LULLY, JEAN-BAPTISTE (c. 1633-1687), Italian composer, was born in Florence. Through the duc de Guise he entered the services of Madame de Montpensier as scullery-boy, and with the help of this lady his musical talents were cultivated. A scurrilous poem on his patroness resulted in his dismissal. He then studied the theory of music under Métra and entered the orchestra of the French court, being subsequently appointed director of music to Louis XIV. and director of the Paris opera. The influence of his music produced a radical revolution in the style of the dances of the court itself. Instead of the slow and stately movements which had prevailed until then, he introduced lively ballets of rapid rhythm. In December 1661 he was naturalized as a Frenchman, his original name being Giovanni Battista Lulli. In 1662 he was appointed music master to the royal family. In 1681 he was made a court secretary to the king and ennobled. While directing a Te Deum on the 8th of January 1687 with a rather long baton he injured his foot so seriously that a cancerous growth resulted which caused his death on the 22nd of March. Having found a congenial poet in Quinault, Lully composed twenty operas, which met with a most enthusiastic reception. Indeed he has good claim to be considered the founder of French opera, forsaking the Italian method of separate recitative and aria for a dramatic consolidation of the two and a quickened action of the story such as was more congenial to the taste of the French public. He effected important improvements in the composition of the orchestra, into which he introduced several new instruments. Lully enjoyed the friendship of Molière, for some of whose best plays he composed illustrative music. His Miserere, written for the funeral of the minister Sequier, is a work of genius; and very remarkable are also his minor sacred compositions. On his death-bed he wrote Bisogna morire, peccatore.
LUMBAGO, a term in medicine applied to a painful aliment affecting the muscles of the lower part of the back, generally regarded as of rheumatic origin. An attack of lumbago may occur alone, or be associated with rheumatism in other parts of the body. It usually comes on by a seizure, often sudden, of pain in one or both sides of the small of the back, of a severe cutting or stabbing character, greatly aggravated on movement of the body, especially in attempting to rise from the recumbent posture and also in the acts of drawing a deep breath, coughing or sneezing. So intense is the suffering that it is apt to suggest the existence of inflammation in some of the neighbouring internal organs, such as the kidneys, bowels, &c., but the absence of the symptoms specially characteristic of these latter complaints, or of any great constitutional disturbance beyond the pain, renders the diagnosis a matter of no great difficulty. Lumbago seems to be brought on by exposure to cold and damp, and by the other exciting causes of rheumatism. Sometimes it follows a strain of the muscles of the loins. The attack is in general of short duration, but occasionally it continues for a long time, as a feeling of soreness and stiffness on movement. The treatment includes that for rheumatic affections in general (see [Rheumatism]) and the application of local remedies to allay the pain.
LUMBER, a word now meaning (1) useless discarded furniture or other rubbish, particularly if of a bulky or heavy character; (2) timber, when roughly sawn or cut into logs or beams (see [Timber]); (3) as a verb, to make a loud rumbling noise, to move in a clumsy heavy way, also to burden with useless material, to encumber. “Lumber” and “lumber-house” were formerly used for a pawnbroker’s shop, being in this sense a variant of “Lombard,” a name familiar throughout Europe for a banker, money-changer or pawnbroker. This has frequently been taken to be the origin of the word in sense (1), the reference being to the store of unredeemed and unsaleable articles accumulating in pawnbrokers’ shops. Skeat adopts this in preference to the connexion with “lumber” in sense (3), but thinks that the word may have been influenced by both sources (Etym. Dict., 1910). This word is probably of Scandinavian origin, and is cognate with a Swedish dialect word lomra, meaning “to roar,” a frequentative of ljumma, “to make a noise.” The English word may be of native origin and merely onomatopoeic. The New English Dictionary, though admitting the probability of the association with “Lombard,” prefers the second proposed derivation. The application of the word to timber is of American origin; the New English Dictionary quotes from Suffolk (Mass.) Deeds of 1662—“Freighted in Boston, with beames ... boards ... and other lumber.”
LUMBINĪ, the name of the garden or grove in which Gotama, the Buddha, was born. It is first mentioned in a very ancient Pali ballad preserved in the Sutta Nipāta (verse 583). This is the Song of Nalaka (the Buddhist Simeon), and the words put in the mouth of the angels who announce the birth to him are: “The Wisdom-child, that jewel so precious, that cannot be matched, has been born at Lumbinī, in the Sākiya land, for weal and for joy in the world of men.” The commentaries on the Jātakas (i. 52, 54), and on a parallel passage in the Majjhima (J.R.A.S., 1895, p. 767), tell us that the mother of the future Buddha was on her way from Kapilavastu (Kapilavatthu), the capital of the Sākiyas, to her mother’s home at Devadaha, the capital of the adjoining tribe, the Koliyas, to be confined there. Her pains came upon her on the way, and she turned aside into this grove, which lay not far from Devadaha, and gave birth there to her son. All later Buddhist accounts, whether Pali or Sanskrit, repeat the same story.
A collection of legends about Asoka, included in the Divyāvadāna, a work composed probably in the 1st or 2nd century A.D., tells us (pp. 389, 390) how Asoka, the Buddhist emperor, visited the traditional site of this grove, under the guidance of Upagupta. This must have been about 248 B.C. Upagupta (Tissa: see [Pali]) himself also mentions the site in his Kathā Vatthu (p. 559). The Chinese pilgrims, Fa Hien and Hsuan Tsang, visiting India in the 5th and 7th centuries A.D., were shown the site; and the latter (ed. Watters, ii. 15-19) mentions that he saw there an Asoka pillar, with a horse on the top, which had been split, when Hsuan Tsang saw it, by lightning. This pillar was rediscovered under the following circumstances.
The existence, a few miles beyond the Nepalese frontier, of an inscribed pillar had been known for some years when, in 1895, the discovery of another inscribed pillar at Niglīva, near by, led to the belief that this other, hitherto neglected, one must also be an Asoka pillar, and very probably the one mentioned by Hsuan Tsang. At the request of the Indian government the Nepalese government had the pillar, which was half-buried, excavated for examination; and Dr Führer, then in the employ of the Archaeological Survey, arrived soon afterwards at the spot.