Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/44

Rh 30 L A Y L Y Lowell is divided into six wards, and is governed by a mayor, a board of eight aldermen, and a common council of twenty-four members. LOWESTOFT, a watering-place, seaport, and market- town of Suffolk, England, is picturesquely situated ou a lofty declivity, which includes the most easterly point of land in England, 23 miles south-west of Norwich by rail. Previous to the opening of a railway, it was only a small fishing village, but since then it has risen to some importance as a seaport, while its picturesque situation, and its facilities for sea-bathing, have rendered it a favourite watering-place. The church of St Margaret, in the Later English style, with tower and spire, possesses a very ancient font. There are a town-hall, a county-hall, two foundation schools, a large general hospital, and a number of charities. Along the shore there is a fine esplanade, and a new park was opened in 1874. Two piers 1300 feet in length enclose a harbour of 20 acres, which is much used as a harbour of refuge. For the last five years the average value of the foreign and colonial imports has been over 100,000, and the exports have been valued at about 5000. The fisheries of Lowestoft are of some importance, and there are shipbuilding yards, oil and flour mills, and rope-works. The population of the urban sanitary district in 1871 was 15,246, and in 1881 it had increased to 19,597. LOWICZ, a town of Russian Poland, on the Bzura river, in the government of Warsaw, 54 miles by rail west from the capital, on the line between Skiernewice and Bromberg. It has lately become a centre of manufacture and trade, and the population (6650 in 1872) is rapidly increasing. Its fairs are important as regards the trade in horses and cattle. In the immediate neighbourhood are situated the hamlet Liczcowice, which has a beetroot sugar factory, and the rich estates Nieboron and Villa Arcadia of the Radziwill family. LOWTH, ROBERT (1710-1787), bishop of London, was born at Buriton, Hampshire, or, according to other authori ties, in the Close of Winchester, on November 27, 1710. He was the younger son of Dr William Lowth (1661-1732), rector of Buriton, a man of considerable learning, author of A Vindication of the Divine Authority and Inspiration of the Old and New Testaments (1692), Directions for the Profitable Reading of the Holy Scriptures (1708-26), and A Commentary on the Prophets (4 vols., 1714). Robert was educated on the foundation of Winchester College, and in 1730 was elected to a scholarship at New College, Oxford, where he took his degree of M.A. in 1737. In 1741 he was appointed professor of poetry, and it was in this capacity that he delivered the Praelectiones Academics^ de Sacra Poesi Hebreeorum, afterwards published in 1753. Bishop Hoadly appointed him in 1744 to the rectory of Ovington, Hampshire, in 1750 to the archdeaconry of Winchester, and in 1753 to the rectory of East Woodhay, also in Hampshire. In 1754 he received the degree of doctor of divinity from his university, and in the follow ing year he went to Ireland along with the duke of Devonshire, then lord-lieutenant, as first chaplain. Soon afterwards he declined a presentation to the see of Limerick, but accepted a prebendal stall at Durham and the rectory of Sedgfield. In 1758 he published his Life of William of Wykeham, which was followed in 1762 by A Short Introduction to English Grammar. In 1765, the year of his election into the Royal Societies of London and Gb ttingen, he engaged in a hot war of pamphlets with Warburton on a now obsolete question about the relations between the book of Job and the Mosaic economy ; and (Gibbon being judge), &quot; whatsoever might be the merits of an insignificant controversy, his victory was clearly established by the silent confession of Warburton and his slaves.&quot; In June 1766 Lowth was promoted to the see of St David s, whence about four months afterwards he was translated to that of Oxford, where he remained till 1777, when he became bishop of London. This last appoint ment he continued to hold until his death, having declined the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1783. In 1778 ap peared his last work, Isaiah, a new Translation, ivith a Preliminary Dissertation, and Notes, Critical, Philologi cal, and Explanatory. He died at Fulham on November 1787. The Prselcdiones exercised a great influence both in England and on the Continent. Their chief importance lay in the idea of look ing at the sacred poetry as poetry, and examining it by the stand ards applied to profane literature. Lowth s aesthetic criticism was that of the age, and is now in great part obsolete, a more natural method having been soon after introduced by Herder. The prin cipal point in which Lowth s influence has been lasting is his doctrine of poetic parallelism, and even here his somewhat mechani cal classification of the forms of Hebrew sense-rhythm, as it should rather be called, is open to serious objections. The Preelcctiones reached a second edition in 1763, and were republished with notes by J. D. Michaelis in 1770; both text and notes were translated by G. Gregory (1787 ; 4th ed., 1839). The Oxford edition of the original (1821) contains additions by Rosenmiiller, Richter, and Weiss. The editions of Lowth s Isaiah have been numerous (13th ed., 1842), but the book is now much less read than the Prselcctioncs. A vol ume of Sermons and other Remains, with memoir by Hall, was published in 1834, and there is a comparatively recent edition of the Popular Works of Robert Lowth, 3 vols., 1843. LOYALTY ISLANDS, a group in the South Pacific, about 60 miles east of New Caledonia, consisting of Uvea or Uea (the northrnost), Lifu, Toka and several small islands, and Mare or Nengone. They are coral islands of comparatively recent elevation, and in no place rise more than 250 feet above the level of the sea. Lifu, the largest, is about 50 miles in length by 25 in breadth. Enough of its rocky surface is covered with a thin coating of soil to enable the natives to grow yams, taro, bananas, &c., for their support ; cotton thrives well, and has even been ex ported in small quantities, but there is no space available for its cultivation on any considerable scale. Fresh water, rising and falling with the tide, is found in certain large caverns, and, in fact, by sinking to the sea-level a supply may be obtained in any part of the island. The popula tion, about 7000, is on the decrease. The island called Neugone by the natives and Mare by the inhabitants of the Isle of Pines is about 80 miles in circumference, and contains about 6000 souls. Uvea, the most recent part of the group, consists of a circle of about twenty islets enclos ing a lagoon 20 miles in width ; the largest is about 30 miles in length, and in some places 3 miles wide, and the next largest is about 12 miles in length. The inhabitants, numbering about 2500, export considerable quantities of cocoa-nut oil. The Loyalty islanders are classed as Melanesian ; the several islands have each its separate language, and in Uvea the one tribe uses a Samoan and the other a New Hebridean form of speech. Captain Cook passed to the east of New Caledonia without observ ing the Loyalty group ; but it was discovered soon afterwards, and Dumont D Urville laid down the several islands in his chart. For many years after their discovery the natives had a bad repute as dangerous cannibals. Christianity was introduced into Mare by native teachers from Rarotonga and Samoa ; missionaries were settled by the London Missionary Society at Mare in 1854, at Lifu in 1859, and at Uvea in 1865 ; Roman Catholic missionaries also arrived from New Caledonia; and in 1864 the French, con sidering the islands a dependency of that colony, formally insti tuted a commandant. An attempt was made by this official to put a stop to the English missions by violence ; but the report of his conduct led to so much indignation in Australia and in England that the emperor Napoleon, on receipt of a protest from Lord Shaftesbury and others, caused a commission of inquiry to be ap pointed, and free liberty of worship to be secured to the Protestant missions. A new persecution of the Christians in Uvea, during 1875, called forth a protest on the part of the English Government, and matters appear to have since improved. See W. Gill, Gems from the Coral Islands, new edition. 1871; S. Macfarlane, Story of the Lifu Mission, 1873.