Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/120

 the arrival of Brutus, gave a general survey of the affairs of England, and in later times of France also. The first six books are brief, and reach to the Norman Conquest; the seventh book extends from the Norman Conquest to his own day. Fabyan was well acquainted with Latin and French, and shows a large knowledge of previous writers, but his object is to harmonise their accounts, and in so doing he shows no critical sagacity. He has not many merits as a writer, and is only valuable as an authority as he reaches his own time. From the accession of Richard I his book assumes the form of a London chronicle, and the years are divided by the names of the mayors and sheriffs. He has an eye for city pageantry, and gives details of many public festivities. Occasionally he breaks into verse, beginning his books with poems in honour of the Virgin; but he inserts a complaint of Edward II, which is in the style made familiar by the ‘Mirrour of Magistrates.’ Fabyan's verse is even ruder than his prose. As an historical authority his book is only valuable for a few details about the affairs of London, as he shows little sense of the general bearing of events.

Fabyan's work was first printed by Pynson in 1516 with the title ‘The New Chronicles of England and France,’ and this first edition is very rare. Bale says that the book was burnt by order of Cardinal Wolsey because it reflected upon the wealth of the clergy. There is nothing in its contents to bear out this assertion beyond its record of the Lollard petition of 1410. The first edition ends with the battle of Bosworth. The second edition, published by Rastell, 1533, contains a continuation reaching to the death of Henry VII, which seems from internal evidence to be Fabyan's work, but probably was held back at first as dealing with events which were too recent. The third edition, published by Reynes in 1542, was expurgated and amended to suit the ideas of the reformers. The fourth edition, published by Kingston in 1559, has a further continuation by another hand reaching to the accession of Elizabeth, in some copies reaching as far as 8 Jan. 1558–9 and in others to 8 May. The modern edition is that of Ellis, 1811.

 FACCIO, NICOLAS (1664–1753), of Duillier, mathematician and fanatic, second son of Jean Baptiste Faccio, by his wife Catherine Basband or Barbaud, was born at Basle, 16 Feb. 1664. His ancestors had left Italy for Switzerland, on account of their religion, at the beginning of the Reformation. His father, a man of considerable property, had bought about 1670 the manor of Duillier in Vaud. Faccio was destined at first for the church, and, after a good classical training at home and at Geneva, studied philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. He then began to study Hebrew and attend divinity lectures at Geneva, of which he was enrolled a citizen in 1678, but his mother wishing him to take service at some protestant court in Germany, he was, he says, ‘left wholly to himself,’ and gave up all thoughts of the ministry. Before he was eighteen he wrote to Dominic Cassini suggesting a new method of determining the sun's distance from the earth, and an explanation of the form of Saturn's ring. Encouraged by Cassini's reply, he went to Paris in the spring of 1682, and was kindly received (Gent. Mag. viii. 95). In 1683 Cassini gave his theory of the zodiacal light. Faccio followed his observations, repeated them at Geneva in 1684, and gave in 1685 new and important developments of this theory ( in Les Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, March 1685, pp. 260–7). They were published in his ‘Lettre à M. Cassini … touchant une lumière extraordinaire qui paroît dans le ciel depuis quelques années,’ 12mo, Amsterdam 1686. Faccio also invented some useful machines. He studied the dilatation and contraction of the pupil of the eye, and described the fibres of the anterior uvea and the choroid in a letter to Mariotte dated 13 April 1684. He introduced improvements in telescope glasses; showed how to take advantage of a ship's motion through the water to grind corn, to saw, to raise anchors, and to hoist rigging; contrived a ship's observatory; was the first to discover the art of piercing rubies to receive the pivots of the balance-wheel of watches; and measured the height of the mountains surrounding Geneva, planning, but never completing, a map of the lake.

Faccio returned to Geneva in October 1683. During the following year he became acquainted with one Fenil, a Piedmontese count, who, having offended in turn the Duke of Savoy and the King of France, took refuge in the house of Faccio's maternal grandfather in Alsace, and eventually at Duillier. Fenil confided to Faccio a plan for kidnapping the Prince of Orange at Scheveling, and produced a letter from Louvois offering the