Part 18

War thus again broken forth, few and concise were the lines, not letters, that kept up any correspondence between Dr. Burney and Paris; passing unsealed when they came by the post; and even undirected, as accidental papers, when they were intrusted to private hands: so great was the dread in this English Memorialist of raising in the French Government any suspicion of cabal or conspiracy, by any sort of written intercourse with England.[68]

Nothing, therefore, at this time, can be drawn for these Memoirs from the letters of Dr. Burney: and every article or paragraph for the next two or three years, will be copied, or abridged, from the Doctor’s posthumous manuscripts.

1803.

In 1803, one short record alone has been found. That he wrote no more journal-anecdotes that year, may be chiefly attributed to his then intense application to the Cyclopedia. Perhaps, also, his spirits for his Diary might be depressed by so abrupt a privation of another daughter; not, indeed, by the hand of death, yet by a species of exile that had no certain or visible term.

The following is the single record of 1803 above-mentioned:

“Beethoven’s compositions for the piano-forte were first brought to England by Miss Tate, a most accomplished _dilletante_ singer and player. I soon afterwards heard some of his instrumental works, which are such as incline me to rank him amongst the first musical authors of the present century. He was a disciple of Mozart, and is now but three or four and twenty years of age.”

1804 turned out far more copious in events and recitals; though saddening, however philosophical and consonant to the common laws of nature, are the reflections and avowals of Dr. Burney upon his this year’s birth-day.

1804.

_From the Doctor’s Journal._

“In 1804, in the month of April, I completed my 78th year, and decided to relinquish teaching and my musical patients; for both my ears and my eyes were beginning to fail me. I could still hear the most minute musical tone; but in conversation I lost the articulation, and was forced to make people at the least distance from me repeat everything that they said. Sometimes the mere tone of voice, and the countenance of the speaker, told me whether I was to smile or to frown; but never so explicitly as to allow me to venture at any reply to what was said! Yet I never, seemingly, have been more _in fashion_ at any period of my life than this spring; never invited to more conversaziones, assemblées, dinners, and concerts. But I feel myself less and less able to bear a part in general conversation every day, from the failure of memory, particularly in names; and I am become fearful of beginning any story that occurs to me, lest I should be stopped short by hunting for Mr. How d’ye call him’s style and titles.

“I was very near-sighted from about my 30th year; but though it is usually thought that that sort of sight improves with age, I have not discovered that the notion was well founded. My sight became not only more short, but more feeble. Instead of a concave glass, I was forced to have recourse to one that was convex, and that magnified highly, for pale ink and small types.”

* * * * *

The Editor must here remark, that Dr. Burney never required the convex glass of which he speaks, for the perusal of either printed or written characters, except when they were presented to him at a distance. He read to his very last days every book and every letter that he could hold near to his eyes, without any species of spectacles.

* * * * *

“_30th April._ I finished this month by a cordial domestic dinner at Mr. Crewe’s; where, in the evening, was held the ambulatory ladies’ concert.”

In the month of the following May, a similar ebullition of political rancour with that which so difficultly had been conquered for Mr. Canning, foamed over the ballot box of the Literary Club to the exclusion of Mr. Rogers; by whom it was the less deserved, from its contrast to that poet’s own widely opposite liberality, in never suffering political opinions to shut out, either from his hospitality or his friendship, those who invite them by congenial sentiments on other points.

The ensuing page is copied from Dr. Burney’s own manuscript observations upon this occurrence:

“_May 1st._ I was at the Club, at which Rogers, put up by Courtney, and seconded by me, was ballotted for, and blackballed; I believe on account of his politics. There can, indeed, be nothing else against him. He is a good poet, has a refined taste in all the arts; has a select library of the best editions of the best authors in most languages; has very fine pictures; very fine drawings; and the finest collection I ever saw of the best Etruscan vases; and, moreover, he gives the best dinners to the best company of men of talents and genius of any man I know; the best served, and with the best wines, _liqueurs_, &c. He is not fond of talking politics, for he is no _Jacobin-enragé_, though I believe him to be a principled republican, and therefore in high favour with Mr. Fox and his adherents. But he is never obtrusive; and neither shuns nor dislikes a man for being of a different political creed to himself: it is therefore, that he and I, however we may dissent upon that point, concur so completely on almost every other, that we always meet with pleasure. And, in fact, he is much esteemed by many persons belonging to the government, and about the court. His books of prints of the greatest engravers from the greatest masters, in history, architecture, and antiquities, are of the first class. His house in St. James’s Place, looking into the Green Park, is deliciously situated, and furnished with great taste. He seemed very desirous of being elected a member of the club, to which, in fact, his talents would have done honour; few men are more fitted to contribute to its entertainment.”

The Doctor, long afterwards, in talking over this anecdote, said:

“There is no accounting for such gross injustice in the club; except by acknowledging that there are demagogues amongst them who enjoy as the highest privilege of an old member, the power of excluding, with or without reason, a new one.”

In the same month Dr. Burney had the professional gratification of receiving a perpetual ticket of admission to the Concerts of Ancient Music, enclosed in the following letter from the Earl of Dartmouth:

“_Berkeley Square,_ _May 27th._

“Lord Dartmouth is happy to have it in charge from his brother-Directors of the Ancient Concerts, to present the enclosed General Ticket to Dr. Burney; and to beg his acceptance of it as a token of their sense of his merits in the cause of Music; and especially that part of it which is more immediately the object of their attention: as well as of the respect in which they all hold his person and character.”

A copy of his thanks remains, written in a very fair hand, and on the same day:

“_To the Right Honourable the Earl of Dartmouth, Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty’s Household, and one of the Directors of the Concerts of Ancient Music._

“Dr. Burney presents his most humble respects to the Earl of Dartmouth, and to the rest of the Right Honourable and Honourable Directors of the Concerts of Ancient Music; and feels himself flattered beyond his powers of expression, with the liberal testimony of the esteem and approbation with which he has been honoured by the illustrious Patrons of an Establishment at the formation of which he had the honour to be present; and for its prosperity constantly zealous.

“So uncommon and unexpected a token of approbation of his exertions in the cultivation and cause of an art which he has long laboured, and still labours to improve, as well as to record its progress, and the talents of its Professors, from the time of Orpheus to that of Handel; will gild his latter days, and generate a flattering hope that his diligence and perseverance have been regarded in a more favourable light than, in his vainest moments, he had ever dared to hope or imagine.

“_Chelsea College,_ _27th May, 1804._”

* * * * *

Here stop all journals, all notes, all memorandums of Dr. Burney for the rest of this year. Not another word remains bearing its date.

The severest tax upon longevity that, apart from his parental ties, could be inflicted, was levied upon him at this time, by the heart-harrowing stroke of the death of Mr. Twining.

It was not merely now, in the full tide of sorrow, that Dr. Burney could neither speak nor write upon the loss of this last-elected bosom friend; it was a subject from which he shrunk ever after, both in conversation and by letter: it was a grief too concentrated for complaint: it demanded not a vent by which, with time, it might be solaced; but a crush by which, though only morbidly, it might be subdued: religion and philosophy might then lead, conjointly, to calm endurance.

And not alone, though from superior sorrow aloft, stood this deprivation. It was followed by other strokes of similar fatality, each of which, but for this pre-eminent calamity, would have proved of tragic effect: for he had successively to mourn, First, the favourite the most highly prized by his deplored early partner, as well as by her successor; and who came nearest to his own feelings from the tender ties in which she had been entwined—Dolly Young; for so, to the last hour, she was called by those who had early known and loved her, from a certain caressing pleasure annexed to that youthful appellation, that seemed in unison with the genuine simplicity of her character.

Second, Mr. Coxe, the oldest and most attached of his associates from early life.

Third, Lord Macartney, a far newer connexion, but one whose lively intelligence, and generous kindness, cut off all necessity for the usual routine of time to fasten attachment. And with Lord Macartney, from the retired life which his Lordship generally led after his embassy to China, the Doctor’s intercourse had become more than ever amical. This, therefore, was a loss to his spirits and exertions, as well as to his affections, which he felt with strong regret.

Fourth, that distinguished lady whose solid worth and faithful friendship compensated for manners the most uncouth, and language the most unpolished,—Lady Mary Duncan.

Fifth, the celebrated Elizabeth Carter; in whom he missed an admiring as well as an admired friend, the honour of whose attachment both for him and for his daughter, is recorded by her nephew, Mr. Pennington, in her Memoirs.

The Doctor truly revered in Mrs. Carter the rare union of humility with learning, and of piety with cheerfulness. He frequently, and always with pleasure, conveyed her to or from her home, when they visited the same parties; and always enjoyed those opportunities in comparing notes with her, on such topics as were not light enough for the large or mixed companies which they were just seeking, or had just left: topics, however, which they always treated with simplicity; for Mrs. Carter, though natively more serious, and habitually more studious than Dr. Burney, was as free from pedantry as himself.

By temperance of life and conduct, activity of body, and equanimity of mind, she nearly reached her 90th year in such health and strength as to be able to make morning calls upon her favourite friends, without carriage, companion, or servant. And with all her modest humility upon her personal acquirements, she had a dignified pride of independence, that invested her with the good sense to feel rather exalted than ashamed, at owing her powers of going forth to her own unaided self-exertion.

And Sixth, the man who, once the most accomplished of his race, had for half his life loved the Doctor with even passionate regard—Mr. Greville.

All these sad, and truly saddening catastrophes were unknown, in their succession, to the Memorialist; whom they only reached in the aggregate of their loss, when, after a long, unexplained, and ill-boding silence, Dr. Burney imposed upon himself the hard task of announcing the irremediable affliction he had sustained through these reiterated and awful visitations of death. And then, to spare his worn and harassed sensibility any development of his feelings, he thus summed up the melancholy list in one short paragraph:

“Time,” he says, “has made sad havoc amongst my dearest friends of late——Twining!——Dolly Young; Mr. Coxe; Lord Macartney; Lady Mary Duncan;—poor Elizabeth Carter a few months ago;—Mr. Greville only a few weeks!”

And, kindly, then to lighten the grief he knew he must inflict by a catalogue that included Mr. Twining and Dolly Young, he hastens to add:

“Mr., Mrs., and Miss[69] Locke, however; Mrs. Angerstein; Mrs. Crewe; Miss Cambridge; Mrs. Garrick; Lady Templetown; Lady Keith, _ci-devant_ Miss Thrale; the Marchioness of Thomond, _ci-devant_ Miss Palmer; Mrs. Waddington; and many more of your most faithful votaries, still live, and never see me without urgent inquiries after you. Your dear Mrs. Locke, who has had a dreadful fit of illness, and losses enough to break so tender a heart, is perfectly recovered at last; and, I am told, is as well, and as sweet and endearing a character to her friends as ever.”

He then permits himself to go back to one parting phrase:

“But though, in spite of age and infirmities, I have lately more than doubled the number of friends I have lost—the niches of those above-mentioned can never be filled!”

From this time he reverted to them no more.

Of his ancient and long-attached friend, Mr. Greville, little and merely melancholy is what now can be added. His death was rather a shock than a loss; but it considerably disturbed the Doctor. Mr. Greville had gone on in his metaphysical career, fatiguing his spirits, harassing his understanding, and consuming the time of his friends nearly as much as his own, till, one by one, each of them eluded him as a foe. How could it be otherwise, when the least dissonance upon any point upon which he opened a controversial disquisition, so disordered his nervous system, that he could take no rest till he had re-stated all his arguments in an elaborate, and commonly sarcastic epistle? which necessarily provoked a paper war, so prolific of dispute, that, if the adversary had not regularly broken up the correspondence after the first week or two, it must have terminated by consuming the stores of every stationer in London.

His wrath upon such desertions was too scornful for any appeal. Yet so powerful was still the remembrance of his brilliant opening into life, and of his many fine qualities, that his loss to society was never mentioned without regret, either by those who abandoned him, or by those whom he discarded.

Dr. Burney was one of the last, from the peculiarity of their intercourse, to have given it up, had it not been, he declared, necessary to have had two lives for sustaining it without hostility; one of them for himself, his family, and his life’s purposes; the other wholly for Mr. Greville;—who never could be content with any competition against his personal claims to the monopoly of the time and the thoughts of his friends.

Yet whatever may have disturbed, nothing seems to have shortened his existence, since, though nearly alienated from his family, estranged from his connexions, and morbidly at war with the world, the closing scene of all his gaieties and all his failures, did not shut in till some time after his 90th year.

* * * * *

Lady Mary Duncan bequeathed to Dr. Burney the whole of her great and curious collection of Music, printed and manuscript, with £600.

PACCHIEROTTI.

Upon the death of this liberal and honourable old friend, the Doctor re-opened a correspondence with his faithful and most deservedly cherished favourite, Pacchierotti, which the difficulties of communication from the irruption of Buonaparte into Italy, had latterly impeded, though not broken.

The answer of Pacchierotti to the account of his loss of this his earliest and greatest benefactress in England, was replete with the lamentation and sorrow to which his susceptible heart was a prey, upon every species of affliction that assailed either himself or those to whom he was attached; and for Lady Mary, his gratitude and regard were the most devoted; for though he saw, with keen perception, her singularities, he had too much sense to let them outweigh in his estimation her benevolence, and her many good qualities.

He knew, also, for she published it dauntlessly to the world, with what energy she admired him; and he suffered not his gratitude to lose any of its respect from the ridicule which he saw excited when they appeared together in public; though frequently and anxiously he wished and sought to withdraw from the general gaze which her notice of him attracted. And he often spoke with serious simplicity of concern to Dr. Burney, of the mannish air, and stride, and mien, with which she would defyingly turn short upon any under-bred scoffer, who looked at her with vulgar curiosity, when he had the honour to accompany her on the public walks. And once, in the zeal of his attachment, upon her asking him, in her abrupt manner, to tell her, unreservedly, what he thought of her; he took hold, he said, of that affable inquisition to frankly, in his peculiar English, answer: “Why, madam, if I must, to be sincere,—I think your ladyship is rather too much of the masculine.”

“No?—you don’t say so?” cried she, with the utmost surprise, but without taking the smallest offence. “And I am of the opinion,” added Pacchierotti, in relating the anecdote to Dr. Burney, “that she was not at all of my advice in that observation; for she ever thinks she does nothing but the common; though certainly it is of the other nature; for it must to be confessed, that, with all her goodness, she is not one of the literature.”

The letter upon the information of Lady Mary’s death, is the last from Pacchierotti that is preserved in the collection of the Doctor; and, probably, the last that was received; for the troubles of Italy made all commerce with it dangerous, save for those who could write with unqualified approbation of _the powers that were_, be they of what class they might.

Not such was the correspondence of Dr. Burney with Pacchierotti. They each wrote with the freedom of sincerity, and the kindness of sympathy, upon every subject, mental, literary, or political, that occurred to them: and while Pacchierotti could bemoan without danger the invasion and oppression of his country, it was soothing to his disturbance to deposit his apprehensions with so wise a friend: while to Dr. Burney it was a real pleasure to keep alive an intercourse so full of endearing recollections. Nevertheless, from the year 1808, the correspondence was wholly cut off by political dangers.

Amongst the few remaining persons to whom Pacchierotti may still from memory, not tradition, be known, there are none, probably, who will not hear with satisfaction, that he finished his long career in the serene enjoyment of well-merited, and elaborately-earned independence. Modestly, and wisely, he had retired from the instability of popular favour, and the uncertainty of public remuneration, while yet his fame was at its height; sparing thus his sensitive mind from the dangers of caprice, inconstancy, jealousy, or neglect. His residence was at Padua; his dwelling was a palazza, elegantly furnished, and rendered a delicious abode to him by spacious and beautiful gardens.

He lived to the year 1824, and was some time past eighty when he expired.[70]

1805.

Fortunately for Dr. Burney, another year was not permitted wholly to wane away, ere circumstances occurred of so much movement and interest, that they operated like a species of amnesty upon the sufferings of the year just gone by; and enabled him to pass over submissively his heavy privations; and, once again, to go cheerfully on in life with what yet remained for contentment.

The chief mover to this practical philosophy was the indefatigable Mrs. Crewe; who by degrees, skilful and kind, so lured him from mourning and retirement to gratitude and society, that his seclusion insensibly ended by enlisting him in more diffuse social entertainments, than any in which he had heretofore mixed.

His accepted dinner appointments of this time, enroll in his pocket-book the following names—

Mrs. Crewe Mr. Windham Mr. Rogers Mr. Malone Mr. Courtney Sir Joseph Bankes Lady Salisbury Duke and Duchess of Leeds Duke of Portland Marquis of Aylesbury Lord and Lady Lonsdale Lord and Lady Bruce Marquis and Marchioness Thomond Lady Melbourne Sir Geo. and Lady Beaumont Lady Manvers Lady Cork Bishop of Winchester Mr. Wilbraham Miss Shepley Mr. Angerstein Mrs. Ord Mrs. Waddington Mr. Hammersley Mr. Thompson Mr. Walker And the Right Hon. George Canning.

He rarely missed the Concert of Ancient Music.

He generally dined at the appointed meetings of THE Club; where he has peculiarly noted a still brilliant assemblage, in naming

Earl Spencer Sir Joseph Bankes Sir William Scott[71] The Dean of Westminster The Master of the Rolls Mr. Ellis Mr. Marsden Mr. Frere Dr. Lawrence Mr. Malone Mr. Windham Mr. Canning And Charles Fox in the Chair.

But the climax of these convivial honours was dining with his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.[72]

Of this, as it will appear, he wrote largely, with intention to be copied precisely.

And about this time, Dr. Burney received a splendid mark of filial devotion to which he was truly sensible, and of which—who shall wonder?—he was justly proud, from his son Dr. Charles.

This was a request to possess the Doctor’s bust in marble.

Such a wish was, of course, frankly acceded to; and Nollekens was the sculptor fixed upon for its execution; not only from the deserved height to which the fame of that artist had risen, but from old regard to the man, which the Doctor always believed to be faithfully and gratefully returned; conceiving him, though under-bred and illiterate, to be honest and worthy; yet frequently remarking how strikingly he exemplified the caprice, or locality, of taste, as well as of genius, which in one point could be truly refined, while in every other it was wanting.

Thirty casts of this bust, for family, friends, or favourites, were taken off; and the first of them Dr. Charles had the honour of laying at the feet of the Prince of Wales: who, when next he saw Dr. Burney, smilingly said: “I have got your bust, Dr. Burney, and I’ll put it on my organ. I got it on purpose. I shall place it there instead of Handel.”

In the month of May, 1805, Dr. Burney, through a private hand, re-opened, after a twelvemonth’s mournful silence, his correspondence with his absent daughter, by the following kind and cheering, though brief and politically cautious lines:

“TO MADAME D’ARBLAY.

“_Chelsea College, May, 1805._

“My dear Fanny,

“The notice I received of our good friend, Miss Sayr’s,[73] departure for the continent, has been communicated to me so short a time before its taking place, that I am merely able to give you _signe de vie_; and tell you that, cough excepted, I am in tolerable health, for an _octogenaire_; with the usual infirmities in eyes, ears, and memory.

“God bless you, my dear daughter. Give my kindest love to our dear M. d’Arblay, and to little Alexander.

“Your ever affectionate father, “CHAS. BURNEY.

“As blind as a beetle, as deaf as a post, Whose longevity now is all he can boast.”

The following is a paragraph of another letter to Paris, written about the same time, but conveyed by another private hand: