Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/876

Rh 840 F A B F A B that day profound truths worthy to be embalmed in verse or set off by the aid of story or anecdote. Last comes an age of high literary culture which tolerates the trite morals and hackneyed tales for the sake of the exquisite setting, and is amused at the wit which introduces topics and characters of the day under the transparent veil of animal life. Such an artificial product can be nothing more than the fashion of a day, and must, like pastoral poetry, die a natural death. A serious moralist would hardly choose that form to inculcate, like Mandeville in his Fable of the Bees, a new doctrine in morals, for the moral of the fable must be such that he who runs may read. A true poet will not care to masquerade as a moral teacher, or show his wit by refurbishing some old-world raaximu (F. s.) FABRE D EGLANTINE, PHILIPPE FRANCOIS NAZAIRE (1755-1794), a French dramatist and revolutionist, was born at Carcassonne, December 28, 1755. His real name was simple Fabre, the &quot; d Eglantine &quot; being an addition which he adopted in commemoration of his receiving the golden eglantine of Clemence Isaure from the academy of the floral games at Toulouse. After travelling through the provinces as an actor, he came to Paris when about thirty years of age with the intention of continuing the same career, but being ignored by the critics he ventured to take his revenge by a comedy entitled Les gens des Lettres ou le Provincial a Paris, and in spite of its failure continued to bring piece after piece on the boards. Shortly after the outbreak of the revolutionary movement he entered the political arena, was chosen by Danton as his private secre tary, and obtained from the electors of Paris a place in the National Convention. He distinguished himself by the extravagance of his speeches and measures, voting for the king s death, supporting the maximum and the law of the suspected, and giving distorted evidence against the Girondins. On the abolition of the Gregorian calendar he was one of the most active members of the committee en trusted with the formation of the republican substitute, and to him was due a large part of the new nomenclature, with its poetic Prairial and Floreal, its prosaic Primidi and Duodi, and its absurd substitution of the names of trees and beasts and implements for those of saints and heroes. The report which he made on the subject on 24th October is not with out scientific value. On January 12, 1794 he was arrested by order of the committee of public safety on a charge of malversation and forgery in connexion with the affairs of the Compagnie des Indes. During his trial he displayed the greatest apparent nonchalance, sitting in an arm chair, looking out dreamily at the rain, and singing his own well- known song of // pleut, il pleut, lergere, rentre tes blaucs moutons. On his way to the scaffold he distributed his manuscript poems to the people. Fabre d Eglantine left behind him seventeen plays and a number of miscellaneous productions. One only of the plays, Le Philinthe deMoUere,st preserves its reputation as a good specimen of the second class. It professes to be a continuation of Moliere s Le Misanthrope, but the hero of the piece is of a different character from the nominal proto typean impersonation, indeed, of pure and simple egotism. On its publication the play was introduced by a preface, in failed to win. A posthumous play, Les Precepteurs, steeped with the doctrines of Rousseau s Anile, was performed on 17th September 1794, and met with an enthusiastic recep tion. The author s (Euvres melees et posthumes were pub lished at Paris 1802, 2 vols. See Albert Maurin, Galerie hist de la Revolution fran^aisc, tome 11.; Jules Jauin, Hist, de la Litt. dram., Che nier, Tableau de la Lift, franchise. FABRETTI, RAPHAEL (1618-1700), a celebrated Italian antiquary, was born in 1G18, at Urbino in Umbria. A younger son, and destined to the pursuit of the law, he studied first at Cagli, and afterwards in his native city, where he took the degree of doctor at the age of eighteen years. While in Rome, preparing for practice at the bar, he early attracted the notice of Cardinal Lorenzo Imperiali, who employed him on important and difficult political affairs in Spain. He was named successively treasurer and auditor of the papal legation in that country, where he remained thirteen years. During all this time, however, his favourite classical and antiquarian studies were not neglected ; and returning to Rome with the legate, Bonelli, who had been made cardinal, he was able on the journey to make impor tant observations of the relics and monuments of Spain, France, and Italy, and to converse with the many eminent scholars of those countries who afterwards corresponded with him. At Rome he was appointed judge of appellation of the Capitol, which post he left to be, under the legate, Cardinal Cerri, auditor of the legation at his native city, Urbino. After three years he returned to Rome, on the in vitation of Cardinal Carpegna, vicar of Innocent XL, a great lover of antiquities and learning, and now found that ful ness of leisure which enabled him to carry on those studies and produce those works which have made him famous. He examined with minute care the monuments and inscrip tions of the Campagna. In his solitary expeditions he always rode a horse which his friends nicknamed Marco Polo, after the celebrated Venetian traveller, saying that it could discover half-hidden monuments by smelling only, and thus frequently led its master to notice what he would otherwise have passed by. Fabretti was delighted with the name, and used it himself in a letter on the study of antiquity, still in manuscript. By Innocent XII. Fabretti was made keeper of the archives of the castle St Ar.gelo, a charge of great responsibility and trust, which he retained till his death. His work De Aquis et Aquce-ductibus veteris Roma?, 1680, three dissertations which cleared up a number of obscurities as to the topography of ancient Latium, is inserted in Grrevius s Thesaurus, iv. 1677. His interpretation in this work of certain passages in Livy and other classical author involved him in a dispute with Gronovius, which bore a strong resemblance to that between Milton and Salmasius, Gronovius addressing Fabretti as Faber Rusticus, and the latter, in reply, speaking of Grunnovius and his titivilitia. In this controversy Fabretti used the pseudo nym lasitheus, which he afterwards took as his pastoral name in the Academy of the Arcadians. His other works, De Columna Trajani Syntagma, Rome, 1G83, and Inscrip- tionum Antiquarum Expiicatio, Rome, 1G99, throw much light on Roman antiquity, especially with the aid of the principle which he himself employed of making one monument interpret another. In the former of these works is also to be found his explication of a bas-relief, with inscriptions, now in the Capitol at Rome, representing the war and taking of Troy, known as the Iliac table. Letters and other shorter works of Fabretti are to be found in some miscellaneous publications of the time, as Q Jour nal des Savants. He died at Rome, January 1700. His collection of inscriptions and monuments was purchased from his relatives by Cardinal Stoppani, and placed in the ducal palace at Urbino, where they may still be seen. Crcscimbeni, Le Vite clcgli Arcadi illustri; Fabroni, Vitas Ital- orum, vi. 174; Niceron, iv. 372. FABRIANO, a town of central Italy, province of Ancona, is situated at the foot of the Apennines, and on the railway from Ancona to Rome, 35 miles S.W. of Ancona. It has paper and parchment works, tanneries, and powder mills. Among its principal buildings are the cathedral, several