Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809).
Lewis Baboon. Louis XIV., of France, is so called by Dr. Arbuthnot in his History of John Bull. Baboon is a pun on the word Bourbon, specially appropriate to this royal “posture-master” (1712).
Lew´some (2 syl.), a young surgeon and general practitioner. He forms the acquaintance of Jonas Chuzzlewit, and supplies him with the poison which he employs.—C. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit (1844).
Lewson, a noble, honest character. He is in love with Charlotte Beverley, and marries her, although her brother has gambled away all her fortune.—Edward Moore, The Gamester (1753).
Leycippes and Clitophonta, a romance in Greek, by Achilles Tatius, in the fifth century; borrowed largely from the Theag´enês and Chariclēa of Heliodōrus, bishop of Trikka.
Liar (The), a farce by Samuel Foote (1761). John Wilding, a young gentleman fresh from Oxford, has an extraordinary propensity for romancing. He invents the most marvellous tales, utterly regardless of truth, and thereby involves both himself and others in endless perplexities. He pretends to fall in love with a Miss Grantam, whom he accidentally meets, and, wishing to know her name, is told it is Godfrey, and that she is an heiress. Now it so happens that his father wants him to marry the real Miss Grantam, and, in order to avoid so doing, he says he is already married to a Miss Sibthorpe. He afterwards tells his father he invented this tale because he really wished to marry Miss Godfrey. When Miss Godfrey is introduced, he does not know her, and while in this perplexity a woman enters, who declares she is his wife, and that her maiden name was Sibthorpe. Again he is dumbfounded, declares he never saw her in his life, and rushes out, exclaiming, “All the world is gone mad, and is in league against me!”
⁂ The plot of this farce is from the Spanish. It had been already taken by Corneille in Le Menteur (1642), and by Steele in his Lying Lover (1704).
Liar (The), Al Aswad; also called “The Impostor,” and “The Weathercock.” He set himself up as a prophet against Mahomet; but frequently changed his creed.
Mosëilma was also called “The Liar.” He wrote a letter to Mahomet, which began thus: “From Mosëilma, prophet of Allah, to Mahomet, prophet of Allah;” and received an answer beginning thus: “From Mahomet, the prophet of Allah, to Mosëilma, the Liar.”
Liars (The Prince of), Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, a Portuguese traveller, whose narratives deal so much in the marvellous that Cervantes dubbed him “The Prince of Liars.” He is alluded to in the Tatler as a man “of infinite adventure and unbounded imagination.”