OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lauban

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​LAUBAN, a town of Germany in the Prussian province of Silesia, is situated in a picturesque valley, at the junction of the lines of railway from Görlitz and Sorau, 16 m. E. of the former. Pop. (1905) 14,624. Lauban has a Roman Catholic and two Evangelical churches, a town hall, dating from 1541, a conventual house of the order of St Magdalene, dating from the 14th century, a municipal library and museum, two hospitals, an orphanage and several schools. Its industrial establishments comprise tobacco, yarn, thread, linen and woollen cloth manufactories, bleaching and dyeing works, breweries and oil and flour mills.
Lauban was founded in the 10th and fortified in the 13th century; in 1427 and 1431 it was devastated by the Hussites, and in 1640 by the Swedes. In 1761 it was the headquarters of Frederick the Great, and in 1815 it was the last Saxon town that made its submission to Prussia.
See Berkel, Geschichte der Stadt Lauban (Lauban, 1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Latude, Jean Henri

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​LATUDE, JEAN HENRI, often called Danry or Masers de Latude (1725–1805), prisoner of the Bastille, was born at Montagnac in Gascony on the 23rd of March 1725. He received a military education and went to Paris in 1748 to study mathematics. He led a dissipated life and endeavoured to curry favour with the marquise de Pompadour by secretly sending her a box of poison and then informing her of the supposed plot against her life. The ruse was discovered, and Mme de Pompadour, not appreciating the humour of the situation, had Latude put in the Bastille on the 1st of May 1749. He was later transferred to Vincennes, whence he escaped in 1750. Retaken and reimprisoned in the Bastille, he made a second brief escape in 1756. He was transferred to Vincennes in 1764, and the next year made a third escape and was a third time recaptured. He was put in a madhouse by Malesherbes in 1775, and discharged in 1777 on condition that he should retire to his native town. He remained in Paris and was again imprisoned. A certain Mme Legros became interested in him through chance reading of one of his memoirs, and, by a vigorous agitation in his behalf, secured his definite release in 1784. He exploited his long captivity with considerable ability, posing as a brave officer, a son of the marquis de la Tude, and a victim of Pompadour’s intrigues. He was extolled and pensioned during the Revolution, and in 1793 the convention compelled the heirs of Mme de Pompadour to pay him 60,000 francs damages. He died in obscurity at Paris on the 1st of January 1805.
The principal work of Latude is the account of his imprisonment, written in collaboration with an advocate named Thiéry, and entitled Le Despotisme dévoilé, ou Mémoires de Henri Masers de la Tude, détenu pendant trente-cinq ans dans les diverses prisons d’état (Amsterdam, 1787, ed. Paris, 1889). An Eng. trans. of a portion was published in 1787. The work is full of lies and misrepresentations, but had great vogue at the time of the French Revolution. Latude also wrote essays on all sorts of subjects.
See J. F. Barrière, Mémoires de Linguet et de Latude (1884); G. Bertin, Notice in edition of the Mémoires (1889); F. Funck-Brentano, “Latude,” in the Revue des deux mondes (1st October 1889).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Latrobe, Charles Joseph

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​LATROBE, CHARLES JOSEPH (1801–1875), Australian governor, was born in London on the 20th of March 1801. The Latrobes were of Huguenot extraction, and belonged to the Moravian community, of which the father and grandfather of C. J. Latrobe were ministers. His father, Christian Ignatius Latrobe (1758–1836), a musician of some note, did good service in the direction of popularizing classical music in England by his Selection of Sacred Music from the Works of the most Eminent Composers of Germany and Italy (6 vols., 1806–1825). C. J. Latrobe was an excellent mountaineer, and made some important ascents in Switzerland in 1824–1826. In 1832 he went to America with Count Albert Pourtales, and in 1834 crossed the prairies from New Orleans to Mexico with Washington Irving. In 1837 he was invested with a government commission in the West Indies, and two years later was made superintendent of the Port Philip district of New South Wales. When Port Philip was erected into a separate colony as Victoria in 1851, Latrobe became lieutenant-governor. The discovery of gold in that year attracted enormous numbers of immigrants annually. Latrobe discharged the difficult duties of government at this critical period with tact and success. He retired in 1854, became C.B. in 1858 and died in London on the 2nd of December 1875. Beside some volumes of travel he published a volume of poems, The Solace of Song (1837).
See Brief Notices of the Latrobe Family (1864), a privately printed translation of an article revised by members of the family in the Moravian Brüderbote (November 1864).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lauchstädt

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​LAUCHSTÄDT, a town of Germany in the province of Prussian Saxony, on the Laucha, 6 m. N.W. of Merseburg by the railway to Schafstädt. Pop. (1905) 2034. It contains an Evangelical church, a theatre, a hydropathic establishment and several educational institutions, among which is an agricultural school affiliated to the university of Halle. Its industries include malting, vinegar-making and brewing. Lauchstädt was a popular watering-place in the 18th century, the dukes of Saxe-Merseburg often making it their summer residence. From 1789 to 1811 the Weimar court theatrical company gave performances here of the plays of Schiller and Goethe, an attraction which greatly contributed to the well-being of the town.
See Maak, Das Goethetheater in Lauchstädt (Lauchstädt, 1905); and Nasemann, Bad Lauchstädt (Halle, 1885).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Latten

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​LATTEN (from O. Fr. laton, mod. Fr. laiton, possibly connected with Span. lata, Ital. latta, a lath), a mixed metal like brass, composed of copper and zinc, generally made in thin sheets, and used especially for monumental brasses and effigies. A fine example is in the screen of Henry VII.’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. There are three forms of latten, “black latten,” unpolished and rolled, “shaven latten,” of extreme thinness, and “roll latten,” of the thickness either of black or shaven latten, but with both sides polished.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Penley, William Sydney

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​PENLEY, WILLIAM SYDNEY (1852– ), English actor, was born at Broadstairs, and educated in London, where his father had a school. He first made his mark as a comedian by his exceedingly amusing performance as the curate in The Private Secretary, a part in which he succeeded Beerbohm Tree; but he is even more associated with the title rôle in Brandon Thomas’s Charley’s Aunt (1892), a farce which had an unprecedentedly long run and was acted all over the world.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Penmarc'h

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​PENMARC’H, a village of western France in the department of Finistère, 18 m. S.W. of Quimper by road. Pop. (1906), of the village, 387; of the commune, 5702. On the extremity of the peninsula on which it is situated are fortified remains of a town which was of considerable importance from the 14th to the 16th centuries and included, besides Penmarc'h, St Guénolé and Kerity. It owed its prosperity to its cod-banks, the disappearance of which together with the discovery of the Newfoundland cod-banks and the pillage of the place by the bandit La Fontenelle in 1595 contributed to its decadence. The church of St Nouna, a Gothic building of the early 16th century at Penmarc'h, and the church of St Guénolé, an unfinished tower of the 15th century and the church of Kerity (15th century) are of interest. The coast is very dangerous. On the Point de Penmarc'h stands the Phare d'Eckmuhl, with a light visible for 60 miles. There are numerous megalithic monuments in the vicinity.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pennant, Thomas

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​PENNANT, THOMAS (1726–1798), British naturalist and antiquary, was descended from an old Welsh family, for many generations resident at Downing, Flintshire, where he was born on the 14th of June 1726. He received his early education at Wrexham, and afterwards entered Queen’s College, Oxford, but did not take a degree. At twelve years of age he was inspired with a passion for natural history through being presented with Francis Willughby’s Ornithology; and a tour in Cornwall in 1746–1747 awakened his strong interest in minerals and fossils. In 1750 his account of an earthquake at Downing was inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, where there also appeared in 1756 a paper on several coralloid bodies he had collected at Coalbrookdale, Shropshire. In the following year, at the instance of Linnaeus, he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Upsala. In 1766 he published the first part of his British Zoology, a work meritorious rather as a laborious compilation than as an original contribution to science. During its progress he visited the continent of Europe and made the acquaintance of Buffon, Voltaire, Haller and Pallas. In 1767 he was elected F.R.S. In 1771 was published his Synopsis of Quadrupeds, afterwards extended into a History of Quadrupeds. At the end of the same year he published A Tour in Scotland in 1769, which proving remarkably popular was followed in 1774 by an account of another journey in Scotland, in two volumes. These works have proved invaluable as preserving the record of important antiquarian relics which have now perished. In 1778 he brought out a similar Tour in Wales, which was followed by a Journey to Snowdon (pt. i. 1781; pt. ii. 1783), afterwards forming the second volume of the Tour. In 1782 he published a Journey from Chester to London. He brought out Arctic Zoology in 1785–1787. In 1790 appeared his Account of London, which went through a large number of editions, and three years later he published the Literary Life of the late T. Pennant, written by himself. In his later years he was engaged on a work entitled Outlines of the Globe, vols. i. and ii. of which appeared in 1798, and vols. iii. and iv., edited by his son David Pennant, in 1800. He was also the author of a number of minor works, some of which were published posthumously. He died at Downing on the 16th of December 1798.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pennar

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​PENNAR, or Penner, two rivers of southern India, distinguished as North an South. The native name is Pinakini. Both rise near the hill of Nandidrug in Mysore state, and flow eastward into the Bay of Bengal. The northern is the more important and has a total length of 355 m, that of the southern being 245 m. This latter bears the alternative name of the Ponniar. The Pennar (northern) river canal system comprises more than 30 m. of canals, irrigating 155,500 acres
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pennell, Joseph

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​PENNELL, JOSEPH (1860– ), American artist and author, was born in Philadelphia on the 4th of July 1860, and first studied there, but like his compatriot and friend, J. M. Whistler, he afterwards went to Europe and made his home in London. He produced numerous books (many of them in collaboration with his wife, Elizabeth Robins Pennell), but his chief distinction is as an original etcher and lithographer, and notably as an illustrator. Their close acquaintance with Whistler led to Mr and Mrs Pennell undertaking a biography of that artist in 1906, and, after some litigation with his executrix on the right to use his letters, the book was published in 1908.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Penkridge

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​PENKRIDGE, a town in the western parliamentary division of Staffordshire, England; 134 m. N.W. from London by the London & North-Western railway, on the small river Penk. Pop. (1901), 2347. Trade is chiefly agricultural and there are stone-quarries in the vicinity. The church of St Michael and All Angels, formerly collegiate and dedicated to St Mary, is a fine building principally Perpendicular, but with earlier portions. The Roman Watling Street passes from east to west 3 m. south of Penkridge. In the neighbourhood is Pillaton Hall, retaining a picturesque chapel of the 15th century.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Penne

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​PENNE, a town and episcopal see of Italy, in the province of Teramo, 26 m. S.E. of Teramo, and 16 m. inland from the Adriatic, 1437 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 10,394. The cathedral has been much altered; in its treasury is some fine 13th (?) century silversmiths’ work; the church of S. Giovanni has a fine cross by Nicola di Guardiagrele, and that of S. Maria in Colleromano, outside the town, a Romanesque portal. Many of the houses have fine terra-cotta friezes. It occupies the site of the ancient Pinna, the chief city of the Vestini, who entered into alliance with Rome in 301 B.C. and remained faithful to her through the Hannibalic wars and even during the revolt of the Italian allies in 90 B.C. No remains of the Roman period exist, even the city walls being entirely medieval.
See G. Colasanti, Pinna (Rome, 1907); V. Bindi, Monumenti degli Abruzzi (Naples, 1889, pp. 565 sqq.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nonsuit

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​NONSUIT (Fr. non suit, he does not pursue), in law the name given to a judgment whereby an issue is determined against the plaintiff. It was a term peculiar to the English common-law courts before the Judicature Acts, and was simply the expression of the opinion of the court that, apart from the merits, the plaintiff's case was incomplete. It did not in any way act as a bar to his bringing another action for the same cause. It might be entered either at the wish of the plaintiff himself (to whom it was of course much more beneficial than judgment for the defendant) or by direction of the court against the will of the plaintiff. Although judgment of nonsuit still exists, it has, since the Judicature Acts, the same effect as a judgment on the merits, unless the court otherwise directs. This effect of a nonsuit was specially provided for by the rules of the Supreme Court of 1875.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nonius Marcellus

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​NONIUS MARCELLUS, Latin grammarian and lexicographer, flourished at the end of the 3rd or the beginning of the 4th century A.D. He is often called the “Peripatetic of Thubursicum” (in Numidia, probably his birth-place). He is the author of a sort of lexicon called De compendiosa doctrina, in 20 sections or chapters, the first twelve of which deal with language and grammar, the remaining eight with special subjects (navigation, costume, food, arms). The work is a compilation from commentaries on the authors quoted (whom Nonius only knows at second hand) and from existing dictionaries and grammars. Nonius is especially indebted to Verrius Flaccus and Aulus Gellius. The Doctrina is valuable as preserving fragments from old dramatists, annalists, satirists and antiquarian writers. It is remarkable that in the quotations from the authors cited Nonius always follows the same order, beginning with Plautus and ending with Varro and Cato. The grammarians Priscian and Fulgentius borrowed largely from his book; and in the 5th century a certain Julius Tryphonianus Sabinus brought out a revised and annotated edition.
Editions by L. Müller (1888); J. H. Onions, bks. i.-iii. (1895); W. M. Lindsay (1903) (reviewed in Classical Review, October 1904). See also articles in the Classical Review (Dec. 1888, June and July 1889); J. H. Onions (Oct. 1890, Oct. 1895, Feb. 1896, Feb. 1902); W. M. Lindsay; Journal of Philology, xvi. (1888), xviii. (1890), (J. H. Onions), xxi. (1893). (“The Printed Editions of Nonius,” by H. Nettleship); P. Monceaux, Les Africains. Étude sur la littérature latine d’Afrique (1894); Teuffel, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. grams), 404A; M. Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Literatur, iv. 1 1904.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nonpareil

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​NONPAREIL (Fr. non, and pareil, like, Lat. par), having no equal, unrivalled. Apart from its uses as a descriptive name for particularly fine kinds of fruit, &c., and of certain birds, moths and butterflies, the chief application of the word in English is, in printing, to a size of type between “emerald” and “ruby,” in the United States of America between “minion” and “agate” (see Typography).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Noodt, Gerhard

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​NOODT, GERHARD (1647—1725), Dutch jurist, was born at Nijmwegen in 1647. Educated at Leiden, Utrecht and Franeker, he became a professor of law at Leiden. As a writer on jurisprudence he acquired a wide reputation. His Latin style was modelled after the best writers, and his numerous works soon rose to the rank of standard authorities. Two of his political treatises were translated into French by Jean Barbeyrac, and appeared at Amsterdam in 1707 and 1714, under the respective titles of Pouvoir des souverains and Liberté de conscience.
The first edition of his collected works was published at Leiden in 1724 and the last in 1767. That of 1735 and those subsequent contain a life of the author by Barbeyrac.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nonnus

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​NONNUS (Egyptian for “saint”), Greek epic poet, a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid, probably lived at the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century A.D. His principal work is the Dionysiaca, an epic in forty-eight books, the main subject of which is the expedition of Dionysus to India and his return. The earlier portions treat of the rape of Europa, the battle of the giants, the mythical history of Thebes, and it is not until the eighth book that the birth of the god is described. Other poets had already treated the subject, and since the time of Alexander it had gained popularity from the favourite comparison of the king with the god and of his enemies with the giants. In its vast and formless luxuriance, its beautiful but artificial versification, its delineation of action and passion to the entire neglect of character, the poem resembles the epics of India. Like his countryman Claudian, Nonnus is a writer of copious learning and still more copious fancy, whose faults are those of the age in which he lived. His chief merit consists in the systematic perfection to which he brought the Homeric hexameter. But the very correctness of the versification renders it monotonous. His influence on the vocabulary of his successors was likewise very considerable.
We also possess under his name a paraphrase (μεταβολή) of the Gospel of St John, which is chiefly interesting as apparently indicating that Nonnus in his later years was a convert to Christianity. The style is not inferior to that of his epic, but, employed in embellishing the simple narrative of the evangelist, it produces an impression of extreme bombast and want of taste. According to an epigram in the Palatine Anthology (ix. 198), Nonnus was also the author of a Battle of the Giants, and four lines of the Bassarica (also on the subject of Dionysus) have been preserved in Stephanus of Byzantium.
Editio princeps (1569); H. Köchly (“Teubner” series, with critical introduction and full index of names, 1858); the most generally useful edition is that by the comte de Marcellus (1856), with notes and prolegomena, and a French prose translation. On the metre, see J. G. Hermann, Orphica (1805), p. 690; A. Ludwich, Beiträge zur Kritik des Nonnus (1873), critical, grammatical and metrical; C. Lehrs, Quaestiones epicae (1837), pp. 255-302, chiefly on metrical questions; on the sources, R. Köhler, Über die Dionysiaka des Nonnus (1853), a short and connected analysis of the poem, with a comparison of the earlier and later myths; see also I. Negrisoli, Studio critico . . . Nonuse Panopolita, with short bibliography (1903). The paraphrase on St John (editio princeps, c. 1505) is edited by F. Passow (1834) and A. Scheindler (1881), with complete index.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nonpareil (bird)

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​NONPAREIL, the name under which, from its supposed matchless beauty, a little cage-bird, chiefly imported from New Orleans, has long been known to English dealers (cf. Edwards, Gleanings, i. 132). It is the Emberiza ciris of Linnaeus, and the Cyanospiza ciris of most recent ornithologists, belonging to a small group, now included with the buntings and finches, although some authors have regarded it as a tanager (q.v.). The cock has the head, neck and lesser wing-coverts bright blue, the upper part of the back yellow, deepening into green, and the lower parts generally, together with the rump, bright scarlet, tinged on the latter with purple. This gorgeous colouring is not assumed until the bird is at least two years old. The hen is green above and yellow beneath; and the younger cocks present an appearance intermediate between the adults of both sexes. The species, which is often also called the painted bunting, after wintering in Central America or Mexico, arrives in the Southern states of the American Union in April, but does not ordinarily proceed to the northward of South Carolina. In Louisiana, where it is generally known to the French-speaking inhabitants as the Pape—as it was to the Spaniards of Florida as the Mariposa pintada (painted butterfly)—it is said to be very abundant; and on its appearance in spring advantage is, or was, taken of the pugnacious disposition of the males to capture them alive in great numbers by means of the stuffed skin of one so placed in connexion with a cage-trap that they instantly fall into the latter on attacking what they conceive to be a rival. Belonging to the same genus as the nonpareil is the indigo-bird, Cyanospiza cyanea, which, as a summer visitant, is widely diffused from the Missouri to the Atlantic, and extends into the provinces of ​Ontario and New Brunswick, being everywhere regarded with favour. Though wanting most of the bright hues of its congener, the indigo-bird has yet much beauty, the adult cock being nearly all over of a deep blue, changing, according to the light, to green. The hen is brown above and ochreous-white beneath. The “pintailed nonpareil” of aviculture (Erythrura prasina) is a somewhat similarly coloured but really very different bird; the male has a long sharp tail, and the species belongs to the Ploceidae (see Weaver-bird).