Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/695

LOYAT LOVER 689 LOVAT, Simon Fraser, lord, a Scottish Jacob- ite, born near Inverness about 1670, behead- ed on Tower hill, London, April 9, 1747. His father, Thomas Fraser, succeeded his grand- nephew in 1696 as Lord Lovat. Simon Fraser was educated at the university of Aberdeen, where he had a reputation for scholarship, and about 1694 accepted a commission in a high- land regiment raised by Lord Murray. Upon his father's death in 1699 he became 13th Lord Lovat and chief of the Frasers. For several years he was engaged in a series of unsuc- cessful attempts to secure the estates of his cousin, the llth lord, and effected a forced marriage with his widow, in the hope of being acknowledged the head of the house and own- er of the estates. Having been outlawed for this offence, he went to France, embraced the cause of James II., and became a Roman Cath- olic. In 1702 he returned to Scotland as a secret emissary to stir up the highlanders in favor of the pretender; but wishing to gain the favor of the English government, he be- trayed the plot to the duke of Queensberry. His treachery became known to the French court, and after his return to France he was sentenced to a confinement of ten years. The current story that in this interval he took orders and discharged the duties of a priest at the college of St. Omer is not sufficiently substantiated. During his imprisonment the heiress of Lovat, in whose person a decree of the court of session of 1702 vested the family honors and possessions, was married to Mac- kenzie, Lord Fraserdale ; and the object of his ambition being thus apparently removed from his reach, Lovat determined to espouse th'e Hanoverian cause. In November, 1714, Lovat effected his escape into England, and during the insurrection under the pretender in the succeeding year he put himself at the head of the Frasers, and was instrumental in driving the insurgents out of Inverness. For his loy- alty on this occasion he received a full pardon from government. Fraserdale had meanwhile joined the pretender, and, the insurrection being quelled, his estates were declared for- feited, and were subsequently conferred upon Lovat, who by cultivating friendly relations with George I. secured also a portion of the property forfeited by various highland chiefs. For many years he remained loyal, or seem- ingly so ; but in 1729 he entered into commu- nication with the exiled Stuarts. Subsequent to 1737 he was the head of an association of highland chiefs the object of which was to pro- cure the restoration of the pretender, in whose cause he professed to have expended large sums of money. Nevertheless, when Charles Edward landed in 1745, he avoided committing himself in his favor until some decided success should be achieved by the Jacobites. After the defeat of Sir John Cope at Gladsmuir he sent his son with the Frasers to join the pre- tender's standard, while he remained at home, intending in case of need to fasten upon his son the responsibility of the treason committed. After the battle of Culloden the evidence of his complicity became so strong, however, that he was compelled to take refuge in a remote part of the highlands, where he led a wander- ing life, attended by a few devoted clansmen, and " hiding in bogs and hollow trees and cav- erns." He was at last discovered and con- veyed to London, arriving there Aug. 15, 1746. In December he was impeached in the house of lords, and on March 9, 1747, his trial com- menced, during which he gave alternate proofs of extraordinary meanness, levity, and courage. He was found guilty and sentenced to be be- headed. Upon leaving the bar he exclaimed : "My lords and gentlemen, God Almighty bless you all. I wish you an everlasting farewell, for we shall not all meet in the same place again. I am sure of that." He met his fate with composure and intrepidity, repeating on the scaffold the words : Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. His portrait, etched by Ho- garth in 1746, represents a man of great obe- sity, and a heavy, sensual face. He was twice married, and upon his second wife he is said to have exercised the most terrible barbarities. A volume of autobiographical memoirs by him, written originally in French, was published in 1797. The best account of him is contained in the " Memoirs of Lord Lovat and Duncan Forbes," by J. H. Burton (London, 1847). LOVE FEASTS. See AGAP.E. LOVELACE, Lady Augusta Ada. See BTEON. LOVELACE, Richard, an English poet, born in Woolwich, Kent, in 1618, died in London in 1658. He graduated at Oxford in 1636, re- paired to court, and was there much admired for his amiable disposition and handsome per- son. He espoused the royalist cause at the out- break of the civil war, and rose to the .rank of colonel ; but before the end of the struggle he retired to his native county, and became the bearer of a petition to the long parliament in favor of the king. This roused the anger of the republicans, who consigned him to prison until he found heavy bail for his peaceable de- portment. In 1646 he entered the French ser- vice, and was wounded at the siege of Dun- kirk. On returning to England in 1 648, he was again thrown into prison, and there remained till the king had been executed. He is said to have died in great poverty. He was the au- thor of two volumes of lyrics addressed to his mistress, under the name of "Lucasta." He also wrote " The Scholar," a comedy, and " The Soldier," a tragedy, which are lost. The earli- est edition of his poems appeared in 1649 ; the latest, by Russell Smith, was published in 1864. LOVER, Samuel, an Irish author, born in Dub- lin in 1797, died July 6, 1868. His father, a stock broker in Dublin, intended him for com- merce, but the son's natural predilections frus- trated this design. His debut in public oc- curred at a dinner given to Thomas Moore in Dublin in 1818, when he sang a song, the mu- sic and words of which were his own, in honor