LIVINGSTON LIVONIA. 



501 



1779, he accompanied Mr Jay to the court of Spain, 

 as his private secretary, and remained abroad about 

 three years. On his return, he devoted himself to 

 law, and was admitted to practice in April, 1783. 

 His talents were happily adapted to the profession, 

 and soon raised him into notice, and, ultimately to 

 eminence. He was called to the bench of the 

 supreme court of the state of New York, January 

 8, 1802, and, in November, 180G, was transferred to 

 that of the supreme court of the United States, the 

 duties of which station he discharged, with distin- 

 guished faithfulness and ability, until his death, 

 which took place during the sittings of the court at 

 Washington, March 18, 1823, in the sixty-sixth year 

 of his age. He possessed a mind of uncommon acute- 

 ness and energy, and enjoyed the reputation of an ac- 

 complished scholar, and an able pleader and jurist, an 

 upright judge, and a liberal patron of learning. 



LIVINGSTON, ROBERT R., an eminent American 

 politician, was born in the city of New York, 

 November 27, 1746. He was educated at King's 

 college, and graduated in 1765. He studied and 

 practised law in that city with great success. Near 

 the commencement of the American revolution, he 

 lost the office of recorder, on account of his attach- 

 ment to liberty, and was elected to the first general 

 congress of the colonies ; was one of the committee 

 appointed to prepare the Declaration of Indepen- 

 dence; in 1780, was appointed secretary of foreign 

 ailairs, and, throughout the war of the revolution, 

 signalized himself by his zeal and efficiency in the 

 revolutionary cause. (See his letters, in the Diplo- 

 matic Correspondence of the Revolution.) At the 

 adoption of the constitution of New York, he was 

 appointed chancellor of that state, which office he 

 held until he went, in 1801, to France, as minister 

 plenipotentiary, appointed by president Jefferson. 

 He was received by Napoleon Bonaparte, then first 

 consul, with marked respect and cordiality, and, 

 during a residence of several years in the French 

 capital, the chancellor appeared to be the favourite 

 foreign envoy. He conducted, with the aid of Mr 

 Monroe, the negotiation which ended in the cession of 

 Louisiana to the United States, took leave of the first 

 consul (1804), and made an extensive tour on the con- 

 tinent of Europe. On his return from Paris, as a private 

 citizen, Napoleon, then emperor, presented to him a 

 splendid snuff-box, with a miniature likeness of him- 

 self (Napoleon), painted by the celebrated Isabey. 

 It was in Paris that he formed a friendship and close 

 personal intimacy with Robert Fulton, whom he 

 materially assisted with counsel and money, to ma- 

 ture his plans of steam navigation. (See Fulton, 

 and Steam-Boat.) In 1805, Mr Livingston returned 

 to the United States, and thenceforward employed 

 himself in promoting the arts and agriculture. He 

 introduced into the state of New York the use of gyp- 

 sum and the Merino race of sheep. He was president 

 of the New York academy of fine arts, of which he 

 was a chief founder, and also of the society for the 

 promotion of agriculture. He died March 26, 1813, 

 with the reputation of an able statesman, a learned 

 lawyer, and a most useful citizen. 



LI VI US, ANDRONICCTS, the father of Roman poe- 

 try, by birth a Greek of Tarentum, first went to 

 Rome at the commencement of the sixth century 

 from the foundation of the city, as instructor to 

 the children of Livius Salinator. He introduced 

 upon the (Ionian stage, dramas after the Grecian 

 model, and, besides several epic poems, wrote a 

 translation of the Odyssey, in the old Saturnine 

 verse. We have only a few fragments of his writ- 

 ings, which may be found in the C'omici Latini, and 

 the Corpus Poi'larum. See Fabricius, Bib. Lat. iv. 1; 

 Tit. Livii, Hint. vii. 2. 



LIVIUS, TITOS, born at Padua, in the year of 

 Rome 695 (59 B. C.), came from the place of his 

 birth to Rome, where he attracted the notice of 

 Augustus, after whose death lie returned to his 

 native town, where he died A. D. 16. His history 

 of Rome, to which he devoted twenty years, rendered 

 hi in so celebrated, that a Spaniard is said to have 

 gone from Cadiz to Rome merely for the purpose of 

 seeing him. Of the circumstances of his life we 

 know little. He was called, by Augustus, the 

 Pompeian, because he defended the character of 

 Pompey, in iiis history ; this, however, did not pre- 

 vent his enjoying the patronage of the emperor till 

 the time of his death. According to Suidas, Livy 

 did not receive, during his lifetime, the applause 

 which his history deserved, and it was not till after 

 his death that full justice was rendered him. In the 

 fifteenth century, his body was supposed to have been 

 discovered at Padua, and a splendid monument was 

 raised to his memory. His Roman history begins at 

 the landing of ^Eneas in Italy, and comes down to 

 the year of the city 744. His style is clear and 

 intelligible, laboured without affectation, diffusive 

 without tediousness, and argumentative without pe- 

 dantry. His descriptions are singularly lively and 

 picturesque, and there are few specimens of oratory 

 superior to that of many of the speeches with which 

 his narratives are interspersed. Yet he was accused 

 (see Quintilian, viii. 1.) of provincialism (" patavini- 

 tas "). His whole work consisted of 140 or 142 

 books, of which we have remaining only the first ten, 

 and those from the twenty-first to the forty-fifth, or 

 the first, third and fourth decades, and half of the 

 fifth. In the first ten books, the history extends to 

 the year 460 ; the portion between the twenty-first 

 and forty-fifth books contains the account of the 

 second Punic war (A. U. C. 536), and the history of 

 the city to the year 586. In 1772, Bruns, while 

 engaged in collecting various readings, discovered, in 

 a codex reseripttts, in the Vatican, a fragment of the 

 ninety-first book ; but it is not of much importance. 

 It was printed at Rome, and reprinted at Leipsic, in 

 1773. The epitome of the whole work which has 

 been preserved, has been ascribed, by some to Livy, 

 by others, to Florus. Following this outline, and de- 

 riving his facts from other credible sources of Roman 

 history, Freinsheim composed his Supplement to 

 Livy. The best editions of Livy are those of Gro- 

 novius (Amsterdam, 1679, 3 vols.) of Drakenborch 

 (Leyden, 1738 46, 4 vols.), and, among the later 

 editions, those of Ernesti, Schafer, Ruperti, and Do- 

 ring. The best English translation is tliat of George 

 Baker (6 vols., 1797}, which has been often re- 

 printed. 



LIVONIA. The Russian provinces upon the 

 Baltic, viz. Livonia, Esthonia, Courland, and Semi- 

 gallia, early belonged to the Russian states, as tribu- 

 taries, while they retained their own institutions, 

 and were never protected by the Russians from hos- 

 tile inroads. During the period when the Russian 

 empire was in a state of confusion, they became 

 independent, but were again reduced to subjection 

 by Peter the Great. Livonia was little known to 

 the rest of Europe till 1158, when some mer- 

 chants of Bremen, on their way to Wisby, in Goth- 

 land, in search of new sources of commerce, were 

 thrown upon the coasts of Livonia. The country was 

 afterwards frequently visited by the people of Bre- 

 men, who soon formed settlements there. An 

 Augustine friar, Meinhard, with other Germans, 

 emigrated thither about twenty-eight years after. 

 He converted the inhabitants to Christianity, and was 

 their first bishop. The third bishop after him, by 

 name Albert, who advanced as far as the Dwiim, 

 first firmly established the foundations of the spiri. 



