Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 6.djvu/75

Rh eager to secure the fruits of knowledge, and held for sufficient reward the fame of having gathered them.

Dr Leyden accompanied the governor-general upon the expedition to Java, [August 1811] for the purpose of investigating the manners, language, and literature of the tribes which inhabit that island, and partly also because it was thought his extensive knowledge of the eastern dialects and customs might be useful in settling the government of the country, or in communicating with the independent princes in the neighbourhood of the Dutch settlements. His spirit of romantic adventure led him literally to rush upon death; for, with another volunteer who attended the expedition, he threw himself into the surf, in order to be the first Briton of the expedition who should set foot upon Java. When the success of the well-concerted movements of the invaders had given them possession of the town of Batavia, Leyden displayed the same ill-omened precipitation in his haste to examine a library in which many Indian manuscripts of value were said to be deposited. A library, in a Dutch settlement, was not, as might have been 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 prosage was too just; he took his bed, and died in three days [August 28], on the eve of the battle which gave Java to the British empire.

Thus died John Leyden, in the moment, perhaps, most calculated to gratify the feelings which were dear to his heart; upon the very day of military glory, and when every avenue of new and interesting discovery was opened to his penetrating research. In the emphatic words of Scripture, "the bowl was broken at the fountain." His literary remains were intrusted by his last will to the charge of Mr Heber, and Dr Hare of Calcutta, his executors. They are understood to contain two volumes of poetry, with many essays on oriental and general literature. 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 affecting farewell in the solemn passage which concludes the Scenes of Infancy.