FOOTNOTES:

[1] The name La Chine was sarcastically applied to La Salle's

settlement on the St Lawrence.

[2] The Iroquois seem to have used the name Ohio for the Mississippi,

or at least for its lower part; and this circumstance makes the story

of La Salle's exploration peculiarly difficult to disentangle.

[3] Tonty (or Tonti), an Italian, born at Gaeta, was La Salle's

principal lieutenant, and was the equal of his chief in intrepidity.

Before his association with La Salle he had engaged in military

service in Europe, during which he had lost a hand. He accompanied La

Salle to the mouth of the Mississippi, and was in command of Fort St

Louis from the time of its erection until 1702, except during his

journeys down the Mississippi in search of his chief. In 1702 he

joined d'Iberville in lower Louisiana, and soon after was despatched

on a mission to the Chickasaw Indians. This is the last authentic

trace of him.

[4] Although La Salle and Don Diego de Peñalosa (1624-1687) presented

to the French government independent plans for an expedition against

the Spaniards and Peñalosa afterwards proposed their co-operation,

there is no substantial evidence that this project was adopted.

Parkman is of the opinion that La Salle proposed his expedition

against the Spaniards in the hope that the conclusion of peace

between France and Spain would prevent its execution and that he

might then use the aid he had thus received in establishing a

fortified commercial colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. See E.

T. Miller, "The Connection of Peñalosa with the La Salle Expedition,"

in the _Quarterly_ of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. v.

(Austin, Tex., 1902).

LA SALLE, ST JEAN BAPTISTE DE (1651-1719), founder of the order of

Christian Brothers, was born at Reims. The son of a rich lawyer, his

father's influence early secured him a canonry in the cathedral; there

he established a school, where free elementary instruction was given to

poor children. The enterprise soon broadened in scope; a band of

enthusiastic assistants gathered round him; he resolved to resign his

canonry, and devote himself entirely to education. His assistants were

organized into a community, which gradually rooted itself all over

France; and a training-school for teachers, the Collège de Saint-Yon,

was set up at Rouen. In 1725, six years after the founder's death, the

society was recognized by the pope, under the official title of

"Brothers of the Christian Schools"; its members took the usual monastic

vows, but did not aspire to the priesthood. During the first hundred

years of its existence its activities were mainly confined to France;

during the 19th century it spread to most of the countries of western

Europe, and has been markedly successful in the United States. When La

Salle was canonized in 1900, the total number of brothers was estimated

at 15,000. Although the order has been chiefly concerned with elementary

schools, it undertakes most branches of secondary and technical

education; and it has served as a model for other societies, in Ireland

and elsewhere, slightly differing in character from the original

institute.

LA SALLE, a city of La Salle county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the Illinois

river, near the head of navigation, 99 m. S.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1900)

10,446, of whom 3471 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 11,537. The city

is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island

& Pacific, and the Illinois Central railways, and by the Illinois &

Michigan Canal, of which La Salle is the western terminus. The city has

a public library. The principal industries are the smelting of zinc and

the manufacture of cement, rolled zinc, bricks, sulphuric acid and

clocks; in 1905 the city's factory products were valued at $3,158,173.

In the vicinity large quantities of coal are mined, for which the city

is an important shipping point. The municipality owns and operates the

waterworks and the electric lighting plant. The first settlement was

made here in 1830; and the place which was named in honour of the

explorer, René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was chartered as a

city in 1852 and rechartered in 1876.

LASAULX, ARNOLD CONSTANTIN PETER FRANZ VON (1839-1886), German

mineralogist and petrographer, was born at Castellaun near Coblenz on

the 14th of June 1839. He was educated at Berlin, where he took his Ph.

D. in 1868. In 1875 he became professor of mineralogy at Breslau, and in

1880 professor of mineralogy and geology at Bonn. He was distinguished

for his researches on minerals and on crystallography, and he was one of

the earlier workers on microscopic petrography. He described in 1878 the

eruptive rocks of the district of Saar and Moselle. In 1880 he edited

_Der Aetna_ from the MSS. of Dr W. Sartorius von Waltershausen, the

results of observations made between the years 1834-1869. He was author

of _Elemente der Petrographie_ (1875), _Einführung in die Gesteinslehre_

(1885), and _Précis de pétrographie_ (1887). He died at Bonn on the 25th

of January 1886.

LASCAR, the name in common use for all oriental, and especially Indian,

sailors, which has been adopted in England into the Merchant Shipping

Acts, though without any definition. It is derived from the Persian

_lashkar_ = army, or camp, in which sense it is still used in India,

e.g. Lashkar, originally the camp, now the permanent capital, of Sindhia

at Gwalior. It would seem to have been applied by the Portuguese, first

to an inferior class of men in military service (cf. "gun-lascars"), and

then to sailors as early as the 17th century. The form _askari_ on the

east coast of Africa, equivalent to "sepoy," comes from the Arabic

'_askar_ = army, which is believed to be itself taken from the Persian.

LASCARIS, CONSTANTINE (d. 1493 or 1500), Greek scholar and grammarian,

one of the promoters of the revival of Greek learning in Italy, was born

at Constantinople. He was a member of the noble Bithynian family, which

had furnished three emperors of Nicaea during the 13th century. After

the fall of Constantinople in 1453, he took refuge first in Corfu and

then in Italy, where Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, appointed him

Greek tutor to his daughter. Here was published his _Grammatica Graeca,

sive compendium octo orationis partium_, remarkable as being the first

book entirely in Greek issued from the printing press. After leaving

Milan, Lascaris taught in Rome under the patronage of Cardinal

Bessarion, and in Naples, whither he had been summoned by Ferdinand I.

to deliver a course of lectures on Greece. Ultimately, on the invitation

of the inhabitants, he settled in Messina, Sicily, where he continued to

teach publicly until his death. Among his numerous pupils here was

Pietro Bembo. Lascaris bequeathed his library of valuable MSS. to the

senate of Messina; the collection was afterwards carried to Spain and

lodged in the Escurial.

The _Grammatica_, which has often been reprinted, is the only work of

value produced by Lascaris. Some of his letters are given by J.

Iriarte in the _Regiae Bibliothecae Matritensis codices Graeci

manuscripti_, i. (Madrid, 1769). His name is known to modern readers

in the romance of A. F. Villemain, _Lascaris, ou les Grecs du

quinzième siècle_ (1825). See also J. E. Sandys, _Hist. Class.

Schol._, ed. 2, vol. ii. (1908), pp. 76 foll.

LASCARIS, JOANNES [JOHN], or JANUS (c. 1445-1535), Greek scholar,

probably the younger brother of Constantine Lascaris, surnamed

Rhyndacenus from the river Rhyndacus in Bithynia, his native province.

After the fall of Constantinople he was taken to the Peloponnese, thence

to Crete, and ultimately found refuge in Florence at the court of

Lorenzo de' Medici, whose intermediary he was with the sultan Bayezid

II. in the purchase of Greek MSS. for the Medicean library. On the

expulsion of the Medici from Florence, at the invitation of Charles

VIII. of France, Lascaris removed to Paris (1495), where he gave public

instruction in Greek. By Louis XII. he was several times employed on

public missions, amongst others to Venice (1503-1508), and in 1515 he

appears to have accepted the invitation of Leo X. to take charge of the

Greek college he had founded at Rome. We afterwards (1518) find Lascaris

employed along with Budaeus (Budé) by Francis I. in the formation of the

royal library at Fontainebleau, and also again sent in the service of

the French crown to Venice. He died at Rome, whither he had been

summoned by Pope Paul III., in 1535. Among his pupils was Musurus.

Amongst other works, Lascaris edited or wrote: _Anthologia

epigrammatum Graecorum_ (1494), in which he ascribed the collection of

the Anthology to Agathias, not to Planudes; _Didymi Alexandrini

scholia in Iliadem_ (1517); Porphyrius of Tyre's _Homericarum

quaestionum liber_ (1518); _De veris Graecarum litterarum formis ac

causis apud antiquos_ (Paris, 1556). See H. Hody, _De Graecis

illustribus_ (London, 1742); W. Roscoe, _Life of Leo X._ ii. (1846);

C. F. Börner, _De doctis hominibus Graecis_ (Leipzig, 1750); A.

Horawitz in Ersch & Gruber's _Allgemeine Encyclopädie_; J. E. Sandys,

_Hist. Class. Schol._, ed. 2, vols. ii. (1908), p. 78.

LAS CASAS, BARTOLOMÉ DE (1474-1566), for some time bishop of Chiapa in

Mexico, and known to posterity as "The Apostle of the Indies," was a

native of Seville. His father, one of the companions of Columbus in the

voyage which resulted in the discovery of the New World, sent him to

Salamanca, where he graduated. In 1498 he accompanied his father in an

expedition under Columbus to the West Indies, and in 1502 he went with

Nicolás de Ovando, the governor, to Hayti, where in 1510 he was admitted

to holy orders, being the first priest ordained in the American

colonies. In 1511 he passed over to Cuba to take part in the work of

"population and pacification," and in 1513 or 1514 he witnessed and

vainly endeavoured to check the massacre of Indians at Caonao. Soon

afterwards there was assigned to him and his friend Renteria a large

village in the neighbourhood of Zagua, with a number of Indians attached

to it in what was known as _repartimiento_ (allotment); like the rest of

his countrymen he made the most of this opportunity for growing rich,

but occasionally celebrated mass and preached. Soon, however, having

become convinced of the injustice connected with the _repartimiento_

system, he began to preach against it, at the same time giving up his

own slaves. With the consent of his partner he resolved to go to Spain

on behalf of the oppressed natives, and the result of his

representations was that in 1516 Cardinal Jimenes caused a commission to

be sent out for the reform of abuses, Las Casas himself, with the title

of "protector of the Indians," being appointed to advise and report on

them. This commission had not been long at San Domingo before Las Casas

perceived the indifference of his coadjutors to the cause which he

himself had at heart, and July 1517 found him again in Spain, where he

developed his scheme for the complete liberation of the Indians--a

scheme which not only included facilities for emigration from Spain, but

was intended to give to each Spanish resident in the colonies the right

of importing twelve negro slaves. The emigration movement proved a

failure, and Las Casas lived long enough to express his shame for having

been so slow to see that Africans were as much entitled to freedom as

were the natives of the New World. Overwhelmed with disappointment, he

retired to the Dominican monastery in Haiti; he joined the order in 1522

and devoted eight years to study. About 1530 he appears to have

revisited the Spanish court, but on what precise errand is not known;

the confusion concerning this period of his life extends to the time

when, after visits to Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Guatemala, he

undertook an expedition in 1537 into Tuzulutlan, the inhabitants of

which were, chiefly through his tact, peaceably converted to

Christianity, mass being celebrated for the first time amongst them in

the newly founded town of Rabinal in 1538. In 1539 Las Casas was sent to

Spain to obtain Dominican recruits, and through Loaysa, general of the

order, and confessor of Charles V., he was successful in obtaining royal

orders and letters favouring his enterprise. During this stay in Europe,

which lasted more than four years, he visited Germany to see the

emperor; he also (1542) wrote his _Veynte Razones_, in defence of the

liberties of the Indians and the _Brevisima Relacion de la Destruycion

des las Indias occidentales_, the latter of which was published some

twelve years later. In 1543 he refused the Mexican bishopric of Cuzco,

but was prevailed upon to accept that of Chiapa, for which he sailed in

1544. Thwarted at every point by the officials, and outraged by his

countrymen in his attempt to carry out the new laws which his humanity

had procured, he returned to Spain and resigned his dignity (1547). In

1550 he met Sepúlveda in public debate on the theses drawn from the

recently published _Apologia pro libro de justis belli causis_, in which

the latter had maintained the lawfulness of waging unprovoked war upon

the natives of the New World. The course of the discussion may be traced

in the account of the _Disputa_ contained in the _Obras_ (1552). In 1565

Las Casas successfully remonstrated with Philip II. against the

financial project for selling the reversion of the _encomiendas_--a

project which would have involved the Indians in hopeless bondage. In

July of the following year he died at Madrid, whither he had gone to

urge (and with success) the necessity of restoring a court of justice

which had been suppressed in Guatemala. His _Historia de las Indias_ was

not published till 1875-1876.

Sir Arthur Helps' _Life of Las Casas_ (London, 1868) has not been

superseded; but see also F. A. MacNutt, _Bartholomew de Las Casas_

(1909).

LAS CASES, EMMANUEL AUGUSTIN DIEUDONNÉ MARIN JOSEPH, MARQUIS

(1766-1842), French official, was born at the castle of Las Cases near

Revel in Languedoc. He was educated at the military schools of Vendôme

and Paris; he entered the navy and took part in various engagements of

the years 1781-1782. The outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 caused him

to "emigrate," and he spent some years in Germany and England, sharing

in the disastrous Quiberon expedition (1795). He was one of the few

survivors and returned to London, where he lived in poverty. He returned

to France during the Consulate with other royalists who rallied to the

side of Napoleon, and stated afterwards to the emperor that he was

"conquered by his glory." Not until 1810 did he receive much notice from

Napoleon, who then made him a chamberlain and created him a count of the

empire (he was marquis by hereditary right). After the first abdication

of the emperor (11th of April 1814), Las Cases retired to England, but

returned to serve Napoleon during the Hundred Days. The second

abdication opened up for Las Cases the most noteworthy part of his

career. He withdrew with the ex-emperor and a few other trusty followers

to Rochefort; and it was Las Cases who first proposed and strongly urged

the emperor to throw himself on the generosity of the British nation.

Las Cases made the first overtures to Captain Maitland of H.M.S.

"Bellerophon" and received a guarded reply, the nature of which he

afterwards misrepresented. Las Cases accompanied the ex-emperor to St

Helena and acted informally but very assiduously as his secretary,

taking down numerous notes of his conversations which thereafter took

form in the famous _Mémorial de Ste Hélène_. The limits of this article

preclude an attempt at assessing the value of this work. It should be

read with great caution, as the compiler did not scruple to insert his

own thoughts and to colour the expressions of his master. In some cases

he misstated facts and even fabricated documents. It is far less

trustworthy than the record penned by Gourgaud in his _Journal_.

Disliked by Montholon and Gourgaud, Las Cases seems to have sought an

opportunity to leave the island when he had accumulated sufficient

literary material. However that may be, he infringed the British

regulations in such a way as to lead to his expulsion by the governor,

Sir Hudson Lowe (November, 1816). He was sent first to the Cape of Good

Hope and thence to Europe, but was not at first allowed by the

government of Louis XVIII. to enter France. He resided at Brussels; but,

gaining permission to come to Paris after the death of Napoleon, he took

up his residence there, published the _Mémorial_, and soon gained an

enormous sum from it. He died in 1842 at Passy.

See _Mémoires de E. A. D., comte de Las Cases_ (Brussels, 1818);

_Mémorial de Ste Hélène_ (4 vols., London and Paris, 1823; often

republished and translated); _Suite au mémorial de Ste Hélène, ou

observations critiques_, &c. (2 vols., Paris, 1824), anonymous, but

known to be by Grille and Musset-Pathay. See too GOURGAUD, MONTHOLON,

and LOWE, SIR HUDSON. (J. Hl. R.)

LASHIO, the headquarters of the superintendent, northern Shan States,

Burma, situated in 22° 56´ N. and 97° 45´ E. at an altitude of 3100 ft.,

on a low spur overlooking the valley of the Nam Yao. It is the present

terminus of the Mandalay-Kun Long railway and of the government cart

road from Mandalay, from which it is 178 m. distant. It consists of the

European station, with court house and quarters for the civil officers;

the military police post, the headquarters of the Lashio battalion of

military police; the native station, in which the various nationalities,

Shans, Burmans, Hindus and Mahommedans, are divided into separate

quarters, with reserves for government servants and for the temporary

residences of the five sawbwas of the northern Shan States; and a

bazaar. Under Burmese rule Lashio was also the centre of authority for

the northern Shan States, but the Burmese post in the valley was close

to the Nam Yao, in an old Chinese fortified camp. The Lashio valley was

formerly very populous; but a rebellion, started by the sawbwa of

Hsenwi, about ten years before the British occupation, ruined it, and it

is only slowly approaching the prosperity it formerly enjoyed; pop.

(1901) 2565. The annual rainfall averages 54 in. The average maximum

temperature is 80.5° and the average minimum 55.5°.

LASKER, EDUARD (1829-1884), German publicist, was born on the 14th of

October 1829, at Jarotschin, a village in Posen, being the son of a

Jewish tradesman. He attended the gymnasium, and afterwards the

university of Breslau. In 1848, after the outbreak of the revolution, he

went to Vienna and entered the students' legion which took so prominent

a part in the disturbances; he fought against the imperial troops during

the siege of the city in October. He then continued his legal studies at

Breslau and Berlin, and after a visit of three years to England, then

the model state for German liberals, entered the Prussian judicial

service. In 1870 he left the government service, and in 1873 was

appointed to an administrative post in the service of the city of

Berlin. He had been brought to the notice of the political world by some

articles he wrote from 1861 to 1864, which were afterwards published

under the title _Zur Verfassungsgeschichte Preussens_ (Leipzig, 1874),

and in 1865 he was elected member for one of the divisions of Berlin in

the Prussian parliament. He joined the radical or _Fortschritts_ party,

and in 1867 was also elected to the German parliament, but he helped to

form the national liberal party, and in consequence lost his seat in

Berlin, which remained faithful to the radicals; after this he

represented Magdeburg and Frankfort-on-Main in the Prussian, and

Meiningen in the German, parliament. He threw himself with great energy

into his parliamentary duties, and quickly became one of its most

popular and most influential members. An optimist and idealist, he

joined to a fervent belief in liberty an equal enthusiasm for German

unity and the idea of the German state. His motion that Baden should be

included in the North German Confederation in January 1870 caused much

embarrassment to Bismarck, but was not without effect in hastening the

crisis of 1870. His great work, however, was the share he took in the

judicial reform during the ten years 1867-1877. To him more than to any

other single individual is due the great codification of the law. While

he again and again was able to compel the government to withdraw or

amend proposals which seemed dangerous to liberty, he opposed those

liberals who, unable to obtain all the concessions which they called

for, refused to vote for the new laws as a whole. A speech made by

Lasker on the 7th of February 1873, in which he attacked the management

of the Pomeranian railway, caused a great sensation, and his exposure of

the financial mismanagement brought about the fall of Hermann Wagener,

one of Bismarck's most trusted assistants. By this action he caused,

however, some embarrassment to his party. This is generally regarded as

the beginning of the reaction against economic liberalism by which he

and his party were to be deprived of their influence. He refused to

follow Bismarck in his financial and economic policy after 1878; always

unsympathetic to the chancellor, he was now selected for his most bitter

attacks. Between the radicals and socialists on the one side and the

government on the other, like many of his friends, he was unable to

maintain himself. In 1879 he lost his seat in the Prussian parliament;

he joined the _Sezession_, but was ill at ease in his new position.

Broken in health and spirits by the incessant labours of the time when

he did "half the work of the Reichstag," he went in 1883 for a tour in

America, and died suddenly in New York on the 5th of January 1884.

Lasker's death was the occasion of a curious episode, which caused

much discussion at the time. The American House of Representatives

adopted a motion of regret, and added to it these words: "That his

loss is not alone to be mourned by the people of his native land,

where his firm and constant exposition of, and devotion to, free and

liberal ideas have materially advanced the social, political and

economic conditions of these people, but by the lovers of liberty

throughout the world." This motion was sent through the American

minister at Berlin to the German foreign office, with a request that

it might be communicated to the president of the Reichstag. It was to

ask Bismarck officially to communicate a resolution in which a foreign

parliament expressed an opinion in German affairs exactly opposed to

that which the emperor at his advice had always followed. Bismarck

therefore refused to communicate the resolution, and returned it

through the German minister at Washington.

Among Lasker's writings may be mentioned: _Zur Geschichte der

parlamentarischen Entwickelung Preussens_ (Leipzig, 1873), _Die

Zukunft des Deutschen Reichs_ (Leipzig, 1877) and _Wege und Ziele der_

_Kulturentwickelung_ (Leipzig, 1881). After his death his _Fünfzehn

Jahre parlamentarischer Geschichte 1866-1880_ appeared edited by W.

Cahn (Berlin, 1902). See also L. Bamberger, _Eduard Lasker,

Gedenkrede_ (Leipzig, 1884); A. Wolff, _Zur Erinnerung an Eduard

Lasker_ (Berlin, 1884); Freund, _Einiges über Eduard Lasker_ (Leipzig,

1885); and _Eduard Lasker, seine Biographie und letzte öffentliche

Rede_, by various writers (Stuttgart, 1884). (J. W. He.)

LASKI, the name of a noble and powerful Polish family, is taken from the

town of Lask, the seat of their lordship.

JAN LASKI, the elder (1456-1531), Polish statesman and ecclesiastic,

appears to have been largely self-taught and to have owed everything to

the remarkable mental alertness which was hereditary in the Laski

family. He took orders betimes, and in 1495 was secretary to the Polish

chancellor Zawisza Kurozwecki, in which position he acquired both

influence and experience. The aged chancellor entrusted the sharp-witted

young ecclesiastic with the conduct of several important missions.

Twice, in 1495 and again in 1500, he was sent to Rome, and once on a

special embassy to Flanders, of which he has left an account. On these

occasions he had the opportunity of displaying diplomatic talent of a

high order. On the accession to the Polish throne in 1501 of the

indolent Alexander, who had little knowledge of Polish affairs and

chiefly resided in Lithuania, Laski was appointed by the senate the

king's secretary, in which capacity he successfully opposed the growing

separatist tendencies of the grand-duchy and maintained the influence of

Catholicism, now seriously threatened there by the Muscovite propaganda.

So struck was the king by his ability that on the death of the Polish

chancellor in 1503 he passed over the vice-chancellor Macics Dzewicki

and confided the great seal to Laski. As chancellor Laski supported the

_szlachta_, or country-gentlemen, against the lower orders, going so far

as to pass an edict excluding henceforth all plebeians from the higher

benefices of the church. Nevertheless he approved himself such an

excellent public servant that the new king, Sigismund I., made him one

of his chief counsellors. In 1511 the chancellor, who ecclesiastically

was still only a canon of Cracow, obtained the coveted dignity of

archbishop of Gnesen which carried with it the primacy of the Polish

church. In the long negotiations with the restive and semi-rebellious

Teutonic Order, Laski rendered Sigismund most important political

services, proposing as a solution of the question that Sigismund should

be elected grand master, while he, Laski, should surrender the primacy

to the new candidate of the knights, Albert of Brandenburg, a solution

which would have been far more profitable to Poland than the ultimate

settlement of 1525. In 1513 Laski was sent to the Lateran council,

convened by Pope Julius II., to plead the cause of Poland against the

knights, where both as an orator and as a diplomatist he brilliantly

distinguished himself. This mission was equally profitable to his

country and himself, and he succeeded in obtaining from the pope for the

archbishops of Gnesen the title of _legati nati_. In his old age Laski's

partiality for his nephew, Hieronymus, led him to support the

candidature of John Zapolya, the protégé of the Turks, for the Hungarian

crown so vehemently against the Habsburgs that Clement VII.

excommunicated him, and the shock of this disgrace was the cause of his

sudden death in 1531. Of his numerous works the most noteworthy are his

collection of Polish statutes entitled: _Statuta provinciae gnesnensis

antiqua, &c._ (Cracow, 1525-1528) and _De Ruthenorum nationibus eorumque

erroribus_, printed at Nuremberg.

See Heinrich R. von Zeissberg, _Joh. Laski, Erzbischof in Gnesen_

(Vienna, 1874); and Jan Korytkowski, _Jan Laski, Archbishop of Gnesen_

(Gnesen, 1880).

HIERONYMUS JAROSLAW LASKI (1496-1542), Polish diplomatist, nephew of

Archbishop Laski, was successively palatine of Inowroclaw and of

Sieradia. His first important mission was to Paris in 1524, ostensibly

to contract an anti-Turkish league with the French king, but really to

bring about a matrimonial alliance between the dauphin, afterwards Henry

II., and the daughter of King Sigismund I., a project which failed

through no fault of Laski's. The collapse of the Hungarian monarchy at

Mohacs (1526) first opened up a wider career to Laski's adventurous

activity. Contrary to the wishes of his own sovereign, Sigismund I.,

whose pro-Austrian policy he detested, Laski entered the service of John

Zapolya, the Magyar competitor for the Hungarian throne, thereby

seriously compromising Poland both with the emperor and the pope.

Zapolya despatched him on an embassy to Paris, Copenhagen and Munich for

help, but on his return he found his patron a refugee in Transylvania,

whither he had retired after his defeat by the German king Ferdinand I.

at Tokay in 1527. In his extremity Zapolya placed himself under the

protection of the sultan, Laski being sent to Constantinople as his

intermediary. On his way thither he was attacked and robbed of

everything, including his credentials and the rich presents without

which no negotiations were deemed possible at the Porte. But Laski was

nothing if not audacious. Proceeding on his way to the Turkish capital

empty-handed, he nevertheless succeeded in gaining the confidence of

Gritti, the favourite of the grand vizier, and ultimately persuaded the

sultan to befriend Zapolya and to proclaim him king of Hungary. He went

still further, and without the slightest authority for his action

concluded a ten years' truce between his old master King Sigismund of

Poland and the Porte. He then returned to Hungary at the head of 10,000

men, with whose aid he enabled Zapolya to re-establish his position and

defeat Ferdinand at Saros-Patak. He was rewarded with the countship of

Zips and the governor-generalship of Transylvania. But his influence

excited the jealousy of the Magyars, and Zapolya was persuaded to

imprison him. On being released by the interposition of the Polish grand

hetman, Tarnowski, he became the most violent opponent of Zapolya.

Shortly after his return to Poland, Laski died suddenly at Cracow,

probably poisoned by one of his innumerable enemies.

See Alexander Hirschberg, _Hieronymus Laski_ (Pol.) (Lemberg, 1888).

JAN LASKI, the younger (1499-1560), also known as _Johannes a Lasco_,

Polish reformer, son of Jaroslaw (d. 1523), voivode of Sieradia and

nephew of the famous Archbishop Laski. During his academical course

abroad he made the acquaintance of Zwingli and Erasmus and returned to

Poland in 1526 saturated with the new doctrines. Nevertheless he took

orders, and owing to the influence of his uncle obtained the bishopric

of Veszprem in Hungary from King John Zapolya, besides holding a canonry

of Cracow and the office of royal secretary. In 1531 he resigned all his

benefices rather than give up a woman whom he had secretly married, and

having incurred general reprobation and the lasting displeasure of his

uncle the archbishop, he fled to Germany, where ultimately (1543) he

adopted the Augsburg Confession. For the next thirteen years Laski was a

wandering apostle of the new doctrines. He was successively

superintendent at Emden and in Friesland, passed from thence to London

where he became a member of the so-called _ecclesia peregrinorum_, a

congregation of foreign Protestants exiled in consequence of the

Augsburg Interim of 1548 and, on being expelled by Queen Mary, took

refuge first in Denmark and subsequently at Frankfort-on-Main, where he

was greatly esteemed. From Frankfort he addressed three letters (printed

at Basel) to King Sigismund, Augustus, and the Polish gentry and people,

urging the conversion of Poland to Protestantism. In 1556, during the

brief triumph of the anti-catholics, he returned to his native land,

took part in the synod of Brzesc, and published a number of polemical

works, the most noteworthy of which were _Forma ac ratio tota

ecclesiastici ministerii in peregrinorum Ecclesiae instituta_ (Pinczow,

1560), and in Polish, _History of the Cruel Persecution of the Church of

God in 1567_, republished in his _Opera_, edited by A. Kuyper at

Amsterdam in 1866. He died at Pinczow in January 1560 and was buried

with great pomp by the Polish Protestants, who also struck a medal in

his honour. Twice married, he left two sons and two daughters. His

nephew (?) Albert Laski, who visited England in 1583, wasted a fortune

in aid of Dr Dee's craze for the "philosopher's stone." Laski's writings

are important for the organization of the _ecclesia peregrinorum_, and

he was concerned in the Polish version of the Bible, not published till

1563.

See H. Dalton, _Johannes a Lasco_ (1881), English version of the

earlier portion by J. Evans (1886); Bartels, _Johannes a Lasco_

(1860); Harboe, _Schicksale des Johannes a Lasco_ (1758); R. Wallace,

_Antitrinitarian Biography_ (1850); Bonet-Maury, _Early Sources of

Eng. Unit. Christianity_ (1884); W. A. J. Archbold in _Dict. Nat.

Biog._ (1892) under "Laski," George Pascal, _Jean de Lasco_ (Paris,

1894); _Life_ in Polish by Antoni Walewski (Warsaw, 1872); and Julian

Bukowski, _History of the Reformation in Poland_ (Pol.) (Cracow,

1883). (R. N. B.)

LAS PALMAS, the capital of the Spanish island of Grand Canary, in the

Canary archipelago, and of an administrative district which also

comprises the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura; on the east coast,

in 28° 7´ N. and 5° 24´ W. Pop. (1900) 44,517. Las Palmas is the largest

city in the Canary Islands, of which it was the capital until 1833. It

is the seat of a court of appeal, of a brigadier, who commands the

military forces in the district, of a civil lieutenant-governor, who is

independent of the governor-general except in connexion with elections

and municipal administration, and of a bishop, who is subordinate to the

archbishop of Seville. The palms from which the city derives its name

are still characteristic of the fertile valley which it occupies. Las

Palmas is built on both banks of a small river, and although parts of it

date from the 16th century, it is on the whole a clean and modern city,

well drained, and supplied with pure water, conveyed by an aqueduct from

the highlands of the interior. Its principal buildings include a

handsome cathedral, founded in the 16th century but only completed in

the 19th, a theatre, a museum, an academy of art, and several hospitals

and good schools. The modern development of Las Palmas is largely due to

the foreign merchants, and especially to the British who control the

greater portion of the local commerce. La Luz, the port, is connected

with Las Palmas by a railway 4 m. long; it is a free port and harbour of

refuge, officially considered the third in importance of Spanish ports,

but actually the first in the matter of tonnage. It is strongly

fortified. The harbour, protected by the promontory of La Isleta, which

is connected with the mainland by a narrow bar of sand, can accommodate

the largest ships, and affords secure anchorage in all weathers. Ships

can discharge at the breakwater (1257 yds. long) or at the Santa

Catalina mole, constructed in 1883-1902. The minimum depth of water

alongside the quays is 4½ ft. There are floating water-tanks, numerous

lighters, titan and other cranes, repairing workshops, and very large

supplies of coal afloat and ashore. La Luz is one of the principal

Atlantic coaling stations, and the coal-trade is entirely in British

hands. Other important industries are shipbuilding, fishing, and the

manufacture of glass, leather and hats. The chief exports are fruit,

vegetables, sugar, wine and cochineal; coal, iron, cement, timber,

petroleum, manure, textiles and provisions are the chief imports. (See

also CANARY ISLANDS.)

LASSALLE, FERDINAND (1825-1864), German socialist, was born at Breslau

on the 11th of April 1825, of Jewish extraction. His father, a

prosperous merchant in Breslau, intended Ferdinand for a business

career, and sent him to the commercial school at Leipzig; but the boy

got himself transferred to the university, first at Breslau, and

afterwards at Berlin. His favourite studies were philology and

philosophy; he became an ardent Hegelian. Having completed his

university studies in 1845, he began to write a work on Heraclitus from

the Hegelian point of view; but it was soon interrupted by more stirring

interests, and did not see the light for many years. It was in Berlin,

towards the end of 1845, that he met the lady with whom his life was to

be associated in so remarkable a way, the Countess Hatzfeldt. She had

been separated from her husband for many years, and was at feud with him

on questions of property and the custody of their children. Lassalle

attached himself to the cause of the countess, whom he believed to have

been outrageously wronged, made special study of law, and, after

bringing the case before thirty-six tribunals, reduced the powerful

count to a compromise on terms most favourable to his client. The

process, which lasted ten years, gave rise to not a little scandal,

especially that of the _Cassettengeschichte_ which pursued Lassalle all

the rest of his life. This "affair of the casket" arose out of an

attempt by the countess's friends to get possession of a bond for a

large life annuity settled by the count on his mistress, a Baroness

Meyendorf, to the prejudice of the countess and her children. Two of

Lassalle's comrades succeeded in carrying off the casket, which

contained the lady's jewels, from the baroness's room at an hotel in

Cologne. They were prosecuted for theft, one of them being condemned to

six months' imprisonment. Lassalle, accused of moral complicity, was

acquitted on appeal. He was not so fortunate in 1849, when he underwent

a year's durance for resistance to the authorities of Düsseldorf during

the troubles of that stormy period. But going to prison was a familiar

experience in Lassalle's life. Till 1859 Lassalle resided mostly in the

Rhine country, prosecuting the suit of the countess, finishing the work

on Heraclitus, which was not published till 1858, taking little part in

political agitation, but ever a helpful friend of the working men. He

was not allowed to live in Berlin because of his connexion with the

disturbances of '48. In 1859, however, he entered the city disguised as

a carter, and, through the influence of Humboldt with the king, got

permission to stay there. The same year he published a remarkable

pamphlet on the _Italian War and the Mission of Prussia_, in which he

warned his countrymen against going to the rescue of Austria in her war

with France. He pointed out that if France drove Austria out of Italy

she might annex Savoy, but could not prevent the restoration of Italian

unity under Victor Emmanuel. France was doing the work of Germany by

weakening Austria; Prussia should form an alliance with France to drive

out Austria and make herself supreme in Germany. After their realization

by Bismarck these ideas have become sufficiently commonplace; but they

were nowise obvious when thus published by Lassalle. In 1861 he

published a great work in two volumes, _System der erworbenen Rechte_

(_System of Acquired Rights_).

Now began the short-lived activity which was to give him an historical

significance. It was early in 1862, when the struggle of Bismarck with

the Prussian liberals was already begun. Lassalle, a democrat of the

most advanced type, saw that an opportunity had come for asserting a

third great cause--that of the working men--which would outflank the

liberalism of the middle classes, and might even command the sympathy of

the government. His political programme was, however, entirely

subordinate to the social, that of bettering the condition of the

working classes, for which he believed the schemes of Schulze-Delitzsch

were utterly inadequate. Lassalle flung himself into the career of

agitator with his accustomed vigour. His worst difficulties were with

the working men themselves, among whom he met the most discouraging

apathy. His mission as organizer and emancipator of the working class

lasted only two years and a half. In that period he issued about twenty

separate publications, most of them speeches and pamphlets, but one of

them, that against Schulze-Delitzsch, a considerable treatise, and all

full of keen and vigorous thought. He founded the "Allgemeiner Deutscher

Arbeiterverein," was its president and almost single-handed champion,

conducted its affairs, and carried on a vast correspondence, not to

mention about a dozen state prosecutions in which he was during that

period involved. Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfort and the industrial centres

on the Rhine were the chief scenes of his activity. His greatest success

was on the Rhine, where in the summers of 1863 and 1864 his travels as

missionary of the new gospel resembled a triumphal procession. The

agitation was growing rapidly, but he had achieved little substantial

success when a most unworthy death closed his career.

While posing as the messiah of the poor, Lassalle was a man of decidedly

fashionable and luxurious habits. His suppers were well known as among

the most exquisite in Berlin. It was the most piquant feature of his

life that he, one of the gilded youth, a connoisseur in wines, and a

learned man to boot, had become agitator and the champion of the working

man. In one of the literary and fashionable circles of Berlin he had met

a Fräulein von Dönniges, for whom he at once felt a passion, which was

ardently reciprocated. In the summer of 1864 he met her again on the

Rigi, when they resolved to marry. She was a young lady of twenty,

decidedly unconventional and original in character, but the daughter of

a Bavarian diplomatist then resident at Geneva, who would have nothing

to do with Lassalle. The lady was imprisoned in her own room, and soon,

apparently under the influence of very questionable pressure, renounced

Lassalle in favour of another admirer, a Wallachian, Count von

Racowitza. Lassalle sent a challenge both to the lady's father and her

betrothed, which was accepted by the latter. At the Carouge, a suburb of

Geneva, the meeting took place on the morning of August 28, 1864, when

Lassalle was mortally wounded, and he died on the 31st of August. In

spite of such a foolish ending, his funeral was that of a martyr, and by

many of his adherents he has been regarded since with feelings almost of

religious devotion.

Lassalle did not lay claim to any special originality as a socialistic

thinker, nor did he publish any systematic statement of his views. Yet

his leading ideas are sufficiently clear and simple. Like a true

Hegelian he saw three stages in the development of labour: the ancient

and feudal period, which, through the subjection of the labourer,

sought solidarity without freedom; the reign of capital and the middle

classes, established in 1789, which sought freedom by destroying

solidarity; and the new era, beginning in 1848, which would reconcile

solidarity with freedom by introducing the principle of association.

It was the basis and starting-point of his opinions that, under the

empire of capital and so long as the working man was merely a receiver

of wages, no improvement in his condition could be expected. This

position he founded on the law of wages formulated by Ricardo, and

accepted by all the leading economists, that wages are controlled by

the ordinary relations of supply and demand, that a rise in wages

leads to an increase in the labouring population, which, by increasing

the supply of labour, is followed by a corresponding fall of wages.

Thus population increases or decreases in fixed relation to the rise

or fall of wages. The condition of the working man will never

permanently rise above the mere standard of living required for his

subsistence, and the continued supply of his kind. Lassalle held that

the co-operative schemes of Schulze-Delitzsch on the principle of

"self-help" were utterly inadequate, for the obvious reason that the

working classes were destitute of capital. The struggle of the working

man helping himself with his empty pockets against the capitalists he

compared to a battle with teeth and nails against modern artillery. In

short, Lassalle accepted the orthodox political economy to show that

the inevitable operation of its laws left no hope for the working

classes, and that no remedy could be found but by abolishing the

conditions in which these laws had their validity--in other words, by

abolishing the present relations of labour and capital altogether. And

this could only be done by the productive association of the working

men with money provided by the state. And he held that such

association should be the voluntary act of the working men, the

government merely reserving the right to examine the books of the

various societies. All the arrangements should be carried out

according to the rules of business usually followed in such

transactions. But how move the government to grant such a loan? Simply

by introducing (direct) universal suffrage. The working men were an

overwhelming majority; they were the state, and should control the

government. The aim of Lassalle, then, was to organize the working

classes into a great political power, which in the way thus indicated,

by peaceful resolute agitation, without violence or insurrection,

might attain the goal of productive association. In this way the

fourth estate would be emancipated from the despotism of the

capitalist, and a great step taken in the solution of the great

"social question."

It will be seen that the net result of Lassalle's life was to produce

a European scandal, and to originate a socialistic movement in

Germany, which, at the election of 1903, returned to the Reichstag

eighty-one members and polled 3,010,771 votes, and at the election of

1907 returned forty-three members and polled 3,258,968 votes. (The

diminution in the number of members returned in 1907 was due mostly to

combination among the different political groups.) This result, great

as it was, would hardly have been commensurate with his ambition,

which was boundless. In the heyday of his passion for Fräulein von

Dönniges, his dream was to be enthroned as the president of the German

republic with her seated at his side. With his energy, ability and

gift of dominating and organizing, he might indeed have done a great

deal. Bismarck coquetted with him as the representative of a force

that might help him to combat the Prussian liberals; in 1878, in a

speech before the Reichstag, he spoke of him with deep respect, as a

man of the greatest amiability and ability from whom much could be

learned. Even Bishop Ketteler of Mainz had declared his sympathy for

the cause he advocated.

Lassalle's _Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos_

(Berlin, 1858), and the _System der erworbenen Rechte_ (Leipzig, 1861)

are both marked by great learning and intellectual power. But of far

more historical interest are the speeches and pamphlets connected with

his socialistic agitation, of which the most important are--_Ueber

Verfassungswesen_; _Arbeiterprogramm_; _Offenes Antwortschreiben_;

_Zur Arbeiterfrage_; _Arbeiterlesebuch_; _Herr Bastiat-Schulze von

Delitzsch, oder Kapital und Arbeit_. His drama, _Franz von Sickingen_,

published in 1859, is a work of no poetic value. His _Collected Works_

were issued at Leipzig in 1899-1901.

The best biography of Lassalle is H. Oncken's _Lassalle_ (Stuttgart,

1904); another excellent work on his life and writings is George

Brandes's Danish work, _Ferdinand Lassalle_ (German translation, 4th

ed., Leipzig, 1900). See also A. Aaberg, _Ferdinand Lassalle_

(Leipzig, 1883); C. v. Plener, _Lassalle_ (Leipzig, 1884); G. Meyer,

_Lassalle als Sozialökonom_ (Berlin, 1894); Brandt, _F. Lassalles

sozialökonomische Anschauungen und praktische Vorschläge_ (Jena,

1895); Seillière, _Études sur Ferdinand Lassalle_ (Paris, 1897); E.

Bernstein, _Ferd. Lassalle und seine Bedeutung für die Arbeiterklasse_

(Berlin, 1904). There is a considerable literature on his love affair

and death; the most notable books are: _Meine Beziehungen zu F.

Lassalle_, by Helene von Racowitza, a very strange book; _Enthüllungen

über das tragische Lebensende F. Lassalle's_ by B. Becker; _Im

Anschluss an die Memoiren der H. von Racowitza_, by A. Kutschbach, and

George Meredith's _Tragic Comedians_ (1880). (T. K.)

LASSEN, CHRISTIAN (1800-1876), German orientalist, was born on the 22nd

of October 1800, at Bergen in Norway. Having received his earliest

university education at Christiania, he went to Germany, and continued

his studies at Heidelberg and Bonn. In the latter university Lassen

acquired a sound knowledge of Sanskrit. He next spent three years in

Paris and London, engaged in copying and collating MSS., and collecting

materials for future research, especially in reference to the Hindu

drama and philosophy. During this period he published, jointly with E.

Burnouf, his first work, _Essai sur le Pâli_ (Paris, 1826). On his

return to Bonn he studied Arabic, and took the degree of Ph.D., his

dissertation discussing the Arabic notices of the geography of the

Punjab (_Commentatio geographica atque historica de Pentapotamia

Indica_, Bonn, 1827). Soon after he was admitted _Privatdozent_, and in

1830 was appointed extraordinary and in 1840 ordinary professor of Old

Indian language and literature. In spite of a tempting offer from

Copenhagen, in 1841, Lassen remained faithful to the university of his

adoption to the end of his life. He died at Bonn on the 8th of May 1876,

having been affected with almost total blindness for many years. As

early as 1864 he was relieved of the duty of lecturing.

In 1829-1831 he brought out, in conjunction with August W. von

Schlegel, a critical annotated edition of the _Hitopadesa_. The

appearance of this edition marks the starting-point of the critical

study of Sanskrit literature. At the same time Lassen assisted von

Schlegel in editing and translating the first two cantos of the epic

_Ramayana_ (1829-1838). In 1832 he brought out the text of the first

act of Bhavabhuti's drama, _Malatimadhava_, and a complete edition,

with a Latin translation, of the _Sankhya-karika_. In 1837 followed

his edition and translation of Jayadeva's charming lyrical drama,

_Gitagovinda_ and his _Institutiones linguae Pracriticae_. His

_Anthologia Sanscritica_, which came out the following year (new ed.

by Johann Gildemeister, 1868), contained several hitherto unpublished

texts, and did much to stimulate the study of Sanskrit in German

universities. In 1846 Lassen brought out an improved edition of

Schlegel's text and translation of the "Bhagavadgita." He did not

confine himself to the study of Indian languages, but acted likewise

as a scientific pioneer in other fields of philological inquiry. In

his _Beiträge zur Deutung der Eugubinischen Tafeln_ (1833) he prepared

the way for the correct interpretation of the Umbrian inscriptions;

and the _Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes_ (7 vols.,

1837-1850), started and largely conducted by him, contains, among

other valuable papers from his pen, grammatical sketches of the

Beluchi and Brahui languages, and an essay on the Lycian inscriptions.

Soon after the appearance of Burnouf's _Commentaire sur le Yaçna_

(1833), Lassen also directed his attention to the Zend, and to Iranian

studies generally; and in _Die altpersischen Keilinschriften von

Persepolis_ (1836) he first made known the true character of the Old

Persian cuneiform inscriptions, thereby anticipating, by one month,

Burnouf's _Mémoire_ on the same subject, while Sir Henry Rawlinson's

famous memoir on the Behistun inscription, though drawn up in Persia,

independently of contemporaneous European research, at about the same

time, did not reach the Royal Asiatic Society until three years later.

Subsequently Lassen published, in the sixth volume of his journal

(1845), a collection of all the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions

known up to that date. He also was the first scholar in Europe who

took up, with signal success, the decipherment of the newly-discovered

Bactrian coins, which furnished him the materials for _Zur Geschichte

der griechischen und indo-skythischen Könige in Bakterien, Kabul, und

Indien_ (1838). He contemplated bringing out a critical edition of the

_Vendidad_; but, after publishing the first five fargards (1852), he

felt that his whole energies were required for the successful

accomplishment of the great undertaking of his life--his _Indische

Altertumskunde_. In this work--completed in four volumes, published

respectively in 1847 (2nd ed., 1867), 1849 (2nd ed., 1874), 1858 and

1861--which forms one of the greatest monuments of untiring industry

and critical scholarship, everything that could be gathered from

native and foreign sources, relative to the political, social and

intellectual development of India, from the earliest times down to the

Mahommedan invasion, was worked up by him into a connected historical

account.

LASSEN, EDUARD (1830-1904), Belgian musical composer, was born in

Copenhagen, but was taken as a child to Brussels and educated at the

Brussels Conservatoire. He won the _prix de Rome_ in 1851, and went for

a long tour in Germany and Italy. He settled at Weimar, where in 1861 he

succeeded Liszt as conductor of the opera, and he died there on the 15th

of January 1904. Besides many well-known songs, he wrote

operas--_Landgraf Ludwig's Brautfahrt_ (1857), _Frauenlob_ (1861), _Le

Captif_ (1868)--instrumental music to dramas, notably to Goethe's

_Faust_ (1876), two symphonies and various choral works.

LASSO (LASSUS), ORLANDO (c. 1530-1594), Belgian musical composer, whose

real name was probably Roland Delattre, was born at Mons, in Hainault,

probably not much earlier than 1532, the date given by the epitaph

printed at the end of the volumes of the _Magnum opus musicum_; though

already in the 16th century the opinions of his biographers were divided

between the years 1520 and 1530. Much is reported, but very little

known, of his connexions and his early career. The discrepancy as to the

date of his birth appears also in connexion with his appointment at the

church of St John Lateran in Rome. If he was born in 1530 or 1532 he

could not have obtained that appointment in 1541. What is certain is

that his first book of madrigals was published in Venice in 1555, and

that in the same year he speaks of himself in the preface of Italian and

French songs and Latin motets as if he had recently come from Rome. He

seems to have visited England in 1554 and to have been introduced to

Cardinal Pole, to whom an adulatory motet appears in 1556. (This is not,

as might hastily be supposed, a confusion resulting from the fact that

the ambassador from Ferdinand, king of the Romans, Don Pedro de Lasso,

attended the marriage of Philip and Mary in England in the same year.)

His first book of motets appeared at Antwerp in 1556, containing the

motet in honour of Cardinal Pole. The style of Orlando had already begun

to purify itself from the speculative and chaotic elements that led

Burney, who seems to have known only his earlier works, to call him "a

dwarf on stilts" as compared with Palestrina. But where he is orthodox

he is as yet stiff, and his secular compositions are, so far, better

than his more serious efforts.

In 1557, if not before, he was invited by Albrecht IV., duke of Bavaria,

to go to Munich. The duke was a most intelligent patron of all the fine

arts, a notable athlete, and a man of strict principles. Munich from

henceforth never ceased to be Orlando's home; though he sometimes paid

long visits to Italy and France, whether in response to royal

invitations or with projects of his own. In 1558 he made a very happy

marriage by which he had four sons and two daughters. The four sons all

became good musicians, and we owe an inestimable debt to the pious

industry of the two eldest sons, who (under the patronage of Duke

Maximilian I., the second successor of Orlando's master) published the

enormous collection of Orlando's Latin motets known as the _Magnum opus

musicum_.

Probably no composer has ever had more ideal circumstances for artistic

inspiration and expression than had Orlando. His duty was to make music

all day and every day, and to make it according to his own taste.

Nothing was too good, too severe or too new for the duke. Church music

was not more in demand than secular. Instrumental music, which in the

16th century had hardly any independent existence, accompanied the meals

of the court; and Orlando would rise from dessert to sing trios and

quartets with picked voices. The daily prayers included a full mass with

polyphonic music. This amazing state of things becomes more intelligible

and less alarming when we consider that 16th-century music was no sooner

written than it could be performed. With such material as Orlando had at

his disposal, musical performance was as unattended by expense and

tedious preliminaries as a game of billiards in a good billiard room.

Not even Haydn's position at Esterhaz can have enabled him, as has been

said, to "ring the bell" for musicians to come and try a new orchestral

effect with such ease as that with which Orlando could produce his work

at Munich. His fame soon became world-wide, and every contemporary

authority is full of the acclamation with which Orlando was greeted

wherever his travels took him.

Very soon, with this rapid means of acquiring experience, Orlando's

style became as pure as Palestrina's; while he always retained his

originality and versatility. His relations to the literary culture of

the time are intimate and fascinating; and during his stay at the court

of France in 1571 he became a friend of the poet Ronsard. In 1579 Duke

Albrecht died. Orlando's salary had already been guaranteed to him for

life, so that his outward circumstances did not change, and the new duke

was very kind to him. But the loss of his master was a great grief and

seems to have checked his activity for some time. In 1589, after the

publication of six Masses, ending with a beautiful _Missa pro

defunctis_, his strength began to fail; and a sudden serious illness

left him alarmingly depressed and inactive until his death on the 14th

of June 1594.

If Palestrina represents the supreme height attained by 16th-century

music, Orlando represents the whole century. It is impossible to

exaggerate the range and variety of his style, so long as we recognise

the limits of 16th-century musical language. Even critics to whom this

language is unfamiliar cannot fail to notice the glaring differences

between Orlando's numerous types of art, though such critics may believe

all those types to be equally crude and archaic. The swiftness of

Orlando's intellectual and artistic development is astonishing. His

first four volumes of madrigals show a very intermittent sense of

beauty. Many a number in them is one compact mass of the fashionable

harsh play upon the "false relation" between twin major and minor

chords, which is usually believed to be the unenviable distinction of

the English madrigal style from that of the Italians. It must be

confessed that in the Italian madrigal (as distinguished from the

_villanella_ and other light forms), Orlando never attained complete

certainty of touch, though some of his later madrigals are indeed

glorious. But in his French chansons, many of which are settings of the

poems of his friend Ronsard, his wit and lightness of touch are

unfailing. In setting other French poems he is sometimes unfortunately

most witty where the words are most gross, for he is as free from modern

scruples as any of his Elizabethan contemporaries. In 1562, when the

Council of Trent was censuring the abuses of Flemish church music,

Orlando had already purified his ecclesiastical style; though he did not

go so far as to Italianize it in order to oblige those modern critics

who are unwilling to believe that anything appreciably unlike Palestrina

can be legitimate. At the same time Orlando's Masses are not among his

greatest works. This is possibly partly due to the fact that the

proportions of a musical Mass are at the mercy of the local practice of

the liturgy; and that perhaps the uses of the court at Munich were not

quite so favourable to broadly designed proportion (not length) as the

uses of Rome. Differences which might cramp the 16th-century composer

need not amount to anything that would draw down the censure of

ecclesiastical authorities. Be this as it may, Orlando's other church

music is always markedly different from Palestrina's, and often fully as

sublime. It is also in many ways far more modern in resource. We

frequently come upon things like the _Justorum animae_ [Magnum Opus, No.

260 (301)] which in their way are as overpoweringly touching as, for

example, the Benedictus of Beethoven's _Mass in D_ or the soprano solo

in Brahms's _Deutsches Requiem_.

No one has approached Orlando in the ingenuity, quaintness and humour of

his tone-painting. He sometimes descends to extremely elaborate musical

puns, carrying farther than any other composer since the dark ages the

absurd device of setting syllables that happened to coincide with the

_sol-fa_ system to the corresponding _sol-fa_ notes. But in the most

absurd of such cases he evidently enjoys twisting these notes into a

theme of pregnant musical meaning. The quaintest instance is the motet

_Quid estis pusillanimes_ [Magnum Opus, No. 92 (69)] where extra

_sol-fa_ syllables are introduced into the text to make a good theme in

combination with the syllables already there by accident! (_An nescitis

Justitiae Ut Sol [Fa Mi] Re Laxatas_ _habenas possit denuo cohibere?_).

The significance of these euphuistic jokes is that they always make good

music in Orlando's hands. There is musical fun even in his voluminous

parody of the stammering style of word-setting in the burlesque motet

_S.U.Su. PER. per. super F.L.U._, which gets through one verse of a

psalm in fifteen minutes.

When it was a question of purely musical high spirits Orlando was

unrivalled; and his setting of Walter de Mape's _Fertur in conviviis_

(given in the _Magnum opus_ with a stupid moral derangement of the

text), and most of his French chansons, are among the most deeply

humorous music in the world.

But it is in the tests of the sublime that Orlando shows himself one of

the greatest minds that ever found expression in art. Nothing sublime

was too unfamiliar to frighten him into repressing his quaint fancy,

though he early repressed all that thwarted his musical nature. His

_Penitential Psalms_ stand with Josquin's _Miserere_ and Palestrina's

first book of _Lamentations_ as artistic monuments of 16th-century

penitential religion, just as Bach's _Matthew Passion_ stands alone

among such monuments in later art. Yet the passage (quoted by Sir Hubert

Parry in vol. 3 of the _Oxford History of Music_) "Nolite fieri sicut

mulus" is one among many traits which are ingeniously and grotesquely

descriptive without losing harmony with the austere profundity of the

huge works in which they occur. It is impossible to read any large

quantity of Orlando's mature music without feeling that a mind like his

would in modern times have covered a wider field of mature art than any

one classical or modern composer known to us. Yet we cannot say that

anything has been lost by his belonging to the 16th century. His music,

if only from its peculiar technique of crossing parts and unexpected

intervals, is exceptionally difficult to read; and hence intelligent

conducting and performance of it is rare. But its impressiveness is

beyond dispute; and there are many things which, like the _Justorum

animae_ cannot even be read, much less heard, without emotion.

Orlando's works as shown by the plan of Messrs Breitkopf & Härtel's

complete critical edition (begun in 1894) comprise: (1) the _Magnum

opus musicum_, a posthumous collection containing Latin pieces for

from two to twelve voices, 516 in number (or, counting by single

movements, over 700). Not all of these are to the original texts. The

_Magnum opus_ fills eleven volumes. (2) Five volumes of madrigals,

containing six books, and a large number of single madrigals, and

about half a volume of lighter Italian songs (villanellas, &c.). (3)

Three volumes (not four as in the prospectus) of French _chansons_.

(4) Two volumes of German four-part and five-part _Lieder_. (5) Serial

church music: three volumes, containing _Lessons from the Book of Job_

(two settings). _Passion according to St Matthew_ (i.e. like the

Passions of Victoria and Soriano, a setting of the words of the crowds

and of the disciples); _Lamentations_ of Jeremiah; _Morning Lessons_;

the _Officia_ printed in the third volume of the _Patroncinium_ (a

publication suggested and supported by Orlando's patrons and

containing eight entire volumes of his works); the Seven Penitential

Psalms; German Psalms and _Prophetiae Sibyllarum_, (6) one hundred

_Magnificats_ (_Jubilus B. M. Virginis_) 3 vols., (7) eight volumes of

Masses, (8) two volumes of Latin songs not in the _Magnum opus_, (9)

five volumes of unpublished works. (D. F. T.)

LASSO (Span. _lazo_, snare, ultimately from Lat. _laqueus_, cf. "lace"),

a rope 60 to 100 ft. in length with a slip-noose at one end, used in the

Spanish and Portuguese parts of America and in the western United States

for catching wild horses and cattle. It is now less employed in South

America than in the vast grazing country west of the Mississippi river,

where the herders, called locally cow-boys or cow-punchers, are provided

with it. When not in use, the lasso, called _rope_ in the West, is

coiled at the right of the saddle in front of the rider. When an animal

is to be caught the herder, galloping after it, swings the coiled lasso

round his head and casts it straight forward in such a manner that the

noose settles over the head or round the legs of the quarry, when it is

speedily brought into submission. A shorter rope called _lariat_ (Span.

_la reata_) is used to picket horses.

LAST. 1. (A syncopated form of "latest," the superlative of O.E. _laét_,

late), an adjective applied to the conclusion of anything, all that

remains after everything else has gone, or that which has just occurred.

In theology the "four last things" denote the final scenes of Death,

Judgment, Heaven and Hell; the "last day" means the Day of Judgment (see

ESCHATOLOGY).

2. (O.E. _lást_, footstep; the word appears in many Teutonic languages,

meaning foot, footstep, track, &c.; it is usually referred to a Teutonic

root _lais_, cognate with Lat. _lira_, a furrow; from this root, used

figuratively, came "learn" and "lore"), originally a footstep, trace or

track, now only used of the model of a foot in wood on which a shoemaker

makes boots and shoes; hence the proverb "let the cobbler stick to his

last," "_ne sutor ultra crepidam_."

3. (O.E. _hlaest_; the work is connected with the root seen in "lade,"

and is used in German and Dutch of a weight; it is also seen in

"ballast"), a commercial weight or measure of quantity, varying

according to the commodity and locality; originally applied to the load

of goods carried by the boat or wagon used in carrying any particular

commodity in any particular locality, it is now chiefly used as a weight

for fish, a "last" of herrings being equal to from 10,000 to 12,000

fish. The German _Last_ = 4000 lb, and this is frequently taken as the

nominal weight of an English "last." A "last" of wool = 12 sacks, and of

beer = 12 barrels.

LASUS, Greek lyric poet, of Hermione in Argolis, flourished about 510

B.C. A member of the literary and artistic circle of the Peisistratidae,

he was the instructor of Pindar in music and poetry and the rival of

Simonides. The dithyramb (of which he was sometimes considered the

actual inventor) was developed by him, by the aid of various changes in

music and rhythm, into an artistically constructed choral song, with an

accompaniment of several flutes. It became more artificial and mimetic

in character, and its range of subjects was no longer confined to the

adventures of Dionysus. Lasus further increased its popularity by

introducing prize contests for the best poem of the kind. His

over-refinement is shown by his avoidance of the letter _sigma_ (on

account of its hissing sound) in several of his poems, of one of which

(a hymn to Demeter of Hermione) a few lines have been preserved in

Athenaeus (xiv. 624 E). Lasus was also the author of the first

theoretical treatise on music.

See Suïdas s.v.; Aristophanes, _Wasps_, 1410, _Birds_, 1403 and

schol.; Plutarch, _De Musica_, xxix.; Müller and Donaldson, _Hist. of

Greek Literature_, i. 284; G. H. Bode, _Geschichte der hellenischen

Dichtkunst_, ii. pt. 2, p. 111; F. W. Schneidewin, _De Laso

Hermionensi Comment_. (Göttingen, 1842); Fragm. in Bergk, _Poet. Lyr._

LAS VEGAS, a city and the county-seat of San Miguel county, New Mexico,

U.S.A., in the north central part of New Mexico, on the Gallinas river,

and 83 m. by rail E. of Santa Fé. Though usually designated as a single

municipality, Las Vegas consists of two distinct corporations, the old

town on the W. bank of the river and the city proper on the E. bank.

Pop. of the city (1890) 2385; (1900) 3552 (340 being foreign-born and

116 negroes); (1910) 3755. According to local estimates, the combined

population of the city and the old town in 1908 was 10,000. Las Vegas is

served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé railway, and is its division

headquarters in New Mexico. The city lies in a valley at the foot of the

main range of the Rocky Mountains, and is about 6400 ft. above the sea.

There are high peaks to the W. and within a short distance of the city

much beautiful mountain scenery, especially along the "Scenic Route," a

highway from Las Vegas to Santa Fé, traversing the Las Vegas canyon and

the Pecos Valley forest reserve. The country E. of the city consists of

level plains. The small amount of rainfall, the great elevation and the

southern latitude give the region a dry and rarified air, and Las Vegas

is a noted health resort. Six miles distant, and connected with the city

by rail, are the Las Vegas Hot Springs. The old town on the W. bank of

the Gallinas river retains many features of a Mexican village, with low

adobe houses facing narrow and crooked streets. Its inhabitants are

largely of Spanish-American descent. The part on the E. bank or city

proper is thoroughly modern, with well-graded streets, many of them

bordered with trees. The most important public institutions are the New

Mexico insane asylum, the New Mexico normal university (chartered 1893,

opened 1898), the county court house (in the old town), the academy of

the Immaculate Conception, conducted by the Sisters of Loretto, Saint

Anthony's sanatorium, maintained by the Sisters of Charity, La Salle

institute, conducted by the Christian Brothers, a Presbyterian mission

school and a Methodist manual training and commercial school. There are

railway machine-shops, and various manufactories. Las Vegas lies in the

centre of an extensive grazing region, has large stockyards and annually

ships great quantities of wool. Three of the local newspapers are

published in Spanish. Las Vegas was founded in 1835, under the

government of the Mexican Republic. On the 15th of August 1846, during

the war between Mexico and the United States, Gen. Stephen W. Kearny

entered the town, and its alcalde took the oath of allegiance to the

United States. There was but little progress or development until the

arrival of the railway in 1879. In 1888 the part east of the river was

incorporated as a town under the name of East Las Vegas, and in 1896 it

was chartered as the city of Las Vegas. The old Las Vegas, west of the

river, was incorporated as a town in 1903.

LASWARI, one of the decisive battles of India. It was fought on the 1st

of November 1803 between the British under General Lake, and the

Mahratta troops of Sindia, consisting of the remnant of Perron's

battalions. Laswari is a village in the state of Alwar some 80 m. S. of

Delhi, and here Lake overtook the enemy and attacked them with his

cavalry before the infantry arrived. The result was indecisive, but when

the infantry came up there ensued one of the most evenly contested

battles ever fought between the British and the natives of India, which

ended in a complete victory for the British.

LATACUNGA (LLACTACUNGA, or, in local parlance, TACUNGA), a plateau town

of Ecuador, capital of the province of Léon, 46 m. S. of Quito, near the

confluence of the Alagues and Cutuchi to form the Patate, the headstream

of the Pastaza. Pop. (1900, estimate) 12,000, largely Indian. Latacunga

stands on the old road between Guayaquil and Quito and has a station on

the railway between those cities. It is 9141 ft. above sea-level; and

its climate is cold and unpleasant, owing to the winds from the

neighbouring snowclad heights, and the barren, pumice-covered table-land

on which it stands. Cotopaxi is only 25 m. distant, and the town has

suffered repeatedly from eruptions. Founded in 1534, it was four times

destroyed by earthquakes between 1698 and 1798. The neighbouring ruins

of an older native town are said to date from the Incas.

LA TAILLE, JEAN DE (c. 1540-1608), French poet and dramatist, was born

at Bondaroy. He studied the humanities in Paris under Muret, and law at

Orleans under Anne de Bourg. He began his career as a Huguenot, but

afterwards adopted a mild Catholicism. He was wounded at the battle of

Arnay-le Duc in 1570, and retired to his estate at Bondaroy, where he

wrote a political pamphlet entitled _Histoire abrégée des singeries de

la ligue_, often published with the _Satire Ménippée_. His chief poem is

a satire on the follies of court life, _Le Courtisan retiré_; he also

wrote a political poem, _Le Prince nécessaire_. But his fame rests on

his achievements in drama. In 1572 appeared the tragedy of _Saül le

furieux_, with a preface on _L' Art de la tragédie_. Like Jodelle,

Grévin, La Péruse and their followers, he wrote, not for the general

public to which the mysteries and farces had addressed themselves, but

for the limited audience of a lettered aristocracy. He therefore

depreciated the native drama and insisted on the Senecan model. In his

preface La Taille enunciates the unities of place, time and action; he

maintains that each act should have a unity of its own and that the

scenes composing it should be continuous; he objects to deaths on the

stage on the ground that the representation is unconvincing, and he

requires as subject of the tragedy an incident really terrible,

developed, if possible, by elaborate intrigue. He criticizes e.g. the

subject of the sacrifice of Abraham, chosen by Théodore de Bèze for his

tragedy (1551), as unsuitable because "pity and terror" are evoked from

the spectators without real cause. If in _Saül le furieux_ he did not

completely carry out his own convictions he developed his principal

character with great ability. A second tragedy, _La Famine ou les

Gabéonites_ (1573), is inferior in construction, but is redeemed by the

character of Rizpah. He was also the author of two comedies, _Le

Négromant_ and _Les Corrivaux_, both written apparently by 1562 but not

published until 1573. _Les Corrivaux_ is remarkable for its colloquial

prose dialogue, which foreshadows the excellence of later French comedy.

His brother, JACQUES DE LA TAILLE (1542-1562), composed a number of

tragedies, of which _La Mort de Daire_ and _La Mort d'Alexandre_ (both

published in 1573) are the chief. He is best known by his _Manière de

faire des vers en français comme en grec et en latin_, an attempt to

regulate French verse by quantity. He died of plague at the age of 20.

His _Poésies diverses_ were published in 1572.

The works of Jean de la Taille were edited by René de Maulde (4 vols.,

1878-1882). See also É. Faguet, _La Tragédie française au XVI^e

siècle_ (1883).

LATAKIA (anc. _Laodicea_), the chief town of a sanjak in the Beirut

vilayet of Syria, situated on the coast, opposite the island of Cyprus.

The oldest name of the town, according to Philo Herennius, was [Greek:

Ramitha] or [Greek: Leukè aktê] it received that of Laodicea (_ad mare_)

from Seleucus Nicator, who refounded it in honour of his mother as one

of the four "sister" cities of the Syrian Tetrapolis (Antioch, Seleucia,

Apamea, Laodicea). In the Roman period it was favoured by Caesar, and

took the name of Julia; and, though it suffered severely when the

fugitive Dolabella stood his last siege within its walls (43 B.C.),

Strabo describes it as a flourishing port, which supplied, from the

vineyards on the mountains, the greater part of the wine imported to

Alexandria. The town received the privileges of an Italian colony from

Severus, for taking his part against Antioch in the struggle with Niger.

Laodicea was the seat of an ancient bishopric, and even had some claim

to metropolitan rights. At the time of the crusades, "Liche," as Jacques

de Vitry says it was popularly called, was a wealthy city. It fell to

Tancred with Antioch in 1102, and was recovered by Saladin in 1188. A

Christian settlement was afterwards permitted to establish itself in the

town, and to protect itself by fortifications; but it was expelled by

Sultan Kala'un and the defences destroyed. By the 16th century Laodicea

had sunk very low; the revival in the beginning of the 17th was due to

the new trade in tobacco. The town has several times been almost

destroyed by earthquakes--in 1170, 1287 and 1822.

The people are chiefly employed in tobacco cultivation, silk and oil

culture, poultry rearing and the sponge fishery. There is a large export

of eggs to Alexandria; but the wealth of the place depends most on the

famous "Latakia" tobacco, grown in the plain behind the town and on the

Ansarieh hills. There are three main varieties, of which the worst is

dark in colour and strong in flavour; the best, grown in the districts

of Diryus and Amamareh, is light and aromatic, and is exported mainly to

Alexandria; but much goes also to Constantinople, Cyprus and direct to

Europe. After the construction of a road through Jebel Ansarieh to

Hamah, Latakia drew a good deal of traffic from upper Syria; but the

Hamah-Homs railway has now diverted much of this again. The products of

the surrounding district, however, cause the town to increase steadily,

and it is a regular port of call for the main Levantine lines of

steamers. The only notable object of antiquity is a triumphal arch,

probably of the early 3rd century, in the S.E. quarter of the modern

town. Latakia and its neighbourhood formerly produced a very beautiful

type of rug, examples of which are highly prized. (D. G. H.)

LATEEN (the Anglicized form of Fr. _latine_, i.e. _voile latine_, Latin

sail, so-called as the chief form of rig in the Mediterranean), a

certain kind of triangular sail, having a long yard by which it is

suspended to the mast. A "lateener" is a vessel rigged with a lateen

sail and yard. This rig was formerly much used, and is still the typical

sail of the _felucca_ of the Mediterranean, and _dhow_ of the Arabian

Sea.

LA TÈNE (Lat. _tenuis_, shallow), the site of a lake-dwelling at the

north end of Lake Neuchâtel, between Marin and Préfargier. According to

some, it was originally a Helvetic _oppidum_; according to others, a

Gallic commercial settlement. R. Forrer distinguishes an older

semi-military, and a younger civilian settlement, the former a Gallic

customs station, the latter, which may be compared to the _canabae_ of

the Roman camps, containing the booths and taverns used by soldiers and

sailors. He also considers the older station to have been, not as

usually supposed, Helvetic, but pre- or proto-Helvetic, the character of

which changed with the advance of the Helvetii into Switzerland (c.

110-100 B.C.). La Tène has given its name to a period of culture (c. 500

B.C.-A.D. 100), the phase of the Iron age succeeding the Hallstatt

phase, not as being its starting-point, but because the finds are the

best known of their kind. The latter are divided into early (c. 500-250

B.C.), middle (250-100 B.C.) and late (100 B.C.-A.D. 100), and chiefly

belong to the middle period. They are mostly of iron, and consist of

swords, spear-heads, axes, scythes and knives, which exhibit a

remarkable agreement with the description of the weapons of the southern

Celts given by Diodorus Siculus. There are also brooches, bronze

kettles, torques, small bronze ear-rings with little glass pearls of

various colours, belt-hooks and pins for fastening articles of clothing.

The La Tène culture made its way through France across to England, where

it has received the name of "late Celtic"; a remarkable find has been

made at Aylesford in Kent.

See F. Keller, _Lake Dwellings of Switzerland_, vi. (Eng. trans.,

1878); V. Gross, _La Tène un_ oppidum _helvète_ (1886); E. Vouga, _Les

Helvètes à La Tène_ (1886); P. Reinecke, _Zur Kenntnis der la Tène

Denkmäler der Zone nordwärts der Alpen_ (Mainzer Festschrift, 1902);

R. Forrer, _Reallexikon der prähistorischen ... Altertümer_ (1907),

where many illustrations are given.

LATERAN COUNCILS, the ecclesiastical councils or synods held at Rome in

the Lateran basilica which was dedicated to Christ under the title of

Salvator, and further called the basilica of Constantine or the church

of John the Baptist. Ranking as a papal cathedral, this became a

much-favoured place of assembly for ecclesiastical councils both in

antiquity (313, 487) and more especially during the middle ages. Among

these numerous synods the most prominent are those which the tradition

of the Roman Catholic church has classed as ecumenical councils.

1. The first Lateran council (the ninth ecumenical) was opened by Pope

Calixtus II. on the 18th of March 1123; its primary object being to

confirm the concordat of Worms, and so close the conflict on the

question of investiture (q.v.). In addition to this, canons were enacted

against simony and the marriage of priests; while resolutions were

passed in favour of the crusaders, of pilgrims to Rome and in the

interests of the truce of God. More than three hundred bishops are

reported to have been present.

For the resolutions see _Monumenta Germaniae_, Leges, iv., i. 574-576

(1893); Mansi, _Collectio Conciliorum_, xxi. p. 281 sq.; Hefele,

_Conciliengeschichte_, v. 378-384 (ed. 2, 1886).

2. The second Lateran, and tenth ecumenical, council was held by Pope

Innocent II. in April 1139, and was attended by close on a thousand

clerics. Its immediate task was to neutralize the after-effects of the

schism, which had only been terminated in the previous year by the death

of Anacletus II. (d. 25th January 1138). All consecrations received at

his hands were declared invalid, his adherents were deposed, and King

Roger of Sicily was excommunicated. Arnold of Brescia, too, was removed

from office and banished from Italy.

Resolutions, ap. Mansi, op. cit. xxi., 525 sq.; Hefele,

_Conciliengeschichte_, v. 438-445 (ed. 2).

3. At the third Lateran council (eleventh ecumenical), which met in

March 1179 under Pope Alexander III., the clergy present again numbered

about one thousand. The council formed a sequel to the peace of Venice

(1177), which marked the close of the struggle between the papacy and

the emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa; its main object being to repair the

direct or indirect injuries which the schism had inflicted on the life

of the church and to display to Christendom the power of the see of

Rome. Among the enactments of the council, the most important concerned

the appointment to the papal throne (Canon 1), the electoral law of 1059

being supplemented by a further provision declaring a two-thirds

majority to be requisite for the validity of the cardinals' choice. Of

the participation of the Roman clergy and populace, or of the imperial

ratification, there was no longer any question. Another resolution, of

importance for the history of the treatment of heresy, was the canon

which decreed that armed force should be employed against the Cathari in

southern France, that their goods were liable to confiscation and their

persons to enslavement by the princes, and that all who took up weapons

against them should receive a two years' remission of their penance and

be placed--like the crusaders--under the direct protection of the

church.

Resolutions, _ap._ Mansi, _op. cit._ xxii. 212 sq.; Hefele,

_Conciliengeschichte_, v. 710-719 (ed. 2).

4. The fourth Lateran council (twelfth ecumenical), convened by Pope

Innocent III. in 1215, was the most brilliant and the most numerously

attended of all, and marks the culminating point of a pontificate which

itself represents the zenith attained by the medieval papacy. Prelates

assembled from every country in Christendom, and with them the deputies

of numerous princes. The total included 412 bishops, with 800 priors and

abbots, besides the representatives of absent prelates and a number of

inferior clerics. The seventy decrees of the council begin with a

confession of faith directed against the Cathari and Waldenses, which is

significant if only for the mention of a transubstantiation of the

elements in the Lord's Supper. A series of resolutions provided in

detail for the organized suppression of heresy and for the institution

of the episcopal inquisition (Canon 3). On every Christian, of either

sex, arrived at years of discretion, the duty was imposed of confessing

at least once annually and of receiving the Eucharist at least at Easter

(Canon 21). Enactments were also passed touching procedure in the

ecclesiastical courts, the creation of new monastic orders, appointments

to offices in the church, marriage-law, conventual discipline, the

veneration of relics, pilgrimages and intercourse with Jews and

Saracens. Finally, a great crusade was resolved upon, to defray the

expenses of which it was determined that the clergy should lay aside

one-twentieth--the pope and the cardinals one-tenth--of their revenues

for the next three years; while the crusaders were to be held free of

all burdens during the period of their absence.

Resolutions, _ap._ Mansi, _op. cit._ xxii. 953 sq.; Hefele,

_Conciliengeschichte_, v. 872-905 (ed. 2). See also INNOCENT III.

5. The fifth Lateran council (eighteenth ecumenical) was convened by

Pope Julius II. and continued by Leo X. It met from the 3rd of May 1512

to the 16th of March 1517, and was the last great council anterior to

the Reformation. The change in the government of the church, the rival

council of Pisa, the ecclesiastical and political dissensions within and

without the council, and the lack of disinterestedness on the part of

its members, all combined to frustrate the hopes which its convocation

had awakened. Its resolutions comprised the rejection of the pragmatic

sanction, the proclamation of the pope's superiority over the council,

and the renewal of the bull _Unam sanctam_ of Boniface VIII. The theory

that it is possible for a thing to be theologically true and

philosophically false, and the doctrine of the mortality of the human

soul, were both repudiated; while a three years' tithe on all church

property was set apart to provide funds for a war against the Turks.

See Hardouin, _Coll. Conc._ ix. 1570 sq.; Hefele-Hergenröther,

_Conciliengeschichte_, viii. 454 sq.; (1887). Cf. bibliography under

LEO X. (C. M.)

LATERITE (Lat. _later_, a brick), in petrology, a red or brown

superficial deposit of clay or earth which gathers on the surface of

rocks and has been produced by their decomposition; it is very common in

tropical regions. In consistency it is generally soft and friable, but

hard masses, nodules and bands often occur in it. These are usually rich

in iron. The superficial layers of laterite deposits are often indurated

and smooth black or dark-brown crusts occur where the clays have long

been exposed to a dry atmosphere; in other cases the soft clays are full

of hard nodules, and in general the laterite is perforated by tubules,

sometimes with veins of different composition and appearance from the

main mass. The depth of the laterite beds varies up to 30 or 40 ft., the

deeper layers often being soft when the surface is hard or stony; the

transition to fresh, sound rock below may be very sudden. That laterite

is merely rotted crystalline rock is proved by its often preserving the

structures, veins and even the outlines of the minerals of the parent

mass below; the felspars and other components of granite gneiss having

evidently been converted _in situ_ into a soft argillaceous material.

Laterite occurs in practically every tropical region of the earth, and

is very abundant in Ceylon, India, Burma, Central and West Africa,

Central America, &c. It is especially well developed where the

underlying rock is crystalline and felspathic (as granite gneiss,

syenite and diorite), but occurs also on basalts in the Deccan and in

other places, and is found even on mica schist, sandstone and quartzite,

though in such cases it tends to be more sandy than argillaceous. Many

varieties have been recognized. In India a calcareous laterite with

large concretionary blocks of carbonate of lime is called kankar

(kunkar), and has been much used in building bridges, &c., because it

serves as a hydraulic cement. In some districts (e.g. W. Indies) similar

types of laterite have been called "puzzuolana" and are also used as

mortar and cement. Kankar is also known and worked in British East

Africa. The clay called cabook in Ceylon is essentially a variety of

laterite. Common laterite contains very little lime, and it seems that

in districts which have an excessive rainfall that component may be

dissolved out by percolating water, while kankar, or calcareous

laterite, is formed in districts which have a smaller rainfall. In India

also a distinction is made between "high-level" and "low-level"

laterites. The former are found at all elevations up to 5000 ft. and

more, and are the products of the decomposition of rock _in situ_; they

are often fine-grained and sometimes have a very well-marked

concretionary structure. These laterites are subject to removal by

running water, and are thus carried to lower grounds forming transported

or "low-level" laterites. The finer particles tend to be carried away

into the rivers, while the sand is left behind and with it much of the

heavy iron oxides. In such situations the laterites are sandy and

ferruginous, with a smaller proportion of clay, and are not intimately

connected with the rocks on which they lie. On steep slopes laterite

also may creep or slip when soaked with rain, and if exposed in sections

on roadsides or river banks has a bedded appearance, the stratification

being parallel to the surface of the ground.

Chemical and microscopical investigations show that laterite is not a

clay like those which are so familiar in temperate regions; it does not

consist of hydrous silicate of alumina, but is a mechanical mixture of

fine grains of quartz with minute scales of hydrates of alumina. The

latter are easily soluble in acid while clay is not, and after treating

laterite with acids the alumina and iron leave the silica as a residue

in the form of quartz. The alumina seems to be combined with variable

proportions of water, probably as the minerals hydrargillite, diaspore

and gibbsite, while the iron occurs as goethite, turgite, limonite,

haematite. As already remarked, there is a tendency for the superficial

layers to become hard, probably by a loss of the water contained in

these aluminous minerals. These chemical changes may be the cause of the

frequent concretionary structure and veining in the laterite. The great

abundance of alumina in some varieties of laterite is a consequence of

the removal of the fine particles of gibbsite, &c., from the quartz by

the action of gentle currents of water. We may also point out the

essential chemical similarity between laterite and the seams of bauxite

which occur, for example, in the north of Ireland as reddish clays

between flows of Tertiary basalt. The bauxite is rich in alumina

combined with water, and is used as an ore of aluminium. It is often

very ferruginous. Similar deposits occur at Vogelsberg in Germany, and

we may infer that the bauxite beds are layers of laterite produced by

sub-aerial decomposition in the same manner as the thick laterite

deposits which are now in course of formation in the plateau basalts of

the Deccan in India.

The conditions under which laterite are formed include, first, a high

seasonal temperature, for it occurs only in tropical districts and in

plains or mountains up to about 5000 ft. in height; secondly, a heavy

rainfall, with well-marked alternation of wet and dry seasons (in arid

countries laterite is seldom seen, and where the rainfall is moderate

the laterite is often calcareous); third, the presence of rocks

containing aluminous minerals such as felspar, augite, hornblende and

mica. On pure limestones such as coral rocks and on quartzites

laterite deposits do not originate except where the material has been

transported.

Many hypotheses have been advanced to account for the essential

difference between lateritization and the weathering processes

exhibited by rocks in temperate and arctic climates. In the tropics

the rank growth of vegetation produces large amounts of humus and

carbonic acid which greatly promote rock decomposition; igneous and

crystalline rocks of all kinds are deeply covered under rich dark

soils, so that in tropical forests the underlying rocks are rarely to

be seen. In the warm soil nitrification proceeds rapidly and bacteria

of many kinds flourish. It has also been argued that the frequent

thunderstorms produce much nitric acid in the atmosphere and that this

may be a cause of lateritization, but it is certainly not a necessary

factor, as beds of laterite occur in oceanic islands lying in regions

of the ocean where lightning is rarely seen. Sir Thomas Holland has

brought forward the suggestion that the development of laterite may

depend on the presence in the soil of bacteria which are able to

decompose silicate of alumina into quartz and hydrates of alumina. The

restricted distribution of laterite deposits might then be due to the

inhibiting effect of low temperatures on the reproduction of these

organisms. This very ingenious hypothesis has not yet received the

experimental confirmation which seems necessary before it can be

regarded as established. Malcolm Maclaren, rejecting the bacterial

theory, directs special attention to the alternate saturation of the

soil with rain water in the wet season and desiccation in the

subsequent drought. The laterite beds are porous, in fact they are

traversed by innumerable tubules which are often lined with deposits

of iron oxide and aluminous minerals. We may be certain that, as in

all soils during dry weather, there is an ascent of water by capillary

action towards the surface, where it is gradually dissipated by

evaporation. The soil water brings with it mineral matter in solution,

which is deposited in the upper part of the beds. If the alumina be at

one time in a soluble condition it will be drawn upwards and

concentrated near the surface. This process explains many

peculiarities of laterites, such as their porous and slaggy structure,

which is often so marked that they have been mistaken for slaggy

volcanic rocks. The concretionary structure is undoubtedly due to

chemical rearrangements, among which the escape of water is probably

one of the most important; and many writers have recognized that the

hard ferruginous crust, like the induration which many soft laterites

undergo when dug up and exposed to the air, is the result of

desiccation and exposure to the hot sun of tropical countries. The

brecciated structure which many laterites show may be produced by

great expansion of the mass consequent on absorption of water after

heavy rains, followed by contraction during the subsequent dry season.

Laterites are not of much economic use. They usually form a poor soil,

full of hard concretionary lumps and very unfertile because the potash

and phosphates have been removed in solution, while only alumina, iron

and silica are left behind. They are used as clays for puddling, for

making tiles, and as a mortar in rough work. Kankar has filled an

important part as a cement in many large engineering works in India.

Where the iron concretions have been washed out by rains or by

artificial treatment (often in the form of small shot-like pellets)

they serve as an iron ore in parts of India and Africa. Attempts are

being made to utilize laterite as an ore of aluminium, a purpose for

which some varieties seem well adapted. There are also deposits of

manganese associated with some laterites in India which may ultimately

be valuable as mineral ores. (J. S. F.)

LATH (O. Eng. _laett_, Mid. Eng. _lappe_, a form possibly due to the

Welsh _llath_; the word appears in many Teutonic languages, cf. Dutch

_lat_, Ger. _Latte_, and has passed into Romanic, cf. Ital. _latta_, Fr.

_latte_), a thin flat strip of wood or other material used in building

to form a base or groundwork for plaster, or for tiles, slates or other

covering for roofs. Such strips of wood are employed to form

lattice-work, or for the bars of venetian blinds or shutters. A

"lattice" (O. Fr. _lattis_) is an interlaced structure of laths fastened

together so as to form a screen with diamond-shaped or square

interstices. Such a screen was used, as it still is in the East, as a

shutter for a window admitting air rather than light; it was hence used

of the window closed by such a screen. In modern usage the term is

applied to a window with diamond-shaped panes set in lead-work. A window

with a lattice painted red was formerly a common inn-sign (cf.

Shakespeare, _2 Hen. IV._ ii. 2. 86); frequently the window was

dispensed with, and the sign remained painted on a board.

LATHE. (1) A mechanical appliance in which material is held and rotated

against a tool for cutting, scraping, polishing or other purpose (see

TOOLS). This word is of obscure origin. It may be a modified form of

"lath," for in an early form of lathe the rotation is given by a treadle

or spring lath attached to the ceiling. The _New English Dictionary_

points out a possible source of the word in Dan. _lad_, meaning

apparently a supporting framework, found in the name of the

turning-lathe, _drejelad_, and also in _savelad_, saw-bench,

_vaeverlad_, loom, &c. (2) One of five, formerly six, districts

containing three or more hundreds, into which the county of Kent was

divided. Though the division survives, it no longer serves any

administrative purpose. It was formerly a judicial division, the court

of the lathe being superior to that of the hundred. In this it differs

from the rape (q.v.) of Sussex, which was a geographical rather than an

administrative division. In O. Eng. the word was _laéð_, the origin of

which is doubtful. The _New English Dictionary_ considers it almost

certainly identical with O. Norse _lad_, landed possessions, territory,

with a possible association in meaning with such words as _leið_, court,

_mótlaeaða_, attendance at a meeting or moot, or with Mod. Dan. _laegd_,

a division of the country for military purposes.

LATHROP, FRANCIS (1849-1909), American artist, was born at sea, near the

Hawaiian Islands, on the 22nd of June 1849, being the great-grandson of

Samuel Holden Parsons, and the son of George Alfred Lathrop (1819-1877),

who for some time was United States consul at Honolulu. He was a pupil

of T. C. Farrar (1838-1891) in New York, and studied at the Royal

academy of Dresden. In 1870-1873 he was in England, studying under Ford

Madox Brown and Burne-Jones, and working in the school of William

Morris, where he devoted particular attention to stained glass.

Returning to America in 1873, he became known as an illustrator, painted

portraits, designed stained glass, and subsequently confined himself to

decorative work. He designed the chancel of Trinity church, Boston, and

decorated the interior of Bowdoin college chapel, at Brunswick, Maine,

and several churches in New York. The Marquand memorial window,

Princeton chapel, is an example of his work in stained glass. His latest

work was a series of medallions for the building of the

Hispanic-American society in New York. He was one of the charter members

of the Society of American Artists, and became an associate of the

National Academy of Design, New York, of which also William L. Lathrop

(b. 1859) an artist who is to be distinguished from him, became a member

in 1907. He died at Woodcliff, New Jersey, on the 18th of October 1909.

His younger brother, GEORGE PARSONA LATHROP (1851-1898), born near

Honolulu on the 25th of August 1851, took up literature as a profession.

He was an assistant editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_ in 1875-1877, and

editor of the Boston _Courier_ in 1877-1879. He was one of the founders

(1883) of the American copyright league, was prominent in the movement

for Roman Catholic summer schools, and wrote several novels, some verse

and critical essays. He was the author of _A Study of Nathaniel

Hawthorne_ (1876), and edited the standard edition (Boston, 1883) of

Hawthorne's works. In 1871 he married in London the second daughter of

Nathaniel Hawthorne--Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (b. 1851). After his death

Mrs Lathrop devoted herself entirely to charity. She was instrumental in

establishing (1896) and subsequently conducted St Rose's free home for

cancer in New York City. In 1900 she joined the Dominican order, taking

the name of Mother Mary Alphonsa and becoming superioress of the

Dominican community of the third order; and she established in 1901 and

subsequently conducted this order's Rosary Hill home (for cancerous

patients) at Hawthorne, N.Y. She published a volume of poems (1888);

_Memories of Hawthorne_ (1897); and, with her husband, _A Story of

Courage: Annals of the Georgetown Convent of the Visitation of the

Blessed Virgin Mary_ (1894).

LATIMER, HUGH (c. 1490-1555), English bishop, and one of the chief

promoters of the Reformation in England, was born at Thurcaston,

Leicestershire. He was the son of a yeoman, who rented a farm "of three

or four pounds by year at the uttermost." Of this farm he "tilled as

much as kept half a dozen men," retaining also grass for a hundred sheep

and thirty cattle. The year of Latimer's birth is not definitely known.

In the _Life_ by Gilpin it is given as 1470, a palpable error, and

possibly a misprint for 1490.[1] Foxe states that at "the age of

fourteen years he was sent to the university of Cambridge," and as he

was elected fellow of Clare in 1509, his year of entrance was in all

likelihood 1505. Latimer himself also, in mentioning his conversion from

Romanism about 1523, says that it took place after he was thirty years

of age. According to Foxe, Latimer went to school "at the age of four or

thereabout." The purpose of his parents was to train him up "in the

knowledge of all good literature," but his father "was as diligent to

teach him to shoot as any other thing." As the yeomen of England were

then in comparatively easy circumstances, the practice of sending their

sons to the universities was quite usual; indeed Latimer mentions that

in the reign of Edward VI., on account of the increase of rents, the

universities had begun wonderfully to decay. He graduated B.A. in 1510

and M.A. in 1514. Before the latter date he had taken holy orders. While

a student he was not unaccustomed "to make good cheer and be merry," but

at the same time he was a punctilious observer of the minutest rites of

his faith and "as obstinate a Papist as any in England." So keen was his

opposition to the new learning that his oration on the occasion of

taking his degree of bachelor of divinity was devoted to an attack on

the opinions of Melanchthon. It was this sermon that determined his

friend Thomas Bilney to go to Latimer's study, and ask him "for God's

sake to hear his confession," the result being that "from that time

forward he began to smell the word of God, and forsook the school

doctors and such fooleries." Soon his discourses exercised a potent

influence on learned and unlearned alike; and, although he restricted

himself, as indeed was principally his custom through life, to the

inculcation of practical righteousness, and the censure of clamant

abuses, a rumour of his heretical tendencies reached the bishop of Ely,

who resolved to become unexpectedly one of his audience. Latimer, on

seeing him enter the church, boldly changed his theme to a portrayal of

Christ as the pattern priest and bishop. The points of comparison were,

of course, deeply distasteful to the prelate, who, though he professed

his "obligations for the good admonition he had received," informed the

preacher that he "smelt somewhat of the pan." Latimer was prohibited

from preaching in the university or in any pulpits of the diocese, and

on his occupying the pulpit of the Augustinian monastery, which enjoyed

immunity from episcopal control, he was summoned to answer for his

opinions before Wolsey, who, however, was so sensible of the value of

such discourses that he gave him special licence to preach throughout

England.

At this time Protestant opinions were being disseminated in England

chiefly by the surreptitious circulation of the works of Wycliffe, and

especially of his translations of the New Testament. The new leaven had

begun to communicate its subtle influence to the universities, but was

working chiefly in secret and even to a great extent unconsciously to

those affected by it, for many were in profound ignorance of the

ultimate tendency of their own opinions. This was perhaps, as regards

England, the most critical conjuncture in the history of the

Reformation, both on this account and on account of the position in

which Henry VIII. then stood related to it. In no small degree its

ultimate fate seemed also to be placed in the hands of Latimer. In 1526

the imprudent zeal of Robert Barnes had resulted in an ignominious

recantation, and in 1527 Bilney, Latimer's most trusted coadjutor,

incurred the displeasure of Wolsey, and did humiliating penance for his

offences. Latimer, however, besides possessing sagacity, quick insight

into character, and a ready and formidable wit which thoroughly

disconcerted and confused his opponents, had naturally a distaste for

mere theological discussion, and the truths he was in the habit of

inculcating could scarcely be controverted, although, as he stated them,

they were diametrically contradictory of prevailing errors both in

doctrine and practice. In December 1529 he preached his two "sermons on

the cards," which awakened a turbulent controversy in the university,

and his opponents, finding that they were unable to cope with the

dexterity and keenness of his satire, would undoubtedly have succeeded

in getting him silenced by force, had it not been reported to the king

that Latimer "favoured his cause," that is, the cause of the divorce.

While, therefore, both parties were imperatively commanded to refrain

from further dispute, Latimer was invited to preach before Henry in the

Lent of 1530. The king was so pleased with the sermon that after it "he

did most familiarly talk with him in a gallery." Of the special regard

which Henry seemed to have conceived for him Latimer took advantage to

pen the famous letter on the free circulation of the Bible, an address

remarkable, not only for what Froude justly calls "its almost unexampled

grandeur," but for its striking repudiation of the aid of temporal

weapons to defend the faith, "for God," he says, "will not have it

defended by man or man's power, but by His Word only, by which He hath

evermore defended it, and that by a way far above man's power and

reason." Though the appeal was without effect on the immediate policy of

Henry, he could not have been displeased with its tone, for shortly

afterwards he appointed Latimer one of the royal chaplains. In times so

"out of joint" Latimer soon became "weary of the court," and it was with

a sense of relief that he accepted the living of West Kington, or West

Kineton, Wiltshire, conferred on him by the king in 1531. Harassed by

severe bodily ailments, encompassed by a raging tumult of religious

conflict and persecution, and aware that the faint hopes of better times

which seemed to gild the horizon of the future might be utterly darkened

by a failure either in the constancy of his courage or in his

discernment and discretion, he exerted his eloquence with unabating

energy in the furtherance of the cause he had at heart. At last a sermon

he was persuaded to preach in London exasperated John Stokesley, bishop

of the diocese, and seemed to furnish that fervent persecutor with an

opportunity to overthrow the most dangerous champion of the new

opinions. Bilney, of whom Latimer wrote, "if such as he shall die evil,

what shall become of me?" perished at the stake in the autumn of 1531,

and in January following Latimer was summoned to answer before the

bishops in the consistory. After a tedious and captious examination, he

was in March brought before convocation, and, on refusing to subscribe

certain articles, was excommunicated and imprisoned; but through the

interference of the king he was finally released after he had

voluntarily signified his acceptance of all the articles except two, and

confessed that he had erred not only "in discretion but in doctrine." If

in this confession he to some extent tampered with his conscience, there

is every reason to believe that his culpable timidity was occasioned,

not by personal fear, but by anxiety lest by his death he should hinder

instead of promoting the cause of truth. After the consecration of

Cranmer to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1533 Latimer's position

was completely altered. A commission appointed to inquire into the

disturbances caused by his preaching in Bristol severely censured the

conduct of his opponents; and, when the bishop prohibited him from

preaching in his diocese, he obtained from Cranmer a special licence to

preach throughout the province of Canterbury. In 1534 Henry formally

repudiated the authority of the pope, and from this time Latimer was the

chief co-operator with Cranmer and Cromwell in advising the king

regarding the series of legislative measures which rendered that

repudiation complete and irrevocable.

It was, however, the preaching of Latimer more than the edicts of Henry

that established the principles of the Reformation in the minds and

hearts of the people; and from his preaching the movement received its

chief colour and complexion. The sermons of Latimer possess a

combination of qualities which constitute them unique examples of that

species of literature. It is possible to learn from them more regarding

the social and political condition of the period than perhaps from any

other source, for they abound, not only in exposures of religious

abuses, and of the prevailing corruptions of society, but in references

to many varieties of social injustice and unwise customs, in racy

sketches of character, and in vivid pictures of special features of the

time, occasionally illustrated by interesting incidents in his own life.

The homely terseness of his style, his abounding humour--rough, cheery

and playful, but irresistible in its simplicity, and occasionally

displaying sudden and dangerous barbs of satire--his avoidance of

dogmatic subtleties, his noble advocacy of practical righteousness, his

bold and open denunciation of the oppression practised by the powerful,

his scathing diatribes against ecclesiastical hypocrisy, the transparent

honesty of his fervent zeal, tempered by sagacious moderation--these are

the qualities which not only rendered his influence so paramount in his

lifetime, but have transmitted his memory to posterity as perhaps that

of the one among his contemporaries most worthy of our interest and

admiration.

In September 1535 Latimer was consecrated bishop of Worcester. While

holding this office he was selected to officiate as preacher when the

friar, John Forest, whom he vainly endeavoured to move to submission,

was burned at the stake for denying the royal supremacy. In 1539, being

opposed to the "act of the six articles," Latimer resigned his

bishopric, learning from Cromwell that this was the wish of the king. It

would appear that on this point he was deceived, but as he now declined

to accept the articles he was confined within the precincts of the

palace of the bishop of Chichester. After the attainder of Cromwell

little is known of Latimer until 1546, when, on account of his connexion

with the preacher Edward Crome, he was summoned before the council at

Greenwich, and committed to the Tower of London. Henry died before his

final trial could take place, and the general pardon at the accession of

Edward VI. procured him his liberty. He declined to resume his see,

notwithstanding the special request of the Commons, but in January 1548

again began to preach, and with more effectiveness than ever, crowds

thronging to listen to him both in London and in the country. Shortly

after the accession of Mary in 1553 a summons was sent to Latimer to

appear before the council at Westminster. Though he might have escaped

by flight, and though he knew, as he quaintly remarked, that "Smithfield

already groaned for him," he at once joyfully obeyed. The pursuivant, he

said, was "a welcome messenger." The hardships of his imprisonment, and

the long disputations at Oxford, told severely on his health, but he

endured all with unbroken cheerfulness. On the 16th of October 1555 he

and Ridley were led to the stake at Oxford. Never was man more free than

Latimer from the taint of fanaticism or less dominated by "vainglory,"

but the motives which now inspired his courage not only placed him

beyond the influence of fear, but enabled him to taste in dying an

ineffable thrill of victorious achievement. Ridley he greeted with the

words, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall

this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as (I trust)

shall never be put out." He "received the flame as it were embracing it.

After he had stroked his face with his hands, and (as it were) bathed

them a little in the fire, he soon died (as it appeared) with very

little pain or none."

Two volumes of Latimer's sermons were published in 1549. A complete

edition of his works, edited by G. E. Corrie for the Parker Society,

appeared in two volumes (1844-1845). His _Sermon on the Ploughers_ and

_Seven Sermons preached before Edward VI._ were reprinted by E. Arber

(1869). The chief contemporary authorities for his life are his own

_Sermons_, John Stow's _Chronicle_ and Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_. In

addition to memoirs prefixed to editions of his sermons, there are

lives of Latimer by R. Demaus (1869, new and revised ed. 1881), and by

R. M. and A. J. Carlyle (1899). (T. F. H.)