habenas possit denuo cohibere?). The significance of these euphuistic jokes is that they always make good music in Orlando’s hands. There is musical fun even in his voluminous parody of the stammering style of word-setting in the burlesque motet S.U.Su. PER. per. super F.L.U., which gets through one verse of a psalm in fifteen minutes.
When it was a question of purely musical high spirits Orlando was unrivalled; and his setting of Walter de Mape’s Fertur in conviviis (given in the Magnum opus with a stupid moral derangement of the text), and most of his French chansons, are among the most deeply humorous music in the world.
But it is in the tests of the sublime that Orlando shows himself one of the greatest minds that ever found expression in art. Nothing sublime was too unfamiliar to frighten him into repressing his quaint fancy, though he early repressed all that thwarted his musical nature. His Penitential Psalms stand with Josquin’s Miserere and Palestrina’s first book of Lamentations as artistic monuments of 16th-century penitential religion, just as Bach’s Matthew Passion stands alone among such monuments in later art. Yet the passage (quoted by Sir Hubert Parry in vol. 3 of the Oxford History of Music) “Nolite fieri sicut mulus” is one among many traits which are ingeniously and grotesquely descriptive without losing harmony with the austere profundity of the huge works in which they occur. It is impossible to read any large quantity of Orlando’s mature music without feeling that a mind like his would in modern times have covered a wider field of mature art than any one classical or modern composer known to us. Yet we cannot say that anything has been lost by his belonging to the 16th century. His music, if only from its peculiar technique of crossing parts and unexpected intervals, is exceptionally difficult to read; and hence intelligent conducting and performance of it is rare. But its impressiveness is beyond dispute; and there are many things which, like the Justorum animae cannot even be read, much less heard, without emotion.
Orlando’s works as shown by the plan of Messrs Breitkopf & Härtel’s complete critical edition (begun in 1894) comprise: (1) the Magnum opus musicum, a posthumous collection containing Latin pieces for from two to twelve voices, 516 in number (or, counting by single movements, over 700). Not all of these are to the original texts. The Magnum opus fills eleven volumes. (2) Five volumes of madrigals, containing six books, and a large number of single madrigals, and about half a volume of lighter Italian songs (villanellas, &c.). (3) Three volumes (not four as in the prospectus) of French chansons. (4) Two volumes of German four-part and five-part Lieder. (5) Serial church music: three volumes, containing Lessons from the Book of Job (two settings). Passion according to St Matthew (i.e. like the Passions of Victoria and Soriano, a setting of the words of the crowds and of the disciples); Lamentations of Jeremiah; Morning Lessons; the Officia printed in the third volume of the Patroncinium (a publication suggested and supported by Orlando’s patrons and containing eight entire volumes of his works); the Seven Penitential Psalms; German Psalms and Prophetiae Sibyllarum, (6) one hundred Magnificats (Jubilus B. M. Virginis) 3 vols., (7) eight volumes of Masses, (8) two volumes of Latin songs not in the Magnum opus, (9) five volumes of unpublished works. (D. F. T.)
LASSO (Span. lazo, snare, ultimately from Lat. laqueus, cf.
“lace”), a rope 60 to 100 ft. in length with a slip-noose at one
end, used in the Spanish and Portuguese parts of America and
in the western United States for catching wild horses and cattle.
It is now less employed in South America than in the vast
grazing country west of the Mississippi river, where the herders,
called locally cow-boys or cow-punchers, are provided with it.
When not in use, the lasso, called rope in the West, is coiled at
the right of the saddle in front of the rider. When an animal
is to be caught the herder, galloping after it, swings the coiled
lasso round his head and casts it straight forward in such a
manner that the noose settles over the head or round the legs
of the quarry, when it is speedily brought into submission. A
shorter rope called lariat (Span. la reata) is used to picket horses.
LAST. 1. (A syncopated form of “latest,” the superlative
of O.E. laét, late), an adjective applied to the conclusion of
anything, all that remains after everything else has gone, or
that which has just occurred. In theology the “four last
things” denote the final scenes of Death, Judgment, Heaven
and Hell; the “last day” means the Day of Judgment (see
Eschatology).
2. (O.E. lást, footstep; the word appears in many Teutonic languages, meaning foot, footstep, track, &c.; it is usually referred to a Teutonic root lais, cognate with Lat. lira, a furrow; from this root, used figuratively, came “learn” and “lore”), originally a footstep, trace or track, now only used of the model of a foot in wood on which a shoemaker makes boots and shoes; hence the proverb “let the cobbler stick to his last,” “ne sutor ultra crepidam.”
3. (O.E. hlaest; the work is connected with the root seen in “lade,” and is used in German and Dutch of a weight; it is also seen in “ballast”), a commercial weight or measure of quantity, varying according to the commodity and locality; originally applied to the load of goods carried by the boat or wagon used in carrying any particular commodity in any particular locality, it is now chiefly used as a weight for fish, a “last” of herrings being equal to from 10,000 to 12,000 fish. The German Last = 4000 ℔, and this is frequently taken as the nominal weight of an English “last.” A “last” of wool = 12 sacks, and of beer = 12 barrels.
LASUS, Greek lyric poet, of Hermione in Argolis, flourished
about 510 B.C. A member of the literary and artistic circle of
the Peisistratidae, he was the instructor of Pindar in music and
poetry and the rival of Simonides. The dithyramb (of which
he was sometimes considered the actual inventor) was developed
by him, by the aid of various changes in music and rhythm, into
an artistically constructed choral song, with an accompaniment
of several flutes. It became more artificial and mimetic in
character, and its range of subjects was no longer confined to the
adventures of Dionysus. Lasus further increased its popularity
by introducing prize contests for the best poem of the kind.
His over-refinement is shown by his avoidance of the letter
sigma (on account of its hissing sound) in several of his poems,
of one of which (a hymn to Demeter of Hermione) a few lines
have been preserved in Athenaeus (xiv. 624 E). Lasus was also
the author of the first theoretical treatise on music.
See Suïdas s.v.; Aristophanes, Wasps, 1410, Birds, 1403 and schol.; Plutarch, De Musica, xxix.; Müller and Donaldson, Hist. of Greek Literature, i. 284; G. H. Bode, Geschichte der hellenischen Dichtkunst, ii. pt. 2, p. 111; F. W. Schneidewin, De Laso Hermionensi Comment. (Göttingen, 1842); Fragm. in Bergk, Poet. Lyr.
LAS VEGAS, a city and the county-seat of San Miguel county,
New Mexico, U.S.A., in the north central part of New Mexico,
on the Gallinas river, and 83 m. by rail E. of Santa Fé. Though
usually designated as a single municipality, Las Vegas consists
of two distinct corporations, the old town on the W. bank of the
river and the city proper on the E. bank. Pop. of the city (1890)
2385; (1900) 3552 (340 being foreign-born and 116 negroes);
(1910) 3755. According to local estimates, the combined
population of the city and the old town in 1908 was 10,000. Las
Vegas is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé railway,
and is its division headquarters in New Mexico. The city lies
in a valley at the foot of the main range of the Rocky Mountains,
and is about 6400 ft. above the sea. There are high peaks to the
W. and within a short distance of the city much beautiful
mountain scenery, especially along the “Scenic Route,” a
highway from Las Vegas to Santa Fé, traversing the Las Vegas
canyon and the Pecos Valley forest reserve. The country E. of
the city consists of level plains. The small amount of rainfall, the
great elevation and the southern latitude give the region a dry
and rarified air, and Las Vegas is a noted health resort. Six miles
distant, and connected with the city by rail, are the Las Vegas
Hot Springs. The old town on the W. bank of the Gallinas
river retains many features of a Mexican village, with low adobe
houses facing narrow and crooked streets. Its inhabitants are
largely of Spanish-American descent. The part on the E. bank
or city proper is thoroughly modern, with well-graded streets,
many of them bordered with trees. The most important public
institutions are the New Mexico insane asylum, the New Mexico
normal university (chartered 1893, opened 1898), the county
court house (in the old town), the academy of the Immaculate
Conception, conducted by the Sisters of Loretto, Saint Anthony’s
