the Old Testament,' against Voltaire's aspersions, both by way of indirect attack upon Christianity, 2 vols. Dublin, 1777; 2nd edit. 1790. He is also said to have written a 'History of the Council of Constance,' Dublin, 1787, 8vo.
A brother, Peter Le Fanu (fl. 1778), was author of 'an occasional prelude.' entitled 'Smock Alley Secrets.' which was produced at the Dublin Theatre in 1778 (Baker, Biog. Dram.)
Le Fanu's sister-in-law, Mrs. Alicia Le Fanu (1753-1817), was eldest daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and favourite sister of the dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan [q. v.] She was born in January 1768, and married in 1776 Philip's brother, Joseph Le Fanu. She was the author of a patriotic comedy entitled 'Sons of Erin, or Modern Sentiment.' which was acted 'once only' at the Lyceum Theatre, London, on 13 April 1812 (Genest, viii. 279). She died on 4 Sept. 1817 at Dublin, and was buried in St. Peter's graveyard. Of her three children the eldest, Thomas Philip, was dean of Emly and father of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu [q. v.] the novelist. Another of Philip's brothers, Henry Le Fanu, a captain in the 56th regiment, married Anne Elizabeth, youngest child of Thomas Sheridan, who died at Leamington on 4 Jan. 1837, aged 79 (Gent. Mag. 1837, ii. 585), leaving a daughter Alicia Le Fanu (fl. 1812-1826), who, in addition to some long-winded historical romances, and stories in verse, published in 1824 'Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs. Frances Sheridan, mother of the late Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan, by her Grand-daughter' (see Gent. Mag. 1824, i. 583).
[Webb's Compendium of Irish Biog. p. 288; Smiles's Huguenots, p. 410; Harvey's Genealog. Tables of Families of Sheridan, Le Fanu, and Knowles; Memoirs of Mrs. Sheridan, passim; Gent. Mag. 1817, ii. 285; Allibone; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
LEFEBURE, NICASIUS or NICOLAS (d. 1669), chemist. [See Le Fevre.]
LEFEBVRE, ROLAND (1608–1677), painter, was born at Anjou in 1608. He painted both history and portraits, and studied for many years in Italy. For a long time he resided at Venice, whence he is sometimes known as 'Lefebvre de Venise.' He was admitted a member of the Venetian Academy of Painting and Sculpture on 6 Jan. 1663, but after quarrelling because he was only admitted as a portrait-painter and not as a history-painter, he was excluded from the Academy on 14 March 1665. Lefebvre thereupon came over to England. He obtained the patronage of Prince Rupert by revealing to him a new method of staining marble. He painted portraits and small history pictures, but was not much esteemed. He died in Bear Street, Leicester Fields, in 1677, and was buried in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. A portrait of Lefebvre, in a fur cap, formerly in the possession of Philip Mercier the painter, was engraved for Walpole's 'Anecdotes of Painting.' He must be carefully distinguished from Claude Lefebvre, a well-known painter in Paris at the same time, who did not come to England, and also from Valentin Lefebvre, who resided many years at Venice, where he engraved works of Titian, Paolo Veronese, and others.
[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting; Vertues MSS. (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 23070, 23075); Mariette's Abecedario; Dussieux's Artistes Français à l'Etranger; Archives de l'Art Français, 1. 360, ii. 376.]
LEFEVRE, CHARLES SHAW, Viscount Eversley (1794–1888). [See Shaw-Lefevre.]
LEFEVRE, Sir GEORGE WILLIAM, M.D. (1798–1846), physician, was born in 1798 at Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire. After apprenticeship to a local practitioner of medicine in Shropshire, he studied medicine at Edinburgh, and at Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals in London, and graduated M.D. at Aberdeen, 4 Aug. 1819. He was threatened with pulmonary disease, and on the advice of Dr. Pelham Warren [q. v.] decided to go abroad. After ineffectual attempts to obtain an Indian appointment, he went to Pau with a patient, who died there of phthisis. Lefevre then returned to England and tried to get into practice. He was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London 1 April 1822, but having failed in his candidature as physician to a dispensary, he decided to go abroad again, and, through the influence of Benjamin Travers [q. v.] the surgeon, became physician to a Polish nobleman, with whom he travelled for nine years, five in France and the rest in Austria, Poland, and Russia. His position gave him the opportunity of seeing much of the domestic life of the Polish nobility, in many of whose castles he stayed (Life of a Travelling Physician). He finally left the Pole at Odessa and went to St. Petersburg, where he engaged in private practice and became physician to the embassy. In 1831 he was appointed to the charge of a district during the cholera epidemic, and published, in London, 'Observations on the Nature and Treatment of the Cholera Morbus now prevailing epidemically in St. Petersburg.' His experience led him to oppose the indiscriminate use of calomel
