Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/109

Rh of twenty-six thousand individuals by exhaustion and the sabres of the pursuing Afghans were the mournful termination.

Our immortal national poet Burns, half-despondingly half-playfully, has sometimes expressed his regret, more especially when the pressure of poverty was at the worst, that he had not repaired in his youth to India, as so many of his countrymen had done, and become a thriving merchant, instead of a penniless bard. But little did he think of the destiny that awaited two of his nephews there—and last of all his grandson! Sir Alexander was never married, and was survived by his parents and three brothers. Besides his "Travels into Bokhara," and several papers in the "Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London," he was author of a work, entitled, "Cabool; being a Narrative of a Journey to, and Residence in that City, in the Years 1836–7–8," which was published after his death.

, Landscape Painter.—Among the lives of eminent men it often happens that some individual obtains a place, more on account of the excellence he indicated than that which he realized; and whom a premature death extinguishes, just when a well-spent youth of high promise has commenced those labours by which the hopes he excited would in all likelihood be amply fulfilled. Such examples we do not willingly let die, and this must form our chief apology for the introduction of a short memoir of James Burnet in the present work. He was of a family that came originally from Aberdeen, and was born at Musselburgh, in the year 1788. His father, George Burnet, of whom he was the fourth son, held the important office of general surveyor of excise in Scotland: his mother, Anne Cruikshank, was sister to the distinguished anatomist whose name is so honourably associated with the professional studies of John Hunter. In the education of most minds that attain to distinguished excellence, it will generally be found that the maternal care predominates in helping to form the young ideas, and give them their proper direction; and such was the good fortune of James Burnet, whose mother, during the evening, was wont to aid him in the preparation of the school-room lessons for the following day. He soon evinced his natural bias towards art, not only by juvenile attempts in drawing, but his frequent visits to the studio of Scott, the landscape engraver, with whom his brother John, afterwards so eminent as an engraver, was a pupil. On account of these indications, James was placed under the care of Liddel, to learn the mystery of wood-carving, at that time in high request, and productive of great profit to those who excelled in it; and as skill in drawing was necessary for acquiring proficiency in this kind of delineation, he was also sent to the Trustees' Academy, where he studied under Graham, the early preceptor of the most distinguished of our modern Scottish artists. It was not wonderful that, thus circumstanced, James Burnet's taste for carving in wood was soon superseded by the higher departments of art. He quickly perceived the superiority of a well-finished delineation upon canvas or paper over the stiff cherubs, scrolls, and wreaths that were laboriously chiselled upon side-boards and bed-posts, and chose his vocation accordingly: he would be an artist. With this view, he transmitted to his brother John, now employed as an engraver in London, several specimens of his drawings, expressing also his earnest desire to commence life as a painter in the great metropolis; and without waiting for an answer, he impatiently followed his application, in person, and arrived in London in 1810. A letter of acquiescence from his brother, which his hurry had anticipated, was already on the way to Edinburgh, V.