Part 199

=Evangeline.=--The title and heroine of a tale in hexameter verse by Longfellow, in two parts. Evangeline was the daughter of Benedict Bellefontaine, the richest farmer of Acadia (now Nova Scotia). At the age of seventeen she was legally betrothed by the notary-public to Gabriel, son of Basil the blacksmith; but next day all the colony was exiled by the order of George II., and their houses, cattle, and lands were confiscated. Gabriel and Evangeline were parted, and now, sustained by the brightness of hope, she wandered from place to place to find her betrothed. Basil had settled in Louisiana; but when Evangeline reached that distant land, Gabriel had gone. She sought him on the prairies, and, again far north, in Michigan, but ever a few days, a few weeks, too late. At length, grown old in this hopeless quest, she came to Philadelphia and became a sister of mercy. The plague broke out; and, as she visited the almshouse in ministration, she saw an old man who had been smitten with the pestilence. It was Gabriel. He tried to whisper her name; but death closed his lips. “All was ended now;” and “Side by side, in nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.”

=Evangelist.=--In Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, represents the effectual preacher of the gospel who opens the gate of life to Christian.

=Evans, Sir Hugh.=--In Shakespeare’s _Merry Wives of Windsor_, a Welsh parson and school-teacher, ignorant but pedantic, who has a ludicrous quarrel with Dr. Caius.

=Excalibur= (_eks-kal´i-bẽr_), or =Excalibar=, or =Escalibor=.--The sword of the mythical King Arthur. Arthur received it from the hands of the Lady of the Lake. It had a scabbard the wearer of which could lose no blood. There seems, however, to have been also another sword called Excalibur in the early part of the story. This was the sword, plunged deep into a stone, which could be drawn forth only by the man who was to be king. After two hundred knights had failed, Arthur drew it out without difficulty.

=Excursion, The.=--A poem, in blank verse, by William Wordsworth, published in 1814, and forming the second part of a poem in three parts, to be entitled _The Recluse_, which the author had at one time contemplated. It consists of nine books, respectively entitled _The Wanderer_, _The Solitary_, _Despondency_, _Despondency Corrected_, _The Pastor_, _The Churchyard Among the Mountains_, _The Same Subject Continued_, _The Parsonage_, _Discourse of the Wanderer_, and _An Evening Visit to the Lake_.

=Eyre= (_âr_), =Jane.=--A novel by Charlotte Brontë, published in 1847, with a dedication to William Makepeace Thackeray, as “the first social regenerator of the day.” The early scenes are laid in the Lowood Institution, which has been identified with a school established by the Rev. W. Carus Wilson, at Cowen’s Bridge, near Leeds, and which is described with stern but unpleasing realism. Much of the book was derived from the author’s own personal experience.

=Ezzelin, Sir.=--_Lara_, Byron. The gentleman who recognizes Lara at the table of Lord Otho, and charges him with being Conrad the Corsair. A duel ensues, and Ezzelin is never heard of more. A serf used to say that he saw a huntsman one evening cast a dead body into the river which divided the lands of Otho and Lara, and that there was a star of knighthood on the breast of the corpse.

=F=

=Faa, Gabriel.=--_Guy Mannering_, Scott. Nephew of Meg Merrilies. One of the huntsmen at Liddesdale.

=Fadladeen.=--The hypercritical grand chamberlain in Moore’s poem _Lalla Rookh_. Fadladeen’s criticism upon the several tales which make up the romance are very racy and full of humor; and his crestfallen conceit when he finds out that the poet was the prince in disguise is well conceived.

=Faerie Queene= (_fā´e-ri kwēn_), =The.=--A poem by Edmund Spenser, published in 1590. This great allegorical epic is divided into six books, of which the first contains the Legend of the Knight of the Red Cross, or Holiness; the second the Legend of Sir Guyon, or Temperance; the third the Legend of Britomartis, or Chastity; the fourth the Legend of Cambal and Telamond, or Friendship; the fifth the Legend of Artegall, or Justice; and the sixth the Legend of Sir Calidore, or Courtesy. There originally existed twelve books, but the last six, excepting two cantos on Mutability, were lost by the poet’s servant in crossing from Ireland to England--a circumstance to be deeply regretted by every lover of true poetry. The finest things in Spenser are the character of Una, in the first book, the House of Pride, the Cave of Mammoth, and the Cave of Despair; the account of Memory; the description of Belphœbe; the story of Florimel and the Witch’s Son; the gardens of Adonis and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and Colin Clout’s Vision, in the last book.

=Fag.=--A lying servant to Captain Absolute in Sheridan’s _Rivals_.

=Fagin.=--An old Jew in Dickens’ _Oliver Twist_, who employs young persons of both sexes to carry on a systematic trade of robbery.

=Fainall, Mr. and Mrs.=--Noted characters in Congreve’s comedy _The Way of the World_.

=Faineant, Le Noir= (_The Black Idler_).--In Sir Walter Scott’s _Ivanhoe_, a name applied to Richard Cœur de Lion in disguise, by the spectators of a tournament, on account of his indifference during a great part of the action, in which, however, he was finally victorious.

=Fair Maid of Perth.=--The title of a novel by Sir Walter Scott, and the name of the heroine.

=Fair Rosamond.=--Prototype of many heroines of fiction, a daughter of Walter de Clifford. According to a popular legend, which has no foundation in fact, Henry II. built a labyrinth or maze to conceal her from Queen Eleanor, who discovered her by means of a silken clew and put her to death. She is commonly, though erroneously, stated to have been the mother of William Longsword and Geoffrey, archbishop of York.

=Fairservice, Andrew.=--A shrewd Scotch gardener at Osbaldistone Hall in _Rob Roy_, Sir Walter Scott.

=Fairy of the Mine.=--A malevolent being, supposed to live in mines, busying itself with cutting ore, turning the windlass, etc., and yet effecting nothing.

=Faithful.=--One of the allegorical personages in Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, who dies a martyr before completing his journey.

=Faithful, Jacob.=--The title and hero of a sea tale, by Captain Marryat (1835).

=Fakenham Ghost.=--A ballad by Robert Bloomfield, author of _The Farmer’s Boy_. The ghost was a donkey.

=Fakreddin’s Valley.=--Over the several portals of bronze were these inscriptions: (1) _The Asylum of Pilgrims_; (2) _The Traveler’s Refuge_; (3) _The Depository of the Secrets of All the World_.

=Falkland.=--In Godwin’s novel called _Caleb Williams_. He commits murder, and keeps a narrative of the transaction in an iron chest. Williams, a lad in his employ, opens the chest, and is caught in the act by Falkland. The lad runs away, but is hunted down. This tale, dramatized by Colman is entitled _The Iron Chest_.

=Falstaff= (_fâl´stȧf_), =Sir John.=--A famous character in Shakespeare’s comedy of the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, and in the first and second parts of his historical drama of _Henry IV._ He is as perfect a comic portrait as was ever sketched. In the former play he is represented as in love with Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, who make a butt and a dupe of him; in the latter he figures as a soldier and a wit; in both he is exhibited as a monster of fat--sensual, mendacious, boastful, and cowardly. In _Henry V._ his death is described by Mrs. Quickly.

=Fang.=--(1) A sheriff’s officer, in the second part of Shakespeare’s _King Henry IV._ (2) _Oliver Twist_, Charles Dickens. A bullying insolent magistrate, who would have sent Oliver Twist to prison, on suspicion of theft, if Mr. Brownlow had not interposed.

=Fata Alcina.=--_Orlando Innamorato_, Bojardo. Sister of Fata Morgana. She carried off Astolfo on the back of a whale to her isle, but turned him into a myrtle tree when she tired of him.

=Fata Morgana= (_fä´tä mor-gä´nä_).--The name of a potent fairy, celebrated in the tales of chivalry, and in the romantic poems of Italy. She was a pupil of the enchanter Merlin, and the sister of Arthur, to whom she discovered the intrigue of his queen, Geneura, or Guinever, with Lancelot of the Lake. In the _Orlando Innamorato_ of Bojardo, she appears at first as a personification of fortune, inhabiting a splendid residence at the bottom of a lake, and dispensing all the treasures of the earth, but she is afterward found in her proper station subject to the all potent Demogorgon. Also, as sister to King Arthur and pupil of Merlin. She lived at the bottom of the lake and dispensed good fortune as she liked.

=Fat Boy, The.=--A laughable character in Dickens’ _Pickwick Papers_; a youth of astonishing obesity whose employment consists in alternate eating and sleeping.

=Fathom, Ferdinand, Count.=--The title of a novel by Smollett, and the name of its principal character, a complete villain, who proceeds step by step to rob his benefactors and finally dies in misery and despair.

=Fatima= (_fä´tē-mä_).--(1) A female worker, in the story of _Aladdin_, in the _Arabian Nights’ Entertainments_. (2) The last of the wives of Bluebeard, and the only one who escaped being murdered by him.

=Faust= (_foust_).--A celebrated tragedy by Goethe, the materials of which are drawn in part from the popular legends of Dr. Faustus, a famous magician of the sixteenth century. A rich uncle having left him a fortune, Faust ran to every excess, and, when his fortune was exhausted, made a pact with the devil (who assumed the name of Mephistopheles, and the appearance of a little gray monk), that, if he might indulge his propensities freely for twenty-four years, he would at the end of that period consign to the devil both body and soul. The compact terminated in 1550, when Faust disappeared. His sweetheart was Margherita, whom he seduced, and his faithful servant was Wagner.

=Faustus= (_fâs´tus_).--A tragedy name; represented as a vulgar sorcerer tempted to sell his soul to the devil (Mephistopheles), on condition of having a familiar spirit at his command, the possession of earthly power and glory, and unlimited gratification of his sensual appetites, for twenty-four years; at the end of which time, when the forfeit comes to be exacted, he shrinks and shudders in agony and remorse, imploring yet despairing of the mercy of heaven. This has been the theme of many writers. It is the subject of an opera by Gounod.

=Femmes Savantes= (_fam sȧ-vä_N´), =Les= (or, _The Learned Women_).--Comedy by Molière. These women go in for women’s rights, science, and philosophy, to the neglect of domestic duties and wifely amenities. The “blue-stockings” are (1) Philaminte, the mother of Henriette, who discharges one of her servants because she speaks bad grammar; (2) Armande, sister of Henriette, who advocates platonic love and science; and (3) Bélise, sister of Philaminte, who sides with her in all things, but imagines that everyone is in love with her. Henriette, who has no sympathy with these “lofty flights,” is in love with Clitandre; but Philaminte wants her to marry Trissotin, a _bel esprit_. However, the father loses his property through the “savant” proclivities of his wife, Trissotin retires, and Clitandre marries Henriette, the “perfect” or thorough woman.

=Fenella.=--A fairy-like creature, a deaf and dumb attendant on the countess of Derby, in Sir Walter Scott’s _Peveril of the Peak_.

=Fenton= (_fen´ton_).--A character in Shakespeare’s _Merry Wives of Windsor_, who wooes the rich Anne Page for her money, but soon discovers inward treasures in her which quite transform him.

=Feramorz= (_fer´a-mōrz_).--_Lalla Rookh_, Thomas Moore. Feramorz in _Lalla Rookh_ is the young Cashmerian poet, who relates poetical tales to Lalla Rookh, in her journey from Delhi to Lesser Bucharia. Lalla Rookh is going to be married to the young sultan, but falls in love with the poet. On the wedding morn she is led to her future husband, and finds that the poet is the sultan himself, who had gallantly taken this course to win the heart of his bride and beguile her journey.

=Ferdinand= (_fer´di-nand_).--(1) A character in Shakespeare’s _Tempest_. He is a son of the king of Naples, and falls in love with Miranda, the daughter of Prospero, a banished duke of Milan. (2) King of Navarre, character in _Love’s Labor’s Lost_.

=Ferrers= (_fer´erz_)--_Endymion._ The hero of Benjamin Disraeli’s novel _Endymion_.

=Ferrex and Porrex.=--Two sons of Gorboduc, a mythical British king. Porrex drove his brother from Britain, and when Ferrex returned with an army he was slain, but Porrex was shortly after put to death by his mother. One of the first, if not the very first, historical plays in the English language was _Ferrex and Porrex_, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville.

=Fib.=--_Nymphidia_, Drayton. One of the fairy attendants to Queen Mab.

=Fidele= (_fi-dē´lē_, or _fi-dāl´_).--Subject of an elegy by Collins.

=Fidelie.=--_Cymbeline_, Shakespeare. The name assumed by Imogen, when, attired in boy’s clothes, she started for Milford Haven to meet her husband Posthumus.

=Fidessa.=--_Faërie Queene_, Spenser. The companion of Sansfoy; but when the Red-cross Knight slew that “faithless Saracen,” Fidessa turned out to be Duessa, the daughter of Falsehood and Shame. See “Duessa.”

=Figaro= (_fē´gä-rō_).--A character introduced by Beaumarchais in his plays _Le Barbier de Seville_, _Le Mariage de Figaro_, and _La Mère Coupable_, used later by Mozart, Paisiello, and Rossini in operas. In the _Barbier_ he is a barber; in the _Mariage_ he is a valet. In both he is gay, lively, and courageous; his stratagems are always original, his lies witty, and his shrewdness proverbial. In the _Mère Coupable_ he has become virtuous and has lost his nerve. He also appears in Holcroft’s _Follies of a Day_, taken from Beaumarchais’ _Mariage de Figaro_.

=Finetta= (_fi-net´tä_).--_The Cinder Girl._ A fairy tale by the Comtesse d’Aulnoy. This is merely the old tale of Cinderella slightly altered.

=Fingal= (_fing´gal_).--A mythical hero, whose name occurs in Gaelic ballads and traditions, and in Macpherson’s _Poems of Ossian_.

=Fleance= (_flē´ans_).--A son of Banquo, in Shakespeare’s tragedy of _Macbeth_. The legend relates that after the assassination of his father he escaped to Wales, where he married the daughter of the reigning prince, and had a son named Walter. This Walter afterward became lord high steward of Scotland, and called himself Walter the Steward. From him proceeded in a direct line the Stuarts of Scotland, a royal line which gave James VI. of Scotland, James I. of England. This myth has been seriously accepted by some as fact.

=Fledgeby.=--_Our Mutual Friend_, Dickens. An overreaching, cowardly sneak who pretends to do a decent business under the trade name of Pubsey & Co.

=Florentius.=--A knight whose story is related in the first book of Gower’s _Confessio Amantis_. He bound himself to marry a deformed hag, provided she taught him the solution of a riddle on which his life depended.

=Florian= (_flō-ryon´_).--_The Foundling of the Forest_, W. Dimond. Discovered in infancy by the Count de Valmont, and adopted as his own son, Florian is lighthearted and volatile, but with deep affection, very grave, and the delight of all who know him.

=Florimel= (_flor´i-mel_).--A female character in Spenser’s _Faërie Queene_, of great beauty, but so timid that she feared the “smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,” and was abused by everyone. She was noted for sweetness of temper amid great trials. The word Florimel signifies “honey-flower.”

=Florizel= (_flor´i-zel_).--A prince of Bohemia, in Shakespeare’s _Winter’s Tale_, in love with Perdita.

=Fluellen= (_flö-el´en_).--A Welsh captain, who is an amusing pedant, in Shakespeare’s _Henry V._

=Flying Dutchman.=--A spectral ship, seen in stormy weather off the Cape of Good Hope, and considered ominous of ill-luck. Captain Marryat has taken this theme for his novel _The Phantom Ship_.

=Folk.=--Fairies, also called “people,” “neighbors,” “wights.” The Germans have their kleine volk (little folk), the Swiss their hill people and earth people. See _Fairies_.

=Ford.=--Mr. and Mrs. Ford are characters in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. Mrs. Ford pretends to accept Sir John Falstaff’s protestations of love, in order to punish him by her devices.

=Fortinbras= (_fôr´tin-bras_).--Prince of Norway, in Shakespeare’s tragedy _Hamlet_.

=Fortunatus= (_fôr-tū-na´tus_).--The hero in one of Straparolla’s fairy tales. The nursery tale of Fortunatus records that he had an inexhaustible purse. It is from the Italian fairy tales.

=Fortunio’s= (_fôr-tu´ni-o_) =Horse.=--Comrade not only possessed incredible speed, but knew all things, and was gifted with human speech.

=Francesco.=--The Iago of Massinger’s _Duke of Milan_.

=Francesca da Rimini= (_frȧn-ches´kȧ dȧ rē´mē-nē_).--A dramatic poem by James Henry Leigh Hunt published in 1816. Francesca was the daughter of Guido da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna, in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and was married to Lanciotto, son of Malatesta da Rimini, who, discovering her criminal intercourse with his brother, revenged himself by putting them both to death. Her story forms an episode in Dante’s _Inferno_.

=Frankenstein= (_fräng´ken-stīn_) (or, the _Modern Prometheus_).--A novel by Mrs. Shelley, published in 1818. It was commenced in the summer of 1816, when Byron and the Shelleys were residing on the banks of the Lake of Geneva, and when, “during a week of rain, having amused themselves with reading German ghost stories, they agreed at last to write something in imitation of them. ‘You and I,’ said Lord Byron to Mrs. Shelley, ‘will publish ours together.’ He then began his tale of the _Vampire_;” but “the most memorable result,” writes Moore, “of their storytelling compact, was Mrs. Shelley’s wild and powerful romance of _Frankenstein_, one of those original conceptions that take hold of the public mind at once and forever.”

The hero of the book, a native of Geneva, and a student, constructs a monster of grewsome human remains and gives it life by galvanism. The monster feels that he is unlike all other human beings, and in revenge for the injury inflicted upon him by his creator, murders his friend, his brother, and his bride, and finally seeks out Frankenstein himself, with a view to wreaking a similar revenge on him. The hero, however, happily escapes his enemy, who retires to the utmost extremity of the globe, in order to put an end to his miserable life; and Frankenstein himself falls ill and dies on his way home after his last final flight from the monstrosity whom he has himself brought into the world.

=Freeport, Sir Andrew.=--The name of one of the members of the imaginary club under whose direction the _Spectator_ was professedly published. He is represented as a London merchant of great eminence and experience, industrious, sensible and generous.

=French Revolution, The.=--A history, in three parts, by Thomas Carlyle, published in 1837, and described by Lowell as “a series of word-pictures, unmatched for vehement power, in which the figures of such sons of earth as Mirabeau and Danton loom gigantic and terrible as in the glare of an eruption; their shadows swaying far and wide, grotesquely awful. But all is painted by eruptive flashes in violent light and shade. There are no half tints, no gradations, and we find it impossible to account for the continuance in power of less Titanic actors in the tragedy, like Robespierre, on any theory, whether of human nature or of individual character, supplied by Mr. Carlyle.”

=Friar Lawrence.=--The Franciscan monk who attempted to befriend the lovers in _Romeo and Juliet_.

=Friar Tuck.=--Chaplain and steward of Robin Hood. Introduced by Sir Walter Scott in _Ivanhoe_. He is a self-indulgent, combative Falstaff, a jolly companion to the outlaws in Sherwood forest.

=Friday.=--Robinson Crusoe’s faithful man Friday pictured by Defoe.

=Froissart= (_froi´särt_).--_The Cronicles of England, Fraunce, Spayne, Portyugale, Scotlande, Bretayne, Flanders, and other places adjoynynge, translated out of Frenche into our maternalle Englysche Tonge_, by “John Bourchier, knight, Lord Berners.” Printed in 1523. The history extends from 1326 to 1400. Froissart resided in England as secretary to Queen Philippa from 1361 to 1366, and visited it again in 1395, when he paid a visit to Scotland.

=Frollo, Archdeacon Claude.=--A noted character in Victor Hugo’s _Notre Dame de Paris_, absorbed in a bewildering search for the philosopher’s stone.

=Front de Bœuf.=--_Ivanhoe_, Sir Walter Scott. A follower of Prince John of Anjou, and one of the knight’s challengers.

=Froth, Master.=--A foolish gentleman in Shakespeare’s _Measure for Measure_. His name explains his character.

=Fusbos= (_fus´bos_).--_Utopia_, Sir Thomas More. Minister of state to Artaxaminous, king of Utopia.

=Fyrapel, Sir.=--The Leopard, the nearest kinsman of King Lion, in the beast epic of _Reynard the Fox_.

=G=

=Gadshill.=--A companion of Sir John Falstaff, in the first part of Shakespeare’s _King Henry IV._

=Galahad= (_gal´a-had_), =Sir.=--A celebrated knight of the Round Table who achieved the quest of the Holy Grail. Tennyson has made him the subject of one of his idylls. In Malory he is also represented as the perfect knight, clad in wonderful armor. He was the only knight who could sit in the “Siege Perilous” a seat reserved for the “knight without a flaw,” who achieved the quest of the “Holy Grail.”

=Galapas= (_gal´a-pas_).--A giant of marvelous height in the army of Lucius, king of Rome. He was slain by King Arthur.

=Galaphrone=, or =Galafron.=--A king of Cathay and father of Angelica in Bojardo’s _Orlando Innamorato_ and Ariosto’s _Furioso_.

=Gamp, Mrs.=--A nurse who is a prominent character in Dickens’ novel of _Martin Chuzzlewit_. She is celebrated for her constant reference to a certain Mrs. Harris, a purely imaginary person, for whose feigned opinions and utterances she professes the greatest respect, in order to give the more weight to her own.

=Gan=, =Ganelone=, =Ganelon=, or =Gano.=--The character of Sir Ganelon was marked with spite, dissimulation, and intrigue, but he was patient, obstinate, and enduring. He loved solitude, disbelieved in the existence of moral good, and has become a byword for a false and faithless friend. Dante has placed him in his _Inferno_.

=Gander-Cleugh.=--“Folly-Cliff,” that mysterious place where a person make a goose of himself, in _Tales of My Landlord_, Sir Walter Scott.

=Garcia, Pedro.=--A mythical personage, of whom mention is made in the preface to Gil Bias, in which is related how two scholars of Salamanca discovered a tombstone with the inscription “Here lies interred the soul of the Licentiate Pedro Garcia,” and how, on digging beneath the stone, was found a leathern purse containing a hundred ducats.

=Gareth.=--In _Arthurian Romance_ a knight of the Round Table, who was first a scullion in King Arthur’s kitchen, but afterward became champion of the Lady Linet, or Lynette, whose sister Lionès, or Lyonors, he delivered from Castle Perilous.

=Garganelle= (_gär-ga-nel´_).--The mother of Gargantua in Rabelais’ celebrated romance of this name.

=Gargantua= (_gär-gan´tū-ä_).--Rabelais’ celebrated romance, the hero of which is a gigantic personage, about whom many wonderful stories are related. He lived for several centuries, and at last begot a son, Pantagruel, as wonderful as himself. The _Pleasant Story of the Giant Gargantua and of his Son Pantagruel_, so satirized the monastic orders of his time that it was denounced by the spiritual authorities. Francis I., however, protected the author, and allowed him to print the third part of it in 1545.