Flame (Lord), Johnson the jester and dramatist, author of Hurlo-Thrumbo, an extravaganza (1729).
Flammer (The Hon. Mr. Frisk), a Cantab, nephew to Lord Totterly. He is a young gentleman with a vivid imagination, small income, and large debts.—C. Selby, The Unfinished Gentleman.
Flammock (Wilkin), a Flemish soldier and burgess at the Castle of Garde Doloureuse.
Rose or Roschen Flammock, daughter of Wilkin Flammock, and attendant on Lady Eveline.—Sir. W. Scott, The Betrothed (time, Henry II.).
Flanders (Moll), a woman of extraordinary beauty, born in Old Bailey. She was twelve years a harlot, five years a wife, twelve years a thief, and eight years a convict in Virginia; but ultimately she became rich, lived honestly, and died a penitent in the reign of Charles II.—Defoe, The Fortunes of Moll Flanders.
Flash (Captain), a blustering, cowardly braggart, “always talking of fighting and wars.” In the Flanders war he pretended to be shot, sneaked off into a ditch, and thence to England. When Captain Loveit met him paying court to Miss Biddy Bellaw, he commanded the blustering coward to “deliver up his sword,” and added:
“Leave this house, change the color of your clothes and fierceness of your looks; appear from top to toe the very wretch thou art!”—D. Garrick, Miss in Her Teens (1753).
Fla´vius, the faithful, honest steward of Timon the man-hater.—Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (1600).
Fle´ance, in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is the son of Banquo, one of Duncan’s trusted generals, and beloved and honored by Macbeth until the witches’ prophecy promises him the crown for which Macbeth has murdered the king. Macbeth resolves to destroy Banquo and his son, but while the father is murdered the son escapes, and the death-blow is given to Macbeth’s hope of an undisputed succession. Thus far the play; the chronicle makes Fleance become in time the Lord High Steward (Stewart, Stuart) of Scotland, and the ancestor of the House of Stuart which gave James I. to the English throne. James was very proud of this descent from Shakespeare’s Banquo, whose character was evidently drawn to flatter the king, since the Banquo of Holinshed’s Chronicle, from which the main of the play is drawn, is Macbeth’s partner in the murder of Duncan.
Flecknoe (Richard), poet-laureate to Charles II., author of dramas, poems, and other works. As a poet his name stands on a level with Bavius and Mævius. Dryden says of him: