and attained the rank of lieutenant and adjutant. In 1822 he was sent on an embassy to Kambia and the Mandingo country, and to the king of Soolimena, and subsequently published an account of his travels in these countries. After his return, having meanwhile been made a captain, he highly distinguished himself in the war with the Ashantees. In 1824 he was despatched to England to lay before the government the state of that war; and when in London was intrusted with a mission to explore the course of the Nile, and was promoted to the rank of major. He left England in February, 1825, and reached Timbuctoo, 18th August, 1826; but on his return to the coast about the end of September, he was treacherously murdered by his guides and robbed of all his papers, which have never been recovered. There is too much reason to believe that this foul deed was perpetrated at the instigation of the baron de Rosseau, French consul at Tripoli.—J. T.
* LAING, David, an eminent antiquary, especially in connection with the history and literature of Scotland, was born at Edinburgh towards the close of last century. Mr. Laing was originally a bookseller in Edinburgh, and distinguishing himself by his knowledge of the historical and literary history of Scotland, in 1823 he became secretary to the Bannatyne Club. In this connection he is referred to by Mr. Lockhart in the Life of Scott, as the friend and coadjutor of Sir Walter. In 1837 Mr. Laing was elected keeper of the fine library belonging to the Society of Writers to the Signet. His literary labours have been chiefly editorial. Among them, some of the more important are his Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland, 1822; Dunbar's Poems, 1834; his editions of Principal Baillie's Letters and Journals, 1846; his excellent edition of the works of John Knox, 1846, &c.; and that of the Notes of Ben Jonson's conversation with W. Drummond of Hawthornden, published in 1842 by the Shakspeare Society. Several of the works edited by Mr. Laing have been printed under the auspices of the Bannatyne Club; he also edited Low's History and other works for the Wodrow Society. In 1857 he printed for private circulation his "Historical description of the altar-piece painted in the reign of King James III. of Scotland, in the palace of Holyrood." Mr. Laing has long been an active member of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland.—F. E.
LAING, Malcolm, a Scottish lawyer and historian, was the son of the laird of Strynzia in Orkney, and was born in 1762. He received his early education at the grammar-school of Kirkwall, and was then sent to the university of Edinburgh, where he joined the far-famed Speculative Society, and became the friend of Brougham, Jeffrey, Cockburn, and other eminent lawyers and critics. In 1785 Laing was admitted to practise at the Scottish bar; but though his forensic abilities were of the highest order, and he possessed eminent qualifications for the office of a special pleader, he did not succeed as an advocate, mainly owing to some unpopular peculiarities of voice and manner. His speech, however, in defence of Gerald, who was tried for sedition in 1794, was pronounced by Lord Cockburn the best that was made for any of the political prisoners of that period. He seems from an early age to have taken a deep interest in historical investigations; and in 1793 prepared for the press the last volume of Dr. Henry's History of Great Britain, to which he added the two concluding chapters, and an appendix on the character of Richard III. In 1800 Laing published the "History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns to the Union of the Kingdoms"—a work of great research, ingenuity, and acuteness. Two dissertations are appended to it—one "On the Gowrie conspiracy," and another "On the authenticity of the poems of Ossian," which display to great advantage the author's critical abilities and logical power. In 1804 Mr. Laing published a second edition of his history, and prefixed to it a preliminary "Dissertation on the Participation of Mary Queen of Scots in the Murder of Darnley." This is probably the ablest work of the author, and states the case against the unhappy queen with a clearness, vigour, acuteness, and keenness, which no other writer on this oft-controverted question has equalled. Mr. Laing was for a short time member of parliament for Orkney, and was a zealous supporter as well as intimate personal friend of Charles James Fox. The state of his health, which had been worn out by excessive study, compelled him to retire from public life in 1808; and he spent his closing years on his estate in Orkney, on which he effected great improvements. He died in 1818 in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Mr. Laing's merit as a critical inquirer into history, an enlightened collector of materials, and a sagacious judge of evidence, has never been surpassed. "Depth, truth, and independence, as a historian," says Lord Cockburn, "were the least of his merits; for he was a firm, warm-hearted, honest man, whose instructive and agreeable companionship was only made the more interesting by a hard, peremptory, Celtic manner and accent."—J. T.
LAING, Samuel, of Papdale, Orkney, author and traveller, brother of the preceding, and father of the Indian chancellor of the exchequer. To Mr. Laing is mainly due our recent increased interest in and knowledge of the Scandinavian peninsula and its inhabitants. In 1836 he published his "Journal of a Residence in Norway," inspired by and inspiring sympathy for a primitive, free, and manly people. Mr. Laing does not approve of the incorporation of Norway with Sweden, or of the attempts of the latter country to assimilate to its own the political and social system of the former. Accordingly, his next work, the "Tour in Sweden in 1838," exhibited in unfavourable relief the moral condition of the Swedes, and provoked an anonymous reply from Björnstema, then Swedish minister at London. His other principal works are the three series of "Notes of a Traveller," 1842, 1850, and 1852, embracing the results of tours in France, Prussia, Switzerland, and Schleswig-Holstein; the last-named region was visited by him a few months after the battle of Idsledt, and his remarks on the Schleswig-Holstein question are strongly opposed to the pretensions of Prussia and Germany. A hatred of what he styles "functionarism" and an admiration of the small farm system, are two of the chief characteristics of these works, which are marked throughout by originality, shrewdness, and plain-spokenness. To Mr. Laing we are also indebted for an English translation of the Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Kings of Norway, of Snorro Sturleson, the celebrated Icelander and reputed author of the younger Edda. It was published in 1844, with an interesting preliminary dissertation.—F. E.
* LAING, Samuel, Indian chancellor of the exchequer, the son of the preceding, was born at Edinburgh in 1812. He received his later education at St. John's college, Cambridge, where he entered in 1829, and was second wrangler in 1832. Elected a fellow of St. John's, he resided for some time in the university as a mathematical tutor. Choosing the bar as a profession, he became a student of Lincoln's inn, and was "called" in 1840. Having assisted Mr. Labouchere, now Lord Taunton, as private secretary, on the formation of the railway department of the board of trade he was appointed its secretary, and remained connected with it during the whole of Sir Robert Peel's second administration. Under the presidency of the late earl of Dalhousie he became in 1845 a member of the railway commission. On its dissolution he resigned his situation at the board of trade, and returned to the practice of his profession as a parliamentary counsel. He was first made known to the general public by the publication of the "Atlas prize-essay," being successful in the competition for the best essay on the "condition-of-England question," for which, about 1844, the proprietors of the Atlas newspaper offered a money-prize. In 1848 he became chairman of the London and Brighton railway company, and from 1848 to 1854 was chairman of the Sydenham crystal palace company. In 1852 he entered the house of commons as member for the Wick burghs (his father was an Orkney man), and as an advanced liberal; but, having pronounced himself in favour of Mr. Gladstone's later policy, he lost his seat at the dissolution in 1857. He was re-elected in May, 1859, and succeeded Mr. James Wilson as financial secretary of the treasury. On Mr. Wilson's death in India, Mr. Laing again succeeded him as Indian chancellor of the exchequer. After launching a new system of financial policy for India, Mr. Laing was forced by ill health to return home in 1861.—F. E.
LAIRESSE, Gerard, a celebrated painter, born at Liège in 1640, was a pupil of his father, Regnier Lairesse, an artist of some note; and it is said of Bertholet Flemael; but formed his style on Nicolas Poussin. He practised for a while in Utrecht, but ultimately settled in Amsterdam, where he acquired a very high reputation. He composed readily and painted with remarkable celerity, and his works are consequently numerous. They are for the most part from ancient history and mythology. The style is cold and academic, the colouring heavy; but his compositions have a classic air, and the costumes and architecture are learned and well disposed. About twenty years before his death he became blind, and in that state he used to converse on
