LEVER, CHARLES JAMES. 



LEWES, GEORGE H. 



871 



Leuwenboek examined the itnieture of the crystalline lens, and 

 rlMK-ribcd with exactness the disposition of the layers which compose 

 this part of the organ of vision ; and he einbelliahed hU description 

 with MTeral very good figure*. 



Much liai been aaid concerning hi* iiiTestigation of the well-known 

 and celebrated spermatic animalcule*, which since the time of their 

 fint discovery in 1677 have excited the curiosity and speculative fancy 

 of man; natunluta. Haller state* that Lndwig Hamm (a student at 

 Leyden) was the first discoverer of the seminal animalcules, in August 

 1 6i 7. Leuwenhoek, who minutely described them, claimed the merit of 

 baring made the discovery in the November of the same year; and in 

 1878 Hartoeker published an account of them, in which he professed 

 to have seen them as early as 1674. A great deal has since been 

 written upon them by Needmau, Button, Der Gleichen, Spallanzani, 

 Prevost and Dumas (their experiments were made together), Wagner, 

 and others. 



Leuwenhoek would have made both more numerous and more 

 valuable discoveries, if he bad possessed greater erudition, which 

 would have enlarged his ideas, and prevented him from mistaking, as 

 lie did in some instances, probabilities for facts. Thus he often fancied 

 that he saw what did not exist, and afterwards be persisted in his 

 error. Among other mistakes he considered that the villous or mucous 

 coat of the intestines was muscular ; he also maintained that pulsation 

 belonged to veins, and not to arteries. 



Leuwenhoek's reputation was very extensive. When Queen Mary 

 was in Holland, she paid him a visit, and she was highly delighted 

 with his curiosities. He presented her with two of bin microscopes. 

 When the Czar Peter the Great was parsing through Delft in 1698, 

 he sent two of his attendants to request Leuwenhoek to pay him a 

 visit, and to bring his microscope with him. The philosopher, after 

 having shown his instruments to the emperor, exhibited to him the 

 curious phenomenon of the circulation of the blood in the tail of 

 an ecL 



Leuwenhoek died at Delft in 1723. Besides his contributions to the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions,' he published about 26 papers in the 

 ' Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences.' His writings were collected 

 and published separately in Dutch at Delft and Leyden ; they were 

 also translated for him into Latin, and printed at Delft, in 4 vols. 4 to, 

 in 1695-99. An English translation was made from the Dutch and 

 Latin editions in 1798-1800, by Mr. Samuel Hoole, in]4to. At his 

 death he bequeathed to the Royal Society of London a small Indian 

 cabinet, in the drawers of which were contained thirteen little boxes 

 or cases, each holding two microscopes handsomely mounted with 

 silver, of which not only the lenses but the whole apparatus were 

 made with his own hands; each microscope had an object placed 

 before it, of which there was an accompanying drawing made by 

 himself. 



(Philotophical Traniactioni for 1 723 ; Biographie UnivenMe, <kc.) 



* LEVER, CHARLES JAMES, novelist, was bora in Dublin, in 

 1808, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated, 

 subsequently taking a degree at Gottingeu. As a physician, Mr. Lever 

 was attached to the legation at Brussels, and practised three years ; 

 but resigned for the more genial employment of the editorship of the 

 ' Dublin University Magazine.' Then commenced that enormous list 

 of novels which opened with ' Harry Lorrcquer,' and for years bore 

 no other name. ' Charles O'Malley,' ' Tom Burke,' and others suc- 

 ceeded ; and a new vein of literature the literature of animal spirits 

 was found to have been opened. The hairbreadth adventures, and 

 wonderful escapee, which were never complete unless on horseback, 

 proved very attractive ; and were, it is only fair to add, well aided by 

 the earlier sketches of Mr. Hablot Browne. After some few years 

 Mr. Lever became fatigued by the angry political strife which his 

 periodical involved, and he retired to the Continent, first occupying 

 an old castle in the Tyrol, and subsequently settling at Florence, where 

 ho remains. From the period of his retirement from active magazine 

 life, his writings have been marked by very considerable improvement 

 in tone and matter. They are more artistic more thoughtful and 

 depend lees upon broad incident 'The Knight of Qwynne' is espe- 

 cially remarkable for this, and contains capital pictures of Irish life 

 in the stirring times of the Union. But period of life, as well as 

 change of occupation, may have induced this. Mr. Lever's anonymous 

 writings are only less numerous than those acknowledged : amongst 

 them being ' Cou Cregan,' an Irish Gil Bias, and the ' Diary of Horace 

 Templcton. 1 To a certain extent Mr. Lever is known to have been 

 the hero of his adventurous stories. He passed his earlier years in 

 breaking horses, and what time could be spared from horses was com- 

 monly devoted to boating. So late as the present autumn be has 

 suffered shipwreck in the classic Gulf of Spezia, and with a youthful 

 daughter was only rescued after battling for an hour with the waves, 

 in which thirty-four years since Shelley lojt his life. A cheap 

 edition of all the writings of this popular author is announced as 

 in preparation. 



LEVERIDGE, RICHARD, a celebrated singer towards the end of 

 the 17th aud beginning of the 18th centuries, for whom Purcell wrote 

 most of his bass songs. He was in much request in all convivial 

 parties, and as he possessed a talent for lyrical poetry as well as for 

 musical composition, several of the songs by which he delighted his 

 audiences were wholly the offspring of his own genius. Among these 



Dr. Burney mentions ' Ghosts of every occupation,' which he had 

 heard performed by the bard himself. But we introduce his name 

 here chiefly on account of his having set the music to Gay's ' Block- 

 Eyed Susan,' an air which, for tenderness, beauty, and fitness, has 

 few rivals, and is one of the many that prove, to every candid mind, 

 the English talent for music. During his life, Leveridge published 

 several of his songs, in two 8vo volumes ; and, though far from 

 abstemious, he reached the advanced age of eighty -eight, dying in 1758. 



LEVERRIER, URBAN-JEAN-JOSEPH. was born at St Lo, in 

 the department of La Manche, in France, on March 11, 1811. He was 

 educated successively at the college of St Lo, at Caen, and at Paris, 

 and was admitted to the Polytechnic School in 1831. His early 

 inclination seems to have been towards chemistry, as he published in 

 1837 two essays on the combination of phosphorus with hydrogen 

 and with oxygen, and contributed some chemical papers to the ' Dic- 

 tionnaire de la Conversation.' He began next to distinguish himself 

 as an astronomer, and his ' Tables de Mercure,' and some essays ' sur 

 ls incgalites seculaires,' which appeared in the ' Connaissance des 

 Temps,' procured his admission to the Acaddmie des Sciences in 

 January 1846, where he succeeded Jean-Dominique Cassiui. In this 

 year he made his grand discovery of the new planet Neptune. He 

 had begun in 1845, at the instance of Arago, to investigate the orbit 

 of Uranus, and from certain perturbations, which be reduced to 

 calculation, proved the necessary existence of a new planet to account 

 for them, and indicated the place where it would probably be found. 

 After a few previous papers to the Institute on the results of his 

 investigations on November 10, 1845, June 1, and August 1, 1S46, on 

 the 5th of October 1846, in the ' Connaissance des Temps ' for 1849, 

 his theory was fully developed. Suspicions of the existence of such 

 a cause for the disturbance had been previously expressed by Messrs. 

 Bouvard and Bessell. We have already mentioned that in England 

 Mr. Adams had been pursuing a similar course, and had arrived at 

 the same results somewhat earlier, but had printed nothing. [ADAMS.] 

 Alexander von Humboldt, in a note to bis ' Cosmos ' (n. 640, vol. iii), 

 thus notices the dates of the steps in the discovery of Adams and 

 Leverrier Level-Tier's we have given : " Adorns, without printing any- 

 thing, laid the first results which be obtained for the perturbing planet 

 before Professor CballLs in September 1845, and the same, with some 

 modification, in the following month, October 1845, before the astro- 

 nomer-royal, still without publishing anything. The astronomer-royal 

 received from Adams his final results, with some fresh corrections 

 relating to a diminution of the distance, in the beginning of September 

 1846. The young Cambridge geometrician has expressed himself with 

 noble modesty and self-denial on the subject of this chronological suc- 

 cession of labours, which were all directed to the some great object. 

 ' I mention these earlier dates merely to show that my results were 

 arrived at independently and previously to the publication of 

 M. Leverrier, and not with the intention of interfering with his 

 just claims to the honour of the discovery ; for there is no doubt 

 that his researches were first published to the world and led to the 

 actual discovery of the planet by Dr. Galle : BO that the facts stated 

 above cannot detract in the slightest degree from the credit due 

 to M. Leverrier.' " On the verification of Leverrier's discovery 

 honours of all kinds were showered upon him ; he was created 

 Professor of the Faculty of Sciences, member of the Bureau de Lon- 

 gitude, director of the observatory, an officer of the Legion of Honour, 

 aud was chosen member of the Legislative Assembly by the depart- 

 ment of La Manche ; the Duke of Tuscany presented him with the 

 works of Galileo, and the Royal Society of England bestowed on him 

 the gold Copley medal aud elected him a member. On the revolu- 

 tion of December 2, 1851, he took part with the present Emperor 

 of the French, was shortly after named a senator, and on the death 

 of Arago succeeded him as astronomer to the Bureau de Longitude. 



* LEWES, GEORGE H., was born in London on the 18th of April 

 1817. After being educated at various schools, including that of 

 Dr. Burney at Greenwich, he was for some time in a mercantile office, 

 which he left while still very young with the intention of studying 

 medicine. He proceeded a considerable way in his medical studies ; 

 and the knowledge he then acquired has been of uee to him in not a 

 few of his subsequent labours as an author. Abandoning, however, 

 medicine as a profession, he chose that of literature. In 1838 and 1839 

 he resided in Germany, acquiring a knowledge of German life and of 

 the German language and literature ; and as he was already acquainted 

 with French, Italian, and Spanish, he thus began his literary career 

 with a very unusual amount of accomplishment in the modern tongues 

 of Europe, in addition to the more customary knowledge of the classical 

 tongues. Since the year 1839 Mr. Lewis has resided chiefly in London, 

 and has been incessant in his literary labours ; aud few British 

 authors have written so largely or have exhibited so much versa- 

 tility in their choice of subjects combined with such unfailing freshness 

 of power in each. He has contributed contemporaneously or suc- 

 cessively to the ' Edinburgh,' ' Westminster,' ' British and Foreign," 

 'Foreign Quarterly,' and 'British Quarterly' Reviews; to 'Black- 

 wood's,' ' Eraser's,' and other magazines ; to the ' Classical Museum,' 

 and to the ' Morning Chronicle,' ' Atlas,' and ' Leader ' newspapers : 

 of this last-named paper, the ' Leader,' he was literary editor from its 

 commencement in 1849 to the year 1854. Ho also contributed various 

 articles to the ' Penny Cyclopaedia,' A mere enumeration of the titles 



