| Having studied for the church, he received holy orders, and was made a canon of the cathedral church of Wratislaw. He afterwards resigned his benefice and entered the society of Jesus, and was successively Professor of Philosophy at Perugia, Rector of the Scotch College at Douai, Superior of the Missions in Scotland, and Rector of the Scotch College at Rome. He was the author of the Laurus Leslceana, published at Gratz in 1692, and entitled "Laurus Leslseana explicata, sive clarior enumeratio personarum utriusque sexus cognominis Leslie, unacum affinibus, titulis, ofliciis, dominiis, gestisque celebrioribus breviter indicatis, quibus a sexcentis et amplius annis prosajjia ilia floret, ex variis authoritus, manuscriptis et testimoniis fide dignis in unum collecta. Graecii, Apud Heredes Widmanstadij, Anno 1692. The Honourable John Gordon, aged 80, second son of John, third Earl of Aboyne, stated in his evidence, given in 1760, in the law-process between Anthony, Count Leslie, and Peter Leslie Grant, that he had been educated at the Scotch college at Douai, where he became acquainted with the Rev. William Leslie, who was residing in the Scotch college there, and was remarkable for having a hare-lip; and he afterwards saw the Rev. William Leslie in Scotland, where he was superior of the Catholic missions; and that he knew that some time afterwards he went to be rector of the Scotch college at Rome. During the tune that he was at Douai, in 1693, the Rev. William Leslie informed him that he was the chief compiler of the Laurus Leslceana — a work containing the genealogy and the history of the family of Leslie, published in 1692, and also presented him with a copy of the work. He recollected seeing in the college at Douai a picture in oil, said to be the portrait of one of the German branch of the family of Balquhain — a copperplate copy of which picture is at the beginning of the Laurus Leslceana, which is dedicated to James, second Count Leslie. There is a great eulogium of the Rev. William Leslie in Sir Andrew Balfour's "Advice for Travelling." Besides the Laurus Leslceana, the Rev. William Leslie also wrote in Italian La Vita di Santa Margarita, Regina di Scozia, published at Rome in 1691. In the Laurus Leslceana, under Alexander, fourteenth Baron of Balquhain, he makes the following mention of himself: "Tertiogenitus Guilielmus Aloysius relicto canonioatu Wratislaviensi Romae Societatem Jesu ingressus, ibidem postea fuit Colegii Scotorum Rector." In his enumeration he calls himself the third son of Alexander, fourteenth baron, not counting the first-born son John, who died young.3 |