FELTHAM, OWEN (1602?-1668). —Religious writer, author of a book entitled Resolves, Divine, Moral, and Political (c. 1620), containing 146 short essays. It had great popularity in its day. Though sometimes stiff and affected in style, it contains many sound, if not original or brilliant, reflections, and occasional felicities of expression. F. was for a time in the household of the Earl of Thomond as chaplain or sec., and pub. (1652), Brief Character of the Low Countries.
FENTON, ELIJAH (1683-1730). —Poet and translator, ed. at Camb., for a time acted as sec. to the Earl of Orrery in Flanders, and was then Master of Sevenoaks Grammar School. In 1707 he pub. a book of poems. He is best known, however, as the assistant of Pope in his translation of the Odyssey, of which he Englished the first, fourth, nineteenth, and twentieth books, catching the manner of his master so completely that it is hardly possible to distinguish between their work; while thus engaged he pub. (1723) a successful tragedy, Marianne. His latest contributions to literature were a Life of Milton, and an ed. of Waller's Poems (1729).
FERGUSON, ADAM (1723-1816). —Philosopher and historian, s. of the parish minister of Logierait, Perthshire, studied at St. Andrews and Edin. Univ., in the latter of which he was successively Professor of Mathematics, and Moral Philosophy (1764-1785). As a young man he was chaplain to the 42nd Regiment, and was present at the Battle of Fontenoy. In 1757 he was made Keeper of the Advocates' Library. As a Prof. of Philosophy he was highly successful, his class being attended by many distinguished men no longer students at the Univ. In 1778-9 he acted as sec. to a commission sent out by Lord North to endeavour to reach an accommodation with the American colonists. F.'s principal works are Essay on the History of Civil Society (1765), Institutes of Moral Philosophy (1769), History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic (1782), and Principles of Moral and Political Science (1792), all of which have been translated into French and German. F. spent his later years at St. Andrews, where he d. in 1816 at the age of 92. He was an intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott. The French philosopher Cousin gave F. a place above all his predecessors in the Scottish school of philosophy.
FERGUSON, SIR SAMUEL (1810-1886). —Poet and antiquary, b. at Belfast, the s. of parents of Scottish extraction, he was ed. at Trinity Coll., Dublin, from which he received in 1865 the honorary degree of LL.D. He practised with success as a barrister, became Q.C. in 1859, and Deputy Keeper of the Irish Records 1867, an appointment in which he rendered valuable service, and was knighted in 1878. He was a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, in which appeared his best known poem, The Forging of the Anchor, and was one of the chief promoters of the Gaelic revival in Irish literature. His coll. poems appeared under the title of Lays of the Western Gael (1865), Congal, an epic poem (1872), and his prose tales posthumously (1887), as Hibernian Nights' Entertainments. His principal antiquarian work was Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.
FERGUSSON, JAMES (1808-1886). —Writer on architecture, b. at Ayr, was engaged in commercial pursuits in India, where he became interested in the architecture of the country, and pub. his first work, Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindustan (1840), which was followed by An Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art (1849), and A History of Architecture in all Countries from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1865-67). He also wrote Fire and Serpent Worship, etc., and a book on the use of earthworks in fortification.