“All partial evil universal good.”
Would it be just, could it be right, to leave unqualified to the grief of his friends, and to the rage of the murmurers against destiny, a blight such as this to the industry and the welfare of Dr. Burney; and not seek to soften the concern of the kind, and not aim at mitigating the asperity of the declaimers, by opening a fairer point of view for the termination of this event, if fact and fair reality can supply colours for so revivifying a change of scenery?
Surely such a retention, if not exacted by discretion or delicacy, would be graceless. A secret, therefore, of more than forty-seven years’ standing, and known at this moment to no living being but this Memorialist, ought now, in honour, in justice, and in gratitude, to be laid open to the surviving friends of Dr. Burney.
About a month after this treacherous depredation had filled the Doctor and his house with dismay, a lady of high rank, fortune,and independence, well known in the family, mysteriously summoned this Memorialist to a private room, for atête à tête, in St. Martin’s-street.
As soon as they were alone, she scrutinizingly examined that no one was within hearing on the other side of either of the doors leading into the apartment; and then solemnly said that she came to demand a little secret service.
The Memorialist protested herself most ready to meet her request; but that was insufficient: the lady insisted upon a formal and positive promise, that what she should ask should be done; yet that her name in the transaction should never be divulged.
There seemed something so little reasonable in a desire for so unqualified an engagement upon a subject unknown, that the Memorialist, disturbed, hesitated and hung back.
The lady was palpably hurt; and, dropping a low curtsey, with a supercilious half smile, and a brief, but civil, “Good morrow, ma’am!” was proudly stalking out of the room; when, shocked to offend her, the Memorialist besought her patience; and then frankly asked, how she could promise what she was in the dark whether she could perform?
The lady, unbending her furrowed brow, replied, “I’ll tell you how, ma’am: you must either say, I believe you to be an honest woman, and I’ll trust you; or, I believe you to be no better than you should be, and I’ll have nothing to do with you.”
An alternative such as this could hardly be called an alternative: the promise was given.
The smile now of pleasure, almost of triumph, that succeeded to that of satire, which had almost amounted to scorn, nearly recompenced the hazarded trust; which, soon afterwards, was even more than repaid by the sincerest admiration.
The lady, taking a thick letter-case from a capacious and well-furnished part of the female habiliment of other days, yclept a pocket, produced a small parcel, and said, “Do me the favour, Ma’am, to slip this trifle into the Doctor’s bureau the first time you see him open it; and just say, ‘Sir, this is bank notes for three hundred pounds, instead of what that rogue robbed you of. But you must ask no questions; and you must not stare, Sir, for it’s from a friend that will never be known. So don’t be over curious; for it’s a friend who will never take it back, if you fret yourself to the bone. So please, Sir, to do what you please with it. Either use it, or put it behindthe fire, whichever you think the most sensible.’ And then, if he should say, ‘Pray, Miss, who gave you that impertinent message for me?’ you will get into no jeopardy, for you can answer that you are bound head and foot to hold your tongue; and then, being a man of honour, he will hold his. Don’t you think so, Ma’am?”
The Memorialist, heartily laughing, but in great perturbation lest the Doctor should be hurt or displeased, would fain have resisted this commission; but the lady, peremptorily saying a promise was a promise, which no person under a vagabond; but more especially a person of honour, writing books, could break, would listen to no appeal.
She had been, she protested, on the point ofnon composever since that rogue had played the Doctor such a knavish trick, as picking his bureau to get at his cash; in thinking how much richer she, who had neither child nor chick, nor any particular great talents, was than she ought to be; while a man who was so much a greater scholar, and with such a fry of young ones at his heels, all of them such a set of geniuses, was suddenly made so much poorer, for no offence, only that rogue’s knavishness. And she could not get back into her right senses upon the accident, she said, till she had hit upon this scheme: forknowing Dr. Burney to be a very punctilious man, like most of the book-writers, who were always rather odd, she was aware she could not make him accept such a thing in a quiet way, however it might be his due in conscience; only by some cunning device that he could not get the better of.
Expostulation was vain; and the matter was arranged exactly according to her injunctions.
Ultimately, however, when the deed was so confirmed as to be irrevocable, the Memorialist obtained her leave to make known its author; though under the most absolute charge of secrecy for all around; which was strictly observed; notwithstanding all the resistance of the astonished Doctor, whom she forbade ever to name it, either to herself, she said, or Co., under pain of never speaking to him again.
All peculiar obstacles, however, having now passed away, justice seems to demand the recital of this extraordinary little anecdote in the history of Dr. Burney.
Those who still remember a daughter of the Earl of Thanet, who was widow of Sir William Duncan, will recognize, without difficulty, in this narration, the generosity, spirit, and good humour, with theuncultivated, ungrammatical, and incoherent dialect; and the comic, but arbitrary manner; of the indescribably diverting and grotesque, though munificent and nobly liberal, Lady Mary Duncan.
The singular, and, in another way, equally quaint and original, as well as truly Irish, Mrs. Vesey, no sooner heard of Dr. Burney’s misfortune, than she sent for an ingenious carpenter, to whom she communicated a desire to have a private drawer constructed in a private apartment, for the concealment and preservation of her cash from any fraudulent servant.
Accordingly, within the wainscot of her dressing room, this was effected; and, when done, she rang for her principal domestics; and, after recounting to them the great evil that had happened to poor Dr. Burney; and bemoaning that he had not taken a similar precaution, she charged them, in a low voice, never to touch such a part of the wall, lest they should press upon the spring of the private drawer, in which she was going to hide her gold and bank notes.
A beam, however, of softest bosom happiness, soon after this disaster, lightened, almost dispersed, the cares of Dr. Burney. His Susanna, called back, with her husband and family, to England, by some change of affairs, suddenly returned from Boulogne—and returned beyond expectation, beyond probability, beyond all things earthly, save Hope—if Hope, indeed,—that sun-mark of all which lights on to futurity! can be denominated earthly—recruited in health, and restored to his wishes, as well as to his arms, and to her country and her friends. So small a change of climate had been salubrious, and in so short a space of time had proved renovating.
This smiling and propitious event, happily led the Doctor to yet further acquaintance with the incomparable Mr. Locke and his family; as the recovered invalid was now settled, with her husband and children, in the picturesque village of Mickleham, just at the foot of Norbury Park; and within reach of the habitual enjoyment of its exquisite society.
In the summer of this year, 1785, came over from France the celebrated Comtesse de Genlis. Dr. Burney and his second daughter were almost immediately invited, at the express desire of the Countess, to meet, and pass a day with her, at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds. His niece, Miss Palmer,[6]Sir Abraham and Lady Hume, Lord Palmerston, and some others, were of the party.
Madame de Genlis must then have been about thirty-five years of age; but the whole of her appearance was nearly ten years younger. Her face, without positive beauty, had the most winning agreeability; her figure was remarkably elegant, her attire was chastly simple: her air was reserved, and her demeanour was dignified. Her language had the same flowing perspicuity, and animated variety, by which it is marked in the best of her works; and her discourse was full of intelligence, yet wholly free from presumption or obtrusion. Dr. Burney was forcibly struck with her, and his daughter was enchanted.
Almost as numerous as her works, and almost as diversified, were the characters which had preceded this celebrated lady to England. None, however, of the calumnious sort had reached the ears of the Doctor previously to this meeting; and though some had buzzed about these of the Memorialist, they were vague; and she had willingly, from the charm of such superior talents, believed them unfounded; even before the witchery of personal partiality drove them wholly from the field: for from her sight, her manners, and her conversation, not an idea could elicit that was not instinctively in her favour.
Unconstrained, therefore, was the impulsive regard with which this illustrious foreigner inspired both; and which, gently, but pointedly, it was her evident aim to increase. She made a visit the next day to the Memorialist, whose society she sought with a flattering earnestness and a spirited grace that, coupled with her rare attractions, made a straightforward and most animating conquest of her charmed votary.
Madame de Genlis had already been at Windsor, where, through the medium of Madame de la Fìte, she had been honoured with a private audience of the Queen: and the energetic respect with which she spoke of herMajesty, was one of the strongest incentives to the loyal heart of Dr. Burney for encouraging this rising connexion.
Madame de Genlis had presented, she said, to the Queen the sacred dramas which she had dedicated to her Serene Highness the Duchess of Orleans; adding, that she had brought over only two copies of that work, of which the second was destined forMademoiselle Burney!to whom, with a billet of elegance nearly heightened into expressions of friendship, it was shortly conveyed.
The Memorialist was at a loss how to make acknowledgments for this obliging offering, as she would have held any return in kind to savour rather of vanity than of gratitude. Dr. Burney, however, relieved her embarrassment, by permitting her to be the bearer of his own History of Music, as far as it had then been published. This Madame de Genlis received with infinite grace and pleasure; for while capable of treating luminously almost every subject that occurred, she had an air, a look, a smile, that gave consequence, transiently, to every thing she said or did.
She had then by her side, and fondly under her wing, a little girlwhom she called Pamela,[7]who was most attractively lovely, and whom she had imbibed with a species of enthusiasm for the Memorialist, so potent and so eccentric, that when, during the visit at Sir Joshua Reynolds’, Madame de Genlis said, “Pamela, voilà Mademoiselle Burney!” the animated little person rushed hastily forward, and prostrated herself upon one knee before the astonished, almost confounded object of her notice; who, though covered with a confusion half distressing, half ridiculous, observed in every motion and attitude of the really enchanting little creature, a picturesque beauty of effect, and a magic allurement in her fine cast up eyes, that she could not but wish to see perpetuated by Sir Joshua.
On the day that Dr. Burney left his card in Portland-place, for a parting visit to Madame de Genlis, previously to her quitting London, he left there, also, the Memorialist; who, by appointment, was to pass the morning with that lady. This same witching little being was then capitally aiding and abetting in a preconcerted manoeuvre, with which Madame de Genlis not a little surprised her guest. This was bydetaining her, through a thousand varying contrivances, all for a while unsuspected, in a particular position; while a painter, whom Madame de Genlis mentioned as being with her by chance, and who appeared to be amusing himself with sketching some fancies of his own, was clandestinely taking a portrait of the visitor.
However flattered by the desire of its possession in so celebrated a personage, that visitor had already, and decidedly, refused sitting for it, not alone to Madame de Genlis, but to various other kind demanders, from a rooted dislike of being exhibited. And when she discovered what was going forward, much vexed and disconcerted, she would have quitted her seat, and fled the premises: but the adroit little charmer had again recourse to her graceful prostration; and, again casting up her beautifully picturesque eyes, pleaded the cause and wishes of Madame de Genlis, whom she calledMaman, with an eloquence and a pathos so singular and so captivating, that the Memorialist, though she would not sit quietly still, nor voluntarily favour the painter’s artifice, could only have put in practice a peremptory and determined flight, by trampling upon the urgent, clinging, impassioned little suppliant.
This was the last day’s intercourse of Madame de Genlis with Dr. Burney and the Memorialist. Circumstances, soon afterwards, suddenly parted them; and circumstances never again brought them together.
This brilliant new acquaintance offered, in its short duration, a pleasing interlude for the occasional leisure of Dr. Burney, which more than ever required some fresh supply, as Mr. Burke now was entirely lost to him; and to all but his own political set, through the absorption of his tumultuous accusations against Mr. Hastings; by which his whole existence became sacrificed to Parliamentary contentions.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, however, not less faithfully than pleasantly, still kept his high and honoured post of intimacy with Dr. Burney. And Mrs. Delany maintained hers, with a sweetness of mental attraction that magnetized languor from infirmity, and deterioration of intellect from decay of years.
The society which assembled at that lady’s mansion was elegant and high bred, yet entertaining and diversified. As Mrs. Delany chose to sustain her own house, that she might associate without constraint with her own family, the generous Duchess of Portland would not make a point of persuading her to sojourn at Whitehall; preferring the sacrifice of her own ease and comfort, in quitting that noble residence nearly every evening, to lessening those of her tenderly loved companion.
And here her good sense repaid the goodness of her heart; for she saw, from time to time, without formality, introduction, or even theetiquettesof condescension, sundry persons moving in a less exalted sphere than her own, yet who, as she was a spirited observer of life and manners, afforded an agreeable variety in the current intercourse of the day: and from any thing inelegantly inferior, Mrs. Delany, from her rank in the world, and still more from her good principles and good taste, was inviolably exempt.
Many of the most favoured of this peculiar assemblage had already passed away, before Dr. Burney had been honoured with admission.Amongst those yet remaining, who belonged equally to both these ladies, were, the Countess of Bute, wife to the early favourite of his Majesty, George the Third, and the famous Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s daughter; a person of first-rate understanding, and possessing a large share of the ready wit, freed from the keen sarcasm and dauntless spirit of raillery of her renowned mother.
And she was occasionally accompanied by Lady Louisa Stuart, her accomplished daughter; who inherited only the better part, namely, sense, taste, and amiability, from any of her progenitors.
The Countess of Bristol, still a strikingly fine woman, and, though no longer young, still pleasingly interesting; with her engaging and charming daughter, Lady Louisa Harvey,[8]not seldom formed the party.
The “high-bred, elegant Boscawen,” the everyway honourable widow of the gallant Admiral, was peculiarly a favourite of Mrs. Delany, for equal excellence in character, conduct, and abilities.
The old Earl of Guilford, high in all the wit, spirit, and politenessthat he transmitted to his favoured and numerous race, was always gladly welcomed.
Lady Wallingford, the unhappy widow of a gaming Lord, and the ruined daughter, though born heiress of the richest speculator of Europe, the famous South Sea Law, was at this time reduced to aid her existence by being a pensioner of her feeling friend, Mrs. Delany! by whom this unfortunate, but very respectable lady, was always distinguished with assiduous attention, both from her misfortunes and the obligations under which they forced her to labour. She was extremely well bred, though mournfully taciturn. She was uniformly habited in black silk, and in full dress; wearing a hoop, long ruffles, a winged cap, and all the stately formality of attire of the times, that even then were past; which, however, in its ceremonial, seemed suited with the rank to which she had risen; and in its gloom to the distress into which she had fallen.
Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Chapone, from time to time, spent and enlightened a day with this inestimable Mrs. Delany; who was connected more intimately still with Mrs. Montague.
The celebrated Horace Walpole was a frequent visitor, from possessingenough of genuine taste to delight in Mrs. Delany, and of spirit and fashion for paying his court to the Duchess Dowager of Portland. He was enchanted, also, to recreate his quaint humour by mingling occasionally with persons who, from being little known to him, excited his ever busy curiosity; which was restlessly seeking fresh food, with a devouring voracity that made it ever freshly required. And it was observed, that Mr. Walpole was nowhere more agreeable or more brilliant than in St. James’s Place; where he was polite and gay, though irrepressibly sarcastic; and good-humoured and entertaining, though always covertly epigrammatical.
Owen Cambridge and Soame Jenyns appeared, also, in this society; and were as fully capable to appreciate the excellences of Mrs. Delany, as she, in return, was to enjoy their playful wit, and well-seasoned raillery.
The elegant, polished Mr. Smelt, was peculiarly suited both to the taste and the situation of Mrs. Delany; with the first there was congeniality of mind; with the second, there was the similarity of each being a chosen, though untitled favourite of both King and Queen.
Mr. and Mrs. Locke were latterly added to this set; which they were truly formed to draw to a climax of social perfection.
But a lamented, though not personal or family event, which occurred at the end of this summer, must here be recorded, with some detail of circumstance; as it proved, in its consequences, by no means unimportant to the history of Dr. Burney.
The venerable Mrs. Delany was suddenly bereft of the right noble friend who was the delight of her life, the Duchess Dowager of Portland. That honoured and honourable lady had quitted town for her dowry mansion of Bulstrode Park. Thither she had just most courteously invited this Memorialist; who had spent with her Grace and her beloved friend, at the fine dwelling of the former at Whitehall, nearly the last evening of their sojourn in town, to arrange this intended summer junction. A letter of Mrs. Delany’s dictation had afterwards followed to St. Martin’s-street, fixing a day on which a carriage, consigned by her Grace to Mrs. Delany’s service, was to fetch the new visitor. But, on the succeeding morning, a far different epistle, written by the Amanuensis of Mrs. Delany, brought the mournful counter-tidings of the seizure, illness, and decease, of the valuable, generous, and charmingmistress of Bulstrode Park.
Mrs. Delany, as soon as possible, was removed back to St. James’s Place; in a grief the most touchingly profound, though the most edifyingly resigned.
This was a loss for which, as Mrs. Delany was fifteen years the senior, no human calculation had prepared; and what other has the human Mathematician? Her condition in life, therefore, as well as her heart, was assailed by this privation; and however inferior to the latter was the former consideration, the conflict of afflicted feelings with discomfitted affairs, could not but be doubly oppressive: for though from the Duchess no pecuniary loan was accepted by Mrs. Delany, unnumbered were the little auxiliaries to domestic economy which her Grace found means to convey to St. James’s Place.
But now, even the house in that place, though already small for the splendid persons who frequently sought there to pay their respects to the Duchess, as well as to Mrs. Delany, became too expensive for her means of supporting its establishment.
The friendship of the high-minded Duchess for Mrs. Delany had been an honour to herself and to her sex, in its refinement as well as in its liberality. Her superior rank she held as a bauble, her superior wealthas dross, save as they might be made subservient towards equalizing in condition the chosen companion, with whom in affection all was already parallel.
To see them together, offered a view of human excellence delightful to contemplate. They endeared existence to each other, and only what was participated seemed to be enjoyed by either. And they each possessed so much understanding, cultivation, taste, and spirit, that their mutual desire to procure and to give pleasure to each other, operated not less as a spur to their improvement, even at this late period of life, than as a delight to their affections. In sentiment and opinion their converse had the most unrestrained openness; but in manner, a superior respect in Mrs. Delany was never to be vanquished by the utmost equalizing efforts of the Duchess: it was a respect of the heart, grafted upon that of the old school; and every struggle to dislodge it only proved, by its failure, the unshakeable firmness of its basis. The Duchess, therefore, was forced to content herself with wearing an easy cheerfulness of freedom, that flung off all appearance of seemingaware of this reverence; but which she accompanied with a cherishing delicacy, that made her watchful of every turn of countenance, every modulation of voice, and every movement or gesture, that might indicate any species of desire for something new, altered, or any way attainable for the advantage or pleasure of the friend whom she most loved to honour.
What a blank was a breach such as this of an intercourse so tender, and at an age so advanced! Religion alone could make it supportable; and to that alone can be attributed the patient sweetness with which Mrs. Delany met every consolation that could be offered to her by her still existing ties, Lady Bute, Lady Bristol, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Sandford, &c. &c. &c.
But most eager amongst them, from the energy of her attachment, forth rushed her latest, newest, and last chosen friend, who, in another day or two, would have been at her side, on the very moment of this heavy deprivation. Fearfully, nevertheless, she came, every other consoler having priority of almost every species to plead for preference: but those chords of unison, which in sympathy alone include every claim, discarding, as dissonance, whatever would break in upon their harmony, had here struck from heart to heart with responsive tenderness; andwhat of merit preponderated in the scales of one, was balanced into fair equilibrium by venerating devotion in the other.
Upon first receiving the melancholy intelligence of the broken-up meeting at Bulstrode Park, Dr. Burney had taken his much-grieved daughter with him to Chesington; where, with all its bereavements, he repaired, to go on with his History; but, with a kindness which always led him to participate in the calls of affection, he no sooner learned that her presence would be acceptable to Mrs. Delany, than he spared his amanuensis from his side and his work, and instantly lent her his carriage to convey her back to town, and to the house of that afflicted lady; whose tenderly open-armed, though tearful reception, was as gratifying to the feelings of her deeply-attached guest, as the grief that she witnessed was saddening.
The Doctor permitted her now to take up her abode in this house of mourning; where she had the heart-felt satisfaction to find herself not only soothing to the admirable friend, by whom so late in life, but so warmly in love, she had been taken to the bosom; but empowered to relieve some of her cares by being intrusted to overlook, examine,and read to her letters and manuscripts of every description; and to select, destroy, or arrange the long-hoarded mass. She even began revising and continuing a manuscript memoir of the early days of Mrs. Delany; but, as it could be proceeded with only in moments of unbrokentête à tête, it never was finished.
Meanwhile, when the tidings of the death of the Duchess Dowager of Portland reached their Majesties, their first thought, after their immediate grief at her departure, was of Mrs. Delany; and when they found that the Duchess, from a natural expectation of being herself the longest liver, had taken no measures to soften off the worldly part, at least, of this separation, the King, with most benevolent munificence, resolved to supply the deficiency which a failure of foresight alone, he was sure, had occasioned in a friend of such anxious fondness. He completely, therefore, and even minutely fitted up for Mrs. Delany a house at Windsor, near the Castle; and settled a pension of three hundred pounds a-year upon her for life; to enable her to still keep her house in town, that she might repair thither every winter, for the pleasure of enjoying the society of her old friends.
The grateful heart of Mrs. Delany overflowed at her eyes at marks so attentive, as well as beneficent, of kindness and goodness in her Sovereigns; for well she felt convinced that the Queen had a mental share and influence in these royal offerings.
To Windsor, thus invited, Mrs. Delany now went; and this Memorialist, lightened of a thousand apprehensions by this cheer to the feelings of her honoured friend, returned to Dr. Burney, in Surrey. A letter speedily followed her, with an account that the good King himself, having issued orders to be apprized when Mrs. Delany entered the town of Windsor, had repaired to her newly allotted house, there, in person, to give her welcome. Overcome by such condescension, she flung herself upon her knees before him, to express a sense of his graciousness for which she could find no words.
Their Majesties almost immediately visited her in person; an honour which they frequently repeated: and they condescendingly sent to her, alternately, all their royal daughters. And, as soon as she was recovered from her fatigues, they invited her to their evening concerts at the Upper Lodge, in which, at that time, they sojourned.[9]
The time is now come to open upon the circumstances which will lead, ere long, to the cause of a seeming episode in these memoirs.
Dr. Burney was soon informed that the Queen had deigned to inquire of Mrs. Delany, why she had not brought her friend, Miss Burney, to her new home? an inquiry that was instantly followed by an invitation that hastened, of course, the person in question to St. Albans’-street, Windsor.
Here she found her venerable friend in the full solace of as much contentment as her recent severe personal loss, and her advanced period of life, could well admit. And, oftentimes, far nearer to mortal happiness is such contentment in the aged, than is suspected, or believed, by assuming and presuming youth; who frequently take upon trust—or upon poetry—their capability of superior enjoyment for its possession. She was honoured by all who approached her; she was loved by all with whom she associated. Her very dependence was madeindependent by the delicacy with which it left her completely mistress of her actions and her abode. Her Sovereigns unbent from their state to bestow upon her graciousness and favour: and the youthful object of her dearest affections[10]was fostered, with their full permission, under her wing.
And, would it not seem senseless ingratitude, or puerile affectation, not to acknowledge, that the gracious encouragement with which they urged to her side the singularly elected friend of her later years, bore a share, and not a small one, in contributing to the serenity of her mind, and the pleasantness of her social life?
In a week or two after the arrival of the new visitant, she was surprised into the presence of the King, by a sudden, unannounced, and unexpected entrance of his Majesty, one evening, into the drawing-room of Mrs. Delany; where, however, the confusion occasioned by his unlooked-for appearance speedily, nay blithely, subsided, from the suavity of his manners, the impressive benevolence of his countenance, and the cheering gaiety of his discourse. Fear could no more existwhere goodness of heart was so predominant, than respect could fail where dignity of rank was so pre-eminent; and, ere many minutes had elapsed, Mrs. Delany had the soft satisfaction not only of seeing the first tremors of her favoured friend pass insensibly away, but of observing them to be supplanted by ease, nay, delight, from the mild yet lively graciousness with which she was drawn into conversation by his Majesty.
The Queen, a few days later, made an entry with almost as little preparation; save that the King, though he had not announced, had preceded her; and that the chairman’s knock at the door had excited some suspicion of her approach; while the King, who came on foot, and quite alone, had only rung at the bell; each of them palpably showing a condescending intention to avoid creating a panic in the new guest; as well as to obviate, what repeatedly had happened when they arrived without these precautions, a timid escape.
To describe what the Queen was in this interview, would be to pourtray grace, sprightliness, sweetness, and spirit, embodied in one frame. And each of these Sovereigns, while bestowing all their decided attentionsupon their venerable and admirable hostess, deigned to display the most favourable disposition towards her new visitor; the whole of their manner, and the whole tenor of their discourse denoting a curious desire to develop, if traceable, the peculiarities which had impelled that small person, almost whether she would or not, into public notice.
The pleasure with which Dr. Burney received the details now transmitted to him, of the favour with which his daughter was viewed at Windsor, made a marked period of parental satisfaction in his life: and these accounts, with some others on a similar topic of a more recent date, were placed amongst hoards to which he had the most frequent recourse for recreation in his latter years.
The incidents, indeed, leading to this so honourable distinction were singular almost to romance. This daughter, from a shyness of disposition the most fearful, as well as from her native obscurity, would have been the last, in the common course of things, to have had the smallest chance of attracting royal notice; but the eccentricity of her opening adventure into life had excited the very curiosity which its scheme meant to render abortive; and these august personagesbeheld her with an evident wish of making some acquaintance with her character. They saw her, also, under the auspices of a lady whom they had almost singled out from amongst womankind as an object worthy of their private friendship; and whose animated regard for her, they knew, had set aloof all distance of years, and all recency of intercourse.
These were circumstances to exile common form and royal disciplinarianism from these great personages; and to give to them the smiling front and unbent brow of their fair native, not majestically acquired, physiognomies. And the impulsive effect of such urbanity was facilitating their purpose to its happy, honoured object; who found herself, as if by enchantment, in this august presence, without the panic of being summoned, or the awe of being presented. Nothing was chilled by ceremonial, nothing was stiffened by etiquette, nothing belonging to theformulæof royalty kept up stately distance. No lady in waiting exhibited the Queen; no equerry pointed out the King; the reverence of the heart sufficed to impede any forgetfulness of their rank; and the courtesy of their own unaffected hilarity diffused ease, spirit, and pleasure all around.
The King, insatiably curious to become still more minutely master of the history of the publication of Evelina, was pointed, though sportive, in question to bring forth that result. The Queen, still more desirous to develop the author than the book, was arch and intelligent in converse, to draw out her general sentiments and opinions; and both were so gently, yet so gaily, encouraging, that not to have met their benignant openness with frank vivacity, must rather have been insensibility than timidity.
They appeared themselves to enjoy the novelty of so domestic an evening visit, which, it is believed, was unknown to their practice till they had settled Mrs. Delany in a private house of their own presentation at Windsor. Comfortably here they now took their tea, which was brought to them by Miss Port; Mrs. Delany, to whom that office belonged, being too infirm for its performance; and they stayed on, in lively, easy, and pleasant conversation, abandoning cards, concert, and court circle, for the whole evening. And still, when, very late, they made their exit, they seemed reluctantly to depart.
Mrs. Delany was elevated with grateful pleasure; her devoted guest was delighted, astonished, enchanted; and Dr. Burney, with the highest vivacity, read her narrative of this visit; with other nearly similarscenes that followed it, during a three weeks’ residence at Windsor; to almost all his confidential friends.
The far, and but too deeply, widely, and unfortunately famed Warren Hastings was now amongst the persons of high renown, who courteously sought the acquaintance of Dr. Burney.
The tremendous attack upon the character and conduct of Governor Hastings, which terminated, through his own dauntless appeal for justice, in the memorable trial at Westminster Hall, hung then suspended over his head: and, as Mr. Burke was his principal accuser, it would strongly have prejudiced the Doctor against the accused, had not some of the most respectable connexions of the Governor, who had known him through the successive series of his several governments, and through the whole display of his almost unprecedented power, been particularly of the Doctor’s acquaintance; and these all agreed, that the uniform tenor of the actions of Mr. Hastings, while he was Governor General of India, spoke humanity, moderation, and liberality.
His demeanour and converse were perfectly corroboratory with this praise; and he appeared to Dr. Burney to be one of the greatest men then living as a public character; while as a private man, his gentleness, candour, and openness of discourse, made him one of the most pleasing. He talked with the utmost frankness upon his situation and affairs; and with a perfect reliance of victory over his enemies, from a fearless consciousness of probity and honour.
That Mr. Burke, the high-minded Mr. Burke, with a zeal nearly frantic in the belief of popular rumours, could so impetuously, so wildly, so imperiously be his prosecutor, was a true grief to the Doctor; and seemed an enigma inexplicable.
But Mr. Burke, with all the depth and sagacity of the rarest wisdom where he had time for consideration, and opportunity for research, had still not only the ardour, but the irreflection of ingenuous juvenile credulity, where tales of horror, of cruelty, or of woe, were placed before him with a cry for redress.
Dr. Burney was painfully and doubly disturbed at this terrific trial, through his esteem and admiration for both parties; and he kept as aloof from the scene of action during the whole of its Trojanendurance, as he would have done from a bull fight, to which both antagonists had been mercilessly exposed. For though, through his transcendent merit, joined to a longer and more grateful connexion, he had an infinitely warmer personal regard for Mr. Burke, he held Mr. Hastings, in this case, to be innocent, and, consequently, injured: on him, therefore, every wish of victory devolved; yet so high was the reliance of the Doctor on the character of intentional integrity in the prosecutor, that he always beheld him as a man under a generous, however fanatical delusion of avenging imputed wrongs; and he forgave what he could not justify.[11]
Few amongst those who, at this period, honoured Dr. Burney with an increasing desire of intimacy, stood higher in fashionable celebrity than Horace Walpole,[12]and his civilities to the father were ever more accompanied by an at least equal portion of distinction for hisdaughter; with whom, after numerous invitations that circumstances had rendered ineffective, the Doctor, in 1786, had the pleasure of making a visit of some days to Strawberry Hill.
Mr. Walpole paid them the high and well understood compliment of receiving them without other company. No man less needed auxiliaries for the entertainment of his guests, when he was himself in good humour and good spirits. He had a fund of anecdote that could provide food for conversation without any assistance from the news of the day, or the state of the elements: and he had wit and general knowledge to have supplied their place, had his memory been of that volatile description that retained no former occurrence, either of his own or of his neighbour, to relate. He was scrupulously, and even elaborately well-bred; fearing, perhaps, from his conscious turn to sarcasm, that if he suffered himself to be unguarded, he might utter expressions more amusing to be recounted aside, than agreeable to be received in front. He was a witty, sarcastic, ingenious, deeply-thinking, highly-cultivated, quaint, though evermore gallant and romantic,though very mundane, old bachelor of other days.
But his external obligations to nature were by no means upon a par with those which he owed to her mentally: his eyes were inexpressive; and his countenance, when not worked upon by his elocution, was of the same description; at least in these his latter days.
Strawberry Hill was now exhibited to the utmost advantage. All that was peculiar, especially the most valuable of his pictures, he had the politeness to point out to his guests himself; and not unfrequently, from the deep shade in which some of his antique portraits were placed; and the lone sort of look of the unusually shaped apartments in which they were hung, striking recollections were brought to their minds of his Gothic story of the Castle of Otranto.
He shewed them, also, with marked pleasure, the very vase immortalized by Gray, into which the pensive, but rapacious Selima had glided to her own destruction, whilst grasping at that of her golden prey. On the outside of the vase Mr. Walpole had had labelled,
“’Twas on THIS lofty vase’s side.”
He accompanied them to the picturesque villa already mentioned, whichhad been graced by the residence of Lady Di. Beauclerk; but which, having lost that fair possessor, was now destined for two successors in the highly-talented Miss Berrys; of whom he was anticipating with delight the expected arrival from Italy. After displaying the elegant apartments, pictures, decorations, and beautiful grounds and views; all which, to speak in his own manner, had a sort of well-bred as well as gay and recreative appearance, he conducted them to a small but charming octagon room, which was ornamented in every panel by designs taken from his own tragedy of the Mysterious Mother, and executed by the accomplished Lady Di.
Dr. Burney beheld them with the admiration that could not but be excited by the skill, sensibility, and refined expression of that eminent lady artist: and the pleasure of his admiration happily escaped the alloy by which it would have been adulterated, had he previously read the horrific tragedy whence the subject had been chosen; a tragedy that seems written upon a plan as revolting to probability as to nature; and that violates good taste as forcibly as good feeling. It seems written, indeed, as if in epigrammatic scorn of the horrors of the Greek drama, by giving birth to conceptions equally terrific, andyet more appalling.
In the evening, Mr. Walpole favoured them with producing several, and opening some of his numerous repositories of hoarded manuscripts; and he pointed to a peculiar caravan, or strong box, that he meant to leave to his great nephew, Lord Waldegrave; with an injunction that it should not be unlocked for a certain number of years, perhaps thirty, after the death of Mr. Walpole; by which time, he probably calculated, that all then living, who might be hurt by its contents, would be above,—or beneath them.
He read several picked out and extremely clever letters of Madame du Deffand,[13]of whom he recounted a multiplicity of pleasant histories; and he introduced to them her favourite little lap-dog, which he fondled and cherished, fed by his side, and made his constant companion. There was no appearance of the roughness with which he had treated its mistress, in his treatment of the little animal; to whom, perhaps, he paid his court in secret penitence, asl’amende honorablefor his harshness to its bequeather.
Horace Walpole was amongst those whose character, as far as it was apparent, had contradictory qualities so difficult to reconcile one with another, as to make its development, from mere general observation, superficial and unsatisfactory. And Strawberry Hill itself, with all its chequered and interesting varieties of detail, had a something in its whole of monotony, that cast, insensibly, over its visitors, an indefinable species of secret constraint; and made cheerfulness rather the effect of effort than the spring of pleasure; by keeping more within bounds than belongs to their buoyant love of liberty, those light, airy, darting, bursts of unsought gaiety, yclept animal spirits.
Nevertheless, the evenings of this visit were spent delightfully—they were given up to literature, and to entertaining, critical, ludicrous, or anecdotical conversation. Dr. Burney was nearly as full fraught as Mr. Walpole with all that could supply materials of this genus; and Mr. Walpole had so much taste for his society, that he was wont to say, when Dr. Burney was running off, after a rapid call in Berkeley-square, “Are you going already, Dr. Burney?—Very well, sir! but remember you owe me a visit!”
The pleasure, however, which his urbanity and unwearied exertions evidently bestowed upon his present guests, seemed to kindle in hismind a reciprocity of sensation that warmed him into an increase of kindness; and urged the most impressive desire of retaining them for a lengthened visit. He left no flattery of persuasion, and no bribery of promised entertainment untried to allure their compliance. The daughter was most willing: and the father was not less so; but his time was irremediably portioned out, and no change was in his power.
Mr. Walpole looked seriously surprised as well as chagrined at the failure of his eloquence and his temptations: though soon recovering his usual tone, he turned off his vexation with his characteristic pleasantry, by uncovering a large portfolio, and telling them that it contained a collection of all the portraits that were extant, of every person mentioned in the Letters of Madame de Sevigné; “and if you will not stay at least another day,” he said, patting the portfolio with an air of menace, “you shan’t see one drop of them!”
Highly pleased and gratified, they came away with a positive engagement for a quick return; but an event was soon to take place which shewed, as usual, the nullity of any engagement for the future of Man to his fellow.
In May, 1786, died that wonderful blind musician, and truly worthy man, Mr. Stanley, who had long been in a declining; state of health, but who was much lamented by all with whom he had lived in any intimacy.
Once more, a vacancy opened to Dr. Burney of the highest post of honour in his profession, that of Master of the King’s Band; a post which in earlier life he had been promised, and of which the disappointment had caused him the most cruel chagrin.
He had now to renew his application. The Chamberlain was changed; and whether the successor to Lord Hertford had received, as any part of the bequests of his predecessor, the history of the violated rights of Dr. Burney, remained to be tried.
Dr. Burney was himself persuaded, from the favour shewn to him by the King, relative to the Commemoration of Handel, that his best chance was with his Majesty in person: and with this notion and hope, he waited upon his amiable friend Mr. Smelt, to consult with him upon whatcourse to pursue.
Mr. Smelt counselled him to go instantly to Windsor; not to address the King, but to be seen by him. “Take your daughter in your hand,” he said, “and walk in the evening upon the terrace. Your appearing there at this time, the King will instantly understand; and he has feelings so good and so quick, that he is much more likely to be touched by a hint of that delicate sort, than by any direct application. But—take your daughter in your hand.”
Mr. Smelt had probably heard, from Mrs. Delany, the graciousness with which that daughter had been signalized; and the Doctor determined implicitly to follow this advice.
Fortunately, to encourage and enliven the little expedition, just before the post-chaise stopped at the door, a letter from Mrs. Delany, written by Miss Port, warmly pressing for a renewal of the visit of the daughter, with an intimation, that it was asked by the Queen’s expressdesire, came, through a private conveyance, from Windsor.
Arrived at Windsor, Dr. Burney drove to the house of Dr. Lind, after first depositing his companion at that of Mrs. Delany. With joy inexpressible that companion flew into the kind open arms of the most venerable of women, from whom her reception had all the liveliness of pleasant surprise, added to its unfading affection. They spent the rest of the morning together, and chiefly in the closet of Mrs. Delany; who, to her revering friend, unbosomed all her cares and sorrows, with a soft and touching unreserve, that could not but more and more endear her to one who took a share in all her griefs, as quick and sensitive as if they had been her own.
And many were the solicitudes of this feeling and most generous lady, though, at her great age, it might have been hoped that such would have been spared her; but her primitive sensibility was unimpaired, and the difficulties or misfortunes of all with whom she was connected, were felt as if personal. Her beloved great niece was still with her, and was her first comfort and delight; but too young and inexperienced to enter into her cares. These, however, though not their cause, hadbeen perceived by the penetrating Queen; who had then condescended to counsel this valued lady to press for another visit “from her new friend and favourite; who seemed,” she deigned to say, “peculiarly suited to sooth her anxieties:” a gracious partiality, which Mrs. Delany related as of good omen to the present application.
When the hour came for the evening walk on the Terrace, Dr. Burney took the arm of Dr. Lind; and Mrs. Delany consigned his daughter to the charge of Lady Louisa Clayton, a sister of Lady Charlotte Finch, Governess of the Princesses.
All the Royal Family were already on the Terrace. The King and Queen, and the Prince of Mecklenburgh, her Majesty’s brother, walked together; followed by a procession of the six lovely young Princesses, and some of the Princes; exhibiting a gay and striking appearance of one of the finest families in the world. Everywhere as they advanced, the crowd drew back against the walls on each side, making a double hedge for their passage: after which, the mass re-united behind, to follow.
When the King and Queen approached towards the party of Lady Louisa Clayton, her ladyship most kindly placed by her own side the Memorialist; without which attention she had been certainly unnoticed; for the moment their Majesties were in sight, she instinctively looked down, and drew her hat over her face. The courage with which their graciousness had invested her in the interviews at Mrs. Delany’s, where she was seen by them through their own courtesy, and at their own desire, all failed her here; where she came with personal, or, rather, filial views, and felt terrified lest they might appear to be presumptuous.
The Doctor was annoyed by the same feeling; and looked so conscious and embarrassed, that though he attained the honour of a bow from the King, and a curtsey from the Queen, every time they passed him, he involuntarily hung back, without the smallest attempt at even looking for further notice. Thus, and almost laughably, each of them, after coming so far merely with the hope of being recognized, might have gone back to their cells, without raising a surmise that they had ever quitted them, but for the considerate kindness of Lady Louisa Clayton; who, in taking under her own wing the Memorialist, gave her a post ofhonour too conspicuous to be unremarked.
And, as soon as the Queen had stopped, and spoken to Lady Louisa in general terms, her Majesty, in a whisper, demanded, “Who is with you, Lady Louisa?” And when Lady Louisa answered: “Miss Burney, Ma’am;” her Majesty smilingly stepped nearer, with gentle and condescending inquiries.
The King, then, having finished his discourse with some other party, repeated the same question to Lady Louisa; and, having received the same answer, immediately addressed himself to the Memorialist, to ask whether she were come to Windsor to make any stay?
“No, Sir; not now.”
“I was sure,” cried the Queen, “she was not come to stay, by seeing her father, who has so little time.”
“And when shall you come again,” said the King, “to Windsor?”
“Very soon—I hope, Sir!”
“And—and—and—” added he, half-laughing, and hesitating significantly, while he flourished his hand and fingers as if wielding a pen; “pray—how goes on—the Muse?”
To this she only answered by laughing also; but he would not be so evaded, and repeated the interrogatory. She then replied, “Not at all, Sir!”
“No?—but why?—why not?”
“I am—afraid, Sir!” she stammered.
“And why?” repeated he, surprised: “Of what are you afraid?—of what?—”
Ashamed, however gratified, at the implied civility of this surprise, she answered something so hesitatingly and indistinctly, that he could not hear—or, at least, understand her; though he had bent his head to a level with her hat from the beginning of the little conference; and after another such question or two, with no greater satisfaction of reply—for she knew not how to treat so personal a subject in such full Congress—he smiled very good-humouredly, as if suddenly recollecting her father’s account of the shyness of her Muse, and walked on: the Queen, wearing a smile of the same expression, by his side.
This exceeding condescension was truly reviving to Dr. Burney; but it was all of good that repaid his journey and his effort. The place which he sought with so many motives to expect, and for which his rank in his profession so conclusively entitled him, he was informed, a few days afterwards, had been given away instantly upon the death ofMr. Stanley, without any consultation with his Majesty; and, it was generally surmised, much to his Majesty’s displeasure.
But not, however, against the successful rival, Mr. Parsons, afterwards Sir William, was this displeasure directed: he was wholly blameless, not only in this superseding promotion, but in the tenor of his life at large. He might even be uninformed of Dr. Burney’s prior claims. And such, in fact, was Dr. Burney’s belief.
The ensuing paragraph, which appears to have been written in Italy, and is copied from a manuscript memorandum book of Dr. Burney’s, will demonstrate the early and liberal kindness of the Doctor towards Mr. Parsons.
“An old and excellent composer, now out of fashion, with whom I was made acquainted by Mr. Morrison, has very singular notions about all invention being at an end in music; asserting that composers only repeat themselves and each other. And that, as to modulation, it is only in the second part of songs (a da capo)[Pg 79]that it is attempted, merely to frighten the hearer back to the first. It seems, he adds, as if these second parts were made by the valet-de-chambre of the Maestro di Capella. I recommended him to Mr. Parsons, who consulted me about a master at Rome, after he had been at a conservatoriò at Naples, where he learned, he said, nothing. Rinaldo, an admirable as well as fanciful musician, but deemed to bepassé, could afford to give him more time than if in full employment; and for but little money. Mr. Parsons solicited me, likewise, to prevail on Santarelli to favour him with a few lessons in singing; which, at my request, he did, without fee or reward; for he had long ceased teachingda professore, except his charmingEléve, La Signorina Battoni.”
“An old and excellent composer, now out of fashion, with whom I was made acquainted by Mr. Morrison, has very singular notions about all invention being at an end in music; asserting that composers only repeat themselves and each other. And that, as to modulation, it is only in the second part of songs (a da capo)[Pg 79]that it is attempted, merely to frighten the hearer back to the first. It seems, he adds, as if these second parts were made by the valet-de-chambre of the Maestro di Capella. I recommended him to Mr. Parsons, who consulted me about a master at Rome, after he had been at a conservatoriò at Naples, where he learned, he said, nothing. Rinaldo, an admirable as well as fanciful musician, but deemed to bepassé, could afford to give him more time than if in full employment; and for but little money. Mr. Parsons solicited me, likewise, to prevail on Santarelli to favour him with a few lessons in singing; which, at my request, he did, without fee or reward; for he had long ceased teachingda professore, except his charmingEléve, La Signorina Battoni.”
The Doctor, it is true, could not then foresee the personal competition he was accelerating; but neither his equity nor his generosity were warped by the after discovery: all of injustice, if any there were in the nomination, hung upon the patron, not the candidate.
Very shortly after this most undeserved disappointment, the Memorialist—who must still, perforce, mingle, partially, something of her own memoirs with those of her father, with which, at this period, they were indispensably linked—met, by his own immediate request, Mr. Smelt, at the house of Mrs. Delany, who was then at her Londondwelling, in St. James’s Place.
He expressed the most obliging concern at the precipitancy of the Lord Chamberlain, who had disposed, he said, of the place before he knew the King’s pleasure; and Mr. Smelt scrupled not to confess that his Majesty’s own intentions had by no means been fulfilled.
As soon in the evening as all visitors were gone, and only himself and the Memorialist remained with Mrs. Delany, Mr. Smelt glided, with a gentleness and delicacy that accompanied all his proceedings, into the subject that had led him to demand this interview. And this was no other than the offer of a place to the Memorialist in the private establishment of the Queen.
Her surprise was considerable; though by no means what she would have felt had such an offer not been preceded by the most singular graciousness. Nevertheless, a mark of personal favour so unsolicited, so unthought of, could not but greatly move her: and the moment of disappointment and chagrin to her father at which it occurred; with the expressive tone and manner in which it was announced by Mr. Smelt, brought it close to her heart, as an intended and benevolent markof goodness to her father himself, that might publicly manifest how little their Majesties had been consulted, when Dr. Burney had again so unfairly been set aside.
But while these were the ideas that on the first moment awakened the most grateful sensations towards their Majesties, others, far less exhilarating, broke into their vivacity before they had even found utterance. A morbid stroke of sickly apprehension struck upon her mind with forebodings of separation from her father, her family, her friends; a separation which, when there is neither distress to enforce, nor ambition to stimulate a change, can have one only equivalent, or inducement, for an affectionate female; namely, a home of her own with a chosen partner; and even then, the filial sunderment, where there is filial tenderness, is a pungent drawback to all new scenes of life.
Nevertheless, she was fully sensible that here, though there was not that potent call to bosom feelings, there was honour the most gratifying in a choice so perfectly spontaneous; and favour amounting to kindness, from a quarter whence such condescension could not but elevate with pleasure, as well as charm and penetrate with gratitude and respect.
Still—the separation,—for the residence was to be invariably at the Palace;—the total change of life; the relinquishing the brilliant intellectual circle into which she had been so flatteringly invited—
She hesitated—she breathed hard—she could not attempt to speak—
But she was with those to whom speech is not indispensable for discourse; who could reciprocate ideas without uttering or hearing a syllable; and to whose penetrating acumen words are the bonds, but not the revealers of thoughts.
They saw, and understood her conflict; and by their own silence shewed that they respected hers, and its latent cause.
And when, after a long pause, ashamed of their patience, she would have expressed her sense of its kindness, they would not hear her apology. “Do not hurry your spirits in your answer, my dear Miss Burney,” said Mrs. Delany; “pray take your own time: Mr. Smelt, I am sure, will wait it.”
“Certainly he will,” said Mr. Smelt; “he can wait it even till to-morrow morning; for he is not to give his answer till to-morrow noon.”
“Take then the night, my dear Miss Burney,” cried Mrs. Delany, in a tone of the softest sympathy, “for deliberation; that you may thinkevery thing over, and not be hurried; and let us all three meet here again to-morrow morning at breakfast.”
“How good you both are!” the Memorialist was faintly uttering, when what was her surprise to hear Mr. Smelt, who, with a smile, interrupted her, say: “I have no claim to such a panegyric! I should ill execute the commission with which I have been entrusted, if I embarrassed Miss Burney; for the great personage, from whom I hold it, permitted my speaking first to Miss Burney alone, without consulting even Dr. Burney; that she might form her own unbiassed determination.”
Where now was the hesitation, the incertitude, the irresolution of the Memorialist? Where the severity of her conflict, the pang of her sundering wishes? All were suddenly dissolved by overwhelming astonishment, and melted by respectful gratitude: and to the decision of Dr. Burney all now was willingly, and with resolute and cheerful acquiescence, referred.
Dr. Burney felt honoured, felt elated, felt proud of a mark so gracious, so unexpected, of personal partiality to his daughter; but felt it, perforce, with the same drawbacks to entire happiness that sostrongly had balanced its pleasure with herself. Yet his high sense of such singular condescension, and his hope of the worldly advantage to which it might possibly lead; joined to the inherent loyalty that rendered a wish of his Sovereign a law to him, checked his disturbance ere it amounted to hesitation. Mutually, therefore, resigned to a parting from so honourable a call, they embraced in tearful unison of sentiment; and, with the warmest feelings of heart-felt and most respectful—though not unsighing—devotion, Dr. Burney hastened to Mr. Smelt, with their unitedly grateful and obedient acceptance of the offer which her Majesty had deigned to transmit to them through his kind and liberal medium.