The Misses Flamborough, daughters of the farmer. Their homeliness contrasts well with the flashy pretenders to fashion introduced by Squire Thornhill.—Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield (1766).

=Flame= (Lord), Johnson the jester and dramatist, author of Hurlo-Thrumbo, an extravaganza (1729).

=Flammer= (The Hon. Mr. Frisk), a Cantab, nephew to Lord Totterly. He is a young gentleman with a vivid imagination, small income, and large debts.—C. Selby, The Unfinished Gentleman.

=Flammock= (Wilkin), a Flemish soldier and burgess at the Castle of Garde Doloureuse.

Rose or Roschen Flammock, daughter of Wilkin Flammock, and attendant on Lady Eveline.—Sir. W. Scott, The Betrothed (time, Henry II.).

=Flanders= (Moll), a woman of extraordinary beauty, born in Old Bailey. She was twelve years a harlot, five years a wife, twelve years a thief, and eight years a convict in Virginia; but ultimately she became rich, lived honestly, and died a penitent in the reign of Charles II.—Defoe, The Fortunes of Moll Flanders.

=Flash= (Captain), a blustering, cowardly braggart, “always talking of fighting and wars.” In the Flanders war he pretended to be shot, sneaked off into a ditch, and thence to England. When Captain Loveit met him paying court to Miss Biddy Bellaw, he commanded the blustering coward to “deliver up his sword,” and added:

“Leave this house, change the color of your clothes and fierceness of your looks; appear from top to toe the very wretch thou art!”—D. Garrick, Miss in Her Teens (1753).

=Fla´vius,= the faithful, honest steward of Timon the man-hater.—Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (1600).

=Fle´ance,= in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is the son of Banquo, one of Duncan’s trusted generals, and beloved and honored by Macbeth until the witches’ prophecy promises him the crown for which Macbeth has murdered the king. Macbeth resolves to destroy Banquo and his son, but while the father is murdered the son escapes, and the death-blow is given to Macbeth’s hope of an undisputed succession. Thus far the play; the chronicle makes Fleance become in time the Lord High Steward (Stewart, Stuart) of Scotland, and the ancestor of the House of Stuart which gave James I. to the English throne. James was very proud of this descent from Shakespeare’s Banquo, whose character was evidently drawn to flatter the king, since the Banquo of Holinshed’s Chronicle, from which the main of the play is drawn, is Macbeth’s partner in the murder of Duncan.

=Flecknoe= (Richard), poet-laureate to Charles II., author of dramas, poems, and other works. As a poet his name stands on a level with Bavius and Mævius. Dryden says of him:

... he reigned without dispute Thro’ all the realms of nonsense absolute. Dryden, M’Flecnoe (1682).

(It was not Flecknoe but Shadwell that Dryden wished to castigate in this satire. The offence was that Dryden was removed from the post of laureate, and Shadwell appointed in his place. The angry ex-laureate says, with more point than truth, that, “Shadwell never deviates into sense.”)

=Fleda.= A winning child who grows into the lovely heroine of Susan Warner’s novel Queechy (1852). Her simple faith and unaffected piety lead Mr. Carleton, a skeptical Englishman, into the right path. After many years and vicissitudes the two meet again in New York and are married in England.

=Fledge´by= (2 syl.), an over-reaching, cowardly sneak, who conceals his dirty bill-broking under the trade name of Pubsey and Co. He is soundly thrashed by Alfred Lammle, and quietly pockets the affront.—C. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1864).

=Fleecebump´kin= (3 syl.), bailiff of Mr. Ireby, the country squire.—Sir W. Scott, The Two Drovers (time, George III.).

=Fleece´em= (Mrs.), meant for Mrs. Rudd, a smuggler, thief, milliner, matchmaker and procuress.—Sam. Foote, The Cozeners.

=Fleetwood= or The New Man of Feeling, the hero of a novel so named by W. Godwin (1805).

=Flemings= (The Farmer). Yeoman-farmer of Kent, dull, honest plodder.

Dahlia. Lovely girl, who goes off with Edward Blancove, believing herself married to him. Discovering the deception, she returns to the farm, and resumes her old life. When the penitent lover seeks her and would marry her, she refuses. “She has left her heart among the ashes of the fire” that consumed her youth and honor.

Rhoda. Devoted sister who seeks Dahlia until she is found, and cherishes her tenderly through life. Rhoda marries a farmer, and Dahlia lives for seven years as her housemate. George Meredith, Rhoda Fleming (1888).

Flem´ing (Archdeacon), the clergyman to whom old Meg Murdockson made her confession.—Sir W. Scott, Heart of Midlothian (time, George II.).

Fleming (Sir Malcolm), a former suitor of Lady Margaret de Hautlieu.—Sir W. Scott, Castle Dangerous (time, Henry I.).

Fleming (Lady Mary), one of the maids of honor to Mary Queen of Scots.—Sir W. Scott, The Abbot (time, Elizabeth).

Fleming (Rose), niece of Mrs. Maylie. Rose marries her cousin Harry Maylie.

She was past 17. Cast in so slight and exquisite a mould, so mild and gentle, so pure and beautiful, that earth seemed not her element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions. The very intelligence that shone in her deep blue eye ... seemed scarcely ... of the world, and yet the changing expression of sweetness and good-humor, the thousand lights that played about the face ... above all the smile, the cheerful, happy smile, were made for home and fireside peace and happiness.—C. Dickens, Oliver Twist, xxix. (1837).

=Flemish School= (The), a school of painting commencing in the fifteenth century, with the brothers Van Eyck. The chief early masters were Memling, Van der Weyden, Matsys, and Mabuse. The chief of the second period were Rubens, Vandyck, Snyders, Jordæns, Gaspar de Crayer and the younger Teniers.

=Flemming= (Paul), scholarly hero of Longfellow’s Hyperion. Among the storied ruins of the Old World, he wins his bride by weaving to her stories from his own imagination (1839).

=Fleshly School= (The), a class of British poets of which Swinburne, Rossetti, Morris, etc., are exponents; so called from the sensuous character of their poetry.

⁂ It was Thomas Maitland [_i.e._ R. W. Buchanan] who first gave them this appellation in the Contemporary Review.

=Fletcher= (Dick), one of the crew of a pirate vessel.—Sir W. Scott, The Pirate (time, William III.).

Fletcher (Philip), fine gentleman, suitor of Christie, in Louisa M. Olcot’s novel “Work.”

=Fleur de Marie=, the betrothed of Captain Phœbus.—Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris (1831).

=Fleurant=, an apothecary. He flies into a rage because Bérald (2 syl.) says to his brother, “Remettez cela à une fois, et demeurez un peu en repos.” The apothecary flares out, “De quoi vous mêlez vous de vous opposer aux ordonnance de la medicine ... je vais dire à Monsieur Purgon comme on m’a empêché d’executer ses ordres.... Vous verrez, vous verrez.”—Molière, La Malade Imaginaire (1673).

=Flib´bertigib´bet=, the fiend that gives man the squint eye and harelip, sends mildews and blight, etc.

This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet ... he gives the web and the pin [_diseases of the eye_], squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white heat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.—King Lear, act iii. sec. 4 (1605).

⁂ Shakespeare got this name from bishop Harsnett’s Declaration of Popish Impostures, where Flibberdigibet is one of the fiends which the Jesuits cast out of Mr. Edmund Peckham.

Flib´bertigib´bet, or “Dickie Sludge,” the dwarf grandson of Gammer Sludge (landlady of Erasmus Holiday, the schoolmaster in the vale of Whitehorse). In the entertainment given by the earl of Leicester to Queen Elizabeth, Dickon Sludge acts the part of an imp.—Sir W. Scott, Kenilworth (time, Elizabeth).

=Flint= (Lord), chief minister of state to one of the sultans of India. He had the enviable faculty of a very short memory when he did not choose to recollect. “My people know, no doubt, but I cannot recollect,” was his stock phrase. Mrs. Inchbald, Such Things Are (1786).

Flint, jailer in The Deserter, a musical drama by Dibdin (1770).

Flint (Sir Clement), a very kind-hearted, generous old bachelor, who “trusts no one,” and though he professes his undoubted belief to be “that self is the predominant principle of the human mind,” is never so happy as when doing an unselfish and generous act. He settles £2000 a year on the young Lord Gayville, his nephew, that he may marry Miss Alton, the lady of his choice; and says, “To reward the deserving, and make those we love happy, is self-interest in the extreme.”—General Burgoyne, The Heiress (1781).

=Flint Jack=, Edward Simpson, who used to tramp the kingdom, vending spurious flint arrow-heads, celts, and other imitation antiquities. In 1867 he was imprisoned for theft.

=Flippan´ta=, an intriguing lady’s-maid. Daughter of Mrs. Cloggit. She is in the service of Clarissa, and aids her in all her follies.—Sir John Vanbrugh, The Confederacy (1695).

=Flite= (Miss), a poor crazed, good-hearted woman, who has lost her wits through the “law’s delay.” She is always haunting the Courts of Chancery with “her documents,” hoping against hope that she will receive a judgment.—C. Dickens, Bleak House, iv. (1852).