FORD, JOHN. 



FORLI, MELOZZO DA. 



954 



the commander of the French troops destroyed all these brillian 

 prospects. A Siamese grandee called Pitracha, taking advantage o 

 the quarrels which divided the Europeans, united all their enemie 

 and revolted against the king, took him prisoner, and declared him 

 self regent of the kingdom. He compelled the French to quit th 

 country, and put Constance as well as many other Christians to death 

 Forbin returned to Europe after a two years' residence in Siam, o 

 which he seems to have been heartily tired. Forbin's memoirs wer 

 published, during his lifetime, in 1730, at Amsterdam, 2 vols. in 12mo 

 They are written with great ease, and his lively descriptions as we] 

 as the variety of events related, make them exceedingly interesting 

 The last years of his life were spent in retirement and devoted tc 

 religious exercises and works of charity. 



FORD, JOHN, the dramatist, descended from a highly respectable 

 family in the north-west of Devonshire, was the second son of Thoma 

 Ford of Ilsington in that county. The exact date of his birth is no 

 known, but Malone's industry has fixed his baptism at April 17, 1586 

 as appears from the parish register of Ilsington. 



His family having some connection with Popham, the chief justice 

 Ford was designed for the bar, and entered at the Middle Temple 

 November 16, 1602; four years after which time he produced his firs 

 poem, ' Fame's Memorial,' an elegy on the death of the Earl of Devon 

 shire, dedicated to his countess, the beautiful sister of the favourite 

 Earl of Ensex. This poem adds nothing to the author's present reputa 

 tion, and nil we gather from it are some hints of a disappointment in 

 love, for the cure of which he had recourse to writing. In addition to 

 this mode of mental relief, he applied himself to a practice then common 

 that of assisting in the composition of plays, but he did not appea: 

 aa an independent writer till 1629, when he published 'The Lover's 

 Melancholy,' which was followed four years afterwards by ' Tis Pit; 

 She's a Whore,' ' The Broken Heart,' and ' Love's Sacrifice.' The nex" 

 year produced ' Perkin Warbeck ;' and in 1638-39 he published two 

 serious comedies, called ' The Fancies Chaste and Noble,' and ' The 

 Lady's Trial.' Besides these, he wrote in conjunction with Decker 

 ' The Sun's Darling,' a moral mask, which was not printed till 1657 

 according to Langbaine, or 1658 according to Gifford. 



Nothing more is known of Ford ; but from some obscure traditions 

 it has been supposed that soon after 1638 he retired to his native place 

 of Ilsingtou, and there spent the remainder of his days. 



Ford's plays contain many fine thoughts, and numerous specimens 

 of harmonious versification, apparently the result of considerable 

 labour. One fault into which he has fallen in common with others o: 

 his contemporaries, that namely of killing off all his dramatis persona; 

 at the end of the fifth act, appears to arise from an overstrained desire 

 of completing and perfecting the action of the play. Forgetting that 

 the end of every drama is to represent a certain crisis in the affairs 

 of one or more of the principal agents, he endeavours to make the 

 fortunes of almost all the iuferiors converge to the same point, and 

 accordingly involves them in a similar ruin. Ford's great strength 

 lies in his love scenes and the passages of deep pathos ; in his comic 

 characters there is nothing of nature or even of genial humour. His 

 best work is, we think, ' Perkin Warbeck.' It has an air of repose 

 throughout which we do not see in Ford's other plays ; but if the 

 characters of Annabella and Giovanni had been more fully sustained 

 throughout, ' 'Tis Pity She's a Whore ' would probably have been 

 Ford's moat perfect tragedy. 



* FORD, RICHARD, descended from an ancient Sussex family, is 

 the eldest son of Sir Richard Ford, member of parliament iu 1789 for 

 East Grinstead, and chief police magistrate of London. Mr. Ford's 

 mother, the representative of the Salweys of Shropshire, was the 

 heiress of her father Benjamin Booth, an eminent patron of art, and 

 especially of Richard Wilson, of whose paintings he possessed and 

 left more than sixty. Mr. Ford was born in Sloane-street in 1796, was 

 educated at Winchester, and having graduated at Trinity College, 

 Oxford, was called to the bar in Lincoln's Inn, but did not practise. 

 He travelled much on the continent, then just opened by the downfall 

 of Napoleon I., and laid the foundation of his choice library and collec- 

 tion of drawings and engravings. In 1830 he went to Spain, where a 

 long residence in the Alhambra, and a complete examination of the 

 country, fixed his future studies. On his return he settled in Devon- 

 shire, and busied himself iu laying out Moorish gardens, and in contri- 

 buting regularly to the ' Quarterly Review," chiefly selecting for subjects 

 those that bore on the manners, arts, and literature of the Peninsula. 

 He also wrote the account of Velasquez in the ' Penny Cyclopojdia.' 

 He finally embodied his Spanish experience in his ' Hand-Book for 

 Travellers in Spain and Readers at Home, describing the Country, 

 and Cities, the Natives and their Manners ; the Antiquities, Religion, 

 Legends, Fine Arts, Literature, Sports, and Gastronomy; with Notices 

 on Spanish History,' 2 vols. 12mo. The pages being continuous through 

 both volumes, the 1st is named Part I. and the 2nd Part II. Mr. Ford's 

 ' Hand-Book ' corresponds in fact with the above descriptive title-page. 

 Its value in very great, not only to the tourist in Spain, but to all at home 

 who seek information concerning that country, previously so ill-described 

 anil consequently so imperfectly known. As a work of reference it is 

 very val uable, not only for what is described or related, but for the numer- 

 ous authorities to which the reader is referred fur further information. 

 The plan throughout is excellent. Part I. is preceded by ' Preliminary 

 Remarks,' consisting of such general information as is necessary for the 

 BIOG. DIV. VOL. II. 



tourist. Besides these remarks, each division and ancient province of 

 the country is preceded by a copious introduction describing the general 

 features. The traveller is then conducted by a series of ' routes,' or 

 journeys, iu various directious, iu the course of which the district and 

 the cities, towns, and sometimes villages, which it contains, are care- 

 fully and fully described. The notices of works of architecture, of 

 Spanish painters and paintings, of sculptures, carvings, and other 

 works of art, are copious, generally trustworthy, and convey a large 

 amount of information previously unknown in this country. It may 

 be observed however, that the materials of the work, which must have 

 been gathered piecemeal by extensive observation and laborious 

 research, are sometimes put together somewhat confusedly, and are 

 too much mixed up with the author's peculiar opinions, generally 

 piquant enough in point of expression, but not always to be admitted 

 as true. The public demand for a work treating on a country com- 

 paratively so little visited, having arisen from its comprehensive, ex- 

 haustive, and accurate character, a new edition, almost rewritten, was 

 published in 1855. 



Mr. Ford married Harriet, daughter of the late Lord Essex, and 

 of this union three children remain. By his second wife Eliza, sister 

 to Lord Cranstoun, one daughter remains. His third wife was Mary, 

 sister to the late Sir William Molesworth. Mr. Ford's only brother, 

 James, a prebendary of Exeter Cathedral, is the author of many 

 and learned theological works. 



FORDUN, JOHN DE, the father of Scottish history, is believed 

 to have been a canon of Aberdeen, and to have been born in the parish 

 of Fordun, in the Mearns, in the early part of the 14th century. He 

 probably died in the year 1386, or very soon after. His history, as far 

 as completed by himself, is in five books, and conies down to the eud 

 of the reign of David I. (1153); it begins at the creation, the first 

 chapter being entitled 'De Mundo sensibili, terra ecilicet et suis 

 quatuor punctis principalibus, oriental!, occidental!, australi, et 

 boreal!,' and a great deal that immediately follows, being rather a 

 treatise on cosmogony than a chronicle or history. But, in addition 

 to the five books, he left materials for bringing down the narrative to 

 1385, which were put in order by Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm, 

 who, as he tells us himself, was born in that year. Bower also continued 

 the history to the death of James I. (1437), the whole work being thus 

 extended to sixteen books. Fordun states that he spent much time 

 in collecting the materials for his history, both by inquiry and by 

 travel ; and he appears to have made a diligent use of all the sources 

 of information that were accessible to him. He has undoubtedly pre- 

 served many facts which otherwise would have perished. Although 

 by no means free from the credulity which belonged to the spirit of 

 his age, he deserves to be considered as, by comparison, both an honest 

 and a sensible writer ; the mythology of the Scottish history appears 

 in a much simpler shape in his account than it assumes in the bauds 

 of his successors. The first five books of Fordun's work were first 

 printed under the title of 'Joannis Fordun Scoti Chrouicon, sive 

 Scotorum Historia," in Gale's ' Histories Britannicse, Saxonica;, &c., 

 Scriptores xv." (commonly referred to as the first volume of Gale's 

 collection), fol., OXOD, 1691, pp. 563-701. The first complete edition 

 of the work was published by Hcarne at Oxford, in 5 vols. Svo, iu 

 1722, under the title of ' Joannis de Fordun, Scotichronicou.' A more 

 complete and accurate edition appeared at Edinburgh in 1759, in 2 

 vols. foL, entitled ' Joanuis Fordun Scotichrouicon, cum supplements 

 et continuatione Walteri Boweri, InsuUe Sancti Columbse Abbatis, &c., 

 cura Gualteri Goodall.' Some copies of this publication are said to 

 have a different title-page, with the date 1775. Goodali's introduction 

 is a very poor performance. Many manuscripts of Forduu are extant. 



FORLI, MELOZZO DA, a celebrated painter of Forli, where he was , 



rn about 1436. Melozzo was the first who ventured to foreshorten 

 agures upon ceilings, to attempt the ' sotto in su,' as it is termed by 

 ;he Italians, and in which Correggio has obtained so great a name : 

 VIelozzo however was scarcely inferior in this respect to that great 

 lainter. He excelled generally in perspective : in a work published in 

 1494 by Fra Luca Paccioli, entitled ' Summa d'Aritmetica et Geometria,' 

 10 is enumerated among the living painters who were "famosi e 

 supremi " in perspective. 



Scarcely anything is known of Melozzo, though his contemporaries 

 :ermed him " the incomparable painter, and the splendour of all Italy." 

 Morelli, 'Notizia d'Opere di Disegno,' &c., p. 109.) He is supposed 

 >y some to have been the fellow-pupil of Mautegna with Squarcione at 

 J adua, and by others to have been the scholar of Piero della Francesca, 

 one of the earliest masters of perspective. He was early in Rome : he 

 a noticed by Vasari as the contemporary of Beuozzo : he painted there 



1472 for Cardinal Riario, the nephew of Sixtus IV., an ' Ascension 

 f Christ,' on the altar-vault of a chapel of the church of the apostles, 

 Santi Apostoli, which was sawed out and removed iu 1711, the prin- 

 ipal part to the Quirinal Palace, and part to the Vatican, which is now 

 u the sacristy of St. Peter's. The part in the Quirinal, the ' Ascension,' 

 las the following inscription : ' Opus Mclotti Foroliviensis, qui 

 minims fornices pingeudi arteru vel primus inveuit vel illustravit, ex 

 bside veteris templi SS. XII. Apostolorum hue traualatum anno Sal. 

 iIDCCXI.' All the fragments are engraved in D'Agincourt's ' Histoire 

 e 1'Art paries Monumens." There is also a large fresco, now mounted 

 n canvass, in the gallery of the Vatican, which was formerly oil a 

 all of the old Vatican library ; it represents Sixtus IV. installing 



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