er.]

[Footnote 18: His youngest daughter had had a mild attack of
scarlet fever, from which she was completely recovered before he
left home.]

"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.

[Footnote 19: Mr Hosack, author of an ingenious and exhaustive
work, 'Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers,' in which he
vindicates the character of Queen Mary. Notwithstanding their
difference of opinion on that fruitful subject of dispute, the two
authors were fast friends.]

"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, an