and nearly similar form; the function of the canine being discharged by the first premolar, which is larger than the other teeth of the same series. With the exception of the second toe of the hind-foot, the digits have well-formed, flattened nails as in the majority of monkeys. In the members of the typical genus Lemur, as well as in the allied Hapalemur and Lepidolemur, none of the toes or fingers are connected by webs, and all have the hind-limbs of moderate length, and the tail long. The maximum number of teeth is 36, there being typically two pairs of incisors and three of premolars in each jaw. In habits some of the species are nocturnal and others diurnal; but all subsist on a mixed diet, which includes birds, reptiles, eggs, insects and fruits. Most are arboreal, but the ring-tailed lemur (L. catta) often dwells among rocks. The species of the genus Lemur are diurnal, and may be recognized by the length of the muzzle, and the large tufted ears. In some cases, as in the black lemur (L. macaco) the two sexes are differently coloured; but in others, especially the ruffed lemur (L. varius), there is much individual variation in this respect, scarcely any two being alike. The gentle lemurs (Hapalemur) have a rounder head, with smaller ears and a shorter muzzle, and also a bare patch covered with spines on the fore-arm. The sportive lemurs (Lepidolemur) are smaller than the typical species of Lemur, and the adults generally lose their upper incisors. The head is short and conical, the ears large, round and mostly bare, and the tail shorter than the body. Like the gentle lemurs they are nocturnal. (See Avahi, Aye-Aye, Galago, Indri, Loris, Potto, Sifaka and Tarsier.) (R. L.*)
LENA, a river of Siberia, rising in the Baikal Mountains,
on the W. side of Lake Baikal, in 54° 10′ N. and 107° 55′ E.
Wheeling round by the S., it describes a semicircle, then flows
N.N.E. and N.E., being joined by the Kirenga and the Vitim,
both from the right; from 113° E. it flows E.N.E as far as
Yakutsk (62° N., 127° 40′ E.), where it enters the lowlands, after
being joined by the Olekma, also from the right. From Yakutsk
it goes N. until joined by its right-hand affluent the Aldan, which
deflects it to the north-west; then, after receiving its most
important left-hand tributary, the Vilyui, it makes its way
nearly due N. to the Nordenskjöld Sea, a division of the Arctic,
disemboguing S.W. of the New Siberian Islands by a delta
10,800 sq. m. in area, and traversed by seven principal branches,
the most important being Bylov, farthest east. The total
length of the river is estimated at 2860 m. The delta arms
sometimes remain blocked with ice the whole year round. At
Yakutsk navigation is generally practicable from the middle of
May to the end of October, and at Kirensk, at the confluence of
the Lena and the Kirenga, from the beginning of May to about
the same time. Between these two towns there is during the
season regular steamboat communication. The area of the river
basin is calculated at 895,500 sq. m. Gold is washed out of the
sands of the Vitim and the Olekma, and tusks of the mammoth
are dug out of the delta.
See G. W. Melville, In the Lena Delta (1885).
LE NAIN, the name of three brothers, Louis, Antoine
and Mathieu, who occupy a peculiar position in the history
of French art. Although they figure amongst the original
members of the French Academy, their works show no trace of
the influences which prevailed when that body was founded.
Their sober execution and choice of colour recall characteristics
of the Spanish school, and when the world of Paris was busy
with mythological allegories, and the “heroic deeds” of the
king, the three Le Nain devoted themselves chiefly to subjects
of humble life such as “Boys Playing Cards,” “The Forge,”
or “The Peasants’ Meal.” These three paintings are now in the
Louvre; various others may be found in local collections, and
some fine drawings may be seen in the British Museum; but the
Le Nain signature is rare, and is never accompanied by initials
which might enable us to distinguish the work of the brothers.
Their lives are lost in obscurity; all that can be affirmed is that
they were born at Laon in Picardy towards the close of the 16th
century. About 1629 they went to Paris; in 1648 the three
brothers were received into the Academy, and in the same year
both Antoine and Louis died. Mathieu lived on till August 1677;
he bore the title of chevalier, and painted many portraits. Mary
of Medici and Mazarin were amongst his sitters, but these works
seem to have disappeared.
See Champfleury, Essai sur la vie et l’œuvre des Le Nain (1850), and Catalogue des tableaux des Le Nain (1861).
LENAU, NIKOLAUS, the pseudonym of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch von Strehlenau (1802–1850), Austrian poet, who
was born at Csatád near Temesvar in Hungary, on the 15th of
August 1802. His father, a government official, died at Budapest
in 1807, leaving his children to the care of an affectionate, but
jealous and somewhat hysterical, mother, who in 1811 married
again. In 1819 the boy went to the university of Vienna; he
subsequently studied Hungarian law at Pressburg and then spent
the best part of four years in qualifying himself in medicine. But
he was unable to settle down to any profession. He had early
begun to write verses; and the disposition to sentimental
melancholy acquired from his mother, stimulated by love disappointments and by the prevailing fashion of the romantic
school of poetry, settled into gloom after his mother’s death in
1829. Soon afterwards a legacy from his grandmother enabled
him to devote himself wholly to poetry. His first published
poems appeared in 1827, in J. G. Seidl’s Aurora. In 1831 he
went to Stuttgart, where he published a volume of Gedichte
(1832) dedicated to the Swabian poet Gustav Schwab. Here he
also made the acquaintance of Uhland, Justinus Kerner, Karl
Mayer[1] and others; but his restless spirit longed for change,
and he determined to seek for peace and freedom in America.
In October 1832 he landed at Baltimore and settled on a homestead
in Ohio. But the reality of life in “the primeval forest”
fell lamentably short of the ideal he had pictured; he disliked
the Americans with their eternal “English lisping of dollars”
(englisches Talergelispel); and in 1833 he returned to Germany,
where the appreciation of his first volume of poems revived his
spirits. From now on he lived partly in Stuttgart and partly in
Vienna. In 1836 appeared his Faust, in which he laid bare his
own soul to the world; in 1837, Savonarola, an epic in which
freedom from political and intellectual tyranny is insisted upon
as essential to Christianity. In 1838 appeared his Neuere
Gedichte, which prove that Savonarola had been but the result
of a passing exaltation. Of these new poems, some of the finest
were inspired by his hopeless passion for Sophie von Löwenthal,
the wife of a friend, whose acquaintance he had made in 1833
and who “understood him as no other.” In 1842 appeared
Die Albigenser, and in 1844 he began writing his Don Juan, a
fragment of which was published after his death. Soon afterwards
his never well-balanced mind began to show signs of
aberration, and in October 1844 he was placed under restraint.
He died in the asylum at Oberdöbling near Vienna on the 22nd
of August 1850. Lenau’s fame rests mainly upon his shorter
poems; even his epics are essentially lyric in quality. He is
the greatest modern lyric poet of Austria, and the typical representative
in German literature of that pessimistic Weltschmerz
which, beginning with Byron, reached its culmination in the
poetry of Leopardi.
Lenau’s Sämtliche Werke were published in 4 vols. by A. Grün (1855); but there are several more modern editions, as those by M. Koch in Kürschner’s Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vols. 154-155 (1888), and by E. Castle (2 vols., 1900). See A. Schurz, Lenaus Leben, grösstenteils aus des Dichters eigenen Briefen (1855); L. A. Frankl, Zu Lenaus Biographie (1854, 2nd ed., 1885); A. Marchand, Les Poètes lyriques de l’Autriche (1881); L. A. Frankl, Lenaus Tagebuch und Briefe an Sophie Löwenthal (1891); A. Schlossar, Lenaus Briefe an die Familie Reinbeck (1896); L. Roustan, Lenau et son temps (1898); E. Castle, Lenau und die Familie Löwenthal (1906).
LENBACH, FRANZ VON (1836–1904), German painter,
was born at Schrobenhausen, in Bavaria, on the 13th of December
1836. His father was a mason, and the boy was intended to
follow his father’s trade or be a builder. With this view he was
sent to school at Landsberg, and then to the polytechnic at
Augsburg. But after seeing Hofner, the animal painter, executing
- ↑ Karl Friedrich Hartmann Mayer (1786–1870), poet, and biographer of Uhland, was by profession a lawyer and government official in Württemberg.
