LANYON, CHAKLKA 



LAPLACK, P1KRBE-SIMON. 



purposely abstained from reading the Utter work until be had com- 

 pleted his own. In feet, although resembling each oilier in their 

 general Mop*, the two work* are very dissimilar in character and ntyle, 

 and in UieJr respective merit*. One proof of ite popularity is, that 

 ' Antfaor' baa bom translated into Qerman, Italian, .Spanish, Portu- 

 guuei, Ituwan, and modern Greek. He afterwards produced two 

 other fictitious narratives of travel*. ' Let Voyageur* < n Sui-so,' and 

 ' Le Voyage rn Kspagnr,' both of which poises* considerable inter, st ; 

 also his 'Correpoud>noe de Cezanne d'Arly,' a work captivating for 

 the graert of iU tone and style, and almost a literary prodigy when 

 eonsideml as the production of an octogenarian. Even ninety-one 

 yrar* bad not extinguished his literary ardour, for at that very advanced 

 age he composed a poem in eight cantos, entitled ' Geoffrey Hudel, ou 

 le Troubadour.' Ho died at Marseille, where he had resided for the 

 hut twelve years, January 31, 1820, at the age of ninety-two. 



LAN VOX, CHAKl.KS, civil engineer and architect, was born 

 January 6, 1813, at Eastbourne, Sussex. He was articled to Mr. Jacob 

 Owen (formerly of Portsmouth), architect and engineer to the bo ird 

 of Public Works, Dublin, one of whose daughters he afterwards 

 married. Shortly after the expiration of his apprenticeship in the 

 year 1833 he became a candidate for one of the county-surveyorships 

 under the then new Grand Jury Act, and having taken one of the first 

 places at the examination, was appointed to the county of Kildare. 

 In the year 1836 he accepted the surveyorship of the county of Antrim, 

 which presented a much more extensive field for the exercise of his 

 profession. 



This appointment he at present holds. Since his connection with 

 this county he has laid out upwards of 300 miles of new road, and 

 improved the leading lines of communication between all tho towns 

 in the county. The most remarkable of the new roads carried ou 

 mid' r his superintendence U that known as the Antrim coast road, 

 extending from Carrickfergus to the Giants' Causeway and Portrush, 

 a distance of about seventy miles, pausing through the towns of Larue, 

 Cleuarro, Cusheudall, Ballycastlf, and Bushmills. This road (nearly 

 the whole of which was laid out and executed by Mr. Lanyon) ia 

 much frequented by tourists on account of the great beauty of its 

 scenery. Mr. Lanyon acted as engineer in chief to the Belfast, Car- 

 rickfergus, and Ballymena railway, opened in 1847 ; also to the 

 Bally mena, Coleraine, and Portrush railway, opened in 1 S55 ; and to 

 the Cookstown extension railway, opened in the present year. 



As an architect Mr. Lanyon's practice has been very extensive. 

 Among the principal public buildings which he designed and super- 

 intended are the following: the new county courts at Belfast; 

 the county jiil, design* d to accommodate upwards of 400 prisoners 

 the first prison built on the separate system ju Ireland ; the Queen's 

 College, Belfast ; the Ulster Institution for tho education of the deaf 

 and dumb and the blind ; and the public offices at Belfast, comprising 

 under one roof the custom-house, post-office, inl aid revenue, stamps, 

 local marine, &c. He has also built upwards of twenty churches in 

 the diocese of Down and Connor, and many important private resi- 

 dences in several of tho midland and northern counties of livluid. 

 The campanile erected at Trinity College, Dublin, is also one of his 

 works. 



LANZI, LUIGI, an eminent modern Italian archaeologist and 

 writer on art, was born in the Marca d'Ancoua. on the 14th of June 

 1732. After receiving on excellent education at home, he entered the 

 order of the Jesuits at the age of seventeen, and as Boon as he had 

 computed his own studies, which were directed chiefly to classical 

 literature, distinguished himself as a zealous and able instructor of 

 youth. Afflicting as the event was to him at the time, and it occa- 

 sioned him a serious illness, the suppression of the order may bo 

 considered to have been a most fortunate one for Lanzi's reputation, 

 since it threw him into a literary career which he would else probably 

 not have entered. The fir-t step towards it wag his being appointed 

 antiquary, or keeper of tho cabinet of medals, at Florence, by the 

 grand-duke Peter Leopold, April 17th 1775. One of his first literary 

 productions was his ' Detcrizioue dclla Galleria,' which, greatly superior 

 to the generality of productions of the same class, afforded proof of 

 critical scumen and erudition. To this succeeded his dissertation on 

 the sculpture of the ancients, entitled ' Notizie Preliminari,' &<x, 

 1789, and tho celebrated 'Saggio di Lingua KtruHca,' a work of extra- 

 ordinary study and research, which throws considerable light on a 

 very obrcure and difficult branch of archaeology. Yet notwithstanding 

 it* intrinsic value it was from its nature calculated to interest only a 

 unall portion even of the learned world, and has therefore contributed 

 let* towards its author's fame with the European public than his 

 i Pittorica.' This Utter work, the first portion of which 

 appeand in 1792, and to undertake which ho had been excited by 

 Tiraboftchi, tho historian ot Italian literature, was the first attempt 

 to give a ccmprebenMve and continuous history of Italian painting 

 arranged according to schools and epoch*, and written in a tone of 

 impartial criticism ; whereas prior to it* appearance the numerous 

 particular histories and artistical biographies presented little better 

 than a confused mass of materials, and conflicting prejudices and 

 opinions. Lanzi's object was to characU'rire all the various schools, 

 and the chief masters in each, and alo the changes in regard to stylo 

 and taste which each had undergone; while the utility of the work as 

 a book of reference is greatly increased by thrco excellent indexe.. 



The work was received with general favour abroad as well as in Italy, 

 and several editions were called for during the author's life. Each 

 of these he carefully revised ; the last which he superintended was 

 published shortly before his death at Baseano, 1800, and was a much 

 fuller as well as more correct work than tho early editions. Hardly 

 bad its author completed the publication of the ' Storia Pittorica,' 

 when the battle of Bassano, September 8th U'.'O, drove him from 

 that city, and compelled him to seek an asylum in Treviso, and after- 

 wards in Udine, where ho remained till the latter part of 1801, 

 he returned to Florence, having been restored to his former appoint- 

 ment in the museum. Here he wrote his three dissertations on the 

 so-called Etruscan vases, and made a collection of lapidary inscrip- 

 tions, but suffering from repeated apoplectic attacks and the infirmities 

 of age, it was not until earnestly pressed by Cardinal Zondadari, 

 archbishop of Sienna, that he prevailed upon himself to publish the 

 latter, adding to them his own Latin poems, which are remarkable for 

 their purity and graces of style. In addition to the above, and one or 

 two minor productions, Lonzi published a translation of lleeiod in 

 terza rinia, first undertaken by him in his youth, and cart fully 

 corrected and touched up by him from time to time. His death was 

 occasioned by apoplexy, March 30, 1810. His 'Storia Pittorica 'baa 

 been translated into various language?; the English version by Mr. 

 Thomas Koscoe is a very good one ; the last edition of it forms three 

 volumes (1847) of Itohns ' Standard Library.' 



LAPLACE, PIERRE-SIMON. A life of Laplace can hold no 

 middle place between a short account for the general reader, and a 

 detailed description of his labours for the reference of those who read 

 his works. Independently of the latter being too long for this work, 

 we have a specific reason for avoiding it, which will appear in the 

 course of this article : namely, that the writings of Laplace do not 

 give specific information as to what was done by himself and what 

 by others ; and that no one has yet supplied the deficiency. 



Pierre-Simon Laplace was born March 1749, at Bcaumout-en-Auge, 

 near Honlleur, and was the son of a farmer. He received a good 

 education, and appears at first to have turned his attention to theology ; 

 but as early as the age of eighteen he went to Paris, having previously 

 taught mathematics at his native place. He had letters of intro- 

 duction to D'Alembert, but finding that they procured him uo notice 

 from that philosopher, he wrote him a letter on some elementary 

 points of mechanics, with which D'Alembert was so much pleased 

 that he sent for Laplace the same day, telling him that he had found 

 a better wny of calling attention to his claims than by letters of 

 introduction. Shortly afterwards, in 176S or 1769, the recommenda- 

 tion of D'Alembert procured for Laplace a chair of mathematics at 

 the military school of Paris. In 1772 Laplace showed his powers 

 in a paper on integration of equations of finite differences in tho 

 ' Memoirs of the Academy of Turin ; ' and from that time his scientific 

 life was one achievement after another, until he attained a reputation 

 almost Newtonian with the world at large, and of the highest extent 

 and character among mathematicians, who, though they cannot oven 

 compare walks of so different a kind as those of Newton and Laplace, 

 feel that the latter must be named next after Lagrange, and the two 

 together above all the followers of the first. 



The political life of Laplace was not so favourably distinguished. 

 In 1799 the First Consul made him minister of tho interior. With 

 the views which Napoleon always professed with respect to science, 

 it ia not wonderful that he should have made the experiment of trying 

 to strengthen his administration by the assistance of a philosopher 

 whose rising fame made the French expect to claim a name which 

 should rival that of Newton. But the experiment was not successful ; 

 and after a very short period the First Consul removed L:iplace to 

 the head of the se'nat conservateur. Tho subsequent account given 

 by Napoleon of his minister will be a part of the biography of Laplace 

 in all time to come. "A mathematician of the highest rank, ho lost 

 not a moment in .showing himself below mediocrity as a minister. 

 In his very first attempt at business tho consuls saw that they had 

 made a mistake. Laplace looked at no question in its true point of 

 view. Ho was always searching after subtleties ; all his ideas were 

 problems, and he earned the spirit of the infinitesimal calculus into 

 the management of business." This pointed satire is not, we suspect, 

 one of which tho force will be always admitted ; first, because it is so 

 very like what a satirist ought to say of a mathematician ; secondly, 

 because tho character of Laplace's mathematical writings is signally 

 and ridiculously the opposite of all the preceding, as we shall presently 

 notice. That Laplace was an incompetent minister is probable ; but 

 this is not the worst. 



In 1814 he voted for the deposition of his benefactor, a step which 

 might have been justifiable on public grounds : but nothing can 

 excuse tho suppression of the dedication to Napoleon, which stood at 

 the front of his 'Theoriu des Probabilito's ' during tho prosperity of 

 his benefactor, and no longer. Laplace, who had been created a 

 count by Napoleon, and a marquis by Louis XVIII. immediately after 

 the restoration, did not appear at court during the short restoration 

 of the former, of his political conduct during the revolution wo 

 have no account, except that he was at one time under the suspicion 

 of tho authorities, and was removed from the commission of weights 

 I'Uns. In the suppression of the dedication, which we now 

 cite entire, and which appeared in 1S12, and not in 1814, there ia a 



