Chapter Fledgeby to Flora of F by Brewer's Readers Handbook

aux ordonnances de la médecine … je vais dire à Monsieur Purgon comme on m’a empêche d’executer ses ordres … Vous verrez, vous verrez.”—Molière: Le Malade Imaginaire (1673).

Flibbertigibbet, the fiend that gives man the squint eye and hare-lip, sends mildews and blight, etc.

This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet … he gives the web and the pin [diseases of the eye], squints [of] the eye, and makes the hare-lip; [he] mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.—King Lear, act iii. sc. 4 (1605).

Shakespeare got this name from bishop Harsnett’s Declaration of Popish Impostures, where Flibberdigibet is one of the fiends which the Jesuits cast out of Edmund Peckham.

Flibbertigibbet or “Dickie Sludge,” the dwarf grandson of Gammer Sludge (landlady of Erasmus Holiday, the school-master in the vale of Whitehorse). In the entertainment given by the earl of Leicester to queen Elizabeth, Dickon Sludge acts the part of an imp.—Sir W. Scott: Kenilworth (time, Elizabeth).

Flim-Flams, or The Life and Errors of my Uncle, and the Amours of my Aunt, by Isaac Disraeli (1805).

Flint (Lord), chief minister of state to one of the sultans of India. He had the enviable faculty of a very short memory when he did not choose to recollect. “My people know, no doubt, but I cannot recollect,” was his stock phrase.—Mrs. Inchbald: Such Things Are (1786).

Flint, jailer in The Deserter, a musical drama by Dibdin (1770).

Flint (Sir Clement), a very kindhearted, generous old bachelor, who “trusts no one,” and though he professes his undoubted belief to be “that self is the predominant principle of the human mind,” is never so happy as when doing an unselfish and generous act. He settles £ 2000 a year on the young lord Gayville, his nephew, that he may marry Miss Alton, the lady of his choice; and says, “To reward the deserving, and make those we love happy, is self-interest in the extreme.”—Burgoyne: The Heiress (1781).

Flint Jack, Edward Simpson, who used to tramp the kingdom, vending spurious flint arrow-heads, celts, and other imitation antiquities. In 1867 he was imprisoned for theft.

Flippanta, an intriguing lady s-maid, daughter of Mrs. Cloggit. She is in the service of Clarissa, and aids her in all her follies.—Vanbrugh: The Confederacy (1695). (See Lissardo.)

I saw Miss Pope for the second time in the year 1790, in the character of “Flippanta.”—James Smith.

Flite (Miss), a poor crazed, good-hearted woman, who has lost her wits through the “law’s delay.” She is always haunting the Courts of Chancery with “her documents,” hoping against hope that she will receive a judgment.—Dickens: Bleak House, iv. (1852).

Flockhart (Widow), landlady of the lodgings in the Canongate where Waverley and M’Ivor dine with the baron of Bradwardine.—Sir W. Scott: Waverley (time, George II.).

Flodden Field. This battle was fought September 9, 1513, and it was there that the earl of Surrey defeated the Scots. The ballad so called was written in 1664, author unknown.

Flogged by Deputy. The marquis de Leganez forbade the tutor of his son to use rigour or corporal punishment of any kind, so the tutor hit upon this device to intimidate the boy: he flogged a lad named Raphael, brought up with young Leganez as a playmate, whenever that young nobleman deserved punishment. This produced an excellent effect; but Raphael did not see its justice, and ran away.—Lesage: Gil Blas, v. i. (1724).

When Henri IV. abjured the protestant faith, and was received into the Catholic Church, two ambassadors were sent to Rome as his representatives. They knelt in the portico of St. Peter’s, sang the Miserere ,