in prehistoric times. Punic tombs and Roman buildings also exist near the harbour. The island is the Lopadusa of Strabo, and the Lipadosa of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, the scene of the landing of Roger of Sicily and of his conversion by the hermit. A thousand slaves were taken from its population in 1553. In 1436 it was given by Alfonso of Aragon to Don Giovanni de Caro, baron of Montechiaro. In 1661, Ferdinand Tommasi, its then owner, received the title of prince from Charles II. of Spain. In 1737 the earl of Sandwich found only one inhabitant upon it; in 1760 some French settlers established themselves there. Catherine II. of Russia proposed to buy it as a Russian naval station, and the British government thought of doing the same if Napoleon had succeeded in seizing Malta. In 1800 a part of it was leased to Salvatore Gatt of Malta, who in 1810 sublet part of it to Alessandro Fernandez. In 1843 onwards Ferdinand II. of Naples established a colony there. There is now an Italian penal colony for domicilio coatto, with some 400 convicts (see B. Sanvisente, L’Isola di Lampedusa eretta a colonia, Naples, 1849). Eight miles W. is the islet of Lampione. Linosa, some 30 m. to the N.N.E., measures about 2 by 2 m., and is entirely volcanic; its highest point is 610 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) about 200. It has landing-places on the S. and W., and is more fertile than Lampedusa; but it suffers from the lack of springs. Sanvisente says the water in Lampedusa is good. A few fragments of undoubtedly Roman pottery and some Roman coins have been found there, but the cisterns and the ruins of houses are probably of later date (P. Calcara, Descrizione dell’ isola di Linosa, Palermo, 1851, 29). (T. As.)
LAMPERTHEIM, a town in the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt,
8 m. N. from Mannheim by the railway to Frankfort-on-Main
via Biblis, and at the junction of lines to Worms and
Weinheim. It contains a Roman Catholic church and a fine
Evangelical church, and has chemical and cigar factories. Pop.
(1900) 8020.
LAMPETER (Llanbedr-pont-Stephan), a market town, municipal
borough and assize town of Cardiganshire, Wales, on
the right bank of the Teifi, here crossed by an ancient stone
bridge. Pop. (1901) 1722. Lampeter is a station on the so-called
Manchester-and-Milford branch line of the Great Western
railway. Though of ancient origin, the town is entirely modern
in appearance, its most conspicuous object being the Gothic
buildings of St David’s College, founded in 1822, which cover
a large area and contain a valuable library of English, Welsh
and foreign works (see Universities). The modernized parish
church of St Peter, or Pedr, contains some old monuments of
the Lloyd family. North of the town are the park and mansion
of Falcondale, the seat of the Harford family.
The name of Llanbedr-pont-Stephan goes to prove the early foundation of the place by St Pedr, a Celtic missionary of the 6th century, while one Stephen was the original builder of the bridge over the Teifi. As an important outpost in the upper valley of the Teifi, Lampeter possessed a castle, which was demolished by Owen Gwynedd in the 12th century. In 1188 the town was visited by Archbishop Baldwin on his way from Cardigan to Strata-Florida Abbey, and the Crusade was vigorously preached at this spot. Lampeter was first incorporated under Edward II., but the earliest known charter dates from the reign of Henry VI., whereby the principal officer of the town, a portreeve, was to be appointed annually at the court-leet of the manor. The town was subsequently governed under a confirmatory charter of 1814, but in 1884 a new charter was obtained, whereby the corporation was empowered to consist of a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Although only a small agricultural centre, Lampeter has since 1886 become the assize town of Cardiganshire owing to its convenient position. Until the Redistribution Act of 1885 Lampeter formed one of the group of boroughs comprising the Cardigan parliamentary district.
LAMPOON, a virulent satire either in prose or verse; the
idea of injustice and unscrupulousness seems to be essential
to its definition. Although in its use the word is properly and
almost exclusively English, the derivation appears to be French.
Littré derives it from a term of Parisian argot, lamper, to drink
greedily, in great mouthfuls. This word appears to have begun
to be prevalent in the middle of the 17th century, and Furetière
has preserved a fragment from a popular song, which says:—
Jacques fuyant de Dublin |
—that is to say, let us drink heavily, and begone dull care. Scarron speaks of a wild troop, singing leridas and lampons. There is, also, a rare French verb, lamponner, to attack with ridicule, used earlier in the 17th century by Brantôme. In its English form, lampoon, the word is used by Evelyn in 1645, “Here they still paste up their drolling lampoons and scurrilous papers,” and soon after it is a verb,—“suppose we lampooned all the pretty women in Town.” Both of these forms, the noun and the verb, have been preserved ever since in English, without modification, for violent and reckless literary censure. Tom Brown (1663–1704) was a past master in the art of lampooning, and some of his attacks on the celebrities of his age have a certain vigour. When Dryden became a Roman Catholic, Brown wrote:—
Traitor to God and rebel to thy pen, |
Several of the heroes of the Dunciad, and in particular John Oldmixon (1673–1742), were charged without unfairness with being professional lampooners. The coarse diatribes which were published by Richard Savage (1697–1743), mainly against Lady Macclesfield, were nothing more nor less than lampoons, and the word may with almost equal justice be employed to describe the coarser and more personal portions of the satires of Churchill. As a rule, however, the lampoon possessed no poetical graces, and in its very nature was usually anonymous. The notorious Essay on Woman (1764) of John Wilkes was a lampoon, and was successfully proceeded against as an obscene libel. The progress of civilization and the discipline of the law made it more and more impossible for private malice to take the form of baseless and scurrilous attack, and the lampoon, in its open shape, died of public decency in the 18th century. Malice, especially in an anonymous form, and passing in manuscript from hand to hand, has continued, however, to make use of this very unlovely form of literature. It has constantly reappeared at times of political disturbance, and the French have seldom failed to exercise their wicked wit upon their unpopular rulers. See also Pasquinade. (E. G.)
LAMPREY, a fish belonging to the family Petromyzontidae
(from πέτρος and μύζω, literally, stone-suckers), which with the
hag-fishes or Myxinidae forms a distinct subclass of fishes,
the Cyclostomata, distinguished by the low organization of their
skeleton, which is cartilaginous, without vertebral segmentation,
without ribs or real jaws, and without limbs. The lampreys
are readily recognized by their long, eel-like, scaleless body,
terminating anteriorly in the circular, suctorial mouth characteristic
of the whole sub-class. On each side, behind the head,
there is a row of seven branchial openings, through which the
water is conveyed to and from the gills. By means of their
mouth they fasten to stones, boats, &c., as well as to other
fishes, their object being to obtain a resting-place on the former,
whilst they attach themselves to the latter to derive nourishment
from them. The inner surface of their cup-shaped mouth is
armed with pointed teeth, with which they perforate the integuments
of the fish attacked, scraping off particles of the flesh
and sucking the blood. Mackerel, cod, pollack and flat-fishes
are the kinds most frequently attacked by them in the sea;
of river-fish the migratory Salmonidae and the shad are sometimes
found with the marks of the teeth of the lamprey, or with
the fish actually attached to them. About fifteen species are
known from the coasts and rivers of the temperate regions of
the northern and southern hemispheres. In Great Britain and
Europe generally three species occur, viz. the large spotted
