Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/449

it is capable of in the heart of man. It was a common reproach against Leighton, as we have seen, that he had leanings towards Roman Catholicism, and perhaps this is so far true that he had formed himself in some degree upon the model of some of those saintly persons of that faith, such as Pascal and Thomas a Kempis, who had carried the spiritual life to more ethereal heights than appear to be as yet attained within the lines of Protestantism.

Editions.—It is matter of regret that no perfectly satisfactory edition of Leighton’s works has as yet appeared. After his death his Commentary on Peter and several of his other works were published under the editorship of his friend Dr Fall, and on the whole those early editions may be said to be, with some drawbacks, by far the best. All his later editors have unfortunately been possessed by the tasteless mania of reducing his good archaic and nervous language to the bald feebleness of modern phraseology, dealing with him like literary martinets correcting a schoolboy’s themes. It is unfortunately impossible to exempt from this criticism even the edition, in other respects very valuable and meritorious, lately published under the superintendence of the Rev. W. West (London, 1875).

(J. T. BR.)

LEIGHTON-BUZZARD, a market-town of Bedfordshire, is situated on the river Ouse, which there divides Bedford from Bucks, and on the North-Western Railway, 40 miles north of London. The town, which is generally well built, contains a spacious market-place, and of late great improvement has taken place in the appearance of the shops. The church of All Saints, in the Early English style of architecture, possesses a tower and spire 193 feet in height. In the market-place are the town-hall, rebuilt in 1852, and containing portions of a very ancient structure, the corn exchange erected in 1862, and the fine old market-cross, in the Perpendicular style, erected in 1330. National school premises were built in 1872. There are also several charities. The manufacture of straw plait gives employment to a considerable number of females, but the town is chiefly dependent on agriculture. The population of the registration sub-district in 1871 was 9942, and in 1881 it was 10,384.

Some identify Leighton-Buzzard with the Lygeanburgh mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle as having been taken in 571 by Cuthwulf, brother of Ceawlin, king of Wessex. The addition Buzzard has been conjectured to be a corruption of Beau-desert, but others also derive it from Bozzard or Bosart, the name of an ancient family, one of whom was knight of the shire in the time of Edward III.

LEINSTER. See Ireland.

LEIPSIC (in German, Leipzig), the second town of the kingdom of Saxony in size, and the first in commercial importance, is situated in a large and fertile plain, in 51° 20′ 6″ N. lat. and 12° 23′ 37″ E. long., about 65 miles north west of Dresden and 6 miles from the Prussian frontier. It stands just above the junction of three small rivers, the Pleisse, the Parthe, and the Elster, which flow in various branches through or round the town, and afterwards, under the name of Elster, discharge themselves into the Saale. Though of unimposing exterior, Leipsic is one of the most prosperous and enterprising of German towns. Besides being the most important commercial city in Germany next to Hamburg, it possesses the second largest German university, is the headquarters of the supreme courts of the empire, and forms one of the most prominent literary and musical centres in Europe. It consists of the old or inner city, surrounded by a wide and pleasant promenade laid out on the site of the old fortifications, and of the very much more extensive inner and outer suburbs. Beyond the last is a fringe of thriving suburban villages, such as Reudnitz, Volkmarsdorf, Gohlis, Eutritzsch, Plagwitz, and Lindenau, which are gradually becoming absorbed by the growth of the town. On the north-west the town is bordered by the fine public park and woods of the Rosenthal.

Plan of Leipsic.

The old town, with its narrow streets and numerous houses of the 16th and 17th centuries, still preserves much of its quaint mediæval aspect. The most interesting of its buildings are the Rathhaus, a Gothic edifice built by Hieronymus Lotter in 1556 (now doomed to demolition), and the Fürstenhaus, with its curious projecting balconies. The Pleissenburg, or citadel, now used for barracks and public offices, also dates from the middle of the 16th century. Auerbach’s Keller, a curious old wine-vault, is interesting for the use made of it by Goethe in his Faust; it contains a series of mural paintings of the 16th century, representing the legend on which the play is based. The business of Leipsic is chiefly concentrated in the inner city; but the headquarters of the book trade lie in the east suburb. The streets of the suburbs are mostly broad and well built. The most notable modern buildings are the new theatre, an imposing Renaissance structure designed by Langhans, and the museum, which stand facing each other at opposite ends of the spacious Augustus-Platz. Most of the west side of the same square is occupied by the Augusteum, or main building of the university, which, however, also possesses several special institutes in another part of the town. The new district law courts are contained in a large and substantial though not specially imposing building, and the municipal hospital and the hospital of St John are also handsome edifices. The so-called Roman House, with loggie and frescos in the Italian style, is the only private dwelling demanding remark. The churches of Leipsic are comparatively uninteresting. The oldest, in its present form, is the Paulinerkirche or university church, built in 1229–40, and the largest is the Thomaskirche, dating from 1496. The university of Leipsic, founded in 1409 by a secession of two thousand German students from Prague, has long ranked among the most important in Germany. A few years ago it was also the most numerously attended, but it is now outstripped by Berlin, which has about four thousand students as compared with thirty five hundred at Leipsic (1882). The professors and “Privatdocenten,” or lecturers, number about one hundred and seventy. The university library contains 350,000 volumes and 4000 manuscripts; it occupies the Paulinum, a characteristic specimen of old monastic architecture, dating in part from