The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 286

LIBERIA (1,500), a negro republic on the Grain Coast of Africa, founded in 1822 by American philanthropists as a settlement for freedmen, with a const.i.tution after the model of the United States.

LIBERTY, FRATERNITY, AND EQUALITY, the trinity of modern democracy, and which first found expression as a political creed in the French Revolution, of which the first term is now held to require definition, the second to have only a sentimental basis, and the third to be in violation of the fact of things; universal suffrage is the expression of it politically.

LIBRATION, the name given to certain apparent movements in the moon as if it swayed like a balance both in lat.i.tude and longitude in its revolution round the earth.

LIBRI-CARRUCCI, COUNT, Italian mathematician; professor at Pisa, but obliged to resign for his liberal opinions and take refuge in France, where he was made professor at the Sorbonne, was a kleptomaniac in the matter of books (1803-1869).

LIBYA, a name by the early geographers to the territory in Africa which lay between Egypt, Ethiopia, and the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic.

LICHFIELD (8), ancient ecclesiastical town in Staffords.h.i.+re, 15 m.

SE. of Stafford, an episcopal see since 656, with a cathedral in Early English style, recently completely restored; has an ancient grammar school, a museum, and school of art; the birthplace of Samuel Johnson; its industries are brewing, coachbuilding, and implement making.

LICHTENBERG, GEORG CHRISTOPH, German physicist and satirist, born near Darmstadt; was educated at Gottingen, and appointed professor there in 1770; he wrote a commentary on Hogarth's copperplates; his reputation in Germany as a satirist is high (1742-1799).

LICINIUS, CAIUS, a Roman tribune and consul, of plebeian birth, author of several laws intended to minimise the distinction politically between patrician and plebeian, in office between 376 and 361 B.C.

LICK OBSERVATORY, an observatory built at the expense of James Lick, an American millionaire, on one of the peaks of Mount Hamilton, California, with a telescope that has the largest object-gla.s.s of any in the world.

LICTOR, an officer in Rome who bore the FASCES (q. v.) before a magistrate when on duty.

LIDDELL, HENRY GEORGE, Greek lexicographer, graduated at Oxford in 1833; was tutor of Christ Church, and in 1845 appointed professor of Moral Philosophy; he was successively Head-master of Winchester, Dean of Christ Church, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford from 1870 to 1874; his great work is a Greek lexicon (first edition 1843, last 1883), of which he was joint-author with Dr. Robert Scott, and which is the standard work of its kind in English; _b_. 1811.

LIDDON, HENRY PARRY, canon of St. Paul's, London, born in Hants; educated at Christ Church, Oxford; eminent both as a scholar and a preacher; author of an eloquent course of lectures, the Bampton, "On the Divinity of Jesus Christ"; belonged to the Liberal section of the High-Church party (1829-1890).

LIEBIG, BARON VON, eminent German chemist, born at Darmstadt; in 1824 attracted the attention of Alexander von Humboldt by a paper before the Inst.i.tute of France on fulminates, and was appointed to the chair of Chemistry in Giessen, where he laboured 28 years, attracting students from all quarters, and where his laboratory became a model of many others elsewhere; wrote a number of works on chemistry, inorganic and organic, animal and agricultural, and their applications, as well as papers and letters; accepted a professors.h.i.+p in Munich in 1852, and in 1860 was appointed President of the Munich Academy of Sciences (1803-1873).

LIeGE (160), a town in Belgium and capital of the Walloons, in a very picturesque region at the confluence of the Ourthe with the Meuse, the busiest town in Belgium and a chief seat of the woollen manufacture; it is divided in two by the Meuse, which is spanned by 17 bridges; it is the centre of a great mining district, and besides woollens has manufactures of machinery, and steel and iron goods.

LIEGNITZ (46), a town in Silesia, 40 m. NW. of Breslau, where Frederick the Great gained a victory over the Austrians in 1760.

LIFEGUARDS, the British royal household troops, consisting of cavalry and infantry regiments.

LIGHTFOOT, JOHN, Orientalist and divine, born at Stoke-upon-Trent, son of a clergyman, educated at Cambridge; took orders and was rector of Ashley, Staffords.h.i.+re, till 1642; next year he was one of the most influential members of the Westminster a.s.sembly; in 1652 he was made D.D., was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge in 1653, and subsequently prebendary of Ely; one of England's earlier Hebrew scholars, the great work of his life was the "Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae," published in large part posthumously (1602-1675).

LIGHTFOOT, JOSEPH BARBER, bishop of Durham, born at Liverpool; was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was eminent among English scholars as a New Testament exegete, became bishop of Durham in 1879; died at Bournemouth (1828-1889).

LIGNY, a village 13 m. from Charleroi, where Napoleon defeated Blucher two days before the battle of Waterloo while Wellington and Marshal Ney were engaged at Quatre Bras.

LIGUORI, ST. ALPHONSE MARIA DI, founder of the Redemptorists, born at Naples of a n.o.ble family; bred to the law, but devoted himself to a religious life, received holy orders, lived a life of austerity, and gave himself up to reclaim the lost and instruct the poor and ignorant; was a man of extensive learning, and found time from his pastoral labours to contribute extensively to theological literature and chiefly casuistry, to the extent of 70 volumes; was canonised in 1839; the order he founded is called by his own name as well (1696-1787).

LIGURIAN REPUBLIC, a name given by Bonaparte to the republic of Genoa, founded in 1797.

LI HUNG CHANG, an eminent and enlightened Chinese statesman; is favourable to European culture and intercourse with Europe; was sent as a special envoy to the Czar's coronation in 1896, and afterwards visited other countries in Europe, including our own, and the States and Canada; _b_. 1823.

LILBURNE, JOHN, a victim of the Star-Chamber in the time of Charles I., and exposed on the pillory as well as fined and imprisoned; joined the Parliamentary ranks and fought for the Commonwealth, but as an Independent indulged in violent harangues against Cromwell, and was committed to the Tower, but on his release turned Quaker (1618-1657).

LILITH or LILIS, the name of Adam's first wife, whom, according to Jewish tradition, he had before Eve, and who bore him in that wedlock the whole progeny of aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial devils, and who, it seems, still wanders about the world bewitching men to like issue and slaying little children not protected by amulets against her.

LILLE (161), chief town in the department of Nord, in the extreme N.

of France, 60 m. inland from Calais, an ancient and at present very strong fortress, is in a fertile district; the town, rebuilt in modern times, has a Catholic university, a medical school, library, and art gallery, and thriving industries, linen, cotton, tobacco, sugar, and many others.

LILLIPUT, a country inhabited by a very diminutive race of men not larger in size than a man's finger, visited by Gulliver in his travels.

LILLO, GEORGE, English dramatist, born in London, by trade a jeweller; wrote seven comedies, of which "The Fatal Curiosity" and "George Barnwell" are the best and the best appreciated (1693-1739).

LILLY, WILLIAM, an English astrologer, born in Leicesters.h.i.+re, who made gain by his fortune-telling during the Commonwealth period especially, but got into trouble afterwards as a presumed mischief-maker (1602-1681).

LIMA (200), capital of Peru, 6 m. inland from Callao, its port, a picturesque but somewhat shabby city, 700 ft. above the sea-level, regularly built, with many plazas; has a cathedral and 70 churches; trade is in the hands of foreigners, mostly Germans, and industries are unimportant; it was founded by Pizarro, and his bones lie buried in the cathedral.

LIMBURG, in the basin of the Meuse, formerly a duchy, was after various fortunes divided in 1839 into Belgian Limburg (225), on the W. of the river, capital Ha.s.selt (13), and Dutch Limburg (262), on the E., capital Maestricht (33); partly moorland and partly arable, it has coal, iron, sugar, and tobacco industries.

LIMBUS or LIMBO, according to Catholic theologians a region on the confines of Hades tenanted, the _limbus patrum_, by the souls of good men who died before Christ's advent, and the _limbus infantium_, by the souls of unbaptized infants, both of whom await there the resurrection morn to join the ransomed in heaven.

LIMELIGHT, a bright light caused by making a stream of two gases, oxygen and nitrogen, play in a state of ignition on a piece of compact quicklime.