FEW, adj. Massinger. Sax. Feu; Goth. fauai, fa; FEW NESS, n. s. Icl. fa; Swed. fæ ; Dan. fua, face; Fr. peu. Small in number; not many; used elliptically for not many words.' And he seyde to hem, ther is myche rype corn: and fewe werkemen, therfore preie ye the Lord of the riipe corn that he sende werkemen into his rype corn. Wiclif. Luk. x. We are left but few of many. To answer both allegations at once, the very substance of that they contain is in few but this. Jer. Hooker. So having said, he thus to Eve in few : So much the thirst of honour fires the blood; Id. These, by reason of their fewness, I could not distinguish from the numbers with whom they are embodied. Id. The impartial lovers and searchers of truth are a great deal fewer than one could wish or imagine. Locke. Dryden. Pope. Thus Jupiter in few unfolds the charge. The firm resolve I here in few disclose. The fewer still you name, you wound the more; Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score. Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few. Id. Swift. An experiment very frequent among modern authors, is to write upon nothing: when the subject is utterly exhausted, to let the pen still move on; by some called the ghost of wit, delighting to talk after the death of its body. And to say the truth, there seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands, than that of discerning when to have done. Id. The imagination of a poet is a thing so nice and delicate, that it is no easy matter to find out images capable of giving pleasure to one of the few, who, in any age, have come up to that character. Berkley to Pope. Man's rich with little, were his judgment true; Nature is frugal, and her wants are few: Those few wants answered, bring sincere delights; But fools create themselves new appetites. Young. Ralph did it justice, remarking a few imperfections, and applauding such parts as were excellent. Franklin. If a spark of error have thus far prevailed, falling even where the wood was green, and farthest off from any inclination unto furious attempts, must not the peril thereof be greater in men, whose minds are as dry fewel, apt beforehand unto tumults, seditions and broils? Hooker. Dedication. Never, alas! the dreadful name, Cowley. That fewels the infernal flame. A known quantity of fewel, all kindled at once, will cause water to boil, which being lighted gradually will never be able to do it. Bentley's Sermons. FEY, v. a. Dut. veghen; Goth. fægen. To cleanse a ditch, or well, of mud. Such muddy deep ditches and pits in the field, That all a dry Summer no water will yield, By feying and casting that mud upon heaps, Commodities many the husbandman reaps. Tusser. FEYJOO Y MONTENEGRO (Bened. Jerome), a Spanish Benedictine and writer of the last century. He has been sometimes styled the Spanish Addison. His principal works are Teatro Critico Universal, 14 vols. 4to., Madrid 1733, and his Cartas eruditas y curiosas; both works of great merit, and liberality of sentiment. Divinity, law, medicine, and philosophy, occupy his attention; and the superstitions of his church are animadverted on with considerable freedom. He died in 1765. An edition of his works was published in 1778, 15 vols. 4to.; and a selection from his Essays and Discourses appeared, in an English translation, 1780, 4 vols., 8vo. FEZ, an extensive kingdom of West Barbary, Africa, now united with the empire of MOROCCO, which see; of which it forms the most valuable part. It is bordered by the chain of the Greater, and crossed by the Lesser Atlas, extending from the former to the sea, which it touches at Tetuan. The climate on the north of Mount Atlas is greatly modified by that range on the one hand, and the Mediterranean on the other. It differs, therefore, but little from that of southern Europe, either in its temperature or salubrity. The heat in some places, however, is occasionally very great. Ali Bey says that, in the beginning of June, it exceeded 90° of Fahrenheit, in his tent, a little north-east of Fez. The valleys of this region are luxuriantly fruitful: it is divided into nine provinces, Shavoya, Temsena, Fez Proper, Beni-hassen, Garb, Shaus, Rif, Tedla, and Garet. The principal rivers are the Mulluvia, the Lucos (Lixus of the ancients), the Suboe, and the river of Sallee. The principal towns are Fez, Mequinez, Melilla, Ceuta, Tangier, Larache, Mamora, and Sallee. The statistics, government, and commerce of this region, are the same in almost every respect as in MOROCCO, and will be found under that article. FEZ PROPER, a fertile province of the above country, situated between the range of Atlas and the province of Beni-hassen. It consists of one entire plain, surrounded by ranges of hills, also capable of the highest cultivation. To the east it has extensive dependencies. FEZ, a city of Morocco, the capital of the kingdom of that name, situated near the bottom of a funnel-shaped valley, the surrounding hills of which are covered with woods and orchards. They surround it, indeed, on all sides except the north and north-east. It consists of the Old and New town, the latter of which is almost entirely built on the heights which encompass the other. It is chiefly inhabited by Jews. Chenier, though he thinks the description of Leo exaggerated, admits that Fez is one of the most agreeable cities in the empire. The finest edifice is the mosque of Carubin, built during the most flourishing period of Fez, and described by Leo as a mile and a half in circumference. Europeans, however, are not permitted to see it. The city contains 200 caravanseras, or inns, called fondaques, which are tolerably convenient. They are two or three stories high, with galleries towards the court, which is always in the centre and admits light into the apartments. The traveller, however, is not supplied with provisions, or even bedding. His whole accommodation is a room and a mat. The streets generally are dark and dirty, and so narrow in some parts that two persons can scarcely ride abreast. Several of the buildings that face the streets are dilapidated, and some of them propped up. The shops are little better than mere stalls, where the sedentary occupant sits surrounded by baskets, to which he points his customers as they enter. The markets, however, are immensely crowded, as there is no other place in that part of the country that deserves the name of a town; and the Arabs of the surrounding re.ions resort thither to purchase all the foreign and manufactured articles their domestic habits require, or their means afford. Fez and Morocco are also great marts for the Soudan trade; the former has about 200 caravanseras. Old Fez was founded towards the close of the eighth century, by Edris, a Barbary farmer; and it soon became the capital of all the western Morocco states. In the twelfth century Leo Africanus describes it as containing 700 temples and mosques, of which fifty were magnificent, and adorned with marble pillars. Such was the veneration in which it was held, that, when the road to Mecca was occasionally shut up, pilgrimages were made to Fez. It was no less famous as a school of learning. Its numerous schools for philosophy, physic, and astronomy, were resorted to from all the Mahommedan kingdoms of Spain and Africa, and even attended by Christians. The population was also occasionally replenished from the opposite shores of Europe, during the whole period of the Moorish war with Spain. The remains of its institutions still exist, but most that was valuable has long since vanished. The studies are confined to the Koran and ts commentators, to a slight tincture of grammar and logic, and to clumsy astronomical observations, made solely with a view to regulate the time of their religious exercises. They have Euclid in folio volumes, neither copied nor read. The teacher sits crosslegged on the ground, and repeats in a drawling tone, between singing and crying, words which are echoed by the scholars seated round him. Their religious prejudices exclude them from the study of anatomy and medicine. Ali Bey describes Fez as a singular mixture of splendor and ruin. The magnificence usual in Mahommedan countries is displayed solely in the interior, where spacious courts are found, and the apartments are decorated with paintings, arabesques, and often with gold and silver, while the walls of the houses, next the street, are built of mud, and in many places cracked and falling. He states the population at 100,000, and it was double this amount till reduced by a late plague. Mr. Jackson, from the public documents to which he had access, makes it 380,000. It is 230 miles north-east of Morocco. FEZZAN, a considerable country in the northeast part of Central Africa, to the south of Barbary, forms a sort of island in the midst of that immense desert of sand which reaches as far as the Niger. It is tributary to the dey of Tripoli, from which its nearest part is about 250 miles south-east. Its northern extremity, at the well of Bonjem, is in lat. 30° 35', and its southern limit at Tegerry in lat. 24° 4′ N. Its length is therefore about 450 miles. On the north-east it is bounded by the White Mountains of Harutz. This country was known to the ancients under the title of the Phazania Regio, and the country of the Garamantes; Garama, its ancient capital, has been recognised by major Rennell in the modern Germa. The name of Fasan, or Fezzan, seems to have been imposed by the Saracens, when they overran this with all the rest of northern Africa, and established the Mahommedan faith here. Though, compared with the surrounding districts, Fezzan is tolerably fertile, the want of water precludes almost every kind of steady cultivation: there are only three springs in the whole of this vast tract. Water is sometimes found in beds of clay, in some places at ten or twelve feet below the surface. Trees of the mimosa species, called talh, are occasionally seen, and near the towns a scanty stock of palms appears, with a few esculent vegetables. Small patches of grain are sometimes raised with great labor and care; but the trouble of keeping the soil moist causes the largest of these patches not to exceed an acre. The water is drawn by asses from the wells, by very complicated machinery, and small channels are cut from the reservoirs to the gardens. Nearly all the water of Fezzan is brackish. Wheat and barley are sown in October and November, and reaped in March and April, and until the last month the crops require watering twice a week. The principal vegetable products are-Indian corn, wheat, barley, beans. and peas, with some small seeds. A species of clover is sown in January and February, and will bear cutting repeatedly, as food for the horses and camels, till November. In such a country few domestic animals of course can be kept. The camel, best adapted to its wants, is therefore the most numerous. Horses, asses, cows, sheep, and goats are scarce, and only a very few dogs of the greyhound species are seen. The wild animals include the tiger-cat, the hyæna, fox, jackal, buffalo, antelope, gerboa, rabbits, and hares. Among the birds are the ostrich, eagle, vulture, hawk, wild turkey, and raven, with several smaller birds, besides domestic fowls, partridges, pigeons, ducks, and geese. The chief mineral productions are similar to those of many other regions in this part of Africa, and may be taken as a specimen of the rest that are less known. Soda, rock-salt, alum, gypsum, saltpetre, and sulphur, are all said to exist. The first three are in sufficient quantities to form articles of commerce. There is said to be one plain of solid salt thirty miles in length. Mourzouk, the capital, is situated in the southern part, and there are three or four more considerable towns, as Sockna, Zuela, and Gatrone, all of which, except Zuela, lie in the common route. Mourzouk is a walled town, with about 2500 inhabitants. The walls consist of mud, and are strengthened by round towers with loop holes for the musketry. See MoURZouk. Most of the people here are capable of performing the business of carpenter and mason as far as domestic purposes require, and many work very well in leather. Others make substantial but clumsy articles in iron, and some display tolerable skill in working gold and silver. Some coarse hayks are also woven in the country. A considerable commerce in slaves, and other articles common to these countries, is carried on between Fezzan and the interior of the continent, as well as with Egypt, Bornou, &c. The government of Fezzan is an absolute monarchy. All the boys are said to be taught to read the Koran, but of every other book they are perfectly ignorant. Dates constitute almost the only article of general subsistence. The Fezzanners are represented as possessing little courage, enterprise, or honesty, and are as completely submissive as their oppressors could wish. Their complexion is quite black, and the females the very reverse of handsome. Neither sex is noted for figure, strength, or activity. A peculiar cast of countenance distinguishes them from all other blacks, their cheek-bones being higher and more prominent; their faces fatter, and their noses less depressed. They have small eyes, wide mouths, but good teeth. Their hair is mostly woolly. The females arrive early at puberty, and have often the appearance of old women at sixteen. They are cheerful people, fond of singing and dancing, and kind and obliging to each other. But their affections are cold and interested; they manifest a general indifference to the common incidents of life; and are particularly devoid of that sudden anger, or determined revenge, which marks the Arab. A tenth part at least of the population of Mourzouk are slaves. Many of them, however, were brought from their native countries so young, and are so mildly treated, that they are scarcely sensible of slavery. Very little difference can be perceived between the household slaves and the freemen. They are often entrusted with their master's affairs, and, when any of the family die, one of the slaves is generally liberated. The population scattered over this wild waste is estimated by Mr. Horneman to amount only to 70,000 or 75,000 souls, of which Mourzouk, as we have seen, contains, according to Lyon, about 2,500. The government was hereditary in a black family of shreefs for more than five centuries, but tributary to the bashaw of Tripoli. This tribute was collected by Mukni, the present sultan of Fezzan, who contrived to get the government of the country into his own hands, by promising the bashaw to triple the amount of the annual tribute. For this purpose, in the year 1811, he came upon Mourzouk by surprise, caused the sultan, his brother, and the principal Mameluke, to be strangled, and by his oppressions of the people, but chiefly by the wars which he waged, and still continues to wage with his defenceless neighbours, for the sake of procuring slaves, he has hitherto managed to fulfil his promise, and retain his government. While, however, Messrs. Lyon and Ritchie were at Mourzouk, reports were circulated that another sultan was on his way from Tripoli to supersede him. These reports, corroborated by one or two, private letters,' says captain Lyon, very much alarmed the sultan, and caused him to fall sick and take to his bed. He began, for the first time in his life, to pray at the regular hour ordered by the law; he ceased to swear, talked much of Paradise, and the superiority of the other world to this. Mr. Ritchie was at this time very weak, and began again to be indisposed, but he constantly visited Mukni, and at last succeeded in restoring him to health; thus returning by kindness the ill treatment we had received from him. We both went frequently to the castle, and learnt by degrees that some expressions of Mukni's had come to the ears of the bashaw, whose emissaries he expected would be sent to strangle him, and take all his wealth. Never was a haughty tyrant so completely humbled by his fears as this man; he sat constantly in a dark room, would receive only one or two visitors, aud was nursed by negresses day and night; always speaking in a low voice, and, in his terror, betraying all his secrets.'-p. 164. He determined, however, to try what bribes and promises would do; and with this view despatched his principal man of business to Tripoli with presents of civet, and other articles, ten fine slave girls for the bashaw, and handsome negresses for the bey, his son, for his brothers, and for the principal people about the court; making at the same time secret preparations for flight, such as getting all his horses shod by night, and all his women employed in grinding corn. For some time, however, his agent succeeded in diverting the storm.' The females are here allowed more liberty than those of Tripoli, and are more kindly treated. The effect of the plurality of wives is but too plainly seen, and their women, in consequence, are not famed for chastity. Though so much better used than those of Barbary, their life is still a state of slavery. A man never ventures to speak of his women; is reproached if he spends much time in their company; never eats with them, but is waited upon at his meals, and fanned by them while he sleeps; yet these poor beings, never having enjoyed the sweets of liberty or affection, are, in spite of their humiliation, comparatively happy. The authority of parents over children is very great, some fathers of the better class not allowing their sons to eat, or sit down in their presence, till they become men; the poorer orders, however, are less strict." Specimens of rock collected by captain Lyon, in various parts of his journey, have enabled professor Buckland of Oxford, to determine the geological structure of Tripoli and Fezzan; all of which may be referred to the three formations, 1. Basalt; 2. Tertiary limestone, of about the same age with the calcaire grossier of Paris; 3. New red sandstone. The Soudah, or Black Mountains, are of basaltic formation; their direction is east and west, and they extend probably across the continent, Horneman having crossed them nearly 200 miles to the south-eastward of Lyon, where they take the name of the Black Harutsch. Some basalt also appears in the Gharian Mountains; but this ridge, which runs probably to the borders of Egypt, is composed apparently of trap and calcareous rocks, the tertiary limestone above-mentioned. The rocks contain marine shells, particularly two species of cardium, in a state of delicate preservation. Indeed most of the limestone formation, in every part of Northern Africa, appears to be loaded with fragments of organic remains, the most distinct of which, brought away by captain Lyon, may be referred to the genera ostrea and pecton. We are informed by Horneman, that the ruins of the temple of Siwah are limestone, containing petrifactions of shells and small marine animals; and from this place, westerly, the face of the rocky chain, rising abruptly from the sandy desert, was so crowded and filled with marine animals, and shells, and white detached mounds, as it were, wholly composed of shells, that when taken in connexion with the sea-sand, which covers the desert, this vast tract of country, he concludes, must have been flooded at a period later than the great deluge. Farther south, and close to the Black Harutsch, the calcareous hills, rising steep from the level desert, are so friable, that petrified conchs, snail-shells, fish, and other marine substances, may be taken out by the hand. I found heads of fish', says Horneman, 'that would be a full burthen for one man to carry. The third and last formation appears under its usual form of loose red sand, accompanied by rock salt and gypsum, associated with beds of a calcareous breccia, cemented by magnesian limestone, and of compact dolomite. The drift-sand is composed of extremely minute grains of red semi-transparent quartz. Mr. Buckland observes, that the frequent occurrence of salt-springs and of rock salt and gypsum goes far to identify this sand of the deserts with the new red sandstone in the south of England. In this also are ferruginous concretions, forming atites or geodes; the broken fragments of which are compact, sonorous, and of a dark liver color, having a shining polished surface; they are abundantly found among the sand. A narrow bed entirely composed of tubular concretions of iron, of similar origin near the pass of Kenair, threw out irregular ramifications through the sand like the roots of trees, and presented at first sight the resemblance of lava. Most of the plains are strewed with magnesian limestone or dolomite split into small laminated fragments, which break and rattle under the feet like pottery. Many other varieties of magnesian limestone and carbonates of lime are associated with the sand and sandstone of the hills and plains of this VOL. IX. barren and miserable country. In our general article on AFRICA, par. 254-256, will be found several interesting particulars of the people and manners, supplied by captain Lyon. FIANONA, a borough and castle of Italy, in the province of Istria, and district of Albona, four miles from Albona, and one from the coast. It has a good harbour, and a rivulet which turns. twenty-two mills. It is seated on the Gulf of Carnero, seventeen miles north of Pola, and nineteen east of Rovigno. FI'AT, n. s. [Lat. i. e. be it so.] Order; de cree. I resolve all into the sole pleasure and fiat of our Omnipotent Creator. Bentley. What wealth in souls that soar, dive, range around, Disdaining limit or from place or time, And hear, at once, in thought extensive, hear The Almighty fiat, and the trumpet's sound. Young. I saw Petreus' arms employed around A well-grown oak, to root it from the ground; This way and that he wrenched the fibrous bands, The trunk was like a sapling in his hands. Id. The fibrous and solid parts of plants pass unaltered Arbuthnot on Aliments. through the intestines. A fibre, in physick, is an animal thread, of which some are soft, flexible, and a little elastick; and these full of little cells, as the nervous and fleshy fibres: are either hollow, like small pipes, or spongious and others are more solid, flexible, and with a strong elasticity or spring, as the membraneous and cartilaginous fibres: and a third sort are hard and flexible, as the fibres of the bones. Some so very small as not to be easily perceived; and others so big as to be plainly seen; and most of them appear to be composed of still smaller fibres: these fibres first constitute the substance of the bones, cartilages, ligaments, membranes, nerves, veins, arteries, and muscles. Quincy. The muscles consist of a number of fibres, and each 0 When strong desires or soft sensations move The astonished Intellect to rage or love; Associate tribes of fibrous motions rise, Flush the red cheek, or light the laughing eyes. Id. If in a church one feels the floor and the pew tremble to certain tones of the organ; if one string vibrates of its own accord when another is sounded near it of equal length, tension, and thickness; if a person who sneezes, or speaks loud, in the neighbourhood of a harpsichord, often hears the strings of the instrument murmur in the same tone, we need not wonder, that some of the finer fibres of the human frame should be put in a tremulous motion, when they happen to be in unison with any notes proceeding from external objects. Beattie. FIBRE, in anatomy, is defined to be a perfectly simple body, being fine and slender like a thread, and serving to form other parts. Some are hard, as the bony fibres; others soft, as those which form all the other parts. The fibres are divided, according to their situation, into straight, oblique, transverse, annular, and spiral; being found arranged in all these directions in different parts of the body. See ANATOMY. FI'BULA, n. s. Lat. The outer and less bone of the leg, much smaller than the tibia: it lies on the outside of the leg; and its upper end, which is not so high as the knee, receives the lateral knob of the upper end of the tibia into a small sinus, which it has in its inner side. Its lower end is received into the small sinus of the tibia, and then it extends into a large process, which forms the outer ankle.-Quincy. FIBULA, in antiquity, was a sort of button, buckle, or clasp, used by the Greeks and Romans for keeping close or tying up some part of their cloaths. They were of various forms, and often adorned with precious stones. Men and women wore them in their hair and at their shoes. Fibula are often found in the tombs of the ancient Romans, Gauls, Franks, and the ancient Britons. Many antique fibulæ of bronze are to be found in various cabinets and collections of antiquities, and a few in the British Museum, among other articles of the toilet or of personal decoration. FIBULA, in surgery, an instrument used among the ancients for closing wounds. Celsus speaks of the fibula as to be used when the wound was so patent as not easily to admit of being sewed. FICHARD (John), was born at Frankfort-onthe-Maine in 1512, and devoting himself to the study of jurisprudence became syndic of Frankfort. He wrote, The Lives of illustrious Men, distinguished for their Talents and Erudition during the fifteenth aud sixteenth Centuries, in Latin, printed in 4to. 1536. The Lives of celebrated Lawyers, 1565, 4to. A work entitled, Onomasticon Philosophico-Medico Synonymum, 1574. De Cautelis, 1577. And Concilium Matrimoniale, 1580. He died in 1581. FICHET (Alexander), a Jesuit and able writer on rhetoric, was born about 1589. He became professor of the classics and rhetoric in the college at Lyons, where he published an edition of the Latin poets, under the title of Chorus Poetarum, 1616. He also published a collection called Museum, Rhetoricum et Poeticum; and a work with the title of Arcana Studiorum omnium methodus, et Bibliotheca Scientiarum, 8vo. He also printed Favus Patrum, or Thoughts of the Fathers, 12mo. and FICHTE (John Theophilus), a modern German metaphysician, the son of a riband manufacturer, was born at Rammenau, a village of Lusatia, on the 19th of May, 1762. Fichte displayed at school considerable genius, Young was patronised by some respectable persons; but becoming impatient of restraint he absconded, and was found sitting on the banks of the Saale, with a map, on which he was endeavouring to trace the way to America. He after this prosecuted his studies in a very desultory manner; occasionally attending the lectures of various professors of Wirtemberg and Leipsic. Theology, however, was his favorite study. Possessing no fortune to enable him to indulge in the luxury of mere speculation, he was compelled by his circumstances to accept the situation of tutor in the family of a Prussian gentleman. Here he was enabled to cultivate the acquaintance of the celebrated Kant, to whose judgment he submitted his first work, the Critical Review of all Revelations, which was published, anonymously, in 1792, and which was for a time ascribed to the pen of that philosopher. Fichte now set out on a course of travels through Germany and Switzerland, and married at Zurich a niece of Klopstock's. In 1793 he published the first part of his very popular work, Contributions towards rectifying the Opinions of the Public respecting the French Revolution. His reputation was now so well established, that he was soon after appointed to the philosophical chair at Jena, and commenced his lectures by a programme, in which he endeavoured to give an idea of the doctrine of science (wissenschaftslehre), the name by which he distinguished the principles of his philosophical system. Besides the ordinary duties of his professorship, he gave a regular course of lectures, in the form of sermons, every Sunday, in the year 1794, on the literary calling, which were numerously attended. He now endeavoured to extend the application of his principles to the several departments of philosophy; and with this view published, in 1796, his Fundamental Principles of the Law of Nature; and two years afterwards, his System of Morals. In conjunction with Niethammar, he also published a Philosophical Journal, in which several articles were inserted, containing some views of religion which were considered atheistical. Among other objectionable propositions, it was maintained that God was nothing else than the moral order of the universe; and that |