Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Ease, therefore, was wanting; without which nothing in society can be flowing or pleasing. The Chesingtonian conceived, that he had lived too long away from the world to start any subject that might not, to the Streathamites, be trite and out of date; and the Streathamites believed that they had lived in it so much longer, that the current talk of the day might, to the Chesingtonian, seem unintelligible jargon: while each hoped that the sprightly Dr. Burney would find the golden mean by which both parties might be brought into play.

But Dr. Burney, who saw in the kind looks and complacency of Dr. Johnson intentional goodwill to the meeting, flattered himself that the great philologist was but waiting for an accidental excitement, to fasten upon some topic of general use or importance, and then to describe or discuss it, with the full powers of his great mind.

Dr. Johnson, however, either in health or in spirits was, unfortunately, oppressed; and, for once, was more desirous to hear than to be heard.

Mr. Crisp, therefore, lost, by so unexpected a taciturnity, this fair and promising opportunity for developing and enjoying the celebrated and extraordinary colloquial abilities of Dr. Johnson; and finished the visit with much disappointment; lowered also, and always, in his spirits by parting from his tenderly attached young companion.

Dr. Burney had afterwards, however, the consolation to find that Mr. Crisp had impressed even Dr. Johnson with a strong admiration of his knowledge and capacity; for in speaking of him in the evening to Mr. Thrale, who had been absent, the Doctor emphatically said, “Sir, it is a very singular thing to see a man with all his powers so much alive, when he has so long shut himself up from the world. Such readiness of conception, quickness of recollection, facility of following discourse started by others, in a man who has long had only the past to feed upon, are rarely to be met with. Now, for my part,” added he, laughing, “that _I_ should be ready, or even universal, is no wonder; for my dear little mistress here,” turning to Mrs. Thrale, “keeps all my faculties in constant play.”

Mrs. Thrale then said that nothing, to her, was so striking, as that a man who so long had retired from the world, should so delicately have preserved its forms and courtesies, as to appear equally well bred with any elegant member of society who had not quitted it for a week.

Inexpressibly gratifying to Dr. Burney was the award of such justice, from such judges, to his best and dearest loved friend.

From this time forward, Dr. Burney could scarcely recover his daughter from Streatham, even for a few days, without a friendly battle. A sportively comic exaggeration of Dr. Johnson’s upon this flattering hostility was current at Streatham, made in answer to Dr. Burney’s saying, upon a resistance to her departure for St. Martin’s-street in which Dr. Johnson had strongly joined, “I must really take her away, Sir, I must indeed; she has been from home so long.”

“Long? no, Sir! I do not think it long,” cried the Doctor, see-sawing, and seizing both her hands, as if purporting to detain her: “Sir! I would have her Always come ... and Never go!—”

* * * * *

MR. BOSWELL.

When next, after this adjuration, Dr. Burney took the Memorialist back to Streatham, he found there, recently arrived from Scotland, Mr. Boswell; whose sprightly Corsican tour, and heroic, almost Quixotic pursuit of General Paoli, joined to the tour to the Hebrides with Dr. Johnson, made him an object himself of considerable attention.

He spoke the Scotch accent strongly, though by no means so as to affect, even slightly, his intelligibility to an English ear. He had an odd mock solemnity of tone and manner, that he had acquired imperceptibly from constantly thinking of and imitating Dr. Johnson; whose own solemnity, nevertheless, far from mock, was the result of pensive rumination. There was, also, something slouching in the gait and dress of Mr. Boswell, that wore an air, ridiculously enough, of purporting to personify the same model. His clothes were always too large for him; his hair, or wig, was constantly in a state of negligence; and he never for a moment sat still or upright upon a chair. Every look and movement displayed either intentional or involuntary imitation. Yet certainly it was not meant as caricature; for his heart, almost even to idolatory, was in his reverence of Dr. Johnson.

Dr. Burney was often surprised that this kind of farcical similitude escaped the notice of the Doctor; but attributed his missing it to a high superiority over any such suspicion, as much as to his near-sightedness; for fully was Dr. Burney persuaded, that had any detection of such imitation taken place, Dr. Johnson, who generally treated Mr. Boswell as a school boy, whom, without the smallest ceremony, he pardoned or rebuked, alternately, would so indignantly have been provoked, as to have instantaneously inflicted upon him some mark of his displeasure. And equally he was persuaded that Mr. Boswell, however shocked and even inflamed in receiving it, would soon, from his deep veneration, have thought it justly incurred; and, after a day or two of pouting and sullenness, would have compromised the matter by one of his customary simple apologies, of “Pray, Sir, forgive me!”

Dr. Johnson, though often irritated by the officious importunity of Mr. Boswell, was really touched by his attachment. It was indeed surprising, and even affecting, to remark the pleasure with which this great man accepted personal kindness, even from the simplest of mankind; and the grave formality with which he acknowledged it even to the meanest. Possibly it was what he most prized, because what he could least command; for personal partiality hangs upon lighter and slighter qualities than those which earn solid approbation; but of this, if he had least command, he had also least want: his towering superiority of intellect elevating him above all competitors, and regularly establishing him, wherever he appeared, as the first Being of the society.

As Mr. Boswell was at Streatham only upon a morning visit, a collation was ordered, to which all were assembled. Mr. Boswell was preparing to take a seat that he seemed, by prescription, to consider as his own, next to Dr. Johnson; but Mr. Seward, who was present, waived his hand for Mr. Boswell to move further on, saying, with a smile, “Mr. Boswell, that seat is Miss Burney’s.”

He stared, amazed: the asserted claimant was new and unknown to him, and he appeared by no means pleased to resign his prior rights. But, after looking round for a minute or two, with an important air of demanding the meaning of this innovation, and receiving no satisfaction, he reluctantly, almost resentfully, got another chair; and placed it at the back of the shoulder of Dr. Johnson; while this new and unheard of rival quietly seated herself as if not hearing what was passing; for she shrunk from the explanation that she feared might ensue, as she saw a smile stealing over every countenance, that of Dr. Johnson himself not excepted, at the discomfiture and surprise of Mr. Boswell.

Mr. Boswell, however, was so situated as not to remark it in the Doctor; and of every one else, when in that presence, he was unobservant, if not contemptuous. In truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore even answering anything that was said, or attending to any thing that went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound from that voice to which he paid such exclusive, though merited homage. But the moment that voice burst forth, the attention which it excited in Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear almost on the shoulder of the Doctor; and his mouth dropt open to catch every syllable that might be uttered: nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss a breathing; as if hoping from it, latently, or mystically, some information.

But when, in a few minutes, Dr. Johnson, whose eye did not follow him, and who had concluded him to be at the other end of the table, said something gaily and good-humouredly, by the appellation of Bozzy; and discovered, by the sound of the reply, that Bozzy had planted himself, as closely as he could, behind and between the elbows of the new usurper and his own, the Doctor turned angrily round upon him, and, clapping his hand rather loudly upon his knee, said, in a tone of displeasure, “What do you do there, Sir?—Go to the table, Sir!”

Mr. Boswell instantly, and with an air of affright, obeyed: and there was something so unusual in such humble submission to so imperious a command, that another smile gleamed its way across every mouth, except that of the Doctor and of Mr. Boswell; who now, very unwillingly, took a distant seat.

But, ever restless when not at the side of Dr. Johnson, he presently recollected something that he wished to exhibit, and, hastily rising, was running away in its search; when the Doctor, calling after him, authoritatively said: “What are you thinking of, Sir? Why do you get up before the cloth is removed?—Come back to your place, Sir!”

Again, and with equal obsequiousness, Mr. Boswell did as he was bid; when the Doctor, pursing his lips, not to betray rising risibility, muttered half to himself: “Running about in the middle of meals!—One would take you for a Brangton!—”

“A Brangton, Sir?” repeated Mr. Boswell, with earnestness; “What is a Brangton, Sir?”

“Where have you lived, Sir,” cried the Doctor, laughing, “and what company have you kept, not to know that?”

Mr. Boswell now, doubly curious, yet always apprehensive of falling into some disgrace with Dr. Johnson, said, in a low tone, which he knew the Doctor could not hear, to Mrs. Thrale: “Pray, Ma’am, what’s a Brangton?—Do me the favour to tell me?—Is it some animal hereabouts?”

Mrs. Thrale only heartily laughed, but without answering: as she saw one of her guests uneasily fearful of an explanation. But Mr. Seward cried, “I’ll tell you, Boswell,—I’ll tell you!—if you will walk with me into the paddock: only let us wait till the table is cleared; or I shall be taken for a Brangton, too!”

They soon went off together; and Mr. Boswell, no doubt, was fully informed of the road that had led to the usurpation by which he had thus been annoyed. But the Brangton fabricator took care to mount to her chamber ere they returned; and did not come down till Mr. Boswell was gone.

ANNA WILLIAMS.

Dr. Burney had no greater enjoyment of the little leisure he could tear from his work and his profession, than that which he could dedicate to Dr. Johnson; and he now, at the Doctor’s most earnest invitation, carried this Memorialist to Bolt Court, to pay a visit to the blind poetess, Anna Williams.

They were received by Dr. Johnson with a kindness that irradiated his austere and studious features into the most pleased and pleasing benignity. Such, indeed, was the gentleness, as well as warmth, of his partiality for this father and daughter, that their sight seemed to give him a new physiognomy.[35]

It was in the apartment—a parlour—dedicated to Mrs. Williams, that the Doctor was in this ready attendance to play the part of the master of the ceremonies, in presenting his new guest to his ancient friend and ally. Anna Williams had been a favourite of his wife, in whose life-time she had frequently resided under his roof. The merit of her poetical talents, and the misfortune of her blindness, are generally known; to these were now super-added sickness, age, and infirmity: yet such was the spirit of her character, that to make a new acquaintance thus rather singularly circumstanced, seemed to her almost an event of moment; and she had incessantly solicited the Doctor to bring it to bear.

Her look, air, voice, and extended hands of reception, evinced the most eager, though by no means obtrusive curiosity. Her manner, indeed, shewed her to be innately a gentlewoman; and her conversation always disclosed a cultivated as well as thinking mind.

Dr. Johnson never appeared to more advantage than in the presence of this blind poetess; for the obligations under which he had placed her, were such as he sincerely wished her to feel with the pleasure of light, not the oppression of weighty gratitude. All his best sentiments, therefore, were strenuously her advocates, to curb what was irritable in his temper by the generosity of his principles; and by the congeniality, in such points, of their sensibility.

His attentions to soften the burthen of her existence, from the various bodily diseases that aggravated the evil of her loss of sight, were anxious and unceasing; and there was no way more prominent to his favour than that of seeking to give any solace, or shewing any consideration to Anna Williams.

Anna, in return, honouring his virtues and abilities, grateful for his goodness, and intimately aware of his peculiarities, made it the pride of her life to receive every moment he could bestow upon her, with cordial affection; and exactly at his own time and convenience; to soothe him when he was disposed to lament with her the loss of his wife; and to procure for him whatever was in her power of entertainment or comfort.

This introduction was afterwards followed, through Dr. Johnson’s zealous intervention, by sundry other visits from the Memorialist; and though minor circumstances made her compliance rather embarrassing, it could not have been right, and it would hardly have been possible, to resist an entreaty of Dr. Johnson. And every fresh interview at his own home showed the steady humanity of his assiduity to enliven his poor blind companion; as well as to confer the most essential services upon two other distressed inmates of his charitable house, Mrs. Desmoulins, the indigent daughter of Dr. Swinfen, a physician who had been godfather to Dr. Johnson; and Mr. Levet, a poor old ruined apothecary, both of whom he housed and supported with the most exemplary Christian goodness.

HISTORY OF MUSIC.

Dr. Burney was daily more enchanted at the kindness with which his daughter was honoured by Dr. Johnson; but neither parental exaltation, nor the smiles of fortune; nor the enticing fragrance of those flowery paths which so often allure from vigorous labour to wasting repose, the votary of rising fame; could even for a day, or scarcely for an hour, draw the ardent and indefatigable musical historian to any voluntary relaxation from his self-appointed task; to which he constantly devoted every moment that he could snatch from the multitudinous calls upon his over-charged time.

MR. GARRICK.

But the year that followed this still rising tide of pleasure and prosperity to Dr. Burney, 1779, opened to him with the personal loss of a friend whom the world might vainly, perhaps, be challenged to replace, for agreeability, delight, and conviviality, Garrick!—the inimitable David Garrick! who left behind him all previous eminence in his profession beyond reach of comparison; save the Roscius of Rome, to whose Ciceronian celebrity we owe the adoption of an appropriate nomenclature, which at no period could have been found in our own dominions:—Garrick, so long the darling and unrivalled favourite of the public; who possessed resistlessly, where he chose to exert it, the power of pleasing, winning, and exhilarating all around him:—Garrick, who, in the words of Dr. Johnson, seemed “Formed to gladden life,” was taken from his resplendent worldly fame, and admiring worldly friends, by “that stroke of death,” says Dr. Johnson, “which eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the stock of harmless pleasure.”

He had already retired from the stage, and retired without waiting for failing powers to urge, or precipitate his retreat; for still his unequalled animal spirits, gaily baffling the assaults of age, had such extraordinary exuberance as to supply and support both body and mind at once; still clear, varying, and penetrating, was his voice; still full of intelligence or satire, of disdain, of rage, or of delight, was the fire, the radiance, the eloquence of his eye; still made up at will, of energy or grace, of command or supplication, was his form, and were his attitudes; his face alone—ah! “There was the rub!—” his face alone was the martyr of time: or rather, his forehead and cheeks; for his eyes and his countenance were still beaming with recent, though retiring beauty.

But the wear and tear of his forehead and cheeks, which, as Dr. Johnson had said, made sixty years in Garrick seem seventy, had rendered them so wrinkled, from an unremitting play of expression, off as well as on the stage, that, when he found neither paint nor candle-light, nor dress nor decoration, could conceal those lines, or smooth those furrows which were ploughing his complexion; he preferred to triumph, even in foregoing his triumphs, by plunging, through voluntary impulse, from the dazzling summit to which he had mounted, and heroically pronouncing his Farewell!—amidst the universal cry, echoed and re-echoing all around him, of “Stop, Garrick, stop!—yet a little longer stop!”

A brief account of the last sight of this admired and much loved friend is thus given in a manuscript memoir of Dr. Burney.

“I called at his door, with anxious inquiries, two days before
he expired, and was admitted to his chamber; but though I
saw him, he did not seem to see me,—or any earthly thing!
His countenance that had never remained a moment the same in
conversation, now appeared as fixed and as inanimate as a
block of marble; and he had already so far relinquished the
world, as I was afterwards told by Mr. Wallace, his executor,
that nothing that was said or done that used to interest him
the most keenly, had any effect upon his muscles; or could
extort either a word or a look from him for several days
previously to his becoming a corpse.”

Dr. Burney, in the same carriage with Whitehead, the poet laureate, the erudite Mr. Beauclerk, and Mr. Wallace, the executor, attended the last remains of this celebrated public character to their honourable interment in Westminster Abbey.

Long, and almost universally felt was this loss: to Dr. Burney it was a deprivation of lasting regret. In his doggrel chronology he has left the following warm testimony of his admiration.

1779.

“This year joy and sorrow alike put on sable
For losses sustained by the stage and the table,
For Garrick, the master of passion, retired,
And Nature and Shakespeare together expired.
Thalia’s as well as Melpomene’s magic,
With him at once vanished both comic and tragic.
Long, long will it be, now by Death he is slain,
Before we shall see his true likeness again.
Such dignified beauties he threw in each part,
Such resources of humour, of passion, and art;—
Hilarity missed him, each Muse dropped a tear,
And Genius and Feeling attended his bier.”

* * * * *

YOUNG CROTCH.

Just as this great dramatic genius was descending to the tomb, young Crotch, a rising musical genius, was brought forward into the world with so strong a promise of eminence, that a very general desire was expressed, that Dr. Burney would examine, counsel, and countenance him; and at only three years and a half old, the child was brought to St. Martin’s-street by his mother.

The Doctor, ever ready to nourish incipient talents submitted to his investigation, saw the child repeatedly; and was so forcibly struck by his uncommon faculties, that upon communicating his remarks to the famous Dr. Hunter, who had been foremost in desiring the examination, Dr. Hunter thought them sufficiently curious to be presented to the Royal Society; where they were extremely well received, and printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the year 1779.

For some time after this, the Doctor was frequently called upon, by the relations and admirers of this wonderful boy, for assistance and advice; both which he cheerfully accorded to the best of his ability: till the happy star of the young prodigy fixed him at the University of Oxford, where he met with every aid, professional or personal, that his genius claimed; and where, while his education was still in progress, he was nominated, when only fourteen years of age, organist of Christ Church.

This event he communicated to Dr. Burney in a modest and grateful letter, that the Doctor received and preserved with sincere satisfaction; and kindly answered with instructive professional counsel.

In his chronological lines, the Doctor says—

“Little Crotch, a phenomenon, now first appeared,
And each minstrel surprised, howe’er gray was his beard:
To my learned associates who write F. R. S.
Both the why and the wherefore I humbly address;
And endeavour to shew them, without diminution,
What truly is strange in this bard Lilliputian:
What common, what wanting, to make him surpass
The composers and players of every class.

* * * * *

MR. THRALE.

The event next narrated in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, proved deeply affecting to the happiness and gaiety of his social circles; for now a catastrophe, which for some time had seemed impending, and which, though variously fluctuating, had often struck with terror, or damped with sorrow, the liveliest spirits and gayest scenes of Streatham, suddenly took place; and cut short for ever the honours and the peace of that erst illustrious dwelling.

Mr. Thrale, for many years, in utter ignorance what its symptoms were foreboding, had been harbouring, through an undermining indulgence of immoderate sleep after meals, a propensity to paralysis. The prognostics of distemper were then little observed but by men of science; and those were rarely called in till something fatal was apprehended. It is, probably, only since the time that medical and surgical lectures have been published as well as delivered; and simplified from technical difficulties, so as to meet and to enlighten the unscientific intellect of the herd of mankind, that the world at large seems to have learned the value of early attention to incipient malady.

Even Dr. Johnson was so little aware of the insalubrity of Mr. Thrale’s course of life, that, without interposing his powerful and never disregarded exhortations, he often laughingly said, “Mr. Thrale will out-sleep the seven sleepers!”

Strange it may seem, at this present so far more enlightened day upon these subjects, that Dr. Johnson, at least, should not have been alarmed at this lethargic tendency; as the art of medicine, which, for all that belongs to this world, stands the highest in utility, was, abstractedly, a study upon which he loved to ruminate, and a subject he was addicted to discuss. But this instance of complete vacuity of practical information upon diseases and remedies in Dr. Johnson, will cease to give surprise, when it is known that, near the middle of his life, and in the fullest force of his noble faculties, upon finding himself assailed by a severe fit of the gout in his ancle, he sent for a pail of cold water, into which he plunged his leg during the worst of the paroxysm—a feat of intrepid ignorance—incongruous as sounds the word ignorance in speaking of Dr. Johnson—that probably he had cause to rue during his whole after-life; for the gout, of which he chose to get rid in so succinct a manner—a feat in which he often exulted—might have carried off many of the direful obstructions, and asthmatic seizures and sufferings, of which his latter years were wretchedly the martyrs.

Thus, most unfortunately, without representation, opposition, or consciousness, Mr. Thrale went on in a self-destroying mode of conduct, till,

“Uncall’d—unheeded—unawares—”

he was struck with a fit of apoplexy.

Yet even this stroke, by the knowledge and experience of his medical advisers,[36] might perhaps have been parried, had Mr. Thrale been imbued with earlier reverence for the arts of recovery. But he slighted them all; and fearless, or, rather, incredulous of danger, he attended to no prescription. He simply essayed the waters of Tunbridge; and made a long sojourn at Bath. All in vain! The last and fatal seizure was inflicted at his own town house, in Grosvenor Square, in the spring of 1781: and at an instant when such a blow was so little expected, that all London, amongst persons of fashion, talents, or celebrity, had been invited to a splendid entertainment, meant for the night of that very dawn which rose upon the sudden earthly extinction of the lamented and respected chief of the mansion.

STREATHAM.

Changed now was Streatham! the value of its chief seemed first made known by his loss; which was long felt; though not, perhaps, with the immediate acuteness that would have been demonstrated, if, at that period, the deprivation of the female chieftain had preceded that of the male. Still Mr. Thrale, by every friend of his house and family; and by every true adherent to his wife, her interest, her fame, and her happiness, was day by day, and week by week, more and more missed and regretted.

Dr. Burney was one of the first and most earnest to hasten to the widowed lady, with the truest sympathy in her grief. His daughter, who, for some previous months, had been wholly restored to the paternal roof,—the Thrales themselves having been fixed, for the last winter season, in Grosvenor Square,—flew, in trembling haste, the instant she could be received, to the beloved friend who was now tenderly enchained to her heart; and at this moment was doubly endeared by misfortune; and voluntarily quitting all else, eagerly established herself at Streatham.

Dr. Johnson, who was one of Mr. Thrale’s executors, immediately resumed his apartment; cordially and gratefully bestowing on the remaining hostess every minute that she could desire or require of his time and his services. And nothing could be wiser in counsel, more zealous in good offices, or kinder of intention, than the whole of his conduct in performing the duties that he deemed to devolve upon him by the will of his late friend.

But Dr. Burney, as he could only upon his stated day and hour make one in this retirement, devoted himself now almost exclusively to his

HISTORY OF MUSIC.

So many years had elapsed since the appearance of the first volume, and the murmurs of the subscribers were so general for the publication of the second, that the earnestness of the Doctor to fulfil his engagement, became such as to sicken him of almost every occupation that turned him from its pursuit. Yet uninterrupted attention grew more than ever difficult; for as his leisure, through the double claims of his profession and his work, diminished, his celebrity increased; and the calls upon it, as usual, from the wayward taste of public fashion for what is hard to obtain, were perpetual, were even clamorous; and he had constantly a long list of petitioning parents, awaiting a vacant hour, upon any terms that he could name, and at any part of the day.

He had always some early pupil who accepted his attendance at eight o’clock in the morning; and a strong instance has been given of its being seized upon even at seven;[37] and, during the height of the season for fashionable London residence, his tour from house to house was scarcely ever finished sooner than eleven o’clock at night.

But so urgent grew now the spirit of his diligence for the progress of his work, that he not only declined all invitations to the hospitable boards of his friends, he even resisted the social hour of repast at his own table; and took his solitary meal in his coach, while passing from scholar to scholar; for which purpose he had sandwiches prepared in a flat tin box; and wine and water ready mixed, in a wickered pint bottle, put constantly into the pockets of his carriage.

If, at this period, Dr. Burney had been as intent and as skilful in the arrangement and the augmentation of his income, as he was industrious to procure, and assiduous to merit, its increase, he might have retired from business, its toils and its cares, while yet in the meridian of life; with a comfortable competence for its decline, and adequate portions for his daughters. With regard to his sons, it was always his intention to bestow upon them good educations, and to bring them up to honourable professions; and then to leave them to form, as he had done himself, a dynasty of their own. But, unfortunately for all parties, he had as little turn as time for that species of speculation which leads to financial prosperity; and he lived chiefly upon the principal of the sums which he amassed; and which he merely, as soon as they were received, locked up in his bureau for facility of usage; or stored largely at his bankers as an asylum of safety: while the cash which he laid out in any sort of interest, was so little, as to make his current revenue almost incredibly below what might have been expected from the remuneration of his labours; or what seemed due to his situation in the world.

But, with all his honourable toil, his philosophic privations, and his heroic self-denials,

THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE HISTORY OF MUSIC,

from a continually enlarging view of its capability of improvement, did not see the light till the year 1782.

Then, however, it was received with the same favour and the same honours that had graced the entrance into public notice of its predecessor. The literary world seemed filled with its praise; the booksellers demanded ample impressions; and her Majesty Queen Charlotte, with even augmented graciousness, accepted its homage at court.

* * * * *

Relieved, by this publication, from a weight upon his spirits and his delicacy, which, for more than six years had burthened and disturbed them, he prudently resolved against working any longer under the self-reproachful annoyance of a promised punctuality which his position in life disabled him from observing, by fettering himself with any further tie of time to his subscribers for the remaining volumes.

He renounced, therefore, the excess of studious labour with which, hitherto,

his toil
O’er books consum’d the midnight oil;

and restored himself, in a certain degree, to his family, his friends, and a general and genial enjoyment of his existence. And hailed was the design, by all who knew him, with an energetic welcome.

And yet, in breathing thus a little from so unremitting an ardour; and allowing himself to bask awhile in that healing sunshine of applause which administers more relief to the brain-shattered, and mind-exhausted patient, than all the _materia medica_ of the Apothecaries’ Hall; so small still, and so fugitive, were his intervals of relaxation, that the diminished exertion which to him was gentle rest, would, to almost any other, have still seemed overstrained occupation, and a life of drudgery.

With no small pleasure, now, he resumed his wonted place at the opera, at concerts, and in circles of musical excellence; which then were at their height of superiority, because presided over by the royal and accomplished legislator of taste, fashion, and elegance, the Prince of Wales;[38] who frequently deigned to call upon Dr. Burney for his opinion upon subjects of harmony: and even condescended to summon him to his royal vicinity, both at the opera and at concerts, that they might “compare notes,” in his own gracious expression, upon what was performing.

Not, however, to his daughter did the Doctor recommend any similar remission of penmanship. The extraordinary favour with which her little work had been received in the world; and which may chiefly, perhaps, be attributed to the unpretending and unexpecting mode in which, not skilfully, but involuntarily, it had glided into public life; being now sanctioned by the _eclât_ of encouragement from Dr. Johnson and from Mr. Burke, gave a zest to his paternal pleasure and hopes, that made it impossible, nay, that even led him to think it would be unfatherly, to listen to her affrighted wishes of retreat, from her fearful apprehensions of some reverse; or suffer her to shrink back to her original obscurity, from the light into which she had been surprised.

And, indeed, though he made the kindest allowance for her tremors and reluctance, he was urged so tumultuously by others, that it was hardly possible for him to be passive: and Mr. Crisp, whose voice, in whatever was submitted to his judgment, had the effect of a casting vote, called out aloud: “More! More! More!—another production!”

The wishes of two such personages were, of course, resistless; and a new mental speculation, which already, though secretly, had taken a rambling possession of her ideas, upon the evils annexed to that species of family pride which, from generation to generation, seeks, by mortal wills, to arrest the changeful range of succession enacted by the immutable laws of death, became the basis of a composition which she denominated Memoirs of an Heiress.[39]

No sooner was her consent obtained, than Dr. Burney, who had long with regret, though with pride, perceived that, at Streatham, she had no time that was her own, earnestly called her thence.

He called, however, in vain, from the acuter, though fonder cry of Mrs. Thrale for her detention; and, kind and flexible, he was yielding up his demand, when Mr. Crisp, emphatically exclaiming:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men”— — —

“and—” comically adding—“and of girls, too!” charged him not to risk that turn for his daughter, through a false delicacy from which, should she become its victim, he would have the laugh against,—and nothing for him.

The Doctor then frankly revealed to Mrs. Thrale, the tide-fearing alarm of Mr. Crisp.

Startled, she heard him. Unwelcome was the sound to her affection, to her affliction—and, it may be, to her already growing perplexities!—but justice and kindness united to forbid any conflict:—though struck was the Doctor, and still more struck was the Memorialist, by the miserable “Adieu!” which she uttered at parting.

Mr. Crisp himself hastened in person to Streatham, to convey his young friend alike from that now monopolizing seclusion, and from her endlessly increasing expansion of visits and acquaintance in London;—all which he vehemently denounced as flattering idleness,—to the quiet and exclusive possession of what he had denominated The Doctor’s Conjuring Closet, at Chesington.

And there, with that paternal and excellent friend, and his worthy associates, Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Cooke, in lively sociality, gay good-humour, and unbounded confidence, she consigned some months to what he called her new conjuring. And there she proposed to remain till her work should be finished: but, ere that time arrived, and ere she could read any part of it with Mr. Crisp, a tender call from home brought her to the parental roof, to be present at the marriage of a darling sister:[40] after which, the Doctor kept her stationary in St. Martin’s-street, till she had written the word Finis, which ushered her “Heiress” into the world.

MR. BURKE.

The time is now come for commemorating the connection which, next alone to that of Dr. Johnson, stands highest in the literary honours of Dr. Burney, namely, that which he formed with Edmund Burke.

Their first meetings had been merely accidental and public, and wholly unaccompanied by any private intimacy or intercourse; though, from the time that the author of Evelina had been discovered, there had passed between them, on such occasional junctions, what Dr. Burney playfully called _an amiable coquetry_ of smiles, and other symbols, that showed each to be thinking of the same thing: for Mr. Burke, with that generous energy which, when he escaped the feuds of party, was the distinction of his character, and made the charm of his oratory, had blazed around his approbation of that happy little work, from the moment that it had fallen, incidentally, into his hands: and when he heard that the author, from her acquaintance with the lovely and accomplished nieces of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was a visitor at the house of that English Raphael, he flatteringly desired of the Knight an appointed interview.

But from that, though enchanted as much as astonished at such a proposal from Mr. Burke, she fearfully, and with conscious insufficiency, hung back; hoping to owe to chance a less ostentatious meeting.

Various parties, during two or three years, had been planned, but proved abortive; when in June, 1782, Sir Joshua Reynolds invited Dr. Burney and the Memorialist to a dinner upon Richmond Hill, to meet the Bishop of St. Asaph, Miss Shipley, and some others.

This was gladly accepted by the Doctor; who now, upon his new system, was writing more at his ease; and by his daughter, who was still detained from Streatham, as her second work, though finished, was yet in the press.

Sir Joshua, and his eldest niece,[41] accompanied by Lord Cork, called for them in St. Martin’s-street; and the drive was as lively, from the discourse within the carriage, as it was pleasant from the views without.

Here the editor, as no traits of Mr. Burke in conversation can be wholly uninteresting to an English reader, will venture to copy an account of this meeting, which was written while it was yet new, and consequently warm in her memory, as an offering to her second father,

SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ.

_Chesington._

* * * * *

“My dear Mr. Crisp.

“At the Knight of Plympton’s house, on Richmond Hill, next to the Star and Garter, we were met by the Bishop of St. Asaph, who stands as high in general esteem for agreeability as for worth and learning; and by his accomplished and spirited daughter, Miss Shipley. My father was already acquainted with both; and to both I was introduced by Miss Palmer.

“No other company was mentioned; but some smiling whispers passed between Sir Joshua, Miss Palmer, and my father, that awakened in me a notion that the party was not yet complete; and with that notion an idea that Mr. Burke might be the awaited chief of the assemblage; for as they knew I had long had as much eagerness to see Mr. Burke as I had fears of meeting his expectations, I thought they might forbear naming him to save me a fit of fright.

“Sir Joshua who, though full of kindness, dearly loves a little innocent malice, drew me soon afterwards to a window, to look at the beautiful prospect below; the soft meandering of the Thames, and the brightly picturesque situation of the elegant white house which Horace Walpole had made the habitation of Lady Diana Beauclerk and her fair progeny; in order to gather, as he afterwards laughingly acknowledged, my sentiments of the view, that he might compare them with those of Mr. Burke on the same scene! However, I escaped, luckily, falling, through ignorance, into such a competition, by the entrance of a large, though unannounced party, in a mass. For as this was only a visit of a day, there were very few servants; and those few, I suppose, were preparing the dinner apartment; for this group appeared to have found its own way up to the drawing-room, with an easiness as well suited to its humour, by the gay air of its approach, as to that of Sir Joshua; who holds ceremony almost in horror, and who received them without any form or apology.

“He quitted me, however, to go forward, and greet with distinction a lady who was in the set. They were all familiarly recognized by the Bishop and Miss Shipley, as well as by Miss Palmer; and some of them by my father, whose own face wore an expression, of pleasure, that helped to fix a conjecture in my mind that one amongst them, whom I peculiarly signalised, tall, and of fine deportment, with an air at once of Courtesy and Command, might be Edmund Burke.

“Excited as I felt by this idea, I continued at my picturesque window, as all the company were strangers to me, till Miss Palmer gave her hand to the tall, suspected, but unknown personage, saying, in a half whisper, “Have I kept my promise at last?” and then, but in a lower tone still, and pointing to the window, she pronounced “Miss Burney.”

As this seemed intended for private information, previously to an introduction, be the person whom he might, though accidentally it was overheard, I instantly bent my head out of the window, as if not attending to them: yet I caught, unavoidably, the answer, which was uttered in a voice the most emphatic, though low, “Why did you tell me it was Miss Burney? Did you think I should not have known it?”

“An awkward feel, now, from having still no certainty of my surmise, or of what it might produce, made me seize a spying glass, and set about re-examining the prospect; till a pat on the arm, soon after, by Miss Palmer, turned me round to the company, just as the still unknown, to my great regret, was going out of the room with a footman, who seemed to call him away upon some sudden summons of business. But my father, who was at Miss Palmer’s elbow, said, “Fanny—Mr. Gibbon!”

This, too, was a great name; but of how different a figure and presentation! Fat and ill-constructed, Mr. Gibbon has cheeks of such prodigious chubbyness, that they envelope his nose so completely, as to render it, in profile, absolutely invisible. His look and manner are placidly mild, but rather effeminate; his voice,—for he was speaking to Sir Joshua at a little distance—is gentle, but of studied precision of accent. Yet, with these Brobdignatious cheeks, his neat little feet are of a miniature description; and with these, as soon as I turned round, he hastily described a quaint sort of circle, with small quick steps, and a dapper gait, as if to mark the alacrity of his approach, and then, stopping short when full face to me, he made so singularly profound a bow, that—though hardly able to keep my gravity—I felt myself blush deeply at its undue, but palpably intended obsequiousness.

This demonstration, however, over, his sense of politeness, or project of flattery, was satisfied; for he spoke not a word, though his gallant advance seemed to indicate a design of bestowing upon me a little rhetorical touch of a compliment. But, as all eyes in the room were suddenly cast upon us both, it is possible he partook a little himself of the embarrassment he could not but see that he occasioned; and was therefore unwilling, or unprepared, to hold forth so publicly upon—he scarcely, perhaps, knew what!—for, unless my partial Sir Joshua should just then have poured it into his ears, how little is it likely Mr. Gibbon should have heard of Evelina!

But at this moment, to my great relief, the Unknown again appeared; and with a spirit, an air, a deportment that seemed to spread around him the glow of pleasure with which he himself was visibly exhilarated. But speech was there none; for dinner, which I suppose had awaited him, was at the same instant proclaimed; and all the company, in a mixed, quite irregular, and even confused manner, descended, _sans ceremonie_, to the eating parlour.

The Unknown, however, catching the arm and the trumpet of Sir Joshua, as they were coming down stairs, murmured something, in a rather reproachful tone, in the knight’s ear; to which Sir Joshua made no audible answer. But when he had placed himself at his table, he called out, smilingly, “Come, Miss Burney!—will you take a seat next mine?”—adding, as if to reward my very alert compliance, “and then—Mr. Burke shall sit on your other side.”

“O no, indeed!” cried the sprightly Miss Shipley, who was also next to Sir Joshua, “I sha’n’t agree to that! Mr. Burke must sit next me! I won’t consent to part with him. So pray come, and sit down quiet, Mr. Burke.”

Mr. Burke—for Mr. Burke, Edmund Burke, it was!—smiled, and obeyed.

“I only proposed it to make my peace with Mr. Burke,” said Sir Joshua, passively, “by giving him that place; for he has been scolding me all the way down stairs for not having introduced him to Miss Burney; however, I must do it now—Mr. Burke!—Miss Burney!”

We both half rose, to reciprocate a little salutation; and Mr. Burke said: “I have been complaining to Sir Joshua that he left me wholly to my own sagacity,—which, however, did not here deceive me!”

Delightedly as my dear father, who had never before seen Mr. Burke in private society, enjoyed this encounter, I, my dear Mr. Crisp, had a delight in it that transcended all comparison. No expectation that I had formed of Mr. Burke, either from his works, his speeches, his character, or his fame, had anticipated to me such a man as I now met. He appeared, perhaps, at this moment, to the highest possible advantage in health, vivacity, and spirits. Removed from the impetuous aggravations of party contentions, that, at times, by inflaming his passions, seem, momentarily at least, to disorder his character, he was lulled into gentleness by the grateful feelings of prosperity; exhilarated, but not intoxicated, by sudden success; and just risen, after toiling years of failures, disappointments, fire, and fury, to place, affluence, and honours; which were brightly smiling on the zenith of his powers. He looked, indeed, as if he had no wish but to diffuse philanthropy, pleasure, and genial gaiety all around.

His figure, when he is not negligent in his carriage, is noble; his air, commanding; his address, graceful; his voice clear, penetrating, sonorous, and powerful; his language, copious, eloquent, and changefully impressive; his manners are attractive; his conversation is past all praise!

You will call me mad, I know;—but if I wait till I see another Mr. Burke for such another fit of ecstacy—I may be long enough in my very sober good senses!

Sir Joshua next made Mrs. Burke greet the new comer into this select circle; which she did with marked distinction. She appears to be pleasing and sensible, but silent and reserved.

Sir Joshua then went through the same introductory etiquette with Mr. Richard Burke, the brother; Mr. William Burke, the cousin; and young Burke, the son of THE Burke. They all, in different ways, seem lively and agreeable; but at miles, and myriads of miles, from the towering chief.

How proud should I be to give you a sample of the conversation of Mr. Burke! But the subjects were, in general, so fleeting, his ideas so full of variety, of gaiety, and of matter; and he darted from one of them to another with such rapidity, that the manner, the eye, the air with which all was pronounced, ought to be separately delineated to do any justice to the effect that every sentence, nay, that every word produced upon his admiring hearers and beholders.

Mad again! says my Mr. Crisp; stark, staring mad!

Well, all the better; for “There is a pleasure in being mad,” as I have heard you quote from Nat Lee, or some other old play-wright, “that none but madmen know.”

I must not, however, fail to particularize one point of his discourse, because ’tis upon your own favourite hobby, politics: and my father very much admired its candour and frankness.

In speaking of the great Lord Chatham while he was yet Mr. Pitt, Mr. Burke confessed his Lordship to have been the only person whom he, Mr. Burke, did not name in parliament without caution. But Lord Chatham, he said, had obtained so preponderating a height of public favour, that though, occasionally, he could not concur in its enthusiasm, he would not attempt to oppose its cry. He then, however, positively, nay solemnly, protested, that this was the only subject upon which he did not talk with exactly the same openness and sincerity in the house as at the table.

He bestowed the most liberal praise upon Lord Chatham’s second son, the _now_ young William Pitt, with whom he is acting; and who had not only, he said, the most truly extraordinary talents, but who appeared to be immediately gifted by nature with the judgment which others acquire by experience.

“Though judgment,” he presently added, “is not so rare in youth as is generally supposed. I have commonly observed, that those who do not possess it early are apt to miss it late.”

But the subject on which he most enlarged, and most brightened, was Cardinal Ximenes, which was brought forward, accidentally, by Miss Shipley.

That young lady, with the pleasure of youthful exultation in a literary honour, proclaimed that she had just received a letter from the famous Doctor Franklin.

Mr. Burke then, to Miss Shipley’s great delight, burst forth into an eulogy of the abilities and character of Dr. Franklin, which he mingled with a history the most striking, yet simple, of his life; and a veneration the most profound for his eminence in science, and his liberal sentiments and skill in politics.

This led him, imperceptibly, to a dissertation upon the beauty, but rarity, of great minds sustaining great powers to great old age; illustrating his remarks by historical proofs, and biographical anecdotes of antique worthies;—till he came to Cardinal Ximenes, who lived to his ninetieth year. And here he made a pause. He could go, he said, no further. Perfection rested there!

His pause, however, producing only a general silence, that indicated no wish of speech but from himself, he suddenly burst forth again into an oration so glowing, so flowing, so noble, so divinely eloquent, upon the life, conduct, and endowments of this Cardinal, that I felt as if I had never before known what it was to listen! I saw Mr. Burke, and Mr. Burke only! Nothing, no one else was visible any more than audible. I seemed suddenly organized into a new intellectual existence, that was wholly engrossed by one single use of the senses of seeing and hearing, to the total exclusion of every object but of the figure of Mr. Burke; and of every sound but of that of his voice. All else—my dear father alone excepted—appeared but amalgamations of the chairs on which they were seated; and seemed placed round the table merely as furniture.

I cannot pretend to write you such a speech—but such sentences as I can recollect with exactitude, I cannot let pass.

The Cardinal, he said, gave counsel and admonition to princes and sovereigns with the calm courage and dauntless authority with which he might have given them to his own children: yet, to such noble courage, he joined a humility still more magnanimous, in never desiring to disprove, or to disguise his own lowly origin; but confessing, at times, with openness and simplicity, his surprise at the height of the mountain to which, from so deep a valley, he had ascended. And, in the midst of all his greatness, he personally visited the village in which he was born, where he touchingly recognised what remained of his kith and kin.

Next, he descanted upon the erudition of this exemplary prelate; his scarce collection of bibles; his unequalled mass of rare manuscripts; his charitable institutions; his learned seminaries; and his stupendous University at Alcala. “Yet so untinged,” he continued, “was his scholastic lore with the bigotry of the times; and so untainted with its despotism, that, even in his most forcible acts for securing the press from licentiousness, he had the enlargement of mind to permit the merely ignorant, or merely needy instruments of its abuse, when detected in promulgating profane works, from being involved in their destruction; for though, on such occasions, he caused the culprits’ shops, or warehouses, to be strictly searched, he let previous notice of his orders be given to the owners, who then privily executed judgment themselves upon the peccant property; while they preserved what was sane, as well as their personal liberty: but—if the misdemeanour were committed a second time, he manfully left the offenders, unaided and unpitied, to its forfeiture.

“To a vigour,” Mr. Burke went on, “that seemed never to calculate upon danger, he joined a prudence that seemed never to run a risk. Though often the object of aspersion—as who, conspicuous in the political world, is not?—he always refused to prosecute; he would not even answer his calumniators. He held that all classes had a right to stand for something in public life! “We,” he said, “who are at the head, Act;—in God’s name let those who are at the other end, Talk! If we are Wrong, ’tis our duty to hearken, and to mend! If we are Right, we may be content enough with our superiority, to teach unprovoked malice its impotence, by leaving it to its own fester.”

“So elevated, indeed,” Mr. Burke continued, “was his disdain of detraction, that instead of suffering it to blight his tranquillity, he taught it to become the spur to his virtues!”

Mr. Burke again paused; paused as if overcome by the warmth of his own emotion of admiration; and presently he gravely protested, that the multifarious perfections of Cardinal Ximenes were beyond human delineation.