“No note of time,Save by its loss!”
“No note of time,Save by its loss!”
“No note of time,Save by its loss!”
“No note of time,Save by its loss!”
“No note of time,
Save by its loss!”
His tenderness, however, as a father; his situationas a man; and his duties as a Christian, drew, tore him, at length, from this retreat of lonely woe; and, in the manuscript already quoted from, which was written many years after the period of which it speaks, he says: “I was forced, ere long, to plunge into business; and then found, that having my time occupied by my affairs was a useful dissipation of my sorrows, as it compelled me to a temporary inattention to myself, and to the irreparable loss I had sustained.”
Still, however, all mitigation to his grief that was not imposed upon him by necessity, he avoided even with aversion; and even the sight of those who most had loved and esteemed the departed, was the sight most painful to him in sharpening his regrets, “which, therefore, no meeting whatsoever,” he says, “could blunt; since to love and admire her, had been universally the consequence of seeing and knowing her.”
From this mournful monotony of life, he was especially, however, called, by reflecting that his eldest daughter was fast advancing to that age when education is most requisite to improvement; and that, at such a period, the loss of her mother and instructress might be permanently hurtful to her, ifno measure should be taken to avert the possible consequences of neglect.
Yet the idea of a governess, who, to him, unless his children were wholly confined to the nursery, must indispensably be a species of companion, was not, in his present desolate state of mind, even tolerable. Nevertheless masters without superintendence, and lessons without practice, he well knew to be nugatory. Projects how to remedy this evil, as fruitless as they were numberless, crossed his mind; till a plan occurred to him, that, by combining economy with novelty, and change of scene for himself, with various modes of advantage to his daughters, ripened into an exertion that brought him, about a month after its formation, to the gates of Paris.
The design of Mr. Burney was to place two of his daughters in some convent, or boarding-house, where their education might be forwarded by his own directions.
Sundry reasons decided him to make his third daughter, Susanna, take place, in this expedition, of his second, Frances; but, amongst them, the principal and most serious motive, was a fearful tendency to a consumptive habit in that most delicate of his young plants, that seemed to require thebalsamic qualities of a warmer and clearer atmosphere.
Another reason, which he acknowledged, in after-times, to have had great weight with him for this arrangement, was the tender veneration with which Frances was impressed for her maternal grandmother; whose angelic piety, and captivating softness, had won her young heart with such reverential affection, that he apprehended there might be danger of her being led to follow, even enthusiastically, the religion of so pure a votary, if she should fall so early, within the influence of any zealot in the work of conversion. He determined, therefore, as he could part with two of them only at a time, that Fanny and Charlotte should follow their sisters in succession, at a later period.
Immediately upon his arrival at Paris, Mr. Burney, by singular good fortune, had the honour to be introduced to Lady Clifford, a Roman Catholic dowager, of a character the most benevolent, who resided entirely in France, for the pious purpose of enjoying with facility the rites of her religion, whichcould not, at that period, be followed in England without peril of persecution.
This lady took the children of Mr. Burney into her kindest favour, and invited their father to consult with her unreservedly upon his projects and wishes; and, through such honourable auspices, scarcely ten days elapsed, ere Esther and Susan were placed under the care of Madame St. Mart, a woman of perfect goodness of heart, and of a disposition the most affectionate.
Madame St. Mart was accustomed to the charge ofdes jeunes Anglaises, two daughters of Sir Willoughby Aston, Selina and Belinda, being then under her roof.
Highly satisfied with this arrangement, Mr. Burney now visited the delightful capital of France; made himself acquainted with its antiquities, curiosities, public buildings, public places, general laws, and peculiar customs; its politics, its resources, its festivities, its arts and its artists; as well as with the arbitrary tyrannies, and degrading oppressions towards the lower classes, which, at that epoch, were, to an English looker-on, incomprehensibly combined, not with murmurs nor discontent, but with the most lively animal spirits, and the freshest glee of national gaiety.
But his chosen haunts were the Public Libraries, to which an easiness of access, at that time deplorably unknown in England, encouraged, nay, excited, the intelligent visitor, who might be mentally inclined to any literary project, to hit upon some subject congenial to his taste; by rousing in him that spirit of emulation, which ultimately animates the humbly instructed, to soar to the heights that distinguish the luminous instructor.
Collections of books, even the most multitudinous and the most rare, may hold, to the common runner through life, but an ordinary niche in places of general resort; nevertheless, the Public Libraries, those Patrons of the Mind, must always be entered with a glow of grateful pleasure, by those who, instinctively, meditate upon the vast mass of thought that they contain.
To wander amidst those stores, that commit talents to posterity as indubitably as the Herald’s Register transmits names and titles; to develop as accurately the systems of nations, the conditions of communities, the progress of knowledge, and the turn of men’s minds, two or three thousand years ago, as in this our living minute; to visit, in fact, the Brains of our fellow-creatures,—not alone withthe harrowing knife to dissect physical conformation, but, with the piercing eye of penetration to dive into the recesses of human intelligence, the sources of imagination, and the springs of genius; and there, in those sacred receptacles of mental remains, to survey, in clear, indestructible evidence, all of the soul that man is able to bequeath to man— —
Views such as these of the powers of his gifted, though gone fellow-creatures, seen thus abstractedly through their intellectual attributes; purified equally from the frailties and selfishness of active life, and the sickly humours and baleful infirmities of age; seen through the medium of learned, useful, or fanciful productions; and beheld in so insulated a moment of vacuity of any positive plan of life, instinctively roused the dormant faculties of the subject of these memoirs, by setting before him a comprehensive chart of human capabilities, which involuntarily incited a conscious inquiry: what, peradventure, might be his own share, if sought for, in such heavenly gifts?
And it was now that, vaguely, yet powerfully, he first fell into that stream of ideas, or visions, that seemed to hail him to that class indefinable and indescribable, from its mingled elevation andabjectness, which, by joining the publicity of the press to the secret intercourse of the mind with the pen, insensibly allures its adventurous votaries to make the world at large the judge of their abilities, or their deficiencies—namely, the class of authors.
For this was the real, though not yet the ostensible epoch, whence may be traced the opening of his passion for literary pursuits.
And from this period, to the very close of his long mortal career, this late, though newly chosen occupation, became all that was most consoling to his sorrows, most diversifying to his ideas, and most animating to his faculties.
Some new stimulus had been eminently wanting to draw a man of his natively ardent and aspiring character from the torpid blight of availless misery; which, in despoiling him of all bosom felicity, had left only to an attempt at some untried project and purpose, any chance for the restoration of his energies.
He did not immediately fix on a subject for any work, though he had the wisdom, at once, and the modesty, to resolve, since so tardily he entered such lists, to adopt no plan that might wean him fromhis profession—for his profession was his whole estate! but rather to seek one that might amalgamate his rising desire of fame in literature, with his original labours to be distinguished as a follower of Orpheus.
He took notes innumerable in the public libraries, which he meant to revisit on returning to Paris for his daughters, of the books, subjects, passages, and authors which invited re-perusal; and which, hereafter, might happily conduct to some curious investigation, or elucidating commentary.
He made himself master of a beautiful collection of what then was esteemed to be most select of the French classics.
He completed, by adding to what already he possessed, all that recently had been published of that noblest work that had yet appeared in the republic of letters, the original Encyclopedia.
He opened an account with the reigning bookseller of the day, whose reputation in his mind-enlightening business still sustains its renown, M. Guy, whom he commissioned to send over to England the principal works then suspending over the heights of the French Parnassus; where resplendently were grouped all that was most attractivein Wit, Poetry, Eloquence, Science, Pathos, and Entertainment; from Rousseau, Voltaire, d’Alembert, Marmontel, Destouches, Marivaux, Gilbert, Diderot, Fontenelle, de Jaucourt; and many others.
It will easily be conceived how wistfully Mr. Burney must have coveted to make acquaintance with this brilliant set; his high veneration for genius having always led him to consider the first sight of an eminent author to form a data in his life.
But he had neither leisure, nor recommendatory letters; nor, perhaps, courage for such an attempt; the diffidence of his nature by no means anticipating the honourable place he himself was destined to hold in similar circles.
Not small, however, was his solace, while missing every ray of living light from this foreign constellation, when he found himself shone upon by a fixed star of the first magnitude belonging to his own system; for at the house of the English ambassador, the Earl of Hertford, he became acquainted with the celebrated secretary of his lordship, the justly admired, and justly censuredDavid Hume; who, with the skilful discernment that waited neither name nor fame for its stimulus, took Mr. Burneyimmediately and warmly into his favour.
Had this powerful and popular author, in his erudite, spirited, and intellectual researches and reflections, given to mankind his luminous talents, and his moral philosophy, for fair, open, and useful purposes, suited to the high character which he bore, not alone for genius, but for worth and benevolence; instead of bending, blending, involving them with missive weapons of baneful sarcasm, insidiously at work to undermine our form of faith; he would have been hailed universally, not applauded partially, as, in every point, one of the first of British writers.
To the world no man is accountable for his thoughts and his ruminations; but for their propagation, if they are dangerous or mischievous, the risks which he may allure others to share, seem impelled by wanton lack of feeling; if not by an ignorant yet presumptuous dearth of foresight to the effect he is working to produce: two deficiencies equally impossible to be attributed to a man to whom philanthropy is as unequivocally accorded as philosophy.
Unsolved therefore, perhaps, yet remains, as a problem in the history of human nature, how a being, at once wise and benign, could have refrainedfrom the self-examination of demanding: what—had he been successful in exterminating from the eyes and the hearts of men the lecture and the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures, would have been achieved? Had he any other more perfect religion to offer? More purifying from evil? more fortifying in misfortune? more consoling in woe?—No!—indubitably no!—Nothing fanatical, or mystic, could cope with judgment such as his. To undermine, not to construct, is all the obvious purpose of his efforts—of which he laments the failure as a calamity![25]He leaves, therefore, nothing to conjecture of his motives but what least seems to belong to a character of his sedate equanimity; a personal desire to proclaim to mankind their folly in their belief, and his sagacity in his infidelity.
Mr. Burney now, greatly lightened, and somewhat brightened in spirits, returned to his country and his home. His mind seemed no longer left in desolating inertness to prey upon itself. Nutrimentof an invigorating nature was in view, though not yet of a consistence to afford spontaneous refreshment. On the contrary, it required taste for selection, labour for culture, and skill for appropriation. But such nutriment, if attainable, was precisely that which best could re-inforce the poor “tenement of clay,”[26]which the lassitude of unbraced nerves had nearly “fretted to decay.”
Sketches, hints, notes, and scattered ideas of all sorts, began to open the way to some original composition; though the timidity of his Muse, not the dearth of his fancy, long kept back the force of mind for meeting the public eye, that now, in these more easy, dauntless times, urges almost every stripling to present his mental powers to the world, nearly ere his physical ones have emerged from leading-strings in the nursery.
The first, because the least responsible, method of facing the critic eye, that occurred to him, was that of translation; and he began with acutely studying d’Alembert’sElémens de Musique théorique et pratique, selon les principes de Rameau; in which he was assiduously engaged, when the appearance of the celebrated musicalDictionaireof thestill more celebrated Rousseau, from its far nearer congeniality to his taste, surprised him into inconstancy.
Yet this also, from circumstances that intervened, was laid aside; and his first actual essay was a trifle, though a pleasing one, from which no real fame could either accrue, or be marred; it was translating, and adapting to the stage, the little pastoral afterpiece of Rousseau,Le Devin du Village.
To this he was urged by Garrick; and the execution was appropriate, and full of merit. But though the music, from its simplicity and the sweetness of its melody, was peculiarly fitted to refine the public taste amongst the middle classes; while it could not fail to give passing pleasure even to the highest; the drama was too denuded of intricacy or variety for the amusement of John Bull; and the appearance of only three interlocuters caused a gaping expectation of some followers, that made every new scene begin by inflicting disappointment.
Mr. Garrick, and his accomplished, high-bred,and engaging wife, La Violetta, had been amongst the earliest of the pristine connexions of Mr. Burney, who had sought him, with compassionate kindness, as soon after his heart-breaking loss as he could admit any friends to his sight. The ensuing paragraph on his warm sentiments of this talented and bewitching pair, is copied from one of his manuscript memorandums.
“My acquaintance, at this time, with Mrs. as well as Mr. Garrick, was improved into a real friendship; and frequently, on the Saturday night, when Mr. Garrick did not act, he carried me to his villa at Hampton, whence he brought me to my home early on Monday morning. I seldom was more happy than in these visits. His wit, humour, and constant gaiety at home; and Mrs. Garrick’s good sense, good breeding, and obliging desire to please, rendered their Hampton villa, on these occasions, a terrestrial paradise.“Mrs. Garrick had every faculty of social judgment, good taste, and steadiness of character, which he wanted. She was an excellent appreciator of the fine arts; and attended all the last rehearsals of new or of revived plays, to give her opinion of effects, dresses, scenery, and machinery. She seemed to be his real other half; and he, by his intelligence and accomplishments, seemed to complete the Hydroggynus.”
“My acquaintance, at this time, with Mrs. as well as Mr. Garrick, was improved into a real friendship; and frequently, on the Saturday night, when Mr. Garrick did not act, he carried me to his villa at Hampton, whence he brought me to my home early on Monday morning. I seldom was more happy than in these visits. His wit, humour, and constant gaiety at home; and Mrs. Garrick’s good sense, good breeding, and obliging desire to please, rendered their Hampton villa, on these occasions, a terrestrial paradise.
“Mrs. Garrick had every faculty of social judgment, good taste, and steadiness of character, which he wanted. She was an excellent appreciator of the fine arts; and attended all the last rehearsals of new or of revived plays, to give her opinion of effects, dresses, scenery, and machinery. She seemed to be his real other half; and he, by his intelligence and accomplishments, seemed to complete the Hydroggynus.”
This eminent couple paid their court to Mr. Burney in the manner that was most sure to be successful, namely, by their endearing and good naturedattentions to his young family; frequently giving them, with some chaperon of their father’s appointing, the lightsome pleasure of possessing Mrs. Garrick’s private box at Drury Lane Theatre; and that, from time to time, even when the incomparable Roscius acted himself; which so enchanted their gratitude, that they nearly—as Mr. Burney laughingly quoted to Garrick from Hudibras—
“Did,—as was their duty,Worship the shadow of his shoe-tie.”
“Did,—as was their duty,Worship the shadow of his shoe-tie.”
“Did,—as was their duty,Worship the shadow of his shoe-tie.”
“Did,—as was their duty,Worship the shadow of his shoe-tie.”
“Did,—as was their duty,
Worship the shadow of his shoe-tie.”
Garrick, who was passionately fond of children, never withheld his visits from Poland-street on account of the absence of the master of the house; for though it was the master he came to seek, he was too susceptible to his own lively gift of bestowing pleasure, to resist witnessing the ecstacy he was sure to excite, when he burst in unexpectedly upon the younger branches: for so playfully he individualised his attentions, by an endless variety of comic badinage,—now exhibited in lofty bombast; now in ludicrous obsequiousness; now by a sarcasm skilfully implying a compliment; now by a compliment archly conveying a sarcasm; that every happy day that gave them but a glimpse of this idol of theirjuvenile fancy, was exhilarated to its close by reciprocating anecdotes of the look, the smile, the bow, the shrug, the start, that, after his departure, each enraptured admirer could describe.
A circumstance of no small weight at that time, contributed to allure Mr. Garrick to granting these joyous scenes to the young Burney tribe. When he made the tour of Italy, for the recovery of his health, and the refreshment of his popularity, he committed to the care of Mr. Burney and his young family his own and Mrs. Garrick’s favourite little dog, Phill, a beautiful black and white spaniel, of King Charles’s breed, luxuriant in tail and mane, with the whitest breast, and spotted with perfect symmetry.
The fondness of Mr. Garrick for this little spaniel was so great, that one of his first visits on his return from the continent was to see, caress, and reclaim him. Phill was necessarily resigned, though with the most dismal reluctance, by his new friends: but if parting with the favoured little quadruped was a disaster, how was that annoyance overpaid, when, two or three days afterwards, Phill re-appeared! and when the pleasure of his welcome to the young folks was increased by a message, thatthe little animal had seemed so moping, so unsettled, and so forlorn, that Mr. and Mrs. Garrick had not the heart to break his new engagements, and requested his entire acceptance and adoption in Poland-street.
During the life of this favourite, all the juvenile group were sought and visited together, by the gay-hearted Roscius; and with as much glee as he himself was received by these happy young creatures, whether two-footed or four.
On the first coming-out of the “Cunning Man,” Mr. Garrick, who undoubtedly owed his unequalled varieties in delineating every species of comic character, to an inquisitive observance of Nature in all her workings, amused himself in watching from the orchestra, where he frequently sat on the first night of new pieces, the young auditory in Mrs. Garrick’s box; and he imitatingly described to Mr. Burney the innocent confidence of success with which they all openly bent forward, to look exultingly at the audience, when a loud clapping followed the overture: and their smiles, or nods: or chuckling and laughter, according to their more or less advanced years, during the unmingled approbation that was bestowed upon about half the piece—contrastedwith, first the amazement; next, the indignation; and, lastly, the affright and disappointment, that were brought forth by the beginning buzz of hissing, and followed by the shrill horrors of the catcall: and then the return—joyous, but no longer dauntless!—of hope, when again the applause prevailed.
In these various changes, Mr. Garrick altered the expression of his features, and almost his features themselves, by apparent transformations—which, however less poetical, were at least more natural than those of Ovid.
Mr. Garrick possessed not only every possible inflexion of voice, save for singing, but also of countenance; varying his looks into young, old, sick, vigorous, downcast, or frolicsome, at his personal volition; as if his face, and even his form, had been put into his own hands to be worked upon like Man a Machine.
Mr. Garrick, about this time, warmly urged the subject of these memoirs to set to music an English opera called Orpheus; but while, for that purpose, Mr. Burney was examining the drama, he was informed that it had been put into the hands of Mr. Barthelemon, who was preparing it for the stage.
Astonished, and very much hurt, Mr. Burneyhastily returned the copy with which he had been entrusted, to Mr. Johnstone, the prompter; dryly, and without letter or comment, directing him to deliver it to Mr. Garrick.
Mr. Garrick, with the utmost animation, instantly wrote to Johnstone an apology rather than a justification; desiring that the opera should be withdrawn from Mr. Barthelemon, and consigned wholly to the subject of these memoirs; for whom Mr. Garrick declared himself to entertain a friendship that nothing should dissolve.[27]
But Mr. Burney, conceiving that Barthelemon, who had offended no one, and who bore a most amiable character, might justly resent so abrupt a discharge, declined setting the opera: and never afterwards composed for the theatres.
This trait, however trifling, cannot but be considered as biographical, at least for Mr. Garrick; as it so strongly authenticates the veracity of the two principal lines of the epitaph designed for Roscius, many years afterwards, by that acute observer of every character—save his own!—Dr. Goldsmith.
“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,For he knew, when he would, he could whistle them back.”
“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,For he knew, when he would, he could whistle them back.”
“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,For he knew, when he would, he could whistle them back.”
“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,For he knew, when he would, he could whistle them back.”
“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew, when he would, he could whistle them back.”
Whether negligence, mistake, or caprice, had occasioned this double nomination to the same office, is not clear; but Garrick, who loved Mr. Burney with real affection, lost no time, and spared no blandishment, to re-instate himself in the confidence which this untoward accident had somewhat shaken. And he had full success, to the great satisfaction of Mr. Burney, and joy of his family; who all rapturously delighted in the talents and society of the immortal Roscius.
While this revival of intercourse with the Garricks, and partial return to public life and affairs, necessarily banished the outward and obvious marks of the change of existence, and lost happiness of Mr. Burney, they operated also, gently, but effectively, in gradually diminishing his sufferings, by forcing him from their contemplation: for in that dilapidated state of sorrow’s absorption, where the mind is wholly abandoned to its secret sensations, all that innately recurs to it can spring only from its own concentrated sources; and these, though they may vary the evil by palliatives, offer nothing curative. New scenes and objects alone can opento new ideas; and, happily, a circumstance now occurred that brought on a revival of intercourse with the only man who, at that time, could recall the mourner’s faculties to genial feelings, and expand them to confidential sociality.
His earliest favourite, guide, philosopher, and friend, Mr. Crisp, he now, after a separation of very many years, accidentally met at the house of Mr. Vincent, a mutual acquaintance.
Their satisfaction at the sight of each other was truly reciprocal; though that of Mr. Burney was tinctured with dejection, that he could no longer present to his dearest friend the partner whom, by such a judge, he had felt would have been instantly and reverentially appreciated.
Mr. Crisp joined in this regret; but was not the less desirous to see and to know all that remained of her; and he hastened the following day to Poland-street; where, from his very first entrance amidst the juvenile group, he became instinctively honoured as a counsellor for his wisdom and judgment, and loved and liked as a companion for his gaiety, his good-humour, and his delight in their rising affections; which led him unremittingly, though never obtrusively, to mingle instruction with their most sportive intercourse.
As Mr. Crisp was the earliest and dearest friend of the subject of these memoirs, the reader will not, it is probable, be sorry to be apprised of the circumstances which, since their separation, had turned him from a brilliant man of the world to a decided recluse.
The life of Mr. Crisp had been exposed to much vicissitude. Part of it had been spent in Italy, particularly at Rome, where he took up his residence for some years; and where, from his passion for music, painting, and sculpture, he amassed, for the rest of his existence, recollections of never-dying pleasure. And not alone for his solitary contemplations, but for the delight that the vivacity of his delineations imparted to his friends, when he could be induced to unfold his reminiscences; whether upon the sacred and soul-pervading harmony of the music of the Pope’s chapel; or upon the tones, mellifluously melting or elevating, of Sinesino, Custini, or Farinelli: or by bringing to view through glowing images, the seraphic forms and expressions of Raphael and Correggio; and the sculptural sublimity of Michael Angelo. Or when, animated to the climax of his homage for the fine arts, he flitted by all else to concentrate the wholeforce of his energies, in describing that electrifying wonder, the Apollo Belvedere.
On this he dwelt with a vivacity of language that made his hearers wish to fasten upon every word that he uttered; so vividly he portrayed the commanding port, the chaste symmetry, and the magic form—for which not a tint was requisite, and colouring would have been superfluous—of that unrivalled production, of which the peerless grace, looking softer, though of marble, than the feathered snow; and brightly radiant, though, like the sun, simply white, strike upon the mind rather than the eye, as an ideal representative of ethereal beauty.[28]
And while such were his favourite topics for his gifted participators, there was a charm for all around in his more general conversation, that illumined with instruction, or gladdened with entertainment, even the most current and desultory subjects of the passing hour.
Thus rarely at once endowed and cultivated, there can be little surprise that Mr. Crisp should be distinguished, speedily and forcibly, by what isdenominated the Great World; where his striking talents, embellished by his noble countenance and elegant manners, made him so much the mode with the great, and the chosen with the difficult, that time, not friends, was all he wanted for social enjoyment.
High, perhaps highest in this noble class, stood Margaret Cavendish Harley, Duchess Dowager of Portland,The Friend of Mrs. Delany; by whom that venerable and exemplary personage, who was styled by Mr. Burke, “The pattern of a real fine lady of times that were past,” had been herself made known to Mr. Crisp.
Mrs. Montagu, also, who then, Mr. Crisp was wont to say, was peering at fame, and gradually rising to its temple, was of the same coterie. But most familiarly he resided with Christopher Hamilton of Chesington Hall, and with the Earl of Coventry.
With this last he was intimately connected, at the time of that Earl’s marriage with the acknowledged nonpareil of female beauty, the youngest Miss Gunning.
Mr. Crisp had already written his tragedy of Virginia; but Garrick, though he was the author’spersonal friend, thought it so little equal to the expectations that might await it, that he postponed, season after season, bringing it out; even though Lord Coventry, who admired it with the warmth of partial regard, engaged the first Mr. Pitt[29]to read it, and to pronounce in its favour. Roscius still was adverse, and still delayed the trial; nor could he be prevailed upon to prepare it for the stage, till Mr. Crisp had won that Venus of her day, the exquisite Lady Coventry, through his influence with her lord, to present a copy of the manuscript, with her own almost sculptured hand, to the then conquered manager.
The play neither succeeded nor failed. A catastrophe of so yea and nay a character was ill suited to the energies and hopes of its high-minded author, who was bitterly disappointed; and thought the performers had been negligent, Mr. Garrick unfriendly, and the public precipitate.
The zealous Lord Coventry, himself a man of letters, advised sundry changes, and a new trial. Mr. Crisp shut himself up, and worked indefatigably at these suggestions: but when his alterations werefinished, there was no longer a radiant Countess of Coventry to bewitch Mr. Garrick, by “the soft serenity of her smile,” to make a further attempt. Lady Coventry, whose brief, dazzling race, was rapidly run, was now already fast fading in the grasping arms of withering consumption: and Mr. Garrick, though, from unwillingness to disoblige, he seemed wavering, was not the less inexorable.
Mr. Crisp then, disgusted with the stage, the manager, and the theatrical public, gave up not alone that point, but every other by which he might have emerged from private life to celebrity. He almost wholly retired from London, and resided at Hampton; where he fitted up a small house with paintings, prints, sculpture, and musical instruments, arranged with the most classical elegance.
But the vicinity of the metropolis caused allurements such as these, with such a chief to bring them into play, to accord but ill with the small, though unincumbered fortune of their master; and the grace with which, instinctively, he received his visitors, made his habitation so pleasant, as soon to produce a call upon his income that shattered its stability.
His alarm now was such as might be expected from his sense of honour, and his love of independence. Yet the delicacy of his pride forbade any complaint to his friends, that might seem to implicate their discretion in his distress, or to invite their aid; though his desire to smooth, without publishing, his difficulties, urged him to commune with those of his connexions who were in actual power, and to confess his wishes for some honourable place, or occupation, that might draw forth his faculties to the amelioration of his fortune.
Kind words, and enlivening promises, now raised his hopes to a favourable change in his affairs; and, brightly looking forward, he continued to welcome his friends; who, enchanted by his society, poured in upon him with a thoughtless frequency, which caused an increase of expenditure that startled him, ere long, with a prospect, sudden and frightful, of the road to ruin.
Shocked, wounded, dismayed, he perceived two ways only by which he could be extricated from the labyrinth into which he had been betrayed by premature expectation; either vigorously to urge his suit for some appointment, and persecute, pester his friends to quicken his advancement; or cut offapproaching worldly destruction by an immediate sacrifice of worldly luxury.
A severe fit of the gout, that now, for the first time—hastened, probably, by chagrin—assailed him, decided his resolution. He sold his house at Hampton, his books, prints, pictures, and instruments; with a fixed determination of relinquishing the world, and retiring from mankind.
Within a few miles of Hampton stood Chesington Hall, his chosen retreat; and thither, with what little of his property he had rescued from the auctioneer and the appraiser, he transplanted his person; and there buried every temporal prospect.
Chesington Hall was placed upon a considerable, though not rapid eminence, whence two tall, antique trees, growing upon an old rustic structure called The Mount, were discernible at sixteen miles distance. The Hall had been built upon a large, lone, and nearly desolate common; and no regular road, or even track to the mansion from Epsom, the nearest town, had, for many years, been spared from its encircling ploughed fields, or fallow ground.
This old mansion had fallen into the hands of the Hamiltons from those of the Hattons, by whom its erection had been begun in the same year uponwhich Cardinal Wolsey had commenced raising, in its vicinity, the magnificent palace of Hampton Court.
Every thing around Chesington Hall was now falling to decay; and its hereditary owner, Christopher Hamilton, the last male of his immediate branch of the Hamilton family, was, at this time, utterly ruined, and sinking in person as well as property in the general desolation.
This was precisely a sojourn to meet the secluding desire of Mr. Crisp; he adopted some pic-nic plan with Mr. Hamilton; and Chesington Hall became his decided residence; it might almost be said, his fugitive sanctuary. He acquainted no one with his intentions, and communicated to no one his place of abode. Firm to resist the kindness, he determined to escape the tediousness, of persuasion: and, however often, in after-life, when renovated health gave him a consciousness of renovated faculties, he might have regretted this intellectual interment, he was immoveable never more to emerge from a tranquillity, which now, to his sickened mind, made the pursuits of ambition seem as oppressively troublesome in their manœuvres, as they were morbidly bitter in their disappointments.
His fondness, however, for the arts, was less subordinate to the casualties of life than his love of the world. It was too much an integral part of his composition to be annihilated in the same gulph in which were sunk his mundane expectations. Regularly, therefore, every spring, he came up to the metropolis, where, in keeping pace with the times, he enjoyed every modern improvement in music and painting.
Rarely can a re-union of early associates have dispensed brighter felicity with more solid advantages, than were produced by the accidental re-meeting of these long separated friends. To Mr. Burney it brought back a congeniality of feeling and intelligence, that re-invigorated his social virtues; and to Mr. Crisp it gave not only a friend, but a family.
It operated, however, no further. To Mr. Burney alone was confided the clue for a safe route across the wild common to Chesington Hall; from all others it was steadfastly withheld; and from Mr. Greville it was studiously and peculiarly concealed.
That gentleman now was greatly altered, from the large and larger strides which he had made, and was making, into the dangerous purlieus of horse-racingand of play; into whose precincts, from the delusive difference of their surface from their foundation, no incursions can be hazarded without as perilous a shake to character and disposition, as to fortune and conduct. And Mr. Greville, who, always honourable, was almost necessarily a frequent loser, was evidently on the high road to turn from a man of pleasure to a man of spleen; venting his wrath at his failures upon the turf and at the clubs, by growing fastidious and cavilling in general society. Mr. Crisp, therefore, bent to maintain the dear bought quiet of his worldly sacrifices as unmingled with the turbulent agitations of querulous debate, as with the restless solicitudes of active life, shunned the now pertinacious disputant almost with dread.
Yet Mr. Greville, about this period, was rescued, for a while, from this hovering deterioration, through the exertions of his friends in the government, by whom he was named minister plenipotentiary to the court of Bavaria; in the hope that such an appointment, with its probable consequences, might re-establish his affairs.
No change, however, of situation, caused anychange in Mr. Greville to his earlyprotegéand attached and attaching friend, Mr. Burney, to whom he still shewed himself equally eager to communicate his opinions, and reveal his proceedings. A letter from Munich, written when his Excellency was first installed in his new dignity, will display the pleasant openness of their correspondence; at the same time that it depicts the humours and expenses of the official ceremonials then in use, with a frankness that makes them both curious and entertaining.[30]
A letter to the Earl of Eglinton from the celebrated David Hume, written also about this time, gave Mr. Burney very peculiar satisfaction, from the sincere disposition to esteem and to serve him, which it manifested in that dangerously renowned philosopher; whose judgment of men was as skilfully inviting, as his sophistry in theology was fearfully repelling.
Yet upon the circumstances of this letter hung a cutting disappointment, which, in the midst of his rising prospects, severely pierced the hopes of Mr. Burney; and, from the sharpness of its injury, and its future aggravating repetitions, would permanentlyhave festered them, had their composition been of less elastic quality.
To be Master of the King’s Band, as the highest professional honour to be obtained, had been the earliest aim of Mr. Burney; and, through the medium of warm friends, joined to his now well approved and obvious merit, the promise of the then Lord Chamberlain had been procured for the first vacancy. This arrived in 1765; but when the consequent claim was made, how great, how confounding to Mr. Burney was the intelligence, that the place was disposed of already.
He hastened with a relation of this grievance, as unexpected as it was undeserved, to the celebrated historian, to whom his rights had been well known at Paris. And Mr. Hume, whose sense of justice—one fatal warp excepted—was as luminous as it was profound, shocked by such a breach of its simplest and most unchangeable statutes, instantly undertook, with the courage imbibed by his great abilities and high moral character, to make a representation on the subject to Lord Hertford.
Failing, however, of meeting with an immediate opportunity, and well aware of the importance of expedition in such applications, he addressed himselfto the Countess; and from her he learnt, and with expressions of benevolent concern, that it was the Duke of York[31]who had demanded the nomination to the place.
It now occurred to Mr. Hume that the present applicant might possibly be himself the object for whom his Royal Highness had interfered, as Mr. Burney had frequently been seen, and treated with marked kindness, by the Royal Duke at private concerts; which were then often, at the sudden request of that prince, formed by the Earl of Eglinton; and at which Mr. Burney, when in London, was always a principal and favoured assistant. With this in his recollection, and naturally concluding Lord Eglinton, who always shewed an animated partiality for Mr. Burney, to be chief in the application to the Lord Chamberlain, Mr. Hume wrote the following letter.
To the Earl of Eglinton.“My Lord,“Not finding an opportunity of speaking yesterday to Lord Hertford, in favour of Mr. Burney, I spoke to my lady, and told her the whole case. She already knows Mr. Burney, and has an esteem for him. She said it gave her great uneasiness, and was[Pg 187]sure it would do so to my lord, that he was already engaged, and, she believed, to the Duke of York.“It occurred to me, that his Royal Highness’s application might, also, be in favour of Mr. Burney; in which case the matter is easy. If not, it is probable your Lordship may engage his Royal Highness to depart from his application; for really Mr. Burney’s case, independently of his merit, is very hard and cruel.“I have the honour to be,“My Lord, your Lordship’s“Most humble and most obedient servant,“David Hume.”“P. S. If your Lordship honour me with an answer in the forenoon, please send it to General Conway’s, in Little Warwick Street; if in the afternoon, at Miss Elliot’s, Brewer Street, Golden Square.”
To the Earl of Eglinton.
“My Lord,
“Not finding an opportunity of speaking yesterday to Lord Hertford, in favour of Mr. Burney, I spoke to my lady, and told her the whole case. She already knows Mr. Burney, and has an esteem for him. She said it gave her great uneasiness, and was[Pg 187]sure it would do so to my lord, that he was already engaged, and, she believed, to the Duke of York.
“It occurred to me, that his Royal Highness’s application might, also, be in favour of Mr. Burney; in which case the matter is easy. If not, it is probable your Lordship may engage his Royal Highness to depart from his application; for really Mr. Burney’s case, independently of his merit, is very hard and cruel.
“I have the honour to be,
“My Lord, your Lordship’s
“Most humble and most obedient servant,
“David Hume.”
“P. S. If your Lordship honour me with an answer in the forenoon, please send it to General Conway’s, in Little Warwick Street; if in the afternoon, at Miss Elliot’s, Brewer Street, Golden Square.”
A reclamation such as this, from a man who was then almost universally held to be at the head of British literature, could not be read unmoved; and an opinion so positive of the justice and merits of the case, manifested by two directions for an immediate reply, both given for the same day, and without any apology for such precipitancy, shewed a warmthof personal zeal and interest for the welfare of Mr. Burney, that was equally refreshing to his spirits, and stimulating to his hopes.
The place, however, was decidedly gone. The first word from the Duke had fixed its fate; though, from the real amenity of the character of the prince, joined to the previous favour he had shewn to Mr. Burney, there cannot be a doubt that, had the history of the affair reached the ear of his Royal Highness, he would have been foremost himself, as Mr. Hume suggested, to have nominated Mr. Burney.
Here the matter dropped; and the expressed regret and civilities of the Countess, with the implied ones of the Earl, somewhat softened the infliction: but the active services, and manly appeal of David Hume, conduced far more to awaken and to fortify the philosophy that so unexpected a mortification required.
In mingling again with the world upon its common terms of cultivating what was good, and supporting what was evil, Mr. Burney now, no longer bewitched by beauty, nor absorbed by social sympathies, found literature and its pursuits without rival in his estimation; yet, in missing those vanished delights, he deemed that he had the world to re-begin: for though prosperity met his professional toils with heightened reputation and reward, they were joyless, however essential, since participation was gone!
The time had arrived, and now was passed, for the long-settled project of Mr. Burney of conveying toParis his second and, then, youngest daughters, Frances and Charlotte, to replace his eldest and his third, Esther and Susanna; now both returned thence, with every improvement that a kind parent could reasonably desire.
The time had arrived—and was passed.—But if no man can with certainty pronounce what at any stated period he will perform, how much less is he gifted with fore-knowledge of what, at any stated period, he may wish!
Six heartless, nearly desolate, years of lonely conjugal chasm, had succeeded to double their number of nearly unparalleled conjugal enjoyment—and the void was still fallow and hopeless!—when the yet very handsome, though no longer in her bloom, Mrs. Stephen Allen, of Lynn, now become a widow, decided, for promoting the education of her eldest daughter, to make London her winter residence.
Mr. Burney was, of course, applied to for assistance in the musical line; and not less called upon as the most capable judge and counsellor in every other.
The loss that had been sustained by Mrs. Allen was that of a very worthy man, whom she esteemed, but to whom she had been married by her parents early in life, without either choice or aversion. In her situation, therefore, and that of Mr. Burney,there was no other affinity than that each had been widowed by the hand of death.
Highly intellectual, and fond even to passion of books, Mrs. Allen delighted in the conversation of Mr. Burney; and the hour for his instructions to Miss Allen was fixed to be that of tea-time; to the end that, when he was liberated from the daughter, he might be engaged with the mother.
The superior grief of Mr. Burney, as deep as it was acute, was not more prominent than the feeling admiration that it inspired in Mrs. Allen: and if moved by his sorrows, while charmed by his merit, Mrs. Allen saw him with daily increasing interest, Mr. Burney was not less moved by her commiseration, nor less penetrated by her sympathy; and insensibly he became solaced, while involuntarily she grew grateful, upon observing her rising influence over his spirits.
To the tender sentiments of the heart, the avenues are as infinite for entrance as they are difficult for escape; but there are none so direct, and, consequently, none so common, as those through whose gentle mazes soft pity encounters soothing sensibility.
The task of consoling the sorrower seems, to its participator, nearly a devout one; and the sorrower, most especially where beauty and spirit meet in thatparticipator, would think resistance to such benevolence might savour of ingratitude.
Those who judge of the sincerity of pristine connubial tenderness merely by its abhorrence of succession, take a very unenlightened, if not false, view of human grief; unless they limit their stigma to an eager or a facile repetition of those rites which, on their first inauguration, had seemed inviolable and irreplaceable.
So still, in fact, they may faithfully, though silently continue, even under a subsequent new connexion. The secret breast, alive to memory though deprived of sympathy, may still internally adhere to its own choice and fondness; notwithstanding the various and imperious calls of current existence may urge a second alliance: and urge it, from feelings and from affections as clear of inconstancy as of hypocrisy; urge it, from the best of motives, that of accommodating ourselves to our lot, with all its piercing privations; since our lot is dependent upon causes we have no means to either evade or fathom; and as remote from our direction as from our wishes.
If, by any exertion of which mortal man is capable, or any suffering which mortal man can sustain, Mr. Burney could have called back his vanishedEsther to his ecstatic consciousness, labour, even to decrepitude, endurance even to torture, he would have borne, would have sought, would have blessed, for the most transient sight of her adored form. But she was taken away from him by that decree against which there is no appeal.
He who loses a parent, a brother, a sister, a friend, however deeply and deservedly they may be lamented, is never branded with want of feeling if he seek another counsellor and guide, if he accept another companion and favourite. It is but considered to be meeting his destiny as a man who knows he must not choose it; it is but consenting to receive such good as is attainable, while bowing down submissively to such evil as is unavoidable.
Succession is the law of nature; and, as far as her laws are obvious, it is that which stands foremost.
The angel whom Mr. Burney had lost—for an angel both without and within she had seemed to him—had the generous disinterestedness, on the bed of death, to recommend to her miserable husband that he would marry again; well knowing that the tenderness of female friendship would come nearest,—however distant,—to the softness of consolation: and, maternally weighing, no doubt, thata well chosen partner might prove a benediction to her poor children. And this injunction, though heard at the time with agony scarcely supportable, might probably, and strongly, influence his future conduct, when the desperation of hopelessness was somewhat worn away by all-subduing time, joined to forced exertions in business.
His Esther had even named to him the lady whom she thought most capable to suit him as a companion, and most tenderly disposed to becoming a mother to his children,—Miss Dorothy Young, who was her most valued friend. Mrs. Allen, Dorothy’s nearest competitor, was not then a widow. But Mr. Burney, sacred as he held the opinions and the wishes of his Esther, was too ardent an admirer of beauty to dispense, in totality, with that attractive embellishment of the female frame. He honoured and esteemed, with a brother’s affection, the excellent Dorothy Young: but those charms which awaken softer sensations, were utterly and unhappily denied to that estimable woman, through her peculiarly unfortunate personal defects.
Not early, and not easily, did Mr. Burney and Mrs. Allen reveal their mutual partiality. The wounded heart of Mr. Burney recoiled from suchanodyne as demanded new vows to a new object: and Mrs. Allen, at that period, lived in a state of affluence that made such a marriage require severe worldly sacrifices. Only, however transiently; for by an unfortunate trust in an unfortunate, though honourable speculatist, Dr. King, she completely lost all that, independently, was at her own disposal of fortune. And the noble disinterestedness of Mr. Burney upon this occasion, rivetted to him her affections, with the highest esteem.
Yet even when these scruples were mutually overwhelmed by increasing force of regard, so many unlooked for obstacles stood in the way of their union, that, wearied by delays that seemed at once captious and interminable, Mr. Burney earnestly entreated that an immediate private marriage might avert, at least, a final breach of their engagement: solemnly promising, at the same time, that they should keep the alliance secret, and still live apart, till all prudential exactions should be satisfied.
As they were each wholly independent, save from the influence of opinion,—which, however, is frequently more difficult to subdue than that of authority,—Mrs. Allen saw no objection of sufficient force to counteract her pleasure in compliance.
Their plan was confided to four persons, indispensably requisite for its execution; Mrs., afterwards Lady Strange, Miss Young, Mr. Crisp, and the Rev. Mr. Pugh, curate of St. James’s church.
Mr. Pugh, who was of very long standing a friend of Mr. Burney, aided personally in promoting such measures as secured secrecy with success; and in St. James’s church, Mr. Pugh tied that indissoluble knot, which, however fairly promising, is inevitably rigorous, since it can be loosened only by Crime or by Death: but which, where it binds the destinies of those whose hearts are already knit together by reciprocated regard, gives a charm to captivity that robs liberty of regret.
At the porch of St. James’s church, Mrs. Strange and Mr. Pugh whispered their congratulations to the new married couple, as they entered a prepared post-chaise; which, in a very few hours, galloped them to the obscure skirts of the then pathless, and nearly uninhabited, Chesington common; where Mr. Crisp had engaged for them a rural and fragrant retreat, at a small farm-house in a little hamlet, a mile or two from Chesington Hall.
The secret, as usual in matrimonial concealments, was faithfully preserved, for a certain time, byscrupulous discretion in the parties, and watchful circumspection in the witnesses: but, as usual also, error and accident were soon at work to develop the transaction; and the loss of a letter, through some carelessness of conveyance, revealed suddenly but irrevocably the state of the connexion.
This circumstance, however, though, at the time, cruelly distressing, served ultimately but to hasten their own views; as the discovery was necessarily followed by the personal union for which their hands had been joined.
Mrs. Burney,—now no longer Mrs. Stephen Allen—came openly to town to inhabit, for a while, a house in Poland-street, a few doors from that of her husband; while alterations, paintings, and embellishments were progressively preparing the way for her better reception at his home.
The two families, however, awaited not the completion of these improvements for a junction. The younger branches, who already, and from their birth, were well known to one another, were as eager as their parents for a general union; and the very amiable Miss Allen,[32]the most important personage in the juvenile group,conducted herself upon the disclosure of the marriage, with a generous warmth of kindness that quickened the new establishment. And her example would forcibly have weighed with her deserving brother, Stephen Allen,[33]had such example been wanting; but he entertained so true and affectionate a respect for Mr. Burney, that he required neither duty nor influence to reconcile him to the match.
The four daughters of Mr. Burney,—Esther, Frances, Susan, and Charlotte,—were all earnest to contribute their small mites to the happiness of one of the most beloved of parents, by receiving, with the most respectful alacrity, the lady on whom he had cast his future hopes of regaining domestic comfort.
The Paris scheme for the two daughters, who were to have followed the route of their sisters, long remitted, from the fluctuating affairs and feelings of Mr. Burney, was now finally abandoned. The youngest daughter, Charlotte, was sent to a school in Norfolk. The second, Frances, was the only one of Mr. Burney’s family who never was placed in any seminary, and never was put underany governess or instructor whatsoever. Merely and literally self-educated, her sole emulation for improvement, and sole spur for exertion, were her unbounded veneration for the character, and affection for the person, of her father; who, nevertheless, had not, at the time, a moment to spare for giving her any personal lessons; or even for directing her pursuits.[34]
The friends of Mr. Burney were not slack in paying their devoirs to his new partner, whose vivacious society, set off by far more than remains of uncommon beauty, failed not to attract various visitors to the house; and whose love, or rather passion, for conversation and argument, were of that gay and brilliant sort, that offers too much entertainmentto be ever left in the lurch for want of partakers.
Fortunate was it that such was the success of her social spirit; which success was by no means less flourishing, from her strong bent to displaying the rites of hospitality. She must else have lived the life of a recluse, Mr. Burney, during the whole of the day, being devoted to his profession; with the single exception of one poor hour of repast, to re-fit him for every other of labour.
But the affection and pleasure with which, as
“The curfew toll’d the knell of parting day,”
he finished his toils, were so animated and so genuine, that the sun, in the zenith of its splendour, was never more ardently hailed, than the cool, silent, evening star, whose soft glimmering light restored him to the bosom of his family; not there to murmur at his fatigues, lament his troubles, nor recount his wearisome exertions; but to return, with cheerful kindness, their tender greetings; to enliven them with the news, the anecdotes, and the rumours of the day; to make a spontaneouscatalogue raisonnéof the people he had mixed with or seen; and always to bring home any newpublication, political, poetical, or ethical, that was making any noise in the world.
Amongst those of the old friends of Mr. Burney who were the most eager to judge his second choice, Roscius and Violetta, Mr. and Mrs. Garrick, seem entitled to be first mentioned, from the pleasurable remembrance of the delight bestowed upon the whole family by their presence.
And equally alert with the same congratulatory courtesies, were his long and rootedly attached friends, the Grevilles. Mr. Greville, curious to behold the successor of her whom he had never named, but as one of the prettiest women he had ever seen, hastened to make his marriage visit on the first morning that he heard of the bride’s arrival in town: while of Mrs. Greville, the bridal visit was arranged in such form, and with such attention, as she thought would shew most consideration to its object. She came on an appointed day, that Mr. Burney might be certainly at home, to present her to his wife; and she stayed to spend the whole evening in Poland-street.
Her nearly peerless daughter, then in the firstradiance of her matchless bloom, who had been lately married to Mr. Crewe, of Cheshire, with the same zeal as her parents to manifest esteem and affection for Mr. Burney, joined the party; which consisted but of themselves, and of Mr. Burney’s new and original young families.
Mrs. Greville, as was peculiarly in her power, took the lead, and bore the burthen of the conversation; which chiefly turned upon Sterne’s Sentimental Journey, at that time the reigning reading in vogue: but when the new Mrs. Burney recited, with animated encomiums, various passages of Sterne’s seducing sensibility, Mrs. Greville, shrugging her shoulders, exclaimed: “A feeling heart is certainly a right heart; nobody will contest that: but when a man chooses to walk about the world with a cambrick handkerchief always in his hand, that he may always be ready to weep, either with man or beast,—he only turns me sick.”
With Dr. Hawkesworth Mr. Burney renewed an acquaintance that he had begun at Wilbury House, where he who could write the Adventurer, was notlikely to have wanted the public voice to awaken his attention to a youth of such striking merit. Long before that voice had sounded, Dr. Hawkesworth had formed the most liberal and impartial opinion of the young favourite of Mr. Greville. And when, upon the occasion of the Doctor’s writing a hymn for the children of the Foundling Hospital, Mr. Burney, through the medium of Mr. Greville, was applied to for setting it to music, the expressions, incidentally dropt, of genius and judgment, in a letter of thanks from Dr. Hawkesworth, would have been in perfect accord with the attributes of the composer, had they been bestowed after the History of Music had stamped them as his due.
No opportunity was omitted by Mr. Burney for cultivating the already established kindness of Mr. Mason and of Dr. Armstrong.
Mr. Burney had frequent relations also, with that scientific diver into natural history, and whatever was ingenious, quaint, and little known, the Hon. Daines Barrington.
Arthur Young, the afterwards famous agriculturist, who had married a younger sister of Mr. Burney, was, when in London, all but an inmate of the Poland-street family; and the high, nay, at thattime, volatile spirits of Arthur Young, though always kept within certain bounds by natively well-bred manners, and instinctive powers of pleasing, made him, to the younger group especially, the most entertaining guest that enlivened the fire side.
Amongst those whom neither literature nor science, but taste and choice, taught to signalise Mr. Burney, foremost in the list of youthful beauty, native talents, and animated softness, appeared Mrs. Pleydell, daughter of Governor Holwell; so highly celebrated for the dreadful sufferings, which he almost miraculously survived to record, of incarceration, in what was denominated the Black Hole of Calcutta.
Mrs. Pleydell, like the first, or Mrs. Linley Sheridan, was encircled with charms that, but for comparison with Mrs. Sheridan, might, at that time, have been called unrivalled; charms at once so personal, yet so mental, that they seemed entwined together by a texture so fine of beauty and sensibility, that her first glance was attraction, and her first speech was captivation.
Nothing could surpass the sweetness with which this lovely East Indian attached herself to Mr. Burney; nor the delicacy of her arrangements for appearing to receive favours in conferring them uponhis daughters; who were enamoured of her with an ardour that, happily, he escaped; though his admiration was lively and sincere.
This lady, in taking leave of Mr. Burney, upon her return to India, presented to him a Chinese painting on ivory, which she had inherited from her father; and which he, Governor Holwell, estimated as a sort of treasure. The following is the description of it, drawn up by Mr. Burney, from the account of Mrs. Pleydell.
“It is the representation of a music gallery over a triumphal arch, through which the great Mogul passed at Agra, or Delhi, before his fall. The procession consists of the Emperor, mounted on an elephant, and accompanied by his wives, concubines, and attendants; great officers of state, &c., all exquisitely painted. The heads of the females, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Robert Strange, to whom this painting was shewn, thought sufficiently highly finished to be set in rings.”
“It is the representation of a music gallery over a triumphal arch, through which the great Mogul passed at Agra, or Delhi, before his fall. The procession consists of the Emperor, mounted on an elephant, and accompanied by his wives, concubines, and attendants; great officers of state, &c., all exquisitely painted. The heads of the females, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Robert Strange, to whom this painting was shewn, thought sufficiently highly finished to be set in rings.”
With that dramatic genius, man of wit, and elegant scholar, George Colman the elder, Mr. Burney had frequent and pleasant meetings at the mansion of Roscius; for who, at that time, could know Mr. Garrick, and be a stranger to Mr. Colman?[35]
Nor amongst the early friends of Mr. Burney must ever be omitted that learned, ingenious, most poetical, but most unfortunate son of Apollo, Kit Smart; whom Mr. Burney always was glad to see, and active to serve; though whatever belonged to that hapless poet seemed to go in constant deterioration; his affairs and his senses annually and palpably darkening together; and nothing, unhappily, flourishing in the attempts made for his relief, save the friendship of Mr. Burney; in speaking of which in a letter, Kit Smart touchingly says: “I bless God for your good nature, which please to take for a receipt.”
The worthy, as well as eminent, Sir Robert Strange, the first engraver of his day, with his extraordinary wife and agreeable family, were, from the time of the second marriage, amongst the most familiar visitors of the Burney house.
The term extraordinary is not here applied to Lady Strange to denote any singularity of action,conduct, or person; it is simply limited to her conversational powers; which, for mother wit in brilliancy of native ideas, and readiness of associating analogies, placed her foremost in the rank of understanding females, with whom Mr. Burney delighted to reciprocate sportive, yet deeply reflective, discourse. For though the education of Lady Strange had not been cultivated by scholastic lore, she might have said, with the famous Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, “My books are men, and I read them very currently.” And in that instinctive knowledge of human nature which penetration develops, and observation turns to account, she was a profound adept.
Yet, with these high-seasoned powers of exhilaration for others, she was palpably far from happy herself; and sometimes, when felicitated upon her delightful gaiety, she would smile through a face of woe, and, sorrowfully shaking her head, observe how superficial was judgment upon the surface of things, and how wide from each other might be vivacity and happiness! the one springing only from native animal spirits; the other being always held in subjection by the occurrences that meet, or that mar our feelings. And often, even in the midstof the lively laugh that she had sent around her, there would issue quite aloud, from the inmost recesses of her breast, a sigh so deep it might rather be called a groan.
Very early in life, she had given away her heart and her hand without the sanction of a father whom, while she disobeyed, she ardently loved. And though she was always, and justly, satisfied with her choice, and her deserving mate, she could never so far subdue her retrospective sorrow, as to regain that inward serenity of mind, that has its source in reflections that have never been broken by jarring interests and regrets.