Ford, a gentleman of fortune living at Windsor. He assumes the name of Brook, and being introduced to Sir John Falstaff, the knight informs him “of his whole course of wooing,” and how at one time he eluded Mrs. Ford’s jealous husband by being carried out before his eyes in a buck-basket of dirty linen.—Act iii. sc. 5.
Mrs. Ford, wife of Mr. Ford. Sir John Falstaff pays court to her, and she pretends to accept his protestations[protestations] of love, in order to expose and punish him. Her husband assumes for the nonce the name of Brook, and Sir John tells him from time to time the progress of his suit, and how he succeeds in duping her fool of a husband.—Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor (1596).
Forde´lis (3 syl.), wife of Bran´dimart (Orlando’s intimate friend). When Brandimart was slain, Fordelis dwelt for a time in his sepulchre in Sicily, and died broken-hearted. (See Fourdelis.)—Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1615).
Fore´sight (2 syl.), a mad superstitious old man, who “consulted the stars, and believed in omens, portents, and predictions.” He referred “man’s goatish disposition to the charge of a star,” and says he himself was “born when the Crab was ascending, so that all his affairs in life have gone backwards.”
I know the signs, and the planets, and their houses; can judge of motions, direct and retrograde, of sextiles, quadrates, trines, and oppositions, fiery trigons and aquatic trigons. Know whether life shall be long or short, happy or unhappy; whether diseases are curable or incurable; if journeys shall be prosperous, undertakings successful, or stolen goods recovered.—H. Congreve, Love for Love, ii. (1695).
Forester (Sir Philip), a libertine knight. He goes in disguise to Lady Bothwell’s ball on his return from the Continent, but being recognized, decamps.
Lady Jemima Forester, wife of Sir Philip, who goes with her sister Lady Bothwell to consult “the enchanted mirror,” in which they discover the clandestine marriage and infidelity of Sir Philip.—Sir W. Scott, Aunt Margaret’s Mirror (time, William III).
Forgeries (Literary).
Bertram (C. Julius), professor of English at Copenhagen, professed to have discovered, in 1747, the De Situ Britanniæ of Richardus Corinensis, in the library of that city; and in 1757 he published it with two other treatises, calling the whole The Three Writers on the Ancient History of the British Nations (better known as Scriptores Tres). His forgery was exposed by J.E. Mayor, in his preface to Ricardi de Cirencestria Speculum Historiale.
Chatterton (Thomas), in 1777, published certain poems, which he affirmed were written in the fifteenth century by Thomas Rowley, a monk. The poets Gray and Mason detected the forgery.