136 



FAHLERZ FAIRFAX. 



house of Orange, even in the times of their greatest 

 adversity, has filled the most important stations, and 

 conducted most difficult negotiations. In 1814, he 

 signed the treaty of peace between Great Britain 

 and the Netherlands. 



FAHLERZ. See Copper. 



FAHRENHEIT, GABRIEL DANIEL, known for 

 his arrangement of the thermometer and barometer, 

 was born at Dantzic, about the end of the seven- 

 teenth century, and was originally designed for the 

 commercial profession. His inclination for natural 

 philosophy induced him to quit that business, and 

 having travelled through Germany and England to 

 enlarge his knowledge, he settled in Holland, where 

 the most celebrated men in this branch of science, 

 s'Gravesande and others, were his teachers and friends. 

 In 1720, he first conceived the idea of using quick- 

 silver instead of spirits of wine in thermometers a 

 discovery by which the accuracy of the instrument was 

 very much improved. He took, as the limit of the 

 greatest cold, that which he had observed at Dantzic 

 in the winter of 1709, and which he could always 

 produce by mixing equal quantities of snow and sal- 

 ammoniac. The space between the point to which 

 the quicksilver fell at this temperature, and that to 

 which it rose in boiling water, he divided into 212 

 parts ; and this distinguishes his thermometrical 

 scale from Reaumur's. (See Thermometer.) He gives 

 an account of it in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 1724. Nine degrees of Fahrenheit are equal to four 

 of Reaumur, and five of the centigrade scale. Fah- 

 renheit also employed himself, during his residence 

 in Holland (where he died, 1740), in the construction 

 of a machine for draining the parts of the country 

 exposed to inundations, for which he received a 

 patent, but was prevented from completing it by 

 death. The changes which s'Gravesande, whom he 

 had requested to finish the machine for the benefit of 

 his heirs, made in it, rendered it so useless in the 

 first trial, that no attempt was afterwards made to 

 complete it. A detailed account of Fahrenheit's 

 theory of the thermometer may be found in Biot's 

 Physique Experimentale, vol. 1st. 



FAIENCE, IMITATION PORCELAIN ; a kind of fine 

 pottery, superior to the common pottery in its glaz- 

 ing, beauty of form, and richness of painting. It 

 derived its name from the town of Faenza, in 

 Romagna, where it is said to have been invented in 

 1299. A fine sort of pottery was manufactured 

 there at that period, which the Italians called Maio- 

 lica, probably from its inventor. Some pieces were 

 painted by the great artists of the period, Raphael, 

 Giulio Romano, Titian, and others, which are highly 

 valued, as monuments of early art. The Maiolica 

 reached its highest perfection between 1530 and 

 1560. The king of Wurtemberg possesses a rich 

 collection of it. The modern Faience appears to 

 have been invented, about the middle of the sixteenth 

 century, at Faenza, and obtained its name in France, 

 where a man from Faenza, having discovered a 

 similar kind of clay at Nevers, had introduced the 

 manufacture of it. Towards the end of the seven- 

 teenth century, the city of Delft, in Holland, 

 became famous for the manufacture of Faience, 

 which was called also Delft-ware. It does not, 

 however, resist fire well. The English stone ware, 

 made of powdered flint, has some resemblance to 

 the Faience, but is, in reality, entirely different. 

 See China Ware. 



FAILURE. See Bankrupt. 



FAIR ; a greater kind of market granted to a 

 town, by privilege, for the more speedy and commo- 

 dious buying and selling, or providing such things 

 as the place stands in need of. 



those of Germany, and particularly the Leipsic fairs. 

 In German, a fair is called Messe, which also signi- 

 fies a mass. High masses, on particular festivals, 

 collected great numbers of people, and thus, pro- 

 bably, became the origin of markets, and, at a later 

 period, of fairs, which, as we have already said, are 

 only privileged markets. The three chief fairs of 

 Germany are those of Leipsic, Frankfort on the 

 Maine, and Brunswick. The Leipsic book-fair is 

 unique. (See Leipsic.) The Leipsic fair, beginning 

 January 1, is called New-year's fair : the Easter fair, 

 or Jubilate fair, begins on Jubilate Sunday, and 

 Saint Michael's fair, on the Sunday after September 

 29. Each lasts three weeks, but only the two last 

 are important. The Easter fair is the most impor- 

 tant. Frankfort on the Maine has the Easter fair 

 and Autumn fair, and Brunswick, the Candlemas 

 fair and St Lawrence's fair. Important fairs are 

 also held at Alessandria and Sinigaglia in Italy, at 

 Lyons and Beaucaire in France, Bolzano in the Tyrol, 

 Zurzach in Switzerland, Niznei-Novgorod in Russia, 

 Warsaw in Poland, &c. But fairs cannot now have 

 the importance which they formerly had, because the 

 communication between different parts of a country 

 lias become so easy that merchandise is much oftener 

 ordered directly than formerly. 



Among the principal British fairs may be men- 

 tioned : Stourbridge fair, near Cambridge Bristol, 

 two fairs, one in March and one in September 

 Exeter fair, in December Wayhill fair (Oct. 10) 

 in Hampshire, for sheep St Faith's, near Norwich 

 (Oct. 17), for Scotch cattle Ipswich fairs, in 

 August, for lambs, and in September, for butter and 

 cheese Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, in August, for 

 horses, the largest horse fair in the kingdom How- 

 den, in Yorkshire, also for horse Harborough, Car- 

 lisle, and Ormskirk fairs, for Scotch cattle Falkirk 

 fairs or trysts, in August, Sept., and Oct., for Scotch 

 cattle Woodbridge lady-day fair, for Suffolk horses 

 Glasgow July fair, for horses and cows Gloucester 

 April fair, and Woodstock October fair, for cheese 

 Woodborough hill inDorset, for kerseys, druggets,&c. 



FAIRFAX, EDWARD ; a poet of the seventeenth 

 century, who is regarded as one of the great 

 improvers of English versification. He engaged in 

 no profession, but, settling at Newhall, in the parish 

 of Fuyistone, in Knaresborough forest, led the life of 

 a retired country gentleman, devoted to literary pur- 

 suits. He died about 1632. Fairfax's reputation 

 rests on his version of Tasso's Godfrey of Bouillon, 

 first published in 1600. It is written in the same 

 stanza with the original, and combines fidelity to the 

 sense of the author, with harmony of versification. 

 After being for a while superseded in the estimation 

 of the public, by the inferior translation of Hoole, 

 it has been more justly appreciated, and recent edi- 

 tions of it have issued from the press. Fairfax 

 wrote eclogues and other poems not known to be 

 extant, except one of the former inserted in Mrs 

 Cooper's Muses' Library. He also wrote in prose on 

 demonology, in which he was, it seems, a believer. 



FAIRFAX, THOMAS, LORD ; a distinguished com- 

 mander and leading character in the civil wars which 

 distracted England in the seventeenth century. He 

 was born in 1611, at Denton, in Yorkshire, being son 

 and heir of Ferdinando, lord Fairfax, to whose title 

 and estates he succeeded in 1647. A strong pre- 

 dilection for a military life induced him to quit Cam- 

 bridge, and, at an early age, to volunteer with the 

 lord Vere, under whom he served a campaign in 

 the Netherlands with some reputation, and whose 

 daughter he afterwards married. When the disputes 

 between Charles I. and the parliament terminated 

 in open rupture, Fairfax warmly espoused the cause 



The most important fairs now held are probably | of the latter, and joined his father in making active 



