Chapter Fourteen Hundred! to Frankenstein of F by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Fourteen Hundred! to Frankenstein

Fourteen Hundred! the cry on ’Change when a stranger enters the sacred precincts. The question is then asked, “Will you purchase my new navy five per cents., sir?” after which the stranger is hustled out without mercy.

Fox (That), Herod Antipas (B.C. 4 to A.D. 39).

Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils.—Luke xiii. 32.

Fox (The Old), marshal Soult (1769–1851).

Foxchase (Sir Harry), candidate with squire Tankard, opposed by lord Place and colonel Promise.—Fielding: Pasquin (1736).

Foxley (Squire Matthew), a magistrate who examined Darsie Latimer [i.e. sir Arthur Darsie Redgauntlet], after he had been attacked by the rioters.—Sir W. Scott: Redgauntlet (time, George III.).

Fracasse (Capitaine), the French Bombastes Furioso.—Theophile Gautier.

Fra Diavolo, the sobriquet of Michel Pozza, a Calabrian insurgent and brigand chief. In 1799 cardinal Ruffo made him a colonel in the Neapolitan army; but in 1806 he was captured by the French, and hanged at Naples. Auber has a comic opera so entitled, the libretto of which was written by Scribe, but nothing of the true character of the brigand chief appears in the opera.

Fradubio [i.e. brother Doubt]. In his youth he loved Frælissa, but riding with her one day they encountered a knight, accompanied by Duessa (false faith), and fought to decide which lady was the fairer. The stranger knight fell, and both ladies being saddled on the victor, Duessa changed her rival into a tree. One day Fradubio saw Duessa bathing, and was so shocked at her deformity that he determined to abandon her, but the witch anointed him during sleep with herbs to produce insensibility, and then planted him as a tree beside Frælissa. The Red Cross Knight plucked a bough from this tree, and seeing with horror that blood dripped from the rift, was told this tale of the metamorphosis.—Spenser: Faërie Queene, i. 2 (1590).

Frail (Lady), whose real name was lady Vane. Her adventures are related by Smollett, in his Peregrine Pickle (1751).

Frail (Mrs.), a demirep. Scandal said that she is a mixture of “pride, folly, affectation, wantonness, inconstancy, covetousness, dissimulation, malice, and ignorance, but a celebrated beauty” (act i.). She was entrapped into marriage with Tattle.—Congreve: Love for Love (1695).

Francatelli, a chef de cuisine at Windsor Castle, Crockford’s, and at the Freemasons’ Tavern. He succeeded Ude at Crockford’s. (See Cooks, p. 232.)

Frances, daughter of Vandunke burgomaster of Bruges.—Fletcher: The Beggars’ Bush (1622).

Francesca, daughter of Guido da Polenta (lord of Ravenna). She was given by her father in marriage to Lanciotto, son of Malatesta lord of Rimini, who was deformed. His brother Paolo, who was a handsome man, won the affections of Francesca; but being caught in adultery, both of them were put to death by Lanciotto. Francesca told Dantê that the tale of Lancelot and Guinever caused her fall. The tale forms the close of Dantê’s Hell, v., and is alluded to by Petrarch in his Triumph of Love, iii.

(Leigh Hunt has a poem on the subject, and Silvio Pellico has made it the subject of a tragedy.)

Francesca, a Venetian maiden, daughter of old Minotti governor of Corinth. Alp, the Venetian commander of the Turkish army in the siege of Corinth, loved her; but she refused to marry a renegade. Alp was shot in the siege, and Francesca died of a broken heart.—Byron: Siege of Corinth (1816).