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THE

LONDON ENCYCLOPÆDIA.

F. The letter (Saxon F) is evidently derived from the Greek digamma, through the medium of the Latin language. Some contend that this is derived from the 4, phi, by first making the perpendicular stroke, and, in adding the circle at two strokes, carelessly omitting to make them join. This, however, the learned bishop of Salisbury disputes. He says it was anciently called vau, or wau, and is in fact a double vau of the Hebrew and Syriac, and corresponding in shape with the vau of the Arabic and Ethiopic. Ainsworth, however, derives it from the Hebrew phe, or, pe final, which, if turned, nearly gives the figure; and he observes, that in changing Hebrew words into Latin, is converted into F. Its sound, in English, is very uniform, being formed by compression of the lips, or a junction of the upper teeth with the under lip, and a forcible breath. In the preposition of, indeed, and on some few other occasions, it is pronounced

softer, or like v.

ף

As an abbreviation, F, in physical prescriptions, stands for fiat, i. e. Let it be done, or made up. Thus f. s. a. signifies fiat secundum artem. F, in the civil law, doubled thus, ff, signifies the pandects. See PANDECTS. F, in the criminal law, was a stigma put upon felons with a hot iron, on their being admitted to the benefit of clergy; by stat. 4 Hen. VII. c. 13. F, as a numeral, anciently signified 40, and when a dash was added at top (thus F), it stood for 40,000.

FAABORG, a sea-port town of Denmark, on the south coast of the island of Funen. It has but an insecure harbour; and its trade, which is in provisions, is not considerable. Population about 1100. It is seventeen miles south of Oldensee.

FABBRONI (Giovanni), a modern Italian philosopher of considerable eminence. We find him filling the various posts of secretary to the Academia de i Georgofili, director of the Museum and Cabinet of Natural History at Florence, one of the forty members of the Societa Italiana delle Scienze, Tuscan deputy for the new system of weights and measures, member of the deputation of finance under the government of the queen regent of Etruria, a deputy to the corps legislative in France, director, under the Imperial government, of bridges and highways for the departinent beyond the Alps, director of the mint at Florence, royal commissary of the iron works and mines, and one of the commissioners of taxes for the states of Tuscany. His writings best known are-Provedimenti Annonarj; his Discourses on National Prosperity; on the Equilibrium of Commerce, and the EstablishVOL. IX.-PART 1

ment of Custom-houses; on the Effects of the Free Traffic of Raw Material; on Rewards for the Encouragement of Trade; on the Chemical Action of Metals; on the Value and Reciprocal Proportion of Coins; on the Scales and Steelyards of the Chinese; on the Palaces of Spain; and on the ancient Hebrew People. He left behind him many unpublished memoirs. He died at Florence in 1823, aged upwards of seventy.

FABELL (Peter), a reputed magician, and native of Edmonton, lived and died there in the reign of Henry VII. In Norden's account of Edmonton, we read, 'There is a fable of one said to have beguiled the devell by policie for Peter Fabell, that lieth in this church, who is money; but the devell is deceit itself." Weever supposes Fabell to have been an ingenious man, who amused himself and astonished his neighbours by sleight-of-hand tricks, or chemical experiments. There is a very scarce pamphlet, entitled-The Life and Death of the Merry Devil of Edmonton; with the pleasant Pranks of Smug the Smith, &c. In this book Fabell is styled an excellent scholar, and well seene in the arte of magicke.'

FABER (Basil), a protestant German critic of the sixteenth century, was born at Sorau in Lusatia, and, after studying at Wittemberg and other universities, was about 1550 appointed rector of the seminary of Nordhausen. He died rector of the Augustinian College at Erfurth in 1576. He was one of the protestant ecclesiastical historians, termed the Centuriators of Magdeburgh. Faber's literary reputation is founded on his Thesaurus Eruditionis Scholasticæ, 1571, folio, of which improved editions were published in 1735 and 1749.

FABER (John), a German divine, born at Heilbron in 1500. He was created doctor at Cologne, and in 1526 was appointed confessor to Ferdinand king of the Romans, who, when he became emperor, gave him the see of Vienna. He was called the mallet of heretics, and owed his preferment to the zeal which he displayed in opposition to Luther. He died in 1562. His works were printed at Cologne, in 3 vols. folio. FABER, in ichthyology. See ZEUS.

FABIAN, or FABYAN (Robert), an alderman and sheriff of London at the close of the fifteenth century, was a man of learning, and author of a Chronicle of England and France, entitled the Concordance of Histories, in 2 vols. folio, beginning with Brute, and ending with the 20th of Henry VII. 1504. He was a member of the company of drapers, and resigned his gown in 1502 to avoid serving the office of lord mayor. Dying in 1511, or 1512, he was interred in the

B

church of St. Michael, Cornhill. His Chronicle is a mere compilation, but it contains several curious particulars relative to the city of London, not elsewhere to be found. Stowe calls it 'a painful labor, to the great honor of the city and of the whole realm.' Cardinal Wolsey caused as many copies of it as he could procure to be burned, because the author had made too clear a discovery of the large revenues of the clergy. It is Fabian's general practice at the division of the books to insert metrical prologues and other pieces, in verse. The best of his metres is the complaint of King Edward the Second, who is introduced reciting his misfortunes; but this, in fact, is only a translation of an indifferent Latin poem ascribed to that monarch, and probably written by William of Worcester. In the first edition of Fabian's Chronicle (printed in 1516) he has given, as epilogues to his seven books, The Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin, in English Rime: and under the year 1325 there is a poem to the Virgin; and another on one Badby, a Lollard, under the year 1409. These are suppressed in the later editions. In his panegyric upon London, he despairs of doing justice to his theme, 'even if he had the eloquence of Tully, the morality of Seneca, and the harmony of that faire ladie, Calliope.' Fabian's History was reprinted in 1811, 4to.

FABIUS, the surname of a powerful patrician family at Rome, said to have derived their name from faba, a bean, because some of their ancestors cultivated this pulse. They were once so numerous that they took upon themselves to wage a war against the Veientes. They came to a general engagement near the Cremera, in which all the family, consisting of 306 men, were slain, A. U. C. 277. There only remained one boy, whose tender age had detained him at Rome, and from him descended the noble Fabii of the following ages. Ovid celebrates the above transaction in those lines beginning,

Una domus vires et onus susceperat urbis,
Sumunt gentiles arma professa manus.
Fasti. lib. ii. 197.

by his enemies at home, to share the dictatorial dignity. When he had laid down his office of dictator, his successors, for a while, followed his plan; but the rashness of Varro, and his contempt for the operations of Fabius, occasioned the fatal battle of Canna. Tarentum was obliged to surrender to him after the battle of Canna; and on that occasion the Carthaginians observed, that Fabius was the Hannibal of Rome. When he had made an agreement with Hannibal for the ransom of the captives, which was totally disapproved by the Roman senate, he sold all his estates to pay the money, rather than forfeit his word to the enemy. The bold proposals of young Scipio, to carry the war from Italy to Africa, were rejected by Fabius as chimerical and dangerous. He did not, however, live to see the success of the Roman arms under Scipio, and the conquest of Carthage by measures which he treated with contempt, and heard with indignation. He died in the 100th year of his age, after he had been five times consul, and twice honored with a triumph. The Romans were so sensible of his great merit and services, that the expenses of his funeral were defrayed from the public treasury.

FABIUS MAXIMUS (Quintus), a celebrated Roman, who from a dull and inactive childhood was raised to the highest offices of the state. In his first consulship he obtained a victory over Liguria, and the fatal battle of Thrasymenes occasioned his election to the dictatorship. In this important office he began to oppose Hannibal, not by fighting him in the open field, like his predecessors, but by continually harassing his army by countermarches and ambuscades, from which he received the surname of Cunctator, or the Delayer. Hannibal sent him word, that If he was as great a captain as he would be thought, he ought to come into the plain and give him battle.' But Fabius coldly replied, That if he (Hannibal) was as great a captain as he would be thought, he would do well to force him to battle.' Such operations in the commander of the Roman armies gave offence to several; and Fabius was even accused of cowardice. He, however, continued firm in his resolution; and patiently bore to see his master of horse raised,

FABIUS MAXIMUS (Quintus), son of the preceding, showed himself worthy of his father's virtues. During his consulship he received a visit from his father on horseback in the camp. The son ordered the father to dismount; and the old man cheerfully obeyed, embracing his son, and saying, 'I wished to convince myself whether you knew what it is to be consul.' He died before his father, who, with the moderation of a philosopher, delivered a funeral oration over his son's body.

FABIUS MAXIMUS RULLIANUS was the first of the Fabii who obtained the surname of Maximus, for lessening the power of the populace at elections. He was master of horse, and his victory over the Samnites in that capacity nearly cost him his life, as he engaged the enemy without the command of the dictator. He was five times consul, twice dictator, and once censor. triumphed over seven different

FA'BLE, n. s., v. a. & v. n.
FA'BLED, part. adj.
FA'BLER, n. s.
FAB ULIST,
FABULO'SITY,
FAB'ULOUS, adj.
FABULOUSLY, adv.
FABULOUSNESS, N. S.

nations.

He

Fr. fable; Ital. favola; Span. and

Lat. fabula, from

for, fari, to speak;

The

Gr. φαω. Hebrew an signifies vanity, and is considered, by

Minsheu, as the root of the Latin. A fictitious story: fiction, generally, see below: a lie. The verb neuter (derived from the noun) signifies to feign; write, or tell falsehoods: as an active verb, to tell a thing falsely: fabled is feigned; and a fabulist is one celebrated in fables: a fabler, he who composes the specific fictions called fables, or who deals in fiction or falsehood generally. Fabulosity means abundance of fiction; fabulous invention, or faculty; in which latter sense it is synonymous with fabulousness: fabulous is full of fables; feigned; invented.

But refuse profane and old wives' fables.

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1 Tim. iv. 7.

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Or turn this heaven itself into the hell
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Ladies of the' Hesperides, they seemed
Fairer than feigned of old, or fabled since
Of fairy damsels met in forest wide,
By knights.

Id.

There are many things fabulously delivered, and are not to be accepted as truths.

Browne's Vulgar Errours.
Triptolemus, so sung the nine,
Strewed plenty from his cart divine;
But, spite of all those fable-makers,

He never sowed on Almaign acres. Dryden.

The moral is the first business of the poet: this being formed, he contrives such a design or fable as may be most suitable to the moral. Id. Dufresnoy.

It would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away a great fortune by secret methods.

Addison.

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Contains no fabled hero's ashes,
And that around the undoubted scene
Thine own broad Hellespont' still dashes,
Be long my lot! and cold were he

Who there could gaze denying thee! Byron. FABLE is generally esteemed the most ancient species of wit; and has continued to be highly valued, not only in times of the greatest simplicity, but in the most polite ages of the world. Nathan's fable of the poor man (2 Sam. xii. 6) is next in antiquity to Jotham's, and which, as Addison (see the foregoing extracts) observes, is

the oldest extant: perhaps that of Nathan is superior to it in close painting and affecting representation. We find Esop delivering fables in the most distant ages of Greece; and, in the early days of the Roman commonwealth, we read of a mutiny appeased by the timely delivery of the fable of the belly and the members.

The earliest collection of fables extant is of eastern origin, and preserved in the Sanscrit language. It is called Hitopadesa, and the author Veshnoo Sarma; but they are known in Europe by The Tales and Fables of Bidpay, or Pilpay, an ancient Indian philosopher. Of this collection Sir William Jones takes the following notice: The Fables of Veshnoo Sarma, whom we ridiculously call Pilpay, are the most beautiful, if not the most ancient, collection of apologues in the world. They were first translated from the Sanscreet, in the sixth century, by Buzerchumihi, or bright as the sun, the chief physician, and afterwards the vizier of the great Anushirwan; and are extant under various names, in more than twenty languages. But their original title is Hitopadesa, or amicable instruction: and as the very existence of Esop, whom the Arabs believe to have been an Abyssinian, appears rather doubtful, I am not disinclined to suppose that the first moral fables which appeared in Europe were of Indian or Ethiopian origin.'

Mr. Frazer, at the end of his History of Nadir Shah, gives us the following account of this curious work: The ancient Brahmins of India, after a good deal of time and labor, compiled a treatise (which they called Kurtuk Dumnik), in which were inserted the choicest treasures of wisdom, and the most perfect rules for governing a people. This book they presented to their rajahs, who kept it with the greatest secrecy and care. About the time of Mahomet's birth, or the latter end of the sixth century, Noishervan the Just, who then reigned in Persia, discovered a great inclination to see that book; for which purpose Burzuvia, a physician, who had a surprising talent in learning several languages, particularly Sanskerritt, was introduced to him as the most proper person to be employed to get a copy of it. He went to India, where, after some years' stay, and great trouble, he procured it. It was translated into the Pehluvi (the ancient Persian language) by him and Buzrjumebr, the vizier. Noishervan, ever after, and all his successors, the Persian kings, had this book in high esteem, and took the greatest care to keep it secret. Nikky, who was the second caliph of the Abassi reign, by great search, got a copy of it in the Pehluvi language, and ordered Imam Hassan Abdal Mokaffa, who was the most learned of the age, to translate it into Arabic. This prince ever after made it his guide, not only in affairs relating to the government, but also in private life. In the year 380 of the Hegira, sultan Mahmud Ghazi put it into verse: and afterwards, in the year 515, by order of Bheram Shah ben Massaud, that which Abdal Mokaffa had translated, was re-translated into Persic by Abdul Mala Nasser Allah Mustofi; and this is that Kulila Dumna, which is now extant. As this latter had too many Arabic verses and obsolete phrases in it, Molana Ali ben Hassein Vaes, at the request of

At last Abu Jaffer Munsour zu

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