father, a poor engraver, sent him to study art under the painter David, but his own tastes were literary, and he became a student in the Collège de France, where it is said he used to exercise his already strongly developed critical faculty by correcting for his own amusement old and bad texts of Greek authors, afterwards comparing the results with the latest and most approved editions. From 1810 to 1812 he travelled in France, Switzerland and Italy, and on his return to Paris published an Essai critique sur la topographie de Syracuse (1812), designed to elucidate Thucydides. Two years later appeared his Recherches géographiques et critiques on the De Mensura Orbis Terrae of Dicuil. In 1815 he was commissioned by government to complete the translation of Strabo which had been begun by Laporte-Dutheil, and in March 1816 he was one of those who were admitted to the Academy of Inscriptions by royal ordinance, having previously contributed a Mémoire, “On the Metrical System of the Egyptians,” which had been crowned. Further promotion came rapidly; in 1817 he was appointed director of the École des Chartes, in 1819 inspector-general of the university, and in 1831 professor of history in the Collège de France. This chair he exchanged in 1838 for that of archaeology, and in 1840 he succeeded Pierre C. François Daunou (1761–1840) as keeper of the national archives. Meanwhile he had published, among other works, Considérations générales sur l’évaluation des monnaies grecques et romaines et sur la valeur de l’or et de l’argent avant la découverte de l’Amérique (1817), Recherches pour servir à l’histoire d’Égypte pendant la domination des Grecs et des Romains (1823), and Sur l’origine grecque des zodiaques prétendus égyptiens (1837). By the last-named he finally exploded a fallacy which had up to that time vitiated the chronology of contemporary Egyptologists. His Diplômes et Chartres de l’époque Mérovingienne sur papyrus et sur vélin were published in 1844. The most important work of Letronne is the Recueil des inscriptions grecques et latines de l’Égypte, of which the first volume appeared in 1842, and the second in 1848. He died at Paris on the 14th of December 1848.
LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter
of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has
probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with
wax, for an inscription with a stilus), a character or symbol
expressing any one of the elementary sounds into which a spoken
word may be analysed, one of the members of an alphabet. As
applied to things written, the word follows mainly the meanings
of the Latin plural litterae, the most common meaning attaching
to the word being that of a written communication from one
person to another, an epistle (q.v.). For the means adopted to
secure the transmission of letters see Post and Postal Service.
The word is also, particularly in the plural, applied to many
legal and formal written documents, as in letters patent, letters
rogatory and dismissory, &c. The Latin use of the plural is also
followed in the employment of “letters” in the sense of literature
(q.v.) or learning.
LETTERKENNY, a market town of Co. Donegal, Ireland,
23 m. W. by S. of Londonderry by the Londonderry and Lough
Swilly and Letterkenny railway. Pop. (1901) 2370. It has a
harbour at Port Ballyrane, 1 m. distant on Lough Swilly. In
the market square a considerable trade in grain, flax and provisions
is prosecuted. Rope-making and shirt-making are
industries. The handsome Roman Catholic cathedral for the
diocese of Raphoe occupies a commanding site, and cost a large
sum, as it contains carving from Rome, glass from Munich and
a pulpit of Irish and Carrara marble. It was consecrated in 1901.
There is a Catholic college dedicated to St Ewnan. The town,
which is governed by an urban district council, is a centre for
visitors to the county. Its name signifies the “hill of the
O’Cannanans,” a family who lorded over Tyrconnell before the
rise of the O’Donnells.
LETTER OF CREDIT, a letter, open or sealed, from a banker
or merchant, containing a request to some other person or firm
to advance the bearer of the letter, or some other person named
therein, upon the credit of the writer a particular or an unlimited
sum of money. A letter of credit is either general or special.
It is general when addressed to merchants or other persons in
general, requesting an advance to a third person, and special
when addressed to a particular person by name requesting him
to make such an advance. A letter of credit is not a negotiable
instrument. When a letter of credit is given for the purchase of
goods, the letter of credit usually states the particulars of the
merchandise against which bills are to be drawn, and shipping
documents (bills of lading, invoices, insurance policies) are
usually attached to the draft for acceptance.
LETTERS PATENT. It is a rule alike of common law and
sound policy that grants of freehold interests, franchises, liberties,
&c., by the sovereign to a subject should be made only after due
consideration, and in a form readily accessible to the public.
These ends are attained in England through the agency of
that piece of constitutional machinery known as “letters
patent.” It is here proposed to consider only the characteristics
of letters patent generally. The law relating to
letters patent for inventions is dealt with under the heading
Patents.
Letters patent (litterae patentes) are letters addressed by the sovereign “to all to whom these presents shall come,” reciting the grant of some dignity, office, monopoly, franchise or other privilege to the patentee. They are not sealed up, but are left open (hence the term “patent”), and are recorded in the Patent Rolls in the Record Office, or in the case of very recent grants, in the Chancery Enrolment Office, so that all subjects of the realm may read and be bound by their contents. In this respect they differ from certain other letters of the sovereign directed to particular persons and for particular purposes, which, not being proper for public inspection, are closed up and sealed on the outside, and are thereupon called writs close (litterae clausae) and are recorded in the Close Rolls. Letters patent are used to put into commission various powers inherent in the crown—legislative powers, as when the sovereign entrusts to others the duty of opening parliament or assenting to bills; judicial powers, e.g. of gaol delivery; executive powers, as when the duties of Treasurer and Lord High Admiral are assigned to commissioners of the Treasury and Admiralty (Anson, Const. ii. 47). Letters patent are also used to incorporate bodies by charter—in the British colonies, this mode of legislation is frequently applied to joint stock companies (cf. Rev. Stats. Ontario, c. 191, s. 9)—to grant a congé d’élire to a dean and chapter to elect a bishop, or licence to convocation to amend canons; to grant pardon, and to confer certain offices and dignities. Among grants of offices, &c., made by letters patent the following may be enumerated: offices in the Heralds’ College; the dignities of a peer, baronet and knight bachelor; the appointments of lord-lieutenant, custos rotulorum of counties, judge of the High Court and Indian and Colonial judgeships, king’s counsel, crown livings; the offices of attorney- and solicitor-general, commander-in-chief, master of the horse, keeper of the privy seal, postmaster-general, king’s printer; grants of separate courts of quarter-sessions. The fees payable in respect of the grant of various forms of letters patent are fixed by orders of the lord chancellor, dated 20th of June 1871, 18th of July 1871 and 11th of Aug. 1881. (These orders are set out at length in the Statutory Rules and Orders Revised (ed. 1904), vol. ii. tit. “Clerk of the Crown in Chancery,” pp. i. et seq.) Formerly each colonial governor was appointed and commissioned by letters patent under the great seal of the United Kingdom. But since 1875, the practice has been to create the office of governor in each colony by letters patent, and then to make each appointment to the office by commission under the Royal Sign Manual and to give to the governor so appointed instructions in a uniform shape under the Royal Sign Manual. The letters patent, commission and instructions, are commonly described as the Governor’s Commission (see Jenkyns, British Rule and Jurisdiction beyond the Seas, p. 100; the forms now in use are printed in Appx. iv. Also the Statutory Rules and Codes Revised, ed. 1904, under the title of the colony to which they relate). The Colonial Letters Patent Act 1863 provides that letters patent shall not take effect in the colonies or possessions beyond the seas until their publication there by proclamation or otherwise (s. 2), and shall
