The chief authority for Madame de Longueville’s life is a little book in two volumes by Villefore the Jansenist, published in 1738. Victor Cousin has devoted four volumes to her, which, though immensely diffuse, give a vivid picture of her time. See also Sainte-Beuve, Portraits des femmes (1840). Her connexion with Port Royal should be studied in Arnauld’s Memoirs, and in the different histories of that institution.
LONGUS, Greek sophist and romancer, author of Daphnis and Chloë. Nothing is known of his life, and all that can be said is that he probably lived at the end of the 2nd or the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. It has been suggested that the name Longus is merely a misreading of the last word of the title Λεσβιακῶν ἐρωτικῶν λόγοι δ´ in the Florentine MS.; Seiler also observes that the best MS. begins and ends with λόγου (not λόγγου) ποιμενικῶν. If his name was really Longus, he was probably a freedman of some Roman family which bore it. Longus’s style is rhetorical, his shepherds and shepherdesses are wholly conventional, but he has imparted human interest to a purely fanciful picture. As an analysis of feeling, Daphnis and Chloë makes a nearer approach to the modern novel than its chief rival among Greek erotic romances, the Aethiopica of Heliodorus, which is remarkable mainly for the ingenious succession of incidents. Daphnis and Chloë, two children found by shepherds, grow up together, nourishing a mutual love which neither suspects. The development of this simple passion forms the chief interest, and there are few incidents. Chloë is carried off by a pirate, and ultimately regains her family. Rivals alarm the peace of mind of Daphnis; but the two lovers are recognized by their parents, and return to a happy married life in the country. Daphnis and Chloë was the model of La Sireine of Honoré d’Urfé, the Diana enamorada of Montemayor, the Aminta of Tasso, and The Gentle Shepherd of Allan Ramsay. The celebrated Paul et Virginie is an echo of the same story.
See J. Dunlop’s History of Prose Fiction (1888), and especially E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman (1900). Longus found an incomparable translator in Jacques Amyot, bishop of Auxerre, whose French version, as revised by Paul Louis Courier, is better known than the original. It appeared in 1559, thirty-nine years before the publication of the Greek text at Florence by Columbani. The chief subsequent editions are those by G. Jungermann (1605), J. B. de Villoison (1778, the first standard text with commentary), A. Coraes (Coray) (1802), P. L. Courier (1810, with a newly discovered passage), E. Seiler (1835), R. Hercher (1858), N. Piccolos (Paris, 1866) and Kiefer (Leipzig, 1904), W. D. Lowe (Cambridge, 1908). A. J. Pons’s edition (1878) of Courier’s version contains an exhaustive bibliography. There are English translations by G. Thorneley (1733, reprinted 1893), C. V. Le Grice (1803), R. Smith (in Bohn’s Classical Library), and the rare Elizabethan version by Angel Day from Amyot’s translation (ed. J. Jacobs in Tudor Library, 1890). The illustrated editions, generally of Amyot’s version, are numerous and some are beautiful, Prudhon’s designs being especially celebrated.
LONGWY, a fortified town of north-eastern France in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, 89 m. N.N.W of Nancy by rail. Pop. (1906) 8523. Longwy is situated on a plateau overlooking the Chiers, a right-bank affluent of the Meuse, near the frontiers of Belgium and Luxemburg. It comprises an upper and a lower town; the former, on a hill, 390 ft. above the Chiers valley, commands the Luxemburg road, and is strengthened by an enceinte and a few outlying fortifications. There is garrison accommodation for 5000 men and 800 horses, but the permanent garrison is small. The lower town is the industrial centre. The 17th-century church has a lofty square tower, the hôtel de ville dates from 1730, and there is a fine hospital. Iron is extensively mined in the district, and supplies numerous blast furnaces. Several iron and steel works are in operation, and metal utensils, fire-proof ware and porcelain are manufactured. Longwy (Longus vicus) came into the possession of the French in 1678 and was at once fortified by Vauban. It was captured by the Prussians in 1792, 1815 and 1871.
LÖNNROT, ELIAS (1802-1884), Finnish philologist and discoverer of the Kalevala, was born at Nyland in Finland on the 9th of April 1802. He was an apothecary’s assistant, but entered the university of Åbo in 1822, and after taking his successive degrees became a physician in 1832. But before this, as early as 1827, he had begun to publish contributions to the study of the ancient Finnish language, and to collect the national ballads and folklore, a field which was at that time uncultivated. In 1833 he settled as a doctor in the country district of Kajana, and began to travel throughout Finland and the adjoining Russian provinces in his leisure time, collecting songs and legends. In this way he was able to put together the great epic of Finland, the Kalevala, the first edition of which he published in 1835; he continued to add to it, and in 1849 issued a larger and completer text. In 1840 Lönnrot issued his important collection of the Kanteletar, or folk-songs of ancient Finland, which he had taken down from oral tradition. The Proverbs of Finland followed in 1842. In 1853, on the death of Castrén, Lönnrot became professor of the Finnish language and literature at the high school of Helsingfors; he retired from this chair in 1862. He died on the 19th of March 1884.
LONSDALE, EARLS OF. This English earldom is held by the ancient family of Lowther, which traces its descent to Sir Hugh Lowther, who flourished in the reign of Edward I. Sir Hugh’s descendant Sir Richard Lowther (1529-1607) received Mary queen of Scots on her flight into England in 1568, and in the two following years was concerned with his brother Gerard in attempts to release her from captivity. He was sheriff of Cumberland and lord warden of the west marches. A house built by Gerard Lowther at Penrith is now the “Two Lions Inn.” Sir Richard’s eldest son, Sir Christopher Lowther (d. 1617), was the ancestor of the later Lowthers, and another son. Sir Gerard Lowther (d. 1624), was judge of the common pleas in Ireland.