Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/99

 with a companion volume, 'Nineveh and Babylon,' containing a similar abridgment of his other work. In 1854 he wrote a small guide to the Nineveh Court in the Crystal Palace. In 1887 he published an account of his life between the years 1839 and 1845 under the title 'Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia' (abridged edition, 1894).

Layard also wrote much on art. In 1887 he revised Kugler's 'Handbook of Painting;' in 1892 he wrote an introduction to a translation of Morelli's 'Italian Painters,' and he edited a 'Handbook of Rome' (1894). He also contributed some papers to the 'Proceedings' of the Huguenot Society, of which he was president, and some of his speeches in the House of Commons were issued in pamphlet form. In 1890 he was elected a foreign member of the Institut de France.

[Fragments of autobiography in Layard's Early Adventures (1st ed.), Nineveh and its Remains (1st ed.), and Nineveh and Babylon (1st ed.); Stanley Lane-Poole's Life of Stratford Canning, vol. ii.; Lord Aberdare's Prefatory Notice to the abridged edition of Layard's Early Adventures; Men and Women of the Time, 13th edit.; Celebrities of the Century (1890); Times, 6 July 1894, and Athenæum, 14 July 1894.]  LAYER, JOHN (1585?–1641), Cambridge antiquary, born in 1585 or 1586, probably at Lillings Ambo in the North Riding of Yorkshire, was the son of William Layer, a London merchant, by his wife Martha, daughter and heiress of Thomas Wanton. He was educated as a lawyer, but possessed sufficient wealth to enable him to devote most of his time to antiquarian pursuits. He resided at Shepreth in Cambridgeshire. His parochial history of Cambridgeshire is one of the earliest of the kind written. It was never published, but parts of it are still preserved in the British Museum among the Harleian MSS. (No. 6768), which contains a transcript of the portion relating to the hundreds of Armingford, Long Stowe, Papworth, North Stowe, Chesterton, Wetherley, Thriplowe, and among the Additional MSS. (Nos. 5819, 5823, 5849, 5954). Other portions of it are extant in the Bishop's Library at Ely, and at the library at Wimpole Hall, Cambridge. His extracts from the registers of the Bishop of Ely are in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 5824-5828), and his Cambridge pedigrees are in the same library (Addit. MS. 5812). An autograph manuscript volume by Layer, licensed for printing and entitled 'The Reformed Justice, or an Alphabeticall Abstract of all such Articles and Matters as are incident and enquirable at the generall quarter Sessions of the Peace or otherwise belonginge to the knowledge and practice of a Justice of the Peace,' is in the library of Caius College, Cambridge. It is a handbook for justices of the peace, and is dedicated to Sir John Cutts, 'Custos rotulorum for the county of Cambridge' in 1633. In an epistle to the reader notice is taken of a book recently published, entitled 'The Compleat Justice,' of which Layer was the reputed author. This work is not extant, but a copy of a legal treatise by Layer entitled 'The Office and Duty of Churchwardens, Constables, and Overseers of the Poor' (Cambridge, 1641, 8vo), is preserved in the Bodleian Library. One of Layer's notebooks is among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library (B. 278), and another entitled 'Notes of the Foundation of several Religious Houses from the Collections of John Layer' is in Dodsworth MS. 90 (pp. 158-60).

Layer died in 1641. He married in 1611 Frances, daughter of Robert Sterne of Malton in Cambridgeshire. By her he had three sons and two daughters. He may be truly called the father of Cambridge archaeology, and William Cole (1714-1782) [q.v.] owed much to his industry. After his death his manuscripts eventually fell into the hands of his descendant, John Eyre, who sold his estate at Shepreth and came to London. Eyre was afterwards convicted of felony and transported, when the manuscripts were dispersed. Several, however, fell into Cole's hands and were incorporated by him in his collections. An undated letter from W. Fairfax of Yorkshire to J. Layer is among the Bodleian MSS. (Rawlinson, B. 450, f. 390).

[Cole's Manuscript Collections for Cambridgeshire in the British Museum Library; notes kindly furnished by Mr. W. M. Palmer of Royston; Smith's Catalogue of Manuscripts in Caius College Library, 1849, p. 211; Catalogues of Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library.]  LEATHES, STANLEY (1830–1900), hebraist, son of Chaloner Stanley Leathes, rector of Ellesborough, Buckinghamshire, was born at Ellesborough on 21 March 1830. He was educated privately and at Jesus College, Cambridge, in which university he graduated B.A. in 18-52, was elected first Tyrwhitt's Hebrew scholar in 1853, and proceeded M.A. in 1855. In 1885 he was elected honorary fellow of Jesus College. He was ordained deacon in 1856 and priest in 1857, and was curate successively of St. Martin's, Salisbury (1856-8), St. Luke's, 