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LUZZATTO, SAMUEL DAVID (1800-1865), Jewish scholar, was born at Trieste in 1800, and died at Padua in 1865. He was the most distinguished of the Italian Jewish scholars of the 19th century. The first Jew to suggest emendations to the text of the Hebrew Bible, he edited Isaiah (1856-1867), and wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch (1871). His grammatical works were mostly written in Italian. He also contributed to the history of the Synagogue liturgy, and enjoys with Geiger (q.v.) and Zunz (q.v.) the honour of reviving interest in the medieval Hebrew hymnology and secular verse.
See Grätz, History of the Jews (Eng. trans.), v. 622 seq.; N. Slouschz, The Renascence of Hebrew Literature, pp. 84-92; the Jewish Encyclopedia, viii. 225-226, with list of works.
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LYALL, SIR ALFRED COMYN (1835- ), Anglo-Indian civil servant and man of letters, son of the Rev. Alfred Lyall, was born in 1835, and educated at Eton and Haileybury. He entered the Bengal civil service in 1855, saw service during the Mutiny in the Bulandshahr district, at Meerut, and with the Khaki Risala of volunteers. He was commissioner in Berar (1867), secretary to the government of India in the Home and Foreign departments, lieutenant-governor of the North-western Provinces (1882-1887), and member of the Council of India (1888-1903). Among his writings, his Verses Written in India (1889) attained considerable popularity, and in his Asiatic Studies (1882 and 1899) he displays a deep insight into Indian life and character. He wrote the Life of Lord Dufferin (1905), and made numerous contributions to periodical literature.
LYALL, EDNA, the pen-name of Ada Ellen Bayly (1857-1903), English novelist. She was born at Brighton in 1857, the daughter of a barrister. Her parents died while she was a child, and she was brought up at Caterham, Surrey. At Eastbourne, where most of her life was spent, she was well known for her philanthropic activity. She died on the 8th of February 1903. Edna Lyall’s vogue as a novelist was the result of a combination of the story-teller’s gift with a sincere ethical and religious spirit of Christian tolerance, which at the time was new to many readers. Though her Won by Waiting (1879) had some success, it was with Donovan (1882) and We Two (1884), in which the persecuted atheist was inevitably identified with Charles Bradlaugh, that she became widely popular. Other novels were In the Golden Days (1885), a story of the Great Rebellion; Knight Errant (1887); Autobiography of a Slander (1887); A Hardy Norseman (1889); Derrick Vaughan, The Story of a Novelist (1889); To Right the Wrong (1892); Doreen (1894), a statement of the case for Irish Home Rule; The Autobiography of a Truth (1896), the proceeds of which were devoted to the Armenian Relief Fund; In Spite of All (1901), which had originally been produced by Mr Ben Greet as a play; and The Bruges Letters (1902), a book for children.
A Life by J. N. Escreet appeared in 1904, and a shorter account of her by the Rev. G. A. Payne was printed at Manchester in 1903.