142 



FANEUIL HALL FANTIN. 



FANEU1L HALL ; an old building in the town 

 of Bostou, North America, held in great veneration 

 by the Americans as the scene of many of the earliest 

 debates and resolves during the war of indepen- 

 dence. The Tennis-court in Paris ; the Tellspfatte 

 HI >witzerland, where Tell landed, and pushed back 

 the boat with Gesslcr ; the height of Kutli, where 

 Ui e Swiss confederates swore to deliver their coun- 

 try ; the hall in the town-house of Prague, where 

 the imperial counsellors were thrown from the win- 

 dow by the deputies of the oppressed Bohemians ; 

 Funeuil halt, and the state house in Philadelphia, 

 where the declaration ot independence was signed 

 are spots dear to the descendants of those whose 

 efforts and exposure in the cause of liberty are there- 

 with connected. The original building, commenced 

 in 1740, was given to the town of Boston by Peter 

 Faneuil for a town-hall and market-place. It has 

 been materially changed since 4 that time. At pre 

 sent, the great hall is seventy-six feet square and 

 twenty-eight feet high, with galleries. A full length 

 picture of Washington, by Stuart, ornaments the 

 west end of the hall. The neighbouring market- 

 house, the most splendid in the United States, re- 

 ceived its name from this hall. It is 585 feet nine 

 inches long, fifty wide, wholly built of white granite, 

 vith a fine cupola, and porticoes with columns of the 

 Doric order. The corner stone was laid, April 27, 

 1825. 



FANFARE (French) ; a short, lively, loud, and 

 warlike piece of music, composed for trumpets and 

 kettle-drums. Also small, lively pieces, performed 

 on hunting horns, in the chase. From its first mean- 

 ing is derived fanfaron, a boaster, and fanfaronade, 

 boasting. 



FAN-PALM; the talipot tree or great fan-palm 

 corypha umbraculifera) , is a native ot Ceylon, Mala- 

 bar, and the East Indies. It attains the height of 

 sixty or seventy feet, with a straight, cylindrical 

 trunk, crowned at the summit by a tuft of enormous 

 leaves, and is one of the most magnificent of the 

 whole tribe of palms. These leaves are pinnate- 

 palmate and plaited, separating near the outer mar- 

 gin into numerous leaflets, and united to the trunk 

 by ciliate-spinous leaf-stalks ; they are usually eigh- 

 teen feet long, exclusive of the leaf-stalk, and four- 

 teen broad ; a single one being sufficient to protect 

 fifteen or twenty men from the rain. When this palm 

 has reached the age of thirty-five or forty years, it 

 flowers, a long, conical, scaly spadix rising to the 

 height of thirty feet from the midst of the crown of 

 leaves, and separating into simple alternate branches, 

 which, at the base, extend laterally sdhaetimes 

 twenty feet, the whole covered with whitish flowers, 

 and presenting a most beautiful appearance. The 

 fruit is very abundant, globose, about an inch and a 

 half in diameter, and requires fourteen months to 

 ripen, after which the tree soon perishes, flowering 

 but once in the whole course of its existence. The 

 inhabitants of those countries where it grows make 

 use of the leaves for umbrellas, tents, or for covering 

 their houses ; and the Malabar books are formed of 

 the same material, on which lasting characters are 

 traced by means of a sharp-pointed iron style, which 

 penetrates the superior epidermis. The pith, after 

 being pounded, is made into a kind of bread, which 

 is ot great use in times of scarcity. Several other 

 palms, whose leaves, when they first appear, are 

 folded together like a fan, and afterwards spread open 

 in a similar manner, are commonly called fan-paims, 

 particularly the chamecrops Aumilis, a species destitute 

 of a stem, and inhabiting the south of Europe and 

 north of Africa. 



FANS. The Greeks were well acquainted with 

 fans, as an article of luxury. From a passaee in the 



Orestes of Euripides, it appears that the Grecian fans- 

 were introduced from the East, thr.t they were of a 

 circular form, and were mounted plumes of feathers. 

 Dionysius of Halicarnassus describes the courtiers of 

 Aristodemus, at Cumae, as attended by females, 

 bearing parasols and fans (vxia^a *) juit'^a.;). Plautus 

 mentions flabellifera as forming part of a Koman fine 

 lady's retinue, and Suetonius describes Augustus as 

 lying, during the heat of summer, in the shade, and 

 fanned by an attendant (ventilante aliquo). In the 

 middle ages, fans were used in the churches, some- 

 times of great size, and richly decorated, to chase 

 away the flies from the holy elements of the euchar- 

 ist. 1'hey are said to have been introduced into 

 England, from Italy, in the reign of Henry VIII. ; 

 and, in the reign of Elizabeth, they were framed of 

 very costly materials, the body of ostrich feathers, 

 the handle of gold, silver, or ivory, of curious work- 

 manship. 



FANSHAWE, SIR RICHARD, an eminent diploma- 

 tist and poet, born in 1607. Having studied at Cam- 

 bridge, he made the grand tour, anil, on his return, 

 entered himself of the Inner Temple. He was de- 

 spatched in 1635, by Charles I., in the capacity of 

 resident minister to Madrid. On the breaking out of 

 the civil wars in 1041, he was recalled, and engaged 

 actively in the royal cause, and soon after, being 

 appointed secretary to the prince of Wales, fol- 

 lowed the fortunes of his master till the battle ot 

 Worcester, when he was taken prisoner. A severe 

 illness shortened the term of his imprisonment, and 

 he was permitted to go at large on bail. On the 

 death of Cromwell, he passed over the channel, in 

 1659, to the king at Breda, by whom he was 

 knighted. After the restoration, he obtained the 

 mastership of the requests, and was made Latiu 

 secretary. In 1661 and 1662, he was employed on 

 two several missions to the court of Lisbon, and on 

 his return the year following, he was advanced to a 

 seat in the privy council. In 1664, he was sent am- 

 bassador to Madrid, and negotiated a peace between 

 England, Spain, and Portugal. Falling suddenly ill 

 of a fever, he died at Madrid, June 16, 1666. His 

 poetical abilities were above mediocrity, as is evinced 

 by his translations of the Lusiad of Camoens, the 

 Pastor Fido of Guarini, the Odes of Horace, and the/ 

 fourth book of the ^Eneid into English verse, and 

 Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess into Latin. Among 

 his posthumous writings, printed in 1701, is his cor- 

 respondence during his embassies to the courts ot 

 Lisbon and Madrid, and some occasional poems, with 

 a life of the author prefixed. 



FANTASIA (Italian) ; the name generally given 

 to a species of composition, supposed to be struck oft 

 in the heat of imagination, and in which the com- 

 poser is allowed to give free range to his ideas, and 

 to disregard those restrictions by which other pro- 

 ductions are confined. Some writers limit the appli- 

 cation of this term to certain extemporaneous flights 

 of fancy; and say, that the moment they are writ- 

 ten, or repeated, they cease to be fantasias. This, 

 they add, forms the only distinction between the 

 fantasia and the capricio. The capricio, though 

 wild, is the result of premeditation, committed to 

 paper, and becomes permanent ; but the fantasia is 

 an impromptu, transitive and evanescent, exists but 

 while it is executing, and, when finished, it is no 

 more. 



FANTIN, or FANTEE ; a country of Africa, on 

 the Gold coast, which extends about ninety miles 

 along the shore of the Atlantic, and seventy inland. 

 The inhabitants are called Fantees, and are the 

 most numerous and powerful people situated imme- 

 diately on the Gold coast ; but their power has 

 been almost entirely broken since 1811, by repeated 



