Chapter Fathom to Feeble of F by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Feast—Death. “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die” (1 Cor. xv. 32), in allusion to the words spoken in certain Egyptian feasts, when a mummy or the semblance of a dead body was drawn in a litter round the room before the assembled guests, while a herald cried aloud, “Gaze here, and drink, and be merry; for when you die, such will you be.” (See Remember you are Mortal.)

(E. Long (Academician) exhibited a painting (12 feet by 6 feet) of this custom, in the Royal Academy exhibition, 1877.)

Featherhead (John), Esq., an opponent of sir Thomas Kittlecourt, M.P.—Sir W. Scott: Guy Mannering (time, George II.).

Featherstonehaugh (The Death of), a ballad by Robert Surtees, palmed off by him on sir W. Scott as mediæval. Sir Walter quotes it in his Marmion. (See Forgers and Forgeries.)

Fedalma, beloved by Don Silva. The heroine and hero of The Spanish Gypsy, a dramatic poem by George Eliot (Mrs. J. W. Cross) (1868).

Fee and Fairy. Fee is the more general term, including the latter. The Arabian Nights are not all fairy tales, but they are all fee tales or contes des fées. So, again, the Ossianic tales, Campbell’s Tales of the West Highlands, the mythological tales of the Basques, Irish, Scandinavians, Germans, French, etc., may all be ranged under fee tales.

Feeble (Francis), a woman’s tailor, and one of the recruits of sir John Falstaff. Although a thin, starveling yardwand of a man, he expresses great willingness to be drawn. Sir John compliments him as “courageous Feeble,” and says to him, “Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse … most forcible Feeble.”—Shakespeare: 2 Henry IV. act iii. sc. 2 (1598).