would appear that he never swerved from his integrity, and that he was held in honour by the first men of his time.—B. H. C.
LASCY or LACY, Peter, Count de, descended from the ancient Irish family of that name, was born near Limerick in 1678. As partisans of James II., he and his uncle, in 1691, fled to France, where Peter entered Catinat's army as a lieutenant, and fought in Piedmont. The peace of Ryswick compelled him to seek active service elsewhere, and he served successively in the armies of Austria, Poland, and Russia. He was wounded at. Poltava in 1709. He remained, however, in the service of Peter the Great, and in 1719 conducted a naval expedition against the coasts of Sweden. The year following he led a military force into Finland. In 1733 he commanded the auxiliaries sent to aid Austria in the Polish war. In 1742 twenty thousand Swedish soldiers laid down their arms before him at Helsingfors. "The first general of his day," as he was styled by the Prince De Ligne, he fell under the displeasure of the Empress Elizabeth, but died governor of Livonia in 1751.—R. H.
LASCY or LACY, Joseph François-Maurice, Count de, the son of Count Peter De Lascy, was born in St. Petersburg in 1725. Having accompanied his father into Austria, he took service under Maria Theresa, and distinguished himself in the Seven Years' war. He had the credit of saving the Austrian army at Lowositz, and gained great honour at the battle of Hochkirch. To Joseph II. he afforded useful aid in his plans of military reform. He commanded the expedition against Turkey in 1788, which failed. At the death of the emperor, De Lacy was at the head of affairs during the absence of Leopold. He died 30th November, 1801.—R. H.
LASINIO, Carlo, Count, a distinguished Italian engraver, was born at Trevigi about 1767. He engraved several separate plates. From the works of the great masters, but is best known by his sets of engravings from the early masters, many of which are in outline, and all valuable for their correctness and spirit. The most important are the illustrations in Etruria Pittrice; the Campo Santo of Pisa; Rosini's Storia della Pittura Italiana, &c. He also engraved some portraits. He was keeper of the collections of works of art at Pisa, where he died in 1837, according to De Boni (Biografia degli Artisti) and other authorities; but the Biographie Universelle states that he died September 8, 1855, we know not on what authority, and suspect that the writer has confounded Carlo with his son Giovanni Paolo, also an engraver of considerable ability.—J. T—e.
LASNIER, Remi, an eminent Parisian surgeon, who died in 1680. At first he practised general surgery, and was very skilful as a lithotomist, but afterwards confined himself to diseases of the eye, by the cure of which he acquired great celebrity and a large fortune. His dexterity as an operator was more particularly shown in couching for the cataract, which he was the first to attribute to its principal cause, although the knowledge of the subject has since been much extended.—G. BL.
LASSAIGNE, Jean-Louis, a French chemist, born in 1800. He commenced his studies in chemistry in the laboratory of the celebrated Vauquelin, and in 1828 was elected professor of physics and pharmacy in the school of Alfort. This post he held till 1854, when he retired. We owe him many chemical discoveries of great importance, among which is that of delphine, the alkaloid of larkspur; cathartine, the active principle of senna; phosphoric ether, &c. He made many researches into the preparation and effects of morphine, poisoning by phosphorus, &c. In mineral chemistry he has paid particular attention to the salts of chrome, and showed the practicability of applying the chromate of lead to dyeing stuffs. He is also the author of many excellent works on chemistry. He died in 1859.—W. B—d.
LASSELS, Richard, the author of an excellent book entitled "The Voyage of Italy," which was published posthumously in 1670. He was born in 1603 at Brokenborough, Yorkshire, and educated at Oxford, which he quitted for Douay, where he became a Roman catholic. He was an agreeable writer, although he apologizes for his English, which may have lost some of its native flavour, he says, from "three long voyages into Flanders, six into France, five into Italy, one into Germany and Holland, which made me live half of my lifetime in forrain countries." He died at Montpellier. He was related to that Mr. Lascelles who played the master to Charles II. in his flight from Colonel Lane's to Trent in Somersetshire, after the battle of Worcester. The pretty Miss Lane, whose servant the king passed for, was cousin to the Lascelles.—R. H.
* LASSEN, Christian, the eminent oriental philologist, was born at Bergen in Norway on the 22nd October, 1800. His studies were begun at Christiania, and pursued after his father's death at Heidelberg and Bonn. At Bonn he was introduced by Wilhelm von Schlegel to the study of the Indian languages and antiquities. Under Schlegel's direction, and to prepare for his edition of the Râmâyana, one of the great Sanscrit epics, Lassen spent three years in London, copying and collating manuscripts at the India house, and no doubt enjoyed the assistance and patronage of such men as Colebrooke, Wilkins, Wilson, and other distinguished scholars. At Paris, in connection with Bournouf, he published in 1826, at the expense of the Asiatic Society, his "Essai sur le Pali"—the sacred tongue of Buddhism in Ceylon. Returning to Bonn, he studied Arabic under Freytag, the well-known lexicographer, and next year, on taking his doctor's degree, he published as a thesis, "Commentatio Geographica atque Historica de Pentapotamia Indica." Then he began to teach as a privat-docent or college tutor, becoming in 1830 extraordinary, and in 1841 ordinary professor, of the old Indian language and literature. Along with Schlegel he published in 1829-31 an edition, with notes, of the "Hitopadesa," an ancient collection of fables; in 1837 an edition of "Jayadeva's Gitagorinda"—a collection of Sanscrit lyrics on the adventures of Krishna; and an "Anthologia Sanscrita" in 1838. His "Gymnosophista," a collection of documents of Indian philosophy, had appeared in 1832; and in 1837 his "Institutiones Linguæ Pracriticæ." The Prâkrit is a dialect of Sanscrit, standing to it much as the Italian does to the Latin, and Lassen's was the earliest work on its idioms. His Indian antiquities—"Indische Alterthumskunde"—has appeared, 1844-61. He has published also on the "Greek and Indoscythian Kings in Bactria, Cabul, and India;" and on the "Old Persian Cuneiform Writings." In 1852 appeared his critical edition of the text of a portion of the Vendidad, one of the four books of the Zendavesta, and written in a language closely allied to the ancient Sanscrit. To the various learned journals of the country Lassen has liberally contributed many useful philological articles, as to Ersch and Gruber's Cyclopædia, the Indische Bibliothek, and the Rheinische Museum. The labours of Schlegel, Lassen, Bopp, Rosen, Grimm, Pott, Bournouf, Renan, and others, have unlocked the treasures of Sanscrit literature, and taught us the structural connection of the Indo-European languages, Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Teutonic, Celtic, and Slavonic; proving that, these are all but modifications through phonetic decay and other changes from the original Aryan type.—J. E.
LASSO or LASSUS, Orlando di, otherwise Roland de Lattre, a celebrated musician, a native of Mons in Hainault, born in the year 1520, was the contemporary of Cipriano Rore, and much resembled him in genius, abilities, and reputation. Orlando not only spent many years of his life in Italy, but had his musical education there; having been carried thither surreptitiously when a child on account of his fine voice. The historian Thuanus, who has given Orlando a place among the illustrious men of his time, tells us that it was a common practice for young singers to be forced away from their parents, and detained in the service of princes; and that Orlando was carried to Milan, Naples, and Sicily, by Ferdinand Gonzago. Afterwards when he was grown up, and had probably lost his voice, he visited Rome, where he taught music during two years, at the expiration of which he travelled through different parts of Italy and France with Julius Cæsar Brancaccio, and at length returning to Flanders, resided many years at Antwerp. In 1557 Albert V., surnamed the Generous, duke of Bavaria, invited him to take up his residence at his court. This offer was all the more flattering that he was requested to bring with him from the Netherlands, at that time the very hot-bed of musicians, a number of the most distinguished artists. On his arrival at Munich, being anxious to justify the reputation which had preceded him, he distinguished himself no less by his learning and the beauty of his musical compositions than by his gaiety and wit; and as a reward for these endeavours to please, he received not only the friendship, but the hand of a lady of the court, Regina Weekings, whom he married in 1558, the year after he had taken up his residence at Munich. In 1562 Duke Albert appointed him master of his chapel, the choir of which was at that time one of the finest, if not the very finest in Europe, and which consisted of no less than ninety-two of the most distinguished musicians of the age, men of all countries.
