Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/505

 L E U L E V 485 its brief summer season by French, Swiss, and Italian visitors, attracted by the hot mineral springs. These | springs are twenty-two in number, and vary considerably in chemical composition and temperature. The hottest and strongest is the Lorenz spring, the water of which,. registering 124Fahr., has to be allowed to cool over night before it is used. The patients remain for hours up to their necks in the bath, talking, reading, and otherwise amusing themselves in the most sociable style. Most of the hotels are open only from June to September. The little village has several times been destroyed by avalanches (1518, 1719, 1758), and a strong embankment has been erected on the eastern side to protect it from similar catastrophes. LEUTSCHAU (Hungarian, Ldcse; Latin, Leutsovia; Slovakian, Lei oc-a), capital of the Cis-Tisian county of Szepes, Hungary, and until 1876 a royal free town, lies in an elevated position surrounded by mountains, and near the railway from Kassa (Kaschau) to Oderberg, about 120 miles north-east from Budapest, in 49 1 N. lat., 20 35 E. long. Leutschau is the seat of the county administra tion, and of a royal court of law, and has many fine old buildings, of which the most interesting is the church of St James, a Gothic structure of the 13th century, with richly carved altar, several monuments, and a celebrated organ erected in 1623, and long reputed the largest in Hungary. The educational establishments comprise a royal upper gymnasium (founded 1520), a state upper real school (1868), a collegiate institute for girls, and a Minorite convent. The soil of the surrounding country is generally stony and sandy, and the climate from October to April severe, but the inhabitants nevertheless succeed in raising barley, wheat, oats, flax, and a large quantity of garden produce, especially beans and pease, which are considered the best in Hungary. Other sources of occu pation are mining, foresting, horse, sheep, and cattle breeding, bee-keeping, and the preparation of wax, honey, and mead, for which last the town has long been noted. The number of beehives in 1881 was seven hundred. In December 1881 the population was 6900, mostly Germans and Slovaks by nationality, and Roman Catholics and Lutherans by creed. Founded by Saxon colonists in 1245, Leutschau had by the early part of the 16th century attained a position of great relative import ance. In l&quot;if&amp;gt;9 a conflagration laid the greater part of the town in ashes, and during the 17th century it suffered repeatedly at the hands of the Transylvanian princes and leaders. In 1849, at the time of the revolutionary war, nearly half the houses were destroyed by fire. LEV EX, ALEXANDER LESLIE, EARL OF, one of the most distinguished soldiers of his time, was born about the close of the 16th century. He was descended from a younger son of the ancient Scottish family of Balquhain. His father was George Leslie of Balgonie, commander of the castle of Blair, and his mother was Anne, daughter of Stewart of Ballechin. At his first outset in life he acted as a volunteer in Lord Vere s regiment in Holland, fighting with the Dutch against the encroachments of Spain, where he rose to the rank of captain. He then entered the service of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, and became field-marshal. In 1628, when the town of Stralsund was besieged by &quot;VYallenstein, and reduced almost to the last extremity, the king of Sweden sent Leslie to take the command of the garrison, and lie acted with such resolution that he obliged the count to raise the siege. For this service medals were struck in his honour. In 1630 he drove the imperialists out of the island of Biigen, and continued to serve with great distinction in the Swedish armies till the troubles in Scotland brought him home. In 1639 he was invited by the Covenanters to take the command of their army. 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 a party of the king s troops at Newburn, which gave him possession of Newcastle and other towns. At the treaty with the king at Fdpon, Leslie was one of the commissioners of the parlia ment, and Charles was so well pleased with his behaviour that he created him Lord Balgonie and Earl of Leven, by patent dated 1641. After suppressing an insurrection in Ireland in 1642, he was in 1643 appointed to the command of the Scottish army sent to assist the parliamentary party against King Charles, but after the execution of that prince he warmly espoused the cause of his son, and served as a volunteer against Cromwell at the unfortunate battle of Dunbar in 1650. Next year, however, a gathering at Alyth of Angus royalists, of whom Leslie was one, was surprised and captured by the troops of General Monk, who was then besieging Dundee. The earl with some others was sent to London and confined in the Tower, where he remained incarcerated for sometime, till by the intercession of the queen of Sweden he obtained his liberty. After visiting the queen, and thanking her in person for this service, he retired to his seat at Balgonie in Fifeshire and died there at an advanced age in 1661. He is said to have been of a diminutive size, and deformed in person, but prudent, vigilant, and expert in war. He acquired considerable landed property, particularly Inchmartin in the Carse of Gowrie, which he called Inchleslie. His granddaughter married George, earl of Melville ; their descendant, the present representative of the title (1882), is twelfth earl of Leven and ninth earl of Melville. LEVER, CHARLES, novelist, was born at Dublin on the 31st of August 1806 (not 1809 as usually stated), and died at Trieste on the 1st of June 1872. The accounts of the earlier part of his life are, considering the time at which he lived, singularly meagre, confused, and conflicting. His father was an architect, and he entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1822, taking his degree in 1827. Many of the adventures of college life recorded in Charles O Malley are believed to have actually happened. Later, Lever studied at Gbttingen, and obtained a degree there. At some time or other before 1832 (for in this unsatisfactory way most of the facts of this part of his life are recorded) he is said to have visited America, and to have sojourned with the Indians, adopting their dress and mode of life, and going through adventures afterwards utilized in Con Cregan and Arthur O Leary. But it is impossible to be certain as to this period ; it is only towards the cholera outbreak of 1832 that something like a firm ground offers itself to the biographer. Lever had taken up the profession of medicine, and he was appointed, first to a district of which the head quarters was Kilrush in Galway, where Harry Lorrequer was begun, local stories being largely embodied in it, and then to a district in Ulster, around Coleraine and Newtown Limavady, where material was gathered for Charlts O Malley and the Knight of Givynne. He married Miss Kate Baker, but even here the mist of uncertainty which envelops him exists, and it is not clear what the real date of the marriage was. After his cholera work was done he proceeded to Brussels. It lias been usual to represent him as physician to the embassy, and even Thackeray (who knew him well) has given currency to the description by a quotation in the Book of Snobs. But it is certain that , embassy, though he had letters of introduction to the secretary of the English legation there, and unquestionably practised. Harry Lorrequer was completed at Brussels, and it began to be published in 1837. It was followed by Charles O Malley and Jack Hinton. All these stories, but
 * Lever was never formally appointed physician to the