annals of his adopted country; and he has given to the world a series of volumes, entitled "Greece under the Romans;" "The History of the Byzantine Empire from 716 to 1057;" "Mediæval Greece and Trebizond to 1461;" and "Greece under the Othoman and Venetian dominion from 1453 to 1821." The careful research and philosophical spirit which these works display, have placed their author in honourable connection with the American Antiquarian Society, and other literary associations.—W. B.
FINLAYSON, George, born at Thurso in Scotland about 1790, studied at Edinburgh; and having obtained a commission as surgeon in the army, he rose to the rank of surgeon-major. He was present at the battle of Waterloo, and subsequently, at his own request, was sent out to join the medical staff of the Indian army. In 1821 the marquis of Hastings appointed him to accompany the mission to Siam and Cochin China, and Finlayson employed the eight months which he spent there in noting carefully the productions of the soil, the character and manners of the people, their form of government, and military defences. But he was not spared to publish the valuable results of his labour. The fatigue which he had undergone, and the effect of the climate on his health, compelled him to seek the air of his native country. He died, however, on his passage home in 1823; and the narrative of the mission was published two years later, by Sir Stamford Raffles.—W. B.
FINLAYSON, James, D.D., F.R.S.E., professor of logic and metaphysics in the university of Edinburgh, and one of the ministers of the High church in that city, was born in 1751 near Dumblane. He was educated at the university of Glasgow, and at an early age exhibited talents of no common order. He was licensed to preach the gospel in 1785; was ordained minister of Borthwick in 1787; and about the same time was appointed professor of logic in the university of Edinburgh. In 1790 he was presented to Lady Yester's church, Edinburgh. Three years later he succeeded Principal Robertson in the collegiate church of the Old Greyfriars, and in 1799 was removed to the High church, where he became the colleague of Dr. Hugh Blair. Lord Cockburn, who speaks in high terms of the influence which Dr. Finlayson's lectures produced on the minds of his pupils, says, "He was a grave, firmset, dark, clerical man, stiff and precise in his movements, and with a distressing pair of black, piercing, jesuitical eyes, which moved slowly and rested long on every one they were turned to, as if he intended to look them down, and knew that he could do so: a severe and formidable person. Though no speaker, and a cold, exact, hard reader, he surprised and delighted us with the good sense of his matter." Dr. John Brown, too, often spoke of Professor Finlayson's class, "as opening up to him a new world, and as favourably affecting his style of thinking for life." Dr. Finlayson's influence in the church was very great; though silent in the church courts, he was the real leader of the party of which Principal Hill was the mouthpiece; and his abilities were all employed in the support of that system of ecclesiastical polity which Principal Robertson had established. He was deeply implicated in the attempt to exclude Sir John Leslie from the chair of mathematics in the university of Edinburgh. Lord Cockburn says, "that though never exposing himself by a speech or a pamphlet, he was the underground soul of the dark confederacy," and that the defeat helped to kill him. He died in 1808, in the fiftieth year of his age. "Finlayson's ecclesiastical life," says Cockburn, "reminds one of Pascal's saying of the jesuits—'The ablest among them are those who intrigue much, speak little, and work more.' "—J. T.
FINLAISON, John, president of the Institute of Actuaries, and actuary of the national debt, and government calculator, was born at Thurso in Caithness, 27th August, 1783. This eminent public servant was originally intended for the Scottish bar, but in 1804 he was induced to change his views, and soon after entered the civil service. He was appointed to the admiralty office in 1805, and speedily distinguished himself by effecting an entire change in the system under which the correspondence of that department was carried on. In 1817 his attention was first directed to the study of vital statistics, by a scheme for the establishment of a widows' fund in the civil service. By the careful study of the official records of the exchequer, where certain classes of life annuities had long been payable, Mr. Finlaison was enabled to demonstrate the unfitness of the tables then made use of by government for the sale of annuities. As the result of his representations, a sound system was established, and thus an immense pecuniary saving to the country effected. Mr. Finlaison was shortly after appointed to the office of government actuary, and during upwards of thirty years was consulted on all public measures which involved considerations of political arithmetic. His services were called into requisition in connection with the investigations in 1825 and 1827 by the house of commons into the condition of friendly societies; his valuable report in 1829 on the evidence on which his new tables of life annuities were founded; the computations respecting the duration of slave and Creole life, with reference to the emancipation of slaves in 1834; the measures which emanated from the ecclesiastical commission in 1835; the appropriation clause in 1836; the establishment in 1837 of the registration of births, deaths, and marriages; and many other important public measures. Mr. Finlaison retired from office in 1851. For the last nine years of his life he was mainly occupied with the study of scripture chronology, and the universal relationship of ancient and modern weights and measures. He died 13th April, 1860.—J. T.
FINNIAN, an Irish ecclesiastic of great learning and sanctity, the date of whose birth is unknown, but his death occurred in 552. He founded the celebrated abbey and town of Clonard, to the college of which three thousand scholars resorted, not only from Ireland, but from Britain, Armorica, and Germany. Bede says that the English, both of the better and middle ranks, came here for study and contemplation. Amongst his pupils were St. Columba, St. Brendan, and many other men afterwards eminent for piety and learning.—J. F. W.
FIORAVANTI, Valentino, a musician, was born at Rome in 1767, where he died in 1837. He studied composition under Sala in the conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini at Naples. He produced his first opera at Florence in 1791. In 1807 he went to Paris to compose and produce "I virtuosi Ambulanti," in consequence of the great success there, in the year before, of "Le Cantatrice Villane," which he had brought out in Italy much earlier. In June, 1816, he was appointed mæstro di capella of St. Peter's at Rome, in which office he succeeded Jannaconi. He passed the last twenty years of his life in retirement, devoting himself to the duties of his office and the care of his family. He wrote several pieces for the church, which were much admired at the moment; but these are not of a nature to eclipse the reputation of his once very popular comic operas. He composed also a great number of songs with pianoforte accompaniment, which possess his characteristic of melodious fluency.—G. A. M.
FIORE, Colantonio del, a celebrated painter of Naples, born in 1354, was the scholar of Francesco Simone, and is said by Dominici to have painted in oil colours as early as 1375. If so, it must have been in a very different method from that of the Van Eycks, and which was eventually established in Italy. Colantonio is the painter who gave his daughter to the gipsy, Lo Zingaro. Few of his works now remain. The gallery of Naples possesses a tempera picture painted in 1436.—R. N. W.
FIORE, Jacobello del, a Venetian painter, who was one of the first to attempt life-size figures, and was also distinguished for the comparative softness of his colouring. His works are dated from 1401 to 1436. They are distinguished for their gilding and ornament, and elaborate architectural backgrounds.—(Zanetti, Della Pittura, Veneziana.)—R. N. W.
FIORILLO, Johann Dominik, a German painter, born at Hamburg in 1748, chiefly known for his "History of Painting." He studied some years in Rome under Pompeo Batoni. He studied also at Bologna, and was elected a member of the academy there in 1769. The Bolognese school was at that time thought much more highly of than at present. When he returned to Germany he established himself at Göttingen, where he was made professor of art in the university; and here, besides many occasional literary productions, Fiorillo was engaged for upwards of twenty years in the production of his "History of Painting"—from 1798 to 1820—he himself surviving its completion only a single year. He died in 1821. Yet with all this literary occupation he continued his painting, and his large picture of the "Surrender of Briseis to the heralds of Agamemnon" gained him considerable reputation in Germany. Fiorillo's "History of Painting" is in two divisions—"Geschichte der Mahlerei," in Italy, France, Spain, and England, 5 vols. 8vo, 1798-1808; and "Geschichte der Zeichnenden Künste in Deutschland und den Vereinigten Niederlanden," 4 vols. 8vo, 1815-20. The German portion of this work is still valuable; the rest has been superseded, especially the Italian, through the activity of late
