FIFTH-MONARCHY-MEN

A fanatical sect, who formed a principal support of Cromwell during the Protectorate. Thev considered his a umption of power as an earnest of the foundation of the fifth monarchy, which should succeed to the A yrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman, and in which Jesus Christ should reign with the saints on earth for the space of a you sand years. Upon the restoration of the royal family, and the return of the kingdom to its former principles in church and state, a party of these enthusiasts, headed by a man of the name of V enner, made a desperate insurrection in the streets of London, which was put down with the slaughter of a great number of them. FIGS (Lat. ficus, a fig tree), are the fruit of a small tree with broad-lobed leaves, inhabiting the south of Europe and similar latitudes in Asia. This fruit is not of the same nature as the apple, the orange, and other fleshy seed-ve els; but is a hollow receptacle, containing a great multitude of minute flowers, the ripe fruit of which is the seed, as it is wrongly called, that is imbedded in the pulp. It is remarkable that the fig tree, although it produces so agreeable a fruit, is in some measure poisou450 FIGURATE NUMBERS. ous, its milky juice being acrid to the taste, and of the same nature, although le intense, as that of certain Indian species called F. toxic aria, DcBmxmum, ., because of their venomous qualities. The genus Ficus itself is of considerable extent, and its species are among the most noble objects belonging to the vegetable kingdom in tropical countries, where they often yield caoutchouc of the finest quality. Ficus elastic a is particularly valuable for this purpose, as are also various unknown species in the island of Java. The banyan tree, so celebrated for the large extent of ground covered by single individuals, which carry an enormous canopy of branches and leaves upon columnar trunks provided for the purpose as the tree advsmces in diameter, is a kind of fig tree, Ficus religiosa. [s. 463]