about ten
A.M. About that time a change in the countenance was observed. On the
doctor's visit about twelve he pronounced the case all but hopeless, and
five hours later life was extinct. Consciousness remained till almost
the last moment. The illness was attended by no bodily pain, little even
of uneasiness, and the mind was calm and placid throughout.

Since the beginning of illness, nine months before, the natural
irritability, or impatience of temper, had been diminishing. Dr Burton
was by no means, as all his friends seemed to suppose, a fretful or
unreasonable invalid. With but few exceptions he was gentle and grateful
to his attendants, especially to his wife. He was perfectly aware of his
own condition, though never directly told it. His friend Mr Belcombe,
the clergyman of the Episcopal Chapel at Morningside, called for him on
Tuesday, 9th August, was received by him with pleasure, and spent some
time with him. Dr Burton had been brought up an Episcopalian, and
continued attached to the Moderate party in that Church through life.

It can hardly be expected that the writer should offer a critical
estimate of one so lately dead, and so nearly related to her. In the
preceding sketch she has endeavoured to inform the public on all
particulars in which they might be supposed interested in the life of a
man who served them during life with considerable acceptance. His
voluminous works may speak for themselves, or find a more competent
exponent than the present writer. She has endeavoured to give a picture
of himself.

John Hill Burton can never have been handsome, and he so determinedly
neglected his person as to increase its natural defects. His greatest
mental defect was an almost entire want of imagination. From this cause
the characters of those nearest and dearest to him remained to his
life's end a sealed book.

He was fond of talking, and still fonder of writing, about character;
but even his liveliest pictures, such as that of De Quincey the
opium-eater, are but a collection of external habits or peculiarities,
not necessarily bearing at all on the real nature--the inner man. His
was the sort of mind which more naturally classifies than
individualises, in this agreeing with the late Mr Buckle, who
appreciated Dr Burton's historical labours, and was in his turn
appreciated by him. To both, individual character seemed a small subject
not worth study.

The characters of women, especially, were by Dr Burton