152 THE BOEDER ANGLER. 



more near ; and Leyden (to the great astonishment of 

 such of the guests as did not know him) burst into the 

 room, chaunting the desiderated ballad with the most 

 enthusiatie gestures, and all the energy of what he used 

 to call the saw-tones of his voice. It turned out that 

 he had walked between forty and fifty miles and back 

 again for the sole purpose of visiting an old person who 

 possessed this precious remnant of antiquity." Mus- 

 cular energy and animal spirits were indeed as cha- 

 racteristic of Leyden as his strong mental faculties 

 and indomitable resolution. He delighted in teasing 

 poor peevish Eitson the learned antiquarian when 

 he visited Scott at Lasswade ; and for the purpose of 

 horrifying the nervous vegetarian, manfully bolted a 

 pound of raw beef-steak one day at dinner, declaring 

 that it was the only proper food of man ! Such a man 

 could make his way in the world anywhere ; and when 

 he was sent out to Madras, chiefly through Scott's 

 friendly influence, nobody seems to have been surprised 

 that in a year or two he became first a professor in the 

 Bengal College at Calcutta, and afterwards one of the 

 principal Judges of the Presidency. He died in 1811, 

 of fever, while engaged in a scientific expedition to 

 Java, just as he was becoming the first Orientalist of 

 his day, and was laying the foundation for future ho- 

 nours. Many warm and worthy friendships died "with 

 Leyden in a distant land," and Sir Walter mourned him 

 in one of those beautiful Epistles that open the cantos 

 in Marmion, and again in The Lord of the Isles* 



* In a note to The Antiquary, the following example of the 

 native spirit sticking to Leyden in India is given : 



" The account of the ready patriotism displayed by the 



