VOLUME XVI SLICE III Latin Language to Lefebvre, François-Joseph (continued 4)

La Tour d’Auvergne’s almost legendary courage had captivated the imagination of the French soldier, and his memory was not suffered to die. It was customary for the French troops and their allies of the Rhine Confederation under Napoleon to march at attention when passing his burial-place on the battlefield. His heart was long carried by the grenadier company of his regiment, the 46th; after being in the possession of Garibaldi for many years, it was finally deposited in the keeping of the city of Paris in 1883. But the most striking tribute to his memory is paid to-day as it was by order of the first consul in 1800. “His name is to be kept on the pay list and roll of his company. It will be called at all parades and a non-commissioned officer will reply, Mort au champ d’honneur.” This custom, with little variation, is still observed in the 46th regiment on all occasions when the colour is taken on parade.

LATREILLE, PIERRE ANDRÉ (1762-1833), French naturalist, was born in humble circumstances at Brives-la-Gaillarde (Corrèze), on the 20th of November 1762. In 1778 he entered the collège Lemoine at Paris, and on his admission to priestly orders in 1786 he retired to Brives, where he devoted all the leisure which the discharge of his professional duties allowed to the study of entomology. In 1788 he returned to Paris and found means of making himself known to the leading naturalists there. His “Mémoire sur les mutilles découvertes en France,” contributed to the Proceedings of the Society of Natural History in Paris, procured for him admission to that body. At the Revolution he was compelled to quit Paris, and as a priest of conservative sympathies suffered considerable hardship, being imprisoned for some time at Bordeaux. His Précis des caractères génériques des insectes, disposés dans un ordre naturel, appeared at Brives in 1796. In 1798 he became a corresponding member of the Institute, and at the same time was entrusted with the task of arranging the entomological collection at the recently organized Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle (Jardin des Plantes); in 1814 he succeeded G. A. Olivier as member of the Académie des Sciences, and in 1821 he was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour. For some time he acted as professor of zoology in the veterinary school at Alfort near Paris, and in 1830, when the chair of zoology of invertebrates at the Muséum was divided after the death of Lamarck, Latreille was appointed professor of zoology of crustaceans, arachnids and insects, the chair of molluscs, worms and zoophytes being assigned to H. M. D. de Blainville. “On me donne du pain quand je n’ai plus de dents,” said Latreille, who was then in his sixty-eighth year. He died in Paris on the 6th of February 1833.

In addition to the works already mentioned, the numerous works of Latreille include: Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des crustacés et insectes (14 vols., 1802-1805), forming part of C. N. S. Sonnini’s edition of Buffon; Genera crustaceorum et insectorum, secundum ordinem naturalem in familias disposita (4 vols., 1806-1807); Considérations générales sur l’ordre naturel des animaux composant les classes des crustacés, des arachnides, et des insectes (1810); Familles naturelles du règne animal, exposées succinctement et dans un ordre analytique (1825); Cours d’entomologie (of which only the first volume appeared, 1831); the whole of the section “Crustacés, Arachnides, Insectes,” in G. Cuvier’s Règne animal; besides many papers in the Annales du Muséum, the Encyclopédie méthodique, the Dictionnaire classique d’histoire naturelle and elsewhere.

LA TRÉMOILLE, an old French family which derives its name from a village (the modern La Trimouille) in the department of Vienne. The family has been known since the middle of the 11th century, and since the 14th century its members have been conspicuous in French history. Guy, sire de la Trémoille, standard-bearer of France, was taken prisoner at the battle of Nicopolis (1396), and Georges, the favourite of King Charles VII., was captured at Agincourt (1415). Louis (2), called the chevalier sans reproche, defeated and captured the duke of Orleans at the battle of Saint Aubin-du-Cormier (1488), distinguished himself in the wars in Italy, and was killed at Pavia (1525). In 1521 François (2) acquired a claim on the kingdom of Naples by his marriage with Anne de Laval, daughter of Charlotte of Aragon. Louis (3) became duke of Thouars in 1563, and his son Claude turned Protestant, was created a peer of France in 1595, and married a daughter of William the Silent in 1598. To this family belonged the lines of the counts of Joigny, the marquises of Royan and counts of Olonne, and the marquises and dukes of Noirmoutier.

LATROBE, CHARLES JOSEPH (1801-1875), Australian governor, was born in London on the 20th of March 1801. The Latrobes were of Huguenot extraction, and belonged to the Moravian community, of which the father and grandfather of C. J. Latrobe were ministers. His father, Christian Ignatius Latrobe (1758-1836), a musician of some note, did good service in the direction of popularizing classical music in England by his Selection of Sacred Music from the Works of the most Eminent Composers of Germany and Italy (6 vols., 1806-1825). C. J. Latrobe was an excellent mountaineer, and made some important ascents in Switzerland in 1824-1826. In 1832 he went to America with Count Albert Pourtales, and in 1834 crossed the prairies from New Orleans to Mexico with Washington Irving. In 1837 he was invested with a government commission in the West Indies, and two years later was made superintendent of the Port Philip district of New South Wales. When Port Philip was erected into a separate colony as Victoria in 1851, Latrobe became lieutenant-governor. The discovery of gold in that year attracted enormous numbers of immigrants annually. Latrobe discharged the difficult duties of government at this critical period with tact and success. He retired in 1854, became C.B. in 1858 and died in London on the 2nd of December 1875. Beside some volumes of travel he published a volume of poems, The Solace of Song (1837).

See Brief Notices of the Latrobe Family (1864), a privately printed translation of an article revised by members of the family in the Moravian Brüderbote (November 1864).

LATTEN (from O. Fr. laton, mod. Fr. laiton, possibly connected with Span. lata, Ital. latta, a lath), a mixed metal like brass, composed of copper and zinc, generally made in thin sheets, and used especially for monumental brasses and effigies. A fine example is in the screen of Henry VII.’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. There are three forms of latten, “black latten,” unpolished and rolled, “shaven latten,” of extreme thinness, and “roll latten,” of the thickness either of black or shaven latten, but with both sides polished.

LATTICE LEAF PLANT, in botany, the common name for Ouvirandra fenestralis, an aquatic monocotyledonous plant belonging to the small natural order Aponogetonaceae and a native of Madagascar. It has a singular appearance from the structure of the leaves, which are oblong in shape, from 6 to 18 in. long and from 2 to 4 in. broad; they spread horizontally beneath the surface of the water, and are reduced to little more than a lattice-like network of veins. The tuberculate roots are edible. The plant is grown in cultivation as a stove-aquatic.

LATUDE, JEAN HENRI, often called Danry or Masers de Latude (1725-1805), prisoner of the Bastille, was born at Montagnac in Gascony on the 23rd of March 1725. He received a military education and went to Paris in 1748 to study mathematics. He led a dissipated life and endeavoured to curry favour with the marquise de Pompadour by secretly sending her a box of poison and then informing her of the supposed plot against her life. The ruse was discovered, and Mme de Pompadour, not appreciating the humour of the situation, had Latude put in the Bastille on the 1st of May 1749. He was later transferred to Vincennes, whence he escaped in 1750. Retaken and reimprisoned in the Bastille, he made a second brief escape in 1756. He was transferred to Vincennes in 1764, and the next year made a third escape and was a third time recaptured. He was put in a madhouse by Malesherbes in 1775, and discharged in 1777 on condition that he should retire to his native town. He remained in Paris and was again imprisoned. A certain Mme Legros became interested in him through chance reading of one of his memoirs, and, by a vigorous agitation in his behalf, secured his definite release in 1784. He exploited his long captivity with considerable ability, posing as a brave officer, a son of the marquis de la Tude, and a victim of Pompadour’s intrigues. He was extolled and pensioned during the Revolution, and in 1793 the convention compelled the heirs of Mme de Pompadour to pay him 60,000 francs damages. He died in obscurity at Paris on the 1st of January 1805.

The principal work of Latude is the account of his imprisonment, written in collaboration with an advocate named Thiéry, and entitled Le Despotisme dévoilé, ou Mémoires de Henri Masers de la Tude, détenu pendant trente-cinq ans dans les diverses prisons d’état (Amsterdam, 1787, ed. Paris, 1889). An Eng. trans. of a portion was published in 1787. The work is full of lies and misrepresentations, but had great vogue at the time of the French Revolution. Latude also wrote essays on all sorts of subjects.

See J. F. Barrière, Mémoires de Linguet et de Latude (1884); G. Bertin, Notice in edition of the Mémoires (1889); F. Funck-Brentano, “Latude,” in the Revue des deux mondes (1st October 1889).

LATUKA, a tribe of negroid stock inhabiting the mountainous country E. of Gondokoro on the upper Nile. They have received a tinge of Hamitic blood from the Galla people, and have high foreheads, large eyes, straight noses and thick but not pouting lips. They are believed by Sir H. H. Johnston to be the original and purest type of the great Masai people, and are assimilated to the Nilotic negro races in customs. Like their neighbours the Bari and Shilluk tribes, they despise clothing, though the important chiefs have adopted Arab attire. Their country is fertile, and they cultivate tobacco, durra and other crops. Their villages are numerous, and some are of considerable size. Tarangole, for instance, on the Khor Kohs, has upwards of three thousand huts, and sheds for many thousands of cattle. The Latuka are industrious and especially noted for skill as smiths. Emin Pasha stated that the lion was so little dreaded by the Latuka that on one being caught in a leopard trap they hastily set it free.

LAUBAN, a town of Germany in the Prussian province of Silesia, is situated in a picturesque valley, at the junction of the lines of railway from Görlitz and Sorau, 16 m. E. of the former. Pop. (1905) 14,624. Lauban has a Roman Catholic and two Evangelical churches, a town hall, dating from 1541, a conventual house of the order of St Magdalene, dating from the 14th century, a municipal library and museum, two hospitals, an orphanage and several schools. Its industrial establishments comprise tobacco, yarn, thread, linen and woollen cloth manufactories, bleaching and dyeing works, breweries and oil and flour mills.

Lauban was founded in the 10th and fortified in the 13th century; in 1427 and 1431 it was devastated by the Hussites, and in 1640 by the Swedes. In 1761 it was the headquarters of Frederick the Great, and in 1813 it was the last Saxon town that made its submission to Prussia.

See Berkel, Geschichte der Stadt Lauban (Lauban, 1896).

LAUBE, HEINRICH (1806-1884), German dramatist, novelist and theatre-director, was born at Sprottau in Silesia on the 18th of September 1806. He studied theology at Halle and Breslau (1826-1829), and settled in Leipzig in 1832. Here he at once came into prominence with his political essays, collected under the title Das neue Jahrhundert, in two parts—Polen (1833) and Politische Briefe (1833)—and with the novel Das junge Europa, in three parts—Die Poeten, Die Krieger, Die Bürger—(1833-1837). These writings, in which, after the fashion of Heinrich Heine and Ludwig Börne, he severely criticized the political régime in Germany, together with the part he played in the literary movement known as Das junge Deutschland, led to his being subjected to police surveillance and his works confiscated. On his return, in 1834, from a journey to Italy, undertaken in the company of Karl Gutzkow, Laube was expelled from Saxony and imprisoned for nine months in Berlin. In 1836 he married the widow of Professor Hänel of Leipzig; almost immediately afterwards he suffered a year’s imprisonment for his revolutionary sympathies. In 1839 he again settled in Leipzig and began a literary activity as a playwright. Chief among his earlier productions are the tragedies Monaldeschi (1845) and Struensee (1847); the comedies Rokoko, oder die alten Herren (1846); Gottsched und Gellert (1847); and Die Karlsschüler (1847), of which the youthful Schiller is the hero. In 1848 Laube was elected to the national assembly at Frankfort-on-Main for the district of Elbogen, but resigned in the spring of 1849, when he was appointed artistic director of the Hofburg theatre in Vienna. This office he held until 1867, and in this period fall his finest dramatic productions, notably the tragedies Graf Essex (1856) and Montrose (1859), and his historical romance Der deutsche Krieg (1865-1866, 9 vols.), which graphically pictures a period in the Thirty Years’ War. In 1869 he became director of the Leipzig Stadttheater, but returned to Vienna in 1870, where in 1872 he was placed at the head of the new Stadttheater; with the exception of a short interval he managed this theatre with brilliant success until his retirement from public life in 1880. He has left a valuable record of his work in Vienna and Leipzig in the three volumes Das Burgtheater (1868), Das norddeutsche Theater (1872) and Das Wiener Stadttheater (1875). His pen was still active after his retirement, and in the five years preceding his death, which took place at Vienna on the 1st of August 1884, he wrote the romances and novels Die Böhminger (1880), Louison (1881), Der Schatten-Wilhelm (1883), and published an interesting volume of reminiscences, Erinnerungen, 1841-1881 (1882). Laube’s dramas are not remarkable for originality or for poetical beauty; their real and great merit lies in their stage-craft. As a theatre-manager he has had no equal in Germany, and his services in this capacity have assured him a more lasting name in German literary history than his writings.

His Gesammelte Schriften (excluding his dramas) were published in 16 vols. (1879-1882); his Dramatische Werke, in 13 vols. (1845-1875); a popular edition of the latter in 12 vols. (1880-1892). An edition of Laube’s Ausgewählte Werke in 10 vols. appeared in 1906 with an introduction by H. H. Houben. See also J. Proelss, Das junge Deutschland (1892); and H. Bulthaupt, Dramaturgie des Schauspiels (vol. iii., 6th ed., 1901).

L’AUBESPINE, a French family which sprang from Claude de l’Aubespine, a lawyer of Orleans and bailiff of the abbey of St Euverte in the beginning of the 16th century, and rapidly acquired distinction in offices connected with the law. Sebastien de l’Aubespine (d. 1582), abbot of Bassefontaine, bishop of Vannes and afterwards of Limoges, fulfilled important diplomatic missions in Germany, Hungary, England, the Low Countries and Switzerland under Francis I. and his successors. Claude (c. 1500-1567), baron of Châteauneuf-sur-Cher, Sebastien’s brother, was a secretary of finance; he had charge of negotiations with England in 1555 and 1559, and was several times commissioned to treat with the Huguenots in the king’s name. His son Guillaume was a councillor of state and ambassador to England. Charles de l’Aubespine (1580-1653) was ambassador to Germany, the Low Countries, Venice and England, besides twice holding the office of keeper of the seals of France, from 1630 to 1633, and from 1650 to 1651. The family fell into poor circumstances and became extinct in the 19th century.

(M. P.*)

LAUCHSTÄDT, a town of Germany in the province of Prussian Saxony, on the Laucha, 6 m. N.W. of Merseburg by the railway to Schafstädt. Pop. (1905) 2034. It contains an Evangelical church, a theatre, a hydropathic establishment and several educational institutions, among which is an agricultural school affiliated to the university of Halle. Its industries include malting, vinegar-making and brewing. Lauchstädt was a popular watering-place in the 18th century, the dukes of Saxe-Merseburg often making it their summer residence. From 1789 to 1811 the Weimar court theatrical company gave performances here of the plays of Schiller and Goethe, an attraction which greatly contributed to the well-being of the town.

See Maak, Das Goethetheater in Lauchstädt (Lauchstädt, 1905); and Nasemann, Bad Lauchstädt (Halle, 1885).

LAUD, WILLIAM (1573-1645), English archbishop, only son of William Laud, a clothier, was born at Reading on the 7th of October 1573. He was educated at Reading free school, matriculated at St John’s college, Oxford, in 1589, gained a scholarship in 1590, a fellowship in 1593, and graduated B.A. in 1594, proceeding to D.D. in 1608. In 1601 he took orders, in 1603 becoming chaplain to Charles Blount, earl of Devonshire. Laud early took up a position of antagonism to the Calvinistic party in the church, and in 1604 was reproved by the authorities for maintaining in his thesis for the degree of B.D. “that there could be no true church without bishops,” and again in 1606 for advocating “popish” opinions in a sermon at St Mary’s. If high-church doctrines, however, met with opposition at Oxford, they were relished elsewhere, and Laud obtained rapid advancement. In 1607 he was made vicar of Stanford in Northamptonshire, and in 1608 he became chaplain to Bishop Neile, who in 1610 presented him to the living of Cuxton, when he resigned his fellowship. In 1611, in spite of the influence of Archbishop Abbot and Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, Laud was made president of St John’s, and in 1614 obtained in addition the prebend of Buckden, in 1615 the archdeaconry of Huntingdon, and in 1616 the deanery of Gloucester. Here he repaired the fabric and changed the position of the communion table, a matter which aroused great religious controversy, from the centre of the choir to the east end, by a characteristic tactless exercise of power offending the bishop, who henceforth refused to enter the cathedral. In 1617 he went with the king to Scotland, and aroused hostility by wearing the surplice. In 1621 he became bishop of St David’s, when he resigned the presidentship of St John’s.

In April 1622 Laud, by the king’s orders, took part in a controversy with Percy, a Jesuit, known as Fisher, the aim of which was to prevent the conversion of the countess of Buckingham, the favourite’s mother, to Romanism, and his opinions expressed on that occasion show considerable breadth and comprehension. While refusing to acknowledge the Roman Church as the true church, he allowed it to be a true church and a branch of the Catholic body, at the same time emphasizing the perils of knowingly associating with error; and with regard to the English Church he denied that the acceptance of all its articles was necessary. The foundation of belief was the Bible, not any one branch of the Catholic church arrogating to itself infallibility, and when dispute on matters of faith arose, “a lawful and free council, determining according to Scripture, is the best judge on earth.” A close and somewhat strange intimacy, considering the difference in the characters and ideals of the two men, between Laud and Buckingham now began, and proved the chief instrument of Laud’s advancement. The opportunity came with the old king’s death in 1625, for James, with all his pedantry, was too wise and cautious to embark in Laud’s rash undertakings, and had already shown a prudent moderation, after setting up bishops in Scotland, in going no further in opposition to the religious feelings of the people. On the accession of Charles, Laud’s ambitious activities were allowed free scope. A list of the clergy was immediately prepared by him for the king, in which each name was labelled with an O or a P, distinguishing the Orthodox to be promoted from the Puritans to be suppressed. Laud defended Richard Montague, who had aroused the wrath of the parliament by his pamphlet against Calvinism. His influence soon extended into the domain of the state. He supported the king’s prerogative throughout the conflict with the parliament, preached in favour of it before Charles’s second parliament in 1626, and assisted in Buckingham’s defence. In 1626 he was nominated bishop of Bath and Wells, and in July 1628 bishop of London. On the 12th of April 1629 he was made chancellor of Oxford University.

In the patronage of learning and in the exercise of authority over the morals and education of youth Laud was in his proper sphere, many valuable reforms at Oxford being due to his activity, including the codification of the statutes, the statute by which public examinations were rendered obligatory for university degrees, and the ordinance for the election of proctors, the revival of the college system, of moral and religious discipline and order, and of academic dress. He founded or endowed various professorships, including those of Hebrew and Arabic, and the office of public orator, encouraged English and foreign scholars, such as Voss, Selden and Jeremy Taylor, founded the university printing press, procuring in 1633 the royal patent for Oxford, and obtained for the Bodleian library over 1300 MSS., adding a new wing to the building to contain his gifts. His rule at Oxford was marked by a great increase in the number of students. In his own college he erected the new buildings, and was its second founder. Of his chancellorship he himself wrote a history, and the Laudian tradition long remained the great standard of order and good government in the university. Elsewhere he showed his liberality and his zeal for reform. He was an active visitor of Eton and Winchester, and endowed the grammar school at Reading, where he was himself educated. In London he procured funds for the restoration of the dilapidated cathedral of St Paul’s.

He was far less great as a ruler in the state, showing as a judge a tyrannical spirit both in the star chamber and high-commission court, threatening Felton, the assassin of Buckingham, with the rack, and showing special activity in procuring a cruel sentence in the former court against Alexander Leighton in June 1630 and against Henry Sherfield in 1634. His power was greatly increased after his return from Scotland, whither he had accompanied the king, by his promotion to the archbishopric of Canterbury in August 1633. “As for the state indeed,” he wrote to Wentworth on this occasion, “I am for Thorough.” In 1636 the privy council decided in his favour his claim of jurisdiction as visitor over both universities. Soon afterwards he was placed on the commission of the treasury and on the committee of the privy council for foreign affairs. He was all-powerful both in church and state. He proceeded to impose by authority the religious ceremonies and usages to which he attached so much importance. His vicar-general, Sir Nathaniel Brent, went through the dioceses of his province, noting every dilapidation and every irregularity. The pulpit was no longer to be the chief feature in the church, but the communion table. The Puritan lecturers were suppressed. He showed great hostility to the Puritan sabbath and supported the reissue of the Book of Sports, especially odious to that party, and severely reprimanded Chief Justice Richardson for his interference with the Somerset wakes. He insisted on the use of the prayer-book among the English soldiers in the service of Holland, and forced strict conformity on the church of the merchant adventurers at Delft, endeavouring even to reach the colonists in New England. He tried to compel the Dutch and French refugees in England to unite with the Church of England, advising double taxation and other forms of persecution. In 1634 the justices of the peace were ordered to enter houses to search for persons holding conventicles and bring them before the commissioners. He took pleasure in displaying his power over the great, and in punishing them in the spiritual courts for moral offences. In 1637 he took part in the sentence of the star chamber on Prynne, Bastwick and Burton, and in the same year in the prosecution of Bishop Williams. He urged Strafford in Ireland to carry out the same reforms and severities.

He was now to extend his ecclesiastical system to Scotland, where during his visits the appearance of the churches had greatly displeased him. The new prayer-book and canons were drawn up by the Scottish bishops with his assistance and enforced in the country, and, though not officially connected with the work, he was rightly regarded as its real author. The attack not only on the national religion, but on the national independence of Scotland, proved to be the point at which the system, already strained, broke and collapsed. Laud continued to support Strafford’s and the king’s arbitrary measures to the last, and spoke in favour of the vigorous continuation of the war on Strafford’s side in the memorable meeting of the committee of eight on the 5th of May 1640, and for the employment of any means for carrying it on. “Tried all ways,” so ran the notes of his speech, “and refused all ways. By the law of God and man you should have subsistence and lawful to take it.” Though at first opposed to the sitting of convocation, after the dissolution of parliament, as an independent body, on account of the opposition it would arouse, he yet caused to be passed in it the new canons which both enforced his ecclesiastical system and assisted the king’s divine right, resistance to his power entailing “damnation.” Laud’s infatuated policy could go no further, and the etcetera oath, according to which whole classes of men were to be forced to swear perpetual allegiance to the “government of this church by archbishops, bishops, deans and archdeacons, &c.,” was long remembered and derided. His power now quickly abandoned him. He was attacked and reviled as the chief author of the troubles on all sides. In October he was ordered by Charles to suspend the etcetera oath. The same month, when the high commission court was sacked by the mob, he was unable to persuade the star chamber to punish the offenders. On the 18th of December he was impeached by the Long Parliament, and on the 1st of March imprisoned in the tower. On the 12th of May, at Strafford’s request, the archbishop appeared at the window of his cell to give him his blessing on his way to execution, and fainted as he passed by. For some time he was left unnoticed in confinement. On the 31st of May 1643, however, Prynne received orders from the parliament to search his papers, and published a mutilated edition of his diary. The articles of impeachment were sent up to the Lords in October, the trial beginning on the 12th of March 1644, but the attempt to bring his conduct under a charge of high treason proving hopeless, an attainder was substituted and sent up to the Lords on the 22nd of November. In these proceedings there was no semblance of respect for law or justice, the Lords yielding (4th of January 1645) to the menaces of the Commons, who arrogated to themselves the right to declare any crimes they pleased high treason. Laud now tendered the king’s pardon, which had been granted to him in April 1643. This was rejected, and it was with some difficulty that his petition to be executed with the axe, instead of undergoing the ordinary brutal punishment for high treason, was granted. He suffered death on the 10th of January on Tower Hill, asserting his innocence of any offence known to the law, repudiating the charge of “popery,” and declaring that he had always lived in the Protestant Church of England. He was buried in the chancel of All Hallows, Barking, whence his body was removed on the 24th of July 1663 to the chapel of St John’s College, Oxford.

Laud never married. He is described by Fuller as “low of stature, little in bulk, cheerful in countenance (wherein gravity and quickness were all compounded), of a sharp and piercing eye, clear judgment and (abating the influence of age) firm memory.” His personality, on account of the sharp religious antagonisms with which his name is inevitably associated, has rarely been judged with impartiality. His severities were the result of a narrow mind and not of a vindictive spirit, and their number has certainly been exaggerated. His career was distinguished by uprightness, by piety, by a devotion to duty, by courage and consistency. In particular it is clear that the charge of partiality for Rome is unfounded. At the same time the circumstances of the period, the fact that various schemes of union with Rome were abroad, that the missions of Panzani and later of Conn were gathering into the Church of Rome numbers of members of the Church of England who, like Laud himself, were dissatisfied with the Puritan bias which then characterized it, the incident mentioned by Laud himself of his being twice offered the cardinalate, the movement carried on at the court in favour of Romanism, and the fact that Laud’s changes in ritual, however clearly defined and restricted in his own intention, all tended towards Roman practice, fully warranted the suspicions and fears of his contemporaries. Laud’s complete neglect of the national sentiment, in his belief that the exercise of mere power was sufficient to suppress it, is a principal proof of his total lack of true statesmanship. The hostility to “innovations in religion,” it is generally allowed, was a far stronger incentive to the rebellion against the arbitrary power of the crown, than even the violation of constitutional liberties; and to Laud, therefore, more than to Strafford, to Buckingham, or even perhaps to Charles himself, is especially due the responsibility for the catastrophe. He held fast to the great idea of the catholicity of the English Church, to that conception of it which regards it as a branch of the whole Christian church, and emphasizes its historical continuity and identity from the time of the apostles, but here again his policy was at fault; for his despotic administration not only excited and exaggerated the tendencies to separatism and independentism which finally prevailed, but excluded large bodies of faithful churchmen from communion with their church and from their country. The emigration to Massachusetts in 1629, which continued in a stream till 1640, was not composed of separatists but of episcopalians. Thus what Laud grasped with one hand he destroyed with the other.

Passing to the more indirect influence of Laud on his times, we can observe a narrowness of mind and aim which separates him from a man of such high imagination and idealism as Strafford, however closely identified their policies may have been for the moment. The chief feature of Laud’s administration is attention to countless details, to the most trivial of which he attached excessive importance, and which are uninspired by any great underlying principle. His view was always essentially material. The one element in the church which to him was all essential was its visibility. This was the source of his intense dislike of the Puritan and Nonconformist conception of the church, which afforded no tangible or definite form. Hence the necessity for outward conformity, and the importance attached to ritual and ceremony, unity in which must be established at all costs, in contrast to dogma and doctrine, in which he showed himself lenient and large-minded, winning over Hales by friendly discussion, and encouraging the publication of Chillingworth’s Religion of Protestants. He was not a bigot, but a martinet. The external form was with him the essential feature of religion, preceding the spiritual conception, and in Laud’s opinion being the real foundation of it. In his last words on the scaffold he alludes to the dangers and slanders he had endured labouring to keep an uniformity in the external service of God; and Bacon’s conception of a spiritual union founded on variety and liberty was one completely beyond his comprehension.

This narrow materialism was the true cause of his fatal influence both in church and state. In his own character it produced the somewhat blunted moral sense which led to the few incidents in his career which need moral defence, his performance of the marriage ceremony between his first patron Lord Devonshire and the latter’s mistress, the divorced wife of Lord Rich, an act completely at variance with his principles; his strange intimacy with Buckingham; his love of power and place. Indistinguishable from his personal ambition was his passion for the aggrandisement of the church and its predominance in the state. He was greatly delighted at the foolish appointment of Bishop Juxon as lord treasurer in 1636. “No churchman had it,” he cries exultingly, “since Henry VII.’s time, ... and now if the church will not hold up themselves under God, I can do no more.” Spiritual influence, in Laud’s opinion, was not enough for the church. The church as the guide of the nation in duty and godliness, even extending its activity into state affairs as a mediator and a moderator, was not sufficient. Its power must be material and visible, embodied in great places of secular administration and enthroned in high offices of state. Thus the church, descending into the political arena, became identified with the doctrines of one political party in the state—doctrines odious to the majority of the nation—and at the same time became associated with acts of violence and injustice, losing at once its influence and its reputation. Equally disastrous to the state was the identification of the king’s administration with one party in the church, and that with the party in an immense minority not only in the nation but even among the clergy themselves.

Bibliography.—All Laud’s works are to be found in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology (7 vols.), including his sermons (of no great merit), letters, history of the chancellorship, history of his troubles and trial, and his remarkable diary, the MSS. of the last two works being the property of St John’s College. Various modern opinions of Laud’s career can be studied in T. Longueville’s Life of Laud, by a Romish Recusant (1894); Congregational Union Jubilee Lectures, vol. i. (1882); J. B. Mozley’s Essay on Laud; Archbishop Laud, by A. C. Benson (1887); Wm. Laud, by W. H. Hutton (1895); Archbishop Laud Commemoration, ed. by W. F. Collins (lectures, bibliography, catalogue of exhibits, 1895); Hook’s Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury; and H. Bell, Archbishop Laud and Priestly Government (1907).

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LAUD (Lat. laus), a term meaning praise, now rarely found in this sense except in poetry or hymns. Lauds is the name for the second of the offices of the canonical hours in the Roman breviary, so called from the three laudes or psalms of praise, cxlviii.-cl. which form part of the service (see Breviary and Hours, Canonical).

LAUDANUM, originally the name given by Paracelsus to a famous medical preparation of his own composed of gold, pearls, &c. (Opera, 1658, i. 492/2), but containing opium as its chief ingredient. The term is now only used for the alcoholic tincture of opium (q.v.). The name was either invented by Paracelsus from Lat. laudare to praise, or was a corrupted form of “ladanum” (Gr. λήδανον, from Pers. ladan), a resinous juice or gum obtained from various kinds of the Cistus shrub, formerly used medicinally in external applications and as a stomachic, but now only in perfumery and in making fumigating pastilles, &c.

LAUDER, SIR THOMAS DICK, Bart. (1784-1848), Scottish author, only son of Sir Andrew Lauder, 6th baronet, was born at Edinburgh in 1784. He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1820. His first contribution to Blackwood’s Magazine in 1817, entitled “Simon Roy, Gardener at Dunphail,” was by some ascribed to Sir Walter Scott. His paper (1818) on “The Parallel Roads of Glenroy,” printed in vol. ix. of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, first drew attention to the phenomenon in question. In 1825 and 1827 he published two romances, Lochandhu and the Wolf of Badenoch. He became a frequent contributor to Blackwood and also to Tait’s Magazine, and in 1830 he published An Account of the Great Floods of August 1829 in the Province of Moray and adjoining Districts. Subsequent works were Highland Rambles, with Long Tales to Shorten the Way (2 vols. 8vo, 1837), Legendary Tales of the Highlands (3 vols, 12mo, 1841), Tour round the Coasts of Scotland (1842) and Memorial of the Royal Progress in Scotland (1843). Vol. i. of a Miscellany of Natural History, published in 1833, was also partly prepared by Lauder. He was a Liberal, and took an active interest in politics; he held the office of secretary to the Board of Scottish Manufactures. He died on the 29th of May 1848. An unfinished series of papers, written for Tait’s Magazine shortly before his death, was published under the title Scottish Rivers, with a preface by John Brown, M.D., in 1874.

LAUDER, WILLIAM (d. 1771), Scottish literary forger, was born in the latter part of the 17th century, and was educated at Edinburgh university, where he graduated in 1695. He applied unsuccessfully for the post of professor of humanity there, in succession to Adam Watt, whose assistant he had been for a time, and also for the keepership of the university library. He was a good scholar, and in 1739, published Poetarum Scotorum Musae Sacrae, a collection of poems by various writers, mostly paraphrased from the Bible. In 1742 Lauder came to London. In 1747 he wrote an article for the Gentleman’s Magazine to prove that Milton’s Paradise Lost was largely a plagiarism from the Adamus Exul (1601) of Hugo Grotius, the Sarcotis (1654) of J. Masen (Masenius, 1606-1681), and the Poemata Sacra (1633) of Andrew Ramsay (1574-1659). Lauder expounded his case in a series of articles, and in a book (1753) increased the list of plundered authors to nearly a hundred. But his success was short-lived. Several scholars, who had independently studied the alleged sources of Milton’s inspiration, proved conclusively that Lauder had not only garbled most of his quotations, but had even inserted amongst them extracts from a Latin rendering of Paradise Lost. This led to his exposure, and he was obliged to write a complete confession at the dictation of his former friend Samuel Johnson. After several vain endeavours to clear his character he emigrated to Barbadoes, where he died in 1771.

LAUDER, a royal and police burgh of Berwickshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 719. It is situated on the Leader, 29 m. S.E. of Edinburgh by the North British railway’s branch line from Fountainhall, of which it is the terminus. The burgh is said to date from the reign of William the Lion (1165-1214); its charter was granted in 1502. In 1482 James III. with his court and army rested here on the way to raise the siege of Berwick. While the nobles were in the church considering grievances, Robert Cochrane, recently created earl of Mar, one of the king’s favourites, whose “removal” was at the very moment under discussion, demanded admittance. Archibald Douglas, earl of Angus, opened the door and seized Mar, who was forthwith dragged to Lauder Bridge and there, along with six other obnoxious favourites, hanged in sight of his royal master. It was in connexion with this exploit that Angus acquired the nickname of “Bell-the-cat.” The public buildings include a town-hall and a library. The parish church was built in 1673 by the earl of Lauderdale, in exchange for the older edifice, the site of which was required for the enlargement of Thirlestane castle, which, originally a fortress, was then remodelled for a residence. The town is a favourite with anglers.

LAUDERDALE, JOHN MAITLAND, Duke of (1616-1682), eldest surviving son of John Maitland, 2nd Lord Maitland of Thirlestane (d. 1645), who was created earl of Lauderdale in 1624, and of Lady Isabel Seton, daughter of Alexander, earl of Dunfermline, and great-grandson of Sir Richard Maitland (q.v.), the poet, a member of an ancient family of Berwickshire, was born on the 24th of May 1616, at Lethington. He began public life as a zealous adherent of the Presbyterian cause, took the covenant, sat as an elder in the assembly at St Andrews in July 1643, and was sent to England as a commissioner for the covenant in August, and to attend the Westminster assembly in November. In February 1644 he was a member of the committee of both kingdoms, and on the 20th of November was one of the commissioners appointed to treat with the king at Uxbridge, when he made efforts to persuade Charles to agree to the establishment of Presbyterianism. In 1645 he advised Charles to reject the proposals of the Independents, and in 1647 approved of the king’s surrender to the Scots. At this period Lauderdale veered round completely to the king’s cause, had several interviews with him, and engaged in various projects for his restoration, offering the aid of the Scots, on the condition of Charles’s consent to the establishment of Presbyterianism, and on the 26th of December he obtained from Charles at Carisbrooke “the engagement” by which Presbyterianism was to be established for three years, schismatics were to be suppressed, and the acts of the Scottish parliament ratified, the king in addition promising to admit the Scottish nobles into public employment in England and to reside frequently in Scotland. Returning to Scotland, in the spring of 1648, Lauderdale joined the party of Hamilton in alliance with the English royalists. Their defeat at Preston postponed the arrival of the prince of Wales, but Lauderdale had an interview with the prince in the Downs in August, and from this period obtained supreme influence over the future king. He persuaded him later to accept the invitation to Scotland from the Argyll faction, accompanied him thither in 1650 and in the expedition into England, and was taken prisoner at Worcester in 1651, remaining in confinement till March 1660. He joined Charles in May 1660 at Breda, and, in spite of the opposition of Clarendon and Monk, was appointed secretary of state. From this time onwards he kept his hold upon the king, was lodged at Whitehall, was “never from the king’s ear nor council,”1 and maintained his position against his numerous adversaries by a crafty dexterity in dealing with men, a fearless unscrupulousness, and a robust strength of will, which overcame all opposition. Though a man of considerable learning and intellectual attainment, his character was exceptionally and grossly licentious, and his base and ignoble career was henceforward unrelieved by a single redeeming feature. He abandoned Argyll to his fate, permitted, if he did not assist in, the restoration of episcopacy in Scotland, and after triumphing over all his opponents in Scotland drew into his own hands the whole administration of that kingdom, and proceeded to impose upon it the absolute supremacy of the crown in church and state, restoring the nomination of the lords of the articles to the king and initiating severe measures against the Covenanters. In 1669 he was able to boast with truth that “the king is now master here in all causes and over all persons.”

His own power was now at its height, and his position as the favourite of Charles, controlled by no considerations of patriotism or statesmanship, and completely independent of the English parliament, recalled the worst scandals and abuses of the Stuart administration before the Civil War. He was a member of the cabal ministry, but took little part in English affairs, and was not entrusted with the first secret treaty of Dover, but gave personal support to Charles in his degrading demands for pensions from Louis XIV. On the 2nd of May 1672 he was created duke of Lauderdale and earl of March, and on the 3rd of June knight of the garter. In 1673, on the resignation of James in consequence of the Test Act, he was appointed a commissioner for the admiralty. In October he visited Scotland to suppress the dissenters and obtain money for the Dutch War, and the intrigues organized by Shaftesbury against his power in his absence, and the attacks made upon him in the House of Commons in January 1674 and April 1675, were alike rendered futile by the steady support of Charles and James. On the 25th of June 1674 he was created earl of Guilford and Baron Petersham in the peerage of England. His ferocious measures having failed to suppress the conventicles in Scotland, he summoned to his aid in 1677 a band of Highlanders, who were sent into the western country. In consequence, a large party of Scottish nobles came to London, made common cause with the English country faction, and compelled Charles to order the disbandment of the marauders. In May 1678 another demand by the Commons for Lauderdale’s removal was thrown out by court influence by one vote. He maintained his triumphs almost to the end. In Scotland, which he visited immediately after this victory in parliament, he overbore all opposition to the king’s demands for money. Another address for his removal from the Commons in England was suppressed by the dissolution of parliament on the 26th of May 1679, and a renewed attack upon him, by the Scottish party and Shaftesbury’s faction combined, also failed. On the 22nd of June 1679 the last attempt of the unfortunate Covenanters was suppressed at Bothwell Brig. In 1680, however, failing health obliged Lauderdale to resign the place and power for which he had so long successfully struggled. His vote given for the execution of Lord Stafford on the 29th of November is said also to have incurred the displeasure of James. In 1682 he was stripped of all his offices, and he died in August. Lauderdale married (1) Lady Anne Home, daughter of the 1st earl of Home, by whom he had one daughter; and (2) Lady Elizabeth Murray, daughter of the 1st earl of Dysart and widow of Sir Lionel Tollemache. He left no male issue, consequently his dukedom and his English titles became extinct, but he was succeeded in the earldom by his brother Charles (see below).

See Lauderdale Papers Add. MSS. in Brit. Mus., 30 vols., a small selection of which, entitled The Lauderdale Papers, were edited by Osmond Airy for the Camden Society in 1884-1885; Hamilton Papers published by the same society; “Lauderdale Correspondence with Archbishop Sharp,” Scottish Hist. Soc. Publications, vol. 15 (1893); Burnet’s Lives of the Hamiltons and History of his Own Time; R. Baillie’s Letters; S. R. Gardiner’s Hist. of the Civil War and of the Commonwealth; Clarendon’s Hist. of the Rebellion; and the Quarterly Review, clvii. 407. Several speeches of Lauderdal are extant.

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Earls of Lauderdale.

Charles Maitland, 3rd earl of Lauderdale (d. 1691), became an ordinary lord of session as Lord Halton in 1669, afterwards assisting his brother, the duke, in the management of public business in Scotland. His eldest son, Richard (1653-1695), became the 4th earl. As Lord Maitland he was lord-justice-general from 1681 to 1684; he was an adherent of James II. and after fighting at the battle of the Boyne he was an exile in France until his death. This earl made a verse translation of Virgil (published 1737). He left no sons, and his brother John (c. 1655-1710) became the 5th earl. John, a supporter of William III. and of the union of England and Scotland, was succeeded by his son Charles (c. 1688-1744), who was the grandfather of James, the 8th earl.

James Maitland, 8th earl of Lauderdale (1759-1839), was a member of parliament from 1780 until August 1789 when he succeeded his father in the earldom. In the House of Commons he took an active part in debate, and in the House of Lords, where he was a representative peer for Scotland, he was prominent as an opponent of the policy of Pitt and the English government with regard to France, a country he had visited in 1792. In 1806 he was made a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Lauderdale of Thirlestane and for a short time he was keeper of the great seal of Scotland. By this time the earl, who had helped to found the Society of the Friends of the People in 1792, had somewhat modified his political views; this process was continued, and after acting as the leader of the Whigs in Scotland, Lauderdale became a Tory and voted against the Reform Bill of 1832. He died on the 13th of September 1839. He wrote an Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth (1804 and 1819), a work which has been translated into French and Italian and which produced a controversy between the author and Lord Brougham; The Depreciation of the Paper-currency of Great Britain Proved (1812); and other writings of a similar nature. He was succeeded by his sons James (1784-1860) and Anthony (1785-1863) as 9th and 10th earls. Anthony, a naval officer, died unmarried in March 1863, when his barony of the United Kingdom became extinct, but his Scottish earldom devolved upon a cousin, Thomas Maitland (1803-1878), a grandson of the 7th earl, who became 11th earl of Lauderdale. Thomas, who was an admiral of the fleet, died without sons, and the title passed to Charles Barclay-Maitland (1822-1884), a descendant of the 6th earl. When Charles died unmarried, another of the 6th earl’s descendants, Frederick Henry Maitland (b. 1840), became 13th earl of Lauderdale.

The earls of Lauderdale are hereditary standard bearers for Scotland.

1 Pepys’s Diary, 2nd of March 1664.

LAUENBURG, a duchy of Germany, formerly belonging with Holstein to Denmark, but from 1865 to Prussia, and now included in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. It lies on the right bank of the Elbe, is bounded by the territories of Hamburg, Lübeck, Mecklenburg-Strelitz and the province of Hanover, and comprises an area of 453 sq. m. The surface is a slightly undulating plain. The soil, chiefly alluvial, though in some places arenaceous, is generally fertile and well cultivated, but a great portion is covered with forests, interspersed with lakes. By means of the Stecknitz canal, the Elbe, the principal river, is connected with the Trave. The chief agricultural products are timber, fruit, grain, hemp, flax and vegetables. Cattle-breeding affords employment for many of the inhabitants. The railroad from Hamburg to Berlin traverses the country. The capital is Ratzeburg, and there are two other towns, Mölln and Lauenburg.

The earliest inhabitants of Lauenburg were a Slav tribe, the Polabes, who were gradually replaced by colonists from Saxony. About the middle of the 12th century the country was subdued by the duke of Saxony, Henry the Lion, who founded a bishopric at Ratzeburg, and after Henry’s fall in 1180 it formed part of the smaller duchy of Saxony, which was governed by Duke Bernhard. In 1203 it was conquered by Waldemar II., king of Denmark, but in 1227 it reverted to Albert, a son of its former duke. When Albert died in 1260 Saxony was divided. Lauenburg, or Saxe-Lauenburg, as it is generally called, became a separate duchy ruled by his son John, and had its own lines of dukes for over 400 years, one of them, Magnus I. (d. 1543), being responsible for the introduction of the reformed teaching into the land. The reigning family, however, became extinct when Duke Julius Francis died in September 1689, and there were at least eight claimants for his duchy, chief among them being John George III., elector of Saxony, and George William, duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg-Celle, the ancestors of both these princes having made treaties of mutual succession with former dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg. Both entered the country, but George William proved himself the stronger and occupied Ratzeburg; having paid a substantial sum of money to the elector, he was recognized by the inhabitants as their duke. When he died three years later Lauenburg passed to his nephew, George Louis, elector of Hanover, afterwards king of Great Britain as George I., whose rights were recognized by the emperor Charles VI. in 1728. In 1803 the duchy was occupied by the French, and in 1810 it was incorporated with France. It reverted to Hanover after the battle of Leipzig in 1813, and in 1816 was ceded to Prussia, the greater part of it being at once transferred by her to Denmark in exchange for Swedish Pomerania. In 1848, when Prussia made war on Denmark, Lauenburg was occupied at her own request by some Hanoverian troops, and was then administered for three years under the authority of the German confederation, being restored to Denmark in 1851. Definitely incorporated with this country in 1853, it experienced another change of fortune after the short war of 1864 between Denmark on the one side and Prussia and Austria on the other, as by the peace of Vienna (30th of October 1864) it was ceded with Schleswig and Holstein to the two German powers. By the convention of Gastein (14th of August 1865) Austria surrendered her claim to Prussia in return for the payment of nearly £300,000 and in September 1865 King William I. took formal possession of the duchy. Lauenburg entered the North German confederation in 1866 and the new German empire in 1870. It retained its constitution and its special privileges until the 1st of July 1876, when it was incorporated with the kingdom of Prussia. In 1890 Prince Bismarck received the title of duke of Lauenburg.

See P. von Kobbe, Geschichte und Landesbeschreibung des Herzogtums Lauenburg (Altona, 1836-1837); Duve, Mitteilungen zur Kunde der Staatsgeschichte Lauenburgs (Ratzeburg, 1852-1857), and the Archiv des Vereins für die Geschichte des Herzogtums Lauenburg (Ratzeburg, 1884 seq.).

LAUFF, JOSEF (1855- ), German poet and dramatist, was born at Cologne on the 16th of November 1855, the son of a jurist. He was educated at Münster in Westphalia, and entering the army served as a lieutenant of artillery at Thorn and subsequently at Cologne, where he attained the rank of captain in 1890. In 1898 he was summoned by the German emperor, William II., to Wiesbaden, being at the same time promoted to major’s rank, in order that he might devote his great dramatic talents to the royal theatre. His literary career began with the epic poems Jan van Calker, ein Malerlied vom Niederrhein (1887, 3rd ed., 1892) and Der Helfensteiner, ein Sang aus dem Bauernkriege (3rd ed., 1896). These were followed by Die Overstolzin (5th ed., 1900), Herodias (2nd ed., 1898) and the Geislerin (4th ed., 1902). He also wrote the novels Die Hexe (6th ed., 1900), Regina coeli (a story of the fall of the Dutch Republic) (7th ed., 1904), Die Hauptmannsfrau (8th ed., 1903) and Marie Verwahnen (1903). But he is best known as a dramatist. Beginning with the tragedy Ignez de Castro (1894), he proceeded to dramatize the great monarchs of his country, and, in a Hohenzollern tetralogy, issued Der Burggraf (1897, 6th ed. 1900) and Der Eisenzahn (1900), to be followed by Der grosse Kurfürst (The Great Elector) and Friedrich der Grosse (Frederick the Great).

See A. Schroeter, Josef Lauff, Ein litterarisches Zeitbild (1899), and B. Sturm, Josef Lauff (1903).

LAUGHTER, the visible and audible expression of mirth, pleasure or the sense of the ridiculous by movements of the facial muscles and inarticulate sounds (see Comedy, Play and Humour). The O. Eng. hleahtor is formed from hleahhan, to laugh, a common Teutonic word; cf. Ger. lachen, Goth. hlahjan, Icel. hlaeja, &c. These are in origin echoic or imitative words, to be referred to a Teut. base hlah-, Indo-Eur. kark-, to make a noise; Skeat (Etym. Dict., 1898) connects ultimately Gr. κλώσσειν, to cluck like a hen, κράζειν, to croak, &c. A gentle and inaudible form of laughter expressed by a movement of the lips and by the eyes is a “smile.” This is a comparatively late word in English, and is due to Scandinavian influence; cf. Swed. smila; it is ultimately connected with Lat. mirari, to wonder, and probably with Gr. μεῖδος.

LAUMONT, FRANÇOIS PIERRE NICHOLAS GILLET DE (1747-1834), French mineralogist, was born in Paris on the 28th of May 1747. He was educated at a military school, and served in the army from 1772-1784, when he was appointed inspector of mines. His attention in his leisure time was wholly given to mineralogy, and he assisted in organizing the new École des Mines in Paris. He was author of numerous mineralogical papers in the Journal and Annales des Mines. The mineral laumontite was named after him by Haüy. He died in Paris on the 1st of June 1834.

LAUNCESTON, a market town and municipal borough in the Launceston parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, 35½ m. N.W. of Plymouth, on branches of the Great Western and the London & South-Western railways. Pop. (1901) 4053. It lies in a hilly district by and above the river Kensey, an affluent of the Tamar, the houses standing picturesquely on the southern slope of the narrow valley, with the keep of the ancient castle crowning the summit. On the northern slope lies the parish of St Stephen. The castle, the ruins of which are in part of Norman date, was the seat of the earls of Cornwall, and was frequently besieged during the civil wars of the 17th century. In 1656 George Fox the Quaker was imprisoned in the north-east tower for disturbing the peace at St Ives by distributing tracts. Fragments of the old town walls and the south gateway, of the Decorated period, are standing. The church of St Mary Magdalen, built of granite, and richly ornamented without, was erected early in the 16th century, but possesses a detached tower dated 1380. A fine Norman doorway, now appearing as the entrance to a hotel, is preserved from an Augustinian priory founded in the reign of Henry I. The parish church of St Stephen is Early English, and later, with a Perpendicular tower. The trade of Launceston is chiefly agricultural, but there are tanneries and iron foundries. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 2189 acres.

A silver penny of Æthelred II. witnesses to the fact that the privilege of coining money was exercised by Launceston (Dunheved, Lanscaveton, Lanstone) more than half a century before the Norman conquest. At the time of the Domesday survey the canons of St Stephen held Launceston, and the count of Mortain held Dunheved. The number of families settled on the former is not given, but attention is called to the market which had been removed thence by the count to the neighbouring castle of Dunheved, which had two mills, one villein and thirteen bordars. A spot more favoured by nature could not have been chosen either for settlement or for defence than the rich lands near the confluence of the Kensey and Tamar, out of which there rises abruptly the gigantic mound upon which the castle is built. It is not known when the canons settled here nor whether the count’s castle, then newly erected, replaced some earlier fortification. Reginald, earl of Cornwall (1140-1175), granted to the canons rights of jurisdiction in all their lands and exemption from suit of court in the shire and hundred courts. Richard (1225-1272), king of the Romans, constituted Dunheved a free borough, and granted to the burgesses freedom from pontage, stallage and suillage, liberty to elect their own reeves, exemption from all pleas outside the borough except pleas of the crown, and a site for a gild-hall. The farm of the borough was fixed at 100s. payable to the earl, 65s. to the prior and 100s. 10d. to the lepers of St Leonard’s. In 1205 the market which had been held on Sunday was changed to Thursday. An inquisition held in 1383 discloses two markets, a merchant gild, pillory and tumbrel. In 1555 Dunheved, otherwise Launceston, received a charter of incorporation, the common council to consist of a mayor, 8 aldermen and a recorder. By its provisions the borough was governed until 1835. The parliamentary franchise which had been conferred in 1294 was confined to the corporation and a number of free burgesses. In 1832 Launceston was shorn of one of its members, and in 1885 merged in the county. Separated from it by a small bridge over the Kensey lies the hamlet of Newport which, from 1547 until 1832, also returned two members. These were swept away when the Reform Bill became law. Launceston was the assize town until Earl Richard, having built a palace at Restormel, removed the assize to Lostwithiel. In 1386 Launceston regained the privilege by royal charter. From 1715 until 1837, eleven years only excepted, the assize was held alternately here and at Bodmin. Since that time Bodmin has enjoyed the distinction. Launceston has never had a staple industry. The manufacture of serge was considerable early in the 19th century. Its market on Saturdays is well attended, and an ancient fair on the Feast of St Thomas is among those which survive.

See A. F. Robbins, Launceston Past and Present.

LAUNCESTON, the second city of Tasmania, in the county of Cornwall, on the river Tamar, 40 m. from the N. coast of the island, and 133 m. by rail N. by W. of Hobart. The city lies amid surroundings of great natural beauty in a valley enclosed by lofty hills. Cora Linn, about 6 m. distant, a deep gorge of the North Esk river, the Punch Bowl and Cataract Gorge, over which the South Esk falls in a magnificent cascade, joining the North Esk to form the Tamar, are spots famed throughout the Australian commonwealth for their romantic beauty. The city is the commercial capital of northern Tasmania, the river Tamar being navigable up to the town for vessels of 4000 tons. The larger ships lie in midstream and discharge into lighters, while vessels of 2000 tons can berth alongside the wharves on to which the railway runs. Launceston is a well-planned, pleasant town, lighted by electricity, with numerous parks and squares and many fine buildings. The post office, the custom house, the post office savings bank and the Launceston bank form an attractive group; the town hall is used exclusively for civic purposes, public meetings and social functions being held in an elegant building called the Albert hall. There are also a good art gallery, a theatre and a number of fine churches, one of which, the Anglican church of St John, dates from 1824. The city, which attained that rank in 1889, has two attractive suburbs, Invermay and Trevallyn; it has a racecourse at Mowbray 2 m. distant, and is the centre and port of an important fruit-growing district. Pop. of the city proper (1901) 18,022, of the city and suburbs 21,180.

LAUNCH. (1) A verb meaning originally to hurl, discharge a missile or other object, also to rush or shoot out suddenly or rapidly. It is particularly used of the setting afloat a vessel from the stocks on which she has been built. The word is an adaptation of O. Fr. lancher, lancier, to hurl, throw, Lat. lanceare, from lancea, a lance or spear. (2) The name of a particular type of boat, usually applied to one of the largest size of ships’ boats, or to a large boat moved by electricity, steam or other power. The word is an adaptation of the Span. lancha, pinnace, which is usually connected with lanchara, the Portuguese name, common in 16th and 17th century histories, for a fast-moving small vessel. This word is of Malay origin and is derived from lanchār, quick, speedy.

LAUNDRY, a place or establishment where soiled linen, &c., is washed. The word is a contraction of an earlier form lavendry, from Lat. lavanda, things to be washed, lavare, to wash. “Launder,” a similar contraction of lavender, was one (of either sex) who washes linen; from its use as a verb came the form “launderer,” employed as both masculine and feminine in America, and the feminine form “laundress,” which is also applied to a female caretaker of chambers in the Inns of Court, London.

Laundry-work has become an important industry, organized on a scale which requires elaborate mechanical plant very different from the simple appliances that once sufficed for domestic needs. For the actual cleansing of the articles, instead of being rubbed by the hand or trodden by the foot of the washerwoman, or stirred and beaten with a “dolly” in the wash-tub, they are very commonly treated in rotary washing machines driven by power. These machines consist of an outer casing containing an inner horizontal cylindrical cage, in which the clothes are placed. By the rotation of this cage, which is reversed by automatic gearing every few turns, they are rubbed and tumbled on each other in the soap and water which is contained in the outer casing and enters the inner cylinder through perforations. The outer casing is provided with inlet valves for hot and cold water, and with discharge valves; and often also arrangements are made for the admission of steam under pressure, so that the contents can be boiled. Thus the operations of washing, boiling, rinsing and blueing (this last being the addition of a blue colouring matter to mask the yellow tint and thus give the linen the appearance of whiteness) can be performed without removing the articles from the machine. For drying, the old methods of wringing by hand, or by machines in which the clothes were squeezed between rollers of wood or india-rubber, have been largely superseded by “hydro-extractors” or “centrifugals.” In these the wet garments are placed in a perforated cage or basket, supported on vertical bearings, which is rotated at a high speed (1000 to 1500 times a minute) and in a short time as much as 85% of the moisture may thus be removed. The drying is often completed in an apartment through which dry air is forced by fans. In the process of finishing linen the old-fashioned laundress made use of the mangle, about the only piece of mechanism at her disposal. In the box-mangle the articles were pressed on a flat surface by rollers which were weighted with a box full of stones, moved to and fro by a rack and pinion. In a later and less cumbrous form of the machine they were passed between wooden rollers or “bowls” held close together by weighted levers. An important advance was marked by the introduction of machines which not only smooth and press the linen like the mangle, but also give it the glazed finish obtained by hot ironing. Machines of this kind are essentially the same as the calenders used in paper and textile manufacture. They are made in a great variety of forms, to enable them to deal with articles of different shapes, but they may be described generally as consisting either of a polished metal roller, heated by steam or gas, which works against a blanketted or felted surface in the form of another roller or a flat table, or, as in the Decoudun type, of a felted metal roller rotating against a heated concave bed of polished metal. In cases where hand-ironing is resorted to, time is economized by the employment of irons which are continuously heated by gas or electricity.

LA UNION, a seaport and the capital of the department of La Union, Salvador, 144 m. E.S.E. of San Salvador. Pop. (1905) about 4000. La Union is situated at the foot of a lofty volcano, variously known as Conchagua, Pinos and Meanguera, and on a broad indentation in the western shore of Fonseca Bay. Its harbour, the best in the republic, is secure in all weathers and affords good anchorage to large ships. La Union is the port of shipment for the exports of San Miguel and other centres of production in eastern Salvador.

LA UNION, a town of eastern Spain in the province of Murcia, 5 m. by rail E. of Cartagena and close to the Mediterranean Sea. Pop. (1900) 30,275, of whom little more than half inhabit the town itself. The rest are scattered among the numerous metal works and mines of iron, manganese, calamine, sulphur and lead, which are included within the municipal boundaries. La Union is quite a modern town, having sprung up in the second half of the 19th century. It has good modern municipal buildings, schools, hospital, town hall and large factories.

LAURAHÜTTE, a village of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, 5 m. S.E. of Beuthen, on the railway Tarnowitz-Emanuelsegen. It has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, but is especially noteworthy for its huge iron works, which employ about 6000 hands. Pop. (1900) 13,571.

LAUREATE (Lat. laureatus, from laurea, the laurel tree). The laurel, in ancient Greece, was sacred to Apollo, and as such was used to form a crown or wreath of honour for poets and heroes; and this usage has been widespread. The word “laureate” or “laureated” thus came in English to signify eminent, or associated with glory, literary or military. “Laureate letters” in old times meant the despatches announcing a victory; and the epithet was given, even officially (e.g. to John Skelton) by universities, to distinguished poets. The name of “bacca-laureate” for the university degree of bachelor shows a confusion with a supposed etymology from Lat. bacca lauri (the laurel berry), which though incorrect (see Bachelor) involves the same idea. From the more general use of the term “poet laureate” arose its restriction in England to the office of the poet attached to the royal household, first held by Ben Jonson, for whom the position was, in its essentials, created by Charles I. in 1617. (Jonson’s appointment does not seem to have been formally made as poet-laureate, but his position was equivalent to that). The office was really a development of the practice of earlier times, when minstrels and versifiers were part of the retinue of the King; it is recorded that Richard Cœur de Lion had a versificator regis (Gulielmus Peregrinus), and Henry III. had a versificator (Master Henry); in the 15th century John Kay, also a “versifier,” described himself as Edward IV.’s “humble poet laureate.” Moreover, the crown had shown its patronage in various ways; Chaucer had been given a pension and a perquisite of wine by Edward III., and Spenser a pension by Queen Elizabeth. W. Hamilton classes Chaucer, Gower, Kay, Andrew Bernard, Skelton, Robert Whittington, Richard Edwards, Spenser and Samuel Daniel, as “volunteer Laureates.” Sir William Davenant succeeded Jonson in 1638, and the title of poet laureate was conferred by letters patent on Dryden in 1670, two years after Davenant’s death, coupled with a pension of £300 and a butt of Canary wine. The post then became a regular institution, though the emoluments varied, Dryden’s successors being T. Shadwell (who originated annual birthday and New Year odes), Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, Laurence Eusden, Colley Cibber, William Whitehead, Thomas Warton, H. J. Pye, Southey, Wordsworth, Tennyson and, four years after Tennyson’s death, Alfred Austin. The office took on a new lustre from the personal distinction of Southey, Wordsworth and Tennyson; it had fallen into contempt before Southey, and on Tennyson’s death there was a considerable feeling that no possible successor was acceptable (William Morris and Swinburne being hardly court poets). Eventually, however, the undesirability of breaking with tradition for temporary reasons, and thus severing the one official link between literature and the state, prevailed over the protests against following Tennyson by any one of inferior genius. It may be noted that abolition was similarly advocated when Warton and Wordsworth died.

The poet laureate, being a court official, was considered responsible for producing formal and appropriate verses on birthdays and state occasions; but his activity in this respect has varied, according to circumstances, and the custom ceased to be obligatory after Pye’s death. Wordsworth stipulated, before accepting the honour, that no formal effusions from him should be considered a necessity; but Tennyson was generally happy in his numerous poems of this class. The emoluments of the post have varied; Ben Jonson first received a pension of 100 marks, and later an annual “terse of Canary wine.” To Pye an allowance of £27 was made instead of the wine. Tennyson drew £72 a year from the lord chamberlain’s department, and £27 from the lord steward’s in lieu of the “butt of sack.”

See Walter Hamilton’s Poets Laureate of England (1879), and his contributions to Notes and Queries (Feb. 4, 1893).

LAUREL. At least four shrubs or small trees are called by this name in Great Britain, viz. the common or cherry laurel (Prunus Laurocerasus), the Portugal laurel (P. lusitanica), the bay or sweet laurel (Laurus nobilis) and the spurge laurel (Daphne Laureola). The first two belong to the rose family (Rosaceae), to the section Cerasus (to which also belongs the cherry) of the genus Prunus.

The common laurel is a native of the woody and sub-alpine regions of the Caucasus, of the mountains of northern Persia, of north-western Asia Minor and of the Crimea. It was received into Europe in 1576, and flowered for the first time in 1583. Ray in 1688 relates that it was first brought from Trebizonde to Constantinople, thence to Italy, France, Germany and England. Parkinson in his Paradisus records it as growing in a garden at Highgate in 1629; and in Johnson’s edition of Gerard’s Herbal (1633) it is recorded that the plant “is now got into many of our choice English gardens, where it is well respected for the beauty of the leaues and their lasting or continuall greennesse” (see Loudon’s Arboretum, ii. 717). The leaves of this plant are rather large, broadly lance-shaped and of a leathery consistence, the margin being somewhat serrated. They are remarkable for their poisonous properties, giving off the odour of bitter almonds when bruised; the vapour thus issuing is sufficient to kill small insects by the prussic acid which it contains. The leaves when cut up finely and distilled yield oil of bitter almonds and hydrocyanic (prussic) acid. Sweetmeats, custards, cream, &c., are often flavoured with laurel-leaf water, as it imparts the same flavour as bitter almonds; but it should be used sparingly, as it is a dangerous poison, having several times proved fatal. The first case occurred in 1731, which induced a careful investigation to be made of its nature; Schrader in 1802 discovered it to contain hydrocyanic acid. The effects of the distilled laurel-leaf water on living vegetables is to destroy them like ordinary prussic acid; while a few drops act on animals as a powerful poison. It was introduced into the British pharmacopoeia in 1839, but is generally superseded by the use of prussic acid. The aqua laurocerasi, or cherry laurel water, is now standardized to contain 0.1% of hydrocyanic acid. It must not be given in doses larger than 2 drachms. It contains benzole hydrate, which is antiseptic, and is therefore suitable for hypodermic injection; but the drug is of inconsistent strength, owing to the volatility of prussic acid.

The following varieties of the common laurel are in cultivation: the Caucasian (Prunus Laurocerasus, var. caucasica), which is hardier and bears very rich dark-green glossy foliage; the Versailles laurel (var. latifolia), which has larger leaves; the Colchican (var. colchica), which is a dwarf-spreading bush with narrow sharply serrated pale-green leaves. There is also the variety rotundifolia with short broad leaves, the Grecian with narrow leaves and the Alexandrian with very small leaves.

The Portugal laurel is a native of Portugal and Madeira. It was introduced into England about the year 1648, when it was cultivated in the Oxford Botanic Gardens. During the first half of the 18th century this plant, the common laurel and the holly were almost the only hardy evergreen shrubs procurable in British nurseries. They are all three tender about Paris, and consequently much less seen in the neighbourhood of that city than in England, where they stand the ordinary winters but not very severe ones. There is a variety (myrtifolia) of compact habit with smaller narrow leaves, also a variegated variety.

The evergreen glossy foliage of the common and Portugal laurels render them well adapted for shrubberies, while the racemes of white flowers are not devoid of beauty. The former often ripens its insipid drupes, but the Portugal rarely does so. It appears to be less able to accommodate itself to the English climate, as the wood does not usually “ripen” so satisfactorily. Hence it is rather more liable to be cut by the frost. It is grown in the open air in the southern United States.

The bay or sweet laurel (Laurus nobilis) belongs to the family Lauraceae, which contains sassafras, benzoin, camphor and other trees remarkable for their aromatic properties. It is a large evergreen shrub, sometimes reaching the height of 60 ft., but rarely assuming a truly tree-like character. The leaves are smaller than those of the preceding laurels, possessing an aromatic and slightly bitter flavour, and are quite devoid of the poisonous properties of the cherry laurel. The small yellowish-green flowers are produced in axillary clusters, are male or female, and consist of a simple 4-leaved perianth which encloses nine stamens in the male, the anthers of which dehisce by valves which lift upwards as in the common barberry, and carry glandular processes at the base of the filament. The fruit consists of a succulent berry surrounded by the persistent base of the perianth. The bay laurel is a native of Italy, Greece and North Africa, and is abundantly grown in the British Isles as an evergreen shrub, as it stands most winters. The date of its introduction is unknown, but must have been previous to 1562, as it is mentioned in Turner’s Herbal published in that year. A full description also occurs in Gerard’s Herball (1597, p. 1222). It was used for strewing the floors of houses of distinguished persons in the reign of Elizabeth. Several varieties have been cultivated, differing in the character of their foliage, as the undulata or wave-leafed, salicifolia or willow-leafed, the variegated, the broad-leafed and the curled; there is also the double-flowered variety. The bay laurel was carried to North America by the early colonists.

This laurel is generally held to be the Daphne of the ancients, though Lindley, following Gerard (Herball, 1597, p. 761), asserted that the Greek Daphne was Ruscus racemosus. Among the Greeks the laurel was sacred to Apollo, especially in connexion with Tempe, in whose laurel groves the god himself obtained purification from the blood of the Python. This legend was dramatically represented at the Pythian festival once in eight years, a boy fleeing from Delphi to Tempe, and after a time being led back with song, crowned and adorned with laurel. Similar δαφνηφορίαι were known elsewhere in Greece. Apollo, himself purified, was the author of purification and atonement to other penitents, and the laurel was the symbol of this power, which came to be generally associated with his person and sanctuaries. The relation of Apollo to the laurel was expressed in the legend of Daphne (q.v.). The victors in the Pythian games were crowned with the laurels of Apollo, and thus the laurel became the symbol of triumph in Rome as well as in Greece. As Apollo was the god of poets, the Laurea Apollinaris naturally belonged to poetic merit (see Laureate). The various prerogatives of the laurel among the ancients are collected by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xv. 30). It was a sign of truce, like the olive branch; letters announcing victory and the arms of the victorious soldiery were garnished with it; it was thought that lightning could not strike it, and the emperor Tiberius always wore a laurel wreath during thunderstorms. From its association with the divine power of purification and protection, it was often set before the door of Greek houses, and among the Romans it was the guardian of the gates of the Caesars (Ovid, Met. i. 562 sq.). The laurel worn by Augustus and his successors had a miraculous history: the laurel grove at the imperial villa by the ninth milestone on the Flaminian way sprang from a shoot sent from heaven to Livia Drusilla (Sueton. Galba, i.). Like the olive, the laurel was forbidden to profane use. It was employed in divination; the crackling of its leaves in the sacred flame was a good omen (Tibull. ii. 5. 81), and their silence unlucky (Propert. ii. 21); and the leaves when chewed excited a prophetic afflatus (δαφνηφάγοι, cf. Tibull. ii. 5. 63). There is a poem enumerating the ancient virtues of the laurel by J. Passeratius (1594).

The last of the plants mentioned above under the name of laurel is the so-called spurge laurel (Daphne Laureola). This and one other species (D. Mezereum), the mezereon, are the sole representatives of the family Thymelaeaceae in Great Britain. The spurge laurel is a small evergreen shrub, with alternate somewhat lanceolate leaves with entire margins. The green flowers are produced in early spring, and form drooping clusters at the base of the leaves. The calyx is four-cleft, and carries eight stamens in two circles of four each within the tube. The pistil forms a berry, green at first, but finally black. The mezereon differs in blossoming before the leaves are produced, while the flowers are lilac instead of green. The bark furnishes the drug Cortex Mezerei, for which that of the spurge laurel is often substituted. Both are powerfully acrid, but the latter is less so than the bark of mezereon. It is now only used as an ingredient of the liquor sarsae compositus concentratus. Of other species in cultivation there are D. Fortunei from China, which has lilac flowers; D. pontica, a native of Asia Minor; D. alpina, from the Italian Alps; D. collina, south European; and D. Cneorum, the garland flower or trailing daphne, the handsomest of the hardy species.

See Hemsley’s Handbook of Hardy Trees, &c.

LAURENS, HENRY (1724-1792), American statesman, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 24th of February 1724, of Huguenot ancestry. When sixteen he became a clerk in a counting-house in London, and later engaged in commercial pursuits with great success at Charleston until 1771, when he retired from active business. He spent the next three years travelling in Europe and superintending the education of his sons in England. In spite of his strong attachment to England, and although he had defended the Stamp Act, in 1774, in the hope of averting war, he united with thirty-seven other Americans in a petition to parliament against the passing of the Boston Port Bill. Becoming convinced that a peaceful settlement was impracticable, he returned to Charleston at the close of 1774, and there allied himself with the conservative element of the Whig party. He was soon made president of the South Carolina council of safety, and in 1776 vice-president of the state; in the same year he was sent as a delegate from South Carolina to the general continental congress at Philadelphia, of which body he was president from November 1777 until December 1778. In August 1780 he started on a mission to negotiate on behalf of congress a loan of ten million dollars in Holland; but he was captured on the 3rd of September off the Banks of Newfoundland by the British frigate “Vestal,” taken to London and closely imprisoned in the Tower. His papers were found to contain a sketch of a treaty between the United States and Holland projected by William Lee, in the service of Congress, and Jan de Neufville, acting on behalf of Mynheer Van Berckel, pensionary of Amsterdam, and this discovery eventually led to war between Great Britain and the United Provinces. During his imprisonment his health became greatly impaired. On the 31st of December 1781 he was released on parole, and he was finally exchanged for Cornwallis. In June 1782 he was appointed one of the American commissioners for negotiating peace with Great Britain, but he did not reach Paris until the 28th of November 1782, only two days before the preliminaries of peace were signed by himself, John Adams, Franklin and Jay. On the day of signing, however, he procured the insertion of a clause prohibiting the British from “carrying away any negroes or other property of American inhabitants”; and this subsequently led to considerable friction between the British and American governments. On account of failing health he did not remain for the signing of the definitive treaty, but returned to Charleston, where he died on the 8th of December 1792.

His son, John Laurens (1754-1782), American revolutionary officer, was born at Charleston, South Carolina, on the 28th of October 1754. He was educated in England, and on his return to America in 1777, in the height of the revolutionary struggle, he joined Washington’s staff. He soon gained his commander’s confidence, which he reciprocated with the most devoted attachment, and was entrusted with the delicate duties of a confidential secretary, which he performed with much tact and skill. He was present in all Washington’s battles, from Brandywine to Yorktown, and his gallantry on every occasion has gained him the title of “the Bayard of the Revolution.” Laurens displayed bravery even to rashness in the storming of the Chew mansion at Germantown; at Monmouth, where he saved Washington’s life, and was himself severely wounded; and at Coosahatchie, where, with a handful of men, he defended a pass against a large English force under General Augustine Prevost, and was again wounded. He fought a duel against General Charles Lee, and wounded him, on account of that officer’s disrespectful conduct towards Washington. Laurens distinguished himself further at Savannah, and at the siege of Charleston in 1780. After the capture of Charleston by the English, he rejoined Washington, and was selected by him as a special envoy to appeal to the king of France for supplies for the relief of the American armies, which had been brought by prolonged service and scanty pay to the verge of dissolution. The more active co-operation of the French fleets with the land forces in Virginia, which was one result of his mission, brought about the disaster of Cornwallis at Yorktown. Laurens lost no time in rejoining the army, and at Yorktown was at the head of an American storming party which captured an advanced redoubt. Laurens was designated with the vicomte de Noailles to arrange the terms of the surrender, which virtually ended the war, although desultory skirmishing, especially in the South, attended the months of delay before peace was formally concluded. In one of these trifling affairs on the 27th of August 1782, on the Combahee river, Laurens exposed himself needlessly and was killed. Washington lamented deeply the death of Laurens, saying of him, “He had not a fault that I could discover, unless it were intrepidity bordering upon rashness.”

The most valuable of Henry Laurens’s papers and pamphlets including the important “Narrative of the Capture of Henry Laurens, of his Confinement in the Tower of London, &c., 1780, 1781, 1782,” in vol. i. (Charleston, 1857) of the Society’s Collections, have been published by the South Carolina Historical Society. John Laurens’s military correspondence, with a brief memoir by W. G. Simms, was privately printed by the Bradford Club, New York, in 1867.

LAURENT, FRANÇOIS (1810-1887), Belgian historian and jurisconsult, was born at Luxemburg on the 8th of July 1810. He held a high appointment in the ministry of justice for some time before he became professor of civil law in the university of Ghent in 1836. His advocacy of liberal and anti-clerical principles both from his chair and in the press made him bitter enemies, but he retained his position until his death on the 11th of February 1887. He treated the relations of church and state in L’Église et l’état (Brussels, 3 vols., 1858-1862; new and revised edition, 1865), and the same subject occupied a large proportion of the eighteen volumes of his chief historical work, Études sur l’histoire de l’humanité (Ghent and Brussels, 1855-1870), which aroused considerable interest beyond the boundaries of Belgium. His fame as a lawyer rests on his authoritative exposition of the Code Napoléon in his Principes de droit civil (Brussels, 33 vols., 1869-1878), and his Droit civil international (Brussels, 8 vols., 1880-1881). He was charged in 1879 by the minister of justice with the preparation of a report on the proposed revision of the civil code. Besides his anti-clerical pamphlets his minor writings include much discussion of social questions, of the organization of savings banks, asylums, &c., and he founded the Société Callier for the encouragement of thrift among the working classes. With Gustave Callier, whose funeral in 1863 was made the occasion of a display of clerical intolerance, Laurent had much in common, and the efforts of the society were directed to the continuation of Callier’s philanthropic schemes.

For a complete list of his works, see G. Koninck, Bibliographie nationale (Brussels, vol. ii., 1892).

LAURENTINA, VIA, an ancient road of Italy, leading southwards from Rome. The question of the nomenclature of the group of roads between the Via Ardeatina and the Via Ostiensis is somewhat difficult, and much depends on the view taken as to the site of Laurentum. It seems probable, however, that the Via Laurentina proper is that which led out of the Porta Ardeatina of the Aurelian wall and went direct to Tor Paterno, while the road branching from the Via Ostiensis at the third mile, and leading past Decimo to Lavinium (Pratica), which crosses the other road at right angles not far from its destination (the Laurentina there running S.W. and that to Lavinium S.E.) may for convenience be called Lavinatis, though this name does not occur in ancient times. On this latter road, beyond Decimo, two milestones, one of Tiberius, the other of Maxentius, each bearing the number 11, have been found; and farther on, at Capocotta, traces of ancient buildings, and an important sepulchral inscription of a Jewish ruler of a synagogue have come to light. That the Via Laurentina was near the Via Ardeatina is clear from the fact that the same contractor was responsible for both roads. Laurentum was also accessible by a branch from the Via Ostiensis at the eighth mile (at Malafede) leading past Castel Porziano, the royal hunting-lodge, which is identical with the ancient Ager Solonius (in which, Festus tells us, was situated the Pomonal or sacred grove of Pomona) and which later belonged to Marius.

See R. Lanciani in articles quoted under Lavinium.

(T. As.)

LAURENTIUS, PAUL (1554-1624), Lutheran divine, was born on the 30th of March 1554 at Ober Wierau, where his father, of the same names, was pastor. From a school at Zwickau he entered (1573) the university of Leipzig, graduating in 1577. In 1578 he became rector of the Martin school at Halberstadt; in 1583 he was appointed town’s preacher at Plauen-im-Vogtland, and in 1586 superintendent at Oelnitz. On the 20th of October 1595 he took his doctorate in theology at Jena, his thesis on the Symbolum Athanasii (1597), gaining him similar honours at Wittenberg and Leipzig. He was promoted (1605) to be pastor and superintendent at Dresden, and transferred (1616) to the superintendence at Meissen, where he died on the 24th of February 1624. His works consist chiefly of commentaries and expository discourses on prophetic books of the Old Testament, parts of the Psalter, the Lord’s Prayer and the history of the Passion. In two orations he compared Luther to Elijah. Besides theological works he was the author of a Spicilegium Gnomonologicum (1612).

The main authority is C. Schlegel, the historian of the Dresden superintendents (1698), summarized by H. W. Rotermund, in the additions (1810) to Jöcher, Gelehrten-Lexicon (1750).

(A. Go.*)

LAURIA (Luria or Loria) ROGER DE (d. 1305), admiral of Aragon and Sicily, was the most prominent figure in the naval war which arose directly from the Sicilian Vespers. Nothing is really known of his life before he was named admiral in 1283. His father was a supporter of the Hohenstaufen, and his mother came to Spain with Costanza, the daughter of Manfred of Beneventum, when she married Peter, the eldest son and heir of James the Conqueror of Aragon. According to one account Bella of Lauria, the admiral’s mother, had been the foster mother of Costanza. Roger, who accompanied his mother, was bred at the court of Aragon and endowed with lands in the newly conquered kingdom of Valencia. When the misrule of Charles of Anjou’s French followers had produced the famous revolt known as the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, Roger de Lauria accompanied King Peter III. of Aragon on the expedition which under the cover of an attack on the Moorish kingdom of Tunis was designed to be an attempt to obtain possession of all or at least part of the Hohenstaufen dominions in Naples and Sicily which the king claimed by right of his wife as the heiress of Manfred. In 1283, when the island had put itself under the protection of Peter III. and had crowned him king, he gave the command of his fleet to Roger de Lauria. The commission speaks of him in the most laudatory terms, but makes no reference to previous military services.

From this time forward till the peace of Calatabellota in 1303, Roger de Lauria was the ever victorious leader of fleets in the service of Aragon, both in the waters of southern Italy and on the coast of Catalonia. In the year of his appointment he defeated a French naval force in the service of Charles of Anjou, off Malta. The main object before him was to repel the efforts of the Angevine party to reconquer Sicily and then to carry the war into their dominions in Naples. Although Roger de Lauria did incidental fighting on shore, he was as much a naval officer as any modern admiral, and his victories were won by good manœuvring and by discipline. The Catalan squadron, on which the Sicilian was moulded, was in a state of high and intelligent efficiency. Its chiefs relied not on merely boarding, and the use of the sword, as the French forces of Charles of Anjou did, but on the use of the ram, and of the powerful cross-bows used by the Catalans either by hand or, in case of the larger ones, mounted on the bulwarks, with great skill. The conflict was in fact the equivalent on the water of the battles between the English bowmen and the disorderly chivalry of France in the Hundred Years’ War. In 1284 Roger defeated the Angevine fleet in the Bay of Naples, taking prisoner the heir to the kingdom, Charles of Salerno, who remained a prisoner in the hands of the Aragonese in Sicily, and later in Spain, for years. In 1285 he fought on the coast of Catalonia one of the most brilliant campaigns in all naval history. The French king Philippe le Hardi had invaded Catalonia with a large army to which the pope gave the character of crusaders, in order to support his cousin of Anjou in his conflict with the Aragonese. The king, Peter III., had offended his nobles by his vigorous exercise of the royal authority, and received little support from them, but the outrages perpetrated by the French invaders raised the towns and country against them. The invaders advanced slowly, taking the obstinately defended towns one by one, and relying on the co-operation of a large number of allies, who were stationed in squadrons along the coast, and who brought stores and provisions from Narbonne and Aigues Mortes. They relied in fact wholly on their fleet for their existence. A successful blow struck at that would force them to retreat. King Peter was compelled to risk Sicily for a time, and he recalled Roger de Lauria from Palermo to the coast of Catalonia. The admiral reached Barcelona on the 24th of August, and was informed of the disposition of the French. He saw that if he could break the centre of their line of squadrons, stretched as it was so far that its general superiority of numbers was lost in the attempt to occupy the whole of the coast, he could then dispose of the extremities in detail. On the night of the 9th of September he fell on the central squadron of the French fleet near the Hormigas. The Catalan and Sicilian squadrons doubled on the end of the enemies’ line, and by a vigorous employment of the ram, as well as by the destructive shower of bolts from the cross-bows, which cleared the decks of the French, gained a complete victory. The defeat of the enemy was followed, as usually in medieval naval wars, by a wholesale massacre. Roger then made for Rosas, and tempted out the French squadron stationed there by approaching under French colours. In the open it was beaten in its turn. The result was the capture of the town, and of the stores collected there by King Philippe for the support of his army. Within a short time he was forced to retreat amid sufferings from hunger, and the incessant attacks of the Catalan mountaineers, by which his army was nearly annihilated. This campaign, which was followed up by destructive attacks on the French coast, saved Catalonia from the invaders, and completely ruined the French naval power for the time being. No medieval admiral of any nation displayed an equal combination of intellect and energy, and none of modern times has surpassed it. The work had been so effectually done on the coast of Catalonia that Roger de Lauria was able to return to Sicily, and resume his command in the struggle of Aragonese and Angevine to gain, or to hold, the possession of Naples.