"The institution of Lauras was the connecting link between the
hermitage and the monastery, in the later and more ordinary
use of that word. … A Laura was an aggregation of separate
cells, under the not very strongly defined control of a
superior, the inmates meeting together only on the first and
last days, the old and new Sabbaths, of each week, for their
common meal in the refectory and for common worship. … The
origin of the word 'Laura' is uncertain. … Probably it is
another form of 'labra,' the popular term in Alexandria for an
alley or narrow court."
_I. G. Smith,
Christian Monasticism,
pages 38-39._
{1955}
LAUREATE, English Poets.
"From the appointment of Chaucer about five hundred years have
elapsed, and during that period a long line of poets have held
the title of Laureate. For the first two hundred years they
were somewhat irregularly appointed, but from the creation of
Richard Edwards in 1561, they come down to the present time
without interruption. The selection of the Laureate has not
always been a wise one, but the list contains the names of a
few of our greatest authors, and the honour was certainly
worthily bestowed upon Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, John
Dryden, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and Alfred
Tennyson. As the custom of crowning successful poets appears
to have been in use since the origin of poetry itself, the
office of Poet Laureate can certainly boast of considerable
antiquity, and the laurel wreath of the Greeks and Romans was
an envied trophy long before our Druidical forefathers held
aloft the mistletoe bough in their mystic rites. From what
foreign nation we first borrowed the idea of a King of the
Poets is doubtful."
_W. Hamilton, Origin of the Office of Poet Laureate
(Royal Historical Society, Transactions, volume 8)._
The following is a list of the Poets Laureate of England, with
the dates of their appointment:
Geoffrey Chaucer, 1368;
Sir John Gower, 1400;
Henry Scogan;
John Kay;
Andrew Bernard, 1486;
John Skelton, 1489;
Robert Whittington, 1512;
Richard Edwards, 1561;
Edmund Spenser, 1590;
Samuel Daniel, 1598;
Ben Jonson, 1616;
Sir William Davenant, 1638;
John Dryden, 1670;
Thomas Shadwell, 1688;
Nahum Tate, 1692;
Nicholas Rowe, 1715;
Rev. Laurence Eusden, 1718;
Colley Cibber, 1730;
William Whitehead, 1757;
Thomas Warton, 1785;
Henry James Pye, 1790;
Robert Southey, 1813;
William Wordsworth, 1843;
Alfred Tennyson, 1850.
_W. Hamilton,
The Poets Laureate of England._
LAURIUM, Silver Mines of.
These mines, in Attica, were owned and worked at an early time
by the Athenian state, and seem to have yielded a large
revenue, more or less of which was divided among the citizens.
It was by persuading the Athenians to forego that division
that Themistocles secured money to build the fleet which made
Athens a great naval power. The mines were situated in the
southern part of Attica, in a district of low hills, not far
from the promontory of Sunium.
_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 39._