Chapter VII: Part 7

“In 1799 our Literary Club lost one of its noble members
in the Duke of Leeds, to whom I had become known from
the time of his marriage with Lady Emily d’Arcy, the
daughter of my first patron, the Earl of Holdernesse.
I had had the honour, also, of frequently meeting him,
while Marquis of Carmarthen, in Italy; where he acquired
a taste for good modern music, and whence he remembered
fragments of Italian operas, and particularly of the
opera _L’Artigiano felice_, to his last hours. He kindly
visited Farinelli when at Bologna, and was cordially
embraced by him, as the son of his great patron while
in England. When he became acquainted with the Miss
Anguishes, four young ladies of great accomplishments,
and of extraordinary musical powers, he grew fond of
the old, or Handelian school of music: and the eldest
of these young ladies, whom he afterwards, in second
espousals, married, made him a perfectly happy domestic
man. He desired Boswell to set him up at our club,
which he was fond of visiting; and where his remarkable
good breeding and courteous demeanour could not but be
appreciated; though he escaped not, from those members
who thought themselves more learned, or better informed
than himself, the common club-censure of being fonder of
talking than listening.

* * * * *

“This year I had much pleasure at the Assemblies of Lady
Palmerston, whose exhilarating character rendered them
peculiarly lively. The elegant mansion of her well-known
lord, the Viscount, in Hanover Square, was fitted up
and furnished with exquisite taste; and its walls were
covered with pictures of the first masters; the chief
of which had been collected by his great ancestor,
Sir William Temple; to which he had added some _chef
d’oeuvres_ of modern artists; particularly of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, of whom he was still more a friend and admirer
than a patron.”

MRS. CREWE.

In the ensuing autumn, when the expedition against Holland was in preparation, Mrs. Crewe prevailed with the Doctor to accompany her and her large party to Dover, to see the embarkation; well knowing the animated interest which his patriotic spirit would take in that transaction. His own lively and spirited, yet unaffected and unpretending account of this excursion, will bring him immediately before those by whom he may yet be remembered.

DOVER.

“_Dover, 9th Sept. 1799._

“Why you Fanny!—I did not intend to write you my
adventures, but to keep them for _vive voix_ on coming
to Camilla Cottage; but the nasty east wind is arrived,
to the great inconvenience of our expedition, and of my
lungs—all which circumstances put it out of my power to
visit Camilla Cottage at present, as I wished, and had
settled in my own mind to do. But let me see—where did I
leave off? I believe I have told you of my arrival here,
where, at first, I found Mr. Crewe, as you might observe
by the frank. But two days after he went to Hythe, where
he is now quartered with the Cheshire Militia corps, of
which he is Colonel.

“You may be sure that I hastened to visit the harbour and
town, which I had not seen for near thirty years * * *
Did I tell you Mr. Ryder, our Chelsea joint paymaster,
is here, and that we all dined on Wednesday with him and
his sposa, Lady Susan? a most sweet creature, handsome,
accomplished, and perfectly well-bred, with condescending
good-humour; and who sings and plays well, and in true
taste. Thursday, bad weather; but Canning came to
_Longchon_ to brighten it: and at night I read astronomy
to Mrs. Crewe, and her fair, intelligent daughter.

“On Friday, I visited with them Lady Grey, wife of the
Commander in Chief, at the Barham Down Camp. I like Lady
Grey extremely, notwithstanding she is mother of the
vehement parliamentary democrat, Mr. Grey, who is as
pleasing, they pretend, as he is violent, which makes him
doubly dangerous. She is, indeed, a charming woman, and
by everybody honoured and admired; and as she is aunt
to our ardent friend _Spotty_, the Dean of Winchester’s
daughter, I was sure to be much flattered and _fêted_
by all her family. Sir Charles’s mother, old Mrs. Grey,
now eighty-five, is a great and scientific reader and
studier; and is even yet in correspondence with Sir
Charles Blagden; who communicates to her all the new
philosophical discoveries made throughout Europe. What
a distinguished race! The democrat himself,—but for his
democracy, strikingly at their head! Mrs. Grey took to
me mightily, and would hardly let me speak to anybody
else. Saturday we visited Mr. and Lady Mary Churchill,
our close neighbours here, and old acquaintance of
mine of fifty years’ standing or more. Next day, after
church, I went with Miss Crewe and Canning—I serving for
chaperon—to visit the Shakespeare Cliff, which is a mile
and more beyond the town: and a most fatiguing clamber to
it I found! We took different roads, as our eye pointed
out the easiest paths; and, in so doing, on my being all
at once missed, Canning and Miss Crewe were so frightened
‘you can’t think!’ as Miss Larolles would say. They
concluded I had tumbled headlong down the Cliff! It has
furnished a story to every one we have seen ever since;
and that arch clever rogue, Canning, makes ample use of
it, at Walmer Castle, and elsewhere. ‘Is there any news?’
if he be asked, his ready answer is, ‘only Dr. Burney is
lost again!’

“This day, 5th September, pray mind! I went to Walmer
Castle with Mrs. and Miss Crewe, to dine with Lady Jane
Dundas—another charming creature, and one of my new
flirtations; and Mr. Pitt dined at home. And Mr. Dundas,
Mr. Ryder, Lady Susan, Miss Scott, the sister of the
Marchioness of Titchfield,[55] and Canning, were of the
party; with the Hon. Colonel Hope, Lady Jane’s brother.
What do you think of that, Ma’am? Mr. Pitt!—I liked this
cabinet dinner prodigiously. Mr. Pitt was all politeness
and pleasantly. He has won Mrs. Crewe’s, and even Miss
Crewe’s heart, by his attentions and good-humour. My
translation of the hymn, ‘Long live the Emperor Francis!’
was very well sung in duo by Lady Susan Ryder and Miss
Crewe; I joining in the chorus. Lady Jane Dundas is a
good musician, and has very good taste. I not only played
this hymn of Haydn’s setting, but Suwarrow’s March to the
great minister: and though Mr. Pitt neither knows nor
cares one farthing for flutes and fiddles, he was very
attentive; and before, and at dinner, his civility to me
was as obliging as if I had half a dozen boroughs at my
devotion; offering to me, though a great way off him, of
every dish and wine; and entering heartily into Canning’s
merry stories of my having been lost; and Mrs. Crewe’s
relation of my dolorous three sea voyages instead of
one, when I came back from Germany; all with very civil
pleasantry.

“Monday the 2d. Dine with Sir Charles Grey, and twenty
or thirty officers from the camp, for whom he keeps a
table, and is allowed ten guineas a day towards that
expense alone. Sir Charles placed me on Lady Grey’s
right hand, and took the liberty of placing himself on
mine! What do you say to that, Ma’am? You cannot imagine
how cordially and openly he talked to me on all sort of
things that occurred. I only wish he had kept his eldest
hopes in better order! However, he is a charming man;
very animated, and, for his time of life, very handsome.
To Miss Grey,[56] a very sweet girl of ten or eleven, I
gave a copy of the hymn and of the march; and made her
try them with me; much to the satisfaction of Sir Charles
and his lady. Next day, Lady Grey and her young people
came to breakfast with Mrs. Crewe; and Lord Palmerston
and his eldest son, Mr. Temple,[57] came in the evening.
Lord Palmerston is a great favourite of Mrs. Crewe; she
would have his character stand for the leading one in
the periodical works at which she wants you to preside.
Wednesday, we visited the castle at Dover, its Roman
towers, and remains, &c.

“Thursday, we go to the camp at Barham Downs, and see
Mr. Pitt at Sir Charles Grey’s. The Duke of Portland
and Lady Mary Bentinck arrive at _our_ house, where
they take up their abode. Friday, go with his Grace and
the ladies to the parade, where a _feu de joie_, by two
or three thousand militia and regulars, took place for
excellent Dutch news. After which, all but the Duke went
to the Camp to visit Mr. John Crewe, just appointed
Lieutenant-Commandant of the 9th Regiment, and going
abroad. The Duke went on horseback to Walmer Castle, and
lent me his chaise and four to follow the three ladies,
who occupied Mrs. Crewe’s demi-landau. And I dined very
comfortably and sociably with the good and gay Sir
Charles and his charming Partner, and their engaging
young folks. ’Tis a delightful family; all spirit and
agreeability. There were likewise a few select officers.
I came home alone in the Duke’s carriage and four,—in
which Canning reports I was again lost!

“Saturday we go encore to Walmer Castle; Lady Mary
Bentinck, Mrs. and Miss Crewe, in Mr. Crewe’s chaise and
four; and Mrs. Churchill and I in the Duke’s. His Grace
on horseback. The Duke of York was at the Castle; and all
were preparing for the third embarkation for Holland,
which did not take place till Sunday, the eighth; when
we were all called up at five in the morning. The three
ladies set out at six for Deal, which is just by Walmer
Castle: but the Duke, who took me in his chaise, did not
set off till between seven and eight: and we arrived just
before the first boat of transports was launched. After
seeing five or six launches, in a very high and contrary
wind, we gazers all repaired to lunch at Walmer Castle.
Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas all hurry, but all attention to
his Royal Highness the Duke of York; and to the business
of the day. But just as we were going to depart, Mr. Pitt
pressed us to stay and take a scrambling dinner, that we
might see the Duke of York himself launched. This offer
was gladly accepted.

“It was truly a scrambling dinner; his Royal Highness,
with his aides-de-camp, Lord Chatham, two or three
general officers, the Duke of Portland, Mr. Dundas and
Lady Jane, and Mrs. Crewe, filled the first table. Lady
Mary Bentinck, with her youngest brother, Lord Charles,
going also as aide-de-camp to his Royal Highness; Messrs.
Ryder and Lady Susan, Miss Scott, Canning, &c. and I,
filled the second. Canning is delightful in social
parties; full of wit and humour. The cannon on the castle
battlements of Walmer and of Deal, and those of all the
ships, to the number of at least one hundred and fifty,
were fired when his Royal Highness embarked. He looked
composed, princely, and noble. It was a very solemn and
serious operation to all but the military, who went off
in high spirits and glee; though there was a violent east
wind against them, which must oblige them to roll about
all night, if not all this following day. I pity the
sea-sickness of the fresh water sailors more than their
fighting. And so here’s my Journal for you up to this
day, 9th Sept. 1799. And take note, Lady Jane Dundas,
Lady Susan Ryder, and Lady Grey, I regard as my _bonnes
fortunes_ in this expedition. All three have pressingly
invited me to their houses in town, and begged that our
acquaintance may not drop here. And I don’t intend to be
cruel!—But _for’ll_ this, I hope to get away in a week;
for I dread letting the autumn creep on at a distance
from my own chimney corner.”

* * * * *

_“15th September, 1799._

* * * * *

“The Duke and Lady Mary left us two days after my last,
but a dinner was fixed for Messrs. Pitt, Dundas, Ryder,
and Canning, with us at Dover. Now I must give you a
little episode. Canning told me that Mr. Pitt had gotten
a telescope, constructed under the superintendence of
Herschel, which cost one hundred guineas; but that
they could make no use of it, as no one of the party
had knowledge enough that way to put it together; and,
knowing of my astronomical poem, Canning took it for
granted that I could help them. The first day I went to
Walmer Castle, I saw the instrument, and Canning put a
paper in my hand of instructions; or rather, a book, for
it consisted of twelve or fourteen pages: but before I
had read six lines, company poured in, and I re-placed
it in the drawer whence Canning had taken it; and, to
say the truth, without much reluctance; for I doubted my
competence. I therefore was very cautious not to start
the subject! but when I got to Dover, I wrote upon it
to Herschel, and received his answer just in time to
meet the Dover visit of Mr. Pitt. It was very friendly
and satisfactory, as is every thing that comes from
Herschel; I shewed it to Mr. Pitt, who read it with great
attention, and, I doubt not, intelligence.

“After discussing all the particulars concerning the
telescope, Herschel says: ‘When I learn that you are
returned to Chelsea, I shall write again on the subject
of memorandums that I made when I had the pleasure of
hearing your beautiful poetical work.’ This I did not
let Mr. Pitt see; but withdrew the letter from him
after Herschel had done speaking of the telescope,
lest it should seem that I more wished Mr. Pitt should
see Herschel’s civilities to me, than his telescopical
instructions. But Mrs. Crewe, in the course of the
evening, borrowed the letter from me, and shewed it to
Lady Jane Dundas; who read it all, and asked what the
poetical work meant. Miss Crewe smilingly explained.

“The dinner was very cheerful, you may imagine, for these
Messieurs had brought with them the important news of the
taking Seringapatam; truly gratifying to Mr. Pitt; but
doubly so to Mr. Dundas, who plans and directs all India
affairs.

“No one can be more cheerful, attentive, and polite to
ladies than Mr. Pitt; which astonishes all those who,
without seeing him, have taken for granted that he is _no
woman’s man_, but a surly churl, from the accounts of his
sarcastic enemies.

“The Major of Mr. Crewe being ill, Mr. Crewe himself
could not dine at home, being obliged to remain at
Hythe with his regiment; and, after the ladies left the
dining-room, it having been perceived that none drank
port but Mr. Pitt and I; the rest all taking claret,
which made the passing and repassing the bottle rather
awkward; I was voted into the chair at the head of the
table, _to put the bottle about!_ and that between the
first ministers, Pitt and Dundas! what ‘_only think_,’
and ‘_no notions_,’ would Miss Larolles have exclaimed!
I, so notorious for always stopping the bottle!

“When we went to the ladies, music and cheerfulness
finished the evening. The hymn and the march were not
forgotten. In talking over Pizarro, Mr. Pitt related,
very pleasantly, an amusing anecdote of a total breach of
memory in some Mrs. Lloyd, a lady, or nominal housekeeper
of Kensington Palace: ‘being in company,’ he said, ‘with
Mr. Sheridan, without recollecting him, while Pizarro was
the topic of discussion, she said to him, “And so this
fine Pizarro is printed?” “Yes, so I hear,” said Sherry.
“And did you ever in your life read such stuff?” cried
she. “Why, I believe it’s bad enough!” quoth Sherry;
“but at least, Madam, you must allow it’s very loyal.”
“Ah!” cried she, shaking her head, “loyal? You don’t know
its author so well as I do?”’

“In speaking, afterwards, of the great number of young
men who were just embarked for Holland, Miss Crewe, half
jocosely, but no doubt half seriously, said it would ruin
all the balls! for where could the poor females find
partners? ‘O,’ said Mr. Pitt, with a pretended air of
condolence, ‘you’ll have partners plenty—both Houses of
Parliament!’

“‘Besides,’ said Canning, ‘you’ll have the whole Bench of
Bishops!’

“To be sure nobody laughed! Mr. Pitt, by the way, is a
great and loud laughter at the jokes of others; but this
was so half his own, that he only made _la petite bouche_.

“Two days after all this, Mrs. and Miss Crewe brought me
on in my way home as far as Canterbury.

“Now what say you? Is this not a _belle histoire_?”

Not to break into the chain of the far too deeply interesting narrative that must soon follow, the Doctor’s account of the Abbé de Lille and of M. de Calonne will be here inserted, a little before its date.

_“19th Nov. 1799._

“I have been at a _dejeuné_ in the neighbourhood of
Vauxhall. Mrs. and Miss Crewe called for me, and we went
over Battersea bridge to Mr. Woodford’s; where we met
Mr. and Mrs. Windham; M. de Calonne; Beau Dillon; M. Du
Thé, secretary to Monseigneur le Comte d’Artois; Miss
Thellasson and her brother; and the Abbé de Lille. It has
been a very pleasant morning. It is now half-past five,
and I am just got home, to dine with our governor and
his lady, Sir William and Lady Fawcet, so having a few
unappropriated moments, I thought I would tell you my
morning adventure.

“We were soon hussled together, and acquainted; and the
little Abbé and I were presently _quite thick_. He is not
such a fright as I expected; having been told that he was
hideous; which, by the way, is a great advantage to any
one previous to an interview. Well, but we prevailed upon
him to repeat fragments of some of his best works—his
_Jardins_; his poem on the Imagination; his defence of
the Supreme Being, and of Religion in general, against
the Chevalier Parry’s _Guerre des Dieux, Anciens et
Moderns_; on the assassination of the Queen of France; a
parallel between Milton and Ariosto; and some others.

“His person is not very unlike little Hawkesworth’s,
though _piu brutto_; but he is so natural, cheerful,
good-humoured and animated, yet civil, that he wants no
further beauty. He repeats his verses all by memory, in a
wonderful manner. I like his style of declaiming, as much
as the substance and texture of his poetry. In discourse
he is a fair reasoner, with excellent principles, moral,
religious, and truly philosophical. He and M. de Calonne
had a debate on the character of Sieyes, which was well
supported on both sides. The Abbé thinks him without
heart, without principles, and a coward: the statesman
goes still deeper into his character, and says, what
is very likely, that he is profound and dangerous; and
that, besides his dexterity in falling upon his feet
at every revolution since the year 1789, and escaping,
though deserving, the vengeance of every party, he
hoards separate designs, which only wait opportunity
for bursting out in explosions: that he has probably
been in communication with Buonaparte in Egypt, and has
been the main-spring of that general’s return to Europe:
that the present Revolution, effected by Buonaparte, is
deeply laid; and, consequently, is likely to be more
permanently mischievous than its predecessors to the
French nation, and to humanity: that Sieyes has a great
force of self-denial, insomuch that he has not made _un
sous_ in all these Revolutions. The Queen, he says, in
her terror of this Abbé’s sinister power, had applied to
him, (Calonne,) to give Sieyes a bishopric: upon which
occasion, Calonne thought proper to remark to him, that,
though they might pass by his principles, in religion
and government, as he was always a _Frondeur_, while
he kept them to himself, he must now be counselled to
remember that his public hostility to them could be no
recommendation to church preferment; upon which Sieyes
flew out into an unqualified declaration that he wanted
no preferment; nor anything beyond what he already
possessed, which supplied him with all he required,
namely, _de quoi manger_; ‘a most dangerous independence
of defiance, in times such as these,’ said Calonne, ‘as
it endears him to the mob; for it persuades them to
believe him sincere when he declaims upon equality.’”

1799.

The Doctor then goes on, in brief but cheerful journalizing upon sundry select dinners that had been given at the Duke of Portland’s and at Mr. Crewe’s, for meetings with Lord Macartney, Mr. Canning, Mr. and Mrs. Windham, Miss Hayman, Mr. Frankland, &c. &c., and then thus gaily concludes his letter:

“My cough is better; and so am I; and, as Horace Walpole
used to say, ‘I am now at my best—for I shall never be
better!’ I work at my astronomy, polish, make notes,
&c., and often see Herschel, with whom I dearly love
to conjure—as Daddy Crisp called all commerce upon the
sciences. I review an article now and then for Griffith;
I have had a most comic letter from dear Twi.;[58] I have
gotten twenty-nine subscribers for Haydn; and to-morrow I
shall have the musical graduates to dine with me.—And now
I must run and dress.

“So here’s my history;—and so good night, and God bless
you and your Alexanders, the Great and the Little.”

Three days afterwards he writes:

“A Burney party dined with me yesterday; and we were
as merry, and laughed as bonnily as the Burneys always
do when they get together, and open their hearts, and
tell old stories, and have no fear of being quizzed by
interlopers.”

* * * * *

About this period, Dr. Burney had become extremely earnest that the recluse of West Hamble should no longer wholly abandon her pen. He had acquiesced in her declining a project which would have occupied, at least involved it, in politics; for politics, save as affecting passing events, he held, abstractedly, to be out of the province of women. To any decided bent he would, nevertheless, have given way; but his own native inclination led him to wish that morals and manners, as swaying society, not as organizing difficulties of state, should employ their faculties: and one of his most constant desires was to see the writings of this recluse engaged by her imagination and her reflections. In relinquishing, therefore, the more ambitious enterprise of Mrs. Crewe, he urged the production of a pastoral tragedy, of which his daughter had shown him the manuscript before her marriage; and which he now pressed her to bring forth with a vivacity that would surely have charmed her into compliance; but that a secret solicitude, a trembling anticipation of anguish had seized so severely upon her earliest and tenderest affections, as wholly to nullify all literary operations.

And, even yet, with what pain does she approach—perforce!—the afflicting subject of the most heart-rending calamity that could then befal Dr. Burney—yet which, even while thus vividly the gayest scenes of his latter years were passing, and thus benignly for the gratification of the Camilla-cottage Hermits, were recording, was almost hourly, though obscurely, impending over his peace!

MRS. PHILLIPS.

Early in October, 1799, the desolating intelligence reached West Hamble, that the lingering sufferings of the inestimable Susanna, from long latently undermining her delicate frame, began openly to menace its destruction.

Dr. Burney, at this period, had received no intimation of the hovering storm, which all around him had for some time feared they saw gathering. To spare him was the united desire of his family, while any probability, however chequered, remained, that no dire and absolute necessity would force the infliction of so fatal a shock.

The disposition of Dr. Burney had aided their wishes, through his native inattention to all evil that was not obtrusive; for evil, indeed, he as little sought as practised. Passive, therefore, on one side, and timid on the other, the month of October, 1799, had arrived, with little comment or discussion upon the precarious health of the precious absentee; for Hope till then was still, even to the most anxious of the apprehensive, predominant—Celestial Hope! more soothing even than transient! more welcome even than delusive! and higher in power of inspiring blissful sensations than can be cancelled even by the misery of disappointment! for while so little of earthly happiness is permanent, how nothingly would be our portion of earthly enjoyment, were the episodes of ideal delights, in the epic poem of human existence, circumscribed by experience, and bounded by reality?

But when, with regard to this affecting subject, an alarm once arose in the family, that, striking even at Hope, showed it fading fast away, and verging on becoming imperceptible; the same filial solicitude took necessarily another turn, from the dread of exposing the parental tenderness of the Doctor to a blow for which he should be utterly unprepared.

How dire then was the task which fell upon this Memorialist, superadded to terrors the most thrilling, and grief the most piercing, of communicating to Dr. Burney, this harrowing menace! of tearing from his eyes those kindly mists, which had obscured from their sight the perspective of danger; and breaking into all the flattering schemes of ultimately calling that darling child “to rock the cradle of declining age,” and sooth and cheer its last days of repose!

The disclosure, however, was now imperative; the moment was come that admitted not of another for delay. A long season of agitating doubt was terminating in an affrighting conviction, that all possibility for averting the fast advancing calamity, was change of air and scene for the drooping sufferer.

The tale, therefore, was unfolded; and all that the truest filial devotion could suggest for mitigating the misery of this tragic confession, was zealously put forward, by an energetic enumeration of the means which might still be essayed, to obviate the difficulties arising from the insurrectional state of Ireland; and the lateness of the season for making the now last attempt—a trial of her natal air—to rescue this treasure, yet a space! from the already opening grave.

The Doctor bore the dreadful intelligence with a taciturn sadness, a gloomy consternation, the most affecting; yet that shewed surprise to have little share in his grief. His heart, during the ardent passions of glowing early manhood, had been rived by a deprivation that had nearly assailed his reason; and ever since that baleful period, he had recoiled from the approach of excessive affliction with a horror of its power over his mind, that made him shut his ears, and close his eyes, on the menace of every sorrow, of which the anticipation would be unavailing.—Such this must have been to him; and from this, therefore, he had sedulously turned aside; though he had long, it is presumable, been latently annoyed by apprehensions to which he had refused examination or harbour: for prognostics there are, where our wills and our wishes are opposed to the probabilities of events, from which no conflicts can rescue our fears, combat as we may to chase them from our thoughts. Prognostics that cross our paths like ruthless spectres; that present phantasms of perils; and that, while shunned in one quarter, start up abruptly in another! that invade the avenues of our most secret ruminations; that flit before even our closed eyes; and pierce across the shattered brain, in forms, shapes, fancies, and scenes, that relentlessly represent to us the appalling view of all we struggle to disbelieve and to discard! To such ineludable prognostics must be attributed the mutely mournful acquiescence that mingled with the heavy mass of woe with which the Doctor listened to these deadly tidings.

Winter now was nearly at hand, and travelling seemed deeply dangerous, in her sickly state, for the enfeebled Susanna. Yet she herself, panting to receive again the blessing of her beloved father, concentrated every idea of recovery in her return. She declined, therefore, though with exquisite sensibility, the supplicating desire of this Editor to join and to nurse her at Belcotton, her own cottage; and persevered through every impediment in her efforts to reach the parental home.

The ceaseless endeavours to hasten her journey, and the afflicting circumstances that intervened to retard it, cast the Doctor into a state of inquietude and disturbance, that had little intermission. Every part of her fond family severally, and in every way that the most anxious tenderness could vary or devise, worked at propitiating her arrival; while her heart-dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Locke, and their beautiful, inappreciable bridal daughter, Mrs. Angerstein, made never to be forgotten, never to be equalled exertions of friendship, to draw her first to Norbury Park—that seat of all loveliness, and of every virtue!—that there they might recruit her debilitated frame, and brace her shattered nerves, by their boundless and incomparable restorative resources, and an air balsamic as their own social sweetness, before she should venture so near to even the precincts of the Metropolis as Chelsea College.

In her answer to the urgent propositions and prayers for preference that now poured in upon her, from her father, her brothers, her sisters, and these angelic friends, soothing—though nearly too penetrating to her grateful spirit—she declined, but with the softest expressions of reluctance, beginning her return at the dwellings of either sisters or brothers: and to the endearing; solicitations of Mr. and Mrs. Locke, she replied, that one thing only in the whole world could enable her to resist their kind desire, namely, her dearest father’s wishes to receive her himself, in all her feebleness and shaken state; and to help her restoration by his own personal cares: “This,” she adds, “had been such a balm to her sufferings, that she felt as if to behold him again, to meet his commiserating eyes, and to be under his roof and in his arms, would make him give her a second life.”

Her expressions had the genuine charm of native eloquence, for her language was that of her soul, and her soul seemed already angelical; so that all she said, and all she wrote, when addressing those she loved, found a passage to the inmost heart, of which they took the tenderest, the fullest, the most lasting possession.

Every obstacle, at length, being finally vanquished, the journey was resolved upon, and its preparations were made;—when a fearful new illness suddenly confined the helpless invalid to her bed. There she remained some weeks; after which, with the utmost difficulty, and by two long days’ travelling, though for a distance of only twenty-six miles, she reached Dublin; where, exhausted, emaciated, she was again forced to her bed; there again to remain for nearly as long a new delay!

Every hour of separation became now to the Doctor an hour of grief, from the certainty that, the expedition once begun, it could be caused only by suffering malady, or expiring strength.

It was not till the very close of the year 1799, amidst deep snow, fierce frost, blighting winds, and darksome days, that, scarcely alive, his sinking Susanna was landed at Park Gate.

There she was joined by her affectionate brother, Dr. Charles; who hastened to hail her arrival, that he might convey her in his own warm carriage to her heart-yearning father, her fondly impatient brethren, and the tenderest of friends.

But he found her in no state to travel further!—feeble, drooping, wasted away, scarcely to be known shrunk, nearly withered!—yet still with her fair mind in full possession of its clearest powers; still with all the native sweetness of her looks, manners, voice, and smiles; still with all her desire to please; her affecting patience of endurance; her touching sensibility for every species of attention; and all her unalterable loveliness of disposition, that sought to console for her own afflictions, to give comfort for her own sufferings!

During the space of a doubtful week, her kind brother, Dr. Charles, awaited the happy moment when she might be able to move on—— But on—save as a corpse,—she moved no more!

Gentle was her end! Gentle as the whole tenor of her life; but as sudden in its conclusion as it had been lingering in its approach.

The news of her reaching—at length!—these shores, written by herself from Park Gate, in a brief, but soul-touching letter to her father, and another to this Memorialist, had been enchanting to the whole family. Not to risk for her any fresh fatigue from haste, all impatience for her sight was suppressed. A distant day, therefore, had been named by Dr. Charles for her arrival at Chelsea College.

What a blessed instant was the reception of that appointment to the Doctor!—An instant indeed, for it passed away, never to return! But, during its brief interval, the Doctor devoted himself to making arrangements for this felicitous restoration; and fixed the nearest time that he could hope his Susanna would be sufficiently recovered to give, and to receive, the joy springing from a family assemblage to celebrate her return.——

Such was the radiant gleam that transiently shone upon the Doctor and his happy race, when all the fair fabric of his renovating expectations, his parental hopes, his fondest wishes, was broken down, dissolved, confounded, by tidings that his Susanna—instead of hastening to his roof, his arms, his blessing——was gone from all! was gone on that awful journey whence no traveller returns—had landed but to die—and was gone—gone hence for ever!

The deadly catastrophe was conveyed to the Doctor by his son-in-law and nephew, the deserving Mr. Burney; who kindly spared his afflicted wife—rent by personal sorrow—the dreadful task which, necessarily, had been appointed to her by Dr. Charles. The good Mr. Burney, as the Doctor afterwards declared, unfolded the irreparable calamity with as much judiciousness as feeling. And the Doctor again evinced a force of character unshaken by years, that shewed him capable of supporting, while bewailing this terrific blow, with the submission of resignation, and the fortitude of reason; not desponding, however wretched; not overwhelmed, though indescribably unhappy.

What scenes were those which followed! how deep the tragedy! How wide from their promised joys were the family meetings! Yet all his family impressively hastened to the Doctor, and all were kindly received.

It was on the midnight of the first day of this woe, that his unhappy daughter of West Hamble, whom its baleful blight had pierced the preceding noon, forced her way, with her sympathizing partner, to Chelsea College. Her, however, the Doctor could not see! His courage sunk from that interview! He gave them the apartment that for so far happier a purpose had been destined, and remitted a meeting to the next morning.

Nor yet, even at breakfast, was he able to encounter her grief; it was twelve or one o’clock at noon ere he could assume the strength necessary: and then, his first words, on opening the parlour door, at which he stopped and stood, feeble and motionless, with shut eyes, and a look of unutterable anguish, were an almost inaudible exclamation, “I dread to see _you_, Fanny! I dread to see _you_!”

The first heart-breaking effort, however, made, all else could not but be soothing to each, even while to each piercing; and he kept her at the College for some weeks, during which she devoted herself to him wholly.

* * * * *

But for the fair hope that all the pungency of heart-riving separations such as these, from the objects of our purest affections, is left behind;—that their bitterness is not shared; that the void, cold! unsearchable! of such dire deprivations, is known only to the survivors—while to the gone all clouds are cleared away, all storms are calmed, all pangs are chased by bliss; but for this celestial Hope, and spiritual Belief,—how could the fragile human frame be strong enough to sustain the convulsed human mind, in the writhings of its first desolating experience of a woe, which, by one fatal stroke, seems, for the moment, to leave life without a charm?—For such is the first, instinctive, imperious sensation upon such dread catastrophes; whatever are the consolations with which remaining tender ties may speedily afterwards soothe and regenerate our feelings; and exchange our mortal grief for immortal aspirations.

* * * * *

The ensuing lines were written by Dr. Burney, for an epitaph in Neston churchyard, near Park Gate, where the remains of Mrs. Phillips were deposited:

In Memory of

MRS. SUSANNA ELIZABETH PHILLIPS,

Third daughter of Doctor Burney, and wife of Major Phillips, of Belcotton, in Ireland; who, in her way to visit her father at Chelsea College, died at Park Gate, 6th of January, 1800.

Learn, pensive reader, who may pass this way,
That underneath this stone remains the clay
That held a soul as pure, inform’d, refin’d,
As e’er to erring mortal was assign’d.
Closed are those eyes whose radiance, mild, yet bright,
Beam’d all that gives to feeling soul’s delight!
Quench’d are those rays of spirit, taste, and sense,
Pure emanations of benevolence,
That could alike instruct, appease, control,
And speak the genuine dictates of the soul.

C. B.

1800.

Of the rest of this melancholy year no vestige remains, either from the Doctor or his Biographer. The beginning of the new century to them was the closing of hope, not the opening of joy! and the pocket-book memorandums of both are sterile and blank.

The Doctor, nevertheless, feeling himself past the time of life, and past the strength of body for yielding to unbending grief without danger to his faculties, as well as to his existence, accorded himself but a short period for retirement from the world; and then, with what force he could muster, returned to his business and his friends.

WILLIAM LOCKE, ESQ., JUNIOR.

The sole circumstance that excited him to any exertion, was the election of the eldest son of Mr. Locke, of Norbury Park, to be a member of the Literary Club.

It was to Dr. Burney that the idea of this election first occurred; no one else at the club, at that period, being equally acquainted with the claims of Mr. William Locke to confraternity with such a society. The Doctor communicated this project, in which he felt great interest, to West Hamble.

“Fanny Phillips[59] and I,” he says, “have dined thrice
lately with your excellent neighbours, the Lockes, who
rise in my esteem and affection at every visit. I have
been long thinking of putting up Mr. William Locke at our
club, but would not venture without his permission. After
the last dinner, therefore, I drew him aside, and fairly
asked him whether he would give me leave to try for
his election at a club, established under Dr. Johnson,
Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Mr. Burke? and he said, after
some modest scruples of being unworthy, that nothing
would flatter him more. Yesterday, therefore, I began to
canvass Malone, at his own house, and Lord Macartney, _a
sotto voce_, in the club-room, before dinner. Malone was
readily _de mon avis_; but Lord Macartney, following up
the known plan of Dr. Johnson, to select the first man
in every profession, for the more exact information of
the rest upon those points of which they were ignorant,
argued that we ought to have a great painter to supply,
as well as he could, the loss of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

“‘And you will have one, my Lord,’ I cried. ‘The painters
all honour themselves in being of that mind with respect
to Mr. William Locke. He only happens, by chance, to
be heir to a considerable estate; he would else have
been a painter by profession, as well as by talent and
excellence. In Mr. William Locke we shall have every
gratification we can wish for in a new member; he is
a scholar, a traveller, a gentleman; and, when he can
be prevailed with to talk, the best informed and most
pleasing converser with whom men of cultivated minds can
wish to associate.’

“This gave me Lord Macartney as well as Malone; and,
after dinner, on that very day, Lord Macartney himself,
seconded by Mr. Langton, put up your dear friend’s
‘eldest hopes.’ I was applied to for giving the
Christian name, and an assurance that the election was
desired by the proposed new member. An entry then was
made in the books, and the election will come on at the
next club.”

The ensuing letter to West Hamble, will shew the happy effect of the Doctor’s success upon his spirits:

“I went to the club to-day with fear and trembling,
lest I should have involved Mr. William Locke in any
disappointment. Langton, though he had willingly seconded
Lord Macartney’s motion, could not be there: it was a
great day at the House, where they were debating the
Adultery Bill, which lost us Windham, Canning, Bishop
Douglas, Lords Spencer, Ossory, Palmerston, and Mr.
Frere, of all whose suffrages I was sure. There were only
nine members present; and I saw, on entering the room,
with fear and dismay, the person suspected as a general
black-baller. I’ll try to recollect the nine members:
Lord Macartney, Sir Robert Chambers, Malone, Sir Charles
Bunbury, Marsden, Dr. Fordyce, Mr. Thomas Grenville, Dr.
Vincent, and your humble servant. Canning, whose turn
it was to be President, being away, Lord Macartney, and
two or three more, invited me to take the chair; but I
modestly declined the honour! Well, we all seemed in
perfect good-humour, and I hobbed a nob; and got two or
three more to hob a nob, with the Knight of the Negro
Ball; and, after dinner, when the box went round, Sir
Charles Bunbury acted as Vice President, and opened
it,—and—would you think it?—all was as white as milk!—and
Mr. William Locke, jun. was declared duly elected.

“Sir Charles wrote the usual letter of inauguration, and
I one of congratulation; and I sent my own man with both
to Manchester Square. And so that fright, at least, is
happily over.

“If Mr. and Mrs. Locke are with you, pray lay my best
respects at their feet; and my love at the hearts of your
two Alexanders. And so good night. It is past twelve, and
time for all but owls and bats to be at roost.

“C. B.”

1801.

In 1801, also, there was but a single event that the Doctor thought worth committing to paper: and that, indeed, was of a kind that no one who knew him could read, first without trembling, and next without rejoicing; for, in the summer of 1801, and in his seventy-sixth year, he had an escape the most providential from sudden and violent destruction.

He had accompanied Mrs. Crewe, and some of her friends, to a review on Ascot Heath, when, in returning home by water, as the boat was disembarking its crew at Staines, feeling himself light and well, and equal to a small leap, he jumped incautiously from the boat on what he believed to be a tuft of grass; but what proved to be a moss-covered stone, or hillock, which, far from bending, as he had expected, to the touch of his foot, struck him backwards into the boat with frightful violence, and a risk the most imminent of breaking his neck, if not of fracturing his skull. Happily, no such dreadful evil ensued! and every species of care and kindness were vigilantly exerted to keep aloof further mischief than accrued from a few bruises.

Mr. Windham, who was of the party, had the Doctor conveyed immediately to the nearest inn, to be blooded, and to have all the injured parts examined and bathed. The Doctor’s carriage came to him there, and he got back to Chelsea, slowly, but tolerably well: and nothing more followed from this dangerous accident than a confinement of several days.

That the mind, however, was far stronger than the frame, became now indisputably evident, from the spirit with which he supported the fright, the pain, and the mortification of this untoward experiment upon his remnant and unsuspectedly failing corporeal force. But who discovers the exact moment of arriving defalcation either of body or mind, till taught it by one of those severe instructors, Disease, or Accident?

CYCLOPEDIA.

Nevertheless, though no further episodical event occurred in 1801, that year must by no means be passed over without record in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney; for it was marked by such extraordinary intellectual exertion as may almost be called unparalleled, when considered as springing from volition, not necessity; and from efforts the most virtuously philosophical, to while away enervating sadness upon those changes and chances that hang upon the very nature of mortal existence: for now, to tie his activity to his labours, he entered into a formal agreement with the editors of the then new Encyclopedia, to furnish all its musical articles at stated periods.

He thus, in a letter of which he has left a copy, though not the address, speaks of this enterprise to some friend:

“I have entered now into concerns that leave me not
a minute, or a thought, to bestow on other matters.
Besides professional avocations, I have deeply engaged
in a work that can admit of no delay; and which occupies
every instant that I can steal from business, friends,
or sleep. A new edition, on a very enlarged plan, of
the Cyclopedia of Chambers, is now printing in two
double volumes 4to, for which I have agreed to furnish
the musical articles, on a very large scale, including
whatever is connected with the subject; not only
definitions of the musical technica, but reflexions,
discussions, criticism, history, and biography. The first
volume is printed, and does not finish the letter A. And
in _nine months’ hard labour_, I have not brought forth
two letters. I am more and more frightened every day at
the undertaking, so long after the usual allowance of
three score years and ten have expired. And the shortest
calculation for the termination of this work is still ten
years.”

And in his letters to West Hamble on the same subject, he mentions, that to fulfil his engagement, he generally rises at five or six o’clock every morning—! in his seventy-sixth year.

1802.

This year partook not of any lack of incident; it commenced during the operation and incertitude of a public transaction so big, in its consequences, with deep importance to the domestic life of Dr. Burney, that it seems requisite for all that will follow, to enter into such parts of its details as affected the Doctor’s feelings, through their influence over those of his son-in-law, General d’Arblay. And it will be done the more willingly, as it must involve an unpublished anecdote or two of the marvellous character who, for a while, was the ruler of nearly all Europe,—Napoleon Buonaparte.

At the period of the peace of Amiens, in the preceding year, the Minister Plenipotentiary who was sent over by Buonaparte, then only First Consul, to sign its preliminaries, chanced to be an artillery officer, General de Lauriston, who had been _en garrison_, and in great personal friendship, with General d’Arblay, during their mutual youth; and with whom, as with all the _etat major_ of the regiment of Toul, a connexion of warm esteem and intimacy had faithfully been kept alive, till the dreadful catastrophe of the 10th of August dispersed every officer who survived it, into the wanderings of emigration, or the mystery of concealment.

When the name of Lauriston reached West Hamble, its obscured, but not enervated Chief, rushed eagerly from his Hermitage to the Metropolis, where he hastily wrote a few impressive lines to the new Minister Plenipotentiary, briefly demanding whether or not, in his present splendid situation, he would avow an old _Camarade_, whose life now was principally spent in cultivating cabbages in his own garden, for his own family and table?

Of this note he was fain to be his own bearer; and in some Hotel in, or near St. James’s Street, he discovered the Minister’s abode.

Unaccoutred, dressed only in his common garden coat, and wearing no military appendage, or mark of military rank, he found it very difficult to gain admission into the hotel, even as a messenger; for such, only, he called himself. The street was crowded so as to be almost impassable, as it was known to the public, that the French Minister was going forth to an audience for signing the preliminaries of Peace with Lord Hawkesbury.[60]

But M. d’Arblay was not a man to be easily baffled. He resolutely forced his way to the corridor leading to the Minister’s dressing apartment. There, however, he was arbitrarily stopped; but would not retire: and compelled the lacquey, who endeavoured to dismiss him, to take, and to promise the immediate delivery of his note.

With a very wry face, and an indignant shrug, the lacquey almost perforce complied; carefully, however, leaving another valet at the outside of the door, to prevent further inroad.

M. de Lauriston was under the hands of his frizeur, and reading a newspaper. But the gazette gave place to the billet, which, probably recollecting the handwriting; he rapidly ran over, and then eagerly, and in a voice of emotion, emphatically demanded who had been its bearer?

A small ante-room alone separated him from its writer, who, hearing the question, energetically called out: “_C’est Moi!_”

Up rose the Minister, who opened one door himself, as M. d’Arblay broke through the other, and in the midst of the little ante-room, they rushed into one another’s arms.

If M. d’Arblay was joyfully affected by this generous reception, M. de Lauriston was yet more moved in embracing his early friend, whom report had mingled with the slaughtered of the 10th of August.

The meeting, indeed, was so peculiar, from the high station of M. de Lauriston; the superb equipage waiting at his door to carry him, for the most popular of purposes, to an appointed audience with a British minister; and the glare, the parade, the cost, the attendants, and the attentions by which he was encompassed; contrasted with the worn, as well as plain habiliments of the recluse of West Hamble, that it gave a singularity to the equality of their manners to each other, and the mutuality of the joy and affection of their embraces, that from first exciting the astonishment, next moved the admiration of the domestics of the Minister Plenipotentiary; and particularly of his frizeur, who, probably, was his first valet-de-chambre; and who, while they were yet in each other’s arms, exclaimed aloud, with that familiarity in which the French indulge their favourite servants, “_Ma foi! voilà qui est beau!_”

This characteristic freedom of approbation broke into the pathos of the interview by causing a hearty laugh; and M. de Lauriston, who then had not another instant to spare, cordially invited his recovered friend to breakfast with him the next morning.

At that breakfast, M. de Lauriston recorded the circumstances that had led to his present situation, with all the trust and openness of their early intercourse. And sacred General d’Arblay held that confidence; which should have sunk into oblivion, but for the after circumstances, and present state of things, which render all that, then, was prudentially secret, now desirably public.

No change, he said, of sentiment, no dereliction of principle, had influenced his entering into the service of the republic. Personal gratitude alone had brought about that event. Whilst fighting, under the banners of Austria, against Buonaparte, in one of the campaigns of Italy, he had been taken prisoner, with an Austrian troop. His companions in arms were immediately conveyed to captivity, there to stand the chances of confinement or exchange; but he, as a Frenchman, had been singled out by the conquerors, and stigmatized as a deserter, by the party into whose hands he had fallen, and who condemned him to be instantly shot: though, as he had never served Buonaparte, no laws of equity could brand as a traitor the man who had but constantly adhered to his first allegiance. Buonaparte himself, either struck by this idea; or with a desire to obtain a distinguished officer of artillery, of which alone his army wanted a supply; felt induced to start forward in person, to stop the execution at the very instant it was going to take place. And, to save M. de Lauriston, at the same time, from the ill-will or vengeance of the soldiers, Buonaparte concealed him, till the troop by which he had been taken was elsewhere occupied; conducting himself, in the meanwhile, with so much consideration and kindness, that the gentle heart of Lauriston was gained over by grateful feelings, and he accepted the post afterwards offered to him of Aide-de-camp to the First Consul; with whom, in a short time, he rose to so much trust and favour, as to become the colleague of Duroc, as a chosen and military,—though not, as Duroc, a confidential secretary.

Buonaparte, Lauriston said, had named him for this important embassy to England from two motives: one of which was, that he thought such a nomination might be agreeable to the English, as Lauriston, who was great grand-son or grand-nephew to the famous Law, of South Sea notoriety, was of British extraction; and the other was from personal regard to Lauriston, that he might open a negociation, during his mission, for the recovery of some part of his Scotch inheritance.