The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 281

LATIN UNION, a convention in 1865, between France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and Greece, to establish an international monetary standard.

LAt.i.tUDINARIANS, the name given to a body of theologians belonging to the Church of England who, at the end of the 17th century, sought, in the interest of religion, to affiliate the dogmas of the Church, with the principles of philosophy as grounded on reason; they were mostly of the school of Plato, and among their leaders were Cudworth and Henry More.

LATONA, the Latin name for Greek LETO (q. v.).

LATOUR D'AUVERGNE, CORRET DE, a French grenadier, born in Brittany; celebrated for his intrepidity and his self-sacrificing patriotism; distinguished himself in the wars of the Revolution; would accept no promotion, and declined even the t.i.tle of "First Grenadier of the Republic" which Bonaparte wished to confer on him, but by which he is known to posterity (1743-1800).

LATRIELLE, PIERRE ANDRe, French naturalist, born at Brives, in Correze; one of the founders of the science of Entomology; succeeded Lamarck as professor in Natural History in the Jardin des Plantes; wrote several works on entomology (1762-1833).

LATRIA, the name given in Catholic theology to the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, as distinguished from DULIA (q. v.), their name for the wors.h.i.+p of saints.

LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS, a series of pamphlets published by Carlyle in 1850, in vehement denunciation of the political, social, and religious imbecilities and injustices of the period.

LATTER-DAY SAINTS. See MORMONS.

LAUD, WILLIAM, archbishop of Canterbury, born at Reading, son of a clothier; studied at and became a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, was ordained in 1601; early gave evidence of his High-Church proclivities and his hostility to the Puritans, whom for their disdain of forms he regarded as the subverters of the Church; he rose by a succession of preferments, archdeacons.h.i.+p of Huntingdon one of them, to the Primacy, but declined the offer of a cardinal's hat at the hands of the Pope, and became along with Strafford a chief adviser of the unfortunate Charles I.; his advice did not help the king out of his troubles, and his obstinate, narrow-minded pedantry brought his own head to the block; he was beheaded for treason on Tower Hill, Jan. 10, 1645; he "could _see_ no religion" in Scotland once on a visit there, "because he saw no ritual, and his soul was grieved" (1573-1645).

LAUDERDALE, JOHN MAITLAND, DUKE OF, Scottish Secretary under Charles II., professed Covenanting sympathies in his youth, and attended the Westminster a.s.sembly of Divines as a Commissioner for Scotland 1643; succeeding to the earldom in 1645 he joined the Royalists in the Civil War, was made prisoner at Worcester 1651, and confined for nine years; receiving his Scottish office at the Restoration he devoted himself to establis.h.i.+ng by every means the absolute power of the king in Church and State; his measures were responsible for the rising of 1666 and in part for that of 1677; but he made the Episcopal Church quite subservient; appointed to the Privy Council, he sat in the "Cabal" ministry, was made duke in 1672, and in spite of intrigues and an attempt to censure him in the Commons, remained in power till 1680; he was shrewd, clever, witty, sensual, and unscrupulous; then and still hated in Scotland (1616-1682).

LAUENBURG (49), a duchy of N. Germany, between Holstein and Mecklenburg, was annexed to Prussia in 1876.

LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER, a name given to Democrates of Abdera for a certain flippancy he showed.

LAUNCESTON (17), on the Tamar, the second city in Tasmania, is the chief port and market in the N., a fine city, carrying on a good trade with Australian ports, and serving as a summer resort to Melbourne.

LAURA, a young Avignonese married lady, for whom Petrarch conceived a Platonic affection, and who exercised a lifelong influence over him.

LAUREATE, POET, originally an officer of the royal household whose business it was to celebrate in an ode any joyous occasion connected with royalty, originally the sovereign's birthday; it is now a mere honour bestowed by royalty on an eminent poet.

LAURIER, SIR WILFRED, Premier of Canada since 1896, and the first French-Canadian to attain that honour, born in St. Lin; bred for the bar, soon rose to the top of his profession; elected in 1871 as a Liberal to the Quebec Provincial a.s.sembly, where he came at once to the front, and elected in 1874 to the Federal a.s.sembly, he became distinguished as "the silver-tongued Laurier," and as the Liberal leader; his personality is as winning as his eloquence, and he stood first among all the Colonial representatives at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897; _b_. 1841.

LAUSANNE (33), a picturesque town on the slopes of the Jura, 1 m.

from the N. sh.o.r.e of Lake Geneva, is the capital of the Swiss canton of Vaud; noted for its educational inst.i.tutions and museums, and for its magnificent Protestant cathedral; it has little industry, but considerable trade, and is a favourite tourist resort; here took place the disputation between Calvin, Farel, and Viret, and here Gibbon wrote the "Decline and Fall."

LAVA, a general term for all rocks originating in molten streams from volcanoes, includes traps, basalts, pumice, and others; the surface of a lava stream cools and hardens quickly, presenting a cellulose structure, while below the heat is retained much longer and the rock when cooled is compact and columnar or crystalline; the largest recorded lava flow was from Skaptar Jokull, Iceland, in 1783.

LAVALETTE, COUNT DE, French general, born at Paris; condemned to death after the Restoration as an accomplice of Napoleon, he was saved from death by the devotion of his wife, who was found in the prison instead of him on the morning appointed for his execution (1769-1830).

LA VALLIeRE, d.u.c.h.eSSE DE, a fascinating woman, born at Tours, who became the mistress of Louis XIV.; supplanted by another, she became a Carmelite nun in 1674 in the Carmelite nunnery in Paris, and continued doing penance there as would seem till her death (1644-1710).

LAVATER, JOHANN KASPAR, German clergyman, a mystic thinker and writer on physiognomy, born at Zurich; wrote "Outlooks to Eternity," and a work on physiognomy, or the art of judging of character from the features of the face (1741-1804).

LAVOISIER, ANTOINE LAURENT, one of the founders of modern chemistry, born in Paris; to prosecute his researches accepted the post of farmer-general in 1769, introduced in 1776 improvements in manufacturing gunpowder, discovered the composition of the air and the nature of oxygen, applied the principles of chemistry to agriculture, and indicated the presence and action of these principles in various other domains of scientific inquiry; called to account for his actions as farmer-general, one in particular "putting water in the tobacco," and condemned to the guillotine; he in vain begged for a fortnight's respite to finish some experiments, "the axe must do its work" (1742-1794).

LAW, JOHN, financier and speculator, son of a goldsmith and banker, born at Edinburgh; was early noted for his calculating power; visiting London in 1691 he got into debt, sold his estate, killed a man in a duel, and escaped to Amsterdam, where he studied finance; came to Scotland with financial proposals for the Government in 1700, but they were refused, and he spent some years on the Continent as a gambling adventurer; in 1716 he and his brother William started a private bank in Paris, the success of which induced the Regent Orleans in 1718 to inst.i.tute the "Royal Bank of France," with Law as director; next year he floated the "Mississippi Scheme" for the settlement of Louisiana, but after a show of success the scheme proved a bubble; he had to fly to Brussels, his property being confiscated; he died at Venice, poor, but scheming to the end (1671-1729).

LAW, WILLIAM, author of "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life,"

born at Kingscliffe, Northamptons.h.i.+re, son of a grocer; entered Cambridge in 1705; became a Fellow, and took orders in 1711; became a.s.sociated with the family of the elder Gibbon, father of the historian, in 1727, and spent ten years with them as tutor, friend, and spiritual director; in 1740 he retired to Kingscliffe, where he spent the remainder of his life in seclusion, shared by Miss Hester Gibbon, the historian's aunt, and Mrs. Hutcheson, a widow of means, occupying themselves much with charitable schemes; Law was an able theologian and dialectician, and an exponent of German mysticism; his writings contributed greatly to the evangelical revival (1686-1761).

LAWRENCE, JOHN, LORD, the "Saviour of India," born of Irish parentage at Richmond, Yorks.h.i.+re; entered the Bengal Civil Service in 1829, and on the annexation of the Punjab was appointed Commissioner and afterwards Lieutenant-Governor; by his justice and the reforms he carried through he so won the esteem of the Sikhs that at the Mutiny he was able to disarm the Punjab mutineers, raise 50,000 men, and capture Delhi; returning to England he received a pension of 1000 a year, was made successively baronet and Privy Councillor, and sent out again as Governor-General of India in 1863; his rule was characterised by wise policy and sound finance; he disapproved of English interference in Afghan affairs; he was raised to the peerage in 1869 (1811-1879).

LAWRENCE, ST., a deacon of the Church at Rome, who suffered martyrdom in the time of Valerian, 258, by being broiled on a gridiron, which he is represented in Christian art as holding in his hand.

LAY BROTHER, a member of a monastery under the three monastic vows, but not in holy orders.

LAYAMON, early English poet who flourished in the 12th century, and was by his own account priest near Bewdley, on the Severn; was author of a long poem or chronicle of 32,250 lines called "Brut d'Angleterre," and which is of interest as showing how Anglo-Saxon pa.s.sed into the English of Chaucer.

LAYARD, SIR AUSTEN HENRY, English traveller and diplomatist, born at Paris; spent his boyhood in Italy, and studied law in London; between 1845 and 1847 he conducted excavations at the ruins of Nineveh, securing for the British Museum its famous specimens of a.s.syrian art, and on his return published works on "Nineveh and its Remains" and "Monuments of Nineveh"; he received the freedom of London, Oxford gave him D.C.L., and Aberdeen University chose him for Lord Rector; entering Parliament in 1852, he sat for Aylesbury and for Southwark, and was Under-secretary for Foreign Affairs 1861-06; in 1809 he was sent as amba.s.sador to Madrid, and from 1877 till 1880 represented England at Constantinople, where his philo-Turkish sympathies provoked much comment; he was a noted linguist (1817-1894).

LAZZARONI, an indolent cla.s.s of waifs under a chief who used to lounge about Naples, and proved formidable in periods of revolution; they subsisted partly by service as messengers, porters, &c., and partly as beggars.

LEAGUE AND COVENANT, SOLEMN. See COVENANT.

LEAGUE, THE, specially a coalition organised in 1576 by the Duke of Guise to suppress the Reformed religion in France by denying civil and religious liberty to the Huguenots, and specially to prevent the accession of Henry IV. as a Protestant to the throne.

LEAMINGTON (27), a fas.h.i.+onable Warwicks.h.i.+re watering-place of modern date on the Learn, 15 m. SE. of Birmingham. It has chalybeate, saline, and sulphurous springs, to which visitors have gathered since the end of 18th century; brewing and kitchen-range making are carried on; Leamington and Warwick return one member of Parliament.