Chapter V: Part 5

Dr. Burney lost not a moment in assisting this liberal design; in which he had the happiness of engaging the powerful energies of Mr. Windham. And, soon afterwards, growing warmer in the business, from seeing more of the pious sufferers, he consented to becoming honorary secretary himself to the private society of the ladies who were at the head of this charitable exertion; of which the Marchioness of Buckingham[33] was nominated chief, at the desire of Mrs. Crewe.

The world is so full of claims, and of claimants for whatever has money for its object, that the benign purpose of these ladies was soon offensively thwarted from misapprehension, envy, or ill-will, that sought to excite in its disfavour the prejudices ever ready, of John Bull against foreigners, till his justice is enlightened by an appeal to his generosity. Mrs. Crewe wrote warm lamentations on the subject to Dr. Burney, eagerly pressing him to engage his daughter in its cause.

“I never,” said the Doctor, in discussing this project, “receive a letter from Mrs. Crewe, in which she does not express her wishes that _you_ would subscribe with your _pen_. ‘People in common,’ she truly says, ‘see the coarse, vulgar side of this business; and some good female writer would do well to put out some short essay, to throw a good colouring on such a subject; and bring precedents, if possible, out of the age of chivalry. Now Miss Burney never shone more than when she made her Cecilia burst from the shackles of common forms at Vauxhall, to save the life of Harrel. O! I wish Madame d’Arblay would let us all thank her again for such true pictures of taste and perfection in the moral world! The refinements of courts have been great; but they have seldom reached the heart; and I think genuine elegance was much oftener to be found amongst our ancestors; who, though, perhaps, too strict concerning the female sex, seem, by their writings, hardly ever to have let refinements interfere with the operations of reason and common sense.’”

This quotation was followed by earnestly encouraging exhortations from the Doctor, to charge the new recluse to make some effort in favour of this pious emigrant clergy; and as the request had the full concurrence of M. d’Arblay, to whose every feeling the plan was touchingly interesting, her compliance, though fearful, could not be reluctant.

This was the origin and cause of The Address to the Ladies of Great Britain, in favour of the Emigrant French Priests, that was written for those venerable sufferers, as a pen-offering subscription from this Memorialist.

And the partial view that was taken of it by her fellow recluse; and the warm approvance accorded to it by Mrs. Crewe’s new private secretary, made the writer esteem it the most fortunate effusion of that pen.

Mrs. Doctor Burney was amongst the most active workers for these pious self-sacrificed exiles: as well as for whatever had charity for its object.

GENERAL D’ARBLAY.

Such were the exertions of Dr. Burney, such the concurrent occupations of the happy new recluse, when suddenly a whirlwind encompassed the cottage of the latter, that involved its tenants in tremulous disorder.

It was raised by the taking of Toulon, just mentioned in the letter of Mr. Burke; and began its workings upon the female hermit on the evening of a day which had brightly dawned upon her, in bringing the junction of the suffrage of her father upon her pamphlet to that of her life’s partner.

Her own account of this shock, written to Dr. Burney, will here be inserted, because it was preserved by the Doctor as characteristic of the principles and conduct of his new son-in-law.

“_Bookham, 1794._

“TO DR. BURNEY.

“When I received the last letter of my dearest father,
and for some hours after, I was the happiest of human
beings; I make no exception. I think none possible. Not
a wish remained for me—not a thought of forming one!

“This was just the period—is it not always so?—for a
stroke of sorrow to reverse the whole scene! That very
evening, M. d’Arblay communicated to me his desire of
re-entering the army, and—of going to Toulon!

“He had intended, upon our marriage, to retire wholly
from public life. His services and his sufferings, in his
severe military career,—repaid by exile and confiscation,
and for ever embittered to his memory by the murder of
his sovereign, had fulfilled, though not satisfied, the
claims of his conscience and his honour, and led him,
without a single self-reproach, to seek a quiet retreat
in domestic society: but—the second declaration of Lord
Hood no sooner reached this obscure little dwelling;
no sooner had he read the words Louis XVII. and the
Constitution, to which he had sworn, united, than his
military ardour re-kindled, his loyalty was all up in
arms, and every sense of monarchical patriotism now
carries him back to war and public service.

“I dare not speak of myself!—except to say that I have
forborne to distress him by a single solicitation. All
the felicity of that our own chosen and loved retirement,
would effectually be annulled, by the smallest suspicion
that it was enjoyed at the expense of any public duty.

“He is now writing an offer for entering as a volunteer
into the army destined for Toulon; together with a list
of his past services up to his becoming Commandant of
Longwy; and the dates of his various promotions to the
last recorded of Marechal de Camp, which was yet unsigned
and unsealed, when the captivity of Louis XVI. forced the
emigration which brought M. d’Arblay to England.

“This memorial he addresses and means to convey in person
to Mr. Pitt.”

* * * * *

To Dr. Burney, with all his consideration for his daughter, this enterprise appeared not to be inauspicious; and its spirit and loyalty warmly endeared to him his new relative: who could not, however, give proof of the noble verity of his sentiments and intentions, till many years later; for before the answer of Mr. Pitt to the memorial could be returned, the attempt upon Toulon proved abortive.

1794.

The Doctor continued in his benevolent post of private Secretary to the charitable ladies of the Emigrant Clergy Contribution, so long as the Committee lasted; though with so expert a distribution of time, that his new office robbed him not of the pleasure to yet enlarge the elegance of his literary circles, by being initiated into the Blue parties of Lady Lucan, supported by her accomplished daughter, Lady Spencer.

MR. MASON.

He now, also, renewed into long and social meetings, at his own apartments at Chelsea college, an acquaintance of forty-six years’ standing with Mason, the poet; by whom he was often consulted upon schemes of church psalmody, with respect both to its composition and execution; as well as upon other desirable improvements in our sacred harmony; which Mr. Mason, from practical knowledge both of music and poetry, was peculiarly fitted to investigate and refine.

Of this formation of intimacy, rather than renewal of acquaintance, Dr. Burney, in his Letters to the Hermits, spoke with great pleasure; though, while always admiring the talents, and esteeming the private character of that charming poet, he never lost either his regret or his blame for the truly unclerical use made of his powers of wit and humour, by the insidious, yet biting sarcasms, levelled against his virtuous Sovereign in the poetical epistle to Sir William Chambers.

Had any crime been held up to view, there might have been an exaltation of courage in not suffering the Throne to be its protector; or had any secret vice, that was undermining moral duties, been exposed, there might have been a nobleness of intrepid indignation in casting upon it the glare of public contempt. But the shaft was levelled at one who had neither crime nor vice; an exemption so rare, that it ought to have created respect for the lowest born subject in the realm; and therefore, when marking the character of a monarch, became a call, a commanding call, to every lover of virtue—be his politics what they might—for being blazoned with public applause, as an excitement to public example.

MR. MALONE.

Dr. Burney grew closely connected, also, with that indefatigable anecdote-hunter; date-ferretter; technical difficulty-solver; and collector of various readings—Mr. Malone.

HON. FRED. NORTH.

And he had the happiness of often meeting with the Hon. Frederic North, afterwards Earl of Guildford; whose pleasant wit, practical urbanity, and persevering love of enterprise, made him full of original entertainment; whilst his unvarying gaiety of good-humour enabled him to discard spleen from pain, and to banish murmuring from even the acutest fits of the gout; though maimed by them, distorted, and crippled.

Upon his first visit to Dr. Burney, at Chelsea College, Mr. Frederick North appeared there upon crutches, and with difficulty hobbled into the library; yet he advanced with a smile, saying, that though he must obsequiously beg permission to produce himself in such a plight elsewhere, he boldly felt at home in coming with wooden legs to Chelsea Hospital.

1795.

The health of Dr. Burney was at this time most happily restored to the full exercise of all his powers of life. In a letter written to Bookham, at the close of the spring season, he says:

“I have been such an _evaporé_ lately, that if I were
near enough to accost you _de vive voix_, it would be
with Susey’s[34] exclamation, when she was just arrived
from France, at only eleven years old, after staying at
Mrs. Lewis’s till ten o’clock one night, “_Que je suis
libertine, papa!_” And thus, “_Que je suis libertin, ma
fille!_” cry I. Three huge assemblies at Spencer House;
two dinners at the Duke and Duchess of Leeds; two ditto
at Mr. Crewe’s; two clubs; a _dejeuner_ at Mrs. Crewe’s
villa, at Hampstead; a dinner at Lord Macartney’s;
ditto at Mr. Locke’s; ditto at Mr. Coxe’s; two ditto
at Sir George Howard’s, at Chelsea; two philosophical
_conversationes_ at Sir Joseph Bankes’s; two operas; two
professional concerts; Haydn’s benefit; Salomon’s three
ancient musics; &c. &c. &c.

“What dissipating profligacy! But what _argufies_ all
this festivity? ’Tis all vanity, and exhalement of
spirit. I was tired to death of it all before it was
over: whilst your domestic occupations and pleasures are
as fresh every morning as the roses of your garden.”

The following is the sportive conclusion of another letter, written in the season of fashionable engagements.

“When shall I have done with telling you of _mes bonnes
fortunes_? Betty Carter, Hannah More, Lady Clarges—nay,
t’other day, at Dickey Coxe’s, I met with the Miss Berrys, as
lively and accomplished as ever; and I have strong invites
to their cottage at Strawberry Hill. What say you to that,
ma’am?—

“Torn to pieces, I declare!”

MR. ERSKINE.

The Doctor now, in truth, became so universally in fashion, that he was even sought, much to his amusement, by those against whose principles, as far as they were political, he was invariably at war; namely, sundry celebrated oppositionists.

In his letter to the Hermits he particularizes in this liberty list, Mr. Mason, Mr. Stonehewer, Sir William Jones, Mr. Hayley, Mr. Godwin, and the first Lord Lansdowne; ending with Mr. Erskine,[35] whom he had met at two dinners, and to whose house he had been invited to a third convivial meeting: and here this renowned orator and new acquaintance fastened upon the Doctor with all the volubility of his eloquence, and all the exuberance of his happy good-humour, in singing his own exploits and praises, without insisting that his hearer should join in chorus; or rather, perhaps, without discovering, from his own self-absorption, that that ceremony was omitted.

CAROLINE, PRINCESS OF WALES.

The _dejeuner_ above mentioned of Mrs. Crewe at her little villa, at Hampstead, was given in honour of Caroline, Princess of Wales.[36] To this, in order to compliment at once the rank and the taste of her Royal Highness, Mrs. Crewe invited whoever she thought most distinguished, either in situation or in talents. Under the latter class, she was not likely to forget her old friend, Dr. Burney; whose name her Royal Highness no sooner heard, than she desired Mr. Windham to bring him to her for presentation. “And then,” the Doctor in his diary relates, “she said, in very good English, ‘How do you do, Dr. Burney? You and I are not strangers. You are very well known in Germany, and often mentioned there; _car, enfin, vous êtes un homme celebre_.’”

“After which,” the Doctor’s diary goes on, “in the little colloquial debates, and playful defences of general conversation, she commonly and flatteringly referred to me for arbitration, saying: ‘Is it not so, Dr. Burney? You are a wise man, and must know of the best.’”

“The next time her Royal Highness had music, I was remembered for a summons to Blackheath, forwarded to me by the very agreeable and very deserving Miss Hayman. And here the Princess had the politeness and condescension to shew me her plantations and improvements.

“The music performed was chiefly of Mozart; and her Royal Highness, on piece following piece of the same composer, cried: ‘I hope you like Mozart, Dr. Burney?’ ‘No compositions can better deserve your Royal Highness’s favour,’ I answered; ‘for his inventions and resources are inexhaustible: and his vocal music, of which we knew nothing in England till after he was dead, surpasses in beauty even his instrumental; which had so justly, in this country, obtained him the warmest applause.’ The music was so good, and her Royal Highness was so lively, that Mrs. Crewe, whom I had the honour to accompany, could not take leave till past one o’clock in the morning; and it was past six ere my jaded horses and I reached Chelsea College.”

MRS. THRALE PIOZZI.

Chiefly cheering, however, and agreeable to the Doctor, was an unexpected re-meeting with a long favourite friend, from whom he had unavoidably, and most unpleasantly, been separated,—Mrs. Thrale; whom now, for the first time, he saw as Mrs. Piozzi.

It was at one of the charming concerts of the charming musician, Salomon, that this occurred. Dr. Burney knew not that she was returned from Italy, whither she had gone speedily after her marriage; till here, with much surprise, he perceived amongst the audience, il Signor Piozzi.

Approaching him, with an aspect of cordiality, which was met with one of welcoming pleasure, they entered into talk upon the performers and the instruments, and the enchanting compositions of Haydn. Dr. Burney then inquired, with all the interest that he most sincerely felt, after _la sua consorte_. Piozzi, turning round, pointed to a sofa, on which, to his infinite joy, Dr. Burney beheld Mrs. Thrale Piozzi, seated in the midst of her daughters, the four Miss Thrales.

His pleasure seemed reciprocated by Mrs. Piozzi, who, sportively ejaculating, “Here’s Dr. Burney, as young as ever!” held out to him her hand with lively amity.

His satisfaction now expanded into a conversational gaiety, that opened from them both those fertile sources of entertainment, that originally had rendered them most agreeable to each other; the younger branches, with amiable good-humour, contributing to the spirit of this unexpected junction.

The Bookhamite Recluse, to whom this occurrence was immediately communicated, received it with true and tender delight. Most joyfully would she, also, have held out her hand to that once so dear friend, from whom she could never sever her heart, had she happily been of this Salomonic party.[37]

METASTASIO.

Dr. Burney still, as he had done nearly from the hour that his History was finished, composed various articles for the Monthly Review. But so precarious and irregular a call upon his fertile abilities, sufficed not for their occupation; and he soon started a new work, on a subject peculiar and appropriate, that came singularly home to his business and bosom; though it was offered to him only by that fatal power which daily and unfailingly lavishes before us subjects for our discussions—and for our tears!—Death; which, some time previously to the liberation of the Doctor’s mind from the arcana of musical history, had cast the Life and Writings of the Abate Metastasio upon posterity.

No poet could be more congenial to Dr. Burney than Metastasio, the purity of whose numbers was mellifluously in concord with the purity of his sentiments; while both were in perfect unison with the taste of the Doctor. He considered it, professionally, to be even a duty, for the Historian of the Art of Music, to raise, as far as in him lay, a biographical monument to the glory of the man whose poetry, after that which is sacred, is best adapted to inspire the lyric muse with strains of genial harmony, in all the impassioned varieties that the choral shell is capable to generate for the musical enthusiast.

The first object of Dr. Burney in his visit to Vienna, at the period of his German Tour, had been to see and to converse with Metastasio; whose resplendent lyrical fame had raised him, in his own dramatic career, to a height unequalled throughout Europe.

The benign reception given to the Doctor by this amiable and venerable bard; the charm of his converse; the meekly borne honours by which he was distinguished and surrounded; and the delightful performances, and graceful attractions of his Niece, Mademoiselle Martinez, are fully and feelingly set forth in the third volume of the Musical Tours.

When decided, therefore, upon this subject for his pen and his powers, he employed himself without delay in preparatory measures for his new undertaking: and procured every edition of the Poet’s works; to glean from each all that might incidentally be interspersed of anecdote, in letters, advertisements, prefaces, or notes.

He was kindly assisted in getting over various documents from Vienna, by the late Lord Mansfield, who, while Lord Stormont, had been British Ambassador at that capital when it was visited by Dr. Burney.

The present Earl Spencer, also, liberally aided the passage to England of some works much wanted, but difficult of attainment.

From Haydn, with whom the Doctor was in constant commerce, and who chiefly resided at Vienna, he received considerable local and agreeable help.

And through the generous and judicious friendship of the faithful Pacchierotti, he was furnished with every species of assistance that judgment, zeal, and a perfect acquaintance with the calls of the subject, could suggest.

“In short,” says the Doctor, in a letter to Bookham, “I am prodigiously hallooed on in my Metastasio mania by all sorts of poets and critics; and, to bring all to a point, I have a letter, which I inclose for your perusal, from the enchanting Mademoiselle Martinez.”

Thus powerfully encouraged, the Doctor consigned himself to this new composition. Not, however, as when working at his History, to the sacrifice of his ease, his comfort, and his friends: with these, on the contrary, his spring and winter intercourse were now lively and frequent; and with some of them he indulged himself in spending a portion of his summer.

1795.

While he had been blessed by the preservation of Messrs. Crisp, Bewley, and Twining, he had neither inclination nor time for any diffusion that would have robbed him of their incomparably endearing and enlightening society. A few days in rotation were all that he could bestow on his many other claimants; but the two first of these heart, head, and leisure-monopolizers, Messrs. Crisp and Bewley, were gone; and had left a chasm that the third only could fill; and he, Mr. Twining, was now almost unremittingly occupied in kindly attendance upon a sick and suffering wife.

The next who, now, ranked nearest to Dr. Burney for consolation and confidence, was Mrs. Crewe; to whom he would willingly have dedicated the greatest part of his wandering holidays, but that her country residence, at Crewe Hall, in Cheshire, exacted two journeys so incommodious and fatiguing, that it was rarely, and with difficulty, they could be undertaken.

To his valuable old friend, Mr. Coxe, he gave a week or two, at his pleasant villa, near Southampton, every season. And he made rambling visits, of a few days, to Lady Mary Duncan, Sir Joseph Bankes, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Garrick, Lady Clarges, and several others.

With his two sons, and his eldest daughter, as their residences were within a few miles of his own abode, he was in constant commerce; but to his Susanna, since she had been separated from the paternal roof, he devoted a fortnight every year; and he gratified his fourth daughter, Charlotte, now resident in Norfolk, with visits rather longer, because her greater distance from Chelsea made them necessarily less frequent.

BOOKHAM.

In the first of these domestic and amical tours that were made after the marriage of his second daughter, he suddenly turned out of his direct road to take a view of the dwelling of the Hermits of Bookham; in which rural village they were temporarily settled, in a small but pleasant cottage, endeared for ever to their remembrance from having been found out for them by Mr. Locke.

It was not, perhaps, without the spur of some latent solicitude, some anxious incertitude, that Dr. Burney made this first visit to them abruptly, at an early hour, and when believed far distant; and if so, never were kind doubts more kindlily solved: he found all that most tenderly he could wish—concord and content; gay concord, and grateful content.

When he sent in his name from his post-chaise, the Hermits flew to receive him; and ere he could reach the little threshold of the little habitation, his daughter was in his arms. How long she there kept him she knows not, but he was very patient at the detention! Tears of pleasure standing in his full eyes at her rapturous reception; and at witnessing the unsophisticated happiness of two beings who, from living nearly in the front of life, nourished in retirement no wish but for its continuance.

CAMILLA; OR A PICTURE OF YOUTH.

The Memoirs of Metastasio, with all their interest to a man whose love of literary composition was so eminently his ruling passion, surmounted not—for nothing could surmount—the parental benevolence that welcomed with encouragement, and hailed with hope, a project now communicated to him of a new work, the third in succession, from the author of Evelina and Cecilia.

That author, become now a mother as well as a wife, was induced to print this, her third literary essay, by a hazardous mode of publicity, from which her natively-retired temperament had made her, in former days, recoil, even when it was eloquently suggested for her by Mr. Burke to Dr. Burney; namely, the mode of subscription.

But, at this period, she felt a call against her distaste at once conjugal and maternal. Her noble-minded partner, though the most ardent of men to be himself what he thought belonged to the dignity of his sex, the efficient purveyor of his own small home and family, was despoiled, by events over which he had no control, of that post of honour.

This scheme, therefore, was adopted. Its history, however, would be here a matter of supererogation, save as far as it includes Dr. Burney in its influence and effect; for neither the author, nor her partner in all, could feel greater delight than was experienced by Dr. Burney, from the three principal circumstances which emanated from this undertaking.

The first of these was the honour graciously accorded by her Majesty, Queen Charlotte, of suffering her august name to stand at the head of the Book, by deigning to accept its Dedication.

The second was the feminine approbation marked for the author by three ladies, equally conspicuous for their virtues and their understanding; the honourable and sagacious Mrs. Boscawen, the beautiful and zealous Mrs. Crewe, and the exemplary and captivating Mrs. Locke; who each kept books for the subscription, which the kindness of their friendship raised as highly in honour as in advantage.

And the third circumstance, to the Doctor the most touching, because now the least expected, was the energetic interest, to which the prospect of seeing this Memorialist emerge again from obscurity, re-animated the still generous feelings of the now nearly sinking, altered, gone Mr. Burke! who, on finding that his charges against Mr. Hastings were adjudged in Westminster Hall to be unfounded, though he was still persuaded himself that they were just, had retired from Parliament, wearied and disgusted; and who, on the following year, had lost his deeply-attached brother; and, almost immediately afterwards, his nearly idolized son, who was “the pride of his heart, and the joy of his existence,” to use his own words in a paragraph of a letter written to the mutually respected and faithful friend of himself and of Dr. Burney, Mrs. Crewe.

That lady, well acquainted with the reverence of Dr. Burney for Mr. Burke, and the attachment with which Mr. Burke returned it, generally communicated her letters from Beaconsfield to Chelsea College; and not unfrequently with a desire that they might be forwarded on to Bookham; well knowing that the extraordinary partiality of Mr. Burke for its female recluse, would make him more than pardon the kind pleasure of Mrs. Crewe in granting that recluse such an indulgence.

The letter, whence is taken the fond sad phrase just quoted, was written in answer to the first letter of Mrs. Crewe to Mr. Burke, after his irreparable bereavement; and the whole of the paragraph in which it occurs will now be copied, to elucidate the interesting circumstance for Dr. Burney to which it led. Beautiful is the paragraph in the pathetic resignation of its submission. No flowery orator here expands his imagination; nothing finds vent but the touching simplicity of a tender parent’s heart-breaking sorrow.

“TO MRS. CREWE.

“We are thoroughly sensible of your humanity and
compassion to this desolate house.

* * * * *

“We are as well as people can be, who have nothing
further to hope or fear in this world. We are in a state
of quiet; but it is the tranquillity of the grave—in
which all that could make life interesting to us is
laid—and to which we are hastening as fast as God
pleases. This place[38] is no longer pleasant to us! and
yet we have more satisfaction, if it may so be called,
here than anywhere else. We go in and out, without any
of those sentiments of conviviality and joy which alone
can create an attachment to any spot. We have had a loss
which time and reflection rather increase the sense of.
I declare to you that I feel more this day, than on the
dreadful day in which I was deprived of the comfort and
support, the pride and ornament of my existence!”

* * * * *

Mrs. Crewe, extremely affected by this distress, and as eager to draw her illustrious friend from his consuming grief, as to serve and to gratify the new Recluse, sent to Beaconsfield the next year, 1795, the plan, in which she took so prominent a part, for bringing forth Camilla, or a Picture of Youth; in the hope of re-exciting his interest for its author.

The following is the answer which, almost with exultation of kindness, Mrs. Crewe transmitted to the Hermits.

“TO MRS. CREWE.

* * * * *

“As to _Miss Burney_—the subscription ought to be,
for certain persons, five guineas; and to take but a
single copy each. The rest as it is. I am sure that it
is a disgrace to the age and nation, if this be not a
great thing for her, If every person in England who
has received pleasure and instruction from Cecilia,
were to rate its value at the hundredth part of their
satisfaction, Madame d’Arblay would be one of the richest
women in the kingdom.

“Her scheme was known before she lost two[39] of her
most respectful admirers from this house;[40] and this,
with Mrs. Burke’s subscription and mine, make the paper I
send you.[41] One book is as good as a thousand: one of
hers is certainly as good as a thousand others.”

* * * * *

The reader will not, it is hoped, imagine, that the emotion excited by these words at Bookham sprang from a credulity so simple, or a vanity so insane, as that of arraigning the judgment of Mr. Burke by a literal acceptation of their benevolent, rather than flattering exaltation:—No! the emotion was to find Mr. Burke still susceptible of his old generous warmth of regard: and that emotion was of the tenderest gratitude in the Recluse, upon seeing herself still, in defiance of absence, of distance, of time, and even of deadly sorrow, as much its honoured object as when she had been sought by him in her opening career.

The felicitations of Dr. Burney to Bookham upon this extraordinary effusion of heart-affecting kindness, were so full of happiness, as to demand felicitations in return for himself.

METASTASIO.

In 1795 the Memoirs of Metastasio made their appearance in the republic of letters. They were received with interest and pleasure by all readers of taste, and lovers of the lyric muse. They had not, indeed, that brightness of popular success which had flourished into the world the previous works of the Doctor; for though the name of Metastasio was familiar to all who had any pretensions to an acquaintance with the classical muses, whether ancient or modern, it was only the chosen few who had any enjoyment of his merit, or who understood the motives to his fame. The Italian language was by no means then in its present general cultivation; and the feeling, exalted dramas of this tenderly touching poet, were only brought forward, in England, by the miserable, mawkish, no-meaning translations of the opera-house hired scribblers.[42] And all that was most elegant and most refined, in thought as well as in language, of this classical bard, was frequently so ill rendered into English, as to become mere matter of risibility, held up for mockery and ridicule.

The translations, or, more properly speaking, imitations, occasionally interspersed in this work, of some of the poetry of Metastasio, were the most approved by the best critics; as so breathing the sentiments and the style of the author, that they read, said Horace Lord Orford, like two originals.

But the dissertation concerning the rules was what excited most attention. Dr. Warton, a professed and standard supporter of them and of Aristotle, confessed, with surprise, that he was shaken from his firm ancient hold, through the treatise on their subject by Metastasio, as given, in so masterly a manner, by Dr. Burney.

Mr. Twining, the able and learned commentator and translator of Aristotle, and one of the most candid of men, allowed himself, also, to be struck, if not convinced, by the reasoning of Metastasio, as presented by Dr. Burney.

Mr. Mason, likewise, owned that he was set upon taking quite a new view of that long-battled topic. And the ingenious Mr. Walker opened a critical and literary correspondence from Dublin with Dr. Burney, relative to this interminable question.

Meanwhile, from the public at large, these Memoirs obtained a fair and satisfactory approvance that kindly sheltered the long-earned laurels of Dr. Burney from withering, if they elicited not such productive fragrance as to make those laurels bloom afresh.

On the opening of July, 1796, the parental feelings of Dr. Burney were auspiciously gratified by the reception of his daughter’s new attempt; of which the first homage was offered, and graciously received in person at Windsor, by the King, as well as by the Queen; with the most benevolent marks of unvaried favour, and with the condescension of repeated private audiences with the Queen, and with the Princesses, during a short Windsor sojourn. But that which enchanted beyond his hopes the Doctor’s fondest desires, was that his daughter had the signal happiness of naming his foreign-born, though domestic-bosomed son-in-law, General d’Arblay, to the King, upon the Terrace, by the gracious motion of his Majesty; who there accorded him the high honour of a conversation of several minutes.

This, which was the proudest instant of his daughter’s life, was not less elevating to the loyal heart of the Doctor; who considered it as an indication that the unsullied conduct and character of General d’Arblay had reached the ears of the King, who had his Royal Highness the Duke of York at his side; and who certainly would not himself thus publicly have sought out and distinguished a foreigner, of whose principles he could have had any doubt.

* * * * *

MR. BURKE.

But—what, next to this highest benignity, had most been coveted by Dr. Burney, met not his hopes! The kindly predilection of Mr. Burke, brought forward with such previous and decided partiality for this new enterprise, never reached its intent. Mr. Burke received it at Bath, on the bed of sickness, in the anguish of his lingering and ceaseless depression for the loss of his son; and when he was too ill and weak to have spirits even to open its leaves; withheld, perhaps, the more poignantly, from internal recurrence to the happy family parties to which repeatedly he had read its two predecessors, in the hearing of him by whom his voice now could be heard no more!

Visited by Mrs. Crewe, soon after the appearance of Camilla in the world, he said, “How ill I am you will easily believe, when a new work of Madame d’Arblay’s lies on my table, unread!”[43]

* * * * *

To Dr. Burney the result of this publication was fondly pleasing, in realising a project formed by the willing Hermits, immediately upon their marriage, of constructing a slight and economical, but pretty and convenient cottage, for their residence and property.

Most welcome, indeed, to the Doctor was a scheme that had their settlement in England for its basis: and most consoling to the harassed mind and fortunes of M. d’Arblay was the prospect of creating for himself a new home; since his native one, at that time, seemed lost even to his wishes, in appearing lost to religion, to monarchy, and to humanity.

Almost instantly, therefore, after the return of the Hermits from the honoured presentation of Camilla at Windsor, a plan previously drawn up by M. d’Arblay, was brought forward for execution; and a small dwelling was erected as near as possible to the Norbury mansion, on a field adjoining to its Park, and rented by the Hermits from the incomparable Mr. Locke.

EARL MACARTNEY.

The celebrated embassy of Lord Macartney to China, which had taken place in the year 1792, had led his lordship to consult with Dr. Burney upon whatever belonged to musical matters, whether instruments, compositions, band, or decorations, that might contribute, in that line, to its magnificence.

The reputation of Dr. Burney, in his own art, might fully have sufficed to draw to him for counsel, in that point, this sagacious ambassador; but, added to this obvious stimulus, Lord Macartney was a near relation of Mrs. Crewe, through whom he had become intimately acquainted with the Doctor’s merits; which his own high attainments and intelligence well befitted him to note and to value.

Always interested in whatever was brought forward to promote general knowledge, and to facilitate our intercourse with our distant fellow creatures, Dr. Burney, even with eagerness, bestowed a considerable portion of his time, as well as of his thoughts, in meditating upon musical plans relative to this expedition; animated, not alone by the spirit of the embassy, but by his admiration of the ambassador; who, with unlimited trust in his taste and general skill, as well as in his perfect knowledge upon the subject, gave _carte blanche_ to his discretion for whatever he could either select or project. And so pleased was his lordship both with the Doctor’s collection and suggestions, and so sensible to the time and the pains bestowed upon the requisite researches, that, on the eve of departure, his lordship, while uttering a kind farewell, brought forth a striking memorial of his regard, in a superb and very costly silver inkstand, of the most beautiful workmanship; upon which he had had engraven a Latin motto, flatteringly expressive of his esteem and friendship for Dr. Burney.

At this present period, 1796, this accomplished nobleman was again preparing to set sail, upon a new and splendid appointment, of Governor and Captain-General of the Cape of Good Hope; and again, upon the leave-taking visit of the Doctor, he manifested the same spirit of kindness that he had displayed when parting for China.

In a room full of company, to which he had been exhibiting the various treasures prepared as presents for his approaching enterprise, he gently drew the Doctor apart, and whispered, “To you, Dr. Burney, I must shew the greatest personal indulgence, and private recreation, that I have selected for my voyage.” He then took from a highly-finished travelling bookcase, a volume of Camilla, which had been published four or five months; and smilingly said, “This I have not yet opened! nor will I suffer any one to anticipate a word of it to me; and, still less, suffer myself to take a glimpse of even a single sentence—till I am many leagues out at sea; that then, without hindrance of business, or any impediment whatever, I may read the work throughout with uninterrupted enjoyment.”

* * * * *

MRS. PHILLIPS.

Bright again with smiling success and gay prosperity was this period to Dr. Burney; but not more bright than brittle! for, almost at its height, its serenity was broken by a stroke that rent it asunder!—a wound that never could be healed!

The peculiar darling of the whole house of Dr. Burney, as well as of his heart; whose presence always exhilarated, or whose absence saddened every branch of it, his daughter Susanna, was called, by inevitable circumstances, from his paternal embraces and fond society, to accompany her husband and children upon indispensable business, to Ireland; then teeming with every evil that invasion, rebellion, civil war, and famine, could unite to inflict.

The absence was fixed for only three years; but the dreadful state of that unfortunate country, joined to the delicate, if not already declining health of this beloved daughter; with his own advance in years, made this parting a laceration of gloomy prognostic, almost appalling. He suffered, however, no vent to these sensations before her whom they would nearly have demolished: he only permitted them to break out afterwards to some of his children; and strained her to his bosom, at the cruel instant of separation, with all he could assume of smiling hope for her speedy return. While she, though trembling throughout her shattered frame with the acutest filial tenderness, set off without a murmur. She wished to sustain her beloved father, not to forsake herself; and she quitted his honoured presence with excited spirits, and apparent cheerfulness.

Mixed with some of the Doctor’s poetical effusions, there remains an elegiac fragment upon this voyage to Ireland, from which the following lines are extracted.

“_On the departure of my daughter Susan to Ireland._

“My gentle Susan! who, in early state,
Each pain or care could soothe or mitigate;
And who in adolescence could impart
Delight to every eye, and feeling heart;
Whose mind, expanding with increase of years,
Precluded all anxiety and fears
Which parents feel for inexperienc’d youth,
Unguided in the ways of moral truth—

* * * * *

On her kind nature, genially her friend,
A heart bestow’d instruction could not mend:
Intuitive, each virtue she possess’d,
And learn’d their foes to shun and to detest.
“Nor did her intellectual powers require
The usual aid of labour to inspire
Her soul with prudence, wisdom, and a taste
Unerring in refinement; sound and chaste.
“Yet of her merits this the smallest part—
Far more endear’d by virtues of the heart,
Which constantly excite her to embrace
Each duty of her state with active grace.

* * * * *

“Such was the prop and comfort of my age
Whose filial tenderness might well assuage
The sorrows which infirmities produce.

* * * * *

“My vital drama’s now so near its end,
That the last act’s unlikely to extend
Till she return.——

* * * * *

“And yet—
The few remaining scenes to me allow’d
Shall not on useless murmurs be bestow’d;
But, patiently resign’d, I’ll act my part;
Try each expedient——

* * * * *

And, till the curtain drop, and end the play,
For my dear Susan’s welfare ardent pray!”

This virtuous resolution the Doctor put in practice with his utmost might; and, having finished with Metastasio, he turned his thoughts, with all their functions, critical, elucidating, inventive, etymological, and didactive, upon a work which he purposed to make the basis of a composition, or compilation, explanatory of every word, phrase, and difficulty belonging to the science, the theory, and the practice of music.

From the impossibility to find place in his History for the whole of his vast accumulation of materials, there remained in his hands matter amply adequate for forming the major, and far most abstruse part of a theoretical dictionary of this description. And, from this time, at intervals, he laboured at it with his usual vigour.

But not here ended the sharp reverse of this altered year; scarcely had this harrowing filial separation taken place, ere an assault was made upon his conjugal feelings, by the sudden, at the moment, though from lingering illnesses often previously expected, death of Mrs. Burney, his second wife.

She had been for many years a valetudinarian; but her spirits, though natively unequal, had quick and animated returns to their pristine gaiety; which, joined to an uncommon muscular force that endured to the last, led all but herself to believe in her still retained powers of revival.

Extremely shocked by this fatal event, the Doctor sent the tidings by express to Bookham; whence the female recluse, speeded by her kind partner, instantly set off for Chelsea College. There she found the Doctor encircled by most of his family, but in the lowest spirits, and in a weak and shattered state of nerves; and there she spent with him, and his youngest daughter, Sarah Harriet, the whole of the first melancholy period of this great change.

It was at this time, during their many and long _tête à têtes_, that he communicated to her almost all the desultory documents, which up to the year 1796, form these Memoirs.

His sole occupation, when they were alone, was searching for, and committing to her examination, the whole collection of letters, and other manuscripts relative to his life and affairs, which, up to that period, had been written, or hoarded. These, which she read aloud to him in succession, he either placed alphabetically in the pigeon-holes of his bureau, or cast at once into the flames.

The following pages upon this catastrophe are copied from his after memorandums.

Having briefly mentioned that his second son, Dr. Charles, prevailed with him to accept a secluded apartment at Greenwich, till the mournful last rites should be paid to the departed, with whose remains his daughters continued at Chelsea College, he thus goes on.

“On the 26th of October, she was interred in the burying
ground of Chelsea College. On the 27th, I returned to
my melancholy home, disconsolate and stupified. Though
long expected, this calamity was very severely felt. I
missed her counsel, converse, and family regulations; and
a companion of thirty years, whose mind was cultivated,
whose intellects were above the general level of her sex,
and whose curiosity after knowledge was insatiable to
the last. These were losses that caused a vacuum in my
habitation and in my mind, that has never been filled up.

“My four eldest daughters, all dutiful, intelligent, and
affectionate, were married, and had families of their
own to superintend, or they might have administered
comfort. My youngest daughter, Sarah Harriet, by my
second marriage, had quick intellects, and distinguished
talents; but she had no experience in household affairs.
However, though she had native spirits of the highest
gaiety, she became a steady and prudent character, and
a kind and good girl. There is, I think, considerable
merit in her novel, Geraldine, particularly in the
conversations; and I think the scene at the emigrant
cottage really touching. At least it drew tears from me,
when I was not so prone to shed them as I am at present.”

Afterwards, recurring again to his departed wife, he says:

“In the course of nature, she should not have gone
before me. She was the admirer and sincere friend of
that first wife, whose virtues and intellectual powers
were perhaps her model in early life. Without neglecting
domestic and maternal duties, she cultivated her mind in
such a manner by extensive reading, and the assistance
of a tenacious and happy memory, as to enable her to
converse with persons of learning and talents on all
subjects to which female studies are commonly allowed to
extend; and through a coincidence of taste and principles
in all matters of which the discussion is apt to ruffle
the temper, and alienate affection, our conversation and
intercourse was sincere, cordial, and cheering.

“She had read far more books of divinity and controversy
than myself, and was as much mistress of the theological
points of general dispute as reading and reflection
could make her; but, within a few days, if not hours,
of her death, she lamented having perused so many
polemical works; and advised a female friend, fond of
such researches, who was with her,[44] not to waste her
time on such inquiries; saying, ‘they will disturb your
faith—by leading to endless controversy: they have done
me no good!’”

In the same memorandum book, occurs, afterwards, the following paragraph:

“I shut myself up for some weeks; and, during part of
that time, while sorting and examining papers with my
daughter d’Arblay, she found among them the fragment
of a poem on Astronomy, began at the period of the
first ascent from balloons, and formed on the idea
that, by their help, if, in process of time, a steerage
was obtained, and the art of keeping them afloat, and
ascending to what height the steersman pleased, was also
discovered, parties might easily and pleasantly undertake
voyages to the moon; and, perhaps, to the planets nearest
to the earth, such as Mars and Venus: without considering
that each planet and satellite must have its vortex and
atmosphere filled with different beings and productions,
none of which can subsist in another region.

“This wild fancy put it into my daughter d’Arblay’s
head to persuade me to attempt a serious historical and
didactic poem on the subject of astronomy; in order to
employ my time and thoughts during the first stages of my
sorrow for the losses I had sustained: and, having been a
dabbler almost all my life in astronomy, I was not averse
to the proposition.”

To the great satisfaction of this daughter, from the recreative employment of time to which it led, this idea was neither forgotten nor set aside; it was, in truth, but a return to the original propensity to astronomy which had been nourished by his first conjugal partner, who enthusiastically had shared his taste for contemplating the stars.

In his letters, after the return of the Memorialist to her cottage, the sadness of his mind is touchingly portrayed. In the first of them he says:

“_Nov._—I have been writing melancholy, heart-rending
letters this day or two, which have oppressed me greatly:
yet I am still more heartless in doing nothing. The
author of the poem on The Spleen, says, ‘Fling but a
stone, the giant dies:’ but such stones as I have to
fling will not do the business. James and Charles[45]
dined here yesterday, and kept the monster at a little
distance; but he was here again the minute they were
gone. I try to read; but ‘pronounce the words without
understanding one of them,’ as Dr. Johnson said, in
reading my Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients.”

And in another letter, of Dec. 2nd, 1796, he writes,—

“I have been tolerably well in body, but in mind
extremely languid, and full of heartaches.

“Few people have been more _repandu_, or more frequently
forced from home than myself; or more separately occupied
when there: yet the short intervals I was able to spend
with my family, ever since I had one, were the happiest
of my life. Even labour, care, and anxiety, for those we
love, have their pleasures; and those very superior to
what can be derived by working and thinking for self.”

Most anxiously, in answer to these communications, the Memorialist pressed upon him a forced application to his Musical Dictionary; or, preferably yet, to the last started subject of his balloon ideal Voyages. But while this, after heavenly hopes, was what she urged for occupation; what chiefly she brought forward to him as comfort, was the solace which he had bestowed upon herself, during her late visit, from witnessing his mild and exemplary resignation. She ardently begged him to have recourse, for further self-consolation, to his own reflections upon all that had passed with the poor sufferer during the whole of their long intercourse; by looking back to his unabated, constant, and indulgent kindness, through sickness, misfortunes, and time; joined to the most grievous events, and trying circumstances.

MRS. CREWE.

Mrs. Crewe, whose fancy was as fertile as her friendship was zealous, perceiving the melancholy state of spirits into which the Doctor had fallen, sought to awaken him again into new life and activity through the kindly medium of his parental affections. She suggested to him, therefore, the idea of a new periodical morning paper, serious and burlesque, informing, yet amusing, upon _The Times as they Run_; strictly anti-jacobinical, and professedly monarchical; but allowing no party abuse, nor personal attack; and striving to fight the battles of morals and manners, by enlisting reason on their side, and raising the laugh against their foes.

_The Times as they Ran_, at that epoch, appeared big with every species of danger that could issue, through political avenues, from the universal sway of revolutionary systems which occupied, or revolutionary schemes which bewildered mankind. All thoughts were ingrossed by public affairs. Private life seemed as much a chimera of imagination, as reverting to the pastoral seasons of the poets of old, in wandering through valleys, or ascending mountains, crook in hand, with sheep, deer, or goats.

Mr. Burke, in his unequalled and unrivalled _Essence of the French Revolution_,—for such his Essay on that stupendous event may be called, had sounded a bell of alarm throughout Europe; echoing and re-echoing, aloud, aloft, around, with panic reverberation,

“Every man to his post! or
Havoc will let loose the dogs of war,”

with massacre, degradation, shame, and devastation, “involving all—save the inflictors!”

Nor vain was the clangor of that bell. All who dreaded evils yet untried, evils wrapped up in the obscurity of hidden circumstances; dependent on the million of inlets to which accident opens an entrance; and of uncertain catastrophe; still more than they recoiled from ills which, however unpalatable, have been experienced, and are therefore known not to outstretch the powers of endurance; caught its fearful sound, and listened to its awful warnings: and the lament of Mr. Burke that the times of chivalry were gone by, nearly re-animated their return, from the eloquence with which he pointed them out as antidotes to the anarchy of insubordination; and spurs to rescue mankind from hovering degeneracy.

Fraught with these notions, Mrs. Crewe conceived an idea that a weekly paper upon such subjects, treating them so variously as to keep alive expectation, by essaying

“—— happily to steer
From grave to gay; from lively to severe,”

might turn to what Mr. Burke, and Dr. Burney, and she herself, deemed the right way of seeing things, the motley many who, from wanting reflection to think for themselves, are dangerously led to act by others.

This weekly paper Mrs. Crewe purposed to call The Breakfast Table. And it was her desire, expressed in the most flattering terms, that the Doctor should bear a prominent part in it; but that his daughter should be the editor and chief.

The letters of Mrs. Crewe on this plan are full of spirit and ingenuity; and of comic as well as sagacious ideas. “If we are saved,” she cries, “from the infection, _i. e._ the jacobinism of our neighbours, it will be through the wise foresight of Mr. Burke; and from seeing that _persiflage_ has been their bane, and that _Quiz_, if we are not upon our guard, will be ours; and, above all, from taking heed that Jacobinism does not carry the day in _polite companies_; for Newgate never does mischief to society. No! ’tis your fine talkers, and free-thinkers, and refiners, that are to be feared. Watch but the vital parts, and the extremities will take care of themselves....

“I mentioned my idea of this paper to our Beaconsfield friends;[46] but they have enough to do there...!