Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/246

 preserving to the last her vigour of mind and powers of conversation. Godwin made her an offer of marriage to which, however, his religious opinions presented an insuperable barrier. Sophia's chief work was The Chapter of Accidents, a comedy, which had a great run, the profits of which enabled the sisters to start a school at Bath, which proved very successful, and produced for them a competence on which they were able to retire in their later years.

 Author:Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873).—Novelist, s. of a Dean of the Episcopal Church of Ireland, and grand-nephew of, was ed. at Trinity Coll., Dublin, and became a contributor and ultimately proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine, in which many of his novels made their first appearance. Called to the Bar in 1839, he did not practise, and was first brought into notice by two ballads, Phaudrig Croohoore and_ Shamus O'Brien, which had extraordinary popularity. His novels, of which he wrote 12, include The Cock and Anchor (1845), Torlough O'Brien (1847), The House by the Churchyard (1863), Uncle Silas (perhaps the most popular) (1864), The Tenants of Malory (1867), In a Glass Darkly (1872), and Willing to Die (posthumously). They are generally distinguished by able construction, ingenuity of plot, and power in the presentation of the mysterious and supernatural. Among Irish novelists he is generally ranked next to Lever.

 Author:Robert Leighton (1611-1684) (1611-1684).—Divine, was the s. of Alexander L., physician, and writer on theology, who, on account of his anti-prelatic books, was put in the pillory, fined, and had his nose slit and his ears cut off. Robert was ed. at Edin., after which he resided for some time at Douay. Returning to Scotland he received Presbyterian ordination, and was admitted minister of Newbattle, near Edin. In 1653 he was appointed Principal and Prof. of Divinity in the Univ. of Edin., which offices he held until 1662 when, having separated himself from Presbyterianism, he was appointed Bishop of Dunblane, under the new Episcopal establishment. He repeatedly but unsuccessfully endeavoured to bring about an ecclesiastical union in Scotland on the basis of combining the best elements in each system. Discouraged by his lack of success in his well-meant efforts, he offered in 1665 to resign his see, but was persuaded by Charles II. to remain in it, and in 1669 was promoted to be Archbishop of Glasgow, from which position, wearied and disappointed, he finally retired in 1674, and lived with his widowed sister, Mrs. Lightmaker, at Broadhurst Manor, Sussex. On a visit to London he was seized with a fatal illness, and d. in the arms of his friend, Bishop Burnet, who says of him, "he had the greatest elevation of soul, the largest compass of knowledge, the most mortified and heavenly disposition that I ever saw in mortal." His sermons and commentaries, all pub. posthumously, maintain a high place among English religious classics, alike for thought and style. They consist of his Commentary on St. Peter, Sermons, and Spiritual Exercises, Letters, etc. His Lectures and Addresses in Latin were also pub.

 Author:Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903).—American humorist, b. at Philadelphia, was ed. at Princeton, and in Europe. In his travels he made a study of the gipsies, on whom he wrote more