X 
PREFACE. 
that ardour and enthusiasm which formed 
prominent features in his character. " A- 
" frica," says a biographer who intimately 
knew him, " had peculiar charms for Ley- 
" den. He delighted to read of hosts, 
" whose arrows intercepted the sunbeams ; 
" of kings, who judged of the number of 
" their soldiers, by marching them over 
« the trunk of a cedar ; of the royal halls 
" of Dahomy, built of sculls and cross 
" bones; all, in short, that presented strange, 
66 wild, and romantic views of what have 
" been quaintly entitled the ultimities and 
" summities of human nature, and which 
" furnished new and unheard of facts in the 
" history of man, had great fascination for 
" his ardent imagination." * So completely 
« c which this event has filled every bosom, capable of ap- 
" predating, and when appreciated, of honouring alive, 
<c and deploring in the grave, an example of excellence 
" intellectual and moral, so rare and eminent. I must 
" restrain, however, even the justifiable effusion of public 
" regret, heightened, as it is, by private sorrow on this 
" mournful theme ; not for the poverty of the subject, 
" or the coldness of affection, but for their abundance 
«« and excess." 
* Edinburgh Annual Register, 181!. 
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