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LESLEY LESLIE 367 LESLEY, John, a Scottish prelate, born Sept. 29, 1527, died in Brussels, May 31, 1596. He was the illegitimate child of a priest. He graduated at King's college, Aberdeen, be- came a canon of the cathedral churches of Aberdeen and Elgin in his 20th year, and, after a long period of study in various con- tinental universities, was in 1554 appointed professor of canon law in the university of Aberdeen. He opposed the iDtroduction of Protestantism into Scotland, and upon the ac- cession of Mary, whom he accompanied from France, he was appointed bishop of Ross. His fidelity to the queen involved him in perilous intrigues and misfortunes. After the impris- onment of Mary in Bolton castle he took part in the negotiations between her and Elizabeth. He was subsequently examined on suspicion of being implicated in the scheme for marrying Mary to the duke of Norfolk, and in the rising of the earls of Northumberland and West- moreland, and suffered a long confinement in the tower of London. In 1573 he was per- mitted to go to France, and for several years was employed in various missions in the in- terest of Mary and the Catholic cause, and in preparing for 'the press his general history of Scotland. In 1579 he was appointed suffra- gan and vicar general of the diocese of Rou- en, and in 1593 bishop of Coutances in Nor- mandy. The state of public affairs in France soon after induced him to seek an asylum in Brussels, where he died. He wrote several works, in English and in Latin, in defence of Mary, queen of Scots ; also De Origine, Mori- lus et Rebus Gestis Scotorum, in 10 books (4to, Rome, 1578 ; reprinted in Holland in 1675). The greater part of this work is an abridg- ment of Boethius ; the last three books only, from the death of James I. in 1437 to the return of Queen Mary to Scotland in 1561, being original. This latter part, in the Scot- tish tongue, was printed by the Bannatyne club (4to, Edinburgh, 1830). LESLEY, John Peter, an American geologist, born in Philadelphia, Sept. 17, 1819. He graduated at the university of Pensylvania in 1838, and from 1839 to 1841 was engaged on the geological survey of that state under Prof. Henry D. Rogers. In the autumn of 1841 he entered the theological seminary of Princeton, N. J., and in 1844 was licensed as a minister by the presbytery of Philadelphia. After a while he visited Europe for a year, and pur- sued his theological studies at Halle. On his return he labored for two years as a mission- ary among the German population of Pennsyl- vania, and in 1847 became pastor of a Con- gregational church in Milton, Mass. He mar- ried in 1849 Miss Susan Lyman of North- ampton, and in 1851, his theological views being no longer in accordance with his eccle- siastical position, he left the pulpit and set- tled in Philadelphia, where he has since de- voted himself to geology. He had in 1842 constructed the state geological map and sec- 491 VOL. x. 24 tions for Pennsylvania, and in 1846-'7 revised them, and prepared the drawings and a large part of the text of the subsequently published report on the geology of that state. His work as a geologist has been more especially devoted to the coal formations of North America, and he is regarded t as a chief authority in all ques- tions connected therewith. His "Manual of Coal and its Topography " (1856) is esteemed alike for its classification of the Appalachian coal strata, and for its illustrations of topo- graphical geology. He was for several years secretary to the American iron association, and in 1859 published "The Iron Manu- facturers' Guide." He has also for many years been secretary and librarian of the American philosophical society. In 1865 he gave a series of lectures before the Lowell institute in Bos- ton, since published under the title of " Man's Origin and Destiny as seen from the Platform of the Sciences" (1868), in which he has brought together the results of varied studies. A large number of his geological papers, re- lating chiefly to coal, iron, and petroleum, and various essays on philological and antiquarian subjects, will be found in the proceedings of the American philosophical society. In 1872 he was appointed professor of geology and dean of the faculty to the newly established scientific department ' of the university of Pennsylvania, and in 1874 chief geologist of Pennsylvania, under a new act providing for a complete geological resurvey of that state. LESLIE. I. Charles Robert, an English painter, born in London, Oct. 17, 1794, during the tem- porary residence there of his parents, died there, May 5, 1859. His father, a watchmaker of Philadelphia, and a warm personal friend of Franklin, Jefferson, and other distinguished men, went in 1793 to England with the inten- tion of engaging in the exportation of clocks and watches to America. In 1800 young Les- lie accompanied the family on their return to Philadelphia, and after the usual term of school education he was apprenticed to a bookseller. He had long shown a predilection for the study of painting, which in a few years he obtained the means of pursuing in London under the auspices of Benjamin West and Washington Allston. He arrived in England in 1813, and, after some attempts at historical painting on a large scale, commenced a class of subjects par- ticularly adapted to display his powers, and in which for many years he had no superior among English artists. The great humorous authors of England became the chief source of his inspiration, and many familiar scenes from Shakespeare, Addison, Sterne, Pope, Gold- smith, Fielding, and Smollett were illustrated by him. From "Don Quixote," "Gil Bias," and Moli^re's plays he also drew the subjects of some of his happiest efforts. His "Anne Page and Master Slender," "Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church," " May Day in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth," and other pictures of the kind exhibited between 1820 and 1825,