Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Letter" to "Lightfoot, John"
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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Letter" to "Lightfoot, John"
Author: Various
Release date: December 6, 2012 [eBook #41567]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "LETTER" TO "LIGHTFOOT, JOHN" ***
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters; [dP] for partial differential symbol.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE LIBRARIES: "... to be called the Nationale Bibliotheek. In
1805 the present name was adopted; and since 1815 it has become the
national library." 'Nationale' amended from 'National'.
ARTICLE LIBRARIES: "Tijdschrift voor boek- en bibliotheekwezen
(Hague, 1903); ..." 'boek- en bibliotheekwezen' amended from
'boekund bibliothekwezen'.
ARTICLE LICHENS: "... thus Chroolepus umbrinus is found as the
gonidia of 13 different lichen genera." 'Chroolepus' amended from
'Chroolepns'.
ARTICLE LICHENS: "The soredia are the most successful method of
reproduction in lichens, for not only are some forms nearly always
without spore-formation and in others the spores largely abortive
..." 'largely' amended from 'laregly'.
ARTICLE LIEBIG, JUSTUS VON: "... but of the mineral constituents
the supply is limited because the soil cannot afford an indefinite
amount of them ..." 'constituents' amended from 'constitutents'.
ARTICLE LIGHT: "... and also to the study of achromatism, the
principles of which followed from Newton's analysis and synthesis
of white light." 'synthesis' amended from 'snythesis'.
ARTICLE LIGHT: "It follows from these principles that, in an
isotropic dielectric, transverse electric vibrations can be
propagated with a velocity ..." 'dielectric' amended from
'dialectric'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XVI, SLICE V
Letter to Lightfoot, John
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
LETTER LIAS
LETTERKENNY LIBANIUS
LETTER OF CREDIT LIBATION
LETTERS PATENT LIBAU
LETTRES DE CACHET LIBEL and SLANDER
LETTUCE LIBELLATICI
LEUCADIA LIBER and LIBERA
LEUCIPPUS LIBERAL PARTY
LEUCITE LIBER DIURNUS ROMANORUM PONTIFICUM
LEUCTRA LIBERIA
LEUK LIBERIUS
LEUTHEN LIBER PONTIFICALIS
LEUTZE, EMANUEL LIBERTAD
LEVALLOIS-PERRET LIBERTARIANISM
LEVANT LIBERTINES
LEVASSEUR, PIERRE EMILE LIBERTINES, SYNAGOGUE OF THE
LEVECHE LIBERTY
LEVÉE (river embankment) LIBERTY PARTY
LEVEE (reception) LIBITINA
LEVELLERS LIBMANAN
LEVEN, ALEXANDER LESLIE LIBO
LEVEN (Scotish burgh) LIBON
LEVEN, LOCH LIBOURNE
LEVEN AND MELVILLE, EARLS OF LIBRA
LEVER, CHARLES JAMES LIBRARIES
LEVER LIBRATION
LEVERRIER, URBAIN JEAN JOSEPH LIBYA
LEVERTIN, OSCAR IVAN LICATA
LEVI, HERMANN LICENCE
LEVI, LEONE LICHEN
LEVIATHAN LICHENS
LEVIRATE LICHFIELD
LÉVIS LICH-GATE
LEVITES LICHTENBERG, GEORG CHRISTOPH
LEVITICUS LICHTENBERG (German principality)
LEVY, AMY LICINIANUS, GRANIUS
LEVY, AUGUSTE MICHEL LICINIUS
LEVY (money raising) LICINIUS CALVUS STOLO, GAIUS
LEWALD, FANNY LICINIUS MACER CALVUS, GAIUS
LEWANIKA LICODIA EUBEA
LEWES, CHARLES LEE LICTORS
LEWES, GEORGE HENRY LIDDELL, HENRY GEORGE
LEWES (town of England) LIDDESDALE
LEWES (Delaware, U.S.A.) LIDDON, HENRY PARRY
LEWIS, SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL LIE, JONAS LAURITZ EDEMIL
LEWIS, HENRY CARVILL LIE, MARIUS SOPHUS
LEWIS, JOHN FREDERICK LIEBER, FRANCIS
LEWIS, MATTHEW GREGORY LIEBERMANN, MAX
LEWIS, MERIWETHER LIEBIG, JUSTUS VON
LEWISBURG LIEBKNECHT, WILHELM
LEWISHAM LIECHTENSTEIN
LEWISTON LIÉGE (province of Belgium)
LEWIS-WITH-HARRIS LIÉGE (Belgian city)
LEXICON LIEGE (feudal term)
LEXINGTON, BARON LIEGNITZ
LEXINGTON (Kentucky, U.S.A.) LIEN
LEXINGTON (Massachusetts, U.S.A.) LIERRE
LEXINGTON (Missouri, U.S.A.) LIESTAL
LEXINGTON (Virginia, U.S.A.) LIEUTENANT
LEYDEN, JOHN LIFE
LEYDEN JAR LIFE-BOAT, and LIFE-SAVING SERVICE
LEYS, HENDRIK LIFFORD
LEYTON LIGAMENT
LHASA LIGAO
L'HÔPITAL, MICHEL DE LIGHT
LIAO-YANG LIGHTFOOT, JOHN
LETTER (through Fr. _lettre_ from Lat. _littera_ or _litera_, letter of
the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably
no connexion with the root of _linere_, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an
inscription with a stilus), a character or symbol expressing any one of
the elementary sounds into which a spoken word may be analysed, one of
the members of an alphabet. As applied to things written, the word
follows mainly the meanings of the Latin plural _litterae_, the most
common meaning attaching to the word being that of a written
communication from one person to another, an epistle (q.v.). For the
means adopted to secure the transmission of letters see POST AND POSTAL
SERVICE. The word is also, particularly in the plural, applied to many
legal and formal written documents, as in letters patent, letters
rogatory and dismissory, &c. The Latin use of the plural is also
followed in the employment of "letters" in the sense of literature
(q.v.) or learning.
LETTERKENNY, a market town of Co. Donegal, Ireland, 23 m. W. by S. of
Londonderry by the Londonderry and Lough Swilly and Letterkenny railway.
Pop. (1901) 2370. It has a harbour at Port Ballyrane, 1 m. distant on
Lough Swilly. In the market square a considerable trade in grain, flax
and provisions is prosecuted. Rope-making and shirt-making are
industries. The handsome Roman Catholic cathedral for the diocese of
Raphoe occupies a commanding site, and cost a large sum, as it contains
carving from Rome, glass from Munich and a pulpit of Irish and Carrara
marble. It was consecrated in 1901. There is a Catholic college
dedicated to St Ewnan. The town, which is governed by an urban district
council, is a centre for visitors to the county. Its name signifies the
"hill of the O'Cannanans," a family who lorded over Tyrconnell before
the rise of the O'Donnells.
LETTER OF CREDIT, a letter, open or sealed, from a banker or merchant,
containing a request to some other person or firm to advance the bearer
of the letter, or some other person named therein, upon the credit of
the writer a particular or an unlimited sum of money. A letter of credit
is either general or special. It is general when addressed to merchants
or other persons in general, requesting an advance to a third person,
and special when addressed to a particular person by name requesting him
to make such an advance. A letter of credit is not a negotiable
instrument. When a letter of credit is given for the purchase of goods,
the letter of credit usually states the particulars of the merchandise
against which bills are to be drawn, and shipping documents (bills of
lading, invoices, insurance policies) are usually attached to the draft
for acceptance.
LETTERS PATENT. It is a rule alike of common law and sound policy that
grants of freehold interests, franchises, liberties, &c., by the
sovereign to a subject should be made only after due consideration, and
in a form readily accessible to the public. These ends are attained in
England through the agency of that piece of constitutional machinery
known as "letters patent." It is here proposed to consider only the
characteristics of letters patent generally. The law relating to letters
patent for inventions is dealt with under the heading PATENTS.
Letters patent (_litterae patentes_) are letters addressed by the
sovereign "to all to whom these presents shall come," reciting the grant
of some dignity, office, monopoly, franchise or other privilege to the
patentee. They are not sealed up, but are left open (hence the term
"patent"), and are recorded in the Patent Rolls in the Record Office, or
in the case of very recent grants, in the Chancery Enrolment Office, so
that all subjects of the realm may read and be bound by their contents.
In this respect they differ from certain other letters of the sovereign
directed to particular persons and for particular purposes, which, not
being proper for public inspection, are closed up and sealed on the
outside, and are thereupon called _writs close_ (_litterae clausae_) and
are recorded in the Close Rolls. Letters patent are used to put into
commission various powers inherent in the crown--legislative powers, as
when the sovereign entrusts to others the duty of opening parliament or
assenting to bills; judicial powers, e.g. of gaol delivery; executive
powers, as when the duties of Treasurer and Lord High Admiral are
assigned to commissioners of the Treasury and Admiralty (Anson, _Const._
ii. 47). Letters patent are also used to incorporate bodies by
charter--in the British colonies, this mode of legislation is frequently
applied to joint stock companies (cf. Rev. Stats. Ontario, c. 191, s.
9)--to grant a _congé d'élire_ to a dean and chapter to elect a bishop,
or licence to convocation to amend canons; to grant pardon, and to
confer certain offices and dignities. Among grants of offices, &c., made
by letters patent the following may be enumerated: offices in the
Heralds' College; the dignities of a peer, baronet and knight bachelor;
the appointments of lord-lieutenant, custos rotulorum of counties, judge
of the High Court and Indian and Colonial judgeships, king's counsel,
crown livings; the offices of attorney- and solicitor-general,
commander-in-chief, master of the horse, keeper of the privy seal,
postmaster-general, king's printer; grants of separate courts of
quarter-sessions. The fees payable in respect of the grant of various
forms of letters patent are fixed by orders of the lord chancellor,
dated 20th of June 1871, 18th of July 1871 and 11th of Aug. 1881. (These
orders are set out at length in the _Statutory Rules and Orders Revised_
(ed. 1904), vol. ii. _tit._ "Clerk of the Crown in Chancery," pp. i. et
seq.) Formerly each colonial governor was appointed and commissioned by
letters patent under the great seal of the United Kingdom. But since
1875, the practice has been to create the office of governor in each
colony by letters patent, and then to make each appointment to the
office by commission under the Royal Sign Manual and to give to the
governor so appointed instructions in a uniform shape under the Royal
Sign Manual. The letters patent, commission and instructions, are
commonly described as the Governor's Commission (see Jenkyns, _British
Rule and Jurisdiction beyond the Seas_, p. 100; the forms now in use are
printed in Appx. iv. Also the _Statutory Rules and Codes Revised_, ed.
1904, under the title of the colony to which they relate). The Colonial
Letters Patent Act 1863 provides that letters patent shall not take
effect in the colonies or possessions beyond the seas until their
publication there by proclamation or otherwise (s. 2), and shall be
void unless so published within nine months in the case of colonies east
of Bengal or west of Cape Horn, and within six months in any other case.
Colonial officers and judges holding offices by patent for life or for a
term certain, are removable by a special procedure--"amotion"--by the
Governor and Council, subject to a right of appeal to the king in
Council (Leave of Absence Act, formerly cited as "Burke's Act" 1782; see
_Montagu_ v. _Governor of Van Diemen's Land_, 1849, 6 Moo. P.C. 491;
_Willis_ v. _Gipps_, 1846, 6 St. Trials [N.S., 311]). The law of
conquered or ceded colonies may be altered by the crown by letters
patent under the Great Seal as well as by Proclamation or Order in
Council (_Jephson_ v. _Riera_, 1835, 3 Knapp, 130; 3 St. Trials [N.S.]
591).
_Procedure._--Formerly letters patent were always granted under the
Great Seal. But now, under the Crown Office Act 1877, and the Orders in
Council made under it, many letters patent are sealed with the wafer
great seal. Letters patent for inventions are issued under the seal of
the Patent Office. The procedure by which letters patent are obtained is
as follows: A warrant for the issue of letters patent is drawn up; and
is signed by the lord chancellor; this is submitted to the law officers
of the crown, who countersign it; finally, the warrant thus signed and
countersigned is submitted to His Majesty, who affixes his signature.
The warrant is then sent to the Crown Office and is filed, after it has
been acted upon by the issue of letters patent under the great or under
the wafer seal as the case may be. The letters patent are then delivered
into the custody of those in whose favour they are granted.
_Construction._--The construction of letters patent differs from that of
other grants in certain particulars: (i.) Letters patent, contrary to
the ordinary rule, are construed in a sense favourable to the grantor
(viz. the crown) rather than to the grantee; although this rule is said
not to apply so strictly where the grant is made for consideration, or
where it purports to be made _ex certâ scientiâ et mero motu_. (ii.)
When it appears from the face of the grant that the sovereign has been
mistaken or deceived, either in matter of fact or in matter of law, as,
e.g. by false suggestion on the part of the patentee, or by misrecital
of former grants, or if the grant is contrary to law or uncertain, the
letters patent are absolutely void, and may still, it would seem, be
cancelled (except as regards letters patent for inventions, which are
revoked by a special procedure, regulated by § 26 of the Patents Act
1883), by the procedure known as scire facias, an action brought against
the patentee in the name of the crown with the fiat of the
attorney-general.
As to letters patent generally, see Bacon's _Abridgment_
("Prerogative," F.); Chitty's _Prerogative_; Hindmarsh on _Patents_
(1846); Anson, _Law and Custom of the Const._ ii. (3rd ed., Oxford and
London, 1907-1908). (A. W. R.)
LETTRES DE CACHET. Considered solely as French documents, _lettres de
cachet_ may be defined as letters signed by the king of France,
countersigned by one of his ministers, and closed with the royal seal
(_cachet_). They contained an order--in principle, any order
whatsoever--emanating directly from the king, and executory by himself.
In the case of organized bodies _lettres de cachet_ were issued for the
purpose of enjoining members to assemble or to accomplish some definite
act; the provincial estates were convoked in this manner, and it was by
_a lettre de cachet_ (called _lettre de jussion_) that the king ordered
a parlement to register a law in the teeth of its own remonstrances. The
best-known _lettres de cachet_, however, were those which may be called
penal, by which the king sentenced a subject without trial and without
an opportunity of defence to imprisonment in a state prison or an
ordinary gaol, confinement in a convent or a hospital, transportation to
the colonies, or relegation to a given place within the realm.
The power which the king exercised on these various occasions was a
royal privilege recognized by old French law, and can be traced to a
maxim which furnished a text of the _Digest_ of Justinian: "Rex solutus
est a legibus." This signified particularly that when the king
intervened directly in the administration proper, or in the
administration of justice, by a special act of his will, he could
decide without heeding the laws, and even in a sense contrary to the
laws. This was an early conception, and in early times the order in
question was simply verbal; thus some letters patent of Henry III. of
France in 1576 (Isambert, _Anciennes lois françaises_, xiv. 278) state
that François de Montmorency was "prisoner in our castle of the Bastille
in Paris by verbal command" of the late king Charles IX. But in the 14th
century the principle was introduced that the order should be written,
and hence arose the _lettre de cachet_. The _lettre de cachet_ belonged
to the class of _lettres closes_, as opposed to _lettres patentes_,
which contained the expression of the legal and permanent will of the
king, and had to be furnished with the seal of state affixed by the
chancellor. The _lettres de cachet_, on the contrary, were signed simply
by a secretary of state (formerly known as _secrétaire des
commandements_) for the king; they bore merely the imprint of the king's
privy seal, from which circumstance they were often called, in the 14th
and 15th centuries, _lettres de petit signet_ or _lettres de petit
cachet_, and were entirely exempt from the control of the chancellor.
While serving the government as a silent weapon against political
adversaries or dangerous writers and as a means of punishing culprits of
high birth without the scandal of a suit at law, the _lettres de cachet_
had many other uses. They were employed by the police in dealing with
prostitutes, and on their authority lunatics were shut up in hospitals
and sometimes in prisons. They were also often used by heads of families
as a means of correction, e.g. for protecting the family honour from the
disorderly or criminal conduct of sons; wives, too, took advantage of
them to curb the profligacy of husbands and vice versa. They were issued
by the intermediary on the advice of the intendants in the provinces and
of the lieutenant of police in Paris. In reality, the secretary of state
issued them in a completely arbitrary fashion, and in most cases the
king was unaware of their issue. In the 18th century it is certain that
the letters were often issued blank, i.e. without containing the name of
the person against whom they were directed; the recipient, or mandatary,
filled in the name in order to make the letter effective.
Protests against the _lettres de cachet_ were made continually by the
parlement of Paris and by the provincial parlements, and often also by
the States-General. In 1648 the sovereign courts of Paris procured their
momentary suppression in a kind of charter of liberties which they
imposed upon the crown, but which was ephemeral. It was not until the
reign of Louis XVI. that a reaction against this abuse became clearly
perceptible. At the beginning of that reign Malesherbes during his short
ministry endeavoured to infuse some measure of justice into the system,
and in March 1784 the baron de Breteuil, a minister of the king's
household, addressed a circular to the intendants and the lieutenant of
police with a view to preventing the crying abuses connected with the
issue of _lettres de cachet_. In Paris, in 1779, the _Cour des Aides_
demanded their suppression, and in March 1788 the parlement of Paris
made some exceedingly energetic remonstrances, which are important for
the light they throw upon old French public law. The crown, however, did
not decide to lay aside this weapon, and in a declaration to the
States-General in the royal session of the 23rd of June 1789 (art. 15)
it did not renounce it absolutely. _Lettres de cachet_ were abolished by
the Constituent Assembly, but Napoleon re-established their equivalent
by a political measure in the decree of the 9th of March 1801 on the
state prisons. This was one of the acts brought up against him by the
_sénatus-consulte_ of the 3rd of April 1814, which pronounced his fall
"considering that he has violated the constitutional laws by the decrees
on the state prisons."
See Honoré Mirabeau, _Les Lettres de cachet et des prisons d'état_
(Hamburg, 1782), written in the dungeon at Vincennes into which his
father had thrown him by a _lettre de cachet_, one of the ablest and
most eloquent of his works, which had an immense circulation and was
translated into English with a dedication to the duke of Norfolk in
1788; Frantz Funck-Brentano, _Les Lettres de cachet à Paris_ (Paris,
1904); and André Chassaigne, _Les Lettres de cachet sous l'ancien
régime_ (Paris, 1903). (J. P. E.)
LETTUCE, known botanically as _Lactuca sativa_ (nat. ord. Compositae), a
hardy annual, highly esteemed as a salad plant. The London
market-gardeners make preparation for the first main crop of Cos
lettuces in the open ground early in August, a frame being set on a
shallow hotbed, and, the stimulus of heat not being required, this is
allowed to subside till the first week in October, when the soil,
consisting of leaf-mould mixed with a little sand, is put on 6 or 7 in.
thick, so that the surface is within 4½ in. of the sashes. The best time
for sowing is found to be about the 11th of October, one of the best
varieties being Lobjoits Green Cos. When the seeds begin to germinate
the sashes are drawn quite off in favourable weather during the day, and
put on, but tilted, at night in wet weather. Very little watering is
required, and the aim should be to keep the plants gently moving till
the days begin to lengthen. In January a more active growth is
encouraged, and in mild winters a considerable extent of the planting
out is done, but in private gardens the preferable time would be
February. The ground should be light and rich, and well manured below,
and the plants put out at 1 ft. apart each way with the dibble. Frequent
stirring of the ground with the hoe greatly encourages the growth of the
plants. A second sowing should be made about the 5th of November, and a
third in frames about the end of January or beginning of February. In
March a sowing may be made in some warm situation out of doors;
successional sowings may be made in the open border about every third or
fourth week till August, about the middle of which month a crop of Brown
Cos, Hardy Hammersmith or Hardy White Cos should be sown, the latter
being the most reliable in a severe winter. These plants may be put out
early in October on the sides of ridges facing the south or at the front
of a south wall, beyond the reach of drops from the copings, being
planted 6 or 8 in. apart. Young lettuce plants should be thinned out in
the seed-beds before they crowd or draw each other, and transplanted as
soon as possible after two or three leaves are formed. Some cultivators
prefer that the summer crops should not be transplanted, but sown where
they are to stand, the plants being merely thinned out; but
transplanting checks the running to seed, and makes the most of the
ground.
For a winter supply by gentle forcing, the Hardy Hammersmith and Brown
Dutch Cabbage lettuces, and the Brown Cos and Green Paris Cos lettuces,
should be sown about the middle of August and in the beginning of
September, in rich light soil, the plants being pricked out 3 in. apart
in a prepared bed, as soon as the first two leaves are fully formed.
About the middle of October the plants should be taken up carefully with
balls attached to the roots, and should be placed in a mild hotbed of
well-prepared dung (about 55°) covered about 1 ft. deep with a compost
of sandy peat, leaf-mould and a little well-decomposed manure. The Cos
and Brown Dutch varieties should be planted about 9 in. apart. Give
plenty of air when the weather permits, and protect from frost. For
winter work Stanstead Park Cabbage Lettuce is greatly favoured now by
London market-gardeners, as it stands the winter well. Lee's Immense is
another good variety, while All the Year Round may be sown for almost
any season, but is better perhaps for summer crops.
There are two races of the lettuce, the Cos lettuce, with erect oblong
heads, and the Cabbage lettuce, with round or spreading heads,--the
former generally crisp, the latter soft and flabby in texture. Some of
the best lettuces for general purposes of the two classes are the
following:--
_Cos:_ White Paris Cos, best for summer; Green Paris Cos, hardier than
the white; Brown Cos, Lobjoits Green Cos, one of the hardiest and best
for winter; Hardy White Cos.
_Cabbage:_ Hammersmith Hardy Green; Stanstead Park, very hardy, good for
winter; Tom Thumb; Brown Dutch; Neapolitan, best for summer; All the
Year Round; Golden Ball, good for forcing in private establishments.
_Lactuca virosa_, the strong-scented lettuce, contains an alkaloid which
has the power of dilating the pupil and may possibly be identical with
hyoscyamine, though this point is as yet not determined. No variety of
lettuce is now used for any medicinal purpose, though there is probably
some slight foundation for the belief that the lettuce has faint
narcotic properties.
LEUCADIA, the ancient name of one of the Ionian Islands, now Santa Maura
(q.v.), and of its chief town (Hamaxichi).
LEUCIPPUS, Greek philosopher, born at Miletus (or Elea), founder of the
Atomistic theory, contemporary of Zeno, Empedocles and Anaxagoras. His
fame was so completely overshadowed by that of Democritus, who
subsequently developed the theory into a system, that his very existence
was denied by Epicurus (Diog. Laërt. x. 7), followed in modern times by
E. Rohde. Epicurus, however, distinguishes Leucippus from Democritus,
and Aristotle and Theophrastus expressly credit him with the invention
of Atomism. There seems, therefore, no reason to doubt his existence,
although nothing is known of his life, and even his birthplace is
uncertain. Between Leucippus and Democritus there is an interval of at
least forty years; accordingly, while the beginnings of Atomism are
closely connected with the doctrines of the Eleatics, the system as
developed by Democritus is conditioned by the sophistical views of his
time, especially those of Protagoras. While Leucippus's notion of Being
agreed generally with that of the Eleatics, he postulated its plurality
(atoms) and motion, and the reality of not-Being (the void) in which his
atoms moved.
See DEMOCRITUS. On the Rohde-Diels controversy as to the existence of
Leucippus, see F. Lortzing in Bursian's _Jahresbericht_, vol. cxvi.
(1904); also J. Burnet, _Early Greek Philosophy_ (1892).
LEUCITE, a rock-forming mineral composed of potassium and aluminium
metasilicate KAl(SiO3)2. Crystals have the form of cubic icositetrahedra
{211}, but, as first observed by Sir David Brewster in 1821, they are
not optically isotropic, and are therefore pseudo-cubic. Goniometric
measurements made by G. vom Rath in 1873 led him to refer the crystals
to the tetragonal system, the faces o being distinct from those lettered
i in the adjoining figure. Optical investigations have since proved the
crystals to be still more complex in character, and to consist of
several orthorhombic or monoclinic individuals, which are optically
biaxial and repeatedly twinned, giving rise to twin-lamellae and to
striations on the faces. When the crystals are raised to a temperature
of about 500° C. they become optically isotropic, the twin-lamellae and
striations disappearing, reappearing, however, when the crystals are
again cooled. This pseudo-cubic character of leucite is exactly the same
as that of the mineral boracite (q.v.).
[Illustration]
The crystals are white (hence the name suggested by A. G. Werner in
1791, from [Greek: leukos]) or ash-grey in colour, and are usually dull
and opaque, but sometimes transparent and glassy; they are brittle and
break with a conchoidal fracture. The hardness is 5.5, and the specific
gravity 2.5. Enclosures of other minerals, arranged in concentric zones,
are frequently present in the crystals. On account of the colour and
form of the crystals the mineral was early known as "white garnet."
French authors employ R. J. Haüy's name "amphigène." (L. J. S.)
_Leucite Rocks._--Although rocks containing leucite are numerically
scarce, many countries such as England being entirely without them,
yet they are of wide distribution, occurring in every quarter of the
globe. Taken collectively, they exhibit a considerable variety of
types and are of great interest petrographically. For the presence of
this mineral it is necessary that the silica percentage of the rock
should not be high, for leucite never occurs in presence of free
quartz. It is most common in lavas of recent and Tertiary age, which
have a fair amount of potash, or at any rate have potash equal to or
greater than soda; if soda preponderates nepheline occurs rather than
leucite. In pre-Tertiary rocks leucite is uncommon, since it readily
decomposes and changes to zeolites, analcite and other secondary
minerals. Leucite also is rare in plutonic rocks and dike rocks, but
leucite-syenite and leucite-tinguaite bear witness to the possibility
that it may occur in this manner. The rounded shape of its crystals,
their white or grey colour, and rough cleavage, make the presence of
leucite easily determinable in many of these rocks by simple
inspection, especially when the crystals are large. "Pseudo-leucites"
are rounded areas consisting of felspar, nepheline, analcite, &c.,
which have the shape, composition and sometimes even the crystalline
forms of leucite; they are probably pseudomorphs or paramorphs, which
have developed from leucite because this mineral, in its isometric
crystals, is not stable at ordinary temperatures and may be expected
under favourable conditions to undergo spontaneous change into an
aggregate of other minerals. Leucite is very often accompanied by
nepheline, sodalite or nosean; other minerals which make their
appearance with some frequency are melanite, garnet and melilite.
The plutonic leucite-bearing rocks are leucite-syenite and missourite.
Of these the former consists of orthoclase, nepheline, sodalite,
diopside and aegirine, biotite and sphene. Two occurrences are known,
one in Arkansas, the other in Sutherlandshire, Scotland. The Scottish
rock has been called borolanite. Both examples show large rounded
spots in the hand specimens; they are pseudo-leucites and under the
microscope prove to consist of orthoclase, nepheline, sodalite and
decomposition products. These have a radiate arrangement externally,
but are of irregular structure at their centres; it is interesting to
note that in both rocks melanite is an important accessory. The
missourites are more basic and consist of leucite, olivine, augite and
biotite; the leucite is partly fresh, partly altered to analcite, and
the rock has a spotted character recalling that of the
leucite-syenites. It has been found only in the Highwood Mountains of
Montana.
The leucite-bearing dike-rocks are members of the tinguaite and
monchiquite groups. The leucite-tinguaites are usually pale grey or
greenish in colour and consist principally of nepheline,
alkali-felspar and aegirine. The latter forms bright green moss-like
patches and growths of indefinite shape, or in other cases scattered
acicular prisms, among the felspars and nephelines of the ground mass.
Where leucite occurs, it is always eumorphic in small, rounded,
many-sided crystals in the ground mass, or in larger masses which have
the same characters as the pseudo-leucites. Biotite occurs in some of
these rocks, and melanite also is present. Nepheline appears to
decrease in amount as leucite increases. Rocks of this group are known
from Rio de Janeiro, Arkansas, Kola (in Finland), Montana and a few
other places. In Greenland there are leucite-tinguaites with much
arfvedsonite (hornblende) and eudyalite. Wherever they occur they
accompany leucite- and nepheline-syenites. Leucite-monchiquites are
fine-grained dark rocks consisting of olivine, titaniferous augite and
iron oxides, with a glassy ground mass in which small rounded crystals
of leucite are scattered. They have been described from Bohemia.
By far the greater number of the rocks which contain leucite are lavas
of Tertiary or recent geological age. They are never acid rocks which
contain quartz, but felspar is usually present, though there are
certain groups of leucite lavas which are non-felspathic. Many of them
also contain nepheline, sodalite, hauyne and nosean; the much rarer
mineral melilite appears also in some examples. The commonest
ferromagnesian mineral is augite (sometimes rich in soda), with
olivine in the more basic varieties. Hornblende and biotite occur
also, but are less common. Melanite is found in some of the lavas, as
in the leucite-syenites.
The rocks in which orthoclase (or sanidine) is present in considerable
amount are leucite-trachytes, leucite-phonolites and leucitophyres. Of
these groups the two former, which are not sharply distinguished from
one another by most authors, are common in the neighbourhood of Rome
(L. Bracciano, L. Bolsena). They are of trachytic appearance,
containing phenocysts of sanidine, leucite, augite and biotite.
Sodalite or hauyne may also be present, but nepheline is typically
absent. Rocks of this class occur also in the tuffs of the Phlegraean
Fields, near Naples. The leucitophyres are rare rocks which have been
described from various parts of the volcanic district of the Rhine
(Olbrück, Laacher See, &c.) and from Monte Vulture in Italy. They are
rich in leucite, but contain also some sanidine and often much
nepheline with hauyne or nosean. Their pyroxene is principally
aegirine or aegirine augite; some of them are rich in melanite.
Microscopic sections of some of these rocks are of great interest on
account of their beauty and the variety of felspathoid minerals which
they contain. In Brazil leucitophyres have been found which belong to
the Carboniferous period.
Those leucite rocks which contain abundant essential plagioclase
felspar are known as leucite-tephrites and leucite-basanites. The
former consist mainly of plagioclase, leucite and augite, while the
latter contain olivine in addition. The leucite is often present in
two sets of crystals, both porphyritic and as an ingredient of the
ground mass. It is always idiomorphic with rounded outlines. The
felspar ranges from bytownite to oligoclase, being usually a variety
of labradorite; orthoclase is scarce. The augite varies a good deal in
character, being green, brown or violet, but aegirine (the dark green
pleochroic soda-iron-augite) is seldom present. Among the accessory
minerals biotite, brown hornblende, hauyne, iron oxides and apatite
are the commonest; melanite and nepheline may also occur. The ground
mass of these rocks is only occasionally rich in glass. The
leucite-tephrites and leucite-basanites of Vesuvius and Somma are
familiar examples of this class of rocks. They are black or ashy-grey
in colour, often vesicular, and may contain many large grey phenocysts
of leucite. Their black augite and yellow green olivine are also
easily detected in hand specimens. From Volcanello, Sardinia and
Roccamonfina similar rocks are obtained; they occur also in Bohemia,
in Java, Celebes, Kilimanjaro (Africa) and near Trebizond in Asia
Minor.
Leucite lavas from which felspar is absent are divided into the
leucitites and leucite basalts. The latter contain olivine, the former
do not. Pyroxene is the usual ferromagnesian mineral, and resembles
that of the tephrites and basanites. Sanidine, melanite, hauyne and
perofskite are frequent accessory minerals in these rocks, and many of
them contain melilite in some quantity. The well-known leucitite of
the Capo di Bove, near Rome, is rich in this mineral, which forms
irregular plates, yellow in the hand specimen, enclosing many small
rounded crystals of leucite. Bracciano and Roccamonfina are other
Italian localities for leucitite, and in Java, Montana, Celebes and
New South Wales similar rocks occur. The leucite-basalts belong to
more basic types and are rich in olivine and augite. They occur in
great numbers in the Rhenish volcanic district (Eifel, Laacher See)
and in Bohemia, and accompany tephrites or leucitites in Java,
Montana, Celebes and Sardinia. The "peperino" of the neighbourhood of
Rome is a leucitite tuff. (J. S. F.)
LEUCTRA, a village of Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae, chiefly
noticeable for the battle fought in its neighbourhood in 371 B.C.
between the Thebans and the Spartans and their allies. A Peloponnesian
army, about 10,000 strong, which had invaded Boeotia from Phocis, was
here confronted by a Boeotian levy of perhaps 6000 soldiers under
Epaminondas (q.v.). In spite of inferior numbers and the doubtful
loyalty of his Boeotian allies, Epaminondas offered battle on the plain
before the town. Massing his cavalry and the 50-deep column of Theban
infantry on his left wing, he sent forward this body in advance of his
centre and right wing. After a cavalry engagement in which the Thebans
drove their enemies off the field, the decisive issue was fought out
between the Theban and Spartan foot. The latter, though fighting well,
could not sustain in their 12-deep formation the heavy impact of their
opponents' column, and were hurled back with a loss of about 2000 men,
of whom 700 were Spartan citizens, including the king Cleombrotus.
Seeing their right wing beaten, the rest of the Peloponnesians retired
and left the enemy in possession of the field. Owing to the arrival of a
Thessalian army under Jason of Pherae, whose friendship they did not
trust, the Thebans were unable to exploit their victory. But the battle
is none the less of great significance in Greek history. It marks a
revolution in military tactics, affording the first known instance of a
deliberate concentration of attack upon the vital point of the enemy's
line. Its political effects were equally far-reaching, for the loss in
material strength and prestige which the Spartans here sustained
deprived them for ever of their supremacy in Greece.
AUTHORITIES.--Xenophon, _Hellenica_, vi. 4. 3-15; Diodorus xi. 53-56;
Plutarch, _Pelopidas_, chs. 20-23; Pausanias ix. 13. 2-10; G. B.
Grundy, _The Topography of the Battle of Plataea_ (London, 1894), pp.
73-76; H. Delbrück, _Geschichte der Kriegskunst_ (Berlin, 1900), i.
130 ff. (M. O. B. C.)
LEUK (Fr. _Loèche Ville_), an ancient and very picturesque little town
in the Swiss canton of the Valais. It is built above the right bank of
the Rhone, and is about 1 m. from the Leuk-Susten station (15½ m. east
of Sion and 17½ m. west of Brieg) on the Simplon railway. In 1900 it had
1592 inhabitants, all but wholly German-speaking and Romanists. About
10½ m. by a winding carriage road N. of Leuk, and near the head of the
Dala valley, at a height of 4629 ft. above the sea-level, and
overshadowed by the cliffs of the Gemmi Pass (7641 ft.; q.v.) leading
over to the Bernese Oberland, are the Baths of Leuk (_Leukerbad_, or
_Loèche les Bains_). They have only 613 permanent inhabitants, but are
much frequented in summer by visitors (largely French and Swiss)
attracted by the hot mineral springs. These are 22 in number, and are
very abundant. The principal is that of St Laurence, the water of which
has a temperature of 124° F. The season lasts from June to September.
The village in winter is long deprived of sunshine, and is much exposed
to avalanches, by which it was destroyed in 1518, 1719 and 1756, but it
is now protected by a strong embankment from a similar catastrophe.
(W. A. B. C.)
LEUTHEN, a village of Prussian Silesia, 10 m. W. of Breslau, memorable
as the scene of Frederick the Great's victory over the Austrians on
December 5, 1757. The high road from Breslau to Lüben crosses the marshy
Schweidnitz Water at Lissa, and immediately enters the rolling country
about Neumarkt. Leuthen itself stands some 4000 paces south of the
road, and a similar distance south again lies Sagschütz, while Nypern,
on the northern edge of the hill country, is 5000 paces from the road.
On Frederick's approach the Austrians took up a line of battle resting
on the two last-named villages. Their whole position was strongly
garrisoned and protected by obstacles, and their artillery was numerous
though of light calibre. A strong outpost of Saxon cavalry was in Borne
to the westward. Frederick had the previous day surprised the Austrian
bakeries at Neumarkt, and his Prussians, 33,000 to the enemy's 82,000,
moved towards Borne and Leuthen early on the 5th. The Saxon outpost was
rushed at in the morning mist, and, covered by their advanced guard on
the heights beyond, the Prussians wheeled to their right. Prince Charles
of Lorraine, the Austrian commander-in-chief, on Leuthen Church tower,
could make nothing of Frederick's movements, and the commander of his
right wing (Lucchesi) sent him message after message from Nypem and
Gocklerwitz asking for help, which was eventually despatched. But the
real blow was to fall on the left under Nadasdy. While the Austrian
commander was thus wasting time, the Prussians were marching against
Nadasdy in two columns, which preserved their distances with an
exactitude which has excited the wonder of modern generations of
soldiers; at the due place they wheeled into line of battle obliquely to
the Austrian front, and in one great _échelon_,--the cavalry of the
right wing foremost, and that of the left "refused,"--Frederick advanced
on Sagschütz. Nadasdy, surprised, put a bold face on the matter and made
a good defence, but he was speedily routed, and, as the Prussians
advanced, battalion after battalion was rolled up towards Leuthen until
the Austrians faced almost due south. The fighting in Leuthen itself was
furious; the Austrians stood, in places, 100 deep, but the disciplined
valour of the Prussians carried the village. For a moment the victory
was endangered when Lucchesi came down upon the Prussian left wing from
the north, but Driesen's cavalry, till then refused, charged him in
flank and scattered his troopers in wild rout. This stroke ended the
battle. The retreat on Breslau became a rout almost comparable to that
of Waterloo, and Prince Charles rallied, in Bohemia, barely 37,000 out
of his 82,000. Ten thousand Austrians were left on the field, 21,000
taken prisoners (besides 17,000 in Breslau a little later), with 51
colours and 116 cannon. The Prussian loss in all was under 5500. It was
not until 1854 that a memorial of this astonishing victory was erected
on the battlefield.
See Carlyle, _Frederick_, bk. xviii. cap. x.; V. Ollech, _Friedrich
der Grosse von Kolin bis Leuthen_ (Berlin, 1858); Kutzen, _Schlacht
bei Leuthen_ (Breslau, 1851 ); and bibliography under SEVEN YEARS'
WAR.
LEUTZE, EMANUEL (1816-1868), American artist, was born at Gmünd,
Württemberg, on the 24th of May 1816, and as a child was taken by his
parents to Philadelphia, where he early displayed talent as an artist.
At the age of twenty-five he had earned enough to take him to Düsseldorf
for a course of art study at the royal academy. Almost immediately he
began the painting of historical subjects, his first work, "Columbus
before the Council of Salamanca," being purchased by the Düsseldorf Art
Union. In 1860 he was commissioned by the United States Congress to
decorate a stairway in the Capitol at Washington, for which he painted a
large composition, "Westward the Star of Empire takes its Way." His
best-known work, popular through engraving, is "Washington crossing the
Delaware," a large canvas containing a score of life-sized figures; it
is now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He became a
member of the National Academy of Design in 1860, and died at
Washington, D.C., on the 18th of July 1868.
LEVALLOIS-PERRET, a north-western suburb of Paris, on the right bank of
the Seine, 2½ m. from the centre of the city. Pop. (1906) 61,419. It
carries on the manufacture of motor-cars and accessories, carriages,
groceries, liqueurs, perfumery, soap, &c., and has a port on the Seine.
LEVANT (from the French use of the participle of _lever_, to rise, for
the east, the orient), the name applied widely to the coastlands of the
eastern Mediterranean Sea from Greece to Egypt, or, in a more restricted
and commoner sense, to the Mediterranean coastlands of Asia Minor and
Syria. In the 16th and 17th centuries the term "High Levant" was used of
the Far East. The phrase "to levant," meaning to abscond, especially of
one who runs away leaving debts unpaid, particularly of a betting man or
gambler, is taken from the Span. _levantar_, to lift or break up, in
such phrases as _levantar la casa_, to break up a household, or _el
campo_, to break camp.
LEVASSEUR, PIERRE EMILE (1828- ), French economist, was born in Paris
on the 8th of December 1828. Educated in Paris, he began to teach in the
lycée at Alençon in 1852, and in 1857 was chosen professor of rhetoric
at Besançon. He returned to Paris to become professor at the lycée Saint
Louis, and in 1868 he was chosen a member of the academy of moral and
political sciences. In 1872 he was appointed professor of geography,
history and statistics in the Collège de France, and subsequently became
also professor at the Conservatoire des arts et métiers and at the École
libre des sciences politiques. Levasseur was one of the founders of the
study of commercial geography, and became a member of the Council of
Public Instruction, president of the French society of political economy
and honorary president of the French geographical society.
His numerous writings include: _Histoire des classes ouvrières en
France depuis la conquête de Jules César jusqu'à la Révolution_
(1859); _Histoire des classes ouvrières en France depuis la Révolution
jusqu'à nos jours_ (1867); _L'Étude et l'enseignement de la
géographie_ (1871); _La Population française_ (1889-1892);
_L'Agriculture aux États-Unis_ (1894); _L'Enseignement primaire dans
les pays civilisés_ (1897); _L'Ouvrier américain_ (1898); _Questions
ouvrières et industrielles sous la troisième République_ (1907); and
_Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l'industrie en France de 1789 à
1870_ (1903-1904). He also published a _Grand Atlas de géographie
physique et politique_ (1890-1892).
LEVECHE, the name given to the dry hot sirocco wind in Spain; often
incorrectly called the "solano." The direction of the Leveche is mostly
from S.E., S. or S.W., and it occurs along the coast from Cabo de Gata
to Cabo de Nao, and even beyond Malaga for a distance of some 10 m.
inland.
LEVÉE (from Fr. _lever_, to raise), an embankment which keeps a river in
its channel. A river such as the Mississippi (q.v.), draining a large
area, carries a great amount of sediment from its swifter head-streams
to the lower ground. As soon as a stream's velocity is checked, it drops
a portion of its load of sediment and spreads an alluvial fan in the
lower part of its course. This deposition of material takes place
particularly at the sides of the stream where the velocity is least, and
the banks are in consequence raised above the main channel, so that the
river becomes lifted bodily upwards in its bed, and flows above the
level of the surrounding country. In flood-time the muddy water flows
over the river's banks, where its velocity is at once checked as it
flows gently down the outer side, causing more material to be deposited
there, and a long alluvial ridge, called a natural levée, to be built up
on either side of the stream. These ridges may be wide or narrow, but
they slope from the stream's outer banks to the plain below, and in
consequence require careful watching, for if the levée is broken by a
"crevasse," the whole body of the river may pour through and flood the
country below. In 1890 the Mississippi near New Orleans broke through
the Nita crevasse and flowed eastward with a current of 15 m. an hour,
spreading destruction in its path. The Hwang-ho river in China is
peculiarly liable to these inundations. The word levée is also sometimes
used to denote a riverside quay or landing-place.
LEVEE (from the French substantival use of _lever_, to rise; there is no
French substantival use of _levée_ in the English sense), a reception or
assembly held by the British sovereign or his representative, in Ireland
by the lord-lieutenant, in India by the viceroy, in the forenoon or
early afternoon, at which men only are present in distinction from a
"drawing-room," at which ladies also are presented or received. Under
the _ancien règime_ in France the _lever_ of the king was regulated,
especially under Louis XIV., by elaborate etiquette, and the various
divisions of the ceremonial followed the stages of the king's rising
from bed, from which it gained its name. The _petit lever_ began when
the king had washed and said his daily offices; to this were admitted
the princes of the blood, certain high officers of the household and
those to whom a special permit had been granted; then followed the
_première entrée_, to which came the secretaries and other officials and
those having the _entrée_; these were received by the king in his
dressing-gown. Finally, at the _grand lever_, the remainder of the
household, the nobles and gentlemen of the court were received; the king
by that time was shaved, had changed his linen and was in his wig. In
the United States the term "levee" was formerly used of the public
receptions held by the president.
LEVELLERS, the name given to an important political party in England
during the period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth. The germ of the
Levelling movement must be sought for among the Agitators (q.v.), men of
strong republican views, and the name Leveller first appears in a letter
of the 1st of November 1647, although it was undoubtedly in existence as
a nickname before this date (Gardiner, _Great Civil War_, iii. 380).
This letter refers to these extremists thus: "They have given themselves
a new name, viz. Levellers, for they intend to sett all things straight,
and rayse a parity and community in the kingdom."
The Levellers first became prominent in 1647 during the protracted and
unsatisfactory negotiations between the king and the parliament, and
while the relations between the latter and the army were very strained.
Like the Agitators they were mainly found among the soldiers; they were
opposed to the existence of kingship, and they feared that Cromwell and
the other parliamentary leaders were too complaisant in their dealings
with Charles; in fact they doubted their sincerity in this matter. Led
by John Lilburne (q.v.) they presented a manifesto, _The Case of the
Army truly stated_, to the commander-in-chief, Lord Fairfax, in October
1647. In this they demanded a dissolution of parliament within a year
and substantial changes in the constitution of future parliaments, which
were to be regulated by an unalterable "law paramount." In a second
document, _The Agreement of the People_, they expanded these ideas,
which were discussed by Cromwell, Ireton and other officers on the one
side, and by John Wildman, Thomas Rainsborough and Edward Sexby for the
Levellers on the other. But no settlement was made; some of the
Levellers clamoured for the king's death, and in November 1647, just
after his flight from Hampton Court to Carisbrooke, they were
responsible for a mutiny which broke out in two regiments at Corkbush
Field, near Ware. This, however, was promptly suppressed by Cromwell.
During the twelve months which immediately preceded the execution of the
king the Levellers conducted a lively agitation in favour of the ideas
expressed in the _Agreement of the people_, and in January 1648 Lilburne
was arrested for using seditious language at a meeting in London. But no
success attended these and similar efforts, and their only result was
that the Levellers regarded Cromwell with still greater suspicion.
Early in 1649, just after the death of the king, the Levellers renewed
their activity. They were both numerous and dangerous, and they stood
up, says Gardiner, "for an exaggeration of the doctrine of parliamentary
supremacy." In a pamphlet, _England's New Chains_, Lilburne asked for
the dissolution of the council of state and for a new and reformed
parliament. He followed this up with the _Second Part of England's New
Chains_; his writings were declared treasonable by parliament, and in
March 1649 he and three other leading Levellers, Richard Overton,
William Walwyn and Prince were arrested. The discontent which was
spreading in the army was fanned when certain regiments were ordered to
proceed to Ireland, and in April 1649 there was a meeting in London; but
this was quickly put down by Fairfax and Cromwell, and its leader,
Robert Lockyer, was shot. Risings at Burford and at Banbury were also
suppressed without any serious difficulty, and the trouble with the
Levellers was practically over. Gradually they became less prominent,
but under the Commonwealth they made frequent advances to the exiled
king Charles II., and there was some danger from them early in 1655 when
Wildman was arrested and Sexby escaped from England. The distinguishing
mark of the Leveller was a sea-green ribbon.
Another but more harmless form of the same movement was the assembling
of about fifty men on St George's Hill near Oatlands in Surrey. In April
1649 these "True Levellers" or "Diggers," as they were called, took
possession of some unoccupied ground which they began to cultivate. They
were, however, soon dispersed, and their leaders were arrested and
brought before Fairfax, when they took the opportunity of denouncing
landowners. It is interesting to note that Lilburne and his colleagues
objected to being designated Levellers, as they had no desire to take
away "the proper right and title that every man has to what is his own."
Cromwell attacked the Levellers in his speech to parliament in September
1654 (Carlyle, _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_, Speech II.). He said:
"A nobleman, a gentleman, a yeoman; the distinction of these; that is a
good interest of the nation, and a great one. The 'natural' magistracy
of the nation, was it not almost trampled under foot, under despite and
contempt, by men of Levelling principles? I beseech you, for the orders
of men and ranks of men, did not that Levelling principle tend to the
reducing of all to an equality? Did it 'consciously' think to do so; or
did it 'only unconsciously' practise towards that for property and
interest? 'At all events,' what was the purport of it but to make the
tenant as liberal a fortune as the landlord? Which, I think, if
obtained, would not have lasted long."
In 1724 there was a rising against enclosures in Galloway, and a
number of men who took part therein were called Levellers or
Dyke-breakers (A. Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. iv.). The word was
also used in Ireland during the 18th century to describe a secret
revolutionary society similar to the Whiteboys. (A. W. H.*)
LEVEN, ALEXANDER LESLIE, 1ST EARL OF (c. 1580-1661), Scottish general,
was the son of George Leslie, captain of Blair-in-Athol, and a member of
the family of Leslie of Balquhain. After a scanty education he sought
his fortune abroad, and became a soldier, first under Sir Horace Vere in
the Low Countries, and afterwards (1605) under Charles IX. and Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden, in whose service he remained for many years and
fought in many campaigns with honour. In 1626 Leslie had risen by merit
to the rank of lieutenant-general, and had been knighted by Gustavus. In
1628 he distinguished himself by his constancy and energy in the defence
of Stralsund against Wallenstein, and in 1630 seized the island of Rügen
in the name of the king of Sweden. In the same year he returned to
Scotland to assist in recruiting and organizing the corps of Scottish
volunteers which James, 3rd marquis of Hamilton, brought over to
Gustavus in 1631. Leslie received a severe wound in the following
winter, but was able nevertheless to be present at Gustavus's last
battle at Lützen. Like many others of the soldiers of fortune who served
under Gustavus, Leslie cherished his old commander's memory to the day
of his death, and he kept with particular care a jewel and miniature
presented to him by the king. He continued as a general officer in the
Swedish army for some years, was promoted in 1636 to the rank of field
marshal, and continued in the field until 1638, when events recalled him
to his own country. He had married long before this--in 1637 his eldest
son was made a colonel in the Swedish army--and he had managed to keep
in touch with Scottish affairs.
As the foremost Scottish soldier of his day he was naturally nominated
to command the Scottish army in the impending war with England, a post
which, resigning his Swedish command, he accepted with a glad heart, for
he was an ardent Covenanter and had caused "a great number of our
commanders in Germany subscryve our covenant" (Baillie's _Letters_). On
leaving Sweden he brought back his arrears of pay in the form of cannon
and muskets for his new army. For some months he busied himself with the
organization and training of the new levies, and with inducing Scottish
officers abroad to do their duty to their country by returning to lead
them. Diminutive in size and somewhat deformed in person as he was, his
reputation and his shrewdness and simple tact, combined with the
respect for his office of lord general that he enforced on all ranks,
brought even the unruly nobles to subordination. He had by now amassed a
considerable fortune and was able to live in a manner befitting a
commander-in-chief, even when in the field. One of his first exploits
was to take the castle of Edinburgh by surprise, without the loss of a
man. He commanded the Scottish army at Dunse Law in May of that year,
and in 1640 he invaded England, and defeated the king's troops at
Newburn on the Tyne, which gave him possession of Newcastle and of the
open country as far as the Tees. At the treaty with the king at Ripon,
Leslie was one of the commissioners of the Scottish parliament, and when
Charles visited Edinburgh Leslie entertained him magnificently and
accompanied him when he drove through the streets. His affirmations of
loyalty to the crown, which later events caused to be remembered against
him, were sincere enough, but the complicated politics of the time made
it difficult for Leslie, the lord general of the Scottish army, to
maintain a perfectly consistent attitude. However, his influence was
exercised chiefly to put an end to, even to hush up, the troubles, and
he is found, now giving a private warning to plotters against the king
to enable them to escape, now guarding the Scottish parliament against a
royalist _coup d'état_, and now securing for an old comrade of the
German wars, Patrick Ruthven, Lord Ettrick, indemnity for having held
Edinburgh Castle for the king against the parliament. Charles created
him, by patent dated Holyrood, October 11, 1641, earl of Leven and Lord
Balgonie, and made him captain of Edinburgh Castle and a privy
councillor. The parliament recognized his services by a grant, and, on
his resigning the lord generalship, appointed him commander of the
permanent forces. A little later, Leven, who was a member of the
committee of the estates which exercised executive powers during the
recess of parliament, used his great influence in support of a proposal
to raise a Scottish army to help the elector palatine in Germany, but
the Ulster massacres gave this force, when raised, a fresh direction and
Leven himself accompanied it to Ireland as lord general. He did not
remain there long, for the Great Rebellion (q.v.) had begun in England,
and negotiations were opened between the English and the Scottish
parliaments for mutual armed assistance. Leven accepted the command of
the new forces raised for the invasion of England, and was in
consequence freely accused of having broken his personal oath to
Charles, but he could hardly have acted otherwise than he did, and at
that time, and so far as the Scots were concerned, to the end of the
struggle, the parliaments were in arms, professedly and to some extent
actually, to rescue his majesty from the influence of evil counsellors.
The military operations preceding Marston Moor are described under GREAT
REBELLION, and the battle itself under its own heading. Leven's great
reputation, wisdom and tact made him an ideal commander for the allied
army formed by the junction of Leven's, Fairfax's and Manchester's in
Yorkshire. After the battle the allied forces separated, Leven bringing
the siege of Newcastle to an end by storming it. In 1645 the Scots were
less successful, though their operations ranged from Westmorland to
Hereford, and Leven himself had many administrative and political
difficulties to contend with. These difficulties became more pronounced
when in 1646 Charles took refuge with the Scottish army. The king
remained with Leven until he was handed over to the English parliament
in 1647, and Leven constantly urged him to take the covenant and to make
peace. Presbyterians and Independents had now parted, and with no more
concession than the guarantee of the covenant the Scottish and English
Presbyterians were ready to lay down their arms, or to turn them against
the "sectaries." Leven was now old and infirm, and though retained as
nominal commander-in-chief saw no further active service. He acted with
Argyll and the "godly" party in the discussions preceding the second
invasion of England, and remained at his post as long as possible in the
hope of preventing the Scots becoming merely a royalist instrument for
the conquest of the English Independents. But be was induced in the end
to resign, though he was appointed lord general of all new forces that
might be raised for the defence of Scotland. The occasion soon came, for
Cromwell annihilated the Scottish invaders at Preston and Uttoxeter, and
thereupon Argyll assumed political and Leven military control at
Edinburgh. But he was now over seventy years of age, and willingly
resigned the effective command to his subordinate David Leslie (see
NEWARK, LORD), in whom he had entire confidence. After the execution of
Charles I. the war broke out afresh, and this time the "godly" party
acted with the royalists. In the new war, and in the disastrous campaign
of Dunbar, Leven took but a nominal part, though attempts were
afterwards made to hold him responsible. But once more the parliament
refused to accept his resignation. Leven at last fell into the hands of
a party of English dragoons in August 1651, and with some others was
sent to London. He remained incarcerated in the Tower for some time,
till released on finding securities for £20,000, upon which he retired
to his residence in Northumberland. While on a visit to London he was
again arrested, for a technical breach of his engagement, but by the
intercession of the queen of Sweden he obtained his liberty. He was
freed from his engagements in 1654, and retired to his seat at Balgonie
in Fifeshire, where he died at an advanced age in 1661. He acquired
considerable landed property, particularly Inchmartin in the Carse of
Gowrie, which he called Inchleslie.
See LEVEN AND MELVILLE, EARLS OF, below.
LEVEN, a police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 5577. It is
situated on the Firth of Forth, at the mouth of the Leven, 5¾ m. E. by
N. of Thornton Junction by the North British railway. The public
buildings include the town hall, public hall and people's institute, in
the grounds of which the old town cross has been erected. The industries
are numerous, comprising flax-spinning, brewing, linen-weaving,
paper-making, seed-crushing and rope-making, besides salt-works, a
foundry, saw-mill and brick-works. The wet dock is not much used, owing
to the constant accumulation of sand. The golf-links extending for 2 m.
to Lundin are among the best in Scotland. Two miles N.E. is Lundin Mill
and Drumochie, usually called LUNDIN (pop. 570), at the mouth of Kiel
Burn, with a station on the Links. The three famous standing stones are
supposed to be either of "Druidical" origin or to mark the site of a
battle with the Danes. In the vicinity are the remains of an old house
of the Lundins, dating from the reign of David II. To the N.W. of Leven
lies the parish of KENNOWAY (pop. 870). In Captain Seton's house, which
still stands in the village of Kennoway, Archbishop Sharp spent the
night before his assassination (1679). One mile east of Lundin lies
LARGO (pop. of parish 2046), consisting of Upper Largo, or Kirkton of
Largo, and Lower Largo. The public buildings include Simpson institute,
with a public hall, library, reading-room, bowling-green and lawn-tennis
court, and John Wood's hospital, founded in 1659 for poor persons
bearing his name. A statue of Alexander Selkirk, or Selcraig
(1676-1721), the prototype of "Robinson Crusoe," who was born here, was
erected in 1886. Sir John Leslie (1766-1832), the natural philosopher,
was also a native. Largo claims two famous sailors, Admiral Sir Philip
Durham (1763-1845), commander-in-chief at Portsmouth from 1836 to 1839,
and Sir Andrew Wood (d. 1515), the trusted servant of James III. and
James IV., who sailed the "Great Michael," the largest ship of its time.
When he was past active service he had a canal cut from his house to the
parish church, to which he was rowed every Sunday in an eight-oared
barge. Largo House was granted to him by James III., and the tower of
the original structure still exists. About 1½ m. from the coast rises
the height of Largo Law (948 ft.). Kellie Law lies some 5½ m. to the
east.
LEVEN, LOCH, a lake of Kinross-shire, Scotland. It has an oval shape,
the longer axis running from N.W. to S.E., has a length of 3{2/3} m.,
and a breadth of 2{2/3} m. and is situated near the south and east
boundaries of the shire. It lies at a height of 350 ft. above the sea.
The mean depth is less than 15 ft., with a maximum of 83 ft., the lake
being thus one of the shallowest in Scotland. Reclamation works carried
on from 1826 to 1836 reduced its area by one quarter, but it still
possesses a surface area of 5½ sq. m. It drains the county and is
itself drained by the Leven. It is famous for the Loch Leven trout
(_Salmo levenensis_, considered by some a variety of _S. trutta_), which
are remarkable for size and quality. The fishings are controlled by the
Loch Leven Angling Association, which organizes competitions attracting
anglers from far and near. The loch contains seven islands. Upon St
Serf's, the largest, which commemorates the patron saint of Fifeshire,
are the ruins of the Priory of Portmoak--so named from St Moak, the
first abbot--the oldest Culdee establishment in Scotland. Some time
before 961 it was made over to the bishop of St Andrews, and shortly
after 1144 a body of canons regular was established on it in connexion
with the priory of canons regular founded in that year at St Andrews.
The second largest island, Castle Island, possesses remains of even
greater interest. The first stronghold is supposed to have been erected
by Congal, son of Dongart, king of the Picts. The present castle dates
from the 13th century and was occasionally used as a royal residence. It
is said to have been in the hands of the English for a time, from whom
it was delivered by Wallace. It successfully withstood Edward Baliol's
siege in 1335, and was granted by Robert II. to Sir William Douglas of
Lugton. It became the prison at various periods of Robert II.; of
Alexander Stuart, earl of Buchan, "the Wolf of Badenoch"; Archibald,
earl of Douglas (1429); Patrick Graham, archbishop of St Andrews (who
died, still in bondage, on St Serf's Island in 1478), and of Mary, queen
of Scots. The queen had visited it more than once before her detention,
and had had a presence chamber built in it. Conveyed hither in June 1567
after her surrender at Carberry, she signed her abdication within its
walls on the 4th of July and effected her escape on the 2nd of May 1568.
The keys of the castle, which were thrown into the loch during her
flight, were found and are preserved at Dalmahoy in Midlothian. Support
of Mary's cause had involved Thomas Percy, 7th earl of Northumberland
(b. 1528). He too was lodged in the castle in 1569, and after three
years' imprisonment was handed over to the English, by whom he was
beheaded at York in 1572. The proverb that "Those never got luck who
came to Loch Leven" sums up the history of the castle. The causeway
connecting the isle with the mainland was long submerged too deeply for
use, but the reclamation operations already referred to almost brought
it into view again.
LEVEN AND MELVILLE, EARLS OF. The family of Melville which now holds
these two earldoms is descended from Sir John Melville of Raith in
Fifeshire. Sir John, who was a member of the reforming party in
Scotland, was put to death for high treason on the 13th of December
1548; he left with other children a son Robert (1527-1621), who in 1616
was created a lord of parliament as Lord Melville of Monymaill. Before
his elevation to the Scottish peerage Melville had been a stout partisan
of Mary, queen of Scots, whom he represented at the English court, and
he had filled several important offices in Scotland under her son James
VI. The fourth holder of the lordship of Melville was George (c.
1634-1707), a son of John, the 3rd lord (d. 1643), and a descendant of
Sir John Melville. Implicated in the Rye House plot against Charles II.,
George took refuge in the Netherlands in 1683, but he returned to
England after the revolution of 1688 and was appointed secretary for
Scotland by William III. in 1689, being created earl of Melville in the
following year. He was made president of the Scottish privy council in
1696, but he was deprived of his office when Anne became queen in 1702,
and he died on the 20th of May 1707. His son David, 2nd earl of Melville
(1660-1728), fled to Holland with his father in 1683; after serving in
the army of the elector of Brandenburg he accompanied William of Orange
to England in 1688. At the head of a regiment raised by himself he
fought for William at Killiecrankie and elsewhere, and as
commander-in-chief of the troops in Scotland he dealt promptly and
effectively with the attempted Jacobite rising of 1708. In 1712,
however, his office was taken from him and he died on the 6th of June
1728.
Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven (q.v.), was succeeded in his earldom
by his grandson Alexander, who died without sons in July 1664. The
younger Alexander's two daughters were then in turn countesses of Leven
in their own right; and after the death of the second of these two
ladies in 1676 a dispute arose over the succession to the earldom
between John Leslie, earl (afterwards duke) of Rothes, and David
Melville, 2nd earl of Melville, mentioned above. In 1681, however,
Rothes died, and Melville, who was a great-grandson of the 1st earl of
Leven, assumed the title, calling himself earl of Leven and Melville
after he succeeded his father as earl of Melville in May 1707. Since
1805 the family has borne the name of Leslie-Melville. In 1906 John
David Leslie-Melville (b. 1886) became 12th earl of Leven and 11th earl
of Melville.
See Sir W. Fraser, _The Melvilles, Earls of Melville, and the Leslies,
Earls of Leven_ (1890); and the _Leven and Melville Papers_, edited by
the Hon. W. H. Leslie-Melville for the Bannatyne Club (1843).
LEVER, CHARLES JAMES (1806-1872), Irish novelist, second son of James
Lever, a Dublin architect and builder, was born in the Irish capital on
the 31st of August 1806. His descent was purely English. He was educated
in private schools, where he wore a ring, smoked, read novels, was a
ringleader in every breach of discipline, and behaved generally like a
boy destined for the navy in one of Captain Marryat's novels. His
escapades at Trinity College, Dublin (1823-1828), whence he took the
degree of M.B. in 1831, form the basis of that vast cellarage of
anecdote from which all the best vintages in his novels are derived. The
inimitable Frank Webber in _Charles O'Malley_ (spiritual ancestor of
Foker and Mr Bouncer) was a college friend, Robert Boyle, later on an
Irish parson. Lever and Boyle sang ballads of their own composing in the
streets of Dublin, after the manner of Fergusson or Goldsmith, filled
their caps with coppers and played many other pranks embellished in the
pages of _O'Malley_, _Con Cregan_ and _Lord Kilgobbin_. Before seriously
embarking upon the medical studies for which he was designed, Lever
visited Canada as an unqualified surgeon on an emigrant ship, and has
drawn upon some of his experiences in _Con Cregan_, _Arthur O'Leary_ and
_Roland Cashel_. Arrived in Canada he plunged into the backwoods, was
affiliated to a tribe of Indians and had to escape at the risk of his
life, like his own Bagenal Daly.
Back in Europe, he travelled in the guise of a student from Göttingen to
Weimar (where he saw Goethe), thence to Vienna; he loved the German
student life with its beer, its fighting and its fun, and several of his
merry songs, such as "The Pope he loved a merry life" (greatly envied by
Titmarsh), are on _Student-lied_ models. His medical degree admitted him
to an appointment from the Board of Health in Co. Clare and then as
dispensary doctor at Port Stewart, but the liveliness of his diversions
as a country doctor seems to have prejudiced the authorities against
him. In 1833 he married his first love, Catherine Baker, and in February
1837, after varied experiences, he began running _The Confessions of
Harry Lorrequer_ through the pages of the recently established _Dublin
University Magazine_. During the previous seven years the popular taste
had declared strongly in favour of the service novel as exemplified by
_Frank Mildmay_, _Tom Cringle_, _The Subaltern_, _Cyril Thornton_,
_Stories of Waterloo_, _Ben Brace_ and _The Bivouac_; and Lever himself
had met William Hamilton Maxwell, the titular founder of the genre.
Before _Harry Lorrequer_ appeared in volume form (1839), Lever had
settled on the strength of a slight diplomatic connexion as a
fashionable physician in Brussels (16, Rue Ducale). _Lorrequer_ was
merely a string of Irish and other stories good, bad and indifferent,
but mostly rollicking, and Lever, who strung together his anecdotes late
at night after the serious business of the day was done, was astonished
at its success. "If this sort of thing amuses them, I can go on for
ever." Brussels was indeed a superb place for the observation of
half-pay officers, such as Major Monsoon (Commissioner Meade), Captain
Bubbleton and the like, who terrorized the _tavernes_ of the place with
their endless peninsular stories, and of English society a little
damaged, which it became the specialty of Lever to depict. He sketched
with a free hand, wrote, as he lived, from hand to mouth, and the chief
difficulty he experienced was that of getting rid of his characters who
"hung about him like those tiresome people who never can make up their
minds to bid you good night." Lever had never taken part in a battle
himself, but his next three books, _Charles O'Malley_ (1841), _Jack
Hinton_ and _Tom Burke of Ours_ (1843), written under the spur of the
writer's chronic extravagance, contain some splendid military writing
and some of the most animated battle-pieces on record. In pages of
_O'Malley_ and _Tom Burke_ Lever anticipates not a few of the best
effects of Marbot, Thiébaut, Lejeune, Griois, Seruzier, Burgoyne and the
like. His account of the Douro need hardly fear comparison, it has been
said, with Napier's. Condemned by the critics, Lever had completely won
the general reader from the Iron Duke himself downwards.
In 1842 he returned to Dublin to edit the _Dublin University Magazine_,
and gathered round him a typical coterie of Irish wits (including one or
two hornets) such as the O'Sullivans, Archer Butler, W. Carleton, Sir
William Wilde, Canon Hayman, D. F. McCarthy, McGlashan, Dr Kenealy and
many others. In June 1842 he welcomed at Templeogue, 4 m. south-west of
Dublin, the author of the _Snob Papers_ on his Irish tour (the _Sketch
Book_ was, later, dedicated to Lever). Thackeray recognized the fund of
Irish sadness beneath the surface merriment. "The author's character is
not humour but sentiment. The spirits are mostly artificial, the _fond_
is sadness, as appears to me to be that of most Irish writing and
people." The Waterloo episode in _Vanity Fair_ was in part an outcome of
the talk between the two novelists. But the "Galway pace," the display
he found it necessary to maintain at Templeogue, the stable full of
horses, the cards, the friends to entertain, the quarrels to compose and
the enormous rapidity with which he had to complete _Tom Burke_, _The
O'Donoghue_ and _Arthur O'Leary_ (1845), made his native land an
impossible place for Lever to continue in. Templeogue would soon have
proved another Abbotsford. Thackeray suggested London. But Lever
required a new field of literary observation and anecdote. His _sève
originel_ was exhausted and he decided to renew it on the continent. In
1845 he resigned his editorship and went back to Brussels, whence he
started upon an unlimited tour of central Europe in a family coach. Now
and again he halted for a few months, and entertained to the limit of
his resources in some ducal castle or other which he hired for an off
season. Thus at Riedenburg, near Bregenz, in August 1846, he entertained
Charles Dickens and his wife and other well-known people. Like his own
_Daltons_ or _Dodd Family Abroad_ he travelled continentally, from
Carlsruhe to Como, from Como to Florence, from Florence to the Baths of
Lucca and so on, and his letters home are the litany of the literary
remittance man, his ambition now limited to driving a pair of novels
abreast without a diminution of his standard price for serial work
("twenty pounds a sheet"). In the _Knight of Gwynne_, a story of the
Union (1847), _Con Cregan_ (1849), _Roland Cashel_ (1850) and _Maurice
Tiernay_ (1852) we still have traces of his old manner; but he was
beginning to lose his original joy in composition. His _fond_ of sadness
began to cloud the animal joyousness of his temperament. Formerly he had
written for the happy world which is young and curly and merry; now he
grew fat and bald and grave. "After 38 or so what has life to offer but
one universal declension. Let the crew pump as hard as they like, the
leak gains every hour." But, depressed in spirit as he was, his wit was
unextinguished; he was still the delight of the _salons_ with his
stories, and in 1867, after a few years' experience of a similar kind at
Spezia, he was cheered by a letter from Lord Derby offering him the more
lucrative consulship of Trieste. "Here is six hundred a year for doing
nothing, and you are just the man to do it." The six hundred could not
atone to Lever for the lassitude of prolonged exile. Trieste, at first
"all that I could desire," became with characteristic abruptness
"detestable and damnable." "Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, no one to
speak to." "Of all the dreary places it has been my lot to sojourn in
this is the worst" (some references to Trieste will be found in _That
Boy of Norcott's_, 1869). He could never be alone and was almost
morbidly dependent upon literary encouragement. Fortunately, like
Scott, he had unscrupulous friends who assured him that his last
efforts were his best. They include _The Fortunes of Glencore_ (1857),
_Tony Butler_ (1865), _Luttrell of Arran_ (1865), _Sir Brooke Fosbrooke_
(1866), _Lord Kilgobbin_ (1872) and the table-talk of _Cornelius
O'Dowd_, originally contributed to Blackwood. His depression, partly due
to incipient heart disease, partly to the growing conviction that he was
the victim of literary and critical conspiracy, was confirmed by the
death of his wife (23rd April 1870), to whom he was tenderly attached.
He visited Ireland in the following year and seemed alternately in very
high and very low spirits. Death had already given him one or two
runaway knocks, and, after his return to Trieste, he failed gradually,
dying suddenly, however, and almost painlessly, from failure of the
heart's action on the 1st of June 1872. His daughters, one of whom,
Sydney, is believed to have been the real author of _The Rent in a
Cloud_ (1869), were well provided for.
Trollope praised Lever's novels highly when he said that they were just
like his conversation. He was a born raconteur, and had in perfection
that easy flow of light description which without tedium or hurry leads
up to the point of the good stories of which in earlier days his supply
seemed inexhaustible. With little respect for unity of action or
conventional novel structure, his brightest books, such as _Lorrequer_,
_O'Malley_ and _Tom Burke_, are in fact little more than recitals of
scenes in the life of a particular "hero," unconnected by any continuous
intrigue. The type of character he depicted is for the most part
elementary. His women are mostly rouées, romps or Xanthippes; his heroes
have too much of the Pickle temper about them and fall an easy prey to
the serious attacks of Poe or to the more playful gibes of Thackeray in
_Phil Fogarty_ or Bret Harte in _Terence Deuville_. This last is a
perfect bit of burlesque. Terence exchanges nineteen shots with the Hon.
Captain Henry Somerset in the glen. "At each fire I shot away a button
from his uniform. As my last bullet shot off the last button from his
sleeve, I remarked quietly, 'You seem now, my lord, to be almost as
ragged as the gentry you sneered at,' and rode haughtily away." And yet
these careless sketches contain such haunting creations as Frank Webber,
Major Monsoon and Micky Free, "the Sam Weller of Ireland." Falstaff is
alone in the literature of the world; but if ever there came a later
Falstaff, Monsoon was the man. As for Baby Blake, is she not an Irish Di
Vernon? The critics may praise Lever's thoughtful and careful later
novels as they will, but _Charles O'Malley_ will always be the pattern
of a military romance.
Superior, it is sometimes claimed, in construction and style, the later
books approximate it may be thought to the good _ordinary_ novel of
commerce, but they lack the _extraordinary_ qualities, the
incommunicable "go" of the early books--the élan of Lever's untamed
youth. Artless and almost formless these productions may be, but they
represent to us, as very few other books can, that pathetic ejaculation
of Lever's own--"Give us back the wild freshness of the morning!" We
know the novelist's teachers, Maxwell, Napier, the old-fashioned
compilation known as _Victoires, conquêtes et désastres des Français_
(1835), and the old buffers at Brussels who emptied the room by uttering
the word "Badajos." But where else shall we find the equals of the
military scenes in _O'Malley_ and _Tom Burke_, or the military episodes
in _Jack Hinton_, _Arthur O'Leary_ (the story of Aubuisson) or _Maurice
Tiernay_ (nothing he ever did is finer than the chapter introducing "A
remnant of Fontenoy")? It is here that his true genius lies, even more
than in his talent for conviviality and fun, which makes an early copy
of an early Lever (with Phiz's illustrations) seem literally to exhale
an atmosphere of past and present entertainment. It is here that he is a
true romancist, not for boys only, but also for men.
Lever's lack of artistry and of sympathy with the deeper traits of the
Irish character have been stumbling-blocks to his reputation among the
critics. Except to some extent in _The Martins of Cro' Martin_ (1856) it
may be admitted that his portraits of Irish are drawn too exclusively
from the type depicted in Sir Jonah Barrington's _Memoirs_ and already
well known on the English stage. He certainly had no deliberate
intention of "lowering the national character." Quite the reverse. Yet
his posthumous reputation seems to have suffered in consequence, in
spite of all his Gallic sympathies and not unsuccessful endeavours to
apotheosize the "Irish Brigade."
The chief authorities are the _Life_, by W. J. Fitzpatrick (1879), and
the _Letters_, ed. in 2 vols. by Edmund Downey (1906), neither of
which, however, enables the reader to penetrate below the surface. See
also Dr Garnett in _Dict. Nat. Biog.; Dublin Univ. Mag._ (1880), 465
and 570; Anthony Trollope's _Autobiography; Blackwood_ (August 1862);
_Fortnightly Review_, vol. xxxii.; Andrew Lang's _Essays in Little_
(1892); Henley's _Views and Reviews_; Hugh Walker's _Literature of the
Victorian Era_ (1910); _The Bookman Hist. of English Literature_
(1906), p. 467; _Bookman_ (June 1906; portraits). A library edition of
the novels in 37 vols. appeared 1897-1899 under the superintendence of
Lever's daughter, Julie Kate Neville. (T. Se.)
LEVER (through O. Fr. _leveour_, _levere_, mod. _levier_, from Lat.
_levare_, to lift, raise), a mechanical device for raising bodies; the
"simple" lever consists of a rigid bar free to move about a fixed point,
termed the _fulcrum_; one point of the rod is connected to the piece to
be moved, and power is applied at another point (see MECHANICS).
LEVERRIER, URBAIN JEAN JOSEPH (1811-1877), French astronomer, was born
at St Lô in Normandy on the 11th of March 1811. His father, who held a
small post under government, made great efforts to send him to Paris,
where a brilliant examination gained him, in 1831, admittance to the
École Polytechnique. The distinction of his career there was rewarded
with a free choice amongst the departments of the public service open to
pupils of the school. He selected the administration of tobaccos,
addressing himself especially to chemical researches under the guidance
of Gay-Lussac, and gave striking proof of ability in two papers on the
combinations of phosphorus with hydrogen and oxygen, published in
_Annales de Chimie et de Physique_ (1835 and 1837). His astronomical
vocation, like that of Kepler, came from without. The place of teacher
of that science at the École Polytechnique falling vacant in 1837, it
was offered to and accepted by Leverrier, who, "docile to circumstance,"
instantly abandoned chemistry, and directed the whole of his powers to
celestial mechanics. The first fruits of his labours were contained in
two memoirs presented to the Academy, September 16 and October 14, 1839.
Pursuing the investigations of Laplace, he demonstrated with greater
rigour the stability of the solar system, and calculated the limits
within which the eccentricities and inclinations of the planetary orbits
vary. This remarkable début excited much attention, and, on the
recommendation of François Arago, he took in hand the theory of Mercury,
producing, in 1843, vastly improved tables of that planet. The
perturbations of the comets discovered, the one by H. A. E. A. Faye in
November 1843, the other by Francesco de Vico a year later, were
minutely investigated by Leverrier, with the result of disproving the
supposed identity of the first with Lexell's lost comet of 1770, and of
the other with Tycho's of 1585. On the other hand, he made it appear all
but certain that Vico's comet was the same with one seen by Philippe de
Lahire in 1678. Recalled once more, by the summons of Arago, to
planetary studies, he was this time invited to turn his attention to
Uranus. Step by step, with sagacious and patient accuracy, he advanced
to the great discovery which has immortalized his name. Carefully
sifting all the known causes of disturbance, he showed that one
previously unknown had to be reckoned with, and on the 23rd of September
1846 the planet Neptune was discerned by J. G. Galle (d. 1910) at
Berlin, within one degree of the spot Leverrier had indicated (see
NEPTUNE).
This memorable achievement was greeted with an outburst of public
enthusiasm. Academies vied with each other in enrolling Leverrier among
their members; the Royal Society awarded him the Copley medal; the king
of Denmark sent him the order of the Dannebrog; he was named officer in
the Legion of Honour, and preceptor to the comte de Paris; a chair of
astronomy was created for his benefit at the Faculty of Sciences; he was
appointed adjunct astronomer to the Bureau of Longitudes. Returned to
the Legislative Assembly in 1849 by his native department of Manche, he
voted with the anti-republican party, but devoted his principal
attention to subjects connected with science and education. After the
_coup d'état_ of 1851 he became a senator and inspector-general of
superior instruction, sat upon the commission for the reform of the
École Polytechnique (1854), and, on the 30th of January 1854, succeeded
Arago as director of the Paris observatory. His official work in the
latter capacity would alone have strained the energies of an ordinary
man. The institution had fallen into a state of lamentable inefficiency.
Leverrier placed it on a totally new footing, freed it from the control
of the Bureau of Longitudes, and raised it to its due rank among the
observatories of Europe. He did not escape the common lot of reformers.
His uncompromising measures and unconciliatory manner of enforcing them
raised a storm only appeased by his removal on the 5th of February 1870.
On the death of his successor Charles Eugène Delaunay (1816-1872), he
was reinstated by Thiers, but with authority restricted by the
supervision of a council. In the midst of these disquietudes, he
executed a task of gigantic proportions. This was nothing less than the
complete revision cf the planetary theories, followed by a laborious
comparison of results with the most authentic observations, and the
construction of tables representing the movements thus corrected. It
required all his indomitable perseverance to carry through a purpose
which failing health continually menaced with frustration. He had,
however, the happiness of living long enough to perfect his work. Three
weeks after he had affixed his signature to the printed sheets of the
theory of Neptune he died at Paris on the 23rd of September 1877. By his
marriage with Mademoiselle Choquet, who survived him little more than a
month, he left a son and daughter.
The discovery with which Leverrier's name is popularly identified was
only an incident in his career. The elaboration of the scheme of the
heavens traced out by P. S. Laplace in the _Mécanique céleste_ was its
larger aim, for the accomplishment of which forty years of unremitting
industry barely sufficed. He nevertheless found time to organize the
meteorological service in France and to promote the present system of
international weather-warnings. He founded the Association
Scientifique, and was active in introducing a practical scientific
element into public education. His inference of the existence, between
Mercury and the sun, of an appreciable quantity of circulating matter
(_Comptes rendus_, 1859, ii. 379), has not yet been verified. He was
twice, in 1868 and 1876, the recipient of the gold medal of the Royal
Astronomical Society, London, and the university of Cambridge
conferred upon him, in 1875, the honorary degree of LL.D. His
planetary and solar tables were adopted by the _Nautical Almanac_, as
well as by the _Connaissance des temps_.
The _Annales de l'Observatoire de Paris_, the publication of which was
set on foot by Leverrier, contain, in vols. i.-vi. (_Mémoires_)
(1855-1861) and x.-xiv. (1874-1877), his theories and tables of the
several planets. In vol. i. will be found, besides his masterly report
on the observatory, a general theory of secular inequalities, in which
the development of the disturbing function was carried further than
had previously been attempted.
The memoirs and papers communicated by him to the Academy were
summarized in _Comptes rendus_ (1839-1876), and the more important
published in full either separately or in the _Conn. des temps_ and
the _Journal des mathématiques_. That entitled _Développemens sur
différents points de la théorie des perturbations_ (1841), was
translated in part xviii. of Taylor's _Scientific Memoirs_. For his
scientific work see Professor Adams's address, _Monthly Notices_,
xxxvi. 232, and F. Tisserand's review in _Ann. de l'Obs._ tom. xv.
(1880); for a notice of his life, J. Bertrand's "Éloge historique,"
_Mém. de l'Ac. des Sciences_, tom, xli., 2^(me) série. (A. M. C.)
LEVERTIN, OSCAR IVAN (1862-1906), Swedish poet and man of letters, was
born of Jewish parents at Norrköping on the 17th of July 1862. He
received his doctorate in letters at Upsala in 1887, and was
subsequently _docent_ at Upsala, and later professor of literature at
Stockholm. Enforced sojourns in southern Europe on account of health
familiarized him with foreign languages. He began by being an extreme
follower of the naturalist school, but on his return in 1890 from a two
years' residence in Davos he wrote, in collaboration with the poet C. G.
Verner von Heidenstam (b. 1859), a novel, _Pepitas bröllop_ (1890),
which was a direct attack on naturalism. His later volumes of short
stories, _Rococonoveller_ and _Sista noveller_, are fine examples of
modern Swedish fiction. The lyrical beauty of his poems, _Legender och
visor_ (1891), placed him at the head of the romantic reaction in
Sweden. In his poems entitled _Nya Dikter_ (1894) he drew his material
partly from medieval sources, and a third volume of poetry in 1902
sustained his reputation. His last poetical work (1905) was _Kung Salomo
och Morolf_, poems founded on an eastern legend. As a critic he first
attracted attention by his books on the Gustavian age of Swedish
letters: _Teater och drama under Gustaf III._ (1889), &c. He was an
active collaborator in the review _Ord och Bild_. He died in 1906, at a
time when he was engaged on his _Linné_, posthumously published, a
fragment of a great work on Linnaeus.
LEVI, HERMANN (1839-1900), German orchestral conductor, was born at
Giessen on the 7th of November 1839, and was the son of a Jewish rabbi.
He was educated at Giessen and Mannheim, and came under Vincenz
Lachner's notice. From 1855 to 1858 Levi studied at the Leipzig
conservatorium, and after a series of travels which took him to Paris,
he obtained his first post as music director at Saarbrücken, which post
he exchanged for that at Mannheim in 1861. From 1862 to 1864 he was
chief conductor of the German opera in Rotterdam, then till 1872 at
Carlsruhe, when he went to Munich, a post he held until 1896, when
ill-health compelled him to resign. Levi's name is indissolubly
connected with the increased public appreciation of Wagner's music. He
conducted the first performance of _Parsifal_ at Bayreuth in 1882, and
was connected with the musical life of that place during the remainder
of his career. He visited London in 1895.
LEVI, LEONE (1821-1888), English jurist and statistician, was born of
Jewish parents on the 6th of June 1821, at Ancona, Italy. After
receiving an early training in a business house in his native town, he
went to Liverpool in 1844, became naturalized, and changing his faith,
joined the Presbyterian church. Perceiving the necessity, in view of the
unsystematic condition of the English law on the subject, for the
establishment of chambers and tribunals of commerce in England, he
warmly advocated their institution in numerous pamphlets; and as a
result of his labours the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, of which Levi
was made secretary, was founded in 1849. In 1850 Levi published his
_Commercial Law of the World_, being an exhaustive and comparative
treatise upon the laws and codes of mercantile countries. Appointed in
1852 to the chair of commercial law in King's College, London, he proved
himself a highly competent and popular instructor, and his evening
classes were a most successful innovation. He was called to the bar at
Lincoln's Inn in 1859, and received from the university of Tübingen the
degree of doctor of political science. His chief work--_History of
British Commerce and of the Economic Progress of the British Nation_,
1763-1870, is perhaps a rather too partisan account of British economic
development, being a eulogy upon the blessings of Free Trade, but its
value as a work of reference cannot be gainsaid. Among his other works
are: _Work and Pay_; _Wages and Earnings of the Working Classes_;
_International Law, with Materials for a Code_. He died on the 7th of
May 1888.
LEVIATHAN, the Hebrew name (_livyathan_), occurring in the poetical
books of the Bible, of a gigantic animal, apparently the sea or water
equivalent of behemoth (q.v.), the king of the animals of the dry land.
In Job xli. 15 it would seem to represent the crocodile, in Isaiah
xxvii. 1 it is a crooked and piercing serpent, the dragon of the sea;
cf. Psalms civ. 26. The etymology of the word is uncertain, but it has
been taken to be connected with a root meaning "to twist." Apart from
its scriptural usage, the word is applied to any gigantic marine animal
such as the whale, and hence, figuratively, of very large ships, and
also of persons of outstanding strength, power, wealth or influence.
Hobbes adopted the name as the title of his principal work, applying it
to "the multitude so united in one person ... called a commonwealth....
This is the generation of that Leviathan, or rather ... of that mortal
God, to which we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defence."
LEVIRATE (Lat. _levir_, a husband's brother), a custom, sometimes even a
law, compelling a dead man's brother to marry his widow. It seems to
have been widespread in primitive times, and is common to-day. Of the
origin and primitive purpose of the levirate marriage various
explanations have been put forward:--
1. It has been urged that the custom was primarily based on the law of
inheritance; a wife, regarded as a chattel, being inherited like other
possessions. The social advantage of providing one who should maintain
the widow doubtless aided the spread of the custom. The abandonment of a
woman and her children in the nomadic stage of civilization would be
equivalent to death for them; hence with some peoples the levirate
became a duty rather than a right. Among the Thlinkets, for example,
when a man dies, his brother or his sister's son must marry the widow, a
failure in this duty occasioning feuds. The obligation on a man to
provide for his sister-in-law is analogous to other duties devolving on
kinsfolk, such as the vendetta.
2. J. F. McLennan, however, would assume the levirate to be a relic of
polyandry, and in his argument lays much stress on the fact that it is
the dead man's _brother_ who inherits the widow. But among many races
who follow the custom, such as the Fijians, Samoans, Papuans of New
Guinea, the Caroline Islanders, and some tribes in the interior of
Western Equatorial Africa, the rule of inheritance is to the brother
first. Thus among the Santals, "when the elder brother dies, the next
younger inherits the widow, children and all the property." Further,
there is no known race where it is permitted to a son to marry his own
mother. Inheriting a woman in primitive societies would be always
tantamount to marrying her, and, apart from any special laws of
inheritance, it would be natural for the brother to take over the widow.
In polygamous countries where a man leaves many widows the son would
have a right of ownership over these, and could dispose of them or keep
them as he pleased, his own mother alone excepted. Thus among the
Bakalai, an African tribe, widows may marry the son of their dead
husband, or in default of a son, can live with the brother. The Negroes
of Benin and the Gabun and the Kaffirs of Natal have similar customs. In
New Caledonia every man, married or single, must immediately marry his
brother's widow. In Polynesia the levirate has the force of law, and it
is common throughout America and Asia.
3. Another explanation of the custom has been sought in a semi-religious
motive which has had extraordinary influence in countries where to die
without issue is regarded as a terrible calamity. The fear of this
catastrophe would readily arise among people who did not believe in
personal immortality, and to whom the extinction of their line would be
tantamount to annihilation. Or it is easily conceivable as a natural
result of ancestor-worship, under which failure of offspring entailed
deprivation of cherished rites and service.[1] Thus it is only when the
dead man has no offspring that the Jewish, Hindu and Malagasy laws
prescribe that the brother shall "raise up seed" to him. In this sense
the levirate forms part of the Deuteronomic Code, under which, however,
the obligation is restricted to the brother who "dwelleth together"
(i.e. on the family estate) with the dead man, and the first child only
of the levirate marriage is regarded as that of the dead man. That the
custom was obsolescent seems proved by the enjoining of ceremony on any
brother who wished to evade the duty, though he had to submit to an
insult from his sister-in-law, who draws off his sandal and spits in his
face. The biblical story of Ruth exemplifies the custom, though with
further modifications (see RUTH, BOOK OF). Finally the custom is
forbidden in Leviticus, though in New Testament times the levirate law
was still observed by some Jews. The ceremony ordained by Deuteronomy is
still observed among the orthodox. Among the Hindus the _levir_ did not
take his brother's widow as wife, but he had intercourse with her. This
practice was called _niyoga_.
4. Yet another suggested origin of the levirate is agrarian, the motive
being to keep together under the levirate husband the property which
would otherwise have been divided among all the brothers or next of kin.
See J. F. McLennan, _Studies in Ancient History_ (London, 1886) and
"The Levirate and Polyandry," in _The Fortnightly Review_, n.s. vol.
xxi. (1877); C. N. Starcke, _The Primitive Family in its Origin and
Development_ (London, 1889); Edward Westermarck, _History of Human
Marriage_ (London, 1894), pp. 510-514, where are valuable notes
containing references to numerous books of travel; H. Spencer,
_Principles of Sociology_, ii. 649; A. H. Post, _Einleitung in das
Stud. d. Ethnolog. Jurisprud_. (1886).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] An expression of this idea is quoted from the _Mahabharata_
(Muir's trans.), by Max Müller (Gifford Lectures), _Anthropological
Religion_, p. 31--
"That stage completed, seek a wife
And gain the fruit of wedded life,
A race of sons, by rites to seal,
When thou art gone, thy spirit's weal."
LÉVIS (formerly Pointe Levi), the chief town of Lévis county, Quebec,
Canada, situated on the precipitous south bank of the St Lawrence,
opposite Quebec city. Pop. (1901) 7783. It is on the Intercolonial
railway, and is the eastern terminus of the Grand Trunk and Quebec
Central railways. It contains the Lorne dock, a Dominion government
graving dock, 445 ft. long, 100 ft. wide, with a depth on the sill of
26½ and 20½ ft. at high water, spring and neap tides respectively. It is
an important centre of the river trade, and is connected by steam
ferries with the city of Quebec. It is named after the maréchal duc de
Lévis, the last commander of the French troops in Canada.
LEVITES, or sons of Levi (son of Jacob by Leah), a sacred caste in
ancient Israel, the guardians of the temple service at Jerusalem.[1]
1. _Place in Ritual._--In the developed hierarchical system the
ministers of the sanctuary are divided into distinct grades. All are
"Levites" by descent, and are thus correlated in the genealogical and
other lists, but the true priesthood is confined to the sons of Aaron,
while the mass of the Levites are subordinate servants who are not
entitled to approach the altar or to perform any strictly priestly
function. All access to the Deity is restricted to the one priesthood
and to the one sanctuary at Jerusalem; the worshipping subject is the
nation of Israel as a unity, and the function of worship is discharged
on its behalf by divinely chosen priests. The ordinary individual may
not intrude under penalty of death; only those of Levitical origin may
perform service, and they are essentially the servants and hereditary
serfs of the Aaronite priests (see Num. xviii.). But such a scheme finds
no place in the monarchy; it presupposes a hierocracy under which the
priesthood increased its rights by claiming the privileges which past
kings had enjoyed; it is the outcome of a complicated development in Old
Testament religion in the light of which it is to be followed (see
HEBREW RELIGION).
First (a), in the earlier biblical writings which describe the state of
affairs under the Hebrew monarchy there is not this fundamental
distinction among the Levites, and, although a list of Aaronite
high-priests is preserved in a late source, internal details and the
evidence of the historical books render its value extremely doubtful (1
Chron. vi. 3-15, 49-53). In Jerusalem itself the subordinate officers of
the temple were not members of a holy gild, but of the royal body-guard,
or bond-slaves who had access to the sacred courts, and might even be
uncircumcised foreigners (Josh. ix. 27; 1 Kings xiv. 28; 2 Kings xi.;
cf. Zeph. i. 8 seq.; Zech. xiv. 21). Moreover, ordinary individuals
might serve as priests (1 Sam. ii II, 18, vii. 1; see 2 Sam. viii. 18,
deliberately altered in 1 Chron. xviii. 17); however, every Levite was a
priest, or at least qualified to become one (Deut. x. 8, xviii. 7;
Judges xvii. 5-13), and when the author of 1 Kings xii. 31, wishes to
represent Jeroboam's priests as illegitimate, he does not say that they
were not Aaronites, but that they were not of the sons of Levi.
The next stage (b) is connected with the suppression of the local
high-places or minor shrines in favour of a central sanctuary. This
involved the suppression of the Levitical priests in the country (cf.
perhaps the allusion in Deut. xxi. 5); and the present book of
Deuteronomy, in promulgating the reform, represents the Levites as poor
scattered "sojourners" and recommends them to the charity of the people
(Deut. xii. 12, 18 seq., xiv. 27, 29, xvi. 11, 14, xxvi. 11 sqq.).
However, they are permitted to congregate at "the place which Yahweh
shall choose," where they may perform the usual priestly duties together
with their brethren who "stand there before Yahweh," and they are
allowed their share of the offerings (Deut. xviii. 6-8).[2] The
Deuteronomic history of the monarchy actually ascribes to the Judaean
king Josiah (621 B.C.) the suppression of the high-places, and states
that the local priests were brought to Jerusalem and received support,
but did not minister at the altar (2 Kings xxiii. 9). Finally, a scheme
of ritual for the second temple raises this exclusion to the rank of a
principle. The Levites who had been idolatrous are punished by exclusion
from the proper priestly work, and take the subordinate offices which
the uncircumcised and polluted foreigners had formerly filled, while the
sons of Zadok, who had remained faithful, are henceforth the legitimate
priests, the only descendants of Levi who are allowed to minister unto
Yahweh (Ezek. xliv. 6-15, cf. xl. 46, xliii. 19, xlviii. 11). "A
threefold cord is not quickly broken," and these three independent
witnesses agree in describing a significant innovation which ends with
the supremacy of the Zadokites of Jerusalem over their brethren.
In the last stage (c) the exclusion of the ordinary Levites from all
share in the priesthood of the sons of Aaron is looked upon as a matter
of course, dating from the institution of priestly worship by Moses. The
two classes are supposed to have been founded separately (Exod. xxviii.,
cf. xxix. 9; Num. iii. 6-10), and so far from any degradation being
attached to the rank and file of the Levites, their position is
naturally an honourable one compared with that of the mass of
non-Levitical worshippers (see Num. i. 50-53), and they are taken by
Yahweh as a surrogate for the male first-born of Israel (iii. 11-13).
They are inferior only to the Aaronites to whom they are "joined"
(xviii. 2, a play on the name Levi) as assistants. Various adjustments
and modifications still continue, and a number of scattered details may
indicate that internal rivalries made themselves felt. But the different
steps can hardly be recovered clearly, although the fact that the
priesthood was extended beyond the Zadokites to families of the
dispossessed priests points to some compromise (1 Chron. xxiv.).
Further, it is subsequently found that certain classes of temple
servants, the singers and porters, who had once been outside the
Levitical gilds, became absorbed as the term "Levite" was widened, and
this change is formally expressed by the genealogies which ascribe to
Levi, the common "ancestor" of them all, the singers and even certain
families whose heathenish and foreign names show that they were once
merely servants of the temple.[3]
2. _Significance of the Development._--Although the legal basis for the
final stage is found in the legislation of the time of Moses (latter
part of the second millennium B.C.), it is in reality scarcely earlier
than the 5th century B.C., and the Jewish theory finds analogies when
developments of the Levitical service are referred to David (1 Chron.
xv. seq., xxiii. sqq.), Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxix.) and Josiah
(xxxv.)--contrast the history in the earlier books of Samuel and
Kings--or when the still later book of Jubilees (xxxii.) places the rise
of the Levitical priesthood in the patriarchal period. The traditional
theory of the Mosaic origin of the elaborate Levitical legislation
cannot be maintained save by the most arbitrary and inconsequential
treatment of the evidence and by an entire indifference to the
historical spirit; and, although numerous points of detail still remain
very obscure, the three leading stages in the Levitical institutions are
now recognized by nearly all independent scholars. These stages with a
number of concomitant features confirm the literary hypothesis that
biblical history is in the main due to two leading recensions, the
Deuteronomic and the Priestly (cf. [b] and [c] above), which have
incorporated older sources.[4] If the hierarchical system as it existed
in the post-exilic age was really the work of Moses, it is inexplicable
that all trace of it was so completely lost that the degradation of the
non-Zadokites in Ezekiel was a new feature and a punishment, whereas in
the Mosaic law the ordinary Levites, on the traditional view, was
already forbidden priestly rights under penalty of death. There is in
fact no clear evidence of the existence of a distinction between priests
and Levites in any Hebrew writing demonstrably earlier than the
Deuteronomic stage, although, even as the Pentateuch contains ordinances
which have been carried back by means of a "legal convention" to the
days of Moses, writers have occasionally altered earlier records of the
history to agree with later standpoints.[5]
No argument in support of the traditional theory can be drawn from the
account of Korah's revolt (Num. xvi. sqq., see § 3) or from the
Levitical cities (Num. xxxv.; Josh. xxi.). Some of the latter were
either not conquered by the Israelites until long after the invasion,
or, if conquered, were not held by Levites; and names are wanting of
places in which priests are actually known to have lived. Certainly
the names are largely identical with ancient holy cities, which,
however, are holy because they possessed noted shrines, not because
the inhabitants were members of a holy tribe. Gezer and Taanach, for
example, are said to have remained in the hands of Canaanites (Judges
i. 27, 29; cf. 1 Kings ix. 16), and recent excavation has shown how
far the cultus of these cities was removed from Mosaic religion and
ritual and how long the grosser elements persisted.[6] On the other
hand, the sanctuaries obviously had always their local ministers, all
of whom in time could be called Levitical, and it is only in this
sense, not in that of the late priestly legislation, that a place like
Shechem could ever have been included. Further, instead of holding
cities and pasture-grounds, the Levites are sometimes described as
scattered and divided (Gen. xlix. 7; Deut. xviii. 6), and though they
may naturally possess property as private individuals, they alone of
all the tribes of Israel possess no tribal inheritance (Num. xviii.
23, xxvi. 62; Deut. x. 9; Josh. xiv. 3). This fluctuation finds a
parallel in the age at which the Levites were to serve; for neither
has any reasonable explanation been found on the traditional view.
Num. iv. 3 fixes the age at thirty, although in i. 3 it has been
reduced to twenty; but in 1 Chron. xxiii. 3, David is said to have
numbered them from the higher limit, whereas in vv. 24, 27 the lower
figure is given on the authority of "the last words (or acts) of
David." In Num. viii. 23-26, the age is given as twenty-five, but
twenty became usual and recurs in Ezra iii. 8 and 2 Chron. xxxi. 17.
There are, however, independent grounds for believing that 1 Chron.
xxiii. 24, 27, 2 Chron. xxxi. 17 belong to later insertions and that
Ezr. iii. 8 is relatively late.
When, in accordance with the usual methods of Hebrew genealogical
history, the Levites are defined as the descendants of Levi, the third
son of Jacob by Leah (Gen. xxix. 34), a literal interpretation is
unnecessary, and the only narrative wherein Levi appears as a person
evidently delineates under the form of personification events in the
history of the Levites (Gen. xxxiv.).[7] They take their place in Israel
as the tribe set apart for sacred duties, and without entering into the
large question how far the tribal schemes can be used for the earlier
history of Israel, it may be observed that no adequate interpretation
has yet been found of the ethnological traditions of Levi and other sons
of Leah in their historical relation to one another or to the other
tribes. However intelligible may be the notion of a tribe _reserved_ for
priestly service, the fact that it does not apply to early biblical
history is apparent from the heterogeneous details of the Levitical
divisions. The incorporation of singers and porters is indeed a late
process, but it is typical of the tendency to co-ordinate all the
religious classes (see GENEALOGY: _Biblical_). The genealogies in their
complete form pay little heed to Moses, although Aaron and Moses could
typify the priesthood and other Levites generally (1 Chron. xxiii. 14).
Certain priesthoods in the first stage (§ 1 [a]) claimed descent from
these prototypes, and it is interesting to observe (1) the growing
importance of Aaron in the later sources of "the Exodus," and (2) the
relation between Mosheh (Moses) and his two sons Gershom and Eliezer, on
the one side, and the Levitical names Mushi (i.e. the Mosaite), Gershon
and the Aaronite priest Eleazar, on the other. There are links, also,
which unite Moses with Kenite, Rechabite, Calebite and Edomite families,
and the Levitical names themselves are equally connected with the
southern tribes of Judah and Simeon and with the Edomites.[8] It is to
be inferred, therefore, that some relationship subsisted, or was thought
to subsist, among (1) the Levites, (2) clans actually located in the
south of Palestine, and (3) families whose names and traditions point to
a southern origin. The exact meaning of these features is not clear, but
if it be remembered (a) that the Levites of post-exilic literature
represent only the result of a long and intricate development, (b) that
the name "Levite," in the later stages at least, was extended to include
all priestly servants, and (c) that the priesthoods, in tending to
become hereditary, included priests who were Levites by adoption and not
by descent, it will be recognized that the examination of the evidence
for the earlier stages cannot confine itself to those narratives where
the specific term alone occurs.
3. _The Traditions of the Levites._--In the "Blessing of Moses" (Deut,
xxxiii. 8-11), Levi is a collective name for the priesthood, probably
that of (north) Israel. He is the guardian of the sacred oracles,
knowing no kin, and enjoying his privileges for proofs of fidelity at
Massah and Meribah. That these places (in the district of Kadesh) were
traditionally associated with the origin of the Levites is suggested by
various Levitical stories, although it is in a narrative now in a
context pointing to Horeb or Sinai that the Levites are Israelites who
for some cause (now lost) severed themselves from their people and took
up a stand on behalf of Yahweh (Exod. xxxii.). Other evidence allows us
to link together the Kenites, Calebites and Danites in a tradition of
some movement into Palestine, evidently quite distinct from the great
invasion of Israelite tribes which predominates in the existing records.
The priesthood of Dan certainly traced its origin to Moses (Judges xvii.
9, xviii. 30); that of Shiloh claimed an equally high ancestry (1 Sam.
ii. 27 seq.).[9] Some tradition of a widespread movement appears to be
ascribed to the age of Jehu, whose accession, promoted by the prophet
Elisha, marks the end of the conflict between Yahweh and Baal. To a
Rechabite (the clan is allied to the Kenites) is definitely ascribed a
hand in Jehu's sanguinary measures, and, though little is told of the
obviously momentous events, one writer clearly alludes to a bloody
period when reforms were to be effected by the sword (1 Kings xix. 17).
Similarly the story of the original selection of the Levites in the
wilderness mentions an uncompromising massacre of idolaters.
Consequently, it is very noteworthy that popular tradition preserves the
recollection of some attack by the "brothers" Levi and Simeon upon the
famous holy city of Shechem to avenge their "sister" Dinah (Gen.
xxxiv.), and that a detailed narrative tells of the bloodthirsty though
pious Danites who sacked an Ephraimite shrine on their journey to a new
home (Judges xvii. sq.).
The older records utilized by the Deuteronomic and later compilers
indicate some common tradition which has found expression in these
varying forms. Different religious standpoints are represented in the
biblical writings, and it is now important to observe that the
prophecies of Hosea unmistakably show another attitude to the
Israelite priesthood. The condemnation of Jehu's bloodshed (Hos. i. 4)
gives another view of events in which both Elijah and Elisha were
concerned, and the change is more vividly realized when it is found
that even to Moses and Aaron, the traditional founders of Israelite
religion and ritual, is ascribed an offence whereby they incurred
Yahweh's wrath (Num. xx. 12, 24, xxvii. 14; Deut. ix. 20, xxxii. 51).
The sanctuaries of Shiloh and Dan lasted until the deportation of
Israel (Judges xviii. 30 seq.), and some of their history is still
preserved in the account of the late pre-monarchical age (12th-11th
centuries B.C.). Shiloh's priestly gild is condemned for its iniquity
(1 Sam. iii. 11-14), the sanctuary mysteriously disappears, and the
priests are subsequently found at Nob outside Jerusalem (1 Sam. xxi.
seq.). All idea of historical perspective has been lost, since the
fall of Shiloh was apparently a recent event at the close of the 7th
century (Jer. vii. 12-15, xxvi. 6-9). But the tendency to ascribe the
disasters of northern Israel to the priesthood (see esp. Hosea) takes
another form when an inserted prophecy revokes the privileges of the
ancient and honourable family, foretells its overthrow, and announces
the rise of a new faithful and everlasting priesthood, at whose hands
the dispossessed survivors, reduced to poverty, would beg some
priestly office to secure a livelihood (1 Sam. ii. 27-36). The sequel
to this phase is placed in the reign of Solomon, when David's old
priest Abiathar, sole survivor of the priests of Shiloh, is expelled
to Anathoth (near Jerusalem), and Zadok becomes the first chief priest
contemporary with the foundation of the _first_ temple (1 Kings ii.
27, 35). These situations cannot be severed from what is known
elsewhere of the Deuteronomic teaching, of the reform ascribed to
Josiah, or of the principle inculcated by Ezekiel (see § 1 [b]). The
late specific tendency in favour of Jerusalem agrees with the
Deuteronomic editor of Kings who condemns the sanctuaries of Dan and
Bethel for calf-worship (1 Kings xii. 28-31), and does not acknowledge
the northern priesthood to be Levitical (1 Kings xii. 31, note the
interpretation in 2 Chron. xi. 14, xiii. 9). It is from a similar
standpoint that Aaron is condemned for the manufacture of the golden
calf, and a compiler (not the original writer) finds its sequel in the
election of the faithful Levites.[10]
In the third great stage there is another change in the tone. The
present (priestly) recension of Gen. xxxiv. has practically justified
Levi and Simeon from its standpoint of opposition to intermarriage, and
in spite of Jacob's curse (Gen. xlix. 5-7) later traditions continue to
extol the slaughter of the Shechemitcs as a pious duty. Post-exilic
revision has also hopelessly obscured the offence of Moses and Aaron,
although there was already a tendency to place the blame upon the people
(Deut. i. 37, iii. 26, iv. 21). When two-thirds of the priestly families
are said to be Zadokites and one-third are of the families of Abiathar,
some reconciliation, some adjustment of rivalries, is to be recognized
(1 Chron. xxiv.). Again, in the composite story of Korah's revolt, one
version reflects a contest between Aaronites and the other Levites who
claimed the priesthood (Num. xvi. 8-11, 36-40), while another shows the
supremacy of the Levites as a caste either over the rest of the people
(? cf. the prayer, Deut. xxxiii. 11), or, since the latter are under the
leadership of Korah, later the eponym of a gild of singers, perhaps over
the more subordinate ministers who once formed a separate class.[11] In
the composite work Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah (dating after the
post-exilic Levitical legislation) a peculiar interest is taken in the
Levites, more particularly in the singers, and certain passages even
reveal some animus against the Aaronites (2 Chron. xxix. 34, xxx. 3). A
Levite probably had a hand in the work, and this, with the evidence for
the Levitical Psalms (see PSALMS), gives the caste an interesting place
in the study of the transmission of the biblical records.[12] But the
history of the Levites in the early post-exilic stage and onwards is a
separate problem, and the work of criticism has not advanced
sufficiently for a proper estimate of the various vicissitudes. However,
the feeling which was aroused among the priests when some centuries
later the singers obtained from Agrippa the privilege of wearing the
priestly linen dress (Josephus, _Ant._ xx. 9. 6), at least enables one
to appreciate more vividly the scantier hints of internal jealousies
during the preceding years.[13]
4. _Summary._--From the inevitable conclusion that there are three
stages in the written sources for the Levitical institutions, the next
step is the correlation of allied traditions on the basis of the
genealogical evidence. But the problem of fitting these into the history
of Israel still remains. The assumption that the earlier sources for the
pre-monarchical history, as incorporated by late compilers, are
necessarily trustworthy confuses the inquiry (on Gen. xxxiv., see
SIMEON), and even the probability of a reforming spirit in Jehu's age
depends upon the internal criticism of the related records (see JEWS, §§
11-14). The view that the Levites came from the south may be combined
with the conviction that there Yahweh had his seat (cf. Deut. xxxiii. 2;
Judges v. 4; Hab. iii. 3), but the latter is only one view, and the
traditions of the patriarchs point to another belief (cf. also Gen. iv.
26). The two are reconciled when the God of the patriarchs reveals His
name for the first time unto Moses (Exod. iii. 15, vi. 3). With these
variations is involved the problem of the early history of the
Israelites.[14] Moreover, the real Judaean tendency which associates the
fall of Eli's priesthood at Shiloh with the rise of the Zadokites
involves the literary problems of Deuteronomy, a composite work whose
age is not certainly known, and of the twofold Deuteronomic redaction
elsewhere, one phase of which is more distinctly Judaean and
anti-Samaritan. There are vicissitudes and varying standpoints which
point to a complicated literary history and require some historical
background, and, apart from actual changes in the history of the
Levites, some allowance must be made for the real character of the
circles where the diverse records originated or through which they
passed. The key must be sought in the exilic and post-exilic age where,
unfortunately, direct and decisive evidence is lacking. It is clear that
the Zadokite priests were rendered legitimate by finding a place for
their ancestor in the Levitical genealogies--through Phinehas (cf. Num.
xxv. 12 seq.), and Aaron--there was a feeling that a legitimate priest
must be an Aaronite, but the historical reason for this is uncertain
(see R. H. Kennett, _Journ. Theolog. Stud._, 1905, pp. 161 sqq.). Hence,
it is impossible at present to trace the earlier steps which led to the
grand hierarchy of post-exilic Judaism. Even the name Levite itself is
of uncertain origin. Though popularly connected with _lavah_, "be
joined, attached," an ethnic from Leah has found some favour; the
Assyrian _li'u_ "powerful, wise," has also been suggested. The term has
been more plausibly identified with _l-v-_' (fem. _l-v-'-t_), the name
given in old Arabian inscriptions (e.g. at al-'Ola, south-east of Elath)
to the priests and priestesses of the Arabian god Vadd (so especially
Hommel, _Anc. Heb. Trad._, pp. 278 seq.). The date of the evidence,
however, has not been fixed with unanimity, and this very attractive
and suggestive view requires confirmation and independent support.
AUTHORITIES.--For the argument in § 1, see Wellhausen, _Prolegomena_,
pp. 121-151; W. R. Smith, _Old Test. in Jew. Church_ (2nd ed., Index,
s.v. "Levites"); A. Kuenen, _Hexateuch_, §§ 3 n. 16; 11, pp. 203 sqq.;
15 n. 15 (more technical); also the larger commentaries on
Exodus-Joshua and the ordinary critical works on Old Testament
literature. In § 1 and part of § 2 use has been freely made of W. R.
Smith's article "Levites" in the 9th edition of the _Ency. Brit._ (see
the revision by A. Bertholet, _Ency. Bib._ col. 2770 sqq.). For the
history of the Levites in the post-exilic and later ages, see the
commentaries on Numbers (by G. B. Gray) and Chronicles (E. L. Curtis),
and especially H. Vogelstein, _Der Kampf zwischen Priestern u. Leviten
seit den Tagen Ezechiels_, with Kuenen's review in his _Gesammelte
Abhandlungen_ (ed. K. Budde, 1894). See further PRIEST. (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For the derivation of "Levi" see below § 4 end.
[2] The words "beside that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony"
(lit. "his sellings according to the fathers") are obscure; they seem
to imply some additional source of income which the Levite enjoys at
the central sanctuary.
[3] For the _nethinim_ ("given") and "children of the slaves of
Solomon" (whose hereditary service would give them a pre-eminence
over the temple slaves), see art. NETHINIM, and Benzinger, _Ency.
Bib._ cols. 3397 sqq.
[4] In defence of the traditional view, see S. I. Curtiss, _The
Levitical Priests_ (1877), with which his later attitude should be
contrasted (see _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_, pp. 14, 50, 133
seq., 171, 238 sqq., 241 sqq.); W. L. Baxter, _Sanctuary and
Sacrifice_ (1895); A. van Hoonacker, _Le Sacerdoce lévitique_ (1899);
and J. Orr, _Problem of the O.T._ (1905). These and other apologetic
writings have so far failed to produce any adequate alternative
hypothesis, and while they argue for the traditional theory, later
revision not being excluded, the modern critical view accepts late
dates for the literary sources in their present form, and explicitly
recognizes the presence of much that is ancient. Note the curious old
tradition that Ezra wrote out the law which had been burnt (2 Esdr.
xiv. 21 sqq.).
[5] For example, in 1 Kings viii. 4, there are many indications that
the context has undergone considerable editing at a fairly late date.
The Septuagint translators did not read the clause which speaks of
"priests and Levites," and 2 Chron. v. 5 reads "the Levite priests,"
the phrase characteristic of the Deuteronomic identification of
priestly and Levitical ministry. 1 Sam. vi. 15, too, brings in the
Levites, but the verse breaks the connexion between 14 and 16. For
the present disorder in the text of 2 Sam. xv. 24, see the
commentaries.
[6] See Father H. Vincent, O.P., _Canaan d'après l'exploration
récente_ (1907), pp. 151, 200 sqq., 463 sq.
[7] So Gen. xxxiv. 7, Hamor has wrought folly "in Israel" (cf. Judges
xx. 6 and often), and in v. 30 "Jacob" is not a personal but a
collective idea, for he says, "I am a few men," and the capture and
destruction of a considerable city is in the nature of things the
work of more than two individuals. In the allusion to Levi and Simeon
in Gen. xlix. the two are spoken of as "brothers" with a communal
assembly. See, for other examples of personification, GENEALOGY:
_Biblical_.
[8] See E. Meyer, _Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstämme_, pp. 299 sqq.
(passim); S. A. Cook, _Ency. Bib._ col. 1665 seq.; _Crit. Notes on
O.T. History_, pp. 84 sqq., 122-125.
[9] The second element of the name Abiathar is connected with Jether
or Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, and even Ichabod (1 Sam. iv.
21) seems to be an intentional reshaping of Jochebed, which is
elsewhere the name of the mother of Moses. Phinehas, Eli's son,
becomes in later writings the name of a prominent Aaronite priest in
the days of the exodus from Egypt.
[10] With this development in Israelite religion, observe that
Judaean cult included the worship of a brazen serpent, the
institution of which was ascribed to Moses, and that, according to
the compiler of Kings, Hezekiah was the first to destroy it when he
suppressed idolatrous worship in Judah (2 Kings xviii. 4). It may be
added that the faithful Kenites (found in N. Palestine, Judges iv.
11) appear in another light when threatened with captivity by Asshur
(Num. xxiv. 22; cf. fall of Dan and Shiloh), and if their eponym is
Cain (q.v.), the story of Cain and Abel serves, amid a variety of
purposes, to condemn the murder of the settled agriculturist by the
nomad, but curiously allows that any retaliation upon Cain shall be
avenged (see below, note 5).
[11] The name Korah itself is elsewhere Edomite (Gen. xxxvi. 5, 14,
18) and Calebite (1 Chron. ii. 43). See _Ency. Bib._, s.v.
[12]: The musical service of the temple has no place in the
Pentateuch, but was considerably developed under the second temple
and attracted the special attention of Greek observers (Theophrastus,
_apud_ Porphyry, _de Abstin._ ii. 26); see on this subject, R.
Kittel's _Handkommentar_ on Chronicles, pp. 90 sqq.
[13] Even the tithes enjoyed by the Levites (Num. xviii. 21 seq.)
were finally transferred to the priests (so in the Talmud: see
_Yebamoth_, fol. 86a, Carpzov, _App. ad Godw._ p. 624; Hottinger, _De
Dec._ vi. 8, ix. 17).
[14] For some suggestive remarks on the relation between nomadism and
the Levites, and their influence upon Israelite religion and literary
tradition, see E. Meyer, _Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstämme_
(1906), pp. 82-89, 138; on the problems of early Israelite history,
see SIMEON (end), JEWS, §§ 5, 8, and PALESTINE, _History_.
LEVITICUS, in the Bible, the third book of the Pentateuch. The name is
derived from that of the Septuagint version ([Greek: to]) [Greek:
leu[e]itikon] (sc. [Greek: biblion]), though the English form is due to
the Latin rendering, _Leviticus_ (sc. _liber_). By the Jews the book is
called _Wayyikra_ ([Hebrew: Wayykra]) from the first word of the Hebrew
text, but it is also referred to (in the Talmud and Massorah) as _Torath
kohanim_ ([Hebrew: Totath kohanim], law of the priests), _Sepher
kohanim_ ([Hebrew: Sepher k´´], book of the priests), and _Sepher
korbanim_ ([Hebrew: Sepher korbanim], book of offerings). As a
descriptive title _Leviticus_, "the Levitical book," is not
inappropriate to the contents of the book, which exhibits an elaborate
system of sacrificial worship. In this connexion, however, the term
"Levitical" is used in a perfectly general sense, since there is no
reference in the book itself to the Levites themselves.
The book of Leviticus presents a marked contrast to the two preceding
books of the Hexateuch in that it is derived from one document only,
viz. the Priestly Code (P), and contains no trace of the other documents
from which the Hexateuch has been compiled. Hence the dominant interest
is a priestly one, while the contents are almost entirely legislative as
opposed to historical. But though the book as a whole is assigned to a
single document, its contents are by no means homogeneous: in fact the
critical problem presented by the legislative portions of Leviticus,
though more limited in scope, is very similar to that of the other books
of the Hexateuch. Here, too, the occurrence of repetitions and
divergencies, the variations of standpoint and practice, and, at times,
the linguistic peculiarities point no less clearly to diversity of
origin.
The historical narrative with which P connects his account of the sacred
institutions of Israel is reduced in Leviticus to a minimum, and
presents no special features. The consecration of Aaron and his sons
(viii. ix.) resumes the narrative of Exod. xl., and this is followed by
a brief notice of the death of Nadab and Abihu (x. 1-5), and later by an
account of the death of the blasphemer (xxiv. 10 f.). Apart from these
incidents, which, in accordance with the practice of P, are utilized for
the purpose of introducing fresh legislation, the book consists of three
main groups or collections of ritual laws: (1) chaps, i.-vii., laws of
sacrifice; (2) chaps, xi.-xv., laws of purification, with an appendix
(xvi.) on the Day of Atonement; (3) chaps, xvii.-xxvi., the Law of
Holiness, with an appendix (xxvii.) on vows and tithes. In part these
laws appear to be older than P, but when examined in detail the various
collections show unmistakably that they have undergone more than one
process of redaction before they assumed the form in which they are now
presented. The scope of the present article does not permit of an
elaborate analysis of the different sections, but the evidence adduced
will, it is hoped, afford sufficient proof of the truth of this
statement.
I. _The Laws of Sacrifice._--Chaps. i.-vii. This group of laws clearly
formed no part of the original narrative of P since it interrupts the
connexion of chap. viii. with Exod. xl. For chap. viii. describes how
Moses carried out the command of Exod. xl. 12-15 in accordance with the
instructions given in Exod. xxix. 1-35, and bears the same relation to
the latter passage that Exod. xxxv. ff. bears to Exod. xxv. ff. Hence we
can only conclude that Lev. i.-vii. were added by a later editor. This
conclusion does not necessarily involve a late date for the laws
themselves, many of which have the appearance of great antiquity,
though their original form has been considerably modified. But though
these chapters form an independent collection of laws, and were
incorporated as such in P, a critical analysis of their contents shows
that they were not all derived from the same source.
The collection falls into two divisions, (a) i.-vi. 7 (Heb. v. 26),
and (b) vi. 8 (Heb. vi. 1)-vii., the former being addressed to the
people and the latter to the priests. The laws contained in (a) refer
to (1) burnt-offerings, i.; (2) meal-offerings, ii.; (3)
peace-offerings, iii.; (4) sin-offerings, iv. (on v. 1-13 see below);
(5) trespass-offerings, v. 14-vi. 7 (Heb. v. 14-26). The laws in (b)
cover practically the same ground--(1) burnt-offerings, vi. 8-13 (Heb.
vv. 1-6); (2) meal-offerings, vi. 14-18 (Heb. vv. 7-11); (3) the
meal-offering of the priest, vi. 19-23 (Heb. vv. 12-16); (4)
sin-offerings, vi. 24-30 (Heb. vv. 17-23); (5) trespass-offerings,
vii. 1-7, together with certain regulations for the priest's share of
the burnt- and meal-offerings (vv. 8-10); (6) peace-offerings, vii.
11-21. Then follow the prohibition of eating the fat or blood (vv.
22-28), the priest's share of the peace-offerings (vv. 29-34), the
priest's anointing-portion (vv. 35, 36), and the subscription (vv. 37,
38). The second group of laws is thus to a certain extent
supplementary to the first, and was, doubtless, intended as such by
the editor of chaps. i.-vii. Originally it can hardly have formed part
of the same collection; for (a) the order is different, that of the
second group being supported by its subscription, and (b) the laws in
vi. 8-vii. are regularly introduced by the formula "This is the law
(_torah_) of...." Most probably the second group was excerpted by the
editor of chaps. i.-vii. from another collection for the purpose of
supplementing the laws of i.-v., more especially on points connected
with the functions and dues of the officiating priests.
Closer investigation, however, shows that both groups of laws contain
heterogeneous elements and that their present form is the result of a
long process of development. Thus i. and iii. seem to contain
genuinely old enactments, though i. 14-17 is probably a later
addition, since there is no reference to birds in the general heading
v. 2. Chap. ii. 1-3, on the other hand, though it corresponds in form
to i. and iii., interrupts the close connexion between those chapters,
and should in any case stand after iii.: the use of the second for the
third person in the remaining verses points to a different source. As
might be expected from the nature of the sacrifice with which it
deals, iv. (sin-offerings) seems to belong to a relatively later
period of the sacrificial system. Several features confirm this view:
(1) the blood of the sin-offering of the "anointed priest" and of the
whole congregation is brought within the veil and sprinkled on the
altar of incense, (2) the sin-offering of the congregation is a
bullock, and not, as elsewhere, a goat (ix. 15; Num. xv. 24), (3) the
altar of incense is distinguished from the altar of burnt-offering (as
opposed to Exod. xxix.; Lev. viii. ix.). Chap. v. 1-13 have usually
been regarded as an appendix to iv., setting forth (a) a number of
typical cases for which a sin-offering is required (vv. 1-6), and (b)
certain concessions for those who could not afford the ordinary
sin-offering (vv. 7-13). But vv. 1-6, which are not homogeneous (vv. 2
and 3 treating of another question and interrupting vv. 1, 4, 5 f.),
cannot be ascribed to the same author as iv.: for (1) it presents a
different theory of the sin-offering (contrast v. 1 f. with iv. 2),
(2) it ignores the fourfold division of offerings corresponding to the
rank of the offender, (3) it fails to observe the distinction between
sin- and trespass-offering (in vv. 6, 7, "his guilt-offering"
([Hebrew: ashamo]) appears to have the sense of a "penalty" or
"forfeit," unless with Baentsch we read [Hebrew: korbano] "his
oblation" in each case; cf. v. 11, iv. 23 ff. Verses 7-13, on the
other hand, form a suitable continuation of iv., though probably they
are secondary in character. Chap. v. 14 (Heb. v. 26)-vi. 7 contain
regulations for the trespass-offering, in which the distinctive
character of that offering is clearly brought out. The cases cited in
vi. 1-7 (Heb. v. 20-26) are clearly analogous to those in v. 14-16,
from which they are at present separated by vv. 17-19. These latter
prescribe a trespass-offering for the same case for which in iv. 22 f.
a sin-offering is required: it is noticeable also that no restitution,
the characteristic feature of the _asham_, is prescribed. It is hardly
doubtful that the verses are derived from a different source to that
of their immediate context, possibly the same as v. 1-6.
The subscription (vii. 37, 38) is our chief guide to determining the
original extent of the second group of laws (vi. 8 [Heb. vi. 1]-vii.
36). From it we infer that originally the collection only dealt with
the five chief sacrifices (vi. 8-13; 14-18; 24, 25, 27-30; vii. 1-6;
11-21) already discussed in i.-v., since only these are referred to in
the colophon where they are given in the same order (the
consecration-offering [v. 37] is probably due to the same redactor who
introduced the gloss "in the day when he is anointed" in vi. 20). Of
the remaining sections vi. 19-23 (Heb. 12-16), the daily meal-offering
of the (high-) priest, betrays its secondary origin by its absence
from the subscription, cf. also the different introduction. Chaps. vi.
26 (Heb. 19) and vii. 7 assign the offering to the officiating priest
in contrast to vi. 18 (Heb. 11), 29 (Heb. 22), vii. 6 ("every male
among the priests"), and possibly belong, together with vii. 8-10, to
a separate collection which dealt especially with priestly dues. Chap.
vii. 22-27, which prohibit the eating of fat and blood, are addressed
to the community at large, and were, doubtless, inserted here in
connexion with the sacrificial meal which formed the usual
accompaniment of the peace-offering. Chap. vii. 28-34 are also
addressed to the people, and cannot therefore have formed part of the
original priestly manual; v. 33 betrays the same hand as vi. 26 (Heb.
19) and vii. 7, and with 35a may be assigned to the same collection as
those verses; to the redactor must be assigned vv. 32 (a doublet of v.
33), 34, 35b and 36.
Chaps. viii.-x. As stated, these chapters form the original sequel to
Exod. xl. They describe (a) the consecration of Aaron and his sons, a
ceremony which lasted seven days (viii.), and (b) the public worship
on the eighth day, at which Aaron and his sons officiated for the
first time as priests (ix.); then follow (c) an account of the death
of Nadab and Abihu for offering strange fire (x. 1-5); (d) various
regulations affecting the priests (vv. 12-15), and (e) an explanation,
in narrative form, of the departure in ix. 15 from the rules for the
sin-offering given in vi. 30 (vv. 16-20).
According to Exod. xl. 1-15 Moses was commanded to set up the
Tabernacle and to consecrate the priests, and the succeeding verses
(16-38) describe how the former command was carried out. The execution
of the second command, however, is first described in Lev. viii., and
since the intervening chapters exhibit obvious traces of belonging to
another source, we may conclude with some certainty that Lev. viii.
formed the immediate continuation of Exod. xl. in the original
narrative of P. But it has already been pointed out (see Exodus) that
Exod. xxxv.-xl. belong to a later stratum of P than Exod. xxv.-xxix,
hence it is by no means improbable that Exod. xxxv-xl. have superseded
an earlier and shorter account of the fulfilment of the commands in
Exod. xxv.-xxix. If this be the case, we should naturally expect to
find that Lev. viii., which bears the same relation to Exod. xxix.
1-35 as Exod. xxxv. ff. to Exod. xxv. ff. also belonged to a later
stratum. But Lev. viii., unlike Exod xxxv. ff., only mentions one
altar, and though in its present form the chapter exhibits marks of
later authorship, these marks form no part of the original account,
but are clearly the work of a later editor. These additions, the
secondary character of which is obvious both from the way in which
they interrupt the context and also from their contents, are (1), v.
10, the anointing of the Tabernacle in accordance with Exod. xxx. 26
ff.: it is not enjoined in Exod. xxix.; (2) v. 11, the anointing of
the altar and the laver (cf. Exod. xxx. 17 ff.) as in Exod. xxix. 36b,
xxx. 26 ff.; (3) v. 30, the sprinkling of blood and oil on Aaron and
his sons. Apart from these secondary elements, which readily admit of
excision, the chapter is in complete accord with P as regards point of
view and language, and is therefore to be assigned to that source.
The consecration of Aaron and his sons was, according to P, a
necessary preliminary to the offering of sacrifice, and chap. ix.
accordingly describes the first solemn act of worship. The ceremony
consists of (a) the offerings for Aaron, and (b) those for the
congregation; then follows the priestly blessing (v. 22), after which
Moses and Aaron enter the sanctuary, and on reappearing once more
bless the people. The ceremony terminates with the appearance of the
glory of Yahweh, accompanied by a fire which consumes the sacrifices
on the altar. Apart from a few redactional glosses the chapter as a
whole belongs to P. The punishment of Nadab and Abihu by death for
offering "strange fire" (x. 1-5) forms a natural sequel to chap. ix.
To this incident a number of disconnected regulations affecting the
priests have been attached, of which the first, viz. the prohibition
of mourning to Aaron and his sons (vv. 6, 7), alone has any connexion
with the immediate context; as it stands, the passage is late in form
(cf. xxi. 10 ff.). The second passage, vv. 8, 9, which prohibits the
use of wine and strong drink to the priest when on duty, is clearly a
later addition. The connexion between these verses and the following
is extremely harsh, and since vv. 10, 11 relate to an entirely
different subject (cf. xi. 47), the latter verses must be regarded as
a misplaced fragment. Verses 12-15 relate to the portions of the meal-
and peace-offerings which fell to the lot of the priests, and connect,
therefore, with chap. ix.; possibly they have been wrongly transferred
from that chapter. In the remaining paragraph, x. 16-20, we have an
interesting example of the latest type of additions to the Hexateuch.
According to ix. 15 (cf. v. 11) the priests had burnt the flesh of the
sin-offering which had been offered on behalf of the congregation,
although its blood had not been taken into the inner sanctuary (cf.
iv. 1-21, vi. 26). Such treatment, though perfectly legitimate
according to the older legislation (Exod. xxix. 14; cf. Lev. viii.
17), was in direct contradiction to the ritual of vi. 24 ff., which
prescribed that the flesh of ordinary sin-offerings should be eaten by
the priests. Such a breach of ritual on the part of Aaron and his sons
seemed to a later redactor to demand an explanation, and this is
furnished in the present section.
II. _The Laws of Purification._--Chaps. xi.-xv. This collection of laws
comprises four main sections relating to (1) clean and unclean beasts
(xi.), (2) childbirth (xii.), (3) leprosy (xiii. xiv.), and (4) certain
natural secretions (xv.). These laws, or _toroth_, are so closely allied
to each other by the nature of their contents and their literary form
(cf. especially the recurring formula "This is the law of ..." xi. 46,
xii. 7, xiii. 59, xiv. 32, 54, 57, xv. 32) that they must originally
have formed a single collection. The collection, however, has clearly
undergone more than one redaction before reaching its final form. This
is made evident not only by the present position of chap. xii. which in
v. 2 presupposes chap. xv. (cf. xv. 19), and must originally have
followed after that chapter, but also by the contents of the different
sections, which exhibit clear traces of repeated revision. At the same
time it seems, like chaps. i.-vii., xvii.-xxvi., to have been formed
independently of P and to have been added to that document by a later
editor; for in its present position it interrupts the main thread of P's
narrative, chap. xvi. forming the natural continuation of chap. x.; and,
further, the inclusion of Aaron as well as Moses in the formula of
address (xi. 1, xiii. 1, xiv. 33, xv. 1) is contrary to the usage of P.
1. Chap. xi. consists of two main sections, of which the first (vv.
1-23, 41-47) contains directions as to the clean and unclean animals
which may or may not be used for food, while the second (vv: 24-40)
treats of the defilement caused by contact with the carcases of
unclean animals (in v. 39 f. contact with clean animals after death is
also forbidden), and prescribes certain rites of purification. The
main interest of the chapter, from the point of view of literary
criticism, centres in the relation of the first section to the Law of
Holiness (xvii.-xxvi.) and to the similar laws in Deut. xiv. 3-20.
From xx. 25 it has been inferred with considerable probability that H,
or the Law of Holiness, originally contained legislation of a similar
character with reference to clean and unclean animals; and many
scholars have held that the first section (vv. 1 [or 2]-23 and 41-47)
really belongs to that code. But while vv. 43-45 may unhesitatingly be
assigned to H, the remaining verses fail to exhibit any of the
characteristic features of that code. We must assign them, therefore,
to another source, though, in view of xx. 25 and xi. 43-45, it is
highly probable that they have superseded similar legislation
belonging to H.
The relation of Lev. xi. 2-23 to Deut. xiv. 4-20 is less easy to
determine, since the phenomena presented by the two texts are somewhat
inconsistent. The two passages are to a large extent verbally
identical, but while Deut. xiv. 4b, 5 both defines and exemplifies the
clean animals (as opposed to Lev. xi. 3; which only defines them), the
rest of the Deuteronomic version is much shorter than that of
Leviticus. Thus, except for vv. 4b, 5, the Deuteronomic version, which
in its general style, and to a certain extent in its phraseology (cf.
[Hebrew: min] _kind_, vv. 13, 15, 18, and [Hebrew: sheretz] _swarm_,
v. 19), shows traces of a priestly origin, might be regarded as an
abridgment of Lev. xi. But the Deuteronomic version uses [Hebrew:
tame] _unclean_ throughout (vv. 7, 10. 19), while Lev xi. from v. 11
onwards employs the technical term [Hebrew: sheketz] _detestable
thing_, and it is at least equally possible to treat the longer
version of Leviticus as an expansion of Deut. xiv. 4-20. The fact that
Deut. xiv. 21 permits the stranger ([Hebrew: gher]) to eat the flesh
of any animal that dies a natural death, while Lev. xvii. 25 places
him on an equal footing with the Israelite, cannot be cited in favour
of the priority of Deuteronomy since v. 21 is clearly supplementary;
cf. also Lev. xi. 39. On the whole it seems best to accept the view
that both passages are derived separately from an earlier source.
2. Chap. xii. prescribes regulations for the purification of a woman
after the birth of (a) a male and (b) a female child. It has been
already pointed out that this chapter would follow more suitably after
chap. xv., with which it is closely allied in regard to
subject-matter. The closing formula (v. 7) shows clearly that, as in
the case of v. 7-13 (cf. i. 14-17), the concessions in favour of the
poorer worshipper are a later addition.
3. Chaps. xiii., xiv. The regulations concerning leprosy fall readily
into four main divisions: (a) xiii. 1-46a, an elaborate description of
the symptoms common to the earlier stages of leprosy and other skin
diseases to guide the priest in deciding as to the cleanness or
uncleanness of the patient; (b) xiii. 47-59, a further description of
different kinds of mould or fungus growth affecting stuffs and
leather; (c) xiv. 1-32, the rites of purification to be employed after
the healing of leprosy; and (d) xiv. 33-53, regulations dealing with
the appearance of patches of mould or mildew on the walls of a house.
Like other collections the group of laws on leprosy easily betrays its
composite character and exhibits unmistakable evidence of its gradual
growth. There is, however, no reason to doubt that a large portion of
the laws is genuinely old since the subject is one that would
naturally call for early legislation; moreover, Deut. xxiv. 8
presupposes the existence of regulations concerning leprosy,
presumably oral, which were in the possession of the priests. The
earliest sections are admittedly xiii. 1-46a and xiv. 2-8a, the ritual
of the latter being obviously of a very archaic type. The secondary
character of xiii. 47-59 is evident: it interrupts the close connexion
between xiii. 1-46a and xiv. 2-8a, and further it is provided with its
own colophon in v. 59. A similar character must be assigned to the
remaining verses of chap. xiv., with the exception of the colophon in
v. 57b; the latter has been successively expanded in vv. 54-57a so as
to include the later additions. Thus xiv. 9-20 prescribes a second and
more elaborate ritual of purification after the healing of leprosy,
though the leper, according to v. 8a, is already clean; its secondary
character is further shown by the heightening of the ceremonial which
seems to be modelled on that of the consecration of the priest (viii.
23 ff.), the multiplication of sacrifices and the minute regulations
with regard to the blood and oil. The succeeding section (vv. 21-32)
enjoins special modifications for those who cannot afford the more
costly offerings of vv. 9-20, and like v. 7-13, xii. 8 is clearly a
later addition; cf. the separate colophon, v. 32. The closing section
xiv. 33-53 is closely allied to xiii. 47-59, though probably later in
date: probably the concluding verses (48-53), in which the same rites
are prescribed for the purification of a house as are ordained for a
person in vv. 3-8a, were added at a still later period.
4. Chap. xv. deals with the rites of purification rendered necessary
by various natural secretions, and is therefore closely related to
chap. xii. On the analogy of the other laws it is probable that the
old _torah_, which forms the basis of the chapter, has been
subsequently expanded, but except in the colophon (vv. 32-34), which
displays marks of later redaction, there is nothing to guide us in
separating the additional matter.
Chap. xvi. It may be regarded as certain that this chapter consists of
three main elements, only one of which was originally connected with
the ceremonial of the Day of Atonement, and that it has passed through
more than one stage of revision. Since the appearance of Benzinger's
analysis _ZATW_ (1889), critics in the main have accepted the division
of the chapter into three independent sections: (1) vv. 1-4, 6, 12,
13, 34b (probably vv. 23, 24 also form part of this section),
regulations to be observed by Aaron whenever he might enter "the holy
place within the veil." These regulations are the natural outcome of
the death of Nadab and Abihu (x. 1-5), and their object is to guard
Aaron from a similar fate; the section thus forms the direct
continuation of chap. x.; (2) vv. 29-34a, rules for the observance of
a yearly fast day, having for their object the purification of the
sanctuary and of the people; (3) vv. 5, 7-10, 14-22, 26-28, a later
expansion of the blood-ritual to be performed by the high-priest when
he enters the Holy of Holies, with which is combined the strange
ceremony of the goat which is sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.
The matter common to the first two sections, viz. the entrance of the
high priest into the Holy of Holies, was doubtless the cause of their
subsequent fusion; beyond this, however, the sections have no
connexion with one another, and must originally have been quite
independent. Doubtless, as Benzinger suggests, the rites to be
performed by the officiating high priest on the annual Day of
Atonement, which are not prescribed in vv. 29-34a, were identical with
those laid down in chap. ix. That the third section belongs to a later
stage of development and was added at a later date is shown by (a) the
incongruity of vv. 14 ff. with v. 6--according to the latter the
purification of Aaron is a preliminary condition of his entrance
within the veil--and (b) the elaborate ceremonial in connexion with
the sprinkling of the blood. The first section, doubtless, belongs to
the main narrative of P; it connects directly with chap. x. and
presupposes only one altar (cf. v. 12, Exod. xxviii. 35). The second
and third sections, however, must be assigned to a later stratum of P,
if only because they appear to have been unknown to Ezra (Neh. ix. 1);
the fact that Ezra's fast day took place on the twenty-fourth day of
the seventh month (as opposed to Lev. xvi. 29, xxiii. 26 f.) acquires
an additional importance in view of the agreement between Neh. viii.
23 f. and Lev. xxiii. 33 f. as to the date of the Feast of
Tabernacles. No mention is made of the Day of Atonement in the
pre-exilic period, and it is a plausible conjecture that the present
law arose from the desire to turn the spontaneous fasting of Neh. ix.
1 into an annual ceremony; in any case directions as to the annual
performance of the rite must originally have preceded vv. 29 ff.
Possibly the omission of this introduction is due to the redactor who
combined (1) and (2) by transferring the regulations of (1) to the
ritual of the annual Day of Atonement. At a later period the ritual
was further developed by the inclusion of the additional ceremonial
contained in (3).
III. _The Law of Holiness._--Chaps. xvii.-xxvi. The group of laws
contained in these chapters has long been recognized as standing apart
from the rest of the legislation set forth in Leviticus. For, though
they display undeniable affinity with P, they also exhibit certain
features which closely distinguish them from that document. The most
noticeable of these is the prominence assigned to certain leading ideas
and motives, especially to that of _holiness_. The idea of holiness,
indeed, is so characteristic of the entire group that the title "Law of
Holiness," first given to it by Klostermann (1877), has been generally
adopted. The term "holiness" in this connexion consists positively in
the fulfilment of ceremonial obligations and negatively in abstaining
from the defilement caused by heathen customs and superstitions, but it
also includes obedience to the moral requirements of the religion of
Yahweh.
On the literary side also the chapters are distinguished by the
paraenetic setting in which the laws are embedded and by the use of a
special terminology, many of the words and phrases occurring rarely,
if ever, in P (for a list of characteristic phrases cf. Driver,
_L.O.T._^6, p. 49). Further, the structure of these chapters, which
closely resembles that of the other two Hexateuchal codes (Exod. xx.
22-xxiii. and Deut. xii.-xxviii.), may reasonably be adduced in
support of their independent origin. All three codes contain a
somewhat miscellaneous collection of laws; all alike commence with
regulations as to the place of sacrifice and close with an
exhortation. Lastly, some of the laws treat of subjects which have
been already dealt with in P (cf. xvii. 10-14 and vii. 26 f., xix. 6-8
and vii. 15-18). It is hardly doubtful also that the group of laws,
which form the basis of chaps. xvii.-xxvi., besides being independent
of P, represent an older stage of legislation than that code. For the
sacrificial system of H (= Law of Holiness) is less developed than
that of P, and in particular shows no knowledge of the sin- and
trespass-offerings; the high priest is only _primus inter pares_ among
his brethren, xxi. 10 (cf. Lev. x. 6, 7, where the same prohibition is
extended to all the priests); the distinction between "holy" and "most
holy" things (Num. xviii. 8) is unknown to Lev. xxii. (Lev. xxi. 22 is
a later addition). It cannot be denied, however, that chaps.
xvii.-xxvi. present many points of resemblance with P, both in
language and subject-matter, but on closer examination these points of
contact are seen to be easily separable from the main body of the
legislation. It is highly probable, therefore, that these marks of P
are to be assigned to the compiler who combined H with P. But though
it may be regarded as certain that H existed as an independent code,
it cannot be maintained that the laws which it contains are all of the
same origin or belong to the same age. The evidence rather shows that
they were first collected by an editor before they were incorporated
in P. Thus there is a marked difference in style between the laws
themselves and the paraenetic setting in which they are embedded; and
it is not unnatural to conjecture that this setting is the work of the
first editor.
Two other points in connexion with H are of considerable importance:
(a) the possibility of other remains of H, and (b) its relation to
Deuteronomy and Ezekiel.
(a) It is generally recognized that H, in its present form, is
incomplete. The original code must, it is felt, have included many
other subjects now passed over in silence. These, possibly, were
omitted by the compiler of P, because they had already been dealt with
elsewhere, or they may have been transferred to other connexions. This
latter possibility is one that has appealed to many scholars, who have
accordingly claimed many other passages of P as parts of H. We have
already accepted xi. 43 ff. as an undoubted excerpt from H, but, with
the exception of Num. xv. 37-41 (on fringes), the other passages of
the Hexateuch which have been attributed to H do not furnish
sufficient evidence to justify us in assigning them to that
collection. Moore (_Ency. Bibl._ col. 2787) rightly points out that
"resemblance in the subject or formulation of laws to _toroth_
incorporated in H may point to a relation to the _sources_ of H, but
is not evidence that these laws were ever included in that
collection."
(b) The exact relation of H to Deuteronomy and Ezekiel is hard to
determine. That chaps. xvii.-xxvi. display a marked affinity to
Deuteronomy cannot be denied. Like D, they lay great stress on the
duties of humanity and charity both to the Israelite and to the
stranger (Deut. xxiv.; Lev. xix.; compare also laws affecting the poor
in Deut. xv.; Lev. xxv.), but in some respects the legislation of H
appears to reflect a more advanced stage than that of D, e.g. the
rules for the priesthood (chap. xxi.), the feasts (xxiii. 9-20,
39-43), the Sabbatical year (xxv. 1-7, 18-22), weights and measures
(xix. 35 f.). It must be remembered, however, that these laws have
passed through more than one stage of revision and that the original
regulations have been much obscured by later glosses and additions; it
is therefore somewhat hazardous to base any argument on their present
form. "The mutual independence of the two (codes) is rather to be
argued from the absence of laws identically formulated, the lack of
agreement in order either in the whole or in smaller portions, and the
fact that of the peculiar motives and phrases of R_{D} there is no
trace in H (Lev. xxiii. 40 is almost solitary). It is an unwarranted
assumption that all the fragments of Israelite legislation which have
been preserved lie in one serial development" (Moore, _Ency. Bibl._
col. 2790).
The relation of H to Ezekiel is remarkably close, the resemblances
between the two being so striking that many writers have regarded
Ezekiel as the author of H. Such a theory, however, is excluded by the
existence of even greater differences of style and matter, so that the
main problem to be decided is whether Ezekiel is prior to H or vice
versa. The main arguments brought forward by those who maintain the
priority of Ezekiel are (1) the fact that H makes mention of a high
priest, whereas Ezekiel betrays no knowledge of such an official, and
(2) that the author of Lev. xxvi. presupposes a condition of exile and
looks forward to a restoration from it. Too much weight, however, must
not be attached to these points; for (1) the phrase used in Lev. xxi.
10 (_literally_, "he who is greater than his brethren") cannot be
regarded as the equivalent of the definitive "chief priest" of P, and
is rather comparable with the usage of 2 Kings xxii. 4 ff., xxv. 18
("the chief priest"), cf. "the priest" in xi. 9 ff., xvi. 10 ff.; and
(2) the passages in Lev. xxvi. (vv. 34 f., 39-45), which are
especially cited in support of the exilic standpoint of the writer,
are just those which, on other grounds, show signs of later
interpolation. The following considerations undoubtedly suggest the
priority of H: (1) there is no trace in H of the distinction between
priests and Levites first introduced by Ezekiel; (2) Ezekiel xviii.,
xx., xxii., xxiii. appear to presuppose the laws of Lev. xviii.-xx.;
(3) the calendar of Lev. xxiii. represents an earlier stage of
development than the fixed days and months of Ezek. xlv.; (4) the sin-
and trespass-offerings are not mentioned in H (cf. Ezek. xl. 39, xlii.
13, xliv. 29, xlvi. 20); (5) the parallels to H, which are found
especially in Ezek. xviii., xx., xxii. f., include both the paraenetic
setting and the laws; and lastly, (6) a comparison of Lev. xxvi. with
Ezekiel points to the greater originality of the former. Baentsch,
however, who is followed by Bertholet, adopts the view that Lev. xxvi.
is rather an independent hortatory discourse modelled on Ezekiel. The
same writer further maintains that H consists of three separate
elements, viz. chaps. xvii.; xviii.-xx., with various ordinances in
chaps. xxiii.-xxv.; and xxii., xxiii., of which the last is certainly
later than Ezekiel, while the second is in the main prior to that
author. But the arguments which he adduces in favour of the threefold
origin of H are not sufficient to outweigh the general impression of
unity which the code presents.
Chap. xvii. comprises four main sections which are clearly marked off
by similar introductory and closing formulae: (1) vv. 3-7, prohibition
of the slaughter of domestic animals, unless they are presented to
Yahweh; (2) vv. 8, 9, sacrifices to be offered to Yahweh alone; (3)
vv. 10-12, prohibition of the eating of blood; (4) vv. 13, 14, the
blood of animals not used in sacrifice to be poured on the ground. The
chapter as a whole is to be assigned to H. At the same time it
exhibits many marks of affinity with P, a phenomenon most easily
explained by the supposition that older laws of H have been expanded
and modified by later hands in the spirit of P. Clear instances of
such revision may be seen in the references to "the door of the tent
of meeting" (vv. 4, 5, 6, 9) and "the camp" (v. 3), as well as in vv.
6, 11, 12-14; vv. 15, 16 (prohibiting the eating of animals that die a
natural death or are torn by beasts) differ formally from the
preceding paragraphs, and are to be assigned to P. What remains after
the excision of later additions, however, is not entirely uniform, and
points to earlier editorial work on the part of the compiler of H.
Thus vv. 3-7 reflect two points of view, vv. 3, 4 drawing a contrast
between profane slaughter and sacrifice, while vv. 5-7 distinguish
between sacrifices offered to Yahweh and those offered to demons.
Chap. xviii. contains laws on prohibited marriages (vv. 6-18) and
various acts of unchastity (vv. 19-23) embedded in a paraenetic
setting (vv. 1-5 and 24-30), the laws being given in the 2nd pers.
sing., while the framework employs the 2nd pers. plural. With the
exception of v. 21 (on Molech worship), which is here out of place,
and has possibly been introduced from xx. 2-5, the chapter displays
all the characteristics of H.
Chap. xix. is a collection of miscellaneous laws, partly moral, partly
religious, of which the fundamental principle is stated in v. 2 ("Ye
shall be holy"). The various laws are clearly defined by the formula
"I am Yahweh," or "I am Yahweh your God," phrases which are especially
characteristic of chaps. xviii.-xx. The first group of laws (vv. 3 f.)
corresponds to the first table of the decalogue, while vv. 11-18 are
analogous to the second table; vv. 5-8 (on peace-offerings) are
obviously out of place here, and are possibly to be restored to the
cognate passage xxii. 29 f., while the humanitarian provisions of vv.
9 and 10 (cf. xxiii. 22) have no connexion with the immediate context;
similarly v. 20 (to which a later redactor has added vv. 21, 22, in
accordance with vi. 6 f.) appears to be a fragment from a penal code;
the passage resembles Exod. xxi. 7 ff., and the offence is clearly one
against property, the omission of the punishment being possibly due to
the redactor who added vv. 21, 22.
Chap. xx. Prohibitions against Molech worship, vv. 2-5, witchcraft,
vv. 6 and 27, unlawful marriages and acts of unchastity, vv. 10-21.
Like chap. xviii., the main body of laws is provided with a paraenetic
setting, vv. 7, 8 and 22-24; it differs from that chapter, however, in
prescribing the death penalty in each case for disobedience. Owing to
the close resemblance between the two chapters, many critics have
assumed that they are derived from the same source and that the latter
chapter was added for the purpose of supplying the penalties. This
view, however, is not borne out by a comparison of the two chapters,
for four of the cases mentioned in chap. xviii. (vv. 7, 10, 17b, 18)
are ignored in chap. xx., while the order and in part the terminology
are also different; further, it is difficult on this view to explain
why the two chapters are separated by chap. xix. A more probable
explanation is that the compiler of H has drawn from two parallel, but
independent, sources. Signs of revision are not lacking, especially in
vv. 2-5, where vv. 4 f. are a later addition intended to reconcile the
inconsistency of v. 2 with v. 3 (R_{H}); v. 6, which is closely
connected with xix. 31, appears to be less original than v. 27, and
may be ascribed to the same hand as v. 3; v. 9 can hardly be in its
original context--it would be more suitable after xxiv. 15. The
paraenetic setting (vv. 7, 8 and 22-24) is to be assigned to the
compiler of H, who doubtless prefaced the parallel version with the
additional laws of vv. 2-6. Verses 25, 26 apparently formed the
conclusion of a law on clean and unclean animals similar to that of
chap. xi., and very probably mark the place where H's regulations on
that subject originally stood.
Chaps. xxi., xxii. A series of laws affecting the priests and
offerings, viz. (1) regulations ensuring the holiness of (a) ordinary
priests, xxi. 1-9, and (b) the chief priest, vv. 10-15; (2) a list of
physical defects which exclude a priest from exercising his office,
vv. 16-24; (3) the enjoyment of sacred offerings limited to (a)
priests, if they are ceremonially clean, xxi. 1-9, and (b) members of
a priestly family, vv. 10-16; (4) animals offered in sacrifice must be
without blemish, vv. 17-25; (5) further regulations with regard to
sacrifices, vv. 26-30, with a paraenetic conclusion, vv. 31-33.
These chapters present considerable difficulty to the literary critic;
for while they clearly illustrate the application of the principle of
"holiness," and in the main exhibit the characteristic phraseology of
H, they also display many striking points of contact with P and the
later strata of P, which have been closely interwoven into the
original laws. These phenomena can be best explained by the
supposition that we have here a body of old laws which have been
subjected to more than one revision. The nature of the subjects with
which they deal is one that naturally appealed to the priestly
schools, and owing to this fact the laws were especially liable to
modification and expansion at the hands of later legislators who
wished to bring them into conformity with later usage. Signs of such
revision may be traced back to the compiler of H, but the evidence
shows that the process must have been continued down to the latest
period of editorial activity in connexion with P. To redactors of the
school of P belong such phrases as "the sons of Aaron" (xxi. 1, 24,
xxii. 2, 18), "the seed of Aaron" (xxi. 21, xxii. 4 and "thy seed," v.
17; cf. xxii. 3), "the offerings of the Lord made by fire" (xxi. 6,
21, xxii. 22, 27), "the most holy things" (xxi. 22; cf. xxii. 3 ff.
"holy things" only), "throughout their (or your) generations" (xxi. 7,
xxii. 3), the references to the anointing of Aaron (xxi. 10, 12) and
the Veil (xxi. 23), the introductory formulae (xxi. 1, 16 f., xxii. 1
f., 17 f., 26) and the subscription (xxi. 24). Apart from these
redactional additions, chap. xxi. is to be ascribed to H, vv. 6 and 8
being possibly the work of R_{H}. Most critics detect a stronger
influence of P in chap. xxii., more especially in vv. 3-7 and 17-25,
29, 30; most probably these verses have been largely recast and
expanded by later editors, but it is noticeable that they contain no
mention of either sin- or trespass-offerings.
Chap. xxiii. A calendar of sacred seasons. The chapter consists of two
main elements which can easily be distinguished from one another, the
one being derived from P and the other from H. To the former belongs
the fuller and more elaborate description of vv. 4-8, 21, 23-38; to
the latter, vv. 9-20, 22, 39-44. Characteristic of the priestly
calendar are (1) the enumeration of "holy convocations," (2) the
prohibition of all work, (3) the careful determination of the date by
the day and month, (4) the mention of "the offerings made by fire to
Yahweh," and (5) the stereotyped form of the regulations. The older
calendar, on the other hand, knows nothing of "holy convocations," nor
of abstinence from work; the time of the feasts, which are clearly
connected with agriculture, is only roughly defined with reference to
the harvest (cf. Exod. xxiii. 14 ff., xxxiv. 22; Deut. xvi. 9 ff.).
The calendar of P comprises (a) the Feast of Passover and the
Unleavened Cakes, vv. 4-8; (b) a fragment of Pentecost, v. 21; (c) the
Feast of Trumpets, vv. 23-25; (d) the Day of Atonement, vv. 26-32; and
(e) the Feast of Tabernacles, vv. 33-36, with a subscription in vv.
37, 38. With these have been incorporated the older regulations of H
on the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, vv. 9-20, which have been
retained in place of P's account (cf. v. 21), and on the Feast of
Tabernacles, vv. 39-44, the latter being clearly intended to
supplement vv. 33-36. The hand of the redactor who combined the two
elements may be seen partly in additions designed to accommodate the
regulations of H to P (e.g. v. 39a, "on the fifteenth day of the
seventh month," and 39b, "and on the eighth day shall be a solemn
rest"), partly in the later expansions corresponding to later usage,
vv. 12 f., 18, 19a, 21b, 41. Further, vv. 26-32 (on the Day of
Atonement, cf. xvi.) are a later addition to the P sections.
Chap. xxiv. affords an interesting illustration of the manner in which
the redactor of P has added later elements to the original code of H.
For the first part of the chapter, with its regulations as to (a) the
lamps in the Tabernacle, vv. 1-4, and (b) the Shewbread, vv. 5-9, is
admittedly derived from P, vv. 1-4, forming a supplement to Exod. xxv.
31-40 (cf. xxvii. 20 f.) and Num. viii. 1-4, and vv. 5-9 to Exod. xxv.
30. The rest of the chapter contains old laws (vv. 15b-22) derived
from H on blasphemy, manslaughter and injuries to the person, to which
the redactor has added an historical setting (vv. 10-14, 23) as well
as a few glosses.
Chap. xxv. lays down regulations for the observance of (a) the
Sabbatical year, vv. 1-7, 19-22, and (b) the year of Jubilees, vv.
8-18, 23, and then applies the principle of redemption to (1) land and
house property, vv. 24-34, and (2) persons, vv. 35-55. The rules for
the Sabbatical year (vv. 1-7) are admittedly derived from H, and vv.
19-22 are also from the same source. Their present position after vv.
8-18 is due to the redactor who wished to apply the same rules to the
year of Jubilee. But though the former of the two sections on the year
of Jubilee (vv. 8-18, 23) exhibits undoubted signs of P, the traces of
H are also sufficiently marked to warrant the conclusion that the
latter code included laws relating to the year of Jubilee, and that
these have been modified by R_{P} and then connected with the
regulations for the Sabbatical year. Signs of the redactor's handiwork
may be seen in vv. 9, 11-13 (the year of Jubilee treated as a fallow
year) and 15, 16 (cf. the repetition of "ye shall not wrong one
another," vv. 14 and 17). Both on historical and on critical grounds,
however, it is improbable that the principle of restitution underlying
the regulations for the year of Jubilee was originally extended to
_persons_ in the earlier code. For it is difficult to harmonize the
laws as to the release of Hebrew slaves with the other legislation on
the same subject (Exod. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv.), while both the secondary
position which they occupy in this chapter and their more elaborate
and formal character point to a later origin for vv. 35-55. Hence
these verses in the main must be assigned to R_{P}. In this connexion
it is noticeable that vv. 35-38, 39-40a, 43, 47, 53, 55, which show
the characteristic marks of H, bear no special relation to the year of
Jubilee, but merely inculcate a more humane treatment of those
Israelites who are compelled by circumstances to sell themselves
either to their brethren or to strangers. It is probable, therefore,
that they form no part of the original legislation of the year of
Jubilee, but were incorporated at a later period. The present form of
vv. 24-34 is largely due to R_{P}, who has certainly added vv. 32-34
(cities of the Levites) and probably vv. 29-31.
Chap. xxvi. The concluding exhortation. After reiterating commands to
abstain from idolatry and to observe the Sabbath, vv. 1, 2, the
chapter sets forth (a) the rewards of obedience, vv. 3-13, and (b) the
penalties incurred by disobedience to the preceding laws, vv. 14-46.
The discourse, which is spoken throughout in the name of Yahweh, is
similar in character to Exod. xxiii. 20-33 and Deut. xxviii., more
especially to the latter. That it forms an integral part of H is shown
both by the recurrence of the same distinctive phraseology and by the
emphasis laid on the same motives. At the same time it is hardly
doubtful that the original discourse has been modified and expanded by
later hands, especially in the concluding paragraphs. Thus vv. 34, 35,
which refer back to xxv. 2 ff., interrupt the connexion and must be
assigned to the priestly redactor, while vv. 40-45 display obvious
signs of interpolation. With regard to the literary relation of this
chapter with Ezekiel, it must be admitted that Ezekiel presents many
striking parallels, and in particular makes use, in common with chap.
xxvi., of several expressions which do not occur elsewhere in the Old
Testament. But there are also points of difference both as regards
phraseology and subject-matter, and in view of these latter it is
impossible to hold that Ezekiel was either the author or compiler of
this chapter.
Chap. xxvii. On the commutation of vows and tithes. The chapter as a
whole must be assigned to a later stratum of P, for while vv. 2-25 (on
vows) presuppose the year of Jubilee, the section on tithes, vv.
30-33, marks a later stage of development than Num. xviii. 21 ff. (P);
vv. 26-29 (on firstlings and devoted things) are supplementary
restrictions to vv. 2-25.
LITERATURE.--_Commentaries_: Dillmann-Ryssel, _Die Bücher Exodus und
Leviticus_ (1897); Driver and White, _SBOT. Leviticus_ (English,
1898); B. Baentsch, _Exod. Lev. u. Num._ (HK, 1900); Bertholet,
_Leviticus_ (KHC, 1901). _Criticism_: The Introductions to the Old
Testament by Kuenen, Holzinger, Driver, Cornill, König and the
archaeological works of Benzinger and Nowack. Wellhausen, _Die
Composition des Hexateuchs_, &c. (1899); Kayser, _Das vorexilische
Buch der Urgeschichte Isr._ (1874); Klostermann, _Zeitschrift für
Luth. Theologie_ (1877); Horst, _Lev. xvii.-xxvi. and Hezekiel_
(1881); Wurster, _ZATW_ (1884); Baentsch, _Das Heiligkeitsgesetz_
(1893); L. P. Paton, "The Relation of Lev. 20 to Lev. 17-19,"
_Hebraica_ (1894); "The Original Form of Leviticus," _JBL_ (1897,
1898); "The Holiness Code and Ezekiel," _Pres. and Ref. Review_
(1896); Carpenter, _Composition of the Hexateuch_ (1902). Articles on
Leviticus by G. F. Moore, Hastings's _Diet. Bib._, and G. Harford
Battersby, _Ency. Bib._ (J. F. St.)
LEVY, AMY (1861-1889), English poetess and novelist, second daughter of
Lewis Levy, was born at Clapham on the 10th of November 1861, and was
educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She showed a precocious aptitude
for writing verse of exceptional merit, and in 1884 she published a
volume of poems, _A Minor Poet and Other Verse_, some of the pieces in
which had already been printed at Cambridge with the title _Xantippe and
Other Poems_. The high level of this first publication was maintained in
_A London Plane Tree and Other Poems_, a collection of lyrics published
in 1889, in which the prevailing pessimism of the writer's temperament
was conspicuous. She had already in 1888 tried her hand at prose fiction
in _The Romance of a Shop_, which was followed by _Reuben Sachs_, a
powerful novel. She committed suicide on the 10th of September 1889.
LEVY, AUGUSTE MICHEL (1844- ), French geologist, was born in Paris on
the 7th of August 1844. He became inspector-general of mines, and
director of the Geological Survey of France. He was distinguished for
his researches on eruptive rocks, their microscopic structure and
origin; and he early employed the polarizing microscope for the
determination of minerals. In his many contributions to scientific
journals he described the granulite group, and dealt with pegmatites,
variolites, eurites, the ophites of the Pyrenees, the extinct volcanoes
of Central France, gneisses, and the origin of crystalline schists. He
wrote _Structures et classification des roches éruptives_ (1889), but
his more elaborate studies were carried on with F. Fouqué. Together they
wrote on the artificial production of felspar, nepheline and other
minerals, and also of meteorites, and produced _Minéralogie
micrographique_ (1879) and _Synthèse des minéraux et des roches_ (1882).
Levy also collaborated with A. Lacroix in _Les Minéraux des roches_
(1888) and _Tableau des minéraux des roches_ (1889).
LEVY (Fr. _levée_, from _lever_, Lat. _levare_, to lift, raise), the
raising of money by the collection of an assessment, &c., a tax or
compulsory contribution; also the collection of a body of men for
military or other purposes. When all the able-bodied men of a nation are
enrolled for service, the French term _levée en masse_, levy in mass, is
frequently used.
LEWALD, FANNY (1811-1889), German author, was born at Königsberg in East
Prussia on the 24th of March 1811, of Jewish parentage. When seventeen
years of age she embraced Christianity, and after travelling in Germany,
France and Italy, settled in 1845 at Berlin. Here, in 1854, she married
the author, Adolf Wilhelm Theodor Stahr (1805-1876), and removed after
his death in 1876 to Dresden, where she resided, engaged in literary
work, until her death on the 5th of August 1889. Fanny Lewald is less
remarkable for her writings, which are mostly sober, matter-of-fact
works, though displaying considerable talent and culture, than for her
championship of "women's rights," a question which she was practically
the first German woman to take up, and for her scathing satire on the
sentimentalism of the Gräfin Hahn Hahn. This authoress she ruthlessly
attacked in the exquisite parody (_Diogena, Roman von Iduna Gräfin H....
H...._ (2nd ed., 1847). Among the best known of her novels are
_Klementine_ (1842); _Prinz Louis Ferdinand_ (1849; 2nd ed., 1859); _Das
Mädchen von Hela_ (1860); _Von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht_ (8 vols.,
1863-1865); _Benvenuto_ (1875), and _Stella_ (1883; English by B.
Marshall, 1884). Of her writings in defence of the emancipation of women
_Osterbriefe für die Frauen_ (1863) and _Für und wider die Frauen_
(1870) are conspicuous. Her autobiography, _Meine Lebensgeschichte_ (6
vols., 1861-1862), is brightly written and affords interesting glimpses
of the literary life of her time.
A selection of her works was published under the title _Gesammelte
Schriften_ in 12 vols. (1870-1874). Cf. K. Frenzel, _Erinnerungen und
Strömungen_ (1890).
LEWANIKA (c. 1860- ), paramount chief of the Barotse and subject tribes
occupying the greater part of the upper Zambezi basin, was the
twenty-second of a long line of rulers, whose founder invaded the
Barotse valley about the beginning of the 17th century, and according to
tradition was the son of a woman named Buya Mamboa by a god. The graves
of successive ruling chiefs are to this day respected and objects of
pilgrimage for purposes of ancestor worship. Lewanika was born on the
upper Kabompo in troublous times, where his father--Letia, a son of a
former ruler--lived in exile during the interregnum of a foreign dynasty
(Makololo), which remained in possession from about 1830 to 1865, when
the Makololo were practically exterminated in a night by a
well-organized revolt. Once more masters of their own country, the
Barotse invited Sepopa, an uncle of Lewanika, to rule over them. Eleven
years of brutality and licence resulted in the tyrant's expulsion and
subsequent assassination, his place being taken by Ngwana-Wina, a
nephew. Within a year abuse of power brought about this chief's downfall
(1877), and he was succeeded by Lobosi, who assumed the name of Lewanika
in 1885. The early years of his reign were also stained by many acts of
blood, until in 1884 the torture and murder of his own brother led to
open rebellion, and it was only through extreme presence of mind that
the chief escaped with his life into exile. His cousin, Akufuna or
Tatela, was then proclaimed chief. It was during his brief reign that
François Coillard, the eminent missionary, arrived at Lialui, the
capital. The following year Lewanika, having collected his partisans,
deposed the usurper and re-established his power. Ruthless revenge not
unmixed with treachery characterized his return to power, but gradually
the strong personality of the high-minded François Coillard so far
influenced him for good that from about 1887 onward he ruled tolerantly
and showed a consistent desire to better the condition of his people. In
1890 Lewanika, who two years previously had proposed to place himself
under the protection of Great Britain, concluded a treaty with the
British South Africa Company, acknowledging its supremacy and conceding
to it certain mineral rights. In 1897 Mr R. T. Coryndon took up his
position at Lialui as British agent, and the country to the east of 25°
E. was thrown open to settlers, that to the west being reserved to the
Barotse chief. In 1905 the king of Italy's award in the Barotse boundary
dispute with Portugal deprived Lewanika of half of his dominions, much
of which had been ruled by his ancestors for many generations. In 1902
Lewanika attended the coronation of Edward VII. as a guest of the
nation. His recognized heir was his eldest son Letia.
See BAROTSE, and the works there cited, especially _On the Threshold
of Central Africa_ (London, 1897), by François Coillard.
(A. St. H. G.)
LEWES, CHARLES LEE (1740-1803), English actor, was the son of a hosier
in London. After attending a school at Ambleside he returned to London,
where he found employment as a postman; but about 1760 he went on the
stage in the provinces, and some three years later began to appear in
minor parts at Covent Garden Theatre. His first rôle of importance was
that of "Young Marlow" in _She Stoops to Conquer_, at its production of
that comedy in 1773, when he delivered an epilogue specially written for
him by Goldsmith. He remained a member of the Covent Garden company till
1783, appearing in many parts, among which were "Fag" in _The Rivals_,
which he "created," and "Sir Anthony Absolute" in the same comedy. In
1783 he removed to Drury Lane, where he assumed the Shakespearian rôles
of "Touchstone," "Lucio" and "Falstaff." In 1787 he left London for
Edinburgh, where he gave recitations, including Cowper's "John Gilpin."
For a short time in 1792 Lewes assisted Stephen Kemble in the management
of the Dundee Theatre; in the following year he went to Dublin, but he
was financially unsuccessful and suffered imprisonment for debt. He
employed his time in compiling his _Memoirs_, a worthless production
published after his death by his son. He was also the author of some
poor dramatic sketches. Lewes died on the 23rd of July 1803. He was
three times married; the philosopher, George Henry Lewes, was his
grandson.
See John Genest, _Some Account of the English Stage_ (Bath, 1832).
LEWES, GEORGE HENRY (1817-1878), British philosopher and literary
critic, was born in London in 1817. He was a grandson of Charles Lee
Lewes, the actor. He was educated in London, Jersey, Brittany, and
finally at Dr Burney's school in Greenwich. Having abandoned
successively a commercial and a medical career, he seriously thought of
becoming an actor, and between 1841 and 1850 appeared several times on
the stage. Finally he devoted himself to literature, science and
philosophy. As early as 1836 he belonged to a club formed for the study
of philosophy, and had sketched out a physiological treatment of the
philosophy of the Scottish school. Two years later he went to Germany,
probably with the intention of studying philosophy. In 1840 he married a
daughter of Swynfen Stevens Jervis (1798-1867), and during the next ten
years supported himself by contributing to the quarterly and other
reviews. These articles discuss a wide variety of subject, and, though
often characterized by hasty impulse and imperfect study, betray a
singularly acute critical judgment, enlightened by philosophic study.
The most valuable are those on the drama, afterwards republished under
the title _Actors and Acting_ (1875). With this may be taken the volume
on _The Spanish Drama_ (1846). The combination of wide scholarship,
philosophic culture and practical acquaintance with the theatre gives
these essays a high place among the best efforts in English dramatic
criticism. In 1845-1846 he published _The Biographical History of
Philosophy_, an attempt to depict the life of philosophers as an
ever-renewed fruitless labour to attain the unattainable. In 1847-1848
he made two attempts in the field of fiction--_Ranthrope_, and _Rose,
Blanche and Violet_--which, though displaying considerable skill both
in plot, construction and in characterization, have taken no permanent
place in literature. The same is to be said of an ingenious attempt to
rehabilitate Robespierre (1849). In 1850 he collaborated with Thornton
Leigh Hunt in the foundation of the _Leader_, of which he was the
literary editor. In 1853 he republished under the title of _Comte's
Philosophy of the Sciences_ a series of papers which had appeared in
that journal. In 1851 he became acquainted with Miss Evans (George
Eliot) and in 1854 left his wife. Subsequently he lived with Miss Evans
as her husband (see ELIOT, GEORGE).
The culmination of Lewes's work in prose literature is the _Life of
Goethe_ (1855), probably the best known of his writings. Lewes's
many-sidedness of mind, and his combination of scientific with literary
tastes, eminently fitted him to appreciate the large nature and the
wide-ranging activity of the German poet. The high position this work
has taken in Germany itself, notwithstanding the boldness of its
criticism and the unpopularity of some of its views (e.g. on the
relation of the second to the first part of _Faust_), is a sufficient
testimony to its general excellence. From about 1853 Lewes's writings
show that he was occupying himself with scientific and more particularly
biological work. He may be said to have always manifested a distinctly
scientific bent in his writings, and his closer devotion to science was
but the following out of early impulses. Considering that he had not had
the usual course of technical training, these studies are a remarkable
testimony to the penetration of his intellect. The most important of
these essays are collected in the volumes _Seaside Studies_ (1858),
_Physiology of Common Life_ (1859), _Studies in Animal Life_ (1862), and
_Aristotle, a Chapter from the History of Science_ (1864). They are much
more than popular expositions of accepted scientific truths. They
contain able criticisms of authorized ideas, and embody the results of
individual research and individual reflection. He made a number of
impressive suggestions, some of which have since been accepted by
physiologists. Of these the most valuable is that now known as the
doctrine of the functional indifference of the nerves--that what are
known as the specific energies of the optic, auditory and other nerves
are simply differences in their mode of action due to the differences of
the peripheral structures or sense-organs with which they are connected.
This idea was subsequently arrived at independently by Wundt
(_Physiologische Psychologie_, 2nd ed., p. 321). In 1865, on the
starting of the _Fortnightly Review_, Lewes became its editor, but he
retained the post for less than two years, when he was succeeded by John
Morley. This date marks the transition from more strictly scientific to
philosophic work. He had from early youth cherished a strong liking for
philosophic studies; one of his earliest essays was an appreciative
account of Hegel's _Aesthetics_. Coming under the influence of
positivism as unfolded both in Comte's own works and in J. S. Mill's
_System of Logic_, he abandoned all faith in the possibility of
metaphysic, and recorded this abandonment in the above-mentioned
_History of Philosophy_. Yet he did not at any time give an unqualified
adhesion to Comte's teachings, and with wider reading and reflection his
mind moved away further from the positivist standpoint. In the preface
to the third edition of his _History of Philosophy_ he avowed a change
in this direction, and this movement is still more plainly discernible
in subsequent editions of the work. The final outcome of this
intellectual progress is given to us in _The Problems of Life and Mind_,
which may be regarded as the crowning work of his life. His sudden death
on the 28th of November 1878 cut short the work, yet it is complete
enough to allow us to judge of the author's matured conceptions on
biological, psychological and metaphysical problems. Of his three sons
only one, Charles (1843-1891), survived him; in the first London County
Council Election (1888) he was elected for St Pancras; he was also much
interested in the Hampstead Heath extension.
_Philosophy._--The first two volumes on _The Foundations of a Creed_
lay down what Lewes regarded as the true principles of philosophizing.
He here seeks to effect a _rapprochement_ between metaphysic and
science. He is still so far a positivist as to pronounce all inquiry
into the ultimate nature of things fruitless. What matter, form,
spirit are in themselves is a futile question that belongs to the
sterile region of "metempirics." But philosophical questions may be so
stated as to be susceptible of a precise solution by scientific
method. Thus, since the relation of subject to object falls within our
experience, it is a proper matter for philosophic investigation. It
may be questioned whether Lewes is right in thus identifying the
methods of science and philosophy. Philosophy is not a mere extension
of scientific knowledge; it is an investigation of the nature and
validity of the knowing process itself. In any case Lewes cannot be
said to have done much to aid in the settlement of properly
philosophical questions. His whole treatment of the question of the
relation of subject to object is vitiated by a confusion between the
scientific truth that mind and body coexist in the living organism and
the philosophic truth that all knowledge of objects implies a knowing
subject. In other words, to use Shadworth Hodgson's phrase, he mixes
up the question of the _genesis_ of mental forms with the question of
their _nature_ (see _Philosophy of Reflexion_,
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