Page images
PDF
EPUB

ARTS AND SCIENCES

OR

Fourth Division of "The English Cyclopædia,"

CONDUCTED BY

CHARLES KNIGHT.

VOLUME IV.

LONDON:

BRADBURY, EVANS, & CO., 11, BOUVERIE ST., FLEET ST., E.C

SCRIBNER, WELFORD, & CO., 654, BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

1867.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

FACIA.

Fis a labio-dental aspirate bearing the same relation to the other Beasts' of Casti must be classed among the mock epic poems, although labio-dental aspirate V which the letters called tenues, p, k, t, bear to the media, b, g, d. It occupies the sixth place in the English as in the Latin alphabet, thus corresponding with the digamma of the old Greek alphabet, and the vau of the Hebrew. In power and form it is likewise closely related to those two letters. [ALPHABET.]

The letter F is interchangeable with the other aspirates ch or h and th, and also with the lip-letters p and b.

1. Fin Latin corresponds to h in Spanish, as Latin formoso, beautiful, Spanish hermoso; Latin femina, female, Spanish hembra; Latin fugere, fly, Spanish huir. Other examples may readily be found in a Spanish Dictionary under the letter h. The same change prevailed between the Latin of Rome and the Sabine dialect of that language. 2. Fin Latin corresponds to th in Greek, as Latin feru, a wild beast, Greek Onp. Latin fle, weep, Greek Ope, as seen in Opnvos. Indeed this interchange prevailed among the dialects of the Greek language itself as in ουφαρ and ουθαρ ; φλαν and θλαν; φλίβω and θλιβω. This however seems to depend on the proximity of the letters l and r. (See L.)

3. F in Latin corresponds to b in German and English, as frang-ere, brech-en, to break; frater, bruder, brother; fago, buche, beech, &c. 4. F in English and German to p in Latin, as pelli, fell, fell (comp. fellmonger); ped, fuss, foot; pug-na-re, fechten, to fight, &c.

FABLE, Fabula in Latin, in its general sense means a fictitious narrative, but it also means more particularly a species of didactic composition, consisting of a short fictitious tale inculcating a moral truth or precept. As such it is divided into two sorts, the parable and the apologue. The former narrates some incident, which, although it may not have happened exactly as the narrator supposes, yet could have happened at any time, there being nothing impossible or improbable in it. Of this description are many of the parables contained in the Scriptures, and especially in the New Testament, it being a favourite mode with our Saviour of illustrating his precepts by similitudes. When, for instance, he spoke of the master who, before setting out on a long journey, intrusted certain talents or sums of money to each of his three servants, he did not mean that such a fact had occurred at any particular time, though it might have occurred, but he chose this figure as presenting the ways of God with regard to the mental or spiritual talents he has gifted men with, and which he expects them to cultivate and render useful in proportion to their capacities. The second species of moral fable, called apologue, relates facts which are evidently untrue, and cannot have happened; such as animals, or even inanimate things, speaking, but which serve as comparisons for the actions of men. Menenius Agrippa, addressed to the plebs of Rome, who had revolted Such was the well-known apologue of against the patricians, in which he told them of the various limbs of the human body having once revolted against the belly. (Livy, ii. 32.) Most of the fables which are called Esopian are apologues, although some are of the parable kind; for example, that of Esop and the villain who threw a stone at him. (Phædrus, iii. 5.)

The apologue is one of the oldest forms of composition, being well calculated to strike the minds of men in a rude state. Homer's War of the Mice and the Frogs is a composition of the nature of the apologue; only being extended to a considerable length, and including a succession of incidents, it is classed among the heroico-comic poems, whilst the apologue, or fable properly so called, points out only one particular incident from which it draws a moral. In the same manner, in modern times, the Animali Parlanti,' or 'Court and Parliament of

ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. IV.

may be said to consist of a series of apologues, each pointing to conduct of men. some particular error, or abuse, in the state of society, and in the logical fables of the gods and heroes among the ancients were originally It is probable that the older and simpler mythoattributes of the Creator, the phenomena of nature, and the progress intended by the early patriarchs or priests to illustrate by allegory the and believed the fiction in its literal sense. of social life; but that in course of time people lost sight of the moral,

The oldest collection of fables in any European language is in exists as to the real author or authors of them. [SOPUS, IN BIOG. Greek prose the fables are attributed to Esop, but much doubt which were used as materials for prose versions of the Esopian fables Div.] Babrius wrote a metrical version of Esopian fables, some of by the medieval writers; a few were always common, and a large Paris in 1842. [BABRIUS, IN BIG. Div.] The fables called the addition to them was recovered by Minoides Minas, and published in fables of Bidpai or Pilpay [PILPAY, IN BIOG. DIV.] are derived from a fables in Arabic; but several of the fables attributed to the latter collection in the Sanscrit language, and Lokman is said to have written been supposed that Lokman and Æsop were one and the same perappear to be the same as some of those attributed to Æsop, and it has sonage. [LOKMAN, IN BIOG. DIV.]

celebrated: he professes to have taken his subjects from Esop. The
Among the Latins, Phædrus, who lived under Tiberius, is the most
MS. of Phædrus was not discovered before the end of the sixteenth
century. Avianus, or Avienus, who (supposing the two names to
mean the same individual) lived under the elder Theodosius, wrote
a collection of fables in Latin verse.
with a Dissertation on the Identity of Avianus and Avienus.')
(Avienus,' Leyden, 1731,
century, made a collection of Esopian fables, which he turned into
Faerno of Cremona, who lived about the middle of the sixteenth
Latin verse, and which were published at Rome after his death in
1564. He was accused of plagiarism, as having found a MS. of
Phædrus in some library, and borrowed his subjects from it. The
and their characteristics discussed, by Jacob Grimm, in a preface to
fables and fable narratives of the middle ages have been well described,
his edition of Reinhart Fuchs,' published in 1840.

languages, La Fontaine may be fairly placed at the head. Among the
Among the original writers of fables or apologues, in the modern
English, Gay and Moore have written fables. The Germans have had
Lessing, Gellert, and others; and the Spaniards Yriarte and Samaniego.
Among the Italians, Firenzuola, Crudeli, Baldi, Capaccio, in the 16th
Greek and Latin fabulists. In the 18th century Pignotti, a native of
and 17th centuries, wrote chiefly translations or paraphrases from the
Tuscany, wrote original fables in verse, which were published at Pisa
in 1782, and have been often reprinted since. Bertola also wrote fables
(Pavia, 1788), with an essay on fables. Luigi Fiacchi published, under
the name of 'Clasio,' a collection of fables (Florence, 1807).

into the English language. It expresses the face or front view of an
edifice, as the façade of the Louvre, or the façade of St. Peter's at
FAÇADE, in architecture, a French term of modern introduction
Rome. Façade was applied originally to denote the principal front of
a building. The Italians apply the term Facciata for the most part to
such fronts as have a principal entrance.

to express the subordinate bands of an architrave or of a frieze. It is FACIA, a term used in architecture, or in ornamental construction, worthy of notice that in the best examples of Grecian or of Roman

B

« PreviousContinue »