LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, American essayist, poet, and diplomatist, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, son of a clergyman; graduated at Harvard in 1838, studied law, but acquiring extensive scholarship devoted himself to literature; volumes of poems were published by him in 1840 and 1844, but the Mexican War of 1846 and the Civil War of 1861-65 called forth respectively the first and second series of “Biglow Papers,” in rustic dialect, the highest expression of his genius and the finest modern English satire; he was an ardent abolitionist; succeeding Longfellow in the chair of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard in 1855, he visited Europe to study, returned as U.S. minister to Spain in 1877, was transferred to England 1880-1885; of his prose work “My Study Windows” and “Among my Books” are essays on literary subjects, “Fireside Travels” contain reminiscences, and his last work was a “Life of Hawthorne”; he died at Cambridge in the house of his birth (1818-1891).

LOWER EMPIRE, name given to the Byzantine empire.

LOWESTOFT (23), seaport and watering-place at the mouth of the Waveney, in Suffolk, 120 m.  NE. of London, the most easterly town in England; has a good harbour, an old parish church, and a large fish-market; the Dutch were defeated off Lowestoft in 1665.

LOWTH, ROBERT, a distinguished English prelate, born in Hants; was professor of Poetry in Oxford, and bishop in succession of St. Davids, Oxford, and London; wrote “Prelectiones” on the poetry of the Hebrews, a celebrated work, and executed a translation of Isaiah (1710-1787).

LOYOLA, IGNATIUS, the founder of the Order of the Jesuits, born in the castle of Loyola, in the Basque Provinces of Spain, of a noble Spanish family; entered the army, and served with distinction, but being severely wounded at the siege of Pampeluna, he gave himself up to a life of austere religious devotion, and conceived the idea of enlisting and organising a spiritual army for the defence of the Church at home and the propagation of the faith in the realms of heathendom; it seemed to him a time when such an organisation should be formed, and he by-and-by got a number of kindred spirits to join him, with the result that he and his confederates did, on Ascension Day, 1534, solemnly pledge themselves in the subterranean chapel of the Abbey of Montserrat to, through life and death, embark in this great undertaking; the pledge thus given was confirmed by the pope, Pope Pius III., the Order formed, and Ignatius, in 1547, installed as general, with absolute authority subject only to the Pope, to receive canonisation by Gregory XV. in 1622 (1481-1566).

LUBBOCK, SIR JOHN, scientist, born in London; banker by profession; as a member of Parliament has accomplished several economic reforms; is author of “Prehistoric Times,” “The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man,” and various books on natural science; his “Pleasures of Life” has been very popular, and gone through between 30 and 40 editions; b. 1834.