It is necessary to say something of Leyden’s part in producing the Memoirs, because Erskine, desiring to “lose nothing that might add to Leyden’s reputation”, has assigned to him an undue position of collaboration in it both by giving him premier place on its title-page and by attributing to him the beginning the translation. What one gleans of Leyden’s character makes an impression of unassumption that would forbid his acceptance of the posthumous position given to him, and, as his translation shews the tyro in Turki, there can be no ground for supposing he would wish his competence in it over-estimated. He had, as dates show, nothing to do with the actual work of the Memoirs which was finished before Erskine had seen in 1813 what Leyden had set down before he died in 1811. As the Memoirs is now a rare book, I quote from it what Erskine says (Preface, p. ix) of Leyden’s rough translation:—“This acquisition (i.e. of Leyden’s trs.) reduced me to rather an awkward dilemma. The two translations (his own and Leyden’s) differed in many important particulars; but as Dr. Leyden had the advantage of translating from the original, I resolved to adopt his translation as far as it went, changing only such expressions in it as seemed evidently to be inconsistent with the context, or with other parts of the Memoirs, or such as seemed evidently to originate in the oversights that are unavoidable in an unfinished work.[23] This labour I had completed with some difficulty, when Mr. Elphinstone sent me the copy of the Memoirs of Baber in the original Tūrkī (i.e. The Elphinstone Codex) which he had procured when he went to Peshawar on his embassy to Kabul. This copy, which he had supposed to have been sent with Dr. Leyden’s manuscripts from Calcutta, he was now fortunate enough to recover (in his own library at Poona). “The discovery of this valuable manuscript reduced me, though heartily sick of the task, to the necessity of commencing my work once more.”
Erskine’s Preface (pp. x, xi) contains various other references to Leyden’s work which indicate its quality as tentative and unrevised. It is now in the British Museum Library.
XII
Little need be said here about the Memoirs of Baber.[24] Erskine worked on a basis of considerable earlier acquaintance with his Persian original, for, as his Preface tells, he had (after Leyden’s death) begun to translate this some years before he definitely accepted the counsel of Elphinstone and Malcolm to undertake the Memoirs. He finished his translation in 1813, and by 1816 was able to dedicate his complete volume to Elphinstone, but publication was delayed till 1826. His was difficult pioneer-work, and carried through with the drawback of working on a secondary source. It has done yeoman service, of which the crowning merit is its introduction of Babur’s autobiography to the Western world.
XIII
Amongst Erskine’s literary remains are several bound volumes of letters from Elphinstone, Malcolm, Leyden, and others of that distinguished group of Scots who promoted the revival of Babur’s writings. Erskine’s grandson, the late Mr. Lestocq Erskine, placed these, with other papers, at our disposal, and they are now located where they have been welcomed as appropriate additions:—Elphinstone’s are in the Advocates’ Library, where already (1826) he, through Erskine, had deposited his own Codex—and with his letters are those of Malcolm and more occasional correspondents; Leyden’s letters (and various papers) are in the Memorial Cottage maintained in his birthplace Denholm (Hawick) by the Edinburgh Border Counties Association; something fitting went to the Bombay Asiatic Society and a volume of diary to the British Museum. Leyden’s papers will help his fuller biography; Elphinstone’s letters have special value as recording his co-operation with Erskine by much friendly criticism, remonstrance against delay, counsels and encouragement. They, moreover, shew the estimate an accomplished man of modern affairs formed of Babur Padshah’s character and conduct; some have been quoted in Colebrooke’s Life of Elphinstone, but there they suffer by detachment from the rest of his Baburiana letters; bound together as they now are, and with brief explanatory interpolations, they would make a welcome item for “Babur Padshah’s Book-pile”.
XIV
In May 1921 the contents of these volumes were completed, namely, the Babur-nama in English and its supplements, the aims of which are to make Babur known in English diction answering to his ipsissima verba, and to be serviceable to readers and students of his book and of classic Turki.
XV
Of writings based upon or relating to Babur’s the following have appeared:—