THE 



EDINBURGH NEW 



PHILOSOPHICAL JOUKNAL, 



Obituary Notice of Lieutenant George Augustus Frederick 

 Buxton. By Dr King. Communicated by the Author.* 



Mr Buxton was born on the 24th of July 1821. He was 

 the third son of John Buxton, Esq., of Broad Oak, Brenchley, 

 Kent, and of Anna Maria, daughter of the late Colonel Pa- 

 trick Hay, a lineal descendant of the noble house of Tweed- 

 dale. 



Many individuals, even in the most enterprising periods of 

 our history, have been made the subjects of elaborate biogra- 

 phy, with far less title to the honour than Mr Buxton. Time 

 was not granted him to embody, in a permanent shape, more 

 than a tithe of his personal experiences and strange adven- 

 tures in three quarters of the globe ; indeed, when we consider 

 the amount of physical labour which he endured, and the ex- 

 tent of the fields over which his wanderings were spread, we 

 are almost led to wonder how he could have found leisure even 

 to have written so much. Mr Buxton commenced his education 

 at Tunbridge School, whence he went to Sandhurst ; but his 

 chivalrous spirit was such, that he left the college without wait- 

 ing for his commission, to learn the practical part of the duties 

 of a soldier on the field of civil war raging in the peninsula 

 of Spain in 1837 and 1838. He joined the cavalry under Don 

 Diego Leon, and was present in the following actions : 1839, 

 capture of Los Arcos ; March 7, action of Villatuerta and 

 afiuir of the Ega ; April 17 and 18, action of and taking the 

 fortified bridge and entrenched height of Belascoin ; April 



* Read before the Ethnological Society, 20th December 1848. 

 VOL. XLVI. NO. XCII. — APRIL 1849. O 



