Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/393

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LONGINUS
354
LOPE

of the Blessed Virgin Mary), Sisters of St. Joseph, Ursulines, Hospitaller Nuns of St. Joseph at Hotel Dieu, Windsor. Statistics: Priests 70 (religious 18); there are 45 churches with resident priests, and also 29 missions with churches, total number of churches 78; 1 college, 150 students; 4 academics, 470 pupils; 85 parochial schools, 11,500 pupils; 1 orphan asylum, 75 inmates; 3 hospitals. Catholic population 60,000,

COFFET, The City and Diocese of London, Ontario (London, Ontario, 1885); Catholic Record (London), files; L Canada Ecci siastique (Montreal, 1910); Catholic Directory (Milwaukee, 1910).

THOMAS F. MEEHAN.

Longinus, SAINT. See LANCE, THE HOLY.

Longstreet, JAMES, Boldier, convert, b. 8 January, 1821, at Edgefield, South Carolina, U. S. A.; d. at Gainesville, Cicorgis, 2 January, 1904. In 1831 he moved to Alabama with his parents, and was thence appointed to the U. 8. Military Academy at West An image should appear at this position in the text. Point, where he graduated in 1842. For his services in the Mexican War he was brevetted major and in 1852 was commissioned captain. At the outbreak of the Civil War he resigned his com- mission in June, 1861, and entered the Confederate service, in which be afterwards at- teined the distinc- tionof being one of its greatest fight- ers and of winning the unbounded confidence and af- fection of his sol- diers. He received at once the rank of brigadier-general. and participated with distinction in the first battle of Bull Run, after which he was made a major-general in 1802. At Antietam (17 Sept., 1862) he commanded the right wing of Lee's army, and with the rank of lieutenant-general he was at the bead of a corps at Gettysburg (2-3 July, 1863). In the battle of the Wilderness on 6 May, 1864, he was severely wounded, but resumed his command during the siege of Petersburg. At the close of the war he engaged in business in New Orleans, and accepted the political situation, becoming a republican in politics. President Grant appointed biin surveyor of customs at New Orleans, and later he was made supervisor of internal revenue and post-master. In 1875 he removed to Georgia, and in 1880-81 was sent as U. S. Minister to Turkey. In 1898 he was appointed U.S. railway commissioner. He left a valuable chapter of war history in "From Manasses to Appomattox" (Philadelphia, 1904). Ile became a Catholic in New Orleans, 7 March, 1877.

LONGSTREET, Longstreet and Lee at High Tide (Gainesville, Georgin, 1904); Diet. Am. Bros., s. v.; Morning Star files (New Orleans).

THOMAS F. MEEHAN.

Lope de Vega Carpio, FÉLIX, poet and dramatist, b. at Madrid, 1582; d. 23 Aug., 1635. With Lope de Vega begins the era of dramatic glory in Spanish Literature of the Golden Age. He seems to have been an extraordinarily precocious child, whence the term "monstruo de la naturaleza", "freak of nature", which clung to him throughout his life. At the age of fourteen he wrote a play. Like Cervantes, he saw service in the Spanish navy, and even took part in the disastrous expedition of the Armada against England. While aboard of his vessel, he spent his spare time composing his poem "Angélica", a continuation of the adventures of that capricious lady already related by the Italian poet Ariosto in his "Orlando Furioso". Married by 1590 to Isabel de Urbina, he returned to the service of the Duke of Alba, with whom he had been prior to the time of the Armada. His first wife died in 1597, and then, after some amorous adventure, he contracted a second marriage, about 1600, with Juana del Guardo. By this time he had become the acknowledged arbiter of the Spanish stage, and such be remained until shortly before his death. His second wife died in 1612 or 1614, greatly saddened, doubtless, by the immorality of her husband, constantly intriguing with this or that actress. The result of one of these liaisons, that with Maria de Luján, was the birth of a son, Lope Félix, who bade fair to become a good poet. About 1610 Lope had made his home at Ma drid. For some time before that year, he had led a wandering life, in Valencia, Toledo, Seville, etc., everywhere stimulating dramatic composition. This roving was in part due to a decree of banishment issued against him in punishment of a base libel published by him upon a certain actress and her family.

After the death of his second wife, Lope became a priest, with the express purpose of correcting the disorders of his life. Unfortunately it cannot be said that the taking of Holy orders led to improvement; his aberrations continued, and he intensified his base ness by playing the part of a poetical panderer for his patron, the Duke of Bessa. Lope was well aware of the vileness of his own behaviour, as his correspondence clearly shows; but he was too weak to reform. Retribution, however, came upon him before his end, for his heart was broken by the early death of his brilliant son Lope and the elopement of his daughter Antonia Clara with a court noble. His magnificent funeral cortège was so directed as to pass before the windows of the convent in which another daughter of his was a mun,

The fertility of Lope de Vega as an author almost surpasses belief. Practically all forms of literary composition were attempted by him. In the epic he tried his fortunes with the "Angélica", already mentioned; he repeated the experiment in "Jerusalen Conquis tada", in which he sought to rival Tasso as previously he had emulated Ariosto. More successful than these attempts was the "Gatomaquia", which revives the spirit of the ancient "Battle of the Frogs and Mice", and therefore helongs to the category of the mock- heroic. The mythological prevails in five poems: "Circe", "Andromeda", "Philomela", "Orfeo". "Proserpina". He wrote several historical poems, among them the "San Isidro Labrador", celebrating the patron saint of Madrid, and the "Dragontes" attack on the English adventurer, Sir Francis Drake. He essayed the didactio in an ars poetica, or code of literary principles, which he entitled the "Arte nueva de hacer comedias". In this he reveals his acquaintance with the strict Aristotelean rules of dramatic comorder to cater to the popular craving of his time, he disposition, the unities, etc., but acknowledges that, in regards those classic precepts. Furthermore, we have from him a mass of sonnets, romances (lyrics in the ballad metre), odes, elegies, verse epistles, and so on, of which some are religious in their inspiration and othera profane. Thus it is that in 1602 there ap peared, as part of his "Rimas", some two hundred sonnets, a number of which give expression to the poet's genuine sentiments. In 1612 there was published the "Quatro Soliloquios", full of devout expressions in verse which contrast sharply with the auther's mode of life. To that same year belongs the publication of his beautiful sacred pastoral, perhaps his most finished work in point of style, the "Pastores de Belén". Of this he himself said: "I have written a book, which I call the 'Shepherds of Bethlehem', in