s ?0 F I L 
the agonies of a fon expiring in tortures to fave his life. 
He could no longer oppofe the druggies of nature; but 
quitting the place of his concealment, he prefented him- 
felf to the airaliins, begging of them to put him to death, 
and difmifs the innocent youth, whofe generous conduct 
(lie triumvirs themfelves, if informed of the faft, would 
judge worthy of the higheft approbation. But the inhu¬ 
man monflers, without the lead hefitation, anfwered, that 
they both mujl die: the father, becaufe he was profcribed ; 
and the fon, becaufe he had concealed his father. A new 
conted of afFefti’on now arofe, who fhould die fird; but 
this the ruffians unfeelingly decided, by beheading them 
both at the fame indant!—See the article Rome. 
FILIA'TION,/. [filius, Lat.] The relation of a fon 
to a father; correlative to paternity.—The relation of 
paternity and.filiation, between the fird and fecond per- 
ton, and the relation between the facred perfons of the 
Trinity, and the denomination thereof, mud needs be 
eternal’; becaufe the terms of relation between whom that 
relation arifeth were eternal. Hale. 
MLICA'IA (Vincenzo da), an eleganj Italian poet, 
born at Florence in 1642. He dudied philofophy, theo¬ 
logy, and jurifprudence, in the univerdty of Pifa, where 
lie took the degree of doctor of laws ; he was, however, 
more inclined to literary leifure than to the purfuits of am¬ 
bition; and though he married at the age of thirty-one, 
he long continued to live in retirement, occupying him- 
felf with poetical compodtion, and the duties of a father. 
The due canzoni which he compofed on the railing of 
the dege of Vienna, brought him into notice to a degree 
which he probably never expefted. He received com¬ 
plimentary letters from the emperor Leopold, the king 
of Poland, the duke of Lorrain, and the queen of Swe¬ 
den. The grand duke created him a fenator, and em¬ 
ployed him in the government of Volterra and Pifa, and 
in other eminent magi (trades, which he fulfilled fo as to 
gain the efieem of the prince, and the affeCtion of the 
people. He died, univerfally refpected and regretted, at 
Florence, 1707, at the age of fixty-five. He was one of 
the principal ornaments of modern Italian poetry, dif- 
playing, as well In his canzoni as his fonnets, great fu- 
blimity, animation, and dignity, and fcarcely furpafled 
by any in vigour of fentiment and energy of ftyle. He 
alfo wrote Latin verfe with elegance; and fonte of his 
orations and epifiles are inferted in the Profe Florentine. 
He was a member of the academies of La Crufca and the 
Arcadi. His fon Scipio gave a complete edition of his 
Italian poems under the title of Poefie ToJ'cane di Vincenzo 
da Filicaia, Senatore Fiorentinc, 410. 1707. 
FTLACAS'TRUM,/. in botany. See Osmunda. 
FILI'CES,/ [filum, Lat. a thread.) A term in botany, 
which comprehends all the known genera of Ferns. 
They conftitute the fourth family, and the fixth great 
tribe, in Linnaeus’s General Diftribution of Vegetables: 
the firft order of the clafs cryptogamia, in his Artificial 
Syflerri ; thefixty-fourth orderin his Fragments ofa Natural 
Method ; and the fifty-fifth of his Natural Orders, at the 
end of his Genera Plantarum. See Botany, vol. iii. 
p. 279. The exigence and place of fern-feed was long 
a matter of doubt with botanifts. Mr.,Lindfay, furgeon 
itt Jamaica, lias lately confirmed it to be the powder or 
duff that falls from the leaves when in fructification. 
They may be collected by taking thofe fronds or leaves 
in which the fructification is copious and of full growth, 
and laying them on clean paper in a dry place, when they 
foon filed their duft, in colour varying from black or 
brown to yellow : the grofler part of this powder is the 
empty capfules, and the fine part which adheres to the 
paper, is the feed. Mr. Lindfay fowed the feed of va¬ 
rious fpecies in garden pots, and clofely watched their 
vegetation with the microfcope. Linn. TranfaCtions, vol. 
ii. See the figure of a frond or leaf of fern, with the feeds 
adhering to it, magnified, in the Botany Plate XV. vol. 
iii. p. 280. 
FILKTFO'LIA,/. in botany. See Xylophylla. 
F I L 
FILI'CTS FO'LIO,/ in botany. See Acrostichum. 
FTLI'CULA,/. in botany. See Acrostichum. 
lilLICU'RI. See Felicudi. 
FIL'IGRANE, or Filigree. See Fillagree. 
FI'LINGS,/. [without a fmgnlar.] Fragments rubbed 
off by the aCtion of the file.—The filings of iron infufed 
in vinegar, will, with a decoCtion of galls, make good 
ink, without any copperas. Brown. 
FI LI PEN'DUL A. See Pedicui.aris, and Spir^a. 
FI LIPPO'POLI, or Pkilippopel, a town of European 
Turkey, in the province of Romania, on the Maritz, 
where it becomes navigable; founded by Philip, father 
of Alexander the Great: ninety miles weft-north-weft of 
Adrianople, and 124 weft-north-weft of Conftantinople. 
Lat. 42. 22. N. Ion. 42. 30. E. Ferro. 
FTLK-ALE, or Field-Ale, f. An entertainment of 
drinking in the fields formerly praCtifed by the bailiffs of 
a hundred at the expence of ihe country people. 
FI'LIX, or Fern,/, in botany. See Filices. 
FTL'LAGREE, /. '[filum, Lat. thread, and granum, 
grain.) A kind of enrichment on gold or filver, wrought 
delicately, in manner of little threads or grains, or occa. 
fionally both intermixed. Fine gold and filver wire, 
curled and twifted in a ferpentine form, and fometimes 
plaited, are worked through eacli other, and foldered to¬ 
gether fo as to form feftoons, flowers, and various orna¬ 
ments ; and in many places alfo they are frequently melted 
by the blow-pipe into little balls, by which means the 
threads are fo entwined as to produce a moft beautiful 
and pleafing effeCt. This work was employed formerly 
much more than at prefent in making fmall articles, 
which ferved rather for (hew than for life ; fuch as needle- 
cafes, cafkets to hold jewels, fmall boxes, particularly 
(brines, decorations for the images of faints, and other 
church furniture. Work of this kind is frequently called 
filagramc, filigrane, ouvrage de filigrane, &c. all compounded 
of filum and granum. We are tol'd that the Latins called 
this work opus filatim claboratum: but this is to be under- 
ftood as relating to the lateft Latin writers; for filatim 
occurs only once in Lucretius, who applies it to woollen 
thread. 
This art is of great antiquity, and appears to have been 
brought to Europe from the eaft. Grignon informs us that 
he found feme remains of fuch golden ornaments in the 
ruins of a Roman city in Champagne. Among church 
furniture we meet with filigrane works of the middle 
ages. There was lately preserved in an abbey at Paris, 
a crofs ornamented with filigrane work, which was made 
by St. Eloy, who died in 665; and the greater part of 
the works of that faint are decorated in the like manner. 
In the collection of relics at Hanover was lately to be 
feen a crofs embellifhed with this kind of work, which 
is faid to be as old as the eleventh or twelfth century. 
The Turks, Armenians, and Indians, make at prefent 
very elegant pieces of this fort, and with tools exceed¬ 
ingly coarfe and imperfeCL Marfden extols the ingenuity 
of the Malays on the fame account; and articles of the 
like nature, manufactured at Deccan, are, we are told, 
remarkably pretty, and coft ten times the price of the 
gold employed in forming them. This art is now neg¬ 
lected in Europe, and little elteemed. Augfburg, how¬ 
ever, a few years ago had a female artift, Maria Euphrof. 
Reinhard, celebrated for tafteful works of this kind. In 
1765, ffie ornamented with filigrane work fome filver ba¬ 
tons, which were fent to Ruffia for the ufe of the church, 
and which gained her great honour and efteem with the 
late czarina Catharine II. 
To FILL, v. n. [pyllan, Sax.) To (tore ’till no more 
can be admitted.—Fill the water-pots with water: and 
they filled them up to the brim. John, ii. 7. 
The celeftial quires, when orient light 
Exhaling firft from darknefs they beheld; 
Birth-day of heav’n and earth ; with joy and fiiout 
The hollow univerfal orb they fill'd . Milton. 
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