But the social enjoyment that came closest to the bosom of Mr. Burney, and of all his race, sprang spontaneously and unremittingly from the delight of all their hearts, Mr. Crisp; who, from his never abating love of music, of painting, of his early friend, and of that friend’s progeny, never failed to make his almost secret visit once a year to town; though still, save for those few weeks, he adhered, with inflexible perseverance, to his retirement and his concealment.
Yet whatever disinclination to general society had been worked upon his temper by disappointment, and fastened to his habits by ill health, the last reproach that could be cast upon his conduct was that of misanthropy; though upon his opinions it might deserve, perhaps, to be the first.
He professed himself to be a complete disciple of Swift, where that satirist, in defending his Yahoos, in Gulliver’s Travels, avows that, dearly as he loves John, William, and Thomas, when taken individually, mankind, taken in the lump, he abhors or despises.
Nevertheless, Mr. Crisp had so pitying a humanity for wrongs or misfortunes that were casual, or that appeared to be incurred without vice or crime, that, to serve a fellow-creature who called for assistance, whether from his purse or his kindness, was so almost involuntarily his common practice, that it was performed as a thing of course, without emotion or commentary.
Mr. Crisp, at this time, was the chief supporter of Chesington Hall, which had now lost the long dignity of its title, and was sunk into plain Chesington, by the death of its last male descendant, Christopher Hamilton; whose extravagances hadexhausted, and whose negligence had dilapidated the old and venerable domain which, for centuries, had belonged to his family.
The mansion, and the estate, fell, by law, into the hands of Mrs. Sarah Hamilton, a maiden sister of Christopher’s. But this helpless ancient lady was rescued from the intricacies of so involved a succession, by the skilful counsel of Mr. Crisp; who proposed that she should have the capacious old house parted nearly in halves, between herself and an honest farmer, Master Woodhatch; who hired of her, also, what little remained of grounds, for a farm.
Yet, this done, Mrs. Sarah Hamilton was by no means in a situation to reside in the share left to her disposal: Mr. Crisp, therefore, suggested that she should form a competent establishment for receiving a certain number of boarders; and, to encourage the project, entered his own name the first upon her list; and secured to his own use a favourite apartment, with a light and pleasant closet at the end of a long corridor. This closet, some years afterwards, he devoted to his friend Burney, for whom, and for his pen, while he was writing the History of Music, it was held sacred.
And here, in this long-loved rural abode, during the very few intervals that Mr. Burney could snatch from the toils of his profession, and the cares of his family, he had resorted in his widowhood, with his delighted children, to enjoy the society of this most valued and dearly-loved friend; whose open arms, open countenance, faithful affection, and enchanting converse, greeted the group with such expansive glee, that here, in this long-loved rural abode, the Burneys and happiness seemed to make a stand.
The first attempt of Mr. Burney, after his recent marriage, to vary, though not to quit his professional occupations, was seeking to set to music the Ode written in the year 1769, by that most delicately perfect, perhaps, of British poets, Gray, for the installation of the Duke of Grafton as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
The application to the Duke for this purpose met with no opposition from his Grace; and the earnest wish of Mr. Burney was to learn, and to gratify, the taste of the exquisite poet whose verses he was musically to harmonize, with regard to themode of composition that would best accord with the poet’s own lyrical ideas.
To this effect, he addressed himself both for counsel and assistance to his early friend, Mr. Mason; from whom he received a trusting and obliging, but not very comfortable answer.[36]
Not a second did Mr. Burney lose in forwarding every preparation for obviating any disgrace to his melodious muse, Terpsichore, when the poetry of the enchanting bard should come in contact with her lyre. He formed upon a large scale a well chosen band, vocal and instrumental, for the performance; and he engaged, as leader of the orchestra, the celebrated Giardini, who was the acknowledged first violinist of Europe.
But, in the midst of these preliminary measures, he was called upon, by an agent of the Duke, to draw up an estimate of the expense.
This he did, and delivered, with the cheerfulest confidence that his selection fully deserved its appointed retribution, and was elegantly appropriate to the dignity of its purpose.
Such, however, was not the opinion of the advisers of the Duke; and Mr. Burney had the astonishedchagrin of a note to inform him, that the estimate was so extravagant that it must be reduced to at least one half.
Cruelly disappointed, and, indeed, offended, the charge of every performer being merely what was customary for professors of eminence, Mr. Burney was wholly overset. His own musical fame might be endangered, if his composition should be sung and played by such a band as would accept of terms so disadvantageous; and his sense of his reputation, whether professional or moral, always took place of his interest. He could not, therefore, hesitate to resist so humiliating a proposition; and he wrote, almost on the instant, a cold, though respectful resignation of the office of composer of the Installation Ode.
Not without extreme vexation did he take this decided measure; and he was the more annoyed, as it had been his intention to make use of so favourable an opportunity for taking his degree of Doctor of Music, at the University of Cambridge, for which purpose he had composed an exercise. And, when his disturbance at so unlooked for an extinction of his original project was abated, he still resolved to fulfil that part of his design.
He could not, however, while under the infliction of so recent a rebuff, visit, in this secondary manner, the spot he had thought destined for his greatest professional elevation. He repaired, therefore, to Oxford, where his academic exercise was performed with singular applause, and where he took his degree as Doctor in Music, in the year 1769.
And he then formed many connexions amongst the professors and the learned belonging to that University, that led him to revisit it with pleasure, from new views and pursuits, in after-times.
So warmly was this academic exercise approved, that it was called for at three successive annual choral meetings at Oxford; at the second of which the principal soprano part was sung by the celebrated and most lovely Miss Linley, afterwards the St. Cecilia of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the wife of the famous Mr. Sheridan; and sung with a sweetness and pathos of voice and expression that, joined to the beauty of her nearly celestial face, almost maddened with admiring enthusiasm, not only the susceptible young students, then in the first glow of the dominion of the passions, but even the gravest and most profound among the learned professors of the University, in whom the “hey-day of theblood” might be presumed, long since, to have been cooled.
From this period, in which the composer and the songstress, in reflecting new credit, raised new plaudits for each other, there arose between them a reciprocation of goodwill and favour, that lasted unbroken, till the retirement of that fairest of syrens from the world.
The Oxonian new lay-dignitary, recruited in health and spirits, from the flattering personal consideration with which his academical degree had been taken, gaily returned to town with his new title of Doctor.
The following little paragraph is copied from a memorandum book of that year.
“I did not, for some time after the honour that had been conferred on me at Oxford, display my title by altering the plate on my street door; for which omission I was attacked by Mr. Steel, author of an essay on the melody of speech. ‘Burney,’ says he, ‘why don’t you tip us the Doctor upon your door?’ I replied, in provincial dialect, ‘I wants dacity!—’ ‘I’m ashaeemed!’ ‘Pho, pho,’ says he, ‘you had better brazen it.’”
“I did not, for some time after the honour that had been conferred on me at Oxford, display my title by altering the plate on my street door; for which omission I was attacked by Mr. Steel, author of an essay on the melody of speech. ‘Burney,’ says he, ‘why don’t you tip us the Doctor upon your door?’ I replied, in provincial dialect, ‘I wants dacity!—’ ‘I’m ashaeemed!’ ‘Pho, pho,’ says he, ‘you had better brazen it.’”
No production had as yet transpired publicly from the pen of Dr. Burney, his new connexionhaving induced him to consign every interval of leisure to domestic and social circles, whether in London, or at the dowry-house of Mrs. Burney, in Lynn Regis, to which the joint families resorted in the summer.
But when, from peculiar circumstances, Mrs. Burney, and a part of the younger set, remained for a season in Norfolk, the spirit of literary composition resumed its sway; though not in the dignified form in which, afterwards, it fixed its standard.
The long-predicted comet of the immortal Halley, was to make its luminously-calculated appearance this year, 1769; and the Doctor was ardently concurrent with the watchers and awaiters of this prediction.
In the course of this new pursuit, and the researches to which it led, Dr. Burney, no doubt, dwelt even unusually upon the image and the recollection of his Esther; who, with an avidity for knowledge consonant to his own, had found time—made it, rather—in the midst of her conjugal, her maternal, and her domestic devoirs, to translate from the French, the celebrated Letter of Astronomical renown of Maupertuis; not with any prospect of fame; her husband himself was not yet entered upon its annals, nor emerged, save anonymously,from his timid obscurity: it was simply from a love of improvement, and a delight in its acquirement. To view with him the stars, and exchange with him her rising associations of ideas, bounded all the ambition of her exertions.
The recurrence to this manuscript translation, at a moment when astronomy was the nearly universal subject of discourse, was not likely to turn the Doctor aside from this aerial direction of his thoughts; and the little relic, of which even the hand-writing could not but be affecting as well as dear to him, was now read and re-read, till he considered it as too valuable to be lost; and determined, after revising and copying it, to send it to the press.
Whether any tender notion of first, though unsuspectedly, appearing before the public by the side of his Esther, stimulated the production of the Essay that ensued from the revision of this letter; or whether the stimulus of the subject itself led to the publication of the letter, is uncertain; but that they hung upon each other is not without interest, as they unlocked, in concert, the gates through which Doctor Burney first passed to that literary career which, ere long, greeted his more courageous entrance into a publicity that conducted him to celebrity;for it was now that his first prose composition, an Abridged History of Comets, was written; and was printed in a pamphlet that included his Esther’s translation of the Letter of Maupertuis.
This opening enterprize cannot but seem extraordinary, the profession, education, and indispensable business of the Doctor considered; and may bear upon its face a character contradictory to what has been said of his prudent resolve, to avoid any attempt that might warp, or wean him from his own settled occupation; till it is made known that this essay was neither then, nor ever after avowed; nor ever printed with his works.
It was the offspring of the moment, springing from the subject of the day; and owing its birth, there scarcely can be a doubt, to a fond, though unacknowledged indulgence of tender recollections.
The title of the little treatise is, “An Essay towards a History of Comets, previous to the re-appearance of the Comet whose return had been predicted by Edmund Halley.”
In a memorandum upon this subject, by Dr. Burney, are these words:
“The Countess of Pembroke, being reported to have studied astronomy, and to have accustomed herself to telescopical observations,[Pg 218]I dedicated, anonymously, this essay to her ladyship, who was much celebrated for her love of the arts and sciences, and many other accomplishments. I had not the honour of being known to her; and I am not certain whether she ever heard by whom the pamphlet was written.[37]”
“The Countess of Pembroke, being reported to have studied astronomy, and to have accustomed herself to telescopical observations,[Pg 218]I dedicated, anonymously, this essay to her ladyship, who was much celebrated for her love of the arts and sciences, and many other accomplishments. I had not the honour of being known to her; and I am not certain whether she ever heard by whom the pamphlet was written.[37]”
This Essay once composed and printed, the Doctor consigned it to its fate, and thought of it no more.
And the public, after the re-invisibility of the meteor, and the declension of the topic, followed the same course.
But not equally passive either with the humility of the author, or with the indifferency of the readers, were the consequences of this little work; which, having been written wholly in moments stolen from repose, though requiring researches and studies that frequently kept him to his pen till four o’clock in the morning, without exempting him from rising at his common hour of seven; terminated in an acute rheumatic fever, that confined him to his bed, or his chamber, during twenty days.
This sharp infliction, however, though it ill recompensedhis ethereal flights, by no means checked his literary ambition; and the ardour which was cooled for gazing at the stars, soon seemed doubly re-animated for the music of the spheres.
A wish, and a design, energetic, though vague, of composing some considerable work on his own art, had long roved in his thoughts, and flattered his fancy: and he now began seriously to concentrate his meditations, and arrange his schemes to that single point. And the result of these cogitations, when no longer left wild to desultory wanderings, produced his enlightened and scientific plan for a
This project was no sooner fixed than, transiently, it appeared to him to be executed; so quick was the rush upon his imagination of illuminating and varying ideas; and so vast, so prolific, the material which his immense collection of notes, abridgments, and remarks, had amassed, that it seemed as if he had merely to methodize his manuscripts, and entrust them to a copyist, for completing his purpose.
But how wide from the rapidity of such incipient perceptions were the views by which, progressively,they were superseded! Mightier and mightier appeared the enterprize upon every new investigation; more difficult, more laborious, and more precarious in all its results: yet, also, as is usual where Genius is coupled with Application, more inviting, more inciting, and more alluring to the hope of literary glory. ’Tis only where the springs of Genius are clogged by “the heavy and retarding weight” of Indolence; or where they are relaxed by the nervous and trembling irresolutions of timidity, that difficulties and dangers produce desertion.
Far, however, from the desired goal, as was the measured distance of reality compared with the visionary approaches of imagination, he had nothing to lament from time thrown away by previous labours lost: his long, multifarious, and curious, though hitherto unpointed studies, all, ultimately, turned to account; for he found that his chosen subject involved, circuitously, almost every other.
Thus finally fixed to an enterprize which, in this country, at least, was then new, he gave to it all the undivided energies of his mind; and, urged by the spur of ambition, and glowing with the vivacity of hope, he determined to complete his materials before he consigned them to their ultimate appropriations,by making a scientific musical tour through France and Italy.
A letter,[38]of which a copy in his own hand-writing remains, containing the opening view of his plan and of his tour, addressed to the Reverend William Mason, will shew how fully he was prepared for what he engaged to perform, before he called for a subscription to aid the publication of so expensive a work.
Through various of his friends amongst persons in power, he procured recommendatory letters to the several ambassadors and ministers from our Court, who were stationed in the countries through which he meant to travel.
And, through the yet more useful services of persons of influence in letters and in the arts, he obtained introductions, the most felicitous for his enterprize, to those who, then, stood highest in learning, in the sciences, and in literature.
None in this latter class so eminently advanced his undertaking as Mr. Garrick; whose solicitations in his favour were written with a warmth of friendship, and an animation of genius, that carried all before them.
Here stops, for this period, the pen of the memorialist.
From the month of June, 1770, to that of January, 1771, the life of Doctor Burney is narrated by himself, in his “Tour to France and Italy.”
And few who have read, or who may read that Tour, but will regret that the same pen, while in its full fair vigour, had not drawn up what preceded, and what will follow this epoch.
Such, however, not being the case, the memorialist must resume her pen where that of Dr. Burney, in his narrative, drops,—namely, upon his regaining the British shore.
With all the soaring feelings of the first sun-beams of hope that irradiate from a bright, though distant glimpse of renown; untamed by difficulties, superior to fatigue, and springing over the hydra-headed monsters of impediment that every where jutted forth their thwarting obstacles to his enterprize, Dr. Burney came back to his country, his friends, his business, and his pursuits, with the vigour of the first youth in spirits, expectations, and activity.
He was received by his longing family, enlivened by the presence of Mr. Crisp, in a new house, purchased in his absence by Mrs. Burney, at the upper end of Queen-Square; which was then beautifully open to a picturesque view of Hampstead and Highgate. And no small recommendation to an enthusiastic admirer of the British classics, was a circumstance belonging to this property, of its having been the dwelling of Alderman Barber, a friend of Dean Swift; who might himself, therefore, be presumed to have occasionally made its roof resound with the convivial hilarity, which his strong wit, and stronger humour, excited in every hearer; and which he himself, however soberly holding back, enjoyed, probably, in secret, with still more zest than he inspired.
This new possession, however, Dr. Burney could as yet scarcely even view, from his eagerness to bring out the journal of his tour. No sooner, therefore, had he made arrangements for a prolongation of leisure, that he hastened to Chesington and to Mr. Crisp; where he exchanged his toils andlabours for the highest delights of friendship; and a seclusion the most absolute, from the noisy vicissitudes, and unceasing, though often unmeaning persecution, of trivial interruptions.
Here he prepared his French and Italian musical tours for the press; omitting all that was miscellaneous of observation or of anecdote, in deference to the opinions of the Earl of Holdernesse, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Garrick; who conjointly believed that books of general travels were already so numerous, and so spread, that their merits were over-looked from their multiplicity.
If such, at that distant period, was the numerical condemnation of this species of writing, which circumscribed the first published tour of Dr. Burney to its own professional subject, what would be now the doom of the endless herd of tourists of all ranks, qualifications, or deficiencies, who, in these later times, have sent forth their divers effusions, without sparing an idea, a recollection, or scarcely a dream, to work their way in the world, through that general master of the ceremonies, the press? whose portals,though guarded by twovis à vissentinels in eternal hostility with each other, Fame and Disgrace, open equally to publicity.
Mr. Crisp, nevertheless, saw in a totally different light the miscellaneous part of the French and Italian tours, and reprehended its rejection with the high and spirited energy that always marked his zeal, whether of censure or approbation, for whatever affected the welfare of his favourites. But Dr. Burney, having first consulted these celebrated critics, who lived in the immediate world, was too timid to resist their representations of the taste of the moment; though in all that belonged not to the modesty of apprehended partiality, he had the firmest persuasion that the judgment of Mr. Crisp was unrivalled.
The work was entitled:
THE PRESENT STATE OF MUSICIN FRANCE AND ITALY:OR THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR THROUGH THOSE COUNTRIES,UNDERTAKEN TO COLLECT MATERIALS FOR AGENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC,BY CHARLES BURNEY, MUS. D.
Il Canterono allor si dolcemonteChe la dolcerra ancor destra mi suona.
Dante.
The motto was thus translated, though not printed, by Dr. Burney.
“They sung their strains in notes so sweet and clearThe sound still vibrates on my ravished ear.”
“They sung their strains in notes so sweet and clearThe sound still vibrates on my ravished ear.”
“They sung their strains in notes so sweet and clearThe sound still vibrates on my ravished ear.”
“They sung their strains in notes so sweet and clearThe sound still vibrates on my ravished ear.”
“They sung their strains in notes so sweet and clear
The sound still vibrates on my ravished ear.”
The reception of this first acknowledged call for public attention from Dr. Burney, was of the most encouraging description; for though no renown had yet been fastened upon his name, his acquirements and his character, wherever he had been known, had excited a general goodwill that prepared the way to kindly approbation for this, and indeed for every work that issued from his pen.
There was, in truth, something so spirited and uncommon, yet of so antique a cast, in the travels, or pilgrimage, that he had undertaken, in search of materials for the history of his art, that curiosity was awakened to the subject, and expectation was earnest for its execution: and it was no sooner published, than orders were received, by most of the great booksellers of the day, for its purchase; and no sooner read, than letters the most flattering, from the deepest theorists of the science, and the best judges of the practice of the art of music, reached the favoured author; who was of too modest a character to have been robbed of the pleasure of praiseby presumptuous anticipation; and of too natural a one to lose any of its gratification by an apathetic suppression of its welcome. And the effect, impulsive and unsophisticated, of his success, was so ardent an encouragement to his purpose, that while, mentally, it animated his faculties to a yet more forcible pursuit of their decided object, it darted him, corporeally, into a travelling vehicle, which rapidly wheeled him back again to Dover; where, with new spirit and eagerness, he set sail upon a similar musical tour in the Low Countries and in Germany, to that which he had so lately accomplished in France and Italy.
With respect to the French and Italian tour, the restraint from all but its professional business, was much lamented by the friends to whom the sacrifice of the miscellaneous matter was communicated.
Upon the German tour not a comment will be offered; it is before the public with an approvance that has been stamped by the sanction of time. At the period of its publication, Dr. Burney, somewhat assured, though incapable of being rendered arrogant by favour, ventured to listen only to the voice of his first friend and monitor, who exhorted him to mingle personal anecdotes with his musical information.
The consequence was such as his sage adviser prognosticated; for both the applause and the sale of this second and more diffuse social diary, greatly surpassed those of its more technical predecessor.
Nevertheless, the German tour, though thus successful for narration to the public, terminated for himself in sickness, fatigue, exorbitant expense, and poignant bodily suffering.
While yet far away from his country, and equally distant from accomplishing the purpose of his travels, his solicitude not to leave it incomplete, joined to his anxiety not to break his professional engagements, led him to over-work and over-hurry his mental powers, at the same time that he inflicted a similar harass upon his corporeal strength. And while thus doubly overwhelmed, he was assaulted, during his precipitated return, by the rudest fierceness of wintry elemental strife; through which, with bad accommodations, and innumerable accidents, he became a prey to the merciless pangs of the acutest spasmodic rheumatism; which barely suffered him to reach his home, ere, long and piteously, it confined him, a tortured prisoner, to his bed.
Such was the check that almost instantly curbed, though it could not subdue, the rising pleasure ofhis hopes of entering upon a new species of existence, that of an approved man of letters; for it was on the bed of sickness, exchanging the light wines of France, Italy, and Germany, for the black and loathsome potions of the Apothecaries’ Hall; writhed by darting stitches, and burning with fiery fever; that he felt the full force of that sublunary equipoise, that seems evermore to hang suspended over the attainment of long-sought and uncommon felicity, just as it is ripening to burst forth into enjoyment!
Again he retired to Chesington, to his care-healing, heart-expanding, and head-informing Mr. Crisp: and there, under the auspices of all that could sooth or animate him; and nursed with incessant assiduity by his fondly-attached wife and daughters, he repaired his shattered frame; to fit it, once again, for the exercise of those talents and faculties, which illumine, in their expansive effects, the whole race of mankind; long after the apparent beings whence they have issued, seem faded, dissolved away; leaving not, visibly, a track behind.
In Dr. Burney, disease was no sooner conquered, than the vigour of his character brought back to him pleasure and activity, through the spiritedwisdom with which he dismissed Regret for Anticipation.
There are few things in which his perfect good-humour was more playfully demonstrated, than by the looks, arch yet reproachful, and piteous though burlesque, with which he was wont to recount a most provoking and painful little incident that occurred to him in his last voyage home; but of which he was well aware that the relation must excite irresistible risibility in even the most friendly of his auditors.
After travelling by day and by night to expedite his return, over mountains, through marshes, by cross-roads; on horseback, on mules, in carriages of any and every sort that could but hurry him on, he reached Calais in a December so dreadfully stormy, that not a vessel of any kind could set sail for England. Repeatedly he secured his hammock, and went on board to take possession of it; but as repeatedly was driven back by fresh gales, during the space of nine fatiguing days and tempestuous nights. And when, at last, the passage was effected, so nearly annihilating had been his sufferings from sea-sickness, that it was vainly he was told he might now, at his pleasure, arise, go forth, and touch Englishground; he had neither strength nor courage to move, and earnestly desired to be left awhile to himself.
Exhaustion, then, with tranquillity of mind, cast him into a sound sleep.
From this repose, when, much refreshed, he awoke, he called to the man who was in waiting, to help him up, that he might get out of the ship.
“Get out of the ship, sir?” repeated the man. “Good lauk! you’ll be drowned!”
“Drowned?—What’s to drown me? I want to go ashore.”
“Ashore, sir?” again repeated the man; “why you’re in the middle of the sea! There ar’nt a bit of ground for your toe nail.”
“What do you mean?” cried the Doctor, starting up; “the sea? did you not tell me we were safe in at Dover?”
“O lauk! that’s two good hours ago, sir! I could not get you up then, say what I would. You fell downright asleep, like a top. And so I told them. But that’s all one. You may go, or you may stay, as you like; but them pilots never stops for nobody.”
Filled with alarm, the Doctor now rushed up to the deck, where he had the dismay to discover that he was half-way back to France.
And he was forced to land again at Calais; where again, with the next mail, and a repetition of his sea-sickness, he re-embarked for Dover.
On quitting Chesington, upon his recovery, for re-entering his house in Queen-Square, the Doctor compelled himself to abstain from his pen, his papers, his new acquisitions in musical lore, and all that demanded study for the subject that nearly engrossed his thoughts, in order to consecrate the whole of his time to his family and his affairs.
He renewed, therefore, his wonted diurnal course, as if he had never diverged from it; and attended his young pupils as if he had neither ability nor taste for any superior occupation: and he neither rested his body, nor liberated his ideas, till he had re-instated himself in the professional mode of life, upon which his substantial prosperity, and that of his house, depended.
But, this accomplished, his innate propensities sprang again into play, urging him to snatch at every instant he could purloin, without essential mischief from these sage regulations; with a redundance of vivacity for new movement, new action, and elasticprocedure, scarcely conceivable to those who, balancing their projects, their wishes, and their intentions, by the opposing weights of time, of hazard, and of trouble, undertake only what is obviously to their advantage, or indisputably their duty. His Fancy was his dictator; his Spirit was his spur; and whatever the first started, the second pursued to the goal.
But neither the pain of his illness, nor the pleasure of his recovery, nor even the loved labours of his History, offered sufficient occupation for the insatiate activity of his mind. No sooner did he breathe again the breath of health, resume his daily business, and return to his nocturnal studies, than a project occurred to him of a new undertaking, which would have seemed to demand the whole time and undivided attention of almost any other man.
This was nothing less than to establish in England a seminary for the education of musical pupils of both sexes, upon a plan of which the idea should be borrowed, though the execution should almost wholly be new-modelled, from the Conservatorios of Naples and Vienna.
As disappointment blighted this scheme just as itseemed maturing to fruition, it would be to little purpose to enter minutely into its details: and yet, as it is a striking feature of the fervour of Dr. Burney for the advancement of his art, it is not its failure, through the secret workings of undermining prejudice, that ought to induce his biographer to omit recounting so interesting an intention and attempt: and the less, as a plan, in many respects similar, has recently been put into execution, without any reference to the original projector.
The motives that suggested this undertaking to Dr. Burney, with the reasons by which they were influenced and supported, were to this effect.
In England, where more splendid rewards await the favourite votaries of musical excellence than in any other spot on the globe, there was no establishment of any sort for forming such artists as might satisfy the real connoisseur in music; and save English talent from the mortification, and the British purse from the depredations, of seeking a constant annual supply of genius and merit from foreign shores.
An institution, therefore, of this character seemed wanting to the state, for national economy; and to the people, for national encouragement.
Such was the enlarged view which Dr. Burney, while yet in Italy, had taken of such a plan for his own country.
The difficulty of collecting proper subjects to form its members, caused great diversity of opinion and of proposition amongst the advisers with whom Dr. Burney consulted.
It was peculiarly necessary, that these young disciples should be free from every sort of contamination, mental or corporeal, upon entering this musical asylum, that they might spread no dangerous contagion of either sort; but be brought up to the practice of the art, with all its delightful powers of pleasing, chastened from their abuse.
With such a perspective, to take promiscuously the children of the poor, merely where they had an ear for music, or a voice for song, would be running the risk of gathering together a mixed little multitude, which, from intermingling inherent vulgarity, hereditary diseases, or vicious propensities, with the finer qualities requisite for admission, might render the cultivation of their youthful talents, a danger—if not a curse—to the country.
Yet, the length of time that might be required for selecting little subjects, of this unadulterate description,from different quarters; with the next to impossibility of tracing, with any certainty, what might have been their real conduct in times past; or what might be their principles to give any basis of security for the time to come; caused a perplexity of the most serious species: for should a single one of the tribe go astray, the popular cry against teaching the arts to the poor, would stamp the whole little community with a stain indelible; and the institution itself might be branded with infamy.
What, abstractedly, was desirable, was to try this experiment upon youthful beings to whom the world was utterly unknown; and who not only in innocence had breathed their infantine lives, but in complete and unsuspicious ignorance of evil.
Requisites so hard to obtain, and a dilemma so intricate to unravel, led the Doctor to think of the Foundling Hospital; in the neighbourhood of which, in Queen-Square, stood his present dwelling.
He communicated, therefore, his project, to Sir Charles Whitworth, the governor of the hospital.
Sir Charles thought it proper, feasible, desirable, and patriotic.
The Doctor, thus seconded, drew up a plan forforming a Musical Conservatorio in the metropolis of England, and in the bosom of the Foundling Hospital.
The intention was to collect from the whole little corps all who had musical ears, or tuneful voices, to be brought up scientifically, as instrumental or vocal performers.
Those of the group who gave no decided promise of such qualifications, were to go on with their ordinary education, and to abide by its ordinary result, according to the original regulations of the charity.
A meeting of the governors and directors was convened by their chief, Sir Charles Whitworth, for announcing this scheme.
The plan was heard with general approbation; but the discussions to which it gave rise were discursive and perplexing.
It was objected, that music was an art of luxury, by no means requisite to life, or accessary to morality.
These children were all meant to be educated as plain, but essential members of the general community. They were to be trained up to useful purposes, with a singleness that would ward off all ambition for what was higher; and teach them torepay the benefit of their support by cheerful labour. To stimulate them to superior views might mar the religious object of the charity; which was to nullify rather than extinguish, all disposition to pride, vice, or voluptuousness; such as, probably, had demoralized their culpable parents, and thrown these deserted outcasts upon the mercy of the Foundling Hospital.
This representation, the Doctor acknowledged, would be unanswerable, if it were decided to be right, and if it were judged to be possible, wholly to extirpate the art of music in the British empire: or, if the Foundling Hospital were to be considered as a seminary; predestined to menial servitude; and as the only institution of the country where the members were to form a caste, from whose rules and plodden ways no genius could ever emerge.
But such a fiat could never be issued by John Bull; nor so flat a stamp be struck upon any portion of his countrymen. John Bull was at once too liberal and too proud, to seek to adopt the tame ordinances of the immutable Hindoos; with whom ages pass unmarked; generations unchanged; the poor never richer; the simple never wiser; and with whom, family by family, and trade by trade, begin,continue, and terminate, their monotonous existence, by the same pre-determined course, and to the same invariable destiny.
These children, the Doctor answered, are all orphans; they are taken from no family, for by none are they owned; they are drawn from no calling, for to none are they specifically bred. They are all brought up to menial offices, though they are all instructed in reading and writing, and the females in needle-work; but they are all, systematically and indiscriminately, destined to be servants or apprentices, at the age of fifteen; from which period, all their hold upon the benevolent institution to which they are indebted for their infantine rescue from perishing cold and starving want, with their subsequent maintenance and tuition, is rotatorily transferred to new-born claimants; for the Hospital, then, has fulfilled its engagements; and the children must go forth to the world, whether to their benefit or their disgrace.
Were it not better, then, when there are subjects who are success-inviting, to bestow upon them professional improvement, with virtuous education? since, as long as operas, concerts, and theatres, are licensed by government, musical performers, vocaland instrumental, will inevitably be wanted, employed, and remunerated. And every state is surely best served, and the people of every country are surely the most encouraged, when the nation suffices for itself, and no foreign aid is necessarily called in, to share either the fame or the emoluments of public performances.
Stop, then; prohibit, proscribe—if it be possible,—all taste for foreign refinements, and for the exquisite finishing of foreign melody and harmony; or establish a school on our own soil, in which, as in Painting and in Sculpture, the foreign perfection of arts may be taught, transplanted, and culled, till they become indigenous.
And where, if not here, may subjects be found on whom such a national trial may be made with the least danger of injury? subjects who have been brought up with a strictness of regular habits that has warded them from all previous mischief; yet who are too helpless and ignorant, as well as poor, to be able to develop whether or not Nature, in her secret workings, has kindled within their unconscious bosoms, a spark, a single spark of harmonic fire, that might light them, from being hewers of wood, and brushers of spiders, to those regionsof vocal and instrumental excellence, that might propitiate the project of drawing from our own culture a school for music, of which the students, under proper moral and religious tutelage, might, in time, supersede the foreign auxiliaries by whom they are now utterly extinguished.
The objectors were charged, also, to weigh well that there was no law, or regulation, and no means whatsoever, that could prevent any of this little association from becoming singers and players, if they had musical powers, and such should be their wish: though, if self-thrown into that walk, singers and players only at the lowest theatres, or at the tea and cake public-gardens; or even in the streets, as fiddlers of country dances, or as ballad squallers: in which degraded exercise of their untaught endowments, not only decent life must necessarily be abandoned, but immorality, licentiousness, and riot, must assimilate with, or, rather, form a prominent part of their exhibitions and performances.
Here the discussion closed. The opponents were silenced, if not convinced, and the trial of the project was decreed.
The hardly-fought battle over, victory, waving her gay banners, that wafted to the Doctor hopes offuture renown with present benediction, determined him, for the moment, to relinquish even his history, that he might devote every voluntary thought to consolidating this scheme.
The primary object of his consideration, because the most conscientious, was the preservation of the morals, and fair conduct of the pupils. And here, the exemplary character, and the purity of the principles of Dr. Burney, would have shone forth to national advantage, had the expected prosperity of his design brought his meditated regulations into practice.
Vain would it be to attempt, and useless, if not vain, to describe his indignant consternation, when, while in the full occupation of these arrangements, a letter arrived to him from Sir Charles Whitworth, to make known, with great regret, that the undertaking was suddenly overthrown. The enemies to the attempt, who had seemed quashed, had merely lurked in ambush, to watch for an unsuspected moment to convene a partial committee; in which they voted out the scheme, as an innovation upon the original purpose of the institution; and pleading, also, an old act of parliament against its adoption, they solemnly proscribed it for ever.
Yet a repeal of that act had been fully intended before the plan, which, hitherto, had only been agitating and negotiating, should have been put into execution.
All of choice, however, and all of respect, that remained for Dr. Burney, consisted in a personal offer from Sir Charles Whitworth, to re-assemble an opposing meeting amongst those friends who, previously, had carried the day.
But happy as the Doctor would have been to have gained, with the honour of general approbation, a point he had elaborately studied to clear from mystifying objections, and to render desirable, even to patriotism; his pride was justly hurt by so abrupt a defalcation; and he would neither with open hostility, nor under any versatile contest, become the founder, or chief, of so important an enterprize.
He gave up, therefore, the attempt, without further struggle; simply recommending to the mature reflections of the members of the last committee, whether it were not more pious, as well as more rational, to endeavour to ameliorate the character and lives of practical musical noviciates, than to behold the nation, in its highest classes, cherish the art, follow it, embellish it with riches, and make itfashion and pleasure—while, to train to that art, with whatever precautions, its appropriate votaries from the bosom of our own country, seemed to call for opposition, and to deserve condemnation.
Thus died, in its birth, this interesting project, which, but for this brief sketch, might never have been known to have brightened the mind, as one of the projects, or to have mortified it, as one of the failures, of the active and useful life of Dr. Burney.
With a spirit greatly hurt through a lively sense of injustice, and a laudable ambition surreptitiously suppressed by misconception and prejudice, all that was left for Dr. Burney in this ungracious business was to lament loss of time, and waste of meditation.
Yet, the matter being without redress, save by struggles which he thought beneath the fair design of the enterprise, he combatted the intrusion of availless discontent, by calling to his aid his well-experienced antidote to inertness and discouragement, a quickened application to changed, or renewed pursuits.
Again, therefore, he returned to his History of Music; and now, indeed, he went to work with all his might. The capacious table of his small but commodious study, exhibited, in what he called his chaos, the countless increasing stores of his materials. Multitudinous, or, rather, innumerous blank books, were severally adapted to concentrating some peculiar portion of the work. Theory, practice; music of the ancients; music in parts; national music; lyric, church, theatrical, warlike music; universal biography of composers and performers, of patrons and of professors; and histories of musical institutions, had all their destined blank volumes.
And he opened a widely circulating correspondence, foreign and domestic, with various musical authors, composers, and students, whether professors or dilettante.
And for all this mass of occupation, he neglected no business, he omitted no devoir. The system by which he obtained time that no one missed, yet that gave to him lengthened life, independent of longevity from years, was through the skill with which, indefatigably, he profited from every fragment of leisure.
Every sick or failing pupil bestowed an hour upon his pen. Every holiday for others, was a day of double labour to his composition. Even illness took activity only from his body, for his mind refused all relaxation. He had constantly, when indisposed, one of his daughters by his side, as an amanuensis; and such was the vigour of his intellect, that even when keeping his bed from acute rheumatism, spasmodic pains, or lurking fever, he caught at every little interval of ease to dictate some illustrative reminiscence; to start some new ideas, or to generalize some old ones; which never failed to while away, partially at least, the pangs of disease, by lessening their greatest torment to a character of such energy, irreparable loss of time.
The plan, with proposals for printing the History by subscription, was no sooner published, than the most honourable lists of orders were sent to his booksellers, from various elegant classic scholars, and from all general patrons or lovers of new enterprises and new works.
But that which deserves most remark, is a letter from two eminent merchants of the city, Messieurs Chandler and Davis, to acquaint the Doctor that a gentleman, who wished to remain concealed, hadauthorised them to desire, that Dr. Burney would not suffer any failure in the subscription, should any occur, to induce him to drop the work; as this gentleman solemnly undertook to be himself responsible for every set within the five hundred of the Doctor’s stipulation, that should remain unsubscribed for on the ensuing Christmas. And Messrs. Davis and Chandler were invested with full powers, to give any security that might be demanded for the fulfilment of this engagement.
Dr. Burney wrote his most grateful thanks to this munificent protector of his project; but declined all sort of tie upon the event. And the subscription filled so voluntarily, that this generous unknown was never called forth. Nor did he ever present himself; nor was he ever discovered. But the incident helped to keep warmly alive the predilection which the Doctor had early imbibed, in favour of the noble spirit of liberality of the city and the citizens of his native land, for whatever seems to have any claim to public character.
Another letter from another stranger, equally animated by a sincere interest in the undertaking,though producing, for the moment, a sensation as warm of resentment, as that just mentioned had excited of gratitude, was next received by the Doctor.
It was written with the most profuse praise of the Musical Tours; but with a view to admonish the Tourist to revise the account drawn up of the expenses, the bad roads, the bad living, the bad carriages, and other various faults and deficiencies upon which the travels in Germany had expatiated: all which this new correspondent was convinced were related from misinformation, or misconception; as he had himself visited the same spots without witnessing any such imperfections. He conjured the Doctor, therefore, to set right these statements in his next edition; which single amendment would render the journal of his Tour in Germany the most delightful now in print: and, with wishes sincerely fervent for all honour and all success to the business, he signed himself, Dr. Burney’s true admirer,
John Hutton,
Of Lindsey House, Chelsea.