FAN. 



FANCY. 



FAN, an instrument or machine for agitating the air by the wafting 

 or revolving motion of a broad surface, for the purpose of producing 

 artificial currents. Large revolving fans, driven by machinery, are 

 frequently used either to facilitate the cooling of fluids or the process 

 of winnowing, or as blowing-machines to urge the combustion of a fire, 

 or to as.ii.st in ventilation. Another application of such an apparatus 

 is for the purpose of regulating or checking, by the resistance of the 

 air to its rapid motion, the velocity of light machinery. A familiar 

 example of such a use is afforded by the revolving fans of a musical 

 snuff-box. 



In its more ordinary acceptation the name fan is limited to the well 

 known instrument employed by ladies for producing refreshing cool- 

 ness, the use of which, under the names Jtabcttum or Jlabelluliim in 

 Latin, or jinris or finriar'/ip (diminutive, jiariSmv) in Greek, was well 

 known to the ancients, whose fans, however, according to the article 

 ' Flabellum ' in the ' Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,' 

 edited by Dr, Smith, were not, like moot of those now used, ' so con- 

 structed that they might be furled, unfurled, and fluttered, nor were 

 they even carried by the ladies themselves,' so that, as the writer of 

 that article observes, the various manoeuvres so wittily described in 

 the 102nd number of the ' Spectator ' as the ' exercise of the fan ' were 

 wholly unknown to the ancients. From the numerous references 

 given in the article above referred to, it would appear that while 

 aucient fans were often of elegant forms, of delicate colours, and of 

 costly and splendid materials, such as peacocks' feathers, they were 

 i- tiff and of a fixed shape. Some were made of separate feathers joined 

 at the base, and further united by a thread passing along their tips, 

 and another tied to the middle of the shaft of each feather, and such 



n use in England during the reign of Elizabeth ; others appear 

 to have been made by fastening together, back to back, the two wings 

 of a bird, and attaching a handle at their base ; while others again 

 were formed of linen stretched upon a light frame. They were 

 usually held by female slaves, beautiful boys, or eunuchs, whose duty 

 it woi to wave them so us to produce a cooling breeze ; and the 

 employment, of such attendants was not confined to ladies, for we 

 read hi Suetonius that the Emperor Augustus had a slave to fan him 

 while asleep. Fans of a softer kind, to which the name of mn. 

 or nvioau&T) was applied, were used for driving off flies from living 

 persons, from articles of food, and from things offered in sacrifice ; and 

 another kind of fan was employed for urging the combustion of a fire, 

 a practice which, to conclude our quotations from the source already 

 indicated, ' gave origin among classical writers to expressions corre- 

 sponding to ours, meaning to "fan the flame of hope, of love, or of 

 sedition." 



Fans are much used in China, India, and other Eastern countries, 



and those of the Chinese are made to fold up in the same way as those 



' nily used by European ladies. Among this people fane are used 



' !i sexes, a fan enclosed in a worked silk sheath being one of 

 their frequent accoutrements. These arc of either paper or silk, but 

 with the Chinese, as well as the Europeans, fans are sometimes made 



^-antly carved or perforated slips of ivory. Whatever be the 

 materials employed, much skill ia often displayed in the decoration of 



nd in some eases artistic talent of a high order has been 

 appUcd in painting them. The mode in which they are constructed 

 to open or fold together at pleasure is too well known to need 



V MANUFACTURE. The manufacture of ladies' fans is a 

 larger department of industry than would be generally supposed. 

 After a considerable interval, during which fans were little used, they 

 came again into favour a few years ago ; and the manufacture is con- 

 ducted in France on a largo scale. The firm of M. Duvelleroy 

 t Parin, manufactures fans for the courts not only of European 



countries, but for those even of Africa and Asia, amounting in some 

 instances to the value of WOOL each. 



M. Duvelleroy employs many hundred persona. He has made it a 

 point to grasp the two extremes of the scale in costliness as well as all 

 iuterniediate degrees ; for he makes fans from one halfpenny each to 

 one thousand guineas. Every halfpenny fan goes through no less than 

 fifteen hands : a proof that the factory system rnuat be thoroughly 

 carried out iu that establishment. Duvelleroy's fans are sent to all 

 parts of the world, and are now competing in the East with those of 

 China. Spain is trying to maintain a home manufacture, but all the 

 best specimens come from Paris. America affords the best markets, 

 for while the ladies of North America closely imitate the fashions of 

 Paris, those of South and tropical America are passionately fond 

 of gorgeous fans, on which exciting scenes are painted in dazzling 

 colours. Duvelleroy has a large corps of artists, who study the 

 peculiar tastes of every nation in their pictures and colours. 



In the manufacture of fans, the chief parts are called the handle, the 

 bring, the panaches, the end, and the leaf. The handle is the part at 

 which all the rest of the fan is hinged together, and which is made of 

 ivory, wood, or any hard material. The bring, or radiants, from twelve 

 to twenty-four in number, radiate from the handle ; they are about 

 four inches long. The ends are elastic pieces which connect the brins 

 with the handle, and which form with them the skeleton of the fan ; 

 they are made of mother-o'-pearl, tortoise-shell, ivory, horn, ebony, 

 bone, citron-wood, sandal-wood, or plain wood, and are rivetted with 

 diamonds, gold, pearls, or more cheap material, according to the price. 

 The panaches are the two outermost brins, made wider and stronger than 

 the rest for security. The leaf is the surface of the fan, cut into the 

 form of the segment of a circle. It is made of paper, of cabretille 

 (very delicate kid-skin), vellum, parchment, satin, tulle, gauze, or 

 crfipe, according to circumstances. There are as many folds or plaits 

 given to this leaf as there are brins ; and the brins govern the opening 

 and closing of the leaf. 



It is in the painting and decorating of the leaf that the costliness of 

 the best fans chiefly consists. Duvelleroy has a number of highly 

 paid and accomplished artists engaged in this department. The fans 

 sent by that firm to the Great Exhibitions in London in 1851, and 

 Paris in 1855, excited great attention. 



FANARIOTES, a name formerly applied to the inhabitants of the 

 Fanar or Greek quarter of Constantinople. After the capture of Con- 

 stantinople by the Turks, the Greeks of the Fanar, taking advantage 

 of the ignorance of the Turks, succeeded hi rendering themselves 

 necessary to the ministers of the Porte as translators, and to other 

 Turkish grandees as secretaries, agents, and men of business in general. 

 They were all comprised under the general denomination of Gram- 

 matikoi, clerks or scribes. At first they were not distinguished from 

 common servants; and the office of the ' translator to the Sublime 

 Porte conferred no consideration on the individual who held it. The 

 Greek translator explained to the Turkish ministers the contents of a 

 foreign despatch, after which he retired into the great hall of the 

 palace, where he waited with other menials till his masters might 

 want him. 



In the year 1669 a Fanariot, named Panayotaki, was first appointed 

 official dragoman, and subsequently all the dragomen were taken from 

 their class. The Fanariotes being thus the only agents of communica- 

 tion betwixt the Porte and the European governments, necessarily 

 acquired a great influence over the Turkish government, and they took 

 good care to turn it to their owu advantage. In the beginning of the 

 18th century the Fanariotes succeeded by their intrigues in prevailing 

 on the Turkish government to choose from among them the Hospo- 

 dars or princes of Moldavia and Wallachia, which dignities had been 

 hitherto bestowed on natives of the above-mentioned provinces. 



Mavrocordato was the first Greek who was nominated Hospqdar of 

 Wallachia in 1711. A crowd of Fanariotes always followed the new 

 Hospodars, who employed them in different offices iu their respective 

 provinces, where they became notorious for their unprincipled ex- 

 actions, employing every means, however odious, to acquire as much 

 wealth as possible during their short and precarious tenure of office. 

 The Hospodars, who partook of this ill-gotten wealth, countenanced 

 and protected them in all their proceedings. The mode of govern- 

 ment has been since changed in the above-mentioned provinces. 



These were not the only sources of wealth to the Fanariote families : 

 the bankers of the Fanar disposed of the greater part of the military 

 and civil appointments m the Ottoman empire, through corrupt 

 influences. An interesting picture of the Fanariotes is given iu Mr. 

 Hope's celebrated novel ' Anastasius ; or, the Memoirs of a Greek ;' as 

 well as in the ' Essai sur les Fanariotes,' by Marco Zallouy ; and iu 

 Von Hammer's ' Constantinople and the Bosphorus." 



The events which have followed the last Greek revolution, and the 

 subsequent events in the Turkish empire have almost entirely anni- 

 hilated the Fanariotcs as a class, though some Greek families are still 

 distinguished by the name. 



FANCY, a corruption of phantasy (QamatTla), which term in ancient 

 philosophy indicated the sensuous appearance of an object, and in a 

 general sense was used as co-extensive with conception, or the faculty 

 by which man reproduces images of objects either absent or present, 

 without an immediate impression on the organs of sensation. In later 

 times its signification has been greatly narrowed, and it is now limited 



