Chapter XX: Part 20

HIERONYMUS JAROSLAW LASKI (1496-1542), Polish diplomatist, nephew of Archbishop Laski, was successively palatine of Inowroclaw and of Sieradia. His first important mission was to Paris in 1524, ostensibly to contract an anti-Turkish league with the French king, but really to bring about a matrimonial alliance between the dauphin, afterwards Henry II., and the daughter of King Sigismund I., a project which failed through no fault of Laski's. The collapse of the Hungarian monarchy at Mohacs (1526) first opened up a wider career to Laski's adventurous activity. Contrary to the wishes of his own sovereign, Sigismund I., whose pro-Austrian policy he detested, Laski entered the service of John Zapolya, the Magyar competitor for the Hungarian throne, thereby seriously compromising Poland both with the emperor and the pope. Zapolya despatched him on an embassy to Paris, Copenhagen and Munich for help, but on his return he found his patron a refugee in Transylvania, whither he had retired after his defeat by the German king Ferdinand I. at Tokay in 1527. In his extremity Zapolya placed himself under the protection of the sultan, Laski being sent to Constantinople as his intermediary. On his way thither he was attacked and robbed of everything, including his credentials and the rich presents without which no negotiations were deemed possible at the Porte. But Laski was nothing if not audacious. Proceeding on his way to the Turkish capital empty-handed, he nevertheless succeeded in gaining the confidence of Gritti, the favourite of the grand vizier, and ultimately persuaded the sultan to befriend Zapolya and to proclaim him king of Hungary. He went still further, and without the slightest authority for his action concluded a ten years' truce between his old master King Sigismund of Poland and the Porte. He then returned to Hungary at the head of 10,000 men, with whose aid he enabled Zapolya to re-establish his position and defeat Ferdinand at Saros-Patak. He was rewarded with the countship of Zips and the governor-generalship of Transylvania. But his influence excited the jealousy of the Magyars, and Zapolya was persuaded to imprison him. On being released by the interposition of the Polish grand hetman, Tarnowski, he became the most violent opponent of Zapolya. Shortly after his return to Poland, Laski died suddenly at Cracow, probably poisoned by one of his innumerable enemies.

See Alexander Hirschberg, _Hieronymus Laski_ (Pol.) (Lemberg, 1888).

JAN LASKI, the younger (1499-1560), also known as _Johannes a Lasco_, Polish reformer, son of Jaroslaw (d. 1523), voivode of Sieradia and nephew of the famous Archbishop Laski. During his academical course abroad he made the acquaintance of Zwingli and Erasmus and returned to Poland in 1526 saturated with the new doctrines. Nevertheless he took orders, and owing to the influence of his uncle obtained the bishopric of Veszprem in Hungary from King John Zapolya, besides holding a canonry of Cracow and the office of royal secretary. In 1531 he resigned all his benefices rather than give up a woman whom he had secretly married, and having incurred general reprobation and the lasting displeasure of his uncle the archbishop, he fled to Germany, where ultimately (1543) he adopted the Augsburg Confession. For the next thirteen years Laski was a wandering apostle of the new doctrines. He was successively superintendent at Emden and in Friesland, passed from thence to London where he became a member of the so-called _ecclesia peregrinorum_, a congregation of foreign Protestants exiled in consequence of the Augsburg Interim of 1548 and, on being expelled by Queen Mary, took refuge first in Denmark and subsequently at Frankfort-on-Main, where he was greatly esteemed. From Frankfort he addressed three letters (printed at Basel) to King Sigismund, Augustus, and the Polish gentry and people, urging the conversion of Poland to Protestantism. In 1556, during the brief triumph of the anti-catholics, he returned to his native land, took part in the synod of Brzesc, and published a number of polemical works, the most noteworthy of which were _Forma ac ratio tota ecclesiastici ministerii in peregrinorum Ecclesiae instituta_ (Pinczow, 1560), and in Polish, _History of the Cruel Persecution of the Church of God in 1567_, republished in his _Opera_, edited by A. Kuyper at Amsterdam in 1866. He died at Pinczow in January 1560 and was buried with great pomp by the Polish Protestants, who also struck a medal in his honour. Twice married, he left two sons and two daughters. His nephew (?) Albert Laski, who visited England in 1583, wasted a fortune in aid of Dr Dee's craze for the "philosopher's stone." Laski's writings are important for the organization of the _ecclesia peregrinorum_, and he was concerned in the Polish version of the Bible, not published till 1563.

See H. Dalton, _Johannes a Lasco_ (1881), English version of the
earlier portion by J. Evans (1886); Bartels, _Johannes a Lasco_
(1860); Harboe, _Schicksale des Johannes a Lasco_ (1758); R. Wallace,
_Antitrinitarian Biography_ (1850); Bonet-Maury, _Early Sources of
Eng. Unit. Christianity_ (1884); W. A. J. Archbold in _Dict. Nat.
Biog._ (1892) under "Laski," George Pascal, _Jean de Lasco_ (Paris,
1894); _Life_ in Polish by Antoni Walewski (Warsaw, 1872); and Julian
Bukowski, _History of the Reformation in Poland_ (Pol.) (Cracow,
1883). (R. N. B.)

LAS PALMAS, the capital of the Spanish island of Grand Canary, in the Canary archipelago, and of an administrative district which also comprises the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura; on the east coast, in 28° 7´ N. and 5° 24´ W. Pop. (1900) 44,517. Las Palmas is the largest city in the Canary Islands, of which it was the capital until 1833. It is the seat of a court of appeal, of a brigadier, who commands the military forces in the district, of a civil lieutenant-governor, who is independent of the governor-general except in connexion with elections and municipal administration, and of a bishop, who is subordinate to the archbishop of Seville. The palms from which the city derives its name are still characteristic of the fertile valley which it occupies. Las Palmas is built on both banks of a small river, and although parts of it date from the 16th century, it is on the whole a clean and modern city, well drained, and supplied with pure water, conveyed by an aqueduct from the highlands of the interior. Its principal buildings include a handsome cathedral, founded in the 16th century but only completed in the 19th, a theatre, a museum, an academy of art, and several hospitals and good schools. The modern development of Las Palmas is largely due to the foreign merchants, and especially to the British who control the greater portion of the local commerce. La Luz, the port, is connected with Las Palmas by a railway 4 m. long; it is a free port and harbour of refuge, officially considered the third in importance of Spanish ports, but actually the first in the matter of tonnage. It is strongly fortified. The harbour, protected by the promontory of La Isleta, which is connected with the mainland by a narrow bar of sand, can accommodate the largest ships, and affords secure anchorage in all weathers. Ships can discharge at the breakwater (1257 yds. long) or at the Santa Catalina mole, constructed in 1883-1902. The minimum depth of water alongside the quays is 4½ ft. There are floating water-tanks, numerous lighters, titan and other cranes, repairing workshops, and very large supplies of coal afloat and ashore. La Luz is one of the principal Atlantic coaling stations, and the coal-trade is entirely in British hands. Other important industries are shipbuilding, fishing, and the manufacture of glass, leather and hats. The chief exports are fruit, vegetables, sugar, wine and cochineal; coal, iron, cement, timber, petroleum, manure, textiles and provisions are the chief imports. (See also CANARY ISLANDS.)

LASSALLE, FERDINAND (1825-1864), German socialist, was born at Breslau on the 11th of April 1825, of Jewish extraction. His father, a prosperous merchant in Breslau, intended Ferdinand for a business career, and sent him to the commercial school at Leipzig; but the boy got himself transferred to the university, first at Breslau, and afterwards at Berlin. His favourite studies were philology and philosophy; he became an ardent Hegelian. Having completed his university studies in 1845, he began to write a work on Heraclitus from the Hegelian point of view; but it was soon interrupted by more stirring interests, and did not see the light for many years. It was in Berlin, towards the end of 1845, that he met the lady with whom his life was to be associated in so remarkable a way, the Countess Hatzfeldt. She had been separated from her husband for many years, and was at feud with him on questions of property and the custody of their children. Lassalle attached himself to the cause of the countess, whom he believed to have been outrageously wronged, made special study of law, and, after bringing the case before thirty-six tribunals, reduced the powerful count to a compromise on terms most favourable to his client. The process, which lasted ten years, gave rise to not a little scandal, especially that of the _Cassettengeschichte_ which pursued Lassalle all the rest of his life. This "affair of the casket" arose out of an attempt by the countess's friends to get possession of a bond for a large life annuity settled by the count on his mistress, a Baroness Meyendorf, to the prejudice of the countess and her children. Two of Lassalle's comrades succeeded in carrying off the casket, which contained the lady's jewels, from the baroness's room at an hotel in Cologne. They were prosecuted for theft, one of them being condemned to six months' imprisonment. Lassalle, accused of moral complicity, was acquitted on appeal. He was not so fortunate in 1849, when he underwent a year's durance for resistance to the authorities of Düsseldorf during the troubles of that stormy period. But going to prison was a familiar experience in Lassalle's life. Till 1859 Lassalle resided mostly in the Rhine country, prosecuting the suit of the countess, finishing the work on Heraclitus, which was not published till 1858, taking little part in political agitation, but ever a helpful friend of the working men. He was not allowed to live in Berlin because of his connexion with the disturbances of '48. In 1859, however, he entered the city disguised as a carter, and, through the influence of Humboldt with the king, got permission to stay there. The same year he published a remarkable pamphlet on the _Italian War and the Mission of Prussia_, in which he warned his countrymen against going to the rescue of Austria in her war with France. He pointed out that if France drove Austria out of Italy she might annex Savoy, but could not prevent the restoration of Italian unity under Victor Emmanuel. France was doing the work of Germany by weakening Austria; Prussia should form an alliance with France to drive out Austria and make herself supreme in Germany. After their realization by Bismarck these ideas have become sufficiently commonplace; but they were nowise obvious when thus published by Lassalle. In 1861 he published a great work in two volumes, _System der erworbenen Rechte_ (_System of Acquired Rights_).

Now began the short-lived activity which was to give him an historical significance. It was early in 1862, when the struggle of Bismarck with the Prussian liberals was already begun. Lassalle, a democrat of the most advanced type, saw that an opportunity had come for asserting a third great cause--that of the working men--which would outflank the liberalism of the middle classes, and might even command the sympathy of the government. His political programme was, however, entirely subordinate to the social, that of bettering the condition of the working classes, for which he believed the schemes of Schulze-Delitzsch were utterly inadequate. Lassalle flung himself into the career of agitator with his accustomed vigour. His worst difficulties were with the working men themselves, among whom he met the most discouraging apathy. His mission as organizer and emancipator of the working class lasted only two years and a half. In that period he issued about twenty separate publications, most of them speeches and pamphlets, but one of them, that against Schulze-Delitzsch, a considerable treatise, and all full of keen and vigorous thought. He founded the "Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein," was its president and almost single-handed champion, conducted its affairs, and carried on a vast correspondence, not to mention about a dozen state prosecutions in which he was during that period involved. Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfort and the industrial centres on the Rhine were the chief scenes of his activity. His greatest success was on the Rhine, where in the summers of 1863 and 1864 his travels as missionary of the new gospel resembled a triumphal procession. The agitation was growing rapidly, but he had achieved little substantial success when a most unworthy death closed his career.

While posing as the messiah of the poor, Lassalle was a man of decidedly fashionable and luxurious habits. His suppers were well known as among the most exquisite in Berlin. It was the most piquant feature of his life that he, one of the gilded youth, a connoisseur in wines, and a learned man to boot, had become agitator and the champion of the working man. In one of the literary and fashionable circles of Berlin he had met a Fräulein von Dönniges, for whom he at once felt a passion, which was ardently reciprocated. In the summer of 1864 he met her again on the Rigi, when they resolved to marry. She was a young lady of twenty, decidedly unconventional and original in character, but the daughter of a Bavarian diplomatist then resident at Geneva, who would have nothing to do with Lassalle. The lady was imprisoned in her own room, and soon, apparently under the influence of very questionable pressure, renounced Lassalle in favour of another admirer, a Wallachian, Count von Racowitza. Lassalle sent a challenge both to the lady's father and her betrothed, which was accepted by the latter. At the Carouge, a suburb of Geneva, the meeting took place on the morning of August 28, 1864, when Lassalle was mortally wounded, and he died on the 31st of August. In spite of such a foolish ending, his funeral was that of a martyr, and by many of his adherents he has been regarded since with feelings almost of religious devotion.

Lassalle did not lay claim to any special originality as a socialistic
thinker, nor did he publish any systematic statement of his views. Yet
his leading ideas are sufficiently clear and simple. Like a true
Hegelian he saw three stages in the development of labour: the ancient
and feudal period, which, through the subjection of the labourer,
sought solidarity without freedom; the reign of capital and the middle
classes, established in 1789, which sought freedom by destroying
solidarity; and the new era, beginning in 1848, which would reconcile
solidarity with freedom by introducing the principle of association.
It was the basis and starting-point of his opinions that, under the
empire of capital and so long as the working man was merely a receiver
of wages, no improvement in his condition could be expected. This
position he founded on the law of wages formulated by Ricardo, and
accepted by all the leading economists, that wages are controlled by
the ordinary relations of supply and demand, that a rise in wages
leads to an increase in the labouring population, which, by increasing
the supply of labour, is followed by a corresponding fall of wages.
Thus population increases or decreases in fixed relation to the rise
or fall of wages. The condition of the working man will never
permanently rise above the mere standard of living required for his
subsistence, and the continued supply of his kind. Lassalle held that
the co-operative schemes of Schulze-Delitzsch on the principle of
"self-help" were utterly inadequate, for the obvious reason that the
working classes were destitute of capital. The struggle of the working
man helping himself with his empty pockets against the capitalists he
compared to a battle with teeth and nails against modern artillery. In
short, Lassalle accepted the orthodox political economy to show that
the inevitable operation of its laws left no hope for the working
classes, and that no remedy could be found but by abolishing the
conditions in which these laws had their validity--in other words, by
abolishing the present relations of labour and capital altogether. And
this could only be done by the productive association of the working
men with money provided by the state. And he held that such
association should be the voluntary act of the working men, the
government merely reserving the right to examine the books of the
various societies. All the arrangements should be carried out
according to the rules of business usually followed in such
transactions. But how move the government to grant such a loan? Simply
by introducing (direct) universal suffrage. The working men were an
overwhelming majority; they were the state, and should control the
government. The aim of Lassalle, then, was to organize the working
classes into a great political power, which in the way thus indicated,
by peaceful resolute agitation, without violence or insurrection,
might attain the goal of productive association. In this way the
fourth estate would be emancipated from the despotism of the
capitalist, and a great step taken in the solution of the great
"social question."

It will be seen that the net result of Lassalle's life was to produce
a European scandal, and to originate a socialistic movement in
Germany, which, at the election of 1903, returned to the Reichstag
eighty-one members and polled 3,010,771 votes, and at the election of
1907 returned forty-three members and polled 3,258,968 votes. (The
diminution in the number of members returned in 1907 was due mostly to
combination among the different political groups.) This result, great
as it was, would hardly have been commensurate with his ambition,
which was boundless. In the heyday of his passion for Fräulein von
Dönniges, his dream was to be enthroned as the president of the German
republic with her seated at his side. With his energy, ability and
gift of dominating and organizing, he might indeed have done a great
deal. Bismarck coquetted with him as the representative of a force
that might help him to combat the Prussian liberals; in 1878, in a
speech before the Reichstag, he spoke of him with deep respect, as a
man of the greatest amiability and ability from whom much could be
learned. Even Bishop Ketteler of Mainz had declared his sympathy for
the cause he advocated.

Lassalle's _Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos_
(Berlin, 1858), and the _System der erworbenen Rechte_ (Leipzig, 1861)
are both marked by great learning and intellectual power. But of far
more historical interest are the speeches and pamphlets connected with
his socialistic agitation, of which the most important are--_Ueber
Verfassungswesen_; _Arbeiterprogramm_; _Offenes Antwortschreiben_;
_Zur Arbeiterfrage_; _Arbeiterlesebuch_; _Herr Bastiat-Schulze von
Delitzsch, oder Kapital und Arbeit_. His drama, _Franz von Sickingen_,
published in 1859, is a work of no poetic value. His _Collected Works_
were issued at Leipzig in 1899-1901.

The best biography of Lassalle is H. Oncken's _Lassalle_ (Stuttgart,
1904); another excellent work on his life and writings is George
Brandes's Danish work, _Ferdinand Lassalle_ (German translation, 4th
ed., Leipzig, 1900). See also A. Aaberg, _Ferdinand Lassalle_
(Leipzig, 1883); C. v. Plener, _Lassalle_ (Leipzig, 1884); G. Meyer,
_Lassalle als Sozialökonom_ (Berlin, 1894); Brandt, _F. Lassalles
sozialökonomische Anschauungen und praktische Vorschläge_ (Jena,
1895); Seillière, _Études sur Ferdinand Lassalle_ (Paris, 1897); E.
Bernstein, _Ferd. Lassalle und seine Bedeutung für die Arbeiterklasse_
(Berlin, 1904). There is a considerable literature on his love affair
and death; the most notable books are: _Meine Beziehungen zu F.
Lassalle_, by Helene von Racowitza, a very strange book; _Enthüllungen
über das tragische Lebensende F. Lassalle's_ by B. Becker; _Im
Anschluss an die Memoiren der H. von Racowitza_, by A. Kutschbach, and
George Meredith's _Tragic Comedians_ (1880). (T. K.)

LASSEN, CHRISTIAN (1800-1876), German orientalist, was born on the 22nd of October 1800, at Bergen in Norway. Having received his earliest university education at Christiania, he went to Germany, and continued his studies at Heidelberg and Bonn. In the latter university Lassen acquired a sound knowledge of Sanskrit. He next spent three years in Paris and London, engaged in copying and collating MSS., and collecting materials for future research, especially in reference to the Hindu drama and philosophy. During this period he published, jointly with E. Burnouf, his first work, _Essai sur le Pâli_ (Paris, 1826). On his return to Bonn he studied Arabic, and took the degree of Ph.D., his dissertation discussing the Arabic notices of the geography of the Punjab (_Commentatio geographica atque historica de Pentapotamia Indica_, Bonn, 1827). Soon after he was admitted _Privatdozent_, and in 1830 was appointed extraordinary and in 1840 ordinary professor of Old Indian language and literature. In spite of a tempting offer from Copenhagen, in 1841, Lassen remained faithful to the university of his adoption to the end of his life. He died at Bonn on the 8th of May 1876, having been affected with almost total blindness for many years. As early as 1864 he was relieved of the duty of lecturing.

In 1829-1831 he brought out, in conjunction with August W. von
Schlegel, a critical annotated edition of the _Hitopadesa_. The
appearance of this edition marks the starting-point of the critical
study of Sanskrit literature. At the same time Lassen assisted von
Schlegel in editing and translating the first two cantos of the epic
_Ramayana_ (1829-1838). In 1832 he brought out the text of the first
act of Bhavabhuti's drama, _Malatimadhava_, and a complete edition,
with a Latin translation, of the _Sankhya-karika_. In 1837 followed
his edition and translation of Jayadeva's charming lyrical drama,
_Gitagovinda_ and his _Institutiones linguae Pracriticae_. His
_Anthologia Sanscritica_, which came out the following year (new ed.
by Johann Gildemeister, 1868), contained several hitherto unpublished
texts, and did much to stimulate the study of Sanskrit in German
universities. In 1846 Lassen brought out an improved edition of
Schlegel's text and translation of the "Bhagavadgita." He did not
confine himself to the study of Indian languages, but acted likewise
as a scientific pioneer in other fields of philological inquiry. In
his _Beiträge zur Deutung der Eugubinischen Tafeln_ (1833) he prepared
the way for the correct interpretation of the Umbrian inscriptions;
and the _Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes_ (7 vols.,
1837-1850), started and largely conducted by him, contains, among
other valuable papers from his pen, grammatical sketches of the
Beluchi and Brahui languages, and an essay on the Lycian inscriptions.

Soon after the appearance of Burnouf's _Commentaire sur le Yaçna_
(1833), Lassen also directed his attention to the Zend, and to Iranian
studies generally; and in _Die altpersischen Keilinschriften von
Persepolis_ (1836) he first made known the true character of the Old
Persian cuneiform inscriptions, thereby anticipating, by one month,
Burnouf's _Mémoire_ on the same subject, while Sir Henry Rawlinson's
famous memoir on the Behistun inscription, though drawn up in Persia,
independently of contemporaneous European research, at about the same
time, did not reach the Royal Asiatic Society until three years later.
Subsequently Lassen published, in the sixth volume of his journal
(1845), a collection of all the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions
known up to that date. He also was the first scholar in Europe who
took up, with signal success, the decipherment of the newly-discovered
Bactrian coins, which furnished him the materials for _Zur Geschichte
der griechischen und indo-skythischen Könige in Bakterien, Kabul, und
Indien_ (1838). He contemplated bringing out a critical edition of the
_Vendidad_; but, after publishing the first five fargards (1852), he
felt that his whole energies were required for the successful
accomplishment of the great undertaking of his life--his _Indische
Altertumskunde_. In this work--completed in four volumes, published
respectively in 1847 (2nd ed., 1867), 1849 (2nd ed., 1874), 1858 and
1861--which forms one of the greatest monuments of untiring industry
and critical scholarship, everything that could be gathered from
native and foreign sources, relative to the political, social and
intellectual development of India, from the earliest times down to the
Mahommedan invasion, was worked up by him into a connected historical
account.

LASSEN, EDUARD (1830-1904), Belgian musical composer, was born in Copenhagen, but was taken as a child to Brussels and educated at the Brussels Conservatoire. He won the _prix de Rome_ in 1851, and went for a long tour in Germany and Italy. He settled at Weimar, where in 1861 he succeeded Liszt as conductor of the opera, and he died there on the 15th of January 1904. Besides many well-known songs, he wrote operas--_Landgraf Ludwig's Brautfahrt_ (1857), _Frauenlob_ (1861), _Le Captif_ (1868)--instrumental music to dramas, notably to Goethe's _Faust_ (1876), two symphonies and various choral works.

LASSO (LASSUS), ORLANDO (c. 1530-1594), Belgian musical composer, whose real name was probably Roland Delattre, was born at Mons, in Hainault, probably not much earlier than 1532, the date given by the epitaph printed at the end of the volumes of the _Magnum opus musicum_; though already in the 16th century the opinions of his biographers were divided between the years 1520 and 1530. Much is reported, but very little known, of his connexions and his early career. The discrepancy as to the date of his birth appears also in connexion with his appointment at the church of St John Lateran in Rome. If he was born in 1530 or 1532 he could not have obtained that appointment in 1541. What is certain is that his first book of madrigals was published in Venice in 1555, and that in the same year he speaks of himself in the preface of Italian and French songs and Latin motets as if he had recently come from Rome. He seems to have visited England in 1554 and to have been introduced to Cardinal Pole, to whom an adulatory motet appears in 1556. (This is not, as might hastily be supposed, a confusion resulting from the fact that the ambassador from Ferdinand, king of the Romans, Don Pedro de Lasso, attended the marriage of Philip and Mary in England in the same year.) His first book of motets appeared at Antwerp in 1556, containing the motet in honour of Cardinal Pole. The style of Orlando had already begun to purify itself from the speculative and chaotic elements that led Burney, who seems to have known only his earlier works, to call him "a dwarf on stilts" as compared with Palestrina. But where he is orthodox he is as yet stiff, and his secular compositions are, so far, better than his more serious efforts.

In 1557, if not before, he was invited by Albrecht IV., duke of Bavaria, to go to Munich. The duke was a most intelligent patron of all the fine arts, a notable athlete, and a man of strict principles. Munich from henceforth never ceased to be Orlando's home; though he sometimes paid long visits to Italy and France, whether in response to royal invitations or with projects of his own. In 1558 he made a very happy marriage by which he had four sons and two daughters. The four sons all became good musicians, and we owe an inestimable debt to the pious industry of the two eldest sons, who (under the patronage of Duke Maximilian I., the second successor of Orlando's master) published the enormous collection of Orlando's Latin motets known as the _Magnum opus musicum_.

Probably no composer has ever had more ideal circumstances for artistic inspiration and expression than had Orlando. His duty was to make music all day and every day, and to make it according to his own taste. Nothing was too good, too severe or too new for the duke. Church music was not more in demand than secular. Instrumental music, which in the 16th century had hardly any independent existence, accompanied the meals of the court; and Orlando would rise from dessert to sing trios and quartets with picked voices. The daily prayers included a full mass with polyphonic music. This amazing state of things becomes more intelligible and less alarming when we consider that 16th-century music was no sooner written than it could be performed. With such material as Orlando had at his disposal, musical performance was as unattended by expense and tedious preliminaries as a game of billiards in a good billiard room. Not even Haydn's position at Esterhaz can have enabled him, as has been said, to "ring the bell" for musicians to come and try a new orchestral effect with such ease as that with which Orlando could produce his work at Munich. His fame soon became world-wide, and every contemporary authority is full of the acclamation with which Orlando was greeted wherever his travels took him.

Very soon, with this rapid means of acquiring experience, Orlando's style became as pure as Palestrina's; while he always retained his originality and versatility. His relations to the literary culture of the time are intimate and fascinating; and during his stay at the court of France in 1571 he became a friend of the poet Ronsard. In 1579 Duke Albrecht died. Orlando's salary had already been guaranteed to him for life, so that his outward circumstances did not change, and the new duke was very kind to him. But the loss of his master was a great grief and seems to have checked his activity for some time. In 1589, after the publication of six Masses, ending with a beautiful _Missa pro defunctis_, his strength began to fail; and a sudden serious illness left him alarmingly depressed and inactive until his death on the 14th of June 1594.

If Palestrina represents the supreme height attained by 16th-century music, Orlando represents the whole century. It is impossible to exaggerate the range and variety of his style, so long as we recognise the limits of 16th-century musical language. Even critics to whom this language is unfamiliar cannot fail to notice the glaring differences between Orlando's numerous types of art, though such critics may believe all those types to be equally crude and archaic. The swiftness of Orlando's intellectual and artistic development is astonishing. His first four volumes of madrigals show a very intermittent sense of beauty. Many a number in them is one compact mass of the fashionable harsh play upon the "false relation" between twin major and minor chords, which is usually believed to be the unenviable distinction of the English madrigal style from that of the Italians. It must be confessed that in the Italian madrigal (as distinguished from the _villanella_ and other light forms), Orlando never attained complete certainty of touch, though some of his later madrigals are indeed glorious. But in his French chansons, many of which are settings of the poems of his friend Ronsard, his wit and lightness of touch are unfailing. In setting other French poems he is sometimes unfortunately most witty where the words are most gross, for he is as free from modern scruples as any of his Elizabethan contemporaries. In 1562, when the Council of Trent was censuring the abuses of Flemish church music, Orlando had already purified his ecclesiastical style; though he did not go so far as to Italianize it in order to oblige those modern critics who are unwilling to believe that anything appreciably unlike Palestrina can be legitimate. At the same time Orlando's Masses are not among his greatest works. This is possibly partly due to the fact that the proportions of a musical Mass are at the mercy of the local practice of the liturgy; and that perhaps the uses of the court at Munich were not quite so favourable to broadly designed proportion (not length) as the uses of Rome. Differences which might cramp the 16th-century composer need not amount to anything that would draw down the censure of ecclesiastical authorities. Be this as it may, Orlando's other church music is always markedly different from Palestrina's, and often fully as sublime. It is also in many ways far more modern in resource. We frequently come upon things like the _Justorum animae_ [Magnum Opus, No. 260 (301)] which in their way are as overpoweringly touching as, for example, the Benedictus of Beethoven's _Mass in D_ or the soprano solo in Brahms's _Deutsches Requiem_.

No one has approached Orlando in the ingenuity, quaintness and humour of his tone-painting. He sometimes descends to extremely elaborate musical puns, carrying farther than any other composer since the dark ages the absurd device of setting syllables that happened to coincide with the _sol-fa_ system to the corresponding _sol-fa_ notes. But in the most absurd of such cases he evidently enjoys twisting these notes into a theme of pregnant musical meaning. The quaintest instance is the motet _Quid estis pusillanimes_ [Magnum Opus, No. 92 (69)] where extra _sol-fa_ syllables are introduced into the text to make a good theme in combination with the syllables already there by accident! (_An nescitis Justitiae Ut Sol [Fa Mi] Re Laxatas_ _habenas possit denuo cohibere?_). The significance of these euphuistic jokes is that they always make good music in Orlando's hands. There is musical fun even in his voluminous parody of the stammering style of word-setting in the burlesque motet _S.U.Su. PER. per. super F.L.U._, which gets through one verse of a psalm in fifteen minutes.

When it was a question of purely musical high spirits Orlando was unrivalled; and his setting of Walter de Mape's _Fertur in conviviis_ (given in the _Magnum opus_ with a stupid moral derangement of the text), and most of his French chansons, are among the most deeply humorous music in the world.

But it is in the tests of the sublime that Orlando shows himself one of the greatest minds that ever found expression in art. Nothing sublime was too unfamiliar to frighten him into repressing his quaint fancy, though he early repressed all that thwarted his musical nature. His _Penitential Psalms_ stand with Josquin's _Miserere_ and Palestrina's first book of _Lamentations_ as artistic monuments of 16th-century penitential religion, just as Bach's _Matthew Passion_ stands alone among such monuments in later art. Yet the passage (quoted by Sir Hubert Parry in vol. 3 of the _Oxford History of Music_) "Nolite fieri sicut mulus" is one among many traits which are ingeniously and grotesquely descriptive without losing harmony with the austere profundity of the huge works in which they occur. It is impossible to read any large quantity of Orlando's mature music without feeling that a mind like his would in modern times have covered a wider field of mature art than any one classical or modern composer known to us. Yet we cannot say that anything has been lost by his belonging to the 16th century. His music, if only from its peculiar technique of crossing parts and unexpected intervals, is exceptionally difficult to read; and hence intelligent conducting and performance of it is rare. But its impressiveness is beyond dispute; and there are many things which, like the _Justorum animae_ cannot even be read, much less heard, without emotion.

Orlando's works as shown by the plan of Messrs Breitkopf & Härtel's
complete critical edition (begun in 1894) comprise: (1) the _Magnum
opus musicum_, a posthumous collection containing Latin pieces for
from two to twelve voices, 516 in number (or, counting by single
movements, over 700). Not all of these are to the original texts. The
_Magnum opus_ fills eleven volumes. (2) Five volumes of madrigals,
containing six books, and a large number of single madrigals, and
about half a volume of lighter Italian songs (villanellas, &c.). (3)
Three volumes (not four as in the prospectus) of French _chansons_.
(4) Two volumes of German four-part and five-part _Lieder_. (5) Serial
church music: three volumes, containing _Lessons from the Book of Job_
(two settings). _Passion according to St Matthew_ (i.e. like the
Passions of Victoria and Soriano, a setting of the words of the crowds
and of the disciples); _Lamentations_ of Jeremiah; _Morning Lessons_;
the _Officia_ printed in the third volume of the _Patroncinium_ (a
publication suggested and supported by Orlando's patrons and
containing eight entire volumes of his works); the Seven Penitential
Psalms; German Psalms and _Prophetiae Sibyllarum_, (6) one hundred
_Magnificats_ (_Jubilus B. M. Virginis_) 3 vols., (7) eight volumes of
Masses, (8) two volumes of Latin songs not in the _Magnum opus_, (9)
five volumes of unpublished works. (D. F. T.)

LASSO (Span. _lazo_, snare, ultimately from Lat. _laqueus_, cf. "lace"), a rope 60 to 100 ft. in length with a slip-noose at one end, used in the Spanish and Portuguese parts of America and in the western United States for catching wild horses and cattle. It is now less employed in South America than in the vast grazing country west of the Mississippi river, where the herders, called locally cow-boys or cow-punchers, are provided with it. When not in use, the lasso, called _rope_ in the West, is coiled at the right of the saddle in front of the rider. When an animal is to be caught the herder, galloping after it, swings the coiled lasso round his head and casts it straight forward in such a manner that the noose settles over the head or round the legs of the quarry, when it is speedily brought into submission. A shorter rope called _lariat_ (Span. _la reata_) is used to picket horses.

LAST. 1. (A syncopated form of "latest," the superlative of O.E. _laét_, late), an adjective applied to the conclusion of anything, all that remains after everything else has gone, or that which has just occurred. In theology the "four last things" denote the final scenes of Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell; the "last day" means the Day of Judgment (see ESCHATOLOGY).

2. (O.E. _lást_, footstep; the word appears in many Teutonic languages, meaning foot, footstep, track, &c.; it is usually referred to a Teutonic root _lais_, cognate with Lat. _lira_, a furrow; from this root, used figuratively, came "learn" and "lore"), originally a footstep, trace or track, now only used of the model of a foot in wood on which a shoemaker makes boots and shoes; hence the proverb "let the cobbler stick to his last," "_ne sutor ultra crepidam_."

3. (O.E. _hlaest_; the work is connected with the root seen in "lade," and is used in German and Dutch of a weight; it is also seen in "ballast"), a commercial weight or measure of quantity, varying according to the commodity and locality; originally applied to the load of goods carried by the boat or wagon used in carrying any particular commodity in any particular locality, it is now chiefly used as a weight for fish, a "last" of herrings being equal to from 10,000 to 12,000 fish. The German _Last_ = 4000 lb, and this is frequently taken as the nominal weight of an English "last." A "last" of wool = 12 sacks, and of beer = 12 barrels.

LASUS, Greek lyric poet, of Hermione in Argolis, flourished about 510 B.C. A member of the literary and artistic circle of the Peisistratidae, he was the instructor of Pindar in music and poetry and the rival of Simonides. The dithyramb (of which he was sometimes considered the actual inventor) was developed by him, by the aid of various changes in music and rhythm, into an artistically constructed choral song, with an accompaniment of several flutes. It became more artificial and mimetic in character, and its range of subjects was no longer confined to the adventures of Dionysus. Lasus further increased its popularity by introducing prize contests for the best poem of the kind. His over-refinement is shown by his avoidance of the letter _sigma_ (on account of its hissing sound) in several of his poems, of one of which (a hymn to Demeter of Hermione) a few lines have been preserved in Athenaeus (xiv. 624 E). Lasus was also the author of the first theoretical treatise on music.

See Suïdas s.v.; Aristophanes, _Wasps_, 1410, _Birds_, 1403 and
schol.; Plutarch, _De Musica_, xxix.; Müller and Donaldson, _Hist. of
Greek Literature_, i. 284; G. H. Bode, _Geschichte der hellenischen
Dichtkunst_, ii. pt. 2, p. 111; F. W. Schneidewin, _De Laso
Hermionensi Comment_. (Göttingen, 1842); Fragm. in Bergk, _Poet. Lyr._

LAS VEGAS, a city and the county-seat of San Miguel county, New Mexico, U.S.A., in the north central part of New Mexico, on the Gallinas river, and 83 m. by rail E. of Santa Fé. Though usually designated as a single municipality, Las Vegas consists of two distinct corporations, the old town on the W. bank of the river and the city proper on the E. bank. Pop. of the city (1890) 2385; (1900) 3552 (340 being foreign-born and 116 negroes); (1910) 3755. According to local estimates, the combined population of the city and the old town in 1908 was 10,000. Las Vegas is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé railway, and is its division headquarters in New Mexico. The city lies in a valley at the foot of the main range of the Rocky Mountains, and is about 6400 ft. above the sea. There are high peaks to the W. and within a short distance of the city much beautiful mountain scenery, especially along the "Scenic Route," a highway from Las Vegas to Santa Fé, traversing the Las Vegas canyon and the Pecos Valley forest reserve. The country E. of the city consists of level plains. The small amount of rainfall, the great elevation and the southern latitude give the region a dry and rarified air, and Las Vegas is a noted health resort. Six miles distant, and connected with the city by rail, are the Las Vegas Hot Springs. The old town on the W. bank of the Gallinas river retains many features of a Mexican village, with low adobe houses facing narrow and crooked streets. Its inhabitants are largely of Spanish-American descent. The part on the E. bank or city proper is thoroughly modern, with well-graded streets, many of them bordered with trees. The most important public institutions are the New Mexico insane asylum, the New Mexico normal university (chartered 1893, opened 1898), the county court house (in the old town), the academy of the Immaculate Conception, conducted by the Sisters of Loretto, Saint Anthony's sanatorium, maintained by the Sisters of Charity, La Salle institute, conducted by the Christian Brothers, a Presbyterian mission school and a Methodist manual training and commercial school. There are railway machine-shops, and various manufactories. Las Vegas lies in the centre of an extensive grazing region, has large stockyards and annually ships great quantities of wool. Three of the local newspapers are published in Spanish. Las Vegas was founded in 1835, under the government of the Mexican Republic. On the 15th of August 1846, during the war between Mexico and the United States, Gen. Stephen W. Kearny entered the town, and its alcalde took the oath of allegiance to the United States. There was but little progress or development until the arrival of the railway in 1879. In 1888 the part east of the river was incorporated as a town under the name of East Las Vegas, and in 1896 it was chartered as the city of Las Vegas. The old Las Vegas, west of the river, was incorporated as a town in 1903.

LASWARI, one of the decisive battles of India. It was fought on the 1st of November 1803 between the British under General Lake, and the Mahratta troops of Sindia, consisting of the remnant of Perron's battalions. Laswari is a village in the state of Alwar some 80 m. S. of Delhi, and here Lake overtook the enemy and attacked them with his cavalry before the infantry arrived. The result was indecisive, but when the infantry came up there ensued one of the most evenly contested battles ever fought between the British and the natives of India, which ended in a complete victory for the British.

LATACUNGA (LLACTACUNGA, or, in local parlance, TACUNGA), a plateau town of Ecuador, capital of the province of Léon, 46 m. S. of Quito, near the confluence of the Alagues and Cutuchi to form the Patate, the headstream of the Pastaza. Pop. (1900, estimate) 12,000, largely Indian. Latacunga stands on the old road between Guayaquil and Quito and has a station on the railway between those cities. It is 9141 ft. above sea-level; and its climate is cold and unpleasant, owing to the winds from the neighbouring snowclad heights, and the barren, pumice-covered table-land on which it stands. Cotopaxi is only 25 m. distant, and the town has suffered repeatedly from eruptions. Founded in 1534, it was four times destroyed by earthquakes between 1698 and 1798. The neighbouring ruins of an older native town are said to date from the Incas.

LA TAILLE, JEAN DE (c. 1540-1608), French poet and dramatist, was born at Bondaroy. He studied the humanities in Paris under Muret, and law at Orleans under Anne de Bourg. He began his career as a Huguenot, but afterwards adopted a mild Catholicism. He was wounded at the battle of Arnay-le Duc in 1570, and retired to his estate at Bondaroy, where he wrote a political pamphlet entitled _Histoire abrégée des singeries de la ligue_, often published with the _Satire Ménippée_. His chief poem is a satire on the follies of court life, _Le Courtisan retiré_; he also wrote a political poem, _Le Prince nécessaire_. But his fame rests on his achievements in drama. In 1572 appeared the tragedy of _Saül le furieux_, with a preface on _L' Art de la tragédie_. Like Jodelle, Grévin, La Péruse and their followers, he wrote, not for the general public to which the mysteries and farces had addressed themselves, but for the limited audience of a lettered aristocracy. He therefore depreciated the native drama and insisted on the Senecan model. In his preface La Taille enunciates the unities of place, time and action; he maintains that each act should have a unity of its own and that the scenes composing it should be continuous; he objects to deaths on the stage on the ground that the representation is unconvincing, and he requires as subject of the tragedy an incident really terrible, developed, if possible, by elaborate intrigue. He criticizes e.g. the subject of the sacrifice of Abraham, chosen by Théodore de Bèze for his tragedy (1551), as unsuitable because "pity and terror" are evoked from the spectators without real cause. If in _Saül le furieux_ he did not completely carry out his own convictions he developed his principal character with great ability. A second tragedy, _La Famine ou les Gabéonites_ (1573), is inferior in construction, but is redeemed by the character of Rizpah. He was also the author of two comedies, _Le Négromant_ and _Les Corrivaux_, both written apparently by 1562 but not published until 1573. _Les Corrivaux_ is remarkable for its colloquial prose dialogue, which foreshadows the excellence of later French comedy.

His brother, JACQUES DE LA TAILLE (1542-1562), composed a number of tragedies, of which _La Mort de Daire_ and _La Mort d'Alexandre_ (both published in 1573) are the chief. He is best known by his _Manière de faire des vers en français comme en grec et en latin_, an attempt to regulate French verse by quantity. He died of plague at the age of 20. His _Poésies diverses_ were published in 1572.

The works of Jean de la Taille were edited by René de Maulde (4 vols.,
1878-1882). See also É. Faguet, _La Tragédie française au XVI^e
siècle_ (1883).

LATAKIA (anc. _Laodicea_), the chief town of a sanjak in the Beirut vilayet of Syria, situated on the coast, opposite the island of Cyprus. The oldest name of the town, according to Philo Herennius, was [Greek: Ramitha] or [Greek: Leukè aktê] it received that of Laodicea (_ad mare_) from Seleucus Nicator, who refounded it in honour of his mother as one of the four "sister" cities of the Syrian Tetrapolis (Antioch, Seleucia, Apamea, Laodicea). In the Roman period it was favoured by Caesar, and took the name of Julia; and, though it suffered severely when the fugitive Dolabella stood his last siege within its walls (43 B.C.), Strabo describes it as a flourishing port, which supplied, from the vineyards on the mountains, the greater part of the wine imported to Alexandria. The town received the privileges of an Italian colony from Severus, for taking his part against Antioch in the struggle with Niger. Laodicea was the seat of an ancient bishopric, and even had some claim to metropolitan rights. At the time of the crusades, "Liche," as Jacques de Vitry says it was popularly called, was a wealthy city. It fell to Tancred with Antioch in 1102, and was recovered by Saladin in 1188. A Christian settlement was afterwards permitted to establish itself in the town, and to protect itself by fortifications; but it was expelled by Sultan Kala'un and the defences destroyed. By the 16th century Laodicea had sunk very low; the revival in the beginning of the 17th was due to the new trade in tobacco. The town has several times been almost destroyed by earthquakes--in 1170, 1287 and 1822.

The people are chiefly employed in tobacco cultivation, silk and oil culture, poultry rearing and the sponge fishery. There is a large export of eggs to Alexandria; but the wealth of the place depends most on the famous "Latakia" tobacco, grown in the plain behind the town and on the Ansarieh hills. There are three main varieties, of which the worst is dark in colour and strong in flavour; the best, grown in the districts of Diryus and Amamareh, is light and aromatic, and is exported mainly to Alexandria; but much goes also to Constantinople, Cyprus and direct to Europe. After the construction of a road through Jebel Ansarieh to Hamah, Latakia drew a good deal of traffic from upper Syria; but the Hamah-Homs railway has now diverted much of this again. The products of the surrounding district, however, cause the town to increase steadily, and it is a regular port of call for the main Levantine lines of steamers. The only notable object of antiquity is a triumphal arch, probably of the early 3rd century, in the S.E. quarter of the modern town. Latakia and its neighbourhood formerly produced a very beautiful type of rug, examples of which are highly prized. (D. G. H.)

LATEEN (the Anglicized form of Fr. _latine_, i.e. _voile latine_, Latin sail, so-called as the chief form of rig in the Mediterranean), a certain kind of triangular sail, having a long yard by which it is suspended to the mast. A "lateener" is a vessel rigged with a lateen sail and yard. This rig was formerly much used, and is still the typical sail of the _felucca_ of the Mediterranean, and _dhow_ of the Arabian Sea.

LA TÈNE (Lat. _tenuis_, shallow), the site of a lake-dwelling at the north end of Lake Neuchâtel, between Marin and Préfargier. According to some, it was originally a Helvetic _oppidum_; according to others, a Gallic commercial settlement. R. Forrer distinguishes an older semi-military, and a younger civilian settlement, the former a Gallic customs station, the latter, which may be compared to the _canabae_ of the Roman camps, containing the booths and taverns used by soldiers and sailors. He also considers the older station to have been, not as usually supposed, Helvetic, but pre- or proto-Helvetic, the character of which changed with the advance of the Helvetii into Switzerland (c. 110-100 B.C.). La Tène has given its name to a period of culture (c. 500 B.C.-A.D. 100), the phase of the Iron age succeeding the Hallstatt phase, not as being its starting-point, but because the finds are the best known of their kind. The latter are divided into early (c. 500-250 B.C.), middle (250-100 B.C.) and late (100 B.C.-A.D. 100), and chiefly belong to the middle period. They are mostly of iron, and consist of swords, spear-heads, axes, scythes and knives, which exhibit a remarkable agreement with the description of the weapons of the southern Celts given by Diodorus Siculus. There are also brooches, bronze kettles, torques, small bronze ear-rings with little glass pearls of various colours, belt-hooks and pins for fastening articles of clothing. The La Tène culture made its way through France across to England, where it has received the name of "late Celtic"; a remarkable find has been made at Aylesford in Kent.

See F. Keller, _Lake Dwellings of Switzerland_, vi. (Eng. trans.,
1878); V. Gross, _La Tène un_ oppidum _helvète_ (1886); E. Vouga, _Les
Helvètes à La Tène_ (1886); P. Reinecke, _Zur Kenntnis der la Tène
Denkmäler der Zone nordwärts der Alpen_ (Mainzer Festschrift, 1902);
R. Forrer, _Reallexikon der prähistorischen ... Altertümer_ (1907),
where many illustrations are given.

LATERAN COUNCILS, the ecclesiastical councils or synods held at Rome in the Lateran basilica which was dedicated to Christ under the title of Salvator, and further called the basilica of Constantine or the church of John the Baptist. Ranking as a papal cathedral, this became a much-favoured place of assembly for ecclesiastical councils both in antiquity (313, 487) and more especially during the middle ages. Among these numerous synods the most prominent are those which the tradition of the Roman Catholic church has classed as ecumenical councils.

1. The first Lateran council (the ninth ecumenical) was opened by Pope Calixtus II. on the 18th of March 1123; its primary object being to confirm the concordat of Worms, and so close the conflict on the question of investiture (q.v.). In addition to this, canons were enacted against simony and the marriage of priests; while resolutions were passed in favour of the crusaders, of pilgrims to Rome and in the interests of the truce of God. More than three hundred bishops are reported to have been present.