which, Inès de Castro (1723), was produced with immense success at the Théâtre Français. He was a champion of the moderns in the revived controversy of the ancients and moderns. Madame Dacier had published (1699) a translation of the Iliad, and La Motte, who knew no Greek, made a translation (1714) in verse founded on her work. The nature of his work may be judged from his own expression: “I have taken the liberty to change what I thought disagreeable in it.” He defended the moderns in the Discours sur Homère prefixed to his translation, and in his Réflexions sur la critique (1716). Apart from the merits of the controversy, it was conducted on La Motte’s side with a wit and politeness which compared very favourably with his opponent’s methods. He was elected to the Academy in 1710, and soon after became blind. La Motte carried on a correspondence with the duchesse du Maine, and was the friend of Fontenelle. He had the same freedom from prejudice, the same inquiring mind as the latter, and it is on the excellent prose in which his views are expressed that his reputation rests. He died in Paris on the 26th of December 1731.
His Œuvres du théâtre (2 vols.) appeared in 1730, and his Œuvres (10 vols.) in 1754. See A. H. Rigault, Histoire de la querelle des anciens et des modernes (1859).
LAMOUREUX, CHARLES (1834–1899), French conductor and violinist, was born at Bordeaux on the 28th of September 1834. He studied at the Pau Conservatoire, was engaged as violinist at the Opéra, and in 1864 organized a series of concerts devoted to chamber music. Having journeyed to England and assisted at a Handel festival, he thought he would attempt something similar in Paris. At his own expense he founded the “Société de l’Harmonie Sacrée,” and in 1873 conducted the first performance in Paris of Handel’s Messiah. He also gave performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, Gounod’s Gallia, and Massenet’s Eve. In 1875 he conducted the festival given at Rouen to celebrate the centenary of Boïeldieu. The following year he became chef d’orchestre at the Opéra Comique. In 1881 he founded the famous concerts associated with his name, which contributed so much to popularize Wagner’s music in Paris. The performances of detached pieces taken from the German master’s works did not, however, satisfy him, and he matured the project to produce Lohengrin, which at that time had not been heard in Paris. For this purpose he took the Eden Theatre, and on the 3rd of May 1887 he conducted the first performance of Wagner’s opera in the French capital. Owing to the opposition of the Chauvinists, the performance was not repeated; but it doubtless prepared the way for the production of the same masterpiece at the Paris Opéra a few years later. Lamoureux was successively second chef d’orchestre at the Conservatoire, first chef d’orchestre at the Opéra Comique, and twice first chef d’orchestre at the Opéra. He visited London on several occasions, and gave successful concerts at the Queen’s Hall. Lamoureux died at Paris on the 21st of December 1899. Tristan und Isolde had been at last heard in Paris, owing to his initiative and under his direction. After conducting one of the performances of this masterpiece he was taken ill and succumbed in a few days, having had the consolation before his death of witnessing the triumph of the cause he had so courageously championed.
LAMP (from Gr. λαμπάς, a torch, λάμπειν, to shine), the general term for an apparatus in which some combustible substance, generally for illuminating purposes, is held. Lamps are usually associated with lighting, though the term is also employed in connexion with heating (e.g. spirit-lamp); and as now employed for oil, gas and electric light, they are dealt with in the article on Lighting. From the artistic point of view, in modern times, their variety precludes detailed reference here; but their archaeological
history deserves a fuller account.
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Ancient Lamps.—Though Athenaeus states (xv. 700) that the lamp (λύχνος) was not an ancient invention in Greece, it had come into general use there for domestic purposes by the 4th century B.C., and no doubt had long before been employed for temples or other places where a permanent light was required in room of the torch of Homeric times. Herodotus (ii. 62) sees nothing strange in the “festival of lamps,” Lychnokaie, which was held at Sais in Egypt, except in the vast number of them. Each was filled with oil so as to burn the whole night. Again he speaks of evening as the time of lamps (περὶ λύχνων, vii. 215). Still, the scarcity of lamps in a style anything like that of an early period, compared with the immense number of them from the late Greek and Roman age, seems to justify the remark of Athenaeus. The commonest sort of domestic lamps were of terra-cotta and of the shape seen in figs. 1 and 2 with a spout or nozzle (μυκτήρ) in which the wick (θρυαλλίς) burned, a round hole on the top to pour in oil by, and a handle to carry the lamp with. A lamp with two or more spouts was δίμυξος, τρίμυξος, &c., but these terms would not apply strictly to the large class of lamps with numerous holes for wicks but without nozzles. Decoration was confined to the front of the handle, or more commonly to the circular space on the top of the lamp, and it consisted almost always of a design in relief, taken from mythology or legend, from objects of daily life or scenes such as displays of gladiators or chariot races, from animals and the chase. A lamp in the British Museum has a view of the interior of a Roman circus with spectators looking on at a chariot race. In other cases the lamp is made altogether of a fantastic shape, as in the form of an animal, a bull’s head, or a human foot. Naturally colour was excluded from the ornamentation except in the form of a red or black glaze, which would resist the heat. The typical form of hand lamp (figs. 1, 2) is a combination of the flatness necessary for carrying steady and remaining steady when set down, with the roundness evolved from the working in clay and characteristic of vessels in that material. In the bronze lamps this same type is retained, though the roundness was less in keeping with metal. Fanciful shapes are equally common in bronze. The standard form of handle consists of a ring for the forefinger and above it a kind of palmette for the thumb. Instead of the palmette is sometimes a crescent, no doubt in allusion to the moon. It would only be with bronze lamps that the cover protecting the flame from the wind could be used, as was the case out of doors in Athens. Such a lamp was in fact a lantern. Apparently it was to the lantern that the Greek word lampas, a torch, was first transferred, probably from a custom of having guards to protect the torches also. Afterwards it came to be employed for the lamp itself (λύχνος, lucerna). When Juvenal (Sat. iii. 277) speaks of the aenea lampas, he may mean a torch with a bronze handle, but more probably either a lamp or a lantern. Lamps used for suspension were mostly of bronze, and in such cases the decoration was on the under part, so as to be seen from below. Of this the best example is the lamp at Cortona, found there in
