Faithful, Jacob.—The title and hero of a sea tale, by Captain Marryat (1835).
Fakenham Ghost.—A ballad by Robert Bloomfield, author of The Farmer’s Boy. The ghost was a donkey.
Fakreddin’s Valley.—Over the several portals of bronze were these inscriptions: (1) The Asylum of Pilgrims; (2) The Traveler’s Refuge; (3) The Depository of the Secrets of All the World.
Falkland.—In Godwin’s novel called Caleb Williams. He commits murder, and keeps a narrative of the transaction in an iron chest. Williams, a lad in his employ, opens the chest, and is caught in the act by Falkland. The lad runs away, but is hunted down. This tale, dramatized by Colman is entitled The Iron Chest.
Falstaff (fâl´stȧf), Sir John.—A famous character in Shakespeare’s comedy of the Merry Wives of Windsor, and in the first and second parts of his historical drama of Henry IV. He is as perfect a comic portrait as was ever sketched. In the former play he is represented as in love with Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, who make a butt and a dupe of him; in the latter he figures as a soldier and a wit; in both he is exhibited as a monster of fat—sensual, mendacious, boastful, and cowardly. In Henry V. his death is described by Mrs. Quickly.
Fang.—(1) A sheriff’s officer, in the second part of Shakespeare’s King Henry IV. (2) Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens. A bullying insolent magistrate, who would have sent Oliver Twist to prison, on suspicion of theft, if Mr. Brownlow had not interposed.
Fata Alcina.—Orlando Innamorato, Bojardo. Sister of Fata Morgana. She carried off Astolfo on the back of a whale to her isle, but turned him into a myrtle tree when she tired of him.
Fata Morgana (fä´tä mor-gä´nä).—The name of a potent fairy, celebrated in the tales of chivalry, and in the romantic poems of Italy. She was a pupil of the enchanter Merlin, and the sister of Arthur, to whom she discovered the intrigue of his queen, Geneura, or Guinever, with Lancelot of the Lake. In the Orlando Innamorato of Bojardo, she appears at first as a personification of fortune, inhabiting a splendid residence at the bottom of a lake, and dispensing all the treasures of the earth, but she is afterward found in her proper station subject to the all potent Demogorgon. Also, as sister to King Arthur and pupil of Merlin. She lived at the bottom of the lake and dispensed good fortune as she liked.
Fat Boy, The.—A laughable character in Dickens’ Pickwick Papers; a youth of astonishing obesity whose employment consists in alternate eating and sleeping.
Fathom, Ferdinand, Count.—The title of a novel by Smollett, and the name of its principal character, a complete villain, who proceeds step by step to rob his benefactors and finally dies in misery and despair.