FOR 
deferted on account of rhe number of ferpents on it j fe- 
parated from Ivi^a by a narrow lea of only four miles. 
FORM'ER, f. He that forms ; maker ; contriver ; 
planner.—The wonderful art and providenceof the con¬ 
triver and former of our bodies, appears in the multitude 
of intentions he mud: have in the formation of feveral 
parts for feveral ufes. Ray on the Creation. 
FOR'MER, adj. [pojima, Sax. fird; whence former , 
and Jormof, now commonly written foremojl , as if derived 
from before. Foremojl is generally applied to place, rank, 
or degree, and former to time ; for when we fay the lad 
rank of the proceffion is like the former, we refpeCt time 
rather than place, and mean that which he faw before, 
rather than that which had precedence in place,] Before 
another in time: 
Thy air. 
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the firft: 
—A third is like the former. Skakefpeare. 
Mentioned before another.—A bad author deferves better 
ufage than a bad critic : a man may be the former merely 
through the misfortune of an ill judgment; but he can¬ 
not be the latter without both that and an ill temper. 
Pape. —Pad : as. This was the cudom in former times ; 
The prefent point of time is all thou had. 
The future doubtful, and the former pad. Harte. 
P'ird : 
And humbly gan that mightie queene entreat 
To graunt him that adventure for his fonner feat. Spenfer. 
Fore ; anterior : 
Yet did her face and former parts profede 
A fair young mayden. Spenfer. 
FORME'RIE, a town of France, in the department 
of the Oife, and chief place of a canton, in the didriCt of 
Grandvilliers : three leagues wed of Grandvilliers, and 
three north-weft of Gerberoy. 
FOR'MERLY, adv. In times pad.—The places were 
all of them formerly the cool retirements of the Romans, 
where they ufed to hide themfelves among the woods and 
mountains, during the excedive heats of their fummer. 
Addifon. 
Fird of the two : 
But Calidore, that was more quick of fight 
And nimbler-handed than hisenemie 
Prevented him before his firoke could light, 
And on the helmet fmote him former Lie. Spenfer. 
FORM'ERS,y]/>/. A fea term,round pieces ofwood made 
to fit the bore of a great gun in order to form tire car¬ 
tridge or proper charge of powder; a box of tin in which 
the cartridges are carried about in the time of an engage¬ 
ment. 
FOR'MEY (John Henry Samuel), a man of didinguiffi- 
ed acqujfitions, born at Berlin in 1711. He was educated 
at- the royal French college, and fiudied philofophy 
under La Croze and Achard. Being dedined to the 
church, he was ordained a minider before he had com¬ 
pleted his twentieth year. He occupied for a fliort time 
the place of pador to the French church at Brandenburg, 
whence he was called to Berlin, and chofen one of the 
miniders of a French congregation in that capital. In 
1737 he was appointed profedbr of eloquence in the French 
college ; and upon the death of La Croze in 1739, he fuc- 
ceeded him in the philolophical chair of the lame college. 
On that election he refigned hispadoral office, though he 
continued to preach occafionally. On the renovation of 
the royal academy of fciences and belles lettres at Berlin 
in 174.4, M. Formey was made fecretary to the philofophi¬ 
cal clafs ; and in 1748, on the motion of the prefident, 
Maupertuis, he was created Cole and perpetual fecretary 
of the academy ; which pod he held near fifty years. For 
fuch an office few men could be more proper. Devoted 
to letters, there was fcarcely a department in the fields 
2 
FOR 579 
of Lienee or literature which he had not cultivated ; and 
his early occupation of a journalid, which he began in 
1733 as a fellow-labourer with Beaufobre in the Biblio- 
theifne Germanique, and continued under other titles and 
with other afibciates for many years, had given him a very 
extenfive acquaintance with books on all fubjedts. His 
epidolary correfpondences, both in his own name and in 
that of the academy, were immenfe, and furnidied him 
with a perpetual fund of information in his journals; fo 
that Algarotti compared him to a banker in general cre¬ 
dit, wiio exerts an univerfal influence upon the commer¬ 
cial world. He was aflociated to a number of foreign 
learned bodies, as thofe of London, Peterflntrg, Harlem, 
Mantua, Bologna, the Natura Curicforum, and many more 
in Germany. His fedentary habits at length brought on 
indigeflions, and a date of debility, under which he funk 
in March, 1797, at the age of eighty-five years. His la¬ 
bours as a journalid have already been mentioned. In theo¬ 
logy he wrote, Le Philofophe Chretien, in which he gave 
under a new form the fubdance of many of his fermons. 
He alfo defended the caufe of revelation againd Diderot 
by his Pcnfc'es raifonables, and againd Rondeau by his 
Anti-Emile. In politics he compofed and trandated feveral 
memoirs on public affairs at the requed of the minidry. 
As an encyclopedid he furnidied the great dictionary of 
Paris with feveral articles, and took a leading part in the 
Encyclopaedia of Yverdun. He wrote various popular 
pieces on morality, and elementary works for young 
people. His Hijloire abre'gee de la Pkilofopkie, 1761, has 
been trandated into Englifn, and generally read. Philo- 
fophy was his favourite dudy : he adopted that of Leib¬ 
nitz as taken up and illudrated by Wolf, and he became 
a very zealous advocate for the opinions of thefe eminent 
men. He wrote feveral works to facilitate the comprehen- 
fion of them, and even flattered himfelf that he could make 
their principles agreeable and familiar to the fair fex, as 
Fontenellc and Algarotti had done thofe of Defcartes and 
Newton. For this purpofe he wrote his Belle Wolf enne ; but 
the fcheme did not fucceed, the abftraCt ideas of metaphy- 
fics not being capable of thofe ornaments which ingenuity 
may borrow from adronomy and optics. In favour of the 
fydem of monades he wrote Recherckes fur les Elemens de la. 
Matiere, againd an anonymous piece of the famous Euler. 
He read before the academy a great number of memoirs, 
as well on popular as on the high philofophical fubjeCts, 
fuch as liberty and neceffity, the demondration of the 
exidence of a God, &c. In all thefe there is clearnefs 
and precifion, an- eafy and flowing dyle, and a freedom 
from that dogmatifm which is in general fo difguding. 
He concluded his philofophical labours with Confidera- 
tions on the three fird Tufculans of Cicero, the lad 
memoir on which he read in 17815, when he laid down 
his pen. 
FOR'MIAi, in ancient geography, a maritime town of 
Campania, at the fouth-ead of Caieta. It was anciently 
the abode of the I.Eedrygones, and it became known for 
its excellent wines, and was called Mamurrarum urbs, 
from a family of confequence and opulence who lived 
there. Livy. —The villa of Cicero was fituated in the vi¬ 
cinity of this town, at which the orator was aflaffinated. 
Tacitus. 
FOR'MICA, f. \_quod ferat micas, becaufe of his dili¬ 
gence in collecting, fmall particles for food.] In ento¬ 
mology, the Ant or Emmet ; a genus of infeCts be¬ 
longing to the order of hymenoptera; the characters of 
which are thefe: feelers four, unequal, with cylindrical 
articulations, placed at the tip of the lip, which is cylin¬ 
drical and nearly membranaceous; antennae filiform; 
a fmall ereCt fcale between the thorax and abdomen ; fe¬ 
males and neuters armed with a concealed ding; males 
and females furnidied with wings, neuters none. This is 
a gregarious and proverbially indudrious family, confid¬ 
ing, like bees, of males, females, and neuters. Thefe 
lad are the well known little inleCts, who condruCt the 
nefts or ant-hills, who labour with fuch unremitting affi. 
duity 
