Chapter Leandra to Legend of Montrose of L by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Learned Painter (The), Charles Lebrun, noted for the accuracy of his costumes (1619–1690).

Learned Tailor (The, Henry Wild of Norwich, who mastered, while he worked at his trade, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, Persian, and Arabic (1684–1734).

Learned Theban (A), a guesser of riddles or dark sayings: in allusion to Œdipos king of Thebes, who solved the riddle of the Sphinx.

I’ll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
   —Shakespeare: King Lear, act iii. sc. 4 (1605).

Learning Honoured. (See Emathian Conqueror, p. 322; Honour Paid To Learning, p. 501.)

Leather-stocking, the nickname of Natty Bumppo, a half-savage and half-Christian chevalier of American wild life. He reappears and closes his career in The Prairie.—Fenimore Cooper: The Pioneers.

Leather-stocking stands half-way between savage and civilized life. He has the freshness of nature and the first-fruits of Christianity; the seed dropped into vigorous soil. These are the elements of one of the most original characters in fiction.—Duyckinck.

Le Castre, the indulgent father of Mirabel “the wild goose.”—Fletcher: The Wild-goose Chase (1652).

L’Eclair (Philippe), orderly of captain Florian. L’Eclair is a great boaster, who brags under the guise of modesty. He pays his court to Rosabelle, the lady’s-maid of lady Geraldine.—Dimond: The Foundling of the Forest.

Led Captain (A), an obsequious person, who styles himself “captain;” and, out of cupboard love, dances attendance on the master and mistress of a house.

Mr. Wagg, the celebrated wit, and a led captain and trencherman of my lord Steyne, was caused by the ladies to make the assault.—Thackeray: Vanity Fair, li. (1848).

Ledbrook (Miss), of the Portsmouth Theatre, the bosom friend of Miss Snevellicci.—Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby (1838).

Ledbury (The Adventures of Mr.), a novel by Albert Smith (1844).

Lee (Sir Henry), an officer in attendance at Greenwich Palace.—Sir W. Scott: Kenilworth (time, Elizabeth).

Lee (Sir Henry), an old royalist, and head-ranger of Woodstock Forest.

Alice Lee, daughter of the old knight. She marries Markham Everard.

Colonel Albert Lee, her brother, the friend of Charles II.—Sir W. Scott: Woodstock (time, Commonwealth).

Leek, worn on St. David’s Day. The general tale is that king Cadwallader, in 640, gained a complete victory over the Saxons by the special interposition of St. David, who ordered the Britons to wear leeks in their caps, that they might recognize each other. The Saxons, for want of some common cognizance, often mistook friends for foes. Drayton gives another version: He says the saint lived in the valley Ewias (2 syl, situate between the Hatterill Hills, in Monmouthshire. It was here “that reverend British saint to contemplation lived,”

…and did so truly fast,
As he did only drink what crystal Hodney yields,
And fed upon the leeks he gathered in the fields.
In memory of whom, in each revolving year,
The Welshmen, on his day [March I], that sacred herb do wear.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, iv. (1612).