Part 286 (1/2)
LIBERIA (1,500), a negro republic on the Grain Coast of Africa, founded in 1822 by American philanthropists as a settlement for freedmen, with a const.i.tution after the model of the United States.
LIBERTY, FRATERNITY, AND EQUALITY, the trinity of modern democracy, and which first found expression as a political creed in the French Revolution, of which the first term is now held to require definition, the second to have only a sentimental basis, and the third to be in violation of the fact of things; universal suffrage is the expression of it politically.
LIBRATION, the name given to certain apparent movements in the moon as if it swayed like a balance both in lat.i.tude and longitude in its revolution round the earth.
LIBRI-CARRUCCI, COUNT, Italian mathematician; professor at Pisa, but obliged to resign for his liberal opinions and take refuge in France, where he was made professor at the Sorbonne, was a kleptomaniac in the matter of books (1803-1869).
LIBYA, a name by the early geographers to the territory in Africa which lay between Egypt, Ethiopia, and the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic.
LICHFIELD (8), ancient ecclesiastical town in Staffords.h.i.+re, 15 m.
SE. of Stafford, an episcopal see since 656, with a cathedral in Early English style, recently completely restored; has an ancient grammar school, a museum, and school of art; the birthplace of Samuel Johnson; its industries are brewing, coachbuilding, and implement making.
LICHTENBERG, GEORG CHRISTOPH, German physicist and satirist, born near Darmstadt; was educated at Gottingen, and appointed professor there in 1770; he wrote a commentary on Hogarth's copperplates; his reputation in Germany as a satirist is high (1742-1799).
LICINIUS, CAIUS, a Roman tribune and consul, of plebeian birth, author of several laws intended to minimise the distinction politically between patrician and plebeian, in office between 376 and 361 B.C.
LICK OBSERVATORY, an observatory built at the expense of James Lick, an American millionaire, on one of the peaks of Mount Hamilton, California, with a telescope that has the largest object-gla.s.s of any in the world.
LICTOR, an officer in Rome who bore the FASCES (q. v.) before a magistrate when on duty.
LIDDELL, HENRY GEORGE, Greek lexicographer, graduated at Oxford in 1833; was tutor of Christ Church, and in 1845 appointed professor of Moral Philosophy; he was successively Head-master of Winchester, Dean of Christ Church, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford from 1870 to 1874; his great work is a Greek lexicon (first edition 1843, last 1883), of which he was joint-author with Dr. Robert Scott, and which is the standard work of its kind in English; _b_. 1811.
LIDDON, HENRY PARRY, canon of St. Paul's, London, born in Hants; educated at Christ Church, Oxford; eminent both as a scholar and a preacher; author of an eloquent course of lectures, the Bampton, ”On the Divinity of Jesus Christ”; belonged to the Liberal section of the High-Church party (1829-1890).
LIEBIG, BARON VON, eminent German chemist, born at Darmstadt; in 1824 attracted the attention of Alexander von Humboldt by a paper before the Inst.i.tute of France on fulminates, and was appointed to the chair of Chemistry in Giessen, where he laboured 28 years, attracting students from all quarters, and where his laboratory became a model of many others elsewhere; wrote a number of works on chemistry, inorganic and organic, animal and agricultural, and their applications, as well as papers and letters; accepted a professors.h.i.+p in Munich in 1852, and in 1860 was appointed President of the Munich Academy of Sciences (1803-1873).
LIeGE (160), a town in Belgium and capital of the Walloons, in a very picturesque region at the confluence of the Ourthe with the Meuse, the busiest town in Belgium and a chief seat of the woollen manufacture; it is divided in two by the Meuse, which is spanned by 17 bridges; it is the centre of a great mining district, and besides woollens has manufactures of machinery, and steel and iron goods.
LIEGNITZ (46), a town in Silesia, 40 m. NW. of Breslau, where Frederick the Great gained a victory over the Austrians in 1760.
LIFEGUARDS, the British royal household troops, consisting of cavalry and infantry regiments.
LIGHTFOOT, JOHN, Orientalist and divine, born at Stoke-upon-Trent, son of a clergyman, educated at Cambridge; took orders and was rector of Ashley, Staffords.h.i.+re, till 1642; next year he was one of the most influential members of the Westminster a.s.sembly; in 1652 he was made D.D., was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge in 1653, and subsequently prebendary of Ely; one of England's earlier Hebrew scholars, the great work of his life was the ”Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae,” published in large part posthumously (1602-1675).