finished his famous tragedy, "Emilia Galotti," and in the following year he commenced to edit the "Contributions to Literature from the Ducal Library at Wolfenbüttel." A much more famous production, however, was the work of H. S. Reimarus—Fragmente des Wolfenbüttel sehen Ungenannten—which Lessing published, and by the publication of which he incurred the wrath of a numerous body of theologians, of whom the most vehement and persistent was Johann Melchior Götze of Hamburg. To Götze's strictures upon the work and the editor of Reimarus, Lessing replied in his "Anti-Götze," 1779; "Nathan der Weiss," 1779; and "Erziehung des Menschen geschlechts," 1780, Lessing, throughout his career, suffered from the pressure of debt, the result of incorrigible habits of improvidence. For one brief period only his life was one of sunshine. He married the widow of a Hamburg merchant in October, 1776, and till her death, which unhappily took place at the commencement of 1778, he enjoyed unwonted felicity in his domestic relations. A long period of ill health followed, aggravated by the rancour of his theological assailants, and then came the end. Lessing died suddenly at Brunswick, 10th February, 1781. The best edition of his works bears the title "G. E. Lessing's sämmtliche Schriften herausgegeben von Karl Lachmann aufs Neue durchgesehen und vermehrt von Wendelin von Maltzahn," 12 Bände, Leipsic, 1857. A brazen statue of Lessing has been erected at Brunswick by the celebrated sculptor Rietsche. Another statue in memory of him, forming a group with those of Göthe and Schiller, is just now about to be raised at Berlin. A smaller monument to his memory stands in the entrance-hall of the library at Wolfenbüttel. A novel, entitled "The Uncle's Portrait," by Caroline Lessing, daughter-in-law of Gottlob Samuel, the poet's brother, contains interesting biographical matter.—F. B.
* LESSING, Karl Heinrich, an eminent German painter, was born at Breslau on February 15th, 1808. His father, a nephew of Gotthold Lessing, wished him to become an architect, and with that view placed him in the Berlin Academy. But his own wishes inclining strongly towards painting; and a picture of a churchyard painted by him in 1825 being awarded the academy-prize for landscape, and attracting considerable notice, he was permitted to pursue the course he desired. Struck by his remarkable promise, Schadow, then at the head of the Düsseldorf school, invited young Lessing to join him. For some years Lessing was one of the ablest and most earnest of the younger members of the Düsseldorf school. His "Battle of Iconium;" "The Death of Barbarossa;" "The Convent Yard—a snow storm;" "The Royal Mourners;"' and other pictures full of feeling and great artistic power—produced a strong impression, and he was nominated a member of the Berlin Academy. But Lessing was becoming gradually alienated from the severe ascetic Düsseldorf school, which looked up to Overbeck and Schadow as the supreme dictators in painting, and the service of the Romish church as the ultimate end of art. For a while he turned almost exclusively to the representation of the grander phases of natural scenery, producing several landscapes (as "The Mountain Pass," "Scene in the Eifel," the "Aged Oaks," &c.); but at length he ventured on an entire rupture with the school with which he had been hitherto associated, by painting "Huss Preaching," "Huss before the Council at Constance," and other protestant subjects, in a bold, free, dramatic style. His secession led to much hostile criticism, and some harsh personal attacks. But he went on his way, putting forth in succession "Ezzelino in Prison;" "Arrest of Pope Pascal II.;" "Luther Burning the Papal Bull," together with many that could in no sense be understood as having a controversial bearing. Lessing found many followers; was appointed professor at Berlin; and is now the recognized head of the reactionary "naturalistic" or "realistic" school, as opposed to the "idealistic" school of religious and historical painters of Germany.—J. T—e.
L'ESTRANGE, Sir Roger, Knight, author and translator, one of the founders of British journalism, was born at Hunstanton hall, Norfolk, on the 17th of December, 1616. Like his father, Sir Hammond L'Estrange, who suffered in his estates for his attachment to Charles I., Roger was a zealous royalist. He had accompanied King Charles in the Scottish expedition of 1639, and on the breaking out of the civil war in England he worked and plotted for his sovereign. Betrayed while endeavouring to recover Lynn in Norfolk for the king, he was condemned to death and thrown into Newgate, where he remained for four years. He escaped in 1648, and after an abortive attempt at insurrection made his way to the continent. Returning to England after the dismissal of the Rump he gained access to the Protector, with whom he seems to have had an interesting conversation, and he was allowed to go at large. At the Restoration L'Estrange was among the neglected, and his alleged relations with Cromwell were made a matter of reproach by some of the royalists. Roger was not a man to submit either to neglect or reproach. He bestirred himself vigorously in pamphlets, apologetic and denunciatory. The result was that, in 1663, he succeeded Sir John Birkenhead as licenser of the press, a post of some profit, and which he continued to occupy up to the revolution of 1688. Apparently one of the first fruits of L'Estrange's promotion was his publication of the "Observals and Proposals in order to the Regulation of the Press"—a piece curious not only for its truculent denunciation of "the liberty of unlicensed printing," but for the insight which it affords into the state of the printing trade in the metropolis in the early years of the Restoration. Roger became now a busy man. In 1663 the former organs of the government, the Parliamentary Intelligencer and Mercurius Publicus, were superseded by two journals which he started, the one the Intelligencer (No. i., 31st August), the other the News (No. i., September 3). Both gave items of intelligence without comment, and L'Estrange continued to publish them till the January of 1665, when they in their turn were superseded by the London Gazette. In 1681 he started, under the patronage of the court, his well-known paper, the Observator, consisting of comment without news—and comment, too, rather ingeniously conveyed in dialogue, a form which, in the infancy of the leading-article, insured a certain vivacity in the treatment. L'Estrange showed some courage in his ridicule of the Popish plot, but more brutality in his coarse exultation over the fate of the martyrs of freedom, civil and religious. On the accession of James, L'Estrange's opposition to Oates and the exclusionists was rewarded by knighthood. In the same year he entered the house of commons as member for Winchester, and was prominent in the consultations of the parliamentary tories. It says something for his integrity that, two years afterwards, he dropped the Observator, not being able to support the policy of the king in its latest development. At the Revolution he was dismissed from his office of licenser, and his last appearance in public seems to have been in 1696, when the octogenarian was apprehended on suspicion of being privy to the conspiracy against the life of William III. "Lying Strange Roger" is said to have been an anagram made upon his name by William's consort, Queen Mary. He died on the verge of eighty-eight in September, 1704. Besides journalizing and pamphleteering, he translated Josephus, Æsop's Fables, the Colloquies of Erasmus, Seneca's Morals, and Quevedo's Visions. Lord Macaulay speaks of him justly as "a nature at once ferocious and ignoble." But the praise of consistency cannot be denied him, and in this respect he is much the superior of other earlier journalists, such as Marchmont Needham. His intellect was not without keenness, and his style though coarse was vigorous.—F. E.
LESUEUR, Jean François, a musician related to the ancient family of the Counts de Ponthieu, was born January 15, 1763, at Drucat-Plessiel, near Abbeville, at which latter town the inhabitants have erected a monument to him; he died at Paris, in October, 1837. He sang as a boy in the choir of Amiens cathedral, and subsequently became a student at the college of that town. He was engaged as music-master successively at Séez cathedral, at the church of the Innocents in Paris, at Dijon cathedral, at Mans, and at Tours. In 1784 he returned to Paris, when he produced some successful compositions at the Concerts Spirituels, and obtained the principal musical appointment at the church of the Innocents. The mastership of Notre Dame was competed for in 1786, and Lesueur gained it with great honour. The rule of the cathedral required that this post should be filled by an ecclesiastic, and he therefore wore the dress and bore the title of abbé, but he never formally entered holy orders. His views of church music were, to render it a medium for exciting the passions by the dramatic expression of the words; and towards the carrying out of this idea, he prevailed on the archbishop and the chapter to admit of the engagement of a grand orchestra in the cathedral service. This application of music to the sacred offices has been popularized, nay, hallowed, by the labours of Haydn, Mozart, Cherubini, and Beethoven, who have produced works for the church, which are so pre-eminent
