Hampshire, a proceeding which greatly incensed the earl of Bute, who desired this seat for one of his friends. Having thus incurred Bute’s displeasure Legge was again dismissed from the exchequer in March 1761, but he continued to take part in parliamentary debates until his death at Tunbridge Wells on the 23rd of August 1764. Legge appears to have been a capable financier, but the position of chancellor of the exchequer was not at that time a cabinet office. He took the additional name of Bilson on succeeding to the estates of a relative, Thomas Bettersworth Bilson, in 1754. Pitt called Legge, “the child, and deservedly the favourite child, of the Whigs.” Horace Walpole said he was “of a creeping, underhand nature, and aspired to the lion’s place by the manœuvre of the mole,” but afterwards he spoke in high terms of his talents. Legge married Mary, daughter and heiress of Edward, 4th and last Baron Stawel (d. 1755). This lady, who in 1760 was created Baroness Stawel of Somerton, bore him an only child, Henry Stawel Bilson-Legge (1757–1820), who became Baron Stawel on his mother’s death in 1780. When Stawel died without sons his title became extinct. His only daughter, Mary (d. 1864), married John Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne.
See John Butier, bishop of Hereford, Some Account of the Character of the late Rt. Hon. H. Bilson-Legge (1765); Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II. (London, 1847); and Memoirs of the Reign of George III., edited by G. F. R. Barker (London, 1894); W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, vol. ii. (London, 1892); and the memoirs and collections of correspondence of the time.
LEGGE, JAMES (1815–1897), British Chinese scholar, was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, in 1815, and educated at King’s
College, Aberdeen. After studying at the Highbury Theological
College, London, he went in 1839 as a missionary to the Chinese,
but, as China was not yet open to Europeans, he remained at
Malacca three years, in charge of the Anglo-Chinese College
there. The College was subsequently moved to Hong-Kong,
where Legge lived for thirty years. Impressed with the necessity
of missionaries being able to comprehend the ideas and culture
of the Chinese, he began in 1841 a translation in many volumes
of the Chinese classics, a monumental task admirably executed
and completed a few years before his death. In 1870 he was
made an LL.D. of Aberdeen and in 1884 of Edinburgh University.
In 1875 several gentlemen connected with the China trade
suggested to the university of Oxford a Chair of Chinese Language
and Literature to be occupied by Dr Legge. The university
responded liberally, Corpus Christi College contributed the
emoluments of a fellowship, and the chair was constituted in
1876. In addition to his other work Legge wrote The Life and
Teaching of Confucius (1867); The Life and Teaching of Mencius
(1875); The Religions of China (1880); and other books on
Chinese literature and religion. He died at Oxford on the
29th of November 1897.
LEGHORN (Ital. Livorno, Fr. Livourne), a city of Tuscany,
Italy, chief town of the province of the same name, which consists
of the commune of Leghorn and the islands of Elba and
Gorgona. The town is the seat of a bishopric and of a large
naval academy—the only one in Italy—and the third largest
commercial port in the kingdom, situated on the west coast,
12 m. S.W. of Pisa by rail, 10 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901)
78,308 (town), 96,528 (commune). It is built along the seashore
upon a healthy and fertile tract of land, which forms,
as it were, an oasis in a zone of Maremma. Behind is a range
of hills, the most conspicuous of which, the Monte Nero, is
crowned by a frequented pilgrimage church and also by villas
and hotels, to which a funicular railway runs. The town itself
is almost entirely modern. The 16th-century Fortezza Vecchia,
guarding the harbour, is picturesque, and there is a good bronze
statue of the grand duke Ferdinand I. by Pietro Tacca (1577–1640),
a pupil of Giovanni da Bologna. The lofty Torre del
Marzocco, erected in 1423 by the Florentines, is fine. The
façade of the cathedral was designed by Inigo Jones. The old
Protestant cemetery contains the tombs of Tobias Smollett
(d. 1771) and Francis Horner (d. 1817). There is also a large
synagogue founded in 1581. The exchange, the chamber of
commerce and the clearing-house (one of the oldest in the
world, dating from 1764) are united under one roof in the Palazzo
del Commercio, opened in 1907. Several improvements have
been carried out in the city and port, and the place is developing
rapidly as an industrial centre. The naval academy, formerly
established partly at Naples and partly at Genoa, has been
transferred to Leghorn. Some of the navigable canals which
connected the harbour with the interior of the city have been
either modified or filled up. Several streets have been widened,
and a road along the shore has been transformed into a fine
and shady promenade. Leghorn is the principal sea-bathing
resort in this part of Italy, the season lasting from the end of
June to the end of August. A spa for the use of the Acque della
Salute has been constructed. Leghorn is on the main line from
Pisa to Rome; another line runs to Colle Salvetti. A considerable
number of important steamship lines call here. The
new rectilinear mole, sanctioned in 1881, has been built out
into the sea for a distance of 600 yds. from the old Vegliaia
lighthouse, and the docking basin has been lengthened to 490 ft.
Inside the breakwater the depth varies from 10 to 26 ft. The
total trade of the port increased from £3,853,593 in 1897 to
£5,675,285 in 1905 and £7,009,758 in 1906 (the large increase
being mainly due to a rise of over £1,000,000 in imports—mainly
of coal, building materials and machinery), the average
ratio of imports to exports being as three to two. The imports
consist principally of machinery, coal, grain, dried fish, tobacco
and hides, and the exports of hemp, hides, olive oil, soap, coral,
candied fruit, wine, straw hats, boracic acid, mercury, and
marble and alabaster. In 1885 the total number of vessels that
entered the port was 4281 of 1,434,000 tons; of these, 1251
of 750,000 tons were foreign; 688,000 tons of merchandise
were loaded and unloaded. In 1906, after considerable fluctuations
during the interval, the total number that entered was
4623 vessels of 2,372,551 tons; of these, 935 of 1,002,119 tons
were foreign; British ships representing about half this tonnage.
In 1906 the total imports and exports amounted to 1,470,000
tons including coasting trade. A great obstacle to the development
of the port is the absence of modern mechanical appliances
for loading and unloading vessels, and of quay space and dock
accommodation. The older shipyards have been considerably
extended, and shipbuilding is actively carried on, especially
by the Orlando yard which builds large ships for the Italian
navy, while new industries—namely, glass-making and copper
and brass-founding, electric power works, a cement factory,
porcelain factories, flour-mills, oil-mills, a cotton yarn spinning
factory, electric plant works, a ship-breaking yard, a motorboat
yard, &c.—have been established. Other important firms,
Tuscan wine-growers, oil-growers, timber traders, colour manufacturers,
&c., have their head offices and stores at Leghorn, with
a view to export. The former British “factory” here was of
great importance for the trade with the Levant, but was closed
in 1825. The two villages of Ardenza and Antignano, which
form part of the commune, have acquired considerable importance,
the former in part for sea-bathing.
The earliest mention of Leghorn occurs in a document of 891, relating to the first church here; in 1017 it is called a castle. In the 13th century the Pisans tried to attract a population to the spot, but it was not till the 14th that Leghorn became a rival of Porto Pisano at the mouth of the Arno, which it was destined ultimately to supplant. It was at Leghorn that Urban V. and Gregory XI. landed on their return from Avignon. When in 1405 the king of France sold Pisa to the Florentines he kept possession of Leghorn; but he afterwards (1407) sold it for 26,000 ducats to the Genoese, and from the Genoese the Florentines purchased it in 1421. In 1496 the city showed its devotion to its new masters by a successful defence against Maximilian and his allies, but it was still a small place; in 1551 there were only 749 inhabitants. With the rise of the Medici came a rapid increase of prosperity; Cosmo, Francis and Ferdinand erected fortifications and harbour works, warehouses and churches, with equal liberality, and the last especially gave a stimulus to trade by inviting “men of the East and the West, Spanish and Portuguese, Greeks, Germans, Italians, Hebrews, Turks,
