Scotch Reviewers, ridiculed Lofft as “the Maecenas of shoemakers and preface-writer general to distressed versemen; a kind of gratis accoucheur to those who wish to be delivered of rhyme, but do not know how to bring forth.” He died at Montcalieri, near Turin, on the 26th of May 1824.
His fourth son Capel Lofft, the younger (1806–1873), also a writer on various topics, inherited his father’s liberal ideas and principles, and carried them in youth to greater extremes. In his old age he abandoned these theories, which had brought him into the company of some of the leading political agitators of the day. He died in America, where he had a Virginia estate.
LOFOTEN AND VESTERAALEN, a large and picturesque
group of islands lying N.E. and S.W. off the N.W. coast of
Norway, between 67° 30′ and 69° 20′ N., and between 12° and
16° 35′ E. forming part of the amt (county) of Nordland. The
extreme length of the group from Andenaes, at the north of
Andö, to Röst, is about 150 m.; the aggregate area about
1560 sq. m. It is separated from the mainland by the Vestfjord,
Tjaeldsund and Vaagsfjord, and is divided into two sections
by the Raftsund between Hindö and Öst-Vaagö. To the W.
and S. of the Raftsund lie the Lofoten Islands proper, of
which the most important are Öst-Vaagö, Gimsö, Vest-Vaagö,
Flakstadö, Moskenaesö, Mosken, Värö and Röst; E. and N.
of the Raftsund are the islands of Vesteraalen, the chief being
Hindö, Ulvö, Langö, Skogsö and Andö. The islands, which
are all of granite or metamorphic gneiss, are precipitous and
lofty. The highest points and finest scenery are found on Öst-Vaagö,
in the neighbourhood of the narrow, cliff-bound Raftsund
and Troldfjord. The principal peaks are Higrafstind (3811 ft.),
Gjeitgaljartind (3555), Rulten (3483), the Noldtinder (3467),
Svartsundtind (3506). The long line of jagged and fantastic
peaks seen from the Vestfjord forms one of the most striking
prospects on the Norwegian coast, but still finer is the panorama
from the Digermuler (1150 ft.), embracing the islands, the Vestfjord,
and the mountains of the mainland. The channels which
separate the islands are narrow and tortuous, and generally of
great depth; they are remarkable for the strength of their
tidal currents, particularly the Raftsund and the famous
Maelström or Moskenström between Moskenaes and Mosken.
The violent tempests which sweep over the Vestfjord, which
is exposed to the S.W., are graphically described in Jonas Lie’s
Den Fremsynte (1870) and in H. Schultze’s Udvalgte Skrifter
(1883), as the Maelström is imaginatively by Edgar Allan Poe.
Though situated wholly within the Arctic circle, the climate of
the Lofoten and Vesteraalen group is not rigorous when compared
with that of the rest of Norway. The isothermal line
which marks a mean January temperature of 32° F. runs south
from the Lofotens, passing a little to the east of Bergen onward
to Gothenburg and Copenhagen. The prevailing winds are from
the S. and W., the mean temperature for the year is 38.5° F.,
and the annual rainfall is 43.34 in. In summer the hills
have only patches of snow, the snow limit being about 3000
ft. The natural pasture produced in favourable localities permits
the rearing of cattle to some extent; but the growth of cereals
(chiefly barley, which here matures in ninety days) is insignificant.
The islands yield no wood. The characteristic industry, and an
important source of the national wealth, is the cod fishery
carried on along the east coast of the Lofotens in the Vestfjord
in spring. This employs about 40,000 men during the season
from all parts of Norway, the population being then about
doubled, and the surplus accommodated in temporary huts.
The average yield is valued at about £35,000. The fish are taken
in nets let down during the night, or on lines upwards of a mile
in length, or on ordinary hand-lines. The fishermen are paid
in cash, and large sums of money are sent to the islands by the
Norwegian banks each February. Great loss of life is frequent
during the sudden local storms. The fish, which is dried during
early summer, is exported to Spain (where it is known as bacalao),
Holland, Great Britain, Belgium, &c. Industries arising out of
the fishery are the manufacture of cod-liver oil and of artificial
manure. The summer cod fisheries and the lobster fishery are
also valuable. The herring is taken in large quantities off the
west coasts of Vesteraalen, but is a somewhat capricious visitant.
The islands contain no towns properly so called, but Kabelvaag
on Öst-Vaagö and Svolvaer on a few rocky islets off that island
are considerable centres of trade and (in the fishing season) of
population; Lödingen also, at the head of the Vestfjord on
Hindö, is much frequented as a port of call. A church existed
at Vaagen (Kabelvaag) in the 12th century, and here Hans
Egede, the missionary of Greenland, was pastor. There are
factories for fish guano at Henningvaer (Öst-Vaagö), Kabelvaag,
Svolvaer, Lödingen, and at Bretesnäs on Store Molla. Regular
means of communication are afforded by the steamers which
trade between Hamburg or Christiania and Hammerfest, and
also by local vessels; less accessible spots can be visited by
small boats, in the management of which the natives are adepts.
There are some roads on Hindö, Langö, and Andö. The largest
island in the group, and indeed in Norway, is Hindö, with an
area of 860 sq. m. The south-eastern portion of it belongs to
the amt of Tromsö. In the island of Andö there is a bed of coal
at the mouth of Ramsaa.
LOFT (connected with “lift,” i.e. raised in the air; O. Eng.
lyft; cf. Ger. Luft; the French term is grenier and Ger. Boden),
the term given in architecture to an upper room in the roof,
sometimes called “cockloft”; when applied over stabling
it is known as a hay-loft; the gallery over a chancel screen,
carrying a cross, is called a rood-loft (see Rood). The term is
also given to a gallery provided in the choir-aisle of a cathedral
or church, and used as a watching-loft at night.
LOFTUS, ADAM (c. 1533–1605), archbishop of Armagh and
Dublin, and lord chancellor of Ireland, the son of a Yorkshire
gentleman, was educated at Cambridge. He accompanied the
earl of Sussex to Ireland as his chaplain in 1560, and three
years later was consecrated archbishop of Armagh by Hugh
Curwen, archbishop of Dublin. In 1565 Queen Elizabeth, to
supplement the meagre income derivable from the archiepiscopal
see owing to the disturbed state of the country, appointed
Loftus temporarily to the deanery of St Patrick’s; and in the
same year he became president of the new commission for
ecclesiastical causes. In 1567 he was translated to the archbishopric
of Dublin, where the queen looked to him to carry
out reforms in the Church. On several occasions he temporarily
executed the functions of lord keeper, and in August 1581 he
was appointed lord chancellor of Ireland. Loftus was constantly
occupied in attempts to improve his financial position by obtaining
additional preferment. He had been obliged to resign the
deanery of St Patrick’s in 1567, and twenty years later he
quarrelled violently with Sir John Perrot, the lord deputy,
over the proposal to appropriate the revenues of the cathedral
to the foundation of a university. Loftus, however, favoured
the project of founding a university in Dublin, though on lines
different from Perrot’s proposal, and it was largely through his
influence that the corporation of Dublin granted the lands of
the priory of All Hallows as a beginning of the endowment of
Trinity College, of which he was named first provost in the
charter creating the foundation in 1591. Loftus, who had an
important share in the administration of Ireland under successive
lords deputy, and whose zeal and efficiency were commended
by James I. on his accession, died in Dublin on the 5th of April
1605. By his wife, Jane Purdon, he had twenty children.
His brother Robert was father of Adam Loftus (c. 1568–1643), who became lord chancellor of Ireland in 1619, and in 1622 was created Viscount Loftus of Ely, King’s county, in the peerage of Ireland. Lord Loftus came into violent conflict with the lord deputy, Viscount Falkland, in 1624; and at a later date his quarrel with Strafford was still more fierce. One of the articles in Strafford’s impeachment was based on his dealings with Loftus. The title, which became extinct on the death of his grandson, the 3rd viscount, in 1725 (when the family estate of Monasterevan, re-named Moore Abbey, passed to his daughter’s son Henry, 4th earl of Drogheda), was re-granted in 1756 to his cousin Nicholas Loftus, a lineal descendant of the archbishop. It again became extinct more than once afterwards, but was on each occasion revived in favour of a descendant through the
