F A T

F A I

EAHRAG, a town of Persia, in the province of Farsistan , ISOmiles N. E. of Schiras .

FAILLlij, in heraldry, a French term denoting some failure orfraction in ait ordinary, as if it were broken, or a splinter takenfrom it.

FAILURE, a species of bankruptcy, commonly called break-ing, or stopping payments. See Bankruptcy.

Failure of Record, in law, is where an action is broughtagainst a person, who alledges, in his plea, matter of record in barof the action, and avers to prove it by the record ; to which theplaintiff replies, Nul liel record, viz. There is no such record :whereupon the defendant has a day given him by the court to bringit in ; and if he fail to do it, he is then said to fail of his record,and the plaintitf shall thereon have judgement.

FAINT ACTION, in law, a feigned action, or such as, al-though the words of the writ are true, yet, for certain causes, theplaintiff has no title to recover thereby.

Faint Pleader, in law, a covinous, false, or collusory man-ner of pleading, to the deceit of a third person.

FAINTS , in the distillery, the weak spirituous liquor that runsfront the still in rectifying the low wines after the proof spirit istaken off. Faints are also the last runnings of all spirits distilled bythe alembic. The clearing of the worm of these is so essential apoint in order to the obtaining of a pure spirit by the subsequentdistillation, that all others are fruitless without it.

FAIR , in sea language, is used for the disposition of the wind,when it is favourable to a ship’s course, in opposition to that whichis contrary or foul. The term fair is more comprehensive thanlarge, and includes about 16 or 16 points in the compass; whereaslarge is confined to the beam quarter, that is, to a wind whichcrosses the keel at right angles, or obliquely from the stern, butnever to one right a-stern.

Fair Curve, is a winding line used in delineating ships, whoseshape is varied, according to the part of the ship which it is intendedto describe.

Fair Wav, in sea language, the path or channel of a narrowbay, river, or haven, in which ships usually advance in their pas-sage up and down ; so that if any vessels are anchored therein, theyare said to lie in the fair way.

Fair, a greater kind of market, granted to a town, by privilege,for the more speedy and commodious providing of such things asthe place stands in need of. It is derived from the French wordfoire, which signifies the same tiling; aadj'nire is by some de-rived from the Latin forum, market; by other, from the LatinJeriie, because anciently fairs were always held in the places wherethe ferite were held. See Ferial Fairs are granted to towns bvprivilege, for the more speedy supplying of whatever they need, ftis one privilege of a fair, that persons shall be free from being ar-rested in it for any other debt or contract than what was contractedin tlie same, or at least promised to be paid there. Fairs aregenerally kept once or twice a-year; and, hv statute, they shallnot be held longer than they ought, by the lords thereof, on painof their being seized info the king’s own hands, tec. Also pro-clamation is to be made, how long they are to continue; and noperson shall sell any goods after the time of the fair is ended, onforfeiture of double value, one-fourth to the prosecutor and the restto the king, There is a toll usually paid in fairs on the sale of things,and for stillage, piccage, tec. Fairs abroad are either free, orcharged with toll and impost. The privileges of free fail's consistchiefly, first, in that all traders, See. whether natives or foreigners,are allowed to enter the kingdom, and are under the royal protec-tion, exempt from duties, impositions, tolls, tec. Secondly, that mer-chants, in going or returning, cannot be molested or arrested, ortheir goods stopped. They are established by letters patent fromthe prince. Fairs, particularly free fairs, are of great importancein the commerce of Europe , especially in that of the Mediterranean,and inland parts of Germany, &c. The principal fairs of America are the fairs of Porto -bello, Vera Cruz, and the Havanna, all ofwhich are of very considerable consequence. The two first last aslong as the Dote, and galleons continue in those parts; and the lastis opened as soon as the flota or galleons arrive there upon their re-turn for Spain ; this being the place where the two fleets join. Thechief British fairs are, 1. Sturbridge fair, near Cambridge, is by farthe greatest in Britain, and perhaps in the world. 2. Bristol hastwo fairs, very near as great as that of Sturbridge. 3. Exeter. 4.West. Chv - , ter. 3. Edinburgh . (>. Whey hill; nnd 7. Burford

fair; both for sheep. P. Paucras, in Staffordshire , for saddlehorses. 0. Bartholomew fair, at L ndon, for WeLh black cattle.10. St. Faith’s, in Norfolk , for Scotch runts. 11. Yarmouthfishing fair for herrings, the only fishing fair in Great Britain. 12.Ipswich butter fair. 13. Woodborough hill in Dorsetshire , forwest country manufactures, as kerseys, druggets, tec. 14. Twocheese fairs at Chipping Norton . 15. There are eight fairs inPerth; and, Hi. A great cattle fair at Falkirk ; besides innumerableother fairs, throughout the island, for all sorts of goods. Amongthe principal free fairs in France were those of St. Germains, Lyons,Rheims, Chartre 11 , Rouen, Bourdeaux, Troyes, Bayonne, Dieppe ,tec. The most noted fairs in Germany are those of Frankfort,Leipsic, and Nuremburg ; not only on account of the great trade,but the vast concourse of princes of the empire, nobility, and peo-ple, who come to them from all parts of Germany to partake ofthe diversions.

Fair Isle, or Faro, a small island lying between Orkney andShetland , 30 miles E. N. E. from the former; and 24 S. W. fromthe latter. It is above three miles long, and nearly l wo broad,

FAIRFAX, a county of Virginia , on the W. banks of the Poto-mac, 23 miles long and 18 broad. The chief town is Alexandria.

FAIRFIELD, a populous maritime county of Connecticut ,bordering on the State of New York .

Fairfield, the capital of the above county, called Unquovva bythe Indians, is seated on the Mill-run, a little above its inilux intoLong Island Sound .

FAIRFORD, a town in Gloucestershire , remarkable for itschurch, which lias curious painted glass windows. They representthe most remarkable histories in the Old and New Testament.The painter was Albert Durer . It is 25 miles E, of Gloucester.

F'AIR WEATHER, CAPE, a cape on the E. coast of Pata-gonia. Lon. 68. 10. W. Lat. 51. 45. S.

FAIRY, [ferhtk, Saxon ; fee F'r. ah i?a, terra, fit te Ma-cedonian dialecto ; unde mpi ivfttu, te Romanis inferi, qui ScotoSaxonibus dicuntur feries, nostratiq; vulgo comiptius fairies, xnr*-X^ovioi iaifiiw;, sive dii manes. Baxter’s Glossary,] a kind offabled beings supposed to appear in a diminutive human form, andto dance in the meadows, and reward cleanliness in houses; anelf; a fay. Fairies were most usually imagined to be women ofan order superior to human nature, yet subject to wants, passions,accidents, and even death; sprightly and benevolent while youngand handsome ; morose, peevish, and malignant, if ugly, or in thedecline of their beauty; fond of appearing in white, whence theyare often called the white ladies. Jerveise of Tillcberry, marshalof the kingdom of Arles , wlvo lived in the beginning of the 13thcentury, writes thus concerning them, in a work inscribed to theemperor Otlio TV. “ It has been asserted by persons of unex-ceptionable credit, that fairies used to choose themselves gallantsfrom among men, and rewarded their attachment with an affluenceof worldly goods; but if they married, or boasted of a fairy’sfavours, they as severely smarted for such indiscretion.” 'This ideaof fairies has a near affinity with that of the Greeks and Romans,concerning the nymphs of the woods, mountains, rivers, andsprings; and an ancient scholiast on Theocritus says, “ 'Thenymphs are demons which appear on the mountains in the figureof women.” 'The Arabs and other orientals have also their ginnand peri, of whom they entertain the like notions.

Fairy Circle, or Ring, a phenomenon pretty frequent in thefields, &c. long supposed to he traced by the fairies in their dances.'There are two kinds of it; one of about seven yards in diameter,containing a round bare path, a foot broad, with green grass in themiddle of it. 'The other is of a different bigness, encompassedwith a circumference of grass-. Some suppose these circles to hemade by ants, w hich are often found in great numbers in them.Messrs. Jessop and Walker, in the Philosophical 'Transactions, as-cribe them to lightning; which is thought to be confirmed by theirbeing most frequently produced after storms of that kind, as wellas by the colour and brittleness of the grass roots when first ob-served. Lightning, like all other fires, moves round, and burnsmore in the extremity than in the middle: Ihe second circle arisesfrom the first, the grass burnt up growing very plentifully after-wards. Mr. Cavallo, however, in his valuable’Treatise on Elec-tricity, does not think that lightning is concerned in the founationof them : "They are not (says he) always of a circular figure ; and,as I am informed, they seem to he rather beds of mushrooms thanthe effects of lightning.” Dr. Woljastcu has, in a late volume ot