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 o