BUETON
BUTLEE
(p. 165). He was a friend of Bradlaugh,
and loyally supported him in his parlia
mentary struggle. Speaking at the funeral
of H. Boyle in 1907, he said : " Will it be
the end of it all ? We know not. To
again quote Tennyson, We have but faith ;
we cannot know and, if it be frankly
spoken, some of us have little enough
faith " (p. 309). Earl Grey described Burt
as "the finest gentleman I ever knew."
BURTON, John Hill, historian. B. Aug. 22, 1809. Ed. Aberdeen University. He devoted himself to law and letters and became an ardent Benthamite. In con junction with Sir J. Bowring he edited Bentham s works, and in 1843 he pub lished Benthamiana. His chief work is a History of Scotland. In 1854 he became secretary to the Prisons Board. He was all his life a zealous and practical Utili tarian, and a very generous and high- minded man. D. Aug. 10, 1881.
BURTON, Sir Richard Francis,
explorer. B. Mar. 19, 1821. Ed. by tutors and at Oxford (Trinity College). Burton was destined for the Church, but he pre ferred the Army. Serving in India (1842- 49), he carefully studied oriental languages and the ways of the Mohammedans, and in later years he made adventurous journeys through the East (1853-54), Africa (1856- 59 and 1861-65), South America (1868-69), and Syria (1869). He was British Consul at Trieste from 1872 until he died. His Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night (10 vols.) was published in 1885-86. Although he was a notorious Eationalist, his Catholic wife had the rites of her Church administered to him while he was dying. The farce is scathingly described by Burton s niece, Georgiana Stisted, in her True Life of Sir R. F. Burton (1896, pp. 413-16). She describes also how Lady Burton burned the manuscript of her husband s translation of The Scented Garden (pp. 403-5). Burton was, she says, "a sturdy Deist" (p. 352). He detested Eome, believed only in an " Un-
131
knowable and Impersonal God," and was
sceptical about a future life. He was
rather an Agnostic or Spencerian. D. Oct.
20, 1890.
BURY, Professor John Bagnell, M.A., LL.D., Litt.D., historian. B. Oct. 16, 1861 (son of the Eev. E. J. Bury, Canon of Clogher). Ed. Trinity College, Dublin. He was Professor of Modern History at Dublin University 1893-1902, Eegius Pro fessor of Greek 1898, and Eomanes Lecturer 1911 ; and he has been Eegius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University since 1902. His chief works, besides his superb edition of Gibbon, are History of the Later Boman Empire (1889), History of Greece (1900), and History of the Eastern Boman Empire (1912). His Eationalism is finely expressed in his History of Freedom of Thought (1913). Professor Bury is a Fellow of King s College (Cambridge), member of the British Academy, and corresponding member of the Eussian Imperial Academy of Science, the Hungarian Academy of Science, the Eumanian Academy, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Eussian Archaeo logical Institute at Constantinople. He is an Honorary Associate of the Eationalist Press Association.
BUTLER, Samuel, author of Hudibras. B. Feb. 8, 1612. Ed, Worcester Free School. Butler was valet for some years in the service of a Puritan gentleman. He there conceived his celebrated poem, a pungent satire on the Puritans, with his master (more or less blended with Don Quixote) as hero. He published Hudibras after the death of Cromwell (1663). It discreetly satirizes all creeds, as in the couplet :
A light that falls down from on high For spiritual trades to cozen by.
(Pt. i, Canto i.)
D. Sep. 25, 1680.
BUTLER, Samuel, philosophical writer. B. Dec. 4, 1835. Ed. Shrewsbury and St. John s (Cambridge). Butler was destined 132
