LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY (1824-1903), Ameri can author, was born at Philadelphia Aug. 15, 1824, and graduated at Princeton in 1845. For the three following years he travelled abroad for his health and studied at Heidelberg, Munich and Paris. He was in Paris during the revolution of 1848, and took an active part in it. He then returned to Philadelphia, and after being admitted to the bar in 1851, devoted himself to writing and to editorial work on various papers and magazines in Phila delphia, New York and Boston. He served in the Union Army for a brief time, prospected for oil, and then returned to jour nalism. In 1868 he became known as the humorous author of Hans Breitmann's Party, which was followed by other volumes of the same kind, collected in 1871, with the title of Hans Breit mann's Ballads. These pioneer dialect poems, burlesquing the German American, at once became popular and resulted in his being given a master's degree from Harvard, largely at the instance of James Russell Lowell. In 1869 he went to Europe, and till 188o was occupied with literary work. After returning to Phila
delphia for six years, where he made an ardent struggle for the introduction of hand-work in the schools, he again lived in Europe, generally at Florence, where he died March 20, 1903. Though his humorous verses were most attractive to the public, Leland was a serious student of folk-lore, particularly of the gypsies, his writ ings on the latter, The English Gypsies and their Language (1873) ; The Gypsies (1882) ; Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune-telling . . . (1891), being recognized as valuable contributions to the litera ture of the subject. His numerous other publications include Poetry and Mystery of Dreams (1855), Meister Karl's Sketch book (1855), Sunshine in Thought (1863), Egyptian Sketch book (1873), Abraham Lincoln (1879), The Minor Arts (188o), Algonquin Legends of New England (1884), Hans Breitmann in Tyrol (1894).