with trees, but the island is deficient in water. Long. 16° 10′ W., lat. 11° 29′ N. FORMOSA BAY, a bay on the eastern coast of Africa, immediately north of Melinda, and receiving a small river of the same name, in lat. 2° 45′ S. FORMOSA, CAPE, a cape on the coast of Malacca, thirty miles south-east of Malacca. governor of Tai-wan, the capital of the island, who is himself subject to the viceroy of the province of Fo-kien. This island presents extensive and fertile plains, watered by a great number of rivulets that fall from the eastern mountains. The air is pure and wholesome, and the soil produces in abundance corn and rice, with other grain, and Indian fruits; such as oranges, bananas, pine apples, guavas, papawa, cocoa-nuts; as well as many of Europe. Tobacco, sugar, pepper, camphire, and cinnamon, are also common. The island has few wild animals, except deer and monkeys, and it is without horses, asses, or sheep. Bullocks are used in lieu of the former for labor. The woods abound in pheasants, heath cocks, wild pigeons, &c. The climate is healthy and temperate, but the island is subject to frequent earthquakes. One of these happened in 1782, that almost destroyed the island, and either sunk or damaged most of the ships that were in the harbour. Tai-wan is on the west coast, and is very populous and rich, in all respects resembling the Chinese cities of the Continent. It is defended by a fortress built by the Dutch, and still in good repair. The harbour only admits vessels of eight feet, and in general the other ports are also shoal, and the navigation obstructed by sands. The Chinese have sometimes a garrison of 10,000 men on this island. The only natives who are allowed to live in the 'towns and villages, peopled by the Chinese, are either slaves or domestics. The native islanders of this western part have more than forty villages, mostly situated towards the northern extremity, built after the Chinese manner, while those in the southern parts are merely earthen huts. The inhabitants of the eastern side of the island are described as savages, without regular government. In their features and complexions they resemble the Malays, but speak a language that has no affinity to any other. Their cabins are of bamboo, without furniture; their cloathing only a piece of cloth wrapped round the waist, and their food what they procure by the chase. They raise ornamental cicatrices on the skin to resemble trees, flowers, and animals, and blacken their teeth. Their religion is an idolatrous polytheism. They dispose of their dead in the same manner as the islanders of the Pacific, exposing the bodies on stages. They are represented as courteous and honest, but very implacable. This latter quality the Chinese have experienced to their cost. Some of the earlier settlers of that nation massacred the inhabitants of a village for the sake of some ingots of gold they saw there, and though the natives set little value upon gold or silver, they could never be prevailed upon to forgive the atrocity. Their chief subsistence is derived from the cattle they breed on the mountains, and the fish they catch in the rivers and off the adjacent coasts. In 1805 some Ladrone pirates had acquired possession of a great part of the southwest coast of Formosa, which exported a great deal of grain to the province of Fo-kien in China. FORMOSA, an island in the Atlantic, near the western coast of Africa, about thirty miles long, and eighteen broad, one of the Archipelago of the Bissagos. The soil is fertile, and covered FORMOSA, RIO, one of the principal estuaries which open into the Gulf of Benin, has its mouth about four miles wide, but does not afford above twelve feet average depth of water. The country for some distance up is entirely intersected with its branches. The navigation is also often impeded by floating islands, covered with reeds. The banks are fertile, and covered with fine trees, but the air is extremely damp and unwholesome. The rise and early course of this river are unknown; according to Rechard, this stream is supposed to be the termination of the Niger. No vessel should venture into its mouth without a pilot. Long. 4° 20′ E., lat. 5° 40′ N. FORMULA, or FORMULARY, a rule or model, or certain terms prescribed or decreed by authority, for the form and manner of an act, instrument, proceeding, or the like. FORMULA, in church history and theology, signifies a profession of faith. FORMULA, in medicine, imports the constitution of medicines, either simple or compound, both with respect to the prescription and consistence. FORNELLA, a sea-port of Minorca, six miles from Mount Toro. The harbour is capable of containing the largest fleet of merchantmen, and is defended by three forts. In the neighbourhood is a small fishing place of the same name. FOR'NICATE, v. a. FORNICATION, n. s. FORNICA TOR, n. s. Fr. fornicateur; Lat. fornicatio, fornir, an arch or vault; the usual FORNICA TRESS, n. s. place of the ancient brothels. But some etymologists trace this word to the Gr. Tорvn, TEрvaw, to hire. To commit lewdness as distinguished from adultery; the one being committed with the unbetrothed, the other with the married. In the sacred writings the word fornication is metaphorically applied to idolatry. Thou didst trust in thine own beauty, thou playedst the harlot, because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by, Ezekiel xvi. 15. Another circumstance is this, whether it be don in fornication, or in advoutrie, or no; in manner of homicide or non; a horrible gret sinne, or smal; and how long thou host continued in sinne. Chaucer. The Persones Tale. Bless me! what a fry of fornication is at the door. Shakspeare. See you the fornicatress be removed; Id. Let her have needful but not slavish means. A fornicator or adulterer steals the soul, as well as dishonours the body of his neighbour. Taylor. adulteries; for, if there were universal liberty, the inThe law ought to be strict against fornications and crease of mankind would be but like that of foxes at best. Graunt. It is a new way to fornicate at a distance. Browne. Our Saviour warns us against these, as a kind of spiritual fornication, and inconsistent with that purity of heart which his gospel requires. Mason. FORNICATION (Lat. fornicatio), from the fornices in Rome, where lewd women prostituted themselves for money. Formerly court-leets had power to enquire of and punish fornication and adultery; in which courts the king had a fine assessed on the offenders, as appears by the book of Domesday. In 1650 not only incest and wilful adultery were made capital crimes, but also the repeated act of keeping a brothel, or committing fornication, was (upon a second conviction) made felony, without benefit of clergy. But at the Restoration it was not thought proper to renew this law: and these offences have been ever since left to the feeble coercion of a spiritual court. In the Scriptures, as Dr. Paley observes, fornication is absolutely and peremptorily condemned. Out of the heart proceedeth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, &c., these are the things which defile a man.' These are Christ's own words; and one word from him upon the subject is final. The apostles are more full upon this topic. One well-known passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews may suffice; because, admitting the authority by which the apostles wrote, it is decisive. 'Marriage and the bed undefiled is honorable amongst all men, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge;' which was a great deal to say, at a time when it was not agreed even amongst philosophers that fornication was a crime.' The Scriptures gave no sanction,' adds this justly esteemed moralist, 'to those austerities which have been imposed upon the world under the name of Christ's religion, as the celibacy of the clergy, the praise of perpetual virginity, the prohibitio concubitûs cum gravida uxore; but with a just knowledge of, and regard to the condition and interest of the human species, have provided in the marriage of one man with one woman an adequate gratification for the propensities of their nature, and have restrained them to that gratification. The avowed toleration, and in some countries the licensing, taking, and regulating of public brothels, has appeared to the people an authorising of fornication, and has contributed, with other causes, so far to vitiate the public opinion, that there is no practice of which the immorality is so little thought of, or acknowledged, although there are few in which it can more plainly be made out. The legislators who have patronised receptacles of prostitution, ought to have foreseen this effect, as well as considered, that whatever facilitates fornication, diminishes marriages. And as to the usual apology for this relaxed discipline, the danger of greater enormities, if access to prostitutes were too strictly watched and prohibited; it will be time enough to look to that, after the laws and the magistrates have done their utmost. The greatest vigilance of both will do no more than oppose some bounds, and some difficulties to this intercourse. And, after all, these pretended fears are without foundation in experience. The men are in all respects the most virtuous in countries where the women are most chaste. If fornication be criminal, all those incentives which lead to it are accessary to the crime; as lascivious conversation, whether expressed in obscene, or disguised under modest brases; also wanton songs, pictures, books: the writing, publishing, and circulation of which whether out of frolic, or for some pitiful profit, are productive of so extensive a mischief from so mean a temptation, that few crimes within the reach of private wickedness have more to answer for, or less to plead in their excuse. Indecent conversation and by parity of reason all the rest, are forbidden by St. Paul, Eph. iv. 29. 'Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth;' and again, Col. iii. 8. Put filthy communications out of your mouth.' The invitation, or voluntary admission of impure thoughts, or the suffering them to get possession of the imagination, falls within the same description, and is condemned by Christ, Matt. v. 28. Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' Christ, by thus enjoining regulation of the thought, strikes at the root of the evil.'-Moral Philosophy, vol. 1. FORRES, a royal borough of Scotland, in the parish of the same name, which joins with Inverness, Fortrose, and Nairn, in electing a representative in parliament. It is a small well-built town, pleasantly situated on an eminence near the Findhorn, about a mile from Findhorn Bay, and commands an extensive prospect. Ancient records speak of Forres as a town of considerable note, so early as the thirteenth century. It is governed by a provost, two bailies, and dean of guild, annually elected; and contains 2400 inhabitants. It has a grammar-school of great repute, besides several private schools. About 300 barrels of salmon are annually exported. Linen yarn is the chief manufacture. Forres lies ten miles west of Elgin, and eight east of Nairn. About a mile from Forres, on the left hand side of the road, is a remarkable obelisk of the Gothic kind, and supposed to have been erected in memory of the treaty between Malcolm II. and Canute the Great, in 1008. Others have imagined that it was erected in memory of the assassination of king Duff; and this opinion is conceived to be strengthened by the discovery of eight human skeletons laid along a trench, in a little green mount close by the obelisk, supposed to be the assassins of the king. On the declivity of Cluny's Hill, looking towards Sweno's stone, there are obvious remains of extens.ve entrenchments. It is thus described by Mr. Cordiner, in a letter to Pennant:-'In the first division, underneath the Gothic ornaments at the top, are nine horses with their riders, marching forth in order: in the next is a line of warriors on foot, brandishing their weapons, and appear to be shouting for the battle. The import of the attitudes in the third division is very dubious, their expression indefinite. The figures which form a square in the middle of the column are pretty complex, but distinct; four serjeants with their halberts, guard a company, under which are placed several human heads, which have belonged to the dead bodies piled up at the left of the division: one appears in the character of executioner, severing the head from another body; behind him are three trumpeters sounding their trumpets, and before him two pairs of combatants, fighting with sword and target. A troop of horse next appears put to flight by infantry, whose first line have bows and arrows; and the three following, swords and targets. In the lowermost division now visible, the horses seem to be seized by the victorious party, their riders beheaded, and the head of their chief hung in chains, or placed in a frame; the others being thrown together beside the dead bodies under an arched cover. The greatest part of the other side of the obelisk, occupied by a sumptuous cross, is covered over with a uniform figure, elaborately raised, and interwoven with great mathematical exactness. Under the cross are two august personages, with some attendants, much obliterated, but evidently in an attitude of reconciliation; and if the monument was erected in memory of the peace concluded between Malcolm and Canute upon the final retreat of the Danes, these larg? figures may represent the reconciled monarchs. On the edge below the fretwork are some rows of figures joined hand in hand, which may also imply the new degree of confidence and security that took place after the feuds were composed, which are characterised on the front of the pillar. But, to whatever particular transaction it may allude, it can hardly be imagined, that in so early an age of the arts in Scotland as it must have been raised, so elaborate a performance would have been undertaken, but in consequence of an event of the most general importance; it is therefore surprising that no more distinct traditions of it arrived at the era when letters were known. The height of this monument (called King Sueno's Stone) above the ground is twenty-three feet; besides twelve or fifteen feet under ground. Its breadth is three feet ten inches, by one foot three inches in thickness.' FORSAKE', v. a. Į Sax. Fonracan; Belg. FORSAKER, N. s. Sversaaken; Swed. forsaka: preter. forsook; part. pass. forsook, or forsaken. Compounded of the negative for and sake, seek, secan, i. e. to seek no more. To leave that which has been pursued; to abandon that which has been chosen: to be forsaken is to be deprived of the company and assistance of others. Forlorn, and destitute, which are sometimes used as synonymous with forsake, are more comprehensive. To be forsaken, says Crabb, is a partial situation : to be forlorn and destitute, is a permanent condition. Thou didst deliver us into the hands of lawless enemies, most hateful forsakers of God. Apocrypha. The devils engins would me take, If ever I Love would forsake Or Bialacoil falsly betraie. Rowe. The' avenging bolt, and shake the dreadful shield, Daughter of Jove, whose arms in thunder wield A. Phillips's Distrest Mother. Soon as these saints the treacherous Isle forsook, Rushed in a false, foul, fiendlike, company, And every fort and every castle took, All to this rabble yield the sovereignty. Fletcher's Purple Island. This were the worst desertion :-renegadoes, Whom he forsook to fill the Laureate's sty. Byron turalist and traveller, born in 1736. He studied FORSKAL (Peter), a celebrated Swedish nafirst at Gottingen, and afterwards at Upsal; at which last place he became a pupil of Linné. mark to travel, with Niebuhr and others, for the In 1761 he was requested by the king of Denpurpose of making discoveries in Arabia; and died at Jerim, in that country, in 1763. He was the author of a tract entitled Thoughts on Civil Liberty, printed in 1759; and from his papers, which Niebuhr brought home with him, were published Descriptiones Animalium, &c. qua in Itinere Orientali Observavit, 4to.; Flora ralium quas in Itinere Orientali depingi curavit Ægyptiaco-Arabica, 4to.; Icones rerum NatuForskal, 4to. FORSKOHLEA, in botany, a genus of the pentagynia order, decandria class of plants; There are ten petals spatulated, i. e. roundish CAL. pentaphyllous, and longer than the corolla. before, with a linear base. Species three; natives of Egypt, Teneriffe, and the Cape. FORSOOTII, adv. Sax. poproge, for, and sooth, truth. See SOOтн. In truth; certainly; It is now used almost always in an Very well. ironical or contemptuous sense. A thefe he was, forsoth of corn and mele, Chaucer. The Reve's Tale. Deny your love, so rich within his soul, Shakspeare. 1 FORSTER (John Reinhold), a celebrated Prussian naturalist, born in 1729. In his youth he made great progress in the learned and modern languages; and in 1748 became a student at the University of Halle, where he chiefly devoted himself to those branches of learning connected with divinity. From Halle he removed to Dantzic, where he commenced preacher; but, being afterwards led to expect, some considerable preferment in Russia, he proceeded to that country. His expectations, however, proved fruitless, and he left Russia and came over to England, where he for some time acted as tutor in the French and German languages at Warrington. When captain Cook's second voyage was projected, in 1772, he was chosen to accompany that navigator round the world, and after his return, in 1775, the University of Oxford honored him with the degree of LL.D. But, contrary to the engagements he had entered into with the government, he published a botanical account of the plants discovered during the voyage, which occasioned his being treated with such coolness, that he left England and went to Halle, where he was appointed professor of natural history. He died in 1798. He was the author of Observations made in a Voyage round the World; History of Voyages and Discoveries in the North; On the Byssus of the Ancients; Several Papers in the Philosophical Transactions, &c. FORSTER (John George Adam), son of the above, was born at Dantzic in 1754, and came to England with his father in 1766. He was educated at Warrington, and, having accompanied his father in the voyage round the world, became, after his return to Europe, professor of natural history at Cassel; from which place he removed to Wilna, in Poland, and afterwards to Mentz, where he was appointed president of the University. At the beginning of the revolution, he was chosen by the inhabitants of Mentz as their representative at Paris; and died there in 1792. He wrote an account of his Voyage round the World, 2 vols. 4to.; a Defence of the same against Mr. Wales, 4to.; a Philosophical and Picturesque Journey along the Banks of the Rhine, 2 vols. 8vo. &c. FORSTER (George), an English traveller sometimes confounded with the above, was in 1782 in the civil service of the East India Company, and one of the few servants in the Madras Establishment who had at that period studied the language of Hindostan. He commenced in this year a journey from Bengal to Persia and came through Russia to England, when he published an account of it, in 2 vols. 4to. He travelled chiefly in the character of a Mahommedan merchant. Mr. Forster died in India in 1792. FORSTER (Nathaniel), a learned English divine, born at Plymstock in Devonshire, in 1717. He received the first part of his education at Plymouth, and afterwards at Eton; whence, in 1733, he proceeded to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he took his degree in arts, and was elected fellow. His first church preferment was the rectory of Hethe in Oxfordshire. In 1750 he became chaplain to bishop Burnet of Durham, who appointed him his executor. About this time he took his degree of D.D. After the death of bishop Burnet, in 1752, he was chosen by archbishop Herring as his chaplain: and in 1754 he obtained a prebend in the cathedral of Bristol, and the vicarage of Rochdale in Lancashire. In 1756 he was appointed chaplain to his majesty, and the following year preacher at the Rolls; he died the same year at Westminster. His writings are, 1. Reflections on the Antiquity, &c., of Egypt; 2. Platonis Dialogi quinque, &c., 1745; 3. Appendix Liviana, 1746; 4. Popery Destructive of the Evidence of Christianity, a Sermon; 5. A Dissertation on the Account given of Jesus Christ by Josephus; 6. Biblia Hebraica, sine Punctis; 7. On the Marriages of Minors, 8vo. FORSTERA, in botany, a genus of the triandria order, and gynandria class of plants. CAL. double; the exterior one beneath three-leaved; the interior one above, and six-cleft: COR. tubular; berry inferior, one-celled and one-seeded. Species one; a climber of New Zealand. FORSWEAR', v. a. & v. n. Į Preterite forswore; participle forsworn; Sax. Foɲrþæɲian. For, neg. and swear: to swear contrary to the truth; or to renounce an oath; to abjure. Forswearing and perjury, however, are not in use strictly synony mous. oaths; to perjure is employed only for such Now drinke I not this yere clarre Chaucer. Romaunt of the Rose. Never to wooe her more; but do forswear her, Shakspeare. To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn? To leave fair Sylvia, shall I be forsworn? To wrong my friend, shall I be much forsworn? And even that power which gave me first my oath, Provokes me to this threefold perjury. Id. And that self chain about his neck, Which he forswore most monstrously to have. Shakspeare. One says, he never shall endure the sight Of that forsworn, that wrongs both lands and laws. Daniel. Observe the wretch who hath his face forsook, How clear his voice, and how assured his look! Like innocence, and as serenely bold As truth, how loudly he forswears thy gold! Dryden's Juvenal. I too have sworn, even at the altar sworn, Eternal love and endless faith to Theseus; And yet am false, forsworn: the hallowed shrine, That heard me swear, is witness to my falsehood. Smith. FORSYTH (William), an able modern horticulturist, was born at Old Meldrum in the county of Aberdeen, in 1737. He was a pupil of the celebrated Miller, gardener to the company of apothecaries, at Chelsea, and in 1771 succeeded him in that situation. In 1784 he was appointed superintendent of the royal gardens at Kensington and St. James's. Mr. Forsyth was a member of the Linnæan and other learned societies. He died in 1804; leaving Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and Injuries of Fruit and Forest Trees, and A Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees. Mr. Forsyth discovered a composition to remedy the diseases of trees, for which he received a grant from parliament. FORT, n. s. Fr. fort, fortifier, fortresse; Ital. and Teut. fort, from Lat. fortis, strong. A fort is a place or castle strengthened against attacks by walls or works. Bu It for strength and defence. Fortification is em ployed in the same sense; but also designates the science of military architecture. Fortin and fortilage signify a little fort; and the former is especially applied to a fort raised to defend a camp during a siege. To fortify, is used not only in its primary application, but metaphorically, to confirm; to encourage; to fix; to establish in resolution. Fortress is something more considerable than a fort; a strong-hold; a castle of defence. He fortified the city against besieging. Ecclus. 1. 4. For how should I ere more him sene? Bicause the touré is so strong: How should he out, or by whose prowesse, Out of so strong a fortiresse? Chaucer. Romaunt of the Rose. Against the forte of reason evermore, Spenser. Faerie Queene. Yet was the fence thereof but weak and thin, Nought feared their force that fortilage to win. Spenser. In all straits and narrow passages there should be some little fortilage, or wooden castle set, which should keep and command the strait. Spenser Of palisadoes, fortins, parapets. Your desert speaks loud, and I should wrong Shakspeare. Measure for Measure. To fortify the former opinions Tostatus adds, that those which dwell near the falls of water are deaf from their infancy; but this I hold as feigned. Raleigh. They erected a fort, which they called the fort de l'or: and from thence they bolted like beasts of the forest. Bicon Hence while unsettled here he fighting reigns, Shut in a tow'r where thousand enemies Assault the fort; with wary care and pains He guards all entrance, and by divers spies Searcheth into his foes' and friends' designs, For most he fears his subjects wav'ring mind; This tower then only falls when treason undermines. Fletcher's Purple Island. The trump of death sounds in their hearing shrill; Their weapon, faith; their fortress was the grave. Fairfax. But in-born worth that fortune can controul, New-strung and stiffer bent her softer soul The heroine assumed the woman's place, Confirined her mind, and fortified her face. Dryden. My fury does, like jealous forts, pursue With death ev'n strangers who but come to view. 14. There is no such way to give defence to absurd doctrines, as to guard them round about with legions of obscure and undefined words; which yet makes these retreats more like the dens of robbers, or holes of foxes, than the fortresses of fair warriors. Locke. Fortification is an art shewing how to fortify place with ramparts, parapets, moats, and other bulwarks; to the end that a small number of men within |