Part 16

The deadly catastrophe was conveyed to the Doctor by his son-in-law and nephew, the deserving Mr. Burney; who kindly spared his afflicted wife—rent by personal sorrow—the dreadful task which, necessarily, had been appointed to her by Dr. Charles. The good Mr. Burney, as the Doctor afterwards declared, unfolded the irreparable calamity with as much judiciousness as feeling. And the Doctor again evinced a force of character unshaken by years, that shewed him capable of supporting, while bewailing this terrific blow, with the submission of resignation, and the fortitude of reason; not desponding, however wretched; not overwhelmed, though indescribably unhappy.

What scenes were those which followed! how deep the tragedy! How wide from their promised joys were the family meetings! Yet all his family impressively hastened to the Doctor, and all were kindly received.

It was on the midnight of the first day of this woe, that his unhappy daughter of West Hamble, whom its baleful blight had pierced the preceding noon, forced her way, with her sympathizing partner, to Chelsea College. Her, however, the Doctor could not see! His courage sunk from that interview! He gave them the apartment that for so far happier a purpose had been destined, and remitted a meeting to the next morning.

Nor yet, even at breakfast, was he able to encounter her grief; it was twelve or one o’clock at noon ere he could assume the strength necessary: and then, his first words, on opening the parlour door, at which he stopped and stood, feeble and motionless, with shut eyes, and a look of unutterable anguish, were an almost inaudible exclamation, “I dread to see _you_, Fanny! I dread to see _you_!”

The first heart-breaking effort, however, made, all else could not but be soothing to each, even while to each piercing; and he kept her at the College for some weeks, during which she devoted herself to him wholly.

* * * * *

But for the fair hope that all the pungency of heart-riving separations such as these, from the objects of our purest affections, is left behind;—that their bitterness is not shared; that the void, cold! unsearchable! of such dire deprivations, is known only to the survivors—while to the gone all clouds are cleared away, all storms are calmed, all pangs are chased by bliss; but for this celestial Hope, and spiritual Belief,—how could the fragile human frame be strong enough to sustain the convulsed human mind, in the writhings of its first desolating experience of a woe, which, by one fatal stroke, seems, for the moment, to leave life without a charm?—For such is the first, instinctive, imperious sensation upon such dread catastrophes; whatever are the consolations with which remaining tender ties may speedily afterwards soothe and regenerate our feelings; and exchange our mortal grief for immortal aspirations.

* * * * *

The ensuing lines were written by Dr. Burney, for an epitaph in Neston churchyard, near Park Gate, where the remains of Mrs. Phillips were deposited:

In Memory of

MRS. SUSANNA ELIZABETH PHILLIPS,

Third daughter of Doctor Burney, and wife of Major Phillips, of Belcotton, in Ireland; who, in her way to visit her father at Chelsea College, died at Park Gate, 6th of January, 1800.

Learn, pensive reader, who may pass this way, That underneath this stone remains the clay That held a soul as pure, inform’d, refin’d, As e’er to erring mortal was assign’d. Closed are those eyes whose radiance, mild, yet bright, Beam’d all that gives to feeling soul’s delight! Quench’d are those rays of spirit, taste, and sense, Pure emanations of benevolence, That could alike instruct, appease, control, And speak the genuine dictates of the soul.

C. B.

1800.

Of the rest of this melancholy year no vestige remains, either from the Doctor or his Biographer. The beginning of the new century to them was the closing of hope, not the opening of joy! and the pocket-book memorandums of both are sterile and blank.

The Doctor, nevertheless, feeling himself past the time of life, and past the strength of body for yielding to unbending grief without danger to his faculties, as well as to his existence, accorded himself but a short period for retirement from the world; and then, with what force he could muster, returned to his business and his friends.

WILLIAM LOCKE, ESQ., JUNIOR.

The sole circumstance that excited him to any exertion, was the election of the eldest son of Mr. Locke, of Norbury Park, to be a member of the Literary Club.

It was to Dr. Burney that the idea of this election first occurred; no one else at the club, at that period, being equally acquainted with the claims of Mr. William Locke to confraternity with such a society. The Doctor communicated this project, in which he felt great interest, to West Hamble.

“Fanny Phillips[59] and I,” he says, “have dined thrice lately with your excellent neighbours, the Lockes, who rise in my esteem and affection at every visit. I have been long thinking of putting up Mr. William Locke at our club, but would not venture without his permission. After the last dinner, therefore, I drew him aside, and fairly asked him whether he would give me leave to try for his election at a club, established under Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Mr. Burke? and he said, after some modest scruples of being unworthy, that nothing would flatter him more. Yesterday, therefore, I began to canvass Malone, at his own house, and Lord Macartney, _a sotto voce_, in the club-room, before dinner. Malone was readily _de mon avis_; but Lord Macartney, following up the known plan of Dr. Johnson, to select the first man in every profession, for the more exact information of the rest upon those points of which they were ignorant, argued that we ought to have a great painter to supply, as well as he could, the loss of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

“‘And you will have one, my Lord,’ I cried. ‘The painters all honour themselves in being of that mind with respect to Mr. William Locke. He only happens, by chance, to be heir to a considerable estate; he would else have been a painter by profession, as well as by talent and excellence. In Mr. William Locke we shall have every gratification we can wish for in a new member; he is a scholar, a traveller, a gentleman; and, when he can be prevailed with to talk, the best informed and most pleasing converser with whom men of cultivated minds can wish to associate.’

“This gave me Lord Macartney as well as Malone; and, after dinner, on that very day, Lord Macartney himself, seconded by Mr. Langton, put up your dear friend’s ‘eldest hopes.’ I was applied to for giving the Christian name, and an assurance that the election was desired by the proposed new member. An entry then was made in the books, and the election will come on at the next club.”

The ensuing letter to West Hamble, will shew the happy effect of the Doctor’s success upon his spirits:

“I went to the club to-day with fear and trembling, lest I should have involved Mr. William Locke in any disappointment. Langton, though he had willingly seconded Lord Macartney’s motion, could not be there: it was a great day at the House, where they were debating the Adultery Bill, which lost us Windham, Canning, Bishop Douglas, Lords Spencer, Ossory, Palmerston, and Mr. Frere, of all whose suffrages I was sure. There were only nine members present; and I saw, on entering the room, with fear and dismay, the person suspected as a general black-baller. I’ll try to recollect the nine members: Lord Macartney, Sir Robert Chambers, Malone, Sir Charles Bunbury, Marsden, Dr. Fordyce, Mr. Thomas Grenville, Dr. Vincent, and your humble servant. Canning, whose turn it was to be President, being away, Lord Macartney, and two or three more, invited me to take the chair; but I modestly declined the honour! Well, we all seemed in perfect good-humour, and I hobbed a nob; and got two or three more to hob a nob, with the Knight of the Negro Ball; and, after dinner, when the box went round, Sir Charles Bunbury acted as Vice President, and opened it,—and—would you think it?—all was as white as milk!—and Mr. William Locke, jun. was declared duly elected.

“Sir Charles wrote the usual letter of inauguration, and I one of congratulation; and I sent my own man with both to Manchester Square. And so that fright, at least, is happily over.

“If Mr. and Mrs. Locke are with you, pray lay my best respects at their feet; and my love at the hearts of your two Alexanders. And so good night. It is past twelve, and time for all but owls and bats to be at roost.

“C. B.”

1801.

In 1801, also, there was but a single event that the Doctor thought worth committing to paper: and that, indeed, was of a kind that no one who knew him could read, first without trembling, and next without rejoicing; for, in the summer of 1801, and in his seventy-sixth year, he had an escape the most providential from sudden and violent destruction.

He had accompanied Mrs. Crewe, and some of her friends, to a review on Ascot Heath, when, in returning home by water, as the boat was disembarking its crew at Staines, feeling himself light and well, and equal to a small leap, he jumped incautiously from the boat on what he believed to be a tuft of grass; but what proved to be a moss-covered stone, or hillock, which, far from bending, as he had expected, to the touch of his foot, struck him backwards into the boat with frightful violence, and a risk the most imminent of breaking his neck, if not of fracturing his skull. Happily, no such dreadful evil ensued! and every species of care and kindness were vigilantly exerted to keep aloof further mischief than accrued from a few bruises.

Mr. Windham, who was of the party, had the Doctor conveyed immediately to the nearest inn, to be blooded, and to have all the injured parts examined and bathed. The Doctor’s carriage came to him there, and he got back to Chelsea, slowly, but tolerably well: and nothing more followed from this dangerous accident than a confinement of several days.

That the mind, however, was far stronger than the frame, became now indisputably evident, from the spirit with which he supported the fright, the pain, and the mortification of this untoward experiment upon his remnant and unsuspectedly failing corporeal force. But who discovers the exact moment of arriving defalcation either of body or mind, till taught it by one of those severe instructors, Disease, or Accident?

CYCLOPEDIA.

Nevertheless, though no further episodical event occurred in 1801, that year must by no means be passed over without record in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney; for it was marked by such extraordinary intellectual exertion as may almost be called unparalleled, when considered as springing from volition, not necessity; and from efforts the most virtuously philosophical, to while away enervating sadness upon those changes and chances that hang upon the very nature of mortal existence: for now, to tie his activity to his labours, he entered into a formal agreement with the editors of the then new Encyclopedia, to furnish all its musical articles at stated periods.

He thus, in a letter of which he has left a copy, though not the address, speaks of this enterprise to some friend:

“I have entered now into concerns that leave me not a minute, or a thought, to bestow on other matters. Besides professional avocations, I have deeply engaged in a work that can admit of no delay; and which occupies every instant that I can steal from business, friends, or sleep. A new edition, on a very enlarged plan, of the Cyclopedia of Chambers, is now printing in two double volumes 4to, for which I have agreed to furnish the musical articles, on a very large scale, including whatever is connected with the subject; not only definitions of the musical technica, but reflexions, discussions, criticism, history, and biography. The first volume is printed, and does not finish the letter A. And in _nine months’ hard labour_, I have not brought forth two letters. I am more and more frightened every day at the undertaking, so long after the usual allowance of three score years and ten have expired. And the shortest calculation for the termination of this work is still ten years.”

And in his letters to West Hamble on the same subject, he mentions, that to fulfil his engagement, he generally rises at five or six o’clock every morning—! in his seventy-sixth year.

1802.

This year partook not of any lack of incident; it commenced during the operation and incertitude of a public transaction so big, in its consequences, with deep importance to the domestic life of Dr. Burney, that it seems requisite for all that will follow, to enter into such parts of its details as affected the Doctor’s feelings, through their influence over those of his son-in-law, General d’Arblay. And it will be done the more willingly, as it must involve an unpublished anecdote or two of the marvellous character who, for a while, was the ruler of nearly all Europe,—Napoleon Buonaparte.

At the period of the peace of Amiens, in the preceding year, the Minister Plenipotentiary who was sent over by Buonaparte, then only First Consul, to sign its preliminaries, chanced to be an artillery officer, General de Lauriston, who had been _en garrison_, and in great personal friendship, with General d’Arblay, during their mutual youth; and with whom, as with all the _etat major_ of the regiment of Toul, a connexion of warm esteem and intimacy had faithfully been kept alive, till the dreadful catastrophe of the 10th of August dispersed every officer who survived it, into the wanderings of emigration, or the mystery of concealment.

When the name of Lauriston reached West Hamble, its obscured, but not enervated Chief, rushed eagerly from his Hermitage to the Metropolis, where he hastily wrote a few impressive lines to the new Minister Plenipotentiary, briefly demanding whether or not, in his present splendid situation, he would avow an old _Camarade_, whose life now was principally spent in cultivating cabbages in his own garden, for his own family and table?

Of this note he was fain to be his own bearer; and in some Hotel in, or near St. James’s Street, he discovered the Minister’s abode.

Unaccoutred, dressed only in his common garden coat, and wearing no military appendage, or mark of military rank, he found it very difficult to gain admission into the hotel, even as a messenger; for such, only, he called himself. The street was crowded so as to be almost impassable, as it was known to the public, that the French Minister was going forth to an audience for signing the preliminaries of Peace with Lord Hawkesbury.[60]

But M. d’Arblay was not a man to be easily baffled. He resolutely forced his way to the corridor leading to the Minister’s dressing apartment. There, however, he was arbitrarily stopped; but would not retire: and compelled the lacquey, who endeavoured to dismiss him, to take, and to promise the immediate delivery of his note.

With a very wry face, and an indignant shrug, the lacquey almost perforce complied; carefully, however, leaving another valet at the outside of the door, to prevent further inroad.

M. de Lauriston was under the hands of his frizeur, and reading a newspaper. But the gazette gave place to the billet, which, probably recollecting the handwriting; he rapidly ran over, and then eagerly, and in a voice of emotion, emphatically demanded who had been its bearer?

A small ante-room alone separated him from its writer, who, hearing the question, energetically called out: “_C’est Moi!_”

Up rose the Minister, who opened one door himself, as M. d’Arblay broke through the other, and in the midst of the little ante-room, they rushed into one another’s arms.

If M. d’Arblay was joyfully affected by this generous reception, M. de Lauriston was yet more moved in embracing his early friend, whom report had mingled with the slaughtered of the 10th of August.

The meeting, indeed, was so peculiar, from the high station of M. de Lauriston; the superb equipage waiting at his door to carry him, for the most popular of purposes, to an appointed audience with a British minister; and the glare, the parade, the cost, the attendants, and the attentions by which he was encompassed; contrasted with the worn, as well as plain habiliments of the recluse of West Hamble, that it gave a singularity to the equality of their manners to each other, and the mutuality of the joy and affection of their embraces, that from first exciting the astonishment, next moved the admiration of the domestics of the Minister Plenipotentiary; and particularly of his frizeur, who, probably, was his first valet-de-chambre; and who, while they were yet in each other’s arms, exclaimed aloud, with that familiarity in which the French indulge their favourite servants, “_Ma foi! voilà qui est beau!_”

This characteristic freedom of approbation broke into the pathos of the interview by causing a hearty laugh; and M. de Lauriston, who then had not another instant to spare, cordially invited his recovered friend to breakfast with him the next morning.

At that breakfast, M. de Lauriston recorded the circumstances that had led to his present situation, with all the trust and openness of their early intercourse. And sacred General d’Arblay held that confidence; which should have sunk into oblivion, but for the after circumstances, and present state of things, which render all that, then, was prudentially secret, now desirably public.

No change, he said, of sentiment, no dereliction of principle, had influenced his entering into the service of the republic. Personal gratitude alone had brought about that event. Whilst fighting, under the banners of Austria, against Buonaparte, in one of the campaigns of Italy, he had been taken prisoner, with an Austrian troop. His companions in arms were immediately conveyed to captivity, there to stand the chances of confinement or exchange; but he, as a Frenchman, had been singled out by the conquerors, and stigmatized as a deserter, by the party into whose hands he had fallen, and who condemned him to be instantly shot: though, as he had never served Buonaparte, no laws of equity could brand as a traitor the man who had but constantly adhered to his first allegiance. Buonaparte himself, either struck by this idea; or with a desire to obtain a distinguished officer of artillery, of which alone his army wanted a supply; felt induced to start forward in person, to stop the execution at the very instant it was going to take place. And, to save M. de Lauriston, at the same time, from the ill-will or vengeance of the soldiers, Buonaparte concealed him, till the troop by which he had been taken was elsewhere occupied; conducting himself, in the meanwhile, with so much consideration and kindness, that the gentle heart of Lauriston was gained over by grateful feelings, and he accepted the post afterwards offered to him of Aide-de-camp to the First Consul; with whom, in a short time, he rose to so much trust and favour, as to become the colleague of Duroc, as a chosen and military,—though not, as Duroc, a confidential secretary.

Buonaparte, Lauriston said, had named him for this important embassy to England from two motives: one of which was, that he thought such a nomination might be agreeable to the English, as Lauriston, who was great grand-son or grand-nephew to the famous Law, of South Sea notoriety, was of British extraction; and the other was from personal regard to Lauriston, that he might open a negociation, during his mission, for the recovery of some part of his Scotch inheritance.

At this, and a subsequent breakfast with M. de Lauriston, M. d’Arblay discussed the most probable means for claiming his _reforme_, or half-pay, as some remuneration for his past services and deprivations. And M. de Lauriston warmly undertook to carry a letter on this subject to Buonaparte’s minister at war, Berthier; with whom, under Louis the Sixteenth, M. d’Arblay had formerly transacted military business.

It was found, however, that nothing could be effected without the presence of M. d’Arblay in France; and therefore, peace between the two nations being signed, he deemed it right to set sail for the long-lost land of his birth.

Immediately upon his arrival in Paris, a representation of his claims was presented to the First Consul himself, accompanied with words of kindliest interest in its success, by the faithful General de Lauriston.

Buonaparte inquired minutely into the merits of the case, and into the military character of the claimant; and, having patiently heard the first account, and eagerly interrogated upon the second, he paused a few minutes, and then said: “Let him serve in the army, if only for one year. Let him go to St. Domingo, and join Le Cler;[61] and, at the end of the year, he shall be allowed to retire, with rank and promotion.”

This was the last purpose that had entered into the projects of M. d’Arblay; yet, to a military spirit, jealous of his honour, and passionately fond of his profession, it was a proposition impossible to be declined. It was not to combat for Buonaparte, nor to fight against his original allegiance: it was to bear arms in the current cause of his country, in resisting the insurgents of St. Domingo,[62] against whom he might equally have been employed by the Monarch[63] in whose service he had risked, and through whose misfortunes he had lost his all. He merely, therefore, stipulated to re-enter the army simply as a volunteer; with an agreed permission to quit it at the close of the campaign, whatever might be its issue: and he then accepted from Berthier a commission for St. Domingo, which, in the republican language adopted by Buonaparte on his first accession to dictatorial power, was addressed to _le Citoyen_ General-in-Chief, Le Cler; and which recommended to that General that _le Citoyen Darblay_ should be employed as a distinguished artillery officer.

M. d’Arblay next obtained leave to come over to England to settle his private affairs; to make innumerable purchases relative to the expedition to St. Domingo; and to bid adieu to his wife and son.

1802.

Dr. Burney received him with open arms, but tearful eyes. He had too much candour to misjudge the nature and the principles of a military character, so as to censure his non-refusal of an offered restoration to his profession, since, at that moment, the peace between the two countries paralysed any possible movement in favour of the Royalists; yet his grief at the circumstance, and his compassion for his dejected daughter, gave a gloom to the transaction that was deeply depressing.

The purchases were soon made, for the re-instated man of arms sunk a considerable sum to be expeditiously accoutred; after which, repelling every drawback of internal reluctance, he was eager not to exceed his furlough; and, pronouncing an agitated farewell, hurried back to Paris; purposing thence to proceed to Brest, whence he was to embark for his destination.

But, inexpressibly anxious not to be misunderstood, nor drawn into the service of Buonaparte beyond the contracted engagement; the day before he left London, M. d’Arblay, with a singleness of integrity that never calculated consequences where he thought his honour and his interest might pull different ways, determined to be unequivocally explicit, and addressed, therefore, the following letter directly to Buonaparte:

“_Au Premier Consul._

“General,