The three great convents in the vicinity, all claiming to be foundations of Tsongkhapa, the mediæval reformer and organizer of the modern orthodox Lama Church, are the following:1. Bre-bung (written Bras-sPungs, "the Rice-Heap, so called from the shape of the hill on which it stands), called by Nain Singh Debang, is 5 or 6 miles from Lhasa, west of the city, at the entrance to the plain from the side of Shigatzé and Nepal. In the middle of the convent buildings rises a kind of pavilion, brilliant with colour and gilding, which is reserved for the Dalai Lama, when he visits Brebung once a year, and expounds to the inmates. The place is greatly frequented by the Mongol students who come to Lhasa to graduate, and is known in the country as the Mongol convent. 2. Sera (The Golden ") is 2 or 3 miles from the city on the acclivity of the hills which border the valley on the north, and close to the road by which pilgrims enter from Mongolia. The hill is planted with holly and cypress, and from a distance the crowd of buildings and temples, rising in amphitheatre against a background of trees, forms a pleasing picture. In the recesses of the hill, high above the convent, are scattered cells of lamas adopting the solitary life. There are three great temples rising in many stories, the walls of which are entirely covered with gilding, whence the convent's name. In the chief of these temples is preserved the famous Dorje of Buddha, i.e., the Vajra or Thunderbolt (of Indra properly), or Adamant, the symbol of the strong and indestructible, which the priest grasps and manipulates in various ways during prayer. From this dorje, according to one etymology at least, comes the name of the Himalayan sanatarium Dorjiling or Darjeeling. The emblem is a bronze instrument, shaped much like a dumb-bell with pointed ends, and it is said by Koeppen to have been one of the later lama borrowings from Sivaism. The original is carried solemnly in procession to Labrang during the New Year's festival. In Sera P. Desideri found shelter during the capture of the city by the Dzungar Khan in 1717, spoken of below. The hill adjoining Sera is believed to be rich in silver ore, but it is not allowed to be worked. On the summit is a spring, and a holy place of the Lhasa Mohammedans, who resort thither. Near the convent there is said to be gold, which is worked by the monks. "Should they discover a nugget of large size, it is immediately replaced in the earth, under the impression that the large nuggets. germinate in time, producing the small lumps which they are privileged to search for "(Nain Singh).

3. Galdan. This great convent is 10 or 12 miles east of Lhasa, on the other side of the Kichu Tsangpo river. It is the oldest monastery of the "Yellow" sect, having been founded by Tsongkhapa, and having had him for its first superior. Here his body is said to be preserved with miraculous circumstances, and here are other relics of him, such as the impression of his hands and feet in hard butter. Samaye (bSam-yas) is another famous convent intimately connected with Lhasa, but it lies some 36 miles south-east on the left bank of the great Tsangpo. It was founded by Padma Sambhava (Ur-ghien of the Tibetans), the apostle who came from Udayâna in the 8th century as the great reviver of Buddhism, and was at the head of the old Red sect. It is visited by the Dalai Lama once a year. It is surrounded by a very high circular stone wall, 14 miles in circumference, with gates facing the four points of the compass. On this wall Nain Singh, who was here on his last journey (1874), counted 1030 chaityas of brick. One very large temple (Lha-khang) occupies the centre, and round it are four smaller but still very large temples. Many of the idols are of pure gold, and the wealth is very great. The interiors of the temples are covered with beautiful writing in enormous Nagari characters, which the vulgar believe to be the writing of Sakya himself.

Lhasa Festivities.-The greatest of these is at the new year. This lasts fifteen days, and is a kind of lama carnival, in which masks and mummings, wherein the Tibetans take especial delight, play a great part. The celebration commences at midnight, with shouts and clangour of bells, gongs, chank-shells, drums, and all the noisy repertory of Tibetan music; whilst friends exchange early visits and administer coarse sweetmeats and buttered tea. On the 2d day the Dalai Lama gives a grand banquet, at which the Chinese and native authorities are present, whilst in the public spaces, and in front of the great convents, all sorts of shows and jugglers' performances go Next day a regular Tibetan exhibition takes place. A long cable, twisted of leather thongs, is stretched from

on.

the plain, where it is strongly moored. Two men slide from top to bottom of this huge hypothenuse, sometimes lying on the chest (which is protected by a breast-plate of strong leather), spreading their arms as if to swim, and descending with the rapidity of an arrow-flight. Occasionally fatal accidents occur in this performance, which is called "the dance of the gods"; but the survivors are rewarded by the court, and the Grand Lama himself is always a witness of it. This practice occurs more or less over the Himalayan plateau, and is known in the neighbourhood of the Ganges as Barat. It is employed as a kind of expiatory rite in cases of pestilence and the like. And exactly the same performance is described as having been exhibited in St Paul's Churchyard before King Edward VI., and again before Philip of Spain, as well as, about 1750, at Hertford and other places in England (see Strutt's Sports, &c., 2d ed., p. 198).

The most remarkable celebration of the new year's festivities is the great jubilee of the Monlam (sMon-lam, Lamas from all parts of Tibet, but chiefly from the great "prayer"), instituted by Tsongkhapa himself in 1409. convents in the neighbourhood, flock to Lhasa, and every road leading thither is thronged with troops of monks on foot or horseback, on yaks or donkeys, and carrying with them their breviaries and their cooking-pots. They descend like swarms of bees upon the city, and those who cannot find lodging bivouac in the streets and squares, or pitch their little black tents in the plain. The festival lasts six days, during which there reigns a kind of saturnalia, and the town is abandoned to these crowds of monks. Unspeakable confusion and disorder reign, whilst gangs of lamas parade the streets, shouting, singing, and coming to blows. The object of this great disorderly gathering is, however, supposed to be devotional. Vast processions take place, with mystic offerings and lama-music, to the Labrang and Moru convents; the Grand Lama himself assists at the festival, and from an elevated throne beside the Labrang receives the offerings of the multitude, and bestows his benediction.

On the 15th of the first month multitudes of torches are

kept ablaze, which lighten up the city to a great distance, whilst the interior of the Labrang is illuminated throughout the night by innumerable lanterns shedding light on coloured figures in bas-relief, framed in arabesques of animals, birds, and flowers, and representing the history of Buddha, and other subjects, all modelled in butter. The figures are executed on a large scale, and, as described by Huc, who witnessed the festival at Kunbum on the frontier of China, with extraordinary truth and skill. These singular works of art occupy some months in preparation, and on the morrow are thrown away. On other days horse-races take place from Sera to Potala, and foot-races from Potala to the city. On the 27th of the month the holy Dorjé is carried in solemn procession from Sera to the Labrang, and to the presence of the Lama at Potala.

Of other great annual feasts, one, in the fourth month, is assigned to the conception of Sakya, but appears to connect itself with the old nature-feast of the entering of spring, and to be more or less identical with the Hult of India. A second, the consecration of the waters, in September-October, appears, on the confines of India, to be associated with the Dasehra.

On the 30th day of the second month there comes off a strange ceremony, akin to that of the scapegoat (which is not unknown in India). It is called the driving out of the demon. A man is hired to perform the part of demon (or victim rather), a part which sometimes ends fatally. is fantastically dressed, his face mottled with white and black, and is then brought forth from the Labrang to en

He

gage in quasi-theological controversy with one who represents the Grand Lama. This ends in their throwing dice against each other (as it were for the weal or woe of Lhasa). If the demon were to win the omen would be appalling; so this is effectually barred by false dice. The victim is then marched outside the city, followed by the troops, and by the whole populace, hooting, shouting, and firing volleys after him. Once he is driven off, the people return, and he is carried off to the Samayé convent. Should he die shortly after, this is auspicious; if not, he is kept in ward at Samayé for a twelvemonth.

Nain Singh, whose habitual accuracy is attested by many facts, mentions a strange practice of comparatively recent origin, according to which the civil power in the city is put up to auction for the first twenty-three days of the new year. The purchaser, who must be a member of the Brebung monastery, and is termed the Jalno, is a kind of lord of misrule, who exercises arbitrary authority during that time for his own benefit, levying taxes and capricious fines upon the citizens.

Climate, &c.-Pundit Nain Singh, who lived at Lhasa continuously from 26th January to 21st April (1866), made indoor observations of the thermometer from 9th to 23d February hourly, with the exception of eight hours of sleep (11 P.M. to 7 A.M.); and the extreme variation in the record is from 26° (February 2d, 11 A.M.) to 45°75 (February 22d, 2 P.M.). He also mentions that the river (Kichu Tsangpo) which flows by Lhasa was frozen in December, the great river (Brahmaputra) being open and passed by boats. Water kept in the warmest part of a house froze, and burst the vessels holding it. It is not easy to draw very precise conclusions from these facts, but they perhaps indicate a somewhat less severe winter than that of Ladak, where the true air temperature is reckoned by Captain H. Strachey to range between zero and 30° Fahr. In other respects the Pundit's account of the climate does not differ materially from those we possess of western Tibet. He says, besides, that strong and high winds are very prevalent, especially during March and April; but snow fell only twice in the three months of his stay, and not deeper than 3 inches. The fall on the surrounding hills was somewhat heavier, but apparently it did not lie, for in general hardly any snow was to be seen from the city. Should the snowfall in Lhasa ever exceed a foot, it is regarded as an evil omen. What little Desideri says is to like effect. The cold, he says, was never hurtful to health, and he had often spent the night (in winter apparently) under the open sky, without suffering. Lightning, which occurs only in connexion with the summer rains, is never known to strike houses or to kill.

It begins to be warm in May, and the sun's power rapidly grows most oppressive. There is a distinct rainy season at Shigatze (July to September), and this appears to extend to Lhasa, though the information is not very precise. Nain Singh was told that earthquakes are unknown in the Lhasa province. Cholera is said to be unknown; but dysentery is often violent, and rapidly fatal. Cough and chest diseases are not prevalent, nor are skin diseases common, in spite of the filthy habits of the people, The most dreaded of all diseases is smallpox. Inoculation is habitually used. Ophthalmia is very prevalent and severe. History. The seat of the princes whose family raised Tibet to a position among the powers of Asia was originally on the Yarlung river, in the extreme east of the region now occupied by Tibetan tribes. It was transplanted to Lhasa in the 7th century by the king Srong-dsan-gampo, conqueror, civilizer, and proselytizer, the founder of Buddhism in Tibet, the introducer of the Indian alphabet. On the three-peaked crag now occupied by the palacemonastery of the Great Lama this king is said to have established his fortress, whilst he founded in the plain below temples to receive the sacred images, brought respectively from Nepal and from China, by the brides to whom his own conversion is attributed.

Tibet endured as a conquering power some two centuries, and the more famous among the descendants of the founder added to the city. This-rong-de-tsan (who reigned 740-786) is said to have Tibetan style, the middle story the Chinese, and the upper story the erected a great temple-palace of which the basement followed the Indian-a combination which would aptly symbolize the elements that have moulded the culture of Lhasa, such as it is. His son, the last of the great orthodox kings, in the next century, is said to have summoned artists from Nepal and India, and among many splendid foundations to have erected a sanctuary (at Samayé) of vast height, which had nine stories, the three lower of stone, the three middle of brick, the three uppermost of timber. With this king the glory of Tibet and of ancient Lhasa reached its zenith, and in 822 an obelisk recording his treaty on equal terms with the Great Tang emperor of China was erected in the city. There followed dark days for Lhasa, and the Buddhist Church in the accession of this king's brother Langdharma, who has been called the Julian of the Lamas. This king rejected the doctrine, persecuted and scatimages. It was more than a century before Buddhism recovered its tered its ministers, and threw down its temples, convents, and hold, and its convents were rehabilitated over Tibet. The country was then split into an infinity of petty states, many of them ruled from the convents by warlike ecclesiastics; but, though the old monarchy never recovered, Lhasa seems to have maintained some supremacy, and probably never lost its claim to be the chief city of that congeries of principalities, with a common faith and a common language, which was called Tibet.

The Arab geographers of the 10th century speak of Tibet, but it is without real knowledge, and none speak of any city that we can identify with Lhasa. The first passage in any Western author in which such identification can be probably traced occurs in the narrative of Friar Odorico of Pordenone (c. 1330). This remarkable traveller's route from Europe to India, and thence by sea to China, can be traced satisfactorily, but of his journey homeward through Asia the indications are very fragmentary. He speaks, however, on this return journey of the realm of Tibet, which lay on the confines of India proper:-"The folk of that country dwell in tents made of black felt. But the chief and royal city is all built with walls of black and white, and all its streets are very well paved. In this city no one shall dare to shed the blood of any, whether man or beast, for the reverence they bear a certain idol that is there worshipped. In that city dwelleth the Abassi, i.e., in their tongue the pope, who is the head of all the idolators, and who has the disposal of all their benefices such as they are after their manner."

We know that Kublai Khan had constituted a young prince of the Lama Church, Mati Dhwaja, as head of that body, and tributary ruler of Tibet, but besides this all is obscure for a century. This passage of Odoric shows that such authority continued under since occupied by the Dalai Lama already existed. But it was not Kublai's descendants, and that some foreshadow of the position till a century after Odoric that the strange heredity of the dynasty of the Dalai Lamas of Lhasa actually began. And in the first two centuries of its existence the residence of these pontiffs was rather at Brebung or Sera than at Lhasa itself, though the latter was the centre of devout resort. sion, or reconversion, of the Mongols to Lamaism (c. 1577), which A great event for Lhasa was the convermade the city the focus of sanctity and pilgrimage to so rast a tract of Asia. It was in the middle of the 17th century that Lhasa became the residence of the Dalai Lama. A native prince, known of southern Tibet, and threatened to absorb the whole. The fifth as the Tsanpo, with his seat at Shigatzé, had made himself master Dalai Lama, Navang Lobsang, called in the aid of a Calmuck prince, Gushi Khan, from the neighbourhood of the Koko-nur, who defeated and slew the Tsanpo and made over full dominion in court, and built his palace, on the rock-site of the fortress of the Tibet to the Lama (1643). The latter now first established his ancient monarchy, which apparently had fallen into ruin, and to this he gave the name of Potala.1

In the time of this Dalai Lama, Lhasa was visited for the first time by European travellers. In 1624 Antonio d'Andrada, a Portu laya, and returned the following year with a coadjutor. But the guese Jesuit, had penetrated to Tibet through the Gangetic Himaplace which he reached was Caparangue in the kingdom of Cogue, as he calls it, i.e., Chaprang in the province of Gugé on the Tibetan Sutlej, and he never got nearer Lhasa, In June 1661 the Jesuit

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1 This name is absurdly explained by Abbé Huc as Buddha-la "hill of Buddha." This is not even a possible etymology, for, whilst the actual term Buddha seems never to be used untranslated in Tibet, one may discern from Hue's own book that la means, not "a hill," but "a pass" over mountains. The name seems to be really taken from the classical traditions of the Buddhists. Potala, "the harbour" (the Pattala of the Greeks, the modern Hyderabad on the Indus), was in legend the royal seat, for more than a hundred generations, of the Sakya progenitors of Gautama Buddha (see Csoma de Körös in Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, ii. 390.

It was

fathers, Albert D'Orville and John Grueber, started from Peking, | and, by the way of Siningfu and the Koko-nur, reached Lhasa, where they stayed a month, and then went on through Nepal to India. The extracts from Grueber's narrative, given by Athanasius Kircher in his China Illustrata (Amst., 1667), are accompanied by a drawing of Potala which, though meagre, appears to be genuine, and is the only European representation in existence of that Tibetan Vatican. The founder of Potala died in 1682, and his death was followed by events which brought on a time of trouble. He had appointed as regent" or civil administrator (Tisri, or Deba), one supposed to be his own natural son. This remarkable personage, Sangje Gyamtso, of great ambition and accomplishment, still renowned in Tibet as the author of some of the most valued works of the native literature, concealed the death of his master, asserting that the latter had retired, in mystic meditation or trance, to the upper chambers of the palace. The government continued to be carried on in the Lama's name by the regent, who leagued with Galdan Khan of Dzungaria against the Chinese (Manchu) power. not till the great emperor Kang-hi was marching on Tibet that the death of the Lama, sixteen years before, was admitted. A solemn funeral was then performed, at which 108,000 lamas assisted, and a new incarnation was set up in the person of a youth of fifteen. This young man was the scandal of the Lamaite Church in every kind of evil living and debauchery. But it was under him and the regent Sangje Gyamtso that the Potala palace attained its present scale of grandeur, and that most of the other great buildings of Lhasa were extended and embellished. In 1705-6 a Calmuck prince, Latsan Khan, great grandson of Gushi Khan, taking the renowned name of Jenghiz Khan, made himself master of Tibet, and put to death both the crafty regent and the dissolute lama whom he had set up. The Dzungarians crossed the northern desert in 1717, and stormed Lhasa, but were in turn driven out by the army of Kang-hi in 1720, and from that time the Chinese power, though, as elsewhere, it has been at times severely shaken, has never quite lost its hold of Tibet. It was in the midst of these troubled times (1708) that a Capuchin mission entered Lhasa. It was unfortunate in the death of its successive heads, and from about 1712 it was abandoned for several years, but after an interval the Capuchins reappeared, twelve in number, reaching Lhasa by Nepal in 1720. Nothing almost was heard of them till the head of the mission, P. Orazio della Penna, appeared at Rome in 1735 to report that nine were dead, and to ask reinforcement. He returned with nine more, carrying presents to the Grand Lama and the so-called "king of Tibet. In 1742 he reported his safe arrival, and that the presents were well received. Called to Nepal, where there was a branch of the mission, he died there in 1747. We possess some of the results collected by this mission in an excellent short treatise on Tibet by P. Orazio himself, as well as in the extraordinary hodge-podge of crude philology, rubbish, and valuable facts (like fossils imbedded in a bank of mud), the Alphabetum Tibetanum of the Augustine monk Ant. Giorgi (Rome, 1762). The mission seems to have been expelled from Tibet in 1754, and found refuge for a time in Nepal. Some fifty volumes, the relics of the mission library, were in 1847 recovered from Lhasa by Mr Bryan Hodgson, through the courtesy of the Grand Lama himself, and were transmitted as an offering to Pope Pius IX., then in the first bloom of reputation.

In 1716, moreover, two Jesuits, P. Ipolito Desideri of Pistoia, and P. Freyre, a Portuguese, reached Lhasa by way of Kashmir, Ladak, and the enormous journey from Ladak by the holy lakes and the valley of the Tsanpu. Desideri remained at Lhasa till April 1721, witnessing the capture of Lhasa successively by Dzungar and Chinese. Of the moderation of the latter, and their abstinence from all outrage or plunder, he speaks highly. His departure was due to controversies between the Jesuits and Capuchins at Rome, which caused an order to be issued for his retirement from Tibet. An interesting letter from him, dated April 10, 1716, is printed in the Lettres Edifiantes, Rec. xv., but a large MS. volume of his observations during his residence in Tibet is still unpublished. The next European visitor was Samuel Van de Putte of Flushing, an LL. D. of Leyden, whose thirst for travel carried him through India to Lhasa, where he is said to have resided a long time, to have acquired the language,

and to have become intimate with some of the lamas. After travelling from Lhasa to Peking with a lama mission he returned, again by Lhasa, to India, and was an eye-witness of the sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah in 1737. Unhappily he ordered his papers to be burnt after his death, and the knowledge that such a traveller must have accumulated died with him. We pass on to 1811-12 when the first (and last) English visit to Lhasa occurred. The traveller was Thomas Manning, a Cambridge man of Caius College, who had been long devoted to Chinese studies, the "friend M." of Charles Lamb, from whom "Elia" professes to have got that translation of a Chinese MS. which furnished the immortal dissertation on roast pig. After residing some years at Canton, Manning went to Calcutta, bent on reaching the interior of China through Tibet, since from the seaboard it was sealed. He actually did reach Lhasa, stayed there about five months, and had several interviews with the Dalai Lama, but was compelled to return to India. He never

published anything regarding his journey, and the very fact of its occurrence was known to few, when his narrative was printed, through the praiseworthy zeal of Mr C. Markham, in 1876. The man had given the reins to his own eccentricities till he seemed to have lost all power of seriousness, and the account, though containing some passages of great interest, is most disappointing.

The next travellers to reach Lhasa were Huc and Gabet, French Lazarist priests, who travelled from China the route followed by Grueber and by Van de Putte, via Siningfu, and reached Lhasa 29th January 1846. On the 15th of March they were sent off under escort by the rugged road to Sz'-chuen. Huc's book, Souvenirs d'un Voyage, &c., is probably still well known, and deserves to be so, for it is one of the most delightful among books of travel. Huc was indeed, not only without science, perhaps without accurate knowledge of any kind, but also without that geographical sense which sometimes enables a traveller to bring back valuable contributions to geographical knowledge though unable to make instrumental observations. He was, however, amazingly clever as a narrator and sketcher of character; and, in this his first work, his ambition to shine had not gained the upper hand as it did fatally in later works. It was Ke-shen, a well-known Chinese statesman, disgraced for making peace with the English at Canton in 1841, and who was then on a special deputation to Lhasa, who ostensibly expelled them. The Tibetan regent, with his enlightened and kindly spirit, is painted by Huc in most attractive colours, and Mr Markham expresses strongly the opinion that the native authorities were most willing to receive strangers, whilst the jealousy that excluded them was Chinese only. Recent experiences of attempts to enter Tibet contradict this view. The lamas, whose rule seems to have become more and more grasping and oppressive, appear to be sensible that their system would easily fall to pieces, and are violently opposed to the passage of Europeans across the Tibetan frontier.

Our latest narrative of a visit to Lhasa is that of the late Pundit Nain Singh, trained as an explorer in the Indian survey department. He reached the city in the course of two most remarkable journeys. In the first, after an ineffectual attempt by Nepal, he travelled by the Manasarowar Lake, and the road thence eastward, parallel to the course of the Tsanpu, reaching Lhasa 10th January 1866, and leaving it 21st April 1867. On the second journey (1874) he started from Ladak, crossing the vast and elevated plateau by the Tengri-nor and other great lakes, and again reaching Lhasa 18th November. Between these two journeys Lhasa had also been visited by another native explorer in 1872.1 Nain Singh, by his extraordinary surveys, and by repeated observations of latitude on his first visit, has fixed for us the position of Lhasa. But he also has given an account of his journeys, and of his residence there, which, though brief, is full of intelligence and interest, and appears to be thoroughly trustworthy. This enterprising and deserving man was, on the completion of his journey in 1875, rewarded by the Indian Government with a pension and grant of land, and afterwards received the gold medal of the Roy. Geog. Soc. and the Companionship of the Star of India. He died early in 1882.

See Koeppen, Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche (Berlin, 1859), being the 2d vol. of Die Religion des Buddha; Giorgi, Alphabetum Tibetanum, Rome, 1762; Huc, Souvenirs d'un Voyage, &c., Paris, 1850, vol. ii. ; Desc. du Tubet (Wei-tsang-thou-chy), edited by Klaproth, Paris, 1831; Pundit Nain Singh (Colonel Montgomerie's Report) in Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., vol. xxxviii. 129 sq.; Tibet (Bogle and Manning), by C. Markham, C. B. (2d ed. 1879); MS. narrative of P. Ipolito Desideri (copy in possession of Hakluyt Soc.). Also articles, by Dr A. Campbell in Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. xxiv. p. 215; by the late Wilfrid Heeley, B.C.S., in Calc. Review, vol. lix. p. 1; by Col. H. Yule, in Blackwood's Mag., March 1852, and in the Times, May 15, 1876; paper on "Chinese Tea Trade with Tibet," by E. C. Baber, printed in Suppt. to Gazette of India, November 8, 1879; "The Silver Coinage of Tibet," by M. Terrien de la Couperie, in Numism. Chron., 3d ser., vol. i. (H. Y.)

L'HÔPITAL, or L'HOSPITAL, MICHEL DE (c. 1505-1573), chancellor of France from 1560 to 1568, was born near Aigueperse in Auvergne (now Puy-de-Dôme) about the year 1505. His father, who was physician and comptroller of accounts to the constable Charles de Bourbon, sent him to study at Toulouse, whence at the age of eighteen he was driven by the evil fortunes of the family patron, after suffering arrest and imprisonment, to Padua, in which university he studied law and letters for about six years. On the completion of his studies he joined his father at Bologna, and afterwards, the constable having died, went to Rome in the suite of Charles V. For some time he held the position of auditor of the rota at Rome, but in 1534, encouraged by the fair promises of Cardinal de

1 See Walker's Report for 1873-74.

Grammont, he returned to France. The death of his patron soon afterwards seriously impaired his prospects; but after he had entered himself of the Parisian bar, his marriage, in 1537, to a daughter of the lieutenant-criminel procured for him the post of counsellor to the parliament of Paris. This office he held until 1547, when he was sent by Henry II on a mission to Bologna, where the council of Trent was at that time sitting; after sixteen months of wearisome inactivity there, he was by his own desire recalled at the close of 1548. L'Hôpital now for some time held the position of "chancellor" in the household of the princess Margaret, duchess of Berri, and in 1554 he was made superintendent of the royal finances. In 1559 he accompanied his mistress, now duchess of Savoy, to Nice, where, on the following year, tidings reached him that he had been chosen to succeed Olivier in the chancellorship of France. One of his first acts after entering on the duties of his office (in July 1560) was to cause the parliament of Paris to register the edict of Romorantin, of which he is sometimes, but erroneously it would seem, said to have been the author. Designed as it was to protect so-called heretics from the secret and summary methods of the Inquisition, it certainly had his sympathy and approval. In accordance with the consistent policy of inclusion and toleration by which the whole of his official life was characterized, he induced the council to call the Assembly of Notables, which met at Fontainebleau in August 1660 and agreed that the States General should be summoned, all proceedings against heretics being meanwhile suppressed, pending the reformation of the church by a general or national council. The States General met in December; the edict of Orleans (July 1561) followed, and finally, after the colloquy of Poissy, that of January 1562, the most liberal (except that of Nantes) ever obtained by the Protestants of France. Its terms, however, were not carried out, and during the war which was the inevitable result of the massacre of Vassy in May, L'Hôpital, whose dismissal had been for some time urged by the papal legate Hippolytus of Este, found it necessary to retire to his estate at Vignay near Etampes, whence he did not return until after the pacification of Amboise (March 19, 1563). It was by his advice that Charles IX. was declared of age (August 17, 1563) at Rouen, a measure which really increased the power of Catherine de' Medici; and it was under his influence also that the parliament of Paris in 1564 refused to sanction the publication of the acts of the council of Trent, on account of their inconsistency with the Gallican liberties. In 1564-66 he accompanied the young king on an extended tour through France; and in 1566 he was instrumental in the promulgation of an important edict for reform of abuses in the administration of justice. The renewal of the religious war in September 1567, however, was at once a symptom and a cause of diminished influence to L'Hôpital, and in February 1568 he obtained his letters of discharge, which were registered by the parliament on May 11, his titles, honours, and emoluments being reserved to him during the remainder of his life. Henceforward he lived a life of unbroken literary seclusion at Vignay, his only subsequent public appearance being by means of a "mémoire" which he addressed to the king in 1570 under the title Le but de la guerre et de la paix, ou Discours du chancelier L'Hospital pour exhorter Charles IX. à donner la paix à ses subjects. Though not exempt from considerable danger, he passed in safety through the troubles of the St Bartholomew, but did not long survive them. His death took place either at Vignay or at Bélesbat (Courdimanche, Étampes) on March 13, 1573.

After his death Pibrac, assisted by De Thou and Scévole de Sainte-Marthe, collected a volume of the Poemata of L'Hôpital, and in 1585 his grandson published Epistolarum seu Sermonum

libri sex. The complete Euvres de l'Hôpital were published for the first time by Dufey (5 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1824-25). They include to Charles IX., a Traité de la Reformation de la Justice, and the his "Harangues" and "Remonstrances," the Epistles, the Mémoire will of L'Hôpital. Haag (France Prot., vii. p. 83) gives the titles of several MSS. still unpublished. Villemain wrote a Vie de L'Hôpital, which has recently been reprinted (1874), and there are monographs also by Taillandier (1861) and by Dupré-Lasal (1875). the chief town of the province of Liau-tung or Shing-king LIAU-YANG, or LEAOU-YANG, a city of China, formerly (southern Manchuria), and still a place of considerable It is situated in a rich mark, 35 miles south of Moukden. cotton district, and carries on no small trade. The walls there are pretty extensive suburbs; but a good deal even include an area about 2 miles long by 2 miles broad, and of the enclosed area is under cultivation. The population is estimated at 80,000.

Greek writer of the 4th century A.D. He was born at LIBANIUS, a Sophist, was the most distinguished

Antioch beween 314 and 316. He studied at Athens, and spent most of his earlier manhood in Constantinople and much more popular than those of the public professors; Nicomedia. His private classes at Constantinople were and their jealousy found means of having him expelled from Constantinople in 346 on the charge of studying magic. He was recalled from Nicomedia after five years. the later part of his life. Though a pagan by religion, he Ill health obliged him to retire to Antioch, where he spent enjoyed the favour of the Christian emperors. When showed no intolerance. Among his pupils he numbered Julian restored paganism as the state religion, Libanius St John Chrysostom and St Basil. His works, consisting chiefly of orations, declamations on set topics, and letters, are very voluminous, and have not yet been published in one single edition. He devoted much time to the study of the classical Greek writers, on whom his style is modelled with considerable success.

The best edition of the orations and declamations is Reiske's, of keit; Bernhardy's and other histories of Greek literature; Förster, the letters Wolf's. See Westermann, Gesch. d. Griech. BeredtsamZur Schriftstellerei des Libanios, and articles in Hermes, vols. ix. and x.

LIBAU (Leepaja of the Letts), a port of Russia, on the Baltic Sea, in the government of Courland and district of Grobin, 143 miles by rail south-west of Riga. It is situated at the northern extremity of a narrow sandy peninsula which separates Lake Libau (12 miles long and 2 miles wide) from the Baltic Sea. The town is well built of stone, with good gardens, and has a gymnasium and more than twenty different schools, cigar manufactories, machine works, and a small wharf. The sea throwing up a good deal of amber, many inhabitants are engaged in the fabrication of small articles of that substance. The harbour of Libau was 2 miles south of the town until a canal was dug through the peninsula in 1697; but this canal is liable to be silted up, and the depth at the bar is only 9 feet, or even 6 feet during south-west winds, so that larger ships must lie in the open roadstead. Libau being the most southern Baltic port in Russia has the advantage of freezing only for a few weeks during the winter. Since being brought, in 1872, into railway connexion with Moscow, Orel, and Kharkoff, it has become an important Russian port, and competes with the northern ports of Prussia, the exports already exceeding by 100,000 tons those from Königsberg. In 1879 the port of Libau was visited by 1976 ships, and the export of corn, flax, hempseed, and linseed has reached 28,212,600 reubles (about £2,822,000), against 1,980,000 roubles and 367 ships in 1872. The merchants carry on an active trade in grain and flax, making their purchases directly in southern Russia; their warehouses are numerous, spacious, and well built. The