Chapter 2

(J. S. F.)

LEUCTRA,a village of Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae, chiefly noticeable for the battle fought in its neighbourhood in 371B.C.between the Thebans and the Spartans and their allies. A Peloponnesian army, about 10,000 strong, which had invaded Boeotia from Phocis, was here confronted by a Boeotian levy of perhaps 6000 soldiers under Epaminondas (q.v.). In spite of inferior numbers and the doubtful loyalty of his Boeotian allies, Epaminondas offered battle on the plain before the town. Massing his cavalry and the 50-deep column of Theban infantry on his left wing, he sent forward this body in advance of his centre and right wing. After a cavalry engagement in which the Thebans drove their enemies off the field, the decisive issue was fought out between the Theban and Spartan foot. The latter, though fighting well, could not sustain in their 12-deep formation the heavy impact of their opponents’ column, and were hurled back with a loss of about 2000 men, of whom 700 were Spartan citizens, including the king Cleombrotus. Seeing their right wing beaten, the rest of the Peloponnesians retired and left the enemy in possession of the field. Owing to the arrival of a Thessalian army under Jason of Pherae, whose friendship they did not trust, the Thebans were unable to exploit their victory. But the battle is none the less of great significance in Greek history. It marks a revolution in military tactics, affording the first known instance of a deliberate concentration of attack upon the vital point of the enemy’s line. Its political effects were equally far-reaching, for the loss in material strength and prestige which the Spartans here sustained deprived them for ever of their supremacy in Greece.

Authorities.—Xenophon,Hellenica, vi. 4. 3-15; Diodorus xi. 53-56; Plutarch,Pelopidas, chs. 20-23; Pausanias ix. 13. 2-10; G. B. Grundy,The Topography of the Battle of Plataea(London, 1894), pp. 73-76; H. Delbrück,Geschichte der Kriegskunst(Berlin, 1900), i. 130 ff.

(M. O. B. C.)

LEUK(Fr.Loèche Ville), an ancient and very picturesque little town in the Swiss canton of the Valais. It is built above the right bank of the Rhone, and is about 1 m. from the Leuk-Susten station (15½ m. east of Sion and 17½ m. west of Brieg) on the Simplon railway. In 1900 it had 1592 inhabitants, all but wholly German-speaking and Romanists. About 10½ m. by a winding carriage road N. of Leuk, and near the head of the Dala valley, at a height of 4629 ft. above the sea-level, and overshadowed by the cliffs of the Gemmi Pass (7641 ft.;q.v.) leading over to the Bernese Oberland, are the Baths of Leuk (Leukerbad, orLoèche les Bains). They have only 613 permanent inhabitants, but are much frequented in summer by visitors (largely French and Swiss) attracted by the hot mineral springs. These are 22 in number, and are very abundant. The principal is that of St Laurence, the water of which has a temperature of 124° F. The season lasts from June to September. The village in winter is long deprived of sunshine, and is much exposed to avalanches, by which it was destroyed in 1518, 1719 and 1756, but it is now protected by a strong embankment from a similar catastrophe.

(W. A. B. C.)

LEUTHEN,a village of Prussian Silesia, 10 m. W. of Breslau, memorable as the scene of Frederick the Great’s victory over the Austrians on December 5, 1757. The high road from Breslau to Lüben crosses the marshy Schweidnitz Water at Lissa, and immediately enters the rolling country about Neumarkt.Leuthen itself stands some 4000 paces south of the road, and a similar distance south again lies Sagschütz, while Nypern, on the northern edge of the hill country, is 5000 paces from the road. On Frederick’s approach the Austrians took up a line of battle resting on the two last-named villages. Their whole position was strongly garrisoned and protected by obstacles, and their artillery was numerous though of light calibre. A strong outpost of Saxon cavalry was in Borne to the westward. Frederick had the previous day surprised the Austrian bakeries at Neumarkt, and his Prussians, 33,000 to the enemy’s 82,000, moved towards Borne and Leuthen early on the 5th. The Saxon outpost was rushed at in the morning mist, and, covered by their advanced guard on the heights beyond, the Prussians wheeled to their right. Prince Charles of Lorraine, the Austrian commander-in-chief, on Leuthen Church tower, could make nothing of Frederick’s movements, and the commander of his right wing (Lucchesi) sent him message after message from Nypem and Gocklerwitz asking for help, which was eventually despatched. But the real blow was to fall on the left under Nadasdy. While the Austrian commander was thus wasting time, the Prussians were marching against Nadasdy in two columns, which preserved their distances with an exactitude which has excited the wonder of modern generations of soldiers; at the due place they wheeled into line of battle obliquely to the Austrian front, and in one greatéchelon,—the cavalry of the right wing foremost, and that of the left “refused,”—Frederick advanced on Sagschütz. Nadasdy, surprised, put a bold face on the matter and made a good defence, but he was speedily routed, and, as the Prussians advanced, battalion after battalion was rolled up towards Leuthen until the Austrians faced almost due south. The fighting in Leuthen itself was furious; the Austrians stood, in places, 100 deep, but the disciplined valour of the Prussians carried the village. For a moment the victory was endangered when Lucchesi came down upon the Prussian left wing from the north, but Driesen’s cavalry, till then refused, charged him in flank and scattered his troopers in wild rout. This stroke ended the battle. The retreat on Breslau became a rout almost comparable to that of Waterloo, and Prince Charles rallied, in Bohemia, barely 37,000 out of his 82,000. Ten thousand Austrians were left on the field, 21,000 taken prisoners (besides 17,000 in Breslau a little later), with 51 colours and 116 cannon. The Prussian loss in all was under 5500. It was not until 1854 that a memorial of this astonishing victory was erected on the battlefield.

See Carlyle,Frederick, bk. xviii. cap. x.; V. Ollech,Friedrich der Grosse von Kolin bis Leuthen(Berlin, 1858); Kutzen,Schlacht bei Leuthen(Breslau, 1851 ); and bibliography underSeven Years’ War.

LEUTZE, EMANUEL(1816-1868), American artist, was born at Gmünd, Württemberg, on the 24th of May 1816, and as a child was taken by his parents to Philadelphia, where he early displayed talent as an artist. At the age of twenty-five he had earned enough to take him to Düsseldorf for a course of art study at the royal academy. Almost immediately he began the painting of historical subjects, his first work, “Columbus before the Council of Salamanca,” being purchased by the Düsseldorf Art Union. In 1860 he was commissioned by the United States Congress to decorate a stairway in the Capitol at Washington, for which he painted a large composition, “Westward the Star of Empire takes its Way.” His best-known work, popular through engraving, is “Washington crossing the Delaware,” a large canvas containing a score of life-sized figures; it is now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1860, and died at Washington, D.C., on the 18th of July 1868.

LEVALLOIS-PERRET,a north-western suburb of Paris, on the right bank of the Seine, 2½ m. from the centre of the city. Pop. (1906) 61,419. It carries on the manufacture of motor-cars and accessories, carriages, groceries, liqueurs, perfumery, soap, &c., and has a port on the Seine.

LEVANT(from the French use of the participle oflever, to rise, for the east, the orient), the name applied widely to the coastlands of the eastern Mediterranean Sea from Greece to Egypt, or, in a more restricted and commoner sense, to the Mediterranean coastlands of Asia Minor and Syria. In the 16th and 17th centuries the term “High Levant” was used of the Far East. The phrase “to levant,” meaning to abscond, especially of one who runs away leaving debts unpaid, particularly of a betting man or gambler, is taken from the Span.levantar, to lift or break up, in such phrases aslevantar la casa, to break up a household, orel campo, to break camp.

LEVASSEUR, PIERRE EMILE(1828- ), French economist, was born in Paris on the 8th of December 1828. Educated in Paris, he began to teach in the lycée at Alençon in 1852, and in 1857 was chosen professor of rhetoric at Besançon. He returned to Paris to become professor at the lycée Saint Louis, and in 1868 he was chosen a member of the academy of moral and political sciences. In 1872 he was appointed professor of geography, history and statistics in the Collège de France, and subsequently became also professor at the Conservatoire des arts et métiers and at the École libre des sciences politiques. Levasseur was one of the founders of the study of commercial geography, and became a member of the Council of Public Instruction, president of the French society of political economy and honorary president of the French geographical society.

His numerous writings include:Histoire des classes ouvrières en France depuis la conquête de Jules César jusqu’à la Révolution(1859);Histoire des classes ouvrières en France depuis la Révolution jusqu’à nos jours(1867);L’Étude et l’enseignement de la géographie(1871);La Population française(1889-1892);L’Agriculture aux États-Unis(1894);L’Enseignement primaire dans les pays civilisés(1897);L’Ouvrier américain(1898);Questions ouvrières et industrielles sous la troisième République(1907); andHistoire des classes ouvrières et de l’industrie en France de 1789 à 1870(1903-1904). He also published aGrand Atlas de géographie physique et politique(1890-1892).

LEVECHE,the name given to the dry hot sirocco wind in Spain; often incorrectly called the “solano.” The direction of the Leveche is mostly from S.E., S. or S.W., and it occurs along the coast from Cabo de Gata to Cabo de Nao, and even beyond Malaga for a distance of some 10 m. inland.

LEVÉE(from Fr.lever, to raise), an embankment which keeps a river in its channel. A river such as the Mississippi (q.v.), draining a large area, carries a great amount of sediment from its swifter head-streams to the lower ground. As soon as a stream’s velocity is checked, it drops a portion of its load of sediment and spreads an alluvial fan in the lower part of its course. This deposition of material takes place particularly at the sides of the stream where the velocity is least, and the banks are in consequence raised above the main channel, so that the river becomes lifted bodily upwards in its bed, and flows above the level of the surrounding country. In flood-time the muddy water flows over the river’s banks, where its velocity is at once checked as it flows gently down the outer side, causing more material to be deposited there, and a long alluvial ridge, called a natural levée, to be built up on either side of the stream. These ridges may be wide or narrow, but they slope from the stream’s outer banks to the plain below, and in consequence require careful watching, for if the levée is broken by a “crevasse,” the whole body of the river may pour through and flood the country below. In 1890 the Mississippi near New Orleans broke through the Nita crevasse and flowed eastward with a current of 15 m. an hour, spreading destruction in its path. The Hwang-ho river in China is peculiarly liable to these inundations. The word levée is also sometimes used to denote a riverside quay or landing-place.

LEVEE(from the French substantival use oflever, to rise; there is no French substantival use oflevéein the English sense), a reception or assembly held by the British sovereign or his representative, in Ireland by the lord-lieutenant, in India by the viceroy, in the forenoon or early afternoon, at which men only are present in distinction from a “drawing-room,” at which ladies also are presented or received. Under theancien règimein France theleverof the king was regulated, especially under Louis XIV., by elaborate etiquette, and the various divisions of the ceremonial followed the stages of the king’s rising from bed, from which it gained its name. Thepetit leverbegan when theking had washed and said his daily offices; to this were admitted the princes of the blood, certain high officers of the household and those to whom a special permit had been granted; then followed thepremière entrée, to which came the secretaries and other officials and those having theentrée; these were received by the king in his dressing-gown. Finally, at thegrand lever, the remainder of the household, the nobles and gentlemen of the court were received; the king by that time was shaved, had changed his linen and was in his wig. In the United States the term “levee” was formerly used of the public receptions held by the president.

LEVELLERS,the name given to an important political party in England during the period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth. The germ of the Levelling movement must be sought for among the Agitators (q.v.), men of strong republican views, and the name Leveller first appears in a letter of the 1st of November 1647, although it was undoubtedly in existence as a nickname before this date (Gardiner,Great Civil War, iii. 380). This letter refers to these extremists thus: “They have given themselves a new name, viz. Levellers, for they intend to sett all things straight, and rayse a parity and community in the kingdom.”

The Levellers first became prominent in 1647 during the protracted and unsatisfactory negotiations between the king and the parliament, and while the relations between the latter and the army were very strained. Like the Agitators they were mainly found among the soldiers; they were opposed to the existence of kingship, and they feared that Cromwell and the other parliamentary leaders were too complaisant in their dealings with Charles; in fact they doubted their sincerity in this matter. Led by John Lilburne (q.v.) they presented a manifesto,The Case of the Army truly stated, to the commander-in-chief, Lord Fairfax, in October 1647. In this they demanded a dissolution of parliament within a year and substantial changes in the constitution of future parliaments, which were to be regulated by an unalterable “law paramount.” In a second document,The Agreement of the People, they expanded these ideas, which were discussed by Cromwell, Ireton and other officers on the one side, and by John Wildman, Thomas Rainsborough and Edward Sexby for the Levellers on the other. But no settlement was made; some of the Levellers clamoured for the king’s death, and in November 1647, just after his flight from Hampton Court to Carisbrooke, they were responsible for a mutiny which broke out in two regiments at Corkbush Field, near Ware. This, however, was promptly suppressed by Cromwell. During the twelve months which immediately preceded the execution of the king the Levellers conducted a lively agitation in favour of the ideas expressed in theAgreement of the people, and in January 1648 Lilburne was arrested for using seditious language at a meeting in London. But no success attended these and similar efforts, and their only result was that the Levellers regarded Cromwell with still greater suspicion.

Early in 1649, just after the death of the king, the Levellers renewed their activity. They were both numerous and dangerous, and they stood up, says Gardiner, “for an exaggeration of the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy.” In a pamphlet,England’s New Chains, Lilburne asked for the dissolution of the council of state and for a new and reformed parliament. He followed this up with theSecond Part of England’s New Chains; his writings were declared treasonable by parliament, and in March 1649 he and three other leading Levellers, Richard Overton, William Walwyn and Prince were arrested. The discontent which was spreading in the army was fanned when certain regiments were ordered to proceed to Ireland, and in April 1649 there was a meeting in London; but this was quickly put down by Fairfax and Cromwell, and its leader, Robert Lockyer, was shot. Risings at Burford and at Banbury were also suppressed without any serious difficulty, and the trouble with the Levellers was practically over. Gradually they became less prominent, but under the Commonwealth they made frequent advances to the exiled king Charles II., and there was some danger from them early in 1655 when Wildman was arrested and Sexby escaped from England. The distinguishing mark of the Leveller was a sea-green ribbon.

Another but more harmless form of the same movement was the assembling of about fifty men on St George’s Hill near Oatlands in Surrey. In April 1649 these “True Levellers” or “Diggers,” as they were called, took possession of some unoccupied ground which they began to cultivate. They were, however, soon dispersed, and their leaders were arrested and brought before Fairfax, when they took the opportunity of denouncing landowners. It is interesting to note that Lilburne and his colleagues objected to being designated Levellers, as they had no desire to take away “the proper right and title that every man has to what is his own.”

Cromwell attacked the Levellers in his speech to parliament in September 1654 (Carlyle,Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, Speech II.). He said: “A nobleman, a gentleman, a yeoman; the distinction of these; that is a good interest of the nation, and a great one. The ‘natural’ magistracy of the nation, was it not almost trampled under foot, under despite and contempt, by men of Levelling principles? I beseech you, for the orders of men and ranks of men, did not that Levelling principle tend to the reducing of all to an equality? Did it ‘consciously’ think to do so; or did it ‘only unconsciously’ practise towards that for property and interest? ‘At all events,’ what was the purport of it but to make the tenant as liberal a fortune as the landlord? Which, I think, if obtained, would not have lasted long.”

In 1724 there was a rising against enclosures in Galloway, and a number of men who took part therein were called Levellers or Dyke-breakers (A. Lang,History of Scotland, vol. iv.). The word was also used in Ireland during the 18th century to describe a secret revolutionary society similar to the Whiteboys.

(A. W. H.*)

LEVEN, ALEXANDER LESLIE,1st Earl of(c.1580-1661), Scottish general, was the son of George Leslie, captain of Blair-in-Athol, and a member of the family of Leslie of Balquhain. After a scanty education he sought his fortune abroad, and became a soldier, first under Sir Horace Vere in the Low Countries, and afterwards (1605) under Charles IX. and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, in whose service he remained for many years and fought in many campaigns with honour. In 1626 Leslie had risen by merit to the rank of lieutenant-general, and had been knighted by Gustavus. In 1628 he distinguished himself by his constancy and energy in the defence of Stralsund against Wallenstein, and in 1630 seized the island of Rügen in the name of the king of Sweden. In the same year he returned to Scotland to assist in recruiting and organizing the corps of Scottish volunteers which James, 3rd marquis of Hamilton, brought over to Gustavus in 1631. Leslie received a severe wound in the following winter, but was able nevertheless to be present at Gustavus’s last battle at Lützen. Like many others of the soldiers of fortune who served under Gustavus, Leslie cherished his old commander’s memory to the day of his death, and he kept with particular care a jewel and miniature presented to him by the king. He continued as a general officer in the Swedish army for some years, was promoted in 1636 to the rank of field marshal, and continued in the field until 1638, when events recalled him to his own country. He had married long before this—in 1637 his eldest son was made a colonel in the Swedish army—and he had managed to keep in touch with Scottish affairs.

As the foremost Scottish soldier of his day he was naturally nominated to command the Scottish army in the impending war with England, a post which, resigning his Swedish command, he accepted with a glad heart, for he was an ardent Covenanter and had caused “a great number of our commanders in Germany subscryve our covenant” (Baillie’sLetters). On leaving Sweden he brought back his arrears of pay in the form of cannon and muskets for his new army. For some months he busied himself with the organization and training of the new levies, and with inducing Scottish officers abroad to do their duty to their country by returning to lead them. Diminutive in size and somewhat deformed in person as he was, his reputation and his shrewdnessand simple tact, combined with the respect for his office of lord general that he enforced on all ranks, brought even the unruly nobles to subordination. He had by now amassed a considerable fortune and was able to live in a manner befitting a commander-in-chief, even when in the field. One of his first exploits was to take the castle of Edinburgh by surprise, without the loss of a man. He commanded the Scottish army at Dunse Law in May of that year, and in 1640 he invaded England, and defeated the king’s troops at Newburn on the Tyne, which gave him possession of Newcastle and of the open country as far as the Tees. At the treaty with the king at Ripon, Leslie was one of the commissioners of the Scottish parliament, and when Charles visited Edinburgh Leslie entertained him magnificently and accompanied him when he drove through the streets. His affirmations of loyalty to the crown, which later events caused to be remembered against him, were sincere enough, but the complicated politics of the time made it difficult for Leslie, the lord general of the Scottish army, to maintain a perfectly consistent attitude. However, his influence was exercised chiefly to put an end to, even to hush up, the troubles, and he is found, now giving a private warning to plotters against the king to enable them to escape, now guarding the Scottish parliament against a royalistcoup d’état, and now securing for an old comrade of the German wars, Patrick Ruthven, Lord Ettrick, indemnity for having held Edinburgh Castle for the king against the parliament. Charles created him, by patent dated Holyrood, October 11, 1641, earl of Leven and Lord Balgonie, and made him captain of Edinburgh Castle and a privy councillor. The parliament recognized his services by a grant, and, on his resigning the lord generalship, appointed him commander of the permanent forces. A little later, Leven, who was a member of the committee of the estates which exercised executive powers during the recess of parliament, used his great influence in support of a proposal to raise a Scottish army to help the elector palatine in Germany, but the Ulster massacres gave this force, when raised, a fresh direction and Leven himself accompanied it to Ireland as lord general. He did not remain there long, for the Great Rebellion (q.v.) had begun in England, and negotiations were opened between the English and the Scottish parliaments for mutual armed assistance. Leven accepted the command of the new forces raised for the invasion of England, and was in consequence freely accused of having broken his personal oath to Charles, but he could hardly have acted otherwise than he did, and at that time, and so far as the Scots were concerned, to the end of the struggle, the parliaments were in arms, professedly and to some extent actually, to rescue his majesty from the influence of evil counsellors.

The military operations preceding Marston Moor are described underGreat Rebellion, and the battle itself under its own heading. Leven’s great reputation, wisdom and tact made him an ideal commander for the allied army formed by the junction of Leven’s, Fairfax’s and Manchester’s in Yorkshire. After the battle the allied forces separated, Leven bringing the siege of Newcastle to an end by storming it. In 1645 the Scots were less successful, though their operations ranged from Westmorland to Hereford, and Leven himself had many administrative and political difficulties to contend with. These difficulties became more pronounced when in 1646 Charles took refuge with the Scottish army. The king remained with Leven until he was handed over to the English parliament in 1647, and Leven constantly urged him to take the covenant and to make peace. Presbyterians and Independents had now parted, and with no more concession than the guarantee of the covenant the Scottish and English Presbyterians were ready to lay down their arms, or to turn them against the “sectaries.” Leven was now old and infirm, and though retained as nominal commander-in-chief saw no further active service. He acted with Argyll and the “godly” party in the discussions preceding the second invasion of England, and remained at his post as long as possible in the hope of preventing the Scots becoming merely a royalist instrument for the conquest of the English Independents. But be was induced in the end to resign, though he was appointed lord general of all new forces that might be raised for the defence of Scotland. The occasion soon came, for Cromwell annihilated the Scottish invaders at Preston and Uttoxeter, and thereupon Argyll assumed political and Leven military control at Edinburgh. But he was now over seventy years of age, and willingly resigned the effective command to his subordinate David Leslie (seeNewark, Lord), in whom he had entire confidence. After the execution of Charles I. the war broke out afresh, and this time the “godly” party acted with the royalists. In the new war, and in the disastrous campaign of Dunbar, Leven took but a nominal part, though attempts were afterwards made to hold him responsible. But once more the parliament refused to accept his resignation. Leven at last fell into the hands of a party of English dragoons in August 1651, and with some others was sent to London. He remained incarcerated in the Tower for some time, till released on finding securities for £20,000, upon which he retired to his residence in Northumberland. While on a visit to London he was again arrested, for a technical breach of his engagement, but by the intercession of the queen of Sweden he obtained his liberty. He was freed from his engagements in 1654, and retired to his seat at Balgonie in Fifeshire, where he died at an advanced age in 1661. He acquired considerable landed property, particularly Inchmartin in the Carse of Gowrie, which he called Inchleslie.

SeeLeven and Melville, Earls of, below.

LEVEN,a police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 5577. It is situated on the Firth of Forth, at the mouth of the Leven, 5¾ m. E. by N. of Thornton Junction by the North British railway. The public buildings include the town hall, public hall and people’s institute, in the grounds of which the old town cross has been erected. The industries are numerous, comprising flax-spinning, brewing, linen-weaving, paper-making, seed-crushing and rope-making, besides salt-works, a foundry, saw-mill and brick-works. The wet dock is not much used, owing to the constant accumulation of sand. The golf-links extending for 2 m. to Lundin are among the best in Scotland. Two miles N.E. is Lundin Mill and Drumochie, usually calledLundin(pop. 570), at the mouth of Kiel Burn, with a station on the Links. The three famous standing stones are supposed to be either of “Druidical” origin or to mark the site of a battle with the Danes. In the vicinity are the remains of an old house of the Lundins, dating from the reign of David II. To the N.W. of Leven lies the parish ofKennoway(pop. 870). In Captain Seton’s house, which still stands in the village of Kennoway, Archbishop Sharp spent the night before his assassination (1679). One mile east of Lundin liesLargo(pop. of parish 2046), consisting of Upper Largo, or Kirkton of Largo, and Lower Largo. The public buildings include Simpson institute, with a public hall, library, reading-room, bowling-green and lawn-tennis court, and John Wood’s hospital, founded in 1659 for poor persons bearing his name. A statue of Alexander Selkirk, or Selcraig (1676-1721), the prototype of “Robinson Crusoe,” who was born here, was erected in 1886. Sir John Leslie (1766-1832), the natural philosopher, was also a native. Largo claims two famous sailors, Admiral Sir Philip Durham (1763-1845), commander-in-chief at Portsmouth from 1836 to 1839, and Sir Andrew Wood (d. 1515), the trusted servant of James III. and James IV., who sailed the “Great Michael,” the largest ship of its time. When he was past active service he had a canal cut from his house to the parish church, to which he was rowed every Sunday in an eight-oared barge. Largo House was granted to him by James III., and the tower of the original structure still exists. About 1½ m. from the coast rises the height of Largo Law (948 ft.). Kellie Law lies some 5½ m. to the east.

LEVEN, LOCH,a lake of Kinross-shire, Scotland. It has an oval shape, the longer axis running from N.W. to S.E., has a length of 32⁄3m., and a breadth of 22⁄3m. and is situated near the south and east boundaries of the shire. It lies at a height of 350 ft. above the sea. The mean depth is less than 15 ft., with a maximum of 83 ft., the lake being thus one of the shallowest in Scotland. Reclamation works carried on from 1826 to 1836 reduced its area by one quarter, but it still possesses a surfacearea of 5½ sq. m. It drains the county and is itself drained by the Leven. It is famous for the Loch Leven trout (Salmo levenensis, considered by some a variety ofS. trutta), which are remarkable for size and quality. The fishings are controlled by the Loch Leven Angling Association, which organizes competitions attracting anglers from far and near. The loch contains seven islands. Upon St Serf’s, the largest, which commemorates the patron saint of Fifeshire, are the ruins of the Priory of Portmoak—so named from St Moak, the first abbot—the oldest Culdee establishment in Scotland. Some time before 961 it was made over to the bishop of St Andrews, and shortly after 1144 a body of canons regular was established on it in connexion with the priory of canons regular founded in that year at St Andrews. The second largest island, Castle Island, possesses remains of even greater interest. The first stronghold is supposed to have been erected by Congal, son of Dongart, king of the Picts. The present castle dates from the 13th century and was occasionally used as a royal residence. It is said to have been in the hands of the English for a time, from whom it was delivered by Wallace. It successfully withstood Edward Baliol’s siege in 1335, and was granted by Robert II. to Sir William Douglas of Lugton. It became the prison at various periods of Robert II.; of Alexander Stuart, earl of Buchan, “the Wolf of Badenoch”; Archibald, earl of Douglas (1429); Patrick Graham, archbishop of St Andrews (who died, still in bondage, on St Serf’s Island in 1478), and of Mary, queen of Scots. The queen had visited it more than once before her detention, and had had a presence chamber built in it. Conveyed hither in June 1567 after her surrender at Carberry, she signed her abdication within its walls on the 4th of July and effected her escape on the 2nd of May 1568. The keys of the castle, which were thrown into the loch during her flight, were found and are preserved at Dalmahoy in Midlothian. Support of Mary’s cause had involved Thomas Percy, 7th earl of Northumberland (b. 1528). He too was lodged in the castle in 1569, and after three years’ imprisonment was handed over to the English, by whom he was beheaded at York in 1572. The proverb that “Those never got luck who came to Loch Leven” sums up the history of the castle. The causeway connecting the isle with the mainland was long submerged too deeply for use, but the reclamation operations already referred to almost brought it into view again.

LEVEN AND MELVILLE, EARLS OF.The family of Melville which now holds these two earldoms is descended from Sir John Melville of Raith in Fifeshire. Sir John, who was a member of the reforming party in Scotland, was put to death for high treason on the 13th of December 1548; he left with other children a son Robert (1527-1621), who in 1616 was created a lord of parliament as Lord Melville of Monymaill. Before his elevation to the Scottish peerage Melville had been a stout partisan of Mary, queen of Scots, whom he represented at the English court, and he had filled several important offices in Scotland under her son James VI. The fourth holder of the lordship of Melville was George (c.1634-1707), a son of John, the 3rd lord (d. 1643), and a descendant of Sir John Melville. Implicated in the Rye House plot against Charles II., George took refuge in the Netherlands in 1683, but he returned to England after the revolution of 1688 and was appointed secretary for Scotland by William III. in 1689, being created earl of Melville in the following year. He was made president of the Scottish privy council in 1696, but he was deprived of his office when Anne became queen in 1702, and he died on the 20th of May 1707. His son David, 2nd earl of Melville (1660-1728), fled to Holland with his father in 1683; after serving in the army of the elector of Brandenburg he accompanied William of Orange to England in 1688. At the head of a regiment raised by himself he fought for William at Killiecrankie and elsewhere, and as commander-in-chief of the troops in Scotland he dealt promptly and effectively with the attempted Jacobite rising of 1708. In 1712, however, his office was taken from him and he died on the 6th of June 1728.

Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven (q.v.), was succeeded in his earldom by his grandson Alexander, who died without sons in July 1664. The younger Alexander’s two daughters were then in turn countesses of Leven in their own right; and after the death of the second of these two ladies in 1676 a dispute arose over the succession to the earldom between John Leslie, earl (afterwards duke) of Rothes, and David Melville, 2nd earl of Melville, mentioned above. In 1681, however, Rothes died, and Melville, who was a great-grandson of the 1st earl of Leven, assumed the title, calling himself earl of Leven and Melville after he succeeded his father as earl of Melville in May 1707. Since 1805 the family has borne the name of Leslie-Melville. In 1906 John David Leslie-Melville (b. 1886) became 12th earl of Leven and 11th earl of Melville.

See Sir W. Fraser,The Melvilles, Earls of Melville, and the Leslies, Earls of Leven(1890); and theLeven and Melville Papers, edited by the Hon. W. H. Leslie-Melville for the Bannatyne Club (1843).

LEVER, CHARLES JAMES(1806-1872), Irish novelist, second son of James Lever, a Dublin architect and builder, was born in the Irish capital on the 31st of August 1806. His descent was purely English. He was educated in private schools, where he wore a ring, smoked, read novels, was a ringleader in every breach of discipline, and behaved generally like a boy destined for the navy in one of Captain Marryat’s novels. His escapades at Trinity College, Dublin (1823-1828), whence he took the degree of M.B. in 1831, form the basis of that vast cellarage of anecdote from which all the best vintages in his novels are derived. The inimitable Frank Webber inCharles O’Malley(spiritual ancestor of Foker and Mr Bouncer) was a college friend, Robert Boyle, later on an Irish parson. Lever and Boyle sang ballads of their own composing in the streets of Dublin, after the manner of Fergusson or Goldsmith, filled their caps with coppers and played many other pranks embellished in the pages ofO’Malley,Con CreganandLord Kilgobbin. Before seriously embarking upon the medical studies for which he was designed, Lever visited Canada as an unqualified surgeon on an emigrant ship, and has drawn upon some of his experiences inCon Cregan,Arthur O’LearyandRoland Cashel. Arrived in Canada he plunged into the backwoods, was affiliated to a tribe of Indians and had to escape at the risk of his life, like his own Bagenal Daly.

Back in Europe, he travelled in the guise of a student from Göttingen to Weimar (where he saw Goethe), thence to Vienna; he loved the German student life with its beer, its fighting and its fun, and several of his merry songs, such as “The Pope he loved a merry life” (greatly envied by Titmarsh), are onStudent-liedmodels. His medical degree admitted him to an appointment from the Board of Health in Co. Clare and then as dispensary doctor at Port Stewart, but the liveliness of his diversions as a country doctor seems to have prejudiced the authorities against him. In 1833 he married his first love, Catherine Baker, and in February 1837, after varied experiences, he began runningThe Confessions of Harry Lorrequerthrough the pages of the recently establishedDublin University Magazine. During the previous seven years the popular taste had declared strongly in favour of the service novel as exemplified byFrank Mildmay,Tom Cringle,The Subaltern,Cyril Thornton,Stories of Waterloo,Ben BraceandThe Bivouac; and Lever himself had met William Hamilton Maxwell, the titular founder of the genre. BeforeHarry Lorrequerappeared in volume form (1839), Lever had settled on the strength of a slight diplomatic connexion as a fashionable physician in Brussels (16, Rue Ducale).Lorrequerwas merely a string of Irish and other stories good, bad and indifferent, but mostly rollicking, and Lever, who strung together his anecdotes late at night after the serious business of the day was done, was astonished at its success. “If this sort of thing amuses them, I can go on for ever.” Brussels was indeed a superb place for the observation of half-pay officers, such as Major Monsoon (Commissioner Meade), Captain Bubbleton and the like, who terrorized thetavernesof the place with their endless peninsular stories, and of English society a little damaged, which it became the specialty of Lever to depict. He sketched with a free hand, wrote, as he lived, from hand to mouth, and the chief difficulty he experienced was that of getting rid of hischaracters who “hung about him like those tiresome people who never can make up their minds to bid you good night.” Lever had never taken part in a battle himself, but his next three books,Charles O’Malley(1841),Jack HintonandTom Burke of Ours(1843), written under the spur of the writer’s chronic extravagance, contain some splendid military writing and some of the most animated battle-pieces on record. In pages ofO’MalleyandTom BurkeLever anticipates not a few of the best effects of Marbot, Thiébaut, Lejeune, Griois, Seruzier, Burgoyne and the like. His account of the Douro need hardly fear comparison, it has been said, with Napier’s. Condemned by the critics, Lever had completely won the general reader from the Iron Duke himself downwards.

In 1842 he returned to Dublin to edit theDublin University Magazine, and gathered round him a typical coterie of Irish wits (including one or two hornets) such as the O’Sullivans, Archer Butler, W. Carleton, Sir William Wilde, Canon Hayman, D. F. McCarthy, McGlashan, Dr Kenealy and many others. In June 1842 he welcomed at Templeogue, 4 m. south-west of Dublin, the author of theSnob Paperson his Irish tour (theSketch Bookwas, later, dedicated to Lever). Thackeray recognized the fund of Irish sadness beneath the surface merriment. “The author’s character is not humour but sentiment. The spirits are mostly artificial, thefondis sadness, as appears to me to be that of most Irish writing and people.” The Waterloo episode inVanity Fairwas in part an outcome of the talk between the two novelists. But the “Galway pace,” the display he found it necessary to maintain at Templeogue, the stable full of horses, the cards, the friends to entertain, the quarrels to compose and the enormous rapidity with which he had to completeTom Burke,The O’DonoghueandArthur O’Leary(1845), made his native land an impossible place for Lever to continue in. Templeogue would soon have proved another Abbotsford. Thackeray suggested London. But Lever required a new field of literary observation and anecdote. Hissève originelwas exhausted and he decided to renew it on the continent. In 1845 he resigned his editorship and went back to Brussels, whence he started upon an unlimited tour of central Europe in a family coach. Now and again he halted for a few months, and entertained to the limit of his resources in some ducal castle or other which he hired for an off season. Thus at Riedenburg, near Bregenz, in August 1846, he entertained Charles Dickens and his wife and other well-known people. Like his ownDaltonsorDodd Family Abroadhe travelled continentally, from Carlsruhe to Como, from Como to Florence, from Florence to the Baths of Lucca and so on, and his letters home are the litany of the literary remittance man, his ambition now limited to driving a pair of novels abreast without a diminution of his standard price for serial work (“twenty pounds a sheet”). In theKnight of Gwynne, a story of the Union (1847),Con Cregan(1849),Roland Cashel(1850) andMaurice Tiernay(1852) we still have traces of his old manner; but he was beginning to lose his original joy in composition. Hisfondof sadness began to cloud the animal joyousness of his temperament. Formerly he had written for the happy world which is young and curly and merry; now he grew fat and bald and grave. “After 38 or so what has life to offer but one universal declension. Let the crew pump as hard as they like, the leak gains every hour.” But, depressed in spirit as he was, his wit was unextinguished; he was still the delight of thesalonswith his stories, and in 1867, after a few years’ experience of a similar kind at Spezia, he was cheered by a letter from Lord Derby offering him the more lucrative consulship of Trieste. “Here is six hundred a year for doing nothing, and you are just the man to do it.” The six hundred could not atone to Lever for the lassitude of prolonged exile. Trieste, at first “all that I could desire,” became with characteristic abruptness “detestable and damnable.” “Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, no one to speak to.” “Of all the dreary places it has been my lot to sojourn in this is the worst” (some references to Trieste will be found inThat Boy of Norcott’s, 1869). He could never be alone and was almost morbidly dependent upon literary encouragement. Fortunately, like Scott, he had unscrupulous friends who assured him that his last efforts were his best. They includeThe Fortunes of Glencore(1857),Tony Butler(1865),Luttrell of Arran(1865),Sir Brooke Fosbrooke(1866),Lord Kilgobbin(1872) and the table-talk ofCornelius O’Dowd, originally contributed to Blackwood. His depression, partly due to incipient heart disease, partly to the growing conviction that he was the victim of literary and critical conspiracy, was confirmed by the death of his wife (23rd April 1870), to whom he was tenderly attached. He visited Ireland in the following year and seemed alternately in very high and very low spirits. Death had already given him one or two runaway knocks, and, after his return to Trieste, he failed gradually, dying suddenly, however, and almost painlessly, from failure of the heart’s action on the 1st of June 1872. His daughters, one of whom, Sydney, is believed to have been the real author ofThe Rent in a Cloud(1869), were well provided for.

Trollope praised Lever’s novels highly when he said that they were just like his conversation. He was a born raconteur, and had in perfection that easy flow of light description which without tedium or hurry leads up to the point of the good stories of which in earlier days his supply seemed inexhaustible. With little respect for unity of action or conventional novel structure, his brightest books, such asLorrequer,O’MalleyandTom Burke, are in fact little more than recitals of scenes in the life of a particular “hero,” unconnected by any continuous intrigue. The type of character he depicted is for the most part elementary. His women are mostly rouées, romps or Xanthippes; his heroes have too much of the Pickle temper about them and fall an easy prey to the serious attacks of Poe or to the more playful gibes of Thackeray inPhil Fogartyor Bret Harte inTerence Deuville. This last is a perfect bit of burlesque. Terence exchanges nineteen shots with the Hon. Captain Henry Somerset in the glen. “At each fire I shot away a button from his uniform. As my last bullet shot off the last button from his sleeve, I remarked quietly, ‘You seem now, my lord, to be almost as ragged as the gentry you sneered at,’ and rode haughtily away.” And yet these careless sketches contain such haunting creations as Frank Webber, Major Monsoon and Micky Free, “the Sam Weller of Ireland.” Falstaff is alone in the literature of the world; but if ever there came a later Falstaff, Monsoon was the man. As for Baby Blake, is she not an Irish Di Vernon? The critics may praise Lever’s thoughtful and careful later novels as they will, butCharles O’Malleywill always be the pattern of a military romance.

Superior, it is sometimes claimed, in construction and style, the later books approximate it may be thought to the goodordinarynovel of commerce, but they lack theextraordinaryqualities, the incommunicable “go” of the early books—the élan of Lever’s untamed youth. Artless and almost formless these productions may be, but they represent to us, as very few other books can, that pathetic ejaculation of Lever’s own—“Give us back the wild freshness of the morning!” We know the novelist’s teachers, Maxwell, Napier, the old-fashioned compilation known asVictoires, conquêtes et désastres des Français(1835), and the old buffers at Brussels who emptied the room by uttering the word “Badajos.” But where else shall we find the equals of the military scenes inO’MalleyandTom Burke, or the military episodes inJack Hinton,Arthur O’Leary(the story of Aubuisson) orMaurice Tiernay(nothing he ever did is finer than the chapter introducing “A remnant of Fontenoy”)? It is here that his true genius lies, even more than in his talent for conviviality and fun, which makes an early copy of an early Lever (with Phiz’s illustrations) seem literally to exhale an atmosphere of past and present entertainment. It is here that he is a true romancist, not for boys only, but also for men.

Lever’s lack of artistry and of sympathy with the deeper traits of the Irish character have been stumbling-blocks to his reputation among the critics. Except to some extent inThe Martins of Cro’ Martin(1856) it may be admitted that his portraits of Irish are drawn too exclusively from the type depicted in Sir Jonah Barrington’sMemoirsand already well known onthe English stage. He certainly had no deliberate intention of “lowering the national character.” Quite the reverse. Yet his posthumous reputation seems to have suffered in consequence, in spite of all his Gallic sympathies and not unsuccessful endeavours to apotheosize the “Irish Brigade.”

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