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 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, proba
bly, 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.
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 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.
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, 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:
“I passed some days very pleasantly at Bulstrode Park in the Easter week. The good Duke of Portland came himself to invite me, and sat nearly an hour by my fireside, conversing in the most open and unreserved manner possible upon matters and things. Our party at Bulstrode had the ever-admirable Lady Templeton, her two younger daughters, and their brother Greville, who is an excellent musician, and a very charming young man, &c. &c. The Duke’s daughters, Lady Mary Bentinck and Lady Charlotte Greville, did the honours very politely; and Lord William Bentinck, one of the Duke’s son, who was in Italy with Marshal Suwarrow, and has since been in Egypt, was also there; and he and I are become inkle-weavers. I like him much; and we are to meet again in town. We never sat down less than thirty each day at dinner; and we danced, and we sung, and we walked, and we rode, and we prayed together at chapel, and were so sociable and agreeable ‘you’ve no notion,’ as Miss Larolles would say.”
What will now follow, will be copied from the memoir book of Dr. Burney of this month of May; which, after a dreary winter of sorrow, seemed to have been hailed as genially by the Historian of Music, as by the minstrelsy of the woods.
“1805. — In May, at a concert at Lady Salisbury’s, I was extremely pleased, both with the music and the performance. The former was chiefly selected by the Prince of Wales. * * *
I had not been five minutes in the concert room, before a messenger, sent to me by his Royal Highness, gave me a command to join him, which I did eagerly enough; when his Royal Highness graciously condescended to order me to sit down by him, and kept me to that high honour the whole evening. Our ideas, by his engaging invitation, were reciprocated upon every piece, and its execution. After the concert, Lady Melbourne, who, when Miss Milbanke, had been one of my first scholars on my return to London from Lynn, obligingly complained that she had often vainly tried to tempt me to dine with her, but would make one effort more now, by his Royal Highness’s permission, that I might meet, at Lord Melbourne’s table, with the Prince of Wales.
“Of course I expressed, as well as I could, my sense of so high and unexpected an honour; and the Prince, with a smile of unequalled courtesy, said, ‘Aye, do come, Dr. Burney, and bring your son with you.’ And then, turning to Lady Melbourne, he added, ‘It is singular that the father should be the best, and almost the only good judge of music in the kingdom; and his son the best scholar.’
* * * * * *
“Nothing, however, for the present, came of this: but, early in July, at a concert at Lady Newark’s, I first saw, to my knowledge, their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of
Cumberland and Cambridge. These Princes had lived so much abroad, that I thought I had never before beheld them; till I found my mistake, by their both speaking to me, when I stood near them, not only familiarly, hut with distinction; which I attribute to their respect to the noble graciousness they might have observed in their august brother; whose notice had something in it so engaging as always to brighten as well as honour me.
“But I heard nothing more of the projected dinner, till I met Lady Melbourne at an assembly at the Dowager Lady Sefton’s; when I ventured to tell her Ladyship that I feared the dinner which my son and I were most ambitious should take place, was relinquished. ‘By no means,’ she answered, ‘for the Prince really desired it.’ And, after a note or two of the best bred civility from her Ladyship, the day was settled by his Royal Highness, for —
“July 9th. — The Prince did not make the company wait at Whitehall, (Lord Melbourne’s,); he was not five minutes beyond the appointed time, a quarter past six o’clock: though he is said never to dine at Carlton House before eight. The company consisted, besides the Prince and the Lord and Lady of the house, with their two sons and two daughters, of Earls Egremont and Cowper, Mr and Lady Caroline Lamb, Mr. Lutterel, Mr. Horner, and Mr. Windham.
“The dinner was sumptuous, of course, &c.
“I had almost made a solemn vow, early in life, to quit the world without ever drinking a dry dram; but the heroic virtue of a long life was overset by his Royal Highness, through the irresistible temptation to hobbing and nobbing with such a partner in a glass of cherry brandy! The spirit of it, however, was so finely subdued, that it was not more potent than a dose of peppermint water; which I have always called a dram.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 437