LADY. This title is derived from two Saxon words, which signify loaf-day, which words have in time been contracted into the present appellation. It properly belongs only to the daughter of earls, and all of higher rank; but custom has made it a word of complaisance for the wives of knights, and of all eminent women.
As to the original application of this expression, it may be observed, that heretofore it was the fashion for those families, whom God had blessed with affluence, to live constantly at their mansion-houses in the country, and that once a-week, or oftener, the lady of the manor distributed to her poor neighbours, with her own hands, a certain quantity of bread; but the practice, which gave rise to this title, is now as little known as the meaning of it: however, it may be from that hospitable custom, that, to this day, the ladies in this kingdom alone serve the meat at their own tables.
LADY'S Bedstraw. See GALLIUM.
LADY'S Mantle. See ALCHEMILLA.
LADY'S Smock. See CARDAMINE.
LADY'S Slipper. See CYPRIPEDIUM.
tion. He was a perfect mastery of history; his designs are distinguished by the grandeur of the composition; and the back-grounds, wherever the subjects required it, are rich in architecture, which is an uncommon circumstance in that country. He had the unhappiness to lose his sight several years before his death, which happened in 1711; so that the treatise on design and colouring, which passes under his name, was not wrote by him, but collected from his observations after he was blind, and published after his death. He had three sons, two of whom were painters; and also three brothers, Ernest, James, and John: Ernest and John painted animals, and James was a flower-painter. He engraved a good deal in aqua fortis: his works consist of 256 plates, above half of which were done with his own hand. He wrote an excellent book on the art, which has been translated into English, and printed at London both in 4to and 8vo.