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LEACH LEADHILLS. 



for his neat, accurate, and forcible speecbea, his 

 pleasing and lucid statements of cases. Tbe first 

 important matter in which he was retained as counsel 

 was the Seaford election, both at the election, and 

 on the subsequent petition against it; being his first 

 connection with that borough, which he after- 

 wards represented in parliament. In 1800 he 

 began to confine himself to equity practice ; and 

 although this important step did not at once meet 

 full encouragement, no very long period elapsed 

 ere he became extensively employed. He was 

 particularly celebrated for his able and correct 

 pleadings in equity ; they are, in fact, the founda- 

 tion of many of the private MS. collections of 

 value now in the profession. Some of them, 

 marked J. L., have been printed in the collection 

 by Mr Van Heythusen, and they have long been 

 valued and followed by the practising equity drafts- 

 men of the present day. His capabilities as a 

 lawyer were, however, by no means confined to 

 his chambers. In court he rose rapidly into emin- 

 ence, combining very considerable learning with 

 great powers of arranging and condensing facts. 

 His speeches always enforced attention, being clear, 

 precise, and nervous. He contended often pre- 

 eminently, even with Sir Samuel Romilly, and was 

 generally preferred to Sir Anthony Hart, to both 

 of whom he was constantly opposed, more espe- 

 cially when he became Ring's counsel. His temper 

 was warm and irritable, and he was frequently in- 

 volved in personal altercation with the advocate 

 to whom he was opposed. His talents as a speaker 

 not only secured his employment in the equity 

 courts, but gained him considerable business at the 

 Cock-pit, more particularly on West India appeals. 

 He was, moreover, distinguished for his despatch 

 and powers of disposing of his business. In poli- 

 tics, although he never took a very active part, he 

 ras a Whig, and was early introduced to the 

 leaders of that party, Mr Fox, Mr Sheridan, and 

 others. In 1807, he took a more distinguished 

 stand, both in his profession and before the public. 

 He had ever since 1792 been more or less con- 

 nected with Seaford. In 1795 he had been elected 

 recorder ; and having resided and purchased pro- 

 perty in the place, he had by degrees obtained suf- 

 ficient influence in the borough to return both its 

 members in the general elections in 1806 and 1807. 

 In the election in 1807, he himself was returned for 

 that borough, and voted with the Whig administra- 

 tion. In 1811 he spoke in favour of the regency bill, 

 and thought it advisable to print his speech ; and 

 from this time the favours of the court flowed in 

 upon him. He was consulted by the prince of 

 Wales as to the propriety of issuing a commission 

 to Italy respecting the conduct of the princess of 

 Wales ; and in 1817 he succeeded Sir Thomas 

 Plumer as vice-chancellor, and was knighted. His 

 appointment was on the whole considered a pro- 

 per one, and gave satisfaction to the profession. 

 In May, 1827, he succeeded Sir John Copley as 

 master of the rolls, on his acceptance of the great 

 seal. He held the office of master of the rolls 

 until his death, which happened at Edinburgh, on 

 September 16th, 1834, on his road to visit the 

 duchess of Sutherland. His most remarkable 

 qualities as a judge, were his power of seizing on 

 the important points in every case that came before 

 him, and in his being able to deliver his opinion 

 on them immediately, in a manner the most clear 

 and precise. It sometimes, however, happened 

 that he saw not all the bearings of it at the same 



moment, unil, therefore, was liable to give a gen- 

 eral judgment on merely particular, and sometimes 

 even insufficient grounds. His decisions were not 

 those that left either party simply content with 

 them. They were so clear as to convince a man 

 in spite of his interests, or they were so doubtful, 

 from the cause already mentioned, that they were 

 instantly appealed against. A more quiet and 

 cautious judge, with the undoubted ability and 

 talent of Sir John Leach, would have had fewer 

 of his decisions appealed from ; but then, when he 

 was right, he would have given less complete and 

 unanswerable reasons for the opinions he adopted. 

 There can be little doubt, that the unfortunate 

 state of Sir John Leach's health, working upon an 

 excitable temperament, sometimes led him to take 

 hasty and one-sided views of the cases brought 

 before him, and to cling to his first impressions 

 with the most determined resolution. This was 

 his misfortune, while the merit of talent and the 

 greater praise of learned industry, may be set off 

 against it ; and, however the circumstances of his 

 health might sometimes affect his temper, the 

 praise not merely of impartiality but of an earnest 

 desire to do complete and equal justice most un- 

 doubtedly belonged to him. 



LEACH, WILLIAM ELFORD, M.D., F.R.S., one 

 of the most laborious and successful, as well as 

 one of the most universal, cultivators of zoology 

 which this country has ever produced ; died in 

 Italy of cholera in 1836. His discoveries in the 

 different classes of the vertebrata, especially birds, 

 were extensive ; but it was in entomology and 

 malacology that his labours have been most known, 

 and his improvements of the greatest importance. 

 His knowledge of the Crustacea was superior to 

 that of any other naturalist of his time, and his 

 arrangement the best, until the work of Dr Milne 

 Edwards appeared. After a long suspension of 

 his studies from ill health, during which s and up 

 to the period of his death, he was attended by the 

 most devoted of sisters, he returned to his favour- 

 ite occupation with his habitual ardour ; and the 

 letters he wrote to his scientific friends in this 

 country exhibited the same devotion to the study 

 of nature which distinguished the brighter years 

 of his life. His principal work, " The Natural 

 History of the Mollusca of Great Britain," in the 

 possession of his friend Mr Bell, is not yet pub- 

 lished. His other works were : " Malacostraca 

 Podolphthalma Britanniae," 4to, 1815 and 1816, 

 not finished ; "Zoological Miscellany," 3 vols. 8vo. 

 1817 ; " On the Genera and Species of Probos- 

 cideous Insects," 8vo. 1817. He described the 

 animals taken by Cranch in the expedition of Capt. 

 Tuckey to the Congo ; and was the author of val- 

 uable articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 

 Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, Zoological Journal, Memoirs of the Wer- 

 nerian Society, Dictionnaire des Sciences Natur- 

 elles, &c. Between 1810 and 1820, he contributed 

 seven papers to the Transactions of the Linnsean 

 Society: three on Insects; a general arrangement 

 of the Crustacea, Myriapoda, and Arachnides, a 

 very laborious work; two descriptive of ten new 

 genera of Bats; one on three new species of Gla- 

 reola. 



LEADHILLS; a village of Scotland, in the 

 upper ward of Lanarkshire, long celebrated for its 

 lead mines. It is situated 1280 feet above the 

 level of the sea, being the most elevated part of 

 the south of Scotland, and the mineral treasure* 



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