tion from the Arabic into Hebrew of "Lokman's Fables," Bologna, 1781, 4to.' LASSONE (JOSEPH MARIA FRANCIS DE), an eminent French physician, was born at Carpentras, on the 3d of July, 1717. He was removed for education to Paris, but in his early years he was less remarkable for his perseverance in study, than for a propensity which he shewed for the gay pleasures of youth; yet even then he raised the hopes of his friends by some ingenious performances, which merited academic honours. At length he applied with seriousness to study, and devoted himself wholly to the pursuits of anatomy, in which he made such rapid progress, that, at the age of twenty-five, he was received into the academy of sciences as associate-anatomist. An extraordinary event, however, put a period to his anatomical pursuits. In selecting among some dead bodies a proper subject for dissection, he fancied he perceived in one of them some very doubtful signs of death, and endeavoured to re-animate it: his efforts were for a long time vain; but his first persuasion induced him to persist, and he ultimately succeeded in bringing his patient to life, who proved to be a poor peasant. This circumstance impressed so deep a sense of horror on the mind of the anatomist, that he declined these pursuits in future. Natural history succeeded the study of anatomy, and mineralogy becoming a favourite object of his pursuit, he published his observations on the crystallized free-stones of Fontainbleau; but chemistry finally became the beloved occupation of M. de Lassone. His numerous memoirs, which were read before the royal academy of sciences, presented a valuable train of new observations, useful both to the progress of that study, and to the art of compounding remedies; and in every part of these he evinced the sagacity of an attentive observer, and of an ingenious experimentalist. After having practised medicine for a long time in the hospitals and cloisters, he was sent for to court; and held the office of first physician at Versailles. He lived in friendship with Fontenelle, Winslow, D'Alembert, Buffon, and other scientific characters; and the affability of his manners, and his ardent zeal for the advancement of knowledge, among the young scholars, whose industry he encouraged, and whose reputation was become one of his most satisfactory enjoyments, Dict. Hist. Supplement. gained him general respect. When from a natural delicacy of constitution, M. de Lassone began to experience the inconveniences of a premature old age, he became sorrowful and fond of solitude; yet, reconciled to his situa tion, he calmly observed his death approaching, and expired on Dec. 8, 1788. Lassone, at the time of his death, held the appointment of first physician to Louis XVI. and his queen; he was counsellor of state, doctor-regent of the faculty of medicine at Paris, and pensionary-veteran of the academy of sciences, member of the academy of medicine at Madrid, and honorary associate of the college of medicine at Nancy.' LASSUS (ORLANDUS), or, as he is called by the Italians, Orlando di Lasso, an eminent musician, was a native of Mons, in Hainault, born in 1520, and not only spent many years of his life in Italy, but had his musical education there, having been carried thither surreptitiously, when a child, on account of his fine voice. The historian Thuanus, who has given Orlando a place among the illustrious men of his time, tells us that it was a common practice for young singers to be forced away from their parents, and detained in the service of princes; and that Orlando was carried to Milan, Naples, and Sicily, by Ferdinand Gonzago. Afterwards, when he was grown up, and had probably lost his voice, he went to Rome, where he taught music during two years; at the expiration of which, he travelled through different parts of Italy and France with Julius Cæsar Brancatius, and at length, returning to Flanders, resided many years at Antwerp, till being invited, by the duke of Bavaria, to Munich, he settled at that court, and married. He had afterwards an invitation, accompanied with the promise of great emoluments, from Charles IX. king of France, to take upon him the office of master and director of his band; an honour which he accepted, but was stopped on the road to Paris by the news of that monarch's death. After this event he returned to Munich, whither he was recalled by William, the son and successor of his patron Albert, to the same office which he had held under his father. Orlando continued at this court till his death, in 1593, at upwards of seventy years of age. His reputation was so great, that it was said of him: "Hic ille Orlandus Lassus, qui recreat orbem." 1 Intchinson's Medical Biography.-Rees's Cyclopædia, As he lived to a considerable age, and never seems to have checked the fertility of his genius by indolence, his compositions exceed, in number, even those of Palestrina, There is a complete catalogue of them in Draudius, amounting to upwards of fifty different works, consisting of masses, magnificats, passiones, motets, and psalms: with Latin, Italian, German, and French songs, printed in Italy, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. He excelled in modulation, of which he gave many new speci mens, and was a great master of harmony.' LATCH (JOHN), an English lawyer, was a native of Somersetshire, and educated at Oxford, in St. John's college, as Wood was informed, where, he adds, he made considerable proficiency in literature. Afterwards he removed to the Middle Temple, but being of a delicate habit, does not appear to have practised as a barrister. Some years before his death, he had embraced the Roman catholic religion, influenced by the artifices of a priest or Jesuit who prevailed on him to leave his estate to the society of Jesuits. He died at Hayes in Middlesex, in August 1655. He was the reporter of certain "Cases in the first three years of K. Car. I." which were published in French, by Edward Walpole, 1662, folio. LATIMER (HUGH), bishop of Worcester, one of the first reformers of the church of England, was descended of honest parents at Thurcaston in Leicestershire; where his father, though he had no land of his own, rented a small farm, and by frugality and industry, brought up a family of six daughters besides this son. In one of his court sermons, in Edward's time, Latimer, inveighing against the nobility and gentry, and speaking of the moderation of landlords a few years before, and the plenty in which their tenants lived, tells his audience, in his familiar way, that, "upon a farm of four pounds a year, at the utmost, his father tilled as much ground as kept half a dozen men; that he had it stocked with a hundred sheep and thirty cows; that he found the king a man and horse, himself remembering to have buckled on his father's harness when he went to Blackheath; that he gave his daughters five pounds a-piece at marriage; that he lived hospitably among his neighbours, and was not backward in 1 Burney's Hist. of Music, and in Rees's Cyclopædia. his alms to the poor." He was born in the farm-house about 1470; and, being put to a grammar-school, he took learning so well, that it was determined to breed him to the church. With this view, he was sent to Cambridge. Fuller and others say to Christ's college, which must be a tradition, as the records of that college do not reach his time. At the usual time, he took the degrees in arts; and, entering into priest's orders, behaved with remarkaable zeal and warmth in defence of popery, the established religion. He read the schoolmen and the Scriptures with equal reverence, and held Thomas à Becket and the apostles in equal honour. He was consequently, a zealous opponent of the opinions which had lately discovered them-" selves in England; heard the teachers of them with high indignation, and inveighed publicly and privately against the reformers. If any read lectures in the schools, Latimer was sure to be there to drive out the scholars, and could not endure Stafford, the divinity-lecturer, who, however, is said to have been partly an instrument of his conversion. When Latimer commenced bachelor of divinity, he gave an open testimony of his dislike to their proceedings in an oration against Melancthon, whom he treated most severely for his impious, as he called them, innovations in religion. His zeal was so much taken notice of in the university, that he was elected cross-bearer in all public processions; an employment which he accepted with reverence, and discharged with solemnity. Among those in Cambridge who favoured the reformation, the most considerable was Thomas Bilney, a clergyman of a most holy life, who began to see popery in a very disagreeable light, and made no scruple to own it. Bilney was an intimate, and conceived a very favourable opinion, of Latimer; and, as opportunities offered, used to suggest to him many things about corruptions in religion, till he gradually divested him of his prejudices, brought him to think with moderation, and even to distrust what he had so earnestly embraced. Latimer no sooner ceased from being a zealous papist, than he became (such was his constitutional warmth) a zealous protestant; active in supporting the reformed doctrine, and assiduous to make converts both in town and university. He preached in public, exhorted in private, and everywhere pressed the necessity of a holy life, in opposition to ritual observances. A behaviour of this kind was immediately taken notice of: Cam bridge, no less than the rest of the kingdom, was entirely popish, and every new opinion was watched with jealousy. Latimer soon perceived how obnoxious he had made himself; and the first remarkable opposition he met with from the popish party, was occasioned by a course of sermons he preached, during the Christmas holidays, before the university; in which he spoke his sentiments with great freedom upon many opinions and usages maintained and practised in the Romish church, and particularly insisted upon the great abuse of locking up the Scriptures in an unknown tongue. Few of the tenets of popery were then questioned in England, but such as tended to a relaxation of morals; transubstantiation, and other points rather spe culative, still held their dominion; Latimer therefore chiefly dwelt upon those of immoral tendency. He shewed what true religion was, that it was seated in the heart; and that, in comparison with it, external appointments were of no value. Having a remarkable address in adapting himself to the capacities of the people, and being considered as a preacher of eminence, the orthodox clergy thought it high time to oppose him openly. This task was undertaken by Dr. Buckingham, prior of the Black-friars, who appeared in the pulpit a few Sundays after; and, with great pomp and prolixity, shewed the dangerous tendency of Latimer's opinions; particularly inveighing against his heretical notions of having the Scriptures in English, laying open the bad effects of such an innovation. "If that heresy," said he, "prevail, we should soon see an end of every thing useful among us. The ploughman, reading that if he put his hand to the plough, and should happen to look back, he was unfit for the kingdom of heaven, would soon lay aside his labour; the baker likewise reading, that a little leaven will corrupt his lump, would give us a very insipid bread; the simple man also finding himself commanded to pluck out his eyes, in a few years we should have the nation full of blind beggars." Latimer could not help listening with a secret pleasure to this ingenious reasoning; perhaps he had acted as prudently, if he had considered the prior's arguments as unanswerable; but he could not resist the vivacity of his temper, which strongly inclined him to expose this solemn trifler. The whole university met together on Sunday, when it was known Mr. Latimer would preach. That vein of pleaantry and humour which ran through all his words and |