Part 11

The time had arrived, and now was passed, for the long-settled project of Mr. Burney of conveying to Paris his second and, then, youngest daughters, Frances and Charlotte, to replace his eldest and his third, Esther and Susanna; now both returned thence, with every improvement that a kind parent could reasonably desire.

The time had arrived—and was passed.—But if no man can with certainty pronounce what at any stated period he will perform, how much less is he gifted with fore-knowledge of what, at any stated period, he may wish!

Six heartless, nearly desolate, years of lonely conjugal chasm, had succeeded to double their number of nearly unparalleled conjugal enjoyment—and the void was still fallow and hopeless!—when the yet very handsome, though no longer in her bloom, Mrs. Stephen Allen, of Lynn, now become a widow, decided, for promoting the education of her eldest daughter, to make London her winter residence.

Mr. Burney was, of course, applied to for assistance in the musical line; and not less called upon as the most capable judge and counsellor in every other.

The loss that had been sustained by Mrs. Allen was that of a very worthy man, whom she esteemed, but to whom she had been married by her parents early in life, without either choice or aversion. In her situation, therefore, and that of Mr. Burney, there was no other affinity than that each had been widowed by the hand of death.

Highly intellectual, and fond even to passion of books, Mrs. Allen delighted in the conversation of Mr. Burney; and the hour for his instructions to Miss Allen was fixed to be that of tea-time; to the end that, when he was liberated from the daughter, he might be engaged with the mother.

The superior grief of Mr. Burney, as deep as it was acute, was not more prominent than the feeling admiration that it inspired in Mrs. Allen: and if moved by his sorrows, while charmed by his merit, Mrs. Allen saw him with daily increasing interest, Mr. Burney was not less moved by her commiseration, nor less penetrated by her sympathy; and insensibly he became solaced, while involuntarily she grew grateful, upon observing her rising influence over his spirits.

To the tender sentiments of the heart, the avenues are as infinite for entrance as they are difficult for escape; but there are none so direct, and, consequently, none so common, as those through whose gentle mazes soft pity encounters soothing sensibility.

The task of consoling the sorrower seems, to its participator, nearly a devout one; and the sorrower, most especially where beauty and spirit meet in that participator, would think resistance to such benevolence might savour of ingratitude.

Those who judge of the sincerity of pristine connubial tenderness merely by its abhorrence of succession, take a very unenlightened, if not false, view of human grief; unless they limit their stigma to an eager or a facile repetition of those rites which, on their first inauguration, had seemed inviolable and irreplaceable.

So still, in fact, they may faithfully, though silently continue, even under a subsequent new connexion. The secret breast, alive to memory though deprived of sympathy, may still internally adhere to its own choice and fondness; notwithstanding the various and imperious calls of current existence may urge a second alliance: and urge it, from feelings and from affections as clear of inconstancy as of hypocrisy; urge it, from the best of motives, that of accommodating ourselves to our lot, with all its piercing privations; since our lot is dependent upon causes we have no means to either evade or fathom; and as remote from our direction as from our wishes.

If, by any exertion of which mortal man is capable, or any suffering which mortal man can sustain, Mr. Burney could have called back his vanished Esther to his ecstatic consciousness, labour, even to decrepitude, endurance even to torture, he would have borne, would have sought, would have blessed, for the most transient sight of her adored form. But she was taken away from him by that decree against which there is no appeal.

He who loses a parent, a brother, a sister, a friend, however deeply and deservedly they may be lamented, is never branded with want of feeling if he seek another counsellor and guide, if he accept another companion and favourite. It is but considered to be meeting his destiny as a man who knows he must not choose it; it is but consenting to receive such good as is attainable, while bowing down submissively to such evil as is unavoidable.

Succession is the law of nature; and, as far as her laws are obvious, it is that which stands foremost.

The angel whom Mr. Burney had lost—for an angel both without and within she had seemed to him—had the generous disinterestedness, on the bed of death, to recommend to her miserable husband that he would marry again; well knowing that the tenderness of female friendship would come nearest,—however distant,—to the softness of consolation: and, maternally weighing, no doubt, that a well chosen partner might prove a benediction to her poor children. And this injunction, though heard at the time with agony scarcely supportable, might probably, and strongly, influence his future conduct, when the desperation of hopelessness was somewhat worn away by all-subduing time, joined to forced exertions in business.

His Esther had even named to him the lady whom she thought most capable to suit him as a companion, and most tenderly disposed to becoming a mother to his children,—Miss Dorothy Young, who was her most valued friend. Mrs. Allen, Dorothy’s nearest competitor, was not then a widow. But Mr. Burney, sacred as he held the opinions and the wishes of his Esther, was too ardent an admirer of beauty to dispense, in totality, with that attractive embellishment of the female frame. He honoured and esteemed, with a brother’s affection, the excellent Dorothy Young: but those charms which awaken softer sensations, were utterly and unhappily denied to that estimable woman, through her peculiarly unfortunate personal defects.

Not early, and not easily, did Mr. Burney and Mrs. Allen reveal their mutual partiality. The wounded heart of Mr. Burney recoiled from such anodyne as demanded new vows to a new object: and Mrs. Allen, at that period, lived in a state of affluence that made such a marriage require severe worldly sacrifices. Only, however transiently; for by an unfortunate trust in an unfortunate, though honourable speculatist, Dr. King, she completely lost all that, independently, was at her own disposal of fortune. And the noble disinterestedness of Mr. Burney upon this occasion, rivetted to him her affections, with the highest esteem.

Yet even when these scruples were mutually overwhelmed by increasing force of regard, so many unlooked for obstacles stood in the way of their union, that, wearied by delays that seemed at once captious and interminable, Mr. Burney earnestly entreated that an immediate private marriage might avert, at least, a final breach of their engagement: solemnly promising, at the same time, that they should keep the alliance secret, and still live apart, till all prudential exactions should be satisfied.

As they were each wholly independent, save from the influence of opinion,—which, however, is frequently more difficult to subdue than that of authority,—Mrs. Allen saw no objection of sufficient force to counteract her pleasure in compliance.

Their plan was confided to four persons, indispensably requisite for its execution; Mrs., afterwards Lady Strange, Miss Young, Mr. Crisp, and the Rev. Mr. Pugh, curate of St. James’s church.

Mr. Pugh, who was of very long standing a friend of Mr. Burney, aided personally in promoting such measures as secured secrecy with success; and in St. James’s church, Mr. Pugh tied that indissoluble knot, which, however fairly promising, is inevitably rigorous, since it can be loosened only by Crime or by Death: but which, where it binds the destinies of those whose hearts are already knit together by reciprocated regard, gives a charm to captivity that robs liberty of regret.

At the porch of St. James’s church, Mrs. Strange and Mr. Pugh whispered their congratulations to the new married couple, as they entered a prepared post-chaise; which, in a very few hours, galloped them to the obscure skirts of the then pathless, and nearly uninhabited, Chesington common; where Mr. Crisp had engaged for them a rural and fragrant retreat, at a small farm-house in a little hamlet, a mile or two from Chesington Hall.

The secret, as usual in matrimonial concealments, was faithfully preserved, for a certain time, by scrupulous discretion in the parties, and watchful circumspection in the witnesses: but, as usual also, error and accident were soon at work to develop the transaction; and the loss of a letter, through some carelessness of conveyance, revealed suddenly but irrevocably the state of the connexion.

This circumstance, however, though, at the time, cruelly distressing, served ultimately but to hasten their own views; as the discovery was necessarily followed by the personal union for which their hands had been joined.

Mrs. Burney,—now no longer Mrs. Stephen Allen—came openly to town to inhabit, for a while, a house in Poland-street, a few doors from that of her husband; while alterations, paintings, and embellishments were progressively preparing the way for her better reception at his home.

The two families, however, awaited not the completion of these improvements for a junction. The younger branches, who already, and from their birth, were well known to one another, were as eager as their parents for a general union; and the very amiable Miss Allen,[32] the most important personage in the juvenile group, conducted herself upon the disclosure of the marriage, with a generous warmth of kindness that quickened the new establishment. And her example would forcibly have weighed with her deserving brother, Stephen Allen,[33] had such example been wanting; but he entertained so true and affectionate a respect for Mr. Burney, that he required neither duty nor influence to reconcile him to the match.

The four daughters of Mr. Burney,—Esther, Frances, Susan, and Charlotte,—were all earnest to contribute their small mites to the happiness of one of the most beloved of parents, by receiving, with the most respectful alacrity, the lady on whom he had cast his future hopes of regaining domestic comfort.

The Paris scheme for the two daughters, who were to have followed the route of their sisters, long remitted, from the fluctuating affairs and feelings of Mr. Burney, was now finally abandoned. The youngest daughter, Charlotte, was sent to a school in Norfolk. The second, Frances, was the only one of Mr. Burney’s family who never was placed in any seminary, and never was put under any governess or instructor whatsoever. Merely and literally self-educated, her sole emulation for improvement, and sole spur for exertion, were her unbounded veneration for the character, and affection for the person, of her father; who, nevertheless, had not, at the time, a moment to spare for giving her any personal lessons; or even for directing her pursuits.[34]

POLAND STREET.

The friends of Mr. Burney were not slack in paying their devoirs to his new partner, whose vivacious society, set off by far more than remains of uncommon beauty, failed not to attract various visitors to the house; and whose love, or rather passion, for conversation and argument, were of that gay and brilliant sort, that offers too much entertainment to be ever left in the lurch for want of partakers.

Fortunate was it that such was the success of her social spirit; which success was by no means less flourishing, from her strong bent to displaying the rites of hospitality. She must else have lived the life of a recluse, Mr. Burney, during the whole of the day, being devoted to his profession; with the single exception of one poor hour of repast, to re-fit him for every other of labour.

But the affection and pleasure with which, as

“The curfew toll’d the knell of parting day,”

he finished his toils, were so animated and so genuine, that the sun, in the zenith of its splendour, was never more ardently hailed, than the cool, silent, evening star, whose soft glimmering light restored him to the bosom of his family; not there to murmur at his fatigues, lament his troubles, nor recount his wearisome exertions; but to return, with cheerful kindness, their tender greetings; to enliven them with the news, the anecdotes, and the rumours of the day; to make a spontaneous _catalogue raisonné_ of the people he had mixed with or seen; and always to bring home any new publication, political, poetical, or ethical, that was making any noise in the world.

Amongst those of the old friends of Mr. Burney who were the most eager to judge his second choice, Roscius and Violetta, Mr. and Mrs. Garrick, seem entitled to be first mentioned, from the pleasurable remembrance of the delight bestowed upon the whole family by their presence.

THE GREVILLES.

And equally alert with the same congratulatory courtesies, were his long and rootedly attached friends, the Grevilles. Mr. Greville, curious to behold the successor of her whom he had never named, but as one of the prettiest women he had ever seen, hastened to make his marriage visit on the first morning that he heard of the bride’s arrival in town: while of Mrs. Greville, the bridal visit was arranged in such form, and with such attention, as she thought would shew most consideration to its object. She came on an appointed day, that Mr. Burney might be certainly at home, to present her to his wife; and she stayed to spend the whole evening in Poland-street.

Her nearly peerless daughter, then in the first radiance of her matchless bloom, who had been lately married to Mr. Crewe, of Cheshire, with the same zeal as her parents to manifest esteem and affection for Mr. Burney, joined the party; which consisted but of themselves, and of Mr. Burney’s new and original young families.

Mrs. Greville, as was peculiarly in her power, took the lead, and bore the burthen of the conversation; which chiefly turned upon Sterne’s Sentimental Journey, at that time the reigning reading in vogue: but when the new Mrs. Burney recited, with animated encomiums, various passages of Sterne’s seducing sensibility, Mrs. Greville, shrugging her shoulders, exclaimed: “A feeling heart is certainly a right heart; nobody will contest that: but when a man chooses to walk about the world with a cambrick handkerchief always in his hand, that he may always be ready to weep, either with man or beast,—he only turns me sick.”

DR. HAWKESWORTH.

With Dr. Hawkesworth Mr. Burney renewed an acquaintance that he had begun at Wilbury House, where he who could write the Adventurer, was not likely to have wanted the public voice to awaken his attention to a youth of such striking merit. Long before that voice had sounded, Dr. Hawkesworth had formed the most liberal and impartial opinion of the young favourite of Mr. Greville. And when, upon the occasion of the Doctor’s writing a hymn for the children of the Foundling Hospital, Mr. Burney, through the medium of Mr. Greville, was applied to for setting it to music, the expressions, incidentally dropt, of genius and judgment, in a letter of thanks from Dr. Hawkesworth, would have been in perfect accord with the attributes of the composer, had they been bestowed after the History of Music had stamped them as his due.

No opportunity was omitted by Mr. Burney for cultivating the already established kindness of Mr. Mason and of Dr. Armstrong.

Mr. Burney had frequent relations also, with that scientific diver into natural history, and whatever was ingenious, quaint, and little known, the Hon. Daines Barrington.

Arthur Young, the afterwards famous agriculturist, who had married a younger sister of Mr. Burney, was, when in London, all but an inmate of the Poland-street family; and the high, nay, at that time, volatile spirits of Arthur Young, though always kept within certain bounds by natively well-bred manners, and instinctive powers of pleasing, made him, to the younger group especially, the most entertaining guest that enlivened the fire side.

Amongst those whom neither literature nor science, but taste and choice, taught to signalise Mr. Burney, foremost in the list of youthful beauty, native talents, and animated softness, appeared Mrs. Pleydell, daughter of Governor Holwell; so highly celebrated for the dreadful sufferings, which he almost miraculously survived to record, of incarceration, in what was denominated the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Mrs. Pleydell, like the first, or Mrs. Linley Sheridan, was encircled with charms that, but for comparison with Mrs. Sheridan, might, at that time, have been called unrivalled; charms at once so personal, yet so mental, that they seemed entwined together by a texture so fine of beauty and sensibility, that her first glance was attraction, and her first speech was captivation.

Nothing could surpass the sweetness with which this lovely East Indian attached herself to Mr. Burney; nor the delicacy of her arrangements for appearing to receive favours in conferring them upon his daughters; who were enamoured of her with an ardour that, happily, he escaped; though his admiration was lively and sincere.

This lady, in taking leave of Mr. Burney, upon her return to India, presented to him a Chinese painting on ivory, which she had inherited from her father; and which he, Governor Holwell, estimated as a sort of treasure. The following is the description of it, drawn up by Mr. Burney, from the account of Mrs. Pleydell.

“It is the representation of a music gallery over a triumphal arch, through which the great Mogul passed at Agra, or Delhi, before his fall. The procession consists of the Emperor, mounted on an elephant, and accompanied by his wives, concubines, and attendants; great officers of state, &c., all exquisitely painted. The heads of the females, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Robert Strange, to whom this painting was shewn, thought sufficiently highly finished to be set in rings.”

GEORGE COLMAN, THE ELDER.

With that dramatic genius, man of wit, and elegant scholar, George Colman the elder, Mr. Burney had frequent and pleasant meetings at the mansion of Roscius; for who, at that time, could know Mr. Garrick, and be a stranger to Mr. Colman?[35]

KIT SMART.

Nor amongst the early friends of Mr. Burney must ever be omitted that learned, ingenious, most poetical, but most unfortunate son of Apollo, Kit Smart; whom Mr. Burney always was glad to see, and active to serve; though whatever belonged to that hapless poet seemed to go in constant deterioration; his affairs and his senses annually and palpably darkening together; and nothing, unhappily, flourishing in the attempts made for his relief, save the friendship of Mr. Burney; in speaking of which in a letter, Kit Smart touchingly says: “I bless God for your good nature, which please to take for a receipt.”

SIR ROBERT AND LADY STRANGE.

The worthy, as well as eminent, Sir Robert Strange, the first engraver of his day, with his extraordinary wife and agreeable family, were, from the time of the second marriage, amongst the most familiar visitors of the Burney house.

The term extraordinary is not here applied to Lady Strange to denote any singularity of action, conduct, or person; it is simply limited to her conversational powers; which, for mother wit in brilliancy of native ideas, and readiness of associating analogies, placed her foremost in the rank of understanding females, with whom Mr. Burney delighted to reciprocate sportive, yet deeply reflective, discourse. For though the education of Lady Strange had not been cultivated by scholastic lore, she might have said, with the famous Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, “My books are men, and I read them very currently.” And in that instinctive knowledge of human nature which penetration develops, and observation turns to account, she was a profound adept.

Yet, with these high-seasoned powers of exhilaration for others, she was palpably far from happy herself; and sometimes, when felicitated upon her delightful gaiety, she would smile through a face of woe, and, sorrowfully shaking her head, observe how superficial was judgment upon the surface of things, and how wide from each other might be vivacity and happiness! the one springing only from native animal spirits; the other being always held in subjection by the occurrences that meet, or that mar our feelings. And often, even in the midst of the lively laugh that she had sent around her, there would issue quite aloud, from the inmost recesses of her breast, a sigh so deep it might rather be called a groan.

Very early in life, she had given away her heart and her hand without the sanction of a father whom, while she disobeyed, she ardently loved. And though she was always, and justly, satisfied with her choice, and her deserving mate, she could never so far subdue her retrospective sorrow, as to regain that inward serenity of mind, that has its source in reflections that have never been broken by jarring interests and regrets.

MR. CRISP.

But the social enjoyment that came closest to the bosom of Mr. Burney, and of all his race, sprang spontaneously and unremittingly from the delight of all their hearts, Mr. Crisp; who, from his never abating love of music, of painting, of his early friend, and of that friend’s progeny, never failed to make his almost secret visit once a year to town; though still, save for those few weeks, he adhered, with inflexible perseverance, to his retirement and his concealment.

Yet whatever disinclination to general society had been worked upon his temper by disappointment, and fastened to his habits by ill health, the last reproach that could be cast upon his conduct was that of misanthropy; though upon his opinions it might deserve, perhaps, to be the first.

He professed himself to be a complete disciple of Swift, where that satirist, in defending his Yahoos, in Gulliver’s Travels, avows that, dearly as he loves John, William, and Thomas, when taken individually, mankind, taken in the lump, he abhors or despises.

Nevertheless, Mr. Crisp had so pitying a humanity for wrongs or misfortunes that were casual, or that appeared to be incurred without vice or crime, that, to serve a fellow-creature who called for assistance, whether from his purse or his kindness, was so almost involuntarily his common practice, that it was performed as a thing of course, without emotion or commentary.

Mr. Crisp, at this time, was the chief supporter of Chesington Hall, which had now lost the long dignity of its title, and was sunk into plain Chesington, by the death of its last male descendant, Christopher Hamilton; whose extravagances had exhausted, and whose negligence had dilapidated the old and venerable domain which, for centuries, had belonged to his family.

The mansion, and the estate, fell, by law, into the hands of Mrs. Sarah Hamilton, a maiden sister of Christopher’s. But this helpless ancient lady was rescued from the intricacies of so involved a succession, by the skilful counsel of Mr. Crisp; who proposed that she should have the capacious old house parted nearly in halves, between herself and an honest farmer, Master Woodhatch; who hired of her, also, what little remained of grounds, for a farm.