LEYDEN, JOHN, M.D., was born on the 8th of September 1775, at Denholm, a village on the banks of the Teviot, In the perish of Cavers and county of Roxburgh. His parents, who were engaged in farming, gave him as good an education as their means allowed. After making great progress in his studies, he was sent to Edinburgh in 1790, with the view of studying for the Church. lie was highly diatin gulehed at college by his diligence and attainments, and made con siderable progress in tho Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian, and acquired also the French, Spanish, Italian and German, as well as the Greek and Latin languages. In 1798 he was ordained as a minister In the Presbyterian Church ; but be never obtained any popularity as e preacher, and finding that he was not likely to succeed in that pro fession, he applied himself to the study of medicine, and was appointed in 1802 as assistant-surgeon in the East India Company's service.
In 1803 be arrived at Madras, and immediately directed his attention to the study of the eastern languages. In addition to the Sanacrit, Arable, Persian, and Hindustani languages, he made himself master of many of the languages spoken in the Deccan, and obtained an extensive knowledge of the Malay and other kindred tongues. During his resideueo in India he was promoted from the office of surgeon to the professorship of Hindustani in Fort William College ; and shortly afterwards to the office of judge of the Twenty-four Pargunnahs of Calcutta. In 1809 he was appointed one of tho commissioners of the Court of Requests in Calcutta; and in the following year to the still more profitable situation of Assay-Master at the Calcutta Mint. He accompanied Lord Mint() in the expedition against Java in 1811, and died in that island on the 23th of August, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.
Leyden did not publish much upon the eastern languages, but what he has written bears evidence to the extent of his knowledge. His
treatise On the Languages and Literature of the Indo-Chinese Nations,' published in the tenth volume of the Asiatic Researches,' contains an investigation of the origin and descent of the various tribes that inhabit tho Malay peninsula and islands, and a comparison of their languages and customs; and his observations ' On the Roshe niah Sect,' published in the eleventh volume of the 'Asiatic Researches,' gives an account of an heretical sect among the Afghans, which appears to have arisen shortly before the accession of Akbar. His translation of the 'Malay Annals' was published after his death by his friend Sir Stamford Rallies; and his manuscripts contained many valuable trea tises on the eastern languages, translations from Sanscrit, Arabic, and Persian works, and several grammars of different languages, particu larly one of the Malay and another of the Prakrit.
Leyden was an ardent admirer of poetry, and published many poems at various times, which were collected and published after his death by the Rev. James Morton, under the title of ' Poetical Remains of the late Dr. John Leyden,' Lend., 1819. He also con tributed numerous pieces to Scott's 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' he baying accumulated in his youth an amazing store of the ballad literature of his native country, and edited the 'Complaint of Scotland,' an ancient political tract in the Scottish language, as well as' Scottish Descriptive Poems.' He was the author of A Historical and Philosophical Sketch of the Discoveries and Settlements of the Europeans in Northern and Western Africa, at the close of the eighteenth century ;' of which an enlarged edition was published by Mr. H. Murray in 1818.
(Morton, Memoirs of Dr. Leyden's Life, prefixed to the 'Poetical Remains of the late Dr. J. Leyden,' and Essay on the Life of Leyden, in Miscellaneous Works.'