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LAC
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LAC

Cassel, Munich, and St. Gallen in 1824, he came to Berlin, where he was chosen extraordinary, in 1825, and in 1827 ordinary professor. In 1837 he received from Göttingen the degrees of doctor of theology and law. He died at Berlin on the 13th March, 1851. Lachmann possessed a truly scientific mind, and must always rank high as a philologist. In the departments of the classics and old German he was at home. His criticism was at once methodical and masterly. What he did was thoroughly done, with a scientific completeness which excites admiration. His publications are very numerous and varied, covering a wide field. Those on the Nibelungenlied, Berlin, 1836; and Homer, Berlin, 1847, are fine specimens of the higher criticism. His small edition of the Greek Testament appeared in 1831, and the large edition with the Vulgate in 1846 and 1850, 2 vols. 8vo—both works very valuable, though often misunderstood. In them Lachmann carried out most faithfully what he proposed, namely, to restore as far as possible the text of the third and fourth centuries current in the oriental church. His works are too numerous to be specified here. Among them are editions of Catullus, Tibullus, Genesius, Terentianus Maurus, Babrius, Avianus, Lucretius; a translation of Shakspeare's Sonnets and Macbeth; a critical edition of Lessing; the Nibelungenlied, &c.—S. D.

* LACHNER, Franz, a musician, was born at Krain in Bavaria in 1804, where his father, who first taught him music, was organist. His brothers—Theodor, organist of St. Peter's church at Munich; Ignatz, kapellmeister at Stuttgart; and Vincenz, who succeeded Franz as kapellmeister at Manheim—are esteemed musicians; and his two sisters are organists. Franz Lachner was sent in 1815 for his general education to Neuburg; subsequently he studied composition under Eisenhofer, and in 1822 he went to establish himself at Munich as a pianist, organist, and violinist. It has been incorrectly stated that he there became the pupil of Winter; he really did nothing at Munich to advance his studies, and found little professional occupation there even as a teacher. He went in 1833 to Vienna, where he made the friendship of many of the resident artists, especially of Schubert and Stadler, from the latter of whom he received so much important advice, that the time of his intercourse with him is to be regarded as the period of his true theoretical studies. He held for a short time the post of organist at the evangelical church in Vienna, and afterwards that of kapellmeister at the Kärntnerthor theatre. Lachner resigned this appointment in 1834, for that of court kapellmeister to the duke of Manheim, at his installation in which he produced his third symphony, and immediately afterwards wrote his "Sinfonia Passionata." A prize for the best symphony was offered at Vienna in 1835, which was awarded to him in the following year for this work, when Strauss of Carlsruhe obtained the second prize. In 1836 Lachner was appointed to the post he still holds of kapellmeister to the king of Bavaria. He has produced the oratorios of "Die vier Menschen-Alten" and "Moses;" the operas of "Die Burgshaft," "Alidia," and "Catarina Cornaro;" several masses, cantatas, symphonies, and pieces of instrumental chamber music; and a great number of songs.—G. A. M.

LACKINGTON, James, a well-known bookseller of last century, was born at Wellington in Somersetshire on the 31st of August, 1740. He was brought up to his father's trade of shoemaker, and went to London in 1773, the possessor of a solitary half-crown. In 1774 he opened a book-shop in an obscure street of the metropolis, his whole stock-in-trade consisting of a bagful of old books of divinity, purchased for a guinea. By prudent purchases and selling cheaply, he became one of the largest booksellers, in the strict sense of the word, in London. He retired to the country with a fortune in 1798, and died in Devonshire in November, 1815. In 1795 he published "Memoirs of the first fifty-five years of his life," a rambling but not uninteresting book, which affords some curious information respecting the history of bookbuying and bookselling in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It was followed in 1803 by a volume of "Confessions." On retiring from business he was succeeded by a distant relative, George Lackington, who, with his partners, added to bookselling an extensive business in cheap publishing, and built, for the conduct of their operations, the once celebrated Temple of the Muses in Finsbury Square. He died in 1834.—F. E.

LACKMANN, Adam Heinrich, an erudite German historian, born 1694 at Weningen; died at Kiel, 17th August, 1753. He was first rector of the lyceum at Eutin, and afterwards professor of history at the university of Kiel. He wrote a large number of works, the most remarkable of which is his "Annalium Typographicorum Selecta quædam Capita."—P. E. D.

LA CONDAMINE, Charles Marie, a distinguished French man of science, was born at Paris on 28th of January, 1701, and died there on the 4th of February, 1774. Being of an adventurous and fearless disposition, he joined the army as a volunteer, and distinguished himself by his disregard of danger. Peace having been concluded, he left the army, and obtained employment from the Academy of Sciences as an assistant chemist. In 1733 he urged strongly on the academy the benefit to science which would result from an expedition to measure an arc of the meridian in the neighbourhood of the equator; and such an expedition was soon afterwards fitted out by the government, and sailed from Rochelle for Peru in 1735, under the conduct of Bouguer, La Condamine, and Godin—(see Bouguer and Godin)—and was joined in Peru by a similar expedition sent by the Spanish government under Juan and Ulloa.—(See Juan y Santacilia.) Of the three leaders of the French expedition, Bouguer was specially characterized by scientific genius, Godin by industry and accuracy in observing, and La Condamine by energy and address, which proved of great service in dealing with the inhabitants and local authorities of the district where the arc was measured—a vast and wild valley of the Andes. The labours of the French expedition lasted for nearly ten years. An unfounded suspicion on the part of Bouguer that La Condamine was disposed to claim more than his due share of the merit of the expedition, led to a controversy between them. La Condamine treated the scientific merits of Bouguer with great respect, and answered his attacks in a spirit of pleasantry; but Bouguer's resentment lasted during the remainder of his life. After the return of the expedition La Condamine travelled in Italy, and applied himself carefully to the examination and measurement of the remains of Roman architecture. On the introduction of inoculation for the small-pox into France, he was one of the most strenuous defenders of the practice against objections founded on its alleged danger and impiety. In 1760 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences. He was of a gay and social disposition, and was very successful in French society. His chief failing was an excessive and ungovernable curiosity, which is said to have sometimes led him into ludicrous situations, and sometimes even into great danger.—W. J. M. R.

LACORDAIRE, Jean Baptiste Henri, the most brilliant preacher of modern catholic France, was born at Recey-sur-Onree, 12th March, 1802; died at Sorrèze (Tarn), after a long illness, 21st November, 1861. The son of a physician who died in 1806, leaving a widow and four sons, of whom he was the second, he studied at Dijon from 1810 to 1819, and, apparently without effort, carried off all the prizes. He afterwards studied law, and distinguished himself by a remarkable talent for speaking in the debating societies of the young advocates. In 1821 he went to Paris and assisted M. Guillemin, who in 1822 became avocat at the cour de cassation, or court of appeal. For eighteen months he was the indefatigable colleague of his senior, and commenced pleading at the French bar. But he found the vocation not suited to his higher aspirations. At that period he is said by M. Sainte Beuve to have been a deist, or at least a doubter, but with all the freshness of a young and unsullied heart that sought earnestly for light, and as yet had not found it. He wanted to find truth, and in the arid regions of law he found nothing to satisfy the longings of an ardent spirit. In May, 1823, he went to M. Guillemin, and told him that he wished to become a priest. He entered the seminary of St. Sulpice, and devoted himself to the service of religion. His conversion has been explained as the result of his social theories, but so marked and notable a change may well be attributed to a higher source. He saw that society was necessary, but saw also that Christianity was the truest bond of society. He saw in the christian faith a divine and immortal truth, and shaking off the world, he entered the only sphere that could give peace to his soul, or calm the tumult that had assailed his inmost nature. In 1827 he was ordained priest, after having preached a sermon at the seminary, which the superior characterized as one half nonsensical, the other half unintelligible, and the whole ridiculous. In 1830 the journal L'Avenir was commenced by the Abbé de Lammenais, who had for a fellow-labourer M. de