Such is the language of nature, moved by the kindly associations of country and of kindred affections. But the best epitaph is the story of a life engaged in the practice of virtue and the pursuit of honourable knowledge; the best monument, the regret of the worthy and of the wise; and the rest may be summed up in the sentiment of Sannazario,
Haeccine te fessum tellus extrema manebat
Hospitii post tot terræque marisque labores?
Pone tamen gemitus, nec te monumenta parentum
Aut moveant sperata tuis tibi funera regnis,
Grata quies patriæ; sed et omnis terra sepulchrum.
To this eloquent and highly picturesque memoir, upon which we have drawn so largely, it is only to be added; that the Poetical Remains of Dr Leyden were published in one volume 8vo, in 1819, with a memoir by the Rev. James Morton; and that another posthumous work, entitled Memoirs of the Emperor Baber, and commemorating for the first time an Indian hero little inferior to Cæsar or Napoleon, but, heretofore, totally unknown in Europe, in which he had had the co-operation of his friend, Mr William Erskine, appeared at Edinburgh in 1826.
LIDDEL, (Dr) Duncan, a physician of eminence, was born in Aberdeen in the year 1561, and was son to a respectable citizen of that town.[1] He received his education at the schools, and the university of King's college, in his native city. In the year 1579, at the early age of eighteen, he visited the continent, passing over to Dantzic, whence he travelled through Poland to Frankfort on the Oder, where he had the good fortune to meet with a beneficent countryman, Dr John Craig, afterwards physician to James VI., who then taught logic and mathematics. His views, which were previously wavering, were fixed by the kind attention and assistance of his friend, who enabled him to study mathematics, philosophy, and medicine, for three years in the university of Frankfort, where Craig was himself a professor. In 1582, Craig proposing to return to Scotland, his pupil proceeded to prosecute his studies at Breslaw in Silesia, under the conduct of a statesman at that period of considerable note—Andreas Dudithius, to whose attention his zealous countryman had recommended him. In this new sphere of exertion, he is said to have made extensive progress in his favourite study of the mathematics, under the tuition of professor Paulus Wittichius. After spending somewhat more than a year at Breslaw, he returned to Frankfort, where he again turned his attention to medicine, and commenced a course of private tuition in mathematics and philosophy. A contagious distemper which broke out at Frankfort in 1587, dispersing the students in various directions, induced him to change his place of residence for the celebrated university of Rostock. Here he appears to have first acquired celebrity for his professional knowledge and conversational information, and particularly for his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. He became the companion and pupil of Brucseus, a physician and philosopher of Flanders, who, although the senior of Liddel, both in years and celebrity, acknowledges himself to have received much useful information and assistance from the young philosopher, while Caselius, another companion and friend of Liddel, pays a tribute to the comprehensiveness of his genius and reading, by remarking that "he was the first person in Germany who explained the motions of the heavenly bodies,
- ↑ Inscription on a brass plate, in the church of St Nicholas, Aberdeen; Sketch of the Life of Dr Duncan Liddel, Aberdeen. 1790. This pamphlet, understood to have been written by the late Mr John Stewart professor of Greek in Marisdial college, gives so accurate and concise an account of its subject, that little can be added. We are aware of but one work having eny reference to Liddel, which has been overlooked. The Literse ad Joannem Kepplerum contain one or two letters from him.
