Part 14

He made frequent visits to the house; conceived the most friendly regard for the whole family; and abruptly, and with great singularity, addressed a letter, that was as original in ideas as in diction, to one of the daughters,[39] with whom he demanded permission of the Doctor to correspond. And in a postscript, that was nearly as long as the epistle, to obviate, probably, any ambiguous notions from his zeal—though he was already a grey and wrinkled old man—he acquainted his new young correspondent that he had been married four-and-thirty years.

Mr. Hutton was one of the sect of the Moravians, or Hurnhuters, and resided at Lindsey House, Chelsea, as secretary to the united brethren. He was author, also, of an Essay towards giving some just ideas of the character of Count Zinzendorf, the inventor and founder of the sect.

Mr. Hutton was a person of pleasing though eccentric manners. His notions were uncommon; his language was impressive, though quaint: his imagination, notwithstanding his age, was playful, nay, poetical. He considered all mankind as his brethren, and himself, therefore, as every one’s equal; alike in his readiness to serve them, and in the frankness with which he demanded their services in return.

His desire to make acquaintance, and to converse with every body to whom any species of celebrity was attached, was insatiable, and was dauntless. He approached them without fear, and accosted them without introduction. But the genuine kindness of his smile made way for him wherever there was heart and observation; and with such his encounter, however uncouth, brought on, almost invariably, a friendly intercourse.

Yet where, on the contrary, he met not with those delicate developers and interpreters, heart and observation, to instil into those he addressed a persuasion of the benevolence of his intentions in seeking fair and free fraternity with all his fellow-creatures, he suffered not his failures to dishearten him; for as he never meant, he never took offence. And even when turned away from with rudeness or alarm, as a man conceived to be intrusive, impertinent, or suspicious, he would neither be angry nor affronted; but, sorrowfully shaking his head, would hope that some happy accident would inspire them with softer feelings, ere some bitter misfortune should retaliate their unkindness.

The immediate, it might, perhaps, be said, the instinctive cause of any rebuff that he met with in public, namely, his extraordinary appearance, and apparel, never seemed to occur to him; for as he looked not at the finest garb of the wealthy or modish with the smallest respect, he surmised not that the shabbiness of his own could influence his reception. By him, the tailor and the mantua-maker were regarded merely as manufacturers of decency, not of embellishment; and he had full as much esteem for his own clumsy cobbler or second-hand patching tailor, as the finest beau or belle of Almack’s could have for their Parisian attirers.

Nevertheless, so coarse was the large, brown, slouching surtout, which infolded his body; so rough and blowsy was the old mop-like wig that wrapt up his head; that, but for the perfectly serene mildness of his features, and the venerability of his hoary eye-brows, he might at all times have passed for some constable, watchman, or policeman, who had mistaken the day for the night, and was prowling into the mansions of gentlemen, instead of public-houses, to take a survey that all was in order.

That a man such as this, with every mark of a nature the most unstained, and of a character the most unsophisticated, could belong to a sect, which, by all popular report at least, was stampt, at that time, as dark and mystic; and as being wild and strange in some of its doctrines even to absurdity; must make every one who had witnessed the virtuous tenor of the life of Mr. Hutton, and shared in the inoffensive gaiety of his discourse, believe the sect to have been basely calumniated; for not a word was ever uttered by this singular being that breathed not good will to all mankind; and not an action is recorded, or known of him, that is irresponsive of such universal benevolence.

* * * * *

Dr. Burney, now, without a single black-ball, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; of which honour his first notice was received through the amiable and zealous Miss Phipps,[40] who, knowing the day of election, had impatiently gathered the tidings of its success from her brother, Sir Constantine Phipps:[41] and before either the president, or the friend who had nominated the Doctor for a candidate, could forward the news, she sportively anticipated their intelligence, by sending to Queen-Square a letter directed in large characters, “For Dr. Burney, F. R. S.”[42]

HISTORY OF MUSIC.

From this period, the profession of Dr. Burney, however highly he was raised in it, seemed but of secondary consideration for him in the world; where, now, the higher rank was assigned him of a man of letters, from the general admiration accorded to his Tours; of which the climax of honour was the award of Dr. Johnson, that Dr. Burney was one of the most agreeable writers of travels of the age. And Baretti, to whom Dr. Johnson uttered this praise, was commissioned to carry it to Dr. Burney; who heard it with the highest gratification: though, since his bereavement of his Esther, he had ceased to follow up the intercourse he had so enthusiastically begun. Participation there had been so animated, that the charm of the connexion seemed, for awhile, dissolved by its loss.

Letters now daily arrived from persons of celebrity, with praises of the Tours, encouragement for the History, or musical information for its advantage. Mr. Mason, Mr. Harris of Salisbury, Dr. Warton, Dr. Thomas Warton, Dr. Harrington, Mr. Pennant, Montagu North, Mr. Bewley, Mr. Crisp, and Mr. Garrick, all bestowed what Dr. Burney sportively called sweet-scented bouquets on his journals.

But amongst the many distinguished personages who volunteered their services in honour of the History of Music, the Doctor peculiarly valued the name of Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, father of the preserver, not alone of England, and of France, but of Europe, at the awful crisis of general—almost chaotic—danger.

This nobleman, the Earl of Mornington, with the most liberal love of the arts, and most generous admiration of their high professors, upon being addressed by his friend, Mr. Rigby, in favour of Dr. Burney’s pursuit, came forth, with a zeal the most obliging, to aid the Doctor’s researches concerning the antiquity of music in Ireland; and the origin of the right of the Irish for bearing the harp in their arms.

Some of his lordship’s letters will be found in the correspondence, replete with information and agreeability.

The Doctor held, also, a continental correspondence, enlightening and flattering, with the Baron d’Holbach, Diderot, the Abbé Morellet, M. Suard, M. Monnet, and Jean Jacques Rousseau himself.

Of this last-named, and certainly most rare of his epistolary contemporaries, Jean Jacques Rousseau, the following note is copied from the Doctor’s memorandums.

“Five years after the representation of ‘The Cunning Man,’ when, in 1770, I had visited Rousseau at Paris, and entered into correspondence with him, I sent him, in a parcel with other books, a copy of ‘The Cunning Man,’ as it was performed and printed in England to my translation of his ‘_Devin du Village_,’ and adjusted to his original music; and I received from him the following answer.

“_A Monsieur_, “_Monsieur le Docteur Burney_, “_A Londres._

“Je recois, Monsieur, avec bien de la reconnoissance, les deux pièces de musique gravée, que vous m’avez fait remettre par M. Guy. ‘La Passione de Jomelli,’ dont je vous suppose l’editeur, montre que vous savez connoître et priser le beau en ce genre. Cet ouvrage admirable me paroit plein d’harmonie et d’expression. Il merite en cela d’être mis à côté du Stabat Mater de Pergolese. Je le trouve seulment au dessous en ce qu’il a moins de simplicité.

“Je vous dois aussi des remercimens pour avoir daigné vous occuper du ‘Devin du Village’; quoiqu’il m’ait paru toujours impossible à traduire avec succés[43] dans une autre langue. Je ne vous parlerai pas des changemens que vous avez jugé apropos d’y faire. Vous avez consulté, sans doute, le goût de votre nation; et il n’y a rien à dire à cela.

“Les ouvrages, Monsieur, dont vous m’avez fait le cadeau, me rappelleront souvent le plaisir que j’ai eu de vous voir, et de vous entendre; et nourriront le regret de n’en pas jouir quelque fois.

“Agreez, Monsieur, je vous supplie, mes bien humbles salutations.

“J. J. ROUSSEAU.”

JOEL COLLIER.

The quick-spreading favour with which the Tours were received; the celebrity which they threw around the name and existence of Dr. Burney; the associations of rank, talents, literature, learning, and fashionable coteries, to which they opened an entrance, could not fail, ere long, to make their author become an object of envy, since they raised him to be one of admiration.

The character, conduct, and life of Dr. Burney were now, therefore, no doubt, critically examined, and morally sifted, by the jealous herd of contemporary rivals, who had worked far longer, and far more laboriously, through the mazes of science; yet, working without similar genius, had failed of rising to similar heights.

Nevertheless, the immediate path in which Dr. Burney flourished was so new, so untrodden, that he displaced no competitor, he usurped no right of others; and the world, unsought and uncanvassed, was so instinctively on his side, that, for a considerable time, his palpable pre-eminence seemed as willingly accorded, as it was unequivocally acknowledged.

But the viper does not part with its venom from keeping its body in ambush; and, before the History came out, though long after the publication of the Tours, a ludicrous parody of the latter was sent forth into the world, under the name of Joel Collier.

The Doctor, delicately anxious not to deserve becoming an object for satire, was much hurt, on its first appearance, by this burlesque production. It attacked, indeed, little beyond the technical phraseology of the Tours; the tourist himself was evidently above the reach of such anonymous shafts.

It was generally supposed to be a _jeu d’esprit_ of some enemy, to counteract his rapid progress in public favour; and to undermine the promising success of his great work.

But the Doctor himself did not give way to this opinion: he had done nothing to incur enemies; he had done much to conciliate friends; and, believing in virtue because practising it, he knew not how to conceive personal malice without personal offence. He imagined it, therefore, the work of some stranger, excited solely by the desire of making money from his own risible ideas; without caring whom they might harass, or how they might irritate, provided, in the words of Rodrigo, he “put money in his purse.”

The Doctor, however, as has been said, from the unimpeachable goodness of his heart and character, had the fair feelings of mankind in his favour. The parody, therefore, though executed with burlesque humour, whether urged or not by malevolence, was never reprinted; and obtained but the laugh of a moment, without making the shadow of an impression to the disadvantage of the tourist.

MR. TWINING.

But the happiest produce to Dr. Burney of this enterprise, and the dearest mede of his musical labours, was the cordial connexion to which it led with Mr. Twining, afterwards called Aristotle Twining; which opened with an impulsive reciprocation of liking, and ended in a friendship as permanent as it was exhilarating.

Mr. Twining, urged by an early and intuitive taste, equally deep and refined, for learning and for letters, had begun life by desiring to make over the very high emoluments of a lucrative business, with its affluence and its cares, to a deserving younger brother; while he himself should be quietly settled, for the indulgence of his literary propensities, in some retired and moderate living, at a distance from the metropolis.

His father listened without disapprobation; and at the vicarage of Colchester, Mr. Twining established his clerical residence.

His acquaintance with Dr. Burney commenced by a letter of singular merit, and of nearly incomparable modesty. After revealing, in terms that showed the most profound skill in musical science, that he had himself not only studied and projected, but, in various rough desultory sections, had actually written certain portions of a History of Music, he liberally acknowledged that he had found the plan of the Doctor so eminently superior to his own, and the means that had been taken for its execution so far beyond his power of imitation, that he had come to a resolution of utterly renouncing his design; of which not a vestige would now remain that could reflect any pleasure upon his lost time and pains, unless he might appease his abortive attempt by presenting its fruits, with the hope that they would not be found utterly useless, to Dr. Burney.

So generous an offering could not fail of being delightedly accepted; and the more eagerly, as the whole style of the letter decidedly spoke its writer to be a scholar, a wit, and a man of science.

Dr. Burney earnestly solicited to receive the manuscript from Mr. Twining’s own hands: and Mr. Twining, though with a timidity as rare in accompanying so much merit as the merit itself, complied with the request.

The pleasure of this first interview was an immediate guarantee of the mental union to which it gave rise. Every word that issued from Mr. Twining confirmed the three high characters to which his letter had raised expectation,—of a man of science, a scholar, and a wit. Their taste in music, and their selection of composers and compositions, were of the same school; _i.e._ the modern and the Italian for melody, and the German for harmony.

Nor even here was bounded the chain by which they became linked: their classical, literary, and poetical pursuits, nay, even their fancies, glided so instinctively into the same channel, that not a dissonant idea ever rippled its current: and the animal spirits of both partook of this general coincidence, by running, playfully, whimsically, or ludicrously, with equal concord of pleasantry, into similar inlets of imagination.

The sense of this congeniality entertained by Dr. Burney, will be best shewn by the insertion of some biographical lines, taken from a chronological series of events which he committed to paper, about this time, for the amusement of Mrs. Burney.

* * * after toil and fatigue — — To Twining I travel, in hopes of relief, Whose wit and good-humour soon drive away grief. And now, free from care, in night-gown and sandals, Not a thought I bestow on the Goths and the Vandals. Together we fiddled, we laugh’d, and we sung, And tried to give sound both a soul and a tongue. Ideas we sift, we compare, and commute, And, though sometimes we differ, we never dispute; Our minds to each other we turn inside out, And examine each source of belief and of doubt; For as musical discord in harmony ends, So our’s, when resolv’d, makes us still better friends.

The whole family participated in this delightful accession to the comfort and happiness of its chief; and, Mr. Crisp alone excepted, no one was received by the Burnean tribe with such eagerness of welcome as Mr. Twining.

A correspondence, literary, musical, and social, took place between this gentleman and the Doctor, when they separated, that made a principal pleasure, almost an occupation, of their future lives. And Dr. Burney thenceforward found in this willing and accomplished fellow-labourer, a charm for his work that made him hasten to it after his business and cares, as to his most grateful recreation. While Mr. Twining, exchanging a shyness that amounted nearly to bashfulness, for a friendly trust that gave free play to his sportive and original colloquial powers, felt highly gratified to converse at his ease with the man whose enterprise had filled him with an admiration to which he had been almost bursting to give some vent; but which he had so much wanted courage to proclaim, that, as he afterwards most humorously related, he had no sooner sent his first letter for Dr. Burney to the post-office, than he heartily hoped it might miscarry! and had hardly, though by appointment, softly knocked at the door of the Doctor, than he all but prayed that he should not find him at home!

MR. BEWLEY.

During a visit which, at this time, Dr. Burney made to his old friends and connexions in Norfolk, he spent a week or two with his truly-loved and warmly-admired favourite, Mr. Bewley, of Massingham; whose deep theoretical knowledge of the science, and passion for the art of music, made, now, a sojourn under his roof as useful to the work of the Doctor, as, at all periods, it had been delightful to his feelings.

Of this visit, which took place immediately after one that had been fatiguingly irksome from stately ceremony, he speaks, in his chronological rhymes, in the following manner.

To Bewley retiring, in peace and in quiet, Where our[44] welcome was hearty, and simple our diet; Where reason and science all jargon disdain’d, And humour and wit with philosophy reign’d—

Not a muse but was ready to answer his call; By the virtues all cherish’d, the great and the small. There Clio I court, to reveal every mystery Of musical lore, with its practice and history.

Mr. Bewley, now, was the principal writer for scientific articles in the Monthly Review, under the editorship of Mr. Griffith. He was, also, in close literary connexion with Dr. Priestley, Mr. Reid, and Padre Beccaria; with whom to correspond he had latterly dedicated some weeks exclusively to the study of Italian, that he might answer the letters of that celebrated man in his own language.

In company with this learned and dear friend, Dr. Burney afterwards passed a week at Haughton Hall, with the Earl of Orford, who invariably received him with cordial pleasure; and who had the manly understanding, combined with the classical taste, always to welcome with marked distinction the erudite philosopher of Massingham; though that obscure philosopher was simply, in his profession, a poor and hard-working country surgeon; and though, in his habits, partly from frugal necessity, and partly from negligent indifference, he was the man the most miserably and meanly accoutred, and withal the most slovenly, of any who had ever found his way into high society.

Lord Orford, with almost unexampled liberality, was decidedly blind to all these exterior imperfections; and only clear-sighted, for this gifted man of mind, to the genius that, at times, in the arch meaning of his smile, sparkled knowledge from his eye, with an intelligent expression that brightened into agreeability his whole queer face. And to call into play those rugged features, beneath which lurked the deepest information, and the most enlightened powers of entertainment, was the pleasure of the noble host; a distinction which saved this unknown and humble country practitioner from the stares, or the ridicule, of all new-arrived guests; though secretly, no doubt, they marvelled enough who he could be; and still more how he came there.

DR. HAWKESWORTH.

At Haughton Hall these two friends found now a large assembled party, of which the Earl of Sandwich, then first lord of the Admiralty, was at the head. The whole conversation at the table turned upon what then was the whole interest of the day, the first voyage round the world of Captain Cooke, which that great circumnavigator had just accomplished. The Earl of Sandwich mentioned that he had all the papers relating to the voyage in his hands; with the circumnavigations preceding it of Wallace and Byron; but that they were mere rough draughts, quite unarranged for the public eye; and that he was looking out for a proper person to put them into order, and to re-write the voyages.

Dr. Burney, ever eager upon any question of literature, and ever foremost to serve a friend, ventured to recommend Dr. Hawkesworth; who though, from his wise and mild character, contented with his lot, Dr. Burney knew to be neither rich enough for retirement, nor employed enough to refuse any new and honourable occupation. The _Adventurer_ was in every body’s library; but the author was less generally known: yet the account now given of him was so satisfactory to Lord Sandwich, that he entrusted Dr. Burney with the commission of sending Dr. Hawkesworth to the Admiralty.

Most gladly this commission was executed. The following is the first paragraph of Dr. Hawkesworth’s answer to its communication:

“Many, many thanks for your obliging favour, and the subject of it. There is nothing about which I would so willingly be employed as the work you mention. I would do my best to make it another Anson’s Voyage.

Lord Sandwich, upon their meeting, was extremely pleased with Dr. Hawkesworth, to whom the manuscripts were immediately made over; and who thus expressed his satisfaction in his next letter to Dr. Burney.

“I am now happy in telling you, that your labour of love is not lost; that I have all the journals of the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour in my possession; that the government will give me the cuts, and the property of the work will be my own.

“Is it impossible I should give you my hand, and the thanks of my heart, here? _i.e._ at Bromley.”

CAPTAIN COOKE.

Some time afterwards, Dr. Burney was invited to Hinchinbroke, the seat of the Earl of Sandwich, to meet Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, Dr. Hawkesworth, and the celebrated circumnavigator, Captain Cooke himself.

It was the earnest request of James, the eldest son of Dr. Burney, to be included in the approaching second expedition of this great seaman; a request which Lord Sandwich easily, and with pleasure, accorded to Dr. Burney; and the young naval officer was invited to Hinchinbroke, and presented to his new commander, with a recommendation that he should stand foremost on the list of promotion, should any occasion of change occur during the voyage.

The following note upon Captain Cooke, is copied from a memorandum book of Dr. Burney’s.

“In February, I had the honour of receiving the illustrious Captain Cooke to dine with me in Queen-Square, previously to his second voyage round the world.

“Observing upon a table Bougainville’s _Voyage autour du Monde_, he turned it over, and made some curious remarks on the illiberal conduct of that circumnavigator towards himself, when they met and crossed each other; which made me desirous to know, in examining the chart of M. de Bougainville, the several tracks of the two navigators; and exactly where they had crossed or approached each other.

“Captain Cooke instantly took a pencil from his pocket-book, and said he would trace the route; which he did in so clear and scientific a manner, that I would not take fifty pounds for the book. The pencil marks having been fixed by skim milk, will always be visible.”

This truly great man appeared to be full of sense and thought; well-mannered, and perfectly unpretending; but studiously wrapped up in his own purposes and pursuits; and apparently under a pressure of mental fatigue when called upon to speak, or stimulated to deliberate, upon any other.