1037 



BURMAN. 



BUBNES, SIR ALEXANDER. 



1033 



lavished on him by his contemporaries are simply absurd. The 

 eulogy of Pope in hia fourth ' Moral Essay/ on the use of riches is 

 well known. 



BURMAN, the name of a family much distinguished for learning. 

 FRANCIS BURMAN, son of a Protestant minister, was born in 1632 at 

 Leyden, where he received his education. Having officiated to a Dutch 

 congregation at Hanau in Hessen, he returned to his native city, and 

 was nominated regent of the college in which he had before studied. 

 Not long afterwards he was elevated to the professorship of divinity at 

 Utrecht, where he died November 10th 1679, having established con- 

 siderable reputation as a linguist, a preacher, and a philosopher. His 

 works, for the most part, are commentaries on some of the books of 

 the Old Testament, or exercises on academical subjects. 



FRANCIS BUBMAN, one of his sons, born in 1671, was also divinity 

 professor at Utrecht, where he died in 1719. He prepared a 

 ' Concordance of the Evangelists,' and other theological works. 



PMER BURMAN, another son, obtained greater reputatiou than either 

 his father or his brother. He was born at Utrecht June 26th, 1668, 

 and after his education there under Grsevius and James Gronovius he 

 studied the law at Leyden, and travelled into Switzerland and Ger- 

 many. On hia return to Utrecht he practised as an advocate, was 

 afterwards engaged in a public office requiring considerable attention, 

 and married a wife of good family, by whom he had ten children. His 

 love of classical literature however was so predominant that, in spite 

 of brilliant success at the bar, he accepted the professorship of 

 eloquence and history at the university of Utrecht, and soon after- 

 wards the professorships of the Greek language and of politics. On 

 the death of Perizouius, he was translated in 1715 to similar professor- 

 ship! at Leyden ; and finally he waa promoted to the professorship of 

 history of the United Provinces, and the chief librarianship in the same 

 university. He died in the seventy-third year of his age, March 31, 

 1741. His chief works were editions of Phsedrus, Horace, Petronius, 

 Quiuctilian, Valerius Flaccus, Poetre Latini Minores, Velleius Pater- 

 culus, Virgil, Suetonius, Lucan, Ovid, and, among the moderns, of 

 Buchanan. To these he added a collection of the epistles of learned 

 men, and some ori^-inal orations and poems, a treatise (' De Vectigalibus 

 Pop. Rom.') on the revenues of the Roman people, and a dissertation 

 on the Jupiter Fulgurator. A life of him, written by Dr. Johnson, 

 first appeared in the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' in 1742. 



G.vbi'AH BURMAN, nephew of Peter Burman, was a senator of his 

 native city Utrecht, and acquired some distinction as an historian. 

 He published 'Hadrianus VI.; 4to, Utrecht, 1727; 'Trajectum 

 Eruditum,' 4to, 1738 ; and ' Utrechtache Jahrbocken,' 3 Tola., 1750-51. 

 He died in August 1759. 



PETER BURMAN, another nephew of the above Peter Burman, and 

 son of hia brother Francis, was born at Amsterdam in 1713. He was 

 professor of history and eloquence at Franeker, and died at Amsterdam 

 June 24th, 1778. He edited Aristophanes, Claudian, an 'Anthologia' 

 of the Latin poets, and Propertius ; and he also published four books 

 of original Latin poetry. 



JOHH BURMAN, son of the second-named Francis, was professor of 

 botany at Amsterdam. He was born in 1707, and died in 1780, leaving 

 behind him many works on that science of celebrity in their time. He 

 is principally remembered however as being one of the early patrons 

 of Linnaeus. 



NICHOLAS LAUBENT BUBMAN, born at Amsterdam in 1734, sou of 

 John Buruian, also distinguished himself as a botanist, on which science 

 he wrote several works which attracted attention in their day, but have 

 long become obsolete. The only one at all remembered now is the 

 'Flora Indica,' Leyden, 1768, which contains 76 plates, and notices of 

 above 1500 plants. He died in 1793. 



BURN, RICHARD, was born about 1720 at the village of Winton 

 in Westmorland. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, and in 

 1762 the university conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor 

 of Laws. He was instituted to the living of Ortou in Westmorland in 

 1736, which he continued to hold until his death in November 1785. 

 He was in the commission of the peace for the counties of Westmorland 

 and Cumberland, and was made chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle by 

 Bishop Lyttleton. Dr. Burn is best known as the compiler of the 

 ' Justice of the Peace ' and the ' Ecclesiastical Law.' The first of these 

 is an alphabetical digest of the common law and statutes relating to 

 the duties of magistrates and parish-officers, comprehending a detailed 

 exposition of the poor-laws ; and the second is an abridgment of the 

 English system of ecclesiastical law, also disposed in alphabetical order. 

 The materials for these works were collected by Dr. Burn with great 

 care and accuracy, and arranged in a clear and judicious manner. 

 Their practical utility to magistrates, country gentlemen, and clergy- 

 men, obtained for them an extensive sale and a high reputation ; and 

 numerous editions of both of them have been published. Dr. Burn 

 also compiled, in conjunction with Joseph Nicholson, a nephew of the 

 Bishop of Carlisle, a work on the antiquities of Cumberland and 

 Westmorland, which was published in 2 vols. 4to in 1777. He likewise 

 published a history of the poor-laws, and an edition of 'Blackstone's 

 Commentaries," besides several sermons and works of a religiou 

 character. 



BU11NES, SIR ALEXANDER, was born May 16, 1805, at Moutrose 

 in .Scotland. His father was an active magistrate of Forfarshire, and 

 held successively the chief official situations in the borough of Montrose, 



His grandfather was the brother of William Burnea, father of the poet 

 Burns, who was the first to omit the letter e from the family name. 

 Alexander Burues was educated at the Montrose Academy, in which 

 le greatly distinguished himself. Having obtained a cadetship in the 

 Bombay army, he left school at the age of sixteen, and arrived at 

 Bombay October 31, 1821. On the 25th of December 1822 he was 

 appointed interpreter in Hindustanee to the first extra battalion at 

 Surat, and on account of his proficiency in the Persian lauguago the 

 udges of the Sudder Adaulut appointed him, without solicitation, to 

 the office of translator of the Persian documents of that court. 



In consequence of disturbances iu Cutch, the regiment to which 

 Ensign Burues was attached, the 21st Bombay Native lufautry, having 

 seen ordered to Bhooj, he joined it there in April 1825. He was soou 

 afterwards made quartermaster of brigade, and in November 1825, 

 when he was only twenty, was appointed Persian interpreter to a force 

 of 8000 men assembled for the invasion of Sciude. In August 1826 

 le was confirmed on the general staff as deputy-assistant-quartermaster- 

 ;eneral. 



At this period he drew up an elaborate paper on the statistics of 

 Wagur, for which in 1827 Lieutenant Burnes received the thanks of 

 the Bombay government and the special commendation of the Hon. 

 Mountstuart Elphinstone, the governor; and he obtained similar 

 testimonies of approbation in 1 828 for a memoir on the eastern mouth 

 of the Indus. Lieutenant Burnes was appointed assistant-quarter- 

 master-general to the army March 18, 1828; and in September 1829 

 lie was appointed assistant to the political agent in Cutch in prosecution 

 of the survey of the north-west frontier, of which he has given au 

 account in the ' Transactions of the Royal Geographical Society' for 

 1834. He soon afterwards made a journey into Rajpootana, from 

 which however he was recalled; and in 1830 was appointed by the 

 Indian government to proceed to Lahore with some remarkably large 

 horses as a present from the king of England to Runjeet Singh, the 

 ruler of the Punjab. The details of this expedition are given in the 

 third volume of his ' Travels into Bokhara.' The mission was directed 

 to proceed by the devious route of Sciude ; the secret object being to 

 obtain information concerning the Indus, the envoy was provided with 

 letters to the Ameers, and, the better to obviate suspicion, he took with 

 him a guard of wild Beloochees. The mission sailed from Mandavio 

 in Cutch on January 21st, 1831, and on the 28th reached the western 

 mouth of the Indus. After a long and tedious negociation with the 

 rulers of Scinde, Burnes received their full sanction to proceed by 

 water from the mouth of the Indus. The delay however had been 

 turned to account. Burnes had made a complete survey of the moutha 

 of the river, and a map of the lower part of its course. After spending 

 a week at Tatta they set sail up the river, April 12th, and reached 

 Hyderabad on the 18th, where he was received with great cordiality by 

 the Ameers. The mission remained at Hyderabad till the 23rd of 

 April, when they re-embarked on the Indus, and after visiting all the 

 places of importance along the banks, on the 18th of July they arrived 

 at Lahore, where their reception was magnificent a deputation of 

 nobles conducting the envoy and his suite to the door of the palace 

 of Runjeet Singh amid salutes of musketry and artillery. "While 

 stooping," says Burnes, "to remove my shoes at the threshold, I 

 suddenly found myself in the arms and tight embrace of a diminutive 

 old-looking man, the great Maharaja Runjeet Singh, who conducted 

 me by the hand to the interior of the court, and had advanced that 

 distance to do us honour." 



After remaining till the middle of August with Runjeet Singh, who 

 treated Burnes with the familiarity of a friend, the mission left 

 Lahore, crossed the Sutlej, and proceeded to Loodiana, a frontier 

 station of the Indian government, where Burues became acquainted 

 with the ex-kings of Cabul, Shah Zeman and Shah Shoojah, who were 

 living there under the protection of the British government. From 

 Loodiana the mission proceeded to Simla, where Burnes met the 

 governor-general, Lord William Bentinck, who without delay entered 

 into negociations for laying open the navigation of the Indus to the 

 commerce of Great Britain. 



After his return from hia mission, Lieutenant Burnes proposed to 

 Lord William Bentinck an expedition into Central Asia, which received 

 from hi? lordship the most liberal encouragement. The sanction of 

 the Indian government having been obtained, the journey was com- 

 menced. Lieutenant Burnes was well provided with instruments, 

 and made his journey serve as a kind of flying survey. Burnes 

 left Delhi, accompauied by Mr. James Gerard, surgeon of the Bengal 

 army, December 23, 1831, and proceeded by express to Loodiana. 

 Previous to entering on his journey, it was deemed necessary to obtaiu 

 the sanction of Runjeet Singh to pass through Scinde. Ho descended 

 the Sutlej, and reached Lahore January 17, 1832, and was received by 

 the maharaja with all hia former affability. Their departure was 

 delayed till the llth of February, when, having crossed the Ravee, 

 they put up for the night in one of the houses which surround the 

 once splendid monument of Jehangeer. Here they divested them- 

 selves of every article of European coatume and comfort, and adopted 

 not only the costume of the Afghans, but their usages. The close 

 dress, beds, boxes, tables, and chairs, were all discarded Tor a flowing 

 robe, a coarse carpet, and a blanket ; and their now diminished ward- 

 robe, with the necessary books and instruments, were deposited in 

 their saddle-bags, and thrown across their horses' quarters. 



