiving and retaining forms: figurability, the corresponding substantive: figural, represented by figure or delineation: figurate, of a determinate form, or resembling a determinate form: figuration, determination to, or the act of giving, a particular form: figurative, not literal; meaning something else under the literal terms or representations used; changed by rhetorical figures from the primitive meaning: figuratively is the corresponding adverb. Figure-caster and figure Who was the figure of him that is to come. |