e, and
produced examples regarded as classics to this day; his principal dramas,
all conceived on the soil, are "Miss Sara Sampson," "Mina von Barnhelm,"
"Emilia Galotti," and "Nathan der Weise," and his principal prose works
are his "Fables" and "Laocoon," a critical work on art still in high
repute (1729-1781).

L'ESTRANGE, SIR ROGER, a zealous Royalist, born in Norfolk; was for
his zeal in the royal cause committed to prison; having escaped, he was
allowed to live in retirement under Cromwell, but woke up a vigorous
pamphleteer and journalist in the old interest at the Restoration,
"wounding his Whig foes very sorely, and making them wince"; he
translated Josephus, Cicero's "Offices," Seneca's "Morals," the
"Colloquies" of Erasmus, and Quevedo's "Visions," his most popular work
(1616-1704).

LETHE (i. e. oblivion), in the Greek mythology a stream in the
nether world, a draught of the waters of which, generally extended to the
ghosts of the dead on their entrance into Pluto's kingdom, obliterated
all recollection of the past and its sorrows.

LETO (i. e. the hidden one), one of the Titan brood, who became by
Zeus the mother of Apollo and Artemis, and for whose confinement, in her
persecution by Hera, Poseidon by a stroke of his trident fixed the till
then floating island of Delos to the sea-bottom.

LETTER OF MARQUE, a commission to the captain of a merchant ship or
a privateer to make reprisals on an enemy's ships or property.

LETTERS PATENT, a document under seal of the government granting
some special privilege to a person.

LETTRES DE CACHET (i. e. sealed letters), warrants of
imprisonment, issued prior to the Revolution, sealed with the private
seal of the king, in contradistinction from _lettres patentees_, which
were sealed by the Great Seal of the kingdom. See CACHET, LETTRE
DE.

LEUCIPPUS, a Greek philosopher of the 6th century B.C., the founder
of the Atomic theory of things, of which DEMOCRITUS (q. v.) was
the chief expounder.

LEUCTRA, a village in Boeotia, to the S. of Thebes, where in 371
B.C. Epaminondas and his Thebans overthrew the ascendency of Sparta.

LEUTHEN, a village in the W. of Breslau, in Silesia, where Frederick
the Great defeated the Austrians with great loss in 1757.

LEVANA, the title of a book by Jean Paul on the education of
children; title from the name of a Roman goddess, the protectress of
foundlings.

LEVANT (i. e. the Rising), a name given to t