geon and naturalist, he accompanied the commissioners over the Mysore provinces taken from Tippoo Sultaun, and prepared a report on the geology, the diseases, the crops, and the languages of the districts traversed. The great strain produced a fever in November, and he stayed at Seringapatam, where he was befriended by Sir John Malcolm. When convalescent he studied Sanscrit, and translated from Persian and Hindustani. From May to September 1805 he travelled for his health through Malabar on to Cochin and Quilon, whence he sailed for Penang. While being chased on the voyage by a French privateer, Leyden characteristically composed a vigorous ode to his Malay krees, or dagger. In Penang he wrote a ‘Dissertation on the Languages and Literature of the Indo-Chinese Nations,’ afterwards printed in ‘Asiatic Researches,’ vol. x.
Returning to India in 1806, Leyden settled at Calcutta. His elaborate essay submitted to the government in 1807 on the Indo-Persian, Indo-Chinese, and Dekkan languages led to his election as a member of the Asiatic Society and as professor of Hindustani in the Calcutta college. But he soon accepted Lord Minto's offer of the post of judge of the twenty-four pargunnahs of Calcutta, and at the beginning of 1809 was appointed commissioner of the court of requests in Calcutta. While holding that office he undertook grammars of the Malay and Pracrit tongues, besides many translations.
Towards the end of 1810 Lord Minto appointed Leyden assay-master of the mint at Calcutta, and in 1811 he accompanied Lord Minto to Java, ‘to assist,’ as he wrote to his father on the voyage, ‘in settling the country when conquered, and as interpreter for the Malay language’ (White, Supplement to Sir Walter Scott's Memoir, p. 103). When the expedition halted for some days at Malacca, Leyden journeyed inland, scrutinising ‘original Malays’ and visiting sulphurous hot wells. Java was reached on 4 Aug., and as there was no opposition at Batavia a leisurely possession was effected. Leyden's literary zeal took him into an unventilated native library; fever supervened, and he died at Cornelis, after three days' illness, 28 Aug. 1811.
Before the Literary Society of Bombay William Erskine read a eulogium, in which he claimed for Leyden that in eight years he had done almost as much for Asia as the combined scholarship of centuries had done for Europe—he had ‘nearly effected a classification of its various languages and their kindred dialects’ (ib. p. 111). Sir John Malcolm, besides a high estimate delivered at a visitation of the college at Fort William, sent to the ‘Bombay Courier’ a poetical tribute to his friend's memory (Leyden, Poetical Remains, p. xci). Scott, in addition to frequent references, embalmed his ‘bright and brief career’ in the ‘Lord of the Isles,’ iv. xi. Lord Cockburn, after referring to his unconscious egotism and his uncouth aspect and uncompromising demeanour—characteristics also noted by Scott and Lockhart—declares there was ‘no walk in life, depending on ability, where Leyden could not have shone’ (Memorials of his Time, p. 179). The Ettrick Shepherd bewailed the loss of the poet's ‘glowing measure,’ and Lockhart fully recognised his extraordinary abilities and attainments as a scholar (Life of Scott, i. 324, &c.) Constable, for whom he edited the ‘Complaynt of Scotland,’ had a high appreciation of him (Constable and his Correspondents, i. 190). A monument to his memory was erected by public subscription at Denholm in 1861, and there also in 1875 the centenary of his birth was celebrated under the presidency of Lord Neaves.
Sir Walter Scott contributed his ‘Memoir of Leyden’ to the ‘Edinburgh Annual Register’ of 1811; the Rev. James Morton edited Leyden's ‘Poetical Remains,’ with memoir, in 1819; ‘Poems and Ballads of John Leyden,’ with Scott's ‘Memoir’ supplemented by Robert White, appeared in 1858; and a centenary volume of the ‘Scenes of Infancy,’ with biography by the Rev. W. W. Tulloch, was published in 1875. Dr. Tulloch quotes from ‘Reports and Proceedings of the British and Foreign Bible Society,’ 1811–12, showing that Leyden had translated one or more of the gospels into Pushtu, Maldivian, Balloch, Macassar, and Bugis. Of his translations into English his ‘Malay Annals,’ with introduction by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, appeared in 1821, and his ‘Commentaries of Baber,’ completed by William Erskine, in 1826. Such an amount of work almost justifies Leyden's remark that he was able to excel Sir William Jones in his own particular sphere. There is a legend (Scotsman, 26 April 1890) that he wrote ‘An Account of his Contemporaries, not to be published while any of them were alive;’ and he contributed to the ‘Scots Magazine’ of February 1802 an amusing notice of the ‘Edinburgh Booksellers,’ reprinted in ‘Literary Gems,’ 1826.
[Memoirs mentioned in text; Constable and his Correspondents, vol. i.; Lockhart's Life of Scott, vols. i. ii. iii. vi.; Gent. Mag. 1812, pt. i. pp. 409, 420, 486.]
LEYLAND, JOSEPH BENTLEY (1811–1851), sculptor, born at Halifax on 31 March 1811, was son of Roberts Leyland, a well-
