“I have forgotten to mention that, during my invalidity at Bath, I had an unexpected visit from your ci-devant Streatham friend, of whom I had lost sight for more than ten years. When her name was sent in, I was much surprised, but desired she might be asked to follow it: and I received her as an old friend with whom I had spent much time very happily, and never wished to quarrel. She still looks well, but is grave, and seems to be turned into candour itself: though she still says good things, and writes admirable notes, and, I am told, letters. We shook hands very cordially; and avoided any allusion to our long separation and its cause. Her caro sposo still lives; but is such an object, from the gout, that the account of his sufferings made me pity him sincerely. He wished, she told me, to see his old friend; and, un beau matin, I could not refuse compliance with this wish. I found him in great pain, hut very glad to see me. The old rancour, or ill-will, excited by our desire to impede the marriage, is totally worn away. Indeed, it never could have existed, but from her imprudence in betraying to him that proof of our friendship for her, which ought never to have been regarded as spleen against him, who, certainly, nobody could blame for accepting a gay rich widow. — What could a man do better?”
* * * *
It is well worthy of notice, and greatly in favour of the Bath waters for paralytic affections, that Dr. Burney never had a return of his alarming seizure of the hand; and never to the end of his life, which was yet prolonged several years, had any other paralytic attack.
It was during this residence at Bath that Dr. Burney made his last will; in which, after settling his various legacies, he left his two eldest daughters, Esther and Frances, his residuary legatees; and nominated his sons, Captain James Burney and Dr. Charles Burney, his executors DR. BURNEY’S MEMOIRS.
It was here, also, after a cessation of twenty-four years, that the Doctor recurred to his long dormant scheme of writing his own Memoirs.
If, at the date of its design and commencement, in 1782, his plan had been put into execution, according to the nobly independent ideas, and widely liberal intention of its projection, few are the individual narratives of a private life in the last century, that could have exhibited a more expansive, informing, general, or philosophical view of society than those of Dr. Burney.
But, in 1807, though the uncommon powers of his fine mind were still unimpaired for conversation or enjoyment, his frame had received a blow, and his spirits a suspensive shock, that caused a marked diminution of his resources for composition.
His imagination, hitherto the most vivid, even amidst sorrow, calamity, nay care, nay sickness, nay age, was now no longer, as heretofore, rambling abroad and at will for support and renovation. A fixed object, as he expressed himself in various letters of that date, had seized, occupied, absorbed it. The alarm excited by a paralytic attack is far more baneful than its suffering; for every rising dawn, and every darkening eve look tremblingly for its successor; and the sword of Damocles, as he mournfully declared, seemed eternally waving over his head.
The spirit, therefore, of composition was now, though not lost, enervated; and the whole force of his faculties was cast exclusively upon his memory, in the research of past incidents that might soothe his affections, or recreate his fancy; but bereft of those exhilarating ideas, which, previously to this alarm, had given attraction to whatever had fallen from his pen.
Hence arose, in that vast compilation for which, from this time, he began collecting materials and reminiscences, a nerveless laxity of expression, a monotonous prolixity of detail, that, upon the maturest examination, decided this Memorialist to abridge, to simplify, or to destroy so immense a mass of morbid leisure, and minute personality, with the fullest conviction, as has been stated, that it never would have seen the public light, had it been revised by its composer in his healthier days of chastening criticism; so little does it resemble the flowing harmony, yet unaffected energy of his every production up to that diseased period.
Nor even can it be compared with any remaining penmanship, though of a much later date, written after his recovery; as appears by sundry letters, occasional essays, and biographical fragments, sketched from the time of that restoration to the very end of his existence.
And hence, consequently, or rather unavoidably, have arisen in their present state those abridged, or recollected, not copied Memoirs; which, though on one hand largely curtailed from their massy original, are occasionally lengthened on the other, from confidential communications; joined to a whole life’s recollections of the history, opinions, disposition, and character of Dr. Burney.
* * * * *
A dire interval again, from political restrictions and prudential difficulties, took place between all communication, all correspondence of Dr. Burney with Paris. But in June, 1810, it was happily broken up, through the active kind offices of a liberal friend, who found means by some returning prisoner, to get a letter conveyed to Chelsea College; and to procure thence the following indescribably welcomed answer:
“June, 1810.
“My Dear Fanny.
“I never was so surprised and delighted at the sight of your well-known autograph, as on the envelop of your last letter; but when I saw, after the melancholy account of your past sufferings, and of the more slight indisposition of your caro sposo, with what openness you spoke of your affairs; and, above all, that your dear Alexander was still with you, and had escaped the terrific code de conscription, it occasioned me an exultation which I cannot describe. And that you should be begging so hard of me for a line, a word, in my own hand-writing, at the time that I was, in prudence, imploring all your living old correspondents and my friends, not to venture a letter to you, even by a private hand, lest it should accidentally miscarry, and, being observed, and misconstrued, as coming from this country, should injure M. d’Arblay in the eyes of zealous Frenchmen! — But the detail you have given me of the worthy and accomplished persons who honour you with their friendship; and of the lofty apartments you have procured, Rue d’Anjou, for the sake of more air, more room, more cleanliness, and more bookeries, diverts me much. With regard to my own health, I shall say nothing of past sufferings of various kinds since my last ample family letter; except that ‘Here I am,’ in spite of the old gentleman and his scythe. And the few people I am able to see, ere the warm weather, tell me I look better, speak better, and walk better than I did ‘ever so long ago.’ God knows how handsome I shall be by-and-by I — but you will allow it behoves the fair ladies who make me a visit now and then, to take care of themselves! — That’s all.
“People wonder, secluded as I am for ever from the world and its joys, how I can cut a joke and be silly: but when I have no serious sufferings, a book, or a pen, makes me forget all the world, and even myself; the best of all oblivions.”
Then follow sundry confidential family details.
* * * *
“Having now pretty well enumerated your friends, pray, when you have a safe opportunity, tell me how many are living amongst those who were formerly mine, in Paris? particularly the Abbe Roussier; M. l’Abbe Payton; and Messrs. Framery, La Borde, Hulmandel, and Ginguene.
“I am delighted you are yourself acquainted with the truly scientific and profound M. Suard, to whom I had letters recommendatory from our common friend, Garrick; and from whom I received many instances of friendly zeal in my musical inquiries; and of hospitality at his own home, where the honours were done with remarkable grace by his beautiful and engaging wife. It was there that I became acquainted with the celebrated Grecian, the Abbe Arnaud, and with M. Diderot.
“I knew there, also, M. l’Abbe Morellet; and always thought that no writer on good taste and feeling in the execution of good music, could express his sentiments with more discrimination delicacy, and precision, than M. l’Abbe Morellet, to whom I beg you to present my compliments, as to a very old and intimate acquaintance, during his residence in England, at the Earl of Shelburne’s. I am delighted to hear he has so admirable, and peculiarly fitted-up a library; and
that he has invited you, with so much courtesy, at your common friend’s, the incomparable Madame de Tesse’s, to let him do its honours to you at your own time, and in your own way; and that he keeps up so much spirit and politeness, though — nearly — as old as your aged Father. I was really moved by his so readily and obligingly repeating to you, at the request of Madame de Tesse, the ballad he composed upon attaining his eightieth year. But ’twas a true touch of French malice — that story of his martial equipment, when elected a member of the Institute; and when, with a collar encircled with wreaths of laurel, he girded on his sword, for the first time in his life, at seventy-nine, and, to the great, though, probably, merry shock of his companion-men of letters, suffered it to get between his legs, and trip up his heels! M. de Narbonne was just the man for such a tale, which he made, I doubt not, roguishly comic.”
“I think it is high time now to pull up and give you my benediction; joining sincerely in your prayer for peace; and begging you to assure M. d’Arblay and Alex, of my cordial affection. For yourself, my dear Fanny, be assured that your letter has given me a fillip that has endeared existence; concerning which, during pain and long nights, I have been often worse than indifferent. — C. B.”
How merely an amanuensis had been the Editor of these Memoirs, had all the personal manuscripts of Dr. Burney been written at this healthy, though so much later period of his existence; instead of having fallen under his melancholy pen, to while away nerveless languor when paralysis, through the vision of his imagination, appeared to be unremittingly suspended over his head! the last given pages of his letters to Paris, though composed from his 80th to his 85th year, are all run off in the flowing and lively style of his early penmanship.
But disastrous indeed to Dr. Burney was an after event, of the year 1810, that is now to be recorded; grievously, essentially, permanently disastrous. Misfortune, with all her fevering arrows of hoarded ills, retained no longer the materials that could so deeply empoison another dart, for striking at the root of what life could yet accord him of elegant enjoyment. Lady Crewe alone remained, apart from his family, whose personal loss could more afflictingly have wounded him, than that which he now experienced by the death of the Duke of Portland.
Fatal to all future zest for worldly exertion in Dr. Burney, proved this blow; from which, though he survived it some years, he never mentally recovered; so deeply had he felt and reciprocated the extraordinary partiality conceived for him by his Grace.
It was the Duke alone who, for a long time previously, had been able to prevail with him to come forth from his already begun seclusion, to be domiciliated at Bulstrode Park; where he could animate with society, recreate in rural scenery, or meditate in solitude without difficulty or preparation; that superb country villa being as essentially, and at will, his own, as his apartments at Chelsea College.
A loss such as this, was in all ways irreparable.
The last sentence which he wrote upon the Duke, in his Journal, is mournfully impressive:
“My loss by the decease of my most affectionate and liberal friend and patron, the Duke of Portland, and my grief for his dreadful sufferings, will lower my spirits to the last hour of sensibility! The loss to my heart is indescribable!”
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.
Yet, in the midst of this total and voluntary retreat from public life, a new honour, as little expected by Dr. Burney as, from concomitant circumstances, it was little wished, sought, in 1810, to encircle his brow.
M. le Breton, Secretaire perpetuel de la Classe des Beaux Arts de l’Institut National de France, had, some years previously, put up the name of Dr. Burney as a candidate to be elected an honorary foreign member of the Institute: but the interrupted intercourse between the two countries caused a considerable time to elapse, before it was known whether this compliment was accepted or declined.
Not without much disturbance, from such a doubt, passed that interval in the breast of the Doctor’s absent daughter. She was deeply sensible to a mark so flattering of the literary fame of her father, which she could not but consider as peculiarly generous, the long and public hostility of the Doctor against French music, being as notorious as his passion for Italian and German.
But, on the other hand, knowing the excess of horror conceived against the French, Nationally, though not Individually, by Dr. Burney from the epoch of the Revolution, she was full of apprehension lest he should reject the offering; and reject it with a contempt that might involve her husband and herself in the displeasure which such a species of requital to offered homage might excite.
So keen, indeed, was this alarm upon her mind, that when M. le Breton called upon her to announce, with good-humoured exultation, tidings that he naturally imagined must give her the proudest satisfaction, she involuntarily shrunk from the communication; and, though she ventured not positively to decline, she procrastinated being the organ for conveying the purposed favour to England. M. le Breton was too observant not to perceive her embarrassment, though too well-bred to augment it by any remark.
He soon, however, for he had means and power, found a more willing coadjutrix to forward his proposal to Dr. Burney; who, after a short pause, accepted this new tribute to his renown with due civility.
The parental motives by which this acquiescent conduct was influenced, his daughter could not doubt; but she had the comfort to know how much his repugnance to his new dignity must be lessened, in considering his respected and intimate friend, Sir Joseph Bankes, as his colleague in this new association.
These preliminary measures, with all that belonged to the honour of the offer, passed in the year 1806; but it was not till the year 1810 that Dr. Burney received the official notification of his election; which he has thus briefly marked in his last volume of Journal: —
“Nov. 23, 1810.
“Received from the National Institute at Paris, with a letter from Madame Greenwood Solvyns, my diploma, or patent, as a Member of the Institute, Classe des Beaux Arts.”
And three weeks afterwards: —
“Jan. 14, 1811.
“I received a packet from M. Le Breton, &c., addressed,
“A Monsieur le Docteur Burney,
“Correspondant de l’Institut de France.
“This packet found its way to my apartment at Chelsea College, by means of Mr. West, President of the Royal Academy. Its contents were —
“Notices historiques sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Pajon. Par M. Joachim le Breton. Du. 6 Otto. 1810.
“Notices historiques sur la vie, et les ouvrages, de Jos. Haydn. Par le meme.
This memoir sur la vie de Haydn, sent by M. le Breton, drew from the Doctor, nearly at the close of his own annals, the following paragraph upon that great musician, who, for equal excellence in science and invention, he held to be at the head of all his compeers:
“Haydn, 1810.
“It has been well observed, by Haydn’s excellent biographer, at Paris, M. le Breton, that the public everywhere, by whom his works were so enthusiastically admired, took more care of his fame than of his fortune. He, however, himself, always modest, upright, and prudent, supposed it possible that he might survive his talents; and wished, by rigid economy and selfdenial, to accumulate a sufficiently independent income for old age and infirmities, when he might no longer be able to entertain the public with new productions. This humble and most rational wish he was unable, in his own country, from the smallness of remuneration, to accomplish.
“I began an intimate intercourse with him immediately on his arrival in England; and was as much pleased with his mild, unassuming, yet cheerful conversation and countenance, as with his stupendous musical merit. And I procured him more subscribers to that sublime effort of genius — the Creation, than all his other friends, whether at home or abroad, put together.”
Of the year 1811, no species of event, nor detail of circumstance, has reached this Memorialist, except the following letter, which is copied from Doctor Burney’s own handwriting near the concl
usion of his Journal:
“To Mr. Kollman, who had left a parcel for me.
“March 24, 1811.
“Dear Sir,
“I was sorry when you did me the favour to call, that I had not left my bed-room, where I had been confined, and unable to see my friends ever since the beginning of the present year; and I was then in daily fear of the baleful ides of March: but on opening the valuable parcel which you had been so good as to leave with my servant, I have found the contents to he such as to furnish my eyes and my mind with agreeable employment ever since. I have often admired your musical science and ingenuity; but I think your fugues and double counterpoint in four parts, for two performers on one piano-forte, considerably surpass in clearness, contrivance, and pleasing melody, any of your former elaborate and learned productions that I have seen. And if it is so considered, and we count how many folio pages there are of letter-press in your introductory explanations, the works which you left for me would be a cheap purchase at £1. 1s., which I have the pleasure to send, with thanks for my entertainment.
“Your different harmonics to the original melody of the 100th psalm is a work of great study and knowledge.
“I am very seldom, now, in health and spirits to read or comment on works of complication in music, or of speculation in literature, as age, infirmities, and sickness, have made the use of a pen a very heavy task, and rendered me only fit to peruse old authors, that were in high estimation when! was young; but, being now forgotten, are become new to me again; or at least interesting by their antiquity to one who has wholly quitted the modern world. * * *
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