LAB 
Is f-o be granted to him that will make an abridgment, 
% Macc. 
Had you requir’d my helpful hand, 
Th’ artificer and art you might command, 
To labour arms for Troy. Dry den's ALneid. 
To beat; to belabour: 
Take, fliepherd, take a plant of ftubborn oak, 
And labour him with many a fturdy ftroke. Drydert. 
LA'BOtTRER,/ [laboureur, Fr.] One who is employ¬ 
ed in coarfe and toilfome work.—The prince cannot fay 
to the merchant, I have no need of thee; nor the merchant 
to the labourer, I have no need of thee. Swift. 
Health to himfelf, and to his infants bread, 
The lab'rer bears. Pope. 
One who takes pains in any employment.—Sir, I am a 
true labourer ; I earn that I eat; get that I wear; owe no 
man hate ; envy no man’s happinefs. Shake/peare. 
The ftone that labours up the hill, 
Mocking the lab'rer's toil, returning Hill, 
Is love. Glanville. 
Labourers, confpiring together concerning their work 
or wages, {hall forfeit iol. for the firlt offence, aol. for the 
fecond, &c. and, if not paid, be fet on the pillory. 2 
& 3 Edw. VI. c. 15. See Conspiracy. —Juftices of peace 
and fte wards of leets, &c. have power to hear and deter¬ 
mine complaints relating to non-payment of labourers’ 
wages. 4 Edw. IV. 1. Labourers taking work by the 
great, and leaving the fame unfiniflied, unlefs for non¬ 
payment of wages, or where they are employed in the 
king’s fervice, &c. are to fuffer one month’s imprifonment, 
and forfeit 5I. The wages of labourers are to be yearly 
affefled for every county by the flieriff, and juftices of 
peace in the Eafter feftions, and in corporations by the 
head officers, under penalties. 5 Eliz. c. 4. And the flie¬ 
riff is to caufe the rates and aiTeflrnents of wages to be pro¬ 
claimed. 1 Jac. I. c. 6. All perfons fit for labour fhall 
be compelled to ferve by the day in the time of hay or 
corn harveft; and labourers in the harveft-time may go to 
other counties, having tejlimonials. From the middle of 
March to the middle of September, labourers are to work 
from five o’clock in the morning till feven or eight at 
night, being allowed two hours for breakfaft and dinner, 
and half an hour for fleeping in the three hot months; 
and all the reft of the year from twilight to twilight, ex¬ 
cept an hour and a half for breakfaft and dinner, on pain 
of forfeiting id. for every hour abfent. If any labourer 
fliall make an affault upon his mafter, he fhall fuffer and 
be punilhed as a fervant making fuch affault. 5 Eliz. c. 4. 
And, by ftat. 6 Geo. III. c. 25, artificers, labourers, and 
other perfons, abfenting themfelves from the fervice of their 
employers, before the expiration of the term contracted 
for, Ihall be punilhed by imprifonment for not lefs than 
one month, nor more than three. 
LABOUREU'R (John), a writer of hiftory and me¬ 
moirs, was born in 1623 at Montmorenci, near Paris. 
At the age of nineteen he difplayed his turn for hiftori- 
cal refearches by publilhing an account of the tombs in 
the church of the Celeftines at Paris, with memoirs of the 
perfons entombed, their genealogies, arms, See. which, 
though an incorrefi performance, was well received. In 
1644, he was at court, in the ftation of gentleman in wait¬ 
ing, when he was appointed to attend the marfhalefs 
Guebriant into Poland, whither ftie was conducting the 
duchefs of Nevers, contracted to king Ladiflaus IV. Af¬ 
ter his return, he publifhed, in 1647, a curious narrative, 
of this female embafly. He then entered into the eccle- 
ftaftical profeffion, and was made almoner to the king, 
and prior of Juvigne. In 1664, the king created him com¬ 
mander of the order of St. Michael. He died in 1675. 
His other works were, 2. A Hiftory of the Marlhal de 
Guebriant, 1659. 3. A new edition of the Memoirs of 
Michael de Caftelnau, with feveral genealogical hiftoriesj 
LAB r 
1656, a vols. folio ; alfo at Bruffels, in 3 vols, folio, 1731. 
This performance is reckoned to have thrown much light 
upon French hiftory; and the additions by le Laboureur 
are faid to be very valuable, both for their accuracy and 
the free fpjrit in which they are written. 4. Hiftory of 
Charles VI. tranflated from the Latin of a manufeript in 
the Library of the Prefident de Thou, 2 vols. folio, 1663. 
5. A Treatife on the Origin of Coats of Arms, 1684, 4to. 
He left feveral manuferipts, particularly, 6. A Hiftory of 
the Peerage, in the king’s library. Moreri. 
Laboureur had a brother, (Louis,) bailiff of Mont¬ 
morency, author of feveral pieces of poetry. And an un¬ 
cle, (Claude,) provoft of the abbey of l’lfle Barbe, of which 
abbey he wrote a hiftory; and publifhed notes and correc¬ 
tions upon the breviary of Lyons, with fome other things. 
LABOURING, / The aft of toiling, or working hard. 
LA'BOURSOME, adj. Made with great labour and di¬ 
ligence. Not in ife. 
He hath; my lord, by labourfome petition, 
Wrung from me my flow leave. Skakefpeare's Hamlet. 
Among fearnen it implies a violent rolling or pitching 
motion of a fliip at fea, by which the mails, and even the 
hull, are in great danger. By pitching fuddenly, the 
malts are likely to be carried away; and by the heavy roi¬ 
ling motion the mails {train upon the fhrouds, and confe- 
quently upon the fides, with an effort which increafes as 
the fine of their obliquity; and the continued agitation 
of the velfel gradually loofens her joints, and makes her 
extremely leaky. 
LA'BRA, / [Spanilh,] A lip. Not ufed. 
Word of denial in thy labras here; 
Word of denial: froth and feum, thou lieft. Shakefptare. 
LABRADE'US, a furname of Jupiter in Caria. The 
word is derived from labrys, which in the language of the 
country fignifies a hatchet, which Jupiter’s ftatue held 
in its hand. Plutarch. 
LABRADO'R, a country of Nortli-America, in the 
government of Canada, bounded on the north-eaft by 
Hudfon’s Straits and the North Atlantic Ocean, on the 
fouth-eaft by the Straits of Bellille, on the fouth by Ca¬ 
nada, and on the weft by Hudfon’s Bay. A late author, 
Mr. Cartwright, who, from a long refidence of fixteen 
years, had good opportunities of being well informed, 
fays, the face of the whole country, at leaft all we are at 
prefent acquainted with, is very hilly, and in moll parts 
mountainous. The fouth coalt appears fertile from the 
fea, but a clofe infpeCtion difeovers the foil to be poor, 
and the verdure to confift only of coarfe plants, adapted 
to the nourifhment of deer and goats, but not proper for 
horfes, kine, or llieep. Corn might pollibly be railed 
about the heads of the deepeft bays, and in the interior 
parts of the country; but the few experiments which 
were made in gardens failed of fuccefs; for the ears were 
finged by the froft before the grain ripened. All the ealt 
coaft, as far as he went, exhibits a molt barren appearance; 
the mountains rife fuddenly out of the fea, compofed of 
rocks, thinly covered in fpots with black peat-earth, on 
which grow fome ftunted fpruces, and a few other plants, 
but not lufficient to give them the leaft appearance of fer¬ 
tility; however, the fea, rivers, and lakes, abound in filh, 
fowl, and amphibious creatures. No country is better 
furnilhed with large, convenient, and fafe, harbours, or 
fupplied with better water; for rivers, brooks, lakes, 
pools, and ponds, are every where to be met with in great 
abundance. All along the eaft coaft, and within the many 
capacious bays which indent it, are thoufands of illands 
of various fizes, on which innumerable multitudes of ei¬ 
der-ducks, and other water-fowl, breed; the larger ones 
have generally deer, foxes, and hares, upon them. All 
kinds of filh which are found in the arCtic feas abound on 
this coaft; and the rivers are frequented by falmon and 
fea-trout; pike, barbel, eels, river-trout, and fome other 
kinds, are alfo found in them. A few miles from the fea 
3 the 
