supremacy during the earlier years of Christian III. This he was able to do, as a moderate Lutheran, whose calmness and common sense contrasted advantageously with the unbridled violence of his contemporaries. As the first chancellor of the reconstructed university of Copenhagen, Friis took the keenest interest in spiritual and scientific matters, and was the first donor of a legacy to the institution. He also enjoyed the society of learned men, especially of “those who could talk with him concerning ancient monuments and their history.” He encouraged Hans Svaning to complete Saxo’s history of Denmark, and Anders Vedel to translate Saxo into Danish. His generosity to poor students was well known; but he could afford to be liberal, as his share of spoliated Church property had made him one of the wealthiest men in Denmark. Under King Frederick II. (1559–1588), who understood but little of state affairs, Friis was well-nigh omnipotent. He was largely responsible for the Scandinavian Seven Years’ War (1562–70), which did so much to exacerbate the relations between Denmark and Sweden. Friis died on the 5th of December 1570, a few days before the peace of Stettin, which put an end to the exhausting and unnecessary struggle.
FRIMLEY, an urban district in the Chertsey parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 33 m. W.S.W. from London by the London & South-Western railway, and 1 m. N. of Farnborough in Hampshire. Pop. (1901) 8409. Its healthy climate, its position in the sandy heath-district of the west of Surrey, and its proximity to Aldershot Camp have contributed to its growth as a residential township. To the east the moorland rises in the picturesque elevation of Chobham Ridges; and
3 m. N.E. is Bagshot, another village growing into a residential
town, on the heath of the same name extending into Berkshire.
Bisley Camp, to which in 1890 the meetings of the National
Rifle Association were removed from Wimbledon, is 4 m. E.
Coniferous trees and rhododendrons are characteristic products
of the soil, and large nurseries are devoted to their cultivation.
FRIMONT, JOHANN MARIA PHILIPP, Count of Palota, Prince of Antrodocco (1759–1831), Austrian general, entered the Austrian cavalry as a trooper in 1776, won his commission in the War of the Bavarian Succession, and took part in the Turkish wars and in the early campaigns against the French Revolutionary armies, in which he frequently earned distinction. At Frankenthal in 1796 he won the cross of Maria Theresa. In
the campaign of 1800 he distinguished himself greatly as a
cavalry leader at Marengo (14th of June), and in the next year
became major-general. In the war of 1805 he was again employed
in Italy and won further renown by his gallantry at the battle
of Caldiero. In 1809 he again saw active service in Italy in the
rank of lieutenant field marshal, and in 1812 led the cavalry of
Schwarzenberg’s corps in the Russian campaign. He served in
the campaigns of 1813–14 in high command, and rendered
conspicuous service at Brienne-La Rothière and at Arcis-sur-Aube.
In 1815 he was commander-in-chief of the Austrians in
Italy, and his army penetrated France as far as Lyons, which
was entered on the 11th of July. With the army of occupation
he remained in France for some years, and in 1819 he commanded
at Venice. In 1821 he led the Austrian army which was employed
against the Neapolitan rebels, and by the 24th of March he had
victoriously entered Naples. His reward from King Ferdinand
of Naples was the title of prince of Antrodocco and a handsome
sum of money, and from his own master the rank of general of
cavalry. After this he commanded in North Italy, and was
called upon to deal with many outbreaks of the Italian patriots.
He became president of the Aulic council in 1831, but died a few
months later.
FRISCHES HAFF, a lagoon on the Baltic coast of Germany, within the provinces East and West Prussia, between Danzig
and Königsberg. It is 52 m. in length, from 4 to 12 m. broad,
332 sq. m. in area, and is separated from the Baltic by a narrow
spit or bank of land. This barrier was torn open by a storm in
1510, and the channel thus formed, now dredged out to a depth
of 22 ft., affords a navigable passage for vessels. Into the Haff
flow the Nogat, the Elbing, the Passarge, the Pregel and the
Frisching, from the last of which the name Frisches Haff probably
arose.
FRISCHLIN, PHILIPP NIKODEMUS (1547–1590), German
philologist and poet, was born on the 22nd of September 1547
at Balingen in Württemberg, where his father was parish
minister. He was educated at the university of Tübingen,
where in 1568 he was promoted to the chair of poetry and
history. In 1575 for his comedy of Rebecca, which he read at
Regensburg before the emperor Maximilian II., he was rewarded
with the laureateship, and in 1577 he was made a count palatine
(comes palatinus) or Pfalzgraf. In 1582 his unguarded language
and reckless life made it necessary that he should leave Tübingen,
and he accepted a mastership at Laibach in Carniola, which he
held for about two years. Shortly after his return to the university
in 1584, he was threatened with a criminal prosecution on a
charge of immoral conduct, and the threat led to his withdrawal
to Frankfort-on-Main in 1587. For eighteen months he taught
in the Brunswick gymnasium, and he appears also to have resided
occasionally at Strassburg, Marburg and Mainz. From the
last-named city he wrote certain libellous letters, which led to his
being arrested in March 1590. He was imprisoned in the fortress
of Hohenurach, near Reutlingen, where, on the night of the 29th
of November 1590, he was killed by a fall in attempting to let
himself down from the window of his cell.
Frischlin’s prolific and versatile genius produced a great variety of works, which entitle him to some rank both among poets and among scholars. In his Latin verse he often successfully imitated the classical models; his comedies are not without freshness and vivacity; and some of his versions and commentaries, particularly those on the Georgics and Bucolics of Virgil, though now well-nigh forgotten, were important contributions to the scholarship of his time. There is no collected edition of his works, but his Opera poëtica were published twelve times between 1535 and 1636. Among those most widely known may be mentioned the Hebraeis (1590), a Latin epic based on the Scripture history of the Jews; the Elegiaca (1601), his collected lyric poetry, in twenty-two books; the Opera scenica (1604) consisting of six comedies and two tragedies (among the former, Julius Caesar redivivus, completed 1584); the Grammatica Latina (1585); the versions of Callimachus and Aristophanes; and the commentaries on Persius and Virgil. See the monograph of D. F. Strauss (Leben und Schriften des Dichters und Philologen Frischlin, 1856).
FRISI, PAOLO (1728–1784), Italian mathematician and
astronomer, was born at Milan on the 13th of April 1728. He
was educated at the Barnabite monastery and afterwards at
Padua. When twenty-one years of age he composed a treatise
on the figure of the earth, and the reputation which he soon
acquired led to his appointment by the king of Sardinia to the
professorship of philosophy in the college of Casale. His friendship
with Radicati, a man of liberal opinions, occasioned Frisi’s
removal by his clerical superiors to Novara, where he was compelled
to do duty as a preacher. In 1753 he was elected a corresponding
member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, and shortly
afterwards he became professor of philosophy in the Barnabite
College of St Alexander at Milan. An acrimonious attack by a
young Jesuit, about this time, upon his dissertation on the
figure of the earth laid the foundation of his animosity against
the Jesuits, with whose enemies, including J. d’Alembert,
J. A. N. Condorcet and other Encyclopedists, he later closely
associated himself. In 1756 he was appointed by Leopold,
grand-duke of Tuscany, to the professorship of mathematics
in the university of Pisa, a post which he held for eight years.
In 1757 he became an associate of the Imperial Academy of
St Petersburg, and a foreign member of the Royal Society of
London, and in 1758 a member of the Academy of Berlin, in
1766 of that of Stockholm, and in 1770 of the Academies of
Copenhagen and of Bern. From several European crowned
heads he received, at various times, marks of special distinction,
and the empress Maria Theresa granted him a yearly pension
of 100 sequins (£50). In 1764 he was created professor of
mathematics in the palatine schools at Milan, and obtained
from Pope Pius VI. release from ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and
authority to become a secular priest. In 1766 he visited France
and England, and in 1768 Vienna. In 1777 he became director
of a school of architecture at Milan. His knowledge of hydraulics