g with him and accompanied him
on his return to Hades.

LAODICEA. Eight ancient cities bore this name; the chief, situated
on the Lycus, in Phrygia, lay on the way between Ionia and the Euphrates;
was a city of great commerce and wealth, the seat of schools of art,
science, medicine, and philosophy, and of an early Christian bishopric;
though the Church was stigmatised in the Revelation, two councils
assembled here in A.D. 363 and 476, the former of which influenced the
determination of the canon of both Testaments; the city, destroyed by the
Mohammedan invasions, is now in ruins.

LAOMEDON, the founder of Troy, who persuaded Apollo and Neptune to
assist him in building the walls, but refused the recompense when the
work was finished, in consequence of which the latter sent a monster to
ravage the country, which could be propitiated only by the annual
sacrifice to it of a young maid, till one year the lot fell on Hermione,
the king's daughter, when Hercules, persuaded by the king, slew the
monster and delivered the maiden.

LAOTZE (i. e. the old Philosopher), a Chinese sage, born in the
province of Ho-nan about 565 B.C., a contemporary of Confucius, who
wrote the celebrated "Tao-te-King," canon, that is, of the Tao, or divine
reason, and of virtue, one--and deservedly so on account of its high
ethics--of the sacred books of China; he was the founder of one of the
three principal religions of China, Confucianism and Buddhism being the
other two, although his followers, the Tao-sze as they are called, are
now degenerated into a set of jugglers.

LA PEROUSE, a celebrated French navigator, born near Albi, in
Languedoc; after distinguished services in the navy was in 1785 sent with
two frigates on a voyage of discovery by Louis XVI.; "the brave
navigator" went forth, sailing along the Pacific shores of America and
Asia as far as Botany Bay, but never returned; "the seekers search far
seas for him in vain; he has vanished trackless into blue immensity, and
only some mournful mysterious shadow of him hovers long in all heads and
hearts" (1741-1788).

LAPITHAE, a race inhabiting the mountains of Thessaly; subject to
Perithous, who, on the occasion of his marriage with Hippodamia, invited
his kinsfolk the Centaurs to the feast, but these, under intoxication
from the wine, attempting to carry off the bride and other women, were
set on by the Lapithae and, after a bloody struggle, overpowered.

LAPLACE, a celebr