Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/256

LOW chiefly resided at the Hague, where he published several of his books. Sir William has left five original dramas, a translation of the Horace of Corneille, and the journal of Charles II.'s residence in Scotland, from the French. A list of his works may be found in Lowndes' Manual.—W. C. H.  * LOWELL,, one of the most original poets America has yet produced, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1819, the son of an eminent congregational minister there. He was educated at Harvard college, which he quitted in his twentieth year, that he might pursue the study of the law. He had no intention, however, to follow the legal profession, being entirely bent upon a literary career. His first appearance as an author was in 1839, when he printed a class poem recited at Cambridge, which remained unnoticed. Two years later he fairly challenged public opinion in a volume of poems entitled "A Year's Life," 1841. It was rich in promise, but showed that the author's conceptions were not as yet equalled by his power of execution. Another volume which he sent forth in 1844 exhibited a steady progress in the development of Mr. Lowell's poetical powers. "Prometheus" and "The Legend of Brittany" are two very remarkable pieces in this volume. His bold metrical experiments, not successful in all his lyrics, were continued in the volume published in 1848, which also gave evidence of a new and very important element in this poet's intellectual powers, to wit, a resolution to be an American poet, and not merely a follower of the long line of versifiers who illustrate English literature. The topics which possess a surpassing interest for the citizens of the United States are mostly political; and a writer who could express in nervous language sympathy with any national movement would be truly and in every sense of the word an American author. Thus Lowell, in the poem styled "The Present Crisis," "Anti-Texas," and other poems, showed his mastery of the language when used upon trite and prosaic subjects. This phase in the development of the poet may partly have been due to his occupation as a journalist, which brought him into close contact with the practical affairs of public and every-day life. The "American Keats," as he has been called, reached the climax of his satirical powers in the very remarkable book entitled "The Biglow Papers," which, with unsparing wit and humour, and in the vulgarest Yankee dialect, attacks some of the darling prejudices of the American nation. The facility with which this rude language is versified constitutes one of the wonders of the book. "The Fable for Critics," which also appeared in 1848, is a piece of rhymed sarcasm on the critics and authors among his contemporaries, extremely witty and not ill written. "The Vision of Sir Launfal" is a fantastic poem, that recalls at times in the undulating flow of the verse Coleridge's Christabel. The manifestation of such steadily progressive powers in Mr. Lowell encourages the hope that America and the civilized world may still hear new things from him. A prose work he published in 1845, "Conversations on some of the old poets," indicates the author's favourite field of study. He has been a contributor to the North American Review and to the Pioneer. He has been for some time editor of the Anti-slavery Standard.—R. H.  LOWER,, physician and anatomist, born in Cornwall about 1631. He studied medicine at Oxford, and became coadjutor to the celebrated Dr. Willis in his dissections. In 1665 he took his degree of M.D., and soon afterwards removed to London, where he became a fellow of the Royal Society, and of the College of Physicians. He published some works which acquired for him considerable reputation, and brought him into extensive practice. Lower was perhaps the first who practised the transfusion of blood from the vessels of one living animal to those of another, though it had been suggested by Libavius as far back as 1615. Died in 1691.—W. B—d.  LOWITZ,, a German geographer and astronomer, was born at Fürth, near Nuremberg, on the 17th of February, 1722, and was murdered at Ilowla on the Volga, on the 24th of August, 1774. He was for some time a partner in a firm of publishers of maps, and in 1751 was appointed professor of mathematics and physics in the academy of Nuremberg and director of its observatory, which he quitted about 1756 or 1757 to become professor of practical mathematics in the university of Göttingen. He resigned that appointment in 1762, and about 1766 or 1767 he went to St. Petersburg, to become a member of the Academy of Sciences. Early in August, 1774, while travelling in Russia, in order to lay out the course of a canal which had been projected by Peter the Great for the junction of the Don and the Wolga, he fell into the hands of the insurgent chief Pugatscheff, for whose amusement he was tortured, and, after several days' delay, put to death with horrible cruelty.—W. J. M. R.  LOWMAN,, a learned dissenting minister, was born in London in 1680, and studied divinity in the universities of Utrecht and Leyden. In 1710 he began to preach, and in 1714 was ordained pastor of a congregation of dissenters assembling at Clapham. He attained no distinction as a preacher, and remained in charge of the same congregation till his death in 1752, but his writings were highly prized for their erudition and usefulness. He devoted himself with peculiar zeal to the study of Hebrew learning and antiquities, and he made use of the learning thus acquired to vindicate the scriptures against the attacks of the deists of that age. In 1718 he wrote against Collins "The argument from prophecy in proof that Jesus is the Messiah, vindicated," which, however, was not printed till 1733. His principal works were—"A Dissertation on the Civil Government of the Hebrews," in answer to Morgan's Moral Philosopher, which appeared in 1740; and "A Rationale of the Ritual of Hebrew worship," including a reply to objections, which was added as an appendix to the "Dissertation" in its second edition, published in 1745. His "Three Tracts on the Schechinah," &c., were posthumous.—P. L.  LOWNDES,, bibliographer and bookseller, was a member of an old bookselling family of the metropolis. His father, who died in 1823, had a reputation for his knowledge of a certain class of old books. Mr. Lowndes began to publish in 1829 the "British Librarian," which was interrupted by his death under distressing circumstances in July, 1843. In 1834 he had published his "Bibliographer's Manual," a descriptive catalogue of rare and curious books in English literature. It at once took rank as the standard work in its department of bibliography. The issue of a new edition of it, with corrections and additions, was commenced in 1858 by Mr. Bohn.—F. E.  LOWTH,, son of William Lowth, prebendary of Winchester, was born in the Close of Winchester, or at Buriton, Hants, on the 27th of November, 1710, and was educated at Winchester college and at New college, Oxford. He gave proof while still a boy of superior poetical gifts. As early as 1729, one of his school poems, "On the Genealogy of Christ," as represented on the window of Winchester college chapel, was published without his knowledge or consent—"a liberty no less flattering to the youthful poet than the high applause with which the publication was received." He took his degree of M.A. at Oxford in 1737, and in 1741 he was appointed professor of poetry. It was in this capacity that he delivered his celebrated "Prælectiones Academicæ de Sacra Poesi Hebræorum." They excited great admiration at the university on their first delivery; and when published in 1753 they elevated their author at once to the highest literary rank, in the estimation not only of British but of continental scholars. A rival scholar at Oxford, Dr. Townson, expressed the general opinion of the university in these terms:—"Quem de poetica sacra sic ex cathedra explicantem audivimus, ut omnibus ornari rebus videretur, quæ aut naturæ munera sunt aut instrumenta doctrinæ." He found a kind patron in Bishop Hoadley, who gave him in 1744 the rectory of Ovington in Hampshire; the archdeaconry of Winchester in 1750; and in 1753 the rectory of East Woodhay, in the same diocese. In 1755 he accompanied to Ireland in the capacity of first chaplain the marquis of Hartington, who had been appointed lord-lieutenant, and he had soon an offer of the see of Limerick from his new patron; but he preferred to make way to Dr. Leslie, prebendary of Durham and rector of Sedgefield, on the understanding that he should receive these preferments in lieu. In these offices he remained till 1766, when he was made bishop of St. David's, and a few months after bishop of Oxford, which latter see he held till 1777, when he succeeded Dr. Terrick in the see of London. In 1765 he had been elected fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Göttingen. In 1778 appeared his principal work, "Isaiah; a new Translation, with a preliminary Dissertation and Notes, critical, philological, and explanatory," in which his design was, "not only to give a more exact representation of the language and sense of the prophet, but to endeavour in some degree to imitate his manner also, and to afford an English reader some idea of the cast and character of the original." As observed by the latest of his biographers, Mr. Peter Hall, "this was certainly above all other 