LAU
LAURIE
(King s College). After graduating, he
went to the continent for a year to con
tinue the study of philology, and in 1839
he was appointed professor of the English
language and literature at University
College. His early work, The English
Language (1841), was a great success, but
he turned to the study of medicine and
graduated at London University. He was
appointed lecturer on forensic medicine at
the Middlesex Hospital, and in 1844 he
became assistant physician at that institu
tion. In 1849 he abandoned medicine and
devoted himself entirely to philology and
ethnology. In 1852 he was put in charge
of the ethnological department at the
Crystal Palace. Latham, who was a
prodigy of learning he was described as
" one who for brilliance of intellect and
range of knowledge had scarcely an equal
among his contemporaries " (Diet. Nat.
Biog.) was one of the first to disprove the
supposed Asiatic origin of an Aryan race.
Huxley tells us that Latham said that
" the existence of the Established Church
was to his mind one of the best evidences
of the recency of the evolution of the
human type from the Simian " (Life and
Letters of T. H. Huxley, by L. Huxley, ii,
383). D. Mar. 9, 1888.
LAU, Theodor Ludwig, German writer. B. June 15, 1670. Ed. Konigsberg and Halle Universities. He became Minister of Finance to the Duke of Courland, then entered the service of the Elector Palatine. Adopting the Pantheistic philosophy of Spinoza, he published a small Latin work (Meditationes Theologicce-Physictz, 1717), for which he lost his position, and was charged with Atheism before the Con sistory of Konigsberg. D. Feb. 8, 1740.
LAUBE, Heinrich, German dramatist. B. Sep. 18, 1806. Ed. Glogau Gymnasium, and Halle and Breslau Universities. He was for a time a private tutor, then an independent writer. In 1834 he was expelled from Saxony for his advanced opinions. In 1848 he sat in the National 427
Assembly, and in the following year he
became Art Director of the Vienna Court
Theatre, which he raised to a high level.
He passed to the Leipzig Town Theatre in
1869, and to the Vienna City Theatre in
1872. His novels, dramas, and literary
works were published in sixteen volumes-
(1875-82). D. Aug. 1, 1884.
LAURENCE, James, writer. B. 1773. Ed. Eton and Gottingen. Laurence was a clever and versatile writer, acquainted with Goethe and Schiller and other dis tinguished Eationalists, and wrote a, heterodox novel, The Empire of the Nairs (1807), in German, French, and English. When Robert Owen denounced " all the religions of the world " at the London Tavern in 1817 Laurence applauded him in a poem (in The Etonian Out of Bounds). D. Sep. 26, 1841.
LAURENT, Professor Fran$ois,D.esL. r
Belgian writer. B. July 8, 1810. Ed. Louvain and Liege Universities. After serving for some years as a provincial solicitor, Laurent in 1834 entered the Ministry of Justice at Brussels, and in 1835 he became professor of Civil Law afc the University of Ghent. As he was an outspoken Agnostic and a brilliant lecturer, the Clericals endeavoured to dislodge him, but he kept his chair. His views are ex pressed in his Van Espen (3 vols., 1860-63), Etudes sur I histoire de I humanite (16 vols., 1860-70), Lettres sur les Jesuites (1865), etc. D. Feb. 11, 1887.
LAURIE, James Stuart, educationist. B. 1832. Ed. Edinburgh, Berlin, and Bonn Universities. At first a tutor in Lord John Russell s family, he in 1854 became an Inspector of Schools. He resigned in 1863, and discharged various educational commissions for the Govern ment, being at one time Director of Public Instruction in Ceylon. He also studied law, and was called to the Bar in 1871 ; but he devoted most of his time to literary and educational work. His Theistic views 428
