thrown upon his own resources, sought and obtained the curatorship of
the museum of the Geological Society of London. To the duties of that
post he added in 1843 those of the professorship of botany at King's
College. In November 1844 he resigned the curatorship of the Geological
Society, and became palaeontologist to the Geological Survey of Great
Britain. Two years later he published in the _Memoirs of the Geological
Survey_, i. 336, his important essay "On the Connexion between the
distribution of the existing Fauna and Flora of the British Isles, and
the Geological Changes which have affected their Area, especially during
the epoch of the Northern Drift." It is therein pointed out that, in
accordance with the theory of their origin from various specific
centres, the plants of Great Britain may be divided into five
well-marked groups: the W. and S.W. Irish, represented in the N. of
Spain, the S.E. Irish and S.W. English, related to the flora of the
Channel Isles and the neighbouring part of France; the S.E. English,
characterized by species occurring on the opposite French coast; a group
peculiar to mountain summits, Scandinavian in type; and, lastly, a
general or Germanic flora. From a variety of arguments the conclusion is
drawn that the greater part of the terrestrial animals and flowering
plants of the British Islands migrated thitherward, over continuous
land, at three distinct periods, before, during and after the glacial
epoch. On this subject Forbes's brilliant generalizations are now
regarded as only partially true (see C. Reid's _Origin of the British
Flora_, 1899). In the autumn of 1848 Forbes married the daughter of
General Sir C. Ashworth; and in the same year was published his
_Monograph of the British Naked-eyed Medusae_ (Ray Society). The year
1851 witnessed the removal of the collections of the Geological Survey
from Craig's Court to the museum in Jermyn Street, and the appointment
of Forbes as professor of natural history to the Royal School of Mines
just established in conjunction therewith. In 1852 was published the
fourth and concluding volume of Forbes and S. Hanley's _History of
British Mollusca_; also his _Monograph of the Echinodermata of the
British Tertiaries_ (Palaeontographical Soc.).
In 1853 Forbes held the presidency of the Geological Society of London,
and in the following year he obtained the fulfilment of a long-cherished
wish in his appointment to the professorship of natural history in the
university of Edinburgh, vacant by the death of R. Jameson, his former
teacher. Since his return from the East in 1842, the determination and
arrangement of fossils, frequent lectures, and incessant literary work,
including the preparation of his palaeontological memoirs, had precluded
Forbes from giving that attention to the natural history pursuits of his
earlier life which he had earnestly desired. It seemed that at length he
was to find leisure to reduce to order his stores of biological
information. He lectured at Edinburgh, in the summer session of 1854,
and in September of that year he occupied the post of president of the
geological section at the Liverpool meeting of the British Association.
But he was taken ill just after he had commenced his winter's course of
lectures in Edinburgh, and after not many days' illness he died at
Wardie, near Edinburgh, on the 18th of November 1854.
See _Literary Gazette_ (November 25, 1854); _Edinburgh New
Philosophical Journal_ (New Ser.), (1855); _Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._
(May 1855); G. Wilson and A. Geikie, _Memoir of Edward Forbes_ (1861),
in which, pp. 575-583, is given a list of Forbes's writings. See also
_Literary Papers_, edited by Lovell Reeve (1855). The following works
were issued posthumously: "On the Tertiary Fluviomarine Formation of
the Isle of Wight" (_Geol. Survey_), edited by R.A.C. Godwin-Austen
(1856); "The Natural History of the European Seas," edited and
continued by R.A.C. Godwin-Austen (1859).
FORBES, JAMES DAVID (1809-1868), Scottish physicist, was the fourth son
of Sir William Forbes, 7th baronet of Pitsligo, and was born at
Edinburgh on the 20th of April 1809. He entered the university of
Edinburgh in 1825, and soon afterwards began to contribute papers to the
_Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_ anonymously under the signature
"[Delta]." At the age of nineteen he became a fellow of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, and in 1832 he was elected to the Royal Society of
London. A year later he was appointed professor of natural philosophy in
Edinburgh University, in succession to Sir John Leslie and in
competition with Sir David Brewster, and during his tenure of that
office, which he did not give up till 1860, he not only proved himself
an active and efficient teacher, but also did much to improve the
internal conditions of the university. In 1859 he was appointed
successor to Brewster in the principalship of the United College of St
Andrews, a position which he held until his death at Clifton on the 31st
of December 1868.
As a scientific investigator he is best known for his researches on heat
and on glaciers. Between 1836 and 1844 he published in the _Trans. Roy.
Soc. Ed._ four series of "Researches on Heat," in the course of which he
described the polarization of heat by tourmaline, by transmission
through a bundle of thin mica plates inclined to the transmitted ray,
and by reflection from the multiplied surfaces of a pile of mica plates
placed at the polarizing angle, and also its circular polarization by
two internal reflections in rhombs of rock-salt. His work won him the
Rumford medal of the Royal Society in 1838, and in 1843 he received its
Royal medal for a paper on the "Transparency of the Atmosphere and the
Laws of Extinction of the Sun's Rays passing through it." In 1846 he
began experiments on the temperature of the earth at different depths
and in different soils near Edinburgh, which yielded determinations of
the thermal conductivity of trap-tufa, sandstone and pure loose sand.
Towards the end of his life he was occupied with experimental inquiries
into the laws of the conduction of heat in bars, and his last piece of
work was to show that the thermal conductivity of iron diminishes with
increase of temperature. His attention was directed to the question of
the flow of glaciers in 1840 when he met Louis Agassiz at the Glasgow
meeting of the British Association, and in subsequent years he made
several visits to Switzerland and also to Norway for the purpose of
obtaining accurate data. His observations led him to the view that a
glacier is an imperfect fluid or a viscous body which is urged down
slopes of a certain inclination by the mutual pressure of its parts, and
involved him in some controversy with Tyndall and others both as to
priority and to scientific principle. Forbes was also interested in
geology, and published memoirs on the thermal springs of the Pyrenees,
on the extinct volcanoes of the Vivarais (Ardeche), on the geology of
the Cuchullin and Eildon hills, &c. In addition to about 150 scientific
papers, he wrote _Travels through the Alps of Savoy and Other Parts of
the Pennine Chain, with Observations on the Phenomena of Glaciers_
(1843); _Norway and its Glaciers_ (1853); _Occasional Papers on the
Theory of Glaciers_ (1859); _A Tour of Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa_
(1855). He was also the author (1852) of the "Dissertation on the
Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science," published in the 8th
edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.
See _Forbes's Life and Letters_, by Principal Shairp, Professor P.G.
Tait and A. Adams-Reilly (1873); _Professor Forbes and his
Biographers_, by J. Tyndall (1873).
FORBES, SIR JOHN (1787-1861), British physician, was born at Cuttlebrae,
Banffshire, in 1787. He attended the grammar school at Aberdeen, and
afterwards entered Marischal College. After serving for nine years as a
surgeon in the navy, he graduated M.D. at Edinburgh in 1817, and then
began to practise in Penzance, whence he removed to Chichester in 1822.
He took up his residence in London in 1840, and in the following year
was appointed physician to the royal household. He was knighted in 1853,
and died on the 13th of November 1861 at Whitchurch in Berkshire. Sir
John Forbes was better known as an author and editor than as a practical
physician. His works include the following:--_Original Cases ...
illustrating the Use of the Stethoscope and Percussion in the Diagnosis
of Diseases of the Chest_ (1824); _Illustrations of Modern Mesmerism_
(1845); _A Physician's Holiday_ (1st ed., 1849); _Memorandums made in
Ireland in the Autumn of 1852_ (2 vols., 1853); _Sightseeing in Germany
and the Tyrol in the Autumn of 1855_ (1856). He was joint editor with A.
Tweedie and J. Conolly of _The Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine_ (4
vols., 1833-1835); and in 1836 he founded the _British and Foreign
Medical Review_, which, after a period of prosperity, involved its
editor in pecuniary loss, and was discontinued in 1847, partly in
consequence of the advocacy in its later numbers of doctrines obnoxious
to the profession.
FORBES, a municipal town of Ashburnham county, New South Wales,
Australia, 289 m. W. by N. from Sydney, on the Lachlan river, and with a
station on the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 4313. Its importance
as a commercial centre is due to its advantageous position between the
northern and southern markets. It has steam-sawing and flour-mills,
breweries and wool-scouring establishments; while the surrounding
country produces good quantities of cereals, lucerne, wine and fruit.
FORBES-ROBERTSON, JOHNSTON (1853- ), English actor, was the son of John
Forbes-Robertson of Aberdeen, an art critic. He was educated at
Charterhouse, and studied at the Royal Academy schools with a view to
becoming a painter. But though he kept up his interest in that art, in
1874 he turned to the theatre, making his first appearance in London as
Chastelard, in _Mary, Queen of Scots_. He studied under Samuel Phelps,
from whom he learnt the traditions of the tragic stage. He played with
the Bancrofts and with John Hare, supported Miss Mary Anderson in both
England and America, and also acted at different times with Sir Henry
Irving. His refined and artistic style, and beautiful voice and
elocution made him a marked man on the English stage, and in Pinero's
_The Profligate_ at the Garrick theatre (1889), under Hare's management,
he established his position as one of the most individual of London
actors. In 1895 he started under his own management at the Lyceum with
Mrs Patrick Campbell, producing _Romeo and Juliet_, _Hamlet_, _Macbeth_
and also some modern plays; his impersonation as Hamlet was especially
fine, and his capacity as a romantic actor was shown to great advantage
also in John Davidson's _For the Crown_ and in Maeterlinck's _Pelleas
and Melisande_. In 1900 he married the actress Gertrude Elliott, with
whom, as his leading lady, he appeared at various theatres, producing in
subsequent years _The Light that Failed_, Madeleine Lucette Riley's
_Mice and Men_, and G. Bernard Shaw's _Caesar and Cleopatra_, Jerome K.
Jerome's _Passing of the Third Floor Back_, &c. His brothers, Ian
Robertson (b. 1858) and Norman Forbes (b. 1859), had also been
well-known actors from about 1878 onwards.
FORBIN, CLAUDE DE (1656-1733), French naval commander, was born in
Provence, of a family of high standing, in 1656. High-spirited and
ungovernable in his boyhood, he ran away from his home, and through the
influence of an uncle entered the navy, serving his first campaign in
1675. For a short time he quitted the navy and entered the army, but
soon returned to his first choice. He made under D'Estrees the American
campaign, and under Duquesne that of Algiers in 1683, on all occasions
distinguishing himself by his impetuous courage. The most remarkable
episode of his life was his mission to Siam. During the administration
of the Greek adventurer Phaulcon in that country, the project was formed
of introducing the Christian religion and European civilization, and the
king sent an embassy to Louis XIV. In response a French embassy was sent
out, Forbin accompanying the chevalier de Chaumont with the rank of
major. When Chaumont returned to France, Forbin was induced to remain in
the service of the Siamese king, and accepted, though with much
reluctance, the posts of grand admiral, general of all the king's armies
and governor of Bangkok. His position, however, was soon made untenable
by the jealousy and intrigues of the minister Phaulcon; and at the end
of two years he left Siam, reaching France in 1688. He was afterwards
fully engaged in active service, first with Jean Bart in the war with
England, when they were both captured and taken to Plymouth. They
succeeded in making their escape and were soon serving their country
again. Forbin was wounded at the battle of La Hogue, and greatly
distinguished himself at the battle of Lagos. He served under D'Estrees
at the taking of Barcelona, was sent ambassador to Algiers, and in 1702
took a brilliant part in the Mediterranean in the War of the Spanish
Succession. In 1706 he took command of a squadron at Dunkirk, and
captured many valuable prizes from the Dutch and the English. In 1708 he
was entrusted with the command of the squadron which was to convey the
Pretender to Scotland; but so effectually were the coasts guarded by
Byng that the expedition failed, and returned to Dunkirk. Forbin was now
beginning to be weighed down with the infirmities of age and the toils
of service, and in 1710 he retired to a country house near Marseilles.
There he spent part of his time in writing his memoirs, published in
1730, which are full of interest and are written in a graphic and
attractive style. Forbin died on the 4th of March 1733.
FORCELLINI, EGIDIO (1688-1768), Italian philologist, was born at Fener
in the district of Treviso and belonged to a very poor family. He went
to the seminary at Padua in 1704, studied under Facciolati, and in due
course attained to the priesthood. From 1724 to 1731 he held the office
of rector of the seminary at Ceneda, and from 1731 to 1765 that of
father confessor in the seminary of Padua. The remaining years of his
life were mainly spent in his native village. He died at Padua in 1768
before the completion of the great work on which he had long co-operated
with Facciolati. This was the vast _Latin Lexicon_ (see FACCIOLATI),
which has formed the basis of all similar works that have since been
published. He was engaged with his Herculean task for nearly 35 years,
and the transcription of the manuscript by Luigi Violato occupied eight
years more.
FORCHHAMMER, JOHANN GEORG (1794-1865), Danish mineralogist and
geologist, was born at Husum, Schleswig, on the 24th of July 1794, and
died at Copenhagen on the 14th of December 1865. After studying at Kiel
and Copenhagen from 1815 to 1818, he joined Oersted and Lauritz Esmarch
in their mineralogical exploration of Bornholm, and took a considerable
share in the labours of the expedition. In 1820 he obtained his doctor's
degree by a chemical treatise _De mangano_, and immediately after set
out on a journey through England, Scotland and the Faeroe Islands. In
1823 he was appointed lecturer at Copenhagen University on chemistry and
mineralogy; in 1829 he obtained a similar post in the newly established
polytechnic school; and in 1831 he was appointed professor of mineralogy
in the university, and in 1848 became curator of the geological museum.
From 1835 to 1837 he made many contributions to the geological survey of
Denmark. On the death of H.C. Oersted in 1851, he succeeded him as
director of the polytechnic school and secretary of the Academy of
Sciences. In 1850 he began with J. Steenstrup and Worsaae various
anthropological publications which gained a high reputation. As a public
instructor Forchhammer held a high place and contributed potently to the
progress of his favourite studies in his native country. He interested
himself in such practical questions as the introduction of gas into
Copenhagen, the establishment of the fire-brigade at Rosenberg and the
boring of artesian wells.
Among his more important works are--_Loerebog i de enkelte Radicalers
Chemi_ (1842); _Danmarks geognostiske Forhold_ (1835); _Om de
Bornholmske Kulformationer_ (1836); _Dit myere Kridt i Danmark_
(1847); _Bidrag til Skildringen af Danmarks geographiske Forhold_
(1858). A list of his contributions to scientific periodicals, Danish,
English and German, will be found in the _Catalogue of Scientific
Papers_ published by the Royal Society of London. One of the most
interesting and most recent is "On the Constitution of Sea Water at
Different Depths and in Different Latitudes," in the _Proceedings of
the Roy. Soc._ xii. (1862-1863).
FORCHHAMMER, PETER WILHELM (1801-1894), German classical archaeologist,
was born at Husum in Schleswig on the 23rd of October 1801. He was
educated at the Lubeck gymnasium and the university of Kiel, with which
he was connected for nearly 65 years. In 1830-1834 and 1838-1840 he
travelled in Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt. In 1843 he was
appointed professor of philology at Kiel and director of the
archaeological museum founded by himself in co-operation with Otto Jahn.
He died on the 8th of January 1894. Forchhammer was a democrat in the
best sense of the word, and from 1871 to 1873 represented the
progressive party of Schleswig-Holstein in the German Reichstag. His
published works deal chiefly with topography and ancient mythology. His
travels had convinced him that a full and comprehensive knowledge of
classical antiquity could only be acquired by a thorough acquaintance
with Greek and Roman monuments and works of art, and a detailed
examination of the topographical and climatic conditions of the chief
localities of the ancient world. These principles are illustrated in his
_Hellenika. Griechenland. Im Neuen das Alte_ (1837), which contains his
theory of the origin and explanation of the Greek myths, which he never
abandoned, in spite of the attacks to which it was subjected. According
to him, the myths arose from definite local (especially atmospheric and
aquatic) phenomena, and represented the annually recurring processes of
nature as the acts of gods and heroes; thus, in _Achill_ (1853), the
Trojan War is the winter conflict of the elements in that district.
Other similar short treatises are: _Die Grundung Roms_ (1868);
_Daduchos_ (1875), on the language of the myths and mythical buildings;
_Die Wanderungen der Inachostochter Io_ (1880); _Prolegomena zur
Mythologie als Wissenschaft und Lexikon der Mythensprache_ (1891).
Amongst his topographical works mention may be made of: _Topographie von
Athen_ (1841); _Beschreibung der Ebene von Troja_ (1850), a commentary
on a map of the locality executed by T.A. Spratt (see _Journal of the
Royal Geographical Society_, xii., 1842); _Topographia Thebarum
Heptapylarum_ (1854); _Erklarung der Ilias_ (1884), on the basis of the
topographical and physical peculiarities of the plain of Troy. His
_Demokratenbuchlein_ (1849), in the main a discussion of the
Aristotelian theory of the state, and _Die Athener und Sokrates_ (1837),
in which, contrary to the almost universal opinion, he upheld the
procedure of the Athenians as perfectly legal and their verdict as a
perfectly just one, also deserve notice.
For a full list of his works see the obituary notice by E. Alberti in
C. Bursian's _Biographisches Jahrbuch fur Altertumskunde_, xx. (1897);
also J. Sass in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, and A. Hoeck and
L.C. Pertsch, _P.W. Forchhammer_ (1898).
FORCHHEIM, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, near the
confluence of the Wiesent and the Regnitz, 16 m. S.S.E. of Bamberg. Pop.
(1905) 8417. It has four Roman Catholic churches, including the Gothic
Collegiate church and a Protestant church. Among the other public
buildings are the progymnasium and an orphanage. The industries of the
town include spinning and weaving, bleaching and dyeing, bone and glue
works, brewing and paper-making. The spacious chateau occupies the site
of the Carolingian palace which was destroyed in 1246.
Forchheim is of very early origin, having been the residence of the
Carolingian sovereigns, including Charlemagne, in the 9th century.
Consequently many diets were held here, and here also Conrad I. and
Louis the Child were chosen German kings. The town was given by the
emperor Henry II. in 1007 to the bishopric of Bamberg, and, except for a
short period during the 11th century, it remained in the possession of
the bishops until 1802, when it was ceded to Bavaria. In August 1796 a
battle took place near Forchheim between the French and the Austrians.
The fortifications of the town were dismantled in 1838.
See Hubsch, _Chronik der Stadt Forchheim_ (Nuremberg, 1867).
FORD, EDWARD ONSLOW (1852-1901), English sculptor, was born in London.
He received some education as a painter in Antwerp and as a sculptor in
Munich under Professor Wagmuller, but was mainly self-taught. His first
contribution to the Royal Academy, in 1875, was a bust of his wife, and
in portraiture he may be said to have achieved his greatest success. His
busts are always extremely refined and show his sitters at their best.
Those (in bronze) of his fellow-artists Arthur Hacker (1894), Briton
Riviere and Sir W.Q. Orchardson (1895), Sir L. Alma Tadema (1896), Sir
Hubert von Herkomer and Sir John Millais (1897), and of A.J. Balfour are
all striking likenesses, and are equalled by that in marble of Sir
Frederick Bramwell (for the Royal Institution) and by many more. He
gained the open competition for the statue of Sir Rowland Hill, erected
in 1882 outside the Royal Exchange, and followed it in 1883 with "Henry
Irving as Hamlet," now in the Guildhall art gallery. This seated statue,
good as it is, was soon surpassed by those of Dr Dale (1898, in the city
museum, Birmingham) and Professor Huxley (1900), but the colossal
memorial statue of Queen Victoria (1901), for Manchester, was less
successful. The standing statue of W.E. Gladstone (1894, for the City
Liberal Club, London) is to be regarded as one of Ford's better portrait
works. The colossal "General Charles Gordon," camel-mounted, for
Chatham, "Lord Strathnairn," an equestrian group for Knightsbridge, and
the "Maharajah of Mysore" (1900) comprise his larger works of the kind.
A beautiful nude recumbent statue of Shelley (1892) upon a
cleverly-designed base, which is not quite impeccable from the point of
view of artistic taste, is at University College, Oxford, and a
simplified version was presented by him to be set up on the shore of
Viareggio, where the poet's body was washed up. Ford's ideal work has
great charm and daintiness; his statue "Folly" (1886) was bought by the
trustees of the Chantrey Fund, and was followed by other statues or
statuettes of a similar order: "Peace" (1890), which secured his
election as an associate of the Royal Academy, "Echo" (1895), on which
he was elected full member, "The Egyptian Singer" (1889), "Applause"
(1893), "Glory to the Dead" (1901) and "Snowdrift" (1902). Ford's
influence on the younger generation of sculptors was considerable and of
good effect. His charming disposition rendered him extremely popular,
and when he died a monument was erected to his memory (C. Lucchesi,
sculptor, J.W. Simpson, architect) in St John's Wood, near to where he
dwelt.
See SCULPTURE; also M.H. Spielmann, _British Sculpture and Sculptors
of To-day_ (London, 1901).
FORD, JOHN (1586-c. 1640), English dramatist, was baptized on the 17th
of April 1586 at Ilsington in north Devon. He came of a good family; his
father was in the commission of the peace and his mother was a sister of
Sir John Popham, successively attorney-general and lord chief justice.
The name of John Ford appears in the university register of Oxford as
matriculating at Exeter College in 1601. Like a cousin and namesake (to
whom, with other members of the society of Gray's Inn, he dedicated his
play of _The Lover's Melancholy_), the future dramatist entered the
profession of the law, being admitted of the Middle Temple in 1602; but
he seems never to have been called to the bar. Four years afterwards he
made his first appearance as an author with an elegy called _Fame's
Memorial, or the Earl of Devonshire deceased_, and dedicated to the
widow of the earl (Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, "coronized," to use
Ford's expression, by King James in 1603 for his services in Ireland)--a
lady who would have been no unfitting heroine for one of his own
tragedies of lawless passion, the famous Penelope, formerly Lady Rich.
This panegyric, which is accompanied by a series of epitaphs and is
composed in a strain of fearless extravagance, was, as the author
declares, written "unfee'd"; it shows that Ford sympathized, as
Shakespeare himself is supposed to have done, with the "awkward fate" of
the countess's brother, the earl of Essex. Who the "flint-hearted Lycia"
may be, to whom the poet seems to allude as his own disdainful mistress,
is unknown; indeed, the record of Ford's private life is little better
than a blank. To judge, however, from the dedications, prologues and
epilogues of his various plays, he seems to have enjoyed the patronage
of the earl, afterwards duke, of Newcastle, "himself a muse" after a
fashion, and Lord Craven, the supposed husband of the ex-queen of
Bohemia. Ford's tract of _Honor Triumphant, or the Peeres Challenge_
(printed 1606 and reprinted by the Shakespeare Society with the _Line of
Life_, in 1843), and the simultaneously published verses _The Monarches
Meeting, or the King of Denmarkes Welcome into England_, exhibit him as
occasionally meeting the festive demands of court and nobility; and a
kind of moral essay by him, entitled _A Line of Life_ (printed 1620),
which contains references to Raleigh, ends with a climax of fulsome
praise to the address of King James I. Yet at least one of Ford's plays
(_The Broken Heart_, iii. 4) contains an implied protest against the
absolute system of government generally accepted by the dramatists of
the early Stuart reigns. Of his relations with his brother-authors
little is known; it was natural that he should exchange complimentary
verses with James Shirley, and that he should join in the chorus of
laments over the death of Ben Jonson. It is more interesting to notice
an epigram in honour of Ford by Richard Crashaw, morbidly passionate in
one direction as Ford was in another. The lines run:
"Thou cheat'st us, Ford; mak'st one seem two by art:
What is Love's Sacrifice but the Broken Heart?"
It has been concluded that in the latter part of his life he gratified
the tendency to seclusion for which he was ridiculed in _The Time Poets_
(_Choice Drollery_, 1656) by withdrawing from business and from literary
life in London, to his native place; but nothing is known as to the date
of his death. His career as a dramatist very probably began by
collaboration with other authors. With Thomas Dekker he wrote _The Fairy
Knight_ and _The Bristowe Merchant_ (licensed in 1624, but both
unpublished), with John Webster _A late Murther of the Sonne upon the
Mother_ (licensed in 1624). A play entitled _An ill Beginning has a good
End_, brought on the stage as early as 1613 and attributed to Ford, was
(if his) his earliest acted play; whether _Sir Thomas Overbury's Life
and untimely Death_ (1615) was a play is extremely doubtful; some lines
of indignant regret by Ford on the same subject are still preserved. He
is also said to have written, at dates unknown, _The London Merchant_
(which, however, was an earlier name for Beaumont and Fletcher's _Knight
of the Burning Pestle_) and _The Royal Combat_; a tragedy by him,
_Beauty in a Trance_, was entered in the Stationers' Register in 1653,
but never printed. These three (or four) plays were among those
destroyed by Warburton's cook. _The Queen, or the Excellency of the
Sea_, a play of inverted passion, containing some fine sensuous lines,
printed in 1653 by Alexander Singhe for private performance, has been
recently edited by W. Bang (_Materialien zur Kunde d. alteren engl.
Dramas_, 13, Louvain, 1906), and is by him on internal evidence
confidently claimed as Ford's. Of the plays by Ford preserved to us the
dates span little more than a decade--the earliest, _The Lover's
Melancholy_, having been acted in 1628 and printed in 1629, the latest,
_The Lady's Trial_, acted in 1638 and printed in 1639.
When writing _The Lover's Melancholy_, it would seem that Ford had not
yet become fully aware of the bent of his own dramatic genius, although
he was already master of his powers of poetic expression. He was
attracted towards domestic tragedy by an irresistible desire to sound
the depths of abnormal conflicts between passion and circumstances, to
romantic comedy by a strong though not widely varied imaginative
faculty, and by a delusion that he was possessed of abundant comic
humour. In his next two works, undoubtedly those most characteristically
expressive of his peculiar strength, _'Tis Pity she's a Whore_ (acted c.
1626) and _The Broken Heart_ (acted c. 1629), both printed in 1633 with
the anagram of his name _Fide Honor_, he had found horrible situations
which required dramatic explanation by intensely powerful motives. Ford
by no means stood alone among English dramatists in his love of abnormal
subjects; but few were so capable of treating them sympathetically, and
yet without that reckless grossness or extravagance of expression which
renders the morally repulsive aesthetically intolerable, or converts the
horrible into the grotesque. For in Ford's genius there was real
refinement, except when the "supra-sensually sensual" impulse or the
humbler self-delusion referred to came into play. In a third tragedy,
_Love's Sacrifice_ (acted c. 1630; printed in 1633), he again worked on
similar materials; but this time he unfortunately essayed to base the
interest of his plot upon an unendurably unnatural possibility--doing
homage to virtue after a fashion which is in itself an insult. In
_Perkin Warbeck_ (printed 1634; probably acted a year later) he chose an
historical subject of great dramatic promise and psychological interest,
and sought to emulate the glory of the great series of Shakespeare's
national histories. The effort is one of the most laudable, as it was by
no means one of the least successful, in the dramatic literature of this
period. _The Fancies Chaste and Noble_ (acted before 1636, printed
1638), though it includes scenes of real force and feeling, is
dramatically a failure, of which the main idea is almost provokingly
slight and feeble; and _The Lady's Trial_ (acted 1638, printed 1639) is
only redeemed from utter wearisomeness by an unusually even pleasingness
of form. There remain two other dramatic works, of very different kinds,
in which Ford co-operated with other writers, the mask of _The Sun's
Darling_ (acted 1624, printed 1657), hardly to be placed in the first
rank of early compositions, and _The Witch of Edmonton_ (printed 1658,
but probably acted about 1621), in which we see Ford as a joint writer
with Dekker and Rowley of one of the most powerful domestic dramas of
the English or any other stage.
A few notes may be added on some of the more remarkable of the plays
enumerated. A wholly baseless anecdote, condensed into a stinging
epigram by Endymion Porter, asserted that _The Lover's Melancholy_ was
stolen by Ford from Shakespeare's papers. Undoubtedly, the madness of
the hero of this play of Ford's occasionally recalls Hamlet, while the
heroine is one of the many, and at the same time one of the most
pleasing, parallels to Viola. But neither of them is a copy, as Friar
Bonaventura in Ford's second play may be said to be a copy of Friar
Lawrence, whose kindly pliability he disagreeably exaggerates, or as
D'Avolos in _Love's Sacrifice_ is clearly modelled on Iago. The plot
of _The Lover's Melancholy_, which is ineffective because it leaves no
room for suspense in the mind of the reader, seems original; in the
dialogue, on the other hand, a justly famous passage in Act i. (the
beautiful version of the story of the nightingale's death) is
translated from Strada; while the scheme of the tedious interlude
exhibiting the various forms of madness is avowedly taken, together
with sundry comments, from Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_. Already
in this play Ford exhibits the singular force of his pathos; the
despondent misery of the aged Meleander, and the sweetness of the last
scene, in which his daughter comes back to him, alike go to the heart.
A situation--hazardous in spite of its comic substratum--between
Thaumasta and the pretended Parthenophil is conducted, as Gifford
points out, with real delicacy; but the comic scenes are merely stagy,
notwithstanding, or by reason of, the effort expended on them by the
author.
_'Tis Pity she's a Whore_ has been justly recognized as a tragedy of
extraordinary power. Mr Swinburne, in his eloquent essay on Ford, has
rightly shown what is the meaning of this tragedy, and has at the same
time indicated wherein consists its poison. He dwells with great force
upon the different treatment applied by Ford to the characters of the
two miserable lovers--brother and sister. "The sin once committed,
there is no more wavering or flinching possible to him, who has fought
so hard against the demoniac possession; while she who resigned body
and soul to the tempter, almost at a word, remains liable to the
influences of religion and remorse." This different treatment shows
the feeling of the poet--the feeling for which he seeks to evoke our
inmost sympathy--to oscillate between the belief that an awful crime
brings with it its awful punishment (and it is sickening to observe
how the argument by which the Friar persuades Annabella to forsake her
evil courses mainly appeals to the physical terrors of retribution),
and the notion that there is something fatal, something irresistible,
and therefore in a sense self-justified, in so dominant a passion. The
key-note to the conduct of Giovanni lies in his words at the close of
the first scene--
"All this I'll do, to free me from the rod
Of vengeance; _else I'll swear my fate's my god_."
Thus there is no solution of the conflict between passion on the one
side, and law, duty and religion on the other; and passion triumphs,
in the dying words of "the student struck blind and mad by passion"--
"O, I bleed fast!
Death, thou'rt a guest long look'd for; I embrace
Thee and thy wounds: O, my last minute comes!
Where'er I go, let me enjoy this grace
Freely to view my Annabella's face."
It has been observed by J.A. Symonds that "English poets have given us
the right key to the Italian temperament.... The love of Giovanni and
Annabella is rightly depicted as more imaginative than sensual." It is
difficult to allow the appositeness of this special illustration; on
the other hand, Ford has even in this case shown his art of depicting
sensual passion without grossness of expression; for the exception in
Annabella's language to Soranzo seems to have a special intention, and
is true to the pressure of the situation and the revulsion produced by
it in a naturally weak and yielding mind. The entire atmosphere, so to
speak, of the play is stifling, and is not rendered less so by the
underplot with Hippolita.
_'Tis Pity she's a Whore_ was translated into French by Maurice
Maeterlinck under the title of _Annabella_, and represented at the
Theatre de l'Oeuvre in 1894. The translator prefixes to the version an
eloquent appreciation of Ford's genius, especially in his portraits of
women, whose fate it is to live "dans les tenebres, les craintes et
les larmes."
Like this tragedy, _The Broken Heart_ was probably founded upon some
Italian or other novel of the day; but since in the latter instance
there is nothing revolting in the main idea of the subject, the play
commends itself as the most enjoyable, while, in respect of many
excellences, an unsurpassed specimen of Ford's dramatic genius. The
complicated plot is constructed with greater skill than is usual with
this dramatist, and the pathos of particular situations, and of the
entire character of Penthea--a woman doomed to hopeless misery, but
capable of seeking to obtain for her brother a happiness which his
cruelty has condemned her to forego--has an intensity and a depth
which are all Ford's own. Even the lesser characters are more pleasing
than usual, and some beautiful lyrics are interspersed in the play.
Of the other plays written by Ford alone, only _The Chronicle Historie
of Perkin Warbeck. A Strange Truth_, appears to call for special
attention. A repeated perusal of this drama suggests the judgment that
it is overpraised when ranked at no great distance from Shakespeare's
national dramas. Historical truth need not be taken into consideration
in the matter; and if, notwithstanding James Gairdner's essay appended
to his _Life and Reign of Richard III._, there are still credulous
persons left to think and assert that Perkin was not an impostor, they
will derive little satisfaction from Ford's play, which with really
surprising skill avoids the slightest indication as to the poet's own
belief on the subject. That this tragedy should have been reprinted in
1714 and acted in 1745 only shows that the public, as is often the
case, had an eye to the catastrophe rather than to the development of
the action. The dramatic capabilities of the subject are, however,
great, and it afterwards attracted Schiller, who, however, seems to
have abandoned it in favour of the similar theme of the Russian
Demetrius. Had Shakespeare treated it, he would hardly have contented
himself with investing the hero with the nobility given by Ford to
this personage of his play,--for it is hardly possible to speak of a
personage as a _character_ when the clue to his conduct is
intentionally withheld. Nor could Shakespeare have failed to bring out
with greater variety and distinctness the dramatic features in Henry
VII., whom Ford depicts with sufficient distinctness to give some
degree of individuality to the figure, but still with a tenderness of
touch which would have been much to the credit of the dramatist's
skill had he been writing in the Tudor age. The play is, however,
founded on Bacon's Life, of which the text is used by Ford with
admirable discretion, and on Thomas Gainsford's _True and Wonderful
History of Perkin Warbeck_ (1618). The minor characters of the honest
old Huntley, whom the Scottish king obliges to bestow his daughter's
hand upon Warbeck, and of her lover the faithful "Dalyell," are most
effectively drawn; even "the men of judgment," the adventurers who
surround the chief adventurer, are spirited sketches, and the Irishman
among them has actually some humour; while the style of the play is,
as befits a "Chronicle History," so clear and straightforward as to
make it easy as well as interesting to read.
_The Witch of Edmonton_ was attributed by its publisher to William
Rowley, Dekker, Ford, "&c.," but the body of the play has been
generally held to be ascribable to Ford and Dekker only. The subject
of the play was no doubt suggested by the case of the reported witch,
Elizabeth Sawyer, who was executed in 1621. Swinburne agrees with
Gifford in thinking Ford the author of the whole of the first act; and
he is most assuredly right in considering that "there is no more
admirable exposition of a play on the English stage." Supposing Dekker
to be chiefly responsible for the scenes dealing with the unfortunate
old woman whom persecution as a witch actually drives to become one,
and Ford for the domestic tragedy of the bigamist murderer, it cannot
be denied that both divisions of the subject are effectively treated,
while the more important part of the task fell to the share of Ford.
Yet it may be doubted whether any such division can be safely assumed;
and it may suffice to repeat that no domestic tragedy has ever taught
with more effective simplicity and thrilling truthfulness the homely
double lesson of the folly of selfishness and the mad rashness of
crime.
With Dekker Ford also wrote the mask of _The Sun's Darling_; or, as
seems most probable, they founded this production upon _Phaeton_, an
earlier mask, of which Dekker had been sole author. Gifford holds that
Dekker's hand is perpetually traceable in the first three acts of _The
Sun's Darling_, and through the whole of its comic part, but that the
last two acts are mainly Ford's. If so, he is the author of the rather
forced occasional tribute on the accession of King Charles I., of
which the last act largely consists. This mask, which furnished
abundant opportunities for the decorators, musicians and dancers, in
showing forth how the seasons and their delights are successively
exhausted by a "wanton darling," Raybright the grandchild of the Sun,
is said to have been very popular. It is at the same time commonplace
enough in conception; but there is much that is charming in the
descriptions, Jonson and Lyly being respectively laid under
contribution in the course of the dialogue, and in one of the
incidental lyrics.
Ford owes his position among English dramatists to the intensity of his
passion, in particular scenes and passages where the character, the
author and the reader are alike lost in the situation and in the
sentiment evoked by it; and this gift is a supreme dramatic gift. But
his plays--with the exception of _The Witch of Edmonton_, in which he
doubtless had a prominent share--too often disturb the mind like a bad
dream which ends as an unsolved dissonance; and this defect is a supreme
dramatic defect. It is not the rigid or the stolid who have the most
reason to complain of the insufficiency of tragic poetry such as Ford's;
nor is it that morality only which, as Ithocles says in _The Broken
Heart_, "is formed of books and school-traditions," which has a right to
protest against the final effect of the most powerful creations of his
genius. There is a morality which both
"Keeps the soul in tune,
At whose sweet music all our actions dance,"
and is able to physic
"The sickness of a mind
Broken with griefs."
Of that morality--or of that deference to the binding power within man
and the ruling power above him--tragedy is the truest expounder, even
when it illustrates by contrasts; but the tragic poet who merely places
the problem before us, and bids us stand aghast with him at its cruelty,
is not to be reckoned among the great masters of a divine art.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The best edition of Ford is that by Gifford, with notes
and introduction, revised with additions to both text and notes by
Alexander Dyce (1869). An edition of the _Dramatic Works of Massinger
and Ford_ appeared in 1840, with an introduction by Hartley Coleridge.
_The Best Plays of Ford_ were edited for the "Mermaid Series" in 1888,
with an introduction by W.H. Havelock Ellis, and reissued in 1903.
A.C. Swinburne's "Essay on Ford" is reprinted among his _Essays and
Studies_ (1875). _Perkin Warbeck_ and _'Tis Pity_ were translated into
German by F. Bodenstedt in 1860; and the latter again by F. Blei in
1904. The probable sources of the various plays are discussed in Emil
Koeppel's _Quellenstudien zu den Dramen George Chapman's, Philip
Massinger's und John Ford's_ (1897). (A. W. W.)
FORD, RICHARD (1796-1858), English author of one of the earliest and
best of travellers' _Handbooks_, was the eldest son of Sir Richard Ford,
who in 1789 was member of parliament for East Grinstead, and for many
years afterwards chief police magistrate of London. His mother was the
daughter and heiress of Benjamin Booth, a distinguished connoisseur in
art. He was called to the bar, but never practised, and in 1830-1833 he
travelled in Spain, spending much of his time in the Alhambra and at
Seville. His first literary work (other than contributions to the
_Quarterly Review_) was a pamphlet, _An Historical Inquiry into the
Unchangeable Character of a War in Spain_ (Murray, 1837), in reply to
one called the _Policy of England towards Spain_, issued under the
patronage of Lord Palmerston. He spent the winter of 1839-1840 in Italy,
where he added largely to his collection of majolica; and soon after his
return he began, at John Murray's invitation, to write his _Handbook for
Travellers in Spain_, with which his name is chiefly associated. He died
on the 1st of September 1858, leaving a fine private collection of
pictures to his widow (d. 1910), his third wife, a daughter of Sir A.
Molesworth.
FORD, THOMAS (b. c. 1580), English musician, of whose life little more
is known than that he was attached to the court of Prince Henry, son of
James I. His works also are few, but they are sufficient to show the
high stage of efficiency and musical knowledge which the English school
had attained at the beginning of the 17th century. They consist of
canons and other concerted pieces of vocal music, mostly with lute
accompaniment. The chief collection of his works is entitled _Musike of
Sundrie Kinds set forth in Two Books_, &c. (1607), and the histories of
music by Burney and Hawkins give specimens of his art. Together with
Dowland, immortalized in one of Shakespeare's sonnets, Ford is the chief
representative of the school which preceded Henry Lawes.
FORDE, FRANCIS (d. 1770), British soldier, first appears in the army
list as a captain in the 39th Foot in 1746. This regiment was the first
of the king's service to serve in India (hence its motto _Primus in
Indis_), and Forde was on duty there when in 1755 he became major, at
the same time as Eyre Coote, soon to become his rival, was promoted
captain. At the express invitation of Clive, Forde resigned his king's
commission to take the post of second in command of the E.I. Company's
troops in Bengal. Soon after Plassey, Forde was sent against the French
of Masulipatam. Though feebly supported by the motley rabble of an army
which Anandraz, the local ally, brought into the field, Forde pushed
ahead through difficult country and came upon the enemy entrenched at
Condore. For four days the two armies faced one another; on the fifth
both commanders resolved on the offensive and an encounter ensued. In
spite of the want of spirit shown by Anandraz and his men, Forde in the
end succeeded in winning the battle, which was from first to last a
brilliant piece of work. Nor did he content himself with this; on the
same evening he stormed the French camp, and his pursuit was checked
only by the guns of Masulipatam itself. The place was quickly invested
on the land side, but difficulties crowded upon Forde and his handful of
men. For fifty days little advance was made; then Forde, seeing the last
avenues of escape closing behind him, ordered an assault at midnight on
the 25th of January 1759. The Company's troops lost one-third of their
number, but the storm was a brilliant and astounding success. Forde
received less than no reward. The Company refused to confirm his
lieut.-colonel's commission, and he found himself junior to Eyre Coote,
his old subaltern in the 39th Foot. Nevertheless he continued to assist
Clive, and on the 25th of November 1759 won a success comparable to
Condore at Chinsurah (or Biderra) against the Dutch. A year later he at
last received his commission, but was still opposed by a faction of the
directors which supported Coote. Clive himself warmly supported Forde in
these quarrels. In 1769, with Vansittart and Scrafton, Colonel Forde was
sent out with full powers to investigate every detail of Indian
administration. Their ship was never heard of after leaving the Cape of
Good Hope on the 27th of December.
Monographs on Condore, Masulipatam and Chinsurah will be found in
Malleson's _Decisive Battles of India_.
FORDHAM, formerly a village of Westchester county, New York, U.S.A., and
now a part of New York City. It lies on the mainland, along the eastern
bank of the Harlem river, E. of the northern end of Manhattan Island. It
is the seat of Fordham University (Roman Catholic), founded in 1841 as
St John's College, and since 1846 conducted by the Society of Jesus. In
1907 the institution was rechartered as Fordham University, and now
includes St John's College high school and grammar school, St John's
College, the Fordham University medical school (all in Fordham), and the
Fordham University law school (42 Broadway, New York City). In 1907-1908
the university had 96 instructors and (exclusive of 364 students in the
high school) 236 students, of whom 105 were in St John's College, 31 in
the medical school, and 100 in the law school. In Fordham still stands
the house in which Edgar Allan Poe lived from 1844 to 1849 and in which
he wrote "Annabel Lee," "Ulalume," &c.
The hamlet of Fordham was established in 1669 by Jan Arcer (a Dutchman,
who called himself "John Archer" after coming to America), who in that
year received permission from Francis Lovelace, colonial governor of New
York, to settle sixteen families on the mainland close by a
fording-place of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, near where that stream enters
the Harlem river. Between 1655 and 1671 Archer bought from the Indians
the tract of land lying between Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Harlem
river on the east and the Bronx river on the west, and extending from
the hamlet of Fordham to what is now High Bridge. In 1671 Governor
Lovelace erected this tract into the manor of Fordham. In 1846 it was
included with Morrisania in the township of West Farms; and in 1872 with
part of the township of Yonkers was erected into the township of
Kingsbridge, which in 1874 was annexed to the city of New York, and in
1898 became a part of the borough of the Bronx, New York City.
FORDUN, JOHN OF (d. c. 1384), Scottish chronicler. The statement
generally made that the chronicler was born at Fordoun (Kincardineshire)
has not been supported by any direct evidence. It is certain that he was
a secular priest, and that he composed his history in the latter part of
the 14th century; and it is probable that he was a chaplain in the
cathedral of Aberdeen. The work of Fordun is the earliest attempt to
write a continuous history of Scotland. We are informed that Fordun's
patriotic zeal was roused by the removal or destruction of many national
records by Edward III. and that he travelled in England and Ireland,
collecting material for his history. This work is divided into five
books. The first three are almost entirely fabulous, and form the
groundwork on which Boece and Buchanan afterwards based their historical
fictions, which were exposed by Thomas Innes in his _Critical Essay_ (i.
pp. 201-214). The 4th and 5th books, though still mixed with fable,
contain much valuable information, and become more authentic the more
nearly they approach the author's own time. The 5th book concludes with
the death of King David I. in 1153. Besides these five books, Fordun
wrote part of another book, and collected materials for bringing down
the history to a later period. These materials were used by a
continuator who wrote in the middle of the 15th century, and who is
identified with Walter Bower (q.v.), abbot of the monastery of Inchcolm.
The additions of Bower form eleven books, and bring down the narrative
to the death of King James I. in 1437. According to the custom of the
time, the continuator did not hesitate to interpolate Fordun's portion
of the work with additions of his own, and the whole history thus
compiled is known as the _Scotichronicon_.
The first printed edition of Fordun's work was that of Thomas Gale in
his _Scriptores quindecim_ (vol. iii.), which was published in 1691.
This was followed by Thomas Hearne's (5 vols.) edition in 1722. The
whole work, including Bower's continuation, was published by Walter
Goodall at Edinburgh in 1759. In 1871 and 1872 Fordun's chronicle, in
the original Latin and in an English translation, was edited by
William F. Skene in _The Historians of Scotland_. The preface to this
edition collects all the biographical details and gives full
bibliographical references to MSS. and editions.
FORECLOSURE, in the law of mortgage, the extinguishment by order of the
court of a mortgagor's equity of redemption. In the law of equity the
object of every mortgage transaction is eventually the repayment of a
debt, the mortgaged property being incidental by way of security.
Therefore, although the day named for repayment of the loan has passed
and the mortgagor's estate is consequently forfeited, equity steps in to
mitigate the harshness of the common law, and will decree a reconveyance
of the mortgaged property on payment of the principal, interest and
costs. This right of the mortgagor to relief is termed his "equity of
redemption." But the right must be exercised within a reasonable time,
otherwise he will be foreclosed his equity of redemption and the
mortgagee's possession converted into an absolute ownership. Such
foreclosure is enforced in equity by a foreclosure action. An action is
brought by the mortgagee against the mortgagor in the chancery division
of the High Court in England, claiming that an account may be taken of
the principal and interest due to the mortgagee, and that the mortgagor
may be directed to pay the same, with costs, by a day to be appointed by
the court and that in default thereof he may be foreclosed his equity of
redemption. English county courts have jurisdiction in foreclosure
actions where the mortgage or charge does not exceed L500, or where the
mortgage is for more than L500, but less than that sum has been actually
advanced. In a Welsh mortgage there is no right to foreclosure. (See
also MORTGAGE.)
FOREIGN OFFICE, that department of the executive of the United Kingdom
which is concerned with foreign affairs. The head of the Foreign Office
is termed principal secretary of state for foreign affairs and his
office dates from 1782. Between that date and the Revolution there had
been only two secretaries of state, whose duties were divided by a
geographical division of the globe into northern and southern
departments. The duties of the secretary of the northern department of
Europe comprised dealings with the northern powers of Europe, while the
secretary of the southern department of Europe communicated with France,
Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, and also looked after Irish
and colonial business, and carried out the work of the Home Office. In
1782 the duties of these two secretaries were revised, the northern
department becoming the Foreign Office. The secretary for foreign
affairs is the official agent of the crown in all communications between
Great Britain and foreign powers; his intercourse is carried on either
through the representatives of foreign states in Great Britain or
through representatives of Great Britain abroad. He negotiates all
treaties or alliances with foreign states, protects British subjects
residing abroad, and demands satisfaction for any injuries they may
sustain at the hands of foreigners. He is assisted by two
under-secretaries of state (one of them a politician, the other a
permanent civil servant), three assistant under-secretaries (civil
servants), a librarian, a head of the treaty department and a staff of
clerks. The departments of the Foreign Office are the African, American,
commercial and sanitary, consular, eastern (Europe), far eastern,
western (Europe), parliamentary, financial, librarian and keeper of the
papers, treaties and registry. In the case of important despatches and
correspondence, these, with the drafts of answers, are sent first to the
permanent under-secretary, then to the prime minister, then to the
sovereign and, lastly, are circulated among the members of the cabinet.
The salary of the secretary for foreign affairs is L5000 per annum,
that of the permanent under-secretary L2000, the parliamentary
under-secretary and the first assistant under-secretary, L1500, and the
other assistant under-secretaries L1200.
See Anson, _Law and Custom of the Constitution_, part ii.
FORELAND, NORTH and SOUTH, two chalk headlands on the Kent coast of
England, overlooking the Strait of Dover, the North Foreland forming the
eastern projection of the Isle of Thanet, and the South standing 3 m.
N.E. of Dover. Both present bold cliffs to the sea, and command
beautiful views over the strait. On the North Foreland (51 deg. 22-1/2'
N., 1 deg. 27' E.) there is a lighthouse, and on the South Foreland (51
deg. 8-1/2' N., 1 deg. 23' E.) there are two. There is also a Foreland
on the north coast of Devonshire, 2-1/2 m. N.E. of Lynmouth, a fine
projection of the highlands of Exmoor Forest, overlooking the Bristol
Channel, and forming the most northerly point of the county.
FORESHORE, that part of the seashore which lies between high- and
low-water mark at ordinary tides. In the United Kingdom it is ordinarily
and prima facie vested in the crown, except where it may be vested in a
subject by ancient grant or charter from the crown, or by prescription.
Although numerous decisions, dating from 1795, have confirmed the prima
facie title of the crown, S.A. Moore in his _History of the Foreshore_
contends that the presumption is in favour of the subject rather than of
the crown. But a subject can establish a title by proving an express
grant from the crown or giving sufficient evidence of user from which a
grant may be presumed. The chief acts showing title to foreshore are,
taking wreck or royal fish, right of fishing, mining, digging and taking
sand, seaweed, &c., embanking and enclosing. There is a public right of
user in that part of the foreshore which belongs to the crown, for the
purpose of navigation or fishery, but there is no right of passage over
lands adjacent to the shore, except by a particular custom. So that, in
order to make the right available, there must be a highway or other
public land giving access to the foreshore. Thus it has been held that
the public have no legal right to trespass on land above high-water mark
for the purpose of bathing in the sea, though if they can get to it they
may bathe there (_Blundell_ v. _Catteral_, 1821, 5 B. & Ad. 268). There
is no right in the public to take sand, shells or seaweed from the
shore, nor, except in certain places by local custom, have fishermen the
right to use the foreshore or the soil above it for drawing up their
boats, or for drying their nets or similar purposes.
See S.A. Moore, _History of the Foreshore and the Law relating
thereto_ (1888); Coulson and Forbes, _Law of Waters_ (1902).
FORESTALLING, in English criminal law, the offence of buying
merchandise, victual, &c., coming to market, or making any bargain for
buying the same, before they shall be in the market ready to be sold, or
making any motion for enhancing the price, or dissuading any person from
coming to market or forbearing to bring any of the things to market, &c.
See ENGROSSING.
FOREST LAWS, the general term for the old English restriction laws,
dealing with forests. One of the most cherished prerogatives of the king
of England, at the time when his power was at the highest, was that of
converting any portion of the country into a forest in which he might
enjoy the pleasures of the chase. The earliest struggles between the
king and the people testify to the extent to which this prerogative
became a public grievance, and the charter by which its exercise was
bounded (Carta de Foresta) was in substance part of the greatest
constitutional code imposed by his barons upon King John. At common law
it appears to have been the right of the king to make a forest where he
pleased, provided that certain legal formalities were observed. The king
having a continual care for the preservation of the realm, and for the
peace and quiet of his subjects, he had therefore amongst many
privileges this prerogative, viz. to have his place of recreation
wheresoever he would appoint.[1] Land once afforested became subject to
a peculiar system of laws, which, as well as the formalities required to
constitute a valid afforestment, have been carefully ascertained by the
Anglo-Norman lawyers. "A forest," says Manwood, "is a certain territory
of woody grounds and fruitful pastures, privileged for wild beasts and
fowls of forest, chase, and warren to rest, and abide there in the safe
protection of the king, for his delight and pleasure; which territory of
ground so privileged is mered and bounded with unremovable marks, meres
and boundaries, either known by matter of record or by prescription; and
also replenished with wild beasts of venery or chase, and with great
coverts of vert, for the succour of the said beasts there to abide: for
the preservation and continuance of which said place, together with the
vert and venison there are particular officers, laws, and privileges
belonging to the same, requisite for that purpose, and proper only to a
forest and to no other place."[2] And the same author distinguishes a
forest, as "the highest franchise of princely pleasure," from the
inferior franchises of chase, park and warren--named in the order of
their importance. The forest embraces all these, and it is distinguished
by having laws and courts of its own, according to which offenders are
justiceable. An offender in a chase is to be punished by the common law;
an offender in a forest by the forest law. A chase is much the same as a
park, only the latter is enclosed, and all of them are distinguished
according to the class of wild beasts to which the privilege extended.
Thus beasts of forest (the "five wild beasts of venery") were the hart,
the hind, the hare, the boar and the wolf. The beasts of chase were also
five, viz. the buck, the doe, the fox, the marten and the roe. The
beasts and fowls of warren were the hare, the coney, the pheasant and
the partridge.
The courts of the forest were three in number, viz. the court of
attachments, swainmote and justice-seat. The court of attachments
(called also the wood-mote) is held every forty days for the foresters
to bring in their attachments concerning any hurt done to vert or
venison (_in viridi et venatione_) in the forest, and for the verderers
to receive and mark the same, but no conviction takes place. The
swainmote, held three times in the year, is the court to which all the
freeholders within the forest owe suit and service, and of which the
verderers are the judges. In this court all offences against the forest
laws may be tried, but no judgment or punishment follows. This is
reserved for the justice-seat, held every third year, to which the rolls
of offences presented at the court of attachment, and tried at the
swainmote, are presented by verderers. The justice-seat is the court of
the chief justice in eyre, who, says Coke, "is commonly a man of greater
dignity than knowledge of the laws of the forests; and therefore where
justice-seats are to be held some other persons whom the king shall
appoint are associated with him, who together are to determine _omnia
placita forestae_." There were two chief justices for the forests
_intra_ and _ultra Trentam_ respectively. The necessary officers of a
forest are a steward, verderers, foresters, regarders, agisters and
woodwards. The verderer was a judicial officer chosen in full county by
the freeholders in the same manner as the coroner. His office was to
view and receive the attachments of the foresters, and to mark them on
his rolls. A forester was "an officer sworn to preserve the vert and
venison in the forest, and to attend upon the wild beasts within his
bailiwick." The regarders were of the nature of visitors: their duty was
to make a regard (_visitatio nemorum_) every third year, to inquire of
all offences, and of the concealment of such offences by any officer of
the forest. The business of the agister was to look after the pasturage
of the forest, and to receive the payments for the same by persons
entitled to pasture their cattle in the forests. Both the pasturage and
the payment were called "agistment." The woodward was the officer who
had the care of the woods and vert and presented offences at the court
of attachment.
The legal conception of a forest was thus that of a definite territory
within which the code of the forest law prevailed to the exclusion of
the common law. The ownership of the soil might be in any one, but the
rights of the proprietor were limited by the laws made for the
protection of the king's wild beasts. These laws, enforced by fines
often arbitrary and excessive, were a great grievance to the unfortunate
owners of land within or in the neighbourhood of the forest. The
offence of "purpresture" may be cited as an example. This was an
encroachment on the forest rights, by building a house within the
forest, and it made no difference whether the land belonged to the
builder or not. In either case it was an offence punishable by fines at
discretion. And if a man converted woodlands within the forest into
arable land, he was guilty of the offence known as "assarting," whether
the covert belonged to himself or not.
The hardships of the forest laws under the Norman kings, and their
extension to private estates by the process of afforestment, were among
the grievances which united the barons and people against the king in
the reign of John. The Great Charter of King John contains clauses
relating to the forest laws, but no separate charter of the forest. The
first charter of the forest is that of Henry III., issued in 1217. "As
an important piece of legislation," said Stubbs,[3] "it must be compared
with the forest assize of 1184, and with 44th, 47th and 48th clauses of
the charter of John. It is observable that most of the abuses which are
remedied by it are regarded as having sprung up since the accession of
Henry II.; but the most offensive afforestations have been made under
Richard and John. These latter are at once disafforested; but those of
Henry II. only so far as they had been carried out to the injury of the
landowners and outside of the royal demesne." Land which had thus been
once forest land and was afterwards disafforested was known as
_purlieu_--derived by Manwood from the French _pur_ and _lieu_, i.e. "a
place exempt from the forest." The forest laws still applied in a
modified manner to the purlieu. The benefit of the disafforestment
existed only for the owner of the lands; as to all other persons the
land was forest still, and the king's wild beasts were to "have free
recourse therein and safe return to the forest, without any hurt or
destruction other than by the owners of the lands in the purlieu where
they shall be found, and that only to hunt and chase them back again
towards the forest without any forestalling" (Manwood, _On the Forest
Laws_--article "Purlieu").
The revival of the forest laws was one of the means resorted to by
Charles I. for raising a revenue independently of parliament, and the
royal forests in Essex were so enlarged that they were hyperbolically
said to include the whole county. The 4th earl of Southampton was nearly
ruined by a decision that stripped him of his estate near the New
Forest. The boundaries of Rockingham Forest were increased from 6 m. to
60, and enormous fines imposed on the trespassers,--Lord Salisbury being
assessed in L20,000, Lord Westmoreland in L19,000, Sir Christopher
Hatton in L12,000 (Hallam's _Constitutional History of England_, c.
viii.). By the statute 16 Charles I. c. 16 (1640) the royal forests were
determined for ever according to their boundaries in the twentieth year
of James, all subsequent enlargements being annulled.
The forest laws, since the Revolution, have fallen into complete disuse.