The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 288

LITANY, a form of supplication in connection with some impending calamity in which the prayer of the priest or officiating clergyman is responded to by the congregation.

LITERATURE, defined by Carlyle "as an 'apocalypse of nature,' a revealing of the 'open secret,' a 'continuous revelation' of the G.o.d-like in the terrestrial and common, which ever endures there, and is brought out now in this dialect, now in that, with various degrees of clearness ... there being touches of it (i. e. the G.o.d-like) in the dark stormful indignation of a Byron, nay, in the withered mockery of a French sceptic, his mockery of the false, a love and worship of the true ... how much more in the sphere harmony of a Shakespeare, the cathedral music of a Milton; something of it too in those humble, genuine, lark-notes of a Burns, skylark starting from the humble furrow far overhead into the blue depths, and singing to us so genuinely there."

LITHUANIA, formerly a grand-duchy occupying portions of the valleys of the Dwina, Niemen, Dnieper, and Bug; for centuries connected with Poland; pa.s.sed to Russia in 1814. The Lithuanians are a distinct race of the Indo-European stock, fair and handsome, with a language of their own, and a literature rich in folk-lore and songs. Of a strong religious temperament, they embraced Christianity late (13th century), and still retain many pagan superst.i.tions; formerly serfs, they are now a humble peasantry engaged in agriculture, cattle-breeding, and bee-keeping.

LITMUS, a colouring matter obtained from certain lichens; extensively used in chemical experiments to detect acids, for instance.

LITTLE CORPORAL, a name given to Bonaparte after the battle of Lodi from his small stature, he being only 5 ft. 2 in.

LITTLE ENGLANDERS, those politicians who hold that English statesmen should concern themselves with England only and its internal affairs.

LITTLETON, SIR THOMAS, English jurist of the 15th century; was recorder of Coventry in 1450, judge of Common Pleas 1466, and knighted in 1475; his work on "Tenures" was the first attempt to cla.s.sify the law of land rights, and was the basis of the famous "c.o.ke upon Littleton"; _d_.

1481.

LITTRe, a celebrated French scholar, physician, philologist, and philosopher, born in Paris; wrote on medical subjects, and translated Hippocrates; was of the Positivist school in philosophy, and owes his fame chiefly to his "Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise," published in 1863-72, and on which he spent forty years' labour (1801-1881).

LITURGY is sometimes used as including any form of public worship, but more strictly it denotes the form for the observance of the Eucharist. As development from the simple form of their inst.i.tution in the primitive Church liturgies a.s.sumed various forms, and only by degrees certain marked types began to prevail: viz., the Roman, ascribed to St.

Peter, in Latin, and prevailing in the Roman Catholic Church all over the world; the Ephesian, ascribed to St. John, in corrupt Latin, included the old Scottish and Irish forms, heard now only in a few places in Spain; the Jerusalem, ascribed to St. James, in Greek, the form of the Greek Church and in translation of the Armenians; the Babylonian, ascribed to St. Thomas, in Syriac, used still by the Nestorians and Christians of St.

Thomas; and the Alexandrian, ascribed to St. Mark, in a Graeco-Coptic jargon, in use among the Copts; these all contain certain common elements, but differ in order and in subsidiary parts; the Anglican liturgy is adapted from the Roman; other Protestant liturgies or forms of service are mostly of modern date and compiled from Scripture sources.

LIVA, an Italian coin worth 9 d., and the monetary unit in the country.

LIVERPOOL (585), the third city and first seaport of Great Britain, in Lancashire, on the Mersey, 3 m. from the sea, formerly the chief seat of the slave interest in Britain; owed its present prosperity to the impulse of the cotton trade at the end of the 18th century; progressing rapidly it has now docks stretching six miles along the Mersey, which receive a sixth of the tonnage that visits British ports; through it pa.s.ses a third of our foreign trade, including enormous imports of wheat and cotton and exports of cotton goods; it possesses shipbuilding and engineering works, iron-foundries, flour, tobacco, and chemical factories; the public buildings, town hall, exchange, colleges, and observatory are fine edifices; it was the native place of W. E.

Gladstone.

LIVERPOOL, EARL OF, ROBERT JENKINSON, English statesman, educated at Oxford; entered Parliament 1791, and as Foreign Secretary negotiated the peace of Amiens in 1802; becoming Lord Hawkesbury in 1803, he became Home Secretary under Pitt, and succeeding to the earldom in 1808; was War Secretary under Perceval in 1800, Premier from 1812 to 1827; he liberalised the tariff and maintained a sound finance, uniting and holding together the Tory party at a critical period (1770-1828).

LIVERYMEN, name given to members of the several guilds or corporations of London and freemen of the city, so called as ent.i.tled to wear the livery belonging to their respective companies; they possess certain privileges of a civic character.

LIVINGSTONE, DAVID, African traveller and missionary, born in Blantyre, Lanarkshire; began life as a mill-worker, studied medicine and theology at Glasgow, and was sent out to Africa by the London Missionary Society in 1840, landed at Port Natal, and addressed himself to missionary work; moving north, he arrived at Lake Ngami in 1849, and ascending the Zambesi in 1853 arrived at Loanda next year; later on he explored the course of the Zambesi and its tributaries, discovered Lake Nya.s.sa, and set himself to discover the sources of the Nile, but this expedition proved too much for him, and he died exhausted; his body was embalmed, brought home to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey (1815-1873).

LIVIUS, t.i.tUS (LIVY), ill.u.s.trious Roman historian, born at Patavium (Padua); appears to have settled early in Rome and spent the most of his life there; his reputation rests on his "History of Rome from the Foundation of the City to the Death of Drusus," it consisted of 142 chapters, but of these only 30 remain entire and 5 in fragments, bequeathing to posterity his account of the early history of the city and of the wars with Hannibal (59-17 B.C.).

LIVONIA (1,260), Russian Baltic province on the Gulf of Riga; is flat and marshy, and only moderately fertile; produces rye, barley, and potatoes; its chief industries are distilling, brewing, and iron-founding, and fishing; four-fifths of the population are Letts and Esthonians, only 5 per cent. are Russian; the original Finnic Livonians are almost extinct; capital Riga (180).

LIVRAISON, part of a serial issued from time to time.

LLANDUDNO (6), a fashionable watering-place at the foot of Great Ormes Head, Carnarvon, frequented by people from Yorkshire and Lancashire.

LLANELLY (32), a manufacturing seaport in Carmarthenshire for shipping coal, iron, and copper.

LLANOS, vast level plains twice the size of Great Britain in the N.

of South America, in the basin of the Orinoco, covered in great part with tall gra.s.s and stocked in the rainy season with herds of cattle; during the dry season they are a desert.

LLORENTE, JUAN ANTONIO, Spanish historian, is the author of several works, but his celebrity is mainly due to his "History of the Spanish Inquisition," of which in 1789 he became the secretary (1760-1823).

LLOYD'S, a part of the Royal Exchange, London, appropriated to the use of underwriters and for marine intelligence, frequented by those interested in merchant shipping; so called from Lloyd's Coffee-house, formerly the head-quarters of the cla.s.s.

LOAD-LINE, line painted on the outside of a vessel to mark the extreme of immersion in loading her with a cargo.

LOADSTONE or LODESTONE, an iron ore remarkable for its magnetic quality or power of attracting iron; it derived its name from its use as a leading stone in the compa.s.s to mariners.

LOBBY, THE, hall connected with a legislative a.s.sembly to which the public have access.

LOCAL OPTION, licence granted to the inhabitants of a district to extinguish or reduce the sale of intoxicants in their midst.

LOCHABER, a Highland district in the S. of Inverness-shire.

LOCHABER AXE, an axe with a broad blade and a long handle formerly in use among the Highlanders as a weapon.

LOCHIEL, a Highland chief, Sir Evan Cameron his name, head of the Cameron clan, who held out against William III.'s rule in the Highlands, but ultimately took the oath of allegiance; _d_. 1719.

LOCHINVAR, hero of a ballad in Scott's "Marmion," who carries off his sweetheart just as she is about to be sacrificed in marriage to another whom she loathes.

LOCHLEVEN, Scottish lake in Kinross-shire overshadowed by Benarty and the West Lomond, is 23 m. NW. of Edinburgh; in a castle on one of its islands Mary Stuart was imprisoned 1567-68; it is now famous for its trout.

LOCKE, JOHN, English philosopher, the father of modern materialism and empiricism, born in Wrington, Somerset; studied medicine, but did not practise it, and gave himself up to a literary life, much of it spent in the family of the celebrated Earl of Shaftesbury, both at home with it and abroad; his great work is his "Essay on the Human Understanding" in 1690, which was preceded by "Letters on Toleration," published before the expulsion of James II., and followed by the "Treatise on Government" the same year, and "Thoughts on Education" in 1693; his "Essay" was written to show that all our ideas were derived from experience, that is, through the senses and reflection on what they reveal, and that there are no innate ideas; "Locke," says Prof. Saintsbury, "is eminently" (that is, before all his contemporaries) "of such stuff as dreams are _not_ made of"--is wholly a prosaic practical man and Englishman (1632-1704).