L I F 
LIFFRE', a town of France, in the department of the 
Ille and Vilaine, and chief place of a canton, in the dif- 
trift of Rennes : nine miles north-qaft of Rennes. The 
place contains 2096, and the canton 8372, inhabitants, in 
Seven communes. 
To LIFT, v.a. \_lyffta, Swed. lojfter, Dan. I lifted, or 
lift ; I have lifted, or lift ] To raife from the ground ; to 
heave ; to elevate ; to hold on high : 
Your guefts are coming ; 
Lift up your countenance, as ’twere the day 
Of cerebration of that nuptial. Shakefp. Winter's Tale. 
To bear ; to fupport. Not in life : 
So down he fell, that th’ earth him underneath 
Did groan, as feeble fo great load to lift. Fairy Queen. 
To rob ; to plunder. Whence the term fop-lifter : 
So weary bees in little cells repofe, 
But if night-robbers lift the well-dor’d hive. 
An humming through their waxen city grows. Dryden. 
To exalt; to elevate mentally.—My heart was lift up in 
the ways of the Lord. 2 Chron. 
Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell, 
To bright Caecilia greater power is given : 
His numbers rais’d a fhade from hell, 
Her’s lift the foul to heav’n. Pope. 
To raife in fortune.—The eye of the Lord lifted up his 
head from nailery. Ecclus. —To raife in edimation.—Nei¬ 
ther can it be thought, becaufe fome leffons are chofen 
out of the Apocrypha, that we do offer difgrace to the 
word of God, or lift up the writings of men above it. 
Hooker. —To exalt in dignity : 
See to what a godlike height 
The Roman virtues lift up mortal man ! Addifon. 
To elevate ; to fwell, as with pride.—Our fucceffes have 
been great, and our hearts have been too much lifted up 
by them, fo that we have reafon to humble ourfelves. At- 
terbury. — Up is very often emphatically added to lift. —He 
lift up his fpear againfl eight hundred, whom he flew at 
one time. 2 Sam. xxiii. 8. 
To LIFT, v. n. To ftrive to raife by ftrength.—The 
mind, by being engaged in a talk beyond its lfrength, 
like the body drained by lifting at a weight too heavy, 
has often its force broken. Locke. 
Pinch cattle of pafture while fummer doth lad. 
And lift at their tailes ere a winter be pad. Tujfer. 
LIFT, f. The manner of lifting.—In the lift of the 
feet, when a man goeth up the hill,. s the weight of the 
body beareth mod upon the knees. Bacon. —In races, it is 
not the large dride, or high lift, that makes the fpeed. 
Bacon's EJfays. —The aft of lifting.—The goat gives the 
fox a lift, and out he Springs. L'EJlrange. — Lift, in Scot¬ 
land, denotes a load or furcharge of anything; as alfo, 
if one be difguifed much with liquor, they fay, He has 
got a great lift. [In Scottifb.J The fky: for in a darry 
night they fay, How clear the lift is !— Lifts of a fail 
are ropes to raife or lower them at pleafure. 
Dead Lift, is an edort to raife what with the whole 
force cannot be moved ; and figuratively any date of im¬ 
potence and inability: 
Myfelf and Trulla made a drift 
To help him out at a dead lift. Hudibras. 
LIF'TER, f One that lifts.—Thou, O Lord, art my 
glory, and the lifter- up of mine head. Pfal. iii. 3. 
LIFTING, /. The aft of raifing.. 
LIFTING-PIECES, f. [in clockwork.] The parts 
that lift up and unlock the detents. 
LIFTINGS, f. The name of a cudom which prevails 
among the vulgar in the counties of Lancafhire and Che- 
fhire, particularly in and about Cheder, Liverpool, Man- 
cheder, Bolton, Warrington, and the adjacent country, 
on Eader Monday and Tuefday. On the former of thefe 
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days the women, on the latter the men, forming parties 
of fix or tight each, furround every one of the oppofite 
fex whom they meet, and lift them thrice, not very 
gently, above their heads into the air, with loud (houts 
on each elevation. People of the better fort are obliged 
to keep at home on thofe days, or to redeem themfelves 
with money. The origin of this ftrange ceremony feems 
to bear the fame testimony to its antiquity which Mr. 
Brand alleges refpedting mod of the cudoms of the com¬ 
mon people ; that it has “ outlived the general knowledge 
of the very caufes which gave rife to it.” Some have 
faid, that it was an emblem of the refurre&ion of Jefus 
Chrid ; but it can hardly be thought that a fact, which 
Chridians celebrate as the foundation of their mod glo¬ 
rious hopes, Should be commemorated in fo ludicrous and 
indecent a way ; others have therefore fuppofed, that it 
was originally a pagan ceremony, defigned to ridicule the 
Chridian doftrine of a refurreidion ; but this is dill more 
unlikely, as it cannot be imagined that Chridians would 
adopt a cuftom exprefsly intended to expofe themfelves 
and the mod effential doctrine of their religion. A third 
opinion is, that it was introduced by the protedants to 
ridicule the elevation of the hod in catholic churches. 
But it might have been expefted that a cudom of fo late 
a date would have had the time and the occafion of its in¬ 
troduction noticed by fome hidorical cr topographical 
writer; befides, why Should this be done at Eader, rather 
than at any other time of the year? And what, in ei¬ 
ther of the three cafes, Should lead the men and women 
alternately to take liberties with each other ? 
In the city of Durham there exids a cudom drikingly 
correspondent, in this lad particular, with the Lancashire 
liftings. Mr. Brand deferibes it thus: “ There is a cuf¬ 
tom dill retained in the city of Durham on thefe holidays; 
on one day the men take off the women’s Shoes, which are 
only to be redeemed by a preient; on the next day the 
women take od’ the men’s in like manner.” He refers, 
in the fame place, to Durand’s Ritual of the Romidi 
Church, 1 . 6. c. 86. 9. In plerifque etiam regionibus, mulieres 
fecunda die pof Pafcha verberant maritos fuos ; die vero tertia 
mariti uxores fuas ; “ On the fecond day of EaSter the wo¬ 
men beat their huSbands; on the third the hufbands their 
wives.” 
From this it appears that the eflence of all thefe three 
cudoms confids in the two Sexes expreding, in different 
ways, their fenfe of fome mutual grudge againd each 
other. But what can this be? or why at Eader? It 
feems, however, to be the opinion of the bed-informed 
perS’ons, that thefe cudoms are in commemoration of our 
Lord’s refurreftion. Were fuch the cafe, we could wiSh 
to fee the whole abolished, as, in addition to its appearing 
like a burlefque, the indecent expreSfions attending the 
proceeding mud give a dranger a very indifferent opi¬ 
nion of the veneration entertained here for an event the 
mod intereding to human nature. As it feems to origi¬ 
nate in Wales, whither our mod ancient cudoms retired, 
perhaps there are fome little remains in it of a ceremony 
attached to the early religion of this island ; as it was the 
practice of our drd Chridian miilionaries, to Suffer the 
converts to retain as much of the former ceremonies and 
ufages, which they were attached to, as was confident 
with the Spirit and purity of our benevolent religion. In 
that cafe, it may be claffed with the May-games of our 
idand, or the hill-fires of the Irifh. 
To LIG, v. n. [leggen, Dut.] To lie s 
Thou kend the great care 
I have of thy health and thy welfare, 
Which many wild beads liggen in wait 
For to entrap in thy tender date. Spenfer's Paf orals. 
LIG'AMENT. f. \ligamentum, from ligo, Lat. ligament, 
Fr.] A white and Solid body, fofter than a cartilage, but 
harder than a membrane ; they have no confpicuous ca¬ 
vities, neither have they any fenfe, lelt they Should fuffer 
upon the motion of the joint; their chief ufe is to falten 
the bones, which are articulated together for motion, left 
they 
