Burton, if not a great man, was at any rate a remarkable one; his personality was striking; as he strode through the streets with his crisp, staccato walk no one could help noticing him. He was not very tall, probably not more than five feet ten inches, but his frame was that of a Titan. His broad shoulders and highly-developed chest indicated strength beyond the common. Until quite his last years he always looked like an athlete in the pink of training. He was the only man that I ever knew who could fire the old-fashioned elephant-gun from the shoulder without a rest; his powers of endurance were simply marvellous, and he could drink brandy with a heroism that would have satisfied Dr. Johnson.[29] He had a fine, picturesque head, dark hair, burning black eyes and features which would have been handsome but for the lower jaw, which was too strong for beauty, and indeed almost tigerish, with a ferocious expression belying his really kind nature. An accomplished traveller, ignorant of fear, and in linguistic achievement almost rivalling Cardinal Mezzofanti, who could preach in upwards of fifty languages and dialects. There was an article published in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ many years ago, in which the writer proved to his satisfaction that any man who could speak three languages must of necessity be a fool. Burton gave the lie to that. Cardinal Mezzofanti, on the other hand, does not seem to have been famous for intelligence in any province save that of the polyglot. Indeed, he was said to be conspicuously stupid, and on one occasion he gave evidence of his rare knowledge and equally rare ignorance in the same breath. On making acquaintance at Venice with the Lord Meath of his day, and being told that he was an Irish nobleman, he proceeded to address him in the Erse tongue, in the full conviction that he was speaking to him in the language current in his family. As an official Burton was a failure. He was impatient of any control, had no idea of discipline, and as for all conventionalities, he simply scattered them to the winds. Says Thomas à Kempis: “Nemo secure præest qui non libenter subest. Nemo secure præcipit nisi qui bene obedire didicit.” Burton would never have made a good commander at that rate, but he had probably never read the “De Imitatione Christi.”