Act 1772; and by the Forfeiture Act 1870, a felon no longer forfeits

land or goods on conviction, though forfeiture on outlawry is not abolished. The usual punishment for felony under the present law is penal servitude or imprisonment with or without hard labour. "Every person convicted of any felony for which no punishment is specially provided by the law in force for the time being is liable upon conviction thereof to be sentenced to penal servitude for any period not exceeding seven years, or to be imprisoned with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding two years" (Stephen, _Dig. Cr. Law_ (6th ed.), art 18, Penal Servitude Act 1891). A felon may not be fined or whipped on conviction nor put under recognizance to keep the peace or be of good behaviour except under statutory provision. (See Offences against the Person Act 1861, ss. 5. 71.)

The result of legislative changes is that at the present time the only practical distinctions between felony and misdemeanour are:--

1. That a private person may arrest a felon without judicial authority and that bail on arrest is granted as a matter of discretion and not as of right. Any one who has obtained a drove of oxen or a flock of sheep by false pretences may go quietly on his way and no one, not even a peace officer, can apprehend him without a warrant, but if a man offers to sell another a bit of dead fence supposed to have been stolen, he not only may but is required to be apprehended by that person (Greaves, _Criminal Law Consolidation Acts_). (See ARREST, BAIL.)

2. That on an indictment for felony counts may not be joined for different felonies unless they form part of the same transaction. (See INDICTMENT.)

3. That on a trial for felony the accused has a right peremptorily to challenge, or object to, the jurors called to try him, up to the number of twenty. (See JURY.)

4. That a felon cannot be tried _in absentia_, and that the jury who try him may not separate during the trial without leave of the court, which may not be given in cases of murder.

5. That a special jury cannot be empanelled to try a felony.

6. That peers charged with felony are tried in a special manner. (See PEERAGE.)

7. That the costs of prosecuting all felonies (except treason felony) are paid out of public funds: and that a felon may be condemned to pay the costs of his prosecution and to compensate up to L100 for any loss of property suffered by any person through or by means of the felony. In the Criminal Code Bills of 1878-1880 it was proposed to abolish the term felony altogether: and in the Queensland Criminal Code 1899 the term "crime" is substituted, and within its connotation are included not only treason and piracy but also perjury.

8. That a sentence of a felon to death, or to penal servitude or imprisonment with hard labour or for over twelve months, involves loss of and disqualification for certain offices until the sentence has been served or a free pardon obtained. (Forfeiture Act 1870.)

It is a misdemeanour (i.) to compound a felony or to agree for valuable consideration not to prosecute or to show favour in such prosecution; (ii.) to omit to inform the authorities of a felony known to have been committed (see MISPRISION), and, (iii.) not to assist in the arrest of a felon at the call of an officer of the law. (See CRIMINAL LAW; MISDEMEANOUR; MISPRISION.)

FELSITE, in petrology, a term which has long been generally used by geologists, especially in England, to designate fine-grained igneous rocks of acid (or subacid) composition. As a rule their ingredients are not determinable by the unaided eye, but they are principally felspar and quartz as very minute particles. The rocks are pale-coloured (yellowish or reddish as a rule), hard, splintery, much jointed and occasionally nodular. Many felsites contain porphyritic crystals of clear quartz in rounded blebs, more or less idiomorphic felspar, and occasionally biotite. Others are entirely fine-grained and micro- or crypto-crystalline. Occasionally they show a fluxional banding; they may also be spherulitic or vesicular. Those which carry porphyritic quartz are known as quartz-felsites; the term soda-felsites has been applied to similar fine-grained rocks rich in soda-felspar.

Although there are few objections to the employment of felsite as a field designation for rocks having the above characters, it lacks definiteness, and has been discarded by many petrologists as unsuited for the exact description of rocks, especially when their microscopic characters are taken into consideration. The felsites accordingly are broken up into "granite-porphyries," "orthophyres" and "orthoclase-porphyries," "felsitic-rhyolites," "keratophyres," "granophyres," "micro-granites," &c. But felsite or microfelsite is still the generally accepted designation for that very fine-grained, almost crypto-crystalline substance which forms the ground-mass of so many rhyolites, dacites and porphyries.

In the hand specimen it is a dull, lustreless, stony-looking aggregate. Under the microscope even with high powers and the very thinnest modern sections, it often cannot be resolved into its components. In places it may contain determinable minute crystals of quartz; less commonly it may show grains which can be proved to be felspar, but usually it consists of an ultra-microscopic aggregate of fibres, threads and grains, which react to polarized light in a feeble and indefinite manner. Spherulitic, spotted, streaky and fluidal structures may appear in it, and many different varieties have been established on such characters as these but without much validity.

Its association with the acid rocks, its hardness, method of weathering and chemical composition, indicate that it is an intermixture of quartz and acid felspar, and the occasional presence of these two minerals in well-defined grains confirms this. Moreover, in many dikes, while the ground-mass is microcrystalline and consists of quartz and felspar near the centre of the mass, towards the margins, where it has been rapidly chilled by contact with the cold surrounding rocks, it is felsitic. The very great viscosity of acid magmas prevents their molecules, especially when cooling takes place suddenly, from arranging themselves to form discrete crystals, and is the principal cause of the production of felsitic ground-masses. In extreme cases these conditions hinder crystallization altogether, and glassy rocks result. Some rocks are felsitic in parts but elsewhere glassy; and it is not always clear whether the felsite is an original substance or has arisen by the devitrification of primary glass. The presence of perlitic structure in some of these felsites points to the latter conclusion, and the results of an examination of ancient glasses and of artificial glass which has been slowly cooled are in accordance with this view. It has been argued that felsite is a eutectic mixture of quartz and felspar, such that when solidification takes place and the excess of felspar (or quartz) has crystallized out it remains liquid till the temperature has fallen to its freezing point, and then consolidates simultaneously. This may be so, but analyses show that it has not always the same composition and consequently that the conditions which determine its formation are not quite simple. Felsitic rocks are sometimes silicified and have their matrix replaced by granular aggregates of cloudy quartz. (J. S. F.)

FELSPAR, or FELDSPAR, a name applied to a group of mineral silicates of much importance as rock-constituents. The name, taken from the Ger. _Feldspath_, was originally written with a "d" but in 1794 it was written "felspar" by R. Kirwan, on the assumption that it denoted a mineral of the "fels" rather than of the "field," and this corrupted form is now in common use in England. By some of the earlier mineralogists it was written "feltspar," from the Swedish form _faltspat_.

The felspar-group is divided into two subgroups according to the symmetry of the crystals. Although the crystals of all felspars present a general resemblance in habit, they are usually regarded as belonging to two systems, some felspars being monoclinic and others anorthic. Figures of the crystals are given in the articles on the different species. Two cleavages are generally well marked. In the monoclinic or monosymmetric felspars these, being parallel to the basal pinacoid and clinopinacoid, necessarily make an angle of 90 deg., whence the name orthoclase applied to these minerals; whilst in the anorthic or asymmetric felspars the corresponding angle is never exactly 90 deg., and from this obliquity of the principal cleavages they are termed plagioclase (see ORTHOCLASE and PLAGIOCLASE). There are consequently two series of felspars, one termed orthoclastic or orthotomous, and the other plagioclastic or clinotomous. F.E. Mallard suggested that all felspars are really asymmetric, and that orthoclase presents only a pseudo-monosymmetric habit, due to twinning. Twin-crystals are very common in all the felspars, as explained under their respective headings.

The two divisions of the felspar-group founded on differences of crystalline symmetry are subdivided according to chemical composition. All the felspars are silicates containing aluminium with some other metallic base or bases, generally potassium, sodium or calcium, rarely barium, but never magnesium or iron. The monoclinic series includes common potash-felspar or orthoclase (KAlSi3O8) and hyalophane, a rare felspar containing barium (K2BaAl4Si8O24). The anorthic series includes at one end the soda-felspar albite (NaAlSi3O8) and at the other extremity the lime-felspar anorthite (CaAl2Si2O8). It was suggested by G. Tschermak in 1864 that the other plagioclastic felspars are isomorphous mixtures in various proportion of albite (Ab) and anorthite (An). These intermediate members are the lime-soda felspars known as oligoclase, andesine, labradorite and bytownite. There are also placed in the anorthic class a potash-felspar called microcline, and a rare soda-potash-felspar known as anorthoclase.

The specific gravity of the felspars has been shown by G. Tschermak and V. Goldschmidt to vary according to their chemical composition, rising steadily from 2.57 in orthoclase to 2.75 in anorthite. All the felspars have a hardness of 6 to 6.5, being therefore rather less hard than quartz. Pure felspar is colourless, but the mineral is usually white, yellow, red or green. Certain felspars are used as ornamental stones on account of their colour (see AMAZON STONE). Other felspars are prized for their pearly opalescence (see MOONSTONE), or for their play of iridescent colours (see LABRADORITE), or for their spangled appearance, like aventurine (see SUN-STONE).

Felspar is much used in the manufacture of porcelain by reason of its fusibility. In England the material employed is mostly orthoclase from Scandinavia, often known as "Swedish spar." The high translucency of "ivory porcelain" depends on the large proportion of felspar in the body. The mineral is also an important constituent of most ceramic glazes. The melting points of felspars have been investigated by Prof. J. Joly, Prof. C. A. Doelter y Cisterich and especially by A.L. Day and E.T. Allen in the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institute at Washington.

Among the applications of felspar is that of pure orthoclase in the manufacture of artificial teeth.

Felspar readily suffers chemical alteration, yielding kaolin (q.v.). The turbidity of orthoclase is usually due to partial kaolinization. Secondary mica is also a common result of alteration, and among other products are pinite, epidote, saussurite, chlorite, wollastonite and various zeolites.

See ALBITE, AMAZON STONE, ANDESINE, ANORTHITE, BYTOWNITE, LABRADORITE, MICROCLINE, MOONSTONE, OLIGOCLASE, ORTHOCLASE, PLAGIOCLASE, SUN-STONE.

FELSTED, or FELSTEAD, a village of Essex, England, between Dunmow and Braintree, and 10 m. from Chelmsford; with a station on the Great Eastern railway. Felsted is only noteworthy by reason of its important public school, dating back to its foundation as a grammar school in 1564 by Richard 1st Baron Rich, who as lord chancellor and chancellor of the court of augmentations had enriched himself with the spoil of the adjoining abbey and priory of Little Leez at the dissolution of the monasteries. It became a notable educational centre for Puritan families in the 17th century, numbering a hundred or more pupils, under Martin Holbeach (1600-1670), headmaster from 1627-1649, and his successors C. Glasscock (from 1650 to 1690), and Simon Lydiatt (1690 to 1702). John Wallis and Isaac Barrow were educated here, and also four sons of Oliver Cromwell, Robert, Oliver, Richard (the Protector), and Henry. Another era of prosperity set in under the headmastership of William Trivett (1745-1830) between 1778 and 1794; but under his successors W.J. Carless (from 1794 to 1813) and E. Squire (from 1813 to 1829) the numbers dwindled. As the result of the discovery by T. Surridge (headmaster 1835-1850), from research among the records, that a larger income was really due to the foundation, a reorganization took place by act of parliament, and in 1851, under the headmastership of Rev. A.H. Wratislaw, the school was put under a new governing body (a revised scheme coming into operation in 1876). The result under Rev. W.S. Grignon (1823-1907), the headmaster from 1856 to 1875, who may be considered almost the second founder, was the rapid development of Felsted into one of the regular public schools of the modern English type. New buildings on an elaborate scale arose, the numbers increased to more than 200, and a complete transformation took place, which was carried on under his successors D.S. Ingram (from 1875 to 1890), H.A. Dalton (to 1906), and F. Stephenson, under whom large extensions to the buildings and playing-fields were made.

See John Sargeaunt, _History of Felsted School_ (1889); and _Alumni Felstedienses_, by R.J. Beevor, E.T. Roberts and others (1903).

FELT (cognate with Ger. _Filz_, Du. _vilt_, Swed. and Dan. _filt_; the root is unknown; the word has given Med. Lat. _filtrum_, "filter"), a fabric produced by the "matting" or "felting" together of fibrous materials such as wools, hairs, furs, &c. Most textile fibres (see FIBRES) possess the quality of matting to some extent, but wools, furs and some few hairs are the only fibres which can be felted satisfactorily. It is probable that the quality of felting must be attributed to the scale structure and waviness of the wools, furs and hairs referred to. When it is desired to incorporate non-felting fibres in felt cloths, wool must be employed to "carry" them.

There are two distinct classes of felts, viz. woven or "thread-structure" felts, and "fibre" or true felts. In the manufacture of thread-structure felts, wools possessing the quality of felting in a high degree are naturally selected, carefully scoured so that the felting quality is not seriously damaged, spun into woollen yarn possessing the necessary fibre arrangement and twist, woven into cloth of such a character that subsequently satisfactory shrinking or felting may be effected, and finally scoured, milled in the stocks of machine of both, dyed and finished on the lines of an ordinary woven fabric. The lighter styles of woven felts may be composed of a single cloth only, but for the heavier styles two or more cloths are woven, one on top of the other, at one and the same time, arrangements being made to stitch the cloths together during the weaving operation.

Fibre felts are exceedingly interesting from the historical point of view. It is now generally admitted that the art of weaving preceded that of spinning, and it must further be conceded that the art of felting preceded that of weaving, so that the felt fabric is probably one of the oldest of the various styles of recognized fabrics. The inhabitants of the middle and northern regions of Asia seem to have employed felt from time immemorial, as clothing and also as a covering for their habitations. Most of the classical writers refer to it and some of them actually describe its manufacture. Felt was also largely employed by the ancients for their hats, outer garments, and sometimes as a species of armour.

Fibre felts may be divided into three classes, viz. ordinary felts; hat felts; and impregnated felts. As all felts are based upon the ordinary felt, the process of manufacture of this will first be described. Of the wools employed the principal are:--East Indian, German or mid-European, New Zealand cross-breds, and Australian, Cape and Buenos Aires merinos. Vegetable fibres and silk are also employed, but wool must be used to "carry" them; thus a good felting wool may be made to carry its own weight of cotton, hemp, &c. Hairs and furs are principally used in the hat felts. The average loss upon the wool from the raw state to the finished felt is 40 to 50%. The order of the manufacturing processes is as follows:--mixing, willowing, teasing, scribbling and carding. It is interesting to note that it is not usual to scour felting wools. This is not because they are really clean--some are dirty--but because the felting property is liable to be interfered with in the scouring operation. Some wools, however, must be scoured to ensure satisfactory working in the machines. From the card the wool is delivered as a gossamer-like film from 50 to 60 in. wide on to an endless sheet from 30 to 60 yds. long, upon which the felt is built up film upon film until the required thickness--perhaps 4 in.--is obtained. To harden this somewhat tender sheet of felt it is now passed through an ironing process, effected by either steam-heated rollers--to which a rotatory and vibratory motion is given--playing upon the continually drawn-through cloth; or a huge vibrating flat-iron, to which the cloth is automatically fed, held in position and then wound up while the following length to be treated is drawn under the iron. Soaping, fulling or "felting" and the ordinary finishing operations--including dyeing and printing if desirable--now follow, so that ultimately a strong firm fabric is turned out. It must be admitted, however, that the strength is much greater lengthwise than cross-wise, owing to the parallelization of the fibres induced in the scribbling and carding operations. Of course, the true felting or contraction occurs in the fulling or felting stock, the fabric being perpetually "hammered" in the presence of fulling agents such as soap, fuller's earth, &c., for a considerable time. The reduction in width, length and thickness is remarkable. This may be controlled within certain limits. The principal styles of ordinary fibre-felts are--linings for coats, furniture and rubber shoes; saddlery; seatings for carriages and pews; carpets, surrounds and under-felts for carpets; mantles, dresses and table-cloths; felt-slippers; mattress felts; chest-preservers, and shoulder-pads; steam-engine packing, motor-car and anti-vibration felts, shipbuilding felts; drawing-roller felts and gun-wad felts.

Hat felts may be divided into two classes, viz. those made from wool and fur respectively. Wool "bodies" used for the lower quality hats are manufactured in the same way as ordinary felts, but the "shape" upon which the film issuing from the carder is built up takes the form of a double cone and thus approximates to the shape of the two hats ultimately formed. The shape is further controlled and developed in the fulling or felting operation. In the fur hat felts an air-blast is employed to carry the finely separated fibres on to the shape required, upon which shape the fibres are held in position by suction until the required thickness is obtained. The structure is then further developed and "stiffened," i.e. impregnated with certain stiffening agents according to requirements. If desirable the exterior fibres blown on to any shape may be of a different material from the body fabric.

Impregnated felts are simply felts made in the ordinary way but subsequently impregnated with certain agents which give a special quality to the fabric. Messrs McNeill & Co., of London, were the originators of "asphalted-felt" for roofing and, among other styles, place on the market sheathing felt, inodorous felt, dry hair felt, foundation felt, &c., &c. A later development, however, is the impregnated iron-felt manufactured by Messrs Mitchells, Ashworth, Stansfield & Co., of Waterfoot, near Manchester, who not only produce from 70 to 80% of the ordinary felts manufactured in Great Britain, but also place on the market several specialties of which this "iron-felt" is largely used in the construction of bridges, &c., and as a substitute for rubber, it being apparently more durable. (A. F. B.)

FELTHAM, or FELLTHAM, OWEN (d. 1668), English moralist, was the son of Thomas Feltham or Felltham of Mutford in Suffolk. The date of his birth is given variously as 1602 and 1609. He is famous chiefly as the author of a volume entitled _Resolves, Divine, Moral and Political_, containing one hundred short and pithy essays. To later issues of the _Resolves_ Feltham appended _Lusoria_, a collection of forty poems. Hardly anything is known of his life except that T. Randolph, the adopted "son" of Ben Jonson, addressed a poem of compliment to him, and became his friend, and that Feltham attacked Ben Jonson in an ode shortly before the aged poet's death, but contributed a flattering elegy to the _Jonsonus Virbius_ in 1638. Early in life Feltham visited Flanders, and published observations in 1652 under the title of _A Brief Character of the Low Countries_. He was a strict high-churchman and a royalist; he even described Charles I. as "Christ the Second." Hallam stigmatized Feltham as one of our worst writers. He has not, indeed, the elegance of Bacon, whom he emulated, and he is often obscure and affected; but his copious imagery and genuine penetration give his reflections a certain charm. To the middle classes of the 17th century he seemed a heaven-sent philosopher and guide, and was only less popular than Francis Quarles the poet.

Eleven editions of the _Resolves_ appeared before 1700. Later. editions by James Cumming (London, 1806; much garbled; has account of Feltham's life and writings), and O. Smeaton in "Temple Classics" series (London, 1904).

FELTON, CORNELIUS CONWAY (1807-1862), American classical scholar, was born on the 6th of November 1807, in West Newbury, Massachusetts. He graduated at Harvard College in 1827, having taught school in the winter vacations of his sophomore and junior years. After teaching in the Livingstone high school of Geneseo, New York, for two years, he became tutor at Harvard in 1829, university professor of Greek in 1832, and Eliot professor of Greek literature in 1834. In 1860 he succeeded James Walker as president of Harvard, which position he held until his death, at Chester, Pennsylvania, on the 26th of February 1862. Dr Felton edited many classical texts. His annotations on Wolf's text of the _Iliad_ (1833) are especially valuable. _Greece, Ancient and Modern_ (2 vols., 1867), forty-nine lectures before the Lowell Institute, is scholarly, able and suggestive of the author's personality. Among his miscellaneous publications are the American edition of Sir William Smith's _History of Greece_ (1855); translations of Menzel's _German Literature_ (1840), of Munk's _Metres of the Greeks and Romans_ (1844), and of Guyot's _Earth and Man_ (1849); and _Familiar Letters from Europe_ (1865).

FELTON, JOHN (c. 1595-1628), assassin of the 1st duke of Buckingham, was a member of an old Suffolk family established at Playford. The date of his birth and the name of his father are unknown, but his mother was Eleanor, daughter of William Wright, mayor of Durham. He entered the army, and served as lieutenant in the expedition to Cadiz commanded by Sir Edward Cecil in 1625. His career seems to have been ill-starred and unfortunate from the beginning. His left hand was early disabled by a wound, and a morose temper rendered him unpopular and prevented his advancement. Every application made to Buckingham for his promotion was refused, on account of an enmity, according to Sir Simonds D'Ewes, which existed between Felton and Sir Henry Hungate, a favourite of Buckingham. To his personal application that he could not live without a captaincy Buckingham replied harshly "that he might hang." Whether he took part in the expedition to Rhe in 1627 is uncertain, but there is no doubt that he continued to be refused promotion, and that even his scanty pay earned during the Cadiz adventure was not received. Exasperated by his ill-treatment, his discontent sharpened by poverty, and his hatred of Buckingham intensified by a study of the Commons "Remonstrances" of the previous June, and by a work published by Eglesham, the physician of James I., in which Buckingham was accused of poisoning the king, Felton determined to effect his assassination. He bought a tenpenny knife on Tower Hill, and on his way through Fleet Street he left his name in a church to be prayed for as "a man much discontented in mind." He arrived at Portsmouth at 9 o'clock in the morning of the 23rd of August 1628, and immediately proceeded to No. 10 High Street, where Buckingham was lodged. Here mingling with the crowd of applicants and unnoticed he stabbed the duke, who immediately fell dead. Though escape would have been easy he confessed the deed and was seized and conveyed to the Tower, his journey thither, such was the unpopularity of the duke, being accompanied by cries of "God bless thee" from the people. Charles and Laud desired he should be racked, but the illegal torture was prevented by the judges. He was tried before the king's bench on the 27th of November, pleaded guilty, and was hanged the next day, his body being exposed in chains subsequently at Portsmouth.

FELTRE, MORTO DA, Italian painter of the Venetian school, who worked at the close of the 15th century and beginning of the 16th. His real name appears to have been Pietro Luzzo; he is also known by the name Zarato or Zarotto, either from the place of his death or because his father, a surgeon, was in Zara during the son's childhood: whether he was termed Morto (dead) from his joyless temperament is a disputed point. He may probably have studied painting first in Venice, but under what master is uncertain. At an early age he went to Rome, and investigated the ancient, especially the subterranean remains, and thence to Pozzuoli, where he painted from the decorations of antique crypts or "grotte." The style of fanciful arabesque which he formed for himself from these studies gained the name of "grottesche," whence comes the term "grotesque"; not, indeed, that Morto was the first painter of arabesque in the Italian Renaissance, for art of this kind had, apart from his influence, been fully developed, both in painting and in sculpture, towards 1480, but he may have powerfully aided its diffusion southwards. His works were received with much favour in Rome. He afterwards went to Florence, and painted some fine grotesques in the Palazzo Pubblico. Returning to Venice towards 1505, he assisted Giorgione in painting the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, and seems to have remained with him till 1511. If we may trust Ridolfi, Morto eloped with the mistress of Giorgione, whose grief at this transaction brought him to the grave; the allegation, however, is hardly reconcilable with other accounts. It may have been in 1515 that Morto returned to his native Feltre, then in a very ruinous condition from the ravages of war in 1509. There he executed various works, including some frescoes, still partly extant, and considered to be almost worthy of the hand of Raphael, in the loggia beside San Stefano. Towards the age of forty-five, Morto, unquiet and dissatisfied, abandoned painting and took to soldiering in the service of the Venetian republic. He was made captain of a troop of two hundred men; and fighting valorously, he is said to have died at Zara in Dalmatia, in 1519. This story, and especially the date of it, are questionable: there is some reason to think that Morto was painting as late as 1522. One of his pictures is in the Berlin museum, an allegorical subject of "Peace and War." Andrea Feltrini was his pupil and assistant as a decorative painter.

FELTRE (anc. _Feltria_), a town and episcopal see of Venetia, Italy, in the province of Belluno, 20 m. W.S.W. of it by rail, situated on an isolated hill, 885 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 5468 (town), 15,243 (commune). The cathedral has a fine polygonal apse of the 16th century. The Palazzo del Consiglio, now a theatre, is attributed to Palladio. At one end of the chief square of the town, the Piazza Maggiore, is the cistern by which the town is supplied with water, and a large fountain. There are some remains of the medieval castle. The ancient Feltria, which lay on the road (Via Claudia) from Opitergium to Tridentum, does not seem to have been a place of any importance under the Romans. Vittorino dei Rambaldoni da Feltre (1378-1446) was a famous educator and philosopher of his time.

FELUCCA (an Italian word; in forms like the Span. _faluca_, Fr. _felouque_, it appears in other languages; it is probably of Arabic origin, cf. _fulk_, a ship, and _falaka_, to be round; the modern Arabic form is _falukah_), a type of vessel used in the Mediterranean for coasters or fishing-boats. It is a long, low and narrow undecked vessel, built for speed, and propelled by oars or sails. The sails are lateen-shaped and carried on one or two masts placed far forward (see BOAT).

FEMALE, the correlative of "male," the sex which performs the function of conceiving and bearing as opposed to the begetting of young. The word in Middle English is _femelle_, adopted from the French from the Lat. _femella_, which is a diminutive, and in classical Latin used strictly as such, of _femina_, a woman. The present termination in English is due to a connexion in ideas with "male." In various mechanical devices, where two corresponding parts work within the other, the receiving part is often known as the "female," as for example in the "male" and "female screw." The O. Fr. _feme_, modern _femme_, occurs in legal phraseology in _feme covert_, a married woman, i.e. one protected or covered by a husband, and in _feme sole_, one not so protected, a widow or spinster (see WOMEN and HUSBAND AND WIFE).

FEMERELL, properly FUMERELL (from O. Fr. _fumeraille_, Lat. _fumus_, smoke), the old English term given to the lantern in the ridge of a hall roof for the purpose of letting out the smoke of the fire kindled on a central hearth.

FENCING. If by "fencing"--the art of fence, i.e. of defence or offence--were meant generally the dexterous use of the sword, the subject would be wide indeed; as wide, in fact, as the history of the sword (q.v.) itself. But, in its modern acceptation, the meaning of the word has become considerably restricted. The scope of investigation must therefore be confined to one kind of swordsmanship only: to that which depends on the regulated, artificial conditions of "single combat." It is indeed this play, hemmed in by many restrictions, which we have come to mean more specially by "fencing." It differs, of course, in many respects, from what may be called the art of fighting in the light of nature. But as its restrictions are among the very elements which work to the perfection of the play, it is undoubtedly in the history of swordsmanship as applied to duelling (see DUEL) that we shall trace the higher development of the art.

It may be said that the history of fencing, therefore, would be tantamount to the history of private duelling. Now, this is an ethical subject; one, again, which would carry the investigation too far; and it need not be taken up farther back than the middle of the 16th century, when, on the disuse of the medieval wager of battle, the practice of _private duelling_ began to take an assured footing in a warlike society. It is curious to mark that the first cultivation of refined cunning in fence dates from that period, which corresponds chronologically with the general disuse of armour, both in battle and in more private encounters. It is still more curious to note that, in order to fit himself to meet what was an illegal but aristocratic obligation, the gallant of those days had to appeal to a class of men hitherto little considered: to those plebeian adepts, in fact, who for generations had cultivated skill in the use of hand weapons, on foot and without armour. Thus it came to pass that the earliest masters of fence in all countries, namely, the masters of the art of conducting skilfully what was essentially considered as an honourable encounter, were almost invariably to be found among a somewhat dishonoured gentry--gladiators, free companions, professional champions, more or less openly recognized, or bravoes of the most uncompromising character.

In Germany, which may be considered the cradle of systematic swordsmanship, these teachers of the sword had, as early as the 15th century, formed themselves into gilds; among which the best known were the _Marxbruder_, or the Associates of St Marcus of Lowenberg, who had their headquarters at Frankfort, and branches in all the more important towns. Similarly, in Spain and in northern Italy, professional swordsmen were at various times allowed to form themselves into recognized or at least tolerated associations.

In England "swordmen" had been looked upon with especial disfavour by the powers that were, until Henry VIII., who was a great lover of all manly exercises, found it likewise advisable to turn their obnoxious existence to a disciplined and profitable channel by regularizing their position. The most redoubtable masters were allowed to form themselves into a company, with powers to increase their numbers with suitable and duly tried men, in imitation of the world-famed German _Marxbruder_ or _Marcusbruder_. Under these conditions they were granted the lucrative monopoly of teaching the art of fight in England. The enormous privileges that the king, in course of time, conferred on his Corporation of Masters of Defence very soon enabled it to put down or absorb all the more ferocious of independent swashbucklers, and thereby to impart to the profession a moderate degree of respectability under the coat of arms granted by the royal heralds: gules a sword pendant argent.

It was in the midst of such corporations and in the fighting dens of independent swordsmen, therefore, that sprouted the first buds of systematic swordsmanship. Among the professional fencers, curiously and happily for the historian, there seem to have been a few with a literary turn of mind.

The oldest manuscripts of fence belong to Italy and Germany. They deal with the methods of carrying out single combats on foot, with any of the most generally accepted weapons--long sword and short sword, dagger and every kind of knives, mace, long and short staff, axes, &c.,--and with the tricks of wrestling recommendable therefor. Among the most comprehensive in their scope may be mentioned _Il Fior di battaglia di Maestro Fiore dei Liberi da Premariaco_; a work which, although illustrated with truly Italian taste and grace, shows, as far as its fighting style is concerned, unmistakable marks of German influence. The text of the MS. bears the date 1410, but the writer was known to be flourishing as a master of fence as early as 1383. A reprint of this invaluable codex has been published, under the care of Francesco Donati, by the _Istituto Italiano d' Arti Grafiche_. Another is the better known _Thalhofer's Fecht Buch, gerichtliche und andere Zweykampfe darstellend_ (1467), a reprint of which, with its 268 plates in facsimile, was brought out by Gustave Hergsell in Prague. The oldest printed book is likewise German: _Ergrundung der ritterlicher Kunst der Fechterei, von Andreas Paurnfeindt, Freifechter zu Wien_ (1516). This work, which is exceedingly rare, is a very complete exponent of the ways of wielding long and short blades to the utmost of their lethal capacity. It was reproduced (under various titles, very confusing to the bibliographer) in Frankfort, Augsburg, Strassburg, and finally done into French under the name of _La Noble science des joueurs d'epee_, published in Paris and Antwerp, 1535.

Following the Germans, the oldest printed books of fence are Italian. The first French book on the sword is known to be a translation from the German. Curiously enough, the second, and one of the most notable, _Le Traite de l'epee seule, mere de toutes armes_, of the Sieur de St Didier, published in Paris in 1573, can be shown to be a transparent adaptation of two Italian treatises, the _Trattato di scienza d' arme_ of Camillo Agrippa, and Grassi's _Ragione di adoperar sicuramente l'arme_, &c.

It is about this time, namely, the latter half of the 16th century, that swordsmanship pure and simple may be said to find its origin; for then a great change is perceptible in the nature and tendency of fence books: they dissociate themselves from indecorous wrestling tricks, and approximate more and more to the consideration of what we understand by swordsmanship. The older works expounded the art of fighting generally; taught the reader a number of valuable, if not "gentlemanlike," dodges for overcoming an adversary _at all manner of weapons_: now the lucubrations of fence-masters deal almost exclusively with the walking sword, that is, the duelling weapon--with the rapier in fact, both with and without its lieutenant, the dagger.

It must be remembered that at this period private duelling and cavalier quarrelsomeness amounted to a perfect mania. The fencing master was no longer merely a teacher of efficacious, if rascally, tricks; he was becoming a model of gallant deportment; in many cases he was even a recognized arbiter on matters of honour. He was often a gentleman himself: at all events he posed as such.

Although the Germans were always redoubtable adepts at the rougher games of swordsmanship, it is in Italy that is to be found development of that nimbler, more regulated, more cunning, better controlled, kind of play which we have learned to associate with the term "fencing." It was from Italy that the art of fence first spread over Europe: not from Spain, as it has been asserted by many writers. The Italians--if we take their early books as evidence, and the fact that their phraseology was adopted by all Europe--were the first to perceive (as soon as the problem of armour-breaking ceased to be the most important one in fight) the superior efficiency of the point. They accordingly reduced the breadth of their sword, modified the hilt portion thereof to admit of readier thrust action, and relegated the cut to quite a secondary position in their system. With this lighter weapon they devised in course of time that brilliant cunning play known as rapier fence.

The rapier was ultimately adopted everywhere by men of courtly habit; but, in England at least, it was not accepted without murmur and vituperation from the older fighting class of swordsmen, especially from the members and admirers of the English Corporation of Defence Masters. As a body Englishmen were as conservative then as they are now. They knew the value of what they had as their own, and distrusted innovations, especially from foreign quarters. The old sword and the buckler were reckoned as your true English weapons: they always went together--in fact sword and buckler play in the 16th century was evidently held to be as national a game as boxing came to be in a later age. Many are the allusions in contemporary dramatic literature to this characteristic national distrust of continental innovations. There is the well-known passage in Porter's play, _The Two Angry Women of Abingdon_, for instance: "Sword and buckler fight," says a sturdy Briton (in much the same tone of disgust as a British lover of fisticuffs might now assume when talking of a French "Mounseer's" foil play), "begins to grow out of use. I am sorry for it. I shall never see good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking fight with rapier and dagger will come up. Then the tall man (that is, a courageous man and a good sword-and-buckler man) will be spitted like a cat or a rabbit!" The long-sword, that is, the two-hander, was also an essentially national weapon. It was a right-down pleasing and sturdy implement, recalling in good steel the vernacular quarter-staff of old. It required thews and sinews, and, incidentally, much beef and ale. The long-sword man looked perhaps with even greater disfavour than the smaller swashbuckler upon the new-fangled "bird-spit." "Tut, man," says Justice Shallow, typical _laudator_ of the good bygone days, on hearing of the ridiculous Frenchman's skill with his rapier, "I could have told you more. In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what; 'tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis here, 'tis here. I have seen the time, with my long-sword, I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats."

Now, sword-and-buckler and long-sword play was no doubt a manly pursuit and a useful. But, as an every-day companion, the long-sword was incongruous to a fastidious cavalier; and, again, the buckler, indispensable adjunct to the broad swashing blade of home production, was hardly more suitable. In Elizabethan days it soon became obvious that the buckler was inadmissible as an item of gentlemanly attire. It was accordingly left to the body attendant; and the gallant took kindly to the fine rapier of Milanese or Toledan make. On the other hand, it is not difficult to understand the rapid popularity gained among the gentry by this nimble rapier, so much reviled by the older fighting men. The rapier, in fact, came in with the taste for "cavaliero" style, and may be looked upon as its fit outward symbol already in the days of Queen Mary. In Elizabeth's reign it was firmly established as your only gentlemanlike weapon.

The rapier was decidedly a foreigner; yet it suited the Elizabethan age, for it was decorative as well as practical. Its play was picturesque, fantastic--almost euphuistic, one might say--in comparison with the matter-of-fact hanger of older days. Its phraseology had a quaint, rich, southern smack, which connoted outlandish experience and gave those conversant with its intricate distinctions that marvellous character, at once precious and ruffling, which was so highly appreciated by the cavalier youth of the time. The rapier in its heyday was an admirable weapon to look at, a delicious one to wield. And, besides, in proper hands, it was undoubtedly one that was most conclusive. It was, in short, as elegant and deadly as its predecessors were sturdy and brutal.

By the time that the most perfect, namely, the Italian, rapier fence came to be generally taught in England--that is, during the last third of Elizabeth's reign--the theory of swordsmanship, as applied to a single combat, after having passed through many phases of imperfection, was already tolerably simple and practical. (The exact story of its evolution may be found in a work now included in Bohn's Libraries, _Schools and Masters of Fence_.) What may be considered as one of the cardinal actions of regulated sword-play on foot, namely, the lunge, had already been discovered. Although a great many movements which, according to modern notions, would be considered not only unnecessary but actually pernicious, still formed part of the system, it may be doubted whether, considering the character of the weapon, anything very much better could be devised, even in our present state of knowledge.

For it must be remembered that the evolution of the forms of the sword and of the theories concerning its most efficient use are closely connected. It is, in fact, sometimes difficult to decide whether the change in the shape of the weapon was the result of a development of a theory; or whether new theories were elaborated to fit alterations in these shapes due to fashion or any other reason.

When systematic fence came over to England it was already much simplified (it should be noted that improvement in the art, from its earliest days down to the present time, seems always to have been in the direction of simplification); yet, for more than a century from the appearance of the first real treatise, simplification never reached that point which would render impossible a belief in the undoubted efficacy of those "secret thrusts," of that "universal parry," of those ineluctable passes, which every master professed to teach. These precious secrets remain long, among a certain shady class of swordsmen, an object of untiring study, carried on with much the same faith and zest as the quest of the alchemist for his powder of projection, or of the Merchant Adventurer for El Dorado. There can, of course, be no such thing as an insuperable pass, a secret thrust or parry; every attack _can_ be parried, every parry can be deceived by suitable movements. Yet there was some justification for the belief in the existence of secrets of swordsmanship in days when, as a rule, lessons of fence were given in jealous privacy; constant practice at one particular pass, especially with the long rapier, which required a great deal of muscular strength, might render any peculiarly fierce, sudden and audacious stroke excessively dangerous to one who did not happen to have opposed that stroke before. Undoubtedly there was little in Elizabethan fencing-schools of what we understand in modern days by loose-play between the pupils; practice was almost invariably conducted between scholar and teacher in private; and thus the opportunities for watching or testing any particular fencer's play were few. Such an opportunity would, as a rule, only occur on occasions of an earnest fight; and the possessor of a specially handy thrust (if it came off at all) would of course take good care that his opponent should not live to ponder over the secret. The secret, such as it was, remained. In this guise it was inevitable that an almost superstitious belief in "secret foynes," in the _botte secrete_ of certain practised duellists, should arise.

Be that as it may, there is no doubt that towards the end of the 16th century there were many free-lances in the field of arms who professed to teach, in exchange for much gold, strokes that were not to be parried. From one truculent personage, whom Brantome mentions, Tappa the Milanese, you could learn how to cut (if it so took your fancy) both eyes out of your adversary's face with a _rinverso tondo_, or circular "reverse of the point." From Caizo, another Italian teacher, at one time much favoured by the French court, lessons were to be had in the special art of ham-stringing. Caizo's _botte secrete_ seems to have been nothing more nor less than a _falso manco_, that is, a left-handed drawing cut, at the inside of the knee. But, as practised and taught by him, it was infallible. This stroke has come down to us as _le coup de Jarnac_--a stroke, be it said, which, notwithstanding its bad name, was quite as fair as any in rapier fence. One Le Flamand, a French master in Paris, was reputed the inventor of a jerky time-thrust at the adversary's brows, which was a certainty. This special foyne, which was merely an _imbrocata_ at the head, has become legendary in the fencing world as _la botte de Nevers_. English fencers have their own legends about "the very butcher of a silk button," and this brings us to the first writer on the rapier in England, Vincenzio Saviolo, the great expounder of that Italianated fence which was so obnoxious to the old masters, withal so much admired of Elizabethan courtiers; the man, in short, who--there seems to be much internal evidence to show it--was Shakespeare's fencing master.

Vincenzio was not the only foreign master of note established in London during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign. One, Signor Rocco, had, we hear, a very gorgeously appointed academy in Warwick Lane, near St Paul's, where he coined money rapidly at the expense of gulls and gallants alike. But this man came to grief ultimately in an encounter with the long-sword with an old-fashioned English master of defence. Another popular teacher was a certain "Geronimo"; but he also met with a melancholy and premature end by the hands of one Cheefe, "a tall man in his fight and natural English," says George Silver, the champion of the Corporation of Masters of Defence. Saviolo, however, seems to have remained unconquered. In his work (_Vincentio Saviolo, his practise, in two bookes, the first intreating of the use of the Rapier and Dagger, the second of Honor and honorable quarrels._ London. Printed by John Wolfe, 1595) are expounded in a most typical manner the principles of rapier play.

The fencing phraseology of Elizabethan times is highly picturesque, but with difficulty intelligible in the absence of practical demonstration. Without going into technical details it may be pointed out that the long Elizabethan rapier, however admirably balanced it might otherwise be, was still too heavy to admit of quick parries with the blade itself. Thrusts, as a rule, had to be avoided by body movements, by ducking, or by a vault aside (_incartata_), or beaten away with the left hand, the hand being protected with a gauntlet or armed with a dagger. In fact, one may say that the chief characteristic of Elizabethan sword-play was the concerted action of the left hand parrying while the right delivered the attack. Benvolio's description of Tybalt's fight is graphic:--

"With piercing steel he tilts at bold Mercutio's breast, Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point, And with a martial scorn, with one hand beats Cold death aside, and with the other Sends it back to Tybalt, whose dexterity Retorts it...."

Of these body movements, in Saviolo's days, the most approved were: the _incartata_, just mentioned; the pass (the "passado," in the ruffling Anglo-Italian jargon), that is, passing of one foot in front of the other whilst delivering the attack; the _botta lunga_, or lunge; and the _caricado_, which was a far-reaching combination of the two. Of systematic sword movements there were six: _stocata_, a thrust delivered with nails upwards; _imbrocata_, with nails down; _punta-reversa_, any thrust delivered from the left side of the body; _mandritto_, a cut from the right; _rinverso_, one from the left; _stramazone_, a right-down blow with the point of the sword.

The new art of fence, as systematized by the principles of rapier play, was on the whole already accepted in England during the last decade of the 16th century, and was, as we know, destined to endure. Nevertheless, there were still many partisans of the older school: lovers of the national short-sword and the buckler. Their tenets are to be found embodied, in very strenuous language, by the George Silver mentioned above, a member, it would seem, of the now dwindling company of Masters of Defence, in his small work: _Paradoxe of Defence, wherein is proved the true ground of fight to be in the short ancient weapons, etc._ Printed in London, 1599. (The work has been reprinted by Messrs George Bell & Sons.)

The Italians were undoubtedly the leaders in sword-play; but, towards the beginning of the 17th century, the Spaniards developed a peculiar school of their own, which for a short while was all the mode in England as well as in France. The last trace, be it stated, of that school is now extinct. Yet the Spaniard of cavalier days was undoubtedly a formidable duellist; that was no doubt owing to the quality of the man, not of his art. The Italian's fence was artistic; the Spaniard's dexterity was essentially scientific. In Spain were to be found typically those "Captains of Complements," who not only understood in their most intricate mazes the proper "dependencies" for the cartel, but also the mathematical certainties for the "reason demonstrative." These Spanish books are marvellously pedantic; one may as well say it, frankly ridiculous. Spanish masters instructed their scholars on mathematical lines, with the help of diagrams drawn on the floor within a circle, the radius of which bore certain cryptic proportions to length of human arms and Spanish swords. The circle was inscribed in squares and intersected by sundry chords bearing occult but, it was held, incontrovertible relations to probabilities of strokes and parries. The scholar was to step from certain intersections to certain others. If this stepping was correctly done the result was a foregone victory. "A villain," exclaims Mercutio, indignantly, "who fights by the book of arithmetic." Elizabethan comedies bring us many an echo of its great expounder of mathematical swordsmanship, the magnificent Carranza, the _primer inventor de la Ciencia de las Armas_, the writer of treatises so abstruse on "the first and second cause," in questions of honour and swording, that they have never been quite understood to this day.

Perhaps the most curious matter in connexion with the Spanish fence is that the most splendid treatise of the sword published in the French language is in reality purely Spanish (we have seen that the first was German, and the second an adaptation of Italian treatises). This third work, _Academie de l'epee de Girard Thibault, d'Anvers, etc._, is indeed a monument; one of the biggest books ever printed, and beyond compare the biggest book of fence. It was issued in 1628 by the Leiden Elzevirs, and took fifteen years to complete. Nine reigning princes and a vast number of private gentlemen subscribed to meet its stupendous expenses.

This work was spoken of as a "monument." It may, in some respects, be looked upon as the funeral monument of the old rapier fence; for soon after that period rose an entirely new school, one adapted to the use of a less portentous weapon, the small-sword of French pattern; a school destined to endure, and to lead to the perfection of our modern _escrime_.

The evolution of this new school is an instance of the influence of fashion upon the shape of the sword, and hence upon theories concerning its use. The French school of fencing may be said to owe its origin to the adoption, under Louis XIV., of the short court-sword in place of the over-long wide-hilted rapier of the older style. With a weapon of such reduced dimensions, of such reduced weight, the advantage of the dagger as a fencing adjunct at once ceased to be felt. The dagger, last Gothic remnant, disappeared accordingly; and there arose rapidly a new system of play, in which most of the defensive actions were performed by the blade alone; in which, at the same time (the reduction in the size and weight of the weapon rendering the efficiency of the edge almost nugatory in comparison with that of the point), all cutting action was ultimately discarded.

It is from that date, namely, from the last third of the 17th century, that the sword, as a fighting implement, becomes differentiated into two very different directions. The military weapon becomes the back-sword or sabre; the walking companion and duelling weapon becomes what we now understand by the small-sword. Two utterly different kinds of fence are practised: one, that of the back-sword; the other, what we would now call foil-play.

The magnificent old cut and thrust rapier still flourished, it is true, in parts of Italy and Spain; but by the end of the 17th century it had already become an object of ridicule in the eyes of all persons addicted to _bon ton_--and it must be remembered that _bon ton_, on the Continent everywhere and even in England, at that time, was French _ton_. The walking sword, fit for a gentleman's side, was therefore the small-sword of Versailles pattern. Its use had to be learnt from French masters of deportment; the old magniloquent Italo-Spanish rapier jargon was forgotten; French terms, barbarized into _carte_, _tierce_, _sagoon_, _flanquonade_, and so forth, were alone understood. In fact, French fencing became as indispensable an accomplishment to the Georgian gentlemen as the fine Italianated foyning had been to the Elizabethan.

The new French sword-play was, it must be owned, very neat, quiet, precise, and, if anything, even more deadly than the old fence. It was perfect as a decorous mode of fight, and as well suited to the lace ruffles, to the high perruque and the red heels of the "beau" as the long cup-hilted rapier had been to the booted and spurred "cavalier." The essence of its play was nimbleness of wrist; it required quickness of spirit rather than muscular vigour. It is to be noted, however, that the same sort of popular opposition met the invasion of French fencing, in post-Restoration days, that had been offered to the new-fangled Italian rapier a century earlier. During the Parliamentary period the rapier and its attendant dagger had practically disappeared; they were not true warlike weapons, their chief virtue was for duelling or sudden encounters. But the stout English back-sword survived; and with it a very definite school of back-sword play. Under Charles II., the amusement of stage or prize-fighting with swords had become _a la mode_. Courteous assaults at many weapons, of course rebated, had been frequent functions under the auspices of the Corporation of Masters of Defence during the second half of the 16th century; it is (be it remarked) in such sword-matches on the scaffold that we find the origin of our modern prize-fights at fisticuffs. The first instance known of a challenge at sharps on the fighting stage is seen in a cartel sent by George Silver and Toby his son, as champions of the Corporation of Masters of Defence, to the obnoxious "Signors" Saviolo and Geronimo. As a matter of fact, the latter, having apparently no wish to improve their excellent social position or to risk forfeiting it, declined this invitation to a public trial of skill. But the idea was right martial and pleasing to the English mind, and the fashion of prize-fighting took the firm hold it retained on English minds till stringent legislation, not so very long ago, was brought to bear upon it. Be it as it may, this prize-fighting with swords endured until middle Georgian days; when, under the impetus given to fistic displays then by the renowned Figg (who was at one and the same time the most formidable of English fencers and the first on the long list of English pugilistic champions), back-swording became relegated to the provinces, and ultimately dwindled into our bastard "single-stick."

Fencing, in its restricted sense of purely thrusting play, was always an "academic" art in England. The first great advocate and exponent of the new small-sword fence, as taught by the new French school, was Sir William Hope of Balcomy, at one time deputy governor of Edinburgh Castle, who wrote a great number of quaint treatises of great interest to the "operative" as well as to the "speculative" fencer. Yet, oddly enough, Sir William Hope was instrumental in endeavouring to push through parliament a bill for the establishment of a court of honour, the office of which was to have been the deciding of honourable quarrels, whenever possible, without appeal to fencing skill. The House, however, being at the time excited and busy on the question of the union of Scotland and England, the bill never became act.

To resume: since it began to be practised as a regulated art one may say broadly that sword play has already passed through four main phases. The first belongs to the early Tudor days of sword and buckler encounters, whereof, if the best theoretical treatises appeared in Italy, the sturdiest practical exponents were most probably found in the British Isles. Then came the age of the rapier, coeval with the general disuse of the buckler. There may be discerned the dawn of fencing proper, which will fully arise when, in Caroline times, the outrageous length of the tucke will at last be sufficiently reduced no longer to require the dagger as a helpmate. The third was the age of the small-sword. With its light, elegant and deadly practice we enter a new atmosphere, so to speak, on fencing ground. Suppleness of wrist and precision of fingering replace the ramping and traversing, the heavy forcing play, of the Elizabethan. If the rapier age was well exemplified by Vincent Saviolo, this one was typified, albeit perhaps at a time when it was already somewhat on the wane, by the admirable Angelo Tremamondo Malevolti.

In the early days of the small-sword age men still fenced in play as they fought in earnest. But presently there appeared on the scene (during the last years of the 18th century) an implement destined to revolutionize the art and hopelessly to divide the practice of the school from that of the field: that was the fencing mask. Before this invention, small-sword play in the master's room was perforce comparatively cautious, correct, sure and above all deliberate. The long, excited, argumentative phrases of modern assaults were unknown; and so was the almost inevitably consequent scrimmage. But under the protection of the fencing mask a new school of foil-play was evolved, one in which swiftness and inveteracy of attack and parry, of _riposte_, _remise_, _counter-riposte_ and _reprise_, assumed an all-important character. With the new style began to assert itself that utter recklessness of "chance hits" which in our days so markedly differentiates foil-practice from actual duelling. And this brings us to the fourth phase, the fencing art, to what may be called the age of the foil.

If anything were required to demonstrate that foil-play has nowadays passed into the state of what may be called fine art in athleticism, it would be found in the rise of the method which French masters particularize as _le jeu du terrain_, as duelling play in fact; a play which differs as completely from academic foil-fencing as cross-country riding in an unknown district from the _haute ecole_ of horsemanship in the _manege_. By fencing, nowadays, that is by foil-play, we have come to mean not simply fighting for hits, but a strictly regulated game which, being quite conventional, does not take accidental hits into consideration at all. This game requires for its perfect display a combination of artificial circumstances, such as even floors, featherweight weapons, and an unconditional acceptance of a number of traditional conventions. Now, for the more utilitarian purposes of duelling, the major part of the foil fencer's special achievement and brilliancy has to be uncompromisingly sacrificed in the presence of the brutal fact that thrusts in the face, or below the waist, _do_ count, insomuch as they may kill; that _accidental_ hits in the arm or the leg cannot be disregarded, for they may, and generally do, put a premature stop to the bout. The "rub on the green" must be accepted, perforce, and indeed often plays as important a part in the issue of the game as the player's skill. The fact, however, that in earnest encounters all conventionalities which determine the value of a hit vanish, does not in any way justify the notion, prevalent among many, that a successful hit justifies any method of planting the same; and that the mere discarding of all convention in practical sword-play is sufficient to convert a bad fencer into a dangerous duellist.

It is the recognition of this fact (which, oddly enough, only came to be generally admitted, and not without reluctance, by the masters of the art during the last quarter of the 19th century) which has led to the elaboration of the modified system of small-sword fence now known as _epee_ play. The new system, after passing through various rather extravagant phases of its own, gradually returned to the main principle of sound foil-play, but shorn of all futile conventions as to the relative values of hits. In _epee_ play a hit is a hit, whether correctly delivered or reckless, whether intentional or the result of mere chance, and must, at the cost of much caution and patience, be guarded against.

_Per contra_ the elaboration by the devotees of the _epee_ of a really practical system of fence, that is, one applicable to trials in earnest, has reacted upon the teaching of foil-play by the best masters of the present day--a teaching which, without ceasing to be academical up to a certain point, takes now cognisance of the necessity of defending every part of the body as sedulously as the target of the breast, and, moreover, of warding the many possibilities of chance hits in _contretemps_.

In both plays--in the highly refined, complicated and brilliant fence of the first-class "foil," as well as in the simpler and more cautious operations of the practised duellist--the one golden rule remains, that one so quaintly expressed by M. Jourdain's _maitre d'armes_ in Moliere's comedy: "Tout le secret des armes ne consiste qu'en deux choses, a donner et a ne point recevoir."

The point most usually lost sight of by sanguine and self-reliant scorners of conventionalities is that, although with the sword it may be comparatively easy at any time "to give," it is by no means easy to make sure of "giving without receiving." The mutual simultaneous hit--the _coup-double_--is, in fact, the dread pitfall of all sword-play. For this reason, in courteous bouts, a hit has no real value, not only when it is actually cancelled by a counter, but when it is delivered in such a way as to admit of a counter. In short, the experience of ages and the careful consideration of probabilities have given birth to the various make-believes and restrictions that go to make sound foil-play. These restrictions are destined to act in the same direction as the warning presence of a sharp point instead of a button; and thus, as far as possible, to prevent those mutual hits--the _contretemps_ of the old masters--which mar the greater number of assaults. The proper observance of those conventions, other things being equal, distinguishes the good from the indifferent swordsman, the man who uses his head from him who rushes blindly where angels fear to tread. So much for foil-play.

In modern sword-play, on the other hand, is seen the usual tendency of arts which have reached their climax of complication to return to comparative simplicity. With reference to actual duelling, it is a recognized thing that it would be the height of folly to attempt, sword in hand, the complex attacks, the full-length lunges, the neat but somewhat weak parries of the foil; so much so, that many have been led to assert that, for its ultimate practical purpose (which logically is that of duelling), the refined art of the foil, requiring so many years of assiduous and methodical work, is next to useless. It is alleged, as a proof, that many successful duellists have happened to be indifferent performers on the fencing floor. Some even maintain that a few weeks' special work in that restricted--very restricted--play, which alone can be considered safe on the field of honour, will produce as good a practical swordsman as any who have walked the schools for years. Nothing can be further from the truth: were it but on the ground that the greater includes the less; that the foil-fencer of standing who can perform with ease and accuracy all the intricate movements of the assault, who has trained his hand and eye to the lightning speed of the well-handled foil, must logically prove more than a match for the more purely practical but less trained devotees of the _epee de combat_. The only difference for him in the two plays is that the latter is incomparably slower in action, simpler; that it demands above all things patience and caution; and especially that, instead of protecting his breast only, the _epee_ fencer must beware of the wily attack, or the chance hit, at _every_ part of his body, especially at his sword-hand.

The difference which still exists between the French and Italian schools of small-sword fence--by no means so wide, in point of theory, as popularly supposed--is mainly due to the dissimilarity of the weapons favoured by the two countries. The quillons, which are retained to this day in the Italian _fioretto_ and _spada_, conduce to a freer use of wrist-play and a straight arm. The French, on the other hand, having long ago adopted the plain grip both for _fleuret_ and _epee_, have come to rely more upon finger-play and a semi-bent arm. Both schools have long laid claims to an overwhelming superiority, on theoretical ground, over their rivals--claims which were unwarrantable. Indeed, of later days, especially since the evolution of a special "duelling play," the two schools show a decided tendency, notwithstanding the difference in the grip of the weapons, towards a mutual assimilation of principles.

As a duelling weapon--as one, that is to say, the practice of which under the restrictive influence of conventions could become elaborated into an art--the sabre (see SABRE-FENCING) returned to favour in some countries at the close of the Napoleonic wars. Considered from the historical point of view, the modern sabre, albeit now a very distant cousin of the small-sword, is as direct a descendant as the latter itself of the old cut-and-thrust rapier. It is curious, therefore, to note that, just as the practice of the "small" or thrusting sword gave rise to two rival schools, the French and the Italian, that of the sabre or cutting sword (it can hardly be called the broadsword, the blade, for the purposes of duelling play, having been reduced to slenderest proportions) became split up into two main systems, Italian and German. And further it is remarkable that the leading characteristics of the latter should still be, in a manner, "severity" and steadfastness; and that the former, the Italian, should rely, as of yore, specially upon agility and insidious cunning.

Concerning the latter-day evolution of that special and still more conventional system of fence, the _Schlager_ or _Hau-rapier_ play favoured by the German student, from that of the ancestral rapier, the curious will find a critical account in an article entitled "_Schlagerei_" which appeared in the _Saturday Review_, 5th of December 1885.

See also the separate articles on CANE-FENCING (_canne_); EPEE-DE-COMBAT; FOIL-FENCING; SABRE-FENCING; and SINGLE-STICK.

AUTHORITIES.--The bibliography of fencing is a copious subject; but it has been very completely dealt with in the following works: _Bibliotheca dimicatoria_, in the "Fencing, Boxing and Wrestling" volume of the Badminton library (Longmans); _A Bibliography of Fencing and Duelling_, by Carl A. Thimm (John Lane). For French works more especially: _La Bibliographie de l'escrime_, by Vigeant (Paris, Motteroz); and _Ma Collection d'escrime_, by the same (Paris, Quantin). For Italian books: _Bibliografia generale della scherma_, by Gelli (Firenza, Niccolai). For Spain and Portugal: _Libros de esgrima espanoles y portugueses_, by Leguina (Madrid, Los Huerfanos). Both M. Vigeant's and Cav. Gelli's works deal with the subject generally; but their entries are only critical, or even tolerably accurate, in the case of books belonging to their own countries. Concerning the history of the art, Egerton Castle's _Schools and Masters of Fence_ (George Bell); Hutton's _The Sword and the Centuries_ (Grant Richards); and Letainturier-Fradin's _Les Joueurs d'epee a travers les ages_ (Paris, Flammarion) cover the ground, technically and ethically. As typical exponents of the French and Italian schools respectively may be mentioned here: _La Theorie de l'escrime_, by Prevost (Paris, de Brunhof) (this is the work which was adopted in the Badminton volume on Fencing), and _Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma_, by Parise (Rome, Voghera). (E. Ca.)

FENDER, a metal guard or defence (whence the name) for a fire-place. When the open hearth with its logs burning upon dogs or andirons was replaced by the closed grate, the fender was devised as a finish to the smaller fire-places, and as a safeguard against the dropping of cinders upon the wooden floor, which was now much nearer to the fire. Fenders are usually of steel, brass or iron, solid or pierced. Those made of brass in the latter part of the 18th and the earlier part of the 19th centuries are by far the most elegant and artistic. They usually had three claw feet, and the pierced varieties were often cut into arabesques or conventional patterns. The lyre and other motives of the Empire style were much used during the prevalence of that fashion. The modern fender is much lower and is often little more than a kerb; it is now not infrequently of stone or marble, fixed to the floor.

FENELON, BERTRAND DE SALIGNAC, seigneur de la Mothe (1523-1589), French diplomatist, came of an old family of Perigord. After serving in the army he was sent ambassador to England in 1568. At the request of Charles IX. he endeavoured to excuse to Elizabeth the massacre of St. Bartholomew as a necessity caused by a plot which had been laid against the life of the king of France. For some time after the death of Charles IX. Fenelon was continued in his office, but he was recalled in 1575 when Catherine de' Medici wished to bring about a marriage between Elizabeth and the duke of Alencon, and thought that another ambassador would have a better chance of success in the negotiation. In 1582 Fenelon was charged with a new mission to England, then to Scotland, and returned to France in 1583. He opposed the Protestants until the end of the reign of Henry III., but espoused the cause of Henry IV. He died in 1589. His nephew in the sixth degree was the celebrated archbishop of Cambrai.

Fenelon is the author of a number of writings, among which those of general importance are _Memoires touchant l'Angleterre et la Suisse, ou Sommaire de la negociation faite en Angleterre, l'an 1571_ (containing a number of the letters of Charles and his mother, relating to Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary and the Bartholomew massacre), published in the _Memoires_ of Castelnau (Paris, 1659); _Negociations de la Mothe Fenelon et de Michel, sieur de Mauvissiere, en Angleterre_; and _Depeches de M. de la Mothe Fenelon, Instructions au sieur de la Mauvissiere_, both contained in the edition of Castelnau's _Memoires_, published at Brussels in 1731. The correspondence of Fenelon was published at Paris in 1838-1841, in 7 vols. 8vo.

See "Lettres de Catherine de' Medicis," edited by Hector de la Ferriere (1880 seq.) in the _Collection de documents inedits sur l'histoire de France_.

FENELON, FRANCOIS DE SALIGNAC DE LA MOTHE (1651-1715), French writer and archbishop of Cambrai, was born at the chateau of Fenelon in Perigord on the 6th of August 1651. His father, Pons, comte de Fenelon, was a country gentleman of ancient lineage, large family and small estate. Owing to his delicate health the boy's early education was carried on at home; though he was able to spend some time at the neighbouring university of Cahors. In 1666 he came to Paris, under charge of his father's brother, Antoine, marquis de Fenelon, a retired soldier of distinction, well known for his religious zeal. Three years later he entered the famous theological college of Saint Sulpice. Here, while imbibing the somewhat mystical piety of the house, he had an excellent chance of carrying on his beloved classical studies; indeed, at one time he proposed to couple sacred and profane together, and go on a missionary journey to the Levant. "There I shall once more make the Apostle's voice heard in the Church of Corinth. I shall stand on that Areopagus where St. Paul preached to the sages of this world an unknown God. But I do not scorn to descend thence to the Piraeus, where Socrates sketched the plan of his republic. I shall mount to the double summit of Parnassus; I shall revel in the joys of Tempe." Family opposition, however, put an end to this attractive prospect. Fenelon remained at Saint Sulpice till 1679, when he was made "superior" of a "New Catholic" sisterhood in Paris--an institution devoted to the conversion of Huguenot ladies. Of his work here nothing is known for certain. Presumably it was successful; since in the winter of 1685, just after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, Fenelon was put at the head of a number of priests, and sent on a mission to the Protestants of Saintonge, the district immediately around the famous Huguenot citadel of La Rochelle. To Fenelon such employment was clearly uncongenial; and if he was rather too ready to employ unsavoury methods--such as bribery and espionage--among his proselytes, his general conduct was kindly and statesmanlike in no slight degree. But neither in his actions nor in his writings is there the least trace of that belief in liberty of conscience ascribed to him by 18th-century philosophers. Tender-hearted he might be in practice; but toleration he declares synonymous with "cowardly indulgence and false compassion."

Meanwhile the marquis de Fenelon had introduced his nephew into the devout section of the court, dominated by Mme de Maintenon. He became a favourite disciple of Bossuet, and at the bishop's instance undertook to refute certain metaphysical errors of Father Malebranche. Followed thereon an independent philosophical _Treatise on the Existence of God_, wherein Fenelon rewrote Descartes in the spirit of St Augustine. More important were his _Dialogues on Eloquence_, wherein he entered an eloquent plea for greater simplicity and naturalness in the pulpit, and urged preachers to take the scriptural, natural style of Bossuet as their model, rather than the coldly analytic eloquence of his great rival, Bourdaloue. Still more important was his _Treatise on the Education of Girls_, being the first systematic attempt ever made to deal with that subject as a whole. Hence it was probably the most influential of all Fenelon's books, and guided French ideas on the question all through the 18th century. It holds a most judicious balance between the two opposing parties of the time. On the one side were the _precieuses_, enthusiasts for the "higher" education of their sex; on the other were the heavy Philistines, so often portrayed by Moliere, who thought that the less girls knew the better they were likely to be. Fenelon sums up in favour of the cultivated house-wife; his first object was to persuade the mothers to take charge of their girls themselves, and fit them to become wives and mothers in their turn.

The book brought its author more than literary glory. In 1689 Fenelon was gazetted tutor to the duke of Burgundy, eldest son of the dauphin, and eventual heir to the crown. The character of this strange prince has been drawn once for all by Saint-Simon. Shortly it may be said that he was essentially a mass of contradictions--brilliant, passionate to the point of mania, but utterly weak and unstable, capable of developing into a saint or a monster, but quite incapable of becoming an ordinary human being. Fenelon assailed him on the religious side, and managed to transform him into a devotee, exceedingly affectionate, earnest and religious, but woefully lacking in tact and common sense. In justice, however, it should be added that his health was being steadily undermined by a mysterious internal complaint, and that Fenelon's tutorship came to an end on his disgrace in 1697, before the pupil was fifteen. The abiding result of his tutorship is a code of carefully graduated moral lessons--the _Fables_, the _Dialogues of the Dead_ (a series of imaginary conversations between departed heroes), and finally _Telemaque_, where the adventures of the son of Ulysses in search of a father are made into a political novel with a purpose. Not, indeed, that Fenelon meant his book to be the literal paper Constitution some of his contemporaries thought it. Like other Utopias, it is an easy-going compromise between dreams and possibilities. Its one object was to broaden Burgundy's mind, and ever keep before his eyes the "great and holy maxim that kings exist for the sake of their subjects, not subjects for the sake of kings." Here and there Fenelon carries his philanthropy to lengths curiously prophetic of the age of Rousseau--fervid denunciation of war, belief in nature and fraternity of nations. And he has a truly 18th-century belief in the all-efficiency of institutions. Mentor proposes to "change the tastes and habits of the whole people, and build up again from the very foundations." Fenelon is on firmer ground when he leads a reaction against the "mercantile system" of Colbert, with its crushing restrictions on trade; or when he sings the praises of agriculture, in the hope of bringing back labour to the land, and thereby ensuring the physical efficiency of the race. Valuable and far-sighted as were these ideas, they fitted but ill into the scheme of a romance. Seldom was Voltaire wider of the mark than when he called _Telemaque_ a Greek poem in French prose. It is too _motive_, too full of ingenious contrivances, to be really Greek. As, in Fenelon's own opinion, the great merit of Homer was his "amiable simplicity," so the great merit of _Telemaque_ is the art that gives to each adventure its hidden moral, to each scene some sly reflection on Versailles. Under stress of these preoccupations, however, organic unity of structure went very much to the wall, and _Telemaque_ is a grievous offender against its author's own canons of literary taste. Not that it altogether lost thereby. There is a curious richness in this prose, so full of rhythm and harmony, that breaks at every moment into verse, as it drags itself along its slow and weary way, half-fainting under an overload of epithets. And although no single feature of the book is Greek, there hangs round it a moral fragrance only to be called forth by one who had fulfilled the vow of his youth, and learnt to breathe, as purely as on "the double summit of Parnassus," the very essence of the antique.

_Telemaque_ was published in 1699. Four years before, Fenelon had been appointed archbishop of Cambrai, one of the richest benefices in France. Very soon afterwards, however, came the great calamity of his life. In the early days of his tutorship he had met the Quietist apostle, Mme Guyon (q.v.), and had been much struck by some of her ideas. These he developed along lines of his own, where Christian Neoplatonism curiously mingles with theories of chivalry and disinterestedness, borrowed from the _precieuses_ of his own time. His mystical principles are set out at length in his _Maxims of the Saints_, published in 1697 (see QUIETISM). Here he argues that the more love we have for ourselves, the less we can spare for our Maker. Perfection lies in getting rid of self-hood altogether--in never thinking of ourselves, or even of the relation in which God stands to us. The saint does not love Christ as _his_ Redeemer, but only as _the_ Redeemer of the human race. Bossuet (q.v.) attacked this position as inconsistent with Christianity. Fenelon promptly appealed to Rome, and after two years of bitter controversy his book was condemned by Innocent XII. in 1699. As to the merits of the controversy opinion will always be divided. On the point of doctrine all good judges agree that Fenelon was wrong; though many still welcome the _obiter dictum_ of Pope Innocent, that Fenelon erred by loving God too much, and Bossuet by loving his neighbour too little. Of late years, however, Bossuet has found powerful defenders; and if they have not cleared his character from reproach, they have certainly managed to prove that Fenelon's methods of controversy were not much better than his. One of the results of the quarrel was Fenelon's banishment from court; for Louis XIV. had ardently taken Bossuet's side, and brought all the batteries of French influence to bear on the pope. Immediately on the outbreak of the controversy, Fenelon was exiled to his diocese, and during the last eighteen years of his life he was only once allowed to leave it.

To Cambrai, accordingly, all his energies were now directed. Even Saint-Simon allows that his episcopal duties were perfectly performed. Tours of inspection, repeated several times a year, brought him into touch with every corner of his diocese. It was administered with great strictness, and yet on broad and liberal lines. There was no bureaucratic fussiness, no seeking after popularity; but every man, whether great or small, was treated exactly as became his station in the world. And Saint-Simon bears the same witness to his government of his palace. There he lived with all the piety of a true pastor, yet with all the dignity of a great nobleman, who was still on excellent terms with the world. But his magnificence made no one angry, for it was kept up chiefly for the sake of others, and was exactly proportionate to his place. With all its luxuries and courtly ease, his house remained a true bishop's palace, breathing the strictest discipline and restraint. And of all this chastened dignity the archbishop was himself the ever-present, ever-inimitable model--in all that he did the perfect churchman, in all the high-bred noble, in all things, also, the author of _Telemaque_.

The one great blot on this ideal existence was his persecution of the Jansenists (see JANSENISM). His theories of life were very different from theirs; and they had taken a strong line against his _Maxims of the Saints_, holding that visionary theories of perfection were ill-fitted for a world where even the holiest could scarce be saved. To suppress them, and to gain a better market for his own ideas, he was even ready to strike up an alliance with the Jesuits, and force on a reluctant France the doctrine of papal infallibility. His time was much better employed in fitting his old pupil, Burgundy, for a kingship that never came. Louis XIV. seldom allowed them to meet, but for years they corresponded; and nothing is more admirable than the mingled tact and firmness with which Fenelon spoke his mind about the prince's faults. This exchange of letters became still more frequent in 1711, when the wretched dauphin died and left Burgundy heir-apparent to the throne. Fenelon now wrote a series of memorable criticisms on the government of Louis XIV., accompanied by projects of reform, not always quite so wise. For his practical political service was to act as an alarm-bell. Much more clearly than most men, he saw that the Bourbons were tottering to their fall, but how to prevent that fall he did not know.

Not that any amount of knowledge would have availed. In 1712 Burgundy died, and with him died all his tutor's hopes of reform. From this moment his health began to fail, though he mustered strength enough to write a remarkable _Letter to the French Academy_ in the autumn of 1714. This is really a series of general reflections on the literary movement of his time. As in his political theories, the critical element is much stronger than the constructive. Fenelon was feeling his way away from the rigid standards of Boileau to "a Sublime so simple and familiar that all may understand it." But some of his methods were remarkably erratic; he was anxious, for instance, to abolish verse, as unsuited to the genius of the French. In other respects, however, he was far before his age. The 17th century has treated literature as it treated politics and religion; each of the three was cooped up in a water-tight compartment by itself. Fenelon was one of the first to break down these partition-walls, and insist on viewing all three as products of a single spirit, seen at different angles.

A few weeks after the _Letter_ was written, Fenelon met with a carriage-accident, and the shock proved too much for his enfeebled frame. On the 7th of January 1715 he died at the age of 63. Ever since, his character has been a much-discussed enigma. Bossuet can only be thought of as the high-priest of authority and common-sense; but Fenelon has been made by turns into a sentimentalist, a mystical saint, an 18th-century _philosophe_, an ultramontane churchman and a hysterical hypocrite. And each of these views, except the last, contains an element of truth. More than most men, Fenelon "wanders between two worlds--one dead, the other powerless to be born." He came just at a time when the characteristic ideas of the 17th century--the ideas of Louis XIV., of Bossuet and Boileau--had lost their savour, and before another creed could arise to take their place. Hence, like most of those who break away from an established order, he seems by turns a revolutionist and a reactionary. Such a man expresses his ideas much better by word of mouth than in the cold formality of print; and Fenelon's contemporaries thought far more highly of his conversation than his books. That downright, gossiping German princess, the duchess of Orleans, cared little for the _Maxims_; but she was enraptured by their author, and his "ugly face, all skin and bone, though he laughed and talked quite unaffectedly and easily." An observer of very different mettle, the great lawyer d'Aguesseau, dwells on the "noble singularity, that gave him an almost prophetic air. Yet he was neither passionate nor masterful. Though in reality he governed others, it was always by seeming to give way; and he reigned in society as much by the attraction of his manners as by the superior virtue of his parts. Under his hand the most trifling subjects gained a new importance; yet he treated the gravest with a touch so light that he seemed to have invented the sciences rather than learnt them, for he was always a creator, always original, and himself was imitable of none." Still better is Saint-Simon's portrait of Fenelon as he appeared about the time of his appointment to Cambrai--tall, thin, well-built, exceedingly pale, with a great nose, eyes from which fire and genius poured in torrents, a face curious and unlike any other, yet so striking and attractive that, once seen, it could not be forgotten. There were to be found the most contradictory qualities in perfect agreement with each other--gravity and courtliness, earnestness and gaiety, the man of learning, the noble and the bishop. But all centred in an air of high-bred dignity, of graceful, polished seemliness and wit--it cost an effort to turn away one's eyes.

AUTHORITIES.--The best complete edition of Fenelon was brought out by the abbe Gosselin of Saint Sulpice (10 vols., Paris, 1851). Gosselin also edited the _Histoire de Fenelon_, by Cardinal Bausset (4 vols., Paris, 1850). Modern authorities are _Fenelon a Cambrai_ (Paris, 1885), by Emmanuel de Broglie; _Fenelon_, by Paul Janet (Paris, 1892); _Bossuet et Fenelon_, by L. Crousle (2 vols., Paris, 1894); J. Lemaitre, _Fenelon_ (1910). In English there are: _Fenelon, his Friends and Enemies_, by E.K. Sanders (1901); and _Francois de Fenelon_, by Lord St Cyres (1906); see also the _Quarterly Review_ for January 1902, and M. Masson, _Fenelon et Madame Guyon_ (1907). (St. C.)

FENESTELLA, Roman historian and encyclopaedic writer, flourished in the reign of Tiberius. If the notice in Jerome be correct, he lived from 52 B.C. to A.D. 19 (according to others 35 B.C.-A.D. 36). Taking Varro for his model, Fenestella was one of the chief representatives of the new style of historical writing which, in the place of the brilliant descriptive pictures of Livy, discussed curious and out-of-the-way incidents and customs of political and social life, including literary history. He was the author of an _Annales_, probably from the earliest times down to his own days. The fragments indicate the great variety of subjects discussed: the origin of the appeal to the people (_provocatio_); the use of elephants in the circus games; the wearing of gold rings; the introduction of the olive tree; the material for making the toga; the cultivation of the soil; certain details as to the lives of Cicero and Terence. The work was very much used (mention is made of an abridged edition) by Pliny the elder, Asconius Pedianus (the commentator on Cicero), Nonius, and the philologists.

Fragments in H. Peter, _Historicorum Romanorum fragmenta_ (1883); see also monographs by L. Mercklin (1844) and J. Poeth (1849); M. Schanz, _Geschichte der rom. Litt._ ed. 2 (1901); Teuffel, _Hist. of Roman Literature_, p. 259. A work published under the name of L. Fenestella (_De magistratibus et sacerdotiis Romanorum_, 1510) is really by A.D. Fiocchi, canon and papal secretary, and was subsequently published as by him (under the latinized form of his name, Floccus), edited by Aegidius Witsius (1561).

FENESTRATION (from O. Fr. _fenestre_, modern _fenetre_, Lat. _fenestra_, a window, connected with Gr. [Greek: phainein], to show), an architectural term applied to the arrangement of windows on the front of a building, more especially when, in the absence of columns or pilasters separating them, they constitute its chief architectural embellishment. The term "fenestral" is given to a frame or "chassis" on which oiled paper or thin cloth was strained to keep out wind and rain when the windows were not glazed.

FENIANS, or FENIAN BROTHERHOOD, the name of a modern Irish-American revolutionary secret society, founded in America by John O'Mahony (1816-1877) in 1858. The name was derived from an anglicized version of _fiann_, _feinne_, the legendary band of warriors in Ireland led by the hero Find Mac Cumaill (see FINN MAC COOL; and CELT: _Celtic Literature: Irish_); and it was given to his organization of conspirators by O'Mahony, who was a Celtic scholar and had translated Keating's _History of Ireland_ in 1857. After the collapse of William Smith O'Brien's attempted rising in 1848, O'Mahony, who was concerned in it, escaped abroad, and since 1852 had been living in New York. James Stephens, another of the "men of 1848," had established himself in Paris, and was in correspondence with O'Mahony and other disaffected Irishmen at home and abroad. A club called the Phoenix National and Literary Society, with Jeremiah Donovan (afterwards known as O'Donovan Rossa) among its more prominent members, had recently been formed at Skibbereen; and under the influence of Stephens, who visited it in May 1858, it became the centre of preparations for armed rebellion. About the same time O'Mahony in the United States established the "Fenian Brotherhood," whose members bound themselves by an oath of "allegiance to the Irish Republic, now virtually established," and swore to take up arms when called upon and to yield implicit obedience to the commands of their superior officers. The object of Stephens, O'Mahony and other leaders of the movement was to form a great league of Irishmen in all parts of the world against British rule in Ireland. The organization was modelled on that of the French Jacobins at the Revolution; there was a "Committee of Public Safety" in Paris, with a number of subsidiary committees, and affiliated clubs; its operations were conducted secretly by unknown and irresponsible leaders; and it had ramifications in every part of the world, the "Fenians," as they soon came to be generally called, being found in Australia, South America, Canada, and above all in the United States, as well as in the large centres of population in Great Britain such as London, Manchester and Glasgow. It is, however, noteworthy that Fenianism never gained much hold on the tenant-farmers or agricultural labourers in Ireland, although the scurrilous press by which it was supported preached a savage vendetta against the landowners, who were to be shot down "as we shoot robbers and rats."[1] The movement was denounced by the priests of the Catholic Church.

It was, however, some few years after the foundation of the Fenian Brotherhood before it made much headway, or at all events before much was heard of it outside the organization itself, though it is probable that large numbers of recruits had enrolled themselves in its "circles." The Phoenix Club conspiracy in Kerry was easily crushed by the government, who had accurate knowledge from an informer of what was going on. Some twenty ringleaders were put on trial, including Donovan, and when they pleaded guilty were, with a single exception, treated with conspicuous leniency. But after a convention held at Chicago under O'Mahony's presidency in November 1863 the movement began to show signs of life. About the same time the _Irish People_, a revolutionary journal of extreme violence, was started in Dublin by Stephens, and for two years was allowed without molestation by the government to advocate armed rebellion, and to appeal for aid to Irishmen who had had military training in the American Civil War. At the close of that war in 1865 numbers of Irish who had borne arms flocked to Ireland, and the plans for a rising matured. The government, well served as usual by informers, now took action. In September 1865 the _Irish People_ was suppressed, and several of the more prominent Fenians were sentenced to terms of penal servitude; Stephens, through the connivance of a prison warder, escaped to France. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in the beginning of 1866, and a considerable number of persons were arrested. Stephens issued a bombastic proclamation in America announcing an imminent general rising in Ireland; but he was himself soon afterwards deposed by his confederates, among whom dissension had broken out. A few Irish-American officers, who landed at Cork in the expectation of commanding an army against England, were locked up in gaol; some petty disturbances in Limerick and Kerry were easily suppressed by the police.

In the United States, however, the Fenian Brotherhood, now under the presidency of W.R. Roberts, continued plotting. They raised money by the issue of bonds in the name of the "Irish Republic," which were bought by the credulous in the expectation of their being honoured when Ireland should be "a nation once again." A large quantity of arms was purchased, and preparations were openly made for a raid into Canada, which the United States government took no steps to prevent. It was indeed believed that President Andrew Johnson was not indisposed to turn the movement to account in the settlement of the Alabama claims. The Fenian "secretary for war" was General T.W. Sweeny (1820-1892), who temporarily (Jan. 1865-Nov. 1866) was struck off the American army list. The command of the expedition was entrusted to John O'Neill, who crossed the Niagara river at the head of some 800 men on the 1st of June 1866, and captured Fort Erie. But large numbers of his men deserted, and at Ridgeway the Fenians were routed by a battalion of Canadian volunteers. On the 3rd of June the remnant surrendered to the American warship "Michigan"; and the tardy issue of President Johnson's proclamation enforcing the laws of neutrality brought the raid to an ignominious end; the prisoners were released, and the arms taken from the raiders were, according to Henri Le Caron, "returned to the Fenian organization, only to be used for the same purpose some four years later." In December 1867, John O'Neill became president of the Brotherhood in America, which in the following year held a great convention in Philadelphia attended by over 400 properly accredited delegates, while 6000 Fenian soldiers, armed and in uniform, paraded the streets. At this convention a second invasion of Canada was determined upon; while the news of the Clerkenwell explosion in London (see below) was a strong incentive to a vigorous policy. Le Caron (q.v.), who, while acting as a secret agent of the English government, held the position of "inspector-general of the Irish Republican Army," asserts that he "distributed fifteen thousand stands of arms and almost three million rounds of ammunition in the care of the many trusted men stationed between Ogdensburg and St Albans," in preparation for the intended raid. It took place in April 1870, and proved a failure not less rapid or complete than the attempt of 1866. The Fenians under O'Neill's command crossed the Canadian frontier near Franklin, Vt., but were dispersed by a single volley from Canadian volunteers; while O'Neill himself was promptly arrested by the United States authorities acting under the orders of President Grant.

Meantime in Ireland, after the suppression of the _Irish People_, disaffection had continued to smoulder, and during the latter part of 1866 Stephens endeavoured to raise funds in America for a fresh rising planned for the following year. A bold move on the part of the Fenian "circles" in Lancashire had been concerted in co-operation with the movement in Ireland. An attack was to be made on Chester, the arms stored in the castle were to be seized, the telegraph wires cut, the rolling stock on the railway to be appropriated for transport to Holyhead, where shipping was to be seized and a descent made on Dublin before the authorities should have time to interfere. This scheme was frustrated by information given to the government by the informer John Joseph Corydon, one of Stephens's most trusted agents. Some insignificant outbreaks in the south and west of Ireland brought "the rebellion of 1867" to an ignominious close. Most of the ringleaders were arrested, but although some of them were sentenced to death none was executed. On the 11th of September 1867, Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, "deputy central organizer of the Irish Republic," one of the most dangerous of the Fenian conspirators, was arrested in Manchester, whither he had gone from Dublin to attend a council of the English "centres," together with a companion, Captain Deasy. A plot to effect the rescue of these prisoners was hatched by Edward O'Meaher Condon with other Manchester Fenians; and on the 18th of September, while Kelly and Deasy were being conveyed through the city from the court-house, the prison van was attacked by Fenians armed with revolvers, and in the scuffle police-sergeant Brett, who was seated inside the van, was shot dead. Condon, Allen, Larkin, Maguire and O'Brien, who had taken a prominent part in the rescue, were arrested. All five were sentenced to death; but Condon, who was an American citizen, was respited at the request of the United States government, his sentence being commuted to penal servitude for life, and Maguire was granted a pardon. Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were hanged on the 23rd of November for the murder of Brett. Attempts were made at the time, and have since been repeated, to show that these men were unjustly sentenced, the contention of their sympathizers being, first, that as "political offenders" they should not have been treated as ordinary murderers; and, secondly, that as they had no deliberate intention to kill the police-sergeant, the shot that caused his death having been fired for the purpose of breaking open the lock of the van, the crime was at worst that of manslaughter. But even if these pleas rest on a correct statement of the facts they have no legal validity, and they afford no warrant for the title of the "Manchester martyrs" by which these criminals are remembered among the more extreme nationalists in Ireland and America. Kelly and Deasy escaped to the United States, where the former obtained employment in the New York custom-house.

In the same month, November 1867, one Richard Burke, who had been employed by the Fenians to purchase arms in Birmingham, was arrested and lodged in Clerkenwell prison in London. While he was awaiting trial a wall of the prison was blown down by gunpowder, the explosion causing the death of twelve persons, and the maiming of some hundred and twenty others. This outrage, for which Michael Barrett suffered the death penalty, powerfully influenced W.E. Gladstone in deciding that the Protestant Church of Ireland should be disestablished as a concession to Irish disaffection. In 1870, Michael Davitt (q.v.) was sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude for participation in the Fenian conspiracy; and before he was released on ticket of leave the name Fenian had become practically obsolete, though the "Irish Republican Brotherhood" and other organizations in Ireland and abroad carried on the same tradition and pursued the same policy in later years. In 1879, John Devoy, a member of the Fenian Brotherhood, promoted a "new departure" in America, by which the "physical force party" allied itself with the "constitutional movement" under the leadership of C.S. Parnell (q.v.); and the political conspiracy of the Fenians was combined with the agrarian revolution inaugurated by the Land League.

See William O'Connor Morris, _Ireland from 1798 to 1898_ (London, 1898); _Two Centuries of Irish History, 1601-1870_, edited by R. Barry O'Brien (London, 1907); Henri Le Caron, _Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service_ (London, 1892); Patrick J.P. Tynan, _The Irish National Invincibles and their Times_ (London, 1896); Justin M'Carthy, _A History of our own Times_ (4 vols., London, 1880). (R. J. M.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] William O'Connor Morris, _Ireland 1798-1898_, p. 195.

FENNEL, _Foeniculum vulgare_ (also known as _F. capillaceum_), a perennial plant of the natural order Umbelliferae, from 2 to 3 or (when cultivated) 4 ft. in height, having leaves three or four times pinnate, with numerous linear or awl-shaped segments, and glaucous compound umbels of about 15 or 20 rays, with no involucres, and small yellow flowers, the petals incurved at the tip. The fruit is laterally compressed, five-ridged, and has a large single resin-canal or "vitta" under each furrow. The plant appears to be of south European origin, but is now met with in various parts of Britain and the rest of temperate Europe, and in the west of Asia. The dried fruits of cultivated plants from Malta have an aromatic taste and odour, and are used for the preparation of fennel water, valued for its carminative properties. It is given in doses of 1 to 2 oz., the active principle being a volatile oil which is probably the same as oil of anise. The shoots of fennel are eaten blanched, and the seeds are used for flavouring. The fennel seeds of commerce are of several sorts. Sweet or Roman fennel seeds are the produce of a tall perennial plant, with umbels of 25-30 rays, which is cultivated near Nismes in the south of France; they are elliptical and arched in form, about 2/5 in. long and a quarter as broad, and are smooth externally, and of a colour approaching a pale green. Shorter and straighter fruits are obtained from the annual variety of _F. vulgare_ known as _F. Panmorium_ (_Panmuhuri_) or Indian fennel, and are employed in India in curries, and for medicinal purposes. Other kinds are the German or Saxon fruits, brownish-green in colour, and between 1/5 and 1/4 in. in length, and the broader but smaller fruits of the wild or bitter fennel of the south of France. A variety of fennel, _F. dulce_, having the stem compressed at the base, and the umbel 6-8 rayed, is grown in kitchen-gardens for the sake of its leaves.

Giant fennel is the name applied to the plant _Ferula communis_, a member of the same natural order, and a fine herbaceous plant, native in the Mediterranean region, where the pith of the stem is used as tinder. Hog's or sow fennel is the species _Peucedanum officinale_, another member of the Umbelliferae.

FENNER, DUDLEY (c. 1558-1587), English puritan divine, was born in Kent and educated at Cambridge University. There he became an adherent of Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603), and publicly expounded his presbyterian views, with the result that he was obliged to leave Cambridge without taking his degree. For some months he seems to have assisted the vicar of Cranbrook, Kent, but it is doubtful whether he received ordination. He next followed Cartwright to Antwerp, and, having received ordination according to rite of the Reformed church, assisted Cartwright for several years in preaching to the English congregation there. The leniency shown by Archbishop Grindal to puritans encouraged him to return to England, and he became curate of Cranbrook in 1583. In the same year, however, he was one of seventeen Kentish ministers suspended for refusing to sign an acknowledgment of the queen's supremacy and of the authority of the Prayer Book and articles. He was imprisoned for a time, but eventually regained his liberty and spent the remainder of his life as chaplain in the Reformed church at Middleburgh.

A list of his authentic works is given in Cooper's _Athenae Cantabrigienses_ (Cambridge, 1858-1861). They rank among the best expositions of the principles of puritanism.

FENNY STRATFORD, a market town in the Buckingham parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 48 m. N.W. by N. of London on a branch of the London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 4799. It lies in an open valley on the west (left) bank of the Ouzel, where the great north-western road from London, the Roman Watling Street, crosses the stream, and is 1 m. E. of Bletchley, an important junction on the main line of the North-Western railway. The church of St Martin was built (c. 1730) on the site of an older church at the instance of Dr Browne Willis, an eminent antiquary (d. 1760), buried here; but the building has been greatly enlarged. A custom instituted by Willis on St Martin's Day (November 11th) includes a service in the church, the firing of some small cannon called the "Fenny Poppers," and other celebrations. The trade of the town is mainly agricultural.

FENRIR, or FENRIS, in Scandinavian mythology, a water-demon in the shape of a huge wolf. He was the offspring of Loki and the giantess Angurboda, who bore two other children, Midgard the serpent, and Hel the goddess of death. Fenrir grew so large that the gods were afraid of him and had him chained up. But he broke the first two chains. The third, however, was made of the sound of a cat's footsteps, a man's beard, the roots of a mountain, a fish's breath and a bird's spittle. This magic bond was too strong for him until Ragnarok (Judgment Day), when he escaped and swallowed Odin and was in turn slain by Vidar, the latter's son.

FENS,[1] a district in the east of England, possessing a distinctive history and peculiar characteristics. It lies west and south of the Wash, in Lincolnshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, and extends over more than 70 m. in length (Lincoln to Cambridge) and some 35 m. in maximum breadth. (Stamford to Brandon in Suffolk), its area being considerably over half a million acres. Although low and flat, and seamed by innumerable water-courses, the entire region is not, as the Roman name of _Metaris Aestuarium_ would imply, a river estuary, but a bay of the North Sea, silted up, of which the Wash is the last remaining portion. Hydrographically, the Fens embrace the lower parts of the drainage-basins of the rivers Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse; and against these streams, as against the ocean, they are protected by earthen embankments, 10 to 15 ft. high. As a rule the drainage water is lifted off the Fens into the rivers by means of steam-pumps, formerly by windmills.

_General History._--According to fairly credible tradition, the first systematic attempt to drain the Fens was made by the Romans. They dug a catchwater drain (as the artificial fenland water-courses are called), the Caer or Car Dyke, from Lincoln to Ramsey (or, according to Stukeley, as far as Cambridge), along the western edge of the Fens, to carry off the precipitation of the higher districts which border the fenland, and constructed alongside the Welland and on the seashore earthen embankments, of which some 150 m. survive. Mr S.H. Miller is disposed to credit the native British inhabitants of the Fens with having executed certain of these works. The Romans also carried causeways over the country. After their departure from Britain in the first half of the 5th century the Fens fell into neglect; and despite the preservation of the woodlands for the purposes of the chase by the Norman and early Plantagenet kings, and the unsuccessful attempt which Richard de Rulos, chamberlain of William the Conqueror, made to drain Deeping Fen, the fenland region became almost everywhere waterlogged, and relapsed to a great extent into a state of nature. In addition to this it was ravaged by serious inundations of the sea, for example, in the years 1178, 1248 (or 1250), 1288, 1322, 1335, 1467, 1571. Yet the fenland was not altogether a wilderness of reed-grown marsh and watery swamp. At various spots, more particularly in the north and in the south, there existed islands of firmer and higher ground, resting generally on the boulder clays of the Glacial epochs and on the inter-Glacial gravels of the Palaeolithic age. In these isolated localities members of the monastic orders (especially at a later date the Cistercians) began to settle after about the middle of the 7th century. At Medeshampstead (i.e. Peterborough), Ely, Crowland, Ramsey, Thorney, Spalding, Peakirk, Swineshead, Tattershall, Kirkstead, Bardney, Sempringham, Bourne and numerous other places, they made settlements and built churches, monasteries and abbeys. In spite of the incursions of the predatory Northmen and Danes in the 9th and 10th centuries, and of the disturbances consequent upon the establishment of the Camp of Refuge by Hereward the Wake in the fens of the Isle of Ely in the 11th century, these scattered outposts continued to shed rays of civilization across the lonely Fenland down to the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. Then they, too, were partly overtaken by the fate which befell the rest of the Fens; and it was only in the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century that the complete drainage and reclamation of the Fen region was finally effected. Attempts on a considerable scale were indeed made to reclaim them in the 17th century, and the work as a whole forms one of the most remarkable chapters of the industrial history of England. Thus, the reclamation of the Witham Fens was taken up by Sir Anthony Thomas, the earl of Lindsey, Sir William Killigrew, King Charles I., and others in 1631 and succeeding years; and that of the Deeping or Welland Fens in 1638 by Sir W. Ayloff, Sir Anthony Thomas and other "adventurers," after one Thomas Lovell had ruined himself in a similar attempt in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The earl of Lindsey received 24,000 acres for his work. Charles I., declaring himself the "undertaker" of the Holland Fen, claimed 8000 out of its 22,000 acres as his share.

A larger work than these, however, was the drainage of the fens of the Nene and the Great Ouse, comprehending the wide tract known as the Bedford level. This district took name from the agreement of Francis, earl of Bedford, the principal land-holder, and thirteen other adventurers, with Charles I. in 1634, to drain the level, on condition of receiving 95,000 acres of the reclaimed land. A partial attempt at drainage had been made (1478-1490) by John Morton, when bishop of Ely, who constructed Morton's Leam, from Peterborough to the sea, to carry the waters of the Nene, but this also proved a failure. An act was passed, moreover, in 1602 for effecting its reclamation; and Lord Chief-Justice Popham (whose name is preserved in Popham's Eau, S.E. of Wisbech) and a company of Londoners began the work in 1605; but the first effectual attempt was that of 1634. The work was largely directed by the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden, who had begun work in the Fens in 1621, and was knighted in 1628.

Three years after the agreement of the earl of Bedford and his partners with the king, after an outlay of L100,000 on the part of the company, the contract was annulled, on the fraudulent plea that the works were insufficient; and an offer was made by King Charles to undertake its completion on condition of receiving 57,000 acres in addition to the amount originally agreed on. This unjust attempt was frustrated by the breaking out of the civil war; and no further attempt at drainage was made until 1649, when the parliament reinstated the earl of Bedford's successor in his father's rights. After an additional outlay of L300,000, the adventurers received 95,000 acres of reclaimed land, according to the contract, which, however, fell far short of repaying the expense of the undertaking. In 1664 a royal charter was obtained to incorporate the company, which still exists, and carries on the concern under a governor, 6 bailiffs, 20 conservators, and a commonalty, each of whom must possess 100 acres of land in the level, and has a voice in the election of officers. The conservators must each possess not less than 280 acres, the governor and bailiffs each 400 acres. The original adventurers had allotments of land according to their interest of the original 95,000 acres; but Charles II., on granting the charter, took care to secure to the crown a lot of 12,000 acres out of the 95,000, which, however, is held under the directors, whereas the allotments are not held in common, though subject to the laws of the corporation. The level was divided in 1697 into three parts, called the North, Middle, and South Levels--the second being separated from the others by the Nene and Old Bedford rivers.

These attempts failed owing to the determined opposition of the native fenmen ("stilt-walkers"), whom the drainage and appropriation of the unenclosed fenlands would deprive of valuable and long-enjoyed rights of commonage, turbary (turf-cutting), fishing, fowling, &c. Oliver Cromwell is said to have put himself at their head and succeeded in stopping all the operations. When he became Protector, however, he sanctioned Vermuyden's plans, and Scottish prisoners taken at Dunbar, and Dutch prisoners taken by Blake in his victory over Van Tromp, were employed as the workers. Vermuyden's system, however, was exclusively Dutch; and while perfectly suited to Holland it did not meet all the necessities of East Anglia. He confined his attention almost exclusively to the inland draining and embankments, and did not provide sufficient outlet for the waters themselves into the sea.

Holland and other Fens on the west side of the Witham were finally drained in 1767, although not without much rioting and lawlessness; and a striking account of the wonderful improvements effected by a generation later is recorded in Arthur Young's _General View of the Agriculture of the County of Lincoln_ (London, 1799). The East, West and Wildmore Fens on the east side of the Witham were drained in 1801-1807 by John Rennie, who carried off the precipitation which fell on the higher grounds by catchwater drains, on the principle of the Roman Car Dyke, and improved the outfall of the river, so that it might the more easily discharge the Fen water which flowed or was pumped into it. The Welland or Deeping Fens were drained in 1794, 1801, 1824, 1837 and other years. Almost the only portion of the original wild Fens now remaining is Wicken Fen, which lies east of the river Cam and south-east of the Isle of Ely.

_The Fen Rivers._--The preservation of the Fens depends in an intimate and essential manner upon the preservation of the rivers, and especially of their banks. The Witham, known originally as the Grant Avon, also called the Lindis by Leyland (_Itinerary_, vol. vii. p. 41), and in Jean Ingelow's _High Tide on the Lincolnshire Coast_, is some 80 m. long, and drains an area of 1079 sq. m. It owes its present condition to engineering works carried out in the years 1762-1764, 1865, 1881, and especially in 1880-1884. In 1500 the river was dammed immediately above Boston by a large sluice, the effect of which was not only to hinder free navigation up to Lincoln (to which city sea-going vessels used to penetrate in the 14th and 15th centuries), but also to choke the channel below Boston with sedimentary matter. The sluice, or rather a new structure made in 1764-1766, remains; but the river below Boston has been materially improved (1880-1884), first by the construction of a new outfall, 3 m. in length, whereby the channel was not only straightened, but its current carried directly into deep water, without having to battle against the often shifting sandbanks of the Wash; and secondly, by the deepening and regulation of the river-bed up to Boston. The Welland, which is about 70 m. long, and drains an area of 760 sq. m., was made to assume its present shape and direction in 1620, 1638, 1650, 1794, and 1835 and following years. The most radical alteration took place in 1794, when a new outfall was made from the confluence of the Glen (30 m. long) to the Wash, a distance of nearly 3 m. The Nene, 90 m. long, and draining an area of some 1077 sq. m., was first regulated by Bishop Morton, and it was further improved in 1631, 1721, and especially, under plans by Rennie and Telford, in 1827-1830 and 1832. The work done from 1721 onward consisted in straightening the lower reaches of the stream and in directing and deepening the outfall. The Ouse (q.v.) or Great Ouse, the largest of the fenland rivers, seems to have been deflected, at some unknown period, from a former channel connecting via the Old Croft river with the Nene, into the Little Ouse below Littleport; and the courses of the two streams are now linked together by an elaborate network of artificial drains, the results of the great engineering works carried out in the Bedford Level in the 17th century. The old channel, starting from Earith, and known as the Old West river, carries only a small stream until, at a point above Ely, it joins the Cam. The salient features of the plan executed by Vermuyden[2] for the earl of Bedford in the years 1632-1653 were as follows: taking the division of the area made in 1697-1698 into (i.) the North Level, between the river Welland and the river Nene; (ii.) the Middle Level, between the Nene and the Old Bedford river (which was made at this time, i.e. 1630); and (iii.) the South Level, from the Old Bedford river to the south-eastern border of the fenland. In the North Level the Welland was embanked, the New South Eau, Peakirk Drain, and Shire Drain made, and the existing main drains deepened and regulated. In the Middle Level the Nene was embanked from Peterborough to Guyhirn, also the Ouse from Earith to Over, both places at the south-west edge of the fenland; the New Bedford river was made from Earith to Denver, and the north side of the Old Bedford river and the south side of the New Bedford river were embanked, a long narrow "wash," or overflow basin, being left between them; several large feeding-drains were dug, including the Forty Foot or Vermuyden's Drain, the Sixteen Foot river, Bevill's river, and the Twenty Foot river; and a new outfall was made for the Nene, and Denver sluice (to dam the old circuitous Ouse) constructed. In the South Level Sam's Cut was dug and the rivers were embanked. Since that period the mouth of the Ouse has been straightened above and below King's Lynn (1795-1821), a new straight cut made between Ely and Littleport, the North Level Main Drain and the Middle Level Drain constructed, and the meres of Ramsey, Whittlesey (1851-1852), &c., drained and brought under cultivation. A considerable barge traffic is maintained on the Ouse below St Ives, on the Cam up to Cambridge, the Lark and Little Ouse, and the network of navigable cuts between the New Bedford river and Peterborough. The Nene, though locked up to Northampton, and connected from that point with the Grand Junction canal, is practically unused above Wansford, and traffic is small except below Wisbech.

The effect of the drainage schemes has been to lower the level of the fenlands generally by some 18 in., owing to the shrinkage of the peat consequent upon the extraction of so much of its contained water; and this again has tended, on the one hand, to diminish the speed and erosive power of the fenland rivers, and, on the other, to choke up their respective outfalls with the sedimentary matters which they themselves sluggishly roll seawards.

_The Wash._--From this it will be plain that the Wash (q.v.) is being silted up by riverine detritus. The formation of new dry land, known at first as "marsh," goes on, however, but slowly. During the centuries since the Romans are believed to have constructed the sea-banks which shut out the ocean, it is computed that an area of not more than 60,000 to 70,000 acres has been won from the Wash, embanked, drained and brought more or less under cultivation. The greatest gain has been at the direct head of the bay, between the Welland and the Great Ouse, where the average annual accretion is estimated at 10 to 11 lineal feet. On the Lincolnshire coast, farther north, the average annual gain has been not quite 2 ft.; whilst on the opposite Norfolk coast it has been little more than 6 in. annually. On the whole, some 35,000 acres were enclosed in the 17th century, about 19,000 acres during the 18th, and about 10,000 acres during the 19th century.

The first comprehensive scheme for regulating the outfall channels and controlling the currents of the Fen rivers seems to be that proposed by Nathaniel Kinderley in 1751. His idea[3] was to link the Nene with the Ouse by means of a new cut to be made through the marshland, and guide the united stream through a further new cut "under Wotten and Wolverton through the Marshes till over against Inglesthorp or Snetsham, and there discharge itself immediately into the Deeps of Lyn Channel." In a similar way the Witham, "when it has received the Welland from Spalding," was to be carried "to some convenient place over against Wrangle or Friskney, where it may be discharged into Boston Deeps." This scheme was still further improved upon by Sir John Rennie, who, in a report which he drew up in 1839, recommended that the outfalls of all four rivers should be directed by means of fascined channels into one common outfall, and that the land lying between them should be enclosed as rapidly as it consolidated. By this means he estimated that 150,000 acres would be won to cultivation. But beyond one or two abortive or half-hearted attempts, e.g. by the Lincolnshire Estuary Company in 1851, and in 1876 and subsequent years by the Norfolk Estuary Company, no serious effort has ever been made to execute either of these schemes.

_Climate._--The annual mean temperature, as observed at Boston, in the period 1864-1885, is 48.7 deg. F.; January, 36.5 deg.; July, 62.8 deg.; and as observed at Wisbech, for the period 1861-1875, 49.1 deg. The average mean rainfall for the seventy-one years 1830-1900, at Boston, was 22.9 in.; at Wisbech for the fifteen years 1860-1875, 24.2 in., and for the fifteen years 1866-1880, 26.7 in.; and at Maxey near Peterborough, 21.7 for the nineteen years 1882-1900. Previous to the drainage of the Fens, ague, rheumatism, and other ailments incidental to a damp climate were widely prevalent, but at the present day the Fen country is as healthy as the rest of England; indeed, there is reason to believe that it is conducive to longevity.

_Historical Notes._--The earliest inhabitants of this region of whom we have record were the British tribes of the Iceni confederation; the Romans, who subdued them, called them Coriceni or Coritani. In Saxon times the inhabitants of the Fens were known (e.g. to Bede) as Gyrvii, and are described as traversing the country on stilts. Macaulay, writing of the year 1689, gives to them the name of Breedlings, and describes them as "a half-savage population ... who led an amphibious life, sometimes wading, sometimes rowing, from one islet of firm ground to another." In the end of the 18th century those who dwelt in the remoter parts were scarcely more civilized, being known to their neighbours by the expressive term of "Slodgers." These rude fen-dwellers have in all ages been animated by a tenacious love of liberty. Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, the worthy foe of the Romans; Hereward the Saxon, who defied William the Conqueror; Cromwell and his Ironsides, are representative of the fenman's spirit at its best. The fen peasantry showed a stubborn defence of their rights, not only when they resisted the encroachments and selfish appropriations of the "adventurers" in the 17th century, in the Bedford Level, in Deeping Fen, and in the Witham Fens, and again in the 18th century, when Holland Fen was finally enclosed, but also in the Peasants' Rising of 1381, and in the Pilgrimage of Grace in the reign of Henry VIII. So long as the Fens were unenclosed and thickly studded with immense "forests" of reeds, and innumerable marshy pools and "rows" (channels connecting the pools), they abounded in wild fowl, being regularly frequented by various species of wild duck and geese, garganies, polchards, shovelers, teals, widgeons, peewits, terns, grebes, coots, water-hens, water-rails, red-shanks, lapwings, god-wits, whimbrels, cranes, bitterns, herons, swans, ruffs and reeves. Vast numbers of these were taken in decoys[4] and sent to the London markets. At the same time equally vast quantities of tame geese were reared in the Fens, and driven by road[5] to London to be killed at Michaelmas. Their down, feathers and quills (for pens) were also a considerable source of profit. The Fen waters, too, abounded in fresh-water fish, especially pike, perch, bream, tench, rud, dace, roach, eels and sticklebacks. The Witham, on whose banks so many monasteries stood, was particularly famous for its pike; as were certain of the monastic waters in the southern part of the Fens for their eels. The soil of the reclaimed Fens is of exceptional fertility, being almost everywhere rich in humus, which is capable not only of producing very heavy crops of wheat and other corn, but also of fattening live-stock with peculiar ease. Lincolnshire oxen were famous in Elizabeth's time, and are specially singled out by Arthur Young,[6] the breed being the shorthorn. Of the crops peculiar to the region it must suffice to mention the old British dye-plant woad, which is still grown on a small scale in two or three parishes immediately south of Boston; hemp, which was extensively grown in the 18th century, but is not now planted; and peppermint, which is occasionally grown, e.g. at Deeping and Wisbech. In the second half of the 19th century the Fen country acquired a certain celebrity in the world of sport from the encouragement it gave to speed skating. Whenever practicable, championship and other racing meetings are held, chiefly at Littleport and Spalding. The little village of Welney, between Ely and Wisbech, has produced some of the most notable of the typical Fen skaters, e.g. "Turkey" Smart and "Fish" Smart.

Apart from fragmentary ruins of the former monastic buildings of Crowland, Kirkstead and other places, the Fen country of Lincolnshire (division of Holland) is especially remarkable for the size and beauty of its parish churches, mostly built of Barnack rag from Northamptonshire. Moreover, in the possession of such buildings as Ely cathedral and the parish church of King's Lynn, other parts of the Fens must be considered only less rich in ecclesiastical architecture. Using these fine opportunities, the Fen folk have long cultivated the science of campanology.

_Dialect._--Owing to the comparative remoteness of their geographical situation, and the relatively late period at which the Fens were definitely enclosed, the Fenmen have preserved several dialectal features of a distinctive character, not the least interesting being their close kinship with the classical English of the present day. Professor E.E. Freeman (_Longman's Magazine_, 1875) reminded modern Englishmen that it was a native of the Fens, "a Bourne man, who gave the English language its present shape." This was Robert Manning, or Robert of Brunne, who in or about 1303 wrote _The Handlynge Synne_. Tennyson's dialect poems, _The Northern Farmer_, &c., do not reproduce the pure Fen dialect, but rather the dialect of the Wold district of mid Lincolnshire.

AUTHORITIES.--Sir William Dugdale, _History of Imbanking and Draining_ (2nd ed., London, 1772); W. Elstobb, _A Historical Account of the Great Level_ (Lynn, 1793); W. Chapman, _Facts and Remarks relative to the Witham and the Welland_ (Boston, 1800); S. Wells, _History and Drainage of the Great Level of the Fens_ (2 vols., London, 1828 and 1830); P. Thompson, _History of Boston_ (Boston, 1856); Baldwin Latham, _Papers on the Drainage of the Fens_, read before the Society of Engineers, 3rd November 1862; N. and A. Goodman, _Handbook of Fen Skating_ (London, 1882); Moore, _Associated Architectural Societies' Reports and Papers_ (1893); _Fenland Notes and Queries_, and _Lincolnshire Notes and Queries, passim_; W.H. Wheeler, _A History of the Fens of South Lincolnshire_, pp. 223 et seq. (2nd ed., Boston, 1897). Various phases of Fen life, mostly of the past, are described in Charles Kingsley's _Hereward the Wake_ (Cambridge, 1866); Baring Gould's _Cheap-Jack Zita_ (London, 1893); Manville Fenn's _Dick o' the Fens_ (London, 1887); and J.T. Bealby's _A Daughter of the Fen_ (London, 1896). (J. T. Be.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The word "fen," a general term for low marshy land or bog, is common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dutch _ven_ or _veen_, Ger. _Fenne_, _Fehn_, Goth. _fani_, mud; the Indo-European root is seen in Gr. [Greek: pelos], mud, Lat. _palus_, marsh. The word "bog" is from the Irish or Gaelic bogach, formed from Celtic _bog_, soft, and meaning therefore soft, swampy ground.

[2] The principles upon which he proceeded are set forth in his _Discourse touching the Draining of the Great Fennes_ (1642), reprinted in _Fenland Notes and Queries_ (1898), pp. 26-38 and 81-87.

[3] Set forth in _The Present State of the Navigation of the Towns of Lyn, Wisbeach, Spalding and Boston_ (2nd ed., London, 1851), pp. 82 seq.

[4] For descriptions of these see Oldfield, Appendix, pp. 2-4, of _A Topographical and Historical Account of Wainfleet_ (London, 1829); and Miller and Skertchly, _The Fenland_, pp. 369-375.

[5] See De Foe's account in _A Tour through the Eastern Counties_, 1722 (1724-1725).

[6] _General View_, pp. 174-194 and 288-304.