Part 9

“Then, rising, somewhat moved, he turned suddenly towards me, and repeated—‘’Tis this,—and this alone, could have made ME lend MY shoulders to courts and to kings!’ Here he hastily broke up the subject, and joined Mrs. Crewe; as everybody else had already done, except Mr. Elliot; who had stood silent and fixed and tall, looking all the time in one hard stare at Mr. Burke and a certain sister of yours, with a sort of dry, but insatiable curiosity. I attribute it to his so often seeing Mr. Windham, with whom he is very intimate, converse with me at the trial. But whether he was pleased or displeased is all in his own bosom, as he never either smiled or frowned. He only stood erect and attentive. It was so odd, I could sometimes hardly keep my countenance; for there was nothing bold nor rude in his look: it was merely queer and curious.

“My dear father immediately followed Mr. Burke; as I, if I had not been ashamed, should have done too! for when Mr. Burke is himself—that is, in spirits, but not in a rage, there is no turning from him to any thing or any one else! and my father, who goes all lengths with him on the French Revolution, was here, what I was at Sir Joshua Reynolds’, a ‘rapt enthusiast!’

“At dinner, Mr. Burke sat next to Mrs. Crewe; and I, my dear Susan, had the happiness to be seated next to Mr. Burke!—and that by his own smiling arrangement! My other neighbour was his amiable son, in whom, to my great satisfaction, all strangeness now subsided. Whether, generously, he forgave my adherence to Mr. Hastings; or whether his chagrin at it insensibly wore off from the very nature of things, I know not. But it is at least as clear as it is amiable, that he never had troubled his father or mother with what he must have deemed my delinquency. They could not else have honoured me with such unabating distinction.

“The dinner, and, far more, when the servants were dismissed, the dessert, were delightful. How I wish my dear Susanna and Fredy[28] could meet this wonderful man when he is easy, happy, and with people he cordially likes! But politics, even then, and even on his own side, must always be excluded! His irritability is so terrible upon politics, that they are no sooner the topic of discourse, than they cast upon his face the expression of a man who is going to defend himself against murderers!

“I must now give you such little detached traits as I can recollect.

“Charles Fox being mentioned, Mrs. Crewe told us that lately, upon his being shewn a passage upon some subject that, erst, he had warmly opposed, in Mr. Burke’s Book, but which, in the event, had made its own justification, very candidly said: ‘Well, Burke is right!—but Burke is often right—only he is right _too soon_!’

“‘Had Fox seen some things in that book,’ answered Mr. Burke, ‘_as_ soon, he would at this moment, in all probability, be first Minister of this country.’

“‘What!’ cried Mrs. Crewe, ‘with Pitt? No, No!—Pitt won’t go out; and Charles Fox will never make a coalition with Pitt.’

“‘And why not?’ said Mr. Burke, drily, almost severely; ‘why not that Coalition, as well as other Coalitions?’

“Nobody tried to answer this! The remembrance of Mr. Fox with Lord North, Mr. Pitt with Lord Rockingham, &c., rose too forcibly to every mind; and Mrs. Crewe looked abashed.[29]

“‘Charles Fox, however,’ said Mr. Burke, after this pause, ‘can never, internally, like _this_ French Revolution. He is’—he stopped for a word, and then added, ‘entangled!—but, in himself, if he could find no other objection to it, he has, at least, too much _taste_ for such a Revolution.’

“Mr. Elliot then related that he had recently been in company with some of the first and most distinguished men of the French nation, now fugitives here, and had asked them some questions concerning the new French ministry; but they had answered that they knew not one of them, even by name! ‘Think,’ said he, ‘what a ministry that must be! Suppose a new administration were formed here of _English_ men, of whom we had never before heard the names? What statesmen must they be! How prepared and fitted for government? To begin being known by being at the Helm!’

“Mr. Richard Burke then narrated, very comically, various censures that had reached his ears upon his brother, concerning his last and most popular work; accusing him of being the _Abettor of Despots_, because he had been shocked at the imprisonment of the King of France! and the _Friend of Slavery_, because he was anxious to preserve our own limited monarchy in the same state in which it so long had flourished!

“Mr. Burke had looked half alarmed at his brother’s opening, not knowing, I presume, whither his odd fancy might lead him; but, when he had finished, and so inoffensively, and a general laugh that was excited was over, he—THE Burke—good-humouredly turning to me, and pouring out a glass of wine, cried: ‘Come, then, Miss Burney! here’s _Slavery for ever_!’

“This was well understood, and echoed round the table.

“‘This would do for you completely, Mr. Burke,’ cried Mrs. Crewe, laughing, ‘if it could but get into a newspaper! Mr. Burke, they would say, has now _spoken out_! The truth has come to light _over a bottle of wine_! and his real defection from the cause of true liberty is acknowledged! I should like,’ added she, laughing quite heartily, ‘to draw up the paragraph myself!’

“‘Pray then,’ said Mr. Burke, ‘complete it by putting in, that the toast was addressed to Miss Burney!—in order to pay my court to the Queen!’

“This sport went on, till, upon Mr. Elliot’s again mentioning France, and the rising Jacobins, Mr. Richard Burke, filling himself a bumper, and flourishing his left hand, whilst preparing with his right to toss it off, cried, ‘Come! here’s confusion to confusion!’

“Mr. Windham being mentioned, I was gratified by the warmth with which Mr. Burke returns his attachment; for upon Mr. Elliot’s speaking with regret of Mr. Windham’s being so thin, Mr. Burke exclaimed: ‘He is just as he should be! If I were Windham this minute, I should not wish to be thinner nor fatter, nor taller nor shorter, nor in any way, nor in any thing, altered.’

“A little after, speaking of former times, you may believe how I was struck, nay, how enchanted, to hear Mr. Burke say to Mrs. Crewe: ‘I wish you had known Mrs. Delany! She was a perfect pattern of a _perfect_ fine lady; a _real_ fine lady of other days. Her manners were faultless; her deportment was of marked elegance; her speech was all sweetness; and her air and address were all dignity. I always looked up to Mrs. Delany, as the model of an accomplished gentlewoman of former times.’

“Do you think I could hear this testimony to the worth of my revered and beloved departed friend unmoved?

“When, afterwards, we females were joined by the gentlemen at tea, Mr. Richard Burke, crossing hastily over to me, cried, in a loud whisper, almost in my ear: ‘Miss Burney! prune your plumes!—allow me to say, I never was so glad in my life as I am to see you in the world again! Prune your plumes, we all conjure you!—Prune your plumes! we are all expectation!’

“Our evening finished more curiously than desirably, by a junction that robbed us of the conversation of Mr. Burke. This was the entrance of Lord Loughborough and of Mr.[30] and Mrs. Erskine, who, having villas at Hampstead, and knowing nothing of Mrs. Crewe’s party, called in accidentally from a walk. If not accidentally, Mr. Erskine, at least, would probably have denied himself a visit that brought him into a coterie with Mr. Burke; who openly, in the House of Commons, not long since, upon being called by Mr. Erskine his Right Hon. Friend, sternly demanded of him, _whether he knew what Friendship meant_?

“From this time there was an evident disunion of cordiality in the party. My father, Mr. Elliot, Mr. Richard Burke, and young Burke, entered into some general discourse, in a separate group. Lord Loughborough joined Mrs. Burke. My new young partizan[31] sat with Miss Crewe and Miss Townshend; but the chair of Mrs. Erskine being next to mine, she immediately began talking to me as chattily and currently as if we had known each other all our lives.

“Mr. Erskine confined his attention exclusively to Mrs. Crewe. Mr. Burke, meanwhile, with a concentrated, but dignified air, walked away from them all, and threw himself on a settee at a distant part of the room. Here he picked up a book, which he opened by chance, and, to my great astonishment, began reading aloud! but not directing his face, voice, or attention to any of the company. On the contrary, he read with the careless freedom from effort or restraint that he might have done had he been alone: and merely aloud, because the book being in verse, he was willing to add the pleasure of sound to its sense. But what to me made this seem highly comic, as well as intrepidly singular, was that the work was French; and he read it not only with the English accent, but exactly as if the two nations had one pronunciation in common of the alphabet. It was a volume of Boileau, which he had opened at the famed and incomparable _Epître à son Jardinier_.

“Yet, while the delivery was so amusing, the tone, the meaning, the force he gave to every word, were so winning to my ears, that I should have listened to nothing else, if I had not unavoidably been engrossed by Mrs. Erskine; though from her, too, I was soon called off by a surprise and half alarm from her celebrated husband.

“Mr. Erskine had been enumerating, fastidiously, to Mrs. Crewe, his avocations, their varieties, and their excess; till, at length, he mentioned, very calmly, having a case to plead soon against Mr. Crewe, upon a manor business in Cheshire. Mrs. Crewe hastily interrupted him, with an air of some disturbance, to inquire what he meant? and what might ensue to Mr. Crewe? ‘O, nothing but losing the lordship of that spot;’ he coolly answered; ‘though I don’t know that it will be given against him. I only know, for certain, that _I_ shall have three hundred pounds for it!’

“Mrs. Crewe looked thoughtful; and Mr. Erskine then, finding he enjoyed not her whole attention, raised his voice, as well as his manner, and began to speak of the _New Association for Reform by the Friends of the People_; descanting in powerful, though rather ambiguous terms, upon the use they had thought fit, in that association, to make of his name; though he had never yet been to the society; and I began to understand that he meant to disavow it: but presently he added, ‘I don’t know—I am uncertain—whether ever I shall attend. I have so much to do—so little time—such interminable occupation! However, I don’t yet know—I am not decided; for the People must be supported!’

“‘Pray will you tell me,’ said Mrs. Crewe, coolly, ‘what you mean by _The People_? for I never know.’

“Whether she asked this with real innocence, or affected ignorance, I cannot tell; but he was evidently surprised by the question, and evaded any answer. Probably he thought he might as well avoid discussing such a point before _his friend_, Mr. Burke; who, he knew well, though _lying perdu_ from delicacy to Mrs. Crewe, would resistlessly be ready, upon the smallest provocation, to pounce with a hawk’s power and force upon his prey, in order to deliver a counter interpretation to whatever he, Mr. Erskine, might reply of who and what were meant by _the People_.

“I conjecture this from the suddenness with which Mr. Erskine, after this interrogatory, almost abruptly made his bow.

“Lord Loughborough instantly took his vacated seat on the sofa next to Mrs. Crewe; and presently, with much grave, but strong humour, recited a speech which Mr. Erskine had lately made at some public meeting, and which he had opened to this effect. ‘As to me, gentlemen, I trust I have some title to give my opinions freely. Would you know whence my title is derived? I challenge any man amongst you to inquire? If he ask my birth,—its genealogy may dispute with kings! If my wealth,— it is all for which I have time to hold out my hand! If my talents—No!—of those, gentlemen, I leave you to judge for yourselves!’

“When the party broke up, Mr. and Mrs. Burke joined in giving my dear father and me a most cordial invitation to Beaconsfield. How I should delight in its acceptance!

“We finished this charming day in a little trio of our three selves; when our dear ardent father indulged in a hearty laugh at the untoward question of Mrs. Crewe; and at its electrifying effect; declaring that he almost regretted that Mr. Burke had shown his fair hostess such punctilious deference, as not to start up at once with one of his Thunders of Reply, that might have elicited the Lightnings of Mr. Erskine, so as to have worked out, with the assistance of the arch sarcasms of Lord Loughborough, and the pithy remarks of Mr. Elliot, so tremendous a political storm as to have shaken her little dwelling to its foundation.

“This mock taste for fire and fury soon, you will easily believe, gave way to his genuine one for peace, literature, and elegance; and we concluded a short long evening by various select morsels of poetry, that my father read with his usual feeling and spirit; summing up the whole with Rogers’ Pleasures of Memory; from which we retired to rest, in very serene good-humour, I believe, with one another.”

* * * * *

1793.

This happy summer excursion may be said to have charmed away, for a while, from Dr. Burney, a species of evil which for some time had been hovering over him, and which was as new as it was inimical to his health; and as unwelcome as, hitherto, it had been unknown to his disposition; namely, a slow, unfixed, and nervous feverishness, which had infested his whole system; and which, in defiance of this salubrious episode, soon ruthlessly returned; robbing his spirits, as well as his frame, of elasticity; and casting him into a state the least natural to his vigorous character, of wasteful depression.

His recent mental trials had been grievous, and severely felt. The loss of his old and much valued friend, Mr. Hayes; and of his far more admired, and almost equally prized favourite, Sir Joshua Reynolds; joined to that of his early and constantly attached patron, the Earl of Orford, had all been inflicted, or been menacing, at the same time: and a continual anxious watchfulness over the gradual deterioration of health, and decay of life, of three such cherished friends, now nearly the last of early associations—had been ill adapted for impeding the mischief of the long and deeper disturbance caused by the precarious health, and singular situation, of his second daughter: and the accumulation of the whole had, slowly and underminingly, brought him into the state that has been described.

The sole employment to which, during this morbid interval, he could turn himself, was the difficult, the laborious work of composing the most learned and recondite canons and fugues; to which study and exposition of his art, he committed all the activity that he could command from his fatigued faculties.

This distressing state lasted, without relief or remittance, till it was suddenly and rudely superseded by a violent assault of acute rheumatism; which drove away all minor or subservient maladies, by the predominance of a torturing pain that nearly nullified every thing but itself.

He was now ordered to Bath, where the waters, the change of scene, the casually meeting with old friends, and incidentally forming new ones; so recruited his health and his nerves, by chasing away what he called the foul fiend that had subjugated his animal spirits, that he was soon imperceptibly restored to his fair genial existence.

One circumstance, more potent, perhaps, in effect, than the concurrence of every other, contributed to this revivifying termination, by a power that acted as a spell upon his mind and happiness; namely, the enlightening society of the incomparable Mr. Burke; who, most fortunately for the invalid, was then at Bath, with his amiable wife, his beloved son, and his admiring brother; and whose own good taste led him to claim the chief portion of Dr. Burney’s recreative leisure. And with Mr. Burke Dr. Burney had every feeling, every thought, nay, every emotion in common, with regard to that sole topic of the times, the French Revolution.

Dr. Burney wrote warmly of these meetings to the Memorialist, by whom he well knew no subject would be more eagerly welcomed; and he finished his last Bath details with these flattering words: “I dined, in all, eight times at the Burkes’, where every day, after dinner, your health was constantly given by Mr. Burke himself, as his favourite toast.”

GENERAL D’ARBLAY.

The deep public interest which Doctor Burney, whether as a citizen of the world, or a sound patriot, took in the disastrous situation of France, was ere long destined to goad yet more pungently his private feelings, from becoming, in some measure, personal.

At the elegant mansion of the friend, whose sight she never met but with mingled tenderness and reverence, Mr. Locke, the Doctor’s second daughter, began an acquaintance that, imperceptibly, led to a connexion of high esteem and genial sympathy, that no opposition could dispirit, no danger intimidate, and no time—that impelling underminer of nearly all things—could wither.

But though to the strong hold of an attachment of which the basis is a believed congeniality of character, no difficulties are ultimately unconquerable; the obstacles to this were more than commonly formidable. M. d’Arblay was at that time so situated, that he must perforce accompany the friend with whom he acted, Count Louis de Narbonne, to Switzerland; or decide to fix his own abode permanently in England, in the only manner which appeared desirable to him, a home connexion with a chosen object.

Not a ray of hope opened then to point to any restoration in France of Order and Monarchy with Liberty, to which M. d’Arblay inviolably adhered; and exile from his country, his family, and his friends, seemed to him a lot of blessedness, in comparison to joining the murderous and regicidical republic.

Dr. Burney, it may well be believed, was startled, was affrighted, when a proposition was made to him for the union of his daughter with a ruined gentleman—a foreigner—an emigrant; but the proposition came under the sanction of the wisest as well as kindest of that daughter’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Locke, of Norbury Park; and with the fullest sympathies of his cherished Susanna, who already had demonstrated the affection, and adopted the conduct, of a sister to M. d’Arblay. The Doctor could not, therefore, turn from the application implacably; he only hesitated, and demanded time for consideration.

The dread of pecuniary embarrassment, secretly stimulated and heightened by a latent hope and belief in a far more advantageous connexion, strongly opposed a free and happy consent to an alliance which, otherwise, from all he heard or could gather of the merits, the character, and rank in life of M. d’Arblay, he would have thought, to use his own words, “an honour to his daughter, to himself, and to his family.”

Fortunately, about this time, the Prince de Poix and the Comte de Lally Tolendahl, wrote some letters, in which were interspersed their personal attestations of the favour in which they knew M. d’Arblay to have stood with Louis XVI.; mingled with their intimate conviction of the spotless honour, the stainless character, and the singularly amiable disposition for which, in his own country, M. d’Arblay had been distinguished.

These letters, with their writers’ permission, were shewn to Dr. Burney; whom they so touched, nay, charmed, as to conquer his prudence of resistance: and at the village of Mickleham, in the vicinity of Norbury Park, the marriage took place.

Mr. Locke, whose unerring judgment foresaw what would make both parties happy; and whose exquisite sensibility made all virtuous felicity a bosom joy to himself, took the responsible part of father to M. d’Arblay, at the altar, where, in the absence of the Doctor, Captain Burney gave his sister to that gentleman: who quickly, or rather immediately, won from his honoured new relation, an esteem, a kindness, and an affection, that never afterwards failed or faded.

Of sterner stuff than entered into the composition of Dr. Burney must that heart have been moulded, that could have witnessed the noble conduct of that truly loyal sufferer in the calamities of his king and country, General d’Arblay; and could have seen the cheerful self-denial with which he limited his expenditure to his wants, and his wants to the mere calls of necessity; save where he feared involving his partner in his privations,—in one word, who could have beheld him, at the opening of his married career, in the village of Bookham, turn instantly from the uncontrolled restlessness, and careless scorn of foresight, of the roving military life, into a domestic character of the most sage description; renouncing all foreign pleasures; retiring from even martial ambition, though it had been the glory of his hopes, and the bent of his genius, without a murmur, since he no longer thought it coalesced with honour; for home occupations, for family economies, for fireside enjoyments,—and not be struck by such manly self-command, such active, such practical virtue.

THE KING AND QUEEN.

And while stilled by this generous prudence were the inward fears of Dr. Burney with regard to this union, his outward and more public solicitudes were equally removed, by a letter which his daughter d’Arblay had the high honour and joy to receive, written by royal order, in answer to her respectful information of her marriage to the Queen: containing, most benignly by his own command, the gracious good wishes of the King himself, joined to those of the Queen and all the Princesses, for her health and happiness.

MR. BURKE.

And, next only to this deeply gratifying condescension, must be ranked for Dr. Burney, the glowing pleasure with which he welcomed, and copied for Bookham, the cordial kindness upon this occasion of Mr. Burke. The letter conveying its energetic and most singular expression, was written to Dr. Burney by the great orator himself; and speaks first of a plan that had his fullest approbation and most liberal aid, suggested by Mrs. Crewe, in favour of the French emigrant priests; from which Mr. Burke proceeds to treat of the taking of Toulon by Lord Hood; and his, Mr. Burke’s, hope of ultimate success, from the possession of that great port and arsenal of France in the Mediterranean; after which he adds:

“Besides my general wishes, the establishment of Madame d’Arblay is a matter in which I take no slight interest; if I had not the greatest affection to her virtues, my admiration of her incomparable talents would make me desirous of an order of things which would bring forward a gentleman of whose merits, by being the object of her choice, I have no doubt: his choice of her too would give me the best possible opinion of his judgment.

“I am, with Mrs. Burke’s best regards, and all our best wishes for you and M. and Madame d’Arblay, my dear Sir,

“Yours, &c.

“EDMD. BURKE.”[32]

And Mrs. Burke, in a postscript of her own, writes:

“Will you be so good as to make my very best compliments to Madame d’Arblay, and tell her that no person can more sincerely wish her every happiness than I do.”

Not even the highly flattered, highly honoured Bookham Hermits themselves could read these generous words from the pen of Mr. Burke, whose personal kindness must apologise for their extraordinary exaggeration, with more vivid delight than they excited in the heart of Dr. Burney, by new stringing his hopes, and lightening his anxieties, upon this alliance.

FRENCH EMIGRANT CLERGY.