“Come then, my friend! my Genius!——Oh, master of the poet and the song!”
“Come then, my friend! my Genius!——Oh, master of the poet and the song!”
“Come then, my friend! my Genius!——Oh, master of the poet and the song!”
“Come then, my friend! my Genius!——Oh, master of the poet and the song!”
“Come then, my friend! my Genius!——
Oh, master of the poet and the song!”
Fortunately, therefore, the ingenuous youth and inexperience of the subject of these memoirs, escaped the brilliant poison of metaphysical sophistry, that might else have disturbed his peace, and darkened his happiness.
The set to which Mr. Greville belonged, was as little studious to seek, as likely to gain, either for its advantage or its evil, admission to a character so eminently scholastic, or so personally fastidious, as that of Lord Bolingbroke; though, had he been unhampered by such colleagues, Lord Bolingbroke, as a metaphysician, would have been sought with eager, nay, fond alacrity, by Mr. Greville; metaphysics being, in his own conception and opinion, the proper bent of his mind and understanding. But those with whom he now was connected, encompassed him with snares that left little opening to any higher pursuits than their own.
The aim, therefore, of young Burney, was soon limited to obtaining a glance of the still noble, though infirm figure, and still handsome, though aged countenance of this celebrated statesman. And of these, for the most transitory view, he would frequently, with a book in his hand, loiter by the hour opposite to his lordship’s windows, whichwerevis à visto those of Mr. Greville; or run, in circular eddies, from side to side of the sedan chair in which his lordship was carried to the pump-room.
Mr. Greville, though always entertained by the juvenile eagerness of his young favourite, pursued his own modish course with the alternate ardour and apathy, which were then beginning to be what now is called the order of the day; steering—for he thought that wasthe thing—with whatever was most in vogue, even when it was least to his taste; and making whatever was most expensive the criterion for his choice, even in diversions; because that was what most effectually would exclude plebeian participation.
And to this lofty motive, rather than to any appropriate fondness for its charms, might be attributed, in its origin, his fervour for gaming; though gaming, with that poignant stimulus, self-conceit, which, where calculation tries to battle with chance, goads on, with resistless force, our designs by our presumption, soon left wholly in the back ground every attempt at rivalry by any other species of recreation.
Hunting therefore, shooting, riding, music, drawing,dancing, fencing, tennis, horse-racing, the joys of Bacchus, and numerous other exertions of skill, of strength, of prowess, and of ingenuity, served but, ere long, to fill up the annoying chasms by which these nocturnal orgies were interrupted through the obtrusion of day.
Such was the new world into which the subject of these memoirs was thus abruptly let loose; but, happily, his good taste was as much revolted as his morality, against its practices. And his astonishment at the dreadful night-work that has been described; so absorbent, concentrating, and fearful, hung round with such dire prognostics, pursued with so much fury, or brooded over with such despondence; never so thoughtlessly wore away as to deaden his horror of its perils.
Mr. Greville himself, though frequenting these scenes as an expert and favourite member of the coteries in which they were enacted, had too real a sense of right, and too sincere a feeling of humanity, to intend involving an inexperienced youth in a passion for the amusements of hazard; or to excitein him a propensity for the dissolute company of which its followers are composed; who, satiated with every species of pleasure that is innoxious, are alive alone to such as can rescue them from ruin, even though at the fatal price of betraying into its gulph the associates with whom they chiefly herd.
Nevertheless, he gave no warning to young Burney of danger. Aware that there was no fortune to lose, he concluded there was no mischief to apprehend; and, satisfied that the sentiments of the youth were good, to meddle with his principles seemed probably a work of supererogation. Without reflection, therefore, rather than with any project, he was glad of a sprightly participator, with whom he could laugh the next morning, at whatever had been ludicrous over-night; though to utter either caution or counsel, he would have thought moralizing, and, consequently,fogrum; a term which he adopted for whatever speech, action, or mode of conduct, he disdainfully believed to be beneath the hightonto which he considered himself to be born and bred.
From suchfogrumsort of work, therefore, he contemptuously recoiled, deeming it fitted exclusively for schoolmasters, or for priests.
Not solely, however, to public places were the pleasures, or the magnificence, of Mr. Greville confined. He visited, with great fondness and great state, his family seat in Wiltshire; and had the highest gratification in receiving company there with splendour, and in awakening their surprise, and surpassing their expectations, by the spirit and the changes of their entertainment.
He travelled in a style that was even princely; not only from his equipages, out-riders, horses, and liveries, but from constantly having two of his attendants skilled in playing the French horn. And these were always stationed to recreate him with marches and warlike movements, on the outside of the windows, where he took any repast.
Wilbury House, the seat of Mr. Greville, situated near Andover, in Wiltshire, was a really pretty place; but it had a recommendation to those who possess wealth and taste with superfluous time, far greater than any actual beauty, by requiring expensive alterations, and being susceptible of lavish improvements.
This enhanced all its merits to Mr. Greville, who,when out of other employment for his thoughts, devoted them to avenues, plantations, rising hills, sinking dales, and unexpected vistas; to each of which he called upon whatever guests were at his house, during their creation, for as much astonishment as applause.
The call, however, was frequently unanswered; it was so palpable that he was urged to this pursuit by lassitude rather than pleasure; by flourishing ostentation rather than by genuine picturesque taste; so obvious that to draw forth admiration to the beauties of his grounds, was far less his object than to stir up wonder at the recesses of his purse; that the wearied and wary visitor, who had once been entrapped to follow his footsteps, in echoing his exclamations of delight at his growing embellishments, was, ever after, sedulous, when he was with his workmen and his works, to elude them: though all alike were happy to again rejoin him at his sports and at his table; for there he was gay, hospitable, and pleasing, brilliant in raillery, and full of enjoyment.
The first entrance of young Burney into Wilbury House was engraven, ever after it took place, ingolden characters of sacred friendship upon his mind, for there he first met with Mr. Crisp. And as his acquaintance with Mr. Greville had opened new roads and pursuits in life to his prospects, that of Mr. Crisp opened new sources and new energies to his faculties, for almost every species of improvement.
Mr. Crisp, by birth and education a gentleman, according to the ordinary acceptation of that word, was in mind, manners, and habits yet more truly so, according to the most refined definition of the appellation, as including honour, spirit, elegance, language, and grace.
His person and port were distinguished; his address was even courtly; his face had the embellishment of a strikingly fine outline; bright, hazel, penetrating, yet arch eyes; an open front; a noble Roman nose; and a smile of a thousand varied expressions.
But all that was external, however attractive, however full of promise, however impossible to pass over, was of utterly inferior worth compared with the inward man; for there he was rare indeed. Profound in wisdom; sportive in wit; sound in understanding. A scholar of the highest order; a critic of the clearest acumen; possessing, with equaldelicacy of discrimination, a taste for literature and for the arts; and personally excelling, as adilettante, both in music and painting.
It was difficult to discuss any classical or political work, that his conversation did not impregnate with more information and more wit than, commonly speaking, their acutest authors had brought forward. And such was his knowledge of mankind, that it was something beyond difficult, it was scarcely even possible, to investigate any subject requiring worldly sagacity, in which he did not dive into the abysses of the minds and the propensities of the principals, through whom the business was to be transacted, with a perspicuity so masterly, that while weighing all that was presented to him, it developed all that was held back; and fathomed at once the intentions and the resources of his opponents.
And with abilities thus grand and uncommon for great and important purposes, if to such he had been called, he was endowed with discursive powers for the social circle, the most varied in matter, the most solid in reasoning, and the most delighting in gaiety—or nearly so—that ever fell to favoured mortal’s lot.
The subject of these memoirs was but seventeenyears of age, when first he had the incalculable advantage of being attracted to explore this Mine of wisdom, experience, and accomplishments. His musical talents, and a sympathy of taste in the choice of composers, quickly caught the responsive ears of Mr. Crisp; which vibrated to every passage, every sound, that the young musician embellished by graces intuitively his own, either of expression or execution. And whenever Mr. Crisp could contrive to retreat, and induce his new Orpheus to retreat, from the sports of the field, it was even with ardour that he escaped from the clang of horses and hounds, to devote whole mornings to the charms,
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
of harmony. And harmony indeed, in its most enlarged combinations, united here the player and the auditor; for they soon discovered that not in music alone, but in general sentiments, their hearts were tuned to the same key, and expanded to the same “concord of sweet sounds.”
The love of music, in Mr. Crisp, amounted to passion; yet that passion could not have differed more from modern enthusiasm in that art, if it had been hatred; since, far from demanding, accordingto the present mode, every two or three seasons, new compositions and new composers, his musical taste and consistency deviated not from his taste and consistency in literature: and where a composer had hit his fancy, and a composition had filled him with delight, he would call for his favourite pieces of Bach of Berlin, Handel, Scarlatti, or Echard, with the same reiteration of eagerness that he would again and again read, hear, or recite chosen passages from the works of his favourite bards, Shakespeare, Milton, or Pope.
Mr. Greville was sometimes diverted, and sometimes nettled, by this double defection; for in whatever went forward, he loved to be lord of the ascendant: but Mr. Crisp, whose temper was as unruffled as his understanding was firm, only smiled at his friend’s diversion; and from his pique looked away. Mr. Greville then sought to combat this musical mania by ridicule, and called upon his companions of the chase to halloo the recreant huntsman to the field; affirming that he courted the pipe and the song, only to avoid clearing a ditch, and elude leaping a five-barred gate.
This was sufficient to raise the cry against the delinquent; for Man without business or employmentis always disposed to be a censor of his neighbour; and whenever he thinks his antagonist on the road to defeat, is always alert to start up for a wit. Mr. Crisp, therefore, now, was assailed as a renegado from the chase; as a lounger; a loiterer; scared by the horses; panic-struck by the dogs; and more fearful of the deer, than the deer could be of the hunter.
In the well-poized hope, that the less the sportsmen were answered, the sooner they would be fatigued and depart, Mr. Crisp now and then gave them a nod, but never once a word; even though this forbearance instigated a triumph, loud, merry, and exulting; and sent them off, and brought them back, in the jovial persuasion that, in their own phrase, they had dumb-founded him.
With this self-satisfied enjoyment, Mr. Crisp unresistingly indulged them; though with a single pointed sentence, he could rapidly have descended them from their fancied elevation. But, above all petty pride of superiority in trifles, he never held things of small import to be worth the trouble of an argument. Still less, however, did he choose to be put out of his own way; which he always pursued with placid equanimity whenever it was opposed without irrefragable reason. Good-humouredly, however,he granted to his adversaries, in whose laughs and railing he sometimes heartily joined, the full play of their epigrams; internally conscious that, if seriously provoked, he could retort them by lampoons. Sometimes, nevertheless, when he was hard beset by gibes and jeers at his loss of sport; or by a chorus of mock pitiers shouting out, “Poor Crisp! poor fellow! how consumedly thou art moped!” he would quietly say, with a smile of inexpressible archness, “Go to, my friends, go to! go you your way, and let me go mine! And pray, don’t be troubled for me; depend upon it there is nobody will take more care of Samuel Crisp than I will!”
In this manner, and in these sets, rapidly, gaily, uncounted, and untutored, glided on imperceptibly the first youth of the subject of these memoirs: surrounded by temptations to luxury, expense, and dangerous pleasures, that, in weaker intellects, might have sapped for ever the foundations of religion and virtue. But a love of right was the predominant feature of the mind of young Burney. Mr. Greville, also, himself, with whatever mockery he would have sneered away any expression tending either topractice or meditation in piety, instinctively held in esteem whatever was virtuous; and what was vicious in scorn: though his esteem for virtue was never pronounced, lest it should pass for pedantry; and his scorn for vice was studiously disguised, lest he should be set down himself for a Fogrum.
New scenes, and of deeper interest, presented themselves ere long. A lovely female, in the bloom of youth, equally high in a double celebrity, the most rarely accorded to her sex, of beauty and of wit, and exquisite in her possession of both, made an assault upon the eyes, the understanding, and the heart of Mr. Greville; so potent in its first attack, and so varied in its after stages, that, little as he felt at that time disposed to barter his boundless liberty, his desultory pursuits, and his brilliant, though indefinite expectations, for a bondage so narrow, so derogatory to the swing of his wild will, as that of marriage appeared to him; he was caught by so many charms, entangled in so many inducements, and inflamed by such a whirl of passions, that he soon almost involuntarily surrendered to thebesieger; not absolutely at discretion, but very unequivocally from resistless impulse.
This lady was Miss Fanny Macartney, the third daughter of Mr. Macartney, a gentleman of large fortune, and of an ancient Irish family.
In Horace Walpole’s Beauties, Miss Fanny Macartney was the Flora.
In Greville’s Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, she was also Flora, contrasted with Camilla, who was meant for Mrs. Garrick.
Miss Fanny Macartney was of a character which, at least in its latter stages, seems to demand two pencils to delineate; so diversely was it understood, or appreciated.
To many she passed for being pedantic, sarcastic, and supercilious: as such, she affrighted the timid, who shrunk into silence; and braved the bold, to whom she allowed no quarter. The latter, in truth, seemed to stimulate exertions which brought her faculties into play; and which—besides creating admiration in all who escaped her shafts—appeared to offer to herself a mental exercise, useful to her health, and agreeable to her spirits.
Her understanding was truly masculine; not from being harsh or rough, but from depth, soundness, andcapacity; yet her fine small features, and the whole style of her beauty, looked as if meant by Nature for the most feminine delicacy: but her voice, which had something in it of a croak; and her manner, latterly at least, of sitting, which was that of lounging completely at her ease, in such curves as she found most commodious, with her head alone upright; and her eyes commonly fixed, with an expression rather alarming than flattering, in examination of some object that caught her attention; probably caused, as they naturally excited, the hard general notion to her disadvantage above mentioned.
This notion, nevertheless, though almost universally harboured in the circle of her public acquaintance, was nearly reversed in the smaller circles that came more in contact with her feelings. By this last must be understood, solely, the few who were happy enough to possess her favour; and to them she was a treasure of ideas and of variety. The keenness of her satire yielded its asperity to the zest of her good-humour, and the kindness of her heart. Her noble indifference to superior rank, if placed in opposition to superior merit; and her delight in comparing notes with those with whom she desired to balance opinions, established her, in her ownelected set, as one of the first of women. And though the fame of her beauty must pass away in the same oblivious rotation which has withered that of her rival contemporaries, the fame of her intellect must ever live, while sensibility may be linked with poetry, and the Ode to Indifference shall remain to shew their union.
The various incidents that incited and led to the connexion that resulted from this impassioned opening, appertain to the history of Mr. Greville; but, in its solemn ratification, young Burney took a part so essential, as to produce a striking and pleasing consequence to much of his after-life.
The wedding, though no one but the bride and bridegroom themselves knew why, was a stolen one; and kept profoundly secret; which, notwithstanding the bride was under age, was by no means, at that time, difficult, the marriage act having not yet passed. Young Burney, though the most juvenile of the party, was fixed upon to give the lady away;[9]which evinced a trust and a partiality in the bridegroom, that were immediately adopted by his fairpartner; and by her unremittingly sustained, with the frankest confidence, and the sincerest esteem, through the whole of a long and varied life. With sense and taste such as hers, it was not, indeed, likely she should be slack to discern and develop a merit so formed to meet their perceptions.
When the new married pair went through the customary routine of matrimonial elopers, namely, that of returning home to demand pardon and a blessing, Mr. Macartney coolly said: “Mr. Greville has chosen to take a wife out of the window, whom he might just as well have taken out of the door.”
The immediate concurrence of the lovely new mistress of Wilbury House, in desiring the society, even more than enjoying the talents, of her lord and master’s favourite, occasioned his residence there to be nearly as unbroken as their own. And the whole extensive neighbourhood so completely joined in this kindly partiality, that no engagement, no assemblage whatsoever took place, from the most selectly private, to the most gorgeously public, to which the Grevilles were invited, in which he was not included: and he formed at that period many connections of lasting and honourable intimacy; particularly with Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Boone, and Mr. Cox.
They acted, also, sundry proverbs, interludes, and farces, in which young Burney was always a principal personage. In one, amongst others, he played his part with a humour so entertaining, that its nick-name was fastened upon him for many years after its appropriate representation. It would be difficult, indeed, not to accord him theatrical talents, when he could perform with success a character so little congenial with his own, as that of a finical, conceited coxcomb, a paltry and illiterate poltroon; namely, Will Fribble, Esq., in Garrick’s farce of Miss in her Teens. Mr. Greville himself was Captain Flash, and the beautiful Mrs. Greville was Miss Biddy Bellair; by which three names, from the great diversion their adoption had afforded, they corresponded with one another during several years.
The more serious honour that had been conferred upon young Burney, of personating the part of father to Mrs. Greville, was succeeded, in due season after these gay espousals, by that of personating the part of god-father to her daughter; in standing, as the representative of the Duke of Beaufort, at the baptism of Miss Greville, afterwards the all-admired, and indescribably beautiful Lady Crewe.
Little could he then foresee, that he was bringinginto the christian community a permanent blessing for his own after-life, in one of the most cordial, confidential, open-hearted, and unalterable of his friends.
But not to Mr. Greville alone was flung one of those blissful or baneful darts, that sometimes fix in a moment, and irreversibly, the domestic fate of man; just such another, as potent, as pointed, as piercing, yet as delicious, penetrated, a short time afterwards, the breast of young Burney; and from eyes perhaps as lovely, though not as celebrated; and from a mind perhaps as highly gifted, though not as renowned.
Esther Sleepe—this memorialist’s mother—of whom she must now with reverence, with fear—yet with pride and delight—offer the tribute of a description—was small and delicate, but not diminutive, in person. Her face had that sculptural oval form which gives to the air of the head something like the ideal perfection of the poet’s imagination. Her fair complexion was embellished by a rosy hue upon her cheeks of Hebe freshness. Her eyes were of the finest azure, and beaming with the brightestintelligence; though they owed to the softness of their lustre a still more resistless fascination: and they were set in her head with such a peculiarity of elegance in shape and proportion, that they imparted a nobleness of expression to her brow and to her forehead, that, whether she were beheld when attired for society; or surprised under the negligence of domestic avocation; she could be viewed by no stranger whom she did not strike with admiration; she could be broken in upon by no old friend who did not look at her with new pleasure.
It was at a dance that she first was seen by young Burney, at the house of his elder brother, in Hatton Garden; and that first sight was to him decisive, for he was not more charmed by her beauty than enchanted by her conversation.
So extraordinary, indeed, were the endowments of her mind, that, her small opportunity for their attainment considered, they are credible only from having been known upon proof.
Born in the midst of the city—but not in one of those mansions where, formerly,[10]luxury and riches revelled with a lavish preponderance of magnificence, that left many of those of the nobles of the west plain or old-fashioned in comparison: not in one of those dwellings of the hospitable English merchant of early days, whose boundless liberality brought tributary under his roof the arts and sciences, in the persons of their professors; and who rivalled the nobles in the accomplishments of their progeny, till, by mingling in acquirements, they mingled in blood:—the birth of the lovely Esther had nothing to boast from parental dignity, parental opulence, nor—strange, and stranger yet to tell—parental worth.
Alone stood the lovely Esther, unsustained by ancestry, unsupported by wealth, unimpelled by family virtue——
Yet no!—in this last article there was a partnership that redeemed the defection, since the Male parent was not more wanting in goodness, probity, and conduct, than the Female was perfect in all—if perfect were a word that, without presumption, might ever be applied to a human being.
With no advantage, therefore, of education, save the simple one of early learning, or, rather, imbibing the French language, from her maternal grandfather,who was a native of France, but had been forced from his country by the edict of Nantz; this gifted young creature was one of the most pleasing, well-mannered, well-read, elegant, and even cultivated, of her sex: and wherever she appeared in a social circle, and was drawn forth—which the attraction of her beauty made commonly one and the same thing—she was generally distinguished as the first female of the party for sense, literature, and, rarer still, for judgment; a pre-eminence, however, not more justly, than, by herself, unsuspectedly her due; for, more than unassuming, she was ignorant of her singular superiority.[11]
To excel in music, or in painting, so as to rival even professors, save the highest, in those arts, had not then been regarded as the mere ordinary progress of female education: nor had the sciences yet become playthings for the nursery. These new roads of ambition for juvenile eminence are undoubtedlyimprovements, where they leave not out more essential acquirements. Yet, perhaps, those who were born before this elevation was the mode; whose calls, therefore, were not so multitudinous for demonstrative embellishments, may be presumed to have risen to more solid advantages in mental attainments, and in the knowledge and practice of domestic duties, than the super-accomplished aspirants at excellence in a mass, of the present moment.
A middle course might, perhaps, be more intellectually salubrious, because more simple and natural: and foremost herself, if she may be judged by analogy, foremost herself, had stood this lovely Esther, in amalgamating the two systems in her own studies and pursuits, had they equally, at that time, been within the scope of her consciousness: for straight-forward as was her design in all that she deemed right, whatever was presented to even a glimpse of her perceptions that was new and ingenious, rapidly opened to her lively understanding a fresh avenue to something curious, useful, or amusing, that she felt herself irresistibly invited to explore.
Botany, then, was no familiar accomplishment; but flowers and plants she cultivated with assiduouscare; sowing, planting, pruning, grafting, and rearing them, to all the purposes of sight and scent that belong to their fragrant enjoyment; though untutored in their nomenclature, and unlearned in their classification.
Astronomy, though beyond her grasp as a science, she passionately caught at in its elementary visibility, loving it for its intrinsic glory, and enamoured of it yet more fondly from her own favourite idea, that the soul of the righteous, upon the decease of the body, may be wafted to realms of light, and permitted thence to look down, as guardian angel, on those most precious to it left behind.
Yet so strict was her sense of duty, that she never suffered this vivid imagination to put it out of its bias; and the clearness of her judgment regulated so scrupulously the disposition of her hours, that, without neglecting any real devoir, she made leisure, by skilful arrangements and quickness of execution, for nearly every favourite object that hit her fancy; holding almost as sacred the employment of her spare moments, as most others hold the fulfilment of their stated occupations.
And, indeed, so only could she, thus self-taught by self-investigation, study, and labour, have risen to those various excellences that struck all whosaw, and impressed all who knew her, with admiration mingled with wonder.
Critical was the first instant of meeting between two young persons thus similarly self-modelled, and thus singularly demonstrating, that Education, with all her rules, her skill, her experienced knowledge, and her warning wisdom, may so be supplied, be superseded, by Genius, when allied to Industry, as to raise beings who merit to be pointed out as examples, even to those who have not a difficulty to combat, who are spurred by encouragement, and instructed by able teachers; to all which advantages young Burney and Esther—though as far removed from distress as from affluence—were equally strangers.
Who shall be surprised that two such beings, thus opening into life and distinction through intellectual vigour, and thus instinctively sustaining unaided conflicts against the darkness of ignorance, the intricacies of new doctrines, and all the annoying obstructions of early prejudices,—who shall be surprised, that two such beings, where, on one side, there was so much beauty to attract, and on the other so much discernment to perceive the value of her votary, upon meeting each otherat the susceptible age of ardent youth, should have emitted, spontaneously, and at first sight, from heart to heart, sparks so bright and pure that they might be called electric, save that their flame was exempt from any shock?
Young Burney at this time had no power to sue for the hand, though he had still less to forbear suing for the heart, of this fair creature: not only he had no fortune to lay at her feet, no home to which he could take her, no prosperity which he could invite her to share; another barrier, which seemed to him still more formidable, stood imperviously in his way—his peculiar position with Mr. Greville.
That gentleman, in freeing the subject of these memoirs from his engagements with Dr. Arne, meant to act with as much kindness as munificence; for, casting aside all ostentatious parade, he had shown himself as desirous to gain, as to become, a friend. Yet was there no reason to suppose he purposed to rear a vine, of which he would not touch the grapes.
To be liberal, suited at once the real good taste of his character, and his opinion of what was due to his rank in life; and in procuring to himself the double pleasure of the society and the talents ofyoung Burney, he thought his largess to Dr. Arne well bestowed; but it escaped his reflections, that the youth whom he made his companion in London, at Wilbury House, at Newmarket, and at Bath, in quitting the regular pursuit of his destined profession, risked forfeiting the most certain guarantee to prosperity in business, progressive perseverance.
Nevertheless, those drawbacks to this splendid connection occurred not at its beginning, nor yet for many a day after, to the young votary of Apollo. The flattering brilliancy of the change, and the sort of romance that hung upon its origin, kept aloof all calculations of its relative mischiefs; which only distantly to have contemplated, in the sparkling novelty that mingled such gay pleasure with his gratitude, would have appeared to him ungenerous, if not sordid. Youth is rarely enlightened by foresight upon prudential prospects; and the mental optic of young Burney was not quickened to this perception, till the desire of independence to his fortune was excited by the loss of it to his heart; for never had he missed his liberty, till he sighed to make it a fresh sacrifice to a more lasting bondage.
It was then he first felt the torment of uncertain situation; it was then he appreciated the high malevalue of self-dependence; it was then he first conceived, that, though gaiety may be found, and followed, and met, and enjoyed abroad, not there, but at home, is happiness! Yet, from the moment a bosom whisper softly murmured to him the name of Esther, he had no difficulty to believe in the distinct existence of happiness from pleasure; and—still less to devise where—for him—it must be sought.
When he made known to his fair enslaver his singular position, and entreated her counsel to disentangle him from a net, of which, till now, the soft texture had impeded all discernment of the confinement, the early wisdom with which she preached to him patience and forbearance, rather diminished than augmented his power of practising either, by an increase of admiration that doubled the eagerness of his passion.
Nevertheless, he was fain to comply with her counsel, though less from acquiescence than from helplessness how to devise stronger measures, while under this nameless species of obligation to Mr. Greville, which he could not satisfy his delicacy in breaking; nor yet, in adhering to, justify his sense of his own rights.
He could consent, however, to be passive onlywhile awaiting some happy turn for propitiating his efforts to escape from the sumptuous scenes, which, with his heart away from them, he now looked upon as obscuring, not illuminating, his existence; since they promoted not the means of arriving at all he began to hold worth pursuit, “Home, sweet home!” which he now severely saw could be reached only by regular assiduity in his profession.
From this time it was with difficulty he could assume spirit sufficient for sustaining his intercourse, hitherto so happy, so lively, with the Grevilles; not alone from the sufferings of absence, but from hard secret conflicts, whether or not to reveal his distress. Mr. Greville, who, a short time back would quickly have discerned his latent uneasiness, was now so occupied by his own new happiness, conjugal and paternal, that though he welcomed young Burney with unabated kindness, his own thoughts, and his observations, were all centered in his two Fannys.
During the first fair breathings of early wedded love, the scoff of the tender passion, the sneer against romance, the contempt of refined reciprocations of sentiment, are done away, even from the most sarcastic, by a newly imbibed consciousness of the felicity of virtuous tenderness; which were itspermanence more frequently equal to its enjoyment, would irresistibly convert the scorn of its deriders into envy. But constancy in affection from long dissipated characters, must always, whether in friendship or in love, be as rare as it is right; for constancy requires virtue to be leagued with the passions.
Unmarked, therefore, young Burney kept to himself his unhappiness; though he was not now impeded from communication by fears of the raillery with which, previously to his marriage, Mr. Greville would have held up to mockery a tale of love in a cottage, as a proper pendant to a tale of love in bedlam. But still he was withheld from all genial confidence, by apprehensions of remonstrances which he now considered as mercenary, if not derogatory, against imprudent connexions; and of representations of his own claims to higher views; which he now, from his belief that his incomparable choice would out-balance in excellence all vain attempts at competition, deemed profane if not insane.
Mrs. Greville, having no clew to his secret feelings, was not aware of their disturbance; she might else easily, and she would willingly, have drawn forth his confidence, from the kindly disposition that subsisted, on both sides, to trust and to friendship.
But a discovery the most painful of the perturbed state of his mind, was soon afterwards impelled by a change of affairs in the Grevilles, which they believed would enchant him with pleasure; but which they found, to their unspeakable astonishment, overpowered him with affliction.
This was no other than a plan of going abroad for some years, and of including him in their party.
Concealment was instantly at an end. The sudden dismay of his ingenuous countenance, though it told not the cause, betrayed past recall his repugnance to the scheme.
With parts so lively, powers of observation so ready, and a spirit so delighting in whatever was uncommon and curious, they had expected that such a prospect of visiting new countries, surveying new scenes, mingling with new characters; and traversing the foreign world, under their auspices, in all its splendour, would have raised in him a buoyant transport, exhilarating to behold. But the sudden paleness that overspread his face; his downcast eye; the quiver of his lips; and the unintelligible stammer of his vainly attempted reply, excited interrogatories so anxious and so vehement, that they soon induced an avowal that a secretpower had gotten possession of his mind, and sturdily exiled from it all ambition, curiosity, or pleasure, that came not in the form of an offering to its all-absorbing shrine.
Every objection and admonition which he had anticipated, were immediately brought forward by this confession; but they were presented with a lenity that showed his advisers to be fully capable of conceiving, though persuaded that they ought to oppose, his feelings.
Disconcerted, as well as dejected, because dissatisfied as well as unhappy in his situation, from mental incertitudes what were its real calls; and whether or not the ties of interest and obligation were here of sufficient strength to demand the sacrifice of those of love; he attempted not to vindicate, unreflectingly, his wishes; and still less did he permit himself to treat them as his intentions. With faint smiles, therefore, but stifled sighs, he heard, with civil attention, their opinions; though, determined not to involve himself in any embarrassing conditions, he would risk no reply; and soon afterwards, curbing his emotion, he started abruptly another subject.
“They thought him wise, and followed as he led.”
All the anguish, however, that was here suppressed, found vent with redoubled force at the feet of the fair partner in his disappointment; who, while unaffectedly sharing it, resolutely declined receiving clandestinely his hand, though tenderly she clung to his heart. She would listen to no project that might lead him to relinquish such solid friends, at the very moment that they were preparing to give him the strongest proof of their fondness for his society, and of their zeal in his benefit and improvement.
Young Burney was not the less unhappy at this decision from being sensible of its justice, since his judgment could not but thank her, in secret, for pronouncing the hard dictates of his own.
All that he now solicited was her picture, that he might wear her resemblance next his heart, till that heart should beat to its responsive original.
With this request she gracefully complied; and she sat for him to Spencer, one of the most famous miniature painters of that day.
Of striking likeness was this performance, of which the head and unornamented hair were executed with the most chaste simplicity; and young Burney reaped from this possession all that had power to afford himconsolation; since he now could soften off the pangs of separation, by gliding from company, public places or assemblages, to commune by himself with the countenance of all he held most dear.
Thus solaced, he resigned himself with more courage to his approaching misfortune.
The Grevilles, it is probable, from seeing him apparently revived, imagined that, awakened from his flights of fancy, he was recovering his senses: but when, from this idea, they started, with light raillery, the tender subject, they found their utter mistake. The most distant hint of abandoning such excellence, save for the moment, and from the moment’s necessity, nearly convulsed him with inward disturbance; and so changed his whole appearance, that, concerned as well as amazed, they were themselves glad to hasten from so piercing a topic.
Too much moved, however, to regain his equilibrium, he could not be drawn from a disturbed taciturnity, till shame, conquering his agitation, enabled him to call back his self-command. He forced, then, a laugh at his own emotion; but, presently afterwards seized with an irresistible desire of shewing what he thought its vindication, he tookfrom his bosom the cherished miniature, and placed it, fearfully, almost awfully, upon a table.
It was instantly and eagerly snatched from hand to hand by the gay couple; and young Burney had the unspeakable relief of perceiving that this impulsive trial was successful. With expansive smiles they examined and discussed the charm of the complexion, the beauty of the features, and the sensibility and sweetness conveyed by their expression: and what was then the joy, the pride of heart, the soul’s delight of the subject of these memoirs, when those fastidious judges, and superior self-possessors of personal attractions, voluntarily and generously united in avowing that they could no longer wonder at his captivation.
As a statue he stood fixed before them; a smiling one, indeed; a happy one; but as breathless, as speechless, as motionless.
Mr. Greville then, with a laugh, exclaimed, “But why, Burney, why don’t you marry her?”
Whether this were uttered sportively, inadvertently, or seriously, young Burney took neither time nor reflection to weigh; but, starting forward with ingenuous transport, called out, “May I?”
No negative could immediately follow an interrogatorythat had thus been invited; and to have pronounced one in another minute would have been too late; for the enraptured and ardent young lover, hastily construing a short pause into an affirmative, blithely left them to the enjoyment of their palpable amusement at his precipitancy; and flew, with extatic celerity, to proclaim himself liberated from all mundane shackles, to her with whom he thought eternal bondage would be a state celestial.
From this period, to that of their exquisitely happy union,
“Gallopp’d apace the fiery-footed steeds,”
that urged on Time with as much gay delight as prancing rapidity; for if they had not, in their matrimonial preparations, the luxuries of wealth, neither had they its fatiguing ceremonies; if they had not the security of future advantage, they avoided the torment of present procrastination; and if they had but little to bestow upon one another, they were saved, at least, the impatiency of waiting for the seals, signatures, and etiquettes of lawyers, to bind down a lucrative prosperity to survivorship.
To the mother of the bride, alone of her family, was confided, on the instant, this spontaneous, thissudden felicity. Little formality was requisite, before the passing of the marriage act, for presenting at the hymeneal altar its destined votaries; and contracts the most sacred could be rendered indissoluble almost at the very moment of their projection: a strange dearth of foresight in those legislators who could so little weigh the chances of a minor’s judgment upon what, eventually, may either suit his taste or form his happiness, for the larger portion of existence that commonly follows his majority.
This mother of the bride was of a nature so free from stain, so elementally white, that it would scarcely seem an hyperbole to denominate her an angel upon earth—if purity of mind that breathed to late old age the innocence of infancy, and sustained the whole intervening period in the constant practice of self-sacrificing virtue, with piety for its sole stimulus, and holy hope for its sole reward, can make pardonable the hazard of such an anticipating appellation,—from which, however, she, her humble self, would have shrunk as from sacrilege.
She was originally of French extraction, from a family of the name of Dubois; but though her father was one of the conscientious victims of the Edict of Nantz, she, from some unknown cause—probably of maternal education—had been brought up a Roman Catholic. The inborn religion of her mind, however, counteracted all that was hostile to her fellow-creatures, in the doctrine of the religion of her ancestors; and her gentle hopes and fervent prayers were offered up as devoutly for those whom she feared were wrong, as they were vented enthusiastically for those whom she was bred to believe were right.
Her bridal daughter, who had been educated a Protestant, and who to that faith adhered steadily and piously through life, loved her with that devoted love which could not but emanate from sympathy of excellence. She was the first pride of her mother,—or, rather, the first delight; for pride, under any form, or through any avenue, direct or collateral, by which that subtle passion works or swells its way to the human breast, her mother knew not; though she was endued with an innate sense of dignity that seemed to exhale around her a sentiment of reverence that, notwithstanding her genuine and invariable humility, guarded her from every species and every approach of disrespect.
She could not but be gratified by an alliance so productive, rather than promising, of happiness toher favourite child; and Mr. Burney—as the married man must now be called—soon imbibed the filial veneration felt by his wife, and loved his mother-in-law as sincerely as if she had been his mother-in-blood.
All plan of going abroad was now, of course, at an end; and the Grevilles, and their beautiful infant daughter, leaving behind them Benedict the married man, set out, a family trio, upon their tour.
The customary compliments of introduction on one hand, and of congratulation on the other, passed, in their usual forms upon such occasions, between the bridegroom and his own family.
Rarely can the highest zest of pleasure awaken, in its most active votary, a sprightliness of pursuit more gay or more spirited, than Mr. Burney now experienced and exhibited in the commonly grave and sober career of business, from the ardour of his desire to obtain self-dependence.
He worked not, indeed, with the fiery excitement of expectation; his reward was already in his hands; but from the nobler impulse he worked of meriting his fair lot; while she, his stimulus, deemed herown the highest prize from that matrimonial wheel whence issue bliss or bane to the remnant life of a sensitive female.
It was in the city, in consequence of his wife’s connexions, that Mr. Burney made his first essay as a housekeeper; and with a prosperity that left not a doubt of his ultimate success. Scholars, in his musical art, poured in upon him from all quarters of that British meridian; and he mounted so rapidly into the good graces of those who were most opulent and most influential, that it was no sooner known that there was a vacancy for an organist professor, in one of the fine old fabrics of devotion which decorate religion in the city and reflect credit on our commercial ancestors, than the Fullers, Hankeys, and all other great houses of the day to which he had yet been introduced, exerted themselves in his service with an activity and a warmth that were speedily successful; and that he constantly recounted with pleasure.
Anxious to improve as well as to prosper in his profession, he also elaborately studied composition, and brought forth several musical pieces; all ofwhich that are authenticated, will be enumerated in a general list of his musical works.
And thus, with a felicity that made toil delicious, through labour repaid by prosperity; exertions, by comfort; fatigue, by soothing tenderness; and all the fond passions of juvenile elasticity, by the charm of happiest sympathy,—began, and were rolling on, equally blissful and busy, the first wedded years of this animated young couple;—when a storm suddenly broke over their heads, which menaced one of those deadly catastrophes, that, by engulphing one loved object in that “bourne whence no traveller returns,” tears up for ever by the root all genial, spontaneous, unsophisticated happiness, from the survivor.
Mr. Burney, whether from overstrained efforts in business; or from an application exceeding his physical powers in composition; or from the changed atmosphere of Cheshire, Shropshire, and Wiltshire, for the confined air of our great and crowded city; which had not then, as now, by a vast mass of improvement, been made nearly as sane as it is populous; suddenly fell, from a state of the most vigorous health, to one the most alarming, of premature decay. And to this defalcation of strength wasshortly added the seizure of a violent and dangerous fever that threatened his life.
The sufferings of the young wife, who was now also a young mother, can only be conceived by contrasting them with her so recent happiness. Yet never did she permit grief to absorb her faculties, nor to vanquish her fortitude. She acted with the same spirited force of mind, as if she had been a stranger to the timid terrors of the heart. She superintended all that was ordered; she executed, where it was possible, all that was performed; she was sedulously careful that no business should be neglected; and her firmness in all that belonged to the interests of her husband, seemed as invulnerable as if that had been her sole occupation; though never, for a moment, was grief away from her side, and though perpetually, irresistibly she wept,—for sorrow with the youthful is always tearful. Yet she strove to disallow herself that indulgence; refusing time even for gently wiping from her cheeks the big drops of liquid anguish which coursed their way; and only, and hastily, almost with displeasure, brushing them off with her hand; while resolutely continuing, or renewing, some useful operation, as if she were but mechanically engaged.
All this was recorded by her adoring husband in an elegy of after-times.
The excellent and able Dr. Armstrong, already the friend of the invalid, was now sent to his aid by the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Home, who had conceived the warmest esteem for the subject of these memoirs. The very sight of this eminent physician was medicinal; though the torture he inflicted by the blister after blister with which he deemed it necessary to almost cover, and almost flay alive, his poor patient, required all the high opinion in which that patient held the doctor’s skill for endurance.
The unsparing, but well-poised, prescriptions of this poetical Æsculapius, succeeded, however, in dethroning and extirpating the raging fever, that, perhaps, with milder means, had undermined the sufferer’s existence. But a consumptive menace ensued, with all its fearful train of cough, night perspiration, weakness, glassy eyes, and hectic complexion; and Dr. Armstrong, foreseeing an evil beyond the remedies of medicine, strenuously urged an adoption of their most efficient successor, change of air.
The patient, therefore, was removed to Canonbury-house; whence, ere long, by the further advice, nay, injunction, of Dr. Armstrong, he was compelledto retire wholly from London; after an illness by which, for thirteen weeks, he had been confined to his bed.
Most fortunately, Mr. Burney, at this time, had proposals made to him by a Norfolk baronet, Sir John Turner, who was member for Lynn Regis, of the place of organist of that royal borough; of which, for a young man of talents and character, the Mayor and Corporation offered to raise the salary from twenty to one hundred pounds a year; with an engagement for procuring to him the most respectable pupils from all the best families in the town and its neighbourhood.
Though greatly chagrined and mortified to quit a situation in which he now was surrounded by cordial friends, who were zealously preparing for him all the harmonical honours which the city holds within its patronage; the declining health of the invalid, and the forcibly pronounced opinion of his scientific medical counsellor, decided the acceptance of this proposal; and Mr. Burney, with his first restored strength, set out for his new destination.
Mr. Burney was compelled to make his first essay of the air, situation, and promised advantages of Lynn, without the companion to whom he owed the re-establishment of health that enabled him to try the experiment: his Esther, as exemplary in her maternal as in her conjugal duties, was now indispensably detained in town by the most endearing of all ties to female tenderness, the first offsprings of a union of mutual love; of which the elder could but just go alone, and the younger was still in her arms.
Mr. Burney was received at Lynn with every mark of favour, that could demonstrate the desire of its inhabitants to attach and fix him to that spot. He was introduced by Sir John Turner to the mayor, aldermen, recorder, clergy, physicians, lawyers, and principal merchants, who formed the higher population of the town; and who in their traffic, the wine trade, were equally eminent for the goodness of their merchandize and the integrity of their dealings.
All were gratified by an acquisition to their distant and quiet town, that seemed as propitious tosociety as to the arts; the men with respect gave their approbation to his sense and knowledge; the women with smiles bestowed theirs upon his manners and appearance. His air was so lively, and his figure was so youthful, that the most elegant as well as beautiful woman of the place, Mrs. Stephen Allen, took him for a Cambridge student, who, at that time, was expected at Lynn.
He was not insensible to such a welcome; yet the change was so great from the splendid or elegant, the classical or amusing circles, into which he had been initiated in the metropolis, that, in looking, he said, around him, he seemed to see but a void.
The following energetic lament to his Esther, written about a week after his Lynn residence, will best explain his tormented sensations at this altered scene of life. He was but in his twenty-fourth year, when he gave way to this quick burst of chagrin.