March, 1705. In the same year he bore an active part in the reduction of Barcelona, which again he relieved in April, 1706, when besieged by the Spaniards and French, and in great extremity. In the same year he commanded the fleet at the capturing of Alicant, Carthagena, and the island of Majorca, and in 1708 of Sardinia and Minorca. After the death of Sir Cloudesley Shovel in 1707, Sir John Leake was made commander-in-chief of the fleet, and in 1709 Rear-Admiral of Great Britain, on which occasion the queen paid him the high compliment that she was put in mind of it by the voice of the people.' In the same year he became a lord of the Admiralty, and continued high in office until the death of Queen Anne. Being superseded on a pension on the accession of George I., he spent the rest of his life in retirement, and died August 1, 1720, leaving a high professional reputation for skill, courage, prudence, and success. His private character is represented in a very amiable light. (See the Life' by his grandson S. M. Leake, 1750, and a long article in the Biographical Dictionary,' 8vo.) LEAMINGTON. [WARWICKSHIRE.] cases there cited.) In leases for life livery of seisin or somo substitute for it is necessary. When there is a parol agreement for a lease, which would be void by the statute, but the tenant has entered in consequence of such agreement, and done other acts in part performance of it, courts of equity will decree that the landford shall execute a lease according to the terms of such agreement, if it can be satisfactorily proved by evidence. It has been laid down that whatever words are sufficient to explain the intention of the parties, that the one shall divest himself of the possession, and the other come into it for such a determinate time, such words, whether they are in the form of a licence, covenant, or agreement, are of themselves sufficient, and will, in construction of law, amount to a lease for years, as effectually as if the most proper and pertinent words had been made use of for that purpose: and, on the contrary, if the most proper and authentic form of words whereby to describe and pass a present lease for years are made use of, yet if upon the whole deed there appears no such intent, but that they are only preparatory and relative to a future lease to be made, the law will rather do violence to the words than break being no other than a contract for the possession and profits of land on the one side, and a recompense of rent or other income on the other, if the words made use of are sufficient to prove such a contract, in what form soever they are introduced, or however variously applicable, the law calls in the intent of the parties, and models and governs the words accordingly.' (Bac., Ab., tit. 'Lease,' K.) However, the words 'grant,' demise,' and 'to farm let' (which are commonly all used together), are the most proper operative words to constitute a lease for years. LEAP YEAR, the name given to every fourth year of the Julian calendar, in which one additional day (a twenty-through the intent of the parties; for a lease for years ninth day of February) is reckoned. This correction constitutes the distinction of the Julian calendar: the necessity for the Gregorian correction arises from the years being made a very little too long, one with another, by making them consist of 365 days each. as is done when a day is added to each fourth year. The Gregorian correction is made by omitting three leap years in four centuries, and it is settled that the common years, which would otherwise be leap years, shall be those which terminate centuries in which the first pair of figures is not divisible by four. Thus the years 1800 and 1900 are not leap years, but 2000 is leap year: 2100, 2200, 2300 are not leap years, but 2400 is leap year. LEASE, Dimissio, or Demissio (from the French laisser, permittere), is a demise or letting of lands or tenements, right of common, rent, or any hereditament, unto another for term of years or life, for a rent reserved. (Cowel's Law Dictionary, art. Lease.) But it should be observed that the reservation of a rent' is no necessary part of the definition. The party letting is called the lessor, and the party to whom the property is let is called the lessee. A lease has also been defined to be a contract between a lessor and a lessee for the possession and profits of lands and tenements on the one side, and a recompense by rent or other consideration on the other. (Bac., Ab., tit. 'Lease.') The lessor who thus grants a term of years to a lessee out of some larger estate has a reversion to which the rent is incident, and which gives him a right to distrain, by virtue of the relation thus created, provided a fixed rent be reserved: fealty also is due from the lessee to the lessor. [DISTRESS.] The lessor contracts to give the lessee the possession of the lands and premises, and accordingly the lessee in possession may maintain an action of trespass against a person who enters even the subsoil of his premises; as for instance, if such trespasser enters by means of a level or passage from a mine in adjacent premises, and takes coal from under the lessee's land. (Lewis v. Braithwaite, 2 B. and Ad., 437.) The possession of the lessee comprises all that the lessor is entitled to, which in the case of land extends indefinitely below the surface [LAND]: this possession may exist without any property or ownership, as in the case just stated. A lease for years does not require a deed or livery of seisin, and at the common law no writing was necessary, although the entry of the lessee was requisite to give it complete effect; but now, by the Statute of Frauds (29 Car. II., c. iii., s. 1), all leases, estates, interests of freehold or terms of years, created by livery and seisin only, or by parol, and not put in writing and signed by the parties so making or creating the same, or their agents thereunto lawfully authorised by writing, shall have the force and effect of leases or estates at will only, except leases not exceeding the term of three years from the making thereof, upon which the rent reserved to the landlord during such term shall amount to two-thirds at the least of the full improved value of the the thing demised. If the tenement is incorporeal or a reversion or remainder, a deed is necessary, and other leases are commonly made by deed, as covenants can be made by deed only. (See Bird v. Higginson, 2 A. and E., and the P. C., No. 835. For the reasons stated in the passage just quoted, it is frequently found difficult to decide whether an informal written instrument shall have the operation of a lease, or shall be considered only as an agreement for a future lease. Much of the litigation on the subject of leases has arisen out of this difficulty. When a person agrees to let premises for a term, it is not unusual for the intended assignee to be let into possession on executing an agreement for a lease, either as a temporary arrangement until a lease can be executed, or with a view of avoiding the expense* of a lease altogether. But such a course is strongly to be deprecated, on account of the various questions which have arisen in regard to the ascertained time and execution of such agreements, and the unsatisfactory state in which it places the rights and remedies of the respective parties. The tenant has no security for his possession, since he is liable to eviction in an action at law (Hamerton v. Stead, 3 Barn. & Cress., 478); nor has the owner any summary means of enforcing payment of his rent; for it is settled that, under such an agreement, no distress can be levied, the landlord's only remedy for his rent being an action for use and occupation (Hegan v. Jackson, 2 Taunt., 148; Dunk v. Hunter, 5 Barn. & Ald., 322; and see 3 Barn. & 4 Cress., 480): unless indeed rent has actually been paid under the agreement; in which case, as the payment of rent creates an actual tenancy from year to year between the parties, the landlord may distrain. (4 Bythewood's Conveyancing, by Jarman, 331.) The editor then enters into an examination of the two classes of cases, namely, those in which instruments of the nature of agreements for leases have been held to amount to actual leases, and those in which they have been decided to be agreements only. All that can be done here is to state briefly the general conclusion at which he arrives from this examination. A comparison,' he says, 'of these two classes of cases will serve to show the impossibility of reconciling all the decisions upon the subject. The sound and sensible rule seems to be, that where the paper is executory in its terms, and contains no words of present demise, particularly where an intention to execute a lease is expressed, it is to Le construed as an agreement only; and to this rule the later judges have certainly inclined. Much of the discrepancy in the determinations is produced by the cases of Poole v. Bentley and Doe v. Groves, in which, it will be remembered, Lord Ellenborough and the rest of the Court of King's Bench held that an instrument by which one party agreed to let, and the other to take, premises on certain Besides other differences between the two in regard to expense, there is a difference between the stamp duties chargeable on leases and agreements. VOL. XIII.-3 C terms, and grant and accept a lease, operated as an actual lease, with an agreement to execute a future lease, by way of further assurance. The professed principle indeed of these cases is not at variance with the general current of authorities; for his lordship assumed that the instruments contained words of present demise; and if such had been the fact, the case of Barry v. Nugent would clearly have authorised his lordship's conclusion. But the assumption scems to be wholly unfounded; no operative words of demise can be collected from the instrument; therefore the cases may be considered as overruled by the later determinations, which seem to support the doctrine, as ably laid down by Sir James Mansfield in Morgan v. Bissell, except perhaps so far as the learned chief-justice asserted that words of present demise might be controlled by an agreement to grant a future lease; for it is difficult to carry the rule to this extent consistently with the principle in the authorities, particularly with the case of Barry v. Nugent,' (4 Bythewood, by Jarman, 341.) The following is part of the doctrine of Sir James Mansfield above referred to:- It would be a very wise rule, that whenever one person is about to grant and another to take a lease, until the lease was actually executed, no interest at law should pass. As to the question, What are usual covenants? it is an endless source of litigation. I have known parties long hung up at an inquiry before a master of chancery-What are the usual covenants? and it is the extreme of folly either to give or to take possession under such an agreement till a lease is executed; but the convenience of parties sometimes requires it.' (Morgan d. Dowding v. Bissell, 3 Taunt., 65.) Every lease must contain a sufficient degree of certainty as to its beginning, continuance, and ending. But it may be made to determine, before the time fixed, by a proviso or condition. In most modern leases there is a proviso, that if the rent is not paid within a certain time, and no sufficient distress is found on the premises, the lessor may re-enter. Where the lease is made to begin from an impossible date, as the 30th of February, it will take effect from its delivery. A lease for years may be made to commence at a future time. If the lease is made at common law, of lands in possession, the lessor's interest is not completed till he takes possession, for without having taken possession he cannot avail himself of all the rights and privileges of a lessee. But before he takes possession he has an interest, technically called an interesse termini, which he may release, assign, or bequeath; but this interest is not capable of enlargement by release. If it is a lease of the reversion, and the lease is made by deed, such lease gives a vested interest and passes a portion of that reversion to the lessee, who thus stands in the relation of landlord to a prior lessee; but a reversionary lease, or a grant of a lease, to commence on a future day, or on some given event, is only an interesse termini. But where the property is transferred for a part of the ori ginal term only, the transfer is called an under-lease, and the under-lessee is not liable to the original lessor. [ASSIGNMENT; ASSIGNEE.] It is not necessary, in order to make the assignee liable to the covenants, that he should have taken possession of the lands or premises assigned: it is enough, for this purpose, that he has acquired all the interest in the term of years. It is now also settled that a mortgagee who takes a legal assignment of a term is bound by the covenants even if he has never taken possession of the land or premises, or received rent; and the rule has been extended so far as to make an equitable mortgagee by deposit of the title-deeds also liable in equity to the covenants. (Williams v. Bosanquet, 1 Brod. & Bing., 238; 7 Sim., 149.) The practical inference to be deduced from these rules is, that a man should not take an equitable mortgage of a term of years by deposit of title deeds, nor an assignment of the whole term, if he wishes to avoid the liability to the covenants; but he should take an under-lease. A condition may be annexed to a term of years in its creation in two ways: either to operate only if enforced by the entry of the lessor or his representatives; or to make the lease determine at once on performance or breach of the condition itself, without any additional ceremony. Conditions annexed to a chattel are more favoured by the law than those which tend to defeat a freehold estate. A particular alienation may be prohibited on pain of forfeiture. But then the original limitation must not be to the lessee and his assigns, for this would be a contradiction. By the common law, covenants between the lessor and the lessee relating to the land would in general run with it on both sides; but the benefit of a condition was entirely lost by alienation of the reversion. This inconvenience was remedied by stat. 32 Henry VIII., c. 34, which attaches both the benefit and the obligation of conditions as well as covenants to the reversion in the hands of a grantee or assignee. But still the benefit of a condition or covenant which is already broken, and requires to be enforced by entry or action, cannot be assigned; nor can that of a forfeiture actually com mitted by the illegal alienation of the lessee.' (Burton's Law of Real Property, 851-857.) LEASE and RELEASE. Of the various kinds of releases an account must be deferred to the article RELEASE. For the present purpose it will be sufficient to state that the release here spoken of is the relinquishment of some right or benefit to a person who has already some interest in a tenement, and such interest as qualifies him for receiving or availing himself of the right or benefit so relinquished. (Burton's Law of Real Property, 45.) Before the passing of the Statute of Uses 'it appears that a lease for two or three years was sometimes made, and perfected by entry of the lessee, for the single purpose of his afterwards receiving a release of the reversion. Thus arose a sort of compound conveyance, called a lease and release, which, if the grantor were seised in fee simple, had the same effect as a feoffment.' (Ibid., 62.) When it had been determined that the Statute of Uses operated so as to give an estate in land without entry, a lease for a year by bargain and sale was made by the vendor to the purchaser. A use was thus raised to the bar When a lease is made by deed, there are certain covenants implied between the parties in the words usually employed. Thus the words 'grant or demise' imply a covenant by the lessor that he has a right to create the term, and that the lessee shall have quiet enjoyment of the property demised. And the words yielding and paying,' in the usual reservation of rent, imply a covenant on the part of the lessee that he will pay the rent in the manner men-gainee, without any enrolment, which in the case of freetioned in the reservation. But the implied covenants are restrained by the expressed covenants, of which many are commonly inserted in formal leases, and which vary in their character according to the intention of the parties and the nature of the property demised. The doctrine of Estoppels applies to leases for years. If a person execute a lease of lands, for any term by indenture, in which he has no estate whatever, the want of which estate does not appear upon the instrument, the lease will operate upon any interest which he may afterwards acquire n the same lands during the continuance of the term. To produce this effect an indenture is necessary, that the deed, being the act of both parties, may render the estoppels reciprocal. (Burton On Real Property, 850; see note (b), Bullen v. Mills, 4 Nev. & Man., 29.) The assurance by which the whole term created by a lease is transferred to another is called an assignment, and by this transfer the assignee becomes liable, until he assigns to some other person, to all those covenants in the lease which are said to run with the land, that is to say, those covenants which are not personal and extrinsic to the lease. hold interests was required by the statute of enrolments; and the use thus raised or created for the bargainee was con verted, by the Statute of Uses, into a legal estate. Thus the bargainee became immediately capable of accepting a release of the freehold and reversion: and a release was accordingly made to him, dated the day next after the day of the date of the bargain and sale. The release made to a purchaser who has an estate by virtue of the bargain and sale may either be a release at common law as referred to in the passage just quoted, or it may be a release under the Statute of Uses, which is now always meant when we speak of the conveyance called a lease and release. This conveyance is said to have been first contrived by Sergeant Moore, at the request of Lord Norris, in order that some of his kindred should not know, by any search of public records, what settlement he should make of his estate. The validity of it was formerly doubted. But it was resolved (18 Jac. I.) by the chief justices Montague and Howard, and chief-baron Tanfield, that upon a deed of bargain and sale for years of land, though the bargainee never entered, if afterwards the bargainor makes a grant of the reversion, reciting the lease, to divers uses, it was a good conveyance of the reversion. (Lutwich v. Mitton, Cro. Ja, 604.) And in a subsequent case, where there was a bargain and sale for years, followed by a release, judgment was given, that the lease being within the Statute of Uses, there was no need of an actual entry to make the lessee capable of the release; for, by virtue of the statute, he shall be adjudged to be in actual possession.' (Barker v. Keate, 2 Mod., 249.) Lease and release is now the most common assurance for the transfer of freehold estates. assertion afterwards proved by Laplace. It will be worth while to quote the passage, as follows:- Mihi vix quidquam ulterius desiderari videatur postquam ostensum fuerit quâ ratione Probabilitas maxima in his rebus haberi possit, ubi diversæ observationes, in eundem finem institutæ, paullulum diversas ab invicem conclusiones exhibent. Id autem fiet ad modum sequentis exempli. Sit p, locus objecti alicujus ex observatione primâ definitus, q, r, s, ejus dem objecti loca ex observationibus subsequentibus; sint insuper P, Q, R, S, pondera reciprocê proportionalia spatiis evagationum, per quæ se diffundere possint Errores ex observationibus singulis prodeuntes, quæque dantur ex datis errorum limitibus; et ad puncta p, q, r, s, intelligantur pondera P, Q, R, S, et inveniatur eorum gravitatis centrum Z: dico punctum Z fore locum objecti maximè probabilem qui pro vero ejus loco tutissimè haberi potest.' In a lease and release, the lease is most properly made by the words "bargain and sell" only, that all possibility of question as to the mode of its operation may be excluded: but the release has commonly a multitude of words, such as "grant, bargain, sell, alien, release, and confirm;" the variation of which according to circumstances is for the most Legendre, in his work on comets (1806), first distinctly part more a matter of taste than of importance: and where proposed the application of the method to any case, and the consideration is not pecuniary, the idle words "bargain | Gauss afterwards stated that he had been in the habit of and sell" are countenanced by the insertion of a nominal using it since 1795. Finally, Laplace, in his Theory of consideration, as of ten shillings, acknowledged to be paid.' Probabilities' (1814), and we believe in a previous paper (Burton On Real Property, 541, 542.) published in the 'Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences,' showed that this method was in all cases the one which the principles of that theory pointed out as giving the result, which, from the observations, has the greatest weight of probability in its favour. The details and demonstration of this method may be found in the work of Laplace cited, in the Berlin Astronomisches Jahrbuch,' for 1834 and the two following years, and in the treatise on Probabilities in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana.' When the conveyance by lease and release became a common assurance, only a nominal consideration was mentioned in the bargain and sale; and it was held that even a reservation of a pepper-corn rent was a sufficient consideration to raise a use by a bargain and sale on which to found a release. The recital of a lease for a year, in a deed of release, is good evidence of such lease against the releasor and all claiming under him (but not against strangers), without proving that there was such a deed, and that it was lost or destroyed. Not only estates in possession, but estates in remainder and reversion may be conveyed by lease and release. Estates in remainder and reversion expectant on estates for lives may be conveyed by lease and release; but in cases of this kind it is inaccurate to say that the releasee is in the actual possession of the premises; the proper expression being, that they are actually vested in him by virtue of the bargain and sale, and the operation of the Statute of Uses. Incorporeal hereditaments, such as advowsons, tithes, rents, &c., may be conveyed by lease and release, for they are expressly named in the Statute of Uses, or comprised under the general word hereditaments.' (4 Cru. Dig., 114, 115.) Lease and Release is one of those which are technically called the innocent conveyances, in contradistinction to those which are termed tortious. Thus, The most simple case of this method has been in use as long as accurate observations have been made, under the name of taking an average or a mean. If three observations give 93, 94, and 98, then the mean of the three is 95, and if this be assumed as true, it is also assumed that the errors of the observations were 2, 1, and 3. The sum of the squares of these is 4+1 +9, or 14, and this is the least possible sum which can be thus obtained. If for example, we assume anything but 95, say 95'1, the assumed errors are then 21, 1'1 and 29, the squares of which are 4:41, 121, and 8'41, the sum of which is 14:03, more than 14. But the more extended cases of the method of least squares are those in which the result is not simply observed, but is to be determined by operations upon the results of observation. In all cases the rule is the same; namely, that result has the greatest probability in its favour, the assumption of which makes the sum of the squares of the errors the least possible, provided that all the observations are equally worthy of confidence. Without entering into further explanation, we shall give the results of one case. A conveyance by lease and release does not divest any estate, or create a discontinuance or forfeiture. Thus Littleton says,-"By force of a release nothing shall pass but the Suppose that A and a are to be determined by observaright which he may lawfully and rightfully release, without tion, the required result being A÷a or the solution of the hurt or damage to other persons, who shall have right equation a x = A. Suppose also, which is essential to the therein, after his decease.” And in a subsequent section he simple form of the method which we now give, that all the says,- "If tenant-in-tail lets the land to another for term of observations, both of A and a, are made under equally years, by force whereof the lessee hath possession, and the favourable circumstances. Say that four observations are tenant-in-tail release all his right in the same land, to hold made of each; those for a being p, q, r, and s: those for A to the lessee and his heirs for ever, this is no discontinu- being P, Q, R, and S. If then all the observations were ance: but after the decease of the tenant-in-tail, his issue perfectly correct, each of the equations p x = P, qx= Q, may enter; for by such release nothing passed but for timer x = R, sx S, would be identical with ax = Á. Supof the life of the tenant-in-tail." This conveyance will not, posing however that the observations are discordant, take for the same reason, destroy a contingent remainder: there- what value of a we may, the several quantities px P, fore if a person is tenant for life, with a contingent remain-qx— Q, rx − R, s x S, will not be (as they should be) der depending on his estate, and he conveys in fee by lease each equal to nothing. Whatever their value may be, the and release, the contingent remainder will not be destroyed.' whole of each value will be error: and the sum of the (4 Cru. Dig., 116.) squares of the errors, or The various modes in which property in land can be settled by means of lease and release belong more particularly to the subjects of POWERS and USES. (px P)2 + (q x − Q)2 + (r x − R)2 + (8 x - S)2 must be made the least possible. The value of x which satisfies this condition is Pp Qq Rr + Ss p2 + q2 + p2 + §2 LEAST SQUARES, METHOD OF. This is a method, which, since its first introduction, has been shown to be the method of finding the most probable truth, when a number of discordant observations have been made upon a pheno-which is the most probable value. menon. The earliest attempt at anything of the sort was made by Cotes, in a tract entitled 'Estimatio Errorum in mixta mathesi,' in which he very distinctly recommends a process which is identical with that of the method of least squares. It is remarkable that Cotes proposes his theorem not merely as a mode of finding a convenient mean (as was done by Legendre and Gauss), but as giving positively the most probable result. He even introduces the hypothesis of observations having different weights (though not with perfect correctness), and comes as near as possible to the The method of least squares is now universally used in astronomy, which is perhaps the only science in which so delicate a test is absolutely necessary. LEATHER (cuir, French; leder, German; leer, Dutch; læder, Danish; läder, Swedish; cuojo, Italian; cuero, Spanish; kusha, Russian). This substance, which is universally employed throughout the civilized world, is prepared from the skins of animals, or it would perhaps be more correct to say, consists of that substance after it has been chemically changed by the process of tanning. This change is effected by means of a substance residing in several vegetable matters, to which the name of tannin has been given. When this tannin, which is soluble in water, is applied to the hides of animals from which the hair, epidermis, and any fleshy or fatty parts adhering to them are removed, and which hides then consist wholly of gelatin, also soluble in water, these two soluble substances so unite chemically as to form the wholly insoluble substance called leather. [TANNING.] 434,481 1829 396,207 LEAVEN. [BREAD.] LEBADEA, LIVADIA. [BOTIA.] LE BLANC. [BLANC, LE.] LEBRUN (or LE BRUN), CHARLES, an eminent French painter, was born at Paris in 1619. His father was an indifferent sculptor. The son, manifesting an early talent for drawing, was placed under the care of Simon Vouet. He however went to finish his studies at Rome, where he spent six years, during which time he diligently a thorough knowledge of the antique, and of the works of Raphael and other great masters. Lebrun had a very comprehensive genius, improved by profound study of history and of the manners of different nations. Few painters were better acquainted with the human mind and the influence of the passions on the countenance, as is shown in his Traité sur la Physionomie,' and Sur le Caractère des Passions.' In invention he has had few superiors. With a lively imagination he combined great facility of execution and sound judgment, and aimed at the greatest correctness, especially in the costume and details. His colouring, particularly in the flesh, is indifferent, retaining too much of the school of Vouet; his light and shade are often not happily distributed, and his foregrounds are generally deficient in force. His great merit obtained him the favor of Louis XIV., who appointed him his principal painter, president of the newly-erected Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and director of the Gobelin manufactory, conferred on him the order of St. Michael, and frequently visited his studio while he was engaged on the battles of Alexander, the bestknown and most admired of all his works, even the engravings from which give a high idea of his great abilities, and of the elevated style of his composition and design. Lebrun died at Paris in 1690, at the age of seventy-one. The leather manufacture is one of great importance in this kingdom, giving employment in all its various branches to a very great number of persons. It has been computed that taking into the account tanners, curriers, and dressers, shoemakers, glove-makers, harness-makers, sadlers, and other branches of the leather manufacture, there cannot be fewer than 250,000 persons supported by this branch of in-applied himself, under the guidance of Poussin, to acquire dustry. We have not at present any means for ascertaining the quantity of leather made in the United Kingdom. The yearly average production in the three years ending with 1822 was 48,244,026 pounds; the average production in the next three years was 63,051,096 pounds, being an increase of 30 per cent. This increase is in great part attributable to the reduction of the duty from 3d. to 1d. per pound, which took place in 1822. In 1830 the duty was wholly | repealed, and we have thenceforward no means for ascertaining the quantity produced yearly. It is reasonable to suppose that the repeal of the duty, joined to the increase of the population, has since caused at least as great an increase in this branch of manufacture as followed the reduction of the duty in 1822. In this case the annual production at this time will be 82,000,000 pounds, and the value, taking one quality with another, at the moderate price of 18. 4d. per pound, will amount to 5,466,000. It has been assumed that the value of the leather forms only one-third of the cost of the articles made with that material, at which calculation the ultimate value of the manufacture in this country must be 16,400,000l. Some persons have calculated that the value of the leather-the raw material-forms only one-fourth part of the aggregate value of leather goods, and the manufacture must, according to their calculation, exceed 21 millions per annum. Nor will this amount appear excessive if we consider that there is only a very small proportion of the people, however poor they may be, who do not wear leather shoes or boots; that the use of leather gloves is general among all but the labouring class; and that the harness of horses used for pleasure, as well as those used for agricultural and other business operations, is made with this material, besides an endless variety of things in daily use, which will suggest themselves to every one's mind. Nearly the whole of the leather made in this kingdom, and of the articles made with it, is used at home. The quantity and declared value of leather, wrought and unwrought, and the declared value of sadlery and harness exported (almost wholly to our colonies and dependencies), in each of the ten years from 1828 to 1837, were as follows: Leather wrought and unw rought. Sadlery and Haruess. Declared Value. The duty on leather, which was necessarily charged upon the weight produced, was impolitic, because of the regulations enforced by the revenue officers for the prevention of fraud, but which also prevented the introduction of improved methods of manufacture; and it was also unequal in its pressure, falling most heavily upon those who were least able to bear it. The shoes of the labouring man were necessarily made thicker and heavier, and therefore paid a greater amount of duty than shoes worn by the easy classes, on which ground alone it was important to repeal it, but there is every reason for believing that the improvement in the quality of leather brought about since that repeal is of far greater benefit to all classes than the simple amount of the duty. The revenue derived from this manufacture in the ten years preceding the repeal of the duty was LECCE, a town in the kingdom of Naples, in the province of Terra di Otranto, which is often styled also 'provincia di Lecce,' because Lecce is the residence of the Intendente of the province and of the courts of justice. Lecce is a bishop's see, and one of the best built and liveliest towns in the kingdom, with wide streets, a handsome market-place, several fine churches, a royal college, and 15,000 inhabitants. Considerable trade is carried on here in agricul tural products of the country, the principal of which are oil, tobacco, wool, cotton, and gum. There are also manufactories of lace. The people of Lecce have a reputation for shrewdness and talent, and many of the natives have distinguished themselves in the learned professions. Lecce is situated about 200 miles east of Naples, and nine miles from the Adriatic coast, in a plain on the north-east side of the range of hills which cross the Messapian peninsula in its entire length. A good road, 25 miles long, leads from Lecce across the peninsula to Gallipoli on the southern coast, and another road, lately finished, leads to Taranto, from which Lecce lies 45 miles east. It is about 20 miles south-east of Brindisi, and nearly the same distance north-west of Otranto. LECTOURE. [GERS.] LECYTHIDA'CEÆ, an important but small natural order of plants with singular fruits, and very large fleshy flowers, inhabiting the woods of South America. They are regarded by De Candolle as a section of Myrtaceæ, from which they differ in their leaves being alternate, and not dotted, the stamens monadelphous, and extended on one side, in an unusual manner, into a broad lobe, which covers over the centre of the flower like a hood. Among the plants belonging to this order are the following, which deserve particular notice. 1. Lecythis ollaria, a tree inhabiting the forests of Cumana and Brazil, with a hard woody fruit as large as a child's head, and opening by a lid like that of a jar or ura. It contains numerous large seeds. 2. Lecythis Zapucajo, a large Guiana tree, with alternate oval leaves twelve inches long, and racemes of large fleshy red and white flowers. The fruit is hard, woody, urnshaped, and about four inches broad by six inches high; it • Duty reduced from 3d, to lid. per lb. from 5th of July in this year contains numerous seeds as large as almonds, and quite as agreeable when fresh. They are sometimes seen in the fruiterers' shops in London, where they are called Sapucaya nuts. 3. Bertholletia exalsa, already described. [BERTHOLLETIA.] 4. Couroupita guianensis, or Cannon-ball tree. This plant takes its name from its large heavy woody fruit, which, according to Aublet, is about the size of a 36-pound shot, and although urn-shaped like the others, does not open by its lid, but is broken by its fall, or lies on the ground till it rots, before the seeds can extricate themselves. The flowers are very large and handsome, deep rose colour and white; the tree is of great size, with a trunk often more than two feet in diameter Flower and fruit of the Couroupita guianensis, or Cannon-bal, tree. LEDBURY. [HEREFORDSHIRE.] LEDOUX, CLAUDE NICOLAS, born at Dormans, in the department of the Marne, in 1736, quitted the college of Beauvais at the age of fifteen, and went to Paris, where he at first gained his livelihood by engraving; but an irresistible inclination led him to the study of architecture, with the principles of which he made himself acquainted in Blondel's Cours.' His prepossessing person and engaging address availed him for some time more than his talents, or rather procured for him opportunities of displaying the latter; and he knew so well how to turn them to account, that Madame Dubarry appointed him her architect in 1771. It was for her that he erected the elegant pavilion De Louveciennes, and the Château de St. Vrin, near Arpajon. His high favour in that quarter not only established his celebrity with the public, but immediately procured for him numerous commissions, both in the capital and the provinces. In the former he built an hotel for Count d'Halleville; in the rue Michel le Comte, that of the Prince de Montmorency; and, besides several others, the Hôtel Thelusson, remarkable for the vast bridgelike gateway towards the street. In the latter he built the Château de Benonville, near Caen. But it was the Barrières' of Paris that afforded him an opportunity of abandoning himself to his fancy; and considering the period of their erection, they certainly display considerable originality, yet very much that is questionable; and have for the most part the appearance of being merely first ideas and sketches, carried at once into execution without having been revised and matured. The same remark applies to the large folio volume he published, consisting of a treatise on architecture, illustrated by designs, which, though they display much originality, are not a little chimerical and extravagant. He died of a paralytic attack, November 19th, 1806, at the age of seventy. LEDYARD, JOHN, a remarkable person in the history of geographical discovery, was born at Groton in Connecticut, and educated at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Having lost his father, and being apparently friendless, he had not the means, if he had the wish, to follow up his studies. Some years he spent among the Indians, a good school of preparation for his future toils. He worked his passage from New York to London in 1771 as a common sailor; and in 1776 sailed with Capt. Cook, on his third voyage, in quality of corporal of marines. While thus engaged he conceived the bold scheme of traversing the unknown regions of America, from the neighbourhood of Nootka Sound to the eastern coast; and so earnest was he, that being frustrated in his design of reaching the western shore of America by sea, he set out from England towards the end of 1786, with ten guineas in his pocket, hoping to reach Kamtchatka, and thence effect a passage to America. According to Tucker's Life of Jefferson,' this scheme was suggested to Ledyard by Mr. Jefferson, then the American minister at Paris, who assisted him with money. He traversed Denmark and Sweden, passed round the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, after an unsuccessful attempt to cross it on the ice, and reached St. Petersburg in March, 1787, without money, shoes, or stockings, having gone this immense distance on foot in an Arctic winter. At St. Petersburg he obtained notice, money to the amount of twenty guineas, and permission to accompany a convoy of stores to Yakutsk in Siberia. But for some unexplained reason he was arrested there in January, 1788, by the order of the Empress Catherine, while waiting for the spring, and conveyed to the frontier of Poland, with a hint that he would be hanged if he re-entered Russia. He found his way back to England, after suffering great hardship. Still his adventurous spirit was unbroken; and, almost without resting, he eagerly closed with the proposal of the Association for promoting the discovery of the inland parts of Africa, to undertake a journey into that region. There is a characteristic story, that on being asked how soon he could be ready to set out, he replied, 'To-morrow morning.' He left London, June 30, 1788; and travelling by Marseille and Alexandria, reached Cairo, Aug. 19. The ardent, persevering, intelligent spirit of inquiry shown in his first and only despatches raised high expectation of the value of his labours; but these were cut short by his premature death, in that city, of a bilious disorder. His route was to have been from Sennaar westward, in the supposea direction of the Niger, so that he would have crossed that great continent in its widest part, traversing Bornou and the region lately explored by Denham and Clapperton, at right angles to their track from the Mediterranean. From his scanty education and mode of travelling, Ledyard probably would have contributed little to scientific knowledge; but his vigour and endurance, mental and bodily, and indifference |