of Edinburgh, Session 1881 - 82 . 
325 
will be read to-night. In conjunction with some of these, Burton, 
while still at college, contributed several articles to the Aberdeen 
Magazine. 
At the close of his college career he took the degree of M.A., and 
was apprenticed to a solicitor in his native town. Conscious, 
however, of an ability for higher work than the drudgery of a 
provincial solicitor’s office, he resolved to abandon it for the higher 
grade of the legal profession, and was admitted to the Scottish bar 
in 1831. It was fortunate for the prosecution of his plans of 
extensive study that he now settled in Edinburgh, and was only a 
visitor to the great metropolis of the south, for had he resided 
permanently there, his experience might have been like that of 
Bishop Thirlwall, who said that the want of time for reading is the 
great misery of London life. As an advocate, Burton never got 
practice, but he wrote two legal works of value in their day, one 
on Bankruptcy , and the other a Manual of the Law of Scotland , 
whilst his legal training and knowledge were of immense use to 
him in his historical works. 
In 1833 he began to contribute articles to the Westminster , and 
afterwards to the Edinburgh and North British Reviews . During 
recent years he wrote numerous articles — literary, antiquarian, and 
topographical — for Blackwood's Magazine. 
Burton’s contributions to literature are too many and varied to 
be enumerated here, but it should be noted as an epoch in his 
career, that in 1846 he made his first appearance in independent 
authorship, when he published his Life and Correspondence of 
David Hume. This is universally admitted to be one of the best 
biographies ever written. In this work details of much literary 
and antiquarian interest, calculated to throw light on the career of 
the great Scottish philosopher, are gleaned from sources multi- 
tudinous and recondite, and evince such a profound and extensive 
acquaintance with the literature of the last century, as only one 
who was not merely a book-hunter, but an indefatigable reader of 
books, could have brought to bear on the subject. Noticeable, 
also, is his little work, published in 1849, entitled Political and 
Social Economy : its Practical Application , which is considered to 
be remarkable, not only for the soundness of its teaching, but for 
the grace of its style. 
