It was through Burton that the study of Locke was introduced into the schools, and he printed for the use of the younger students a double series of philosophical questions, with references to the authors to be consulted under each head.
A set of exercises which he gave the undergraduates of his college for employment during the long vacation was printed under the title of 'Sacræ Scripturæ locorum quorundam versio metrica,' 1736.
For the Oxford University Press he obtained a gift from John Rolle, and a legacy from Dr. Walter Hodges, the Provost of Oriel College.
On 1 February 1766, towards the close of his life, he quitted the vicarage of Mapledurham for the rectory of Worplesdon in Surrey – he was instrumental in the building of the embanked causeway, including investing local church funds, for the main Woking road over the River Wey at the Woodbridge, Guildford so that his parishioners might travel to Guildford in all seasons.
The circumstances which led to their production are set out in Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets in the life of Edmund Smith: George Duckett had misled John Oldmixon, to the effect that Smith had been employed by Francis Atterbury and others to garble Lord Clarendon's history before it was published.
384–5), and an allusion to Ralph Allen provoked William Warburton to insert in the 1749 edition of the 'Dunciad' (book iv., verse 443) a caustic note on Burton, which was subsequently omitted at the request of Thomas Hayter.
While at Mapledurham he wrote 'The present State of the Navigation of the River Thames considered, with certain regulations proposed,' 1765; second edition 1767.
In 1758 he issued a volume, 'Πενταλογία, sive tragœdiarum Græcarum Delectus,' which was reissued with additional observations by Thomas Burgess in 1779.
Burton made frequent visits to his mother in Sussex, and in 1752 described his journey there in 'Όδοιπορούντος Μελεθήματα, sive iter Surriense et Sussexiense.'
An oration which Burton delivered at Oxford in 1763 gave him the opportunity for an attack on John Wilkes, whereupon Charles Churchill, in the 'Candidate' (verse 716 et seq.
A Latin letter by Burton to a friend, or a 'commentariolus' of Archbishop Thomas Secker, attracted attention, and was criticised by Archdeacon Francis Blackburne on behalf of the latitudinarians, and by Philip Furneaux for the nonconformists in his 'Letters to Blackstone.'
The initiative, which envisioned a model colony founded on humanistic principles, was taken up in 1730 by a philanthropic group known as the Associates of Dr. Thomas Bray.
Leaving behind an Old World system that offered little opportunity, they would become part of a new society that would reward hard work and personal virtue.