Hague; beset with his followers, who regarded him as a prophet, in
Münster, he was taken alive after a siege of six months and tortured to
death in 1536.
LEYDEN, LUCAS VAN, an eminent early Dutch painter and engraver, born
in Leyden; succeeded in every branch of painting, and, like Dürer,
engraved his own pictures; his works are highly valued, and some of them
very rare; he spent his means in high living and died young, only 39
(1494-1533).
LEYDEN JAR, an electric condenser, a cylindrical glass bottle lined
inside and outside with metal to within a short distance from the top,
while a brass rod connected with the inside coating extends upward
through a wooden stopper terminating in a knob.
LEYS SCHOOL, the Cambridge school founded in 1875 to supply under
unsectarian religious influences a high-class education, the founders of
it having been chiefly members of the Methodist body.
LHASSA (seat of the gods) (50), the capital of Thibet, and the
metropolis of the Buddhist world in the Chinese Empire, stands in the
middle of a plain 11,900 ft. above the sea-level; on a hill in the NW. of
the centre of the city, a conical hill called Potala, amid temples and
palaces, is the residence of the Grand Lama; the monasteries are 15 in
number, and the priests 20,000, and it is the centre of the caravan
trade.
L'HÔPITAL. See HÔPITAL, MICHEL DE L'.
LI, a Chinese mile, equal to one-third of an English mile.
LIA-FAIL, the stone of destiny on which the Irish kings used to be
crowned, which was at length removed to Scone, in Perthshire, and is now
in Westminster under the coronation chair, having been removed thither by
Edward I.
LIBERALISM, MODERN, "practically summed up" by Ruskin, in "the
denial or neglect of the quality and intrinsic worth in things, the
incapacity of discerning or refusal to discern worth and unworth in
anything, and least of all in man."
LIBERAL-UNIONIST, one of the Liberal party in English politics,
which in 1886 quitted the Liberal ranks and joined the Conservative party
in opposition to the Home Rule policy of Mr. Gladstone.
LIBERATIONIST, one who advocates the emancipation of the Church from
State control.
LIBERIA (1,500), a negro republic on the Grain Coast of Africa,
founded in 1822 by American philanthropists as a settlement for freedmen,
with a constitution after the model of the United States.
LIBERTY, FRATERNITY, AND EQUALITY, the trinity of modern democracy,
and which first found expression as a political creed in the French
Revolution, of which the first term is now held to require definition,
the second to have only a sentimental basis, and the third to be in
violation of the fact of things; universal suffrage is the expression of
it politically.
LIBRATION, the name given to certain apparent movements in the moon
as if it swayed like a balance both in latitude and longitude in its
revolution round the earth.
LIBRI-CARRUCCI, COUNT, Italian mathematician; professor at Pisa, but
obliged to resign for his liberal opinions and take refuge in France,
where he was made professor at the Sorbonne, was a kleptomaniac in the
matter of books (1803-1869).
LIBYA, a name by the early geographers to the territory in Africa
which lay between Egypt, Ethiopia, and the shores of the Atlantic.
LICHFIELD (8), ancient ecclesiastical town in Staffordshire, 15 m.
SE. of Stafford, an episcopal see since 656, with a cathedral in Early
English style, recently completely restored; has an ancient grammar
school, a museum, and school of art; the birthplace of Samuel Johnson;
its industries are brewing, coachbuilding, and implement making.
LICHTENBERG, GEORG CHRISTOPH, German physicist and satirist, born
near Darmstadt; was educated at Göttingen, and appointed professor there
in 1770; he wrote a commentary on Hogarth's copperplates; his reputation
in Germany as a satirist is high (1742-1799).
LICINIUS, CAIUS, a Roman tribune and consul, of plebeian birth,
author of several laws intended to minimise the distinction politically
between patrician and plebeian, in office between 376 and 361 B.C.
LICK OBSERVATORY, an observatory built at the expense of James Lick,
an American millionaire, on one of the peaks of Mount Hamilton,
California, with a telescope that has the largest object-glass of any in
the world.
LICTOR, an officer in Rome who bore the FASCES (q. v.)
before a magistrate when on duty.
LIDDELL, HENRY GEORGE, Greek lexicographer, graduated at Oxford in
1833; was tutor of Christ Church, and in 1845 appointed professor of
Moral Philosophy; he was successively Head-master of Winchester, Dean of
Christ Church, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford from 1870 to 1874; his great
work is a Greek lexicon (first edition 1843, last 1883), of which he was
joint-author with Dr. Robert Scott, and which is the standard work of its
kind in English; _b_. 1811.
LIDDON, HENRY PARRY, canon of St. Paul's, London, born in Hants;
educated at Christ Church, Oxford; eminent both as a scholar and a
preacher; author of an eloquent course of lectures, the Bampton, "On the
Divinity of Jesus Christ"; belonged to the Liberal section of the
High-Church party (1829-1890).
LIEBIG, BARON VON, eminent German chemist, born at Darmstadt; in
1824 attracted the attention of Alexander von Humboldt by a paper before
the Institute of France on fulminates, and was appointed to the chair of
Chemistry in Giessen, where he laboured 28 years, attracting students
from all quarters, and where his laboratory became a model of many others
elsewhere; wrote a number of works on chemistry, inorganic and organic,
animal and agricultural, and their applications, as well as papers and
letters; accepted a professorship in Münich in 1852, and in 1860 was
appointed President of the Münich Academy of Sciences (1803-1873).
LIÈGE (160), a town in Belgium and capital of the Walloons, in a
very picturesque region at the confluence of the Ourthe with the Meuse,
the busiest town in Belgium and a chief seat of the woollen manufacture;
it is divided in two by the Meuse, which is spanned by 17 bridges; it is
the centre of a great mining district, and besides woollens has
manufactures of machinery, and steel and iron goods.
LIEGNITZ (46), a town in Silesia, 40 m. NW. of Breslau, where
Frederick the Great gained a victory over the Austrians in 1760.
LIFEGUARDS, the British royal household troops, consisting of
cavalry and infantry regiments.
LIGHTFOOT, JOHN, Orientalist and divine, born at Stoke-upon-Trent,
son of a clergyman, educated at Cambridge; took orders and was rector of
Ashley, Staffordshire, till 1642; next year he was one of the most
influential members of the Westminster Assembly; in 1652 he was made D.D.,
was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge in 1653, and subsequently prebendary
of Ely; one of England's earlier Hebrew scholars, the great work of his
life was the "Horæ Hebraicæ et Talmudicæ," published in large part
posthumously (1602-1675).
LIGHTFOOT, JOSEPH BARBER, bishop of Durham, born at Liverpool; was a
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was eminent among English scholars
as a New Testament exegete, became bishop of Durham in 1879; died at
Bournemouth (1828-1889).
LIGNY, a village 13 m. from Charleroi, where Napoleon defeated
Blücher two days before the battle of Waterloo while Wellington and
Marshal Ney were engaged at Quatre Bras.
LIGUORI, ST. ALPHONSE MARIA DI, founder of the Redemptorists, born
at Naples of a noble family; bred to the law, but devoted himself to a
religious life, received holy orders, lived a life of austerity, and gave
himself up to reclaim the lost and instruct the poor and ignorant; was a
man of extensive learning, and found time from his pastoral labours to
contribute extensively to theological literature and chiefly casuistry,
to the extent of 70 volumes; was canonised in 1839; the order he founded
is called by his own name as well (1696-1787).
LIGURIAN REPUBLIC, a name given by Bonaparte to the republic of
Genoa, founded in 1797.
LI HUNG CHANG, an eminent and enlightened Chinese statesman; is
favourable to European culture and intercourse with Europe; was sent as a
special envoy to the Czar's coronation in 1896, and afterwards visited
other countries in Europe, including our own, and the States and Canada;
_b_. 1823.
LILBURNE, JOHN, a victim of the Star-Chamber in the time of Charles
I., and exposed on the pillory as well as fined and imprisoned; joined
the Parliamentary ranks and fought for the Commonwealth, but as an
Independent indulged in violent harangues against Cromwell, and was
committed to the Tower, but on his release turned Quaker (1618-1657).
LILITH or LILIS, the name of Adam's first wife, whom, according
to Jewish tradition, he had before Eve, and who bore him in that wedlock
the whole progeny of aërial, aquatic, and terrestrial devils, and who, it
seems, still wanders about the world bewitching men to like issue and
slaying little children not protected by amulets against her.
LILLE (161), chief town in the department of Nord, in the extreme N.
of France, 60 m. inland from Calais, an ancient and at present very
strong fortress, is in a fertile district; the town, rebuilt in modern
times, has a Catholic university, a medical school, library, and art
gallery, and thriving industries, linen, cotton, tobacco, sugar, and many
others.
LILLIPUT, a country inhabited by a very diminutive race of men not
larger in size than a man's finger, visited by Gulliver in his travels.
LILLO, GEORGE, English dramatist, born in London, by trade a
jeweller; wrote seven comedies, of which "The Fatal Curiosity" and
"George Barnwell" are the best and the best appreciated (1693-1739).
LILLY, WILLIAM, an English astrologer, born in Leicestershire, who
made gain by his fortune-telling during the Commonwealth period
especially, but got into trouble afterwards as a presumed mischief-maker
(1602-1681).
LIMA (200), capital of Peru, 6 m. inland from Callao, its port, a
picturesque but somewhat shabby city, 700 ft. above the sea-level,
regularly built, with many plazas; has a cathedral and 70 churches;
trade is in the hands of foreigners, mostly Germans, and industries are
unimportant; it was founded by Pizarro, and his bones lie buried in the
cathedral.
LIMBURG, in the basin of the Meuse, formerly a duchy, was after
various fortunes divided in 1839 into Belgian Limburg (225), on the W. of
the river, capital Hasselt (13), and Dutch Limburg (262), on the E.,
capital Maestricht (33); partly moorland and partly arable, it has coal,
iron, sugar, and tobacco industries.
LIMBUS or LIMBO, according to Catholic theologians a region on
the confines of Hades tenanted, the _limbus patrum_, by the souls of good
men who died before Christ's advent, and the _limbus infantium_, by the
souls of unbaptized infants, both of whom await there the resurrection
morn to join the ransomed in heaven.
LIMELIGHT, a bright light caused by making a stream of two gases,
oxygen and nitrogen, play in a state of ignition on a piece of compact
quicklime.
LIMERICK (159), Irish county on the S. of the Shannon estuary,
between Tipperary and Kerry, watered by the Mulcai, Maigue, and Deel;
hilly in the S., is mostly fertile, and under corn and green crops;
cattle are reared and dairy products exported; some woollens and paper
manufactured. There are many antiquities. Limerick (37), the county town,
on the Shannon, is the fourth Irish seaport, and manufactures a little
lace.
LIMITED LIABILITY, liability on the part of the shareholders of a
joint-stock company limited by the amount of their shares.
LIMOGES (68), chief town in the dep. of Haute-Vienne, on the Vienne
River, 250 m. S. of Paris; has a Gothic cathedral; is one of the chief
manufacturing towns of France. Its porcelain and woollen cloths are
widely famed; it has a large transit trade; it gives name to a fine kind
of surface enamel, which was brought to perfection there.
LINCOLN (44), capital of Lincolnshire, on the Witham, 130 m. N. of
London; is a very old and quaint city, with one of the finest cathedrals
in England, and many historic buildings. Its annual spring horse-fair is
among the largest in the world. It manufactures agricultural instruments,
and trades in flour. Its stands on the Oolitic Ridge, and commands a wide
view of the Trent Valley.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, sixteenth President of the United States, born
near Hodgensville, Kentucky; spent his boyhood there and in the Indiana
forests, and picked up some education in the backwoods schools; passed
some years in rough work; he was clerk in a store at New Salem, Illinois;
became village postmaster and deputy county surveyor, and began to study
law; from 1834 to 1842 he led the Whigs in the State legislature, and in
1846 entered Congress; he prospered as a lawyer, and almost left
politics; but the opening of the slavery question in 1854 recalled him,
and in a series of public debates with Stephen Douglas established his
reputation as debater and abolitionist; unsuccessful in his candidature
for the Senate, he was nominated by the Republicans for the Presidency,
and elected 1860; his election was the signal for the secession of the
Southern States; Lincoln refused to recognise the secession, accepted the
war, and prosecuted it with energy; on New Year's day, 1863, he
proclaimed the emancipation of the negroes, and was re-elected President
in 1864, but shortly after his second inauguration was assassinated; he
was a man of high character, straightforward, steadfast, and sympathetic
(1809-1865).
LINCOLN'S INN. See INNS OF COURT.
LINCOLNSHIRE (473), maritime county in the E. of England, between
the Humber and the Wash, next to Yorkshire in size, consists of upland
country in the W., chalk downs in the E., and fens in the S., but these
well reclaimed and cultivated. It is watered by the Trent, Witham, and
Welland, and crossed by numerous canals. Iron abounds in the W.; sheep,
cattle, and horses are raised. Grimsby is a shipping and fishing centre.
Sir Isaac Newton and Lord Tennyson were born in the county, which has
many historic associations.
LINCRUSTA WALTON, a plastic material invented by Walton, capable of
being moulded into raised patterns for decorating walls, &c.
LIND, JENNY (Madame Otto Goldschmidt), the Swedish nightingale, born
at Stockholm; giving evidence of her power of song in childhood, she was
put under a master at nine; too soon put to practise in public, her voice
at twelve showed signs of contracting, but after four years recovered its
full power, when, appearing as Alice in "Robert le Diable," the effect
was electric; henceforth her fame was established, and followed her over
the world; in 1844 she made a round of the chief cities of Germany; made
her first appearance in London in 1847, and visited New York in 1851,
where she married, and then left the stage for good, to appear only now
and again at intervals for some charitable object; she was plain looking,
and a woman of great simplicity both in manners and ways of thinking
(1821-1882).
LINDLEY, JOHN, distinguished botanist, born near Norwich; wrote
extensively on botany according to the natural system of classification,
and did much to popularise the study; was professor of the science in
London University (1799-1865).
LINDSAY, name of a Scottish family of Norman extraction, and that
first figures in Scottish history in the reign of David I.
LINDSAY or LYNDSAY, SIR DAVID, OF THE MOUNT, Scottish poet,
born at the Mount, near Cupar, Fife, at the grammar-school of which he
was educated, as afterwards at St. Andrews University; was usher to James
V. from his childhood, and knighted by him after he came of age; did
diplomatic work in England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark; is
famous as the author of, among others, three poems, the "Satire of the
Three Estates," "Dialogues between Experience and a Courtier," and the
"History of Squire Meldrum," of which the first is the most worthy of
note, and is divided into five parts, the main body of it a play of an
allegorical kind instinct with conventional satire; without being a
partisan of the Reformation, his works, from the satire in them being
directed against the Church, contributed very materially to its reception
in Scotland approximately (1490-1555).
LINGA, a symbol in the phallus worship of the East of the male or
generative power in nature. This worship prevails among the Hindu sect of
the Givas or Sivas, and the symbol takes the form of the pistil of a
flower, or an erect cylindrical stone.
LINGARD, JOHN, historian, born at Winchester, the son of a
carpenter; besides a work on the "Antiquity of the Anglo-Saxon Church,"
wrote a "History of England from the Roman Invasion to the Reign of
William III.," the first written that shows anything like scholarly
accuracy, and fairly impartial, though the author's religious views as a
Roman Catholic, it is alleged, distort the facts a little (1771-1851).
LINGUA FRANCA, a jargon composed of a mixture of languages used in
trade intercourse.
LINLITHGOW (4), the county town of Linlithgowshire, 16 m. W. of
Edinburgh, on the S. shore of a loch of the name, with a palace, the
birthplace of James V.; the county (52) lying on the S. shore of the
Forth, and rich in minerals.
LINNÆUS, or more properly LINNÉ, KARL VON, great Swedish
naturalist, specially in the department of botany, a branch to the study
of which he was devoted from his earliest years; he was the founder of
the system of the classification of plants which bears his name, and
which is determined by the number and disposition of the reproductive
organs, but which is now superseded by the natural system of Jussieu; he
was professor at Upsala, and his works on his favourite subject were
numerous, and extended far and wide his reputation as a naturalist
(1707-1778).
LINNELL, JOHN, English painter, painted portraits at first, but in
the end landscapes, of which last "The Windmill" and a wood scene are in
the National Gallery; he was a friend and an admirer of William Blake
(1807-1882).
LINOLEUM, a floorcloth, being a composition of cork and linseed oil
with chloride of silver.
LINOTYPE, a contrivance for setting and casting words or lines for
printing.
LINZ (47), the capital of the crownland of Upper Austria, on the
right bank of the Danube; a busy commercial place, a great railway
centre, and the seat of the manufacture of woollen goods, linen, tobacco,
&c.; is also of great strategical importance in time of war.
LION, THE, the king of animals, was the symbol of power, courage,
and virtue, and in Christian art of the resurrection; is in general, as
Mr. Fairholt remarks, "a royal symbol, and in emblem of dominion,
command, magnanimity, vigilance, and strength; representing when
_couchant_ sovereignty, when _rampant_ magnanimity, when _passant_
resolution, when _guardant_ prudence, when _saliant_ valour, when
_sciant_ counsel, and when _regardant_ circumspection."
LIP`ARI ISLANDS (22), a group of islands of volcanic origin, 12 in
number, off the N. coast of Sicily, in two of which, Vulcano and
Stromboli, the volcanic force is still active, the latter emitting clouds
of steam at intervals of five minutes.
LIPPE (128), an old N. German principality, the principal towns of
which are Detmold, Lemgo, and Horn.
LIPPI, FILIPPINO, Italian painter, son of the succeeding; is
presumed to have been a pupil of BOTTICELLI'S (q. v.); his
earliest known work is the "Vision of St. Bernard" in Florence, and he
executed various works in Bologna, Genoa, and Rome; painted frescoes and
altar-pieces, and scenes in the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul
(1460-1504).
LIPPI, FRA FILIPPO, Italian painter, born at Florence; left an
orphan, was brought up in a monastery, where his talent for art was
developed and encouraged; went to Ancona, was carried off by pirates, but
procured his release by his skill in drawing, and returning to Italy
practised his art in Florence and elsewhere, till one day he eloped with
a novice in a nunnery who sat to him for a Madonna, by whom he became the
father of a son no less famous than himself; he prosecuted his art amid
poverty with zeal and success to the last; distinguished by Ruskin (Fors
xxiv. 4) as the only monk who ever did good painter's work; he had
Botticelli for a pupil (1412-1469).
LIPSIUS, JUSTUS, an erudite Belgian scholar, with fast and loose
religious principles; was the author of numerous learned works
(1547-1579).
LIPSIUS, RICHARD ADELBERT, distinguished German theologian, born in
Gera; professor in succession at Vienna, Kiel, and Jena; wrote on
dogmatics, the philosophy of religion, and New Testament criticism
(1830-1892).
LISBON (301), the capital of Portugal, a magnificent town, built on
the N. bank of the Tagus, 9 m. from its mouth, extends along the banks of
the river 9 m. and inland 5 m.; it boasts of an array of fine buildings
and squares, a number of literary and scientific institutions, and a
spacious harbour; is remarkable for a marble aqueduct which brings water
more than 10 m. across the valley of Alcantara; the manufactures include
tobacco, soap, wool, and chemicals, and the exports wine, oil, and
fruits; it suffered from an earthquake of great violence in 1755, by
which the greater part of the city was destroyed, and from 30,000 to
40,000 of the inhabitants were killed.
LISTER, JOSEPH, LORD, eminent surgeon, born at Upton, Essex; the
founder of modern antiseptic surgery, and is as such reckoned among the
world's greatest benefactors; was President of the British Association in
1896, and is surgeon-extraordinary to the Queen; _b_. 1827.
LISTON, JOHN, an English actor of low comedy, and long famous on the
London stage, to which he was introduced by Charles Kemble; _d_. 1846.
LISTON, ROBERT, a celebrated surgeon, born in Linlithgowshire;
studied in Edinburgh and London; was distinguished as an operator; was
professor of Clinical Surgery in University College, London, and author
of "Elements of Surgery" and "Practical Surgery" (1794-1847).
LISZT, ABBÉ FRANZ, famous pianist, a Hungarian by birth; born with a
genius for music, his first efforts at composition were not successful,
and it was not till he heard what Paganini made of the violin that he
thought what might be made of the piano, and that he devoted himself to
the culture of piano music, with the result that he not only became the
first pianist himself, but produced a set of compositions that had the
effect of raising the art to the highest pitch of perfection; he was a
zealous Catholic, and took holy orders, but this did not damp his ardour
or weaken his power as a musician; he spent the greater part of his life
at Weimar, but he practised his art far and wide, and his last visit to
England in 1886, the year on which he died, created quite a flutter in
musical circles (1811-1886).
LITANY, a form of supplication in connection with some impending
calamity in which the prayer of the priest or officiating clergyman is
responded to by the congregation.
LITERATURE, defined by Carlyle "as an 'apocalypse of nature,' a
revealing of the 'open secret,' a 'continuous revelation' of the God-like
in the terrestrial and common, which ever endures there, and is brought
out now in this dialect, now in that, with various degrees of
clearness ... there being touches of it (i. e. the God-like) in the
dark stormful indignation of a Byron, nay, in the withered mockery of a
French sceptic, his mockery of the false, a love and worship of the
true ... how much more in the sphere harmony of a Shakespeare, the
cathedral music of a Milton; something of it too in those humble, genuine,
lark-notes of a Burns, skylark starting from the humble furrow far overhead
into the blue depths, and singing to us so genuinely there."
LITHUANIA, formerly a grand-duchy occupying portions of the valleys
of the Dwina, Niemen, Dnieper, and Bug; for centuries connected with
Poland; passed to Russia in 1814. The Lithuanians are a distinct race of
the Indo-European stock, fair and handsome, with a language of their
own, and a literature rich in folk-lore and songs. Of a strong religious
temperament, they embraced Christianity late (13th century), and still
retain many pagan superstitions; formerly serfs, they are now a humble
peasantry engaged in agriculture, cattle-breeding, and bee-keeping.
LITMUS, a colouring matter obtained from certain lichens;
extensively used in chemical experiments to detect acids, for instance.
LITTLE CORPORAL, a name given to Bonaparte after the battle of Lodi
from his small stature, he being only 5 ft. 2 in.
LITTLE ENGLANDERS, those politicians who hold that English statesmen
should concern themselves with England only and its internal affairs.
LITTLETON, SIR THOMAS, English jurist of the 15th century; was
recorder of Coventry in 1450, judge of Common Pleas 1466, and knighted in
1475; his work on "Tenures" was the first attempt to classify the law of
land rights, and was the basis of the famous "Coke upon Littleton"; _d_.
1481.
LITTRÉ, a celebrated French scholar, physician, philologist, and
philosopher, born in Paris; wrote on medical subjects, and translated
Hippocrates; was of the Positivist school in philosophy, and owes his
fame chiefly to his "Dictionnaire de la Langue Française," published in
1863-72, and on which he spent forty years' labour (1801-1881).
LITURGY is sometimes used as including any form of public worship,
but more strictly it denotes the form for the observance of the
Eucharist. As development from the simple form of their institution in
the primitive Church liturgies assumed various forms, and only by degrees
certain marked types began to prevail: viz., the Roman, ascribed to St.
Peter, in Latin, and prevailing in the Roman Catholic Church all over the
world; the Ephesian, ascribed to St. John, in corrupt Latin, included the
old Scottish and Irish forms, heard now only in a few places in Spain;
the Jerusalem, ascribed to St. James, in Greek, the form of the Greek
Church and in translation of the Armenians; the Babylonian, ascribed to
St. Thomas, in Syriac, used still by the Nestorians and Christians of St.
Thomas; and the Alexandrian, ascribed to St. Mark, in a Græco-Coptic
jargon, in use among the Copts; these all contain certain common
elements, but differ in order and in subsidiary parts; the Anglican
liturgy is adapted from the Roman; other Protestant liturgies or forms of
service are mostly of modern date and compiled from Scripture sources.
LIVA, an Italian coin worth 9½ d., and the monetary unit in the
country.
LIVERPOOL (585), the third city and first seaport of Great Britain,
in Lancashire, on the Mersey, 3 m. from the sea, formerly the chief seat
of the slave interest in Britain; owed its present prosperity to the
impulse of the cotton trade at the end of the 18th century; progressing
rapidly it has now docks stretching six miles along the Mersey, which
receive a sixth of the tonnage that visits British ports; through it
passes a third of our foreign trade, including enormous imports of wheat
and cotton and exports of cotton goods; it possesses shipbuilding and
engineering works, iron-foundries, flour, tobacco, and chemical
factories; the public buildings, town hall, exchange, colleges, and
observatory are fine edifices; it was the native place of W. E.
Gladstone.
LIVERPOOL, EARL OF, ROBERT JENKINSON, English statesman, educated at
Oxford; entered Parliament 1791, and as Foreign Secretary negotiated the
peace of Amiens in 1802; becoming Lord Hawkesbury in 1803, he became Home
Secretary under Pitt, and succeeding to the earldom in 1808; was War
Secretary under Perceval in 1800, Premier from 1812 to 1827; he
liberalised the tariff and maintained a sound finance, uniting and
holding together the Tory party at a critical period (1770-1828).
LIVERYMEN, name given to members of the several guilds or
corporations of London and freemen of the city, so called as entitled to
wear the livery belonging to their respective companies; they possess
certain privileges of a civic character.
LIVINGSTONE, DAVID, African traveller and missionary, born in
Blantyre, Lanarkshire; began life as a mill-worker, studied medicine and
theology at Glasgow, and was sent out to Africa by the London Missionary
Society in 1840, landed at Port Natal, and addressed himself to
missionary work; moving north, he arrived at Lake Ngami in 1849, and
ascending the Zambesi in 1853 arrived at Loanda next year; later on he
explored the course of the Zambesi and its tributaries, discovered Lake
Nyassa, and set himself to discover the sources of the Nile, but this
expedition proved too much for him, and he died exhausted; his body was
embalmed, brought home to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey
(1815-1873).
LIVIUS, TITUS (LIVY), illustrious Roman historian, born at Patavium
(Padua); appears to have settled early in Rome and spent the most of his
life there; his reputation rests on his "History of Rome from the
Foundation of the City to the Death of Drusus," it consisted of 142
chapters, but of these only 30 remain entire and 5 in fragments,
bequeathing to posterity his account of the early history of the city and
of the wars with Hannibal (59-17 B.C.).
LIVONIA (1,260), Russian Baltic province on the Gulf of Riga; is
flat and marshy, and only moderately fertile; produces rye, barley, and
potatoes; its chief industries are distilling, brewing, and
iron-founding, and fishing; four-fifths of the population are Letts and
Esthonians, only 5 per cent. are Russian; the original Finnic Livonians
are almost extinct; capital Riga (180).
LIVRAISON, part of a serial issued from time to time.
LLANDUDNO (6), a fashionable watering-place at the foot of Great
Ormes Head, Carnarvon, frequented by people from Yorkshire and
Lancashire.
LLANELLY (32), a manufacturing seaport in Carmarthenshire for
shipping coal, iron, and copper.
LLANOS, vast level plains twice the size of Great Britain in the N.
of South America, in the basin of the Orinoco, covered in great part with
tall grass and stocked in the rainy season with herds of cattle; during
the dry season they are a desert.
LLORENTE, JUAN ANTONIO, Spanish historian, is the author of several
works, but his celebrity is mainly due to his "History of the Spanish
Inquisition," of which in 1789 he became the secretary (1760-1823).
LLOYD'S, a part of the Royal Exchange, London, appropriated to the
use of underwriters and for marine intelligence, frequented by those
interested in merchant shipping; so called from Lloyd's Coffee-house,
formerly the head-quarters of the class.
LOAD-LINE, line painted on the outside of a vessel to mark the
extreme of immersion in loading her with a cargo.
LOADSTONE or LODESTONE, an iron ore remarkable for its magnetic
quality or power of attracting iron; it derived its name from its use as
a leading stone in the compass to mariners.
LOBBY, THE, hall connected with a legislative assembly to which the
public have access.
LOCAL OPTION, licence granted to the inhabitants of a district to
extinguish or reduce the sale of intoxicants in their midst.
LOCHABER, a Highland district in the S. of Inverness-shire.
LOCHABER AXE, an axe with a broad blade and a long handle formerly
in use among the Highlanders as a weapon.
LOCHIEL, a Highland chief, Sir Evan Cameron his name, head of the
Cameron clan, who held out against William III.'s rule in the Highlands,
but ultimately took the oath of allegiance; _d_. 1719.
LOCHINVAR, hero of a ballad in Scott's "Marmion," who carries off
his sweetheart just as she is about to be sacrificed in marriage to
another whom she loathes.
LOCHLEVEN, Scottish lake in Kinross-shire overshadowed by Benarty
and the West Lomond, is 23 m. NW. of Edinburgh; in a castle on one of its
islands Mary Stuart was imprisoned 1567-68; it is now famous for its
trout.
LOCKE, JOHN, English philosopher, the father of modern materialism
and empiricism, born in Wrington, Somerset; studied medicine, but did not
practise it, and gave himself up to a literary life, much of it spent in
the family of the celebrated Earl of Shaftesbury, both at home with it
and abroad; his great work is his "Essay on the Human Understanding" in
1690, which was preceded by "Letters on Toleration," published before the
expulsion of James II., and followed by the "Treatise on Government" the
same year, and "Thoughts on Education" in 1693; his "Essay" was written
to show that all our ideas were derived from experience, that is, through
the senses and reflection on what they reveal, and that there are no
innate ideas; "Locke," says Prof. Saintsbury, "is eminently" (that is,
before all his contemporaries) "of such stuff as dreams are _not_ made
of"--is wholly a prosaic practical man and Englishman (1632-1704).
LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON, man of letters, born in Cambusnethan; bred
for the Scottish bar and practised at it; contributed to _Blackwood_,
wrote in collaboration with John Wilson "Peter's Letters to his
Kinsfolk"; married Sophia Scott, Sir Walter's daughter, in 1820, lived a
good deal near Abbotsford, wrote some four novels and "Spanish Ballads,"
became editor of the _Quarterly_ in 1825, and began in 1837 his "Life of
Scott," a great work, and his greatest; died at Abbotsford, health broken
and in much sorrow; his "Life" has been interestingly written by Andrew
Lang (1794-1854).
LOCKOUT, the exclusion of workmen from a factory by the employer to
bring them to terms which they decline to accept.
LOCKYER, SIR JOSEPH NORMAN, astronomer, born at Rugby; became clerk
in the War Office in 1857, was secretary to the Royal Commission on
Scientific Instruction in 1870, and was transferred to the Science and
Art Department in 1875; he directed Government eclipse expeditions to
Sicily, India, Egypt, and the West Indies; in 1860 he became F.R.S.,
received the Society's Rumford medal in 1874, next year was appointed
corresponding Member of the Institute of France and received the Janssen
medal in 1891; he was knighted in 1897; he made important discoveries in
spectrum analysis, and has written several astronomical works; _b_. 1836.
LOCO-FOCOS, the name, which denotes lucifer-matches, given to an
ultra-democratic or radical party in the United States because at a
meeting when on one occasion the lights were extinguished the matches
which they carried were drawn and the lamps lit again.
LOCRI, a people of ancient Greece of two distinct tribes occupying
different districts of the country.
LODI (18), a town in Lombardy, 18 m. SE. of Milan, on the Adda,
famous for a signal victory of Bonaparte over the Austrians in 1796 in
the face of a tremendous fire.
LOEWE, GOTTFRIED, German composer; composed oratorios, operas, and
pianoforte pieces; sang and played in London in 1847 (1796-1869).
LOFODEN ISLANDS (20), a rugged mountainous chain on the NW.
Norwegian coast within the Arctic circle, with winters rendered mild by
the Gulf Stream, afford pasturage for sheep; the waters between them and
the mainland are a rich cod-fishing ground, visited by thousands of boats
between January and March.
LOGAN, JOHN, a Scotch poet, born at Soutra; was for a time minister
in South Leith church, but was obliged to resign; was the author of a
lyric, "The Braes of Yarrow" and certain of the Scotch paraphrases
(1748-1788). See BRUCE, MICHAEL.
LOGARITHM, the exponent of the power to which a fixed number, called
the base, must be raised to produce a certain given number.
LOGIC, the science of correct thinking or of the laws which regulate
thought, called also dialectics; or in the Hegelian system "the
scientific exposition and development of those notions or categories
which underlie all things and all being."
LOGIC SPECTACLES, Carlyle's name for eyes that can only discern the
external relations of things, but not the inner nature of them.
LOGOS, an expression in St. John's gospel translated the Word (in
chap. i.) to denote the manifestation of God, or God as manifested,
defined in theology as the second person of the Deity, and viewed as
intermediary between God as Father and God as Spirit.
LOG-ROLLING, mutual praise by authors of each other's work.
LOHENGRIN, hero of a German 13th-century poem; son of Parzival, and
a Knight of the Grail; carried by a swan to Brabant he delivered and
married the Princess Elsa; subsequently returning from war against the
Saracens, she asked him of his origin; he told her, and was at once
carried back again by the swan. Wagner adapted the story in his opera
"Lohengrin."
LOIRE, the largest river in France, 630 m., rises in the Cévennes,
flows northwards to Orleans and westward to the Bay of Biscay, through a
very fertile valley which it often inundates. It is navigable for 550 m.,
but its lower waters are obstructed by islands and shoals; it is
connected by canals with the Seine, Saône, and Brest Harbour.
LOKI, in the Norse mythology, a primitive spirit of evil who mingles
with the Norse gods, distinguished for his cunning and ensnaring ways,
whose devices are only evil in appearance, and are overruled for good.
LOLLARDS, originally a religious community established at Antwerp in
1300, devoted to the care of the sick and burial of the dead, and as
persecuted by the Church, regarded as heretics. Their name became a
synonym for heretic, and was hence applied to the followers of Wycliffe
in England and certain sectaries in Ayrshire.
LOMBARD, PETER, a famous schoolman, born in Lombardy in the 12th
century, of poor parents; was a disciple of Abelard; taught theology at,
and became Bishop of, Paris; was styled the Master of Sentences, as
author of a compilation of sentences from Augustine and other Church
Fathers on points of Christian doctrine, and long used as a manual in
scholastic disputations.
LOMBARDS, a German people, settled at the beginning of our era about
the lower Elbe. In the 5th century we find them in Moravia, and a century
later established, a powerful people, between the Adriatic and the
Danube. They invaded Italy in 568, and in three years had mastered the
North, but abandoning their Arian faith they gradually became
Italianised, and after the overthrow of their dynasty by Charlemagne in
774 they became merged in the Italians. From the 13th century Italian
merchants, known as Lombards, from Lucca, Florence, Venice, and Genoa,
traded under much odium, largely in England as wool-dealers and bankers,
whence the name Lombard Street.
LOMBARDY (3,982), an inland territory of Northern Italy between the
Alps and the Po, Piedmont, and Venetia. In the N. are Alpine mountains
and valleys rich in pasturage; in the S. a very fertile, well irrigated
plain, which produces cereals, rice, and sub-tropical plants. The culture
of the silkworm is extensive; there are textile and hardware
manufactures. The chief towns are Milan, Pavia, and Corno. Austrian in
1713, Napoleon made it part of the kingdom of Italy in 1805; it was
restored to Austria in 1815, and finally again to Italy in 1859.
LOMOND, LOCH, an irregularly-shaped lake in Dumbarton and Stirling
shires, 22 m. long and of varying breadth; contains a number of small
wooded islands; on the eastern shore rises Ben Lomond to the height of
3192 ft.
LONDON (5,633), on the Thames, 50 m. from the sea, the capital of
the British Empire, is the most populous and wealthiest city in the
world. An important place in Roman times, it was the cap. of the East
Saxons, and has been the metropolis of England since the Norman Conquest;
it possesses, therefore, innumerable historic buildings and associations.
Often devastated by plague and fire, its progress has never been stayed;
its population has more than quadrupled itself this century, and more
than doubled since 1850. The City of London proper occupies one square
mile in the centre, is wholly a commercial part, and is governed by an
annually elected mayor and aldermen; is the seat of a bishopric, with St.
Paul's for cathedral. The City of Westminster is also a bishopric under a
high steward and high bailiff, chosen by the dean and chapter. These two
cities, with twenty-five boroughs under local officers, constitute the
metropolis, and since 1888 the county of the city of London, and send 59
members to Parliament. Streets in the older parts are narrow, but newer
districts are well built; the level ground and density of building
detracts from the effect of innumerable magnificent edifices. Buckingham,
Kensington, and St. James's are royal residences; the Houses of
Parliament are the biggest Gothic building in the world; St. Paul's,
built by Sir Christopher Wren, contains the remains of Nelson and
Wellington, Reynolds, Turner, and Wren himself. Westminster, consecrated
1269, is the burial-place of England's greatest poets and statesmen, and
of many kings; the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand were opened in
1882. London has a University (an examining body), 700 colleges and
endowed schools, among which Westminster, Christ's Hospital, and the
Charterhouse are famous, many medical hospitals, and schools and
charitable institutions of all kinds. London is the centre of the English
literary and artistic world, and of scientific interest and research;
here are the largest publishing houses, the chief libraries and
art-galleries, and museums; the British Museum and Library, the National
Galleries, &c., and magnificent botanical and zoological gardens. London
is also a grand emporium of commerce, and the banking centre of the
world. It has nine principal docks; its shipping trade is unrivalled,
55,000 vessels enter and clear annually; it pays more than half the
custom duties of the kingdom, and handles more than a quarter of the
total exports; its warehouse trade is second only to that of Manchester;
it manufactures everything, chiefly watches, jewellery, leather goods,
cycles, pianos, and glass. The control of traffic, the lighting, and
water-supply of so large a city are causing yearly more serious problems.
LONDON (30), the cap. of Middlesex county, Ontario, near the S. end
of the peninsula, in the middle of a fertile district, and a rising
place.
LONDONDERRY (152), maritime county in Ulster, washed by Lough Foyle
and the Atlantic, surrounded by Donegal in the W., Tyrone in the S., and
Antrim in the W., and watered by the Foyle, Roe, and Bann Rivers,
somewhat hilly towards the S., is largely under pasture; the cultivated
parts grow oats, potatoes, and flax; granted to the Corporation and
Guilds of London in 1609, a large part of the land is still owned by
them. The county town, LONDONDERRY (33), manufactures linen shirts,
whisky, and iron goods, and does a considerable shipping trade. Its siege
by the troops of James II. in 1689 is memorable.
LONG, GEORGE, a distinguished classical scholar, born in Lancashire;
became professor of Greek in London University; edited several useful
works, among others the "Penny Cyclopædia," on which he spent 11 years of
his life (1800-1870).
LONG ISLAND (774), a long narrow island, 115 m. long by from 12 to
24 broad, belonging to New York State, off the shores of New York and
Connecticut, from which it is separated by the East River and Long Island
Sound. It is low, much of it forest and sandy waste land, with great
lagoons in the S. The chief industry is market-gardening; fisheries and
oyster-beds are valuable. Principal towns, Brooklyn, Long Island City,
and Flushing.
LONG PARLIAMENT, the celebrated English Parliament which assembled
3rd November 1640, and was dissolved by Cromwell 20th April 1653, and
which was afterwards restored, and did not finally decease till 16th
March 1660.
LONG TOM COFFIN, a character in Cooper's novel "The Pilot," and of
wider celebrity than any of the sailor class.
LONGCHAMP, a racecourse on the W. side of the Bois du Boulogne,
Paris.
LONGCHAMP, WILLIAM DE, a low-born Norman favourite of Richard I.,
made by him bishop of Ely; became Justiciar of England 1190, and Papal
Legate 1191; clever, energetic, just, and faithful, he yet incurred
dislike by his ambition and arrogance, and was banished to Normandy; his
energy in gathering the money for Richard's ransom restored him to
favour, and he became Chancellor; _d_. 1197.
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH, American poet, born at Portland, Maine;
after studying on the Continent, became professor of Modern Languages in
Harvard University; wrote "Hyperion," a romance in prose, and a
succession of poems as well as lyrics, among the former "Evangeline,"
"The Golden Legend," "Hiawatha," and "Miles Standish" (1807-1882).
LONGINUS, DIONYSIUS CASSIUS, a learned Greek philosopher,
rhetorician, and critic, and eminent in all three departments, being in
philosophy a Platonist of pure blood; his fame as a teacher reached the
ears of Zenobia, the queen of Palmyra, and being invited to her court he
became her political adviser as well as the educator of her children, but
on the surrender of the place he was beheaded by order of the Emperor
Aurelian as a traitor; he wrote several works, but the only one that
survives to some extent is his "Treatise on the Sublime," translated by
Boileau (210-273).
LONGMANS, famous and oldest publishing house in London; founded by
Thomas Longman of Bristol in 1726, and now in the hands of the fifth
generation; has been associated with the production of Johnson's
"Dictionary," Lindley Murray's "Grammar," the works of Wordsworth,
Southey, Coleridge, and Scott, and Macaulay's "Lays," "Essays," and
"History"; it absorbed the firm of Parker in 1863, and of Rivington in
1890.
LÖNNROT, ELIAS, a great Finnish scholar, born in Nyland; was
professor at Helsingfors; was editor of ancient Finnish compositions, and
author of a Finnish-Swedish Dictionary (1802-1884).
LOPE DE VEGA. See VEGA.
LORD OF THE ISLES, assumed title of Donald, a chief of Islay, who in
1346 reduced the whole of the Western Isles under his authority, and
borne by his successors, and, as some allege, his ancestors as well.
LORELEI or LURLEI, a famous steep rock, 430 ft. high, on the
Rhine, near St. Goar; dangerous to boatmen, on which it was fabled a
siren sat combing her hair and singing to lure them to ruin; the subject
of an exquisite Volkslied by Heine.
LORETTO, a city in Italy, 14 m. SE. of Ancona; celebrated as the
site of the SANTA CASA (q. v.), and for the numerous pilgrims
that annually resort to the holy shrine.
L'ORIENT (41), a seaport in Morbihan; contains the principal
shipbuilding yard in France; was founded by the French East India Company
in 1664 in connection with their trade in the East.
LORNE, MARQUIS OF, eldest son of the Duke of Argyll; entered
Parliament in 1868; married Princess Louise, fourth daughter of Queen
Victoria, in 1871; became Governor-General of Canada in 1878, member of
Parliament for South Manchester in 1895, and is Governor of Windsor
Castle; _b_. 1845.
LORRAINE, a district in France, between Metz and the Vosges;
belonged originally to Germany, became French in 1766, and was restored
to Germany in 1871.
LORRAINE, CLAUDE. See CLAUDE LORRAINE.
LOS ANGELES (11), a city in South California, 345 m. SE. of San
Francisco, and founded in 1781; is the centre of a great orange-growing
district, and a health resort.
LOST TRIBES, the ten tribes of the race of Israel whom the Assyrians
carried off into captivity (see 2 Kings xvii. 6), and of whom all trace
has been lost, and only in recent years guessed at.
LOTOPHAGI. See LOTUS EATERS.
LOTUS EATERS or LOTOPHAGI, an ancient people inhabiting a
district of Cyrenaica, on the NE. coast of Africa, who lived on the fruit
of the lotus-tree, from which they made wine. Ulysses and his companions
in their wanderings landed on their shores, but the soothing influence of
the lotus fruit so overpowered them with languor, that they felt no
inclination to leave, or any more a desire to pursue the journey
homewards. See Tennyson's poem "The Lotus-eaters."
LOTZE, RUDOLF HERMANN, German philosopher, born at Bautzen, in
Saxony; professor successively at Göttingen and Berlin; believed in
metaphysics as well as physics, and was versant in both; "Microcosmus" is
his principal work, published in 1864; he founded the system of
"teleological idealism," based on ethical considerations; he repudiated
agnosticism, and had as little patience with a mere mechanical view of
the universe as Carlyle (1817-1881).
LOUDON, JOHN CLAUDIUS, botanist and horticulturist, born at
Cambuslang, Lanarkshire; wrote largely on plants and their cultivation,
and an "Arboretum" on trees and shrubs (1783-1843).
LOUIS I., LE DÉBONNAIRE (i. e. the Gentle), was king of France
from 814 to 840 in succession to his father Charlemagne, but was too meek
and lowly to rule, and fitter for a monk than a king; suffered himself to
be taken advantage of by his nobles and the clergy; was dethroned by his
sons, and compelled to retire into a cloister, from which he was twice
over brought forth to stay the ravages of their enemies; he divided his
kingdom among them during his lifetime, and bequeathed it to them to
guard over it when he was gone, to its dismemberment.
LOUIS VI., LE GROS (i. e. the Fat), was son of Philip I.; was
associated in the royal power with his father from 1098 to 1108, and sole
king from 1108 till 1137; in his struggle against the great vassals he,
by the help of the clergy and the bourgeois, centralised the government
in the crown; had trouble with Henry I. of England as Lord Superior of
Normandy, and was defeated by him in battle in 1119; under his reign the
burgesses achieved their independence, and though he did nothing to
initiate the movement he knew how to profit from the achievement in the
interest of the monarchy.
LOUIS VII., THE YOUNG, son of the preceding, married Eleanor of
Aquitaine; took part in the second crusade; on his return divorced his
queen for her profligacy in his absence, who married Henry II. of
England, and brought with her as dowry to Henry the richest provinces of
France, which gave rise to the Hundred Years' War (1120-1180).
LOUIS VIII., THE LION, son of Philip Augustus; offered by the barons
of England the crown of England, he was crowned at London in 1216, but
defeated at Lincoln next year, he was obliged to recross the Channel;
became king of France in 1223; he took several towns from the English,
and conducted a crusade against the Albigenses (1187-1226).
LOUIS IX., SAINT LOUIS, son of the preceding; was a minor at the
death of his father, and the country was governed by his mother, Blanche
of Castile, with a strong hand; on attaining his majority he found
himself engaged with the English under Henry, who had been called on to
assist certain of the great barons in revolt, but in 1242 he defeated
them in three engagements; under a vow he made during a dangerous illness
he became a crusader, and in 1249 landed in Egypt with 40,000 men, but in
an engagement was taken prisoner by the Saracens; released in 1250 on
payment of a large ransom, though he did not return home for two years
after, till on hearing of the death of his mother, who had been regent
during his absence; on his return he applied himself to the affairs of
his kingdom and the establishment of the royal power, but undertaking a
second crusade in 1270, he got as far as Tunis, where a plague broke out
in the camp, and he became one of the victims, and one of his sons before
him; he was an eminently good and pious man, and was canonised by
Boniface VIII. in 1297 (1215-1270).
LOUIS XI., son of Charles VII., born at Bourges, of a cruel and
treacherous nature, took part in two insurrections against his father, by
whom he had been pardoned after the first and from whom he had to flee
after the second for refuge to Burgundy, where he remained till his
father's death in 1461; he signalised the commencement of his reign by
severe measures against the great vassals, which provoked a revolt,
headed by the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, which he succeeded in
subduing more by his crafty policy than force of arms; involved
afterwards in a war with Charles the Bold of Burgundy and soliciting an
interview, he was discovered by Charles to have been sowing treason among
his subjects, taken prisoner, and only released on a solemn protestation
of innocence; notwithstanding the sinister and often cruel character of
his policy, he did much to develop the resources of the country and
advance the cause of good government by the patronage of learning; the
crimes he had committed weighed heavily on his mind towards the end of
his days, and he died in great fear of death and the judgment
(1423-1483).
LOUIS XIII., the son of Henry IV.; being only nine years old at the
death of his father, the government was conducted by Marie de' Medicis,
his mother, and at his accession the country was a prey to civil
dissensions, which increased on the young king's marriage with a Spanish
princess; the Huguenots rose in arms, but a peace was concluded in 1623;
it was now Richelieu came to the front and assumed the reins with his
threefold policy of taming the nobles, checkmating the Huguenots, and
humbling the house of Austria; Rochelle, the head-quarters of the
Huguenots, revolted, the English assisting them, but by the strategy
adopted the city was taken and the English driven to sea; henceforth the
king was nobody and the cardinal was king; the cardinal died in 1642 and
the king the year after, leaving two sons, Louis, who succeeded him, and
Philip, Duke of Orleans and the first of his line (1601-1644).
LOUIS XIV., the "Grand Monarque," son of the preceding, was only
nine when his father died, and the government was in the hands of his
mother, Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin, her minister; under the
regency the glory of France was maintained in the field, but her internal
peace was disturbed by the insubordination of the parlement and the
troubles of the Fronde; by a compact on the part of Mazarin with Spain
before he died Louis was married to the Infanta Maria Theresa in 1659,
and in 1660 he announced his intention to rule the kingdom alone, which
he did for 54 years with a decision and energy no one gave him credit
for, in fulfilment of his famous protestation _L'état, c'est moi_,
choosing Colbert to control finance, Louvois to reorganise the army, and
Vauban to fortify the frontier towns; he sought to be as absolute in his
foreign relations as in his internal administration, and hence the long
succession of wars which, while they brought glory to France, ended in
exhausting her; at home he suffered no one in religious matters to think
otherwise than himself; he revoked the Edict of Nantes, sanctioned the
dragonnades in the Cévennes, and to extirpate heresy encouraged every
form of cruelty; yet when we look at the men who adorned it, the reign of
Louis XIV. was one of the most illustrious in letters and the arts in the
history of France: Corneille, Racine, and Molière eminent in the drama,
La Fontaine and Boileau in poetry, Bossuet in oratory, Bruyère and
Rochefoucauld in morals, Pascal in philosophy, Saint-Simon and Retz in
history, and Poussin, Lorraine, Lebrun, Perault, &c., in art (1636-1715).
LOUIS XV., _Bien-Aimé_ (i. e. Well-Beloved), great-grandson of the
preceding, and only five at his death, the country during his minority
being under the regency of Philip, Duke of Orleans; the regency was
rendered disastrous by the failure of the Mississippi Scheme of Law and a
war with Spain, caused by the rejection of a Spanish princess for Louis,
and by his marriage to Maria Lesczynski, the daughter of Stanislas of
Poland; Louis was crowned king in 1722 and declared of age the following
year; in 1726 Cardinal Fleury, who had been his tutor, became his
minister, and under him occurred the war of the succession to Poland,
concluded by the treaty of Vienna, and the war of the Austrian
succession, concluded by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; with the death of
his minister Louis gave way to his licentious propensities, and in all
matters of state allowed himself to be swayed by unworthy favourites who
pandered to his lusts, the most conspicuous among them being Madame de
Pompadour and Dame de Barry, her successor in crime; under them, and the
corrupt court they presided over, the country went step by step to ruin,
and she was powerless to withstand the military ascendency of England,
which deprived her of all her colonies both in the East and in the West;
though Choiseul, his last "substantial" minister, tried hard by a family
compact of the Bourbons to collect her scattered strength; the situation
did not trouble Louis; "it will last all my time," he said, and he let
things go; suffering from a disease contracted by vice, he was seized
with confluent smallpox, and died in misery, to the relief of the nation,
which could not restrain its joy (1710-1774).
LOUIS XVI., the grandson of the preceding and his successor; had in
1770 married Marie Antoinette, the youngest daughter of Maria Theresa of
Austria, and a woman young, beautiful, and accomplished, in high esteem
for the purity of her character; his accession was hailed with
enthusiasm, and he set himself to restore the ruined finances of the
country by taking into his counsel those who could best advise him in her
straitened state, but these one and all found the problem an impossible
one, owing to the unwillingness of the nobility to sacrifice any of their
privileges for the public good; this led to the summoning of the
States-General in 1789, and the outbreak of the Revolution by the fall of
the Bastille in July of that year; in the midst of this Louis,
well-intentioned but without strength of character, was submissive to the
wishes of his court and the queen, lost his popularity by his hesitating
conduct, the secret support he gave to the EMIGRANTS (q. v.),
his attempt at flight, and by his negotiations with foreign enemies, and
subjected himself to persecution at the hands of the nation; he was
therefore suspended from his functions, shut up in the Temple, arraigned
before the Convention, and condemned to death as "guilty of conspiracy
against the liberty of the nation and a crime against the general safety
of the State"; he was accordingly guillotined on the 21st January; he
protested his innocence on the scaffold, but his voice was drowned by the
beating of drums; he was accompanied by the Abbé Edgeworth, his
confessor, who, as he laid his head on the block, exclaimed, "Son of St.
Louis, ascend to heaven" (1754-1793).
LOUIS XVII., second son of the preceding, shut up in the Temple,
was, after the execution of his mother, proclaimed king by the Emigrants,
and handed over in his prison to the care of one Simon, a shoemaker, in
service about the prison, to bring him up in the principles of
Sansculottism; Simon taught him to drink, dance, and sing the
_carmagnole_; he died in prison "amid squalor and darkness," his shirt
not changed for six months (1785-1796).
LOUIS XVIII., brother of Louis XVI., and called Monsieur during his
brother's reign, flew from Paris and joined the Emigrants along with his
brother, Count d'Artois, and took up arms, which he was compelled to
forego, to wander from one foreign Court to another and find refuge at
last in England; on Napoleon's departure for Elba he returned to France
and was installed on the throne as _Louis le Desiré_, but by the
reappearance of the former on the scene he was obliged to seek refuge in
Belgium, to return for good after the battle of Waterloo, July 9, 1815,
with Talleyrand for minister and Fouché as minister of police; he reigned
but a few years, his constitution being much enfeebled by a disease
(1755-1824).
LOUIS NAPOLEON (Napoleon III.), nephew of the first emperor, born at
Paris, brought up at Augsburg and in Switzerland; became head of the
family in 1832; he began a Bonapartist propaganda, and set himself to
recover the throne of France; an abortive attempt in 1836 ended in a
short exile in America and London, and a second at Boulogne in 1840
landed him in the fortress of Ham under sentence of perpetual
imprisonment; escaping in 1846 he spent two years in England, returning
to France after the Revolution of 1848; elected to the Constituent
Assembly and the same year to the Presidency he assumed the headship of
the Republic, and posed as the protector of popular liberties and
national prosperity; struggles with the Assembly followed; he won the
favour of the army, filled the most important posts with his friends,
dissolved the Constitution in 1851 (Dec. 2), was immediately re-elected
President for ten years, and a year later assumed the title of Emperor;
he married the Spanish Countess Eugénie in 1853, and exerted himself by
public works, exhibitions, courting of the clergy, gagging of the press,
and so on to strengthen his hold on the populace; in the Crimean War
(1854-56) and the Lombardy campaign (1859) he was supported by Britain;
in 1860 he annexed Savoy and Nice; ten years later suspecting the
enthusiasm of the army, he plunged into war with Germany to rekindle its
ardour, on a protest arising from the scheme to put Leopold of
Hohenzollern on the Spanish throne; France was unprepared, disaster
followed disaster; the Emperor surrendered to the Germans at Sedan, Sept.
2, 1870; a prisoner till the close of the war, he came to England in 1871
and resided with the Empress at Chislehurst till his death (1808-1873).
LOUIS PHILIPPE, king of the French from 1830 till 1848, born at
Paris, eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, renounced his titles along with
his father, and joined the National Guard and the Jacobins at the
Revolution as M. Egalité; after the defeat of Neerwinden 1793, where he
commanded the centre, he fled to Austria and Switzerland and supported
himself by teaching; after three years in the United States he came to
London in 1800, and on the fall of Napoleon repaired to Paris and
recovered his estates; he gained popularity with the _bourgeoisie_, and
when the Revolution of July 1830 overthrew Charles X. he succeeded to the
throne as the elected sovereign of the people; under the "citizen king"
France prospered; but his government gradually became reactionary and
violent; he used his great wealth in giving bribes, tampered with trial
by jury and the freedom of the press, and so raised against him both the
old aristocracy and the working-classes; political agitation culminated
in the Revolution of February 1848; he was forced to abdicate and escaped
with his queen to England, where he died (1773-1850).
LOUIS-D'OR, an old French gold coin which ranged in value from 16s.
7d. to 18s. 9¾d., and ceased to be issued in 1795.
LOUISIANA (1,119), an American State on the Gulf of Mexico, between
the Mississippi and Sabine Rivers, with Arkansas on the N. and traversed
diagonally by the Red River, is half upland and half alluvial; much of
the lower level in the S. is marshy, subject to tidal flow or river
inundation, and is covered by swampy woods, but is being reclaimed and
planted with rice; on the uplands cattle are grazed, there are pine and
oak forests, while the arable land is under cotton, sugar, oranges, and
figs; the principal manufactures are shingles and tanks, cotton-seed oil,
tobacco, and clothing; there is a State University and agricultural and
mechanical college at Baton Rouge; the Southern and Tulane Universities
are in New Orleans; free schools are throughout the State. Founded by
France, but held by Spain from 1762 till 1800, ceded again to France and
sold to the United States by Napoleon, it was admitted to the Union in
1812. In the Civil War a hundred battles were fought within the State and
New Orleans was captured, which left ruin behind; but since 1880
prosperity has returned, property is increasing fast, and finances are
healthy.
LOUISVILLE (205), on the left bank of the Ohio River, the largest
city in Kentucky, is well built and regular, with a Roman Catholic
cathedral, many colleges and charitable institutions; it is the largest
tobacco market in the world, has pork packing, distilling, tanning, and
many other industries.
LOURDES, a French town in the dep. of the Hautes-Pyrénées, with a
grotto near by in which the Virgin Mary, as is alleged, appeared to a
girl of the place in 1858, and to which multitudes have since resorted in
the hope of being healed of their maladies from the waters which spring
up on the spot.
LOUTH (71), the smallest Irish county, in Leinster, stretches from
Carlingford Bay to the estuary of the Boyne, washed by the Irish Sea; the
country is flat and the soil fertile, potatoes, oats, and barley are
grown; there are coarse linen manufactures and oyster fisheries; rich in
antiquities, its chief towns are Dundalk (12), Drogheda (12), and Ardee
(2).
LOUVET, French romancer, born in Paris; author of the "Chevalier de
Faublas," which gives a picture of French society on the eve of the
Revolution, in which the author played a part (1760-1797).
LOUVOIS, MARQUIS OF, War Minister of Louis XIV., born in Paris; was
a man of great administrative ability in his department, but for the
glory of France and his own was savage for war and relentless in the
conduct of it, till one day in his obstinate zeal, as he threatened to
lay the cathedral city of Trèves in ashes, the king, seizing the tongs
from the chimney, was about to strike him therewith, and would have
struck him, had not Madame de Maintenon, his mistress, interfered and
stayed his hand; he died suddenly, to the manifest relief of his royal
master (1641-1691).
LOUVRE, an open turret or lantern on ancient roofs for the escape of
smoke or foul air.
LOUVRE, a great art museum and gallery in Paris, containing
Egyptian, Assyrian, classic, mediæval, and modern relics and art
treasures of priceless value; here is housed the Venus of Milo.
LOVAT, SIMON FRASER, LORD, a Highland chief connected with
Inverness, who, being outlawed, fled to France and got acquainted with
the Pretender, in whose interest he returned to Scotland to excite a
rising, but betraying the secret to the government was imprisoned in the
Bastille on his going back to France; on his release and return he
opposed the Pretender in 1715, but in 1745 espoused the cause of Prince
Edward; was arrested for treason, convicted, and beheaded on Tower Hill
(1667-1747).
LOVEDALE, a mission station in South Africa, 650 m. NE. of Cape
Town, founded in 1841, and supported by the Free Church of Scotland.
LOVELACE, one of the principal characters in Richardson's "Clarissa
Harlowe"; is the type of a young heartless seducer.
LOVELACE, RICHARD, English cavalier and poet, born at Woolwich, heir
of great wealth, but lost his all in supporting the royal cause, and died
a ruined man; was the handsomest man of his time, and the author of a
collection of poems entitled "Lucasta" (1618-1658).
LOVER, SAMUEL, an Irish novelist and poet, born in Dublin; started
as a painter, but soon gave himself to literature; was the author of
"Rory O'More" and "Handy Andy," as also of some lyrics and ballads of a
stirring character (1797-1868).
LOW CHURCH, that section of the Church of England which, in contrast
with the High Church party, is not exclusive in its assertion of Church
authority and observances, and in contrast with the Broad Church party is
narrowly evangelical in its teaching.
LOW LATIN, Latin as spoken and written in the Middle Ages, being a
degeneration of the classical which began as early as the time of Cicero
and developed unchecked with the dismemberment of the Roman empire.
LOW MASS, mass performed by a single priest and without musical
accompaniment.
LOW SUNDAY, name given in Catholic countries to the next Sunday
after Easter, in contrast with the style of the festival just closed.
LOWE, SIR HUDSON, English general, born in Ireland; served with
credit in various military enterprises, and was appointed governor of St.
Helena in 1815, and held that office during Napoleon's incarceration
there; a much abused-man for his treatment of his prisoner, particularly
by the French, who dub him "Napoleon's jailer"; died in London in poor
circumstances; wrote a defence of his conduct (1770-1844).
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, American essayist, poet, and diplomatist,
born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, son of a clergyman; graduated at
Harvard in 1838, studied law, but acquiring extensive scholarship devoted
himself to literature; volumes of poems were published by him in 1840 and
1844, but the Mexican War of 1846 and the Civil War of 1861-65 called
forth respectively the first and second series of "Biglow Papers," in
rustic dialect, the highest expression of his genius and the finest
modern English satire; he was an ardent abolitionist; succeeding
Longfellow in the chair of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard in
1855, he visited Europe to study, returned as U.S. minister to Spain in
1877, was transferred to England 1880-1885; of his prose work "My Study
Windows" and "Among my Books" are essays on literary subjects, "Fireside
Travels" contain reminiscences, and his last work was a "Life of
Hawthorne"; he died at Cambridge in the house of his birth (1818-1891).
LOWER EMPIRE, name given to the Byzantine empire.
LOWESTOFT (23), seaport and watering-place at the mouth of the
Waveney, in Suffolk, 120 m. NE. of London, the most easterly town in
England; has a good harbour, an old parish church, and a large
fish-market; the Dutch were defeated off Lowestoft in 1665.
LOWTH, ROBERT, a distinguished English prelate, born in Hants; was
professor of Poetry in Oxford, and bishop in succession of St. Davids,
Oxford, and London; wrote "Prelectiones" on the poetry of the Hebrews, a
celebrated work, and executed a translation of Isaiah (1710-1787).
LOYOLA, IGNATIUS, the founder of the Order of the Jesuits, born in
the castle of Loyola, in the Basque Provinces of Spain, of a noble
Spanish family; entered the army, and served with distinction, but being
severely wounded at the siege of Pampeluna, he gave himself up to a life
of austere religious devotion, and conceived the idea of enlisting and
organising a spiritual army for the defence of the Church at home and the
propagation of the faith in the realms of heathendom; it seemed to him a
time when such an organisation should be formed, and he by-and-by got a
number of kindred spirits to join him, with the result that he and his
confederates did, on Ascension Day, 1534, solemnly pledge themselves in
the subterranean chapel of the Abbey of Montserrat to, through life and
death, embark in this great undertaking; the pledge thus given was
confirmed by the pope, Pope Pius III., the Order formed, and Ignatius, in
1547, installed as general, with absolute authority subject only to the
Pope, to receive canonisation by Gregory XV. in 1622 (1481-1566).
LUBBOCK, SIR JOHN, scientist, born in London; banker by profession;
as a member of Parliament has accomplished several economic reforms; is
author of "Prehistoric Times," "The Origin of Civilisation and the
Primitive Condition of Man," and various books on natural science; his
"Pleasures of Life" has been very popular, and gone through between 30
and 40 editions; _b_. 1834.
LÜBECK (64), a German free city on the Trave, an old-fashioned
place, but with wide, open streets, 12 m. from the Baltic, 40 m. NE. of
Hamburg; joined the North German Federation in 1866, and the Customs
Union in 1868. It has a 12th-century cathedral, some fine old churches,
scientific and art collections; with unimportant industries; its Baltic
and German transit trade is extensive.
LUCAN, a Latin poet, born at Corduba (Cordova), in Spain; was a
nephew of Seneca, and brought early to Rome; gave offence to Nero, and
was banished from the city; joined in a conspiracy against the tyrant,
and was convicted, whereupon he caused his veins to be opened and bled to
death, repeating the while the speech he had composed of a wounded
soldier on the battlefield dying a like death; he was the author of a
poem entitled "Pharsalia" on the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey
(39-65).
LUCARIS, CYRIL, eminent ecclesiastic in the Greek Church, born in
Crete, who embraced and propagated Protestantism; became a victim of
persecution, and had a mysterious fate (1572-1637).
LUCCA (20), cap. of the Italian prov. of Lucca (309), on the
Serchio, 12 m. NE. of Pisa; has an extensive trade in olive-oil, silk,
and capers, the specialty of the province. Its cathedral has a very
ancient cedar crucifix, fine paintings, and valuable archives. There are
other ancient churches, scientific and artistic institutes, and a
wonderful aqueduct of 459 arches. The natives are known over Europe as
stucco figure-sellers and organ-grinders.
LUCERNE (36), a Swiss canton E. of Berne, mountainous in the S.,
where cattle are pastured and much cheese made; in the N. and in the
valleys fertile with corn and fruit crops; is German speaking, and Roman
Catholic; its highest elevation, Mount Pilatus, is 7000 ft. Stretching
from the eastern corner is Lake Lucerne, one of the most beautiful in
Europe. The cap. Lucerne (20), on the shores of the lake, is a busy
tourist centre; outside its walls is the famous Lion of Lucerne, designed
by Thorwaldsen, in memory of the Swiss Guard slain while defending the
Tuileries in Paris in 1792, and cut out of the solid rock.
LUCIAN, a Greek writer, born in Samosata, in Syria, in the early
part of the 2nd century; he travelled much in his youth; acquired a
cynical view of the world, and gave himself to ridicule the philosophical
sects and the pagan mythology; his principal writings consist of
"Dialogues," of which the "Dialogues of the Dead" are the best known, the
subject being one affording him scope for exposing the vanity of human
pursuits; he was an out and out sceptic, found nothing worthy of
reverence in heaven or on earth.
LUCIFER (i. e. light-bringer), name given to Venus as the morning
star, and by the Church Fathers to Satan in interpretation of Isaiah xiv.
12.
LÜCKE, FRIEDRICH, German theologian, professor first at Bonn and
then at Göttingen; wrote commentaries on John's Gospel and the Apocalypse
(1791-1855).
LUCKNOW (273), fourth city in India, cap. of the prov. of Oudh, on
the Gumti, a tributary of the Ganges, 200 m. NW. of Benares; is a centre
of Indian culture and Mohammedan theology, an industrial and commercial
city. It has many magnificent buildings, Canning and Martinière Colleges,
various schools and Government offices. It manufactures brocades, shawls,
muslins, and embroideries, and trades in country products, European
cloth, salt, and leather. Its siege from July 1857 to March 1858, its
relief by Havelock and Outram, and final deliverance by Sir Colin
Campbell, form the most stirring incidents of the Indian Mutiny.
LUCRETIA, a Roman matron, the wife of Collatinus, whose rape by a
son of Tarquinus Superbus led to the dethronement of the tyrant, the
expulsion of his family from Rome, and the establishment of the Roman
republic.
LUCRETIUS, TITUS CARUS, a Roman poet of whose personal history
nothing is known, only that he was the author of a poem entitled "De
Rerum Naturâ," a philosophic, didactic composition in six books, in which
he expounds the atomic theory of Leucippus, and the philosophy of
Epicurus; the philosophy of the work commends itself only to the atheist
and the materialist, but the style is the admiration of all scholars, and
has ensured its translation into most modern languages (about 95-31 B.C.).
LUCULLUS, LUCIUS, a Roman general, celebrated as conqueror of
Mithridates, king of Pontus, and for the luxurious life he afterwards led
at Rome on the wealth he had amassed in Asia and brought home with him;
one day as he sat down to dine alone, and he observed his servant had
provided for him a less sumptuous repast than usual, he took him sharply
to task, and haughtily remarked, "Are you not aware, sirrah, that
Lucullus dines with Lucullus to-day?"
LUDDISM, fanatical opposition to the introduction of machinery as it
originally manifested itself among the hand-loom weavers of the Midlands.
LUDDITES name assumed by the anti-machinery rioters of 1812-1861,
after a Leicestershire idiot, Ned Ludd, of 1780; appearing first at
Nottingham, the agitation spread through Derby, Leicester, Cheshire,
Lancashire, and Yorkshire, finally merging in the wider industrial and
political agitations and riots that marked the years that followed the
peace after Waterloo.
LUDLOW, EDMUND, a republican leader in the Civil War against Charles
I., born in Wiltshire of good family; entered the army of the Parliament,
and was present in successive engagements, but opposed Cromwell on his
assumption of the Protectorate, and was put under arrest; reasserted his
republicanism on Cromwell's death, but died in exile after the
Restoration; left "Memoirs" (1630-1693).
LUDOVICUS VIVES, a humourist, born in Valentia, Spain; studied at
Paris, wrote against scholasticism, taught at Oxford, was imprisoned for
opposing Henry VIII.'s divorce; died at Bruges (1472-1540).
LUGA`NO, a lake partly in the Swiss canton of Ticino and partly in
the Italian province of Como, 15 m. by 2 m., in the midst of picturesque
grand scenery, with a town of the name on the NW. side amid vineyards and
olive plantations.
LUINI, BERNARDINO, a painter of the Lombard school, born at Luino,
in the territory of Milan, and a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, so that some
of his works, which though they show a grace and delicacy of their own,
pass for those of his master; is famed for his works in oil as well as in
fresco; is, in Ruskin's regard, one of the master painters of the world
(1460-1540).
LUKE or LUCANUS, author of the third Gospel, as well as the
Acts, born in Antioch, a Greek by birth and a physician by profession,
probably a convert, as he was a companion, of St. Paul; is said to have
suffered martyrdom and been buried at Constantinople; is the patron saint
of artists, and represented in Christian art with an ox lying near him,
or in the act of painting; his Gospel appears to have been written before
the year 63, and shows a Pauline interest in Christ, who is represented
as the Saviour of Jew and Gentile alike; it was written for a Gentile
Christian and in correspondence with eye-witnesses of Christ's life and
death.
LULLI, a composer of operatic music, born in Provence; was director
of the French opera in the reign of Louis XIV. (1633-1687).
LULLY, RAYMOND, the _Doctor Illuminatus_, as he was called, born at
Palma, in Majorca, who was early smitten with a zeal for the conversion
of the Mohammedans, in the prosecution of which mission he invented a new
method of dialectic, called after him _Ars Lullia_; held public
discussions with the Mohammedans, who showed themselves as zealous to
convert him as he was to convert them, till he ventured in his over-zeal
when in Africa among them to threaten them with divine judgment if they
did not abjure their faith, upon which they waxed furious, dragged him
out of the city, and stoned him to death in the year 1315; his works,
several on alchemy, fill 16 volumes.
LUNAR CYCLE, a period of time at the close of which the new moons
return on the same days of the year.
LUNAR MONTH, a month of 29 days, the time of the revolution of the
moon, a lunar year consisting of 12 times the number.
LUNAR THEORY, an explanation by mathematical reasoning of
perturbations in the movements of the moon founded on the law of
gravitation.
LUNAR YEAR, a period of 12 synodic lunar months, being about 354.5
days.
LUND (14), a city in the S. of Sweden, 10 m. NE. of Malmö, once the
capital of the Danish kingdom, the seat of an archbishop, with a
Romanesque cathedral and a flourishing university.
LUNDY ISLAND, a precipitous rugged island 3 m. long by 1 m. broad,
belonging to Devon, with the remains of an old castle, and frequented by
myriads of sea-fowl.
LÜNEBURG (21), on the Ilmenau, 30 m. SE. of Hamburg, an ancient
German city with old Gothic churches, once the capital of an independent
duchy, now in Hanover; has salt and gypsum mines, iron and chemical
manufactures; the British royal house is descended from the princes of
Brunswick-Lüneburg.
LUPERCALIA, a Roman festival held on Feb. 15 in honour of Lupercus,
regarded as the god of fertility, in the celebration of which dogs and
goats were sacrificed and their skins cut up into thongs, with which the
priests ran through the city striking every one, particularly women, that
threw themselves in their way.
LUPERCUS, an ancient Italian god, worshipped by shepherds as the
protector of their flocks against wolves.
LUPUS, a chronic disease of the skin, characterised by the
tuberculous eruptions which eat into the skin, particularly of the face,
and disfigure it.
LUSATIA, a district of Germany, between the Elbe and the Oder,
originally divided into Upper and Lower, belongs partly to Saxony and
partly to Prussia; it swarmed at one time with Wends.
LUSIAD or LUSIADES, a poem of Camoëns in ten cantos, in
celebration of the discoveries of the Portuguese in the East Indies, and
in which Vasco da Gama is the principal figure; it is a genuine national
epic, in which the poet passes in review all the celebrated exploits and
feats that glorify the history of Portugal.
LUSITANIA, the ancient name of Portugal, still used as the name of
it in modern poetry.
LUSTRUM, a sacrifice for expiation and purification offered by one
of the censors of Rome in name of the Roman people at the close of the
taking of the census, and which took place after a period of five years,
so that the name came to denote a period of that length.
LUTETIA, the ancient name of Paris, _Lutetia Parisiorum_, mud-town
of the borderers, as Carlyle translates it.
LUTHER, MARTIN, the great Protestant Reformer, born at Eisleben, in
Prussian Saxony, the son of a miner, was born poor and brought up poor,
familiar from his childhood with hardship; was sent to study law at
Erfurt, but was one day at the age of 19 awakened to a sense of higher
interests, and in spite of remonstrances became a monk; was for a time in
deep spiritual misery, till one day he found a Bible in the convent,
which taught him for the first time that "a man was not saved by singing
masses, but by the infinite grace of God"; this was his awakening from
death to life, and to a sense of his proper mission as a man; at this
stage the Elector of Saxony was attracted to him, and he appointed him
preacher and professor at Wittenberg; on a visit to Rome his heart sank
within him, but he left it to its evil courses to pursue his own way
apart; if Rome had let him alone he would have let it, but it would not;
monk Tetzel arrived at Wittenberg selling indulgences, and his
indignation was roused; remonstrance after remonstrance followed, but the
Pope gave no heed, till the agitation being troublesome, he issued his
famous "fire-decree," condemning Luther's writings to the flames; this
answer fired Luther to the quick, and he "took the indignant step of
burning the decree in 1520 at the Elster Gate of Wittenberg, Wittenberg
looking on with shoutings, the whole world looking on"; after this Luther
was summoned to the Diet of Worms, and he appeared there before the
magnates, lay and clerical, of the German empire on April 17, 1521; how
he demeaned himself on that high occasion is known to all the world, and
his answer as well: "Here stand I; I can do no other; so help me God";
"it was the grandest moment in the modern history of man"; of the
awakening this produced Luther was the ruling spirit, as he had been the
moving one, and he continued to be so to the end of his life; his
writings show the man as well as his deeds, and amid all the turmoil that
enveloped him he found leisure to write and leave behind him 25 quarto
volumes; it is known the German Bible in use is his work, executed by him
in the Castle of Wartburg; it was begun by him with his back to the wall,
as it were, and under the protestation, as it seemed to him, of the
prince of darkness himself, and finished in this obstructive element
pretty much throughout, the New Testament in 1522, the Pentateuch in
1523, and the whole, the Apocrypha included, in 1534; he was fond of
music, and uttered many an otherwise unutterable thing in the tones of
his flute; "the devils fled from his flute," he says; "death-defiance on
the one hand, and such love of music on the other, I could call these,"
says Carlyle, "the two opposite poles of a great soul, between these two
all great things had room.... Luther," he adds, "was a true great man,
great in intellect, in courage, in affection, and integrity,... great as
an Alpine mountain, but not setting up to be great at all--his, as all
greatness is, an unconscious greatness" (1488-1546).
LUTHERANISM, that form of Protestantism which prevails in Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, and Northern Germany. See LUTHERANS.
LUTHERANS, the name given to that school of the Protestant Church
which accepted Luther's doctrine, especially that of the Eucharist, in
opposition to that of the members of the Reformed Church, who assented to
the views in that matter of Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer; the former
maintaining the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and that the grace
of Christ is communicated in the celebration of it, and the latter
maintaining that it is a merely commemorative ordinance, and the means of
grace to the believing recipient only.
LUTTERWORTH, a small town in Leicestershire, on the Swift, 8 m. NE.
of Rugby, of the church of which Wiclif was rector, and where he was
buried, though his bones were afterwards, in 1428, dug up and burned, and
the ashes cast into the river.
LÜTZEN, a small town in Prussian Saxony, the vicinity of it the
scene of a victory of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632, and of another by
Napoleon over the combined forces of Russia and Prussia in 1813.
LUX, the name given to the unit of the intensity of electric light.
LUX, ADAM, a young Parisian; smitten with love for Charlotte Corday,
proposed a statue to her with the inscription "Greater than Brutus,"
which brought him to the guillotine.
LUXEMBURG (211), grand-duchy, a small, independent territory at the
corner where Belgium, France, and Rhenish Prussia meet, is a plateau
watered by the Moselle on its eastern boundary, and the tributary Sauer;
is well wooded and fertile, yielding wheat, flax, hemp, and wine. Iron
ore is mined and smelted; leather, pottery, sugar, and spirits
manufactured. The population is Low-German and Roman Catholic; the
language of the educated, French. The government is in the hands of a
grand-duke, the Duke of Nassau, and a house of 42 representatives. For
commercial purposes Luxemburg belongs to the German Customs Union. The
capital is LUXEMBURG (18). There is a Belgian province of
LUXEMBURG (212), until 1839 part of the grand-duchy.
LUZON (3,200), the largest of the Philippines; about one-half larger
than Ireland; is the most northerly of the group; is clad with forests,
and yields grain, sugar, hemp, and numerous tropical products. The
capital is Manila.
LYCAON, a king of Arcadia; changed into a wolf for offering human
flesh to Zeus, who came, disguised as mortal, to his palace on the same
errand as the angels who visited Lot in Sodom. According to another
tradition he was consumed, along with his sons, by fire from heaven.
LYCEUM, a promenade in Athens where Aristotle taught his pupils as
he walked to and fro within its precincts.
LYCIAS, an Athenian orator, who flourished in the 4th century B.C.;
assisted in the expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants, and distributed among
the citizens his large fortune which the Tyrants had confiscated.
LYCIDAS, the name of an exquisite dirge by Milton over the death by
drowning of his friend Edward King.
LYCURGUS, the legislator of Sparta, who lived in the 9th century
B.C.; in the interest of it as king visited the wise in other lands, and
returned with the wise lessons he had learned from them to frame a code
of laws for his country, which was fast lapsing into a state of anarchy;
when he had finished his work under the sanction of the oracle at Delphi
he set put again on a journey to other lands, but previously took oath of
the citizens that they would observe his laws till his return; it was his
purpose not to return, and he never did, in order to bind his countrymen
to maintain the constitution he gave them inviolate for ever.
LYDGATE, JOHN, an early English poet; was a monk of Bury St. Edmunds
in the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries; was a teacher
of rhetoric as well as a poet, and a man of some note in his day.
LYDIA, a country of Asia Minor; seat of an early civilisation, and a
centre of influences which affected both the religion and culture of
Greece; was noted for its music and purple dyes.
LYELL, SIR CHARLES, celebrated English geologist, born at Kinnordy,
in Forfarshire; bred for and called to the bar; he left his practice, and
gave himself to the study of geology, to which he had been attracted by
Alexander Buckland's lectures when he was at Oxford; his great work was
his "Principles of Geology," which, published in 1830, created quite a
revolution in the science; it was followed by his "Student's Elements of
Geology," which was modified by his conversion to Darwin's views, and by
"Antiquity of Man," written in defence of Darwin's theory (17971875).
LYLY, JOHN, English dramatist, born in Kent; was the author of nine
plays on classical subjects, written for the court, which were preceded
in 1579 by his once famous "Euphues, or Anatomy of Wit," followed by a
second part next year, and entitled "Euphues and his England," and that
from the fantastic, pompous, and affected style in which they were
written gave a new word, Euphuism, to the English language (1553-1606).
LYNCH LAW, the name given in America to the trial and punishment of
offenders without form of law, or by mob law; derived from the name of a
man Lynch, dubbed Judge, who being referred to used to administer justice
in the far West in this informal way.
LYNDHURST, JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, BARON, thrice Lord Chancellor of
England, born at Boston, Massachusetts, son of an artist; was brought up
in London, educated at Cambridge, and called to the bar in 1804;
acquiring fame in the treason trials of the second decade, he entered
Parliament in 1808, was Solicitor-General 1819, Attorney-General 1819,
Master of the Rolls 1826, and Lord Chancellor in three governments
1827-30; Chief Baron of the Exchequer 1830-34; he was Lord Chancellor in
Peel's administrations of 1834-35 and 1841-46; he was great as a debater,
and a clear-headed lawyer, but not earnest enough for a statesman
(1772-1863).
LYNEDOCH, THOMAS GRAHAM, LORD, soldier, born in Perthshire; raised
in 1793 the 90th Regiment of Foot, and served with it at Quibéron and
Isle Dieu; thereafter distinguished himself in various ways at Minorca
1798, and Malta 1800, in the Peninsular wars, and in Holland; founded the
Senior United Service Club in 1817; was created baron and general 1821,
and died in London (1748-1843).
LYON COURT, the Herald's College of Scotland, consisting of three
heralds and three pursuivants.
LYON KING OF ARMS, the legal heraldic officer of Scotland, who
presides over the Lyon Court.
LYONS (398), the second city of France, at the junction of the Rhône
and Saône, 250 m. S. of Paris; has a Roman Catholic university, and
valuable museum, library, and art collections, many old churches and
buildings, and schools of art and industries; the staple industry is
silk, weaving, dyeing, and printing; there are also chemical, machinery,
and fancy ware manufactures, and it is an emporium of commerce between
Central and Southern Europe; of late years Lyons has been a hot-bed of
ultra-republicanism.
LYRIC POETRY, poetry originally accompanied by the lyre, in which
the poet sings his own passions, sure of a sympathetic response from
others in like circumstances with himself.
LYSANDER, a Spartan general and admiral who put an end to the
Peloponnesian War by defeat of the Athenian fleet off Ægospotami, and of
whom Plutarch says in characterisation of him, he knew how to sew the
skin of the fox on that of the lion; fell in battle in 395 B.C.
LYSIMACHUS, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, who became
king of Thrace and afterwards of Macedonia; _d_. 281 B.C.
LYTTON, EDWARD ROBERT, EARL OF, statesman and novelist, under the
_nom de plume_ of Owen Meredith; entered the diplomatic service at an
early age, became viceroy of India in 1876, and ambassador at Paris in
1892.
LYTTON, GEORGE EDWARD BULWER, LORD, statesman and novelist, born in
London; entered Parliament at the age of 26, began his parliamentary
career as a Whig, but became a Conservative and ranked in that party for
the greater part of his life; "Pelham," published in 1828, was his first
novel, and this was followed by a long list of others of endless variety,
all indicative of the conspicuous ability of the author, and to the last
giving no sign of decay in power; he was the author of plays as well as
novels (1803-1873).
M
MAB, QUEEN, the fairies' midwife that brings dreams to the birth, to
be distinguished from Titania, the Queen.
MABILLON, JEAN, a French Benedictine and eminent scholar; wrote a
history of his order and edited St. Bernard's works (1632-1707).
MABLY, GABRIEL BONNET DE, French author, was born at Grenoble,
brother of Condillac; educated at Lyons, and became secretary to Cardinal
Tencin, but most of his life was spent in study, and he died in Paris;
his "Romans and the French" is not complimentary to his countrymen; he
was a great admirer of the ancients (1709-1785).
MABUSA, JAN, real name Gossaert, Flemish artist, born at Mabuse,
lived and died at Antwerp; his work is not great but careful, his figures
catch the stiffness of his favourite architectural backgrounds; his early
period is strongly national, but a visit to Italy with Philip of Burgundy
brought him under southern influences and contributed to intensify his
colour (1470-1532).
MACADAM, JOHN LOUDON, Scottish engineer, born at Ayr; inventor of
the system of road-making which bears his name; he made his fortune as a
merchant in New York, but spent it in road-making (1756-1836).
MACAIRE, ROBERT, a noted criminal and assassin that figures in
French plays; was convicted of a murder in trial by combat with a witness
in the shape of the dog of the murdered man.
MACAO, small island at the mouth of the Canton River, 100 m. S. of
Canton, forming with Colovane and Taipa since 1557 a Portuguese station
(50, mostly Chinese); is a very healthy port, though very hot; formerly
it was a centre of the Coolie trade, abolished in 1873, but its anchorage
is bad, and since the rise of Hong-Kong its commerce has suffered
severely; chief import opium, export tea; it is the head-quarters of
French missions in China.
MACARIUS, ST., a hermit of the Thebaïd, where he spent 60 years of a
life of solitude and austerity (300-390). Festival, January 13.
MACARONI, a fine wheaten paste made into long thin tubes, and
manufactured in Italy and the S. of France.
MACASSAR, southern portion and chief town (20) at SW. corner of
Celebes; exports coffee, spices, timber, and "Macassar" oil.
MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD, essayist and historian, born at
Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, son of Zachary Macaulay the
philanthropist, and so of Scottish descent; graduated at Cambridge 1822,
proving a brilliant debater in the Union, and became Fellow of Trinity
1824; called to the bar 1826, he preferred to follow literature, having
already gained a footing by some poems in _Knight's Quarterly_ and by his
essay on "Milton" in the _Edinburgh Review_ (1825); in 1830 he entered
Parliament for a pocket-borough, took an honourable part in the Reform
debates, and in the new Parliament sat for Leeds; his family were now in
straitened circumstances, and to be able to help them he went out to
India as legal adviser to the Supreme Council; to his credit chiefly
belongs the Indian Penal Code; returning in 1838, he represented
Edinburgh in the Commons with five years' interval till 1856; the "Lays
of Ancient Rome" appeared in 1842, his collected "Essays" in 1843, two
years later he ceased writing for the _Edinburgh;_ he was now working
hard at his "History," of which the first two volumes attained a quite
unprecedented success in 1848; next year he was chosen Lord Rector of
Glasgow University; 1855 saw the third and fourth volumes of his
"History"; in 1857 he was made a peer, and many other honours were
showered upon him; with a tendency to too much declamation in style, a
point of view not free from bias, and a lack of depth and modesty in his
thinking, he yet attained a remarkable amount and variety of knowledge,
great intellectual energy, and unrivalled lucidity in narration
(1800-1859).
MACBETH, a thane of the north of Scotland who, by assassination of
King Duncan, became king; reigned 17 years, but his right was disputed by
Malcolm, Duncan's son, and he was defeated by him and fell at Lumphanan,
December 5, 1056.
MACCABEES, a body of Jewish patriots, followers of Judas Maccabæus,
who in 2nd century B.C. and in the interest of the Jewish faith
withstood the oppression of Syria and held their own for a goodly number
of years against not only the foreign yoke that oppressed them, but
against the Hellenising corruption of their faith at home.
MACCABEES, BOOKS OF, two books of the Apocrypha which give, the
first, an account of the heroic struggle which the Maccabees maintained
from 175 to 135 B.C. against the kings of Syria, and the second, of an
intercalary period of Jewish history from 175 to 160 B.C., much of it of
legendary unreliable matter; besides these two a third and a fourth of a
still more apocryphal character are extant.
M'CARTHY, JUSTIN, writer and politician, began life as a journalist;
is the author of a "History of Our Own Times" and a "History of the Four
Georges," as well as a number of novels; represents North Longford in
Parliament; _b_. 1830.
M'CHEYNE, ROBERT MURRAY, the subject of a well-known memoir by
Andrew Bonar, was born in Edinburgh, educated at the university there,
and was minister of St. Peter's, Dundee, from 1836 till his death; he is
esteemed a saint by pious evangelical people, by whom the memoirs of him
are much prized (1813-1843).
M'CLELLAN, American general, born in Philadelphia; served in the
Mexican War, and in the War of Secession, eventually as
commander-in-chief; was author of military engineering works (1826-1882).
MACCLESFIELD (36), Cheshire manufacturing town on the Bollin, 15 m.
S. of Manchester; has a 13th-century church, and a grammar-school founded
by Edward VI.; its staple industry is silk manufactures; there are
breweries, and mining and quarrying near.
MACCLINTOCK, Arctic navigator, born at Dundalk; sent out by Lady
Franklin to discover the fate of Sir John and his crew; wrote an account
of the voyage (1819-1891).
M'CLURE, Arctic navigator, born in Wexford; went out in search of
Franklin, and discovered the North-West Passage in 1850 (1807-1873).
M'CRIE, THOMAS, a Scotch seceder, born in Dunse; was minister in
Edinburgh; author of the "Life of John Knox," published in 1812; defended
the Covenanters against Scott; he was a man of dignified military
presence (1772-1835).
M'CULLOCH, HORATIO, a Scottish landscape-painter, born in Glasgow;
was distinguished for his Highland landscapes (1806-1867).
M'CULLOCH, JOHN RAMSEY, political economist, born in Isle of
Whithorn; contributed to the _Scotsman_ and _Edinburgh Review;_ wrote
"Principles of Political Economy," and edited Dictionaries of Commerce
and Geography (1789-1864).
MACCUNN, HAMISH, Scottish composer, born at Greenock; entered the
Royal College of Music in 1883, and became junior professor of Harmony at
the Royal Academy; his fertility in melody and mastery of the orchestra
are devoted to music of strong national characteristics, as his overture
"Land of the Mountain and the Flood," and his choral work "The Lay of the
Last Minstrel" show; _b_. 1868.
MACDONALD, marshal of France, born at Sancerre, of Scotch descent,
entered the army at the time of the Revolution as a lieutenant, and
rapidly rose in rank; served with distinction under Napoleon, especially
at Wagram, when he was made Duke of Taranto; supported the Bourbons on
their restoration (1765-1840).
MACDONALD, SIR CLAUDE M., British Minister at Peking; served in the
army in Egypt in 1882 and 1884, as a diplomatist in Zanzibar in 1887, and
on the coast of Africa as commissioner in 1888; was sent to Peking in
1896; _b_. 1852.
MACDONALD, FLORA, a devoted Jacobite who, at the risk of her own
life, screened Prince Charles Edward after his defeat at Culloden from
his pursuers, and saw him safe off to France, for which she was
afterwards confined for a short time in the Tower (1722-1790).
MACDONALD, GEORGE, novelist, born in Huntly; trained for the
ministry, but devoted himself to literature; is the author, among other
works, of "Robert Falconer," "David Elginbrod," and "Alec Forbes"; his
interests are religious, and his views liberal, particularly on religious
matters; _b_., 1824.
MACE, THE, the symbol of authority in the House of Commons; is
placed on the table when the House is sitting, and is under the table as
a rule when the Speaker is not in the chair.
MACEDONIA, an ancient kingdom lying between Thrace and Illyria, the
Balkans and the Ægean; mostly mountainous, but with some fertile plains;
watered by the Strymon, Axius, and Heliacmon Rivers; was noted for its
gold and silver, its oil and wine. Founded seven centuries B.C., the
monarchy was raised to dignity and power by Archelaus in the 5th century.
Philip II. (359 B.C.) established it yet more firmly; and his son,
Alexander the Great, extended its sway over half the world. His empire
broke up after his death, and the Romans conquered it in 168 B.C. Ægæ
and Pella were its ancient capitals, Philippi, Thessalonica, and
Amphipolis among its towns. After many vicissitudes during the Middle
Ages it is now a province of Turkey.
MACEDONIANS, a sect in the early Church who taught that the Holy
Ghost was inferior to the Father and the Son, so called from Macedonius,
bishop of Constantinople, their leader.
MACFARREN, SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER, musical author and composer, born
in London; studied at the Royal Academy, and became professor there in
1834; in many operatic works he aimed at restoring old English musical
characteristics, and wrote also cantatas "Lenore," "May-Day," &c., and
oratorios, of which "John the Baptist" (1873) was the first; but his
chief merit lies in his writings on theory (1813-1887).
MACHIAVELLI, NICCOLO, statesman and historian, born in Florence, of
an ancient family; was secretary of the Florentine Republic from 1498 to
1512, and during that time conducted its diplomatic affairs with a skill
which led to his being sent on a number of foreign embassies; he was
opposed to the restoration of the Medici family, and on the return of it
to power was subjected to imprisonment and torture as a conspirator, but
was at last set at liberty; he spent the remainder of his life chiefly in
literary labours, producing among other works a treatise on government,
entitled "The Prince," the principles of which have established for him a
notoriety wide as the civilised world (1469-1530).
MACHIAVELLISM, the doctrine taught by Machiavelli in "The Prince,"
that to preserve the integrity of a State the ruler should not feel
himself bound by any scruple such as may suggest itself by considerations
of justice and humanity; the State he regards as too precious an
institution to endanger by scruples of that sort.