F I L 
F I L 
364 
Marriage rings are not of this (luff: 
Oh ! why fhould aught lefs precious or lefs tough 
Figure our loves ? Donne, 
To image in the mind : 
If love, alas! be pain, the pain I bear 
No thought can figure-, and no tongue declare. Prior. 
To prefigure ; to forefliow : 
Three glorious funs, each one a perfect fun ; 
In this the heaven figures fome event. Shakefpeart. 
To form figuratively ; to ufe in a fenfe not literal.— Fi¬ 
gured and metaphorical expreffions do well to illuftrate 
more abftrufe and unfamiliar ideas, which the mind is 
not yet thoroughly accuftomed to. Locke. —To note by 
charafter: 
Each thought was vifible that roll’d within, 
As thro’ a cryflal glafs the figur'd hours are feen. Dryden, 
FI'GURESjy. in arithmetic, are the numeral characters 
by which numbers are exprelfed or written, as the ten di¬ 
gits, i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, o. Thefe are ufually called 
the Arabic and Indian figures, from whicli people it has 
been fuppofed they were derived. They were brought 
into Europe by the Moors of Spain, and into England 
about 1130, as Dr. Wallis apprehends ; fee his Algebra, 
p. 9. However, from fome ancient dates, fuppofed to 
confift wholly or in part of Arabian or Indian figures, 
fome have concluded that they were known and uied in 
this country at leaf!; as early as the tenth century. The 
oldeft date difeovered by Dr. Wallis, was on a chimney- 
piece at Helmdon,’in Northamptonfhire, thus Mi33, that 
is, 1133. Other dates difeovered fmee, are 1090, at Col- 
chefter, in Effex ; M16, or 1016, at Widgel-hall, near 
Buntingford, in Hertfordfhire; ion on the north front 
of the church of Rumfey, in Hampfhire ; and 975 over a 
gate-way at Worcefter. Dr. Ward, however, has urged 
feveral objections againft the antiquity of thefe dates. 
As no example occurs of the ufe of thefe figures in any 
ancient manufeript, earlier than fome copies of Johannes 
de Sacro Bofco, who died in 1256, he thinks it ftrange 
that thefe figures fhould have been ufed by artificers fo 
long before they appear in the writings of the learned ; 
and he alfo difputes the faCt. The Helmdon date, accord¬ 
ing to him, fhould be 12335 the Colchefter date 1490; 
that at Widgel-hall has in it no Arabic or Indian figures, 
the 1 and 6 being I and G, the initial letters of a name; 
and the date at Worcefter confifts, he fuppofes, of Roman 
numerals, being really MXV. Philof. Tranf. vol. ix. 
p. 420. On the other hand it may be obferved, that, 
according to a new and probable notion maintained by 
M. de Villaifon, (Anecdota Grcsea, tom. ii. p. 152.) our 
cyphers are not of Indian or Arabic invention. They 
were ufed by the Greek and Latin arithmeticians long 
before the age of Boethius. After the extinction of fei- 
ence in the weft, they were adopted in the Arabic ver- 
fions from the original manuferipts, and rejlored to the 
Latins about the eleventh century ; whence it was fup¬ 
pofed that the Arabians or Indians had been the inven¬ 
tors. See Arithmetic, vol. ii. p. 163. 
FI'GURES, in law proceedings: it was moved to 
quafh an indictment, becaufe the year of our Lord in the 
caption was in figures. But per Hale, chief juftice, the 
year of- the king is enough. Mod. •ji.pl. 40. The (fat. 
6 Geo. II. c. 14, allows the exprefling numbers by figures 
in all writs, &c. pleadings, rules, orders and indictments, 
See. in courts of juftice, as have been commonly ufed 
in the faid courts, notwithftanding any thing in the flat. 
4 Geo. II. 26. 
FIGURET'TO, f. [Ital. from the figures or flowers 
on it.] A fort of flowered fluff. 
FILACCIA'NO, a town of Italy, in the ftate of the 
Church, and patrimony of St. Peter; nine miles fouth of 
Citta Caftellana. 
FIL A'CEOUS, adj, [ filum , Lat.] Confiding of threads; 
compofed of threads.—They make cables of the bark of 
lime-trees : it is the (talk that maketh the filaceous matter 
commonly, and fometimes the down that groweth above. 
Bacon. 
Fl'LACER, Fila.zer, or Filizer, f [filizarius, 
from the Lat .filum.] An officer of the court of common 
pleas, fo called becaufe he files thofe writs whereon he 
makes out procefs. There are fourteen of thefe filazers 
in their feveral divifions and counties, and they make 
forth all writs and proceffes upon original writs, iffuing 
out of chancery, as well real as perfonal and mixed, re¬ 
turnable in that court: and in aCtions merely perfonal, 
where the defendants are returned fummoned, they make 
out pones or attachments; which, being returned and 
executed, if the defendant appears not, they make forth 
a diftringas, and fo ad infinitum , or until he doth appear; 
if he be returned nihil, then procefs of capias infinite, &c. 
They enter all appearances and fpecial bails upon any 
procefs made by them ; and make the firft feire facias on 
fpecial bails, writs of habeas corpus, diftringas nuper vice- 
comitem vel ballivum , and all fupefedeas's upon fpecial bail : 
in real actions, writs of view, of grand and petit cape, of 
withernam, &c. alfo writs of adjournment of a term, in 
cafe of public difturbance, &c. And until an order of 
court, i4jac. I. they entered declarations, imparlances, 
and pleas, and made out writs of execution, and divers 
other judicial writs, after appearance; but that order 
limited their proceedings to all matters before appear¬ 
ance, and the prothonbtaries to all after. The filazers of 
the common-pleas have been officers of that court before 
the flat. 10 Hen. VI. c. 4. wherein they are mentioned; 
and in the king’s-bench, of later times, there have been 
filazers, who make out procefs upon original writs, re¬ 
turnable in that court, on adlions in general. 
FILA'CIUM, f [Latin.] A file, a thread or wire on 
which writs and other deeds are filed up in courts. 
FILA'GO, f. [filum, Lat. thread, the leaves being 
white and covered with a kind of cotton or thread ; hence 
in Englifh it is called by fome cotton-weed.'] Cudweed ; 
a genus of the clafs fyngenefia, order polygamia neceffa- 
ria, natural order compofitae nucamentaceae, (corymbi- 
feras, fuff.) The generic characters are—Calyx: com¬ 
mon of imbricate chaffs, containing in the diIk feveral 
hermaphrodite florets; in the circumference among the 
lower feales of the calyx folitary female florets. Corolla : 
hermaphrodite funnel-form, with a four-cleft ereft bor¬ 
der ; females fcarcely vifible, filiform, very narrow, cloven 
at the mouth. Stamina : in the hermaphrodite ; fila¬ 
ments four, capillary, fmall ; anther cylindric, four¬ 
toothed at the top, Piftillum: in the hermaphrodite; 
germ fcarcely any ; ftyle fimple; ftigma acute, bifid ; in 
the females germ ovate, largiih, deprelfed ; ftyle filiform ; 
ftigma acute, bifid. Pericarpium : none. Seeds: in the 
hermaphrodites none ; in the females obovate, compreff. 
ed, fmooth, fmall; down none. Receptacle: di fk naked 
without chaffs, but at the fides there are calycine chaffs 
feparating the florets. 
The above character is taken from F. pygmaea or acau- 
lis, which Gaertner feparates under the name of Evax : ,F. 
germanica, arvenfis, montana, and probably other fpe- 
cies, agree together, and are diftinguiftied from that by 
the following charadfer :—Calyx; common, round, or 
five-cornered, imbricate; feales ovate-lanceolate; the 
outer acute, tomentofe ; the inner Ihining, coloured, acu¬ 
minate. Corolla : compound ; corollets hermaphrodite, 
tubular, few in the centre of the dilk ; females tubular, 
numerous in the remainder of the difk ; and a few others, 
almoft apetalous among the outer feales of the calyx ; 
proper in the hermaphrodites funnel-form, with a four- 
cleft Spreading border; in the females of the dilk funnel- 
form, with a (lender tube fwelling at the bafe, and a 
four-cleft credit border; in the other females hardly con- 
fpicuous, with a very (lender tube, and a (harp cloven 
border. 
