Chapter 6

See G. Agnelli,Ferrara e Pomposa(Bergamo, 1902); E.G. Gardner,Dukes and Poets of Ferrara(London, 1904).

FERRARA-FLORENCE,COUNCIL OF (1438 ff.). The council of Ferrara and Florence was the culmination of a series of futile medieval attempts to reunite the Greek and Roman churches. The emperor, John VI. Palaeologus, had been advised by his experienced father to avoid all serious negotiations, as they had invariably resulted in increased bitterness; but John, in view of the rapid dismemberment of his empire by the Turks, felt constrained to seek a union. The situation was, however, complicated by the strife which broke out between the pope (Eugenius IV.) and the oecumenical council of Basel. Both sides sent embassies to the emperor at Constantinople, as both saw the importance of gaining the recognition and support of the East, for on this practically depended the victory in the struggle between papacy and council for the supreme jurisdiction over the church (seeCouncils). The Greeks, fearing the domination of the papacy, were at first more favourably inclined toward the conciliar party; but the astute diplomacy of the Roman representatives, who have been charged by certain Greek writers with the skilful use of money and of lies, won over the emperor.With a retinue of about 700 persons, entertained in Italy at the pope’s expense, he reached Ferrara early in March 1438. Here a council had been formally opened in January by the papal party, a bull of the previous year having promptly taken advantage of the death of the Emperor Sigismund by ordering the removal of the council of Basel to Ferrara; and one of the first acts of the assemblage at Ferrara had been to excommunicate the remnant at Basel. A month after the coming of the Greeks, the Union Synod was solemnly inaugurated on the 9th of April 1438. After six months of negotiation, the first formal session was held on the 8th of October, and on the 14th the real issues were reached. The time-honoured question of thefilioquewas still in the foreground when it seemed for several reasons advisable to transfer the council to Florence: Ferrara was threatened by condottieri, the pest was raging; Florence promised a welcome subvention, and a situation further inland would make it more difficult for uneasy Greek bishops to flee the synod.

The first session at Florence and the seventeenth of the union council took place on the 26th of February 1439; there ensued long debates and negotiations on thefilioque, in which Markos Eugenikos, archbishop of Ephesus, spoke for the irreconcilables; but the Greeks under the leadership of Bessarion, archbishop of Nicaea, and Isidor, metropolitan of Kiev, at length made a declaration on thefilioque(4th of June), to which all save Markos Eugenikos subscribed. On the next topic of importance, the primacy of the pope, the project of union nearly suffered shipwreck; but here a vague formula was finally constructed which, while acknowledging the pope’s right to govern the church, attempted to safeguard as well the rights of the patriarchs. On the basis of the above-mentioned agreements, as well as of minor discussions as to purgatory and the Eucharist, the decree of union was drawn up in Latin and in Greek, and signed on the 5th of July by the pope and the Greek emperor, and all the members of the synod save Eugenikos and one Greek bishop who had fled; and on the following day it was solemnly published in the cathedral of Florence. The decree explains thefilioquein a manner acceptable to the Greeks, but does not require them to insert the term in their symbol; it demands that celebrants follow the custom of their own church as to the employment of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist. It states essentially the Roman doctrine of purgatory, and asserts the world-wide primacy of the pope as the “true vicar of Christ and the head of the whole Church, the Father and teacher of all Christians”; but, to satisfy the Greeks, inconsistently adds that all the rights and privileges of the Oriental patriarchs are to be maintained unimpaired. After the consummation of the union the Greeks remained in Florence for several weeks, discussing matters such as the liturgy, the administration of the sacraments, and divorce; and they sailed from Venice to Constantinople in October.

The council, however, desirous of negotiating unions with the minor churches of the East, remained in session for several years, and seems never to have reached a formal adjournment. The decree for the Armenians was published on the 22nd of November 1439; they accepted thefilioqueand the Athanasian creed, rejected Monophysitism and Monothelitism, agreed to the developed scholastic doctrine concerning the seven sacraments, and conformed their calendar to the Western in certain points. On the 26th of April 1441 the pope announced that the synod would be transferred to the Lateran; but before leaving Florence a union was negotiated with the Oriental Christians known as Jacobites, through a monk named Andreas, who, at least as regards Abyssinia, acted in excess of his powers. TheDecretum pro Jacobitis, published on the 4th of February 1442, is, like that for the Armenians, of high dogmatic interest, as it summarizes the doctrine of the great medieval scholastics on the points in controversy. The decree for the Syrians, published at the Lateran on the 30th of September 1444, and those for the Chaldeans (Nestorians) and the Maronites (Monothelites), published at the last known session of the council on the 7th of August 1445, added nothing of doctrinal importance. Though the direct results of these unions were the restoration of prestige to the absolutist papacy and the bringing of Byzantine men of letters, like Bessarion, to the West, the outcome was on the whole disappointing. Of the complicated history of the “United” churches of the East it suffices to say that Rome succeeded in securing but fragments, though important fragments, of the greater organizations. As for the Greeks, the union met with much opposition, particularly from the monks, and was rejected by three Oriental patriarchs at a synod of Jerusalem in 1443; and after various ineffective attempts to enforce it, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 put an end to the endeavour. As Turkish interests demanded the isolation of the Oriental Christians from their western brethren, and as the orthodox Greek nationalists feared Latinization more than Mahommedan rule, a patriarch hostile to the union was chosen, and a synod of Constantinople in 1472 formally rejected the decisions of Florence.

Authorities.—Hardouin, vol. 9; Mansi, vols. 31 A, 31 B, 35; Sylvester Sguropulus (properly Syropulus),Vera historia Unionis, transl. R. Creyghton (Hague, 1660); Cecconi,Studi storici sul concilio di Firenze(Florence, 1869), (appendix); J. Zhishman,Die Unionsverhandlungen ... bis zum Concil von Ferrara(Vienna, 1858); Gorski, of Moscow, 1847,The History of the Council of Florence, trans. from the Russian by Basil Popoff, ed. by J.M. Neale (London, 1861); C.J. von Hefele,Conciliengeschichte, vol. 7 (Freiburg i. B., 1874), 659-761, 793 ff., 814 ff.; H. Vast,Le Cardinal Bessarion(Paris, 1878), 53-113; A. Warschauer,Über die Quellen zur Geschichte des Florentiner Concils(Breslau, 1881), (Dissertation); M. Creighton,A History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, vol. 2 (London, 1882), 173-194 (vivid); Knöpfler, in Wetzer and Welte’sKirchenlexikon, vol. 4 (2nd ed., Freiburg i. B., 1885), 1363-1380 (instructive); L. Pastor,History of the Popes, vol. 1 (London, 1891), 315 ff.; F. Kattenbusch,Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Confessionskunde, vol. 1 (Freiburg i. B., 1892), 128 ff.; N. Kalogeras, archbishop of Patras, “Die Verhandlungen zwischen der orthodox-katholischen Kirche und dem Konzil von Basel über die Wiedervereinigung der Kirchen” (Internationale Theologische Zeitschrift), vol. 1 (Bern, 1893, 39-57); P. Tschackert, in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie, vol. 6 (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1899), 45-48 (good bibliography); Walter Norden,Das Papsttum und Byzanz:Die Trennung der beiden Mächte und das Problem ihrer Wiedervereinigung bis 1453(Berlin, 1903), 712 ff.

(W. W. R.*)

FERRARI, GAUDENZIO(1484-1549), Italian painter and sculptor, of the Milanese, or more strictly the Piedmontese, school, was born at Valduggia, Piedmont, and is said (very dubiously) to have learned the elements of painting at Vercelli from Girolamo Giovenone. He next studied in Milan, in the school of Scotto, and some say of Luini; towards 1504 he proceeded to Florence, and afterwards (it used to be alleged) to Rome. His pictorial style may be considered as derived mainly from the old Milanese school, with a considerable tinge of the influence of Da Vinci, and later on of Raphael; in his personal manner there was something of the demonstrative and fantastic. The gentler qualities diminished, and the stronger intensified, as he progressed. By 1524 he was at Varallo in Piedmont, and here, in the chapel of the Sacro Monte, the sanctuary of the Piedmontese pilgrims, he executed his most memorable work. This is a fresco of the Crucifixion, with a multitude of figures, no less than twenty-six of them being modelled in actual relief, and coloured; on the vaulted ceiling are eighteen lamenting angels, powerful in expression. Other leading examples are the following. In the Royal Gallery, Turin, a “Pietà,” an able early work. In the Brera Gallery, Milan, “St Katharine miraculously preserved from the Torture of the Wheel,” a very characteristic example, hard and forcible in colour, thronged in composition, turbulent in emotion; also several frescoes, chiefly from the church of Santa Maria della Pace, three of them being from the history of Joachim and Anna. In the cathedral of Vercelli, the choir, the “Virgin with Angels and Saints under an Orange Tree.” In the refectory of San Paolo, the “Last Supper.” In the church of San Cristoforo, the transept (in 1532-1535), a series of paintings in which Ferrari’s scholar Lanini assisted him; by Ferrari himself are the “Birth of the Virgin,” the “Annunciation,” the “Visitation,” the “Adoration of the Shepherds and Kings,” the “Crucifixion,” the “Assumption of the Virgin,” all full of life and decided character, though somewhat mannered.In the Louvre, “St Paul Meditating.” In Varallo, convent of the Minorites (1507), a “Presentation in the Temple,” and “Christ among the Doctors,” and (after 1510) the “History of Christ,” in twenty-one subjects; also an ancona in six compartments, named the “Ancona di San Gaudenzio.” In Santa Maria di Loreto, near Varallo (after 1527), an “Adoration.” In the church of Saronno, near Milan, the cupola (1535), a “Glory of Angels,” in which the beauty of the school of Da Vinci alternates with bravura of foreshortenings in the mode of Correggio. In Milan, Santa Maria delle Grazie (1542), the “Scourging of Christ,” an “Ecce Homo” and a “Crucifixion.” The “Scourging,” or else a “Last Supper,” in the Passione of Milan (unfinished), is regarded as Ferrari’s latest work. He was a very prolific painter, distinguished by strong expression, animation and fulness of composition, and abundant invention; he was skilful in painting horses, and his decisive rather hard colour is marked by a partiality for shot tints in drapery. In general character, his work appertains more to the 15th than the 16th century. His subjects were always of the sacred order. Ferrari’s death took place in Milan. Besides Lanini, already mentioned, Andrea Solario, Giambattista della Cerva and Fermo Stella were three of his principal scholars. He is represented to us as a good man, attached to his country and his art, jovial and sometimes facetious, but an enemy of scandal. The reputation which he enjoyed soon after his death was very great, but it has not fully stood the test of time. Lomazzo went so far as to place him seventh among the seven prime painters of Italy.

See G. Bordiga, two works concerningGaudenzio Ferrari(1821 and 1835); G. Colombo,Vita ed opere di Gaudenzio Ferrari(1881); Ethel Halsey,Gaudenzio Ferrari(in the seriesGreat Masters, 1904).There was another painter nearly contemporary with Gaudenzio, Difendente Ferrari, also of the Lombard school. His celebrity is by no means equal to that of Gaudenzio; butKugler(1887, as edited by Layard) pronounced him to be “a good and original colourist, and the best artist that Piedmont has produced.”

See G. Bordiga, two works concerningGaudenzio Ferrari(1821 and 1835); G. Colombo,Vita ed opere di Gaudenzio Ferrari(1881); Ethel Halsey,Gaudenzio Ferrari(in the seriesGreat Masters, 1904).

There was another painter nearly contemporary with Gaudenzio, Difendente Ferrari, also of the Lombard school. His celebrity is by no means equal to that of Gaudenzio; butKugler(1887, as edited by Layard) pronounced him to be “a good and original colourist, and the best artist that Piedmont has produced.”

(W. M. R.)

FERRARI, GIUSEPPE(1812-1876), Italian philosopher, historian and politician, was born at Milan on the 7th of March 1812, and died in Rome on the 2nd of July 1876. He studied law at Pavia, and took the degree of doctor in 1831. A follower of Romagnosi (d. 1835) and Giovan Battista Vico (q.v.), his first works were an article in theBiblioteca Italianaentitled “Mente di Gian Domenico Romagnosi” (1835), and a complete edition of the works of Vico, prefaced by an appreciation (1835). Finding Italy uncongenial to his ideas, he went to France and, in 1839, produced in Paris hisVico et l’Italie, followed byLa Nouvelle Religion de CampanellaandLa Théorie de l’erreur. On account of these works he was made Docteur-ès-lettres of the Sorbonne and professor of philosophy at Rochefort (1840). His views, however, provoked antagonism, and in 1842 he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at Strassburg. After fresh trouble with the clergy, he returned to Paris and published a defence of his theories in a work entitledIdées sur la politique de Platon et d’Aristote. After a short connexion with the college at Bourges, he devoted himself from 1849 to 1858 exclusively to writing. The works of this period areLes Philosophes Salariés, Machiavel juge des révolutions de notre temps(1849),La Federazione repubblicana(1851),La Filosofia della rivoluzione(1851),L’ Italia dopo il colpo di Stato(1852),Histoire des révolutions, ou Guelfes et Gibelins(1858; Italian trans., 1871-1873). In 1859 he returned to Italy, where he opposed Cavour, and upheld federalism against the policy of a single Italian monarchy. In spite of this opposition, he held chairs of philosophy at Turin, Milan and Rome in succession, and during several administrations represented the college of Gavirate in the chamber. He was a member of the council of education and was made senator on the 15th of May 1876. Amongst other works may be mentionedHistoire de la raison d’état, La China et l’ Europa, Corso d’ istoria degli scrittori politici italiani. A sceptic in philosophy and a revolutionist in politics, rejoicing in controversy of all kinds, he was admired as a man, as an orator, and as a writer.

See Marro Macchi,Annuario istorico italiano(Milan, 1877); Mazzoleni,Giuseppe Ferrari; Werner,Die ital. Philosophie des 19. Jahrh.vol. 3 (Vienna, 1885); Überweg,History of Philosophy(Eng. trans. ii. 461 foll.).

FERRARI, PAOLO(1822-1889), Italian dramatist, was born at Modena. After producing some minor pieces, in 1852 he made his reputation as a playwright withGoldoni e le sue sedici commedie. Among numerous later plays his comedyParini e la satira(1857) had considerable success. Ferrari may be regarded as a follower of Goldoni, modelling himself on the French theatrical methods. His collected plays were published in 1877-1880.

FERREIRA, ANTONIO(1528-1569), Portuguese poet, was a native of Lisbon; his father held the post ofescrivão de fazendain the house of the duke of Coimbra at Setubal, so that he must there have met the great adventurer Mendes Pinto. In 1547-1548 he went to the university of Coimbra, and on the 16th of July 1551 took his bachelor’s degree. The Sonnets forming the First Book in his collected works date from 1552 and contain the history of his early love for an unknown lady. They seem to have been written in Coimbra or during vacations in Lisbon; and if some are dry and stilted, others, like the admirable No. 45, are full of feeling and tears. The Sonnets in the Second Book were inspired by D. Maria Pimentel, whom he afterwards married, and they are marked by that chastity of sentiment, seriousness and ardent patriotism which characterized the man and the writer. Ferreira’s ideal, as a poet, was to win “the applause of the good,” and, in the preface to his poems, he says, “I am content with this glory, that I have loved my land and my people.” He was intimate with princes, nobles and the most distinguished literary men of the time, such as the scholarly Diogo de Teive and the poets Bernardes, Caminha and Corte-Real, as well as with the aged Sá de Miranda, the founder of the classical school of which Ferreira became the foremost representative.

The death in 1554 of Prince John, the heir to the throne, drew from him, as from Camoens, Bernardes and Caminha, a poetical lament, which consisted of an elegy and two eclogues, imitative of Virgil and Horace, and devoid of interest. On the 14th of July 1555 he took his doctor’s degree, an event which was celebrated, according to custom, by a sort of Roman triumph, and he stayed on as a professor, finding Coimbra with its picturesque environs congenial to his poetical tastes and love of a country life. The year 1557 produced his sixth elegy, addressed to the son of the great Albuquerque, a poem of noble patriotism expressed in eloquent and sonorous verse, and in the next year he married. After a short and happy married life, his wife died, and the ninth sonnet of Book 2 describes her end in moving words. This loss lent Ferreira’s verse an added austerity, and the independence of his muse is remarkable when he addresses King Sebastian and reminds him of his duties as well as his rights. On the 14th of October 1567 he becameDisembargador da Casa do Civel, and had to leave the quiet of Coimbra for Lisbon. His verses tell how he disliked the change, and how the bustle of the capital, then a great commercial emporium, made him sad and almost tongue-tied for poetry. The intrigues and moral twists of the courtiers and traders, among whom he was forced to live, hurt his fine sense of honour, and he felt his mental isolation the more, because his friends were few and scattered in that great city which the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese had made the centre of a world empire. In 1569 a terrible epidemic of carbunculous fever broke out and carried off 50,000 inhabitants of Lisbon, and, on the 29th of November, Ferreira, who had stayed there doing his duty when others fled, fell a victim.

Horace was his favourite poet, erudition his muse, and his admiration of the classics made him disdain the popular poetry of the Old School (Escola Velha) represented by Gil Vicente. His national feeling would not allow him to write in Latin or Spanish, like most of his contemporaries, but his Portuguese is as Latinized as he could make it, and he even calls his poetical worksPoemas Lusitanos. Sá de Miranda had philosophized in the familiarredondilha, introduced the epistle and founded the comedy of learning. It was the beginning of a revolution, which Ferreira completed by abandoning the hendecasyllable for the Italian decasyllable, and by composing the noble and austereRoman poetry of his letters, odes and elegies. It was all done of set purpose, for he was a reformer conscious of his mission and resolved to carry it out. The gross realism of the popular poetry, its lack of culture and its carelessness of form, offended his educated taste, and its picturesqueness and ingenuity made no appeal to him. It is not surprising, however, that though he earned the applause of men of letters he failed to touch the hearts of his countrymen. Ferreira wrote the Terentian prose comedyBristo, at the age of twenty-five (1553), and dedicated it to Prince John in the name of the university. It is neither a comedy of character nor manners, but itsvis comicalies in its plot and situations. TheCioso, a later product, may almost be called a comedy of character.Castrois Ferreira’s most considerable work, and, in date, is the first tragedy in Portuguese, and the second in modern European literature. Though fashioned on the great models of the ancients, it has little plot or action, and the characters, except that of the prince, are ill-designed. It is really a splendid poem, with a chorus which sings the sad fate of Ignez in musical odes, rich in feeling and grandeur of expression. Her love is the chaste, timid affection of a wife and a vassal rather than the strong passion of a mistress, but Pedro is really the man history describes, the love-fettered prince whom the tragedy of Ignez’s death converted into the cruel tyrant. King Alfonso is little more than a shadow, and only meets Ignez once, his son never; while, stranger still, Pedro and Ignez never come on the stage together, and their love is merely narrated. Nevertheless, Ferreira merits all praise for choosing one of the most dramatic episodes in Portuguese history for his subject, and though it has since been handled by poets of renown in manydifferentlanguages, none has been able to surpass the old master.

TheCastrowas first printed in Lisbon in 1587, and it is included in Ferreira’sPoemas, published in 1598 by his son. It has been translated by Musgrave (London, 1825), and the chorus of Act I. appeared again in English in theSavoyfor July 1896. It has also been done into French and German. TheBristoandCiosofirst appeared with the comedies of Sá de Miranda in Lisbon in 1622. There is a good modern edition of the Complete Works of Ferreira (2 vols., Paris, 1865). See Castilho’sAntonio Ferreira(3 vols., Rio, 1865), which contains a full biographical and critical study with extracts.

(E. Pr.)

FERREL’S LAW,in physical geography. “If a body moves in any direction on the earth’s surface, there is a deflecting force arising from the earth’s rotation, which deflects it to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere.” This law applies to every body that is set in motion upon the surface of the rotating earth, but usually the duration of the motion of any body due to a single impulse is so brief, and there are so many frictional disturbances, that it is not easy to observe the results of this deflecting force. The movements of the atmosphere, however, are upon a scale large enough to make this observation easy, and the simplest evidence is obtained from a study of the direction of the air movements in the great wind systems of the globe. (SeeMeteorology.)

FERRERS,the name of a great Norman-English feudal house, derived from Ferrières-St-Hilaire, to the south of Bernay, in Normandy. Its ancestor Walkelin was slain in a feud during the Conqueror’s minority, leaving a son Henry, who took part in the Conquest. At the time of the Domesday survey his fief extended into fourteen counties, but the great bulk of it was in Derbyshire and Leicestershire, especially the former. He himself occurs in Worcestershire as one of the royal commissioners for the survey. He established his chief seat at Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, on the Derbyshire border, and founded there a Cluniac priory. As was the usual practice with the great Norman houses, his eldest son succeeded to Ferrières, and, according to Stapleton, he was ancestor of the Oakham house of Ferrers, whose memory is preserved by the horseshoes hanging in the hall of their castle. Robert, a younger son of Henry, inherited his vast English fief, and, for his services at the battle of the Standard (1138), was created earl of Derby by Stephen. He appears to have died a year after.

Both the title and the arms of the earls have been the subject of much discussion, and they seem to have been styled indifferently earls of Derby or Nottingham (both counties then forming one shrievalty) or of Tutbury, or simply (de) Ferrers. Robert, the 2nd earl, who founded Merevale Abbey, was father of William, the 3rd earl, who began the opposition of his house to the crown by joining in the great revolt of 1173, when he fortified his castles of Tutbury and Duffield and plundered Nottingham, which was held for the king. On his subsequent submission his castles were razed. Dying at the siege of Acre, 1190, he was succeeded by his son William, who attacked Nottingham on Richard’s behalf in 1194, but whom King John favoured and confirmed in the earldom of Derby, 1199. A claim that he was heir to the honour of Peveral of Nottingham, which has puzzled genealogists, was compromised with the king, whom the earl thenceforth stoutly supported, being with him at his death and witnessing his will, with his brother-in-law the earl of Chester, and with William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, whose daughter married his son. With them also he acted in securing the succession of the young Henry, joining in the siege of Mountsorrel and the battle of Lincoln. But he was one of those great nobles who looked with jealousy on the rising power of the king’s favourites. In 1227 he was one of the earls who rose against him on behalf of his brother Richard and made him restore the forest charters, and in 1237 he was one of the three counsellors forced on the king by the barons. His influence had by this time been further increased by the death, in 1232, of the earl of Chester, whose sister, his wife, inherited a vast estate between the Ribble and the Mersey. On his death in 1247, his son William succeeded as 5th earl, and inherited through his wife her share of the great possessions of the Marshals, earls of Pembroke. By his second wife, a daughter of the earl of Winchester, he was father of Robert, 6th and last earl. Succeeding as a minor in 1254, Robert had been secured by the king, as early as 1249, as a husband for his wife’s niece, Marie, daughter of Hugh, count of Angoulême, but, in spite of this, he joined the opposition in 1263 and distinguished himself by his violence. He was one of the five earls summoned to Simon de Montfort’s parliament, though, on taking the earl of Gloucester’s part, he was arrested by Simon. In spite of this he was compelled on the king’s triumph to forfeit his castles and seven years’ revenues. In 1266 he broke out again in revolt on his own estates in Derbyshire, but was utterly defeated at Chesterfield by Henry “of Almain,” deprived of his earldom and lands and imprisoned. Eventually, in 1269, he agreed to pay £50,000 for restoration, and to pledge all his lands save Chartley and Holbrook for its payment. As he was not able to find the money, the lands passed to the king’s son, Edmund, to whom they had been granted on his forfeiture.

The earl’s son John succeeded to Chartley, a Staffordshire estate long famous for the wild cattle in its chase, and was summoned as a baron in 1299, though he had joined the baronial opposition in 1297. On the death, in 1450, of the last Ferrers lord of Chartley, the barony passed with his daughter to the Devereux family and then to the Shirleys, one of whom was created Earl Ferrers in 1711. The barony has been in abeyance since 1855.

The line of Ferrers of Groby was founded by William, younger brother of the last earl, who inherited from his mother Margaret de Quinci her estate of Groby in Leicestershire, and some Ferrers manors from his father. His son was summoned as a baron in 1300, but on the death of his descendant, William, Lord Ferrers of Groby, in 1445, the barony passed with his granddaughter to the Grey family and was forfeited with the dukedom of Suffolk in 1554. A younger son of William, the last lord, married the heiress of Tamworth Castle, and his line was seated at Tamworth till 1680, when an heiress carried it to a son of the first Earl Ferrers. From Sir Henry, a younger son of the first Ferrers of Tamworth, descended Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, seated there in the male line till towards the end of the 19th century. The line of Ferrers of Wemme was founded by a younger son of Lord Ferrers of Chartley, who married the heiress of Wemme, Co. Salop, and was summoned as a baron in her right; but itended with their son. There are doubtless male descendants of this great Norman house still in existence.

Higham Ferrers, Northants, and Woodham Ferrers, Essex, take their names from this family. It has been alleged that they bore horseshoes for their arms in allusion to Ferrières (i.e.ironworks); but when and why they were added to their coat is a moot point.

See Dugdale’sBaronage; J.R. Planché’sThe Conqueror and his Companions; G.E. C(okayne)’sComplete Peerage;Chronicles and Memorials(Rolls Series); T. Stapleton’sRotuli Scaccarii Normannie.

(J. H. R.)

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.

FERRET,a domesticated, and frequently albino breed of quadruped, derived from the wild polecat (Putorius foetidus, orP. 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 nameViverra; 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.

SeeFerrets, by Nicholas Everitt (London, 1897).

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.

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 theFilosofia delle scuole italiane, the title of which he changed toRivista 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 mentionedStudii 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 XIXesiècle(Paris, 1869), andLa Psychologie de l’association depuis Hobbes jusqu’à nos jours.

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 theparlementof the latter town, and then to that of Rennes, he later became president of theparlementof 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).

FERRIER, JAMES FREDERICK(1808-1864), Scottish metaphysical writer, was born in Edinburgh on the 16th ofJune 1808, the son of John Ferrier, writer to the signet. His mother was a sister of John Wilson (Christopher North). He was educated at the university of Edinburgh and Magdalen College, Oxford, and subsequently, his metaphysical tastes having been fostered by his intimate friend, Sir William Hamilton, spent some time at Heidelberg studying German philosophy. In 1842 he was appointed professor of civil history in Edinburgh University, and in 1845 professor of moral philosophy and political economy at St Andrews. He was twice an unsuccessful candidate for chairs in Edinburgh, for that of moral philosophy on Wilson’s resignation in 1852, and for that of logic and metaphysics in 1856, after Hamilton’s death. He remained at St Andrews till his death on the 11th of June 1864. He married his cousin, Margaret Anne, daughter of John Wilson. He had five children, one of whom became the wife of Sir Alexander Grant.

Ferrier’s first contribution to metaphysics was a series of articles inBlackwood’s Magazine(1838-1839), entitledAn Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness. In these he condemns previous philosophers for ignoring in their psychological investigations the fact of consciousness, which is the distinctive feature of man, and confining their observation to the so-called “states of the mind.” Consciousness comes into manifestation only when the man has used the word “I” with full knowledge of what it means. This notion he must originate within himself. Consciousness cannot spring from the states which are its object, for it is in antagonism to them. It originates in the will, which in the act of consciousness puts the “I” in the place of our sensations. Morality, conscience, and responsibility are necessary results of consciousness. These articles were succeeded by a number of others, of which the most important wereThe Crisis of Modern Speculation(1841),Berkeley and Idealism(1842), and an important examination of Hamilton’s edition of Reid (1847), which contains a vigorous attack on the philosophy of common sense. The perception of matter is pronounced to be thene plus ultraof thought, and Reid, for presuming to analyse it, is declared to be a representationist in fact, although he professed to be an intuitionist. A distinction is made between the “perception of matter” and “our apprehension of the perception of matter.” Psychology vainly tries to analyse the former. Metaphysic shows the latter alone to be analysable, and separates the subjective element, “our apprehension,” from the objective element, “the perception of matter,”—not matterper se, but the perception of matter is the existence independent of the individual’s thought. It cannot, however, be independent of thought. It must belong to some mind, and is therefore the property of the Divine Mind. There, he thinks, is an indestructible foundation for thea prioriargument for the existence of God.

Ferrier’s matured philosophical doctrines find expression in theInstitutes of Metaphysics(1854), in which he claims to have met the twofold obligation resting on every system of philosophy, that it should be reasoned and true. His method is that of Spinoza, strict demonstration, or at least an attempt at it. All the errors of natural thinking and psychology must fall under one or other of three topics:—Knowing and the Known, Ignorance, and Being. These are all-comprehensive, and are therefore the departments into which philosophy is divided, for the sole end of philosophy is to correct the inadvertencies of ordinary thinking.

The problems of knowing and the known are treated in the “Epistemology or Theory of Knowing.” The truth that “along with whatever any intelligence knows it must, as the ground or condition of its knowledge, have some cognizance of itself,” is the basis of the whole philosophical system. Object + subject, thing + me, is the only possible knowable. This leads to the conclusion that the only independent universe which any mind can think of is the universe in synthesis with someothermind orego.

The leading contradiction which is corrected in the “Agnoiology or Theory of Ignorance” is this: that there can be an ignorance of that of which there can be no knowledge. Ignorance is a defect. But there is no defect in not knowing what cannot be known by any intelligence (e.g.that two and two make five), and therefore there can be an ignorance only of that of which there can be a knowledge,i.e.of some-object-plus-some-subject. The knowable alone is the ignorable. Ferrier lays special claim to originality for this division of theInstitutes.

The “Ontology or Theory of Being” forms the third and final division. It contains a discussion of the origin of knowledge, in which Ferrier traces all the perplexities and errors of philosophers to the assumption of the absolute existence of matter. The conclusion arrived at is that the only true real and independent existences are minds-together-with-that-which-they-apprehend, and that the one strictly necessary absolute existence is a supreme and infinite and everlasting mind in synthesis with all things.

Ferrier’s works are remarkable for an unusual charm and simplicity of style. These qualities are especially noticeable in theLectures on Greek Philosophy, one of the best introductions on the subject in the English language. A complete edition of his philosophical writings was published in 1875, with a memoir by E.L. Lushington; see also monograph by E.S. Haldane in the Famous Scots Series.

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’avocatandLes Incendies de Massoulard. Others of his numerous plays areLes Compensations(1876);L’Art de tromper les femmes(1890), with M. Najac. One of Ferrier’s greatest triumphs was the production with Fabrice Carré ofJoséphine vendue par ses sœurs(1886), anopéra bouffewith music by Victor Roger. His opera libretti includeLa 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.

FERRIER, SUSAN EDMONSTONE(1782-1854), Scottish novelist, born in Edinburgh on the 7th of September 1782, was the daughter of James Ferrier, for some years factor to the duke of Argyll, and at one time one of the clerks of the court of session with Sir Walter Scott. Her mother was a Miss Coutts, the beautiful daughter of a Forfarshire farmer. James Frederick Ferrier, noticed above, was Susan Ferrier’s nephew.

Miss Ferrier’s first novel,Marriage, was begun in concert with a friend, Miss Clavering, a niece of the duke of Argyll; but this lady only wrote a few pages, andMarriage, completed by Miss Ferrier as early as 1810, appeared in 1818. It was followed in 1824 byThe Inheritance, a better constructed and more mature work; and the last and perhaps best of her novels,Destiny, dedicated to Sir Walter Scott (who himself undertook to strike the bargain with the publisher Cadell), appeared in 1831. All these novels were published anonymously; but, with their clever portraiture of contemporary Scottish life and manners, and even recognizable caricatures of some social celebrities of the day, they could not fail to become popular north of the Tweed. “Lady MacLaughlan” represents Mrs Seymour Damer in dress and Lady Frederick Campbell, whose husband, Lord Ferrier, was executed in 1760, in manners. Mary, Lady Clark, well known in Edinburgh, figured as “Mrs Fox” and the three maiden aunts were the Misses Edmonstone. Many were the conjectures as to the authorship of the novels. In theNoctes Ambrosianae(November 1826), James Hogg is made to mentionThe Inheritance, and adds, “which I aye thought was written by Sir Walter, as weel’sMarriage, till it spunked out that it was written by a leddy.” Scott himself gave Miss Ferrier a very high place indeed among the novelists of the day. In his diary (March 27, 1826), criticizing a new work which he had been reading, he says, “The women do this better. Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen, have all given portraits of real society far superior to anything man, vain man, has produced of the like nature.” Another friendly recognition of Miss Ferrier is to be found at the conclusion of hisTales of my Landlord, where Scott calls her his “sister shadow,” the still anonymous author of “the very lively work entitledMarriage.” Lively, indeed, all Miss Ferrier’s works are,—written in clear, brisk English, andwith an inexhaustible fund of humour. It is true her books portray the eccentricities, the follies, and foibles of the society in which she lived, caricaturing with terrible exactness its hypocrisy, boastfulness, greed, affectation, and undue subservience to public opinion. Yet Miss Ferrier wrote less to reform than to amuse. In this she is less like Miss Edgeworth than Miss Austen. Miss Edgeworth was more of a moralist; her wit is not so involuntary, her caricatures not always so good-natured. But Miss Austen and Miss Ferrier were genuine humorists, and with Miss Ferrier especially a keen sense of the ludicrous was always dominant. Her humorous characters are always her best. It was no doubt because she felt this that in the last year of her life she regretted not having devoted her talents more exclusively to the service of religion. But if she was not a moralist, neither was she a cynic; and her wit, even where it is most caustic, is never uncharitable.

Miss Ferrier’s mother died in 1797, and from that date she kept house for her father until his death in 1829. She lived quietly at Morningside House and in Edinburgh for more than twenty years after the publication of her last work. The pleasantest picture that we have of her is in Lockhart’s description of her visit to Scott in May 1831. She was asked there to help to amuse the dying master of Abbotsford, who, when he was not writingCount Robert of Paris, would talk as brilliantly as ever. Only sometimes, before he had reached the point in a narrative, “it would seem as if some internal spring had given way.” He would pause, and gaze blankly and anxiously round him. “I noticed,” says Lockhart, “the delicacy of Miss Ferrier on such occasions. Her sight was bad, and she took care not to use her glasses when he was speaking; and she affected to be also troubled with deafness, and would say, ‘Well, I am getting as dull as a post; I have not heard a word since you said so-and-so,’—being sure to mention a circumstance behind that at which he had really halted. He then took up the thread with his habitual smile of courtesy—as if forgetting his case entirely in the consideration of the lady’s infirmity.”

Miss Ferrier died on the 5th of November 1854, at her brother’s house in Edinburgh. She left among her papers a short unpublished article, entitled “Recollections of Visits to Ashestiel and Abbotsford.” This is her own very interesting account of her long friendship with Sir Walter Scott, from the date of her first visit to him and Lady Scott at Ashestiel, where she went with her father in the autumn of 1811, to her last sad visit to Abbotsford in 1831. It contains some impromptu verses written by Scott in her album at Ashestiel.

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