undertook the colossal model of a man in wood, but did not complete the work. When the French invaded Tuscany in 1799, they treated him with such respect, that on the entrance of the Austrians, he was looked upon with jealousy, and was for a short time imprisoned. He died in 1805, and was buried in the church of Santa Croce, near the tomb of Galileo. His works on physiology, natural philosophy, and chemistry, are very numerous. The earliest of his productions are on the muscular irritability, in which he confirmed the doctrine of his friend Haller. But one of the most important of his productions is that On the Venom of the Viper, 8vo, Lucca, 1767. He afterwards published some ingenious observations on the red globules of the blood; the hydatids in sheep; and experiments on fixed air, illustrative of those of Priestley. His last work is entitled Principj ragionati sulla Generazione.

FONTANA, (Gregorio,) younger brother of the preceding, was born at Villa di Nogarola, near Roveredo, in the Tyrol, in 1735. He studied at Rome, and took orders; after which he became professor of mathematics at Sinigaglia, whence he removed to Bologna, and next to Milan, where he filled the chair of logic and metaphysics. He also was appointed director of the public library, and, on the death of Boscovich, was chosen to succeed him in the professorship of the higher mathematics, which situation he held thirty years. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of London, in 1795, and died at Milan in

1803.

FONTANELLE, (John Gaspard Dubois,) a French writer, born at Grenoble, in 1737. He wrote, Aventures Philosophiques, 1765, 12mo; Naufrage et Aventures de Pierre Viaud, 1768; a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses; and Cours de Belles Lettres, 1813, 4 vols, 8vo. He wrote also for the Mercure de France conjointly with La Harpe. He died in 1812.

FONTANES, (marquis Louis de,) an ingenious French writer, born at Niort, in 1761. In 1783 he published a trans lation of Pope's Essay on Man; which was followed by several original works. At the revolution, he printed a journal called Le Modérateur; and, on the downfal of Robespierre, he became a member of the Institute, and a professor in the Central Schools. He was also associated with La Harpe and others in the publication of the Mémoriel; but this paper

was suppressed, and all the proprietors, editors, and correspondents were ordered to be transported to Cayenne. Fontanes escaped to England, where he made the acquaintance of Chateaubriand. When Buonaparte became consul, the two friends returned to France, where they cooperated with La Harpe in the Mercure. Fontanes became successively member and president of the Corps Législatif. In 1808 he was named grand master of the university, and in 1810 a senator. On the 1st of April, 1814, he earnestly urged the recall of the Bourbons, and was appointed a member of the committee to draw up the constitutional charter. After the restoration he was raised to the peerage. He died at Paris in 1821.

FONTANINI, (Giusto,) a learned Italian, born in 1666, at San Daniello, in the duchy of Friuli. He studied at the Jesuits' college at Gorigia, and was ordained priest at Venice in 1690. He resided a considerable time in that city, and afterwards at Padua. In 1697 he was invited to Rome as librarian to cardinal Imperiali; and was much esteemed by Clement XI. who made him his chamberlain of honour, and gave him a pension and an abbacy. He was also titular archbishop of Ancyra. He died in 1736. He wrote, Dell' Eloquenza Italiana; the best edition is that of Venice, since his death, in 2 vols, 4to, with notes, and many corrections by Apostolo Zeno; A Collection of Bulls of Canonization, from Pope John XV. to Benedict XIII. 1729, fol., in Latin; A Literary History of Aquileia, 1742, 4to, in Latin; a learned posthumous publi

cation.

FONTE-MODERATA, the assumed name of a celebrated Venetian lady, whose real name was Modesta Pozzo, and who was born at Venice in 1555. She early entered the convent of Martha of Venice; but afterwards quitted it, and married. She died in childbed in 1592. She wrote a poem, entitled Il Floridoro, and another on the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. She also published a prose work, Dei Meriti delle Donne, in which she maintains that the female sex is not inferior in understanding and merit to the male. Ribera has made an eulogium of this learned lady in his Theatre of Learned Women; and Doglioni wrote her life in 1593.

FONTENAY, (Peter Claude,) a French Jesuit, born at Paris, in 1683. He was employed for some time to furnish the extracts and remarks on books relating to religion and ecclesiastical history in

the Journal de Trevoux; and he was for several years engaged in collecting materials for the History of the Popes. He was appointed rector of the Jesuits' college at Orleans, where he continued until the death of father Longueval in 1735, when he was recalled to Paris, and was entrusted with the continuation of that author's History of the Gallican Church, of which he had published 8 vols, in 4to. He undertook to continue the work, but before he had finished the eleventh volume he was incapacitated by a paralytic attack for farther literary exertion. He died in 1742.

FONTENELLE, (Bernard le Bovier de,) called by Voltaire the most universal genius of the age of Louis XIV., was born at Rouen, on the 11th of February, 1657. His father was an advocate; his mother was a sister of the great Corneille. He received his education at the Jesuits' college in Rouen, and wrote Latin verses at thirteen, which were thought worthy of being printed. He visited Paris in 1674, and made himself known by several verses inserted in the Mercure Galant. Before he had reached his twentieth year he composed a great part of the operas of Psyche and Bellerophon. In 1683 he published Dialogues of the Dead, in 2 vols, which were well received. In 1686 appeared his celebrated work, Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes. It was universally read, and was translated into many modern languages. In this fascinating performance he introduces a lady conveying the sublimer truths of philosophy in a style of conversation at once pleasing, lively, and refined. His History of Oracles, 1687, is based upon the elaborate work of Van Dale on the same subject. As the principle supported in this piece, that the heathen oracles were mere cheats and forgeries, opposed that of several fathers of the Church, who had maintained that they were the supernatural operations of evil spirits, and that their cessation was the consequence of Christ's appearance upon earth, Fontenelle was exposed to the suspicion of free-thinking. His work was attacked by father Balthus, a Jesuit, and he thought it prudent to make no reply. He published in 1688 Pastoral Poems, with a Discourse on the Eclogue. His pastorals met with considerable success; though it is acknowledged that they possess little of the true simplicity of rural life, and little genuine description of nature. His opera of Thetis and Peleus was represented with great applause in 1689; that

of Æneas and Lavinia, in 1690, was less successful. In 1691 he was made a member of the French Academy, from which he had hitherto been excluded by a party headed by Boileau and Racine. In 1699 he was made secretary of the Academy of Sciences, which post he occupied for forty-two years. He rendered it equally honourable to the academy and to himself, by the excellent history of that body, of which he published a volume annually, containing extracts of mémoires, and eulogies of deceased members, which, though too panegyrical, are written with great skill and delicacy. Of his other works, the principal are, L'Histoire du Théâtre François jusqu'à Corneille; Reflexions sur la Poëtique du Théâtre, et du Théâtre Tragique; Elemens de Géométrie de l'Infini; a tragedy in prose, and six comedies. He lived in celibacy, and became rich for a man of letters; but though economical, he was not avaricious. Nature was not less favourable to him than fortune. With a constitution originally delicate, he reached to his ninetieth year with no other infirmity than deafness. His sight afterwards failed him; but the frame held out till he had very nearly completed a century. He died on the 9th of January, 1757. All the works of Fontenelle, except those on geometry and physics, have been collected in 11 vols, 12mo.

FONTENU, (Louis Francis de,) a French writer, born at Lilledon, in Gatinois, in 1667. He was a great antiquarian, and contributed much to the Mémoires of the Academy of Inscriptions. A list of his works is preserved in Saxius' Onomasticon. He died in 1759, aged ninety-two.

FONTIUS, (Bartholomæus,) an historian and grammarian of Florence, born in 1445. He was in high esteem with Picus Mirandula, Marsilius Ficinus, Jerome Donatus, and all the literati of his age and country. He was appointed to collect books for the library of Matthew Corvinus, king of Hungary, at Buda. He wrote a commentary on Persius, Venice, 1491, and some orations, published at Frankfort, in 1621, 8vo. He died in 1513.

FOOT, (Jesse,) an able English surgeon, born in 1744. He published several surgical works, and wrote the Life of Arthur Murphy, to whom he was executor. He also wrote the Life of John Hunter. He died in 1827.

FOOTE, (Sir Edward James,) a British naval officer, born in 1767, in the county

of Kent, where his father was a clergyman. He entered the naval service early in life, and in 1794 was made post-captain, and had the command of the Niger frigate, in which he was at the victory off Cape St. Vincent, in 1797. He next had the command of the Seahorse, of 46 guns. In 1799, by order of Nelson, he took charge of the blockade of the bay of Naples; but his treaty with the insurgents, made in conjunction with cardinal Buffo, was annulled by Nelson. He was made rear-admiral in 1812, and vice-admiral in 1821. He died in 1833.

FOOTE, (Samuel,) a dramatic writer, called the English Aristophanes, born at Truro, in Cornwall, in 1722. His father was commissioner of the Prize Office, and member for Tiverton, and his mother inherited the paternal estates of her family by the unfortunate quarrel of her two brothers, Sir John Dinely Goodere, bart. and Sir Samuel Goodere, captain of the Ruby man of war, in which both unhappily fell. He was educated at Worcester college, Oxford, and then removed to the Temple; but having no inclination for the law, he went on the stage. He appeared first in Othello; but his success in performing characters drawn by other writers did not please him, and he commenced author and actor in the Haymarket, where, in 1747, he first appeared in The Diversions of the Morning. This piece, at first opposed by the Westminster justices, as representing characters in real life, was altered to Mr. Foote's Giving Tea to his Friends, and thus, for upwards of forty mornings, drew crowded and applauding audiences. In 1748 he produced another piece of the same kind, called, An Auction of Pictures, which met with equal approbation, though it reflected on the popular characters of the day, on Sir Thomas de Veil the justice, Cock the auctioneer, and Henley the orator. From 1752 to 1761 his success continued uninterrupted by the introduction of new pieces, and the versatility with which he himself represented various characters; and The Little Theatre, Haymarket, was now considered as the regular summer theatre, after the close of the other two. In 1766, he had the misfortune, while at lord Mexborough's, to break his leg by a fall from his horse, and to suffer an amputation; but the accident so interested the duke of York, who was present, that, in consequence of his influence, a patent was obtained that year for The Little Theatre. In 1776, his attempt to introduce on the stage the duchess of King

ston, a lady whose conduct was then the subject of general remark, not only proved abortive, but brought upon him a foul and malicious accusation. Though acquitted of this charge, the blow he felt from the imputation weakened his constitution, and brought on a paralytic fit. The following year, as he was proceeding to France, by the advice of his physicians, he was taken ill, and died a few hours after at Dover, on the 20th of October, 1777. In his private character Foote was respectable, and the wit and humour of his conversation were very powerful. Dr. Johnson, as Boswell relates, met him for the first time at Fitzherbert's. "Having no good opinion of the fellow," says he, "I was resolved not to be pleased, and it is very difficult to please a man against his will. I went on eating my dinner, pretty sullenly affecting not to mind him, but the dog was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork, throw myself back in my chair, and fairly laugh it out. Sir, he was irresistible." His dramas are twenty in number, mostly built on temporary topics, and full of personalities. They were written in the following order: 1. Taste, a comedy, 1752. 2. The Englishman in Paris, 1753. 3. The Knights, 1754. 4. The Englishman returned from Paris, 1756. 5. The Author, 1757. 6. The Minor, 1760. 7. The Liar, 1761; not printed till 1764. 8. The Orators, 1762. 9. The Mayor of Garratt, 1763. 10. The Patron, 1764. 11. The Commissary. 12. Prelude on opening the Theatre, 1767. 13. The Devil upon Two Sticks, 1768; printed in 1778. 14. The Lame Lover, 1770. 15. The Maid of Bath, 1771; printed 1778. 16. The Nabob, 1772; printed 1778. 17. The Bankrupt, 1772. 18. The Cozeners, 1774; printed 1778. 19. A Trip to Calais, 1776; printed 1778. 20. The Capuchin. The latter of these was altered from the former, which was prohibited. A trifling piece, called Piety in Pattens, and The Diversions of the Morning, altered from Taste, were never published. The anonymous mock tragedy of The Tailors is usually printed with Foote's works, and is very generally thought to be his. It was acted in 1767; and was printed in 1778. He borrowed liberally from Molière, but made all his own by his peculiar powers of humour and originality. His works have been collected and published in 4 vols, 8vo. His life was published, with entertaining anecdotes, by Mr. Cooke.

FOPPA, (Vincenzio,) a painter of Brescia, the reputed founder of the Milanese school. His design was correct, and he imparted an admirable character of expression to his heads. He died in 1492.

FOPPENS, (John Francis,) a learned Flemish divine, historian, and biographer, born about 1689. He was appointed professor of theology at Louvain; obtained a canonry and archdeaconry under the archiepiscopal see of Mechlin; and rendered himself respected by his erudition, and by his virtues. He wrote Bibliotheca Belgica, 2 vols, 4to, 1739; a work of considerable merit, though inaccurate in some particulars. He also published, in 1728, a new edition of Miræus's Opera Historica et Diplomatica, 2 vols, fol.; Historia Episcopatus Antwerpiensis, 4to, 1717; Historia Episcopatus Sylvæducensis, 4to, 1721; and Chronologia Sacra Episcoporum Belgii, ab anno 1561 ad annum 1761, 12mo. He died in 1761. FORBES, (Patrick,) a Scotch prelate, of a noble family, born in Aberdeenshire, in 1564. He was educated at Aberdeen and St. Andrew's, and being ordained presbyter at the age of forty-eight, he was, in 1618, raised to the see of Aberdeen, much against his will, but at the pressing solicitation of James I. He wrote a Commentary on the Revelation, London, 1613; and a treatise entitled Exercitationes de Verbo Dei, et Dissertatio de Versionibus vernaculis. He was a great benefactor to Aberdeen university, of which he was chancellor, and he revived the professorships of law, physic, and divinity. He died in 1635.

FORBEŠ, (John,) of Corse, second son to the preceding, was born in 1593, and was educated at King's college, Aberdeen, whence he went to Heidelberg, where he attended the lectures of Paræus, and afterwards spent some time at the other universities of Germany. In 1619 he returned to Aberdeen, and was appointed professor of divinity and eccle siastical history in King's college. How well he was qualified for the office appears from his Historico-theological Institutions, a work universally admired, even by those who differed from him with regard to matters of church-government. He afterwards published an improved edition at Amsterdam, in 1645, fol. Having subscribed the Perth Articles, as they were called, proposed by the synod of Perth, as an introduction to episcopacy in Scotland, (the favourite measure of James I., which Dr. Forbes ably defended,) and

having refused to subscribe to the National League and Covenant, he was ejected from his professorial chair in 1640. He wrote, Irenicum, Aberdeen, 1629, 4to. In 1642 he went to Holland, where he remained a few years. In 1646 he published, at Amsterdam, his father's Commentary on the Apocalypse, 4to, translated into Latin. Returning then to Scotland, he spent the short remainder of his life in retirement on his estate of Corse, where he died in 1648.

FORBES, (William,) bishop of Edinburgh, was born at Aberdeen, in 1585, and educated there. After studying at Leyden, and in the universities of Germany, he came to England, where he declined the Hebrew professorship at Oxford, that he might re-establish his health by returning to the air of his native country. He was highly esteemed by his countrymen, and as the state of his health would not allow him to preach often,he was appointed principal of Marischal college, Aberdeen. On the foundation of the see of Edinburgh by Charles I., Dr. Forbes was appointed to fill it; but he enjoyed his dignity only three months, and died in 1634. He was a man of extensive learning, and was very moderate in his opinions, and pacific in his temper, as his Treatise to Diminish Controversies, printed in London in 1658, and reprinted at Frankfort in 1707, fully proves.

FORBES, (Duncan,) a Scotch judge, born at Culloden, in 1685. He studied at Edinburgh, Utrecht, Leyden, and Paris, and shortly after his return to Scotland, in 1707, practised as an advocate. In 1717 he was made solicitor-general for Scotland; and in 1722 he was elected member for Invernesshire; and in 1725 was made lord-advocate. In 1737 he was appointed lord-president of the court of session. In the rebellion of 1745 he nobly opposed the Pretender; but the refusal of government to refund what he had lost by his liberal support of the royal cause, proved so disagreeable to his feelings, that it produced a fever, of which he died in 1747, aged sixty-two. He was a good Hebrew scholar, and is said to have read the Old Testament eight times in the original. He wrote, Thoughts on Religion; A Letter to a Bishop on Hutchinson's Writings; Reflections on Incredulity, 2 vols, 12mo, 1750, highly commended by bishop Warburton. To president Forbes are attributed the beautiful and well-known lines,

bellions of 1715 and 1745, was published in 1815, London, 4to.

FORBES, (Alexander, lord Forbes of Pitsligo,) said to be the prototype of the baron of Bradwardine, in Sir Walter Scott's novel of Waverley. He sided with the exiled royal family, and commanded a troop of horse in the rebellion of 1745, and after the battle of Culloden he fled to France, but returned to Scotland in 1749. He wrote, Moral and Philosophical Essays. He died in 1762.

FORBES, (Sir William,) born in Pitsligo, in 1739, founded, in conjunction with Sir James Hunter Blair, the first banking establishment in Edinburgh. He was a member of the celebrated literary club which was attended by Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and Garrick. He published an account of the life and writings of Dr. Beattie. He died in 1806.

FORBES, (James,) a writer, connected with the civil service of the East India Company, born in London, in 1749. He went out in 1765, with a writer's appointment, to Bombay; accompanied the troops sent to assist Ragonath Row, peshwa of the Mahrattas, in 1775; and was promoted in 1780 to be collector and chief resident of the town and district of Dhuboy, in the province of Guzerat, then newly occupied by the Company. On the cession of that province to the Mahrattas, in 1783, he returned to England. In 1806 he published two volumes of letters, descriptive of his tour in Holland, Belgium, and France, with a particular account of Verdun, where he had been confined. He died in 1819. He was a fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, and is the author of a valuable work, entitled, Oriental Memoirs, selected and abridged from a series of familiar letters, written during seventeen years' residence in India, &c. 4 vols, 4to, 1813. FORBIN, (Claude, chevalier de,) a distinguished French naval commander, born in 1656. He accompanied to Siam the French ambassador De Chaumont, and in 1686 was left there as admiral to the king of that country. After his return he distinguished himself in various actions in the Adriatic, the Channel, and the North Sea, and took prizes of great value. In conjunction with DuguaiTrouin, he attacked an English fleet bound for Lisbon, took and destroyed part of the convoy, and captured several merchant-ships. In 1708 he was entrusted with conveying the Pretender to Scotland, but the vigilance of admiral Byng prevented his landing, and he was happy to

bring back his charge to Dunkirk. He died in 1733. He wrote his Mémoires, 2 vols, 12mo, 1730 and 1749, a work containing much curious information.

FORBIN, (Louis Nicholas Philip Augustus, count de,) a French painter, born at La Roque, in 1779. He had an appointment in the household of Napoleon, which he quitted in 1811, and went to study the works of the great masters at Rome, and while in Italy he painted his picture of the Eruption of Vesuvius. At the Restoration he was made directorgeneral of the royal museums. earlier works, among which is the scene of the Inquisition, are superior to those of his later years. He died in 1841.

FORBISHER. See FROBISHER.

His

FORBONNOIS, or FORBONNAIS, (Francis Veron de,) a French political and financial writer, born at Mans, in 1722. Having finished his education at the college of Beauvais, in Paris, he left it in the sixteenth year of his age, to follow trade. He afterwards went to Nantes, where his uncle was established as a shipowner, to obtain a knowledge of the mercantile concerns and transactions of that city. He published, in 1753, his Théorie et Pratique du Commerce et de la Marine, a free translation from the Spanish of Dr. Geron. de Votariz, which was soon followed by his Considerations sur les Finances d'Espagne relativement à celles de France. In 1754 he published his Essai sur la Partie politique du Commerce de Terre et de Mer, l'Agriculture et des Finances. In 1755 he proposed a new coinage, but his plan was not carried into execution until 1771; he was, however, in the meanwhile appointed inspector-general of the Mint. Having obtained free admittance to the library of the family of Noailles, rich in manuscripts relative to the administration of the finances of France, he conceived the idea of composing his Recherches et Considérations sur les Finances de France depuis 1595 jusqu'à 1721, which were printed at Basle, 1758, in 2 vols, 4to, and reprinted the same year at Liege, in 6 vols, 8vo. He next had a place in the department of finance; and in 1760 he purchased the place of a counsellor of the parliament of Metz.. In 1767 and 1768 he published his Principes et Observations économiques, and Supplement au Journal d'Août 1768, ou Examen du Livre intitulé Principes sur la Liberté du Commerce des Grains. At the abolition of the parliament of Metz, in 1770, he retired to his estate, where he was employed in agri