On Wednesday, 10th, the improvement seemed more marked till about ten a.m. About that time a change in the countenance was observed. On the doctor's visit about twelve he pronounced the case all but hopeless, and five hours later life was extinct. Consciousness remained till almost the last moment. The illness was attended by no bodily pain, little even of uneasiness, and the mind was calm and placid throughout.
Since the beginning of illness, nine months before, the natural irritability, or impatience of temper, had been diminishing. Dr Burton was by no means, as all his friends seemed to suppose, a fretful or unreasonable invalid. With but few exceptions he was gentle and grateful to his attendants, especially to his wife. He was perfectly aware of his own condition, though never directly told it. His friend Mr Belcombe, the clergyman of the Episcopal Chapel at Morningside, called for him on Tuesday, 9th August, was received by him with pleasure, and spent some time with him. Dr Burton had been brought up an Episcopalian, and continued attached to the Moderate party in that Church through life.
It can hardly be expected that the writer should offer a critical estimate of one so lately dead, and so nearly related to her. In the preceding sketch she has endeavoured to inform the public on all particulars in which they might be supposed interested in the life of a man who served them during life with considerable acceptance. His voluminous works may speak for themselves, or find a more competent exponent than the present writer. She has endeavoured to give a picture of himself.
John Hill Burton can never have been handsome, and he so determinedly 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.
He was fond of talking, and still fonder of writing, about character; but even his liveliest pictures, such as that of De Quincey the opium-eater, are but a collection of external habits or peculiarities, not necessarily bearing at all on the real nature—the inner man. His was the sort of mind which more naturally classifies than individualises, in this agreeing with the late Mr Buckle, who appreciated Dr Burton's historical labours, and was in his turn appreciated by him. To both, individual character seemed a small subject not worth study.
The characters of women, especially, were by Dr Burton all placed in the same category. He conceived of them all as baby-worshippers, flower-lovers, &c.—all alike.
Dr Burton was excessively kind-hearted within the limits placed by this great want. To any sorrow or suffering which he could understand he craved with characteristic impatience to carry immediate relief; and the greatest enjoyment of his life, especially of its later years, was to give pleasure to children, poor people, or the lower animals. Many humble folks will remember the bunches of flowers he thrust silently into their hands, and the refreshment he never failed to press on their acceptance in his own peculiar manner.
He was liberal of money to a fault. He never refused any application even from a street beggar. He quite allowed that these ought not to be encouraged, but he urged that the municipality ought to take charge of them, and prevent their appealing to the compassion of the public, who could not, as he said, be expected to perform the disagreeable task of disciplining vagrants at the wages of a penny a case. No printer's devil or other chance messenger failed to receive his sixpence or shilling, besides a comfortable meal. It was his constant custom to ask his sons if any of their wants were unsupplied, if they required money for furnishing their workshop or laboratory, or for any of their studies or amusements. It is but just to them to add that the question was almost always answered in the negative.
Many of the "motley crew" along with whom Dr Burton received his education fell into difficulties in the course of their lives. An 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. In his earlier life he would also spare no trouble in endeavouring to help these unfortunates to help themselves. As he grew old he was less zealous, probably from being less sanguine of success, in this service.
On Saturday the 13th of August the mortal remains of John Hill Burton were laid beside those of his infant child in the lovely little churchyard of Dalmeny. It had been at first intended that he should be buried in the Dean Cemetery, where his mother and his first wife were interred, and where his valued friend William Brodie[22] had erected a beautiful monument over their graves; but after orders had been given to this effect, his wife became strongly possessed by the wish to carry out his repeatedly expressed injunction to have him laid in Dalmeny.