Chapter VIII: Part 8

At this, and a subsequent breakfast with M. de Lauriston, M. d’Arblay discussed the most probable means for claiming his _reforme_, or half-pay, as some remuneration for his past services and deprivations. And M. de Lauriston warmly undertook to carry a letter on this subject to Buonaparte’s minister at war, Berthier; with whom, under Louis the Sixteenth, M. d’Arblay had formerly transacted military business.

It was found, however, that nothing could be effected without the presence of M. d’Arblay in France; and therefore, peace between the two nations being signed, he deemed it right to set sail for the long-lost land of his birth.

Immediately upon his arrival in Paris, a representation of his claims was presented to the First Consul himself, accompanied with words of kindliest interest in its success, by the faithful General de Lauriston.

Buonaparte inquired minutely into the merits of the case, and into the military character of the claimant; and, having patiently heard the first account, and eagerly interrogated upon the second, he paused a few minutes, and then said: “Let him serve in the army, if only for one year. Let him go to St. Domingo, and join Le Cler;[61] and, at the end of the year, he shall be allowed to retire, with rank and promotion.”

This was the last purpose that had entered into the projects of M. d’Arblay; yet, to a military spirit, jealous of his honour, and passionately fond of his profession, it was a proposition impossible to be declined. It was not to combat for Buonaparte, nor to fight against his original allegiance: it was to bear arms in the current cause of his country, in resisting the insurgents of St. Domingo,[62] against whom he might equally have been employed by the Monarch[63] in whose service he had risked, and through whose misfortunes he had lost his all. He merely, therefore, stipulated to re-enter the army simply as a volunteer; with an agreed permission to quit it at the close of the campaign, whatever might be its issue: and he then accepted from Berthier a commission for St. Domingo, which, in the republican language adopted by Buonaparte on his first accession to dictatorial power, was addressed to _le Citoyen_ General-in-Chief, Le Cler; and which recommended to that General that _le Citoyen Darblay_ should be employed as a distinguished artillery officer.

M. d’Arblay next obtained leave to come over to England to settle his private affairs; to make innumerable purchases relative to the expedition to St. Domingo; and to bid adieu to his wife and son.

1802.

Dr. Burney received him with open arms, but tearful eyes. He had too much candour to misjudge the nature and the principles of a military character, so as to censure his non-refusal of an offered restoration to his profession, since, at that moment, the peace between the two countries paralysed any possible movement in favour of the Royalists; yet his grief at the circumstance, and his compassion for his dejected daughter, gave a gloom to the transaction that was deeply depressing.

The purchases were soon made, for the re-instated man of arms sunk a considerable sum to be expeditiously accoutred; after which, repelling every drawback of internal reluctance, he was eager not to exceed his furlough; and, pronouncing an agitated farewell, hurried back to Paris; purposing thence to proceed to Brest, whence he was to embark for his destination.

But, inexpressibly anxious not to be misunderstood, nor drawn into the service of Buonaparte beyond the contracted engagement; the day before he left London, M. d’Arblay, with a singleness of integrity that never calculated consequences where he thought his honour and his interest might pull different ways, determined to be unequivocally explicit, and addressed, therefore, the following letter directly to Buonaparte:

“_Au Premier Consul._

“General,

“La generosité et la grandeur d’ame etant inseparables,
ce qui pourroit me perdre avec un autre, va être ma
saufegarde avec vous. Admirateur sincere du bien que
vous avez déja fait; animé par l’éspoir de celui qui
vous reste à faire; je veux et j’éspere me rendre digne
de la manière flatteuse dont vous venez de me traiter.
Je pars, et vous pouvez compter sur ma reconnoissance:
mais ce seroit vous en donner une preuve indigne de
vous que de me rendre coupable d’ingratitude envers un
autre. Enthousiaste de la liberté, je fas encore plus
ami de l’ordre; et restai jusqu’au dernier moment un des
serviteurs le plus fidele, et, j’ose le dire, le plus
energique, d’un monarque dont plus qu’un autre j’ai connu
le patriotisme et les vertus. Forcé de fuir, rien n’eut
pû me faire manquer au serment de ne jamais porter les
armes contre ma patrie; determiné de même de ne jamais
m’armer contre la patrie de mon epouse—contre le pays qui
pendant neuf ans nous a nourris. Je vous jure sur tout le
reste fidelité et devouement.

“Salut et respect,

“ALEXANDRE DARBLAY.”

This letter he hurried off by an official express, through Buonaparte’s then minister here, M. Otto; who, after reading, forwarded it under cover to Le Citoyen Ministre de la Guerre, Berthier; to whom, as a former military friend, M. d’Arblay recommended its delivery to Le Premier Consul.[64] This done, M. d’Arblay pursued his own route.

A frightful chasm of all intelligence to Dr. Burney ensued after this critical departure of M. d’Arblay; no tidings came over of his arrival at Brest, his embarkation, or even of his safety, after crossing the channel in the remarkably tempestuous month of February, in 1802.

The causes of this mysterious silence would be too circumstantial for these Memoirs, to which it belongs only to state their result. The First Consul, upon reading the letter of M. d’Arblay, immediately withdrew his military commission; and Berthier, in an official reply, desired that _le Citoyen Darblay_ would consider that commission, and the letter to General Le Cler, as _non avenues_.

Berthier, nevertheless, in the document which annulled the St. Domingo commission, and which must have been written by the personal command of Buonaparte, since it was in answer to a letter that had been directed immediately to himself, calmly, and without rancour, harshness, or satire, developed the reason of the recall, in simply saying, that since _le Citoyen Darblay_ would not bear arms against the country of his wife, which might always, eventually, bear arms against France, he could not be engaged in the service of the Republic.

Buonaparte, stimulated, it is probable, by M. de Lauriston’s account of the frank and honourable character of M. d’Arblay, contented himself with this simple annulling act; without embittering it by any stigma, or demonstrating any suspicious resentment.

This event, as has been hinted, produced important consequences to Dr. Burney; consequences the most ungenial to his parental affections; though happily, at that period, not foreseen in their melancholy extent, of a ten years’ complete and desperate separation from his daughter d’Arblay.

Unsuspicious, therefore, of that appendent effect of the letter of M. d’Arblay to Buonaparte, the satisfaction of Dr. Burney, at this first moment, that no son-in-law of his would bear arms, through any means, however innocent, and with any intentions, however pure, under the banners of Buonaparte, largely contributed to make the unexpected tidings of this sudden change of situation an epoch of ecstacy, rather than of joy; of adoration, rather than of thankfulness, to his Hermit daughter.

But far different were the sensations to which this turn of affairs gave birth in M. d’Arblay. Consternation seems too tame a word for the bewildered confusion of his feelings, at so abrupt a breaking up of an enterprise, which, though unsolicited and unwished for in its origin, had by degrees, from its recurrence to early habits, become glowingly animated to his ideas and his prospects. Buonaparte had not then blackened his glory by the seizure and sacrifice of the Comte d’Enghein; and M. d’Arblay, in common with several other admirers of the military fame of the First Consul, had conceived a hope, to which he meant honestly to allude in his letter, that the final campaign of that great warrior, would be a voluntary imitation of the final campaign of General Monk.

Little, therefore, as he had intended to constitute Buonaparte, in any way, as his chief, a breach such as this in his own professional career, nearly mastered his faculties with excess of perturbation. To seem dismissed the service!—he could not brook the idea; he was confounded by his own position.

He applied to a generous friend,[65] high in military reputation, to represent his disturbance to the First Consul.

Buonaparte consented to grant an audience on the subject; but almost instantly interrupted the application, by saying, with vivacity, “I know that business! However, let him be tranquil. It shall not hurt him any further. There was a time I might have been capable of acting so myself!—”

And then, after a little pause, and with a look somewhat ironical, but by no means ill-humoured or unpleasant, he added: “_Il m’a écrit un diable de lettre!_”—He stopt again, after which, with a smile half gay, half cynical, he said: “However, I ought only to regard in it the husband of Cecilia;” and then abruptly he broke up the conference.

Of the _author_ of Cecilia, of course, he meant.

This certainly was a trait of candour and liberality worthy of a more gentle mind; and which, till the ever unpardonable massacre of the Duke d’Enghein, softened, in some measure, the endurance of the compulsatory stay in France that afterwards ensued to M. d’Arblay.

1802.

Dr. Burney, meanwhile, from the time that the St. Domingo commission was annulled, was in daily expectation of the return of his son-in-law, and the re-establishment of the little cottage of West Hamble:—but mournfully, alas, was he disappointed! The painful news arrived from M. d’Arblay, that, from the strangeness of the circumstances in which he was involved, he could not quit France without seeming to have gained his wish in losing his appointment. He determined, therefore, to remain a twelvemonth in Paris, to shew himself at hand in case of any change of orders. And he desired, of course, to be joined there by his wife and son.

M. d’Arblay, however, wrote to that wife, to Dr. Burney, and to his dearly reverenced friend, Mr. Locke, the most comforting assurance, that, one single year revolved, he would return, with his little family, to the unambitious enjoyment of friendship, repose, and West Hamble.

By no means gaily did Dr. Burney receive the account of this arrangement. Gloomy forebodings clouded his brow; though his daughter, exalted by joy and thankfulness that the pestilential climate of St. Domingo was relinquished; and happily persuaded that another year would re-unite her with her honoured father, her brethren, and friends, assented with alacrity to the scheme. Almost immediately, therefore, it took place; though not before the loyal heart of Dr. Burney had the soothing consolation of finding, that the step she was taking was honoured with the entire approbation of her benevolent late Royal Mistress; who openly held that to follow the fortune of the man to whom she had given her hand, was now her first duty in life.

And something of pleasure mixed itself with his parental cares, and a little mitigated the severity of his concern at this event, when the Doctor heard that she was not only admitted by that most gracious Queen to a long and flattering farewell audience; and to the high honour of separate parting interviews with each of the Princesses; but also to the unspeakable delight of being graciously detained in her Majesty’s white closet till the arrival there, from some review, of the benign King himself; who deigned, with his never-failing benevolence, to vouchsafe to her some inappreciable minutes of his favouring and heart-touching notice: while the Queen, with conscious pleasure at the happiness which she had thus accorded to her, smilingly said, “You did not expect this, Madame d’Arblay.”

With this high honour and goodness exhilarated, her spirits rose to their task; with the support of hope, she parted from her family and friends; with the resolution of remembering the escape from St. Domingo, should she be pursued by any misfortune, she quitted her loved cottage; and even from her thrice-dear father she separated without participating in his alarm, while seeking to dissipate it by her own brighter views.

Yet moved was she to her heart’s core when, on the evening preceding her departure, which took place after a long sojourn at Chelsea College, he suddenly broke from her, as if to stir the fire; but pronounced, in a voice that shewed he merely sought to hide his emotion, his fears, nay belief, that M. d’Arblay, though twice he had returned with speed from Paris when he had visited it alone, would probably be tempted to lengthen, if not fix his abode there, when the chief ties to his adopted country became a part of that of his birth.

Nevertheless, even this apprehension, such was her faith in the sacred influence of Camilla Cottage over the mind of her partner in life, she courageously parried, though impressively she felt; and at the leave-taking moment, she was happily able to cheer the presentiments of the Doctor, by the lively sincerity of the feelings that cheered her own.

One point only combatted her courage, and was too potent for her resistance; she could not utter an adieu to her matchless friend, Mr. Locke!—his frame had always seemed to her as fragile as his virtues were adamantine; and the tender partiality with which he had ever met her reverential attachment, made his voice so meltingly affecting to her, that she feared lest her own should betray how little she already thought him of this world! she cheerfully bade adieu to her father, her family, and her friends—but she retreated without uttering a farewell to Mr. Locke,—whom, alas! she never saw more!

* * * * *

No further narrative, of which the detail can be personal or reciprocal with the Editor, can now be given of Dr. Burney. What follows will be collected from fragments of memoirs, and innumerable memorandums in his own handwriting; from his letters, and those of his family and friends; and from various accidental, incidental, and miscellaneous circumstances.

Yet, at the period of this separation, the Memorialist had the solace to know, that many as were the ties already dissolved of his early affections; numerous the links already broken of his maturer attachments; and wholly incalculable the mass of losses or changes in the current objects of pursuit that, from year to year, had eluded his grasp, flown from his hopes, or betrayed his expectations; he still possessed a host of consolers and revivers, added to what yet remained of his truly attached family, who strove, with equal fidelity and vivacity, to lighten and brighten the years yet lent to their friendly efforts.

At the head of this honourable list, and, for Dr. Burney, of every other, since the loss of Mr. Crisp and Mr. Bewley, would have risen Mr. Twining, had his society been attainable: but Mr. Twining was so seldom in London, that their meetings became as rare as they were precious. His correspondence however, still maintained its pre-eminence; and it is hardly too much to say, that the letters of Mr. Twining were received with a brighter welcome than the visits of almost any other person.

First, therefore, now, in positive, prevailing, and graceful activity of zeal to serve him in his own way, and furnish food to his ideas, with temptation to his spirits and humour for its welcome, must be placed his ever faithful and generous friend, and, by proxy, his god-child, Mrs. Crewe; who prized him equally as a counsellor and a companion.

Far different from all that belongs to this lady are the records that further unfold his broken intercourse with Mr. Greville; and most painful to him was it to turn from the fairness of right reason, and the steadfastness of constancy, which were unvaryingly manifested in the attachment of Mrs. Crewe, to the wayward character, and irrational claims of his erst first patron and friend, her father; who, emerging, nevertheless, from the apathetic gloom into which he had fallen on the first public breaking up of his establishment, had started a spirited resolution to hit upon a new, unknown, unheard-of walk in life, to give recruit to his fortune, and lustre to his name.

Eagerly he looked around for some striking object that might fix him to a point; but all was chaos to the disturbed glare of his ill-directed vision. His internal resources were too diffuse and unsystematized, to fit him for being the chief of any new enterprise; yet, to be an agent, a deputy, a second, he thought more intolerable than danger, distress, debt, difficulty, nay, destruction.

Sick, then, at heart, and self-abandoned for every purpose of active life, partly from despair, partly from ostentation, he plunged all he could yet command of faculty into the study of metaphysics; a study which, from his nervous irritability, soon made all commerce with his friends become impracticable rather than difficult.

1802.

The Memorialist had the comfort, however, to leave the Doctor always eagerly solicited to the society, or honoured with the correspondence of the noble Marquis of Aylesbury, and the liberal Earl of Lonsdale, inclusively with their singularly amiable families: and sought equally by the all-accomplished Dowager Lady Templeton, by Lady Manvers, Lady Mary Duncan, Mrs. Garrick, the Marchioness of Thomond, Mrs. Ord, Lord Cardigan, Mr. Coxe, Mr. Pepys, the still celebrated, though fading away Mrs. Montagu, the sagacious and polished Mrs. Boscawen, and the inimitable Lockes.

And while, in general friendship, such was the nourishment for his gratitude—that feeling which, when not the most oppressive, is the most delightful in human associations—his love of literature, science, and the arts, had food equally nutritive with Mr. Malone, from his spirit of research after facts, incidents, and all the shades and shadows of the great or marked characters that, erst, had been objects of renown.

With Mr. Courtney, though utterly dissimilar in politics, for his wit, sense, and general agreeability.

With Mr. Rogers, for the coincident elegance and philanthropy of his disposition with his poetry.

With Sir George Beaumont, from a vivid sympathy of taste in all the arts.

With Mr. Windham, from a union the most perfect in sentiment, in principles, and in literature.

And by the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Bankes, the Doctor, from his own universal thirst of knowledge, and uncommon capacity for receiving, retaining, and naturalizing its gifts, was welcomed on public days as a worthy brother of the learned and studious; and in the hours of private conviviality was courted yet more from the gaiety of his humour and the entertainment of his anecdotes; Sir Joseph, when unbent from the state of Newton’s chair, being ever merrily charmed to reciprocate sportive nonsense; various remnants of which, laughingly amusing, but too ludicrous from the President of a scientific society for the press, are amongst the posthumous collections of the Doctor.

With all these his social hilarity was in constant circulation, kept alive by their kindness, and invigorated by their plaudits; which rendered such commerce as medicinal to his health as to his pleasure, from its sane and active spur to what constitutes the happiest portion of our mundane composition, animal spirits.

But the intercourse the most delighting to his fancy and his feelings, was through an increase of attachment for Lady Clarges. Yet melancholy was the cause of this augmented sympathy; melancholy then, and afterwards mournful. To the pleasing view of the personal likeness to his Susanna which had first endeared Lady Clarges to his sight; to the soothing sensations excited by those vocal notes in which a similarity of sound was so grateful to his ears, was now superadded another resemblance, as far more touching as it was less exhilarating; the health of Lady Clarges, never robust, was now in apparent, though not yet alarming, decline. This, altogether, occasioned a tender interest that clung to the breast of the Doctor, first with added regard, and afterwards with suffering solicitude.

In all, however, that was most efficient in good, most solid, most serious, most essential in comfort as well as elegance, the noble kindness of the Duke of Portland took the lead. His magnificent hospitality was nearly without parallel. The select invitations upon select occasions to Burlington House, with which his favour to the Doctor had begun, were succeeded by general ones for all times and all seasons; and with injunctions that the Doctor would choose his own days, and adjust their frequency completely by his own convenience.

This _carte blanche_ of admission at will was next extended from Burlington House to Bulstrode Park; where he was found so agreeable by the noble host, and so pleasing to the noble family, that, in a short time, the Duke urged him to take possession of an appropriated apartment, and to consider himself to be completely at home in that sumptuous dwelling; where he had his mornings with undisturbed liberty, wholly at his own disposal; where he even dined, according to the state of his health and spirits, at the Duke’s table, or in his own parlour; and where, though welcomed in any part of the day to every part of the house, he was never troubled with any inquiry for non-appearance, except at the evening’s assemblage; though not unfrequently the Duke made him personal visits of such affectionate freedom, as signally to endear to him this splendid habitation.

So impressive, indeed, was the regard of his Grace for Dr. Burney, and so animated was the gratitude of its return, that the enjoyments of Bulstrode Park, with all their refined luxuries, and their cultivated scenery, soon became less than secondary; they were nearly as nothing in the calculation of the Doctor, compared with what he experienced from the cordial conversation and kindness of the Duke.

Such, added to his family circle, were the auspices under which, to her great consolation, his daughter d’Arblay left Dr. Burney in April, 1802.

1802.

Dr. Burney, upon the arrival in France of his daughter d’Arblay, for the stated year, opened with her a continental correspondence, prudent, i.e. silent, in regard to politics; but communicative and satisfactory on family affairs and interests; which, on her part, was sustained by all the trust that, at such times, and from such a quarter, could be hazarded. She knew the passing pleasure, at least, with which he would read all that she could venture to write on the new scenes now before her; which were replete with objects, prospects, and ideas to give occupation to Conjecture and Expectation, of more vivacity and mental movement than had been offered to the thought of man for many preceding ages.

And, as her filial letters, from the influence of Mrs. Crewe with Mr. Pelham,[66] passed through the hands of Mr. Merry, the English Minister, she freely related various personal occurrences; though she abstained, of course, from any risk of betraying to the police, through a surprised correspondence, her private opinions, or secret feelings upon the vast new theatre of civil, political, and martial manoeuvres of which she now became, in some measure, a spectatress. Whatever looked Forward, or looked Backward, at that critical juncture, was dangerous for the Pen: to be acquiescent with what was Present alone was safety.

Dr. Burney, upon this separation, redoubled the vigilance of his self-exertions for turning to account every moment of his existence. And his spirits appeared to be equal to every demand upon their efforts. In his first letter to Paris, May 20, 1802, he says:

“I hope, now, the two nations will heartily shake hands,
and not be quiet only themselves, but keep the rest
of the world quiet. My hurries are such at present,
as to oblige me to draw deeper than ever upon my
sinking-fund.[67] Business, and more numerous engagements
than I have ever yet had, swallow all my time; and this
enormous Cyclopedia fills up all my thoughts. I have been
long an A.B.C. derian; and now am become so for life.”

In another letter of the same year, written a few months later, the Cyclopedia is no longer proclaimed to be the principal, but the exclusive occupation of the Doctor. The indefatigable eagerness of its pursuit, will best appear from his own account:

“_July 1st, 1802._—I have this day taken leave, for this
year, of my town business, which broke into three precious
mornings of my week, shivered the lord knows how many links of
the chain of my Cyclopedia, and lost me even the interval of
time from the trouble of collecting the broken fragments of my
materials, and re-putting them together.

“In order to form some idea of the total absorption of my
present life, by this Herculean labour, added to my usual
hurricanes during the town season, a delightful letter of
Twining himself, which I received some weeks ago, remains
unanswered! I had a mind to see what I could really do in
twelve months, by driving the quill at every possible moment
that I could steal from business or repose, by day and by
night, in bed and up; and, with all this stir and toil, I
have found it impracticable to finish three letters of the
alphabet!”

* * * * *

How fortunate—may it not be said how benign?—was the invisibility to coming events at the parental and filial moment of the late separation! an invisibility that spared from fruitless disturbance the greater part of that promised year that was to have ended with the balm of re-union, by hiding the fresh proof with which it was labouring to manifest the never-ending, yet never-awaited imperfection and fallacy of human arrangements.

But grievous, however procrastinated, was the light that too soon broke into that invisibility, when, almost at the moment of happy expectation, Dr. Burney had the shock of hearing that war was again declared with France! And dire, most dire and afflicting to his daughter, was the similar information, of learning that Buonaparte had peremptorily ordered Lord Whitworth to quit Paris in a specified number of hours: and that a brief term was dictatorially fixed for either following that Ambassador, or immoveably remaining in France till the contest should be over.

The very peculiar position, in a military point of view, in which M. d’Arblay now stood in his native country, made it impossible for him to leave it, at so critical a juncture, in the hurried manner that the imperious decree of the French Dictator commanded. It might seem deserting his post! He felt, therefore, compelled, by claims of professional observance, to abide the uncertain storm where its first thunder rolled; and to risk, at its centre, the hazards of its circulation, and the chances of its course.

The unhappiness caused by this decision was wholly unmixed with murmurs from Dr. Burney, whose justice and candour acknowledged it, in such a situation, to be indispensable.

* * * * *

War thus again broken forth, few and concise were the lines, not letters, that kept up any correspondence between Dr. Burney and Paris; passing unsealed when they came by the post; and even undirected, as accidental papers, when they were intrusted to private hands: so great was the dread in this English Memorialist of raising in the French Government any suspicion of cabal or conspiracy, by any sort of written intercourse with England.[68]

Nothing, therefore, at this time, can be drawn for these Memoirs from the letters of Dr. Burney: and every article or paragraph for the next two or three years, will be copied, or abridged, from the Doctor’s posthumous manuscripts.

1803.

In 1803, one short record alone has been found. That he wrote no more journal-anecdotes that year, may be chiefly attributed to his then intense application to the Cyclopedia. Perhaps, also, his spirits for his Diary might be depressed by so abrupt a privation of another daughter; not, indeed, by the hand of death, yet by a species of exile that had no certain or visible term.

The following is the single record of 1803 above-mentioned:

“Beethoven’s compositions for the piano-forte were first
brought to England by Miss Tate, a most accomplished
_dilletante_ singer and player. I soon afterwards heard
some of his instrumental works, which are such as incline
me to rank him amongst the first musical authors of the
present century. He was a disciple of Mozart, and is now
but three or four and twenty years of age.”

1804 turned out far more copious in events and recitals; though saddening, however philosophical and consonant to the common laws of nature, are the reflections and avowals of Dr. Burney upon his this year’s birth-day.

1804.

_From the Doctor’s Journal._

“In 1804, in the month of April, I completed my 78th
year, and decided to relinquish teaching and my musical
patients; for both my ears and my eyes were beginning
to fail me. I could still hear the most minute musical
tone; but in conversation I lost the articulation, and
was forced to make people at the least distance from me
repeat everything that they said. Sometimes the mere
tone of voice, and the countenance of the speaker, told
me whether I was to smile or to frown; but never so
explicitly as to allow me to venture at any reply to what
was said! Yet I never, seemingly, have been more _in
fashion_ at any period of my life than this spring; never
invited to more conversaziones, assemblées, dinners, and
concerts. But I feel myself less and less able to bear a
part in general conversation every day, from the failure
of memory, particularly in names; and I am become fearful
of beginning any story that occurs to me, lest I should
be stopped short by hunting for Mr. How d’ye call him’s
style and titles.

“I was very near-sighted from about my 30th year; but
though it is usually thought that that sort of sight
improves with age, I have not discovered that the notion
was well founded. My sight became not only more short,
but more feeble. Instead of a concave glass, I was
forced to have recourse to one that was convex, and that
magnified highly, for pale ink and small types.”

* * * * *

The Editor must here remark, that Dr. Burney never required the convex glass of which he speaks, for the perusal of either printed or written characters, except when they were presented to him at a distance. He read to his very last days every book and every letter that he could hold near to his eyes, without any species of spectacles.

* * * * *

“_30th April._ I finished this month by a cordial
domestic dinner at Mr. Crewe’s; where, in the evening,
was held the ambulatory ladies’ concert.”

In the month of the following May, a similar ebullition of political rancour with that which so difficultly had been conquered for Mr. Canning, foamed over the ballot box of the Literary Club to the exclusion of Mr. Rogers; by whom it was the less deserved, from its contrast to that poet’s own widely opposite liberality, in never suffering political opinions to shut out, either from his hospitality or his friendship, those who invite them by congenial sentiments on other points.

The ensuing page is copied from Dr. Burney’s own manuscript observations upon this occurrence:

“_May 1st._ I was at the Club, at which Rogers, put up
by Courtney, and seconded by me, was ballotted for, and
blackballed; I believe on account of his politics. There
can, indeed, be nothing else against him. He is a good
poet, has a refined taste in all the arts; has a select
library of the best editions of the best authors in most
languages; has very fine pictures; very fine drawings;
and the finest collection I ever saw of the best Etruscan
vases; and, moreover, he gives the best dinners to
the best company of men of talents and genius of any
man I know; the best served, and with the best wines,
_liqueurs_, &c. He is not fond of talking politics, for
he is no _Jacobin-enragé_, though I believe him to be a
principled republican, and therefore in high favour with
Mr. Fox and his adherents. But he is never obtrusive; and
neither shuns nor dislikes a man for being of a different
political creed to himself: it is therefore, that he
and I, however we may dissent upon that point, concur
so completely on almost every other, that we always
meet with pleasure. And, in fact, he is much esteemed
by many persons belonging to the government, and about
the court. His books of prints of the greatest engravers
from the greatest masters, in history, architecture,
and antiquities, are of the first class. His house in
St. James’s Place, looking into the Green Park, is
deliciously situated, and furnished with great taste. He
seemed very desirous of being elected a member of the
club, to which, in fact, his talents would have done
honour; few men are more fitted to contribute to its
entertainment.”

The Doctor, long afterwards, in talking over this anecdote, said:

“There is no accounting for such gross injustice in the
club; except by acknowledging that there are demagogues
amongst them who enjoy as the highest privilege of an old
member, the power of excluding, with or without reason, a
new one.”

In the same month Dr. Burney had the professional gratification of receiving a perpetual ticket of admission to the Concerts of Ancient Music, enclosed in the following letter from the Earl of Dartmouth:

“_Berkeley Square,_ _May 27th._

“Lord Dartmouth is happy to have it in charge from his
brother-Directors of the Ancient Concerts, to present the
enclosed General Ticket to Dr. Burney; and to beg his
acceptance of it as a token of their sense of his merits
in the cause of Music; and especially that part of it
which is more immediately the object of their attention:
as well as of the respect in which they all hold his
person and character.”

A copy of his thanks remains, written in a very fair hand, and on the same day:

“_To the Right Honourable the Earl of Dartmouth, Lord
Chamberlain of His Majesty’s Household, and one of the
Directors of the Concerts of Ancient Music._

“Dr. Burney presents his most humble respects to the Earl
of Dartmouth, and to the rest of the Right Honourable
and Honourable Directors of the Concerts of Ancient
Music; and feels himself flattered beyond his powers of
expression, with the liberal testimony of the esteem
and approbation with which he has been honoured by the
illustrious Patrons of an Establishment at the formation
of which he had the honour to be present; and for its
prosperity constantly zealous.

“So uncommon and unexpected a token of approbation of his
exertions in the cultivation and cause of an art which
he has long laboured, and still labours to improve, as
well as to record its progress, and the talents of its
Professors, from the time of Orpheus to that of Handel;
will gild his latter days, and generate a flattering hope
that his diligence and perseverance have been regarded in
a more favourable light than, in his vainest moments, he
had ever dared to hope or imagine.

“_Chelsea College,_ _27th May, 1804._”

* * * * *

Here stop all journals, all notes, all memorandums of Dr. Burney for the rest of this year. Not another word remains bearing its date.

The severest tax upon longevity that, apart from his parental ties, could be inflicted, was levied upon him at this time, by the heart-harrowing stroke of the death of Mr. Twining.

It was not merely now, in the full tide of sorrow, that Dr. Burney could neither speak nor write upon the loss of this last-elected bosom friend; it was a subject from which he shrunk ever after, both in conversation and by letter: it was a grief too concentrated for complaint: it demanded not a vent by which, with time, it might be solaced; but a crush by which, though only morbidly, it might be subdued: religion and philosophy might then lead, conjointly, to calm endurance.

And not alone, though from superior sorrow aloft, stood this deprivation. It was followed by other strokes of similar fatality, each of which, but for this pre-eminent calamity, would have proved of tragic effect: for he had successively to mourn, First, the favourite the most highly prized by his deplored early partner, as well as by her successor; and who came nearest to his own feelings from the tender ties in which she had been entwined—Dolly Young; for so, to the last hour, she was called by those who had early known and loved her, from a certain caressing pleasure annexed to that youthful appellation, that seemed in unison with the genuine simplicity of her character.

Second, Mr. Coxe, the oldest and most attached of his associates from early life.

Third, Lord Macartney, a far newer connexion, but one whose lively intelligence, and generous kindness, cut off all necessity for the usual routine of time to fasten attachment. And with Lord Macartney, from the retired life which his Lordship generally led after his embassy to China, the Doctor’s intercourse had become more than ever amical. This, therefore, was a loss to his spirits and exertions, as well as to his affections, which he felt with strong regret.

Fourth, that distinguished lady whose solid worth and faithful friendship compensated for manners the most uncouth, and language the most unpolished,—Lady Mary Duncan.

Fifth, the celebrated Elizabeth Carter; in whom he missed an admiring as well as an admired friend, the honour of whose attachment both for him and for his daughter, is recorded by her nephew, Mr. Pennington, in her Memoirs.

The Doctor truly revered in Mrs. Carter the rare union of humility with learning, and of piety with cheerfulness. He frequently, and always with pleasure, conveyed her to or from her home, when they visited the same parties; and always enjoyed those opportunities in comparing notes with her, on such topics as were not light enough for the large or mixed companies which they were just seeking, or had just left: topics, however, which they always treated with simplicity; for Mrs. Carter, though natively more serious, and habitually more studious than Dr. Burney, was as free from pedantry as himself.

By temperance of life and conduct, activity of body, and equanimity of mind, she nearly reached her 90th year in such health and strength as to be able to make morning calls upon her favourite friends, without carriage, companion, or servant. And with all her modest humility upon her personal acquirements, she had a dignified pride of independence, that invested her with the good sense to feel rather exalted than ashamed, at owing her powers of going forth to her own unaided self-exertion.

And Sixth, the man who, once the most accomplished of his race, had for half his life loved the Doctor with even passionate regard—Mr. Greville.

All these sad, and truly saddening catastrophes were unknown, in their succession, to the Memorialist; whom they only reached in the aggregate of their loss, when, after a long, unexplained, and ill-boding silence, Dr. Burney imposed upon himself the hard task of announcing the irremediable affliction he had sustained through these reiterated and awful visitations of death. And then, to spare his worn and harassed sensibility any development of his feelings, he thus summed up the melancholy list in one short paragraph:

“Time,” he says, “has made sad havoc amongst my dearest
friends of late——Twining!——Dolly Young; Mr. Coxe; Lord
Macartney; Lady Mary Duncan;—poor Elizabeth Carter a few
months ago;—Mr. Greville only a few weeks!”

And, kindly, then to lighten the grief he knew he must inflict by a catalogue that included Mr. Twining and Dolly Young, he hastens to add:

“Mr., Mrs., and Miss[69] Locke, however; Mrs. Angerstein;
Mrs. Crewe; Miss Cambridge; Mrs. Garrick; Lady
Templetown; Lady Keith, _ci-devant_ Miss Thrale; the
Marchioness of Thomond, _ci-devant_ Miss Palmer; Mrs.
Waddington; and many more of your most faithful votaries,
still live, and never see me without urgent inquiries
after you. Your dear Mrs. Locke, who has had a dreadful
fit of illness, and losses enough to break so tender a
heart, is perfectly recovered at last; and, I am told, is
as well, and as sweet and endearing a character to her
friends as ever.”

He then permits himself to go back to one parting phrase:

“But though, in spite of age and infirmities, I have
lately more than doubled the number of friends I have
lost—the niches of those above-mentioned can never be
filled!”

From this time he reverted to them no more.

Of his ancient and long-attached friend, Mr. Greville, little and merely melancholy is what now can be added. His death was rather a shock than a loss; but it considerably disturbed the Doctor. Mr. Greville had gone on in his metaphysical career, fatiguing his spirits, harassing his understanding, and consuming the time of his friends nearly as much as his own, till, one by one, each of them eluded him as a foe. How could it be otherwise, when the least dissonance upon any point upon which he opened a controversial disquisition, so disordered his nervous system, that he could take no rest till he had re-stated all his arguments in an elaborate, and commonly sarcastic epistle? which necessarily provoked a paper war, so prolific of dispute, that, if the adversary had not regularly broken up the correspondence after the first week or two, it must have terminated by consuming the stores of every stationer in London.

His wrath upon such desertions was too scornful for any appeal. Yet so powerful was still the remembrance of his brilliant opening into life, and of his many fine qualities, that his loss to society was never mentioned without regret, either by those who abandoned him, or by those whom he discarded.

Dr. Burney was one of the last, from the peculiarity of their intercourse, to have given it up, had it not been, he declared, necessary to have had two lives for sustaining it without hostility; one of them for himself, his family, and his life’s purposes; the other wholly for Mr. Greville;—who never could be content with any competition against his personal claims to the monopoly of the time and the thoughts of his friends.

Yet whatever may have disturbed, nothing seems to have shortened his existence, since, though nearly alienated from his family, estranged from his connexions, and morbidly at war with the world, the closing scene of all his gaieties and all his failures, did not shut in till some time after his 90th year.

* * * * *

Lady Mary Duncan bequeathed to Dr. Burney the whole of her great and curious collection of Music, printed and manuscript, with £600.

PACCHIEROTTI.

Upon the death of this liberal and honourable old friend, the Doctor re-opened a correspondence with his faithful and most deservedly cherished favourite, Pacchierotti, which the difficulties of communication from the irruption of Buonaparte into Italy, had latterly impeded, though not broken.

The answer of Pacchierotti to the account of his loss of this his earliest and greatest benefactress in England, was replete with the lamentation and sorrow to which his susceptible heart was a prey, upon every species of affliction that assailed either himself or those to whom he was attached; and for Lady Mary, his gratitude and regard were the most devoted; for though he saw, with keen perception, her singularities, he had too much sense to let them outweigh in his estimation her benevolence, and her many good qualities.

He knew, also, for she published it dauntlessly to the world, with what energy she admired him; and he suffered not his gratitude to lose any of its respect from the ridicule which he saw excited when they appeared together in public; though frequently and anxiously he wished and sought to withdraw from the general gaze which her notice of him attracted. And he often spoke with serious simplicity of concern to Dr. Burney, of the mannish air, and stride, and mien, with which she would defyingly turn short upon any under-bred scoffer, who looked at her with vulgar curiosity, when he had the honour to accompany her on the public walks. And once, in the zeal of his attachment, upon her asking him, in her abrupt manner, to tell her, unreservedly, what he thought of her; he took hold, he said, of that affable inquisition to frankly, in his peculiar English, answer: “Why, madam, if I must, to be sincere,—I think your ladyship is rather too much of the masculine.”

“No?—you don’t say so?” cried she, with the utmost surprise, but without taking the smallest offence. “And I am of the opinion,” added Pacchierotti, in relating the anecdote to Dr. Burney, “that she was not at all of my advice in that observation; for she ever thinks she does nothing but the common; though certainly it is of the other nature; for it must to be confessed, that, with all her goodness, she is not one of the literature.”

The letter upon the information of Lady Mary’s death, is the last from Pacchierotti that is preserved in the collection of the Doctor; and, probably, the last that was received; for the troubles of Italy made all commerce with it dangerous, save for those who could write with unqualified approbation of _the powers that were_, be they of what class they might.

Not such was the correspondence of Dr. Burney with Pacchierotti. They each wrote with the freedom of sincerity, and the kindness of sympathy, upon every subject, mental, literary, or political, that occurred to them: and while Pacchierotti could bemoan without danger the invasion and oppression of his country, it was soothing to his disturbance to deposit his apprehensions with so wise a friend: while to Dr. Burney it was a real pleasure to keep alive an intercourse so full of endearing recollections. Nevertheless, from the year 1808, the correspondence was wholly cut off by political dangers.

Amongst the few remaining persons to whom Pacchierotti may still from memory, not tradition, be known, there are none, probably, who will not hear with satisfaction, that he finished his long career in the serene enjoyment of well-merited, and elaborately-earned independence. Modestly, and wisely, he had retired from the instability of popular favour, and the uncertainty of public remuneration, while yet his fame was at its height; sparing thus his sensitive mind from the dangers of caprice, inconstancy, jealousy, or neglect. His residence was at Padua; his dwelling was a palazza, elegantly furnished, and rendered a delicious abode to him by spacious and beautiful gardens.

He lived to the year 1824, and was some time past eighty when he expired.[70]

1805.

Fortunately for Dr. Burney, another year was not permitted wholly to wane away, ere circumstances occurred of so much movement and interest, that they operated like a species of amnesty upon the sufferings of the year just gone by; and enabled him to pass over submissively his heavy privations; and, once again, to go cheerfully on in life with what yet remained for contentment.

The chief mover to this practical philosophy was the indefatigable Mrs. Crewe; who by degrees, skilful and kind, so lured him from mourning and retirement to gratitude and society, that his seclusion insensibly ended by enlisting him in more diffuse social entertainments, than any in which he had heretofore mixed.

His accepted dinner appointments of this time, enroll in his pocket-book the following names—

Mrs. Crewe
Mr. Windham
Mr. Rogers
Mr. Malone
Mr. Courtney
Sir Joseph Bankes
Lady Salisbury
Duke and Duchess of Leeds
Duke of Portland
Marquis of Aylesbury
Lord and Lady Lonsdale
Lord and Lady Bruce
Marquis and Marchioness Thomond
Lady Melbourne
Sir Geo. and Lady Beaumont
Lady Manvers
Lady Cork
Bishop of Winchester
Mr. Wilbraham
Miss Shepley
Mr. Angerstein
Mrs. Ord
Mrs. Waddington
Mr. Hammersley
Mr. Thompson
Mr. Walker
And the Right Hon. George Canning.

He rarely missed the Concert of Ancient Music.

He generally dined at the appointed meetings of THE Club; where he has peculiarly noted a still brilliant assemblage, in naming

Earl Spencer
Sir Joseph Bankes
Sir William Scott[71]
The Dean of Westminster
The Master of the Rolls
Mr. Ellis
Mr. Marsden
Mr. Frere
Dr. Lawrence
Mr. Malone
Mr. Windham
Mr. Canning
And Charles Fox in the Chair.

But the climax of these convivial honours was dining with his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.[72]

Of this, as it will appear, he wrote largely, with intention to be copied precisely.

And about this time, Dr. Burney received a splendid mark of filial devotion to which he was truly sensible, and of which—who shall wonder?—he was justly proud, from his son Dr. Charles.

This was a request to possess the Doctor’s bust in marble.

Such a wish was, of course, frankly acceded to; and Nollekens was the sculptor fixed upon for its execution; not only from the deserved height to which the fame of that artist had risen, but from old regard to the man, which the Doctor always believed to be faithfully and gratefully returned; conceiving him, though under-bred and illiterate, to be honest and worthy; yet frequently remarking how strikingly he exemplified the caprice, or locality, of taste, as well as of genius, which in one point could be truly refined, while in every other it was wanting.

Thirty casts of this bust, for family, friends, or favourites, were taken off; and the first of them Dr. Charles had the honour of laying at the feet of the Prince of Wales: who, when next he saw Dr. Burney, smilingly said: “I have got your bust, Dr. Burney, and I’ll put it on my organ. I got it on purpose. I shall place it there instead of Handel.”

In the month of May, 1805, Dr. Burney, through a private hand, re-opened, after a twelvemonth’s mournful silence, his correspondence with his absent daughter, by the following kind and cheering, though brief and politically cautious lines:

“TO MADAME D’ARBLAY.

“_Chelsea College, May, 1805._

“My dear Fanny,

“The notice I received of our good friend, Miss
Sayr’s,[73] departure for the continent, has been
communicated to me so short a time before its taking
place, that I am merely able to give you _signe de vie_;
and tell you that, cough excepted, I am in tolerable
health, for an _octogenaire_; with the usual infirmities
in eyes, ears, and memory.

“God bless you, my dear daughter. Give my kindest love to
our dear M. d’Arblay, and to little Alexander.

“Your ever affectionate father,
“CHAS. BURNEY.

“As blind as a beetle, as deaf as a post, Whose
longevity now is all he can boast.”

The following is a paragraph of another letter to Paris, written about the same time, but conveyed by another private hand:

“I passed some days very pleasantly at Bulstrode Park in
the Easter week. The good Duke of Portland came himself
to invite me, and sat nearly an hour by my fireside,
conversing in the most open and unreserved manner
possible upon matters and things. Our party at Bulstrode
had the ever-admirable Lady Templeton, her two younger
daughters,[74] and their brother Greville,[75] who is
an excellent musician, and a very charming young man,
&c. &c. The Duke’s daughters, Lady Mary Bentinck and
Lady Charlotte Greville, did the honours very politely;
and Lord William Bentinck,[76] one of the Duke’s son,
who was in Italy with Marshal Suwarrow, and has since
been in Egypt, was also there; and he and I are become
_inkle-weavers_. I like him much; and we are to meet
again in town. We never sat down less than thirty each
day at dinner; and _we_ danced, and _we_ sung, and _we_
walked, and _we_ rode, and _we_ prayed together at
chapel, and were so sociable and agreeable ‘_you’ve no
notion_,’ as Miss Larolles would say.”

What will now follow, will be copied from the memoir book of Dr. Burney of this month of May; which, after a dreary winter of sorrow, seemed to have been hailed as genially by the Historian of Music, as by the minstrelsy of the woods.

“1805.—In May, at a concert at Lady Salisbury’s, I
was extremely pleased, both with the music and the
performance. The former was chiefly selected by the
Prince of Wales. * * * I had not been five minutes in
the concert room, before a messenger, sent to me by his
Royal Highness, gave me a command to join him, which I
did eagerly enough; when his Royal Highness graciously
condescended to order me to sit down by him, and kept me
to that high honour the whole evening. Our ideas, by his
engaging invitation, were reciprocated upon every piece,
and its execution. After the concert, Lady Melbourne,
who, when Miss Milbanke, had been one of my first
scholars on my return to London from Lynn, obligingly
complained that she had often vainly tried to tempt me to
dine with her, but would make one effort more now, by his
Royal Highness’s permission, that I might meet, at Lord
Melbourne’s table, with the Prince of Wales.

“Of course I expressed, as well as I could, my sense of
so high and unexpected an honour; and the Prince, with a
smile of unequalled courtesy, said, ‘Aye, do come, Dr.
Burney, and bring your son with you.’ And then, turning
to Lady Melbourne, he added,—‘It is singular that the
father should be the best, and almost the only good judge
of music in the kingdom; and his son the best scholar.’