BURTON, Robert, known to the learned by the name of Democritus junior, was a younger brother of the William Burton who wrote the Antiquities of Leicestershire, and born of an ancient family at Lindley, in that county, upon the 8th of February 1576. He was educated in grammatical learning in the free school of Sutton Colefield, in Warwickshire; in the year 1593 he was sent to Brazen-nose College in Oxford; and in 1599 he was elected student of Christ-church. In 1616 he had conferred upon him by the dean and canons of Christ-church, the vicarage of St Thomas, in the west suburb of Oxford, to the parishioners of which it is said that he always gave the sacrament in wafers; and this, with the rectory of Segrave in Leicestershire, given him some time afterwards by George Lord Berkeley, he held to the day of his death, which happened in January 1639. He was a man of general learning, a distinguished philosopher, an exact mathematician, and, what constitutes the peculiarity of his character, a very curious calculator of nativities. He was extremely studious, and of a melancholy turn; yet an agreeable companion, and very humorous. The Anatomy of Melancholy, by Democritus junior, as he calls himself, shows that these different qualities were strangely mixed together in his composition. This book was printed first in quarto, afterwards in folio, in 1624, 1632, 1638, and 1652, to the great emolument of the bookseller, who, as Mr Wood tells us, got an estate [7:5:746] by it. Some circumstances attending his death occasioned strange suspicions. He died in his chamber at or very near the time which, it seems, he had some years before predicted from the calculation of his nativity; and this exactness made it whispered about that, for the glory of astrology, and rather than that his calculation should fail, he became a,fclode se. This, however, was generally discredited. He was buried with due solemnity in the cathedral of Christ-church, and had a fair monument erected to his memory. He left behind him a very choice collection of books, many of which he bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, and a hundred pounds to Christ-church, the interest of which was to be laid out yearly in books for their library.

Burton, John, D.D. a learned divine, was born in 1696, at Wembworth, in Devonshire, of which parish his father was rector. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1725, being then pro-proctor and master of the schools, he spoke a Latin oration before the determining bachelor, which is entitled “Heli, or an Instance of a Magistrate’s erring through unseasonable Lenity; written and published with a view to encourage the salutary exercise of academical discipline;” and he afterwards treated the same subject still more fully in four Latin sermons before the university, and published them with appendixes. He also introduced into the schools, Locke, and other eminent modern philosophers, as suitable companions to Aristotle; and printed a double series of philosophical questions for the use of the younger students; from which Mr Johnson of Magdalen College, Cambridge, took the hint of his larger work of the same kind, which has gone through several editions. When the settling of Georgia was in agitation, Dr Bray, justly revered for his institution of parochial libraries, Dr Stephen Hales, Dr Berriman, and other learned divines, entreated Mr Burton’s pious assistance in that undertaking. This -he readily gave, by preaching before the society in 1732, and publishing his sermon, with an appendix on the state of that colony; and he afterwards published an account of the designs of the associates of Dr Bray, with an account of their proceedings. About the same time, on the death of Dr Edward Littleton, he was presented by Eton College to the vicarage of Maplc-Derham, in Oxfordshire. Here a melancholy scene, which too often appears in the mansions of the clergy, presented itself to his view; a widow, with three infant daughters, without a home, without a fortune. From his compassion arose love, the consequence of which was marriage; for Mrs Littleton was handsome, elegant, accomplished, ingenious, and had great sweetness of temper. In 1760 he exchanged his vicarage of Maple-Derham for the rectory of Wor-plesdon in Surrey. In his advanced age, finding his eyes begin to fail him, he collected and published, in one volume, all his scattered pieces, under the title of Opuscula Miscellanea ; and soon after died, on the 11th of February 1771.

Burton-upon-Trent, a market-town of the hundred of Offlow, in the county of Stafford, 128 miles from London. The river Trent is navigable for large barges as high as the bridge at this town. It is celebrated for ale of peculiar excellence, and has some manufactures of hats, cotton goods, and iron, with several tanneries. The market, which is large, is held on Thursday. The country around it is very fertile in corn. The inhabitants amounted in 1801 to 3679, in 1811 to 3979, in 1821 to 4114, and in 1831 to 4399.