358 



THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



who relates poetical tales to Lalla Rookh, in her journey ] 

 from Delhi to Lesser Buchar'iu. Lalla Rookh is going 

 to be married to the young sultan, but falls in love with 

 the poet. On the wedding morn she is led to her future 

 husband, and finds that the poet is the sultan himself, 

 who had gallantly taken this course to win the heart of 

 his bride and beguile her journey. 



Ferdinand. (DA character in Shakespere's "Tem- 



sonof the King of Naples, and falls in love 



with Miranda, the daughter of Prospero, a banished 



Duke of Milan. (2) King of Navarre, a character in 



"Love's Labor's 1 



I Vrr. T. l-iridvmion. The hero of Benjamin Dis- 

 r:ieli'< novel "Kiulymion." 



Ferrex and Porrex. Two sons of Gorboduc, a 



.il British king. Porrex drove his brother from 



Britain, and when Ferrex returned with an army he was 



slain, but Porrex was shortly after put to death by his 



mother. One of the first, if not the very first, historical 



the Knglish language \va< "Ferrex and Porrex," 



byThomaa Norton and riuunas Sackville. 



Fib. Nymphidia. Drayton. One of the fairy 

 attendants to Queen Mab. 



Fidel'le. Cymbeline, Shakespere. The name as- 

 sumed by Imogen, when, attired in boy's clothes, she 

 started for Milford Haven to meet her husband Pos- 

 thumus. 



Fidele. Subject of an elegy by Collins. 



Fidessa. Faery Queen. Spenser. The companion 



:oy; but when the Red Cross Knight slew that 



"faithless Saracen," Fidessa turned out to be Duessa, the 



daughter of Falsehood and Shame. The sequel must 



be sought under the word Duessa. 



I inr-Kar. Fairy Tales ( Fortunio ), Com- 

 t -- D'Aunoy. One of the seven attendants of For- 

 tunio. He could hear the grass grow, and even the wool 

 on a sheep's back. This is an old, old story. It is also 

 found in Grimm's Fairy Tales. There the hero is "For- 

 tunio." In the German tale "Fortunio" the fairy gave 

 her a horse named Comrade, not only of incredible swift- 

 ness, but all-knowing, and endowed with human speech; 

 she also gave her an inexhaustible turkey-leather trunk, 

 full of money, jewels, and fine clothes. By the advice 

 of Comrade, she hired seven gifted servants, named 

 Strongback, Lightfoot, Marksman, Fine-ear, B9isterer, 

 Trinquet, and Grugeon. Fortunio goes forth disguised 

 as a warrior, meets her king and marries him. 



Finetta, The Cinder Girl. A fairy tale by the 

 Comtesse D'Aunoy. This is merely the old tale of 

 Cinderella slightly altered. 



Fin'gal, or Fin-gal'. A mythical hero, whose name 

 occurs in Gaelic ballads and traditions, and in Mac- 

 pherson's "Poems of Ossian." 



Fires of St. John. A representative play of the 

 school to which Sudermann belongs. The whole group 

 of plays of which "The Fires of St. John " is a type regis- 

 ter a movement of revolt against the conventionalities 

 of life in Germany as Ibsen's dramas express the revolt 

 against the conventionalities of life in Northern Europe. 



Firmin, Philip. The hero of Thackeray's novel, 

 "The Adventures of Philip." 



Fle'ance. A son of Banquo, in Shakespere's tragedy 

 of "Macbeth." The legend relates that after the assas- 

 sination of his father he escaped to Wales, where he 

 married the daughter of the reigning prince, and had a 

 son named Walter. This Walter afterwards became 

 lord high steward of Scotland, and called himself Walter 

 the Steward. From him proceeded in a direct line the 

 Stuarts of Scotland, a royal line which gave James VI. 

 of Scotland, James I. of England. This myth has been 

 seriously accepted by some as fact. 



Fledge;by. Our Mutual Friend, Dickens. An 

 overreaching cowardly sneak who pretends to do a 

 decent business under the trade name of Pubsey & Co. 



Flo-ren'ti-us. A knight whose story is related in 

 the first book of Gower's "Confessio Amantis." He 

 bound himself to marry a deformed hag, provided she 

 taught him the solution of a riddle on which his life 

 depended. 



Florian. The Foundling of the Forest, W. Di- 

 mond. Discovered in infancy by the Count de Val- 

 mont, and adopted as his own son. Florian is light- 

 hearted and volatile, but with deep affection, very brave, 

 and the delight of all who knew him. 



Flor'i-mel. A female character in Spenser's "Faery 

 Queen," of great beauty, but so timid that she feared 

 the "smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor," 

 and was abused by everyone. She was noted for sweet- 

 ness of temper amid great trials. The word Florimel 

 signifies "honey-flower." 



Flor'i-zel. A prince of Bohemia, in Shakespere's 

 "Winter's Tale," in love with Perdita. 



Fiu-el'len. A Welsh captain, who is an amusing 

 pedant, in Shakespere's "Henry V." 



Flying Dutchman* A peotral ship, seen in stormy 

 weather off the Cape of Good Hope, and considered 

 ominous of ill-luck. Captain Marryat has taken this 

 theme for his novel "The Phantom Ship." 



Folk. Fairies, also called "people," "neighbors," 

 'wights." The Germans have their Kleine volk (little 

 oik), the Swiss their hill people and earth people. See 

 Fairies. 



Ford. Mr. and Mrs. Ford are characters in "The 

 Merry Wives of Windsor." Mrs. Ford pretends to ac- 

 cept Sir John Falstaff's protestations of love, in order 

 to punish him by her devices. 



For'tin-brns. Prince of Norway, in Bhakespere'l 

 tragedy " Hamlet." 



Fortunatus. You have found Fortunatus's purse. 

 Are in luck's way. The nursery tale of Fortunatus re- 

 cords that he had an inexhaustible purse. It is from the 

 Italian fairy tales. 



Fortunio's Horse. Comrade, not only possessed 

 ncredible speed, but knew all things, and was gifted 

 with human speech. (See "Fine-ear.") 



Forty Thieves. In the tale of Ali Baba (Arabian 

 Nights' Entertainments). Represented as inhabiting 

 a secret cave in a forest, the door of which would open 

 and shut only at the sound of the magic word "Sesame," 

 the name of a kind of grain. One day, Ali Baba, a wood- 

 monger, accidentally discovered the secret, and made him- 

 self rich by carrying off gold from the stolen hoards. 

 The captain tried several schemes to discover the thief, 

 but was always outwitted by Morgia'na, the wood-cut- 

 ter's female slave. 



Foxley, Squire Matthew. Redgauntlct, Sir W. 

 Scott. A magistrate who examines Darsie Latimer 

 (Sir Arthur Darsie Redgauntlet), after he had been at- 

 tacked by the rioters. 



Francesco. The "lago" of Massinger's "Duke of 

 Milan." 



Frank'en-stein. The hero in Mrs. Shelley's ro- 

 mance of the same name. As a young student of phy- 

 siology he constructs a monster out of the horrid rem- 

 nants of the churchyard and dissecting-room, and 

 endues it, apparently through the agency of galvanism, 

 with a sort of spectral and convulsive life. This 

 existence, rendered insupportable to the monster by his 

 vain craving after human sympathy, and by his con- 

 sciousness of his own deformity, is employed in inflicting 

 the most dreadful retribution upon the guilty philoso- 

 pher. It is a parpdy on the creature man. powerful for 

 evil, and the instrument of dreadful retribution on the 

 student, who usurped the prerogative of the Creator. 



Freeport, Sir Andrew. The name of one of the 

 members of the imaginary club under whose direction 

 the "Spectator" was professedly published. He is 

 represented as a London merchant of great eminence 

 and experience, industrious, sensible, and generous. 



Friar Lawrence. The Franciscan monk who at- 

 tempted to befriend the lovers in "Romeo and Juliet." 



Friar's Tale, The. In The Canterbury Tales, 

 Chaucer. An arch-deacon employed a sumpnour as 

 his secret spy to find out offenders, with the view of ex- 

 acting fines from them. In order to accomplish this 

 more effectually, the sumpnour entered into a compact 

 with the Devil, disguised as a yeoman. Those who im- 

 precated the Devil were to be dealt with by the yeoman- 

 devil, and those who imprecated God were to be the 

 sumpnour's share. 



Friar Tuck. Chaplain and steward of Robin Hood. 

 Introduced by Sir Walter Scott in "Ivanhoe." He is a 

 self-indulgent, combative Falstaff, a jolly companion to 

 the outlaws in Sherwood Forest. 



Friday. Robinson Crusoe's faithful man Friday 

 pictured oy De Foe. 



Frol'lo, Archdeacon Claude. A noted character 

 in Victor Hugo's "Notre-Dame de Paris," absorbed in 

 a bewildering search after philosopher's stone. 



Front de Bo?uf. Ivanhoe, Sir W. Scott. A fol- 

 lower of Prince John of Anjou, and one of the knight's 

 challengers. 



Froth, Master. A foolish gentleman in Shakes- 

 pere's "Measure for Measure." His name explains his 

 character. 



Fudge Family. A name under which the poet 

 Moore satirized the absurdities of his traveling country- 

 men, who, having been long confined at home by the 

 wars waged by Napoleon nocked to the continent after 

 his defeat at Waterloo. The family is composed of a 

 hack-writer and spy, his son, a young dandy of the first 

 water, and his daughter, a sentimental damsel, and 

 Madame Le Roy, in love with a Parisian linen-draper, 

 whom she has mistaken for one of the Bourbons in dis- 

 guise. There is also a tutor and "poor relation " of this 



