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LAT
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LAT

have my license, and preach it unto his beard, let him say what he will." Some time after this, he is believed to have preached his two remarkable sermons "On the Card"—the earliest of his sermons we possess, and in some respects, the most singular from their quaint, and keen, and plain exhortations. When Henry VIII. began to get uneasy as to his matrimonial connection with Catherine of Arragon, and appealed to the universities on the subject, at the instance of Cranmer Latimer was one of the divines appointed to examine into the lawfulness of the connection. His decision in the king's favour was the means of introducing him to Henry, and he was appointed one of the royal chaplains in 1530. In the following year he received also from the king the living of West Kington in Wiltshire. His reforming activity in this parish, as formerly in the university, raised up a host of enemies against him, and he was summoned before convocation, and compelled to make certain retractations, the exact force of which has been disputed. At length, however, on the accession of his friend Cranmer to the primacy, Latimer was made bishop of Worcester in 1535; and in the following year he opened convocation with two memorable sermons, in which he inveighed strongly against abuses in the church and advocated reformation, that it might be saved from destruction. He continued in his bishopric, labouring to secure such reforms as he felt urgent, till the year 1539; when Henry gave himself to the side of the reaction headed by Gardiner and Bonner, the party of the nationalists, as they have been recently called in our historical literature. The result of this was the passing of six articles, rendering it penal to deny the characteristic doctrines of Romanism, and undoing the work of the fourteen articles passed in the year 1536. Latimer resigned his bishopric, and entered into privacy. He was soon sought out, however, and "molested and troubled" by the bishops; and in 1546, before the close of Henry's reign, he was cast into the Tower, where he remained till the new reign. On the accession of Edward he was restored to liberty, and again, and more vigorously than ever, resumed his preaching. His sermons during the whole of Edward's "blessed" reign, became one of the chief impulses of the Reformation, that then rapidly advanced. Latimer, however, was content with the influence which he thus exercised as a preacher, and refused to be reinstated in his bishopric, although its offer was made to him at the generous instance of the house of commons. His weak health, and disinclination for state affairs, no doubt led him to decline so flattering an offer. He not the less, but all the more, laboured to spread the light of gospel truth throughout England; preaching incessantly, now in London, now in Lincoln, now before the young king in Whitehall Gardens, as the well-known picture represents him, and now before the duchess of Suffolk at Stamford. On the lamented death of Edward he was imprisoned, first in the Tower, and then at Oxford, along with Cranmer and Ridley. After various delays he was tried and condemned to the stake. Fox gives a pitiful and touching account of his appearance before his persecutors, wearing "an old threadbare Bristol frieze gown girded to his body with a penny leather girdle, his Testament suspended from his girdle by a leather sling, and his spectacles without a case hung from his neck upon his breast." He suffered along with Ridley, 16th of October, 1555, "without Bocardo gate," on a spot opposite Balliol college, now marked by a splendid martyrs' monument. Latimer's character excites our admiration by its mixture of simplicity and heroism. He is simple as a child, and yet daring for the truth, without shrinking or ostentation. He is more consistent than Cranmer, more tolerant than Ridley, if less learned and polished than either. His sermons are rare specimens of vigorous eloquence, which read fresh, and vivid, and powerful now, after three centuries. The humorous Saxon scorn and invective with which he lashes the vices of the time are, perhaps, their most noted characteristics; but they are also remarkable for their clear and homely statements of christian doctrine, and the faithfulness with which they exhibit the simple ideal of the christian life, in contrast to all hypocrisies and pretensions of religion. In all things—in his sermons, in his reforms, in his character—Latimer was eminently practical. He contended for no novelty of doctrine or ecclesiastical polity, but for what he believed to be the old truth of the Church of England before it was overlaid by Romish error, and its ancient simplicities before it yielded to the spirit of avarice and the pride of power. He is not memorable, like Luther or Calvin, for the superiority of his intellectual abilities and the story of his character; but he is truly great in the simplicity, honesty, and pure-minded evangelical energy of his labours and life.—T.

LATIMER, William, an Englishman who claims the honour of having been one of the restorers of classical learning in this country, was born in the latter half of the fifteenth century. He studied at Oxford, and became fellow of All Souls in 1489, after which he went to Padua, where he greatly improved his acquaintance with ancient literature. On his return he took his degree of M.A. in 1513, and was appointed tutor of Reginald Pole, afterwards cardinal, to whose influence he was indebted for two livings in Gloucestershire, and a Salisbury prebend. While at Oxford he taught Greek to Erasmus, whom he subsequently assisted in bringing out the second edition of his Greek Testament. He was considered an able theologian, and well versed in almost all departments of learning; but none of his writings are known, except a few letters to Erasmus. He died at an advanced age in 1545.—B. H. C.

LATINI, Brunetto, the friend and teacher of Dante, born at Florence in 1230, belonged to the Guelph party, and was exiled for a time after a temporary triumph of the Ghibellines. He retired to France, and wrote there in French his most celebrated work, the "Tesoro" or "Tresor," a kind of cyclopedia, philosophical and historical, of the knowledge of his time. His "Tesoretto," a work in Italian rhyme, and of no great worth, has been published, but the "Tesoro" still awaits the publication ordered for it by the French minister of public instruction under the auspices of Napoleon III., carrying out a design of Napoleon I., who intended to have it published at the expense of the state. Brunetto Latini, however, owes the remembrance in which he is held to the fifteenth canto of Dante's Inferno, where he is the main figure, punished for his crime against nature, yet still regarded with gratitude and affection by his old pupil, whose fame he predicts. The episode is one of the most beautiful and touching in the great poem. Latini returned to Florence from exile, and died there in 1294.—F. E.

LATINI, Latino, critic, born at Viterbo about 1513; died in Rome, 21st January, 1593. He has left various erudite works, but has been accused by the protestant party of suppressing ancient documents not confirmatory of his views. After his death two volumes were published of his letters, poems, and minor pieces. Gregory XIII. employed him amongst other learned men to reform Gratian's Decretal, assigning to him a pension of one hundred and fifty ducats. He successively served four cardinals; but his second and third patrons having died soon after connecting themselves with him, he was considered a man of ill omen; and his fourth employer, Cardinal Colona, declined to lodge him under his own roof. He died worn out with weakness and infirmities, having bequeathed his extensive library to the chapter of his native Viterbo.—C. G. R.

LATOMUS, Jacobus, the Latinized name of Jacques Masson, a controversial writer of the Romish church in the sixteenth century, was born about 1475 in Hainaut, and studied at Paris, whence he removed to Louvain, where he died in 1544, having been professor of theology, and filled other important posts. He was a violent opponent of Luther, against whose opinions his works were chiefly directed. He also wrote against William Tyndale. Dupin gives an account of his writings, which were published collectively in 1550.—B. H. C.

* LATOUR, Cagnard, Baron de, a French physicist, was born in Paris on the 31st of May, 1777. He was educated at the polytechnic school, and entered the corps of geographical engineers. He afterwards became an auditor of the state-council. In 1850 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences. His scientific labours have been of a very varied kind, and have comprised the introduction of many novel and important processes in experimental physics, and the invention of various useful machines. In 1809 he invented a new application of the Archimedean screw, which consists in working it the reverse way, so as to force air or any other gas down to any required depth under water. In 1819 he invented the "Siren," an instrument which gives out any required musical tone by the partial opening and closing in rapid succession of a passage through which a blast of air is flowing, and thus furnishes an exact experimental determination of the number of vibrations per second by which different musical tones are produced. In 1822 he first put in practice the experiment of completely vaporizing various liquids in spaces very little exceeding the volumes originally occupied by the liquids,