The value of the labour employed about one parcel of silver more than another, makes a difference in their price; and thus fashioned plate sells for more than its weight. Id. But if ever frequency of oaths shall make them be looked on as formalities of law, or the custom of straining of truth (which men's swearing in their own cases is apt to lead them to), has once dipped men in perjury, and the guilt, with the temptation, has spread itself very wide, and made it almost fashionable in some cases, it will be impossible for the society (these bonds being dissolved) to subsist. Id. Why should they not continue to value themselves for this outside fashionableness of the taylor or tirewoman's making, when their parents have so early instructed them to do so? Id. He must at length die dully of old age at home, when here he might so fashionably and genteelly have been duelled or fluxed into another world. South. How could this noble fabrick be designed, Blackmore. No wonder that pastorals are fallen into disesteem, together with that fashion of life upon which they were grounded. Walsh. Examine how the fashionable practice of the world can be reconciled to this important doctrine of our religion. Rogers. A different toil another forge employs, Gay's Fan. It was not easily reconciled to the common method; but then it was the fashion to do such things. Arbuthnot. 'Tis prevailing example hath now made it fashionable. Bentley. His panegyricks were bestowed only on such persons as he had familiarly known, and only at such times as others cease to praise, when out of power, or out of fashion. Pope. Look on this globe of earth, and you will find it to be a very complete and fashionable dress. Swift. Spirit is now a very fashionable word; to act with spirit, to speak with spirit, means only to act rashly, and to talk indiscreetly. An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions; he is neither hot nor timid. Chesterfield. Whatever has, by any accident, become fashionable, easily continues its reputation, because every one is ashamed of not partaking it. Johnson. Whilst you are discussing fashion, the fashion is gone by. The very same vice assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates; and, far from losing its principle of life by the change of its appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with the fresh vigour of a juvenile activity. Burke. Nor for its own sake merely, but for his Much more, who fashioned it, he gives it praise; Praise that from earth resulting, as it ought, To earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once Its only just proprietor in Him. Cowper. Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay? It may correct a foible, may chastise The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress, Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch. Id. For he, with all his follies, has a mind Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind, But now and then perhaps a feeble ray Of distant wisdom shoots across his way. Id. In Kensington Gardens to stroll up and down, You know was the fashion before you left town; The thing's well enough, when allowance is made For the size of the trees and the depth of the shade. FAST', adj., adv., v. n. & n. s.` FAST ING-DAY, FAST'NESS, n. s. steady; close; fixed; abiding; persisting; swift; speedy; i. e. with an abiding or unrelaxed pace: fast is also found frequently in our language as an adverb, following these senses, or synonymous with fastly. To fast, the verb, also means to adhere to a rule or resolution of abstinence, from whatever motive: fast and fasting, as substantives, signify imposed abstinence: 'fast and loose,' sometimes the one and sometimes the other; variable; inconstant. To fasten, according to a common use of the termination en, signifies to makes fast or firm; to unite inseparably; to affix, and hence to impress: as a neuter verb, to fix itself: a faster, one who practises abstinence: a fastener is a person, and a fastening a thing, which makes fast or firm: fast-handed, avaricious; close-fisted': fastness, closeness; state of being firm; fixed; secure; hence a strong military place or position'; a fortress; concise ness. 6 Surely the stone from the wall crieth out; And the beam (marg. fastning) from the timber answereth it. Hab. ii. 11. Abp. Newcome's Trans. Quick wits be in desire new-fangled; in purpose, unconstant; light to promise any thing, ready to forget every thing, both benefit and injury; and thereby neither fast to friend nor fearful to foe. Ascham's Schoolmaster. Bring his stile from all loose grossness to such firm Ascham. fastness in Latin, as in Demosthenes. But who can turn the stream of destiny, Id. And dicted with fasting every day, The swelling of his woundes to mitigate. England, by report of the chronicles, was infested with robbers and outlaws; which, lurking in woods and fast places, used often to break forth to rob and spoil. Id. On Ireland. Lodronius, with the breaking in of the horsemen, was driven into a marsh; where, after that he, being almost fast in the deep mud, had done the uttermost, he yielded himself. Knolles. Barbarossa left fourteen galleys in the lake; but the tacklings, sails, oars, and ordnance, he had laid up in the castle fast by. Id. This love of theirs myself have often seen, Haply when they have judged me fast asleep. Shakspeare. Last night the very god shewed me a vision : I fast, and prayed for their intelligence. A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day, That ne'er shall dine, unless thou yield the crown. Id. Id. Bind the boy, which you shall find with me, Fast to the chair. Id. King John. I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou can'st. Id. Henry IV. Thinking, by this face, To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage; But 'tis not so. Id. Julius Cæsar. He fastened on my neck; and bellowed out, As he'd burst heaven. The king being fasthanded, and loth to part with a second dowry, prevailed with the prace to be contracted with the princess Catharine. Bacon. Id. King Lear. The prince groweth up fast to be a man, and is of a sweet and excellent disposition: it would be a stain upon you if you should mislead, or suffer him to be inisled. Id. to Villiers. We have some meats, and breads, and drinks, which taken by men enable them to fast long after. Id. New Atlantis. Such as had given the king distaste, did contend by their forwardness to shew it was but their fastness to the former government, and that those affections ended with the time. Id. Skill comes so slow, and life so fast doth fly, We learn so little, and forget so much. Davies. All the places are cleared, and places of fastness laid open, which are the proper walls and castles of the Irish, as they were of the British in the times of Agricola. Id. on Ireland. She had all magnetick force alone, To draw and fasten sundred parts in one. Donne. Happy and innocent were the ages of our forefathers, who broke their fasts with herbs and roots; and, when they were permitted flesh, eat it only dressed with hunger and fire. Taylor. Do not call it a fastingday, unless also it be a day of extraordinary devotion and of alms. Id. He that was the meekest man upon earth, in a sudden indignation abandons that, which in cold blood he would have held faster than his life. Bp. Hall's Contemplations. The foes had left the fastness of their place, Prevailed in fight, and had his men in chace. id. Could be fasten a blow, or make a thrust, when not suffered to approach? Id. Eneid, Dedication. The folly and wickedness of men, that think to play fast and loose with God Almighty! L'Estrange. The wrong judgment that misleads us, and makes the will often fasten on the worse side, lies in misreporting upon comparisons. Locke. We may trade, and be busy, and grow poor by it, unless we regulate our expenses; if to this we are idle, negligent, dishonest, malicious, and disturb the sober and industrious in their business, let it be upon what pretence it will, we shall ruin the faster. Id. We humble ourselves before God this day, not merely by the outward solemnities of a fast, but by afflicting our souls as well as bodies for our sins. Atterbury. If they cohered, yet by the next conflict with other atoms they might be separated again; and so on in an eternal vicissitude of fast and loose, without ever con. sociating into the huge condense bodies of planets. Bentley. Being tried only with a promise, he gave full credit to that promise, and still gave evidence of his fidelity as fast as occasions were offered. Hammond's Practical Catechism. Well-known to me the palace you inquire; For fast beside it dwells my honoured sire. Pope. Fast by the throne obsequious fame resides, And wealth incessant rolls her golden tides. Id. Nor prayers nor fasts its stubborn pulse restrain; Id. Nor tears, for ages, taught to flow in vain. The heaviest muse the swiftest course has gone. Id. As clocks run fastest when most lead is on. You are to look upon me as one going fast out of Swift. the world. The words Whig and Tory have been pressed to the service of many successions of parties, with very different ideas fastened to them. Id. Examiner. Their oppressors have changed the scene, and combated the opinions in their true shape, upon which they could not so well fasten their disguise. Decay of Piety. If his adversary be not well aware of him, he entrenches himself in a new fastness, and holds out the siege with a new artillery. Watts on the Mind. Industry needs not wish, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting. Franklin. FASTS, RELIGIOUS. Religious fasting has been practised by most nations from the remotest antiquity. Some divines derive its origin from the terrestrial paradise, where our first parents were forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge. The Jewish church has observed fasts ever since its first institution; nor were the neighbouring heathens, viz. the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians, without their fasts. The Egyptians, according to Herodotus, sacrificed a cow to Isis, after having prepared themselves by fasting and prayer: a custom which he likewise ascribes to the women of Cyrene. Porphyry affirms, that the Egyptians, before their stated sacrifices, always fasted many days, sometimes six weeks; during all which time the priests and devotees not only abstained from flesh, fish, wine, and oil, but even from bread, and some kinds of pulse. These austerities were communicated by them to the Greeks, who observed their fasts much in the same manner. The Athenians had the Eleusinian and Thesmophorian fasts, the observation of which was very rigorous, especially among the women, who spent one whole day sitting on the ground in a mournful dress, without taking any nourishment. In the island of Crete, the priests of Jupiter were obliged to abstain all their lives from fish, flesh, and baked meats. Apuleius inforins us, that whoever wished to be initiated in the mysteries of Cybele, were obliged to prepare themselves by fasting ten days; and, in short, all the pagan deities, whether male or female, required this duty of those that desired to be initiated into their mysteries, of their priests and priestesses that gave the oracles, and of those that came to consult them. Among the heathens fasting was also practised before some of their military enterprises. Aristotle informs us that the Lacedemonians, having resolved to succour a city of the allies, ordained a fast throughout the whole extent of their dominions, without excepting even the domestic animals: and this they did for two ends; one to spare provisions in favor of the besieged; the other to draw down the blessing of heaven upon their enterprise. The inhabitants of Tarentum, when besieged by the Romans, demanded succours from their neighbours of Rhegium, who immediately commanded a fast throughout their whole territories. Their enterprise having proved successful, by their throwing a supply of provisions into the town, the Romans were obliged to raise the siege; and the Taren tines, in memory of this deliverance, instituted a perpetual fast. At Rome fasting was practised by kings and emperors. Numa Pompilius, Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Vespasian, &c., had their stated fast days; and Julian the Apostate was so exact in this observance as to outdo the priests themselves, and even the most rigid philosophers. The Pythagoreans kept a continual lent; but with this difference, that they believed the use of fish to be equally unlawful with that of flesh. Besides their constant temperance, they also frequently fasted rigidly for a very long time. In this respect, however, they were ali outdone by their master Pythagoras, who continued his fasts for no less than forty days together. The brahmins are very remarkable for their severe fastings; and the Chinese have also their stated fasts, with forms of prayer for preserving them from barrenness, inundations, earthquakes, &c. The Mahommedans are very remarkable for the strict observance of their fasts; and the exactness of their dervises in this respect is extraordinary. Fasting was often used by the heathens for superstitious purposes; sometimes to procure the interpretations of dreams; at others to be an antidote against their pernicious consequences. The modern Jews, though expressly forbidden to fast on Sabbath days, think themselves at liberty to dispense with this duty when they have frightful dreams the night preceding, that threaten them with great misfortunes. On these occasions, they observe a formal fast the whole day. They have also added several fasts to the law of Moses, particularly three, in memory of sore distresses their nation has suffered at different times. The abstinence of the ancient Jews commonly lasted twenty-seven or twentyeight hours at a time; beginning before sun-set, and not ending till some hours after sun-set next day. On these days they wore white robes in token of grief and repentance; covered themselves with sackcloth, or their worst clothes; lay on ashes; sprinkled them on their heads, &c. Some spent the whole night and day following in the temple or synagogue, in prayers and other devotions, barefooted, scourging themselves. To complete their abstinence, at night they were to eat nothing but a little bread dipped in water, with some salt for seasoning; except they chose to add to their repast some bitter herbs and pulse. The ancients, both Jews and Pagans, had also their fasts for purifying the body, particularly the priests, and such as were any way employed at the altars; for when nocturnal disorders happened to these, it was unlawful for them to approach all the next day, which they were bound to employ in purifying themselves. On this account, at great festivals, where their ministry could not be dispensed with, it was usual for them, on the eve thereof, not only to fast, but also to abstain from sleep. For this purpose the high-priest had under-officers to wake him, overtaken with sleep. FASTI, in Roman antiquity, a chronicle or register of time, wherein the several years were denoted by the respective consuls, with the principal events that happened during their consulates; these were called also fasti consulares. FASTI, or DIES FASTI, also denoted court days. The word fasti is formed of the verb fari, to speak,' because during those days the courts were opened, causes might be heard, and the prætor was allowed to pronounce the three words, do, dico, addico; the other days wherein this was prohibited, were called Nefasti : thus Ovid, Ille nefastus erit, per quem tria verba silentur : These dies fasti were noted in the kalendar by FASTI Signified also the kalendar wherein were expressed the several days of the year, with their feasts, games, and other ceremonies. There were two sorts of fasti, the magistrales and kalendares, or the greater and less. I. FASTI KALENDARES, which were what was properly and primarily called fasti, are defined by Festus Pompeius to be books containing a description of the whole year: i. e. Ephemerides, or diaries, distinguishing the several kinds of days, festi, profesti: fasti, nefasti, &c. The institutor was Numa, who committed the care and direction of the fasti to the Pontifex Maximus, whom the people used to go and consult on every occasion. This custom held till A. U. C. 450, when C. Flavius, secretary to the pontifices, exposed in the forum a list of all the days whereon it was lawful to work: which was so acceptable to the people, that they made him curule ædile. These less fasti were of two kinds, urbani and rustici. 1. Fasti rustici, the country fasti, expressed the several days, feasts, &c. to be observed by the country people; for as these were occupied in tilling the ground, fewer feasts, sacrifices, ceremonies, and holidays, were enjoined them than the inhabitants of cities; and they had also some peculiar ones not observed at Rome. These rustic fasti contain little more than the ceremonies of the kalends, nones, and ides; the fairs, signs of the zodiac, increase and decrease of the days, the tutelary gods of each month, and certain directions for rural works to be performed each month. 2. Fasti urbani, the fasti of the city, were those which obtained or were observed in the city. Some will have them thus called because they were exposed publicly in divers parts of the city; though, by the various inscriptions or gravings thereof on antique stones, one would imagine that private persons had them likewise in their houses. Ovid undertook to illustrate these fasti urbani, and comment on them, in his Libri Fastorum, whereof we have the first six books still remaining; the last six, if they were ever written, being lost. II. FASTI MAGISTRALES, the greater fasti, expressed the several feasts, with every thing relating to the gods, religion, and the magistrates; the emperors, their birth-days, offices, days consecrated to them, and feasts and ceremonies Ben Jonson. And if nearness and presence be the cause of our dislike, why do we not hate ourselves, which are ever in our own bosom? why do we not hate this fastidious curiosity, which is too close to us. Bp. Hall. Less licentious and more discerning times will repair the omissions and fastidiousness of the present. Boyle. drinks, must be cured by starving. South. Their sole talent is pride and scorn: they look fas tidiously, and speak disdainfully, concluding, if a man shall fall short of their garniture at their knees and elbows, he is much inferior to them in the furniture of his head. Government of the Tongue. His diseases being fastidiosity, amerphy, and oscitation. Swift. Proud youth fastidious of the lower world! Man's lawful pride includes humility. Young. And to abate the fastidiousness of some critics, with respect to the Hebrew style of poetry, I shall produce a few similar instances, among many which occur in the Eneid itself. Archbp. Newcome. FASTING. See ABSTINENCE. FASTOLFFE (Sir John), an English general who obtained some reputation in France, in the fifteenth century. He served in Ireland under Sir Stephen Scrope, and on his death, in 1408, married his widow, an heiress of the Tibtot family, of whose rich estates in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire he consequently became possessed. He soon after obtained the honor of knighthood and the order of the garter; and having been wounded at the battle of Agincourt, was rewarded with a grant of territorial property in Normandy. In 1429 he defeated 6000 Frenchmen with only 1500 English, and brought relief to the army before Orleans. But the same year he shamefully fled before Joan of Arc at the battle of Patay, for which he was deprived of his garter by the regent. He died in 1469. This officer has been supposed, by the resemblance perhaps of the names, to have been the prototype of Shakspeare's Falstaff. But he is introduced by name as fleeing at Patay, and his garter is torn off at the coronation scene in Henry VI., part 1, at which time the Sir John Falstaff of Henry IV. and V. was dead. Vide King Henry V., act 2, scene III. Nor does the character of Fastolffe appear to have been that of a debauchee. Teut. vet or fett; Swed. fett; Belg. vet; Saxon, far, the past partici>ple of fædan, to feed, says Mr. H. Tooke. The concrete oily matter of the flesh of FAT WITTED. animals; metaphorically the best or choicest part of things. Fat, as an adjective, signifies well-fed; plump; fleshy; also rich; wealthy; coarse; dull. To fatten, signifies to make fat or plump; to feed abundantly or to excess. As a verb neuter, to grow fat or full-fleshed. Fat-brained; fat-kidneyed, fat-witted, are terms of reproach, importing dulness, stupidity, or vulgarity. A fatling is a young animal fed for slaughter. A fatner, that which causes fatness. Fatness, the quality or state of being fat in any way; fertility. Fatty, unctuous; oleaginous; greasy. God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fat. ness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine. Gen. xxvii. 28. The calf and the young lion, and the fatling shall lie down together, and a little child shall lead them. 18. xi. 6. Such traitery is in false curates, that given mede or hire to come into such wordly offices, and couchen in lord's courts for to get mo fatte benefices, and purposen not spedly to do their ghostly office. Wickliffe on Symony. In this ointment the strangest and hardest ingredients to come by, are the moss upon the scull of a dead man unburied, and the fats of a boar and a bear, killed in the act of generation. Bucon. Earth and water, mingled by the help of the sun, gather a nitrous fatness. Id. Nat. Hist. The like cloud, if oily or fatty, will not discharge; not because it sticketh faster, but because air preyeth upon water, and flame and fire upon oil. Id. The Caribbees were wont to geld their children, on purpose to fat and eat them. Locke. An old ox fats as well, and is as good, as a young. Mortimer. These were terrible alarms to persons grown fat and wealthy by a long and successful imposture. South. Spare diet and labour will keep constitutions, where this disposition is the strongest, from being fat: you may see in an army forty thousand foot soldiers without a fat man; and I dare affirm, that by plenty and rest twenty of the forty shall grow fat. Arbuthnot. The wind was west on which that philosopher bestowed the encomium of fatner of the earth. Id. Cattle fatted by good pasture, after violent motion, sometimes die suddenly. Id. on Diet. The common symptoms of the muriatick scurvy are, a saline taste in the spittle, and a lixivial urine, sometimes with a fatty substance like a thin skin a-top. Id. on Alim. Tygers and wolves shall in the ocean breed, Granville. A fat benefice is that which so abounds with an estate and revenues, that a man may expend a great deal in delicacies of eating and drinking. Ayliffe. |