Chapter Lane to Lanier of L by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Lane to Lanier

Lane, Edward William (1801-1876).—Arabic scholar, son of a prebendary of Hereford, where he was born began life as an engraver, but going to Egypt in search of health, devoted himself to the study of Oriental languages and manners, and adopted the dress and habits of the Egyptians man of learning. He published Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), which remains a standard authority, and a translation of The Thousand and One Nights (1838-40) (Arabian Nights). What was intended to be the great work of his life, his Arabic Lexicon, was left unfinished at his death, but was completed by his nephew, Professor S. L. Poole. Lane was regarded as the chief European Orientalist of his day.

Langhorne, John (1735-1779).—Poet, son of a clergyman, was born at Kirkby Stephen; having taken orders, he was for two years a curate in London, and from 1776 Rector of Blagdon, Somerset, and Prebendary of Wells. He is chiefly remembered as being the translator, jointly with his brother, Rev. William Langhorne, of Plutarch’s Lives, but in his day he had some reputation as a poet, his chief work in poetry being Studley Park and Fables of Flora. In his Country Justice (1774-77) he dimly foreshadows Crabbe, as in his descriptive poems he dimly foreshadows Wordsworth. He was twice married, and both of his wives died in giving birth to a first child.

Langland, William (or William of Langley) (1330?-1400?).—Poet. Little can be gleaned as to his personal history, and of that little part is contradictory. In a note of the 15th century written on one MS. he is said to have been born in Oxfordshire, the son of a freeman named Stacy de Rokayle, while Bale, writing in the 16th century, makes his name Robert (certainly an error), and says he was born at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. From his great poem, Piers the Plowman, it is to be gathered that he was bred to the Church, and was at one time an inmate of the monastery at Great Malvern. He married, however, and had a daughter, which, of course, precluded him from going on to the priesthood. It has further been inferred from his poem that his father, with the help of friends, sent him to school, but that on the death of these friends the process of education came to an end, and he went to London, living in a little house in Cornhill and, as he says, not only in but on London, supporting himself by singing requiems for the dead. “The tools I labour with…[are] Paternoster, and my primer Placebo, and Dirige, and my Psalter, and my seven Psalms.” References to legal terms suggest that he may have copied for lawyers. In later life he appears to have lived in Cornwall with his wife and daughter Poor himself, he was ever a sympathiser with the poor and oppressed. His poem appears to have been the great interest of his life, and almost to the end he was altering and adding to, without, however, improving it. The full title of the poem is The Vision of Piers Plowman. Three distinct versions of it exist, the first circa 1362, the second circa 1377, and the third 1393 or 1398. It has been described as “a vision of Christ seen through the clouds of humanity.” It is divided into nine dreams, and is in the unrhymed, alliterative, first English manner. In the allegory appear such personifications as Meed (worldly success), Falsehood, Repentance, Hope, etc. Piers Plowman, first introduced as the type of the poor and simple, becomes gradually transformed into the Christ. Further on appear Do-well, Do-bet, Do-best. In this poem, and its additions, L. was able to express all that he had to say of the abuses of the time, and their remedy. He himself stands out as a sad, earnest, and clear-sighted onlooker in a time of oppression and unrest. It is thought that he may have been the author of a poem, Richard the Redeless: if so he was, at the time of writing, living in Bristol, and making a last remonstrance to the misguided King, news of whose death may have reached him while at the work, as it stops in the middle of a paragraph. He is not much of an artist, being intent rather on delivering his message than that it should be in a perfect dress. Professor Manley, in the Cambridge History of English Literature, advances the theory that The Vision is not the work of one, but of several writers, W. L. being therefore a dramatic, not a personal name. It is supported on such grounds as differences in metre, diction, sentence structure, and the diversity of view on social and ecclesiastic matters expressed in different parts of the poem.

Lanier, Sidney (1842-1881).—Miscellaneous writer, son of a lawyer of Huguenot descent, was born at Macon, Georgia. He had a varied career, having been successively soldier, shopman, teacher, lawyer, musician, and professor His first literary venture was a novel, Tiger Lilies (1867). Thereafter he wrote mainly on literature, his works including The Science of English Verse (1881), The English Novel (1883), and Shakespeare and his Forerunners (1902); also some poems which have been greatly admired, including “Corn,” “The Marshes of Glynn,” and “The Song of the Chattahoochee”; edition of Froissart,