“This year joy and sorrow alike put on sableFor losses sustained by the stage and the table,For Garrick, the master of passion, retired,And Nature and Shakespeare together expired.Thalia’s as well as Melpomene’s magic,With him at once vanished both comic and tragic.Long, long will it be, now by Death he is slain,Before we shall see his true likeness again.Such dignified beauties he threw in each part,Such resources of humour, of passion, and art;—Hilarity missed him, each Muse dropped a tear,And Genius and Feeling attended his bier.”
“This year joy and sorrow alike put on sableFor losses sustained by the stage and the table,For Garrick, the master of passion, retired,And Nature and Shakespeare together expired.Thalia’s as well as Melpomene’s magic,With him at once vanished both comic and tragic.Long, long will it be, now by Death he is slain,Before we shall see his true likeness again.Such dignified beauties he threw in each part,Such resources of humour, of passion, and art;—Hilarity missed him, each Muse dropped a tear,And Genius and Feeling attended his bier.”
“This year joy and sorrow alike put on sableFor losses sustained by the stage and the table,For Garrick, the master of passion, retired,And Nature and Shakespeare together expired.Thalia’s as well as Melpomene’s magic,With him at once vanished both comic and tragic.Long, long will it be, now by Death he is slain,Before we shall see his true likeness again.Such dignified beauties he threw in each part,Such resources of humour, of passion, and art;—Hilarity missed him, each Muse dropped a tear,And Genius and Feeling attended his bier.”
“This year joy and sorrow alike put on sableFor losses sustained by the stage and the table,For Garrick, the master of passion, retired,And Nature and Shakespeare together expired.Thalia’s as well as Melpomene’s magic,With him at once vanished both comic and tragic.Long, long will it be, now by Death he is slain,Before we shall see his true likeness again.Such dignified beauties he threw in each part,Such resources of humour, of passion, and art;—Hilarity missed him, each Muse dropped a tear,And Genius and Feeling attended his bier.”
“This year joy and sorrow alike put on sable
For losses sustained by the stage and the table,
For Garrick, the master of passion, retired,
And Nature and Shakespeare together expired.
Thalia’s as well as Melpomene’s magic,
With him at once vanished both comic and tragic.
Long, long will it be, now by Death he is slain,
Before we shall see his true likeness again.
Such dignified beauties he threw in each part,
Such resources of humour, of passion, and art;—
Hilarity missed him, each Muse dropped a tear,
And Genius and Feeling attended his bier.”
Just as this great dramatic genius was descending to the tomb, young Crotch, a rising musical genius, was brought forward into the world with so strong a promise of eminence, that a very general desire was expressed, that Dr. Burney would examine, counsel, and countenance him; and at only three years and a half old, the child was brought to St. Martin’s-street by his mother.
The Doctor, ever ready to nourish incipient talents submitted to his investigation, saw the childrepeatedly; and was so forcibly struck by his uncommon faculties, that upon communicating his remarks to the famous Dr. Hunter, who had been foremost in desiring the examination, Dr. Hunter thought them sufficiently curious to be presented to the Royal Society; where they were extremely well received, and printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the year 1779.
For some time after this, the Doctor was frequently called upon, by the relations and admirers of this wonderful boy, for assistance and advice; both which he cheerfully accorded to the best of his ability: till the happy star of the young prodigy fixed him at the University of Oxford, where he met with every aid, professional or personal, that his genius claimed; and where, while his education was still in progress, he was nominated, when only fourteen years of age, organist of Christ Church.
This event he communicated to Dr. Burney in a modest and grateful letter, that the Doctor received and preserved with sincere satisfaction; and kindly answered with instructive professional counsel.
In his chronological lines, the Doctor says—
“Little Crotch, a phenomenon, now first appeared,And each minstrel surprised, howe’er gray was his beard:To my learned associates who write F. R. S.Both the why and the wherefore I humbly address;And endeavour to shew them, without diminution,What truly is strange in this bard Lilliputian:What common, what wanting, to make him surpassThe composers and players of every class.
“Little Crotch, a phenomenon, now first appeared,And each minstrel surprised, howe’er gray was his beard:To my learned associates who write F. R. S.Both the why and the wherefore I humbly address;And endeavour to shew them, without diminution,What truly is strange in this bard Lilliputian:What common, what wanting, to make him surpassThe composers and players of every class.
“Little Crotch, a phenomenon, now first appeared,And each minstrel surprised, howe’er gray was his beard:To my learned associates who write F. R. S.Both the why and the wherefore I humbly address;And endeavour to shew them, without diminution,What truly is strange in this bard Lilliputian:What common, what wanting, to make him surpassThe composers and players of every class.
“Little Crotch, a phenomenon, now first appeared,And each minstrel surprised, howe’er gray was his beard:To my learned associates who write F. R. S.Both the why and the wherefore I humbly address;And endeavour to shew them, without diminution,What truly is strange in this bard Lilliputian:What common, what wanting, to make him surpassThe composers and players of every class.
“Little Crotch, a phenomenon, now first appeared,
And each minstrel surprised, howe’er gray was his beard:
To my learned associates who write F. R. S.
Both the why and the wherefore I humbly address;
And endeavour to shew them, without diminution,
What truly is strange in this bard Lilliputian:
What common, what wanting, to make him surpass
The composers and players of every class.
The event next narrated in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, proved deeply affecting to the happiness and gaiety of his social circles; for now a catastrophe, which for some time had seemed impending, and which, though variously fluctuating, had often struck with terror, or damped with sorrow, the liveliest spirits and gayest scenes of Streatham, suddenly took place; and cut short for ever the honours and the peace of that erst illustrious dwelling.
Mr. Thrale, for many years, in utter ignorance what its symptoms were foreboding, had been harbouring, through an undermining indulgence of immoderate sleep after meals, a propensity to paralysis. The prognostics of distemper were then little observed but by men of science; and those were rarely called in till something fatal was apprehended. It is,probably, only since the time that medical and surgical lectures have been published as well as delivered; and simplified from technical difficulties, so as to meet and to enlighten the unscientific intellect of the herd of mankind, that the world at large seems to have learned the value of early attention to incipient malady.
Even Dr. Johnson was so little aware of the insalubrity of Mr. Thrale’s course of life, that, without interposing his powerful and never disregarded exhortations, he often laughingly said, “Mr. Thrale will out-sleep the seven sleepers!”
Strange it may seem, at this present so far more enlightened day upon these subjects, that Dr. Johnson, at least, should not have been alarmed at this lethargic tendency; as the art of medicine, which, for all that belongs to this world, stands the highest in utility, was, abstractedly, a study upon which he loved to ruminate, and a subject he was addicted to discuss. But this instance of complete vacuity of practical information upon diseases and remedies in Dr. Johnson, will cease to give surprise, when it is known that, near the middle of his life, and in the fullest force of his noble faculties, upon finding himself assailed by a severe fit of the goutin his ancle, he sent for a pail of cold water, into which he plunged his leg during the worst of the paroxysm—a feat of intrepid ignorance—incongruous as sounds the word ignorance in speaking of Dr. Johnson—that probably he had cause to rue during his whole after-life; for the gout, of which he chose to get rid in so succinct a manner—a feat in which he often exulted—might have carried off many of the direful obstructions, and asthmatic seizures and sufferings, of which his latter years were wretchedly the martyrs.
Thus, most unfortunately, without representation, opposition, or consciousness, Mr. Thrale went on in a self-destroying mode of conduct, till,
“Uncall’d—unheeded—unawares—”
he was struck with a fit of apoplexy.
Yet even this stroke, by the knowledge and experience of his medical advisers,[36]might perhaps have been parried, had Mr. Thrale been imbued with earlier reverence for the arts of recovery. But he slighted them all; and fearless, or, rather, incredulous of danger, he attendedto no prescription. He simply essayed the waters of Tunbridge; and made a long sojourn at Bath. All in vain! The last and fatal seizure was inflicted at his own town house, in Grosvenor Square, in the spring of 1781: and at an instant when such a blow was so little expected, that all London, amongst persons of fashion, talents, or celebrity, had been invited to a splendid entertainment, meant for the night of that very dawn which rose upon the sudden earthly extinction of the lamented and respected chief of the mansion.
Changed now was Streatham! the value of its chief seemed first made known by his loss; which was long felt; though not, perhaps, with the immediate acuteness that would have been demonstrated, if, at that period, the deprivation of the female chieftain had preceded that of the male. Still Mr. Thrale, by every friend of his house and family; and by every true adherent to his wife, her interest, her fame, and her happiness, was day by day, and week by week, more and more missed and regretted.
Dr. Burney was one of the first and most earnestto hasten to the widowed lady, with the truest sympathy in her grief. His daughter, who, for some previous months, had been wholly restored to the paternal roof,—the Thrales themselves having been fixed, for the last winter season, in Grosvenor Square,—flew, in trembling haste, the instant she could be received, to the beloved friend who was now tenderly enchained to her heart; and at this moment was doubly endeared by misfortune; and voluntarily quitting all else, eagerly established herself at Streatham.
Dr. Johnson, who was one of Mr. Thrale’s executors, immediately resumed his apartment; cordially and gratefully bestowing on the remaining hostess every minute that she could desire or require of his time and his services. And nothing could be wiser in counsel, more zealous in good offices, or kinder of intention, than the whole of his conduct in performing the duties that he deemed to devolve upon him by the will of his late friend.
But Dr. Burney, as he could only upon his stated day and hour make one in this retirement, devoted himself now almost exclusively to his
So many years had elapsed since the appearance of the first volume, and the murmurs of the subscribers were so general for the publication of the second, that the earnestness of the Doctor to fulfil his engagement, became such as to sicken him of almost every occupation that turned him from its pursuit. Yet uninterrupted attention grew more than ever difficult; for as his leisure, through the double claims of his profession and his work, diminished, his celebrity increased; and the calls upon it, as usual, from the wayward taste of public fashion for what is hard to obtain, were perpetual, were even clamorous; and he had constantly a long list of petitioning parents, awaiting a vacant hour, upon any terms that he could name, and at any part of the day.
He had always some early pupil who accepted his attendance at eight o’clock in the morning; and a strong instance has been given of its being seized upon even at seven;[37]and, during the height of the season for fashionable London residence, his tourfrom house to house was scarcely ever finished sooner than eleven o’clock at night.
But so urgent grew now the spirit of his diligence for the progress of his work, that he not only declined all invitations to the hospitable boards of his friends, he even resisted the social hour of repast at his own table; and took his solitary meal in his coach, while passing from scholar to scholar; for which purpose he had sandwiches prepared in a flat tin box; and wine and water ready mixed, in a wickered pint bottle, put constantly into the pockets of his carriage.
If, at this period, Dr. Burney had been as intent and as skilful in the arrangement and the augmentation of his income, as he was industrious to procure, and assiduous to merit, its increase, he might have retired from business, its toils and its cares, while yet in the meridian of life; with a comfortable competence for its decline, and adequate portions for his daughters. With regard to his sons, it was always his intention to bestow upon them good educations, and to bring them up to honourable professions; and then to leave them to form, as he had done himself, a dynasty of their own. But, unfortunately for all parties, he had as little turn as time for thatspecies of speculation which leads to financial prosperity; and he lived chiefly upon the principal of the sums which he amassed; and which he merely, as soon as they were received, locked up in his bureau for facility of usage; or stored largely at his bankers as an asylum of safety: while the cash which he laid out in any sort of interest, was so little, as to make his current revenue almost incredibly below what might have been expected from the remuneration of his labours; or what seemed due to his situation in the world.
But, with all his honourable toil, his philosophic privations, and his heroic self-denials,
THE SECOND VOLUME of the HISTORY OF MUSIC,
from a continually enlarging view of its capability of improvement, did not see the light till the year 1782.
Then, however, it was received with the same favour and the same honours that had graced the entrance into public notice of its predecessor. The literary world seemed filled with its praise; the booksellers demanded ample impressions; and her Majesty Queen Charlotte, with even augmented graciousness, accepted its homage at court.
Relieved, by this publication, from a weight upon his spirits and his delicacy, which, for more than six years had burthened and disturbed them, he prudently resolved against working any longer under the self-reproachful annoyance of a promised punctuality which his position in life disabled him from observing, by fettering himself with any further tie of time to his subscribers for the remaining volumes.
He renounced, therefore, the excess of studious labour with which, hitherto,
his toilO’er books consum’d the midnight oil;
his toilO’er books consum’d the midnight oil;
his toilO’er books consum’d the midnight oil;
his toilO’er books consum’d the midnight oil;
his toil
O’er books consum’d the midnight oil;
and restored himself, in a certain degree, to his family, his friends, and a general and genial enjoyment of his existence. And hailed was the design, by all who knew him, with an energetic welcome.
And yet, in breathing thus a little from so unremitting an ardour; and allowing himself to bask awhile in that healing sunshine of applause which administers more relief to the brain-shattered, and mind-exhausted patient, than all themateria medicaof the Apothecaries’ Hall; so small still, and so fugitive, were his intervals of relaxation, that thediminished exertion which to him was gentle rest, would, to almost any other, have still seemed overstrained occupation, and a life of drudgery.
With no small pleasure, now, he resumed his wonted place at the opera, at concerts, and in circles of musical excellence; which then were at their height of superiority, because presided over by the royal and accomplished legislator of taste, fashion, and elegance, the Prince of Wales;[38]who frequently deigned to call upon Dr. Burney for his opinion upon subjects of harmony: and even condescended to summon him to his royal vicinity, both at the opera and at concerts, that they might “compare notes,” in his own gracious expression, upon what was performing.
Not, however, to his daughter did the Doctor recommend any similar remission of penmanship. The extraordinary favour with which her little work had been received in the world; and which may chiefly, perhaps, be attributed to the unpretending and unexpecting mode in which, not skilfully, but involuntarily, it had glided into public life; being now sanctioned by theeclâtof encouragement from Dr. Johnsonand from Mr. Burke, gave a zest to his paternal pleasure and hopes, that made it impossible, nay, that even led him to think it would be unfatherly, to listen to her affrighted wishes of retreat, from her fearful apprehensions of some reverse; or suffer her to shrink back to her original obscurity, from the light into which she had been surprised.
And, indeed, though he made the kindest allowance for her tremors and reluctance, he was urged so tumultuously by others, that it was hardly possible for him to be passive: and Mr. Crisp, whose voice, in whatever was submitted to his judgment, had the effect of a casting vote, called out aloud: “More! More! More!—another production!”
The wishes of two such personages were, of course, resistless; and a new mental speculation, which already, though secretly, had taken a rambling possession of her ideas, upon the evils annexed to that species of family pride which, from generation to generation, seeks, by mortal wills, to arrest the changeful range of succession enacted by the immutable laws of death, became the basis of a composition which she denominated Memoirs of an Heiress.[39]
No sooner was her consent obtained, than Dr. Burney, who had long with regret, though with pride, perceived that, at Streatham, she had no time that was her own, earnestly called her thence.
He called, however, in vain, from the acuter, though fonder cry of Mrs. Thrale for her detention; and, kind and flexible, he was yielding up his demand, when Mr. Crisp, emphatically exclaiming:
“There is a tide in the affairs of men”— — —
“and—” comically adding—“and of girls, too!” charged him not to risk that turn for his daughter, through a false delicacy from which, should she become its victim, he would have the laugh against,—and nothing for him.
The Doctor then frankly revealed to Mrs. Thrale, the tide-fearing alarm of Mr. Crisp.
Startled, she heard him. Unwelcome was the sound to her affection, to her affliction—and, it may be, to her already growing perplexities!—but justice and kindness united to forbid any conflict:—though struck was the Doctor, and still more struck was the Memorialist, by the miserable “Adieu!” which she uttered at parting.
Mr. Crisp himself hastened in person to Streatham, to convey his young friend alike from that now monopolizing seclusion, and from her endlessly increasing expansion of visits and acquaintance in London;—all which he vehemently denounced as flattering idleness,—to the quiet and exclusive possession of what he had denominated The Doctor’s Conjuring Closet, at Chesington.
And there, with that paternal and excellent friend, and his worthy associates, Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Cooke, in lively sociality, gay good-humour, and unbounded confidence, she consigned some months to what he called her new conjuring. And there she proposed to remain till her work should be finished: but, ere that time arrived, and ere she could read any part of it with Mr. Crisp, a tender call from home brought her to the parental roof, to be present at the marriage of a darling sister:[40]after which, the Doctor kept her stationary in St. Martin’s-street, till she had written the word Finis, which ushered her “Heiress” into the world.
The time is now come for commemorating the connection which, next alone to that of Dr. Johnson, stands highest in the literary honours of Dr. Burney, namely, that which he formed with Edmund Burke.
Their first meetings had been merely accidental and public, and wholly unaccompanied by any private intimacy or intercourse; though, from the time that the author of Evelina had been discovered, there had passed between them, on such occasional junctions, what Dr. Burney playfully calledan amiable coquetryof smiles, and other symbols, that showed each to be thinking of the same thing: for Mr. Burke, with that generous energy which, when he escaped the feuds of party, was the distinction of his character, and made the charm of his oratory, had blazed around his approbation of that happy little work, from the moment that it had fallen, incidentally, into his hands: and when he heard that the author, from her acquaintance with the lovely and accomplished nieces of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was a visitor at the house of that English Raphael, he flatteringly desired of the Knight an appointed interview.
But from that, though enchanted as much as astonished at such a proposal from Mr. Burke, she fearfully, and with conscious insufficiency, hung back; hoping to owe to chance a less ostentatious meeting.
Various parties, during two or three years, had been planned, but proved abortive; when in June, 1782, Sir Joshua Reynolds invited Dr. Burney and the Memorialist to a dinner upon Richmond Hill, to meet the Bishop of St. Asaph, Miss Shipley, and some others.
This was gladly accepted by the Doctor; who now, upon his new system, was writing more at his ease; and by his daughter, who was still detained from Streatham, as her second work, though finished, was yet in the press.
Sir Joshua, and his eldest niece,[41]accompanied by Lord Cork, called for them in St. Martin’s-street; and the drive was as lively, from the discourse within the carriage, as it was pleasant from the views without.
Here the editor, as no traits of Mr. Burke in conversation can be wholly uninteresting to an English reader, will venture to copy anaccount of this meeting, which was written while it was yet new, and consequently warm in her memory, as an offering to her second father,
SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ.
Chesington.
“My dear Mr. Crisp.
“At the Knight of Plympton’s house, on Richmond Hill, next to the Star and Garter, we were met by the Bishop of St. Asaph, who stands as high in general esteem for agreeability as for worth and learning; and by his accomplished and spirited daughter, Miss Shipley. My father was already acquainted with both; and to both I was introduced by Miss Palmer.
“No other company was mentioned; but some smiling whispers passed between Sir Joshua, Miss Palmer, and my father, that awakened in me a notion that the party was not yet complete; and with that notion an idea that Mr. Burke might be the awaited chief of the assemblage; for as they knew I had long had as much eagerness to see Mr. Burke as I hadfears of meeting his expectations, I thought they might forbear naming him to save me a fit of fright.
“Sir Joshua who, though full of kindness, dearly loves a little innocent malice, drew me soon afterwards to a window, to look at the beautiful prospect below; the soft meandering of the Thames, and the brightly picturesque situation of the elegant white house which Horace Walpole had made the habitation of Lady Diana Beauclerk and her fair progeny; in order to gather, as he afterwards laughingly acknowledged, my sentiments of the view, that he might compare them with those of Mr. Burke on the same scene! However, I escaped, luckily, falling, through ignorance, into such a competition, by the entrance of a large, though unannounced party, in a mass. For as this was only a visit of a day, there were very few servants; and those few, I suppose, were preparing the dinner apartment; for this group appeared to have found its own way up to the drawing-room, with an easiness as well suited to its humour, by the gay air of its approach, as to that of Sir Joshua; who holds ceremony almost in horror, and who received them without any form or apology.
“He quitted me, however, to go forward, and greet with distinction a lady who was in the set. They were all familiarly recognized by the Bishop and Miss Shipley, as well as by Miss Palmer; and some of them by my father, whose own face wore an expression, of pleasure, that helped to fix a conjecture in my mind that one amongst them, whom I peculiarly signalised, tall, and of fine deportment, with an air at once of Courtesy and Command, might be Edmund Burke.
“Excited as I felt by this idea, I continued at my picturesque window, as all the company were strangers to me, till Miss Palmer gave her hand to the tall, suspected, but unknown personage, saying, in a half whisper, “Have I kept my promise at last?” and then, but in a lower tone still, and pointing to the window, she pronounced “Miss Burney.”
As this seemed intended for private information, previously to an introduction, be the person whom he might, though accidentally it was overheard, I instantly bent my head out of the window, as if not attending to them: yet I caught, unavoidably, the answer, which was uttered in a voice the most emphatic, though low, “Why did you tell me it was Miss Burney? Did you think I should not have known it?”
“An awkward feel, now, from having still no certainty of my surmise, or of what it might produce, made me seize a spying glass, and set about re-examining the prospect; till a pat on the arm, soon after, by Miss Palmer, turned me round to the company, just as the still unknown, to my great regret, was going out of the room with a footman, who seemed to call him away upon some sudden summons of business. But my father, who was at Miss Palmer’s elbow, said, “Fanny—Mr. Gibbon!”
This, too, was a great name; but of how different a figure and presentation! Fat and ill-constructed, Mr. Gibbon has cheeks of such prodigious chubbyness, that they envelope his nose so completely, as to render it, in profile, absolutely invisible. His look and manner are placidly mild, but rather effeminate; his voice,—for he was speaking to Sir Joshua at a little distance—is gentle, but of studied precision of accent. Yet, with these Brobdignatious cheeks, his neat little feet are of a miniature description; and with these, as soon as I turned round, he hastily described a quaint sort of circle, with small quick steps, and a dapper gait, as if to mark the alacrity of his approach, and then, stopping short when full face to me, he made so singularly profound a bow,that—though hardly able to keep my gravity—I felt myself blush deeply at its undue, but palpably intended obsequiousness.
This demonstration, however, over, his sense of politeness, or project of flattery, was satisfied; for he spoke not a word, though his gallant advance seemed to indicate a design of bestowing upon me a little rhetorical touch of a compliment. But, as all eyes in the room were suddenly cast upon us both, it is possible he partook a little himself of the embarrassment he could not but see that he occasioned; and was therefore unwilling, or unprepared, to hold forth so publicly upon—he scarcely, perhaps, knew what!—for, unless my partial Sir Joshua should just then have poured it into his ears, how little is it likely Mr. Gibbon should have heard of Evelina!
But at this moment, to my great relief, the Unknown again appeared; and with a spirit, an air, a deportment that seemed to spread around him the glow of pleasure with which he himself was visibly exhilarated. But speech was there none; for dinner, which I suppose had awaited him, was at the same instant proclaimed; and all the company, in a mixed, quite irregular, and even confused manner, descended,sans ceremonie, to the eating parlour.
The Unknown, however, catching the arm and the trumpet of Sir Joshua, as they were coming down stairs, murmured something, in a rather reproachful tone, in the knight’s ear; to which Sir Joshua made no audible answer. But when he had placed himself at his table, he called out, smilingly, “Come, Miss Burney!—will you take a seat next mine?”—adding, as if to reward my very alert compliance, “and then—Mr. Burke shall sit on your other side.”
“O no, indeed!” cried the sprightly Miss Shipley, who was also next to Sir Joshua, “I sha’n’t agree to that! Mr. Burke must sit next me! I won’t consent to part with him. So pray come, and sit down quiet, Mr. Burke.”
Mr. Burke—for Mr. Burke, Edmund Burke, it was!—smiled, and obeyed.
“I only proposed it to make my peace with Mr. Burke,” said Sir Joshua, passively, “by giving him that place; for he has been scolding me all the way down stairs for not having introduced him to Miss Burney; however, I must do it now—Mr. Burke!—Miss Burney!”
We both half rose, to reciprocate a little salutation; and Mr. Burke said: “I have been complainingto Sir Joshua that he left me wholly to my own sagacity,—which, however, did not here deceive me!”
Delightedly as my dear father, who had never before seen Mr. Burke in private society, enjoyed this encounter, I, my dear Mr. Crisp, had a delight in it that transcended all comparison. No expectation that I had formed of Mr. Burke, either from his works, his speeches, his character, or his fame, had anticipated to me such a man as I now met. He appeared, perhaps, at this moment, to the highest possible advantage in health, vivacity, and spirits. Removed from the impetuous aggravations of party contentions, that, at times, by inflaming his passions, seem, momentarily at least, to disorder his character, he was lulled into gentleness by the grateful feelings of prosperity; exhilarated, but not intoxicated, by sudden success; and just risen, after toiling years of failures, disappointments, fire, and fury, to place, affluence, and honours; which were brightly smiling on the zenith of his powers. He looked, indeed, as if he had no wish but to diffuse philanthropy, pleasure, and genial gaiety all around.
His figure, when he is not negligent in his carriage, is noble; his air, commanding; his address, graceful; his voice clear, penetrating, sonorous, and powerful; his language, copious, eloquent, andchangefully impressive; his manners are attractive; his conversation is past all praise!
You will call me mad, I know;—but if I wait till I see another Mr. Burke for such another fit of ecstacy—I may be long enough in my very sober good senses!
Sir Joshua next made Mrs. Burke greet the new comer into this select circle; which she did with marked distinction. She appears to be pleasing and sensible, but silent and reserved.
Sir Joshua then went through the same introductory etiquette with Mr. Richard Burke, the brother; Mr. William Burke, the cousin; and young Burke, the son of THE Burke. They all, in different ways, seem lively and agreeable; but at miles, and myriads of miles, from the towering chief.
How proud should I be to give you a sample of the conversation of Mr. Burke! But the subjects were, in general, so fleeting, his ideas so full of variety, of gaiety, and of matter; and he darted from one of them to another with such rapidity, that the manner, the eye, the air with which all was pronounced, ought to be separately delineated to doany justice to the effect that every sentence, nay, that every word produced upon his admiring hearers and beholders.
Mad again! says my Mr. Crisp; stark, staring mad!
Well, all the better; for “There is a pleasure in being mad,” as I have heard you quote from Nat Lee, or some other old play-wright, “that none but madmen know.”
I must not, however, fail to particularize one point of his discourse, because ’tis upon your own favourite hobby, politics: and my father very much admired its candour and frankness.
In speaking of the great Lord Chatham while he was yet Mr. Pitt, Mr. Burke confessed his Lordship to have been the only person whom he, Mr. Burke, did not name in parliament without caution. But Lord Chatham, he said, had obtained so preponderating a height of public favour, that though, occasionally, he could not concur in its enthusiasm, he would not attempt to oppose its cry. He then, however, positively, nay solemnly, protested, that this was the only subject upon which he did not talk with exactly the same openness and sincerity in the house as at the table.
He bestowed the most liberal praise upon Lord Chatham’s second son, thenowyoung William Pitt, with whom he is acting; and who had not only, he said, the most truly extraordinary talents, but who appeared to be immediately gifted by nature with the judgment which others acquire by experience.
“Though judgment,” he presently added, “is not so rare in youth as is generally supposed. I have commonly observed, that those who do not possess it early are apt to miss it late.”
But the subject on which he most enlarged, and most brightened, was Cardinal Ximenes, which was brought forward, accidentally, by Miss Shipley.
That young lady, with the pleasure of youthful exultation in a literary honour, proclaimed that she had just received a letter from the famous Doctor Franklin.
Mr. Burke then, to Miss Shipley’s great delight, burst forth into an eulogy of the abilities and character of Dr. Franklin, which he mingled with a history the most striking, yet simple, of his life; and a veneration the most profound for his eminence in science, and his liberal sentiments and skill in politics.
This led him, imperceptibly, to a dissertation upon the beauty, butrarity, of great minds sustaining great powers to great old age; illustrating his remarks by historical proofs, and biographical anecdotes of antique worthies;—till he came to Cardinal Ximenes, who lived to his ninetieth year. And here he made a pause. He could go, he said, no further. Perfection rested there!
His pause, however, producing only a general silence, that indicated no wish of speech but from himself, he suddenly burst forth again into an oration so glowing, so flowing, so noble, so divinely eloquent, upon the life, conduct, and endowments of this Cardinal, that I felt as if I had never before known what it was to listen! I saw Mr. Burke, and Mr. Burke only! Nothing, no one else was visible any more than audible. I seemed suddenly organized into a new intellectual existence, that was wholly engrossed by one single use of the senses of seeing and hearing, to the total exclusion of every object but of the figure of Mr. Burke; and of every sound but of that of his voice. All else—my dear father alone excepted—appeared but amalgamations of the chairs on which they were seated; and seemed placed round the table merely as furniture.
I cannot pretend to write you such a speech—but such sentences as Ican recollect with exactitude, I cannot let pass.
The Cardinal, he said, gave counsel and admonition to princes and sovereigns with the calm courage and dauntless authority with which he might have given them to his own children: yet, to such noble courage, he joined a humility still more magnanimous, in never desiring to disprove, or to disguise his own lowly origin; but confessing, at times, with openness and simplicity, his surprise at the height of the mountain to which, from so deep a valley, he had ascended. And, in the midst of all his greatness, he personally visited the village in which he was born, where he touchingly recognised what remained of his kith and kin.
Next, he descanted upon the erudition of this exemplary prelate; his scarce collection of bibles; his unequalled mass of rare manuscripts; his charitable institutions; his learned seminaries; and his stupendous University at Alcala. “Yet so untinged,” he continued, “was his scholastic lore with the bigotry of the times; and so untainted with its despotism, that, even in his most forcible acts for securing the press from licentiousness, he had the enlargement of mind to permit the merely ignorant, or merely needy instruments of its abuse,when detected in promulgating profane works, from being involved in their destruction; for though, on such occasions, he caused the culprits’ shops, or warehouses, to be strictly searched, he let previous notice of his orders be given to the owners, who then privily executed judgment themselves upon the peccant property; while they preserved what was sane, as well as their personal liberty: but—if the misdemeanour were committed a second time, he manfully left the offenders, unaided and unpitied, to its forfeiture.
“To a vigour,” Mr. Burke went on, “that seemed never to calculate upon danger, he joined a prudence that seemed never to run a risk. Though often the object of aspersion—as who, conspicuous in the political world, is not?—he always refused to prosecute; he would not even answer his calumniators. He held that all classes had a right to stand for something in public life! “We,” he said, “who are at the head, Act;—in God’s name let those who are at the other end, Talk! If we are Wrong, ’tis our duty to hearken, and to mend! If we are Right, we may be content enough with our superiority, to teach unprovoked malice its impotence, by leaving it to its own fester.”
“So elevated, indeed,” Mr. Burke continued, “was his disdain of detraction, that instead of suffering it to blight his tranquillity, he taught it to become the spur to his virtues!”
Mr. Burke again paused; paused as if overcome by the warmth of his own emotion of admiration; and presently he gravely protested, that the multifarious perfections of Cardinal Ximenes were beyond human delineation.
Soon, however, afterwards, as if fearing he had become too serious, he rose to help himself to some distant fruit—for all this had passed during the dessert; and then, while standing in the noblest attitude, and with a sudden smile full of radiant ideas, he vivaciously exclaimed, “No imagination—not even the imagination of Miss Burney!—could have invented a character so extraordinary as that of Cardinal Ximenes; no pen—not even the pen of Miss Burney!—could have described it adequately!”
Think of me, my dear Mr. Crisp, at a climax so unexpected! my eyes, at the moment, being openly rivetted upon him; my head bent forward with excess of eagerness; my attention exclusively his own!—but now, by this sudden turn, I myself became the universally absorbing object! for instantaneously, I felt every eye upon my face; and my cheeks tingledas if they were the heated focus of stares that almost burnt them alive!
And yet, you will laugh when I tell you, that though thus struck I had not time to be disconcerted. The whole was momentary; ’twas like a flash of lightning in the evening, which makes every object of a dazzling brightness for a quarter of an instant, and then leaves all again to twilight obscurity.
Mr. Burke, by his delicacy, as much as by his kindness, reminding me of my opening encouragement from Dr. Johnson, looked now everywhere rather than at me; as if he had made the allusion by mere chance; and flew from it with a velocity that quickly drew back again to himself the eyes which he had transitorily employed to see how his superb compliment was taken: though not before I had caught from my kind Sir Joshua, a look of congratulatory sportiveness, conveyed by a comic nod.
My dear Mr. Crisp will be the last to want to be told that I received this speech as the mere effervescence of chivalrous gallantry in Mr. Burke:—yet, to be its object, even in pleasantry,—O, my dear Mr. Crisp, how could I have foreseen such a distinction? My dear father’seyes glistened—I wish you could have had a glimpse of him!
“There has been,” Mr. Burke then, smilingly, resumed, “an age for all excellence; we have had an age for statesmen; an age for heroes; an age for poets; an age for artists;—but This,” bowing down, with an air of obsequious gallantry, his head almost upon the table cloth, “This is the age for women!”
“A very happy modern improvement!” cried Sir Joshua, laughing; “don’t you think so, Miss Burney?—but that’s not a fair question to put to you; so we won’t make a point of your answering it. However,” continued the dear natural knight, “what Mr. Burke says is very true, now. The women begin to make a figure in every thing. Though I remember, when I first came into the world, it was thought but a poor compliment to say a person did a thing like a lady!”
“Ay, Sir Joshua,” cried my father, “but, like Moliere’s physician,nous avons changé tout cela!”
“Very true, Dr. Burney,” replied the Knight; “but I remember the time—and so, I dare say, do you—when it was thought a slight, if not a sneer, to speak any thing of a lady’s performance: it was only inmockery to talk of painting like a lady; singing like a lady; playing like a lady—”
“But now,” interrupted Mr. Burke, warmly, “to talk of writing like a lady, is the greatest compliment that need be wished for by a man!”
Would you believe it, my daddy—every body now, himself and my father excepted, turned about, Sir Joshua leading the way—to make a little playful bow to ... can you ever guess to whom?
Mr. Burke, then, archly shrugging his shoulders, added, “What is left now, exclusively, for US; and what we are to devise in our own defence, I know not! We seem to have nothing for it but assuming a sovereign contempt! for the next most dignified thing to possessing merit, is an heroic barbarism in despising it!”
I can recollect nothing else—so adieu!
One word, however, more, by way of my last speech and confession on this subject. Should you demand, now that I have seen, in their own social circles, the two first men of letters of our day, how, in one word, I should discriminate them; I answer, that I think Dr. Johnson the first Discourser, and Mr. Burke the first Converser, of the British empire.
It may seem strange, in giving an account of this meeting, not to have recited even one speech from so celebrated an author as Mr. Gibbon. But not one is recollected. His countenance looked always serene; yet he did not appear to be at his ease. His name and future fame seemed to be more in his thoughts than the present society, or than any present enjoyment: and the exalted spirits of Mr. Burke, at this period, might rather alarm than allure a man whose sole care in existence seemed that of paying his court to posterity; and induce him, therefore, to evade coming into collision with so dauntless a compeer; from the sage apprehension of making a less splendid figure, at this moment, as a colloquial competitor, than he had reason to expect making, hereafter, as a Roman historian.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, however, gave, sportively, and with much self-amusement, another turn to his silence; for after significantly, in a whisper, asking the Memorialist, whether she had remarked the taciturnity of Mr. Gibbon?—he laughingly demanded also, whether shehad discovered its cause?
“No,” she answered; “nor guessed it.”
“Why, he’s terribly afraid you’ll snatch at him for a character in your next book!”
It may easily be imagined that the few words, but highly distinguishing manner in which Mr. Burke had so courteously marked his kindness towardsEvelina; or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, awakened in the mind of Dr. Burney no small impatience to develop what might be his opinion ofCecilia; or, the Memoirs of an Heiress, just then on the eve of publication.
And not long was his parental anxiety kept in suspense. That generous orator had no sooner given an eager perusal to the work, than he condescended to write a letter of the most indulgent, nay eloquent approvance to its highly honoured author; for whom he vivaciously displayed a flattering partiality, to which he inviolably adhered through every change, either in his own affairs, or in hers, to the end of his life.
All the manuscript memorandums that remain of the year 1782, in the hand-writing of Dr. Burney, are teeming with kind exultation at the progress of this second publication; though the anecdote that most amused him, and that he wrote triumphantly to the author, was onethat had been recounted to him personally at Buxton, whence the then Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, went on a visit to Lord Gower,[42]at Trentham Hall; where, on being conducted to a splendid library, he took a volume of Cecilia out of his pocket, exclaiming, “What signify all your fine and flourishing works here? See! I have brought you a little book that’s worth them all!” and he threw it upon the table, open, comically, at the passage where Hobson talks of “my Lord High Chancellor, and the like of that.”
From the time of the Richmond Hill assemblage, the acquaintance of Dr. Burney with Mr. Burke ripened into a regard that was soon mellowed into true and genial friendship, such as well suited the primitive characters, however it might clash, occasionally, with the current politics, of both.
Influenced by such a chief, the whole of the family of Mr. Burke followed his example; and the son, brother, and cousin, always joined the Doctor andhis daughter upon every accidental opportunity: while Mrs. Burke called in St. Martin’s-street to fix the acquaintance, by a pressing invitation to both father and daughter, to pass a week at Beaconsfield.
Not to have done this at so favourable a juncture in the spirits, the powers, and the happiness of Mr. Burke, always rested on both their minds with considerable regret; and on one of them it rests still! for an hour with Mr. Burke, in that bright halcyon season of his glory, concentrated in matter, and embellished in manner, as much wit, wisdom, and information, as might have demanded weeks, months,—perhaps more—to elicit from any other person:—and even, perhaps, at any other period, from himself:—Dr. Johnson always excepted.
But the engagements of Dr. Burney tied him to the capital; and no suspicion occurred that the same resplendent sunshine which then illuminated the fortune, the faculties, and the character of Mr. Burke, would not equally vivify a future invitation. Not one foreboding cloud lowered in the air with misty menace of the deadly tempests, public and domestic, that were hurtling over the head of that exalted but passion-swayed orator; though such were so soon to darken the refulgence, now so vivid, of his felicity and his fame; the public, bywarping his judgment—the domestic, by breaking his heart!
Dr. Burney, when the Cecilian business was arranged, again conveyed the Memorialist to Streatham. No further reluctance on his part, nor exhortations on that of Mr. Crisp, sought to withdraw her from that spot, where, while it was in its glory, they had so recently, and with pride, seen her distinguished. And truly eager was her own haste, when mistress of her time, to try once more to soothe those sorrows and chagrins in which she had most largely participated, by answering to the call, which had never ceased tenderly to pursue her, of return.
With alacrity, therefore, though not with gaiety, they re-entered the Streatham gates—but they soon perceived that they found not what they had left!
Changed, indeed, was Streatham! Gone its chief, and changed his relict! unaccountably, incomprehensibly, indefinably changed! She was absent and agitated; not two minutes could she remain in a place; shescarcely seemed to know whom she saw; her speech was so hurried it was hardly intelligible; her eyes were assiduously averted from those who sought them; and her smiles were faint and forced.
The Doctor, who had no opportunity to communicate his remarks, went back, as usual, to town; where soon also, with his tendency, as usual, to view every thing cheerfully, he revolved in his mind the new cares and avocations by which Mrs. Thrale was perplexed; and persuaded himself that the alteration which had struck him, was simply the effect of her new position.
Too near, however, were the observations of the Memorialist for so easy a solution. The change in her friend was equally dark and melancholy: yet not personal to the Memorialist was any alteration. No affection there was lessened; no kindness cooled; on the contrary, Mrs. Thrale was more fervent in both; more touchingly tender; and softened in disposition beyond all expression, all description: but in every thing else,—in health, spirits, comfort, general looks, and manner, the change was at once universal and deplorable. All was misery and mystery: misery the most restless; mystery the most unfathomable.
The mystery, however, soon ceased; the solicitations of the most affectionate sympathy could not long be urged in vain;—the mystery passed away—not so the misery! That, when revealed, was but to both parties doubled, from the different feelings set in movement by its disclosure.
The astonishing history of the enigmatical attachment which impelled Mrs. Thrale to her second marriage, is now as well known as her name: but its details belong not to the history of Dr. Burney; though the fact too deeply interested him, and was too intimately felt in his social habits, to be passed over in silence in any memoirs of his life.
But while ignorant yet of its cause, more and more struck he became at every meeting, by a species of general alienation which pervaded all around at Streatham. His visits, which, heretofore, had seemed galas to Mrs. Thrale, were now begun and ended almost without notice: and all others,—Dr. Johnson not excepted,—were cast into the same gulph of general neglect, or forgetfulness;—all,—save singly this Memorialist!—to whom, the fatal secret once acknowledged, Mrs. Thrale clung for comfort; though she saw, and generously pardoned, how wide she was from meeting approbation.
In this retired, though far from tranquil manner, passed many months; during which, with the acquiescent consent of the Doctor, his daughter, wholly devoted to her unhappy friend, remained uninterruptedly at sad and altered Streatham; sedulously avoiding, what at other times she most wished, atête à têtewith her father. Bound by ties indissoluble of honour not to betray a trust that, in the ignorance of her pity, she had herself unwittingly sought, even to him she was as immutably silent, on this subject, as to all others—save, singly, to the eldest daughter[43]of the house; whose conduct, through scenes of dreadful difficulty, notwithstanding her extreme youth, was even exemplary; and to whom the self-beguiled, yet generous mother, gave full and free permission to confide every thought and feeling to the Memorialist.
And here let a tribute of friendship be offered up to the shrine of remembrance, due from a thousand ineffaceably tender recollections. Not wildly, and with male and headstrong passions, as has currently been asserted, was this connexion brought to bear on the part of Mrs. Thrale. It was struggled againstat times with even agonizing energy; and with efforts so vehement, as nearly to destroy the poor machine they were exerted to save. But the subtle poison had glided into her veins so unsuspectedly, and, at first, so unopposedly, that the whole fabric was infected with its venom; which seemed to become a part, never to be dislodged, of its system.
It was, indeed, the positive opinion of her physician and friend, Sir Lucas Pepys, that so excited were her feelings, and so shattered, by their early indulgence, was her frame, that the crisis which might be produced through the medium of decided resistance, offered no other alternative but death or madness!
Various incidental circumstances began, at length, to open the reluctant eyes of Dr. Burney to an impelled, though clouded foresight, of the portentous event which might latently be the cause of the alteration of all around at Streatham. He then naturally wished for some explanation with his daughter, though he never forced, or even claimed her confidence; well knowing, that voluntarily to give it him had been her earliest delight.
But in taking her home with him one morning, to pass a day in St. Martin’s-Street, he almost involuntarily, in driving from the paddock, turned back his head towards the house, and, in a tone the most impressive, sighed out: “Adieu, Streatham!—Adieu!”
His daughter perceived his eyes were glistening; though he presently dropt them, and bowed down his head, as if not to distress her by any look of examination; and said no more.
Her tears, which had long been with difficulty restrained from overflowing in his presence, through grief at the unhappiness, and even more at what she thought the infatuation of her friend, now burst forth, from emotions that surprised away forbearance.
Dr. Burney sat silent and quiet, to give her time for recollection; though fully expecting a trusting communication.
She gave, however, none: his commands alone could have forced a disclosure; but he soon felt convinced, by her taciturnity, that she must have been bound to concealment. He pitied, therefore, but respected her secrecy; and, clearing his brow, finished the little journey in conversing upon their own affairs.
This delicacy of kindness, which the Memorialist cannot recollect and not record, filled her with ever living gratitude.
A few weeks earlier, the Memorialist had passed a nearly similar scene with Dr. Johnson. Not, however, she believes, from the same formidable species of surmise; but from the wounds inflicted upon his injured sensibility, through the palpably altered looks, tone, and deportment, of the bewildered lady of the mansion; who, cruelly aware what would be his wrath, and how overwhelming his reproaches against her projected union, wished to break up their residing under the same roof before it should be proclaimed.
This gave to her whole behaviour towards Dr. Johnson, a sort of restless petulancy, of which she was sometimes hardly conscious; at others, nearly reckless; but which hurt him far more than she purposed, though short of the point at which she aimed, of precipitating a change of dwelling that would elude its being cast, either by himself or the world, upon a passion that her understanding blushed to own; evenwhile she was sacrificing to it all of inborn dignity that she had been bred to hold most sacred.
Dr. Johnson, while still uninformed of an entanglement it was impossible he should conjecture, attributed her varying humours to the effect of wayward health meeting a sort of sudden wayward power: and imagined that caprices, which he judged to be partly feminine, and partly wealthy, would soberize themselves away in being unnoticed. He adhered, therefore, to what he thought his post, in being the ostensible guardian protector of the relict and progeny of the late chief of the house; taking no open or visible notice of the alteration in the successor—save only at times, and when they weretête à tête, to this Memorialist; to whom he frequently murmured portentous observations on the woeful, nay alarming deterioration in health and disposition of her whom, so lately, he had signalized as the gay mistress of Streatham.
But at length, as she became more and more dissatisfied with her own situation, and impatient for its relief, she grew less and less scrupulous with regard to her celebrated guest: she slighted his counsel; did not heed his remonstrances; avoided his society; wasready at a moment’s hint to lend him her carriage when he wished to return to Bolt Court; but awaited a formal request to accord it for bringing him back.
The Doctor then began to be stung; his own aspect became altered; and depression, with indignant uneasiness, sat upon his venerable front.
It was at this moment that, finding the Memorialist was going one morning to St. Martin’s-Street, he desired a cast thither in the carriage, and then to be set down at Bolt Court.
Aware of his disturbance, and far too well aware how short it was of what it would become when the cause of all that passed should be detected, it was in trembling that the Memorialist accompanied him to the coach, filled with dread of offending him by any reserve, should he force upon her any inquiry; and yet impressed with the utter impossibility of betraying a trusted secret.
His look was stern, though dejected, as he followed her into the vehicle; but when his eye, which, however short sighted, was quick to mental perception, saw how ill at ease appeared his companion, all sternness subsided into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, that seemed to claim her sympathy, though to revolt fromher compassion; while, with a shaking hand, and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion from which they were driving; and, when they faced it from the coach window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously exclaiming: “That house ... is lost tome—for ever!”
During a moment he then fixed upon her an interrogative eye, that impetuously demanded: “Do you not perceive the change I am experiencing?”
A sorrowing sigh was her only answer.
Pride and delicacy then united to make him leave her to her taciturnity.
He was too deeply, however, disturbed to start or to bear any other subject; and neither of them uttered a single word till the coach stopt in St. Martin’s-street, and the house and the carriage door were opened for their separation! He then suddenly and expressively looked at her, abruptly grasped her hand, and, with an air of affection, though in a low, husky voice, murmured rather than said: “Good morning, dear lady!” but turned his head quickly away, to avoid any species of answer.
She was deeply touched by so gentle an acquiescence in her declining the confidential discourse upon which he had indubitably meant toopen, relative to this mysterious alienation. But she had the comfort to be satisfied, that he saw and believed in her sincere participation in his feelings; while he allowed for the grateful attachment that bound her to a friend so loved; who, to her at least, still manifested a fervour of regard that resisted all change; alike from this new partiality, and from the undisguised, and even strenuous opposition of the Memorialist to its indulgence.
The “Adieu, Streatham!” that had been uttered figuratively by Dr. Burney, without any knowledge of its nearness to reality, was now fast approaching to becoming a mere matter of fact; for, to the almost equal grief, however far from equal loss, of Dr. Johnson and Dr. Burney, Streatham, a short time afterwards, though not publicly relinquished, was quitted by Mrs. Thrale and her family.
Both friends rejoiced, however, that the library and the pictures, at least, on this first breaking up, fell into the hands of so able an appreciator of literature and of painting, as the Earl of Shelburne.[44]
Mrs. Thrale removed first to Brighton, and next repaired to pass a winter in Argyll Street, previously to fixing her ultimate proceedings.
The last little narration that was written to Mr. Crisp of any party at Streatham, as it contains a description of the celebrated Corsican General, Paoli, with whom Dr. Burney had there been invited to dine; and whom Mr. Crisp, also, had been pressed, though unavailingly, to meet; will here be copied, in the hope that the reader, like Dr. Burney, will learn with pleasure General Paoli’s own history of his opening intercourse with Mr. Boswell.