Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/312

Layton their part, were coldly acknowledged, and to publishing pamphlets on nautical or naval subjects.

The following are among the most important: 1. 'Outline of a Plan for the better Cultivation ... of the British West Indies, being the original suggestion for providing an effectual substitute for the African Slave-trade. . .' (8vo, 94 pp. 1807). The 'effectual substitute' proposed is the importation of Chinese coolies; he writes, he says, from 'many years' personal observation in the East and West Indies, and in China.' 2. 'Precursor to an Exposé on Foreign Trees and Timber ... as connected with the maritime strength and prosperity of the United Kingdom' (8vo, 1813). The copy in the British Museum (16275) has numerous marginal notes, apparently in Layman's handwriting. 3. 'The Pioneer, or Strictures on Maritime Strength and Economy' (8vo, 96 pp. 1821), in three parts: the first an interesting and sensible essay on the condition of British seamen and impressment; the second a proposed method for preserving timber from dry-rot; and the third the syllabus of a contemplated maritime history from the earliest times (including the building, plans, and navigation of the ark, with notes on the weather experienced) to the termination of the second American war. Perhaps the syllabus may be considered as indicating even then an aberration of the intellect which caused him to 'terminate his existence' in 1826.

 LAYTON, HENRY (1622–1705), theological writer, eldest son of Francis Layton (d. 23 Aug. 1661, aged 84) of Rawdon, West Riding of Yorkshire, was born in 1622. His father was one of the masters of the jewel-house to Charles I and Charles II. In pursuance of his father's will, Layton built the chapel at Rawdon, which is a chapelry in the parish of Guiseley. He died at Rawdon on 18 Oct. 1705, aged 83. By his wife Elizabeth (d. 1702, aged 55), daughter of Sir Nicholas Yarborough, he left no issue.

According to Thoresby (Diary, 1830, i. 398) Layton printed many tracts against pluralities, and a valuable work on coins, 1697, 4to, dealing especially with English coins. But his title to remembrance is his anonymous authorship of a series of pamphlets, printed between 1692 and 1704, on the question of the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which he rejected, though he believed in the second coming of our Lord and a general resurrection. His thoughts had been directed to this subject about 1684, but it was some years later before he began to write. ‘In summer 1690,’ he says, ‘I practised my monastick discipline, reading within doors, and labouring the ground abroad … what I read within I ruminated without.’ At Christmas he communicated his speculations to his friends in conversation; between Candlemas and the week after midsummer 1691 he had composed a treatise of fifteen sheets, which was circulated in manuscript. A year's correspondence with ‘a neighbour-minister’ ended in his being referred to Bentley's second Boyle lecture (4 April 1692). To this lecture Layton replied in his first published pamphlet. Bentley took no notice of it, but it was criticised five years later by a local presbyterian divine, Timothy Manlove, M.D. [q. v.], of Leeds. Another ‘neighbour-minister’ referred him to the ‘Pneumatologia’ (1671) of John Flavel [q. v.] Layton's original treatise had now swelled to fifty sheets. He sent it to London for printing, but no publisher would undertake it. Accordingly he bade his London correspondent pack the manuscript away in a shallow box, labelling it ‘The Treatise of such a man concerning the Humane Soul.’ Ultimately he printed it at his own expense as ‘A Search after Souls.’ By 1697 he was ‘captus oculis;’ Manlove's criticism, published in that year, was read to him by his amanuensis, Timothy Jackson, and he issued a reply. His knowledge of contemporary affairs was limited; he supposed that John Howe [q. v.] and Matthew Sylvester were elders in Manlove's congregation. His production of pamphlets continued till the year before his death, with little advance upon his original statement of his case, his position being that soul is a function of body, a view which he defends on physiological grounds, and harmonises with scripture. The bent of his mind was not rationalistic. Speech he considers ‘a miraculous gift to Adam,’ whose posterity, unless taught, would be dumb. His authorship seems to have been very little known. Caleb Fleming, D.D. [q. v.], who replied to his ‘Search’ in 1758, thought it was the work of William Coward (1657?–1725) [q. v.] Besides his printed tracts, Layton left theological manuscripts on different topics of earlier date. Among them, no doubt, were the five large treatises of practical divinity which he mentions in ‘Second Part of Search after Souls,’ p. 25. His literary executor was his nephew, William