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In 1693 Louis XIV. appointed him to be his first physician. He devoted much of his attention to the treatment of the sick at Versailles, and he appears to have been a benevolent and kind-hearted medical man. In 1698 he became director of the royal garden, and he was instrumental in getting Tournefort sent to the Levant for the purpose of procuring plants. In 1699 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences. His health after this began to decline, and he died at the age of eighty. He published a work on the properties of cinchona, as well as a treatise on the use of tobacco, in which he discusses the question of its influence in shortening life. A catalogue of the plants in the Paris garden was also compiled by him, and he contributed to the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences.—J. H. B.

FAHIE, Sir William Charles, a distinguished officer in the British navy, born in 1763. He served as lieutenant during the West Indian campaign in 1794 with great credit. In 1798, while in command of the Perdrix, he captured L'Armée d'Italie, a French privateer, after a sharp action which lasted forty-two minutes. In the Ethalion he assisted at the capture of the Dutch West India islands in December, 1807, and soon after was appointed to the Belleisle, 74, one of the squadron employed at the reduction of Martinique in February, 1809. In April of the same year, when in command of the Pompée, he captured the French ship Hautpoult, 74, of which he was subsequently appointed commander. In 1810 he joined the expedition against Guadaloupe, and after its surrender took the islands of St. Martin, St. Eustatia, and Saba. He returned to England soon after, and was in 1814 appointed colonel of the royal marines, and in 1816 nominated a companion of the bath. For services rendered at the siege of Gaeta the king of the Two Sicilies created Captain Fahie a knight of the order of St. Ferdinand and merit. In 1819 he was made rear-admiral, and in 1820 was appointed commander-in-chief at the Leeward islands. He was promoted to be vice-admiral and nominated a knight companion of the bath in 1830. He died at Bermuda in 1833.—J. T—r.

* FAHLCRANZ, Christian Erik, a celebrated Swedish bishop, was born at Stora Tuna in Dalecarlia, 30th of August, 1790. He studied at Upsala, and in 1821 was docent of Arabic literature there, and in 1829 professor of theology. He was admitted a member of the Swedish Academy in 1842, and in 1849 was appointed bishop of Westeras. Fahlcranz is the author of a celebrated humorous poem called "Noah's Ark," and of a religious epic, the first of the kind in Sweden, "Ansgarius, Bilder ur Nord-Apostelns lif" (Pictures from the life of Ansgarius, the Apostle of the North), 1846. Fahlcranz, now a reverend bishop, and a man of great consideration and influence, "was a few years ago," says Sturzenbeker, "not so reverent; he abounded with wit and fun. He stands as the successor of Tegnér in the faculty of saying good things." Many anecdotes of his ready wit are on everybody's tongue; he is, in fact, the Sydney Smith of Sweden. In 1839-42, he edited, in connection with Knös and Almqoist, the Ecclesiastik Tidskrit; 1847 and 1848, the Evangeliska Alliancen; and in his "Rom förr och nu" (Rome past and present), 1858 and 1859, he came forth as one of the most zealous supporters of the Swedish established church."—M. H.

FAHLCRANZ, Karl Johan, a distinguished Swedish landscape painter, brother of the preceding, was born at Dalecarlia, November 29, 1774, his mother being a miniature painter of some note. Fahlcranz was sent to Stockholm at the age of sixteen, and entered the Academy, where he studied architecture and the figure under Desprèz. His inclination, however, led him to devote himself to landscape-painting, which he studied diligently among the wild scenery of his native country; and, although as a painter self-taught, he acquired great technical facility, which, united with a good eye for colour, a fresh and original style, refined taste, and ardent attachment to his native scenery, from which he never wandered far, rendered him extremely popular. His best pictures represent mountain-scenery, or spots dignified by historical associations. His chief works are in the royal collections of Sweden and Denmark. For Frederick VI. of Denmark he painted a series of views in Norway. A series of compositions by him from the Frithiofssage of Techner have been lithographed by Ancharsward. In 1815 Fahlcranz received the title of professor, and was also created a chevalier of the order of Vasa.—J. T—e.

FAHRENHEIT, Gabriel Daniel, a native of Dantzig celebrated for the improvements he introduced in the construction of thermometers and barometers, was born on the 14th May, 1686. His parents intended him for commerce; but his early taste for physical research determined his future career. He established himself at Amsterdam as a maker of philosophical instruments. The following are the improvements in thermometers to which he owes his fame:—1st, A new thermometrical scale; 2nd, the employment of tubes having cylindrical instead of globular bulbs; 3rd, about the year 1720 he substituted mercury for spirits of wine in thermometrical and barometrical tubes, as being a liquid better suited to mark variations of heat and cold. He also invented a machine designed to drain those parts of Holland which were exposed to inundations. Fahrenheit fixed the zero of his thermometrical scale at the point of extreme cold observed by him in the winter of 1709. This degree of cold may be always witnessed by mixing together powdered ice, sal-ammoniac, and common salt. The point of heat of boiling mercury he chose as the other extreme of his scale, and divided the intervening space into six hundred equal parts. On this scale 212° is the boiling point of water, above which thermometers are seldom graduated. Mercury becomes solid at 40° below the zero of Fahrenheit. This point of temperature, which has often been observed, would be a better limit to the scale, which would then register the utmost extremes of heat and cold to which the mercurial thermometer is sensible. In Fahrenheit's scale—the one used in England—the freezing point of water being marked 32° and the boiling point 212°, the intermediate space is divided into one hundred and eighty parts. On the continent two scales are in use—the centigrade and that of Reaumur. The space between freezing and boiling points is divided in the centigrade into one hundred parts, and in that of Réaumur into eighty. Thus each degree of Fahrenheit is equal to 100/180 or 10/18 or 5/9 of centigrade, and to 80/180 or 8/18 or 1/9 of Réaumur. To render any number of degrees centigrade into corresponding degrees Réaumur, multiply by 4/5, or conversely, to render a number of degrees Réaumur into corresponding degrees centigrade, multiply by 5/4. To convert degrees Fahrenheit into degrees centigrade, deduct thirty-two, and multiply the remainder by 5/9, or to convert degrees centigrade into degrees Fahrenheit, multiply by 9/5, and add thirty-two to the product. The draining machine was never completed, owing to Fahrenheit's death, which occurred on the 16th September, 1736. In 1724 Fahrenheit published a dissertation on thermometers.—(See Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1824.)—W. A. B.

* FAIDER, Charles, an eminent Belgian lawyer, was born about 1805. He studied for the bar, and was raised to the post of advocate-general. In 1852 the king made him minister of justice. Faider is a voluminous writer, and has contributed many very able and interesting papers to the Revue Belge, the Moniteur Belge, the Bulletins de l'Academie royale de Belgique, the Belgique Judiciare, &c.—R. M., A.

FAIDIT, Gaucelm, born at Uzerche. The date of his birth is not recorded. He died about 1220. In early life he lost all he had in gambling; then threw himself on the world as a sort of vagabond minstrel, and wandered from one place of public resort to another with a woman named Guillelma Monja, whom he married. The marquis of Montferrat patronized him; clothed and decorated him; and he now called himself a troubadour. We find him in the train of Richard Cœur de Lion; and when Richard died, the minstrel, with faithful affection, wrote some beautiful verses in his praise. A troubadour is nothing except he be a lover, and Faidit paid his vows for seven long years to Marie de Ventadour. At the end of this time he ventured to seek other rewards from his mistress than mere smiles. She wished to preserve her virtue, and not to lose her poet, and concerted with her friend, Audière de Malemont, a mode of adjusting this delicate affair. Audière pretended love for the minstrel; described herself as a fond little bird trained to the hand, and the lady of Ventadour as a heron flying high, and hard to be caught. "Will you not," said she, "prefer the bird in the hand?" The poet was charmed, but found himself tricked. "I have," said she, "thought of what is passing through your mind. I wished but to cure you of an illusion." Another lady treated him with even more cruelty, making Faidit's very house the place of assignation where she met a more favoured lover. He went to the Holy Land, intending to fling away his life in battle with the infidels, but was fortunate enough to return to write more lays of love and devotion. There is a comedy, a comic dialogue of his entitled the