344 



LADIES' SLIPPER LAFAYETTE. 



Niroinrdia, as a teacher of rhetoric, until Constan- 

 tino the Great committed to his care the education of 

 IIH eldest sou, Crispus. He died about 325. His 

 writings (published by Sparke, at Oxford, 1684; by 

 liuneinaiin.at Leipsic, 1739; by Dufresnoy, at Paris, 

 1748, 2 volumes, 4to; and by Oberthur, at Wurtz- 

 burg, in *1783, 2 volumes) are characterized by a 

 flt-iir and agreeable style, and he is, on account of 

 his pure and eloquent language, frequently called the 

 Christian Cicero. His seven books, Institiitiones 

 dicintr, are particularly celebrated, and worthy of 

 notice. 



LADIES' SLIPPER (cypripedium) ; a beautiful 

 genus of orcliideous plants, conspicuous for its large, 

 inflated flowers. The roots are perennial; the stems 

 simple, bearing entire sheathing leaves ; and the 

 flowers are solitary or few in number. The species 

 ai" confined to the northern regions of the globe: six 

 inhabit the Alleghany mountains, Canada, and the 

 northern parts of the United States; and five are 

 found in Siberia, and the northern and mountainous 

 parts of Europe. 



LADOGA, or LADOZSKOI ; a lake in Russia, 

 between the Baltic and the lake Onega, surrounded 

 by the governments of Petersburg, Viborg, and Olo- 

 netz. The south-west extremity lies thirty miles 

 east of Petersburg. It ts 140 miles long, and 75 

 broad, containing 6200 square miles, and is the 

 largest lake in Europe. It contains an abundance 

 of fish, particularly salmon. The shores are flat, 

 but the navigation dangerous on account of quick- 

 sands. 



LADRONES ; a cluster of islands in the Northern 

 Pacific ocean, discovered by Magellan. Their num- 

 ber is stated by some authorities as fourteen, by 

 others as sixteen. They occupy a space of 450 

 miles; Ion. 145 to 148 E.; iat. 13 to 21 N. 

 Magellan called them Islas de Ladrones (islands of 

 thieves), because the natives stole every thing made 

 of iron which they could find. Towards the end of 

 the seventeentli century, they received the name of 

 Mariana, or Marianne islands, from the queen of 

 Spain, Marianne of Austria, the mother of Charles 

 II., at whose expense missionaries were sent over 

 thither, to propagate the Christian faith. In almost 

 all books of history and voyages, as well as in maps, 

 we find them styled the Ladrones ; notwithstanding 

 which, the above-mentioned name has gradually 

 gained ground. These islands lie in the torrid zone; 

 and yet so much is the heat of the sun tempered by 

 the air, and by breezes of the sea, that the climate is 

 generally serene, salubrious, and pleasant : in some 

 seasons of the year only they are liable to hurricanes, 

 which, though they do sometimes a great deal of 

 mischief, yet clear and refresh the air in such a man- 

 ner that, before they were visited by the Europeans, 

 the people commonly lived to a great age. The 

 inhabitants are tall, robust, active, and ingenious. 

 They wear little clothing. Both sexes stain their 

 teeth black, and paint their bodies red. Their reli- 

 gion is an ignorant superstition. That most extra- 

 ordinary and useful plant, the bread-fruit tree, was 

 first discovered here. 



LADY-BIRD ; a pretty species of beetle, belong- 

 ing to the extensive genus coccinella, having the 

 elytra red, bordering on yellow, and adorned with 

 two black spots, one on the middle of each. It 

 appears, however, that almost all the small and 

 spotted beetles of this genus are indiscriminately 

 known under the name of lady-bird. All these 

 insects deposit their eggs on the leaves of trees, and 

 the larvae produced are great devourers of plant- 

 lice (aphh). They continue in the chrysalis state 

 about a fortnight. Their wings, when they first 

 burst their covering, are soft and dusky, but soon 



become hnrd, and assume the various colours appro- 

 priate to the species. The lady-bird is celebrated 

 tor its reputed powers in the cure of tooth-ache ; for 

 which purpose one of these insects is to be crushed 

 between the finger and thumb, which are then to be 

 several times applied to the suffering part. Their 

 virtue in effecting a cure depends on the same cause 

 as that of Perkins's metallic tractors and other scions 

 of animal magnetism the imagination of the pa- 

 tient. 



LAERTES, son of Acrisius and Chalcomethusa, 

 was one of the heroes engaged in the chase of the 

 Caledonian boar, and in the expedition of the Argo- 

 nauts. He afterwards married Euryclea, the daugh- 

 ter of Autolycus, by whom he had several daughters 

 and one son, Ulysses. He attained a great age. 

 The long absence of his son, in the Trojan war, 

 plunged him into deep melancholy; but his return 

 restored the old man's energies, and he took part in 

 the fight with the Ithacans. 



L^ETARE ; the fourth Sunday after Lent. The 

 ancient Christian church used to begin its service, on 

 this day, with the words Leetare, sterilis, or Laetare, 

 Jerusalem. 



LAFAYETTE, GILBERT MOTTIER (formerly mar- 

 quis de), was born at Chavagnac, near Brioude, in 

 Auvergne, Sept. 6, 1757, was educated in the col- 

 lege of Louis le Grand, in Paris, placed at court, as 

 an officer in one of the guards of honour, and, at the 

 age of seventeen, was married to the grand-daughter 

 of the duke de Noailles. It was under these cir- 

 cumstances, that the young marquis de Lafayette 

 entered upon a career so little to be expected of a 

 youth of vast fortune, of high rank, of powerful con- 

 nexions, at the most brilliant and fascinating court in 

 the world. He left France secretly for America, in 

 1777, and arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, 

 April 25, being then nineteen years old. The state 

 of America, it is well known, was, at that time, most 

 gloomy : a feeble army, without clothing or arms, 

 was with difficulty kept together before a victorious 

 enemy; the government was without resources or 

 credit, and the American agents in Paris were actu- 

 ally obliged to confess that they could not furnish 

 the young nobleman with a conveyance. " Then," 

 said he, " I will fit out a vessel myself;" and he did 

 so. The sensation produced in America, by his 

 arrival, was very great : it encouraged the almost 

 disheartened people to hope for succour and sympa- 

 thy from one of the most powerful nations in Europe. 

 Immediately on his arrival, Lafayette received the 

 offer of a command in the continental army, but 

 declined it, raised and equipped a body of men at his 

 own expense, and then entered the service as a vol- 

 unteer, without pay. He lived in the family of the 

 commander-in-chief, and won his full affection and 

 confidence. He was appointed major-general in July, 

 and, in September, was wounded at Brandywine. 

 He was employed in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island 

 in 1778, and, after receiving the thanks of the coun- 

 try for his important services, embarked at Boston, 

 in January, 1779, for France, where it was thought 

 that he could assist the cause more effectually for a 

 time. The treaty concluded between France and 

 America, about the same period, was, by his per- 

 sonal exertions, made effective, and he returned to 

 America, with the intelligence that a French force 

 would soon be sent after him. Immediately on his 

 arrival, he entered the service, and received "the 

 command of a body of infantry of about 2000 men, 

 which he clothed and equipped, in part, at his own 

 expense. His forced march to Virginia, in Decem- 

 ber, 1780, raising 2OOO guineas at Baltimore, on his 

 own credit to supply the wants of his troops ; his 

 rescue of Richmond ; his long trial of generalship 



