home morning and evening to be milked; and the herds, when numerous, are unremittingly attended both by men and dogs day and night. Men and boys, wives and daughters, according to Dr. Clarke, take the post of watching by turns, twice or thrice a-day; and each goes out with several dogs, which belong in property to that individual whose commands alone they will obey. The former guards in the mean while return with their hungry dogs. Hence, it not unfrequently happens that eight or twelve dogs march over the heads of the persons sleeping in the gamme in quest of comfortable spots for themselves to rest in; and, when the Laplander returns wearied to his gamme, he always willingly shares his reindeer flesh and his soup with his dog, which he would hardly do with either father or mother.

Here are found small breeds of oxen, cows, dogs, sheep, and goats: the last two uncommonly prolific. Birds are also numerous, and Lapland contains many peculiar to itself. The most remarkable is the bird of a hundred tongues,' or Swedish mocking bird, extolled for the beauty of its plumage and variety of its tones. The seas abound in fish, and the rivers and,lakes in excellent salmon, pike, perch, trout, eels, and char. Against the insects, which in summer prove a great annoyance, the inhabitants defend themselves by keeping their tents and huts as full of smoke as possible. The Laplanders are low in stature, ill shaped; have remarkably large heads, and harsh features. They are, however, strong, hardy, and robust; can bear incredible fatigue; and the stoutest Norwegian, it is said, is not able to bend the bow of a Laplander. The women have a delicate and florid complexion. Both sexes are simple, honest, hospitable, and timorous but their timidity, respects war alone; for to many other species of dangers they expose themselves with surprising intrepidity, whether in ascending and descending mountains and precipices with their snow shoes and in sledges, or in venturing amidst whirlpools and cataracts in slender boats made of thin fir boards, fastened together with thongs of leather, sinews of wild beasts, or tough and flexible twigs. These boats are of different sizes, from two to six yards in length, managed with oars, and caulked with moss so tight as to keep out the water.

The Laplanders are partly settled, and partly roving: the latter live in tents made with coarse cloth the former are fixed in small villages near the lakes, and chiefly follow fishing. They build their cottages in the shape of a cone, by placing a circle of large trees or poles aslant in the earth, and close to each other, so that their tops meet, and form a small vent for the issue of the smoke: the ground within they cover with branches of trees. Their domestic utensils are nothing but a few boxes, baskets, some bowls of birch wood, with pots and kettles made of brass or copper, more frequently of stone, and spoons made of the horn of the rein-deer. The beds, or more properly the sleeping places, are on logs laid on each side of the fire-place. In spring their food consists principally of the eggs of water fowls, which are extremely plentiful; in summer and autumn, of the birds themselves; and in winter, of the milk and flesh of the rein-deer and dried

fish. Not long since they had no bread, but used the inner rind of the pine-tree dried and ground, and dried fish reduced to powder. They make confections and decoctions of berries, an gelica, and sorrel, which they use as preservatives against the scurvy.

The Laplander enjoys almost uninterrupted health by temperance and exercise; but is very subject to sore eyes, and even to blindness, from the smoke of his hut, and the fires to which they are almost continually exposed. Some waste away in consumptions; others are afflicted with rheumatic pains and the scurvy; and a few are subject to vertigo and apoplexy. For the cure of all their internal disorders, they use the decoction of a certain species of moss; and, when this cannot be procured, they boil the stalks of angelica in the milk of the rein-deer. To their wounds they apply the turpentine that drops from the fir-tree. When frost-bitten (though this seldom happens), they thrust a hot iron into a cheese made of rein-deer's milk, and, with the fat that drops from it, anoint the frozen member, which generally recovers. But they often live to the age of 100 without feeling any disease; and it is not uncommon to see a Laplander in old age hunting, fowling, skaiting, and performing, with agility, the severest exercises of his youth.

The summer garb of the men consists of a long coat of coarse cloth, reaching down to the middle of the leg, and girded round the waist by a belt or girdle; from which hang a Norway knife, and a pouch containing flints, matches, tobacco, and other necessaries; the girdle itself being decorated with brass rings and chains. Their caps are made of the skin of the northern diver, with the feathers on; and their shoes of the rein-deer skin, with the hair outwards. They wear no linen; but the garments of the superior ranks are of a finer cloth; and they delight in various colors, of which red is the most agreeable. In winter they are totally cased up in coats, caps, boots, and gloves, made of rein-deer skins. The women's apparel differs very little from that of the men; only their girdles are more ornamented with rings, chains, needle-cases, and toys, that sometimes weigh 20 lbs. In winter, both men and women lie in their furs; in summer they cover themselves entirely with coarse blankets, to defend themselves from the gnats.

The Laplanders make surprising excursions upon the snow in their hunting expeditions. They provide themselves with a pair of skates, or snow shoes, which are fir boards covered with the rough skin of the rein-deer, turned in such a manner that the hair rises against the snow. One of these shoes is usually as long as the person who wears it; the other is about a foot shorter. The feet stand in the middle, and to them the shoes are fastened by thongs or withes. The Laplander, thus equipped, wields a long pole in his hand, near the end of which there is a round ball of wood, to prevent its piercing too deep in the snow; and with this he stops himself occasionally. By means of these accoutrements he will travel at the rate of sixty miles a-day, without being fatigued; ascending steep mountains, and sliding down

again with amazing swiftness. The Laplander is also provided with a carriage drawn by the rein-deer, in which he journeys with still greater rapidity. The sledge, called pulka, is made in the form of a small boat, with a convex bottom, that it may slide the more easily over the snow: the prow is sharp and pointed; but the sledge is flat behind. The traveller is swathed in this carriage like an infant in a cradle, with a stick in his hand to steer the vessel, and disengage it from pieces of rock or stumps of trees that may chance to encounter it in the route. He must also balance the sledge with his body, otherwise he will be in danger of being overturned. The traces, by which this carriage is fastened to reindeer, are fixed to a collar about the animal's neck, and run down over the breast between the fore and hind legs, to be connected with the prow of the sledge: the reins, managed by the traveller, are tied to the horns; and the trappings are furnished with little bells, the sound of which is agreeable to the animal. With this draught at his tail, the rein-deer, if pressed, will travel ten or twelve Swedish miles (seventy or eightyfour English miles) in a day; but by such hard driving he is generally destroyed. It, however, frequently happens, that he will persevere in his journey without intermission, and without refreshment, except occasionally moistening his mouth with the snow. Before he sets out, the Laplander whispers in his ear the way he is to go, and the place at which he is to halt, firmly persuaded that the beast understands his meaning. In the beginning of winter, the Laplanders mark the most frequented roads, by strewing them with fir boughs; which being frequently covered with new snow, and alternately beaten by the carriage, consolidates them into a kind of causeway; which is the harder if the surface has felt a partial thaw, and been crusted by a subsequent frost. It requires great caution to follow these tracts; for, if the carriage deviates to the right or left, the traveller is plunged into an abyss of snow. In less frequented parts, where there is no such beaten road, the Laplander directs his course by certain marks made on the trees, Hunting being the chief occupation of the Laplanders, they pursue it in winter by the tracks of the bear and other beasts upon the snow, and often run down their prey. They catch ermines in traps, and sometimes with dogs. Squirrels, martens, and sables, they kill with blunt darts, to avoid wounding the skin. Foxes and beavers are slain with sharp-pointed darts and arrows; in shooting which, they are accounted some of the best marksmen in the world. The larger beasts, such as bears, wolves, elks, and wild rein-deer, they either kill with fire-arms purchased in Sweden or Norway, or take in snares and pits. Their game laws are observed with great punctuality. The beast becomes the property of the man in whose snare or pit he is caught; and he who discovers a bear's den has the exclusive privilege of hunting him to death.

early marriages. Very little previous ceremony is used upon these occasions; an interchange of presents, and copious libations of brandy, are all that take place before the solemnisation and consummation. The gifts consist of rings, spoons, cups of silver, or silver gilt, and rix-dollars in specie, according to the wealth of the parties. The richest make also other gifts; such as silver girdles, and silk or cotton handkerchiefs for the neck. When banns have been published in the church, which is very commonly the case, the marriage immediately succeeds their publication; and the nuptials are consummated in one of the log-houses near the church, in which the Lapps deposit their stores for the annual fair. Upon these occasions, the bridegroom treats his friends with brandy, dried rein-deer flesh cooked with broth, rein-deer cheese, and bread and butter. If he be of a wealthy family, beer is also brewed: or, wanting this, plenty of pima and curds and whey are provided. The luxury of smoking tobacco, so general among the Lapps, is of course largely indulged upon these occasions, and even takes place during the repast. Dancing, being unknown among them, forms no part of the merry-making. After the marriage-feast, a general collection is made in money for the married couple, when the distribution of brandy is renewed, and continued for two or three hours, according as the gifts are more or less liberal. Upon this occasion, gifts of rein-deer are promised to the bridegroom, which he is afterwards to go and demand; but, if he make the visit without carrying brandy to the owner of the rein-deer, the promise is never kept. The dowry of wealthy parents, among the Laplanders, to their children when they marry, consists of from thirty to fifty, and even eighty rein-deer, besides vessels of silver and other utensils.'

This intelligent traveller contends, that the Laplander is clearly of Asiatic origin. His features mark him at once as belonging to a distinct and peculiar race of men;-eyes half closed; mouth pinched close, but wide; ears full and large, projecting far from the head; complexion tawny and copper colored; hair dark, straight, and lank, none growing near the nape of the neck: add to this a small and stunted stature, with singular flexibility of limbs, easily falling into any posture, like the Oriental nations; looks regarding objects askance; hands constantly oecupied in the beginning of conversation with filling a short tobacco-pipe; the head being turned over one shoulder to the person addressing, instead of fronting the speaker ;—such is the characteristic portrait of one and every Laplander. The moment we saw any of them, we could immediately recognise those traits by which the whole tribe are distinguished from the other inhabitants of Europe, and in which they differ from the other natives of the land in which they live. Even the Finlander, who is supposed to be a sort of cousin-german, differs, in many respects, from the Laplander. The hair of the Finlander is of a fair color; either pale yellow, flaxen, or almost white: and the honest Swede, of nobler race than either, is a giant, in whose person and manner there is nothing of the catlike flexibility of the Asiatic, nor any resem

blance to that orient complexion, and form of the countenance which assimilates the Laplander to the natives of Japan.'

LAPLANDERS, the natives of Lapland. See LAPLAND. They call themselves SalmeSame, and Samen-Almatjeh. Their country they denominate Same Landa, or Same-aednam; the Swedes style it Lapland or Lappmarken, and the inhabitants Lappar. The natives of those districts under the dominion of Sweden are Lutherans; while many of those who are subject to Russia are still Pagans. The Laplanders, before their conversion to Christianity, which was not till lately introduced among t them, possessed no books or MSS., though they knew many traditional histories and songs of ancient heroes and princes who once reigned over them; but involved in great uncertainty, and mixed with the most fabulous accounts.

They have now a translation of the New Testament in their language; and many of the natives are able to read and write.

LAPLYSIA, the sea-hare, a genus of marine insects belonging to the order of vermes mollusca. The body is covered with membranes reflected. It has a shield-like membrane on the back, a lateral pore on the right side, the anus on the extremity of the back, with four feelers resembling ears. It grows to two inches and a half long, and to more than an inch in diameter; its body approaches to an oval figure, and is soft, punctuated, of a kind of gelatinous substance, and of a pale lead color; from the larger extremity there arise four oblong and thick protuberances; these are the tentacula; two of them stand nearly erect, two are thrown backward. It is common about our shores, especially off Anglesea. It causes, by its poisonous juice, the hair to fall off the hands of those that touch it; and is so extremely fetid as to occasion sick

ness.

LAPSANA, nipplewort, a genus of the polygamia æqualis order, and syngenesia class of plants natural order forty-ninth, composite: receptacle naked: CAL. calyculated, with all the inferior scales canaliculated, or finely channelled. There are species, which grow commonly by the sides of ditches. The young leaves of the common kind, called dock-cresses, have the taste of radishes, and are eaten raw at Constantinople as a salad. In some parts of England the people boil them as greens, but they have a bitter and disagreeable taste.

:

LAPSE, n. s. & v. n. Fr. laps; Ital. lapso ; Lat. lapsus. A fall; slip; flow; smooth course: metaphorically, apostasy; error; venial fault; mistake transfer of legal right, by the party who possessed it having failed to exercise it in due time: to lapse is, to slip; fall; fail; glide away; lose the proper time or opportunity; fall legally from a negligent party to another; fall from truth or moral purity.

I have ever verified my friends, Of whom he's chief, with all the size that verity Would without lapsing suffer. Shakspeare.

Barrow.

The weakness of human understanding all will confess; yet the confidence of most practically disowns it; and it is easier to persuade them of it from Glanville. other lapses than their own. These are petty errors and minor lapses, not considerably injurious unto truth.

Browne's Vugar Errours. These were looked on as lapsed persons, and great severities of penance were prescribed them, as apStillingfleet. pears by the canons of Ancyra.

Homer, in his characters of Vulcan and Thersites, has lapsed into the burlesque character, and departed from that serious air essential to an epick poem.

Addison.

If the archbishop shall not fill it up within six months ensuing, lapses to the king.

Id.

This scripture may be usefully applied as a caution to guard against those lapses and failings to which our infirmities daily expose us. Rogers.

It hath been my constant business to examine whether I could find the smallest lapse in stile or propriety through my whole collection, that I might send it abroad as the most finished piece. Swift.

This disposition to shorten our words, by retrenching the vowels, is nothing else but a tendency to lapse into the barbarity of those northern nations from whom we are descended, and whose languages ld. labour all under the same defect. Let there be no wilful perversion of another's meaning; no sudden seizure of a lapsed syllable te Watts. play upon it.

Wrapt in the thought of immortality,
Wrapt in the single, the triumphant thought,
Long life might lapse, age unperceived come on,
And find the soul unsated with her theme.

Young.

Those faults which we cannot conceal from our own notice, are considered, however frequent, not as habitual corruptions or settled practices, but as casual failures, and single lapses. Johnson:

Concerning lapsed Christians, Saint Paul gave instruction, that, if any man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a man in the spirit of meekness, considering lest ye also be tempted.' Paley.

LAPSE, in ecclesiastical law, an omission of a patron to present a clerk to a benefice within six

Pringle's Observations on the Diseases of the Army. This was followed by a translation of the Greek romance of Chereas and Callirhoe. In 1767 he published remarks, under the title of a Supplement, on Voltaire's Philosophy of History; to which the latter replied in his Defense de mon Oncle. Larcher rejoined in a Reponse à la Defense de mon Oncle. He now undertook his celebrated translation of Herodotus; and in 1774 published a Memoire sur Venus, to which the Academy of Inscriptions awarded their prize. He followed with a translation of Xenophon, which led to his being elected into the academy. During the revolution he lived very privately, and was subsequently decreed a sum of 3000 livres, and received into the Institute. He was also appointed professor of Greek in the Imperial university, but was too aged for service. Larcher died December 22d, 1812, universally regretted and esteemed. In 1814 his library was sold by auction.

LARD, n. s. & v. a. I French, lard, larder; LAR DER, n. s. Span. and Ital. lardo; Lat. lardum, vel laridum; qu. largè aridum?' Ainsworth. Bacon; the fat of bacon; grease, or fat generally to lard is to fatten; make like bacon; hence, metaphorically, to flatter; bedaub with praise; mix with something else by way of real or pretended improvement. A larder is an apartment where bacon or other meat is cured or salted; hence, where meat or victuals are kept. This similitude is not borrowed of the larder house,

but out of the school house.

Ascham.

Mr. Lardner, it

Swearing by heaven; the poets think this nothing, their plays are so much larded with it. Collier's View of the Stage. LARDNER (Nathaniel), an eminent English dissenting divine, born at Hawkhurst in Kent, June 6th 1684. After a grammatical education, he was sent first to a dissenting academy in London, under the care of the Rev. Dr. Joshua Oldfield; and thence, in his sixteenth year, to prosecute his studies at Utrecht, under the celebrated professors D'Uries, Grævius, and Burman. Here he remained above three years, and then removed for a short space to Leyden. Ir. 1703 he returned to England, continuing at his father's house to prepare himself by close and diligent study for the sacred profession which he had in view. In 1709 he first entered the pulpit, and a few years after was received into lady Treby's family, as domestic chaplain and tutor to her son. He continued in this situation till her ladyship's death in 1721. This event threw him into circumstances of some perplexity, having preached to several congregations during his residence with lady Treby, without the approbation or choice of any one congregation; a circumstance which Dr. Kippis considers reproachful to the Dissenters. seems, was very deficient in elocution and delivery. He was engaged, however, with some of his dissenting brethren in preaching a Tuesday evening lecture at the Old Jewry. In February 1727 he published, in two volumes 8vo., the first part of The Credibility of the Gospel History, or the Facts occasionally mentioned in the New Testament confirmed by passages of ancient authors, who were contemporary with our Saviour or his apostles, or lived near their time. An appendix was subjoined, relating to the time of Herod's death. It is scarcely necessary to say,' observes Dr. Kippis, how well his work was received by the learned world. Not only was it highly approved by the Protestant Dissenters, with whom the author was more immediately connected, but by the clergy in general of the established church; and its reputation gradually extended into foreign countries. These two, with the subsequent fifteen, volumes octavo, and the four thin quartos, entitled Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, occupied him, with the interruption arising from some smaller productions, during the space of forty-three years. The Supplement to the Credibility was published separately, under the title of the History of the Gospels and Epistles. But applauded as Dr. Lardner's works were, he received little recompense for them. Some of the latter volumes of the Credibility were published at a loss; and at last he sold the copyright and all the remaining copies to the booksellers, for the trifling sum of £150. He just lived to see the last volume, the fourth of the Testimonies, published. This was in 1767. He was seized with a decline in the summer following; and was carried off in a few days at Hawkhurst, the place of his nativity, where he had a small paternal estate, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

LARENTINALIA, in antiquity, a feast held among the Romans on the 23rd day of Decen ber, but ordered by Augustus to be observed twice