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A NEW AND GENERAL

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.

FABER (BASIL), an eminent Lutheran divine, was born

in 1520, at Soraw in Lusatia, on the confines of Silesia. He was bred to letters, and successively became a teacher in the schools at Nordhausen, Tennstadt, and Quedlinburg, and lastly, rector of the Augustinian college of Erfurt. He was a zealous Lutheran, and translated into German, the remarks of Luther on Genesis. He published also observations on Cicero, and other learned works, and was concerned in the Magdeburgh Centuries; but the chief foundation of bis fame was his "Thesaurus Eruditionis Scholasticæ," an undertaking which required the labour of many able men to render it complete. It was first published in 1571. After his death it was augmented and improved by Buchner, Thomasius, the great Christopher Cellarius, and the Grævius's, father and son. The edition published at the Hague in 1735, in 2 vols. folio, was long esteemed the best, but that by John Henry Leich, published at Francfort in 1749, 2 vols. fol. is thought superior.1

FABER (JOHN), sirnamed from one of his works, the Hammer of Heretics, "Malleus Hereticorum," was born. in Suabia in 1479, and distinguished himself in the universities of Germany in the sixteenth century. In 1519 he was appointed vicar-general to the bishop of Constance; in 1526, Ferdinand king of the Romans, afterwards emperor, named him as his confessor, and in 1531, advanced 1 Moreri-Dict. Hist.-Saxii Onomast.

him to the see of Vienna. He died in 1542, at the age of sixty-three. His works are comprised in three volumes folio, printed at Cologne in 1537-1541; but that for which he was most celebrated was entitled "Malleus Hæreticorum," in which he discusses many controversial points with considerable warmth, and was considered by those of his persuasion as a formidable enemy to the reformers. Luther having been one of his opponents, Erasmus said, when he was advanced to the episcopacy, "that Luther, poor as he was, found means to enrich his enemies." He was impetuous in argument, and his enemies attributed to him many indiscreet expressions, the consequence of the anger he felt in being conquered in debate. There was another divine of the same names, and who lived about the same time, and distinguished himself by many controversial writings against the reformed religion, which are no longer remembered. '

FABER (JOHN), is the name of two engravers whose works are held in some estimation among portrait-collectors. The elder was born in Holland, where he learned the art of mezzotinto-scraping, and also drew portraits from the life, on vellum, with a pen. What time he came into England does not appear, but he resided here a considerable time, in Fountain court in the Strand, London. He died at Bristol in May 1721. He drew many of the portraits which he engraved from nature, but they are not remarkable either for taste or execution. His most esteemed works were, a collection of the founders of the colleges of Oxford, half sheet prints, the heads of the philosophers from Rubens, and a portrait of Dr. Wallis the mathematician, from Kneller. The other JOHN FABER, the younger, was his son, and lived in London, at the Golden Head in Bloomsbury-square, where Strutt thinks he died in 1756. Like his father, he confined himself to the engraving of portraits in mezzotinto; but he excelled him in every requisite of the art. The most esteemed works are the portraits of the Kit-Cat club, and the Beauties of Hampton Court. Some of his portraits are bold, free, and beautiful. 2

FABER. See FAVRE and FEVRE.

FABERT (ABRAHAM), an eminent French officer, was the son of a bookseller at Mentz (author of "Notes sur la

Moreri.-Dupin.

2 Strutt's Dict.-Walpole's Anecdotes.

Coutume de Lorraine," 1657, fol.) He was educated with the duke d'Epernon, and saved the royal army at the famous retreat of Mentz; which has been compared by some authors to that of Xenophon's 10,000. Being wounded in the thigh by a musket at the siege of Turin, M. de Turenne, and cardinal de la Valette, to whom he was aid de camp, intreated him to submit to an amputation, which was the advice of all the surgeons; but he replied, "I must not die by piece-meal; death shall have me intire, or not at all." Having, however, recovered from this wound, he was afterwards made governor of Sedan; where he erected strong fortifications, and with so much economy, that his majesty never had any places better secured at so little expence. In 1654 he took Stenay, and was appointed marechal of France in 1658. His merit, integrity, and modesty, gained him the esteem both of his sovereign and the grandees. He refused the collar of the king's orders, saying it should never be worn but by the ancient nobility; and it happened, that though his family had been ennobled by Henry IV. he could not produce the qualifications necessary for that dignity, and "would not," as he said, "have his cloke decorated with a cross, and his soul disgraced by an imposture." Louis XIV. himself answered his letter of thanks in the following terms: "No person to whom I shall give this collar, will ever receive more honour from it in the world, than you have gained in my opinion, by your noble refusal, proceeding from so generous a principle." Marechal Fabert died at Sedan, May 17, 1662, aged sixty-three. His Life, by father Barre, regular canon of St. Genevieve, was published at Paris, 1752, 2 vols. 12mo. There is one older, in one thin vol. 12mo.1

FABIAN. See FABYAN.

The

FABIUS MAXIMUS (QUINTUS, surnamed RULLIANUS), was a celebrated Roman, who was five times consul, three times dictator, and triumphed twice or more, yet was always distinguished by his modesty and equanimity. first public office in which we trace him, is that of curule ædile, which he bore in the year before Christ 330. In the year 324, he was named master of the horse by the dictator L. Papirius Cursor, in the war against the Samnites; and, having given battle to the enemy in the

Moreri.-Dict. Hist.

absence of the dictator, contrary to his express order, though completely victorious, was capitally condemned; and through the strictness of Roman discipline, and the inflexible severity of the dictator, would have been executed had he not been first rescued by the army, and then strongly interceded for by the senate and people of Rome. His first consulship was three years after, in the year 321 B. C. It was not till the year 303 B. C. when he bore the office of censor, that he acquired the sirname of MAXIMUS, which afterwards was continued in his family, and was given him in consequence of his replacing the low and turbulent mob of Rome in the four urban tribes, and thereby diminishing their authority, which, when they were scattered in the various tribes, had been considerable on account of their numbers. His last consulship was in the year 294 B. C. and it is not likely that he lived many years after that period. We find him, however, three years after, attending the triumph of his son the proconsul, a very old man, and celebrated by the historians for his modest demeanour, and respectful acknowledgment of his son's public dignity.'

He

FABIUS MAXIMUS (QUINTUS, surnamed VERRUCOSUS and CUNCTATOR), a noble Roman, was the fourth in descent from the preceding, and in a very similar career of honours, obtained yet more glory than his ancestor. also was consul five times, in the years 233 Ant. Chr. 228, 215, 214, and 210; and dictator in the years 221 and 217. His life is among those written by Plutarch. In his first consulship, he obtained the honour of a triumph for a signal victory over the Ligurians. His second consulship produced no remarkable event, nor, indeed, his first dictatorship, which seems to have been only a kind of civil appointment, for the sake of holding comitia, and was frustrated by some defect in the omens. But in the consternation which followed the defeat at Thrasymene, his country had recourse to him as the person most able to retrieve affairs, and he was created dictator a second time. In this arduous situation he achieved immortal fame, by his prudence in perceiving that the method of wearing out an invader was to protract the war, and avoid a general engagement, and his steady perseverance in preserving that system. By this conduct he finally attained the ho

I Livy.-Hooke's Roman Hist.