Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/361

LEOPARDI LEOPOLD II. (GEEMANY) 355 ness like that of the dog. This animal, called chetah and guepard, performs among mammals the part of the falcons among birds ; its natural instinct is to pursue game, and the reward of a portion induces it to yield the rest to the master. In Africa the hunting leopard is valued only for the skin, which is worn by persons of distinction and commands a high price. An Asiatic variety ( C. venaticm, Griff.), which is maneless, has been used from very early periods, especially in the Mogul empire, for hunting purposes; it is said that some of the emperors went to the field accompanied by 1,000 of these leopards ; this sport is now confined to India and Persia. The leopards are so tame that they are led in a leash like greyhounds, with eyes covered ; on approach- ing the game, they are unhooded and let free, and very soon pull down the victim, prostra- ting it by a blow of the paw, and sucking the blood from the throat. Their disposition is so gentle that they live amicably with domestic animals and with children, purring when ca- ressed. This animal forms a connecting link between the dogs and cats. LEOPARD!, Giacomo, count, an Italian poet, born at Eecanati, near Ancona, June 29, 1798, died near Naples, June 14, 1837. He was the son of Count Monaldi Leopardi and the mar- chioness Adelaide Antici. Though bodily fee- ble and sickly, he made surprising progress in his early studies. At the age of 16 he wrote a commentary on Porphyry's "Life of Plo- tinus," and about the same time a disserta- tion on the life and writings of the principal rhetoricians of the 2d century, of which Car- dinal Mai availed himself in preparing his edi- tion of the "Epistles of Fronto." These and many of his other writings remain unpublished. At the age of 20 he was celebrated throughout Italy for the eloquence and energy of his burn- ing patriotic strains, noble passion, and despair. In 1819 his sight was so much impaired by severe studies that he was forbidden to read, and about the same time he went on account of ill health to Rome, where he became ac- quainted with Niebuhr and with Bunsen, who afterward proposed to write his memoirs. As a critic Leopardi ranks with the most eminent of modern Italy. Of his poems, II sdbato del villagio and La sera del dl difesta are remark- able for their truth to nature, and their chaste and beautiful style; his ode "To Italy" is the most widely known. The best complete edition of his works is that published at Florence in 1845. His Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, written in 1815, was edited by Prospero Vane, and published in 1846; and a selection of his correspondence (Epistolario) appeared in 1849. LEOPOL. See LEMBERCK LEOPOLD L, emperor of Germany, born June 9, 1640, died in Vienna, May 5, 1705. He was the fourth son of the emperor Ferdinand III., of the house of Hapsburg, and of Maria Anna of Spain, and was educated for the church, when the death of his brothers made him heir to the throne of his father. Previous to the death of the latter in 1657, Leopold had been crowned king of Hungary ; but the possession of this country could be secured only by decisive victories over the Turks, who held a large part of it, and also regarded themselves as the suze- rains of Transylvania. The war having been renewed, Montecuculi won the great battle of St. Gothard on the Raab, Aug. 1, 1664; but this was followed by a peace which the Hun- garian partisans of the emperor regarded as ignominious. This and many other grievances led to a conspiracy headed by Peter Zrinyi, Frangepan, and other Hungarian magnates, which being discovered was punished by the execution of the principal leaders at Neustadt near Vienna (1671). This was followed by the great insurrection under Tokolyi, and in 1683 by the Turkish invasion of Austria under Kara Mustapha. Leopold fled from Vienna, but John Sobieski's great victory saved his capital and thrones. Sobieski, Louis of Baden, and afterward Prince Eugene, continued the work of deliverance from the Turks. Buda was retaken after a memorable siege in 1686, and the victories at Zalankemen (1691) and Zenta (1697) led to the peace of Carlovitz (1699), which also secured the possession of' Transylvania. But neither the wholesale exe- cutions of Hungarian patriots by the so-called " bloody tribunal " of Caraffa at Eperies, nor the acquiescence of the diet of Presburg in the proposition to make the male line of the Hapsburgs hereditary in Hungary (1687), could make peace permanent in that long distracted country; and Leopold, who also had to wage three times protracted wars against Louis XIV., the first two of which were terminated by the treaties of Nimeguen (1678) and Ryswick (1697), bequeathed to his eldest son and suc- cessor Joseph I. not only the war of the Span- ish succession, commenced in 1701, but also the great Hungarian insurrection under Francis Rak6czy. Both of these, though the battle of Blenheim (1704) had inaugurated before his death the series of Marlborough's and Eugene's victories over the French, were brought to a close only under his younger son Charles VI. In the German empire the long reign of Leo- pold witnessed the growing power of the house of Brandenburg under Frederick Wil- liam, the great elector, whose son assumed the royal title under the name of Frederick I. in 1701. The house of Hapsburg, however, con- solidated itself under Leopold, who became the heir of the Tyrol line of the family. LEOPOLD II., emperor of Germany, of the house of Hapsburg, born May 5, 1747, died March 1, 1792. He was the son of the em- peror Francis I. and Maria Theresa, and on the death of his father in 1765 succeeded him on the throne of Tuscany, which he had received in exchange for Lorraine. Mild, humane, and well educated, though of very dissolute habits, Leopold ruled his grand duchy in the spirit of