The Book-Hunter
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THE BOOK-HUNTER
THE BOOK-HUNTER
etc.
by
JOHN HILL BURTON
D.C.L., LL.D.
Author of 'A History of Scotland,' 'The Scot Abroad,'
'The Reign of Queen Anne,' &c.
A New Edition
_With a Memoir of the Author_
William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
MDCCCLXXXII
_All Rights reserved_
_PUBLISHER'S NOTE._
_The learned Author of 'THE BOOK-HUNTER,' very shortly before his death,
gave his consent that the Work should be reprinted._
_This has now been done from his own copy, with any slight additions or
emendations which it, or the notes of literary friends, supplied, and in
a form which, it is hoped, will be acceptable to all lovers of choice
books._
_A Memoir of Dr Burton, by his Widow, has been prefixed, and a copious
Index added._
_The portrait of the Author has been reproduced from a characteristic
photograph, and etched by Mr W.B. Hole, A.R.S.A. The View in the
Library, and the Vignettes of Craighouse and Dalmeny, have been drawn by
Miss Rose Burton, and engraved by Miss E.P. Burton._
45 GEORGE STREET,
EDINBURGH, _May 1882_.
_THE AUTHOR'S ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION._
The Author, in again laying his little book before the public, has taken
advantage of some suggestions kindly contributed by the critics who
reviewed the previous edition, and he has thus been enabled to correct a
few inaccuracies which they have courteously characterised as mere
errors of the press. Productions of this indefinite kind are apt to grow
in the hands of an author; and in the course of his revision he was
unable to resist the temptation to throw in a few additional touches
here and there, as to which he can only hope that they will not
deteriorate the volume in the eyes of those who thought well of it in
its old shape.
1863.
_CONTENTS._
PAGE
MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR, i
_THE BOOK-HUNTER._
Part I.--His Nature.
INTRODUCTORY, 1
A VISION OF MIGHTY BOOK-HUNTERS, 14
REMINISCENCES, 59
CLASSIFICATION, 62
THE PROWLER AND THE AUCTION-HAUNTER, 88
Part II.--His Functions.
THE HOBBY, 101
THE DESULTORY READER OR BOHEMIAN OF LITERATURE, 108
THE COLLECTOR AND THE SCHOLAR, 115
THE GLEANER AND HIS HARVEST, 124
PRETENDERS, 161
HIS ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE CREATION OF LIBRARIES, 168
THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE, 205
LIBRARIANS, 227
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, 233
Part III.--His Club.
CLUBS IN GENERAL, 243
THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK CLUBS, 251
THE ROXBURGHE CLUB, 265
SOME BOOK-CLUB MEN, 283
Part IV.--Book-Club Literature.
GENERALITIES, 311
JOHN SPALDING, 330
ROBERT WODROW, 338
THE EARLY NORTHERN SAINTS, 352
SERMONS IN STONES, 404
INDEX, 419
List of Illustrations.
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR, _Frontispiece._
THE AVENUE, CRAIGHOUSE, i
CRAIGHOUSE, lix
DALMENY CHURCHYARD, civ
A NOOK IN THE AUTHOR'S LIBRARY, 1
MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER I.
ABERDEEN.
_Parentage--Patons--Grandholm--Jersey--"Peninsular War"--School and
schoolmasters--Flogging--College--Competition for bursaries--Home
life--Aunt and grand-aunt--Holiday rambles--Letter._
John Hill Burton, the subject of this notice, was born on the 22d of
August 1809, in the Gallowgate of Aberdeen. He was wont to style
himself, as in his childhood he had heard himself described, "The last
of the Gallowgate bairns;" the Gallowgate being an old part of Aberdeen
devoted chiefly to humble trade, no one, in modern times at least, even
distantly connected with gentility living there.
His father, William Kinninmont Burton, is believed to have been an only
son, and no kith or kin of his were ever seen or heard of by his
children. The only relic of their father's family possessed by them is a
somewhat interesting miniature on ivory, well painted in the
old-fashioned style, representing a not beautiful lady in antique
head-dress and costume, and marked on the back "Mary Burton." William
Kinninmont Burton held a commission in the army, though he had not been
originally intended for a military life. He was, it is supposed, engaged
in trade in London when the military enthusiasm, excited by the idea of
an invasion of Great Britain by Napoleon, fired him, like so many other
young men, into taking up arms as a volunteer. In the end of last
century he came to Aberdeen as a lieutenant in a regiment of
"Fencibles," or some such volunteer title, and there captivated the
affections of a beautiful young lady, Miss Eliza Paton, a daughter of
the laird of Grandholm, an estate four miles distant from Aberdeen. Of
this lady and of her family a few words must be said.
So small was the value of land in Scotland in the beginning of the
century, that it is safe to suppose the estate of Grandholm yielded less
than one-third of its present rental. The circumstances and social
position of the family were, besides, seriously lowered by the
extraordinary character of the then laird. John Paton, grandfather of
Dr Burton, was a man not devoid of talent, and of a strikingly handsome
gentlemanly appearance and manner. He married, early in life, a
beautiful Miss Lance, an Englishwoman, who, after bearing him ten
children in about as many years, fell into a weak state of health, of
mind as well as body. The laird nursed his wife devotedly for a long
period of years, cherishing her to the exclusion of all other persons or
interests. His children he regarded as the enemies of his adored wife,
and consequently of himself, and his conduct to them from first to last
was little less than brutal. When the enfeebled wife at last died, the
husband's grief verged on madness.
He would not allow her body to be buried in the ordinary manner, but
caused a tomb to be erected in a wood near the house of Grandholm, where
the corpse was placed in an open coffin, and where the bereaved husband
could go daily to bewail his loss. The distracted mourner rejected all
attentions from children, relatives, or friends, yet apparently dreaded
being left alone, for he advertised for a male companion or keeper to
bear him company. The writer has often heard Dr Burton amuse himself and
his audience by describing the extraordinary varieties of struggling
humanity who applied for the situation. Ultimately, it is believed, none
of them was selected, and the laird fled from his natural home, and from
that time till his death lived chiefly in London, leaving his large
young family to take care of themselves as they best could.
The three sons went successively to India or other foreign parts, and
died there, one of them leaving a son, whose family are the present
possessors of Grandholm.
Of the seven daughters--several of whom were very handsome--two only
were married, namely, Eliza, who became Mrs Burton, mother of the
historiographer; and Margaret, who espoused rather late in life a Dr
Brown, and continued as a widow to inhabit an old house belonging to the
Grandholm family in Old Aberdeen till June 1879, when she died at the
age of ninety-eight.
The young family, thus deserted by their natural protector, fell chiefly
under the authority of his eldest daughter, Mary--said, of all his
children, to most resemble the laird himself.
Among this lady's nephews and nieces there linger strange traditions of
the violence of her temper, and of the intensity of her loves and hates.
It is hardly necessary to say that none of the females at least of the
family received any particular education.
Mary was a woman of strong natural abilities, and of an excellent
business faculty. She managed the very small resources left at her
command with consummate skill, and in her later years made of Grandholm
a hospitable, cheerful, old-fashioned home for those whom it pleased her
to receive there. Her sister Eliza's marriage had not pleased her. There
was much to justify her objection to it; William Burton, not then
holding a commission, was entirely without pecuniary resources.
His strongest talent seems to have been for painting, and by such
occupation as he could get in drawing and painting in London he was
barely able to maintain himself. The old grandfather and his lieutenant,
aunt Mary, have been described to the writer in the darkest colours as
having constantly interposed between the true lovers, William Burton and
his beloved Eliza Paton, who, in spite of all advice to the contrary,
soon became his wife. What the laird of Grandholm and his daughter Mary
did was no doubt done in the harshest manner, but their actions
themselves seem hardly blamable. When William Burton found it impossible
to maintain his wife in London, she was received again into her paternal
home with her infant, William, John Hill Burton's elder brother. The
wife, of course, earnestly and constantly desired to rejoin her husband.
The father and sister declined to facilitate her doing so by paying the
expense of her return journey, concluding that if her husband was unable
to meet that outlay, he was not in a position to maintain her beside
himself.
After some six or eight years of mutual longing for each other's
society, separated by the distance of London from Aberdeen, William
Burton succeeded in exchanging his position in the Fencibles for a
lieutenancy in a line regiment under orders for India. There also he
went unaccompanied by his wife. After brief service in India he had to
return home in ill health. Then at last the husband and wife were
reunited; first to live together for a time in Aberdeen--afterwards to
go with their two sons to Jersey.
The eldest son, William, ten years older than John, afterwards went into
the Indian army, and died in India, leaving a son and daughter.
John Hill Burton's earliest recollections dated from his stay with his
parents in garrison in Jersey. This must have been about the year 1811
or 1812, when he was therefore two or three years old. He used to say he
remembered the relieving of guard in Jersey; that he had an infantine
recollection of a military guard-room by night; and remembered a "Lady
Fanny," the wife, as he believed, of the colonel of the regiment, who
showed some slight kindness towards him and other garrison children.
The greatest adventure of Dr Burton's unadventurous life occurred when
he was returning with his parents from Jersey, in a troop-ship. The
vessel was chased by a French privateer, and for some time the little
family had reason to fear becoming inmates of a French prison. It was
this incident which Dr Burton used in his later life to say entitled him
to assert that he had been in the Peninsular War. The homeward journey
from Jersey was to Aberdeen, which it is believed Lieutenant Burton and
his family never left again till his death. His failing health obliged
him to retire from active service on the half-pay of a lieutenant. His