LUSTRATION, in antiquity, purification by sacrifices and v'arious ceremonies. The Greeks and Romans purified the people, cities, fields, armies, ete. defiled by crime or impurity. This was done in several ways, viz. : by fire, water, sulphur, and air, the last by fanning or agitating the air around the thing purified. When Servius Tullius had numbered the Roman people, he purified them as they were assembled iu the Campus Martins; and afterwards a lustration of the whole people was perfornied every fifth year before the censors went out of office. On that occa.sion the people assembled in the Campus Martins, when the sacrifices termed suovetaurilia, consisting of a sow, sheep, and ox, after being carried thrice around the people, were offered up, and a great quan tity of perfumes was burned. This ceremony was called lustrum. It was instituted by Servius B.C., and performed for the last time in the reign of Vespasian. The t,erm lustrum was given also to the period of five years between the lustra. The army was purified before a battle by causing the soldiers to defile before the two quivering halves of a victim, while the priest offered certain prayers. The establishment of a new colony 'was preceded by a lustration with sacrifices. Rome itself, and all towns within its dominion, always underwent a lustration after being visited by some great calamity. The lustrations of fields were performed after sowing was finished, and before reaping began. The lustration of flocks, designed to keep them from disease, was performed every year at the festival of the Palilia, when the shepherd sprinkled them with pure water, thrice surrounding the fold with savin, laurel, and brimstone set on fire, and afterwards offering incense and sacrifices to Pales, the tutelary goddess of shepherds. Private houses were purified with water, a fumigation of laurel, juniper, olive-tree, and the like, and a pig offered as the victim. Infants were purified, girls on the third, boys on the ninth, day after birth, then named and placed under the protection of the god of the family. The lustration of a funeral pile was by having the spectators march round it before a fire was kindled. Whatever was used at a lustration was cast into a river, or some other inaccessible place, as to tread upon it was considered ominous of some great disaster.
LUSTRUld (from luere, to purify or expiate), the solemn offering made for expiation and purification by one of the censors in name of the Roman people at the conclusion of the census (q.v.). The animals offered in sacrifice were a boar (sus), sheep (ovis), and bull (taurus), whence the offering was called suovetaurilia. They were led round the assembled people on the Campus 3Iartius before being sacrificed. A.s the census was quinquennial, the veord lustrum came to mean a period of five years.
LUTE (Ger. Laut, sound), an obsolete stringed musical instrument, which has been superseded by the harp and guitar. It consisted of a table of lir; a body or belly, com posed of 9 (sometimes 10) convex ribs of fir or cedar; a neck, or finger-board, of hard wood, on which were 9 (or 10) frets, stops, or divisions, marked with catgut strings; a head, or cross, on which were placed the pegs or screws that tightened or relaxed the strings in tuning; and a bridge, to which the strings were attached at one end, the other end being fastened to a piece of ivory, between the head and neck. The number of
strings, -originally 6, of which five were doubled, so as to make 11, was gradually increased till they numbered 24. The performer used his left hand to press the stops, and struck the strings with his right. A peculiar description of notation, called tablet ture, was employed in music written for the lute. The stings were represented by par allel lines, on which were placed letters of the alphabet, referring to the frets: thus, marked that the string was to be struck open (or without pressing any of the stops); B, that the first stop was to be pressed; C, the second, and so on: while over the letters were placed hooked marks, corresponding to the minim, crotchet, quaver, etc., to indi cate time. So carelessly and inaccurately was lute-music generally written that it is no easy matter to render it into the ordinary notation. The lute was formerly in high favor all over Europe as a chamber-instrument; and it was used in dramatic music to accom pany the recitative. In the time of Handel, there was a lute in the Italian opera in London; and there was a lutanist in the King's chapel down to the middle of last century. —For a minute account of the lute, and how to play it, see 31ace's Muskk's Monument (Lond. 1676).
LUTE (Lat. haunt, clay), in chemistry, denotes a substance employed for effectually closing the joints of apparatus, so SS to prevent the escape of vapor or gases, or for coat ing glass vessels so as to render them more capable of sustaining a high temperature, or for repairing fractures. For ordinary purposes, lutes made of common plastic clay or pipe-clay with au admixture of linseed-meal or almond-powder, or, for common stills, linseed-meal and water made into a paste, are quite sufficient; for more delicate experi ments, fat lute (q.v.), covered over with moistened bladder, is used. Lutes for coating glass vessels are generally composed of Stourbridge clay or Windsor loam, mixed with water; but the most simple method is to brush the glass retort over with a paste of pipe clay and water, dry it quickly, and repeat the operation till a sufficient thickness of coating is obtained. Other lutes in frequent use are Willis's lute (a paste composed of a solution of borax in boiling water, with slaked lime), various mixtures of borax and clay, of lime and white of egg, iron cement (see CEMENTS), moistened bladder, paper prepared with wax and, turpentine, and caoutchouc. The use of the last-named lute has, on account of its flexibility and consequent non-liability to accident, been rapidly extending.