5*1 



LEIGHTON, ROBERT, D.D. 



LELAND, JOHN. 



842 



he voted with Mr. Fox, and after his death with Lord Grey and 

 what was commonly called the Whig party. 



His influence in the country arose from his large estates and the 

 lead he took in agricultural improvement, together with his popular 

 qualities as a landlord and a country gentleman. He is said to have 

 raised the rental of his estate of Holkham, in the period of .between 

 sixty and seventy years during which it was in his possession, from 

 little more than 20004. to above 20,OOOJ. From the death of Francis, 

 duke of Bedford, in 1802, he was regarded as the chief of English 

 agriculturists. His plantations were so extensive that the average 

 value of the annual fall of timber on his property is stated to have 

 amounted at his death to 27002., or considerably more than the entire 

 rental of the land when it came into his hands. The annual sheep- 

 shearing at Holkham, at which some hundreds of guests were 

 entertained for several days, was probably the greatest agricultural 

 festival in the world. 



According to Mr. Coke's own account in the after-dinner speech of 

 1S33 already quoted, he was twice offered a peerage in the first 

 session that he sat in parliament. More than sixty years after, 

 namely, on the 21st of July 1837, he was at last raised to the Upper 

 House as Earl of Leicester, of Holkham. It is understood that the 

 difficulty which had prevented his being sooner made a peer was that 

 he would accept of nothing except this earldom of Leicester, which 

 had been held by his maternal great-uncle, whose estates he inherited, 

 but which had in the meantime been bestowed, in 1784, upon Lord 

 Ferrers, afterwards Marquis Townshend, to whose heirs it of course 

 descends. It was thought a very strong measure, when, to gratify the 

 old man, the same title, with the slight and not very intelligible 

 variation, ' Leicester of Holkham,' was bestowed upon a second 

 person. It made of course no difference that the other Earl of 

 Leicester had subsequently acquired a higher title; he was still 

 notwithstanding as much Earl of Leicester as Marquis Townsheud. 

 The proceeding was precisely of the same nature as if Mr. Coke had 

 been made Duke of Wellington, of Holkham. 



The Earl of Leicester died at Longford Hall, Derbyshire, on the 

 30th of June 1842, at the venerable age of ninety. He was twice 

 married : first, in 1775, to Jane, daughter of James Lennox Dutton, 

 Esq., who died in IS 00, and by whom he had three daughters; 

 secondly, on the 26th of February 1822, to the Lady Anne Amelia 

 Kuppel, third daughter of the Eail of Albemarle, who brought him 

 five sons and a daughter. The eldest son, born on Christmas-day, 

 1 322, succeeded him as Earl of Leicester of Holkhatn. 



LEIGHTOX, ROBERT, D.D., Archbishop of Glasgow, born in 1613 ; 

 a divine whose sermons and other tracts are held by many persons 

 in great esteem, but who has secured for himself a reputation by 

 having acted in a manner the most opposite to that by which repu- 

 tation is most commonly secured. In times of excitement he was 

 the steady advocate of peace and forbearance. One story of him so 

 completely illustrates bis character, that, though it has been often 

 told, we must repeat it. A question not unfrequently put to the 

 Scottish clergy at their assemblies was, " Whether they preached to 

 tho times I " When Leighton's turn came, his reply was, " When all 

 my brethren preach to the times, suffer me to preach about eternity." 

 The times spoken of are those of the Commonwealth, or a little 

 before, when he had a church near Edinburgh ; but he found that 

 moderation would not be tolerated in a minister, so that he retired 

 into privacy, from whence however he was called to preside over the 

 University of Edinburgh. When Charles II. resolved to make the 

 attempt at introducing Episcopacy into Scotland, Dr. Leighton was 

 nominated to the bishopric of Dumblane. His conduct was the 

 reverse of that of Dr. Sharpe, who was ostentatious in the display of 

 an ecclesiastical rank which was displeasing to a large portion of the 

 Scotch nation. Leighton on tho contrary conducted himself with 

 that moderation which he had before manifested, so that he won the 

 affections of even the most rigid Presbyterians. The bishops gene- 

 rally took a different course, and this induced Leighton to offer to 

 resign his bishopric : but the views of the Court changing in respect 

 of the attempt to bring the Scotch nation to accept au Episcopalian 

 church, and it being intended to proceed more in the way of 

 persuasiveness and gentleness, he was induced to accept tho arch- 

 bishopric of Glasgow. Still he found it an affair of contention little 

 suited to his habits or turn of mind, and accordingly he resigned his 

 archbishopric, and retired in 1674 to the house of his only sister, 

 Mr*. Lightmaker, at Horsted Keynes, Sussex. Ho died, whilst on a 

 jouruey, at the Bell Inn, Holborn, London, in February 1684 ; but 

 was buried in a small chapel (now destroyed) adjoining the chancel of 

 the church of Horsted Keynes. The best edition of Archbishop 

 Leighton's works, with an account of his life, was published in 1808, 

 6 vola. Svo. 



LE KEUX, JOHN, architectural engraver, was born in 1784, in 

 Sun-street, Bishopsgate, London, where his father was a manufacturer 

 of pewter ; and to him the youth was in the first instance apprenticed, 

 but disliking the business, he was at the age of seventeen transferred 

 as a pupil to Mr. James Basire, an eminent architectural engraver, and 

 remained with him four yeirs. Le Keux formed for himself however 

 a true and bolder style than that of his master, and eventually in the 

 engraving of gothic architecture attained an excellence equalled by 

 few in the profession. Indeed it would not be too much to say that 



gothic architecture was for the first time thoroughly well engraved in 

 this country by him ; and that his engravings did much to render the 

 study of gothic architecture popular. He possessed a very consider- 

 able acquaintance with both the general principles and the details of 

 gothic architecture, and consequently his engravings displayed, not 

 only minute correctness, but that ' feeling,' as artists term it, which 

 is always an evidence that the work is executed as a matter of enjoy- 

 ment, and not merely as a task. Le Keux was in fact au artist and 

 not a mechanic, and even the admirable architectural drawings of 

 Mackenzie lost nothing in fidelity, and sometimes perhaps gained a 

 little in spirit, under the rendering of Le Keux's burin. The fir.it 

 important work we believe on which La Keux was engaged was 

 ' Britton's Architectural Antiquities of England,' and he also engraved 

 much of ' Britton's Cathedral Antiquities,' and other of Mr. Britton's 

 works; the elder Pugin's 'Architectural Antiquities of Normandy,' 

 ' Gothic Examples,' and ' Gothic Specimens ; ' Neale'a ' Westminster 

 Abbey,' and 'Churches' (vol. I); 'The Oxford Almanacs; ' and lately 

 the 'Memorials of Oxford,' and 'Memorials of Cambridge,' both of 

 which were projected by himself and executed with much elegance, 

 though of course from their smaller size with somewhat less freedom 

 than his larger works. Mr. Le Keux died April 2, 1846. His eldest 

 son, J. H. Le Keux, has a high reputation as au architectural 

 engraver. 



LELAND, or LAYLONDE, JOHN, an eminent English antiquary, 

 was born in London in the beginning of the 16th century, and edu- 

 cated at St. Paul's School under the celebrated William Lily. He 

 first entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he is said to have 

 been a Fellow, but afterwards removed to Oxford, and passed several 

 years in All Souls Cjllege, where he prosecuted his studies not only 

 in Latin and Greek but in Saxon and Welsh. From thence he went 

 to Paris, and learned French, Italian, and Spanish. On his return 

 home he entered into orders, and being esteemed au accomplished 

 scholar, King Henry VIII. made him one of his chaplains; gave him 

 the rectory of Popeling in the marches of Calais in 1530 ; appointed 

 him his library-keeper ; and by a commission dated in 1533 dignified 

 him with the title of his Antiquary. By this commission he was 

 ordered to make search after England's antiquities, and peruse the 

 libraries of all cathedrals, abbeys, colleges, and other places where 

 " records and the secrets of antiquity were deposited ; " a stipend was 

 allotted to him ; and he received a dispensation for uon-residence upon 

 his living. He spent six or seven years in travelling through England 

 and Wales, collecting materials for the history and antiquities of the 

 nation; and noticed in his journey not only the more important 

 manuscripts which he met with, but all the localities and local 

 antiquities of the country of whatever description tho rivers, forests, 

 chases, woods, cities, castles, manor-houses, monasteries, colleges, and 

 everything that seemed memorable. In 1542 Henry VIII. presented 

 him to the rectory of Hasely in Oxfordshire, and the year following 

 to a canonry of King's College, now Christchurch, Oxford. In 1545, 

 upon the surrender of that college to the king, he lost his canoury, 

 but seems to have been compensated for it in the prebend of East aud 

 West Knowle, in the cathedral of Sarum. In that same year, having 

 digested into four books that part of his collections which contains an 

 account of the illustrious writers in the realm, with their lives and 

 monuments of literature, he presented it to his majesty, under the 

 title of ' A Newe Year's Gift,' with a scheme of what he intended to do 

 further for the general history and topography of England and Wales. 

 For the purpose of digesting his collections he retired to a house of 

 his own in the parish of St. Micliael-le-Querne in London. 



In 1547 Lelaud's royal patron died, aud the attention of the Court, 

 according to Bale, became slackened towards his labours. Whether 

 this was really the cause of the disorder by which he became aftlicted 

 is matter of doubt, but within a year or two he became insane : aud 

 his distemper being made known to King Edward VI., his majesty by 

 letters patent, dated March 5th, 1550, granted the custody of him, by 

 the name of John Layland the Younger, to John Layland the Elder, 

 " with all his lands, tenements, rents, &c., in as large and ample 

 manner as the said John the Younger, being in his right mind, had 

 the same." In this state he continued, without recovery for two 

 years, when he died, April 18th, 1552. He was interred in the church 

 of St. Miohael-le-Querne, which then stood at the west end of Cheapside, 

 between the conduit and Paternoster-row. 



Leland's papers, upon his death, were committed by King Edward VI, 

 to the custody of Sir John Cheke ; but subsequently became dispersed. 

 Sir John Cheke, being obliged to go abroad, left four volumes of 

 Leland's Collections in the hands of Humphry Purefoy, Esq., from 

 whom they descended to Burton, the historian of Leicestershire, who, 

 having obtained possession of eight other volumes of Lelaud's manu- 

 scripts containing his ' Itinerary," deposited the whole, in 1632, in the 

 Bodleian Library at Oxford. 



Part of a volume of Leland's Collections, in his own handwriting, 

 will be found in the Cottonian Manuscript, Julius C. VI., in the 

 British Museum; and it is probable that other libraries contain 

 fragments of his productions. He and Nicholas Udall, between them, 

 prepared the verses in English and Latin which were spoken in the 

 Pageant as Anne Boleyn went to her coronation. 



The" publications by which Leland is most known are his ' Com- 

 mentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis,' not very faithfully edited by 



