From this time it was with difficulty he could assume spirit sufficient for sustaining his intercourse, hitherto so happy, so lively, with the Grevilles; not alone from the sufferings of absence, but from hard secret conflicts, whether or not to reveal his distress. Mr. Greville, who, a short time back would quickly have discerned his latent uneasiness, was now so occupied by his own new happiness, conjugal and paternal, that though he welcomed young Burney with unabated kindness, his own thoughts, and his observations, were all centered in his two Fannys.
During the first fair breathings of early wedded love, the scoff of the tender passion, the sneer against romance, the contempt of refined reciprocations of sentiment, are done away, even from the most sarcastic, by a newly imbibed consciousness of the felicity of virtuous tenderness; which were its permanence more frequently equal to its enjoyment, would irresistibly convert the scorn of its deriders into envy. But constancy in affection from long dissipated characters, must always, whether in friendship or in love, be as rare as it is right; for constancy requires virtue to be leagued with the passions.
Unmarked, therefore, young Burney kept to himself his unhappiness; though he was not now impeded from communication by fears of the raillery with which, previously to his marriage, Mr. Greville would have held up to mockery a tale of love in a cottage, as a proper pendant to a tale of love in bedlam. But still he was withheld from all genial confidence, by apprehensions of remonstrances which he now considered as mercenary, if not derogatory, against imprudent connexions; and of representations of his own claims to higher views; which he now, from his belief that his incomparable choice would out-balance in excellence all vain attempts at competition, deemed profane if not insane.
Mrs. Greville, having no clew to his secret feelings, was not aware of their disturbance; she might else easily, and she would willingly, have drawn forth his confidence, from the kindly disposition that subsisted, on both sides, to trust and to friendship.
But a discovery the most painful of the perturbed state of his mind, was soon afterwards impelled by a change of affairs in the Grevilles, which they believed would enchant him with pleasure; but which they found, to their unspeakable astonishment, overpowered him with affliction.
This was no other than a plan of going abroad for some years, and of including him in their party.
Concealment was instantly at an end. The sudden dismay of his ingenuous countenance, though it told not the cause, betrayed past recal his repugnance to the scheme.
With parts so lively, powers of observation so ready, and a spirit so delighting in whatever was uncommon and curious, they had expected that such a prospect of visiting new countries, surveying new scenes, mingling with new characters; and traversing the foreign world, under their auspices, in all its splendour, would have raised in him a buoyant transport, exhilarating to behold. But the sudden paleness that overspread his face; his downcast eye; the quiver of his lips; and the unintelligible stammer of his vainly attempted reply, excited interrogatories so anxious and so vehement, that they soon induced an avowal that a secret power had gotten possession of his mind, and sturdily exiled from it all ambition, curiosity, or pleasure, that came not in the form of an offering to its all-absorbing shrine.
Every objection and admonition which he had anticipated, were immediately brought forward by this confession; but they were presented with a lenity that showed his advisers to be fully capable of conceiving, though persuaded that they ought to oppose, his feelings.
Disconcerted, as well as dejected, because dissatisfied as well as unhappy in his situation, from mental incertitudes what were its real calls; and whether or not the ties of interest and obligation were here of sufficient strength to demand the sacrifice of those of love; he attempted not to vindicate, unreflectingly, his wishes; and still less did he permit himself to treat them as his intentions. With faint smiles, therefore, but stifled sighs, he heard, with civil attention, their opinions; though, determined not to involve himself in any embarrassing conditions, he would risk no reply; and soon afterwards, curbing his emotion, he started abruptly another subject.
“They thought him wise, and followed as he led.”
All the anguish, however, that was here suppressed, found vent with redoubled force at the feet of the fair partner in his disappointment; who, while unaffectedly sharing it, resolutely declined receiving clandestinely his hand, though tenderly she clung to his heart. She would listen to no project that might lead him to relinquish such solid friends, at the very moment that they were preparing to give him the strongest proof of their fondness for his society, and of their zeal in his benefit and improvement.
Young Burney was not the less unhappy at this decision from being sensible of its justice, since his judgment could not but thank her, in secret, for pronouncing the hard dictates of his own.
All that he now solicited was her picture, that he might wear her resemblance next his heart, till that heart should beat to its responsive original.
With this request she gracefully complied; and she sate for him to Spencer, one of the most famous miniature painters of that day.
Of striking likeness was this performance, of which the head and unornamented hair were executed with the most chaste simplicity; and young Burney reaped from this possession all that had power to afford him consolation; since he now could soften off the pangs of separation, by gliding from company, public places or assemblages, to commune by himself with the countenance of all he held most dear.
Thus solaced, he resigned himself with more courage to his approaching misfortune.
The Grevilles, it is probable, from seeing him apparently revived, imagined that, awakened from his flights of fancy, he was recovering his senses: but when, from this idea, they started, with light raillery, the tender subject, they found their utter mistake. The most distant hint of abandoning such excellence, save for the moment, and from the moment’s necessity, nearly convulsed him with inward disturbance; and so changed his whole appearance, that, concerned as well as amazed, they were themselves glad to hasten from so piercing a topic.
Too much moved, however, to regain his equilibrium, he could not be drawn from a disturbed taciturnity, till shame, conquering his agitation, enabled him to call back his self-command. He forced, then, a laugh at his own emotion; but, presently afterwards seized with an irresistible desire of shewing what he thought its vindication, he took from his bosom the cherished miniature, and placed it, fearfully, almost awfully, upon a table.
It was instantly and eagerly snatched from hand to hand by the gay couple; and young Burney had the unspeakable relief of perceiving that this impulsive trial was successful. With expansive smiles they examined and discussed the charm of the complexion, the beauty of the features, and the sensibility and sweetness conveyed by their expression: and what was then the joy, the pride of heart, the soul’s delight of the subject of these memoirs, when those fastidious judges, and superior self-possessors of personal attractions, voluntarily and generously united in avowing that they could no longer wonder at his captivation.
As a statue he stood fixed before them; a smiling one, indeed; a happy one; but as breathless, as speechless, as motionless.
Mr. Greville then, with a laugh, exclaimed, “But why, Burney, why don’t you marry her?”
Whether this were uttered sportively, inadvertently, or seriously, young Burney took neither time nor reflection to weigh; but, starting forward with ingenuous transport, called out, “May I?”
No negative could immediately follow an interrogatory that had thus been invited; and to have pronounced one in another minute would have been too late; for the enraptured and ardent young lover, hastily construing a short pause into an affirmative, blithely left them to the enjoyment of their palpable amusement at his precipitancy; and flew, with extatic celerity, to proclaim himself liberated from all mundane shackles, to her with whom he thought eternal bondage would be a state celestial.
From this period, to that of their exquisi
tely happy union,
“Gallopp’d apace the fiery-footed steeds,”
that urged on Time with as much gay delight as prancing rapidity; for if they had not, in their matrimonial preparations, the luxuries of wealth, neither had they its fatiguing ceremonies; if they had not the security of future advantage, they avoided the torment of present procrastination; and if they had but little to bestow upon one another, they were saved, at least, the impatiency of waiting for the seals, signatures, and etiquettes of lawyers, to bind down a lucrative prosperity to survivorship.
To the mother of the bride, alone of her family, was confided, on the instant, this spontaneous, this sudden felicity. Little formality was requisite, before the passing of the marriage act, for presenting at the hymeneal altar its detined votaries; and contracts the most sacred could be rendered indissoluble almost at the very moment of their projection: a strange dearth of foresight in those legislators who could so little weigh the chances of a minor’s judgment upon what, eventually, may either suit his taste or form his happiness, for the larger portion of existence that commonly follows his majority.
This mother of the bride was of a nature so free from stain, so elementally white, that it would scarcely seem an hyperbole to denominate her an angel upon earth — if purity of mind that breathed to late old age the innocence of infancy, and sustained the whole intervening period in the constant practice of self-sacrificing virtue, with piety for its sole stimulus, and holy hope for its sole reward, can make pardonable the hazard of such an anticipating appellation, — from which, however, she, her humble self, would have shrunk as from sacrilege.
She was originally of French extraction, from a family of the name of Dubois; but though her father was one of the conscientious victims of the Edict of Nantz, she, from some unknown cause — probably of maternal education — had been brought up a Roman Catholic. The inborn religion of her mind, however, counteracted all that was hostile to her fellow-creatures, in the doctrine of the religion of her ancestors; and her gentle hopes and fervent prayers were offered up as devoutly for those whom she feared were wrong, as they were vented enthusiastically for those whom she was bred to believe were right.
Her bridal daughter, who had been educated a Protestant, and who to that faith adhered steadily and piously through life, loved her with that devoted love which could not but emanate from sympathy of excellence. She was the first pride of her mother, — or, rather, the first delight; for pride, under any form, or through any avenue, direct or collateral, by which that subtle passion works or swells its way to the human breast, her mother knew not; though she was endued with an innate sense of dignity that seemed to exhale around her a sentiment of reverence that, notwithstanding her genuine and invariable humility, guarded her from every species and every approach of disrespect.
She could not but be gratified by an alliance so productive, rather than promising, of happiness to her favourite child; and Mr. Burney — as the married man must now be called — soon imbibed the filial veneration felt by his wife, and loved his mother-in-law as sincerely as if she had been his mother-in-blood.
All plan of going abroad was now, of course, at an end; and the Grevilles, and their beautiful infant daughter, leaving behind them Benedict the married man, set out, a family trio, upon their tour.
The customary compliments of introduction on one hand, and of congratulation on the other, passed, in their usual forms upon such occasions, between the bridegroom and his own family.
* * * * *
Rarely can the highest zest of pleasure awaken, in its most active votary, a sprightliness of pursuit more gay or more spirited, than Mr. Burney now experienced and exhibited in the commonly grave and sober career of business, from the ardour of his desire to obtain self-dependence.
He worked not, indeed, with the fiery excitement of expectation; his reward was already in his hands; but from the nobler impulse he worked of meriting his fair lot; while she, his stimulus, deemed her own the highest prize from that matrimonial wheel whence issue bliss or bane to the remnant life of a sensitive female.
THE CITY.
It was in the city, in consequence of his wife’s connexions, that Mr. Burney made his first essay as a housekeeper; and with a prosperity that left not a doubt of his ultimate success. Scholars, in his musical art, poured in upon him from all quarters of that British meridian; and he mounted so rapidly into the good graces of those who were most opulent and most influential, that it was no sooner known that there was a vacancy for an organist professor, in one of the fine old fabrics of devotion which decorate religion in the city and reflect credit on our commercial ancestors, than the Fullers, Hankeys, and all other great houses of the day to which he had yet been introduced, exerted themselves in his service with an activity and a warmth that were speedily successful; and that he constantly recounted with pleasure.
Anxious to improve as well as to prosper in his profession, he also elaborately studied composition, and brought forth several musical pieces; all of which that are authenticated, will be enumerated in a general list of his musical works.
And thus, with a felicity that made toil delicious, through labour repaid by prosperity; exertions, by comfort; fatigue, by soothing tenderness; and all the fond passions of juvenile elasticity, by the charm of happiest sympathy, — began, and were rolling on, equally blissful and busy, the first wedded years of this animated young couple; — when a storm suddenly broke over their heads, which menaced one of those deadly catastrophes, that, by engulphing one loved object in that “bourne whence no traveller returns,” tears up for ever by the root all genial, spontaneous, unsophisticated happiness, from the survivor.
Mr. Burney, whether from overstrained efforts in business; or from an application exceeding his physical powers in composition; or from the changed atmosphere of Cheshire, Shropshire, and Wiltshire, for the confined air of our great and crowded city; which had not then, as now, by a vast mass of improvement, been made nearly as sane as it is populous; suddenly fell, from a state of the most vigorous health, to one the most alarming, of premature decay. And to this defalcation of strength was shortly added the seizure of a violent and dangerous fever that threatened his life.
The sufferings of the young wife, who was now also a young mother, can only be conceived by contrasting them with her so recent happiness. Yet never did she permit grief to absorb her faculties, nor to vanquish her fortitude. She acted with the same spirited force of mind, as if she had been a stranger to the timid terrors of the heart. She superintended all that was ordered; she executed, where it was possible, all that was performed; she was sedulously careful that no business should be neglected; and her firmness in all that belonged to the interests of her husband, seemed as invulnerable as if that had been her sole occupation; though never, for a moment, was grief away from her side, and though perpetually, irresistibly she wept, — for sorrow with the youthful is always tearful. Yet she strove to disallow herself that indulgence; refusing time even for gently wiping from her cheeks the big drops of liquid anguish which coursed their way; and only, and hastily, almost with displeasure, brushing them off with her hand; while resolutely continuing, or renewing, some useful operation, as if she were but mechanically engaged.
All this was recorded by her adoring husband in an elegy of after-times.
The excellent and able Dr. Armstrong, already the friend of the invalid, was now sent to his aid by the Hon and Rev. Mr. Home, who had conceived the warmest esteem for the subject of these memoirs. The very sight of this eminent physician was medicinal; though the torture he inflicted by the blister after blister with which he deemed it necessary to almost cover, and almost flay alive, his poor patient, required all the high opinion in which that patient held the doctor’s skill for endurance.
The unsparing, but well-poised, prescriptions of this poetical Æsculapius, succeeded, however, in dethroning and extirpating the raging fever, that, perhaps, with milder means, had undermined the sufferer’s existence. But a c
onsumptive menace ensued, with all its fearful train of cough, night perspiration, weakness, glassy eyes, and hectic complexion; and Dr. Armstrong, foreseeing an evil beyond the remedies of medicine, strenuously urged an adoption of their most efficient successor, change of air.
The patient, therefore, was removed to Canonbury-house; whence, ere long, by the further advice, nay, injunction, of Dr. Armstrong, he was compelled to retire wholly from London; after an illness by which, for thirteen weeks, he had been confined to his bed.
Most fortunately, Mr. Burney, at this time, had proposals made to him by a Norfolk baronet, Sir John Turner, who was member for Lynn Regis, of the place of organist of that royal borough; of which, for a young man of talents and character, the Mayor and Corporation offered to raise the salary from twenty to one hundred pounds a year; with an engagement for procuring to him the most respectable pupils from all the best families in the town and its neighbourhood.
Though greatly chagrined and mortified to quit a situation in which he now was surrounded by cordial friends, who were zealously preparing for him all the harmonical honours which the city holds within its patronage; the declining health of the invalid, and the forcibly pronounced opinion of his scientific medical counsellor, decided the acceptance of this proposal; and Mr. Burney, with his first restored strength, set out for his new destination.
LYNN REGIS.
Mr. Burney was compelled to make his first essay of the air, situation, and promised advantages of Lynn, without the companion to whom he owed the re-establishment of health that enabled him to try the experiment: his Esther, as exemplary in her maternal as in her conjugal duties, was now indispensably detained in town by the most endearing of all ties to female tenderness, the first offsprings of a union of mutual love; of which the elder could but just go alone, and the younger was still in her arms.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 377