Chapter Fiddler to Fights and Runs Away of F by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Fiddler to Fights and Runs Away

Fiddler (Oliver’s). Sir Roger l’Estrange was so called, because at one time he was playing a fiddle or viole in the house of John Hingston, where Cromwell was one of the guests (1616–1704).

Fiddler Joss, Mr. Joseph Poole, a reformed drunkard, who subsequently turned preacher in London, but retained his former sobriquet.

Fiddler’s Green, the Elysium of sailors; a land flowing with rum and limejuice; a land of perpetual music, mirth, dancing, drinking, and tobacco; a sort of Dixie’s Land or land of the leal.

Fidele, the name assumed by Imogen, when, attired in boy’s clothes, she started for Milford Haven to meet her husband Posthumus.—Shakespeare: Cymbeline (1605).

(Colins has a beautiful elegy on “Fidele.”)

Fidelia, “the foundling.” She is in reality Harriet, the daughter of sir Charles Raymond, but her mother dying in child-birth, she was committed to the charge of a governante. The governante sold the child, at the age of 12, to one Villiard, and then wrote to sir Charles to say that she was dead. One night, Charles Belmont, passing by, heard cries of distress, and going to the rescue took the girl home as a companion to his sister. He fell in love with her; the governante, on her death-bed, told the story of her infamy; and Charles married the foundling.—E. Moore: The Foundling (1748).

Fidelio. Leonora, wife of Fernando Florestan, assumed this name, and dressed in male attire (when her husband was a State prisoner) that she might enter the service of Rocco the jailer, and hold intercourse with her husband.—Beethoven: Fidelio (1791).

Fides, mother of John of Leyden. Believing that the prophet-ruler of Westphalia had caused her son’s death, she went to Munster to curse him. Seeing the ruler pass, she recognized in him her own son; but the son pretended not to know his mother, and Fidês, to save him annoyance, professed to have made a mistake. She was put into a dungeon, where John visited her; and when he set fire to his palace, Fidês rushed into the flames, and both perished together.—Meyerbeer: Le Prophète (1849).

Fidessa, the companion of Sansfov; but when the Red Cross Knight slew that “faithless Saracen,” Fidessa told him she was the only daughter of an emperor of Italy; that she was betrothed to a rich and wise king; and that her betrothed being slain, she had set forth to find the body, in order that she might decently inter it. She said that in her wanderings Sansfoy had met her and compelled her to be his companion; but she thanked the knight for having come to her rescue. The Red Cross Knight, wholly deluded by this plausible tale, assured Fidessa of his sympathy and protection; but she turned out to be Duessa, the daughter of Falsehood and Shame. The sequel must be sought under the word Duessa.—Spenser: Faërie Queene, i. 2 (1590).

Fido, Faith personified, the foster-son of Acoë (“hearing,” Rom. x. 17); his foster-sister is Meditation. Fully described in canto ix. of The Purple Island (1633), by Phineas Fletcher. (Latin, Fidês, “faith.”)

Field of Blood, Aceldama, the plot of land purchased with the thirty pieces of silver which Judas had received of the high priest, and which he threw down in the temple when he saw that Jesus was condemned to death.—Matt. xxvii. 5.

Field of Blood, the battle-field of Cannæ, where Hannibal, B.C. 216, defeated the Romans with very great slaughter.

Field of Mourning, a battle-field near the city of Aragon. The battle was fought July 17, 1134, between the Christians and the Moors.