in Music, an Italian term which means either a composition improvised upon the organ, or piano-forte, or violin, &c., according to the free fancy of the performer, and not elaborated according to any strict rules or forms of construction, while still subject to the fundamental laws of melody, modulation, and harmony;—or, a written composition in which the musician indulges his fancy unrestrained by conventional forms of developed themes and movements, but yet bestows more careful attention upon details than is required in the improvised fantasia. One of the finest specimens of a written fantasia is Mozart's in C minor, No. 24 of the list of his works published in 1805 by J. André of Offenbach. The "Fancies" of Bird, Bull, and other old English musicians of the sixteenth century, were dry and difficult compositions for a keyed-instrument, worked out upon popular airs.

FARCE originally denoted a droll petty show exhibited by charlatans and buffoons in the open street, in order to gather the crowd together. The word is derived, through the medium of the French, from the Latin farcire, to stuff, and literally signifies forced meat or stuffing; and was applied to such exhibitions in allusion to the variety of jests, jibes, and tricks with which the entertainment was interlarded.

The modern farce is a dramatic piece of a low comic character, usually played as an after-piece. Its sole end being to excite mirth, it admits of greater licence than comedy as to probabilities in constructing and developing the plot, and in short may be said to exclude nothing, however wild or extravagant, that may contribute to the amusement of the audience. Dryden observes—"Farce is that in poetry which grotesque is in a picture: the persons and actions of a farce are all unnatural, and the manners false."