See W. Wundt, G. Th. Fechner (Leipzig, 1901); A. Elsas, “Zum Andenken G. Th. Fechners,” in Grenzbote, 1888; J.E. Kuntze, G. Th. Fechner (Leipzig, 1892); Karl Lasswitz, G. Th. Fechner (Stuttgart, 1896 and 1902); E.B. Titchener, Experimental Psychology (New York, 1905); G.F. Stout, Manual of Psychology (1898), bk. ii. ch. vii.; R. Falckenberg, Hist. of Mod. Phil. (Eng. trans., 1895), pp. 601 foll.; H. Höffding, Hist. of Mod. Phil. (Eng. trans., 1900), vol. ii. pp. 524 foll.; Liebe, Fechners Metaphysik, im Umriss dargestellt (1903).
(H. St.)
FECHTER, CHARLES ALBERT (1824-1879), Anglo-French actor, was born, probably in London, on the 23rd of October 1824, of French parents, although his mother was of Piedmontese and his father of German extraction. The boy would probably have devoted himself to a sculptor’s life but for the accident of a striking success made in some private theatricals. The result was an engagement in 1841 to play in a travelling company that was going to Italy. The tour was a failure, and the company broke up; whereupon Fechter returned home and worked assiduously at sculpture. At the same time he attended classes at the Conservatoire with the view of gaining admission to the Comédie Française. Late in 1844 he won the grand medal of the Académie des Beaux-Arts with a piece of sculpture, and was admitted to make his debut at the Comédie Française as Seide in Voltaire’s Mahomet and Valère in Molière’s Tartuffe. He acquitted himself with credit; but, tired of the small parts he found himself condemned to play, returned again to his sculptor’s studio in 1846. In that year he accepted an engagement to play with a French company in Berlin, where he made his first decisive success as an actor. On his return to Paris in the following year he married the actress Eléonore Rabut (d. 1895). Previously he had appeared for some months in London, in a season of French classical plays given at the St James’s theatre. In Paris for the next ten years he fulfilled a series of successful engagements at various theatres, his chief triumph being his creation at the Vaudeville on the 2nd of February 1852 of the part of Armand Duval in La Dame aux camélias. For nearly two years (1857-1858) Fechter was manager of the Odéon, where he produced Tartuffe and other classical plays. Having received tempting offers to act in English at the Princess’s theatre, London, he made a diligent study of the language, and appeared there on the 27th of October 1860 in an English version of Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas. This was followed by The Corsican Brothers and Don César de Bazan; and on the 20th of March 1861 he first attempted Hamlet. The result was an extraordinary triumph, the play running for 115 nights. This was followed by Othello, in which he played alternately the Moor and Iago. In 1863 he became lessee of the Lyceum theatre, which he opened with The Duke’s Motto; this was followed by The King’s Butterfly, The Mountebank (in which his son Paul, a boy of seven, appeared), The Roadside Inn, The Master of Ravenswood, The Corsican Brothers (in the original French version, in which he had created the parts of Louis and Fabian dei Franchi) and The Lady of Lyons. After this he appeared at the Adelphi (1868) as Obenreizer in No Thoroughfare, by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, as Edmond Dantes in Monte Cristo, and as Count de Leyrac in Black and White, a play in which the actor himself collaborated with Wilkie Collins. In 1870 he visited the United States, where (with the exception of a visit to London in 1872) he remained till his death. His first appearance in New York was at Niblo’s Garden in the title rôle of Ruy Blas. He played in the United States between 1870 and 1876 in most of the parts in which he had won his chief triumphs in England, making at various times attempts at management, rarely successful, owing to his ungovernable temper. The last three years of his life were spent in seclusion on a farm which he had bought at Rockland Centre, near Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where he died on the 5th of August 1879. A bust of the actor by himself is in the Garrick Club, London.
FECKENHAM, JOHN (c. 1515-1584), English ecclesiastic, last abbot of Westminster, was born at Feckenham, Worcestershire, of ancestors who, by their wills, seem to have been substantial yeomen. The family name was Howman, but, according to the English custom, Feckenham, on monastic profession, changed it for the territorial name by which he is always known. Learning his letters first from the parish priest, he was sent at an early age to the claustral school at Evesham and thence, in his eighteenth year, to Gloucester Hall, Oxford, as a Benedictine student. After taking his degree in arts, he returned to the abbey, where he was professed; but he was at the university again in 1537 and took his B.D. on the 11th of June 1539. Returning to Evesham he was there when the abbey was surrendered to the king (27th of January 1540); and then, with a pension of £10 a year, he once more went back to Oxford, but soon after became chaplain to Bishop Bell of Worcester and then served Bonner in that same capacity from 1543 to 1549. In 1544 Bonner gave him the living of Solihull; and Feckenham established a reputation as a preacher and a disputant of keen intellect but unvarying charity. About 1549 Cranmer sent him to the Tower of London, and while there “he was borrowed out of prison” to take part in seven public disputations against Hooper, Jewel and others. Released by Queen Mary (5th of September 1553), he returned to Bonner and became prebendary of St Paul’s, rector of Finchley, then of Greenford Magna, chaplain and confessor to the queen, and dean of St Paul’s (10th of March 1554). He took part, with much charity and mildness, in the Oxford disputes against Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley; but he had no liking for the fierce bigotry and bloody measures then in force against Protestants. Feckenham used all his influence with Mary “to procure pardon of the faults or mitigation of the punishment for poor Protestants” (Fuller), and he was sent by the queen to prepare Lady Jane Grey for death. When Elizabeth was sent to the Tower (18th of March 1554), Feckenham interceded for her life and liberty, even at the cost of displeasing the queen.
The royal abbey of Westminster having been restored to its primitive use, Feckenham was appointed abbot, and the old life began again within its hallowed walls on the 21st of November 1556. The abbey school was reopened and the shrine of St Edward restored. On the accession of Elizabeth Feckenham consistently opposed all the legislation for changes in religion, and, when the hour of trial came, he refused the oath of supremacy, rejecting also Elizabeth’s offer to remain with his monks at Westminster if he would conform to the new laws. The abbey was dissolved (12th of July 1559), and within a year Feckenham was sent by Archbishop Parker to the Tower (20th of May 1560), according to Jewel, “for having obstinately refused attendance on public worship and everywhere declaiming and railing against that religion which we now profess” (Parker Society, first series, p. 79). Henceforth, except for some brief periods when he was a prisoner at large, Feckenham spent the rest of his life in confinement either in some recognized prison, or in the more distasteful and equally rigorous keeping of the bishops of Winchester and Ely. After fourteen years’ confinement, he was released on bail and lived in Holborn, where his benevolence was shown by all manner of works of charity. “He relieved the poor wheresoever he came, so that flies flock not thicker to spilt honey than beggars constantly crowd about him” (Fuller). He set up a public aqueduct in Holborn, and a hospice for the poor at Bath; he distributed every day to the sick the milk of twelve cows, took care of orphans, and encouraged manly sports on Sundays among the youth of London by giving prizes. In 1577 he was committed to the care of Cox of Ely with strict rules for his treatment; and the bishop (1578) could find no fault with him except that “he was a gentle person but in the popish religion too, too obstinate.” In 1580 he was removed to Wisbeach Castle, and there exercised such an influence of charity and peace among his fellow-prisoners that was remembered when, in after years, the notorious Wisbeach Stirs broke out under the Jesuit Weston. Even here Feckenham found a means of doing public good; at his own cost he repaired the road and set up a market cross in the town. After twenty-four years of suffering for his conscience he died in prison and was buried in an unknown grave in the parish church at Wisbeach on the 16th of October 1584.
The fullest account of Feckenham is to be found in E. Taunton’s English Black Monks of St Benedict (London, 1897), vol. i. pp. 160-222.
(E. Tn.)