Chapter Lardner to Lear of L by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Layard, Sir Austin Henry (1817-1894).—Explorer of Nineveh, born at Paris, son of a Ceylon civilian. After spending some years in the office of a London solicitor, he set out in search of employment in Ceylon, but passing through Western Asia, became interested in the work of excavating the remains of ancient cities. Many of his finds—human-headed bulls, etc.—were sent to the British Museum. Two books—Nineveh and its Remains (1848-49), and The Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853)—brought him fame, and on his return home he received many honours, including the freedom of the City of London, the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford, and the Lord Rectorship of Aberdeen University He entered Parliament, where he sat as a Liberal. He held the offices of Under-Foreign secretray (1861-66), and Chief Commissioner of Works (1868-69), and was Ambassador to Spain 1869, and Constantinople 1877; and on his retirement in 1878 he was made G.C.B. He was a very successful excavator, and described his work brilliantly, but he was no great linguist, and most of the deciphering of the inscriptions was done by Sir H. Rawlinson. His last work was Early Adventures in Persia, etc., and he left an autobiography, published in 1903. He also wrote on Italian art.

Lear, Edward (1812-1888).—Artist and miscellaneous author, born in London, and settled in Rome as a landscape painter. He was an indefatigable traveller, and wrote accounts, finely illustrated, of his journeys in Italy, Greece, and Corsica. His best known works are, however, his Book of Nonsense (1840) (full of wit and good sense), More Nonsense Rhymes (1871), and Laughable Lyrics (1876). Lear had also a remarkable faculty for depicting birds.