This happy summer excursion may be said to have charmed away, for a while, from Dr. Burney, a species of evil which for some time had been hovering over him, and which was as new as it was inimical to his health; and as unwelcome as, hitherto, it had been unknown to his disposition; namely, a slow, unfixed, and nervous feverishness, which had infested his whole system; and which, in defiance of this salubrious episode, soon ruthlessly returned; robbing his spirits, as well as his frame, of elasticity; and casting him into a state the least natural to his vigorous character, of wasteful depression.
His recent mental trials had been grievous, and severely felt. The loss of his old and much valued friend, Mr. Hayes; and of his far more admired, and almost equally prized favourite, Sir Joshua Reynolds; joined to that of his early and constantly attached patron, the Earlof Orford, had all been inflicted, or been menacing, at the same time: and a continual anxious watchfulness over the gradual deterioration of health, and decay of life, of three such cherished friends, now nearly the last of early associations—had been ill adapted for impeding the mischief of the long and deeper disturbance caused by the precarious health, and singular situation, of his second daughter: and the accumulation of the whole had, slowly and underminingly, brought him into the state that has been described.
The sole employment to which, during this morbid interval, he could turn himself, was the difficult, the laborious work of composing the most learned and recondite canons and fugues; to which study and exposition of his art, he committed all the activity that he could command from his fatigued faculties.
This distressing state lasted, without relief or remittance, till it was suddenly and rudely superseded by a violent assault of acute rheumatism; which drove away all minor or subservient maladies, by the predominance of a torturing pain that nearly nullified every thing but itself.
He was now ordered to Bath, where the waters, the change of scene, thecasually meeting with old friends, and incidentally forming new ones; so recruited his health and his nerves, by chasing away what he called the foul fiend that had subjugated his animal spirits, that he was soon imperceptibly restored to his fair genial existence.
One circumstance, more potent, perhaps, in effect, than the concurrence of every other, contributed to this revivifying termination, by a power that acted as a spell upon his mind and happiness; namely, the enlightening society of the incomparable Mr. Burke; who, most fortunately for the invalid, was then at Bath, with his amiable wife, his beloved son, and his admiring brother; and whose own good taste led him to claim the chief portion of Dr. Burney’s recreative leisure. And with Mr. Burke Dr. Burney had every feeling, every thought, nay, every emotion in common, with regard to that sole topic of the times, the French Revolution.
Dr. Burney wrote warmly of these meetings to the Memorialist, by whom he well knew no subject would be more eagerly welcomed; and he finished his last Bath details with these flattering words: “I dined, in all, eight times at the Burkes’, where every day, after dinner, your health was constantly given by Mr. Burke himself, as his favourite toast.”
The deep public interest which Doctor Burney, whether as a citizen of the world, or a sound patriot, took in the disastrous situation of France, was ere long destined to goad yet more pungently his private feelings, from becoming, in some measure, personal.
At the elegant mansion of the friend, whose sight she never met but with mingled tenderness and reverence, Mr. Locke, the Doctor’s second daughter, began an acquaintance that, imperceptibly, led to a connexion of high esteem and genial sympathy, that no opposition could dispirit, no danger intimidate, and no time—that impelling underminer of nearly all things—could wither.
But though to the strong hold of an attachment of which the basis is a believed congeniality of character, no difficulties are ultimately unconquerable; the obstacles to this were more than commonly formidable. M. d’Arblay was at that time so situated, that he must perforce accompany the friend with whom he acted, Count Louis deNarbonne, to Switzerland; or decide to fix his own abode permanently in England, in the only manner which appeared desirable to him, a home connexion with a chosen object.
Not a ray of hope opened then to point to any restoration in France of Order and Monarchy with Liberty, to which M. d’Arblay inviolably adhered; and exile from his country, his family, and his friends, seemed to him a lot of blessedness, in comparison to joining the murderous and regicidical republic.
Dr. Burney, it may well be believed, was startled, was affrighted, when a proposition was made to him for the union of his daughter with a ruined gentleman—a foreigner—an emigrant; but the proposition came under the sanction of the wisest as well as kindest of that daughter’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Locke, of Norbury Park; and with the fullest sympathies of his cherished Susanna, who already had demonstrated the affection, and adopted the conduct, of a sister to M. d’Arblay. The Doctor could not, therefore, turn from the application implacably; he only hesitated, and demanded time for consideration.
The dread of pecuniary embarrassment, secretly stimulated andheightened by a latent hope and belief in a far more advantageous connexion, strongly opposed a free and happy consent to an alliance which, otherwise, from all he heard or could gather of the merits, the character, and rank in life of M. d’Arblay, he would have thought, to use his own words, “an honour to his daughter, to himself, and to his family.”
Fortunately, about this time, the Prince de Poix and the Comte de Lally Tolendahl, wrote some letters, in which were interspersed their personal attestations of the favour in which they knew M. d’Arblay to have stood with Louis XVI.; mingled with their intimate conviction of the spotless honour, the stainless character, and the singularly amiable disposition for which, in his own country, M. d’Arblay had been distinguished.
These letters, with their writers’ permission, were shewn to Dr. Burney; whom they so touched, nay, charmed, as to conquer his prudence of resistance: and at the village of Mickleham, in the vicinity of Norbury Park, the marriage took place.
Mr. Locke, whose unerring judgment foresaw what would make both parties happy; and whose exquisite sensibility made all virtuous felicity a bosom joy to himself, took the responsible part of father to M.d’Arblay, at the altar, where, in the absence of the Doctor, Captain Burney gave his sister to that gentleman: who quickly, or rather immediately, won from his honoured new relation, an esteem, a kindness, and an affection, that never afterwards failed or faded.
Of sterner stuff than entered into the composition of Dr. Burney must that heart have been moulded, that could have witnessed the noble conduct of that truly loyal sufferer in the calamities of his king and country, General d’Arblay; and could have seen the cheerful self-denial with which he limited his expenditure to his wants, and his wants to the mere calls of necessity; save where he feared involving his partner in his privations,—in one word, who could have beheld him, at the opening of his married career, in the village of Bookham, turn instantly from the uncontrolled restlessness, and careless scorn of foresight, of the roving military life, into a domestic character of the most sage description; renouncing all foreign pleasures; retiring from even martial ambition, though it had been the glory of his hopes, and the bent of his genius, without a murmur, since he no longer thought it coalesced with honour; for home occupations, for familyeconomies, for fireside enjoyments,—and not be struck by such manly self-command, such active, such practical virtue.
And while stilled by this generous prudence were the inward fears of Dr. Burney with regard to this union, his outward and more public solicitudes were equally removed, by a letter which his daughter d’Arblay had the high honour and joy to receive, written by royal order, in answer to her respectful information of her marriage to the Queen: containing, most benignly by his own command, the gracious good wishes of the King himself, joined to those of the Queen and all the Princesses, for her health and happiness.
And, next only to this deeply gratifying condescension, must be ranked for Dr. Burney, the glowing pleasure with which he welcomed, and copied for Bookham, the cordial kindness upon this occasion of Mr. Burke. The letter conveying its energetic and most singular expression, was written to Dr. Burney by the great orator himself; and speaks first ofa plan that had his fullest approbation and most liberal aid, suggested by Mrs. Crewe, in favour of the French emigrant priests; from which Mr. Burke proceeds to treat of the taking of Toulon by Lord Hood; and his, Mr. Burke’s, hope of ultimate success, from the possession of that great port and arsenal of France in the Mediterranean; after which he adds:
“Besides my general wishes, the establishment of Madame d’Arblay is a matter in which I take no slight interest; if I had not the greatest affection to her virtues, my admiration of her incomparable talents would make me desirous of an order of things which would bring forward a gentleman of whose merits, by being the object of her choice, I have no doubt: his choice of her too would give me the best possible opinion of his judgment.“I am, with Mrs. Burke’s best regards, and all our best wishes for you and M. and Madame d’Arblay, my dear Sir,“Yours, &c.“Edmd. Burke.”[32]
“Besides my general wishes, the establishment of Madame d’Arblay is a matter in which I take no slight interest; if I had not the greatest affection to her virtues, my admiration of her incomparable talents would make me desirous of an order of things which would bring forward a gentleman of whose merits, by being the object of her choice, I have no doubt: his choice of her too would give me the best possible opinion of his judgment.
“I am, with Mrs. Burke’s best regards, and all our best wishes for you and M. and Madame d’Arblay, my dear Sir,
“Yours, &c.
“Edmd. Burke.”[32]
And Mrs. Burke, in a postscript of her own, writes:
“Will you be so good as to make my very best compliments to Madame d’Arblay, and tell her that no person can more sincerely wish her every happiness than I do.”
“Will you be so good as to make my very best compliments to Madame d’Arblay, and tell her that no person can more sincerely wish her every happiness than I do.”
Not even the highly flattered, highly honoured Bookham Hermits themselves could read these generous words from the pen of Mr. Burke, whose personal kindness must apologise for their extraordinary exaggeration, with more vivid delight than they excited in the heart of Dr. Burney, by new stringing his hopes, and lightening his anxieties, upon this alliance.
The zeal of Mrs. Crewe to propitiate the cause of the Emigrant French Clergy, mentioned in the letter of Mr. Burke, induced her now to enlist as a principal aid-de-camp to her scheme, Dr. Burney; who, having never acquired that power of negation, which the world at large seems so generally to possess, of shirking all personal applications that lead to no avenue, whether straight or oblique, of personal advantage, immediately listened to her call; and thus mentions the subject in a letter to Bookham.
“Mrs. Crewe, having seen at East Bourne a great number of venerable and amiable French Clergy, suffering all the evils of banishment and beggary with silent resignation, has, for some time, had in meditation a plan for procuring an addition to the small allowance that the Committee at the Freemason’s Hall is able to spare from the residue of the subscriptions and briefs in their favour.”
Dr. Burney lost not a moment in assisting this liberal design; in which he had the happiness of engaging the powerful energies of Mr. Windham. And, soon afterwards, growing warmer in the business, from seeing more of the pious sufferers, he consented to becoming honorary secretary himself to the private society of the ladies who were at the head of this charitable exertion; of which the Marchioness of Buckingham[33]was nominated chief, at the desire of Mrs. Crewe.
The world is so full of claims, and of claimants for whatever has money for its object, that the benign purpose of these ladies was soon offensively thwarted from misapprehension, envy, or ill-will, that sought to excite in its disfavour the prejudices ever ready, of JohnBull against foreigners, till his justice is enlightened by an appeal to his generosity. Mrs. Crewe wrote warm lamentations on the subject to Dr. Burney, eagerly pressing him to engage his daughter in its cause.
“I never,” said the Doctor, in discussing this project, “receive a letter from Mrs. Crewe, in which she does not express her wishes thatyouwould subscribe with yourpen. ‘People in common,’ she truly says, ‘see the coarse, vulgar side of this business; and some good female writer would do well to put out some short essay, to throw a good colouring on such a subject; and bring precedents, if possible, out of the age of chivalry. Now Miss Burney never shone more than when she made her Cecilia burst from the shackles of common forms at Vauxhall, to save the life of Harrel. O! I wish Madame d’Arblay would let us all thank her again for such true pictures of taste and perfection in the moral world! The refinements of courts have been great; but they have seldom reached the heart; and I think genuine elegance was much oftener to be found amongst our ancestors; who, though, perhaps, too strict concerning the female sex, seem, by their writings, hardly ever to have let refinements interfere with theoperations of reason and common sense.’”
This quotation was followed by earnestly encouraging exhortations from the Doctor, to charge the new recluse to make some effort in favour of this pious emigrant clergy; and as the request had the full concurrence of M. d’Arblay, to whose every feeling the plan was touchingly interesting, her compliance, though fearful, could not be reluctant.
This was the origin and cause of The Address to the Ladies of Great Britain, in favour of the Emigrant French Priests, that was written for those venerable sufferers, as a pen-offering subscription from this Memorialist.
And the partial view that was taken of it by her fellow recluse; and the warm approvance accorded to it by Mrs. Crewe’s new private secretary, made the writer esteem it the most fortunate effusion of that pen.
Mrs. Doctor Burney was amongst the most active workers for these pious self-sacrificed exiles: as well as for whatever had charity for its object.
Such were the exertions of Dr. Burney, such the concurrent occupations of the happy new recluse, when suddenly a whirlwind encompassed the cottage of the latter, that involved its tenants in tremulous disorder.
It was raised by the taking of Toulon, just mentioned in the letter of Mr. Burke; and began its workings upon the female hermit on the evening of a day which had brightly dawned upon her, in bringing the junction of the suffrage of her father upon her pamphlet to that of her life’s partner.
Her own account of this shock, written to Dr. Burney, will here be inserted, because it was preserved by the Doctor as characteristic of the principles and conduct of his new son-in-law.
“Bookham, 1794.“To Dr. Burney.“When I received the last letter of my dearest father, and for some hours after, I was the happiest of human beings; I make no exception. I think none possible. Not a wish remained for me—not a thought of forming one![Pg 189]“This was just the period—is it not always so?—for a stroke of sorrow to reverse the whole scene! That very evening, M. d’Arblay communicated to me his desire of re-entering the army, and—of going to Toulon!“He had intended, upon our marriage, to retire wholly from public life. His services and his sufferings, in his severe military career,—repaid by exile and confiscation, and for ever embittered to his memory by the murder of his sovereign, had fulfilled, though not satisfied, the claims of his conscience and his honour, and led him, without a single self-reproach, to seek a quiet retreat in domestic society: but—the second declaration of Lord Hood no sooner reached this obscure little dwelling; no sooner had he read the words Louis XVII. and the Constitution, to which he had sworn, united, than his military ardour re-kindled, his loyalty was all up in arms, and every sense of monarchical patriotism now carries him back to war and public service.“I dare not speak of myself!—except to say that I have forborne to distress him by a single[Pg 190]solicitation. All the felicity of that our own chosen and loved retirement, would effectually be annulled, by the smallest suspicion that it was enjoyed at the expense of any public duty.“He is now writing an offer for entering as a volunteer into the army destined for Toulon; together with a list of his past services up to his becoming Commandant of Longwy; and the dates of his various promotions to the last recorded of Marechal de Camp, which was yet unsigned and unsealed, when the captivity of Louis XVI. forced the emigration which brought M. d’Arblay to England.“This memorial he addresses and means to convey in person to Mr. Pitt.”
“Bookham, 1794.
“To Dr. Burney.
“When I received the last letter of my dearest father, and for some hours after, I was the happiest of human beings; I make no exception. I think none possible. Not a wish remained for me—not a thought of forming one!
[Pg 189]
“This was just the period—is it not always so?—for a stroke of sorrow to reverse the whole scene! That very evening, M. d’Arblay communicated to me his desire of re-entering the army, and—of going to Toulon!
“He had intended, upon our marriage, to retire wholly from public life. His services and his sufferings, in his severe military career,—repaid by exile and confiscation, and for ever embittered to his memory by the murder of his sovereign, had fulfilled, though not satisfied, the claims of his conscience and his honour, and led him, without a single self-reproach, to seek a quiet retreat in domestic society: but—the second declaration of Lord Hood no sooner reached this obscure little dwelling; no sooner had he read the words Louis XVII. and the Constitution, to which he had sworn, united, than his military ardour re-kindled, his loyalty was all up in arms, and every sense of monarchical patriotism now carries him back to war and public service.
“I dare not speak of myself!—except to say that I have forborne to distress him by a single[Pg 190]solicitation. All the felicity of that our own chosen and loved retirement, would effectually be annulled, by the smallest suspicion that it was enjoyed at the expense of any public duty.
“He is now writing an offer for entering as a volunteer into the army destined for Toulon; together with a list of his past services up to his becoming Commandant of Longwy; and the dates of his various promotions to the last recorded of Marechal de Camp, which was yet unsigned and unsealed, when the captivity of Louis XVI. forced the emigration which brought M. d’Arblay to England.
“This memorial he addresses and means to convey in person to Mr. Pitt.”
To Dr. Burney, with all his consideration for his daughter, this enterprise appeared not to be inauspicious; and its spirit and loyalty warmly endeared to him his new relative: who could not, however, give proof of the noble verity of his sentiments and intentions, till many years later; for before the answer of Mr. Pitt to the memorial could be returned, the attempt upon Toulon proved abortive.
The Doctor continued in his benevolent post of private Secretary to the charitable ladies of the Emigrant Clergy Contribution, so long as the Committee lasted; though with so expert a distribution of time, that his new office robbed him not of the pleasure to yet enlarge the elegance of his literary circles, by being initiated into the Blue parties of Lady Lucan, supported by her accomplished daughter, Lady Spencer.
He now, also, renewed into long and social meetings, at his own apartments at Chelsea college, an acquaintance of forty-six years’ standing with Mason, the poet; by whom he was often consulted upon schemes of church psalmody, with respect both to its composition and execution; as well as upon other desirable improvements in our sacred harmony; which Mr. Mason, from practical knowledge both of music and poetry, was peculiarly fitted to investigate and refine.
Of this formation of intimacy, rather than renewal of acquaintance,Dr. Burney, in his Letters to the Hermits, spoke with great pleasure; though, while always admiring the talents, and esteeming the private character of that charming poet, he never lost either his regret or his blame for the truly unclerical use made of his powers of wit and humour, by the insidious, yet biting sarcasms, levelled against his virtuous Sovereign in the poetical epistle to Sir William Chambers.
Had any crime been held up to view, there might have been an exaltation of courage in not suffering the Throne to be its protector; or had any secret vice, that was undermining moral duties, been exposed, there might have been a nobleness of intrepid indignation in casting upon it the glare of public contempt. But the shaft was levelled at one who had neither crime nor vice; an exemption so rare, that it ought to have created respect for the lowest born subject in the realm; and therefore, when marking the character of a monarch, became a call, a commanding call, to every lover of virtue—be his politics what they might—for being blazoned with public applause, as an excitement to public example.
Dr. Burney grew closely connected, also, with that indefatigable anecdote-hunter; date-ferretter; technical difficulty-solver; and collector of various readings—Mr. Malone.
And he had the happiness of often meeting with the Hon. Frederic North, afterwards Earl of Guildford; whose pleasant wit, practical urbanity, and persevering love of enterprise, made him full of original entertainment; whilst his unvarying gaiety of good-humour enabled him to discard spleen from pain, and to banish murmuring from even the acutest fits of the gout; though maimed by them, distorted, and crippled.
Upon his first visit to Dr. Burney, at Chelsea College, Mr. Frederick North appeared there upon crutches, and with difficulty hobbled into the library; yet he advanced with a smile, saying, that though he must obsequiously beg permission to produce himself in such a plight elsewhere, he boldly felt at home in coming with wooden legs to Chelsea Hospital.
The health of Dr. Burney was at this time most happily restored to the full exercise of all his powers of life. In a letter written to Bookham, at the close of the spring season, he says:
“I have been such anevaporélately, that if I were near enough to accost youde vive voix, it would be with Susey’s[34]exclamation, when she was just arrived from France, at only eleven years old, after staying at Mrs. Lewis’s till ten o’clock one night, “Que je suis libertine, papa!” And thus, “Que je suis libertin, ma fille!” cry I. Three huge assemblies at Spencer House; two dinners at the Duke and Duchess of Leeds; two ditto at Mr. Crewe’s; two clubs; adejeunerat Mrs. Crewe’s villa, at Hampstead; a dinner at Lord Macartney’s; ditto at Mr. Locke’s; ditto at Mr. Coxe’s; two ditto at Sir George Howard’s, at Chelsea; two philosophicalconversationesat Sir Joseph Bankes’s; two operas; two professional concerts; Haydn’s benefit; Salomon’s three ancient musics; &c. &c. &c.“What dissipating profligacy! But whatargufiesall this festivity? ’Tis all vanity, and exhalement of spirit. I was tired to death of it all before it was over: whilst your domestic occupations and pleasures are as fresh every morning as the roses of your garden.”
“I have been such anevaporélately, that if I were near enough to accost youde vive voix, it would be with Susey’s[34]exclamation, when she was just arrived from France, at only eleven years old, after staying at Mrs. Lewis’s till ten o’clock one night, “Que je suis libertine, papa!” And thus, “Que je suis libertin, ma fille!” cry I. Three huge assemblies at Spencer House; two dinners at the Duke and Duchess of Leeds; two ditto at Mr. Crewe’s; two clubs; adejeunerat Mrs. Crewe’s villa, at Hampstead; a dinner at Lord Macartney’s; ditto at Mr. Locke’s; ditto at Mr. Coxe’s; two ditto at Sir George Howard’s, at Chelsea; two philosophicalconversationesat Sir Joseph Bankes’s; two operas; two professional concerts; Haydn’s benefit; Salomon’s three ancient musics; &c. &c. &c.
“What dissipating profligacy! But whatargufiesall this festivity? ’Tis all vanity, and exhalement of spirit. I was tired to death of it all before it was over: whilst your domestic occupations and pleasures are as fresh every morning as the roses of your garden.”
The following is the sportive conclusion of another letter, written in the season of fashionable engagements.
“When shall I have done with telling you ofmes bonnes fortunes? Betty Carter, Hannah More, Lady Clarges—nay, t’other day, at Dickey Coxe’s, I met with the Miss Berrys, as lively and accomplished as ever; and I have strong invites to their cottage at Strawberry Hill. What say you to that, ma’am?—“Torn to pieces, I declare!”
“When shall I have done with telling you ofmes bonnes fortunes? Betty Carter, Hannah More, Lady Clarges—nay, t’other day, at Dickey Coxe’s, I met with the Miss Berrys, as lively and accomplished as ever; and I have strong invites to their cottage at Strawberry Hill. What say you to that, ma’am?—
“Torn to pieces, I declare!”
The Doctor now, in truth, became so universally in fashion, that he was even sought, much to his amusement, by those against whose principles, as far as they were political, he was invariably at war; namely, sundry celebrated oppositionists.
In his letter to the Hermits he particularizes in this liberty list, Mr. Mason, Mr. Stonehewer, Sir William Jones, Mr. Hayley, Mr. Godwin, and the first Lord Lansdowne; ending with Mr. Erskine,[35]whom he had met at two dinners, and to whose house he had been invited to a third convivial meeting: and here this renowned orator and new acquaintance fastened upon the Doctor with all the volubility of his eloquence, and all the exuberance of his happy good-humour, in singing his own exploits and praises, without insisting that his hearer shouldjoin in chorus; or rather, perhaps, without discovering, from his own self-absorption, that that ceremony was omitted.
Thedejeunerabove mentioned of Mrs. Crewe at her little villa, at Hampstead, was given in honour of Caroline, Princess of Wales.[36]To this, in order to compliment at once the rank and the taste of her Royal Highness, Mrs. Crewe invited whoever she thought most distinguished, either in situation or in talents. Under the latter class, she was not likely to forget her old friend, Dr. Burney; whose name her Royal Highness no sooner heard, than she desired Mr. Windham to bring him to her for presentation. “And then,” the Doctor in his diary relates, “she said, in very good English, ‘How do you do, Dr. Burney? You and I are not strangers. You are very well known in Germany, and often mentioned there;car, enfin, vous êtes un homme celebre.’”
“After which,” the Doctor’s diary goes on, “in the little colloquial debates, and playful defences of general conversation, she commonly and flatteringly referred to me for arbitration, saying: ‘Is it not so, Dr. Burney? You are a wise man, and must know of the best.’”
“The next time her Royal Highness had music, I was remembered for a summons to Blackheath, forwarded to me by the very agreeable and very deserving Miss Hayman. And here the Princess had the politeness and condescension to shew me her plantations and improvements.
“The music performed was chiefly of Mozart; and her Royal Highness, on piece following piece of the same composer, cried: ‘I hope you like Mozart, Dr. Burney?’ ‘No compositions can better deserve your Royal Highness’s favour,’ I answered; ‘for his inventions and resources are inexhaustible: and his vocal music, of which we knew nothing in England till after he was dead, surpasses in beauty even his instrumental; which had so justly, in this country, obtained him the warmest applause.’ The music was so good, and her Royal Highness was so lively, that Mrs. Crewe, whom I had the honour to accompany, could not take leave till past one o’clock in the morning; and it was past six ere myjaded horses and I reached Chelsea College.”
Chiefly cheering, however, and agreeable to the Doctor, was an unexpected re-meeting with a long favourite friend, from whom he had unavoidably, and most unpleasantly, been separated,—Mrs. Thrale; whom now, for the first time, he saw as Mrs. Piozzi.
It was at one of the charming concerts of the charming musician, Salomon, that this occurred. Dr. Burney knew not that she was returned from Italy, whither she had gone speedily after her marriage; till here, with much surprise, he perceived amongst the audience, il Signor Piozzi.
Approaching him, with an aspect of cordiality, which was met with one of welcoming pleasure, they entered into talk upon the performers and the instruments, and the enchanting compositions of Haydn. Dr. Burney then inquired, with all the interest that he most sincerely felt, afterla sua consorte. Piozzi, turning round, pointed to a sofa, on which, to his infinite joy, Dr. Burney beheld Mrs. Thrale Piozzi, seated in the midst of her daughters, the four Miss Thrales.
His pleasure seemed reciprocated by Mrs. Piozzi, who, sportively ejaculating, “Here’s Dr. Burney, as young as ever!” held out to him her hand with lively amity.
His satisfaction now expanded into a conversational gaiety, that opened from them both those fertile sources of entertainment, that originally had rendered them most agreeable to each other; the younger branches, with amiable good-humour, contributing to the spirit of this unexpected junction.
The Bookhamite Recluse, to whom this occurrence was immediately communicated, received it with true and tender delight. Most joyfully would she, also, have held out her hand to that once so dear friend, from whom she could never sever her heart, had she happily been of this Salomonic party.[37]
Dr. Burney still, as he had done nearly from the hour that his History was finished, composed various articles for the Monthly Review. But so precarious and irregular a call upon his fertile abilities, sufficed not for their occupation; and he soon started a new work, on a subject peculiar and appropriate, that came singularly home to his business and bosom; though it was offered to him only by that fatal power which daily and unfailingly lavishes before us subjects for our discussions—and for our tears!—Death; which, some time previously to the liberation of the Doctor’s mind from the arcana of musical history, had cast the Life and Writings of the Abate Metastasio upon posterity.
No poet could be more congenial to Dr. Burney than Metastasio, the purity of whose numbers was mellifluously in concord with the purity of his sentiments; while both were in perfect unison with the taste of the Doctor. He considered it, professionally, to be even a duty, for the Historian of the Art of Music, to raise, as far as in him lay, a biographical monument to the glory of the man whose poetry, after that which is sacred, is best adapted to inspire the lyric muse withstrains of genial harmony, in all the impassioned varieties that the choral shell is capable to generate for the musical enthusiast.
The first object of Dr. Burney in his visit to Vienna, at the period of his German Tour, had been to see and to converse with Metastasio; whose resplendent lyrical fame had raised him, in his own dramatic career, to a height unequalled throughout Europe.
The benign reception given to the Doctor by this amiable and venerable bard; the charm of his converse; the meekly borne honours by which he was distinguished and surrounded; and the delightful performances, and graceful attractions of his Niece, Mademoiselle Martinez, are fully and feelingly set forth in the third volume of the Musical Tours.
When decided, therefore, upon this subject for his pen and his powers, he employed himself without delay in preparatory measures for his new undertaking: and procured every edition of the Poet’s works; to glean from each all that might incidentally be interspersed of anecdote, in letters, advertisements, prefaces, or notes.
He was kindly assisted in getting over various documents from Vienna,by the late Lord Mansfield, who, while Lord Stormont, had been British Ambassador at that capital when it was visited by Dr. Burney.
The present Earl Spencer, also, liberally aided the passage to England of some works much wanted, but difficult of attainment.
From Haydn, with whom the Doctor was in constant commerce, and who chiefly resided at Vienna, he received considerable local and agreeable help.
And through the generous and judicious friendship of the faithful Pacchierotti, he was furnished with every species of assistance that judgment, zeal, and a perfect acquaintance with the calls of the subject, could suggest.
“In short,” says the Doctor, in a letter to Bookham, “I am prodigiously hallooed on in my Metastasio mania by all sorts of poets and critics; and, to bring all to a point, I have a letter, which I inclose for your perusal, from the enchanting Mademoiselle Martinez.”
Thus powerfully encouraged, the Doctor consigned himself to this new composition. Not, however, as when working at his History, to the sacrifice of his ease, his comfort, and his friends: with these, onthe contrary, his spring and winter intercourse were now lively and frequent; and with some of them he indulged himself in spending a portion of his summer.
While he had been blessed by the preservation of Messrs. Crisp, Bewley, and Twining, he had neither inclination nor time for any diffusion that would have robbed him of their incomparably endearing and enlightening society. A few days in rotation were all that he could bestow on his many other claimants; but the two first of these heart, head, and leisure-monopolizers, Messrs. Crisp and Bewley, were gone; and had left a chasm that the third only could fill; and he, Mr. Twining, was now almost unremittingly occupied in kindly attendance upon a sick and suffering wife.
The next who, now, ranked nearest to Dr. Burney for consolation and confidence, was Mrs. Crewe; to whom he would willingly have dedicated the greatest part of his wandering holidays, but that her country residence, at Crewe Hall, in Cheshire, exacted two journeys so incommodious and fatiguing, that it was rarely, and with difficulty, they could be undertaken.
To his valuable old friend, Mr. Coxe, he gave a week or two, at his pleasant villa, near Southampton, every season. And he made rambling visits, of a few days, to Lady Mary Duncan, Sir Joseph Bankes, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Garrick, Lady Clarges, and several others.
With his two sons, and his eldest daughter, as their residences were within a few miles of his own abode, he was in constant commerce; but to his Susanna, since she had been separated from the paternal roof, he devoted a fortnight every year; and he gratified his fourth daughter, Charlotte, now resident in Norfolk, with visits rather longer, because her greater distance from Chelsea made them necessarily less frequent.
In the first of these domestic and amical tours that were made after the marriage of his second daughter, he suddenly turned out of his direct road to take a view of the dwelling of the Hermits of Bookham; in which rural village they were temporarily settled, in a small but pleasant cottage, endeared for ever to their remembrance from having been found out for them by Mr. Locke.
It was not, perhaps, without the spur of some latent solicitude, some anxious incertitude, that Dr. Burney made this first visit to them abruptly, at an early hour, and when believed far distant; and if so, never were kind doubts more kindlily solved: he found all that most tenderly he could wish—concord and content; gay concord, and grateful content.
When he sent in his name from his post-chaise, the Hermits flew to receive him; and ere he could reach the little threshold of the little habitation, his daughter was in his arms. How long she there kept him she knows not, but he was very patient at the detention! Tears of pleasure standing in his full eyes at her rapturous reception; and at witnessing the unsophisticated happiness of two beings who, from living nearly in the front of life, nourished in retirement no wish but for its continuance.
The Memoirs of Metastasio, with all their interest to a man whose love of literary composition was so eminently his ruling passion, surmounted not—for nothing could surmount—the parental benevolence that welcomed with encouragement, and hailed with hope, a project now communicatedto him of a new work, the third in succession, from the author of Evelina and Cecilia.
That author, become now a mother as well as a wife, was induced to print this, her third literary essay, by a hazardous mode of publicity, from which her natively-retired temperament had made her, in former days, recoil, even when it was eloquently suggested for her by Mr. Burke to Dr. Burney; namely, the mode of subscription.
But, at this period, she felt a call against her distaste at once conjugal and maternal. Her noble-minded partner, though the most ardent of men to be himself what he thought belonged to the dignity of his sex, the efficient purveyor of his own small home and family, was despoiled, by events over which he had no control, of that post of honour.
This scheme, therefore, was adopted. Its history, however, would be here a matter of supererogation, save as far as it includes Dr. Burney in its influence and effect; for neither the author, nor her partner in all, could feel greater delight than was experienced by Dr. Burney, from the three principal circumstances which emanated from this undertaking.
The first of these was the honour graciously accorded by her Majesty,Queen Charlotte, of suffering her august name to stand at the head of the Book, by deigning to accept its Dedication.
The second was the feminine approbation marked for the author by three ladies, equally conspicuous for their virtues and their understanding; the honourable and sagacious Mrs. Boscawen, the beautiful and zealous Mrs. Crewe, and the exemplary and captivating Mrs. Locke; who each kept books for the subscription, which the kindness of their friendship raised as highly in honour as in advantage.
And the third circumstance, to the Doctor the most touching, because now the least expected, was the energetic interest, to which the prospect of seeing this Memorialist emerge again from obscurity, re-animated the still generous feelings of the now nearly sinking, altered, gone Mr. Burke! who, on finding that his charges against Mr. Hastings were adjudged in Westminster Hall to be unfounded, though he was still persuaded himself that they were just, had retired from Parliament, wearied and disgusted; and who, on the following year, had lost his deeply-attached brother; and, almost immediately afterwards, his nearly idolized son, who was “the pride of his heart, and the joy of his existence,” to use his own words in a paragraph of a letterwritten to the mutually respected and faithful friend of himself and of Dr. Burney, Mrs. Crewe.
That lady, well acquainted with the reverence of Dr. Burney for Mr. Burke, and the attachment with which Mr. Burke returned it, generally communicated her letters from Beaconsfield to Chelsea College; and not unfrequently with a desire that they might be forwarded on to Bookham; well knowing that the extraordinary partiality of Mr. Burke for its female recluse, would make him more than pardon the kind pleasure of Mrs. Crewe in granting that recluse such an indulgence.
The letter, whence is taken the fond sad phrase just quoted, was written in answer to the first letter of Mrs. Crewe to Mr. Burke, after his irreparable bereavement; and the whole of the paragraph in which it occurs will now be copied, to elucidate the interesting circumstance for Dr. Burney to which it led. Beautiful is the paragraph in the pathetic resignation of its submission. No flowery orator here expands his imagination; nothing finds vent but the touching simplicity of a tender parent’s heart-breaking sorrow.
“To Mrs. Crewe.“We are thoroughly sensible of your humanity and compassion to this desolate house.“We are as well as people can be, who have nothing further to hope or fear in this world. We are in a state of quiet; but it is the tranquillity of the grave—in which all that could make life interesting to us is laid—and to which we are hastening as fast as God pleases. This place[38]is no longer pleasant to us! and yet we have more satisfaction, if it may so be called, here than anywhere else. We go in and out, without any of those sentiments of conviviality and joy which alone can create an attachment to any spot. We have had a loss which time and reflection rather increase the sense of. I declare to you that I feel more this day, than on the dreadful day in which I was deprived of the comfort and support, the pride and ornament of my existence!”
“To Mrs. Crewe.
“We are thoroughly sensible of your humanity and compassion to this desolate house.
“We are as well as people can be, who have nothing further to hope or fear in this world. We are in a state of quiet; but it is the tranquillity of the grave—in which all that could make life interesting to us is laid—and to which we are hastening as fast as God pleases. This place[38]is no longer pleasant to us! and yet we have more satisfaction, if it may so be called, here than anywhere else. We go in and out, without any of those sentiments of conviviality and joy which alone can create an attachment to any spot. We have had a loss which time and reflection rather increase the sense of. I declare to you that I feel more this day, than on the dreadful day in which I was deprived of the comfort and support, the pride and ornament of my existence!”
Mrs. Crewe, extremely affected by this distress, and as eager to draw her illustrious friend from his consuming grief, as to serve and to gratify the new Recluse, sent to Beaconsfield the next year, 1795,the plan, in which she took so prominent a part, for bringing forth Camilla, or a Picture of Youth; in the hope of re-exciting his interest for its author.
The following is the answer which, almost with exultation of kindness, Mrs. Crewe transmitted to the Hermits.
“To Mrs. Crewe.“As toMiss Burney—the subscription ought to be, for certain persons, five guineas; and to take but a single copy each. The rest as it is. I am sure that it is a disgrace to the age and nation, if this be not a great thing for her, If every person in England who has received pleasure and instruction from Cecilia, were to rate its value at the hundredth part of their satisfaction, Madame d’Arblay would be one of the richest women in the kingdom.“Her scheme was known before she lost two[39]of her most respectful admirers from this house;[40]and this, with Mrs. Burke’s subscription and mine, make the paper I send you.[41]One book is as good as a thousand: one of hers is certainly as good as a thousand others.”
“To Mrs. Crewe.
“As toMiss Burney—the subscription ought to be, for certain persons, five guineas; and to take but a single copy each. The rest as it is. I am sure that it is a disgrace to the age and nation, if this be not a great thing for her, If every person in England who has received pleasure and instruction from Cecilia, were to rate its value at the hundredth part of their satisfaction, Madame d’Arblay would be one of the richest women in the kingdom.
“Her scheme was known before she lost two[39]of her most respectful admirers from this house;[40]and this, with Mrs. Burke’s subscription and mine, make the paper I send you.[41]One book is as good as a thousand: one of hers is certainly as good as a thousand others.”
The reader will not, it is hoped, imagine, that the emotion excited by these words at Bookham sprang from a credulity so simple, or a vanity so insane, as that of arraigning the judgment of Mr. Burke by a literal acceptation of their benevolent, rather than flattering exaltation:—No! the emotion was to find Mr. Burke still susceptible of his old generous warmth of regard: and that emotion was of the tenderest gratitude in the Recluse, upon seeing herself still, in defiance of absence, of distance, of time, and even of deadly sorrow, as much its honoured object as when she had been sought by him in her opening career.
The felicitations of Dr. Burney to Bookham upon this extraordinary effusion of heart-affecting kindness, were so full of happiness, as to demand felicitations in return for himself.
In 1795 the Memoirs of Metastasio made their appearance in the republic of letters. They were received with interest and pleasure by all readers of taste, and lovers of the lyric muse. They had not, indeed, that brightness of popular success which had flourished into the world the previous works of the Doctor; for though the name of Metastasio was familiar to all who had any pretensions to an acquaintance with the classical muses, whether ancient or modern, it was only the chosen few who had any enjoyment of his merit, or who understood the motives to his fame. The Italian language was by no means then in its present general cultivation; and the feeling, exalted dramas of this tenderly touching poet, were only brought forward, in England, by the miserable, mawkish, no-meaning translations of the opera-house hired scribblers.[42]And all that was most elegant and most refined, in thought as well as in language, of this classical bard, was frequently so ill rendered into English, as to become mere matter of risibility, held up for mockery and ridicule.
The translations, or, more properly speaking, imitations, occasionally interspersed in this work, of some of the poetry of Metastasio, were the most approved by the best critics; as so breathing the sentiments and the style of the author, that they read, said Horace Lord Orford, like two originals.
But the dissertation concerning the rules was what excited most attention. Dr. Warton, a professed and standard supporter of them and of Aristotle, confessed, with surprise, that he was shaken from his firm ancient hold, through the treatise on their subject by Metastasio, as given, in so masterly a manner, by Dr. Burney.
Mr. Twining, the able and learned commentator and translator of Aristotle, and one of the most candid of men, allowed himself, also, to be struck, if not convinced, by the reasoning of Metastasio, as presented by Dr. Burney.
Mr. Mason, likewise, owned that he was set upon taking quite a new view of that long-battled topic. And the ingenious Mr. Walker opened a critical and literary correspondence from Dublin with Dr. Burney, relative to this interminable question.
Meanwhile, from the public at large, these Memoirs obtained a fair and satisfactory approvance that kindly sheltered the long-earned laurelsof Dr. Burney from withering, if they elicited not such productive fragrance as to make those laurels bloom afresh.
On the opening of July, 1796, the parental feelings of Dr. Burney were auspiciously gratified by the reception of his daughter’s new attempt; of which the first homage was offered, and graciously received in person at Windsor, by the King, as well as by the Queen; with the most benevolent marks of unvaried favour, and with the condescension of repeated private audiences with the Queen, and with the Princesses, during a short Windsor sojourn. But that which enchanted beyond his hopes the Doctor’s fondest desires, was that his daughter had the signal happiness of naming his foreign-born, though domestic-bosomed son-in-law, General d’Arblay, to the King, upon the Terrace, by the gracious motion of his Majesty; who there accorded him the high honour of a conversation of several minutes.
This, which was the proudest instant of his daughter’s life, was not less elevating to the loyal heart of the Doctor; who considered it as an indication that the unsullied conduct and character of General d’Arblay had reached the ears of the King, who had his Royal Highnessthe Duke of York at his side; and who certainly would not himself thus publicly have sought out and distinguished a foreigner, of whose principles he could have had any doubt.
But—what, next to this highest benignity, had most been coveted by Dr. Burney, met not his hopes! The kindly predilection of Mr. Burke, brought forward with such previous and decided partiality for this new enterprise, never reached its intent. Mr. Burke received it at Bath, on the bed of sickness, in the anguish of his lingering and ceaseless depression for the loss of his son; and when he was too ill and weak to have spirits even to open its leaves; withheld, perhaps, the more poignantly, from internal recurrence to the happy family parties to which repeatedly he had read its two predecessors, in the hearing of him by whom his voice now could be heard no more!
Visited by Mrs. Crewe, soon after the appearance of Camilla in the world, he said, “How ill I am you will easily believe, when a new workof Madame d’Arblay’s lies on my table, unread!”[43]
To Dr. Burney the result of this publication was fondly pleasing, in realising a project formed by the willing Hermits, immediately upon their marriage, of constructing a slight and economical, but pretty and convenient cottage, for their residence and property.
Most welcome, indeed, to the Doctor was a scheme that had their settlement in England for its basis: and most consoling to the harassed mind and fortunes of M. d’Arblay was the prospect of creating for himself a new home; since his native one, at that time, seemed lost even to his wishes, in appearing lost to religion, to monarchy, and to humanity.
Almost instantly, therefore, after the return of the Hermits from the honoured presentation of Camilla at Windsor, a plan previously drawn up by M. d’Arblay, was brought forward for execution; and a small dwelling was erected as near as possible to the Norbury mansion, on a fieldadjoining to its Park, and rented by the Hermits from the incomparable Mr. Locke.
The celebrated embassy of Lord Macartney to China, which had taken place in the year 1792, had led his lordship to consult with Dr. Burney upon whatever belonged to musical matters, whether instruments, compositions, band, or decorations, that might contribute, in that line, to its magnificence.
The reputation of Dr. Burney, in his own art, might fully have sufficed to draw to him for counsel, in that point, this sagacious ambassador; but, added to this obvious stimulus, Lord Macartney was a near relation of Mrs. Crewe, through whom he had become intimately acquainted with the Doctor’s merits; which his own high attainments and intelligence well befitted him to note and to value.
Always interested in whatever was brought forward to promote general knowledge, and to facilitate our intercourse with our distant fellow creatures, Dr. Burney, even with eagerness, bestowed a considerable portion of his time, as well as of his thoughts, inmeditating upon musical plans relative to this expedition; animated, not alone by the spirit of the embassy, but by his admiration of the ambassador; who, with unlimited trust in his taste and general skill, as well as in his perfect knowledge upon the subject, gavecarte blancheto his discretion for whatever he could either select or project. And so pleased was his lordship both with the Doctor’s collection and suggestions, and so sensible to the time and the pains bestowed upon the requisite researches, that, on the eve of departure, his lordship, while uttering a kind farewell, brought forth a striking memorial of his regard, in a superb and very costly silver inkstand, of the most beautiful workmanship; upon which he had had engraven a Latin motto, flatteringly expressive of his esteem and friendship for Dr. Burney.
At this present period, 1796, this accomplished nobleman was again preparing to set sail, upon a new and splendid appointment, of Governor and Captain-General of the Cape of Good Hope; and again, upon the leave-taking visit of the Doctor, he manifested the same spirit of kindness that he had displayed when parting for China.
In a room full of company, to which he had been exhibiting thevarious treasures prepared as presents for his approaching enterprise, he gently drew the Doctor apart, and whispered, “To you, Dr. Burney, I must shew the greatest personal indulgence, and private recreation, that I have selected for my voyage.” He then took from a highly-finished travelling bookcase, a volume of Camilla, which had been published four or five months; and smilingly said, “This I have not yet opened! nor will I suffer any one to anticipate a word of it to me; and, still less, suffer myself to take a glimpse of even a single sentence—till I am many leagues out at sea; that then, without hindrance of business, or any impediment whatever, I may read the work throughout with uninterrupted enjoyment.”
Bright again with smiling success and gay prosperity was this period to Dr. Burney; but not more bright than brittle! for, almost at its height, its serenity was broken by a stroke that rent it asunder!—a wound that never could be healed!
The peculiar darling of the whole house of Dr. Burney, as well asof his heart; whose presence always exhilarated, or whose absence saddened every branch of it, his daughter Susanna, was called, by inevitable circumstances, from his paternal embraces and fond society, to accompany her husband and children upon indispensable business, to Ireland; then teeming with every evil that invasion, rebellion, civil war, and famine, could unite to inflict.
The absence was fixed for only three years; but the dreadful state of that unfortunate country, joined to the delicate, if not already declining health of this beloved daughter; with his own advance in years, made this parting a laceration of gloomy prognostic, almost appalling. He suffered, however, no vent to these sensations before her whom they would nearly have demolished: he only permitted them to break out afterwards to some of his children; and strained her to his bosom, at the cruel instant of separation, with all he could assume of smiling hope for her speedy return. While she, though trembling throughout her shattered frame with the acutest filial tenderness, set off without a murmur. She wished to sustain her beloved father, not to forsake herself; and she quitted his honoured presence with excited spirits, and apparent cheerfulness.
Mixed with some of the Doctor’s poetical effusions, there remains an elegiac fragment upon this voyage to Ireland, from which the following lines are extracted.