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FRA order to that of the Fratres Minimi. In 1482 Francis was invited to visit Louis XI. of France, who was anxious to obtain from him a miraculous prolongation of his life. The wonderworking eremite met the king in the castle of Tours, but Francis prudently exhorted Louis to resign himself to the divine will, and make preparation for his end. The king died soon after, and his successor, Charles VIII., bestowed many marks of his favour upon Francis. Among others he built a monastery for the new order in Plessis-les-Tours, where the founder died in 1507. In 1519 he was canonized by Pope Leo X. At the beginning of last century the order of St. Francis of Assisi possessed four hundred and fifty convents, of which fourteen were nunneries.—P. L.  FRANCIS XAVIER, ., was born in the ancient castle of Xavier, on the Spanish slopes of the Pyrenees, on the 7th of April, 1506. He was the youngest of a large family, and all his elder brothers had taken to the profession of arms; but his quickness of wit and love of study induced his parents to give him a learned education, which was completed in the famous university of Paris. He became a doctor of philosophy, and his handsome face, beaming with the inspiration of genius, coupled with his eloquence and intellectual power, drew the fashionable world of Paris in crowds to his lectures. It was a time full of danger for a proud and impetuous spirit; and we know, from his own avowal, that he was much tempted, both from within and from without, to embrace the new opinions in religion which were at that time captivating or perplexing the strongest minds in Europe. But at this critical moment a Spaniard made his appearance in Paris, who gained Xavier's friendship almost against his will, and decided his course for ever. This was Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. He singled out Xavier as a man proper for his purpose, and after much resistance on the part of the proud spirit of his pupil, won him over to consecrate himself without reserve to God under his direction. Xavier was one of the seven who took the solemn self-devoting vow which marks the origin of the Society of Jesus in the crypt of St. Denis at Montmartre, on the 15th August, 1534. From this time he knew no other object of existence but to spread throughout the world the faith in a crucified Saviour. After staying for some time with Ignatius at Venice, he accompanied him in 1536 to Rome. An application was made about this time to the pope by John III., king of Portugal, asking that some zealous and able missionaries might be sent to preach the gospel in the Portuguese dominions in the Indies. By the advice of Ignatius, Paul III. selected Xavier and Simon Rodriguez. In April, 1541, Xavier sailed from Lisbon, and, after a voyage of thirteen mouths, arrived at Goa. Here commenced those incessant and superhuman labours for the conversion of souls, which were never remitted for a single day during the ten years which followed. He preached in public, he heard innumerable confessions, he tended the sick in the hospitals, he reconciled enemies, he opened schools for little children; until, at the end of six months, the population of Goa, which had been scandalously and notoriously profligate, presented the edifying spectacle of a general reformation. After some time, hearing that the poor pearl-divers on the fishery coast near Cape Comorin, though most of them had been baptized, had been long without instruction and retained no more than the name of christianity, Xavier resorted thither. For an account of the miracles which he is said to have wrought there the reader is referred to his life by Father Bouhours, translated by Dryden. In 1544 the saint visited Travancore, and converted nearly the entire population. Being again on the fishery coast in 1545, some information which reached him caused him to turn his eyes to the great eastern archipelago, where paganism and Mahometanism enslaved countless millions. To find out the will of God, the saint repaired on foot from Negapatam to the shrine of St. Thomas at Meliapor, close to the modern city of Madras. After this pilgrimage he was confirmed in his design of carrying the gospel eastward, and sailed for Malacca in September, 1545. During the two following years we find him visiting various islands in the archipelago—Amboyna, the Moluccas, Celebes, and many others—constantly in danger of death, and in want of all things, but victorious still over self and circumstance, and bringing to innumerable souls the healing light of the gospel. After another visit to Goa, he sailed for Japan in 1549, and was the first to introduce christianity into that empire, where it was afterwards extinguished in the blood of martyrs. Leaving Japan in November, 1551, he reached Goa early in 1552, and immediately prepared for his great enterprise of preaching the gospel in China. He left Goa in April, but when he arrived at Malacca, the governor of that town opposed his further progress. After long and harassing efforts, Xavier succeeded in making his way to Sancian, a barren mountainous island on the Chinese coast, near Macao. It was the will of God that he should proceed no further. He was seized with a fever on the 20th November, and died on the 2nd December, 1552, uttering with his dying breath the words, "In te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in æternum."—T. A.  * FRANCIS, W., an American physician and man of letters, was born in New York, 17th November, 1789. Having acquired the rudiments of education at home, he studied mathematics and Latin under the Rev. George Strebeck, and afterwards under the Rev. John Conroy, both distinguished for their classical and mathematical attainments. In 1807 he applied himself to the study of medicine under Dr. Hosack. He entered Columbia college, where, in 1809, he took the degree of B.A. He received from the college of physicians and surgeons of New York the degree of M.D., and in 1811 entered into partnership with Dr. Hosack, which continued until 1820. In 1812 he took the degree of M.A. In 1813 he was appointed lecturer on the practice of physic and materia medica in the college of physicians and surgeons. He made a tour in Scotland, Ireland, Holland, and France; and on his return to New York he was appointed professor of the institutes of medicine in the college of physicians and surgeons. On the death of Dr. Stringham in 1817, he succeeded him in the chair of medical jurisprudence. In 1819 he became professor of obstetric medicine. He held this appointment for seven years, and then resigned it. He was afterwards chosen professor of obstetrics and forensic medicine in the Rutger's medical college. In 1850 the degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Trinity college, Connecticut. His principal works are—"Cases of Morbid Anatomy," 1815; "Letter on Febrile Contagion," 1816; "Dr. T. Denman's Practice of Midwifery, with Notes," 1825;. "Letter on Cholera Asphyxia of 1832;" "Observations on the Mineral Waters of Avon," 1834; "Old New York, or Reminiscences of the past Sixty Years," 1857.—W. A. B.  FRANCIS,, D.D., was born in Dublin, and was the son of a clergyman, John Francis, who held, amongst other preferments, the rectory of St. Mary's in that city. Here Philip was educated; and having graduated in the university he entered the church, and subsequently obtained the degree of doctor of divinity. He applied himself assiduously to the study of the classics; and leaving his native country in 1750, he established a school in the neighbourhood of London, in Surrey, and had the honour of contributing to the education of the historian Gibbon. Francis edited several of the classics. His greatest success, however, was the translation of Horace, which at the time of its publication elicited high praise from Dr. Johnson, who pronounced it the best that had appeared, a preeminence which no subsequent translation has deprived it of. He also translated the orations of Demosthenes, though not with the same felicity as the lyrics of Horace. Dr. Francis tried his hand at the drama; but in that walk of literature he may be considered to have decidedly failed. The first of these performances was "Eugenia," which he called a tragedy; but even the genius of Garrick could not support it, and it died on the seventh night of its existence at Drury Lane. Then followed "Constantine" at Covent Garden with no better success. Dr. Francis was happier as a political writer than as a dramatist, and some of his political pamphlets in defence of Lord Holland were rewarded with promotion in the church. He obtained the rectory of Barrow in Suffolk in 1674, and subsequently the chaplaincy of Chelsea hospital. Churchill assailed Dr. Francis in his Author with great severity. Dr. Francis died at Bath, March 5, 1773.—J. F. W.  FRANCIS,, the son of the preceding, was born in Dublin on the 22nd October, 1740. When his father left Ireland in 1750, he took his son with him, and in 1753 he was placed under the care of Mr. George Thicknesse in Saint Paul's school, London. Of his progress there we have no further account than that he was a good classical scholar. While yet in his sixteenth year, his father, through the patronage of Lord Holland, obtained him a clerkship in the office of the secretary of state. When the elder Pitt succeeded to that office, young 