صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

lions whose hearts have beat with the fear of death and longing for life under these coasts, the millions who have sailed here, from the time Ulysses sailed past the cavern of Polyphemus, until now that our arrowy steamer glided over the watery mirror, where Fata Morgana shows her airy palace; but no colonnades of rays, no fantastic cupola and Gothic towers, arose on the blue waters. Yet the coast itself was a Fata Morgana for the eye and thought."

Hans Christian Andersen.

But what must be thought of the female dramatist, who, for eighteen long months, can exhibit the beautifullest Fatamorgana to a flush cardinal, wide awake, with fifty years on his head; and so lap him in her scenic illusion that he never doubts but it is all firm earth, and the pasteboard coulisse-trees are producing Hesperides apples? Carlyle

Fates. See THREE FATES. Faubourg St. Antoine. A quarter of Paris inhabited by the workingclasses, and famous in the Revolution of 1789 as the source and headquarters of the insurrectionary elements in the city. It has been since the time of the Fronde the seat of disturbances. From 1830 to 1851 many riots and bloody fights gave a disagreeable character to this quarter, but since 1854 a change has taken place in this respect. Here and in the vicinity are some of the chief manufactories of the city.

Faubourg St. Germain. A fashionable quarter of Paris in which the ancient nobility resided. Many of the houses of the old noblesse are still standing.

"St. Germain is full of these princely, aristocratic mansions, mournfully beautiful, desolately grand." C. Beecher.

Everybody knows something of a handFome and very elegant young baron of the Faubourg St. Germain, who, with small fortune, very great taste, and greater credit contrived to get on very swimmingly as an adorable roué and vaurien till he was hard upon twenty-five.

N. P. Willis.

[blocks in formation]

old noblesse, never ceased to court the Faubourg St. Germain, doubtless with the feeling that fashion is a homage to men of his stamp Emerson.

Faun, The [of Praxiteles]. A celebrated ancient statue. Now in the Capitol, Rome.

"It is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right arm upon the trunk or stump of a tree. . . . It is impossible to gaze long at this stone image without conceiving a kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were warm to the touch, and imbued Hawthorne. with actual life."

l'erseus.

The shepherd asleep on a sheltered bank under the rocks, is already a Faun of Prariteles, and might be a Theseus or a Bayard Taylor. Faun. See BARBERINI FAUN, DANCING FAUN, DRUNKEN FAUN, RONDININI FAUN, SLEEPING FAUN, etc. Favorite, The. An armor-plated ship of the British navy, launched July 5, 1864.

Fawkes's Cellar. See Guy FAWKES'S CELLAR.

Feast of Roses. A picture by Albert Dürer (1471-1528). In the monastery Strahoff at Prague, Austria.

Feast of the Gods. A large fresco in the Farnesina, Rome, representing the gods as deciding the dispute between Venus and Cupid, designed by Raphael (14831520), but chiefly executed by his pupil Giulio Romano.

Feast of the Gods. A noted picture begun by Giovanni Bellini (1426-1516), but completed by Titian (1477-1576), now in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, England. There is a copy, thought to be by Poussin, in the Scotch Academy.

Feast of the King of the Beans. A picture by Gabriel Metsu (b.

1630), a Dutch genre-painter. In the Gallery of Munich, Bavaria. Feast of the Levite. A picture of great size by Paul Veronese (1530-1588). It was formerly in the refectory of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, now in the Accademia delle Belle Arti, Venice, Italy.

Fecundidad, La. [Offering to the Goddess of Fecundity.] An admired picture by Titian (1477– 1576). In the gallery at Madrid, Spain.

Federal Hill. An eminence south of the centre of the city of Baltimore, Md. It was a place of much interest during the civil war, having been seized and occupied by Gen. Butler, and heavily fortified to protect the city, and to overawe internal sedition.

Feldmässer, Die. [The Land Surveyors.] See GEOMETRICIANS, THE

Felix, The. An Arctic exploring

ship which sailed to the northern seas under Sir John Ross in 1850.

Fellows Marbles. A collection of sculptures in the British Museum, London, brought from the ancient city of Xanthus.

Felsenmeer. [Sea of Rocks.] 1. A remarkable accumulation of syenitic rocks in the Odenwald, not far from Darinstadt, Germany.

2. A natural curiosity in the form of an immense mass of detached rocks, near Hemar, in Westphalia.

Fenchurch Street. A street in London, which derives its name from a fen, or bog, caused by the overflow of a small stream which ran into the Thames.

Fernay. This château, four and one-half miles north of Geneva, was built by Voltaire, and became his residence. He also erected a church, and founded the little village about it, by promoting manufactures.

This and several subsequent appoals of the same sort are among the best points in the conduct of the Philosopher of Fernay. Spalding.

Fernihurst. A Scottish fortress of the fifteenth century, near Jedburgh.

Ferrara Castle. A noted mediæval

fortress in Ferrara, Italy, once

the residence of the dukes of Ferrara. It is considered one of the finest relics of feudal times.

Ferriter's Castle. An ancient ruined stronghold, situated in a wild spot, almost on the verge of the Atlantic, in the county of Kerry, Ireland.

Ferronière, La Bolle. See BELLE FERRONIÈRE.

Festival of Venus in the Isle of Cytherea. A picture by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Now in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, Austria.

Feuillant Club. A political association in Paris established during the Revolution. It was originally called the Club of 1789. It derived its name from the convent of the Feuillants in which its meetings were held. Feuillants [Église des]. A fine

church in Bordeaux, France. It contains the tomb of Montaigne. Field Lane. A street in London which has now mostly disap peared. It was inhabited by a wretched, criminal class.

"In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs of all sizes and pat terns; for here reside the traders who purchase them from the pickpockets. Hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows, or flaunting from the door-posts; and the shelves within are piled with them. Confined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its barber, its coffeeshop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse. It is a commercial colony of itself, the emporium of petty lar ceny." Dickens.

Field of Blood. A tract in Italy, now occupied by the village of Canne, and still called " Campo di Sangue," Field of Blood. It is the site of the ancient battlefield of Cannæ, where Hannibal gained a great victory over the Romans, B.C. 216.

Field of Blood. See ACELDAMA. Field of Flodden. See FLODDEN FIELD.

Field of Forty Footsteps. A region in Bloomsbury, London, formerly noted as a resort for low characters, and famous as the scene of a legendary conflict between two brothers, whose footsteps remained impressed in the soil, and over which no grass would grow. Upon this legend

Jane and Anna Maria Porter based one of their popular ro

mances.

"The steps are of the size of a large human foot, about three inches deep. We counted only seventy-six, but were not exact in counting. The place where one or both of the brothers is supposed to have fallen is still bare of grass." Southey.

June 16, 1800. Went into the fields at the back of Montague House, and there saw, for the first time, the forty footsteps; the building materials are there ready to cover them from the sight of man. I counted more than forty, but they might be the footprints of the workmen.

Joseph Moser, Commonplace Book.

Field of March. See CHAMP DE MARS.

I supposed you must have served as a yeoman of the guard since Bluff King Henry's time, and expected to hear something from you about the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Scott.

They [Petrarch's finer poems] differ from them [his interior ones] as a May-day procession of chimney-sweepers differs from the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Macaulay. Fifth Avenue. A famous street in the city of New York, beginning at Washington Square and extending to Central Park. It is lined with costly edifices, the homes of wealthy citizens, and is the most splendid street of residences in America, and one of the finest in the world.

"Fifth Avenue is the Belgrave Square, the Park Lane, and the Pall Mall of New York. It is certainly a very fine street. The houses in it are magnificent, not having that aristocratic look which some of our detached London residences enjoy, but an air of comfortable luxury and commercial wealth which is not excelled by the best houses of any other town that I know." Anthony Trollope.

Field of Mars. See CAMPUS MAR- Fifth-Avenue Theatre. In New

TIUS.

Field of Peterloo. The popular name of St. Peter's Field, near Manchester, England, where, Aug. 16, 1819, a riot occurred. The name was derisively imitated from Waterloo.

Bridges of Lodi, retreats of Moscow, Waterloos, Peterloos, ten-pound franchises, tar-barrels, and guillotines. Carlyle.

Field of Rákos. [Hung. Rákos Mezo.] A celebrated plain in the immediate neighborhood of Pesth, Hungary, in which the Diet, or great national assembly, of the Hungarians, was formerly held in the open air.

Field of the Cloth of Gold. A celebrated plain near the town of Ardres in Northern France. It is known by this name in consequence of the meeting on this spot in 1520 between Henry VIII. of England and Francis I. of France with their retinues, and the cloth of gold with which the tents of the two sovereigns were covered.

York. A small but elegant place of amusement.

Fighting

Gladiator. A wellknown Greek statue in the Louvre, Paris.

[ocr errors]

"There is a left arm again, though; no,- that is from the Fighting Gladiator,' - -the Jeune Héros combatant' of the Louvre; there is the broad ring of the shield. . . . [The separate casts of the Gladiator's' arm look immense; but in its place the limb looks light, almost slender, such is the perfection of that miraculous mar. ble. I never felt as if I touched the life of the old Greeks until I looked on that statue]." Holmes.

Welcome, O Fighting Gladiator, and Recumbent Cleopatra, and Dying Warrior, whose classic outlines (reproduced in the calcined mineral of Lutetia) crown my loaded shelves! Holmes.

Fighting Téméraire.

A picture

by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), the English landscape painter, and regarded one of his best works. In the National Gallery, London.

Fijah. A noted fountain in the vicinity of Damascus, one of the largest and most remarkable in Syria.

[blocks in formation]

Finchley, March to. See MARCH TO FINCHLEY.

Fingal's Cave. A famous and ro-
mantic cavern in the island of
It is 227 feet
Staffa, Scotland.
long, and 66 feet in height above
the water at mean tide. It is
composed of pentangular or hex-
agon columns of black basaltic
rock, erect, inclining, and curved,
and irregularly jointed.

There all unknown its columns rose
Where dark and undisturbed repose
The cormorant had found,

And the shy seal had quiet home,
And weltered in that wondrous dome;
Where, as to shame the temples decked
By skill of earthly architect,

Nature herself, it seemed, would raise
A minster to her Maker's praise.

Scott.

[blocks in formation]

side." According to tradition, the
name Finsbury is derived from
two daughters of one of the Cru-
saders, as expressed in the follow-
ing extract from an old ballad:-
Old Sir John Fines he had the name,
Being buried in that place,
Now, since then, called Finsbury,

To his renown and grace;
Which time to come shall not outwear,
Nor yet the same deface.

And likewise when those maidens died
They gave those pleasant fields
Unto our London citizens,

Which they most bravely hield;
And now they are made most pleasant

walks,

[blocks in formation]

"Moorgate opens to the moor, or fen, hence the district name Fin, or Fensbury." Athenœum.

And giv'st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,

As if thou never walk'st farther than Finsbury. Shakespeare. Finsbury Park. A pleasure-ground in London, opened in 1869. Finstermünz. A magnificent pass or defile in the Tyrolese Alps, second in point of grandeur only to the Via Mala.

First Lesson. A picture by Sir Edwin Landseer (1803-1873). Fish-Street Hill. In London. Here is the monument built, from designs by Wren, in commemoration of the great fire of 1666. The Black Prince had a palace on Fishstreet Hill.

[ocr errors]

A friend of mine, who was sitting unmoved at one of the sentimental pieces, was asked how he could be so indifferent. "Why, truly,' says he, "as the hero is but a tradesman, it is indifferent to me whether he be turned out of his countinghouse on Fish-street Hill, since he will still have enough left to open shop in St. Giles's. Goldsmith.

I find myself before a fine picture in the morning. Was it ever otherwise? What is become of Fish Street Hill.

Charles Lamb.

Twelve columns like the monument on Fish Street Hill might give the reader some idea of the vastness of these pillars (in the palace of Karnac]. Lefevre, Trans. Fisher, Fort. See FORT FISHER.

Fisher Boy. A statue by Hiram Powers (1805-1873).

"Then came a lithe, graceful, immature figure of the Fisher Boy, holding a shell to his ear; the expression, the whole air and aspect, suggestive of the mystery of life that connects its outset with eternity." Tuckerman. Fisherman presenting the Ring of St. Mark to the Doge of Venice. A famous picture by Paris Bordone (1500-1576). In the Accademia delle Belle Arti, Venice, Italy.

"A grand piece of scenic decoration. The numerous figures, the vivid color, the luxuriant architecture, remind us of Paul Veronese, with,

however, more delicacy, both in color and execution."

Mrs. Jameson.

sentative of the Sienese school. It was a fresco,Christ bound to the pillar after having been scourged. I do believe that painting has never done any thing better, so far as expression is concerned, than this figure. In all these generations since it was painted, it must have softened thousands of hearts, drawn down rivers of tears, been more effectual than a million of sermons. Really it is a thing to stand and weep at. No other painter has done any thing that can deserve to be compared with this." Hawthorne. Flagellation, Column of the. See COLUMN OF THE FLAGELLATION. Flaminia, Porta. See PORTA FLA

MINIA.

Flaminian Way. See VIA FLA

MINIA.

ISEUM.

The Flavian Amphitheatre and the Baths of Caracalla enable us to realize imperial Rome more vividly than even the glowing pages of Tacitus. James Fergusson.

Fleece, The. Formerly a tavern in Covent Garden, London, the scene of numerous disorderly disputes, and, as Aubrey expresses very unfortunate for homi

Fishmongers' Hall. A celebrated hall in London, belonging to one of the great city guilds, or com- Flavian Amphitheatre. See COLpanies, situated near London Bridge. This company has numbered about 50 lord mayors, and on July 10, 1864, had been incorporated 500 years. Five Forks. A famous locality in the neighborhood of Petersburg, Va., where a last stand was made by Gen. Lee's troops, who being repulsed at this point, Lee concluded to evacuate the city of Richmond, April 2, 1865. Five Points. A district in the city of New York near the Tombs, and at the intersection of Baxter, Park, and Worth streets, formerly noted as being one of the most wretched and dangerous quarters in the metropolis. Its character has somewhat improved of late.

[blocks in formation]

it,

66

cides."

Fleet, The. A famous prison in

London, named from the creek, or
stream, of the Fleet, upon the
bank of which it was erected.
After an existence of nearly eight
centuries, it was abolished, and
removed about 1845. It has been
tenanted by many distinguished
victims. Pope calls it the "Haunt
of the Muses," from the number
of poets who have been confined
here. The prisoners were sub-
jected in many cases to most
cruel and outrageous treatment.
The horrors of the Fleet were
brought to public notice in 1726
by the trial of the warden for
murder. The prison and its im-
mediate neighborhood were no-
torious for the so-called "Fleet
Marriages," which
formed by clergymen imprisoned 1
for debt. Great numbers of thes
marriages were solemnized, ost
the clergymen could of cous in
defy the fine for performing with

were

per

« السابقةمتابعة »