foreheads, large eyes, straight noses and thick but not pouting lips. They are believed by Sir H. H. Johnston to be the original and purest type of the great Masai people, and are assimilated to the Nilotic negro races in customs. Like their neighbours the Bari and Shilluk tribes, they despise clothing, though the important chiefs have adopted Arab attire. Their country is fertile, and they cultivate tobacco, durra and other crops. Their villages are numerous, and some are of considerable size. Tarangole, for instance, on the Khor Kohs, has upwards of three thousand huts, and sheds for many thousands of cattle. The Latuka are industrious and especially noted for skill as smiths. Emin Pasha stated that the lion was so little dreaded by the Latuka that on one being caught in a leopard trap they hastily set it free.
LAUBAN, a town of Germany in the Prussian province of
Silesia, is situated in a picturesque valley, at the junction of
the lines of railway from Görlitz and Sorau, 16 m. E. of the former.
Pop. (1905) 14,624. Lauban has a Roman Catholic and two Evangelical
churches, a town hall, dating from 1541, a conventual
house of the order of St Magdalene, dating from the 14th century,
a municipal library and museum, two hospitals, an orphanage
and several schools. Its industrial establishments comprise
tobacco, yarn, thread, linen and woollen cloth manufactories,
bleaching and dyeing works, breweries and oil and flour mills.
Lauban was founded in the 10th and fortified in the 13th century; in 1427 and 1431 it was devastated by the Hussites, and in 1640 by the Swedes. In 1761 it was the headquarters of Frederick the Great, and in 1815 it was the last Saxon town that made its submission to Prussia.
See Berkel, Geschichte der Stadt Lauban (Lauban, 1896).
LAUBE, HEINRICH (1806–1884), German dramatist, novelist
and theatre-director, was born at Sprottau in Silesia on the
18th of September 1806. He studied theology at Halle and
Breslau (1826–1829), and settled in Leipzig in 1832. Here he
at once came into prominence with his political essays, collected
under the title Das neue Jahrhundert, in two parts—Polen (1833)
and Politische Briefe (1833)—and with the novel Das junge
Europa, in three parts—Die Poeten, Die Krieger, Die Bürger—(1833–1837).
These writings, in which, after the fashion of
Heinrich Heine and Ludwig Börne, he severely criticized the
political régime in Germany, together with the part he played
in the literary movement known as Das junge Deutschland, led
to his being subjected to police surveillance and his works confiscated.
On his return, in 1834, from a journey to Italy, undertaken
in the company of Karl Gutzkow, Laube was expelled
from Saxony and imprisoned for nine months in Berlin. In
1836 he married the widow of Professor Hänel of Leipzig;
almost immediately afterwards he suffered a year’s imprisonment
for his revolutionary sympathies. In 1839 he again settled
in Leipzig and began a literary activity as a playwright. Chief
among his earlier productions are the tragedies Monaldeschi
(1845) and Struensee (1847); the comedies Rokoko, oder die alten
Herren (1846); Gottsched und Gellert (1847); and Die Karlsschüler
(1847), of which the youthful Schiller is the hero. In
1848 Laube was elected to the national assembly at Frankfort-on-Main
for the district of Elbogen, but resigned in the spring
of 1849, when he was appointed artistic director of the Hofburg
theatre in Vienna. This office he held until 1867, and in this
period fall his finest dramatic productions, notably the tragedies
Graf Essex (1856) and Montrose (1859), and his historical romance
Der deutsche Krieg (1865–1866, 9 vols.), which graphically
pictures a period in the Thirty Years’ War. In 1869 he became
director of the Leipzig Stadttheater, but returned to Vienna
in 1870, where in 1872 he was placed at the head of the new
Stadttheater; with the exception of a short interval he managed
this theatre with brilliant success until his retirement from
public life in 1880. He has left a valuable record of his work
in Vienna and Leipzig in the three volumes Das Burgtheater
(1868), Das norddeutsche Theater (1872) and Das Wiener Stadttheater
(1875). His pen was still active after his retirement,
and in the five years preceding his death, which took place at
Vienna on the 1st of August 1884, he wrote the romances and
novels Die Böhminger (1880), Louison (1881), Der Schatten-Wilhelm
(1883), and published an interesting volume of reminiscences,
Erinnerungen, 1841–1881 (1882). Laube’s dramas
are not remarkable for originality or for poetical beauty; their
real and great merit lies in their stage-craft. As a theatre-manager
he has had no equal in Germany, and his services in
this capacity have assured him a more lasting name in German
literary history than his writings.
His Gesammelte Schriften (excluding his dramas) were published in 16 vols. (1879–1882); his Dramatische Werke in 13 vols. (1845–1875); a popular edition of the latter in 12 vols. (1880–1892). An edition of Laube’s Ausgewählte Werke in 10 vols. appeared in 1906 with an introduction by H. H. Houben. See also J. Proelss, Das junge Deutschland (1892); and H. Bulthaupt, Dramaturgie des Schauspiels (vol. iii., 6th ed., 1901).
L’AUBESPINE, a French family which sprang from Claude
de l’Aubespine, a lawyer of Orleans and bailiff of the abbey of
St Euverte in the beginning of the 16th century, and rapidly
acquired distinction in offices connected with the law. Sebastien
de l’Aubespine (d. 1582), abbot of Bassefontaine, bishop of
Vannes and afterwards of Limoges, fulfilled important diplomatic
missions in Germany, Hungary, England, the Low Countries
and Switzerland under Francis I. and his successors. Claude
(c. 1500–1567), baron of Châteauneuf-sur-Cher, Sebastien’s
brother, was a secretary of finance; he had charge of negotiations
with England in 1555 and 1559, and was several times commissioned
to treat with the Huguenots in the king’s name. His son
Guillaume was a councillor of state and ambassador to England.
Charles de l’Aubespine (1580–1653) was ambassador to Germany,
the Low Countries, Venice and England, besides twice holding
the office of keeper of the seals of France, from 1630 to 1633,
and from 1650 to 1651. The family fell into poor circumstances
and became extinct in the 19th century.
(M. P.*)
LAUCHSTÄDT, a town of Germany in the province of Prussian
Saxony, on the Laucha, 6 m. N.W. of Merseburg by the railway
to Schafstädt. Pop. (1905) 2034. It contains an Evangelical
church, a theatre, a hydropathic establishment and several educational
institutions, among which is an agricultural school affiliated
to the university of Halle. Its industries include malting,
vinegar-making and brewing. Lauchstädt was a popular
watering-place in the 18th century, the dukes of Saxe-Merseburg
often making it their summer residence. From 1789 to 1811
the Weimar court theatrical company gave performances here
of the plays of Schiller and Goethe, an attraction which greatly
contributed to the well-being of the town.
See Maak, Das Goethetheater in Lauchstädt (Lauchstädt, 1905); and Nasemann, Bad Lauchstädt (Halle, 1885).
LAUD, WILLIAM (1573–1645), English archbishop, only son
of William Laud, a clothier, was born at Reading on the 7th of
October 1573. He was educated at Reading free school, matriculated
at St John’s college, Oxford, in 1589, gained a scholarship
in 1590, a fellowship in 1593, and graduated B.A. in 1594,
proceeding to D.D. in 1608. In 1601 he took orders, in 1603
becoming chaplain to Charles Blount, earl of Devonshire. Laud
early took up a position of antagonism to the Calvinistic party
in the church, and in 1604 was reproved by the authorities for
maintaining in his thesis for the degree of B.D. “that there
could be no true church without bishops,” and again in 1606
for advocating “popish” opinions in a sermon at St Mary’s.
If high-church doctrines, however, met with opposition at
Oxford, they were relished elsewhere, and Laud obtained rapid
advancement. In 1607 he was made vicar of Stanford in Northamptonshire,
and in 1608 he became chaplain to Bishop Neile,
who in 1610 presented him to the living of Cuxton, when he
resigned his fellowship. In 1611, in spite of the influence of
Archbishop Abbot and Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, Laud was
made president of St John’s, and in 1614 obtained in addition
the prebend of Buckden, in 1615 the archdeaconry of Huntingdon,
and in 1616 the deanery of Gloucester. Here he repaired
the fabric and changed the position of the communion table, a
matter which aroused great religious controversy, from the centre
of the choir to the east end, by a characteristic tactless exercise
of power offending the bishop, who henceforth refused to enter the
