used to answer with his favourite interjection, "Dash it man, never mind: if you have the scaffolding ready, you can run up the masonry when you please. But this mode of study, however successful with John Leyden, cannot be safely recommended to a student of less retentive memory and robust application. With him, however, at least while he remained in Britain, it seemed a matter of little moment for what length of time he resigned any particular branch of study; for when either some motive or mere caprice induced him to resume it, he could with little difficulty reunite all the broken associations, and begin where he left off months or years before, without having lost an inch of ground during the interval.

he

The vacations which our student spent at home were employed in arranging, methodizing, and enlarging the information which he acquired during his winter's attendance at college. His father's house affording him little opportunity for quiet and seclusion, was obliged to look out for accommodations abroad, and some of his places of retreat were sufficiently extraordinary. In a wild recess, in the dean or glen which gives name to the village of Denholm, he contrived a sort of furnace for the purpose of such chemical experiments as it was adequate to achieving. But his chief place of retirement was the small parish church, a gloomy and ancient building, generally believed in the neighbourhood to be haunted.— To this place of study, usually locked during week days, Leyden made an entrance by means of a window, read there for many hours in the day, and deposited his books and specimens in a retired pew. It was a well-chosen spot of seclusion, for the kirk (excepting during divine service) is rather a place of terror to the Scottish rustic, and that of Cavers was rendered more so, by many a tale of ghosts and

witchcraft, of which it is the supposed scene; and to which Leyden, partly to indulge his humour, and partly to secure his retirement, contrived to make some modern additions. The nature of his abstruse studies, some specimens of natural history, as toads and adders, left exposed in their spirit-vials, and one or two practical jests played off upon the more curious of the peasantry, rendered his gloomy haunt not only venerated by the wise, but feared by the simple of the parish, who began to think this abstracted student, like the gifted person described by Wordsworth, as having

"

-“waking empire wide as dreams,

An ample sovereignty of eye and ear;
Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer,
The region of his inner spirit teems
With vital sounds and solitary gleams

Of high astonishment and pleasing fear."

This was a distinction which, as we have already hinted, he was indeed not unwilling to affect, and to which, so far as the vision existing in the high fancy of the poet can apply those ascribed to the actual ghost-seer, he had indeed no slight pretensions.

Thus much of the early days of John Leyden we have extracted from the Memoir usually attributed to the pen of Sir Walter Scott. He was ordained a minister of the Church of Scotland; but it was not as a Preacher that he was destined to become eminent, but as a Scholar, Antiquarian, Poet, and Orientalist. There appeared to be no preferment in the Church ; and, therefore, he instantly qualified himself for a surgeon, and received an appointment, as assistant-surgeon, from the East India Company, at Madras. It

was, however, sufficiently understood, that upon his arrival, his occupation was to be wholly literary, and he was especially to be engaged in researches into the language and learning of the Indian tribes. He wrote his" Scenes of Infancy," the longest poem of his pen, while awaiting his call, by way of amusement in the intervals of mastering some of the difficulties of Oriental literature. He left England, never to return, in 1802; in 1806 he died: his was therefore a very brief career. He had merely obtained the tools with which to work what he might have performed, had only time been granted him. It is idle to speak of his intrepidity and energy; his powers of accumulation were immense and, while his character was tinged with certain oddities and eccentricities of action, he was most brave and undaunted, his genius principally directed him to the attainment of all kinds of antiquarian lore, in any or every language. His love of romantic adventure was very great; he literally rushed upon death by throwing himself into the surf in order that he might be the first Briton setting foot upon the island of Java, when the town of Batavia was taken. Leyden betrayed the same ill-omened anxiety in his haste to examine a collection of Indian manuscripts. A library in a Dutch settlement was not, as might be expected, in the best order; the apartment had not been regularly ventilated, and either from this circumstance, or already affected by the fatal sickness peculiar to Batavia, Leyden, when he left the place, had a fit of shivering, and declared the atmosphere was enough to give any mortal a fever. The presage was too just; he took to his bed, and died in three days, on the eve of the battle which gave Java to the British empire.

His remains, honoured with every respect by Lord Minto, now repose in a distant land, far from the

green sod graves of his ancestors at Hazeldean, to which, with a natural anticipation of such an event, he bids an affectionate farewell in the solemn passage which concludes "The Scenes of Infancy."

"The silver moon, at midnight cold and still,
Looks sad and silent, o'er yon western hill;
While large and pale the ghostly structures grow,
Rear'd on the confines of the world below.

Is that dull sound the hum of Teviot's stream?
Is that blue light the moon's, or tomb-fire's gleam,
By which a mouldering pile is faintly seen,
The old deserted church of Hazeldean,

Where slept my fathers in their natal clay
Till Teviot's waters roll'd their bones away?
Their feeble voices from the stream they raise—
'Rash youth unmindful of thy early days,
'Why didst thou quit the peasant's simple lot?
'Why didst thou leave the peasant's turf-built cot,
The ancient graves, where all thy fathers lie,
'And Teviot's stream, that long has murmur'd by?
'And we-when death so long has closed our eyes,-
"How wilt thou bid us from the dust arise,
'And bear our mouldering bones across the main,
'From vales, that knew our lives devoid of stain ?
'Rash youth, beware; thy home-bred virtues save,
And sweetly sleep in thy paternal grave !'"

The following ode was probably written under the impression-an impression that perpetually haunted this distinguished man, that his health would at last sink beneath the rigours of the Asiatic climate, and that his departure from his country was perpetual.

"ODE TO AN INDIAN GOLD COIN.

WRITTEN IN CHERICAL, MALABAR.

"SLAVE of the dark and dirty mine!

What vanity has brought thee here?

How can I love to see thee shine

So bright, whom I have bought so dear?— The tent-ropes flapping lone I hear For twilight-converse, arm-in-arm;

The jackall's shriek bursts on mine ear When mirth and music wont to charm.

By Chêrical's dark wandering streams,

Where cane-tufts shadow all the wild,
Sweet visions haunt my waking dreams

Of Teviot loved while still a child,
Of castled rocks stupendous piled

By Esk or Eden's classic wave,

Where loves of youth and friendships smiled, Uncursed by thee, vile yellow slave!

Fade, day-dreams sweet, from memory fade !— The perish'd bliss of youth's first prime, That once so bright on fancy play'd,

Revives no more in after-time.

Far from my sacred natal clime,

I haste to an untimely grave;

The daring thoughts that soared sublime

Are sunk in ocean's southern wave.