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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agrippa, Herod, II.

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​AGRIPPA, HEROD, II. (27–100), son of the preceding, and like him originally Marcus Julius Agrippa, was born about A.D. 27, and received the tetrarchy of Chalcis and the oversight of the Temple on the death of his uncle Herod, A.D. 48. In A.D. 53 he was deprived of that kingdom by Claudius, who gave him other provinces instead of it. In the war which Vespasian carried on against the Jews Herod sent him 2000 men, by which it appears that, though a Jew in religion, he was yet entirely devoted to the Romans, whose assistance indeed he required to secure the peace of his own kingdom. He died at Rome in the third year of Trajan, A.D. 100. He was the seventh and last king of the family of Herod the Great. It was before him and his sister Berenice (q.v., B.2) that St Paul pleaded his cause at Caesarea (Acts xxvi.). He supplied Josephus with information for his history.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agrionia

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​AGRIONIA, an ancient Greek festival, which was celebrated annually at Orchomenus in Boeotia and elsewhere, in honour of Dionysus Agrionius, by women and priests at night. The women, after playfully pretending for some time to search for the god, desisted, saying that he had hidden himself among the Muses. The tradition is that the daughters of Minyas, king of Orchomenus, having despised the rites of the god, were seized with frenzy and ate the flesh of one of their children. At this festival it was originally the custom for the priest of the god to pursue a woman of the Minyan family with a drawn sword and kill her. (Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 102, Quaest. Graecae 38.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agrimony

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​AGRIMONY (from the Lat. agrimonia, a transformation of ἀργεμώνη, a word of unknown etymology), a slender perennial herb (botanical name, Agrimonia Eupatoria, natural order Rosaceae), 11/2 to 3 ft. high, growing in hedge-banks, copses and borders of fields. The leafy stem ends in spikes of small yellow flowers. The flower-stalk becomes recurved in the fruiting stage, and the fruit bears a number of hooks which enable it to cling to rough objects, such as the coat of an animal, thus ensuring distribution of the seed. The plant is common in Britain and widely spread through the north temperate region. The underground woody stem is astringent and yields a yellow dye.
The name has been unsystematically given to several other plants; for instance: bastard, Dutch, hemp or water agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum); noble or three-leaved agrimony (Anemone hepatica); water agrimony (Bidens); and wild agrimony (Potentilla anserina).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ferrol

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​FERROL [El Ferrol], a seaport of north-western Spain, in the province of Corunna; situated 12 m. N.E. of the city of Corunna, and on the Bay of Ferrol, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900) 25,281. Together with San Fernando, near Cadiz, and Cartagena, Ferrol is governed by an admiral, with the special title of captain-general; and it ranks beside these two ports as one of the principal naval stations of Spain. The town is beautifully situated on a headland overlooking the bay, and is surrounded by rocky hills which render it invisible from the sea. Its harbour, naturally one of the best in Europe, and the largest in Spain except those of Vigo and Corunna, is deep, capacious and secure; but the entrance is a narrow strait about 2 m. long, which admits only one vessel at a time, and is commanded by modern and powerfully armed forts, while the neighbouring heights are also crowned by defensive works. Ferrol is provided with extensive dockyards, quays, warehouses and an arsenal; most of these, with the palace of the captain-general, the bull-ring, theatres, and other principal buildings, were built or modernized between 1875 and 1905. The local industries are mainly connected with the shipping trade, or the refitting of warships. Owing to the lack of railway communication, and the competition of Corunna at so short a distance, Ferrol is not a first-class commercial port; and in the early years of the 20th century its trade, already injured by the loss to Spain of Cuba and Porto Rico in 1898, showed little prospect of improvement. The exports are insignificant, and consist chiefly of wooden staves and beams for use as pit-props; the chief imports are coal, cement, timber, iron and machinery. In 1904, 282 vessels of 155,881 tons entered the harbour. In the same year the construction of a railway to the neighbouring town of Betanzos was undertaken, and in 1909 important shipbuilding operations were begun.
Ferrol was a mere fishing village until 1752, when Ferdinand VI. began to fit it for becoming an arsenal. In 1799 the British made a fruitless attempt to capture it, but on the 4th of November 1805 they defeated the French fleet in front of the town, which they compelled to surrender. On the 27th of January 1809 it was through treachery delivered over to the French, but it was vacated by them on the 22nd of July. On the 15th of July 1823 another blockade was begun by the French, and Ferrol surrendered to them on the 27th of August.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ferri, Ciro

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​FERRI, CIRO (1634–1689), Roman painter, the chief disciple and successor of Pietro da Cortona. He was born in the Roman territory, studied under Pietro, to whom he became warmly attached, and, at an age a little past thirty, completed the painting of the ceilings and other internal decorations begun by his instructor in the Pitti palace, Florence. He also co-operated in or finished several other works by Pietro, both in Florence and in Rome, approaching near to his style and his particular merits, but with less grace of design and native vigour, and in especial falling short of him in colour. Of his own independent productions, the chief is an extensive series of scriptural frescoes in the church of S. Maria Maggiore in Bergamo; also a painting (rated as Ferri’s best work) of St Ambrose healing a sick person, the principal altarpiece in the church of S. Ambrogio della Massima in Rome. The paintings of the cupola of S. Agnese in the same capital might rank even higher than these; but this labour remained uncompleted at the death of Ferri, and was marred by the performances of his successor Corbellini. He executed also a large amount of miscellaneous designs, such as etchings and frontispieces for books; and he was an architect besides. Ferri was appointed to direct the Florentine students in Rome, and Gabbiani was one of his leading pupils. As regards style, Ferri ranks as chief of the so-called Machinists, as opposed to the school founded by Sacchi, and continued by Carlo Maratta. He died in Rome—his end being hastened, as it is said, by mortification at his recognized inferiority to Bacciccia in colour.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ferrier, Paul

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​FERRIER, PAUL (1843– ), French dramatist, was born at Montpellier on the 29th of March 1843. He had already produced several comedies when in 1873 he secured real success with two short pieces, Chez l’avocat and Les Incendies de Massoulard. Others of his numerous plays are Les Compensations (1876); L’Art de tromper les femmes (1890), with M. Najac. One of Ferrier’s greatest triumphs was the production with Fabrice Carré of Joséphine vendue par ses sœurs (1886), an opéra bouffe with music by Victor Roger. His opera libretti include La Marocaine (1879), music of J. Offenbach; Le Chevalier d’Harmental (1896) after the play of Dumas père, for the music of A. Messager; La Fille de Tabarin (1901), with Victorien Sardou, music of Gabriel Pierné.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ferruccio, Francesco

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​FERRUCCIO, or Ferrucci, FRANCESCO (1489–1530), Florentine captain. After spending a few years as a merchant’s clerk he took to soldiering at an early age, and served in the Bande Nere in various parts of Italy, earning a reputation as a daring fighter and somewhat of a swashbuckler. When Pope Clement VII. and the emperor Charles V. decided to reinstate the Medici in Florence, they made war on the Florentine republic, and Ferruccio was appointed Florentine military commissioner at Empoli, where he showed great daring and resource by his rapid marches and sudden attacks on the Imperialists. Early in 1530 Volterra had thrown off Florentine allegiance and had been occupied by an Imperialist garrison, but Ferruccio surprised and recaptured the city. During his absence, however, the Imperialists captured Empoli by treachery, thus cutting off one of the chief avenues of approach to Florence. Ferruccio proposed to the government of the republic that he should march on Rome and terrorize the pope by the threat of a sack into making peace with Florence on favourable terms, but although the war committee appointed him commissioner-general for the operations outside the city, they rejected his scheme as too audacious. Ferruccio then decided to attempt a diversion by attacking the Imperialists in the rear and started from Volterra for the Apennines. But at Pisa he was laid up for a month with a fever—a misfortune which enabled the enemy to get wind of his plan and to prepare for his attack. At the end of July Ferruccio left Pisa at the head of about 4000 men, and although the besieged in Florence, knowing that a large part of the Imperialists under the prince of Orange had gone to meet Ferruccio, wished to co-operate with the latter by means of a sortie, they were prevented from doing so by their own traitorous commander-in-chief, Malatesta Baglioni. Ferruccio encountered a much larger force of the enemy on the 3rd of August at Gavinana; a desperate battle ensued, and at first the Imperialists were driven back by Ferruccio’s fierce onslaught and the prince of Orange himself was killed, but reinforcements under Fabrizio Maramaldo having arrived, the Florentines were almost annihilated and Ferruccio was wounded and captured. Maramaldo out of personal spite despatched the wounded man with his own hand. This defeat sealed the fate of the republic, and nine days later Florence surrendered. Ferruccio was one of the great soldiers of the age, and his enterprise is the finest episode of the last days of the Florentine republic. See also under Florence and Medici.
Bibliography.—F. Sassetti, Vita di Francesco Ferrucci, written in the 16th century and published in the Archivio storico, vol. iv. pt. ii. (Florence, 1853), with an introduction by C. Monzani; E. Aloisi, La Battaglia di Gavinana (Bologna, 1881); cf. P. Villari’s criticism of the latter work, “Ferruccio e Maramaldo,” in his Arte, storia, e filosofia (Florence, 1884); Gino Capponi, Storia della repubblica di Firenze, vol. ii. (Florence, 1875).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ferret

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​FERRET, a domesticated, and frequently albino breed of quadruped, derived from the wild polecat (Putorius foetidus, or P. putorius), which it closely resembles in size, form, and habits, and with which it interbreeds. It differs in the colour of its fur, which is usually yellowish-white, and of its eyes, which are pinky-red. The “polecat-ferret” is a brown breed, apparently the product of the above-mentioned cross. The ferret attains a length of about 14 in., exclusive of the tail, which measures 5 in. Although exhibiting considerable tameness, it seems incapable of attachment, and when not properly fed, or when irritated, is apt to give painful evidence of its ferocity. It is chiefly employed in destroying rats and other vermin, and in driving rabbits from their burrows. The ferret is remarkably prolific, the female bringing forth two broods annually, each numbering from six to nine young. It is said to occasionally devour its young immediately after birth, and in this case produces another brood soon after. The ferret was well known to the Romans, Strabo stating that it was brought from Africa into Spain, and Pliny that it was employed in his time in rabbit-hunting, under the name Viverra; the English name is not derived from this, but from Fr. furet, Late Lat. furo, robber. The date of its introduction into Great Britain is uncertain, but it has been known in England for at least 600 years.
The ferret should be kept in dry, clean, well-ventilated hutches, and fed twice daily on bread, milk, and meat, such as rabbits’ and fowls’ livers. When used to hunt rabbits it is provided with a muzzle, or, better and more usual, a cope, made by looping and knotting twine about the head and snout, in order to prevent it killing its quarry, in which case it would gorge itself and go to sleep in the hole. As the ferret enters the hole the rabbits flee before it, and are shot or caught by dogs as they break ground. A ferret’s hold on its quarry is as obstinate as that of a bulldog, but can easily be broken by a strong pressure of the thumb just above the eyes. Only full-grown ferrets are “worked to” rats. Several are generally used at a time and without copes, as rats are fierce fighters.
See Ferrets, by Nicholas Everitt (London, 1897).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ferri, Luigi

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​FERRI, LUIGI (1826–1895), Italian philosopher, was born at Bologna on the 15th of June 1826. His education was obtained mainly at the École Normale in Paris, where his father, a painter and architect, was engaged in the construction of the Théâtre Italien. From his twenty-fifth year he began to lecture in the colleges of Evreux, Dieppe, Blois and Toulouse. Later, he was lecturer at Annecy and Casal-Montferrat, and became head of the education department under Mamiani in 1860. Three years later he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Istituto di Perfezionamento at Florence, and, in 1871, was made professor of philosophy in the university of Rome. On the death of Mamiani in 1885 he became editor of the Filosofia delle scuole italiane, the title of which he changed to Rivista italiana di filosofia. He wrote both on psychology and on metaphysics, but is known especially as a historian of philosophy. His original work is eclectic, combining the psychology of his teachers, Jules Simon, Saisset and Mamiani, with the idealism of Rosmini and Gioberti. Among his works may be mentioned Studii sulla coscienza; Il Fenomeno nelle sue relazioni con la sensazione; Della idea del vero; Della filosofia del diritto presso Aristotile (1885); Il Genio di Aristotile; La Psicologia di Pietro Pomponazzi (1877), and, most important, Essai sur l’histoire de la philosophie en Italie au XIXᵉ siècle (Paris, 1869), and La Psychologie de l’association depuis Hobbes jusqu’à nos jours.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ferrier, Arnaud du

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​FERRIER, ARNAUD DU (c. 1508–1585), French jurisconsult and diplomatist, was born at Toulouse about 1508, and practised as a lawyer first at Bourges, afterwards at Toulouse. Councillor to the parlement of the latter town, and then to that of Rennes, he later became president of the parlement of Paris. He represented Charles IX., king of France, at the council of Trent in 1562, but had to retire in consequence of the attitude he had adopted, and was sent as ambassador to Venice, where he remained till 1567, returning again in 1570. On his return to France he came into touch with the Calvinists whose tenets he probably embraced, and consequently lost his place in the privy council and part of his fortune. As compensation, Henry, king of Navarre, appointed him his chancellor. He died in the end of October 1585.
See also E. Frémy, Un Ambassadeur libéral sous Charles IX et Henri III, Arnaud du Ferrier (Paris, 1880).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ferrers, Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl

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​FERRERS, LAURENCE SHIRLEY, 4th Earl (1720–1760), the last nobleman in England to suffer a felon’s death, was born on the 18th of August 1720. There was insanity in his family, and from an early age his behaviour seems to have been eccentric, and his temper violent, though he was quite capable of managing his business affairs. In 1758 his wife obtained a separation from him for cruelty. The Ferrers estates were then vested in trustees, the Earl Ferrers secured the appointment of an old family steward, Johnson, as receiver of rents. This man faithfully performed his duty as a servant to the trustees, and did not prove amenable to Ferrer’s personal wishes. On the 18th of January 1760, Johnson called at the earl’s mansion at Staunton Harold, Leicestershire, by appointment, and was directed to his lordship’s study. Here, after some business conversation, Lord Ferrers shot him. In the following April Ferrers was tried for murder by his peers in Westminster Hall. His defence, which he conducted in person with great ability, was a plea of insanity, and it was supported by considerable evidence, but he was found guilty. He subsequently said that he had only pleaded insanity to oblige his family, and that he had himself always been ashamed of such a defence. On the 5th of May 1760, dressed in a light-coloured suit, embroidered with silver, he was taken in his own carriage from the Tower of London to Tyburn and there hanged. It has been said that as a concession to his order the rope used was of silk.
See Peter Burke, Celebrated Trials connected with the Aristocracy in the Relations of Private Life (London, 1849); Edward Walford, Tales of our Great Families (London, 1877); Howell’s State Trials (1816), xix. 885-980.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beaconsfield (South Africa)

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​BEACONSFIELD, a town of South Africa in Griqualand West, about 3 m. S.W. of Kimberley, of which it is practically a suburb, though possessing a separate municipality. Pop. (1904) 9378, of whom 2780 were whites. Beaconsfield was founded in 1870 near the famous Dutoitspan diamond mine. The land on which the town is built belongs to the De Beers Company. (See Kimberley.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beaconsfield (Tasmania)

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​BEACONSFIELD, a town of Devon county, Tasmania, on the river Tamar, 28 m. direct N.W. of Launceston. Pop. (1901) 2658. From its port at Beauty Point, 31/2 m. distant, with which it is connected by a steam tramway, communication is maintained with Georgetown and Launceston. It is the centre of the most important gold-field in the island.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beak

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​BEAK (early forms beke and becke, from Fr. bec, late Lat. beccus, supposed to be a Gaulish word; the Celtic bec and beq, however, are taken from the English), the horny bill of a bird, and so used of the horny ends of the mandibles of the octopus, the duck-billed platypus and other animals; hence the rostrum (q.v.) or ornamented prow of ancient war vessels. The term is also applied, in classic architecture, to the pendent fillet on the edge of the corona of a cornice, which serves as a drip, and prevents the rain from flowing inwards.
The slang use of “beak” for a magistrate or justice of the peace has not been satisfactorily explained. The earlier meaning, which lasted down to the beginning of the 19th century, was “watchman” or “constable.” According to Slang and its Analogues (J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, 1890), the first example of its later use is in the name of “the Blind Beak,” which was given to Henry Fielding’s half-brother, Sir John Fielding (about 1750). Thomas Harman, in his book on vagrants, Caveat or Warening for commen cursitors, Vulgarely called Vagabones, 1573, explains harmans beck as “counstable,” harman being the word for the stocks. Attempts have been made to connect “beak” in this connexion with the Old English béag, a gold torque or collar, worn as a symbol of authority, but this could only be plausible on the assumption that “magistrate” was the earlier significance of the word.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beaconsfield (England)

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​BEACONSFIELD, a town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England. 23 m. W. by N. of London, on the main road to Oxford, and on the Great Central & Great Western joint railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 1570. It lies in a hilly well-wooded district above the valley of the small river Wye, a tributary of the Thames. The broad Oxford road forms its picturesque main street. It was formerly a posting station of importance, and had a considerable manufacture of ribbons. The Perpendicular church of St Mary and All Saints is the burial place of Edmund Burke (d. 1797), who lived at Gregories, or as he named it Butler’s Court, near the town. He would have taken his title from Beaconsfield had he survived to enter the peerage. A monument to his memory was erected in 1898. Edmund Waller the poet owned the property of Hall Barn, and died here in 1687. His tomb is in the churchyard. Benjamin Disraeli chose the title of earl of Beaconsfield in 1876, his wife having in 1868 received the title of Viscountess Beaconsfield. The opening of railway communication with London in 1906 resulted in a considerable accretion of residential population.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beadle

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​BEADLE, also Bedel or Bedell (from A.S. bydel, from beodan, to bid), originally a subordinate officer of a court or deliberative assembly, who summoned persons to appear and answer charges against them (see Du Cange, supra tit. Bedelli). As such, the beadle goes back to early Teutonic times; he was probably attached to the moot as its messenger or summoner, being under the direction of the reeve or constable of the leet. After the Norman Conquest, the beadle seems to have diminished in importance, becoming merely the crier in the manor and forest courts, and sometimes executing processes. He was also employed as the messenger of the parish, and thus became, to a certain extent, an ecclesiastical officer, but in reality acted more as a constable by keeping order in the church and churchyard during service. He also attended upon the clergy, the churchwardens and the vestry. He was appointed by the parishioners in vestry, and his wages were payable out of the church rate. From the Poor Law Act of 1601 till the act of 1834 by which poor-law administration was transferred to guardians, the beadle in England was an officer of much importance in his capacity of agent for the overseers. In all medieval universities the bedel was an officer who exercised various executive and spectacular functions (H. Rashdall, Hist. of Universities in the Middle Ages, i. 193). He still survives in many universities on the continent of Europe and in those of Oxford and Cambridge, but he is now shorn of much of his importance. At Oxford there are four bedels, representing the faculties of law, medicine, arts and divinity. Their duties are chiefly processional, the junior or sub-bedel being the official attendant on the vice-chancellor, before whom he bears a silver mace. At Cambridge there are two, termed esquire-bedels, who both walk before the vice-chancellor, bearing maces.