reception at Calcutta, and the effect which he produced upon society there, are so admirably illustrated by his ingenious and well-known countryman, Sir John Malcolm, that it would be impossible to present a more living picture of his manners and mind, and the reader will pardon some repetition for the sake of observing how the same individual was regarded in two distant hemispheres.
"TO THE EDITOR OF THE BOMBAY COURIER.[1]
"It is not easy to convey an idea of the method which Dr Leyden used in his studies, or to describe the unconquerable ardour with which these were pursued.—During his early residence in India, I had a particular opportunity of observing both. When he read a lesson in Persian, a person near him, whom he had taught, wrote down each word on a long slip of paper, which was afterwards divided into as many pieces as there were words, and pasted in alphabetical order, under different heads of verbs, nouns, &c., into a blank book that formed a vocabulary of each day's lesson. All this he had in a few hours instructed a very ignorant native to do; and this man he used, in his broad accent, to call 'one of his mechanical aids.' He was so ill at Mysore, soon after his arrival from England, that Mr Anderson, the surgeon who attended him, despaired of his life; but though all his friends endeavoured at this period to prevail upon him to relax in his application to study, it was in vain. He used, when unable to sit upright, to prop himself up with pillows, and continue his translations. One day that I was sitting by his bedside, the surgeon came in.—'I am glad you are here,' said Mr Anderson, addressing himself to me, 'you will be able to persuade Leyden to attend to my advice. I have told him before, and now I repeat, that he will die if he does not leave off his studies and remain quiet.' 'Very well, doctor,' exclaimed Leyden, 'you have done your duty, but you must now hear me: I cannot be idle, and whether I die or live, the wheel must go round till the last;' and he actually continued, under the depression of a fever and a liver complaint, to study more than ten hours each day.
"The temper of Dr Leyden was mild and generous, and he could bear with perfect good humour, raillery on his foibles. When he arrived at Calcutta in 1805, I was most solicitous regarding his reception in the society of the Indian capital. 'I entreat you, my dear friend,' I said to him the day he landed, 'to be careful of the impression you make on your entering this community; for God's sake learn a little English, and be silent upon literary subjects, except among literary men.' 'Learn English!' he exclaimed, 'no, never; it was trying to learn that language that spoilt my Scotch; and as to being silent, I will promise to hold my tongue, if you will make fools hold theirs.'
"His memory was most tenacious, and he sometimes loaded it with lumber. When he was at Mysore, an argument occurred upon a point of English history; it was agreed to refer it to Leyden, and to the astonishment of all parties, he repeated verbatim the whole of an act of, parliament in the reign of James relative to Ireland, which decided the point in dispute.—On being asked how he came to charge his memory with such extraordinary matter, he said that several years before, when he was writing on the changes that had taken place in the English language, this act was one of the documents to which he had referred as a specimen of the style of that age, and that he had retained every word in his memory.
"His love of the place of his nativity was a passion in which he had always a pride, and which in India he cherished with the fondest enthusiasm. I once
- ↑ We omit the earlier portion of this letter referring to the general character and manners of Leyden.
