The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 277

LACePeDE, COMTE DE, French naturalist, born at Agen; was entrusted by Buffon to complete his Natural History on his death; wrote on his own account also the natural histories of reptiles, of fishes, and of man (1756-1825).

LACHAISE, FRANcOIS DE, a French Jesuit, an extremely politic member of the fraternity in the reign of Louis XIV.; had a country house E. of Paris, the garden of which is now the cemetery Pere la Chaise (1624-1709).

LACHESIS, the one of the three Fates that spun the thread of life and apportioned the destinies of man. See PARCae.

LACHMANN, KARL, a German philologist and cla.s.sical scholar, born at Brunswick, professor at Berlin; besides sundry of the Latin cla.s.sics, in particular Lucretius, he edited the Nibelungen Lied, and the Greek New Testament, as well as contributed important critical essays on the composition of the "Iliad," which he regarded as a collection of lays from various independent sources (1783-1851). See ILIAD.

LACHRYMA CHRISTI, a sweet wine of a red or amber colour, produced from grapes grown on Mount Vesuvius.

LACONIA, ancient name for Sparta, the inhabitants of which were noted for the brevity of their speech.

LACORDAIRE, JEAN BAPTISTE HENRY, a celebrated French preacher, and one of the most brilliant orators of the century; bred for the bar; held sceptical opinions at first, but came under the influence of religion; took orders as a priest and became a.s.sociated with Montalembert and Lamennais as joint-editor of the _Avenir_, a journal which advocated views at once Ultramontane and radical, but which, being condemned by the Pope, was discontinued; after this he took to preaching, and immense crowds gathered to hear his conferences, as they were called, in the church of Notre Dame, where, to the astonishment of all, he appeared in the pulpit in guise of a Dominican monk with the tonsure; he was afterwards elected member of the Const.i.tutent a.s.sembly, where he sat in his monk's attire, but he soon retired; he ended his days as head of the Military College of Sorreze (1802-1861).

LACRATELLE, French historian, born at Metz; began life as a journalist; became professor of History in Paris University; wrote a history of the 18th century and of the French Revolution, showing very great accuracy of detail, if little historical insight (1766-1855).

LA CROSSE, the national game of Canada, of Indian derivation; is played twelve a side, each armed with a long-handled racquet or crosse, the object of the game being to drive an india-rubber ball through the opponents' goal.

LACTANTIUS, a Christian apologist of the early part of the 14th century, who, from his eloquent advocacy of the Christian faith, was styled the Christian Cicero; he was a pagan born, and by profession a rhetorician.

LADISLAUS, the name of seven kings of Hungary, of which the first (1077-1095) received canonisation for his zeal on behalf of Christianity.

LADOGA, a lake as large as Wales and the largest in Europe, in the NW. of Russia, not far from St. Petersburg; it is the centre of an extensive lake and river system, receiving the Volkhov, Syas, and Svir, and drained into the Gulf of Finland by the Neva; but so dangerous is navigation, owing to sunken rocks and shoals and to the storms that prevail during the open months, that the extensive s.h.i.+pping is carried round the S. sh.o.r.es by the Ladoga and the ca.n.a.ls.

LADRONES or MARIANA ISLANDS (10), a well-watered, thickly-wooded group in the North Pacific, 1400 m. E. of the Philippines and belonging to Spain; produce cotton, indigo, and sugar, but the trade is of little worth; the only town is San Ign.a.z.io de Agana, on the largest island, Guam.

LADY CHAPEL, a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary attached to a church.

LADY DAY, the festival of the annunciation of the Virgin Mary, March 25; a quarter-day in England and Ireland.

LADY OF ENGLAND, t.i.tle of Matilda, daughter of Henry I. and wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet, conferred on her by a council held at Westminster, 1141.

LADY OF SHALOTT, a maiden of great beauty, the subject of a poem by Tennyson, in love with Lancelot, who died because her love was not returned.

LADY OF THE LAKE, the name given to Vivien, the mistress of Merlin, who dwelt in an imaginary lake, surrounded by a court of knights and damsels; also to Helen Douglas, a heroine of Scott's, who lived with her father near Loch Katrine.

LA FAYETTE, MADAME DE, novelist, born in Paris; is credited with being the originator of the cla.s.s of fiction in which character and its a.n.a.lysis are held of chief account; she was the daughter of the governor of Havre, and contracted a Platonic affection for La Rochefoucauld in his old age, and was besides on intimate terms with Madame Sevigne and the most eminent literary men of the time; her "Princess de Cleves" is a cla.s.sic work, and the merit of it is enhanced by the reflection that it preceded by nearly half a century the works both of Le Sage and Defoe (1634-1693).

LA FAYETTE, MARQUIS DE, born in the castle of Chavagnac; went to America in 1777, took an active and self-sacrificing part in the War of Independence; was honourably distinguished at the battle of Brandywine; sailed for France, brought over auxiliaries; he commanded Was.h.i.+ngton's vanguard in 1782; returned to Paris, and was made commander-in-chief of the National Guard in 1789; would have achieved the Revolution with the minimum of violence and set up a republic on the model of the Was.h.i.+ngton one; was obliged to escape from France during the Reign of Terror; was imprisoned five years at Olmutz, but was liberated when Napoleon appeared on the scene; as a consistent republican showed no favour to Napoleon; took part in the Revolution of 1830, became again commander-in-chief of the National Guard and a supporter of Louis Philippe, the citizen king; characterised by Carlyle as "a const.i.tutional pedant; clear, thin, inflexible, as water turned to thin ice" (1757-1834).

LAFITTE, JACQUES, French banker and financier; played a conspicuous part in the Revolution of 1830, and by his influence as a liberal politician with the French people secured the elevation of Louis Philippe to the throne; in the calamities attendant on this Revolution his house became insolvent, but he was found, after paying all demands, to be worth in francs nearly seven millions (1767-1844).

LAFONTAINE, JEAN DE, celebrated French author, born at Chateau-Thierry, in Champagne; a man of indolent, gay, and dissipated habits, but of resplendent genius, known to all the world for his inimitable "Tales" and "Fables," and who was the peer of all the distinguished literary notabilities of his time; the former, published in 1665, too often transgress the bounds of morality, but are distinguished by exquisite grace of expression and sparkling wit; the latter, published in 1668, have an irresistible charm which no reader can withstand; he was the author also of the "Amours of Cupid and Psyche"; he was the friend of Boileau, Moliere, and Racine, and in his later years a confirmed Parisian (1621-1695).

LA FORCE, DUC DE, marechal of France under Henry IV., and one of the most distinguished; escaped when an infant the ma.s.sacre of St.

Bartholomew (1558-1652).

LAGOS (40), a large and thriving commercial town in a colony (100) of the name subject to Britain, on the Guinea Coast of Africa.

LAGRANGE, JOSEPH LOUIS, COMTE, famous mathematician, born at Turin of French parentage; had gained at the age of twenty a European reputation by his abstruse algebraical investigations; appointed director of Berlin Academy in 1766, he pursued his researches there for twenty-one years; in 1787 he removed to Paris, where be received a pension from the Court of 6000 francs, and remained till his death; universally respected, he was unscathed by the Revolution; appointed to several offices, he received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour from Napoleon, who made him a count (1736-1813).

LA HARPE, JEAN FRANcOIS DE, French litterateur and critic, born in Paris; wrote dramas and eloges, but his best-known work is his "Cours de Litterature" in 12 vols., of little account except for its criticism of French literature, in which he showed not a little pedantry and ill-temper as well as acuteness; he was zealous for the Revolution at first, but drew back when extreme measures were adopted and became a warm royalist, for which he was sentenced to deportation, but left at liberty (1739-1803).

LA HOGUE, a cape with a roadstead on NE. of France, where a French fleet sent by Louis XIV. to invade England on behalf of James II. was destroyed in 1692.

LAh.o.r.e (177), an ancient walled city on the Ravi, a tributary of the Indus, 1000 m. NW. of Calcutta, is the capital of the Punjab, and an important railway centre; it has many fine buildings, both English and native, including a university and a medical school, but the situation is unhealthy; half the population are Mussulmans; the trade is inconsiderable; the district of Lah.o.r.e (1,075) one of the most important in the province, is well irrigated by the Bari Doab Ca.n.a.l, and produces fine crops of cereals, pulse, and cotton.

LAIDLAW, WILLIAM, Sir Walter Scott's factor at Abbotsford, born in Selkirks.h.i.+re; having failed in farming, entered Scott's service in 1817 and remained his trusted and faithful friend, advising him in his schemes of improvement and acting latterly as his amanuensis till his death in 1832; thereafter he was factor in Ross-s.h.i.+re, where he died; he had some poetic gift of his own, and contributed to the third volume of the "Minstrelsy" (1780-1845).

LAING, DAVID, a learned antiquary, profound in his knowledge of Scottish ecclesiastical and literary history, born, the son of bookseller, at Edinburgh, followed for thirty years his father's trade; was appointed to the charge of the Signet Library in 1837; was secretary to the Bannatyne Club, and in 1864 received the degree of LL.D. from Edinburgh University; he contributed many valuable papers to the _Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, collected and edited much of the ancient poetry of Scotland, and acquired a private library of ma.n.u.scripts and volumes of great value (1799-1878).

LAING, MALCOLM, Scottish historian, born in Orkney; pa.s.sed through Edinburgh University to the Scottish bar, to which he was called in 1785, but proved an unsuccessful advocate; turning to literature, he edited "Ossian," and wrote a "History of Scotland from James VI. to Anne"

(1800), in a subsequent edition of which he inserted the well-known attack on Mary Stuart (1762-1818).

LAS, the name of two Greek courtesans celebrated for their beauty, the one a native of Corinth, who lived at the time of the Peloponnesian War, and the other belonging to Sicily, and who, having visited Thessaly, was stoned to death by the women of the country out of jealousy.

LAISSEZ-FAIRE (lit. let things alone and take their course), the name given to the let-alone system of political economy, in opposition to State interference, or State regulation, in private industrial enterprise.