L Y It 
natural order orchid eae. The generic characters are—Calyx: 
perianth fuperior, ringent, of three leaves, the upper one 
vaulted, the reft flattilh. Corolla: petals two, nearly equal, 
and fimilar to the flatter calyx-leaves. NeClary ftiorter, its 
edges afcending, hood-like, with a taper point, the diflc 
glandular or papillary. Stamina: anther terminal, per¬ 
manent, its cells clofe together ; mafles of pollen two in 
each cell, powdery. Piftillum : germen inferior j ftyle co¬ 
lumnar, linear. Pericarpium : capfule. Seeds : numerous. 
—EJfcntial CharaEhr. Calyx ringent; its upper leaf vault¬ 
ed. Lip ftiorter, hooded, glandular, with a taper point. 
Style linear. Anther vertical, permanent. 
This is a genus of fmooth Orchideae, growing on the 
ground ; bulbs naked, undivided, terminating the defcend- 
ing caudex, which throws out roots above them ; Item 
bearing a Angle leaf clofe to the root, and two braCteas 
above, befides what accompany each flower ; flowers ra- 
cemofe, very dark red, moftly reverfed. 
Species. 1. Lyperanthus fuaveolens : leaf linear, elon¬ 
gated; petals afcending ; dilk of the neftary bearing rows 
of fertile glands; its margin naked. Found near Port 
Jackfon, New South Wales. 
2. Lyperanthus elliptic us: leaf lanceolate-elliptical; 
di(k of the neCtary papillary ; its margin naked. Gather¬ 
ed by Mr. G. Caley in the fame neighbourhood. 
3. Lyperanthus nigricans: leaf ovate, fomewhat heart- 
fhaped ; petals divided, lip fringed; its difk papillary. 
Found by Mr. Brown near Port Jackfon, as well as in the 
fouthern part of New Holland. Prodr. Nov. Roll. 325. 
LYP'IAT, (Upper and Lower), two hamlets in the 
.parilh of Stroud, Gloucelterlhire. 
LYPTIN'GEN. See Leiblingen, vol. xii. p. 453. 
LY'RA, in aftronomy, a conlfellation in the northern 
hemifphere. The number of its (tars, in Ptolemy’s ca¬ 
talogue, is ten ; in Tycho’s eleven ; in Hevelius’s feven- 
teen ; and in the Britannic catalogue twenty-one. 
LY'RA (Nicholas de), a learned • French monk and 
fcripture-commentator, was a native of a fmall town in 
the diocefe of Evreux in Normandy, from which he took 
his furname. He was defeended from Jewifh parents, 
who taught him the Hebrew language; but, becoming af¬ 
terwards a convert to Chriltianity, he embraced the reli¬ 
gious life in a monastery at Verneuil, in the year 1291. 
Having (laid fome time there, he was lent to Paris, where 
he applied with the greatelt diligence and fuccels to his 
ftudies, and was admitted to the degree of doCtor. For 
feveral years he read lectures on the Holy Scriptures in 
the great convent of his order in that city, with a degree 
of learning and tafte far fuperior to the prevailing fpirit 
of his age. His merit railed him to the principal offices 
•in his order; and fecured him the regard of the moil il- 
’tultrious characters in France ; fo that queen Joan, countefs 
of Burgundy, confort of Philip V. called the Long, ap¬ 
pointed him one of the executors of her will. He died at 
Paris, in the year 1340. He was the author of “Poftills,” 
or a compendious expolition on the whole Bible, which 
he commenced in 1293, and finilhed in the year 1330. In 
this work he Ihows a greater acquaintance with the li¬ 
teral fenfe of Scripture than any preceding commentator 
had difeovered ; and has availed himfelf of his intimate 
knowledge of the Hebrew, to feleCt the molt valuable 
comments of the molt learned rabbis. The firft edition 
of this work was publiflied.at Rome, in 1472, in 7 vols. 
folio, and is now become rare ; and it has fince under¬ 
gone various imprefliOns at Bafil, Lyons, Do way, Ant¬ 
werp, and other places; of which the belt is that of Ant¬ 
werp, 1634, in 6 vols. folio. De Lyra was alfo the au¬ 
thor of, 2. Moral Commentaries upon the Scriptures, of 
which thofe on the evangelifts were publifhed at Venice in 
1516 and 1518. 3. A Deputation againft the Jews ; and 
other works. M0JJ1. Hift, Eccl.fcec. xiv. 
LY'RATE, adj. in botany, a leaf cut into tranfverfe feg- 
ments, which are generally fmaller and more remote down¬ 
wards, like an ancient lyre. See the J)qtajsy Plate IV, 
fig. 50. vol. iii, 
L Y R S30 
LYRE,/. [Fr. from lyra, Lat.] A harp; a mufical in- 
ftrument to which poetry is, by poetical writers, fuppofed 
to be fung.—-He never touched his lyre in fuch a truly, 
chromatic manner as upon that occaflon. Arbuthnot. 
My fofteft verfe, my darling lyre, 
Upon Euphelia’s toilet lay. Prior. 
The lyre was an inftrument fo dear to the Greeks, that 
they have by turns attributed its invention to Mercury, 
Apollo, Linus, O r pheus, and Amphion 3 making it the 
fyinbol of all excellence in poetry and mufic. The poets 
and hiftorians of fabulous times, however, feem molt to 
agree in aferibing the invention to Mercury. And among 
the accounts of the feveral writers of antiquity who have 
mentioned this circumftance, and confined the invention 
to the Egyptian Mercury, that of Apollodorus (Biblio¬ 
theca, lib. ii.) feems the molt intelligible and probable. 
“The Nile,” fays this writer, “ after having overflowed 
the whole country of Egypt, when it returned within its 
natural bounds, left on the Ihore a great number of dead 
animals of various kinds, and, among the reft, a tortoife,- 
the flefti of which being dried and wafted by the fun, no¬ 
thing was left within the (hell but nerves and cartilages, 
and thefe, being braced and contracted by defecation, 
were rendered fonorous; Mercury, in walking along the 
banks of the Nile, happening to Itrike hisfoot againlt the 
fhell of this tortoife, was fo pleafed with the found it pro. 
dneed, that it fuggelted to him the firft idea of a lyre, 
which he afterwards conftruCted in the form of a tortoife, 
and ltrung it with the dried finews of dead animals,” 
Cenforinus, however, (De Die Nat. cap. 22.) attributes 
to Apollo the firft idea of producing found from a firing, 
which was luggefted to him by the twang of his filter Di¬ 
ana’s bow. fuXXttti is ftriftly to twang a ftring, and 
the found which the bow-firing produces at the emilfioiv 
of the arrow. Euripides ufes it in that fenfe : 
■- — X, i i l 
YxMetrt nvgo t?. Bacch. v. 7S2. 
Father Montfaucon fays it is very difficult to determine 
in what the lyre, cithara, chelys, pfaltery, and harp, dif¬ 
fered from each other 3 as he had examined the reprefen- 
tationsof fix hundred lyres and citharas in ancient fculp- 
ture, all which he found without a neck, and the firings 
open as in the modern harp, played by the fingers. 
(Antiq. Expl. tom. iii. lib. 5. cap. 3.) But, though an¬ 
cient and modern authors ulually confound thefe lnftru- 
ments, yet a manifeft diftinCtion is made by A rift. Quintil. 
in the following paflage, p. 101. After di(cuffing the 
characters of wind-inltruments, he fays, “ Among the 
it ringed inftruments, you will find the lyre of a character 
analogous to mafeuline, from the great depth or gravity, 
and the roughnels ol its tones 3 the fambuca of a feminine 
character, weak and delicate, and, from its great acutenefs 
and the fmallnefs of its firings, tending to diftolve and 
enervate. Of the intermediate inftruments, the polyp- 
thongum partakes molt of the feminine ; but the cithara 
differs not much from the mafeuline character of the lyre.” 
Here is a Icale of Itringed inftruments; the lyre and fam¬ 
buca at the extremes; the polypthongum and cithara be¬ 
tween ; the one next to the fambuca, the other next to the 
lyre. He afterwards juft mentions that there were others be¬ 
tween thefe. Now it is natural to infer,that, as he conftantiy 
attributes the manly character to gravity of tone, the ci— 
thara was probably the more acute inftrument of the two j 
lefs loud and rough, and ltrung with fmaller firings. Con¬ 
cerning what difference there might be in the form and 
rtruCture of the inftruments, he is wholly filent. The 
paflage, however, is curious as far as it goes, and decilive. 
The cithara may, perhaps, have been as different from 
the lyre, as a (ingle harp from one that is double ; and it 
feems to be clearly pointed out by this multiplicity of 
names, that the Greeks had two principal fpecies of (fringed 
inftruments; one, like our harp, of full compafs, that 
reited on its bale; the other more portable, and flung 
‘ over 
