Chapter II: Part 2

Born a naturalist, and having no relish for the practical duties of a surgeon, Forbes in the spring of 1836 abandoned the idea of taking a medical degree, resolving to devote himself to science and literature. The winter of 1836-1837 found him at Paris, where he attended the lectures at the Jardin des Plantes on natural history, comparative anatomy, geology and mineralogy. Leaving Paris in April 1837, he went to Algiers, and there obtained materials for a paper on land and freshwater Mollusca, published in the _Annals of Natural History_, vol. ii. p. 250. In the autumn of the same year he registered at Edinburgh as a student of literature; and in 1838 appeared his first volume, _Malacologia Monensis_, a synopsis of the species of Manx Mollusca. During the summer of 1838 he visited Styria and Carniola, and made extensive botanical collections. In the following autumn he read before the British Association at Newcastle a paper on the distribution of terrestrial Pulmonifera in Europe, and was commissioned to prepare a similar report with reference to the British Isles. In 1841 was published his _History of British Star-fishes_, embodying extensive observations and containing 120 illustrations, inclusive of humorous tail-pieces, all designed by the author. On the 17th of April of the same year Forbes, accompanied by his friend William Thompson, joined at Malta H.M. surveying ship "Beacon," to which he had been appointed naturalist by her commander Captain Graves. From that date until October 1842 he was employed in investigating the botany, zoology and geology of the Mediterranean region. The results of these researches were made known in his "Report on the Mollusca and Radiata of the Aegean Sea, presented to the British Association in 1843," and in _Travels in Lycia_, published in conjunction with Lieut. (afterwards Admiral) T.A.B. Spratt in 1847. In the former treatise he discussed the influence of climate and of the nature and depth of the sea bottom upon marine life, and divided the Aegean into eight biological zones; his conclusions with respect to bathymetrical distribution, however, have naturally been modified to a considerable extent by the more recent explorations of the deep seas.

Towards the end of the year 1842 Forbes, whom family misfortunes had now 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_.