Chapter Larry Dugan's Eye-water to Laugh in One's Sleeve of L by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Larry Dugan's Eye-water to Laugh in One's Sleeve

Larry Dugan's Eye-water Blacking; so called from Larry Dugan, a noted shoeblack of Dublin, whose face was always smudged with his blacking.

Lars The overking of the ancient Etruscans, like the Welsh “pendragon.” A satrap, or under-king, was a lucumo. Thus the king of Prussia is the German lars, and the king of Bavaria is a lucumo.

There be thirty chosen prophets,
The wisest of the land,
Who always by Lars Porsena,
Both morn and evening stand.”
Macaulay: Lays of Ancient Rome, (Horatius, ix.)

Larvae Mischievous spectres. The larva or ghost of Caligula was often seen (according to Suetonius) in his palace.

Lascar A native East Indian sailor in the British service. The natives of the East Indies call camp-followers lascars. (Hindu, lash-kar, a soldier.)

Last (Anglo-Saxon lást, a footstep, a shoemaker's last.) The cobbler should stick to his last (“Ne sutor ultra crepidam”). Apelles having executed a famous painting, exposed it to public view, when a cobbler found fault because the painter had made too few latchets to the goloshes. Apelles amended the fault, and set out his picture again. Next day the cobbler complained of the legs, when Apelles retorted, “Keep to the shop, friend, but do not attempt to criticise what you do not understand.” (See Wigs .)

Last Man (The) Charles I. was so called by the Parliamentarians, meaning that he would be the last king of Great Britain. His son, Charles II., was called The Son of the Last Man.

Last Man A weirdly grotesque poem by Thomas Hood.

“So there he hung, and there I stood,
The last man left alive.”

Last Words (See Dying Sayings .)

Last of the Fathers St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux. (1091-1153.)

Last of the Goths Roderick, who reigned in Spain from 709 to 711. Southey has an historic tale in blank verse on this subject.

Last of the Greeks Philopœoemen of Arcadia. (B.C. 253-183.)

Last of the Knights (See Knights .)

Last of the Mohicans The Indian chief, Uncas, is so called by Cooper, in his novel of that title.

Last of the Romans
   Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the murderers of Caesar. (B.C. 85-42.)
   Caius Cassius Longinus, so called by Brutus. (Died. B.C. 42.)
   Stilicho, the Roman general under Theodosius. (The Nineteenth Century, September, 1892.)
   Aetius, a general who defended the Gauls against the Franks and other barbarians, and defeated Attila in the Champs Catalaumques, near Chálons, in 451. So called by Procopius.
   Francois Joseph Terasse Desbillons; so called from the elegance and purity of his Latin. (1751-1789.)
   Pope calls Congreve Ultimus Romanorum. (1670-1729.) (See Ultimus.)

Last of the Tribunes (The). Cola di Rienzi (1314-1354). Lord Lytton has a novel so called.

Last of the Troubadours Jacques Jasmin, of Gascony (1798-1864).

Lat (El). A female idol made of stone, and said to be inspired with life; the chief object of adoration by the Arabs before their conversion.
   Lat, at Somanat in India, was a single stone fifty fathoms high, placed in the midst of a temple supported by fifty-six pillars of massive gold. This idol was broken in pieces by