The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 287

LIMERICK (159), Irish county on the S. of the Shannon estuary, between Tipperary and Kerry, watered by the Mulcai, Maigue, and Deel; hilly in the S., is mostly fertile, and under corn and green crops; cattle are reared and dairy products exported; some woollens and paper manufactured. There are many antiquities. Limerick (37), the county town, on the Shannon, is the fourth Irish seaport, and manufactures a little lace.

LIMITED LIABILITY, liability on the part of the shareholders of a joint-stock company limited by the amount of their shares.

LIMOGES (68), chief town in the dep. of Haute-Vienne, on the Vienne River, 250 m. S. of Paris; has a Gothic cathedral; is one of the chief manufacturing towns of France. Its porcelain and woollen cloths are widely famed; it has a large transit trade; it gives name to a fine kind of surface enamel, which was brought to perfection there.

LINCOLN (44), capital of Lincolns.h.i.+re, on the Witham, 130 m. N. of London; is a very old and quaint city, with one of the finest cathedrals in England, and many historic buildings. Its annual spring horse-fair is among the largest in the world. It manufactures agricultural instruments, and trades in flour. Its stands on the Oolitic Ridge, and commands a wide view of the Trent Valley.

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, sixteenth President of the United States, born near Hodgensville, Kentucky; spent his boyhood there and in the Indiana forests, and picked up some education in the backwoods schools; pa.s.sed some years in rough work; he was clerk in a store at New Salem, Illinois; became village postmaster and deputy county surveyor, and began to study law; from 1834 to 1842 he led the Whigs in the State legislature, and in 1846 entered Congress; he prospered as a lawyer, and almost left politics; but the opening of the slavery question in 1854 recalled him, and in a series of public debates with Stephen Douglas established his reputation as debater and abolitionist; unsuccessful in his candidature for the Senate, he was nominated by the Republicans for the Presidency, and elected 1860; his election was the signal for the secession of the Southern States; Lincoln refused to recognise the secession, accepted the war, and prosecuted it with energy; on New Year's day, 1863, he proclaimed the emanc.i.p.ation of the negroes, and was re-elected President in 1864, but shortly after his second inauguration was a.s.sa.s.sinated; he was a man of high character, straightforward, steadfast, and sympathetic (1809-1865).

LINCOLN'S INN. See INNS OF COURT.

LINCOLNs.h.i.+RE (473), maritime county in the E. of England, between the Humber and the Wash, next to Yorks.h.i.+re in size, consists of upland country in the W., chalk downs in the E., and fens in the S., but these well reclaimed and cultivated. It is watered by the Trent, Witham, and Welland, and crossed by numerous ca.n.a.ls. Iron abounds in the W.; sheep, cattle, and horses are raised. Grimsby is a s.h.i.+pping and fis.h.i.+ng centre.

Sir Isaac Newton and Lord Tennyson were born in the county, which has many historic a.s.sociations.

LINCRUSTA WALTON, a plastic material invented by Walton, capable of being moulded into raised patterns for decorating walls, &c.

LIND, JENNY (Madame Otto Goldschmidt), the Swedish nightingale, born at Stockholm; giving evidence of her power of song in childhood, she was put under a master at nine; too soon put to practise in public, her voice at twelve showed signs of contracting, but after four years recovered its full power, when, appearing as Alice in "Robert le Diable," the effect was electric; henceforth her fame was established, and followed her over the world; in 1844 she made a round of the chief cities of Germany; made her first appearance in London in 1847, and visited New York in 1851, where she married, and then left the stage for good, to appear only now and again at intervals for some charitable object; she was plain looking, and a woman of great simplicity both in manners and ways of thinking (1821-1882).

LINDLEY, JOHN, distinguished botanist, born near Norwich; wrote extensively on botany according to the natural system of cla.s.sification, and did much to popularise the study; was professor of the science in London University (1799-1865).

LINDSAY, name of a Scottish family of Norman extraction, and that first figures in Scottish history in the reign of David I.

LINDSAY or LYNDSAY, SIR DAVID, OF THE MOUNT, Scottish poet, born at the Mount, near Cupar, Fife, at the grammar-school of which he was educated, as afterwards at St. Andrews University; was usher to James V. from his childhood, and knighted by him after he came of age; did diplomatic work in England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark; is famous as the author of, among others, three poems, the "Satire of the Three Estates," "Dialogues between Experience and a Courtier," and the "History of Squire Meldrum," of which the first is the most worthy of note, and is divided into five parts, the main body of it a play of an allegorical kind instinct with conventional satire; without being a partisan of the Reformation, his works, from the satire in them being directed against the Church, contributed very materially to its reception in Scotland approximately (1490-1555).

LINGA, a symbol in the phallus wors.h.i.+p of the East of the male or generative power in nature. This wors.h.i.+p prevails among the Hindu sect of the Givas or Sivas, and the symbol takes the form of the pistil of a flower, or an erect cylindrical stone.

LINGARD, JOHN, historian, born at Winchester, the son of a carpenter; besides a work on the "Antiquity of the Anglo-Saxon Church,"

wrote a "History of England from the Roman Invasion to the Reign of William III.," the first written that shows anything like scholarly accuracy, and fairly impartial, though the author's religious views as a Roman Catholic, it is alleged, distort the facts a little (1771-1851).

LINGUA FRANCA, a jargon composed of a mixture of languages used in trade intercourse.

LINLITHGOW (4), the county town of Linlithgows.h.i.+re, 16 m. W. of Edinburgh, on the S. sh.o.r.e of a loch of the name, with a palace, the birthplace of James V.; the county (52) lying on the S. sh.o.r.e of the Forth, and rich in minerals.

LINNaeUS, or more properly LINNe, KARL VON, great Swedish naturalist, specially in the department of botany, a branch to the study of which he was devoted from his earliest years; he was the founder of the system of the cla.s.sification of plants which bears his name, and which is determined by the number and disposition of the reproductive organs, but which is now superseded by the natural system of Jussieu; he was professor at Upsala, and his works on his favourite subject were numerous, and extended far and wide his reputation as a naturalist (1707-1778).

LINNELL, JOHN, English painter, painted portraits at first, but in the end landscapes, of which last "The Windmill" and a wood scene are in the National Gallery; he was a friend and an admirer of William Blake (1807-1882).

LINOLEUM, a floorcloth, being a composition of cork and linseed oil with chloride of silver.

LINOTYPE, a contrivance for setting and casting words or lines for printing.

LINZ (47), the capital of the crownland of Upper Austria, on the right bank of the Danube; a busy commercial place, a great railway centre, and the seat of the manufacture of woollen goods, linen, tobacco, &c.; is also of great strategical importance in time of war.

LION, THE, the king of animals, was the symbol of power, courage, and virtue, and in Christian art of the resurrection; is in general, as Mr. Fairholt remarks, "a royal symbol, and in emblem of dominion, command, magnanimity, vigilance, and strength; representing when _couchant_ sovereignty, when _rampant_ magnanimity, when _pa.s.sant_ resolution, when _guardant_ prudence, when _saliant_ valour, when _sciant_ counsel, and when _regardant_ circ.u.mspection."

LIP'ARI ISLANDS (22), a group of islands of volcanic origin, 12 in number, off the N. coast of Sicily, in two of which, Vulcano and Stromboli, the volcanic force is still active, the latter emitting clouds of steam at intervals of five minutes.

LIPPE (128), an old N. German princ.i.p.ality, the princ.i.p.al towns of which are Detmold, Lemgo, and Horn.

LIPPI, FILIPPINO, Italian painter, son of the succeeding; is presumed to have been a pupil of BOTTICELLI'S (q. v.); his earliest known work is the "Vision of St. Bernard" in Florence, and he executed various works in Bologna, Genoa, and Rome; painted frescoes and altar-pieces, and scenes in the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul (1460-1504).

LIPPI, FRA FILIPPO, Italian painter, born at Florence; left an orphan, was brought up in a monastery, where his talent for art was developed and encouraged; went to Ancona, was carried off by pirates, but procured his release by his skill in drawing, and returning to Italy practised his art in Florence and elsewhere, till one day he eloped with a novice in a nunnery who sat to him for a Madonna, by whom he became the father of a son no less famous than himself; he prosecuted his art amid poverty with zeal and success to the last; distinguished by Ruskin (Fors xxiv. 4) as the only monk who ever did good painter's work; he had Botticelli for a pupil (1412-1469).

LIPSIUS, JUSTUS, an erudite Belgian scholar, with fast and loose religious principles; was the author of numerous learned works (1547-1579).

LIPSIUS, RICHARD ADELBERT, distinguished German theologian, born in Gera; professor in succession at Vienna, Kiel, and Jena; wrote on dogmatics, the philosophy of religion, and New Testament criticism (1830-1892).

LISBON (301), the capital of Portugal, a magnificent town, built on the N. bank of the Tagus, 9 m. from its mouth, extends along the banks of the river 9 m. and inland 5 m.; it boasts of an array of fine buildings and squares, a number of literary and scientific inst.i.tutions, and a s.p.a.cious harbour; is remarkable for a marble aqueduct which brings water more than 10 m. across the valley of Alcantara; the manufactures include tobacco, soap, wool, and chemicals, and the exports wine, oil, and fruits; it suffered from an earthquake of great violence in 1755, by which the greater part of the city was destroyed, and from 30,000 to 40,000 of the inhabitants were killed.

LISTER, JOSEPH, LORD, eminent surgeon, born at Upton, Ess.e.x; the founder of modern antiseptic surgery, and is as such reckoned among the world's greatest benefactors; was President of the British a.s.sociation in 1896, and is surgeon-extraordinary to the Queen; _b_. 1827.

LISTON, JOHN, an English actor of low comedy, and long famous on the London stage, to which he was introduced by Charles Kemble; _d_. 1846.

LISTON, ROBERT, a celebrated surgeon, born in Linlithgows.h.i.+re; studied in Edinburgh and London; was distinguished as an operator; was professor of Clinical Surgery in University College, London, and author of "Elements of Surgery" and "Practical Surgery" (1794-1847).

LISZT, ABBe FRANZ, famous pianist, a Hungarian by birth; born with a genius for music, his first efforts at composition were not successful, and it was not till he heard what Paganini made of the violin that he thought what might be made of the piano, and that he devoted himself to the culture of piano music, with the result that he not only became the first pianist himself, but produced a set of compositions that had the effect of raising the art to the highest pitch of perfection; he was a zealous Catholic, and took holy orders, but this did not damp his ardour or weaken his power as a musician; he spent the greater part of his life at Weimar, but he practised his art far and wide, and his last visit to England in 1886, the year on which he died, created quite a flutter in musical circles (1811-1886).