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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: KRO-LAP |
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LABRUM (Lat. for " lip ") , the large vessel of the warm bath in the Roman thermae. These were cut out of great blocks of marble and granite, and have generally an overhanging lip. There is one in the Vatican of porphyry over 12 ft. in diameter . The term labrum is used in zoology , of a lip or lip-like part; in entomology it is applied specifically to the upper lip of an insect, the lower lip,being termed labium.LA BRUYERE, JEAN DE (164 1696), French essayist and moralist, was born in Paris on the 16th of August 1645, and not, as was once the common statement, at Dourdan (Seine-et-Oise) in 1639. His family was of the middle class, and his reference to a certain Geoffroy de la Bruyere, a crusader, is only a satirical illustration
Conde , to whose grandson Henri Jules de Bourbon as well as to that prince's girl-bride Mlle de Nantes, one of Louis XIV.'s natural children, La Bruyere became tutor. The rest of his life was passed in the household of the prince or else at court, and he seems to have profited by the inclination which all the Conde family had for the society of men of letters. Very little is knownLA BRUYERE of the events of this partor, indeed, of any partof his life. The impression derived from the few notices of him is of a silent, observant, but somewhat awkward man, resembling in manners Joseph Addison
" Quand la Bruyere se presente Pourquoi faut it crier haro ? Pour faire un nombre de quarante Ne falloit ii pas un zero ? " His unpopularity was, however, chiefly confined to the subjects of his sarcastic portraiture, and to the hack writers of the time, of whom he was wont to speak with a disdain only surpassed by that of Pope. His description of the Mercure galant as " immediatement au dessous de rien " is the best-remembered specimen of these unwise attacks; and would of itself account for the enmity of the editors, Fontenelle and the younger Corneille. La Bruyere's discourse of admission at the Academy, one of the best of its kind, was, like his admission itself, severely criticized, especially by the partisans of the " Moderns " in the " Ancient and Modern " quarrel. With the Caracteres, the translation of Theophrastus, and a few letters, most of them addressed to the prince de Conde, it completes the list
recent
Although it is permissible to doubt whether the value of the Caracteres has not been somewhat exaggerated by traditional French criticism, they deserve beyond all question a high place. The plan of the book is thoroughly original
original
Addison
But there is something wanting in them. The criticism of Charpentier, who received La Bruyere at the Academy, and who was of the opposite faction, is in fact fully justified as far as it goes. La Bruyere literally " est [trop] descendu dans le particulier." He has neither, like Moliere, embodied abstract peculiarities in a single life-like type, nor has he, like Shakespeare, made the individual pass sub speciem aeternitatis, and serve as a type while retaining his individuality. He is a photographer rather than an artist in his portraiture. So, too, his maxims, admirably as they are expressed, and exact as their truth often is, are on a lower level than those of La Rochefoucauld. Beside the sculpturesque precision, the Roman brevity, the profoundness of ethical intuition " piercing to the accepted hells beneath," of the great Frondeur, La Bruyere has the air of a literary petit-maitre dressing up superficial observation in the finery of esprit. It is indeed only by comparison that he loses, but then it is by comparison that he is usually praised. His abundant wit and his personal " malice " have done much to give him his rank in French literature, but much must also be allowed to his purely literary merits. With Racine and Massillon he is probably the very best writer of what is somewhat arbitrarily styled classical French. He is hardly ever incorrectthe highest merit in the eyes of a French academic critic. He is always well-bred, never obscure, rarely though sometimes " precious " in the turns and niceties of language in which he delights to indulge, in his avowed design of attracting readers by form, now that, in point of matter, " tout est dit." It ought to be added to his credit that he was sensible of the folly of impoverishing French by ejecting old words. His chapter on " Les ouvrages de 1'esprit " contains much good criticism, though it shows that, like most of his contemporaries except Fenelon, he was lamentably ignorant of the literature of his own tongue. The editions of La Bruyere, both partial and complete, have been extremely numerous. Les Caracteres de Theophraste traduits du Grec, aver les caracteres et les mccurs de ce siecle, appeared for the first time in 1688, being published by Michallet, to whose little daughter, according to tradition, La Bruyere gave the profits of the hook as a dowry. Two other editions, little altered, were published in the same year. In the following year, and in each year until 1694, with the exception of 1693, a fresh edition appeared, and, in all these five, additions, omissions and alterations were largely made. A ninth edition, not much altered, was put forth in the year of the author's death. The Academy speech appeared in the eighth edition. The Quietist dialogues were published in 1699; most of the letters, including those addressed to Conde, not till 1867. In recent
series of Grands ecrivains de la France), Asselineau (a scholarly reprint of the last 'original edition, 1872) and finally Chassang (1876); the last is oneof the most generally useful, as the editor has collected almost every-thing of value in his predecessors. The literature of "keys " to La Bruyere is extensive and apocryphal. Almost everything that can be 'done in this direction and in that of general illustration
series of Grands ecrivains francais in 1904.(G. SA.) End of Article: LABRUM (Lat. for " lip ") If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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