died before 1559. This is now known to be a mistake; and

though we should scarcely be justified in stating, with some recent French writers, that he was born in 1505 and died in 1580, these may conveniently be taken as approximate dates. Already known as a painter, Francis I. gave him an office in his household, and appointed him director of the works at Limoges, and enamel painter-in-ordinary to the king. Francis is also said by some to have added the name of Limosin to the family name of Leonard. Under Limosin's management the enamel of Limoges acquired an unparalleled reputation. He seems to have conducted the works about forty years, his dated pieces ranging from 1532 to 1574. His best works are considered to belong to 1550-60. At first his manner was rather dry and Teutonic. Later he adopted a warmer and more brilliant style of colour and design, copying the masterpieces of Raphael, Giulio Romano, and other great Italian painters, as well as original designs by the leading French artists. Many of his enamels are, in their way, of unequalled beauty, or only equalled by those of Pierre Raymond, his associate at Limoges as painter of the highest class of enamels. Among the most famous of Limosin's works are the series of large mythological subjects, a part of the decorations of Francis's chateau of Madrid; the four large plaques executed for the tomb of Diana of Poictiers; and a series of plaques executed for Henry I., and now in the Louvre. The value attached to the enamels of this master is shown by the fact that a small ewer and plateau painted by him with mythological designs, was not long ago purchased at a cost of £400 for the South Kensington museum—where may also be seen several other fine enamels by Leonard Limosin, his contemporary Pierre Raymond, and his son François Limosin. Leonard Limosin also painted in oil. Some pictures attributed to him are in the town-hall of Limoges.—J. T—e. LINACRE, Thomas, an eminent physician and scholar, was born at Canterbury or Derby, more probably at the former, about 1460. He was educated at the school adjoining Christ church, Canterbury, under William de Selling, alias Tilly, an eminent schoolmaster, and afterwards prior of Christ church. "There is good reason to believe," say the Messrs. Cooper in their Athenæ Cantabrigienses," vol. i., London, 1858, "that Linacre came for a time to Cambridge, and removed to Oxford," at which latter university he was elected a fellow of All Souls in 1484. When his former teacher, De Selling, was sent on an embassy to Rome by Henry VII., Linacre accompanied him, and made a considerable stay in Italy, improving himself in classical scholarship and the knowledge of medicine. He studied at Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Padua, learning from the chief scholars of the time. He studied Latin under Politian, and Greek under Demetrius Chalcondyles. At Padua he took the degree of M.D. On his return to England he was incorporated M.D. at Oxford, and read there a lecture on physic; according to the Athenæ Cantabrigienses, "he is supposed also to have been incorporated at Cambridge." His medical reputation was so great that he was appointed physician, some say to Henry VII., and at any rate to Henry's son, Arthur prince of Wales, at the same time instructing that prince and his wife, the Princess Catherine, in Italian. He was afterwards physician to Henry VIII. English medicine owes to him the establishment of the College of Physicians in 1518, by letters patent from Henry VIII. He was the first president of the college, holding the office till his death; and its first meetings were held in his house in Knight Rider Street, which he bequeathed to it, and which, or rather the site of which, is still in its possession. He also established and endowed three medical lectures—two in Merton college, Oxford, and one in St. John's college, Cambridge. Although at the head of the medical profession in England, Linacre entered the church. Two years after the establishment of the College of Physicians he had become a priest, and was rector of Wigan in Lancashire. He received various other preferments, before his death at his house in Knight Rider Street on the 20th October, 1524. He was buried in St. Paul's, where in 1557 Dr. John Caius erected a monument to his memory. This eminent man numbered Wolsey, Erasmus, Melancthon, and Aldus Manutius among his friends. He was one of the introducers of classical learning into England. He taught Greek to Sir Thomas More and Erasmus, and Latin to the Princess (afterwards Queen) Mary. He is said to have been the first Englishman who studied Aristotle and Galen in the original. Of several of Galen's treatises he published translations in elegant Latin, that of the De Temperamentis, Cambridge, 1521, being the first book printed in England in which the Greek type was introduced. There is a list and an account of his works and translations in the Biographia Britannica. He left no original work on medicine, so that of his medical skill his reputation is almost the sole memorial. One prescription, however, is extant, which he gave his friend Erasmus for an attack of gravel, and Dr. Aikin says of it in his Biographical Memoirs of Medicine in Great Britain, "the rational simplicity of the method inculcates a favourable idea of our physician's practice." By founding the College of Physicians, Linacre created in England the medical profession.—F. E. LINCOLN, Abraham, President of the United States of America, was born on the 12th February, 1809, in what is now called Larue county, Kentucky. His family were of Quaker and Pennsylvanian origin. In 1816 his father settled in what is now Spencer county, Indiana; and for ten years the future president was employed in hard manual labour on the paternal farm. The whole time spent by him at school, to which he went at intervals, did not amount to more than a year. A Life of Washington is recorded as among the few books which he early read with interest. At nineteen he was six feet four, and his physical capabilities were remarkable. When in 1830 his father removed to Macon county, Illinois, Abraham not only helped to build the family log-hut, but with a single assistant split rails enough to fence ten acres of land. In 1831 he worked to New Orleans a flat boat which he had assisted in building. He became then for a time a clerk in the New Salem store of the owner of the boat; and in 1832 entered and was made captain of a company of volunteers raised on the breaking out of the Black Hawk war. After a three months' campaign he was supported by the electors of his own district as a candidate for a seat in the state legislature; but his principles being whig he was rejected by the county in favour of a democrat. Unsuccessful in the country store which he then opened, he was appointed postmaster of New Salem, and—borrowing from a neighbour practitioner law books, to be returned in the morning—spent his evenings in the study of law. In 1834 he was elected a member of the state legislature, and he continued to be re-elected until 1840. In 1836 he had been licensed to practise as a lawyer, and in 1837 commenced business at Springfield, his residence until he was elected president. As a lawyer he was rapidly successful, especially in cases where a jury adjudicated; and in politics he rose to be a prominent leader of the whig party in Illinois. In 1844 he canvassed the state, making speeches almost daily on behalf of Henry Clay, when that well-known politician was a candidate for the presidency. In 1846 he was himself delegated to the congressional house of representatives by the central district of Illinois, and took his seat on the 6th of December, 1847. In congress he distinguished himself as an active opponent of the extension of slavery and of the annexation of Texas, and as a supporter of its abolition in the district of Columbia. He advocated a protective tariff, the sale of public lands at a low price, and the system of grants for the improvement of rivers and harbours. The first congress in which he sate came to an end in the March of 1849, and he was unsuccessful as a candidate for the representation of his state in the congressional senate. He pursued his professional career until the repeal of the Missouri compromise recalled him to active political life. Through his exertions a republican senator—the whig party having become extinct—was returned by Illinois. In the presidential election of 1855 he worked strenuously for Fremont, and his own name was mentioned in connection with the vice-presidency. In 1858 he was pitted against Mr. Douglas as republican candidate for a seat in the senate; and after a spirited contest Lincoln secured a large majority of the popular vote—the state legislature, however, returning Douglas. In the course of this contest Mr. Lincoln fully developed his views on the question of slavery, which were by no means those of an abolitionist, or even of an opponent of the principle of a fugitive slave law. His "platform" seems to have been determined opposition to the extension of slavery in the territories, so long as they remained merely territories. The struggle with Douglas placed Mr. Lincoln in the foremost rank of his party; and the republican national convention which met at Chicago on the 11th May, 1860, nominated him their candidate for the presidency by a considerable majority over the only other important competitor, Mr. Seward. His election as president followed almost as a matter of course, and led to the civil war—the events of which belong