Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/769

LYTTELTON flowers, is found near salt marshes on the coast of New England and New Jersey ; L. alatum and L. lineare are other native species. The lythrums are easy of cultivation by sowing their seeds, or by division of the roots of the Spiked Lythrum. perennial species. The purple loosestrife is mucilaginous and astringent, its decoction be- ing blackened by sulphate of iron. It may be used in diarrhoea and chronic dysentery, &c. ; the dose of the powdered herb is about a drachm two or three times a day; a decoction of an M 763 ounce to the pint may be given in the dose of two fluid ounces. The petals of the flowers of L. Hunteri are used in India for dyeing. The order of tythracece contains many plants of de- cided utility. The crape myrtle (Lagerstrcemia Indica), a small shrubby plant with elegant crimpled petals of a rosy red color, and much admired, belongs to this order, as also the henna plant of Egypt. (See HENNA.) LYTTELTOJ, George, lord, an English author, born at Hagley, Worcestershire, Jan. 17, 1709, died there, Aug. 22, 1773. He was a member of an old family of considerable property, and was educated at Eton and Oxford, and entered parliament in 1730. In 1737 he was appointed secretary to Frederick, prince of Wales, and in 1744 a lord commissioner of the treasury. In 1754 he was sworn a member of the privy council, in 1755 was made chancellor of the exchequer, and on Nov. 19, 1756, was elevated to the peerage as Baron Lyttelton of Frankley. The last ten years of his life were spent chiefly in retirement and literary pursuits. His prin- cipal works are : " History of the Life of King Henry II. and of the Age in which he lived " (4 vols. 4to, London, l764-'7) ; " Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul " (1747) ; and " Dialogues on the Dead " (4th ed., 1765). His correspondence, with a memoir, appeared in 1845. His son THOMAS, second "Baron Lyttelton, a young man of much ability, was supposed by some to have been the author of the " Letters of Junius." He died in 1779 from dissipation and profligacy. LYTTON-BULWER. See BFLWEK-LYTTON. M MTHE 13th letter and the 10th consonant , of the English alphabet. The form of the character, like that of the other English letters, is ultimately derived, though with im- portant modifications, from the ancient Phoe- nician. Its position between L and N is also derived from the ancient Semitic; as in the 119th Psalm, where mem is preceded by lamed and followed by nun. The name mem in He- brew, like the word mayim, probably signi- fied water, the Ethiopic name of the letter, as well as of water, being mai. The letter M in English has in all positions one uniform, well known sound. It is often called a liquid or semi-vowel, and is a labial nasal, having the same relation to the labial mutes as n to the lin- gual mutes, and ng to the palatal mutes. The sound of M is one of the easiest to articulate,, and is therefore one of the first uttered by children. It is found in nearly all known lan- guages, and in most of them is a prominent let- ter in the words for mother (mam, mamma), as Sans, mdtd, Gr. /u.fiTijp (Dor. fj.dTijp), Lat. mater, Ger. Mutter, Slav, matka, Armen. malr, Heb. em, Chin, mu ; for nurse, as Ger. Amme, Slav. mamka ; and for breast, as Lat. mamma, Gr. fidfi/xq or [td/ujLia, Armor, mamm. The English sound of M is that which belongs to it also in most of the European languages. In French and Portuguese, however, at the end of a word, and in most cases at the end of a syllable, it loses its sound, and has no other function than to indicate the nasality of the vowel which pre- cedes it. In Latin, m final is the more usual characteristic of the accusative singular. The ancient grammarians ascribed to it in this case a different pronunciation from that which it has elsewhere. The obscurity of this sound, perhaps only indicating the nasality of the vowel, still appears from the fact that in Latin verses m final, followed by a word beginning with a vowel, does not prevent the elision of the preceding vowel. For the most part, the sound of M has come down unchanged from the earliest times. It is in almost every in- stance an original sound ; as for instance, Eng. mete, Anglo-Sax, metan, Mceso-Goth. mitan, Lat. metier, Gr. /aeTpetv, Sans, ma, Heb. madad, Arab, medda. The following are the principal exceptions, made for euphony : 1. In words of