The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 293

LUX, the name given to the unit of the intensity of electric light.

LUX, ADAM, a young Parisian; smitten with love for Charlotte Corday, proposed a statue to her with the inscription "Greater than Brutus,"

which brought him to the guillotine.

LUXEMBURG (211), grand-duchy, a small, independent territory at the corner where Belgium, France, and Rhenish Prussia meet, is a plateau watered by the Moselle on its eastern boundary, and the tributary Sauer; is well wooded and fertile, yielding wheat, flax, hemp, and wine. Iron ore is mined and smelted; leather, pottery, sugar, and spirits manufactured. The population is Low-German and Roman Catholic; the language of the educated, French. The government is in the hands of a grand-duke, the Duke of Na.s.sau, and a house of 42 representatives. For commercial purposes Luxemburg belongs to the German Customs Union. The capital is LUXEMBURG (18). There is a Belgian province of LUXEMBURG (212), until 1839 part of the grand-duchy.

LUZON (3,200), the largest of the Philippines; about one-half larger than Ireland; is the most northerly of the group; is clad with forests, and yields grain, sugar, hemp, and numerous tropical products. The capital is Manila.

LYCAON, a king of Arcadia; changed into a wolf for offering human flesh to Zeus, who came, disguised as mortal, to his palace on the same errand as the angels who visited Lot in Sodom. According to another tradition he was consumed, along with his sons, by fire from heaven.

LYCEUM, a promenade in Athens where Aristotle taught his pupils as he walked to and fro within its precincts.

LYCIAS, an Athenian orator, who flourished in the 4th century B.C.; a.s.sisted in the expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants, and distributed among the citizens his large fortune which the Tyrants had confiscated.

LYCIDAS, the name of an exquisite dirge by Milton over the death by drowning of his friend Edward King.

LYCURGUS, the legislator of Sparta, who lived in the 9th century B.C.; in the interest of it as king visited the wise in other lands, and returned with the wise lessons he had learned from them to frame a code of laws for his country, which was fast lapsing into a state of anarchy; when he had finished his work under the sanction of the oracle at Delphi he set put again on a journey to other lands, but previously took oath of the citizens that they would observe his laws till his return; it was his purpose not to return, and he never did, in order to bind his countrymen to maintain the const.i.tution he gave them inviolate for ever.

LYDGATE, JOHN, an early English poet; was a monk of Bury St. Edmunds in the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries; was a teacher of rhetoric as well as a poet, and a man of some note in his day.

LYDIA, a country of Asia Minor; seat of an early civilisation, and a centre of influences which affected both the religion and culture of Greece; was noted for its music and purple dyes.

LYELL, SIR CHARLES, celebrated English geologist, born at Kinnordy, in Forfars.h.i.+re; bred for and called to the bar; he left his practice, and gave himself to the study of geology, to which he had been attracted by Alexander Buckland's lectures when he was at Oxford; his great work was his "Principles of Geology," which, published in 1830, created quite a revolution in the science; it was followed by his "Student's Elements of Geology," which was modified by his conversion to Darwin's views, and by "Antiquity of Man," written in defence of Darwin's theory (17971875).

LYLY, JOHN, English dramatist, born in Kent; was the author of nine plays on cla.s.sical subjects, written for the court, which were preceded in 1579 by his once famous "Euphues, or Anatomy of Wit," followed by a second part next year, and ent.i.tled "Euphues and his England," and that from the fantastic, pompous, and affected style in which they were written gave a new word, Euphuism, to the English language (1553-1606).

LYNCH LAW, the name given in America to the trial and punishment of offenders without form of law, or by mob law; derived from the name of a man Lynch, dubbed Judge, who being referred to used to administer justice in the far West in this informal way.

LYNDHURST, JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, BARON, thrice Lord Chancellor of England, born at Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts, son of an artist; was brought up in London, educated at Cambridge, and called to the bar in 1804; acquiring fame in the treason trials of the second decade, he entered Parliament in 1808, was Solicitor-General 1819, Attorney-General 1819, Master of the Rolls 1826, and Lord Chancellor in three governments 1827-30; Chief Baron of the Exchequer 1830-34; he was Lord Chancellor in Peel's administrations of 1834-35 and 1841-46; he was great as a debater, and a clear-headed lawyer, but not earnest enough for a statesman (1772-1863).

LYNEDOCH, THOMAS GRAHAM, LORD, soldier, born in Perths.h.i.+re; raised in 1793 the 90th Regiment of Foot, and served with it at Quiberon and Isle Dieu; thereafter distinguished himself in various ways at Minorca 1798, and Malta 1800, in the Peninsular wars, and in Holland; founded the Senior United Service Club in 1817; was created baron and general 1821, and died in London (1748-1843).

LYON COURT, the Herald's College of Scotland, consisting of three heralds and three pursuivants.

LYON KING OF ARMS, the legal heraldic officer of Scotland, who presides over the Lyon Court.

LYONS (398), the second city of France, at the junction of the Rhone and Saone, 250 m. S. of Paris; has a Roman Catholic university, and valuable museum, library, and art collections, many old churches and buildings, and schools of art and industries; the staple industry is silk, weaving, dyeing, and printing; there are also chemical, machinery, and fancy ware manufactures, and it is an emporium of commerce between Central and Southern Europe; of late years Lyons has been a hot-bed of ultra-republicanism.

LYRIC POETRY, poetry originally accompanied by the lyre, in which the poet sings his own pa.s.sions, sure of a sympathetic response from others in like circ.u.mstances with himself.

LYSANDER, a Spartan general and admiral who put an end to the Peloponnesian War by defeat of the Athenian fleet off aegospotami, and of whom Plutarch says in characterisation of him, he knew how to sew the skin of the fox on that of the lion; fell in battle in 395 B.C.

LYSIMACHUS, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, who became king of Thrace and afterwards of Macedonia; _d_. 281 B.C.

LYTTON, EDWARD ROBERT, EARL OF, statesman and novelist, under the _nom de plume_ of Owen Meredith; entered the diplomatic service at an early age, became viceroy of India in 1876, and amba.s.sador at Paris in 1892.

LYTTON, GEORGE EDWARD BULWER, LORD, statesman and novelist, born in London; entered Parliament at the age of 26, began his parliamentary career as a Whig, but became a Conservative and ranked in that party for the greater part of his life; "Pelham," published in 1828, was his first novel, and this was followed by a long list of others of endless variety, all indicative of the conspicuous ability of the author, and to the last giving no sign of decay in power; he was the author of plays as well as novels (1803-1873).

M

MAB, QUEEN, the fairies' midwife that brings dreams to the birth, to be distinguished from t.i.tania, the Queen.

MABILLON, JEAN, a French Benedictine and eminent scholar; wrote a history of his order and edited St. Bernard's works (1632-1707).

MABLY, GABRIEL BONNET DE, French author, was born at Gren.o.ble, brother of Condillac; educated at Lyons, and became secretary to Cardinal Tencin, but most of his life was spent in study, and he died in Paris; his "Romans and the French" is not complimentary to his countrymen; he was a great admirer of the ancients (1709-1785).

MABUSA, JAN, real name Gossaert, Flemish artist, born at Mabuse, lived and died at Antwerp; his work is not great but careful, his figures catch the stiffness of his favourite architectural backgrounds; his early period is strongly national, but a visit to Italy with Philip of Burgundy brought him under southern influences and contributed to intensify his colour (1470-1532).

MACADAM, JOHN LOUDON, Scottish engineer, born at Ayr; inventor of the system of road-making which bears his name; he made his fortune as a merchant in New York, but spent it in road-making (1756-1836).

MACAIRE, ROBERT, a noted criminal and a.s.sa.s.sin that figures in French plays; was convicted of a murder in trial by combat with a witness in the shape of the dog of the murdered man.

MACAO, small island at the mouth of the Canton River, 100 m. S. of Canton, forming with Colovane and Taipa since 1557 a Portuguese station (50, mostly Chinese); is a very healthy port, though very hot; formerly it was a centre of the Coolie trade, abolished in 1873, but its anchorage is bad, and since the rise of Hong-Kong its commerce has suffered severely; chief import opium, export tea; it is the head-quarters of French missions in China.