Act 1874). In certain of the colonies acquired by cession or

settlement (e.g. New Zealand) the English Landlord and Tenant Act 1851 is in force.

AUTHORITIES.--English law: Amos and Ferard, _Law of Fixtures_ (3rd ed., London, 1883); Brown, _Law of Fixtures_ (3rd ed., London, 1875); Ryde, on _Rating_ (2nd ed., London, 1905). Scots Law: Hunter, _Landlord and Tenant_; Erskine's _Principles_ (20th ed., Edin., 1903). American Law: Bronson, _Law of Fixtures_ (St Paul, 1904); Reeves, _Real Property_ (Boston, 1904); _Ruling Cases_ (London and Boston, 1894-1901), Tit. "Fixtures" (American Notes). (A. W. R.)

FIZEAU, ARMAND HIPPOLYTE LOUIS (1819-1896), French physicist, was born at Paris on the 23rd of September 1819. His earliest work was concerned with improvements in photographic processes; and then, in association with J.B.L. Foucault, he engaged in a series of investigations on the interference of light and heat. In 1849 he published the first results obtained by his method for determining the speed of propagation of light (see LIGHT), and in 1850 with E. Gounelle measured the velocity of electricity. In 1853 he described the employment of the condenser as a means for increasing the efficiency of the induction-coil. Subsequently he studied the expansion of solids by heat, and applied the phenomena of interference of light to the measurement of the dilatations of crystals. He died at Venteuil on the 18th of September 1896. He became a member of the French Academy in 1860 and of the Bureau des Longitudes in 1878.

FJORD, or FIORD, the anglicized Norwegian word for a long narrow arm of the sea running far inland, with more or less precipitous cliffs on each side. These "sea-lochs," as they are sometimes called, present many peculiar features. They differ entirely from an estuary in the fact that they are bounded seawards by a rocky sill, covered by shallow water, and they deepen inland for some distance before the bottom again curves up to the surface. They are thus true rock basins drowned in sea-water. It is pointed out by Dr H.R. Mill that Loch Morar on the west coast of Scotland, a fresh-water basin 178 fathoms deep, with its surface 30 ft. above sea-level, which is connected with the sea by a short river, is exactly similar in configuration to Loch Etive, 80 fathoms deep, filled with sea-water which pours over the seaward sill in a waterfall with the retreating tide; that Loch Nevis with a depth of 70 fathoms has its sill 8 fathoms below the surface, while the gigantic Sogne Fjord in Norway, more than 100 m. in length, is a rock basin with a maximum depth of 700 fathoms. Any inland rock basin such as Loch Morar would become a fjord if the seaward portion sank below sea-level. The origin of these rock basins has not yet been satisfactorily determined. Recent work upon somewhat similar basins in the high Alps has suggested local weathering of surface rock in fracture belts or faulted areas, or dikes, where material is easily eroded, thus producing a trough bounded by high walls in which a lake forms under favourable conditions. But investigations in such regions as the Rocky Mountains and the Yosemite Valley, where there is frequently a "reversed grade" similar to that near the seaward end of rock basins and fjords, seem to show, in some cases at least, that such a formation may be due to the "gouging" effect of a glacier coming down the valley which it constantly deepens where the ice pressure and the supply of eroding material are greatest. There may be several causes, but the results are the same in all these drowned valleys. The mass of sea-water in the depth of the basin is either unaffected by the seasonal changes in surface temperature, which in Norway penetrate no deeper than 200 fathoms, or else, as in Loch Goil, the fresher film of surface water responds quickly to seasonal changes, while the heat of advancing summer penetrates so slowly to the depth of the basin that it takes six months to reach the bottom, arriving there in winter. It has been found that where the fresher surface water has been frozen over, the temperature may be as much as 45 deg. F. at a few fathoms from the surface. When the surface is warmest, on the other hand, the depths are coldest.

FLACCUS, a cognomen in the plebeian gens Fulvia, one of the most illustrious in ancient Rome. Cicero and Pliny state that the family came from Tusculum, where some were still living in the middle of the 1st century B.C. Of the Fulvii Flacci the most important were the following:

QUINTUS FULVIUS FLACCUS, son of the first of the family, Marcus, who was consul with Appius Claudius Caudex in 264. He especially distinguished himself during the second Punic War. He was consul four times (237, 224, 212, 209), censor (231) pontifex maximus (216), praetor urbanus (215). During his first consulships he did good service against the Ligurians, Gauls and Insubrians. In 212 he defeated Hanno near Beneventum, and with his colleague Appius Claudius Pulcher began the siege of Capua. The capture of this place was considered so important that their imperium was prolonged, but on condition that they should not leave Capua until it had been taken. Hannibal's unexpected diversion against Rome interfered with the operations for the moment, but his equally unexpected retirement enabled Flaccus, who had been summoned to Rome to protect the city, to return, and bring the siege to a successful conclusion. He punished the inhabitants with great severity, alleging in excuse that they had shown themselves bitterly hostile to Rome. He was nominated dictator to hold the consular elections at which he was himself elected (209). He was appointed to the command of the army in Lucania and Bruttium, where he crushed all further attempts at rebellion. Nothing further is known of him. The chief authority for his life is the part of Livy dealing with the period (see PUNIC WARS).

His brother GNAEUS was convicted of gross cowardice against Hannibal near Herdoniae in 210, and went into voluntary exile at Tarquinii. His son, QUINTUS, waged war with signal success against the Celtiberians in 182-181, and the Ligurians in 179. Having vowed to build a temple to Fortuna Equestris, he dismantled the temple of Juno Lacinia in Bruttium of its marble slabs. This theft became known and he was compelled to restore them, though they were never put back in their places. Subsequently he lost his reason and hanged himself.

MARCUS FULVIUS FLACCUS, grandnephew of the first Quintus, lived in the times of the Gracchi, of whom he was a strong supporter. After the death of Tiberius Gracchus (133 B.C.) he was appointed in his place one of the commission of three for the distribution of the land. He was suspected of having had a hand in the sudden death of the younger Scipio (129), but there was no direct evidence against him. When consul in 125, he proposed to confer the Roman citizenship on all the allies, and to allow even those who had not acquired it the right of appeal to the popular assembly against penal judgments. This proposal, though for the time successfully opposed by the senate, eventually led to the Social War. The attack made upon the Massilians (who were allies of Rome) by the Salluvii (Salyes) afforded a convenient excuse for sending Flaccus out of Rome. After his return in triumph, he was again sent away (122), this time with Gaius Gracchus to Carthage to found a colony, but did not remain absent long. In 121 the disputes between the optimates and the party of Gracchus culminated in open hostilities, during which Flaccus was killed, together with Gracchus and a number of his supporters. It is generally agreed that Flaccus was perfectly honest in his support of the Gracchan reforms, but his hot-headedness did more harm than good to the cause. Cicero (_Brutus_, 28) speaks of him as an orator of moderate powers, but a diligent student.

See Livy, _Epit._ 59-61; Val. Max. ix. 5. 1; Vell. Pat. ii. 6; Appian, _Bell. Civ._ i. 18, 21, 24-26; Plutarch, _C. Gracchus_, 10. 13; also A.H.J. Greenidge, _Hist. of Rome_ (1904), and authorities quoted under GRACCHUS.

FLACH, GEOFROI JACQUES (1846- ), French jurist and historian, was born at Strassburg, Alsace, on the 16th of February 1846, of a family known at least as early as the 16th century, when Sigismond Flach was the first professor of law at Strassburg University. G.J. Flach studied classics and law at Strassburg, and in 1869 took his degree of doctor of law. In his theses as well as in his early writings--such as _De la subrogation reelle, La Bonorum possessio_, and _Sur la duree des effets de la minorite_ (1870)--he endeavoured to explain the problems of laws by means of history, an idea which was new to France at that time. The Franco-German War engaged Flach's activities in other directions, and he spent two years (described in his _Strasbourg apres le bombardement_, 1873) at work on the rebuilding of the library and the museum, which had been destroyed by Prussian shells. When the time came for him to choose between Germany and France, he settled definitely in Paris, where he completed his scientific training at the Ecole des Chartes and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. Having acted for some time as secretary to Jules Senard, ex-president of the Constituent Assembly, he published an original paper on artistic copyright, but as soon as possible resumed the history of law. In 1879 he became assistant to the jurist Edouard Laboulaye at the College de France, and succeeded him in 1884 in the chair of comparative legislation. Since 1877 he had been professor of comparative law at the free school of the political sciences. To qualify himself for these two positions he had to study the most diverse civilizations, including those of the East and Far East (e.g. Hungary, Russia and Japan) and even the antiquities of Babylonia and other Asiatic countries. Some of his lectures have been published, particularly those concerning Ireland: _Histoire du regime agraire de l'Irlande_ (1883); _Considerations sur l'histoire politique de l'Irlande_ (1885); and _Jonathan Swift, son action politique en Irlande_ (1886).

His chief efforts, however, were concentrated on the history of ancient French law. A celebrated lawsuit in Alsace, pleaded by his friend and compatriot Ignace Chauffour, aroused his interest by reviving the question of the origin of the feudal laws, and gradually led him to study the formation of those laws and the early growth of the feudal system. His great work, _Les Origines de l'ancienne France_, was produced slowly. In the first volume, _Le Regime seigneurial_ (1886), he depicts the triumph of individualism and anarchy, showing how, after Charlemagne's great but sterile efforts to restore the Roman principle of sovereignty, the great landowners gradually monopolized the various functions in the state; how society modelled on antiquity disappeared; and how the only living organisms were vassalage and clientship. The second volume, _Les Origines communales, la feodalite et la chevalerie_ (1893), deals with the reconstruction of society on new bases which took place in the 10th and 11th centuries. It explains how the Gallo-Roman _villa_ gave place to the village, with its fortified castle, the residence of the lord; how new towns were formed by the side of old, some of which disappeared; how the townspeople united in corporations; and how the communal bond proved to be a powerful instrument of cohesion. At the same time it traces the birth of feudalism from the germs of the Gallo-Roman personal _comitatus_; and shows how the bond that united the different parties was the contract of the fief; and how, after a slow growth of three centuries, feudalism was definitely organized in the 12th century. In 1904 appeared the third volume, _La Renaissance de l'etat_, in which the author describes the efforts of the Capetian kings to reconstruct the power of the Frankish kings over the whole of Gaul; and goes on to show how the clergy, the heirs of the imperial tradition, encouraged this ambition; how the great lords of the kingdom (the "princes," as Flach calls them), whether as allies or foes, pursued the same end; and how, before the close of the 12th century, the Capetian kings were in possession of the organs and the means of action which were to render them so powerful and bring about the early downfall of feudalism.

In these three volumes, which appeared at long intervals, the author's theories are not always in complete harmony, nor are they always presented in a very luminous or coherent manner, but they are marked by originality and vigour. Flach gave them a solid basis by the wide range of his researches, utilizing charters and cartularies (published and unpublished), chronicles, lives of saints, and even those dangerous guides, the _chansons de geste_. He owed little to the historians of feudalism who knew what feudalism was, but not how it came about. He pursued the same method in his _L'Origine de l'habitation et des lieux habites en France_ (1899), in which he discusses some of the theories circulated by A. Meitzen in Germany and by Arbois de Jubainville ville in France. Following in the footsteps of the jurist F.C. von Savigny, Flach studied the teaching of law in the middle ages and the Renaissance, and produced _Cujas, les glossateurs et les Bartolistes_ (1883), and _Etudes critiques sur l'histoire du droit romain au moyen age, avec textes inedits_ (1890).

FLACIUS (Ger. _Flach_; Slav. _Vlakich_), MATTHIAS (1520-1575), surnamed ILLYRICUS, Lutheran reformer, was born at Albona, in Illyria, on the 3rd of March 1520. Losing his father in childhood, he was in early years self-educated, and made himself able to profit by the instructions of the humanist, Baptista Egnatius in Venice. At the age of seventeen he decided to join a monastic order, with a view to sacred learning. His intention was diverted by his uncle, Baldo Lupetino, provincial of the Franciscans, in sympathy with the Reformation, who induced him to enter on a university career, from 1539, at Basel, Tubingen and Wittenberg. Here he was welcomed (1541) by Melanchthon, being well introduced from Tubingen, and here he came under the decisive influence of Luther. In 1544 he was appointed professor of Hebrew at Wittenberg. He married in the autumn of 1545, Luther taking part in the festivities. He took his master's degree on the 24th of February 1546, ranking first among the graduates. Soon he was prominent in the theological discussions of the time, opposing strenuously the "Augsburg Interim," and the compromise of Melanchthon known as the "Leipzig Interim" (see ADIAPHORISTS). Melanchthon wrote of him with venom as a renegade ("aluimus in sinu serpentem"), and Wittenberg became too hot for him. He removed to Magdeburg (Nov. 9, 1551), where his feud with Melanchthon was patched up. On the 17th of May 1557 he was appointed professor of New Testament theology at Jena; but was soon involved in controversy with Strigel, his colleague, on the synergistic question (relating to the function of the will in conversion). Affirming the natural inability of man, he unwittingly fell into expressions consonant with the Manichaean view of sin, as not an accident of human nature, but involved in its substance, since the Fall. Resisting ecclesiastical censure, he left Jena (Feb. 1562) to found an academy at Regensburg. The project was not successful, and in October 1566 he accepted a call from the Lutheran community at Antwerp. Thence he was driven (Feb. 1567) by the exigencies of war, and betook himself to Frankfort, where the authorities set their faces against him. He proceeded to Strassburg, was well received by the superintendent Marbach, and hoped he had found an asylum. But here also his religious views stood in his way; the authorities eventually ordering him to leave the city by Mayday 1573. Again betaking himself to Frankfort, the prioress, Catharina von Meerfeld, of the convent of White Ladies, harboured him and his family in despite of the authorities. He fell ill at the end of 1574; the city council ordered him to leave by Mayday 1575; but death released him on the 11th of March 1575. His first wife, by whom he had twelve children, died in 1564; in the same year he remarried and had further issue. His son Matthias was professor of philosophy and medicine at Rostock. Of a life so tossed about the literary fruit was indeed remarkable. His polemics we may pass over; he stands at the fountain-head of the scientific study of church history, and--if we except, a great exception, the work of Laurentius Valla--of hermeneutics also. No doubt his impelling motive was to prove popery to be built on bad history and bad exegesis. Whether that be so or not, the extirpation of bad history and bad exegesis is now felt to be of equal interest to all religionists. Hence the permanent and continuous value of the principles embodied in Flacius' _Catalogus testium veritatis_ (1556; revised edition by J.C. Dietericus, 1672) and his _Clavis scripturae sacrae_ (1567), followed by his _Glossa compendiaria in N. Testamentum_ (1570). His characteristic formula, "historia est fundamentum doctrinae," is better understood now than in his own day.

See J.B. Ritter, _Flacius's Leben u. Tod_ (1725); M. Twesten, _M. Flacius Illyricus_ (1844); W. Preger, _M. Flacius Illyricus u. seine Zeit_ (1859-1861); G. Kawerau, in Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopadie_ (1899). (A. Go.*)

FLACOURT, ETIENNE DE (1607-1660), French governor of Madagascar, was born at Orleans in 1607. He was named governor of Madagascar by the French East India Company in 1648. Flacourt restored order among the French soldiers, who had mutinied, but in his dealings with the natives he was less successful, and their intrigues and attacks kept him in continual harassment during all his term of office. In 1655 he returned to France. Not long after he was appointed director general of the company; but having again returned to Madagascar, he was drowned on his voyage home on the 10th of June 1660. He is the author of a _Histoire de la grande isle Madagascar_ (1st edition 1658, 2nd edition 1661).

See A. Malotet, _Et. de Flacourt, ou les origines de la colonisation francaise a Madagascar (1648-1661)_, (Paris, 1898).

FLAG (or "FLAGGE," a common Teutonic word in this sense, but apparently first recorded in English), a piece of bunting or similar material, admitting of various shapes and colours, and waved in the wind from a staff or cord for use in display as a standard, ensign or signal. The word may simply be derived onomatopoeically, or transferred from the botanical "flag"; or an original meaning of "a piece of cloth" may be connected with the 12th-century English "flage," meaning a baby's garment; the verb "to flag," i.e. droop, may have originated in the idea of a pendulous piece of bunting, or may be connected with the O. Fr. _flaguir_, to become flaccid. It is probable that almost as soon as men began to collect together for common purposes some kind of conspicuous object was used, as the symbol of the common sentiment, for the rallying point of the common force. In military expeditions, where any degree of organization and discipline prevailed, objects of such a kind would be necessary to mark out the lines and stations of encampment, and to keep in order the different bands when marching or in battle. In addition, it cannot be doubted that flags or their equivalents have often served, by reminding men of past resolves, past deeds and past heroes, to arouse to enthusiasm those sentiments of _esprit de corps_, of family pride and honour, of personal devotion, patriotism or religion, upon which, as well as upon good leadership, discipline and numerical force, success in warfare depends.

_History._--Among the remains of the people which has left the earliest traces of civilization, the records of the forms of objects used as ensigns are frequently to be found. From their carvings and paintings, supplemented by ancient writers, it appears that several companies of the Egyptian army had their own particular standards. These were formed of such objects as, there is reason to believe, were associated in the minds of the men with feelings of awe and devotion. Sacred animals, boats, emblems or figures, a tablet bearing a king's name, fan and feather-shaped symbols, were raised on the end of a staff as standards, and the office of bearing them was looked upon as one of peculiar privilege and honour (Fig. 1). Somewhat similar seem to have been the customs of the Assyrians and Jews. Among the sculptures unearthed by Layard and others at Nineveh, only two different designs have been noticed for standards: one is of a figure drawing a bow and standing on a running bull, the other of two bulls running in opposite directions (Fig. 2). These may resemble the emblems of war and peace which were attached to the yoke of Darius's chariot. They are borne upon and attached to chariots; and this method of bearing such objects was the custom also of the Persians, and prevailed during the middle ages. That the custom survived to a comparatively modern period is proved from the fact that the "Guns," which are the "standards" of the artillery, have from time immemorial been entitled to all the parade honours prescribed by the usages of war for the flag, that is, the symbol of authority. In days comparatively recent there was a "flag gun," usually the heaviest piece, which emblemized authority and served also as the "gun of direction" in the few concerted movements then attempted. No representations of Egyptian or Assyrian naval standards have been found, but the sails of ships were embroidered and ornamented with devices, another custom which survived into the middle ages.

In both Egyptian and Assyrian examples, the staff bearing the emblem is frequently ornamented immediately below with flag-like streamers. Rabbinical writers have assigned the different devices of the different Jewish tribes, but the authenticity of their testimony is extremely doubtful. Banners, standards and ensigns are frequently mentioned in the Bible. "Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his standard, with the ensign of their father's house" (Num. ii. 2). "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?" (Cant. vi. 10. See also Num. ii. 10, x. 14; Ps. xx. 5, lx. 4; Cant. ii. 4; Is. v. 26, x. 18, lix. 19; Jer. iv. 21).

The Persians bore an eagle fixed to the end of a lance, and the sun, as their divinity, was also represented upon their standards, which appear to have been formed of some kind of textile, and were guarded with the greatest jealousy by the bravest men of the army. The Carian soldier who slew Cyrus, the brother of Artaxerxes, was allowed the honour of carrying a golden cock at the head of the army, it being the custom of the Carians to wear that bird as a crest on their helmets. The North American Indians carried poles fledged with feathers from the wings of eagles, and similar customs seem to have prevailed among other semi-savage peoples.

The Greeks bore a piece of armour upon a spear in early times; afterwards the several cities bore sacred emblems or letters chosen for their particular associations--the Athenians the olive and the owl, the Corinthians a pegasus, the Thebans a sphinx, in memory of Oedipus, the Messenians their initial M, and the Lacedaemonians A. A purple dress was placed on the end of a spear as the signal to advance. The Dacians carried a standard representing a contorted serpent, while the dragon was the military sign of many peoples--of the Chinese, Dacians and Parthians among others--and was probably first used by the Romans as the ensign of barbarian auxiliaries (see fig. 3).

The question of the _signa militaria_ of the Romans is a wide and very important one, having direct bearing on the history of heraldry, and on the origin of national, family and personal devices. With them the custom was reduced to system. "Each century, or at least each maniple," says Meyrick, "had its proper standard and standard-bearer." In the early days of the republic a handful of hay was borne on a pole, whence probably came the name _manipulus_ (Lat. _manus_, a hand). The forms of standards in later times were very various; sometimes a cross piece of wood was placed at the end of a spear and surmounted by the figure of a hand in silver, below round or oval discs, with figures of Mars or Minerva, or in later times portraits of emperors or eminent generals (Fig. 3). Figures of animals, as the wolf, horse, bear and others, were borne, and it was not till a later period that the eagle became the special standard of the legion. According to Pliny, it was Gaius Marius who, in his second consulship, ordained that the Roman legions should only have the eagle for their standard; "for before that time the eagle marched foremost with four others--wolves, minotaurs, horses and bears--each one in its proper order. Not many years passed before the eagle alone began to be advanced in battle, and the rest were left behind in the camp. But Marius rejected them altogether, and since this it is observed that scarcely is there a camp of a legion wintered at any time without having a pair of eagles."

The _vexillum_, which was the cavalry flag, is described by Livy as a square piece of cloth fastened to a piece of wood fixed crosswise to the end of a spear, somewhat resembling the medieval _gonfalon_. Examples of these vexilla are to be seen on various Roman coins and medals, on the sculptured columns of Trajan and Antoninus, and on the arch of Titus. The _labarum_, which was the imperial standard of later emperors, resembled in shape and fixing the vexillum. It was of purple silk richly embroidered with gold, and sometimes was not suspended as the vexillum from a horizontal crossbar, but displayed as our modern flags, that is to say, by the attachment of one of its sides to a staff. After Constantine, the labarum bore the monogram of Christ (fig. 5, A). It is supposed that the small scarf, which in medieval days was often attached to the pastoral staff or crook of a bishop, was derived from the labarum of the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great. The Roman standards were guarded with religious veneration in the temples at Rome; and the reverence of this people for their ensigns was in proportion to their superiority to other nations in all that tends to success in war. It was not unusual for a general to order a standard to be cast into the ranks of the enemy, to add zeal to the onset of his soldiers by exciting them to recover what to them was perhaps the most sacred thing the earth possessed. The Roman soldier swore by his ensign.

Although in earlier times drapery was occasionally used for standards, and was often appended as ornament to those of other material, it was probably not until the middle ages that it became the special material of military and other ensigns; and perhaps not until the practice of heraldry had attained to definite nomenclature and laws does anything appear which is in the modern sense a flag.

Early flags were almost purely of a religious character. In Bede's description of the interview between the heathen king Aethelberht and the Roman missionary Augustine, the followers of the latter are said to have borne banners on which silver crosses were displayed. The national banner of England for centuries--the red cross of St George--was a religious one; in fact the aid of religion seems ever to have been sought to give sanctity to national flags, and the origin of many can be traced to a sacred banner, as is notably the case with the oriflamme of France and the Dannebrog of Denmark. Of the latter the legend runs that King Waldemar of Denmark, leading his troops to battle against the enemy in 1219, saw at a critical moment a cross in the sky. This was at once taken as an answer to his prayers, and an assurance of celestial aid. It was forthwith adopted as the Danish flag and called the "Dannebrog," i.e. the strength of Denmark. Apart from all legend, this flag undoubtedly dates from the 13th century, and the Danish flag is therefore the oldest now in existence.

The ancient kings of France bore the blue hood of St Martin upon their standards. The Chape de St Martin was originally in the keeping of the monks of the abbey of Marmoutier, and the right to take this blue flag into battle with them was claimed by the counts of Anjou. Clovis bore this banner against Alaric in 507, for victory was promised him by a verse of the Psalms which the choir were chanting when his envoy entered the church of St Martin at Tours. Charlemagne fought under it at the battle of Narbonne, and it frequently led the French to victory. At what precise period the oriflamme, which was originally simply the banner of the abbey of St Denis, supplanted the Chape de St Martin as the sacred banner of all France is not known. Probably, however, it gradually became the national flag after the kings of France had transferred the seat of government to Paris, where the great local saint, St Denis, was held in high honour, and the banner hung over the tomb of the saint in the abbey church. The king of France himself was one of the vassals of the abbey of St Denis for the fief of the Vexin, and it was in his quality of count of Vexin that Louis VI., le Gros, bore this banner from the abbey to battle, in 1124. He is credited with having been the first French king to have taken the banner to war, and it appeared for the last time on the field of fight at Agincourt in 1415. The accounts also of its appearance vary considerably. Guillaume Guiart, in his _Chronicle_ says:--

"Oriflambe est une banniere De cendal voujoiant et simple Sans portraiture d'autre affaire."

It would, therefore, seem to have been a plain scarlet flag; whilst an English authority states "the celestial auriflamb, so by the French admired, was but of one colour, a square redde banner." The _Chronique de Flandres_ describes it as having three points with tassels of green silk attached. The banner of William the Conqueror was sent to him by the pope, and the early English kings fought under the banners of Edward the Confessor and St Edmund; while the blended crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick still form the national ensign of the united kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, whose patron saints they severally were.

The Bayeux tapestry, commemorating the Norman conquest of England, contains abundant representations of the flags of the period borne upon the lances of the knights of William's army. They appear small in size, and pointed, frequently indented into three points and bearing pales, crosses and roundels. One, a Saxon pennon, is triangular, and roundly indented into four points; one banner is of segmental shape and rayed, and bears the figure of a bird, which has been supposed to represent the raven of the war-flag of the Scandinavian Vikings (fig. 4). In all, thirty-seven pennons borne on lances by various knights are represented in the Bayeux tapestry, and of these twenty-eight have triple points, whilst others have two, four or five. The devices on these pennons are very varied and distinctive, although the date is prior to the period in which heraldry became definitely established. In fact, the flags and their charges are probably not really significant of the people bearing them; for, even admitting that personal devices were used at the time, the figures may have been placed without studied intention, and so give the general figure only of such flags as happened to have come under the observation of the artists. The figures are probably rather ornamental and symbolic than strictly heraldic,--that is, personal devices, for the same insignia do not appear on the shields of the several bearers. The dragon standard which he is known to have borne is placed near Harold; but similar figures appear on the shields of Norman warriors, which fact has induced a writer in the _Journal of the Archaeological Association_ (vol. xiii. p. 113) to suppose that on the spears of the Saxons they represent only trophies torn from the shields of the Normans, and that they are not ensigns at all. Standards in form much resembling these dragons appear on the Arch of Titus and the Trajan column as the standards of barbarians.

At the battle of the Standard in 1138 the English standard was formed of the mast of a ship, having a silver pyx at the top and bearing three sacred banners, dedicated severally to St Peter, St John of Beverley and St Wilfrid of Ripon, the whole being fastened to a wheeled vehicle. Representations of three-pointed, cross-bearing pennons are found on seals of as early date as the Norman era, and the warriors in the first crusade bore three-pointed pennons. It is possible that the three points with the three roundels and cross, which so often appear on these banners, have some reference to the faith of the bearers in the Trinity and in the Crucifixion, for in contemporary representations of Christ's resurrection and descent into hell he bears a three-pointed banner with cross above. The triple indentation so common on the flags of this period has been supposed to be the origin of one of the honourable ordinaries--the pile. The "pile," it may be explained, is in the form of a wedge, and unless otherwise specified in the blazon, occupies the central portion of the escutcheon, issuing from the middle chief. It may, however, issue from any other extremity of the shield, and there may be more than one. More secular characters were, however, not uncommon. In 1244 Henry III. gave order for a "dragon to be made in fashion of a standard of red silk sparkling all over with fine gold, the tongue of which should be made to resemble burning fire and appear to be continually moving, and the eyes of sapphires or other suitable stones." _The Siege of Carlaverock_, an Anglo-Norman poem of the 14th century, describes the heraldic bearings on the banners of the knights at the siege of that fortress. Of the king himself the writer says:--

"En sa banniere trois luparte De or fin estoient mis en rouge;"

and he goes on to describe the kingly characteristics these may be supposed to symbolize. A MS. in the British Museum (one of Sir Christopher Barker's heraldic collection, Harl. 4632) gives drawings of the standards of English kings from Edward III. to Henry VIII., which are roughly but artistically coloured.

The principal varieties of flags borne during the middle ages were the pennon, the banner and the standard. The "guydhommes" or "guidons," "banderolls," "pennoncells," "streamers" or pendants, may be considered as minor varieties. The pennon (fig. 5, B) was a purely personal ensign, sometimes pointed, but more generally forked or swallow-tailed at the end. It was essentially the flag of the knight simple, as apart from the knight banneret, borne by him on his lance, charged with his personal armorial bearings so displayed that they stood in true position when he couched his lance for action. A MS. of the 16th century (Harl. 2358) in the British Museum, which gives minute particulars as to the size, shape and bearings of the standards, banners, pennons, guydhommes, pennoncells, &c., says "a pennon must be two yards and a half long, made round at the end, and conteyneth the armes of the owner," and warns that "from a standard or streamer a man may flee but not from his banner or pennon bearing his arms."

A pennoncell (or penselle) was a diminutive pennon carried by the esquires. Flags of this character were largely used on any special occasion of ceremony, and more particularly at state funerals. For instance, we find "XII. doz. penselles" amongst the items that figured at the funeral of the duke of Norfolk in 1554, and in the description of the lord mayor's procession in the following year we read of "ij goodly pennes (state barges) deckt with flages and stremers, and a m (1000) penselles." Amongst the items that ran the total cost of the funeral of Oliver Cromwell up to an enormous sum of money, we find mention of thirty dozen of pennoncells a foot long and costing twenty shillings a dozen, and twenty dozen of the same kind of flags at twelve shillings a dozen.

The banner was, in the earlier days of chivalry, a square flag, though at a later date it is often found greater in length than in depth, precisely as is the case in the ordinary national flags of to-day. In some very early examples it is found considerably longer in the depth on the staff than in its outward projection from the staff. The banner was charged in a manner exactly similar to the shield of the owner, and it was borne by knights banneret and all above them in rank. As a rough guide it may be taken that the banner of an emperor was 6 ft. square; of a king, 5 ft.; of a prince or duke, 4 ft.; of a marquis, earl, viscount or baron, 3 ft. square. As the function of the banner was to display the armorial bearings of the dignitary who had the right to carry it, it is evident that the square form was the most convenient and akin to the shield of primal heraldry. In fact, flags were originally heraldic emblems, though in modern devices the strict laws of heraldry have often been departed from.

The rank of knights bannerets was higher than that of ordinary knights, and they could be created on the field of battle only. To create a knight banneret, the king or commander-in-chief in person tore off the fly of the pennon on the lance of the knight, thus turning it roughly into the square flag or banner, and so making the knight a banneret. The date in which this dignity originated is uncertain, but it was probably about the period of Edward I. John Chandos is said to have been made a banneret by the Black Prince and the king of Castile at Najara on the 3rd of April 1367; John of Copeland was made a banneret in the reign of Edward III., he having taken prisoner David Bruce, the Scottish king, at the battle of Durham. In more modern times Captain John Smith, of Lord Bernard Stuart's troop of the King's Guards, who saved the royal banner from the parliamentary troops at Edgehill, was made a knight banneret by Charles I. From this time the custom of creating knights banneret ceased until it was revived by George II. after Dettingen in 1743, when the dignity was again conferred. It is true, however, that, when in 1763 Sir William Erskine presented to George III. sixteen stands of colours captured by his regiment [now the 15th (king's) Hussars] at Emsdorf, he was raised to the dignity of knight banneret, but as the ceremony was not performed on the field of battle, the creation was considered irregular, and his possession of the rank was not generally recognized.

The banner was therefore not only a personal ensign, but it also denoted that he who bore it was the leader of a military force, large or small according to his degree or estate. It was, in fact, the battle flag of the leader who controlled the particular force that followed it into the fight. Every baron who in time of war had furnished the proper number of men to his liege was entitled to charge with his arms the banner which they followed. There could indeed be at present found no better representative of the medieval "banner" than what we now term the "royal standard"; it is essentially the personal battle flag of the king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It and other royal and imperial standards have now become "standards," inasmuch as they are to-day used for display in the same fashion, and for the same purposes as was the "standard" of old. The "gonfalon" or "gonfannon" was a battle flag differing from the ordinary banner in that it was not attached to the pole but hung from it crosswise, and was not always square in shape but serrated, so that the lower edge formed streamers. The gonfalon was in action borne close to the person of the commander-in-chief and denoted his position. In certain of the Italian cities chief magistrates had the privilege of bearing a gonfalon, and for this reason were known as "gonfaloniere."

The standard (fig. 5, D) was a flag of noble size, long, tapering towards the fly (the "fly" is that portion of the flag farther from the pole, the "hoist" the portion of the flag attached to the pole), the edges of the flag fringed or bordered, and with the ends split and rounded off. The shape was not, however, by any means uniform during the middle ages nor were there any definite rules as to its charges. It varied in size according to the rank of the owner. The Tudor MS. mentioned above says of the royal standard of that time--"the Standard to be sett before the king's pavilion or tente, and not to be borne in battayle; to be in length eleven yards." A MS. of the time of Henry VII. gives the following dimensions for standards: "The King's had a length of eight yards; that of a duke, seven; a marquis, six and a half; an earl, six; a viscount, five and a half; a baron, five; a knight banneret, four and a half; and a knight four yards." The standard was, in fact, from its size, and as its very name implies, not meant to be carried into action, as was the banner, but to denote the actual position of its possessor on occasions of state ceremonial, or on the tilting ground, and to denote the actual place occupied by him and his following when the hosts were assembled in camp preparatory for battle. It was essentially a flag denoting position, whereas the banner was the rallying point of its followers in the actual field. Its uses are now fulfilled, as far as royalties are concerned, by the "banner" which has now become the "royal standard," and which floats over the palace where the king is in residence, is hoisted at the saluting point when he reviews his troops, and is broken from the mainmast of any ship in his navy the moment that his foot treads its deck. The essential condition of the standard was that it should always have the cross of St. George conspicuous in the innermost part of the hoist immediately contiguous to the staff; the remainder of the flag was then divided fesse-wise by two or more stripes of colours exactly as the heraldic "ordinary" termed "fesse" crosses the shield horizontally. The colours used as stripes, as also those used in the fringe or bordering of the standard, were those which prevailed in the arms of the bearer or were those of his livery. The standard here depicted (fig. 5, D) is that of Henry V.; the colours white and blue, a white antelope standing between two red roses, and in the interspaces more red roses. To quote again from the Harleian MS. above mentioned: "Every standard and guidon to have in the chief the cross of St George, the beast or crest with his devyce and word, and to be slitt at the end." The motto indeed usually figured on most standards, though occasionally it was missing. An excellent type of the old standard is that of the earls of Percy, which bore the blue lion, the crescent, and the fetterlock--all badges of the family--whilst, as tokens of matrimonial alliances with the families of Poynings, Bryan and Fitzpayne, a silver key, a bugle-horn and a falchion were respectively displayed. There was also the historic Percy motto, _Esperance en Dieu_. No one, whatsoever his rank, could possess more than one banner, since it displayed his heraldic arms, which were unchangeable. A single individual, however, might possess two or three standards since this flag displayed badges that he could multiply at discretion, and a motto that he could at any time change. For example, the standards of Henry VII., mostly green and white--the colours of the Tudor livery--had in one "a red firye dragon," in another "a donne kowe," in a third "a silver greyhound and two red roses." The standard was always borne by an eminent person, and that of Henry V. at Agincourt is supposed to have been carried upon a car that preceded the king. At Nelson's funeral his banner and standard were borne in the procession, and around his coffin were the banderolls--square, bannerlike flags bearing the various arms of his family lineage. Nelson's standard bore his motto, _Palmam qui meruit ferat_, but, in lieu of the cross of St George, it bore the union of the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick, the medieval England having expanded into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Again, at the funeral of the duke of Wellington we find amongst the flags his personal banner and standard, and ten banderolls of the duke's pedigree and descent.

The guidon, a name derived from the Fr. _Guyd-homme_, was somewhat similar to the standard, but without the cross of St George, rounded at the end, less elongated and altogether less ornate. It was borne by a leader of horse, and according to a medieval writer "must be two and a half yards or three yards long, and therein shall no armes be put, but only the man's crest, cognisance, and devyce."

The streamer, so called in Tudor days but now better known as the pennant or pendant, was a long, tapering flag, which it was directed "shall stand in the top of a ship or in the forecastle, and therein be put no armes, but the man's cognisance or devyce, and may be of length twenty, thirty, forty or sixty yards, and is slitt as well as a guidon or standard." Amongst the fittings of the ship that took Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, to France in the reign of Henry VII. was a "grete stremour for the shippe xl yardes in length viij yardes in brede." In the hoist was "a grete bere holding a raggid staffe," and the rest of the fly "powdrid full of raggid staves."

NATIONAL FLAGS.--_British._ The royal standard of England was, when it was hoisted on the Tower on the 1st of January 1801, thus heraldically described:--"Quarterly; first and fourth, gules, three lions passant gardant, in pale, or, for England; second, or, a lion rampant, gules, within a double tressure flory counter flory of the last, for Scotland; third, azure, a harp or, stringed argent, for Ireland." The present standard connects in direct descent from the arms of the Conqueror. These were two leopards passant on a red field, and remained the same until the reign of Henry II., when lions were substituted for leopards, and a third added. The next change that took place was in the reign of Edward III. when the royal arms were for the first time quartered; _fleurs-de-lis_ in the first and fourth quarters, and the three lions of England in the second and third. The _fleurs-de-lis_ were assumed in token of the monarch's claim to the throne of France. In the "coats" of Edward III. and the two monarchs that succeeded him, the _fleurs-de-lis_ were powdered over a blue ground, but under Henry V. the _fleurs-de-lis_ were reduced in number to three, and the "coat" so devised remained the same until the death of Queen Elizabeth. The lion of Scotland and the Irish harp were added to the flag on the accession of James I., and the flag then had the French and English arms quartered in the first and fourth quarters, the lion of Scotland, red on a yellow ground, in the second quarter, and the harp of Ireland, gold on a blue ground, in the third quarter. With the exception of the period of the Commonwealth, to which reference will be made later, the flag remained thus until the accession of William III., who imposed upon the Stuart standard a central shield carrying the arms of Nassau. Queen Anne made further alterations; the first and fourth quarters were subdivided, the three lions of England being in one half, the lion of Scotland in the other. The _fleurs-de-lis_ were in the second quarter; the Irish harp in the third. Under George I. and George II. the first, second and third quarters remained the same, the arms of Hanover being placed in the fourth quarter, and this continued to be the royal standard until 1801, when the standard was rearranged as first described with the addition of the Hanoverian arms displayed on a shield in the centre. On the accession of Queen Victoria, the Hanoverian arms were removed, and the flag remained as it to-day exists. It is worthy of note, however, that in the royal standard of King Edward VII. which hangs in the chapel of St George at Windsor, the ordinary "winged woman" form of the harp in the Irish third quartering is altered to a harp of the old Irish pattern. At King Edward's accession this banner replaced that of Queen Victoria which for sixty-two years had hung in this, the chapel of the order of the Garter.

Up to the time of the Stuarts it had been the custom of the lord high admiral or person in command of the fleet to fly the royal standard as deputy of the sovereign. When royalty ceased to be, a new flag was devised by the council of state for the Commonwealth, which comprised the "arms of England and Ireland in two several escutcheons in a red flag within a compartment." In other words, it was a red flag containing two shields, the one bearing the cross of St George, red on a white ground, the other the harp, gold on a blue ground, and round the shields was a wreath of palm and shamrock leaves. One of these flags is still in existence at Chatham dockyard, where it is kept in a wooden chest which was taken out of a Spanish galleon at Vigo by Admiral Sir George Rooke in 1704. When Cromwell became protector of the commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, he devised for himself a personal standard. This had the cross of St George in the first and fourth quarters, the cross of St Andrew, a white saltire on a blue ground, in the second, and the Irish harp in the third. His own arms--a lion on a black shield--were imposed on the centre of the flag. No one but royalty has a right to fly the royal standard, and though it is constantly seen flying for purposes of decoration its use is irregular. There has, however, always been one exception, namely, that the lord high admiral when in executive command of a fleet has always been entitled to fly the royal standard. For example, Lord Howard flew it from the mainmast of the "Ark Royal" when he defeated the Spanish Armada; the duke of Buckingham flew it as lord high admiral in the reign of Charles I., and the duke of York fought under it when he commanded during the Dutch Wars.

The national flag of the British empire is the Union Jack, in which are combined in union the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick. St George had long been a patron saint of England, and his banner, argent, a cross gules, its national ensign. St Andrew in the same way was the patron saint of Scotland, and his banner, azure, a saltire argent, the national ensign of Scotland. On the union of the two crowns James I. issued a proclamation ordaining that "henceforth all our subjects of this Isle and Kingdom of Greater Britain and the members thereof, shall bear in their main-top the red cross commonly called St George's cross, and the white cross commonly called St Andrew's cross, joined together according to a form made by our heralds, and sent by us to our admiral to be published to our said subjects; and in their fore-top our subjects of south Britain shall wear the red cross only, as they were wont, and our subjects of north Britain in their fore-top, the white cross only as they were accustomed." This was the first Union Jack, as it is generally termed, though strictly the name of the flag is the "Great Union," and it is only a "Jack" when flown on the jackstaff of a ship of war. Probably the name of the Stuart king "Jacques," which James I. always signed, gave the name to the flag, and then to the staff at which it was hoisted. At the death of Charles I., the union with Scotland being dissolved, the ships of the parliament reverted to the simple cross of St George, but the union flag was restored when Cromwell became protector, with the Irish harp imposed upon its centre. On the Restoration, Charles II. removed the harp and so the original union flag was restored, and continued as described until the year 1801, when, on the legislative union with Ireland, the cross of St Patrick, a saltire gules, on a field argent, was incorporated in the union flag. To so combine these three crosses without losing the distinctive features of each was not easy; each cross must be distinct, and retain equally distinct its fimbriation, or bordering, which denotes the original ground. In the first union flag, the red cross of St George with the white fimbriation that represented-the original white field was simply imposed upon the white saltire of St Andrew with its blue field. To place the red saltire of St Patrick on the white saltire of St Andrew would have been to obliterate the latter, nor would the red saltire have its proper bordering denoting its original white field; even were the red saltire narrowed in width the portion of the white saltire that would appear would not be the St Andrew saltire, but only the fimbriation appertaining to the saltire of St Patrick. The difficulty has been got over by making the white broader on one side of the red than the other. In fact, the continuity of direction of the arms of the St Patrick red saltire has been broken by its portions being removed from the centre of the oblique points that form the St Andrew's saltire. Thus both the Irish and Scottish saltires can be easily distinguished from one another, whilst the red saltire has its due white fimbriation.

The Union Jack is the most important of all British ensigns, and is flown by representatives of the empire all the world over. It flies from the jackstaff of every man-of-war in the navy. With the Irish harp on a blue shield displayed in the centre, it is flown by the lord-lieutenant of Ireland. When flown by the governor-general of India the star and device of the order of the Star of India are borne in the centre. Colonial governors fly it with the badge of their colony displayed in the centre. Diplomatic representatives use it with the royal arms in the centre. As a military flag, it is flown over fortresses and headquarters, and on all occasions of military ceremonial. Hoisted at the mainmast of a man-of-war it is the flag of an admiral of the fleet.

Military flags in the shape of regimental standards and colours, and flags used for signalling, are described elsewhere, and it will here be only necessary to deal with the navy and admiralty flags.

The origin of the three ensigns--the red, white, and blue--had its genesis in the navy. In the days of huge fleets, such as prevailed in the Tudor and Stuart navies, there were, besides the admiral in supreme command, a vice-admiral as second in command, and a rear-admiral as third in command, each controlling his own particular group or squadron. These were designated centre, van, and rear, the centre almost invariably being commanded by the admiral, the vice-admiral taking the van and the rear-admiral the rear squadron. In order that any vessel in any group could distinguish its own admiral's ship, the flagships of centre, van, and rear flew respectively a plain red, white, or blue flag, and so came into being those naval ranks of admiral, vice-admiral, and rear-admiral of the red, white, and blue which continued down to as late as 1864. As the admiral in supreme command flew the union at the main, there was no rank of admiral of the red, and it was not until November 1805 that the rank of admiral of the red was added to the navy as a special compliment to reward Trafalgar. About 1652, so that each individual ship in the squadron should be distinguishable as well as the flagships, each vessel carried a large red, white, or blue flag according as to whether she belonged to the centre, van, or rear, each flag having in the left-hand upper corner a canton, as it is termed, of white bearing the St George's cross. These flags were called ensigns, and it is, of course, due to the fact that the union with Scotland was for the time dissolved that they bore only the St George's cross. Even when the restoration of the Stuarts restored the _status quo_ the cross of St George still remained alone on the ensign, and it was not altered until 1707 when the bill for the Union of England and Scotland passed the English parliament. In 1801, when Ireland joined the Union, the flag, of course, became as we know it to-day. All these three ensigns belonged to the royal navy, and continued to do so until 1864, but as far back as 1707 ships of the mercantile marine were instructed to fly the red ensign. As ironclads replaced the wooden vessels and fleets became smaller the inconvenience of three naval ensigns was manifest, and in 1864 the grades of flag officer were reduced again to admiral, vice-admiral, and rear-admiral, and the navy abandoned the use of the red and blue ensigns, retaining only the white ensign as its distinctive flag. The mercantile marine retained the red ensign which they were already using, whilst the blue ensign was allotted to vessels employed on the public service whether home or colonial.

The white ensign is therefore essentially the flag of the royal navy. It should not be flown anywhere or on any occasion except by a ship (or shore establishment) of the royal navy, with but one exception. By a grant of William IV. dating from 1829 vessels belonging to the Royal Yacht Squadron, the chief of all yacht clubs, are allowed to fly the white ensign. From 1821 to 1829 ships of the squadron flew the red ensign, as that of highest dignity, but as it was also used by merchant ships, they then obtained the grant of the white ensign as being more distinctive. Some few other yacht clubs flew it until 1842, when the privilege was withdrawn by an admiralty minute. By some oversight the order was not conveyed to the Royal Western of Ireland, whose ships flew the white ensign until in 1857 the usage was stopped. Since that date the Royal Yacht Squadron has alone had the privilege. Any vessel of any sort flying the white ensign, or pennant, of the navy is committing a grave offence, and the ship can be boarded by any officer of His Majesty's service, the colours seized, the vessel reported to the authorities, and a penalty inflicted on the owners or captain or both. The penalty incurred is L500 fine for each offence, as laid down in the 73rd section of the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. In 1883 Lord Annesley's yacht, belonging to the Royal Yacht Squadron, was detained at the Dardanelles in consequence of her flying the white ensign of the royal navy which brought her under the category of a man-of-war, and no foreign man-of-war is allowed to pass the Dardanelles without first obtaining an imperial _irade_. Since then owners belonging to the squadron have been warned that they must either sail their ships through the straits under the red ensign common to all ships British owned, or obtain imperial permission if they wish to display the white ensign.

Besides the white ensign the ship of war flies a long streamer from the maintopgallant masthead. This, which is called a pennant, is flown only by ships in commission; it is, in fact, the sign of command, and is first hoisted when a captain commissions his ship. The pennant, which was really the old "pennoncell," was of three colours for the whole of its length, and towards the end left separate in two or three tails, and so continued till the end of the great wars in 1816. Now, however, the pennant is a long white streamer with the St George's cross in the inner portion close to the mast. Pennants have been carried by men-of-war from the earliest times, prior to 1653 at the yard-arm, but since that date at the maintopgallant masthead.

The blue ensign is exclusively the flag of the public service other than the royal navy, and is as well the flag of the royal naval reserve. It is flown also by certain authorized vessels of the British mercantile marine, the conditions governing this privilege being that the captain and a certain specified portion of the officers and crew shall belong to the ranks of the royal naval reserve. When flown by ships belonging to British government offices the seal or badge of the office is displayed in the fly. For example, hired transports fly it with the yellow anchor in the fly; the marine department of the Board of Trade has in the fly the device of a ship under sail; the telegraph branch of the post-office shows in the fly a device representing Father Time with his hour-glass shattered by lightning; the ordnance department displays upon the fly a shield with a cannon and cannon balls upon it. Certain yacht clubs are also authorized by special admiralty warrant to fly the blue ensign. Some of these display it plain; others show in the fly the distinctive badge of the club. Consuls-general, consuls and consular agents also have a right to fly the blue ensign, the distinguishing badge in their case being the royal arms.

The red ensign is the distinguishing flag of the British merchant service, and special orders to this effect were issued by Queen Anne in 1707, and again by Queen Victoria in 1864. The order of Queen Anne directed that merchant vessels should fly a red flag "with a Union Jack described in a canton at the upper corner thereof next the staff," and this is probably the first time that the term "Union Jack" was officially used. In some cases those yacht clubs which fly the red ensign change it slightly from that flown by the merchant service, for they are allowed to display the badge of the club in the fly. Colonial merchantmen usually display the ordinary red ensign, but, provided they have a warrant of authorization from the admiralty, they can use the ensign with the badge of the colony in the fly.

In regard to ensigns it is important to remember that they are purely maritime flags, and though the rule is more honoured in the breach than in the observance, the only flag that a private individual or a corporation has a right to display on shore is the national flag, the Union Jack, in its plain condition and without any emblazonment.

There are two other British sea flags which are worthy of brief notice. These are the admiralty flag and the flag of the master of Trinity House. The admiralty flag is a plain red flag with a clear anchor in the centre in yellow. In a sense it is a national flag, for the sovereign hoists it when afloat in conjunction with the royal standard and the Union Jack. It would appear to have been first used by the duke of York as lord high admiral, who flew it when the sovereign was afloat and had the royal standard flying in another ship. When a board of commissioners was appointed to execute the office of lord high admiral this was the flag adopted, and in 1691 we find the admiralty, minuting the navy board, then a subordinate department, "requiring and directing it to cause a fitting red silk flag, with the anchor and cable therein, to be provided against Tuesday morning next, for the barge belonging to this board." In 1725, presumably as being more pretty and artistic, the cable in the device was twisted round the stock of the anchor. It was thus made into a "foul anchor," the thing of all others that a sailor most hates, and this despite the fact that the first lord at the time, the earl of Berkeley, was himself a sailor. The anchor retained its unseamanlike appearance, and was not "cleared" till 1815, and even to this day the buttons of the naval uniform bear a "foul anchor." The "anchor" flag is solely the emblem of an administrative board; it does not carry the executive or combatant functions which are vested in the royal standard, the union or an admiral's flag, but on two occasions it has been made use of as an executive flag. In 1719 the earl of Berkeley, who at the time was not only first lord of the admiralty, but vice-admiral of England, obtained the special permission of George I. to hoist it at the main instead of the union flag. Again in 1869, when Mr Childers, then first lord, accompanied by some members of his board, went on board the "Agincourt" he hoisted the admiralty flag and took command of the combined Mediterranean and Channel squadrons, thus superseding the flags of the two distinguished officers who at the time were in command of these squadrons. It is hardly necessary to add that throughout the navy there was a very distinct feeling of dissatisfaction at the innovation. When the admiralty flag is flown by the sovereign it is hoisted at the fore, his own standard being of course at the main, and the union at the mizzen.

The flag of the master of the Trinity House is the red cross of St George on its white ground, but with an ancient ship on the waves in each quarter; in the centre is a shield with a precisely similar device and surmounted by a lion.

The sign of a British admiral's command afloat is always the same. It is the St George's cross. Of old it was borne on the main, the fore, or the mizzen, according as to whether the officer to whom it pertained was admiral, vice-admiral, or rear-admiral, but, as ironclads superseded wooden ships, and a single pole mast took the place of the old three masts, a different method of indicating rank was necessitated. To-day the flag of an admiral is a square one, the plain St George's cross. When flown by a vice-admiral it bears a red ball on the white ground in the upper canton next to the staff; if flown by a rear-admiral there is a red ball in both the upper and lower cantons. As nowadays most battleships have two masts, the admiral's flag is hoisted at the one which has no masthead semaphore. The admiral's flag is always a square one, but that of a commodore is a broad white pennant with the St George's cross. If the commodore be first class the flag is plain; if of the second class the flag has a red ball in the upper canton next to the staff. The same system of differentiating rank prevails in most navies, though very often a star takes the place of the ball. In some cases, however, the indications of rank are differently shown. For instance, both in the Russian and Japanese navies the distinction is made by a line of colour on the upper or lower edges of the flag.

The flags of the British colonies are the same as those of the mother country, but differentiated by the badge of the colony being placed in the centre of the flag if it is the Union Jack, or in the fly if it be the blue or red ensign. Examples of these are shown in the Plate, where the blue ensign illustrated is that of New Zealand, the device of the colony being the southern cross in the fly. Precisely the same flag, with a large six-pointed star, emblematic of the six states immediately under the union, forms the flag of the federated commonwealth of Australia. The red ensign shown is that of the Dominion of Canada, the device in the fly being the armorial bearings of the Dominion. As the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, as the representative of royalty, flies the Union Jack with a harp in the centre, or the viceroy of India flies the same flag with, in the centre, the badge of the order of the Star of India, so too colonial governors or high commissioners fly the union flag with the arms of the colony they preside over on a white shield in the centre and surrounded by a laurel wreath. In the case of Canada the wreath, however, is not of laurel but of maple, which is the special emblem of the Dominion.

_French._--To come to flags of other countries, nowhere have historical events caused so much change in the standards and national ensigns of a country as in the case of France. The oriflamme and the Chape de St Martin were succeeded at the end of the 16th century, when Henry III., the last of the house of Valois, came to the throne, by the white standard powdered with _fleurs-de-lis_. This in turn gave place to the famous tricolour. The tricolour was introduced at the time of the Revolution, but the origin of this flag and its colours is a disputed question. Some maintain that the intention was to combine in the flag the blue of the Chape de St Martin, the red of the oriflamme, and the white flag of the Bourbons. By others the colours are said to be those of the city of Paris. Yet again, other authorities assert that the flag is copied from the shield of the Orleans family as it appeared after Philippe Egalite had knocked off the _fleurs-de-lis_. The tricolour is divided vertically into three parts of equal width--blue, white and red, the red forming the fly, the white the middle, and the blue the hoist of the flag. During the first and second empires the tricolour became the imperial standard, but in the centre of the white stripe was placed the eagle, whilst all three stripes were richly powdered over with the golden bees of the Napoleons. The tricolour is now the sole flag of France.

_American._--Before the Declaration of Independence the flags of those colonies which now form the United States of America were very various. In the early days of New England the Puritans objected to the red cross of St George, not from any disloyalty to the mother country, but from a conscientious objection to what they deemed an idolatrous symbol. By the year 1700 most of the colonies had devised badges to distinguish their vessels from those of England and of each other. In the early stages of the revolution each state adopted a flag of its own; thus, that of Massachusetts bore a pine tree, South Carolina displayed a rattlesnake, New York had a white flag with a black beaver, and Rhode Island a white flag with a blue anchor upon it. Even after the Declaration of Independence, and the introduction of the stars and stripes, the latter underwent many changes in the manner of their arrangement before taking the position at present established. In 1775 a committee was appointed to consider the question of a single flag for the thirteen states. It recommended that the union be retained in the upper corner next to the staff, the remainder of the field of the flag to be of thirteen horizontally disposed stripes, alternately red and white. This flag, curiously enough, was precisely the same as the flag of the old Honourable East India Company. On the 14th of June 1777 congress resolved "that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." This was the origin of the national flag, but at first, as the number of the stripes were unequal, the flag very often varied, sometimes having seven white and six red stripes, and at other times seven red and six white, and it was not for some considerable time that it was authoritatively laid down that the latter arrangement was the one to be adopted. It has also been held that the stars and stripes of the American national flag, as well as the eagle, were suggested by the crest and arms of the Washington family. The latter supposition is absurd, for the Washington crest was a raven. The Washington arms were a white shield having two horizontal red bars, and above these a row of three red stars. This might, by a stretch of imagination, be supposed to have inspired the original idea of the flag which was that each state in the Union should be represented in the national flag by a star and stripe. Naturally other states coming into the Union expected the same privilege. After Vermont in 1790 and Kentucky in 1792 had entered the Union, the stars and stripes were changed in number from thirteen to fifteen. Later on other states joined, and soon the flag came to consist of twenty stars and stripes. It was, however, found objectionable to be constantly altering the national flag, and in the year 1818 it was determined to go back to the original thirteen stripes, but to place a star for each state in the blue union canton in the top corner of the flag next the staff. Thus the stars always show the exact number of states that are in the Union, whilst the stripes denote the original number of the states that formed the union.[1] The presidential flag of the president of the United States is an eagle on a blue field, bearing on its breast a shield displaying stripes, and above the national motto _E pluribus unum_, and a design of the stars of the original thirteen states of the union.

_Other Countries._--The most general and important of the various national flags are figured in the Plate. In the top line representing Great Britain are shown the royal standard, the Union Jack (the national flag), the white ensign of the royal navy, the blue ensign of government service, and the red ensign of the commercial marine, colonial flags being shown in the case of the two latter ensigns. The two Japanese flags shown are the man-of-war ensign--a rising sun, generally known as the sun-burst--and the flag of the mercantile marine, in which the red ball is used without the rays and placed in the centre of the white field. The imperial standard of Japan is a golden chrysanthemum on a red field. It is essential that the chrysanthemum should invariably have sixteen petals. Heraldry in Japan is of a simpler character than that of Europe, and is practically limited to the employment of "Mon," which correspond very nearly to the "crests" of European heraldry. The great families of Japan possess at least one, and in many cases even three, "Mon." The imperial family use two, the one _Kiku no go Mon_ (the august chrysanthemum crest) and _Kiri no go Mon_ (the august Kiri crest). The first represents the sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum, and, although the use of the chrysanthemum flower as a badge is not necessarily confined to the imperial family, they alone have the right to use the sixteen-petalled form. If used by any other family, or society or corporation, it must be with a number of petals less or more than sixteen. The second imperial "Mon" is composed of three leaves and three flower spikes of the Kiri (_Paulownia imperialis_). This, however, is not displayed as an official emblem, that being reserved for the chrysanthemum. The Kiri is used for more private purposes. For example, the chrysanthemum figures in the imperial standard, and the Kiri "Mon" adorns the harness of the emperor's horses. It is very probable that the chrysanthemum crest did not originally represent the chrysanthemum flower at all but the sun with sixteen rays, and it will be noticed that in the "sun-burst" flag the sun's rays are sixteen in number. The use of the number sixteen is probably traceable to Chinese geomantic ideas.

The German imperial navy and mercantile marine flags are next depicted. The "iron cross" in the navy flag is that of the Teutonic Order, and dates from the close of the 12th century. For five centuries black and white have been the Hohenzollern colours, and the first verse of the German war song, _Ich bin ein Preusse_, runs:--

"I am a Prussian! Know ye not my banner? Before me floats my flag of black and white! My fathers died for freedom, 'twas their manner, So say these colours floating in your sight."

The mercantile marine tricolour of black, white and red is emblematic of the joining of the Hohenzollern black and white with the red and white, which was the ensign of the Hanseatic League. This flag came into being when the North German Confederacy was established (November 25th, 1867) at the close of the Austro-Prussian War.

The German imperial standard has the iron cross with its white border displayed on a yellow field, diapered over in each of the four quarters with three black eagles and a crown. In the centre of the cross is a shield bearing the arms of Prussia surmounted by a crown, and surrounded by a collar of the Order of the Black Eagle. In the four arms of the crown are the legend _Gott mit uns_ 1870. The United States flag and the tricolour of France have already been fully dealt with, and in both countries the one flag is common to both men-of-war and ships of the mercantile marine.

The next depicted are the imperial navy and the mercantile marine flags of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In the latter the introduction of the green half stripe denotes the combination of the Austrian red, white and red with the Hungarian red, white and green. The shields with which the flag is charged contain respectively the arms of Austria and of Hungary. The former shield only is borne on the man-of-war ensign, and displays the heraldic device of the ancient dukes of Austria, which dates back to the year 1191. The Austrian imperial standard has, on a yellow ground, the black double-headed eagle, on the breast and wings of which are imposed shields bearing the arms of the provinces of the empire. The flag is bordered all round, the border being composed of equal-sided triangles with their apices alternately inwards and outwards, those with their apices pointing inwards being alternately yellow and white, the others alternately scarlet and black.

The green, white and red Italian tricolour was adopted in 1805, when Napoleon I. formed Italy into one kingdom. It was adopted again in 1848 by the Nationalists of the peninsula, accepted by the king of Sardinia, and, charged by him with the arms of Savoy, it became the flag of a united Italy. The man-of-war flag is precisely similar to that of the mercantile marine, except that in the case of the former the shield of Savoy is surmounted by a crown. The royal standard is a blue flag. In the centre is a black eagle crowned and displaying on its breast the arms of Savoy, the whole surrounded by the collar of the Most Sacred Annunziata, the third in rank of all European orders. In each corner of the flag is the royal crown.

For Portugal the flag is one of the few national flags that are parti-coloured. It is half blue, half white, with, in the centre, the arms of Portugal surmounted by the royal crown, and it is the same both in the mercantile marine and in the Portuguese navy. The royal standard of Portugal is an all-red flag charged in the centre with the royal arms, as shown in the national flag.

In the Spanish ensigns red and yellow are the prevailing colours, and here again the arrangement differs from that generally used. The navy flag has a yellow central stripe, with red above and below. To be correct the yellow should be half the width of the flag, and each of the red stripes a quarter of the width of the flag. The central yellow stripe is charged in the hoist with an escutcheon containing the arms of Castile and Leon, and surmounted by the royal crown. In the mercantile flag the yellow centre is without the escutcheon, and is one-third of the entire depth of the flag, the remaining thirds being divided into equal stripes of red and yellow, the yellow above in the upper part of the flag, the red in the lower. Of all royal standards that of Spain is the most elaborate, for it contains quarterings of the Spanish royal escutcheon, many of the bearings being as much an anachronism as if the royal arms of England were to-day to be quartered with the _fleur-de-lis_. In all, the quarterings displayed are those of Leon, Castile, Aragon, Sicily, Austria, Burgundy, Flanders, Antwerp, Brabant, Portugal and France. The flag is usually depicted as composed entirely of the quarterings. We believe, however, that it is more correctly a purple flag in the centre of which the quarterings are displayed on an oval shield surmounted by a crown and encircled by the collar of the order of the Golden Fleece.

The flag of the Russian mercantile marine is a horizontal tricolour of white, blue and red. Originally, it was a tricolour of blue, white and red, and it is said that the idea of its colouring was taken by Peter the Great when learning shipbuilding in Holland, for as the flag then stood it was simply the Dutch ensign reversed. Later, to make it more distinctive, the blue and white stripes changed places, leaving the tricolour as it stands to-day. The flag of the Russian navy is the blue saltire of St Andrew on a white ground. St Andrew is the patron saint of Russia, from whence the emblem. The imperial standard is of a character akin to that of Austria; the ground is yellow, and the centre bears the imperial double-headed eagle, a badge that dates back to 1472, when Ivan the Great married a niece of Constantine Palaeologus and assumed the arms of the Greek empire. On the breast of the eagle is an escutcheon charged with the emblem of St George and the Dragon on a red ground, and this is surrounded by the collar of the order of St Andrew. On the splayed wings of the eagle are small shields bearing the arms of the various provinces of the empire.

The Rumanian flag is a blue, yellow and red tricolour, the stripes vertical, with the blue stripe forming the fly. The Servian flag is a horizontal tricolour, the top stripe red, the middle blue and the lower white. When these tricolours are flown as royal standards the royal arms are displayed on the central stripe. The flag of Montenegro is a horizontal tricolour, the top stripe red, the centre blue, the lowermost white. The Bulgarian flag is a similar tricolour, white, green and red, the white stripe uppermost, but when flown as a war ensign there is a canton in the upper corner of the hoist in which is a golden lion on a red ground.

The flags of all the three Scandinavian kingdoms are somewhat similar in design. That of Denmark, the Dannebrog, has been already alluded to, and it is shown in our illustration as flown by the Danish navy. The mercantile marine flag is precisely similar, but rectangular instead of being swallow-tailed. The Swedish flag is a yellow cross on a blue ground. When flown from a man-of-war it is forked as in the Danish, but the longer arm of the cross is not cut off but pointed, thus making it a three-pointed flag as illustrated. For the mercantile marine the flag is rectangular. When Norway separated from Denmark in 1814, the first flag was red with a white cross on it, and the arms of Norway in the upper corner of the hoist, but as this was found to resemble too closely the Danish flag, a blue cross with a white border was substituted for the white cross. This, it will be seen, is the Danish flag with a blue cross imposed upon the white one. For a man-of-war the flag is precisely similar to that of Sweden in shape; that is to say, converted from the rectangular into the three-pointed design. While Sweden and Norway remained united the flag of each remained distinct, but each bore in the top canton of the hoist a union device, being the combination of the Norwegian and Swedish national colours and crosses. In each of the three above nationalities the flag used for a royal standard is the man-of-war flag with the royal arms imposed on the centre of the cross.

The Belgian tricolour is vertical, the stripes being black next the hoist, yellow in the centre and red in the fly. That of the Netherlands is a horizontal tricolour, red above, white in the centre and blue below. In both countries the same flag is common to both navy and mercantile marine, but when the flag is used as a royal standard the royal arms are displayed in the central stripe. The black, yellow and red of the Belgian flag are the colours of the duchy of Brabant, and were adopted in 1831 when the monarchy was founded. The original Dutch colours adopted when Holland declared its independence were orange, white and blue, the colours of the house of Orange, and when and how the orange became red is not quite clear, though it was certainly prior to 1643.

The blue and white which form the colouring of the Greek flag shown in our illustration are the colours of the house of Bavaria, and were adopted in 1832, when Prince Otho of Bavaria was elected to the throne of Greece. The stripes are nine in number--five blue and four white--with, in the upper corner of the hoist, a canton bearing a white cross on a blue ground. The flag for the royal navy is similar to that flown by the mercantile marine, with the exception that it has the addition of a golden crown in the centre of the cross. The royal standard is a blue flag with a white cross, on the centre of which the royal arms are imposed. The cross is exactly similar to that in the Danish flag, that is to say, the arms of the cross are not of equal length, the shorter end being in the hoist of the flag.

The very simple flag of Switzerland is one of great antiquity, for it was the emblem of the nation as far back as 1339, and probably considerably earlier. In addition to the national flag of the Swiss confederation, each canton has its own cantonal colours. In each case the flag has its stripes disposed horizontally. Basel, for instance, is half black, half white; Berne, half black, half red; Glarus, red, black and white, &c., &c.

The Turkish crescent moon and star were the device adopted by Mahomet II. when he captured Constantinople in 1453. Originally they were the symbol of Diana, the patroness of Byzantium, and were adopted by the Ottomans as a triumph, for they had always been the special emblem of Constantinople, and even now in Moscow and elsewhere the crescent emblem and the cross may be seen combined in Russian churches, the crescent badge, of course, indicating the Byzantine origin of the Russian church. The symbol originated at the time of the siege of Constantinople by Philip the father of Alexander the Great, when a night attempt of the besiegers to undermine the walls was betrayed by the light of a crescent moon, and in acknowledgment of their escape the Byzantines raised a statue to Diana, and made her badge the symbol of the city. Both the man-of-war and mercantile marine flags are the same, but the imperial standard of the sultan is scarlet, and bears in its centre the device of the reigning sovereign. This device is known as the "Tughra," and consists of the name of the sultan, the title of khan, and the epithet _al-Muzaffar Daima_, which means "the ever victorious." The origin of the "Tughra" is that the sultan Murad I., who was not of scholarly parts, signed a treaty by wetting his open hand with ink, and pressing it on the paper, the first, second and third fingers making smears close together, the thumb and fourth finger leaving marks apart. Within the marks thus made the scribes wrote in the name of Murad, his title, and the epithet above quoted. The "Tughra" dates from the latter part of the 14th century. The smaller characters in the "Tughra" change, of course, on the accession of every fresh sovereign, but the leading form of the device always remains the same, namely, rounded lines to the left denoting the thumb, lines to the right denoting where the little finger made impression, and three upright lines indicating the other fingers.

The Mahommedan states tributary to Turkey also display the crescent and star. Morocco, Muscat and other Arab states where they use an ensign display a red flag, that of the Zanzibar protectorate having the British union in the centre of the red field.

The Persian flag is white with a border, green on the upper edge of the flag and in the fly, and red in the hoist and on the lower edge. On the white ground are the lion and sun.

The flag of Siam is a white elephant on a red ground. That of Korea, a white flag with, in the centre, a ball, half red, half blue, the colours being curiously intermixed, the whole being precisely as if two large commas of equal size, one red and the other blue, were united to form a complete circle.

The Chinese flag is a yellow one, bearing on it the emblem of the dragon devouring the sun. As at present used, it is a square flag, but an earlier version was a triangular right-angled flag, hoisted with the right-angle in the base of the hoist. The merchant flag is red with a yellow ball in the centre.

Among the South American republics the Brazilian flag is peculiar inasmuch as it is the only national flag which carries a motto.

Mexico flies precisely the same tricolour as Italy, but plain in the case of the merchant ensign, and charged on the central stripe with the Mexican arms (as illustrated) when flown as a man-of-war ensign.

The Argentine flag is as illustrated flown by the navy, but, when used by the mercantile marine, the sun emblazoned on the central white stripe is omitted, the flag otherwise being precisely the same.

The Venezuelan flag shown is also that of the navy. The flag of the mercantile marine is the same, but the shield bearing the arms of the state is not introduced into the yellow top stripe in the corner near the hoist, as in the naval flag.

The Chilean ensign illustrated is used alike by men-of-war and vessels in the mercantile marine, but, when flown as the standard of the president, the Chilean arms and supporters are placed in the centre of the flag.

The plain red, white, red in vertical stripes, is the flag of the mercantile marine of Peru, and becomes the naval ensign when charged on the central stripe with the Peruvian arms as shown in our illustration. In fact, in nearly every case with the South American republics, the ordinary mercantile marine flag becomes that of the war navy by the addition of the national arms, and in some cases is used in the same way as a presidential flag.

In nearly every case the flags of the lesser American republics are tricolours, and in a very great many of them the flags are by no means such combinations as would meet with the approval of European heralds. All flag devising should be in accordance with heraldic laws, and one of the most important of these is that colour should not be placed on colour, nor metal on metal, yellow in blazonry being the equivalent of gold and white of silver. Hence, properly devised tricolours are such as, for example, those of France, where the red and blue are divided by white, or Belgium, where the black and red are divided by yellow. On the other hand, the yellow, blue, red of Venezuela is heraldically an abomination.

_Manufacture and Miscellaneous Uses._--Flags, the manufacture, of which is quite a large industry, are almost invariably made from bunting, a very light, tough and durable woollen material. The regulation bunting as used in the navy is made in 9 in. widths, and the flag classes in size according to the number of breadths of bunting of which it is composed. The great centre of the manufacture of flags, as far as the royal navy is concerned, is the dockyard at Chatham. Ensigns and Jacks are made in different sizes; the largest ensign made is 33 ft. long by 16-1/2 ft. in width; the largest Jack issued is 24 ft. long and 12 ft. wide.

The dimensions of a flag according to heraldry should be either square or in the proportion of two to one, and it is this latter dimension that is used in the navy and generally.

Signalling flags are dealt with elsewhere (see SIGNAL), and here it will only be necessary to make brief allusion to some international customs with regard to the use of flags to indicate certain purposes. For long a blood-red flag has always been used as a symbol of mutiny or of revolution. The black flag was in days gone by the symbol of the pirate; to-day, in the only case in which it survives, it is flown after an execution to indicate that the requirements of the law have been duly carried out. All over the world a yellow flag is the signal of infectious illness. A ship hoists it to denote that there are some on board suffering from yellow fever, cholera or some such infectious malady, and it remains hoisted until she has received quarantine. This flag is also hoisted on quarantine stations. The white flag is universally used as a flag of truce.

At the sea striking of the flag denotes surrender. When the flag of one country is placed over that of another the victory of the former is denoted, hence in time of peace it would be an insult to hoist the flag of one friendly nation above that of another. If such were done by mistake, say in "dressing ship" for instance, an apology would have to be made. This custom of hoisting the flag of the vanquished beneath that of the victor is of comparatively modern date, as up to about a century ago the sign of victory was to trail the enemy's flag over the taffrail in the water. Each national flag must be flown from its own flagstaff, and this is often seen when the allied forces of two or more powers are in joint occupation of a town or territory. To denote honour and respect a flag is "dipped." Ships at sea salute each other by "dipping" the flag, that is to say, by running it smartly down from the masthead, and then as quickly replacing it. When troops parade before the sovereign the regimental flags are lowered as they salute him. A flag flying half-mast high is the universal symbol of mourning. When a ship has to make the signal of distress, this is done by hoisting the national ensign reversed, that is to say, upside down. If it is wished to accentuate the imminence of the danger it is done by making the flag into a "weft," that is, by knotting it in the middle. This means of showing distress at sea is of very ancient usage, for in naval works written as far back as the reign of James I. we find the "weft" mentioned as a method of showing distress.

We have already alluded to the Union Jack as used for denoting nationality, and as a flag of command, but it also serves many other purposes. For instance, if a court-martial is being held on board any ship the Union Jack is displayed while the court is sitting, its hoisting being accompanied by the firing of a gun. In a fleet in company the ship that has the guard for the day flies it. With a white border it forms the signal for a pilot, and in this case is known as a Pilot Jack. In all combinations of signalling flags which denote a ship's name the Union Jack forms a unit. Lastly, it figures as the pall of every sailor or soldier of the empire who receives naval or military honours at his funeral.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See _Flags: Some Account of their History and Uses_, by A. MacGeorge (1881); _National Banners: Their History and Construction_, by W. Bland (1892) (one of a series of Heraldic Tracts, 1850-1892, Br. Museum Library, No. 9906, b. 9; this pamphlet gives the design of the national banners of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick, and illustrates and tells the story of the composition of the three flags into the great union flag, commonly known as the Union Jack); _Our Flags: Their Origin, Use and Traditions_, by Rear-Admiral S. Eardley-Wilmot (1901), an excellent treatise, historical and narrative, on all the flags of the British empire; _A History of the Flag of the United States_ (Boston, 1872), by G.H. Preble; _Flags of the World: Their History, Blazonry and Associations_, by Edward Hulme, F.L.S., F.S.A. (1897), a most complete monograph on the subject, illustrated with a very complete series of plates; _Admiralty Book of Flags of all Nations_, printed for H.M. Stationery office, 1889, kept up to date by the publication periodically of Errata, officially issued under an admiralty covering letter; _Flags of Maritime Nations_, prepared by the Bureau of Equipment department of the navy, printed by authority (Washington, 1899). The last two works have no letterpress beyond titles, but contain, to scale, delineations of all the flags at present used officially by all nations. Between the two there are no discrepancies, and the delineation of a flag taken from either may be assumed as absolutely correct. Both are respectively the guides for flag construction in the royal navy and the United States navy. (H. L. S.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] By the admission of Oklahoma as a state in 1907 the number of stars became 46, arranged from the top in horizontal rows thus: 8, 7, 8, 7, 8, 8 = 46.

FLAGELLANTS (from Lat. _flagellare_, to whip), in religion, the name given to those who scourge themselves, or are scourged, by way of discipline or penance. Voluntary flagellation, as a form of exalted devotion, occurs in almost all religions. According to Herodotus (ii. 40. 61), it was the custom of the ancient Egyptians to beat themselves during the annual festival in honour of their goddess Isis. In Sparta children were flogged before the altar of Artemis Orthia till the blood flowed (Plutarch, _Instit. Laced._ 40). At Alea, in the Peloponnese, women were flogged in the temple of Dionysus (Pausanias, Arcad. 23). The priests of Cybele, or _archigalli_, submitted to the discipline in the temple of the goddess (Plutarch, _Adv. Colot._ p. 1127; Apul., _Metam._ viii. 173). At the Roman Lupercalia women were flogged by the celebrants to avert sterility or as a purificatory ceremony (W. Mannhardt, _Mythol. Forsch._, Strassburg, 1884, p. 72 seq.).

Ritual flagellation existed among the Jews, and, according to Buxtorf (_Synagoga judaica_, Basel, 1603), was one of the ceremonies of the day of the Great Pardon. In the Christian church flagellation was originally a punishment, and was practised not only by parents and schoolmasters, but also by bishops, who thus corrected offending priests and monks (St Augustine, _Ep. 159 ad Marcell._; cf. _Conc. Agd._ 506, can. ii.). Gradually, however, voluntary flagellation appeared in the _libri poenitentiales_ as a very efficacious means of penance. In the 11th century this new form of devotion was extolled by some of the most ardent reformers in the monastic houses of the west, such as Abbot Popon of Stavelot, St Dominic Loricatus (so called from his practice of wearing next his skin an iron _lorica_, or cuirass of thongs), and especially Cardinal Pietro Damiani. Damiani advocated the substitution of flagellation for the recitation of the penitential psalms, and drew up a scale according to which 1000 strokes were equivalent to ten psalms, and 15,000 to the whole psalter. The majority of these reformers exemplified their preaching in their own persons, and St Dominic gained great renown by inflicting upon himself 300,000 strokes in six days. The custom of collective flagellation was introduced into the monastic houses, the ceremony taking place every Friday after confession.

The early Franciscans flagellated themselves with characteristic rigour, and it is no matter of surprise to find the Franciscan, St Anthony of Padua, preaching the praises of this means of penance. It is incorrect, however, to suppose that St Anthony took any part in the creation of the flagellant fraternities, which were the result of spontaneous popular movements, and later than the great Franciscan preacher; while Ranieri, a monk of Perugia, to whom the foundation of these strange communities has been attributed, was merely the leader of the flagellant brotherhood in that region. About 1259 these fraternities were distributed over the greater part of northern Italy. The contagion spread very rapidly, extending as far as the Rhine provinces, and, across Germany, into Bohemia. Day and night, long processions of all classes and ages, headed by priests carrying crosses and banners, perambulated the streets in double file, reciting prayers and drawing the blood from their bodies with leathern thongs. The magistrates in some of the Italian towns, and especially Uberto Pallavicino at Milan, expelled the flagellants with threats, and for a time the sect disappeared. The disorders of the 14th century, however, the numerous earthquakes, and the Black Death, which had spread over the greater part of Europe, produced a condition of ferment and mystic fever which was very favourable to a recrudescence of morbid forms of devotion. The flagellants reappeared, and made the state of religious trouble in Germany, provoked by the struggle between the papacy and Louis of Bavaria, subserve their cause. In the spring of 1349 bands of flagellants, perhaps from Hungary, began their propaganda in the south of Germany. Each band was under the command of a leader, who was assisted by two lieutenants; and obedience to the leader was enjoined upon every member on entering the brotherhood. The flagellants paid for their own personal maintenance, but were allowed to accept board and lodging, if offered. The penance lasted 33-1/2 days, during which they flogged themselves with thongs fitted with four iron points. They read letters which they said had fallen from heaven, and which threatened the earth with terrible punishments if men refused to adopt the mode of penance taught by the flagellants. On several occasions they incited the populations of the towns through which they passed against the Jews, and also against the monks who opposed their propaganda. Many towns shut their gates upon them; but, in spite of discouragement, they spread from Poland to the Rhine, and penetrated as far as Holland and Flanders. Finally, a band of 100 marched from Basel to Avignon to the court of Pope Clement VI., who, in spite of the sympathy shown them by several of his cardinals, condemned the sect as constituting a menace to the priesthood. On the 20th of October 1349 Clement published a bull commanding the bishops and inquisitors to stamp out the growing heresy, and in pursuance of the pope's orders numbers of the sectaries perished at the stake or in the cells of the inquisitors and the episcopal justices. In 1389 the leader of a flagellant band in Italy called the _bianchi_ was burned by order of the pope, and his following dispersed. In 1417, however, the Spanish Dominican St Vincent Ferrer pleaded the cause of the flagellants with great warmth at the council of Constance, and elicited a severe reply from John Gerson (_Epistola ad Vincentium_), who declared that the flagellants were showing a tendency to slight the sacramental confession and penance, were refusing to perform the _cultus_ of the martyrs venerated by the church, and were even alleging their own superiority to the martyrs.

The justice of Gerson's protest was borne out by events. In Germany, in 1414, there was a recrudescence of the epidemic of flagellation, which then became a clearly-formulated heresy. A certain Conrad Schmidt placed himself at the head of a community of Thuringian flagellants, who took the name of Brethren of the Cross. Schmidt gave himself out as the incarnation of Enoch, and prophesied the approaching fall of the Church of Rome, the overthrow of the ancient sacraments, and the triumph of flagellation as the only road to salvation. Numbers of Beghards joined the Brethren of the Cross, and the two sects were confounded in the rigorous persecution conducted in Germany by the inquisitor Eylard Schoneveld, who almost annihilated the flagellants. This mode of devotion, however, held its ground among the lower ranks of Catholic piety. In the 16th century it subsisted in Italy, Spain and southern France. Henry III. of France met with it in Provence, and attempted to acclimatize it at Paris, where he formed bands divided into various orders, each distinguished by a different colour. The king and his courtiers joined in the processions in the garb of penitents, and scourged themselves with ostentation. The king's encouragement seemed at first to point to a successful revival of flagellation; but the practice disappeared along with the other forms of devotion that had sprung up at the time of the league, and Henry III.'s successor suppressed the Paris brotherhood. Flagellation was occasionally practised as a means of salvation by certain Jansenist convulsionaries in the 18th century, and also, towards the end of the 18th century, by a little Jansenist sect known as the Fareinists, founded by the brothers Bonjour, _cures_ of Fareins, near Trevoux (Ain). In 1820 a band of flagellants appeared during a procession at Lisbon; and in the Latin countries, at the season of great festivals, one may still see brotherhoods of penitents flagellating themselves before the assembled faithful.

For an account of flagellation in antiquity see S. Reinach, _Cultes, mythes et religions_ (vol. i. pp. 173-183, 1906), which contains a bibliography of the subject. For a bibliography of the practice in medieval times, see M. Rohricht, "Bibliographische Beitrage zur Gesch. der Geissler" in _Briegers Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte_, i. 313. (P. A.)

FLAGELLATA, the name given to the Protozoa whose dominant phase is a "flagellula," or cell-body provided with one, few or rarely many long actively vibratile, cytoplasmic processes. Nutrition is variable:--(1) "Holozoic"; food taken in by ingestion, by amoeboid action either unspecialized or at one or more well-defined oral spots, or through an aperture (mouth); (2) "Saprophytic"; food taken in in solution through the general surface of the body; (3) "Holophytic"; food-material formed in the coloured plasm by fixation of carbon from the medium, with liberation of oxygen, in presence of light, as in green plants. Fission in the "active" state occurs and is usually longitudinal. Multiple fission rarely occurs save in a sporocyst, and produces microzoospores, which in some cases may conjugate with others as isogametes or with larger forms (megagametes). "Hypnocysts" to tide over unfavourable conditions are not infrequent, but have no necessary relation to reproduction. Many have a firm pellicle which may form a hard shell: again a distinct cell-wall of chitin or cellulose may be formed: finally, an open cup, "theca," of firm or gelatinous material may be present, with or without a stalk: such a cup and stalk are often found in colonial species, and are subject to much the same conditions as in Infusoria. The nucleus is simple in most cases; but in Haemoflagellates it is connected with a second nucleus, which again is in immediate relation with the motile apparatus; the former is termed the "tropho-nucleus," the latter the "kineto-nucleus."

As reserves the protoplasm may contain oil, starch, paramylum, leucosin (a substance soluble in water, and of doubtful composition), proteid granules. In the holophytic forms the cytoplasm contains specialized parts of more or less definite form, known generally as "plastids" or "chromatophores" impregnated with a lipochrome pigment, whether green (chlorophyll), yellow or brown (diatomin or some allied pigment), or again red (chlorophyll with phycoerythrin). In the active condition of such coloured holophytic forms there is usually at least one anterior "eye-spot," of a refractive globule embedded behind in a collection of red pigment granules. The single anterior "flagellum tractellum" of so many of the larger forms acts by the bending over of its free end in consecutive meridians, so as to describe a hollow cone with its apex backwards: we may imitate this by bending the head of a slender sapling round and round while it is implanted in the soil; and the result is to push the water backwards, or in other words to pull the body forwards, the whole rotating on its longitudinal axis as it moves on (Y. Delage). An anterior lateral trailing flagellum may modify this axial rotation, and help in steering. When the animal is at rest--attached by its base or with its body so curved as to resist onward motion--the current produced by the tractellum will bring suspended particles up against the protoplasm at its base of insertion. As noted by E.R. Lankester, the posterior flagellum of many Haemoflagellates, like that of the spermatozoon of Metazoa, propels the cell by a sculling motion behind; he terms it a "pulsellum." Such flagellar motion is distinct from that of cilia, which always move backwards and forwards, with a swift downstroke and a slower recovery in the same plane; though where the flagella are numerous they may behave in this way, and indeed flagella agree with cilia in being mere vibratory extensions of cytoplasm. Symmetrically placed flagella may have a symmetrical reciprocating motion like that of cilia.

Many of the Flagellata are parasitic (some haematozoic); the majority live in the midst of putrefying organic matter in sea and fresh waters, but are not known to be active as agents of putrefaction. Dallinger and Drysdale have shown that the spores of _Bodo_ and others will survive an exposure to a higher temperature than do any known Schizomycetes (Bacteria), viz. 250 deg. to 300 deg. Fahr., for ten minutes, although the adults are killed at 180 deg.

The Flagellata are for the most part very minute; the Protomastigopoda rarely exceeding 20 [mu] in length. The Euglenaceae contain the largest species, up to 130 [mu] in length, exclusive of the flagellum.

Our classification is modified from those of Senn (in Engler and Prantl, _Pflanzenfamilien_) and Hartog (in _Cambridge Natural History_).

I. RHIZOFLAGELLATA (PANTOSTOMATA)

Food taken in by pseudopodia at any part of the body.

Order 1.--HOLOMASTIGACEAE. Body homaxial with uniform flagella. _Multicilia_ (Cienkowski); _Grassia_ (Fisch, in frog's blood and gastric mucus).

Order 2.--RHIZOMASTIGACEAE. Flagellum 1, 2 or few, diverging from anterior end. _Mastigamoeba_ (F.E. Schulze).

II. EUFLAGELLATA

Food taken in at one or more definite mouth-spots, or by a true mouth, or by absorption; or nutrition holophytic.

Order 1.--PROTOMASTIGACEAE. Contractile vacuole simple, one or more, or absent; either holozoic, ingesting food by a mouth-spot (or 2 or more), saprophytic, or parasitic.

Family 1.--OICOMONADIDAE. Flagellum 1, sometimes with a tail-like posterior prominence passing into a temporary flagellum, but without other cytoplasmic processes. _Oicomonas_ (Kent); _Cercomonas_ (Dujardin) (Fig. 1, 32, 33); _Codonoeca_ (James-Clark), with a gelatinous theca.

Family 2.--BICOECIDAE. Differs from _Oicomonadidae_ in a unilateral proboscidiform process next the flagellum; often thecate and stalked, forming branched colonies, like Choanoflagellates in habit. _Bicoeca_ (J.-Cl.), _Poteriodendron_.

Family 3.--CHOANOFLAGELLIDAE (Choanoflagellata, Kent; Craspedomonadina, Stein). As in previous families, but with flagellum surrounded by an obconical or cylindrical rim of cytoplasm, at the base of which is the ingestive area. The cells of this group have the morphology of the flagellate cells (choanocytes) of sponges. They are often colonial, and in the gelatinous colony of _Proterospongia_, the more internal cells (Fig. 2, 15) pass into a definite "reproductive state." Many stalked forms are epizoic on Entomostracan Crustacea.

(a) Naked forms often stalked: _Monosiga_ (Kent), stalked solitary; _Codosiga_ (Kent) (Fig. 2, 3), stalked social; _Desmarella_ (Kent), unstalked, and _Astrosiga_ (Kent), stalked, form floating colonies.

(b) Forms enclosed in a vase-like shell: _Salpingoeca_ (J.-Cl.); (Fig. 2, 1, 6, 7) recalling the habit of _Monosiga_ and _Cod siga_; _Polyoeca_ forming a branched free swimming colony.

(c) Forms surrounded by a gelatinous sheath: _Proterospongia_ (Kent) (Fig. 2, 15); _Phalansterium_ (Cienk.) (Fig. 1, 12), has a slender cylindrical collar, and a branching tubular stalk.

Family 4.--HAEMOFLAGELLIDAE. Forms with a complex nuclear apparatus, and a muscular undulating membrane with which one or two flagella are connected, parasitic in Metazoa (often in the blood). _Trypanosoma_ (Gruby) (Fig. 1, 21, 22), _Herpetomonas_(Kent), _Treponema_ (Vuillemin)(= _Spirochaete_, auctt., nec. Ehrbg.).

Family 5.--AMPHIMONADIDAE. Flagella 2 anterior, both directed forward, equal and similar; in stalk sheath, &c., often recalling Choanoflagellata, _Amphimonas_ (Kent), _Diplomitus_ (Kent); _Spongomonas_ (St.), with thick branching gelatinous sheath.

Family 6.--MONADIDAE. Flagella 2 (3), anterior all directed forwards, one long the other (or 2) accessory, short.

_Monas_ (St.); _Anthophysa_ (Bory) (Fig. 2, 12, 13), with the stalk composed of the accumulation of faeces at the hinder end of the cells of the colony.

Family 7.--BODONIDAE. Flagella 2 (or 3) 1 anterior, the other (1 or 2) antero-lateral and trailing or becoming fixed at the end to form a temporary anchor.

_Bodo_ (Ehrb.) (figs. 1, 23-26 and 2, 10). _B. lens_ is the "hooked" and _B. saltans_ the "springing monad" of Dallinger and Drysdale; _Dallingeria_ (Kent) with a pair of antero-lateral flagella; _Costia necatrix_ (Leclerq) is also 3-flagellate; causes destructive epidemics in fish-hatcheries.

Family 8.--TETRAMITIDAE. Body pyriform, the pointed end posterior; flagella 4 anterior.

_Tetramitus_ (Perty) (_T. calycinus_ of Kent, Fig. 2, 11, 14), is the "calycine monad" of Dallinger and Drysdale; _Trichomonas_, Donne, possesses a longitudinal undulating membrane, and is an innocuous human parasite; it is possibly related to Haemoflagellates on one hand and to _Trichonymphidae_ on the other.

Family 9.--DISTOMATIDAE. Mouth-spots two, or one, with a distinct construction; flagella symmetrically arranged; nucleus bilobed or geminate. _Hexamitus_ (Duj.) (Fig. 2, 5), saprophytic and parasitic; _Trepomonas_ (Duj.), freshwater; _Megastoma_ (Grassi) (= _Lamblia_ of Blanchard), with constricted mouth-spot and blepharoplast (kineto-nucleus) parasitic in the small intestine of Mammals, including Man.

Family 10.--TRICHONYMPHIDAE. Flagella numerous, sometimes accompanied by one or more undulating membranes; cytoplasm highly differentiated; contractile vacuole absent; all parasitic in insects (all except _Lophomonas_ in Termites--the so-called White Ants.)

_Lophomonas_(St.) (Fig. 2, 9); parasitic in the cockroach; _Dinenympha_ (Leidy), _Pyrsonympha_ (Leidy); _Trichenympha_ (Leidy) (Fig. 3, 1).

Family 11.--OPALINIDAE. Flagella short, numerous, ciliform. uniformly distributed over the flat oval body; nuclei small, numerous, uniform.

Only genus, _Opalina_ (Purkinje and Valentin) (Fig. 3, 2-6), in bladder and cloaca of the frog (usually regarded as an aberrant ciliate, but E.R. Lankester expressed doubts as to its position in the 9th edition of this encyclopaedia).

Order 2.--CHRYSOMONADACEAE. Contractile vacuole simple (in fresh-water forms) or absent; plastids yellow or brown always present; reserves fat.

Family 1.--CHRYSOMONADIDAE. Body naked, often amoeboid in active state, or sometimes with a cup-like theca, a gelatinous investment, a firm cuticle, or silicified shell; reserves fat or leucosin (starch in _Zooxanthella_); eye-spot present. _Chromulina_ (Cienk.) often forms a golden scum on tanks; _Chrysamoeba_ (Klebs); _Hydrurus_ (Agardh), theca of colony forming branching tubes, simulating a yellow Conferva in mountain torrents; _Dinobryon_ (Ehrb.) (Fig. 1, 8, 15); _Stylochrysalis_ (St.); _Uroglena_ (Ehrb.); _Syncrypta_ (Ehrb.), and _Synura_ (Ehrb.) (Fig. 1, 5) form floating spherical colonies; _Zooxanthella_ (Brandt), symbiotic as "yellow cells" in Radiolaria _Foraminifera_, _Millepora_, and many Actinozoa.

Family 2.--COCCOLITHOPHORIDAE. Body invested in a spherical test strengthened by calcareous elements, tangential circular plates, "coccoliths," "discoliths," "cyatholiths," or radiating rods "rhabdoliths." These are often found in Foraminiferal ooze and its fossil condition, chalk; when coherent as in the complete test, they are known as "coccospheres" and "rhabdospheres." _Coccolithophora_ (Lohmann), _Rhabdosphaera_ (Haeckel).

Order 3.--CRYPTOMONADACEAE. Contractile vacuole (in freshwater forms) simple; plastids green, more rarely red, brown or absent; reserves starch; holophytic or saprophytic. _Cryptomonas_ (Ehrb.); _Paramoeba_ (Greeff) has yellow plastids and shows two cycles, in the one amoeboid, finally encysting to produce a brood of flagellulae; in the other flagellate, and multiplying by longitudinal fission (it differs from _Mastigamoeba_ in possessing no flagellum in the amoeboid state, though it takes in food amoeba-fashion); _Chilomonas_ (Ehrb.).

Order 4.--CHLOROMONADACEAE. Contractile vacuoles 1-3, a complex of variable arrangement; pellicle delicate; plastids discoid chlorophyll-bodies; reserves oil; eye-spot absent even in active state; holophytic or saprophytic, though with an anterior blind tubular depression simulating a pharynx. _Coelomonas_ (St.), _Vacuolaria_ (Cienk.).

Order 5.--EUGLENACEAE. Vacuole large, a reservoir for one or more accessory vacuoles, contractile and opening to the surface by a canal ("pharynx") in which are planted one or two strong flagella; pellicle strong often striated; nucleus large, chromatophores green, complex or absent; reserves paramylum granules of definite shape, and oil; nutrition variable; body stiff or "metabolic," never amoeboid. Among the true Flagellates these are the largest, few being below 40 [mu] and several attaining 130 [mu] in length of cell-body (excluding flagellum). Encysted condition common; the green forms sometimes multiply in this state and simulate unicellular Algae.

Family 1.--EUGLENIDAE. Radial (monaxial) forms; nutrition saprophytic or holophytic, mostly one flagellate. (1) Chromatophore large; eye-spot conspicuous. _Euglena_ (Ehrb.) (Fig. 1, 13, 17), with flexible cuticle and metabolic movements (this is probably Priestley's "green matter" through which he obtained oxygen gas)--a very common genus; _Colacium_ (Ehbg.), in its resting state epizoic on Copepoda, which it colours green; _Eutreptia_ (Perty), biflagellate; _Ascoglena_ (St.); _Trachelomonas_ (Ehrb.), with a hard brown cuticle; _Phacus_ (Nitszche), with a firm rigid pellicle, often symmetrically flattened; _Cryptoglena_ (Ehbg.). (2) Chromatophores absent. _Astasia_ (Duj.), body metabolic; _Menoidium_ (Perty), body not metabolic, somewhat inflected and crescentic; _Sphenomonas_ (Stein), with a short accessory trailing flagellum in front peeled; _Distigma_ (Ehbg.) (Fig. 1, 27, 28), very metabolic, with two unequal flagella and two dark pigment spots.

Family 2.--PERANEMIDAE. Bilaterally symmetrical, often creeping, pharynx highly developed, with a firm rod-like skeleton, sometimes protrusible; nutrition saprophytic and holozoic. _Peranema_ (Ehbg.) and _Urceolus_ (Mereschowsky), uni-flagellate creeping, very metabolic. _Petalomonas_ (St.), uni-flagellate flattened with a deep ventral groove, not metabolic; _Heteronema_ (Duj.) and _Tropidoscyphus_ (St.), with a small accessory anterior trailing flagellum; _Anisonema_ (Duj.) and _Entosiphon_ (St.), with the trailing flagellum as long as the tractellum or even much longer.

Order 6.--VOLVOCACEAE. Contractile vacuole simple anterior; cell always enclosed in a cellulose wall (sometimes gelatinous) perforated by the two (more rarely four, five) diverging anterior flagella; reserves starch; chlorophyll almost always present, except in _Polytoma_, sometimes masked by a red pigment; nutrition usually holophytic, rarely saprophytic, never holozoic. Brood-division in active state common, radial.

Family 1.--CHLAMYDOMONADIDAE. Cell-wall firm not gelatinous, rarely forming colonies. Fore-end of the body with two or four (seldom five) flagella. Almost always green in consequence of the presence of a very large single chromatophore. Generally a delicate shell-like envelope of membranous consistence. 1 to 2 simple contractile vacuoles at the base of the flagella. Usually one eye-speck. Division of the protoplasm within the envelope may produce four, eight or more new individuals. This may occur in the swimming or in a resting stage. Also by more continuous fission microgametes of various sizes are formed. Conjugation is frequent.

Genera.--_Chlorangium_ (Stein), lacking green chlorophyll; _Chlorogonium_ (Ehr.) (Fig. 1, 6, 7); _Polytoma_ (Ehr.) (Fig. 2, 8); _Chlamydomonas_ (Ehr.) (Fig. 1, 1, 2, 3); _Haematococcus_ (Agardh) (= _Chlamydococcus_, A. Braun, Stein); _Protococcus_ (Conn, Huxley and Martin); _Chlamydomonas_ (Cienkowski), causes red snow and "bloody rain"; _Carteria_ (Diesing), quadri-flagellate; _Spondytomorum_ (Ehrb.), forming floating colonies; _Coccomonas_ (St.); _Phacotus_ (Perty); _Zoochlorella_ (Brandt), is the name given to undetermined Chlamydomonads found multiplying in the resting state within and in symbiotic relation to other Protozoa, to the freshwater sponge, _Ephydatia_, _Hydra viridis_, and to the Turbellarian, _Convoluta viridis_ (in which last species the active form has been recognized as a _Carteria_).

Family 2.--VOLVOCIDAE. Cell-wall gelatinous; always associated in colonies; cells, as in Family 1. The number of individuals united to form a colony varies very much, as does the shape of the colony. Reproduction by the continuous division of all or of only certain individuals of the colony, resulting in the production of a daughter colony (from each such individual). In some, probably in all, at certain times copulation of the individuals of distinct sexual colonies takes place, without or with a differentiation of the colonies and of the copulating cells as male and female. The result of the copulation is a resting zygospore (also called zygote or oospermo or fertilized egg), which after a time develops itself into one or more new colonies.

Genera.--_Gonium_ (O.F. Muller) (Fig. 1, 14); _Stephanosphaera_ (Cohn); _Pandorina_ (Bory de Vine); _Eudorina_ (Ehr.); _Volvox_ (Ehr.)(Fig. 1, 18, 20).

The sexual reproduction of the colonies of the Volvocaceae is one of the most important phenomena presented by the Protozoa. In some families of Flagellata full-grown individuals become amoeboid, fuse, encyst, and then break up into flagellate spores which develop simply to the parental form (Fig. 1, 23 to 26). In the _Chlamydomonadidae_ a single adult individual by division produces small individuals, so-called "microgametes." These conjugate with one another or with similar microgametes formed by other adults (as in Chlorogonium, Fig. 1, 7); or more rarely in certain genera a microgamete conjugates with an ordinary individual megagamete. The result in either case is a "zygote," a cell formed by fusion of two which divides in the usual way to produce new individuals. The microgamete in this case is the male element and equivalent to a spermatozoon; the megagamete is the female and equivalent to an egg-cell. The zygote is a "fertilized egg," or oosperm. In some colony-building forms we find that only certain cells produce by division microgametes; and, regarding the colony as a multicellular individual, we may consider these cells as testis-cells and their microgametes as spermatozoa.

CYSTOFLAGELLATA(RHYNCHOFLAGELLATA of E.R. Lankester) and DINOFLAGELLATA are scarcely more than subdivisions of Flagellata; but, following O. Butschli, we describe them separately; the three groups being united into his MASTIGOPHORA.

_Further Remarks on the Flagellates._--Besides the work of special Protozoologists, such as F. Cienkowski, O. Butschli, F. v. Stein, F. Schaudinn, W. Saville Kent, &c., the Flagellates have been a favourite study with botanists, especially algologists: we may cite N. Pringsheim, F. Cohn, W.C. Williamson, W. Zopf, P.A. Dangeard, G. Klebs, G. Senn, F. Schutt; the reason for this is obvious. They present a wide range of structure, from the simple amoeboid genera to the highly differentiated cells of Euglenaceae, and the complex colonies of _Proterospongia_ and _Volvox_. By some they are regarded as the parent-group of the whole of the Protozoa--a position which may perhaps better be assigned to the Proteomyxa; but they seem undoubtedly ancestral to Dinoflagellates and to Cystoflagellates, as well as to Sporozoa, and presumably to Infusoria. Moreover, the only distinction between the _Chlamydomonadidae_ and the true green Algae or Chlorophyceae is that when the former divide in the resting condition, or are held together by gelatinization of the older cell-walls (_Palmella_ state), they round off and separate, while the latter divide by a "party wall" so as to give rise either to a cylindrical filament when the partitions are parallel and the axis of growth constant (_Conferva_ type), or to a plate of tissue when the directions alternate in a plane. The same holds good for the Chrysomonadaceae and Cryptomonadaceae, so that these little groups are included in all text-books of botany. Again among Fungi, the zoospores of the Zoosporous Phycomycetes (Chytrydiaceae, Peronosporaceae, Saprolegniaceae) have the characters of the _Bodonidae_. Thus in two directions the Flagellates lead up to undoubted Plants. Probably also the Chlamydomonads have an ancestral relation to the Conjugatae in the widest sense, and the Chrysomonadaceae to the Diatomaceae; both groups of obscure affinity, since even the reproductive bodies have no special organs of locomotion. For these reasons the Volvocaceae, Chloromonadaceae, Chrysomonadaceae and Cryptomonadaceae have been united as Phytoflagellates; and the Euglenaceae might well be added to these. It is easy to understand the relation of the saprophytic and the holophytic Flagellates to true plants. The capacity to absorb nutritive matter in solution (as contrasted with the ingestion of solid matter) renders the encysted condition compatible with active growth, and what in holozoic forms is a true hypnocyst, a state in which all functions are put to sleep, is here only a rest from active locomotion, nutrition being only limited by the supply of nutritive matter from without, and--in the case of holophytic species--by the illumination: this latter condition naturally limits the possible growth in thickness in holophytes with undifferentiated tissues. The same considerations apply indeed to the larger parasitic organisms among Sporozoa, such as Gregarines and Myxosporidia and Dolichosporidia, which are giants among Protozoa.

LITERATURE.--W.S. Kent, _Manual of the Infusoria_, vol. i. Protozoa (1880-1882); O. Butschli, _Die Flagellaten_ (in Bronn's _Thierreich_, vol. i. Protozoa, 1885); these two works contain full bibliographies of the antecedent authors. See also J. Goroschankin (on Chlamydomonads) in _Bull. Soc. Nat._ (Moscow, iv. v., 1890-1891); G. Klebs, "Flagellatenstudien" in _Zeitsch. Wiss. Zool._ lv. (1892); Doflein, _Protozoen als Krankheitserreger_ (1900); Senn, "Flagellaten," in Engler and Prantl's _Pflanzenfamilien_, 1 Teil, Abt. 1a (1900); R. France, _Der Organismus der Craspedomonaden_ (1897); Grassi and Sandias, "Trichonymphidae," in _Quart. J. Micr. Sci._ xxxix.-xl. (1897); Bezzenberger, "Opa inidae" in _Arch. Protist_, iii. (1903); Marcus Hartog, "Protozoa," in _Cambridge Nat. Hist._ vol. i. (1906). (M. Ha.)

FLAGEOLET, in music, a kind of _flute-a-bec_ with a new fingering, invented in France at the end of the 16th century, and in vogue in England from the end of the 17th to the beginning of the 19th century. The instrument is described and illustrated by Mersenne,[1] who states that the most famous maker and player in his day was Le Vacher. The flageolet differed from the recorder in that it had four finger-holes in front and two thumb-holes at the back instead of seven finger-holes in front and one thumb-hole at the back. This fingering has survived in the French flageolet still used in the provinces of France in small orchestras and for dance music. The arrangement of the holes was as follows: 1, left thumb-hole at the back near mouthpiece; 2 and 3, finger-holes stopped by the left hand; 4, finger-hole stopped by right hand; 5, thumb-hole at the back; 6, hole near the open end. According to Dr Burney (_History of Music_) the flageolet was invented by the Sieur Juvigny, who played it in the _Ballet comique de la Royne_, 1581. Dr Edward Browne,[2] writing to his father from Cologne on the 20th of June 1673, relates, "We have with us here one ... and Mr Hadly upon the flagelet, which instrument he hath so improved as to invent large ones and outgoe in sweetnesse all the basses whatsoever upon any other instrument." About the same time was published Thomas Greeting's _Pleasant Companion; or New Lessons and Instructions for the Flagelet_ (London, 1675 or 1682), a rare book of which the British Museum does not possess a copy. The instrument retained its popularity until the beginning of the 19th century, when Bainbridge constructed double and triple flageolets.[3] The three tubes were bored parallel through one piece of wood communicating near the mouthpiece which was common to all three. The lowest notes of the respective tubes were [Musical notes: D B G]

The word flageolet was undoubtedly derived from the medieval Fr. _flajol_, the primitive whistle-pipe. (K. S.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Harmonie universelle_ (Paris, 1636), bk. v. pp. 232-237.

[2] See Sir Thomas Browne's Works, vol. i. p. 206.

[3] See Capt. C.R. Day, _Descriptive Catalogue of Musical Instruments_ (London, 1891), pp. 18-22 and pl. 4; also _Complete Instructions for the Double Flageolet_ (London, 1825); and _The Preceptor, or a Key to the Double Flageolet_ (London, 1815).

FLAGSHIP, the vessel in a fleet which carries the flag, the symbol of authority of an admiral.

FLAHAUT DE LA BILLARDERIE, AUGUSTE CHARLES JOSEPH, COMTE DE (1785-1870), French general and statesman, son of Alexandre Sebastien de Flahaut de la Billarderie, comte de Flahaut, beheaded at Arras in February 1793, and his wife Adelaide Filleul, afterwards Mme de Souza (q.v.), was born in Paris on the 21st of April 1785. Charles de Flahaut was generally recognized to be the offspring of his mother's liaison with Talleyrand, with whom he was closely connected throughout his life. His mother took him with her into exile in 1792, and they remained abroad until 1798. He entered the army as a volunteer in 1800, and received his commission after the battle of Marengo. He became aide-de-camp to Murat, and was wounded at the battle of Landbach in 1805. At Warsaw he met Anne Poniatowski, Countess Potocka, with whom he rapidly became intimate. After the battle of Friedland he received the Legion of Honour, and returned to Paris in 1807. He served in Spain in 1808, and then in Germany. Meanwhile the Countess Potocka had established herself in Paris, but Charles de Flahaut had by this time entered on his liaison with Hortense de Beauharnais, queen of Holland. The birth of their son was registered in Paris on the 21st of October 1811 as Charles Auguste Louis Joseph Demorny, known later as the due de Morny. Flahaut fought with distinction in the Russian campaign of 1812, and in 1813 became general of brigade, aide-de-camp to the emperor, and, after the battle of Leipzig, general of division. After Napoleon's abdication in 1814 he submitted to the new government, but was placed on the retired list in September. He was assiduous in his attendance on Queen Hortense until the Hundred Days brought him into active service again. A mission to Vienna to secure the return of Marie Louise resulted in failure. He was present at Waterloo, and afterwards sought to place Napoleon II. on the throne. He was saved from exile by Talleyrand's influence, but was placed under police surveillance. Presently he elected to retire to Germany, and thence to England, where he married Margaret, daughter of Admiral George Keith Elphinstone, Lord Keith, and after the latter's death Baroness Keith in her own right. The French ambassador opposed the marriage, and Flahaut resigned his commission. His eldest daughter, Emily Jane, married Henry, 4th marquess of Lansdowne. The Flahauts returned to France in 1827, and in 1830 Louis Philippe gave the count the grade of lieutenant-general and made him a peer of France. He remained intimately associated with Talleyrand's policy, and was, for a short time in 1831, ambassador at Berlin. He was afterwards attached to the household of the duke of Orleans, and in 1841 was sent as ambassador to Vienna, where he remained until 1848, when he was dismissed and retired from the army. After the _coup d'etat_ of 1851 he was again actively employed, and from 1860 to 1862 was ambassador at the court of St James's. He died on the 1st of September 1870. The comte de Flahaut is perhaps better remembered for his exploits in gallantry, and the elegant manners in which he had been carefully trained by his mother, than for his public services, which were not, however, so inconsiderable as they have sometimes been represented to be.

See A. de Haricourt, _Madame de Souza et sa famille_ (1907).

FLAIL (from Lat. _flagellum_, a whip or scourge, but used in the Vulgate in the sense of "flail"; the word appears in Dutch _vlegel_, Ger. _Flegel_, and Fr. _fleau_), a farm hand-implement formerly used for threshing corn. It consists of a short thick club called a "swingle" or "swipple" attached by a rope or leather thong to a wooden handle in such a manner as to enable it to swing freely. The "flail" was a weapon used for military purposes in the middle ages. It was made in the same way as a threshing-flail but much stronger and furnished with iron spikes. It also took the form of a chain with a spiked iron ball at one end swinging free on a wooden or iron handle. This weapon was known as the "morning star" or "holy water sprinkler." During the panic over the Popish plot in England from 1678 to 1681, clubs, known as "Protestant flails," were carried by alarmed Protestants (see GREEN RIBBON CLUB).

FLAMBARD, RANULF, or RALPH (d. 1128), bishop of Durham and chief minister of William Rufus, was the son of a Norman parish priest who belonged to the diocese of Bayeux. Migrating at an early age to England, the young Ranulf entered the chancery of William I. and became conspicuous as a courtier. He was disliked by the barons, who nicknamed him Flambard in reference to his talents as a mischief-maker; but he acquired the reputation of an acute financier and appears to have played an important part in the compilation of the Domesday survey. In that record he is mentioned as a clerk by profession, and as holding land both in Hants and Oxfordshire. Before the death of the old king he became chaplain to Maurice, bishop of London, under whom he had formerly served in the chancery. But early in the next reign Ranulf returned to the royal service. He is usually described as the chaplain of Rufus; he seems in that capacity to have been the head of the chancery and the custodian of the great seal. But he is also called treasurer; and there can be no doubt that his services were chiefly of a fiscal character. His name is regularly connected by the chroniclers with the ingenious methods of extortion from which all classes suffered between 1087 and 1100. He profited largely by the tyranny of Rufus, farming for the king a large proportion of the ecclesiastical preferments which were illegally kept vacant, and obtaining for himself the wealthy see of Durham (1099). His fortunes suffered an eclipse upon the accession of Henry I., by whom he was imprisoned in deference to the popular outcry. A bishop, however, was an inconvenient prisoner, and Flambard soon succeeded in effecting his escape from the Tower of London. A popular legend represents the bishop as descending from the window of his cell by a rope which friends had conveyed to him in a cask of wine. He took refuge with Robert Curthose in Normandy and became one of the advisers who pressed the duke to dispute the crown of England with his younger brother; Robert rewarded the bishop by entrusting him with the administration of the see of Lisieux. After the victory of Tinchebrai (1106) the bishop was among the first to make his peace with Henry, and was allowed to return to his English see. At Durham he passed the remainder of his life. His private life was lax; he had at least two sons, for whom he purchased benefices before they had entered on their teens; and scandalous tales are told of the entertainments with which he enlivened his seclusion. But he distinguished himself, even among the bishops of that age, as a builder and a pious founder. He all but completed the cathedral which his predecessor, William of St Carilef, had begun; fortified Durham; built Norham Castle; founded the priory of Mottisfout and endowed the college of Christchurch, Hampshire. As a politician he ended his career with his submission to Henry, who found in Roger of Salisbury a financier not less able and infinitely more acceptable to the nation. Ranulf died on the 5th of September 1128.

See Orderic Vitalis, _Historia ecclesiastica_, vols. iii. and iv. (ed. le Prevost, Paris, 1845); the first continuation of Symeon's _Historia Ecclesiae Dunelmensis_ (Rolls ed., 1882); William of Malmesbury in the _Gesta pontificum_ (Rolls ed., 1870); and the _Peterborough Chronicle_ (Rolls ed., 1861). Of modern writers E.A. Freeman in his _William Rufus_ (Oxford, 1882) gives the fullest account. See also T.A. Archer in the _English Historical Review_, ii. p. 103; W. Stubbs's _Constitutional History of England_, vol. i. (Oxford, 1897); J.H. Round's _Feudal England_ (London, 1895). (H. W. C. D.)

FLAMBOROUGH HEAD, a promontory on the Yorkshire coast of England, between the Filey and Bridlington bays of the North Sea. It is a lofty chalk headland, and the resistance it offers to the action of the waves may be well judged by contrast with the low coast of Holderness to the south. The cliffs of the Head, however, are pierced with caverns and fringed with rocks of fantastic outline. Remarkable contortion of strata is seen at various points in the chalk. Sea-birds breed abundantly on the cliffs. A lighthouse marks the point, in 54 deg. 7' N., 0 deg. 5' W.

FLAMBOYANT STYLE, the term given to the phase of Gothic architecture in France which corresponds in period to the Perpendicular style. The word literally means "flowing" or "flaming," in consequence of the resemblance to the curved lines of flame in window tracery. The earliest examples of flowing tracery are found in England in the later phases of the Decorated style, where, in consequence of the omission of the enclosing circles of the tracery, the carrying through of the foliations resulted in a curve of contrary flexure of ogee form and hence the term flowing tracery. In the minster and the church of St Mary at Beverley, dating from 1320 and 1330, are the earliest examples in England; in France its first employment dates from about 1460, and it is now generally agreed that the flamboyant style was introduced from English sources. One of the chief characteristics of the flamboyant style in France is that known as "interpenetration," in which the base mouldings of one shaft are penetrated by those of a second shaft of which the faces are set diagonally. This interpenetration, which was in a sense a _tour de force_ of French masons, was carried to such an extent that in a lofty rood-screen the mouldings penetrating the base-mould would be found to be those of a diagonal buttress situated 20 to 30 ft. above it. It was not limited, however, to internal work; in late 15th and early 16th century ecclesiastical architecture it is found on the facades of some French cathedrals, and often on the outside of chapels added in later times.

FLAME (Lat. _flamma_; the root _flag_-appears in _flagrare_, to burn, blaze, and Gr. [Greek: phlegein]). There is no strict scientific definition of flame, but for the purpose of this article it will be regarded as a name for gas which is temporarily luminous in consequence of chemical action. It is well known that the luminosity of gases can be induced by the electrical discharge, and with rapidly alternating high-tension discharges in air an oxygen-nitrogen flame is produced which is long and flickering, can be blown out, yields nitrogen peroxide, and is in fact indistinguishable from an ordinary flame except by its electrical mode of maintenance. The term "flame" is also applied to solar protuberances, which, according to the common view, consist of gases whose glow is of a purely thermal origin. Even with the restricted definition given above, difficulties present themselves. It is found, for example, with a hydrogen flame that the luminosity diminishes as the purity of the hydrogen is increased and as the air is freed from dust, and J.S. Stas declared that under the most favourable conditions he was only able, even in a dark room, to localize the flame by feeling for it, an observation consistent with the fact that the line spectrum of the flame lies wholly in the ultra-violet. On the other hand, there are many examples of chemical combination between gases where the attendant radiation is below the pitch of visibility, as in the case of ethylene and chlorine. It will be obvious from these facts that a strict definition of flame is hardly possible. The common distinction between luminous and non-luminous flames is, of course, quite arbitrary, and only corresponds to a rough estimate of the degree of luminosity.

The chemical energy necessary for the production of flame may be liberated during combination or decomposition. A single substance like gun-cotton, which is highly endothermic and gives gaseous products, will produce a bright flame of decomposition if a single piece be heated in an evacuated flask. Combination is the more common case, and this means that we have two separate substances involved. If they be not mixed _en masse_ before combination, the one which flows as a current into the other is called conventionally the "combustible," but the simple experiment of burning air in coal gas suffices to show the unreality of this distinction between combustible and supporter of combustion, which, in fact, is only one of the many partial views that are explained and perhaps justified by the dominance of oxygen in terrestrial chemistry.

Although hydrocarbon flames are the commonest and most interesting, it will be well to consider simpler flames first in order to discuss some fundamental problems. In hydrocarbon flames the complexity of the combustible, its susceptibility to change by heating, and the possibilities of fractional oxidation, create special difficulties. In the flame of hydrogen and oxygen or carbon monoxide and oxygen we have simpler conditions, though here, too, things may be by no means so simple as they seem from the equations 2H2 + O2 = 2H2O and 2CO + O2 = 2CO2. The influence of water vapour on both these actions is well known, and the molecular transactions may in reality be complicated. We shall, however, assume for the sake of clearness that in these cases we have a simple reaction taking place throughout the mass of flame. There are various ways in which a pair of gases may be burned, and these we shall consider separately. Let us first suppose the two gases to have been mixed _en masse_ and a light to be applied to the stationary mixture. If the mixture be made within certain limiting proportions, which vary for each case, a flame spreads from the point where the light is applied, and the flame traverses the mixture. This flame may be very slow in its progress or it may attain a velocity of the order of one or two thousand metres per second. Until comparatively recent times great misunderstanding prevailed on this subject. The slow rate of movement of flame in short lengths of gaseous mixtures was taken to be the velocity of explosion, but more recent researches by M.P.E. Berthelot, E. Mallard and H.L. le Chatelier and H.B. Dixon have shown that a distinction must be made between the slow _initial rate of inflammation_ of gaseous mixtures and the _rapid rate of detonation_, or rate of the _explosive wave_, which in many cases is subsequently set up. We shall here deal only with the slow movements of flame. The development of a flame in such a gaseous mixture requires that a small portion of it should be raised to a temperature called the _temperature of ignition_. Here again considerable misunderstanding has prevailed. The temperature of ignition has often been regarded as the temperature at which chemical combination begins, whereas it is really the temperature at which combination has reached a certain rate. The combination of hydrogen and oxygen begins at temperatures far below that of ignition. It may indeed be supposed that the combination occurs with extreme slowness even at ordinary temperatures, and that as the temperature is raised the velocity of the reaction increases in accordance with the general expression according to which an increase of 10 deg.C. will approximately double the rate. However that may be, it has been proved experimentally by J.H. van't Hoff, Victor Meyer and others that the combination of hydrogen and oxygen proceeds at perceptible rates far below the temperature of ignition. The phenomenon appears to be greatly influenced by the solid surfaces which are present; thus in a plain glass vessel the combination only began to be perceptible at 448 deg., whilst in a silvered glass vessel it would be detected at 182 deg. C.

The same kind of thing is true for most oxidizable substances, including ordinary combustibles. We must look upon the application of heat to a combustible mixture as resulting in an increase of the rate of combination locally. Let us suppose that we are dealing with a stratum of the mixture in small contiguous sections. If we raise the temperature of the first section _a_ deg. C., an increased rate of combination is set up. The heat produced by this combination will be dissipated by conduction and radiation, and we will suppose that it does not quite suffice to raise the adjacent section of the mixture to _a_ deg.C. The combination in that section, therefore, will not be as rapid as in the first one, and so evidently the impulse to combination will go on abating as we pass along the stratum. Suppose now we start again and heat the first section of the mixture to a temperature _c_ deg.C., such that the rate of combination is very rapid and the heat developed by combination suffices to raise the adjacent section of the mixture to a temperature higher than _c_ deg.C. The rate of combination will then be greater than in the first section, and the impulse to combination will be intensified in the same way from section to section along the stratum until a maximum temperature is reached. It is obvious that there must be a temperature of _b_ deg.C. between _a_ deg. and _c_ deg. which will satisfy this condition, that the heat which results from the combination stimulated in the first section just suffices to raise the temperature of the second section to _b_ deg. This temperature _b_ deg. is the temperature of ignition of the mixture; so soon as it is attained by a portion of the mixture the combustion becomes self-sustaining and flame spreads through the mixture. Ignition temperature may be defined briefly as the temperature at which the initial loss of heat due to conduction, &c., is equal to the heat evolved in the same time by the chemical reaction (van't Hoff). From the above considerations we see that the temperature of ignition will vary not only when the gases are varied, but when the proportions of the same gases are varied, and also when the pressure is varied. We can see also that outside certain limiting proportions a mixture of gases will have no practicable ignition temperature, that is to say, the cooling effect of the gas which is in excess will carry off so much heat that no attainable initial heating will suffice to set up the transmission of a constant temperature. Thus in the case of hydrogen and air, mixtures containing less than 5 and more than 72% of hydrogen are not inflammable. The theory of ignition temperature enables us to understand why in an explosive mixture a very small electric spark may not suffice to induce explosion. Combination will indeed take place in the path of the spark, but the amount of it is not sufficient to meet the loss of heat by conduction, &c. It must be added that the theory of ignition temperatures given above does not explain all the observed facts. F. Emich states that the inflammability of gaseous mixtures is not necessarily greatest when the gases are mixed in the proportions theoretically required for complete combination, and the influence of foreign gases does not appear to follow any simple law. The presence of a small quantity of a gas may exercise a profound influence on the ignition temperature as in the case of the addition of ethylene to hydrogen (Sir Edward Frankland), and again when a mixture of methane and air is raised to its ignition temperature a sensible interval (about 10 seconds) elapses before inflammation occurs.

The rate at which a flame will traverse a mixture of two gases which has been ignited depends on the proportions in which the gases are mixed. Fig. 1 (Bunte) represents this relationship for several common gases.

If a ready-made gaseous mixture is to be used for the production of a steady flame, it may be forced through a tube and ignited at the end; it is obvious that the velocity of efflux must be greater than the initial rate of inflammation of the mixture, for otherwise the mixture would fire back down the tube. If the velocity of efflux be considerably greater than the rate of inflammation, the flame will be separated from the end of the tube, and only appear as a flickering crown where the velocity and inflammability of the issuing gas have been diminished by admixture with air. With much increased velocity of efflux the flame will be blown out. J.B.A. Dumas used to show the experiment of blowing out a candle with electrolytic gas. A steady flame formed by burning a ready-made gaseous mixture at the end of a tube of circular section has the form shown in fig. 2. The small internal cone marks the lower limiting surface of the flame; it is the locus of all points where the velocity of efflux is just equal to the velocity of inflammation, and its conical form is explained by the fact that the rate of efflux of gas is greatest in the vertical axis of the tube where the flow is not retarded by friction with the walls, as well as by the further fact that the gas issuing from such an orifice spreads outwards, the inflammation proceeding directly against it. The flame, it will be seen, is of considerable thickness. If the gaseous mixture be hydrogen and oxygen, or carbon monoxide and oxygen, it will have no obvious features of structure beyond those shown in the figure; that is to say, the shaded region of burning gas has the appearance of homogeneity and uniform colour which might be expected to accompany a uniform chemical condition. Some admixture of the external air will, of course, take place, especially in the upper parts of the flame, and detectable quantities of oxides of nitrogen may be found in the products of combustion, but this is an inconsiderable feature. The flame just described is essentially that of a blowpipe.

A second way of producing a flame is the more common one of allowing one gas to stream into the other. Using the same gases as before, hydrogen or carbon monoxide with oxygen, we find again that the flame is conical in form and uniform in colour, but in this case, if the velocity of efflux be not immoderate, the burning gas only extends over a comparatively thin shell, limited on the inside by the pure combustible and on the outside by a mixture of the products of combustion with oxygen. The combustible gas has to make its own inflammable mixture with the circumambient oxygen, and we may suppose the column of gas to be burned through as it ascends. The core of unburned gas thus becomes thinner as it ascends and the flame tapers to a point. The external surface of a flame of this kind will for the same consumption of gas be larger than that of a flame where the ready-made mixture of gases is used. If a jet of one gas be sent with a sufficient velocity into another, turbulent admixture takes place and an unsteady sheet of flame of uniform colour is obtained.

A third way of forming a flame is to allow the whole of one gas, mixed with a less quantity of the second than is sufficient for complete combustion, to issue into an atmosphere of the second. This is the case with what are generally known as atmospheric burners, of which the Bunsen burner is the prototype. The development of a flame of this kind can be well studied in the case of carbon monoxide and air. The carbon monoxide is fed into a Bunsen burner with closed air-valve, the burner-tube being prolonged by affixing a glass tube to it by means of a cork. The flame consists of a single conical blue sheet. If now the air-valve be opened very slightly, an internal cone of the same blue colour makes its appearance. The air which has entered through the air-valve ("primary" air) has become mixed with the carbon monoxide and so oxidizes its quota in an internal cone, the rest of the carbon monoxide (diluted now, of course, with carbon dioxide and nitrogen) wandering into the external atmosphere to burn (with "secondary" air) in a second cone. The existence of the internal cone and the subsequent thermal effect lead to slight convexity of surface in the outer cone. If the quantity of primary air be increased more internal combustion can take place. This, however, does not lead to an enlargement of the inner cone, for the increase of air increases the rate of inflammation of the mixture, and the inner cone (which only maintains its stability because the rate of efflux of the mixture is greater than the velocity of inflammation) contracts, and will, as the proportion of primary air is increased, soon evince a tendency to enter the burner-tube. At this stage an interesting phenomenon is to be noticed. When we have reached the point of aeration where the velocity of inflammation of the mixture just surpasses the velocity of efflux, the inner cone enters the burner-tube as a disk and descends, but this downward motion checks the suction flow of air through the valve at the base of the burner, whilst it does not appreciably check the pressure flow of the carbon monoxide through the gas nozzle. The result is that a stratum of gas-mixture poor in air, and therefore of low rate of inflammation, is formed, and when the descending disk of flame meets it, the descent is arrested and the disk returns to the top of the tube, reproducing the inner cone. The full air suction is now restored and the course of events is repeated. This oscillatory action can be maintained almost indefinitely long if the pressure and other conditions be maintained constant. With still more primary air the inner cone of flame simply fires back to the burner nozzle, or, in the last stage, we may have enough air entering to produce a flame of the blast blowpipe type, namely, one where the carbon monoxide mixed with an _excess_ of primary air burns with a single cone in a steady flame.

By means of a simple contrivance devised by A. Smithells a two-coned flame of the kind described may be resolved into its components. The apparatus is like a half-extended telescope made of two glass tubes, and it is evident that the velocity of a mixture of gases flowing through it must be greater in the narrow tube than in the wider one. If the end of the narrower tube be fixed to a Bunsen burner and the flame be formed at the end of the wider one, then when the air-supply is increased to a certain point the inner cone will descend into the wide tube and attach itself to the upper end of the narrower one. This occurs when the velocity of inflammation is just greater than the upward velocity of the gaseous stream in the wide tube and less than the upward velocity in the narrow tube. If the outer tube be now drawn down, a two-coned flame burns at the end of the inner tube; if the outer tube be slid up again, it detaches the outer cone and carries it upward. This apparatus has been of use in investigating the progress of combustion in various flames.

_Temperature of Flames._--The term "flame-temperature" is used very vaguely and has no clear meaning unless qualified by some description. It is least ambiguous when used in reference to flames where the combining gases are mixed in theoretical proportions before issuing from the burner. The flame in such a case has considerable thickness and uniformity, and, though the temperature is not constant throughout, flames of this type given by different combustibles admit of comparison. In other flames where the shells of combustion are thin and envelop large regions of unburned or partly-burned gas, it is not clear how temperature should be specified. An ordinary gas-flame will not, from the point of view of the practical arts, give a sufficient temperature for melting platinum, yet a very thin platinum wire may be melted at the edge of the lower part of such a flame. The maximum temperature of the flame is therefore not in any serious sense an available temperature. It will suffice to point out here that in order to burn a gas so that it may have the highest available temperature, we must burn it with the smallest external flame-surface obtainable. This is done when the combining gases are completely mixed before issuing from the burner. Where this is impracticable we may employ a burner of the Bunsen type, and arrange matters so that a large amount of primary air is supplied. It is in this direction that modern improvements have been made with a view to obtaining hot flames for heating the Welsbach mantle. The Kern burner, for example, employs the principle of the Venturi tube. Where much primary air is drawn in it is usual to provide for it being well mixed with the gas, otherwise an unsteady flame may be produced with a great tendency to light back. The burner head is therefore usually provided with a mixing chamber and the mixture issues through a slit or a mesh. A great many modified Bunsen burners have been produced, the aim in all of them being to produce a flame which shall combine steadiness with the smallest attainable external surface.

To estimate the temperature of flames several methods have been employed. The method of calculation, based on the supposition that the whole heat of combustion is localized in the product (or products) of combustion and heats it to a temperature depending on its specific heat, cannot be applied in a simple way. Apart from the assumption (which there is reason to suppose incorrect) that none of the chemical energy assumes the radiant form directly, we have to regard the possible change of specific heat at high temperatures, the likelihood of dissociation and the time of reaction. Any practical consideration of temperature must have regard to a large assemblage of molecules and not to a single one, and therefore any influence which means delay in combination will result in reduction of temperature by radiation and conduction. It can hardly be maintained that in the present state of knowledge we have the requisite data for the calculation of flame temperature, though good approximations may be made. Many attempts have been made to determine flame temperatures by means of thermo-electric couples and by radiation pyrometers. The couple most employed is that known as H.L. le Chatelier's, consisting of two wires, one of platinum and the other an alloy of 90% platinum and 10% of rhodium. When all possible precautions are taken it is possible by means of such thermo-couples to measure local flame temperatures with a considerable degree of accuracy. Subjoined are some results obtained at different times and by different observers with regard to the maximum temperatures of flames:--

Coal gas in Bunsen burner (Waggener, 1896) 1770 deg. C. " " " " (Berkenbusch, 1899) 1830 deg. " " " " (White & Traver, 1902) 1780 deg. " " " " (Fery, 1905) 1871 deg.

The following are given by Fery:--

Acetylene 2548 deg. C. Alcohol 1705 deg. Hydrogen (in air) 1900 deg. Oxy-hydrogen 2420 deg. Oxy-coal gas blowpipe 2200 deg.

_Source of Light in Flames._--We may consider first those flames where solid particles are out of the question; for example, the flame of carbon monoxide in air. The old idea that the luminosity was due to the thermal glow of the highly heated product of combustion has been challenged independently by a number of observers, and the view has been advanced that the emission of light is due to radiation attendant upon a kind of discharge of chemical energy between the reacting molecules. E. Wiedemann proposed the name "chemi-luminescence" for radiation of this kind. The fact is that colourless gases cannot be made to glow by any purely thermal heating at present available, and products of combustion heated to the average temperature of the flames in which they are produced are non-luminous. On the other hand, it must be remembered that in a mass of burning gas only a certain proportion of the molecules are engaged at one instant in the act of chemical combination, and that the energy liberated in such individual transactions, if localized momentarily as heat, would give individual molecules a unique condition of temperature far transcending that of the average, and the distribution of heat in a flame would be very different from that existing in the same mixture of gases heated from an external source to the same average temperature. The view advocated by Smithells is that in the chemical combination of gases the initial phase of the formation of the new molecule is a vibratory one, which directly furnishes light, and that the damping down of this vibration by colliding molecules is the source of that translatory motion which is evinced as heat. This, it will be seen, is an exact reversal of the older view.

The view of Sir H. Davy that "whenever a flame is remarkably brilliant and dense it may always be concluded that some solid matter is produced in it" can be no longer entertained. The flames of phosphorus in oxygen and of carbon disulphide in nitric oxide contain only gaseous products, and Frankland showed that the flames of hydrogen and carbon monoxide became highly luminous under pressure. From his experiments Frankland was led to the generalization that high luminosity of flames is associated with high density of the gases, and he does not draw a distinction in this respect between high density due to high molecular weight and high density due to the close packing of lighter molecules. The increased luminosity of a compressed flame is not difficult to understand from the kinetic theory of gases, but no explanation has appeared of the luminosity considered by Frankland to be due merely to high molecular weight. It is possible that the electron theory may ultimately afford a better understanding of these phenomena.

_Structure of Flame._--The vagueness of the term structure, as applied to flames, is to be seen from the very conflicting accounts which are current as to the number of differentiated parts in different flames. Unless this term is restricted to sharp differences in appearance, there is no limit to the number of parts which may be selected for mention. The flame of carbon monoxide, when the gas is not mixed with air before it issues from the burner, shows no clearly differentiated structure, but is a shell of blue luminosity of shaded intensity--a hollow cone if the orifice of the burner be circular and the velocity of the gas not immoderate, or a double sheet of fan shape if the burner have a slit or two inclined pores which cause the jets of issuing gas to spread each other out. Such a flame has but one single distinct feature, and this is not surprising, as there is no reason to suppose that there is any difference in the chemical process or processes that are occurring in different quarters of the flame. The amount of materials undergoing this transformation in different parts of the flame may and does vary; the gases become diluted with products of combustion, and the molecular vibrations gradually die down. These things may cause a variation in the intensity of the light in different quarters, but the differences induced are not sharp or in any proper sense structural. A flame of this kind may develop a secondary feature of structure. If carbon monoxide be burnt in oxygen which is mixed or combined with another element there may be an additional chemical process that will give light; flames in air are sometimes surrounded by a faintly luminous fringe of a greenish cast, apparently associated with the combination of nitrogen with oxygen (H.B. Dixon). Carbon monoxide on being strongly heated begins to dissociate into carbon and carbon dioxide; if the unburnt carbon monoxide within a flame of that gas were so highly heated by its own burning walls as to reach the temperature of dissociation, we might expect to see a special feature of structure due to the separated carbon. Such a temperature does not, however, appear to be reached.

Apart from hydrocarbon flames not much has been published in reference to the structure of flames. The case of cyanogen is of peculiar interest. The beautiful flame of this gas consists of an almost crimson shell surrounded by a margin of bright blue. Investigations have shown that these two colours correspond to two steps in the progress of the combustion, in the first of which the carbon of the cyanogen is oxidized to carbon monoxide and in the second the carbon monoxide oxidized to carbon dioxide.

The inversion of combustion may bring new features of structure into existence; thus when a jet of cyanogen is burnt in oxygen no solid carbon can be found in the flame, but when a jet of oxygen is burnt in cyanogen solid carbon separates on the edge of the flame.

_Hydrocarbon Flames._--As already stated the flames of carbon compounds and especially of hydrocarbons have been much more studied than any other kind, as is natural from their common use and practical importance. The earliest investigations were made with coal gas, vegetable oils and tallow, and the composite and complex nature of these substances led to difficulties and confusion in the interpretation of results. One such difficulty may be illustrated by the fact, often overlooked, that when a mixed gaseous combustible issues into air the individual component gases will separate spontaneously in accordance with their diffusibilities: hydrogen will thus tend to get to the outer edge of a flame and heavy hydrocarbons to lag behind.

The features of structure in a hydrocarbon flame depend of course on the manner in which the air is supplied. The extreme cases are (i.) when the issuing gas is supplied before it leaves the burner with sufficient air for complete combustion, as in the blast blowpipe, in which case we have a sheet of blue undifferentiated flame; and (ii.) when the gas has to find all the air it requires after leaving the burner. The intermediate stage is when the issuing gas is supplied before leaving the burner with a part of the air that is required. In this case a two-coned flame is produced. The general theory of such phenomena has already been discussed. It must be remarked that the transition of one kind of flame into the others can be effected gradually, and this is seen with particular ease and distinctness by burning benzene vapour admixed with gradually increasing quantities of air. The key to the explanation of the structure of an ordinary luminous flame, such as that of a candle, is to be found, according to Smithells, by observing the changes undergone by a well-aerated Bunsen flame as the "primary" air is gradually cut off by closing the air-ports at the base of the burner. It is then seen that the two cones of flame evolve or degenerate into the two recognizable blue parts of an ordinary luminous flame, whilst the appearance of the bright yellow luminous patch becomes increasingly emphasized as a hollow dome lying within the upper part of the blue sheath. There are thus three recognizable features of structure in an ordinary luminous flame, each region being as it were a mere shell and the interior of the flame filled with gas which has not yet entered into active combustion. If, as is suggested, the blue parts of an ordinary luminous flame are the relics of the two cones of a Bunsen flame, the chemistry of a Bunsen flame may be appropriately considered first. What happens chemically when a hydrocarbon is burned in a Bunsen burner? The air sent in with the gas is insufficient for complete combustion so that the inner cone of the flame may be considered as air burning in an excess of coal gas. What will be the products of this combustion? This question has been answered at different times in very different ways. There are many conceivable answers: part of the hydrocarbon might be wholly oxidized and the rest left unaltered to mix with the outside air and burn as the outer cone; on the other hand, there might be (as has been so commonly assumed) a selective oxidation in the inner cone whereby the hydrogen was fully oxidized and the carbon set free or oxidized to carbon monoxide; or again the carbon might be oxidized to carbon dioxide or monoxide and the hydrogen set free. There might of course be other intermediate kinds of action. Now it is important at this point to insist upon a distinction between what can be found by direct analysis as to the products of partial combustion, and what can be imagined or inferred as the transitory existence of substances of which the products actually found in analysis are the outcome. We shall consider only in the first instance what substances are found by analysis. Earlier experiments on the Bunsen burner in which coal gas was used, and the gases withdrawn directly from the flame by aspiration, gave no very clear results, but the introduction of the cone-separating apparatus and the use of single hydrocarbons led to more definite conclusions. The analysis of the inter-conal gases from an ethylene flame gave the following numbers:--carbon dioxide = 3.6; water = 9.5; carbon monoxide = 15.6; hydrocarbons = 1.3; hydrogen = 9.4; nitrogen = 60.6.

It appears therefore, and it may be stated as a fact, that a considerable amount of hydrogen is left unoxidized, whilst practically all the carbon is converted into monoxide or dioxide. As the gases have cooled down before analysis and as the reaction CO + H2O<-->CO2 + H2 is reversible, it may be objected that the inter-conal gases may have a composition when they are hot very different from what they show when cold. Experiments made to test this question have not sustained the objection. Subsequent experiments on the oxidation of hydrocarbons have made it appear undesirable to use the expression "preferential combustion" or "selective combustion" in connexion with the facts just stated; but for the purpose of describing in brief the chemistry of a hydrocarbon flame it is necessary to say that in the inner cone of a Bunsen flame hydrogen and carbon monoxide are the result of the limited oxidation, and that the combustion of these gases with the external air generates the outer cone of the flame. As to the actual stages in the limited oxidation of a hydrocarbon a large amount of very valuable work has been carried out by W.A. Bone and his collaborators. Different hydrocarbons mixed with oxygen have been circulated continuously through a vessel heated to various temperatures, beginning with that (about 250 deg. C.) at which the rate of oxidation is easily appreciable. Proceeding in this way, Bone, without effecting a complete transformation of the hydrocarbon into partially oxidized substances, has isolated large quantities of such products, and concludes that the oxidation of a hydrocarbon involves nothing in the nature of a selective or preferential oxidation of either the hydrogen or the carbon. He maintains that it occurs in several well-defined stages during which oxygen enters into and is incorporated with the hydrocarbon molecule, forming oxygenated intermediate products among which are alcohols and aldehydes. The reactions between ethane and ethylene with an equal volume of oxygen would be represented as follows:--

Stage 1. Stage 2.

CH3.CH3 ----> CH3.CH2OH ----> CH3.CH(OH)2 Ethane. Ethyl alcohol. _____/\______ ____/\____ / CH3.CHO+H2O \ / C2H4+H2O \ Acetaldehyde. / 2C+2H2+H2O \ ____/\_____ / CH4+CO \ / C+2H2+CO \ CH2 : CH2 ---> CH2 : CHOH -----> / HO.CH : CH.OH \ ____/\____ ______/\_______ Ethylene. / C2H2+H2O \ / 2CH2O=2CO+2H2 \ / 2C+H2+H2O \ Formaldehyde.

The affinity between the hydrocarbon and oxygen at a high temperature is so great that, when the supply of oxygen is sufficient to carry the oxidation as far as the second stage, practically no decomposition of the monohydroxy molecule formed in the first stage occurs. This is especially the case with unsaturated hydrocarbons.

As a crucial test decisive against the hypothesis of preferential carbon oxidation, Bone cites the experiment of firing a mixture of equal volumes of ethane and oxygen sealed up in a glass bulb. In such a case a lurid flame fills the vessel, accompanied by a black cloud of carbon particles and considerable condensation of water. About 10% of methane is also found. It is impossible within the limits of this article to give a more extended account of these later researches on the oxidation of hydrocarbons. They make it evident that the relative oxidizability of carbon and hydrogen cannot form the basis of a general theory of the combustion of hydrocarbons, and that both the a priori view that hydrogen is the more oxidizable element, and the inference from the behaviour of ethylene when exploded with its own volume of oxygen, viz. that carbon is the more oxidizable element in hydrocarbons, are not in harmony with experimental facts.

The view that the bright luminosity of hydrocarbon flames is due "to the deposition of solid charcoal" was first put forward by Sir Humphry Davy in 1816. In explaining the origin of this charcoal, Davy used somewhat ambiguous language, stating that it "might be owing to a decomposition of a part of the gas towards the interior of the flame where the air was in smallest quantity." This statement was interpreted commonly as implying that the charcoal became free by the preferential combustion of the hydrogen, and such an interpretation was given explicitly by Faraday. Whatever may have been Davy's view with regard to this part of the theory, his conclusion that finely divided carbon was the cause of luminosity in hydrocarbon flames was not questioned until 1867, when E. Frankland, in connexion with researches already alluded to, maintained that the luminosity of such flames was not due in any important degree to solid particles of carbon, but to the incandescence of dense hydrocarbon vapours. Among the arguments adduced against this view the most decisive is furnished by the optical test first used by J.L. Soret. If the image of the sun be focussed upon the glowing part of a hydrocarbon flame the scattered light is found to be polarized, and it is indisputable that the luminous region is pervaded by a cloud of finely divided solid matter. The quantity of this solid (estimated by H.H.C. Bunte to be 0.1 milligram in a coal-gas flame burning 5 cub. ft. per hour) is sufficient to account for the luminosity, so that Davy's original view may be said to be now universally accepted.

The remaining question with regard to the luminosity of a hydrocarbon flame relates to the manner in which the carbon is set free. The fact-that hydrocarbons when strongly heated in absence of air will deposit carbon has long been known and is daily evident in the operation of coal-gas making, when gas carbon accumulates as a hard deposit in the highly-heated crown of the retorts. There is no difficulty in supposing therefore that the carbon in a flame is separated from the hydrocarbon within it by the purely thermal action of the blue burning walls of the flame. Many experiments might be adduced to confirm this view. It is sufficient to name two. If a ring of metal wire be so disposed in a small flame as to make a girdle within the blue walls towards the base, the withdrawal of heat is rapid enough to prevent the maintenance of a temperature sufficient to cause a separation of carbon, and the bright luminosity disappears. Again, if the flame of a Bunsen burner be fed through the air-ports not with air but with some neutral gas such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide or steam, the dilution of the burning gas and the hydrocarbon within it becomes so great that the temperature of separation is not attained, no carbon is separated and the flame consists of a single blue shell.

Whilst it is thus easy to understand generally why carbon becomes separated as a solid within a flame, it is not easy to trace the processes by which the carbon becomes separated in the case of a given hydrocarbon. According to M.P.E. Berthelot, who made prolonged and elaborate researches on the pyrogenetic relationships of hydrocarbons, these compounds only liberate carbon by a process of the continual coalescence of hydrocarbon molecules with the elimination of hydrogen, until there is left the limiting solid hydrocarbon hardly distinguishable from carbon itself and constituting the glowing soot of flames.

V.B. Lewes, on the other hand, basing his conclusions on a study of the thermal decomposition of hydrocarbons, on temperature measurements of flames and analysis of their gases, has more recently developed a theory of flame luminosity in which the formation and sudden exothermic decomposition of acetylene are regarded as the essential incidents productive of carbon separation and luminosity. Smithells has disputed the evidence on which this theory is based and it appears to have gained no adherence from those who have worked in the same field; but as it has not been formally disavowed by the author and has found its way into some text-books, it is mentioned here.

W.A. Bone and H.F. Coward (_Journ. Chem. Soc._, 1908) published the results of a very careful study of the decomposition of hydrocarbons when heated in a stationary condition and when continually circulated through hot vessels. Their results disclose once more the great difficulty of tracing the processes of decomposition and of arriving at a generalization of wide applicability, but they appear to be conclusive against the views both of Berthelot and of Lewes.

They do not think that the decomposition of hydrocarbons can be adequately represented by ordinary chemical equations owing to the complexity of the changes which really take place. Methane, which is the most stable of the hydrocarbons, appears to be resolved at high temperatures directly into carbon and hydrogen, but the phenomenon is dependent mainly on surface action; ethane, ethylene and acetylene undergo decomposition throughout the body of the gas (loc. cit. p. 1197 et seq.).

"In the cases of ethane and ethylene it may be supposed that the _primary_ effect of high temperature is to cause an elimination of hydrogen with a simultaneous loosening or dissolution of the bond between the carbon atoms, giving rise to (in the event of dissolution) residues such as : CH2 and [.:] CH. These residues, which can only have a very fugitive separate existence, may either (a) form H2C : CH2 and HC [.:] CH, as the result of encounters with other similar residues, or (b) break down directly into carbon and hydrogen, or (c) be directly hydrogenized to methane in an atmosphere rich in hydrogen. These three possibilities may all be realized simultaneously in the same decomposing gas in proportions dependent on the temperature, pressure and amount of hydrogen present. The whole process may be represented by the following scheme, the dotted line indicating the tendency to dissolve a bond between the carbon atoms which becomes actually effective at higher temperatures:--

H.:H -------- / (a) C2H4 + H2 H.C.:C.H = [2(:CH2) + H2] = < (b) 2C + 2H2 + H2 H.:H \ (c) plus H2 = 2CH4

H.:H / (a) C2H2 + H2 -------- = [2(.:CH) + H2] = < (b) 2C + H2 + H2 H.C.:C.H \ (c) _plus_ 2H2 = CH4.

"In the ease of acetylene, the main primary change may be either one of polymerization or of dissolution according to the temperature, and if the latter, it may be supposed that the molecule breaks down across the triple bond between the carbon atoms, giving rise to 2([.:]CH), and that these residues are subsequently either resolved into carbon and hydrogen or "hydrogenized" according to circumstances, thus:--

H.C.:C.H = [2(.:CH)] = / (a) 2C + H2 \/ \ (b) _plus_ 3H2 = 2CH4. Polymerization.

"Acetylene is, moreover, distinguished by its power of polymerization at moderate temperatures so that whether it is the gas initially heated or whether it is a prominent product of the decomposition of another hydrocarbon polymerization will occur to an extent dependent on temperature."

We may describe briefly the view to which we are led as to the genesis of an ordinary luminous hydrocarbon flame:--

The gaseous hydrocarbon issues from the burner or wick, let us suppose, in a cylindrical column. This column is not sharply marked off from the air but is so penetrated by it that we must suppose a gradual transition from the pure hydrocarbon in the centre of column to the pure air on the outside. Let us take a thin transverse slice of the flame, near the lower part of the wick or close to the burner tube. At what lateral distance from the centre will combustion begin? Clearly, where enough oxygen has penetrated the column to give such partial combustion as takes place in the inner cone of a Bunsen burner. This then defines the blue region. Outside this the combustion of the carbon monoxide, hydrogen and any hydrocarbons which pass from the blue region takes place in a faintly luminous fringe. These two layers form a sheath of active combustion, surrounding and intensely heating the enclosed hydrocarbons in the middle of the column. These heated hydrocarbons rise and are heated to a higher temperature as they ascend. They are accordingly decomposed with separation of carbon in the higher parts of the flame, giving the region of bright yellow luminosity. There remains a central core in which neither is there any oxygen for combustion nor a sufficiently high temperature to cause carbon separation. This constitutes the dark interior region of the flame. We thus account for the different parts of the flame. It is to be noted, however, that the bright blue layer only surrounds the lower part of the flame, whilst the pale, faintly-luminous fringe surrounds the whole flame. The flame also is conical and not cylindrical. The foregoing explanation is therefore not quite complete. Let us suppose that the changes have gone on in the small section of the flame exactly as described and consider how the processes will differ in parts above this section. The central core of unburned gases will pass upwards and we may treat it as a new cylindrical column which will undergo changes just as the original one, leaving, however, a smaller core of unburned gases, or, in other words, each succeeding section of the flame will be of smaller diameter. This gives us the conical form of the flame. Again, the higher we ascend the flame the greater proportionally is the amount of separated carbon, for we have not only the heat of laterally outlying combustion to effect decomposition, but also that of the lower parts of the flame. The lower part of a luminous flame accordingly contains less separated carbon than the upper. Where the hydrocarbon is largely decomposed before combustion we have no longer the conditions of the Bunsen flame, and so in the upper parts of a luminous flame the bright blue part fades away. The luminous fringe would, however, be continued, for the separated hydrogen has still to burn. In this way then we may reasonably account for the existence, position and relative sizes of the four regions of an ordinary luminous flame. (A. S.)

FLAMEL, NICOLAS (c. 1330-1418), reputed French alchemist and scrivener to the university of Paris, was born in Paris or Pontoise about 1330, and died in Paris in 1418, bequeathing the bulk of his property to the church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, where he was buried. During his life he contributed freely to charitable and religious purposes from the considerable wealth he amassed either by the practice of his craft, or, as some surmise without definite proof, by fortunate speculation or money lending, or, as legend has it, by alchemy. According to a document purporting to be written by himself in 1413 (printed in Waite's _Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers_, London, 1888), there fell into his hands in 1357, at the cost of two florins, a book on alchemy by Abraham the Jew, which taught in plain words the transmutation of metals. It did not, however, explain the _materia prima_, but merely figured or depicted it, and for more than 20 years Flamel strove in vain to find out the secret. Then, returning from a journey to Spain, he fell in with a Christian Jew, named Canches, who gave him the explanation, and after three more years' work he succeeded in preparing the _materia prima_, thus being enabled in 1382 to transmute mercury into both silver and gold. But this fantastic story was disposed of by the facts, derived from parish records, set forth in Vilain's _Essai sur l'histoire de Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie_, 1758, and his _Histoire critique de Nicolas Flamel et de Pernelle sa femme, recueillie d'actes anciens qui justifient l'origine et la mediocrite de leur fortune contre les imputations des alchimistes_, 1761.

A book on alchemy in the Paris Bibliotheque, _Le Tresor de philosophie_, professing to be written and illuminated by Flamel with his own hand, is of very doubtful authenticity, and other treatises bearing his name, such as the _Sommaire philosophique de Nicolas Flamel_, published in 1561 in a collection of alchemist treatises entitled _Transformation metallique_, are certainly spurious.

FLAMEN (from _flare_, "to blow up" the altar fire), a Roman sacrificial priest. The flamens were subject to the pontifex (q.v.) maximus, and were consecrated to the service of some particular deity. The highest in rank were the _flamen Dialis_, _flamen Martialis_ and _flamen Quirinalis_, who were always selected from among the patricians. Their institution is generally ascribed to Numa. When the number of flamens was raised from three to fifteen, those already mentioned were entitled _majores_, in contradistinction to the other twelve, who were called _minores_, as connected with less important deities, and were chosen from the plebs. Towards the end of the republic the number of the lesser flamens seems to have diminished. The flamens were held to be elected for life, but they might be compelled to resign office for neglect of duty, or on the occurrence of some ill-omened event (such as the cap falling off the head) during the performance of their rites. The characteristic dress of the flamens in general was the _apex_, a white conical cap, the _laena_ or mantle, and a laurel wreath. The official insignia of the _flamen Dialis_ (of Jupiter), the highest of these priests, were the white cap (_pileus, albogalerus_), at the top of which was an olive branch and a woollen thread; the _laena_, a thick woollen _toga praetexta_ woven by his wife; the sacrificial knife; and a rod to keep the people from him when on his way to offer sacrifice. He was never allowed to appear without these emblems of office, every day being considered a holy day for him. By virtue of his office he was entitled to a seat in the senate and a curule chair. The sight of fetters being forbidden him, his toga was not allowed to be tied in a knot but was fastened by means of clasps, and the only kind of ring permitted to be worn on his finger was a broken one. If a person in fetters took refuge in his house he was immediately loosed from his bonds; and if a criminal on his way to the scene of his punishment met him and threw himself at his feet he was respited for that day. The _flamen Dialis_ was not allowed to leave the city for a single night, to ride or even touch a horse (a restriction which incapacitated him for the consulship), to swear an oath, to look at an army, to touch anything unclean, or to look upon people working. His marriage, which was obliged to be performed with the ceremonies of _confarreatio_ (q.v.), was dissoluble only by death, and on the death of his wife (called _flaminica Dialis_) he was obliged to resign his office. The _flaminica Dialis_ assisted her husband at the sacrifices and other religious duties which he performed. She wore long woollen robes; a veil and a kerchief for the head, her hair being plaited up with a purple band in a conical form (_tutulus_); and shoes made of the leather of sacrificed animals; like her husband, she carried the sacrificial knife. The main duty of the flamens was the offering of daily sacrifices; on the 1st of October the three major flamens drove to the Capitol and sacrificed to _Fides Publica_ (the Honour of the People). Some of the municipal towns in Italy had flamens as well as Rome.

We may mention, as distinct from the above, the _flamen curialis_, who assisted the curio, the priest who attended to the religious affairs of each curia (q.v.); the flamens of various sacerdotal corporations, such as the Arval Brothers; the _flamen Augustalis_, who superintended the worship of the emperor in the provinces.

See Marquardt, _Romische Staatsverwaltung_, iii. (1885), pp. 326-336, 473; H. Dessau, in _Ephemeris epigraphica_, iii. (1877); and the exhaustive article by C. Jullian in Daremberg and Saglio, _Dictionnaire des antiquites_.

FLAMINGO (Port. _Flamingo_, Span. _Flamenco_), one of the tallest and most beautiful birds, conspicuous for the bright flame-coloured or scarlet patch upon its wings, and long known by its classical name _Phoenicopterus_, as an inhabitant of most of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Flamingos have a very wide distribution, and the sole genus comprises only a few species. _Ph. roseus_ or _antiquorum_, white, with a rosy tinge above, and with scarlet wing-coverts, while the remiges are black (as in all species), ranges from the Cape Verde Islands to India and Ceylon, north as far as Lake Baikal; southwards through Africa and Madagascar, eventually as _P. minor_. _P. ruber_, entirely light vermilion, extends from Florida to Para and the Galapagos; _P. chilensis_ s. _ignipalliatus_, from Peru to Patagonia, more resembles the classical species; while _P. andinus_, the tallest of all, which lacks the hallux, inhabits the salt lakes of the elevated desert of Atacama, whence it extends into Chile and Argentina. Fossil remains of flamingos have been described from the Lower Miocene of France as _P. croizeti_, and from the Pliocene of Oregon. From the Mid-Miocene to the Oligocene of France are known several species of _Palaelodus_, _Elornis_ and _Agnopterus_, which have relatively shorter legs, longer toes and a complicated hypotarsus, and represent an earlier family, less specialized although not directly ancestral to the flamingos. _Palaelodidae_ and _Phoenicopteridae_ together form the larger group Phoenicopteri. These are in many respects exactly intermediate between Anserine and stork-like birds, so much so in fact that T.H. Huxley preferred to keep them separate as _Amphimorphae_. However, if we carefully sift their characters, the flamingos obviously reveal themselves as much nearer related to the _Ciconiae_, especially to _Platalea_ and _Ibis_, than to the Anseres. This is the opinion arrived at by W.F.R. Weldon, M. Fuerbringer and Gadow, while others prefer the goose-like voice and the webbed toes as reliable characters. (For a detailed analysis of this instructive question see Bronn's _Thierreich_, Aves Syst. p. 146.)

The food of the flamingo seems to consist chiefly of small aquatic invertebrate animals which live in the mud of lagoons, for instance Mollusca, but also of Confervae and other low salt-water algae. Whilst feeding, the bird wades about, stirs up the mud with its feet, and, reversing the ordinary position of its head so as to hold the crown downwards and to look backwards, sifts the mud through its bill. This is abruptly bent down in the middle, as if broken; the upper jaw is rather flat and narrow, while the lower jaw is very roomy and furnished with numerous lamellae, which, together with the thick and large tongue, act like a sieve, an arrangement enhanced by the considerable movability of the upper jaw. Then the bird erects its long neck to swallow the selected food. When flying, flamingos present a striking and beautiful sight, with legs and neck stretched out straight, looking like white and rosy or scarlet crosses with black arms. Not less fascinating is a flock of these sociable birds when at rest, standing on one or both legs, with their long necks twisted or coiled upon the body in any conceivable position.

The nest is likewise peculiar. It is built of mud, a somewhat conical structure rising above the water according to the depth, of which the cone is from a few inches to 2 ft. in height. If, as often happens, the water-level sinks, the nests stand out higher. On the top is a shallow cup for the reception of the one or two eggs, which have a bluish-white shell with chalky incrustation. Of course the hen sits with her legs doubled up under her, as does any other long-legged bird. It seems strange that many ornithologists should have given credence to W. Dampier's statement of the mode of incubation (_New Voyage round the World_, ed. 2, i. p. 71, London, 1699): "And when they lay their eggs, or hatch them, they stand all the while, not on the hillock, but close by it with their legs on the ground and in the water, resting themselves against the hillock, and covering the hollow nest upon it with their rumps," &c. P.S. Pallas (_Zoograph. Rosso-Asiatica_, ii. p. 208) tried to improve upon this by stating that the standing bird leans upon the nest with its breast! The young, which are hatched after about four weeks' incubation, look very different from the adult. The small bill is still quite straight and the legs are short. The whole body is covered with a thick coat of short nestling feathers, pure white in colour. These _neossoptiles_ or first feathers bear no resemblance to those of the Anseriform birds, but agree in detail with those of spoonbills, the young of which the little flamingos resemble to a striking extent, but they leave the nest soon after their birth to shift for themselves like ducks and geese. (H. F. G.)

FLAMINIA, VIA, an ancient high road of Italy, constructed by C. Flaminius during his censorship (220 B.C.). It led from Rome to Ariminum, and was the most important route to the north. We hear of frequent improvements being made in it during the imperial period. Augustus, when he instituted a general restoration of the roads of Italy, which he assigned for the purpose among various senators, reserved the Flaminia for himself, and rebuilt all the bridges except the Pons Mulvius, by which it crosses the Tiber, 2 m. N. of Rome (built by M. Scaurus in 109 B.C.), and an unknown Pons Minucius. Triumphal arches were erected in his honour on the former bridge and at Ariminum, the latter of which is still preserved. Vespasian constructed a new tunnel through the pass of Intercisa, modern Furlo, in A.D. 77 (see CALES), and Trajan, as inscriptions show, repaired several bridges along the road.

The Via Flaminia runs due N. from Rome, considerable remains of its pavement being extant in the modern high road, passing slightly E. of the site of the Etruscan Falerii, through Ocriculi and Narnia. Here it crossed the Nar by a splendid four-arched bridge to which Martial alludes (_Epigr._ vii. 93, 8), one arch of which and all the piers are still standing; and went on, followed at first by the modern road to Sangemini which passes over two finely preserved ancient bridges, past Carsulae to Mevania, and thence to Forum Flaminii. Later on a more circuitous route from Narnia to Forum Flaminii was adopted, passing by Interamna, Spoletium and Fulginium (from which a branch diverged to Perusia), and increasing the distance by 12 m. The road thence went on to Nuceria (whence a branch road ran to Septempeda and thence either to Ancona or to Tolentinum and Urbs Salvia) and Helvillum, and then crossed the main ridge of the Apennines, a temple of Jupiter Apenninus standing at the summit of the pass. Thence it descended to Cales (where it turned N.E.), and through the pass of Intercisa to Forum Sempronii (Fossombrone) and Forum Fortunae, when it reached the coast of the Adriatic. Thence it ran N.W. through Pisaurum to Ariminum. The total distance from Rome was 210 m. by the older road and 222 by the newer. The road gave its name to a juridical district of Italy from the 2nd century A.D. onwards, the former territory of the Senones, which was at first associated with Umbria (with which indeed under Augustus it had formed the sixth region of Italy), but which after Constantine was always administered with Picenum. (T. As.)

FLAMININUS, TITUS QUINCTIUS (c. 228-174 B.C.), Roman general and statesman. He began his public life as a military tribune under M. Claudius Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse. In 199 he was quaestor, and the next year, passing over the regular stages of aedile and praetor, he obtained the consulship.

Flamininus was one of the first and most successful of the rising school of Roman statesmen, the opponents of the narrow patriotism of which Cato was the type, the disciples of Greek culture, and the advocates of a wide imperial policy. His winning manners, his polished address, his knowledge of men, his personal fascination, and his intimate knowledge of Greek, all marked him out as the fittest representative of Rome in the East. Accordingly, the province of Macedonia, and the conduct of the war with Philip V. of Macedon, in which, after two years, Rome had as yet gained little advantage, were assigned to him. Flamininus modified both the policy and tactics of his predecessors. After an unsuccessful attempt to come to terms, he drove the Macedonians from the valley of the Aous by skilfully turning an impregnable position. Having thus practically made himself master of Macedonia, he proceeded to Greece, where Philip still had allies and supporters. The Achaean League (q.v.) at once deserted the cause of Macedonia, and Nabis, the tyrant of Sparta, entered into an alliance with Rome; Acarnania and Boeotia submitted in less than a year, and, with the exception of the great fortresses, Flamininus had the whole of Greece under his control. The demand of the Greeks for the expulsion of Macedonian garrisons from Demetrias, Chalcis and Corinth, as the only guarantee for the freedom of Greece, was refused, and negotiations were broken off. Hostilities were renewed in the spring of 197, and Flamininus took the field supported by nearly the whole of Greece. At Cynoscephalae the Macedonian phalanx and the Roman legion for the first time met in open fight, and the day decided which nation was to be master of Greece and perhaps of the world. It was a victory of superior tactics. The left wing of the Roman army was retiring in confusion before the Macedonian right led by Philip in person, when Flamininus, leaving them to their fate, boldly charged the left wing under Nicanor, which was forming on the heights. Before the left wing had time to form, Flamininus was upon them, and a massacre rather than a fight ensued. This defeat was turned into a general rout by a nameless tribune, who collected twenty companies and charged in the rear the victorious Macedonian phalanx, which in its pursuit had left the Roman right far behind. Macedonia was now at the mercy of Rome, but Flamininus contented himself with his previous demands. Philip lost all his foreign possessions, but retained his Macedonian kingdom almost entire. He was required to reduce his army, to give up all his decked ships except five, and to pay an indemnity of 1000 talents (L244,000). Ten commissioners arrived from Rome to regulate the final terms of peace, and at the Isthmian games a herald proclaimed to the assembled crowds that "the Roman people, and T. Quinctius their general, having conquered King Philip and the Macedonians, declare all the Greek states which had been subject to the king henceforward free and independent." Flamininus's last act before returning home was characteristic. Of the Achaeans, who vied with one another in showering upon him honours and rewards, he asked but one personal favour, the redemption of the Italian captives who had been sold as slaves in Greece during the Hannibalic War. These, to the number of 1200, were presented to him on the eve of his departure (spring, 194), and formed the chief ornament of his triumph.

In 192, on the rupture between the Romans and Antiochus III. the Great, Flamininus returned to Greece, this time as the civil representative of Rome. His personal influence and skilful diplomacy secured the wavering Achaean states, cemented the alliance with Philip, and contributed mainly to the Roman victory at Thermopylae (191). In 183 he undertook an embassy to Prusias, king of Bithynia, to induce him to deliver up Hannibal, who forestalled his fate by taking poison. Nothing more is known of Flamininus, except that, according to Plutarch, his end was peaceful and happy.

There seems no doubt that Flamininus was actuated by a genuine love of Greece and its people. To attribute to him a Machiavellian policy, which foresaw the overthrow of Corinth fifty years later and the conversion of Achaea into a Roman province, is absurd and disingenuous. There is more force in the charge that his Hellenic sympathies prevented him from seeing the innate weakness and mutual jealousies of the Greek states of that period, whose only hope of peace and safety lay in submitting to the protectorate of the Roman republic. But if the event proved that the liberation of Greece was a political mistake, it was a noble and generous mistake, and reflects nothing but honour on the name of Flamininus, "the liberator of the Greeks."

His life has been written by Plutarch, and in modern times by F.D. Gerlach (1871); see also Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_ (Eng. tr.), bk. iii. chs. 8, 9.

FLAMINIUS, GAIUS, Roman statesman and general, of plebeian family. During his tribuneship (232 B.C.), in spite of the determined opposition of the senate and his own father, he carried a measure for distributing among the plebeians the _ager Gallicus Picenus_, an extensive tract of newly-acquired territory to the south of Ariminum (Cicero, _De senectute_, 4, _Brutus_, 14). As praetor in 227, he gained the lasting gratitude of the people of his province (Sicily) by his excellent administration. In 223, when consul with P. Furius Philus, he took the field against the Gauls, who were said to have been roused to war by his agrarian law. Having crossed the Po to punish the Insubrians, he at first met with a severe check and was forced to capitulate. Reinforced by the Cenomani, he gained a decisive victory on the banks of the Addua. He had previously been recalled by the optimates, but ignored the order. The victory seems to have been due mainly to the admirable discipline and fighting qualities of the soldiers, and he obtained the honour of a triumph only after the decree of the senate against it had been overborne by popular clamour. During his censorship (220) he strictly limited the freedmen to the four city tribes (see COMITIA). His name is further associated with two great works. He erected the Circus Flaminius on the Campus Martius, for the accommodation of the plebeians, and continued the military road from Rome to Ariminum, which had hitherto only reached as far as Spoletium (see FLAMINIA, VIA). He probably also instituted the "plebeian" games. In 218, as a leader of the democratic opposition, Flaminius was one of the chief promoters of the measure brought in by the tribune Quintus Claudius, which prohibited senators and senators' sons from possessing sea-going vessels, except for the transport of the produce of their own estates, and generally debarred them from all commercial speculation (Livy xxi. 63). His effective support of this measure vastly increased the popularity of Flaminius with his own order, and secured his second election as consul in the following year (217), shortly after the defeat of T. Sempronius Longus at the Trebia. He hastened at once to Arretium, the termination of the western high road to the north, to protect the passes of the Apennines, but was defeated and killed at the battle of the Trasimene lake (see PUNIC WARS).

The testimony of Livy (xxi., xxii.) and Polybius (ii., iii.)--no friendly critics--shows that Flaminius was a man of ability, energy and probity. A popular and successful democratic leader, he cannot, however, be ranked among the great statesmen of the republic. As a general he was headstrong and self-sufficient and seems to have owed his victories chiefly to personal boldness favoured by good fortune.

His son, GAIUS FLAMINIUS, was quaestor under P. Scipio Africanus the elder in Spain in 210, and took part in the capture of New Carthage. Fourteen years later, when curule aedile, he distributed large quantities of grain among the citizens at a very low price. In 193, as praetor, he carried on a successful war against the insubordinate populations of his recently constituted province of Hispania Citerior. In 187 he was consul with M. Aemilius Lepidus, and subjugated the warlike Ligurian tribes. In the same year the branch of the Via Aemilia connecting Bononia with Arretium was constructed by him. In 181 he founded the colony of Aquileia. The chief authority for his life is the portion of Livy dealing with the history of the period.

FLAMSTEED, JOHN (1646-1719), English astronomer, was born at Denby, near Derby, on the 19th of August 1646. The only son of Stephen Flamsteed, a maltster, he was educated at the free school of Derby, but quitted it finally in May 1662, in consequence of a rheumatic affection of the joints, due to a chill caught while bathing. Medical aid having proved of no avail, he went to Ireland in 1665 to be "stroked" by Valentine Greatrakes, but "found not his disease to stir." Meanwhile, he solaced his enforced leisure with astronomical studies. Beginning with J. Sacrobosco's _De sphaera_, he read all the books on the subject that he could buy or borrow; observed a partial solar eclipse on the 12th of September 1662; and attempted the construction of measuring instruments. A tract on the equation of time, written by him in 1667, was published by Dr John Wallis with the _Posthumous Works_ of J. Horrocks (1673); and a paper embodying his calculations of appulses to stars by the moon, which appeared in the _Philosophical Transactions_ (iv. 1099), signed _In Mathesi a sole fundes_, an anagram of "Johannes Flamsteedius," secured for him, from 1670, general scientific recognition.

On his return from a visit to London in 1670 he became acquainted with Isaac Newton at Cambridge, entered his name at Jesus college, and took, four years later, a degree of M.A. by letters-patent. An essay composed by him in 1673 on the true and apparent diameters of the planets furnished Newton with data for the third book of the _Principia_, and he fitted numerical elements to J. Horrocks's theory of the moon. In 1674, and again in 1675, he was invited to London by Sir Jonas Moore, governor of the Tower, who proposed to establish him in a private observatory at Chelsea, but the plan was anticipated by the determination of Charles II. to have the tables of the heavenly bodies corrected, and the places of the fixed stars rectified "for the use of his seamen," and Flamsteed was appointed "astronomical observator" by a royal warrant dated 4th of March 1675. His salary of L100 a year was cut down by taxation to L90; he had to provide his own instruments, and to instruct, into the bargain, two boys from Christ's hospital. Sheer necessity drove him, in addition, to take many private pupils; but having been ordained in 1675, he was presented by Lord North in 1684 to the living of Burstow in Surrey; and his financial position was further improved by a small inheritance on his father's death in 1688. He now ordered, at an expense of L120, a mural arc from Abraham Sharp, with which he began to observe systematically on the 12th of September 1689 (see ASTRONOMY: _History_). The latter part of Flamsteed's life passed in a turmoil of controversy regarding the publication of his results. He struggled to withhold them until they could be presented in a complete form; but they were urgently needed for the progress of science, and the astronomer-royal was a public servant. Sir Isaac Newton, who depended for the perfecting of his lunar theory upon "places of the moon" reluctantly doled out from Greenwich, led the movement for immediate communication; whence arose much ill-feeling between him and Flamsteed. At last, in 1704, Prince George of Denmark undertook the cost of printing; a committee of the Royal Society was appointed to arrange preliminaries, and Flamsteed, protesting and exasperated, had to submit. The work was only partially through the press when the prince died, on the 28th of October 1708, and its completion devolved upon a board of visitors to the observatory endowed with ample powers by a royal order of the 12th of December 1712. As the upshot, the _Historia coelestis_, embodying the first Greenwich star-catalogue, together with the mural arc observations made 1689-1705, was issued under Edmund Halley's editorship in 1712. Flamsteed denounced the production as surreptitious; he committed to the flames three hundred copies, of which he obtained possession through the favour of Sir Robert Walpole; and, in defiance of bodily infirmities, vigorously prosecuted his designs for the entire and adequate publication of the materials he continued to accumulate. They were but partially executed when he died on the 31st of December 1719. The preparation of his monumental work, _Historia coelestis Britannica_ (3 vols. folio, 1725), was finished by his assistant, Joseph Crosthwait, aided by Abraham Sharp. The first two volumes included the whole of Flamsteed's observations at Derby and Greenwich; the third contained the _British Catalogue_ of nearly 3000 stars. Numerous errors in this valuable record having been detected by Sir William Herschel, Caroline Herschel drew up a list of 560 stars observed, but not catalogued, while 111 of those catalogued proved to have never been observed (_Phil. Trans._ lxxxvii. 293; see also F. Baily, _Memoirs Roy. Astr. Society_, iv. 129). The appearance of the _Atlas coelestis_, corresponding to the _British Catalogue_, was delayed until 1729. A portrait of Flamsteed, painted by Thomas Gibson in 1712, hangs in the rooms of the Royal Society. The extent and quality of his performance were the more remarkable considering his severe physical sufferings, his straitened means, and the antagonism to which he was exposed. Estimable in private life, he was highly susceptible in professional matters, and hence failed to keep on terms with his contemporaries.

Francis Baily's _Account of the Rev. John Flamsteed_ (1835) is the leading authority for his life. It comprises an autobiographical narrative pieced together from various sources, a large collection of Flamsteed's letters, a revised and enlarged edition of the _British Catalogue_, besides authoritative and detailed introductory discussions. Some clamour was raised by a publication in which blame for harsh dealings was freely imputed to Newton, but W. Whewell vindicated his character in _Flamsteed and Newton_ (1836).

See also _General Dictionary_, vol. v. (1737), from materials supplied by James Hodgson, Flamsteed's nephew-in-law; _Biographia Britannica_, iii. 1943 (1750); S. Rigaud's _Correspondence of Scientific Men_; Cunningham's _Lives of Eminent Englishmen_, iv. 366 (1835); Mark Noble's Continuation of James Granger's Biog. _Hist. of England_, ii. 132; R. Grant's _Hist. of Phys. Astronomy_, p. 467; W. Whewell's _Hist. of the Inductive Sciences_, ii. 162; J.S. Bailly's _Hist. de l'astronomie moderne_, ii. 423, 589, 650; J. Delambre's _Hist. de l'astronomie au XVIII^e siecle_, p. 93; _Observatory_, xv. 355, 379, 382. (A. M. C.)

FLANDERS (Flem. _Vlaanderen_), a territorial name for part of the Netherlands, Europe. Originally it applied only to Bruges and the immediate neighbourhood. In the 8th and 9th centuries it was gradually extended to the whole of the coast region from Calais to the Scheldt. In the middle ages this was divided into two parts, one looking to Bruges as its capital, and the other to Ghent. The name is retained in the two Belgian provinces of West and East Flanders.

1. West Flanders is the portion bordering the North Sea, and its coast-line extends from the French to the Dutch frontier for a little over 40 m. Its capital is Bruges, and the principal towns of the province are Ostend, Courtrai, Ypres and Roulers. Agriculture is the chief occupation of the population, and the country is under the most careful and skilful cultivation. The admiration of the foreign observer for the Belgian system of market gardening is not diminished on learning that the subsoil of most of this tract is the sand of the "dunes." Fishing employs a large proportion of the coast population. The area of West Flanders is officially computed at 808,667 acres or 1263 sq. m. In 1904 the population was 845,732, giving an average of 669 to the sq. m.

2. East Flanders lies east and north-east of the western province, and extends northwards to the neighbourhood of Antwerp. It is still more productive and richer than Western Flanders, and is well watered by the Scheldt. The district of Waes, land entirely reclaimed within the memory of man, is supposed to be the most productive district of its size in Europe. The principal towns are Ghent (capital of the province), St Nicolas, Alost, Termonde, Eecloo and Oudenarde. The area is given at 749,987 acres or 1172 sq. m. In 1904 the population was 1,073,507, showing an average of 916 per sq. m.

_History._--The ancient territory of Flanders comprised not only the modern provinces known as East and West Flanders, but the southernmost portion of the Dutch province of Zeeland and a considerable district in north-western France. In the time of Caesar it was inhabited by the Morini, Atrebates and other Celtic tribes, but in the centuries that followed the land was repeatedly overrun by German invaders, and finally became a part of the dominion of the Franks. On the break-up of the Carolingian empire the river Scheldt was by the treaty of Verdun (843) made the line of division between the kingdom of East Francia (Austrasia) under the emperor Lothaire, and the kingdom of West Francia (Neustria) under Charles the Bald. In virtue of this compact Flanders was henceforth attached to the West Frankish monarchy (France). It thus acquired a position unique among the provinces of the territory known in later times as the Netherlands, all of which were included in that northern part of Austrasia assigned on the death of the emperor Lothaire (855) to King Lothaire II., and from his name called Lotharingia or Lorraine.

The first ruler of Flanders of whom history has left any record is Baldwin, surnamed _Bras-de-fer_ (Iron-arm). This man, a brave and daring warrior under Charles the Bald, fell in love with the king's daughter Judith, the youthful widow of two English kings, married her, and fled with his bride to Lorraine. Charles, though at first very angry, was at last conciliated, and made his son-in-law margrave (_Marchio Flandriae_) of Flanders, which he held as an hereditary fief. The Northmen were at this time continually devastating the coast lands, and Baldwin was entrusted with the possession of this outlying borderland of the west Frankish dominion in order to defend it against the invaders. He was the first of a line of strong rulers, who at some date early in the 10th century exchanged the title of margrave for that of count. His son, Baldwin II.--the Bald--from his stronghold at Bruges maintained, as did his father before him, a vigorous defence of his lands against the incursions of the Northmen. On his mother's side a descendant of Charlemagne, he strengthened the dynastic importance of his family by marrying Aelfthryth, daughter of Alfred the Great. On his death in 918 his possessions were divided between his two sons Arnulf the Elder and Adolphus, but the latter survived only a short time and Arnulf succeeded to the whole inheritance. His reign was filled with warfare against the Northmen, and he took an active part in the struggles in Lorraine between the emperor Otto I. and Hugh Capet. In his old age he placed the government in the hands of Baldwin, his son by Adela, daughter of the count of Vermandois, and the young man, though his reign was a very short one, did a great deal for the commercial and industrial progress of the country, establishing the first weavers and fullers at Ghent, and instituting yearly fairs at Ypres, Bruges and other places.

On Baldwin III.'s death in 961 the old count resumed the control, and spent the few remaining years of his life in securing the succession of his grandson Arnulf II.--the Younger. The reign of Arnulf was terminated by his death in 989, and he was followed by his son Baldwin IV., named _Barbatus_ or the Bearded. This Baldwin fought successfully both against the Capetian king of France and the emperor Henry II. Henry found himself obliged to grant to Baldwin IV. in fief Valenciennes, the burgraveship of Ghent, the land of Waes, and Zeeland. The count of Flanders thus became a feudatory of the empire as well as of the French crown. The French fiefs are known in Flemish history as Crown Flanders (_Kroon-Vlaanderen_), the German fiefs as Imperial Flanders (_Rijks-Vlaanderen_). Baldwin's son--afterwards Baldwin V.--rebelled in 1028 against his father at the instigation of his wife Adela, daughter of Robert II. of France; but two years later peace was sworn at Oudenaarde, and the old count continued to reign till his death in 1036. Baldwin V. proved a worthy successor, and acquired from the people the surname of _Debonnaire_. He was an active enterprising man, and greatly extended his power by wars and alliances. He obtained from the emperor Henry IV. the territory between the Scheldt and the Dender as an imperial fief, and the margraviate of Antwerp. So powerful had he become that the Flemish count on the decease of Henry I. of France in 1060 was appointed regent during the minority of Philip I. (see FRANCE). Before his death he saw his eldest daughter Matilda (d. 1083) sharing the English throne with William the Conqueror, his eldest son Baldwin of Mons in possession of Hainaut in right of his wife Richilde, heiress of Regnier V. (d. 1036) and widow of Hermann of Saxony (d. 1050/1) (see HAINAUT), and his second son Robert the Frisian regent (_voogd_) of the county of Holland during the minority of Dirk V., whose mother, Gertrude of Saxony, widow of Floris I. of Holland (d. 1061), Robert had married (see HOLLAND). On his death in 1067 his son Baldwin of Mons, already count of Hainaut, succeeded to the countship of Flanders. Baldwin V. had granted to Robert the Frisian on his marriage in 1063 his imperial fiefs. His right to these was disputed by Baldwin VI., and war broke out between the two brothers. Baldwin was killed in battle in 1070. Robert now claimed the tutelage of Baldwin's children and obtained the support of the emperor Henry IV., while Richilde, Baldwin's widow, appealed to Philip I. of France. The contest was decided at Ravenshoven, near Cassel, on the 22nd of February 1071, where Robert was victorious. Richilde was taken prisoner and her eldest son Arnulf III. was slain. Robert obtained from Philip I. the investiture of Crown Flanders, and from Henry IV. the fiefs which formed Imperial Flanders.

The second son of Richilde was recognized as count of Hainaut (see HAINAUT), which was thus after a brief union separated from Flanders. Robert died in 1093, and was succeeded by his son Robert II., who acquired great renown by his exploits in the first crusade, and won the name of the Lance and Sword of Christendom. His fame was second only to that of Godfrey of Bouillon. Robert returned to Flanders in 1100. He fought with his suzerain Louis the Fat of France against the English, and was drowned in 1111 by the breaking of a bridge. His son and successor, Baldwin VII., or Baldwin with the Axe, also fought against the English in France. He died at the age of twenty-seven from the wound of an arrow, in 1119, leaving no heir. He nominated as his successor his cousin Charles, son of Knut IV. of Denmark and of Adela, daughter of Robert the Frisian. Charles tried his utmost to put down oppression and to promote the welfare of his subjects, and obtained the surname of "the Good." His determination to enforce the right made him many enemies, and he was foully murdered on Ash Wednesday, 1127, at Bruges. He died childless, and there were no less than six candidates to the countship. The contest lay between two of these, William Clito, son of Robert of Normandy and grandson of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, and Thierry or Dirk of Alsace, whose mother Gertrude was a daughter of Robert the Frisian. William Clito, through the support of Louis of France, was at first accepted by the Flemish nobles as count, but he gave offence to the communes, who supported Thierry. A struggle ensued and William was killed before Alost. Thierry then became count without further opposition. He married the widow of Charles the Good, Marguerite of Clermont, and proved himself at home a wise and prudent prince, encouraging the growth of popular liberty and of commerce. In 1146 he took part in the second crusade and distinguished himself by his exploits. In 1157 he resigned the countship to his son Philip of Alsace and betook himself once more to Jerusalem. On his return from the East twenty years later Thierry retired to a monastery to die in his own land.

Count Philip of Alsace was a strong and able man. He did much to promote the growth of the municipalities for which Flanders was already becoming famous. Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, Lille and Douai under him made much progress as flourishing industrial towns. He also conferred rights and privileges on a number of ports, Hulst, Nieuwport, Sluis, Dunkirk, Axel, Damme, Gravelines and others. But while encouraging the development of the communes and "free towns," Philip sternly repressed any spirit of independence or attempted uprisings against his authority. This count was a powerful prince. He acted for a time as regent in France during the minority of his godson Philip Augustus, and married his ward to his niece Isabella of Hainaut (1180). Philip took part in the third crusade, and died in the camp before Acre of the pestilence in 1191.

As he had no children, the succession passed to Baldwin of Hainaut, who had married Philip's sister Margaret. The countships of Flanders and Hainaut were thus united under the same ruler. Baldwin did not obtain possession of Flanders without strong opposition on the part of the French king, and he was obliged to cede Artois, St Omer, Lens, Hesdin and a great part of southern Flanders to France, and to allow Matilda of Portugal, the widow of Philip of Alsace, to retain certain towns in right of her dowry. Margaret died in 1194 and Baldwin the following year, and their eldest son Baldwin IX. succeeded to both countships. Baldwin IX. is famous in history as the founder of the Latin empire at Constantinople. He perished in Bulgaria in 1206. The emperor's two daughters were both under age, and the government was carried on by their uncle Philip, marquess of Namur, whom Baldwin had appointed regent on his departure to Constantinople. Philip proved faithless to his charge, and he allowed his nieces to fall into the hands of Philip Augustus, who married the elder sister Johanna of Constantinople to his nephew Ferdinand of Portugal. The Flemings were averse to the French king's supremacy, and Ferdinand, who acted as governor in the name of his wife, joined himself to the confederacy formed by Germany, England, and the leading states of the Netherlands against Philip Augustus. Ferdinand was, however, taken prisoner at the disastrous battle of Bouvines (1214) and was kept for twelve years a prisoner in the Louvre. The countess Johanna ruled the united countships with prudence and courage. On Ferdinand's death she married Thomas of Savoy, but died in 1244, leaving no heirs. She was succeeded in her dignities by her younger sister Margaret of Constantinople, commonly known amongst her contemporaries as "Black Meg" (_Zwarte Griet_). Margaret had been twice married. Her first husband was (1212) Buchard of Avesnes, one of the first of Hainaut's nobles and a man of knightly prowess, but originally destined for the church. On this ground he was excommunicated by Innocent III. and imprisoned by the countess Johanna, with the result that Margaret at last was driven to repudiate him. She married in second wedlock (1225) William of Dampierre. Two sons were the issue of the first marriage, three sons and three daughters of the second.

When Margaret in 1244 became countess of Flanders and Hainaut, she wished her son William of Dampierre to be acknowledged as her successor. John of Avesnes, her eldest son, strongly protested against this and was supported by the French king. A civil war ensued, which ended in a compromise (1246), the succession to Flanders being granted to William of Dampierre, that of Hainaut to John of Avesnes. Margaret, however, ruled with a strong hand for many years and survived both her sons, dying at the age of eighty in 1280. On her death her grandson, John II. of Avesnes, became count of Hainaut: Guy of Dampierre, her second son by her second marriage, count of Flanders.

The two counties were once more under separate dynasties. The government of Guy of Dampierre was unfortunate. It was the interest of the Flemish weavers to be on good terms with England, the wool-producing country, and Guy entered into an alliance with Edward I. against France. This led to an invasion and conquest of Flanders by Philip the Fair. Guy with his sons and the leading Flemish nobles were taken prisoners to Paris, and Flanders was ruled as a French dependency. But though in the principal towns, Ghent, Bruges and Ypres, there was a powerful French faction--known as _Leliaerts_ (adherents of the lily)--the arbitrary rule of the French governor and officials stirred up the mass of the Flemish people to rebellion. The anti-French partisans (known as _Clauwaerts_) were strongest at Bruges under the leadership of Peter de Conync, master of the cloth-weavers, and John Breydel, master of the butchers. The French garrison at Bruges were massacred (May 19th, 1302), and on the following 11th of July a splendid French army of invasion was utterly defeated near Courtray. Peace was concluded in 1305, but owing to Guy of Dampierre, and the leading Flemish nobles being in the hands of the French king, on terms very disadvantageous to Flanders. Very shortly afterwards the aged count Guy died, as did also Philip the Fair. Robert of Bethune, his son and successor, had continual difficulties with France during the whole of his reign, the Flemings offering a stubborn resistance to all attempts to destroy their independence. Robert was succeeded in 1322 by his grandson Louis of Nevers. Louis had been brought up at the French court, and had married Margaret of France. His sympathies were entirely French, and he made use of French help in his contests with the communes.

Under Louis of Nevers Flanders was practically reduced to the status of a French province. In his time the long contest between Flanders and Holland for the possession of the island of Zeeland was brought to an end by a treaty signed on the 6th of March 1323, by which West Zeeland was assigned to the count of Holland, the rest to the count of Flanders. The latter part of the reign of Louis of Nevers was remarkable for the successful revolt of the Flemish communes, now rapidly advancing to great material prosperity under Jacob van Artevelde (see ARTEVELDE, JACOB VAN). Artevelde allied himself with Edward III. of England in his contest with Philip of Valois for the French crown, while Louis of Nevers espoused the cause of Philip. He fell at the battle of Crecy (1346). He was followed in the countship by his son Louis II. of Male. The reign of this count was one long struggle with the communes, headed by the town of Ghent, for political supremacy. Louis was as strong in his French sympathies as his father, and relied upon French help in enforcing his will upon his refractory subjects, who resented his arbitrary methods of government, and the heavy taxation imposed upon them by his extravagance and love of display. Had the great towns with their organized gilds and great wealth held together in their opposition to the count's despotism, they would have proved successful, but Ghent and Bruges, always keen rivals, broke out into open feud. The power of Ghent reached its height under Philip van Artevelde (see ARTEVELDE, PHILIP VAN) in 1382. He defeated Louis, took Bruges and was made _ruward_ of Flanders. But the triumph of the White Hoods, as the popular party was called, was of short duration. On the 27th of November 1382 Artevelde suffered a crushing defeat from a large French army at Roosebeke and was himself slain. Louis of Male died two years later, leaving an only daughter Margaret, who had married in 1369 Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy.

Flanders now became a portion of the great Burgundian domain, which in the reign of Philip the Good, Margaret's grandson, had absorbed almost the whole of the Netherlands (see BURGUNDY; NETHERLANDS). The history of Flanders as a separate state ceases from the time of the acquisition of the countship by the Burgundian dynasty. There were revolts from time to time of great towns against the exactions even of these powerful princes, but they were in vain. The conquest and humiliation of Bruges by Philip the Good in 1440, and the even more relentless punishment inflicted on rebellious Ghent by the emperor Charles V. exactly a century later are the most remarkable incidents in the long-continued but vain struggle of the Flemish communes to maintain and assert their privileges. The Burgundian dukes and their successors of the house of Habsburg were fully alive to the value to them of Flanders and its rich commercial cities. It was Flanders that furnished to them no small part of their resources, but for this very reason, while fostering the development of Flemish industry and trade, they were the more determined to brook no opposition which sought to place restrictions upon their authority.

The effect of the revolt of the Netherlands and the War of Dutch Independence which followed was ruinous to Flanders. Albert and Isabel on their accession to the sovereignty of the southern Netherlands in 1599 found "the great cities of Flanders and Brabant had been abandoned by a large part of their inhabitants; agriculture hardly in a less degree than commerce and industry had been ruined." In 1633 with the death of Isabel, Flanders reverted to Spanish rule (1633). By the treaty of Munster the north-western portion of Flanders, since known as States (or Dutch) Flanders, was ceded by Philip IV. to the United Provinces (1648). By a succession of later treaties--of the Pyrenees (1659), Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), Nijmwegen (1679) and others--a large slice of the southern portion of the old county of Flanders became French territory and was known as French Flanders.

From 1795 to 1814 Flanders, with the rest of the Belgic provinces, was incorporated in France, and was divided into two departments--_departement de l'Escaut_ and _departement de la Lys_. This division has since been retained, and is represented by the two provinces of East Flanders and West Flanders in the modern kingdom of Belgium. The title of count of Flanders was revived by Leopold I. in 1840 in favour of his second son, Philip Eugene Ferdinand (d. 1905). (G. E.)

FLANDRIN, JEAN HIPPOLYTE (1809-1864), French painter, was born at Lyons in 1809. His father, though brought up to business, had great fondness for art, and sought himself to follow an artist's career. Lack of early training, however, disabled him for success, and he was obliged to take up the precarious occupation of a miniature painter. Hippolyte was the second of three sons, all painters, and two of them eminent, the third son Paul (b. 1811) ranking as one of the leaders of the modern landscape school of France. Auguste (1804-1842), the eldest, passed the greater part of his life as professor at Lyons, where he died. After studying for some time at Lyons, Hippolyte and Paul, who had long determined on the step and economized for it, set out to walk to Paris in 1829, to place themselves under the tuition of Hersent. They chose finally to enter the atelier of Ingres, who became not only their instructor but their friend for life. At first considerably hampered by poverty, Hippolyte's difficulties were for ever removed by his taking, in 1832, the Grand Prix de Rome, awarded for his picture of the "Recognition of Theseus by his Father." This allowed him to study five years at Rome, whence he sent home several pictures which considerably raised his fame. "St Clair healing the Blind" was done for the cathedral of Nantes, and years after, at the exhibition of 1855, brought him a medal of the first class. "Jesus and the Little Children" was given by the government to the town of Lisieux. "Dante and Virgil visiting the Envious Men struck with Blindness," and "Euripides writing his Tragedies," belong to the museum at Lyons. Returning to Paris through Lyons in 1838 he soon received a commission to ornament the chapel of St John in the church of St Severin at Paris, and reputation increased and employment continued abundant for the rest of his life. Besides the pictures mentioned above, and others of a similar kind, he painted a great number of portraits. The works, however, upon which his fame most surely rests are his monumental decorative paintings. Of these the principal are those executed in the following churches:--in the sanctuary of St Germain des Pres at Paris (1842-1844), in the choir of the same church (1846-1848), in the church of St Paul at Nismes (1848-1849), of St Vincent de Paul at Paris (1850-1854), in the church of Ainay at Lyons (1855), in the nave of St Germain des Pres (1855-1861). In 1856 Hippolyte Flandrin was elected to the Academie des Beaux-Arts. In 1863 his failing health, rendered worse by incessant toil and exposure to the damp and draughts of churches, induced him again to visit Italy. He died of smallpox at Rome on the 21st of March 1864. As might naturally be expected in one who looked upon painting as but the vehicle for the expression of spiritual sentiment, he had perhaps too little pride in the technical qualities of his art. There is shown in his works much of that austerity and coldness, expressed in form and colour, which springs from a faith which feels itself in opposition to the tendencies of surrounding life. He has been compared to Fra Angelico; but the faces of his long processions of saints and martyrs seem to express rather the austerity of souls convicted of sin than the joy and purity of never-corrupted life which shines from the work of the early master.

See Delaborde, _Lettres et pensees de H. Flandrin_ (Paris, 1865); Beule, _Notice historique sur H. F._ (1869).

FLANNEL, a woollen stuff of various degrees of weight and fineness, made usually from loosely spun yarn. The origin of the word is uncertain, but in the 16th century flannel was a well-known production of Wales, and a Welsh origin has been suggested. The French form _flanelle_ was used late in the 17th century, and the Ger. _Flanell_ early in the 18th century. Baize, a kind of coarse flannel with a long nap, is said to have been first introduced to England about the middle of the 16th century by refugees from France and the Netherlands. The manufacture of flannel has naturally undergone changes, and, in some cases, deteriorations. Flannels are frequently made with an admixture of silk or cotton, and in low varieties cotton has tended to become the predominant factor. Formerly a short staple wool of fine quality from a Southdown variety of the Sussex breed was principally in favour with the flannel manufacturers of Rochdale, who also used largely the wool from the Norfolk breed, a cross between the Southdown and Norfolk sheep. In Wales the short staple wool of the mountain sheep was used, and in Ireland that of the Wicklow variety of the Cottagh breed, but now the New Zealand, Cape and South American wools are extensively employed, and English wools are not commonly used alone. Over 2000 persons are employed in flannel manufacture in Rochdale alone, which is the historic seat of the industry, and a good deal of flannel is now made in the Spen Valley district, Yorkshire. Blankets, which constitute a special branch of the flannel trade, are largely made at Bury in Lancashire and Dewsbury in Yorkshire. Welsh flannels have a high reputation, and make an important industry in Montgomeryshire. There are also flannel manufactories in Ireland.

A moderate export trade in flannel is done by Great Britain. The following table gives the quantities exported during three years:--

1904. 1905. 1906. Yards 9,758,300 9,220,500 8,762,200

In 1877 the export was 9,273,429 yds., so it appears that this trade has varied comparatively little. The imports of flannel are not very large.

Many so-called flannels have been made with a large admixture of cotton, but the Merchandise Marks Act has done something to limit the indiscriminate use of names. Unquestionably the development of the flannel trade has been checked by the great increase in the production of flannelettes, the better qualities of which have become formidable competitors with flannel. There must, however, be a regular and large demand for flannel while theory and experience confirm its value as a clothing particularly suitable for immediate contact with the body.

FLANNELETTE, a cotton cloth made to imitate flannel. The word seems to have been first used in the early 'eighties, and there is a reference in the _Daily News_ of 1887 to "a poverty-stricken article called flannelette." Now it is used very extensively for underclothing, night gear, dresses, dressing-gowns, shirts, &c. It is usually made with a much coarser weft than warp, and its flannel-like appearance is obtained by the raising or scratching up of this weft, and by various finishing processes. Some kinds are raised equally on both sides, and the nap may be long or short according to the purpose for which the cloth is required. A considerable trade is done in plain cloths dyed, and also in woven coloured stripes and checks, but almost any heavy or coarse cotton cloth can be made into flannelette. It is now largely used by the poorer classes of the community, and the flimsier kinds have been a frequent source of accident by fire. It is, however, when used discreetly and in a fair quality, a cheap and useful article. A flannelette, patented under the title of "Non-flam," has been made with fire-resisting properties, but its sale has been more in the better qualities than in the lower and more dangerous ones. Flannelette is made largely on the continent of Europe, and in the United States as well as in Great Britain.

FLASK, in its earliest meaning in Old English a vessel for carrying liquor, made of wood or leather. The principal applications in current usage are (1) to a vessel of metal or wood, formerly of horn, used for carrying gunpowder; (2) to a long-necked, round-bodied glass vessel, usually covered with plaited straw or maize leaves, containing olive or other oil or Italian wines--it is often known as a "Florence flask": similarly shaped vessels are used for experiments, &c., in a laboratory; (3) to a small metal or glass receptacle for spirits, wine or other liquor, of a size and shape to fit into a pocket or holster, usually covered with leather, basket-work or other protecting substance, and with a detachable portion of the case shaped to form a cup. "Flask" is also used in metal-founding of a wooden frame or case to contain part of the mould. The word "flagon," which is by derivation a doublet of "flask," is usually applied to a larger type of vessel for holding liquor, more particularly to a type of wine-bottle with a short neck and circular body with flattened sides. The word is also used of a jug-shaped vessel with a handle, spout and lid, into which wine may be decanted from the bottle for use at table, and of a similarly shaped vessel to contain the Eucharistic wine till it is poured into the chalice. "Flask" (in O. Eng. _flasce_ or _flaxe_) is represented both in Teutonic and Romanic languages. The earliest examples are found in Med. Lat. _flasco_, _flasconis_, whence come Ital. _fiascone_, O. Fr. _flascon_ (mod. _flacon_), adapted in the Eng. "flagon." Another Lat. form is _flasca_, this gave a Fr. _flasque_, which in the sense of "powder flask" remained in use till later than the 16th century. In Teutonic languages the word, in its various forms, is the common one for "bottle," so in Ger. _Flasche_, Dutch _flesch_, &c. If the word is of Romanic origin it is probably a metathesized form of the Lat. _vasculum_, diminutive of _vas_, vessel. There is no very satisfactory etymology if the word is of Teutonic origin; the New English Dictionary considers a connexion with "flat" probable phonetically, but finds no evidence that the word was used originally for a flat-shaped vessel.

FLAT (a modification of O. Eng. _flet_, an obsolete word of Teutonic origin, meaning the ground beneath the feet), a term commonly used as an adjective, signifying level in surface, level with the ground, and so, figuratively, fallen, dead, inanimate, tasteless, dull; or, by another transference, downright; or, in music, below the true pitch. In a substantival form, the term is used in physical geography for a level tract.

The word is also generally applied by modern usage to a self-contained residence or separate dwelling (in Scots law, the term _flatted house_ is still used), consisting of a suite of rooms which form a portion, usually on a single floor, of a larger building, called the tenement house, the remainder being similarly divided. The approach to it is over a hall, passage and stairway, which are common to all residents in the building, but from which each private flat is divided off by its own outer door (Clode, _Tenement Houses and Flats_, pp. 1, 2).

There is in England a considerable body of special law applicable to flats. The following points deserve notice:--(i.) The occupants of distinct suites of rooms in a building divided into flats are generally, and subject, of course, to any special terms in their agreements, not lodgers but tenants with exclusive possession of separate dwelling-houses placed one above the other. They are, therefore, liable to distress by the immediate landlord, and each flat is separately rateable, though as a general rule by the contract of tenancy the rates are payable by the landlord. Flats used solely for business purposes are exempt from house tax, by the Customs and Inland Revenue Act 1878 (see _Grant_, v. _Langston_, 1900, A.C. 383); and, by the Revenue Act 1903 (s. 11), provision is made for excluding from assessment or for assessing at a low rate buildings used for providing separate dwellings at rents not exceeding L60 a year. It appears that tenants of a flat would not come within the meaning of "lodger" for the purposes of the Lodgers' Goods Protection Act 1871. (ii.) The owner of an upper storey, without any express grant or enjoyment for any given time, has a right to the support of the lower storey (_Dalton_ v. _Angus_, 1881, 6 A.C. 740, 793). The owner of the lower storey, however, so long as he does nothing actively in the way of withdrawing its support, is not bound to repair, in the absence of a special covenant imposing that obligation upon him. The right of support being an easement in favour of the owner of the upper storey, it is for him to repair. He is in law entitled to enter on the lower storey for the purpose of doing the necessary repairs. It appears, however, that there is an implied obligation by the landlord to the tenants to keep the common stair and the lift or elevator in repair, and, for breach of this duty, he will be liable to a third party who, while visiting a tenant in the course of business, is injured by its defective condition (_Miller_ v. _Hancock_, 1893, 2 Q.B. 177). No such liability would be involved in a mere licence to the tenants to use a part of the building not essential to the enjoyment of their flats. (iii.) In case of the destruction of the flat by fire, the rent abates _pro tanto_ and an apportionment is made; _pari ratione_, where a flat is totally destroyed, the rent abates altogether (Clode, p. 14); unless the tenant has entered into an express and unqualified agreement to pay rent, when he will remain liable till the expiration of his tenancy. (iv.) Where the agreements for letting the flats in a single building are in common form, an agreement by the lessor not to depart from the kind of building there indicated may be held to be implied. Thus an injunction has been granted to restrain the conversion into a club of a large part of a building, adapted to occupation in residential flats, at the instance of a tenant who held under an agreement in a common form binding the tenants to rules suitable only for residential purposes (_Hudson_ v. _Cripps_, 1896, 1 Ch. 265). (v.) The porter is usually appointed and paid by the landlord, who is liable for his acts while engaged on his general duties; while engaged on any special duty for any tenant the porter is the servant of the latter, who is liable for his conduct within the scope of his employment.

In Scots law the rights and obligations of the lessors and lessees of flats, or--as they are called--"flatted houses," spring partly from the exclusive possession by each lessee of his own flat, partly from the common interest of all in the tenement as a whole. The "law of the tenement" may be thus summed up. The _solum_ on which the flatted house stands, the area in front and the back ground are presumed to belong to the owner of the lowest floor or the owners of each floor severally, subject to the common right of the other proprietors to prevent injury to their flats, especially by depriving them of light. The external walls belong to each owner in so far as they enclose his flat; but the other owners can prevent operations on them which would endanger the security of the building. The roof and uppermost storey belong to the highest owner or owners, but he or they may be compelled to keep them in repair and to refrain from injuring them. The gables are common to the owner of each flat, so far as they bound his property, and to the owner of the adjoining house; but he and the other owners in the building have cross rights of common interest to prevent injury to the stability of the building. The floor and ceiling of each flat are divided in ownership by an ideal line drawn through the middle of the joists; they may be used for ordinary purposes, but may not be weakened or exposed to unusual risk from fire. The common passages and stairs are the common property of all to whose premises they form an access, and the walls which bound them are the common property of those persons and of the owners on their farther side.

In the United States the term "apartment-house" is applied to what in England are called flats. The general law is the same as in England. The French Code Civil provides (Art. 664) that where the different storeys of a house belong to different owners the main walls and roof are at the charge of all the owners, each one in proportion to the value of the storey belonging to him. The proprietor of each storey is responsible for his own flooring. The proprietor of the first storey makes the staircase which leads to it, the proprietor of the second, beginning from where the former ended, makes the staircase leading to his and so on. There are similar provisions in the Civil Codes of Belgium (Art. 664), Quebec (Art. 521), St Lucia (Art. 471).

AUTHORITIES.--ENGLISH LAW: Clode, _Law of Tenement-Houses and Flats_ (London, 1889); Daniels, _Manual of the Law of Flats_ (London, 1905). SCOTS LAW: Erskine, _Principles of the Law of Scotland_ (20th ed., Edinburgh, 1903); Bell, _Principles of the Law of Scotland_ (10th ed., Edinburgh, 1899). AMERICAN LAW: Bouvier, _Law Dicty._ (Boston and London, 1897). FOREIGN LAWS: Burge, _Foreign and Colonial Laws_ (2nd ed., London, 1906). (A. W. R.)

FLATBUSH, formerly a township of Kings county, Long Island, New York, U.S.A., annexed to Brooklyn in 1894, and after the 1st of January 1898 a part of the borough of Brooklyn, New York City. The first settlement was made here by the Dutch about 1651, and was variously called "Midwout," "Midwoud" and "Medwoud" (from the Dutch words, _med_, "middle" and _woud_, "wood") for about twenty years, when it became more commonly known as Vlachte Bos (_vlachte_, "wooded"; _bos_, "plain") or Flackebos, whence, by further corruption, the present name. Farming was the chief occupation of the early settlers. On the 23rd of August 1776 the village was occupied by General Cornwallis's division of the invading force under Lord Howe, and on the 27th, at the disastrous battle of Long Island (or "battle of Flatbush," as it is sometimes called), "Flatbush Pass," an important strategic point, was vigorously defended by General Sullivan's troops.

FLAT-FISH (_Pleuronectidae_), the name common to all those fishes which swim on their side, as the halibut, turbot, brill, plaice, flounder, sole, &c. The side which is turned towards the bottom, and in some kinds is the right, in others the left, is generally colourless, and called "blind," from the absence of an eye on this side. The opposite side, which is turned upwards and towards the light, is variously, and in some tropical species even vividly, coloured, both eyes being placed on this side of the head. All the bones and muscles of the upper side are more strongly developed than on the lower; but it is noteworthy that these fishes when hatched, and for a short time afterwards, are symmetrical like other fishes.

Assuming that they are the descendants of symmetrical fishes, the question has been to determine which group of Teleosteans may be regarded as the ancestors of the flat-fishes. The old notion that they are only modified Gadids (Anacanthini) was the result of the artificial classification of the past and is now generally abandoned. The condition of the caudal fin, which in the cod tribe departs so markedly from that of ordinary Teleosteans, is in itself a sufficient reason for dismissing the idea of the homocercal flat-fishes being derived from the Anacanthini, and the whole structure of the two types of fishes speaks against such an assumption. On the other hand it has been shown, as noticed in the article DORY, that considerable, deep-seated resemblances exist between the Zeidae or John Dories and the more generalized of the Pleuronectidae; and that a fossil fish from the Upper Eocene, _Amphistium paradoxum_, evidently allied to the Zeidae, appears to realize in every respect the prototype of the Pleuronectidae before they had assumed the asymmetry which characterizes them as a group. In accordance with these views the flat-fishes are placed by G.A. Boulenger in the suborder Acanthopterygii, in a division called _Zeorhombi_. The three families included in that division can be traced back to the Upper Eocene, and their common ancestors will probably be found in the Upper Cretaceous associated with the _Berycidae_, to which they will no doubt prove to be related. The very young are transparent and symmetrical, with an eye on each side, and swim in a vertical position. As they grow, the eye of one side moves by degrees to the other side, where it becomes the upper eye. If at that age the dorsal fin does not extend to the frontal region, the migrating eye simply moves over the line of the profile, temporarily assuming the position which it preserves in some of the less modified genera, such as _Psettodes_; in other genera, the dorsal fin has already extended to the snout before the migration takes place, and the eye, passing between the frontal bone and the tissues supporting the fin, appears to make its way from side to side through the head, as was believed by some of the earlier observers.

About 500 species of flat-fish are known, mostly marine, a few species allied to the sole being confined to the fresh waters of South America, West Africa, and the Malay Archipelago, whilst a few others, such as the English flounder, ascend streams, though still breeding in the sea. They range from the Arctic Circle to the southern coasts of the southern hemisphere and may occur at great depths. (G. A. B.)

FLATHEADS, a tribe of North American Indians of Salishan stock. They formerly occupied the mountains of north-western Montana and the country around. They have always been friendly to the whites. Curiously enough they have not the custom, so general among American tribes, of flattening the heads of their infants. Father P.J. de Smet in 1841 founded among them a mission which proved the most successful in the north-west. With the Pend d'Oreille tribe and some Kutenais they are on a reservation in Montana, and number a few hundreds.

FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE (1821-1880), French novelist, was born at Rouen on the 12th of December 1821. His father, of whom many traits are reproduced in Flaubert's character of Charles Bovary, was a surgeon in practice at Rouen; his mother was connected with some of the oldest Norman families. He was educated in his native city, and did not leave it until 1840, when he came up to Paris to study law. He is said to have been idle at school, but to have been occupied with literature from the age of eleven. Flaubert in his youth "was like a young Greek," full of vigour of body and a certain shy grace, enthusiastic, intensely individual, and apparently without any species of ambition. He loved the country, and Paris was extremely distasteful to him. He made the acquaintance of Victor Hugo, and towards the close of 1840 he travelled in the Pyrenees and Corsica. Returning to Paris, he wasted his time in sombre dreams, living on his patrimony. In 1846, his mother being left quite alone through the deaths of his father and his sister Caroline, Flaubert gladly abandoned Paris and the study of the law together, to make a home for her at Croisset, close to Rouen. This estate, a house in a pleasant piece of ground which ran down to the Seine, became Flaubert's home for the remainder of his life. From 1846 to 1854 he carried on relations with the poetess, Mlle Louise Colet; their letters have been preserved, and according to M. Emile Faguet, this was the only sentimental episode of any importance in the life of Flaubert, who never married. His principal friend at this time was Maxime du Camp, with whom he travelled in Brittany in 1846, and through the East in 1849. Greece and Egypt made a profound impression upon the imagination of Flaubert. From this time forth, save for occasional visits to Paris, he did not stir from Croisset.

On returning from the East, in 1850, he set about the composition of _Madame Bovary_. He had hitherto scarcely written anything, and had published nothing. The famous novel took him six years to prepare, but was at length submitted to the _Revue de Paris_, where it appeared in serial form in 1857. The government brought an action against the publisher and against the author, on the charge of immorality, but both were acquitted; and when _Madame Bovary_ appeared in book-form it met with a very warm reception. Flaubert paid a visit to Carthage in 1858, and now settled down to the archaeological studies which were required to equip him for _Salammbo_, which, however, in spite of the author's ceaseless labours, was not finished until 1862. He then took up again the study of contemporary manners, and, making use of many recollections of his youth and childhood, wrote _L'Education sentimentale_, the composition of which occupied him seven years; it was published in 1869. Up to this time the sequestered and laborious life of Flaubert had been comparatively happy, but misfortunes began to gather around him. He felt the anguish of the war of 1870 so keenly that the break-up of his health has been attributed to it; he began to suffer greatly from a distressing nervous malady. His best friends were taken from him by death or by fatal misunderstanding; in 1872 he lost his mother, and his circumstances became greatly reduced. He was very tenderly guarded by his niece, Mme Commonville; he enjoyed a rare intimacy of friendship with George Sand, with whom he carried on a correspondence of immense artistic interest, and occasionally he saw his Parisian acquaintances, Zola, A. Daudet, Tourgenieff, the Goncourts; but nothing prevented the close of Flaubert's life from being desolate and melancholy. He did not cease, however, to work with the same intensity and thoroughness. _La Tentation de Saint-Antoine_, of which fragments had been published as early as 1857, was at length completed and sent to press in 1874. In that year he was subjected to a disappointment by the failure of his drama _Le Candidat_. In 1877 Flaubert published, in one volume, entitled _Trois contes, Un Coeur simple, La Legende de Saint-Julien-l'Hospitalier and Herodias_. After this something of his judgment certainly deserted him; he spent the remainder of his life in the toil of building up a vast satire on the futility of human knowledge and the omnipresence of mediocrity, which he left a fragment. This is the depressing and bewildering _Bouvard et Pecuchet_ (posthumously printed, 1881), which, by a curious irony, he believed to be his masterpiece. Flaubert had rapidly and prematurely aged since 1870, and he was quite an old man when he was carried off by a stroke of apoplexy at the age of only 58, on the 8th of May 1880. He died at Croisset, but was buried in the family vault in the cemetery of Rouen. A beautiful monument to him by Chapu was unveiled at the museum of Rouen in 1890.

The personal character of Flaubert offered various peculiarities. He was shy, and yet extremely sensitive and arrogant; he passed from silence to an indignant and noisy flow of language. The same inconsistencies marked his physical nature; he had the build of a guardsman, with a magnificent Viking head, but his health was uncertain from childhood, and he was neurotic to the last degree. This ruddy giant was secretly gnawn by misanthropy and disgust of life. His hatred of the "bourgeois" began in his childhood, and developed into a kind of monomania. He despised his fellow-men, their habits, their lack of intelligence, their contempt for beauty, with a passionate scorn which has been compared to that of an ascetic monk. Flaubert's curious modes of composition favoured and were emphasized by these peculiarities. He worked in sullen solitude, sometimes occupying a week in the completion of one page, never satisfied with what he had composed, violently tormenting his brain for the best turn of a phrase, the most absolutely final adjective. It cannot be said that his incessant labours were not rewarded. His private letters show that he was not one of those to whom easy and correct language is naturally given; he gained his extraordinary perfection with the unceasing sweat of his brow. One of the most severe of academic critics admits that "in all his works, and in every page of his works, Flaubert may be considered a model of style." That he was one of the greatest writers who ever lived in France is now commonly admitted, and his greatness principally depends upon the extraordinary vigour and exactitude of his style. Less perhaps than any other writer, not of France, but of modern Europe, Flaubert yields admission to the inexact, the abstract, the vaguely inapt expression which is the bane of ordinary methods of composition. He never allowed a _cliche_ to pass him, never indulgently or wearily went on, leaving behind him a phrase which "almost" expressed his meaning. Being, as he is, a mixture in almost equal parts of the romanticist and the realist, the marvellous propriety of his style has been helpful to later writers of both schools, of every school. The absolute exactitude with which he adapts his expression to his purpose is seen in all parts of his work, but particularly in the portraits he draws of the figures in his principal romances. The degree and manner in which, since his death, the fame of Flaubert has extended, form an interesting chapter of literary history. The publication of _Madame Bovary_ in 1857 had been followed by more scandal than admiration; it was not understood at first that this novel was the beginning of a new thing, the scrupulously truthful portraiture of life. Gradually this aspect of his genius was accepted, and began to crowd out all others. At the time of his death he was famous as a realist, pure and simple. Under this aspect Flaubert exercised an extraordinary influence over E. de Goncourt, Alphonse Daudet and M. Zola. But even since the decline of the realistic school Flaubert has not lost prestige; other facets of his genius have caught the light. It has been perceived that he was not merely realistic, but real; that his clairvoyance was almost boundless; that he saw certain phenomena more clearly than the best of observers had done. Flaubert is a writer who must always appeal more to other authors than to the world at large, because the art of writing, the indefatigable pursuit of perfect expression, were always before him, and because he hated the lax felicities of improvization as a disloyalty to the most sacred procedures of the literary artist.

His _Oeuvres completes_ (8 vols., 1885) were printed from the original manuscripts, and included, besides the works mentioned already, the two plays, _Le Candidat_ and _Le Chateau des coeurs_. Another edition (10 vols.) appeared in 1873-1885. Flaubert's correspondence with George Sand was published in 1884 with an introduction by Guy de Maupassant. Other posthumous works are _Par les champs et par les greves_ (1885), the result of a tour in Brittany; and four volumes of _Correspondance_ (1887-1893). See also Paul Bourget, _Essais de psychologie contemporaine_ (1883); Emile Faguet, _Flaubert_ (1899); Henry James, _French Poets and Novelists_ (1878); Emile Zola, _Les Romanciers naturalistes_ (1881); C.A. Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. xiii., _Nouveaux lundis_, vol. iv.; and the _Souvenirs litteraires_ (2 vols., 1882-1883) of Maxime du Camp. (E. G.)

FLAVEL, JOHN (c. 1627-1691), English Presbyterian divine, was born at Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, probably in 1627. He was the elder son of Richard Flavel, described in contemporary records as "a painful and eminent minister." After receiving his early education, partly at home and partly at the grammar-schools of Bromsgrove and Haslar, he entered University College, Oxford. Soon after taking orders in 1650 he obtained a curacy at Diptford, Devon, and on the death of the vicar he was appointed to succeed him. From Diptford he removed in 1656 to Dartmouth. He was ejected from his living by the passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662, but continued to preach and administer the sacraments privately till the Five Mile Act of 1665, when he retired to Slapton, 5 m. away. He then lived for a time in London, but returned to Dartmouth, where he laboured till his death in 1691. He was married four times. He was a vigorous and voluminous writer, and not without a play of fine fancy.

His principal works are his _Navigation Spiritualized_ (1671); _The Fountain of Life, in forty-two Sermons_ (1672); _The Method of Grace_ (1680); _Pneumatologia, a Treatise on the Soul of Man_ (1698); _A Token for Mourners_; _Husbandry Spiritualized_ (1699). Collected editions appeared throughout the 18th century, and in 1823 Charles Bradley edited a 2 vol. selection.

FLAVIAN I. (d. 404), bishop or patriarch of Antioch, was born about 320, most probably in Antioch. He inherited great wealth, but resolved to devote his riches and his talents to the service of the church. In association with Diodorus, afterwards bishop of Tarsus, he supported the Catholic faith against the Arian Leontius, who had succeeded Eustathius as bishop of Antioch. The two friends assembled their adherents outside the city walls for the observance of the exercises of religion; and, according to Theodoret, it was in these meetings that the practice of antiphonal singing was first introduced in the services of the church. When Meletius was appointed bishop of Antioch in 361 he raised Flavian to the priesthood, and on the death of Meletius in 381 Flavian was chosen to succeed him. The schism between the two parties was, however, far from being healed; the bishop of Rome and the bishops of Egypt refused to acknowledge Flavian, and Paulinus, who by the extreme Eustathians had been elected bishop in opposition to Meletius, still exercised authority over a portion of the church. On the death of Paulinus in 383, Evagrius was chosen as his successor, but after the death of Evagrius (c. 393) Flavian succeeded in preventing his receiving a successor, though the Eustathians still continued to hold separate meetings. Through the intervention of Chrysostom, soon after his elevation to the patriarchate of Constantinople (398), and the influence of the emperor Theodosius, Flavian was acknowledged in 399 as legitimate bishop of Antioch by the Church of Rome; but the Eustathian schism was not finally healed till 415. Flavian, who died in February 404, is venerated in both the Western and Eastern churches as a saint.

See also the article Meletius of Antioch, and the article "Flavianus von Antiochien" by Loofs in Herzog-Hauck's _Real-encyklop._ (ed. 3). For the Meletian schism see also A. Harnack's, _Hist. of Dogma_, iv. 95.

FLAVIAN II. (d. 518), bishop or patriarch of Antioch, was chosen by the emperor Anastasius I. to succeed Palladius, most probably in 498. He endeavoured to please both parties by steering a middle course in reference to the Chalcedon (q.v.) decrees, but was induced after great hesitation to agree to the request of Anastasius that he should accept the Henoticon, or decree of union, issued by the emperor Zeno. His doing so, while it brought upon him the anathema of the patriarch of Constantinople, failed to secure the favour of Anastasius, who in 511 found in the riots which were occurring between the rival parties in the streets of Antioch a pretext for deposing Flavian, and banishing him to Petra, where he died in 518. Flavian was soon after his death enrolled among the saints of the Greek Church, and after some opposition he was also canonized by the Latin Church.

FLAVIAN (d. 449), bishop of Constantinople, and an adherent of the Antiochene school, succeeded Proclus in 447. He presided at the council which deposed Eutyches (q.v.) in 448, but in the following year he was deposed by the council of Ephesus (the "robber synod"), which reinstated Eutyches in his office. Flavian's death shortly afterwards was attributed, by a pious fiction, to ill treatment at the hands of his theological opponents. The council of Chalcedon canonized him as a martyr, and in the Latin Church he is commemorated on the 18th of February.

FLAVIGNY, a town of eastern France, in the department of Cote-d'Or, situated on a promontory overlooking the river Ozerain, 33 m. W.N.W. of Dijon by road. Pop. (1906) 725. Among its antiquities are the remains of an abbey of the 8th century, which has been rebuilt as a factory for the manufacture of anise, an industry connected with the town as early as the 17th century. There is also a church of the 13th and 15th centuries, containing carved stalls (15th century) and a fine rood-screen (early 16th century). A Dominican convent, some old houses and ancient gateways are also of interest. About 3 m. north-west of Flavigny rises Mont Auxois, the probable site of the ancient Alesia, where Caesar in A.D. 52 defeated the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix, to whom a statue has been erected on the summit of the height. Numerous remains of the Gallo-Roman period have been discovered on the hill.

FLAVIN (Lat. _flavus_, yellow), the commercial name for an extract or preparation of quercitron bark (_Quercus tinctoria_), which is used as a yellow dye in place of the ground and powdered bark (see QUERCITRON).

FLAX. The terms flax or lint (Ger. _Flachs_, Fr. _lin_, Lat. _linum_) are employed at once to denote the fibre so called, and the plant from which it is prepared. The flax plant (_Linum usitatissimum_) belongs to the natural order _Linaceae_, and, like most plants which have been long under cultivation, it possesses numerous varieties, while its origin is doubtful. As cultivated it is an annual with an erect stalk rising to a height of from 20 to 40 in., with alternate, sessile, narrowly lance-shaped leaves, branching only at the top, each branch or branchlet ending in a bright blue flower. The flowers are regular and symmetrical, having five sepals, tapering to a point and hairy on the margin, five petals which speedily fall, ten stamens, and a pistil bearing five distinct styles. The fruit or boll is round, containing five cells, each of which is again divided into two, thus forming ten divisions, each of which contains a single seed. The seeds of the flax plant, well known as linseed, are heavy, smooth, glossy and of a bright greenish-brown colour. They are oval in section, but their maximum contour represents closely that of a pear with the stalk removed. The contents are of an oily nature, and when liquefied are of great commercial value.

The earliest cultivated flax was _Linum angustifolium_, a smaller plant with fewer and narrower leaves than _L. usitatissimum_, and usually perennial. This is known to have been cultivated by the inhabitants of the Swiss lake-dwellings, and is found wild in south and west Europe (including England), North Africa, and western Asia. The annual flax (_L. usitatissimum_) has been cultivated for at least four or five thousand years in Mesopotamia, Assyria and Egypt, and is wild in the districts included between the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. This annual flax appears to have been introduced into the north of Europe by the Finns, afterwards into the west of Europe by the western Aryans, and perhaps here and there by the Phoenicians; lastly, into Hindustan by the eastern Aryans after their separation from the European Aryans. (De Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_.)

The cultivation and preparation of flax are among the most ancient of all textile industries, very distinct traces of their existence during the stone age being preserved to the present day. "The use of flax," says Ferdinand Keller (_Lake Dwellings of Switzerland_, translated by J.E. Lee), "reaches back to the very earliest periods of civilization, and it was most extensively and variously applied in the lake-dwellings, even in those of the stone period. But of the mode in which it was planted, steeped, heckled, cleansed and generally prepared for use, we can form no idea any more than we can of the mode or tools employed by the settlers in its cultivation.... Rough or unworked flax is found in the lake-dwellings made into bundles, or what are technically called heads, and, as much attention was given to this last operation, it was perfectly clean and ready for use." As to its applications at this early period, Keller remarks: "Flax was the material for making lines and nets for fishing and catching wild animals, cords for carrying the earthenware vessels and other heavy objects; in fact, one can hardly imagine how navigation could be carried on, or the lake-dwellings themselves be erected, without the use of ropes and cords; and the erection of memorial stones (menhirs, dolmens), at whichever era, and to whatever people these monuments may belong, would be altogether impracticable without the use of strong ropes."

_Manufacture._--That flax was extensively cultivated and was regarded as of much importance at a very early period in the world's history there is abundant testimony. Especially in ancient Egypt the fibre occupied a most important place, linen having been there not only generally worn by all classes, but it was the only material the priestly order was permitted to wear, while it was most extensively used as wrappings for embalmed bodies and for general purposes. In the Old Testament we are told that Pharaoh arrayed Joseph "in vestures of fine linen" (Gen. xlii. 42), and among the plagues of Egypt that of hail destroyed the flax and barley crops, "for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled" (Exod. ix. 31). Further, numerous pictorial representations of flax culture and preparation exist to the present day on the walls of tombs and in Egypt. Sir J. G. Wilkinson in his description of ancient Egypt shows clearly the great antiquity of the ordinary processes of preparing flax. "At Beni Hassan," he says, "the mode of cultivating the plant, in the same square beds now met with throughout Egypt (much resembling our salt pans), the process of beating the stalks and making them into ropes, and the manufacture of a piece of cloth are distinctly pointed out." The preparation of the fibre as conducted in Egypt is illustrated by Pliny, who says: "The stalks themselves are immersed in water, warmed by the heat of the sun, and are kept down by weights placed upon them, for nothing is lighter than flax. The membrane, or rind, becoming loose is a sign of their being sufficiently macerated. They are then taken out and repeatedly turned over in the sun until perfectly dried, and afterwards beaten by mallets on stone slabs. That which is nearest the rind is called _stupa_ ['tow'], inferior to the inner fibres, and fit only for the wicks of lamps. It is combed out with iron hooks until the rind is all removed. The inner part is of a whiter and finer quality. Men are not ashamed to prepare it" (Pliny, _N.H._ xix. 1). For many ages, even down to the early part of the 14th century, Egyptian flax occupied the foremost place in the commercial world, being sent into all regions with which open intercourse was maintained. Among Western nations it was, without any competitor, the most important of all vegetable fibres till towards the close of the 18th century, when, after a brief struggle, cotton took its place as the supreme vegetable fibre of commerce.

Flax prospers most when grown upon land of firm texture resting upon a moist subsoil. It does well to succeed oats or potatoes, as it requires the soil to be in fresh condition without being too rich. Lands newly broken up from pasture suit it well, as these are generally freer from weeds than those that have been long under tillage. It is usually inexpedient to apply manure directly to the flax crop, as the tendency of this is to produce over-luxuriance, and thereby to mar the quality of the fibre, on which its value chiefly depends. For the same reason it must be thickly seeded, the effect of this being to produce tall, slender stems, free from branches. The land, having been ploughed in autumn, is prepared for sowing by working it with the grubber, harrow and roller, until a fine tilth is obtained. On the smooth surface the seed is sown broadcast by hand or machine, at the rate of 3 bushels per acre, and covered in the same manner as clover seeds. It is advisable immediately to hand-rake it with common hay-rakes, and thus to remove all stones and clods, and to secure a uniform close cover of plants. When these are about 2 to 3 in. long the crop must be carefully hand-weeded. This is a tedious and expensive process, and hence the importance of sowing the crop on land as free as possible from weeds of all kinds. The weeders, faces to the wind, move slowly on hands and knees, and should remove every vestige of weed in order that the flax plants may receive the full benefit of the land. When flax is cultivated primarily on account of the fibre, the crop ought to be pulled before the capsules are quite ripe, when they are just beginning to change from a green to a pale-brown colour, and when the stalks of the plant have become yellow throughout about two-thirds of their height.

The various operations through which the crop passes from this point till flax ready for the market is produced are--(1) Pulling, (2) Rippling, (3) Retting, (4) Drying, (5) Rolling, (6) Scutching.

_Pulling_ and _rippling_ may be dismissed very briefly. Flax is always pulled up by the root, and under no circumstances is it cut or shorn like cereal crops. The pulling ought to be done in dry clear weather; and care is to be taken in this, as in all the subsequent operations, to keep the root-ends even and the stalks parallel. At the same time it is desirable to have, as far as possible, stalks of equal length together,--all these conditions having considerable influence on the quality and appearance of the finished sample. As a general rule the removal of the "bolls" or capsules by the process of rippling immediately follows the pulling, the operation being performed in the field; but under some systems of cultivation, as, for example, the Courtrai method, alluded to below, the crop is made up into sheaves, dried and stacked, and is only boiled and retted in the early part of the next ensuing season. The best rippler, or apparatus for separating the seed capsules from the branches, consists of a kind of comb having, set in a wooden frame, iron teeth made of round-rod iron 3/16ths of an inch asunder at the bottom, and half an inch at the top, and 18 in. long, to allow a sufficient spring, and save much breaking of flax. The points should begin to taper 3 in, from the top. A sheet or other cover being spread on the field, the apparatus is placed in the middle of it, and two ripplers sitting opposite each other, with the machine between them, work at the same time. It is unadvisable to ripple the flax so severely as to break or tear the delicate fibres at the upper part of the stem. The two valuable commercial products of the flax plant, the seeds and the stalk, are separated at this point. We have here to do with the latter only.

_Retting_ or _rotting_ is an operation of the greatest importance, and one in connexion with which in recent years numerous experiments have been made, and many projects and processes put forth, with the view of remedying the defects of the primitive system or altogether supplanting it. From the earliest times two leading processes of retting have been practised, termed respectively water-retting and dew-retting; and as no method has yet been introduced which satisfactorily supersedes these operations, they will first be described.

_Water-retting._--For this--the process by which flax is generally prepared--pure soft water, free from iron and other materials which might colour the fibre, is essential. Any water much impregnated with lime is also specially objectionable. The dams or ponds in which the operation is conducted are of variable size, and usually between 4 and 5 ft. in depth. The rippled stalks are tied in small bundles and packed, roots downwards, in the dams till they are quite full; over the top of the upper layer is placed a stratum of rushes and straw, or sods with the grassy side downwards, and above all stones of sufficient weight to keep the flax submerged. Under favourable circumstances a process of fermentation should immediately be set up, which soon makes itself manifest by the evolution of gaseous bubbles. After a few days the fermentation subsides; and generally in from ten days to two weeks the process ought to be complete. The exact time, however, depends upon the weather and upon the particular kind of water in which the flax is immersed. The immersion itself is a simple matter; the difficulty lies in deciding when the process is complete. If allowed to remain under water too long, the fibre is weakened by what is termed "over-retting," a condition which increases the amount of codilla in the scutching process; whilst "under-retting" leaves part of the gummy or resinous matter in the material, which hinders the subsequent process of manufacture. As the steeping is such a critical operation, it is essential that the stalks be frequently examined and tested as the process nears completion. When it is found that the fibre separates readily from the woody "shove" or core, the beets or small bundles are ready for removing from the dams. It is drained, and then spread, evenly and equally, over a grassy meadow to dry. The drying, which takes from a week to a fortnight, must be uniform, so that all the fibres may spin equally well. To secure this uniformity, it is necessary to turn the material over several times during the process. It is ready for gathering when the core cracks and separates easily from the fibre. At this point advantage is taken of fine dry weather to gather up the flax, which is now ready for scutching, but the fibre is improved by stooking and stacking it for some time before it is taken to the scutching mill.

_Dew-retting_ is the process by which all the Archangel flax and a large portion of that sent out from St Petersburg are prepared. By this method the operation of steeping is entirely dispensed with, and the flax is, immediately after pulling, spread on the grass where it is under the influence of air, sunlight, night-dews and rain. The process is tedious, the resulting fibre is brown in colour, and it is said to be peculiarly liable to undergo heating (probably owing to the soft heavy quality of the flax) if exposed to moisture and kept close packed with little access of air. Archangel flax is, however, peculiarly soft and silky in structure, although in all probability water-retting would result in a fibre as good or even better in quality.

The theory of retting, according to the investigations of J. Kolb, is that a peculiar fermentation is set up under the influence of heat and moisture, resulting in a change of the intercellular substance--pectose or an analogue of that body--into pectin and pectic acid. The former, being soluble, is left in the water; but the latter, an insoluble body, is in part attached to the fibres, from which it is only separated by changing into soluble metapectic acid under the action of hot alkaline ley in the subsequent process of bleaching.

To a large extent retting continues to be conducted in the primitive fashions above described, although numerous and persistent attempts have been made to improve upon it, or to avoid the process altogether. The uniform result of all experiments has only been to demonstrate the scientific soundness of the ordinary process of water-retting, and all the proposed improvements of recent times seek to obviate the tediousness, difficulties and uncertainties of the process as carried on in the open air. In the early part of the 19th century much attention was bestowed, especially in Ireland, on a process invented by Mr James Lee. He proposed to separate the fibre by purely mechanical means without any retting whatever; but after the Irish Linen Board had expended many thousands of pounds and much time in making experiments and in erecting his machinery, his entire scheme ended in complete failure. About the year 1851 Chevalier Claussen sought to revive a process of "cottonizing" flax--a method of proceeding which had been suggested three-quarters of a century earlier. Claussen's process consisted in steeping flax fibre or tow for twenty-four hours in a weak solution of caustic soda, next boiling it for about two hours in a similar solution, and then saturating it in a solution containing 5% of carbonate of soda, after which it was immersed in a vat containing water acidulated with 1/2% of sulphuric acid. The action of the acid on the carbonate of soda with which the fibre was impregnated caused the fibre to split up into a fine cotton-like mass, which it was intended to manufacture in the same manner as cotton. A process to turn good flax into bad cotton had, however, on the face of it, not much to recommend it to public acceptance; and Claussen's process therefore remains only as an interesting and suggestive experiment.

The only modification of water-retting which has hitherto endured the test of prolonged experiment, and taken a firm position as a distinct improvement, is the warm-water retting patented in England in 1846 by an American, Robert B. Schenck. For open pools and dams Schenck substitutes large wooden vats under cover, into which the flax is tightly packed in an upright position. The water admitted into the tanks is raised to and maintained at a temperature of from 75 deg. to 95 deg. F. during the whole time the flax is in steep. In a short time a brisk fermentation is set up, gases at first of pleasant odour, but subsequently becoming very repulsive, being evolved, and producing a frothy scum over the surface of the water. The whole process occupies only from 50 to 60 hours. A still further improvement, due to Mr Pownall, comes into operation at this point, which consists of immediately passing the stalks as they are taken out of the vats between heavy rollers over which a stream of pure water is kept flowing. By this means, not only is all the slimy glutinous adherent matter thoroughly separated, but the subsequent processes of breaking and scutching are much facilitated.

A process of retting by steam was introduced by W. Watt of Glasgow in 1852, and subsequently modified and improved by J. Buchanan. The system possessed the advantages of rapidity, being completed in about ten hours, and freedom from any noxious odour; but it yielded only a harsh, ill-spinning fibre, and consequently failed to meet the sanguine expectations of its promoters.

In connexion with improvements in retting, Mr Michael Andrews, secretary of the Belfast Flax Supply Association, made some suggestions and experiments which deserve close attention. In a paper contributed to the International Flax Congress at Vienna in 1873 he entered into details regarding an experimental rettery he had formed, with the view of imitating by artificial means the best results obtained by the ordinary methods. In brief, Mr Andrews' method consists in introducing water at the proper temperature into the retting vat, and maintaining that temperature by keeping the air of the chamber at a proper degree of heat. By this means the flax is kept at a uniform temperature with great certainty, since even should the heat of the air vary considerably through neglect, the water in the vat only by slow degrees follows such fluctuations. "It may be remarked," says Mr Andrews, "that the superiority claimed for this method of retting flax over what is known as the 'hot-water steeping' is uniformity of temperature; in fact the experiments have demonstrated that an absolute control can be exercised over the means adopted to produce the artificial climate in which the vats containing the flax are situated."

Several other attempts have been made with a view of obtaining a quick and practical method of retting flax. The one by Messrs Doumer and Deswarte appears to have been well received in France, but in Ireland the invention of Messrs Loppens and Deswarte has recently received the most attention. The apparatus consists of a tank with two chambers, the partition being perforated. The flax is placed in the upper chamber and covered by two sets of rods or beams at right angles to each other. Fresh water is allowed to enter the lower chamber immediately under the perforated partition. As the tank fills, the water enters the upper chamber and carries with it the flax and the beams, the latter being prevented from rising too high. The soluble substances are dissolved by the water, and the liquid thus formed being heavier than water, sinks to the bottom of the tank where it is allowed to escape through an outlet. By this arrangement the flax is almost continually immersed in fresh water, a condition which hastens the retting. The flow of the liquids, in and out, can be so arranged that the motion is very slow, and hence the liquids of different densities do not mix. When the operation is completed, the whole of the water is run off, and the flax remains on the perforated floor, where it drains thoroughly before being removed to dry.

The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, and the Belfast Flax Supply Association, have jointly made some experiments with this method, and the following extract from the Association's report for 1905 shows the success which attended their efforts:--

"By desire of the department (which has taken up the position of an impartial critic of the experiment) a quantity of flax straw was divided into two equal lots. One part was retted at Millisle by the patent-system of Loppens and Deswarte; the other was sent to Courtrai and steeped in the Lys. Both lots when retted and scutched were examined by an inspector of the department and by several flax spinners. That which was retted at Millisle was pronounced superior to the other"....

"To summarise results up to date--

1. It has been proved that flax can be thoroughly dried in the field in Ireland.

2. That the seed can be saved, and is of first quality.

3. That the system of retting (Loppens and Deswarte's patent) is at least equal to the Lys, as to quality and yield of fibre produced."

Since these results appear to be satisfactory, it is natural to expect further attempts with the same object of supplanting the ordinary steeping. A really good chemical, mechanical or other method would probably be the means of reviving the flax industry in the remote parts of the British Isles.

_Scutching_ is the process by which the fibre is freed from its woody core and rendered fit for the market. For ordinary water-retted flax two operations are required, first breaking and then scutching, and these are done either by hand labour or by means of small scutching or lint mills, driven either by water or steam power. Hand labour, aided by simple implements, is still much used in continental countries; also in some parts of Ireland where labour is cheap or when very fine material is desired; but the use of scutching mills is now very general, these being more economical. The breaking is done by passing the stalks between grooved or fluted rollers of different pitches; these rollers, of which there may be from 5 to 7 pairs, are sometimes arranged to work alternately forwards and backwards in order to thoroughly break the woody material or "boon" of the straw, while the broken "shoves" are beaten out by suspending the fibre in a machine fitted with a series of revolving blades, which, striking violently against the flax, shake out the bruised and broken woody cores. A great many modified scutching machines and processes have been proposed and introduced with the view of promoting economy of labour and improving the turn-out of fibre, both in respect of cleanness and in producing the least proportion of codilla or scutching tow.

The celebrated Courtrai flax of Belgium is the most valuable staple in the market, on account of its fineness, strength and particularly bright colour. There the flax is dried in the field, and housed or stacked during the winter succeeding its growth, and in the spring of the following year it is retted in crates sunk in the sluggish waters of the river Lys. After the process has proceeded a certain length, the crates are withdrawn, and the sheaves taken out and stooked. It is thereafter once more tied up, placed in the crates, and sunk in the river to complete the retting process; but this double steeping is not invariably practised. When finally taken out, it is unloosed and put up in cones, instead of being grassed, and when quite dry it is stored for some time previous to undergoing the operation of scutching. In all operations the greatest care is taken, and the cultivators being peculiarly favoured as to soil, climate and water, Courtrai flax is a staple of unapproached excellence.

An experiment made by Professor Hodges of Belfast on 7770 lb. of air-dried flax yielded the following results. By rippling he separated 1946 lb. of bolls which yielded 910 lb. of seed. The 5824 lb. (52 cwt.) of flax straw remaining lost in steeping 13 cwt., leaving 39 cwt. of retted stalks, and from that 6 cwt. 1 qr. 2 lb. (702 lb.) of finished flax was procured. Thus the weight of the fibre was equal to about 9% of the dried flax with the bolls, 12% of the boiled straw, and over 16% of the retted straw. One hundred tons treated by Schenck's method gave 33 tons bolls, with 27.50 tons of loss in steeping; 32.13 tons were separated in scutching, leaving 5.90 tons of finished fibre, with 1.47 tons of tow and pluckings. The following analysis of two varieties of heckled Belgian flax is by Dr Hugo Muller (Hoffmann's _Berichte uber die Entwickelung der chemischen Industrie_):--

Ash 0.70 1.32 Water 8.65 10.70 Extractive matter 3.65 6.02 Fat and wax 2.39 2.37 Cellulose 82.57 71.50 Intercellular substance and pectose bodies 2.74 9.41

According to the determinations of Julius Wiesner (_Die Rohstoffe des Pflanzenreiches_), the fibre ranges in length from 20 to 140 centimetres, the length of the individual cells being from 2.0 to 4.0 millimetres, and the limits of breadth between 0.012 and 0.025 mm., the average being 0.016 mm.

Among the circumstances which have retarded improvement both in the growing and preparing of flax, the fact that, till comparatively recent times, the whole industry was conducted only on a domestic scale has had much influence. At no very remote date it was the practice in Scotland for every small farmer and cotter not only to grow "lint" or flax in small patches, but to have it retted, scutched, cleaned, spun, woven, bleached and finished entirely within the limits of his own premises, and all by members or dependents of the family. The same practice obtained and still largely prevails in other countries. Thus the flax industry was long kept away from the most powerful motives to apply to it labour-saving devices, and apart from the influence of scientific inquiry for the improvement of methods and processes. As cotton came to the front, just at the time when machine-spinning and power-loom weaving were being introduced, the result was that in many localities where flax crops had been grown for ages, the culture gradually drooped and ultimately ceased. The linen manufacture by degrees ceased to be a domestic industry, and began to centre in and become the characteristic factory employment of special localities, which depended, however, for their supply of raw material primarily on the operations of small growers, working, for the most part, on the poorer districts of remote thinly populated countries. The cultivation of the plant and the preparation of the fibre have therefore, even at the present day, not come under the influence (except in certain favoured localities) of scientific knowledge and experience.

_Cultivation._--The approximate number of acres (1905) under cultivation in the principal flax-growing countries is as follows:--

Russia 3,500,000 acres. Caucasia 450,000 " Austria 175,000 " Italy 120,000 " Poland 95,000 " Rumania 80,000 " Germany 75,000 " France 65,000 " Belgium 53,000 " Hungary 50,000 " Ireland 46,000 " Holland 38,000 "

Although the amount grown in Russia exceeds considerably the combined quantity grown in the rest of the above-mentioned countries, the quality of the fibre is inferior. The fibre is cultivated in the Russian provinces of Archangel, Courland, Esthonia, Kostroma, Livonia, Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, Tver, Vyatka, Vitebsk, Vologda and Yaroslav or Jaroslav, while the bulk of the material is exported through the Baltic ports. Riga and St Petersburg (including Cronstadt) are the principal ports, but flax is also exported from Revel, Windau, Pernau, Libau, Narva and Konigsberg. Sometimes it is exported from Archangel, but this port is frost-bound for a great period of the year; moreover, most of the districts are nearer to the Baltic.

_The following Prices, taken from the Dundee Year Books, show the Change in Price of a few well-known Varieties._

+-----------------+-------------+-------------+------------+------+--------+------+-----+------+------+------+ | | Dec. | Dec. | Dec. | Dec.| Dec. | Dec.| Dec.| Dec.| Dec.| Dec.| | | 1897. | 1898. | 1899. | 1900.| 1901. | 1902.|1903.| 1904.| 1905.| 1906.| | +-------------+-------------+------------+------+--------+------+-----+------+------+------+ |Riga-- | L | L | L | L | L | L | L | L | L | L | | SPK | 23-1/2 | 21 to 22 | 28 to 32 | 42 |28 to 32| 32 | 39 | 33 | 35 | 32 | | XHDX | 27 | 26-1/2 |32-1/2 to 33|43-1/2| 34 | 35 | 42 | 34 | 36 | 33 | | W |16 to 16-1/4 |15-1/2 to 16 |22-1/2 to 24| 31 |18 to 19| 22 | 29 | 23 | 24 | 24 | |St Petersburg-- | | | | | | | | | | | | Bajetsky | 28 to 29 | 26 to 27 |32 to 32-1/2| 46 | 37 | 33 | 49 | 36 | 42 | 38 | | Jaropol | 24 to 25 |23 to 23-1/2 | 30 | 42 | 32 | 30 | 42 | 33 | 35 | 33 | |Tows-- | | | | | | | | | | | | Mologin |24 to 24-1/4 |23 to 23-1/2 |24-1/2 to 25|31-1/2| 32 | 32 | 42 | 32 | 34 |32-1/2| | Novgorod |23-1/2 to 24 | 23[1] |26 to 26-1/2| 33 | 31-1/2 |32-1/2| 41 |31-1/2| 37 |34-1/2| | | [1] | | [1] | | | | | | | | |Archangel-- | | | | | | | | | | | | 1/2 and 1/2 tow| 25 |24 to 24-1/2| 26 to 27 | 32 | 31 | 32 | 41 |31-1/2|32-1/2| 31 | | 2nd Codilla | 25 | 24 to 24 |25-1/2 to 26| 32 | 31 | 32 | 41 | 32 | 33 | 31 | +-----------------+-------------+-------------+------------+------+--------+------+-----+------+------+------+

The raw flax is almost invariably known by the same name as the district in which it is grown, and it is further classified by special marks. The following names amongst others are given to the fibre:--Archangel, Bajetsky, Courish, Dorpat, Drogobusher, Dunaberg, Fabrichnoi, Fellin, Gjatsk, Glazoff, Griazourtz, Iwashkower, Jaransk, Janowitz, Jaropol, Jaroslav, Kama, Kashin, Konigsberg, Kostroma, Kotelnitch, Kowns, Krasnoholm, Kurland (Courland), Latischki, Livonian Crowns, Malmuish, Marienberg, Mochenetz, Mologin, Newel, Nikolsky, Nolinsk, Novgorod, Opotchka, Ostroff, Ostrow, Otbornoy, Ouglitch, Pernau, Pskoff, Revel, Riga, Rjeff, St Petersburg, Seretz, Slanitz, Slobodskoi, Smolensk, Sytcheffka, Taroslav. Tchesna, Totma, Twer, Ustjuga, Viatka, Vishni, Vologda, Werro, Wiasma, Witebsk.

These names indicate the particular district in which the flax has been grown, but it is more general to group the material into classes such as Livonian Crowns, Rija Crowns, Hoffs, Wracks, Drieband, Zins, Ristens, Pernau, Archangel, &c.

The quotations for the various kinds of flaxes are made with one or other special mark termed a base mark; this usually, but not necessarily, indicates the lowest quality. The September-October 1906 quotations appeared as under:--

Livonian basis K L26 to L27 per ton, Hoffs " HD L21 to L22 " Pernau. " D L28 to L28: 10 " Dorpat " D L32 to L32: 10 " cleaned.

It will, of course, be understood that the base mark is subject to variation, the ruling factors being the amount of crop, quality and demand.

The marks in the Crown flaxes have the following signification:--

K means Crown and is usually the base mark. H " Light and represents a rise of about L1 P " Picked " " " L3 G " Grey " " " L3 S " Superior " " " L4 W " White " " " L4 Z " Zins " " " L10

Each additional mark means a rise in the price, but it must be understood that it is quite possible for a quality denoted by two letters to be more valuable than one indicated by three or more, since every mark has not the same value.

If we take L25 as the value of the base mark, the value per ton for the different groups would be:--

K L25 HSPK L33 HK L26 GSPK L35 PK L28 WSPK L36 HPK L29 ZK L35 GPK L31 HZK L36 SPK L32 GZK L38, &c.

The Hoffs flaxes are reckoned in a similar way. Here H is for Hoffs, D for Drieband, P for picked, F for fine, S for superior, and R for Risten. In addition to these marks, an X may appear before, after or in both places. With L20 as base mark we have:--

HD L20 per ton. PHD L23 " " FPHD L26 " " SFPHD L29 " " XHDX L32 " " XRX L35 " "

Of the lower qualities of Riga flax the following may be named;

W, Wrack flax. PD, Picked Dreiband flax. PW, Picked wrack flax. LD, Livonian Dreiband. WPW, White picked wrack. PLD, Picked Livonian Dreiband. GPW, Grey picked wrack flax. SD, Slanitz Dreiband. D, Dreiband (Threeband). PSD, Picked Slanitz Dreiband.

The last-named (SD and PSD) are dew-retted qualities shipped from Riga either as Lithuanian Slanitz, Wellish Slanitz or Wiasma Slanitz, showing from what district they come, as there are differences in the quality of the produce of each district. The lowest quality of Riga flax is marked DW, meaning Dreiband Wrack.

Another Russian port from which a large quantity of flax is imported is Pernau, where the marks in use are comparatively few. The leading marks are:--

LOD, indicating Low Ordinary Dreiband (Threeband). OD, " Ordinary Dreiband. D, " Dreiband. HD, " Light Dreiband. R, " Risten. G, " Cut. M, " Marienburg.

Pernau flax is shipped as Livonian and Fellin sorts, the latter being the best.

Both dew-retted and water-retted flax are exported from St Petersburg, the dew-retted or Slanitz flax being marked 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Crown, also Zebrack No. 1 and Zebrack No. 2, while all the Archangel flax is dew-retted.

Some idea of the extent of the Russian flax trade may be gathered from the fact that 233,000 tons were exported in 1905. Out of this quantity a little over 53,000 tons came to the United Kingdom. The Chief British ports for the landing of flax are:--Belfast, Dundee, Leith, Montrose, London and Arbroath, the two former being the chief centres of the flax industry.

The following table, taken from the annual report of the Belfast Flax Supply Association, shows the quantities received from all sources into the different parts of the United Kingdom:--

+-------+------------+------------+-------------+ | | Imports to | Imports to | Imports to | | Year. | the United | Ireland. | England and | | | Kingdom. | | Scotland. | +-------+------------+------------+-------------+ | | Tons. | Tons. | Tons. | | 1895 | 102,622 | 33,506 | 67,116 | | 1896 | 95,199 | 36,650 | 58,549 | | 1897 | 98,802 | 37,715 | 61,087 | | 1898 | 97,253 | 34,440 | 62,813 | | 1899 | 99,052 | 40,145 | 58,907 | | 1900 | 71,586 | 31,563 | 40,023 | | 1901 | 75,565 | 28,785 | 46,780 | | 1902 | 73,611 | 29,727 | 43,884 | | 1903 | 94,701 | 38,168 | 56,533 | | 1904 | 74,917 | 33,024 | 41,893 | | 1905 | 90,098 | 40,063 | 50,035 | +-------+------------+------------+-------------+

The extent of flax cultivation in Ireland is considerable, but the acreage has been gradually diminishing during late years. In 1864 it reached the maximum, 301,693 acres; next year it fell to 251,433. After 1869 it declined, there being 229,252 acres in flax crop that year, and only 122,003 in 1872. From this year to 1889 it fluctuated considerably, reaching 157,534 acres in 1880 and dropping to 89,225 acres in 1884. Then for five successive years the acreage was above 108,000. From 1890 to 1905 it only once reached 100,000, while the average in 1903, 1904 and 1905 was a little over 45,000 acres. (T. Wo.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] 8 and 2, which means 80% of one quality and 20% of another. Sometimes other proportions obtain, while it is not unusual to have quotations for flaxes containing four different kinds.

FLAXMAN, JOHN (1755-1826), English sculptor and draughtsman, was born on the 6th of July 1755, during a temporary residence of his parents at York. The name John was hereditary in the family, having been borne by his father after a forefather who, according to the family tradition, had fought on the side of parliament at Naseby, and afterwards settled as a carrier or farmer, or both, in Buckinghamshire. John Flaxman, the father of the sculptor, carried on with repute the trade of a moulder and seller of plaster casts at the sign of the Golden Head, New Street, Covent Garden, London. His wife's maiden name was See, and John was their second son. Within six months of his birth the family returned to London, and in his father's back shop he spent an ailing childhood. His figure was high-shouldered and weakly, the head very large for the body. His mother having died about his tenth year, his father took a second wife, of whom all we know is that her maiden name was Gordon, and that she proved a thrifty housekeeper and kind stepmother. Of regular schooling the boy must have had some, since he is reputed as having remembered in after life the tyranny of some pedagogue of his youth; but his principal education he picked up for himself at home. He early took delight in drawing and modelling from his father's stock-in-trade, and early endeavoured to understand those counterfeits of classic art by the light of translations from classic literature.

Customers of his father took a fancy to the child, and helped him with books, advice, and presently with commissions. The two special encouragers of his youth were the painter Romney, and a cultivated clergyman, Mr Mathew, with his wife, in whose house in Rathbone Place the young Flaxman used to meet the best "blue-stocking" society of those days, and, among associates of his own age, the artists Blake and Stothard, who became his closest friends. Before this he had begun to work with precocious success in clay as well as in pencil. At twelve years old he won the first prize of the Society of Arts for a medal, and became a public exhibitor in the gallery of the Free Society of Artists; at fifteen he won a second prize from the Society of Arts and began to exhibit in the Royal Academy, then in the second year of its existence. In the same year, 1770, he entered as an Academy student and won the silver medal. But all these successes were followed by a discomfiture. In the competition for the gold medal of the Academy in 1772, Flaxman, who had made sure of victory, was defeated, the prize being adjudged by the president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, to another competitor named Engleheart. But this reverse proved no discouragement, and indeed seemed to have had a wholesome effect in curing the successful lad of a tendency to conceit and self-sufficiency which made Thomas Wedgwood say of him in 1775: "It is but a few years since he was a most supreme coxcomb."

He continued to ply his art diligently, both as a student in the schools and as an exhibitor in the galleries of the Academy, occasionally also attempting diversions into the sister art of painting. To the Academy he contributed a wax model of Neptune (1770); four portrait models in wax (1771); a terracotta bust, a wax figure of a child, a figure of History (1772); a figure of Comedy, and a relief of a Vestal (1773). During these years he received a commission from a friend of the Mathew family, for a statue of Alexander. But by heroic and ideal work of this class he could, of course, make no regular livelihood. The means of such a livelihood, however, presented themselves in his twentieth year, when he first received employment from Josiah Wedgwood and his partner Bentley, as a modeller of classic and domestic friezes, plaques, ornamental vessels and medallion portraits, in those varieties of "jasper" and "basalt" ware which earned in their day so great a reputation for the manufacturers who had conceived and perfected the invention. In the same year, 1775, John Flaxman the elder moved from New Street, Covent Garden, to a more commodious house in the Strand (No. 420). For twelve years, from his twentieth to his thirty-second (1775-1787), Flaxman subsisted chiefly by his work for the firm of Wedgwood. It may be urged, of the minute refinements of figure outline and modelling which these manufacturers aimed at in their ware, that they were not the qualities best suited to such a material; or it may be regretted that the gifts of an artist like Flaxman should have been spent so long upon such a minor and half-mechanical art of household decoration; but the beauty of the product it would be idle to deny, or the value of the training which the sculptor by this practice acquired in the delicacies and severities of modelling in low relief and on a minute scale.

By 1780 Flaxman had begun to earn something in another branch of his profession, which was in the future to furnish his chief source of livelihood, viz. the sculpture of monuments for the dead. Three of the earliest of such monuments by his hand are those of Chatterton in the church of St Mary Redcliffe at Bristol (1780), of Mrs Morley in Gloucester cathedral (1784), and of the Rev. T. and Mrs Margaret Ball in the cathedral at Chichester (1785). During the rest of Flaxman's career memorial bas-reliefs of the same class occupied a principal part of his industry; they are to be found scattered in many churches throughout the length and breadth of England, and in them the finest qualities of his art are represented. The best are admirable for pathos and simplicity, and for the alliance of a truly Greek instinct for rhythmical design and composition with that spirit of domestic tenderness and innocence which is one of the secrets of the modern soul.

In 1782, being twenty-seven years old, Flaxman was married to Anne Denman, and had in her the best of helpmates until almost his life's end. She was a woman of attainments in letters and to some extent in art, and the devoted companion of her husband's fortunes and of his travels. They set up house at first in Wardour Street, and lived an industrious life, spending their summer holidays once and again in the house of the hospitable poet Hayley, at Eartham in Sussex. After five years, in 1787, they found themselves with means enough to travel, and set out for Rome, where they took up their quarters in the Via Felice. Records more numerous and more consecutive of Flaxman's residence in Italy exist in the shape of drawings and studies than in the shape of correspondence. He soon ceased modelling himself for Wedgwood, but continued to direct the work of other modellers employed for the manufacture at Rome. He had intended to return after a stay of a little more than two years, but was detained by a commission for a marble group of a Fury of Athamas, a commission attended in the sequel with circumstances of infinite trouble and annoyance, from the notorious Comte-Eveque, Frederick Hervey, earl of Bristol and bishop of Derry. He did not, as things fell out, return until the summer of 1794, after an absence of seven years,--having in the meantime executed another ideal commission (a "Cephalus and Aurora") for Mr Hope, and having sent home models for several sepulchral monuments, including one in relief for the poet Collins in Chichester cathedral, and one in the round for Lord Mansfield in Westminster Abbey.

But what gained for Flaxman in this interval a general and European fame was not his work in sculpture proper, but those outline designs to the poets, in which he showed not only to what purpose he had made his own the principles of ancient design in vase-paintings and bas-reliefs, but also by what a natural affinity, better than all mere learning, he was bound to the ancients and belonged to them. The designs for the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were commissioned by Mrs Hare Naylor; those for Dante by Mr Hope; those for Aeschylus by Lady Spencer; they were all engraved by Piroli, not without considerable loss of the finer and more sensitive qualities of Flaxman's own lines.

During their homeward journey the Flaxmans travelled through central and northern Italy. On their return they took a house, which they never afterwards left, in Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square. Immediately afterwards we find the sculptor publishing a spirited protest against the scheme already entertained by the Directory, and carried out five years later by Napoleon, of equipping at Paris a vast central museum of art with the spoils of conquered Europe.

The record of Flaxman's life is henceforth an uneventful record of private affection and contentment, and of happy and tenacious industry, with reward not brilliant but sufficient, and repute not loud but loudest in the mouths of those whose praise was best worth having--Canova, Schlegel, Fuseli. He took for pupil a son of Hayley's, who presently afterwards sickened and died. In 1797 he was made an associate of the Royal Academy. Every year he exhibited work of one class or another: occasionally a public monument in the round, like those of Paoli (1798), or Captain Montague (1802) for Westminster Abbey, of Sir William Jones for St Mary's, Oxford (1797-1801), of Nelson or Howe for St Paul's; more constantly memorials for churches, with symbolic Acts of Mercy or illustrations of Scripture texts, both commonly in low relief [Miss Morley, Chertsey (1797), Miss Cromwell, Chichester (1800), Mrs Knight, Milton, Cambridge (1802), and many more]; and these pious labours he would vary from time to time with a classical piece like those of his earliest predilection. Soon after his election as associate, he published a scheme, half grandiose, half childish, for a monument to be erected on Greenwich Hill, in the shape of a Britannia 200 ft. high, in honour of the naval victories of his country. In 1800 he was elected full Academician. During the peace of Amiens he went to Paris to see the despoiled treasures collected there, but bore himself according to the spirit of protest that was in him. The next event which makes any mark in his life is his appointment to a chair specially created for him by the Royal Academy--the chair of Sculpture: this took place in 1810. We have ample evidence of his thoroughness and judiciousness as a teacher in the Academy schools, and his professorial lectures have been often reprinted. With many excellent observations, and with one singular merit--that of doing justice, as in those days justice was hardly ever done, to the sculpture of the medieval schools--these lectures lack point and felicity of expression, just as they are reported to have lacked fire in delivery, and are somewhat heavy reading. The most important works that occupied Flaxman in the years next following this appointment were the monument to Mrs Baring in Micheldever church, the richest of all his monuments in relief (1805-1811); that for the Worsley family at Campsall church, Yorkshire, which is the next richest; those to Sir Joshua Reynolds for St Paul's (1807), to Captain Webbe for India (1810); to Captains Walker and Beckett for Leeds (1811); to Lord Cornwallis for Prince of Wales's Island (1812); and to Sir John Moore for Glasgow (1813). At this time the antiquarian world was much occupied with the vexed question of the merits of the Elgin marbles, and Flaxman was one of those whose evidence before the parliamentary commission had most weight in favour of the purchase which was ultimately effected in 1816.

After his Roman period he produced for a good many years no outline designs for the engraver except three for Cowper's translations of the Latin poems of Milton (1810). Other sets of outline illustrations drawn about the same time, but not published, were one to the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and one to a Chinese tale in verse, called "The Casket," which he wrote to amuse his womenkind. In 1817 we find him returning to his old practice of classical outline illustrations and publishing the happiest of all his series in that kind, the designs to Hesiod, excellently engraved by the sympathetic hand of Blake. Immediately afterwards he was much engaged designing for the goldsmiths--a testimonial cup in honour of John Kemble, and following that, the great labour of the famous and beautiful (though quite un-Homeric) "Shield of Achilles." Almost at the same time he undertook a frieze of "Peace, Liberty and Plenty," for the duke of Bedford's sculpture gallery at Woburn, and an heroic group of Michael overthrowing Satan, for Lord Egremont's house at Petworth. His literary industry at the same time is shown by several articles on art and archaeology contributed to Rees's _Encyclopaedia_ (1819-1820).

In 1820 Mrs Flaxman died, after a first warning from paralysis six years earlier. Her younger sister, Maria Denman, and the sculptor's own sister,, Maria Flaxman, remained in his house, and his industry was scarcely at all relaxed. In 1822 he delivered at the Academy a lecture in memory of his old friend and generous fellow-craftsman, Canova, then lately dead; in 1823 he received from A.W. von Schlegel a visit of which that writer has left us the record. From an illness occurring soon after this he recovered sufficiently to resume both work and exhibition, but on the 3rd of December 1826 he caught cold in church, and died four days later, in his seventy-second year. Among a few intimate associates, he left a memory singularly dear; having been in companionship, although susceptible and obstinate when his religious creed--a devout Christianity with Swedenborgian admixtures--was crossed or slighted, yet in other things genial and sweet-tempered beyond most men, full of modesty and playfulness and withal of a homely dignity, a true friend and a kind master, a pure and blameless spirit.

Posterity will doubt whether it was the fault of Flaxman or of his age, which in England offered neither training nor much encouragement to a sculptor, that he is weakest when he is most ambitious, and most inspired when he makes the least effort; but so it is. Not merely does he fail when he seeks to illustrate the intensity of Dante, or to rival the tumultuousness of Michelangelo--to be intense or tumultuous he was never made; but he fails, it may almost be said, in proportion as his work is elaborate and far carried, and succeeds in proportion as it is partial and suggestive. Of his completed ideal sculptures, the "St Michael" at Petworth is the best, and is indeed admirably composed from all points of view; but it lacks fire and force, and it lacks the finer touches of the chisel; a little bas-relief like the diploma piece of the "Apollo" and "Marpessa" in the Royal Academy compares with it favourably. This is one of the very few things which he is recorded to have executed in the marble entirely with his own hand; ordinarily he entrusted the finishing work of the chisel to the Italian workmen in his employ, and was content with the smooth mechanical finish which they imitated from the Roman imitations (themselves often reworked at the Renaissance) of Greek originals. Of Flaxman's complicated monuments in the round, such as the three in Westminster Abbey and the four in St Paul's, there is scarcely one which has not something heavy and infelicitous in the arrangement, and something empty and unsatisfactory in the surface execution. But when we come to his simple monuments in relief, in these we find almost always a far finer quality. The truth is that he did not thoroughly understand composition on the great scale and in the round, but he thoroughly understood relief, and found scope in it for his remarkable gifts of harmonious design, and tender, grave and penetrating feeling. But if we would see even the happiest of his conceptions at their best, we must study them, not in the finished marble but rather in the casts from his studio sketches (marred though they have been by successive coats of paint intended for their protection) of which a comprehensive collection is preserved in the Flaxman gallery at University College And the same is true of his happiest efforts in the classical and poetical vein, like the well-known relief of "Pandora conveyed to Earth by Mercury." Nay, going farther back still among the rudiments and first conceptions of his art, we can realize the most essential charm of his genius in the study, not of his modelled work at all, but of his sketches in pen and wash on paper. Of these the principal public collections are at University College, in the British Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum; many others are dispersed in public and private cabinets. Every one knows the excellence of the engraved designs to Homer, Dante, Aeschylus and Hesiod, in all cases save when the designer aims at that which he cannot hit, the terrible or the grotesque. To know Flaxman at his best it is necessary to be acquainted not only with the original studies for such designs as these (which, with the exception of the Hesiod series, are far finer than the engravings), but still more with those almost innumerable studies from real life which he was continually producing with pen, tint or pencil. These are the most delightful and suggestive sculptor's notes in existence; in them it was his habit to set down the leading and expressive lines, and generally no more, of every group that struck his fancy. There are groups of Italy and London, groups of the parlour and the nursery, of the street, the garden and the gutter; and of each group the artist knows how to seize at once the structural and the spiritual secret, expressing happily the value and suggestiveness, for his art of sculpture, of the contacts, intervals, interlacements and balancings of the various figures in any given group, and not less happily the charm of the affections which link the figures together and inspire their gestures.

The materials for the life of Flaxman are scattered in various biographical and other publications; the principal are the following:--An anonymous sketch in the _European Magazine_ for 1823; an anonymous "Brief Memoir," prefixed to _Flaxman's Lectures_ (ed. 1829, and reprinted in subsequent editions); the chapter in Allan Cunningham's _Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters_, &c., vol. iii.; notices in the _Life of Nollekens_, by John Thomas Smith; in the _Life of Josiah Wedgwood_, by Miss G. Meteyard (London, 1865); in the _Diaries and Reminiscences of H. Crabbe Robinson_ (London, 1869), the latter an authority of great importance; in the _Lives_ of Stothard, by Mrs Bray, of Constable, by Leslie, of Watson, by Dr Lonsdale, and of Blake, by Messrs Gilchrist and Rossetti; a series of illustrated essays, principally on the monumental sculpture of Flaxman, in the _Art Journal_ for 1867 and 1868, by Mr G.F. Teniswood; _Essays in English Art_, by Frederick Wedmore; _The Drawings of Flaxman, in 32 plates, with Descriptions, and an Introductory Essay on the Life and Genius of Flaxman_, by Sidney Colvin (London, 1876); and the article "Flaxman" in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. (S. C)

FLEA (0. Eng. _fleah_, or _flea_, cognate with _flee_, to run away from, to take flight), a name typically applied to _Pulex irritans_, a well-known blood-sucking insect-parasite of man and other mammals, remarkable for its powers of leaping, and nearly cosmopolitan. In ordinary language the name is used for any species of _Siphonaptera_ (otherwise known as _Aphaniptera_), which, though formerly regarded as a suborder of _Diptera_ (q.v.), are now considered to be a separate order of insects. All _Siphonaptera_, of which more than 100 species are known, are parasitic on mammals or birds. The majority of the species belong to the family _Pulicidae_, of which _P. irritans_ may be taken as the type; but the order also includes the _Sarcopsyllidae_, the females of which fix themselves firmly to their host, and the _Ceratopsyllidae_, or bat-fleas.

Fleas are wingless insects, with a laterally compressed body, small and indistinctly separated head, and short thick antennae situated in cavities somewhat behind and above the simple eyes, which are always minute and sometimes absent. The structure of the mouth-parts is different from that seen in any other insects. The actual piercing organs are the mandibles, while the upper lip or labrum forms a sucking tube. The maxillae are not piercing organs, and their function is to protect the mandibles and labrum and separate the hairs or feathers of the host. Maxillary and labial palpi are also present, and the latter, together with the labrum or lower lip, form the rostrum.

Fleas are oviparous, and undergo a very complete metamorphosis. The footless larvae are elongate, worm-like and very active; they feed upon almost any kind of waste animal matter, and when full-grown form a silken cocoon. The human flea is considerably exceeded in size by certain other species found upon much smaller hosts; thus the European _Hystrichopsylla talpae_, a parasite of the mole, shrew and other small mammals, attains a length of 5-1/2 millimetres; another large species infests the Indian porcupine. Of the _Sarcopsyllidae_ the best known species is the "jigger" or "chigoe" (_Dermatophilus penetrans_), indigenous in tropical South America and introduced into West Africa during the second half of last century. Since then this pest has spread across the African continent and even reached Madagascar. The impregnated female jigger burrows into the feet of men and dogs, and becomes distended with eggs until its abdomen attains the size and appearance of a small pea. If in extracting the insect the abdomen be ruptured, serious trouble may ensue from the resulting inflammation. At least four species of fleas (including _Pulex irritans_) which infest the common rat are known to bite man, and are believed to be the active agents in the transmission of plague from rats to human beings. (E. E. A.)

FLECHE (French for "arrow"), the term generally used in French architecture for a spire, but more especially employed to designate the timber spire covered with lead, which was erected over the intersection of the roofs over nave and transepts; sometimes these were small and unimportant, but in cathedrals they were occasionally of large dimensions, as in the fleche of Notre-Dame, Paris, where it is nearly 100 ft. high; this, however, is exceeded by the example of Amiens cathedral, which measures 148 ft. from its base on the cresting to its finial.

FLECHIER, ESPRIT (1632-1710), French preacher and author, bishop of Nimes, was born at Pernes, department of Vaucluse, on the 10th of June 1632. He was brought up at Tarascon by his uncle, Hercule Audiffret, superior of the Congregation des Doctrinaires, and afterwards entered the order. On the death of his uncle, however, he left it, owing to the strictness of its rules, and went to Paris, where he devoted himself to writing poetry. His French poems met with little success, but a description in Latin verse of a tournament (_carrousel, circus regius_), given by Louis XIV. in 1662, brought him a great reputation. He subsequently became tutor to Louis Urbain Lefevre de Caumartin, afterwards _intendant_ of finances and counsellor of state, whom he accompanied to Clermont-Ferrard (q.v.), where the king had ordered the _Grands Jours_ to be held (1665), and where Caumartin was sent as representative of the sovereign. There Flechier wrote his curious _Memoires sur les Grand Jours tenus a Clermont_, in which he relates, in a half romantic, half historical form, the proceedings of this extraordinary court of justice. In 1668 the duke of Montausier procured for him the post of _lecteur_ to the dauphin. The sermons of Flechier increased his reputation, which was afterwards raised to the highest pitch by his funeral orations. The most important are those on Madame de Montausier (1672), which gained him the membership of the Academy, the duchesse d'Aiguillon (1675), and, above all, Marshal Turenne (1676). He was now firmly established in the favour of the king, who gave him successively the abbacy of St Severin, in the diocese of Poitiers, the office of almoner to the dauphiness, and in 1685 the bishopric of Lavaur, from which he was in 1687 promoted to that of Nimes. The edict of Nantes had been repealed two years before; but the Calvinists were still very numerous at Nimes. Flechier, by his leniency and tact, succeeded in bringing over some of them to his views, and even gained the esteem of those who declined to change their faith. During the troubles in the Cevennes (see HUGUENOTS) he softened to the utmost of his power the rigour of the edicts, and showed himself so indulgent even to what he regarded as error, that his memory was long held in veneration amongst the Protestants of that district. It is right to add, however, that some authorities consider the accounts of his leniency to have been greatly exaggerated, and even charge him with going beyond what the edicts permitted. He died at Montpellier on the 16th of February 1710. Pulpit eloquence is the branch of belles-lettres in which Flechier excelled. He is indeed far below Bossuet, whose robust and sublime genius had no rival in that age; he does not equal Bourdaloue in earnestness of thought and vigour of expression; nor can he rival the philosophical depth or the insinuating and impressive eloquence of Massillon. But he is always ingenious, often witty, and nobody has carried farther than he the harmony of diction, sometimes marred by an affectation of symmetry and an excessive use of antithesis. His two historical works, the histories of Theodosius and of Ximenes, are more remarkable for elegance of style than for accuracy and comprehensive insight.

The last complete edition of Flechier's works is by J.P. Migne (Paris, 1856); the _Memoires sur les Grands Jours_ was first published in 1844 by B. Gonod (2nd ed. as _Mem. sur les Gr. J. d'Auvergne_, with notice by Sainte-Beuve and an appendix by M. Cheruel, 1862). His chief works are: _Histoire de Theodose le Grand_, _Oraisons funebres_, _Histoire du Cardinal Ximenes_, _Sermons de morale_, _Panegyriques des saints_. He left a _portrait_ or _caractere_ of himself, addressed to one of his friends. The _Life of Theodosius_ has been translated into English by F. Manning (1693), and the "Funeral Oration of Marshal Turenne" in H.C. Fish's _History and Repository of Pulpit Eloquence_ (ii., 1857). On Flechier generally see Antonin V.D. Fabre, _La Jeunesse de Flechier_ (1882), and Adolphe Fabre, _Flechier, orateur_ (1886); A. Delacroix, _Hist, de Flechier_ (1865).

FLECKEISEN, CARL FRIEDRICH WILHELM ALFRED (1820-1899), German philologist and critic, was born at Wolfenbuttel on the 23rd of September 1820. He was educated at the Helmstedt gymnasium and the university of Gottingen. After holding several educational posts, he was appointed in 1861 to the vice-principalship of the Vitzthum'sches Gymnasium at Dresden, which he held till his retirement in 1889. He died on the 7th of August 1899. Fleckeisen is chiefly known for his labours on Plautus and Terence; in the knowledge of these authors he was unrivalled, except perhaps by Ritschl, his life-long friend and a worker in the same field. His chief works are: _Exercitationes Plautinae_ (1842), one of the most masterly productions on the language of Plautus; "Analecta Plautina," printed in _Philologus_, ii. (1847); _Plauti Comoediae_, i., ii. (1850-1851, unfinished), introduced by an _Epistula critica ad F. Ritschelium_; _P. Terenti Afri Comoediae_ (new ed., 1898). In his editions he endeavoured to restore the text in accordance with the results of his researches on the usages of the Latin language and metre. He attached great importance to the question of orthography, and his short treatise _Funfzig Artikel_ (1861) is considered most valuable. Fleckeisen also contributed largely to the _Jahrbucher fur Philologie_, of which he was for many years editor.

See obituary notice by G. Gotz in C. Bursian's _Biographisches Jahrbuch fur Altertumskunde_ (xxiii., 1901), and article by H. Usener in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_ (where the date of birth is given as the 20th of September).

FLECKNOE, RICHARD (c. 1600-1678?), English dramatist and poet, the object of Dryden's satire, was probably of English birth, although there is no corroboration of the suggestion of J. Gillow (_Bibliog. Dict. of the Eng. Catholics_, vol. ii., 1885), that he was a nephew of a Jesuit priest, William Flecknoe, or more properly Flexney, of Oxford. The few known facts of his life are chiefly derived from his _Relation of Ten Years' Travels in Europe, Asia, Affrique and America_ (1655?), consisting of letters written to friends and patrons during his travels. The first of these is dated from Ghent (1640), whither he had fled to escape the troubles of the Civil War. In Brussels he met Beatrix de Cosenza, wife of Charles IV., duke of Lorraine, who sent him to Rome to secure the legalization of her marriage. There in 1645 Andrew Marvell met him, and described his leanness and his rage for versifying in a witty satire, "Flecknoe, an English Priest at Rome." He was probably, however, not in priest's orders. He then travelled in the Levant, and in 1648 crossed the Atlantic to Brazil, of which country he gives a detailed description. On his return to Europe he entered the household of the duchess of Lorraine in Brussels. In 1645 he went back to England. His royalist and Catholic convictions did not prevent him from writing a book in praise of Oliver Cromwell, _The Idea of His Highness Oliver_ ... (1659), dedicated to Richard Cromwell. This publication was discounted at the restoration by the _Heroick Portraits_ (1660) of Charles II. and others of the Stuart family. John Dryden used his name as a stalking horse from behind which to assail Thomas Shadwell in _Mac Flecknoe_ (1682). The opening lines run:--

"All human things are subject to decay. And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey. This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young Was called to empire, and had governed long; In prose and verse was owned, without dispute, Throughout the realms of nonsense, absolute."

Dryden's aversion seems to have been caused by Flecknoe's affectation of contempt for the players and his attacks on the immorality of the English stage. His verse, which hardly deserved his critic's sweeping condemnation, was much of it religious, and was chiefly printed for private circulation. None of his plays was acted except _Love's Dominion_, announced as a "pattern for the reformed stage" (1654), that title being altered in 1664 to _Love's Kingdom_, with a _Discourse of the English Stage_. He amused himself, however, by adding lists of the actors whom he would have selected for the parts, had the plays been staged. Flecknoe had many connexions among English Catholics, and is said by Gerard Langbaine, to have been better acquainted with the nobility than with the muses. He died probably about 1678.

A _Discourse of the English Stage_, was reprinted in W.C. Hazlitt's _English Drama and Stage_ (Roxburghe Library, 1869); Robert Southey, in his _Omniana_ (1812), protested against the wholesale depreciation of Flecknoe's works. See also "Richard Flecknoe" (Leipzig, 1905, in _Munchener Beitrage zur ... Philologie_), by A. Lohr, who has given minute attention to his life and works.

FLEET, a word in all its significances, derived from the root of the verb "to fleet," from O. Eng. _fleotan_, to float or flow, which ultimately derives from an Indo-European root seen in Gr. [Greek: pleein], to sail, and Lat. _pluere_, to rain; cf. Dutch _vliessen_, and Ger. _fliessen_. In English usage it survives in the name of many places, such as Byfleet and Northfleet, and in the Fleet, a stream in London that formerly ran into the Thames between the bottom of Ludgate Hill and the present Fleet Street. From the idea of "float" comes the application of the word to ships, when in company, and particularly to a large number of warships under the supreme command of a single officer, with the individual ships, or groups of ships, under individual and subordinate command. The distinction between a fleet and a squadron is often one of name only. In the British navy the various main divisions are or have been called fleets and squadrons indifferently. The word is also frequently used of a company of fishing vessels, and in fishing is also applied to a row of drift-nets fastened together. From the original meaning of the word "flowing" comes the adjectival use of the word, swift, or speedy; so also "fleeting," of something evanescent or fading away, with the idea of the fast-flowing lapse of time.

FLEET PRISON, an historic London prison, formerly situated on the east side of Farringdon Street, and deriving its name from the Fleet stream, which flowed into the Thames. Concerning its early history little is known, but it certainly dated back to Norman times. It came into particular prominence from being used as a place of reception for persons committed by the Star Chamber, and, afterwards, for debtors, and persons imprisoned for contempt of court by the court of chancery. It was burnt down in the great fire of 1666; it was rebuilt, but was destroyed in the Gordon riots of 1780 and again rebuilt in 1781-1782. In pursuance of an act of parliament (5 & 6 Vict. c. 22, 1842), by which the Marshalsea, Fleet, and Queen's Bench prisons were consolidated into one under the name of Queen's prison, it was finally closed, and in 1844 sold to the corporation of the city of London, by whom it was pulled down. The head of the prison was termed "the warden," who was appointed by patent. It became a frequent practice of the holder of the patent to "farm out" the prison to the highest bidder. It was this custom which made the Fleet prison long notorious for the cruelties inflicted on prisoners. One purchaser of the office was of particularly evil repute, by name Thomas Bambridge, who in 1728 paid, with another, the sum of L5000 to John Huggins for the wardenship. He was guilty of the greatest extortions upon prisoners, and, in the words of a committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the state of the gaols of the kingdom, "arbitrarily and unlawfully loaded with irons, put into dungeons, and destroyed prisoners for debt, treating them in the most barbarous and cruel manner, in high violation and contempt of the laws of this kingdom." He was committed to Newgate, and an act was passed to prevent his enjoying the office of warden or any other office whatsoever. The liberties or rules of the Fleet were the limits within which particular prisoners were allowed to reside outside the prison walls on observing certain conditions.

_Fleet Marriages._--By the law of England a marriage was recognized as valid, so long as the ceremony was conducted by a person in holy orders, even if those orders were not of the Church of England. Neither banns nor licence were necessary, and the time and place were alike immaterial. Out of this state of the marriage law, in the period of laxness which succeeded the Commonwealth, resulted innumerable clandestine marriages. They were contracted at first to avoid the expenses attendant on the public ceremony, but an act of 1696, which imposed a penalty of L100 on any clergyman who celebrated, or permitted another to celebrate, a marriage otherwise than by banns or licence, acted as a considerable check. To clergymen imprisoned for debt in the Fleet, however, such a penalty had no terrors, for they had "neither liberty, money nor credit to lose by any proceedings the bishop might institute against them." The earliest recorded date of a Fleet marriage is 1613, while the earliest recorded in a Fleet register took place in 1674, but it was only on the prohibition of marriage without banns or licence that they began to be clandestine. Then arose keen competition, and "many of the Fleet parsons and tavern-keepers in the neighbourhood fitted up a room in their respective lodgings or houses as a chapel," and employed touts to solicit custom for them. The scandal and abuses brought about by these clandestine marriages became so great that they became the object of special legislation. In 1753 Lord Hardwicke's Act (26 Geo. ii. c. 33) was passed, which required, under pain of nullity, that banns should be published according to the rubric, or a licence obtained, and that, in either case, the marriage should be solemnized in church; and that in the case of minors, marriage by licence must be by the consent of parent or guardian. This act had the effect of putting a stop to these clandestine marriages, so far as England was concerned, and henceforth couples had to fare to Gretna Green (q.v.).

The _Fleet Registers_, consisting of "about two or three hundred large registers" and about a thousand rough or "pocket" books, eventually came into private hands, but were purchased by the government in 1821, and are now deposited in the office of the registrar-general, Somerset House. Their dates range from 1686 to 1754. In 1840 they were declared not admissible as evidence to prove a marriage.

AUTHORITIES.--J.S. Burn, _The Fleet Registers; comprising the History of Fleet Marriages, and some Account of the Parsons and Marriage-house Keepers_, &c. (London, 1833); J. Ashton, _The Fleet: its River, Prison and Marriages_ (London, 1888).

FLEETWOOD, CHARLES (d. 1692), English soldier and politician, third son of Sir Miles Fleetwood of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, and of Anne, daughter of Nicholas Luke of Woodend, Bedfordshire, was admitted into Gray's Inn on the 30th of November 1638. At the beginning of the Great Rebellion, like many other young lawyers who afterwards distinguished themselves in the field, he joined Essex's life-guard, was wounded at the first battle of Newbury, obtained a regiment in 1644 and fought at Naseby. He had already been appointed receiver of the court of wards, and in 1646 became member of parliament for Marlborough. In the dispute between the army and parliament he played a chief part, and was said to have been the principal author of the plot to seize King Charles at Holmby, but he did not participate in the king's trial. In 1649 he was appointed a governor of the Isle of Wight, and in 1650, as lieutenant-general of the horse, took part in Cromwell's campaign in Scotland and assisted in the victory of Dunbar. The next year he was elected a member of the council of state, and being recalled from Scotland was entrusted with the command of the forces in England, and played a principal part in gaining the final triumph at Worcester. In 1652 he married [1] Cromwell's daughter, Bridget, widow of Ireton, and was made commander-in-chief in Ireland, to which title that of lord deputy was added. The chief feature of his administration, which lasted from September 1652 till September 1655, was the settlement of the soldiers on the confiscated estates and the transplantation of the original owners, which he carried out ruthlessly. He showed also great severity in the prosecution of the Roman Catholic priests, and favoured the Anabaptists and the extreme Puritan sects to the disadvantage of the moderate Presbyterians, exciting great and general discontent, a petition being finally sent in for his recall.

Fleetwood was a strong and unswerving follower of Cromwell's policy. He supported his assumption of the protectorate and his dismissal of the parliaments. In December 1654 he became a member of the council, and after his return to England in 1655 was appointed one of the major-generals. He approved of the "Petition and Advice," only objecting to the conferring of the title of king on Cromwell, became a member of the new House of Lords; and supported ardently Cromwell's foreign policy in Europe, based on religious divisions, and his defence of the Protestants persecuted abroad. He was therefore, on Cromwell's death, naturally regarded as a likely successor, and it is said that Cromwell had in fact so nominated him. He, however, gave his support to Richard's assumption of office, but allowed subsequently, if he did not instigate, petitions from the army demanding its independence, and finally compelled Richard by force to dissolve parliament. His project of re-establishing Richard in close dependence upon the army met with failure, and he was obliged to recall the Long Parliament on the 6th of May 1659. He was appointed immediately a member of the committee of safety and of the council of state, and one of the seven commissioners for the army, while on the 9th of June he was nominated commander-in-chief. In reality, however, his power was undermined and was attacked by parliament, which on the 11th of October declared his commission void. The next day he assisted Lambert in his expulsion of the parliament and was reappointed commander-in-chief. On Monk's approach from the North, he stayed in London and maintained order. While hesitating with which party to ally his forces, and while on the point of making terms with the king, the army on the 24th of December restored the Rump, when he was deprived of his command and ordered to appear before parliament to answer for his conduct. The Restoration therefore took place without him. He was included among the twenty liable to penalties other than capital, and was finally incapacitated from holding any office of trust. His public career then closed, though he survived till the 4th of October 1692.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] He had lost his first wife, Frances Smith; and later he had a third wife, Mary, daughter of Sir John Coke and widow of Sir Edward Hartopp.

FLEETWOOD, WILLIAM (1656-1723), English divine, was descended of an ancient Lancashire family, and was born in the Tower of London on New Year's Day 1656. He received his education at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge. About the time of the Revolution he took orders, and was shortly afterwards made rector of St Austin's, London, and lecturer of St Dunstan's in the West. He became a canon of Windsor in 1702, and in 1708 he was nominated to the see of St Asaph, from which he was translated in 1714 to that of Ely. He died at Tottenham, Middlesex, on the 4th of August 1723. Fleetwood was regarded as the best preacher of his time. He was accurate in learning, and effective in delivery, and his character stood deservedly high in general estimation. In episcopal administration he far excelled most of his contemporaries. He was a zealous Hanoverian, and a favourite with Queen Anne in spite of his Whiggism. His opposition to the doctrine of non-resistance brought him into conflict with the tory ministry of 1712 and with Swift, but he never entered into personal controversy.

His principal writings are---_An Essay on Miracles_ (1701); _Chronicum preciosum_ (an account of the English coinage, 1707); and _Free Sermons_ (1712), containing discourses on the death of Queen Mary, the duke of Gloucester and King William. The preface to this last was condemned to public burning by parliament, but, as No. 384 of _The Spectator_, circulated more widely than ever. A collected edition of his works, with a biographical preface, was published in 1737.

FLEETWOOD, a seaport and watering-place in the Blackpool parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, at the mouth of the Wyre, 230 m. N.W. by N. from London, the terminus of a joint branch of the London & North-Western and Lancashire & Yorkshire railways. Pop. (1891) 9274; (1901) 12,082. It dates its rise from 1836, and takes its name from Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, by whom it was laid out. The seaward views, especially northward over Morecambe Bay, are fine, but the neighbouring country is flat and of little interest. The two railways jointly are the harbour authority. The dock is provided with railways and machinery for facilitating traffic, including a large grain elevator. The shipping traffic is chiefly in the coasting and Irish trade. Passenger steamers serve Belfast and Londonderry regularly, and the Isle of Man and other ports during the season. The fisheries are important, and there are salt-works in the neighbourhood. There is a pleasant promenade, with other appointments of a watering-place. There are also barracks with a military hospital and a rifle range. Rossall school, to the S.W., is one of the principal public schools in the north of England. Rossall Hall was the seat of Sir Peter Fleetwood, but was converted to the uses of the school on its foundation in 1844. The school is primarily divided into classical and modern sides, with a special department for preparation for army, navy or professional examinations. A number of entrance scholarships and leaving scholarships tenable at the universities are offered annually. The number of boys is about 350.

FLEGEL, EDWARD ROBERT (1855-1886), German traveller in West Africa, was born on the 1st of October 1855 at Wilna, Russia. After receiving a commercial education he obtained in 1875 a position in Lagos, West Africa. In 1879 he ascended the Benue river some 125 m. above the farthest point hitherto reached. His careful survey of the channel secured him a commission from the German African Society to explore the whole Benue district. In 1880 he went up the Niger to Gomba, and then visited Sokoto, where he obtained a safe-conduct from the sultan for his intended expedition to Adamawa. This expedition was undertaken in 1882, and on the 18th of August in that year Flegel discovered the source of the Benue at Ngaundere. In 1883-1884 he made another journey up the Benue, crossing for the second time the Benue-Congo watershed. After a short absence in Europe Flegel returned to Africa in April 1885 with a commission from the German African Company and the Colonial Society to open up the Niger-Benue district to German trade. This expedition had the support of Prince Bismarck, who endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to obtain for Germany this region, already secured as a British sphere of influence by the National African Company (the Royal Niger Company). Flegel, despite a severe illness, ascended the Benue to Yola, but was unable to accomplish his mission. He returned to the coast and died at Brass, at the mouth of the Niger, on the 11th of September 1886. (See further GOLDIE, SIR GEORGE.)

Flegel wrote _Lose Blatter aus dem Tagebuche meiner Haussaafreunde_ (Hamburg, 1885), and _Vom Niger-Benue. Briefe aus Afrika_ (edited by K. Flegel, Leipzig, 1890).

FLEISCHER, HEINRICH LEBERECHT (1801-1888), German Orientalist, was born at Schandau, Saxony, on the 21st of February 1801. From 1819 to 1824 he studied theology and oriental languages at Leipzig, subsequently continuing his studies in Paris. In 1836 he was appointed professor of oriental languages at Leipzig University, and retained this post till his death. His most important works were editions of Abulfeda's _Historia ante-Islamica_ (1831-1834), and of Beidhawi's _Commentary on the Koran_ (1846-1848). He compiled a catalogue of the oriental MSS, in the royal library at Dresden (1831); published an edition and German translation of Ali's _Hundred Sayings_ (1837); the continuation of Babicht's edition of _The Thousand and One Nights_ (vols. ix.-xii., 1842-1843); and an edition of Mahommed Ibrihim's _Persian Grammar_ (1847). He also wrote an account of the Arabic, Turkish and Persian MSS. at the town library in Leipzig. He died there on the 10th of February 1888. Fleischer was one of the eight foreign members of the French Academy of Inscriptions and a knight of the German _Ordre pour le merite_.

FLEMING, PAUL (1609-1640), German poet, was born at Hartenstein in the Saxon Erzgebirge, on the 5th of October 1609, the son of the village pastor. At the age of fourteen he was sent to school at Leipzig and subsequently studied medicine at the university. Driven away by the troubles of the Thirty Years' War, he was fortunate enough to become attached to an embassy despatched in 1634 by Duke Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp to Russia and Persia, and to which the famous traveller Adam Olearius was secretary. In 1639 the mission returned to Reval, and here Fleming, having become betrothed, determined to settle as a physician. He proceeded to Leiden to procure a doctor's diploma, but died suddenly at Hamburg on his way home on the 2nd of April 1640.

Though belonging to the school of Martin Opitz, Fleming is distinguished from most of his contemporaries by the ring of genuine feeling and religious fervour that pervades his lyric poems, even his occasional pieces. In the sonnet, his favourite form of verse, he was particularly happy. Among his religious poems the hymn beginning "In allen meinen Taten lass ich den Hochsten raten" is well known and widely sung.

Fleming's _Teutsche Poemata_ appeared posthumously in 1642; they are edited by J.M. Lappenberg, in the Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins (2 vols., 1863; a third volume, 1866, contains Fleming's Latin poems). Selections have been edited by J. Tittmann in the second volume of the series entitled _Deutsche Dichter des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts_ (Leipzig, 1870), and by H. Osterley (Stuttgart, 1885). A life of the poet will be found in Varnhagen von Ense's _Biographische Denkmale_, Bd. iv. (Berlin, 1826). See also J. Straumer, _Paul Flemings Leben und Orientreise_ (1892); L.G. Wysocky, _De Pauli Flemingi Germanice scriptis et ingenio_ (Paris, 1892).

FLEMING, RICHARD (d. 1431), bishop of Lincoln, and founder of Lincoln College, Oxford, was born at Crofton in Yorkshire. He was descended from a good family, and was educated at University College, Oxford. Having taken his degrees, he was made prebendary of York in 1406, and the next year was junior proctor of the university. About this time he became an ardent Wycliffite, winning over many persons, some of high rank, to the side of the reformer, and incurring the censure of Archbishop Arundel. He afterwards became one of Wycliffe's most determined opponents. Before 1415 he was instituted to the rectory of Boston in Lincolnshire, and in 1420 he was consecrated bishop of Lincoln. In 1428-1429 he attended the councils of Pavia and Siena, and in the presence of the pope, Martin V., made an eloquent speech in vindication of his native country, and in eulogy of the papacy. It was probably on this occasion that he was named chamberlain to the pope. To Bishop Fleming was entrusted the execution of the decree of the council for the exhumation and burning of Wycliffe's remains. The see of York being vacant, the pope conferred it on Fleming; but the king (Henry V.) refused to confirm the appointment. In 1427 Fleming obtained the royal licence empowering him to found a college at Oxford for the special purpose of training up disputants against Wycliffe's heresy. He died at Sleaford, on the 26th of January 1431. Lincoln College was, however, completed by his trustees, and its endowments were afterwards augmented by various benefactors.

FLEMING, SIR SANDFORD (1827- ), Canadian engineer and publicist, was born at Kirkcaldy, Scotland, on the 7th of January 1827, but emigrated to Canada in 1845. Great powers of work and thoroughness in detail brought him to the front, and he was from 1867 to 1880 chief engineer of the Dominion government. Under his control was constructed the Intercolonial railway, and much of the Canadian Pacific. After his retirement in 1880 he devoted himself to the study of Canadian and Imperial problems, such as the unification of time reckoning throughout the world, and the construction of a state-owned system of telegraphs throughout the British empire. After years of labour he saw the first link forged in the chain, in the opening in 1902 of the Pacific Cable between Canada and Australia. Though not a party man he strongly advocated Federation in 1864-1867, and in 1891 vehemently attacked the Liberal policy of unrestricted reciprocity with the United States. He took the deepest interest in education, and in 1880 became chancellor of Queen's University, Kingston.

He published _The Intercolonial: a History_ (Montreal and London, 1876); _England and Canada_ (London, 1884); and numerous _brochures_ and magazine articles on scientific, social and political subjects.

FLEMING, SIR THOMAS (1544-1613), English judge, was born at Newport, Isle of Wight, in April 1544, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1574. He represented Winchester in parliament from 1584 to 1601, when he was returned for Southampton. In 1594 he was appointed recorder of London, and in 1595 was chosen solicitor-general in preference to Bacon. This office he retained under James I. and was knighted in 1603. In 1604 he was created chief baron of the exchequer and presided over many important state trials. In 1607 he was promoted to the chief justiceship of the king's bench, and was one of the judges at the trial of the _post-nati_ in 1608, siding with the majority of the judges in declaring that persons born in Scotland after the accession of James I. were entitled to the privileges of natural-born subjects in England. He was praised by his contemporaries, more particularly Coke, for his "great judgments, integrity and discretion." He died on the 7th of August 1613 at his seat, Stoneham Park, Hampshire.

See Foss, _Lives of the Judges_.

FLEMISH LITERATURE. The older Flemish writers are dealt with in the article on DUTCH LITERATURE; after the separation of Belgium, however, from the Netherlands in 1830 there was a great revival of Flemish literature. The immediate result of the revolution was a reaction against everything associated with Dutch, and a disposition to regard the French language as the speech of liberty and independence. The provisional government of 1830 suppressed the official use of the Flemish language, which was relegated to the rank of a patois. For some years before 1830 Jan Frans Willems[1] (1793-1846) had been advocating the claims of the Flemish language. He had done his best to allay the irritation between Holland and Belgium and to prevent a separation. As archivist of Antwerp he made use of his opportunities by writing a history of Flemish letters. After the revolution his Dutch sympathies had made it necessary for him to live in seclusion, but in 1835 he settled at Ghent, and devoted himself to the cultivation of Flemish. He edited old Flemish classics, _Reinaert de Vos_ (1836), the rhyming Chronicles of Jan van Heelu and Jan le Clerc, &c., and gathered round him a band of Flemish enthusiasts, the chevalier Philipp Blommaert (1809-1871), Karel Lodewijk Ledeganck (1805-1847), Fr. Rens (1805-1874), F.A. Snellaert (1809-1872), Prudens van Duyse (1804-1859), and others. Blommaert, who was born at Ghent on the 27th of August 1809, founded in 1834 in his native town the _Nederduitsche letteroefeningen_, a review for the new writers, and it was speedily followed by other Flemish organs, and by literary societies for the promotion of Flemish. In 1851 a central organization for the Flemish propaganda was provided by a society, named after the father of the movement, the "Willemsfonds." The Catholic Flemings founded in 1874 a rival "Davidsfonds," called after the energetic J.B. David (1801-1866), professor at the university of Louvain, and the author of a Flemish history of Belgium (_Vaderlandsche historie_, Louvain, 1842-1866). As a result of this propaganda the Flemish language was placed on an equality with French in law, and in administration, in 1873 and 1878, and in the schools in 1883. Finally in 1886 a Flemish Academy was established by royal authority at Ghent, where a course in Flemish literature had been established as early as 1854.

The claims put forward by the Flemish school were justified by the appearance (1837) of _In't Wonderjaar_ 1566 (In the Wonderful year) of Hendrik Conscience (q.v.), who roused national enthusiasm by describing the heroic struggles of the Flemings against the Spaniards. Conscience was eventually to make his greatest successes in the description of contemporary Flemish life, but his historical romances and his popular history of Flanders helped to give a popular basis to a movement which had been started by professors and scholars.

The first poet of the new school was Ledeganck, the best known of whose poems are those on the "three sister cities" of Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp (_Die drie zustersteden, vaderlandsche trilogie_, Ghent, 1846), in which he makes an impassioned protest against the adoption of French ideas, manners and language, and the neglect of Flemish tradition. The book speedily took its place as a Flemish classic. Ledeganck, who was a magistrate, also translated the French code into Flemish. Jan Theodoor van Rijswijck (1811-1849), after serving as a volunteer in the campaign of 1830, settled down as a clerk in Antwerp, and became one of the hottest champions of the Flemish movement. He wrote a series of political and satirical songs, admirably suited to his public. The romantic and sentimental poet, Jan van Beers (q.v.), was typically Flemish in his sincere and moral outlook on life. Prudens van Duyse, whose most ambitious work was the epic _Artavelde_ (1859), is perhaps best remembered by a collection (1844) of poems for children. Peter Frans Van Kerckhoven (1818-1857), a native of Antwerp, wrote novels, poems, dramas, and a work on the Flemish revival (_De Vlaemsche Beweging_, 1847).

Antwerp produced a realistic novelist in Jan Lambrecht Damien Sleeckx (1818-1901). An inspector of schools by profession, he was an indefatigable journalist and literary critic. He was one of the founders in 1844 of the _Vlaemsch Belgie_, the first daily paper in the Flemish interest. His works include a long list of plays, among them _Jan Steen_ (1852), a comedy; _Gretry_, which gained a national prize in 1861; _De Visschers van Blankenberg_ (1863); and the patriotic drama of _Zannekin_ (1865). His talent as a novelist was diametrically opposed to the idealism of Conscience. He was precise, sober and concrete in his methods, relying for his effect on the accumulation of carefully observed detail. He was particularly successful in describing the life of the shipping quarter of his native town. Among his novels are: _In't Schipperskwartier_ (1856), _Dirk Meyer_ (1860), _Tybaerts en K^ie_ (1867), _Kunst en Liefde_ ("Art and Love," 1870), and _Vesalius in Spanje_ (1895). His complete works were collected in 17 vols. (1877-1884).

Jan Renier Snieders (1812-1888) wrote novels dealing with North Brabant; his brother, August Snieders (b. 1825), began by writing historical novels in the manner of Conscience, but his later novels are satires on contemporary society. A more original talent was displayed by Anton Bergmann (1835-1874), who, under the pseudonym of "Tony," wrote _Ernest Staas, Advocat_, which gained the quinquennial prize of literature in 1874. In the same year appeared the _Novellen_ of the sisters Rosalie (1834-1875) and Virginie Loveling (b. 1836). These simple and touching stories were followed by a second collection in 1876. The sisters had published a volume of poems in 1870. Virginie Loveling's gifts of fine and exact observation soon placed her in the front rank of Flemish novelists. Her political sketches, _In onze Vlaamsche gewesten_ (1877), were published under the name of "W.G.E. Walter." _Sophie_ (1885), _Een dure Eed_ (1892), and _Het Land der Verbeelding_ (1896) are among the more famous of her later works. Reimond Styns (b. 1850) and Isidoor Teirlinck (b. 1851) produced in collaboration one very popular novel, _Arm Vlaanderen_ (1884), and some others, and have since written separately. Cyril Buysse, a nephew of Mme Loveling, is a disciple of Zola. _Het Recht van den Sterkste_ ("The Right of the Strongest," 1893) is a picture of vagabond life in Flanders; _Schoppenboer_ ("The Knave of Spades," 1898) deals with brutalized peasant life; and _Sursum corda_ (1895) describes the narrowness and religiosity of village life.

In poetry Julius de Geyter (b. 1830), author of a rhymed translation of _Reinaert_ (1874), an epic poem on Charles V. (1888), &c., produced a social epic in three parts, _Drie menschen van in de wieg tot in het graf_ ("Three Men from the Cradle to the Grave," 1861), in which he propounded radical and humanitarian views. The songs of Julius Vuylsteke (1836-1903) are full of liberal and patriotic ardour; but his later life was devoted to politics rather than literature. He had been the leading spirit of a students' association at Ghent for the propagation of "_flamingant_" views, and the "Willemsfonds" owed much of its success to his energetic co-operation. His _Uit het studenten leven_ appeared in 1868, and his poems were collected in 1881. The poems of Mme van Ackere (1803-1884), _nee_ Maria Doolaeghe, were modelled on Dutch originals. Joanna Courtmans (1811-1890), nee Berchmans, owed her fame rather to her tales than her poems; she was above all a moralist, and her fifty tales are sermons on economy and the practical virtues. Other poets were Emmanuel Hiel (q.v.), author of comedies, opera libretti and some admirable songs; the abbe Guido Gezelle (1830-1899), who wrote religious and patriotic poems in the dialect of West Flanders; Lodewijk de Koninck (b. 1838), who attempted a great epic subject in _Menschdon Verlost_ (1872); J.M. Dautzenberg (1808-1869), author of a volume of charming _Volksliederen_. The best of Dautzenberg's work is contained in the posthumous volume of 1869, published by his son-in-law, Frans de Cort (1834-1878), who was himself a song-writer, and translated songs from Burns, from Jasmin and from the German. The _Makamen en Ghazelen_ (1866), adapted from Ruckert's version of Hariri, and other volumes by "Jan Ferguut" (J.A. van Droogenbroeck, b. 1835) show a growing preoccupation with form, and with the work of Theodoor Antheunis (b. 1840), they prepare the way for the ingenious and careful workmanship of the younger school of poets, of whom Charles Polydore de Mont is the leader. He was born at Wambeke in Brabant in 1857, and became professor in the academy of the fine arts at Antwerp. He introduced something of the ideas and methods of contemporary French writers into Flemish verse; and explained his theories in 1898 in an _Inleiding tot de Poezie_. Among Pol de Mont's numerous volumes of verse dating from 1877 onwards are _Claribella_ (1893), and _Iris_ (1894), which contains amongst other things a curious "_Uit de Legende van Jeschoea-ben-Jossef_," a version of the gospel story from a Jewish peasant.

Mention should also be made of the history of Ghent (_Gent van den vroegsten Tijd tot heden_, 1882-1889) of Frans de Potter (b. 1834), and of the art criticisms of Max Rooses (b. 1839), curator of the Plantin museum at Antwerp, and of Julius Sabbe (b. 1846).

See Ida van Duringsfeld, _Von der Schelde bis zur Maas_. _Das geistige Leben der Vlamingen_ (Leipzig, 3 vols., 1861); J. Stecher, _Histoire de la litterature neerlandaise en Belgique_ (1886); _Geschiedenis der Vlaamsche Letterkunde van het jaar 1830 tot heden_ (1899), by Theodoor Coopman and L. Scharpe; A. de Koninck, _Bibliographie nationale_ (3 vols., 1886-1897); and _Histoire politique et litteraire du mouvement flamand_ (1894), by Paul Hamelius. The _Vlaamsche Bibliographie_, issued by the Flemish Academy of Ghent, by Frans de Potter, contains a list of publications between 1830 and 1890; and there is a good deal of information in the excellent _Biographisch woordenboeck der Noord- en Zuid- Nederlandsche Letterkunde_ (1878) of Dr W.J.A. Huberts and others. (E. G.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] See Max Rooses, _Keus van Dicht- en Prozawerken van J.F. Willems_, and his _Brieven_ in the publications of the Willemsfonds (Ghent, 1872-1874).

FLENSBURG (Danish, _Flensborg_), a seaport of Germany, in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, at the head of the Flensburg Fjord, 20 m. N.W. from Schleswig, at the junction of the main line Altona-Vamdrup (Denmark), with branches to Kiel and Glucksburg. Pop. (1905) 48,922. The principal public buildings are the Nikolai Kirche (built 1390, restored 1894), with a spire 295 ft. high; the Marienkirche, also a medieval church, with a lofty tower; the law courts; the theatre and the exchange. There are two gymnasia, schools of marine engineering, navigation, wood-carving and agriculture. The cemetery contains the remains of the Danish soldiers who fell at the battle of Idstedt (25th of July 1850), but the colossal Lion monument, erected by the Danes to commemorate their victory, was removed to Berlin in 1864. Flensburg is a busy centre of trade and industry, and is the most important town in what was formerly the duchy of Schleswig. It possesses excellent wharves, does a large import trade in coal, and has shipbuilding yards, breweries, distilleries, cloth and paper factories, glass-works, copper-works, soap-works and rice mills. Its former extensive trade with the West Indies has lately suffered owing to the enormous development of the North Sea ports, but it is still largely engaged in the Greenland whale and the oyster fisheries.

Flensburg was probably founded in the 12th century. It attained municipal privileges in 1284, was frequently pillaged by the Swedes after 1643, and in 1848 became the capital, under Danish rule, of Schleswig.

See Holdt, _Flensburg fruher und jetzt_ (1884).

FLERS, a manufacturing town of north-western France, in the arrondissement of Domfront, and department of Orne, on the Vere, 41 m. S. of Caen on the railway to Laval. Pop. (1906) 11,188. A modern church in the Romanesque style and a restored chateau of the 15th century are its principal buildings. There is a tribunal of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a communal college and a branch of the Bank of France. Flers is the centre of a cotton and linen-manufacturing region which includes the towns of Conde-sur-Noireau and La Ferte-Mace. Manufactures are very important, and include, besides cotton and linen fabrics, of which the annual value is about L1,500,000, drugs and chemicals; there are large brick and tile works, flour mills and dyeworks.

FLETA, a treatise, with the sub-title _seu Commentarius juris Anglicani_, on the common law of England. It appears, from internal evidence, to have been written in the reign of Edward I., about the year 1290. It is for the most part a poor imitation of Bracton. The author is supposed to have written it during his confinement in the Fleet prison, hence the name. It has been conjectured that he was one of those judges who were imprisoned for malpractices by Edward I. Fleta was first printed by J. Selden in 1647, with a dissertation (2nd edition, 1685).

FLETCHER, ALICE CUNNINGHAM (1845- ), American ethnologist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1845. She studied the remains of Indian civilization in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, became a member of the Archaeological Institute of America in 1879, and worked and lived with the Omahas as a representative of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. In 1883 she was appointed special agent to allot lands to the Omaha tribes, in 1884 prepared and sent to the New Orleans Exposition an exhibit showing the progress of civilization among the Indians of North America in the quarter-century previous, in 1886 visited the natives of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands on a mission from the commissioner of education, and in 1887 was United States special agent in the distribution of lands among the Winnebagoes and Nez Perces. She was made assistant in ethnology at the Peabody Museum in 1882, and received the Thaw fellowship in 1891; was president of the Anthropological Society of Washington and of the American Folk-Lore Society, and vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and, working through the Woman's National Indian Association, introduced a system of making small loans to Indians, wherewith they might buy land and houses. In 1888 she published _Indian Education and Civilization_, a special report of the Bureau of Education. In 1898 at the Congress of Musicians held at Omaha during the Trans-Mississippi Exposition she read "several essays upon the songs of the North American Indians ... in illustration of which a number of Omaha Indians ... sang their native melodies." Out of this grew her _Indian Story and Song from North America_ (1900), illustrating "a stage of development antecedent to that in which culture music appeared."

FLETCHER, ANDREW, of Saltoun (1655-1716), Scottish politician, was the son and heir of Sir Robert Fletcher (1625-1664), and was born at Saltoun, the modern Salton, in East Lothian. Educated by Gilbert Burnet, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, who was then the parish minister of Saltoun, he completed his education by spending some years in travel and study, entering public life as member of the Scottish parliament which met in 1681. Possessing advanced political ideas, Fletcher was a fearless and active opponent of the measures introduced by John Maitland, duke of Lauderdale, the representative of Charles II. in Scotland, and his successor, the duke of York, afterwards King James II.; but he left Scotland about 1682, subsequently spending some time in Holland as an associate of the duke of Monmouth and other malcontents.

Although on grounds of prudence Fletcher objected to the rising of 1685, he accompanied Monmouth to the west of England, but left the army after killing one of the duke's trusted advisers. This incident is thus told by Sir John Dalrymple:

"Being sent upon an expedition, and not esteeming times of danger to be times of ceremony, he had seized for his own riding the horse of a country gentleman (the mayor of Lynne) which stood ready equipt for its master. The master hearing this ran in a passion to Fletcher, gave him opprobrious language, shook his cane and attempted to strike. Fletcher, though rigid in the duties of morality, yet having been accustomed to foreign services both by sea and land in which he had acquired high ideas of the honour of a soldier and a gentleman and of the affront of a cane, pulled out his pistol and shot him dead on the spot. The action was unpopular in countries where such refinements were not understood. A clamour was raised against it among the people of the country, in a body they waited upon the duke with their complaints; and he was forced to desire the only soldier and almost the only man of parts in his army, to abandon him."

Another, but less probable account, represents Fletcher as quitting the rebel army because he disapproved of the action of Monmouth in proclaiming himself king.

His history during the next few years is rather obscure. He probably travelled in Spain, and fought against the Turks in Hungary; and having in his absence lost his estates and been sentenced to death, he joined William of Orange at the Hague, and returned to Scotland in 1689 in consequence of the success of the Revolution of 1688. His estates were restored to him; and he soon became a leading member of the "club," an organization which aimed at reducing the power of the crown in Scotland, and in general an active opponent of the English government. In 1703, at a critical stage in the history of Scotland, Fletcher again became a member of the Scottish parliament. The failure of the Darien expedition had aroused a strong feeling of resentment against England, and Fletcher and the national party seized the opportunity to obtain a greater degree of independence for their country.

His attitude in this matter, and also to the proposal for the union of the two crowns, is thus described by a writer in the third edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_:--

"The thought of England's domineering over Scotland was what his generous soul could not endure. The indignities and oppression which Scotland lay under galled him to the heart, so that in his learned and elaborate discourses he exposed them with undaunted courage and pathetical eloquence. In that great event, the Union, he performed essential service. He got the act of security passed, which declared that the two crowns should not pass to the same head till Scotland was secured in her liberties civil and religious. Therefore Lord Godolphin was forced into the Union, to avoid a civil war after the queen's demise. Although Mr Fletcher disapproved of some of the articles, and indeed of the whole frame of the Union, yet, as the act of security was his own work, he had all the merit of that important transaction."

Soon after the passing of the Act of Union Fletcher retired from public life. Employing his abilities in another direction, he did a real, if homely, service to his country by introducing from Holland machinery for sifting grain. He died unmarried in London in September 1716.

Contemporaries speak very highly of Fletcher's integrity, but he was also choleric and impetuous. Burnet describes him as "a Scotch gentleman of great parts and many virtues, but a most violent republican and extremely passionate." In appearance he was "a low, thin man, of a brown complexion; full of fire; with a stern, sour look." Fletcher was a fine scholar and a graceful writer, and both his writings and speeches afford bright glimpses of the manners and state of the country in his time. His chief works are: _A Discourse of Government relating to Militias_ (1698); _Two Discourses concerning the Affairs of Scotland_ (1698); and _An Account of a Conversation concerning a right regulation of Governments for the common good of Mankind_ (1704). In Two Discourses he suggests that the numerous vagrants who infested Scotland should be brought into compulsory and hereditary servitude; and in _An Account of a Conversation_ occurs his well-known remark, "I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Christopher's (Sir C. Musgrave) sentiment, that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."

_The Political Works of Andrew Fletcher_ were published in London in 1737. See D.S. Erskine, 11th earl of Buchan, _Essay on the Lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and the Poet Thomson_ (1792); J.H. Burton, _History of Scotland_, vol. viii. (Edinburgh, 1905); and A. Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. iv. (Edinburgh, 1907).

FLETCHER, GILES (c. 1548-1611), English author, son of Richard Fletcher, vicar of Cranbrook, Kent, and father of the poets Phineas and Giles Fletcher, was born in 1548 or 1549. He was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, taking his B.A. degree in 1569. He was a fellow of his college, and was made LL.D. in 1581. In 1580 he had married Joan Sheafe of Cranbrook. In that year he was commissary to Dr Bridgwater, chancellor of Ely, and in 1585 he sat in parliament for Winchelsea. He was employed on diplomatic service in Scotland, Germany and Holland, and in 1588 was sent to Russia to the court of the czar Theodore with instructions to conclude as alliance between England and Russia, to restore English trade, and to obtain better conditions for the English Russia Company. The factor of the company, Jerome Horsey, had already obtained large concessions through the favour of the protector, Boris Godunov, but when Dr Fletcher reached Moscow in 1588 he found that Godunov's interest was alienated, and that the Russian government was contemplating an alliance with Spain. The envoy was badly lodged, and treated with obvious contempt, and was not allowed to forward letters to England, but the English victory over the Armada and his own indomitable patience secured among other advantages for English traders exclusive rights of trading on the Volga and their security from the infliction of torture. Fletcher's treatment at Moscow was later made the subject of formal complaint by Queen Elizabeth. He returned to England in 1589 in company with Jerome Horsey, and in 1591 he published _Of the Russe Commonwealth, Or Maner of Government by the Russe Emperour (commonly called The Emperour of Moskovia) with the manners and fashions of the people of that Countrey_. In this comprehensive account of Russian geography, government, law, methods of warfare, church and manners, Fletcher, who states that he began to arrange his material during the return journey, doubtless received some assistance from the longer experience of his travelling companion, who also wrote a narrative of his travels, published in _Purchas his Pilgrimes_ (1626). The Russia Company feared that the freedom of Fletcher's criticisms would give offence to the Muscovite authorities, and accordingly damage their trade. The book was consequently suppressed, and was not reprinted in its entirety until 1856, when it was edited from a copy of the original edition for the Hakluyt Society, with an introduction by Mr Edward A. Bond.

Fletcher was appointed "Remembrancer" to the city of London, and an extraordinary master of requests in 1596, and became treasurer of St Paul's in 1597. He contemplated a history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and in a letter to Lord Burghley he suggested that it might be well to begin with an account from the Protestant side of the marriage of Henry VIII. and Ann Boleyn. But personal difficulties prevented the execution of this plan. He had become security to the exchequer for the debts of his brother, Richard Fletcher, bishop of London, who died in 1596, and was only then saved from imprisonment by the protection of the earl of Essex. He was actually in prison in 1601, when he addressed a somewhat ambiguous letter to Burghley from which it may be gathered that his prime offence had been an allusion to Essex's disgrace as being the work of Sir Walter Raleigh. Fletcher was employed in 1610 to negotiate with Denmark on behalf of the "Eastland Merchants," and he died next year, and was buried on the 11th of March in the parish of St Catherine Colman, London.

_The Russe Commonwealth_ was issued in an abridged form in _Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, Voyages_, &c. (vol. i. p. 473, ed. of 1598), a somewhat completer version in _Purchas his Pilgrimes_ (pt. iii. ed. 1625), also as _History of Russia_ in 1643 and 1657. Fletcher also wrote _De literis antiquae Britanniae_ (ed. by Phineas Fletcher, 1633), a treatise on "The Tartars," printed in _Israel Redux_ (ed. by S(amuel) L(ee), 1677), to prove that they were the ten lost tribes of Israel, Latin poems published in various miscellanies, and _Licia, or Poemes of Love in Honour of the admirable and singular vertues of his Lady, to the imitation of the best Latin Poets ... whereunto is added the Rising to the Crowne of Richard the third_ (1593). This series of love sonnets, followed by some other poems, was published anonymously. Most critics, with the notable exception of Alexander Dyce (Beaumont and Fletcher, _Works_, i. p. xvi., 1843) have accepted it as the work of Dr Giles Fletcher on the evidence afforded in the first of the _Piscatory Eclogues_ of his son Phineas, who represents his father (Thelgon), as having "raised his rime to sing of Richard's climbing."

See E.A. Bond's Introduction to the Hakluyt Society's edition; also Dr A.B. Grosart's prefatory matter to _Licia_ (_Fuller Worthies Library_, Miscellanies, vol. iii., 1871), and to the works (1869) of Phineas Fletcher in the same series. Fletcher's letters relative to the college dispute with the provost, Dr Roger Goad, are preserved in the Lansdowne MSS. (xxiii. art. 18 et seq.), and are translated in Grosart's edition.

FLETCHER, GILES (c. 1584-1623), English poet, younger son of the preceding, was born about 1584. Fuller in his _Worthies of England_ says that he was a native of London, and was educated at Westminster school. From there he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1606, and became a minor fellow of his college in 1608. He was reader in Greek grammar (1615) and in Greek language (1618). In 1603 he contributed a poem on the death of Queen Elizabeth to _Sorrow's Joy_. His great poem of _Christ's Victory_ appeared in 1610, and in 1612 he edited the _Remains_ of his cousin Nathaniel Pownall. It is not known in what year he was ordained, but his sermons at St Mary's were famous. Fuller tells us that the prayer before the sermon was a continuous allegory. He left Cambridge about 1618, and soon after received, it is supposed from Francis Bacon, the rectory of Alderton, on the Suffolk coast, where "his clownish and low-parted parishioners ... valued not their pastor according to his worth; which disposed him to melancholy and hastened his dissolution." (Fuller, _Worthies of England_, ed. 1811, vol. ii. p. 82). His last work, _The Reward of the Faithful_, appeared in the year of his death (1623).

The principal work by which Giles Fletcher is known is _Christ's Victorie and Triumph, in Heaven, in Earth, over and after Death_ (1610). An edition in 1640 contains seven full-page illustrative engravings by George Tate. It is in four cantos and is epic in design. The first canto, "Christ's Victory in Heaven," represents a dispute in heaven between Justice and Mercy, assuming the facts of Christ's life on earth; the second, "Christ's Victory on Earth," deals with an allegorical account of the Temptation; the third, "Christ's Triumph over Death," treats of the Passion; and the fourth, "Christ's Triumph after Death," treating of the Resurrection and Ascension, concludes with an affectionate eulogy of his brother Phineas Fletcher (q.v.) as "Thyrsilis." The metre is an eight-line stanza owing something to Spenser. The first five lines rhyme ababb, and the stanza concludes with a rhyming triplet, resuming the conceit which nearly every verse embodies. Giles Fletcher, like his brother Phineas, to whom he was deeply attached, was a close follower of Spenser. In his very best passages Giles Fletcher attains to a rich melody which charmed the ear of Milton, who did not hesitate to borrow very considerably from the _Christ's Victory and Triumph_ in his _Paradise Regained_. Fletcher lived in an age which regarded as models the poems of Marini and Gongora, and his conceits are sometimes grotesque in connexion with the sacredness of his subject. But when he is carried away by his theme and forgets to be ingenious, he attains great solemnity and harmony of style. His descriptions of the Lady of Vain Delight, in the second canto, and of Justice and of Mercy in the first, are worked out with much beauty of detail into separate pictures, in the manner of the _Faerie Queene_.

Giles Fletcher's poem was edited (1868) for the _Fuller Worthies Library_, and (1876) for the _Early English Poets_ by Dr A.B. Grosart. It is also reprinted for _The Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature_ (1888), and in R. Cattermole's and H. Stebbing's _Sacred Classics_ (1834, &c.) vol. 20. In the library of King's College, Cambridge, is a MS. _Aegidii Fletcherii versio poetica Lamentationum Jeremiae_.

FLETCHER, JOHN WILLIAM (1729-1785), English divine, was born at Nyon in Switzerland on the 12th of September 1729, his original name being DE LA FLECHIERE. He was educated at Geneva, but, preferring an army career to a clerical one, went to Lisbon and enlisted. An accident prevented his sailing with his regiment to Brazil, and after a visit to Flanders, where an uncle offered to secure a commission for him, he went to England, picked up the language, and in 1752 became tutor in a Shropshire family. Here he came under the influence of the new Methodist preachers, and in 1757 took orders, being ordained by the bishop of Bangor. He often preached with John Wesley and for him, and became known as a fervent supporter of the revival. Refusing the wealthy living of Dunham, he accepted the humble one of Madeley, where for twenty-five years (1760-1785) he lived and worked with unique devotion and zeal. Fletcher was one of the few parish clergy who understood Wesley and his work, yet he never wrote or said anything inconsistent with his own Anglican position. In theology he upheld the Arminian against the Calvinist position, but always with courtesy and fairness; his resignation on doctrinal grounds of the superintendency (1768-1771) of the countess of Huntingdon's college at Trevecca left no unpleasantness. The outstanding feature of his life was a transparent simplicity and saintliness of spirit, and the testimony of his contemporaries to his godliness is unanimous. Wesley preached his funeral sermon from the words "Mark the perfect man." Southey said that "no age ever provided a man of more fervent piety or more perfect charity, and no church ever possessed a more apostolic minister." His fame was not confined to his own country, for it is said that Voltaire, when challenged to produce a character as perfect as that of Christ, at once mentioned Fletcher of Madeley. He died on the 14th of August 1785.

Complete editions of his works were published in 1803 and 1836. The chief of them, written against Calvinism, are _Five Checks to Antinomianism_, _Scripture Scales to weigh the Gold of Gospel Truth_, and the _Portrait of St Paul_. See lives by J. Wesley (1786); L. Tyerman (1882); F.W. Macdonald (1885); J. Maratt (1902); also C.J. Ryle, _Christian Leaders of the 18th Century_, pp. 384-423 (1869).

FLETCHER, PHINEAS (1582-1650), English poet, elder son of Dr Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the younger, noticed above, was born at Cranbrook, Kent, and was baptized on the 8th of April 1582. He was admitted a scholar of Eton, and in 1600 entered King's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1604, and M.A. in 1608, and was one of the contributors to _Sorrow's Joy_ (1603). His pastoral drama, _Sicelides or Piscatory_ (pr. 1631) was written (1614) for performance before James I., but only produced after the king's departure at King's College. He had been ordained priest and before 1611 became a fellow of his college, but he left Cambridge before 1616, apparently because certain emoluments were refused him. He became chaplain to Sir Henry Willoughby, who presented him in 1621 to the rectory of Hilgay, Norfolk, where he married and spent the rest of his life. In 1627 he published _Locustae, vel Pietas Jesuitica_. _The Locusts or Apollyonists_, two parallel poems in Latin and English furiously attacking the Jesuits. Dr Grosart saw in this work one of the sources of Milton's conception of Satan. Next year appeared an erotic poem, _Brittains Ida_, with Edmund Spenser's name on the title-page. It is certainly not by Spenser, and is printed by Dr Grosart with the works of Phineas Fletcher. _Sicelides_, a play acted at King's College in 1614, was printed in 1631. In 1632 appeared two theological prose treatises, _The Way to Blessedness_ and _Joy in Tribulation_, and in 1633 his _magnum opus, The Purple Island_. The book was dedicated to his friend Edward Benlowes, and included his _Piscatorie Eclogs and other Poetical Miscellanies_. He died in 1650, his will being proved by his widow on the 13th of December of that year. _The Purple Island, or the Isle of Man_, is a poem in twelve cantos describing in cumbrous allegory the physiological structure of the human body and the mind of man. The intellectual qualities are personified, while the veins are rivers, the bones the mountains of the island, the whole analogy being worked out with great ingenuity. The manner of Spenser is preserved throughout, but Fletcher never lost sight of his moral aim to lose himself in digressions like those of the _Faerie Queene_. What he gains in unity of design, however, he more than loses in human interest and action. The chief charm of the poem lies in its descriptions of rural scenery. The _Piscatory Eclogues_ are pastorals the characters of which are represented as fisher boys on the banks of the Cam, and are interesting for the light they cast on the biography of the poet himself (Thyrsil) and his father (Thelgon). The poetry of Phineas Fletcher has not the sublimity sometimes reached by his brother Giles. The mannerisms are more pronounced and the conceits more far-fetched, but the verse is fluent, and lacks neither colour nor music.

A complete edition of his works (4 vols.) was privately printed by Dr A.B. Grosart (Fuller Worthies Library, 1869).

FLEURANGES, ROBERT (III.) DE LA MARCK, SEIGNEUR DE (1491-1537), marshal of France and historian, was the son of Robert II. de la Marck; duke of Bouillon, seigneur of Sedan and Fleuranges, whose uncle was the celebrated William de la Marck, "The Wild Boar of the Ardennes." A fondness for military exercises displayed itself in his earliest years, and at the age of ten he was sent to the court of Louis XII., and placed in charge of the count of Angouleme, afterwards King Francis I. In his twentieth year he married a niece of the cardinal d'Amboise, but after three months he quitted his home to join the French army in the Milanese. With a handful of troops he threw himself into Verona, then besieged by the Venetians; but the siege was protracted, and being impatient for more active service, he rejoined the army. He then took part in the relief of Mirandola, besieged by the troops of Pope Julius II., and in other actions of the campaign. In 1512 the French being driven from Italy, Fleuranges was sent into Flanders to levy a body of 10,000 men, in command of which, under his father, he returned to Italy in 1513, seized Alessandria, and vigorously assailed Novara. But the French were defeated, and Fleuranges narrowly escaped with his life, having received more than forty wounds. He was rescued by his father and sent to Vercellae, and thence to Lyons. Returning to Italy with Francis I. in 1515, he distinguished himself in various affairs, and especially at Marignano, where he had a horse shot under him, and contributed so powerfully to the victory of the French that the king knighted him with his own hand. He next took Cremona, and was there called home by the news of his father's illness. In 1519 he was sent into Germany on the difficult errand of inducing the electors to give their votes in favour of Francis I.; but in this he failed. The war in Italy being rekindled, Fleuranges accompanied the king thither, fought at Pavia (1525), and was taken prisoner with his royal master. The emperor, irritated by the defection of his father, Robert II. de la Marck, sent him into confinement in Flanders, where he remained for some years. During this imprisonment he was created marshal of France. He employed his enforced leisure in writing his _Histoire des choses memorables advenues du regne de Louis XII et de Francois I, depuis 1499 jusqu'en l'an 1521_. In this work he designates himself _Jeune Adventureux_. Within a small compass he gives many curious and interesting details of the time, writing only of what he had seen, and in a very simple but vivid style. The book was first published in 1735, by Abbe Lambert, who added historical and critical notes; and it has been reprinted in several collections. The last occasion on which Fleuranges was engaged in active service was at the defence of Peronne, besieged by the count of Nassau in 1536. In the following year he heard of his father's death, and set out from Amboise for his estate of La Marck; but he was seized with illness at Longjumeau, and died there in December 1537.

See his own book in the _Nouvelle Collection des memoires pour servir a l'histoire de France_ (edited by J.F. Michaud and J.J.F. Poujoulat, series i. vol. v. Paris, 1836 seq.).

FLEUR-DE-LIS (Fr. "lily flower"), an heraldic device, very widespread in the armorial bearings of all countries, but more particularly associated with the royal house of France. The conventional fleur-de-lis, as Littre says, represents very imperfectly three flowers of the white lily (_Lilium_) joined together, the central one erect, and each of the other two curving outwards. The fleur-de-lis is a common device in ancient decoration, notably in India and in Egypt, where it was the symbol of life and resurrection, the attribute of the god Horus. It is common also in Etruscan bronzes. It is uncertain whether the conventional fleur-de-lis was originally meant to represent the lily or white iris--the flower-de-luce of Shakespeare--or an arrow-head, a spear-head, an amulet fastened on date-palms to ward off the evil eye, &c. In Roman and early Gothic architecture the fleur-de-lis is a frequent sculptured ornament. As early as 1120 three fleurs-de-lis were sculptured on the capitals of the Chapelle Saint-Aignan at Paris. The fleur-de-lis was first definitely connected with the French monarchy in an _ordonnance_ of Louis le Jeune (c. 1147), and was first figured on a seal of Philip Augustus in 1180. The use of the fleur-de-lis in heraldry dates from the 12th century, soon after which period it became a very common charge in France, England and Germany, where every gentleman of coat-armour desired to adorn his shield with a loan from the shield of France, which was at first _d'azur, seme de fleurs de lis d'or_. In February 1376 Charles V. of France reduced the number of fleurs-de-lis to three--in honour of the Trinity--and the kings of France thereafter bore _d'azur, a trois fleurs de lis d'or_. Tradition soon attributed the origin of the fleur-de-lis to Clovis, the founder of the Frankish monarchy, and explained that it represented the lily given to him by an angel at his baptism. Probably there was as much foundation for this legend as for the more rationalistic explanation of William Newton (_Display of Heraldry_, p. 145), that the fleur-de-lis was the figure of a reed or flag in blossom, used instead of a sceptre at the proclamation of the Frankish kings. Whatever be the true origin of the fleur-de-lis as a conventional decoration, it is demonstrably far older than the Frankish monarchy, and history does not record the reason of its adoption by the royal house of France, from which it passed into common use as an heraldic charge in most European countries. An order of the Lily, with a fleur-de-lis for badge, was established in the Roman states by Pope Paul III. in 1546; its members were pledged to defend the patrimony of St Peter against the enemies of the church. Another order of the Lily was founded by Louis XVIII. in 1816, in memory of the silver fleurs-de-lis which the comte d'Artois had given to the troops in 1814 as decorations; it was abolished by the revolution of 1830.

FLEURUS, a village of Belgium, in the province of Hennegau, 5 m. N.E. of Charleroi, famous as the scene of several battles. The first of these was fought on August 19/29, 1622, between the forces of Count Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick and the Spaniards under Cordovas, the latter being defeated. The second is described below, and the third and fourth, incidents of Jourdan's campaign of 1794, under FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS. The ground immediately north-east of Fleurus forms the battlefield of Ligny (June 16, 1815), for which see WATERLOO CAMPAIGN.

The second battle was fought on the 1st of July 1690 between 45,000 French under Francois-Henri de Montgomery-Bouteville, duke of Luxemburg, and 37,000 allied Dutch, Spaniards and Imperialists under George Frederick, prince of Waldeck. The latter had formed up his army between Heppignies and St Amand in what was then considered an ideal position; a double barrier of marshy brooks was in front, each flank rested on a village, and the space between, open upland, fitted his army exactly. But Luxemburg, riding up with his advanced guard from Velaine, decided, after a cursory survey of the ground, to attack the front and both flanks of the Allies' position at once--a decision which few, if any, generals then living would have dared to make, and which of itself places Luxemburg in the same rank as a tactician as his old friend and commander Conde. The left wing of cavalry was to move under cover of woods, houses and hollows to gain Wangenies, where it was to connect with the frontal attack of the French centre from Fleurus and to envelop Waldeck's right. Luxemburg himself with the right wing of cavalry and some infantry and artillery made a wide sweep round the enemy's left by way of Ligny and Les Trois Burettes, concealed by the high-standing corn. At 8 o'clock the frontal attack began by a vigorous artillery engagement, in which the French, though greatly outnumbered in guns, held their own, and three hours later Waldeck, whose attention had been absorbed by events on the front, found a long line of the enemy already formed up in his rear. He at once brought his second line back to oppose them, but while he was doing so the French leader filled up the gap between himself and the frontal assailants by posting infantry around Wagnelee, and also guns on the neighbouring hill whence their fire enfiladed both halves of the enemy's army up to the limit of their ranging power. At 1 P.M. Luxemburg ordered a general attack of his whole line. He himself scattered the cavalry opposed to him and hustled the Dutch infantry into St Amand, where they were promptly surrounded. The left and centre of the French army were less fortunate, and in their first charge lost their leader, Lieutenant-General Jean Christophe, comte de Gournay, one of the best cavalry officers in the service. But Waldeck, hoping to profit by this momentary success, sent a portion of his right wing towards St Amand, where it merely shared the fate of his left, and the day was decided. Only a quarter of the cavalry and 14 battalions of infantry (English and Dutch) remained intact, and Waldeck could do no more, but with these he emulated the last stand of the Spaniards at Rocroi fifty years before. A great square was formed of the infantry, and a handful of cavalry joined them--the French cavalry, eager to avenge Gournay, had swept away the rest. Then slowly and in perfect order, they retired into the broken ground above Mellet, where they were in safety. The French slept on the battlefield, and then returned to camp with their trophies and 8000 prisoners. They had lost some 2500 killed, amongst them Gournay and Berbier du Metz, the chief of artillery, the Allies twice as many, as well as 48 guns, and Luxemburg was able to send 150 colours and standards to decorate Notre-Dame. But the victory was not followed up, for Louis XIV. ordered Luxemburg to keep in line with other French armies which were carrying on more or less desultory wars of manoeuvre on the Meuse and Moselle.

FLEURY [ABRAHAM JOSEPH BENARD] (1750-1822), French actor, was born at Chartres on the 26th of October 1750, and began his stage apprenticeship at Nancy, where his father was at the head of a company of actors attached to the court of King Stanislaus. After four years in the provinces, he came to Paris in 1778, and almost immediately was made _societaire_ at the Comedie Francaise, although the public was slow to recognize him as the greatest comedian of his time. In 1793 Fleury, like the rest of his fellow-players, was arrested in consequence of the presentation of Laya's _L'Ami des lois_, and, when liberated, appeared at various theatres until, in 1799, he rejoined the rehabilitated Comedie Francaise. After forty years of service he retired in 1818, and died on the 3rd of March 1822. He was notoriously illiterate, and it is probable that the interesting _Memoire de Fleury_ owes more to its author, Lafitte, than to the subject whose "notes and papers" it is said to contain.

FLEURY, ANDRE HERCULE DE (1653-1743), French cardinal and statesman, was born at Lodeve (Herault) on the 22nd of June 1653, the son of a collector of taxes. Educated by the Jesuits in Paris, he entered the priesthood, and became in 1679, through the influence of Cardinal Bonzi, almoner to Maria Theresa, queen of Louis XIV., and in 1698 bishop of Frejus. Seventeen years of a country bishopric determined him to seek a position at court. He became tutor to the king's great-grandson and heir, and in spite of an apparent lack of ambition, he acquired over the child's mind an influence which proved to be indestructible. On the death of the regent Orleans in 1723 Fleury, although already seventy years of age, deferred his own supremacy by suggesting the appointment of Louis Henri, duke of Bourbon, as first minister. Fleury was present at all interviews between Louis XV. and his first minister, and on Bourbon's attempt to break through this rule Fleury retired from court. Louis made Bourbon recall the tutor, who on the 11th of July 1726 took affairs into his own hands, and secured the exile from court of Bourbon and of his mistress Madame de Prie. He refused the title of first minister, but his elevation to the cardinalate in that year secured his precedence over the other ministers. He was naturally frugal and prudent, and carried these qualities into the administration, with the result that in 1738-1739 there was a surplus of 15,000,000 livres instead of the usual deficit. In 1726 he fixed the standard of the currency and secured the credit of the government by the regular payment thenceforward of the interest on the debt. By exacting forced labour from the peasants he gave France admirable roads, though at the cost of rousing angry discontent. During the seventeen years of his orderly government the country found time to recuperate its forces after the exhaustion caused by the extravagances of Louis XIV. and of the regent, and the general prosperity rapidly increased. Internal peace was only seriously disturbed by the severities which Fleury saw fit to exercise against the Jansenists. He imprisoned priests who refused to accept the bull _Unigenitus_, and he met the opposition of the parlement of Paris by exiling forty of its members.

In foreign affairs his chief preoccupation was the maintenance of peace, which was shared by Sir Robert Walpole, and therefore led to a continuance of the good understanding between France and England. It was only with reluctance that he supported the ambitious projects of Elizabeth Farnese, queen of Spain, in Italy by guaranteeing in 1729 the succession of Don Carlos to the duchies of Parma and Tuscany. Fleury had economized in the army and navy, as elsewhere, and when in 1733 war was forced upon him he was hardly prepared. He was compelled by public opinion to support the claims of Louis XV.'s father-in-law Stanislaus Leszczynski, ex-king of Poland, to the Polish crown on the death of Frederick Augustus I., against the Russo-Austrian candidate; but the despatch of a French expedition of 1500 men to Danzig only served to humiliate France. Fleury was driven by Chauvelin to more energetic measures; he concluded a close alliance with the Spanish Bourbons and sent two armies against the Austrians. Military successes on the Rhine and in Italy secured the favourable terms of the treaty of Vienna (1735-1738). France had joined with the other powers in guaranteeing the succession of Maria Theresa under the Pragmatic sanction, but on the death of Charles VI. in 1740 Fleury by a diplomatic quibble found an excuse for repudiating his engagements, when he found the party of war supreme in the king's counsels. After the disasters of the Bohemian campaign he wrote in confidence a humble letter to the Austrian general Konigsegg, who immediately published it. Fleury disavowed his own letter, and died a few days after the French evacuation of Prague on the 29th of January 1743. He had enriched the royal library by many valuable oriental MSS., and was a member of the French Academy, of the Academy of Science, and the Academy of Inscriptions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--F.J. Bataille, _Eloge historique de M. le Cardinal A. H. de Fleury_ (Strassburg, 1737); C. Frey de Neuville, _Oraison funebre de S.E. Mgr. le Cardinal A. H. Fleury_ (Paris, 1743); P. Vicaire, _Oraison funebre du Cardinal A. H. de Fleury_ (Caen, 1743); M. van Hoey, _Lettres et negotiations pour servir a l'histoire de la vie du Cardinal de Fleury_ (London, 1743); _Leben des Cardinals A. H. Fleury_ (Freiburg, 1743); F. Morenas, _Parallele du ministere du Cardinal Richelieu et du Cardinal de Fleury_ (Avignon, 1743); _Nachrichten von dem Leben und der Verwaltung des Cardinals Fleury_ (Hamburg, 1744).