test--those who, because a man has been studious, and
has written books, count that he is public property, who may be
hailed by any one like a mountebank or street musician.

"There were some forty or fifty at dinner, and I found from the
tenor of the conversation that I was taken for the American Judge
Haliburton, the author of 'Sam Slick,' and other embodiments of
smart Yankeyism. No direct question on the point was put to me, and
I let the affair take its run, though a good deal to the
bewilderment of some people, who I saw really knew me.[21] Good
cold weather: seeing one by one the remnants of my generation of
school and college friends.--Love to all, from your affectionate

"J.H. BURTON.

"_P.S._--On Monday I hired a boat, or small ship, and went
a-hunting after antiquities. Passing Wire and Rousay, I recalled
some association in the names, and I think it was with poor nurse
Barbara. I was able to call on Mat.'s old friend, Mrs Burroughs;
her husband, now General, was out. They live in great grandeur, on
about the dreariest hillside Nature ever created."

[Footnote 21: A rather amusing comment on this letter is conveyed
in the following extract from one addressed to Dr Burton's
publishers, by Mr George M'Crie, a grandson of the eminent Scotch
divine of the same name:--

"In the month of July last year, I happened to be travelling
southward, in the steamer St Magnus, from Orkney. Before calling at
Wick, and while the tourists on board were gazing at John o'
Groat's House, I was spoken to by an elderly gentleman, on the
'bridge,' regarding some of the steamer's arrangements. I satisfied
his curiosity as well as I was able, and thought no more of the
matter. We had a large number of passengers, and I did not notice
him again until we were coming out together in a boat, after a
ramble on shore at Pulteneytown. A fellow-passenger, who had
previously noticed the elderly gentleman and myself in
conversation, then whispered to me, 'A celebrated literary man
that, sir, with whom you were speaking before we went ashore; no
other than the famous Judge Haliburton of America, the author of
"Sam Slick."' Some doubt, I must confess, crossed my mind at this
stage. I surely had heard of the Judge's death some years before,
but thinking, very pa