FOLENGO, TEOFILO (1491-1544), otherwise known as Merlino Coccajo or Cocajo, one of the principal Italian macaronic poets, was born of noble parentage at Cipada near Mantua on the 8th of November 1491, From his infancy he showed great vivacity of mind, and a remarkable cleverness in making verses. At the age of sixteen he entered the monastery of Monte Casino near Brescia, and eighteen months afterwards he became a professed member of the Benedictine order. For a few years his life as a monk seems to have been tolerably regular, and he is said to have produced a considerable quantity of Latin verse, written, not unsuccessfully, in the Virgilian style. About the year 1516 he forsook the monastic life for the society of a well-born young woman named Girolama Dieda, with whom he wandered about the country for several years, often suffering great poverty, having no other means of support than his talent for versification. His first publication was the Merlini Cocaii macaronicon, which relates the adventures of a fictitious hero named Baldus. The coarse buffoonery of this work is often relieved by touches of genuine poetry, as well as by graphic descriptions and acute criticisms of men and manners. Its macaronic style is rendered peculiarly perplexing to the foreigner by the frequent introduction of words and phrases from the Mantuan patois. Though frequently censured for its occasional grossness of idea and expression, it soon attained a wide popularity, and within a very few years passed through several editions. Folengo’s next production was the Orlandino, an Italian poem of eight cantos, written in rhymed octaves. It appeared in 1526, and bore on the title-page the new pseudonym of Limerno Pitocco (Merlin the Beggar) da Mantova. In the same year, wearied with a life of dissipation, Folengo returned to his ecclesiastical obedience; and shortly afterwards wrote his Chaos del tri per uno, in which, partly in prose, partly in verse, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in Italian, and sometimes in macaronic, he gives a veiled account of the vicissitudes of the life he had lived under his various names, We next find him about the year 1533 writing in rhymed octaves a life of Christ entitled L’Umanità del Figliuolo di Dio; and he is known to have composed, still later, another religious poem upon the creation, fall and restoration of man, besides a few tragedies. These, however, have never been published. Some of his later years were spent in Sicily under the patronage of Don Fernando de Gonzaga, the viceroy; he even appears for a short time to have had charge of a monastery there. In 1543 he retired to Santa Croce de Campesio, near Bassano; and there he died on the 9th of December 1544.
Folengo is frequently quoted and still more frequently copied by Rabelais. The earlier editions of his Opus macaronicum are now extremely rare. The often reprinted edition of 1530 exhibits the text as revised by the author after he had begun to amend his life.
FOLEY, JOHN HENRY (1818-1874), Irish sculptor, was born at Dublin on the 24th of May 1818. At thirteen he began to study drawing and modelling at the schools of the Royal Dublin Society, where he took several first-class prizes. In 1835 he was admitted a student in the schools of the Royal Academy, London. He first appeared as an exhibitor in 1839 with his “Death of Abel and Innocence.” “Ino and Bacchus,” exhibited in 1840, gave him immediate reputation, and the work itself was afterwards commissioned to be done in marble for the earl of Ellesmere. “Lear and Cordelia” and “Death of Lear” were exhibited in 1841. “Venus rescuing Aeneas” and “The Houseless Wanderer” in 1842, “Prospero and Miranda” in 1843. In 1844 Foley sent to the exhibition at Westminster Hall his “Youth at a Stream,” and was, with Calder Marshall and John Bell, chosen by the commissioners to do work in sculpture for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament. Statues of John Hampden and Selden were executed for this purpose, and received liberal praise for the propriety, dignity and proportion of their treatment. Commissions of all kinds now began to come rapidly. Fanciful works, busts, bas-reliefs, tablets and monumental statues were in great numbers undertaken and executed by him with a steady equality of worthy treatment. In 1849 he was made an associate and in 1858 a member of the Royal Academy. Among his numerous works the following may be noticed, besides those mentioned above:—“The Mother”; “Egeria,” for the Mansion House; “The Elder Brother in Comus,” his diploma work; “The Muse of Painting,” the monument of James Ward, R.A.; “Caractacus,” for the Mansion House; “Helen Faucit”; “Goldsmith” and “Burke,” for Trinity College, Dublin; “Faraday”; “Reynolds”; “Barry,” for Westminster Palace Yard; “John Stuart Mill,” for the Thames embankment; “O’Connell” and “Cough,” for Dublin; “Clyde,” for Glasgow; “Clive,” for Shrewsbury; “Hardinge,” “Canning” and “Outram,” for Calcutta; “Hon. James Stewart,” for Ceylon; the symbolical group “Asia,” as well as the statue of the prince himself, for the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park; and “Stonewall Jackson,” in Richmond, Va. The statue of Sir James Outram is probably his masterpiece. Foley’s early fanciful works have some charming qualities; but he will probably always be best remembered for the workmanlike and manly style of his monumental portraits. He died at Hampstead on the 27th of August 1874, and on the 4th of September was buried in St Paul’s cathedral. He left his models to the Royal Dublin Society, his early school, and a great part of his property to the Artists’ Benevolent Fund.
See W. Cosmo Monkhouse, The Works of J.H. Foley (1875).
FOLEY, SIR THOMAS (1757-1833), British admiral, entered the navy in 1770, and, during his time as midshipman, saw a good deal of active service in the West Indies against American privateers. Promoted lieutenant in 1778, he served under Admiral (afterwards Viscount) Keppel and Sir Charles Hardy in the Channel, and with Rodney’s squadron was present at the defeat of De Lángara off Cape St Vincent in 1780, and at the relief of Gibraltar. Still under Rodney’s command, he went out to the West Indies, and took his part in the operations which culminated in the victory of the 12th of April 1782. In the Revolutionary War he was engaged from the first. As flag-captain to Admiral John Gell, and afterwards to Sir Hyde Parker, Foley took part in the siege of Toulon in 1793, the action of Golfe Jouan in 1794, and the two fights off Toulon on the 13th of April and the 13th of July 1795. At St Vincent he was flag-captain to the second in command, and in the following year was sent out in command of the “Goliath” (74), to reinforce Nelson’s fleet in the Mediterranean. The part played by the “Goliath” in the battle of the Nile was brilliant. She led the squadron round the French van, and this manœuvre contributed not a little to the result of the day. Whether this was done by Foley’s own initiative, or intended by Nelson, has been a matter of controversy (see Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 1885, p. 916). His next important service was with Nelson in the Baltic. The “Elephant” carried Nelson’s flag at the battle of Copenhagen, and her captain acted as his chief-of-staff. Ill-health obliged Foley to decline Nelson’s offer (made when on the point of starting for the battle of Trafalgar) of the post of Captain of the Fleet. From 1808 to 1815 he commanded in the Downs and at the peace was made K.C.B. Sir Thomas Foley rose to be full admiral and G.C.B. He died while commanding in chief at Portsmouth in 1833.
See J.B. Herbert, Life and Services of Sir Thomas Foley (Cardiff, 1884).