LANGEVIN 



3313 



LANGLEY 



of the Odyssey. His contributions to the study 

 of comparative mythology and religion are 

 Custom and Myth; Myth, Ritual and Religion ; 

 Secret of the Totem, The Clyde Mystery and 

 others. He published several volumes of bal- 

 lads, biography, history, translations and fairy 

 tales. He was educated at Edinburgh Acad- 

 emy, Saint Andrew's University and Balliol 

 College, Oxford. His works include Lost Lead- 

 ers and Letters on Literature; Homer and the 

 Epic; A Defence of Sir Walter Scott and the 

 Border Minstrelsy; Shakespeare, Bacon and 

 the Great Unknown; Letters to Dead Authors, 

 and other volumes. 



LANGEVIN, lah Nzh' van' , SIR HECTOR Louis 

 (1826-1906), a Canadian statesman, one of the 

 leaders in the movement for Confederation, 

 and for three decades thereafter one of the 

 most conspicuous members of the Conserva- 

 tive party. A member of a distinguished 

 Quebec family, he won prominence in public 

 affairs at an early age. He established an 

 honorable reputation at the bar, and also gave 

 some of his time to literature, contributing fre- 

 quently to the press, and serving as editor of 

 the Journal of Agriculture. His varied activi- 

 ties, added to his social prominence, made him 

 mayor of Quebec in 1858, when he was only 

 thirty years old. He served until 1861, and 

 during the next five years held several port- 

 folios in the Canadian Ministry, including 

 those of Solicitor-General for Lower Canada 

 and Postmaster-General. He was conspicuous 

 in the Confederation movement for his tact, 

 suavity and broad statesmanship, and was one 

 of the delegates to the conference at which the 

 British North America Act was drafted. 



After the organization of the Dominion, 

 Langevin became Secretary of State in the first 

 Dominion Cabinet. In 1873 he resigned with 

 the other members of the Macdonald Min- 

 istry, and remained in opposition until 1879, 

 when he became Minister of Public Works, a 

 post he filled with ability until 1891. From 

 1867 until his retirement from public life in 

 1896 he served without a break in the Do- 

 minion House of Commons. His ambition 

 was to create a feeling of brotherhood between 

 his own people and their English-speaking 

 compatriots. In recognition of his many serv- 

 ices to Canada and the Empire Queen Victoria 

 made him a Knight of the Order of Saint 

 Michael and Saint George. 



LANGEVIN, THE MOST REVEREND Louis 

 PHILIPPE (1855- ), a Canadian Roman 

 Catholic churchman, archbishop of Saint Boni- 

 208 



face, and one of the most influential prelates 

 in the Dominion. Archbishop Langevin was 

 born at Saint Isidore, Que., and received his 

 scholastic training at the Sulpician College, 

 Montreal. For several years after his gradu- 

 ation he taught the classics in that college, 

 but in 1881 he entered the Oblate Order. In 

 1882 he was ordained priest, and three years 

 later was called to the chair of theology in the 

 University of Ottawa. There he remained until 

 1893, when he removed to Manitoba to become 

 superintendent of all the Oblate Missions in 

 the Northwest Territories. After a year as 

 superintendent, followed by a year as pastor 

 of Saint Mary's Church at Winnipeg, he was 

 honored by his consecration as archbishop of 

 Saint Boniface. Though he was only forty 

 years old at the time of this appointment, his 

 subsequent career fully justified the confidence 

 thus placed in him. In the breadth and depth 

 of his influence he is a worthy successor of 

 Archbishop Tache. 



LANGLAND, WILLIAM (?1332-1400?), with 

 the exception of Chaucer, the greatest English 

 poet of the fourteenth century. He was prob- 

 ably the author of The Vision of Piers Plow- 

 man, a great satirical allegory, vigorously at- 

 tacking Church and State .corruption; and of 

 Richard the Redeless, dealing with the life of 

 Richard II. Very little is known of Langland's 

 life. He is supposed to have been born near 

 Shropshire and to have studied with the Bene- 

 dictine monks, after which he drifted to Lon- 

 don, where -he lived in poverty. 



LANGLEY, lang'li, SAMUEL PIERPONT (1834- 

 1906), an American astronomer, physicist and 

 pioneer in aeronautics. He invented the bolome- 

 ter, the most delicate instrument for record- 

 ing solar heat, capable of detecting a variation 

 of less than one millionth of a degree. Lang- 

 ley was born at Roxbury, Mass., and was edu- 

 cated at the Boston Latin School. In 1865, 

 after a period of study in Europe, he was 

 appointed professor of mathematics in the 

 United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, 

 later becoming professor of astronomy at the 

 Western University of Pennsylvania and secre- 

 tary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1887. 

 He established the Astrophysical Observatory 

 and the National Zoological Park at Washing- 

 ton, became in 1886 president of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science 

 and received from Oxford University the degree 

 of D. C. L., the Janssen medal of the Insti- 

 tute of France and the Rumford medal of the 

 Royal Society of Lonqlon. 



