as one of the surgeons of that excellent charity. In 1833 he published his "Principles of Surgery," a work which was so well received that it soon passed through several editions. The Lancet also printed his lectures, and thus contributed to extend his fame. In these writings his great object was to simplify the art of operating, and especially to do away with the farrago of bandages and ointments which were so much used by his predecessors. In 1834 Listen quitted Edinburgh for London, where he was appointed surgeon to the London University hospital. He was elected also professor of clinical surgery to that university, and soon obtained a large consulting practice. In the zenith of his fame and reputation, he suddenly died of aneurism in 1848. Listen may be considered as one of the most able surgeons of his day. His reputation was not confined to Great Britain—he was equally well known on the continent and in America. Of a rough, blunt manner, but devoted to his profession, and incapable of dissembling what he knew or felt to be right, he possessed the esteem and love of both his pupils and patients.—W. B—d.
* LISZT, Dr. Franz, was born at Räding in Hungary, October 22, 1811. His father, who was in the service of Prince Esterhazy, was an accomplished amateur musician, and devoted his life to the care of Franz, and to the culture of his ability. In 1817 Liszt began to practise the pianoforte, and worked with such ardour, that in three months he was laid up with a fever. In 1820 he played in public, and the piece chosen for his debût was Pies' Concerto in E flat. His success was decided, and the prince, to encourage him, made him a present of fifty ducats. He was then taken to Presburg, where his precocious talent astonished all who heard him. That he might duly cultivate this, two Hungarian noblemen subscribed to allow him an annual pension of six hundred gulden, for six years, which induced his father to resign his appointment and remove to Vienna. There Liszt was placed under the tuition of Czerny for the pianoforte, and Salieri for composition. After eighteen months' study, he gave concerts, at which he won the highest encomiums. In 1823 he was taken to Paris, and there was regarded as the wonder of the age; it needed indeed his father's utmost care to prevent his character from being ruined by the extravagant attentions that were shown him. He first came to England in 1824, and made here the same powerful impression that he had done on the continent. Féted everywhere as a player, he next sought distinction as a composer; and the great esteem in which he was held secured for him, young as he was, the production of an opera, "Don Sancho," in October, 1825, at the grand opera in Paris: but it had little success. After a time he went through a course of contrapuntal study under Reicha, from which he was diverted by a fit of religious enthusiasm. He became infatuated with the principles of St. Simonism; and these so engrossed him that he would have abandoned music altogether, save for the forcible authority of his father. He had a violent illness, the effect of which was aggravated by his grief for his father's death; and when he recovered, he threw himself into the pursuit of his art with greater zeal than ever. He had the loftiest designs for composition, purposing to embody in music the elements of French romanticism; then he was seized with an intense passion for a lady of high rank, and this overcame for a time his artistic intentions. Failing in love, he became first misanthropical and then pious, in which condition he thought of devoting himself wholly to writing for the church. He was roused from this state by hearing of the extraordinary powers of Paganini; and with the resolve to render himself as individually excellent on his own instrument, and as universally famous as this rare artist, he resumed the practice of the pianoforte with unprecedented energy, and reappeared in Paris, in 1830, with success as great for an adult, as that was for a child which he first experienced. The revolution of this year gave a new impetus to his excitable temperament, and he dreamed of working such convulsions in music as those which shook the political world; but this visionary purpose passed away like the others which had by turns filled his mind. He withdrew from public in 1835, and passed more than a year at Geneva; but returned to Paris to create fresh astonishment by the achievement of greater difficulties on his instrument than even he had yet attempted. He had previously written æsthetical articles in the Gazette Musicale, and now he held a long discussion in that journal on the talent of Thalberg, which drew general attention, as proceeding from a rival artist. He went to Italy in the summer of 1837, where he made a long sojourn, visiting all the chief cities, and being received in such a manner as no instrumentalist except Paganini has ever been in that country. After this he appeared alternately in France, England, and Germany, until 1843, when he took his leave of the public as a pianist at Vienna, after having received such extravagant homage as would be incredible to any one who had not witnessed the sensation he created. He now accepted the office of kapellmeister to the duke of Weimar; received the degree of doctor of philosophy; became an enthusiast in the novel musical system of Richard Wagner; wrote numerous articles in support of this, and composed several works which embody its principles. He conducted a large portion of the festival at Bonn, for the inauguration of Beethoven's statue, in 1845; and produced there an ode in honour of the occasion. He lost the chief part of his accumulated wealth in speculation; and it is supposed to have been in consequence of this that he gave up his appointment at Weimar in 1861, and went to live privately at Athens. His long connection with a French countess is said to have been a source of as great happiness to him, as his separation from her was of regret. By her he has a son and two daughters, one of whom is married to his pupil Bulow the pianist. Liszt's literary productions are characteristic of his own fitful and vivacious nature; his pianoforte fantasias are more notable for their brilliant effect than their intrinsic merit; his graver compositions have taken no hold of public attention. He is remarkable as a player, for his unequalled mastery of mechanical difficulties, and for the infinite gradations of tone he produces from his instrument; and in numbering his qualities as a pianist, his rare capacity of reading at first sight must not be unnoticed.—G. A. M.
LITHGOW, William, an adventurous Scottish traveller of the seventeenth century, was born in Lanarkshire about 1580. Nothing is known of his parentage or early life; but from the style of his works he must have received a good education. His "Peregrinations from Scotland to the most famous Kingdoms of Europe, Asia, and Affrick," first published in 1614, includes an account of travels through most of the countries of Europe, Egypt, the Holy Land, &c., undertaken apparently chiefly to gratify a roving disposition. On his return he was presented to James I. A second expedition made him still more famous, and he became a frequent guest of the nobility and gentry. In the course of a third expedition, undertaken in 1619, he was apprehended at Malaga as a spy, and cruelly maltreated and mangled. He reached England in 1621, and published in 1623 an edition of his "Peregrinations," which comprised an account of his second and third expeditions. The king treated him kindly, and Gondomar was applied to for compensation. Irritated at Gondomar's duplicity and neglect, Lithgow assaulted him in the presence-chamber, and was punished by imprisonment in the Marshalsea. He seems to have returned to Scotland in 1627. In 1637 he published, from personal observation, "A true Experimental Discourse upon the famous Siege of Breda," in which he describes himself as visiting Breda on his way to Russia. He was alive so late as 1640, when he published at Edinburgh a poetical performance, "Godly Tears of Godly Sorrow." His closing years were spent in his native district; and he was buried in the churchyard of Lanark.—F. E.
LITTA, Pompeo, Count, historian, born in Milan, on 24th September, 1781; died suddenly in the province of Como, 17th August, 1852. The publication of his superb genealogical work on the most eminent families of Italy, illustrated by copies from monuments, portraits, &c., extended from 1819 to 1852, and the MSS. of six additional memoirs remained to be made public after his death. In his youth he served in Napoleon's Italian campaigns; when chosen for the conscription he withstood the remonstrances of his family and joined the army as a common soldier, saying that the name of gentleman laid him under the obligation of responding to the call of his country.—C. G. R.
LITTLE, William, commonly known as William of Newbury, was born in the first year of the reign of King Stephen, in 1136, at Bridlington in Yorkshire, and was educated in the monastery of Newbury, where he obtained a canonry. Little was patronized by the abbot of the neighbouring monastery of Byland, and at his request he compiled a commentary on the Song of Solomon, which Leland saw in the monastic library at Newbury. But his principal production, and the work of his maturer years, was his history of his own time in five books, in which the narrative is carried down to the year 1197. William
