If our forefathers thought fit to be grave and serious, I hope their posterity may laugh without offence.

Poor beseeming : 'twas a fitment for The purpose I then followed. Id. Cymbeline. Since we have said it were good not to use men of ambitious natures, except it be upon necessity, it is fit we speak in what cases they are so. Bacon. Where a man cannot fitly play his own part, if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage. ld.

A close behaviour is the fittest to receive virtue for its constant guest, because there, and there only, it can be secure.

To take a latitude,

Sun or stars are fitliest viewed

At their brightest; but to conclude
Of longitudes, what other way have we

Saville.

The whole of our duty may be expressed most fitly by departing from evil.

Tillotson.

This fury fit for her intent she chose, One who delights in wars and human woes. Dryden. A play, which if you dare but twice fit out, You'll all be slandered and be thought devout. Id. "Tis the great business of life to fit ourselves for our end, and no man can live well that hath not death in his eye. L'Estrange.

It is a wrong use of my understanding to make it the rule and measure of another man's; a use which it is neither fit for, nor capable of.

Locke.

Sowing the sandy gravelly land in Devonshire and Cornwall with French furze seed, they reckon a great improver of their land, and a fitter of it for corn. Mortimer's Husbandry.

Addison.

The English fleet could not be paid and manned, and fitted out, unless we encouraged trade and navi. gation. Addison's Freeholder. An animal, in order to be moveable must be flexible; and therefore is fitly made of separate and small solid parts, replete with proper fluils. Arbuthnot. A trussmaker fitted the child with a pair of boddice stiffened on the lame side. Wiseman's Surgery.

Nor fits it to prolong the feast,
Timeless, indecent, but retire to rest.

Pope's Odyssey. Which abstract terms very fittingly agree with the More.

notion.

A man cannot be said to know himself, till he is well acquainted with his proper talents and capacities; knows for what ends he received them; and how they may be most filly applied and improved for those

Still on thy shores, fair Teman! may find room
And food for meditation, nor pass by
Much that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly.
Byron.

FITCH, n. s. A corruption of vetch, says Dr. Johnson. A small kind of wild pea.

When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches? Isaiah.

Now is the season
For sowing of fitches, of beans, and of peason.

Tusser.

FITCH, in husbandry, is more generally known by the name of chick-pea. See CICER. Fitches are cultivated either for feeding cattle, or improving the land. They make a wholesome and nourishing food, whether given in the straw, or threshed out. When sown only to improve the soil, they are ploughed in just as they begin to blossom, by which means a tough stiff clay soil is much enriched.

There are two words in the Hebrew Old Testament, which our translators have rendered by fitches, and D. The first occurs but once, and that in Isa. xxviii. 25. 27, where the connexion proves it to be some kind of seed, but what kind is a subject of dispute. Jerom, Maimonides, R. David, Kimchi, and the rabbin understand it to be the gith, called by the Greeks peλavetov, and by the Latins nigella. It is thus described by Ballester: It is a plant commonly met with in gardens, with leaves like those of fennel; the flower blue, which disappearing, the ovary shows itself at the top like that of the poppy, and containing in its membranous cells seeds of a very black color, not unlike those of the leek, but of a very fragrant smell.' The Jewish rabbin mention the seeds as mixed with bread. The other word rendered fitches, is

6

, which the greatest number of commentators render spelt; but Dr. Geddes, R. David Kimchi, as well as our English translators, consider it to be rye, which is supported by the Arabic translations. Dr. Shaw thinks it may be rice.

FITCHAT, n. s. Į Fr. fissau; Dutch, fisse. FITCHEW. SA stinking little animal, that robs the hen-roost and warren. Skinner calls him the stinking ferret; but he is much

larger, at least as some provinces distinguish them, in which the polecat is termed a fitchat, and the stinking ferret a stoat. See MUSTELA. 'Tis such another fitchew! marry, a perfumed one; What do you mean by this haunting of me?

Shakspeare. The fitchat, the sulimart, and the like creatures, live upon the face and within the bowels of the earth. Walton's Angler.

FITCHBURGH, a post-town of Massachusetts, in Worcester county, containing 1151 citizens in 1795; forty-two miles north-west of Boston, and 393 from Philadelphia.

FITCHE'E, in heraldry, from old Fr. ñshe, i. e. fixed; a term applied to a cross when the lower branch ends in a sharp point. The reason of it Mackenzie supposes to be, that the Christians were wont to carry crosses with them wherever they went; and, when they stopped on their journey at any place, they fixed these portable crosses in the ground for

devotion's sake.

FITISH, or FETISH, is the appellation given by the natives of Middle Africa to their idols, or charms, which are of almost endless variety in form and composition. The most common are milk, eggs, and birds; and the partridge is held so sacred, that if the foot of a dead one is known to have touched a dish of meat, no one will taste of it, although ready to die of hunger. They do not, however, regard milk or eggs with equal veneration, for they may be sometimes seen devouring each other's fitishes with the greatest harmony. Their portable fitishes consist of rude imitations of the human form, or of animals, with a piece of looking-glass fixed in the breast; the tusks of the young elephant, filled with a black paste, into which shells are stuck; tigers' claws and teeth; the minute horns of the chevrotten and other animals; sea-shells full of black paste, or even small parcels of partycolored rags, and diminutive flasks, containing consecrated gunpowder. No man takes a drink, without making an oblation to the master fitish, which is frequently an elephant's tooth. He holds it in the left hand, and, after licking its pasted head, squirts a mouthful of liquid over it in a shower; then muttering a few words, he drinks the remainder himself.

FITZHERBERT (Sir Anthony), a learned lawyer in the reign of king Henry VIII., descended of an ancient family, and born at Norbury in Derbyshire. He was made a judge of the court of common pleas in 1523; and distinguished himself by many valuable works. His principal writings are, The Grand Abridgment; The Office and Authority of Justices of Peace; The Office of Sheriffs, Bailiffs of Liberties, Escheators, Constables, Coroners, &c.; Of the Diversity of Courts; Of the Surveying of Lands; and the Book of Husbandry. He died

in 1538.

FITZJAMES (James, duke of Berwick), was the natural son of James II., by Mrs. Arabella Churchill, sister to the celebrated duke of Marlborough. He was born at Moulins in 1671,

and entered early into the French service. When only fifteen years of age, he was wounded at the siege of Buda. He was sent to Ireland in 1688, and distinguished himself at the siege of Londonderry, and at the battle of the Boyne. His superior merit recommended him to the French court, and he was created marshal of France, knight of the Holy Ghost, duke and peer of France, grandee of Spain, and commander-inchief of the French armies; in all which stations his behaviour was such, that few equalled, perhaps none surpassed him. He was killed by a cannon-ball at the siege of Philipsburgh in

1738.

FITZSTEPHEN (William), a learned monk of Canterbury, of Norman extraction, born of respectable parents in London, in the twelfth century. Being attached to archbishop Becket, he was present at the time of his murder. And in 1174 he wrote in Latin, The Life of St. Thomas, archbishop and martyr; in which, as Becket was a native of the metropolis, he introduces a description of London, with a detail of the manners and usages of the citizens, which is deservedly considered as a great curiosity, being the earliest professed account of London extant. He died in 1191

FITZWILLIAM, a township of New Hampshire in Cheshire county; sixteen miles east of the Connecticut. FIVE, adj. FIVE-BAR, FIVE-BARRED, FIVE-FOLD, FIVE LEAVED.

Saxon, FiF; Goth. finif; Belg. fief; Teut. funf, seem ingly corrupted, says Minsheu, from the Lat. quinque. A number; four and one; five-bar and five-barred are, having five bars, usually applied to gates. Five-leaved is an epithet of cinquefoil. Drayton calls it 'five-leaf.'

and hidde hir fyve monethis and seyde.
And aftir these dayes Elizabeth his wif conseyvede
Wielif.
And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
Matthew.

No person, no incident, but must be of use to carry on the main design : all things else are like six fingers to the hand, when nature, which is superfluous in nothing, can do her work with fire.

Dryden.

it in 1809, by an Austrian and British force. Many of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood are of Hungarian origin. It is five miles W. N. W. of Buccari, and thirty-six south east of Trieste. Population 12,000.

FIUMETTO, a mountain of Italy, in the duchy of Modena, and late department of Crostolo; near which wells are dug, from 100 to 120 feet deep, on the surface of whose waters a reddish medicinal oil swims, that is skimmed off once a fortnight.

FIX', v. a. & v. n.' FIXATION, n. s. FIX'EDLY, adv. FIXEDNESS, n. s. FIX'IDITY,

FIX'ITY,

Fr. fixer; Ital. ficcare; Span. firar; Port. fincar; Lat. firus; from Gг.πηуш, new, to pitch as a tent. To make fast or firm; place permanently; estaFIXTURE, blish; settle; deprive of FIX'URE. motion or volatility; pierce as a neuter verb to settle, opinion or resolution; rest; lose volatility: fixation is stability; firmness; settledness: fixidity, coherence of parts; a word used by Boyle for what Sir Isaac Newton calls fixity: fixure is the word used by Shakspeare (not fixture) for position; stable pressure; firmness, although fixture, something affixed, or fastened to a house, appears a very legitimate' and useful modern word.

While from the raging sword he vainly flies, A bow of steel shall fix his trembling thighs.

Sandys.

And are not the sun and fixed stars great earths vehemently hot, whose heat is conserved by the greatness of the bodies, and the mutual action and reaction between them, and the light which they emit, and whose parts are kept from fuming away, not only by their fixity, bnt also by the vast weight and density of the atmospheres incumbent upon them? Newton's Opticks.

An universal dissolution of manners began to prevail, and a professed disregard to all fired principles. Atterbury. Fluid or solid comprehend all the middle degrees between extreme fixedness and coherency, and the most rapid intestine motion of the particles of bodies. Bentley.

They are subject to errors from a narrowness of soul, a fixation and confinement of thought to a few objects. Watts.

If we take a general view of the world, we shall find that a great deal of virtue, at least outward appearance of it, is not so much from any fixed principle as the terror of what the world will say, and the liberty it will take upon the occasions we shall give.

Sterne.

Though her eyes shone out, yet the lids were fixed, And the glance that it gave was wild and unmixed With aught of change, as the eyes may seem Of the restless who walk in a troubled dream Byron. Siege of Corinth. FIXATION, in chemistry, the rendering any volatile substance fixed, so as not to fly off upon being exposed to a great heat. See FIXED BODIES.

FIXED AIR, in the old chemical nomenclature, an invisible and permanently elastic fluid, superior in gravity to the common atmospheric air and most other aerial fluids, exceedingly destructive to animal life; produced in great quantities,