The Book-Hunter
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 Saturday, 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 associations 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 assemble
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 passage 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.
CHAPTER V.
THIRD STAGE OF LITERARY LIFE.
_Craighouse--Birth and marriages--Office and literary work--"Perth
days"--Captain Speke--Library--Athenaeum--Historiographership--Unsociability
and Hospitality--St Albans--Strasburg--London--Stories, jokes, and
nonsense-verses._
At Craighouse a second son was born to Dr Burton; his seventh and
youngest child. There also his eldest and his third daughters married;
the younger, Matilda Lauder, in June 1877, becoming the wife of William
Lennox Cleland, of Adelaide, South Australia; the elder, Isabella
Jessie, that of James Rodger, M.D., of Aberdeen, in April 1878.
The whole of the period at Craighouse was one of active literary as well
as official life. Dr Burton walked daily to the Office of Prisons, no
longer to perform the duty of secretary, but that of manager, at the
same salary he had enjoyed as secretary. The transference of the
principal part of the duty to London altered his position but slightly.
Both before and after this change a monthly visit to the General Prison
at Perth was part of his duty. His wife occasionally accompanied him in
these excursions, and by experience can judge of the fatigue, or rather
the exertion without fatigue, which he underwent in them. At home Dr
Burton was never an early riser, but in travelling he willingly
performed a first stage before breakfast.
On his "Perth days," in going from Craighouse he was obliged to be astir
by four in the morning. His wife usually drove him to the railway
station in time to catch a train starting at six. Sometimes he would
consent to be met again on the arrival of the latest return train at
night and driven home; generally he preferred walking home, after a call
at his office, to see if anything there required his attention. He thus
arrived at Perth by breakfast-time; spent the whole day in passing from
cell to cell of the many hundred prisoners there confined, interrogating
each of them, and taking notes of anything requiring notice; and reached
home not till nearly midnight, yet never appearing at all fatigued.
Latterly he gave up this great effort and did not return till the
following day, sleeping in a hotel at Perth on the occasions of his
official visits.
In 1867 he published the first four volumes of his 'History of Scotland,
from Agricola's Invasion to the Revolution of 1688,' and in 1870 other
three volumes, completing the work, and, together with the portion
published in 1853, forming a complete narrative of Scotch history from
the earliest times down to the suppression of the Jacobite insurrection
of '45.
As offshoots from his great work, he published, first in 'Blackwood's
Magazine,' and then, with some additions, in volume shape, two pleasant
books--the 'Book-Hunter' and the 'Scot Abroad,'--besides many other
slighter works. During these years he was often obliged to refuse his
pen for fugitive writing, from unwillingness to interrupt his more
serious tasks.
The following is a note declining, very characteristically, an
application of the kind from his valued friend, Mr Russel, editor of the
'Scotsman':--
"_11th August 1862._