he East India Company's establishment at
Madras. During his course at the University, he had attended some of the
medical classes; and he now resumed the study of medicine, with such an
amount of success, that in six weeks he qualified himself for a
surgeon's diploma. About the same time, the degree of M.D. was conferred
on him by the University of St Andrews.

Before his departure for the East, Leyden finished his longest poem, the
"Scenes of Infancy," the publication of which he entrusted to his
friend, Dr Thomas Brown. His last winter in Britain he passed in London,
enjoying the society of many distinguished men of letters, to whom he
was introduced by his former friend, Mr Richard Heber. He sailed for
India[95] on the 7th April 1803, and arrived at Madras on the 19th
August. In Hindostan, his talents and extraordinary capabilities in
forming an acquaintance with the native tongues gained him numerous
friends. He was successively appointed surgeon to the commissioners for
surveying the provinces in Mysore, recently conquered from Tippoo
Sultan; professor of Hindostan in the College of Calcutta; judge of the
twenty-four pargunnahs of Calcutta; a commissioner of the Court of
Requests in Calcutta; and assay-master of the mint. His literary
services being required by the Governor-General, he left Calcutta for
Madras, and afterwards proceeded along with the army in the expedition
against Java. On the capture of the town of Batavia, having gone to
examine the library of the place, in which he expected to find some
curious Indian MSS., he caught a malignant fever from the tainted air of
the apartment. He survived only three days, terminating a life of much
promise, on the 28th of August 1811, in the thirty-sixth year of his
age.

In John Leyden an unconquerable perseverance was united to remarkable
native genius, and a memory of singular retentiveness. Eminent as a
linguist, he was an able and accurate philologist; in a knowledge of the
many languages of India he stood unrivalled. During his residence in the
East, he published a "Dissertation on the Languages and Literature of
the Indo-Chinese Nations," in the tenth volume of the "Asiatic
Researches," and he left numerous MSS. on subjects connected with
oriental learning. He was early a votary of the Muse; and, in youth, was
familiar with the older Scottish bards. In April 1795, he appeared in
the _Edinburgh Literary Magazine_ as author of an elegy "On the Death of
a Sist