L U T 



L U T 



Some of thefe ceremonies were abolillied by tlie emperor 

 CoMllantiiie, and his fiicccliors ; the rell fiibliilecl till the 

 Gothic kings were mailers of Rome, under whom they ex- 

 pired ; except that feveral of them were adopted by the 

 popes, and brought into the church, where they make a 

 tigure to this day : uitnefs the numerous confecrations, bc- 

 ncdiclionj, exorcifms, abhrions, fprinkhngs, proccffions, 

 fealls, &c. ftill in ufc in the Roman church. 



LUSTRINGS. A company was incorporated for 

 making, dreliing, and kiftrating alamodcs and lullrings in 

 England, who were to have the fole benefit thereof, by ilat. 

 4 and 5 W. and M. And no foreign lilks known by the 

 name of luftrings or ahunodes are to be imporred, but at the 

 port of London, &c. Stat, y and 10 W. IIL c. 43. See 

 Silk. 



LUSTRUM, a term ufed by the Romans, to fignify a 

 fpace of five years. 



Varro derives the word from luo, to pav ; becaufe at the 

 beginning of every fifth year they paid the cenfus, or tribute 

 impofed by the cenfors ; whofe authority, at their firft infti- 

 tution, was continued them for five years; though after- 

 wards it was abridged to cne. Others rather derive the 

 word from hijlrare, to nude a rev'wjj ; becaule once in five 

 years the cenlors reviewed the army. 



LviTKL'.M was alfo a ceremony, or facrifice ufcd by the 

 Ro;;i;:n3, after numbering their people, once in five years. 

 See LusTH.'VTroN. 



The cenfus was accompanied always by a luftration of the 

 people, fo the word lullrum has conltantly been taken by 

 the ancients and moderns for a term of five years: )et 

 if we enquire into the real Rate of the cafe, we fiiall 

 find no good ground for fixing fu precile a fignification 

 I to it ; but, on the contrary, that the cenfus and luilrum 

 xverc, for the moll part, held irregularly and uncertainly, 

 at very diiferent and various intervals of time, as the par- 

 ticular exigencies of the ftate required. Middlet. of Rom. 

 Sen. p. 107. 



LUTANGER, in Geography, a fmall iilaiid in tlie Eaft 

 India fea, near tl'.e S. coait of Mindanao. N. lat. 7' 19'. 

 E. long. \2l It'. 



LUTATION, in Chem'ijlry, is ufed for the cementing of 

 chemical veiTeis clofe together. 



LUTAYA, in Geography, one of the fmaller Philippine 

 illands, near the ifland of P.may. 



LUTE, LuTUM, in Chemi/lry, a com.pofition of certain 

 tenacious fubttances, wherewith to clofe the apertures and 

 junftures of veffels in diftillation, &c. See Cement, Ce- 

 ment, and Mortar. 



Lute, Leuto, Ital., Laute, Germ., a mufical ftringed 

 inftrument, of which, though the fhape or found is now 

 hardly known, yet during the fixteenth and feventeenth cen- 

 turies it was the favourite chamber inftrument of every na- 

 tion in Europe, and in the begmning of drimatic mufic the 

 recitatives were accompanied by the arch-lute, or theorbo, 

 inftead of the liarpfichord. 



Sir Thomas Wyat, the elder, one of our bell early poets, 

 has left us a fonnet to his lute, written very early in the 

 fixteen'.h century ; and Congreve, at the end of the feven- 

 teenth, has celebrated the performance of Mrs. Arabella 

 Hunt on that inllrument. 



The earliell mention of the lute that we have found 

 among the moderns is in Boccaccio, Glornata prima, where 

 the finging is generally faid to have been accompanied by 

 the lute. In Chaucer's Pardoner's tale, we are told : 



" In Flanders whilom was a compagnie 

 Of youHge folk that haunted in folie, 

 & 



As hazard, riot, ftev.e<; and tavernes 

 Whereas with harpcs, lutes, and guiterncJ, 

 They dauncc and play." 



In Shakfpcarc's firfl part of Henry IV. Mortimer tell*' 

 his lady, who can fpeak no Englilh, that her tongue 



" Makes Welfh as fweet as ditties highly perm'd, 

 Sung by a fair queen in a fummcr's bower, 

 With ravifliing divifion to her lute." 



And in lord commilTioner Whitclocke's MS, narrative of 

 a mafque given in 1633, to Charles I. and his queen, by the 

 fonr inns of court, he foys, that " he engaged forty lutes, 

 belides other inftruments and voyces of the mod excellent 

 kind in conforte." 



There was a lute at the Italian opera in England, to the 

 end of Handel's regency. And the place of lutenift in 

 the king's chapel was continued till the death of Giglier, 

 about the middle of the laft century. 



It feems as if in France there had been a time when there 

 was no other inftruments in nfe than lutes, as hthkr not 

 only implies the maker of lutes, but violins, violoncellos,, 

 and other inftruments of the fame kmd. 



There has been no fatisfaftory etymology given to the 

 \vord lute, though Scaliger aad Bochart have tried to find 

 or frame one, deriving it from the Arabic allaud, whilll 

 others have derived it from the German laute, or lauttn, 

 fonare. 



The ftringed inftruments of the ancients were fo nu- 

 merous, and fo various in their forms, that we know 

 not the precife difference between the lyre and cithara. 

 The teftudo, among poets, not only imphes the lyre, faid 

 to have been originally made by Mercury of the back or 

 hollow fhell of the tejludo aquatica, or fea tortoife, but mufic 

 itfelf. 



As to the different names that may have been given to 

 the fame kind of inllrument by the ancients, fuch as Cc^j.iy^^. 

 ;^!?.L.-, teftudo, cithara, &c. we fhall leave the difpute, fays 

 Merlennus, to grammarians, who may confult Athenaeus,. 

 Julius Pollux, Ariftidfs, Quintilianus, and other Greeks }- 

 for fince we are in pofTeffion of the inftrument, they may give 

 it what nam.e they pleafc. 



Vincenzo Galileo (Dial.) fays the bed lutes were made 

 in England. 



Tile lute confifts of four parts, the table, the body or 

 belly, which has nine or ten fides, the neck or finger-board, 

 which has nine or ten frets or divilions marked with catgut 

 or bowel ftrings, and the head or crofj, wiiere the fcrews or 

 pins for tightening or relaxing the ftrings in tuning are 

 fattened. This is called the lute with tv;o necks, or the 

 tlieorbo, which has fom.etimcs only one ftring to each note. 

 lu the middle of the belly or table, there is a role or paf- 

 fage for the found. There is alfo a bridge, to which the 

 ftrings are failened, and a piece of ivory between the head 

 and the neck, to which the other extremities of the ftrings 

 are fitted. 



In performing on the lute, the firings are ftruck with the- 

 right hand, and prefTed upon the frets -.vith the left. 



Whoever with to teach themfelvei to play upon this in-- 

 ftrument, as it will be difficult now to find a good mailer, 

 may attain confiderable knowledge in the praSice of it by 

 a perufal of Pcre Merfenne's Harmonic Univerlelle, printed 

 at Paris in 1636, folio, \vns ii. des Inllrumens, p. 4 j ; and 

 Mace's Mufick's Monument, folio, 1676, Graflineau. This 

 laft book is written \n a ityle amufmgly quaint : but it pro- 

 bably contains all the elTential rules known at the time it. 

 was wrjtiea, both for playing, judging. of the goodnefs of tho- 



inllrument 



