LITERATURE, defined by Carlyle “as an ‘apocalypse of nature,’ a revealing of the ‘open secret,’ a ‘continuous revelation’ of the God-like in the terrestrial and common, which ever endures there, and is brought out now in this dialect, now in that, with various degrees of clearness ... there being touches of it (i. e. the God-like) in the dark stormful indignation of a Byron, nay, in the withered mockery of a French sceptic, his mockery of the false, a love and worship of the true ... how much more in the sphere harmony of a Shakespeare, the cathedral music of a Milton; something of it too in those humble, genuine, lark-notes of a Burns, skylark starting from the humble furrow far overhead into the blue depths, and singing to us so genuinely there.”

LITHUANIA, formerly a grand-duchy occupying portions of the valleys of the Dwina, Niemen, Dnieper, and Bug; for centuries connected with Poland; passed to Russia in 1814.  The Lithuanians are a distinct race of the Indo-European stock, fair and handsome, with a language of their own, and a literature rich in folk-lore and songs.  Of a strong religious temperament, they embraced Christianity late (13th century), and still retain many pagan superstitions; formerly serfs, they are now a humble peasantry engaged in agriculture, cattle-breeding, and bee-keeping.

LITMUS, a colouring matter obtained from certain lichens; extensively used in chemical experiments to detect acids, for instance.

LITTLE CORPORAL, a name given to Bonaparte after the battle of Lodi from his small stature, he being only 5 ft. 2 in.

LITTLE ENGLANDERS, those politicians who hold that English statesmen should concern themselves with England only and its internal affairs.

LITTLETON, SIR THOMAS, English jurist of the 15th century; was recorder of Coventry in 1450, judge of Common Pleas 1466, and knighted in 1475; his work on “Tenures” was the first attempt to classify the law of land rights, and was the basis of the famous “Coke upon Littleton”; d. 1481.

LITTRE, a celebrated French scholar, physician, philologist, and philosopher, born in Paris; wrote on medical subjects, and translated Hippocrates; was of the Positivist school in philosophy, and owes his fame chiefly to his “Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise,” published in 1863-72, and on which he spent forty years’ labour (1801-1881).

LITURGY is sometimes used as including any form of public worship, but more strictly it denotes the form for the observance of the Eucharist.  As development from the simple form of their institution in the primitive Church liturgies assumed various forms, and only by degrees certain marked types began to prevail:  viz., the Roman, ascribed to St. Peter, in Latin, and prevailing in the Roman Catholic Church all over the world; the Ephesian, ascribed to St. John, in corrupt Latin, included the old Scottish and Irish forms, heard now only in a few places in Spain; the