Chapter 18

â€œBy desire of the department (which has taken up the position of an impartial critic of the experiment) a quantity of flax straw was divided into two equal lots. One part was retted at Millisle by the patent-system of Loppens and Deswarte; the other was sent to Courtrai and steeped in the Lys. Both lots when retted and scutched were examined by an inspector of the department and by several flax spinners. That which was retted at Millisle was pronounced superior to the otherâ€ ...â€œTo summarise results up to dateâ€”1. It has been proved that flax can be thoroughly dried in the field in Ireland.2. That the seed can be saved, and is of first quality.3. That the system of retting (Loppens and Deswarteâ€™s patent) is at least equal to the Lys, as to quality and yield of fibre produced.â€

â€œTo summarise results up to dateâ€”

1. It has been proved that flax can be thoroughly dried in the field in Ireland.2. That the seed can be saved, and is of first quality.3. That the system of retting (Loppens and Deswarteâ€™s patent) is at least equal to the Lys, as to quality and yield of fibre produced.â€

1. It has been proved that flax can be thoroughly dried in the field in Ireland.

2. That the seed can be saved, and is of first quality.

3. That the system of retting (Loppens and Deswarteâ€™s patent) is at least equal to the Lys, as to quality and yield of fibre produced.â€

Since these results appear to be satisfactory, it is natural to expect further attempts with the same object of supplanting the ordinary steeping. A really good chemical, mechanical or other method would probably be the means of reviving the flax industry in the remote parts of the British Isles.

Scutchingis the process by which the fibre is freed from its woody core and rendered fit for the market. For ordinary water-retted flax two operations are required, first breaking and then scutching, and these are done either by hand labour or by means of small scutching or lint mills, driven either by water or steam power. Hand labour, aided by simple implements, is still much used in continental countries; also in some parts of Ireland where labour is cheap or when very fine material is desired; but the use of scutching mills is now very general, these being more economical. The breaking is done by passing the stalks between grooved or fluted rollers of different pitches; these rollers, of which there may be from 5 to 7 pairs, are sometimes arranged to work alternately forwards and backwards in order to thoroughly break the woody material or â€œboonâ€ of the straw, while the broken â€œshovesâ€ are beaten out by suspending the fibre in a machine fitted with a series of revolving blades, which, striking violently against the flax, shake out the bruised and broken woody cores. A great many modified scutching machines and processes have been proposed and introduced with the view of promoting economy of labour and improving the turn-out of fibre, both in respect of cleanness and in producing the least proportion of codilla or scutching tow.

The celebrated Courtrai flax of Belgium is the most valuable staple in the market, on account of its fineness, strength and particularly bright colour. There the flax is dried in the field, and housed or stacked during the winter succeeding its growth, and in the spring of the following year it is retted in crates sunk in the sluggish waters of the river Lys. After the process has proceeded a certain length, the crates are withdrawn, and the sheaves taken out and stooked. It is thereafter once more tied up, placed in the crates, and sunk in the river to complete the retting process; but this double steeping is not invariably practised. When finally taken out, it is unloosed and put up in cones, instead of being grassed, and when quite dry it is stored for some time previous to undergoing the operation of scutching. In all operations the greatest care is taken, and the cultivators being peculiarly favoured as to soil, climate and water, Courtrai flax is a staple of unapproached excellence.

An experiment made by Professor Hodges of Belfast on 7770 lb of air-dried flax yielded the following results. By rippling he separated 1946 â„” of bolls which yielded 910 â„” of seed. The 5824 lb (52 cwt.) of flax straw remaining lost in steeping 13 cwt., leaving 39 cwt. of retted stalks, and from that 6 cwt. 1 qr. 2 â„” (702 â„”) of finished flax was procured. Thus the weight of the fibre was equal to about 9% of the dried flax with the bolls, 12% of the boiled straw, and over 16% of the retted straw. One hundred tons treated by Schenckâ€™s method gave 33 tons bolls, with 27.50 tons of loss in steeping; 32.13 tons were separated in scutching, leaving 5.90 tons of finished fibre, with 1.47 tons of tow and pluckings. The following analysis of two varieties of heckled Belgian flax is by Dr Hugo MÃ¼ller (Hoffmannâ€™sBerichte Ã¼ber die Entwickelung der chemischen Industrie):â€”Ash0.701.32Water8.6510.70Extractive matter3.656.02Fat and wax2.392.37Cellulose82.5771.50Intercellular substance and pectose bodies2.749.41According to the determinations of Julius Wiesner (Die Rohstoffe des Pflanzenreiches), the fibre ranges in length from 20 to 140 centimetres, the length of the individual cells being from 2.0 to 4.0 millimetres, and the limits of breadth between 0.012 and 0.025 mm., the average being 0.016 mm.

According to the determinations of Julius Wiesner (Die Rohstoffe des Pflanzenreiches), the fibre ranges in length from 20 to 140 centimetres, the length of the individual cells being from 2.0 to 4.0 millimetres, and the limits of breadth between 0.012 and 0.025 mm., the average being 0.016 mm.

Among the circumstances which have retarded improvement both in the growing and preparing of flax, the fact that, till comparatively recent times, the whole industry was conducted only on a domestic scale has had much influence. At no very remote date it was the practice in Scotland for every small farmer and cotter not only to grow â€œlintâ€ or flax in small patches, but to have it retted, scutched, cleaned, spun, woven, bleached and finished entirely within the limits of his own premises, and all by members or dependents of the family. The same practice obtained and still largely prevails in other countries. Thus the flax industry was long kept away from the most powerful motives to apply to it labour-saving devices, and apart from the influence of scientific inquiry for the improvement of methods and processes. As cotton came to the front, just at the time when machine-spinning and power-loom weaving were being introduced, the result was that in many localities where flax crops had been grown for ages, the culture gradually drooped and ultimately ceased. The linen manufacture by degrees ceased to be a domestic industry, and began to centre in and become the characteristic factory employment of special localities, which depended, however, for their supply of raw material primarily on the operations of small growers, working, for the most part, on the poorer districts of remote thinly populated countries. The cultivation of the plant and the preparation of the fibre have therefore, even at the present day, not come under the influence (except in certain favoured localities) of scientific knowledge and experience.

Cultivation.â€”The approximate number of acres (1905) under cultivation in the principal flax-growing countries is as follows:â€”

Although the amount grown in Russia exceeds considerably the combined quantity grown in the rest of the above-mentioned countries, the quality of the fibre is inferior. The fibre is cultivated in the Russian provinces of Archangel, Courland, Esthonia, Kostroma, Livonia, Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, Tver, Vyatka, Vitebsk, Vologda and Yaroslav or Jaroslav, while the bulk of the material is exported through the Baltic ports. Riga and St Petersburg (including Cronstadt) are the principal ports, but flax is also exported from Revel, Windau, Pernau, Libau, Narva and KÃ¶nigsberg. Sometimes it is exported from Archangel, but this port is frost-bound for a great period of the year; moreover, most of the districts are nearer to the Baltic.

The following Prices, taken from the Dundee Year Books, show the Change in Price of a few well-known Varieties.

The raw flax is almost invariably known by the same name as the district in which it is grown, and it is further classified by special marks. The following names amongst others are given to the fibre:â€”Archangel, Bajetsky, Courish, Dorpat, Drogobusher, Dunaberg, Fabrichnoi, Fellin, Gjatsk, Glazoff, Griazourtz, Iwashkower, Jaransk, Janowitz, Jaropol, Jaroslav, Kama, Kashin, KÃ¶nigsberg, Kostroma, Kotelnitch, Kowns, Krasnoholm, Kurland (Courland), Latischki, Livonian Crowns, Malmuish, Marienberg, Mochenetz, Mologin, Newel, Nikolsky, Nolinsk, Novgorod, Opotchka, Ostroff, Ostrow, Otbornoy, Ouglitch, Pernau, Pskoff, Revel, Riga, Rjeff, St Petersburg, Seretz, Slanitz, Slobodskoi, Smolensk, Sytcheffka, Taroslav. Tchesna, Totma, Twer, Ustjuga, Viatka, Vishni, Vologda, Werro, Wiasma, Witebsk.

These names indicate the particular district in which the flax has been grown, but it is more general to group the material into classes such as Livonian Crowns, Rija Crowns, Hoffs, Wracks, Drieband, Zins, Ristens, Pernau, Archangel, &c.

The quotations for the various kinds of flaxes are made with one or other special mark termed a base mark; this usually, but not necessarily, indicates the lowest quality. The September-October 1906 quotations appeared as under:â€”LivonianbasisKÂ£26 to Â£27per ton,Hoffsâ€HDÂ£21 to Â£22â€Pernauâ€DÂ£28 to Â£28 : 10â€Dorpatâ€DÂ£32 to Â£32 : 10â€cleaned.It will, of course, be understood that the base mark is subject to variation, the ruling factors being the amount of crop, quality and demand.The marks in the Crown flaxes have the following signification:â€”KmeansCrown and is usually the base mark.Hâ€Light and represents a rise of aboutÂ£1Pâ€Pickedâ€â€â€Â£3Gâ€Greyâ€â€â€Â£3Sâ€Superiorâ€â€â€Â£4Wâ€Whiteâ€â€â€Â£4Zâ€Zinsâ€â€â€Â£10Each additional mark means a rise in the price, but it must be understood that it is quite possible for a quality denoted by two letters to be more valuable than one indicated by three or more, since every mark has not the same value.If we take Â£25 as the value of the base mark, the value per ton for the different groups would be:â€”KÂ£25HSPKÂ£33HKÂ£26GSPKÂ£35PKÂ£28WSPKÂ£36HPKÂ£29ZKÂ£35GPKÂ£31HZKÂ£36SPKÂ£32GZKÂ£38, &c.The Hoffs flaxes are reckoned in a similar way. Here H is for Hoffs, D for Drieband, P for picked, F for fine, S for superior, and R for Risten. In addition to these marks, an X may appear before, after or in both places. With Â£20 as base mark we have:â€”HDÂ£20perton.PHDÂ£23â€â€FPHDÂ£26â€â€SFPHDÂ£29â€â€XHDXÂ£32â€â€XRXÂ£35â€â€Of the lower qualities of Riga flax the following may be named;W,Wrack flax.PW,Picked wrack flax.WPW,White picked wrack.GPW,Grey picked wrack flax.D,Dreiband (Threeband).PD,Picked Dreiband flax.LD,Livonian Dreiband.PLD,Picked Livonian Dreiband.SD,Slanitz Dreiband.PSD,Picked Slanitz Dreiband.The last-named (SD and PSD) are dew-retted qualities shipped from Riga either as Lithuanian Slanitz, Wellish Slanitz or Wiasma Slanitz, showing from what district they come, as there are differences in the quality of the produce of each district. The lowest quality of Riga flax is marked DW, meaning Dreiband Wrack.Another Russian port from which a large quantity of flax is imported is Pernau, where the marks in use are comparatively few. The leading marks are:â€”LOD,indicatingLow Ordinary Dreiband (Threeband).OD,â€Ordinary Dreiband.D,â€Dreiband.HD,â€Light Dreiband.R,â€Risten.G,â€Cut.M,â€Marienburg.Pernau flax is shipped as Livonian and Fellin sorts, the latter being the best.Both dew-retted and water-retted flax are exported from St Petersburg, the dew-retted or Slanitz flax being marked 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Crown, also Zebrack No. 1 and Zebrack No. 2, while all the Archangel flax is dew-retted.Some idea of the extent of the Russian flax trade may be gathered from the fact that 233,000 tons were exported in 1905. Out of this quantity a little over 53,000 tons came to the United Kingdom. The Chief British ports for the landing of flax are:â€”Belfast, Dundee, Leith, Montrose, London and Arbroath, the two former being the chief centres of the flax industry.The following table, taken from the annual report of the Belfast Flax Supply Association, shows the quantities received from all sources into the different parts of the United Kingdom:â€”Year.Imports tothe UnitedKingdom.Imports toIreland.Imports toEngland andScotland.Tons.Tons.Tons.1895102,62233,50667,116189695,19936,65058,549189798,80237,71561,087189897,25334,44062,813189999,05240,14558,907190071,58631,56340,023190175,56528,78546,780190273,61129,72743,884190394,70138,16856,533190474,91733,02441,893190590,09840,06350,035The extent of flax cultivation in Ireland is considerable, but the acreage has been gradually diminishing during late years. In 1864 it reached the maximum, 301,693 acres; next year it fell to 251,433. After 1869 it declined, there being 229,252 acres in flax crop that year, and only 122,003 in 1872. From this year to 1889 it fluctuated considerably, reaching 157,534 acres in 1880 and dropping to 89,225 acres in 1884. Then for five successive years the acreage was above 108,000. From 1890 to 1905 it only once reached 100,000, while the average in 1903, 1904 and 1905 was a little over 45,000 acres.

It will, of course, be understood that the base mark is subject to variation, the ruling factors being the amount of crop, quality and demand.

The marks in the Crown flaxes have the following signification:â€”

Each additional mark means a rise in the price, but it must be understood that it is quite possible for a quality denoted by two letters to be more valuable than one indicated by three or more, since every mark has not the same value.

If we take Â£25 as the value of the base mark, the value per ton for the different groups would be:â€”

The Hoffs flaxes are reckoned in a similar way. Here H is for Hoffs, D for Drieband, P for picked, F for fine, S for superior, and R for Risten. In addition to these marks, an X may appear before, after or in both places. With Â£20 as base mark we have:â€”

Of the lower qualities of Riga flax the following may be named;

The last-named (SD and PSD) are dew-retted qualities shipped from Riga either as Lithuanian Slanitz, Wellish Slanitz or Wiasma Slanitz, showing from what district they come, as there are differences in the quality of the produce of each district. The lowest quality of Riga flax is marked DW, meaning Dreiband Wrack.

Another Russian port from which a large quantity of flax is imported is Pernau, where the marks in use are comparatively few. The leading marks are:â€”

Pernau flax is shipped as Livonian and Fellin sorts, the latter being the best.

Both dew-retted and water-retted flax are exported from St Petersburg, the dew-retted or Slanitz flax being marked 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Crown, also Zebrack No. 1 and Zebrack No. 2, while all the Archangel flax is dew-retted.

Some idea of the extent of the Russian flax trade may be gathered from the fact that 233,000 tons were exported in 1905. Out of this quantity a little over 53,000 tons came to the United Kingdom. The Chief British ports for the landing of flax are:â€”Belfast, Dundee, Leith, Montrose, London and Arbroath, the two former being the chief centres of the flax industry.

The following table, taken from the annual report of the Belfast Flax Supply Association, shows the quantities received from all sources into the different parts of the United Kingdom:â€”

The extent of flax cultivation in Ireland is considerable, but the acreage has been gradually diminishing during late years. In 1864 it reached the maximum, 301,693 acres; next year it fell to 251,433. After 1869 it declined, there being 229,252 acres in flax crop that year, and only 122,003 in 1872. From this year to 1889 it fluctuated considerably, reaching 157,534 acres in 1880 and dropping to 89,225 acres in 1884. Then for five successive years the acreage was above 108,000. From 1890 to 1905 it only once reached 100,000, while the average in 1903, 1904 and 1905 was a little over 45,000 acres.

(T. Wo.)

18 and 2, which means 80% of one quality and 20% of another. Sometimes other proportions obtain, while it is not unusual to have quotations for flaxes containing four different kinds.

FLAXMAN, JOHN(1755-1826), English sculptor and draughtsman, was born on the 6th of July 1755, during a temporary residence of his parents at York. The name John was hereditary in the family, having been borne by his father after a forefather who, according to the family tradition, had fought on the side of parliament at Naseby, and afterwards settled as a carrier or farmer, or both, in Buckinghamshire. John Flaxman, the father of the sculptor, carried on with repute the trade of a moulder and seller of plaster casts at the sign of the Golden Head, New Street, Covent Garden, London. His wifeâ€™s maiden name was See, and John was their second son. Within six months of his birth the family returned to London, and in his fatherâ€™s back shop he spent an ailing childhood. His figure was high-shouldered and weakly, the head very large for the body. His mother having died about his tenth year, his father took a second wife, of whom all we know is that her maiden name was Gordon, and that she proved a thrifty housekeeper and kind stepmother. Of regular schooling the boy must have had some, since he is reputed as having remembered in after life the tyranny of some pedagogue of his youth; but his principal education he picked up for himself at home. He early took delight in drawing and modelling from his fatherâ€™s stock-in-trade, and early endeavoured to understand those counterfeits of classic art by the light of translations from classic literature.

Customers of his father took a fancy to the child, and helped him with books, advice, and presently with commissions. The two special encouragers of his youth were the painter Romney, and a cultivated clergyman, Mr Mathew, with his wife, in whose house in Rathbone Place the young Flaxman used to meet the best â€œblue-stockingâ€ society of those days, and, among associates of his own age, the artists Blake and Stothard, who became his closest friends. Before this he had begun to work with precocious success in clay as well as in pencil. At twelve years old he won the first prize of the Society of Arts for a medal, and became a public exhibitor in the gallery of the Free Society of Artists; at fifteen he won a second prize from the Society of Arts and began to exhibit in the Royal Academy, then in the second year of its existence. In the same year, 1770, he entered as an Academy student and won the silver medal. But all these successes were followed by a discomfiture. In the competition for the gold medal of the Academy in 1772, Flaxman, who had made sure of victory, was defeated, the prize being adjudged by the president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, to another competitor named Engleheart. But this reverse proved no discouragement, and indeed seemed to have had a wholesome effect in curing the successful lad of a tendency to conceit and self-sufficiency which made Thomas Wedgwood say of him in 1775: â€œIt is but a few years since he was a most supreme coxcomb.â€

He continued to ply his art diligently, both as a student in the schools and as an exhibitor in the galleries of the Academy, occasionally also attempting diversions into the sister art of painting. To the Academy he contributed a wax model of Neptune (1770); four portrait models in wax (1771); a terracotta bust, a wax figure of a child, a figure of History (1772); a figure of Comedy, and a relief of a Vestal (1773). During these years he received a commission from a friend of the Mathew family, for a statue of Alexander. But by heroic and ideal work of this class he could, of course, make no regular livelihood. The means of such a livelihood, however, presented themselves in his twentieth year, when he first received employment from Josiah Wedgwood and his partner Bentley, as a modeller of classic and domestic friezes, plaques, ornamental vessels and medallion portraits, in those varieties of â€œjasperâ€ and â€œbasaltâ€ ware which earned in their day so great a reputation for the manufacturers who had conceived and perfected the invention. In the same year, 1775, John Flaxman the elder moved from New Street, Covent Garden, to a more commodious house in the Strand (No. 420). For twelve years, from his twentieth to his thirty-second (1775-1787), Flaxman subsisted chiefly by his work for the firm of Wedgwood. It may be urged, of the minute refinements of figure outline and modelling which these manufacturers aimed at in their ware, that they were not the qualities best suited to such a material; or it may be regretted that the gifts of an artist like Flaxman should have been spent so long upon such a minor and half-mechanical art of household decoration; but the beauty of the product it would be idle to deny, or the value of the training which the sculptor by this practice acquired in the delicacies and severities of modelling in low relief and on a minute scale.

By 1780 Flaxman had begun to earn something in another branch of his profession, which was in the future to furnish his chief source of livelihood, viz. the sculpture of monuments for the dead. Three of the earliest of such monuments by his hand are those of Chatterton in the church of St Mary Redcliffe at Bristol (1780), of Mrs Morley in Gloucester cathedral (1784), and of the Rev. T. and Mrs Margaret Ball in the cathedral at Chichester (1785). During the rest of Flaxmanâ€™s career memorial bas-reliefs of the same class occupied a principal part of his industry; they are to be found scattered in many churches throughout the length and breadth of England, and in them the finest qualities of his art are represented. The best are admirable for pathos and simplicity, and for the alliance of a truly Greek instinct for rhythmical design and composition with that spirit of domestic tenderness and innocence which is one of the secrets of the modern soul.

In 1782, being twenty-seven years old, Flaxman was married to Anne Denman, and had in her the best of helpmates until almost his lifeâ€™s end. She was a woman of attainments in letters and to some extent in art, and the devoted companion of her husbandâ€™s fortunes and of his travels. They set up house at first in Wardour Street, and lived an industrious life, spending their summer holidays once and again in the house of the hospitable poet Hayley, at Eartham in Sussex. After five years, in 1787, they found themselves with means enough to travel, and set out for Rome, where they took up their quarters in the Via Felice. Records more numerous and more consecutive of Flaxmanâ€™s residence in Italy exist in the shape of drawings and studies than in the shape of correspondence. He soon ceased modelling himself for Wedgwood, but continued to direct the work of other modellers employed for the manufacture at Rome. He had intended to return after a stay of a little more than two years, but was detained by a commission for a marble group of a Fury of Athamas, a commission attended in the sequel with circumstances of infinite trouble and annoyance, from the notorious Comte-Ã‰vÃªque, Frederick Hervey, earl of Bristol and bishop of Derry. He did not, as things fell out, return until the summer of 1794, after an absence of seven years,â€”having in the meantime executed another ideal commission (a â€œCephalus and Auroraâ€) for Mr Hope, and having sent home models for several sepulchral monuments, including one in relief for the poet Collins in Chichester cathedral, and one in the round for Lord Mansfield in Westminster Abbey.

But what gained for Flaxman in this interval a general and European fame was not his work in sculpture proper, but those outline designs to the poets, in which he showed not only to what purpose he had made his own the principles of ancient design in vase-paintings and bas-reliefs, but also by what a natural affinity, better than all mere learning, he was bound to the ancients and belonged to them. The designs for theIliadandOdysseywere commissioned by Mrs Hare Naylor; those for Dante by Mr Hope; those for Aeschylus by Lady Spencer; they were all engraved by Piroli, not without considerable loss of the finer and more sensitive qualities of Flaxmanâ€™s own lines.

During their homeward journey the Flaxmans travelled through central and northern Italy. On their return they took a house, which they never afterwards left, in Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square. Immediately afterwards we find the sculptor publishing a spirited protest against the scheme already entertained by the Directory, and carried out five years later by Napoleon, of equipping at Paris a vast central museum of art with the spoils of conquered Europe.

The record of Flaxmanâ€™s life is henceforth an uneventful record of private affection and contentment, and of happy and tenacious industry, with reward not brilliant but sufficient, and repute not loud but loudest in the mouths of those whose praise was best worth havingâ€”Canova, Schlegel, Fuseli. He took for pupil a son of Hayleyâ€™s, who presently afterwards sickened and died. In 1797 he was made an associate of the Royal Academy. Every year he exhibited work of one class or another: occasionally a public monument in the round, like those of Paoli (1798), or Captain Montague (1802) for Westminster Abbey, of Sir William Jones for St Maryâ€™s, Oxford (1797-1801), of Nelson or Howe for St Paulâ€™s; more constantly memorials for churches, with symbolic Acts of Mercy or illustrations of Scripture texts, both commonly in low relief [Miss Morley, Chertsey (1797), Miss Cromwell, Chichester (1800), Mrs Knight, Milton, Cambridge (1802), and many more]; and these pious labours he would vary from time to time with a classical piece like those of his earliest predilection. Soon after his election as associate, he published a scheme, half grandiose, half childish, for a monument to be erected on Greenwich Hill, in the shape of a Britannia 200 ft. high, in honour of the naval victories of his country. In 1800 he was elected full Academician. During the peace of Amiens he went to Paris to see the despoiled treasures collected there, but bore himself according to the spirit of protest that was in him. The next event which makes any mark in his life is his appointment to a chair specially created for him by the Royal Academyâ€”the chair of Sculpture: this took place in 1810. We have ample evidence of his thoroughness and judiciousness as a teacher in the Academy schools, and his professorial lectures have been often reprinted. With many excellent observations, and with one singular meritâ€”that of doing justice, as in those days justice was hardly ever done, to the sculpture of the medieval schoolsâ€”these lectures lack point and felicity of expression, just as they are reported to have lacked fire in delivery, and are somewhat heavy reading. The most important works that occupied Flaxman in the years next following this appointment were the monument to Mrs Baring in Micheldever church, the richest of all his monuments in relief (1805-1811); that for the Worsley family at Campsall church, Yorkshire, which is the next richest; those to Sir Joshua Reynolds for St Paulâ€™s (1807), to Captain Webbe for India (1810); to Captains Walker and Beckett for Leeds (1811); to Lord Cornwallis for Prince of Walesâ€™s Island (1812); and to Sir John Moore for Glasgow (1813). At this time the antiquarian world was much occupied with the vexed question of the merits of the Elgin marbles, and Flaxman was one of those whose evidence before the parliamentary commission had most weight in favour of the purchase which was ultimately effected in 1816.

After his Roman period he produced for a good many years no outline designs for the engraver except three for Cowperâ€™s translations of the Latin poems of Milton (1810). Other sets of outline illustrations drawn about the same time, but not published, were one to thePilgrimâ€™s Progress, and one to a Chinese tale in verse, called â€œThe Casket,â€ which he wrote to amuse his womenkind. In 1817 we find him returning to his old practice of classical outline illustrations and publishing the happiest of all his series in that kind, the designs to Hesiod, excellently engraved by the sympathetic hand of Blake. Immediately afterwards he was much engaged designing for the goldsmithsâ€”a testimonial cup in honour of John Kemble, and following that, the great labour of the famous and beautiful (though quite un-Homeric) â€œShield of Achilles.â€ Almost at the same time he undertook a frieze of â€œPeace, Liberty and Plenty,â€ for the duke of Bedfordâ€™s sculpture gallery at Woburn, and an heroic group of Michael overthrowing Satan, for Lord Egremontâ€™s house at Petworth. His literary industry at the same time is shown by several articles on art and archaeology contributed to Reesâ€™sEncyclopaedia(1819-1820).

In 1820 Mrs Flaxman died, after a first warning from paralysis six years earlier. Her younger sister, Maria Denman, and the sculptorâ€™s own sister,, Maria Flaxman, remained in his house, and his industry was scarcely at all relaxed. In 1822 he delivered at the Academy a lecture in memory of his old friend and generous fellow-craftsman, Canova, then lately dead; in 1823 he received from A.W. von Schlegel a visit of which that writer has left us the record. From an illness occurring soon after this he recovered sufficiently to resume both work and exhibition, but on the 3rd of December 1826 he caught cold in church, and died four days later, in his seventy-second year. Among a few intimate associates, he left a memory singularly dear; having been in companionship, although susceptible and obstinate when his religious creedâ€”a devout Christianity with Swedenborgian admixturesâ€”was crossed or slighted, yet in other things genial and sweet-tempered beyond most men, full of modesty and playfulness and withal of a homely dignity, a true friend and a kind master, a pure and blameless spirit.

Posterity will doubt whether it was the fault of Flaxman or of his age, which in England offered neither training nor much encouragement to a sculptor, that he is weakest when he is most ambitious, and most inspired when he makes the least effort; but so it is. Not merely does he fail when he seeks to illustrate the intensity of Dante, or to rival the tumultuousness of Michelangeloâ€”to be intense or tumultuous he was never made; but he fails, it may almost be said, in proportion as his work is elaborate and far carried, and succeeds in proportion as it is partial and suggestive. Of his completed ideal sculptures, the â€œSt Michaelâ€ at Petworth is the best, and is indeed admirably composed from all points of view; but it lacks fire and force, and it lacks the finer touches of the chisel; a little bas-relief like the diploma piece of the â€œApolloâ€ and â€œMarpessaâ€ in the Royal Academy compares with it favourably. This is one of the very few things which he is recorded to have executed in the marble entirely with his own hand; ordinarily he entrusted the finishing work of the chisel to the Italian workmen in his employ, and was content with the smooth mechanical finish which they imitated from the Roman imitations (themselves often reworked at the Renaissance) of Greek originals. Of Flaxmanâ€™s complicated monuments in the round, such as the three in Westminster Abbey and the four in St Paulâ€™s, there is scarcely one which has not something heavy and infelicitous in the arrangement, and something empty and unsatisfactory in the surface execution. But when we come to his simple monuments in relief, in these we find almost always a far finer quality. The truth is that he did not thoroughly understand composition on the great scale and in the round, but he thoroughly understood relief, and found scope in it for his remarkable gifts of harmonious design, and tender, grave and penetrating feeling. But if we would see even the happiest of his conceptions at their best, we must study them, not in the finished marble but rather in the casts from his studio sketches (marred though they have been by successive coats of paint intended for their protection) of which a comprehensive collection is preserved in the Flaxman gallery at University College And the same is true of his happiest efforts in the classical and poetical vein, like the well-known relief of â€œPandora conveyed to Earth by Mercury.â€ Nay,going farther back still among the rudiments and first conceptions of his art, we can realize the most essential charm of his genius in the study, not of his modelled work at all, but of his sketches in pen and wash on paper. Of these the principal public collections are at University College, in the British Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum; many others are dispersed in public and private cabinets. Every one knows the excellence of the engraved designs to Homer, Dante, Aeschylus and Hesiod, in all cases save when the designer aims at that which he cannot hit, the terrible or the grotesque. To know Flaxman at his best it is necessary to be acquainted not only with the original studies for such designs as these (which, with the exception of the Hesiod series, are far finer than the engravings), but still more with those almost innumerable studies from real life which he was continually producing with pen, tint or pencil. These are the most delightful and suggestive sculptorâ€™s notes in existence; in them it was his habit to set down the leading and expressive lines, and generally no more, of every group that struck his fancy. There are groups of Italy and London, groups of the parlour and the nursery, of the street, the garden and the gutter; and of each group the artist knows how to seize at once the structural and the spiritual secret, expressing happily the value and suggestiveness, for his art of sculpture, of the contacts, intervals, interlacements and balancings of the various figures in any given group, and not less happily the charm of the affections which link the figures together and inspire their gestures.

The materials for the life of Flaxman are scattered in various biographical and other publications; the principal are the following:â€”An anonymous sketch in theEuropean Magazinefor 1823; an anonymous â€œBrief Memoir,â€ prefixed toFlaxmanâ€™s Lectures(ed. 1829, and reprinted in subsequent editions); the chapter in Allan Cunninghamâ€™sLives of the Most Eminent British Painters, &c., vol. iii.; notices in theLife of Nollekens, by John Thomas Smith; in theLife of Josiah Wedgwood, by Miss G. Meteyard (London, 1865); in theDiaries and Reminiscences of H. Crabbe Robinson(London, 1869), the latter an authority of great importance; in theLivesof Stothard, by Mrs Bray, of Constable, by Leslie, of Watson, by Dr Lonsdale, and of Blake, by Messrs Gilchrist and Rossetti; a series of illustrated essays, principally on the monumental sculpture of Flaxman, in theArt Journalfor 1867 and 1868, by Mr G.F. Teniswood;Essays in English Art, by Frederick Wedmore;The Drawings of Flaxman, in 32 plates, with Descriptions, and an Introductory Essay on the Life and Genius of Flaxman, by Sidney Colvin (London, 1876); and the article â€œFlaxmanâ€ in theDictionary of National Biography.

(S. C.)

FLEA(0. Eng.flÃ©ah, orflÃ©a, cognate withflee, to run away from, to take flight), a name typically applied toPulex irritans, a well-known blood-sucking insect-parasite of man and other mammals, remarkable for its powers of leaping, and nearly cosmopolitan. In ordinary language the name is used for any species ofSiphonaptera(otherwise known asAphaniptera), which, though formerly regarded as a suborder ofDiptera(q.v.), are now considered to be a separate order of insects. AllSiphonaptera, of which more than 100 species are known, are parasitic on mammals or birds. The majority of the species belong to the familyPulicidae, of whichP. irritansmay be taken as the type; but the order also includes theSarcopsyllidae, the females of which fix themselves firmly to their host, and theCeratopsyllidae, or bat-fleas.

Fleas are wingless insects, with a laterally compressed body, small and indistinctly separated head, and short thick antennae situated in cavities somewhat behind and above the simple eyes, which are always minute and sometimes absent. The structure of the mouth-parts is different from that seen in any other insects. The actual piercing organs are the mandibles, while the upper lip or labrum forms a sucking tube. The maxillae are not piercing organs, and their function is to protect the mandibles and labrum and separate the hairs or feathers of the host. Maxillary and labial palpi are also present, and the latter, together with the labrum or lower lip, form the rostrum.

Fleas are oviparous, and undergo a very complete metamorphosis. The footless larvae are elongate, worm-like and very active; they feed upon almost any kind of waste animal matter, and when full-grown form a silken cocoon. The human flea is considerably exceeded in size by certain other species found upon much smaller hosts; thus the EuropeanHystrichopsylla talpae, a parasite of the mole, shrew and other small mammals, attains a length of 5Â½ millimetres; another large species infests the Indian porcupine. Of theSarcopsyllidaethe best known species is the â€œjiggerâ€ or â€œchigoeâ€ (Dermatophilus penetrans), indigenous in tropical South America and introduced into West Africa during the second half of last century. Since then this pest has spread across the African continent and even reached Madagascar. The impregnated female jigger burrows into the feet of men and dogs, and becomes distended with eggs until its abdomen attains the size and appearance of a small pea. If in extracting the insect the abdomen be ruptured, serious trouble may ensue from the resulting inflammation. At least four species of fleas (includingPulex irritans) which infest the common rat are known to bite man, and are believed to be the active agents in the transmission of plague from rats to human beings.

(E. E. A.)

FLÃˆCHE(French for â€œarrowâ€), the term generally used in French architecture for a spire, but more especially employed to designate the timber spire covered with lead, which was erected over the intersection of the roofs over nave and transepts; sometimes these were small and unimportant, but in cathedrals they were occasionally of large dimensions, as in the flÃ¨che of Notre-Dame, Paris, where it is nearly 100 ft. high; this, however, is exceeded by the example of Amiens cathedral, which measures 148 ft. from its base on the cresting to its finial.

FLÃ‰CHIER, ESPRIT(1632-1710), French preacher and author, bishop of NÃ®mes, was born at Pernes, department of Vaucluse, on the 10th of June 1632. He was brought up at Tarascon by his uncle, Hercule Audiffret, superior of the CongrÃ©gation des Doctrinaires, and afterwards entered the order. On the death of his uncle, however, he left it, owing to the strictness of its rules, and went to Paris, where he devoted himself to writing poetry. His French poems met with little success, but a description in Latin verse of a tournament (carrousel, circus regius), given by Louis XIV. in 1662, brought him a great reputation. He subsequently became tutor to Louis Urbain LefÃ¨vre de Caumartin, afterwardsintendantof finances and counsellor of state, whom he accompanied to Clermont-Ferrard (q.v.), where the king had ordered theGrands Joursto be held (1665), and where Caumartin was sent as representative of the sovereign. There FlÃ©chier wrote his curiousMÃ©moires sur les Grand Jours tenus Ã Clermont, in which he relates, in a half romantic, half historical form, the proceedings of this extraordinary court of justice. In 1668 the duke of Montausier procured for him the post oflecteurto the dauphin. The sermons of FlÃ©chier increased his reputation, which was afterwards raised to the highest pitch by his funeral orations. The most important are those on Madame de Montausier (1672), which gained him the membership of the Academy, the duchesse dâ€™Aiguillon (1675), and, above all, Marshal Turenne (1676). He was now firmly established in the favour of the king, who gave him successively the abbacy of St SÃ©verin, in the diocese of Poitiers, the office of almoner to the dauphiness, and in 1685 the bishopric of Lavaur, from which he was in 1687 promoted to that of NÃ®mes. The edict of Nantes had been repealed two years before; but the Calvinists were still very numerous at NÃ®mes. FlÃ©chier, by his leniency and tact, succeeded in bringing over some of them to his views, and even gained the esteem of those who declined to change their faith. During the troubles in the CÃ©vennes (seeHuguenots) he softened to the utmost of his power the rigour of the edicts, and showed himself so indulgent even to what he regarded as error, that his memory was long held in veneration amongst the Protestants of that district. It is right to add, however, that some authorities consider the accounts of his leniency to have been greatly exaggerated, and even charge him with going beyond what the edicts permitted. He died at Montpellier on the 16th of February 1710. Pulpit eloquence is the branch of belles-lettres in which FlÃ©chier excelled. He is indeed far below Bossuet, whose robust and sublime genius had no rival in that age; he does not equal Bourdaloue in earnestness of thought and vigour of expression; nor can he rival the philosophical depth or the insinuating andimpressive eloquence of Massillon. But he is always ingenious, often witty, and nobody has carried farther than he the harmony of diction, sometimes marred by an affectation of symmetry and an excessive use of antithesis. His two historical works, the histories of Theodosius and of Ximenes, are more remarkable for elegance of style than for accuracy and comprehensive insight.

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