Historian, was born at Aberdeen, 22d August 1809. Having graduated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, he was articled to a lawyer, but soon came to the Edinburgh bar, where, however, he mainly devoted himself to study and letters. He was in 1854 appointed Secretary to the Prison Board of Scotland, and was a Prison Commissioner, Historiographer Royal for Scotland, an LL.D. of Edinburgh, and D.C.L. of Oxford. He died near Edinburgh, 10th August 1881. From 1833 he contributed to the Westminster Review on law, history, and political economy; to Blackwood’s Magazine, The Scotsman, etc., he furnished many literary sketches; and he published a “Life of Hume” (1846), “Lives of Simon Lord Lovat and Duncan Forbes of Culloden” (1847), “Political Economy” (1849), “Narratives from Criminal Trials in Scotland” (1852), “The Book-Hunter” (1862), “The Scot Abroad” (2 vols. 1864), “The Cairngorm Mountains” (1864), “History of Scotland” (7 vols. 1867–70; new ed. 8 vols. 1873), “History of the Reign of Queen Anne” (1880), etc. See Memoir by his wife, prefixed to a new edition of “The Book-Hunter” (1882).
Personal
There was a good deal of the Bohemian in Burton. He was ill at ease when in full dress; he liked space and air; he was an inveterate wanderer—never happier than when tramping across the country-side, or camping among the heather. He did not care to become the mouthpiece of any clique or coterie. He valued his independence and his right to think for himself. And he was a most intrepid thinker. So long as he felt he was in the right, it did not matter to him what weight of authority might be arrayed against him…. The alacrity and alertness of Burton’s gait were characteristic of his mind. To the last he retained an almost boyish buoyancy both of body and mind. His spare and weather-beaten frame was sustained by an amazing vitality. The gaunt and attenuated figure, with the habitual stoop, which passed you at express speed, turning neither to right nor left—the hat which possibly had seen better days, thrown far back upon the head; the black surtout, which had been cut without any very close acquaintance on the part of the tailor with the angularities of the form it was to cover, streaming behind—might excite a passing smile; but we all knew that it was a fine, manly, independent, sincere, honourable soul that was lodged in this somewhat shabby tabernacle; and the incongruities were quickly forgotten…. Altogether he was a man whose memory will be cherished most by those who knew him best—a man without guile, generous, sweet-tempered, honourable, incapable of meanness, who hated shams and pretences of every sort, and lived with singular simplicity (in an age from which simplicity has been banished), a pure, honest, laborious, useful life.
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, the subtle ready sympathy which draws forth the best power of others. He was invaluable at a dull dinner-table, furnishing the whole frais de la conversation himself…. Returning from his office to dinner at five, he would, after dinner, retire to the library for twenty minutes or half-an-hour’s perusal of a novel as mental rest…. Although he would only read those called exciting, they did not, apparently, excite him, for he read them as slowly as if he were learning them by heart. He would return to the drawing-room to drink a large cup of extremely strong tea, then retire again 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…. Constitutionally irritable, energetic, and utterly persistent, Dr. Burton did not know what dulness or depression of spirits was…. John Hill Burton can never have been handsome, and he so determinately neglected his person, as to increase its natural defects. His greatest mental defect was an almost entire want of imagination. From this cause the characters of those nearest and dearest to him remained to his life’s end a sealed book…. Dr. Burton was excessively kind-hearted within the limit placed by this great want…. He was liberal of money to a fault. He never refused any application even from a street beggar…. No printer’s devil or other chance messenger failed to receive his sixpence or shilling, besides a comfortable meal…. Many of the “motley crew” along with whom Dr. Burton received his education fell into difficulties in the course of their lives. Application from one of them always met with a prompt response. To send double the amount asked on such occasions was his rule, if money was the object desired.
Many of the younger Edinburgh generation that knew nothing of him personally in his prime, must have a vivid recollection of casual glimpses of him in those still recent years, when his stooping, eccentric figure, very untidily dressed, and with the most battered and back-hanging of hats, would be seen pushing rapidly along Princes Street or some other thoroughfare, with a look that seemed to convey the decided intimation: “Don’t stop me; I care for none of you.” But, if you did have a meeting with Burton in circumstances that made colloquy possible, he was the most kindly of men in his rough and unsophisticated way, with a quantity of the queerest and most entertaining old lore, and no end of good Scottish stories.
History of Scotland, 1867–70
With all its faults and shortcomings, which we have not been slow to indicate. Mr. Burton’s work is now, and will probably continue to be, the best history of Scotland. So far as matters ecclesiastical are concerned, it has, and need fear, no rival. So far as regards the War of Independence, it holds the same position of superiority. If on minor points he has been less successful; if his narrative sometimes fails to attract, or his argument to convince; if we can mark omissions which mar the completeness of the work; we may yet feel justly grateful to the historian who has for the first time placed before us in the light of truth those aspects of Scottish history which are most worthy of study and best calculated to reward it.
It is but simple justice to say that this work has superseded in value all other histories of Scotland. As a complete record of one of the most turbulent of all histories, it is eminently successful. To the preparation of the work the author devoted many industrious years, and on several of the most disputed questions of Scottish history he has thrown a welcome light. The work is clear in style, and is arranged with an admirable regard for historical perspective.
This work has received the approbation of Lord Macaulay and other historical readers; it is honestly and diligently executed, with passages of vigorous and picturesque eloquence.
The last is the work of a capable and careful writer rather than of a great historian. Burton is sensible and dispassionate, and has collected and has put into shape the principal results of modern research as applied to Scotland.
General
Burton’s biographies and his “Book Hunter” secure him a more than respectable rank as a man of letters; and his legal and economical works entitle him to high credit as a jurist and an investigator of social science. His historical labours are more important, and yet his claims to historical eminence are more questionable. His “History of Scotland” has, indeed, the field to itself at present, being as yet the only one composed with the accurate research which the modern standard of history demands. By complying with this peremptory condition, Burton has distanced all competitors, but must in turn give way when one shall arise who, emulating or borrowing his closeness of investigation, shall add the beauty and grandeur due to the history of a great and romantic country. Burton indeed is by no means dry; his narrative is on the contrary highly entertaining. But this animation is purchased by an entire sacrifice of dignity. His style is always below the subject; there is a total lack of harmony and unity; and the work altogether produces the impression of a series of clever and meritorious magazine articles. Possessing in perfection all the ordinary and indispensable qualities of the historian, he is devoid of all those which exalt historical composition to the sphere of poetry and drama. His place is rather that of a sagacious critic of history, and in this character his companionship will always be found invaluable.
A most dangerous work, [“The Book Hunter”] it seems to me now, certain to scatter the contagion of bibliomania whereever it may penetrate. I do not see how a man may read it and not begin loving books as he should love his fellow-man. To the perusal of Dr. Burton’s pages—in the original edition, printed on a tawny paper most unpleasantly ribbed, a wrong to the eyes of every reader—I lay my own liking for books as books, for books wholly independent of their contents, for books as works of art and as objects of curiosity.
One of those historians who write wisely but not well. The profundity of his researches no one will be inclined to dispute, but he was unfortunately deficient in the qualities required for laying the results of his learning before the world. His “History of Scotland,” published in seven volumes between the years 1853 and 1870, is the most complete work of the kind we have, as it takes us from the earliest times, when the first reliable information is supplied by Tacitus’ account of the repulse of Agricola, to the rebellion of 1745. We cannot call it dry, because that word represents to our mind the class of works of information which are merely devoid of literary art. Burton’s history has a graver fault: it is wordy. The incidents of his narrative are buried under an avalanche of verbiage from which it is impossible to extricate them without a long and toilsome search. This defect makes it specially difficult to use his work as a book of reference, the want of clearness and connection of narrative making it almost impossible to follow the course of an episode, even if we are lucky enough to discover where it begins or ends. Oddly enough in his lighter works, such as the “Book-Hunter,” a series of essays on bibliographical subjects republished from “Blackwood’s Magazine,” he was more successful. His biographies, especially that of Hume, obtained a fair share of praise.
He was not a very good writer, but displayed very great industry and learning with a sound and impartial judgment.
