410 LEE LEE
are wide and regular, and its sanitary and water arrange ments are very complete. The church, dedicated to Saint Edward the Confessor, is in the Early English style. Much of the old building, erected in 1180, remains, but it has been frequently repaired, and in 1867 and 1875 under went extensive restoration. In the vicinity of the town are the ruins of the Cistercian abbey De la Croix (known as Dieulacres), erected in 1214 by Ranulf de Blondeville, sixth earl of Chester. The grammar school was built in the beginning of last century by the earl of Macclesfield. The other principal buildings are the memorial cottage hospital for the county of Stafford, erected in 1870 from a private bequest, and the new town and market hall erected on the site of the old building. There is an important silk manufacture, and also agricul tural implement works. The population of the urban sanitary district in 1881 was 12,865.
British and Roman remains have been found in the vicinity of
Leek at various periods, and the town itself is of very great anti
quity. For some centuries after the Conquest it was the property
of the earls of Chester, but afterwards it was bestowed on the monks
of the abbey De la Croix. It received a market from King John.
On the 3d of December 1745 it was entered by the troops of the
Pretender, and again on the 7th of the same month.
LEER, a seaport and the chief town of a circle in the
province of Hanover, Prussia, lies on the right bank of the
Leda near its confluence with the Ems, 16½ miles south of
Aurich in 53 13 N. lat., and 7 27 E. long. The aspect
of the town is generally pleasing, the streets being broad,
well-paved, and adorned with many elegant buildings,
among which are Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist
churches, and several public schools. The principal manu
factories are for linen and woollen fabrics, hosiery, paper,
cigars, soap, vinegar, and earthenware. There are, more
over, two iron-foundries, several distilleries, tanneries, and
shipbuilding yards, besides many large warehouses. The
transit trade from the regions traversed by the Westphalian
and Oldenburg railways is considerable. The principal
exports are cattle, horses, cheese, butter, honey, wax, flour,
paper, hardware, and Westphalian coal. Vessels drawing
16 feet of water can approach the quays. The population
in 1880 was 10,074.
LEEUWARDEN, or Leuwarden (in Frisian Liewerd, and Latinized as Leovardia), a town of Holland, at the head of the province of Friesland, 17 miles inland from Harlingen and 32 west of Groningen. It is one of the most prosperous of the secondary towns in the country, and, thanks in great measure to the opening of the railway to Harlingen (1863) and Groningen (1866), full of life and enterprise. To the name of the Frisian Hague it is entitled as well by similarity of history as by similarity of appearance. As the Hague grew up round the court of the counts of Holland, so Leeuwarden round the court of the Frisian stadtholders; and, like the Hague, it is an exceptionally clean, tasteful, and attractive town, with parks, pleasure grounds, and drives. The old gates have been somewhat ruthlessly cleared away, and the site of the town walls on the north and west competes with the Prince's Garden as a public pleasure ground. Besides the town-house (dating from 1715, and interesting mainly for the value of the archives admirably arranged by the Dutch antiquarian Eekhoff), the Prince Frederick barracks, capable of containing one thousand men, the corn exchange, and the beautiful weighhouse (dating from 1546), Leeuwarden contains a royal palace, originally the residence of the Frisian stadholders; the provincial courts, erected in 1850; the so-called chancery (Kanselarij), a fine red brick mansion built in 1502 for the chancellor of Duke George of Saxony, and now used as a house of detention; the penitentiary, rebuilt since 1870, and the largest establishment of the kind in Holland; and, somewhat oddly,
the communal buildings of the neighbouring commune of Leeuwarderadeel. The church of the Jacobins deserves mention as perhaps the largest monastic church in the country, and as the burial-place of the Frisian stadtholders (Louis of Nassau, Anne of Orange, &c.), whose splendid tombs, however, were destroyed in the revolution of 1795. Unlike the Hague, Leeuwarden is by nature and tradi tion the centre of an extensive and nourishing trade (in grain, cattle, flax, chicory, &c.). Its present distance from the sea is made up for by abundant means of com munication by road, railway, and canal. The canal to Dokkum opens up the rich clay districts of the province; the canal to Harlingen (dating from 1507) furnishes a channel for the trade with England; and other canals give access to the province of Groningen and the Zuycler Zee, and so to Amsterdam and the provinces of Holland. And, though the industrial development is far from keep ing pace with the commercial, Leeuwarden possesses large timber and boat-building yards, iron-foundries, copper- works, and lead-works; manufactures sewing machines, safes, organs, cardboard, oil, and tobacco; and enjoys a wide reputation for its gold and silver wares. The popula tion of the town in 1869 was 24,862; that of the com mune increased from 15,686 in 1714 to 27,003 in 1875 (5217 Roman Catholics, 1124 Jews).
Leeuwarden, or that part of it which was called Nijehove, appears
as early as 1149, and received the rank of a town in 1190. At
that time it had free command of the sea; but the estuary of the
Middelzee on which it stood had already silted up by about 1300.
In 1398 we find the town bestowed by Duke Albert of Holland
on Gerrolt Cammingha, whose family residence is still one of the
notable mansions of the place. During the 15th and 16th centuries
it plays a considerable part in Frisian history. The year 1499 saw
the erection of a stronghold in the town, which enabled Albert of
Saxony to bring the country under, and which made Leeuwarden a
place of military importance till it was destroyed in 1580. When
in 1559 Utrecht was raised to the rank of an archbishopric, Leeu
warden was made a bishopric, but only one occupant of the see was
actually consecrated before the Reformation got mastery of the town
in 1580.
LEEUWENHOEK, or Leuwenhoek, Anthony van (1632-1723), a microscopist of remarkable scientific ability, was born at Delft, in Holland, in 1632. He does not seem to have had the advantage of a liberal education, but was probably brought up as a glass-grinder, early acquiring a reputation for the excellent lenses with which he furnished the microscopists who were then turning their attention to the minute structure of organized bodies. He appears soon to have found that single lenses of very short focus were preferable for this purpose to the compound microscopes then in use; and it is clear from the discoveries he made with these that they must have been of very excellent quality.[1] These discoveries were for the most part originally given to the world in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, to the notice of which learned body he was first introduced by De Graaf in 1673. He was elected a fellow in 1680, and was chosen in 1697 a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in Paris. He died at his native place in 1723; and Sir Martin Folkes, then vice-president of the Royal Society, says in the eulogium he pronounced: – "We have seen so many and those of his most surprising discoveries, so perfectly confirmed by great numbers of the most curious and
- ↑ It is much to be regretted that a cabinet which he bequeathed to the Royal Society of London, – containing twenty-six of these single microscopes, each mounted with a suitable object, and accompanied by a magnified drawing of it, the whole being the work of his own hands, – is no longer in its possession. Baker, in his Treatise on the Microscope, affirms, from personal and careful examination, that (contrary to the statements of some writers who represented Leeuwenhoek as having worked with globules of glass) "every one of the twenty-six microscopes is a double-convex lens, and not a sphere or globule"; and he states that their magnifying powers range from 40 to 160 diameters.
