of the founders of the Paris Geographical Society. He died at Freycinet, Drôme, on the 18th of August 1842.
FREYIA, the sister of Frey, and the most prominent goddess in Northern mythology. Her character seems in general to have resembled that of her brother. (See Teutonic Peoples, ad fin.)
FREYTAG, GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH (1788–1861),
German philologist, was born at Lüneburg on the 19th of
September 1788. After attending school he entered the university of Göttingen as a student of philology and theology; here from 1811 to 1813 he acted as a theological tutor, but in the latter year accepted an appointment as sub-librarian at Königsberg. In 1815 he became a chaplain in the Prussian army, and in that capacity visited Paris. On the proclamation of peace he resigned his chaplaincy, and returned to his researches in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, studying at Paris under De Sacy. In 1819 he was appointed to the professorship of oriental languages in the new university of Bonn, and this post he continued to hold until his death on the 16th of November 1861.
Besides a compendium of Hebrew grammar (Kurzgefasste Grammatik der hebräischen Sprache, 1835), and a treatise on Arabic versification (Darstellung der arabischen Verskunst, 1830), he edited two volumes of Arabic songs (Hamasae carmina, 1828–1852) and three of Arabic proverbs (Arabum proverbia, 1838–1843). But his principal work was the laborious and praiseworthy Lexicon Arabico-latinum (Halle, 1830–1837), an abridgment of which was published in 1837.
FREYTAG, GUSTAV (1816–1895), German novelist, was born at Kreuzburg, in Silesia, on the 13th of July 1816. After attending the gymnasium at Öls, he studied philology at the universities of Breslau and Berlin, and in 1838 took the degree with a remarkable dissertation, De initiis poëseos scenicae apud Germanos.
In 1839 he settled at Breslau, as Privatdocent in German
language and literature, but devoted his principal attention to
writing for the stage, and achieved considerable success with
the comedy Die Brautfahrt, oder Kunz von der Rosen (1844).
This was followed by a volume of unimportant poems, In
Breslau (1845) and the dramas Die Valentine (1846) and Graf Waldemar (1847). He at last attained a prominent position
by his comedy, Die Journalisten (1853), one of the best German
comedies of the 19th century. In 1847 he migrated to Berlin,
and in the following year took over, in conjunction with
Julian Schmidt, the editorship of Die Grenzboten, a weekly
journal which, founded in 1841, now became the leading organ of
German and Austrian liberalism. Freytag helped to conduct it
until 1861, and again from 1867 till 1870, when for a short time
he edited a new periodical, Im neuen Reich. His literary fame
was made universal by the publication in 1855 of his novel,
Soll und Haben, which was translated into almost all the languages
of Europe. It was certainly the best German novel of its day,
impressive by its sturdy but unexaggerated realism, and in many
parts highly humorous. Its main purpose is the recommendation
of the German middle class as the soundest element in the nation,
but it also has a more directly patriotic intention in the contrast
which it draws between the homely virtues of the Teuton and the
shiftlessness of the Pole and the rapacity of the Jew. As a
Silesian, Freytag had no great love for his Slavonic neighbours,
and being a native of a province which owed everything to
Prussia, he was naturally an earnest champion of Prussian
hegemony over Germany. His powerful advocacy of this idea
in his Grenzboten gained him the friendship of the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose neighbour he had become, on acquiring the
estate of Siebleben near Gotha. At the duke’s request Freytag
was attached to the staff of the crown prince of Prussia in the
campaign of 1870, and was present at the battles of Wörth and Sedan. Before this he had published another novel, Die verlorene Handschrift (1864), in which he endeavoured to do for German university life what in Soll und Haben he had done for commercial life. The hero is a young German professor, who is so wrapt up
in his search for a manuscript by Tacitus that he is oblivious
to an impending tragedy in his domestic life. The book was,
however, less successful than its predecessor. Between 1859 and 1867 Freytag published in five volumes Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit, a most valuable work on popular lines, illustrating the history and manners of Germany. In 1872 he began a work with a similar patriotic purpose, Die Ahnen, a series of
historical romances in which he unfolds the history of a German
family from the earliest times to the middle of the 19th century.
The series comprises the following novels, none of which, however,
reaches the level of Freytag’s earlier books. (1) Ingo und Ingraban (1872), (2) Das Nest der Zaunkönige (1874), (3) Die Brüder vom deutschen Hause (1875), (4) Marcus König (1876), (5) Die Geschwister (1878), and (6) in conclusion, Aus einer kleinen Stadt
(1880). Among Freytag’s other works may be noticed Die Technik des Dramas (1863); an excellent biography of the Baden
statesman Karl Mathy (1869); an autobiography (Erinnerungen aus meinen Leben, 1887); his Gesammelte Aufsätze, chiefly
reprinted from the Grenzboten (1888); Der Kronprinz und die deutsche Kaiserkrone; Erinnerungsblätter (1889). He died at Wiesbaden on the 30th of April 1895.
Freytag’s Gesammelte Werke were published in 22 vols. at Leipzig (1886–1888); his Vermischte Aufsätze have been edited by E. Elster, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1901–1903). On Freytag’s life see, besides his autobiography mentioned above, the lives by C. Alberti (Leipzig, 1890) and F. Seiler (Leipzig, 1898).
FRIAR (from the Lat. frater, through the Fr. frère), the English generic name for members of the mendicant religious
orders. Formerly it was the title given to individual members
of these orders, as Friar Laurence (in Romeo and Juliet), but this
is not now common. In England the chief orders of friars were
distinguished by the colour of their habit: thus the Franciscans
or Minors were the Grey Friars; the Dominicans or Preachers
were the Black Friars (from their black mantle over a white
habit), and the Carmelites were the White Friars (from their
white mantle over a brown habit): these, together with the
Austin Friars or Hermits, formed the four great mendicant
orders—Chaucer’s “alle the ordres foure.” Besides the four
great orders of friars, the Trinitarians (q.v.), though really
canons, were in England called Trinity Friars or Red Friars; the
Crutched or Crossed Friars were often identified with them, but
were really a distinct order; there were also a number of lesser
orders of friars, many of which were suppressed by the second
council of Lyons in 1274. Detailed information on these orders
and on their position in England is given in separate articles.
The difference between friars and monks is explained in article
Monasticism. Though the usage is not accurate, friars, and also
canons regular, are often spoken of as monks and included among
the monastic orders.
See Fr. Cuthbert, The Friars and how they came to England, pp. 11-32 (1903); also F. A. Gasquet, English Monastic Life, pp. 234-249 (1904), where special information on all the English friars is conveniently brought together. (E. C. B.)
FRIBOURG [Ger. Freiburg], one of the Swiss Cantons, in the western portion of the country, and taking its name from the town around which the various districts that compose it gradually gathered. Its area is 646.3 sq. m., of which 568 sq. m. are classed as “productive” (forests covering 119 sq. m. and
vineyards .8 sq. m.); it boasts of no glaciers or eternal snow. It is a hilly, not mountainous, region, the highest summits (of which the Vanil Noir, 7858 ft., is the loftiest) rising in the Gruyère district at its south-eastern extremity, the best known being
probably the Moléson (6582 ft.) and the Berra (5653 ft.). But it is the heart of pastoral Switzerland, is famed for its cheese and cattle, and is the original home of the “Ranz des Vaches,” the melody by which the herdsmen call their cattle home at milking time. It is watered by the Sarine or Saane river (with its tributaries the Singine or Sense and the Glâne) that flows through the canton from north to south, and traverses its capital town. The upper course of the Broye (like the Sarine, a tributary of the Aar) and that of the Veveyse (flowing to the Lake of Geneva) are in the southern portion of the canton. A small share of the lakes of Neuchâtel and of Morat belongs to the canton, wherein the largest sheet of water is the Lac Noir or Schwarzsee. A sulphur spring rises near the last-named lake, and there are other such springs in the canton at Montbarry and at Bonn, near the capital. There are about 150 m. of railways in the canton, the main line from Lausanne to Bern past Fribourg running through
