did much to heal the breach between presbyterians and independents, but gives no biographical facts except the observation that ‘such a pastor as Mr. Faldo is forty years a making.’ In 1696 there was published the seventeenth edition of Jeremiah Dyke's ‘The Worthy Communicant: or a Treatise showing the due Order of Receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,’ abridged and supplemented by Faldo so as to bring the book ‘within the reach of the poor.’
[Wilson's Hist. of the Dissenting Churches, ii. 527; Calamy and Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, iii. 513; A Collection of the Works of William Penn, 1726, i. 45; Thomas Clarkson's Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of William Penn, 1849, ch. ix.]
FALE, THOMAS (fl. 1604), mathematician, matriculated as a sizar of Caius College, Cambridge, in November 1578, removed to Corpus Christi College in 1582, went out B.A. in 1582–3, commenced M.A. in 1586, proceeded B.D. in 1597, and in 1604 had a license from the university to practise physic. His only known publication is entitled ‘Horologiographia. The Art of Dialling: teaching an easie and perfect way to make all kinds of Dials vpon any plaine Plat howsouer placed: VVith the drawing of the Twelue Signes, and Houres vnequall in them all. Whereunto is annexed the making and vse of other Dials and Instruments, whereby the houre of the day and night is knowe. Of speciall vse and delight not onely for Students of the Arts Mathematicall, but also for diuers Artificers, Architects, Surueyours of buildings, free-Masons, Saylors, and others,’ 4to, London, 1593 (other editions appeared in 1626 and 1652). It is dedicated in Latin to all lovers of mathematics in the university of Cambridge. There is also a prefatory letter to ‘my louing kinsman,’ Thomas Osborne, who had invented the instrument mentioned in the beginning of the book ‘for the triall of plats,’ dated from London, 3 Jan. 1593. The table of sines which it contains is probably the earliest specimen of a trigonometrical table printed in England.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 396; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iv. 282.]
FALKLAND, Viscounts. [See Cary, Sir Henry, first Viscount, d. 1633; and Cary, Lucius, second Viscount, 1610?–1663.]
FALKLAND, ELIZABETH, Viscountess. [See under Cary, Sir Henry.]
FALKNER, Sir EVERARD (1684–1758). [See Fawkener.]
FALKNER, JOHN. [See Falconer, John, 1577–1656.]
FALKNER, THOMAS (1707–1784), jesuit missionary, son of Thomas Falkner, apothecary, was born at Manchester on 6 Oct. 1707, and educated at the Manchester grammar school. He studied medicine under Dr. Richard Mead, and, after practising as a surgeon at home, went out as surgeon on board the Assiento, a slave ship, belonging to the South Sea Company. He sailed to the Guinea coast of Africa about 1731, and thence to Buenos Ayres, where he fell dangerously ill. The jesuits there treated him with such hospitality and kindness that he resolved to change his religion, which is said to have been presbyterian, and became a candidate for admission into the Society of Jesus. He was duly received in May 1732, and afterwards spent thirty-eight years as a missionary, at first in Paraguay and Tucuman, and then, from 1740, among the native tribes of South America, between Rio de la Plata and Magellan's Strait, rendering conspicuous service to his order. His skill in medicine and surgery and his knowledge of mechanics aided him materially in his labours. In Paraguay he was looked upon as a Galen. In January 1768, on the expulsion of the jesuits from South America, he returned to England, and for a while stayed with friends in Lancashire and elsewhere. He joined the English province of the Society of Jesus about 1771, and acted as chaplain successively to Robert Berkeley (1713–1804) [q. v.] at Spetchley Park, near Worcester, to the Beringtons at Winsley in Herefordshire, and the Plowdens at Plowden Hall, Shropshire. He died at Plowden Hall on 30 Jan. 1784, aged 77.
He appears to have left the following works in manuscript, but their whereabouts is unrecorded:
- ‘Volumina duo de Anatome corporis humani, quæ plurimi sunt pretii apud artis peritos.’
- ‘Botanical, Mineral, and like Observations on the Products of America,’ folio, 4 vols.
- ‘A Treatise on American Distempers cured by American Drugs.’
A compilation from his papers, made by William Combe [q. v.], was published at Hereford in 1774 (4to, 144 pages), entitled ‘A Description of Patagonia and the adjoining parts of South America, &c.’ In the opinion of the Rev. Joseph Berington [q. v.] this work would have been ‘an amusing and interesting performance’ if Falkner had been allowed to tell his story in his own way, but ‘the whole spirit of the original’ was extracted by the compiler. It forms, nevertheless, a valuable record of observations in a hitherto comparatively unknown country. A German version
