s.

LAWRENCE, GEORGE ALFRED (1827-1876).--Novelist, was a barrister. He wrote
several novels, of which one--_Guy Livingstone_ (1857)--had great
popularity. On the outbreak of the American Civil War he went to America
with the intention of joining the Confederate Army, but was taken
prisoner and only released on promising to return to England.

LAYAMON (_fl._ 1200).--Metrical historian, the _s._ of Leovenath. All
that is known of him is gathered from his own writings. He was a priest
at Ernley (now Areley Regis), Worcestershire. In his day the works of
Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace, in French, were the favourite reading of
the educated, and "it came to him in mind" that he would tell the story
of _Brut_ in English verse. He set out in search of books and, founding
his poem on the earlier writers, he added so much from his own knowledge
of Welsh and West of England tradition that while Wace's poem consists of
15,000 lines, his extends to 32,000. Among the legends he gives are those
of _Locrine_, _Arthur_, and _Lear_. The poem is in the old English
unrhymed, alliterative verse, and "marks the revival of the English mind
and spirit."

LAYARD, SIR AUSTIN HENRY (1817-1894).--Explorer of Nineveh, _b._ at
Paris, _s._ of a Ceylon civilian. After spending some years in the office
of a London solicitor, he set out in search of employment in Ceylon, but
passing through Western Asia, became interested in the work of excavating
the remains of ancient cities. Many of his finds--human-headed bulls,
etc.--were sent to the British Museum. Two books--_Nineveh and its
Remains_ (1848-49), and _The Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_
(1853)--brought him fame, and on his return home he received many
honours, including the freedom of the City of London, the degree of
D.C.L. from Oxf., and the Lord Rectorship of Aberdeen Univ. He entered
Parliament, where he sat as a Liberal. He held the offices of
Under-Foreign Sec. (1861-66), and Chief Commissioner of Works (1868-69),
and was Ambassador to Spain 1869, and Constantinople 1877; and on his
retirement in 1878 he was made G.C.B. He was a very successful excavator,
and described his work brilliantly, but he was no great linguist, and
most of the deciphering of the inscriptions was done by Sir H. Rawlinson.
His last work was _Early Adventures in Persia, etc._, and he left an
autobiography, _pub._ in 1903. He also wrote on Italian art.

LEAR, EDWARD (1812-1888).--Artist and miscellaneous author,