CHAPTER V.
THIRD STAGE OF LITERARY LIFE.
Craighouse—Birth and marriages—Office and literary work—"Perth days"—Captain Speke—Library—Athenæum—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.
"My dear Russel,—What am I expected to do with the Cat Stane? Not to review it, I hope. I have had a sniff of it already in the proceedings of the Antiquarian Society. It is a brilliant specimen of the pedantic pottering of the learned body which enables me to append to my name the A.S.S., fraudulently inverted into S.S.A. Such twaddle always excites me into feverishness. I haven't nerve for it.
"I see the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa is made out very clearly, but there seem insuperable difficulties in proving Hengist and Horsa themselves. This strikes me as a characteristic of the author's[12] profession. He has to deal with parents actual and possible, but the offspring are seen evanescently, often loom in the distance, and sometimes can't be got to exist even when most desired.—Yours truly, J.H. Burton."
Dr Simpson's really universal genius led him pretty deeply into archæology, in which he sometimes, as on the present occasion, showed more zeal than knowledge.
One of the first summers at Craighouse was enlivened by a long visit from the African traveller, Captain Speke. Dr Burton met with him in the hospitable house of his friendly publisher, the late John Blackwood, at Strathtyrum. Captain Speke was then preparing, or endeavouring to prepare, for the press, his book, the 'Discovery of the Source of the Nile.' The truly gallant Captain being more practised in exploring than in writing, Mr Blackwood suggested his going home with Dr Burton, that he might have the benefit of his advice in the formation of his materials into a book. The family at Craighouse became warmly attached to their guest. He endeared himself by his simple unassuming character, and a peculiar sweetness of temper. The sorrow at Craighouse was great on hearing, during the following autumn, of his most lamentable death. He who had escaped so many dangers—was so well accustomed to firearms—accidentally shot by his own gun while partridge-shooting near his paternal home!
While at Craighouse, Dr Burton's library gradually increased from being an ordinary room full of books, to a collection numbering about 10,000 volumes. From his earliest years Dr Burton had been a collector of books, and Craighouse led to the increase of his collection in two ways. The distance from the town was an impediment to the use of the Advocates' Library in his historical studies, and there was space at Craighouse for any number of books. There were always rooms which could be taken into occupation when wanted; and to his life's end it was a favourite amusement of Dr Burton's to construct and erect shelves for his books.
In an article in 'Blackwood's Magazine' for August 1879, there occurs the following lively description of the impression made by the library on the mind of a visitor. Before the passage quoted was published, Dr Burton had left Craighouse for Morton House, but the description evidently refers to Craighouse:—
"We have had the privilege of dropping in upon him [Dr Burton clearly being meant, though not named] in what we might call his lair, if the word did not sound disrespectful. It was in a venerable, half-castellated, ivy-grown manor-house, among avenues of ancient trees, where the light had first to struggle through the foliage before it fell on the narrow windows, in walls that were many feet in thickness. And seldom, surely, has so rich a collection been stowed away in so strange a suite of rooms. Rooms, indeed, are hardly the word. The central point, where the proprietor wrote and studied, was a vaulted chamber, and all around was a labyrinth of passages to which you mounted or descended by a step or two; of odd nooks and sombre little corridors, and tiny apartments squeezed aside into corners, and lighted either from the corridor or by a lancet-window or a loophole. The floors were of polished oak or deal; the ceilings of stone or whitewashed; and as to the walls, you could see nothing of them for the panelling of shelves and the backs of the volumes. It was books—books—books—everywhere; the brilliant modern binding of recent works relieving the dull and far more appropriate tints of work-worn leather and time-stained vellum. To the visitor it seemed confusion worse confounded; though wherever his glance happened to fall, he had assurance of the treasures heaped at random around him. But his host carried the clue to the labyrinth in his brain, and could lay his hand on the spur of the moment on the book he happened to want. And with the wonders he had to offer for your admiration, you forgot the flight of time, till you woke up from your abstraction in the enchanted library, to inquire about the manuscript that was in course of publication."
In spring Dr Burton generally spent some time in London, partly on official business, partly in literary research at the British Museum.
He was elected a member of the Athenæum Club without application or ballot, an honour which he valued highly. He delighted in the dignified and literary tone of the Club, and frequented it much when in London.
About 1867 the office of Historiographer-Royal becoming vacant, it was bestowed on Dr Burton, with a salary of £190 per annum, thus bringing his annual income to nearly £900, instead of £700. The compliment was enhanced by the fact of a Conservative Ministry being then in office. Dr Burton was a decided, though not aggressive, Liberal in politics.
Though personally more and more unsociable as years advanced, Dr Burton was excessively hospitable. He could not bear that any person, rich or poor, should leave his house unrefreshed, and he made both servants and children welcome to see their friends if these did not trespass on his time. A nervous inquiry in later years, if he heard of any guest being expected, was, "He, or she, will not meddle with me, will he?" Assured that the privacy of his library would be respected, any one was free to the rest of the house; and if they showed no disposition to intrude, Dr Burton would gradually become tame to them, and in some few instances appear to enjoy a temporary addition to the family circle. Such instances were, however, rare and ever rarer. He was strongly attached to his home and home circle, and preferred having no addition to it. A very partial parent to all his children, his sons were his special pride and happiness.
During the first years of Craighouse, his wife was able to accompany him in those long rambles on the Pentlands which were his favourite amusement. Afterwards, when she was unable for the exertion, he found pleasant companions in his sons.
Several times during those years he spent some weeks on the Continent. He generally wrote daily during all absences, but his letters, as already said, were for the most part brief,—chiefly craving for news from home, which was also written for him daily. If any accident prevented his receiving his daily letter, he expressed agonies of apprehension about all possible or impossible ills. In regard to the health of his family he was painfully anxious and apprehensive.
The subjoined letters are offered as specimens of his correspondence.
"Athenæum Club,
29th June 1871.
"My dear Willie,[13]—As you and I have often gone geologising together, I'll tell you how I got on at St Albans, where, I suppose you know, I saw cousin William.[14] You know the conglomerates. They are generally hard little stones in a casing of sandstone, lime, or other soft matter. I have known for thirty years, in a lapidary's window in Perth, a large piece of conglomerate, where all is hard and flinty, taking a beautiful polish. After much inquiry I found that this was got in Hertfordshire, where St Albans is. I could get no account of any rock of it, however. But as there was a committee of agriculturists smoking in the inn every evening, I joined them, and got my information.
"It always occurs in cakes under the soil, and is very troublesome in ploughing. It is called the 'Mother stone,' or the 'Breeding stone,' from a supposition that it is the nursery of all the flints. When its nodules grow large enough, they set up as flints on their own account. There is therefore a great desire to extirpate it from the fields, and it might be found by their sides, or, as one man said, 'You may foind it anywheres, and you maint never foind it nowheres.' So I prowled about and got plenty, chipping off as much as I could conveniently carry.
"Tell Tucky and Cos[15] all this. I'm sure it will amuse them.—Your affectionate papa."
"Strasburg, 8th August 1875.
"My dear Cosmo,[16]—You have been very industrious, and have earned your holidays, so I hope you will have a good swing of them before we begin our Latin exercises. Meanwhile I am going to give you a little lesson in history and geography suggested by my travels.
"Look at some map containing Holland. You find me land at Rotterdam, and go round by Arnheim to Nymegen. This town used to be strongly fortified. I rambled in the remains of the fortifications, like small hills and valleys covered with bright grass. I saw a quantity of fine mushrooms growing in them, and the tall yellow flowers known as Samson's rod. The reason of the fortification is this. The Hollanders were an industrious, frugal people, who made a fruitful country out of swamps and sand. Nymegen is in the border. It is the gate, as it were, to Holland, and the fortifications kept the gate shut against enemies.
"In the year 1704 there reigned in France Louis XIV., called Louis the Grand. He had greatly enlarged his dominions, taking one country after another. He possessed the whole between Holland and France, and now he was to besiege Nymegen and take Holland. The Hollanders said to the British: 'We have been good friends; you are strong. Surely you will not let this cruel king rob us of the fruits of our industry? Besides, if Louis takes one country after another he will be so strong that you will not be able to resist him—it is your interest as well as ours. Come and help us in our sore distress.'
"So Queen Anne sent over an army under Marlborough. Not only did he save Nymegen, but he took from King Louis the chief fortified town he had in the neighbourhood—Venlo,—and many others along the river Maas or Meuse. There was an alliance with the Germans, and when King Louis heard that a German army was going to join the British he said, 'Together they will be too strong for me, let us destroy the German army in the first place.' For this purpose he sent an army to the Danube.
"For reasons I may tell you afterwards, all great battles are fought on flat ground. Marlborough thought that if he could get his army over the hills and into the plains of the Danube, he could fight the French before they destroyed the Germans. Accordingly he crossed what is called the 'watershed' between the Rhine and the Danube. You will find it at Geislingen, between Heidelberg and here. There is always high ground, and generally a valley in it at the sources of streams running in different directions. You may see this in the Pentlands, where the burns on one side run into the Water of Leith, and those on the other into the Esk."
The end of this letter has unfortunately been lost.
The fragment above quoted serves to illustrate Dr Burton's strong interest in military history. His accounts of battles and battle-fields are allowed to be the most striking parts of his Histories. His interest in such subjects arose partly from the faint infantile recollections already described. He purchased and studied works on fortification and military strategy.
"Athenæum Club, Pall Mall, S.W.,
25th April 1877.
"My dear Love,[17]—I got this morning your letter of Tuesday; very pleasant and refreshing, and more than once read over. But the exile can't hear too much from home, especially when the conditions are critical,[18] and I must not yet count that all critical conditions are at an end; so pray don't let a day pass without something being posted to me, though it should be but a card with the briefest inscription.
"I dined yesterday with the Vindicator,[19] when Horne, who you know is now Dean of Faculty, was in all his glory. On Monday I dined with Everest, dined also with Ellice and Colonel Mure, the member for Renfrewshire—rather too much gaiety, but I have no other engagement. I don't yet see when I shall get away, but will let you know whenever I myself know.
"I sent Will an engineering work yesterday, which I hope will profit and please him.—Love to all from your affectionate J.H. Burton."
Constitutionally irritable, energetic, and utterly persistent, Dr Burton did not know what dulness or depression of spirits was. With grief he was indeed acquainted, and while such a feeling lasted it engrossed him; but his spirits were naturally elastic, and both by nature and on principle he discouraged in himself and others any dwelling on the sad or pathetic aspects of life. He has said that the nearest approach he had ever felt to low spirits was when he had finished some great work, and had not yet begun another.
Such blanks in his life were short, and ever shorter and fewer. He found necessary excitement in his work, and, when he joined his family, needed no particular encouragement or inducement to lead him to talk either about what he was doing or something else. As he advanced in years his family learned more and more to leave the choice of subjects of conversation entirely to him. Any subject not chosen by himself was apt to prove irritating. Sometimes even his own did. Often his irritations were amusing. If his wife, or some one else, chose to affect a ludicrous degree of ignorance on some of his special subjects, they might probably elicit a volley of information which would not have been vouchsafed to them in answer to a serious question. Old reminiscences sometimes led on to those laughable sayings in which Dr Burton's talk was rich. For instance,—He had once rented an old inn at Pettycur as summer quarters, and a favourite amusement, both at the time and afterwards, was to imagine and describe the visitors who might have called on him there in ignorance of the changed destination of the house. He would imagine and mimic the tones of a drouthy Highland drover demanding refreshment,—which, by the way, he would have been sure to get had he so applied to Dr Burton; of an entirely drunk Lowlander, persisting in representing himself as a bonâ fide traveller; of a highly Conservative old nobleman, posting up to town with his carriage-and-four in spite of railways: this story ended with, "A wicked and perverse generation shall come seeking a Sign, and no sign shall be given them."
He delighted in a sort of practical bull, or confusion of ideas, such as—"One may never have a widow all his life."
A favourite story was of a too hospitable elder in a country parish, who invited his minister to sup and spend the night in his house without his wife's consent. The wife sees a male figure in the darkish entrance of the house, and in her anger deals him a violent blow on the head with the family Bible, ejaculating, "That's for asking him to stay a' nicht." The husband, from an inner room, exclaims, "Eh, woman, ye have felled the minister!" On which the virago says to her victim, "My dear, I thocht it was yersel'!"
Ministers and clergy of all denominations are often the text of jokes.
Another story referred to an Episcopal clergyman, who was frequently too late in reaching his church, and whose curate on such occasions began to read the morning service instead of him, and had reached in one of the lessons the well-known verse, St John xiv. 6, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," when his ecclesiastical superior, panting with exertion, reaches the reading-desk, pushes his curate from his place, and intones, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," adding a strictly private aside to his curate, "You the way, and the truth, and the life, indeed!"
Another minister arriving at church drenched with rain, and claiming sympathy from his wife, is told by her to "Gang up into the pu'pit; ye'll be dry eneuch there."
A story in a different spirit, said to have been reported to him by Lord Cockburn, is ascribed to a Scotch shepherd. A set of gentlemen were imprecating the prevailing east wind, and asked the shepherd if he could in any way defend that prevalent evil of his country. "Ay, sirs," said he; "it weets the sod, it slocks the yows [i.e., quenches the thirst of the ewes], and it's God's wull."
Many Aberdeenshire stories are valueless without Dr Burton's Aberdeen accent, which he could intensify at pleasure.
A reminiscence of college days at Aberdeen was of one of the professors there trying to discipline his unruly class, who came tumbling in while the professor was opening proceedings by reciting the Lord's Prayer in Latin, according to custom, and wound up his "In secula seculorum, amen," with "Quis loupavit ower the factions [Aberdeen for forms or benches], ille solvit doon a saxpence."
Two neat little mots relate, the one to the familiar subject of London eggs, the other, to the name of his youngest son. London grocers—as all Londoners know—label their eggs Fresh Eggs, and New-laid Eggs, only the respective prices of the different sorts or hard-bought experience pointing to the signification of the two appellations. Dr Burton on hearing this, said, "Oh, of course the New-laid Eggs become Fresh in time."
The writer wished to bestow the name of David on her youngest son, in addition to that of Cosmo, in memory of her husband's young brother David, whom she had heard described as an interesting child at the time of his early death. Dr Burton opposed this wish, not desiring to diminish the compliment to the child's grandfather and name-father, Cosmo Innes. The child was ultimately christened Cosmo Innes—thus, as his father said, remaining entirely Cosmetic.
Two legal stories were told respectively of Lord ——and Lord Corehouse:—
Lord —— is pronouncing sentence on an assassin who had stabbed a soldier: "You did not only maliciously, wickedly, and feloniously stab or cut his person, thereby depriving him of his life, but did also sever the band of his military breeches, which are her Majesty's."
Lord Corehouse is listening to the pleading of an advocate who describes some performance which, as he says, "could be done as easily as your Lordship could leap out of your breeches." Lord Corehouse interrupts: "Mr ——, the saltatory feat which you are pleased to ascribe to me is not one which I have ever attempted, and I do not feel sure that if I did I could perform it with any of that ease which you suppose."
Enough, perhaps, of such reminiscences, which, written, may fail altogether of their effect when spoken.
The writer recollects vaguely an immense number, of which confused images present themselves. Crocodiles with their hands in their breeches-pockets. Persons throwing off their coats and waistcoats like Newfoundland dogs. A master and man sleeping; master on the boards a-top, and the man in the bed; master remarking in the morning he would have preferred the lower station, but for the concetty o' the thing.
Coming down early one morning in great spirits at the prospect of a long day's outing with his son, he said to the boy—
"I am not an early riser,
As you may surmise, sir;
But when I'm on a ploy, sir,
I feel just like a boy, sir."
No chance rhyme or pun, bad, good, or indifferent, was let slip, however much taking it up might interrupt the subject under discussion.
The following childish little poem seems worth preservation now. It was presented to his daughter Matilda on the death of her little dog. She happening to visit a relative, who was physician in a lunatic asylum, and showing the little poem, it was printed in the 'Asylum Magazine,' from which it was copied into the 'Animal World:'
LAMENT FOR FOXEY.
Poor little Foxey,
With your coaxy
Little way,
You're gone for aye.
I'll no longer hark
To your garrulous bark,
See the fleeching grimace
Of your comical face,
Nor be touched by your yelping
When you get a skelping.
You had no orthodoxy
Poor Foxey,
Nor a commanding spirit,
Nor any great merit.
The reason for sorrow, then, what is it?
Just that you're missed,
And that's all
That shall befall
The rest of us,
Even the best of us.
An empty chair
Somewhere,
To be filled by another
Some day or other.
Sick cur or hero in his prime,
It's a matter of time.
The world is growing, growing,
The blank is going, going,
And will be gone anon.