[Lancaster, Joseph], educationist, born in Southwark, and founder of the Monitorial System; had a chequered career, died in poverty (1778-1838).
[Lancelot of the Lake], one of the Knights of the Round Table, famous for his gallantry and his amours with Queen Guinevere; was called of the Lake because educated at the court of the [Lady of the Lake] (q. v.); he turned hermit in the end, and died a holy man.
[Land League], an organisation founded by [Davitt] (q. v.) in Ireland in 1879 to deal with the land question, and suppressed in 1881 as illegal.
[Landaman], name given to the chief magistrate in certain Swiss cantons, also to the President of the Swiss Diet.
[Lander, Richard], African explorer, born in Truro, Cornwall; accompanied Clapperton as his servant; along with his brother John discovered the lower course of the Niger; on the third expedition was wounded in a conflict with the natives, and died at Fernando Po (1804-1834).
[Landes], sandy plains along the French coast between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, covered with heath and broom.
[Landgrabber], name given in Ireland to one in the possession or occupancy of land from which another has been evicted.
[Landgrave], title given to certain counts of the old German empire who had the rank of princes.
[Landon, Letitia Elizabeth], known as L. E. L., authoress, born in Chelsea; a charming woman, who wrote well both in verse and prose; was Mrs. Hemans's successor; having taken prussic acid by mistake had a tragic end (1802-1838).
[Landor, Walter Savage], eminent literary man, born in Warwick, a man of excitable temperament, which involved him in endless quarrels leading to alienations, but did not affect his literary work; figured first as a poet in "Gebir" and "Count Julian," to the admiration of Southey, his friend, and De Quincey, and ere long as a writer of prose in his "Imaginary Conversations," embracing six volumes, on which recent critics have bestowed unbounded praise, Swinburne in particular; he died in Florence separated from his family, and dependent on it there for six years; Carlyle visited him at Bath in 1850, and found him "stirring company; a proud, irascible, trenchant, yet generous, veracious, and very dignified old man; quite a ducal or royal man in the temper of him" (1775-1864).