Leslie returned to England, forsaking the ungenial occupation of a bookseller for that of a painter. He became a student of the Royal Academy, and was much encouraged and instructed by two distinguished American painters in this country—Benjamin West the president of the Academy, and Washington Allston an associate. Leslie lived in the same house with Allston in Buckingham Place, Fitzroy Square, London; and West gave him employment in copying some of his pictures for him, for patrons in America. Leslie commenced his career as a portrait painter, but he soon fell into the line better suited to him, that of the higher class of genre pictures as they are termed by the French, that is, du genre bas as distinguished from so-called "high art" in religion and history. Leslie, as it were, leapt into reputation; his very first picture of any importance made him famous—"Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church," in the Academy exhibition of 1819. It was painted for Mr. Dunlop, a wealthy American merchant, and was repeated by the painter for the marquis of Lansdowne. In 1821 he exhibited his "May-day in the reign of Queen Elizabeth," and in that year was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. In 1824 he exhibited the well-known picture of "Sancho Panza and the Duchess," painted for Lord Egremont, and which he repeated with slight alterations for Mr. Vernon. This fine picture is now in the Vernon collection of the National gallery at South Kensington. In 1825 Leslie became a full member of the Academy. These fine works were followed by many other remarkable pictures, as "Lady Jane Gray prevailed on to accept the Crown," in 1827; "Sir Roger de Coverley and the Gipsies," in 1829; "The Dinner at Mr. Page's house," from the Merry Wives of Windsor, in 1831; and the popular picture of "Uncle Toby and the Widow," also in 1831, and now in the Vernon collection, National gallery. This picture was afterwards repeated for Mr. Sheepshanks and Mr. Jacob Bell, and thus all these pictures are the property of the nation, two of them being in the National gallery. In 1833 Leslie was persuaded to accept the appointment of professor of drawing at the Military Academy of West Point, New York, contrary to the advice of his friends. Five months' trial, however, of the duties sufficiently convinced him that the position was utterly unsuitable to his tastes, and he was glad to give it up and return to England, to the delight of his friends and of the art-public, who looked for Leslie's pictures on the walls of the Academy as an annual treat. The most remarkable pictures of this period were "A Scene in Page's house," representing the characters in the Merry Wives of Windsor, in 1838, now in the Sheepshanks gallery; the "Sancho Panza and the Duchess," in the National gallery, 1844; "Catherine and Capucius," from Henry VIII., in 1850; "Falstaff personating the King," in 1851; and "The Rape of the Lock," in 1854. Leslie was elected professor of painting at the Academy in 1848, but gave up the appointment in 1851, on account of ill health. He published his lectures in 1858, as a "Handbook for Young Painters." Ten years before he had published a life of Constable, and at his death, May 5th, 1859, he left an unfinished memoir of Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1860 appeared "Autobiographical Recollections," by the late C. R. Leslie, R.A., 2 vols. 8vo, edited by Mr. Tom Taylor, but which contains very little about Leslie or his works. His pictures are distinguished for admirable points of character, but are generally condemned for their peculiarity of colouring. Leslie objected to glazing, yet some of his effects are very brilliant notwithstanding a certain opacity on a near inspection.—R. N. W.
LESLIE, David, a Scottish general, who took an important part in the great civil war, was the fifth son of Patrick Leslie, commendator of Lindores, by his wife Jean, daughter of Robert Stewart, earl of Orkney. At an early age he entered, with many of his countrymen, the service of Gustavus, and fought the battles of protestantism in Germany under that renowned leader. He returned home about the commencement of the civil war, and was appointed major-general in the army which was sent into England under General Alexander Leslie to the assistance of the parliament in January, 1644. They joined the parliamentary forces in the siege of York, which was raised, June 30, by Prince Rupert. At the battle of Marston Moor, which was fought on the 22nd July following, David Leslie commanded the Scottish cavalry on the left under Cromwell, and contributed greatly to the decisive victory gained by the parliamentary army. Meanwhile, Montrose had in six successive victories completely destroyed the covenanting forces in Scotland, and held the whole kingdom entirely at his disposal. In this emergency David Leslie was recalled with all the Scottish cavalry to the assistance of the Estates; and by a rapid and masterly movement surprised and defeated the royalists at Philiphaugh, near Selkirk.—(See Montrose.) After securing the internal peace of Scotland by the complete suppression of the royalist party, Leslie rejoined the army in England under Lord Leven, and assisted in the siege of Newcastle. On the surrender of Charles the Scottish forces returned home, and General Leslie was employed in the reduction of the strongholds held by the Gordons in the north, and by Alaster M'Coll and his father, Colkitto, in Kintyre and Isla—a service which he performed with great severity. The garrison of Dunaverty, consisting of three hundred Highlanders and Irish, he put to the sword; and Colkitto, who was taken prisoner in the castle of Dunavey, was given up to the Campbells, by whom he was hanged. General Leslie was offered, but refused, the command of the army which the Scottish Estates sent in 1648 into England, to rescue King Charles from the republicans. But on the resignation of the earl of Leven he accepted the command of the forces raised on behalf of Charles II., and by his masterly tactics completely foiled Cromwell, and at last shut him up in Dunbar. But the rash and ignorant importunity of the committee of Estates induced Leslie to quit his commanding position on the Doonhill and to risk a battle, in which he was signally defeated, 3rd September, 1650. He was present at the battle of Worcester, 3rd September, 1651, and was taken prisoner in his retreat through Yorkshire and committed to the Tower, where he remained till the Restoration. As a reward for his signal services and sufferings in the royal cause, he was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Newark, 31st August, 1661, and obtained a pension of £500 a year. His death occurred in the year 1682.—J. T.
LESLIE, John, Bishop of Clogher, was born at Balquhaine in the north of Scotland. Educated at Aberdeen and Oxford he went abroad for twenty-two years, and acquired a perfect knowledge of the French, Spanish, and Italian languages. The variety of his accomplishments and the grace of his manners secured to him the favour of foreign princes; and at home he was admitted by Charles I. a member of the privy council, both in England and Ireland. He was for some time bishop of Orkney, but in 1623 was translated to Raphoe in Ireland, where he built a strong palace that did good service to the royal cause in 1641. The bishop endured a siege before he surrendered to Cromwell. His habits were regular and temperate; and at his death in 1671 he was more than one hundred years old. He wrote various works, which, however, were never published, having been destroyed during the civil war, along with his extensive library and some valuable MSS. which he had collected abroad.—D. W. R.
LESLIE, Sir John, a Scottish physicist, was born at Largo in Fifeshire, on the 16th of April, 1766, and died at Coates, near Largo, on the 3rd of November, 1832. He received from his brother Alexander his early instruction in mathematics; and on the ability which he showed becoming known to Robison and Stewart, he was induced by them to prosecute his scientific studies at the university of St. Andrews, where he continued for six years, and then attended the university of Edinburgh for three years. He afterwards obtained a series of engagements as a travelling tutor, and in that capacity visited various parts of Europe and America. About 1790 he wrote a translation of Buffon's Natural History of Birds, which proved very successful. In 1805 he was elected by the town council of Edinburgh to the professorship of mathematics in its university, notwithstanding a strong opposition that was raised to his appointment, on the ground of the supposed heretical tendency of certain metaphysical principles which he had avowed respecting the relation between cause and effect. It was on this occasion that Thomas Brown published, with a view to the defence of Leslie, his well-known essay on Causation. In 1819 he Succeeded Playfair as professor of natural philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, which appointment he held until his death. He was a fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh. He laboured assiduously for the advancement of experimental physics during the greater part of his life. His most important researches were those on the properties of heat, whose results were published in his "Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and Propagation of Heat," London, 1804; in a subsequent work on the relations of heat to air and moisture; and in some papers in
