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THE

LONDON ENCYCLOPÆDIA.

VOL. IX.

F TO GARTER.

3,

EGG,

THE

LONDON ENCYCLOPÆDIA,

OR

UNIVERSAL DICTIONARY

OF

SCIENCE, ART, LITERATURE, AND PRACTICAL MECHANICS,

COMPRISING A

POPULAR VIEW OF THE PRESENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE.

ILLUSTRATED BY

NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS, A GENERAL ATLAS,

AND APPROPRIATE DIAGRAMS.

Sic oportet ad librum, presertim miscellanei generis, legendum accedere lectorem, ut solet ad convivium conviva
civilis. Convivator annititur omnibus satisfacere; et tamen si quid apponitur, quod hujus aut illius palato non
respondeat, et hie et ille urbane dissimulant, et alia fercula probant, ne quid contristent convivatorem.

Erasmus.

A reader should sit down to a book, especially of the miscellaneous kind, as a well-behaved visitor does to a ban-
quet. The master of the feast exerts himself to satisfy his guests; but if, after all his care and pains, something should
appear on the table that does not suit this or that person's taste, they politely pass it over without notice, and commend
other dishes, that they may not distress a kind host.
Translation,

BY THE ORIGINAL EDITOR OF THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA METROPOLITANA,

ASSISTED BY EMINENT PROFESSIONAL AND OTHER GENTLEMEN.

IN TWENTY-TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. IX.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, 73, CHEAPSIDE;

R. GRIFFIN & Co., GLASGOW; TEGG AND CO., DUBLIN; ALSO J. & S. A. TEGG,
SYDNEY AND HOBART TOWN.

1839.

BUTC 1954

LIBRARY

LONDON:

PRINTED BY J. HADDON, CASTLE STREET, FINSBURY.

THE

LONDON ENCYCLOPÆDIA.

F. The letter (Saxon Ƒ) 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.

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 department 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

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