Chapter III: Part 3

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 consumptive 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.

Mr. Burney was received at Lynn with every mark of favour, that could demonstrate the desire of its inhabitants to attach and fix him to that spot. He was introduced by Sir John Turner to the mayor, aldermen, recorder, clergy, physicians, lawyers, and principal merchants, who formed the higher population of the town; and who in their traffic, the wine trade, were equally eminent for the goodness of their merchandize and the integrity of their dealings.

All were gratified by an acquisition to their distant and quiet town, that seemed as propitious to society as to the arts; the men with respect gave their approbation to his sense and knowledge; the women with smiles bestowed theirs upon his manners and appearance. His air was so lively, and his figure was so youthful, that the most elegant as well as beautiful woman of the place, Mrs. Stephen Allen, took him for a Cambridge student, who, at that time, was expected at Lynn.

He was not insensible to such a welcome; yet the change was so great from the splendid or elegant, the classical or amusing circles, into which he had been initiated in the metropolis, that, in looking, he said, around him, he seemed to see but a void.

The following energetic lament to his Esther, written about a week after his Lynn residence, will best explain his tormented sensations at this altered scene of life. He was but in his twenty-fourth year, when he gave way to this quick burst of chagrin.

“TO MRS. BURNEY.
“_Lynn Regis, Monday._

“Now, my amiable friend, let me unbosom myself to thee, as if
I were to enjoy the incomparable felicity of thy presence.
And first—let me exclaim at the unreasonableness of man’s
desires; at his unbounded ambition and avarice, and at the
inconstancy of his temper, which impels him, the moment he
is in the possession of the thing that once employed all his
thoughts and wishes, to relinquish it, and to fix his “mind’s
eye” on some bauble that next becomes his point of view, and
that, if attained, he would wish as much to change for still
another toy, of still less consequence to his interest and
quiet. Oh thou constant tenant of my heart! to apply the
above to myself,—thou art the only good I have been constant
to! the only blessing I have been thankful to Providence
for! the only one, I feel, I shall ever continue to have
a true sense of! Ought I not to blush at this character’s
suiting me? Indeed I ought, and I do. Not that I think it
one peculiar to myself; I believe it would fit more than
half mankind. But it shames me to think how little I knew
myself, when I fancied I should be happy in this place. Oh
God! I find it impossible I should ever be so. Would you
believe it, that I have more than a hundred times wished I
had never heard its name? Nothing but the hope of acquiring
an independent fortune in a short space of time will keep me
here; though I am too deeply entered to retreat without great
loss. But happiness cannot be too dearly purchased. In short,
I would gladly change again for London, at any rate.

* * * * *

“The organ is execrably bad; and, add to that, a total
ignorance of the most known and common musical merits runs
through the whole body of people I have yet conversed with.
Even Sir J. T., who is the oracle of Apollo in this country,
is, in these matters, extremely shallow. Now the bad organ,
with the ignorance of my auditors, must totally extinguish
the few sparks of genius for composition that I may have,
and entirely discourage practice; for where would any pains
I may take to execute the most difficult piece of music be
repaid, if, like poor Orpheus, I am to perform to sticks and
stones?”

Ere long, however, Mr. Burney saw his prospects in a fairer point of view. He found himself surrounded by some very worthy and amiable persons, perfectly disposed to be his friends; and he became attached to their kindness. The unfixed state of his health made London a perilous place of abode for him; and his Esther pleaded for his accommodating himself to his new situation.

He took, therefore, a pretty and convenient house, and sent for what, next to his lovely wife, he most valued, his books; and when they came, and when she herself was coming, he revived in his hopes and spirits, and hastened her approach by the following affectionate rhymes—they must not, in these fastidious days, be called verses. The austere critic is besought, therefore, not to fall on the fair fame of the writer, by considering them as produced for public inspection; nor as assuming the high present character of poetry. They are inserted only biographically, from a dearth of any further prose document, by which might be conveyed, in the simplicity of his own veracious diction, some idea of the sympathy and the purity of his marriage happiness, by the rare picture which these lines present of an intellectual lover in a tender husband.

“TO MRS. BURNEY.
“_Lynn Regis._

“Come, my darling!—quit the town;
Come!—and me with rapture crown.

* * * * *

If ’tis meet to fee or bribe
A leech of th’ Æsculapius tribe,
We Hepburn have, who’s wise as Socrates,
And deep in physic as Hippocrates.
Or, if ’tis meet to take the air,
You borne shall be on horse or mare;
And, ’gainst all chances to provide,
I’ll be your faithful ’squire and guide.
If unadulterate wine be good
To glad the heart, and mend the blood,
We that in plenty boast at Lynn,
Would make with pleasure Bacchus grin.
Should nerves auricular demand
A head profound, and cunning hand,
The charms of music to display,
Pray,—cannot _I_ compose and play?
And strains to your each humour suit
On organ, violin, or flute?

If these delights you deem too transient,
We modern authors have, or antient,
Which, while I’ve lungs from phthisicks freed,
To thee with rapture, sweet, I’ll read.
If Homer’s bold, inventive fire,
Or Virgil’s art, you most admire;
If Pliny’s eloquence and ease,
Or Ovid’s flowery fancy please;
In fair array they marshall’d stand,
Most humbly waiting your command.
To humanize and mend the heart,
Our serious hours we’ll set apart.

* * * * *

We’ll learn to separate right from wrong,
Through Pope’s mellifluous moral song.
If wit and humour be our drift,
We’ll laugh at knaves and fools with Swift.
To know the world, its follies see,
Ourselves from ridicule to free,
To whom for lessons shall we run,
But to the pleasing Addison?
Great Bacon’s learning; Congreve’s wit,
By turns thy humour well may hit.
How sweet, original, and strong,
How high the flights of Dryden’s song!
He, though so often careless found,
Lifts us so high above the ground
That we disdain terrestrial things,
And scale Olympus while he sings.
Among the bards who mount the skies
Whoe’er to such a height could rise
As Milton? he, to whom ’twas given
To plunge to Hell, and mount to Heaven.
How few like thee—my soul’s delight!
Can follow him in every flight?
La Mancha’s knight, on gloomy day,
Shall teach our muscles how to play,
And at the black fanatic class,
We’ll sometimes laugh with Hudibras.
When human passions all subside,
Where shall we find so sure a guide
Through metaphysics’ mazy ground
As Locke—scrutator most profound?
One bard there still remains in store,
And who has him need little more:
A bard above my feeble lay;
Above what wiser scribes can say.
He would the secret thoughts reveal
Of all the human mind can feel:
None e’er like him in every feature
So fair a likeness drew of Nature.
No passion swells the mortal breast
But what his pencil has exprest:
Nor need I tell my heart’s sole queen
That Shakespeare is the bard I mean.
May heaven, all bounteous in its care,
These blessings, and our offspring spare!
And while our lives are thus employ’d,
No earthly bliss left unenjoy’d,
May we—without a sigh or tear—
Together finish our career!
Together gain another station
Without the pangs of separation!
And when our souls have travelled far
Beyond this little dirty star,
Beyond the reach of strife, or noise,
To taste celestial, stable joys—
O may we still together keep—
Or may our death he endless sleep!

“_Lynn Regis, 19th Dec. 1751._”

The wife and the babies were soon now in his arms; and this generous appreciator of the various charms of the one, and kind protector of the infantile feebleness of the other, cast away every remnant of discontent; and devoted himself to his family and profession, with an ardour that left nothing unattempted that seemed within the grasp of industry, and nothing unaccomplished that came within the reach of perseverance.

He had immediately for his pupils the daughters of every house in Lynn, whose chief had the smallest pretensions to belonging to the upper classes of the town; while almost all persons of rank in its vicinity, eagerly sought the assistance of the new professor for polishing the education of their females: and all alike coveted his society for their own information or entertainment.

First amongst those with whom these latter advantages might be reciprocated, stood, as usual, in towns far off from the metropolis, the physicians; who, for general education, learning, science, and politeness, are as frequently the leaders in literature as they are the oracles in health; and who, with the confraternity of the vicar, and the superior lawyer, are commonly the allowed despots of erudition and the belles lettres in provincial circles.

But while amongst the male inhabitants of the town, Mr. Burney associated with many whose understandings, and some few whose tastes, met his own; his wife, amongst the females, was less happy, though not more fastidious. She found them occupied almost exclusively, in seeking who should be earliest in importing from London what was newest and most fashionable in attire; or in vying with each other in giving and receiving splendid repasts; and in struggling to make their every rotation become more and more luxurious.

By no means was this love of frippery, or feebleness of character among the females, peculiar to Lynn: such, ALMOST[12] universally, is the inheritance bequeathed from mother to daughter in small towns at a distance from the metropolis; where there are few suspensive subjects or pursuits of interest, ambition, or literature, that can enlist either imagination or instruction into conversation.

That men, when equally removed from the busy turmoils of cities, or the meditative studies of retirement, to such circumscribed spheres, should manifest more vigour of mind, may not always be owing to possessing it; but rather to their escaping, through the calls of business, that inertness which casts the females upon themselves: for though many are the calls more refined than those of business, there are few that more completely do away with insignificancy.

In the state, however, in which Lynn then was found, Lynn will be found no longer. The tide of ignorance is turned; and not there alone, nor alone in any other small town, but in every village, every hamlet, nay, every cottage in the kingdom; and though mental cultivation is as slowly gradual, and as precarious of circulation, as Genius, o’erleaping all barriers, and disdaining all auxiliaries, is rapid and decisive, still the work of general improvement is advancing so universally, that the dark ages which are rolling away, would soon be lost even to man’s joy at their extirpation, but for the retrospective and noble services of the press, through which their memory—if only to be blasted—must live for ever.

There were two exceptions, nevertheless, to this stagnation of female merit, that were flowing with pellucid clearness.

The first, Mrs. Stephen Allen, has already been mentioned. She was the wife of a wine-merchant of considerable fortune, and of a very worthy character. She was the most celebrated beauty of Lynn, and might have been so of a much larger district, for her beauty was high, commanding, and truly uncommon: and her understanding bore the same description. She had wit at will; spirits the most vivacious and entertaining; and, from a passionate fondness for reading, she had collected stores of knowledge which she was always able, and “nothing loath” to display; and which raised her to as marked a pre-eminence over her townswomen in literary acquirements, as she was raised to exterior superiority from her personal charms.

The other exception, Miss Dorothy Young, was of a different description. She was not only denied beauty either of face or person, but in the first she had various unhappy defects, and in the second she was extremely deformed.

Here, however, ends all that can be said in her disfavour; for her mind was the seat of every virtue that occasion could call into use; and her disposition had a patience that no provocation could even momentarily subdue; though her feelings were so sensitive, that tears started into her eyes at every thing she either saw or heard of mortal sufferings, or of mortal unkindness—to any human creature but herself.

It may easily be imagined that this amiable Dorothy Young, and the elegant and intellectual Mrs. Allen, were peculiar and deeply attached friends.

When a professional call brought Mr. Burney and his wife to this town, that accomplished couple gave a new zest to rational, as well as a new spring to musical, society. Mr. Burney, between business and conviviality, immediately visited almost every house in the county; but his wife, less easily known, because necessarily more domestic, began her Lynn career almost exclusively with Mrs. Allen and Dolly Young, and proved to both an inestimable treasure; Mrs. Allen generously avowing that she set up Mrs. Burney as a model for her own mental improvement; and Dolly Young becoming instinctively the most affectionate, as well as most cultivated of Mrs. Burney’s friends; and with an attachment so fervent and so sincere, that she took charge of the little family upon every occasion of its increase during the nine or ten years of the Lynn residence.[13]

With regard to the extensive neighbourhood, Mr. Burney had soon nothing left to desire in hospitality, friendship, or politeness; and here, as heretofore, he scarcely ever entered a house upon terms of business, without leaving it upon those of intimacy.

The first mansions to which, naturally, his curiosity pointed, and at which his ambition aimed, were those two magnificent structures which stood loftily pre-eminent over all others in the county of Norfolk, Holcomb and Haughton; though neither the nobleness of their architecture, the grandeur of their dimensions, nor the vast expense of their erection, bore any sway in their celebrity, that could compare with what, at that period, they owed to the arts of sculpture and of painting.

HOLCOMB.

At Holcomb, the superb collection of statues, as well as of pictures, could not fail to soon draw thither persons of such strong native taste for all the arts as Mr. Burney and his wife; though, as there were, at that time, which preceded the possession of that fine mansion by the Cokes, neither pupils nor a Male chief, no intercourse beyond that of the civilities of reception on a public day, took place with Mr. Burney and the last very ancient lady of the house of Leicester, to whom Holcomb then belonged.

HAUGHTON HALL.

boasted, at that period, a collection of pictures that not only every lover of painting, but every British patriot in the arts, must lament that it can boast no longer.[14]

It had, however, in the heir and grandson of its founder, Sir Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford, a possessor of the most liberal cast; a patron of arts and artists; munificent in promoting the prosperity of the first, and blending pleasure with recompense to the second, by the frank equality with which he treated all his guests; and the ease and freedom with which his unaffected good-humour and good sense cheered, to all about him, his festal board.

Far, nevertheless, from meriting unqualified praise was this noble peer; and his moral defects, both in practice and example, were as dangerous to the neighbourhood, of which he ought to have been the guide and protector, as the political corruption of his famous progenitor, the statesman, had been hurtful to probity and virtue, in the courtly circles of his day, by proclaiming, and striving to bring to proof, his nefarious maxim, “that every man has his price.”

At the head of Lord Orford’s table was placed, for the reception of his visitors, a person whom he denominated simply “Patty;” and that so unceremoniously, that all the most intimate of his associates addressed her by the same free appellation.

Those, however, if such there were, who might conclude from this degrading familiarity, that the Patty of Lord Orford was “every body’s Patty,” must soon have been undeceived, if tempted to make any experiment upon such a belief. The peer knew whom he trusted, though he rewarded not the fidelity in which he confided; but the fond, faulty Patty loved him with a blindness of passion, that hid alike from her weak perceptions, her own frailties, and his seductions.

In all, save that blot, which, on earth, must to a female be ever indelible, Patty was good, faithful, kind, friendly, and praise-worthy.

The table of Lord Orford, then commonly called Arthur’s Round Table, assembled in its circle all of peculiar merit that its neighbourhood, or rather that the county produced, to meet there the great, the renowned, and the splendid, who, from their various villas, or the metropolis, visited Haughton Hall.

Mr. Burney was soon one of those whom the penetrating peer selected for a general invitation to his repasts; and who here, as at Wilbury House, formed sundry intimacies, some of which were enjoyed by him nearly through life. Particularly must be mentioned

Mr. Hayes, who was a scholar, a man of sense, and a passionate lover of books and of prints. He had a great and pleasant turn for humour, and a fondness and facility for rhyming so insatiable and irrepressible, that it seemed, like Strife in Spencer’s Faerie Queene, to be always seeking occasion.

Yet, save in speaking of that propensity, Strife and John Hayes ought never to come within the same sentence; for in character, disposition, and conduct, he was a compound of benevolence and liberality.

There was a frankness of so unusual a cast, and a warmth of affection, that seemed so glowing from the heart, in Mr. Hayes for Lord Orford; joined to so strong a resemblance in face and feature, that a belief, if not something beyond, prevailed, that Mr. Hayes was a natural son of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Earl of Orford, and, consequently, a natural uncle of his Lordship’s grandson.

RAINHAM.

To name the several mansions that called for, or welcomed, Mr. Burney, would almost be to make a Norfolk Register. At Rainham Castle he was full as well received by its master, General Lord Townshend, as a guest, as by its lady, the Baroness de Frerrars in her own right, for an instructor; the lady being natively cold and quiet, though well bred and sensible; while the General was warm-hearted, witty, and agreeable; and conceived a liking for Mr. Burney, that was sustained, with only added regard, through all his lordship’s various elevations.

FELBRIG.

But there was no villa to which he resorted with more certainty of finding congenial pleasure, than to Felbrig, where he began an acquaintance of highest esteem and respect with Mr. Windham, father of the Right Honourable Privy Counsellor and orator; with whom, also, long afterwards, he became still more closely connected; and who proved himself just the son that so erudite and elegant a parent would have joyed to have reared, had he lived to behold the distinguished rank in the political and in the learned world to which that son rose; and the admiration which he excited, and the pleasure which he expanded in select society.

WILLIAM BEWLEY.

A name next comes forward that must not briefly be glided by; that of William Bewley; a man for whom Mr. Burney felt the most enlightened friendship that the sympathetic magnetism of similar tastes, humours, and feelings, could inspire.

Mr. Bewley was truly a philosopher, according to the simplest, though highest, acceptation of that word; for his love of wisdom was of that unsophisticated species, that regards learning, science, and knowledge, with whatever delight they may be pursued abstractedly, to be wholly subservient, collectively, to the duties and practice of benevolence.

To this nobleness of soul, which made the basis of his character, he superadded a fund of wit equally rare, equally extraordinary: it was a wit that sparkled from the vivid tints of an imagination as pure as it was bright; untarnished by malice, uninfluenced by spleen, uninstigated by satire. It was playful, original, eccentric: but the depth with which it could have cut, and slashed, and pierced around him, would never have been even surmised, from the urbanity with which he forbore making that missile use of its power, had he not frequently darted out its keenest edge in ridicule against himself.

And not alone in this personal severity did he resemble the self-unsparing Scarron; his outside, though not deformed, was peculiarly unfortunate; and his eyes, though announcing, upon examination, something of his mind, were ill-shaped, and ill set in his head, and singularly small; and no other feature parried this local disproportion; for his mouth, and his under-jaw, which commonly hung open, were displeasing to behold.

The first sight, however, which of so many is the best, was of Mr. Bewley, not only the worst, but the only bad; for no sooner, in the most squeamish, was the revolted eye turned away, than the attracted ear, even of the most fastidious, brought it back, to listen to genuine instruction conveyed through unexpected pleasantry.

This original and high character, was that of an obscure surgeon of Massingham, a small town in the neighbourhood of Haughton Hall. He had been brought up with no advantages, but what laborious toil had worked out of native abilities; and he only subsisted by the ordinary process of rigidly following up the multifarious calls to which, in its provincial practice, his widely diversified profession is amenable.

Yet not wholly in “the desert air,” were his talents doomed to be wasted: they were no sooner spoken of at Haughton Hall, than the gates of that superb mansion were spontaneously flung open, and its Chief proved at once, and permanently remained, his noble patron and kind friend.

LYNN REGIS.

The visits of Mr. Burney to Massingham, and his attachment to its philosopher, contributed, more than any other connection, to stimulate that love and pursuit of knowledge, that urge its votaries to snatch from waste or dissipation those fragments of time, which, by the general herd of mankind, are made over to Lethe, for reading; learning languages; composing music; studying sciences; fathoming the theoretical and mathematical depths of his own art; and seeking at large every species of intelligence to which either chance or design afforded him any clew.

As he could wait upon his country pupils only on horseback, he purchased a mare that so exactly suited his convenience and his wishes, in sure-footedness, gentleness and sagacity, that she soon seemed to him a part of his family: and the welfare and comfort of Peggy became, ere long, a matter of kind interest to all his house.

On this mare he studied Italian; for, obliged to go leisurely over the cross roads with which Norfolk then abounded, and which were tiresome from dragging sands, or dangerous from deep ruts in clay, half his valuable time would have been lost in nothingness, but for his trust in Peggy; who was as careful in safely picking her way, as she was adroit in remembering from week to week whither she was meant to go.

Her master, at various odd moments, and from various opportunities, had compressed, from the best Italian Dictionaries, every word of the Italian language into a small octavo volume; and from this in one pocket, and a volume of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto, or Metastasio, in another, he made himself completely at home in that language of elegance and poetry.

His common-place book, at this period, rather merits the appellation of _un_common, from the assiduous research it manifests, to illustrate every sort of information, by extracts, abstracts, strictures, or descriptions, upon the almost universality of subject-matter which it contains.

It is without system or method; he had no leisure to put it into order; yet it is possible, he might owe to his familiar recurrence to that desultory assemblage of unconcocted materials, the general and striking readiness with which he met at once almost every topic of discourse.

This manuscript of scraps, drawn from reading and observation, was, like his Italian Dictionary, always in his great-coat pocket, when he travelled; so that if unusually rugged roads, or busied haste, impeded more regular study, he was sure, in opening promiscuously his pocket collection of _odds and ends_, to come upon some remark worth weighing; some point of science on which to ruminate; some point of knowledge to fix in his memory; or something amusing, grotesque, or little known, that might recreate his fancy.

THE GREVILLES.

Meanwhile, he had made too real an impression on the affections of his first friends, to let absence of sight produce absence of mind. With Mr. and Mrs. Greville he was always in correspondence; though, of course, neither frequently nor punctually, now that his engagements were so numerous, his obligations to fulfil them so serious, and that his own fireside was so bewitchingly in harmony with his feelings, as to make every moment he passed away from it a sacrifice.

He expounds his new situation and new devoirs, in reply to a letter that had long been unanswered, of Mr. Greville’s, from the Continent, with a sincerity so ingenuous that, though it is in rhyme, it is here inserted biographically.

“TO FULK GREVILLE, ESQ., AT PARIS.

“Hence, ‘loathed business,’ which so long
Has plunged me in the toiling throng.
Forgive, dear Sir! and gentle Madam!
A drudging younger son of Adam,
Who’s forc’d from morn to night to labor
Or at the pipe, or at the tabor:
Nor has he hope ’twill e’er be o’er
Till landed on some kinder shore;
Some more propitious star, whose rays
Benign, may cheer his future days.
Ah, think for rest how he must pant
Whose life’s the summer of an ant!
With grief o’erwhelm’d, the wretched Abel[15]
Is dumb as architect of Babel.
—Three months of sullen silence—seem
With black ingratitude to teem;
As if my heart were made of stone
Which kindness could not work upon;
Or benefits e’er sit enshrin’d
Within the precincts of my mind.
But think not so, dear Sir! my crime
Proceeds alone from want of time.
No more a giddy youth, and idle,
Without a curb, without a bridle,
Who frisk’d about like colt unbroke,
And life regarded as a joke.—
No!—different duties now are mine;
Nor do I at my cares repine:
With naught to think of but myself
I little heeded worldly pelf;
But now, alert I act and move
For others whom I better love.
Should you refuse me absolution,
Condemning my new institution,
’Twould chill at once my heart and zeal
For this my little commonweal.—
O give my peace not such a stab!
Nor slay—as Cain did—name-sake Nab.

* * * * *

This prologue first premis’d, in hopes
Such figures, metaphors, and tropes
For pardon will not plead in vain,
We’ll now proceed in lighter strain.

* * * * *

The epistle then goes on to strictures frank and honest, though softened off by courteous praise and becoming diffidence, on a manuscript poem of Mr. Greville’s, that had been confidentially transmitted to Lynn, for the private opinion and critical judgment of Mr. Burney.

Mr. Greville, now, was assuming a new character—that of an author; and he printed a work which he had long had in agitation, entitled “Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, Moral, Serious, and Entertaining;” a title that seemed to announce that England, in its turn, was now to produce, in a man of family and fashion, a La Bruyere, or a La Rochefoucaul. And Mr. Greville, in fact, waited for a similar fame with dignity rather than anxiety, because with expectation unclogged by doubt.

With Mrs. Greville, also, Mr. Burney kept up an equal, or more than equal, intercourse, for their minds were invariably in unison.

The following copy remains of a burlesque rhyming _billet-doux_, written by Mr. Burney in his old dramatic character of Will Fribble, and addressed to Mrs. Greville in that of Miss Biddy Bellair, upon her going abroad.

“WILLIAM FRIBBLE, ESQ.

“TO HER WHO WAS ONCE MISS BIDDY BELLAIR.

“_Greeting._

“No boisterous hackney coachman clown, No frisky fair nymph of
the town E’er wore so insolent a brow As Captain Flash, since
Hymen’s vow To him in silken bonds has tied So sweet, so fair,
so kind a bride. Well! curse me, now, if I can bear it!—
Though to his face I’d not declare it— To think that you
should take a dance With such a roister into France; And leave
poor Will in torturing anguish To sigh and pine, to grieve and
languish. ’Twas—let me tell you, Ma’am—quite cruel! Though
Jack and I shall fight a duel If ever he to England come And
does not skulk behind a drum. But—apropos to coming over, I
hope you soon will land at Dover That I may fly, more swift
than hawk, With you to have some _serus_ talk. The while, how
great will be my bliss Should you but deign to let me kiss— O
may these ardent vows prevail!— Your little finger’s vermeil
nail! Who am, Till direful death to dust shall crumble, My
dearest _cretur_! yours,
most humble,
“WILL FRIBBLE.”

Mrs. Greville, too, had commenced being an author; but without either the throes of pain or the joys of hope. It was, in fact, a burst of genius emanating from a burst of sorrow, which found an alleviating vent in a supplication to Indifference.

This celebrated ode was no sooner seen than it was hailed with a blaze of admiration, that passed first from friend to friend; next from newspapers to magazines; and next to every collection of fugitive pieces of poetry in the English language.[16]

The constant friendship that subsisted between this lady and Mr. Burney bad been cemented after his marriage, by the grateful pleasure with which he saw his chosen partner almost instantly included in it by a triple bond. The quick-sighted, and quick-feeling author of that sensitive ode, needed nor time nor circumstance for animating her perception of such merit as deserved a place in her heart; which had not, at that early period, become a suppliant for the stoical composure with which her wounded sensibility sought afterwards to close its passage.

She had first seen the fair Esther in the dawning bloom of youthful wedded love, while new-born happiness enlivened her courage, embellished her beauty, and enabled her to do honour to the choice of her happy husband; who stood so high in the favour of Mrs. Greville, that the sole aim of that lady, in the opening of the acquaintance, had been his gratification; aided, perhaps, by a natural curiosity, which attaches itself to the sight of any object who has inspired an extraordinary passion.

Far easier to conceive than to delineate was the rapture of the young bridegroom when, upon a meeting that, unavoidably, must have been somewhat tremendous, he saw the exertions of his lovely bride to substitute serenity for bashfulness; and read, in the piercing eyes of Mrs. Greville, the fullest approbation of such native self-possession.

From that time all inferiority of worldly situation was counteracted by intellectual equality.[17]

But the intercourse had for several years been interrupted from the Grevilles living abroad. It was renewed, however, upon their return to England; and the Burneys, with their eldest daughter,[18] visited Wilbury House upon every vacation that allowed time to Mr. Burney for the excursion. And every fresh meeting increased the zest for another. They fell into the same train of observation upon characters, things, and books; and enjoyed, with the same gaiety of remark, all humorous incidents, and all traits of characteristic eccentricity. Mrs. Greville began a correspondence with Mrs. Burney the most open and pleasantly communicative. But no letters of Mrs. Burney remain; and two only of Mrs. Greville have been preserved. These two, however, demonstrate all that has been said of the terms and the trust of their sociality.[19]

DOCTOR JOHNSON.

How singularly Mr. Burney merited encouragement himself, cannot more aptly be exemplified than by portraying the genuine ardour with which he sought to stimulate the exertions of genius in others, and to promote their golden as well as literary laurels.

Mr. Burney was one of the first and most fervent admirers of those luminous periodical essays upon morals, literature, and human nature, that adorned the eighteenth century, and immortalized their author, under the vague and inadequate titles of the Rambler and the Idler. He took them both in; he read them to all his friends; and was the first to bring them to a bookish little coterie that assembled weekly at Mrs. Stephen Allen’s. And the charm expanded over these meetings, by the original lecture of these refined and energetic lessons of life, conduct, and opinions, when breathed through the sympathetic lips of one who felt every word with nearly the same force with which every word had been dictated, excited in that small auditory a species of enthusiasm for the author, that exalted him at once in their ideas, to that place which the general voice of his country has since assigned him, of the first writer of the age.

Mr. Bewley more than joined in this literary idolatry; and the works, the character, and the name of Dr. Johnson, were held by him in a reverence nearly enthusiastic.

At Haughton, at Felbrig, at Rainham, at Sir A. Wodehouse’s, at Major Mackenzie’s, and wherever his judgment had weight, Mr. Burney introduced and recommended these papers. And when, in 1755, the plan of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary reached Norfolk, Mr. Burney, by the zeal with which he spread the fame of that lasting monument of the Doctor’s matchless abilities, was enabled to collect orders for a Norfolk packet of half a dozen copies of that noble work.

This empowered him to give some vent to his admiration; and the following letter made the opening to a connection that he always considered as one of the greatest honours of his life.[20]

MR. BURNEY TO MR. JOHNSON.

“Sir,

“Though I have never had the happiness of a personal
knowledge of you, I cannot think myself wholly a stranger to
a man with whose sentiments I have so long been acquainted;
for it seems to me as if the writer, who was sincere, had
effected the plan of that philosopher who wished men had
windows at their breasts, through which the affections of
their hearts might be viewed.

“It is with great self-denial that I refrain from giving way
to panegyric in speaking of the pleasure and instruction
I have received from your admirable writings; but knowing
that transcendent merit shrinks more at praise, than either
vice or dulness at censure, I shall compress my encomiums
into a short compass, and only tell you that I revere your
principles and integrity, in not prostituting your genius,
learning, and knowledge of the human heart, in ornamenting
vice or folly with those beautiful flowers of language due
only to wisdom and virtue. I must add, that your periodical
productions seem to me models of true genius, useful
learning, and elegant diction, employed in the service of the
purest precepts of religion, and the most inviting morality.

“I shall waive any further gratification of my wish to
tell you, Sir, how much I have been delighted by your
productions, and proceed to the _business_ of this letter;
which is no other than to beg the favour of you to inform
me, by the way that will give you the least trouble, when,
and in what manner, your admirably planned, and long
wished-for Dictionary will be published? If it should be
by subscription, or you should have any books at your own
disposal, I shall beg of you to favour me with six copies for
myself and friends, for which I will send you a draft.

“I ought to beg pardon of the public as well as yourself,
Sir, for detaining you thus long from your useful labours;
but it is the fate of men of eminence to be persecuted by
insignificant friends as well as enemies; and the simple
cur who barks through fondness and affection, is no less
troublesome than if stimulated by anger and aversion.

“I hope, however, that your philosophy will incline you to
forgive the intemperance of my zeal and impatience in making
these inquiries; as well as my ambition to subscribe myself,
with very great regard,

“Sir, your sincere admirer, and most humble servant,

“CHARLES BURNEY.”

“_Lynn Regis, 16th Feb. 1755._”

Within two months of the date of this letter, its writer was honoured with the following answer.

“_To Mr. Burney, in Lynn Regis, Norfolk._

“SIR,

“If you imagine that by delaying my answer I intended to shew
any neglect of the notice with which you have favoured me,
you will neither think justly of yourself nor of me. Your
civilities were offered with too much elegance not to engage
attention; and I have too much pleasure in pleasing men like
you, not to feel very sensibly the distinction which you have
bestowed upon me.

“Few consequences of my endeavours to please or to benefit
mankind, have delighted me more than your friendship thus
voluntarily offered; which, now I have it, I hope to keep,
because I hope to continue to deserve it.

“I have no Dictionaries to dispose of for myself; but shall
be glad to have you direct your friends to Mr. Dodsley,
because it was by his recommendation that I was employed in
the work.

“When you have leisure to think again upon me, let me be
favoured with another letter, and another yet, when you
have looked into my Dictionary. If you find faults, I shall
endeavour to mend them: if you find none, I shall think you
blinded by kind partiality: but to have made you partial in
his favour will very much gratify the ambition of,

“Sir,

“Your most obliged

“And most humble servant,

“SAM. JOHNSON.”

“_Gough-square, Fleet-street_,

“_April 8, 1755_.”

A reply so singularly encouraging, demanding “another letter,” and yet “another,” raised the spirits, and flattered the hopes—it might almost be said the foresight—of Mr. Burney, with a prospect of future intimacy, that instigated the following unaffected answer.

“SIR,

“That you should think my letter worthy of notice was what I
began to despair of; and, indeed, I had framed and admitted
several reasons for your silence, more than sufficient for
your exculpation. But so highly has your politeness overrated
my intentions, that I find it impossible for me to resist
accepting the invitation with which you have honoured me, of
writing to you again, though conscious that I have nothing to
offer that can by any means merit your attention.

“It is with the utmost impatience that I await the possession
of your great work, in which every literary difficulty will
he solved, and curiosity gratified, at least as far as
English literature is concerned: nor am I fearful of letting
expectation rise to the highest summit in which she can
accompany reason.

“From what you are pleased to say concerning Mr. Dodsley, I
shall ever think myself much his debtor; but yet I cannot
help suspecting that you intended him a compliment when you
talked of _recommendation_. Is it possible that the world
should be so blind, or booksellers so stupid, as to need
other recommendation than your own? Indeed, I shall honour
_both_, world and booksellers, so far as to substitute
_solicitation_ in the place of the above humiliating term.

“Perhaps you will smile when I inform you, that since first
the rumour of your Dictionary’s coming abroad this winter
was spread, I have been supposed to be marvellously deep in
politics: not a sun has set since the above time without
previously lighting me to the coffee-house; nor risen,
without renewing my curiosity. But time, the great revealer
of secrets, has at length put an end to my solicitude;
for, if there be truth in book men, I can now, by cunning
calculation, foretell the day and hour when it will arrive at
Lynn.

“If, which is probable, I should fix my future abode in
London, I cannot help rejoicing that I shall then be an
inhabitant of the same town, and exulting that I shall then
be a fellow citizen with Mr. Johnson; and were it possible
I could be honoured with a small share of his esteem, I
should regard it as the most grateful circumstance of my
life. And—shall I add, that I have a female companion, whose
intellects are sufficiently masculine to enter into the
true spirit of your writings, and, consequently, to have an
enthusiastic zeal for them and their author? How happy would
your presence make us over our tea, so often meliorated by
your productions!

“If, in the mean time, your avocations would permit you to
bestow a line or two upon me, without greatly incommoding
yourself, it would communicate the highest delight to

“Sir,

“Your most obedient,

“And most humble servant,

“CHA^s. BURNEY.”

“Have you, Sir, ever met with a little French book, entitled,
‘Synonimes François, par M. l’Abbé Girard?’ I am inclined to
imagine, if you have not seen it, that it would afford you,
as a philologer, some pleasure, it being written with great
spirit, and, I think, accuracy: but I should rejoice to have
my opinion either confirmed or corrected by yours. If you
should find any difficulty in procuring the book, mine is
wholly at your service.”

“_Lynn Regis, April 14th, 1755._”

To this letter there was little chance of any answer, the demanded “another,” relative to the Dictionary, being still due.

That splendid, and probably, from any single intellect, unequalled work, for vigour of imagination and knowledge amidst the depths of erudition, came out in 1756. And, early in 1757, Mr. Burney paid his faithful homage to its author.

“_To Mr. Johnson, Gough-square._

“SIR,

“Without exercising the greatest self-denial, I should not
have been able thus long to withhold from you my grateful
acknowledgments for the delight and instruction you have
afforded me by means of your admirable Dictionary—a work,
I believe, not yet equalled in any language; for, not
to mention the accuracy, precision, and elegance of the
definitions, the illustrations of words are so judiciously
and happily selected as to render it a repository, and, I
had almost said, universal register of whatever is sublime
or beautiful in English literature. In looking for words, we
constantly find things. The road, indeed, to the former, is
so flowery as not to be travelled with speed, at least by
me, who find it impossible to arrive at the intelligence I
want, without bating by the way, and revelling in collateral
entertainment. Were I to express all that I think upon this
subject, your Dictionary would be stript of a great part of
its furniture: but as praise is never gratefully received
by the justly deserving till a deduction is first made of
the ignorance or partiality of him who bestows it, I shall
support my opinion by a passage from a work of reputation
among our neighbours, which, if it have not yet reached you,
I shall rejoice at being the first to communicate, in hopes
of augmenting the satisfaction arising from honest fame,
and a conviction of having conferred benefits on mankind:
well knowing with how parsimonious and niggard a hand men
administer comfort of the kind to modest merit.

“‘Le savant et ingenieux M. Samuel Johnson, qui, dans
l’incomparable feuille periodique intitulée le Rambler,
apprenoit à ses compatriotes à penser avec justesse sur
les matières les plus interessantes, vient de leur fournir
des secours pour bien parler, et pour écrire correctement;
talens que personne, peut être, ne possede dans un degré
plus eminent que lui. Il n’y a qu’une voix sur le succés de
l’auteur pour epurer, fixer, et enricher une langue dont son
Rambler montre si admirablement l’abondance et la force,
l’elegance et l’harmonie.’

“_Bibliotheque des Savans._ Tom. iii. p. 482.

“Though I had constantly in my remembrance the encouragement
with which you flattered me in your reply to my first letter,
yet knowing that civility and politeness seem often to
countenance actions which they would not perform, I could
hardly think myself entitled to the permission you gave me
of writing to you again, had I not lately been apprised of
your intention to oblige the admirers of Shakespeare with
a new edition of his works by subscription. But, shall I
venture to tell you, notwithstanding my veneration for you
and Shakespeare, that I do not partake of the joy which the
selfish public seem to feel on this occasion?—so far from
it, I could not but be afflicted at reflecting, that so
exalted, so refined a genius as the author of the Rambler,
should submit to a task so unworthy of him as that of a mere
editor: for who would not grieve to see a Palladio, or a
Jones, undergo the dull drudgery of carrying rubbish from an
old building, when he should be tracing the model of a new
one? But I detain you too long from the main subject of this
letter, which is to beg a place in the subscription for,

The Right Hon. the Earl of Orford,
Miss Mason,
Brigs Carey, Esq.
Archdale Wilson, Esq.
Richard Fuller, Esq.

“And for, Sir,

“Your most humble, and extremely devoted servant,

“CHARLES BURNEY.”

“_Lynn Regis_,
_28th March, 1757._”

It was yet some years later than this last date of correspondence, before Mr. Burney found an opportunity of paying his personal respects to Dr. Johnson; who then, in 1760, resided in chambers at the Temple. No account, unfortunately, remains of this first interview, except an anecdote that relates to Mr. Bewley.

While awaiting the appearance of his revered host, Mr. Burney recollected a supplication from the philosopher of Massingham, to be indulged with some token, however trifling or common, of his friend’s admission to the habitation of this great man. Vainly, however, Mr. Burney looked around the apartment for something that he might innoxiously purloin. Nothing but coarse and necessary furniture was in view; nothing portable—not even a wafer, the cover of a letter, or a split pen, was to be caught; till, at length, he had the happiness to espie an old hearth broom in the chimney corner. From this, with hasty glee, he cut off a bristly wisp, which he hurried into his pocket-book; and afterwards formally folded in silver paper, and forwarded, in a frank, to Lord Orford, for Mr. Bewley; by whom the burlesque offering was hailed with good-humoured acclamation, and preserved through life.

LYNN REGIS.

In this manner passed on, quick though occupied, and happy though toilsome, nine or ten years in Norfolk; when the health of Mr. Burney being re-established, and his rising reputation demanding a wider field for expansion, a sort of cry was raised amongst his early friends to spur his return to the metropolis.

Fully, however, as he felt the flattery of that cry, and ill as, in its origin, he had been satisfied with his Lynn residence, he had now experienced from that town and its vicinity, so much true kindness, and cordial hospitality, that his reluctance to quit them was verging upon renouncing such a measure; when he received the following admonition upon the subject from his first friend, and earliest guide, Mr. Crisp.

“TO MR. BURNEY.

* * *

“I have no more to say, my dear Burney, about harpsichords:
and if you remain amongst your foggy aldermen, I shall be
the more indifferent whether I have one or not. But really,
among friends, is not settling at Lynn, planting your youth,
genius, hopes, fortune, &c., against a north wall? Can you
ever expect ripe, high-flavoured fruit, from such an aspect?
Your underrate prices in the town, and galloping about the
country for higher, especially in the winter—are they worthy
of your talents? In all professions, do you not see every
thing that has the least pretence to genius, fly up to the
capital—the centre of riches, luxury, taste, pride,
extravagance,—all that ingenuity is to fatten upon? Take, then, your
spare person, your pretty mate, and your brats, to that propitious
mart, and,

‘Seize the glorious, golden opportunity,’