The Book-Hunter Part 3

"JOHN HILL BURTON."

The fondness for animals and for gooseberries were lifelong tastes. That for animals did not extend to taking much trouble about them; but Dr Burton had none of a student's nervousness about slight noises or interruptions. He would have thought a house dull without the sounds of birds or other pets in it, and one of his favourite amus.e.m.e.nts was to watch the ways of animals. He had examples, in his acquaintance among dogs and cats, of heart and conscience in the two species respectively, too trivial for notice here.

Dr Burton has stated in the letters previously quoted some of the studies which he pursued at college in Edinburgh. His contribution to Mrs Gordon's 'Life of Professor Wilson' furnishes a lively picture of college life and experience in Edinburgh. He attended the course of the late Sir William Hamilton, and gained some distinction in the study of moral philosophy and metaphysics, so much that his appointment as a.s.sistant and successor to Sir William was seriously considered by himself and others. Had he become Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, he would no doubt have discharged the duties of the situation well. At that time of his life, great versatility, along with extraordinary diligence, was the chief characteristic of his mind. In later years he did not pursue the study of mental science.

Before the period in Dr Burton's life which we have now reached, he had contributed many articles to the 'Aberdeen Magazine,' published by his kind old friend Lewis Smith. These were lately collected and republished by Mr Smith; but, to judge from such specimens as the writer has seen, they are not, on the whole, of a character to increase Dr Burton's present reputation. He seems to have tried his hand at every kind of composition--romance, drama, poetry. In the last mentioned he had most success. His sentimental verses are pretty. His romances are so much crowded with incident as to be almost unintelligible. He was true to his own peculiar taste in novels. If a novel was recommended to him he used to inquire, "Is there plenty of murder in it?" He disliked almost equally the philosophical novel, and the domestic or social novel. Of the former he used to say he preferred to read _either_ philosophy or fiction; he could not endure them combined. To hear even a sentence of the best social or domestic novel read irritated him intolerably. He would ask, "How any one could feel interest in the talk of a set of ordinary silly people, such as one must meet with every day. It was bad enough to hear them talk when one could not help it."

Quant.i.ties of early works, never printed, are still preserved by his family. The habit of writing--_not_ letter-writing--seems to have begun as soon as he could use a pen, and while his orthography--never a strong point--was excessively weak. "The Rosted Baron" remains a popular work in a small circle. It is a tale, crowded, as its t.i.tle indicates, with blood and flames. The idea may have been taken from the burning of Frendraught. It was written when Dr Burton was quite a boy, and is now one of a heap of ma.n.u.scripts in a childish hand on very yellow paper remaining in his repositories.

"3 HOWARD PLACE, SOUTH, _24th July 1833_.

"MY DEAR MOTHER,-- ... I was extremely glad to receive your letter by post this morning, showing me that you are able to go about, and that you are enjoying yourself as much as possible. James[9] and I have been getting on very well and very comfortably.

[Footnote 9: Dr Burton's eight years younger brother.]

"I am obliged to delay our proposed jaunt till Monday next, as I find it impossible to get my work finished before Friday, the day I had fixed on. You are aware that I have long delayed an article on Criminal Trials for the 'Westminster Review.' I have now set about it seriously, and am resolved not to stir until it is finished, which I hope may be on Sat.u.r.day. I have likewise some things to finish for Chambers before I go, and then I think I shall be able to enjoy a few days of a stravaig.... I got a slight interruption last night; just as the twilight came on, Alex. Smith came in. Now I had been living like a hermit for some time, and though he has been more than a fortnight returned I had not seen Smith for ten days. The matter was irresistible. We set to and got very jolly together. He complained of having low spirits, but they were soon elevated, and before he went away he was leaping over the chairs, and very anxious to leap out at the window. I received on Monday the enclosed letter from Miss H. to you, and wrote by way of answer that I should send it to Aberdeen intimating my intended visit. By the way, a circ.u.mstance of some consequence occurs to me at this moment. If you remain for three weeks in Aberdeen and then leave it, you will do so just about a fortnight (I think) before the Circuit. Might it not be as well to remain until that period, when I might attend the Circuit and bring you back? I do not know at this moment the day of the Circuit, but the newspapers will inform you.

"You may tell Robertson [the before mentioned 'Joseph'] that his clothes may rot where they are until he chooses to write to me himself about them. I suppose James will write you a household statement some time or other soon. If you wish to amuse yourself with reading the lives I wrote in the last number of the Biography,[10] they are Archbishop Hamilton, Sir William Hamilton, Dr Robert Henry, Edward Henryson, J. Bonaventura Hepburn, Roger Hog, John Holybush, and Henry Home of Kames.... The gooseberries appear to dwindle as they ripen. I am afraid few will remain for you, but you will find a sufficient number where you are. I intend to _walk_ to Dunkeld, and to take two days. Al. Smith may come a bit with us.... All my little stock of news is exhausted. Pray remember me to my grand-aunt, Mrs Brown, and my aunts; and I am, my dear mother, your affectionate son,

"JOHN HILL BURTON."

[Footnote 10: The Cyclopaedia of Universal Biography.]

This letter describes the beginning of the life of literary labour which John Hill Burton's was to the end. He would not have liked to see it described as labour. He even disliked the word work as applied to his own pursuits, and he did indeed work as easily as most men play. He was unconscious of his own powers of mental application: his mind worked with as much ease as his lungs breathed. The great bulk of his earlier writings must be quite irrecoverable now. He wrote school-books, specially a set of historical abridgments for the use of schools, under the name of Dr White; he also compiled much of the information in Oliver and Boyd's 'Almanac,' and almost all the letterpress of Billings's 'Ecclesiastical and Baronial Antiquities.'

Dr Burton's whole resources at this time were derived from his pen. He has described this mode of life as a somewhat anxious but by no means unhappy one. The anxiety lay in that in which all sorts of business share--the finding work, looking for employment. The employment once found was agreeable to him. He rapidly acquired a power of mastering almost any subject on which he had to write, though he always looked forward with hope to the time, which eventually came, when he might live securely on a fixed income, free to write from the fulness of his mind and not from outward pressure.

The house in Howard Place was carefully managed by his mother. On a life spent entirely in town proving unsuitable to her health, Dr Burton took for her a little cottage at Brunstane, which served as country quarters for the family for several years.

In 1844 Dr Burton married Isabella Lauder, daughter of Captain Lauder of Flatfield, in Perthshire. He then occupied a house in Scotland Street, and his mother and sister left him to reside in the little cottage called Liberton Bank. There his beloved and revered mother died, in 1848. His sister still lives in the cottage with a little flock of young relatives which her kindness has gathered around her.

Dr Burton's first appearance in independent authorship was in 1846, when he published his 'Life and Correspondence of David Hume.' This work at once gained for him a recognised position among men of letters.

In 1847 he published a volume containing the Lives of Simon Lord Lovat and Duncan Forbes of Culloden. This is an eminently readable work, as are all his minor productions. Literary persons did not consider its merits quite equal to the promise given in its predecessor. During these years much of the spare time left by the need of frequent publication was filled by the task of editing Mr Jeremy Bentham's literary remains, to which Dr Burton was joint editor along with Dr (afterwards Sir John), Bowring. He published, as a precursor to the greater work, one styled 'Benthamiana; an Introduction to the Works of Jeremy Bentham.'

In 1849 he wrote for Messrs Chambers a little book ent.i.tled 'Political and Social Economy: Its Practical Application.' May the writer here be permitted to state that she considers this small and little-noticed work the best of all her husband's productions? Though the subject is usually considered particularly dry, there is an ease, rapidity, firmness, and completeness in this little book, which carries the reader on in spite of himself or his prejudices.

The book was first published in two small paper-covered volumes. The writer by chance got possession of the first, which ended without even a full stop; she, then a young girl of not particularly studious habits, having read it, its arguments so filled her mind, that she could not rest till, out of her not over-abundant pocket-money, she had purchased the other volume. The author was then unknown to her. He was afterwards gratified by hearing this testimony to the value of a work which he himself did not esteem so highly as his others. It may not be counted impertinent to repeat it here, for this reason, that the little book in question was intended as a popular treatise, not addressed to the learned, but to the unlearned. It fulfils to perfection the idea of what such a treatise should be. There is in the style not the slightest approach to condescension, or that writing down to the meaner capacity which must always offend an adult student; while the first principles of the science discussed are stated with such lucidity, that his capacity must be mean indeed who cannot grasp them, and they are ill.u.s.trated by statistics which will remain always interesting, even to the best informed. Probably the particular charm of the book arises from its having been written _currente calamo_. The information had been all previously stored in the author's mind before he ever thought of writing it. When he began to write, it poured forth without effort or any reference to authorities. The book was written in some marvellously short time,--the writer fears now to say how short. It was counted in days. It would have been quite contrary to Dr Burton's principles to boast of rapidity of composition. His greater works are monuments of industry. Dr Burton's information on economic subjects had probably been acquired during his studies and correspondence about the abolition of the Corn Laws. He was interim editor of the 'Scotsman' at an early period of the Corn-Law agitation, and during his editorship committed the journal to Anti-Corn-Law principles. He was at that time in correspondence with Mr Cobden, whom he visited in Lancashire, and who tried to induce him to remove to that part of the world for the purpose of editing an Anti-Corn-Law newspaper.

Mrs Burton was fond of society, and her husband had not then become positively averse to it. His acquaintance in Edinburgh gradually increased. It included Lord Jeffrey and his family, Lord Murray, who remained a fast friend during his life, and all the remaining members of the old Edinburgh circle.

About the year 1848, the writer first saw Dr Burton, accompanied by his wife, as guests at one of those late evening parties given by Mrs Jeffrey during the last years of her husband's life--a very faint reflection of the earlier hospitalities of Craigcrook and Moray Place.

In 1848 Dr Burton left Scotland Street for a house in Royal Crescent, better suited for occasional reception than the other. But in 1849 the heaviest blow of his life fell on him in the loss of his wife. His five married years had been a period of perfect domestic happiness. He found himself left with three infant daughters; their guide and his gone from him. He has described his sufferings at this time to the writer as fully realising to him the common phrase, "a broken heart." As each day pa.s.sed, and each night returned, he rose and lay down with the feeling that his heart was broken. He of course shunned all society, and never again recovered any real zest for it. He sometimes thought of imitating his grandfather under like circ.u.mstances with a difference--he thought of flying, not to London, but to the backwoods of America, or some place where he should never see a white face, and becoming a "wild man," a savage--a personage of whom he always believed himself to share many of the characteristics. Only consideration for his little girls deterred him from such a course. Although an excessively affectionate parent, Dr Burton had no pleasure in the company of children, owing to his want of any system with them. He could not, according to the common phrase, "manage" children at all--a necessary art for any one who has much of their company. He secured the services of a former governess of his wife, a Miss Wade, as care-taker of his children; and, as soon as he could, removed from the house in Royal Crescent to a small one in Castle Street, and afterwards, from a wish to let his children amuse themselves with little gardens of their own, to one in Ann Street. He has told the writer's father, Cosmo Innes, then his most intimate friend, that the first relief to his oppressed spirits was obtained from the nearest realisation of the "wild man" life to be found within his own country.

He took long walks in all weathers, sometimes walking all night as well as all day, at times with a companion, oftener with none. The late Alexander Russel, then editor of the 'Scotsman,' was his companion in some of these rambles, Joseph Robertson in others, and Cosmo Innes in others. It was Mr Russel who accompanied him in the run across Ireland, which took place about this time, and of which his printed sketch is one of the liveliest of his minor writings. His pace was so rapid, and his powers of walking so inexhaustible, that with the lapse of years it became more and more difficult to find a companion who could keep up with him. He has described to Mr Innes one particular walk taken alone to the waterfall called the Grey Mare's Tail. The whole excursion was performed in pitiless rain and wind, which gave the waterfall every advantage, and it was while battling with the elements in climbing the hill to view it that Dr Burton felt the first return of his natural elasticity of spirit. He soon found also the best medicine of all in hard work. The years between the death of his first wife and his second marriage were the most active of his literary life, at least in the line of periodical literature. He contributed regularly to 'Blackwood's Magazine,' besides other periodicals. In 1852 he published narratives from Criminal Trials in Scotland. In 1853 a 'Treatise on the Law of Bankruptcy in Scotland,' and in the same year his 'History of Scotland from the Revolution to the extinction of the last Jacobite Rebellion.'

CHAPTER IV.

SECOND STAGE OF LITERARY LIFE.

_Appointed Secretary to the Prison Board--Second marriage--Daily life--Death of infant child--First volunteers--Removal to Craighouse._

In 1854 Dr Burton was appointed Secretary to the Prison Board, at a salary of 700 per annum, and was thus relieved of the necessity, which had pressed on him for more than twenty years, of maintaining himself by his pen. On his appointment to this office he removed from Ann Street to the house then 27 Lauriston Place, the site of which is now occupied by the Simpson Memorial Hospital. In 1854 the situation was half rural. The house stood in a good old-fashioned garden of its own, beyond which lay a field containing some old trees; and the house possessed good offices, stables, &c., which were soon adapted to a workshop for Dr Burton himself, and rabbit and pigeon houses for his children.

The productiveness of the garden was marred by incursions of rabbits,--_not_ the children's pets, but wild rabbits, however incredible that may appear, now that the situation has got so entirely separated from the country by new buildings. At that time there was no building between Lauriston Place and Morningside.

Dr Burton, while a widower, had become a more and more frequent visitor at the house of Cosmo Innes in Inverleith Row. The writer does not recollect ever seeing him there along with other company--he preferred finding the family alone. She has met him occasionally in company in other houses--memorably in that of the late Mrs Cunningham, Lord Cunningham's widow--but never, so far as she can remember, in that of her father. He was at that time considered a good talker--his company was sought for the sake of his conversation. His defect in conversation was that he was a bad listener. His own part was well sustained.

His enormous store of varied information poured forth naturally and easily, and was interspersed with a wonderful stock of lively anecdotes and jokes. But he always lacked that greatest power of the conversationalist, that subtle ready sympathy which draws forth the best powers of others.

He was invaluable at a dull dinner-table, furnishing the whole _frais de la conversation_ himself; but he never probably appeared to quite such advantage as in the family party at 15 Inverleith Row. His long walks with Mr Innes, sometimes on a Sat.u.r.day, often on a Sunday, generally ended by his accepting the proffered invitation to dinner on his return. As he was the only guest, nothing could be more suitable or delightful than his amusing the whole circle during the whole time of his stay; and he has himself stated that his attention was first drawn to a shy and particularly silent girl by her irresistible outbursts of laughter at his stories, which outbursts in their turn encouraged him to pour forth story after story of his vast repertory in that sort.

On the 3d of August 1855 John Hill Burton married Katharine Innes as his second wife. He had by that time become accustomed to combine office with literary work, and, with the extraordinary activity and adaptability of his intellect, found them helpful to each other. About the time of his second marriage he conceived the project of his complete 'History of Scotland,' and directed his studies and investigations towards its execution, continuing, as his manner was, to throw off slight foretastes of his greater work as articles for 'Blackwood,' &c.

His mode of life at that time was to repair to the office of the Prison Board, in George Street, about eleven. He remained there till four, and made it matter of conscience neither to do any ex-official writing, nor to receive ex-official visits during these hours. He gave his undivided attention to the duties of his office, but has often said that these made him a better historian than he could have been without them. He conceived it highly useful for every literary man, but especially for a historian, to get acquainted with official forms and business. He has himself expressed this opinion fully in his printed works. Returning from his office to dinner at five, he would, after dinner, and after a little family chat in the drawing-room, retire to the library for twenty minutes or half an hour's perusal of a novel as mental rest. His taste in novels has been already described. Although he would read only those called exciting, they did not apparently excite him, for he read them as slowly as if he was learning them by heart. He would return to the drawing-room to drink a large cup of extremely strong tea, then again retire to the library to commence his day of literary work about eight in the evening. He would read or write without cessation, and without the least appearance of fatigue or excitement, till one or two in the morning.

Always an excellent sleeper, he would go to bed and to sleep till nine or ten of the same morning, seldom joining the family breakfast, but breakfasting by himself immediately before going to his office.

In Lauriston Place three more children were born to Dr Burton, a son and two daughters. When the elder of the two little girls was hardly a year old the whole nursery sickened, first of measles, then of hooping-cough.

Little Rose, the baby, being recommended change of air, the family went to South Queensferry, and there the baby died, and was buried in Dalmeny churchyard. Some earlier a.s.sociations had attached both Dr Burton and his wife to the neighbourhood; and during his latter years Dr Burton frequently alluded to this little baby, the only child he lost, being laid there,--and expressed a wish that when their time came, his wife and he should lie there also. His wish was carried out in his own case.

In July of the following year the first company of volunteers formed in Scotland exercised in the field at 27 Lauriston Place. Dr Burton sympathised strongly in the volunteer movement, and joined the Advocates' corps. Though never seriously apprehensive of an invasion of our coasts, he considered it proper that we should increase our military strength while foreign nations were so enormously augmenting theirs. He drilled regularly with the volunteers while they continued to a.s.semble in his field, and until an accident had temporarily lamed him. He marched past the Queen on the brilliant sunny day of the first great Volunteer Review in the Queen's Park in 1860, his wife looking on in the company of his old friend Sir John Kincaid, then an Inspector of Prisons.

27 Lauriston Place was considered sufficiently rural to obviate the necessity of going to the country, and during the six years of its occupancy the family seldom left it. Dr Burton gave his wife a little pony-carriage, by means of which sea-bathing could be had, when desired, from Lauriston Place.

During the year 1860, the new buildings in the neighbourhood spoiled the situation of the house, so as to render it hardly habitable. The field where the volunteers had drilled was built upon almost up to the windows of the house. To escape these disagreeables, a cottage at Lochgoilhead was taken for August and September, and much enjoyed by the whole family. A complete removal was also determined on for the following Whitsuntide.

An old house near the Braid Hills had been a childish haunt of his wife's, and it had been a childish dream of hers to repair that house, then a ruin, and live in it. The situation of the place seemed, and seems to her, the finest in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and the house was a historical one of no small interest.

The greatest part of it had been built in the year Queen Mary married Darnley (1565), but part of the building was very much older; a subterranean pa.s.sage especially, of considerable length, well arched, too narrow for a sally-port, unaccountable therefore by any other theory, Dr Burton always believed as old as the Romans. Craighouse had been besieged by Queen Mary's son in person, and had stood the siege and resisted the king.[11] The then laird of Craighouse, whose name was Kincaid, ran away with a widow, who was a royal ward, and married her in spite of the king; whether with or without the lady's own consent no record condescends to specify. The laird was afterwards nearly ruined by a fine, of which a part consisted of a favourite _nag_, which it would appear King Jamie had been personally acquainted with and coveted.

[Footnote 11: See Pitcairn's Criminal Trials.]

The distance of Craighouse from the town was not great--nothing as a walk to such walkers as Dr Burton and all his family; but it was enough to interfere seriously with evening engagements. Once home from business, it was an effort to return again to the town to dine or attend any sort of social gathering. The thing was not impossible, but its difficulty served as too good an excuse for Dr Burton's increasing unsociability. For a time, while some of the old circle still survived, Dr Burton saw them with pleasure at his own table, but he too early adopted a determination--which no one should ever adopt--to make no new friends. Almost all his old friends predeceased him, and he found himself thrown entirely on the society of his own family.

But to return. From a romantic wish to give his wife what he imagined she desired, Dr Burton returned from Lochgoilhead, leaving his family there, took all the steps for obtaining a lease of Craighouse in their absence, and on their return presented his wife, as her birthday gift, with the keys of Craighouse--a huge bunch of antique keys, some of them with picturesque old handles. Mrs Burton and all her family loved their beautiful home as much as any home ever was loved. They occupied it for seventeen years.

During the exceptionally severe winter of 1860-61, the most essential repairs were executed on the old house, and the family moved into it in March.

The 5th of March was long kept by them as a festival--the anniversary of the day on which they drove out to take possession of Craighouse in a spring snowstorm. They had resolved to get possession before the snowdrops, with which the beautiful avenue was carpeted, should be over; and they did--but the snowdrops were buried in snow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Craighouse._]

CHAPTER V.