FINLAY, GEORGE, a distinguished historian, horn at Faversham, Kent, but of Scotch parents; received a university training at Glasgow and Goettingen, and in 1822 went to Greece, where he met Byron and fought in the War of Independence; henceforth Greece became his home, and there, after an unavailing effort to promote agriculture, he betook himself to a studious life and to writing the history of his adopted country; his valuable history, published in various parts, traces the national life of Greece from 146 B.C. to A.D. 1864 (1799-1875).

FINMARK (29), a province of Norway, lying in the extreme N., with a rocky and indented coast and a barren and mountainous interior; fishing is the main industry of the inhabitants, who are chiefly Lapps.

FINNS, the native inhabitants of Finland, and originally of the districts in Sweden and Norway as well, are of the Mongolian type, and were settled in Europe before the arrival of the Slavic and Teutonic races.

FIORDS, deep indentations forming inlets of the sea, especially on the coast of Norway, overlooked by high mountains and precipitous cliffs.

FIRDAUSI or FIRDUSI, the pseudonym of Abu-’l Kasim Mansur, the great poet of Persia, born near Tus, in Khorassan; flourished in the 10th century B.C.; spent 30 years in writing the “Shah Nama,” a national epic, but having been cheated out of the reward promised by Sultan Mahmud, he gave vent to bitter satire against his royal master and fled the court; for some time he led a wandering life, till at length he returned to his birthplace, where he died; a complete translation of his great poem exists in French.

FIRE-WORSHIP, worship of fire, especially as embodied in the sun viewed as the most express and emphatic exhibition of beneficent divine power.

FIRMAMENT, a name given to the vault of the sky conceived as a solid substance studded with stars, so applied in the Vulgate.

FIRMAN, a Persian word denoting a mandate or decree; among the Turks the term is applied to such decrees as issue from the Ottoman Porte, and also to passports, the right of signing which lies with the Sultan or a Pasha; the word is also used in India to denote a permit to trade.

FIRMIN, ST., bishop of Amiens, who suffered martyrdom in 287.  Festival, Sept. 25.

FIRST GENTLEMAN OF EUROPE, George IV., from his fine style and manners.

FISCHART, JOHANN, a German satirist; an imitator of Rabelais (1545-1589).

FISCHER, ERNST KUNO BERTHOLD, a German historian of philosophy, born at Sandewalde, Silesia; as a student of Erdmann at Halle he was smitten with the love of philosophy, and gave his life to the study of it; after graduating he went to Heidelberg and there established himself as a private lecturer, in which capacity he was eminently successful, but in 1853 was deprived of his status by Government, probably on account of the alleged Pantheistic trend of his teaching; in 1856, however, he was elected to the chair of Philosophy in Jena, and 16 years later was called back to Heidelberg as Zeller’s successor; his chief work is a “History of Modern Philosophy”; b. 1824.