LAGUNA, or LA LAGUNA  , an episcopal city and formerly the capital of the island of Teneriffe, in the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands . Pop . (1900) 13,074 . Laguna is 4 M . N. by W. of Santa Cruz, in a plain 1800 ft. above sea-level, surrounded by mountains . Snow is unknown here, and the mean annual temperature exceeds 63° F.; but the rainfall is very heavy, and in winter the plain is sometimes flooded . The humidity of the atmosphere, combined with the warm climate and rich volcanic soil, renders the district exceptionally fertile; wheat, wine and tobacco, oranges and other fruits, are produced in abundance . Laguna is the favourite summer residence of the wealthier inhabitants of Santa Cruz . Besides the cathedral, the city contains several picturesque convents, now secularized, a fine modern town hall, hospitals, a large public library and some ancient palaces of the Spanish nobility . Even the modern buildings have often an appearance of antiquity, owing to the decay caused by damp, and the luxuriant growth of climbing plants . LA HARPE, JEAN FRANCOIS DE (1739—1803), French critic, was born in Paris of poor parents on the loth of November 1739 . His father, who signed himself Delharpe, was a descendant of a noble family originally of Vaud .

Left an orphan at the age of nine, La Harpe was taken care of for six months by the sisters of charity, and his education was provided for by a scholarship at the College d'Harcourt . When nineteen he was imprisoned for some months on the charge of having written a satire against his protectors at the college . La Harpe always denied his guilt, but this culminating misfortune of an early life spent entirely in the position of a dependent had possibly something to do with the bitterness he evinced in later life . In 1763 his tragedy of Warwick was played before the court . This, his first play, was perhaps the best he ever wrote . The many authors whom he afterwards offended were always able to observe that the critic's own plays did not reach the standard of excellence he set up . Timoleon (1764), Pharamond (1765) and Gustave Wasa (1766) were failures . Melanie was a better play, but was never represented . The success of Warwick led to 'a correspondence with Voltaire, who conceived a high opinion of La Harpe, even allowing him to correct his verses . In 1764 La Harpe married the daughter of a coffee house keeper . This marriage, which proved very unhappy and was dissolved, did not improve his position . They were very poor, and for some time were guests of Voltaire at .Ferney .

When, after Voltaire's

death, La Harpe in his praise of the philosopher ventured on some reasonable, but rather ill-timed, criticism of individual works, he was accused of treachery to one who had been his constant friend . In 1768 he returned from Ferney to Paris, where he began to write for the Mercure . He was a born fighter and had small mercy on the authors whose work he handled . But he was himself violently attacked, and suffered under many epigrams, especially those of Lebrun-Pindare . No more striking proof of the general hostility can be given than his reception (1776) at the Academy, which Sainte-Beuve calls his " execution." Marmontel, who received him, used the occasion to eulogize La Harpe's predecessor, Charles Pierre Colardeau, especially for his pacific, modest and indulgent disposition . The speech was punctuated by the applause of the audience, who chose to regard it as a series of sarcasms on the new member . Eventually La Harpe was compelled to resign from the Mercure, which he had edited from 1770 . On the stage he produced Les Barmecides (1778), Philoctele, Jeanne de Naples (1780, Les Brames (1783), Ccriolan (1784), Virginie (x786) . In 1786 he began a course of literature at the newly-established Lycee . In these lectures, published as the Cours de /literature ancienne et moderne, La Harpe is at his best, for he found a standpoint more or less independent of contemporary polemics . He is said to be inexact in dealing with the ancients, and he had only a superficial knowledge of the middle ages, but he is excellent in his analysis of 17th-century writers . Sainte-Beuve found in him the best critic of the French school of tragedy, which reached its perfection in Racine .

La Harpe was a

disciple of the " philosophes "; he supported the extreme party through the excesses of 1792 and 1793 . In 1793 he edited the Mercure de France which adhered blindly to the revolutionary leaders . But in April 1794 he was nevertheless seized as a " suspect." In prison he underwent a spiritual crisis which he described in convincing language, and he emerged an ardent Catholic and a reactionist in politics . When he resumed his chair at the Lycee, he attacked his former friends in politics and literature . He was imprudent enough to begin the publication (18or–1807) of his Correspondance lilteraire (1774–1791) with the grand-duke, afterwards the emperor Paul of Russia . In these letters he surpassed the brutalities of the Mercure . He contracted a second marriage, which was dissolved after a few weeks by his wife . He died on the rrth of February 1803 in Paris, leaving in his will an incongruous exhortation to his fellow countrymen to maintain peace and concord . Among his posthumous works was a Propizetie de Cazotte which Sainte-Beuve pronounces his best work . It is a sombre description of a dinner-party of notables long before the Revolution, when Jacques Cazotte is made to prophesy the frightful fates awaiting the various individuals of the company . Among his works not already mentioned are:—Commentaire sur Racine (1795–1796), published in 1807; Commentaire sur le theatre de Voltaire of earlier date (published posthumously in 1814), and an epic poem La Religion (1814) . His Cours de liteerature has been often reprinted .

To the edition of 1825–1826 is prefixed a

notice by Pierre Daunou . See also Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. v.; G . Peignot, Recherches historiques, bibliographiques et litteraires .. . sur La Harpe (182o) .