To the world no man is accountable for his thoughts and his ruminations; but for their propagation, if they are dangerous or mischievous, the risks which he may allure others to share, seem impelled by wanton lack of feeling; if not by an ignorant yet presumptuous dearth of foresight to the effect he is working to produce: two deficiencies equally impossible to be attributed to a man to whom philanthropy is as unequivocally accorded as philosophy.
Unsolved therefore, perhaps, yet remains, as a problem in the history of human nature, how a being, at once wise and benign, could have refrained from the self-examination of demanding: what — had he been successful in exterminating from the eyes and the hearts of men the lecture and the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures, would have been achieved? Had he any other more perfect religion to offer? More purifying from evil? more fortifying in misfortune? more consoling in woe? — No! — indubitably no! — Nothing fanatical, or mystic, could cope with judgment such as his. To undermine, not to construct, is all the obvious purpose of his efforts — of which he laments the failure as a calamity! He leaves, therefore, nothing to conjecture of his motives but what least seems to belong to a character of his sedate equanimity; a personal desire to proclaim to mankind their folly in their belief, and his sagacity in his infidelity.
LONDON.
Mr. Burney now, greatly lightened, and somewhat brightened in spirits, returned to his country and his home. His mind seemed no longer left in desolating inertness to prey upon itself. Nutriment of an invigorating nature was in view, though not yet of a consistence to afford spontaneous refreshment. On the contrary, it required taste for selection, labour for culture, and skill for appropriation. But such nutriment, if attainable, was precisely that which best could re-inforce the poor “tenement of clay,” which the lassitude of unbraced nerves had nearly “fretted to decay.”
Sketches, hints, notes, and scattered ideas of all sorts, began to open the way to some original composition; though the timidity of his Muse, not the dearth of his fancy, long kept back the force of mind for meeting the public eye, that now, in these more easy, dauntless times, urges almost every stripling to present his mental powers to the world, nearly ere his physical ones have emerged from leading-strings in the nursery.
The first, because the least responsible, method of facing the critic eye, that occurred to him, was that of translation; and he began with acutely studying d’Alembert’s Elémens de Musique thé orique et pratique, selon les principes de — in which he was assiduously engaged, when the appearance of the celebrated musical Dictionaire of the still more celebrated Rousseau, from its far nearer congeniality to his taste, surprised him into inconstancy.
Yet this also, from circumstances that intervened, was laid aside; and his first actual essay was a trifle, though a pleasing one, from which no real fame could either accrue, or be marred; it was translating, and adapting to the stage, the little pastoral afterpiece of Rousseau, Le Divan du Village.
GARRICK.
To this he was urged by Garrick; and the execution was appropriate, and full of merit. But though the music, from its simplicity and the sweetness of its melody, was peculiarly fitted to refine the public taste amongst the middle classes; while it could not fail to give passing pleasure even to the highest; the drama was too denuded of intricacy or variety for the amusement of John Bull; and the appearance of only three interlocuters caused a gaping expectation of some followers, that made every new scene begin by inflicting disapment.
Mr. Garrick, and his accomplished, high-bred, and engaging wife, La Violetta, had been amongst the earliest of the pristine connexions of Mr. Burney, who had sought him, with compassionate kindness, as soon after his heart-breaking loss as he could admit any friends to his sight. The ensuing paragraph on his warm sentiments of this talented and bewitching pair, is copied from one of his manuscript memorandums.
“My acquaintance, at this time, with Mrs as well as Mr. Garrick, was improved into a real friendship; and frequently, on the Saturday night, when Mr. Garrick did not act, he carried me to his villa at Hampton, whence he brought me to my home early on Monday morning. I seldom was more happy than in these visits. His wit, humour, and constant gaiety at home; and Mrs. Garrick’s good sense, good breeding, and obliging desire to please, rendered their Hampton villa, on these occasions, a terrestrial paradise.
“Mrs. Garrick had every faculty of social judgment, good taste, and steadiness of character, which he wanted. She was an excellent appreciator of the fine arts; and attended all the last rehearsals of new or of revived plays, to give her opinion of effects, dresses, scenery, and machinery. She seemed to be his real other half; and he, by his intelligence and accomplishments, seemed to complete the Hydroggynus.”
This eminent couple paid their court to Mr. Burney in the manner that was most sure to be successful, namely, by their endearing and good natured attentions to his young family; frequently giving them, with some chaperon of their father’s appointing, the lightsome pleasure of possessing Mrs. Garrick’s private box at Drury Lane Theatre; and that, from time to time, even when the incomparable Roscius acted himself; which, so enchanted their gratitude, that they nearly — as Mr. Burney laughingly quoted to Garrick from Hudibras —
“Did, — as was their duty,
Worship the shadow of his shoe-tie.”
Garrick, who was passionately fond of children, never withheld his visits from Poland-street on account of the absence of the master of the house; for though it was the master he came to seek, he was too susceptible to his own lively gift of bestowing pleasure, to resist witnessing the ecstacy he was sure to excite, when he burst in unexpectedly upon the younger branches: for so playfully he individualised his attentions, by an endless variety of comic badinage, — now exhibited in lofty bombast; now in ludicrous obsequiousness; now by a sarcasm skilfully implying a compliment; now by a compliment archly conveying a sarcasm; that every happy day that gave them but a glimpse of this idol of their juvenile fancy, was exhilarated to its close by reciprocating anecdotes of the look, the smile, the bow, the shrug, the start, that, after his departure, each enraptured admirer could describe.
A circumstance of no small weight at that time, contributed to allure Mr. Garrick to granting these joyous scenes to the young Burney tribe. When he made the tour of Italy, for the recovery of his health, and the refreshment of his popularity, he committed to the care of Mr. Burney and his young family his own and Mrs. Garrick’s favourite little dog, Phill, a beautiful black and white spaniel, of King Charles’s breed, luxuriant in tail and mane, with the whitest breast, and spotted with perfect symmetry.
The fondness of Mr. Garrick for this little spaniel was so great, that one of his first visits on his return from the continent was to see, caress, and reclaim him. Phill was necessarily resigned, though with the most dismal reluctance, by his new friends: but if parting with the favoured little quadruped was a disaster, how was that annoyance overpaid, when, two or three days afterwards, Phill re-appeared! and when the pleasure of his welcome to the young folks was increased by a message, that the little animal had seemed so moping, so unsettled, and so forlorn, that Mr and Mrs. Garrick had not the heart to break his new engagements, and requested his entire acceptance and adoption in Poland-street.
During the life of this favourite, all the juvenile group were sought and visited together, by the gay-hearted Roscius; and with as much glee as he himself was received by these happy young creatures, whether two-footed or four.
On the first coming-out of the “Cunning Man,” Mr. Garrick, who undoubtedly owed his unequalled varieties in delineating every species of comic character, to an inquisitive observance of Nature in all her workings, amused himself in watching from the orchestra, where he frequently sat on the first night of new pieces, the young auditory in Mrs. Garrick’s box; and he imitatingly described to Mr. Burney the innocent confidence of success with which they all openly bent forward, to look exultingly at the audience, when a loud clapping followed the overture: and their
smiles, or nods; or chuckling and laughter, according to their more or less advanced years, during the unmingled approbation that was bestowed upon about half the piece — contrasted with, first the amazement; next, the indignation; and, lastly, the affright and disappointment, that were brought forth by the beginning buzz of hissing, and followed by the shrill horrors of the catcall: and then the return — joyous, but no longer dauntless! — of hope, when again the applause prevailed.
In these various changes, Mr. Garrick altered the expression of his features, and almost his features themselves, by apparent transformations — which, however less poetical, were at least more natural than those of Ovid.
Mr. Garrick possessed not only every possible inflexion of voice, save for singing, but also of countenance; varying his looks into young, old, sick, vigorous, downcast, or frolicsome, at his personal volition; as if his face, and even his form, had been put into his own hands to be worked upon like Man a Machine.
Mr. Garrick, about this time, warmly urged the subject of these memoirs to set to music an English opera called Orpheus; but while, for that purpose, Mr. Burney was examining the drama, he was informed that it had been put into the hands of Mr. Barthelemon, who was preparing it for the stage.
Astonished, and very much hurt, Mr. Burney hastily returned the copy with which he had been entrusted, to Mr. Johnstone, the prompter; dryly, and without letter or comment, directing him to deliver it to Mr. Garrick.
Mr. Garrick, with the utmost animation, instantly wrote to Johnstone an apology rather than a justification; desiring that the opera should be withdrawn from Mr. Barthelemon, and consigned, wholly to the subject of these memoirs; for whom Mr. Garrick declared himself to entertain a friendship that nothing should dissolve.
But Mr. Burney, conceiving that Barthelemon, who had offended no one, and who bore a most amiable character, might justly resent so abrupt a discharge, declined setting the opera: and never afterwards composed for the theatres.
This trait, however trifling, cannot but be considered as biographical, at least for Mr. Garrick; as it so strongly authenticates the veracity of the two principal lines of the epitaph designed for Roscius, many years afterwards, by that acute observer of every character — save his own! — Dr. Goldsmith.
“He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew, when he would, he could whistle them back.”
Whether negligence, mistake, or caprice, had occasioned this double nomination to the same office, is not clear; but Garrick, who loved Mr. Burney with real affection, lost no time, and spared no blandishment, to re-instate himself in the confidence which this untoward accident had somewhat shaken. And he had full success, to the great satisfaction of Mr. Burney, and joy of his family; who all rapturously delighted in the talents and society of the immortal Roscius.
MR. CRISP.
While this revival of intercourse with the Garricks, and partial return to public life and affairs, necessarily banished the outward and obvious marks of the change of existence, and lost happiness of Mr. Burney, they operated also, gently, but effectively, in gradually diminishing his sufferings, by forcing him from their contemplation: for in that dilapidated state of sorrow’s absorption, where the mind is wholly abandoned to its secret sensations, all that innately recurs to it can spring only from its own concentrated sources; and these, though they may vary the evil by palliatives, offer nothing curative. New scenes and objects alone can open to new ideas; and, happily, a circumstance now occurred that brought on a revival of intercourse with the only man who, at that time, could recal the mourner’s faculties to genial feelings, and expand them to confidential sociality.
His earliest favourite, guide, philosopher, and friend, Mr. Crisp, he now, after a separation of very many years, accidentally met at the house of Mr Vincent, a mutual acquaintance.
Their satisfaction at the sight of each other was truly reciprocal; though that of Mr. Burney was tinctured with dejection, that he could no longer present to his dearest friend the partner whom, by such a judge, he had felt would have been instantly and reverentially appreciated.
Mr. Crisp joined in this regret; but was not the less desirous to see and to know all that remained of her; and he hastened the following day to Poland-street; where, from his very first entrance amidst the juvenile group, he became instinctively honoured as a counsellor for his wisdom and judgment, and loved and liked as a companion for his gaiety, his good humour, and his delight in their rising affections; which led him unremittingly, though never obtrusively, to mingle instruction with their most sportive intercourse.
As Mr. Crisp was the earliest and dearest friend of the subject of these memoirs, the reader will not, it is probable, be sorry to be apprised of the circumstances which, since their separation, had turned him from a brilliant man of the world to a decided recluse. —
The life of Mr. Crisp had been exposed to much vicissitude. Part of it had been spent in Italy, particularly at Rome, where he took up his residence for some years; and where, from his passion for music, painting, and sculpture, he amassed, for the rest of his existence, recollections of never-dying pleasure. And not alone for his solitary contemplations, but for the delight that the vivacity of his delineations imparted to his friends, when he could be induced to unfold his reminiscences; whether upon the sacred and soul-pervading harmony of the music of the Pope’s chapel; or upon the tones, mellifluously melting or elevating, of Sinesino, Custini, or Farinelli: or by bringing to view through glowing images, the seraphic forms and expressions of Raphael and Correggio; and the sculptural sublimity of Michael Angelo. Or when, animated to the climax of his homage for the fine arts, he flitted by all else to concentrate the whole force of his energies, in describing that electrifying wonder, the Apollo Belvedere.
On this he dwelt with a vivacity of language that made his hearers wish to fasten upon every word that he uttered; so vividly he portrayed the commanding port, the chaste symmetry, and the magic form — for which not a tint was requisite, and colouring would have been superfluous — of that unrivalled production, of which the peerless grace, looking softer, though of marble, than the feathered snow; and brightly radiant, though, like the sun, simply white, strike upon the mind rather than the eye, as an ideal representative of ethereal beauty.
And while such were his favourite topics for his gifted participators, there was a charm for all around in his more general conversation, that illumined with instruction, or gladdened with entertainment, even the most current and desultory subjects of the passing hour.
Thus rarely at once endowed and cultivated, there can be little surprise that Mr. Crisp should be distinguished, speedily and forcibly, by what is denominated the Great World; where his striking talents, embellished by his noble countenance and elegant manners, made him so much the mode with the great, and the chosen with the difficult, that time, not friends, was all he wanted for social enjoyment.
High, perhaps highest in this noble class, stood Margaret Cavendish Harley, Duchess Dowager of Portland, The Friend of Mrs. Delany; by whom that venerable and exemplary personage, who was styled by Mr. Burke, “The pattern of a real fine lady of times that were past,” had been herself made known to Mr. Crisp.
Mrs. Montagu, also, who then, Mr. Crisp was wont to say, was peering at fame, and gradually rising to its temple, was of the same coterie. But most familiarly he resided with Christopher Hamilton of Chesington Hall, and with the Earl of Coventry.
With this last he was intimately connected, at the time of that Earl’s marriage with the acknowledged nonpareil of female beauty, the youngest Miss Gunning.
Mr. Crisp had already written his tragedy of Virginia; but Garrick, though he was the author’s personal friend, thought it so little equal to the expectations that might await it, that he postponed, season after season, bringing it out; even though Lord Coventry, who admired it with the warmth of partial regard, engaged the first Mr. Pitt to read it, and to pronounce in its favour. Roscius still was adverse, and
still delayed the trial; nor could he be prevailed upon to prepare it for the stage, till Mr. Crisp had won that Venus of her day, the exquisite Lady Coventry, through his influence with her lord, to present a copy of the manuscript, with her own almost sculptured hand, to the Then conquered manager.
The play neither succeeded nor failed. A catastrophe of so yea and nay a character was ill suited to the energies and hopes of its high-minded author, who was bitterly disappointed; and thought the performers had been negligent, Mr. Garrick unfriendly, and the public precipitate.
The zealous Lord Coventry, himself a man of letters, advised sundry changes, and a new trial. Mr. Crisp shut himself up, and worked indefatigably at these suggestions: but when his alterations were finished, there was no longer a radiant Countess of Coventry to bewitch Mr. Garrick, by “the soft serenity of her smile,” to make a further attempt. Lady Coventry, whose brief, dazzling race, was rapidly run, was now already fast fading in the grasping arms of withering consumption: and Mr. Garrick, though, from unwillingness to disoblige, he seemed wavering, was not the less inexorable.
Mr. Crisp then, disgusted with the stage, the manager, and the theatrical public, gave up not alone that point, but every other by which he might have emerged from private life to celebrity. He almost wholly retired from London, and resided at Hampton; where he fitted up a small house with paintings, prints, sculpture, and musical instruments, arranged with the most classical elegance.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 383