THE 



EDIJN BURGH NEW 

 PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 



Biographical Memoir of Sir Johs Leslie, late Pfessor of 

 Natural Philosophy in the V^vwer^ of Edinburgh, Mtmher 

 of the Institute of France, Sfc. §r. By Macvev Napike, 

 Esq. F.R. S. L. & E., one of the Professors of Law m the 

 University of Edinburgh. * 



JoH. Lesok, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh, was born at the village of Largo in he 

 county of Fife, on the 16th of April 1766. If, in sketching he 

 Life of this eminent person, we should happen to exceed the 

 usual hmits of our biographical notices, we can at least plead m 

 excuse that we have done so in the case of one of the greatest 

 benefactors of this Encyclopaedia,-one whose counsels led to 

 not a few of the improvements which distinguish the later years 

 of its history, and to whom it is indebted for many contnbu- 

 tions, marked with the stamp of his vigorous and original 

 powers. It is painful to us to recollect the number of similar 

 claims to our attention. Too many illustrious contemporary 

 benefactors have, Hke him, left us the mournful duty of pre- 

 serving some memorials of their personal history, in the work 

 which received from their co-operation its highest honours and 

 proudest recommendations. 



- Tl>is Memoir was written for, and published, pretty nearly in its present 

 form, in the seventh edition of the Encyclopedia Bntannica, of whidi Mr Napier 

 is Editor. Of this edition fifteen volumes have already been published. 

 VOL. XXIII. MO. XLV.— JULY 1837. A 



