fine or refined gold to gold mixed with alloy. licacy to madrigal. It is delicacy which enters into a lover's jealousies, and not finesse. The praise given to Louis XIV. by Despreaux are not always equally delicate; satires are not always sufficiently ingenious in the way of finesse. Fineness is generally applied to delicate things and lightness of manufacture. Although we say a fine horse, we seldom say, "the fineness of a horse." We speak of the fineness of hair, lace, or a stuff. When by this word we should express the fault or wrong use of any-ceived from her father the order never to see Achilles more, she cries, thing, we add the adverb too; as,-This thread is broken, it was too fine; this stuff is too fine for the season. Fineness or finesse, in a figurative sense, applies to conduct, speech, and works of mind. In conduct, finesse always expresses, as in the arts, something delicate or subtle; it may sometimes exist without ability, but it is very rarely unaccompanied by a little deception; politics admit it, and society reproves it. Finesse is not exactly subtlety; we draw a person into a snare with finesse ; we escape from it with subtlety. We act with finesse, and we play a subtle trick. Distrust is inspired by an unspairing use of finesse; yet we almost always deceive ourselves if we too generally suspect it. When Iphigenia, in Racine, has re Dieux plus doux, vous n'aviez demandé que ma vie! The true character of this line partakes rather of delicacy than of finesse. FIRE. SECTION I. Is fire anything more than an element which lights, warms, and burns us? Is not light always fire, though fire is not always light? And is not Boerhaave in the right? Is not the purest fire extracted from our combustibles, always gross, and partaking of the bodies consumed, and very different from elementary fire? Finesse, in works of wit, as in conversation, consists in the art of not ex-{ture, of which it is the soul? pressing a thought clearly, but leaving it so as to be easily perceived. It is an enigma to which people of sense readily find the solution. How is fire distributed throughout na A chancellor one day offering his protection to parliament, the first president turning towards the assembly, said: "Gentlemen, thank the chancellor; he he has given us more than we demanded of him;"'-a very witty reproof. Finesse, in conversation and writing, differs from delicacy; the first applies equally to piquant and agreeable things, even to blame and praise; and still more to indecencies, over which a veil is drawn, through which we cannot penetrate with out a blush. Bold things may be said with finesse. Ignis ubique latet, naturam amplectitur omnem, Why did Newton, in speaking of rays of light, always say,—“De natura radiorum lucis, utrum corpora sint nec nenon disputans;" without examining whether they were bodies or not? Did he only speak geometrically? In that case, this doubt was useless. It is evident that he doubted of the nature of elementary fire, and doubted with reason. Is elementary fire a body like others, as earth and water? If it was a body of this kind, would it not gravitate like all other matter? Would it escape from the luminous body in a right line! Would it have an uniform progression? And why does light never move out of a right line when it is unimpeded in its Delicacy expresses soft and agreeable sentiments and ingenious praise; thus finesse belongs more to epigram, and de-rapid course? May not elementary fire have proper- would be so too if I could; but there are ties of matter little known to us, and pro- so many fools and villains, that I dare perties of substance entirely so? May it not: I can only think quietly in my own not be a medium between matter and way at Mount Krapak. Let others think substances of another kind? And who as well as they are allowed to think, whecan say that there are not a million ofther at Salamanca or Bergamo. these substances? I do not say that there are, but I say it is not proved that there may not be. It was very difficult to believe, about a hundred years ago, that bodies acted upon one another, not only without touching, and without emission, but at great distances; it is however found to be true, and is no longer doubted. At present, it is difficult to believe that the rays of the sun are penetrable by each other, but who knows what may happen to prove it? However that may be, I wish, for the novelty of the thing, that this incomprehensible penetrability could be admitted. Light has something so divine, that we should endeavour to make it a step to the discovery of substances still more pure. Come to my aid, Empedocles and Democritus; come and admire the wonders of electricity; see if the sparks which traverse a thousand bodies in the twinkling of an eye, are of ordinary matter; judge if elementary fire does not contract the heart, and communicate that warmth which gives life! Judge if this element is not the source of all sensation, and if sensation is not the origin of thought; though ignorant and insolent pedants have condemned the proposition, as one which should be persecuted. SECTION II. Of what is understood by Fire used Fire, particularly in poetry, often signifies love, and is employed more elegantly in the plural than in the singular. Corneille often says un beau feu for a virtuous and noble love. A man has fire in his conversation: that does not mean that he has brilliant and enlightened ideas, but lively expressions animated by action. Fire in writing does not necessarily Simply lightness and beauty, but vivacity, multiplied figures, and spontaneous ideas. Fire is a merit in speech and writing only when it is well managed. It is said that poets are animated with a divine fire when they are sublime; genius cannot exist without fire, but fire may be possessed without genius. FIRMNESS. FIRMNESS Comes from firm, and has a different signification from solidity and hardness; a squeezed cloth, a beaten negro, have firmness without being hard or solid. It must always be remembered, that Tell me, if the Supreme Being, who modifications of the soul can only be expresides over all nature, cannot for ever pressed by physical images: we say firmpreserve these elementary atoms whichness of soul, and of mind, which does not he has so rarely endowed? "Igneus est signify that they are harder or more solid ollis vigor et cœlestis origo." than usual. The celebrated Le Cat calls this vivi- Firmness is the exercise of mental fying fluid-" An amphibious being, en-courage; it means a decided resolution; dowed by its author with superior re- while obstinacy, on the contrary, signifies finement which links it to immaterial blindness. beings, and thereby ennobles and elevates it into that medium nature which we recognise, and which is the source of all its properties." You are of the opinion of Le Cat? I Those who praise the firmness of Tacitus are not so much in the wrong as P. Bouhours pretends; it is an accidental ill-chosen term, which expresses energy and strength of thought and of style. It may be said that La Bruyere has a firm style, and that many other writers have only a hard one. FLATTERY. I FIND not one monument of flattery in remote antiquity: there is no flattery in Hesiod-none in Homer. Their stories are not addressed to a Greek, elevated to some dignity, nor to his lady; as each canto of Thomson's Seasons is dedicated to some person of rank, or as so many forgotten epistles in verse have been dedicated, in England, to gentlemen or ladies of quality, with a brief eulogy, and the arms of the patron or patroness placed at the head of the work. Nor is there any flattery in Demosthenes. This way of asking alms harmoniously began, if I mistake not, with Pindar. No hand can be stretched out more emphatically. It appears to me that, among the Romans, great flattery is to be dated from the time of Augustus. Julius Cæsar had scarcely time to be flattered. There is not, extant, any dedicatory epistle to Sylla, Marius, or Carbo, nor to their wives, or their mistresses. I can well believe that very bad verses were presented to Lucullus and Pompey; but, thank God, we have them not. It is a great spectacle to behold Cicero equal in dignity to Cæsar, speaking before him as advocate for a king of Bithynia and Lesser Armenia named Deiotarus, accused of laying ambuscades for him, and even designing to assassinate him. Cicero begins with acknowledging that he is disconcerted in his presence, He calls him the vanquisher of the world-" victorem orbis terrarum." He flatters him; but this adulation does not yet amount to baseness; some sense of shame still remains. But with Augustus there are no longer any bounds: the senate decrees his apotheosis during his lifetime. Under the succeeding emperors, this flattery becomes the ordinary tribute, and is no longer any thing more than a style. It is impossible to flatter any one, when the most extravagant adulation has become the ordinary currency. In Europe, we have had no great monuments of flattery before Louis XIV. His father, Louis XIII., had very little incense offered him; we find no mention of him, except in one or two of Malherbe's odes. There, indeed, according to custom, he is called "thou greatest of kings," -as the Spanish poets say to the King of Spain, and the English poets (laureate) to the King of England; but the better part of his praises is bestowed on Cardinal Richelieu, whose soul is great and fearless; who practises so well the healing art of government, and who knows how to cure all our evils : Dont l'ame toute grande est une ame hardie, Upon Louis XIV. flattery came in a deluge. But he was not like the man said to have been smothered by the rose leaves heaped upon him; on the contrary, he thrived the more. Flattery, when it has some plausible pretext, may not be so pernicious as it has been thought: it sometimes encourages to great acts; but its excess is vicious, like the excess of satire. La Fontaine says, and pretends to say it after Æsop: On ne peut trop louer trois sortes de persoanes; Esope le disait; j'y souseris quant à moit Your flattery to three sorts of folks apply:- Honest Æsop said no such thing; nor do we find that he flattered any king, or any concubine. It must not be thought that kings are in reality flattered by all the flatteries that are heaped upon them; for the greater part never reach them. One very common folly of orators, is that of exhausting themselves in praising some prince who will never hear of their praises. But what is most lamentable of all is, that Ovid should have praised FORCE (PHYSICAL).-FORCE-Strength. Augustus even while he was dating "de The perfection of the ridiculous might be found in the compliments which preachers address to kings, when they have the happiness of exhibiting before their majesties. "To the reverend Father Gaillard, preacher to the king.". Ah! most reverend father, dost thou preach only for the king? Art thou like the monkey at the fair, which leaps "only for the king." FORCE (PHYSICAL). WHAT IS 'force?' where does it reside? whence does it come? does it perish? or is it ever the same? 511 Why does a body in motion communicate its force to another body with which it comes in contact? These are questions which neither geometry, nor mechanics, nor metaphysics can answer. Would you arrive at the first principle of the force of bodies, and of motion, you must ascend to a still superior principle. Why is there “anything?" FORCE-STRENGTH. THESE words have been transplanted from simple to figurative speech. They are applied to all the parts of a body that are in motion, in action ;-the force of the heart, which some have made four hundred pounds, and some three ounces; the force of the viscera, the lungs, the voice; the force of the arm. It has pleased us to denominate 'force' that weight which one body exercises upon another. Here is a ball of two hundred pounds weight on this floor: it The metaphor which has transported presses the floor, you say, with a 'force' these words into morals, has made them of two hundred pounds. And this you express a cardinal virtue. Strength, in call a 'dead force.' But are not these this sense, is the courage to support adwords 'dead' and 'force' a little contra-versity, and to undertake virtuous and dictory? Might we not as well say dead } difficult actions; it is the "animi fortialive'-yes and no at once? This ball weighs.' Whence comes this 'weight?' and is this weight a 'force?' If the ball were not impeded, would it go directly to the centre of the earth? Whence has it this incomprehensible property? It is supported by my floor; and you freely give to my floor the "vis inertiæ,' -"inertia" signifying 'inactivity,' 'impotence.' Now is it not singular that impotence' should be denominated 'force?' tudo." The strength of the mind is penetration and depth-" ingenii vis." Nature gives it as she gives that of the body: moderate labour increases, and excessive labour diminishes it. The force of an argument consists in a clear exposition of clearly-exhibited proofs, and a just conclusion: with ma{thematical theorems it has nothing to do; because the evidence of a demonstration can be made neither more nor less; only it may be arrived at by a longer or a What is the living force which acts in shorter path-a simpler or more compliyour arm and your leg? What is the cated method. It is in doubtful quessource of it? How can it be supposed?tions that the force of reasoning is truly that this force exists when you are dead? applicable. Does it go and take up its abode elsewhere, as a man goes to another house when his own is in ruins? How can it have been said that there is always the same force in nature? There must, then, have been always the same number of men, or of active beings equivalent to men. The force of eloquence is not merely a train of just and vigorous reasoning, which is not incompatible with dryness; this force requires floridity, striking images, and energetic expressions. Thus it has been said, that the sermons of Bourdaloue have most force, those of Massillon more elegance. Verses may have strength, and want every other beauty. The strength of a line in our language consists principally in saying something in each hemistich. Strength in painting is the expression of the muscles, which, by feeling touches, are made to appear under the flesh that covers them. There is too much strength when the muscles are too strongly articulated. The attitudes of the combatants have great strength in the battles of Constantine, drawn by Raphael and Julio Romano; and in those of Cæsar, painted by Le Brun. Inordinate strength is harsh in painting and bombastic in poetry. Some philosophers have asserted that force is a property inherent in matter; that each invisible particle, or rather monad, is endowed with an active force; but it would be as difficult to demonstrate this assertion as it would be to prove that whiteness is a quality inherent in matter, as the Trevoux Dictionary says in the article INHERENT. on his accession, to guard their liberties. This name, which has been given generally to the rights of the people, to immunities, and to sanctuaries or asylums, has been more particularly applied to the quarters of the ambassadors of the court of Rome. It was a piece of ground around their palaces, which was larger or smaller according to the will of the ambassador. The ground was an asylum for criminals, who could not be there pursued. This franchise was restricted under Innocent XI. to the inside of their palaces. Churches and convents had the same privileges in Italy, but not in other states. There are in Paris several places of sanctuary, in which debtors cannot be seized for their debts by common justice, and where mechanics can pursue their trades without being freemen. Mechanics have this privilege in the Faubourg St. Antoine, but it is not an asylum like the Temple. The word franchise, which usually exThe strength of every animal has arrived presses the liberties of a nation, city, or at the highest when the animal has at-person, is sometimes used to signify litained its full growth. It decreases when the muscles no longer receive the same quantity of nourishment : and this quantity ceases to be the same when the animal spirits no longer communicate to the muscles their accustomed motion. It is probable that the animal spirits are of fire, inasmuch as that old men want motion and strength in proportion as they want warmth. FRANCHISE, berty of speech, of counsel, or of a law proceeding; but there is a great differ{ence between speaking with frankness and speaking with liberty. In a speech to a superior, liberty is a studied or too great boldness - frankness outstepping its just bounds. To speak with liberty, is to speak without fear; to speak with frankness, is to conduct yourself openly and nobly. To speak with too much liberty, is to become audacious; to speak with too much frankness, is to be too open-hearted. FRANCIS XAVIER. A WORD which always gives an idea of liberty in whatever sense it is taken; a word derived from the Franks, who were always free it is so ancient, that when IT would not be amiss to know somethe Cid besieged and took Toledo, in the thing true concerning the celebrated eleventh century, franchies or franchises Francis Xavero, whom we call Xavier, were given to all the French who went surnamed the Apostle of the Indies. on this expedition, and who established Many people still imagine that he estathemselves at Toledo. All walled cities blished Christianity along the whole had franchises, liberties, and privileges, southern coast of India, in a score of even in the greatest anarchy of feudal islands, and above all in Japan. But power. In all countries possessing as- { thirty years ago, even a doubt on the subsemblies or states, the sovereign swore,ject was hardly to be tolerated in Europe. |