Part 2

Mademoiselle Paradis, a young German, equally distinguished by her talents and her misfortunes, was strongly recommended to the Doctor, by his Vienna correspondents, as an object at once of admiration and of charity.

When only two years old, she had been suddenly deprived of sight by a paralytic stroke, or palsy of the optic nerves. Great compassion was excited by this calamity; and every method was essayed that could be devised for restoring to her the visible light of heaven, with the fair view of earth and her fellow creatures; but all was unavailing. At seven years of age, however, she began to listen with such ardent attention to the music that she heard in the church, that it suggested to her parents the idea of having her taught to play on the piano-forte; and, soon afterwards, to sing. In three or four years time, she was able to accompany herself on the organ in the _stabat mater_ of Pergolese; of which she sung the first soprano part in the church of St. Augustin, at Vienna, in the presence of the Empress Queen, Maria Theresa, with such sweetness and pathos, that her Imperial Majesty, touched with her performance and misfortune, settled upon her a handsome pension.

She then pursued her musical studies under the care of Kozeluch; who composed many admirable lessons for her use. But, on the death of the Empress Queen, the pension of Mademoiselle Paradis was withdrawn, indiscriminately, and inconsiderately, as it was a charity, with all other pensions that had been granted by her Imperial Majesty.

In 1784, Mademoiselle Paradis quitted Vienna, with her mother, in order to travel; and, after visiting the principal courts and cities of Germany, she arrived at Paris, where she received every possible mark of approbation. She then brought letters to England from persons of the first rank, to her Majesty, Queen Charlotte; to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales;[4] to the Imperial Minister, Count Kageneck; to Lord Stormont;[5] and to other powerful patrons; as well as to the principal musical professors in London.

Dr. Burney exerted all his influence to obtain for her some new benefactors. He invited her to his house, where he gave a concert that caused her to be heard and seen by those who were best able to aid as well as judge: and to render this concert the more piquant, he asked to it our own celebrated blind musician, the worthy Mr. Stanley; who was extremely pleased to meet her, and took great interest in her fate.

Dr. Burney translated, or rather imitated, into English, a cantata that had been written by her own blind countryman and friend, M. Pfeffel of Vienna; and set to music by her master, M. Kozeluch. This cantata contains a poetical, yet faithful history of her life and sorrows; and could not but prove affecting to whoever heard it performed by herself.

Dr. Burney took measures for having this narratory effusion set before our Queen Charlotte, both in its vernacular and its adopted tongue; and her Majesty, to whom charity never supplicated in vain, humanely cheered and revived the blind minstrel with essential tokens of royal liberality. No efforts, however, succeeded in forming any establishment for her in London; though there is reason to believe that the state of her finances was considerably amended by her expedition.

The following is the simple and plaintive cantata, which, with a brief account of her life and situation, Dr. Burney printed and dispersed, at his own expense, in her service.

CANTATA.

_Written in German for Mademoiselle Paradis, by her blind friend M. Pfeffel, of Colmar, and set to music by her musicmaster, M. Leopold Kozeluch, of Vienna, 11th November, 1784._

IMITATED BY DR. BURNEY.

“The new born insect sporting in the sun, Is the true semblance of my infant state, When ev’ry prize for which life’s race is run Was hidden from me by malignant fate.

“Instant destruction quench’d each visual ray, No mother’s tears, no objects were reveal’d! Extinguish’d was the glorious lamp of day, And ev’ry work of God at once conceal’d!

“Where am I plunged? with trembling voice I cried, Ah! why this premature, this sudden night! What from my view a parent’s looks can hide, Those looks more cheering than celestial light!

“Vain are affliction’s sobs, or piercing cries; The fatal mischief baffles all relief! The healing art no succour can devise, Nor balm extract from briny tears and grief!

“How should I wander through the gloomy maze, Or hear the black monotony of woe, Did not maternal kindness gild my days, And guide my devious footsteps to and fro!

“Upon a festival designed To praise the Father of mankind, When joining in the lofty theme, I tried to hymn the great Supreme, A rustling sound of wings I hear, Follow’d by accents sweet and clear, Such as from inspiration flow When Haydn’s fire and fancy glow.

“‘I am the genius of that gentle art Which soothes the sorrows of mankind, And to my faithful votaries impart Extatic joys the most refin’d.

“‘On earth, each bard sublime my power displays; Divine Cecilia was my own; In heav’n each saint and seraph breathes my lays In praises round th’ eternal throne.

“‘To thee, afflicted maid, I come with friendly aid, To put despair to flight, And cheer thy endless night.’

“Then, gently leading to the new-made lyre, He plac’d my fingers on the speaking keys; ‘With these (he cries) thou listening crowds shalt fire, And rapture teach on every heart to seize.’

“Elastic force my nerves new brac’d, And from my voice new accents flow; My soul new pleasures learn’d to taste, And sound’s sweet power alleviates woe.

“Theresa! great in goodness as in power, Whose fav’rite use of boundless sway, Was benefits on all to shower, And wipe the tear of wretchedness away;

“When first my hand and voice essay’d, Sweet Pergolesi’s pious strains, Her pitying goodness she displayed, To cherish and reward my pains.

“But now, alas! this friend to woe, This benefactress is no more! And though my eyes no light bestow They’ll long with tears her loss deplore!

“Yet still where’er my footsteps bend, My helpless state has found a friend.

“How sweet the pity of the good! How grateful is their praise! How every sorrow is subdued, When they applaud my lays!

“The illustrious patrons I have found, Whose approbation warms my heart, Excite a wish that every sound Seraphic rapture could impart.

“The wreathes my feeble talents share, The balmy solace friends employ, Lifting the soul above despair, Convert calamity to joy.”

HOUSE-BREAKING.

In this same spring, a very serious misfortune befel Dr. Burney, which, though not of the affecting cast that had lately tainted his happiness, severely attacked his worldly comforts.

Early one morning, and before he was risen, Mrs. Burney’s maid, rushing vehemently into the bedroom, screamed out: “Oh, Sir! Robbers! Robbers! the house is broke open!”

A wrapping gown and slippers brought the Doctor down stairs in a moment; when he found that the bureau of Mrs. Burney, in the dining parlour, had been forced open; and saw upon the table three packets of mingled gold and silver, which seemed to have been put into three divisions for a triple booty; but which were left, it was supposed, upon some sudden alarm, while the robbers were in the act of distribution.

After securing and rejoicing in what so fortunately had been saved from seizure, Dr. Burney repaired to his study; but no abandoned pillage met his gratulations there! his own bureau had been visited with equal rapacity, though left with less precipitancy; and he soon discovered that he had been purloined of upwards of £300.

He sent instantly for an officer of the Police, who unhesitatingly pronounced that the leader, at least, of the burglary, must have been a former domestic; this was decided, from remarking that he had gone straight forward to the two bureaus, which were the only depositories of money; while sundry cabinets and commodes, to the right and to the left, had been passed unransacked.

The entrance into the house had been effected through the area; and a kitchen window was still open, at the foot of which, upon the sand on the floor, the print of a man’s shoe was so perfect, that the police-officer drew its circumference with great exactitude; picking up, at the same time, a button that had been squeezed off from a coat, by the forced passage.

Dr. Burney had recently parted with a man-servant of whom he had much reason to think ill, though none had occurred to make him believed a house-breaker. This man was immediately inquired for; but he had quitted the lodgings to which he had retired upon losing his place; and had acquainted no one whither he was gone.

The officers of the police, however, with their usual ferretting routine of dexterity, soon traced the suspected runaway to Hastings; where he had arrived to embark in a fishing vessel for France; but he had found none ready, and was waiting for a fair wind.

When the police-officer, having intimation that he was gone to an inn for some refreshment, entered the kitchen where he was taking some bread and cheese, he got up so softly, while the officer, not to alarm him, had turned round to give some directions to a waiter, that he slid unheard out of the kitchen by an opposite door: and, quickly as the officer missed him, he was sought for in vain; not a trace of his footsteps was to be seen; though the inward guilt manifested by such an evasion redoubled the vigilance of pursuit.

The fugitive was soon, however, discerned, on the top of a high brick wall, running along its edge in the midst of the most frightful danger, with a courage that, in any better cause, would have been worthy of admiration.

The policeman, now, composedly left him to his race and his defeat; satisfied that no asylum awaited him at the end of the wall, and that he must thence drop, without further resistance, into captivity.

Cruel for Dr. Burney is what remains of this narration: the runaway was seized, and brought to the public office, where a true bill was found for his trial, as he could give no reason for his flight; and as the button picked up in the area exactly suited a wanting one in a coat discovered to be in his possession. His shoe, also, precisely fitted the drawing on the kitchen floor. But though this circumstantial evidence was so strong as to bring to all the magistrates a conviction of his guilt that they scrupled not to avow, it was only circumstantial; it was not positive. He had taken nothing but cash; a single bank note might have been brought home to him with proof; but to coin, who could swear? The magistrates, therefore, were compelled to discharge, though they would not utter the word acquit, the prisoner; and the Doctor had the mortification to witness in the court the repayment of upwards of fifty guineas to the felon, that had been found upon him at Hastings. The rest of the three hundred pounds must have been secured by the accomplices; or buried in some place of concealment.

But Dr. Burney, however aggrieved and injured by this affair, was always foremost to subscribe to the liberal maxim of the law, that it is better to acquit ten criminals, than to condemn one innocent man. He resigned himself, therefore, submissively, however little pleased, to the laws of his noble country, ever ready to consider, like Pope,

“All partial evil universal good.”

* * * * *

Would it be just, could it be right, to leave unqualified to the grief of his friends, and to the rage of the murmurers against destiny, a blight such as this to the industry and the welfare of Dr. Burney; and not seek to soften the concern of the kind, and not aim at mitigating the asperity of the declaimers, by opening a fairer point of view for the termination of this event, if fact and fair reality can supply colours for so revivifying a change of scenery?

Surely such a retention, if not exacted by discretion or delicacy, would be graceless. A secret, therefore, of more than forty-seven years’ standing, and known at this moment to no living being but this Memorialist, ought now, in honour, in justice, and in gratitude, to be laid open to the surviving friends of Dr. Burney.

About a month after this treacherous depredation had filled the Doctor and his house with dismay, a lady of high rank, fortune, and independence, well known in the family, mysteriously summoned this Memorialist to a private room, for a _tête à tête_, in St. Martin’s-street.

As soon as they were alone, she scrutinizingly examined that no one was within hearing on the other side of either of the doors leading into the apartment; and then solemnly said that she came to demand a little secret service.

The Memorialist protested herself most ready to meet her request; but that was insufficient: the lady insisted upon a formal and positive promise, that what she should ask should be done; yet that her name in the transaction should never be divulged.

There seemed something so little reasonable in a desire for so unqualified an engagement upon a subject unknown, that the Memorialist, disturbed, hesitated and hung back.

The lady was palpably hurt; and, dropping a low curtsey, with a supercilious half smile, and a brief, but civil, “Good morrow, ma’am!” was proudly stalking out of the room; when, shocked to offend her, the Memorialist besought her patience; and then frankly asked, how she could promise what she was in the dark whether she could perform?

The lady, unbending her furrowed brow, replied, “I’ll tell you how, ma’am: you must either say, I believe you to be an honest woman, and I’ll trust you; or, I believe you to be no better than you should be, and I’ll have nothing to do with you.”

An alternative such as this could hardly be called an alternative: the promise was given.

The smile now of pleasure, almost of triumph, that succeeded to that of satire, which had almost amounted to scorn, nearly recompenced the hazarded trust; which, soon afterwards, was even more than repaid by the sincerest admiration.

The lady, taking a thick letter-case from a capacious and well-furnished part of the female habiliment of other days, yclept a pocket, produced a small parcel, and said, “Do me the favour, Ma’am, to slip this trifle into the Doctor’s bureau the first time you see him open it; and just say, ‘Sir, this is bank notes for three hundred pounds, instead of what that rogue robbed you of. But you must ask no questions; and you must not stare, Sir, for it’s from a friend that will never be known. So don’t be over curious; for it’s a friend who will never take it back, if you fret yourself to the bone. So please, Sir, to do what you please with it. Either use it, or put it behind the fire, whichever you think the most sensible.’ And then, if he should say, ‘Pray, Miss, who gave you that impertinent message for me?’ you will get into no jeopardy, for you can answer that you are bound head and foot to hold your tongue; and then, being a man of honour, he will hold his. Don’t you think so, Ma’am?”

The Memorialist, heartily laughing, but in great perturbation lest the Doctor should be hurt or displeased, would fain have resisted this commission; but the lady, peremptorily saying a promise was a promise, which no person under a vagabond; but more especially a person of honour, writing books, could break, would listen to no appeal.

She had been, she protested, on the point of _non compos_ ever since that rogue had played the Doctor such a knavish trick, as picking his bureau to get at his cash; in thinking how much richer she, who had neither child nor chick, nor any particular great talents, was than she ought to be; while a man who was so much a greater scholar, and with such a fry of young ones at his heels, all of them such a set of geniuses, was suddenly made so much poorer, for no offence, only that rogue’s knavishness. And she could not get back into her right senses upon the accident, she said, till she had hit upon this scheme: for knowing Dr. Burney to be a very punctilious man, like most of the book-writers, who were always rather odd, she was aware she could not make him accept such a thing in a quiet way, however it might be his due in conscience; only by some cunning device that he could not get the better of.

Expostulation was vain; and the matter was arranged exactly according to her injunctions.

Ultimately, however, when the deed was so confirmed as to be irrevocable, the Memorialist obtained her leave to make known its author; though under the most absolute charge of secrecy for all around; which was strictly observed; notwithstanding all the resistance of the astonished Doctor, whom she forbade ever to name it, either to herself, she said, or Co., under pain of never speaking to him again.

All peculiar obstacles, however, having now passed away, justice seems to demand the recital of this extraordinary little anecdote in the history of Dr. Burney.

Those who still remember a daughter of the Earl of Thanet, who was widow of Sir William Duncan, will recognize, without difficulty, in this narration, the generosity, spirit, and good humour, with the uncultivated, ungrammatical, and incoherent dialect; and the comic, but arbitrary manner; of the indescribably diverting and grotesque, though munificent and nobly liberal, Lady Mary Duncan.

* * * * *

MRS. VESEY.

The singular, and, in another way, equally quaint and original, as well as truly Irish, Mrs. Vesey, no sooner heard of Dr. Burney’s misfortune, than she sent for an ingenious carpenter, to whom she communicated a desire to have a private drawer constructed in a private apartment, for the concealment and preservation of her cash from any fraudulent servant.

Accordingly, within the wainscot of her dressing room, this was effected; and, when done, she rang for her principal domestics; and, after recounting to them the great evil that had happened to poor Dr. Burney; and bemoaning that he had not taken a similar precaution, she charged them, in a low voice, never to touch such a part of the wall, lest they should press upon the spring of the private drawer, in which she was going to hide her gold and bank notes.

MRS. PHILLIPS.

A beam, however, of softest bosom happiness, soon after this disaster, lightened, almost dispersed, the cares of Dr. Burney. His Susanna, called back, with her husband and family, to England, by some change of affairs, suddenly returned from Boulogne—and returned beyond expectation, beyond probability, beyond all things earthly, save Hope—if Hope, indeed,—that sun-mark of all which lights on to futurity! can be denominated earthly—recruited in health, and restored to his wishes, as well as to his arms, and to her country and her friends. So small a change of climate had been salubrious, and in so short a space of time had proved renovating.

This smiling and propitious event, happily led the Doctor to yet further acquaintance with the incomparable Mr. Locke and his family; as the recovered invalid was now settled, with her husband and children, in the picturesque village of Mickleham, just at the foot of Norbury Park; and within reach of the habitual enjoyment of its exquisite society.

* * * * *

MADAME DE GENLIS.

In the summer of this year, 1785, came over from France the celebrated Comtesse de Genlis. Dr. Burney and his second daughter were almost immediately invited, at the express desire of the Countess, to meet, and pass a day with her, at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds. His niece, Miss Palmer,[6] Sir Abraham and Lady Hume, Lord Palmerston, and some others, were of the party.

Madame de Genlis must then have been about thirty-five years of age; but the whole of her appearance was nearly ten years younger. Her face, without positive beauty, had the most winning agreeability; her figure was remarkably elegant, her attire was chastly simple: her air was reserved, and her demeanour was dignified. Her language had the same flowing perspicuity, and animated variety, by which it is marked in the best of her works; and her discourse was full of intelligence, yet wholly free from presumption or obtrusion. Dr. Burney was forcibly struck with her, and his daughter was enchanted.

Almost as numerous as her works, and almost as diversified, were the characters which had preceded this celebrated lady to England. None, however, of the calumnious sort had reached the ears of the Doctor previously to this meeting; and though some had buzzed about these of the Memorialist, they were vague; and she had willingly, from the charm of such superior talents, believed them unfounded; even before the witchery of personal partiality drove them wholly from the field: for from her sight, her manners, and her conversation, not an idea could elicit that was not instinctively in her favour.

Unconstrained, therefore, was the impulsive regard with which this illustrious foreigner inspired both; and which, gently, but pointedly, it was her evident aim to increase. She made a visit the next day to the Memorialist, whose society she sought with a flattering earnestness and a spirited grace that, coupled with her rare attractions, made a straightforward and most animating conquest of her charmed votary.

Madame de Genlis had already been at Windsor, where, through the medium of Madame de la Fìte, she had been honoured with a private audience of the Queen: and the energetic respect with which she spoke of her Majesty, was one of the strongest incentives to the loyal heart of Dr. Burney for encouraging this rising connexion.

Madame de Genlis had presented, she said, to the Queen the sacred dramas which she had dedicated to her Serene Highness the Duchess of Orleans; adding, that she had brought over only two copies of that work, of which the second was destined for _Mademoiselle Burney!_ to whom, with a billet of elegance nearly heightened into expressions of friendship, it was shortly conveyed.

The Memorialist was at a loss how to make acknowledgments for this obliging offering, as she would have held any return in kind to savour rather of vanity than of gratitude. Dr. Burney, however, relieved her embarrassment, by permitting her to be the bearer of his own History of Music, as far as it had then been published. This Madame de Genlis received with infinite grace and pleasure; for while capable of treating luminously almost every subject that occurred, she had an air, a look, a smile, that gave consequence, transiently, to every thing she said or did.

She had then by her side, and fondly under her wing, a little girl whom she called Pamela,[7] who was most attractively lovely, and whom she had imbibed with a species of enthusiasm for the Memorialist, so potent and so eccentric, that when, during the visit at Sir Joshua Reynolds’, Madame de Genlis said, “_Pamela, voilà Mademoiselle Burney!_” the animated little person rushed hastily forward, and prostrated herself upon one knee before the astonished, almost confounded object of her notice; who, though covered with a confusion half distressing, half ridiculous, observed in every motion and attitude of the really enchanting little creature, a picturesque beauty of effect, and a magic allurement in her fine cast up eyes, that she could not but wish to see perpetuated by Sir Joshua.