LAMIA LAMP. 



355 



without judgment, one who confounds the ills of the 

 wise and good with the torments of the wicked, and 

 the slight evils of knowledge with the destructive 

 consequences of ignorance who betrays his frivolity 

 in what he says, and the corruption of his heart 

 in what he dares not speak out who in one 

 place asserts that man is evil by nature, and else- 

 where derives man's duties and his happiness from 

 the nature of his being who seems to labour to 

 console the criminal in his crimes, the vicious in his 

 vices and whose gross sophisms, dangerous on 

 account of the jests wherewith he seasons them, 

 betray a man ignorant of the very rudiments of moral 

 philosophy Voltaire, who had at first favoured him, 

 retracted his encomiums. On his death bed, Lamet- 

 trie manifested strong marks of penitence. 



LAMIA ; the name of an Athenian courtesan, 

 celebrated for the charms of her person, and the 

 brilliancy of her wit. She was, by profession, a 

 flute-player. Hearing that her favourite instrument 

 was carried to great perfection in Egypt, she tra- 

 velled into that country, where she became the 

 mistress of Ptolemy Soter. On the defeat of that 

 prince by Demetrius Poliorcetes, about three cen- 

 turies before the Christian era, Lamia fell into the 

 hands of the conqueror, over whom, the handsomest 

 man of the age, she soon acquired a complete ascen- 

 dency. Her influence procured from Demetrius 

 great concessions in favour of her countrymen, the 

 Athenians, who, in their gratitude, went so far as to 

 raise a temple to her honour, under the denomination 

 of Venus Lamia. Plutarch and Athenceus both bear 

 ample testimony to the qualities of her mind ; and, 

 if the antique engraving on an amethyst, in the 

 king of France's collection, give a true portrait of 

 her features, her beauty is still less questionable. 

 The exact time of her decease is uncertain. 



LAMI^E ; in fabulous history, certain monsters 

 of Africa, who had the face and breasts of a woman, 

 and the rest of the body like that of a serpent. They 

 allured strangers to come to them, that they might 

 devour them ; and, though they were not endowed 

 with the faculty of speech, yet their hissings were 

 pleasing and agreeable. Some believed them to be 

 witches, or rather evil spirits, who, under the form of 

 a beautiful woman, enticed young children and 

 devoured them. According to some, the fable of the 

 Lamiae is derived from the amours of Jupiter with a 

 certain beautiful woman called Lamia, whom the 

 jealousy of Juno rendered deformed, and whose 

 children she destroyed ; upon which Lamia became 

 insane, and so desperate, that she ate up all the 

 children that came in her way. These beings are 

 also called Lemures. (q. v.) 



LAMIAN WAR ; a war carried on by the troops 

 of Antipater (323 B. C.), after the death of Alexan- 

 der, when the Greeks rose against Leonatus, who 

 retreated to the fortress of Lamia, in Thessaly. The 

 consequence of this war was the abolition of the 

 Grecian democracies, and the reception of Macedo- 

 nian garrisons into the cities. Athens was also 

 obliged, to conclude a peace, to give up Demosthenes 

 and Hyperides, the orators who had instigated them 

 to this war. Demosthenes destroyed himself by 

 poison. 



LAMOIGNON. See Malesherbes. 



LAMOTTE VALO1S, countess of, rendered noto- 

 rious by the affair of the necklace, represented herself 

 as the descendant of the family of Valois, by an 

 illegitimate child of Henry II. Until the affair of the 

 necklace, she had lived in misery and contempt, 

 although she had employed all the arts of immorality 

 and intrigue, to procure for herself rank and wealth. 

 Being thus known to a great part of the nobility of 

 Versailles and Paris, she astonished all who were 



acquainted with the circumstances of her fortune, 

 when, in 1784, she suddenly began to display an 

 extravagance which could only be supported by great 

 wealth. An intrigue soon became notorious, which 

 attracted the attention of all Europe. The prince 

 Louis de Rohan, cardinal bishop of Strasburg, and 

 grand almoner, had fallen into disgrace, of which the 

 reasons were not very satisfactorily known. The 

 countess of Lamotte, informed of the desire of the 

 cardinal to recover favour at court at any price, had 

 falsely represented to him, that the queen, with whom 

 she pretended to have a great, though secret influence, 

 wished to possess a costly necklace, which was 

 offered for sale, but at that time was not able imme- 

 diately to advance the sum requisite for the purchase. 

 If, therefore, he would purchase the necklace in his 

 own name, and allow the queen to repay him by 

 instalments, he would by so doing regain favour. The 

 cardinal fell into this snare, purchased the necklace, 

 and gave it to the countess of Lamotte, to be delivered 

 by her to the queen. A bond, forged by the countess, 

 was then given him for his security, settling the con- 

 ditions of payment. In order to deceive the cardinal 

 the more perfectly, the countess had concerted with a 

 woman who was privy to the plot, that she should 

 appear to him under the mask of the queen, in 

 August, 1784, in the gardens at Versailles, and pre- 

 sent him a box containing a rose and the queen's 

 portrait. The time when the cardinal had promised 

 to pay for the necklace now came, and, as he did not 

 possess money sufficient for the purpose, he informed 

 the jewellers, that the necklace was purchased for 

 the queen. The jewellers, after waiting a long time 

 without obtaining their money, applied to the king, 

 and thereby gave a clue for the detection of the 

 fraud. By the sentence of parliament, the deceived 

 cardinal was acquitted, and the countess of Lamotte, 

 convicted of having embezzled and sold the necklace, 

 was sentenced to be branded, scourged, and perpe- 

 tually imprisoned. After nine months, she escaped 

 confinement, and fled to England, where, in conjunc- 

 tion with her husband, who had there sold the neck- 

 lace, she published a pamphlet against the court of 

 Versailles, and particularly against the queen. Vil- 

 lette and Cagliostro, who had taken part in the 

 deception, were banished the kingdom. The countess 

 was found, after a nocturnal revel, precipitated from 

 a third story window upon the pavements of London. 

 LAMP. The invention of lamps is ascribed to 

 the Egyptians. In the festivals in honour of Minerva, 

 at Sais, in Lower Egypt, great numbers of lamps 

 were kept burning. They were known even in the 

 times of Moses and Job. The Egyptians were also 

 the first who placed burning lamps in the tombs with 

 their dead, as an emblem of the immortality of the 

 soul. From Egypt, the use of lamps was carried to 

 Greece, where they were also consecrated to Minerva, 

 the goddess of learning, as indicative of the nightly 

 studies of the scholar. From Greece, the use of 

 lamps passed to the Romans. The first person who 

 is known to have published a collection of ancient 

 lamps, is Fortunio Liceto, an Italian, whose chief 

 design appears to have been to prove the possibility 

 of the existence of inextinguishable, or, rather, per- 

 petually-burning lamps. Pietro Santo Bartoli, a 

 countryman of his, afterwards published at Rome, in 

 the year 1691, the collection of Bellori ; but these 

 engravings are exceedingly ill executed and unfaith- 

 ful. Passeri, however, another Italian, published, at 

 the suggestion of the academy of Pesaro, a collection 

 of 322 lamps which he possessed in his museum. 

 The above-mentioned collections, however, have been 

 much surpassed in beauty and interest by that of 

 Porlic: The sixth hall of that museum is entirely 

 filled with lamps and candelabras discovered in the 

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