793 



LANGBAINE, GERAKD, D.D. 



LANIERE, NICOLAS. 



794 



sent him as the moat learned man of his age. His writings consist of 

 commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles, sermons, letters, and his treatise 

 on the Eucharist against Berenger. This last production rendered him 

 a prodigious favourite with the literary historians of the Church of 

 Rome. His works were collected and edited by Lucas d'Achcry, at 

 Paris, folio, 1648. 



LANGBAINE, GERARD, D.D., born in Westmorland about 1608, 

 was successively a servitor, echolar, and fellow of Queen's College, 

 Oxford, and he held the places of keeper of archives to the university 

 and provost of his college for a good many years before his death, 

 which happened in 1658. He was a studious and timid man, who 

 contrived to steer through the political storms of his time without 

 giving serious offence to any party. He edited Longinus, and pub- 

 lished several works of his own, chiefly on church questions. But his 

 chief usefulness was in his imprinted collections, which included 

 several catalogues of manuscripts, often referred to by Warton and 

 others, 



GERARD LANGBAIXE, his son, was born at Oxford in 1656, and after 

 having received an elementary education, was apprenticed to a book- 

 seller in London. An elder brother dying, he was recalled home, and 

 entered in 1672 a gentleman commoner of University College. He 

 betook himself however to idleness and low extravagance, and spent a 

 great part of his property ; but after a time he reformed, and retained 

 of his earlier tastes none but his love for the theatres. He made a 

 very large collection of old plays, amounting, as he says, to almost a 

 thousand. He made use of these, first, in a republication of a cata- 

 logue of plays made by Kirkman, a bookseller, which appeared under 

 the title of ' Momus Triumphans,' 4to, 1687. This work, speedily 

 old off, was improved into ' A New Catalogue of English Plays,' 4to, 

 1688. Still further additions and amendments produced his ' Account 

 of the English Dramatick Poets,'-8vo, 1691 (1699 by Gildon, 1719 by 

 Giles Jacob, for Curl). The criticism contained in this work is shal- 

 low, prejudiced, and obsequious. The author pronounces Sir Robert 

 Howard to be an admirable poet, and prefers Shadwell's plays to 

 Dryden's. But in relating facts and describing editions, he scrupu- 

 lously sets down what was before him ; and although the information 

 he gives is very incomplete, his work is the most trustworthy of our 

 catalogues of the kind, and has been of very great service. In the 

 British Museum is a copy of it with valuable notes by Oldys. He 

 published also an appendix to a catalogue of graduates. 



LANGELANDE, ROBERT. [LoNGLAND.] 



LANGHORNE, JOHN, was born at Kirkby Stephen, in West- 

 morland, iu 1735, and educated at the school of Appleby. Being too 

 indigent to proceed to the university, he had recourse to private 

 tuition, took orders, and in 1760 entered himself as a ten-y ear-man at 

 Clare Hall, Cambridge. Having fallen in love with a daughter of the 

 gentleman in whose family he lived, he offered her his hand, and on 

 being refused quitted his employment, and repaired to London, where 

 he obtained a curacy, helped to support himself by his pen, and soon 

 became a well-known and popular author. Dr. Hurd appointed him 

 assistant preacher of Lincoln's Inn Fields; and a short poem, called 

 'Genius and Valour,' written in defence of the Scotch against the 

 coarse abuse of Churchill and others, procured for him, from the 

 University of Edinburgh in 1766, the degree of D.D. In the follow- 

 ing year he renewed his suit, and was accepted. The living of Blagdeu 

 in Somersetshire was purchased for him ; but in the first year of his 

 marriage his happiness was interrupted by the death of his wife in 

 childbed. To solace his grief he undertook, with his brother, the new 

 translation of Plutarch's ' Lives,' published in 1771, by which he is 

 best known. In accuracy this has the advantage over Sir Thomas 

 North's old version from the French of Amyot, but it is much inferior 

 in spirit and effect. Having married again, he lost his second wife in 

 1776, also in childbed. This double disappointment is said to have 

 led him into intemperate habit?. He died in April 1779. 



Langhorne wrote tales, poems (chiefly short), and sermons, which 

 did not establish for him much reputation as a divine. His prose is 

 flowery and sentimental, his verses pleasing and harmonious but over 

 ornamented, seldom rising above prettincss, and often spoiled by 

 affectation. They have a place in Chalmers's 'British Poets.' His 

 ' 1'oemn,' published by his sou in 1 802, contain a Life of the author. 



L.VNGTOFT, PETER, an English chronicler who lived at the end 

 of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century, was a canon-regular 

 of the order of St. Austin at Bridlington in Yorkshire. He translated 

 from the Latin into French verse Herbert Bosenham's (or Boscam's) 

 ' Life of Thomas a Becket,' and compiled, likewise in French verse, 

 a ' Chronicle of England,' manuscripts of which are preserved in tho 

 Cottonian Collection, Julius A.V., in the old Royal Library at the 

 British Museum, and among the Aruudel manuscripts in the library of 

 Heralds' College. The ' Chronicle * begins with the fable of the 

 Trojans, and comes down to the end of the reign of Edward I. 

 Langtoft is believed to have died early in tho reign of Edward II. 

 Robert de Brunne gave an English metrical version of Langtoft, 

 which was edited at Oxford, in 2 vols. 8vo, by Hearne, in 1725. 



LANOTON, STEl'HEN, Cardinal of St. Chrysogonus, and Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury, was born in the earlier half of the 12th 

 century, according to one account in Lincolnshire, according to 

 another in Devonshire. After finishing bis studies at the University 

 of Paris, he taught with applause in that seminary, and gradually 



rose to the office of its chancellor. He held this rank, and had also 

 obtained some preferment in the Church of his native country, when 

 he viaited Rome, about the year 1206, on the invitation of Pope 

 Innocent III., who immediately honoured him with the purple by tho 

 title of Cardinal of St. Chrysogonus, and soon after recommended 

 him to be elected to the archbishopric of Canterbury, then considered 

 as vacant by the rejection of the claims both of Reginald the sub- 

 prior of Christchurch, whom his brother monks had in the first 

 instance appointed to succeed the last archbishop Hubert, and of 

 John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, whom they had afterwards substi- 

 tuted in deference to the commands of King John. Langton was 

 elected by a few of the monks who were then at Rome, and was con- 

 secrated by Innocent at Viterbo, on the 17th of June 1207. John's 

 determined resistance to this nomination gave rise to the contest 

 between him and the pontiff which had such important results. - 

 [INNOCENT III.; JOHN, King of England.] The consequence, in so 

 far as Langton was concerned, was, that he was kept out of his seo 

 for about six years ; till at last, after the uegociation concluded by the 

 legate Pandulf, John and the cardinal met at Winchester in July 

 1213, and the latter was fully acknowledged as archbishop. In the 

 close union however that now followed between John and Innocent, 

 Langton, finding his own interests and those of the clergy iu general, 

 in so far as they were opposed to those of the king, disregarded by 

 the pope, joined the confederacy of the insurgent barons, among 

 whom the eminence of his station and the ascendancy of his talents 

 soon acquired him a high influence, and in whose counsels he took a 

 prominent part. It was he who, at the meeting of the heads of the 

 revolt at London on the 25th of August 1213, suggested the demand for 

 a renewal of the charter of Henry I. To the cause of the national 

 liberties, which he had thus joined, he adhered without swerving 

 throughout the rest of the contest ; a course by which he so greatly 

 offended the pope, that on his refusal to excommunicate the opponents 

 of the royal authority, after John's perfidious attempt to release him- 

 self from his engagements at Runuymede, he was in the latter part of 

 the year 1215 suspended by Innocent from the exercise of his archie- 

 piscopal functions. After this the name of Cardinal Langton is little 

 mentioned by the historians; but he continued to preside over the 

 Church till his death, 9th of July 1228. He was a person of con- 

 siderable learning, and is the author of various theological tracts, 

 some of which have been printed, and lists of all of which that are 

 known are given by Cave and Tanner. It has been shown in a note 

 to Warton's ' History of English Poetry' (edition of 1840, ii. p. 28), 

 that there is no reason to suppose Langton to have been the author 

 of a drama in the French language, which had been assigued to him 

 by M. de la Rue (in the ' Archajologia," vol. xiv.) on no better grounds 

 than the manuscript having been found bound up with one of the 

 cardinal's sermons. 



LANIERE, NICOLAS, a painter, engraver, and musician, was born 

 ia 1568, and was an Italian by birth. -He was a favourite with 

 Charles I., who employed him in the purchase of pictures. Walpola 

 supposes that he was employed in the purchase of the gallery of the 

 Duke of Mantua, for which Charles gave '20,0001,, and which com- 

 prised the ' Triumph of Ciesar,' by Mantegna, now at Hampton 

 Court. 



Laniere was a better musician than a painter. He was appointed 

 in 1626 Charles's chapel-master, for which he had a salary of 2002. per 

 annum ; he was also closet-keeper to Charles. There ia in Ben Jon- 

 son's works a masque, which was performed in 1617 at the house of 

 Lord Hay for the entertainment of the French ambassador, and for 

 which Laniere both painted the scenes and composed the music. 

 Laniere is also said to have set to music the hymn which was written 

 by Thomas Pierce for the funeral dirge of Charles I., but it waa 

 probably another person of the same name. 



Laniere lived to see the dispersion of the collection which he him- 

 self had been mainly instrumental in forming. He purchased four 

 pictures at the sale of Charles's effects for 2301. ; others were pur- 

 chased by his brothers Jerome and Clement. Laniere appears to have 

 been a general dealer in pictures, and, according to Sanderson 

 ('Graphice,' p. 16), to have been not over-scrupulous, for that writer 

 accuses him of passing copies as originals : the colours he is asserted 

 to have obscured by soot, and he cracked the pictures by rolling them 

 up face inwards. Laniere purchased many pictures for Charles, and 

 marked them with a rosette or a small figure resembling six radiating 

 leaves : the mark is given by Walpole. Walpole gives the ordinary 

 statement that Laniere was buried on the 4th of November 1646, 

 overlooking the somewhat glaring inconsistency of having made him 

 write the music to Charles's funeral dirge three years after his own 

 burial : the date is not a misprint, because Walpole adds his age 

 seventy-eight years. The date of Lauiore's birth (1568) is correct, 

 because in an engraving dated 1636 he writes himself at the juvenile 

 age of sixty-eight " a 1'eta sua giovauilo di sessanta-otto anni." But, 

 as already indicated, the probability is that two persons of the same 

 name have been confounded ; and the second Laniero was probably a 

 relative and successor of the first, both as a picture-dealer and a 

 musician. Pepys notices iu his 'Diary,' under October 27, 1665, that 

 "among other things, Laniere did at the request of Mr. Hill bring 

 two or three of the finest prints for my wifa to bee that ever I did see 

 in all my life ;" and he further mentions several times in that and tlio 



