354 



LAMBERT LAM KTTRIK. 



battle of Wagram, luul four horses killed under him. 

 He served in Russia ;nul in Spain in 1812, anil, alter 

 the evacuation of the Peninsula, returned to France, 

 and was created a knight of St Louis, July 27, 1814. 

 On llu> return of Napoleon, he was appointed to the 

 first military division, as coininander-in-chief of the 

 army of the Loire. In his operations against the 

 insurgents of La Vendee, he distinguished himself 

 not less by his forbearance and humanity than by his 

 decision, and, after obtaining' some successes at La 

 Roche-Serviere, he effected a pacification at Chollet. 

 After the return of the Bourbons, he was comprised 

 in the second article of the law of July 24, 1815, and 

 retired to Saint-Sever, under the inspection of the 

 minister of police. He afterwards took refuge at 

 Brussels, but was ordered from thence by the king of 

 the Netherlands, upon which he passed into Austria. 

 In 1815, he published a Defence of General Maxi- 

 milian Lamarque, in a manly, bold and candid tone. 

 In 1818, he was permitted to return to France, and, 

 in 1820, produced an able pamphlet On the Necessity 

 of a Standing Army. General Lamarque was after- 

 wards a conspicuous member of the chamber of depu- 

 ties, and, in the late revolution in France, zealously 

 adopted popular principles. He died at Paris in May, 

 1832. 



LAMBERT, JOHN HENRY, an eminent mathema- 

 tician and astronomer, was bom at Muhlhausen in 

 the Sundgau, a town then in alliance with the Swiss 

 cantons, August 29, 1728. His father was a tailor, 

 in humble circumstances, who intended him for his 

 own business ; but, being sent to a public school, he 

 so distinguished himself, that an attempt was made to 

 provide him with the means of studying theology, 

 which, however, proved unsuccessful, and he was 

 obliged to follow his father's employment. In this 

 situation, he spent the greatest part of the night in 

 study, and, obtaining an old mathematical treatise, 

 discovered so much ardour and ingenuity, that several 

 learned men were induced to instruct him gratis. 

 He acquired a knowledge of mathematics, philo- 

 sophy, and the Oriental languages in his native 

 place. He afterwards became clerk to some iron 

 works, and amanuensis to M. Iselin of Basle, who 

 conducted a newspaper, and became his sincere and 

 constant friend. In 1748, this gentleman recom- 

 mended him to baron Salis, president of the Swiss 

 convention, to become tutor to his children; and, 

 aided by the excellent library of his new patron, and 

 the scientific intercourse which he met with in hi 

 circle, he enlarged the sphere of his acquirements in 

 an extraordinary degree. After living eight years 

 at Coire, during which period his talents as a philo- 

 sopher and mechanician were rendered manifest 

 by various scientific compositions and inventions, he 

 repaired, in 1756, with his pupils, to Gottingen, and 

 soon after published his first separate work, entitled 

 De la Route de la Lumiere par les Airs. In 1758, 

 he visited Paris with his charge, and became ac- 

 quainted with D'Alembert and Messier. In 1759 

 he went to Augsburg, where he published his cele- 

 brated work On Perspective; and in the following 

 year appeared his Photometry, by which he added a 

 new branch to the science of mixed mathematics. 

 In the three or four following years, he publishec 

 Letters on the Construction of the Universe ; a Trea- 

 lise on the principal Qualities of the Orbits of the 

 Comets; Novum Organon. In 1764, he visited Ber- 

 lin, and was introduced to Frederic the Great, who 

 admitted him a regular member of the academy o 

 tliat capital an appointment which enabled him to 

 devote himself wholly to his favourite studies. He 

 enriched the transactions of various societies with 

 his papers and treatises, all of which bear the stamp 

 of eminent and original genius. Most of his mathe- 



natical j>ieces were collected, in three volume?. l>y 

 liniM-lf. His death took place September 25, 177'/, 

 n his forty-ninth year, owing to a decline, produced 

 >y over-application. Lambert forms one of the most 

 onspicuous examples on record of the mastery which 

 >reat genius and energy will sometimes exert over 

 intoward circumstances. In mathematics, logic, 

 and metaphysics, he was highly distinguished. He 

 was accustomed to labour from five in the morning 

 till midnight. He discovered the theory of the 

 speaking trumpet. Philosophy, and especially ana- 

 ytic logic, are greatly indebted to him for his 

 Novum Organon, or Thoughts on the Examination 

 and Relations of Truth (Leipsic, 1764, 2 vols.), and 

 liis Architektonik , or Theory of the first simple 

 Principles in philosophical and mathematical Know- 

 ledge (Riga, 1771, 2 vols.). 



LAMBETH ; a village in Surry, England, on the 

 borders of the river Thames, opposite to Westmin- 

 ster. Here is a palace belonging to the archbishop 

 of Canterbury, a very large pile of building, and 

 containing a library of 25,000 volumes, and upwards 

 of 1200 manuscripts. The kings of England, down 

 to Henry VII., often resided at Lambeth, in a palace 

 which no longer exists. Population ot entire parish 

 in 1841, 115,888. See London. 



LAMEGO; a city of Portugal, in Beira, in a 

 plain near the Duero, surrounded by mountains; 

 thirty-six miles E. of Oporto ; long. 7 27' W. ; lat. 

 41 p 7' N. ; population, 9000. It contains two 

 cathedral churches, a hospital, four convents, a 

 theological seminary, and a library. In this town 

 the estates assembled (1144) to confirm the election 

 of Alphonso Henriques, first king of Portugal, and 

 enacted the fundamental laws of the kingdom. Sew 

 Portugal. 



LAMENTATIONS. See Jeremiah. 

 LAMETTRIE, JULIEN OFFRAY DE, a materialist 

 and medical charlatan, was born at St Malo, in 1709, 

 and studied medicine in Holland, under Boerhaave. 

 He then went to Paris, where the duke deGrammont, 

 colonel of the guard, appointed him physician to his 

 regiment. He followed his patron to the siege of 

 Freyburg, and was here taken dangerously ill. He 

 believed that the spiritual power, which is called the 

 soul, perishes with the body, and wrote a Histoire 

 naturelle de VAme. This work, which every where 

 breathes the grossest materialism and scepticism, 

 procured him many enemies, and was burned by the 

 executioner, at the command of Parliament. On the 

 death of his patron, he lost his place. He now 

 turned his arms against his Parisian colleagues, and 

 wrote, under the signature Aletheius Demetrius, his 

 satire of Penelope ou Machiavel en Medicine (Berlin, 

 1748), on account of which he was obliged to fly to 

 Leyden. Here he published his L'Homme Machine. 

 The philosophy of the author consists hi constant 

 assumptions of what he is attempting to prove, im- 

 perfect comparisons or analogies instead of proofs, 

 some just observations from which general conclu- 

 sions are illogically drawn, and assertions instead of 

 doubts. Being persecuted in Holland, where his 

 book was condemned to the flames, he went to 

 Berlin, in 1748, and was made a reader to the king, 

 and a member of the academy. He died in 1751, of 

 a fever, which he treated after his own absurd views. 

 The king of Prussia himself wrote his eloge, which 

 was read in the academy. We find, in the works of 

 Lamettrie, spirit and a brilliant imagination, but 

 little judgment, accuracy, or taste. His philoso- 

 phical writings appeared at Berlin, in 1751, in two 

 volumes. His writings, besides the above-men- 

 tioned, are. L'Homme Plante, UArte de j'ouir, Le 

 Discours sur le Bonheur, and others. In the latter 

 work, Lamettrie is, according to Diderot, an author 



