FINDEN, WILLIAM. 



KIRDOSI, ABUL CASIM MAN8UR. 



lib constituent* that be should not be a candidate for re-election. In 

 1844, under the auspice* of the Whig party, he itood a contested 

 lection for the office of OoTernor of the State of New York. Ue wai 

 unsuccessful ; but in 1SI7 was elected Controller of the State. In 

 1848 he was proposed at the Whig candidate for the office of Vice- 

 President of the United States, and wai elected. Karly in 1349 ho 

 resigned his office of Controller, in order to devote himself entirely to 

 his duties as Vice- President, When General Taylor died July 9, 

 1850, MilUrd Killmore succeeded him as President of the United 

 States, according to a law of the Constitution, which provides that, 

 should a President expire while in office, he shall be immediately and 

 without election succeeded by the Vice-President for the remainder of 

 the term of office. Mr. Fillmore ceased to be President on the 3rd of 

 March 1853, when he was succeeded by Franklin Pierce, the present 

 President. He is now (August 1856) a candidate for the presidency. 



FIXUKS, WILLIAM, line engraver, was born in 1787. He was 

 apprenticed to Mr. Milan, an engraver of shop-bills, coats of arms, &<x, 

 but by devoting his leisure to the study of the works of James lieath, 

 and others, he acquired, by his own industry and intelligence, so much 

 facility in the use of the burin, and displayed so cultivated a taste, 

 that after he began to work on his own account he soon found ample 

 employment in engraving book plates. Among his first successes in 

 this line, his engravings of Smirke'a illustrations of ' Don Quixote ' have 

 been singled out for special commendation. 



Being very industrious, and always remarkable for a certain neat- 

 i of line and smoothness of finish, he grew in course of time to be 



one of the most popular engravers of the day ; and he was selected to 

 engrave 'the royal portrait' by Lawrence, of George IV. seated on 

 the sofa. It was a plate of large nize, and for engraving it Mr. Findcn 

 . received the sum, unparalleled for a portrait, of 2000 guineas. Finden 

 bestowed upon it the utmost care, and it was so extremely popular 

 that proofs and prints are said to have been advertised for at a large 

 advance of price. But both the picture and the engraving were in an 

 essentially false style of art, and, the fashion having passed away, they 

 have sunk in general estimation even below their proper level. Among 

 Mr. Finden's other more celebrated large engravings, way be mentioned 

 the ' Village Festival,' from the well known picture by Wilkie, now 

 in the National Uallery, which, with something of effeminacy in the 

 handling, is much his finest engraving; and the ' Highlander's Keturn,' 

 also after Wilkie. 



Still his greatest success had been in small plates, especially in 

 book-plates, and the great request in which he was with publishers, 

 led him to call in the assistance of inferior bauds for the completion 

 of his many engagements. To such an extent did he carry this, that 

 he bad at length, in conjunction with a younger brother, Mr. Edward 

 Finden, also a ikilful engraver, established a complete manufactory for 

 line engravings on steel and copper. The effect was, of course, mis- 

 chievous to art; injurious to his own reputation, as necessarily tending 

 to destroy. individuality of style; and eventually it was ruinous to his 

 fortune, by inducing him to undertake partly no doubt to keep his 

 establishment in full employment, and partly to secure to himself a 

 share of the profits which he fancied belonged of right to the engraver 

 rather than to the publisher the publication of various extensive 

 series of engravings. Of these, the first and most successful was the 

 popular 'Byron Uallery.' Other galleries and sots of illustrations 

 followed with less success ; and ultimately by far the best of the whole 

 ' the Gallery of British Art' a generally well -selected, well-engraved, 

 and characteristic series of engravings from our best painters on a 

 larger and more costly scale than any of his previous speculations, 

 was undertaken at an unfortunate time, and, being persevered in, in 

 hopes of eventually retrieving the first losses, swept away the fruits of 

 all bis previous labour. 



After this, Mr. Finden's only important work was a large engraving, 

 executed for the Art Union, of Hilton's ' Crucifixion ' ; but it was the 

 work of a man broken in spirit, and is a very unsatisfactory production. 

 He complete 1 it shortly before his death, which occurred on the 20th 

 of September, 1852. 



FIUUII.LO, JUHAXX DOMINIK, a distinguished German painter 

 and author, was born at Hamburg in 1748. He went to Koine in 

 1761, and was four yean the pupil of Pompeo Batoni; he studied 

 also some time at Bologna, where he was elected a member of the 

 acadoiuy in 1769. In 1784 ho was appointed to the professorship of 

 art in tue University of Gottiugen, where he died in 18-21. Ha is the 

 author of several essays relative to the history of modem art, but 

 his great work i* his history of painting, comprising the ' Ueschicbtc 

 der Mahlerey ' (' Hutory of Painting in Italy, France, Spain, and 

 England \ In five volumes, and the ' Ueschichte der Xeichnenden 

 KuusU in Deutchland und den Vereinigten Xiederlanden ' ('History 

 of the Art. of Design in Germany and the United Netherlands'), in 

 four volumes, bvo. The whole forms a very useful compilation, espe- 

 cially a. to the latUr centuries of the middla ages; but he has intro- 

 duced u Ai. of so many artist* of utter historical msigniacance, that 

 he has not been able to give sufficient space to the important artiste, 

 and the first five volumes are a mere chronological series of short 

 biographies. The German portion is a work of great research.-merit, 

 and utility, especially where be treats of early times. Fiorillo painted 

 to the hut, bat be did not execute many pictures : his masterpiece 

 is considered a large picture of ' The Surrender of Briseis to the 



Heralds of Agamemnon,' from Homer. (Menael, Mitceltanten Artii- 

 tuchtn Inhalti ; Nagler, Kiintt'.er-Lt.cicon.) 



F1RDUSI, ABUL CASIM MANSUR, a celebrated Persian poet, 

 was born at the Tillage of Shadab, iu the district of Tus, in the 

 province of Ehorassan. The Persian biographers differ considerably 

 iu the date of his birth, some placing it in the beginning and others 

 in the middle of the 10th century; but as Firdusi himself mentions 

 in the last chapter of the ' Shah Narueh ' that he completed that work 

 A. ii. 400 (A.D. 1009), and that he was then nearly eighty, he must 

 have been born about A.II. 319 (A.D. 931). 



His father was a gardener, and is said to have had the management 

 of a beautiful estate called Firdus (that is, paradise), whence the 

 poet obtained the name of Firdusi, though, according to another 

 account, this name was given to him by Mahmud in consequence of 

 the excellence of his verses. 



Firdusi appears to have spent the first fifty years of his life in his 

 native village; till attracted by the encouragement which Maluuud 

 gave to learning and the fine arts, he repaired to his court at Qhaznl, 

 where his talents procured him an honourable reception. Soon after 

 his arrival, Mahmud commanded him to write a history of the kings 

 of Persia in verse, and promised to reward him with a thousand 

 pieces of gold for every thousand couplets. The poet however pre- 

 ferred waiting for his reward till he had finished the work, which 

 wa completed, after a labour of thirty year*, in 60,000 couplets. But 

 instead of receiving the great sum he had anticipated, he was doomed 

 to a cruel disappointment. It appears that he had offended some 

 favourite courtiers, who prejudiced the mind of Mahmud against 

 him, and accused him of having insulted the religion of the prophet 

 by the praiees which ho had bestowed upon Zardusht (Zoroaster) in 

 bis great poem. Instigated by the*e calumnies, Mahmud only sent 

 him 60,000 silver dirhems. It is related that Firdusi was in the bath 

 when the money wag brought, and that disappointed and enraged 

 at the meanness of the sultan, lie distributed the whole sum among 

 the attendants of the bath and the slave who brought it, adding, 

 "The sultan shall know that I did not bestow the labour of thirty 

 years on a work to be rewarded with dirhems." In consequences of 

 this insult, he was sentenced to be trod to death by an elephant, and 

 with great difficulty obtained a revocation of the sentence. Fe.-iiu,' 

 that he was no longer safe at Ghazui, he left the city, after bavin; 

 written a bitter satire on Mahmud, which he gave to one of the 

 courtiers, telling him that it was a panegyric on the sultan, which he 

 must not present to his master till several days had elapsed. A 

 translation of this satire is given by Sir William Jones, accompanied 

 with the original Persian, in his 'Pooseos Asiatics Commeutarii' 

 (' \Vorka,' 8vo, edition, voL vi., pp. 308-313), and also without the 

 Persian in his ' Traite* sur la Poiisie Orientate,' vol. xiL, pp. 242-215. 



The accounts given in the Persian biographies of Firdusi after his 

 departure from Ghazni are vague and unsatisfactory. The remainder 

 of his life was spent in wandering from one kingdom to another, 

 pursued by the emissaries of Mahmurt, whosa power was too much 

 dreaded by the various monarohs of the East to allow them to 

 harbour for any length of time the proscribed poet He first took 

 refuge with the governor of Mazanderau (Hyrcauia), and a(V. 

 fled to Baghdad, where he was hospitably received by the kalif, Kadir 

 Billah, who gave him the 60,000 pieces of gold which Mahmud had 

 promised. While at Baghdad he is said to have added 1000 couplets 

 to the ' Shah Nameh,' iu praise of the kalif, and also to have written a 

 panegyric on him in Arabic ; but this statement is in all probability 

 incorrect, since all trace of the latter is lost, and none of the copies 

 of the ' Shah Nameh,' collated by Mr. Turner Macan, contain the 

 former. During his residenoa in this city he is also said to havo 

 written the poem called ' Joseph,' which consists of 9000 couplets, in 

 the same measure and style as the ' Shah Nameh,' copies of which aro 

 now rarely met with even in the East. But even in the capital of 

 the Abasside kalif he was not secure from the power of Mahmud : the 

 feeble Kadir Billah dared not disobey the commands of the sultan, 

 and the unfortunate poet was obliged to seek in countries still moro 

 remote a safer retreat. It is uncertain at what court he next took 

 refuge ; but it appears clear from all accounts that his friends pro- 

 cured hit pardon shortly after he left Baghdad, and that ho eventually 

 returned to his native town, where he died A.H. 411 (A.D. 1020), in the 

 eighty-ninth year of his age. We know little of his family : the 

 death of his son at the age of thirty-seven is pathetically alluded to 

 in the ' Shah Nameh,' and his daughter is said to have refused the 

 60,000 pieces of gold, which were offered to her by the tardy justice 

 of the sultan. 



The ' Shah Nameh ' contains the history of the kings of Persia, 

 from the reign of the first king, Kaiumers, to the deith of Ycsiiijird, 

 the lit monarch of the Sawanian race, who was deprived of hU king- 

 dom A.H. 21 (A.U. 641) by the invasion of the Arabs during the kalifata 

 of Omar. During this period, according to Firdusi, three dynasties sat 

 upon the Persian throne. The first, called the 1'ishdadian, lasted 

 2441 years. Tue second, the Kaianian, commenced with Kaikobad, 

 aad lasted 732 years. Alexander the Great, called Sikander by 

 Firdusi, is included in this race, and is represented to be the son of 

 Darub, king of Persia, by tbe daughter of Failakus (Philip of Mace- 

 don). After the death of Sikander, Persia was divided, during 200 

 yean, into a number of petty monarchies called tbe ' confederacy of 



