in which they are made to illustrate the geography, art, mythology, and history of the ancient Greeks. The work embraces the productions of all the countries in which the Greeks coined money, from the earliest extant specimens to the reign of Gallienus, a period of eight hundred years. Colonel Leake retired from the army in 1823. he was an office-bearer or member of our chief learned societies, an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and a corresponding member of the French Institute. He died in March, 1860.—F. E.
LEAPOR, Mary, the untaught poetess whose merits were sung by the poet Cowper, was born on the 26th February, 1722, at Marston St. Lawrence, Northamptonshire, where her father was gardener to Judge Blencowe. Having learned to read and write, she composed verses enough to fill two octavo volumes, which were published by subscription after her death—one in 1748, the other, containing "The Unhappy Father," a play, in 1751. She died on the 12th November, 1746.—R. H.
LEAVER. See Lever.
LEBAS, Jacques Philippe, a celebrated French engraver, was born at Paris in 1708, and was a pupil of N. H. Tardieu. Lebas was an excellent engraver in his particular line; correct in drawing, neat, spirited, and full of expression; employing freely etching, the dry-point, or the graver, as either seemed best adapted to produce the effect desired. But in his later plates he depended too much on the assistance of his pupils. He was happiest in his prints after David Teniers, of which he executed above a hundred: among the most successful are the "Acts of Mercy," "The Prodigal Son," a large Flemish Festival, and the portraits of the painter and his family. He also engraved several of the works of Ruysdael, Wouvermans, Berghem, some of the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, and a great many of Vernet's. He died April 14th, 1783.—J. T—e.
* LEBAS, Jean Baptiste Apollinaire, a French engineer, was born in the department of the Var, on the 13th of August, 1797. He was educated at the polytechnic school, and entered the corps of marine engineers, in which he distinguished himself by his services at the blockade of Barcelona in 1823, and during the Algerian expedition, when he superintended the repairs of the steam-ships. He was sent by the government of King Louis Philippe to Egypt, to bring away the obelisks of Luxor, which had been presented to the French nation by the pacha, he brought only one, but in its removal he displayed extraordinary mechanical skill. Although its weight is two hundred and thirty tons, he lowered it from its base and embarked it with the assistance of only eight men; the operation of lowering it occupied only twenty-five minutes. On the 25th of October, 1836, it was erected in Paris, in presence of the king and about two hundred thousand spectators, by the labour of two hundred men for two hours. He was then appointed to the post, which he still holds, of conservator of the naval museum. He is the author of a description of the obelisk and its removal.—R.
* LEBAS, Louis Hippolyte, a distinguished French architect, was born at Paris in 1782; studied under Percier and Fontaine, and in the école des beaux arts, where he carried off numerous medals, and in 1806 the second grand prize. He executed several buildings in the provinces; was appointed surveyor of the Bourse and some other public edifices; designed the monument of Malesherbe at Paris; and in 1825 erected the model prison for juvenile offenders in the Rue de la Roquette. But his most important building is the church of Notre Dame de Lorette, commenced in 1825 and completed in 1836. Modelled on the church of St. Maria Maggiore at Rome, its chief external feature is a tetrastyle Corinthian portico; but the interior is very richly ornamented. Before the Gothic revival it was regarded as a very successful work. As architect of the Institute he constructed the great hall for the sittings of the Academy, and restored or reconstructed various portions of the buildings. He was elected a member of the Institute in 1825, and later professor of the history of architecture. Until 1854 he was a member of the council of public buildings. He was made officer of the legion of honour in 1847.—J. T—e.
LE BAS, Philippe Francois Joseph, a French statesman, born at Prevent in 1765; died by his own hand at Paris, 28th July, 1794. He was a member of the national convention, and voted the death of Louis XVI. He was also a firm adherent of Robespierre; and when the latter was accused, he proposed to share his fate. "Nothing remains for us but to die," he said; and handing his colleague a pistol, shot himself.—P. E. D.
LE BEAU, Charles, a French historian, born at Paris, 15th October, 1701; died there, 13th March, 1778. He was a member of the Academy, and professor of rhetoric at the college of France. Among other works, he left a "History of the Lower Empire from the time of Constantine to the Turks."—P. E. D.
LEBEDEFF, Herasim, a Russian traveller and orientalist, was born in 1749. In 1775 he accompanied an embassy to Naples, whence he departed for Paris and London. He left London for India, stayed two years at Madras, and in 1787 settled at Calcutta, where he cultivated a knowledge of the native dialects, by translating portions of European literature for the use of the Hindoos. In 1801 he published in London a grammar of the pure and mixed East Indian dialects. The Emperor Alexander granted him a considerable sum of money to establish an Indian printing establishment at St. Petersburg. Lebedeff died about 1815.—R. H.
LE BEUF, Jean, a celebrated antiquary and historian, canon of Auxerre, was born there in 1687. In 1741 he became a member of the Academy of Inscriptions. His numerous works are still consulted. Died in 1760—D. W. R.
LEBID ben Rabiat, one of the first poets of Arabia, distinguished for his virtues, employed by Mahomet to answer the satires written against him, died at a great age in 662. He is the author of a "Moallaka," of which a French translation has been published by M. de Sacy.—D. W. R.
LE BLOND, Gaspard Michel, an archæological and miscellaneous writer, born at Caen in 1738, and died in 1809. From 1772 he was under-librarian at the Mazarin college. The suppression of so many libraries, and the confiscation of the books by the assembly, enabled him to add fifty thousand volumes to that under his charge. During the first republic, he took some part in political affairs. Before his death he had his manuscripts destroyed, but he had already published many works, among which some are valuable specimens of research and talent.—B. H. C.
LE BOX, Philippe, a French engineer and practical chemist, was born at Bruchay, in the department of the Haute-Marne, on the 29th of May, 1769, and died in Paris on the 2nd of December, 1804. He was educated for the corps of government civil engineers, in which he rapidly rose to distinction, and about 1794 was appointed professor of mechanics at the Ècole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1797 he first began to practise the manufacture, which he afterwards carried on extensively, of various useful products by the distillation of wood, such as tar, acetic acid, &c., and amongst the rest, of carburetted hydrogen gas, which he was the first to use for illuminating purposes in France, having lighted his country-house at Bruchay with it in 1797. Many French authors call him the first inventor of gas-lighting, but that is an error; the illuminating powers of coal-gas were proved experimentally in 1782, by Archibald Cochrane, earl of Dundonald, and were applied practically to the lighting of Boulton and Watt's works at Soho in 1792 by Murdoch. In 1798 Le Bon laid his inventions before the Institute; in 1799 he obtained a patent for them, and soon afterwards he established works for carrying them out on a large scale near Havre. In 1804 he was summoned to Paris to superintend works connected with the preparations for the coronation of Napoleon I., and while there he died suddenly in his thirty-sixth year. His widow attempted to carry on his business, but was unsuccessful. She was awarded a pension of twelve hundred francs a year, and died in 1813.—W. J. M. R.
LE BOSSU, Réné, was born at Paris in 1631, and died sub-prior of the abbey of St. Jean de Chartres in 1680. He contributed greatly to the formation of the library of Ste. Genevieve at Paris. He is the author of a "Parallèle de la Philosophie de Descartes et d'Aristote," and also of a "Traité du poeme epique."—W. J. P.
LE BOUVIER, Gilles, king-at-arms and chronicler, was born at Bourges in 1386, and died about 1460. He was one of the embassy sent by Charles VII. to the duke of Brittany, and accompanied his master on his entry into Paris in 1437. Of many works on history and heraldry, the principal is his "Histoire de Charles VII."—W. J. P.
LEBRUN, Charles, an eminent French painter, was born at Paris in 1619. He was a pupil of Simon Vouet, on leaving whom he was sent by the Chancellor Seguier to Rome, where he spent six years in the study of the great Italian painters and the antique, under the guidance of N. Poussin. Returning to
