the superiority of his style to what Macaulay, when speaking of him, justly called the “rant and twaddle of the daily and weekly press” of the time. While he was eagerly taking his share in all the political struggles of this eventful period, he was also continuing his studies, devoting no less than six hours a day to the study of classics and political philosophy. Under this severe mental training his health once more broke down. His energy, however, was not impaired. He became a regular contributor to the newspapers and reviews, realizing a fair income which, as his habits were simple and temperate, secured him against pecuniary anxieties.
From 1820 to 1830 Albany Fonblanque was successively employed upon the staff of The Times and the Morning Chronicle, whilst he contributed to the Examiner, to the London Magazine and to the Westminster Review. In 1828 the Examiner newspaper, which had been purchased by the Rev. Dr Fellowes, author of the Religion of the Universe, &c., was given over to Fonblanque’s complete control; and for a period of seventeen years (1830 to 1847) he not only sustained the high character for political independence and literary ability which the Examiner had gained under the direction of Leigh Hunt and his brother, John Hunt, but even compelled his political opponents to acknowledge a certain delight in the boldness and brightness of the wit directed against themselves. When it was proposed that the admirers and supporters of the paper should facilitate a reduction in its price by the payment of their subscription ten years in advance, not only did Mr Edward Bulwer (Lord Lytton) volunteer his aid, but also Mr Disraeli, who was then coquetting with radicalism. During his connexion with the Examiner, Fonblanque had many advantageous offers of further literary employment; but he devoted his energies and talents almost exclusively to the service of the paper he had resolved to make a standard of literary excellence in the world of journalism. Fonblanque was offered the governorship of Nova Scotia; but although he took great interest in colonial matters, and had used every effort to advocate the more generous political system which had colonial self-government for its goal, he decided not to abandon his beloved Examiner even for so sympathetic an employment. In 1847, however, domestic reasons induced him to accept the post of statistical secretary of the Board of Trade. This of course compelled him to resign the editorship of the Examiner, but he still continued to contribute largely to the paper, which, under the control of John Forster, continued to sustain its influential position. During the later years of his life Fonblanque took no prominent part in public affairs; and when he died at the age of seventy-nine (1872) he seemed, as his nephew, Edward Fonblanque, rightly observes, “a man who had lived and toiled in an age gone by and in a cause long since established.”
The character of Albany Fonblanque’s political activity may be judged of by a study of his England under Seven Administrations (1837), in comparison with the course of social and political events in England from 1826 to 1837. As a journalist, he must be regarded in the light of a reformer. Journalism before his day was regarded as a somewhat discreditable profession; men of true culture were shy of entering the hot and dusty arena lest they should be confounded with the ruder combatants who fought there before the public for hire. But the fact that Fonblanque, a man not only of strong and earnest political convictions but also of exceptional literary ability, did not hesitate to choose this field as a worthy one in which both a politician and a man of letters might usefully as well as honourably put forth his best gifts, must have helped, in no small degree, to correct the old prejudice.
See the Life and Labours of Albany Fonblanque, edited by his nephew, Edward Barrington de Fonblanque (London, 1874); a collection of his articles with a brief biographical notice.
FOND DU LAC, a city and the county-seat of Fond du Lac
county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., about 60 m. N. of Milwaukee, at the
S. end of Lake Winnebago, and at the mouth of the Fond du
Lac river, which is navigable for only a short distance. Pop.
(1890) 12,024; (1900) 15,110, of whom 2952 were foreign-born;
(1910) 18,797. The city is a railway centre of some importance,
and is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the
Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault St Marie, and the Chicago & North-Western
railways, by interurban electric lines, and by steamboat
lines connecting through the Fox river with vessels on the Great
Lakes. At North Fond du Lac, just beyond the city limits,
are car-shops of the two last-mentioned railways, and in the
city are manufactories of machinery, automobiles, wagons
and carriages, awnings, leather, beer, flour, refrigerators, agricultural
implements, toys and furniture. The total value of the
city’s factory products in 1905 was $5,599,606, an increase of
95.7% since 1900. The city has a Protestant Episcopal
cathedral, the Grafton Hall school for girls, and St Agnes hospital
and convent, and a public library with about 25,000 volumes in
1908. The first settlers on the site of Fond du Lac arrived about
1835. Subsequently a village was laid out which was incorporated
in 1847; a city charter was secured in 1852.
FONDI (anc. Fundi), a town of Campania, Italy, in the
province of Caserta, 12 m. N.W. of Formia, and 11 m. E.N.E.
of Terracina by road. Pop. (1901) 9930. It lies 25 ft. above
sea-level, at the N. end of a plain surrounded by mountains,
which extend to the sea. It occupies the site of the ancient
Fundi, a Volscian town, belonging later to Latium adjectum, on
the Via Appia, still represented by the modern high-road which
passes through the centre of the town. It is rectangular in plan,
and portions of its walls, partly in fine polygonal work and partly
in opus incertum, are preserved. Both plan and walls date, no
doubt, from the Roman period. The gate on the north-east still
exists, and bears the inscription of three aediles who erected the
gate, the towers and the wall. A similar inscription of three
different aediles from the N.W. gate still exists, but not in situ.
In the neighbourhood are the remains of several ancient villas,
and along the Via Appia still stands an ancient wall of opus
reticulatum, with an inscription, in large letters, of one Varronianus,
the letters being at intervals of 25 ft. The engineering of
the ancient Via Appia between Fondi and Formia, where it
passes through the mountains near Itri, is remarkable.
The modern town is still enclosed by the ancient walls. The castle on the S.E. side has some 15th-century windows with beautiful tracery. Close by is the Gothic church of S. Pietro (formerly S. Maria), which was the cathedral until the see was suppressed in 1818 and united with that of Gaeta; it contains a fine pulpit with “cosmatesque” work and the fine tomb of Cristoforo Caetani (1439), two interesting 15th-century triptychs and an episcopal throne, which served for the coronation of the antipope Clement VII. in 1378. In the Dominican monastery the cell which St Thomas Aquinas sometimes occupied is shown.
The ancient city of Fundi in 338 B.C. (or 332) received (with Formiae) the civitas sine suffragio, because it had always secured the Romans safe passage through its territory; the people as a whole did not join Privernum in its war against Rome three years later, though Vitruvius Vacca, the leader, was a native of Fundi. It acquired the full citizenship in 188 B.C., and was partly under the control of a praefectus. The inscription upon some waterpipes which have been discovered shows that later it became a municipium. It was governed by three aediles: Horace’s jest against the officious praetor (sic) is due to the exigencies of metre (Th. Mommsen in Hermes, xiii. p. 113). The family of Livia, the consort of Augustus, belonged to Fundi. During the Lombard invasions in 592 Fundi was temporarily abandoned, but it seems to have come under the rule of the papacy by A.D. 754 at any rate. Pope John VIII. ceded it with its territory to Docibile, duke of Gaeta, but its history is somewhat intricate after this period. Sometimes it appears as an independent countship, though held by members of the Caetani family, who about 1297 returned to it. In 1504 it was given to Prospero Colonna. In 1534 Khair-ed-Din Barbarossa tried to carry off Giulia Gonzaga, countess of Fondi, and sacked the city. After this Fondi was much neglected; in 1721 it was sold to the Di Sangro family, in which it still remains. Its position as a frontier town between the papal states and the kingdom of Naples, just in the territory of the latter—the Via Appia can easily be blocked either N.W. at the actual frontier called
