Chapter XX: Part 20

Felspar is much used in the manufacture of porcelain by reason of its fusibility. In England the material employed is mostly orthoclase from Scandinavia, often known as "Swedish spar." The high translucency of "ivory porcelain" depends on the large proportion of felspar in the body. The mineral is also an important constituent of most ceramic glazes. The melting points of felspars have been investigated by Prof. J. Joly, Prof. C. A. Doelter y Cisterich and especially by A.L. Day and E.T. Allen in the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institute at Washington.

Among the applications of felspar is that of pure orthoclase in the manufacture of artificial teeth.

Felspar readily suffers chemical alteration, yielding kaolin (q.v.). The turbidity of orthoclase is usually due to partial kaolinization. Secondary mica is also a common result of alteration, and among other products are pinite, epidote, saussurite, chlorite, wollastonite and various zeolites.

See ALBITE, AMAZON STONE, ANDESINE, ANORTHITE, BYTOWNITE, LABRADORITE,
MICROCLINE, MOONSTONE, OLIGOCLASE, ORTHOCLASE, PLAGIOCLASE, SUN-STONE.

FELSTED, or FELSTEAD, a village of Essex, England, between Dunmow and Braintree, and 10 m. from Chelmsford; with a station on the Great Eastern railway. Felsted is only noteworthy by reason of its important public school, dating back to its foundation as a grammar school in 1564 by Richard 1st Baron Rich, who as lord chancellor and chancellor of the court of augmentations had enriched himself with the spoil of the adjoining abbey and priory of Little Leez at the dissolution of the monasteries. It became a notable educational centre for Puritan families in the 17th century, numbering a hundred or more pupils, under Martin Holbeach (1600-1670), headmaster from 1627-1649, and his successors C. Glasscock (from 1650 to 1690), and Simon Lydiatt (1690 to 1702). John Wallis and Isaac Barrow were educated here, and also four sons of Oliver Cromwell, Robert, Oliver, Richard (the Protector), and Henry. Another era of prosperity set in under the headmastership of William Trivett (1745-1830) between 1778 and 1794; but under his successors W.J. Carless (from 1794 to 1813) and E. Squire (from 1813 to 1829) the numbers dwindled. As the result of the discovery by T. Surridge (headmaster 1835-1850), from research among the records, that a larger income was really due to the foundation, a reorganization took place by act of parliament, and in 1851, under the headmastership of Rev. A.H. Wratislaw, the school was put under a new governing body (a revised scheme coming into operation in 1876). The result under Rev. W.S. Grignon (1823-1907), the headmaster from 1856 to 1875, who may be considered almost the second founder, was the rapid development of Felsted into one of the regular public schools of the modern English type. New buildings on an elaborate scale arose, the numbers increased to more than 200, and a complete transformation took place, which was carried on under his successors D.S. Ingram (from 1875 to 1890), H.A. Dalton (to 1906), and F. Stephenson, under whom large extensions to the buildings and playing-fields were made.

See John Sargeaunt, _History of Felsted School_ (1889); and _Alumni
Felstedienses_, by R.J. Beevor, E.T. Roberts and others (1903).

FELT (cognate with Ger. _Filz_, Du. _vilt_, Swed. and Dan. _filt_; the root is unknown; the word has given Med. Lat. _filtrum_, "filter"), a fabric produced by the "matting" or "felting" together of fibrous materials such as wools, hairs, furs, &c. Most textile fibres (see FIBRES) possess the quality of matting to some extent, but wools, furs and some few hairs are the only fibres which can be felted satisfactorily. It is probable that the quality of felting must be attributed to the scale structure and waviness of the wools, furs and hairs referred to. When it is desired to incorporate non-felting fibres in felt cloths, wool must be employed to "carry" them.

There are two distinct classes of felts, viz. woven or "thread-structure" felts, and "fibre" or true felts. In the manufacture of thread-structure felts, wools possessing the quality of felting in a high degree are naturally selected, carefully scoured so that the felting quality is not seriously damaged, spun into woollen yarn possessing the necessary fibre arrangement and twist, woven into cloth of such a character that subsequently satisfactory shrinking or felting may be effected, and finally scoured, milled in the stocks of machine of both, dyed and finished on the lines of an ordinary woven fabric. The lighter styles of woven felts may be composed of a single cloth only, but for the heavier styles two or more cloths are woven, one on top of the other, at one and the same time, arrangements being made to stitch the cloths together during the weaving operation.

Fibre felts are exceedingly interesting from the historical point of view. It is now generally admitted that the art of weaving preceded that of spinning, and it must further be conceded that the art of felting preceded that of weaving, so that the felt fabric is probably one of the oldest of the various styles of recognized fabrics. The inhabitants of the middle and northern regions of Asia seem to have employed felt from time immemorial, as clothing and also as a covering for their habitations. Most of the classical writers refer to it and some of them actually describe its manufacture. Felt was also largely employed by the ancients for their hats, outer garments, and sometimes as a species of armour.

Fibre felts may be divided into three classes, viz. ordinary felts; hat felts; and impregnated felts. As all felts are based upon the ordinary felt, the process of manufacture of this will first be described. Of the wools employed the principal are:--East Indian, German or mid-European, New Zealand cross-breds, and Australian, Cape and Buenos Aires merinos. Vegetable fibres and silk are also employed, but wool must be used to "carry" them; thus a good felting wool may be made to carry its own weight of cotton, hemp, &c. Hairs and furs are principally used in the hat felts. The average loss upon the wool from the raw state to the finished felt is 40 to 50%. The order of the manufacturing processes is as follows:--mixing, willowing, teasing, scribbling and carding. It is interesting to note that it is not usual to scour felting wools. This is not because they are really clean--some are dirty--but because the felting property is liable to be interfered with in the scouring operation. Some wools, however, must be scoured to ensure satisfactory working in the machines. From the card the wool is delivered as a gossamer-like film from 50 to 60 in. wide on to an endless sheet from 30 to 60 yds. long, upon which the felt is built up film upon film until the required thickness--perhaps 4 in.--is obtained. To harden this somewhat tender sheet of felt it is now passed through an ironing process, effected by either steam-heated rollers--to which a rotatory and vibratory motion is given--playing upon the continually drawn-through cloth; or a huge vibrating flat-iron, to which the cloth is automatically fed, held in position and then wound up while the following length to be treated is drawn under the iron. Soaping, fulling or "felting" and the ordinary finishing operations--including dyeing and printing if desirable--now follow, so that ultimately a strong firm fabric is turned out. It must be admitted, however, that the strength is much greater lengthwise than cross-wise, owing to the parallelization of the fibres induced in the scribbling and carding operations. Of course, the true felting or contraction occurs in the fulling or felting stock, the fabric being perpetually "hammered" in the presence of fulling agents such as soap, fuller's earth, &c., for a considerable time. The reduction in width, length and thickness is remarkable. This may be controlled within certain limits. The principal styles of ordinary fibre-felts are--linings for coats, furniture and rubber shoes; saddlery; seatings for carriages and pews; carpets, surrounds and under-felts for carpets; mantles, dresses and table-cloths; felt-slippers; mattress felts; chest-preservers, and shoulder-pads; steam-engine packing, motor-car and anti-vibration felts, shipbuilding felts; drawing-roller felts and gun-wad felts.

Hat felts may be divided into two classes, viz. those made from wool and fur respectively. Wool "bodies" used for the lower quality hats are manufactured in the same way as ordinary felts, but the "shape" upon which the film issuing from the carder is built up takes the form of a double cone and thus approximates to the shape of the two hats ultimately formed. The shape is further controlled and developed in the fulling or felting operation. In the fur hat felts an air-blast is employed to carry the finely separated fibres on to the shape required, upon which shape the fibres are held in position by suction until the required thickness is obtained. The structure is then further developed and "stiffened," i.e. impregnated with certain stiffening agents according to requirements. If desirable the exterior fibres blown on to any shape may be of a different material from the body fabric.

Impregnated felts are simply felts made in the ordinary way but subsequently impregnated with certain agents which give a special quality to the fabric. Messrs McNeill & Co., of London, were the originators of "asphalted-felt" for roofing and, among other styles, place on the market sheathing felt, inodorous felt, dry hair felt, foundation felt, &c., &c. A later development, however, is the impregnated iron-felt manufactured by Messrs Mitchells, Ashworth, Stansfield & Co., of Waterfoot, near Manchester, who not only produce from 70 to 80% of the ordinary felts manufactured in Great Britain, but also place on the market several specialties of which this "iron-felt" is largely used in the construction of bridges, &c., and as a substitute for rubber, it being apparently more durable. (A. F. B.)

FELTHAM, or FELLTHAM, OWEN (d. 1668), English moralist, was the son of Thomas Feltham or Felltham of Mutford in Suffolk. The date of his birth is given variously as 1602 and 1609. He is famous chiefly as the author of a volume entitled _Resolves, Divine, Moral and Political_, containing one hundred short and pithy essays. To later issues of the _Resolves_ Feltham appended _Lusoria_, a collection of forty poems. Hardly anything is known of his life except that T. Randolph, the adopted "son" of Ben Jonson, addressed a poem of compliment to him, and became his friend, and that Feltham attacked Ben Jonson in an ode shortly before the aged poet's death, but contributed a flattering elegy to the _Jonsonus Virbius_ in 1638. Early in life Feltham visited Flanders, and published observations in 1652 under the title of _A Brief Character of the Low Countries_. He was a strict high-churchman and a royalist; he even described Charles I. as "Christ the Second." Hallam stigmatized Feltham as one of our worst writers. He has not, indeed, the elegance of Bacon, whom he emulated, and he is often obscure and affected; but his copious imagery and genuine penetration give his reflections a certain charm. To the middle classes of the 17th century he seemed a heaven-sent philosopher and guide, and was only less popular than Francis Quarles the poet.

Eleven editions of the _Resolves_ appeared before 1700. Later.
editions by James Cumming (London, 1806; much garbled; has account of
Feltham's life and writings), and O. Smeaton in "Temple Classics"
series (London, 1904).

FELTON, CORNELIUS CONWAY (1807-1862), American classical scholar, was born on the 6th of November 1807, in West Newbury, Massachusetts. He graduated at Harvard College in 1827, having taught school in the winter vacations of his sophomore and junior years. After teaching in the Livingstone high school of Geneseo, New York, for two years, he became tutor at Harvard in 1829, university professor of Greek in 1832, and Eliot professor of Greek literature in 1834. In 1860 he succeeded James Walker as president of Harvard, which position he held until his death, at Chester, Pennsylvania, on the 26th of February 1862. Dr Felton edited many classical texts. His annotations on Wolf's text of the _Iliad_ (1833) are especially valuable. _Greece, Ancient and Modern_ (2 vols., 1867), forty-nine lectures before the Lowell Institute, is scholarly, able and suggestive of the author's personality. Among his miscellaneous publications are the American edition of Sir William Smith's _History of Greece_ (1855); translations of Menzel's _German Literature_ (1840), of Munk's _Metres of the Greeks and Romans_ (1844), and of Guyot's _Earth and Man_ (1849); and _Familiar Letters from Europe_ (1865).

FELTON, JOHN (c. 1595-1628), assassin of the 1st duke of Buckingham, was a member of an old Suffolk family established at Playford. The date of his birth and the name of his father are unknown, but his mother was Eleanor, daughter of William Wright, mayor of Durham. He entered the army, and served as lieutenant in the expedition to Cadiz commanded by Sir Edward Cecil in 1625. His career seems to have been ill-starred and unfortunate from the beginning. His left hand was early disabled by a wound, and a morose temper rendered him unpopular and prevented his advancement. Every application made to Buckingham for his promotion was refused, on account of an enmity, according to Sir Simonds D'Ewes, which existed between Felton and Sir Henry Hungate, a favourite of Buckingham. To his personal application that he could not live without a captaincy Buckingham replied harshly "that he might hang." Whether he took part in the expedition to Rhe in 1627 is uncertain, but there is no doubt that he continued to be refused promotion, and that even his scanty pay earned during the Cadiz adventure was not received. Exasperated by his ill-treatment, his discontent sharpened by poverty, and his hatred of Buckingham intensified by a study of the Commons "Remonstrances" of the previous June, and by a work published by Eglesham, the physician of James I., in which Buckingham was accused of poisoning the king, Felton determined to effect his assassination. He bought a tenpenny knife on Tower Hill, and on his way through Fleet Street he left his name in a church to be prayed for as "a man much discontented in mind." He arrived at Portsmouth at 9 o'clock in the morning of the 23rd of August 1628, and immediately proceeded to No. 10 High Street, where Buckingham was lodged. Here mingling with the crowd of applicants and unnoticed he stabbed the duke, who immediately fell dead. Though escape would have been easy he confessed the deed and was seized and conveyed to the Tower, his journey thither, such was the unpopularity of the duke, being accompanied by cries of "God bless thee" from the people. Charles and Laud desired he should be racked, but the illegal torture was prevented by the judges. He was tried before the king's bench on the 27th of November, pleaded guilty, and was hanged the next day, his body being exposed in chains subsequently at Portsmouth.

FELTRE, MORTO DA, Italian painter of the Venetian school, who worked at the close of the 15th century and beginning of the 16th. His real name appears to have been Pietro Luzzo; he is also known by the name Zarato or Zarotto, either from the place of his death or because his father, a surgeon, was in Zara during the son's childhood: whether he was termed Morto (dead) from his joyless temperament is a disputed point. He may probably have studied painting first in Venice, but under what master is uncertain. At an early age he went to Rome, and investigated the ancient, especially the subterranean remains, and thence to Pozzuoli, where he painted from the decorations of antique crypts or "grotte." The style of fanciful arabesque which he formed for himself from these studies gained the name of "grottesche," whence comes the term "grotesque"; not, indeed, that Morto was the first painter of arabesque in the Italian Renaissance, for art of this kind had, apart from his influence, been fully developed, both in painting and in sculpture, towards 1480, but he may have powerfully aided its diffusion southwards. His works were received with much favour in Rome. He afterwards went to Florence, and painted some fine grotesques in the Palazzo Pubblico. Returning to Venice towards 1505, he assisted Giorgione in painting the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, and seems to have remained with him till 1511. If we may trust Ridolfi, Morto eloped with the mistress of Giorgione, whose grief at this transaction brought him to the grave; the allegation, however, is hardly reconcilable with other accounts. It may have been in 1515 that Morto returned to his native Feltre, then in a very ruinous condition from the ravages of war in 1509. There he executed various works, including some frescoes, still partly extant, and considered to be almost worthy of the hand of Raphael, in the loggia beside San Stefano. Towards the age of forty-five, Morto, unquiet and dissatisfied, abandoned painting and took to soldiering in the service of the Venetian republic. He was made captain of a troop of two hundred men; and fighting valorously, he is said to have died at Zara in Dalmatia, in 1519. This story, and especially the date of it, are questionable: there is some reason to think that Morto was painting as late as 1522. One of his pictures is in the Berlin museum, an allegorical subject of "Peace and War." Andrea Feltrini was his pupil and assistant as a decorative painter.

FELTRE (anc. _Feltria_), a town and episcopal see of Venetia, Italy, in the province of Belluno, 20 m. W.S.W. of it by rail, situated on an isolated hill, 885 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 5468 (town), 15,243 (commune). The cathedral has a fine polygonal apse of the 16th century. The Palazzo del Consiglio, now a theatre, is attributed to Palladio. At one end of the chief square of the town, the Piazza Maggiore, is the cistern by which the town is supplied with water, and a large fountain. There are some remains of the medieval castle. The ancient Feltria, which lay on the road (Via Claudia) from Opitergium to Tridentum, does not seem to have been a place of any importance under the Romans. Vittorino dei Rambaldoni da Feltre (1378-1446) was a famous educator and philosopher of his time.

FELUCCA (an Italian word; in forms like the Span. _faluca_, Fr. _felouque_, it appears in other languages; it is probably of Arabic origin, cf. _fulk_, a ship, and _falaka_, to be round; the modern Arabic form is _falukah_), a type of vessel used in the Mediterranean for coasters or fishing-boats. It is a long, low and narrow undecked vessel, built for speed, and propelled by oars or sails. The sails are lateen-shaped and carried on one or two masts placed far forward (see BOAT).

FEMALE, the correlative of "male," the sex which performs the function of conceiving and bearing as opposed to the begetting of young. The word in Middle English is _femelle_, adopted from the French from the Lat. _femella_, which is a diminutive, and in classical Latin used strictly as such, of _femina_, a woman. The present termination in English is due to a connexion in ideas with "male." In various mechanical devices, where two corresponding parts work within the other, the receiving part is often known as the "female," as for example in the "male" and "female screw." The O. Fr. _feme_, modern _femme_, occurs in legal phraseology in _feme covert_, a married woman, i.e. one protected or covered by a husband, and in _feme sole_, one not so protected, a widow or spinster (see WOMEN and HUSBAND AND WIFE).

FEMERELL, properly FUMERELL (from O. Fr. _fumeraille_, Lat. _fumus_, smoke), the old English term given to the lantern in the ridge of a hall roof for the purpose of letting out the smoke of the fire kindled on a central hearth.

FENCING. If by "fencing"--the art of fence, i.e. of defence or offence--were meant generally the dexterous use of the sword, the subject would be wide indeed; as wide, in fact, as the history of the sword (q.v.) itself. But, in its modern acceptation, the meaning of the word has become considerably restricted. The scope of investigation must therefore be confined to one kind of swordsmanship only: to that which depends on the regulated, artificial conditions of "single combat." It is indeed this play, hemmed in by many restrictions, which we have come to mean more specially by "fencing." It differs, of course, in many respects, from what may be called the art of fighting in the light of nature. But as its restrictions are among the very elements which work to the perfection of the play, it is undoubtedly in the history of swordsmanship as applied to duelling (see DUEL) that we shall trace the higher development of the art.

It may be said that the history of fencing, therefore, would be tantamount to the history of private duelling. Now, this is an ethical subject; one, again, which would carry the investigation too far; and it need not be taken up farther back than the middle of the 16th century, when, on the disuse of the medieval wager of battle, the practice of _private duelling_ began to take an assured footing in a warlike society. It is curious to mark that the first cultivation of refined cunning in fence dates from that period, which corresponds chronologically with the general disuse of armour, both in battle and in more private encounters. It is still more curious to note that, in order to fit himself to meet what was an illegal but aristocratic obligation, the gallant of those days had to appeal to a class of men hitherto little considered: to those plebeian adepts, in fact, who for generations had cultivated skill in the use of hand weapons, on foot and without armour. Thus it came to pass that the earliest masters of fence in all countries, namely, the masters of the art of conducting skilfully what was essentially considered as an honourable encounter, were almost invariably to be found among a somewhat dishonoured gentry--gladiators, free companions, professional champions, more or less openly recognized, or bravoes of the most uncompromising character.

In Germany, which may be considered the cradle of systematic swordsmanship, these teachers of the sword had, as early as the 15th century, formed themselves into gilds; among which the best known were the _Marxbruder_, or the Associates of St Marcus of Lowenberg, who had their headquarters at Frankfort, and branches in all the more important towns. Similarly, in Spain and in northern Italy, professional swordsmen were at various times allowed to form themselves into recognized or at least tolerated associations.

In England "swordmen" had been looked upon with especial disfavour by the powers that were, until Henry VIII., who was a great lover of all manly exercises, found it likewise advisable to turn their obnoxious existence to a disciplined and profitable channel by regularizing their position. The most redoubtable masters were allowed to form themselves into a company, with powers to increase their numbers with suitable and duly tried men, in imitation of the world-famed German _Marxbruder_ or _Marcusbruder_. Under these conditions they were granted the lucrative monopoly of teaching the art of fight in England. The enormous privileges that the king, in course of time, conferred on his Corporation of Masters of Defence very soon enabled it to put down or absorb all the more ferocious of independent swashbucklers, and thereby to impart to the profession a moderate degree of respectability under the coat of arms granted by the royal heralds: gules a sword pendant argent.

It was in the midst of such corporations and in the fighting dens of independent swordsmen, therefore, that sprouted the first buds of systematic swordsmanship. Among the professional fencers, curiously and happily for the historian, there seem to have been a few with a literary turn of mind.

The oldest manuscripts of fence belong to Italy and Germany. They deal with the methods of carrying out single combats on foot, with any of the most generally accepted weapons--long sword and short sword, dagger and every kind of knives, mace, long and short staff, axes, &c.,--and with the tricks of wrestling recommendable therefor. Among the most comprehensive in their scope may be mentioned _Il Fior di battaglia di Maestro Fiore dei Liberi da Premariaco_; a work which, although illustrated with truly Italian taste and grace, shows, as far as its fighting style is concerned, unmistakable marks of German influence. The text of the MS. bears the date 1410, but the writer was known to be flourishing as a master of fence as early as 1383. A reprint of this invaluable codex has been published, under the care of Francesco Donati, by the _Istituto Italiano d' Arti Grafiche_. Another is the better known _Thalhofer's Fecht Buch, gerichtliche und andere Zweykampfe darstellend_ (1467), a reprint of which, with its 268 plates in facsimile, was brought out by Gustave Hergsell in Prague. The oldest printed book is likewise German: _Ergrundung der ritterlicher Kunst der Fechterei, von Andreas Paurnfeindt, Freifechter zu Wien_ (1516). This work, which is exceedingly rare, is a very complete exponent of the ways of wielding long and short blades to the utmost of their lethal capacity. It was reproduced (under various titles, very confusing to the bibliographer) in Frankfort, Augsburg, Strassburg, and finally done into French under the name of _La Noble science des joueurs d'epee_, published in Paris and Antwerp, 1535.

Following the Germans, the oldest printed books of fence are Italian. The first French book on the sword is known to be a translation from the German. Curiously enough, the second, and one of the most notable, _Le Traite de l'epee seule, mere de toutes armes_, of the Sieur de St Didier, published in Paris in 1573, can be shown to be a transparent adaptation of two Italian treatises, the _Trattato di scienza d' arme_ of Camillo Agrippa, and Grassi's _Ragione di adoperar sicuramente l'arme_, &c.

It is about this time, namely, the latter half of the 16th century, that swordsmanship pure and simple may be said to find its origin; for then a great change is perceptible in the nature and tendency of fence books: they dissociate themselves from indecorous wrestling tricks, and approximate more and more to the consideration of what we understand by swordsmanship. The older works expounded the art of fighting generally; taught the reader a number of valuable, if not "gentlemanlike," dodges for overcoming an adversary _at all manner of weapons_: now the lucubrations of fence-masters deal almost exclusively with the walking sword, that is, the duelling weapon--with the rapier in fact, both with and without its lieutenant, the dagger.

It must be remembered that at this period private duelling and cavalier quarrelsomeness amounted to a perfect mania. The fencing master was no longer merely a teacher of efficacious, if rascally, tricks; he was becoming a model of gallant deportment; in many cases he was even a recognized arbiter on matters of honour. He was often a gentleman himself: at all events he posed as such.

Although the Germans were always redoubtable adepts at the rougher games of swordsmanship, it is in Italy that is to be found development of that nimbler, more regulated, more cunning, better controlled, kind of play which we have learned to associate with the term "fencing." It was from Italy that the art of fence first spread over Europe: not from Spain, as it has been asserted by many writers. The Italians--if we take their early books as evidence, and the fact that their phraseology was adopted by all Europe--were the first to perceive (as soon as the problem of armour-breaking ceased to be the most important one in fight) the superior efficiency of the point. They accordingly reduced the breadth of their sword, modified the hilt portion thereof to admit of readier thrust action, and relegated the cut to quite a secondary position in their system. With this lighter weapon they devised in course of time that brilliant cunning play known as rapier fence.

The rapier was ultimately adopted everywhere by men of courtly habit; but, in England at least, it was not accepted without murmur and vituperation from the older fighting class of swordsmen, especially from the members and admirers of the English Corporation of Defence Masters. As a body Englishmen were as conservative then as they are now. They knew the value of what they had as their own, and distrusted innovations, especially from foreign quarters. The old sword and the buckler were reckoned as your true English weapons: they always went together--in fact sword and buckler play in the 16th century was evidently held to be as national a game as boxing came to be in a later age. Many are the allusions in contemporary dramatic literature to this characteristic national distrust of continental innovations. There is the well-known passage in Porter's play, _The Two Angry Women of Abingdon_, for instance: "Sword and buckler fight," says a sturdy Briton (in much the same tone of disgust as a British lover of fisticuffs might now assume when talking of a French "Mounseer's" foil play), "begins to grow out of use. I am sorry for it. I shall never see good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking fight with rapier and dagger will come up. Then the tall man (that is, a courageous man and a good sword-and-buckler man) will be spitted like a cat or a rabbit!" The long-sword, that is, the two-hander, was also an essentially national weapon. It was a right-down pleasing and sturdy implement, recalling in good steel the vernacular quarter-staff of old. It required thews and sinews, and, incidentally, much beef and ale. The long-sword man looked perhaps with even greater disfavour than the smaller swashbuckler upon the new-fangled "bird-spit." "Tut, man," says Justice Shallow, typical _laudator_ of the good bygone days, on hearing of the ridiculous Frenchman's skill with his rapier, "I could have told you more. In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what; 'tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis here, 'tis here. I have seen the time, with my long-sword, I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats."

Now, sword-and-buckler and long-sword play was no doubt a manly pursuit and a useful. But, as an every-day companion, the long-sword was incongruous to a fastidious cavalier; and, again, the buckler, indispensable adjunct to the broad swashing blade of home production, was hardly more suitable. In Elizabethan days it soon became obvious that the buckler was inadmissible as an item of gentlemanly attire. It was accordingly left to the body attendant; and the gallant took kindly to the fine rapier of Milanese or Toledan make. On the other hand, it is not difficult to understand the rapid popularity gained among the gentry by this nimble rapier, so much reviled by the older fighting men. The rapier, in fact, came in with the taste for "cavaliero" style, and may be looked upon as its fit outward symbol already in the days of Queen Mary. In Elizabeth's reign it was firmly established as your only gentlemanlike weapon.

The rapier was decidedly a foreigner; yet it suited the Elizabethan age, for it was decorative as well as practical. Its play was picturesque, fantastic--almost euphuistic, one might say--in comparison with the matter-of-fact hanger of older days. Its phraseology had a quaint, rich, southern smack, which connoted outlandish experience and gave those conversant with its intricate distinctions that marvellous character, at once precious and ruffling, which was so highly appreciated by the cavalier youth of the time. The rapier in its heyday was an admirable weapon to look at, a delicious one to wield. And, besides, in proper hands, it was undoubtedly one that was most conclusive. It was, in short, as elegant and deadly as its predecessors were sturdy and brutal.

By the time that the most perfect, namely, the Italian, rapier fence came to be generally taught in England--that is, during the last third of Elizabeth's reign--the theory of swordsmanship, as applied to a single combat, after having passed through many phases of imperfection, was already tolerably simple and practical. (The exact story of its evolution may be found in a work now included in Bohn's Libraries, _Schools and Masters of Fence_.) What may be considered as one of the cardinal actions of regulated sword-play on foot, namely, the lunge, had already been discovered. Although a great many movements which, according to modern notions, would be considered not only unnecessary but actually pernicious, still formed part of the system, it may be doubted whether, considering the character of the weapon, anything very much better could be devised, even in our present state of knowledge.

For it must be remembered that the evolution of the forms of the sword and of the theories concerning its most efficient use are closely connected. It is, in fact, sometimes difficult to decide whether the change in the shape of the weapon was the result of a development of a theory; or whether new theories were elaborated to fit alterations in these shapes due to fashion or any other reason.

When systematic fence came over to England it was already much simplified (it should be noted that improvement in the art, from its earliest days down to the present time, seems always to have been in the direction of simplification); yet, for more than a century from the appearance of the first real treatise, simplification never reached that point which would render impossible a belief in the undoubted efficacy of those "secret thrusts," of that "universal parry," of those ineluctable passes, which every master professed to teach. These precious secrets remain long, among a certain shady class of swordsmen, an object of untiring study, carried on with much the same faith and zest as the quest of the alchemist for his powder of projection, or of the Merchant Adventurer for El Dorado. There can, of course, be no such thing as an insuperable pass, a secret thrust or parry; every attack _can_ be parried, every parry can be deceived by suitable movements. Yet there was some justification for the belief in the existence of secrets of swordsmanship in days when, as a rule, lessons of fence were given in jealous privacy; constant practice at one particular pass, especially with the long rapier, which required a great deal of muscular strength, might render any peculiarly fierce, sudden and audacious stroke excessively dangerous to one who did not happen to have opposed that stroke before. Undoubtedly there was little in Elizabethan fencing-schools of what we understand in modern days by loose-play between the pupils; practice was almost invariably conducted between scholar and teacher in private; and thus the opportunities for watching or testing any particular fencer's play were few. Such an opportunity would, as a rule, only occur on occasions of an earnest fight; and the possessor of a specially handy thrust (if it came off at all) would of course take good care that his opponent should not live to ponder over the secret. The secret, such as it was, remained. In this guise it was inevitable that an almost superstitious belief in "secret foynes," in the _botte secrete_ of certain practised duellists, should arise.

Be that as it may, there is no doubt that towards the end of the 16th century there were many free-lances in the field of arms who professed to teach, in exchange for much gold, strokes that were not to be parried. From one truculent personage, whom Brantome mentions, Tappa the Milanese, you could learn how to cut (if it so took your fancy) both eyes out of your adversary's face with a _rinverso tondo_, or circular "reverse of the point." From Caizo, another Italian teacher, at one time much favoured by the French court, lessons were to be had in the special art of ham-stringing. Caizo's _botte secrete_ seems to have been nothing more nor less than a _falso manco_, that is, a left-handed drawing cut, at the inside of the knee. But, as practised and taught by him, it was infallible. This stroke has come down to us as _le coup de Jarnac_--a stroke, be it said, which, notwithstanding its bad name, was quite as fair as any in rapier fence. One Le Flamand, a French master in Paris, was reputed the inventor of a jerky time-thrust at the adversary's brows, which was a certainty. This special foyne, which was merely an _imbrocata_ at the head, has become legendary in the fencing world as _la botte de Nevers_. English fencers have their own legends about "the very butcher of a silk button," and this brings us to the first writer on the rapier in England, Vincenzio Saviolo, the great expounder of that Italianated fence which was so obnoxious to the old masters, withal so much admired of Elizabethan courtiers; the man, in short, who--there seems to be much internal evidence to show it--was Shakespeare's fencing master.

Vincenzio was not the only foreign master of note established in London during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign. One, Signor Rocco, had, we hear, a very gorgeously appointed academy in Warwick Lane, near St Paul's, where he coined money rapidly at the expense of gulls and gallants alike. But this man came to grief ultimately in an encounter with the long-sword with an old-fashioned English master of defence. Another popular teacher was a certain "Geronimo"; but he also met with a melancholy and premature end by the hands of one Cheefe, "a tall man in his fight and natural English," says George Silver, the champion of the Corporation of Masters of Defence. Saviolo, however, seems to have remained unconquered. In his work (_Vincentio Saviolo, his practise, in two bookes, the first intreating of the use of the Rapier and Dagger, the second of Honor and honorable quarrels._ London. Printed by John Wolfe, 1595) are expounded in a most typical manner the principles of rapier play.

The fencing phraseology of Elizabethan times is highly picturesque, but with difficulty intelligible in the absence of practical demonstration. Without going into technical details it may be pointed out that the long Elizabethan rapier, however admirably balanced it might otherwise be, was still too heavy to admit of quick parries with the blade itself. Thrusts, as a rule, had to be avoided by body movements, by ducking, or by a vault aside (_incartata_), or beaten away with the left hand, the hand being protected with a gauntlet or armed with a dagger. In fact, one may say that the chief characteristic of Elizabethan sword-play was the concerted action of the left hand parrying while the right delivered the attack. Benvolio's description of Tybalt's fight is graphic:--

"With piercing steel he tilts at bold Mercutio's breast,
Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
And with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
Cold death aside, and with the other
Sends it back to Tybalt, whose dexterity
Retorts it...."

Of these body movements, in Saviolo's days, the most approved were: the _incartata_, just mentioned; the pass (the "passado," in the ruffling Anglo-Italian jargon), that is, passing of one foot in front of the other whilst delivering the attack; the _botta lunga_, or lunge; and the _caricado_, which was a far-reaching combination of the two. Of systematic sword movements there were six: _stocata_, a thrust delivered with nails upwards; _imbrocata_, with nails down; _punta-reversa_, any thrust delivered from the left side of the body; _mandritto_, a cut from the right; _rinverso_, one from the left; _stramazone_, a right-down blow with the point of the sword.

The new art of fence, as systematized by the principles of rapier play, was on the whole already accepted in England during the last decade of the 16th century, and was, as we know, destined to endure. Nevertheless, there were still many partisans of the older school: lovers of the national short-sword and the buckler. Their tenets are to be found embodied, in very strenuous language, by the George Silver mentioned above, a member, it would seem, of the now dwindling company of Masters of Defence, in his small work: _Paradoxe of Defence, wherein is proved the true ground of fight to be in the short ancient weapons, etc._ Printed in London, 1599. (The work has been reprinted by Messrs George Bell & Sons.)

The Italians were undoubtedly the leaders in sword-play; but, towards the beginning of the 17th century, the Spaniards developed a peculiar school of their own, which for a short while was all the mode in England as well as in France. The last trace, be it stated, of that school is now extinct. Yet the Spaniard of cavalier days was undoubtedly a formidable duellist; that was no doubt owing to the quality of the man, not of his art. The Italian's fence was artistic; the Spaniard's dexterity was essentially scientific. In Spain were to be found typically those "Captains of Complements," who not only understood in their most intricate mazes the proper "dependencies" for the cartel, but also the mathematical certainties for the "reason demonstrative." These Spanish books are marvellously pedantic; one may as well say it, frankly ridiculous. Spanish masters instructed their scholars on mathematical lines, with the help of diagrams drawn on the floor within a circle, the radius of which bore certain cryptic proportions to length of human arms and Spanish swords. The circle was inscribed in squares and intersected by sundry chords bearing occult but, it was held, incontrovertible relations to probabilities of strokes and parries. The scholar was to step from certain intersections to certain others. If this stepping was correctly done the result was a foregone victory. "A villain," exclaims Mercutio, indignantly, "who fights by the book of arithmetic." Elizabethan comedies bring us many an echo of its great expounder of mathematical swordsmanship, the magnificent Carranza, the _primer inventor de la Ciencia de las Armas_, the writer of treatises so abstruse on "the first and second cause," in questions of honour and swording, that they have never been quite understood to this day.

Perhaps the most curious matter in connexion with the Spanish fence is that the most splendid treatise of the sword published in the French language is in reality purely Spanish (we have seen that the first was German, and the second an adaptation of Italian treatises). This third work, _Academie de l'epee de Girard Thibault, d'Anvers, etc._, is indeed a monument; one of the biggest books ever printed, and beyond compare the biggest book of fence. It was issued in 1628 by the Leiden Elzevirs, and took fifteen years to complete. Nine reigning princes and a vast number of private gentlemen subscribed to meet its stupendous expenses.

This work was spoken of as a "monument." It may, in some respects, be looked upon as the funeral monument of the old rapier fence; for soon after that period rose an entirely new school, one adapted to the use of a less portentous weapon, the small-sword of French pattern; a school destined to endure, and to lead to the perfection of our modern _escrime_.

The evolution of this new school is an instance of the influence of fashion upon the shape of the sword, and hence upon theories concerning its use. The French school of fencing may be said to owe its origin to the adoption, under Louis XIV., of the short court-sword in place of the over-long wide-hilted rapier of the older style. With a weapon of such reduced dimensions, of such reduced weight, the advantage of the dagger as a fencing adjunct at once ceased to be felt. The dagger, last Gothic remnant, disappeared accordingly; and there arose rapidly a new system of play, in which most of the defensive actions were performed by the blade alone; in which, at the same time (the reduction in the size and weight of the weapon rendering the efficiency of the edge almost nugatory in comparison with that of the point), all cutting action was ultimately discarded.

It is from that date, namely, from the last third of the 17th century, that the sword, as a fighting implement, becomes differentiated into two very different directions. The military weapon becomes the back-sword or sabre; the walking companion and duelling weapon becomes what we now understand by the small-sword. Two utterly different kinds of fence are practised: one, that of the back-sword; the other, what we would now call foil-play.

The magnificent old cut and thrust rapier still flourished, it is true, in parts of Italy and Spain; but by the end of the 17th century it had already become an object of ridicule in the eyes of all persons addicted to _bon ton_--and it must be remembered that _bon ton_, on the Continent everywhere and even in England, at that time, was French _ton_. The walking sword, fit for a gentleman's side, was therefore the small-sword of Versailles pattern. Its use had to be learnt from French masters of deportment; the old magniloquent Italo-Spanish rapier jargon was forgotten; French terms, barbarized into _carte_, _tierce_, _sagoon_, _flanquonade_, and so forth, were alone understood. In fact, French fencing became as indispensable an accomplishment to the Georgian gentlemen as the fine Italianated foyning had been to the Elizabethan.

The new French sword-play was, it must be owned, very neat, quiet, precise, and, if anything, even more deadly than the old fence. It was perfect as a decorous mode of fight, and as well suited to the lace ruffles, to the high perruque and the red heels of the "beau" as the long cup-hilted rapier had been to the booted and spurred "cavalier." The essence of its play was nimbleness of wrist; it required quickness of spirit rather than muscular vigour. It is to be noted, however, that the same sort of popular opposition met the invasion of French fencing, in post-Restoration days, that had been offered to the new-fangled Italian rapier a century earlier. During the Parliamentary period the rapier and its attendant dagger had practically disappeared; they were not true warlike weapons, their chief virtue was for duelling or sudden encounters. But the stout English back-sword survived; and with it a very definite school of back-sword play. Under Charles II., the amusement of stage or prize-fighting with swords had become _a la mode_. Courteous assaults at many weapons, of course rebated, had been frequent functions under the auspices of the Corporation of Masters of Defence during the second half of the 16th century; it is (be it remarked) in such sword-matches on the scaffold that we find the origin of our modern prize-fights at fisticuffs. The first instance known of a challenge at sharps on the fighting stage is seen in a cartel sent by George Silver and Toby his son, as champions of the Corporation of Masters of Defence, to the obnoxious "Signors" Saviolo and Geronimo. As a matter of fact, the latter, having apparently no wish to improve their excellent social position or to risk forfeiting it, declined this invitation to a public trial of skill. But the idea was right martial and pleasing to the English mind, and the fashion of prize-fighting took the firm hold it retained on English minds till stringent legislation, not so very long ago, was brought to bear upon it. Be it as it may, this prize-fighting with swords endured until middle Georgian days; when, under the impetus given to fistic displays then by the renowned Figg (who was at one and the same time the most formidable of English fencers and the first on the long list of English pugilistic champions), back-swording became relegated to the provinces, and ultimately dwindled into our bastard "single-stick."

Fencing, in its restricted sense of purely thrusting play, was always an "academic" art in England. The first great advocate and exponent of the new small-sword fence, as taught by the new French school, was Sir William Hope of Balcomy, at one time deputy governor of Edinburgh Castle, who wrote a great number of quaint treatises of great interest to the "operative" as well as to the "speculative" fencer. Yet, oddly enough, Sir William Hope was instrumental in endeavouring to push through parliament a bill for the establishment of a court of honour, the office of which was to have been the deciding of honourable quarrels, whenever possible, without appeal to fencing skill. The House, however, being at the time excited and busy on the question of the union of Scotland and England, the bill never became act.

To resume: since it began to be practised as a regulated art one may say broadly that sword play has already passed through four main phases. The first belongs to the early Tudor days of sword and buckler encounters, whereof, if the best theoretical treatises appeared in Italy, the sturdiest practical exponents were most probably found in the British Isles. Then came the age of the rapier, coeval with the general disuse of the buckler. There may be discerned the dawn of fencing proper, which will fully arise when, in Caroline times, the outrageous length of the tucke will at last be sufficiently reduced no longer to require the dagger as a helpmate. The third was the age of the small-sword. With its light, elegant and deadly practice we enter a new atmosphere, so to speak, on fencing ground. Suppleness of wrist and precision of fingering replace the ramping and traversing, the heavy forcing play, of the Elizabethan. If the rapier age was well exemplified by Vincent Saviolo, this one was typified, albeit perhaps at a time when it was already somewhat on the wane, by the admirable Angelo Tremamondo Malevolti.

In the early days of the small-sword age men still fenced in play as they fought in earnest. But presently there appeared on the scene (during the last years of the 18th century) an implement destined to revolutionize the art and hopelessly to divide the practice of the school from that of the field: that was the fencing mask. Before this invention, small-sword play in the master's room was perforce comparatively cautious, correct, sure and above all deliberate. The long, excited, argumentative phrases of modern assaults were unknown; and so was the almost inevitably consequent scrimmage. But under the protection of the fencing mask a new school of foil-play was evolved, one in which swiftness and inveteracy of attack and parry, of _riposte_, _remise_, _counter-riposte_ and _reprise_, assumed an all-important character. With the new style began to assert itself that utter recklessness of "chance hits" which in our days so markedly differentiates foil-practice from actual duelling. And this brings us to the fourth phase, the fencing art, to what may be called the age of the foil.

If anything were required to demonstrate that foil-play has nowadays passed into the state of what may be called fine art in athleticism, it would be found in the rise of the method which French masters particularize as _le jeu du terrain_, as duelling play in fact; a play which differs as completely from academic foil-fencing as cross-country riding in an unknown district from the _haute ecole_ of horsemanship in the _manege_. By fencing, nowadays, that is by foil-play, we have come to mean not simply fighting for hits, but a strictly regulated game which, being quite conventional, does not take accidental hits into consideration at all. This game requires for its perfect display a combination of artificial circumstances, such as even floors, featherweight weapons, and an unconditional acceptance of a number of traditional conventions. Now, for the more utilitarian purposes of duelling, the major part of the foil fencer's special achievement and brilliancy has to be uncompromisingly sacrificed in the presence of the brutal fact that thrusts in the face, or below the waist, _do_ count, insomuch as they may kill; that _accidental_ hits in the arm or the leg cannot be disregarded, for they may, and generally do, put a premature stop to the bout. The "rub on the green" must be accepted, perforce, and indeed often plays as important a part in the issue of the game as the player's skill. The fact, however, that in earnest encounters all conventionalities which determine the value of a hit vanish, does not in any way justify the notion, prevalent among many, that a successful hit justifies any method of planting the same; and that the mere discarding of all convention in practical sword-play is sufficient to convert a bad fencer into a dangerous duellist.

It is the recognition of this fact (which, oddly enough, only came to be generally admitted, and not without reluctance, by the masters of the art during the last quarter of the 19th century) which has led to the elaboration of the modified system of small-sword fence now known as _epee_ play. The new system, after passing through various rather extravagant phases of its own, gradually returned to the main principle of sound foil-play, but shorn of all futile conventions as to the relative values of hits. In _epee_ play a hit is a hit, whether correctly delivered or reckless, whether intentional or the result of mere chance, and must, at the cost of much caution and patience, be guarded against.

_Per contra_ the elaboration by the devotees of the _epee_ of a really practical system of fence, that is, one applicable to trials in earnest, has reacted upon the teaching of foil-play by the best masters of the present day--a teaching which, without ceasing to be academical up to a certain point, takes now cognisance of the necessity of defending every part of the body as sedulously as the target of the breast, and, moreover, of warding the many possibilities of chance hits in _contretemps_.