Chapter Fopling Flutter to Forgers and Forgeries of F by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Forehead. A high forehead was at one time deemed a mark of beauty in women; hence Felice, the wife of Guy of Warwick, is described as having “the same high forehead as Venus.”—History of Guy of Warwick.

Foresight, a mad, superstitious old man, who “consulted the stars, and believed in omens, portents, and predictions.” He referred “man’s goatish disposition to the charge of a star,” and says he himself was “born when the Crab was ascending, so that all his affairs in life have gone backwards.”

I know the signs, and the planets, and their houses: can judge of motions, direct and retrograde, of sextiles quadrates, trines, and oppositions, fiery trigons and aquatic trigons. Know whether life shall be long or short, happy or unhappy; whether diseases are curable or incurable; if journeys shall be prosperous, undertakings successful, or stolen goods recovered.—congreve: Love for Love, ii. (1695).

Forest (The), fifteen lyrics by Ben Jonson (1616). It contains the celebrated one—

Drink to me only with thine eyes.

Forester (Sir Philip), a libertine knight. He goes in disguise to lady Bothwell’s ball on his return from the Continent, but, being recognized, decamps.

Lady Jemima Forester, wife of sir Philip, who goes with her sister lady Bothwell to consult “the enchanted mirror,” in which they discover the clandestine marriage and infidelity of sir Philip.—Sir W. Scott: Aunt Margaret’s Mirror (time, William III.).

Forgers and Forgeries (Literary).

(1) Acta Pilata. An apocryphal report of the Crucifixion, said to have been sent by Pontius Pilate to Tiberius the Roman emperor.

Amber Witch. (The). (See under Reinhold.)

(2) Annals of Tacitus (The). Said to be a forgery of Poggio Bracciolini, apostolic to eight popes (1381–1459). It is said that Cosmo de Medici agreed to pay him 500 gold sequins (about £160) for his trouble. We are further told that Poggio’s MS. is still in the library of Florence, and that it was published in 1460. Johannes de Spire produced the last six books, but the work is still incomplete. In confirmation of this tale it is added “that no writer has quoted from the Annals before the close of the sixteenth century.” The title “Annals of Tacitus” was given to Poggio’s book by Beatus Rhenanus in 1553.

Whether these assertions are true or not, it is very generally admitted that the famous quotation paraded by Paley in his Evidences (chap. ii.) is not genuine. It speaks of Christ being crucified by Pilate, and the persecutions of the early Christians (Annals, xv. 44).

(3) Annius of Viterbo (or Giovanni Nanni) (1432–1502). His Antiquitatum Variorum Volumina, xvii. (1498) pr ofesses to be selections from Berosius, Manetho, Megasthenes , Archilocus, Myrsiles, Fabius Pictor, Sempronius, Cato, etc.; but the pretended selections are fabrications.

(4) Apocryphal Scriptures. These are very numerous, but the best known are “The Revelation of Peter,” the “Epistle of Barnabas,” the “Institutions of the Apostles,” the “Gospel according to the Hebrews,” the “Gospel of Peter” (said to be of the second century), the “Gospel” and the “Acts of Thomas,” the “Acts of the Apostles by Andrew,” the “Acts of the Apostles by John,” the “Gnostic Scriptures,” etc.

Irenæus (bk. i. 17) tells us that the Gnostics the second century, had an innumerable number of spurious books; and that in the following age the number greatly increased. In the fourth century there were at least eighty Gospels.