LAGOS (40), a large and thriving commercial town in a colony (100) of the name subject to Britain, on the Guinea Coast of Africa.

LAGRANGE, JOSEPH LOUIS, COMTE, famous mathematician, born at Turin of French parentage; had gained at the age of twenty a European reputation by his abstruse algebraical investigations; appointed director of Berlin Academy in 1766, he pursued his researches there for twenty-one years; in 1787 he removed to Paris, where be received a pension from the Court of 6000 francs, and remained till his death; universally respected, he was unscathed by the Revolution; appointed to several offices, he received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour from Napoleon, who made him a count (1736-1813).

LA HARPE, JEAN FRANCOIS DE, French litterateur and critic, born in Paris; wrote dramas and eloges, but his best-known work is his “Cours de Litterature” in 12 vols., of little account except for its criticism of French literature, in which he showed not a little pedantry and ill-temper as well as acuteness; he was zealous for the Revolution at first, but drew back when extreme measures were adopted and became a warm royalist, for which he was sentenced to deportation, but left at liberty (1739-1803).

LA HOGUE, a cape with a roadstead on NE. of France, where a French fleet sent by Louis XIV. to invade England on behalf of James II. was destroyed in 1692.

LAHORE (177), an ancient walled city on the Ravi, a tributary of the Indus, 1000 m.  NW. of Calcutta, is the capital of the Punjab, and an important railway centre; it has many fine buildings, both English and native, including a university and a medical school, but the situation is unhealthy; half the population are Mussulmans; the trade is inconsiderable; the district of Lahore (1,075) one of the most important in the province, is well irrigated by the Bari Doab Canal, and produces fine crops of cereals, pulse, and cotton.

LAIDLAW, WILLIAM, Sir Walter Scott’s factor at Abbotsford, born in Selkirkshire; having failed in farming, entered Scott’s service in 1817 and remained his trusted and faithful friend, advising him in his schemes of improvement and acting latterly as his amanuensis till his death in 1832; thereafter he was factor in Ross-shire, where he died; he had some poetic gift of his own, and contributed to the third volume of the “Minstrelsy” (1780-1845).

LAING, DAVID, a learned antiquary, profound in his knowledge of Scottish ecclesiastical and literary history, born, the son of bookseller, at Edinburgh, followed for thirty years his father’s trade; was appointed to the charge of the Signet Library in 1837; was secretary to the Bannatyne Club, and in 1864 received the degree of LL.D. from Edinburgh University; he contributed many valuable papers to the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, collected and edited much of the ancient poetry of Scotland, and acquired a private library of manuscripts and volumes of great value (1799-1878).