444 
LEE 
beaten clay, raifed four inches above the fuvfaee of the 
enclofure. One-fourth of it, commonly facing the eaft, 
is entirely open, the other three-fourths walled up with 
■clay and ftones, to the height of about five feet. The 
people depofit their valuable articles in another apartment 
defcribed with the fame radius as the former, fuch as Ikin- 
clothing, ivory ornaments, knives, and other articles, 
which to them are of effential fervice. In this alfo the 
elder part of the family take their repofe, and the children 
deep in the half-clofed viranda. The whole houfe is co¬ 
vered with a roof in the form of a tent, fupported by 
poles built into the wall. The roof is thatched with 
reeds, bound together with leathern thongs. The inha¬ 
bitants preferve their grain and pulfe in large clay veflels 
adjacent to the houfe, exhibiting the appearance of large 
oil jars, and feme of them containing about two hundred 
gallons. The regularity and decorum with which the 
people of Leetakoo conduft thenvfelves, give a very fa¬ 
vourable opinion of them, as being greatly fuperior to 
favages, and evince them to be bordering on a date of 
civilization which it would be no difficult matter to in¬ 
troduce among them. They are friendly, peaceable', and 
inoffenfive, and appear to live under a government which 
may be denominated purely patriarchal. They do not 
appear to have any particular form of religious worffiip, 
in the common acceptation of that word ; yet they cir- 
jcumcife all male children, and dance in a circle the whole 
night of the full-moon. They feem alfo to believe that 
there -is a power directing the operations of nature, who 
is infinitely fuperior to themfelves, and to whofe influ¬ 
ence they are fubjefl. Lat. 26. 30. S. Ion. 27. o. E. Bar- 
row's Travels to Cochin-china. 
LEEUW (William de), an engraver, was born at Ant¬ 
werp in the year 1600, and flourilhed in the Netherlands 
in 1650. He was a pupil of Soutmans, but did not en¬ 
grave in his ftyle ; inftead of which he employed fhort 
playful ftrokes, which produced a pifturefque effefl, 
united with a tolerably good chiarofcuro. Moll: of his 
engravings are from Rubens or Rembrandt; but in a fet 
of large landfcapes after Nieulandt he has quite altered 
his manner of execution, and engraved the ground and 
Iky in a manner fo delicate, that it requires good eyes to 
diftinguifh it from a tint of Indian ink. The time of his 
death is not known. The following ate his beft works : 
Lot and his Daughters, in folio; the Holy Virgin kneel¬ 
ing, fupported by angels, commonly called the Virgin of 
Grief, a very rare print, in folio; the Martyrdom of St. 
Catharine, a very fine and rare print; all after Rubens. 
Tobit and his Wife, in folio, from Rembrandt; this 
print is executed in a very good tafle, and has a fine ef¬ 
fect. And the following fet in large folio, from Nieulandt, 
which are very rare and beautifully executed : A view in 
the Tyrol, with water, cafcades, and travellers; another 
feene in the mountains of Tryol, with travellers on horfe- 
back; a landfcape of the fame character as the former 
with wood and water; and another with filhers, and men 
on horfeback. 
LEEUW (John de), an engraver of portraits, and pro¬ 
bably related to the above, was born at the Hague loon 
after 1660 ; but never attained to eminence. In conjunc¬ 
tion with John Lamfvelt, he engraved the portraits for 
the Hiftory of Louis XIII. by Michael le Valfor. He alfo 
engraved the portrait of John duke of Marlborough, 
w hich is inferibed with the motto Veni, Vidi, Vici, in folio ; 
3. very neat portrait of Karolus Niellius, in quarto; Jo- 
feph Jurtus Scaliger; and Cowley, the poet. 
LEEUWE, or Leeuwen, a town of France, in the 
department of the Dyle, called by the Flemings Stout- 
Leeuwe ; fituated on the river Geete, in the midlt of a tno- 
rafs : it was formerly a place to which the fovereigns of 
the country fent thofe they baniflied. The French took 
it in 1678, and reftored it to Spain at the peace of Nime- 
guen. In 1705 it was taken by the allies, and the gar- 
rifon made prifoners of war. It is twenty miles weft- 
trorth-weft of Liege, and twenty-five eaft of Bruflels. 
LEE 
LEEU'WENHOEK. (Antony van), a celebrated 11a- 
turalift, was born at Delft, in 1632. An extraordinary 
degree of {kill in polifiling optical glafles feems firft to 
have led him into thofe refearcbes refpetfing the minute 
parts of the animat and vegetable economy which have 
conferred celebrity on his name. He was illiterate, and 
little capable of juft: reafoning upon what he faw ; never- 
thelefs, his microfcopical obfervations of fifty years have 
enriched fcience with many ufeful fadls. His experiments 
began to be publiflied in 1673, when he made a com¬ 
mencement of the numerous communications which ap¬ 
peared fucceffively for a long period in the London Phi- 
lofophical Tranfaftions. They are found from N° 94 to 
N° 380 of that colleition. He was made a fellow of the 
Royal Society in 1680. He feems to have pafled his life 
in his native place, unremittingly employed in examining 
with his glafles a vail: variety of objedts, mod of which 
had a reference to anatomy. His reputation fpread 
throughout Europe ; arid, in 1698, the czar Peter, palf- 
ing by Delft, fent for him, and was much gratified with 
his demonftration of the circulation of the blood in an 
eel’s tail. One of the molt remarkable of his difeoveries 
was that of the vermicular bodies in femine mafeulino, 
upon which he founded a fyftem of generation, now con- 
lidered as chimerical. See the article Animalcule, 
vol. i. p. 727. He likewife firft taught that the blood 
was compofed of globules, and faw, or fancied that he 
faw, the fmaller globules of which they were com¬ 
pounded. The glafles which he employed polTefted a 
magnifying power much inferior to thofe which natu- 
ralifts have fince ufed without being able to verify all 
his fuppofed dilcoveries; whence it has been imagined 
that he often deceived himfelf. The following palfage, 
in his own words, will lerve to ftate the objection, and 
the manner in which it was anfwered by the author: “ I 
have often heard, that many perfons difpute the truth of 
what I advance in my writings, faying that my narra¬ 
tions concerning animalcules, or minute living creatures, 
are merely of my own invention. And, it leems, foine 
perfons in France have even ventured to afiert, that thofe 
are not in truth living creatures, which I delcribe as dif- 
coverable to our fight; and allege, that, after water has 
been boiled, thofe particles in it which I pronounce to be 
animalcules will be ftill oblerved to move. The contrary 
of this, however, I have demonftrated to many eminent 
men ; and I will be bold to fay, that thofe gentlemen who 
hold this language have not attained to a degree of pro¬ 
ficiency to obferve fuch objects truly. For my own part, 
I will not fcruple to afiert, that I can clearly place before 
my eye the fmalleft fpecies of thofe animalcules concern¬ 
ing which I now write, and can as plainly fee them en¬ 
dued with life, as with the naked eye we behold fmall 
flies, or gnats fporting in the open air, though thefe ani¬ 
malcules are more than a million of degrees lefs than a 
large grain of land. For I not only behold their mo¬ 
tions in all direftions, but I alfo fee them turn about, re¬ 
main ftill, and fometimes expire ; and the larger kinds of 
them I as plainly perceive running along, as we do mice 
with the naked eye. Nay, I lee fome of them open their 
mouths, and move the organs or parts within them ; and 
I have difeovered hairs at the mouths of fome of thefe 
fpecies, though they were fome thoufand degrees lefs than 
a grain of land. But, (ince it is pronounced to be incre¬ 
dible, that within the fpace occupied by a grain of fand 
fo many animalcules can be contained, and that it is im- 
pollible for me to calculate truly fuch numbers, I have 
thought on the following method of computation, to 
place this matter in a clearer light. I lay it down as a 
pofition or truth, that with the microlcope I can fee the 
fpace occupied by a grain of fand magnified to the fize 
reprefented by a circle of 4I inches diameter. Next, I 
fuppofe that I obferve within this fpace an animalcule 
fwimming or runnmg along, the axis or thicknefs of 
which I conceive to be the twelfth part of the axis of the 
grain of fand; therefore, by the common rules of arith¬ 
metic. 
