Chapter Lars to Launce of L by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Latona, mother of Apollo (the sun) and Diana (the moon). Some Lycian hinds jeered at her as she knelt by a fountain in Delos to drink, and were changed into frogs.

As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs
Railed at Latona’s twin-born progeny,
Which after held the sun and moon in fee.
   —Milton: Sonnets.

Latorch, duke Rollo’s “earwig,” in the tragedy called The Bloody Brother, by Beaumont (printed 1639).

Latro (Marcus Porcius), a Roman rhetorician in the reign of Augustus; a Spaniard by birth.

I became as mad as the disciples of Porcius Latro, who, when they had made themselves as pale as their master by drinking decoctions of cumin, imagined themselves as learned.—Lesage: Gil Blas, vii. 9 (1735).

Laud (Archbishop). One day, when the archbishop was about to say grace before dinner, Archie Armstrong, the royal jester, begged permission of Charles I. to perform the office instead. The request being granted, the wise fool said, “All praise to God, and little Laud to the devil!” the point of which is increased by the fact that Laud was a very small man.

Lauderdale (The duke of), president of the privy council.—Sir W. Scott: Old Mortality (time, Charles II.).

Laugh (Jupiter’s). Jupiter, we are told, laughed incessantly for seven days after he was born.—Ptolemy Hephastion: Nov. Hist., vii.

Laugh and be Fat, or “Pills to purge Melancholy,” a collection of sonnets by Thomas D’Urfey (1719). (See The Spectator, No. 20.)

Laughing Philosopher (The), Democritos of Abdera (B.C. 460-357), who laughed or jeered at the feeble powers of man so wholly in the hands of fate, that nothing he did or said was uncontrolled.

(The “Crying Philosopher” was Heraclitos.)

Dr. Jeddler, the philosopher, looked upon the world as a “great practical joke, something too absurd to be considered seriously by any rational man.”—Dickens: The Battle of Life (1846).

Laughter is situated in the midriff.

Here sportful laughter dwells, here, ever sitting,
Defies all lumpish griefs and wrinkled care.
   —Phineas Fletcher: The Purple Island (1633).

Laughter (Death from). A fellow in rags told Chalchas the soothsayer that he would never drink the wine of the grapes growing in his vineyard; and added, “If these words do not come true, you may claim me for your slave.” When the wine was made, Chalchas made a feast, and sent for the fellow to see how his prediction had failed; and when he appeared, the soothsayer laughed so immoderately at the would-be prophet that he died.—Lytton: Tales of Miletus, iv.

Very similar is the tale of Ancæos. This king of th e Lelegés, in Samos, planted a vineyard, but was warned by one of his slaves that he would never live to taste the wine thereof. Wine was made from the grapes, and the king sent for his slave, and said, “What do you think of your prophecy now?” The slave made answer, “There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip;” and the words were scarcely uttered, when the king rushed from table to drive out of his vineyard a boar which was laying waste the vines, but was killed in the encounter.—Pausanias.

Crassus died from laughter on seeing an ass eat this