FELTON, CORNELIUS CONWAY (1807-1862), American classical scholar, was born on the 6th of November 1807, in West Newbury, Massachusetts. He graduated at Harvard College in 1827, having taught school in the winter vacations of his sophomore and junior years. After teaching in the Livingstone high school of Geneseo, New York, for two years, he became tutor at Harvard in 1829, university professor of Greek in 1832, and Eliot professor of Greek literature in 1834. In 1860 he succeeded James Walker as president of Harvard, which position he held until his death, at Chester, Pennsylvania, on the 26th of February 1862. Dr Felton edited many classical texts. His annotations on Wolf’s text of the Iliad (1833) are especially valuable. Greece, Ancient and Modern (2 vols., 1867), forty-nine lectures before the Lowell Institute, is scholarly, able and suggestive of the author’s personality. Among his miscellaneous publications are the American edition of Sir William Smith’s History of Greece (1855); translations of Menzel’s German Literature (1840), of Munk’s Metres of the Greeks and Romans (1844), and of Guyot’s Earth and Man (1849); and Familiar Letters from Europe (1865).
FELTON, JOHN (c. 1595-1628), assassin of the 1st duke of Buckingham, was a member of an old Suffolk family established at Playford. The date of his birth and the name of his father are unknown, but his mother was Eleanor, daughter of William Wright, mayor of Durham. He entered the army, and served as lieutenant in the expedition to Cadiz commanded by Sir Edward Cecil in 1625. His career seems to have been ill-starred and unfortunate from the beginning. His left hand was early disabled by a wound, and a morose temper rendered him unpopular and prevented his advancement. Every application made to Buckingham for his promotion was refused, on account of an enmity, according to Sir Simonds D’Ewes, which existed between Felton and Sir Henry Hungate, a favourite of Buckingham. To his personal application that he could not live without a captaincy Buckingham replied harshly “that he might hang.” Whether he took part in the expedition to Rhé in 1627 is uncertain, but there is no doubt that he continued to be refused promotion, and that even his scanty pay earned during the Cadiz adventure was not received. Exasperated by his ill-treatment, his discontent sharpened by poverty, and his hatred of Buckingham intensified by a study of the Commons “Remonstrances” of the previous June, and by a work published by Eglesham, the physician of James I., in which Buckingham was accused of poisoning the king, Felton determined to effect his assassination. He bought a tenpenny knife on Tower Hill, and on his way through Fleet Street he left his name in a church to be prayed for as “a man much discontented in mind.” He arrived at Portsmouth at 9 o’clock in the morning of the 23rd of August 1628, and immediately proceeded to No. 10 High Street, where Buckingham was lodged. Here mingling with the crowd of applicants and unnoticed he stabbed the duke, who immediately fell dead. Though escape would have been easy he confessed the deed and was seized and conveyed to the Tower, his journey thither, such was the unpopularity of the duke, being accompanied by cries of “God bless thee” from the people. Charles and Laud desired he should be racked, but the illegal torture was prevented by the judges. He was tried before the king’s bench on the 27th of November, pleaded guilty, and was hanged the next day, his body being exposed in chains subsequently at Portsmouth.
FELTRE, MORTO DA, Italian painter of the Venetian school, who worked at the close of the 15th century and beginning of the 16th. His real name appears to have been Pietro Luzzo; he is also known by the name Zarato or Zarotto, either from the place of his death or because his father, a surgeon, was in Zara during the son’s childhood: whether he was termed Morto (dead) from his joyless temperament is a disputed point. He may probably have studied painting first in Venice, but under what master is uncertain. At an early age he went to Rome, and investigated the ancient, especially the subterranean remains, and thence to Pozzuoli, where he painted from the decorations of antique crypts or “grotte.” The style of fanciful arabesque which he formed for himself from these studies gained the name of “grottesche,” whence comes the term “grotesque”; not, indeed, that Morto was the first painter of arabesque in the Italian Renaissance, for art of this kind had, apart from his influence, been fully developed, both in painting and in sculpture, towards 1480, but he may have powerfully aided its diffusion southwards. His works were received with much favour in Rome. He afterwards went to Florence, and painted some fine grotesques in the Palazzo Pubblico. Returning to Venice towards 1505, he assisted Giorgione in painting the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, and seems to have remained with him till 1511. If we may trust Ridolfi, Morto eloped with the mistress of Giorgione, whose grief at this transaction brought him to the grave; the allegation, however, is hardly reconcilable with other accounts. It may have been in 1515 that Morto returned to his native Feltre, then in a very ruinous condition from the ravages of war in 1509. There he executed various works, including some frescoes, still partly extant, and considered to be almost worthy of the hand of Raphael, in the loggia beside San Stefano. Towards the age of forty-five, Morto, unquiet and dissatisfied, abandoned painting and took to soldiering in the service of the Venetian republic. He was made captain of a troop of two hundred men; and fighting valorously, he is said to have died at Zara in Dalmatia, in 1519. This story, and especially the date of it, are questionable: there is some reason to think that Morto was painting as late as 1522. One of his pictures is in the Berlin museum, an allegorical subject of “Peace and War.” Andrea Feltrini was his pupil and assistant as a decorative painter.
FELTRE (anc. Feltria), a town and episcopal see of Venetia, Italy, in the province of Belluno, 20 m. W.S.W. of it by rail, situated on an isolated hill, 885 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 5468 (town), 15,243 (commune). The cathedral has a fine polygonal apse of the 16th century. The Palazzo del Consiglio, now a theatre, is attributed to Palladio. At one end of the chief square of the town, the Piazza Maggiore, is the cistern by which the town is supplied with water, and a large fountain. There are some remains of the medieval castle. The ancient Feltria, which lay on the road (Via Claudia) from Opitergium to Tridentum, does not seem to have been a place of any importance under the Romans. Vittorino dei Rambaldoni da Feltre (1378-1446) was a famous educator and philosopher of his time.
FELUCCA (an Italian word; in forms like the Span. faluca, Fr. felouque, it appears in other languages; it is probably of Arabic origin, cf. fulk, a ship, and falaka, to be round; the modern Arabic form is falūkah), a type of vessel used in the Mediterranean for coasters or fishing-boats. It is a long, low and narrow undecked vessel, built for speed, and propelled by oars or sails. The sails are lateen-shaped and carried on one or two masts placed far forward (see [Boat]).