Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/287

 traces existed till recent times in Ireland. After many wanderings Fechin settled in a remote hollow in the Connaught portion of the kingdom of Meath. A few houses with an encircling wall and ruined gates, still called the borough of Fore, because the place was represented in the Irish parliament, a ruined monastery of the later middle ages, a great earthwork attributed to Turgeis the Dane, and two very ancient churches with megalithic portals mark the importance of the saint's settlement in successive ages subsequent to his time. The oldest of the churches, if not built by him, at any rate approaches very nearly to his century. Near it are the remains of a very old mill, the successor of one built by Fechin, and known as muilin gan sroth, because worked by a spring which comes out of the hillside close to the mill. Above the church is the steep rock of Fore, and on the opposite side of the valley rises the Ben of Fore, a hill visible from remote parts of Meath and of Breifne. A great tribe of monks lived with Fechin in this lonely spot, and here he is remembered to this day and commemorated on 20 Jan., the day upon which he died of the plague called buidhe chonail in 664. Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire preserves his name in Scotland; and in Ireland besides Fore (now in co. Westmeath) he is said to have founded the abbey of Cong in Galway, and that of Eas-dara in Achadoe, co. Kerry, and nine other churches or religious settlements.

[Colgan's Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ, Louvain, 1645, p. 130. Two lives are given, both are long subsequent to St. Fechin, but the second, taken from several Irish lives, is based upon some ancient materials. See also Dunraven's Irish Architecture; Petrie's Round Towers; Annala Riogachta Eireann, vol. i., ed. O'Donovan; local knowledge.] 

FECHTER, CHARLES ALBERT (1824–1879), actor and dramatist, was born 23 Oct. 1824 in Hanway Yard, Oxford Street, according to the biography published in America, but according to Vapereau (Dictionnaire des Contemporains) at Belleville, Paris. His parents were born in France, the father, who designed for jewellers, being of German, the mother, it is said, of Piedmontese, extraction. Sculpture, which he learned from his father, was his earliest serious occupation. His first appearance on the stage was at the Salle Molière, a small theatre for amateurs, where, in 1840, he played in ‘Le Mari de la Veuve’ of the elder Dumas. After a few weeks at the Conservatoire, and a short and disastrous tour in Italy, as member of a travelling French company, Fechter returned to Paris. In December 1844, as Séide in the ‘Mahomet’ of Voltaire, and Valère in ‘Tartuffe,’ he made as pensionnaire his début at the Comédie Française. After playing other characters, in some of which he supported Rachel, he withdrew in a huff from the theatre and once more recommenced sculpture. An engagement in Berlin, in the course of which he played in drama, opera, and ballet, followed in 1846. The next year he played for a week or two at the Vaudeville, and came to London, where, at the St. James's Theatre, he appeared in a version of the ‘Antigone’ of Sophocles and in other pieces. An engagement in 1848 at the Ambigu Comique, in which, in ‘La Famille Thureau,’ he modelled on the stage a clay figure of Poetry, was interrupted by the outbreak of revolution. In ‘Oscar XXVIII,’ a satire by Labiche and Decourcelle on the revolution, he appeared at the Variétés, and he then, at the Théâtre Historique, played in various pieces of Dumas and of Paul Féval. In 1849 he was again at the Ambigu. During the two following years he was at the Théâtre Historique or at the Porte Saint-Martin. As Sylvain in the ‘Claudie’ of George Sand (Porte Saint-Martin, January 1821) he won the high praise of Théophile Gautier. From 1852 to 1858 he was at the Vaudeville, where, 2 Feb. 1852, he obtained his greatest triumph in France as Armand Duval in ‘La Dame aux Camélias.’ At this period Fechter was the first jeune premier in France. He returned to the Porte Saint-Martin, where, in ‘La belle Gabrielle,’ he had a fall which endangered his life. In 1857 he was, with M. de la Rounat, joint director of the Odéon. He resigned his post in consequence of the restrictions imposed upon him by the government in the interest of the Théâtre Français. Having on different occasions played in England, as member of a French company, he conceived the idea of acting in English. On 27 Oct. 1860 he appeared as Ruy Blas in a rendering of Victor Hugo's play at the Princess's. His French accent scarcely interfered with his success, which was pronounced. ‘Don César de Bazan’ followed, 11 Feb. 1861, and ‘Hamlet’ on 20 March of the same year. The reception of ‘Hamlet’ was enthusiastic, and the triumph was scarcely contested by the strongest sticklers for tradition. The text gained greatly in beauty and intelligibility by the abandonment of old traditions. G. H. Lewes declared that ‘his Hamlet was one of the very best, and his Othello one of the very worst, I have ever seen’ (On Actors and the Art of Acting, p. 131). ‘Othello’ was played 23 Oct. 1861. It was generally disapproved, and when ‘Othello’ was revived after the Christmas holidays he played Iago. ‘The Golden