

....:- " . 



FORSTBR, FRANK. 



(Bartolomeo Sooohi, or) PUtina in 1475 a* prefect of the said library. 

 The frwcu was removed from the wall and fixed to the canvass by 

 Domrnieo Succi of Imola, by order of Leo XII. The expression of 

 all the head*, mostly portraits of distinguished persons, U good aod 

 individual, and the general arrangement and colouring are of great 

 merit, bat in the severe style of Mantegna and other cmiueut 

 quattroceutisti. 



(Vasari. Vile M niton. At., in the life of Benosxo (Oozzoli), and 

 the notes to Schom'i Oermau tranalation ; Lanxi, Sioria Pittorica, etc.; 

 GuUtna tli yWri al Vaticmo, Roma, 1S36.) 



FOKMU'SUS, Bishop of 1'orto, was raised to the see of Rome in 

 891, after the death of Stephen V. He had acquired a reputation for 

 litsrninf and piety, but being in opposition to John VIII. in the matter 

 of the election of a new emperor, that pope had deposed him in 878 ; 

 but Martin II., John's successor, honourably re-instated him in his see. 

 .iduct aftr his exaltation to the papal see was both firm and 

 moderate, as is shown by his letters relative to the schism of Photius, 

 as well as by those which he wrote to Eudes, the competitor of Charles 

 the Simple, and to the bithops of Gaul, exhorting them not to disturb 

 Cbarlrs in the possession of the crown. In one instance however he 

 has been accused of tergiversation. In February 892 he crowned 

 Lambert, son of Quldo, as colleague to hie father in the kingdom of 

 Italy ; but soon after, in consequence of disputes between Quido and 

 the Roman sec, Formosus wrote to Arnulph, king of Germany, inviting 

 him to come to Italy and assume the crown. Arnulph came to Italy, 

 and was crowned at Rome by Formosus in the beginning of the year 

 895, after the death of Guido. The history of that period, and of the 

 various competitors to the crown of Italy, is extremely confused. 

 Kormosus died in April 895, and was succeeded by Boniface VL, who, 

 dying a few days after, was succeeded by Stephen Vlyby some styled 

 II., who, having taken the part of Lambert against Aruulph, 

 instituted proceedings in a council against the memory of Formosus, 

 and had his body disinterred. Romanus however, who succeeded 

 Stephen, in a council held at Rome in 898 rescued the character of 

 Formosus from this stigma, had his body honourably buried again, 

 and declared the acts of his pontificate to be legal and valid. 



K'lKSKLL, CAUL AF, a Swedish philanthropist and statistician, 

 was born at Skottorp, in the province of Skaraborg, on the 18th of 

 March 1783. His father was a colonel in the army, his mother, whose 

 name was De Bruce, was descended from a Scottish family settled in 

 Sweden. At the school of Skara where he received bis first education 

 he was frequently flogged, and was remarkably dull ; at the military 

 academy of CarUberg, where corporal punishment was prohibited, he 

 gained a succession of prizra. In 1801 he commenced his career as 

 an officer on board the Bcllona frigate, during the anno 1 neutrality 

 of the northern powers, but he was never fond of the sea, and was 

 soon transferred to the land-service. He was for some time engaged 

 in taking surveys of parts of Sweden for the great map by Baron 

 !! nnrlin. which was made at Hermelin's expense, and in 1SOS with 

 bis brother in taking similar surveys for the projected Qotha canal, 

 which was carried into effect by Telford the engineer of the Caledonian 

 Canal, and which, like the Scottish undertaking, was far from success- 

 ful as a pecuniary speculation. In 1809 on hearing that Adlersparre, 

 the commander of a portion of the army of Finland, was on his 

 march to Stockholm to effect an alteration in the government, 

 Fonell instantly went off to the insurgents and offered his services, 

 which were accepted. General Dobeln, to whom Forsell was sent 

 with some propo.-nls, threatened to have him shot as a rebel, but in 

 a few days the question was decided without a blow. Gustavus IV. 

 was dethroned, and his uncle Charles XIII. succeeded. Forsell was 

 appointed adj u taut to the newly -elected crown-prince, Charles Augustus 

 of Augtuttuburg, and attended him in his expedition to Scania, where 

 the prince's sudden death put an end to the hopes of seeing the 

 three crowns of Scandinavia united on one bead. Forsell was also 

 present at the most disgraceful scene in the modern history of Sweden, 

 when Count vun Fersen, wrongfully suspected of having poisoned the 

 prince, was torn to pieces at his funeral by the mob of Stockholm. 

 The new crown prince, Bernadotto, continued Forsell in his post, and 

 be accompanied him during all the war in Germany, having under 

 his charge the maps required for the campaign, which were not less 

 than 5000. After the peace he was raised in 1817 to the order of 

 nobles, and in 162 1 became chief of the surveying department with 

 the rank of colonel A new map of Sweden in eight sheet* on a larger 

 scale than Hennelin's was constructed under his superintendence, 

 and Norway, now united to Sweden, was mapped on the same scale 

 by Norwegian officers. A series of statistical tables, originally pub- 

 lished in a quarto volume a* am accompaniment to the map, was found 

 so useful that H was republiahed in a separate form under the title of 

 BUtistik ofver Bverige, 1 in 1881, was translated into Danish and 

 German, and ran through seven] editions, the last of which was 

 issued in 1844. It is the book most frequently referred to by writer, 

 on the subject. A volume of notes, Anteckningar och SUti.tisko 

 iniogar ofver Sverige,' published in 1837, is a companion, ond is 

 intended to correct sumo of the injurious notions of Sweden diffused 

 by Laiag. Fonell took an active port in introducing into hi* native 

 country several of the improvement* of modern times, both moral 

 and mechanical In 11 be wrote a pamphlet and founded a company 

 for the introduction of team-l-oat*, and ft was a ral.ject of p. i 



the first two steamers in Sweden were built in Swedish waters, at 

 Stockholm and ll'.^iin.is, but one was in Mr. Owen's establish 

 and the other at Mr. Stafford's ; and the latter was so bad t 

 occasioned a loss to the shareholders. In 1820 and 1821 he intro- 

 duced savings banks, in 1830 temperance societies, in 1834 a x 

 in imitation of the English Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know- 

 ledge, which published a periodical entitled 'Luniiu; for Folket ' 

 ('Reading for the People'). In 1834 he visited England for the 

 purpose of studying the management of infant schools. The visit 

 was a very unfortunate one, for it was begun when he was unwell, it 

 was continued in ill-health, and it all but ended fatally in an attack 

 of the cholera at Manchester, where he finally rose from a sick bed 

 without money to carry him home, but was set at ease by his Quaker 

 physician, Dr. Rausoine, who told him he would discharge his hotel 

 bill and wait for his own till his patient had arrived at Stockholm. 

 In 1835 he published bis ' Notes on the occasion of a Tour to England 

 at the end of the Summer of 1834,' in which he gives an account of 

 his visit to Mr. Clowes's printing-office, to his old friend Mr. Telford, 

 to his countryman Mr. Ericsson, &c., but the volume on the whole 

 bears signs of the feebleness of the author's health. He supplied an 

 account of education in Sweden to the sixth volume of the London 

 ' Journal of Education,' and a notice of tho provision for the poor in 

 Sweden to the English Poor-Law Commissioners, which was printed 

 in tln-ir report laid before parliament. Forsell died at Stockholm on 

 the 25th of October 1S4S, universally respected as a zealous bene- 

 factor of his fellow-citizens. The name is common in Sweden, and 

 the Carl Forssell who in 1836 published a handsome volume of 

 costumes under the title of ' Ett Ar i Sverige ' (' A Year in Sweden '), 

 is not akin to the statistician. 



FOKSKAL PETER, a celebrated naturalist and oriental traveller, 

 was born in Sweden, in the year 1736. After studying at Gottingen, 

 where he published a dissertation under the title of ' Dubia de 

 Principiis Philosophic) recentioris,' by which he gained some credit, 

 he returned to his native country. In 1759 be wrote his 'Pensees sur 

 la Libertd Civile,' a pamphlet which did not prove agreeable to the 

 ruling powers of Sweden. A fondness for natural history had brought 

 him acquainted with Linnaeus, then at the zenith of his fame, by whom 

 he was favourably recommended to Frederick V., king of Denmark. 

 In 1761 he obtained the title of professor at Copenhagen, and having 

 been distinguished for his acquaintance with oriental languages, he 

 was selected to join Niebuhr and others in an expedition to i> 

 gate Egypt and Arabia. After visiting Marseille, Malta, some of the 

 Greek islands, and Constantinople, he arrived at Alexandria. For 

 about a year he remained stationary in Cairo and its vicinity ; he 

 afterwards viaited Suez, and entering Arabia by Loheia, he penetrated 

 by way of Bi-it-el-Fakih and Zebid as far as Mocha ; thenca crossing 

 the mountains to Tarcs and Abb, he eventually and with difficulty 

 reached Jerim, where he died on the llth of July 1763. In the 

 course of this journey, although robbed and ill-treated by thieves near 

 Alexandria and elsewhere, suffering from constitutional timidity, and 

 often bowed down with sickness, he investigated with euch extraordi- 

 nary energy and perseverance the natural productions, especially the 

 plant*, of the places he visited, that although he never lived to arrange 

 his papers, tho account of the vegetation of Egypt and Arabia, com- 

 piled after tho return of his companions to Europe, is a model of the 

 manner in which such investigations should be conducted. From hi* 

 friend and companion Niebuhr, to whom the care of editing Forskal's 

 manuscripts was intrusted, we have a ' Fauna Orieutulis,' under tho 

 title of ' Deacriptioues Auiuiolium, Avium, Amphibiorum, 1'iscium, 

 Insectorum, Vermium, qute in itiu. orient, observavit Petrus For.-kul,' 

 1775, 4 to; and in the same year and form appeared a 'Flora 

 jEgyptiaco-Arabica,' or an account of the plants found in Lower 

 Kgypt and Arabia Felix. This Utter work i* very remarkable as an 

 illustration of the philosophical mind of Forskal, and is far in advance 

 of tho works of a similar kind published by the followers of Linnteus. 

 It is one of tho first books in which the relation of vegetation to climate 

 is taken as a great object of consideration, and may in fact be quoted 

 as one of the earliest steps made in geographical botany. We here 

 find an attempt to show the existence of geographical parallels of 

 vegetation, and the remarkable assertion that, " Given the specimens 

 of plants, you may find the latitude of a country, the elevation of its 

 surface, and the zones of vegetation upon its mountains, from their 

 foot to their highest peaks." The ' Flora ,/Kgyptiaco-Arabica ' is to 

 this day the best account we have of the plant) of those countries, 

 and it remains one of tho most satisfactory views of the vegetation of 

 any extra-European region. Linnaeus fixed the name of Forskal to 

 his own Caidbeja adhierens, a worthless Arabian weed, under the 

 title of F. tcnacisaima; but we are assured by a panegyrist of tho 

 great Swedish botanist, that in doing so he intended to compliment 

 rather than satirise the character of his unfortunate countryman. 



F01WTKK, FRANK, civil engineer, was born in the year 1800, 

 near Neweastle-upou-Tyne, and at an early age was put to learn the 

 business of a colliery viewer, or mining agent After some y<- 

 was iutruHtad with the management of mining works near Swansea ; 

 and be was afterwards similarly engaged in Lancashire. V 

 tliui occupied, about the year 1830, he became acquainted with Mr. 

 Robert Stepheusou, under whom he was ultimately employed in the 

 superintendence of some of the most difficult works on the 1 



