Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/258

 246 Dictionary of English Literature

Elmwood, the house in which he was b. L. was a man of singularly varied gifts, wit, humour, scholarship, and considerable poetic power, and he is the greatest critic America has yet produced. He was a strong advocate of the abolition of slavery.

LOWTH, ROBERT (1710-1787). Theologian and scholar, s. of William L., Prebendary of Winchester, and author of a Com mentary on the Prophets, was b, at Winchester, and ed. there and at Oxf. Entering the Church he became Bishop successively of St. David's, Oxf., and London. In 1753 he pub. De Sacra Poesi Hebrcsorum. He also wrote a Life of William of Wykeham, the founder of Winchester Coll., and made a new translation of Isaiah.

LYDGATE, JOHN (i37o?-i45i?). Poet, b. in Suffolk, was

ordained a priest in 1397. After studying at Oxf., Paris, and Padua, he taught literature in his monastery at Bury St. Edmunds. He appears to have been a bright, clear-minded, earnest man, with a love of the beautiful, and a faculty of pleasant, flowing verse. He wrote copiously and with tiresome prolixity whatever was required of him, moral tales, legends of the saints, and histories, and his total output is enormous, reaching 130,000 lines. His chief works are Troy Book (1412-20), written at the request of Henry V. when Prince of Wales, The Falls of Princes (1430-38), and The Story of Thebes (c. 1420). These books were first printed in 1513, 1494, and c. 1500 respectively. L. also wrote many miscellaneous poems. He was for a time Court poet, and was patronised by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester ; but the greater part of his life was spent in the monas tery at Bury St. Edmunds. He was an avowed admirer of Chaucer, though he largely follows the French romancists previous to him.

LYELL, SIR CHARLES (1797-1875). Geologist and writer,

s. of Charles L., of Kinnordy, Forfarshire (a distinguished botanist and student of Dante), was brought up near the New Forest. After going to school at various places in England, he was sent to Oxf., where under Buckland he imbibed a taste for science. He studied law, and was called to the Bar, but soon devoted himself to geology, and made various scientific tours on the Continent, the results of his investigations being pub. chiefly in the Transactions of the Geological Society, of which he was afterwards repeatedly Pres. His two chief works are The Principles of Geology (1830-33), and The Elements of Geology (1838). In these books he combated the necessity of stupendous convulsions, and maintained that the greatest geologic changes might be produced by remote causes still in operation. He also pub., among other works, Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man (1863). He was Prof, of Geology in King's Coll., London, 1831-33, Pres. of the British Association 1864, knighted in 1848, and cr. a Baronet in 1864. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. In his later years he was generally recognised as the greatest of living geologists.

LYLY, JOHN (i554?-i6o6). Dramatist and miscellaneous

writer, was b. in the Weald of Kent, and ed. at both Oxf. and Camb. He wrote several dramas, most of which are on classical and mythological subjects, including Campaspe and Sapho and Phao (1584), Endymion (1591), and Midas (1592). His chief fame,