BURMANN, Pieter (1668–1741), a Dutch classical scholar, was born at Utrecht on the 26th June 1668. He was educated at the public school in his native place, and at the age of thirteen entered the university. He devoted himself particularly to the study of the classical languages, and became unusually proficient in Latin composition. As he was intended for the legal profession he spent some years in attendance on the law classes. For about a year he studied at Leyden, paying special attention to philosophy and Greek. On his return to Utrecht he took the degree of doctor of laws (March 1688), and after travelling through Switzerland and part of Germany, settled down to the practice of law. In December 1691 he was appointed receiver of the tithes which were originally paid to the bishop of Utrecht, and five years later he was nominated to the professorship of eloquence and history. To this chair was soon added that of Greek and politics. In 1714 he paid a short visit to Paris and ransacked the libraries, bringing back a “great treasure of useful observations.” In the following year he was appointed successor to the celebrated Perizonius, who had held the chair of history, Greek language, and eloquence at Leyden. His numerous editorial and critical works spread his fame as a scholar throughout Europe, and engaged him in many of the stormy disputes which were then so common among men of letters. He died on the 31st March 1741.
Of his editions of classical works the following may be noted:—Phædrus, 1698; Horace, 1699; Valerius Flaccus, 1701; Petronius Arbiter, 1709; Velleius Paterculus, 1719; Quintilian, 1720; Ovid, 1727; Lucan, 1740. He also published an edition of Buchanan's works, continued Graevius's great work, Thesaurus Antiquitatum et Historiarum Italiæ, and wrote a small manual of Roman antiquities, Antiquitatum Romanarum Brevis Descriptio, 1711. His poems and orations were published after his death.
BURNES, Sir Alexander (1805–1841), a traveller in Central Asia, was born at Montrose in 1805. While serving in India, in the army of the East India Company, which he had joined in his seventeenth year, he made himself acquainted with Hindostani and Persian, and thus obtained an appointment as interpreter at Surat in 1822. Transferred to Cutch in 1826 as assistant to the political agent, he turned his attention more particularly to the history and geography of North-Western India and the adjacent countries, which at that time were very imperfectly known. His proposal in 1829 to undertake a journey of exploration through the valley of the Indus was not carried out owing to political apprehensions; but in 1831 he was sent to Lahore with a present of horses from King William to the Rajah Rungit Sing, and took advantage of the opportunity for extensive investigations. In the following years his travels were extended through Afghanistan, across the Hindu Kush to Bokhara and Persia. The narrative which he published on his visit to England in 1834 added immensely to our knowledge of the countries traversed, and was one of the most popular books of the time. The first edition brought the author the sum of £800, and his services were recognized not only by the Royal Geographical Society of London, but also by that of Paris. Soon after his return to India in 1835 he was appointed to the court of Sindh to secure a treaty for the navigation of the Indus; and in 1836 he undertook a political mission to Dost Mohammed at Cabul. On the restoration of Shah Shujah in 1839, he became regular political agent at Cabul, and remained there till his assassination in 1841 (November 2), during the heat of an insurrection. The calmness with which he continued at his post, long after the imminence of his danger was apparent, gives an heroic colouring to the close of an honourable and devoted life. A narrative of his later labours was published in 1842 under the title of Cabool.
BURNET, Gilbert (1643-1715), bishop of Salisbury,
was born at Edinburgh in 1643, and was descended of an
ancient family of the county of Aberdeen. His father had
been bred to the law, and was at the Restoration appointed
one of the lords of Session, with the title of Lord Crimond.
Gilbert, the youngest son, was at ten years of age sent to
Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he was admitted A.M.
before he was fourteen years of age. His own inclination
led him to the study of the civil and feudal law; but he afterwards
changed his views, and, to the great satisfaction of
his father, began to apply to divinity. He received ordination
before the age of eighteen; and Sir Alexander Burnet,
his cousin-german, offered him a benefice, which, however,
he refused to accept.
In 1663, about two years after the death of his father, he went to England; and after six months stay at Oxford and Cambridge, returned to Scotland, which he soon left again to make a tour of some months, in 1664, in Holland and France. At Amsterdam, by the help of a Jewish rabbi, he perfected himself in the Hebrew language; and likewise became acquainted with the leading men of the different persuasions tolerated in that country—Calvinists, Arminians, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Brownists, Papists, and Unitarians. In each of these sects he used frequently to declare he met with men of such unfeigned piety and virtue that he became fixed in a strong principle of universal charity, and an invincible abhorrence of all severities on account of religious dissensions.
Upon his return from his travels he was admitted minister of Saltoun, in which station he served five years in the most exemplary manner. He drew up a memorial, in which he took notice of the principal errors in the conduct of the Scottish bishops, which he observed not to be conformable to the primitive institution, and he sent a copy of it to several of them. This exposed him to their resentment; but to show he was not actuated by a spirit of ambition, he led a retired course of life for two years, which so endangered his health that he was obliged to abate his excessive application to study. In the year 1668 he was appointed professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow; and, according to the usual practice, he read his lectures in the Latin language. It was apparently at this period that he laid the chief foundation of that theological learning for which he became so distinguished. In 1669 he published his Modest and Free Conference between a Conformist and Nonconformist. He became acquainted with the duchess of Hamilton, who communicated to him all the papers belonging to her father and her uncle; upon which he drew up the Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, afterwards printed at London, in folio, in the year 1677. The duke of Lauderdale, hearing that he was engaged in this work, invited him to London, and introduced him to Charles II. He returned to Scotland, and married Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of the earl of Cassillis, a lady of great knowledge, and highly esteemed by the Presbyterians, to whose sentiments she was strongly inclined.
As there was some disparity in their ages, that it might be