Chapter Lancers to Lantern Jaws of L by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Lane No evil thing that walks by night, blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, no goblin, or smart fairy of the mine, has power to cross a lane; once in a lane, the spirit of evil is in a fix. The reason is obvious: a lane is a spur from a main road, and therefore forms with it a sort of T, quite near enough to the shape of a cross to arrest such simple folk of the unseen world as care to trouble the peaceful inmates of the world we live in.

Lane `Tis a long lane that has no turning. Every calamity has an ending. The darkest day, stop till to- morrow, will have passed away:

“Hope peeps from a cloud on our squad,
Whose beams have been long in deep mourning:
`Tis a lane, let me tell you, my lad,
Very long that has never a turning.”
Peter Pindar: Great Cry and Little Wool, epist. 1.

Lane (The) and The Garden. A short way of saying “Drury Lane” and “Covent Garden,” which are two theatres in London.

Lane of King's Bromley Manor, Staffordshire, bears in a canton “the Arms of England.” This honour was granted to Colonel John Lane, for conducting Charles II. to his father's seat after the battle of Worcester. (See next paragraph.)
   Jane Lane, daughter of Thomas and sister of Colonel John. To save the King after the battle of Worcester, she rode behind him from Bentley, in Staffordshire, the ancient seat of the Lanes, to the house of her cousin, Mrs. Norton, near Bristol. For this act of loyalty the king granted the family to have the following crest: A strawberry-roan horse saliant (couped at the flank), bridled, bitted, and garnished, supporting between its feet a royal crown proper; motto, Garde le Roy.

Lanfusa's Son (See Ferrau .)

Lang Syne (Scotch, long since). In the olden time, in days gone by.

“There was muckle fighting about the place lang-syne.”- Scott: Guy Mannering, chap. xl.

   The song called Auld Lang Syne, usually attributed to Robert Burns, was not composed by him, for he says expressly in a letter to Thomson, “It is the old song of the olden times, which has never been in print ... I took it down from an old man's singing.” In another letter he says, “Light be the turf on the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment.” Nothing whatever is known of the author of the words; the composer is wholly unknown.

Langbourn Ward (London). So called from the long bourn or rivulet of sweet water which formerly broke out of a spring near Magpye Alley. This bourn gives its name to Sharebourne or Southbourne Lane.

Langstaff (Launcelot). The name under which Salmagundi was published, the real authors being Washington Irving, William Irving, and J. K. Paulding.

Language The primeval language. Psammetichos, an Egyptian king, entrusted two new-born infants to a shepherd, with strict charge that they were never to hear any one utter a word. These children were afterwards brought before the king and uttered the word bekos (baked bread). The same experiment was tried by Frederick II. of Sweden, James IV. of Scotland, and one of the Mogul emperors of India.
   James IV., in the 15th century, shut up two infant children in the Isle of Inchkeith, with a dumb attendant to wait on them.
   The three primitive languages. The Persians say that Arabic, Persian, and Turkish are three primitive languages. The serpent that seduced Eve spoke Arabic, the most suasive language in the world; Adam and Eve spoke Persian, the most poetic of all languages; and the angel Gabriel spoke Turkish, the most menacing of all languages. (Chardin.)
   “Language given to men to conceal their thoughts,” is by Montrond, but is generally fathered on Talleyrand.
   Characteristics of European languages:
   L'Italien se parle aux dames.
   Le Francais se parle aux hommes.
   L'Anglais se parle aux oiseaux.
   L'Allemand se parle aux chevaux.
   L'Espagnol se parle à Dieux.
    English, according to the French notion, is both singsong and sibilant.
   Charles Quint used to say, “I speak German to my horses, Spanish to my God, French to my friends, and Italian to my mistresses.”