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MEMOIRS
OF
DOCTOR BURNEY.

CONTENTS

ADVERTISEMENT.

It was the intention of the Biographer of Doctor Burney, to have printed the Doctor’s Correspondence, in a fourth volume, at the same time with the Memoir; but upon examining the collection, there appears such a dearth of the Doctor’s own Letters, of which he very rarely kept copies, that it seems to be expedient to postpone their publication, till it can be rendered more complete; to which end, the Biographer ventures earnestly to entreat, that all who possess any original Letters of Doctor Burney, whether addressed to themselves, or retained by inheritance, will have the goodness—where there seems no objection to their meeting the public eye—to forward them to Mr. Moxon, who will carefully transmit them to the Biographer, by whom they will afterwards be restored to their owners, with the most grateful acknowledgments.

MEMOIRS
OF
DOCTOR BURNEY,
ARRANGED
FROM HIS OWN MANUSCRIPTS, FROM FAMILY PAPERS, AND
FROM PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS.
BY
HIS DAUGHTER, MADAME d’ARBLAY.

“O could my feeble powers thy virtues trace,

By filial love each fear should be suppress’d;

The blush of incapacity I’d chace,

And stand—Recorder of Thy worth!—confess’d.”

Anonymous Dedication of Evelina, to Dr. Burney, in 1778.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

EDWARD MOXON, 64, NEW BOND STREET.

1832.

LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS,
BOUVERIE STREET.

PREFACE, OR APOLOGY.

The intentions, or, rather, the directions of Dr. Burney that his Memoirs should be published; and the expectation of his family and friends that they should pass through the hands of his present Editor and Memorialist, have made the task of arranging the ensuing collations with her own personal recollections, appear to her a sacred duty from the year 1814.[1]

But the grief at his loss, which at first incapacitated her from such an effort, was soon afterwards followed by change of place, change of circumstances—almost of existence—with multiplied casualties that, eventually, separated her from all her manuscript materials. And these she only recovered when under the pressure of a new affliction that took from her all power, or even thought, for their investigation. During many years, therefore, they have been laid aside, though never forgotten.

But if Time, as so often we lament, will not stand still upon happiness, it would be graceless not to acknowledge, with gratitude to Providence, that neither is it positively stationary upon sorrow: for though there are calamities which it cannot obliterate, and wounds which Religion alone can heal, Time yet seems endowed with a secret principle for producing a mental calm, through which life imperceptibly glides back to its customary operations; however powerless Time itself—earthly Time!—must still remain for restoring lost felicity.

Now, therefore,—most unexpectedly,—that she finds herself sufficiently recovered from successive indispositions and afflictions to attempt the acquittal of a debt which has long hung heavily upon her mind, she ventures to re-open her manuscript stores, and to resume, though in trembling, her long-forsaken pen.

That the life of so eminent a man should not pass away without some authenticated record, will be pretty generally thought; and the circumstances which render her its recorder, grow out of the very nature of things: she possesses all his papers and documents; and, from her earliest youth to his latest decline, not a human being was more confidentially entrusted than herself with the occurrences, the sentiments, and the feelings of his past and passing days.

Although, as biography, from time immemorial, has claimed the privilege of being more discursive than history, the Memorialist may seek to diversify the plain recital of facts by such occasional anecdotes as have been hoarded from childhood in her memory; still, and most scrupulously, not an opinion will be given as Dr. Burney’s, either of persons or things, that was not literally his own: and fact will as essentially be the basis of every article, as if its object were still lent to earth, and now listening to this exposition of his posthumous memoirs with her own recollections.

Nevertheless, though nothing is related that does not belong to Dr. Burney and his history, the accounts are not always rigidly confined to his presence, where scenes, or traits, still strong in the remembrance of the Editor, or still before her eyes in early letters or diaries, invite to any characteristic details of celebrated personages.

Not slight, however, is the embarrassment that struggles with the pleasure of these mingled reminiscences, from their appearance of personal obtrusion: yet, when it is seen that they are never brought forward but to introduce some incident or speech, that must else remain untold of Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, Mrs. Delany, Mrs. Thrale, Mr. Bruce—nay, Napoleon—and some other high-standing names, of recent date to the aged, yet of still living curiosity to the youthful reader—these apparent egotisms may be something more,—perhaps—than pardoned.

Where the life has been as private as that of Dr. Burney, its history must necessarily be simple, and can have little further call upon the attention of the world, than that which may belong to a wish of tracing the progress of a nearly abandoned Child, from a small village of Shropshire, to a Man allowed throughout Europe to have risen to the head of his profession; and thence, setting his profession aside, to have been elevated to an intellectual rank in society, as a Man of Letters—

“Though not First, in the very first line”

with most of the eminent men of his day,—Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, soaring above any contemporary mark, always, like Senior Wranglers, excepted.

And to this height, to which, by means and resources all his own, he arose, the Genius that impelled him to Fame, the Integrity that established his character, and the Amiability that magnetized all hearts,—in the phrase of Dr. Johnson—to go forth to meet him, were the only materials with which he worked his way.

INTRODUCTION.

COPIED FROM A MANUSCRIPT MEMOIR IN THE DOCTOR’S
OWN HAND-WRITING.

If the life of a humble individual, on whom neither splendid appointments, important transactions, nor atrocious crimes have called the attention of the public, can afford amusement to the friends he leaves behind, without being offered either as a model to follow, or a precipice to shun, the intention of the writer of these Memoirs will be fully accomplished. But there is no member of society who, by diligence, talents, or conduct, leaves his name and his race a little better than those from which he sprung, who is totally without some claim to attention on the means by which such advantages were achieved.

My life, though it has been frequently a tissue of toil, sickness, and sorrow, has yet been, upon the whole, so much more pleasant and prosperous than I had a title to expect, or than many others with higher claims have enjoyed, that its incidents, when related, may, perhaps, help to put mediocrity in good-humour, and to repress the pride and overrated worth and expectations of indolence.

Perhaps few have been better enabled to describe, from an actual survey, the manners and customs of the age in which he lived than myself; ascending from those of the most humble cottagers, and lowest mechanics, to the first nobility, and most elevated personages, with whom circumstances, situation, and accident, at different periods of my life, have rendered me familiar. Oppressed and laborious husbandmen; insolent and illiberal yeomanry; overgrown farmers; generous and hospitable merchants; men of business and men of pleasure; men of letters; men of science; artists; sportsmen and country ’squires; dissipated and extravagant voluptuaries; gamesters; ambassadors; statesmen; and even sovereign princes, I have had opportunities of examining in almost every point of view: all these it is my intention to display in their respective situations; and to delineate their virtues, vices, and apparent degrees of happiness and misery.

A book of this kind, though it may mortify and offend a few persons of the present age, may be read with avidity at the distance of some centuries, by antiquaries and lovers of anecdotes; though it will have lost the poignancy of personality.

My grandfather, James Macburney, who, by letters which I have seen of his writing, and circumstances concerning him which I remember to have heard from my father and mother, was a gentleman of a considerable patrimony at Great Hanwood, a village in Shropshire, had received a very good education; but, from what cause does not appear, in the latter years of his life, was appointed land steward to the Earl of Ashburnham. He had a house in Privy Garden, Whitehall. In the year 1727, he walked as esquire to one of the knights, at the coronation of King George the Second.

My father, James, born likewise at Hanwood, was well educated also, both in school learning and accomplishments. He was a day scholar at Westminster School, under the celebrated Dr. Busby, while my grandfather resided at Whitehall. I remember his telling a story of the severe chastisement he received from that terrific disciplinarian, Dr. Busby, for playing truant after school hours, instead of returning home. My grandfather, who had frequently admonished him not to loiter in the street, lest he should make improper and mischievous acquaintance, finding no attention was paid to his injunctions, gave him a letter addressed to the Reverend Dr. Busby; which he did not fail to deliver, with ignorant cheerfulness, on his entrance into the school. The Doctor, when he had perused it, called my father to him, and, in a very mild, and seemingly good-humoured voice, said, “Burney, can you read writing?” “Yes, Sir,” answered my father, with great courage and flippancy. “Then read this letter aloud,” says the Doctor; when my father, with an audible voice, began: “Sir, My son, the bearer of this letter, having long disregarded my admonitions against stopping to play with idle boys in his way home from school—” Here my father’s voice faltered. “Go on,” says his master; “you read very well.” “I am sorry to be under the necessity of entreating you to—to—to—to cor—” Here he threw down the letter, and fell on his knees, crying out: “Indeed, Sir, I’ll never do so again!—Pray forgive me!” “O, you read perfectly well,” the Doctor again tells him, “pray finish the Letter:” And making him pronounce aloud the words, “correct him;” complied with my grandfather’s request in a very liberal manner.

Whether my father was intended for any particular profession, I know not, but, during his youth, besides his school learning, he acquired several talents and accomplishments, which, in the course of his life, he was obliged professionally to turn to account. He danced remarkably well; performed well on the violin, and was a portrait painter of no mean talents.

Notwithstanding the Mac which was prefixed to my grandfather’s name, and which my father retained for some time, I never could find at what period any of my ancestors lived in Scotland or in Ireland, from one of which it must have been derived. My father and grandfather were both born in Shropshire, and never even visited either of those countries.

Early in his life, my father lost the favour of his sire, by eloping from home, to marry a young actress of Goodman’s-fields’ theatre, by whom he had a very large family. My grandfather’s affection was completely alienated by this marriage; joined to disapproving his son’s conduct in other respects. To the usual obduracy of old age, he afterwards added a far more than similar indiscretion himself, by marrying a female domestic, to whom, and to a son, the consequence of that marriage, he bequeathed all his possessions, which were very considerable. Joseph, this son, was not more prudent than my father; for he contrived, early in life, to dissipate his patrimony; and he subsisted for many years in Norfolk, by teaching to dance. I visited him in 1756, in a tour I made to Yarmouth. He lived then at Ormsby, a beautiful village near that town, with an amiable wife, and a large family of beautiful children, in an elegant villa, with a considerable garden; and he appeared, at that time, in perfectly restored and easy circumstances.

N. B.—The fragment whence this is taken here stops.

This Introduction, which is copied literally from the hand-writing of Dr. Burney, was both begun and dropped, as appears by a marginal note, in the year 1782; but, from what cause is unknown, was neither continued, nor resumed, save by occasional memorandums, till the year 1807, when the Doctor had reached the age of eighty-one, and was under the dejecting apprehension of a paralytic seizure. From that time, nevertheless, he composed sundry manuscript volumes, of various sizes, containing the history of his life, from his cradle nearly to his grave.

Out of the minute amplitude of this vast mass of matter, it has seemed the duty of his Editor and Memorialist, to collect all that seemed to offer any interest for the general reader; but to commit nothing to the public eye that there is reason to believe the author himself would have withheld from it at an earlier period; or would have obliterated, even at a much later, had he revised his writings after the recovery of his health and spirits.

MEMOIRS
OF
DOCTOR BURNEY.

Charles Burney was born at Shrewsbury, on the twelfth of April, 1726.

He was issue of a second marriage, of a very different colour with respect to discretion, or to prejudice, from that with the account of which he has opened his own narration. The poor actress was no more; but neither her hardly judged, though enthusiastically admired profession, nor her numerous offspring, nor the alienation she had unhappily caused in the family, proved obstacles to the subsequent union of her survivor with Miss * * * who in those days, though young and pretty, was called Mrs. Ann Cooper, a Shropshire young lady, of bright parts and great personal beauty; as well as an inheritress of a fortune which, for the times, was by no means inconsiderable. The parchments of the marriage settlement upon this occasion are still remaining amongst the few family records that Dr. Burney preserved.

Whether attracted by her beauty, her sprightliness, or her portion; or by the aggregate influence of those three mighty magnetizers of the passions of man, is not known; but Wycherley, the famous poet, fine gentleman, and Wit of the reign of Charles the Second, had been so enamoured with Mrs. Ann Cooper in her earliest youth, which flourished in his latest decadency, that he sought her for his bride.

The romance, however, of his adoration, did not extend to breaking his heart; for though he expired within a few months after her rejection, it was not from wearing the willow: another fair one, yet younger, proved less cruel, and changed it to a wreath of myrtle. But the fates were adverse to his tender propensities, and he outlived his fair fortune and his nuptials only a fortnight.

A few years after this second marriage, Mr. Burney senior, finally, and with tolerable success, fixed himself to the profession of portrait-painting; and, quitting Shrewsbury, established himself in the city of Chester; where, to his reputation in the delightful arts of the pencil, he joined a far surpassing pre-eminence in those of society. His convivial spirit, his ready repartee, and his care-chasing pleasantry, made his intercourse sought by all to whom such qualifications afford pleasure: and we are yet, I believe, to learn where coin of such sterling value for exhilarating our fellow-creatures, fails of passing current.

The then Earl of Cholmondeley was particularly partial to him, and his most essential friend.

Charles, who was Mr. Burney’s last born son, had a twin sister, called Susanna, whom he early lost, but for whom he cherished a peculiar fondness that he seemed tenderly to transmit to the beloved and meritorious daughter to whom he gave her name.[2]

CONDOVER.

From what cause is not known, and it is difficult to conceive any that can justify such extraordinary neglect, young Charles was left in Shropshire, upon the removal of his parents to Chester; and abandoned, not only during his infancy, but even during his boyhood, to the care of an uncultivated and utterly ignorant, but worthy and affectionate old nurse, called Dame Ball, in the rustic village of Condover, not far from Shrewsbury.

His reminiscences upon this period were amongst those the most tenaciously minute, and the most agreeable to his fancy for detail, of any part of his life; and the uncommon gaiety of his narratory powers, and the frankness with which he set forth the pecuniary embarrassments and provoking mischances, to which his thus deserted childhood was exposed, had an ingenuousness, a good-humour, and a comicality, that made the subject of Condover not more delectable to himself than entertaining to his hearer.

Nevertheless, these accounts, when committed to paper, and produced without the versatility of countenance, and the vivacious gestures that animated the colloquial disclosures, so lose their charm, as to appear vapid, languid, and tedious: and the editor only thus slightly recurs to them for the purpose of pointing out how gifted must be the man who, through disadvantages of so lowering a species, could become, in after-life, not only one of the best informed, but one of the most polished, members of society.

There were few subjects of his childish remembrance with which he was himself more amused, than with the recital of the favourite couplets which the good nurse Ball most frequently sang to him at her spinning wheel; and which he especially loved to chaunt, in imitating her longdrawn face, and the dolorous tones of her drawling sadness.

“Good bye, my dear neighbours! My heart it is sore,

For I must go travelling all the world o’er.

And if I should chance to come home very rich,

My friends and relations will make of me mich;

But if I should chance to come home very poor,

My friends and relations will turn me out of door,

After I have been travelling, travelling, travelling, all the world o’er.”

CHESTER.

The education of the subject of these memoirs, when, at length, he was removed from this his first instructress, whom he quitted, as he always protested, with agony of grief, was begun at the Free School at Chester.

It can excite no surprise, his brilliant career through life considered, that his juvenile studies were assiduous, ardent, and successful. He was frequently heard to declare that he had been once only chastised at school, and that not for slackness, but forwardness in scholastic lore. A favourite comrade, who shared his affections, though not his application or his genius, was hesitating through an ill-learnt lesson, and on the point of incurring punishment, when young Burney, dropping his head on his breast to muffle his voice, whispered the required answer.

“Burney prompts, Sir!” was loudly called out by a jealous, or malevolent fellow-student: and Burney paid the ignoble tax at which his incautious good nature, and superior talents, were assessed.

The resources of practical education ought, perhaps, to be judged only by the experience which puts them into play; but incongruous, at least to all thinking, though it may be incompetent, observers, must seem the discipline that appoints to the instinctive zeal of youthful friendship, the same degrading species of punishment that may be necessary for counteracting the sluggard mischiefs of indolence, or the dangerous examples of misconduct.

The prominent talents of young Burney for music fixed that tuneful art for his profession; and happily so; for while its pursuit was his business, its cultivation was his never-ceasing delight.

Yet not exclusively: far otherwise. He had a native love of literature, in all its branches, that opened his intellects to observation, while it furnished his mind with embellishments upon almost every subject; a thirst of knowledge, that rendered science, as far as he had opportunity for its investigation, an enlargement to his understanding; and an imagination that invested all the arts with a power of enchantment.

SHREWSBURY.

His earliest musical instructor was his eldest half brother, Mr. James Burney, who was then, and for more than half a century afterwards, organist of St. Margaret’s, Shrewsbury; in which city the young musician elect began his professional studies.

It was, however, in age only that Mr. James Burney was his brother’s senior or superior; from him, therefore, whatever could be given or received, was finished almost ere it was begun, from the quickness with which his pupil devoted himself to what he called the slavery of conquering unmeaning difficulties in the lessons of the times.

The following spirited paragraph on his juvenile progress is transcribed from his early memorandums.

“The celebrated Felton, and after him, the first Dr. Hayes, came from Oxford to Shrewsbury on a tour, while I was studying hard, without instruction or example; and they amazed and stimulated me so forcibly by their performance on the organ, as well as by their encouragement, that I thenceforward went to work with an ambition and fury that would hardly allow me to eat or sleep.

“The quantity of music which I copied at this time, of all kinds, was prodigious; and my activity and industry surprised every body; for, besides writing, teaching, tuning, and playing for my brother, at my momens perdus, I was educating myself in every way I was able. With copy-books, I improved my hand-writing so much, that my father did not believe I wrote my letters to him myself. I tried hard to at least keep up the little Latin I had learned; and I diligently practised both the spinet and violin; which, with reading, transcribing music for business, and poetry for pleasure; attempts at composition, and attention to my brother’s affairs, filled up every minute of the longest day.

“I had, also, a great passion for angling; but whenever I could get leisure to pursue that sport, I ran no risk of losing my time, if the fish did not bite; for I had always a book in my pocket, which enabled me to wait with patience their pleasure.”

Another paragraph, which is singular and amusing, is transcribed, also, from the Shrewsbury Annals:—

“CHARACTER OF LADY TANKERVILLE.[3]

“This lady was the daughter of Sir John Ashley, of the Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury. She manifested a passion for music very early, in practising on the German flute, which was then little known in the country, Sir William Fowler and this lady being the only performers on that instrument that obtained, or deserved the least notice. Miss Ashley practised the harpsichord likewise, and took lessons of my brother: and she used to make little Matteis, the language master, and first violinist of the place, accompany her. She was an espiegle, and doted on mischief; and no sooner found that Matteis was very timid and helpless at the slightest distress or danger, than she insisted, during summer, upon taking her lessons in the middle of an old and lofty oak tree; placing there a seat and a desk, adroitly well arranged for her accommodation; while another seat and desk, upon a thick but tottering branch, was put up for poor Matteis, who was so terrified, that he could not stop a note in tune; yet so fearful, that he could not bring himself to resist her orders.

“In 1738, she married Lord Ossulston, son of the Earl of Tankerville: and I remember leading off a choral song, or hymn, by her direction, to chaunt her out of St. Julian’s Church. I was then quite a boy; and I heard no more of her till I was grown up, and settled in London.”

CHESTER.

On quitting Shrewsbury to return to his parents at Chester, the ardour of young Burney for improvement was such as to absorb his whole being; and his fear lest a moment of daylight should be profitless, led him to bespeak a labouring boy, who rose with the sun, to awaken him regularly with its dawn. Yet, as he durst not pursue his education at the expense of the repose of his family, he hit upon the ingenious device of tying one end of a ball of pack-thread round his great toe, and then letting the ball drop, with the other end just within the boy’s reach, from an aperture in the old-fashioned casement of his bed-chamber window.

This was no contrivance to dally with his diligence; he could not choose but rise.

He was yet a mere youth, when, while thus unremittingly studious, he was introduced to Dr. Arne, on the passage of that celebrated musician through the city of Chester, when returning from Ireland: and this most popular of English vocal composers since the days of Purcel, was so much pleased with the talents of this nearly self-instructed performer, as to make an offer to Mr. Burney senior, upon such conditions as are usual to such sort of patronage, to complete the musical education of this lively and aspiring young man; and to bring him forth to the world as his favourite and most promising pupil.

To this proposal Mr. Burney senior was induced to consent; and, in the year 1714, at the age of seventeen, the eager young candidate for fame rapturously set off, in company with Dr. Arne, for the metropolis.

LONDON.

Arrived in London, young Burney found himself unrestrainedly his own master, save in what regarded his articled agreement with Dr. Arne. Every part of his numerous family was left behind him, or variously dispersed, with the single exception of his elder and only own brother, Richard Burney, afterwards of Worcester, but who, at this period, was settled in the capital.

This brother was a man of true worth and vigorous understanding, enriched with a strong vein of native humour. He was an indefatigable and sapient collector of historical portraits, and passionately fond of the arts; and he was father of a race of children who severally, and with distinction, shone in them all; and who superadded to their ingenuity and their acquirements the most guileless hearts and scrupulous integrity.

DR. ARNE.

Dr. Arne, professionally, has been fully portrayed by the pupil who, nominally, was under his guidance; but who, in after-times, became the historian of his tuneful art.

Eminent, however, in that art as was Dr. Arne, his eminence was to that art alone confined. Thoughtless, dissipated, and careless, he neglected, or rather scoffed at all other but musical reputation. And he was so little scrupulous in his ideas of propriety, that he took pride, rather than shame, in being publicly classed, even in the decline of life, as a man of pleasure.

Such a character was ill qualified to form or to protect the morals of a youthful pupil; and it is probable that not a notion of such a duty ever occurred to Dr. Arne; so happy was his self-complacency in the fertility of his invention and the ease of his compositions, and so dazzled by the brilliancy of his success in his powers of melody—which, in truth, for the English stage, were in sweetness and variety unrivalled—that, satisfied and flattered by the practical exertions and the popularity of his fancy, he had no ambition, or, rather, no thought concerning the theory of his art.

The depths of science, indeed, were the last that the gay master had any inclination to sound; and, in a very short time, through something that mingled jealousy with inability, the disciple was wholly left to work his own way as he could through the difficulties of his professional progress.

Had neglect, nevertheless, been the sole deficiency that young Burney had had to lament, it would effectually have been counteracted by his own industry: but all who are most wanting to others, are most rapacious of services for themselves; and the time in which the advancement of the scholar ought to have been blended with the advantage of the teacher, was almost exclusively seized upon for the imposition of laborious tasks of copying music: and thus, a drudgery fitted for those who have no talents to cultivate; or those who, in possessing them, are driven from their enjoyment by distress, filled up nearly the whole time of the student, and constituted almost wholly the directions of the tutor.

MRS. CIBBER.

Young Burney, now, was necessarily introduced to Dr. Arne’s celebrated sister, the most enchanting actress of her day, Mrs. Cibber; in whose house, in Scotland-yard, he found himself in a constellation of wits, poets, actors, authors, and men of letters.

The social powers of pleasing, which to the very end of his long life endeared him to every circle in which he mixed, were now first lighted up by the sparks of convivial collision which emanate, in kindred minds, from the electricity of conversation. And though, as yet, he was but a gazer himself in the splendour of this galaxy, he had parts of such quick perception, and so laughter-loving a taste for wit and humour, that he not alone received delight from the sprightly sallies, the ludicrous representations, or the sportive mimicries that here, with all the frolic of high-wrought spirits, were bandied about from guest to guest; he contributed personally to the general enjoyment, by the gaiety of his participation; and appeared, to all but his modest self, to make an integral part of the brilliant society into which he was content, nay charmed, to seem admitted merely as an auditor.

GARRICK.

Conspicuous in this bright assemblage, Garrick, then hardly beyond the glowing dawn of his unparalleled dramatic celebrity, shone forth with a blaze of lustre that struck young Burney with enthusiastic admiration.

And nearly as prompt was the kind impression made in return, by the new young associate, on the fancy and the liking of this inimitable outward delineator of the inward human character; who, to the very close of that splendid circle which he described in the drama and in literature, retained for this early conquest a distinguishing, though not, perhaps, a wholly unremitting partiality; for where is the spoilt child, whether of the nursery or of the public, who is uniformly exempt from fickleness or caprice,—those wayward offsprings of lavish indulgence?

Not dense, however, nor frequent, were the occasional intermissions to the serenity of their intercourse; and the sunshine by which they were dispersed, beamed from an heightened esteem that, in both parties, terminated in cordial affection.

THOMSON.

With Thomson, too, whose fame, happily for posterity, hung not upon the ephemeral charm of accent, variety of attitude, or witchery of the eye, like that of even the most transcendent of the votaries of the buskins; with Thomson, too, his favoured lot led him to the happiness of early and intimate, though, unfortunately, not of long-enduring acquaintance, the destined race of Thomson, which was cut short nearly in the meridian of life, being already almost run.

It was not in the house only of Mrs. Cibber that he met this impressive and piety-inspiring painter of Nature, alike in her rural beauties and her elemental sublimities: the young musician had the advantage of setting to music a part of the mask of Alfred,[4] which brought him into close contact with the author, and rivetted good will on one side by high admiration on the other.

With various persons, renowned or interesting, of the same set, who were gaily basking, at this period, in the smiles of popular sunshine, the subject of these memoirs daily mixed; but, unfortunately, not a memorandum of their intercourse has he left, beyond their names.

Mrs. Cibber herself he considered as a pattern of perfection in the tragic art, from her magnetizing powers of harrowing and winning at once every feeling of the mind, by the eloquent sensibility with which she portrayed, or, rather, personified, Tenderness, Grief, Horror, or Distraction.

KIT SMART.

With a different set, and at a different part of the town, young Burney formed an intimacy with Kit Smart, the poet; a man then in equal possession of those finest ingredients for the higher call of his art, fire and fancy, and, for its comic call, of sport and waggery. No indication, however, of such possession was granted to his appearance; not a grace was bestowed on his person or manners; and his physiognomy was of that round and stubbed form that seemed appertaining to a common dealer behind a common counter, rather than to a votary of the Muses. But his intellects, unhappily, were more brilliant than sound; and his poetic turn, though it never warped his sentiments or his heart, was little calculated to fortify his judgment.

DOCTOR ARMSTRONG.

And, at this same epoch, the subject of these memoirs began also an intercourse with the celebrated Dr. Armstrong, as high, then, in the theory of his art, medicine, as he was far from lucratively prosperous in its practice. He had produced upon it a didactic poem, “The Art of Preserving Health,” which young Burney considered to be as nervous in diction as it was enlightening in precept. But Dr. Armstrong, though he came from a part of the island whence travellers are by no means proverbially smitten with the reproach of coming in vain; nor often stigmatized with either meriting or being addicted to failure, possessed not the personal skill usually accorded to his countrymen, of adroitness in bringing himself forward. Yet he was as gaily amiable as he was eminently learned; and though, from a keen moral sense of right, he was a satirist, he was so free from malevolence, that the smile with which he uttered a remark the most ironical, had a cast of good-humoured pleasantry that nearly turned his sarcasm into simple sport.

MISS MOLLY CARTER.

Now, also, opened to him an acquaintance with Miss Molly Carter, a lady who, ultimately, proved the oldest friend that he sustained through life; a sacred title, of which the rights, on both sides, were affectionately acknowledged. The following account of her is copied from Dr. Burney’s early manuscripts.

“Miss Molly Carter, in her youth a very pretty girl, was, in the year 1745, of a large party of young ladies, consisting of five or six Miss Gores, and Miss Anderson, at William Thompson’s Esq., in the neighbourhood of Elsham, near Brig. Bob Thompson, Mr. Thompson’s brother, Billy Le Grand, and myself, composed the rest of the set, which was employed in nothing but singing, dancing, romping, and visiting, the whole time I was there; which time was never surpassed in hilarity at any place where I have been received in my life.”

QUEEN MAB.

Neither pleasure, however, nor literary pursuits, led young Burney to neglect the cultivation of his musical talents. The mask of Alfred was by no means his sole juvenile composition: he set to music the principal airs in the English burletta called Robin Hood, which was most flatteringly received at the theatre; and he composed the whole of the music of the pantomime of Queen Mab.

He observed at this time the strictest incognito concerning all these productions, though no motive for it is found amongst his papers; nor does there remain any recollective explanation.

With regard to Queen Mab, it excited peculiar remark, from the extraordinary success of that diverting pantomime; for when the uncertainties of the representation were over, there was every stimulus to avowal that could urge a young author to come forward; not with adventurous boldness, nor yet with trembling timidity, but with the frank delight of unequivocal success.

Queen Mab had a run which, to that time, had never been equalled, save by the opening of the Beggar’s Opera; and which has not since been surpassed, save by the representation of the Duenna.

Its music, pleasing and natural, was soon so popular, that it was taught to all young ladies, set to all barrel organs, and played at all familiar music parties. It aimed not at Italian refinement, nor at German science; but its sprightly melody, and utter freedom from vulgarity, made its way even with John Bull, who, while following the hairbreadth agility of Harlequin, the skittish coquetries of Columbine, and the merry dole of the disasters of the Clown and Pantaloon, found himself insensibly caught, and unconsciously beguiled into ameliorated musical taste.

In the present day, when English singers sometimes rise to the Italian opera, and when Italian singers are sometimes invited to the English, the music of Queen Mab could be received but in common with the feats of its pantomime; so rapidly has taste advanced, and so generally have foreign improvements become nearly indigenous.

To give its due to merit, and its rights to invention, we must always go back to their origin, and judge them, not by any comparison with what has followed them, but by what they met when they first started, and by what they were preceded.

Why, when success was thus ascertained, the name of the composer was concealed, leaving him thus singularly as unknown as he was popular, may the more be regretted, as his disposition, though chiefly domestic, was not of that effeminately sensitive cast that shrinks from the world’s notice with a dread of publicity. His mind, on the contrary, belonged to his sex; and was eminently formed to expand with that manly ambition, which opens the portals of hope to the attainment of independence, through intellectual honours.

The music, when printed, made its appearance in the world as the offspring of a society of the sons of Apollo: and Oswald, a famous bookseller, published it by that title, and knew nothing of its real parentage.[5]

Sundry airs, ballads, cantatas, and other light musical productions, were put forth also, as from that imaginary society; but all sprang from the same source, and all were equally unacknowledged.

The sole conjecture to be formed upon a self-denial, to which no virtue seems attached; and from which reason withdraws its sanction, as tending to counteract the just balance between merit and recompense, is, that possibly the articles then in force with Dr. Arne, might disfranchise young Burney from the liberty of publication in his own name.

EARL OF HOLDERNESSE.

The first musical work by the subject of these memoirs that he openly avowed, was a set of six sonatas for two violins and a bass, printed in 1747, and dedicated to the Earl of Holdernesse; to whose notice the author had been presented by some of the titled friends and protectors to whom he had become accidentally known.

The Earl not only accepted with pleasure the music and the dedication, but conceived a regard for the young composer, that soon passed from his talents to his person and character. Many notes of Lord Holdernesse still remain of kind engagements for meetings, even after his time was under the royal, though honourable restraint, of being governor of the heir apparent.[6] That high, and nearly exclusive occupation, lessened not the favour which his lordship had had the taste and discernment to display so early for a young man whom, afterwards, with pleasure, if not with pride, he must have seen rise to equal and general favour in the world.

At Holdernesse House,[7] the fine mansion of this earl, young Burney began an acquaintance, which in after years ripened into intimacy, with Mr. Mason, the poet, who was his lordship’s chaplain.

FULK GREVILLE.

While connexions thus various, literary, classical, noble, and professional, incidentally occurred, combatting the deadening toil of the copyist, and keeping his mind in tune for intellectual pursuits and attainments, new scenes, most unexpectedly, opened to him the world at large, and suddenly brought him to a familiar acquaintance with high life.

Fulk Greville, a descendant of The Friend of Sir Philip Sydney, and afterwards author of Characters, Maxims, and Reflections, was then generally looked up to as the finest gentleman about town. His person, tall and well-proportioned, was commanding; his face, features, and complexion, were striking for masculine beauty; and his air and carriage were noble with conscious dignity.

He was then in the towering pride of healthy manhood and athletic strength. He excelled in all the fashionable exercises, riding, fencing, hunting, shooting at a mark, dancing, tennis, &c.; and worked at every one of them with a fury for pre-eminence, not equalled, perhaps, in ardour for superiority in personal accomplishments, since the days of the chivalrous Lord Herbert of Cherbury.

His high birth, and higher expectation—for a coronet at that time, from some uncertain right of heritage, hung almost suspended over his head—with a splendid fortune, wholly unfettered, already in his hands, gave to him a consequence in the circles of modish dissipation that, at the clubs of St. James’s-street, and on the race ground at Newmarket, nearly crowned him as chief. For though there were many competitors of more titled importance, and more powerful wealth, neither the blaze of their heraldry, nor the weight of their gold, could preponderate, in the buckish scales of the day, over the elegance of equipment, the grandeur, yet attraction of demeanour, the supercilious brow, and the resplendent smile, that marked the lofty yet graceful descendant of Sir Philip Sydney.

This gentleman one morning, while trying a new instrument at the house of Kirkman, the first harpsichord maker of the times, expressed a wish to receive musical instruction from some one who had mind and cultivation, as well as finger and ear; lamenting, with strong contempt, that, in the musical tribe, the two latter were generally dislocated from the two former; and gravely asking Kirkman whether he knew any young musician who was fit company for a gentleman.

Kirkman, with honest zeal to stand up for the credit of the art by which he prospered, and which he held to be insulted by this question, warmly answered that he knew many; but, very particularly, one member of the harmonic corps, who had as much music in his tongue as in his hands, and who was as fit company for a prince as for an orchestra.

Mr. Greville, with much surprise, made sundry and formal inquiries into the existence, situation, and character of what he called so great a phenomenon; protesting there was nothing he so much desired as the extraordinary circumstance of finding any union of sense with sound.

The replies of the good German were so exciting, as well as satisfactory, that Mr. Greville became eager to see the youth thus extolled; but charged Mr. Kirkman not to betray a word of what had passed, that the interview might be free from restraint, and seem to be arranged merely for shewing off the several instruments that were ready for sale, to a gentleman who was disposed to purchase one of the most costly.

To this injunction Mr. Kirkman agreed, and conscientiously adhered.

A day was appointed, and the meeting took place.

Young Burney, with no other idea than that of serving Kirkman, immediately seated himself at an instrument, and played various pieces of Geminiani, Corelli, and Tartini, whose compositions were then most in fashion. But Mr. Greville, secretly suspicious of some connivance, coldly and proudly walked about the room; took snuff from a finely enamelled snuff-box, and looked at some prints, as if wholly without noticing the performance.

He had, however, too much penetration not to perceive his mistake, when he remarked the incautious carelessness with which his inattention was returned; for soon, conceiving himself to be playing to very obtuse ears, young Burney left off all attempt at soliciting their favour; and only sought his own amusement by trying favourite passages, or practising difficult ones, with a vivacity which shewed that his passion for his art rewarded him in itself for his exertions. But coming, at length, to keys of which the touch, light and springing, invited his stay, he fired away in a sonata of Scarlatti’s, with an alternate excellence of execution and expression, so perfectly in accord with the fanciful flights of that wild but masterly composer, that Mr. Greville, satisfied no scheme was at work to surprise or to win him; but, on the contrary, that the energy of genius was let loose upon itself, and enjoying, without premeditation, its own lively sports and vagaries; softly drew a chair to the harpsichord, and listened, with unaffected earnestness, to every note.

Nor were his ears alone curiously awakened; his eyes were equally occupied to mark the peculiar performance of intricate difficulties; for the young musician had invented a mode of adding neatness to brilliancy, by curving the fingers, and rounding the hand, in a manner that gave them a grace upon the keys quite new at that time, and entirely of his own devising.

To be easily pleased, however, or to make acknowledgment of being pleased at all, seems derogatory to strong self-importance; Mr. Greville, therefore, merely said, “You are fond, Sir, it seems, of Italian music?”

The reply to this was striking up, with all the varying undulations of the crescendo, the diminuendo, the pealing swell, and the “dying, dying fall,” belonging to the powers of the pedal, that most popular masterpiece of Handel’s, the Coronation Anthem.

This quickness of comprehension, in turning from Italian to German, joined to the grandeur of the composition, and the talents of the performer, now irresistibly vanquished Mr. Greville; who, convinced of Kirkman’s truth with regard to the harmonic powers of this son of Apollo, desired next to sift it with regard to the wit.

Casting off, therefore, his high reserve, with his jealous surmises, he ceased to listen to the music, and started some theme that was meant to lead to conversation.

But as this essay, from not knowing to what the youth might be equal, consisted of such inquiries as, “Have you been in town long, Sir?” or, “Does your taste call you back to the country, Sir?” &c. &c., his young hearer, by no means preferring this inquisitorial style to the fancy of Scarlatti, or the skill and depth of Handel, slightly answered, “Yes, Sir,” or “No, Sir;” and, perceiving an instrument not yet tried, darted to it precipitately, and seated himself to play a voluntary.

The charm of genuine simplicity is nowhere more powerful than with the practised and hackneyed man of the world; for it induces what, of all things, he most rarely experiences, a belief in sincerity.

Mr. Greville, therefore, though thwarted, was not displeased; for in a votary of the art he was pursuing, he saw a character full of talents, yet without guile; and conceived, from that moment, an idea that it was one he might personally attach. He remitted, therefore, to some other opportunity, a further internal investigation.

Mr. Kirkman now came forward to announce, that in the following week he should have a new harpsichord, with double keys, and a deepened bass, ready for examination.

They then parted, without any explanation on the side of Mr. Greville; or any idea on that of the subject of these memoirs, that he and his acquirements were objects of so peculiar a speculation.

At the second interview, young Burney innocently and eagerly flew at once to the harpsichord, and tried it with various recollections from his favourite composers.

Mr. Greville listened complacently and approvingly; but, at the end of every strain, made a speech that he intended should lead to some discussion.

Young Burney, however, more alive to the graces of melody than to the subtleties of argument, gave answers that always finished with full-toned chords, which as constantly modulated into another movement; till Mr. Greville, tired and impatient, suddenly proposed changing places, and trying the instrument himself.

He could not have devised a more infallible expedient to provoke conversation; for he thrummed his own chosen bits by memory with so little skill or taste, yet with a pertinacity so wearisome, that young Burney, who could neither hearken to such playing, nor turn aside from such a player, caught with alacrity at every opening to discourse, as an acquittal from the fatigue of mock attention.

This eagerness gave a piquancy to what he said, that stole from him the diffidence that might otherwise have hung upon his inexperience; and endued him with a courage for uttering his opinions, that might else have faded away under the trammels of distant respect.

Mr. Greville, however, was really superior to the mawkish parade of unnecessary etiquette in private circles, where no dignity can be offended, and no grandeur be let down by suffering nature, wit, or accident to take their bent, and run their race, unfettered by punctilio.

Yet was he the last of men to have borne any designed infringement upon the long established claims of birth, rank, or situation; which, in fact, is rarely practised but to lead to a succession of changes, that circulate, like the names written in a round robin, to end just where they began;—

“Such chaos, where degree is suffocate,

Follows the choaking.”[8]

In the subject of these memoirs, this effervescence of freedom was clearly that of juvenile artlessness and overflowing vivacity; and Mr. Greville desired too sincerely to gather the youth’s notions and fathom his understanding, for permitting himself to check such amusing spirits, by proudly wrapping himself up, as at less favourable moments he was wont to do, in his own consequence. He grew, therefore, so lively and entertaining, that young Burney became as much charmed with his company as he had been wearied by his music; and an interchange of ideas took place, as frankly rapid, equal, and undaunted, as if the descendant of the friend of Sir Philip Sydney had encountered a descendant of Sir Philip Sydney himself.

This meeting concluded the investigation; music, singing her gay triumph, took her stand at the helm; and a similar victory for capacity and information awaited but a few intellectual skirmishes, on poetry, politics, morals, and literature,—in the midst of which Mr. Greville, suddenly and gracefully holding out his hand, fairly acknowledged his scheme, proclaimed its success, and invited the unconscious victor to accompany him to Wilbury House.

The amazement of young Burney was boundless; but his modesty, or rather his ignorance that not to think highly of his own abilities merited that epithet, was most agreeably surprised by so complicate a flattery to his character, his endowments, and his genius.

But his articles with Dr. Arne were in full force; and it was not without a sigh that he made known his confined position.

Unaccustomed to control his inclinations himself, or to submit to their control from circumstances, expense, or difficulty, Mr. Greville mocked this puny obstacle; and, instantly visiting Dr. Arne in person, demanded his own terms for liberating his Cheshire pupil.

Dr. Arne, at first, would listen to no proposition; protesting that a youth of such promise was beyond all equivalent. But no sooner was a round sum mentioned, than the Doctor, who, in common with all the dupes of extravagance, was evermore needy, could not disguise from himself that he was dolorously out of cash; and the dazzling glare of three hundred pounds could not but play most temptingly in his sight, for one of those immediate, though imaginary wants, that the man of pleasure is always sure to see waving, with decoying allurement, before his longing eyes.

The articles, therefore, were cancelled: and young Burney was received in the house of Mr. Greville as a desired inmate, a talented professor, and a youth of genius: to which appellations, from his pleasantry, gaiety, reading, and readiness, was soon superadded the title—not of a humble, but of a chosen and confidential companion.

Young Burney now moved in a completely new sphere, and led a completely new life. All his leisure nevertheless was still devoted to improvement in his own art, by practice and by composition. But the hours for such sage pursuits were soon curtailed from half the day to its quarter; and again from that to merely the early morning that preceded any communication with his gay host: for so partial grew Mr. Greville to his new favourite, that, speedily, there was no remission of claim upon his time or his talents, whether for music or discourse.

Nor even here ended the requisition for his presence; his company had a charm that gave a zest to whatever went forward: his opinions were so ingenious, his truth was so inviolate, his spirits were so entertaining, that, shortly, to make him a part of whatever was said or done, seemed necessary to Mr. Greville for either speech or action.

GAMING CLUBS.

The consequence of this taste for his society carried young Burney into every scene of high dissipation which, at that period, made the round of the existence of a buckish fine gentleman; and he was continually of the party at White’s, at Brookes’s, and at every other superfine club house, whether public or private, to which the dangerous allurement of gaming, or the scarcely less so of being à la mode, tempted his fashionable patron.

As Mr. Greville uniformly, whether at cards, dice, or betting, played with Honour, his success, of course, was precarious; but as he never was so splendidly prosperous as to suffer himself to be beguiled out of all caution; nor yet so frequently unfortunate as to be rendered desperate, he was rarely distressed, though now and then he might be embarrassed.

At these clubs, the subject of these memoirs witnessed scenes that were ever after rivetted on his memory. Cards, betting, dice, opened every nocturnal orgie with an éclat of expectation, hope, ardour, and fire, that seemed to cause a mental inflammation of the feelings and faculties of the whole assembly in a mass.

On the first night of the entrance of young Burney into this set, Mr. Greville amused himself with keeping out of the way, that he might make over the new comer to what was called the humour of the thing; so that, by being unknown, he might be assailed, as a matter of course, for bets, holding stakes, choosing cards, &c. &c., and become initiated in the arcana of a modish gaming house; while watchful, though apart, Mr. Greville enjoyed, with high secret glee, the novelty of the youth’s confusion.

But young Burney had the native good sense to have observed already, that a hoax soon loses its power of ridicule where it excites no alarm in its object. He gaily, therefore, treated as a farce every attempt to bring him forward, and covered up his real ignorance upon such subjects by wilful blunders that apparently doubled it; till, by making himself a pretended caricature of newness and inaptness, he got, what in coteries of that sort is always successful, the laugh on his side.

As the evening advanced, the busy hum of common-place chattery subsided; and a general and collected calmness ensued, such as might best dispose the gambling associates to a wily deliberation, how most coolly to penetrate into the mystic obscurities that brought them together.

All, however, was not yet involved in the gaping cauldron of chance, whence so soon was to emerge the brilliant prize, or desolating blank, that was to blazon the lustre, or stamp the destruction, of whoever, with his last trembling mite, came to sound its perilous depths. They as yet played, or prowled around it, lightly and slightly; not more impatient than fearful of hurrying their fate; and seeking to hide from themselves, as well as from their competitors, their anticipating exultation or dread.

Still, therefore, they had some command of the general use of their faculties, and of what was due from them to general social commerce. Still some vivacious sallies called forth passing smiles from those who had been seldomest betrayed, or whose fortunes had least been embezzled; and still such cheeks as were not too dragged or haggard to exhibit them, were able to give graceful symptoms of self-possession, by the pleasing and becoming dimples produced through arch, though silent observance.

But by degrees the fever of doubt and anxiety broke forth all around, and every breath caught its infection. Every look then showed the contagion of lurking suspicion: every eye that fixed a prosperous object, seemed to fix it with the stamp of detection. All was contrast the most discordant, unblended by any gradation; for wherever the laughing brilliancy of any countenance denoted exulting victory, the glaring vacancy of some other hard by, displayed incipient despair.

Like the awe of death was next the muteness of taciturnity, from the absorption of agonizing attention while the last decisive strokes, upon which hung affluence or beggary, were impending. Every die, then, became a bliss or a blast; every extorted word was an execration; every fear whispered ruin with dishonour; every wish was a dagger to some antagonist!—till, finally, the result was proclaimed, which carried off the winner in a whirl of maddening triumph; and to the loser left the recovery of his nervous, hoarse, husky, grating voice, only for curses and oaths, louder and more appalling than thunder in its deepest roll.

NEWMARKET.

The next vortex of high dissipation into which, as its season arrived, young Burney was ushered, was that of Newmarket: and there, as far as belonged to the spirit of the race, and the beauty, the form, and the motions of the noble quadrupeds, whose rival swiftness made running seem a flight, and that flight appear an airy game, or gambol, of some fabled animal of elastic grace and celerity, he was enchanted with his sojourn. And the accompanying scenes of gambling, betting, &c., though of the same character and description as those of St. James’s-street, he thought less darkly terrible, because the winners or losers seemed to him more generally assorted according to their equality in rank or fortune: though no one, in the long run, however high, or however low, escaped becoming the dupe, or the prey, of whoever was most adroit,—whether plebeian or patrician.

BATH.

The ensuing initiation into this mingled existence of inertness and effort, of luxury and of desolation, was made at Bath. But Bath, from its buildings and its position, had a charm around it for the subject of these memoirs, to soften off the monotony of this wayward taste, and these wilful sufferings; though the seat of dissipation alone he found to be changed; its basis—cards, dice, or betting—being always the same.

Nevertheless, that beautiful city, then little more than a splendid village in comparison with its actual metropolitan size and grandeur, had intrinsic claims to the most vivid admiration, and the strongest incitements to youthful curiosity, from the antiquity of its origin, real as well as fabulous; from its Bladud, its baths, its cathedral; and its countless surrounding glories of military remains; all magically followed up, to vary impression, and stimulate approbation, by its rising excellence in Grecian and Roman architecture.

Born with an enthusiastic passion for rural scenery, the picturesque view of this city offered to the ravished eye of young Burney some new loveliness, or striking effect, with an endless enchantment of variety, at almost every fresh opening of every fresh street into which he sauntered.

And here, not only did he find this perpetual, yet changeful, prospect of Nature in her most smiling attire, and of Art in her most chaste and elegant constructions; Bath had yet further attraction to its new visitor; another captivation stronger still to a character soaring to intellectual heights, caught him in its chains,—it was that of literary eminence; Bath, at this moment, being illumined by that sparkling but dangerous Meteor of philosophy, politics, history, and metaphysics, St. John, Lord Bolingbroke.

Happily, perhaps, for his safety, it was in vain that young Burney struggled, by every effort of ingenuity he could exert, to bask in the radiance of this Meteor’s wit and eloquence. Every attempt at that purpose failed; and merely a glimpse of this extraordinary personage, was all that the utmost vigilance of romantic research ever caught.

Young Burney could not, at that period, have studied the works of Lord Bolingbroke, who was then chiefly known by his political honours and disgraces; his exile and his pardon; and by that most perfect panegyric that ever, perhaps, poet penned, of Pope:

“Come then, my friend! my Genius!——

Oh, master of the poet and the song!”

Fortunately, therefore, the ingenuous youth and inexperience of the subject of these memoirs, escaped the brilliant poison of metaphysical sophistry, that might else have disturbed his peace, and darkened his happiness.

The set to which Mr. Greville belonged, was as little studious to seek, as likely to gain, either for its advantage or its evil, admission to a character so eminently scholastic, or so personally fastidious, as that of Lord Bolingbroke; though, had he been unhampered by such colleagues, Lord Bolingbroke, as a metaphysician, would have been sought with eager, nay, fond alacrity, by Mr. Greville; metaphysics being, in his own conception and opinion, the proper bent of his mind and understanding. But those with whom he now was connected, encompassed him with snares that left little opening to any higher pursuits than their own.

The aim, therefore, of young Burney, was soon limited to obtaining a glance of the still noble, though infirm figure, and still handsome, though aged countenance of this celebrated statesman. And of these, for the most transitory view, he would frequently, with a book in his hand, loiter by the hour opposite to his lordship’s windows, which were vis à vis to those of Mr. Greville; or run, in circular eddies, from side to side of the sedan chair in which his lordship was carried to the pump-room.

Mr. Greville, though always entertained by the juvenile eagerness of his young favourite, pursued his own modish course with the alternate ardour and apathy, which were then beginning to be what now is called the order of the day; steering—for he thought that was the thing—with whatever was most in vogue, even when it was least to his taste; and making whatever was most expensive the criterion for his choice, even in diversions; because that was what most effectually would exclude plebeian participation.

And to this lofty motive, rather than to any appropriate fondness for its charms, might be attributed, in its origin, his fervour for gaming; though gaming, with that poignant stimulus, self-conceit, which, where calculation tries to battle with chance, goads on, with resistless force, our designs by our presumption, soon left wholly in the back ground every attempt at rivalry by any other species of recreation.

Hunting therefore, shooting, riding, music, drawing, dancing, fencing, tennis, horse-racing, the joys of Bacchus, and numerous other exertions of skill, of strength, of prowess, and of ingenuity, served but, ere long, to fill up the annoying chasms by which these nocturnal orgies were interrupted through the obtrusion of day.

FULK GREVILLE.

Such was the new world into which the subject of these memoirs was thus abruptly let loose; but, happily, his good taste was as much revolted as his morality, against its practices. And his astonishment at the dreadful night-work that has been described; so absorbent, concentrating, and fearful, hung round with such dire prognostics, pursued with so much fury, or brooded over with such despondence; never so thoughtlessly wore away as to deaden his horror of its perils.

Mr. Greville himself, though frequenting these scenes as an expert and favourite member of the coteries in which they were enacted, had too real a sense of right, and too sincere a feeling of humanity, to intend involving an inexperienced youth in a passion for the amusements of hazard; or to excite in him a propensity for the dissolute company of which its followers are composed; who, satiated with every species of pleasure that is innoxious, are alive alone to such as can rescue them from ruin, even though at the fatal price of betraying into its gulph the associates with whom they chiefly herd.

Nevertheless, he gave no warning to young Burney of danger. Aware that there was no fortune to lose, he concluded there was no mischief to apprehend; and, satisfied that the sentiments of the youth were good, to meddle with his principles seemed probably a work of supererogation. Without reflection, therefore, rather than with any project, he was glad of a sprightly participator, with whom he could laugh the next morning, at whatever had been ludicrous over-night; though to utter either caution or counsel, he would have thought moralizing, and, consequently, fogrum; a term which he adopted for whatever speech, action, or mode of conduct, he disdainfully believed to be beneath the high tonto which he considered himself to be born and bred.

From such fogrum sort of work, therefore, he contemptuously recoiled, deeming it fitted exclusively for schoolmasters, or for priests.

WILBURY HOUSE.

Not solely, however, to public places were the pleasures, or the magnificence, of Mr. Greville confined. He visited, with great fondness and great state, his family seat in Wiltshire; and had the highest gratification in receiving company there with splendour, and in awakening their surprise, and surpassing their expectations, by the spirit and the changes of their entertainment.

He travelled in a style that was even princely; not only from his equipages, out-riders, horses, and liveries, but from constantly having two of his attendants skilled in playing the French horn. And these were always stationed to recreate him with marches and warlike movements, on the outside of the windows, where he took any repast.

Wilbury House, the seat of Mr. Greville, situated near Andover, in Wiltshire, was a really pretty place; but it had a recommendation to those who possess wealth and taste with superfluous time, far greater than any actual beauty, by requiring expensive alterations, and being susceptible of lavish improvements.

This enhanced all its merits to Mr. Greville, who, when out of other employment for his thoughts, devoted them to avenues, plantations, rising hills, sinking dales, and unexpected vistas; to each of which he called upon whatever guests were at his house, during their creation, for as much astonishment as applause.

The call, however, was frequently unanswered; it was so palpable that he was urged to this pursuit by lassitude rather than pleasure; by flourishing ostentation rather than by genuine picturesque taste; so obvious that to draw forth admiration to the beauties of his grounds, was far less his object than to stir up wonder at the recesses of his purse; that the wearied and wary visitor, who had once been entrapped to follow his footsteps, in echoing his exclamations of delight at his growing embellishments, was, ever after, sedulous, when he was with his workmen and his works, to elude them: though all alike were happy to again rejoin him at his sports and at his table; for there he was gay, hospitable, and pleasing, brilliant in raillery, and full of enjoyment.

SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ.

The first entrance of young Burney into Wilbury House was engraven, ever after it took place, in golden characters of sacred friendship upon his mind, for there he first met with Mr. Crisp. And as his acquaintance with Mr. Greville had opened new roads and pursuits in life to his prospects, that of Mr. Crisp opened new sources and new energies to his faculties, for almost every species of improvement.

Mr. Crisp, by birth and education a gentleman, according to the ordinary acceptation of that word, was in mind, manners, and habits yet more truly so, according to the most refined definition of the appellation, as including honour, spirit, elegance, language, and grace.

His person and port were distinguished; his address was even courtly; his face had the embellishment of a strikingly fine outline; bright, hazel, penetrating, yet arch eyes; an open front; a noble Roman nose; and a smile of a thousand varied expressions.

But all that was external, however attractive, however full of promise, however impossible to pass over, was of utterly inferior worth compared with the inward man; for there he was rare indeed. Profound in wisdom; sportive in wit; sound in understanding. A scholar of the highest order; a critic of the clearest acumen; possessing, with equal delicacy of discrimination, a taste for literature and for the arts; and personally excelling, as a dilettante, both in music and painting.

It was difficult to discuss any classical or political work, that his conversation did not impregnate with more information and more wit than, commonly speaking, their acutest authors had brought forward. And such was his knowledge of mankind, that it was something beyond difficult, it was scarcely even possible, to investigate any subject requiring worldly sagacity, in which he did not dive into the abysses of the minds and the propensities of the principals, through whom the business was to be transacted, with a perspicuity so masterly, that while weighing all that was presented to him, it developed all that was held back; and fathomed at once the intentions and the resources of his opponents.

And with abilities thus grand and uncommon for great and important purposes, if to such he had been called, he was endowed with discursive powers for the social circle, the most varied in matter, the most solid in reasoning, and the most delighting in gaiety—or nearly so—that ever fell to favoured mortal’s lot.

The subject of these memoirs was but seventeen years of age, when first he had the incalculable advantage of being attracted to explore this Mine of wisdom, experience, and accomplishments. His musical talents, and a sympathy of taste in the choice of composers, quickly caught the responsive ears of Mr. Crisp; which vibrated to every passage, every sound, that the young musician embellished by graces intuitively his own, either of expression or execution. And whenever Mr. Crisp could contrive to retreat, and induce his new Orpheus to retreat, from the sports of the field, it was even with ardour that he escaped from the clang of horses and hounds, to devote whole mornings to the charms,

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,

of harmony. And harmony indeed, in its most enlarged combinations, united here the player and the auditor; for they soon discovered that not in music alone, but in general sentiments, their hearts were tuned to the same key, and expanded to the same “concord of sweet sounds.”

The love of music, in Mr. Crisp, amounted to passion; yet that passion could not have differed more from modern enthusiasm in that art, if it had been hatred; since, far from demanding, according to the present mode, every two or three seasons, new compositions and new composers, his musical taste and consistency deviated not from his taste and consistency in literature: and where a composer had hit his fancy, and a composition had filled him with delight, he would call for his favourite pieces of Bach of Berlin, Handel, Scarlatti, or Echard, with the same reiteration of eagerness that he would again and again read, hear, or recite chosen passages from the works of his favourite bards, Shakespeare, Milton, or Pope.

Mr. Greville was sometimes diverted, and sometimes nettled, by this double defection; for in whatever went forward, he loved to be lord of the ascendant: but Mr. Crisp, whose temper was as unruffled as his understanding was firm, only smiled at his friend’s diversion; and from his pique looked away. Mr. Greville then sought to combat this musical mania by ridicule, and called upon his companions of the chase to halloo the recreant huntsman to the field; affirming that he courted the pipe and the song, only to avoid clearing a ditch, and elude leaping a five-barred gate.

This was sufficient to raise the cry against the delinquent; for Man without business or employment is always disposed to be a censor of his neighbour; and whenever he thinks his antagonist on the road to defeat, is always alert to start up for a wit. Mr. Crisp, therefore, now, was assailed as a renegado from the chase; as a lounger; a loiterer; scared by the horses; panic-struck by the dogs; and more fearful of the deer, than the deer could be of the hunter.

In the well-poized hope, that the less the sportsmen were answered, the sooner they would be fatigued and depart, Mr. Crisp now and then gave them a nod, but never once a word; even though this forbearance instigated a triumph, loud, merry, and exulting; and sent them off, and brought them back, in the jovial persuasion that, in their own phrase, they had dumb-founded him.

With this self-satisfied enjoyment, Mr. Crisp unresistingly indulged them; though with a single pointed sentence, he could rapidly have descended them from their fancied elevation. But, above all petty pride of superiority in trifles, he never held things of small import to be worth the trouble of an argument. Still less, however, did he choose to be put out of his own way; which he always pursued with placid equanimity whenever it was opposed without irrefragable reason. Good-humouredly, however, he granted to his adversaries, in whose laughs and railing he sometimes heartily joined, the full play of their epigrams; internally conscious that, if seriously provoked, he could retort them by lampoons. Sometimes, nevertheless, when he was hard beset by gibes and jeers at his loss of sport; or by a chorus of mock pitiers shouting out, “Poor Crisp! poor fellow! how consumedly thou art moped!” he would quietly say, with a smile of inexpressible archness, “Go to, my friends, go to! go you your way, and let me go mine! And pray, don’t be troubled for me; depend upon it there is nobody will take more care of Samuel Crisp than I will!”

In this manner, and in these sets, rapidly, gaily, uncounted, and untutored, glided on imperceptibly the first youth of the subject of these memoirs: surrounded by temptations to luxury, expense, and dangerous pleasures, that, in weaker intellects, might have sapped for ever the foundations of religion and virtue. But a love of right was the predominant feature of the mind of young Burney. Mr. Greville, also, himself, with whatever mockery he would have sneered away any expression tending either to practice or meditation in piety, instinctively held in esteem whatever was virtuous; and what was vicious in scorn: though his esteem for virtue was never pronounced, lest it should pass for pedantry; and his scorn for vice was studiously disguised, lest he should be set down himself for a Fogrum.

MISS FANNY MACARTNEY.

New scenes, and of deeper interest, presented themselves ere long. A lovely female, in the bloom of youth, equally high in a double celebrity, the most rarely accorded to her sex, of beauty and of wit, and exquisite in her possession of both, made an assault upon the eyes, the understanding, and the heart of Mr. Greville; so potent in its first attack, and so varied in its after stages, that, little as he felt at that time disposed to barter his boundless liberty, his desultory pursuits, and his brilliant, though indefinite expectations, for a bondage so narrow, so derogatory to the swing of his wild will, as that of marriage appeared to him; he was caught by so many charms, entangled in so many inducements, and inflamed by such a whirl of passions, that he soon almost involuntarily surrendered to the besieger; not absolutely at discretion, but very unequivocally from resistless impulse.

This lady was Miss Fanny Macartney, the third daughter of Mr. Macartney, a gentleman of large fortune, and of an ancient Irish family.

In Horace Walpole’s Beauties, Miss Fanny Macartney was the Flora.

In Greville’s Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, she was also Flora, contrasted with Camilla, who was meant for Mrs. Garrick.

Miss Fanny Macartney was of a character which, at least in its latter stages, seems to demand two pencils to delineate; so diversely was it understood, or appreciated.

To many she passed for being pedantic, sarcastic, and supercilious: as such, she affrighted the timid, who shrunk into silence; and braved the bold, to whom she allowed no quarter. The latter, in truth, seemed to stimulate exertions which brought her faculties into play; and which—besides creating admiration in all who escaped her shafts—appeared to offer to herself a mental exercise, useful to her health, and agreeable to her spirits.

Her understanding was truly masculine; not from being harsh or rough, but from depth, soundness, and capacity; yet her fine small features, and the whole style of her beauty, looked as if meant by Nature for the most feminine delicacy: but her voice, which had something in it of a croak; and her manner, latterly at least, of sitting, which was that of lounging completely at her ease, in such curves as she found most commodious, with her head alone upright; and her eyes commonly fixed, with an expression rather alarming than flattering, in examination of some object that caught her attention; probably caused, as they naturally excited, the hard general notion to her disadvantage above mentioned.

This notion, nevertheless, though almost universally harboured in the circle of her public acquaintance, was nearly reversed in the smaller circles that came more in contact with her feelings. By this last must be understood, solely, the few who were happy enough to possess her favour; and to them she was a treasure of ideas and of variety. The keenness of her satire yielded its asperity to the zest of her good-humour, and the kindness of her heart. Her noble indifference to superior rank, if placed in opposition to superior merit; and her delight in comparing notes with those with whom she desired to balance opinions, established her, in her own elected set, as one of the first of women. And though the fame of her beauty must pass away in the same oblivious rotation which has withered that of her rival contemporaries, the fame of her intellect must ever live, while sensibility may be linked with poetry, and the Ode to Indifference shall remain to shew their union.

The various incidents that incited and led to the connexion that resulted from this impassioned opening, appertain to the history of Mr. Greville; but, in its solemn ratification, young Burney took a part so essential, as to produce a striking and pleasing consequence to much of his after-life.

The wedding, though no one but the bride and bridegroom themselves knew why, was a stolen one; and kept profoundly secret; which, notwithstanding the bride was under age, was by no means, at that time, difficult, the marriage act having not yet passed. Young Burney, though the most juvenile of the party, was fixed upon to give the lady away;[9] which evinced a trust and a partiality in the bridegroom, that were immediately adopted by his fair partner; and by her unremittingly sustained, with the frankest confidence, and the sincerest esteem, through the whole of a long and varied life. With sense and taste such as hers, it was not, indeed, likely she should be slack to discern and develop a merit so formed to meet their perceptions.

When the new married pair went through the customary routine of matrimonial elopers, namely, that of returning home to demand pardon and a blessing, Mr. Macartney coolly said: “Mr. Greville has chosen to take a wife out of the window, whom he might just as well have taken out of the door.”

The immediate concurrence of the lovely new mistress of Wilbury House, in desiring the society, even more than enjoying the talents, of her lord and master’s favourite, occasioned his residence there to be nearly as unbroken as their own. And the whole extensive neighbourhood so completely joined in this kindly partiality, that no engagement, no assemblage whatsoever took place, from the most selectly private, to the most gorgeously public, to which the Grevilles were invited, in which he was not included: and he formed at that period many connections of lasting and honourable intimacy; particularly with Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Boone, and Mr. Cox.

They acted, also, sundry proverbs, interludes, and farces, in which young Burney was always a principal personage. In one, amongst others, he played his part with a humour so entertaining, that its nick-name was fastened upon him for many years after its appropriate representation. It would be difficult, indeed, not to accord him theatrical talents, when he could perform with success a character so little congenial with his own, as that of a finical, conceited coxcomb, a paltry and illiterate poltroon; namely, Will Fribble, Esq., in Garrick’s farce of Miss in her Teens. Mr. Greville himself was Captain Flash, and the beautiful Mrs. Greville was Miss Biddy Bellair; by which three names, from the great diversion their adoption had afforded, they corresponded with one another during several years.

The more serious honour that had been conferred upon young Burney, of personating the part of father to Mrs. Greville, was succeeded, in due season after these gay espousals, by that of personating the part of god-father to her daughter; in standing, as the representative of the Duke of Beaufort, at the baptism of Miss Greville, afterwards the all-admired, and indescribably beautiful Lady Crewe.

Little could he then foresee, that he was bringing into the christian community a permanent blessing for his own after-life, in one of the most cordial, confidential, open-hearted, and unalterable of his friends.

ESTHER.

But not to Mr. Greville alone was flung one of those blissful or baneful darts, that sometimes fix in a moment, and irreversibly, the domestic fate of man; just such another, as potent, as pointed, as piercing, yet as delicious, penetrated, a short time afterwards, the breast of young Burney; and from eyes perhaps as lovely, though not as celebrated; and from a mind perhaps as highly gifted, though not as renowned.

Esther Sleepe—this memorialist’s mother—of whom she must now with reverence, with fear—yet with pride and delight—offer the tribute of a description—was small and delicate, but not diminutive, in person. Her face had that sculptural oval form which gives to the air of the head something like the ideal perfection of the poet’s imagination. Her fair complexion was embellished by a rosy hue upon her cheeks of Hebe freshness. Her eyes were of the finest azure, and beaming with the brightest intelligence; though they owed to the softness of their lustre a still more resistless fascination: and they were set in her head with such a peculiarity of elegance in shape and proportion, that they imparted a nobleness of expression to her brow and to her forehead, that, whether she were beheld when attired for society; or surprised under the negligence of domestic avocation; she could be viewed by no stranger whom she did not strike with admiration; she could be broken in upon by no old friend who did not look at her with new pleasure.

It was at a dance that she first was seen by young Burney, at the house of his elder brother, in Hatton Garden; and that first sight was to him decisive, for he was not more charmed by her beauty than enchanted by her conversation.

So extraordinary, indeed, were the endowments of her mind, that, her small opportunity for their attainment considered, they are credible only from having been known upon proof.

Born in the midst of the city—but not in one of those mansions where, formerly,[10] luxury and riches revelled with a lavish preponderance of magnificence, that left many of those of the nobles of the west plain or old-fashioned in comparison: not in one of those dwellings of the hospitable English merchant of early days, whose boundless liberality brought tributary under his roof the arts and sciences, in the persons of their professors; and who rivalled the nobles in the accomplishments of their progeny, till, by mingling in acquirements, they mingled in blood:—the birth of the lovely Esther had nothing to boast from parental dignity, parental opulence, nor—strange, and stranger yet to tell—parental worth.

Alone stood the lovely Esther, unsustained by ancestry, unsupported by wealth, unimpelled by family virtue——

Yet no!—in this last article there was a partnership that redeemed the defection, since the Male parent was not more wanting in goodness, probity, and conduct, than the Female was perfect in all—if perfect were a word that, without presumption, might ever be applied to a human being.

With no advantage, therefore, of education, save the simple one of early learning, or, rather, imbibing the French language, from her maternal grandfather, who was a native of France, but had been forced from his country by the edict of Nantz; this gifted young creature was one of the most pleasing, well-mannered, well-read, elegant, and even cultivated, of her sex: and wherever she appeared in a social circle, and was drawn forth—which the attraction of her beauty made commonly one and the same thing—she was generally distinguished as the first female of the party for sense, literature, and, rarer still, for judgment; a pre-eminence, however, not more justly, than, by herself, unsuspectedly her due; for, more than unassuming, she was ignorant of her singular superiority.[11]

To excel in music, or in painting, so as to rival even professors, save the highest, in those arts, had not then been regarded as the mere ordinary progress of female education: nor had the sciences yet become playthings for the nursery. These new roads of ambition for juvenile eminence are undoubtedly improvements, where they leave not out more essential acquirements. Yet, perhaps, those who were born before this elevation was the mode; whose calls, therefore, were not so multitudinous for demonstrative embellishments, may be presumed to have risen to more solid advantages in mental attainments, and in the knowledge and practice of domestic duties, than the super-accomplished aspirants at excellence in a mass, of the present moment.

A middle course might, perhaps, be more intellectually salubrious, because more simple and natural: and foremost herself, if she may be judged by analogy, foremost herself, had stood this lovely Esther, in amalgamating the two systems in her own studies and pursuits, had they equally, at that time, been within the scope of her consciousness: for straight-forward as was her design in all that she deemed right, whatever was presented to even a glimpse of her perceptions that was new and ingenious, rapidly opened to her lively understanding a fresh avenue to something curious, useful, or amusing, that she felt herself irresistibly invited to explore.

Botany, then, was no familiar accomplishment; but flowers and plants she cultivated with assiduous care; sowing, planting, pruning, grafting, and rearing them, to all the purposes of sight and scent that belong to their fragrant enjoyment; though untutored in their nomenclature, and unlearned in their classification.

Astronomy, though beyond her grasp as a science, she passionately caught at in its elementary visibility, loving it for its intrinsic glory, and enamoured of it yet more fondly from her own favourite idea, that the soul of the righteous, upon the decease of the body, may be wafted to realms of light, and permitted thence to look down, as guardian angel, on those most precious to it left behind.

Yet so strict was her sense of duty, that she never suffered this vivid imagination to put it out of its bias; and the clearness of her judgment regulated so scrupulously the disposition of her hours, that, without neglecting any real devoir, she made leisure, by skilful arrangements and quickness of execution, for nearly every favourite object that hit her fancy; holding almost as sacred the employment of her spare moments, as most others hold the fulfilment of their stated occupations.

And, indeed, so only could she, thus self-taught by self-investigation, study, and labour, have risen to those various excellences that struck all who saw, and impressed all who knew her, with admiration mingled with wonder.

Critical was the first instant of meeting between two young persons thus similarly self-modelled, and thus singularly demonstrating, that Education, with all her rules, her skill, her experienced knowledge, and her warning wisdom, may so be supplied, be superseded, by Genius, when allied to Industry, as to raise beings who merit to be pointed out as examples, even to those who have not a difficulty to combat, who are spurred by encouragement, and instructed by able teachers; to all which advantages young Burney and Esther—though as far removed from distress as from affluence—were equally strangers.

Who shall be surprised that two such beings, thus opening into life and distinction through intellectual vigour, and thus instinctively sustaining unaided conflicts against the darkness of ignorance, the intricacies of new doctrines, and all the annoying obstructions of early prejudices,—who shall be surprised, that two such beings, where, on one side, there was so much beauty to attract, and on the other so much discernment to perceive the value of her votary, upon meeting each other at the susceptible age of ardent youth, should have emitted, spontaneously, and at first sight, from heart to heart, sparks so bright and pure that they might be called electric, save that their flame was exempt from any shock?

Young Burney at this time had no power to sue for the hand, though he had still less to forbear suing for the heart, of this fair creature: not only he had no fortune to lay at her feet, no home to which he could take her, no prosperity which he could invite her to share; another barrier, which seemed to him still more formidable, stood imperviously in his way—his peculiar position with Mr. Greville.

That gentleman, in freeing the subject of these memoirs from his engagements with Dr. Arne, meant to act with as much kindness as munificence; for, casting aside all ostentatious parade, he had shown himself as desirous to gain, as to become, a friend. Yet was there no reason to suppose he purposed to rear a vine, of which he would not touch the grapes.

To be liberal, suited at once the real good taste of his character, and his opinion of what was due to his rank in life; and in procuring to himself the double pleasure of the society and the talents of young Burney, he thought his largess to Dr. Arne well bestowed; but it escaped his reflections, that the youth whom he made his companion in London, at Wilbury House, at Newmarket, and at Bath, in quitting the regular pursuit of his destined profession, risked forfeiting the most certain guarantee to prosperity in business, progressive perseverance.

Nevertheless, those drawbacks to this splendid connection occurred not at its beginning, nor yet for many a day after, to the young votary of Apollo. The flattering brilliancy of the change, and the sort of romance that hung upon its origin, kept aloof all calculations of its relative mischiefs; which only distantly to have contemplated, in the sparkling novelty that mingled such gay pleasure with his gratitude, would have appeared to him ungenerous, if not sordid. Youth is rarely enlightened by foresight upon prudential prospects; and the mental optic of young Burney was not quickened to this perception, till the desire of independence to his fortune was excited by the loss of it to his heart; for never had he missed his liberty, till he sighed to make it a fresh sacrifice to a more lasting bondage.

It was then he first felt the torment of uncertain situation; it was then he appreciated the high male value of self-dependence; it was then he first conceived, that, though gaiety may be found, and followed, and met, and enjoyed abroad, not there, but at home, is happiness! Yet, from the moment a bosom whisper softly murmured to him the name of Esther, he had no difficulty to believe in the distinct existence of happiness from pleasure; and—still less to devise where—for him—it must be sought.

When he made known to his fair enslaver his singular position, and entreated her counsel to disentangle him from a net, of which, till now, the soft texture had impeded all discernment of the confinement, the early wisdom with which she preached to him patience and forbearance, rather diminished than augmented his power of practising either, by an increase of admiration that doubled the eagerness of his passion.

Nevertheless, he was fain to comply with her counsel, though less from acquiescence than from helplessness how to devise stronger measures, while under this nameless species of obligation to Mr. Greville, which he could not satisfy his delicacy in breaking; nor yet, in adhering to, justify his sense of his own rights.