Articles in This Slice

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LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus), a character or symbol expressing any one of the elementary sounds into which a spoken word may be analysed, one of the members of an alphabet. As applied to things written, the word follows mainly the meanings of the Latin plural litterae, the most common meaning attaching to the word being that of a written communication from one person to another, an epistle (q.v.). For the means adopted to secure the transmission of letters see Post and Postal Service. The word is also, particularly in the plural, applied to many legal and formal written documents, as in letters patent, letters rogatory and dismissory, &c. The Latin use of the plural is also followed in the employment of “letters” in the sense of literature (q.v.) or learning.

LETTERKENNY, a market town of Co. Donegal, Ireland, 23 m. W. by S. of Londonderry by the Londonderry and Lough Swilly and Letterkenny railway. Pop. (1901) 2370. It has a harbour at Port Ballyrane, 1 m. distant on Lough Swilly. In the market square a considerable trade in grain, flax and provisions is prosecuted. Rope-making and shirt-making are industries. The handsome Roman Catholic cathedral for the diocese of Raphoe occupies a commanding site, and cost a large sum, as it contains carving from Rome, glass from Munich and a pulpit of Irish and Carrara marble. It was consecrated in 1901. There is a Catholic college dedicated to St Ewnan. The town, which is governed by an urban district council, is a centre for visitors to the county. Its name signifies the “hill of the O’Cannanans,” a family who lorded over Tyrconnell before the rise of the O’Donnells.

LETTER OF CREDIT, a letter, open or sealed, from a banker or merchant, containing a request to some other person or firm to advance the bearer of the letter, or some other person named therein, upon the credit of the writer a particular or an unlimited sum of money. A letter of credit is either general or special. It is general when addressed to merchants or other persons in general, requesting an advance to a third person, and special when addressed to a particular person by name requesting him to make such an advance. A letter of credit is not a negotiable instrument. When a letter of credit is given for the purchase of goods, the letter of credit usually states the particulars of the merchandise against which bills are to be drawn, and shipping documents (bills of lading, invoices, insurance policies) are usually attached to the draft for acceptance.

LETTERS PATENT. It is a rule alike of common law and sound policy that grants of freehold interests, franchises, liberties, &c., by the sovereign to a subject should be made only after due consideration, and in a form readily accessible to the public. These ends are attained in England through the agency of that piece of constitutional machinery known as “letters patent.” It is here proposed to consider only the characteristics of letters patent generally. The law relating to letters patent for inventions is dealt with under the heading Patents.

Letters patent (litterae patentes) are letters addressed by the sovereign “to all to whom these presents shall come,” reciting the grant of some dignity, office, monopoly, franchise or other privilege to the patentee. They are not sealed up, but are left open (hence the term “patent”), and are recorded in the Patent Rolls in the Record Office, or in the case of very recent grants, in the Chancery Enrolment Office, so that all subjects of the realm may read and be bound by their contents. In this respect they differ from certain other letters of the sovereign directed to particular persons and for particular purposes, which, not being proper for public inspection, are closed up and sealed on the outside, and are thereupon called writs close (litterae clausae) and are recorded in the Close Rolls. Letters patent are used to put into commission various powers inherent in the crown—legislative powers, as when the sovereign entrusts to others the duty of opening parliament or assenting to bills; judicial powers, e.g. of gaol delivery; executive powers, as when the duties of Treasurer and Lord High Admiral are assigned to commissioners of the Treasury and Admiralty (Anson, Const. ii. 47). Letters patent are also used to incorporate bodies by charter—in the British colonies, this mode of legislation is frequently applied to joint stock companies (cf. Rev. Stats. Ontario, c. 191, s. 9)—to grant a congé d’élire to a dean and chapter to elect a bishop, or licence to convocation to amend canons; to grant pardon, and to confer certain offices and dignities. Among grants of offices, &c., made by letters patent the following may be enumerated: offices in the Heralds’ College; the dignities of a peer, baronet and knight bachelor; the appointments of lord-lieutenant, custos rotulorum of counties, judge of the High Court and Indian and Colonial judgeships, king’s counsel, crown livings; the offices of attorney- and solicitor-general, commander-in-chief, master of the horse, keeper of the privy seal, postmaster-general, king’s printer; grants of separate courts of quarter-sessions. The fees payable in respect of the grant of various forms of letters patent are fixed by orders of the lord chancellor, dated 20th of June 1871, 18th of July 1871 and 11th of Aug. 1881. (These orders are set out at length in the Statutory Rules and Orders Revised (ed. 1904), vol. ii. tit. “Clerk of the Crown in Chancery,” pp. i. et seq.) Formerly each colonial governor was appointed and commissioned by letters patent under the great seal of the United Kingdom. But since 1875, the practice has been to create the office of governor in each colony by letters patent, and then to make each appointment to the office by commission under the Royal Sign Manual and to give to the governor so appointed instructions in a uniform shape under the Royal Sign Manual. The letters patent, commission and instructions, are commonly described as the Governor’s Commission (see Jenkyns, British Rule and Jurisdiction beyond the Seas, p. 100; the forms now in use are printed in Appx. iv. Also the Statutory Rules and Codes Revised, ed. 1904, under the title of the colony to which they relate). The Colonial Letters Patent Act 1863 provides that letters patent shall not take effect in the colonies or possessions beyond the seas until their publication there by proclamation or otherwise (s. 2), and shall 502 be void unless so published within nine months in the case of colonies east of Bengal or west of Cape Horn, and within six months in any other case. Colonial officers and judges holding offices by patent for life or for a term certain, are removable by a special procedure—“amotion”—by the Governor and Council, subject to a right of appeal to the king in Council (Leave of Absence Act, formerly cited as “Burke’s Act” 1782; see Montagu v. Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, 1849, 6 Moo. P.C. 491; Willis v. Gipps, 1846, 6 St. Trials [N.S., 311]). The law of conquered or ceded colonies may be altered by the crown by letters patent under the Great Seal as well as by Proclamation or Order in Council (Jephson v. Riera, 1835, 3 Knapp, 130; 3 St. Trials [N.S.] 591).

Procedure.—Formerly letters patent were always granted under the Great Seal. But now, under the Crown Office Act 1877, and the Orders in Council made under it, many letters patent are sealed with the wafer great seal. Letters patent for inventions are issued under the seal of the Patent Office. The procedure by which letters patent are obtained is as follows: A warrant for the issue of letters patent is drawn up; and is signed by the lord chancellor; this is submitted to the law officers of the crown, who countersign it; finally, the warrant thus signed and countersigned is submitted to His Majesty, who affixes his signature. The warrant is then sent to the Crown Office and is filed, after it has been acted upon by the issue of letters patent under the great or under the wafer seal as the case may be. The letters patent are then delivered into the custody of those in whose favour they are granted.

Construction.—The construction of letters patent differs from that of other grants in certain particulars: (i.) Letters patent, contrary to the ordinary rule, are construed in a sense favourable to the grantor (viz. the crown) rather than to the grantee; although this rule is said not to apply so strictly where the grant is made for consideration, or where it purports to be made ex certâ scientiâ et mero motu. (ii.) When it appears from the face of the grant that the sovereign has been mistaken or deceived, either in matter of fact or in matter of law, as, e.g. by false suggestion on the part of the patentee, or by misrecital of former grants, or if the grant is contrary to law or uncertain, the letters patent are absolutely void, and may still, it would seem, be cancelled (except as regards letters patent for inventions, which are revoked by a special procedure, regulated by § 26 of the Patents Act 1883), by the procedure known as scire facias, an action brought against the patentee in the name of the crown with the fiat of the attorney-general.

LETTRES DE CACHET. Considered solely as French documents, lettres de cachet may be defined as letters signed by the king of France, countersigned by one of his ministers, and closed with the royal seal (cachet). They contained an order—in principle, any order whatsoever—emanating directly from the king, and executory by himself. In the case of organized bodies lettres de cachet were issued for the purpose of enjoining members to assemble or to accomplish some definite act; the provincial estates were convoked in this manner, and it was by a lettre de cachet (called lettre de jussion) that the king ordered a parlement to register a law in the teeth of its own remonstrances. The best-known lettres de cachet, however, were those which may be called penal, by which the king sentenced a subject without trial and without an opportunity of defence to imprisonment in a state prison or an ordinary gaol, confinement in a convent or a hospital, transportation to the colonies, or relegation to a given place within the realm.

The power which the king exercised on these various occasions was a royal privilege recognized by old French law, and can be traced to a maxim which furnished a text of the Digest of Justinian: “Rex solutus est a legibus.” This signified particularly that when the king intervened directly in the administration proper, or in the administration of justice, by a special act of his will, he could decide without heeding the laws, and even in a sense contrary to the laws. This was an early conception, and in early times the order in question was simply verbal; thus some letters patent of Henry III. of France in 1576 (Isambert, Anciennes lois françaises, xiv. 278) state that François de Montmorency was “prisoner in our castle of the Bastille in Paris by verbal command” of the late king Charles IX. But in the 14th century the principle was introduced that the order should be written, and hence arose the lettre de cachet. The lettre de cachet belonged to the class of lettres closes, as opposed to lettres patentes, which contained the expression of the legal and permanent will of the king, and had to be furnished with the seal of state affixed by the chancellor. The lettres de cachet, on the contrary, were signed simply by a secretary of state (formerly known as secrétaire des commandements) for the king; they bore merely the imprint of the king’s privy seal, from which circumstance they were often called, in the 14th and 15th centuries, lettres de petit signet or lettres de petit cachet, and were entirely exempt from the control of the chancellor.

While serving the government as a silent weapon against political adversaries or dangerous writers and as a means of punishing culprits of high birth without the scandal of a suit at law, the lettres de cachet had many other uses. They were employed by the police in dealing with prostitutes, and on their authority lunatics were shut up in hospitals and sometimes in prisons. They were also often used by heads of families as a means of correction, e.g. for protecting the family honour from the disorderly or criminal conduct of sons; wives, too, took advantage of them to curb the profligacy of husbands and vice versa. They were issued by the intermediary on the advice of the intendants in the provinces and of the lieutenant of police in Paris. In reality, the secretary of state issued them in a completely arbitrary fashion, and in most cases the king was unaware of their issue. In the 18th century it is certain that the letters were often issued blank, i.e. without containing the name of the person against whom they were directed; the recipient, or mandatary, filled in the name in order to make the letter effective.

Protests against the lettres de cachet were made continually by the parlement of Paris and by the provincial parlements, and often also by the States-General. In 1648 the sovereign courts of Paris procured their momentary suppression in a kind of charter of liberties which they imposed upon the crown, but which was ephemeral. It was not until the reign of Louis XVI. that a reaction against this abuse became clearly perceptible. At the beginning of that reign Malesherbes during his short ministry endeavoured to infuse some measure of justice into the system, and in March 1784 the baron de Breteuil, a minister of the king’s household, addressed a circular to the intendants and the lieutenant of police with a view to preventing the crying abuses connected with the issue of lettres de cachet. In Paris, in 1779, the Cour des Aides demanded their suppression, and in March 1788 the parlement of Paris made some exceedingly energetic remonstrances, which are important for the light they throw upon old French public law. The crown, however, did not decide to lay aside this weapon, and in a declaration to the States-General in the royal session of the 23rd of June 1789 (art. 15) it did not renounce it absolutely. Lettres de cachet were abolished by the Constituent Assembly, but Napoleon re-established their equivalent by a political measure in the decree of the 9th of March 1801 on the state prisons. This was one of the acts brought up against him by the sénatus-consulte of the 3rd of April 1814, which pronounced his fall “considering that he has violated the constitutional laws by the decrees on the state prisons.”

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LETTUCE, known botanically as Lactuca sativa (nat. ord. Compositae), a hardy annual, highly esteemed as a salad plant. The London market-gardeners make preparation for the first main crop of Cos lettuces in the open ground early in August, a frame being set on a shallow hotbed, and, the stimulus of heat not being required, this is allowed to subside till the first week in October, when the soil, consisting of leaf-mould mixed with a little sand, is put on 6 or 7 in. thick, so that the surface is within 4½ in. of the sashes. The best time for sowing is found to be about the 11th of October, one of the best varieties being Lobjoits Green Cos. When the seeds begin to germinate the sashes are drawn quite off in favourable weather during the day, and put on, but tilted, at night in wet weather. Very little watering is required, and the aim should be to keep the plants gently moving till the days begin to lengthen. In January a more active growth is encouraged, and in mild winters a considerable extent of the planting out is done, but in private gardens the preferable time would be February. The ground should be light and rich, and well manured below, and the plants put out at 1 ft. apart each way with the dibble. Frequent stirring of the ground with the hoe greatly encourages the growth of the plants. A second sowing should be made about the 5th of November, and a third in frames about the end of January or beginning of February. In March a sowing may be made in some warm situation out of doors; successional sowings may be made in the open border about every third or fourth week till August, about the middle of which month a crop of Brown Cos, Hardy Hammersmith or Hardy White Cos should be sown, the latter being the most reliable in a severe winter. These plants may be put out early in October on the sides of ridges facing the south or at the front of a south wall, beyond the reach of drops from the copings, being planted 6 or 8 in. apart. Young lettuce plants should be thinned out in the seed-beds before they crowd or draw each other, and transplanted as soon as possible after two or three leaves are formed. Some cultivators prefer that the summer crops should not be transplanted, but sown where they are to stand, the plants being merely thinned out; but transplanting checks the running to seed, and makes the most of the ground.

For a winter supply by gentle forcing, the Hardy Hammersmith and Brown Dutch Cabbage lettuces, and the Brown Cos and Green Paris Cos lettuces, should be sown about the middle of August and in the beginning of September, in rich light soil, the plants being pricked out 3 in. apart in a prepared bed, as soon as the first two leaves are fully formed. About the middle of October the plants should be taken up carefully with balls attached to the roots, and should be placed in a mild hotbed of well-prepared dung (about 55°) covered about 1 ft. deep with a compost of sandy peat, leaf-mould and a little well-decomposed manure. The Cos and Brown Dutch varieties should be planted about 9 in. apart. Give plenty of air when the weather permits, and protect from frost. For winter work Stanstead Park Cabbage Lettuce is greatly favoured now by London market-gardeners, as it stands the winter well. Lee’s Immense is another good variety, while All the Year Round may be sown for almost any season, but is better perhaps for summer crops.

There are two races of the lettuce, the Cos lettuce, with erect oblong heads, and the Cabbage lettuce, with round or spreading heads,—the former generally crisp, the latter soft and flabby in texture. Some of the best lettuces for general purposes of the two classes are the following:—

Cos: White Paris Cos, best for summer; Green Paris Cos, hardier than the white; Brown Cos, Lobjoits Green Cos, one of the hardiest and best for winter; Hardy White Cos.

Cabbage: Hammersmith Hardy Green; Stanstead Park, very hardy, good for winter; Tom Thumb; Brown Dutch; Neapolitan, best for summer; All the Year Round; Golden Ball, good for forcing in private establishments.

Lactuca virosa, the strong-scented lettuce, contains an alkaloid which has the power of dilating the pupil and may possibly be identical with hyoscyamine, though this point is as yet not determined. No variety of lettuce is now used for any medicinal purpose, though there is probably some slight foundation for the belief that the lettuce has faint narcotic properties.

LEUCADIA, the ancient name of one of the Ionian Islands, now Santa Maura (q.v.), and of its chief town (Hamaxichi).

LEUCIPPUS, Greek philosopher, born at Miletus (or Elea), founder of the Atomistic theory, contemporary of Zeno, Empedocles and Anaxagoras. His fame was so completely overshadowed by that of Democritus, who subsequently developed the theory into a system, that his very existence was denied by Epicurus (Diog. Laërt. x. 7), followed in modern times by E. Rohde. Epicurus, however, distinguishes Leucippus from Democritus, and Aristotle and Theophrastus expressly credit him with the invention of Atomism. There seems, therefore, no reason to doubt his existence, although nothing is known of his life, and even his birthplace is uncertain. Between Leucippus and Democritus there is an interval of at least forty years; accordingly, while the beginnings of Atomism are closely connected with the doctrines of the Eleatics, the system as developed by Democritus is conditioned by the sophistical views of his time, especially those of Protagoras. While Leucippus’s notion of Being agreed generally with that of the Eleatics, he postulated its plurality (atoms) and motion, and the reality of not-Being (the void) in which his atoms moved.

LEUCITE, a rock-forming mineral composed of potassium and aluminium metasilicate KAl(SiO3)2. Crystals have the form of cubic icositetrahedra {211}, but, as first observed by Sir David Brewster in 1821, they are not optically isotropic, and are therefore pseudo-cubic. Goniometric measurements made by G. vom Rath in 1873 led him to refer the crystals to the tetragonal system, the faces o being distinct from those lettered i in the adjoining figure. Optical investigations have since proved the crystals to be still more complex in character, and to consist of several orthorhombic or monoclinic individuals, which are optically biaxial and repeatedly twinned, giving rise to twin-lamellae and to striations on the faces. When the crystals are raised to a temperature of about 500° C. they become optically isotropic, the twin-lamellae and striations disappearing, reappearing, however, when the crystals are again cooled. This pseudo-cubic character of leucite is exactly the same as that of the mineral boracite (q.v.).

The crystals are white (hence the name suggested by A. G. Werner in 1791, from λευκός) or ash-grey in colour, and are usually dull and opaque, but sometimes transparent and glassy; they are brittle and break with a conchoidal fracture. The hardness is 5.5, and the specific gravity 2.5. Enclosures of other minerals, arranged in concentric zones, are frequently present in the crystals. On account of the colour and form of the crystals the mineral was early known as “white garnet.” French authors employ R. J. Haüy’s name “amphigène.”

LEUCTRA, a village of Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae, chiefly noticeable for the battle fought in its neighbourhood in 371 B.C. between the Thebans and the Spartans and their allies. A Peloponnesian army, about 10,000 strong, which had invaded Boeotia from Phocis, was here confronted by a Boeotian levy of perhaps 6000 soldiers under Epaminondas (q.v.). In spite of inferior numbers and the doubtful loyalty of his Boeotian allies, Epaminondas offered battle on the plain before the town. Massing his cavalry and the 50-deep column of Theban infantry on his left wing, he sent forward this body in advance of his centre and right wing. After a cavalry engagement in which the Thebans drove their enemies off the field, the decisive issue was fought out between the Theban and Spartan foot. The latter, though fighting well, could not sustain in their 12-deep formation the heavy impact of their opponents’ column, and were hurled back with a loss of about 2000 men, of whom 700 were Spartan citizens, including the king Cleombrotus. Seeing their right wing beaten, the rest of the Peloponnesians retired and left the enemy in possession of the field. Owing to the arrival of a Thessalian army under Jason of Pherae, whose friendship they did not trust, the Thebans were unable to exploit their victory. But the battle is none the less of great significance in Greek history. It marks a revolution in military tactics, affording the first known instance of a deliberate concentration of attack upon the vital point of the enemy’s line. Its political effects were equally far-reaching, for the loss in material strength and prestige which the Spartans here sustained deprived them for ever of their supremacy in Greece.

LEUK (Fr. Loèche Ville), an ancient and very picturesque little town in the Swiss canton of the Valais. It is built above the right bank of the Rhone, and is about 1 m. from the Leuk-Susten station (15½ m. east of Sion and 17½ m. west of Brieg) on the Simplon railway. In 1900 it had 1592 inhabitants, all but wholly German-speaking and Romanists. About 10½ m. by a winding carriage road N. of Leuk, and near the head of the Dala valley, at a height of 4629 ft. above the sea-level, and overshadowed by the cliffs of the Gemmi Pass (7641 ft.; q.v.) leading over to the Bernese Oberland, are the Baths of Leuk (Leukerbad, or Loèche les Bains). They have only 613 permanent inhabitants, but are much frequented in summer by visitors (largely French and Swiss) attracted by the hot mineral springs. These are 22 in number, and are very abundant. The principal is that of St Laurence, the water of which has a temperature of 124° F. The season lasts from June to September. The village in winter is long deprived of sunshine, and is much exposed to avalanches, by which it was destroyed in 1518, 1719 and 1756, but it is now protected by a strong embankment from a similar catastrophe.

LEUTHEN, a village of Prussian Silesia, 10 m. W. of Breslau, memorable as the scene of Frederick the Great’s victory over the Austrians on December 5, 1757. The high road from Breslau to Lüben crosses the marshy Schweidnitz Water at Lissa, and immediately enters the rolling country about Neumarkt. 505 Leuthen itself stands some 4000 paces south of the road, and a similar distance south again lies Sagschütz, while Nypern, on the northern edge of the hill country, is 5000 paces from the road. On Frederick’s approach the Austrians took up a line of battle resting on the two last-named villages. Their whole position was strongly garrisoned and protected by obstacles, and their artillery was numerous though of light calibre. A strong outpost of Saxon cavalry was in Borne to the westward. Frederick had the previous day surprised the Austrian bakeries at Neumarkt, and his Prussians, 33,000 to the enemy’s 82,000, moved towards Borne and Leuthen early on the 5th. The Saxon outpost was rushed at in the morning mist, and, covered by their advanced guard on the heights beyond, the Prussians wheeled to their right. Prince Charles of Lorraine, the Austrian commander-in-chief, on Leuthen Church tower, could make nothing of Frederick’s movements, and the commander of his right wing (Lucchesi) sent him message after message from Nypem and Gocklerwitz asking for help, which was eventually despatched. But the real blow was to fall on the left under Nadasdy. While the Austrian commander was thus wasting time, the Prussians were marching against Nadasdy in two columns, which preserved their distances with an exactitude which has excited the wonder of modern generations of soldiers; at the due place they wheeled into line of battle obliquely to the Austrian front, and in one great échelon,—the cavalry of the right wing foremost, and that of the left “refused,”—Frederick advanced on Sagschütz. Nadasdy, surprised, put a bold face on the matter and made a good defence, but he was speedily routed, and, as the Prussians advanced, battalion after battalion was rolled up towards Leuthen until the Austrians faced almost due south. The fighting in Leuthen itself was furious; the Austrians stood, in places, 100 deep, but the disciplined valour of the Prussians carried the village. For a moment the victory was endangered when Lucchesi came down upon the Prussian left wing from the north, but Driesen’s cavalry, till then refused, charged him in flank and scattered his troopers in wild rout. This stroke ended the battle. The retreat on Breslau became a rout almost comparable to that of Waterloo, and Prince Charles rallied, in Bohemia, barely 37,000 out of his 82,000. Ten thousand Austrians were left on the field, 21,000 taken prisoners (besides 17,000 in Breslau a little later), with 51 colours and 116 cannon. The Prussian loss in all was under 5500. It was not until 1854 that a memorial of this astonishing victory was erected on the battlefield.

LEUTZE, EMANUEL (1816-1868), American artist, was born at Gmünd, Württemberg, on the 24th of May 1816, and as a child was taken by his parents to Philadelphia, where he early displayed talent as an artist. At the age of twenty-five he had earned enough to take him to Düsseldorf for a course of art study at the royal academy. Almost immediately he began the painting of historical subjects, his first work, “Columbus before the Council of Salamanca,” being purchased by the Düsseldorf Art Union. In 1860 he was commissioned by the United States Congress to decorate a stairway in the Capitol at Washington, for which he painted a large composition, “Westward the Star of Empire takes its Way.” His best-known work, popular through engraving, is “Washington crossing the Delaware,” a large canvas containing a score of life-sized figures; it is now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1860, and died at Washington, D.C., on the 18th of July 1868.

LEVALLOIS-PERRET, a north-western suburb of Paris, on the right bank of the Seine, 2½ m. from the centre of the city. Pop. (1906) 61,419. It carries on the manufacture of motor-cars and accessories, carriages, groceries, liqueurs, perfumery, soap, &c., and has a port on the Seine.

LEVANT (from the French use of the participle of lever, to rise, for the east, the orient), the name applied widely to the coastlands of the eastern Mediterranean Sea from Greece to Egypt, or, in a more restricted and commoner sense, to the Mediterranean coastlands of Asia Minor and Syria. In the 16th and 17th centuries the term “High Levant” was used of the Far East. The phrase “to levant,” meaning to abscond, especially of one who runs away leaving debts unpaid, particularly of a betting man or gambler, is taken from the Span. levantar, to lift or break up, in such phrases as levantar la casa, to break up a household, or el campo, to break camp.

LEVASSEUR, PIERRE EMILE (1828-  ), French economist, was born in Paris on the 8th of December 1828. Educated in Paris, he began to teach in the lycée at Alençon in 1852, and in 1857 was chosen professor of rhetoric at Besançon. He returned to Paris to become professor at the lycée Saint Louis, and in 1868 he was chosen a member of the academy of moral and political sciences. In 1872 he was appointed professor of geography, history and statistics in the Collège de France, and subsequently became also professor at the Conservatoire des arts et métiers and at the École libre des sciences politiques. Levasseur was one of the founders of the study of commercial geography, and became a member of the Council of Public Instruction, president of the French society of political economy and honorary president of the French geographical society.

LEVECHE, the name given to the dry hot sirocco wind in Spain; often incorrectly called the “solano.” The direction of the Leveche is mostly from S.E., S. or S.W., and it occurs along the coast from Cabo de Gata to Cabo de Nao, and even beyond Malaga for a distance of some 10 m. inland.

LEVÉE (from Fr. lever, to raise), an embankment which keeps a river in its channel. A river such as the Mississippi (q.v.), draining a large area, carries a great amount of sediment from its swifter head-streams to the lower ground. As soon as a stream’s velocity is checked, it drops a portion of its load of sediment and spreads an alluvial fan in the lower part of its course. This deposition of material takes place particularly at the sides of the stream where the velocity is least, and the banks are in consequence raised above the main channel, so that the river becomes lifted bodily upwards in its bed, and flows above the level of the surrounding country. In flood-time the muddy water flows over the river’s banks, where its velocity is at once checked as it flows gently down the outer side, causing more material to be deposited there, and a long alluvial ridge, called a natural levée, to be built up on either side of the stream. These ridges may be wide or narrow, but they slope from the stream’s outer banks to the plain below, and in consequence require careful watching, for if the levée is broken by a “crevasse,” the whole body of the river may pour through and flood the country below. In 1890 the Mississippi near New Orleans broke through the Nita crevasse and flowed eastward with a current of 15 m. an hour, spreading destruction in its path. The Hwang-ho river in China is peculiarly liable to these inundations. The word levée is also sometimes used to denote a riverside quay or landing-place.

LEVEE (from the French substantival use of lever, to rise; there is no French substantival use of levée in the English sense), a reception or assembly held by the British sovereign or his representative, in Ireland by the lord-lieutenant, in India by the viceroy, in the forenoon or early afternoon, at which men only are present in distinction from a “drawing-room,” at which ladies also are presented or received. Under the ancien règime in France the lever of the king was regulated, especially under Louis XIV., by elaborate etiquette, and the various divisions of the ceremonial followed the stages of the king’s rising from bed, from which it gained its name. The petit lever began when the 506 king had washed and said his daily offices; to this were admitted the princes of the blood, certain high officers of the household and those to whom a special permit had been granted; then followed the première entrée, to which came the secretaries and other officials and those having the entrée; these were received by the king in his dressing-gown. Finally, at the grand lever, the remainder of the household, the nobles and gentlemen of the court were received; the king by that time was shaved, had changed his linen and was in his wig. In the United States the term “levee” was formerly used of the public receptions held by the president.

LEVELLERS, the name given to an important political party in England during the period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth. The germ of the Levelling movement must be sought for among the Agitators (q.v.), men of strong republican views, and the name Leveller first appears in a letter of the 1st of November 1647, although it was undoubtedly in existence as a nickname before this date (Gardiner, Great Civil War, iii. 380). This letter refers to these extremists thus: “They have given themselves a new name, viz. Levellers, for they intend to sett all things straight, and rayse a parity and community in the kingdom.”

The Levellers first became prominent in 1647 during the protracted and unsatisfactory negotiations between the king and the parliament, and while the relations between the latter and the army were very strained. Like the Agitators they were mainly found among the soldiers; they were opposed to the existence of kingship, and they feared that Cromwell and the other parliamentary leaders were too complaisant in their dealings with Charles; in fact they doubted their sincerity in this matter. Led by John Lilburne (q.v.) they presented a manifesto, The Case of the Army truly stated, to the commander-in-chief, Lord Fairfax, in October 1647. In this they demanded a dissolution of parliament within a year and substantial changes in the constitution of future parliaments, which were to be regulated by an unalterable “law paramount.” In a second document, The Agreement of the People, they expanded these ideas, which were discussed by Cromwell, Ireton and other officers on the one side, and by John Wildman, Thomas Rainsborough and Edward Sexby for the Levellers on the other. But no settlement was made; some of the Levellers clamoured for the king’s death, and in November 1647, just after his flight from Hampton Court to Carisbrooke, they were responsible for a mutiny which broke out in two regiments at Corkbush Field, near Ware. This, however, was promptly suppressed by Cromwell. During the twelve months which immediately preceded the execution of the king the Levellers conducted a lively agitation in favour of the ideas expressed in the Agreement of the people, and in January 1648 Lilburne was arrested for using seditious language at a meeting in London. But no success attended these and similar efforts, and their only result was that the Levellers regarded Cromwell with still greater suspicion.

Early in 1649, just after the death of the king, the Levellers renewed their activity. They were both numerous and dangerous, and they stood up, says Gardiner, “for an exaggeration of the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy.” In a pamphlet, England’s New Chains, Lilburne asked for the dissolution of the council of state and for a new and reformed parliament. He followed this up with the Second Part of England’s New Chains; his writings were declared treasonable by parliament, and in March 1649 he and three other leading Levellers, Richard Overton, William Walwyn and Prince were arrested. The discontent which was spreading in the army was fanned when certain regiments were ordered to proceed to Ireland, and in April 1649 there was a meeting in London; but this was quickly put down by Fairfax and Cromwell, and its leader, Robert Lockyer, was shot. Risings at Burford and at Banbury were also suppressed without any serious difficulty, and the trouble with the Levellers was practically over. Gradually they became less prominent, but under the Commonwealth they made frequent advances to the exiled king Charles II., and there was some danger from them early in 1655 when Wildman was arrested and Sexby escaped from England. The distinguishing mark of the Leveller was a sea-green ribbon.

Another but more harmless form of the same movement was the assembling of about fifty men on St George’s Hill near Oatlands in Surrey. In April 1649 these “True Levellers” or “Diggers,” as they were called, took possession of some unoccupied ground which they began to cultivate. They were, however, soon dispersed, and their leaders were arrested and brought before Fairfax, when they took the opportunity of denouncing landowners. It is interesting to note that Lilburne and his colleagues objected to being designated Levellers, as they had no desire to take away “the proper right and title that every man has to what is his own.”

Cromwell attacked the Levellers in his speech to parliament in September 1654 (Carlyle, Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, Speech II.). He said: “A nobleman, a gentleman, a yeoman; the distinction of these; that is a good interest of the nation, and a great one. The ‘natural’ magistracy of the nation, was it not almost trampled under foot, under despite and contempt, by men of Levelling principles? I beseech you, for the orders of men and ranks of men, did not that Levelling principle tend to the reducing of all to an equality? Did it ‘consciously’ think to do so; or did it ‘only unconsciously’ practise towards that for property and interest? ‘At all events,’ what was the purport of it but to make the tenant as liberal a fortune as the landlord? Which, I think, if obtained, would not have lasted long.”

LEVEN, ALEXANDER LESLIE, 1st Earl of (c. 1580-1661), Scottish general, was the son of George Leslie, captain of Blair-in-Athol, and a member of the family of Leslie of Balquhain. After a scanty education he sought his fortune abroad, and became a soldier, first under Sir Horace Vere in the Low Countries, and afterwards (1605) under Charles IX. and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, in whose service he remained for many years and fought in many campaigns with honour. In 1626 Leslie had risen by merit to the rank of lieutenant-general, and had been knighted by Gustavus. In 1628 he distinguished himself by his constancy and energy in the defence of Stralsund against Wallenstein, and in 1630 seized the island of Rügen in the name of the king of Sweden. In the same year he returned to Scotland to assist in recruiting and organizing the corps of Scottish volunteers which James, 3rd marquis of Hamilton, brought over to Gustavus in 1631. Leslie received a severe wound in the following winter, but was able nevertheless to be present at Gustavus’s last battle at Lützen. Like many others of the soldiers of fortune who served under Gustavus, Leslie cherished his old commander’s memory to the day of his death, and he kept with particular care a jewel and miniature presented to him by the king. He continued as a general officer in the Swedish army for some years, was promoted in 1636 to the rank of field marshal, and continued in the field until 1638, when events recalled him to his own country. He had married long before this—in 1637 his eldest son was made a colonel in the Swedish army—and he had managed to keep in touch with Scottish affairs.

As the foremost Scottish soldier of his day he was naturally nominated to command the Scottish army in the impending war with England, a post which, resigning his Swedish command, he accepted with a glad heart, for he was an ardent Covenanter and had caused “a great number of our commanders in Germany subscryve our covenant” (Baillie’s Letters). On leaving Sweden he brought back his arrears of pay in the form of cannon and muskets for his new army. For some months he busied himself with the organization and training of the new levies, and with inducing Scottish officers abroad to do their duty to their country by returning to lead them. Diminutive in size and somewhat deformed in person as he was, his reputation and his shrewdness 507 and simple tact, combined with the respect for his office of lord general that he enforced on all ranks, brought even the unruly nobles to subordination. He had by now amassed a considerable fortune and was able to live in a manner befitting a commander-in-chief, even when in the field. One of his first exploits was to take the castle of Edinburgh by surprise, without the loss of a man. He commanded the Scottish army at Dunse Law in May of that year, and in 1640 he invaded England, and defeated the king’s troops at Newburn on the Tyne, which gave him possession of Newcastle and of the open country as far as the Tees. At the treaty with the king at Ripon, Leslie was one of the commissioners of the Scottish parliament, and when Charles visited Edinburgh Leslie entertained him magnificently and accompanied him when he drove through the streets. His affirmations of loyalty to the crown, which later events caused to be remembered against him, were sincere enough, but the complicated politics of the time made it difficult for Leslie, the lord general of the Scottish army, to maintain a perfectly consistent attitude. However, his influence was exercised chiefly to put an end to, even to hush up, the troubles, and he is found, now giving a private warning to plotters against the king to enable them to escape, now guarding the Scottish parliament against a royalist coup d’état, and now securing for an old comrade of the German wars, Patrick Ruthven, Lord Ettrick, indemnity for having held Edinburgh Castle for the king against the parliament. Charles created him, by patent dated Holyrood, October 11, 1641, earl of Leven and Lord Balgonie, and made him captain of Edinburgh Castle and a privy councillor. The parliament recognized his services by a grant, and, on his resigning the lord generalship, appointed him commander of the permanent forces. A little later, Leven, who was a member of the committee of the estates which exercised executive powers during the recess of parliament, used his great influence in support of a proposal to raise a Scottish army to help the elector palatine in Germany, but the Ulster massacres gave this force, when raised, a fresh direction and Leven himself accompanied it to Ireland as lord general. He did not remain there long, for the Great Rebellion (q.v.) had begun in England, and negotiations were opened between the English and the Scottish parliaments for mutual armed assistance. Leven accepted the command of the new forces raised for the invasion of England, and was in consequence freely accused of having broken his personal oath to Charles, but he could hardly have acted otherwise than he did, and at that time, and so far as the Scots were concerned, to the end of the struggle, the parliaments were in arms, professedly and to some extent actually, to rescue his majesty from the influence of evil counsellors.

The military operations preceding Marston Moor are described under Great Rebellion, and the battle itself under its own heading. Leven’s great reputation, wisdom and tact made him an ideal commander for the allied army formed by the junction of Leven’s, Fairfax’s and Manchester’s in Yorkshire. After the battle the allied forces separated, Leven bringing the siege of Newcastle to an end by storming it. In 1645 the Scots were less successful, though their operations ranged from Westmorland to Hereford, and Leven himself had many administrative and political difficulties to contend with. These difficulties became more pronounced when in 1646 Charles took refuge with the Scottish army. The king remained with Leven until he was handed over to the English parliament in 1647, and Leven constantly urged him to take the covenant and to make peace. Presbyterians and Independents had now parted, and with no more concession than the guarantee of the covenant the Scottish and English Presbyterians were ready to lay down their arms, or to turn them against the “sectaries.” Leven was now old and infirm, and though retained as nominal commander-in-chief saw no further active service. He acted with Argyll and the “godly” party in the discussions preceding the second invasion of England, and remained at his post as long as possible in the hope of preventing the Scots becoming merely a royalist instrument for the conquest of the English Independents. But be was induced in the end to resign, though he was appointed lord general of all new forces that might be raised for the defence of Scotland. The occasion soon came, for Cromwell annihilated the Scottish invaders at Preston and Uttoxeter, and thereupon Argyll assumed political and Leven military control at Edinburgh. But he was now over seventy years of age, and willingly resigned the effective command to his subordinate David Leslie (see Newark, Lord), in whom he had entire confidence. After the execution of Charles I. the war broke out afresh, and this time the “godly” party acted with the royalists. In the new war, and in the disastrous campaign of Dunbar, Leven took but a nominal part, though attempts were afterwards made to hold him responsible. But once more the parliament refused to accept his resignation. Leven at last fell into the hands of a party of English dragoons in August 1651, and with some others was sent to London. He remained incarcerated in the Tower for some time, till released on finding securities for £20,000, upon which he retired to his residence in Northumberland. While on a visit to London he was again arrested, for a technical breach of his engagement, but by the intercession of the queen of Sweden he obtained his liberty. He was freed from his engagements in 1654, and retired to his seat at Balgonie in Fifeshire, where he died at an advanced age in 1661. He acquired considerable landed property, particularly Inchmartin in the Carse of Gowrie, which he called Inchleslie.

LEVEN, a police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 5577. It is situated on the Firth of Forth, at the mouth of the Leven, 5¾ m. E. by N. of Thornton Junction by the North British railway. The public buildings include the town hall, public hall and people’s institute, in the grounds of which the old town cross has been erected. The industries are numerous, comprising flax-spinning, brewing, linen-weaving, paper-making, seed-crushing and rope-making, besides salt-works, a foundry, saw-mill and brick-works. The wet dock is not much used, owing to the constant accumulation of sand. The golf-links extending for 2 m. to Lundin are among the best in Scotland. Two miles N.E. is Lundin Mill and Drumochie, usually called Lundin (pop. 570), at the mouth of Kiel Burn, with a station on the Links. The three famous standing stones are supposed to be either of “Druidical” origin or to mark the site of a battle with the Danes. In the vicinity are the remains of an old house of the Lundins, dating from the reign of David II. To the N.W. of Leven lies the parish of Kennoway (pop. 870). In Captain Seton’s house, which still stands in the village of Kennoway, Archbishop Sharp spent the night before his assassination (1679). One mile east of Lundin lies Largo (pop. of parish 2046), consisting of Upper Largo, or Kirkton of Largo, and Lower Largo. The public buildings include Simpson institute, with a public hall, library, reading-room, bowling-green and lawn-tennis court, and John Wood’s hospital, founded in 1659 for poor persons bearing his name. A statue of Alexander Selkirk, or Selcraig (1676-1721), the prototype of “Robinson Crusoe,” who was born here, was erected in 1886. Sir John Leslie (1766-1832), the natural philosopher, was also a native. Largo claims two famous sailors, Admiral Sir Philip Durham (1763-1845), commander-in-chief at Portsmouth from 1836 to 1839, and Sir Andrew Wood (d. 1515), the trusted servant of James III. and James IV., who sailed the “Great Michael,” the largest ship of its time. When he was past active service he had a canal cut from his house to the parish church, to which he was rowed every Sunday in an eight-oared barge. Largo House was granted to him by James III., and the tower of the original structure still exists. About 1½ m. from the coast rises the height of Largo Law (948 ft.). Kellie Law lies some 5½ m. to the east.

LEVEN, LOCH, a lake of Kinross-shire, Scotland. It has an oval shape, the longer axis running from N.W. to S.E., has a length of 32⁄3 m., and a breadth of 22⁄3 m. and is situated near the south and east boundaries of the shire. It lies at a height of 350 ft. above the sea. The mean depth is less than 15 ft., with a maximum of 83 ft., the lake being thus one of the shallowest in Scotland. Reclamation works carried on from 1826 to 1836 reduced its area by one quarter, but it still possesses a surface 508 area of 5½ sq. m. It drains the county and is itself drained by the Leven. It is famous for the Loch Leven trout (Salmo levenensis, considered by some a variety of S. trutta), which are remarkable for size and quality. The fishings are controlled by the Loch Leven Angling Association, which organizes competitions attracting anglers from far and near. The loch contains seven islands. Upon St Serf’s, the largest, which commemorates the patron saint of Fifeshire, are the ruins of the Priory of Portmoak—so named from St Moak, the first abbot—the oldest Culdee establishment in Scotland. Some time before 961 it was made over to the bishop of St Andrews, and shortly after 1144 a body of canons regular was established on it in connexion with the priory of canons regular founded in that year at St Andrews. The second largest island, Castle Island, possesses remains of even greater interest. The first stronghold is supposed to have been erected by Congal, son of Dongart, king of the Picts. The present castle dates from the 13th century and was occasionally used as a royal residence. It is said to have been in the hands of the English for a time, from whom it was delivered by Wallace. It successfully withstood Edward Baliol’s siege in 1335, and was granted by Robert II. to Sir William Douglas of Lugton. It became the prison at various periods of Robert II.; of Alexander Stuart, earl of Buchan, “the Wolf of Badenoch”; Archibald, earl of Douglas (1429); Patrick Graham, archbishop of St Andrews (who died, still in bondage, on St Serf’s Island in 1478), and of Mary, queen of Scots. The queen had visited it more than once before her detention, and had had a presence chamber built in it. Conveyed hither in June 1567 after her surrender at Carberry, she signed her abdication within its walls on the 4th of July and effected her escape on the 2nd of May 1568. The keys of the castle, which were thrown into the loch during her flight, were found and are preserved at Dalmahoy in Midlothian. Support of Mary’s cause had involved Thomas Percy, 7th earl of Northumberland (b. 1528). He too was lodged in the castle in 1569, and after three years’ imprisonment was handed over to the English, by whom he was beheaded at York in 1572. The proverb that “Those never got luck who came to Loch Leven” sums up the history of the castle. The causeway connecting the isle with the mainland was long submerged too deeply for use, but the reclamation operations already referred to almost brought it into view again.

LEVEN AND MELVILLE, EARLS OF. The family of Melville which now holds these two earldoms is descended from Sir John Melville of Raith in Fifeshire. Sir John, who was a member of the reforming party in Scotland, was put to death for high treason on the 13th of December 1548; he left with other children a son Robert (1527-1621), who in 1616 was created a lord of parliament as Lord Melville of Monymaill. Before his elevation to the Scottish peerage Melville had been a stout partisan of Mary, queen of Scots, whom he represented at the English court, and he had filled several important offices in Scotland under her son James VI. The fourth holder of the lordship of Melville was George (c. 1634-1707), a son of John, the 3rd lord (d. 1643), and a descendant of Sir John Melville. Implicated in the Rye House plot against Charles II., George took refuge in the Netherlands in 1683, but he returned to England after the revolution of 1688 and was appointed secretary for Scotland by William III. in 1689, being created earl of Melville in the following year. He was made president of the Scottish privy council in 1696, but he was deprived of his office when Anne became queen in 1702, and he died on the 20th of May 1707. His son David, 2nd earl of Melville (1660-1728), fled to Holland with his father in 1683; after serving in the army of the elector of Brandenburg he accompanied William of Orange to England in 1688. At the head of a regiment raised by himself he fought for William at Killiecrankie and elsewhere, and as commander-in-chief of the troops in Scotland he dealt promptly and effectively with the attempted Jacobite rising of 1708. In 1712, however, his office was taken from him and he died on the 6th of June 1728.

Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven (q.v.), was succeeded in his earldom by his grandson Alexander, who died without sons in July 1664. The younger Alexander’s two daughters were then in turn countesses of Leven in their own right; and after the death of the second of these two ladies in 1676 a dispute arose over the succession to the earldom between John Leslie, earl (afterwards duke) of Rothes, and David Melville, 2nd earl of Melville, mentioned above. In 1681, however, Rothes died, and Melville, who was a great-grandson of the 1st earl of Leven, assumed the title, calling himself earl of Leven and Melville after he succeeded his father as earl of Melville in May 1707. Since 1805 the family has borne the name of Leslie-Melville. In 1906 John David Leslie-Melville (b. 1886) became 12th earl of Leven and 11th earl of Melville.

LEVER, CHARLES JAMES (1806-1872), Irish novelist, second son of James Lever, a Dublin architect and builder, was born in the Irish capital on the 31st of August 1806. His descent was purely English. He was educated in private schools, where he wore a ring, smoked, read novels, was a ringleader in every breach of discipline, and behaved generally like a boy destined for the navy in one of Captain Marryat’s novels. His escapades at Trinity College, Dublin (1823-1828), whence he took the degree of M.B. in 1831, form the basis of that vast cellarage of anecdote from which all the best vintages in his novels are derived. The inimitable Frank Webber in Charles O’Malley (spiritual ancestor of Foker and Mr Bouncer) was a college friend, Robert Boyle, later on an Irish parson. Lever and Boyle sang ballads of their own composing in the streets of Dublin, after the manner of Fergusson or Goldsmith, filled their caps with coppers and played many other pranks embellished in the pages of O’Malley, Con Cregan and Lord Kilgobbin. Before seriously embarking upon the medical studies for which he was designed, Lever visited Canada as an unqualified surgeon on an emigrant ship, and has drawn upon some of his experiences in Con Cregan, Arthur O’Leary and Roland Cashel. Arrived in Canada he plunged into the backwoods, was affiliated to a tribe of Indians and had to escape at the risk of his life, like his own Bagenal Daly.

Back in Europe, he travelled in the guise of a student from Göttingen to Weimar (where he saw Goethe), thence to Vienna; he loved the German student life with its beer, its fighting and its fun, and several of his merry songs, such as “The Pope he loved a merry life” (greatly envied by Titmarsh), are on Student-lied models. His medical degree admitted him to an appointment from the Board of Health in Co. Clare and then as dispensary doctor at Port Stewart, but the liveliness of his diversions as a country doctor seems to have prejudiced the authorities against him. In 1833 he married his first love, Catherine Baker, and in February 1837, after varied experiences, he began running The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer through the pages of the recently established Dublin University Magazine. During the previous seven years the popular taste had declared strongly in favour of the service novel as exemplified by Frank Mildmay, Tom Cringle, The Subaltern, Cyril Thornton, Stories of Waterloo, Ben Brace and The Bivouac; and Lever himself had met William Hamilton Maxwell, the titular founder of the genre. Before Harry Lorrequer appeared in volume form (1839), Lever had settled on the strength of a slight diplomatic connexion as a fashionable physician in Brussels (16, Rue Ducale). Lorrequer was merely a string of Irish and other stories good, bad and indifferent, but mostly rollicking, and Lever, who strung together his anecdotes late at night after the serious business of the day was done, was astonished at its success. “If this sort of thing amuses them, I can go on for ever.” Brussels was indeed a superb place for the observation of half-pay officers, such as Major Monsoon (Commissioner Meade), Captain Bubbleton and the like, who terrorized the tavernes of the place with their endless peninsular stories, and of English society a little damaged, which it became the specialty of Lever to depict. He sketched with a free hand, wrote, as he lived, from hand to mouth, and the chief difficulty he experienced was that of getting rid of his 509 characters who “hung about him like those tiresome people who never can make up their minds to bid you good night.” Lever had never taken part in a battle himself, but his next three books, Charles O’Malley (1841), Jack Hinton and Tom Burke of Ours (1843), written under the spur of the writer’s chronic extravagance, contain some splendid military writing and some of the most animated battle-pieces on record. In pages of O’Malley and Tom Burke Lever anticipates not a few of the best effects of Marbot, Thiébaut, Lejeune, Griois, Seruzier, Burgoyne and the like. His account of the Douro need hardly fear comparison, it has been said, with Napier’s. Condemned by the critics, Lever had completely won the general reader from the Iron Duke himself downwards.

In 1842 he returned to Dublin to edit the Dublin University Magazine, and gathered round him a typical coterie of Irish wits (including one or two hornets) such as the O’Sullivans, Archer Butler, W. Carleton, Sir William Wilde, Canon Hayman, D. F. McCarthy, McGlashan, Dr Kenealy and many others. In June 1842 he welcomed at Templeogue, 4 m. south-west of Dublin, the author of the Snob Papers on his Irish tour (the Sketch Book was, later, dedicated to Lever). Thackeray recognized the fund of Irish sadness beneath the surface merriment. “The author’s character is not humour but sentiment. The spirits are mostly artificial, the fond is sadness, as appears to me to be that of most Irish writing and people.” The Waterloo episode in Vanity Fair was in part an outcome of the talk between the two novelists. But the “Galway pace,” the display he found it necessary to maintain at Templeogue, the stable full of horses, the cards, the friends to entertain, the quarrels to compose and the enormous rapidity with which he had to complete Tom Burke, The O’Donoghue and Arthur O’Leary (1845), made his native land an impossible place for Lever to continue in. Templeogue would soon have proved another Abbotsford. Thackeray suggested London. But Lever required a new field of literary observation and anecdote. His sève originel was exhausted and he decided to renew it on the continent. In 1845 he resigned his editorship and went back to Brussels, whence he started upon an unlimited tour of central Europe in a family coach. Now and again he halted for a few months, and entertained to the limit of his resources in some ducal castle or other which he hired for an off season. Thus at Riedenburg, near Bregenz, in August 1846, he entertained Charles Dickens and his wife and other well-known people. Like his own Daltons or Dodd Family Abroad he travelled continentally, from Carlsruhe to Como, from Como to Florence, from Florence to the Baths of Lucca and so on, and his letters home are the litany of the literary remittance man, his ambition now limited to driving a pair of novels abreast without a diminution of his standard price for serial work (“twenty pounds a sheet”). In the Knight of Gwynne, a story of the Union (1847), Con Cregan (1849), Roland Cashel (1850) and Maurice Tiernay (1852) we still have traces of his old manner; but he was beginning to lose his original joy in composition. His fond of sadness began to cloud the animal joyousness of his temperament. Formerly he had written for the happy world which is young and curly and merry; now he grew fat and bald and grave. “After 38 or so what has life to offer but one universal declension. Let the crew pump as hard as they like, the leak gains every hour.” But, depressed in spirit as he was, his wit was unextinguished; he was still the delight of the salons with his stories, and in 1867, after a few years’ experience of a similar kind at Spezia, he was cheered by a letter from Lord Derby offering him the more lucrative consulship of Trieste. “Here is six hundred a year for doing nothing, and you are just the man to do it.” The six hundred could not atone to Lever for the lassitude of prolonged exile. Trieste, at first “all that I could desire,” became with characteristic abruptness “detestable and damnable.” “Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, no one to speak to.” “Of all the dreary places it has been my lot to sojourn in this is the worst” (some references to Trieste will be found in That Boy of Norcott’s, 1869). He could never be alone and was almost morbidly dependent upon literary encouragement. Fortunately, like Scott, he had unscrupulous friends who assured him that his last efforts were his best. They include The Fortunes of Glencore (1857), Tony Butler (1865), Luttrell of Arran (1865), Sir Brooke Fosbrooke (1866), Lord Kilgobbin (1872) and the table-talk of Cornelius O’Dowd, originally contributed to Blackwood. His depression, partly due to incipient heart disease, partly to the growing conviction that he was the victim of literary and critical conspiracy, was confirmed by the death of his wife (23rd April 1870), to whom he was tenderly attached. He visited Ireland in the following year and seemed alternately in very high and very low spirits. Death had already given him one or two runaway knocks, and, after his return to Trieste, he failed gradually, dying suddenly, however, and almost painlessly, from failure of the heart’s action on the 1st of June 1872. His daughters, one of whom, Sydney, is believed to have been the real author of The Rent in a Cloud (1869), were well provided for.

Trollope praised Lever’s novels highly when he said that they were just like his conversation. He was a born raconteur, and had in perfection that easy flow of light description which without tedium or hurry leads up to the point of the good stories of which in earlier days his supply seemed inexhaustible. With little respect for unity of action or conventional novel structure, his brightest books, such as Lorrequer, O’Malley and Tom Burke, are in fact little more than recitals of scenes in the life of a particular “hero,” unconnected by any continuous intrigue. The type of character he depicted is for the most part elementary. His women are mostly rouées, romps or Xanthippes; his heroes have too much of the Pickle temper about them and fall an easy prey to the serious attacks of Poe or to the more playful gibes of Thackeray in Phil Fogarty or Bret Harte in Terence Deuville. This last is a perfect bit of burlesque. Terence exchanges nineteen shots with the Hon. Captain Henry Somerset in the glen. “At each fire I shot away a button from his uniform. As my last bullet shot off the last button from his sleeve, I remarked quietly, ‘You seem now, my lord, to be almost as ragged as the gentry you sneered at,’ and rode haughtily away.” And yet these careless sketches contain such haunting creations as Frank Webber, Major Monsoon and Micky Free, “the Sam Weller of Ireland.” Falstaff is alone in the literature of the world; but if ever there came a later Falstaff, Monsoon was the man. As for Baby Blake, is she not an Irish Di Vernon? The critics may praise Lever’s thoughtful and careful later novels as they will, but Charles O’Malley will always be the pattern of a military romance.

Superior, it is sometimes claimed, in construction and style, the later books approximate it may be thought to the good ordinary novel of commerce, but they lack the extraordinary qualities, the incommunicable “go” of the early books—the élan of Lever’s untamed youth. Artless and almost formless these productions may be, but they represent to us, as very few other books can, that pathetic ejaculation of Lever’s own—“Give us back the wild freshness of the morning!” We know the novelist’s teachers, Maxwell, Napier, the old-fashioned compilation known as Victoires, conquêtes et désastres des Français (1835), and the old buffers at Brussels who emptied the room by uttering the word “Badajos.” But where else shall we find the equals of the military scenes in O’Malley and Tom Burke, or the military episodes in Jack Hinton, Arthur O’Leary (the story of Aubuisson) or Maurice Tiernay (nothing he ever did is finer than the chapter introducing “A remnant of Fontenoy”)? It is here that his true genius lies, even more than in his talent for conviviality and fun, which makes an early copy of an early Lever (with Phiz’s illustrations) seem literally to exhale an atmosphere of past and present entertainment. It is here that he is a true romancist, not for boys only, but also for men.

Lever’s lack of artistry and of sympathy with the deeper traits of the Irish character have been stumbling-blocks to his reputation among the critics. Except to some extent in The Martins of Cro’ Martin (1856) it may be admitted that his portraits of Irish are drawn too exclusively from the type depicted in Sir Jonah Barrington’s Memoirs and already well known on 510 the English stage. He certainly had no deliberate intention of “lowering the national character.” Quite the reverse. Yet his posthumous reputation seems to have suffered in consequence, in spite of all his Gallic sympathies and not unsuccessful endeavours to apotheosize the “Irish Brigade.”

LEVER (through O. Fr. leveour, levere, mod. levier, from Lat. levare, to lift, raise), a mechanical device for raising bodies; the “simple” lever consists of a rigid bar free to move about a fixed point, termed the fulcrum; one point of the rod is connected to the piece to be moved, and power is applied at another point (see Mechanics).

LEVERRIER, URBAIN JEAN JOSEPH (1811-1877), French astronomer, was born at St Lô in Normandy on the 11th of March 1811. His father, who held a small post under government, made great efforts to send him to Paris, where a brilliant examination gained him, in 1831, admittance to the École Polytechnique. The distinction of his career there was rewarded with a free choice amongst the departments of the public service open to pupils of the school. He selected the administration of tobaccos, addressing himself especially to chemical researches under the guidance of Gay-Lussac, and gave striking proof of ability in two papers on the combinations of phosphorus with hydrogen and oxygen, published in Annales de Chimie et de Physique (1835 and 1837). His astronomical vocation, like that of Kepler, came from without. The place of teacher of that science at the École Polytechnique falling vacant in 1837, it was offered to and accepted by Leverrier, who, “docile to circumstance,” instantly abandoned chemistry, and directed the whole of his powers to celestial mechanics. The first fruits of his labours were contained in two memoirs presented to the Academy, September 16 and October 14, 1839. Pursuing the investigations of Laplace, he demonstrated with greater rigour the stability of the solar system, and calculated the limits within which the eccentricities and inclinations of the planetary orbits vary. This remarkable début excited much attention, and, on the recommendation of François Arago, he took in hand the theory of Mercury, producing, in 1843, vastly improved tables of that planet. The perturbations of the comets discovered, the one by H. A. E. A. Faye in November 1843, the other by Francesco de Vico a year later, were minutely investigated by Leverrier, with the result of disproving the supposed identity of the first with Lexell’s lost comet of 1770, and of the other with Tycho’s of 1585. On the other hand, he made it appear all but certain that Vico’s comet was the same with one seen by Philippe de Lahire in 1678. Recalled once more, by the summons of Arago, to planetary studies, he was this time invited to turn his attention to Uranus. Step by step, with sagacious and patient accuracy, he advanced to the great discovery which has immortalized his name. Carefully sifting all the known causes of disturbance, he showed that one previously unknown had to be reckoned with, and on the 23rd of September 1846 the planet Neptune was discerned by J. G. Galle (d. 1910) at Berlin, within one degree of the spot Leverrier had indicated (see Neptune).

This memorable achievement was greeted with an outburst of public enthusiasm. Academies vied with each other in enrolling Leverrier among their members; the Royal Society awarded him the Copley medal; the king of Denmark sent him the order of the Dannebrog; he was named officer in the Legion of Honour, and preceptor to the comte de Paris; a chair of astronomy was created for his benefit at the Faculty of Sciences; he was appointed adjunct astronomer to the Bureau of Longitudes. Returned to the Legislative Assembly in 1849 by his native department of Manche, he voted with the anti-republican party, but devoted his principal attention to subjects connected with science and education. After the coup d’état of 1851 he became a senator and inspector-general of superior instruction, sat upon the commission for the reform of the École Polytechnique (1854), and, on the 30th of January 1854, succeeded Arago as director of the Paris observatory. His official work in the latter capacity would alone have strained the energies of an ordinary man. The institution had fallen into a state of lamentable inefficiency. Leverrier placed it on a totally new footing, freed it from the control of the Bureau of Longitudes, and raised it to its due rank among the observatories of Europe. He did not escape the common lot of reformers. His uncompromising measures and unconciliatory manner of enforcing them raised a storm only appeased by his removal on the 5th of February 1870. On the death of his successor Charles Eugène Delaunay (1816-1872), he was reinstated by Thiers, but with authority restricted by the supervision of a council. In the midst of these disquietudes, he executed a task of gigantic proportions. This was nothing less than the complete revision cf the planetary theories, followed by a laborious comparison of results with the most authentic observations, and the construction of tables representing the movements thus corrected. It required all his indomitable perseverance to carry through a purpose which failing health continually menaced with frustration. He had, however, the happiness of living long enough to perfect his work. Three weeks after he had affixed his signature to the printed sheets of the theory of Neptune he died at Paris on the 23rd of September 1877. By his marriage with Mademoiselle Choquet, who survived him little more than a month, he left a son and daughter.

LEVERTIN, OSCAR IVAN (1862-1906), Swedish poet and man of letters, was born of Jewish parents at Norrköping on the 17th of July 1862. He received his doctorate in letters at Upsala in 1887, and was subsequently docent at Upsala, and later professor of literature at Stockholm. Enforced sojourns in southern Europe on account of health familiarized him with foreign languages. He began by being an extreme follower of the naturalist school, but on his return in 1890 from a two years’ residence in Davos he wrote, in collaboration with the poet C. G. Verner von Heidenstam (b. 1859), a novel, Pepitas bröllop (1890), which was a direct attack on naturalism. His later volumes of short stories, Rococonoveller and Sista noveller, are fine examples of modern Swedish fiction. The lyrical beauty of his poems, Legender och visor (1891), placed him at the head of the romantic reaction in Sweden. In his poems entitled Nya Dikter (1894) he drew his material partly from medieval sources, and a third 511 volume of poetry in 1902 sustained his reputation. His last poetical work (1905) was Kung Salomo och Morolf, poems founded on an eastern legend. As a critic he first attracted attention by his books on the Gustavian age of Swedish letters: Teater och drama under Gustaf III. (1889), &c. He was an active collaborator in the review Ord och Bild. He died in 1906, at a time when he was engaged on his Linné, posthumously published, a fragment of a great work on Linnaeus.

LEVI, HERMANN (1839-1900), German orchestral conductor, was born at Giessen on the 7th of November 1839, and was the son of a Jewish rabbi. He was educated at Giessen and Mannheim, and came under Vincenz Lachner’s notice. From 1855 to 1858 Levi studied at the Leipzig conservatorium, and after a series of travels which took him to Paris, he obtained his first post as music director at Saarbrücken, which post he exchanged for that at Mannheim in 1861. From 1862 to 1864 he was chief conductor of the German opera in Rotterdam, then till 1872 at Carlsruhe, when he went to Munich, a post he held until 1896, when ill-health compelled him to resign. Levi’s name is indissolubly connected with the increased public appreciation of Wagner’s music. He conducted the first performance of Parsifal at Bayreuth in 1882, and was connected with the musical life of that place during the remainder of his career. He visited London in 1895.

LEVI, LEONE (1821-1888), English jurist and statistician, was born of Jewish parents on the 6th of June 1821, at Ancona, Italy. After receiving an early training in a business house in his native town, he went to Liverpool in 1844, became naturalized, and changing his faith, joined the Presbyterian church. Perceiving the necessity, in view of the unsystematic condition of the English law on the subject, for the establishment of chambers and tribunals of commerce in England, he warmly advocated their institution in numerous pamphlets; and as a result of his labours the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, of which Levi was made secretary, was founded in 1849. In 1850 Levi published his Commercial Law of the World, being an exhaustive and comparative treatise upon the laws and codes of mercantile countries. Appointed in 1852 to the chair of commercial law in King’s College, London, he proved himself a highly competent and popular instructor, and his evening classes were a most successful innovation. He was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1859, and received from the university of Tübingen the degree of doctor of political science. His chief work—History of British Commerce and of the Economic Progress of the British Nation, 1763-1870, is perhaps a rather too partisan account of British economic development, being a eulogy upon the blessings of Free Trade, but its value as a work of reference cannot be gainsaid. Among his other works are: Work and Pay; Wages and Earnings of the Working Classes; International Law, with Materials for a Code. He died on the 7th of May 1888.

LEVIATHAN, the Hebrew name (livyāthān), occurring in the poetical books of the Bible, of a gigantic animal, apparently the sea or water equivalent of behemoth (q.v.), the king of the animals of the dry land. In Job xli. 15 it would seem to represent the crocodile, in Isaiah xxvii. 1 it is a crooked and piercing serpent, the dragon of the sea; cf. Psalms civ. 26. The etymology of the word is uncertain, but it has been taken to be connected with a root meaning “to twist.” Apart from its scriptural usage, the word is applied to any gigantic marine animal such as the whale, and hence, figuratively, of very large ships, and also of persons of outstanding strength, power, wealth or influence. Hobbes adopted the name as the title of his principal work, applying it to “the multitude so united in one person ... called a commonwealth.... This is the generation of that Leviathan, or rather ... of that mortal God, to which we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defence.”

LEVIRATE (Lat. levir, a husband’s brother), a custom, sometimes even a law, compelling a dead man’s brother to marry his widow. It seems to have been widespread in primitive times, and is common to-day. Of the origin and primitive purpose of the levirate marriage various explanations have been put forward:—

1. It has been urged that the custom was primarily based on the law of inheritance; a wife, regarded as a chattel, being inherited like other possessions. The social advantage of providing one who should maintain the widow doubtless aided the spread of the custom. The abandonment of a woman and her children in the nomadic stage of civilization would be equivalent to death for them; hence with some peoples the levirate became a duty rather than a right. Among the Thlinkets, for example, when a man dies, his brother or his sister’s son must marry the widow, a failure in this duty occasioning feuds. The obligation on a man to provide for his sister-in-law is analogous to other duties devolving on kinsfolk, such as the vendetta.

2. J. F. McLennan, however, would assume the levirate to be a relic of polyandry, and in his argument lays much stress on the fact that it is the dead man’s brother who inherits the widow. But among many races who follow the custom, such as the Fijians, Samoans, Papuans of New Guinea, the Caroline Islanders, and some tribes in the interior of Western Equatorial Africa, the rule of inheritance is to the brother first. Thus among the Santals, “when the elder brother dies, the next younger inherits the widow, children and all the property.” Further, there is no known race where it is permitted to a son to marry his own mother. Inheriting a woman in primitive societies would be always tantamount to marrying her, and, apart from any special laws of inheritance, it would be natural for the brother to take over the widow. In polygamous countries where a man leaves many widows the son would have a right of ownership over these, and could dispose of them or keep them as he pleased, his own mother alone excepted. Thus among the Bakalai, an African tribe, widows may marry the son of their dead husband, or in default of a son, can live with the brother. The Negroes of Benin and the Gabun and the Kaffirs of Natal have similar customs. In New Caledonia every man, married or single, must immediately marry his brother’s widow. In Polynesia the levirate has the force of law, and it is common throughout America and Asia.

3. Another explanation of the custom has been sought in a semi-religious motive which has had extraordinary influence in countries where to die without issue is regarded as a terrible calamity. The fear of this catastrophe would readily arise among people who did not believe in personal immortality, and to whom the extinction of their line would be tantamount to annihilation. Or it is easily conceivable as a natural result of ancestor-worship, under which failure of offspring entailed deprivation of cherished rites and service.1 Thus it is only when the dead man has no offspring that the Jewish, Hindu and Malagasy laws prescribe that the brother shall “raise up seed” to him. In this sense the levirate forms part of the Deuteronomic Code, under which, however, the obligation is restricted to the brother who “dwelleth together” (i.e. on the family estate) with the dead man, and the first child only of the levirate marriage is regarded as that of the dead man. That the custom was obsolescent seems proved by the enjoining of ceremony on any brother who wished to evade the duty, though he had to submit to an insult from his sister-in-law, who draws off his sandal and spits in his face. The biblical story of Ruth exemplifies the custom, though with further modifications (see Ruth, Book of). Finally the custom is forbidden in Leviticus, though in New Testament times the levirate law was still observed by some Jews. The ceremony ordained by Deuteronomy is still observed among the orthodox. Among the Hindus the levir did not take his brother’s widow as wife, but he had intercourse with her. This practice was called niyoga.

4. Yet another suggested origin of the levirate is agrarian, the motive being to keep together under the levirate husband the 512 property which would otherwise have been divided among all the brothers or next of kin.

LÉVIS (formerly Pointe Levi), the chief town of Lévis county, Quebec, Canada, situated on the precipitous south bank of the St Lawrence, opposite Quebec city. Pop. (1901) 7783. It is on the Intercolonial railway, and is the eastern terminus of the Grand Trunk and Quebec Central railways. It contains the Lorne dock, a Dominion government graving dock, 445 ft. long, 100 ft. wide, with a depth on the sill of 26½ and 20½ ft. at high water, spring and neap tides respectively. It is an important centre of the river trade, and is connected by steam ferries with the city of Quebec. It is named after the maréchal duc de Lévis, the last commander of the French troops in Canada.

LEVITES, or sons of Levi (son of Jacob by Leah), a sacred caste in ancient Israel, the guardians of the temple service at Jerusalem.1

1. Place in Ritual.—In the developed hierarchical system the ministers of the sanctuary are divided into distinct grades. All are “Levites” by descent, and are thus correlated in the genealogical and other lists, but the true priesthood is confined to the sons of Aaron, while the mass of the Levites are subordinate servants who are not entitled to approach the altar or to perform any strictly priestly function. All access to the Deity is restricted to the one priesthood and to the one sanctuary at Jerusalem; the worshipping subject is the nation of Israel as a unity, and the function of worship is discharged on its behalf by divinely chosen priests. The ordinary individual may not intrude under penalty of death; only those of Levitical origin may perform service, and they are essentially the servants and hereditary serfs of the Aaronite priests (see Num. xviii.). But such a scheme finds no place in the monarchy; it presupposes a hierocracy under which the priesthood increased its rights by claiming the privileges which past kings had enjoyed; it is the outcome of a complicated development in Old Testament religion in the light of which it is to be followed (see Hebrew Religion).

First (a), in the earlier biblical writings which describe the state of affairs under the Hebrew monarchy there is not this fundamental distinction among the Levites, and, although a list of Aaronite high-priests is preserved in a late source, internal details and the evidence of the historical books render its value extremely doubtful (1 Chron. vi. 3-15, 49-53). In Jerusalem itself the subordinate officers of the temple were not members of a holy gild, but of the royal body-guard, or bond-slaves who had access to the sacred courts, and might even be uncircumcised foreigners (Josh. ix. 27; 1 Kings xiv. 28; 2 Kings xi.; cf. Zeph. i. 8 seq.; Zech. xiv. 21). Moreover, ordinary individuals might serve as priests (1 Sam. ii II, 18, vii. 1; see 2 Sam. viii. 18, deliberately altered in 1 Chron. xviii. 17); however, every Levite was a priest, or at least qualified to become one (Deut. x. 8, xviii. 7; Judges xvii. 5-13), and when the author of 1 Kings xii. 31, wishes to represent Jeroboam’s priests as illegitimate, he does not say that they were not Aaronites, but that they were not of the sons of Levi.

The next stage (b) is connected with the suppression of the local high-places or minor shrines in favour of a central sanctuary. This involved the suppression of the Levitical priests in the country (cf. perhaps the allusion in Deut. xxi. 5); and the present book of Deuteronomy, in promulgating the reform, represents the Levites as poor scattered “sojourners” and recommends them to the charity of the people (Deut. xii. 12, 18 seq., xiv. 27, 29, xvi. 11, 14, xxvi. 11 sqq.). However, they are permitted to congregate at “the place which Yahweh shall choose,” where they may perform the usual priestly duties together with their brethren who “stand there before Yahweh,” and they are allowed their share of the offerings (Deut. xviii. 6-8).2 The Deuteronomic history of the monarchy actually ascribes to the Judaean king Josiah (621 B.C.) the suppression of the high-places, and states that the local priests were brought to Jerusalem and received support, but did not minister at the altar (2 Kings xxiii. 9). Finally, a scheme of ritual for the second temple raises this exclusion to the rank of a principle. The Levites who had been idolatrous are punished by exclusion from the proper priestly work, and take the subordinate offices which the uncircumcised and polluted foreigners had formerly filled, while the sons of Zadok, who had remained faithful, are henceforth the legitimate priests, the only descendants of Levi who are allowed to minister unto Yahweh (Ezek. xliv. 6-15, cf. xl. 46, xliii. 19, xlviii. 11). “A threefold cord is not quickly broken,” and these three independent witnesses agree in describing a significant innovation which ends with the supremacy of the Zadokites of Jerusalem over their brethren.

In the last stage (c) the exclusion of the ordinary Levites from all share in the priesthood of the sons of Aaron is looked upon as a matter of course, dating from the institution of priestly worship by Moses. The two classes are supposed to have been founded separately (Exod. xxviii., cf. xxix. 9; Num. iii. 6-10), and so far from any degradation being attached to the rank and file of the Levites, their position is naturally an honourable one compared with that of the mass of non-Levitical worshippers (see Num. i. 50-53), and they are taken by Yahweh as a surrogate for the male first-born of Israel (iii. 11-13). They are inferior only to the Aaronites to whom they are “joined” (xviii. 2, a play on the name Levi) as assistants. Various adjustments and modifications still continue, and a number of scattered details may indicate that internal rivalries made themselves felt. But the different steps can hardly be recovered clearly, although the fact that the priesthood was extended beyond the Zadokites to families of the dispossessed priests points to some compromise (1 Chron. xxiv.). Further, it is subsequently found that certain classes of temple servants, the singers and porters, who had once been outside the Levitical gilds, became absorbed as the term “Levite” was widened, and this change is formally expressed by the genealogies which ascribe to Levi, the common “ancestor” of them all, the singers and even certain families whose heathenish and foreign names show that they were once merely servants of the temple.3

2. Significance of the Development.—Although the legal basis for the final stage is found in the legislation of the time of Moses (latter part of the second millennium B.C.), it is in reality scarcely earlier than the 5th century B.C., and the Jewish theory finds analogies when developments of the Levitical service are referred to David (1 Chron. xv. seq., xxiii. sqq.), Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxix.) and Josiah (xxxv.)—contrast the history in the earlier books of Samuel and Kings—or when the still later book of Jubilees (xxxii.) places the rise of the Levitical priesthood in the patriarchal period. The traditional theory of the Mosaic origin of the elaborate Levitical legislation cannot be maintained save by the most arbitrary and inconsequential treatment of the evidence and by an entire indifference to the historical spirit; and, although numerous points of detail still remain very obscure, the three leading stages in the Levitical institutions are now recognized by nearly all independent scholars. These stages with a number of concomitant features confirm the literary hypothesis that biblical history is in the main due to two leading recensions, the Deuteronomic and the Priestly (cf. [b] and [c] above), which have incorporated older sources.4 If the hierarchical system as 513 it existed in the post-exilic age was really the work of Moses, it is inexplicable that all trace of it was so completely lost that the degradation of the non-Zadokites in Ezekiel was a new feature and a punishment, whereas in the Mosaic law the ordinary Levites, on the traditional view, was already forbidden priestly rights under penalty of death. There is in fact no clear evidence of the existence of a distinction between priests and Levites in any Hebrew writing demonstrably earlier than the Deuteronomic stage, although, even as the Pentateuch contains ordinances which have been carried back by means of a “legal convention” to the days of Moses, writers have occasionally altered earlier records of the history to agree with later standpoints.5

When, in accordance with the usual methods of Hebrew genealogical history, the Levites are defined as the descendants of Levi, the third son of Jacob by Leah (Gen. xxix. 34), a literal interpretation is unnecessary, and the only narrative wherein Levi appears as a person evidently delineates under the form of personification events in the history of the Levites (Gen. xxxiv.).7 They take their place in Israel as the tribe set apart for sacred duties, and without entering into the large question how far the tribal schemes can be used for the earlier history of Israel, it may be observed that no adequate interpretation has yet been found of the ethnological traditions of Levi and other sons of Leah in their historical relation to one another or to the other tribes. However intelligible may be the notion of a tribe reserved for priestly service, the fact that it does not apply to early biblical history is apparent from the heterogeneous details of the Levitical divisions. The incorporation of singers and porters is indeed a late process, but it is typical of the tendency to co-ordinate all the religious classes (see Genealogy: Biblical). The genealogies in their complete form pay little heed to Moses, although Aaron and Moses could typify the priesthood and other Levites generally (1 Chron. xxiii. 14). Certain priesthoods in the first stage (§ 1 [a]) claimed descent from these prototypes, and it is interesting to observe (1) the growing importance of Aaron in the later sources of “the Exodus,” and (2) the relation between Mosheh (Moses) and his two sons Gershom and Eliezer, on the one side, and the Levitical names Mushi (i.e. the Mosaite), Gershon and the Aaronite priest Eleazar, on the other. There are links, also, which unite Moses with Kenite, Rechabite, Calebite and Edomite families, and the Levitical names themselves are equally connected with the southern tribes of Judah and Simeon and with the Edomites.8 It is to be inferred, therefore, that some relationship subsisted, or was thought to subsist, among (1) the Levites, (2) clans actually located in the south of Palestine, and (3) families whose names and traditions point to a southern origin. The exact meaning of these features is not clear, but if it be remembered (a) that the Levites of post-exilic literature represent only the result of a long and intricate development, (b) that the name “Levite,” in the later stages at least, was extended to include all priestly servants, and (c) that the priesthoods, in tending to become hereditary, included priests who were Levites by adoption and not by descent, it will be recognized that the examination of the evidence for the earlier stages cannot confine itself to those narratives where the specific term alone occurs.

3. The Traditions of the Levites.—In the “Blessing of Moses” (Deut, xxxiii. 8-11), Levi is a collective name for the priesthood, probably that of (north) Israel. He is the guardian of the sacred oracles, knowing no kin, and enjoying his privileges for proofs of fidelity at Massah and Meribah. That these places (in the district of Kadesh) were traditionally associated with the origin of the Levites is suggested by various Levitical stories, although it is in a narrative now in a context pointing to Horeb or Sinai that the Levites are Israelites who for some cause (now lost) severed themselves from their people and took up a stand on behalf of Yahweh (Exod. xxxii.). Other evidence allows us to link together the Kenites, Calebites and Danites in a tradition of some movement into Palestine, evidently quite distinct from the great invasion of Israelite tribes which predominates in the existing records. The priesthood of Dan certainly traced its origin to Moses (Judges xvii. 9, xviii. 30); that of Shiloh claimed an equally high ancestry (1 Sam. ii. 27 seq.).9 Some tradition of a widespread movement appears to be ascribed to the age of Jehu, whose accession, promoted by the prophet Elisha, marks the end of the conflict between Yahweh and Baal. To a Rechabite (the clan is allied to the Kenites) is definitely ascribed a hand in Jehu’s sanguinary measures, and, though little is told of the obviously momentous events, one writer clearly alludes to a bloody period when reforms were to be effected by the sword (1 Kings xix. 17). Similarly the story of the original selection of the Levites in the wilderness mentions an uncompromising massacre of idolaters. Consequently, it is very noteworthy that popular tradition preserves the recollection of some attack by the “brothers” Levi and Simeon 514 upon the famous holy city of Shechem to avenge their “sister” Dinah (Gen. xxxiv.), and that a detailed narrative tells of the bloodthirsty though pious Danites who sacked an Ephraimite shrine on their journey to a new home (Judges xvii. sq.).

In the third great stage there is another change in the tone. The present (priestly) recension of Gen. xxxiv. has practically justified Levi and Simeon from its standpoint of opposition to intermarriage, and in spite of Jacob’s curse (Gen. xlix. 5-7) later traditions continue to extol the slaughter of the Shechemitcs as a pious duty. Post-exilic revision has also hopelessly obscured the offence of Moses and Aaron, although there was already a tendency to place the blame upon the people (Deut. i. 37, iii. 26, iv. 21). When two-thirds of the priestly families are said to be Zadokites and one-third are of the families of Abiathar, some reconciliation, some adjustment of rivalries, is to be recognized (1 Chron. xxiv.). Again, in the composite story of Korah’s revolt, one version reflects a contest between Aaronites and the other Levites who claimed the priesthood (Num. xvi. 8-11, 36-40), while another shows the supremacy of the Levites as a caste either over the rest of the people (? cf. the prayer, Deut. xxxiii. 11), or, since the latter are under the leadership of Korah, later the eponym of a gild of singers, perhaps over the more subordinate ministers who once formed a separate class.11 In the composite work Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah (dating after the post-exilic Levitical legislation) a peculiar interest is taken in the Levites, more particularly in the singers, and certain passages even reveal some animus against the Aaronites (2 Chron. xxix. 34, xxx. 3). A Levite probably had a hand in the work, and this, with the evidence for the Levitical Psalms (see Psalms), gives the caste an interesting place in the study of the transmission of the biblical records.12 But the history of the Levites in the early post-exilic stage and onwards is a separate problem, and the work of criticism has not advanced sufficiently for a proper estimate of the various vicissitudes. However, the feeling which was aroused among the priests when some centuries later the singers obtained from Agrippa the privilege of wearing the priestly linen dress (Josephus, Ant. xx. 9. 6), at least enables one to appreciate more vividly the scantier hints of internal jealousies during the preceding years.13

4. Summary.—From the inevitable conclusion that there are three stages in the written sources for the Levitical institutions, the next step is the correlation of allied traditions on the basis of the genealogical evidence. But the problem of fitting these into the history of Israel still remains. The assumption that the earlier sources for the pre-monarchical history, as incorporated by late compilers, are necessarily trustworthy confuses the inquiry (on Gen. xxxiv., see Simeon), and even the probability of a reforming spirit in Jehu’s age depends upon the internal criticism of the related records (see Jews, §§ 11-14). The view that the Levites came from the south may be combined with the conviction that there Yahweh had his seat (cf. Deut. xxxiii. 2; Judges v. 4; Hab. iii. 3), but the latter is only one view, and the traditions of the patriarchs point to another belief (cf. also Gen. iv. 26). The two are reconciled when the God of the patriarchs reveals His name for the first time unto Moses (Exod. iii. 15, vi. 3). With these variations is involved the problem of the early history of the Israelites.14 Moreover, the real Judaean tendency which associates the fall of Eli’s priesthood at Shiloh with the rise of the Zadokites involves the literary problems of Deuteronomy, a composite work whose age is not certainly known, and of the twofold Deuteronomic redaction elsewhere, one phase of which is more distinctly Judaean and anti-Samaritan. There are vicissitudes and varying standpoints which point to a complicated literary history and require some historical background, and, apart from actual changes in the history of the Levites, some allowance must be made for the real character of the circles where the diverse records originated or through which they passed. The key must be sought in the exilic and post-exilic age where, unfortunately, direct and decisive evidence is lacking. It is clear that the Zadokite priests were rendered legitimate by finding a place for their ancestor in the Levitical genealogies—through Phinehas (cf. Num. xxv. 12 seq.), and Aaron—there was a feeling that a legitimate priest must be an Aaronite, but the historical reason for this is uncertain (see R. H. Kennett, Journ. Theolog. Stud., 1905, pp. 161 sqq.). Hence, it is impossible at present to trace the earlier steps which led to the grand hierarchy of post-exilic Judaism. Even the name Levite itself is of uncertain origin. Though popularly connected with lāvāh, “be joined, attached,” an ethnic from Leah has found some favour; the Assyrian lī’u “powerful, wise,” has also been suggested. The term has been more plausibly identified with l-v-’ (fem. l-v-’-t), the name given in old Arabian inscriptions (e.g. at al-‘Olā, south-east of Elath) to the priests and priestesses of the Arabian god Vadd (so especially Hommel, Anc. Heb. Trad., pp. 278 seq.). The date of the evidence, however, has not been fixed with unanimity, and this very 515 attractive and suggestive view requires confirmation and independent support.

LEVITICUS, in the Bible, the third book of the Pentateuch. The name is derived from that of the Septuagint version (τὸ) λευ[ε]ιτικόν (sc. βιβλίον), though the English form is due to the Latin rendering, Leviticus (sc. liber). By the Jews the book is called Wayyiḳrā (ויקרא) from the first word of the Hebrew text, but it is also referred to (in the Talmud and Massorah) as Tōrath kōhănīm (תורת כהנים, law of the priests), Sēpher kōhănīm (ספר כ״, book of the priests), and Sēpher ḳorbānīm (ספר קרבנים, book of offerings). As a descriptive title Leviticus, “the Levitical book,” is not inappropriate to the contents of the book, which exhibits an elaborate system of sacrificial worship. In this connexion, however, the term “Levitical” is used in a perfectly general sense, since there is no reference in the book itself to the Levites themselves.

The book of Leviticus presents a marked contrast to the two preceding books of the Hexateuch in that it is derived from one document only, viz. the Priestly Code (P), and contains no trace of the other documents from which the Hexateuch has been compiled. Hence the dominant interest is a priestly one, while the contents are almost entirely legislative as opposed to historical. But though the book as a whole is assigned to a single document, its contents are by no means homogeneous: in fact the critical problem presented by the legislative portions of Leviticus, though more limited in scope, is very similar to that of the other books of the Hexateuch. Here, too, the occurrence of repetitions and divergencies, the variations of standpoint and practice, and, at times, the linguistic peculiarities point no less clearly to diversity of origin.

The historical narrative with which P connects his account of the sacred institutions of Israel is reduced in Leviticus to a minimum, and presents no special features. The consecration of Aaron and his sons (viii. ix.) resumes the narrative of Exod. xl., and this is followed by a brief notice of the death of Nadab and Abihu (x. 1-5), and later by an account of the death of the blasphemer (xxiv. 10 f.). Apart from these incidents, which, in accordance with the practice of P, are utilized for the purpose of introducing fresh legislation, the book consists of three main groups or collections of ritual laws: (1) chaps, i.-vii., laws of sacrifice; (2) chaps, xi.-xv., laws of purification, with an appendix (xvi.) on the Day of Atonement; (3) chaps, xvii.-xxvi., the Law of Holiness, with an appendix (xxvii.) on vows and tithes. In part these laws appear to be older than P, but when examined in detail the various collections show unmistakably that they have undergone more than one process of redaction before they assumed the form in which they are now presented. The scope of the present article does not permit of an elaborate analysis of the different sections, but the evidence adduced will, it is hoped, afford sufficient proof of the truth of this statement.

I. The Laws of Sacrifice.—Chaps. i.-vii. This group of laws clearly formed no part of the original narrative of P since it interrupts the connexion of chap. viii. with Exod. xl. For chap. viii. describes how Moses carried out the command of Exod. xl. 12-15 in accordance with the instructions given in Exod. xxix. 1-35, and bears the same relation to the latter passage that Exod. xxxv. ff. bears to Exod. xxv. ff. Hence we can only conclude that Lev. i.-vii. were added by a later editor. This conclusion does not necessarily involve a late date for the laws themselves, many of which have the appearance of great antiquity, though their original form has been considerably modified. But though these chapters form an independent collection of laws, and were incorporated as such in P, a critical analysis of their contents shows that they were not all derived from the same source.

II. The Laws of Purification.—Chaps. xi.-xv. This collection of laws comprises four main sections relating to (1) clean and unclean beasts (xi.), (2) childbirth (xii.), (3) leprosy (xiii. xiv.), and (4) certain natural secretions (xv.). These laws, or tōrōth, are so closely allied to each other by the nature of their contents and their literary form (cf. especially the recurring formula “This is the law of ...” xi. 46, xii. 7, xiii. 59, xiv. 32, 54, 57, xv. 32) that they must originally have formed a single collection. The collection, however, has clearly undergone more than one redaction before reaching its final form. This is made evident not only by the present position of chap. xii. which in v. 2 presupposes chap. xv. (cf. xv. 19), and must originally have followed after that chapter, but also by the contents of the different sections, which exhibit clear traces of repeated revision. At the same time it seems, like chaps. i.-vii., xvii.-xxvi., to have been formed independently of P and to have been added to that document by a later editor; for in its present position it interrupts the main thread of P’s narrative, chap. xvi. forming the natural continuation of chap. x.; and, further, the inclusion of Aaron as well as Moses in the formula of address (xi. 1, xiii. 1, xiv. 33, xv. 1) is contrary to the usage of P.

III. The Law of Holiness.—Chaps. xvii.-xxvi. The group of laws contained in these chapters has long been recognized as standing apart from the rest of the legislation set forth in Leviticus. For, though they display undeniable affinity with P, they also exhibit certain features which closely distinguish them from that document. The most noticeable of these is the prominence assigned to certain leading ideas and motives, especially to that of holiness. The idea of holiness, indeed, is so characteristic of the entire group that the title “Law of Holiness,” first given to it by Klostermann (1877), has been generally adopted. The term “holiness” in this connexion consists positively in the fulfilment of ceremonial obligations and negatively in abstaining from the defilement caused by heathen customs and superstitions, but it also includes obedience to the moral requirements of the religion of Yahweh.

LEVY, AMY (1861-1889), English poetess and novelist, second daughter of Lewis Levy, was born at Clapham on the 10th of November 1861, and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She showed a precocious aptitude for writing verse of exceptional merit, and in 1884 she published a volume of poems, A Minor Poet and Other Verse, some of the pieces in which had already been printed at Cambridge with the title Xantippe and Other Poems. The high level of this first publication was maintained in A London Plane Tree and Other Poems, a collection of lyrics published in 1889, in which the prevailing pessimism of the writer’s temperament was conspicuous. She had already in 1888 tried her hand at prose fiction in The Romance of a Shop, which was followed by Reuben Sachs, a powerful novel. She committed suicide on the 10th of September 1889.

LEVY, AUGUSTE MICHEL (1844-  ), French geologist, was born in Paris on the 7th of August 1844. He became inspector-general of mines, and director of the Geological Survey of France. He was distinguished for his researches on eruptive rocks, their microscopic structure and origin; and he early employed the polarizing microscope for the determination of minerals. In his many contributions to scientific journals he described the granulite group, and dealt with pegmatites, variolites, eurites, the ophites of the Pyrenees, the extinct volcanoes of Central France, gneisses, and the origin of crystalline schists. He wrote Structures et classification des roches éruptives (1889), but his more elaborate studies were carried on with F. Fouqué. Together they wrote on the artificial production of felspar, nepheline and other minerals, and also of meteorites, and produced Minéralogie micrographique (1879) and Synthèse des minéraux et des roches (1882). Levy also collaborated with A. Lacroix in Les Minéraux des roches (1888) and Tableau des minéraux des roches (1889).

LEVY (Fr. levée, from lever, Lat. levare, to lift, raise), the raising of money by the collection of an assessment, &c., a tax or compulsory contribution; also the collection of a body of men for military or other purposes. When all the able-bodied men of a nation are enrolled for service, the French term levée en masse, levy in mass, is frequently used.

LEWALD, FANNY (1811-1889), German author, was born at Königsberg in East Prussia on the 24th of March 1811, of Jewish parentage. When seventeen years of age she embraced Christianity, and after travelling in Germany, France and Italy, settled in 1845 at Berlin. Here, in 1854, she married the author, Adolf Wilhelm Theodor Stahr (1805-1876), and removed after his death in 1876 to Dresden, where she resided, engaged in literary work, until her death on the 5th of August 1889. Fanny Lewald is less remarkable for her writings, which are mostly sober, matter-of-fact works, though displaying considerable talent and culture, than for her championship of “women’s rights,” a question which she was practically the first German woman to take up, and for her scathing satire on the sentimentalism of the Gräfin Hahn Hahn. This authoress she ruthlessly attacked in the exquisite parody (Diogena, Roman von Iduna Gräfin H.... H.... (2nd ed., 1847). Among the best known of her novels are Klementine (1842); Prinz Louis Ferdinand (1849; 2nd ed., 1859); Das Mädchen von Hela (1860); Von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht (8 vols., 1863-1865); Benvenuto (1875), and Stella (1883; English by B. Marshall, 1884). Of her writings in defence of the emancipation of women Osterbriefe für die Frauen (1863) and Für und wider die Frauen (1870) are conspicuous. Her autobiography, Meine Lebensgeschichte (6 vols., 1861-1862), is brightly written and affords interesting glimpses of the literary life of her time.

LEWANIKA (c. 1860-  ), paramount chief of the Barotse and subject tribes occupying the greater part of the upper Zambezi basin, was the twenty-second of a long line of rulers, whose founder invaded the Barotse valley about the beginning of the 17th century, and according to tradition was the son of a woman named Buya Mamboa by a god. The graves of successive ruling chiefs are to this day respected and objects of pilgrimage for purposes of ancestor worship. Lewanika was born on the upper Kabompo in troublous times, where his father—Letia, a son of a former ruler—lived in exile during the interregnum of a foreign dynasty (Makololo), which remained in possession from about 1830 to 1865, when the Makololo were practically exterminated in a night by a well-organized revolt. Once more masters of their own country, the Barotse invited Sepopa, an uncle of Lewanika, to rule over them. Eleven years of brutality and licence resulted in the tyrant’s expulsion and subsequent assassination, his place being taken by Ngwana-Wina, a nephew. Within a year abuse of power brought about this chief’s downfall (1877), and he was succeeded by Lobosi, who assumed the name of Lewanika in 1885. The early years of his reign were also stained by many acts of blood, until in 1884 the torture and murder of his own brother led to open rebellion, and it was only through extreme presence of mind that the chief escaped with his life into exile. His cousin, Akufuna or Tatela, was then proclaimed chief. It was during his brief reign that François Coillard, the eminent missionary, arrived at Lialui, the capital. The following year Lewanika, having collected his partisans, deposed the usurper and re-established his power. Ruthless revenge not unmixed with treachery characterized his return to power, but gradually the strong 520 personality of the high-minded François Coillard so far influenced him for good that from about 1887 onward he ruled tolerantly and showed a consistent desire to better the condition of his people. In 1890 Lewanika, who two years previously had proposed to place himself under the protection of Great Britain, concluded a treaty with the British South Africa Company, acknowledging its supremacy and conceding to it certain mineral rights. In 1897 Mr R. T. Coryndon took up his position at Lialui as British agent, and the country to the east of 25° E. was thrown open to settlers, that to the west being reserved to the Barotse chief. In 1905 the king of Italy’s award in the Barotse boundary dispute with Portugal deprived Lewanika of half of his dominions, much of which had been ruled by his ancestors for many generations. In 1902 Lewanika attended the coronation of Edward VII. as a guest of the nation. His recognized heir was his eldest son Letia.

LEWES, CHARLES LEE (1740-1803), English actor, was the son of a hosier in London. After attending a school at Ambleside he returned to London, where he found employment as a postman; but about 1760 he went on the stage in the provinces, and some three years later began to appear in minor parts at Covent Garden Theatre. His first rôle of importance was that of “Young Marlow” in She Stoops to Conquer, at its production of that comedy in 1773, when he delivered an epilogue specially written for him by Goldsmith. He remained a member of the Covent Garden company till 1783, appearing in many parts, among which were “Fag” in The Rivals, which he “created,” and “Sir Anthony Absolute” in the same comedy. In 1783 he removed to Drury Lane, where he assumed the Shakespearian rôles of “Touchstone,” “Lucio” and “Falstaff.” In 1787 he left London for Edinburgh, where he gave recitations, including Cowper’s “John Gilpin.” For a short time in 1792 Lewes assisted Stephen Kemble in the management of the Dundee Theatre; in the following year he went to Dublin, but he was financially unsuccessful and suffered imprisonment for debt. He employed his time in compiling his Memoirs, a worthless production published after his death by his son. He was also the author of some poor dramatic sketches. Lewes died on the 23rd of July 1803. He was three times married; the philosopher, George Henry Lewes, was his grandson.

LEWES, GEORGE HENRY (1817-1878), British philosopher and literary critic, was born in London in 1817. He was a grandson of Charles Lee Lewes, the actor. He was educated in London, Jersey, Brittany, and finally at Dr Burney’s school in Greenwich. Having abandoned successively a commercial and a medical career, he seriously thought of becoming an actor, and between 1841 and 1850 appeared several times on the stage. Finally he devoted himself to literature, science and philosophy. As early as 1836 he belonged to a club formed for the study of philosophy, and had sketched out a physiological treatment of the philosophy of the Scottish school. Two years later he went to Germany, probably with the intention of studying philosophy. In 1840 he married a daughter of Swynfen Stevens Jervis (1798-1867), and during the next ten years supported himself by contributing to the quarterly and other reviews. These articles discuss a wide variety of subject, and, though often characterized by hasty impulse and imperfect study, betray a singularly acute critical judgment, enlightened by philosophic study. The most valuable are those on the drama, afterwards republished under the title Actors and Acting (1875). With this may be taken the volume on The Spanish Drama (1846). The combination of wide scholarship, philosophic culture and practical acquaintance with the theatre gives these essays a high place among the best efforts in English dramatic criticism. In 1845-1846 he published The Biographical History of Philosophy, an attempt to depict the life of philosophers as an ever-renewed fruitless labour to attain the unattainable. In 1847-1848 he made two attempts in the field of fiction—Ranthrope, and Rose, Blanche and Violet—which, though displaying considerable skill both in plot, construction and in characterization, have taken no permanent place in literature. The same is to be said of an ingenious attempt to rehabilitate Robespierre (1849). In 1850 he collaborated with Thornton Leigh Hunt in the foundation of the Leader, of which he was the literary editor. In 1853 he republished under the title of Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences a series of papers which had appeared in that journal. In 1851 he became acquainted with Miss Evans (George Eliot) and in 1854 left his wife. Subsequently he lived with Miss Evans as her husband (see Eliot, George).

The culmination of Lewes’s work in prose literature is the Life of Goethe (1855), probably the best known of his writings. Lewes’s many-sidedness of mind, and his combination of scientific with literary tastes, eminently fitted him to appreciate the large nature and the wide-ranging activity of the German poet. The high position this work has taken in Germany itself, notwithstanding the boldness of its criticism and the unpopularity of some of its views (e.g. on the relation of the second to the first part of Faust), is a sufficient testimony to its general excellence. From about 1853 Lewes’s writings show that he was occupying himself with scientific and more particularly biological work. He may be said to have always manifested a distinctly scientific bent in his writings, and his closer devotion to science was but the following out of early impulses. Considering that he had not had the usual course of technical training, these studies are a remarkable testimony to the penetration of his intellect. The most important of these essays are collected in the volumes Seaside Studies (1858), Physiology of Common Life (1859), Studies in Animal Life (1862), and Aristotle, a Chapter from the History of Science (1864). They are much more than popular expositions of accepted scientific truths. They contain able criticisms of authorized ideas, and embody the results of individual research and individual reflection. He made a number of impressive suggestions, some of which have since been accepted by physiologists. Of these the most valuable is that now known as the doctrine of the functional indifference of the nerves—that what are known as the specific energies of the optic, auditory and other nerves are simply differences in their mode of action due to the differences of the peripheral structures or sense-organs with which they are connected. This idea was subsequently arrived at independently by Wundt (Physiologische Psychologie, 2nd ed., p. 321). In 1865, on the starting of the Fortnightly Review, Lewes became its editor, but he retained the post for less than two years, when he was succeeded by John Morley. This date marks the transition from more strictly scientific to philosophic work. He had from early youth cherished a strong liking for philosophic studies; one of his earliest essays was an appreciative account of Hegel’s Aesthetics. Coming under the influence of positivism as unfolded both in Comte’s own works and in J. S. Mill’s System of Logic, he abandoned all faith in the possibility of metaphysic, and recorded this abandonment in the above-mentioned History of Philosophy. Yet he did not at any time give an unqualified adhesion to Comte’s teachings, and with wider reading and reflection his mind moved away further from the positivist standpoint. In the preface to the third edition of his History of Philosophy he avowed a change in this direction, and this movement is still more plainly discernible in subsequent editions of the work. The final outcome of this intellectual progress is given to us in The Problems of Life and Mind, which may be regarded as the crowning work of his life. His sudden death on the 28th of November 1878 cut short the work, yet it is complete enough to allow us to judge of the author’s matured conceptions on biological, psychological and metaphysical problems. Of his three sons only one, Charles (1843-1891), survived him; in the first London County Council Election (1888) he was elected for St Pancras; he was also much interested in the Hampstead Heath extension.

LEWES, a market-town and municipal borough and the county town of Sussex, England, in the Lewes parliamentary division, 50 m. S. from London by the London, Brighton & South Coast railway. Pop. (1901) 11,249. It is picturesquely situated on the slope of a chalk down falling to the river Ouse. Ruins of the old castle, supposed to have been founded by King Alfred and rebuilt by William de Warenne shortly after the Conquest, rise from the height. There are two mounds which bore keeps, an uncommon feature. The castle guarded the pass through the downs formed by the valley of the Ouse. In one of the towers is the collection of the Sussex Archaeological Society. St Michael’s church is without architectural merit, but contains old brasses and monuments; St Anne’s church is a transitional Norman structure; St Thomas-at-Cliffe is Perpendicular; St John’s, Southover, of mixed architecture, preserves some early Norman portions, and has some relics of the Warenne family. In the grounds of the Cluniac priory of St Pancras, founded in 1078, the leaden coffins of William de Warenne and Gundrada his wife were dug up during an excavation for the railway in 1845. There is a free grammar school dating from 1512, and among the other public buildings are the town hall and corn exchange, county hall, prison, and the Fitzroy memorial library. The industries include the manufacture of agricultural implements, brewing, tanning, and iron and brass founding. The municipal borough is under a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 1042 acres.

The many neolithic and bronze implements that have been discovered, and the numerous tumuli and earthworks which surround Lewes, indicate its remote origin. The town Lewes (Loewas, Loewen, Leswa, Laquis, Latisaquensis) was in the royal demesne of the Saxon kings, from whom it received the privilege of a market. Æthelstan established two royal mints there, and by the reign of Edward the Confessor, and probably before, Lewes was certainly a borough. William I. granted the whole barony of Lewes, including the revenue arising from the town, to William de Warenne, who converted an already existing fortification into a place of residence. His descendants continued to hold the barony until the beginning of the 14th century. In default of male issue, it then passed to the earl of Arundel, with whose descendants it remained until 1439, when it was divided between the Norfolks, Dorsets and Abergavennys. By 1086 the borough had increased 30% in value since the beginning of the reign, and its importance as a port and market-town is evident from Domesday. A gild merchant seems to have existed at an early date. The first mention of it is in a charter of Reginald de Warenne, about 1148, by which he restored to the burgesses the privileges they had enjoyed in the time of his grandfather and father, but of which they had been deprived. In 1595 a “Fellowship” took the place of the old gild and in conjunction with two constables governed the town until the beginning of the 18th century. The borough seal probably dates from the 14th century. Lewes was incorporated by royal charter in 1881. The town returned two representatives to parliament from 1295 until deprived of one member in 1867. It was disfranchised in 1885. Earl Warenne and his descendants held the fairs and markets from 1066. In 1792 the fair-days were the 6th of May, Whit-Tuesday, the 26th of July (for wool), and the 2nd of October. The market-day was Saturday. Fairs are now held on the 6th of May for horses and cattle, the 20th of July for wool, and the 21st and 28th of September for Southdown sheep. A corn-market is held every Tuesday, and a stock-market every alternate Monday. The trade in wool has been important since the 14th century.

Lewes was the scene of the battle fought on the 14th of May 1264 between Henry III. and Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. Led by the king and by his son, the future king Edward I., the royalists left Oxford, took Northampton and drove Montfort from Rochester into London. Then, harassed on the route by their foes, they marched through Kent into Sussex and took up their quarters at Lewes, a stronghold of the royalist Earl Warenne. Meanwhile, reinforced by a number of Londoners, Earl Simon left London and reached Fletching, about 9 m. north of Lewes, 522 on the 13th of May. Efforts at reconciliation having failed he led his army against the town, which he hoped to surprise, early on the following day. His plan was to direct his main attack against the priory of St Pancras, which sheltered the king and his brother Richard, earl of Cornwall, king of the Romans, while causing the enemy to believe that his principal objective was the castle, where Prince Edward was. But the surprise was not complete and the royalists rushed from the town to meet the enemy in the open field. Edward led his followers against the Londoners, who were gathered around the standard of Montfort, put them to flight, pursued them for several miles, and killed a great number of them. Montfort’s ruse, however, had been successful. He was not with his standard as his foes thought, but with the pick of his men he attacked Henry’s followers and took prisoner both the king and his brother. Before Edward returned from his chase the earl was in possession of the town. In its streets the prince strove to retrieve his fortunes, but in vain. Many of his men perished in the river, but others escaped, one band, consisting of Earl Warenne and others, taking refuge in Pevensey Castle. Edward himself took sanctuary and on the following day peace was made between the king and the earl.

LEWES, a town in Sussex county, Delaware, U.S.A., in the S.E. part of the state, on Delaware Bay. Pop. (1910), 2158. Lewes is served by the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington (Pennsylvania System), and the Maryland, Delaware & Virginia railways. Its harbour is formed by the Delaware Breakwater, built by the national government and completed in 1869, and 2¼ m. above it another breakwater was completed in December 1901 by the government. The cove between them forms a harbour of refuge of about 550 acres. At the mouth of Delaware Bay, about 2 m. below Lewes, is the Henlopen Light, one of the oldest lighthouses in America. The Delaware Bay pilots make their headquarters at Lewes. Lewes has a large trade with northern cities in fruits and vegetables, and is a subport of entry of the Wilmington Customs District. The first settlement on Delaware soil by Europeans was made near here in 1631 by Dutch colonists, sent by a company organized in Holland in the previous year by Samuel Blommaert, Killian van Rensselaer, David Pieterszen de Vries and others. The settlers called the place Zwaanendael, valley of swans. The settlement was soon entirely destroyed by the Indians, and a second body of settlers whom de Vries, who had been made director of the colony, brought in 1632 remained for only two years. The fact of the settlement is important; because of it the English did not unite the Delaware country with Maryland, for the Maryland Charter of 1632 restricted colonization to land within the prescribed boundaries, uncultivated and either uninhabited or inhabited only by Indians. In 1658 the Dutch established an Indian trading post, and in 1659 erected a fort at Zwaanendael. After the annexation of the Delaware counties to Pennsylvania in 1682, its name was changed to Lewes, after the town of that name in Sussex, England. It was pillaged by French pirates in 1698. One of the last naval battles of the War of Independence was fought in the bay near Lewes on the 8th of April 1782, when the American privateer “Hyder Ally” (16), commanded by Captain Joshua Barnes (1759-1818), defeated and captured the British sloop “General Monk” (20), which had been an American privateer, the “General Washington,” had been captured by Admiral Arbuthnot’s squadron in 1780, and was now purchased by the United States government and, as the “General Washington,” was commanded by Captain Barnes in 1782-1784. In March 1813 the town was bombarded by a British frigate.

LEWIS, SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL, Bart. (1806-1863), English statesman and man of letters, was born in London on the 21st of April 1806. His father, Thomas F. Lewis, of Harpton Court, Radnorshire, after holding subordinate office in various administrations, became a poor-law commissioner, and was made a baronet in 1846. Young Lewis was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where in 1828 he took a first-class in classics and a second-class in mathematics. He then entered the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar in 1831. In 1833 he undertook his first public work as one of the commissioners to inquire into the condition of the poor Irish residents in the United Kingdom.1 In 1834 Lord Althorp included him in the commission to inquire into the state of church property and church affairs generally in Ireland. To this fact we owe his work on Local Disturbances in Ireland, and the Irish Church Question (London, 1836), in which he condemned the existing connexion between church and state, proposed a state provision for the Catholic clergy, and maintained the necessity of an efficient workhouse organization. During this period Lewis’s mind was much occupied with the study of language. Before leaving college he had published some observations on Whately’s doctrine of the predicables, and soon afterwards he assisted Thirlwall and Hare in starting the Philological Museum. Its successor, the Classical Museum, he also supported by occasional contributions. In 1835 he published an Essay on the Origin and Formation of the Romance Languages (re-edited in 1862), the first effective criticism in England of Raynouard’s theory of a uniform romance tongue, represented by the poetry of the troubadours. He also compiled a glossary of provincial words used in Herefordshire and the adjoining counties. But the most important work of this earlier period was one to which his logical and philological tastes contributed. The Remarks on the Use and Abuse of some Political Terms (London, 1832) may have been suggested by Bentham’s Book of Parliamentary Fallacies, but it shows all that power of clear sober original thinking which marks his larger and later political works. Moreover, he translated Boeckh’s Public Economy of Athens and Müller’s History of Greek Literature, and he assisted Tufnell in the translation of Müller’s Dorians. Some time afterwards he edited a text of the Fables of Babrius. While his friend Hayward conducted the Law Magazine, he wrote in it frequently on such subjects as secondary punishments and the penitentiary system. In 1836, at the request of Lord Glenelg, he accompanied John Austin to Malta, where they spent nearly two years reporting on the condition of the island and framing a new code of laws. One leading object of both commissioners was to associate the Maltese in the responsible government of the island. On his return to England Lewis succeeded his father as one of the principal poor-law commissioners. In 1841 appeared the Essay on the Government of Dependencies, a systematic statement and discussion of the various relations in which colonies may stand towards the mother country. In 1844 Lewis married Lady Maria Theresa Lister, sister of Lord Clarendon, and a lady of literary tastes. Much of their married life was spent in Kent House, Knightsbridge. They had no children. In 1847 Lewis resigned his office. He was then returned for the county of Hereford, and Lord John Russell appointed him secretary to the Board of Control, but a few months afterwards he became under-secretary to the Home Office. In this capacity he introduced two important bills, one for the abolition of turnpike trusts and the management of highways by a mixed county board, the other for the purpose of defining and regulating the law of parochial assessment. In 1850 he succeeded Hayter as financial secretary to the treasury. About this time, also, appeared his Essay on the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion. On the dissolution of parliament which followed the resignation of Lord John Russell’s ministry in 1852, Lewis was defeated for Herefordshire and then for Peterborough. Excluded from parliament he accepted the editorship of the Edinburgh Review, and remained editor until 1855. During this period he served on the Oxford commission, and on the commission to inquire into the government of London. But its chief fruits were the Treatise on the Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, and the Enquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History,2 in which he vigorously attacked 523 the theory of epic lays and other theories on which Niebuhr’s reconstruction of that history had proceeded. In 1855 Lewis succeeded his father in the baronetcy. He was at once elected member for the Radnor boroughs, and Lord Palmerston made him chancellor of the exchequer. He had a war loan to contract and heavy additional taxation to impose, but his industry, method and clear vision carried him safely through. After the change of ministry in 1859 Sir George became home secretary under Lord Palmerston, and in 1861, much against his wish, he succeeded Sidney Herbert (Lord Herbert of Lea) at the War Office. The closing years of his life were marked by increasing intellectual vigour. In 1859 he published an able Essay on Foreign Jurisdiction and the Extradition of Criminals, a subject to which the attempt on Napoleon’s life, the discussions on the Conspiracy Bill, and the trial of Bernard, had drawn general attention. He advocated the extension of extradition treaties, and condemned the principal idea of Weltrechtsordnung which Mohl of Heidelberg had proposed. His two latest works were the Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, in which, without professing any knowledge of Oriental languages, he applied a sceptical analysis to the ambitious Egyptology of Bunsen; and the Dialogue on the Best Form of Government, in which, under the name of Crito, the author points out to the supporters of the various systems that there is no one abstract government which is the best possible for all times and places. An essay on the Characteristics of Federal, National, Provincial and Municipal Government does not seem to have been published. Sir George died in April 1863. A marble bust by Weekes stands in Westminster Abbey.

Lewis was a man of mild and affectionate disposition, much beloved by a large circle of friends, among whom were Sir E. Head, the Grotes, the Austins, Lord Stanhope, J. S. Mill, Dean Milman, the Duff Gordons. In public life he was distinguished, as Lord Aberdeen said, “for candour, moderation, love of truth.” He had a passion for the systematic acquirement of knowledge, and a keen and sound critical faculty. His name has gone down to history as that of a many-sided man, sound in judgment, unselfish in political life, and abounding in practical good sense.

LEWIS, HENRY CARVILL (1853-1888), American geologist, was born in Philadelphia on the 16th of November 1853. Educated in the university of Pennsylvania he took the degree of M.A. in 1876. He became attached to the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania in 1879, serving for three years as a volunteer member, and during this term he became greatly interested in the study of glacial phenomena. In 1880 he was chosen professor of mineralogy in the Philadelphia academy of natural sciences, and in 1883 he was appointed to the chair of geology in Haverford College, Pennsylvania. During the winters of 1885 to 1887 he studied petrology under H. F. Rosenbusch at Heidelberg, and during the summers he investigated the glacial geology of northern Europe and the British Islands. His observations in North America, where he had studied under Professor G. F. Wright, Professor T. C. Chamberlin and Warren Upham, had demonstrated the former extension of land-ice, and the existence of great terminal moraines. In 1884 his Report on the Terminal Moraine in Pennsylvania and New York was published: a work containing much information on the limits of the North American ice-sheet. In Britain he sought to trace in like manner the southern extent of the terminal moraines formed by British ice-sheets, but before his conclusions were matured he died at Manchester on the 21st of July 1888. The results of his observations were published in 1894 entitled Papers and Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great Britain and Ireland, edited by Dr H. W. Crosskey.

LEWIS, JOHN FREDERICK (1805-1876), British painter, son of F. C. Lewis, engraver, was born in London. He was elected in 1827 associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, of which he became full member in 1829 and president in 1855; he resigned in 1858, and was made associate of the Royal Academy in 1859 and academician in 1865. Much of his earlier life was spent in Spain, Italy and the East, but he returned to England in 1851 and for the remainder of his career devoted himself almost exclusively to Eastern subjects, which he treated with extraordinary care and minuteness of finish, and with much beauty of technical method. He is represented by a picture, “Edfou: Upper Egypt,” in the National Gallery of British Art. He achieved equal eminence in both oil and water-colour painting.

LEWIS, MATTHEW GREGORY (1775-1818), English romance-writer and dramatist, often referred to as “Monk” Lewis, was born in London on the 9th of July 1775. He was educated for a diplomatic career at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, spending most of his vacations abroad in the study of modern languages; and in 1794 he proceeded to the Hague as attaché to the British embassy. His stay there lasted only a few months, but was marked by the composition, in ten weeks, of his romance Ambrosio, or the Monk, which was published in the summer of the following year. It immediately achieved celebrity; but some passages it contained were of such a nature that about a year after its appearance an injunction to restrain its sale was moved for and a rule nisi obtained. Lewis published a second edition from which he had expunged, as he thought, all the objectionable passages, but the work still remains of such a character as almost to justify the severe language in which Byron in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers addresses—

Whatever its demerits, ethical or aesthetic, may have been, The Monk did not interfere with the reception of Lewis into the best English society; he was favourably noticed at court, and almost as soon as he came of age he obtained a seat in the House of Commons as member for Hindon, Wilts. After some years, however, during which he never addressed the House, he finally withdrew from a parliamentary career. His tastes lay wholly in the direction of literature, and The Castle Spectre (1796, a musical drama of no great literary merit, but which enjoyed a long popularity on the stage), The Minister (a translation from Schiller’s Kabale u. Liebe), Rolla (1797, a translation from Kotzebue), with numerous other operatic and tragic pieces, appeared in rapid succession. The Bravo of Venice, a romance translated from the German, was published in 1804; next to The Monk it is the best known work of Lewis. By the death of his father he succeeded to a large fortune, and in 1815 embarked for the West Indies to visit his estates; in the course of this tour, which lasted four months, the Journal of a West Indian Proprietor, published posthumously in 1833, was written. A second visit to Jamaica was undertaken in 1817, in order that he might become further acquainted with, and able to ameliorate, the condition of the slave population; the fatigues to which he exposed himself in the tropical climate brought on a fever which terminated fatally on the homeward voyage on the 14th of May 1818.

LEWIS, MERIWETHER (1774-1809), American explorer, was born near Charlottesville, Virginia, on the 18th of August 1774. In 1794 he volunteered with the Virginia troops called out to suppress the “Whisky Insurrection,” was commissioned as ensign in the regular United States army in 1795, served with distinction under General Anthony Wayne in the campaigns against the Indians, and attained the rank of captain in 1797. From 1801 to 1803 he was the private secretary of President Jefferson. On the 18th of January 1803 Jefferson sent a confidential message to Congress urging the development of trade with the Indians of the Missouri Valley and recommending that an exploring party be sent into this region, notwithstanding 524 the fact that it was then held by Spain and owned by France. Congress appropriated funds for the expedition, and the president instructed Lewis to proceed to the head-waters of the Missouri river and thence across the mountains to the Pacific Ocean. With Jefferson’s consent Lewis chose as a companion Lieut. William Clark, an old friend and army comrade. The preparations were made under the orders of the War Department, and, until the news arrived that France had sold Louisiana to the United States, they were conducted in secrecy. Lewis spent some time in Philadelphia, gaining additional knowledge of the natural sciences and learning the use of instruments for determining positions; and late in 1803 he and Clark, with twenty-nine men from the army, went into winter quarters near St Louis, where the men were subjected to rigid training. On the 14th of May 1804 the party, with sixteen additional members, who, however, were to go only a part of the way, started up the Missouri river in three boats, and by the 2nd of November had made the difficult ascent of the stream as far as 47° 21′ N. lat., near the site of the present Bismarck, North Dakota, where, among the Mandan Indians, they passed the second winter. Early in April 1805 the ascent of the Missouri was continued as far as the three forks of the river, which were named the Jefferson, the Gallatin and the Madison. The Jefferson was then followed to its source in the south-western part of what is now the state of Montana. Procuring a guide and horses from the Shoshone Indians, the party pushed westward through the Rocky Mountains in September, and on the 7th of October embarked in canoes on a tributary of the Columbia river, the mouth of which they reached on the 15th of November. They had travelled upwards of 4000 m. from their starting-point, had encountered various Indian tribes never before seen by whites, had made valuable scientific collections and observations, and were the first explorers to reach the Pacific by crossing the continent north of Mexico. After spending the winter on the Pacific coast they started on the 23rd of March 1806 on their return journey, and, after crossing the divide, Lewis with one party explored Maria’s river, and Clark with another the Yellowstone. On the 12th of August the two explorers reunited near the junction of the Yellowstone and the Missouri, and on the 23rd of September reached St Louis. In spite of exposure, hardship and peril only one member of the party died, and only one deserted. No later feat of exploration, perhaps, in any quarter of the globe has exceeded this in romantic interest. The expedition was commemorated by the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition at Portland, Oregon, in 1905. The leaders and men of the exploring party were rewarded with liberal grants of land from the public domain, Lewis receiving 1500 acres; and in March 1807 Lewis was made governor of the northern part of the territory obtained from France in 1803, which had been organized as the Louisiana Territory. He performed the duties of this office with great efficiency, but it is said that in the unwonted quiet of his new duties, his mind, always subject to melancholy, became unbalanced, and that while on his way to Washington he committed suicide about 60 m. south-west of Nashville, Tennessee, on the 11th of October 1809. It is not definitely known, however, whether he actually committed suicide or was murdered.

LEWISBURG, a borough and the county-seat of Union county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the W. bank of West Branch of the Susquehanna river, about 50 m. N. of Harrisburg. Pop. (1900) 3457 (60 foreign-born); (1910) 3081. It is served by the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia & Reading railways. It is the seat of Bucknell University (coeducational), opened in 1846 as the university of Lewisburg and renamed in 1886 in honour of William Bucknell (1809-1890), a liberal benefactor. The university comprises a College of Liberal Arts, an Academy for Young Men, an Institute for Young Women, and a School of Music, and in 1908-1909 had 50 instructors and 775 students, of whom 547 were in the College of Liberal Arts. The city is situated in a farming region, and has various manufactures, including flour, lumber, furniture, woollens, nails, foundry products and carriages. Lewisburg (until about 1805 called Derrstown) was founded and laid out in 1785 by Ludwig Derr, a German, and was chartered as a borough in 1812.

LEWISHAM, a south-eastern metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded N.W. by Deptford, N.E. by Greenwich, E. by Woolwich, and W. by Camberwell, and extending S. to the boundary of the county of London. Pop. (1901) 127,495. Its area is for the most part occupied by villas. It includes the districts of Blackheath and Lee in the north, Hither Green, Catford and Brockley in the central parts, and Forest Hill and part of Sydenham in the south-west. In the districts last named well-wooded hills rise above 300 ft., and this is an especially favoured residential quarter, its popularity being formerly increased by the presence of medicinal springs, discovered in 1640, on Sydenham Common. Towards the south, in spite of the constant extension of building, there are considerable tracts of ground uncovered, apart from public grounds. In the north the borough includes the greater part of Blackheath (q.v.), an open common of considerable historical interest. The other principal pleasure grounds are Hilly Fields (46 acres) and Ladywell Recreation Grounds (46 acres) in the north-west part of the borough; and at Sydenham (but outside the boundary of the county of London) is the Crystal Palace. Among institutions are the Horniman Museum, Forest Hill (1901); Morden’s College, on the south of Blackheath, founded at the close of the 17th century by Sir John Morden for Turkey merchants who were received as pensioners, and subsequently extended in scope; numerous schools in the same locality; and the Park Fever Hospital, Hither Green. The parliamentary borough of Lewisham returns one member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 7 aldermen and 42 councillors. Area, 7014.4 acres.

LEWISTON, a city of Androscoggin county, Maine, U.S.A., on the Androscoggin river, opposite Auburn, with which it is connected by four steel bridges, and about 36 m. N.E. of Portland. Pop. (1900) 23,761, of whom 9316 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 26,247. It is served by the Maine Central, the Grand Trunk, the Portland & Rumford Falls and the Lewiston, Augusta & Waterville (electric) railways. The surrounding country is hilly and the river is picturesque; in the vicinity there are many lakes and ponds abounding in salmon and trout. The Maine fish hatchery is on Lake Auburn, 3 m. above the city. Lewiston is the seat of Bates College, a non-sectarian institution, which grew out of the Maine State Seminary (chartered in 1855), and was chartered in 1864 under its present name, adopted in honour of Benjamin E. Bates (d. 1877), a liberal benefactor. In 1908-1909 the college had 25 instructors and 440 students, and its library contained 34,000 volumes. The campus of the college is about 1 m. from the business portion of Lewiston and covers 50 acres; among the college buildings are an auditorium (1909) given by W. Scott Libbey of Lewiston, and the Libbey Forum for the use of the three literary societies and the two Christian associations of the college. The literary societies give excellent training in forensics. The matriculation pledge requires from male students total abstinence from intoxicants 525 as a condition of membership. There are no secret fraternities. From the beginning women have been admitted on the same terms as men. The Cobb Divinity School (Free Baptist), which was founded at Parsonfield, Maine, in 1840 as a department of Parsonfield Seminary, and was situated in 1842-1844 at Dracut, Massachusetts, in 1844-1854 at Whitestown, New York, and in 1854-1870 at New Hampton, New Hampshire, was removed to Lewiston in 1870 and became a department (known as Bates Theological Seminary until 1888) of Bates College, with which it was merged in 1908. Lewiston has a fine city hall, a Carnegie library and a public park of 10½ acres, with a bronze soldiers’ monument by Franklin Simmons, who was born in 1839 at Webster near Lewiston, and is known for his statues of Roger Williams, William King, Francis H. Pierpont and U. S. Grant in the national Capitol, and for “Grief” and “History” on the Peace Monument at Washington. In Lewiston are the Central Maine General Hospital (1888), the Sisters’ Hospital (1888), under the charge of the French Catholic Sisters of Charity, a home for aged women, a young women’s home and the Hesley Asylum for boys. The Shrine Building (Kora Temple), dedicated in 1909, is the headquarters of the Shriners of the state. The river at Lewiston breaks over a ledge of mica-schist and gneiss, the natural fall of 40 ft. having been increased to more than 50 ft. by a strong granite dam; and 3 m. above the city at Deer Rips a cement dam furnishes 10,000 horse-power. The water-power thus obtained is distributed by canals from the nearer dam and transmitted by wire from the upper dam. The manufacture of cotton goods is the principal industry, and in 1905 the product of the city’s cotton mills was valued at about one-third of that of the mills of the whole state. Among other industries are the manufacture of woollen goods, shirts, dry-plates, carriages, spools and bobbins, and boots and shoes, and the dyeing and finishing of textiles. The total factory product in 1905 was valued at $8,527,649. The municipality owns its water works and electric lighting plant. Lewiston was settled in 1770, incorporated as a township in 1795 and chartered as a city in 1861. It was the home of Nelson Dingley (1832-1899), who from 1856 until his death controlled the Lewiston Journal. He was governor of the state in 1874-1876, Republican representative in Congress in 1881-1899, and the drafter of the Dingley Tariff Bill (1897).

LEWIS-WITH-HARRIS, the most northerly island of the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. It is sometimes called the Long Island and is 24 m. from the nearest point of the mainland, from which it is separated by the strait called The Minch. It is 60 m. long and has an extreme breadth of 30 m., its average breadth being 15 m. It is divided into two portions by a line roughly drawn between Loch Resort on the west and Loch Seaforth on the east, of which the larger or more northerly portion, known as Lewis (pron. Lews), belongs to the county of Ross and Cromarty and the lesser, known as Harris, to Inverness-shire. The area of the whole island is 492,800 acres, or 770 sq. m., of which 368,000 acres belong to Lewis. In 1891 the population of Lewis was 27,045, of Harris 3681; in 1901 the population of Lewis was 28,357, of Harris 3803, or 32,160 for the island, of whom 17,175 were females, 11,209 spoke Gaelic only, and 17,685 both Gaelic and English. There is communication with certain ports of the Western Highlands by steamer via Stornoway every week—oftener during the tourist and special seasons—the steamers frequently calling at Loch Erisort, Loch Sealg, Ardvourlie, Tarbert, Ardvey, Rodel and The Obe. The coast is indented to a remarkable degree, the principal sea-lochs in Harris being East and West Loch Tarbert; and in Lewis, Loch Seaforth, Loch Erisort and Broad Bay (or Loch a Tuath) on the east coast and Loch Roag and Loch Resort on the west. The mainland is dotted with innumerable fresh-water lakes. The island is composed of gneiss rocks, excepting a patch of granite near Carloway, small bands of intrusive basalt at Gress and in Eye Peninsula and some Torridonian sandstone at Stornoway, Tong, Vatskir and Carloway. Most of Harris is mountainous, there being more than thirty peaks above 1000 ft. high. Lewis is comparatively flat, save in the south-east, where Ben More reaches 1874 ft., and in the south-west, where Mealasbhal (1885) is the highest point; but in this division there are only eleven peaks exceeding 1000 ft. in height. The rivers are small and unimportant. The principal capes are the Butt of Lewis, in the extreme north, where the cliffs are nearly 150 ft. high and crowned with a lighthouse, the light of which is visible for 19 m.; Tolsta Head, Tiumpan Head and Cabag Head, on the east; Renish Point, in the extreme south; and, on the west, Toe Head and Gallon Head. The following inhabited islands in the Inverness-shire division belong to the parish of Harris: off the S.W. coast, Bernera (pop. 524), Ensay, Killigray and Pabbay; off the W. coast, Scarp (160), Soay and Tarrensay (72); off the E. coast, Scalpa (587) and Scotasay. Belonging to the county of Ross and Cromarty are Great Bernera (580) to the W. of Lewis, in the parish of Uig, and the Shiant Isles, about 21 m. S. of Stornoway, in the parish of Lochs, so named from the number of its sea lochs and fresh-water lakes. The south-eastern base of Broad Bay is furnished by the peninsula of Eye, attached to the main mass by so slender a neck as seemingly to be on the point of becoming itself an island. Much of the surface of both Lewis and Harris is composed of peat and swamp; there are scanty fragments of an ancient forest. The rainfall for the year averages 41.7 in., autumn and winter being very wet. Owing to the influence of the Gulf Stream, however, the temperature is fairly high, averaging for the year 46.6° F., for January 39.5° F. and for August 56.5° F.

The economic conditions of the island correspond with its physical conditions. The amount of cultivable land is small and poor. Sir James Matheson (1796-1878), who purchased the island in 1844, is said to have spent nearly £350,000 in reclamation and improvements. Barley and potatoes are the chief crops. A large number of black cattle are reared and some sheep-farming is carried on in Harris. Kelp-making, once important, has been extinct for many years. Harris has obtained great reputation for tweeds. The cloth has an aroma of heather and peat, and is made in the dwellings of the cotters, who use dyes of long-established excellence. The fisheries are the principal mainstay of the people. In spite of the very considerable reductions in rent effected by the Crofters’ Commission (appointed in 1886) and the sums expended by government, most of the crofters still live in poor huts amid dismal surroundings. The island affords good sporting facilities. Many of the streams abound with salmon and trout; otters and seals are plentiful, and deer and hares common; while bird life includes grouse, ptarmigan, woodcock, snipe, heron, widgeon, teal, eider duck, swan and varieties of geese and gulls. There are many antiquarian remains, including duns, megaliths, ruined towers and chapels and the like. At Rodel, in the extreme south of Harris, is a church, all that is left of an Augustinian monastery. The foundation is Norman and the superstructure Early English. On the towers are curious carved figures and in the interior several tombs of the Macleods, the most remarkable being that of Alastair (Alexander), son of William Macleod of Dunvegan, dated 1528. The monument, a full-length recumbent effigy of a knight in armour, lies at the base of a tablet in the shape of an arch divided into compartments, in which are carved in bas-relief, besides the armorial bearings of the deceased and a rendering of Dunvegan castle, several symbolical scenes, one of which exhibits Satan weighing in the balance the good and evil deeds of Alastair Macleod, the good obviously preponderating. Stornoway, the chief town (pop. 3852) is treated under a separate heading. At Callernish, 13 m. due W. of Stornoway, are several stone circles, one of which is probably the most perfect example of so-called “Druidical” structures in the British Isles. In this specimen the stones are huge, moss-covered, undressed blocks of gneiss. Twelve of such monoliths constitute the circle, in the centre of which stands a pillar 17 ft. high. From the circle there runs northwards an avenue of stones, comprising on the right-hand side nine blocks and on the left-hand ten. There also branch off from the circle, on the east and west, a single line of four stones and, on the south, a single line of five stones. From the extreme point of the south file to the farther 526 end of the avenue on the north is a distance of 127 yds. and the width from tip to tip of the east and west arms is 41 yds. Viewed from the north end of the avenue, the design is that of a cross. The most important fishery centre on the west coast is Carloway, where there is the best example of a broch, or fort, in the Hebrides. Rory, the blind harper who translated the Psalms into Gaelic, was born in the village. Tarbert, at the head of East Loch Tarbert, is a neat, clean village, in communication by mail-car with Stornoway. At Coll, a few miles N. by E. of Stornoway, is a mussel cave; and at Gress, 2 m. or so beyond in the same direction, there is a famous seals’ cave, adorned with fine stalactites. Port of Ness, where there is a harbour, is the headquarters of the ling fishery. Loch Seaforth gave the title of earl to a branch of the Mackenzies, but in 1716 the 5th earl was attainted for Jacobitism and the title forfeited. In 1797 Francis Humberston Mackenzie (1754-1815), chief of the Clan Mackenzie, was created Lord Seaforth and Baron Mackenzie of Kintail, and made colonel of the 2nd battalion of the North British Militia, afterwards the 3rd battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders. The 2nd battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders was formerly the Ross-shire Buffs, which was raised in 1771.

LEXICON, a dictionary (q.v.). The word is the Latinized form of Gr. λεξικόν, sc. βιβλίον, a word-book (λέξις, word, λέγειν, to speak). Lexicon, rather than dictionary, is used of word-books of the Greek language, and sometimes of Arabic and Hebrew.

LEXINGTON, BARON, a title borne in the English family of Sutton from 1645 to 1723. Robert Sutton (1594-1668), son of Sir William Sutton of Averham, Nottinghamshire, was a member of parliament for his native county in 1625 and again in 1640. He served Charles I. during the Civil War, making great monetary sacrifices for the royal cause, and in 1645 the king created him Baron Lexington, this being a variant of the name of the Nottinghamshire village of Laxton. His estate suffered during the time of the Commonwealth, but some money was returned to him by Charles II. He died on the 13th of October 1668. His only son, Robert, the 2nd baron (1661-1723), supported in the House of Lords the elevation of William of Orange to the throne, and was employed by that king at court and on diplomatic business. He also served as a soldier, but he is chiefly known as the British envoy at Vienna during the conclusion of the treaty of Ryswick, and at Madrid during the negotiations which led to the treaty of Utrecht. He died on the 19th of September 1723. His letters from Vienna, selected and edited by the Hon. H. M. Sutton, were published as the Lexington Papers (1851). Lexington’s barony became extinct on his death, but his estates descended to the younger sons of his daughter Bridget (d. 1734), the wife of John Manners, 3rd duke of Rutland. Lord George Manners, who inherited these estates in 1762, is the ancestor of the family of Manners-Sutton. An earlier member of this family is Oliver Sutton, bishop of Lincoln from 1280 to 1299.

LEXINGTON, a city and the county-seat of Fayette county, Kentucky, U.S.A., about 75 m. S. of Cincinnati. Pop. (1900) 26,369, of whom 10,130 were negroes and 924 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 35,099. It is served by the Louisville & Nashville, the Southern, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific, the Lexington & Eastern, and electric railways. The city, which lies at an altitude of about 950 ft., is situated near the centre of the celebrated “blue grass” region, into which extend a number of turnpike roads. Its public buildings include the court house and the Federal building, both built of Bowling Green oolitic limestone. Among the public institutions are two general hospitals—St Joseph’s (Roman Catholic) and Good Samaritan (controlled by the Protestant churches of the city)—the Eastern Lunatic Asylum (1815, a state institution since 1824), with 250 acres of grounds; a state House of Reform for Girls and a state House of Reform for Boys (both at Greendale, a suburb); an orphan industrial school (for negroes); and two Widows’ and Orphans’ Homes, one established by the Odd Fellows of Kentucky and the other by the Knights of Pythias of the state. Lexington is the seat of Transylvania University (non-sectarian; coeducational), formerly Kentucky University (Disciples of Christ), which grew out of Bacon College (opened at Georgetown, Ky., in 1836), was chartered in 1858 as Kentucky University, and was opened at Harrodsburg, Ky., in 1859, whence after a fire in 1864 it removed to Lexington in 1865. At Lexington it was consolidated with the old Transylvania University, a well-known institution which had been chartered as Transylvania Seminary in 1783, was opened near Danville, Ky., in 1785, was removed to Lexington in 1789, was re-chartered as Transylvania University in 1798, and virtually ceased to exist in 1859.1 In 1908 Kentucky University resumed the old name, Transylvania University. It has a college of Liberal Arts, a College of Law, a Preparatory School, a Junior College for Women, and Hamilton College for women (founded in 1869 as Hocker Female College), over which the university assumed control in 1903, and a College of the Bible, organized in 1865 as one of the colleges of the university, but now under independent control. In 1907-1908 Transylvania University, including the College of the Bible, had 1129 students. At Lexington are the State University, two colleges for girls—the Campbell-Hagerman College and Sayre College—and St Catherine’s Academy (Roman Catholic). The city is the meeting-place of a Chatauqua Assembly, and has a public library. The State University was founded (under the Federal Land Grant Act of 1862) in 1865 as the State Agricultural and Mechanical College, was opened in 1866, and was a college of Kentucky University until 1878. In 1890 the college received a second Federal appropriation, and it received various grants from the state legislature, which in 1880 imposed a state tax of one-half of 1% for its support. In connexion with it an Agricultural Experiment Station was established in 1885. In 1908 its title became, by act of Legislature, the State University. The university has a College of Agriculture, a College of Arts and Science, a College of Law, a School of Civil Engineering, a School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, and a School of mining Engineering. The university campus is the former City Park, in the southern part of the city. In 1907-1908 the university had 1064 students. The city is the see of a Protestant Episcopal bishopric.

Lexington was the home of Henry Clay from 1797 until his death in 1852, and in his memory a monument has been erected, consisting of a magnesian-limestone column (about 120 ft.) in the Corinthian style and surmounted by a statue of Clay, the head of which was torn off in 1902 by a thunderbolt. Clay’s estate, “Ashland,” is now one of the best known of the stock-farms in the vicinity; the present house is a replica of Clay’s home. The finest and most extensive of these stock-farms, and probably the finest in the world, is “Elmendorf,” 6 m. from the city. On these farms many famous trotting and running horses have been raised. There are two race-tracks in Lexington, and annual running and trotting race meetings attract large crowds. The city’s industries consist chiefly in a large trade in tobacco, hemp, grain and live stock—there are large semi-annual horse sales—and in the manufacture of “Bourbon” whisky, tobacco, flour, dressed flax and hemp, carriages, harness and saddles. The total value of the city’s factory products in 1905 was $2,774,329 (46.9% more than in 1900).

Lexington was named from Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1775 by a party of hunters who were encamped here when they received the news of the battle of Lexington; the permanent settlement dates from 1779. It was laid out in 1781, incorporated as a town in 1782, and chartered as a city in 1832. The first newspaper published west of the Alleghany Mountains, the Kentucky Gazette, was established here in 1787, to promote the separation of Kentucky from Virginia. The first state legislature met here in 1792, but later in the same year Frankfort became the state capital. Until 1907, when the city was enlarged by annexation, its limits remained as they were first laid out, a circle with a radius of 1 m., the court house being its centre.

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LEXINGTON, a township of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., about 11 m. N.W. of Boston. Pop. (1900) 3831, (1910 U.S. census) 4918. It is traversed by the Boston & Maine railroad and by the Lowell & Boston electric railway. Its area is about 17 sq. m., and it contains three villages—Lexington, East Lexington and North Lexington. Agriculture is virtually the only industry. Owing to its historic interest the village of Lexington is visited by thousands of persons annually, for it was on the green or common of this village that the first armed conflict of the American War of Independence occurred. On the green stand a monument erected by the state in 1799 to the memory of the minute-men who fell in that engagement, a drinking fountain surmounted by a bronze statue (1900, by Henry Hudson Kitson) of Captain John Parker, who was in command of the minute-men, and a large boulder, which marks the position of the minute-men when they were fired upon by the British. Near the green, in the old burying-ground, are the graves of Captain Parker and other American patriots—the oldest gravestone is dated 1690. The Hancock-Clarke House (built in part in 1698) is now owned by the Lexington Historical Society and contains a museum of revolutionary and other relics, which were formerly exhibited in the Town Hall. The Buckman Tavern (built about 1690), the rendezvous of the minute-men, and the Munroe Tavern (1695), the headquarters of the British, are still standing, and two other houses, on the common, antedate the War of Independence. The Cary Library in this village, with 23,000 volumes (1908), was founded in 1868, and was housed in the Town Hall from 1871 until 1906, when it was removed to the Cary Memorial Library building. In the library are portraits of Paul Revere, William Dawes and Lord Percy. The Town Hall (1871) contains statues of John Hancock (by Thomas R. Gould) and Samuel Adams (by Martin Millmore), of the “Minute-Man of 1775” and the “Soldier of 1861,” and a painting by Henry Sandham, “The Battle of Lexington.”

Lexington was settled as a part of Cambridge as early as 1642. It was organized as a parish in 1691 and was made a township (probably named in honour of Lord Lexington) in 1713. In the evening of the 18th of April 1775 a British force of about 800 men under Lieut.-Colonel Francis Smith and Major John Pitcairn was sent by General Thomas Gage from Boston to destroy military stores collected by the colonists at Concord, and to seize John Hancock and Samuel Adams, then at Parson Clarke’s house (now known as the Hancock-Clarke House) in Lexington. Although the British had tried to keep this movement a secret, Dr Joseph Warren discovered their plans and sent out Paul Revere and William Dawes to give warning of their approach. The expedition had not proceeded far when Smith, discovering that the country was aroused, despatched an express to Boston for reinforcements and ordered Pitcairn to hasten forward with a detachment of light infantry. Early in the morning of the 19th Pitcairn arrived at the green in the village of Lexington, and there found between sixty and seventy minute-men under Captain John Parker drawn up in line of battle. Pitcairn ordered them to disperse, and on their refusal to do so his men fired a volley. Whether a stray shot preceded the first volley, and from which side it came, are questions which have never been determined. After a second volley from the British, Parker ordered his men to withdraw. The engagement lasted only a few minutes, but eight Americans were killed and nine were wounded; not more than two or three of the British were wounded. Hancock and Adams had escaped before the British troops reached Lexington. The British proceeded from Lexington to Concord (q.v.). On their return they were continually fired upon by Americans from behind trees, rocks, buildings and other defences, and were threatened with complete destruction until they were rescued at Lexington by a force of 1000 men under Lord Hugh Percy (later, 1786, duke of Northumberland). Percy received the fugitives within a hollow square, checked the onslaught for a time with two field-pieces, used the Munroe Tavern for a hospital, and later in the day carried his command with little further injury back to Boston. The British losses for the entire day were 73 killed, 174 wounded and 26 missing; the American losses were 49 killed, 39 wounded and 5 missing.

In 1839 a state normal school for women (the first in Massachusetts and the first public training school for teachers in the United States) was opened at Lexington; it was transferred to West Newton in 1844 and to Framingham in 1853.

LEXINGTON, a city and the county-seat of Lafayette county, Missouri, U.S.A., situated on the S. bank of the Missouri river, about 40 m. E. of Kansas City. Pop. (1900) 4190, including 1170 negroes and 283 foreign-born; (1910) 5242. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Wabash (at Lexington Junction, 4 m. N.W.), and the Missouri Pacific railway systems. The city lies for the most part on high broken ground at the summit of the river bluffs, but in part upon their face. Lexington is the seat of the Lexington College for Young Women (Baptist, established 1855), the Central College for Women (Methodist Episcopal, South; opened 1869), and the Wentworth Military Academy (1880). There are steam flour mills, furniture factories and various other small manufactories; but the main economic interest of the city is in brickyards and coal-mines in its immediate vicinity. It is one of the principal coal centres of the state, Higginsville (pop. in 1910, 2628), about 12 m. S.E., in the same county, also being important. Lexington was founded in 1819, was laid out in 1832, and, with various additions, was chartered as a city in 1845. A new charter was received in 1870. Lexington succeeded Sibley as the eastern terminus of the Santa Fé trade, and was in turn displaced by Independence; it long owed its prosperity to the freighting trade up the Missouri, and at the opening of the Civil War it was the most important river town between St Louis and St Joseph and commanded the approach by water to Fort Leavenworth.

After the Confederate success at Wilson’s Creek (Aug. 10, 1861), General Sterling Price advanced northward, and with about 15,000 men arrived in the vicinity of Lexington on the 12th of September. Here he found a Federal force of about 2800 men under Colonel James A. Mulligan (1830-1864) throwing up intrenchments on Masonic College Hill, an eminence adjoining Lexington on the N.E. An attack was made on the same day and the Federals were driven within their defences, but at night General Price withdrew to the Fair-grounds not far away and remained there five days waiting for his wagon train and for reinforcements. On the 18th the assault was renewed, and on the 20th the Confederates, advancing behind movable breastworks of water-soaked bales of hemp, forced the besieged, now long without water, to surrender. The losses were: Confederate, 25 killed and 75 wounded; Federal, 39 killed and 120 wounded. At the end of September General Price withdrew, leaving a guard of only a few hundred in the town, and on the 16th of the next month a party of 220 Federal scouts under Major Frank J. White (1842-1875) surprised this guard, released about 15 prisoners, and captured 60 or more Confederates. Another Federal raid on the town was made in December of the same year by General John Pope’s cavalry. Again, during General Price’s Missouri expedition in 1864, a Federal force entered Lexington on the 16th of October, and three days later there was some fighting about 4 m. S. of the town.

LEXINGTON, a town and the county-seat of Rockbridge county, Virginia, U.S.A., on the North river (a branch of the James), about 30 m. N.N.W. of Lynchburg. Pop. (1900) 3203 (1252 negroes); (1910) 2931. It is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Baltimore & Ohio railways. The famous Natural Bridge is about 16 m. S.W., and there are mineral springs in the vicinity—at Rockbridge Baths, 10 m. N., at Wilson’s Springs, 12 m. N., and at Rockbridge Alum Springs, 17 m. N.W. Lexington is best known as the seat of Washington and Lee University, and of the Virginia Military Institute. The former grew out of Augusta Academy, which was established in 1749 in Augusta county, about 15 m. S.W. of what is now the city of Staunton, was renamed Liberty Hall and was established near 528 Lexington in 1780, and was chartered as Liberty Hall Academy in 1782. In 1798 its name was changed to Washington Academy, in recognition of a gift from George Washington of some shares of canal stock, which he refused to receive from the Virginia legislature. In 1802 the Virginia branch of the Society of the Cincinnati disbanded and turned over to the academy its funds, about $25,000; in 1813 the academy took the name Washington College; and in 1871 its corporate name was changed to Washington and Lee University, the addition to the name being made in honour of General Robert E. Lee, who was the president of the college from August 1865 until his death in 1870. He was succeeded by his son, General George Washington Custis Lee (b. 1832), president from 1871 to 1897, and Dr William Lyne Wilson (1843-1900), the eminent political leader and educator, was president from 1897 to 1900. In 1908-1909 the university comprised a college, a school of commerce, a school of engineering and a school of law, and had a library of 47,000 volumes, 23 instructors and 565 students. In the Lee Memorial chapel, on the campus, General Robert E. Lee is buried, and over his grave is a notable recumbent statue of him by Edward Virginius Valentine (b. 1838). The Virginia Military Institute was established in March 1839, when its cadet corps supplanted the company of soldiers maintained by the state to garrison the Western Arsenal at Lexington. The first superintendent (1839-1890) was General Francis Henney Smith (1812-1890), a graduate (1833) of the United States Military Academy; and from 1851 until the outbreak of the Civil War “Stonewall” Jackson was a professor in the Institute—he is buried in the Lexington cemetery and his grave is marked by a monument. On the campus of the institute is a fine statue, “Virginia Mourning Her Dead,” by Moses Ezekiel (b. 1844), which commemorates the gallantry of a battalion of 250 cadets from the institute, more than 50 of whom were killed or wounded during the engagement at New Market on the 15th of May 1864. In 1908-1909 the institute had 21 instructors and 330 cadets. Flour is manufactured in Lexington and lime in the vicinity. The town owns and operates its water-works. The first settlers of Rockbridge county established themselves in 1737 near the North river, a short distance below Lexington. The first permanent settlement on the present site was made about 1778. On the 11th of June 1864, during the occupation of the town by Federal troops under General David Hunter, most of the buildings in the town and those of the university were damaged and all those of the institute, except the superintendent’s headquarters, were burned.

LEYDEN, JOHN (1775-1811), British orientalist and man of letters, was born on the 8th of September 1775 at Denholm on the Teviot, not far from Hawick. Leyden’s father was a shepherd, but contrived to send his son to Edinburgh University to study for the ministry. Leyden was a diligent but somewhat miscellaneous student, reading everything apparently, except theology, for which he seems to have had no taste. Though he completed his divinity course, and in 1798 received licence to preach from the presbytery of St Andrews, it soon became clear that the pulpit was not his vocation. In 1794 Leyden had formed the acquaintance of Dr Robert Anderson, editor of The British Poets, and of The Literary Magazine. It was Anderson who introduced him to Dr Alexander Murray, and Murray, probably, who led him to the study of Eastern languages. They became warm friends and generous rivals, though Leyden excelled, perhaps, in the rapid acquisition of new tongues and acquaintance with their literature, while Murray was the more scientific philologist. Through Anderson also he came to know Richard Heber, by whom he was brought under the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who was then collecting materials for his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Leyden was admirably fitted for helping in this kind of work, for he was a borderer himself, and an enthusiastic lover of old ballads and folk-lore. Scott tells how, on one occasion, Leyden walked 40 m. to get the last two verses of a ballad, and returned at midnight, singing it all the way with his loud, harsh voice, to the wonder and consternation of the poet and his household.

Leyden meanwhile compiled a work on the Discoveries and Settlements of Europeans in Northern and Western Africa, suggested by Mungo Park’s travels, edited The Complaint of Scotland, printed a volume of Scottish descriptive poems, and nearly finished his Scenes of Infancy, a diffuse poem based on border scenes and traditions. He also made some translations from Eastern poetry, Persian and Arabic. At last his friends got him an appointment in India on the medical staff, for which he qualified by a year’s hard work. In 1803 he sailed for Madras, and took his place in the general hospital there. He was promoted to be naturalist to the commissioners going to survey Mysore, and in 1807 his knowledge of the languages of India procured him an appointment as professor of Hindustani at Calcutta; this he soon after resigned for a judgeship, and that again to be a commissioner in the court of requests in 1809, a post which required a familiarity with several Eastern tongues. In 1811 he joined Lord Minto in the expedition to Java. Having entered a library which was said to contain many Eastern MSS., without having the place aired, he was seized with Batavian fever, and died, after three days’ illness, on the 28th of August 1811.

LEYDEN JAR, or Condenser, an electrical appliance consisting in one form of a thin glass jar partly coated inside and outside with tin foil, or in another of a number of glass plates similarly coated. When the two metal surfaces are connected for a short time with the terminals of some source of electromotive force, such as an electric machine, an induction coil or a voltaic battery, electric energy is stored up in the condenser in the form of electric strain in the glass, and can be recovered again in the form of an electric discharge.

The earliest form of Leyden jar consisted of a glass vial or thin Florence flask, partly full of water, having a metallic nail inserted through the cork which touched the water. The bottle was held in the hand, and the nail presented Early history. to the prime conductor of an electrical machine. If the person holding the bottle subsequently touched the nail, he experienced an electric shock. This experiment was first made by E. G. von Kleist of Kammin in Pomerania in 1745,1 and it was repeated in another form in 1746 by Cunaeus and P. van Musschenbroek, of the university of Leyden (Leiden), whence the term Leyden jar.2 J. H. Winkler discovered that an iron chain wound round the bottle could be substituted for the hand, and Sir William Watson in England shortly afterward showed that iron filings or mercury could replace the water within the jar. Dr John Bevis of London suggested, in 1746, the use of sheet lead coatings within and without the jar, and subsequently the use of tin foil or silver leaf made closely adherent to the glass. Benjamin Franklin and Bevis devised independently the form of condenser known as a Franklin or Leyden pane, which consists of a sheet of glass, partly coated on both sides with tin foil or silver leaf, a margin of glass all round being left to insulate the two tin foils from each other. Franklin in 1747 and 1748 made numerous investigations on the Leyden jar, and devised a method of charging jars in series as well as in parallel. In the former method, now commonly known as charging in cascade, the jars are insulated and the outside coating of one jar is connected to the inside coating of the next and so on for a whole series, the inside coating of the first jar and the outside coating of the last jar being the terminals of the condenser. For charging in parallel a number of jars are collected in a box, and all the outside coatings are connected together metallically and all the inside coatings brought to one common terminal. This arrangement is commonly called a battery of Leyden jars. To Franklin also we owe the important knowledge that the electric charge resides really in the glass and not in the metal coatings, and that when a condenser has been charged the metallic coatings can be exchanged for fresh ones and yet the electric charge of the condenser remains.

In its modern form the Leyden jar consists of a wide-mouthed bottle of thin English flint glass of uniform thickness, 529 free from flaws. About half the outside and half the inside surface is coated smoothly with tin foil, and the remainder of Modern construction. the glazed surface is painted with shellac varnish. A wooden stopper closes the mouth of the jar, and through it a brass rod passes which terminates in a chain, or better still, three elastic brass springs, which make good contact with the inner coating. The rod terminates externally in a knob or screw terminal. The jar has a certain capacity C which is best expressed in microfarads or electrostatic units (see Electrostatics), and is determined by the surface of the tin foil and thickness and quality of the glass. The jar can be charged so that a certain potential difference V, reckoned in volts, exists between the two coatings. If a certain critical potential is exceeded, the glass gives way under the electric strain and is pierced. The safe voltage for most glass jars is about 20,000 volts for glass 1⁄10th in. in thickness; this corresponds with an electric spark of about 7 millimetres in length. When the jar is charged, it is usually discharged through a metallic arc called the discharging tongs, and this discharge is in the form of an oscillatory current (see Electrokinetics). The energy stored up in the jar in joules is expressed by the value of ½ CV2, where C is the capacity measured in farads and V the potential difference of the coatings in volts. If the capacity C is reckoned in microfarads then the energy storage is equal to CV2/2 × 106 joules or 0.737 CV2/2 × 106 foot-pounds. The size of jar commonly known as a quart size may have a capacity from 1⁄400th to 1⁄800th of a microfarad, and if charged to 20,000 volts stores up energy from a quarter to half a joule or from 3⁄16ths to 3⁄8ths of a foot-pound.

Leyden jars are now much employed for the production of the high frequency electric currents used in wireless telegraphy (see Telegraphy, Wireless). For this purpose they are made by Moscicki in the form of glass tubes partly coated by silver chemically deposited on the glass on the inner and outer surfaces. The tubes have walls thicker at the ends than in the middle, as the tendency to puncture the glass is greatest at the edges of the coatings. In other cases, Leyden jars or condensers take the form of sheets of mica or micanite or ebonite partly coated with tin foil or silver leaf on both sides; or a pile of sheets of alternate tin foil and mica may be built up, the tin foil sheets having lugs projecting out first on one side and then on the other. All the lugs on one side are connected together, and so also are all the lugs on the other side, and the two sets of tin foils separated by sheets of mica constitute the two metallic surfaces of the Leyden jar condenser. For the purposes of wireless telegraphy, when large condensers are required, the ordinary Leyden High tension condensers. jar occupies too much space in comparison with its electrical capacity, and hence the best form of condenser consists of a number of sheets of crown glass, each partly coated on both sides with tin foil. The tin foil sheets have lugs attached which project beyond the glass. The plates are placed in a vessel full of insulating oil which prevents the glow or brush discharge taking place over their edges. All the tin foils on one side of the glass plates are connected together and all the tin foils on the opposite sides, so as to construct a condenser of any required capacity. The box should be of glass or stoneware or other non-conducting material. When glass tubes are used it is better to employ tubes thicker at the ends than in the middle, as it has been found that when the safe voltage is exceeded and the glass gives way under electric strain, the piercing of the glass nearly always takes place at the edges of the tin foil.

Glass is still commonly used as a dielectric because of its cheapness, high dielectric strength or resistance to electric puncture, and its high dielectric constant (see Electrostatics). It has been found, however, that very Compressed air condensers. efficient condensers can be made with compressed air as dielectric. If a number of metal plates separated by small distance pieces are enclosed in an iron box which is pumped full of air to a pressure, say, of 100 ℔. to 1 sq. in., the dielectric strength of the air is greatly increased, and the plates may therefore be brought very near to one another without causing a spark to pass under such voltage as would cause discharge in air at normal pressure. Condensers of this kind have been employed by R. A. Fessenden in wireless telegraphy, and they form a very excellent arrangement for standard condensers with which to compare the capacity of other Leyden jars. Owing to the variation in the value of the dielectric constant of glass with the temperature and with the frequency of the applied electromotive force, and also owing to electric glow discharge from the edges of the tin foil coatings, the capacity of an ordinary Leyden jar is not an absolutely fixed quantity, but its numerical value varies somewhat with the method by which it is measured, and with the other circumstances above mentioned. For the purpose of a standard condenser a number of concentric metal tubes may be arranged on an insulating stand, alternate tubes being connected together. One coating of the condenser is formed by one set of tubes and the other by the other set, the air between being the dielectric. Paraffin oil or any liquid dielectric of constant inductivity may replace the air.

LEYS, HENDRIK, Baron (1815-1869), Belgian painter, was born at Antwerp on the 18th of February 1815. He studied under Wappers at the Antwerp Academy. In 1833 he painted “Combat d’un grenadier et d’un cosaque,” and in the following year “Combat de Bourguignons et Flamands.” In 1835 he went to Paris where he was influenced by the Romantic movement. Examples of this period of his painting are “Massacre des échevins de Louvain,” “Mariage flamand,” “Le Roi des arbalétriers” and other works. Leys was an imitative painter in whose works may rapidly be detected the schools which he had been studying before he painted them. Thus after his visit to Holland in 1839 he reproduced many of the characteristics of the Dutch genre painters in such works as “Franz Floris se rendant à une fête” (1845) and “Service divin en Hollande” (1850). So too the methods of Quentin Matsys impressed themselves upon him after he had travelled in Germany in 1852. In 1862 Leys was created a baron. At the time of his death, which occurred in August 1869, he was engaged in decorating with fresco the large hall of the Antwerp Hôtel de Ville.

LEYTON, an urban district forming one of the north-eastern suburbs of London, England, in the Walthamstow (S.W.) parliamentary division of Essex. Pop. (1891) 63,106; (1901) 98,912. It lies on the east (left) bank of the Lea, along the flat open valley of which runs the boundary between Essex and the county of London. The church of St Mary, mainly a brick reconstruction, contains several interesting memorials; including one to William Bowyer the printer (d. 1737), erected by his son and namesake, more famous in the same trade. Here is also buried John Strype the historian and biographer (d. 1737), who held the position of curate and lecturer at this church. Leyton is in the main a residential as distinct from a manufacturing locality. Its name is properly Low Leyton, and the parish includes the district of Leytonstone to the east. Roman remains have been discovered here, but no identification with a Roman station by name has been made with certainty. The ground of the Essex County Cricket Club is at Leyton.

LHASA (Lhassa, Lassa, “God’s ground”), the capital of Tibet. It lies in 29° 39′ N., 91° 5′ E., 11,830 ft. above sea-level. Owing to the inaccessibility of Tibet and the political and religious exclusiveness of the lamas, Lhasa was long closed to European travellers, all of whom during the latter half of the 19th century were stopped in their attempts to reach it. It was popularly known as the “Forbidden City.” But its chief features were known by the accounts of the earlier Romish missionaries who visited it and by the investigations, in modern times, of native Indian secret explorers, and others, and the British armed mission of 1904 (see Tibet).

Site and General Aspect.—The city stands in a tolerably level plain, which is surrounded on all sides by hills. Along its 530 southern side, about ½ m. south of Lhasa, runs a considerable river called the Kyichu (Ki-chu) or Kyi, flowing here from E.N.E., and joining the great Tsangpo (or upper course of the Brahmaputra) some 38 m. to the south-west. The hills round the city are barren. The plain, however, is fertile, though in parts marshy. There are gardens scattered over it round the city, and these are planted with fine trees. The city is screened from view from the west by a rocky ridge, lofty and narrow, with summits at the north and south, the one flanked and crowned by the majestic buildings of Potala, the chief residence of the Dalai lama, the other by the temple of medicine. Groves, gardens and open ground intervene between this ridge and the city itself for a distance of about 1 m. A gate through the centre of the ridge gives access from the west; the road thence to the north part of the city throws off a branch to the Yutok sampa or turquoise-tiled covered bridge, one of the noted features of Lhasa, which crosses a former channel of the Kyi, and carries the road to the centre of the town.

The city is nearly circular in form, and less than 1 m. in diameter. It was walled in the latter part of the 17th century, but the walls were destroyed during the Chinese occupation in 1722. The chief streets are fairly straight, but generally of no great width. There is no paving or metal, nor any drainage system, so that the streets are dirty and in parts often flooded. The inferior quarters are unspeakably filthy, and are rife with evil smells and large mangy dogs and pigs. Many of the houses are of clay and sun-dried brick, but those of the richer people are of stone and brick. All are frequently white-washed, the doors and windows being framed in bands of red and yellow. In the suburbs there are houses entirely built of the horns of sheep and oxen set in clay mortar. This construction is in some cases very roughly carried out, but in others it is solid and highly picturesque. Some of the inferior huts of this type are inhabited by the Ragyaba or scavengers, whose chief occupation is that of disposing of corpses according to the practice of cutting and exposing them to the dogs and birds of prey. The houses generally are of two or three storeys. Externally the lower part generally presents dead walls (the ground floor being occupied by stables and similar apartments); above these rise tiers of large windows with or without projecting balconies, and over all flat broad-eaved roofs at varying levels. In the better houses there are often spacious and well-finished apartments, and the principal halls, the verandahs and terraces are often highly ornamented in brilliant colours. In every house there is a kind of chapel or shrine, carved and gilt, on which are set images and sacred books.

Population and Trade.—The total population of Lhasa, including the lamas in the city and vicinity, is probably about 30,000; a census in 1854 made the figure 42,000, but it is known to have greatly decreased since. There are only some 1500 resident Tibetan laymen and about 5500 Tibetan women. The permanent population embraces, besides Tibetans, settled families of Chinese (about 2000 persons), as well as people from Nepal, from Ladak, and a few from Bhotan and Mongolia. The Ladakis and some of the other foreigners are Mahommedans, and much of the trade is in their hands. Desideri (1716) speaks also of Armenians and even “Muscovites.” The Chinese have a crowded burial-ground at Lhasa, tended carefully after their manner. The Nepalese (about 800) supply the mechanics and metal-workers. There are among them excellent gold- and silversmiths; and they make the elaborate gilded canopies crowning the temples. The chief industries are the weaving of a great variety of stuffs from the fine Tibetan wool; the making of earthenware and of the wooden porringers (varying immensely in elaboration and price) of which every Tibetan carries one about with him; also the making of certain fragrant sticks of incense much valued in China and elsewhere.

As Lhasa is not only the nucleus of a cluster of vast monastic establishments, which attract students and aspirants to the religious life from all parts of Tibet and Mongolia, but is also a great place of pilgrimage, the streets and public places swarm with visitors from every part of the Himalayan plateau,2 and from all the steppes of Asia between Manchuria and the Balkhash Lake. Naturally a great traffic arises quite apart from the pilgrimage. The city thus swarms with crowds attracted by devotion and the love of gain, and presents a great diversity of language, costume and physiognomy; though, in regard to the last point, varieties of the broad face and narrow eye greatly predominate. Much of the retail trade of the place is in the hands of the women. The curious practice of the women in plastering their faces with a dark-coloured pigment is less common in Lhasa than in the provinces.

During December especially traders arrive from western China by way of Tachienlu bringing every variety of silk-stuffs, carpets, china-ware and tea; from Siningfu come silk, gold lace, Russian goods, carpets of a superior kind, semi-precious stones, horse furniture, horses and a very large breed of fat-tailed sheep; from eastern Tibet, musk in large quantities, which eventually finds its way to Europe through Nepal; from Bhotan and Sikkim, rice; from Sikkim also tobacco; besides a variety of Indian and European goods from Nepal and Darjeeling, and charas (resinous exudation of hemp) and saffron from Ladakh and Kashmir. The merchants leave Lhasa in March, before the setting in of the rains renders the rivers impassable.

The tea importation from China is considerable, for tea is an absolute necessary to the Tibetan. The tea is of various qualities, from the coarsest, used only for “buttered” tea (a sort of broth), to the fine quality drunk by the wealthy. This is pressed into bricks or cakes weighing about 5½ ℔, and often passes as currency. The quantity that pays duty at Tachienlu is about 10,000,000 ℔, besides some amount smuggled. No doubt a large part of this comes to Lhasa.

History.—The seat of the princes whose family raised Tibet to a position among the powers of Asia was originally on the Yarlung river, in the extreme east of the region now occupied by Tibetan tribes. It was transplanted to Lhasa in the 7th century by the king Srong-tsan-gampo, conqueror, civilizer and proselytizer, the founder of Buddhism in Tibet, the introducer of the Indian alphabet. On the three-peaked crag now occupied by the palace-monastery of the Grand Lama this king is said to have established his fortress, while he founded in the plain below temples to receive the sacred images, brought respectively from Nepal and from China by the brides to whom his own conversion is attributed.

Tibet endured as a conquering power some two centuries, and the more famous among the descendants of the founder added to the city. This-rong-de-tsan (who reigned 740-786) is said to have erected a great temple-palace of which the basement followed the Tibetan style, the middle storey the Chinese, and the upper storey the Indian—a combination which would aptly symbolize the elements that have moulded the culture of Lhasa. His son, the last of the great orthodox kings, in the next century, is said to have summoned artists from Nepal and India, and among many splendid foundations to have erected a sanctuary (at Samyé) of vast height, which had nine storeys, the three lower of stone, the three middle of brick, the three uppermost of timber. With this king the glory of Tibet and of ancient Lhasa reached its zenith, and in 822, a monument recording his treaty on equal terms with the Great T’ang emperor of China was erected in the city. There followed dark days for Lhasa and the Buddhist church in the accession of this king’s brother Langdharma, who has been called the Julian of the lamas. This king rejected the doctrine, persecuted and scattered its ministers, and threw down its temples, convents and images. It was more than a century before Buddhism recovered its hold and its convents were rehabilitated over Tibet. The country was then split into an infinity of petty states, many of them ruled from the convents by warlike ecclesiastics; but, though the old monarchy never recovered, Lhasa seems to have maintained some supremacy, and probably never lost its claim to be the chief city of that congeries of principalities, with a common faith and a common language, which was called Tibet.

The Arab geographers of the 10th century speak of Tibet, but without real knowledge, and none speaks of any city that we can identify with Lhasa. The first passage in any Western author in which such identification can be probably traced occurs in the narrative of Friar Odoric of Pordenone (c. 1330). This remarkable traveller’s route from Europe to India, and thence by sea to China, can be traced satisfactorily, but of his journey homeward through Asia the indications are very fragmentary. He speaks, however, on this return journey of the realm of Tibet, which lay on the confines of India proper: “The folk of that country dwell in tents made of black felt. But the chief and royal city is all built with walls of black and white, and all its streets are very well paved. In this city no one shall dare to shed the blood of any, whether man or beast, for the reverence they bear a certain idol that is there worshipped. In that city dwelleth the Abassi, i.e. in their tongue the pope, who is the head of all the idolaters, and has the disposal of all their benefices such as they are after their manner.”

We know that Kublai Khan had constituted a young prince of the Lama Church, Mati Dhwaja, as head of that body, and tributary ruler of Tibet, but besides this all is obscure for a century. This passage of Odoric shows that such authority continued under Kublai’s descendants, and that some foreshadow of the position since occupied by the Dalai Lama already existed. But it was not till a century after Odoric that the strange heredity of the dynasty of the Dalai Lamas of Lhasa actually began. In the first two centuries of its existence the residence of these pontiffs was rather at Debung or Sera than at Lhasa itself, though the latter was the centre of devout resort. A great event for Lhasa was the conversion, or reconversion, of the Mongols to Lamaism (c. 1577), which made the city the focus of sanctity and pilgrimage to so vast a tract of Asia. It was in the middle of the 17th century that Lhasa became the residence of the Dalai Lama. A native prince, known as the Tsangpo, with his seat at Shigatse, had made himself master of southern Tibet, and threatened to absorb the whole. The fifth Dalai Lama, Nagwang Lobzang, called in the aid of a Kalmuck prince, Gushi Khan, from the neighbourhood of the Koko-nor, who defeated and slew the Tsangpo and made over full dominion in Tibet to the lama (1641). The latter now first established his court and built his palace on the rock-site of the fortress of the ancient monarchy, which apparently had fallen into ruin, and to this he gave the name of Potala.

The founder of Potala died in 1681. He had appointed as “regent” or civil administrator (Deisri, or Deba) one supposed to be his own natural son. This remarkable personage, Sangye Gyamtso, of great ambition and accomplishment, still renowned in Tibet as the author of some of the most valued works of the native literature, concealed the death of his master, asserting that the latter had retired, in mystic meditation or trance, to the upper chambers of the palace. The government continued to be carried on in the lama’s name by the regent, who leagued with Galdan Khan of Dzungaria against the Chinese (Manchu) power. It was not till the great emperor Kang-hi was marching on Tibet that the death of the lama, sixteen years before, was admitted. A solemn funeral was then performed, at which 108,000 lamas assisted, and a new incarnation was set up in the person of a youth of fifteen, Tsangs-yang Gyamtso. This young man was the scandal of the Lamaist Church in every kind of evil living and debauchery, so that he was deposed and assassinated in 1701. But it was under him and the regent Sangye Gyamtso that the Potala palace attained its present scale of grandeur, and that most of the other great buildings of Lhasa were extended and embellished.

L’HÔPITAL (or L’Hospital), MICHEL DE (c. 1505-1573), French statesman, was born near Aigueperse in Auvergne (now Puy-de-Dôme). His father, who was physician to the constable Charles of Bourbon, sent him to study at Toulouse, whence at the age of eighteen he was driven, a consequence of the evil fortunes of the family patron, to Padua, where he studied law and letters for about six years. On the completion of his studies he joined his father at Bologna, and afterwards, the constable having died, went to Rome in the suite of Charles V. For some time he held a position in the papal court at Rome, but about 1534 he returned to France, and becoming an advocate, his 533 marriage, in 1537, procured for him the post of counsellor to the parlement of Paris. This office he held until 1547, when he was sent by Henry II. on a mission to Bologna, where the council of Trent was at that time sitting; after sixteen months of wearisome inactivity there, he was by his own desire recalled at the close of 1548. L’Hôpital now for some time held the position of chancellor to the king’s sister, Margaret, duchess of Berry. In 1553, on the recommendation of the Cardinal of Lorraine, he was named master of the requests, and afterwards president of the chambre des comptes. In 1559 he accompanied the princess Margaret, now duchess of Savoy, to Nice, where, in the following year, tidings reached him that he had been chosen to succeed François Olivier (1487-1560) in the chancellorship of France.

One of his first acts after entering on the duties of his office was to cause the parlement of Paris to register the edict of Romorantin, of which he is sometimes, but erroneously, said to have been the author. Designed to protect heretics from the secret and summary methods of the Inquisition, it certainly had his sympathy and approval. In accordance with the consistent policy of inclusion and toleration by which the whole of his official life was characterized, he induced the council to call the assembly of notables, which met at Fontainebleau in August 1560 and agreed that the States General should be summoned, all proceedings against heretics being meanwhile suppressed, pending the reformation of the church by a general or national council. The States General met in December; the edict of Orleans (January 1561) followed, and finally, after the colloquy of Poissy, the edict of January 1562, the most liberal, except that of Nantes, ever obtained by the Protestants of France. Its terms, however, were not carried out, and during the war which was the inevitable result of the massacre of Vassy in March, L’Hôpital, whose dismissal had been for some time urged by the papal legate Hippolytus of Este, found it necessary to retire to his estate at Vignay, near Étampes, whence he did not return until after the pacification of Amboise (March 19, 1563). It was by his advice that Charles IX. was declared of age at Rouen in August 1563, a measure which really increased the power Of Catherine de’ Medici; and it was under his influence also that the royal council in 1564 refused to authorize the publication of the acts of the council of Trent, on account of their inconsistency with the Gallican liberties. In 1564-1566 he accompanied the young king on an extended tour through France; and in 1566 he was instrumental in the promulgation of an important edict for the reform of abuses in the administration of justice. The renewal of the religious war in September 1567, however, was at once a symptom and a cause of diminished influence to L’Hôpital, and in February 1568 he obtained his letters of discharge, which were registered by the parlement on the 11th of May, his titles, honours and emoluments being reserved to him during the remainder of his life. Henceforward he lived a life of unbroken seclusion at Vignay, his only subsequent public appearance being by means of a mémoire which he addressed to the king in 1570 under the title Le But de la guerre et de la paix, ou discours du chancelier l’Hospital pour exhorter Charles IX. à donner la paix à ses sujets. Though not exempt from considerable danger, he passed in safety through the troubles of St Bartholomew’s eve. His death took place either at Vignay or at Bellébat on the 13th of March 1573.

LIAO-YANG, a city of China, formerly the chief town of the province of Liao-tung or Shêng-king (southern Manchuria), 35 m. S of Mukden. It is situated in a rich cotton district in the fertile valley of the Liao, on the road between Niuchwang and Mukden, and carries on a considerable trade. The walls include an area about 2½ m. long by 2 m. broad, and there are fairly extensive suburbs; but a good deal even of the enclosed area is under cultivation. The population is estimated at 100,000. Liao-yang was one of the first objectives of the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War, and its capture by them resulted in some of the fiercest fighting during the campaign, from the 24th of August to the 4th of September 1904.

LIAS, in geology, the lowermost group of Jurassic strata. Originally the name seems to have been written “Lyas”; it is most probably a provincial form of “layers,” strata, employed by quarrymen in the west of England; it has been suggested, however, that the Fr. liais, Breton leach = a stone, Gaelic leac = flat stone, may have given rise to the English “Lias.” Liassic strata occupy an important position in England, where they crop out at Lyme Regis on the Dorsetshire coast and extend thence by Bath, along the western flank of the Cotswold Hills, forming Edge Hill and appearing at Banbury, Rugby, Melton, Grantham, Lincoln, to Redcar on the coast of Yorkshire. They occur also in Glamorganshire, Shropshire, near Carlisle, in Skye, Raasay (Pabba, Scalpa and Broadfoot beds), and elsewhere in the north of Scotland, and in the north-east of Ireland. East of the belt of outcrop indicated, the Lias is known to occur beneath the younger rocks for some distance farther east, but it is absent from beneath London, Reading, Ware, Harwich, Dover, and in the southern portion of the area in which these towns lie; the Liassic rocks are probably thinned out against a concealed ridge of more ancient rocks. The table on following page will serve to illustrate the general characters of the English Lias and the subdivisions adopted by the Geological Survey. By the side are shown the principal zonal ammonites, and, for comparison, the subdivisions preferred by Messrs Tate and Blake and by A. de Lapparent.

The important fact is clearly demonstrated in the table, that where the Lias is seen in contact with the Trias below or the Inferior Oolite above, there is, as a rule, a gradual passage from the Liassic formation, both downwards and upwards; hence Professor de Lapparent includes in his Liassique System the zone of Ammonites opalinus at the top, and the Rhaetic beds at the bottom (see Oolite; Rhaetic). Owing to the transgression of the Liassic sea the strata rest in places upon older Palaeozoic rocks. The thickness of the Lias varies considerably; in Dorsetshire it is 900 ft., near Bath it has thinned to 280 ft., and beneath Oxford it is further reduced. In north Gloucestershire it is 1360 ft., Northampton 760 ft., Rutland 800 ft., Lincolnshire 950 ft., and in Yorkshire about 500 ft.

The Lias of England was laid down in conditions very similar to those which obtained at the same time in north France and north Germany, that is to say, on the floor of a shallow sea; but in the Alpine region limestones are developed upon a much greater scale. Many of the limestones are red and crystalline marbles such as the “ammonitico-rosso-inferiore” of the Apennines; a grey, laminated limestone is known as the “Fleckenmergel.” The whitish “Hierlatzkalke,” the Adnet beds and the “Grestener beds” in the eastern Alps and Balkan Mountains are important phases of Alpine Lias. The Grestener beds contain a considerable amount of coal. The Lias of Spain and the Pyrenees contains much dolomitic limestone. This formation is widely spread in western Europe; besides the localities already cited it occurs in Swabia, the Rhenish provinces, Alsace-Lorraine, Luxemburg, Ardennes, Normandy, Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, Greece and Scania. It has not been found north of Kharkov in Russia, but it is present in the south and in the Caucasus, in Anatolia, Persia and the Himalayas. It appears on the eastern side of Japan, in Borneo, Timor, New Caledonia and New Zealand (Bastion beds); in Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere in North Africa, and on the west coast of Madagascar. In South America it is found in the Bolivian Andes, in Chile and Argentina; it appears also on the Pacific coast of North America.

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LIBANIUS (A.D. 314-393), Greek sophist and rhetorician, was born at Antioch, the capital of Syria. He studied at Athens, and spent most of his earlier manhood in Constantinople and Nicomedia. His private classes at Constantinople were much more popular than those of the public professors, who had him expelled in 346 (or earlier) on the charge of studying magic. He removed his school to Nicomedia, where he remained five years. After another attempt to settle in Constantinople, he finally retired to Antioch (354). Though a pagan, he enjoyed the favour of the Christian emperors. When Julian, his special patron, restored paganism as the state religion, Libanius showed no intolerance. Among his pupils he numbered John Chrysostom, Basil (bishop of Caesarea) and Ammianus Marcellinus. His works, consisting chiefly of orations (including his autobiography), declamations on set topics, letters, life of Demosthenes, and arguments to all his orations are voluminous. He devoted much time to the classical Greek writers, and had a thorough contempt for Rome and all things Roman. His speeches and letters throw considerable light on the political and literary history of the age. The letters number 1607 in the Greek original; with these were formerly included some 400 in Latin, purporting to be a translation, but now proved to be a forgery by the Italian humanist F. Zambeccari (15th century).

LIBATION (Lat. libatio, from libare, to take a portion of something, to taste, hence to pour out as an offering to a deity, &c.; cf. Gr. λείβειν), a drink offering, the pouring out of a small quantity of wine, milk or other liquid as a ceremonial act. Such an act was performed in honour of the dead (Gr. χοαί, Lat. profusiones), in making of treaties (Gr. σπονδή, σπένδειν = libare, whence σπονδαί, treaty), and particularly in honour of the gods (Gr. λοιβή, Lat. libatio, libamentum, libamen). Such libations to the gods were made as part of the daily ritual of domestic worship, or at banquets or feasts to the Lares, or to special deities, as by the Greeks to Hermes, the god of sleep, when going to rest.

LIBAU (Lettish, Leepaya), a seaport of Russia, in the government of Courland, 145 m. by rail S.W. of Riga, at the northern extremity of a narrow sandy peninsula which separates Lake Libau (12 m. long and 2 m. wide) from the Baltic Sea. Its population has more than doubled since 1881 (30,000), being 64,505 in 1897. The town is well built of stone, with good gardens, and has a naval cathedral (1903). The harbour was 535 2 m. S. of the town until a canal was dug through the peninsula in 1697; it is now deepened to 23 ft., and is mostly free from ice throughout the year. Since being brought, in 1872, into railway connexion with Moscow, Orel and Kharkov, Libau has become an important port. New Libau possesses large factories for colours, explosives, machinery belts, sails and ropes, tobacco, furniture, matches, as well as iron works, agricultural machinery works, tin-plate works, soap works, saw-mills, breweries, oil-mills, cork and linoleum factories and flour-mills. The exports reach the annual value of £3,250,000 to £5,500,000, oats being the chief export, with flour, wheat, rye, butter, eggs, spirits, flax, linseed, oilcake, pork, timber, horses and petroleum. The imports average £1,500,000 to £2,000,000 annually. Shipbuilding, including steamers for open-sea navigation, is on the increase. North of the commercial harbour and enclosing it the Russian government made (1893-1906) a very extensive fortified naval port, protected by moles and breakwaters. Libau is visited for sea-bathing in summer.

The port of Libau, Lyra portus, is mentioned as early as 1263; it then belonged to the Livonian Order or Brothers of the Sword. In 1418 it was burnt by the Lithuanians, and in 1560 it was mortgaged by the grandmaster of the Teutonic Order, to which it had passed, to the Prussian duke Albert. In 1701 it was captured by Charles XII. of Sweden, and was annexed to Russia in 1795.

LIBEL and SLANDER, the terms employed in English law to denote injurious attacks upon a man’s reputation or character by words written or spoken, or by equivalent signs. In most early systems of law verbal injuries are treated as a criminal or quasi-criminal offence, the essence of the injury lying not in pecuniary loss, which may be compensated by damages, but in the personal insult which must be atoned for—a vindictive penalty coming in the place of personal revenge. By the law of the XII. Tables, the composition of scurrilous songs and gross noisy public affronts were punished by death. Minor offences of the same class seem to have found their place under the general conception of injuria, which included ultimately every form of direct personal aggression which involved contumely or insult. In the later Roman jurisprudence, which has, on this point, exercised considerable influence over modern systems of law, verbal injuries are dealt with in the edict under two heads. The first comprehended defamatory and injurious statements made in a public manner (convicium contra bonos mores). In this case the essence of the offence lay in the unwarrantable public proclamation. In such a case the truth of the statements was no justification for the unnecessarily public and insulting manner in which they had been made. The second head included defamatory statements made in private, and in this case the offence lay in the imputation itself, not in the manner of its publication. The truth was therefore a sufficient defence, for no man had a right to demand legal protection for a false reputation. Even belief in the truth was enough, because it took away the intention which was essential to the notion of injuria. The law thus aimed at giving sufficient scope for the discussion of a man’s character, while it protected him from needless insult and pain. The remedy for verbal injuries was long confined to a civil action for a money penalty, which was estimated according to the gravity of the case, and which, although vindictive in its character, doubtless included practically the element of compensation. But a new remedy was introduced with the extension of the criminal law, under which many kinds of defamation were punished with great severity. At the same time increased importance attached to the publication of defamatory books and writings, the libri or libelli famosi, from which we derive our modern use of the word libel; and under the later emperors the latter term came to be specially applied to anonymous accusations or pasquils, the dissemination of which was regarded as peculiarly dangerous, and visited with very severe punishment, whether the matter contained in them were true or false.

The earlier history of the English law of defamation is somewhat obscure. Civil actions for damages seem to have been tolerably frequent so far back as the reign of Edward I. There was no distinction drawn between words written and spoken. When no pecuniary penalty was involved such cases fell within the old jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, which was only finally abolished in the 19th century. It seems, to say the least, uncertain whether any generally applicable criminal process was in use. The crime of scandalum magnatum, spreading false reports about the magnates of the realm, was established by statutes, but the first fully reported case in which libel is affirmed generally to be punishable at common law is one tried in the star chamber in the reign of James I. In that case no English authorities are cited except a previous case of the same nature before the same tribunal; the law and terminology appear to be taken directly from Roman sources, with the insertion that libels tended to a breach of the peace; and it seems probable that that not very scrupulous tribunal had simply found it convenient to adopt the very stringent Roman provisions regarding the libelli famosi without paying any regard to the Roman limitations. From that time we find both the criminal and civil remedies in full operation, and the law with regard to each at the present time may now be considered.

Civil Law.—The first important distinction encountered is that between slander and libel, between the oral and written promulgation of defamatory statements. In the former case the remedy is limited. The law will not take notice of every kind of abusive or defamatory language. It must be shown either that the plaintiff has suffered actual damage as a direct consequence of the slander, or that the imputation is of such a nature that we are entitled to infer damage as a necessary consequence. The special damage on which an action is founded for slanderous words must be of the nature of pecuniary loss. Loss of reputation or of position in society, or even illness, however clearly it may be traced to the slander, is insufficient. When we cannot prove special damage, the action for slander is only allowed upon certain strictly defined grounds. These are the imputation of a crime or misdemeanour which is punishable corporeally, e.g. by imprisonment; the imputation of a contagious or infectious disease; statements which tend to the disherison of an apparent heir (other cases of slander of title when the party is in possession requiring the allegation of special damage); the accusing a woman of unchastity (Slander of Women Act 1891); and, lastly, slanders directed against a man’s professional or business character, which tend directly to prejudice him in his trade, profession, or means of livelihood. In the latter case the words must either be directly aimed at a man in his business or official character, or they must be such as necessarily to imply unfitness for his particular office or occupation. Thus words which merely reflect generally upon the moral character of a tradesman or professional man are not actionable, but they are actionable if directed against his dealings in the course of his trade or profession. But, in the case of a merchant or trader, an allegation which affects his credit generally is enough, and it has been held that statements are actionable which affect the ability or moral characters of persons who hold offices, or exercise occupation which require a high degree of ability, or infer peculiar confidence. In every case the plaintiff must have been at the time of the slander in the actual exercise of the occupation or enjoyment of the office with reference to which the slander is supposed to have affected him.

The action for libel is not restricted in the same way as that for slander. Originally there appears to have been no essential distinction between them, but the establishment of libel as a criminal offence had probably considerable influence, and it soon became settled that written defamatory statements, or pictures and other signs which bore a defamatory meaning, implied greater malice and deliberation, and were generally fraught with greater injury than those made by word of mouth. The result has been that the action for libel is not limited to special grounds, or by the necessity of proving special damage. It may be founded on any statement which disparages a man’s private or professional character, or which tends to hold him up to hatred, 536 contempt or ridicule. In one of the leading cases, for example, the plaintiff obtained damages because it was said of him that he was a hypocrite, and had used the cloak of religion for unworthy purposes. In another case a charge of ingratitude was held sufficient. In civil cases the libel must be published by being brought by the defendant under the notice of a third party; it has been held that it is sufficient if this has been done by gross carelessness, without deliberate intention to publish. Every person is liable to an action who is concerned in the publication of a libel, whether he be the author, printer or publisher; and the extent and manner of the publication, although not affecting the ground of the action, is a material element in estimating the damages.

It is not necessary that the defamatory character of the words or writing complained of should be apparent on their face. They may be couched in the form of an insinuation, or may derive their sting from a reference to circumstances understood by the persons to whom they are addressed. In such a case the plaintiff must make the injurious sense clear by an averment called an innuendo, and it is for the jury to say whether the words bore the meaning thus ascribed to them.

In all civil actions for slander and libel the falsity of the injurious statements is an essential element, so that the defendant is always entitled to justify his statements by their truth; but when the statements are in themselves defamatory, their falsity is presumed, and the burden of proving their truth is laid upon the defendant. There are however a large class of false defamatory statements, commonly called privileged, which are not actionable on account of the particular circumstances in which they are made. The general theory of law with regard to these cases is this. It is assumed that in every case of defamation intention is a necessary element; but in the ordinary case, when a statement is false and defamatory, the law presumes that it has been made or published with an evil intent, and will not allow this presumption to be rebutted by evidence or submitted as matter of fact to a jury. But there are certain circumstances in which the natural presumption is quite the other way. There are certain natural and proper occasions on which statements may be made which are in themselves defamatory, and which may be false, but which naturally suggest that the statements may have been made from a perfectly proper motive and with entire belief in their truth. In the cases of this kind which are recognized by law, the presumption is reversed. It lies with the plaintiff to show that the defendant was actuated by what is called express malice, by an intention to do harm, and in this case the question is not one of legal inference for the court, but a matter of fact to be decided by the jury. Although, however, the theory of the law seems to rest entirely upon natural presumption of intention, it is pretty clear that in determining the limits of privilege the courts have been almost wholly guided by considerations of public or general expediency.

In some cases the privilege is absolute, so that we cannot have an action for defamation even although we prove express malice. Thus no action of this kind can be maintained for statements made in judicial proceedings if they are in any sense relevant to the matter in hand. In the same way no statements or publications are actionable which are made in the ordinary course of parliamentary proceedings. Papers published under the authority of parliament are protected by a special act, 3 & 4 Vict. c. 9, 1840, which was passed after a decree of the law courts adverse to the privilege claimed. The reports of judicial and parliamentary proceedings stand in a somewhat different position, which has only been attained after a long and interesting conflict. The general rule now is that all reports of parliamentary or judicial proceedings are privileged in so far as they are honest and impartial. Even ex parte proceedings, in so far as they take place in public, now fall within the same rule. But if the report is garbled, or if part of it only is published, the party who is injured in consequence is entitled to maintain an action, and to have the question of malice submitted to a jury.

Both absolute and qualified privilege are given to newspaper reports under certain conditions by the Law of Libel Amendment Act 1888. The reports must, however, be published in a newspaper as defined in the Newspaper Libel and Registration Act 1881. Under this act a newspaper must be published “at intervals not exceeding twenty-six days.”

In private life a large number of statements are privileged so long as they remain matters of strictly private communication. It is difficult to define the limits of private privilege without extensive reference to concrete cases; but generally it may be said that it includes all communications made in performance of a duty not merely legal but moral or social, answers to bona fide inquiries, communications made by persons in confidential relations regarding matters in which one or both are interested, and even statements made within proper limits by persons in the bona fide prosecution of their own interest. Common examples of this kind of privilege are to be found in answer to inquiries as to the character of servants or the solvency of a trader, warnings to a friend, communications between persons who are jointly interested in some matters of business. But in every case care must be taken not to exceed the limits of publication required by the occasion, or otherwise the privilege is lost. Thus defamatory statements may be privileged when made to a meeting of shareholders, but not when published to others who have no immediate concern in the business.

In a few instances in which an action cannot be maintained even by the averment of malice, the plaintiff may maintain an action by averring not only malice but also want of reasonable and probable cause. The most common instances of this kind are malicious charges made in the ordinary course of justice and malicious prosecutions. In such cases it would be contrary to public policy to punish or prevent every charge which was made from a purely malicious motive, but there is no reason for protecting accusations which are not only malicious, but destitute of all reasonable probability.

Criminal Law.—Publications which are blasphemous, immoral or seditious are frequently termed libels, and are punishable both at common law and by various statutes. The matter, however, which constitutes the offence in these publications lies beyond our present scope. Libels upon individuals may be prosecuted by criminal information or indictment, but there can be no criminal prosecution for slander. So far as concerns the definition of libel, and its limitation by the necessity of proving in certain cases express malice, there is no substantial difference between the rules which apply to criminal prosecutions and to 537 civil actions, with the one important exception (now considerably modified) that the falsity of a libel is not in criminal law an essential element of the offence. If the matter alleged were in itself defamatory, the court would not permit inquiry into its truth. The sweeping application of this rule seems chiefly due to the indiscriminate use, in earlier cases, of a rule in Roman law which was only applicable to certain modes of publication, but has been supported by various reasons of general policy, and especially by the view that one main reason for punishing a libel was its tendency to provoke a breach of the peace.

An important dispute about the powers of the jury in cases of libel arose during the 19th century in connexion with some well-known trials for seditious libels. The point is familiar to readers of Macaulay in connexion with the trial of the seven bishops, but the cases in which it was brought most prominently forward, and which led to its final settlement, were those against Woodfall (the printer of Junius), Wilkes and others, and especially the case against Shipley, the dean of St Asaph (21 St. Tr. 925), in which the question was fought by Lord Erskine with extraordinary energy and ability. The controversy turned upon the question whether the jury were to be strictly confined to matters of fact which required to be proved by evidence, or whether in every case they were entitled to form their own opinion upon the libellous character of the publication and the intention of the author. The jury, if they pleased, had it in their power to return a general verdict of guilty or not guilty, but both in theory and practice they were subject in law to the directions of the court, and had to be informed by it as to what they were to take into consideration in determining upon their verdict. There is no difficulty about the general application of this principle in criminal trials. If the crime is one which is inferred by law from certain facts, the jury are only concerned with these facts, and must accept the construction put upon them by law. Applying these principles to the case of libel, juries were directed that it was for the court to determine whether the publication fell within the definition of libel, and whether the case was one in which malice was to be inferred by construction of law. If the case were one in which malice was inferred by law, the only facts left to the jury were the fact of publication and the meaning averred by innuendoes; they could not go into the question of intention, unless the case were one of privilege, in which express malice had to be proved. In general principle, therefore, the decisions of the court were in accordance with the ordinary principles of criminal law. But there were undoubtedly some peculiarities in the case of libel. The sense of words, the inferences to be drawn from them, and the effect which they produce are not so easily defined as gross matters of fact. They seem to belong to those cases in which the impression made upon a jury is more to be trusted than the decision of a judge. Further, owing to the mode of procedure, the defendant was often punished before the question of law was determined. But, nevertheless, the question would scarcely have been raised had the libels related merely to private matters. The real ground of dispute was the liberty to be accorded to political discussion. Had the judges taken as wide a view of privilege in discussing matters of public interest as they do now, the question could scarcely have arisen; for Erskine’s whole contention really amounted to this, that the jury were entitled to take into consideration the good or bad intent of the authors, which is precisely the question which would now be put before them in any matter which concerned the public. But at that time the notion of a special privilege attaching to political discussion had scarcely arisen, or was confined within very narrow limits, and the cause of free political discussion seemed to be more safely entrusted to juries than to courts. The question was finally settled by the Libel Act 1792, by which the jury were entitled to give a general verdict on the whole matter put in issue.

LIBELLATICI, the name given to a class of persons who, during the persecution of Decius, A.D. 250, evaded the consequences of their Christian belief by procuring documents (libelli) which certified that they had satisfied the authorities of their submission to the edict requiring them to offer incense or sacrifice to the imperial gods. As thirty-eight years had elapsed since the last period of persecution, the churches had become in many ways lax, and the number of those who failed to hold out under the persecution was very great. The procedure of the courts which had cognizance of the matter was, however, by no means strict, and the judges and subordinate officials were often not ill-disposed towards Christians, so that evasion was fairly easy. Many of those who could not hold out were able to secure certificates which gave them immunity from punishment without actually renouncing the faith, just as “parliamentary certificates” of conformity used to be given in England without any pretext of fact. It is to the persons who received such certificates that the name libellatici belonged (those who actually fulfilled the edict being called thurificati or sacrificati). To calculate their number would be impossible, but we know from the writings of Cyprian, Dionysius of Alexandria and other contemporaries, that they were a numerous class, and that they were to be found in Italy, in Egypt and in Africa, and among both clergy and laity. Archbishop Benson is probably right in thinking that “there was no systematic and regular procedure in the matter,” and that the libelli may have been of very different kinds. They must, however, as a general rule, have consisted of a certificate from the authorities to the effect that the accused person had satisfied them. [The name libellus has also been applied to another kind of document—to the letters given by confessors, or by those who were about to suffer martyrdom, to persons who had fallen, to be used to secure forgiveness for them from the authorities of the Church. With such libelli we are not here concerned.] The subject has acquired a fresh interest from the fact that two of these actual libelli have been recovered, in 1893 and 1894 respectively, both from Egypt; one is now in the Brugsch Pasha collection in the Berlin Museum; the other is in the collection of papyri belonging to the Archduke Rainer. The former is on a papyrus leaf about 538 8 by 3 in., the latter on mere fragments of papyrus which have been pieced together. The former was first deciphered and described by Dr Fritz Krebs, the latter by Dr K. Wessely: both are given and commented upon by Dr Benson. There is a remarkable similarity between them: in each the form is that N. “was ever constant in sacrificing to the gods”; and that he now, in the presence of the commissioners of the sacrifices (οἱ ἡρημένοι τῶν θυσῶν), has both sacrificed and drunk [or has poured libations], and has tasted of the victims, in witness whereof he begs them to sign this certificate. Then follows the signature, with attestations. The former of the two is dated, and the date must fall in the year 250. It is impossible to prove that either of the documents actually refers to Christians: they may have been given to pagans who had been accused and had cleared themselves, or to former Christians who had apostatized. But no doubt libelli in this same form were delivered, in Egypt at least, to Christians who secured immunity without actual apostasy; and the form in Italy and Africa probably did not differ widely from this. The practice gave rise to complicated problems of ecclesiastical discipline, which are reflected in the correspondence of Cyprian and especially in the Novatian controversy.

LIBER and LIBERA, in Roman mythology, deities, male and female, identified with the Greek Dionysus and Persephone. In honour of Liber (also called Liber Pater and Bacchus) two festivals were celebrated. In the country feast of the vintage, held at the time of the gathering of the grapes, and the city festival of March 17th called Liberalia (Ovid, Fasti, iii. 711) we find purely Italian ceremonial unaffected by Greek religion. The country festival was a great merry-making, where the first-fruits of the new must were offered to the gods. It was characterized by the grossest symbolism, in honour of the fertility of nature. In the city festival, growing civilization had impressed a new character on the primitive religion, and connected it with the framework of society. At this time the youths laid aside the boy’s toga praetexta and assumed the man’s toga libera or virilis (Fasti, iii. 771). Cakes of meal, honey and oil were offered to the two deities at this festival. Liber was originally an old Italian god of the productivity of nature, especially of the vine. His name indicated the free, unrestrained character of his worship. When, at an early period, the Hellenic religion of Demeter spread to Rome, Liber and Libera were identified with Dionysus and Persephone, and associated with another Italian goddess Ceres, who was identified with Demeter. By order of the Sibylline books, a temple was built to these three deities near the Circus Flaminius; the whole cultus was borrowed from the Greeks, down even to the terminology, and priestesses were brought from the Greek cities.

LIBERAL PARTY, in Great Britain, the name given to and accepted by the successors of the old Whig party (see Whig and Tory), representing the political party opposed to Toryism or Conservatism, and claiming to be the originators and champions of political reform and progressive legislation. The term came into general use definitely as the name of one of the two great parties in the state when Mr Gladstone became its leader, but before this it had already become current coin, as a political appellation, through a natural association with the use of such phrases as “liberal ideas,” in the sense of “favourable to change,” or “in support of political freedom and democracy.” In this respect it was the outcome of the French Revolution, and in the early years of the 19th century the term was used in a French form; thus Southey in 1816 wrote about the “British Liberales.” But the Reform Act and the work of Bentham and Mill resulted in the crystallization of the term. In Leigh Hunt’s autobiography (1850) we read of “newer and more thorough-going Whigs ... known by the name of Radicals ... since called Liberals”; and J. S. Mill in 1865 wrote (from his own Liberal point of view), “A Liberal is he who looks forward for his principles of government; a Tory looks backward.” The gradual adoption of the term for one of the great parties, superseding “Whig,” was helped by the transition period of “Liberal Conservatism,” describing the position of the later Peelites; and Mr Gladstone’s own career is the best instance of its changing signification; moreover the adjective “liberal” came meanwhile into common use in other spheres than that of parliamentary politics, e.g. in religion, as meaning “intellectually advanced” and free from the trammels of tradition. Broadly speaking, the Liberal party stands for progressive legislation in accordance with freedom of social development and advanced ethical ideas. It claims to represent government by the people, by means of trust in the people, in a sense which denies genuine popular sympathy to its opponents. Being largely composed of dissenters, it has identified itself with opposition to the vested interests of the Church of England; and, being apt to be thwarted by the House of Lords, with attempts to override the veto of that house. Its old watchword, “Peace, retrenchment and reform,” indicated its tendency to avoidance of a “spirited” foreign policy, and to parsimony in expenditure. But throughout its career the Liberal party has always been pushed forward by its extreme Radical wing, and economy in the spending of public money is no longer cherished by those who chiefly represent the non-taxpaying classes. The party organization lends itself to the influence of new forces. In 1861 a central organization was started in the “Liberal Registration Association,” composed “of gentlemen of known Liberal opinions”; and a number of “Liberal Associations” soon rose throughout the country. Of these, that at Birmingham became, under Mr J. Chamberlain and his active supporter Mr Schnadhorst, particularly active in the ’seventies; and it was due to Mr Schnadhorst that in 1877 a conference was held at Birmingham which resulted in the formation of the “National Federation of Liberal Associations,” or “National Liberal Federation,” representing a system of organization which was dubbed by Lord Beaconsfield “the Caucus.” The Birmingham Caucus and the Central Liberal Association thus coexisted, the first as an independent democratic institution, the second as the official body representing the whips of the party, the first more advanced and “Radical,” the second inclined to Whiggishness. Friction naturally resulted, but the 1880 elections confirmed the success of the Caucus and consolidated its power. And in spite of the Home Rule crisis in 1886, resulting in the splitting off of the Liberal Unionists—“dissentient Liberals,” as Mr Gladstone called them—from the Liberal party, the organization of the National Liberal Federation remained, in the dark days of the party, its main support. Its headquarters were, however, removed to London, and under Mr Schnadhorst it was practically amalgamated with the old Central Association.

It is impossible here to write in detail the later history of the Liberal party, but the salient facts will be found in such articles as those on Mr Gladstone, Mr J. Chamberlain, Lord Rosebery, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr H. H. Asquith and Mr David Lloyd George.

LIBER DIURNUS ROMANORUM PONTIFICUM, or “Journal of the Roman Pontiffs,” the name given to a collection of formulae used in the papal chancellery in preparing official documents, such as the installation of a pope, the bestowal of the pallium and the grant of papal privileges. It was compiled between 685 and 751, and was constantly employed until the 11th century, when, owing to the changed circumstances of the Church, it fell into disuse, and was soon forgotten and lost. During the 17th century a manuscript of the Liber was discovered in Rome by the humanist, Lucas Holstenius, who prepared an edition for publication; for politic reasons, however, the papal authorities would not allow this to appear, as the book asserted the superiority of a general council over the pope. It was, however, published in France by the Jesuit, Jean Garnier, in 1680, and other editions quickly followed.

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LIBERIA, a negro republic in West Africa, extending along the coast of northern Guinea about 300 m., between the British colony of Sierra Leone on the N.W. and the French colony of the Ivory Coast on the S.E. The westernmost point of Liberia (at the mouth of the river Mano) lies in about 6° 55′ N. and 11° 32′ W. The southernmost point of Liberia, and at the same time almost its most eastern extension, is at the mouth of the Cavalla, beyond Cape Palmas, only 4° 22′ N. of the equator, and in about 7° 33′ W. The width of Liberia inland varies very considerably; it is greatest, about 200 m., from N.E. to S.W. The Liberia-Sierra Leone boundary was determined by a frontier commission in 1903. Commencing at the mouth of the river Mano, it follows the Mano up stream till that river cuts 10° 40′ W. It then followed this line of longitude to its intersection with N. latitude 9° 6′, but by the Franco-Liberian understanding of 1907 the frontier on this side was withdrawn to 8° 25′ N., where the river Makona crosses 10° 40’ W. The Liberian frontier with the adjacent French possessions was defined by the Franco-Liberian treaty of 1892, but as the definition therein given was found to be very difficult of reconciliation with geographical features (for in 1892 the whole of the Liberian interior was unmapped) further negotiations were set on foot. In 1905 Liberia proposed to France that the boundary line should follow the river Moa from the British frontier of Sierra Leone up stream to near the source of the Moa (or Makona), and that from this point the boundary should run eastwards along the line of water-parting between the system of the Niger on the north and that of the coast rivers (Moa, Lofa, St Paul’s) on the south, until the 8th degree of N. latitude was reached, thence following this 8th degree eastwards to where it cuts the head stream of the Cavalla river. From this point the boundary between France and Liberia would be the course of the Cavalla river from near its source to the sea. Within the limits above described Liberia would possess a total area of about 43,000 to 45,000 sq. m. But after deliberation and as the result of certain “frontier incidents” France modified her counter-proposals in 1907, and the actual definition of the northern and eastern frontiers of Liberia is as follows:—

It is at the southern extremity of Liberia, Cape Palmas, that the West African coast from Morocco to the southernmost extremity of Guinea turns somewhat abruptly eastwards and northwards and faces the Gulf of Guinea. As the whole coastline of Liberia thus fronts the sea route from Europe to South Africa it is always likely to possess a certain degree of strategical importance. The coast, however, is unprovided with a single good harbour. The anchorage at Monrovia is safe, and with some expenditure of money a smooth harbour could be made in front of Grand Basa.

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History and Population.—Tradition asserts that the Liberian coast was first visited by Europeans when it was reached by the Dieppois merchant-adventurers in the 14th century. The French in the 17th century claimed that but for the loss of the archives of Dieppe they would be able to prove that vessels from this Norman port had established settlements at Grand Basa, Cape Mount, and other points on the coast of Liberia. No proof has yet been forthcoming, however, that the Portuguese were not the first white men to reach this coast. The first Portuguese pioneer was Pedro de Sintra, who discovered and noted in 1461 the remarkable promontory of Cape Mount, Cape Mesurado (where the capital, Monrovia, is now situated) and the mouth of the Junk river. In 1462 de Sintra returned with another Portuguese captain, Sueiro da Costa, and penetrated as far as Cape Palmas and the Cavalla river. Subsequently the Portuguese mapped the whole coast of Liberia, and nearly all the prominent features—capes, rivers, islets—off that coast still bear Portuguese names. From the 16th century onwards, English, Dutch, German, French and other European traders contested the commerce of this coast with the Portuguese, and finally drove them away. In the 18th century France once or twice thought of establishing colonies here. At the end of the 18th century, when the tide was rising in favour of the abolition of slavery and the repatriation of slaves, the Grain Coast [so called from the old trade in the “Grains of Paradise” or Amomum pepper] was suggested once or twice as a suitable home for repatriated negroes. Sierra Leone, however, was chosen first on account of its possessing an admirable harbour. But in 1821 Cape Mesurado was selected by the American Colonization Society as an appropriate site for the first detachment of American freed negroes, whom difficulties in regard to extending the suffrage in the United States were driving away from a still slave-holding America. From that date, 1821, onwards to the present day, negroes and mulattos—freed slaves or the descendants of such—have been crossing the Atlantic in small numbers to settle on the Liberian coast. The great migrations took place during the first half of the 19th century. Only two or three thousand American emigrants—at most—have come to Liberia since 1860.

The colony was really founded by Jehudi Ashmun, a white American, between 1822 and 1828. The name “Liberia” was invented by the Rev. R. R. Gurley in 1824. In 1847 the American colonists declared their country to be an independent republic, and its status in this capacity was recognized in 1848-1849 by most of the great powers with the exception of the United States. Until 1857 Liberia consisted of two republics—Liberia and Maryland. These American settlements were dotted at intervals along the coast from the mouth of the Sewa river on the west to the San Pedro river on the east (some 60 m. beyond Cape Palmas). Some tracts of territory, such as the greater part of the Kru coast, still, however, remain without foreign—American—settlers, and in a state of quasi-independence. The uncertainty of Liberian occupation led to frontier troubles with Great Britain and disputes with France. Finally, by the English and French treaties of 1885 and 1892 Liberian territory on the coast was made continuous, but was limited to the strip of about 300 m. between the Mano river on the west and the Cavalla river on the east. The Sierra Leone-Liberia frontier was demarcated in 1903; then followed the negotiations with France for the exact delimitation of the Ivory Coast-Liberia frontier, with the result that Liberia lost part of the hinterland she had claimed. Reports of territorial encroachments aroused much sympathy with Liberia in America and led in February 1909 to the appointment by President Roosevelt of a commission which visited Liberia in the summer of that year to investigate the condition of the country. As a result of the commissioners’ report negotiations were set on foot for the adjustment of the Liberian debt and the placing of United States officials in charge of the Liberian customs. In July 1910 it was announced that the American government, acting in general agreement with Great Britain, France and Germany, would take charge of the finances, military organization, agriculture and boundary questions of the republic. A loan for £400,000 was also arranged. Meantime the attempts of the Liberian government to control the Kru coast led to various troubles, such as the fining or firing upon foreign steamships for alleged contraventions of regulations. During 1910 the natives in the Cape Palmas district were at open warfare with the Liberian authorities.

One of the most notable of the Liberian presidents was J. J. Roberts, who was nearly white, with only a small proportion of negro blood in his veins. But perhaps the ablest statesman that this American-Negro republic has as yet produced is a pure-blooded negro—President Arthur Barclay, a native of Barbados in the West Indies, who came to Liberia with his parents in the middle of the 19th century, and received all his education there. President Barclay was of unmixed negro descent, but came of a Dahomey stock of superior type.1 Until the accession to power of President Barclay in 1904 (he was re-elected in 1907), the Americo-Liberian government on the coast had very uncertain relations with the indigenous population, which is well armed and tenacious of local independence. But of late Liberian influence has been extending, more especially in the counties of Maryland and Montserrado.

The president is now elected for a term of four years. There is a legislature of eight senators and thirteen representatives. The type of the constitution is very like that of the United States. Increasing attention is being given to education, to deal with which there are several colleges and a number of schools. The judicial functions are discharged by four grades of officials—the local magistrates, the courts of common pleas, the quarterly courts (five in number) and the supreme court.

The customs service includes British customs officers lent to the Liberian service. A gunboat for preventive service purchased from the British government and commanded by an Englishman, with native petty officers and crew, is employed by the Liberian government. The language of government and trade is English, which is understood far and wide throughout Liberia. As the origin of the Sierra Leonis and the Americo-Liberian settlers was very much the same, an increasing intimacy is growing up between the English-speaking populations of these adjoining countries. Order is maintained in Liberia to some extent by a militia.

The population of Americo-Liberian origin in the coast regions is estimated at from 12,000 to 15,000. To these must be added about 40,000 civilized and Christianized negroes who make common cause with the Liberians in most matters, and have gradually been filling the position of Liberian citizens.

For administrative purposes the country is divided into four counties, Montserrado, Basa, Sino and Maryland, but Cape Mount in the far west and the district round it has almost the status of a fifth county. The approximate revenue for 1906 was £65,000, and the expenditure about £60,000, but some of the revenue was still collected in paper of uncertain value. There are three custom-houses, or ports of entry on the Sierra Leone land frontier between the Moa river on the north and the Mano on the south, and nine ports of entry along the coast. At all of these Europeans are allowed to settle and trade, and with very slight restrictions they may now trade almost anywhere in Liberia. The rubber trade is controlled by the Liberian Rubber Corporation, which holds a special concession from the Liberian government for a number of years, and is charged with the preservation of the forests. Another English company has constructed motor roads in the Liberian hinterland to connect centres of trade with the St Paul’s river. The trade is done almost entirely with Great Britain, Germany and Holland, but friendly relations are maintained with Spain, as the Spanish plantations in Fernando Pō are to a great extent worked by Liberian labour.

The indigenous population must be considered one of the assets of Liberia. The native population—apart from the American element—is estimated at as much as 2,000,000; for 542 although large areas appear to be uninhabited forest, other parts are most densely populated, owing to the wonderful fertility of the soil. The native tribes belong more or less to the following divisions, commencing on the west, and proceeding eastwards: (1) Vai, Gbandi, Kpwesi, Mende, Buzi and Mandingo (the Vai, Mende and Mandingo are Mahommedans); all these tribes speak languages derived from a common stock. (2) In the densest forest region between the Mano and the St Paul’s river is the powerful Gora tribe of unknown linguistic affinities. (3) In the coast region between the St Paul’s river and the Cavalla (and beyond) are the different tribes of Kru stock and language family—Dē, Basā, Gibi, Kru, Grebo, Putu, Sikoñ, &c. &c. The actual Kru tribe inhabits the coast between the river Cestos on the west and Grand Sesters on the east. It is known all over the Atlantic coasts of Africa, as it furnishes such a large proportion of the seamen employed on men-of-war and merchant ships in these tropical waters. Many of the indigenous races of Liberia in the forest belt beyond 40 m. from the coast still practise cannibalism. In some of these forest tribes the women still go quite naked, but clothes of a Mahommedan type are fast spreading over the whole country. Some of the indigenous races are of very fine physique. In the Nidi country the women are generally taller than the men. No traces of a Pygmy race have as yet been discovered, nor any negroes of low physiognomy. Some of the Krumen are coarse and ugly, and this is the case with the Mende people; but as a rule the indigenes of Liberia are handsome, well-proportioned negroes, and some of the Mandingos have an almost European cast of feature.

LIBERIUS, pope from 352 to 366, the successor of Julius I., was consecrated according to the Catalogus Liberianus on the 22nd of May. His first recorded act was, after a synod had been held at Rome, to write to Constantius, then in quarters at Arles (353-354), asking that a council might be called at Aquileia with reference to the affairs of Athanasius; but his messenger Vincentius of Capua was compelled by the emperor at a conciliabulum held in Arles to subscribe against his will a condemnation of the orthodox patriarch of Alexandria. In 355 Liberius was one of the few who, along with Eusebius of Vercelli, Dionysius of Milan and Lucifer of Cagliari, refused to sign the condemnation of Athanasius, which had anew been imposed at Milan by imperial command upon all the Western bishops; the consequence was his relegation to Beroea in Thrace, Felix II. (antipope) being consecrated his successor by three “catascopi haud episcopi,” as Athanasius called them. At the end of an exile of more than two years he yielded so far as to subscribe a formula giving up the “homoousios,” to abandon Athanasius, and to accept the communion of his adversaries—a serious mistake, with which he has justly been reproached. This submission led the emperor to recall him from exile; but, as the Roman see was officially occupied by Felix, a year passed before Liberius was sent to Rome. It was the emperor’s intention that Liberius should govern the Church jointly with Felix, but on the arrival of Liberius, Felix was expelled by the Roman people. Neither Liberius nor Felix took part in the council of Rimini (359). After the death of the emperor Constantius in 361, Liberius annulled the decrees of that assembly, but, with the concurrence of SS. Athanasius and Hilarius, retained the bishops who had signed and then withdrawn their adherence. In 366 Liberius gave a favourable reception to a deputation of the Eastern episcopate, and admitted into his communion the more moderate of the old Arian party. He died on the 24th of September 366.

LIBER PONTIFICALIS, or Gesta Pontificum Romanorum (i.e. book of the popes), consists of the lives of the bishops of Rome from the time of St Peter to the death of Nicholas I. in 867. A supplement continues the series of lives almost to the close of the 9th century, and several other continuations were written later. During the 16th century there was some discussion about the authorship of the Liber, and for some time it was thought to be the work of an Italian monk, Anastasius Bibliothecarius (d. 886). It is now, however, practically certain that it was of composite authorship and that the earlier part of it was compiled about 530, three centuries before the time of Anastasius. This is the view taken by Louis Duchesne and substantially by G. Waitz and T. Mommsen, although these scholars think that it was written about a century later. The Liber contains much information about papal affairs in general, and about endowments, martyrdoms and the like, but a considerable part of it is obviously legendary. It assumes that the bishops of Rome exercised authority over the Christian Church from its earliest days.

LIBERTAD, or La Libertad, a coast department of Peru, bounded N. by Lambayeque and Cajamarca, E. by San Martin, S. by Ancachs, S.W. and W. by the Pacific. Pop. (1906 estimate) 188,200; area 10,209 sq. m. Libertad formerly included the present department of Lambayeque. The Western Cordillera divides it into two nearly equal parts; the western consisting of a narrow, arid, sandy coast zone and the western slopes of the Cordillera broken into valleys by short mountain spurs, and the eastern a high inter-Andine valley lying between the Western and Central Cordilleras and traversed by the upper Marañon or Amazon, which at one point is less than 90 m. in a straight line from the Pacific coast. The coast region is traversed by several short streams, which are fed by the melting snows of the Cordillera and are extensively used for irrigation. These are (the names also applying to their valleys) the Jequetepeque or Pacasmayo, in whose valley rice is an important product, the Chicama, in whose valley the sugar plantations are among the largest and best in Peru, the Moche, Viru, Chao and Santa; the last, with its northern tributary, the Tablachaca, forming the southern boundary line of the department. The Santa Valley is also noted for its sugar plantations. Cotton is produced in several of these valleys, coffee in the Pacasmayo district, and coca on the mountain slopes about Huamachuco and Otuzco, at elevations of 3000 to 6000 ft. above sea-level. The upland regions, which have a moderate rainfall and a cool, healthy climate, are partly devoted to agriculture on a small scale (producing wheat, Indian corn, barley, potatoes, quinua, alfalfa, fruit and vegetables), partly to grazing and partly to mining. Cattle and sheep have been raised on the upland pastures of Libertad and Ancachs since early colonial times, and the llama and alpaca were reared throughout this “sierra” country long before the Spanish conquest. Gold and silver mines are worked in the districts of Huamachuco, Otuzco and Pataz, and coal has been found in the first two. The department had 169 m. of railway in 1906, viz.: from Pacasmayo to Yonán (in Cajamarca) with a branch to Guadalupe, 60 m.; from Salaverry to Trujillo with its extension to Ascope, 47 m.; from Trujillo to Laredo, Galindo and Menocucho, 18½ m.; from Huanchaco to Roma, 25 m.; and from Chicama to Pampas, 18½ m. The principal ports are Pacasmayo and Salaverry, which have long iron piers built by the national government; Malabrigo, Huanchuco, Guañape and Chao are open roadsteads. The capital of the department is Trujillo. The other principal towns are San 543 Pedro, Otuzco, Huamachuco, Santiago de Chuco and Tuyabamba—all provincial capitals and important only through their mining interests, except San Pedro, which stands in the fertile district of the Jequetepeque. The population of Otuzco (35 m. N.E. of Trujillo) was estimated to be about 4000 in 1896, that of Huamachuco (65 m. N.E. of Trujillo) being perhaps slightly less.

LIBERTARIANISM (from Lat. libertas, freedom), in ethics, the doctrine which maintains the freedom of the will, as opposed to necessitarianism or determinism. It has been held in various forms. In its extreme form it maintains that the individual is absolutely free to chose this or that action indifferently (the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae), but most libertarians admit that acquired tendencies, environment and the like, exercise control in a greater or less degree.

LIBERTINES, the nickname, rather than the name, given to various political and social parties. It is futile to deduce the name from the Libertines of Acts vi. 9; these were “sons of freedmen,” for it is vain to make them citizens of an imaginary Libertum, or to substitute (with Beza) Libustines, in the sense of inhabitants of Libya. In a sense akin to the modern use of the term “libertine,” i.e. a person who sets the rules of morality, &c., at defiance, the word seems first to have been applied, as a stigma, to Anabaptists in the Low Countries (Mark Pattison, Essays, ii. 38). It has become especially attached to the liberal party in Geneva, opposed to Calvin and carrying on the tradition of the Liberators in that city; but the term was never applied to them till after Calvin’s death (F. W. Kampschulte, Johann Calvin). Calvin, who wrote against the “Libertins qui se nomment Spirituelz” (1545), never confused them with his political antagonists in Geneva, called Perrinistes from their leader Amadeo Perrin. The objects of Calvin’s polemic were the Anabaptists above mentioned, whose first obscure leader was Coppin of Lisle, followed by Quintin of Hennegau, by whom and his disciples, Bertram des Moulins and Claude Perseval, the principles of the sect were disseminated in France. Quintin was put to death as a heretic at Tournai in 1546. His most notable follower was Antoine Pocquet, a native of Enghien, Belgium, priest and almoner (1540-1549), afterwards pensioner of the queen of Navarre, who was a guest of Bucer at Strassburg (1543-1544) and died some time after 1560. Calvin (who had met Quintin in Paris) describes the doctrines he impugns as pantheistic and antinomian.

LIBERTINES, SYNAGOGUE OF THE, a section of the Hellenistic Jews who attacked Stephen (Acts vi. 9). The passage reads, τίνες τῶν ἐκ τῆς συναγωγῆς τῆς λεγομένης Λιβερτίνων, καὶ Κυρηναίων καὶ Ἀλεξανδρέων, καὶ τῶν ἀπὸ Κιλικίας καὶ Ἀσίας, and opinion is divided as to the number of synagogues here named. The probability is that there are three, corresponding to the geographical regions involved, (1) Rome and Italy, (2) N.E. Africa, (3) Asia Minor. In this case “the Synagogue of the Libertines” is the assembly of “the Freedmen” from Rome, descendants of the Jews enslaved by Pompey after his conquest of Judaea 63 B.C. If, however, we take Λιβερτίνων καὶ Κυρηναίων καὶ Ἀλεξανδρέων closely together, the first name must denote the people of some city or district. The obscure town Libertum (inferred from the title Episcopus Libertinensis in connexion with the synod of Carthage, A.D. 411) is less likely than the reading (Λιβύων or) Λιβυστίνων underlying certain Armenian versions and Syriac commentaries. The Greek towns lying west from Cyrene would naturally be called Libyan. In any case the interesting point is that these returned Jews, instead of being liberalized by their residence abroad, were more tenacious of Judaism and more bitter against Stephen than those who had never left Judaea.

LIBERTY (Lat. libertas, from liber, free), generally the state of freedom, especially opposed to subjection, imprisonment or slavery, or with such restricted or figurative meaning as the circumstances imply. The history of political liberty is in modern days identified practically with the progress of civilization. In a more particular sense, “a liberty” is the term for a franchise, a privilege or branch of the crown’s prerogative granted to a subject, as, for example, that of executing legal process; hence the district over which the privilege extends. Such liberties are exempt from the jurisdiction of the sheriff and have separate commissions of the peace, but for purposes of local government form part of the county in which they are situated. The exemption from the jurisdiction of the sheriff was recognized in England by the Sheriffs Act 1887, which provides that the sheriff of a county shall appoint a deputy at the expense of the lord of the liberty, such deputy to reside in or near the liberty. The deputy receives and opens in the sheriff’s name all writs, the return or execution of which belongs to the bailiff of the liberty, and issues to the bailiff the warrant required for the due execution of such writs. The bailiff then becomes liable for non-execution, mis-execution or insufficient return of any writs, and in the case of non-return of any writ, if the sheriff returns that he has delivered the writ to a bailiff of a liberty, the sheriff will be ordered to execute the writ notwithstanding the liberty, and must cause the bailiff to attend before the high court of justice and answer why he did not execute the writ.

In nautical phraseology various usages of the term are derived from its association with a sailor’s leave on shore, e.g. liberty-man, liberty-day, liberty-ticket.

LIBERTY PARTY, the first political party organized in the United States to oppose the spread and restrict the political power of slavery, and the lineal precursor of the Free Soil and Republican parties. It originated in the Old North-west. Its organization was preceded there by a long anti-slavery religious movement. James G. Birney (q.v.), to whom more than to any other man belongs the honour of founding and leading the party, began to define the political duties of so-called “abolitionists” about 1836; but for several years thereafter he, in common with other leaders, continued to disclaim all idea of forming a political party. In state and local campaigns, however, non-partisan political action was attempted through the questioning of Whig and Democratic candidates. The utter futility of seeking to obtain in this way any satisfactory concessions to anti-slavery sentiment was speedily and abundantly proved. There arose, consequently, a division in the American Anti-slavery Society between those who were led by W. L. Garrison (q.v.), and advocated political non-resistance—and, besides, had loaded down their anti-slavery views with a variety of religious and social vagaries, unpalatable to all but a small number—and those who were led by Birney, and advocated independent political action. The sentiment of the great majority of “abolitionists” was, by 1838, strongly for such action; and it was clearly sanctioned and implied in the constitution and declared principles of the Anti-slavery Society; but the capture of that organization by the Garrisonians, in a “packed” convention in 1830, made it unavailable as a party nucleus—even if it had not been already outgrown—and hastened a separate party organization. A convention of abolitionists at Warsaw, New York, in November 1839 had resolved that abolitionists were bound by every consideration of duty and expediency to organize an independent political party. Accordingly, the political abolitionists, in another convention at Albany, in April 1840, containing delegates from six states but not one from the North-west, launched the “Liberty Party,” and nominated Birney for the presidency. In the November election he received 7069 votes.1

The political “abolitionists” were abolitionists only as they were restrictionists: they wished to use the federal government to exclude (or abolish) slavery from the federal Territories and the District of Columbia, but they saw no opportunity to attack slavery in the states—i.e. to attack the institution per se; also 544 they declared there should be “absolute and unqualified division of the General Government from slavery”—which implied an amendment of the constitution. They proposed to use ordinary moral and political means to attain their ends—not, like the Garrisonians, to abstain from voting, or favour the dissolution of the Union.

After 1840 the attempt began in earnest to organize the Liberty Party thoroughly, and unite all anti-slavery men. The North-west, where “there was, after 1840, very little known of Garrison and his methods” (T. C. Smith), was the most promising field, but though the contest of state and local campaigns gave morale to the party, it made scant political gains (in 1843 it cast hardly 10% of the total vote); it could not convince the people that slavery should be made the paramount question in politics. In 1844, however, the Texas question gave slavery precisely this pre-eminence in the presidential campaign. Until then, neither Whigs nor Democrats had regarded the Liberty Party seriously; now, however, each party charged that the Liberty movement was corruptly auxiliary to the other. As the campaign progressed, the Whigs alternately abused the Liberty men and made frantic appeals for their support. But the Liberty men were strongly opposed to Clay personally; and even if his equivocal campaign letters (see Clay, Henry) had not left exceedingly small ground for belief that he would resist the annexation of Texas, still the Liberty men were not such as to admit that an end justifies the means; therefore they again nominated Birney. He received 62,263 votes2—many more than enough in New York to have carried that state and the presidency for Clay, had they been thrown to his support. The Whigs, therefore, blamed the Liberty Party for Democratic success and the annexation of Texas; but—quite apart from the issue of political ethics—it is almost certain that though Clay’s chances were injured by the Liberty ticket, they were injured much more outside the Liberty ranks, by his own quibbles.3 After 1844 the Liberty Party made little progress. Its leaders were never very strong as politicians, and its ablest organizer, Birney, was about this time compelled by an accident to abandon public life. Moreover, the election of 1844 was in a way fatal to the party; for it seemed to prove that though “abolition” was not the party programme, still its antecedents and personnel were too radical to unite the North; and above all it could not, after 1844, draw the disaffected Whigs, for though their party was steadily moving toward anti-slavery their dislike of the Liberty Party effectually prevented union. Indeed, no party of one idea could hope to satisfy men who had been Whigs or Democrats. At the same time, anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats were segregating in state politics, and the issue of excluding slavery from the new territory acquired from Mexico afforded a golden opportunity to unite all anti-slavery men on the principle of the Wilmot Proviso (1846). The Liberty Party reached its greatest strength (casting 74,017 votes) in the state elections of 1846. Thereafter, though growing somewhat in New England, it rapidly became ineffective in the rest of the North. Many, including Birney, thought it should cease to be an isolated party of one idea—striving for mere balance of power between Whigs and Democrats, welcoming small concessions from them, almost dependent upon them. Some wished to revivify it by making it a party of general reform. One result was the secession and formation of the Liberty League, which in 1847 nominated Gerrit Smith for the presidency. No adequate effort was made to take advantage of the disintegration of other parties. In October 1847, at Buffalo, was held the third and last national convention. John P. Hale—whose election to the United States Senate had justified the first successful union of Liberty men with other anti-slavery men in state politics—was nominated for the presidency. But the nomination by the Democrats of Lewis Cass shattered the Democratic organization in New York and the North-west; and when the Whigs nominated General Taylor, adopted a non-committal platform, and showed hostility to the Wilmot Proviso, the way was cleared for a union of all anti-slavery men. The Liberty Party, abandoning therefore its independent nominations, joined in the first convention and nominations of the Free Soil Party (q.v.), thereby practically losing its identity, although it continued until after the organization of the Republican Party to maintain something of a semi-independent organization. The Liberty Party has the unique honour among third-parties in the United States of seeing its principles rapidly adopted and realized.

LIBITINA, an old Roman goddess of funerals. She had a sanctuary in a sacred grove (perhaps on the Esquiline), where, by an ordinance of Servius Tullius, a piece of money (lucar Libitinae) was deposited whenever a death took place. Here the undertakers (libitinarii), who carried out all funeral arrangements by contract, had their offices, and everything necessary was kept for sale or hire; here all deaths were registered for statistical purposes. The word Libitina then came to be used for the business of an undertaker, funeral requisites, and (in the poets) for death itself. By later antiquarians Libitina was sometimes identified with Persephone, but more commonly (partly or completely) with Venus Lubentia or Lubentina, an Italian goddess of gardens. The similarity of name and the fact that Venus Lubentia had a sanctuary in the grove of Libitina favoured this idea. Further, Plutarch (Quaest. Rom. 23) mentions a small statue at Delphi of Aphrodite Epitymbia (A. of tombs = Venus Libitina), to which the spirits of the dead were summoned. The inconsistency of selling funeral requisites in the temple of Libitina, seeing that she is identified with Venus, is explained by him as indicating that one and the same goddess presides over birth and death; or the association of such things with the goddess of love and pleasure is intended to show that death is not a calamity, but rather a consummation to be desired. Libitina may, however, have been originally an earth goddess, connected with luxuriant nature and the enjoyments of life (cf. lub-et, lib-ido); then, all such deities being connected with the underworld, she also became the goddess of death, and that side of her character predominated in the later conceptions.

LIBMANAN, a town of the province of Ambos Camarines, Luzon, Philippine Islands, on the Libmanan river, 11 m. N.W. of Nueva Cáceres, the capital. Pop. (1903) 17,416. It is about 4½ m. N.E. of the Bay of San Miguel. Rice, coco-nuts, hemp, Indian corn, sugarcane, bejuco, arica nuts and camotes, are grown in the vicinity, and the manufactures include hemp goods, alcohol (from coco-nut-palm sap), copra, and baskets, chairs, hammocks and hats of bejuco and bamboo. The Libmanan river, a tributary of the Bicol, into which it empties 2 m. below the town, is famous for its clear cold water and for its sulphur springs. The language is Bicol.

LIBO, in ancient Rome, the name of a family belonging to the Scribonian gens. It is chiefly interesting for its connexion with the Puteal Scribonianum or Puteal Libonis in the forum at Rome,1 dedicated or restored by one of its members, perhaps the praetor of 204 B.C., or the tribune of the people in 149. In its vicinity the praetor’s tribunal, removed from the comitium in the 2nd century B.C., held its sittings, which led to the place becoming the haunt of litigants, money-lenders and business people. According to ancient authorities, the Puteal Libonis 545 was between the temples of Castor and Vesta, near the Porticus Julia and the Arcus Fabiorum, but no remains have been discovered. The idea that an irregular circle of travertine blocks, found near the temple of Castor, formed part of the puteal is now abandoned.

LIBON, a Greek architect, born at Elis, who was employed to build the great temple of Zeus at Olympia (q.v.) about 460 B.C. (Pausanias v. 10. 3).

LIBOURNE, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement of the department of Gironde, situated at the confluence of the Isle with the Dordogne, 22 m. E.N.E. of Bordeaux on the railway to Angoulême. Pop. (1906) town, 15,280; commune, 19,323. The sea is 56 m. distant, but the tide affects the river so as to admit of vessels drawing 14 ft. reaching the town at the highest tides. The Dordogne is here crossed by a stone bridge 492 ft. long, and a suspension bridge across the Isle connects Libourne with Fronsac, built on a hill on which in feudal times stood a powerful fortress. Libourne is regularly built. The Gothic church, restored in the 19th century, has a stone spire 232 ft. high. On the quay there is a machicolated clock-tower which is a survival of the ramparts of the 14th century; and the town-house, containing a small museum and a library, is a quaint relic of the 16th century. There is a statue of the Duc Decazes, who was born in the neighbourhood. The sub-prefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, and a communal college are among the public institutions. The principal articles of commerce are the wines and brandies of the district. Printing and cooperage are among the industries.

Like other sites at the confluence of important rivers, that of Libourne was appropriated at an early period. Under the Romans Condate stood rather more than a mile to the south of the present Libourne; it was destroyed during the troubles of the 5th century. Resuscitated by Charlemagne, it was rebuilt in 1269, under its present name and on the site and plan it still retains, by Roger de Leybourne (of Leybourne in Kent), seneschal of Guienne, acting under the authority of King Edward I. of England. It suffered considerably in the struggles of the French and English for the possession of Guienne in the 14th century.

LIBRA (“The Balance”), in astronomy, the 7th sign of the zodiac (q.v.), denoted by the symbol , resembling a pair of scales, probably in allusion to the fact that when the sun enters this part of the ecliptic, at the autumnal equinox, the days and nights are equal. It is also a constellation, not mentioned by Eudoxus or Aratus, but by Manetho (3rd century B.C.) and Geminus (1st century B.C.), and included by Ptolemy in his 48 asterisms; Ptolemy catalogued 17 stars, Tycho Brahe 10, and Hevelius 20. δ Librae is an Algol (q.v.) variable, the range of magnitude being 5.0 to 6.2, and the period 2 days 7 hrs. 51 min.; and the cluster M. 5 Librae is a faint globular cluster of which only about one star in eleven is variable.

LIBRARIES. A library (from Lat. liber, book), in the modern sense, is a collection of printed or written literature. As such, it implies an advanced and elaborate civilization. If the term be extended to any considerable collection of written documents, it must be nearly as old as civilization itself. The earliest use to which the invention of inscribed or written signs was put was probably to record important religious and political transactions. These records would naturally be preserved in sacred places, and accordingly the earliest libraries of the world were probably temples, and the earliest librarians priests. And indeed before the extension of the arts of writing and reading the priests were the only persons who could perform such work as, e.g. the compilation of the Annales Maximi, which was the duty of the pontifices in ancient Rome. The beginnings of literature proper in the shape of ballads and songs may have continued to be conveyed orally only from one generation to another, long after the record of important religious or civil events was regularly committed to writing. The earliest collections of which we know anything, therefore, were collections of archives. Of this character appear to have been such famous collections as that of the Medians at Ecbatana, the Persians at Susa or the hieroglyphic archives of Knossos discovered by A. J. Evans (Scripta Minoa, 1909) of a date synchronizing with the XIIth Egyptian dynasty. It is not until the development of arts and sciences, and the growth of a considerable written literature, and even of a distinct literary class, that we find collections of books which can be called libraries in our modern sense. It is of libraries in the modern sense, and not, except incidentally, of archives that we are to speak.

Ancient Libraries

The researches which have followed the discoveries of P. E. Botta and Sir H. Layard have thrown unexpected light not only upon the history but upon the arts, the sciences and the literatures of the ancient civilizations Assyria. of Babylonia and Assyria. In all these wondrous revelations no facts are more interesting than those which show the existence of extensive libraries so many ages ago, and none are more eloquent of the elaborateness of these forgotten civilizations. In the course of his excavations at Nineveh in 1850, Layard came upon some chambers in the south-west palace, the floor of which, as well as the adjoining rooms, was covered to the depth of a foot with tablets of clay, covered with cuneiform characters, in many cases so small as to require a magnifying glass. These varied in size from 1 to 12 in. square. A great number of them were broken, as Layard supposed by the falling in of the roof, but as George Smith thought by having fallen from the upper storey, upon which he believed the collection to have been placed. These tablets formed the library of the great monarch Assur-bani-pal—the Sardanapalus of the Greeks—the greatest patron of literature amongst the Assyrians. It is estimated that this library consisted of some ten thousand distinct works and documents, some of the works extending over several tablets. The tablets appear to have been methodically arranged and catalogued, and the library seems to have been thrown open for the general use of the king’s subjects.1 A great portion of this library has already been brought to England and deposited in the British museum, but it is calculated that there still remain some 20,000 fragments to be gathered up. For further details as to Assyrian libraries, and the still earlier Babylonian libraries at Tello, the ancient Lagash, and at Niffer, the ancient Nippur, from which the Assyrians drew their science and literature, see Babylonia and Nippur.

Of the libraries of ancient Egypt our knowledge is scattered and imperfect, but at a time extending to more than 6000 years ago we find numerous scribes of many classes who recorded official events in the life of their royal masters Ancient Egyptian Libraries. or details of their domestic affairs and business transactions. Besides this official literature we possess examples of many commentaries on the sacerdotal books, as well as historical treatises, works on moral philosophy and proverbial wisdom, science, collections of medical receipts as well as a great variety of popular novels and humoristic pieces. At an early date Heliopolis was a literary centre of great importance with culture akin to the Babylonian. Attached to every temple were professional scribes whose function was partly religious and partly scientific. The sacred books of Thoth constituted as it were a complete encyclopaedia of religion and science, and on these books was gradually accumulated an immense mass of exposition and commentary. We possess a record relating to “the land of the collected works [library] of Khufu,” a monarch of the IVth dynasty, and a similar inscription relating to the library of Khafra, the builder of the second pyramid. At Edfu 546 the library was a small chamber in the temple, on the wall of which is a list of books, among them a manual of Egyptian geography (Brugsch, History of Egypt, 1881, i. 240). The exact position of Akhenaten’s library (or archives) of clay tablets is known and the name of the room has been read on the books of which it has been built. A library of charred books has been found at Mendes (Egypt Expl. Fund, Two Hieroglyphic Papyri), and we have references to temple libraries in the Silsileh “Nile” stelae and perhaps in the great Harris papyri. The most famous of the Egyptian libraries is that of King Osymandyas, described by Diodorus Siculus, who relates that it bore an inscription which he renders by the Greek words ΨΥΧΗΣ ΙΑΤΡΕΙΟΝ “the Dispensary of the Soul.” Osymandyas has been identified with the great king Rameses II. (1300-1236 B.C.) and the seat of the library is supposed to have been the Ramessaeum at Western Thebes. Amen-em-hant was the name of one of the directors of the Theban libraries. Papyri from the palace, of a later date, have been discovered by Professor W. F. Flinders Petrie. At Thebes the scribes of the “Foreign Office” are depicted at work in a room which was perhaps rather an office than a library. The famous Tel-el-Amarna tablets (1383-1365 B.C.) were stored in “the place of the records of the King.” There were record offices attached to the granary and treasury departments and we know of a school or college for the reproduction of books, which were kept in boxes and in jars. According to Eustathius there was a great collection at Memphis. A heavy blow was dealt to the old Egyptian literature by the Persian invasion, and many books were carried away by the conquerors. The Egyptians were only delivered from the yoke of Persia to succumb to that of Greece and Rome and henceforward their civilization was dominated by foreign influences. Of the Greek libraries under the Ptolemies we shall speak a little further on.

Of the libraries of ancient Greece we have very little knowledge, and such knowledge as we possess comes to us for the most part from late compilers. Amongst those who are known to have collected books are Pisistratus, Greece. Polycrates of Samos, Euclid the Athenian, Nicocrates of Cyprus, Euripides and Aristotle (Athenaeus i. 4). At Cnidus there is said to have been a special collection of works upon medicine. Pisistratus is reported to have been the first of the Greeks who collected books on a large scale. Aulus Gellius, indeed, tells us, in language perhaps “not well suited to the 6th century B.C.,”2 that he was the first to establish a public library. The authority of Aulus Gellius is hardly sufficient to secure credit for the story that this library was carried away into Persia by Xerxes and subsequently restored to the Athenians by Seleucus Nicator. Plato is known to have been a collector; and Xenophon tells us of the library of Euthydemus. The library of Aristotle was bequeathed by him to his disciple Theophrastus, and by Theophrastus to Neleus, who carried it to Scepsis, where it is said to have been concealed underground to avoid the literary cupidity of the kings of Pergamum. Its subsequent fate has given rise to much controversy, but, according to Strabo (xiii. pp. 608, 609), it was sold to Apellicon of Teos, who carried it to Athens, where after Apellicon’s death it fell a prey to the conqueror Sulla, and was transported by him to Rome. The story told by Athenaeus (i. 4) is that the library of Neleus was purchased by Ptolemy Philadelphus. The names of a few other libraries in Greece are barely known to us from inscriptions; of their character and contents we know nothing. If, indeed, we are to trust Strabo entirely, we must believe that Aristotle was the first person who collected a library, and that he communicated the taste for collecting to the sovereigns of Egypt. It is at all events certain that the libraries of Alexandria were the most important as they Alexandria. were the most celebrated of the ancient world. Under the enlightened rule of the Ptolemies a society of scholars and men of science was attracted to their capital. It seems pretty certain that Ptolemy Soter had already begun to collect books, but it was in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus that the libraries were properly organized and established in separate buildings. Ptolemy Philadelphus sent into every part of Greece and Asia to secure the most valuable works, and no exertions or expense were spared in enriching the collections. Ptolemy Euergetes, his successor, is said to have caused all books brought into Egypt by foreigners to be seized for the benefit of the library, while the owners had to be content with receiving copies of them in exchange. Nor did the Alexandrian scholars exhibit the usual Hellenic exclusiveness, and many of the treasures of Egyptian and even of Hebrew literature were by their means translated into Greek. There were two libraries at Alexandria; the larger, in the Brucheum quarter, was in connexion with the Museum, a sort of academy, while the smaller was placed in the Serapeum. The number of volumes in these libraries was very large, although it is difficult to attain any certainty as to the real numbers amongst the widely varying accounts. According to a scholium of Tzetzes, who appears to draw his information from the authority of Callimachus and Eratosthenes, who had been librarians at Alexandria, there were 42,800 vols. or rolls in the Serapeum and 490,000 in the Brucheum.3 This enumeration seems to refer to the librarianship of Callimachus himself under Ptolemy Euergetes. In any case the figures agree tolerably well with those given by Aulus Gellius4 (700,000) and Seneca5 (400,000). It should be observed that, as the ancient roll or volume usually contained a much smaller quantity of matter than a modern book—so that, e.g. the history of Herodotus might form nine “books” or volumes, and the Iliad of Homer twenty-four—these numbers must be discounted for the purposes of comparison with modern collections. The series of the first five librarians at Alexandria appears to be pretty well established as follows: Zenodotus, Callimachus, Eratosthenes, Apollonius and Aristophanes; and their activity covers a period of about a century. The first experiments in bibliography appear to have been made in producing catalogues of the Alexandrian libraries. Amongst other lists, two catalogues were prepared by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, one of the tragedies, the other of the comedies contained in the collections. The Πίνακες of Callimachus formed a catalogue of all the principal books arranged in 120 classes. When Caesar set fire to the fleet in the harbour of Alexandria, the flames accidentally extended to the larger library of the Brucheum, and it was destroyed.6 Antony endeavoured to repair the loss by presenting to Cleopatra the library from Pergamum. This was very probably placed in the Brucheum, as this continued to be the literary quarter of Alexandria until the time of Aurelian. Thenceforward the Serapeum became the principal library. The usual statement that from the date of the restoration of the Brucheum under Cleopatra the libraries continued in a flourishing condition until they were destroyed after the conquest of Alexandria by the Saracens in A.D. 640 can hardly be supported. It is very possible that one of the libraries perished when the Brucheum quarter was destroyed by Aurelian, A.D. 273. In 389 or 391 an edict of Theodosius ordered the destruction of the Serapeum, and its books were pillaged by the Christians. When we take into account the disordered condition of the times, and the neglect into which literature and science had fallen, there can be little difficulty in believing that there were but few books left to be destroyed by the soldiers of Amru. The familiar anecdote of the caliph’s message to his general rests mainly upon the evidence of Abulfaraj, so that we may be tempted to agree with Gibbon that the report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six hundred years is overbalanced by the silence of earlier and native annalists. It is, however, so far from easy to settle the question that a cloud of names could easily be cited upon either side, while some of the most careful inquirers confess the difficulty of a decision7 (see Alexandria, III.).

The magnificence and renown of the libraries of the Ptolemies excited the rivalry of the kings of Pergamum, who vied with the Egyptian rulers in their encouragement of literature. The 547 German researches in the acropolis of Pergamum between 1878 Pergamum. and 1886 revealed four rooms which had originally been appropriated to the library (Alex. Conze, Die pergamen. Bibliothek, 1884). Despite the obstacles presented by the embargo placed by the Ptolemies upon the export of papyrus, the library of the Attali attained considerable importance, and, as we have seen, when it was transported to Egypt numbered 200,000 vols. We learn from a notice in Suidas that in 221 B.C. Antiochus the Great summoned the poet and grammarian Euphorion of Chalcis to be his librarian.

The early Romans were far too warlike and practical a people to devote much attention to literature, and it is not until the last century of the republic that we hear of libraries in Rome. The collections of Carthage, which fell into Rome. their hands when Scipio sacked that city (146 B.C.), had no attractions for them; and with the exception of the writings of Mago upon agriculture, which the senate reserved for translation into Latin, they bestowed all the books upon the kinglets of Africa (Pliny, H.N. xviii. 5). It is in accordance with the military character of the Romans that the first considerable collections of which we hear in Rome were brought there as the spoils of war. The first of these was that brought by Aemilius Paulus from Macedonia after the conquest of Perseus (167 B.C.). The library of the conquered monarch was all that he reserved from the prizes of victory for himself and his sons, who were fond of letters. Next came the library of Apellicon the Teian, brought from Athens by Sulla (86 B.C.). This passed at his death into the hands of his son, but of its later history nothing is known. The rich stores of literature brought home by Lucullus from his eastern conquests (about 67 B.C.) were freely thrown open to his friends and to men of letters. Accordingly his library and the neighbouring walks were much resorted to, especially by Greeks. It was now becoming fashionable for rich men to furnish their libraries well, and the fashion prevailed until it became the subject of Seneca’s scorn and Lucian’s wit. The zeal of Cicero and Atticus in adding to their collections is well known to every reader of the classics. Tyrannion is said to have had 30,000 vols. of his own; and that M. Terentius Varro had large collections we may infer from Cicero’s writing to him: “Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, nihil deerit.” Not to prolong the list of private collectors, Serenus Sammonicus is said to have left to his pupil the young Gordian no less than 62,000 vols. Amongst the numerous projects entertained by Caesar was that of presenting Rome with public libraries, though it is doubtful whether any steps were actually taken towards its execution. The task of collecting and arranging the books was entrusted to Varro. This commission, as well as his own fondness for books, may have led Varro to write the book upon libraries of which a few words only have come down to us, preserved by a grammarian. The honour of being the first actually to dedicate a library to the public is said by Pliny and Ovid to have fallen to G. Asinius Pollio, who erected a library in the Atrium Libertatis on Mount Aventine, defraying the cost from the spoils of his Illyrian campaign. The library of Pollio was followed by the public libraries established by Augustus. That emperor, who did so much for the embellishment of the city, erected two libraries, the Octavian and the Palatine. The former was founded (33 B.C.) in honour of his sister, and was placed in the Porticus Octaviae, a magnificent structure, the lower part of which served as a promenade, while the upper part contained the library. The charge of the books was committed to C. Melissus. The other library formed by Augustus was attached to the temple of Apollo on the Palatine hill, and appears from inscriptions to have consisted of two departments, a Greek and a Latin one, which seem to have been separately administered. The charge of the Palatine collections was given to Pompeius Macer, who was succeeded by Julius Hyginus, the grammarian and friend of Ovid. The Octavian library perished in the fire which raged at Rome for three days in the reign of Titus. The Palatine was, at all events in great part, destroyed by fire in the reign of Commodus. The story that its collections were destroyed by order of Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century is now generally rejected. The successors of Augustus, though they did not equal him in their patronage of learning, maintained the tradition of forming libraries. Tiberius, his immediate successor, established one in his splendid house on the Palatine, to which Gellius refers as the “Tiberian library,” and Suetonius relates that he caused the writings and images of his favourite Greek poets to be placed in the public libraries. Vespasian established a library in the Temple of Peace erected after the burning of the city under Nero. Domitian restored the libraries which had been destroyed in the same conflagration, procuring books from every quarter, and even sending to Alexandria to have copies made. He is also said to have founded the Capitoline library, though others give the credit to Hadrian. The most famous and important of the imperial libraries, however, was that created by Ulpius Trajanus, known as the Ulpian library, which was first established in the Forum of Trajan, but was afterwards removed to the baths of Diocletian. In this library were deposited by Trajan the “libri lintei” and “libri elephantini,” upon which the senatus consulta and other transactions relating to the emperors were written. The library of Domitian, which had been destroyed by fire in the reign of Commodus, was restored by Gordian, who added to it the books bequeathed to him by Serenus Sammonicus. Altogether in the 4th century there are said to have been twenty-eight public libraries in Rome.

Nor were public libraries confined to Rome. We possess records of at least 24 places in Italy, the Grecian provinces, Asia Minor, Cyprus and Africa in which libraries had been established, most of them attached to temples, Roman provincial libraries. usually through the liberality of generous individuals. The library which the younger Pliny dedicated to his townsmen at Comum cost a million sesterces and he contributed a large sum to the support of a library at Milan. Hadrian established one at Athens, described by Pausanias, and recently identified with a building called the Stoa of Hadrian, which shows a striking similarity with the precinct of Athena at Pergamum. Strabo mentions a library at Smyrna; Aulus Gellius one at Patrae and another at Tibur from which books could be borrowed. Recent discoveries at Ephesus in Asia Minor and Timegad in Algeria have furnished precise information as to the structural plan of these buildings. The library at Ephesus was founded by T. Julius Aquila Polemaeanus in memory of his father, pro-consul of Asia in the time of Trajan, about A.D. 106-107. The library at Timegad was established at a cost of 400,000 sesterces by M. Julius Quintianus Flavius Rogatianus, who probably lived in the 3rd century (R. Cagnat, “Les Bibliothèques municipales dans l’Empire Romain,” 1906, Mém. de l’Acad. des Insc., tom. xxxviii. pt. 1). At Ephesus the light came through a circular opening in the roof; the library at Timegad greatly resembles that discovered at Pompeii and possesses a system of book stores. All these buildings followed the same general plan, consisting of a reading-room and more or less ample book stores; the former was either rectangular or semi-circular in shape and was approached under a stately portico and colonnade. In a niche facing the entrance a statue was always erected; that formerly at Pergamum—a figure of Minerva—is now preserved at Berlin. From a well-known line of Juvenal (Sat. iii. 219) we may assume that a statue of the goddess was usually placed in libraries. The reading-room was also ornamented with busts or life-sized images of celebrated writers. The portraits or authors were also painted on medallions on the presses (armaria) in which the books or rolls were preserved as in the library of Isidore of Seville; sometimes these medallions decorated the walls, as in a private library discovered by Lanciani in 1883 at Rome (Ancient Rome, 1888, p. 193). Movable seats, known to us by pictorial representations, were in use. The books were classified, and the presses (framed of precious woods and highly ornamented) were numbered to facilitate reference from the catalogues. A private library discovered at Herculaneum contained 1756 MSS. placed on shelves round the room to a height of about 6 ft. with a central press. In the public rooms some of the books were arranged 548 in the reading-room and some in the adjacent book stores. The Christian libraries of later foundation closely followed the classical prototypes not only in their structure but also in smaller details. The general appearance of a Roman library is preserved in the library of the Vatican fitted up by Sextus V. in 1587 with painted presses, busts and antique vases.

As the number of libraries in Rome increased, the librarian, who was generally a slave or freedman, became a recognized public functionary. The names of several librarians are preserved to us in inscriptions, including that of C. Hymenaeus, who appears to have fulfilled the double function of physician and librarian to Augustus. The general superintendence of the public libraries was committed to a special official. Thus from Nero to Trajan, Dionysius, an Alexandrian rhetorician, discharged this function. Under Hadrian it was entrusted to his former tutor C. Julius Vestinus, who afterwards became administrator of the Museum at Alexandria.

When the seat of empire was removed by Constantine to his new capital upon the Bosporus, the emperor established a collection there, in which Christian literature was probably admitted for the first time into an imperial Constantinople. library. Diligent search was made after the Christian books which had been doomed to destruction by Diocletian. Even at the death of Constantine, however, the number of books which had been brought together amounted only to 6900. The smallness of the number, it has been suggested, seems to show that Constantine’s library was mainly intended as a repository of Christian literature. However this may be, the collection was greatly enlarged by some of Constantine’s successors, especially by Julian and Theodosius, at whose death it is said to have increased to 100,000 vols. Julian, himself a close student and voluminous writer, though he did his best to discourage learning among the Christians, and to destroy their libraries, not only augmented the library at Constantinople, but founded others, including one at Nisibis, which was soon afterwards destroyed by fire. From the Theodosian code we learn that in the time of that emperor a staff of seven copyists was attached to the library at Constantinople under the direction of the librarian. The library was burnt under the emperor Zeno in 477, but was again restored.

Meanwhile, as Christianity made its way and a distinctively Christian literature grew up, the institution of libraries became part of the ecclesiastical organization. Bishop Alexander (d. A.D. 250) established a church library at Jerusalem, and it became the rule to attach to every church a collection necessary for the inculcation of Christian doctrine. There were libraries at Cirta, at Constantinople and at Rome. The basilica of St Lawrence at Rome contained a library or archivum founded by Pope Damasus at the end of the 4th century. Most of these collections were housed in the sacred edifices and consisted largely of copies of the Holy Scriptures, liturgical volumes and works of devotion. They also included the Gesta Martyrum and Matriculae Pauperum and official correspondence. Many of the basilicas had the apse subdivided into three smaller hemicycles, one of which contained the library (Lanciani, op. cit. p. 187). The largest of these libraries, that founded by Pamphilus (d. A.D. 309) at Caesarea, and said to have been increased by Eusebius, the historian of the church, to 30,000 vols., is frequently mentioned by St Jerome. St Augustine bequeathed his collection to the library of the church at Hippo, which was fortunate enough to escape destruction at the hands of the Vandals. The hermit communities of the Egyptian deserts formed organizations which developed into the later monastic orders of Western Europe and the accumulation of books for the brethren was one of their cares.

The removal of the capital to Byzantium was in its result a serious blow to literature. Henceforward the science and learning of the East and West were divorced. The libraries of Rome ceased to collect the writings of the Greeks, while the Greek libraries had never cared much to collect Latin literature. The influence of the church became increasingly hostile to the study of pagan letters. The repeated irruptions of the barbarians soon swept the old learning and libraries alike from the soil of Italy. With the close of the Western empire in 476 the ancient history of libraries may be said to cease.

Medieval Period

During the first few centuries after the fall of the Western empire, literary activity at Constantinople had fallen to its lowest ebb. In the West, amidst the general neglect of learning and literature, the collecting of books, Gaul. though not wholly forgotten, was cared for by few. Sidonius Apollinaris tells us of the libraries of several private collectors in Gaul. Publius Consentius possessed a library at his villa near Narbonne which was due to the labour of three generations. The most notable of these appears to have been the prefect Tonantius Ferreolus, who had formed in his villa of Prusiana, near Nîmes, a collection which his friend playfully compares to that of Alexandria. The Goths, who had been introduced to the Scriptures in their own language by Ulfilas in the 4th century, began to pay some attention to Latin literature. Cassiodorus, the favourite minister of Theodoric, was a collector as well as an author, and on giving up the cares of government retired to a monastery which he founded in Calabria, where he employed his monks in the transcription of books.

Henceforward the charge of books as well as of education fell more and more exclusively into the hands of the church. While the old schools of the rhetoricians died out new monasteries arose everywhere. Knowledge was no longer pursued for its own sake, but became subsidiary to religious and theological teaching. The proscription of the old classical literature, which is symbolized in the fable of the destruction of the Palatine library by Gregory the Great, was only too effectual. The Gregorian tradition of opposition to pagan learning long continued to dominate the literary pursuits of the monastic orders and the labours of the scriptorium.

During the 6th and 7th centuries the learning which had been driven from the Continent took refuge in the British Islands, where it was removed from the political disturbances of the mainland. In the Irish monasteries during this Alcuin. period there appear to have been many books, and the Venerable Bede was superior to any scholar of his age. Theodore of Tarsus brought a considerable number of books to Canterbury from Rome in the 7th century, including several Greek authors. The library of York, which was founded by Archbishop Egbert, was almost more famous than that of Canterbury. The verses are well known in which Alcuin describes the extensive library under his charge, and the long list of authors whom he enumerates is superior to that of any other library possessed by either England or France in the 12th century, when it was unhappily burnt. The inroads of the Northmen in the 9th and 10th centuries had been fatal to the monastic libraries on both sides of the channel. It was from York that Alcuin came to Charlemagne to superintend the school attached to his palace; and it was doubtless inspired by Alcuin that Charles issued the memorable document which enjoined that in the bishoprics and monasteries within his realm care should be taken that there shall be not only a regular manner of life, but also the study of letters. When Alcuin finally retired from the court to the abbacy of Tours, there to carry out his own theory of monastic discipline and instruction, he wrote to Charles for leave to send to York for copies of the books of which they had so much need at Tours. While Alcuin thus increased the library at Tours, Charlemagne. Charlemagne enlarged that at Fulda, which had been founded in 774, and which all through the middle ages stood in great respect. Lupus Servatus, a pupil of Hrabanus Maurus at Fulda, and afterwards abbot of Ferrières, was a devoted student of the classics and a great collector of books. His correspondence illustrates the difficulties which then attended the study of literature through the paucity and dearness of books, the declining care for learning, and the increasing troubles of the time. Nor were private collections of books altogether wanting during the period in which Charlemagne and his successors laboured to restore the lost traditions of 549 liberal education and literature. Pepin le Bref had indeed met with scanty response to the request for books which he addressed to the pontiff Paul I. Charlemagne, however, collected a considerable number of choice books for his private use in two places. Although these collections were dispersed at his death, his son Louis formed a library which continued to exist under Charles the Bald. About the same time Everard, count of Friuli, formed a considerable collection which he bequeathed to a monastery. But the greatest private collector of the middle ages was doubtless Gerbert, Pope Sylvester II., who showed the utmost zeal and spent large sums in collecting books, not only in Rome and Italy, but from Germany, Belgium and even from Spain.

The hopes of a revival of secular literature fell with the decline of the schools established by Charles and his successors. The knowledge of letters remained the prerogative of the church, and for the next four or five centuries the St. Benedict. collecting and multiplication of books were almost entirely confined to the monasteries. Several of the greater orders made these an express duty; this was especially the case with the Benedictines. It was the first care of St Benedict, we are told, that in each newly founded monastery there should be a library, “et velut curia quaedam illustrium auctorum.” Monte Cassino became the starting-point of a long line of institutions which were destined to be the centres of religion and of literature. It must indeed be remembered that literature in the sense of St Benedict meant Biblical and theological works, the lives of the saints and martyrs, and the lives and writings of the fathers. Of the reformed Benedictine orders the Carthusians and the Cistercians were those most devoted to literary pursuits. The abbeys of Fleury, of Melk and of St Gall were remarkable for the splendour of their libraries. In a later age the labours of the congregation of St Maur form one of the most striking chapters in the history of learning. The Augustinians and the Dominicans rank next to the Benedictines in their care for literature. The libraries of St Geneviève and St Victor, belonging to the former, were amongst the largest of the monastic collections. Although their poverty might seem to put them at a disadvantage as collectors, the mendicant orders cultivated literature with much assiduity, and were closely connected with the intellectual movement to which the universities owed their rise. In England Richard of Bury praises them for their extraordinary diligence in collecting books. Sir Richard Whittington built a large library for the Grey Friars in London, and they possessed considerable libraries at Oxford.

It would be impossible to attempt here an account of all the libraries established by the monastic orders. We must be content to enumerate a few of the most eminent.

In Italy Monte Cassino is a striking example of the dangers and vicissitudes to which monastic collections were exposed. Ruined by the Lombards in the 6th century, the monastery was rebuilt and a library established, to Monastic libraries. fall a prey to Saracens and to fire in the 9th. The collection then reformed survived many other chances and changes, and still exists. Boccaccio gives a melancholy description of its condition in his day. It affords a conspicuous example of monastic industry in the transcription not only of theological but also of classical works. The library of Bobbio, which owed its existence to Irish monks, was famous for its palimpsests. The collection, of which a catalogue of the 10th century is given by Muratori (Antiq. Ital. Med. Aev. iii. 817-824), was mainly transferred to the Ambrosian library at Milan. Of the library of Pomposia, near Ravenna, Montfaucon has printed a catalogue dating from the 11th century (Diarium Italicum, chap. xxii.).

Of the monastic libraries of France the principal were those of Fleury, of Cluny, of St Riquier and of Corbie. At Fleury Abbot Macharius in 1146 imposed a contribution for library purposes upon the officers of the community and its dependencies, an example which was followed elsewhere. After many vicissitudes, its MSS., numbering 238, were deposited in 1793 in the town library of Orleans. The library of St Riquier in the time of Louis the Pious contained 256 MSS., with over 500 works. Of the collection at Corbie in Picardy we have also catalogues dating from the 12th and from the 17th centuries. Corbie was famous for the industry of its transcribers, and appears to have stood in active literary intercourse with other monasteries. In 1638, 400 of its choicest manuscripts were removed to St Germain-des-Prés. The remainder were removed after 1794, partly to the national library at Paris, partly to the town library of Amiens.

The chief monastic libraries of Germany were at Fulda, Corvey, Reichenau and Sponheim. The library at Fulda owed much to Charlemagne and to its abbot Hrabanus Maurus. Under Abbot Sturmius four hundred monks were hired as copyists. In 1561 the collection numbered 774 volumes. The library of Corvey on the Weser, after being despoiled of some of its treasures in the Reformation age, was presented to the university of Marburg in 1811. It then contained 109 vols., with 400 or 500 titles. The library of Reichenau, of which several catalogues are extant, fell a prey to fire and neglect, and its ruin was consummated by the Thirty Years’ War. The library of Sponheim owes its great renown to John Tritheim, who was abbot at the close of the 15th century. He found it reduced to 10 vols., and left it with upwards of 2000 at his retirement. The library at St Gall, formed as early as 816 by Gozbert, its second abbot, still exists.

In England the principal collections were those of Canterbury, York, Wearmouth, Jarrow, Whitby, Glastonbury, Croyland, Peterborough and Durham. Of the library of the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, originally England. founded by Augustine and Theodore, and restored by Lanfranc and Anselm, a catalogue has been preserved dating from the 13th or 14th century, and containing 698 volumes, with about 3000 works. Bennet Biscop, the first abbot of Wearmouth, made five journeys to Rome, and on each occasion returned with a store of books for the library. It was destroyed by the Danes about 867. Of the library at Whitby there is a catalogue dating from the 12th century. The catalogue of Glastonbury has been printed by Hearne in his edition of John of Glastonbury. When the library of Croyland perished by fire in 1091 it contained about 700 vols. The library at Peterborough was also rich; from a catalogue of about the end of the 14th century it had 344 vols., with nearly 1700 titles. The catalogues of the library at the monastery of Durham have been printed by the Surtees Society, and form an interesting series. These catalogues with many others8 afford abundant evidence of the limited character of the monkish collections, whether we look at the number of their volumes or at the nature of their contents. The scriptoria were manufactories of books and not centres of learning. That in spite of the labours of so many transcribers the costliness and scarcity of books remained so great may have been partly, but cannot have been wholly, due to the scarcity of writing materials. It may be suspected that indolence and carelessness were the rule in most monasteries, and that but few of the monks keenly realized the whole force of the sentiment expressed by one of their number in the 12th century—“Claustrum sine armario quasi castrum sine armamentario.” Nevertheless it must be 550 admitted that to the labours of the monastic transcribers we are indebted for the preservation of Latin literature.

The subject of the evolution of the arrangement of library rooms and fittings as gradually developed throughout medieval Europe should not be passed over.9 The real origin of library organization in the Christian world, one may The development of library arrangements. almost say the origin of modern library methods, began with the rule of St Benedict early in the 6th century. In the 48th chapter the monks were ordered to borrow a book apiece and to read it straight through. There was no special apartment for the books in the primitive Benedictine house. After the books became too numerous to be kept in the church they were preserved in armaria, or chests, in the cloister; hence the word armarius, the Benedictine librarian, who at first joined with it the office of precentor. The Benedictine regulations were developed in the stricter observances of the Cluniacs, which provided for a kind of annual report and stocktaking. The Carthusians were perhaps the first to lend books away from the convent; and the Cistercians to possess a separate library official as well as a room specially devoted to books. The observances of the Augustinians contained rules for the binding, repairing, cataloguing and arranging the books by the librarian, as well as a prescription of the exact kind of chest to be used. Among the Premonstratensians or Reformed Augustinians, it was one of the duties of the librarian to provide for the borrowing of books elsewhere for the use of the monks. The Mendicant Friars found books so necessary that at last Richard de Bury tells us with some exaggeration that their libraries exceeded all others. Many volumes still exist which belonged to the library at Assisi, the parent house of the Franciscans, of which a catalogue was drawn up in 1381. No authentic monastic bookcase can now be found; the doubtful example shown at Bayeux probably contained ecclesiastical utensils. At the Augustinian priory at Barnwell the presses were lined with wood to keep out the damp and were partitioned off both vertically and horizontally. Sometimes there were recesses in the walls of the cloisters fitted with shelves and closed with a door. These recesses developed into a small windowless room in the Cistercian houses. At Clairvaux, Kirkstall, Fountains, Tintern, Netley and elsewhere this small chamber was placed between the chapter-house and the transept of the church. At Meaux in Holderness the books were lodged on shelves against the walls and even over the door of such a chamber. In many houses the treasury or spendiment contained two classes of books—one for the monks generally, others more closely guarded. A press near the infirmary contained books used by the reader in the refectory. By the end of the 15th century the larger monasteries became possessed of many volumes and found themselves obliged to store the books, hitherto placed in various parts of the building, in a separate apartment. We now find libraries being specially built at Canterbury, Durham, Citeaux, Clairvaux and elsewhere, and with this specialization there grew up increased liberality in the use of books and learned strangers were admitted. Even at an early date students were permitted to borrow from the Benedictines at St Germain-des-Prés at Paris, of which a later foundation owned in 1513 a noble library erected over the south wall of the cloister, and enlarged and made very accessible to the outer world in the 17th and 18th centuries. The methods and fittings of college libraries of early foundation closely resembled those of the monastic libraries. There was in both the annual giving out and inspection of what we would now call the lending department for students; while the books, fastened by chains—a kind of reference department kept in the library chamber for the common use of the fellows—followed a similar system in monastic institutions. By the 15th century collegiate and monastic libraries were on the same plan, with the separate room containing books placed on their sides on desks or lecterns, to which they were attached by chains to a horizontal bar. As the books increased the accommodation was augmented by one or two shelves erected above the desks. The library at Cesena in North Italy may still be seen in its original condition. The Laurentian library at Florence was designed by Michelangelo on the monastic model. Another good example of the old form may be seen, in the library of Merton College at Oxford, a long narrow room with bookcases standing between the windows at right angles to the walls. In the chaining system one end was attached to the wooden cover of the book while the other ran freely on a bar fixed by a method of double locks to the front of the shelf or desk on which the book rested. The fore edges of the volumes faced the reader. The seat and shelf were sometimes combined. Low cases were subsequently introduced between the higher cases, and the seat replaced by a step. Shelf lists were placed at the end of each case. There were no chains in the library of the Escorial, erected in 1584, which showed for the first time bookcases placed against the walls. Although chains were no longer part of the appliances in the newly erected libraries they continued to be used and were ordered in bequests in England down to the early part of the 18th century. Triple desks and revolving lecterns, raised by a wooden screw, formed part of the library furniture. The English cathedral libraries were fashioned after the same principle. The old methods were fully reproduced in the fittings at Westminster, erected at a late date. Here we may see books on shelves against the walls as well as in cases at right angles to the walls; the desk-like shelves for the chained volumes (no longer in existence) have a slot in which the chains could be suspended, and are hinged to allow access to shelves below. An ornamental wooden tablet at the end of each case is a survival of the old shelf list. By the end of the 17th century the type of the public library developed from collegiate and monastic prototypes, became fixed as it were throughout Europe (H. R. Tedder, “Evolution of the Public Library,” in Trans. of 2nd Int. Library Conference, 1897, 1898).

The first conquests of the Arabians, as we have already seen, threatened hostility to literature. But, as soon as their conquests were secured, the caliphs became the patrons of learning and science. Greek manuscripts were Arabians. eagerly sought for and translated into Arabic, and colleges and libraries everywhere arose. Baghdad in the east and Cordova in the west became the seats of a rich development of letters and science during the age when the civilization of Europe was most obscured. Cairo and Tripoli were also distinguished for their libraries. The royal library of the Fatimites in Africa is said to have numbered 100,000 manuscripts, while that collected by the Omayyads of Spain is reported to have contained six times as many. It is said that there were no less than seventy libraries opened in the cities of Andalusia. Whether these figures be exaggerated or not—and they are much below those given by some Arabian writers, which are undoubtedly so—it is certain that the libraries of the Arabians and the Moors of Spain offer a very remarkable contrast to those of the Christian nations during the same period.10

The literary and scientific activity of the Arabians appears to have been the cause of a revival of letters amongst the Greeks of the Byzantine empire in the 9th century. Under Leo the Philosopher and Constantine Porphyrogenitus Renaissance. the libraries of Constantinople awoke into renewed life. The compilations of such writers as Stobaeus, Photius and Suidas, as well as the labours of innumerable critics and commentators, bear witness to the activity, if not to the lofty character of the pursuits, of the Byzantine scholars. The labours of transcription were industriously pursued in the libraries and in the monasteries of Mount Athos and the Aegean, and it was from these quarters that the restorers of learning brought into Italy so many Greek manuscripts. In this way many of the treasures of ancient literature had been already 551 conveyed to the West before the fate which overtook the libraries of Constantinople on the fall of the city in 1453.

Meanwhile in the West, with the reviving interest in literature which already marks the 14th century, we find arising outside the monasteries a taste for collecting books. St Louis of France and his successors had formed small collections, none of which survived its possessor. It was reserved for Charles V. to form a considerable library which he intended to be permanent. In 1373 he had amassed 910 volumes, and had a catalogue of them prepared, from which we see that it included a good deal of the new sort of literature. In England Guy, earl of Warwick, formed a curious collection of French romances, which he bequeathed to Bordesley Abbey on his death in 1315. Richard d’Aungervyle of Bury, the author of the Philobiblon, amassed a noble collection of books, and had special opportunities of doing so as Edward III.’s chancellor and ambassador. He founded Durham College at Oxford, and equipped it with a library a hundred years before Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, made his benefaction of books to the university. The taste for secular literature, and the enthusiasm for the ancient classics, gave a fresh direction to the researches of collectors. A disposition to encourage literature began to show itself amongst the great. This was most notable amongst the Italian princes. Cosimo de’ Medici formed a library at Venice while living there in exile in 1433, and on his return to Florence laid the foundation of the great Medicean library. The honour of establishing the first modern public library in Italy had been already secured by Niccolo Niccoli, who left his library of over 800 volumes for the use of the public on his death in 1436. Frederick, duke of Urbino, collected all the writings in Greek and Latin which he could procure, and we have an interesting account of his collection written by his first librarian, Vespasiano. The ardour for classical studies led to those active researches for the Latin writers who were buried in the monastic libraries which are especially identified with the name of Poggio. For some time before the fall of Constantinople, the perilous state of the Eastern empire had driven many Greek scholars from that capital into western Europe, where they had directed the studies and formed the taste of the zealous students of the Greek language and literature. The enthusiasm of the Italian princes extended itself beyond the Alps. Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, amassed a collection of splendidly executed and magnificently bound manuscripts, which at his death are said to have reached the almost incredible number of 50,000 vols. The library was not destined long to survive its founder. There is reason to believe that it had been very seriously despoiled even before it perished at the hands of the Turks on the fall of Buda in 1527. A few of its treasures are still preserved in some of the libraries of Europe. While these munificent patrons of learning were thus taking pains to recover and multiply the treasures of ancient literature by the patient labour of transcribers and calligraphers, an art was being elaborated which was destined to revolutionize the whole condition of literature and libraries. With the invention of printing, so happily coinciding with the revival of true learning and sound science, the modern history of libraries may be said to begin.

Modern Libraries

In most of the European countries and in the United States libraries of all kinds have during the last twenty years been undergoing a process of development and improvement which has greatly altered their policy and methods. At one time libraries were regarded almost entirely as repositories for the storage of books to be used by the learned alone, but now they are coming to be regarded more and more as workshops or as places for intellectual recreation adapted for every department of life. This is particularly to be found as the ideal in the public libraries of the Anglo-Saxon races throughout the world.

The following details comprise the chief points in the history, equipment and methods of the various libraries and systems noticed.

The United Kingdom.

State Libraries.—The British Museum ranks in importance before all the great libraries of the world, and excels in the arrangement and accessibility of its contents. The library consists of over 2,000,000 printed volumes British Museum. and 56,000 manuscripts, but this large total does not include pamphlets and other small publications which are usually counted in other libraries. Adding these together it is probable that over 5,000,000 items are comprised in the collections. This extraordinary opulence is principally due to the enlightened energy of Sir Anthony Panizzi (q.v.). The number of volumes in the printed book department, when he took the keepership in 1837, was only 240,000; and during the nineteen years he held that office about 400,000 were added, mostly by purchase, under his advice and direction. It was Panizzi likewise who first seriously set to work to see that the national library reaped all the benefits bestowed upon it by the Copyright Act.

The foundation of the British Museum dates from 1753, when effect was given to the bequest (in exchange for £20,000 to be paid to his executors) by Sir Hans Sloane, of his books, manuscripts, curiosities, &c., to be held by trustees for the use of the nation. A bill was passed through parliament for the purchase of the Sloane collections and of the Harleian MSS., costing £10,000. To these, with the Cottonian MSS., acquired by the country in 1700, was added by George II., in 1757, the royal library of the former kings of England, coupled with the privilege, which that library had for many years enjoyed, of obtaining a copy of every publication entered at Stationers’ Hall. This addition was of the highest importance, as it enriched the museum with the old collections of Archbishop Cranmer, Henry prince of Wales, and other patrons of literature, while the transfer of the privilege with regard to the acquisition of new books, a right which has been maintained by successive Copyright Acts, secured a large and continuous augmentation. A lottery having been authorized to defray the expenses of purchases, as well as for providing suitable accommodation, the museum and library were established in Montague House, and opened to the public 15th January 1759. In 1763 George III. presented the well-known Thomason collection (in 2220 volumes) of books and pamphlets issued in England between 1640 and 1662, embracing all the controversial literature which appeared during that period. The Rev. C. M. Cracherode, one of the trustees, bequeathed his collection of choice books in 1799; and in 1820 Sir Joseph Banks left to the nation his important library of 16,000 vols. Many other libraries have since then been incorporated in the museum, the most valuable being George III.’s royal collection (15,000 vols. of tracts, and 65,259 vols. of printed books, including many of the utmost rarity, which had cost the king about £130,000), which was presented (for a pecuniary consideration, it has been said) by George IV. in 1823, and that of the Right Honourable Thomas Grenville (20,240 vols. of rare books, all in fine condition and binding), which was acquired under bequest in 1846. The Cracherode, Banksian, King’s and Grenville libraries are still preserved as separate collections. Other libraries of minor note have also been absorbed in a similar way, while, at least since the time of Panizzi, no opportunity has been neglected of making useful purchases at all the British and Continental book auctions.

The collection of English books is far from approaching completeness, but, apart from the enormous number of volumes, the library contains an extraordinary quantity of rarities. Few libraries in the United States equal either in number or value the American books in the museum. The collection of Slavonic literature, due to the initiative of Thomas Watts, is also a remarkable feature. Indeed, in cosmopolitan interest the museum is without a rival in the world, possessing as it does the best library in any European language out of the territory in which the language is vernacular. The Hebrew, the Chinese, and printed books in other Oriental languages are important and represented in large numbers. Periodical literature has not been 552 forgotten, and the series of newspapers is of great extent and interest. Great pains are taken by the authorities to obtain the copies of the newspapers published in the United Kingdom to which they are entitled by the provisions of the Copyright Act, and upwards of 3400 are annually collected, filed and bound.

The department of MSS. is almost equal In importance to that of the printed books. The collection of MSS. in European languages ranges from the 3rd century before Christ down to our own times, and includes the Codex Alexandrinus of the Bible. The old historical chronicles of England, the charters of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and the celebrated series of Arthurian romances are well represented; and care has been taken to acquire on every available opportunity the imprinted works of English writers. The famous collections of MSS. made by Sir Robert Cotton and Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, have already been mentioned, and from these and other sources the museum has become rich in early Anglo-Saxon and Latin codices, some of them being marvels of skill in calligraphy and ornamentation, such as the charters of King Edgar and Henry I. to Hyde Abbey, which are written in gold letters; or the Lindisfarne gospels (A.D. 700) containing the earliest extant Anglo-Saxon version of the Latin gospels. The Burney collection of classical MSS. furnished important additions, so that from this source and from the collection of Arundel MSS. (transferred from the Royal Society in 1831), the museum can boast of an early copy of the Iliad, and one of the earliest known codices of the Odyssey. Among the unrivalled collection of Greek papyri are the unique MSS. of several works of ancient literature. Irish, French and Italian MSS. are well represented. Special reference may be made to the celebrated Bedford Hours, illuminated for the duke of Bedford, regent of France, to the Sforza Book of Hours and to Queen Mary’s Psalter. The Oriental collection is also extremely valuable, including the library formed by Mr Rich (consul at Baghdad in the early part of the 19th century), and a vast quantity of Arabic, Persian and Turkish MSS.; the Chambers collection of Sanskrit MSS.; several other collections of Indian MSS.; and a copious library of Hebrew MSS. (including that of the great scholar Michaelis, and codices of great age, recently brought from Yemen). The collection of Syriac MSS., embracing the relics of the famous library of the convent of St Mary Deipara in the Nitrian desert, formed by the abbot Moses of Nisibis, in the 10th century, is the most important in existence; of the large store of Abyssinian volumes many were amassed after the campaign against King Theodore. The number of genealogical rolls and documents relating to the local and family history of Great Britain is very large. Altogether there are now more than 56,000 MSS. (of which over 9000 are Oriental), besides more than 75,000 charters and rolls. There is a very large and valuable collection of printed and manuscript music of all kinds, and it is probable that of separate pieces there are nearly 200,000. The catalogue of music is partly in manuscript and partly printed, and a separate printed catalogue of the MS. music has been published. The number of maps is also very large, and a printed catalogue has been issued.

The building in which the library is housed forms part of the fine group situated in Great Russell Street in central London, and is distinguished by a stately circular reading-room designed by Sydney Smirke from suggestions and sketches supplied by Sir A. Panizzi. This was begun in 1855 and opened in 1857. The room is surrounded by book stores placed in galleries with iron floors, in which, owing to congestion of stock, various devices have been introduced, particularly a hanging and rolling form of auxiliary bookcase. The presses inside the reading-room, arranged in three tiers, contain upwards of 60,000 vols., those on the ground floor (20,000) being books of reference to which readers have unlimited access. The accommodation for readers is comfortable and roomy, each person having a portion of table fitted with various conveniences. Perhaps not the least convenient arrangement here is the presence of the staff in the centre of the room, at the service of readers who require aid.

Next in importance to the British Museum, and superior to it in accessibility, is the Library of the Patent Office in Southampton Buildings, London. This is a department of the Board of Trade, and though primarily intended Patent Office. for office use and patentees, it is really a public library freely open to anyone. The only formality required from readers is a signature in a book kept in the entrance hall. After this readers have complete access to the shelves. The library contains considerably over 110,000 vols., and possesses complete sets of the patents specifications of all countries, and a remarkable collection of the technical and scientific periodicals of all countries. The library was first opened in 1855, in somewhat unsuitable premises, and in 1897 it was transferred to a handsome new building.

Another excellent special library is the National Art Library, founded in 1841 and transferred to South Kensington in 1856. It contains about half a million books, prints, drawings Other state libraries. and photographs, and is used mostly by the students attending the art schools, though the general public can obtain admission on payment of sixpence per week.

A somewhat similar library on the science side is the 553 Science Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, which was founded in 1857. It is a general science collection and incorporates most of the books which at one time were in the Museum of Practical Geology.

The only other state library which is open to the public is that of the Board of Education in Whitehall, which was opened in a new building in 1908. It contains a large collection of works on educational subjects for which a special classification has been devised and printed.

No professional qualifications are required for positions in British state libraries, most of the assistants being merely second-division clerks who have passed the Civil Service examinations. It would be an advantage from an administrative point of view if the professional certificates of the Library Association were adopted by the Civil Service Commissioners as compulsory requirements in addition to their own examination. The official recognition of a grade of properly trained librarians would tend to improve the methods and efficiency of the state libraries, which are generally behind the municipal libraries in organization and administration.

University and Collegiate Libraries.—The Bodleian Library, Oxford, though it had been preceded by various efforts towards a university library, owed its origin to Sir Thomas Bodley (q.v.). Contributing largely himself, and procuring Oxford. contributions from others, he opened the library with upwards of 2000 vols. in 1602. In 1610 he obtained a grant from the Stationers’ Company of a copy of every work printed in the country, a privilege still enjoyed under the provisions of the various copyright acts. The additions made to the library soon surpassed the capacity of the room, and the founder proceeded to enlarge it. By his will he left considerable property to the university for the maintenance and increase of the library. The example set by Bodley found many noble imitators. Amongst the chief benefactors have been Archbishop Laud, the executors of Sir Kenelm Digby, John Selden, Sir Thomas (Lord) Fairfax, Richard Gough, Francis Douce, Richard Rawlinson, and the Rev. Robert Mason. The library now contains almost 800,000 printed vols., and about 41,000 manuscripts. But the number of volumes, as bound up, conveys a very inadequate idea of the size or value of the collection. In the department of Oriental manuscripts it is perhaps superior to any other European library; and it is exceedingly rich in other manuscript treasures. It possesses a splendid series of Greek and Latin editiones principes and of the earliest productions of English presses. Its historical manuscripts contain most valuable materials for the general and literary history of the country.

In 1860 the beautiful Oxford building known as the “Radcliffe Library,” now called the “Radcliffe Camera,” was offered to the curators of the Bodleian by the Radcliffe trustees. The Radcliffe Library was founded by the famous physician Dr John Radcliffe, who died in 1714, and bequeathed, besides a permanent endowment of £350 a year, the sum of £40,000 for a building. The library was opened in 1749. Many years ago the trustees resolved to confine their purchases of books to works on medicine and natural science. When the university museum and laboratories were built in 1860, the trustees allowed the books to be transferred to the museum. It is used as a storehouse for the more modern books, and it also serves as a reading-room. It is the only room open after the hour when the older building is closed owing to the rule as to the exclusion of artificial light. In 1889 the gallery of the Radcliffe Camera was opened as an addition to the reading-room.

The Bodleian Library is open by right to all graduate members of the university, and to others upon producing a satisfactory recommendation. No books are allowed to be sent out of the library except by special leave of the curators and convocation of the university. The administration and control of the library are committed to a librarian and board of thirteen curators. The permanent endowment is comparatively small; the ordinary expenditure, chiefly defrayed from the university chest, is about £10,000. Within recent years the use of wheeling metal bookcases has been greatly extended, and a large repository has been arranged for economical book storage underground.

The history of the University Library at Cambridge dates from the earlier part of the 15th century. Two early lists of its contents are preserved, the first embracing 52 vols. dating from about 1425, the second a shelf-list, apparently Cambridge. of 330 vols., drawn up by the outgoing proctors in 1473. Its first great benefactor was Thomas Scott of Rotherham, archbishop of York, who erected in 1475 the building in which the library continued until 1755. He also gave more than 200 books and manuscripts to the library, some of which still remain. The library received other benefactions, but nevertheless appeared “but mean” to John Evelyn when he visited Cambridge in 1654. In 1666 Tobias Rustat presented a sum of money to be invested to buy the choicest and most useful books. In 1715 George I. presented the library of Bishop Moore, which was very rich in early English printed books, forming over 30,000 vols. of printed books and manuscripts. The funds bequeathed by William Worts and John Manistre, together with that of Rustat, produce at present about £1500 a year. The share of university dues appropriated to library purposes amounts to £3000 a year. In addition the library is entitled to new books under the Copyright Acts. The number of printed volumes in the library cannot be exactly stated, as no recent calculation on the subject exists. It has been estimated at half a million. It includes a fine series of editiones principes of the classics and of the early productions of the English press. The MSS. number over 6000, in which are included a considerable number of adversaria or printed books with MS. notes, which form a leading feature in the collection. The most famous of the MSS. is the celebrated copy of the four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, which is known as Codex Bezae, and which was presented to the university by that Reformer.

There is a library attached to the Fitzwilliam Museum, bequeathed to the university in 1816. It consists of the entire library of Lord Fitzwilliam, with the addition of an archaeological library bought from the executors of Colonel Leake, and a small number of works, chiefly on the history of art, since added by purchase or bequest. It contains a collection of engravings of old masters, a collection of music, printed and MS., and a collection of illuminated MSS., chiefly French and Flemish, of the 14th to 16th centuries. The books are not allowed to be taken out. Catalogues and reprints of some of the music and other collections have been published.

The library of the university of London, founded in 1837, has over 60,000 vols, and includes the Goldsmith Library of economic literature, numbering 30,000 vols. Other collections are De Morgan’s collection of mathematical London. books, Grote’s classical library, &c. There is a printed catalogue of 1897, with supplements. Since its removal to South Kensington, this library has been greatly improved and extended. University College Library, Gower Street, established in 1829, has close upon 120,000 vols. made up chiefly of separate collections which have been acquired from time to time. Many of these collections overlap, and much duplicating results, leading to congestion. These collections include Jeremy Bentham’s library, Morrison’s Chinese library, Barlow’s Dante library, collections of law, mathematical, Icelandic, theological, art, oriental and other books, some of them of great value.

King’s College Library, founded in 1828, has over 30,000 vols. chiefly of a scientific character. In close association with the university of London is the London School of Economics and Political Science in Clare Market, in which is housed the British Library of Political Science with 50,000 vols. and a large number of official reports and pamphlets.

The collegiate library at Dulwich dates from 1619, and a list of its earliest accessions, in the handwriting of the founder, may still be seen. There are now about 17,000 vols. of miscellaneous works of the 17th and 18th centuries, with a few rare books. A catalogue of them was printed in 1880; and one describing the MSS. (567) and the muniments (606) was issued during the succeeding year. The last two classes are very important, and include the well-known “Alleyn Papers” and the theatrical diary of Philip Henslow. Sion College is a gild of the parochial clergy of the city and suburbs of London, and the library was founded in 1629 for their use; laymen may also read (but not borrow) the books when recommended by some beneficed metropolitan clergyman. The library is especially rich in liturgies, Port-Royal authors, pamphlets, &c., and contains about 100,000 vols. classified on a modification of the Decimal system. The copyright privilege was commuted in 1835 for an annual sum of £363, 15s. 2d. The present building was opened in 1886 and is one of the striking buildings of the Victoria Embankment.

The university library of Durham (1832) contains about 35,000 vols., and all the modern English universities—Birmingham, Mason University College (1880), 27,000 vols.; Leeds, Liverpool (1882), 56,000 vols.; Manchester, Victoria English provinces. University, which absorbed Owens College (1851), 115,000 vols.; Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Sheffield (1907), &c.—have collections of books. The libraries in connexion with theological colleges and public schools throughout England are often quite extensive, and reference may be made to Eton College (1441), 25,000 vols.; Haileybury (1862), 12,000 vols.; Harrow (Vaughan Library), 12,000 vols.; Mill Hill; Oscott College, Erdington (1838), 36,000 vols.; Rugby (1878), 8000 vols.; Stonyhurst College (1794), c. 40,000 vols., &c. The new building for the university of Wales at Bangor has ample accommodation for an adequate library, and the University College at Aberystwith is also equipped with a library.

The origin of the University Library of Edinburgh is to be found in a bequest of his books of theology and law made to the town in 1580 by Clement Little, advocate. This was two years before the foundation of the university, Scotland. and in 1584 the town council caused the collection to be removed to the college, of which they were the patrons. As it was the only library in the town, it continued to grow and received many benefactions, so that in 1615 it became necessary to erect a library building. Stimulated perhaps by the example of Bodley at Oxford, Drummond of Hawthornden made a large donation of books, of which he printed a catalogue in 1627, and circulated an appeal for assistance from others. In 1678 the library received a bequest of 2000 vols. from the Rev. James Nairne. In 1709 the library became entitled to the copy privilege, which has since been commuted for a payment of £575 per annum. In 1831 the books were removed to the present library buildings, for which a parliamentary grant had been obtained. The main library hall (190 ft. in length) is one of the most splendid apartments in Scotland. One of the rooms is set apart as a memorial to General Reid, by whose benefaction the library has greatly benefited. Amongst the more recent accessions have been the Halliwell-Phillips Shakespeare collection, the Laing collection of Scottish MSS., the Baillie collection of Oriental MSS. (some of which are of great value), and the Hodgson collection of works on political economy. The library now consists of about 210,000 vols. of printed books with over 2000 MSS. Recently it has been found necessary to make considerable additions to the shelving. The library of the university of Glasgow dates from the 15th century, and numbers George Buchanan and many other distinguished men amongst its early benefactors. A classified subject-catalogue has been printed, and there is also a printed dictionary catalogue. The annual accessions are about 1500, and the commutation-grant £707. Connected with the university, which is trustee for the public, is the library of the Hunterian Museum, formed by the eminent anatomist Dr William Hunter. It is a collection of great bibliographical interest, as it is rich in MSS. and in fine specimens of early printing, especially in Greek and Latin classics. There are about 200,000 vols. in the library.

The establishment of the library of Trinity College, Dublin, is contemporaneous with that of the Bodleian at Oxford, and it is an interesting circumstance that, when Challoner and Ussher (afterwards the archbishop) were in Ireland. London purchasing books to form the library, they met Bodley there, and entered into friendly intercourse and co-operation with him to procure the choicest and best books. The commission was given to Ussher and Challoner as trustees of the singular donation which laid the foundation of the library. In the year 1601 the English army determined to commemorate their victory over the Spanish troops at Kinsale by some permanent monument. Accordingly they subscribed the sum of £1800 to establish a library in the university of Dublin. For Ussher’s own collection, consisting of 10,000 vols. and many valuable MSS., the college was also indebted to military generosity. On his death in 1655 the officers and soldiers of the English army then in Ireland purchased the whole collection for £22,000 with the design of presenting it to the college. Cromwell, however, interfered, alleging that he proposed to found a new college, where the books might more conveniently be preserved. They were deposited therefore in Dublin Castle, and the college only obtained them after the Restoration. In 1674 Sir Jerome Alexander left his law books with some valuable MSS. to the college. In 1726 Dr Palliser, archbishop of Cashel, bequeathed over 4000 vols. to the library; and ten years later Dr Gilbert gave the library nearly 13,000 vols. which he had himself collected and arranged. In 1745 the library received a valuable collection of MSS. as a bequest from Dr Stearne. In 1802 the collection formed by the pensionary Fagel, which had been removed to England on the French invasion of Holland, was acquired for £10,000. It consisted of over 20,000 vols. In 1805 Mr Quin bequeathed a choice collection of classical and Italian books. There have been many other smaller donations, in addition to which the library is continually increased by the books received under the Copyright Act. The library now contains 300,000 vols. and over 2000 MSS. There is no permanent endowment, and purchases are made by grants from the board. The whole collections are contained in one building, erected in 1732, consisting of eight rooms. The great library hall is a magnificent apartment over 200 ft. long. A new reading-room was opened in 1848. A catalogue of the books acquired before 1872 has been printed (1887). There is a printed catalogue of the MSS. and Incunabula (1890). Graduates of Dublin, Oxford, and Cambridge are admitted to read permanently, and temporary admission is granted by the board to any fit person who makes application.

With one or two exceptions, libraries are attached to the cathedrals of England and Wales. Though they are of course intended for the use of the cathedral or diocesan clergy, they are in most cases open to any respectable Cathedral and church libraries. person who may be properly introduced. They seldom contain very much modern literature, chiefly consisting of older theology, with more or less addition of classical and historical literature. They vary in extent from a few volumes, as at Llandaff or St David’s, to 20,000 vols., as at 556 Durham. Together they possess nearly 150,000 printed and manuscript vols. As a rule, very little is spent upon them, and they are very little used. The chamber in the old cloisters, in which the library of the dean and chapter of Westminster is preserved, is well known from the charming description by Washington Irving in his Sketch Book. There are about 14,000 vols., mostly of old theology and history, including many rare Bibles and other valuable books. The library of the dean and chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral was founded in very early times, and now numbers some 22,000 vols. and pamphlets, mainly theological, with a good collection of early Bibles and Testaments, Paul’s Cross Sermons, and works connected with the cathedral.

Perhaps the best library of Catholic theology in London is that of the Oratory at South Kensington, established in 1849, and now containing nearly 35,000 vols. The Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, of recent foundation, contains about 22,000 vols. The archiepiscopal library at Lambeth was founded in 1610 by Archbishop Bancroft, and has been enriched by the gifts of Laud, Tenison, Manners Sutton, and others of his successors; it is now lodged in the noble hall built by Juxon. The treasures consist of the illuminated MSS., and a rich store of early printed books; of the latter two catalogues have been issued by Samuel Roffey Maitland (1792-1866). The MSS. are described in H. J. Todd’s catalogue, 1812. The total number of printed books and manuscripts is nearly 45,000.

Endowed libraries may be defined as those which have been directly established by the bequests of individuals or corporate bodies, excluding those which have been assisted by donors or are merely named after them. As compared Endowed libraries. with the United States, the endowed libraries of Britain are few in number, although several are of great importance. London possesses very few libraries which have been endowed by individual donors. The principal are the Bishopsgate Institute (1891), which was founded out of sundry City of London charities, and now contains about 44,000 vols., and is celebrated for a fine collection of local prints, drawings and maps. It is open free to persons in the east part of the City. The Cripplegate Institute (1896) in Golden Lane, also founded out of charity moneys, has three branches—St Bride’s Foundation Institute (18,000 vols.), jointly; Queen Street, Cheapside, Branch (8000 vols.); and St Luke’s Institute (5000 vols.)—and contains 28,000 vols. Lectures and other entertainments are features of both these libraries. Dr Williams’ library was founded by the will of an eminent Presbyterian divine of that name; it was opened in 1729. The books (50,000) are housed in a new building in Gordon Square, completed in 1873. Theology of all schools of opinion is represented, and there are special collections of theosophical books and MSS., the works of Boehme, Law, and other mystical writers. The MSS. include the original minutes of the Westminster Assembly, letters and treatises of Richard Baxter, &c. The St Bride Foundation Technical Reference Library (1895) is a very complete collection of books and specimens of printing and the allied arts, including the libraries of William Blades and Talbot Baines Reed, and a number of more modern books presented by Mr Passmore Edwards. It contains about 18,000 vols., and is open to all persons interested in printing, lithography, &c., and also to the general public.

There are many libraries belonging to societies devoted to the study of every kind of subject, and Libraries of societies and learned bodies. it is only necessary to mention a few of the principal. Full particulars of most of them will be found in Reginald A. Rye’s Libraries of London: a Guide for Students (1910), a work of accuracy and value.

Proprietary and subscription libraries were at one time more common than now, as, owing to the steady advance of the municipal library, the minor subscription libraries have been gradually extinguished. A striking example Proprietary and subscription libraries. of this is furnished by the mechanics’ institutes which used to flourish all over the country. In most cases these have been handed over to the local authorities by the owners to form the nucleus of the public rate-supported library, and in this way the older libraries have been preserved and valuable aid has been given to the popular library movement. Somewhat akin to the mechanics’ institutes are the libraries established in connexion with various co-operative societies in the north of England. Together with working men’s club libraries, there must be nearly 100 libraries of the class just mentioned, ranging in size from a few hundred vols. to 30,000 or 40,000 vols. The affiliated clubs of the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union possess among them over 100,000 vols.

Among subscription libraries, the London Library stands first in order of importance. It was founded in 1841 as a lending library for the use of scholars, and Dean Milman, Sir G. C. Lewis, W. E. Gladstone, Thomas Carlyle, Henry Hallam and other eminent men took part in its formation. By means of a moderate subscription, funds were raised for the purchase of books on general subjects, which now amount to about 250,000 vols. Of these elaborate and excellent author and subject catalogues have been printed. The last is valuable as a classified guide to the contents of the library.

Many of the principal clubs possess libraries; that of the Athenaeum (London) is by far the most important. It now numbers about 75,000 vols. of books in all departments of literature, and is especially rich in well-bound and Club libraries. fine copies of works on the fine arts, archaeology, topography and history. The pamphlets, of which there is a complete printed catalogue, as well as of the books, form a remarkable series, including those collected by Gibbon and Mackintosh. Next comes the Reform Club, with about 60,000 vols., chiefly in belles-lettres, with a fair proportion of parliamentary and historical works. The National Liberal Club, containing the Gladstone Library, has about 45,000 vols., and may be used occasionally by non-members. The Oxford and Cambridge Club has 30,000 vols. in general and classical literature. At the Garrick there is a small dramatic collection; and the (Senior) United Service Club, besides a number of books on professional subjects, possesses the fine library which formerly belonged to Dugald Stewart.

The first act of parliament authorizing the establishment of public libraries in England was obtained by William Ewart, M.P. for the Dumfries Burghs, in 1850. This arose out of the report of a special parliamentary committee Municipal libraries. appointed to enquire into the management of the British Museum in 1835, and a more general report on libraries in 1849, at which much evidence was submitted to prove the necessity for providing public libraries. Ewart obtained both committees and also, in 1845, procured an act for “encouraging the establishment of museums in large towns.” Neither the 1845 nor 1850 acts proved effective, owing chiefly to the limitation of the library rate to ½d. in the £ of rental, which produced in most cases an insufficient revenue. In 1853 the Library Act of 1850 was extended to Ireland and Scotland, and in 1854 Scotland obtained an act increasing the rate limit from ½d. to 1d. in the £. In 1855 Ireland also obtained a penny rate, and later in the same year England obtained the same power by an act which remained the principal library act, with some intermediate amendments, till 1892, when a Public Library Consolidation Act was passed. In the following year, 1893, the power of adopting the acts, or putting them in operation, was transferred from the ratepayers to the local authority, save in the case of rural parishes and the metropolitan vestries. By the London Government Act of 1899, however, the metropolitan boroughs were given the power of adopting the acts of 1892-1893 without consulting the ratepayers, so that as the law at present stands, any urban district can put the public libraries acts in force without reference to the voters. Rural parishes are still required by the provisions of the Local Government Act 1894 to adopt the 1892 Libraries Act by means of a parish meeting, or if a poll is demanded, by means of a poll of the voters.

Between 1850 and 1910 about 630 local government areas of all kinds adopted the Public Libraries Acts. Of these a considerable number had in 1910 not yet put the acts in operation, whilst the London Government Act 1899, by joining various previously independent vestries or boards, extinguished about 23 library areas. The Metropolitan County of London in 1910 comprised 25 library areas, or counting also the City, 26, and only Marylebone, Bethnal Green and parts of Finsbury and Paddington remained unprovided. Practically every large city or district council has adopted the Public Libraries Acts or obtained special legislation, and the only important places, in addition to Marylebone and Bethnal Green, unprovided in 1910 were Bacup, Crewe, Dover, Jarrow, Scarborough, Swindon, Weymouth, Llandudno, Govan, Leith, Pollokshaws and Wishaw. In all, 556 places had library systems in operation, and among them they possessed about 925 buildings.

There is one municipal library whose importance demands special mention, although it is not rate-supported under the provisions of the Public Libraries Acts. This is the Guildhall library of the Corporation of the City of London, which is a free public reference library with a periodicals reading-room, and a lending department for officials and members of the corporation. A library was established for London by Sir Richard Whittington between 1421-1426, and several notices in the civic records show how well in those times the citizens cared for their books. But it did not remain without accident; in 1522 the Lord Protector Somerset carried off three cart-loads of books, and during the great fire of 1666 the remainder was destroyed together with the library buildings. Nothing was done to repair the loss until 1824, when a committee was appointed, and rooms set apart for library purposes. In 1840 a catalogue of 10,000 vols. was printed, and in 1859 a second was prepared of 40,000 vols. In consequence of the large and increasing number of the readers, the present fine building was commenced about ten years later, and, after having cost £90,000, was opened in 1873 as a free public library.

There is such a variety of library buildings in the United Kingdom that it is not possible to single out British library administration. examples for special description, but a brief statement of their work and methods will help to give some idea of the extent of their activities.

The total number of borrowers enrolled in 1910 was11 about 2,200,000, 59% males and 41% females, 48% under 20 years of age and 52% over 20. Industrial and commercial occupations were followed by 49% of the borrowers, the balance of 51% being domestic, professional, unstated, and including 20% of students and scholars. To these borrowers 60,000,000 vols. are circulated every year for home-reading, and of this large number 54% represented fiction, including juvenile literature. The Reference libraries issued over 11,000,000 vols., exclusive of books consulted at open shelves, and to the Reading-rooms, Magazines, Newspapers, Directories, Time-tables, &c., allowing only one consultation for each visit, 85,000,000 visits are made per annum. Allowing 5% for the reading of fiction in current magazines, it appears that the percentage of fiction read in British municipal libraries, taking into account the work of every issuing or consulting department, is only about 24%. This fact should be carefully recorded, as in the past municipal libraries have suffered in the esteem of all sections of the public, by being erroneously described as mere centres for the distribution of common novels. The quality of the fiction selected is the best obtainable, and, as shown above, it is not read to an unreasonable or unnecessary extent.

The changes in character, policy and methods which have marked library administration in the United Kingdom, have affected libraries of all kinds, but on the whole the municipal libraries have been most active in the promotion of improvements. It is evident, moreover, even to the most casual observer, that a complete revolution in library practice has been effected since 1882, not only in the details of administration, but in the initiation of ideas and experiments. One of the most notable changes has been the gradual disappearance of the unclassified library. Previous to 1882 very little had been accomplished in the way of scientific classification schemes equipped with suitable notations, although the Decimal method of Mr Melvil Dewey had been applied in the United States. After that date this system began to be adopted for reference departments in British municipal libraries, till in 1910 at least 120 places had been classified by means of the scheme. An English scheme, called the “Adjustable,” with a notation, but not fully expanded, has been adopted in 53 places, and a very complete and minute scheme called the “Subject,” also English, has been used in nearly 40 libraries, although it only dates from 1906. That much remains to be accomplished in this direction is indicated by the fact that over 340 municipal libraries were in 1910 not closely classified, but only arranged in broad numerical or alphabetical divisions. The adoption of exact schemes of classification for books in libraries may be said to double their utility almost mechanically, and in course of time an unclassified municipal library will be unknown. The other kinds of library—state, subscription, university, &c.—are very often not classified, but some use the Decimal system, while others, like the Patent Office, have systems peculiar to themselves.

The catalogue, as a means of making known the contents of books, has also undergone a succession of changes, both in policy and mechanical construction. At one period, before access to the shelves and other methods of making known the contents of libraries had become general, the printed catalogue was relied upon as practically the sole guide to the books. Many excellent examples of such catalogues exist, in author, subject and classified form, and some of them are admirable contributions to bibliography. Within recent years, however, doubts have arisen in many quarters, both in Europe and America, as to the wisdom of printing the catalogues of general popular libraries which possess comparatively few rare or extraordinary books. A complete catalogue of such a library is out of date the moment it is printed, and in many cases the cost is very great, while only a small number is sold. For these and other reasons, modern libraries have begun to compile complete catalogues only in MS. form, and to issue comparatively cheap class-lists at intervals, supplemented by monthly or quarterly bulletins or lists of recent accessions, which in combination will answer most of the questions likely to be put to a catalogue. Various improvements in the mechanical construction of manuscript catalogues have contributed to popularize them, and many 560 libraries use the card, sheaf and other systems which allow constant and infinite intercalation coupled with economy and ease in making additions.

The idea of using separate slips or cards for cataloguing books, in order to obtain complete powers of arrangement and revision is not new, having been applied during the French revolutionary period to the cataloguing of libraries. More recently the system has been applied to various commercial purposes, such as book-keeping by what is known as the “loose-leaf ledger,” and in this way greater public attention has been directed to the possibilities of adjustable methods both in libraries and for business. The card system is perhaps the most generally used at present, but many improvements in the adjustable binders, called by librarians the “sheaf system,” will probably result in this latter form becoming a serious rival. The card method consists of a series of cards in alphabetical or other order kept on edge in trays or drawers, to which projecting guides are added in order to facilitate reference. Entries are usually made on one side of the card, and one card serves for a single entry. The sheaf method provides for slips of an uniform size being kept in book form in volumes capable of being opened by means of a screw or other fastening, for the purpose of adding or withdrawing slips. In addition to the advantage of being in book-form the sheaf system allows both sides of a slip to be used, while in many cases from two to twelve entries may be made on one slip. This is a great economy and leads to considerable saving of space. A great advantage resulting from the use of an adjustable manuscript catalogue, in whatever form adopted, is the simplicity with which it can be kept up-to-date. This is an advantage which in the view of many librarians outweighs the undoubted valuable qualities of comparative safety and multiplication of copies possessed by the printed form. There are many different forms of both card and sheaf systems, and practically every library now uses one or other of them for cataloguing or indexing purposes.

One other modification in connexion with the complete printed catalogue has been tried with success, and seems worthy of brief mention. After a complete manuscript catalogue has been provided in sheaf form, a select or eclectic catalogue is printed, comprising all the most important books in the library and those that represent special subjects. This, when supplemented by a printed list or bulletin of additions, seems to supply every need.

The most striking tendency of the modern library movement is the great increase in the freedom allowed to readers both in reference and lending departments. Although access to the shelves was quite a common feature in the older subscription libraries, and in state libraries like the British Museum and Patent Office, it is only within comparatively recent years that lending library borrowers were granted a similar privilege. Most municipal reference libraries grant access to a large or small collection of books, and at Cambridge, Birmingham and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, the practice is of long standing. So also in the United States, practically every library has its open shelf collection. On the continent of Europe, however, this method is not at all general, and books are guarded with a jealousy which in many cases must militate against their utility. The first “safe-guarded” open access municipal lending library was opened at Clerkenwell (now Finsbury), London, in 1893, and since then over one hundred cities and districts of all sizes in Britain have adopted the system. The British municipal libraries differ considerably from those of the United States in the safeguards against abuse which are employed, and the result is that their losses are insignificant, whilst in America they are sometimes enormous. Pawtucket and Cleveland in America were pioneers to some extent of the open shelf system for lending libraries, but the methods employed had little resemblance to the safe-guarded system of British libraries. The main features of the British plan are: exact classification; class, shelf and book guiding; the provision of automatic locking wickets to regulate the entrance and exit of borrowers, and the rule that borrowers must be registered before they can obtain admission. This last rule is not always current in America, and in consequence abuses are liable to take place. The great majority of British and American libraries, whether allowing open access or not, use cards for charging or registering books loaned to borrowers. In the United Kingdom a considerable number of places still use indicators for this purpose, although this mechanical method is gradually being restricted to fiction, save in very small places.

British Colonies and India.

The majority of the British Colonies and Dependencies have permissive library laws on lines very similar to those in force in the mother country. There are, however, several points of difference which are worth mention. The rate limit is not so strict in every case, and an effort is made to bring the libraries into closer relations with the educational machinery of each colony. There is, for example, no rate limit in Tasmania; and South Australia may raise a library rate equivalent to 3d. in the £, although, in both cases, owing to the absence of large towns, the legislation existing has not been adopted. In Africa, Australia and Canada the governments make grants to public libraries up to a certain amount, on condition that the reading-rooms are open to the public, and some of the legislatures are even in closer touch with the libraries. The Canadian and Australian libraries are administered more or less on American lines, whilst those of South Africa, India, &c., are managed on the plan followed in England.

Africa.

There are several important libraries in South Africa, and many small town libraries which used to receive a government grant equal to the subscriptions of the members, but in no case did such grants exceed £150 for any one library in one year. These grants fluctuate considerably owing to the changes and temper of successive governments, and since the last war they have been considerably reduced everywhere. One of the oldest libraries is the South African Public Library at Cape Town established in 1818, which enjoys the copyright-privilege of 561 receiving a free copy of every publication issued in Cape Colony. This library contains the great collection of colonial books bequeathed by Sir George Grey. The libraries of the various legislatures are perhaps the best supported and most important, but mention should be made of the public libraries of Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony, which published an excellent catalogue, and the public libraries at Kimberley; Durban, Natal; Bloemfontein, Orange River Colony; Bulawayo, Rhodesia; Johannesburg, Transvaal; and the public and university libraries at Pretoria. None of the libraries of North Africa are specially notable, although there are considerable collections at Cairo and Algiers.

Australasia.

All the public libraries, mechanics’ institutes, schools of arts and similar institutes receive aid from the government, either in the form of grants of money or boxes of books sent from some centre. The public library of New South Wales, Sydney (1869), which includes the Mitchell Library of over 50,000 vols., now possesses a total of nearly 250,000 vols., and circulates books to country libraries, lighthouses and teachers’ associations to the number of about 20,000 vols. per annum. The public library of Victoria, Melbourne (1853), with about 220,000 vols., also sends books to 443 country libraries of various kinds, which among them possess 750,000 vols., and circulate annually considerably over 2½ million vols. The university library at Melbourne (1855) has over 20,000 vols., and the libraries connected with the parliament and various learned societies are important. The public library of South Australia, Adelaide, has about 75,000 vols., and is the centre for the distribution of books to the institutes throughout the colony. These institutes possess over 325,000 vols. There is a good public library at Brisbane, Queensland, and there are a number of state-aided schools of arts with libraries attached. The Library of Parliament in Brisbane possesses over 40,000, and the Rockhampton School of Arts has 10,000 vols. Western Australia has a public library at Perth, which was established in 1887, and the small town institutes are assisted as in the other colonies.

Tasmania has several good libraries in the larger towns, but none of them had in 1910 taken advantage of the act passed in 1867 which gives municipalities practically unlimited powers and means as far as the establishment and maintenance of public libraries are concerned. At Hobart the Tasmanian Public Library (1849) is one of the most important, with 25,000 vols.

New Zealand is well equipped with public libraries established under acts dating from 1869 to 1877, as well as subscription, college and government libraries. At Auckland the Free Public Library (1880) has 50,000 vols., including Sir George Grey’s Australasian collection; the Canterbury Public Library, Christchurch (1874), has 40,000 vols.; the University of Otago Library, Dunedin (1872), 10,000 vols.; and the public library at Wellington (1893) contains 20,000 vols.

India and the East.

Apart from government and royal libraries, there are many college, society, subscription and others, both English and oriental. It is impossible to do more than name a few of the most notable. Lists of many of the libraries in private hands including descriptions of their MS. contents have been issued by the Indian government. At Calcutta the Sanskrit college has 1652 printed Sanskrit volumes and 2769 Sanskrit MSS., some as old as the 14th century; there is also a large collection of Jain MSS. The Arabic library attached to the Arabic department of the Madrasa was founded about 1781, and now includes 731 printed volumes, 143 original MSS. and 151 copies; the English library of the Anglo-Persian department dates from 1854, and extends to 3254 vols. The library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal was founded in 1784, and now contains 15,000 printed vols., chiefly on eastern and philological subjects, with a valuable collection of 9500 Arabic and Persian MSS.

At Bombay the library of the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, established in 1804 as the Literary Society of Bengal, is now an excellent general and oriental collection of 75,000 printed vols. and MSS., described in printed catalogues. The Moolla Feroze Library was bequeathed for public use by Moolla Feroze, head priest of the Parsis of the Kudmi sect in 1831, and consisted chiefly of MSS., in Arabic and Persian on history, philosophy and astronomy; some additions of English and Gujarati works have been made, as well as of European books on Zoroastrianism. The Native General Library (1845) has 11,000 vols., and there are libraries attached to Elphinstone College and the university of Bombay.

The library of Tippoo Sahib, consisting of 2000 MSS., fell into the hands of the British, and a descriptive catalogue of them by Charles Stewart was published at Cambridge in 1809, 4to. A few were presented to public libraries in England, but the majority were placed in the college of Fort William, then recently established. The first volume, containing Persian and Hindustani poetry, of the Catalogue of the Libraries of the King of Oudh, by A. Sprenger, was published at Calcutta in 1854. The compiler shortly afterwards left the Indian service, and no measures were taken to complete the work. On the annexation of the kingdom in 1856 the ex-king is believed to have taken some of the most valuable MSS. to Calcutta, but the largest portion was left behind at Lucknow. During the siege the books were used to block up windows, &c., and those which were not destroyed were abandoned and plundered by the soldiers. Many were burnt for fuel; a few, however, were rescued and sold by auction, and of these some were purchased for the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Perhaps the most remarkable library in India is that of the rājā of Tanjore, which dates from the end of the 16th or beginning of the 17th century, when Tanjore was under the rule of the Telugu Nāiks, who collected Sanskrit MSS. written in the Telugu character. In the 18th century the Mahrattas conquered the country, and since that date the library increased but slowly. By far the greater portion of the store was acquired by Sharabhojī Rājā during a visit to Benares in 1820-1830; his successor Sivajī added a few, but of inferior value. There are now about 18,000 MSS. written in Devanāgarī, Nandināgarī, Telugu, Kannada, Granthī, Malayālam, Bengalī, Panjābī or Kashmirī, and Uriya; 8000 are on palm leaves. Dr Burnell’s printed catalogue describes 12,375 articles.

The Royal Asiatic Society has branches with libraries attached in many of the large cities of India, the Straits Settlements, Ceylon, China, Japan, &c. At Rangoon in Burma there are several good libraries. The Raffles Library at Singapore was established as a proprietary institution in 1844, taken over by the government in 1874, and given legal status by an ordinance passed in 1878. It now contains about 35,000 vols. in general literature, but books relating to the Malayan peninsula and archipelago have been made a special feature, and since the acquisition of the collection of J. R. Logan in 1879 the library has become remarkably rich in this department. In Ceylon there is the Museum Library at Colombo (1877), which is maintained by the government, and there are many subscription and a few oriental libraries.

Canada.

The public libraries of the various provinces of Canada have grown rapidly in importance and activity, and, assisted as they are by government and municipal grants, they promise to rival those of the United States in generous equipment. Most of the library work in Canada is on the same lines as that of the United States, and there are no special points of difference worth mention. The library laws of the Dominion are embodied in a series of acts dating from 1854, by which much the same powers are conferred on local authorities as by the legislation of Britain and the United States. An important feature of the Canadian library law is the close association maintained between schools and libraries, and in some provinces the school libraries are established by the school and not the library laws. There is also an important extension of libraries to the rural districts, so that in every direction full provision is being made for the after-school education and recreation of the people.

562

United States of America.

The libraries of the United States are remarkable for their number, size, variety, liberal endowment and good administration. The total number of libraries with over 1000 vols. was 5383 in 1900, including those attached to schools and institutions, and in 1910 there were probably at least 10,000 libraries having 1000 vols. and over. It is impossible to do more than glance at the principal libraries and activities, where the field is so immense, and a brief sketch of some of the chief federal, state, university, endowed and municipal libraries will therefore be presented.

The Library of Congress was first established in 1800 at Washington, and was burned together with the Capitol by the British army in 1814. President Jefferson’s books were purchased to form the foundation of a new Federal libraries. library, which continued to increase slowly until 1851, when all but 20,000 vols. were destroyed by fire. From this time the collection has grown rapidly, and now consists of about 1,800,000 vols. In 1866 the library of the Smithsonian Institution, consisting of 40,000 vols., chiefly in natural science, was transferred to the Library of Congress. The library is specially well provided in history, jurisprudence, the political sciences and Americana. Since 1832 the law collections have been constituted into a special department. This is the national library. In 1870 the registry of copyrights was transferred to it under the charge of the librarian of Congress, and two copies of every publication which claims copyright are required to be deposited. Cards for these are now printed and copies are sold to other libraries for an annual subscription fixed according to the number taken. The building in which the library is now housed was opened in 1897. It covers 3½ acres of ground, contains 10,000,000 cub. ft. of space, and has possible accommodation for over 4 million vols. Its cost was $6,500,000, or including the land, $7,000,000. It is the largest, most ornate and most costly building in the world yet erected for library purposes. Within recent years the appropriation has been largely increased, and the bibliographical department has been able to publish many valuable books on special subjects. The A.L.A. Catalog (1904) and A.L.A. Portrait Index (1906), may be mentioned as of especial value. The classification of the library is being gradually completed, and in every respect this is the most active government library in existence.

Other important federal libraries are those attached to the following departments at Washington: Bureau of Education (1868); Geological Survey (1882); House of Representatives; Patent Office (1836); Senate (1868); Surgeon General’s Office (1870), with an elaborate analytical printed catalogue of world-wide fame.

Although the state libraries of Pennsylvania and New Hampshire are known to have been established as early as 1777, it was not until some time after the revolution that any general tendency was shown to form official libraries State libraries. in connexion with the state system. It is especially within the last thirty years that the number of these libraries has so increased that now every state and territory possesses a collection of books and documents for official and public purposes. These collections depend for their increase upon annual appropriations by the several states, and upon a systematic exchange of the official publications of the general government and of the several states and territories. The largest is that of the state of New York at Albany, which contains nearly 500,000 vols., and is composed of a general and a law library. Printed and MS. card catalogues have been issued. The state libraries are libraries of reference, and only members of the official classes are allowed to borrow books, although any well-behaved person is admitted to read in the libraries.

The earliest libraries formed were in connexion with educational institutions, and the oldest is that of Harvard (1638). It was destroyed by fire in 1764, but active steps were at once taken for its restoration. From that time to University libraries. the present, private donations have been the great resource of the library. In 1840 the collection was removed to Gore Hall, erected for the purpose with a noble bequest from Christopher Gore (1758-1829), formerly governor of Massachusetts. There are also ten special libraries connected with the different departments of the university. The total numbers of vols. in all these collections is over 800,000. There is a MS. card-catalogue in two parts, by authors and subjects, which is accessible to the readers. The only condition of admission to use the books in Gore Hall is respectability; but only 563 members of the university and privileged persons may borrow books. The library of Yale College, New Haven, was founded in 1701, but grew so slowly that, even with the 1000 vols. received from Bishop Berkeley in 1733, it had only increased to 4000 vols. in 1766, and some of these were lost in the revolutionary war. During the 19th century the collection grew more speedily, and now the library numbers over 550,000 vols.

The establishment of proprietary or subscription libraries runs back into the first half of the 18th century, and is connected with the name of Benjamin Franklin. It was at Philadelphia, in the year 1731, that he set on foot Subscription and Endowed Libraries. what he called “his first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library.... The institution soon manifested its ability, was imitated by other towns and in other provinces.” The Library Company of Philadelphia was soon regularly incorporated, and gradually drew to itself other collections of books, including the Loganian Library, which was vested in the company by the state legislature in 1792 in trust for public use. Hence the collection combines the character of a public and of a proprietary library, being freely open for reference purposes, while the books circulate only among the subscribing members. It numbers at present 226,000 vols., of which 11,000 belong to the Loganian Library, and may be freely lent. In 1869 Dr James Rush left a bequest of over one million dollars for the purpose of erecting a building to be called the Ridgeway branch of the library. The building is very handsome, and has been very highly spoken of as a library structure. Philadelphia has another large proprietary library—that of the Mercantile Library Company, which was established in 1821. It possesses 200,000 vols., and its members have always enjoyed direct access to the shelves. The library of the Boston Athenaeum was established in 1807, and numbers 235,000 vols. It has published an admirable dictionary-catalogue. The collection is especially rich in art and in history, and possesses a part of the library of George Washington. The Mercantile Library Association of New York, which was founded in 1820, has over 240,000 vols. New York possesses two other large proprietary libraries, one of which claims to have been formed as early as 1700 as the “public” library of New York. It was organized as the New York Society Library in 1754, and has been especially the library of the old Knickerbocker families and their descendants, its contents bearing witness to its history. It contains about 100,000 vols. The Apprentices’ Library (1820) has about 100,000 vols., and makes a special feature of works on trades and useful arts.

The Astor Library in New York was founded by a bequest of John Jacob Astor, whose example was followed successively by his son and grandson. The library was opened to the public in 1854, and consists of a careful selection of the most valuable books upon all subjects. It is a library of reference, for which purpose it is freely open, and books are not lent out. It is “a working library for studious persons.” The Lenox Library was established by James Lenox in 1870, when a body of trustees was incorporated by an act of the legislature. In addition to the funds intended for the library building and endowment, amounting to $1,247,000, the private collection of books which Mr Lenox had long been accumulating is extremely valuable. Though it does not rank high in point of mere numbers, it is exceedingly rich in early books on America, in Bibles, in Shakesperiana and in Elizabethan poetry. Both those libraries are now merged in the New York Public Library. The Peabody Institute at Baltimore was established by George Peabody in 1857, and contains a reference library open to all comers. The institute has an endowment of $1,000,000, which, however, has to support, besides the library, a conservatoire of music, an art gallery, and courses of popular lectures. It has a very fine printed dictionary catalogue and now contains nearly 200,000 vols. In the same city is the Enoch Pratt Free Library (1882) with 257,000 vols. In the city of Chicago are two very important endowed libraries, the Newberry Library (1887) with over 200,000 vols., and the John Crerar Library (1894), with 235,000 vols. Both of these are reference libraries of great value, and the John Crerar Library specializes in science, for which purpose its founder left $3,000,000.

In no country has the movement for the development of municipal libraries made such progress as in the United States; these institutions called free or public as the case may be are distinguished for their work, enterprise and the Municipal Libraries. liberality with which they are supported. They are established under laws passed by the different states, the first to pass such an enactment being Massachusetts, which in 1848 empowered the city of Boston to establish a free public library. This was subsequently extended to the whole state in 1851. Other states followed, all with more or less variation in the provisions, till practically every state in the Union now has a body of library laws. In general the American library law is much on the same lines as the English. In most states the acts are permissive. In New Hampshire aid is granted by the state to any library for which a township contracts to make a definite annual appropriation. A limit is imposed in most states on the library tax which may be levied, although there are some, like Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which fix no limit. In every American town the amount derived from the library tax usually exceeds by double or more the same rate raised in Britain in towns of similar size. For example, East Orange, N.J., with a population of 35,000, expends £2400, while Dumfries in Scotland, with 23,000 pop. expends £500. Cincinnati, 345,000 pop., expenditure £26,000; Islington (London), 350,000 pop., expenditure £8200, is another example. In the smaller towns the difference is not so marked, but generally the average American municipal library income is considerably in excess of the British one. Many American municipal libraries have also endowments which add to their incomes.

In one respect the American libraries differ from those of the United Kingdom. They are usually managed by a small committee or body of trustees, about five or more in number, who administer the library independent of American Library Administration. the city council. This is akin to the practice in Scotland, although there, the committees are larger. In addition to the legislation authorizing town libraries to be established, thirty-two states have formed state library commissions. These are small bodies of three or five trained persons appointed by the different states which, acting on behalf of the state, encourage the formation of local libraries, particularly in towns and villages, and in many cases have authority to aid 564 their establishment by the grant out of the state funds of a certain sum (usually $100) towards the purchase of books, upon the appropriation of a similar sum by the local authorities. These commissions are prepared to aid further with select lists of desirable books, and with suggestions or advice in the problems of construction and maintenance. Such commissions are in existence in Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

The reports and other documents issued by some of these commissioners are very interesting and valuable, especially as regards the light they throw on the working of the travelling libraries in country districts. These to some extent are a revival of the “itinerating” library idea of Samuel Brown of Haddington in Scotland, who from 1817 to 1836 carried on a system of travelling subscription libraries in that country. At the time of his death there were 3850 vols. in 47 libraries. The American travelling libraries, often under state supervision, are well organized and numerous, and the books are circulated free. New York was the pioneer in this movement which now extends to most of the states which have established library commissions. There are also town travelling libraries and deposit stations in addition to branches, so that every effort is made to bring people in outlying districts into touch with books.

The municipal libraries of the United States work in conjunction with the schools, and it is generally considered that they are part of the educational machinery of the country. In the case of New York the state libraries have been put under the control of the university of the state of New York, which also inaugurated the travelling libraries. Work with the schools and children generally is more cultivated in the libraries of the United States than elsewhere. In some cases the libraries send collections of books to the schools; in others provision is made for children’s reading-rooms and lending departments at the library buildings. At Cleveland (Ohio), Pittsburg (Pa.), New York and many other places, elaborate arrangements are in force for the convenience and amusement of children. There is a special school, the Carnegie Library training school for children’s librarians, at Pittsburg, and within recent years the instruction has included the art of telling stories to children at the libraries. This “story-hour” idea has been the cause of considerable discussion in the United States, librarians and teachers being divided in opinion as to the value of the service. The chief factors in children’s work in American libraries, often overlooked by critics, are the number of non-English reading adults and the large number of children of foreign origin. The adults do not use the libraries to any large extent, but the children, who learn English at the schools, are brought into close touch with the juvenile departments of the libraries. In this way many libraries are obliged to undertake special work for children, and as a rule it is performed in a sane, practical and economical manner. The preponderance of women librarians and their natural sentimental regard for children has tended to make this work loom rather largely in some quarters, but with these exceptions the activity on behalf of children is justified on many grounds. But above all, it is manifest that a rapidly growing nation, finding homes for thousands of foreigners and their children annually, must use every means of rapidly educating their new citizens, and the public library is one of the most efficient and ready ways of accomplishing this great national object.

With regard to methods, the American libraries are working on much the same plan as those of the United Kingdom. They allow access to the shelves more universally, and there is much more standardization in classification and other internal matters. The provision of books is more profuse, although there is, on the whole, more reading done in the United Kingdom. The largest municipal library system in America, and also in the world, is that of New York City, which, after struggling with a series of Free Circulating Libraries, blossomed out in 1895 into the series of combinations which resulted in the present great establishment. In that year, the Astor and Lenox libraries (see above) were taken over by the city, and in addition, $2,000,000 was given by one of the heirs of Mr S. J. Tilden, who had bequeathed about $4,000,000 for library purposes in New York but whose will had been upset in the law courts. In 1901 Mr Andrew Carnegie gave about £1,500,000 for the purpose of providing 65 branches, and these are now nearly all erected. A very fine central library building has been erected, and when the organization is completed there will be no system of municipal libraries to equal that of New York. It possesses about 1,400,000 vols. in the consolidated libraries. Brooklyn, although forming part of Greater New York, has an independent library system, and possesses about 560,000, vols. distributed among 26 branches and including the old Brooklyn Library which has been absorbed in the municipal library system. At Boston (Mass.) is one of the most renowned public libraries in the United States, and also the oldest established by act of legislature. It was first opened to the public in 1854, and is now housed in a very magnificently decorated building which was completed in 1895. The central library contains many fine special collections, and there are 28 branch and numerous school libraries in connexion. It possesses about 1,000,000 vols. altogether, its annual circulation is about 1,500,000 vols., and its annual expenditure is nearly £70,000.

France.

French libraries (other than those in private hands) belong either to the state, to the departments, to the communes, or to learned societies, educational establishments and other public institutions; the libraries of judicial or administrative bodies are not considered to be owned by them, but to be state property. Besides the unrivalled library accommodation of the capital, France possesses a remarkable assemblage of provincial libraries. The communal and school libraries also form striking features of the French free library system. Taking as a basis for comparison the Tableau statistique des bibliothèques publiques (1857), there were at that date 340 departmental libraries with a total of 3,734,260 vols., and 44,436 MSS. In 1908 the number of volumes in all the public libraries; communal, university, learned societies, educational and departmental, was more than 20,060,148 vols., 93,986 MSS. and 15,530 incunabula. Paris alone now possesses over 10,570,000 printed vols., 147,543 MSS., 5000 incunabula, 609,439 maps and plans, 2,000,000 prints (designs and reproductions).

The Bibliothèque Nationale (one of the most extensive libraries in the world) has had an advantage over others in the length of time during which its contents have been accumulating, and in the great zeal shown for it by several Paris. kings and other eminent men. Enthusiastic writers find the 565 original of this library in the MS. collections of Charlemagne and Charles the Bald, but these were dispersed in course of time, and the few precious relics of them which the national library now possesses have been acquired at a much later date. Of the library which St Louis formed in the 13th century (in imitation of what he had seen in the East) nothing has fallen into the possession of the Bibliothèque Nationale, but much has remained of the royal collections made by kings of the later dynasties. The real foundation of the institution (formerly known as the Bibliothèque du Roi) may be said to date from the reign of King John, the Black Prince’s captive, who had a considerable taste for books, and bequeathed his “royal library” of MSS. to his successor Charles V. Charles V. organized his library in a very effective manner, removing it from the Palais de la Cité to the Louvre, where it was arranged on desks in a large hall of three storeys, and placed under the management of the first librarian and cataloguer, Claude Mallet, the king’s valet-de-chambre. His catalogue was a mere shelf-list, entitled Inventaire des Livres du Roy nostre Seigneur estans au chastel du Louvre; it is still extant, as well as the further inventories made by Jean Blanchet in 1380, and by Jean le Bègue in 1411 and 1424. Charles V. was very liberal in his patronage of literature, and many of the early monuments of the French language are due to his having employed Nicholas Oresme, Ràoul de Presle and other scholars to make translations from ancient texts. Charles VI. added some hundreds of MSS. to the royal library, which, however, was sold to the regent, duke of Bedford, after a valuation had been established by the inventory of 1424. The regent transferred it to England, and it was finally dispersed at his death in 1435. Charles VII. and Louis XI. did little to repair the loss of the precious Louvre library, but the news of the invention of printing served as a stimulus to the creation of another one, of which the first librarian was Laurent Paulmier. The famous miniaturist, Jean Foucquet of Tours, was named the king’s enlumineur, and although Louis XI. neglected to avail himself of many precious opportunities that occurred in his reign, still the new library developed gradually with the help of confiscation. Charles VIII. enriched it with many fine MSS. executed by his order, and also with most of the books that had formed the library of the kings of Aragon, seized by him at Naples. Louis XII., on coming to the throne, incorporated the Bibliothèque du Roi with the fine Orleans library at Blois, which he had inherited. The Blois library, thus augmented, and further enriched by plunder from the palaces of Pavia, and by the purchase of the famous Gruthuyse collection, was described at the time as one of the four marvels of France. Francis I. removed it to Fontainebleau in 1534, enlarged by the addition of his private library. He was the first to set the fashion of fine artistic bindings, which was still more cultivated by Henry II., and which has never died out in France. During the librarianship of Amyot (the translator of Plutarch) the library was transferred from Fontainebleau to Paris, not without the loss of several books coveted by powerful thieves. Henry IV. removed it to the Collége de Clermont, but in 1604 another change was made, and in 1622 it was installed in the Rue de la Harpe. Under the librarianship of J. A. de Thou it acquired the library of Catherine de’ Medici, and the glorious Bible of Charles the Bald. In 1617 a decree was passed that two copies of every new publication should be deposited in the library, but this was not rigidly enforced till Louis XIV.’s time. The first catalogue worthy of the name was finished in 1622, and contains a description of some 6000 vols., chiefly MSS. Many additions were made during Louis XIII.’s reign, notably that of the Dupuy collection, but a new era dawned for the Bibliothèque du Roi under the patronage of Louis XIV. The enlightened activity of Colbert, one of the greatest of collectors, so enriched the library that it became necessary for want of space to make another removal. It was therefore in 1666 installed in the Rue Vivien (now Vivienne) not far from its present habitat. The departments of engravings and medals were now created, and before long rose to nearly equal importance with that of books. Marolles’s prints, Foucquet’s books, and many from the Mazarin library were added to the collection, and, in short, the Bibliothèque du Roi had its future pre-eminence undoubtedly secured. Nic. Clément made a catalogue in 1684 according to an arrangement which has been followed ever since (that is, in twenty-three classes, each one designated by a letter of the alphabet), with an alphabetical index to it. After Colbert’s death Louvois emulated his predecessor’s labours, and employed Mabillon, Thevenot and others to procure fresh accessions from all parts of the world. A new catalogue was compiled in 1688 in 8 vols, by several distinguished scholars. The Abbé Louvois, the minister’s son, became head of the library in 1691, and opened it to all students—a privilege which although soon withdrawn was afterwards restored. Towards the end of Louis XIV.’s reign it contained over 70,000 vols. Under the management of the Abbé Bignon numerous additions were made in all departments, and the library was removed to its present home in the Rue Richelieu. Among the more important acquisitions were 6000 MSS. from the private library of the Colbert family, Bishop Huet’s forfeited collection, and a large number of Oriental books imported by missionaries from the farther East, and by special agents from the Levant. Between 1739 and 1753 a catalogue in 11 vols, was printed, which enabled the administration to discover and to sell its duplicates. In Louis XVI.’s reign the sale of the La Vallière library furnished a valuable increase both in MSS. and printed books. A few years before the Revolution broke out the latter department contained over 300,000 vols, and opuscules. The Revolution was serviceable to the library, now called the Bibliothèque Nationale, by increasing it with the forfeited collections of the émigrés, as well as of the suppressed religious communities. In the midst of the difficulties of placing and cataloguing these numerous acquisitions, the name of Van Praet appears as an administrator of the first order. Napoleon increased the amount of the government grant; and by the strict enforcement of the law concerning new publications, as well as by the acquisition of several special collections, the Bibliothèque made considerable progress during his reign towards realizing his idea that it should be universal in character. At the beginning of last century the recorded numbers were 250,000 printed vols., 83,000 MSS., and 1,500,000 engravings. After Napoleon’s downfall the MSS. which he had transferred from Berlin, Hanover, Florence, Venice, Rome, the Hague and other places had to be returned to their proper owners. The MacCarthy sale in 1817 brought a rich store of MSS. and incunabula. From that time onwards to the present, under the enlightened administration of MM. Taschereau and Delisle and Marcel, the accessions have been very extensive.

The Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal was founded by the marquis de Paulmy (Antoine-René d’Argenson) in the 18th century; it received in 1786 80,000 vols. from the duc de La Vallière. Before its confiscation as national property it had belonged to the comte d’Artois, who had bought it from the marquis de Paulmy in his lifetime. It contains at the present time about 600,000 vols., 10,000 manuscripts, 120,000 prints and the Bastille collection (2500 portfolios) of which the inventory is complete; it is the richest library for the literary history of France and has more than 30,000 theatrical pieces.

The Bibliothèque Mazarine owes its origin to the great cardinal, who confided the direction to Gabriel Naudé; it was open to the public in 1642, and was transferred to Rue de Richelieu in 1648. Dispersed during the Fronde in the lifetime of Mazarin, it was reconstituted after the death of the cardinal in 1661, when it contained 40,000 vols. which were left to the Collège des Quatre-Nations, which in 1691 made it again public. It now has 250,000 vols.; with excellent manuscript catalogues.

The first library of the Genovéfains had nearly disappeared owing to bad administration when Cardinal François de la Rochefoucauld, who had charge of the reformation of that religious order, constituted in 1642 a new library with his own books. The Bibliothèque Ste-Geneviève in 1716 possessed 45,000 vols.; important gifts were made by Letellier in 1791, and the duc d’Orléans increased it still more. It became national property in 1791, and was called the Bibliothèque du Panthéon and added to the Lycée Henri IV. under the empire. In 1908 the library contained 350,000 printed vols., 1225 incunabula, 3510 manuscripts, 10,000 prints (including 7357 portraits and 3000 maps and plans).

The Bibliothèque des Archives nationales, founded in 1808 by Daunou, contains 30,000 vols. on sciences auxiliary to history. It is only accessible to the officials.

Before the Revolution there were in Paris alone 1100 libraries containing altogether 2,000,000 vols. After the suppression of the religious orders the libraries were confiscated, and in 1791 more than 800,000 vols, were seized in 162 religious houses and transferred to eight literary foundations in accordance with a decree of November 14, 1789. In the provinces 6,000,000 vols. were seized and transferred to local depositories. The organization of the central libraries under the decree of 3 Brumaire An IV. (October 25, 1795) came to nothing, but the consular edict of January 28, 1803 gave definitive organization to the books in the local depositories. From that time the library system was reconstituted, alike in Paris and the provinces. Unfortunately many precious books and MSS. were burnt, since by the decree of 4 Brumaire An II. (October 25, 1793) the Committee of Instruction ordered, on the proposition of its president the deputy Romme, the destruction or modification of books and objects of art, under the pretext that they recalled the outward signs of feudalism.

The books in the provincial libraries, not including those in private hands or belonging to societies, number over 9,200,000 vols., 15,540 incunabula and 93,986 MSS. The number in the colonies and protected states outside France is uncertain, but Libraries of the Departments. it extends to more than 200,000 vols.; to this number must be 568 added the 2,428,954 vols. contained in the university libraries. There are over 300 departmental libraries, and as many belong to learned societies. The increase in the provincial libraries is slower than that of the Parisian collections. With the exception of 26 libraries connected specially with the state, the others are municipal and are administered under state control by municipal librarians. The original foundation of most of the libraries dates but a short time before the Revolution, but there are a few exceptions. Thus the Bibliothèque d’Angers owes its first collection to Alain de la Rue about 1376; it now contains 72,485 vols., 134 incunabula and 2039 MSS. That of Bourges dates from 1466 (36,856 vols., 325 incunabula, 741 MSS.). The library of Carpentras was established by Michel Anglici between 1452 and 1474 (50,000 vols., 2154 MSS.). Mathieu de la Porte is said to be the founder of the library at Clermont-Ferrand at the end of the 15th century; it contained rather more than 49,000 vols. at the time of its union with the Bibliothèque Universitaire.

Germany (with Austria-Hungary and Switzerland).

Germany is emphatically the home of large libraries; her former want of political unity and consequent multiplicity of capitals have had the effect of giving her many large state libraries, and the number of her universities has Germany. tended to multiply considerable collections; 1617 libraries were registered by P. Schwenke in 1891. As to the conditions, hours of opening, &c., of 200 of the most important of them, there is a yearly statement in the Jahrbuch der deutschen Bibliotheken, published by the Verein deutscher Bibliothekare.

The public libraries of the German empire are of four distinct types: state libraries, university libraries, town libraries and popular libraries. The administration and financial affairs of the state and university libraries are under state control. The earlier distinction between these two classes has become less and less marked. Thus the university libraries are no longer restricted to professors and students, but they are widely used by scientific workers, and books are borrowed extensively, especially in Prussia. In Prussia, as a link between the state and the libraries, there has been since 1907 a special office which deals with library matters at the Ministry of Public Instruction. Generally the state does not concern itself with the town libraries and the popular libraries, but there is much in common between these two classes. Sometimes popular libraries are under the supervision of a scientifically administered town library as in Berlin, Dantzig, &c.; elsewhere, as at Magdeburg, we see an ancient foundation take up the obligations of a public library. Only in Prussia and Bavaria are regulations in force as to the professional education of librarians. Since 1904 the librarians of the Prussian state libraries have been obliged to complete their university courses and take up their doctorate, after which they have to work two years in a library as volunteers and then undergo a technical examination. The secretarial officials since 1909 have to reach a certain educational standard and must pass an examination. This regulation has been in force as regards librarians in Bavaria from 1905.

The Adressbuch der Bibliotheken der Oesterreich-ungarischen Monarchie by Bohatta and Holzmann (1900) describes 1014 libraries in Austria, 656 in Hungary, and 23 in Bosnia Austria. and Herzegovina. Included in this list, however, are private lending libraries.

The largest library in Austria, and one of the most important collections in Europe, is the Imperial Public Library at Vienna, apparently founded by the emperor Frederick III. in 1440, although its illustrious librarian Lambecius, in the well-known inscription over the entrance to the library which summarizes its history attributes this honour to Frederick’s son Maximilian. However this may be, the munificence of succeeding emperors greatly added to the wealth of the collection, including a not inconsiderable portion of the dispersed library of Corvinus. Since 1808 the library has also been entitled to the copy-privilege in respect of all books published in the empire. The sum devoted to the purchase and binding of books is £6068 annually. The number of printed vols. is 1,000,000; 8000 incunabula. The MSS. amount to 27,000, with 100,000 papyri of the collection of Archduke Rainer. The main library apartment is one of the most splendid halls in Europe. Admission to the reading-room is free to everybody, and books are also lent out under stricter limitations. The University Library of Vienna was established by Maria Theresa. The reading-room is open to all comers, and the library is open from 1st Oct. to 30th June from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; in the other months for shorter hours. In 1909 447,391 vols. were used in the library, 45,000 vols. lent out in Vienna, and 6519 vols. sent carriage free to borrowers outside Vienna. The number of printed vols. is 757,000. For the purchase of books and binding the Vienna University Library has annually 60,000 crowns from the state as well as 44,000 crowns from matriculation fees and contributions from the students.

Information about income, administration, accessions, &c., of the chief libraries in the Hungarian kingdom, are given in the Hungarian Statistical Year Book annually. The largest library in Hungary is the Széchenyi-Nationalbibliothek Hungary. at Budapest, founded in 1802 by the gift of the library of Count Franz Széchenyi. It contains 400,000 printed vols., 16,000 MSS., and has a remarkable collection of Hungarica. The University Library of Budapest includes 273,000 printed books and more than 2000 MSS. Since 1897 there has been in Hungary a Chief Inspector of Museums and Libraries whose duty is to watch all public museums and libraries which are administered by committees, municipalities, religious bodies and societies. He also has undertaken the task of organizing a general catalogue of all the MSS. and early printed books in Hungary.

Among the Swiss libraries, which numbered 2096 in 1868, there is none of the first rank. Only three possess over 200,000 vols.—the University Library at Basle founded in 1460, the Cantonal Library at Lausanne, and the Stadtbibliothek at Switzerland. Berne, which since 1905 is united to the University Library of that city. One great advantage of the Swiss libraries is that they nearly all possess printed catalogues, which greatly further the plan of compiling a great general catalogue of all the libraries of the republic. A valuable co-operative work is their treatment of Helvetiana. All the literature since 1848 is collected by the Landes-Bibliothek at Berne, established in 1895 for this special object. The older literature is brought together in the Bürgerbibliothek at Lucerne, for which it has a government grant. The monastic libraries of St Gall and Einsiedeln date respectively from the years 830 and 946, and are of great historical and literary interest.

Italy.

As the former centre of civilization, Italy is, of course, the country in which the oldest existing libraries must be looked for, and in which the rarest and most valuable MSS. are preserved. The Vatican at Rome and the Laurentian Library at Florence are sufficient in themselves to entitle Italy to rank before most other states in that respect, and the venerable relics at Vercelli, Monte Cassino and La Cava bear witness to the enlightenment of the peninsula while other nations were slowly taking their places in the circle of Christian polity. The local rights and interests which so long helped to impede the unification of Italy were useful in creating and preserving at numerous minor centres many libraries which otherwise would probably have been lost during the progress of absorption that results from such centralization as exists in England. In spite of long centuries of suffering and of the aggression of foreign swords and foreign gold, Italy is still rich in books and MSS. The latest official statistics (1896) give particulars of 1831 libraries, of which 419 are provincial and communal. In 1893 there were 542 libraries of a popular character and including circulating libraries.

The governmental libraries (biblioteche governative) number 36 and are under the authority of the minister of public instruction. The Regolamento controlling them was issued in the Bolletino Ufficiale, 5 Dec. 1907. They consist of the national Governmental libraries. central libraries of Rome (Vittorio Emanuele) and Florence, of the national libraries of Milan (Braidense), Naples, Palermo, Turin and Venice (Marciana); the Biblioteca governativa at Cremona; the Marucelliana, the Mediceo-Laurenziana and the Riccardiana at Florence; the governativa at Lucca; the Estense at Modena; the Brancacciana and that of San Giacomo at Naples; the Palatina at Parma; the Angelica, the Casanatense, and the Lancisiana at Rome; the university libraries of Bologna, Cagliari, Catania, Genoa, Messina, Modena, Naples, Padua, Pavia, Pisa, Rome and Sassari; the Ventimiliana at Catania (joined to the university library for administrative purposes); the Vallicelliana and the musical library of the R. Accad. of St Cecilia at Rome; the musical section of the Palatine at Parma; and the Lucchesi-Palli (added to the national library at Naples). There are provisions whereby small collections can be united to larger libraries in the same place and where there are several government libraries in one city a kind of corporate administration can be arranged. The libraries belonging to bodies concerned with higher education, to the royal scientific and literary academies, fine art galleries, museums and scholastic institutions are ruled by special regulations. The minister of public instruction is assisted by a technical board.

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The librarians and subordinates are divided into (1) librarians, or keepers of MSS.; (2) sub-librarians, or sub-keepers of MSS.; (3) attendants, or book distributors; (4) ushers, &c. Those of class 1 constitute the “board of direction,” which is presided over by the librarian, and meets from time to time to consider important measures connected with the administration of the library. Each library is to possess, alike for books and MSS., a general inventory, an accessions register, an alphabetical author-catalogue and a subject-catalogue. When they are ready, catalogues of the special collections are to be compiled, and these the government intends to print. A general catalogue of the MSS. was in 1910 being issued together with catalogues of oriental codices and incunabula. Various other small registers are provided for. The sums granted by the state for library purposes must be applied to (1) salaries and the catalogues of the MSS.; (2) maintenance and other expenses; (3) purchase of books, binding and repairs, &c. Books are chosen by the librarians. In the university libraries part of the expenditure is decided by the librarians, and part by a council formed by the professors of the different faculties. The rules (Boll. Ufficiale, Sept. 17, 1908) for lending books and MSS. allow them to be sent to other countries under special circumstances.

The 36 biblioteche governative annually spend about 300,000 lire in books. From the three sources of gifts, copyright and purchases, their accessions in 1908 were 142,930, being 21,122 more than the previous year. The number of readers is increasing. In 1908 there were 1,176,934, who made use of 1,650,542 vols., showing an increase of 30,456 readers and 67,579 books as contrasted with the statistics of the previous year. Two monthly publications catalogue the accessions of these libraries, one dealing with copyright additions of Italian literature, the other with all foreign books.

The minister of public instruction has kept a watchful eye upon the literary treasures of the suppressed monastic bodies. In 1875 there were 1700 of these confiscated libraries, containing two millions and a half of volumes. About 650 of the collections were added to the contents of the public libraries already in existence; the remaining 1050 were handed over to the different local authorities, and served to form 371 new communal libraries, and in 1876 the number of new libraries so composed was 415.

The Biblioteca Vaticana stands in the very first rank among European libraries as regards antiquity and wealth of MSS. We can trace back the history of the Biblioteca Vaticana to the earliest records of the Scrinium Sedis Apostolicae, Vatican. which was enshrined in safe custody at the Lateran, and later on partly in the Turris Chartularia; but of all the things that used to be stored there, the only survival, and that is a dubious example, is the celebrated Codex Amiatinus now in the Laurentian Library at Florence. Of the new period inaugurated by Innocent III. there but remains to us the inventory made under Boniface VIII. The library shared in the removal of the Papal court to Avignon, where the collection was renewed and increased, but the Pontifical Library at Avignon has only in part, and in later times, been taken into the Library of the Vatican. This latter is a new creation of the great humanist popes of the 15th century. Eugenius IV. planted the first seed, but Nicholas V. must be looked upon as the real founder of the library, to which Sixtus IV. consecrated a definite abode, ornate and splendid, in the Court of the Pappagallo. Sixtus V. erected the present magnificent building in 1588, and greatly augmented the collection. The library increased under various popes and librarians, among the most noteworthy of whom were Marcello Cervini, the first Cardinale Bibliotecario, later Pone Marcel II., Sirleto and A. Carafa. In 1600 it was further enriched by the acquisition of the valuable library of Fulvio Orsini, which contained the pick of the most precious libraries. Pope Paul V. (1605-1621) separated the library from the archives, fixed the progressive numeration of the Greek and Latin MSS., and added two great halls, called the Pauline, for the new codices. Under him and under Urban VIII. a number of MSS. were purchased from the Convento of Assisi, of the Minerva at Rome, of the Capranica College, &c. Especially noteworthy are the ancient and beautiful MSS. of the monastery of Bobbio, and those which were acquired in various ways from the monastery of Rossano. Gregory XV. (1622) received from Maximilian I., duke of Bavaria, by way of compensation for the money supplied by him for the war, the valuable library of the Elector Palatine, which was seized by Count Tilly at the capture of Heidelberg. Alexander VII. (1658), having purchased the large and beautiful collection formerly belonging to the dukes of Urbino, added the MSS. of it to the Vatican library. The Libreria della Regina, i.e. of Christina, queen of Sweden, composed of very precious manuscripts from ancient French monasteries, from St Gall in Switzerland, and others—also of the MSS. of Alexandre Petau, of great importance for their history and French literature, was purchased and in great part presented to the Vatican library by Pope Alexander VIII. (Ottoboni) in 1689, while other MSS. came in later with the Ottoboni library. Under Clement XI. there was the noteworthy purchase of the 54 Greek MSS. which had belonged to Pius II., and also the increase of the collection of Oriental MSS. Under Benedict XIV. there came into the Vatican library, as a legacy, the library of the Marchese Capponi, very rich in rare and valuable Italian editions, besides 285 MSS.; and by a purchase, the Biblioteca Ottoboniana, which, from its wealth in Greek, Latin, and even Hebrew MSS., was, after that of the Vatican, the richest in all Rome. Clement XIII. in 1758, Clement XIV. in 1769, and Pius VI. in 1775 were also benefactors. During three centuries the vast and monumental library grew with uninterrupted prosperity, but it was to undergo a severe blow at the end of the 18th century. In 1798, as a sequel to the Treaty of Tolentino, 500 MSS. picked from the most valuable of the different collections were sent to Paris by the victorious French to enrich the Bibliothèque Nationale and other libraries. These, however, were chiefly restored in 1815. Most of the Palatine MSS., which formed part of the plunder, found their way back to the university of Heidelberg. Pius VII. acquired for the Vatican the library of Cardinal Zelada in 1800, and among other purchases of the 19th century must be especially noted the splendid Cicognara collection of archaeology and art (1823); as well as the library in 40,000 vols. of Cardinal Angelo Mai (1856). Recent more important purchases, during the Pontificate of Leo XIII., have been the Borghese MSS., about 300 in number, representing part of the ancient library of the popes at Avignon; the entire precious library of the Barberini; the Borgia collection De Propaganda Fide, containing Latin and Oriental MSS., and 500 incunabula.

Few libraries are so magnificently housed as the Biblioteca Vaticana. The famous Codici Vaticani are placed in the salone or great double hall, which is decorated with frescoes depicting ancient libraries and councils of the church. At the end of the great hall an immense gallery, also richly decorated, and extending to 1200 ft., opens out from right to left. Here are preserved in different rooms the codici Palatini, Regin., Ottoboniani, Capponiani, &c. The printed books only are on open shelves, the MSS. being preserved in closed cases. The printed books that were at first stored in the Borgia Apartment, now with the library of Cardinal Mai, constitute in great part the Nuova Sala di Consultazione, which was opened to students under the Pontificate of Leo XIII. Other books, on the other hand, are still divided into 1a and 2da raccolta, according to the ancient denomination, and are stored in adjacent halls.

Well-reasoned calculations place the total number of printed books at 400,000 vols.; of incunabula about 4000, with many vellum copies; 500 Aldines and a great number of bibliographical rarities. The Latin manuscripts number 31,373; the Greek amount to 4148; the Oriental MSS., of which the computation is not complete, amount to about 4000. Among the Greek and Latin MSS. are some of the most valuable in the world, alike for antiquity and intrinsic importance. It is sufficient to mention the famous biblical Codex Vaticanus of the 4th century, the two Virgils of the 4th and 5th centuries, the Bembo Terence, the palimpsest De Republica of Cicero, conjectured to be of the 4th century, discovered by Cardinal Mai, and an extraordinary 572 number of richly ornamented codices of great beauty and costliness. The archives are apart from the library, and are accessible in part to the public under conditions. Leo XIII. appointed a committee to consider what documents of general interest might expediently be published.

The Biblioteca Vaticana is now open from October 1st to Easter every morning between 9 and 1 o’clock, and from Easter to June 29 from 8 o’clock to 12, with the exception of Sundays, Thursdays and the principal feast days.

Catalogues of special classes of MSS. have been published. The Oriental MSS. have been described by J. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca orientalis Clementino-Vaticana (Rome, 1719-1728, 4 vols. folio), and Bibl. Vat. codd. MSS. catalogus ab S. E. et J. S. Assentano redactus (ib., 1756-1759, 3 vols. folio), and by Cardinal Mai in Script. Vet. nova collectio. The Coptic MSS. have been specially treated by G. Zoega (Rome, 1810, folio) and by F. G. Bonjour (Rome, 1699, 4to). There are printed catalogues of the Capponi (1747) and the Cicognara (1820) libraries. The following catalogues have lately been printed: E. Stevenson, Codd. Palatini Graeci (1885), Codd. Gr. Reg. Sueciae et Pii II. (1888); Feron-Battaglini, Codd. Ottobon. Graeci (1893); C. Stornaiolo, Codd. Urbinates Gr. (1895); E. Stevenson, Codd. Palatini Lat. tom. 1 (1886); G. Salvo-Cozzo, Codici Capponiani (1897); M. Vattasso and P. Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Codd. Lat. Vaticani, tom. 1 (1902); C. Stornaiolo, Codices Urbinates Latini, tom. 1 (1902); E. Stevenson, Inventario dei libri stampali Palatino-Vaticani (1886-1891); and several volumes relating to Egyptian papyri by O. Marucchi. Some of the greatest treasures have been reproduced in facsimile.

Latin America.

Much interest in libraries has not been shown in south, central and other parts of Latin America. Most of the libraries which exist are national or legislative libraries.

Spain and Portugal.

Most of the royal, state and university libraries of Spain and Portugal have government control and support. In Portugal the work of the universities is to a certain extent connected up, and an official bulletin is published in which the laws and accessions of the libraries are contained.

Netherlands.

Since 1900 there has been considerable progress made in both Belgium and Holland in the development of public libraries, and several towns in the latter country have established popular libraries after the fashion of the municipal libraries of the United Kingdom and America.

Scandinavia.

Owing largely to so many Scandinavian librarians having been trained and employed in American libraries, a greater approach has been made to Anglo-American library ideals in Norway, Sweden and Denmark than anywhere else on the continent of Europe.

Russia.

The imperial Public Library at St Petersburg is one of the largest libraries in the world, and now possesses about 1,800,000 printed vols. and 34,000 MSS., as well as large collections of maps, autographs, photographs, &c. The beginning of this magnificent collection may be said to have been the books seized by the Czar Peter during his invasion of Courland in 1714; the library did not receive any notable augmentation, however, till the year 1795, when, by the acquisition of the famous Zaluski collection, the Imperial Library suddenly attained a place in the first rank among great European libraries. The Zaluski Library was formed by the Polish count Joseph Zaluski, who collected at his own expense during forty-three years no less than 200,000 vols., which were added to by his brother Andrew, bishop of Cracow, by whom in 1747 the library was thrown open to the public. At his death it was left under the control of the Jesuit College at Warsaw; on the suppression of the order it was taken care of by the Commission of Education; and finally in 1795 it was transferred by Suwaroff to St Petersburg as a trophy of war. It then extended to 260,000 printed vols. and 10,000 MSS., but in consequence of the withdrawal of many medical and illustrated works to enrich other institutions, hardly 238,000 vols. remained in 1810. Literature, history and theology formed the main features of the Zaluski Library; the last class alone amounted to one-fourth of the whole number. Since the beginning of the 19th century, through the liberality of the sovereigns, the gifts of individuals, careful purchases, and the application of the law of 1810, whereby two copies of every Russian publication must be deposited here, the Imperial Library has attained its present extensive dimensions. Nearly one hundred different collections, some of them very valuable and extensive, have been added from time to time. They include, for example, the Tolstoi Sclavonic collection (1830), Tischendorf’s MSS. (1858), the Dolgorousky Oriental MSS. (1859), and the Firkowitsch Hebrew (Karaite) collection (1862-1863), the libraries of Adelung (1858) and Tobler (1877), that of the Slavonic scholar Jungmann (1856), and the national MSS. of Karamzin (1867). This system of acquiring books, while it has made some departments exceedingly rich, has left others comparatively meagre. The library was not regularly opened to the public until 1814; it is under the control of the minister of public instruction. There are fine collections of Aldines and Elzevirs, and the numerous incunabula are instructively arranged.

The manuscripts include 26,000 codices, 41,340 autographs, 4689 charters and 576 maps. The glory of this department is the celebrated Codex Sinaiticus of the Greek Bible, brought from the convent of St Catherine on Mount Sinai by Tischendorf in 1859. Other important Biblical and patristic codices are to be found among the Greek, and Latin MSS.; the Hebrew MSS. 577 include some of the most ancient that exist, and the Samaritan collection is one of the largest in Europe; the Oriental MSS. comprehend many valuable texts, and among the French are some of great historical value. The general catalogues are in writing, but many special catalogues of the MSS. and printed books have been published.

Eastern Europe.

At Athens the National Library (1842) possesses about 260,000 vols., and there is also a considerable library at the university. The Public Library at Corfu has about 40,000 vols. Belgrade University Library has 60,000 vols. and the University Library of Sofia has 30,000 vols. Constantinople University in 1910 had a library in process of formation, and there are libraries at the Greek Literary Society (20,000 vols.) and Theological School (11,000 vols.).

China.

Chinese books were first written on thin slips of bamboo, which were replaced by silk or cloth scrolls in the 3rd century B.C., paper coming into use in the beginning of the 2nd century. These methods were customary down to the 10th or 11th century. There were no public libraries in the western sense.

Japan.

The ancient history of libraries in Japan is analogous to that of China, with whose civilization and literature it had close relations. Since about 1870, however, the great cities and institutions have established libraries on the European model.