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His appointment in 1854 as Secretary of the Scottish Prison 
Board gave him a secure income, independent of literature, and he 
faithfully discharged the duties of that office, which were some- 
what lessened in 1860, when the chief control of prisons in Scot- 
land was assumed by the Home Office. In 1877 he resigned the 
secretaryship, hut continued his connection with this department 
as a commissioner of prisons till his death. He was accustomed 
to lay stress on the advantage a historian derives from acquaintance 
with the machinery of government, and the conduct of affairs in 
the present, as enabling him to judge more fairly of institutions and 
men of the past. 
He commenced his History of Scotland by the publication in 
1853 of two volumes, treating of the period from 1688 to 1748, 
and completed it by seven volumes from Agricola's invasion to 
1688. Of this work an anonymous biographer says — “ The History 
of Scotland is undoubtedly the work that will carry Hill Burton’s 
name to posterity. At the present day it is recognised as pre- 
eminently the history of Scotland, and it is one of the few books 
of the multitude which this age has produced which are likely to 
live by reason of their enduring merit. He investigated every 
point for himself, and his History is therefore the result of a vast 
amount of patient and honest work. He possessed in a rare degree 
the historian’s faculty — the power, that is to say, which leads the 
student of men and events to seize as if by an intuition on those 
features of character and those currents of opinion which stamp an 
epoch and the men who moulded it.” Professor iEneas Mackay 
thus refers to it : — “In this History he has given us, in a sober style, 
an eminently plain and truthful account of the main facts in the 
career of a nation which, in spite of the smallness of its territory, 
preserved its independence, and when permanently united to 
England, contributed some new and valuable elements to the 
British character.” He was appointed by the Government 
Historiographer-royal for Scotland. 
His History of the Reign of Queen Anne, recently published, 
though possessing great merit, is considered to be a less successful 
effort than his History of Scotland . 
The Scot Abroad and The Book-hunter have both been very 
popular. Indeed the latter could not but be popular, abounding 
