LEIDENorLeyden, a city in the province of South Holland, the kingdom of the Netherlands, on the Old Rhine, and a junction station 18 m. by rail S.S.W. of Haarlem. It is connected by steam tramway with Haarlem and The Hague respectively, and with the seaside resorts of Katwyk and Noordwyk. There is also regular steamboat connexion with Katwyk, Noordwyk, Amsterdam and Gouda. The population of Leiden which, it is estimated, reached 100,000 in 1640, had sunk to 30,000 between 1796 and 1811, and in 1904 was 56,044. The two branches of the Rhine which enter Leiden on the east unite in the centre of the town, which is further intersected by numerous small and sombre canals, with tree-bordered quays and old houses. On the south side of the town pleasant gardens extend along the old Singel, or outer canal, and there is a large open space, the Van der Werf Park, named after the burgomaster, Pieter Andriaanszoon van der Werf, who defended the town against the Spaniards in 1574. This open space was formed by the accidental explosion of a powdership in 1807, hundreds of houses being demolished, including that of the Elzevir family of printers. At the junction of the two arms of the Rhine stands the old castle (De Burcht), a circular tower built on an earthen mound. Its origin is unknown, but some connect it with Roman days and others with the Saxon Hengist. Of Leiden’s old gateways only two—both dating from the end of the 17th century—are standing. Of the numerous churches the chief are the Hooglandsche Kerk, or the church of St Pancras, built in the 15th century and restored in 1885-1902, containing the monument of Pieter Andriaanszoon van der Werf, and the Pieterskerk (1315) with monuments to Scaliger, Boerhaave and other famous scholars. The most interesting buildings are the town hall (Stadhuis), a fine example of 16th-century Dutch building; the Gemeenlandshuis van Rynland (1596, restored 1878); the weight-house built by Pieter Post (1658); the former court-house, now a military storehouse; and the ancient gymnasium (1599) and the so-called city timber-house (Stads Timmerhuis) (1612), both built by Lieven de Key (c.1560-1627).
In spite of a certain industrial activity and the periodical bustle of its cattle and dairy markets, Leiden remains essentially an academic city. The university is a flourishing institution. It was founded by William of Orange in 1575 as a reward for the heroic defence of the previous year, the tradition being that the citizens were offered the choice between a university and a certain exemption from taxes. Originally located in the convent of St Barbara, the university was removed in 1581 to the convent of the White Nuns, the site of which it still occupies, though that building was destroyed in 1616. The presence within half a century of the date of its foundation of such scholars as Justus Lipsius, Joseph Scaliger, Francis Gomarus, Hugo Grotius, Jacobus Arminius, Daniel Heinsius and Guardas Johannes Vossius at once raised Leiden university to the highest European fame, a position which the learning and reputation of Jacobus Gronovius, Hermann Boerhaave, Tiberius Hemsterhuis and David Ruhnken, among others, enabled it to maintain down to the end of the 18th century. The portraits of many famous professors since the earliest days hang in the universityaula, one of the most memorable places, as Niebuhr called it, in the history of science. The university library contains upwards of 190,000 volumes and 6000 MSS. and pamphlet portfolios, and is very rich in Oriental and Greek MSS. and old Dutch travels. Among the institutions connected with the university are the national institution for East Indian languages, ethnology and geography; the fine botanical gardens, founded in 1587; the observatory (1860); the natural history museum, with a very complete anatomical cabinet; the museum of antiquities (Museum van Oudheden), with specially valuable Egyptian and Indian departments; a museum of Dutch antiquities from the earliest times; and three ethnographical museums, of which the nucleus was P. F. von Siebold’s Japanese collections. The anatomical and pathological laboratories of the university are modern, and the museums of geology and mineralogy have been restored. The university has now five faculties, of which those of law and medicine are the most celebrated, and is attended by about 1200 students.
The municipal museum, founded in 1869 and located in the old cloth-hall (Laeckenhalle) (1640), contains a varied collection of antiquities connected with Leiden, as well as some paintings including works by the elder van Swanenburgh, Cornelius Engelbrechtszoon, Lucas van Leiden and Jan Steen, who were all natives of Leiden. Jan van Goyen, Gabriel Metsu, Gerard Dou and Rembrandt were also natives of this town. There is also a small collection of paintings in the Meermansburg. The Thysian library occupies an old Renaissance building of the year 1655, and is especially rich in legal works and native chronicles. Noteworthy also are the collection of the Society of Dutch Literature (1766); the collections of casts and of engravings; the seamen’s training school; the Remonstrant seminary, transferred hither from Amsterdam in 1873; the two hospitals (one of which is private); the house of correction; and the court-house.
Leiden is an ancient town, although it is not theLugdunum Batavorumof the Romans. Its early name was Leithen, and it was governed until 1420 by burgraves, the representatives of the courts of Holland. The most celebrated event in its history is its siege by the Spaniards in 1574. Besieged from May until October, it was at length relieved by the cutting of the dikes, thus enabling ships to carry provisions to the inhabitants of the flooded town. The weaving establishments (mainly broadcloth) of Leiden at the close of the 15th century were very important, and after the expulsion of the Spaniards Leiden cloth, Leiden baize and Leiden camlet were familiar terms. These industries afterwards declined, and in the beginning of the 19th century the baize manufacture was altogether given up. Linen and woollen manufactures are now the most important industries, while there is a considerable transit trade in butter and cheese.Katwyk, or Katwijk, 6 m. N.W. of Leiden, is a popular seaside resort and fishing village. Close by are the great locks constructed in 1807 by the engineer, F. W. Conrad (d. 1808), through which the Rhine (here called the Katwyk canal) is admitted into the sea at low tide. The shore and the entrance to the canal are strengthened by huge dikes. In 1520 an ancient Roman camp known as the Brittenburg was discovered here. It was square in shape, each side measuring 82 yds., and the remains stood about 10 ft. high. By the middle of the 18th century it had been destroyed and covered by the sea.See P. J. Blok,Eine hollandsche stad in de middeleeuwen(The Hague, 1883); and for the siege see J. L. Motley,The Rise of the Dutch Republic(1896).
Leiden is an ancient town, although it is not theLugdunum Batavorumof the Romans. Its early name was Leithen, and it was governed until 1420 by burgraves, the representatives of the courts of Holland. The most celebrated event in its history is its siege by the Spaniards in 1574. Besieged from May until October, it was at length relieved by the cutting of the dikes, thus enabling ships to carry provisions to the inhabitants of the flooded town. The weaving establishments (mainly broadcloth) of Leiden at the close of the 15th century were very important, and after the expulsion of the Spaniards Leiden cloth, Leiden baize and Leiden camlet were familiar terms. These industries afterwards declined, and in the beginning of the 19th century the baize manufacture was altogether given up. Linen and woollen manufactures are now the most important industries, while there is a considerable transit trade in butter and cheese.
Katwyk, or Katwijk, 6 m. N.W. of Leiden, is a popular seaside resort and fishing village. Close by are the great locks constructed in 1807 by the engineer, F. W. Conrad (d. 1808), through which the Rhine (here called the Katwyk canal) is admitted into the sea at low tide. The shore and the entrance to the canal are strengthened by huge dikes. In 1520 an ancient Roman camp known as the Brittenburg was discovered here. It was square in shape, each side measuring 82 yds., and the remains stood about 10 ft. high. By the middle of the 18th century it had been destroyed and covered by the sea.
See P. J. Blok,Eine hollandsche stad in de middeleeuwen(The Hague, 1883); and for the siege see J. L. Motley,The Rise of the Dutch Republic(1896).
LEIDY, JOSEPH(1823-1891), American naturalist and palaeontologist, was born in Philadelphia on the 9th of September 1823. He studied mineralogy and botany without an instructor, and graduated in medicine at the university of Pennsylvania in 1844. Continuing his work in anatomy and physiology, he visited Europe in 1848, but both before and after this period of foreign study lectured and taught in American medical colleges. In 1853 he was appointed professor of anatomy in the university of Pennsylvania, paying special attention to comparative anatomy. In 1884 he promoted the establishment in the same institution of the department of biology, of which he became director, and meanwhile taught natural history in Swarthmore College, near Philadelphia. His papers on biology and palaeontology were very numerous, covering both fauna and flora, and ranging from microscopic forms of animal life to the higher vertebrates. He wrote also occasional papers on minerals. He was an active member of the Boston Society of Natural History and of the American Philosophical Society; and was the recipient of various American and foreign degrees and honours. HisCretaceous Reptiles of the United States(1865) andContributions to the Extinct Vertebrate Fauna of the Western Territories(1873) were the most important of his larger works; the best known and most widely circulated was anElementary Treatise on HumanAnatomy(1860, afterwards revised in new editions). He died in Philadelphia on the 30th of April 1891.
See Memoir and portrait inAmer. Geologist, vol. ix. (Jan. 1892) and Bibliography in vol. viii. (Nov. 1891) and Memoir by H. C. Chapman inProc. Acad. Nat. Sc.(Philadelphia, 1891), p. 342.
See Memoir and portrait inAmer. Geologist, vol. ix. (Jan. 1892) and Bibliography in vol. viii. (Nov. 1891) and Memoir by H. C. Chapman inProc. Acad. Nat. Sc.(Philadelphia, 1891), p. 342.
LEIF ERICSSON[Leifr Eiriksson] (fl. 999-1000), Scandinavian explorer, of Icelandic family, the first known European discoverer of “Vinland,” “Vineland” or “Wineland, the Good,” in North America. He was a son of Eric the Red (Eirikr hinn raudi Thorvaldsson), the founder of the earliest Scandinavian settlements—from Iceland—in Greenland (985). In 999 he went from Greenland to the court of King Olaf Tryggvason in Norway, stopping in the Hebrides on the way. On his departure from Norway in 1000, the king commissioned him to proclaim Christianity in Greenland. As on his outward voyage, Leif was again driven far out of his course by contrary weather—this time to lands (in America) “of which he had previously had no knowledge,” where “self-sown” wheat grew, and vines, and “mösur” (maple?) wood. Leif took specimens of all these, and sailing away came home safely to his father’s home in Brattahlid on Ericsfiord in Greenland. On his voyage from this Vineland to Greenland, Leif rescued some shipwrecked men, and from this, and his discoveries, gained his name of “The Lucky” (hinn heppni). On the subsequent expedition of Thorfinn Karlsefni for the further exploration and settlement of the Far Western vine-country, it is recorded that certain Gaels, incredibly fleet of foot, who had been given to Leif by Olaf Tryggvason, and whom Leif had offered to Thorfinn, were put on shore to scout.
Such is the account of theSaga of Eric the Red, supported by a number of briefer references in early Icelandic and other literature. The less trustworthy history of theFlatey Bookmakes Biarni Heriulfsson in 985 discover Helluland (Labrador?) as well as other western lands which he does not explore, not even permitting his men to land; while Leif Ericsson follows up Biarni’s discoveries, begins the exploration of Helluland, Markland and Vinland, and realizes some of the charms of the last named, where he winters. But this secondary authority (theFlatey Booknarrative), which till lately formed the basis of all general knowledge as to Vinland, abounds in contradictions and difficulties from whichEric the Red Sagais comparatively free. Thus (inFlatey) the grapes of Vinland are found in winter and gathered in spring; the man who first finds them, Leif’s foster-father Tyrker the German, gets drunk from eating the fruit; and the vines themselves are spoken of as big trees affording timber. Looking at the record inEric the Red Saga, it would seem probable that Leif’s Vinland answers to some part of southern Nova Scotia. SeeVinland. (As to Helluland and Markland seeThorfinn Karlsefni.)
The MSS. ofEric the Red’s Sagaare Nos. 544 and 557 of the Arne-Magnaean collection in Copenhagen; the MS. of theFlatey Book, so called because it was long the property of a family living on Flat Island in Broad Firth (Flatey in Breiðafjord [B-eidafj-d]), on the north-west coast of Iceland, was presented in 1662 to the Royal Library of Denmark, of which it is still one of the chief treasures. These leading narratives are supplemented by Adam of Bremen,Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, chap. 38 (247 Lappenberg) of book iv. (often separately entitledDescriptio Insularum Aquilonis; Adam’s is the earliest extant reference to Vinland,c.1070): we have also notices of Vinland in theLibellus Islandorumof Ari Frodi (c.1120), the oldest Icelandic historian; in theKristni Saga(repeated in Snorri Sturlason’sHeimskringla); inEyrbyggia Saga(c.1250); inGretti Saga(c.1290); and in an Icelandic chorography of the 14th century, or earlier, partly derived from the famous traveller Abbot Nicolas of Thing-eyrar (†1159).See Gustav Storm, “Studies on the Vineland Voyages,” in theMémoires de la Société royale des Antiquaires du Nord(Copenhagen, 1888); andEiriks Saga Raudha(Copenhagen, 1891); A. M. Reeves,Finding of Wineland the Good: the History of the Icelandic Discovery of America(London, 1890); in this work the original authorities are given in full, with photographic facsimiles, English translations and adequate commentary; Rafn’sAntiquitates Americanae(Copenhagen, 1837) contains all the sources, but the editor’s personal views have in many cases failed to satisfy criticism; theFlateytext is printed also by Vigfusson and Unger inFlateyjar-bok, vol. i. (Christiania, 1860). There are also translations ofFlateyandRed Eric Sagain Beamish,Discovery of North America, by the Northmen(Lond., 1841); E. F. Slafter,Voyages of the Northmen(Boston, 1877); B. F. de Costa,Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen(Albany, 1901); andOriginal Narratives of Early American History; The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, pp. 1-66 (New York, 1906). See also C. Raymond Beazley,Dawn of Modern Geographyii. 48-83 (London, 1901); Josef Fischer,Die Entdeckungen der Normannen in Amerika(Freiburg i. B., 1902); John Fiske,Discovery of America, vol. i.; Juul Dieserud, “Norse Discoveries in America,” in theBulletin of the American Geographical Society(February, 1901); G. Vigfusson,Origines Islandicae(1905), which strangely expresses a preference for theFlatey Book“account of the first sighting of the American continent” by the Norsemen.
The MSS. ofEric the Red’s Sagaare Nos. 544 and 557 of the Arne-Magnaean collection in Copenhagen; the MS. of theFlatey Book, so called because it was long the property of a family living on Flat Island in Broad Firth (Flatey in Breiðafjord [B-eidafj-d]), on the north-west coast of Iceland, was presented in 1662 to the Royal Library of Denmark, of which it is still one of the chief treasures. These leading narratives are supplemented by Adam of Bremen,Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, chap. 38 (247 Lappenberg) of book iv. (often separately entitledDescriptio Insularum Aquilonis; Adam’s is the earliest extant reference to Vinland,c.1070): we have also notices of Vinland in theLibellus Islandorumof Ari Frodi (c.1120), the oldest Icelandic historian; in theKristni Saga(repeated in Snorri Sturlason’sHeimskringla); inEyrbyggia Saga(c.1250); inGretti Saga(c.1290); and in an Icelandic chorography of the 14th century, or earlier, partly derived from the famous traveller Abbot Nicolas of Thing-eyrar (†1159).
See Gustav Storm, “Studies on the Vineland Voyages,” in theMémoires de la Société royale des Antiquaires du Nord(Copenhagen, 1888); andEiriks Saga Raudha(Copenhagen, 1891); A. M. Reeves,Finding of Wineland the Good: the History of the Icelandic Discovery of America(London, 1890); in this work the original authorities are given in full, with photographic facsimiles, English translations and adequate commentary; Rafn’sAntiquitates Americanae(Copenhagen, 1837) contains all the sources, but the editor’s personal views have in many cases failed to satisfy criticism; theFlateytext is printed also by Vigfusson and Unger inFlateyjar-bok, vol. i. (Christiania, 1860). There are also translations ofFlateyandRed Eric Sagain Beamish,Discovery of North America, by the Northmen(Lond., 1841); E. F. Slafter,Voyages of the Northmen(Boston, 1877); B. F. de Costa,Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen(Albany, 1901); andOriginal Narratives of Early American History; The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, pp. 1-66 (New York, 1906). See also C. Raymond Beazley,Dawn of Modern Geographyii. 48-83 (London, 1901); Josef Fischer,Die Entdeckungen der Normannen in Amerika(Freiburg i. B., 1902); John Fiske,Discovery of America, vol. i.; Juul Dieserud, “Norse Discoveries in America,” in theBulletin of the American Geographical Society(February, 1901); G. Vigfusson,Origines Islandicae(1905), which strangely expresses a preference for theFlatey Book“account of the first sighting of the American continent” by the Norsemen.
(C. R. B.)
LEIGH, EDWARD(1602-1671), English Puritan and theologian, was born at Shawell, Leicestershire. He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, from 1616, and subsequently became a member of the Middle Temple. In 1636 he entered parliament as member for Stafford, and during the Civil War held a colonelcy in the parliamentary army. He has sometimes been confounded with John Ley (1583-1662), and so represented as having sat in the Westminster Assembly. The public career of Leigh terminated with his expulsion from parliament with the rest of the Presbyterian party in 1648. From an early age he had studied theology and produced numerous compilations, the most important being theCritica Sacra, containing Observations on all the Radices of the Hebrew Words of the Old and the Greek of the New Testament(1639-1644; new ed., with supplement, 1662), for which the author received the thanks of the Westminster Assembly, to whom it was dedicated. His other works includeSelect and Choice Observations concerning the First Twelve Caesars(1635);A Treatise of Divinity(1646-1651);Annotations upon the New Testament(1650), of which a Latin translation by Arnold was published at Leipzig in 1732;A Body of Divinity(1654);A Treatise of Religion and Learning(1656);Annotations of the Five Poetical Books of the Old Testament(1657). Leigh died in Staffordshire in June 1671.
LEIGH,a market town and municipal borough in the Leigh parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 11 m. W. by N. from Manchester by the London & North-Western railway. Pop. (1891) 30,882, (1901) 40,001. The ancient parish church of St Mary the Virgin was, with the exception of the tower, rebuilt in 1873 in the Perpendicular style. The grammar school, the date of whose foundation is unknown, received its principal endowments in 1655, 1662 and 1681. The staple manufactures are silk and cotton; there are also glass works, foundries, breweries, and flour mills, with extensive collieries. Though the neighbourhood is principally an industrial district, several fine old houses are left near Leigh. The town was incorporated in 1899, and the corporation consists of a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Area, 6358 acres.
LEIGHTON, FREDERICK LEIGHTON,Baron(1830-1896), English painter and sculptor, the son of a physician, was born at Scarborough on the 3rd of December 1830. His grandfather, Sir James Leighton, also a physician, was long resident at the court of St Petersburg. Frederick Leighton was taken abroad at a very early age. In 1840 he learnt drawing at Rome under Signor Meli. The family moved to Dresden and Berlin, where he attended classes at the Academy. In 1843 he was sent to school at Frankfort, and in the winter of 1844 accompanied his family to Florence, where his future career as an artist was decided. There he studied under Bezzuoli and Segnolini at the Accademia delle Belle Arti, and attended anatomy classes under Zanetti; but he soon returned to complete his general education at Frankfort, receiving no further direct instruction in art for five years. He went to Brussels in 1848, where he met Wiertz and Gallait, and painted some pictures, including “Cimabue finding Giotto,” and a portrait of himself. In 1849 he studied for a few months in Paris, where he copied Titian and Correggio in the Louvre, and then returned to Frankfort, where he settled down to serious art work under Edward Steinle, whose pupil he declared he was “in the fullest sense of the term.” Though his artistic training was mainly German, and his master belonged to the same school as Cornelius and Overbeck, he loved Italian art and Italy and the first picture by which he became known to the British public was “Cimabue’s Madonna carried in Procession through theStreets of Florence,” which appeared at the Royal Academy in 1855. At this time the works of the Pre-Raphaelites almost absorbed public interest in art—it was the year of Holman Hunt’s “Light of the World,” and the “Rescue,” by Millais. Yet Leighton’s picture, painted in quite a different style, created a sensation, and was purchased by Queen Victoria. Although, since his infancy, he had only visited England once (in 1851, when he came to see the Great Exhibition), he was not quite unknown in the cultured and artistic world of London, as he had made many friends during a residence in Rome of some two years or more after he left Frankfort in 1852. Amongst these were Giovanni Costa, Robert Browning, James Knowles, George Mason and Sir Edward Poynter, then a youth, whom he allowed to work in his studio. He also met Thackeray, who wrote from Rome to the young Millais: “Here is a versatile young dog, who will run you close for the presidentship one of these days.” During these years he painted several Florentine subjects—“Tybalt and Romeo,” “The Death of Brunelleschi,” a cartoon of “The Pest in Florence according to Boccaccio,” and “The Reconciliation of the Montagues and the Capulets.” He now turned his attention to themes of classic legend, which at first he treated in a “Romantic spirit.” His next picture, exhibited in 1856, was “The Triumph of Music: Orpheus by the Power of his Art redeems his Wife from Hades.” It was not a success, and he did not again exhibit till 1858, when he sent a little picture of “The Fisherman and the Syren” to the Royal Academy, and “Samson and Delilah” to the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street. In 1858 he visited London and made the acquaintance of the leading Pre-Raphaelites—Rossetti, Holman Hunt and Millais. In the spring of 1859 he was at Capri, always a favourite resort of his, and made many studies from nature, including a very famous drawing of a lemon tree. It was not till 1860 that he settled in London, when he took up his quarters at 2 Orme Square, Bayswater, where he stayed till, in 1860, he moved to his celebrated house in Holland Park Road, with its Arab hall decorated with Damascus tiles. There he lived till his death. He now began to fulfil the promise of his “Cimabue,” and by such pictures as “Paolo e Francesca,” “The Star of Bethlehem,” “Jezebel and Ahab taking Possession of Naboth’s Vineyard,” “Michael Angelo musing over his Dying Servant,” “A Girl feeding Peacocks,” and “The Odalisque,” all exhibited in 1861-1863, rose rapidly to the head of his profession. The two latter pictures were marked by the rhythm of line and luxury of colour which are among the most constant attributes of his art, and may be regarded as his first dreams of Oriental beauty, with which he afterwards showed so great a sympathy. In 1864 he exhibited “Dante in Exile” (the greatest of his Italian pictures), “Orpheus and Eurydice” and “Golden Hours.” In the winter of the same year he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy. After this the main effort of his life was to realize visions of beauty suggested by classic myth and history. If we add to pictures of this class a few Scriptural subjects, a few Oriental dreams, one or two of tender sentiment like “Wedded” (one of the most popular of his pictures, and well known by not only an engraving, but a statuette modelled by an Italian sculptor), a number of studies of very various types of female beauty, “Teresina,” “Biondina,” “Bianca,” “Moretta,” &c., and an occasional portrait, we shall nearly exhaust the two classes into which Lord Leighton’s work (as a painter) can be divided.
Amongst the finest of his classical pictures were—“Syracusan Bride leading Wild Beasts in Procession to the Temple of Diana” (1866), “Venus disrobing for the Bath” (1867), “Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon,” and “Helios and Rhodos” (1869), “Hercules wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis” (1871), “Clytemnestra” (1874), “The Daphnephoria” (1876), “Nausicaa” (1878), “An Idyll” (1881), two lovers under a spreading oak listening to the piping of a shepherd and gazing on the rich plain below; “Phryne” (1882), a nude figure standing in the sun; “Cymon and Iphigenia” (1884), “Captive Andromache” (1888), now in the Manchester Art Gallery; with the “Last Watch of Hero” (1887), “The Bath of Psyche” (1890), now in the Chantrey Bequest collection; “The Garden of the Hesperides” (1892), “Perseus and Andromeda” and “The Return of Persephone,” now in the Leeds Gallery (1891); and “Clytie,” his last work (1896). All these pictures are characterized by nobility of conception, by almost perfect draughtsmanship, by colour which, if not of the highest quality, is always original, choice and effective. They often reach distinction and dignity of attitude and gesture, and occasionally, as in the “Hercules and Death,” the “Electra” and the “Clytemnestra,” a noble intensity of feeling. Perhaps, amidst the great variety of qualities which they possess, none is more universal and more characteristic than a rich elegance, combined with an almost fastidious selection of beautiful forms. It is the super-eminence of these qualities, associated with great decorative skill, that make the splendid pageant of the “Daphnephoria” the most perfect expression of his individual genius. Here we have his composition, his colour, his sense of the joy and movement of life, his love of art and nature at their purest and most spontaneous, and the result is a work without a rival of its kind in the British School.
Leighton was one of the most thorough draughtsmen of his day. His sketches and studies for his pictures are numerous and very highly esteemed. They contain the essence of his conceptions, and much of their spiritual beauty and subtlety of expression was often lost in the elaboration of the finished picture. He seldom succeeded in retaining the freshness of his first idea more completely than in his last picture—“Clytie”—which was left unfinished on his easel. He rarely painted sacred subjects. The most beautiful of his few pictures of this kind was the “David musing on the Housetop” (1865). Others were “Elijah in the Wilderness” (1879), “Elisha raising the Son of the Shunammite” (1881) and a design intended for the decoration of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, “And the Sea gave up the Dead which were in it” (1892), now in the Tate Gallery, and the terrible “Rizpah” of 1893. His diploma picture was “St Jerome,” exhibited in 1869. Besides these pictures of sacred subjects, he made some designs for Dalziel’s Bible, which for force of imagination excel the paintings. The finest of these are “Cain and Abel,” and “Samson with the Gates of Gaza.”
Not so easily to be classed, but among the most individual and beautiful of his pictures, are a few of which the motive was purely aesthetic. Amongst these may specially be noted “The Summer Moon,” two Greek girls sleeping on a marble bench, and “The Music Lesson,” in which a lovely little girl is seated on her lovely young mother’s lap learning to play the lute. With these, as a work produced without any literary suggestion, though very different in feeling, may be associated the “Eastern Slinger scaring Birds in the Harvest-time: Moon-rise” (1875), a nude figure standing on a raised platform in a field of wheat.
Leighton also painted a few portraits, including those of Signor Costa, the Italian landscape painter, Mr F. P. Cockerell, Mrs Sutherland Orr (his sister), Amy, Lady Coleridge, Mrs Stephen Ralli and (the finest of all) Sir Richard Burton, the traveller and Eastern scholar, which was exhibited in 1876 and is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
Like other painters of the day, notably G. F. Watts, Lord Leighton executed a few pieces of sculpture. His “Athlete struggling with a Python” was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1877, and was purchased for the Chantrey Bequest collection. Another statue, “The Sluggard,” of equal merit, was exhibited in 1886; and a charming statuette of a nude figure of a girl looking over her shoulder at a frog, called “Needless Alarms,” was completed in the same year, and presented by the artist to Sir John Millais in acknowledgment of the gift by the latter of his picture, “Shelling Peas.” He made the beautiful design for the reverse of the Jubilee Medal of 1887. It was also his habit to make sketch models in wax for the figures in his pictures, many of which are in the possession of the Royal Academy. As an illustrator in black and white he also deserves to be remembered, especially for the cuts to Dalziel’s Bible, already mentioned, and his illustrations to George Eliot’sRomola, which appeared in theCornhill Magazine. The latter are full of the spirit ofFlorence and the Florentines, and show a keen sense of humour, elsewhere excluded from his work. Of his decorative paintings, the best known are the elegant compositions (in spirit fresco) on the walls of the Victoria and Albert Museum, representing “The Industrial Arts of War and Peace.” There, also, is the refined and spirited figure of “Cimabue” in mosaic. In Lyndhurst church are mural decorations to the memory of Mr Pepys Cockerell, illustrating “The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins.”
Leighton’s life was throughout marked by distinction, artistic and social. Though not tall, he had a fine presence and manners, at once genial and courtly. He was welcomed in all societies, from the palace to the studio. He spoke German, Italian and French, as well as English. He had much taste and love for music, and considerable gifts as an orator of a florid type. His Presidential Discourses (published, London, 1896) were full of elegance and culture. For seven years (1876-1883) he commanded the 20th Middlesex (Artists) Rifle Volunteers, retiring with the rank of honorary colonel, and subsequently receiving the Volunteer Decoration. Yet no social attractions or successes diverted him from his devotion to his profession, the welfare of his brethren in art or of the Royal Academy. As president he was punctilious in the discharge of his duties, ready to give help and encouragement to artists young and old, and his tenure of the office was marked by some wise and liberal reforms. He frequently went abroad, generally to Italy, where he was well known and appreciated. He visited Spain in 1866, Egypt in 1868, when he went up the Nile with Ferdinand de Lesseps in a steamer lent by the Khedive. He was at Damascus for a short time in 1873. It was his custom on all these trips to make little lively sketches of landscape and buildings. These fresh little flowers of his leisure used to decorate the walls of his studio, and at the sale of its contents after his death realized considerable prices. It was when he was in the full tide of his popularity and success, and apparently in the full tide of his personal vigour also, that he was struck withangina pectoris. For a long time he struggled bravely with this cruel disease, never omitting except from absolute necessity any of his official duties except during a brief period of rest abroad, which failed to produce the desired effect. His death occurred on the 25th of January 1896.
Leighton was elected an Academician in 1868, and succeeded Sir Francis Grant as President in 1878, when he was knighted. He was created a baronet in 1886, and was raised to the peerage in 1896, a few days before his death. He held honorary degrees at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, Edinburgh and Durham, was an Associate of the Institute of France; a Commander of the Legion of Honour, and of the Order of Leopold. He was a Knight of the Coburg Order, “Dem Verdienste,” and of the Prussian Order, “Pour le Mérite,” and a member of at least ten foreign Academies. In 1859 he won a medal of the second class at the Paris Salon, and at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 a gold medal. As a sculptor he was awarded a medal of the first class in 1878 and the Grand Prix in 1889.
SeeArt Annual(Mrs A. Lang), 1884; Royal Academy Catalogue, Winter Exhibition, 1897; National Gallery of British Art Catalogue; C. Monkhouse,British Contemporary Artists(London, 1899); Ernest Rhys,Frederick, Lord Leighton(London, 1898, 1900).
SeeArt Annual(Mrs A. Lang), 1884; Royal Academy Catalogue, Winter Exhibition, 1897; National Gallery of British Art Catalogue; C. Monkhouse,British Contemporary Artists(London, 1899); Ernest Rhys,Frederick, Lord Leighton(London, 1898, 1900).
(C. Mo.)
LEIGHTON, ROBERT(1611-1684), archbishop of Glasgow, was born, probably in London (others say at Ulishaven, Forfarshire), in 1611, the eldest son of Dr Alexander Leighton, the author ofZion’s Plea against the Prelacie, whose terrible sufferings for having dared to question the divine right of Episcopacy, under the persecution of Laud, form one of the most disgraceful incidents of the reign of Charles I. Dr Leighton is said to have been of the old family of Ulishaven in Forfarshire. From his earliest childhood, according to Burnet, Robert Leighton was distinguished for his saintly disposition. In his sixteenth year (1627) he was sent to the university of Edinburgh, where, after studying with distinguished success for four years, he took the degree of M.A. in 1631. His father then sent him to travel abroad, and he is understood to have spent several years in France, where he acquired a complete mastery of the French language. While there he passed a good deal of time with relatives at Douai who had become Roman Catholics, and with whom he kept up a correspondence for many years afterwards. Either at this time or on some subsequent visit he had also a good deal of intercourse with members of the Jansenist party. This intercourse contributed to the charity towards those who differed from him in religious opinion, which ever afterwards formed a feature in his character. The exact period of his return to Scotland has not been ascertained; but in 1641 he was ordained Presbyterian minister of Newbattle in Midlothian. In 1652 he resigned his charge and went to reside in Edinburgh. What led him to take this step does not distinctly appear. The account given is that he had little sympathy with the fiery zeal of his brother clergymen on certain political questions, and that this led to severe censures on their part.
Early in 1653 he was appointed principal of the university of Edinburgh, and primarius professor of divinity. In this post he continued for seven or eight years. A considerable number of his Latin prelections and other addresses (published after his death) are remarkable for the purity and elegance of their Latinity, and their subdued and meditative eloquence. They are valuable instructions in the art of living a holy life rather than a body of scientific divinity. Throughout, however, they bear the marks of a deeply learned and accomplished mind, saturated with both classical and patristic reading, and like all his works they breathe the spirit of one who lived very much above the world. His mental temper was too unlike the temper of his time to secure success as a teacher.
In 1661, when Charles II. had resolved to force Episcopacy once more upon Scotland, he fixed upon Leighton for one of his bishops (seeScotland, Church of). Leighton, living very much out of the world, and being somewhat deficient in what may be called the political sense, was too open to the persuasions used to induce him to enter a sphere for which he instinctively felt he was ill qualified. The Episcopacy which he contemplated was that modified form which had been suggested by Archbishop Ussher, and to which Baxter and many of the best of the English Nonconformists would have readily given their adherence. It is significant that he always refused to be addressed as “my lord,” and it is stated that when dining with his clergy on one occasion he wished to seat himself at the foot of the table.
Leighton soon began to discover the sort of men with whom he was to be associated in the episcopate. He travelled with them in the same coach from London towards Scotland, but having become, as he told Burnet, very weary of their company (as he doubted not they were of his), and having found that they intended to make a kind of triumphal entrance into Edinburgh, he left them at Morpeth and retired to the earl of Lothian’s at Newbattle. He very soon lost all hope of being able to build up the church by the means which the government had set on foot, and his work, as he confessed to Burnet, “seemed to him a fighting against God.” He did, however, what he could, governing his diocese (that of Dunblane) with the utmost mildness, as far as he could, preventing the persecuting measures in active operation elsewhere, and endeavouring to persuade the Presbyterian clergy to come to an accommodation with their Episcopal brethren. After a hopeless struggle of three or four years to induce the government to put a stop to their fierce persecution of the Covenanters, he determined to resign his bishopric, and went up to London in 1665 for this purpose. He so far worked upon the mind of Charles that he promised to enforce the adoption of milder measures, but it does not appear that any material improvement took place. In 1669 Leighton again went to London and made fresh representations on the subject, but little result followed. The slight disposition, however, shown by the government to accommodate matters appears to have inspired Leighton with so much hope that in the following year he agreed, though with a good deal of hesitation, to accept the archbishopric of Glasgow. In this higher sphere he redoubled his efforts with the Presbyterians to bring aboutsome degree of conciliation with Episcopacy, but the only result was to embroil himself with the hot-headed Episcopal party as well as with the Presbyterians. In utter despair, therefore, of being able to be of any further service to the cause of religion, he resigned the archbishopric in 1674 and retired to the house of his widowed sister, Mrs Lightmaker, at Broadhurst in Sussex. Here he spent the remaining ten years, probably the happiest of his life, and died suddenly on a visit to London in 1684.
It is difficult to form a just or at least a full estimate of Leighton’s character. He stands almost alone in his age. In some respects he was immeasurably superior both in intellect and in piety to most of the Scottish ecclesiastics of his time; and yet he seems to have had almost no influence in moulding the characters or conduct of his contemporaries. So intense was his absorption in the love of God that little room seems to have been left in his heart for human sympathy or affection. Can it be that there was after all something to repel in his outward manner? Burnet tells us that he had never seen him laugh, and very seldom even smile. In other respects, too, he gives the impression of standing aloof from human interests and ties. It may go for little that he never married, but it was surely a curious idiosyncrasy that he habitually cherished the wish (which was granted him) that he might die in an inn. In fact, holy meditation seems to have been the one absorbing interest of his life. At Dunblane tradition preserved the memory of “the good bishop,” silent and companionless, pacing up and down the sloping walk by the river’s bank under the beautiful west window of his cathedral. And from a letter of the earl of Lothian to his countess it appears that, whatever other reasons Leighton might have had for resigning his charge at Newbattle, the main object which he had in view was to be left to his own thoughts. It is therefore not very wonderful that he was completely misjudged and even disliked both by the Presbyterian and by the Episcopal party.It was characteristic of him that he could never be made to understand that anything which he wrote possessed the smallest value. None of his works were published by himself, and it is stated that he left orders that all his MSS. should be destroyed after his death. But fortunately for the world this charge was disregarded. Like all the best writing, it seems to flow without effort; it is the easy unaffected outcome of his saintly nature. Throughout, however, it is the language of a scholar and a man of perfect literary taste; and with all its spirituality of thought there are no mystical raptures, such as are often found mingled with the Scottish practical theology of the 17th century. It was a common reproach against Leighton that he had leanings towards Roman Catholicism, and perhaps this is so far true that he had formed himself in some degree upon the model of some of the saintly persons of that faith, such as Pascal and Thomas à Kempis.The best account of Leighton’s character is that of Bishop Burnet inHist. of his Own Times(1723-1734). No perfectly satisfactory edition of Leighton’s works exists. After his death hisCommentary on Peterand several of his other works were published under the editorship of his friend Dr Fall, and those early editions may be said to be, with some drawbacks, by far the best. His later editors have been possessed by the mania of reducing his good archaic and nervous language to the bald feebleness of modern phraseology. It is unfortunately impossible to exempt from this criticism even the edition, in other respects very valuable and meritorious, published under the superintendence of the Rev. W. West (7 vols., London, 1869-1875); see also volume of selections (with biography) by Dr Blair of Dunblane (1883), who also contributed “Bibliography of Archbishop Leighton” to theBritish and Foreign Evangelical Review(July 1883); Andrew Lang,History of Scotland(1902).
It is difficult to form a just or at least a full estimate of Leighton’s character. He stands almost alone in his age. In some respects he was immeasurably superior both in intellect and in piety to most of the Scottish ecclesiastics of his time; and yet he seems to have had almost no influence in moulding the characters or conduct of his contemporaries. So intense was his absorption in the love of God that little room seems to have been left in his heart for human sympathy or affection. Can it be that there was after all something to repel in his outward manner? Burnet tells us that he had never seen him laugh, and very seldom even smile. In other respects, too, he gives the impression of standing aloof from human interests and ties. It may go for little that he never married, but it was surely a curious idiosyncrasy that he habitually cherished the wish (which was granted him) that he might die in an inn. In fact, holy meditation seems to have been the one absorbing interest of his life. At Dunblane tradition preserved the memory of “the good bishop,” silent and companionless, pacing up and down the sloping walk by the river’s bank under the beautiful west window of his cathedral. And from a letter of the earl of Lothian to his countess it appears that, whatever other reasons Leighton might have had for resigning his charge at Newbattle, the main object which he had in view was to be left to his own thoughts. It is therefore not very wonderful that he was completely misjudged and even disliked both by the Presbyterian and by the Episcopal party.
It was characteristic of him that he could never be made to understand that anything which he wrote possessed the smallest value. None of his works were published by himself, and it is stated that he left orders that all his MSS. should be destroyed after his death. But fortunately for the world this charge was disregarded. Like all the best writing, it seems to flow without effort; it is the easy unaffected outcome of his saintly nature. Throughout, however, it is the language of a scholar and a man of perfect literary taste; and with all its spirituality of thought there are no mystical raptures, such as are often found mingled with the Scottish practical theology of the 17th century. It was a common reproach against Leighton that he had leanings towards Roman Catholicism, and perhaps this is so far true that he had formed himself in some degree upon the model of some of the saintly persons of that faith, such as Pascal and Thomas à Kempis.
The best account of Leighton’s character is that of Bishop Burnet inHist. of his Own Times(1723-1734). No perfectly satisfactory edition of Leighton’s works exists. After his death hisCommentary on Peterand several of his other works were published under the editorship of his friend Dr Fall, and those early editions may be said to be, with some drawbacks, by far the best. His later editors have been possessed by the mania of reducing his good archaic and nervous language to the bald feebleness of modern phraseology. It is unfortunately impossible to exempt from this criticism even the edition, in other respects very valuable and meritorious, published under the superintendence of the Rev. W. West (7 vols., London, 1869-1875); see also volume of selections (with biography) by Dr Blair of Dunblane (1883), who also contributed “Bibliography of Archbishop Leighton” to theBritish and Foreign Evangelical Review(July 1883); Andrew Lang,History of Scotland(1902).
(J. T. Br.; D. Mn.)
LEIGHTON BUZZARD,a market town in the southern parliamentary division of Bedfordshire, England, 40 m. N.W. of London by the London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6331. It lies in the flat valley of the Ouzel, a tributary of the Ouse, sheltered to east and west by low hills. The river here forms the county boundary with Buckinghamshire. The Grand Junction canal follows its course, and gives the town extensive water-communications. The church of All Saints is cruciform, with central tower and spire. It is mainly Early English, and a fine example of the style; but some of the windows including the nave clerestory, and the beautiful carved wooden roof, are Perpendicular. The west door has good early iron-work; and on one of the tower-arch pillars are some remarkable early carvings of jocular character, one of which represents a man assaulted by a woman with a ladle. The market cross is of the 14th century, much restored, having an open arcade supporting a pinnacle, with flying buttresses. The statues in its niches are modern, but the originals are placed on the exterior of the town hall. Leighton has a considerable agricultural trade, and some industry in straw-plaiting. Across the Ouzel in Buckinghamshire, where Leighton railway station is situated, is the urban district of Linslade (pop. 2157).
LEININGEN,the name of an old German family, whose lands lay principally in Alsace and Lorraine. The first count of Leiningen about whom anything certain is known was a certain Emicho (d. 1117), whose family became extinct in the male line when Count Frederick, a Minnesinger, died about 1220. Frederick’s sister, Liutgarde, married Simon, count of Saarbrücken, and Frederick, one of their sons, inheriting the lands of the counts of Leiningen, took their arms and their name. Having increased its possessions the Leiningen family was divided about 1317 into two branches; the elder of these, whose head was a landgrave, died out in 1467. On this event its lands fell to a female, the last landgrave’s sister Margaret, wife of Reinhard, lord of Westerburg, and their descendants were known as the family of Leiningen-Westerburg. Later this family was divided into two branches, those of Alt-Leiningen-Westerburg and Neu-Leiningen-Westerburg, both of which are represented to-day.
Meanwhile the younger branch of the Leiningens, known as the family of Leiningen-Dagsburg, was flourishing, and in 1560 this was divided into the lines of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hartenburg, founded by Count John Philip (d. 1562), and Leiningen-Dagsburg-Heidesheim or Falkenburg, founded by Count Emicho (d. 1593). In 1779 the head of the former line was raised to the rank of a prince of the Empire. In 1801 this family was deprived of its lands on the left bank of the Rhine by France, but in 1803 it received ample compensation for these losses. A few years later its possessions were mediatized, and they are now included mainly in Baden, but partly in Bavaria and in Hesse. A former head of this family, Prince Emich Charles, married Maria Louisa Victoria, princess of Saxe-Coburg; after his death in 1814 the princess married George III.’s son, the duke of Kent, by whom she became the mother of Queen Victoria. In 1910 the head of the family was Prince Emich (b. 1866).
The family of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Heidesheim was divided into three branches, the two senior of which became extinct during the 18th century. At present it is represented by the counts of Leiningen-Guntersblum and Leiningen-Heidesheim, called also Leiningen-Billigheim and Leiningen-Neidenau.
See Brinckmeier,Genealogische Geschichte des Hauses Leiningen(Brunswick, 1890-1891).
See Brinckmeier,Genealogische Geschichte des Hauses Leiningen(Brunswick, 1890-1891).
LEINSTER,a province of Ireland, occupying the middle and south-eastern portion of the island, and extending to the left bank of the Shannon. It includes counties Longford, Westmeath, Meath, Louth, King’s County, Kildare, Dublin, Queen’s County, Carlow, Wicklow, Kilkenny and Wexford (q.v.for topography, &c.). Leinster (Laighen) was one of the early Milesian provinces of Ireland. Meath, the modern county of which is included in Leinster, was the name of a separate province created in the 2nd centuryA.D.The kings of Leinster retained their position until 1171, and their descendants maintained independence within a circumscribed territory as late as the 16th century. In 1170 Richard Strongbow married Aoife, daughter of the last king Diarmid, and thus acquired the nominal right to the kingdom of Leinster. Henry II. confirmed him in powers of jurisdiction equivalent to those of a palatinate. His daughter Isabel married William Marshal, earl of Pembroke. Their five daughters shared the territory of Leinster, which was now divided into five liberties carrying the same extensive privileges as the undivided territory, namely, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Kildare and Leix. The history of Leinster thereafter passes to the several divisions which were gradually organized into the present counties.
LEIPZIG,a city of Germany, the second town of the kingdom of Saxony in size and the first in commercial importance, 70 m. N.W. of Dresden and 111 m. S.W. of Berlin by rail, and 6 m. from the Prussian frontier. It lies 350 ft. above the sea-level, In a broad and fertile plain, just above the junction of three small rivers, the Pleisse, the Parthe and the Elster, which flow in various branches through or round the town and afterwardsunder the name of the Elster, discharge themselves into the Saale. The climate, though not generally unhealthy, may be inclement in winter and hot in summer.
Leipzig is one of the most enterprising and prosperous of German towns, and in point of trade and industries ranks among German cities immediately after Berlin and Hamburg. It possesses the third largest German university, is the seat of the supreme tribunal of the German empire and the headquarters of the XIX. (Saxon) army corps, and forms one of the most prominent literary and musical centres in Europe. Its general aspect is imposing, owing to the number of new public buildings erected during the last 20 years of the 19th century. It consists of the old, or inner city, surrounded by a wide and pleasant promenade laid out on the site of the old fortifications, and of the very much more extensive inner and outer suburbs. Many thriving suburban villages, such as Reudnitz, Volkmarsdorf, Gohlis, Eutritzsch, Plagwitz and Lindenau, have been incorporated with the city, and with these accretions the population in 1905 amounted to 502,570. On the north-west the town is bordered by the fine public park and woods of the Rosenthal, and on the west by the Johanna Park and by pleasant groves leading along the banks of the Pleisse.
The old town, with its narrow streets and numerous houses of the 16th and 17th centuries, with their high-pitched roofs, preserves much of its quaint medieval aspect. The market square, lying almost in its centre, is of great interest. Upon it the four main business streets, the Grimmaische-, the Peters-, the Hain- and the Katharinen-strassen, converge, and its north side is occupied by the beautiful old Rathaus, a Gothic edifice built by the burgomaster Hieronymus Lotter in 1556, and containing life-size portraits of the Saxon rulers. Superseded by the new Rathaus, it has been restored and accommodates a municipal museum. Behind the market square and the main street lie a labyrinth of narrow streets interconnected by covered courtyards and alleys, with extensive warehouses and cellars. The whole, in the time of the great fairs, when every available place is packed with merchandise and thronged with a motley crowd, presents the semblance of an oriental bazaar. Close to the old Rathaus is Auerbach’sHof, built about 1530 and interesting as being immortalized in Goethe’sFaust. It has a curious old wine vault (Keller) which contains a series of mural paintings of the 16th century, representing the legend on which the play is based. Near by is the picturesque Königshaus, for several centuries the palace of the Saxon monarchs in Leipzig and in which King Frederick Augustus I. was made prisoner by the Allies after the battle of Leipzig in October 1813. At the end of the Petersstrasse, in the south-west corner of the inner town and on the promenade, lay the Pleissenburg, or citadel, modelled, according to tradition, on that of Milan, and built early in the 13th century. Here Luther in 1519 held his momentous disputation. The round tower was long used as an observatory and the building as a barrack. With the exception of the tower, which has been encased and raised to double its former height—to 300 ft.—the citadel has been removed and its site is occupied by the majestic pile of the new Rathaus in Renaissance style, with the tower as its central feature. The business of Leipzig is chiefly concentrated in the inner city, but the headquarters of the book trade lie in the eastern suburb. Between the inner town and the latter lies the magnificent Augustusplatz, one of the most spacious squares in Europe. Upon it, on the side of the inner town and included within it, is the Augusteum, or main building of the university, a handsome edifice containing a splendid hall (1900), lecture rooms and archaeological collections; adjoining it is the Paulinerkirche, the university church. The other sides of the square are occupied by the new theatre, an imposing Renaissance structure, designed by C. F. Langhans, the post office and the museum of sculpture and painting, the latter faced by the Mende fountain. The churches of Leipzig are comparatively uninteresting. The oldest, in its present form, is the Paulinerkirche, built in 1229-1240, and restored in 1900, with a curiously grooved cloister; the largest in the inner town is the Thomaskirche, with a high-pitched roof dating from 1496, and memorable for its association with J. Sebastian Bach, who was organist here. Among others may be mentioned the new Gothic Petrikirche, with a lofty spire, in the south suburb. On the east is the Johanniskirche, round which raged the last conflict in the battle of 1813, when it suffered severely from cannon shot. In it is the tomb of Bach, and outside that of the poet Gellert. Opposite its main entrance is the Reformation monument, with bronze statues of Luther and Melanchthon, by Johann Schilling, unveiled in 1883. In the Johanna Park is the Lutherkirche (1886), and close at hand the Roman Catholic and English churches. To the south-west of the new Rathaus, lying beyond the Pleisse and between it and the Johanna Park, is the new academic quarter. Along the fine thoroughfares, noticeable among which is the Karl Tauchnitz Strasse, are closely grouped many striking buildings. Here is the new Gewandhaus, or Konzerthaus, built in 1880-1884, in which the famous concerts called after its name are given, the old Gewandhaus, or Drapers’ Hall, in the inner town having again been devoted to commercial use as a market hall during the fairs. Immediately opposite to it is the new university library, built in 1891, removed hither from the old monasterial buildings behind the Augusteum, and containing some 500,000 volumes and 5000 MSS. Behind that again is the academy of art, one wing of which accommodates the industrial art school; and close beside it are the school of technical arts and the conservatoire of music. Between the university library and the new Gewandhaus stands a monument of Mendelssohn (1892). Immediately to the east of the school of arts rises the grand pile of the supreme tribunal of the German empire, the Reichsgericht, which compares with the Reichstag building in Berlin. It was built in 1888-1895 from plans by Ludwig Hoffmann, and is distinguished for the symmetry and harmony of its proportions. It bears an imposing dome, 225 ft. high, crowned by a bronze figure of Truth by O. Lessing, 18 ft. high. Opposite, on the outer side of the Pleisse, are the district law-courts, large and substantial, though not specially imposing edifices. In the same quarter stands the Grassi Museum (1893-1896) for industrial art and ethnology, and a short distance away are the palatial buildings of the Reichs and Deutsche Banks. Farther east and lying in the centre of the book-trade quarter stand close together the Buchhändlerhaus (booksellers’ exchange), the great hall decorated with allegorical pictures by Sascha Schneider, and the Buchgewerbehaus, a museum of the book trade, both handsome red brick edifices in the German Renaissance style, erected in 1886-1890. South-west of these buildings, on the other side of the Johannisthal Park, are clustered the medical institutes and hospitals of the university—the infirmary, clinical and other hospitals, the physico-chemical institute, pathological institute, physiological institute, ophthalmic hospital, pharmacological institute, the schools of anatomy, the chemical laboratory, the zoological institute, the physico-mineralogical institute, the botanical garden and also the veterinary schools, deaf and dumb asylum, agricultural college and astronomical observatory. Among other noteworthy buildings in this quarter must be noted the Johannisstift, an asylum for the relief of the aged poor, with a handsome front and slender spire. On the north side of the inner town and on the promenade are the handsome exchange with library, and the reformed church, a pleasing edifice in late Gothic.
Leipzig has some interesting monuments; the Siegesdenkmal, commemorative of the wars of 1866 and 1870, on the market square, statues of Goethe, Leibnitz, Gellert, J. Sebastian Bach, Robert Schumann, Hahnemann, the homeopathist, and Bismarck. There are also many memorials of the battle of Leipzig, including an obelisk on the Randstädter-Steinweg, on the site of the bridge which was prematurely blown up, when Prince Poniatowski was drowned; a monument of cannon balls collected after the battle; a “relief” to Major Friccius, who stormed the outer Grimma gate; while on the battle plain itself and close to “Napoleonstein,” which commemorates Napoleon’s position on the last day of the battle, a gigantic obelisk surrounded by a garden has been planned for dedication on the hundredth anniversary of the battle (October 19, 1913).
The University and Education.—The university of Leipzig, founded in 1409 by a secession of four hundred German students from Prague, is one of the most influential universities in the world. It was a few years since the most numerously attended of any university in Germany, but it has since been outstripped by those of Berlin and of Munich. Its large revenues, derived to a great extent from house property in Leipzig and estates in Saxony, enable it, in conjunction with a handsome state subvention, to provide rich endowments for the professorial chairs. To the several faculties also belong various collegiate buildings, notably, to the legal, that of theCollegium beatae Virginisin the Petersstrasse, and to the philosophical theRothe Hauson the promenade facing the theatre. The other educational institutions of Leipzig include the Nicolai and Thomas gymnasia, several “Realschulen,” a commercial academy (Handelsschule), high schools for girls, and a large number of public and private schools of all grades.
Art and Literature.—The city has a large number of literary, scientific and artistic institutions. One of the most important is the museum, which contains about four hundred modern paintings, a large number of casts, a few pieces of original sculpture and a well-arranged collection of drawings and engravings. The collection of the historical society and the ethnographical and art-industrial collections in the Grassi Museum are also of considerable interest. The museum was erected with part of the munificent bequest made to the city by Dominic Grassi in 1881. As a musical centre Leipzig is known all over the world for its excellent conservatorium, founded in 1843 by Mendelssohn. The series of concerts given annually in the Gewandhaus is also of world-wide reputation, and the operatic stage of Leipzig is deservedly ranked among the finest in Germany. There are numerous vocal and orchestral societies, some of which have brought their art to a very high pitch of perfection. The prominence of the publishing interest has attracted to Leipzig a large number of gifted authors, and made it a literary centre of considerable importance. Over five hundred newspapers and periodicals are published here, including several of the most widely circulated in Germany. Intellectual interests of a high order have always characterized Leipzig, and what Karl von Holtei once said of it is true to-day: “There is only one city in Germany that represents Germany; only a single city where one can forget that he is a Hessian, a Bavarian, a Swabian, a Prussian or a Saxon; only one city where, amid the opulence of the commercial world with which science is so gloriously allied, even the man who possesses nothing but his personality is honoured and esteemed; only one city, in which, despite a few narrownesses, all the advantages of a great, I may say a world-metropolis, are conspicuous! This city is, in my opinion, and in my experience, Leipzig.”
Commerce, Fairs.—The outstanding importance of Leipzig as a commercial town is mainly derived from its three great fairs, which annually attract an enormous concourse of merchants from all parts of Europe, and from Persia, Armenia and other Asiatic countries. The most important fairs are held at Easter and Michaelmas, and are said to have been founded as markets about 1170. The smaller New Year’s fair was established in 1458. Under the fostering care of the margraves of Meissen, and then of the electors of Saxony they attained great popularity. In 1268 the margrave of Meissen granted a safe-conduct to all frequenters of the fairs, and in 1497 and 1507 the emperor Maximilian I. greatly increased their importance by prohibiting the holding of annual markets at any town within a wide radius of Leipzig. During the Thirty Years’ War, the Seven Years’ War and the troubles consequent upon the French Revolution, the trade of the Leipzig fairs considerably decreased, but it recovered after the accession of Saxony to the German Customs Union (Zollverein) in 1834, and for the next twenty years rapidly and steadily increased. Since then, owing to the greater facilities of communication, the transactions at the fairs have diminished in relative, though they have increased in actual, value. Wares that can be safely purchased by sample appear at the fairs in steadily diminishing quantities, while others, such as hides, furs and leather, which require to be actually examined, show as marked an increase. The value of the sales considerably exceeds £10,000,000 sterling per annum. The principal commodity is furs (chiefly American and Russian), of which about one and a quarter million pounds worth are sold annually; other articles disposed of are leather, hides, wool, cloth, linen and glass. The Leipzig wool-market, held for two days in June, is also important.
In the trades of bookselling and publishing Leipzig occupies a unique position, not only taking the first place in Germany, but even surpassing London and Paris in the number and total value of its sales. There are upwards of nine hundred publishers and booksellers in the town, and about eleven thousand firms in other parts of Europe are represented here. Several hundred booksellers assemble in Leipzig every year, and settle their accounts at their own exchange (Buchhändler-Börse). Leipzig also contains about two hundred printing-works, some of great extent, and a corresponding number of type-foundries, binding-shops and other kindred industries.
The book trades give employment to over 15,000 persons, and since 1878 Leipzig has grown into an industrial town of the first rank. The iron and machinery trades employ 4500 persons; the textile industries, cotton and yarn spinning and hosiery, 6000; and the making of scientific and musical instruments, including pianos, 2650. Other industries include the manufacture of artificial flowers, wax-cloth, chemicals, ethereal oils and essences, beer, mineral waters, tobacco and cigars, lace, india-rubber wares, rush-work and paper, the preparation of furs and numerous other branches. These industries are mostly carried on in the suburbs of Plagwitz, Reudnitz, Lindenau, Gohlis, Eutritzsch, Konnewitz and the neighbouring town of Markranstädt.
Communications.—Leipzig lies at the centre of a network of railways giving it direct communication with all the more important cities of Germany. There are six main line railway stations, of which the Dresden and the Magdeburg lie side by side in the north-east corner of the promenade, the Thuringian and Berlin stations further away in the northern suburb; in the eastern is the Eilenburg station (for Breslau and the east) and in the south the Bavarian station. The whole traffic of these stations is to be directed into a vast central station (the largest in the world), lying on the sites of the Dresden, Magdeburg and Thuringian stations. The estimated cost, borne by Prussia, Saxony and the city of Leipzig, is estimated at 6 million pounds sterling. The city has an extensive electric tramway system, bringing all the outlying suburbs into close connexion with the business quarters of the town.
Population.—The population of Leipzig was quintupled within the 19th century, rising from 31,887 in 1801 to 153,988 in 1881, to 455,089 in 1900 and to 502,570 in 1905.