Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  His daughters, Esther and Charlotte, were well and lively; and each was surrounded by a sprightly and amiable progeny.

  His youngest daughter, by his second marriage, Sarah Harriet, had produced, and was still producing, some works in the novel path of literature, that the Doctor had the satisfaction of hearing-praised, and of knowing to be well received and favoured in the best society.

  And the whole of his generation in all its branches, children, grand-children, and great-grand-children, all studied, with proud affection, to cherish the much-loved trunk whence they sprang; and to which they, and all their successors, must ever look up as to the honoured chief of their race.

  THE DOCTOR’S WAY OF LIFE.

  His general health was still tolerably good, save from occasional or local sufferings; of which, however, he never spoke; bearing them with such silent fortitude, that even the Memorialist only knew of them through a correspondence which fell to her examination, that he had held with a medical friend, Mr. Rumsey.

  The height of his apartments, which were but just beneath the attic of the tall and noble Chelsea College, had been an evil when he grew into years, from the fatigue of mounting and descending; but from the time of his dejected resolve to go forth no more, that height became a blessing, from the greater purity of the air that he inhaled, and the wider prospect that, from some of his windows, he surveyed.

  To his bed-chamber, however, which he chiefly inhabited, this good did not extend: its principal window faced the burying-ground in which the remains of the second Mrs. Burney were interred; and that melancholy sight was the first that every morning met his eyes. And, however his strength of mind might ward off its depressing effect, while still he went abroad, and mingled with the world; from the time that it became his sole prospect, that no change of scene created a change of ideas, must inevitably, however silently, have given a gloom to his mind, from that of his position.

  Not dense, perhaps, was that gloom to those who seldom lost sight of him; but doubly, trebly was it afflicting to her who, without any graduating interval, abruptly beheld it, in place of a sunshine that had, erst, been the most radiant.

  From the fatal period of the loss of the Duke of Portland, and of the delicious retreat of the appropriated villa-residence of Bulstrode Park, the Doctor had become inflexible to every invitation for quitting his own dwelling. The surprise of the shock he had then sustained from his disappointment in out-living a friend and patron so dear to him, and so much younger than himself, had cast him into so forlorn a turn of meditation, that even with the most intimate of his former associates, all spontaneous intercourse was nearly cut off; he never, indeed, refused their solicitations for admission, but rare was the unbidden approach that was hailed with cheering smiles! Solitary reading, and lonely contemplation, were all that, by custom, absorbed the current day: except in moments of renovated animation from the presence of some one of influence over his feelings; or upon the arrival of national good tidings; or upon the starting of any political theme that was flatteringly soothing to his own political principles and creed.

  In books, however, he had still the great happiness of retaining a strong portion of his original pleasure: and the table that was placed before his sofa, was commonly covered with chosen authors from his excellent library: though latterly, when deep attention fatigued his nerves, he interspersed his classical collection by works lighter of entertainment, and quicker of comprehension, from the circulating libraries.

  THE DOCTOR’S WRITINGS.

  With regard to his writings, he had now, for many years, ceased furnishing any articles for the Monthly Review, having broken up his critic-intercourse with Mr. Griffith, that he might devote himself exclusively to the Cyclopedia.

  But for the Cyclopedia, also, about the year 1805, he had closed his labours: labours which must ever remain memorials of the clearness, fulness, and spirit of his faculties up to the seventy-eighth year of his age: for more profound knowledge of his subject, or a more natural flow of pleasing language, or more lively elucidations of his theme, appear not in any of even his most favoured productions.

  The list, numbered alphabetically, that he drew up of his plan for this work, might almost have staggered the courage of a man of twenty-five years of age for its completion; but fifty years older than that was Dr. Burney when it was formed! There is not a book upon music, which it was possible he could consult, that he has not ransacked; nor a subject, that could afford information for the work, that he has not fathomed. And so excellent are his articles, both in manner and matter, that, to equal him upon the subjects he has selected, another writer must await a future period; when new musical genius, composition, and combinations in the powers of harmony, and the varieties of melody, by creating new tastes, may kindle sensations that may call for a new Historian.

  Less pleasing, or rather, extremely painful, is what remains to relate of the last efforts of his genius, and last, and perhaps most cherished of his literary exercises, namely, his Poem on Astronomy; which the Memorialist had now the chagrin, almost the consternation, to learn had been renounced, nay, committed to the flames!

  To this work, as, upon her return, he reminded her, with a look implying, though unwillingly, nay, even tenderly, something like reproach, he had been urged by her solicitations.

  This, however, he could not but forgive, and freely forgive, knowing that her motive was to draw him from the melancholy inertness that threatened his future existence, upon the loss, and at so late a period of life, of a companion of thirty years.

  The subject, also, was his own, and was one in which he had long and early delighted; which offered, therefore, the fairest promise of enabling him

  “When all his genial years were flown,

  And all the Life of Life was gone,”

  to find, through the energy of a favourite pursuit, that his intellectual faculties were not for ever interred before the funeral of the machine, through which, so long and so vividly, they had emanated.

  She had the consolation, also, to know that, for many years, this Poem had answered all the purposes for which it had been suggested. Its idea had amused his fancy; its researches had kept alive his thirst of knowledge; and had meandered into so many new channels of information, in the bright regions which it led him to contemplate, that it had been a source to him of pleasure, and a new spring to exertion, that, though not competent to drive away sorrow, had frequently, at least, discarded sadness.

  What new view, either of the occupation, or its execution, had determined its total relinquishment, was never to its instigator revealed; the solemn look with which he announced that it was over, had an expression that she had not courage to explore.

  Enough, however, remains of the original work, scattered amongst his manuscripts, to shew his project to have been skilfully conceived, while its plan of execution was modestly and sensibly circumscribed to his bounded knowledge of the subject. And its idea, with its general sketch, drawn up at so advanced a period of a life — verging upon eighty — that had been spent in another and an absorbent study, must needs remain a monument of wonder for the general herd of mankind; and a stimulus to courage and enterprise for the gifted few, with whom longevity is united with genius.

  THE DOCTOR’S WAY OF LIFE.

  From the time of this happy return, the Memorialist passed at Chelsea College every moment that she could tear from personal calls that, most unopportunely yet imperiously, then demanded her attention.

  Shut up nevertheless, as the Doctor was now from the general world and its commerce, the seclusion of his person was by no means attended with any seclusion of kindness; or any exemption from what he deemed a parental devoir.

  When, on the 12th day of the following year, 1813, his returned daughter, though her first enjoyment was her restoration to his society, excused herself from accompanying her son to the College; and the Doctor gathered that that day, the 6th of January, and the anniversary of the lamented loss of their mutual darling, Susanna,
had been yearly devoted, since that privation, to meditative commemoration; he sent his confidential housekeeper to the Memorialist’s apartment with the following lines:

  “Few individuals have lost more valuable friends than myself, — Twining, Crisp, poor Bewley, Dr. Johnson, Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds — If I were to keep an anniversary for all these severally, I should not have time allowed me for diminishing the first excess of my affliction for each.”

  It may, perhaps, be superfluous, and yet seems unavoidable to mention, that again, as after the death of Mr. Crisp, she hastened to him with her grateful acknowledgments for this exhortation; and that she has ever since refused herself that stated sad indulgence.

  Still, also, the epistolary pen of the Doctor not only retained its kind, but kept alive its fanciful flow; as witness the following-extract from a letter, written in his eighty-seventh year, three months later than the date of the last copied billet, and in answer to a letter from the Memorialist, written during a visit to Mrs. Locke, senior, at Norbury Park;

  “Chelsea College, April, 1813.

  “Why, my dear F. B. d’Arblay! what a happy effect has the kindness of your dear, accomplished, and elegant friend, Mrs. Locke, produced! She has poured balm into all your mental wounds, and healed every sore, which, having had no leonine tincture of March in it, now only breathes zephyrs, and the comforts of Favonius; after your anxiety for the success of Alexander’s election, your own feeble state of health, and your uneasiness at the alarming silence of your kind and worthy husband.

  “I thought the weather was about to mend its manners! but to-day it has been more wet and blustering than for some time past. For the rain, however, as April is begun, it is to be hoped it will bring forth May flowers: and as to the fury of the wind, it seems to have purified the air of its noxious vapours, which have been supposed to have produced the symptoms of influenza.”

  &c. &c.

  1814.

  Nothing new, either of event or incident, occurred thenceforward that can be offered to the public reader; though not a day passed that teemed not with circumstance, or discourse, of tender import, or bosom interest, to the family of the Doctor, and to his still surviving and admitted friends.

  That Dr. Burney would have approved the destruction, or suppression of the voluminous records begun under his sickly paralytic depression, and kept in hand for occasional additions to the last years of his life, his Biographer has the happy conviction upon her mind, from the following paragraph, left loose amongst his manuscript hoards.

  It is without date; but was evidently written after some late perusal of the materials which he had amassed for his Memoirs; and which, from their opposing extremes of amplitude and deficiency, had probably, upon this accidental examination, struck his returning judgment with a consciousness, that he had rather disburthened his memory for his own ease and pastime, than prepared or selected matter from his stores for public interest.

  The following is the paragraph:

  “These records of the numerous invitations with which I have been honoured, entered, at the time, into my pocket-books, which served as ledgers, must be very dry and uninteresting, without relating the conversations, bon mots, or characteristic stories, told by individuals, who struck fire out of each other, producing mirth and good-humour: but when these entries were made, I had not leisure for details — and now — memory cannot recall them!”

  What next — and last — follows, is copied from the final page of Dr. Burney’s manuscript journal: and closes all there is to offer of his written composition.

  Sir Joshua Reynolds desired that the last name he should pronounce in public should be that of Michael Angelo: and Dr. Burney seems to purpose that the last name he should transmit — if so allowed — through his annals, to posterity, should be that of Haydn.

  “Finding a blank leaf at the end of my Journal, it may be used in the way of postscriptum, in speaking of the prelude, or opening of Haydn’s Creation, to observe, that though the generality of the subscribers were unable to disentangle the studied confusion in delineating chaos, yet, when dissonance was tuned, when order was established, and God said, “‘Let there be light! — and there was light!’

  ‘Que la lumiere soil! — et la lumiere fut! ‘the composer’s meaning was felt by the whole audience, who instantly broke in upon the performers with rapturous applause before the musical period was closed.”

  1814.

  Little or no change was perceptible in the health of Dr. Burney, save some small diminution of strength, at the beginning of this memorable year; which brought to a crisis a state of things that, by analogy, might challenge belief for the most improbable legends of other times; a state of things in which history seemed to make a mockery of fiction, by giving events to the world, and assorting destinies to mankind, that imagination would have feared to create, and that good taste would have resisted, as a mass of wonders fit only for the wand of the magician, when waved in the fancied precincts of chivalrous old romance — all brought to bear by the unimaginable manoeuvre of the starting of an unknown individual from Corsica to Paris; who, in the course of a few years, without any native influence, or interest, or means whatsoever, but of his own devising, made Kings over foreign dominions of three of his brothers; a Queen of one his sisters; a Cardinal of an uncle; took a daughter of the Caesars for his wife; proclaimed his infant son King of Rome; and ordered the Pope to Paris, to consecrate and crown him an Emperor!

  An epoch such as this, unparalleled, perhaps, in hope, dread, danger, and sharp vicissitude, could even still call forth the energies of Dr. Burney through his love of his country; his enthusiasm for those who served it; the warmth of his patriotism for its friends, and the fire of his antipathy for its foes, could still animate him into spirited discourse; bring back the tint of life into his pallid cheek; dart into his eyes a gleam of almost lustrous intelligence; and chase the nervous hoarseness from his voice, to restore it to the native clearness of his younger days.

  * * * *

  The apprehension of a long death-bed agony had frequently disturbed the peace of Dr. Burney; but that, at least, he was spared. It was only three days previous to his final dissolution, that any fears were excited of a fast approaching end.

  To avoid going over again the same melancholy ground, since nothing fresh recurs to give any advantage to a new statement, the Memorialist will venture to finish this narration, by copying the account of the closing scene which she drew up for General d’Arblay, who was then in Paris.

  THE CLOSING SCENE.

  TO GENERAL D’ARBLAY.

  “Not a week before the last fatal seizure, my dear father had cheerfully said to me: “I have gone through so rough a winter, and such severity of bodily pain; and I have held up against such intensity of cold, that I think now, I can stand any thing!”

  “Joyfully I had joined in this belief, which enabled me — most acutely to my since regret! — to occupy myself in the business I have mentioned to you; which detained me three or four days from the College. But I bore the unusual separation the less unwillingly, as public affairs were just then taking that happy turn in favour of England and her allies, that I could not but hope would once more, at least for a while, reanimate his elastic spirits to almost their pristine vivacity.

  “When I was nearly at liberty, I sent Alexander to the College, to pay his duty to his grandfather; with a promise that I would pay mine before night, to participate in his joy at the auspicious news from the Continent.

  “I was surprised by the early return of my messenger; his air of pensive absorption, and the disturbance, or rather taciturnity with which he heard my interrogatories. Too soon, however, I gathered that his grandfather had passed an alarming night; that both my brothers had been sent for, and that Dr. Mosely had been summoned.

  “I need not, I am sure, tell you that I was in the sick room the next instant.

  “I found the beloved invalid seated, in his customary manner, on his sofa. My sister Sarah
was with him, and his two faithful and favourite attendants, George and Rebecca. In the same customary manner, also, a small table before him was covered with books. But he was not reading. His revered head, as usual, hung upon his breast — and I, as usual, knelt before him, to catch a view of his face, while I inquired after his health.

  “But alas! — no longer as usual was my reception! He made no sort of answer; his look was fixed; his posture immoveable; and not a muscle of his face gave any indication that I was either heard or perceived!

  “Struck with awe, I had not courage to press for his notice, and hurried into the next room not to startle him with my alarm.

  “But when I was informed that he had changed his so fearfully fixed posture, I hastened back; reviving to the happy hope that again I might experience the balm of his benediction.

  “He was now standing, and unusually upright, and, apparently, with unusual muscular firmness.

  I was advancing to embrace him, but his air spoke a rooted concentration of solemn ideas that repelled intrusion.

  “Whether or not he recognized, or distinguished me, I know not! I had no command of voice to attempt any inquiry, and would not risk betraying my emotion at this great change since my last and happier admittance to his presence.

  “His eyes were intently bent on a window that faced the College burial-ground, where reposed the ashes of my mother-in-law, and where, he had more than once said, would repose his own.

  “He bestowed at least five or six minutes on this absorbed and melancholy contemplation of the upper regions of that sacred spot, that so soon were to enclose for ever his mortal clay.

  “No one presumed to interrupt his reverie.

  “He next opened his arms wide, extending them with a waving motion, that seemed indicative of an internally pronounced farewell! to all he looked at; and shortly afterwards, he uttered to himself, distinctly, though in a low, but deeply-impressive voice, “All this will soon pass away as a dream!”