L E Y D E N 1 . 



Prince of Orange ; but it has no building of import- 

 ance, as the professors live in private houses, and the 

 students in lodgings. The library is open only once 

 week, and contains about 40,000 volumes. The sa- 

 laries of the professors, exclusive of fees, is about 200 

 per annum. There is also in the university a physical 

 cabinet and a museum of natural history. There is a 

 literary society at Leyden, and also a poetical society. 



Leyden possesses some good private collections and 

 cabinet*, &c. The principal of these are, M. Doeve- 

 ren's cabinet of antiquities and collection of minerals; 

 the cabinet of natural history of M. Francois Berkley; 

 the botanic garden ; the anatomical collections of Doe- 

 veren, Rutland Albinus ; the cabinet of paintings of M. 

 Seltbs ; the collection of prints of M. de Leyde, which 

 was reckoned the best in Holland ; M. Tak's collection 

 of Dutch paintings ; and M. Dibbel's cabinet of de- 

 sign* and medal*. 



>lui has eight gates, ami its ramparts, which 

 form an excellent promenade, are formed of earth, part- 

 ly covered with turf, and partly faced with brick, and 

 consisting of severs! bastions. 



Leyden has long been celebrated for its manufacture 

 of doth, and there is a staple hall erected for the use 

 of the manufacturers and merchants. There are also 

 manufactories of soap and indigo. The fair of Leyden 

 is still much frequented. Its booths, arranged under 

 tree*, and along the barks of the canals, occupy about 

 one fourth part of the town. East Long. 4 29' 1 3" N. 

 Lt. M" ff SOT. Population 30,955. 



LEYDEN PHIAL. See ELECTRICITY, vol. viii. p. 435, 

 543. 



LEYDEN, JOHN, an eminent poet and oriental scho- 

 Ur, was born on the 8th September, 1775, at Den- 

 holm, a village of Scotland between Jedburgh and 

 Hawick, m the county of Roxburgh. Although our 

 author was nearly ten years of age before he had an op- 

 portunity of attending even the reading school, and re- 

 ceived the whole of his early education under very un- 

 favourable circumstances, yet he made rapid progress 

 in his studies ; and overcame, by his own persevering 

 exertions, difficulties which would have discouraged a 

 lew ardent and ambitious character. His parents hav- 

 ing determined to educate him for the Scottish church, 

 he wa* instructed in the Latin language by Mr. Dun- 

 can, a Caroeronian 'minister at Dennolm, and was reck- 

 oned fit to enter the college of Edinburgh in the year 

 17f)0. Here he was soon distinguished by a profound 

 krow ledge of the Greek and Latin languages : and 

 while he attended to the various sciences which a can- 

 didate for the church is compelled to study, his leisure 

 hour* were employed in acquiring a knowledge of the 

 French, Italian. Spanish, and German languages, to 

 which he joined a familiar acquaintance with the ancient 

 Islandir, the Hebrew, the Arabic, anil the Persian. 



In the year 1798, he attended two young gentlemen 

 who were studying at the college of St. Andrew's ; a 

 ctrrnmatance which secured him the acquaintance of 

 ProfcMor Hunter an excellent classical scholar and phi- 

 lologist, to whose instruction? Leyden acknowledged 

 himaelf deeply indebted. About this time, the expe- 

 dition of Mungo Park, who had been the early friend 

 and college companion of Leyden, had excited uni- 

 verwl notice, and naturally turned the attention of 

 Leyden to the history of Africa ; a subject which he 

 studied with much attention. His researches were pub- 

 lished in 1799, in a small volume, entitled. A Histori- 

 cal md Pktiotophical Sketch of the Discoveries and Set- 



719 



ilemenls oft/ic Europeans in Northern and Western Afri- 

 ca at the close of the 18th century, a new edition of 

 which has lately been published. 



In the winter of 1799 and 1800, Mr. Leyden became 

 acquainted by accident with Mr. Richard Heber, by 

 whom he was introduced to some of the principal fami- 

 lies in Edinburgh, and particularly to that of Mr. Wal- 

 ter Scott, who was then beginning to display that fine 

 genius, and those splendid talents, which have placed 

 him at the head of the literature of Europe. In this 

 society, the excellence of Leyden's disposition, and the 

 depth of his knowledge, atoned for those unfortunate 

 peculiarities of manner, which can be tolerated only 

 when they are the accompaniments of genius. 



In 1 800, Leyden received his license as a preacher 

 of the gospel, and he preached in several of the churches 

 of Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. In the autumn 

 of the same year, he accompanied two young foreigners 

 in a tour to the Hebrides, where he studied the tradi- 

 tions and manners of the Highlanders ; and it is a cu 

 lions circumstance, that after a long and painful inves- 

 tigation of the Ossianic controversy, he adopted an 

 opinion in favour of the authenticity of the poems. He 

 composed several detached poems on the Highland tra- 

 ditions which he had collected ; and when he passed 

 through Aberdeen, he obtained from Dr. Beattie a 

 transcript from the only existing copy of the poem en- 

 titled Albania. This poem is a panegyric on Scotland, 

 in blank verse, written about the beginning of the 18th 

 century, by an anonymous author. It was afterwards 

 published by Mr. Leyden along with Wilson's " Clyde," 

 in a volume entitled Scottish Descriptive Poems, which 

 appeared in 1802. 



In the year 1801, Leyden contributed the ballad 

 called the Elf- King to Lewis' Tales of Wonder ; and in 

 1802, he was diligently employed in procuring mate* 

 rials for the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, the first 

 work of Mr. Walter Scott. To this interesting publi- 

 cation Leyden contributed the ballads entitled Lord 

 Soulis and the Cout of Keeldar ; and though Mr. Scott 

 arranged and digested the Dissertation on Fairy Super- 

 stition, yet it was originally compiled by Leyden, and 

 " abounds with instances of such curious reading as 

 Leyden alone had read." 



The next work of Leyden was a new edition of The 

 Complaynt of Scotland, a very scarce tract, written 

 about the year 1548. It was published in 1801, and 

 accompanied with a dissertation, notes, and glossary, 

 which displayed an intimate acquaintance with Scottish 

 antiquities, and an extent of research, and power of ar- 

 rangement, which has seldom been equalled. 



In the year 1802, when the Edinburgh and Scots 

 Magazine were united, Leyden undertook to edite it, 

 and discharged this duty for about five months. In the 

 same year he began his poem entitled Scenes of Infancy, 

 " in which he has interwoven his own early feelings 

 and recollections with the description of the traditional 

 history of his native vale of Teviot." It was not pub- 

 lished, however, till the year 1803. 



Mr. Leyden was now in the 2?th year of his age, but 

 without any immediate prospect of a settlement for life. 

 His friends were therefore anxious to turn his passion 

 for knowledge to some account, and the more so, as he 

 had actually made overtures, in 1 802, to the African 

 Society, for undertaking a journey of discovery through 

 that continent. The peculiar talents of Leyden were 

 therefore stated to the Right Honourable W. Dundas, 

 who had then a seat at the Board of Controul ; and it 



Leyden, 

 John. 



