The Book-Hunter | Page 4

down from
sheer exhaustion and an injury from which he never recovered.
Before John Hill Burton had completed his course at the grammar
school he gained a bursary by competition, and began his studies at
Marischal College. The open competition for bursaries at Aberdeen
was a subject on which he delighted to talk, often with tears of
enthusiasm in his eyes. The entire impartiality, the complete openness
of these competitions to the whole world, the spectacle of high learning
freely offered to whoever could by merit earn it, seemed to Dr Burton,
to his life's end, as fine a subject of contemplation as any the world
could offer. During his last illness, a friend, who knew his strong
interest in his Alma Mater, presented him with Mr M'Lean's 'Life at a
Northern University.' He read it with the utmost delight, often reading
passages aloud with great emotion, on account of the vivid picture they
presented of the scenes of his youth. It was a rough hard life that of an
Aberdeen College student fifty or sixty years ago.
Mr M'Lean says of his fellow-students: "As the most of them came
from the country--generally from the Highlands and Western Islands of
Scotland--they brought with them all their native roughness and
coarseness of manners. The great majority of those who had spent their
lives in town frequented the neighbouring university,[1] where the
entrance and other examinations were not nearly so severe. In general,
the great bulk of the students were far behind in good manners, and that
polish which a large town always gives. Their secluded habits when at
college, and their intercourse only with their own number, prevented
any improvement in this matter. On the whole, their conduct in the
class, and their behaviour towards some of the professors, were
anything but gentlemanly."[2]

[Footnote 1: Marischal College. Mr M'Lean's descriptions refer to
King's; but the two colleges, close together, must have been pretty
similar in their manners and customs even before they were, as they
now are, formally united.]
[Footnote 2: Life in a Northern University. By Neil M'Lean, author of
'Memoirs of Marshal Keith,' 'Romance of the Seal and Whale Fishing,'
&c., &c. Glasgow; John S. Marr & Sons: London; Simpkin, Marshall,
& Co. 1874.]
Another quotation from Mr M'Lean may be allowed, as embodying the
descriptions often given by Dr Burton of the motley crew of
competitors for the scholarships and bursaries dispensed by the
university: "Gazing round the room, I noted that my competitors
consisted of raw-boned red-haired Highlandmen, fresh from their
native hills, with all their rusticity about them. All the northern counties
had sent their quota to swell the number, and even the Orkney and
Shetland Islands were represented. Many rosy-faced young fellows
were also to be seen, who had left their country occupations for a little,
and who, if unsuccessful"--i.e., in gaining a bursary--"would return to
them, and work in their leisure hours at their favourite classics until
another competition came round. Here and there were to be seen a few
rather better dressed than the rest; whilst amongst the crowd the eye
rested on many a studious, thin, cadaverous, hard-worked face, which
made you look again, and feel in your heart that there sat a bursar. A
more motley crowd, as respects age, dress, and features, could scarcely
be found anywhere; and yet over all there was an intellectual, manly
look, a look of innocence and unacquaintance with the low ways of the
world."[3]
[Footnote 3: Life in a Northern University.]
Among this motley crowd John Hill Burton was no model student. He
took his full share of the rough sport so well described in the 'Northern
University'--wrenched off door-knockers and house-bells, transplanted
sign-boards, &c. He was but a schoolboy in years when he left school
for college, and his mother was frequently obliged to provide him with
a private tutor, not so much to assist him in his studies as to keep him

from idleness during his hours at home. Home was, during these years,
for a time sad, and was always quiet. During his father's lifetime it was
diversified by frequent changes of abode within a very narrow circuit.
The writer has seen some half-dozen small houses, in a rather unlovely
suburb of Aberdeen, all within sight of each other, which had
successively been inhabited by Lieutenant Burton and his family; the
poor invalid craving for the real change which might have benefited his
health, and seeking relief, instead, in constant change of house. Mrs
Burton was entitled to an abode at Grandholm as well as her sisters,
and the little family went there occasionally, at least after Lieutenant
Burton's death. The place, which is a rather interesting one, filled a
considerable space in the affections of the children. Its inmates did not.
Clearly