374 L A Y L E A
associate of the Academy in 1791. The death of Sir Joshua in 1792 opened the way to further successes. He was at once appointed painter to the Dilettanti Society, and principal painter to the king in room of Reynolds. In 1794 he was a Royal Academician, and he became the fashionable portrait painter of the age, having as his sitters all the rank, fashion, and talent of England, and ultimately most of the crowned heads of Europe. In 1815 he was knighted; in 1818 he went to Aix-la-Chapelle to paint the sovereigns and diplomatists gathered there, and extended his residence on the Continent by visiting Vienna and Rome, everywhere receiving flattering marks of distinction from princes, due as much to his courtly manners as to his merits as an artist. After eighteen months he returned to England, and on the very day of his arrival was chosen president of the Academy in room of West, who had died a few days before. This office he held from 1820 to his death on 7th January 1830. He was never married.
Sir Thomas Lawrence had all the qualities of personal manner and artistic style necessary to make a fashionable painter, and at a period when aristocratic opinion had even more weight than at present his public reputation was extravagantly high. The judgment of his fellow artists was less favourable, and in the present day no one would claim for him a place among great portrait painters, while his more ambitious works, in the classical style, such as his once celebrated Satan, are practically forgotten. His chief merit lay in a certain dexterity of touch and in the conventional grace with which he contrived to clothe his figures.
The best display of Lawrence's work is in the Waterloo Gallery of Windsor, a collection of much historical interest. "Master Lambton," painted for Lord Durham at the price of 600 guineas, is regarded as one of his best portraits, and a fine head in the National Gallery shows his power to advantage. The Life and Correspondence of Sir T. Lawrence, by Williams, appeared in 1831. See also Cunningham's British Painters, 1833.
LAYAMON, or Laweman, the author of a chronicle of
Britain entitled Brut, a poetical semi-Saxon paraphrase of
the Brut d'Angleterre of Wace, was as he himself informs
us a priest who read the services of the church at Ernleye,
on the banks of the Severn (now Lower Arley or Arley
Regis, 3½ miles south-east from Bewdley, Worcestershire).
Of his personal history nothing further is known. Nor
can the date of the work with which his name is associated
be very accurately ascertained; but the probability is that
it was not completed before the beginning of the 13th
century. The original text, with a literal translation,
notes, and a grammatical glossary, was first edited by Sir
Frederic Madden in 1847. See ENGLISH LANGUAGE, vol.
vii. p. 394; and ENGLISH LITERATURE, ib. p. 408.
LAYBACH. See LAIBACH.
LAYNEZ, DIEGO. See JESUITS.
LAZARITES, Lazarists, or Lazarians. The origin of the "Congregation of Priests of the Mission" may in some sense be traced back to 1617, the year of the successful labours of St Vincent de Paul, assisted by five other priests, for the evangelization of the common people in the parish of Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne, near Bourg. More immediately it dates from 1625, when the little community acquired a permanent settlement in the Collége des Bons Enfans in Paris. Archiepiscopal recognition was obtained in 1626; and by papal bull in January 1632 the society was constituted a congregation, with St Vincent de Paul at its head. Shortly afterwards the establishment was confirmed by letters patent from Louis XIII. About the same time the canons regular of St Victor handed over to the congregation the priory of St Lazarus in Paris, which henceforth became its chief house, and gave to the fathers of the mission the name by which they are best known. Within a few years they had acquired another house in Paris and set up other establishments throughout France; and in 1639, 1641, and 1651 they broke ground in Savoy, Italy, and Poland respectively. A fresh bull of Alexander VII. in April 1655 further confirmed the society; this was followed by a brief in September of the same year, regulating its constitution. The rules then adopted, which were framed on the model of those of the Jesuits, were published at Paris in 1658 under the title Regulæ seu Constitutiones communes congregationis missionis. The special objects contemplated were the religious instruction of the lower classes, the training of the clergy, the relief or redemption of prisoners in Barbary, and foreign missions. In the pursuit of these objects the Lazarite priests have had a chequered history in the various quarters of the world where they have gained a footing. At the French Revolution they were dispersed, so far as France was concerned, but permitted to reappear under the empire, and rehabilitated at the Restoration. In Sardinia they had a similar history. Throughout Italy they have been affected by recent political changes just as the rest of the religious orders have been. The Lazarist province of Poland was singularly prosperous; at the date of suppression in 1796 it possessed thirty-five establishments. The order was permitted to return in 1816, but is now extinct there. In Madagascar it had a mission from 1648 till 1674. In 1783 Lazarists were appointed to take the place of the Jesuits in the Levantine and Chinese missions; they still have some footing in China, and in 1874 their establishments throughout the Turkish empire numbered sixteen. In the same year they had fourteen establishments in the United States of America. The total number of Lazarists throughout the world is computed at about 3000.
LAZARUS, St, Order of. This religious and military order dates its origin from the occupation of Jerusalem by the first crusaders, its primary object being the succour of the leprous, of whom Lazarus (Luke xvi. 20 sq.) was regarded as the patron. After the expulsion of the crusaders the hospitallers of St Lazarus established themselves in France, where Louis VII. (1253) gave them the lands of Boigny near Orleans, and a building at the gates of Paris which they turned into a lazar house for the use of the lepers of the city. A papal confirmation was obtained from Alexander IV. in 1255. The gradual disappearance of leprosy combined with other causes to change the order into a purely civil corporation. In 1572 it was in Savoy merged by Gregory XIII. in the order of St Maurice. In 1608 it was in France united with that of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel; abolished at the Revolution, it was reintroduced at the Restoration, but is again in abeyance, the only order at present conferred or recognized being that of the Legion of Honour. In 1633 the buildings of the priory in Paris were handed over to St Vincent de Paul for the use of the fathers of his mission, who from this circumstance came to be generally known as Lazarites.
LEAD. This metal was known to the ancients, and is mentioned in the Old Testament. The Romans used it largely, as it is still used, for the making of water pipes, and soldered these with an alloy of lead and tin. Pliny treats of these two metals as plumbum nigrum and plumbum album respectively, which seems to show that at his time they were looked upon as being only two varieties of the same species. In regard to the ancients knowledge of lead compounds, we may state that the substance described by Dioscorides as μολυβδαίνα, was undoubtedly litharge, that Pliny uses the word minium in its present sense of red lead, and that white lead was well known to Geber in the 8th century.
Of the various plumbiferous minerals, galena (a compound of lead and sulphur, formula PbS, demanding 86.6
