was extensively employed by the king, and payment was frequently made to him for busts, copies of antique statues, and other works in bronze or copper, while he received allowances for house-rent and similar expenses. Peacham, in his ‘Compleat Gentleman’ (edit. 1634, p. 107), gives a description of six statues done by Le Sueur for the king at St. James's Palace. Among these was a copy of the famous ‘Borghese’ gladiator in the Louvre, that stood for many years in St. James's Park, at the end of the canal opposite the Horse Guards, and is now in the private garden at Windsor Castle. Other works executed by Le Sueur for Charles I include a ‘Mercury’ for a fountain in the gardens of Somerset House, a bust of James I, which still remains at Whitehall, and a bust of Charles I, life-size and gilt, with a crown on his head.
On the death of his patron the Earl of Portland in 1635, Le Sueur was employed to execute his monument in Winchester Cathedral; this was subsequently wrecked by the puritans, but the figure still remains. In 1635 also Le Sueur executed the fine bust of Sir Thomas Richardson in Westminster Abbey. In the Bodleian Library at Oxford there is an excellent statue of William Herbert, third earl of Pembroke, by Le Sueur. By an agreement dated 17 June 1638 (also among the State Papers), and witnessed by Inigo Jones, Le Sueur agreed to make two statues of James I and Charles I, at 170l. each; these were completed in 1639, and formed part of the screen designed by Inigo Jones for Winchester Cathedral. On the removal of this screen these statues were moved to the west end of the cathedral, where they still remain. There is no record of Le Sueur after this date, though he is usually stated to have died in London about 1652. All Le Sueur's work in bronze and copper is of the highest merit.
Le Sueur was married in Paris before 1610 to Noemi Le Blanc, and their son Henri was baptised on 17 March 1610 at St. Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris. A certificate of strangers living in London in December 1635 (among the State Papers) records Le Sueur as living in St. Bartholomew's parish, with three children, English born, and four servants. A son Isaac was buried in St. Bartholomew's Church in 1630.
In the medal room at the British Museum there is a fine portrait-medal of Le Sueur, executed by Warin in 1635. A portrait of a sculptor painted by Vandyck, and engraved in mezzotint by Jan Van Somer, is supposed on generally accepted grounds to represent Le Sueur.
[Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. Car. I, 1630-1640; Jal's Dict. Crit. de Biographie et d'Histoire; Walpole's Anecd. of Painting; Dussieux's Les Artistes Français à l'Etranger; Vertues Cat. of Charles I's collection; Cunningham's Handbook of London; Carpenter's Pictorial Notices of Vandyck; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. ii. 54; information from H. P. Horne, esq.]
LETCHWORTH, THOMAS (1739–1784), quaker, third son of Robert and Elizabeth Letchworth, was a descendant of Robert Letchworth, one of the first quakers imprisoned at Cambridge in 1660 (Crisp MSS., Devonshire House). He was born at Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1739, but his parents soon removed to Norwich, and afterwards to Waltham Abbey. At seven years old he delivered harangues on life and immortality from a tombstone in Norwich. After having been taught by Joseph Dancer, a schoolmaster at Hertford, Letchworth was apprenticed to a shopkeeper at Epping. His master's efforts to induce him to join the established church were unsuccessful, his appreciation of silent worship being so sincere that he sometimes kept the meeting at Epping alone. He soon moved to London and took a shop in Spitalfields, where he began preaching at the age of nineteen. He afterwards married and settled in Tooley Street, Southwark. In 1765 he published some small volumes of verse. In 1773 he commenced publishing ‘The Monthly Ledger, or Literary Repository,’ to which he contributed many articles himself. It was entirely unsectarian. It was discontinued after the third year.
In 1775 Letchworth published the ‘Life and Writings of John Woolman’ [q. v.], whom he calls ‘The Christian Socrates.’ He died, after a prolonged illness, at the house of Joseph Rand, Newbury, Berkshire, 7 Nov. 1784, and was buried in the Friends' burial-ground at Reading.
His sermons, preached at the Park, Southwark, were taken down in shorthand, and published in London in 1787. An American edition was published at Salem in 1794. According to a note at the end of the preface, the first sermon had been incorrectly printed in Ireland under the name of Samuel Fothergill [q. v.] Letchworth's ‘Brief Account of Fothergill,’ published in the ‘Monthly Ledger,’ was also printed separately, London, 1774.
Letchworth married, 21 March 1759, at the Savoy Meeting-house, Sarah Burge. His only son died in youth.
