WILLIAM ERSKINE (1773-1852), the distinguished Orientalist, was born in Edinburgh on November 8, 1773. His father, David Erskine, was a Writer to the Signet, and his grandfather, John Erskine (1605-1768), a well-known writer on Scottish law. He was educated at the Royal School and the Edinburgh University, where he was apparently a fellow student of John Leyden, whom he met again in Calcutta. He was also associated at the time with Thomas Brown, the metaphysician, and the poet Thomas Campbell. He was apprenticed for seven years (1792-9) to James Dundas, Writer to the Signet, but, the work proving uncongenial, he left Edinburgh in 1799 to become factor to Mr. Hay of Duns. There he remained till 1803, but as the salary was small, and his prospects poor, he threw up his appointment, and returned to Edinburgh with the intention of studying medicine. A fortnight later Sir James Mackintosh, who had accepted the Recordership of Bombay, invited him to accompany him to India, promising him the first appointment in his gift. Mackintosh was attracted to him by his taste for philosophical studies, and, in a letter to Dr. Parr written in 1807, he speaks of him as ‘one of the most amiable, ingenious, and accurately informed men in the world’. Erskine sailed from Ryde with Mackintosh in February 1804, reaching Bombay in May of the same year. There he attended a meeting convened by Mackintosh for the purpose of founding the Literary Society of Bombay, of which Erskine was the first secretary. Soon after his arrival he was appointed Clerk to the Small Cause Court, and later served for many years as one of the stipendiary magistrates of Bombay. Erskine must have begun his Persian studies early, for he states that he had translated a small portion of Bābur’s Memoirs before 1810-11. In 1820 he was appointed Master in Equity in the Recorder’s Court, Bombay. Here he enjoyed the friendship and confidence of Mountstuart Elphinstone, and was a member of the committee that drew up the Bombay Code of Regulations. He did not, however, hold the office of Master in Equity for long, as he was removed from it, and left India under a cloud in 1823. The Chief Justice, West, appears to have behaved harshly to Erskine, the honesty of whose intentions was never open to doubt, though he may have been neglectful of his duties, the result perhaps of sickness. On his return from India Erskine at first settled in Edinburgh, where in 1826 he published the translation of Bābur’s Memoirs, which had been completed and sent home ten years previously. He tells us in his preface that he had been working at this translation from the Persian version, while Leyden in Calcutta was engaged in translating the same work from the Tūrki original. Leyden, however, died in 1811 before his translation was half finished, leaving his papers to Erskine, who received the MS. in 1813. By this time Erskine had completed his translation, and had just finished the work of comparing the two versions, when he received from Elphinstone his copy of the Tūrki original. This compelled him to undertake the task of comparing his translation throughout with the Tūrki, of which he had only an imperfect knowledge. Though Leyden was associated with Erskine as joint translator of the Memoirs, and the book was published for the benefit of Leyden’s father, the chief credit of the performance belongs to Erskine. Leyden translated only down to page 318 (Vol. I), and pages 79-94 (Vol. II) of the Memoirs, and supplied practically no notes; Erskine, on the other hand, contributed a valuable preface and introduction, corrected Leyden’s version, and translated the remainder of the work. He also supplied the notes, which Lord Jeffreys described as ‘the most intelligent, learned, and least pedantic, notes we have ever seen attached to such a performance’, and filled up the gaps in Bābur’s narrative with scholarly memoranda. In 1827 Erskine went to Pau, and there he resided for two or three years. He became Provost of St. Andrews in 1836, and in 1839 he returned to Edinburgh. He again went abroad in 1845, and lived in Bonn till 1848. Most of his later years were spent in Edinburgh, and during the last of these he became blind. He died on May 28, 1852, and was buried in St. John’s Episcopal Church. Erskine married in Madras Maitland, second daughter of Sir John Mackintosh, who died in 1861, and by whom he had fourteen children. Four of his sons were in the Indian Civil Service, of whom the eldest, James (1821-93), became judge of the Bombay High Court, and the youngest, Henry (1832-93), rose to be Commissioner of Sinde. Apart from his edition of Bābur’s Memoirs his chief work was the History of India under Bābur and Humāyūn, which was edited by his son James, and published after his death in 1854, though it had been completed several years before. This work is a valuable contribution to Indian history, and is marked throughout by good sense, accuracy, and impartiality.
JOHN LEYDEN, M.D. (1775-1811), physician and poet, son of John Leyden and Isabella Scott, was born on September 8, 1775, at Denholm, Cavers, Roxburghshire. He received some elementary schooling at Kirktown, and from 1790 to 1797 was a student of the Edinburgh University, where he greatly distinguished himself as a scholar. During the vacations he studied Natural Science, Scandinavian and Modern Languages, Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian, while his professional pursuits included Theology, Philosophy, and Medicine. Among his associates were Brougham, Sydney Smith, Jeffreys, Horne, and Thomas Brown. From 1796 to 1798 he was tutor to the sons of Mr. Campbell of Edinburgh, and accompanied them to St. Andrews (1797-8), where he was licenced as a preacher. He contributed poems to the Edinburgh Literary Magazine through Anderson, the editor of British Poets, and was one of the first to welcome the Pleasures of Hope, though subsequently he and Campbell had a ridiculous quarrel, which led to amusing consequences. In 1799 he came to know Heber, who introduced him to Sir Walter Scott, whom he materially helped with the earlier volumes of Border Minstrelsy. About 1799 Leyden published ‘An Historical and Philosophical Sketch of the Discoveries and Settlement of the Europeans in Northern and Western Africa at the close of the eighteenth century’. He also contributed a poem ‘The Elf King’ to Lewis’s Tales of Wonder in 1801, and edited for Constable The Complaynte of Scotland, with an elaborate introduction and glossary. For six months in 1802 he edited the Scots Magazine, contributing both prose and verse to it. His best poetic qualities, however, are shown in his ‘Miscellaneous Lyrics’. Through the influence of Dundas he secured the appointment of Assistant Surgeon in Madras and after six months’ study at St. Andrews he took out a nominal M.D. degree. Meanwhile he zealously studied Oriental languages, and prepared for publication his Scenes of Infancy. In August 1803 he reached Madras, and at first held charge of the Madras General Hospital. He subsequently accompanied, in the capacity of surgeon and naturalist, the Commission on the Mysore Provinces, taken from Tippu Sultan, and prepared an elaborate report on the geology, crops, diseases, and languages of the districts traversed. Having contracted fever he was obliged to stay at Seringapatam, where he was befriended by Sir J. Malcolm. In 1805 we find him travelling to Malabar, Cochin, and Quilon, and thence to Penang, for the benefit of his health. At Penang he wrote a ‘Dissertation on the Languages and Literature of the Indo-Chinese Nations’. Returning to India in 1806, Leyden settled in Calcutta, and his ‘Essay on the Indo-Persian, Indo-Chinese, and Dekhan Languages’, which appeared in 1807, led to his appointment as professor of Hindustāni in the Calcutta College. He did not hold this post for long, as soon afterwards he was appointed to the Judgeship of the twenty-four Pergunnahs. In 1809 he became Commissioner of the Court of Requests, and was appointed Assay Master of the Calcutta Mint in the following year (1810). In 1811 he accompanied Lord Minto to Java as interpreter in the Malay language. He died of fever at Cornelis after a three days’ illness on August 28, 1811. In an eulogium delivered before the Literary Society of Bombay, William Erskine claimed that Leyden in eight years had done almost as much for Asia as the combined scholarship of the West had done for Europe. Scott embalmed his ‘bright and brief’ career in the Lord of the Isles (IV, 2). Lord Cockburn, after referring to his unconscious egotism, uncouth aspect, and uncompromising demeanour, declares ‘there was no walk in life in which Leyden could not have shone’. The ‘Ettrick Shepherd’ bewailed the loss of the poet’s ‘glowing measure’, and Lockhart in his Life of Scott fully recognized his extraordinary abilities and attainments as a scholar. Sir Walter Scott contributed a memoir of Leyden to the Edinburgh Annual Register in 1811. His ‘Poetical Remains’ with a memoir were edited by the Rev. James Morton in 1819, and in 1858 his ‘Poems and Ballads’ with Scott’s Memoir were published. He translated one or more of the Gospels into Pushtu, Belūchi, Maldivian, Macassar, and Bugis, and in 1821 his Malay Annals with introduction by Sir Stamford Raffles appeared (Dictionary of National Biography.)