LAURAHÜTTE, a village of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, 5 m. S.E. of Beuthen, on the railway Tarnowitz-Emanuelsegen. It has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, but is especially noteworthy for its huge iron works, which employ about 6000 hands. Pop. (1900) 13,571.
LAUREATE (Lat. laureatus, from laurea, the laurel tree). The laurel, in ancient Greece, was sacred to Apollo, and as such was used to form a crown or wreath of honour for poets and heroes; and this usage has been widespread. The word “laureate” or “laureated” thus came in English to signify eminent, or associated with glory, literary or military. “Laureate letters” in old times meant the despatches announcing a victory; and the epithet was given, even officially (e.g. to John Skelton) by universities, to distinguished poets. The name of “bacca-laureate” for the university degree of bachelor shows a confusion with a supposed etymology from Lat. bacca lauri (the laurel berry), which though incorrect (see [Bachelor]) involves the same idea. From the more general use of the term “poet laureate” arose its restriction in England to the office of the poet attached to the royal household, first held by Ben Jonson, for whom the position was, in its essentials, created by Charles I. in 1617. (Jonson’s appointment does not seem to have been formally made as poet-laureate, but his position was equivalent to that). The office was really a development of the practice of earlier times, when minstrels and versifiers were part of the retinue of the King; it is recorded that Richard Cœur de Lion had a versificator regis (Gulielmus Peregrinus), and Henry III. had a versificator (Master Henry); in the 15th century John Kay, also a “versifier,” described himself as Edward IV.’s “humble poet laureate.” Moreover, the crown had shown its patronage in various ways; Chaucer had been given a pension and a perquisite of wine by Edward III., and Spenser a pension by Queen Elizabeth. W. Hamilton classes Chaucer, Gower, Kay, Andrew Bernard, Skelton, Robert Whittington, Richard Edwards, Spenser and Samuel Daniel, as “volunteer Laureates.” Sir William Davenant succeeded Jonson in 1638, and the title of poet laureate was conferred by letters patent on Dryden in 1670, two years after Davenant’s death, coupled with a pension of £300 and a butt of Canary wine. The post then became a regular institution, though the emoluments varied, Dryden’s successors being T. Shadwell (who originated annual birthday and New Year odes), Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, Laurence Eusden, Colley Cibber, William Whitehead, Thomas Warton, H. J. Pye, Southey, Wordsworth, Tennyson and, four years after Tennyson’s death, Alfred Austin. The office took on a new lustre from the personal distinction of Southey, Wordsworth and Tennyson; it had fallen into contempt before Southey, and on Tennyson’s death there was a considerable feeling that no possible successor was acceptable (William Morris and Swinburne being hardly court poets). Eventually, however, the undesirability of breaking with tradition for temporary reasons, and thus severing the one official link between literature and the state, prevailed over the protests against following Tennyson by any one of inferior genius. It may be noted that abolition was similarly advocated when Warton and Wordsworth died.
The poet laureate, being a court official, was considered responsible for producing formal and appropriate verses on birthdays and state occasions; but his activity in this respect has varied, according to circumstances, and the custom ceased to be obligatory after Pye’s death. Wordsworth stipulated, before accepting the honour, that no formal effusions from him should be considered a necessity; but Tennyson was generally happy in his numerous poems of this class. The emoluments of the post have varied; Ben Jonson first received a pension of 100 marks, and later an annual “terse of Canary wine.” To Pye an allowance of £27 was made instead of the wine. Tennyson drew £72 a year from the lord chamberlain’s department, and £27 from the lord steward’s in lieu of the “butt of sack.”
See Walter Hamilton’s Poets Laureate of England (1879), and his contributions to Notes and Queries (Feb. 4, 1893).
LAUREL. At least four shrubs or small trees are called by this name in Great Britain, viz. the common or cherry laurel (Prunus Laurocerasus), the Portugal laurel (P. lusitanica), the bay or sweet laurel (Laurus nobilis) and the spurge laurel (Daphne Laureola). The first two belong to the rose family (Rosaceae), to the section Cerasus (to which also belongs the cherry) of the genus Prunus.
The common laurel is a native of the woody and sub-alpine regions of the Caucasus, of the mountains of northern Persia, of north-western Asia Minor and of the Crimea. It was received into Europe in 1576, and flowered for the first time in 1583. Ray in 1688 relates that it was first brought from Trebizonde to Constantinople, thence to Italy, France, Germany and England. Parkinson in his Paradisus records it as growing in a garden at Highgate in 1629; and in Johnson’s edition of Gerard’s Herbal (1633) it is recorded that the plant “is now got into many of our choice English gardens, where it is well respected for the beauty of the leaues and their lasting or continuall greennesse” (see Loudon’s Arboretum, ii. 717). The leaves of this plant are rather large, broadly lance-shaped and of a leathery consistence, the margin being somewhat serrated. They are remarkable for their poisonous properties, giving off the odour of bitter almonds when bruised; the vapour thus issuing is sufficient to kill small insects by the prussic acid which it contains. The leaves when cut up finely and distilled yield oil of bitter almonds and hydrocyanic (prussic) acid. Sweetmeats, custards, cream, &c., are often flavoured with laurel-leaf water, as it imparts the same flavour as bitter almonds; but it should be used sparingly, as it is a dangerous poison, having several times proved fatal. The first case occurred in 1731, which induced a careful investigation to be made of its nature; Schrader in 1802 discovered it to contain hydrocyanic acid. The effects of the distilled laurel-leaf water on living vegetables is to destroy them like ordinary prussic acid; while a few drops act on animals as a powerful poison. It was introduced into the British pharmacopoeia in 1839, but is generally superseded by the use of prussic acid. The aqua laurocerasi, or cherry laurel water, is now standardized to contain 0.1% of hydrocyanic acid. It must not be given in doses larger than 2 drachms. It contains benzole hydrate, which is antiseptic, and is therefore suitable for hypodermic injection; but the drug is of inconsistent strength, owing to the volatility of prussic acid.
The following varieties of the common laurel are in cultivation: the Caucasian (Prunus Laurocerasus, var. caucasica), which is hardier and bears very rich dark-green glossy foliage; the Versailles laurel (var. latifolia), which has larger leaves; the Colchican (var. colchica), which is a dwarf-spreading bush with narrow sharply serrated pale-green leaves. There is also the variety rotundifolia with short broad leaves, the Grecian with narrow leaves and the Alexandrian with very small leaves.