MEMOIRS 
 
 DOCTOR BURNEY, 
 
 ARRANGED 
 
 FROM HIS OWN MANUSCRIPTS, FROM FAMILY PAPERS, AND 
 FROM PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 HIS DAUGHTER, MADAME D'ARBLAY. 
 
 1 O could my feeble powers thy virtues trace, 
 By filial love each fear should be suppress'd ; 
 The blush of incapacity I'd chace, 
 And stand Recorder of Thy worth ! confess'd." 
 
 Anonymous Dedication of Evelina, to Dr. Burney, in 1/78. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON : 
 EDWARD MOXON, 64, NEW BOND STREET. 
 
 1832.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 DRADBURY AND KVANS, PRINTERS; 
 BOUVER1E STREET.
 
 Y.2, 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 DOCTOR BURNEY 
 
 SUCH, as far as can be gathered, or recollected, 
 was the list of the general home circle of Dr. Bur- 
 ney, on his beginning residence in St. MartinV 
 street ; though many persons must be omitted, not 
 to swell voluminously a mere catalogue of names, 
 where no comment, or memorandum of incident, has 
 been left of them by the Doctor. 
 
 But to enumerate the friends or acquaintances 
 with whom he associated in the world at large, would 
 be nearly to ransack the Court Calendar, the list of 
 the Royal Society, of the Literary Club, of all 
 assemblages of eminent artists ; and almost every 
 other list that includes the celebrated or active cha- 
 racters, then moving, like himself, in the vortex of 
 public existence. 
 
 VOL. II. B 
 
 236970
 
 2 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Chiefly, however, after those already named, stood, 
 in his estimation, Mr. Chamier, Mr. Boone, Dr. 
 Warton, and his brother, Dr. Thomas Warton, Sir 
 Richard Jebb, Mr. Matthias, Mr. Cox, Dr. Lind, 
 and Mr. Planta, of the Museum. 
 
 OMIAH. 
 
 At the end of the year 1775, the Doctor's eldest 
 son, Captain James Burney, who, on board the 
 Cerberus, had convoyed General Burgoyne to Ame- 
 rica, obtained permission from the Admiralty to 
 return home, in order to again accompany Captain 
 Cooke in a voyage round the world ; the second 
 circumnavigation of the young Captain ; the third, 
 and unhappily the last, of the great Captain Cooke. 
 
 Omiah, whom they were to restore to his country 
 and friends, came now upon a leave-taking visit to 
 the family of his favourite Captain Burney. 
 
 Omiah, by this time, had made some proficiency 
 in the English language, and in English customs ; 
 and he knew the town so well, that he perambulated 
 it for exercise and for visits, without either inter- 
 preter or guide.
 
 OMIAH. O 
 
 But he owed quite as much assistance to attitude 
 and gesture, for making himself understood, as to 
 speech, for in that he was still, at times, quite unin- 
 telligible. To dumb shew he was probably familiar, 
 the brevity and paucity of his own dialect making 
 it necessarily a principal source of communication 
 at Ulitea and at Otaheite. What he knew of English 
 he must have caught instinctively and mechanically, 
 as it is caught by children ; and, it may be, only the 
 faster from having his attention unencumbered with 
 grammatical difficulties, or orthographical contrarie- 
 ties : yesterday served for the past, in all its dis- 
 tances : to-morrow, for the future, in all its depen- 
 dences. 
 
 The King allowed him a handsome pension, upon 
 which he lived perfectly at ease, and very happily : 
 and he entertained, in return, as gratefully loyal a 
 devotion to his Majesty as if he had been a native 
 born subject. 
 
 He was very lively, yet gentle ; and even politely 
 free from any forwardness or obtrusion ; holding 
 back, and keeping silent, when not called into notice, 
 with as much delicacy and reserve, as any well-bred 
 European. And his confidence in the benevolence 
 and honour of the strangers with whom he had
 
 4 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 trusted his person and his life, spoke a nature as 
 intrepid as it was guileless. 
 
 Dr. Burney inquired of him whether he had 
 lately seen the King ? 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " Yes. King George bid 
 me, * Omy, you go home.' O ! dood man, King 
 George ! ver dood man ! not ver bad ! " 
 
 He then endeavoured, very pleasingly, to discri- 
 minate between his joy at returning to his native 
 land, and his grief in quitting England. " Lord 
 Sandwich," he said, " bid me Mr. Omy, you two 
 ships : one, two : you go home. Omy make ver fine 
 bow ; " which he rose to perform, and with grace 
 and ease ; " den Omy say, My lord, ver much 
 oblige ! " 
 
 The Doctor asked whether he had been at the 
 Opera ? 
 
 His answer was a violent and ear-jarring squeak, 
 by way of imitating Italian singing. Nevertheless, 
 he said that he began to like it a great deal better 
 than he had done at first. 
 
 He now missed Richard, the Doctor's youngest 
 son,* and, upon being told that he was gone to 
 
 * By the second marriage.
 
 OMIAH. 5 
 
 school, clapped his hands, and cried, " O, learn 
 book ? ver well." Then, putting his hands toge- 
 ther, and opening and shutting them, to imitate 
 turning over the leaves of a book, he attempted to 
 describe the humour of some school that he had 
 been taken to see. " Boys here ; " he cried : " boys 
 there ; boys all over. Master call. One boy come 
 up. Do so, *' muttering a confused jargon to 
 imitate reading. " Not ver well. Ver bad. Mas- 
 ter do so ! " 
 
 He then described the master giving the boy 
 a rap on the shoulder with the book. " Ha ! ha ! 
 Boy like ver bad ! not ver well. Boy do so ; " 
 making wry faces. " Poor boy ! not ver dood. Boy 
 ver bad." 
 
 When the Doctor wished to know what he thought 
 of English horses, and the English mode of riding, 
 he answered, " Omy like ver well." He then tried 
 to expatiate upon riding double, which he had 
 seen upon the high road, and which had much 
 astonished him. " First," cried he, " go man ; 
 so ! " making a motion as if mounting and whip- 
 ping a horse. " Then here ! " pointing behind 
 him j " here go woman ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! "
 
 O MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 The Doctor asked when he had seen the beauti- 
 ful Lady Townshend, who was said to desire his 
 acquaintance. 
 
 He immediately made a low bow, with a pleased 
 smile, and said, " Ver pret woman, Lady Towns- 
 hend ; not ver nasty. Omy drink tea with Lady 
 Townshend in one, two, tree days. Lord Towns- 
 hend my friend. Lady Townshend my friend. 
 Ver pret woman, Lady Townshend : ver pret woman 
 Mrs. Crewe : ver pret woman Mrs. Bouverie : ver 
 pret woman, Lady Craven." 
 
 Dr. Burney concurred, and admired his taste. 
 He then said, that when he was invited anywhere 
 they wrote, " Mr. Omy, you come dinner, tea, 
 supper. Then Omy go, ver fast." 
 
 Dr. Burney requested that he would favour us 
 with a national song of Ulitea, which he had sung 
 to Lord Sandwich, at Hinchenbrook. 
 
 He seemed much ashamed, and unwilling to com- 
 ply, from a full consciousness now acquired of the 
 inferiority of his native music to our's. But the 
 family all joined in the Doctor's wish, and he was 
 too obliging to refuse. Nevertheless, he was so 
 modest, that he seemed to blush alike at his own
 
 OMIAH. 
 
 performance, and at the barbarity of his South Sea 
 Islands' harmony ; and he began two or three times 
 before he could gather firmness to proceed. 
 
 Nothing could be more curious, or less pleasing 
 than this singing. Voice he had none ; and tune, 
 or air, did not seem to be even aimed at, either by 
 composer or performer. 'Twas a mere queer, wild 
 and strange rumbling of uncouth sounds. 
 
 His music, Dr. Burney declared, was all that he 
 had about him of savage. 
 
 He took great pains, however, to Englishize the 
 meaning of his ditty, which was laughable enough. 
 It appeared to be a sort of trio, formed by an old 
 woman, a young woman, and a young man : the two 
 latter begin by entertaining each other with praises 
 of their mutual merits, and protestations of their 
 mutual passion ; when the old woman enters, and 
 endeavours to allure to herself the attention of the 
 young man ; and, as she cannot boast of her personal 
 charms, she is very busy in displaying her dress and 
 decorations, and making him observe and admire her 
 draperies. He stood up to act this scene ; and 
 shewed much humour in representing the absurd 
 affectation and languishing grimaces of this ancient 
 enamorata. The youth, next, turning from her
 
 8 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 with scorn, openly avows his passion for the young 
 nymph : upon which, the affronted antique dame 
 authoritatively orders the damsel away ; and then, 
 coming up, with soft and loving smiles, offers herself 
 unreservedly to the young man ; saying, to use his 
 own words, " Come marry me ! *' The young man 
 starts back, as if from some venomous insect ; but, 
 half returning, makes her a reverence, and then 
 humbly begs she will be so good as to excuse him ; 
 but, as she approaches to answer, and to coax him, 
 he repels her with derision, and impetuously runs 
 off. 
 
 Notwithstanding the singing of Omiah was so 
 barbarous, his action, and the expression of his 
 countenance, was so original, that they afforded 
 great amusement, of the risible kind, to the Doctor 
 and his family, who could not finally part from him 
 without much regret ; so gentle, so ingenuous, so 
 artless, and so pleasing had been his conduct and 
 conversation in his frequent visits to the house ; 
 nor did he, in return, finally quit them without 
 strong symptoms even of sadness. 
 
 In the February of the ensuing year, 17?6, Cap- 
 tain Burney set sail, with Captain Cooke and Omiah, 
 on their watery tour.
 
 CONCEKTS. 
 
 CONCERTS. 
 
 In the private narrative of an historian of the 
 musical art, it may not be improper to insert some 
 account of the concerts, which he occasionally gave 
 to invited friends and acquaintances at his own 
 house ; as they biographically mark his style of life, 
 and the consideration in which he was held by the 
 musical world. 
 
 The company was always small, as were the 
 apartments in which it was received ; twit always 
 select, as the name, fame, and travels of the Doctor, 
 by allowing him a choice of guests, enabled him to 
 limit admission to real lovers of music. 
 
 He had never any formal band ; though it is pro- 
 bable that there was hardly a musician in England 
 who, if called upon, would have refused his ser- 
 vices. But they were not requisite to allure those 
 whom the Doctor wished to please or oblige ; and a 
 crowd in a private apartment he thought as inimical 
 to harmony as to conversation. 
 
 It was, primarily, to gratify Mr. Crisp that, while 
 yet in Poland-street, he had begun these little mu- 
 sical assemblages ; which, in different forms, and
 
 10 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 with different parties, he continued, or renewed, 
 
 JL 
 through life. 
 
 The simplicity of the entertainment had, pro- 
 bably, its full share in the incitement to its partici- 
 pation. A request to or from the master of the 
 house, was the sole ticket of entrance. And the 
 urbanity of the Doctor upon these occasions, with 
 the warmth of his praise to excellence, and the 
 candour of his indulgence to failure, made his recep- 
 tion of his visitors dispense a pleasure so uncon- 
 strained, so varied, so good-humoured, that his con- 
 certs were most sought as a favour by those whose 
 presence did them the most honour. 
 
 To style them, however, concerts, may be confer- 
 ring on them a dignity to which they had not any 
 pretension. There was no bill of fare : there were 
 no engaged subalterns, either to double, or aid, or 
 contrast, with the principals. The performances 
 were promiscuous ; and simply such as suited the 
 varying humours and desires of the company ; a 
 part of which were always assistants as well as 
 auditors. 
 
 Some details of these harmonical coteries, which 
 were written at the moment by this memorialist to 
 Mr. Crisp, will be selected from amongst those
 
 CONCERTS. 11 
 
 which contain characteristic traits of persons of cele- 
 brity ; as they may more pointedly display their cast 
 and nature, than any merely descriptive reminis- 
 cences. 
 
 No apology will be pleaded for the careless man- 
 ner in which these accounts are recorded ; Mr. Crisp, 
 as may have been observed in the narrations that 
 have been copied relative to Mr. Bruce, prohibited 
 all form or study in his epistolary intercourse with 
 his young correspondent. 
 
 CONCERT. ABSTRACT FIRST. 
 " To SAMUEL CIIISP, ESQ. 
 
 " Chesington, Kingston, Surrey. 
 
 " Let me now try, my dear Mr. Crisp, if I cannot 
 have the pleasure to make you dolorously repent 
 your inexorability to coming to town. We have 
 had such sweet music ! But let me begin with the 
 company, according to your orders. 
 
 " They all arrived early, and staid the whole 
 evening. 
 
 " The Baron de Deiden, the Danish ambassador.
 
 2 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " The Baroness, his wife ; a sweet woman, in- 
 deed ; young, pretty, accomplished, and graceful. 
 She is reckoned the finest dilletante performer on 
 the piano-forte in Europe. 
 
 " I might be contented, you will perhaps say, to 
 have given her this precedence in England and in 
 Denmark ; i. e. in her own country and in our's : 
 but Europe sounds more noble I 
 
 " The Honourable Miss Phipps, who came with 
 her, or rather, I believe, was brought by her, for 
 they are great friends ; and Miss Phipps had 
 already been with us in Queen-square. Miss Phipps 
 is a daughter of Lord Mulgrave, and sister to the 
 famous Polar captain. She seems full of spirit and 
 taste. 
 
 " Sir James and Lady Lake ; Sir Thomas Clarges ; 
 Mrs. and Miss Ord ; and a good many others, agree- 
 able enough, though too tedious to mention, having 
 nothing either striking or odd in them. But the pride 
 of the evening, as neither you, my dear Mr. Crisp, nor 
 Mr. Twining, could be with us, was Mr. HARRIS, 
 of Salisbury, author of the three treatises on Poetry, 
 Music, and Painting ; Philosophical Arrangements ; 
 Hermes,' &c. He brought with him Mrs. Harris, and 
 his second daughter, Miss Louisa, a distinguished
 
 CONCERTS. 13 
 
 lady-musician. Miss Harris,* the eldest, a cultivated 
 and high-bred character, is, I believe, with her 
 brother, our minister at Petersburgh. 
 
 " Hettina,t Mr. Burney, and our noble selves, 
 bring up the rear. 
 
 " There was a great deal of conversation pre- 
 vious to the music. But as the party was too 
 large for a general chatterment, every body that 
 had not courage to stroll about and please themselves, 
 was obliged to take up with their next neighbour. 
 What think you, then, of my good fortune, when I 
 tell you I happened to sit by Mr. Harris ? and that 
 that so happening, joined to my being at home, 
 however otherwise insignificant, gave me the intre- 
 pidity to abandon my yea and nay responses, when 
 he was so good as to try whether I could make any 
 other. His looks, indeed, are so full of benignity, 
 as well as of meaning and understanding ; and his 
 manners have a suavity so gentle, so encouraging, 
 that, notwithstanding his high name as an author, 
 all fear from his renown was wholly whisked away 
 
 by delight in his discourse and his countenance. 
 
 Jf 
 
 * Now the Honourable Mrs. Robinson. 
 f The Doctor's eldest daughter.
 
 14 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " My father was in excellent spirits, and walked 
 about from one to another, giving pleasure to all 
 whom he addressed. 
 
 " As we had no violins, basses, flutes, &c., we were 
 forced to cut short the formality of any overture, 
 and to commence by the harp. Mr. Jones had a 
 very sweet instrument, with new pedals, constructed 
 by Merlin. He plays very well, and with very neat 
 execution. 
 
 " Mr. Burney, then, at the request of the Baro- 
 ness de Deiden, went to the harpsichord, where he 
 fired away with his usual genius. He first played a 
 Concerto of Schobert's ; and then, as the Baroness 
 would not let him rise, another of my father's. 
 
 " When Mr. Burney had received the compli- 
 ments of the nobility and gentry r , my father soli- 
 cited the Baroness to take his place. 
 
 " ' O no!' she cried, ' I cannot hear of such a 
 thing ! It is out of the question ! It would be a 
 figurante to dance a pas seul after Mademoiselle 
 Heinel.' 
 
 " However, her animated friend, Miss Phipps, 
 joined so earnestly with my father in entreaty, that, 
 as the Baron looked strongly his sanction to their 
 wishes, she was prevailed upon to yield ; which she
 
 CONCERTS. 15 
 
 did most gracefully ; and she then played a difficult 
 lesson of Schobert's remarkably well, with as much 
 meaning as execution. She is, besides, so modest, 
 so unassuming, and so pretty, that she was the 
 general object of admiration. 
 
 " When my father went to thank her, she said 
 she had never been so frightened before in her life. 
 
 " My father then begged another German com- 
 position from her, which he had heard her play at 
 Lord Mulgrave's. She was going, most obligingly, 
 to comply, when the Baron,- in a half whisper, 
 and pointing to my sister Burney, said ; * Aprds, 
 ma chdre ! ' 
 
 " ' Eh bien out ! ' cried Miss Phipps, in a lively 
 tone, * aprds Madame Burney ! come Mrs. Burney, 
 pray indulge us.' 
 
 " The Baroness, with a pleased smile, most 
 willingly made way ; and your Hettina, unaffectedly, 
 though not quite unfluttered, took her seat ; and to 
 avoid any air of emulation, with great propriety 
 began with a slow movement, as the Baroness had 
 played a piece of execution. 
 
 " For this purpose, she chose your favourite bit 
 of Echard ; and I never heard her play it better, if 
 so well. Merlin's new pedals made it exquisite j
 
 16 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 and the expression, feeling, and taste with which 
 she performed it, raised a general murmur of ap- 
 plause. 
 
 " Mr. Harris inquired eagerly the name of the 
 composer. Every body seemed to be struck, nay 
 enchanted : and charmed into such silence of atten- 
 tion, that if a pin had dropt, it would have 
 caused a universal start. 
 
 " I should be ashamed not to give you a more 
 noble metaphor, or simile, or comparison, than a 
 pin ; only I know how cheap you hold all attempts 
 at fine writing ; and that you will like my poor 
 simple pin, just as well as if I had stunned you with 
 a cannon ball. 
 
 " Miss Louisa Harris then consented to vary the 
 entertainment by singing. She was accompanied by 
 Mr. Harris, whose soul seems all music, though he 
 has made his pen amass so many other subjects into 
 the bargain. She has very little voice, either for 
 sound or compass ; yet, which is wonderful, she 
 gave us all extreme pleasure ; for she sings in so 
 high a style, with such pure taste, such native 
 feeling, and such acquired knowledge of music, that 
 there is not one fine voice in a hundred I could 
 listen to with equal satisfaction. She gave us an
 
 CONCERTS. 17 
 
 unpublished air of Sacchini's, introduced by some 
 noble recitative of that delicious composer. 
 
 " She declared, however, she should have been 
 less frightened to have sung at a theatre, than to 
 such an audience. But she was prevailed with to 
 give us, afterwards, a sweet flowing rondeau of 
 Rauzzini's, from his opera of Piramis and Thisbe. 
 She is extremely unaffected and agreeable. 
 
 " Then followed what my father called the great 
 gun of the evening, M iithel's duet for two harpsi- 
 chords ; which my father thinks the noblest compo- 
 sition of its kind in the world. 
 
 " Mr. Burney and the Hettina now came off 
 with flying colours indeed ; nothing could exceed 
 the general approbation. Mr. Harris was in an 
 ecstacy that played over all his fine features ; Sir 
 James Lake, who is taciturn and cold, was surprised 
 even into loquacity in its praise ; Lady Lake, more 
 prone to be pleased, was delighted to rapture ; the 
 fine physiognomy of Miss Phipps, was lighted up 
 to an animation quite enlivening to behold ; and the 
 sweet Baroness de Deiden, repeatedly protested she 
 had never been at so singularly agreeable a concert 
 before. 
 
 " She would not listen to any entreaty, however, 
 
 VOL. II. C
 
 18 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 to play again ; and all instrumental music was voted 
 to be out of the question for that night. Miss 
 Louisa Harris then, with great good breeding, as 
 well as good nature, was won by a general call to 
 give us a finale, in a fine bravura air of Sacchini's, 
 which she sung extremely well, though under evi- 
 dent and real affright. 
 
 " There was then a good deal of chat, very gay 
 and pleasing ; after which the company went away, 
 in all appearance, uncommonly gratified : and we 
 who remained at home, were, in all reality, the 
 same. 
 
 " But how we wished for our dear Mr. Crisp ! 
 Do pray, now, leave your gout to itself, and come 
 to our next music meeting. Or if it needs must 
 cling to you, and come also, who knows but that 
 music, which has 
 
 " ' Charms to sooth the savage breast, 
 To soften rocks, and bend a knotted oak ' 
 
 may have charms also, To soften Gout, and Unbend 
 Knotted Fingers?*' 
 
 ****#** 
 
 Previously to any further perusal of these juve- 
 nile narrations, it is necessary to premise, that there
 
 CECILIA DAVIES. 19 
 
 were, at this period, three of the most excelling 
 singers that ever exerted rival powers at the same 
 epoch, who equally and earnestly sought the ac- 
 quaintance and suffrage of Dr. Burney ; namely, 
 Miss Cecilia Davies, detta Plnglesina, 
 La Signora Agujari, detta la Bastardella, 
 And the far-famed Signora Gabriel li. 
 
 CECILIA DAVIES, DETTA L'INGLESINA. 
 
 Miss Cecilia Davies, during a musical career, 
 unfortunately as brief as it was splendid, had, at her 
 own desire, been made known to Dr. Burney in a 
 manner as peculiar as it was honourable, for it was 
 through the medium of Dr. Johnson ; a medium 
 which ensured her the best services of Dr. Burney, 
 and the esteem of all his family. 
 
 Her fame and talents are proclaimed in the His- 
 tory of Music, where it is said, " Miss Davies had 
 the honour of being the first English woman who 
 performed the female parts in several great theatres 
 in Italy ; to which extraordinary distinction suc- 
 ceeded that of her becoming the first woman at the 
 great opera theatre of London." 
 
 And in this course of rare celebrity, her unim- 
 c 2
 
 20 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 peachable conduct, her pleasing manners, and her 
 engaging modesty of speech and deportment, fixed 
 as much respect on her person and character, as her 
 singularly youthful success had fastened upon her 
 professional abilities. 
 
 But, unfortunately, no particulars can be given of 
 any private performance of this our indigenous 
 brilliant ornament at the house of Dr. Burney ; for 
 though she was there welcomed, and was even eager 
 to oblige him, the rigour of her opera articles pro- 
 hibited her from singing even a note, at that time, 
 to any private party.* 
 
 The next abstract, therefore, refers to 
 
 * This early celebrated performer, now in the decline of life, 
 after losing her health, and nearly out-living her friends, is 
 reduced, not by faults but misfortunes, to a state of pecuniary 
 difficulties, through which she must long since have sunk, but 
 for the generous succour of some personages as high in bene- 
 volence as in rank.f Should this appeal awaken some new 
 commiserators of talents and integrity, bowed down by years and 
 distress, they will find, in a small apartment, No. 58, in Great 
 Portland-street, a feeble, but most interesting person, who is 
 truly deserving of every kind impulse she may excite. 
 
 f She is assisted, occasionally, by many noble ladies ; but the 
 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe is her most active patron.
 
 . AGUJAKI. 1 
 
 AGUJARI, DETTA LA BASTARDELLA. 
 " To SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Crisp, 
 
 " My father says I must write you every 
 thing of every sort about Agujari, that you may get 
 ready, well or ill, to come and hear her. So pray 
 make haste, and never mind such common obstacles 
 as health or sickness upon such an occasion. 
 
 " La Signora Agujari has been nick-named, my 
 father says, in Italy, from some misfortune attendant 
 upon her birth but of which she, at least, is inno- 
 cent La Bastardella. She is now come over to 
 England, in the prime of her life and her fame, 
 upon an engagement with the proprietors of the 
 Pantheon, to sing two songs at their concert, at one 
 hundred pounds a night ! My father's tour in Italy 
 has made his name and his historical design so well 
 known there in the musical world, that she imme- 
 diately desired his acquaintance on her arrival in 
 London ; and Dr. Maty, one of her protectors in 
 this country, was deputed to bring them together j 
 which he did, in St. Martin's- street, last week. 
 
 " Dr. Maty is pleasing, intelligent, and well bred ;
 
 22 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 though formal, precise, and a rather affected little 
 man. But he stands very high, they say, in the 
 classes of literature and learning ; and, moreover, of 
 character and worthiness. 
 
 He handed the Signora, with much pompous 
 ceremony, into the drawing-room, where trumpets 
 not being at hand he introduced her to my father 
 with a fine flourish of compliments, as a phenomenon 
 now first letting herself down to grace this pigmy 
 island. 
 
 This style of lofty grandeur seemed perfectly 
 accordant with the style and fancy of the Signora ; 
 whose air and deportment announced deliberate 
 dignity, and a design to strike all beholders with 
 awe, as well as admiration. 
 
 She is a handsome woman, of middle stature, and 
 seems to be about twenty-four or twenty-five years 
 of age ; with a very good and healthy complexion, 
 becomingly and not absurdly rouged ; a well-shaped 
 nose, a well-cut mouth, and very prominent, rolling, 
 expressive, and dyingly languishing eyes. 
 
 She was attended by Signer Colla, her maestro, 
 and, as some assert, her husband j but, undoubtedly, 
 her obsequious and inseparable companion. He is tall, 
 thin, almost fiery when conversing j and tolerably
 
 AGUJARI. 23 
 
 well furnished with gesture and grimace j id est, 
 made up of nothing else. 
 
 The talk was all in French or Italian, and almost 
 all between the two Doctors, Burney and Maty j 
 we rest, being only auditors, except when some- 
 thing striking was said upon music, or upon some 
 musician ; and then the hot thin Italian, who is 
 probably a Neapolitan, jumped up, and started forth 
 into an abrupt rhapsody, with such agitation of voice 
 and manner, that every limb seemed at work almost 
 as nimbly as his tongue. 
 
 But la Signora Agujari sat always in placid, ma- 
 jestic silence, when she was not personally addressed. 
 
 Signor Colla expressed the most unbounded ve- 
 neration for il Signor Dottore Borni; whose learned 
 character, he said, in Italy, had left him there a 
 name that had made it an honour to be introduced 
 to un si c6lebre homme. My father retorted the 
 compliment upon the Agujari ; lamenting that he 
 had missed hearing her abroad, where her talents,- 
 then, were but rising into renown. </_ 
 
 Nevertheless, though he naturally concluded that 
 this visit was designed for granting him that grati- 
 fication, he was somewhat diffident how to demand 
 it from one who, in England, never quavers for less
 
 24 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 than fifty guineas an air. To pave, therefore, the 
 way to his request, he called upon Mr. Burney and 
 the Hettina to open the concert with a duet. 
 
 They readily complied ; and the Agujari, now, 
 relinquished a part of her stately solemnity, to give 
 way, though not without palpably marvelling that 
 it could be called for, to the pleasure that their per- 
 formance excited ; for pleasure in music is a sensa- 
 tion that she seems to think ought to be held in her 
 own gift. And, indeed, for vocal music, Gabrielli 
 is, avowedly, the only exception to her universal 
 disdain. 
 
 i As Mr. Burney and the Hettina, however, at- 
 tempted not to invade her excluding prerogative, 
 they first escaped her supercilious contempt, and 
 next caught her astonished attention ; which soon, 
 to our no small satisfaction, rose to open, lively, and 
 even vociferous rapture. In truth, I believe, she 
 was really glad to be surprised out of her fatiguing 
 dumb grandeur. 
 
 This was a moment not to be lost, and my father 
 hinted his wishes to Dr. Maty ; Dr. Maty hinted 
 them to Signor Colla ; but Signer Colla did not 
 take the hint of hinting them to La Bastardella. 
 He shrugged, and became all gesticulation, and
 
 AGUJARI. 
 
 answered that the Signora would undoubtedly sing 
 to the Signer Dottore Borni ; but that, at this 
 moment, she had a slight sore throat ; and her 
 desire, when she performed to il Signer Dottore 
 Borni was, si possible, he added, to surpass 
 herself. 
 
 We were all horribly disappointed ; but Signer 
 Colla made what amends he could, by assuring us 
 that we had never yet known what singing was ! 
 " car c'est une prodege, Messieurs et Mesdames, 
 que la Signora Agujari." 
 
 My father bowed his acquiescence ; and then en- 
 quired whether she had been at the opera ? 
 
 " * O no ; ' Signer Colla answered ; ' she was too 
 much afraid of that complaint which all her country- 
 men who travelled to England had so long lamented, 
 and which the English call catch-cold, to venture to 
 a theatre.' 
 
 " Agujari then condescended to inquire whether 
 il Signor Dottore had heard the Gabrielli ? 
 
 " * Net yet,' he replied ; ' he waited her coming 
 to England. He had missed her in Italy, from her 
 having passed that year in Sicily.' 
 
 " ' Ah Diable ! ' exclaimed the Bastardini, ' mats 
 c'est dommage I '
 
 *O MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " This familiar * Diable ! ' from such majestic 
 loftiness, had a very droll effect. 
 
 " * Et vous, Signora, I'avez-vous entendue ? ' 
 
 " l que non 1 ' answered she, quite bluffly ; 
 * cela nest pas possible ! ' 
 
 " And we were alarmed to observe that she looked 
 highly affronted ; though we could not possibly con- 
 jecture why, till Signer Colla, in a whisper, repre- 
 sented the error of the inquiry, by saying, that two 
 first singers could never meet. 
 
 " ' True ! ' Dr. Maty cried ; * two suns never 
 light us at once.' 
 
 " The Signora, to whom this was repeated in 
 Italian, presently recovered her placid dignity by 
 the blaze of these two suns ; and, before she went 
 away, was in such perfect amity with il Signor 
 Dottore, that she voluntarily declared she would 
 come again, when her sore throat was over, and 
 chanter comme il faut." 
 
 * * * * # 
 
 CONCERT. EXTRACT THE THIRD. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Crisp, 
 
 " My father, now, bids me write for him 
 which I do with joy and pride, for now, now,
 
 AGUJARI. 27 
 
 thus instigated, thus authorised, let me present to 
 you the triumphant, the unique Agujari I 
 
 " O how we all wished for you when she broke 
 forth in her vocal glory ! The great singers of olden 
 times, whom I have heard you so emphatically de- 
 scribe, seem to have all their talents revived in this 
 wonderful creature. I could compare her to nothing 
 I have ever heard, but only to what you have heard ; 
 your Carestini, Farinelli, Senesino, alone are worthy 
 to be ranked with the Bastardini. 
 
 " She came with the Signor Maestro Colla, very 
 early, to tea. 
 
 " I cannot deign to mention our party, but it 
 was small and good : though by no means bright 
 enough to be enumerated in the same page with 
 Agujari, 
 
 " She frightened us a little, at first, by complain- 
 ing of a cold. How we looked at one another ! 
 Mr. Burney was called upon to begin ; which he 
 did with even more than his usual spirit ; and then 
 without waiting for a petition which nobody, 
 not even my dear father, had yet gathered courage 
 to make, Agujari, the Bastardella, arose, voluntarily 
 arose, to sing ! 
 
 " We all rose too ! we seemed all ear. There was
 
 28 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 no occasion for any other part to our persons. Had 
 a fan, for I won't again give you a pin, fallen, 
 I suppose we should have taken it for at least a 
 thunder-clap. All was hushed and rapt attention. 
 
 " Signer Colla accompanied her. She began with 
 what she called a little minuet of his composition. 
 
 " Her cold was not affected, for her voice, at first, 
 was not quite clear ; but she acquitted herself charm- 
 ingly. And, little as she called this minuet, it 
 contained difficulties which I firmly believe no other 
 singer in the world could have executed. 
 
 "But her great talents, and our great astonish- 
 ment, were reserved for her second song, which 
 was taken from Metastatio's opera of Didone, set 
 by Colla, ' Non hai ragione, ingrato /' 
 
 " As this was an aria parlante, she first, in a 
 voice softly melodious, read us the words, that we 
 might comprehend what she had to express. 
 
 "It is nobly set ; nobly ! ' Bravo, il Signer 
 Maestro ! ' cried my father, two or three times. 
 She began with a fullness and power of voice that 
 amazed us beyond all our possible expectations. She 
 then lowered it to the most expressive softness in 
 short, my dear Mr. Crisp, she was sublime ! I can 
 use no other word without degrading her.
 
 AGUJAHI. 2y 
 
 " This, and a second great song from the same 
 opera, Son Regina, and Son Amante, she sang 
 in a style to which my ears have hitherto been 
 strangers. She unites, to her surprising and incom- 
 parable powers of execution, and luxuriant facility 
 and compass of voice, an expression still more deli- 
 cate and, I had almost said, equally feeling with 
 that of my darling Millico, who first opened my 
 sensations to the melting and boundless delights 
 of vocal melody.* In fact, in Millico, it was his 
 own sensibility that excited that of his hearers ; 
 it was so genuine, so touching! It seemed never 
 to want any spur from admiration, but always to 
 owe its excellence to its own resistless pathos. 
 
 " Yet, with all its vast compass, and these stu- 
 pendous sonorous sounds, the voice of Agujari has 
 a mellowness, a sweetness, that are quite vanquish- 
 ing. One can hardly help falling at her feet while 
 one listens! Her shake, too, is so plump, so true, 
 so open ! and, to display her various abilities to my 
 father, she sang in twenty styles if twenty there 
 may be ; for nothing is beyond her reach. In songs 
 of execution, her divisions were so rapid, and so 
 
 * Pacchiorotti had not yet visited England.
 
 30 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 brilliant, they almost made one dizzy from breath- 
 less admiration : her cantabiles were so fine, so 
 rich, so moving, that we could hardly keep the 
 tears from our eyes. Then she gave us some accom- 
 panied recitative, with a nobleness of accent, that 
 made every one of us stand erect out of respect ! 
 Then, how fascinately she condescended to indulge 
 us with a rondeau ! though she holds that simpli- 
 city of melody beneath her ; and therefore rose from 
 it to chaunt some church music, of the Pope's Chapel, 
 in a style so nobly simple, so grandly unadorned, 
 that it penetrated to the inmost sense. She is just 
 what she will : she has the highest taste, with an 
 expression the most pathetic ; and she executes dif- 
 ficulties the most wild, the most varied, the most 
 incredible, with just as much ease and facility as I 
 can say my dear Mr. Crisp ! 
 
 " Now don't you die to come and hear her ? I 
 hope you do. O, she is indescribable ! 
 
 " Assure yourself my father joins in all this, 
 though perhaps, if he had time to write for himself, 
 he might do it more Lady Grace like, * soberly.' 
 I hope she will fill up at least half a volume of his 
 history. I wish he would call her, The Heroine of 
 Music !
 
 AGUJARI. 31 
 
 " We could not help regretting that her engage- 
 ment was at the Pantheon, as her evidently fine 
 ideas of acting are thrown away at a mere concert. 
 
 At this, she made faces of such scorn and deri- 
 sion against the managers, for not putting her upon 
 the stage, that they altered her handsome counte- 
 nance almost to ugliness ; and, snatching up a music 
 book, and opening it, and holding it full broad in 
 her hands, she dropt a formal courtesey, to take 
 herself off at the Pantheon, and said ; * Oui ! fy 
 suis Id comme une statue ! comme une petite 
 ecolidre ! ' And afterwards she contemptuously 
 added : * Mais t on n'aime guerre id que les ron- 
 deaux ! Moij'abhorre ces miseres Id ! ' 
 
 One objection, however, and a rather serious one, 
 against her walking the stage, is that she limps. 
 
 Do you know what they assert to be the cause of 
 this lameness? It is said that, while a mere baby, 
 and at nurse in the country, she was left rolling on 
 the grass one evening, till she rolled herself round 
 and round to a pigstie ; where a hideous hog wel- 
 comed her as a delicious repast, and mangled one 
 side of the poor infant most cruelly, before she was 
 missed and rescued. She was recovered with great 
 difficulty ; but obliged to bear the insertion of a plate
 
 32 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 of silver, to sustain the parts where the terrible 
 swine had made a chasm ; and thence she has been 
 called ... I forget the Italian name, but that which 
 has been adopted here is Silver-sides. 
 
 " You may imagine that the wags of the day do 
 not let such a circumstance, belonging to so famous 
 a person, pass unmadrigalled : Foote, my father 
 tells us, has declared he shall impeach the custom- 
 house officers, for letting her be smuggled into the 
 kingdom contrary to law ; unless her sides have been 
 entered at the stamp office. And Lord Sandwich 
 has made a catch, in dialogue and in Italian, between 
 the infant and the hog, where the former, in a 
 plaintive tone of soliciting mercy, cries ; Caro mio 
 Porco / ' The hog answers by a grunt. Her 
 piteous entreaty is renewed in the softest, tenderest 
 treble. His sole reply is expressed in one long note 
 of the lowest, deepest bass. Some of her highest 
 notes are then ludicrously imitated to vocalize little 
 shrieks ; and the hog, in finale, grunts out, ' Ah ! 
 die bel mangiar ! ' 
 
 " Lord Sandwich, who shewed this to my father, 
 had, at least, the grace to say, that he would not 
 have it printed, lest it should get to her knowledge, 
 till after her return to Italy."
 
 LA GABRTELLI. 33 
 
 The radical and scientific merits of this singular 
 personage, and astonishing performer, are fully ex- 
 pounded in the History of Music. She left England 
 with great contempt for the land of Rondeaux ; and 
 never desired to visit it again. 
 
 LA GABRIELLI. 
 
 Of the person and performance of Gabrielli, the 
 History of Music contains a full and luminous de- 
 scription. She was the most universally renowned 
 singer of her time ; for Agujari died before her 
 high and unexampled talents had expanded their 
 truly wonderful supremacy. 
 
 Yet here, also, no private detail can be written of 
 the private performance, or manners, of La Gabri- 
 elli, as she never visited at the house of Dr. Burney j 
 though she most courteously invited him to her own ; 
 in which she received him with flattering distinc- 
 tion. And, as she had the judgment to set aside, 
 upon his visits, the airs, caprices, coquetries, and 
 gay insolences, of which the boundless report had 
 preceded her arrival in England, he found her a 
 high-bred, accomplished, and engaging woman of 
 the world ; or rather, he said, woman of fashion ; 
 
 VOL. II. D
 
 34 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 for there was a winning ease, nay, captivation,- in 
 her look and air, that could scarcely, in any circle, 
 be surpassed. Her great celebrity, however, for 
 beauty and eccentricity, as well as for professional 
 excellence, had raised such inordinate expectations 
 before she came out, that the following juvenile 
 letters upon the appearance of so extraordinary a 
 musical personage, will be curious, or, at least, 
 diverting, to lovers of musical anecdote. 
 
 CONCERT. EXTRACT IV. 
 
 To SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ. 
 Chesington. 
 
 October, 1775. 
 " My dear Mr. Crisp, 
 
 " *Tis so long since I have written, that I 
 suppose you conclude we are all gone fortune-hunt- 
 ing to some other planet ; but, to skip apologies, 
 which I know you scoff, I shall atone for my silence, 
 by telling you that my dear father returned from 
 Buxton in quite restored health, I thank God ! and 
 that his first volume is now rough-sketched quite to 
 the end, Preface and Dedication inclusive.
 
 LA GABRIELLI. 35 
 
 " But you are vehement, you say, to hear of 
 
 Gabrielli. 
 
 " Well, so is every body else j but she has not 
 
 yet sung. 
 
 " She is the subject of inquiry and discussion 
 wherever you go. Every one expects her to sing 
 like a thousand angels, yet to be as ridiculous as 
 a thousand imps. But I believe she purposes to 
 astonish them all in a new way ; for imagine how 
 sober and how English she means to become, when 
 I tell you that she has taken a house in Golden- 
 square, and put a plate upon her door, on which she 
 has had engraven, " Mrs. Gabrielli." 
 
 " If John Bull is not flattered by that, he must 
 be John Bear. 
 
 " Rauzzini, meanwhile, who is to be the first 
 serious singer, has taken precisely the other side ; 
 and will have nothing to do with his Johnship at 
 all ; for he has had his apartments painted a beau- 
 tiful rose-colour, with a light myrtle sprig border ; 
 and has ornamented them with little knic-knacs and 
 trinkets, like a fine lady's dressing-room. 
 
 My father dined with them both the other day, 
 at the manager's, Mrs. Brookes, the author, and 
 Mrs. Yates, the ci-devant actress. Rauzzini sang a 
 
 D 2
 
 36 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 great many sweet airs, and very delightfully ; but 
 Gabrielli not a note I Neither did any one presume 
 to ask for such a favour. Her sister was of the 
 party also, who they say cannot sing at all ; but 
 Gabrielli insisted upon having her engaged, and 
 advantageously, or refused, peremptorily, to come 
 over. 
 
 " Nothing can exceed the impatience of people of 
 all ranks, and all ways of thinking, concerning this 
 so celebrated singer. And if you do not come to 
 town to hear her, I shall conclude you lost to all 
 the Saint Cecilian powers of attraction j and that you 
 are become as indifferent to music, as to dancing or to 
 horse-racing. For my own part, if any thing should 
 unfortunately prevent my hearing her first perform- 
 ance, I shall set it down in my memory ever after, 
 as a very serious misfortune. Don't laugh so, dear 
 daddy, pray! 
 
 Written the week following. 
 
 " How I rejoice, for once, in your hard-hearted- 
 ness ! how ashamed I should have been if you had 
 come, dearest Sir, to my call ! The Gabrielli did 
 not sing! And she let all London, and all the 
 country too, I believe, arrive at the theatre before it
 
 LA GABRIELLI. 37 
 
 was proclaimed that she was not to appear ! Every 
 one of our family, and of every other family that I 
 know, and that I don't know besides, were at the 
 Opera House at an early hour. We, who were to 
 enter at a private door, per favour of Mrs. Brookes, 
 rushed past all handbills, not thinking them worth 
 heeding. Poor Mr. Yates, the manager, kept run- 
 ning from one outlet to another, to relate the sudden 
 desperate hoarseness of la Signora Gabrielli j and, 
 supplicate patience, and, moreover, credence, now 
 from the box openings, now from the pit, now from 
 the galleries. Had he been less active, or less humble, 
 it is thought the theatre would have been pulled down; 
 so prodigious was the rage of the large assemblage ; 
 none of them in the least believing that Gabrielli 
 had the slightest thing the matter with her. 
 
 " My father says people do not think that singers 
 have the capacity of having such a thing as a cold ! 
 
 " The murmurs, * What a shame!' 'how scan- 
 dalous!' 'what insolent airs!' kept Mr. Yates 
 upon the alert from post to post, to the utmost 
 stretch of his ability ; though his dolorous counte- 
 nance painted his full conviction that he himself was 
 the most seriously to be pitied of the party ; for it 
 was clear that he said, in soliloquy, upon every one 
 
 22697O
 
 38 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 that he sent away : * There goes half a guinea ! or, 
 at the least, three shillings, if not five, out of my 
 pocket ! ' 
 
 " We all returned home in horrible ill-humour ; 
 but solacing ourselves with a candid determination, 
 taken in a true spirit of liberality, that though she 
 should sing even better than Agujari, we would not 
 like her ! 
 
 My father called upon the managers to know 
 what all this meant ; and Mrs. Brookes then told 
 him, that all that had been reported of the extraor- 
 dinary wilfulness of this spoilt child of talent and 
 beauty, was exceeded by her behaviour. She only 
 sent them word that she was out of voice, and could 
 not sing, one hour before the house must be opened ! 
 They instantly hurried to her to expostulate, or 
 rather to supplicate, for they dare neither reproach 
 nor command j and to represent the utter impos- 
 sibility of getting up any other opera so late ; and 
 to acknowledge their terror, even for their property, 
 upon the fury of an English audience, if disappointed 
 so bluffly at the last moment. 
 
 To this she answered very coolly, but with smiles 
 and politeness, that if le monde expected her so 
 eagerly, she would dress herself^ and let the opera
 
 LA GABttlELLI. 39 
 
 be performed ; only, when her songs came to their 
 simphony, instead of singing, she would make a 
 courtesey, and point to her throat. 
 
 " * You may imagine, Doctor," said Mrs. Brookes, 
 ' whether we could trust John Bull with so easy a 
 lady ! and at the very instant his ears were opening 
 to hear her so vaunted performance ! ' 
 
 " Well, my dear Mr. Crisp, now for Saturday, 
 and now for the real opera. We all went again. 
 There was a prodigious house ; such a one, for 
 fashion at least, as, before Christmas, never yet was 
 seen. For though every body was afraid there 
 would be a riot, and that Gabrielli would be furi- 
 ously hissed, from the spleen of the late disappoint- 
 ment, nobody could stay away ; for her whims and 
 eccentricities only heighten curiosity for beholding 
 her person. 
 
 " The opera was Metastasio's Didone, and the 
 part for Gabrielli was new set by Sacchini. 
 
 " In the first scene, Rauzzini and Sestini appeared 
 with la Signora Francesca, the sister of Gabrielli. 
 They prepared us for the approach of the blazing 
 comet that burst forth in the second.
 
 40 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " Nothing could be more noble than her entrance. 
 It seemed instantaneously to triumph over her ene- 
 mies, and conquer her threateners. The stage was 
 open to its furthest limits, and she was discerned at 
 its most distant point j and, for a minute or two, 
 there dauntlessly she stood ; and then took a sweep, 
 with a firm, but accelerating step ; and a deep, finely 
 flowing train, till she reached the orchestra. There 
 she stopt, amidst peals of applause, that seemed as 
 if they would have shaken the foundations of the 
 theatre. 
 
 " What think you now of John Bull ? 
 
 " I had quite quivered for her, in expectation of 
 cat-calling and hissings ; but the intrepidity of her 
 appearance and approach, quashed all his resentment 
 into surprised admiration. 
 
 " She is still very pretty, though not still very 
 young. She has small, intelligent, sparkling fea- 
 tures ; and though she is rather short, she is charm- 
 ingly proportioned, and has a very engaging figure. 
 All her notions are graceful, her air is full of dig- 
 nity, and her walk is majestic. 
 
 " Though the applause was so violent, she seemed 
 to think it so simply her due, that she deigned not 
 to honour it with the slightest mark of acknowledg- 
 ment, but calmly began her song.
 
 LA GABllIELLI. 4-1 
 
 " John Bull, however, enchained, as I believe, by 
 the reported vagaries of her character, and by the 
 high delight he expected from her talents, clapped 
 on, clap, clap, clap ! with such assiduous noise, 
 that not a note could be heard, nor a notion be 
 started that any note was sung. Unwilling, then, 
 
 " To waste her sweetness on the clamorous air," 
 
 and perhaps growing a little gratified to find she 
 could " soothe the savage breast," she condescended 
 to make an Italian courtesey, i. e. a slight, but dig- 
 nified bow. 
 
 " Honest John, who had thought she would not 
 accept his homage, but who, through the most 
 abrupt turn from resentment to admiration, had 
 resolved to bear with all her freaks, was so enchanted 
 by this affability, that clapping he went on, till, I 
 have little doubt, the skin of his battered hands 
 went off; determining to gain another gentle salu- 
 tation whether she would or not, as an august sign 
 that she was not displeased with him for being so 
 smitten, and so humble. 
 
 " After this, he suffered the orchestra to be heard. 
 
 " Gabrielli, however, was not flattered into spoil- 
 ing her flatterers. Probably she liked the spoiling
 
 42 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 too well to make it over to them. Be that as it 
 may, she still kept expectation on the rack, by 
 giving us only recitative, till every other performer 
 had tired our reluctant attention. 
 
 " At length, however, came the grand bravura, 
 * Son Regina, e sono Amante.' 
 
 " Here I must stop! Ah, Mr. Crisp! why would 
 she take words that had been sung by Agujari ? 
 
 " Opinions are so different, you must come and 
 judge for yourself. Praise and censure are bandied 
 backwards and forwards, as if they were two shuttle- 
 cocks between two battledores. The Son Regina 
 was the only air of consequence that she even at- 
 tempted ; all else were but bits ; pretty enough, but 
 of no force or character for a great singer. 
 
 " How unfortunate that she should take the 
 words, even though to other music, that we had 
 heard from Agujari ! Oh ! She is no Agujari ! 
 
 " In short, and to come to the truth, she disap- 
 pointed us all egregiously. 
 
 However, my dear father, who beyond any body 
 tempers his judgment with indulgence, pronounces 
 her a very capital singer. 
 
 " But she visibly took no pains to exert herself, 
 and appeared so impertinently easy, that I believe
 
 LA GABRIELLI. 43 
 
 she thought it condescension enough for us poor 
 savage Islanders to see her stand upon the stage, 
 and let us look at her. Yet it must at least be 
 owned, that the tone of her voice, though feeble, is 
 remarkably sweet ; that her action is judicious and 
 graceful, and that her style and manner of singing 
 are masterly." 
 
 CONCERT. EXTRACT V. 
 
 " You reproach me, my dear Mr. Crisp, for not 
 sending you an account of our last two concerts. 
 But the fact is, I have not any thing new to tell 
 you. The music has always been the same : the 
 matrimonial duets are so much d la mode, that no 
 other thing in our house is now demanded. 
 
 " But if I can write you nothing new about 
 music you want, I well know you will say, to hear 
 some conversations. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Crisp, there is, at this moment, 
 no such thing as conversation. There is only one 
 question asked, meet whom you may, namely ; 
 ' How do you like Gabrielli ? ' and only two modes, 
 contradictory to be sure, but very steady, of reply : 
 either, * Of all things upon earth ! ' or, ' Not the 
 least bit in the whole world!*
 
 44 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " Well, now I will present you with a specimen, 
 beginning with our last concert but one, and arrang- 
 ing the persons of the drama in the order of their 
 actual appearance. 
 
 " But imprimis, I should tell you, that the mo- 
 tive to this concert was a particular request to my 
 father from Dr. King, our old friend, and the 
 chaplain to the British something at St. Peters- 
 burgh, that he would give a little music to a certain 
 mighty personage, who, somehow or other how, 
 must needs take, transiently at least, a front place in 
 future history, namely, the famed favourite of the 
 Empress Catherine of Russia, Prince Orloff. 
 
 " There, my dear Mr. Crisp ! what say you to 
 seeing such a doughty personage as that in a private 
 house, at a private party, of a private individual, 
 fresh imported from the Czarina of all the Russias, 
 to sip a cup of tea in St. Martin's-street ? 
 
 "I wonder whether future historians will happen 
 to mention this circumstance? I am thinking of 
 sending it to all the keepers of records. 
 
 " But I see your rising eyebrow at this name 
 your start your disgust yet big curiosity. 
 
 " Well, suppose the family assembled, its hon- 
 oured chief in the midst and Tat, tat, tat, tat, at 
 the door.
 
 CONCERTS. 45 
 
 Enter DK. OGLE, DEAN OF WINCHESTER. 
 
 " Dr. Burney, after the usual ceremonies. 
 * Did you hear the Gabrielli last night, Mr. Dean ? ' 
 
 " The Dean. * No, Doctor, I made the attempt, 
 but soon retreated ; for I hate a crowd, as much as 
 the ladies love it! I beg pardon!' bowing with a 
 sort of civil sneer at we Fair Sex. 
 
 " My mother was entering upon a spirited de- 
 fence, when Tat, tat, tat. 
 
 Enter DR. KING. 
 
 " He brought the compliments of Prince Orloff, 
 with his Highness's apologies for being so late, but 
 he was obliged to dine at Lord Buckingham's, and 
 thence, to shew himself at Lady Harrington's. 
 
 " As nobody thought of inquiring into Dr. King's 
 opinion of La Gabrielli, conversation was at a stand, 
 till Tat, tat, tat, tat, too, and 
 
 " Enter LADY EDGCUMBE. 
 
 " We were all introduced to her, and she was 
 very chatty, courteous, and entertaining. 
 
 " Dr. Burney. t Your Ladyship was certainly at 
 the Opera last night ? ' 
 
 "Lady Edgcumbe. ' O yes I but I have not 
 heard the Gabrielli ! I cannot allow that I have yet 
 heard her.'
 
 46 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " Dr. Burney. ' Your Ladyship expected a more 
 powerful voice ? ' 
 
 "Lady Edgcumbe. * Why n-o not much. 
 The shadow can tell what the substance must be ; 
 but she cannot have acquired this great reputation 
 throughout Europe for nothing. I therefore repeat 
 that I have not yet heard her. She must have had 
 a cold. But, for me I have heard Mingotti ! I 
 have heard Montecelli ! I have heard Mansuoli ! 
 and I shall never hear them again ! ' 
 
 " The Dean. ' But, Lady Edgcumbe, may not 
 Gabrielli have great powers, and yet have too weak 
 a voice for so large a theatre ? ' 
 
 " Lady Edgcumbe. ' Our theatre, Mr. Dean, 
 is of no size to what she has been accustomed to 
 abroad. But, Dr. Burney, I have also heard 
 the Agujari ! * 
 
 " Hettina, Fanny, Susanna. * Oh ! Agujari ! ' 
 (All three speaking with clasped hands.) 
 
 " Dr. Burney (laughing). ' Your ladyship darts 
 into all their hearts by naming Agujari I However, 
 I have hopes you will hear her again. 
 
 "Lady Edgcumbe. ' O, Dr. Burney! bring 
 her but to the Opera, and I shall grow crazy ! ' 
 
 " I assure you, my dear Mr. Crisp, we all longed
 
 CONCERTS. 47 
 
 to embrace her ladyship. And she met our sympa- 
 thy with a good humour full of pleasure. My father 
 added, that we all doated upon Agujari. 
 
 " Lady Edgcumbe. *O! she is incomparable! 
 Mark but the difference, Dr. Burney ; by Gabri- 
 elli, Rauzzini seems to have a great voice ; by 
 Agujari, he seemed to have that of a child.' 
 
 " Tat, tat, tat, tat, too. 
 
 " Enter The HON. MR. and MRS. BRUDENEL. 
 
 " Mr. Brudenell,* commonly called * His Honour,' 
 from high birth, I suppose, without title, or from 
 some quaint old cause that nobody knows who has 
 let me into its secret, is tall and stiff, and strongly 
 in the ton of the present day ; which is anything 
 rather than macaroniism ; for it consists of un- 
 bounded freedom and ease, with a short, abrupt, 
 dry manner of speech ; and in taking the liberty to 
 ask any question that occurs upon other people's 
 affairs and opinions ; even upon their incomes and 
 expences ; nay, even upon their age ! 
 
 " Did you ever hear of any thing so shocking ? 
 
 *' I do not much mind it now ; but, when I grow 
 older, I intend recommending to have this part of 
 their code abolished. 
 
 * Afterwards Lord Cardigan.
 
 48 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " Mrs. Brudenel is very obliging and pleasing ; 
 and of as great fame as a lady singer, as Lady Edg- 
 cumbe is as a first rate lady player. 
 
 " The usual question being asked of La Gabrielli ; 
 
 " Mrs. Brudenel. * O, Lady Edgcumbe and 
 I are entirely of the same opinion ; we agree that 
 we have not yet heard her.' 
 
 " Lady Edgcumbe. ' The ceremony of her 
 quitting the theatre after the opera is over, is ex- 
 tremely curious. First goes a man in livery to clear 
 the way ; then follows the sister ; then the Gabri- 
 elli herself. Then, a little foot-page, to bear her 
 train ; and, lastly, another man, who carries her 
 muff, in which is her lap-dog.' 
 
 " Mr. Brudenel. ' But where is Lord March 
 all this time ? ' 
 
 " Lady Edgcumbe (laughing). ' Lord March ? 
 O, he, you know, is First Lord of the Bed- 
 chamber ! ' 
 
 " Tat, tat, tat, tat. 
 
 " Enter M. le BARON DE DEMIDOFF. 
 
 " He is a Russian nobleman, who travels with 
 Prince Orloff; and he preceded his Highness with 
 fresh apologies, and a desire that the concert might 
 not wait, as he would only shew himself at Lady 
 Harrington's, and hasten hither.
 
 CONCERTS. 49 
 
 " My father then attended Lady Edgcumbe to 
 the Library, and Mr. Burney took his place at the 
 harpsichord. 
 
 " We all followed. He was extremely admired ; 
 but I have nothing new to tell you upon that 
 subject. 
 
 " Then enter Mr. Chamier. Then followed 
 several others ; and then 
 
 " Enter MR. HARRIS, of Salisbury. 
 
 " Susan and I quite delighted in his sight, he is 
 so amiable to talk with, and so benevolent to look 
 at. Lady Edgcumbe rose to meet him, saying he 
 was her particular old friend. He then placed him- 
 self by Susan and me, and renewed acquaintance 
 in the most pleasing manner possible. I told him 
 we were all afraid he would be tired to death of 
 so much of one thing, for we had nothing to offer 
 him but again the duet. * That is the very reason 
 I solicited to come/ he answered ; ' I was so much 
 charmed the last time, that I begged Dr. Burney to 
 give me a repetition of the same pleasure.' 
 
 " ' Then of course, the opera ? The Gabrielli ? ' 
 
 " Mr. Harris declared himself her partizan. 
 
 "Lady Edgcumbe warmed up ardently for Agajari. 
 
 " Mr. Dean. * But pray, Dr. Burney, why 
 
 VOL. II. E
 
 50 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 should not these two melodious signoras sing toge- 
 ther, that we might judge them fairly ? ' 
 
 " Dr. Burney. ' Oh ! the rivalry would be too 
 strong. It would create a musical war. It would 
 be CaBsar and Pompey.' 
 
 " Lady Edgcumbe. * Pompey the Little, then, 
 1 am sure would be la Gabrielli ! ' 
 
 " Enter LORD BRUCE. 
 
 " He is a younger brother not only of the Duke 
 of Montagu, but of his Honour Brudenel. How 
 the titles came to be so awkwardly arranged in this 
 family is no affair of mine j so you will excuse 
 my sending you to the Herald's Office, if you want 
 that information, my dear Mr. Crisp ; though as you 
 are one of the rare personages who are skilled in 
 every thing yourself, at least so says my father j 
 and he is a Doctor, you know! I dare say you 
 will genealogize the matter to me at once, when 
 next I come to dear Chesington. 
 
 " He is tall, thin, and plain, but remarkably sen- 
 sible, agreeable, and polite ; as, I believe, are very 
 generally all those keen looking Scotchmen ; for 
 Scotch, not from his accent, but his name, I con- 
 clude him of course. Can Bruce be other than 
 Scotch ? They are far more entertaining, I think,
 
 PRINCE ORLOFF. 51 
 
 as well as informing, taken in the common run, than 
 we silentious English ; who, taken en masse, are 
 tolerably dull. 
 
 " The Opera? the Gabrielli? were now again 
 brought forward. Lady Edgcumbe, who is delight- 
 fully music mad, was so animated, that she was 
 quite the life of the company. 
 
 " At length Tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, 
 too! 
 
 " Enter His HIGHNESS PRINCE ORLOFF. 
 
 '* Have you heard the dreadful story of the 
 thumb, by which this terrible Prince is said to have 
 throttled the late Emperor of Russia, Peter, by sud- 
 denly pressing his windpipe while he was drinking ? 
 I hope it is not true ; and Dr. King, of whom, while 
 he resided in Russia, Prince Orloff was the patron, 
 denies the charge. Nevertheless, it is so currently 
 reported, that neither Susan nor I could keep it one 
 moment from our thoughts ; and we both shrunk 
 from him with secret horror, heartily wishing him 
 in his own Black Sea. 
 
 " His sight, however, produced a strong sensa- 
 tion, both in those who believed, and those who 
 discredited this disgusting barbarity ; for another 
 story, not perhaps, of less real, though of less san- 
 
 E 2
 
 5% MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 guinary guilt, is not a tale of rumour, but a crime 
 of certainty j namely, that he is the first favourite 
 of the cruel inhuman Empress if it be true that she 
 connived at this horrible murder. 
 
 " His Highness was immediately preceded by 
 another Russian nobleman, whose name I have 
 forgot; and followed by a noble Hessian, General 
 Bawr. 
 
 " Prince Orloff is of stupendous stature, some- 
 thing resembling Mr. Bruce. He is handsome, tall, 
 fat, upright, magnificent. His dress was superb. 
 Besides the blue garter, he had a star of diamonds 
 of prodigious brilliancy, a shoulder knot of the same 
 lustre and value, and a picture of the Empress hung 
 about his neck, set round with diamonds of such 
 brightness and magnitude, that, when near the light, 
 they were too dazzling for the eye. His jewels, 
 Dr. King says, are estimated at one hundred thou- 
 sand pounds sterling. 
 
 " His air and address are shewy, striking, and 
 assiduously courteous. He had a look that fre- 
 quently seemed to say, *I hope you observe that I 
 come from a polished court? I hope you take note 
 that I am no Cossack ?' Yet, with all this display of 
 commanding affability, he seems, from his native
 
 PRINCE ORLOFF. 58 
 
 taste and humour, * agreeably addicted to plea- 
 santry.' He speaks very little English, but knows 
 French perfectly. 
 
 " His introduction to my father, in which Dr. 
 King pompously figured, passed in the drawing 
 room. The library was so crowded, that he could 
 only show himself at the door, which was barely 
 high enough not to discompose his prodigious toupee. 
 
 " He bowed to Mr. Chamier, then my next 
 neighbour, whom he had somewhere met ; but I 
 was so impressed by the shocking rumours of his 
 horrible actions, that involuntarily I drew back even 
 from a bow of vicinity ; murmuring to Mr. Chamier, 
 * He looks so potent and mighty, I do not like to 
 be near him ! ' 
 
 " ' He has been less unfortunate,' answered Mr. 
 Chamier, archly, * elsewhere ; such objection has not 
 been made to him by all ladies ! J 
 
 " Lord Bruce, who knew, immediately rose to 
 make way for him, and moved to another end of the 
 room. The Prince instantly held out his vast hand, 
 in which, if he had also held a cambric handkerchief, 
 it must have looked like a white flag on the top of 
 a mast, so much higher than the most tip-top
 
 54 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 height of every head in the room was his spread-out 
 arm, as he exclaimed, * Ah ! mi lord mefuit !' 
 
 " His Honour, then, rising also, with a profound 
 reverence, offered his seat to his Highness ; but he 
 positively refused to accept it, and declared, that if 
 Mr. Brudenel would not be seated, he would him- 
 self retire j and seeing Mr. Brudenel demur, still 
 begging his Highness to take the chair, he cried 
 with a laugh, but very peremptorily, * Non, non, 
 Monsieur ! Je ne le veux pas ! Je suis opiniatre, 
 moi ; un peu comme Messieurs les Anglais ! ' 
 
 " Mr. Brudenel then re-seated himself : and the 
 corner of a form appearing to be vacant, from the 
 pains taken by poor Susan to shrink away from Mr- 
 Orloff, his Highness suddenly dropped down upon 
 it his immense weight, with a force notwithstand- 
 ing a palpable and studied endeavour to avoid doing 
 mischief that threatened his gigantic person with 
 plumping upon the floor ; and terrified all on the 
 opposite side of the form with the danger of visiting 
 the ceiling. 
 
 " Perceiving Susan strive, though vainly, from 
 want of space, to glide further off from him, and 
 struck, perhaps, by her sweet countenance, * Ah t
 
 PRINCE ORLOFF. 55 
 
 ha I ' he cried, ' Je tiens id, Je vois, une petite 
 Prisoniere ! ' 
 
 " Charlotte, blooming like a budding little Hebe, 
 actually stole into a corner, from affright at the 
 whispered history of his thumb ferocity. 
 
 " Mr. Chamier, who now probably had developed 
 what passed in my mind, contrived, very comically, 
 to disclose his similar sentiment ; for, making a quiet 
 way to my ear, he said, in a low voice, * I wish Dr. 
 Burney had invited Omiah here to-night, instead of 
 Prince Orloff! * Meaning, no doubt, of the two 
 exotics, he should have preferred the most inno- 
 cent ! 
 
 " The grand duet of Miithel was now called for, 
 and played. But I can tell you nothing extra of 
 the admiration it excited. Your Hettina looked re- 
 markably pretty ; and, added to the applause given 
 to the music, every body had something to observe 
 upon the singularity of the performers being hus- 
 band and wife. Prince Orloff was witty quite to 
 facetiousness ; sarcastically marking something be- 
 yond what he said, by a certain ogling, half cynical, 
 half amorous, cast of his eyes ; and declaring he 
 should take care to initiate all the foreign academies
 
 56 MEMOIRS OF DR. UURNEY. 
 
 of natural philosophy, in the secret of the harmony 
 that might be produced by such nuptial concord. 
 
 " The Russian nobleman who accompanied Prince 
 Orloff, and who knew English, they told us, so well 
 that he was the best interpreter for his Highness in 
 his visits, gave us now a specimen of his proficiency; 
 for, clapping his fore finger upon a superfine snuff- 
 box, he exclaimed, when the duet was finished, 
 * Ma foi, dis is so pretty as never I hear in my life ! ' 
 
 " General Bawr, also, to whom Mr. Harris di- 
 rected my attention, was greatly charmed. He is 
 tall, and of stern and martial aspect. * He is a man,' 
 said Mr. Harris, * to be looked at, from his courage, 
 conduct, and success during the last Russian war; 
 when, though a Hessian by birth, he was a Lieu- 
 tenant General in the service of the Empress of 
 Russia ; and obtained the two military stars, which 
 you now see him wear on each side, by his valour.' 
 
 " But the rapture of Lady Edgcumbe was more 
 lively than that of any other. ' Oh, Doctor Burney,* 
 she cried, * you have set me a madding ! I would 
 willingly practice night and day to be able to per- 
 form in such a manner. I vow I would rather hear 
 that extraordinary duet played in that extraordinary 
 manner, than twenty operas ! '
 
 PRINCE ORLOFF. 57 
 
 " Her ladyship was now introduced to Prince 
 Orloff, whom she had not happened to meet with 
 before ; and they struck up a most violent flirtation 
 together. She invited him to her house, and begged 
 leave to send him a card. He accepted the invita- 
 tion, but begged leave to fetch the card in person. 
 She should be most happy, she said, to receive him, 
 for though she had but a small house, she had a 
 great ambition. And so they went on, in gallant 
 courtesie, till, once again, the question was brought 
 back of the opera, and the Gabrielli. 
 
 " The Prince declared that she had not by any 
 means sang as well as at St. Petersburgh ; and 
 General Bawr protested that, had he shut his eyes, 
 he should not again have known her. 
 
 " Then followed, to vary the entertainment, sing- 
 ing by Mrs. Brudenel. 
 
 " Prince Orloff inquired very particularly of 
 Dr. King, who we four young female Burneys were ; 
 for we were all dressed alike, on account of our 
 mourning ; and when Dr. King answered, * Dr. 
 Burney's daughters ;' he was quite astonished ; for he 
 had not thought our dear father, he said, more than 
 thirty years of age ; if so much. 
 
 " Mr. Harris, in a whisper, told me he wished some
 
 58 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 of the ladies would desire to see the miniature of 
 the Empress a little nearer ; the monstrous height of 
 the Prince putting it quite out of view to his old 
 eyes and short figure ; and being a man, he could 
 not, he said, presume to ask such an indulgence as 
 that of holding it in his own hands. 
 
 " Delighted to do any thing for this excellent 
 Mr. Harris, and quite at my ease with poor prosing 
 Dr. King, I told him the wish of Mr. Harris. 
 
 " Dr. King whispered the desire to M. de Demi- 
 doff; M. de Demidoff did the same to General 
 de Bawr ; and General de Bawr dauntlessly made 
 the petition to the Prince, in the name of The 
 Ladies. 
 
 " The Prince laughed, rather sardonically ; yet 
 with ready good humour complied ; telling the 
 General, pretty much sans ceremonie, to untie 
 the ribbon round his neck, and give the picture into 
 the possession of The Ladies. 
 
 " He was very gallant and debonnaire upon the 
 occasion, entreating they would by no means hurry 
 themselves ; yet his smile, as his eye sharply followed 
 the progress, from hand to hand, of the miniature, 
 had a suspicious cast of investigating whether it 
 would be worth his while to ask any favour of them
 
 PRINCE ORLOFF. 59 
 
 in return ! and through all the superb magnificence 
 of his display of courtly manners, a little bit of the 
 Cossack, methought, broke out, when he desired 
 to know whether The Ladies wished for any thing 
 else? declaring, with a smiling bow, and rolling, 
 languishing, yet half contemptuous eyes, that, if 
 The Ladies would issue their commands, they 
 should strip him entirely I 
 
 " You may suppose, after that, nobody asked for 
 a closer view of any more of his ornaments ! The 
 good, yet unaffectedly humorous philosopher of 
 Salisbury, could not help laughing, even while 
 actually blushing at it, that his own curiosity should 
 have involved TJie Ladies in this supercilious sort 
 of sarcastic homage. 
 
 " There was hardly any looking at the picture of 
 the Empress for the glare of the diamonds. One of 
 them, I really believe, was as big as a nutmeg : 
 though I am somewhat ashamed to undignify my 
 subject by so culinary a comparison. 
 
 " When we were all satisfied, the miniature was 
 restored by General Bawr to the Prince, who took 
 it with stately complacency ; condescendingly making 
 a smiling bow to each fair female who had had
 
 60 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 possession of it ; and receiving from her in return a 
 lowly courtesy. 
 
 " Mr. Harris, who was the most curious to see 
 the Empress, because his son, Sir James,* was, or is 
 intended to be, minister at her court, had slily 
 looked over every shoulder that held her ; but 
 would not venture, he archly whispered, to take 
 the picture in his own hands, lest he should be 
 included, by the Prince, amongst The Ladies^ as 
 an old woman ! 
 
 " Have you had enough of this concert, my dear 
 Mr. Crisp? I have given it in detail, for the hu- 
 mour of letting you see how absorbing of the public 
 voice is La Gabrielli : and, also, for describing to 
 you Prince Orloff; a man who, when time lets out 
 facts, and drives in mysteries, must necessarily make 
 a considerable figure, good or bad but certainly not 
 indifferent, in European history. Besides, I want 
 your opinion, whether there is not an odd and 
 striking resemblance in general manners, as .well 
 as in Herculean strength and height, in this Sibe- 
 rian Prince and his Abyssinian Majesty ? " 
 
 * Afterwards Lord Malmsbury.
 
 BARONESS DEIDEN. 6 1 
 
 CONCERT. EXTRACT THE SIXTH. 
 " My dear Mr. Crisp. 
 
 " I must positively talk to you again of the 
 sweet Baroness Deiden, though I am half afraid to 
 write you any more details of our Duet Concerts, 
 lest they should tire your patience as much as my 
 fingers. But you will be pleased to hear that they 
 are still d-la-mode. We have just had another at 
 the request of M. le Comte de Guignes, the French 
 ambassador, delivered by Lady Edgcumbe j who not 
 only came again her lively self, but brought her 
 jocose and humorous lord ; who seems as sportive 
 and as fond of a hoax as any tar who walks the 
 quarter-deck ; and as cleverly gifted for making, as 
 he is gaily disposed for enjoying one. They were 
 both full of good humour and spirits, and we liked 
 them amazingly. They have not a grain of what you 
 style the torpor of the times. 
 
 Lady Edgcumbe was so transported by Miithel, 
 that when her lord emitted a little cough, though it 
 did not find vent till he had half stifled himself to 
 check it, she called out, * What do you do here, my 
 Lord, coughing? We don't want that accompani- 
 ment.' I wish you could have seen how drolly he
 
 2 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 looked. I am sure he was full primed with a ready 
 repartee. But her ladyship was so intently in 
 ecstacy, and he saw us all round so intently admiring 
 her enthusiasm, that I verily believe he thought it 
 would not be safe to interrupt the performance, even 
 with the best witticism of his merry imagination. 
 
 "We had also, for contrast, the new Groom of 
 the Stole, Lord Ashburnham, with his key of gold 
 dangling from his pocket. He is elegant and 
 pleasing, though silent and reserved ; and just as 
 scrupulously high-bred, as Lord Edgcumbe is frolic- 
 somely facetious. 
 
 " But, my dear Mr. Crisp, we had again the 
 bewitching Danish ambassadress, the Baroness Dei- 
 den, and her polite husband, the Baron. She is 
 really one of the most delightful creatures in this 
 lower world, if she is not one of the most deceitful. 
 We were more charmed with her than ever. I won- 
 der whether Ophelia was like her ? or, rather, I 
 have no doubt but she was just such another. So 
 musical, too ! The Danish Court was determined 
 to show us that our great English bard knew what 
 he was about, when he drew so attractive a Danish 
 female. The Baron seems as sensible of her merit 
 as if he were another Hamlet himself though that
 
 BARONESS DEIDEN. 63 
 
 is no man I ever yet saw ! She speaks English very 
 prettily ; as she can't help, I believe, doing whatever 
 she sets about. She said to my father, * How good 
 you were, Sir, to remember us ! We are very much 
 oblige indeed.' And then to my sister, * I have 
 heard no music since I was here last ! ' 
 
 " We had also Lord. Barrington, brother to my 
 father's good friend Daines, and to the excellent 
 Bishop of Salisbury.* His lordship, as you know, 
 is universally reckoned clever, witty, penetrating, 
 and shrewd. But he bears this high character any 
 where rather than in his air and look, which by no 
 means pronounce his superiority of their own accord. 
 Doubtless, however, he has * that within which 
 passeth shew j ' for there is only one voice as to his 
 talents and merit. 
 
 " His Honour, Mr. Brudenel, but I will not 
 again run over the names of the duplicates from the 
 preceding concerts. I will finish my list with Lord 
 Sandwich. 
 
 " And most welcome he made himself to us, in 
 entering the drawing room, by giving intelligence 
 that he had just heard from the circumnavigators, 
 and that our dear James was well. 
 
 * Afterwards Bishop of Durham.
 
 64 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " Lord Sandwich is a tall, stout man, and looks as 
 furrowed and weather-proof as any sailor in the navy ; 
 and, like most of the old set of that brave tribe, he has 
 good nature and joviality marked in every feature. 
 I want to know why he is called Jemmy Twitcher 
 in the newspapers ? Do pray tell me that ? 
 
 " But why do I prepare for closing my account, 
 before I mention him for whom it was opened? 
 namely, M. le Comte de Guignes, the French am- 
 bassador. 
 
 " He was looked upon, when he first came over, 
 as one of the handsomest of men, as well as one of 
 the most gallant ; and his conquests amongst the 
 fair dames of the court were in proportion with 
 those two circumstances. I hope, therefore, now, 
 as I am no well-wisher to these sort of conquerors, 
 that his defeats, in future, will counter-balance 
 his victories ; for he is grown so fat, and looks so 
 sleek and supine, that I think the tender tribe will 
 hence-forward be in complete safety, and may sing, 
 in full chorus, while viewing him, 
 
 " ' Sigh no more, Ladies, sigh no more ! ' 
 
 " He was, however, very civil, and seemed well 
 entertained ; though he left an amusing laugh be- 
 hind him from the pomposity of his exit; for not
 
 BARONESS DEIDEN. 65 
 
 finding, upon quitting the music room, with an 
 abrupt French leave, half a dozen of our lackeys 
 waiting to anticipate his orders ; half a dozen of 
 those gentlemen not being positively at hand ; he 
 indignantly and impatiently called out aloud : ' Mes 
 gens ! ou sont mes gens ? Que sont Us done 
 devenu ? Mes gens f Je dis ! Mes gens ! ' 
 
 " Previously to this, the duet had gone off with 
 its usual eclat. 
 
 " Lord Sandwich then expressed an earnest de- 
 sire to hear the Baroness play : but she would not 
 listen to him, and seemed vexed to be entreated, 
 saying to my sister Hettina, who joined his lordship 
 in the solicitation, ' Oh yes ! it will be very pretty, 
 indeed, after all this so fine music, to see me play a 
 little minuet ! ' 
 
 " Lord Sandwich applied to my father to aid his 
 petition ; but my father, though he wished himself 
 to hear the Baroness again, did not like to tease 
 her, when he saw her modesty of refusal was real; 
 and consequently, that overcoming it would be 
 painful. I am sure I could not have pressed her 
 for the world ! But Lord Sandwich, who, I sup- 
 pose, is heart of oak, was not so scrupulous, and 
 
 VOL. II. F
 
 66 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 hovered over her, and would not desist ; though 
 turning her head away from him, and waving her 
 hand to distance him, she earnestly said : 1 1 beg 
 I beg, my lord ! ' 
 
 " Lord Barrington then, who, we found, was an 
 intimate acquaintance of the ambassador's, attempted 
 to seize the waving hand ; conjuring her to consent 
 to let him lead her to the instrument. 
 
 " But she hastily drew in her hand, and ex- 
 claimed : * Fie, fie, my lord Barrington ! so ill 
 natured ! I should not think was you ! Besides, 
 you have heard me so often.' 
 
 " ' Madame la Baronne,' replied he, with vivacity, 
 6 I want you to play precisely because Lord Sand- 
 wich has not heard you, and because I have ! ' 
 
 " All, however, was in vain, till the Baron came 
 forward, and said to her, ' Ma cliere you had 
 better play something anything than give such 
 a trouble/ 
 
 " She instantly arose, saying with a little reluc- 
 tant shrug, but accompanied by a very sweet smile, 
 * Now this looks just as if I was like to be so much 
 pressed ! ' 
 
 " She then played a slow movement of Abel's, 
 and a minuet of Schobert's, most delightfully, and
 
 BARONESS DEIDEN. 67 
 
 with so much soul and expression, that your Hettina 
 could hardly have played them better. 
 
 " She is surely descended in a right line from 
 Ophelia ! only, now I think of it, Ophelia dies un- 
 married. That is horribly unlucky. But, oh Shakes- 
 peare ! all-knowing Shakespeare! how came you 
 to picture just such female beauty and sweetness 
 and harmony in a Danish court, as was to be brought 
 over to England so many years after, in a Danish 
 ambassadress ? 
 
 ' But I have another no common thing to tell 
 you. Do you know that my Lord Barrington, from 
 the time that he addressed the Baroness Deiden, 
 and that her manner shewed him to stand fair in 
 her good opinion, wore quite a new air ? and looked 
 so high bred and pleasing, that I could not think 
 what he had done with his original appearance ; 
 for it then had as good a Viscount mien as one 
 might wish to see on a summer's day. Now how 
 is this, my dear Daddy ? You, who deride all ro- 
 mance, tell me how it could happen ? I know you 
 formerly were acquainted with Lord Barrington, 
 and liked him very much pray, was it in presence 
 of some fair Ophelia that you saw him ? "
 
 C8 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 MRS. SHERIDAN. 
 
 But highest, at this season, in the highest circles 
 of society, from the triple bewitchment of talents, 
 beauty, and fashion, stood the fair Linley Sheridan ; 
 who now gave concerts at her own house, to which 
 entrance was sought not only by all the votaries of 
 taste, and admirers of musical excellence, but by 
 all the leaders of ton, and their numerous followers, 
 or slaves ; with an ardour for admittance that was 
 as eager for beholding as for listening to this match- 
 less warbler ; so astonishingly in concord were the 
 charms of person, manners, and voice, for the eye 
 and for the ear, of this resistless syren. 
 
 To these concerts Dr. Burney was frequently 
 invited j where he had the pleasure, while enjoying 
 the spirit of her conversation, the winning softness 
 of her address, and the attraction of her smiles, to 
 return her attention to him by the delicacy of ac- 
 companiment with which he displayed her vocal 
 perfection.
 
 HISTOKY OF MUSIC. 6[) 
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 
 
 Ill the midst of this energetic life of professional 
 exertion, family avocations, worldly prosperity, and 
 fashionable distinction, Dr. Burney lost not one 
 moment that he could purloin either from its plea- 
 sures or its toils, to dedicate to what had long 
 become the principal object of his cares, his musi- 
 cal work. 
 
 Music, as yet, whether considered as a science or 
 as an art, had been written upon only in partial 
 details, to elucidate particular points of theory or 
 of practice ; but no general plan, or history of its 
 powers, including its rise, progress, uses, and 
 changes, in all the known nations of the world, 
 had ever been attempted : though, at the time Dr. 
 Burney set out upon his tours, to procure or to 
 enlarge materials for such a work, it singularly 
 chanced that there started up two fellow-labourers 
 in the same vineyard, one English, the other Italian, 
 who were working in their studies upon the same 
 idea namely, Sir John Hawkins, and Padre Mar- 
 tini. A French musical historian, also, M. de La 
 Borde, took in hand the same subject, by a striking 
 coincidence, nearly at the same period.
 
 70 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Each of their labours has now been long before 
 the public ; and each, as usual, has received the 
 mede of pre-eminence, according to the sympathy 
 of its readers with the several views of the subject 
 given by the several authors. 
 
 The impediments to all progressive expedition 
 that stood in the way of this undertaking with Dr. 
 Burney, were so completely beyond his control, that, 
 with his utmost efforts and skill, it was not till the 
 year 17?6, which was six years after the publication 
 of his plan, that he was able to bring forth his 
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 
 
 And even then, it was the first volume only that 
 he could publish ; nor was it till six years later fol- 
 lowed by the second. 
 
 Greatly, however, to a mind like his, was every 
 exertion repaid by the honour of its reception. The 
 subscription, by which he had been enabled to sus- 
 tain its numerous expences in books, travels, and 
 engravings, had brilliantly been filled with the 
 names of almost all that were most eminent in lite- 
 rature, high in rank, celebrated in the arts, or lead- 
 ing in the fashion of the day. And while the lovers
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 
 
 of music received with eagerness every account of 
 that ait in which they delighted ; scholars, and men 
 of letters in general, who hitherto had thought of 
 music but as they thought of a tune that might 
 be played or sung from imitation, were astonished 
 at the depth of research, and almost universality 
 of observation, reading, and meditation, which were 
 now shewn to be requisite for such an undertaking : 
 while the manner in which, throughout the work, 
 
 such varied matter was displayed, was so natural, so 
 
 
 spirited, and so agreeable, that the History of Music 
 
 not only awakened respect and admiration for its 
 composition; it excited, also, an animated desire, in 
 almost the whole body of its readers, to make ac- 
 quaintance with its author. 
 
 The History of Music was dedicated, by permis- 
 sion, to her Majesty, Queen Charlotte ; and was 
 received with even peculiar graciousness when it was 
 presented, at the drawing room, by the author. The 
 Queen both loved and understood the subject ; and 
 had shewn the liberal exemption of her fair mind 
 from all petty nationality, in the frank approbation 
 she had deigned to express of the Doctor's Tours ; 
 notwithstanding they so palpably displayed his strong 
 preference of the Italian vocal music to that of the 
 German,
 
 7 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 So delighted was Doctor Burney by the conde- 
 scending manner of the Queen's acceptance of his 
 musical offering, that he never thenceforward failed 
 paying his homage to their Majesties, upon the two 
 birth-day anniversaries of those august and beloved 
 Sovereigns.
 
 STREATHAM. 
 
 STREATHAM. 
 
 Fair was this period in the life of Dr. Burney. 
 It opened to him a new region of enjoyment, sup- 
 ported by honours, and exhilarated by pleasures 
 supremely to his taste : honours that were literary, 
 pleasures that were intellectual. Fair was this 
 period, though not yet was it risen to its acme : 
 a fairer still was now advancing to his highest 
 wishes, by free and frequent intercourse with the 
 man in the world to whose genius and worth 
 united, he looked up the most reverentially Dr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 And this intercourse was brought forward through 
 circumstances of such infinite agreeability, that no 
 point, however flattering, of the success that led 
 him to celebrity, was so welcome to his honest and 
 honourable pride, as being sought for at Streatham, 
 and his reception at that seat of the Muses. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale, the lively and enlivening lady of the 
 mansion, was then at the height of the glowing 
 renown which, for many years, held her in stationary 
 superiority on that summit. 
 
 It was professionally that Dr. Burney was first 
 invited to Streatham, by the master of that fair
 
 74 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 abode. The eldest daughter of the house* was in 
 the progress of an education fast advancing in most 
 departments of juvenile accomplishments, when the 
 idea of having recourse to the chief in " music's 
 power divine," Dr. Burney, as her instructor 
 in harmony, occurred to Mrs. Thrale. 
 
 So interesting was this new engagement to the 
 family of Dr. Burney, which had been born and 
 bred to a veneration of Dr. Johnson ; and which 
 had imbibed the general -notion that Streatham was 
 a coterie of wits and scholars, on a par with the blue 
 assemblages in town of Mrs. Montagu and Mrs.Vesey ; 
 that they all flocked around him, on his return from 
 his first excursion, with eager enquiry whether Dr. 
 Johnson had appeared ; and whether Mrs. Thrale 
 merited the brilliant plaudits of her panegyrists. 
 
 Dr. Burney, delighted with all that had passed, 
 ( was as communicative as they could be inquisitive. 
 Dr. Johnson had indeed appeared ; and from his pre- 
 vious knowledge of Dr. Burney, had come forward 
 to him zealously, and wearing his mildest aspect. _. 
 Twenty-two years had now elapsed since first 
 they had opened a correspondence, that to Dr. Bur- 
 ney had been delightful, and of which Dr. Johnson 
 
 * Now Viscountess Keith.
 
 STKEATHAM. 15 
 
 retained a warm and pleased remembrance. The 
 early enthusiasm for that great man, of Dr. Burney, 
 could not have hailed a more propitious circumstance 
 for promoting the intimacy to which he aspired, 
 than what hung on this recollection ; for kind 
 thoughts must instinctively have clung to the breast 
 of Dr. Johnson, towards so voluntary and disin- 
 terested a votary ; who had broken forth from his 
 own modest obscurity to offer homage to Dr. 
 Johnson, long before his stupendous Dictionary, and 
 more stupendous character, had raised him to his 
 subsequent towering fame. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Burney had beheld as a star of 
 the first magnitude in the constellation of female 
 wits ; surpassing, rather than equalizing, the repu- 
 tation which her extraordinary endowments, and the 
 splendid fortune which made them conspicuous, had 
 blazoned abroad ; while her social and easy good 
 humour allayed the alarm excited by the report of 
 her spirit of satire ; which, nevertheless, he owned 
 she unsparingly darted around her, in sallies of wit 
 and gaiety, and the happiest spontaneous epigrams. 
 
 Mr. Thrale, the Doctor had found a man of 
 sound sense, good parts, good instruction, and good 
 manners j with a liberal turn of mind, and an unaf-
 
 76 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 fected taste for talented society. Yet, though it 
 was everywhere known that Mrs. Thrale sportively, 
 but very decidedly, called and proclaimed him her 
 master, the Doctor never perceived in Mr. Thrale 
 any overbearing marital authority ; and soon re- 
 marked, that while, from a temper of mingled 
 sweetness and carelessness, his wife never offered him 
 any opposing opinion, he was too wise to be rallied, 
 by a sarcastic nickname, out of the rights by which 
 he kept her excess of vivacity in order. Com- 
 posedly, therefore, he was'content with the appella- 
 tion ; though from his manly character, joined to his 
 real admiration of her superior parts, he divested it 
 of its commonly understood imputation of tyranny, 
 to convert it to a mere simple truism. 
 
 But Dr. Burney soon saw that he had little chance 
 of aiding his young pupil in any very rapid improve- 
 ment. Mrs. Thrale, who had no passion but for 
 conversation, in which her eminence was justly her 
 pride, continually broke into the lesson to discuss 
 the news of the times ; politics, at that period, bear- 
 ing the complete sway over men's minds. But she 
 intermingled what she related, or what she heard, 
 with sallies so gay, so unexpected, so classically eru- 
 dite, or so vivaciously entertaining, that the tutor
 
 STREATHAM. 77 
 
 and the pupil were alike drawn away from their 
 studies, to an enjoyment of a less laborious, if not 
 of a less profitable description. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, who had no ear for music, had 
 accustomed himself, like many other great writers 
 who have had that same, and frequently sole, defici- 
 ency, to speak slightingly both of the art and of its 
 professors. And it was not till after he had become 
 intimately acquainted with Dr. Burney and his 
 various merits, that he ceased to join in a jargon so 
 unworthy of his liberal judgment, as that of ex- 
 cluding musicians and their art from celebrity. 
 
 The first symptom that he shewed of a tendency 
 to conversion upon this subject, was upon hearing 
 the following paragraph read, accidentally, aloud 
 by Mrs. Thrale, from the preface to the History of 
 Music, while it was yet in manuscript. 
 
 " The love of lengthened tones and modulated sounds, seems 
 a passion implanted in human nature throughout the globe ; as 
 we hear of no people, however wild and savage in other particu- 
 lars, who have not music of some kind or other, with which they 
 seem greatly delighted." 
 
 " Sir," cried Dr. Johnson, after a little pause, 
 " this assertion I believe may be right." And then, 
 see-sawing a minute or two on his chair, he forcibly
 
 ? MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 added: "All animated nature loves music except 
 myself ! " 
 
 Some time later, when Dr. Burney perceived 
 that he was generally gaining ground in the house, 
 he said to Mrs. Thrale, who had civilly been listen- 
 ing to some favourite air that he had been playing : 
 " I have yet hopes, Madam, with the assistance of 
 my pupil, to see your's become a musical family. 
 Nay, I even hope, Sir," turning to Dr. Johnson, 
 " I shall some time or other make you, also, sensible 
 of the power of my art." 
 
 " Sir," answered the Doctor, smiling, " I shall 
 be very glad to have a new sense put into me ! " 
 
 The Tour to the Hebrides being then in hand, 
 Dr. Burney inquired of what size and form the 
 book would be. " Sir," he replied, with a little 
 bow, " you are my model ! " 
 
 Impelled by the same kindness, when the Doctor 
 lamented the disappointment of the public in Hawkes- 
 worth's Voyages, " Sir," he cried, " the public is 
 always disappointed in books of travels ; except 
 your's ! " 
 
 And afterwards, he said that he had hardly ever 
 read any book quite through in his life ; but added : 
 " Chamier and I, Sir, however, read all your travels
 
 STREATHAM. 79 
 
 through ; except, perhaps, the description of the 
 great pipes in the organs of Germany and the 
 Netherlands! " 
 
 Mr. Thrale had lately fitted up a rational, read- 
 able, well-chosen library. It were superfluous to say 
 that he had neither authors for show, nor bindings 
 for vanity, when it is known, that while it was form- 
 ing, he placed merely one hundred pounds in Dr. 
 Johnson's hands for its completion ; though such 
 was his liberality, and such his opinion of the wis- 
 dom as well as knowledge of Doctor Johnson in 
 literary matters, that he would not for a moment 
 have hesitated to subscribe to the highest estimate 
 that the Doctor might have proposed. 
 
 One hundred pounds, according to the expensive 
 habits of the present day, of decorating books like 
 courtiers and coxcombs, rather than like students 
 and philosophers, would scarcely purchase a single 
 row for a book-case of the length of Mr. Thrale's 
 at Streatham ; though, under such guidance as that 
 of Dr. Johnson, to whom all finery seemed foppery, 
 and all foppery futility, that sum, added to the books 
 naturally inherited, or already collected, amply suf. 
 ficed for the unsophisticated reader, where no pecu- 
 liar pursuit, or unlimited spirit of research, demanded
 
 80 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 a collection for reference rather than for instruction 
 and enjoyment. 
 
 This was no sooner accomplished, than Mr. Thrale 
 resolved to surmount these treasures for the mind 
 by a similar regale for the eyes, in selecting the 
 persons he most loved to contemplate, from amongst 
 his friends and favourites, to preside over the litera- 
 ture that stood highest in his estimation. 
 
 And, that his portrait painter might go hand in 
 hand in judgment with his collector of books, he 
 fixed upon the matchless Sir Joshua Reynolds to 
 add living excellence to dead perfection, by giving 
 him the personal resemblance of the following 
 elected set ; every one of which occasionally made 
 a part of the brilliant society of Streatham. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale and her eldest daughter were in one 
 piece, over the fire-place, at full length. 
 
 The rest of the pictures were all three-quarters. 
 
 Mr. Thrale was over the door leading to his study. 
 
 The general collection then began by Lord Sandys 
 and Lord Westcote, two early noble friends of Mr. 
 Thrale. 
 
 Then followed 
 
 Dr. Johnson. Mr. Burke. Dr. Goldsmith. 
 
 Mr. Murphy. Mr. Garrick. Mr. Baretti. 
 
 Sir Robert Chambers, and Sir Joshua Reynolds himself.
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 81 
 
 All painted in the highest style of the great 
 master, who much delighted in this his Streatham 
 gallery. 
 
 There was place left but for one more frame, when 
 the acquaintance with Dr. Burney began at Streat- 
 ham ; and the charm of his conversation and man- 
 ners, joined to his celebrity in letters, so quickly 
 won upon the master as well as the mistress of the 
 mansion, that he was presently selected for the 
 honour of filling up this last chasm in the chain of 
 Streatham worthies. To this flattering distinction, 
 which Dr. Burney always recognized with pleasure, 
 the public owe the engraving of Bartolozzi, which is 
 prefixed to the History of Music. 
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 
 
 The friendship and kindness of heart of Dr. 
 Johnson, were promptly brought into play by this 
 renewed intercourse. Richard, the youngest son of 
 Dr. Burney, born of the second marriage, was then 
 preparing for Winchester School, whither his father 
 purposed conveying him in person. This design was 
 no sooner known at Streatham, where Richard, at 
 that time a beautiful as well as clever boy, was in 
 
 VOL. II. G
 
 82 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 great favour with Mrs. Thrale, than Dr. Johnson 
 volunteered an offer to accompany the father to 
 Winchester ; that he might himself present the son 
 to Dr. Warton, the then celebrated master of that 
 ancient receptacle for the study of youth. 
 
 Dr. Burney, enchanted by such a mark of regard, 
 gratefully accepted the proposal ; and they set out 
 together for Winchester, where Dr. Warton ex- 
 pected them with ardent hospitality. The acquaint- 
 ance of Dr. Burney he had already sought with 
 literary liberality, having kindly given him notice, 
 through the medium of Mr. Garrick,* of a manu- 
 script treatise on music in the Winchester collection. 
 There was, consequently, already an opening to 
 pleasure in their meeting : but the master's reception 
 of Dr. Johnson, from the high-wrought sense of the 
 honour of such a visit, was rather rapturous than 
 glad. Dr. Warton was always called an enthusiast 
 by Dr. Johnson, who, at times, when in gay spirits, 
 and with those with whom he trusted their ebullition, 
 would take off Dr. Warton with the strongest 
 humour ; describing, almost convulsively, the ecstacy 
 with which he would seize upon the person nearest 
 
 * See Correspondence.
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 83 
 
 to him, to hug in his arms, lest his grasp should be 
 eluded, while he displayed some picture, or some 
 prospect ; and indicated, in the midst of contortions 
 and gestures that violently and ludicrously shook, 
 if they did not affright his captive, the particular 
 point of view, or of design, that he wished should 
 be noticed. 
 
 This Winchester visit, besides the permanent 
 impression made by its benevolence, considerably 
 quickened the march of intimacy of Dr. Burney 
 with the great lexicographer, by the tdte a tdte 
 journies to and from Winchester; in which there 
 was not only the ease of companionability, to dissi- 
 pate the modest awe of intellectual super-eminence, 
 but also the certitude of not being obtrusive ; since, 
 thus coupled in a post-chaise, Dr. Johnson had no 
 choice of occupation, and no one else to whom to turn. 
 
 Far, however, from Dr. Johnson, upon this occa- 
 sion, was any desire of change, or any requisition 
 for variety. The spirit of Dr. Burney, with his 
 liveliness of communication, drew out the mighty 
 stores which Dr. Johnson had amassed upon nearly 
 every subject, with an amenity that brought forth 
 his genius in its very essence, cleared from all turbid 
 
 G 2
 
 84 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 dregs of heated irritability ; and Dr. Burney never 
 looked back to this Winchester tour but with recol- 
 lected pleasure. 
 
 Nor was this the sole exertion in favour of Dr. 
 Burney, of this admirable friend. He wrote various 
 letters to his own former associates, and to his 
 newer connexions at Oxford, recommending to them 
 to facilitate, with their best power, the researches of 
 the musical historian. And, some time afterwards, 
 he again took a seat in the chaise of Dr. Burney, and 
 accompanied him in person to that university ; where 
 every head of college, professor, and even general 
 member, vied one with another in coupling, in every 
 mark of civility, their rising approbation of Dr. 
 Burney, with their established reverence for Dr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 Most willingly, indeed, would this great and 
 excellent man have made, had he seen occasion, far 
 superior efforts in favour of Dr. Burney ; an excur- 
 sion almost any where being, in fact, so agreeable to 
 his taste, as to be always rather a pleasure to him 
 than a fatigue. 
 
 His vast abilities, in truth, were too copious for 
 the small scenes, objects, and interests of the little
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 85 
 
 world in which he lived;* and frequently must he 
 have felt both curbed and damped by the utter 
 insufficiency of such minor scenes, objects, and inte- 
 rests, to occupy powers such as his of conception 
 and investigation. To avow this he was far too 
 wise, lest it should seem a scorn of his fellow-crea- 
 tures ; and, indeed, from his internal humility, it 
 is possible that he was not himself aware of the great 
 chasm that separated him from the herd of mankind, 
 when not held to it by the ties of benevolence or 
 of necessity. 
 
 To talk of humility and Dr. Johnson together, 
 may, perhaps, make the few who remember him 
 smile, and the many who have only heard of him 
 stare. But his humility was not that of thinking 
 more lowlily of himself than of others ; it was simply 
 that of thinking so lowlily of others, as to hold his 
 own conscious superiority of but small scale in the 
 balance of intrinsic excellence. 
 
 After these excursions, the intercourse of Dr. 
 Burney with Streatham became so friendly, that 
 
 * This has reference wholly to Bolt-court, where he constantly 
 retained his home : at Streatham, continually as he there resided, 
 it was always as a guest.
 
 86 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale desired to make acquaintance with the 
 Doctor's family ; and Dr. Johnson, at the same time, 
 requested to examine the Doctor's books ; while 
 both wished to see the house of Sir Isaac Newton. 
 
 An account of this beginning connection with 
 St. Martin's-street was drawn up by the present 
 Editor, at the earnest desire of the revered Chesington 
 family-friend, Mr. Crisp ; whom she had just, and 
 most reluctantly, quitted a day or two before this 
 first visit from Streatham took place. 
 
 This little narration she now consigns to these 
 memoirs, as naturally belonging to the progress of 
 the friendship of Dr. Burney with Dr. Johnson ; and 
 not without hope that this genuine detail of the first 
 appearance of Dr. Johnson in St. Martin's-street, 
 may afford to the reader some share of the entertain- 
 ment which it afforded to the then young writer. 
 
 " To SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ. 
 " Chesington, near Kingston, Surrey. 
 
 " My dearest Mr. Crisp. 
 
 " My Father seemed well pleased at my return- 
 ing to my time ; so that is no small consolation and
 
 DH. JOHNSON. 7 
 
 pleasure to me for the pain of quitting you. So now 
 to our Thursday morning, and Dr. Johnson ; accord- 
 ing to my promise. 
 
 " We were all by we, I meanSuzette,* Charlotte,t 
 and I, for my mother had seen him before, as had 
 my sister Burney ; t but we three were all in a 
 twitter, from violent expectation and curiosity for 
 the sight of this monarch of books and authors. 
 
 " Mrs. and Miss Thrale, Miss Owen, and Mr. 
 Seward,|| came long before Lexiphanes. Mrs. Thrale 
 is a pretty woman still, though she has some defect 
 in the mouth that looks like a cut, or scar ; but her 
 nose is very handsome, her complexion very fair ; she 
 has the embonpoint charmant, and her eyes are 
 blue and lustrous. She is extremely lively and chatty j 
 and shewed none of the supercilious or pedantic 
 airs, so freely, or, rather, so scoffingly attributed, by 
 you envious lords of the creation, to women of learn- 
 ing or celebrity ; on the contrary, she is full of sport, 
 remarkably gay, and excessively agreeable. I liked 
 
 Afterwards Mrs. Phillips, f The present Mrs. Broome. 
 J Mrs. Burney, of Bath. Now Viscountess Keith. 
 || Afterwards Author of Biographiana.
 
 88 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 her in every thing except her entrance into the room, 
 which was rather florid and flourishing, as who should 
 say, ' It's I ! No less a person than Mrs. Thrale ! ' 
 However, all that ostentation wore out in the course 
 of the visit, which lasted the whole morning ; and 
 you could not have helped liking her, she is so very 
 entertaining though not simple enough, I believe, 
 for quite winning your heart. 
 
 " Miss Thrale seems just verging on her teens. 
 She is certainly handsome, and her beauty is of a 
 peculiar sort ; fair, round, firm, and cherubimical ; 
 with its chief charm exactly where lies the mother's 
 failure namely, in the mouth. She is reckoned cold 
 and proud; but I believe her to be merely shy 
 and reserved ; you, however, would have liked her, 
 and called her a girl of fashion; for she was very 
 silent, but very observant ; and never looked tired, 
 though she never uttered a syllable. 
 
 " Miss Owen, who is a relation of Mrs. Thrale's, 
 is good-humoured and sensible enough. She is a 
 sort of butt, and as such is a general favourite ; 
 though she is a willing, and not a mean butt ; for 
 she is a woman of family and fortune. But those 
 sort of characters are prodigiously popular, from
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 89 
 
 their facility of giving liberty of speech to the wit 
 and pleasantry of others, without risking for them- 
 selves any return of the * retort courteous.' 
 
 " Mr. Seward, who seems to be quite at home 
 among them, appears to be a penetrating, polite, 
 and agreeable young man. Mrs. Thrale says of him, 
 that he does good to every body, but speaks well 
 of nobody. 
 
 " The conversation was supported with a great deal 
 of vivacity, as usual when il Signer Padrone is at 
 home ; but I can write you none of it, as I was 
 still in the same twitter, twitter, twitter, I have 
 acknowledged, to see Dr. Johnson. Nothing could 
 have heightened my impatience unless Pope could 
 have been brought to life again or, perhaps, Shake- 
 speare ! 
 
 " This confab, was broken up by a duet between 
 your Hettina and, for the first time to company- 
 listeners, Suzette ; who, however, escaped much 
 fright, for she soon found she had no musical critics 
 to encounter in Mrs. Thrale and Mr. Seward, or 
 Miss Owen ; who know not a flat from a sharp, 
 nor a crotchet from a quaver. But every knowledge 
 is not given to every body except to two gentle 
 wights of my acquaintance j the one commonly hight
 
 90 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 il Padre, and the other il Dadda. Do you know 
 any such sort of people, Sir ? 
 
 " Well, in the midst of this performance, and 
 before the second movement was come to a close, 
 Dr. Johnson was announced ! 
 
 " Now, my dear Mr. Crisp, if you like a descrip- 
 tion of emotions and sensations but I know you 
 treat them all as burlesque so let's proceed. 
 
 " Every body rose to do him honour ; and he 
 returned the attention with the most formal cour- 
 tesie. My father then, having welcomed him with 
 the warmest respect, whispered to him that music 
 was going forward; which he would not, my father 
 thinks, have found out ; arid placing him on the 
 best seat vacant, told his daughters to go on with 
 the duet ; while Dr. Johnson, intently rolling to- 
 wards them one eye for they say he does not see 
 with the other made a grave nod, and gave a dig- 
 nified motion with one hand, in silent approvance 
 of the proceeding. 
 
 " But now, my dear Mr. Crisp, I am mortified 
 to own, what you, who always smile at my enthu- 
 siasm, will hear without caring a straw for that he 
 is, indeed, very ill-favoured ! Yet he has naturally 
 a noble figure j tall, stout, grand, and authoritative :
 
 DR. JOHNSOX. 91 
 
 but he stoops horribly ; his back is quite round : 
 his mouth is continually opening and shutting, as 
 if he were chewing something ; he has a singular 
 method of twirling his fingers, and twisting his 
 hands : his vast body is in constant agitation, see- 
 sawing backwards and forwards : his feet are never 
 a moment quiet ; and his whole great person looked 
 often as if it were going to roll itself, quite volun- 
 tarily, from his chair to the floor. 
 
 " Since such is his appearance to a person so pre- 
 judiced in his favour as I am, how I must more than 
 ever reverence his abilities, when I tell you that, 
 upon asking my father why he had not prepared us 
 for such uncouth, untoward strangeness, he laughed 
 heartily, and said he had entirely forgotten that the 
 same impression had been, at first, made upon him- 
 self; but had been lost even on the second inter- 
 view 
 
 " How I long to see him again, to lose it, too ! 
 for, knowing the value of what would come out 
 when he spoke, he ceased to observe the defects that 
 were out while he was silent. 
 
 " But you always charge me to write without 
 reserve or reservation, and so I obey as usual. Else,
 
 92 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 I should be ashamed to acknowledge having re- 
 marked such exterior blemishes in so exalted a 
 character. 
 
 " His dress, considering the times, and that he 
 had meant to put on all his best becomes, for he 
 was engaged to dine with a very fine party at Mrs. 
 Montagu's, was as much out of the common road 
 as his figure. He had a large, full, bushy wig, a 
 snuff-colour coat, with gold buttons, (or, peradven- 
 ture, brass,) but no ruffles to his doughty fists ; 
 and not, I suppose, to be taken for a Blue, though 
 going to the Blue Queen, he had on very coarse 
 black worsted stockings. 
 
 " He is shockingly near-sighted ; a thousand times 
 more so than either my Padre or myself. He did 
 not even know Mrs. Thrale, till she held out her 
 hand to him ; which she did very engagingly. After 
 the first few minutes, he drew his chair close to the 
 piano-forte, and then bent down his nose quite over 
 the keys, to examine them, and the four hands at 
 work upon them ; till poor Hetty and Susan hardly 
 knew how to play on, for fear of touching his phiz ; 
 or, which was harder still, how to keep their counte- 
 nances ; and the less, as Mr. Seward, who seems to
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 93 
 
 be very droll and shrewd, and was much diverted, 
 ogled them slyly, with a provoking expression of 
 arch enjoyment of their apprehensions. 
 
 " When the duet was finished, my father intro- 
 duced your Hettina to him, as an old acquaintance, 
 to whom, when she was a little girl, he had pre- 
 sented his Idler. 
 
 " His answer to this was imprinting on her pretty 
 face not a half touch of a courtly salute but a 
 good, real, substantial, and very loud kiss. 
 
 " Every body was obliged to stroke their chins, 
 that they might hide their mouths. 
 
 " Beyond this chaste embrace, his attention was 
 not to be drawn off two minutes longer from the 
 books, to which he now strided his way ; for we had 
 left the drawing-room for the library, on account of 
 the piano-forte. He pored over them, shelf by shelf, 
 almost brushing them with his eye-lashes from near 
 examination. At last, fixing upon something that 
 happened to hit his fancy, he took it down, and, 
 standing aloof from the company, which he seemed 
 clean and clear to forget, he began, without further 
 ceremony, and very composedly, to read to himself ; and 
 as intently as if he had been alone in his own study. 
 
 " We were all excessively provoked : for we were
 
 94 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 languishing, fretting, expiring to hear him talk not 
 to see him read ! what could that do for us ? 
 
 " My sister then played another duet, accom- 
 panied by my father, to which Miss Thrale seemed 
 very attentive ; and all the rest quietly resigned. But 
 Dr. Johnson had opened a volume of the British 
 Encyclopedia, and was so deeply engaged, that the 
 music, probably, never reached his ears. 
 
 " When it was over, Mrs. Thrale, in a laughing 
 manner, said : * Pray, Dr. Burney, will you be so 
 good as to tell me what that song was, and whose, 
 which Savoi sung last night at Bach's concert, and 
 which you did not hear?' 
 
 " My father confessed himself by no means so able 
 a diviner, not having had time to consult the stars, 
 though he lived in the house of Sir Isaac Newton. 
 But anxious to draw Dr. Johnson into conversation, 
 he ventured to interrupt him with Mrs. Thrale's 
 conjuring request relative to Bach's concert. 
 
 " The Doctor, comprehending his drift, good- 
 naturedly put away his book, and, see-sawing, with 
 a very humorous smile, drolly repeated, * Bach, 
 sir? Bach's concert ? And pray, sir, who is Bach? 
 Is he a piper ?' 
 
 " You may imagine what exclamations followed 
 such a question.
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 95 
 
 " Mrs. Thrale gave a detailed account of the 
 nature of the concert, and the fame of Mr. Bach ; 
 and the many charming performances she had heard, 
 with all their varieties, in his rooms. 
 
 " When there was a pause, ' Pray, madam,' said 
 he, with the calmest gravity, ' what is the expence 
 for all this ?* 
 
 " ' O,' answered she, ' the expence is much 
 trouble and solicitation to obtain a subscriber's ticket 
 or else, half-a-guinea.' 
 
 " ' Trouble and solicitation,' he replied, ' I will 
 have nothing to do with! but, if it be so fine, I 
 would be willing to give/ he hesitated, and then 
 finished with ' eighteen pence.' 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! Chocolate being then brought, we 
 returned to the drawing-room ; and Dr. Johnson, 
 when drawn away from the books, freely, and with 
 social good humour, gave himself up to conversation. 
 
 " The intended dinner of Mrs. Montagu being 
 mentioned, Dr. Johnson laughingly told us that he 
 had received the most flattering note that he had 
 ever read, or that any body else had ever read, of 
 invitation from that lady.' 
 
 " ' So have I, too,' cried Mrs. Thrale. * So, if 
 a note from Mrs. Montagu is to be boasted of, I 
 beg mine may not be forgotten.'
 
 96 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " * Your note, madam,' cried Dr. Johnson, smiling, 
 ' can bear no comparison with mine ; for I am at the 
 head of all the philosophers she says.' 
 
 " * And I,' returned Mrs. Thrale, * have all the 
 Muses in my train.' 
 
 " * A fair battle I' cried my father ; * come I com- 
 pliment for compliment ; and see who will hold out 
 longest.' 
 
 " * I am afraid for Mrs. Thrale,' said Mr. Seward ; 
 * for I know that Mrs. Montagu exerts all her 
 forces, when she sings the praises of Dr. Johnson.' 
 
 " * O yes ! ' cried Mrs. Thrale, * she has often 
 praised him till he has been ready to faint.' 
 
 " ' Well,' said my father, * you two ladies must 
 get him fairly between you to-day, and see which 
 can lay on the paint the thickest, Mrs. Montagu or 
 Mrs. Thrale.' 
 
 " * I had rather,' said the Doctor, very com- 
 posedly, ' go to Bach's concert ! ' 
 
 " Ha! ha! What a compliment to all three! 
 
 " After this, they talked of Mr. Garrick, and his 
 late exhibition before the King ; to whom, and to the 
 Queen and Royal Family, he has been reading 
 Lethe in character ; c'est d dire, in different voices, 
 and theatrically. 
 
 " Mr. Seward gave an amusing account of a fable
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 97 
 
 which Mr. Garrick had written by way of prologue, 
 or introduction, upon this occasion. In this he says, 
 that a blackbird, grown old and feeble, droops his 
 wings, &c. &c., and gives up singing ; but, upon 
 being called upon by the eagle, his voice recovers 
 its powers, his spirits revive, he sets age at defiance, 
 and sings better than ever. 
 
 " * There is not,' said Dr. Johnson, again begin- 
 ning to see-saw, * much of the spirit of fabulosity in 
 this fable ; for the call of an eagle never yet had 
 much tendency to restore the warbling of a black- 
 bird ! *Tis true, the fabulists frequently make the 
 wolves converse with the lambs ; but then, when 
 the conversation is over, the lambs are always de- 
 voured ! And, in that manner, the eagle, to be sure, 
 may entertain the blackbird but the entertainment 
 always ends in a feast for the eagle.' 
 
 " ' They say,' cried Mrs. Thrale, * that Garrick 
 was extremely hurt by the coldness of the King's 
 applause ; and that he did not find his reception such 
 as he had expected.* 
 
 " * He has been so long accustomed,* said Mr. 
 Seward, ' to the thundering acclamation of a theatre, 
 that mere calm approbation must necessarily be 
 insipid, nay, dispiriting to him.* 
 
 VOL. II. H
 
 98 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " ' Sir,' said Dr. Johnson, * he has no right, in a 
 royal apartment, to expect the hallooing and clamour 
 of the one-shilling gallery. The King, I doubt not, 
 gave him as much applause as was rationally his due. 
 And, indeed, great and uncommon as is the merit 
 of Mr. Garrick, no man will be bold enough to 
 assert that he has not had his just proportion both 
 of fame and profit. He has long reigned the un- 
 equalled favourite of the public ; and therefore 
 nobody, we may venture to say, will mourn his 
 hard lot, if the King and the Royal Family were not 
 transported into rapture upon hearing him read 
 Lethe ! But yet, Mr. Garrick will complain to his 
 friends ; and his friends will lament the King's want 
 of feeling and taste. But then Mr. Garrick will 
 kindly excuse the King. He will say that his 
 Majesty might, perhaps, be thinking of something 
 else ! That the affairs of America might, possibly, 
 occur to him or some other subject of state, more 
 important perhaps than Lethe. But though he 
 will candidly say this himself, he will not easily 
 forgive his friends if they do not contradict him ! ' 
 
 " But now, that I have written you this satire of 
 our immortal Roscius, it is but just, both to Mr. 
 Garrick and to Dr. Johnson, that I should write
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 99 
 
 to you what was said afterwards, when, with equal 
 humour and candour, Mr. Garrick's general cha- 
 racter was discriminated by Dr. Johnson. 
 
 " ' Garrick/ he said, * is accused of vanity ; but 
 few men would have borne such unremitting pros- 
 perity with greater, if with equal, moderation. He 
 is accused, too, of avarice, though he lives rather 
 like a prince than an actor. But the frugality he 
 practised when he first appeared in the world, has 
 put a stamp upon his character ever since. And 
 now, though his table, his equipage, and his esta- 
 blishment, are equal to those of persons of the most 
 splendid rank, the original stain of avarice still blots 
 his name ! And yet, had not his early, and perhaps 
 necessary economy, fixed upon him the charge of 
 thrift, he would long since have been reproached 
 with that of luxury/ 
 
 " Another time he said of him, * Garrick never 
 enters a room, but he regards himself as the object 
 of general attention, from whom the entertainment 
 of the company is expected. And true it is, that 
 he seldom disappoints that expectation : for he has 
 infinite humour, a very just proportion of wit, and 
 more convivial pleasantry than almost any man 
 living. But then, off as well as on the stage 
 
 H 2
 
 100 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 he is always an actor ! for he holds it so incumbent 
 upon him to be sportive, that his gaiety, from being 
 habitual, is become mechanical : and he can exert 
 his spirits at all times alike, without any consulta- 
 tion of his disposition to hilarity.' 
 
 " I can recollect nothing more, my dear Mr. 
 Crisp. So I beg your benediction, and bid you adieu." 
 
 The accession of the musical historian to the 
 Streatham coterie, was nearly as desirable to Dr. 
 Johnson himself, as it could be to its new member ; 
 and, with reciprocated vivacity in seeking the society 
 of each other, they went thither, and returned 
 thence to their homes, in tete d tdte junctions, by 
 every opportunity. 
 
 In his chronological doggrel list of his friends 
 and his feats, Dr. Burney has inserted the following 
 lines upon the Streatham connexion. 
 
 1776. 
 
 " This year I acquaintance began with the Thrales, 
 Where I met with great talents 'mongst females and males : 
 But the best thing that happen'd from that time to this, 
 Was the freedom it gave me to sound the abyss, 
 At my ease and my leisure, of Johnson's great mind, 
 Where new treasures unnumber'd I constantly find.
 
 DR. JOHNSONS 101 
 
 Huge Briareus's head, if old bards have not blunder'd, 
 Amounted in all to the sum of one hundred ; 
 And Johnson, so wide his intelligence spreads, 
 Has the brains of at least the siime number of heads." 
 
 DR. JOHNSON AND THE GREVILLES. 
 
 A few months after the Streathamite morning visit 
 to St. MartinVstreet that has been narrated, an 
 evening party was arranged by Dr. Burney, for 
 bringing thither again Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, 
 at the desire of Mr. and Mrs. Greville and Mrs. 
 Crewe ; who wished, under the quiet roof of Dr. 
 Burney, to make acquaintance with those celebrated 
 personages. 
 
 This meeting, though more fully furnished with 
 materials, produced not the same spirit or interest as 
 its predecessor ; and it owed, unfortunately, its mis- 
 carriage to the anxious efforts of Dr. Burney for 
 heightening its success. 
 
 To take off, as he hoped, what might be stiff or 
 formidable in an appointed encounter between persons 
 of such highly famed conversational powers, who, 
 absolute strangers to one another, must emulously,
 
 102 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 on each side, wish to shine with superior lustre, he 
 determined 
 
 To mingle sweet discourse with music sweet; 
 
 and to vary, as well as soften the energy of intellec- 
 tual debate, by the science and the sweetness of 
 instrumental harmony. But the lovers of music, and 
 the adepts in conversation, are rarely in true unison. 
 Exceptions only form, not mar a rule ; as witness 
 Messieurs Crisp, Twining, and Bewley, who were 
 equally eminent for musical and for mental melody : 
 but, in general, the discourse-votaries think time 
 thrown away, or misapplied, that is not devoted 
 exclusively to the powers of reason; while the vota- 
 ries of harmony deem pleasure and taste discarded, 
 where precedence is not accorded to the melting 
 delight of modulated sounds. 
 
 The party consisted of Dr. Johnson, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Greville, Mrs. Crewe, Mr., Mrs., and Miss 
 Thrale ; Signer Piozzi, Mr. Charles Burney, the 
 Doctor, his wife, and four of his daughters.* 
 
 Mr. Greville, in manner, mien, and high personal 
 
 * His fifth daughter, Sarah Harriet, was then a child.
 
 DIt. JOHNSON. JOS 
 
 presentation, was still the superb Mr. Greville of 
 other days ; though from a considerable diminution 
 of the substantial possessions which erst had given 
 him pre-eminence at the clubs and on the turf, the 
 splendour of his importance was now superseded by 
 newer and richer claimants. And even in ton and 
 fashion, though his rank in life kept him a certain 
 place, his influence, no longer seconded by fortune, 
 was on the wane. 
 
 Mrs. Greville, whose decadence was in that very 
 line in which alone her husband escaped it, personal 
 beauty, had lost, at an early period, her external 
 attractions, from the excessive thinness that had 
 given to her erst fine and most delicate small features, 
 a cast of sharpness so keen and meagre, that, joined 
 to the shrewdly intellectual expression of her coun- 
 tenance, made her seem fitted to sit for a portrait, 
 such as might have been delineated by Spencer, of 
 a penetrating, puissant, and sarcastic fairy queen. 
 She still, however, preserved her early fame j her 
 Ode to Indifference having twined around her brow 
 a garland of wide-spreading and unfading fragrance. 
 
 Mrs. Crewe seemed to inherit from both parents 
 only what was best. She was still in a blaze of 
 beauty that her happy and justly poised embonpoint
 
 104 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 preserved, with a roseate freshness, that eclipsed even 
 juvenile rivalry, not then alone, but nearly to the 
 end of a long life. 
 
 With all the unavoidable consciousness of only 
 looking, only speaking, only smiling to give pleasure 
 and receive homage, Mrs. Crewe, even from her 
 earliest days, had evinced an intuitive eagerness for 
 the sight of whoever or whatever was original, or 
 peculiar, that gave her a lively taste for acquiring 
 information ; not deep, indeed, nor scientific ; but 
 intelligent, communicative, and gay. She had ear- 
 nestly, therefore, availed herself of an opportunity 
 thus free from parade or trouble, of taking an inti- 
 mate view of so celebrated a philosopher as Dr. John- 
 son ; of whom she wished to form a personal judg- 
 ment, confirmatory or contradictory, of the rumours, 
 pro and contra, that had instigated her curiosity. 
 
 Mr. Thrale, also, was willing to be present at 
 this interview, from which he flattered himself with 
 receiving much diversion, through the literary skir- 
 mishes, the pleasant retorts courteous, and the sharp 
 pointed repartees, that he expected to hear reci- 
 procated between Mrs. Greville, Mrs. Thrale, and 
 Dr. Johnson: for though entirely a man of peace, 
 and a gentleman in his character, he had a singular
 
 DK. JOHNSON. 105 
 
 amusement in hearing, instigating, and provoking a 
 war of words, alternating triumph and overthrow, 
 between clever and ambitious colloquial combatants, 
 where, as here, there was nothing that could inflict 
 disgrace upon defeat. 
 
 And this, indeed, in a milder degree, was the 
 idea of entertainment from the meeting that had 
 generally been conceived. But the first step taken 
 by Dr. Burney for social conciliation, which was 
 calling for a cantata from Signer Piozzi, turned out, 
 on the contrary, the herald to general discomfiture ; 
 for it cast a damp of delay upon the mental gladi- 
 ators, that dimmed the brightness of the spirit with 
 which, it is probable, they had meant to vanquish 
 each the other. 
 
 Piozzi, a first-rate singer, whose voice was deli- 
 ciously sweet, and whose expression was perfect, 
 sung in his very best manner, from his desire to do 
 honour to il Capo di Casa ; but il Capo di Casa 
 and his family alone did justice to his strains : 
 neither the Grevilles nor the Thrales heeded music 
 beyond what belonged to it as fashion : the expec- 
 tations of the Grevilles were all occupied by Dr. 
 Johnson ; and those of the Thrales by the authoress 
 of the Ode to Indifference. When Piozzi, therefore,
 
 106 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 arose, the party remained as little advanced in any 
 method or pleasure for carrying on the evening, as 
 upon its first entrance into the room. 
 
 Mr. Greville, who had been curious to see, and 
 who intended to examine this leviathan of literature, 
 as Dr. Johnson was called in the current pamphlets 
 of the day, considered it to be his proper post to 
 open the campaign of the conversation. But he 
 had heard so much, from his friend Topham Beau- 
 clerk, whose highest honour was that of classing 
 himself as one of the friends of Dr. Johnson j not only 
 of the bright intellect with which the Doctor brought 
 forth his wit and knowledge ; and of the splendid 
 talents with which he displayed them when they 
 were aptly met ; but also of the overwhelming ability 
 with which he dismounted and threw into the mire 
 of ridicule and shame, the antagonist who ventured 
 to attack him with any species of sarcasm, that he 
 was cautious how to encounter so tremendous a 
 literary athletic. He thought it, therefore, most 
 consonant to his dignity to leave his own character as 
 an author in the back ground; and to take the field 
 with the aristocratic armour of pedigree and dis- 
 tinction. Aloof, therefore, he kept from all ; and, 
 assuming his most supercilious air of distant supe-
 
 DR. JOHNSON'. 107 
 
 riority, planted himself, immovable as a noble statue, 
 upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole set. 
 
 Mrs. Greville would willingly have entered the 
 lists herself, but that she naturally concluded Dr. 
 Johnson would make the advances. 
 
 And Mrs. Crewe, to whom all this seemed odd 
 and unaccountable, but to whom, also, from her 
 love of any thing unusual, it was secretly amusing, 
 sat perfectly passive in silent observance. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, himself, had come with the full in- 
 tention of passing two or three hours, with well 
 chosen companions, in social elegance. His own 
 expectations, indeed, were small for what could 
 meet their expansion ? his wish, however, to try all 
 sorts and all conditions of persons, as far as belonged 
 to their intellect, was unqualified and unlimited ; 
 and gave to him nearly as much desire to see others, 
 as his great fame gave to others to see his eminent 
 self. But his signal peculiarity in regard to society, 
 could not be surmised by strangers j and was as yet 
 unknown even to Dr. Burney. This was that, not- 
 withstanding the superior powers with which he 
 followed up every given subject, he scarcely ever 
 began one himself; or, to use the phrase of Sir W 
 W. Pepys, originated ; though the masterly manner
 
 108 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 in which, as soon as any topic was started, he seized 
 it in all its bearings, had so much the air of belong- 
 ing to the leader of the discourse, that this singu- 
 larity was unnoticed and unsuspected, save by the 
 experienced observation of long years of acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 Not, therefore, being summoned to hold forth, 
 he remained silent ; composedly at first, and after- 
 wards abstractedly. 
 
 Dr. Burney now began to feel considerably em- 
 barrassed ; though still he cherished hopes of ulti- 
 mate relief from some auspicious circumstance that, 
 sooner or later, would operate, he hoped, in his 
 favour, through the magnetism of congenial talents. 
 
 Vainly, however, he sought to elicit some obser- 
 vations that might lead to disserting discourse ; all 
 his attempts received only quiet, acquiescent replies, 
 " signifying nothing." Every one was awaiting 
 some spontaneous opening from Dr. Johnson. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale, of the whole coterie, was alone at her 
 ease. She feared not Dr. Johnson ; for fear made 
 no part of her composition ; and with Mrs. Greville, 
 as a fair rival genius, she would have been glad, from 
 curiosity, to have had the honour of a little tilt, in 
 full carelessness of its event ; for though triumphant
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 109 
 
 when victorious, she had spirits so volatile, and such 
 utter exemption from envy or spleen, that she 
 was gaily free from mortification when vanquished. 
 But she knew the meeting to have been fabricated 
 for Dr. Johnson ; and, therefore, though not with- 
 out difficulty, constrained herself to be passive. 
 
 When, however, she observed the sardonic disposi- 
 tion of Mr. Greville to stare around him at the 
 whole company in curious silence, she felt a defiance 
 against his aristocracy beat in every pulse ; for, how- 
 ever grandly he might look back to the long ancestry 
 of the Brookes and the Grevilles, she had a glowing 
 consciousness that her own blood, rapid and fluent, 
 flowed in her veins from Adam of Saltsberg ; and, 
 at length, provoked by the dullness of a taciturnity 
 that, in the midst of such renowned interlocutors, 
 produced as narcotic a torpor as could have been 
 caused by a dearth the most barren of human facul- 
 ties ; she grew tired of the music, and yet more 
 tired of remaining, what as little suited her inclina- 
 tions as her abilities, a mere cipher in the company ; 
 and, holding such a position, and all its concomi- 
 tants, to be ridiculous, her spirits rose rebelliously 
 above her control ; and, in a fit of utter recklessness 
 of what might be thought of her by her fine new
 
 110 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 acquaintance, she suddenly, but softly, arose, and 
 stealing on tip-toe behind Signer Piozzi ; who was ac- 
 companying himself on the piano-forte to an animated 
 arria parlante, with his back to the company, and 
 his face to the wall ; she ludicrously began imitating 
 him by squaring her elbows, elevating them with 
 ecstatic shrugs of the shoulders, and casting up her 
 eyes, while languishingly reclining her head ; as if 
 she were not less enthusiastically, though somewhat 
 more suddenly, struck with the transports of harmony 
 than himself. 
 
 This grotesque ebullition of ungovernable gaiety 
 was not perceived by Dr. Johnson, who faced the 
 fire, with his back to the performer and the instru- 
 ment. But the amusement which such an unlooked 
 for exhibition caused to the party, was momentary ; 
 for Dr. Burney, shocked lest the poor Signer should 
 observe, and be hurt by this mimicry, glided gently 
 round to Mrs. Thrale, and, with something between 
 pleasantry and severity, whispered to her, " Because, 
 Madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will 
 you destroy the attention of all who, in that one 
 point, are otherwise gifted ? " 
 
 It was now that shone the brightest attribute of 
 Mrs. Thrale, sweetness of temper. She took this
 
 DH. JOHNSON. Ill 
 
 rebuke with a candour, and a sense of its justice 
 the most amiable : she nodded her approbation of 
 the admonition ; and, returning to her chair, quietly 
 sat down, as she afterwards said, like a pretty little 
 miss, for the remainder of one of the most hum- 
 drum evenings that she had ever passed. 
 
 Strange, indeed, strange and most strange, the 
 event considered, was this opening intercourse be- 
 tween Mrs. Thrale and Signer Piozzi. Little could 
 she imagine that the person she was thus called 
 away from holding up to ridicule, would become, 
 but a few years afterwards, the idol of her fancy 
 and the lord of her destiny ! And little did the 
 company present imagine, that this burlesque scene 
 was but the first of a drama the most extraordinary 
 of real life, of which these two persons were to be 
 the hero and heroine : though, when the catastrophe 
 was known, this incident, witnessed by so many, 
 was recollected and repeated from coterie to coterie 
 throughout London, with comments and sarcasms 
 of endless variety. 
 
 The most innocent person of all that went for- 
 ward was the laurelled chief of the little association, 
 Dr. Johnson ; who, though his love for Dr. Burney 
 made it a pleasure to him to have been included
 
 112 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 in the invitation, marvelled, probably, by this time, 
 since uncalled upon to distinguish himself, why he 
 had been bidden to the meeting. But, as the even- 
 ing advanced, he wrapt himself up in his own 
 thoughts, in a manner it was frequently less difficult 
 to him to do than to let alone, and became com- 
 pletely absorbed in silent rumination : sustaining, 
 nevertheless, a grave and composed demeanour, 
 with an air by no means wanting in dignity any 
 more than in urbanity. 
 
 Very unexpectedly, however, ere the evening 
 closed, he shewed himself alive to what surrounded 
 him, by one of those singular starts of vision, that 
 made him seem at times, though purblind to things 
 in common, and to things inanimate, gifted with 
 an eye of instinct for espying any action or position 
 that he thonght merited reprehension : for, all at 
 once, looking fixedly on Mr. Greville, who, without 
 much self-denial, the night being very cold, perti- 
 naciously kept his station before the chimney-piece, 
 he exclaimed : " If it were not for depriving the 
 ladies of the fire, I should like to stand upon the 
 hearth myself!" 
 
 A smile gleamed upon every face at this pointed 
 speech. Mr. Greville tried to smile himself, though
 
 DR. JOHNSON'. 113 
 
 faintly and scoffingly. He tried, also, to hold to his 
 post, as if determined to disregard so cavalier a 
 liberty : but the sight of every eye around him cast 
 down, and every visage struggling vainly to appear 
 serious, disconcerted him ; and though, for two or 
 three minutes, he disdained to move, the awkward- 
 ness of a general pause impelled him, ere long, to 
 glide back to his chair ; but he rang the bell with 
 force as he passed it, to order his carriage. 
 
 It is probable that Dr. Johnson had observed the 
 high air and mien of Mr. Greville, and had pur- 
 posely brought forth that remark to disenchant him 
 from his self-consequence. 
 
 The party then broke up; and no one from 
 amongst it ever asked, or wished for its repetition. 
 
 If the mode of the first queen of the Bas Bleu 
 Societies, Mrs. Vesey, had here been adopted, for 
 destroying the formality of the circle, the party 
 would certainly have been less scrupulously ceremo- 
 nious ; for if any two of the gifted persons present 
 had been jostled unaffectedly together, there can be 
 little doubt that the plan and purpose of Dr. Burney 
 would have been answered by a spirited conversation. 
 But neither then, nor since, has so happy a confusion 
 to all order of etiquette been instituted, as was set 
 
 VOL. II. I
 
 114 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 afloat by that remarkable lady ; whose amiable and 
 intelligent simplicity made her follow up the sug- 
 gestions of her singular fancy, without being at 
 all aware that she did not follow those of common 
 custom. 
 
 PACCHIEROTTI. 
 
 The professional history, as well as the opinions 
 of Dr. Burney, are so closely inserted in his History 
 of Music, that they are all passed by in the memoirs 
 of his life ; but there arrived in England, at this 
 period, a foreign singer of such extraordinary merit 
 in character as well as talents, that not to inscribe 
 his name in the list of the Doctor's chosen friends, 
 as well as in that which enrols him at the head of 
 the most supremely eminent of vocal performers, 
 would be ill proclaiming, or remembering, the equal 
 height in both points to which he was raised in the 
 Doctor's estimation, by a union the most delighting 
 of professional with social excellence. 
 
 Pacchierotti, who came out upon the opera stage 
 in 1778, is first mentioned, incidentally, in the 
 History of Music, as "a great and original per- 
 former ;" and his public appearance afterwards is 
 announced by this remarkable paragraph.
 
 PACCHIEROTTI. 115 
 
 " To describe, with merited discrimination, the uncommon and 
 varied powers of Pacchierotti, would require a distinct disserta- 
 tion of considerable length, rather than a short article incorpo- 
 rated in a general History of Music." 
 
 The Doctor afterwards relates, that eagerly at- 
 tending the first rehearsal of Demofonte, with 
 which opera Pacchierotti began his English career, 
 and in which, under the pressure of a bad cold, he 
 sang only a sotto voce, his performance afforded a 
 more exquisite pleasure than the Doctor had ever 
 before experienced, or even imagined. " The na- 
 tural tone of his voice," says the History of Music, 
 " was so interesting, sweet, and pathetic, that when 
 he had a long note, I never wished him to change 
 it, or to do any thing but swell, diminish, or prolong 
 it, in whatever way he pleased. A great compass 
 of voice downwards, with an ascent up to C in alt. ; 
 an unbounded fancy, and a power not only of exe- 
 cuting the most refined and difficult passages, but of 
 inventing new embellishments which had never then 
 been on paper, made him, during his long residence 
 here, a new singer to me every time I heard him." 
 
 A still more exact and scientific detail of his 
 powers is then succeeded by these words : " That 
 Pacchierotti's feeling and sentiments were uncom- 
 
 i 2
 
 116 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 mon, was not only discoverable by his voice and 
 performance, but by his countenance, in which 
 through a general expression of benevolence, there 
 was a constant play of features that varyingly mani- 
 fested all the changing workings and agitations of 
 his soul. * * * * When his voice was 
 in order, and obedient to his will, there was a per- 
 fection in tone, taste, knowledge, and sensibility, 
 that my conception in the art could not imagine 
 possible to be surpassed." 
 
 And scarcely could this incomparable performer 
 stand higher in the eminence of his profession, than 
 in that of his intellect, his temper, and his cha- 
 racter. 
 
 If he had not been a singer, he would probably 
 have been a poet ; for his ideas, even in current 
 conversation, ran involuntarily into poetical imagery j 
 and the language which was their vehicle, was a sort 
 of poetry in itself; so luxuriantly was it embellished 
 with fanciful allusions, or sportive notions, that, 
 when he was highly animated in conversation, the 
 effusions of his imagination resembled his cadences 
 in music, by their excursionary flights, and impas- 
 sioned bursts of deep, yet tender sensibility. 
 
 He made himself nearly as many friends in this
 
 PACCHIEROTTI. 117 
 
 country to whom he was endeared by his society, as 
 admirers by whom he was enthusiastically courted 
 for his talents. 
 
 The first Mrs. Sheridan, Miss Linley, whose 
 sweet voice and manner so often moved " the soul to 
 transport, and the eyes to tears," told Dr. Burney, 
 that Pacchierotti was the only singer who taught 
 her to weep from melting pleasure and admiration. 
 
 He loved England even fervently ; its laws, cus- 
 toms, manners, and its liberty. Of this he gave the 
 sincerest proofs throughout his long life.* 
 
 The English language, though so inharmonious 
 compared with his own, he made his peculiar study, 
 from his desire to mingle with the best society, and 
 to enjoy its best authors ; for both which he had a 
 taste the most classical and lively. 
 
 He had the truly appropriate good fortune, for a 
 turn of mind and endowments so literary, to fall in 
 the way of Mr. Mason immediately upon coming 
 over to this country: few persons could be more 
 capable to appreciate a union of mental with pro- 
 fessional merit, than that elegant poet j who with 
 
 * His nephew and heir, he sent over to London to be 
 educated.
 
 118 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 both in Pacchierotti was so much charmed, as to 
 volunteer his services in teaching him the English 
 language. 
 
 So Parnassian a preceptor was not likely to lead 
 his studies from their native propensity to the 
 Muses ; and the epistles and billets which he wrote 
 in English, all demonstrated that the Pegasus which 
 he spurred, when composition was his pursuit, was 
 of the true Olympic breed.* 
 
 Pacchierotti was attached to Dr. Burney with 
 equal affection and reverence ; while by the Doctor 
 in return, the sight of Pacchierotti was always hailed 
 with cordial pleasure j and not more from the pathos 
 of his soul-touching powers of harmony, than from 
 the sweetness, yet poignancy of his discourse ; and 
 the delightful vivacity into which he could be drawn 
 by his favourites, from the pensive melancholy of his 
 habitual silence. Timidity and animation seemed to 
 balance his disposition with alternate sway ; but his 
 character was of a benevolence that had no balance, 
 no mixture whatsoever. 
 
 The Doctor's doggrel register of 1778, has these 
 two couplets upon Pacchierotti. 
 
 * See Correspondence.
 
 PACCHIEROTTI. 119 
 
 1778. 
 
 " This year Pacchierotti was order'd by Fate 
 Every vocal expression to teach us to hate, 
 Save his exquisite tones ; which delight and surprise, 
 And lift us at once from the earth to the skies." 
 
 LADY MARY DUNCAN. 
 
 Lady Mary Duncan, the great patroness of Pacchi- 
 erotti, was one of the most singular females of her 
 day, for parts utterly uncultivated, and mother-wit 
 completely untrammelled by the etiquettes of cus- 
 tom. She singled out Dr. Burney from her passion 
 for his art ; and attached herself to his friendship 
 from her esteem for his character j joined to their 
 entire sympathy in taste, feeling, and judgment, 
 upon the merits of Pacchierotti. 
 
 This lady displayed in conversation a fund of 
 humour, comic and fantastic in the extreme, and 
 more than bordering upon the burlesque, through 
 the extraordinary grimaces with which she enforced 
 her meaning ; and the risible abruptness of a quick 
 transition from the sternest authority to the most 
 facetious good fellowship, with which she frequently 
 altered the expression of her countenance while in 
 debate.
 
 120 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Her general language was a jargon entirely her 
 own, and so enveloped with strange phrases, ludi- 
 crously ungrammatical, that it was hardly intelligi- 
 ble, till an exordium or two gave some insight into 
 its peculiarities : but then it commonly unfolded 
 into sound, and even sagacious panegyric of some 
 favourite ; or sharp sarcasm, and extravagant mimicry, 
 upon some one who had incurred her displeasure. 
 Her wrath, however, once promulgated, seemed to 
 operate by its utterance as a vent that disburthened 
 her mind of all its angry workings ; and led her 
 cordially to join her laugh with that of her hearers ; 
 without either inquiry, or care, whether that laugh 
 were at her sayings or at herself. 
 
 She was constantly dressed according to the cos- 
 tume of her early days, in a hoop, with a long pointed 
 stomacher and long pointed ruffles ; and a fly cap. 
 She had a manly courage, a manly stamp, and a 
 manly hard-featured face : but her heart was as 
 invariably generous and good, as her manners were 
 original and grotesque.
 
 EVELINA. 121 
 
 EVELINA : 
 
 OR, 
 
 " A YOUNG LADY'S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD." 
 
 A subject now propels itself forward that might 
 better, it is probable, become any pen than that on 
 which it here devolves. It cannot, however, be set 
 aside in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, to whom, and 
 to the end of his life, it proved a permanent source 
 of deep and bosom interest : and the Editor, with 
 less unwillingness, though with conscious awkward- 
 ness, approaches this egotistic history, from some 
 recent information that the obscurity in which its 
 origin was encircled, has left, even yet, a spur to 
 curiosity and conjecture. 
 
 It seems, therefore, a devoir due to the singleness 
 of truth, to cut short any future vague assertion on 
 this small subject, by an explicit narration of a 
 simple, though rather singular tale ; which, little as 
 in itself it can be worthy of public attention, may not 
 wholly, perhaps, be unamusing, from the celebrated 
 characters that must necessarily be involved in its 
 relation j at the head of which, at this present mo- 
 ment, she is tempted to disclose, in self-defence a 
 proud self-defence ! of this personal obtrusion, the
 
 122 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 LIVING* names of Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Rogers, 
 who, in a visit with which they favoured her in the 
 year 1826, repeated some of the fabrications to 
 which this mystery of her early life still gave rise ; 
 and condescended to solicit a recital of the real 
 history of Evelina's Entrance into the TVorld. 
 
 This she instantly communicated ; though so in- 
 coherently, from the embarrassment of the subject, 
 and its long absence from her thoughts, that, having 
 since collected documents to refresh her memory, 
 she ventures, in gratefully dedicating the little inci- 
 dent to these Illustrious Inquisitors, to insert its 
 details in these memoirs to which, parentally, it 
 in fact belongs.! 
 
 * This was written in the year 1828. 
 
 f The first volume of this work was nearly printed, when the 
 Editor had the grief of hearing that Sir Walter Scott was no more. 
 In the general sorrow that his loss has spread throughout the 
 British Empire, she presumes not to speak of her own : but she 
 cannot persuade herself to annul the little tribute, by which she 
 had meant to demonstrate to him her sense of the vivacity with 
 which he had sought out her dwelling ; invited her to the hospi- 
 tality of his daughters at Abbotsford ; and courteously, nay, 
 eagerly, offered to do the honours of Scotland to her himself, 
 from that celebrated abode. 
 
 In a subsequent, visit with which he honoured and delighted
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 123 
 
 FRANCES, the second daughter of Dr. Burney, 
 was during her childhood the most backward of all 
 his family in the faculty of receiving instruction. 
 At eight years of age she was ignorant of the letters 
 of the alphabet ; though at ten, she began scribbling, 
 almost incessantly, little works of invention ; but 
 always in private ; and in scrawling characters, ille- 
 gible, save to herself. 
 
 One of her most remote remembrances, previ- 
 ously to this writing mania, is that of hearing a 
 neighbouring lady recommend to Mrs. Burney, her 
 
 her in the following year, she produced to him the scraps of 
 documents and fragments which she had collected from ancient 
 diaries and letters, in consequence of his inquiries. Pleased he 
 looked ; but told her that what already she had related, already 
 to use his own word he had " noted ; " adding, " And most 
 particularly, I have not forgotten your mulberry tree ! " 
 
 This little history, however, was so appropriately his own, and 
 was written so expressly with a view to its dedication, that still, 
 with veneration though with sadness instead of gladness she 
 leaves the brief exordium of her intended homage in its original 
 state. And the less reluctantly, as the companion of his kindness 
 and his interrogatories will still she hopes accept, and not 
 unwillingly, his own share in the small offering.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 mother, to quicken the indolence, or stupidity, 
 whichever it might be, of the little dunce, by the 
 chastening ordinances of Solomon. The alarm, how- 
 ever, of that little dunce, at a suggestion so wide 
 from the maternal measures that had been practised 
 in her childhood, was instantly superseded by a joy 
 of gratitude and surprise that still rests upon her 
 recollection, when she heard gently murmured in 
 reply, " No, no, I am not uneasy about her ! " 
 
 But, alas! the soft music of those encouraging 
 accents had already ceased to vibrate on human ears, 
 before these scrambling pot-hooks had begun their 
 operation of converting into Elegies, Odes, Plays, 
 Songs, Stories, Farces, nay, Tragedies and Epic 
 Poems, every scrap of white paper that could be 
 seized upon without question or notice ; for she 
 grew up, probably through the vanity-annihilating 
 circumstances of this conscious intellectual disgrace, 
 with so affrighted a persuasion that what she 
 scribbled, if seen, would but expose her to ridicule, 
 that her pen, though her greatest, was only her 
 clandestine delight. 
 
 To one confidant, indeed, all was open ; but the 
 fond partiality of the juvenile Susanna made her
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 125 
 
 opinion of little weight ; though the affection of her 
 praise rendered the stolen moments of their secret 
 readings the happiest of their adolescent lives. 
 
 From the time, however, that she attained her 
 fifteenth year, she considered it her duty to combat 
 this writing passion as illaudable, because fruitless. 
 Seizing, therefore, an opportunity, when Dr. Burney 
 was at Chesington, and the then Mrs. Burney, her 
 mother-in-law, was in Norfolk, she made over to a 
 bonfire, in a paved play-court, her whole stock of 
 prose goods and chattels ; with the sincere inten- 
 tion to extinguish for ever in their ashes her scrib- 
 bling propensity. But Hudibras too well says 
 
 " He who complies against his will, 
 Is of his own opinion still." 
 
 This grand feat, therefore, which consumed her 
 productions, extirpated neither the invention nor the 
 inclination that had given them birth ; and, in 
 defiance of all the projected heroism of the sacrifice, 
 the last of the little works that was immolated, 
 which was the History of Caroline Evelyn, the 
 Mother of Evelina, left, upon the mind of the 
 writer, so animated an impression of the singular 
 situations to which that Caroline's infant daughter, 
 from the unequal birth by which she hung suspended
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 between the elegant connexions of her mother, 
 and the vulgar ones of her grandmother, might 
 be exposed ; and presented contrasts and mixtures 
 of society so unusual, yet, thus circumstanced, so 
 natural, that irresistibly and almost unconsciously, 
 the whole of A Young Lady's Entrance into the 
 World, was pent up in the inventor's memory, ere 
 a paragraph was committed to paper. 
 
 Writing, indeed, was far more difficult to her 
 than composing ; for that demanded what she rarely 
 found attainable secret opportunity : while compo- 
 sition, in that hey-day of imagination, called only 
 for volition. 
 
 When the little narrative, however slowly, from 
 the impediments that always annoy what requires 
 secrecy, began to assume a " questionable shape ;" a 
 wish as vague, at first, as it was fantastic crossed 
 the brain of the writer, to " see her work in print." 
 
 She communicated, under promise of inviolable 
 silence, this idea to her sisters ; who entered into 
 it with much more amusement than surprise, as they 
 well knew her taste for quaint sports ; and were 
 equally aware of the sensitive affright with which she 
 shrunk from all personal remark. 
 
 She now copied the manuscript in a feigned
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 127 
 
 hand ; for as she was the Doctor's principal amanu- 
 ensis, she feared her common writing might acci- 
 dentally be seen by some compositor of the History 
 of Music, and lead to detection. 
 
 She grew weary, however, ere long, of an ex- 
 ercise so merely manual ; and had no sooner com- 
 pleted a copy of the first and second volumes, than 
 she wrote a letter, without any signature, to offer 
 the unfinished work to a bookseller ; with a desire 
 to have the two volumes immediately printed, if 
 approved ; and a promise to send the sequel in the 
 following year. 
 
 This was forwarded by the London post, with 
 a desire that the answer should be directed to a 
 coffee-house. 
 
 Her younger brother the elder, Captain James, 
 was * over the hills and far away/ her younger 
 brother, afterwards the celebrated Greek scholar, 
 gaily, and without reading a word of the work, 
 accepted a share in so whimsical a frolic ; and joy- 
 ously undertook to be her agent at the coffee-house 
 with her letters, and to the bookseller with the 
 manuscript. 
 
 After some consultation upon the choice of a book- 
 seller, Mr. Dodsley was fixed upon ; for Dodsley,
 
 128 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 from his father's, or perhaps grand-father's, well 
 chosen collection of fugitive poetry, stood foremost 
 in the estimation of the juvenile set. 
 
 Mr. Dodsley, in answer to the proposition, 
 declined looking at any thing that was anonymous. 
 
 The party, half-amused, half-provoked, sat in full 
 committee upon this lofty reply ; and came to a 
 resolution to forego the eclat of the west end of the 
 town, and to try their fortune with the urbanity of 
 the city. 
 
 Chance fixed them upon the name of Mr. 
 Lowndes. 
 
 The city of London here proved more courtly 
 than that of Westminster ; and, to their no small 
 delight, Mr. Lowndes desired to see the manuscript. 
 
 And what added a certain pride to the author's 
 satisfaction in this assent, was, that the answer 
 opened by 
 
 " Sir," 
 
 which gave her an elevation to manly consequence, 
 that had not been accorded to her by Mr. Dodsley, 
 whose reply began 
 
 " Sir, or Madam." 
 
 The young agent was muffled up now by the 
 laughing committee, in an old great coat, and a
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 
 
 large old hat, to give him a somewhat antique as well 
 as vulgar disguise ; and was sent forth in the dark 
 of the evening with the two first volumes to Fleet- 
 street, where he left them to their fate. 
 
 In trances of impatience the party awaited the 
 issue of the examination. 
 
 But they were all let down into the very * Slough 
 of Despond,' when the next coffee-house letter 
 coolly declared, that Mr. Lowndes could not think 
 of publishing an unfinished book ; though he liked 
 the work, and should be * ready to purchase and 
 print it when it should be finished.' 
 
 There was nothing in this unreasonable ; yet 
 the disappointed author, tired of what she deemed 
 such priggish punctilio, gave up, for awhile, and 
 in dudgeon, all thought of the scheme. 
 
 Nevertheless, to be thwarted on the score of 
 our inclination acts more frequently as a spur than 
 as a bridle ; the third volume, therefore, which 
 finished The young lady's entrance into the 
 world, was, ere another year could pass away, 
 almost involuntarily completed and copied. 
 
 But while the scribe was yet wavering whether 
 to abandon or to prosecute her enterprise, the chasm 
 caused by this suspense to the workings of her ima- 
 
 VOL. II. K
 
 130 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 gination, left an opening from their vagaries to a 
 mental interrogatory, whether it were right to allow 
 herself such an amusement, with whatever precau- 
 tions she might keep it from the world, unknown to 
 her father ? 
 
 She had never taken any step without the sanc- 
 tion of his permission ; and had now refrained from 
 requesting it, only through the confusion of acknow- 
 ledging her authorship ; and the apprehension, or, 
 rather, the horror of his desiring to see her per- 
 formance. 
 
 Nevertheless, reflection no sooner took place of 
 action, than she found, in this case at least, the 
 poet's maxim reversed, and that 
 
 ' The female who deliberates is sav'd,' 
 
 for she saw in its genuine light what was her duty ; 
 and seized, therefore, upon a happy moment of a 
 kind t&te a tte with her father, to avow, with more 
 blushes than words, her secret little work ; and her 
 odd inclination to see it in print ; hastily adding, 
 while he looked at her, incredulous of what he heard, 
 that her brother Charles would transact the business 
 with a distant bookseller, who should never know her 
 name. She only, therefore, entreated that he would 
 not himself ask to see the manuscript.
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 131 
 
 His amazement was without parallel ; yet it 
 seemed surpassed by his amusement ; and his laugh 
 was so gay, that, revived by its cheering sound, she 
 lost all her fears and embarrassment, and heartily 
 joined in it ; though somewhat at the expence of her 
 new author-like dignity. 
 
 She was the last person, perhaps, in the world 
 from whom Dr. Burney could have expected a simi- 
 lar scheme. He thought her project, however, as 
 innocent as it was whimsical, and offered not the 
 smallest objection ; but, kindly embracing her, and 
 calling himself le pere confident ', he enjoined her to 
 be watchful that Charles was discreet ; and to be 
 invariably strict in guarding her own incognita : and 
 then, having tacitly granted her personal petition, 
 he dropt the subject. 
 
 With fresh eagerness, now, and heightened 
 spirits, the incipient author rolled up her packet for 
 the bookseller ; which was carried to him by a newly 
 trusted agent, * her brother being then in the 
 country. 
 
 The suspense was short ; in a very few days 
 Mr. Lowndes sent his approbation of the work, with 
 
 * Edward Burney, Esq., of Clipstone -street. 
 K 2
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 an offer of 20/. for the manuscript an offer which 
 was accepted with alacrity, and boundless surprise at 
 its magnificence ! ! 
 
 The receipt for this settlement, signed simply 
 by " the Editor of Evelina" was conveyed by the 
 new agent to Fleet-street. 
 
 In the ensuing January, 1778, the work was 
 published ; a fact which only became known to its 
 writer, who had dropped all correspondence with 
 Mr. Lowndes, from hearing the following advertise- 
 ment read, accidentally, aloud at breakfast-time, by 
 Mrs. Burney, her mother-in-law. 
 
 This day was published, 
 
 EVELINA, 
 
 OR, A YOUNG LADY'S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD. 
 Printed for T. LOWNDES, Fleet-street. 
 
 Mrs. Burney, who read this unsuspectingly, 
 went on immediately to other articles ; but, had she 
 lifted her eyes from the paper, something more than 
 suspicion must have met them, from the conscious 
 colouring of the scribbler, and the irresistible smiles 
 of the two sisters, Susanna and Charlotte, who were 
 present.
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 133 
 
 Dr. Burney probably read the same advertise- 
 ment the same morning ; but as he knew neither 
 the name of the book, nor of the bookseller, nor the 
 time of publication, he must have read it without 
 comment, or thought. 
 
 In this projected and intended security from 
 public notice, the author passed two or three 
 months, during which the Doctor asked not a ques- 
 tion ; and perhaps had forgotten the secret with 
 which he had been entrusted ; for, besides the mul- 
 tiplicity of his affairs, his mind, just then, was 
 deeply disturbed by rising dissension, from claims 
 the most unwarrantable, with Mr. Greville. 
 
 And even from her own mind, the book, with 
 all that belonged to it, was soon afterwards chased, 
 through the absorbent fears of seeing her father 
 dangerously attacked by an acute fever ; from which 
 by the admirable prescriptions and skill of Sir Richard 
 Jebb, he was barely recovered, when she herself 
 who had been incautiously eager in aiding her mo- 
 ther and sisters in their assiduous attendance upon 
 the invaluable invalid, was taken ill with strong 
 symptoms of an inflammation of the lungs : and 
 though, through the sagacious directions of the 
 same penetrating physician, she was soon pronounced
 
 134 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 to be out of immediate danger, she was so shaken in 
 health and strength, that Sir Richard enjoined her 
 quitting London for the recruit of country air. She 
 was therefore conveyed to Chesington Hall, where 
 she was received and cherished by a second father 
 in Mr. Crisp j with whom, and his associates, the 
 worthy Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Cooke, she re- 
 mained for a considerable time. 
 
 A few days before she left town, Dr. Burney, 
 in a visit to her bedside, revealed to her his late 
 painful disagreement with Mr. Greville ; but told 
 her that they had, at length, come to a full explana- 
 tion, which had brought Mr. Greville once more to 
 his former and agreeable self; and had terminated in 
 a complete reconciliation. 
 
 He then read to her, in confidence, a poetical 
 epistle,* which he had just composed, and was pre- 
 paring to send to his restored friend ; but which was 
 expressed in terms so affecting, that they nearly 
 proved the reverse of restoration, in her then feeble 
 state, to his fondly attached daughter. 
 
 Dr. Burney's intercourse with Mr. Greville was 
 then again resumed ; and continued with rational, 
 
 * See Correspondence.
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 135 
 
 but true regard, on the part of Dr. Burney ; but 
 with an intemperate importunity on that of Mr. 
 Greville, that claimed time which could not be 
 spared ; and leisure which could not be found. 
 
 Evelina had now been published four or five 
 months, though Dr. Burney still knew nothing of 
 its existence ; and the author herself had learnt it 
 only by the chance-read advertisement already men- 
 tioned. Yet had that little book found its way 
 abroad ; fallen into general reading ; gone through 
 three editions, and been named with favour in sundry 
 Reviews ; till, at length, a sort of cry was excited 
 amongst its readers for discovering its author. 
 
 That author, it will naturally be imagined, 
 would repose her secret, however sacred, in the 
 breast of so confidential a counsellor as Mr. Crisp. 
 
 And not trust, indeed, was there wanting ! far 
 otherwise ! But as she required no advice for what 
 she never meant to avow, and had already done with, 
 she had no motive of sufficient force to give her cou- 
 rage for encountering his critic eye. She never, 
 therefore, ventured, and never purposed to venture 
 revealing to him her anonymous exploit. 
 
 June came ; and a sixth month was elapsing in 
 the same silent concealment, when early one morn-
 
 136 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 ing the Doctor, with great eagerness and hurry, 
 began a search amongst the pamphlets in his study 
 for a Monthly Review, which he demanded of his 
 daughter Charlotte, who alone was in the room. 
 After finding it, he earnestly examined its contents, 
 and then looked out hastily for an article which he 
 read with a countenance of so much emotion, that 
 Charlotte stole softly behind him, to peep over his 
 shoulder ; and then saw, with surprise and joy, that 
 he was perusing an account, which she knew to be 
 most favourable, of Evelina, beginning, ' A great 
 variety of natural characters ' 
 
 When he had finished the article, he put down 
 the Review, and sat motionless, without raising his 
 eyes, and looking in deep but charmed astonish- 
 ment. Suddenly, then, he again snatched the Re- 
 view, and again ran over the article, with an air yet 
 more intensely occupied. Placing it afterwards on 
 the chimney-piece, he walked about the room, as if 
 to recover breath, and recollect himself; though 
 always with looks of the most vivid pleasure. 
 
 Some minutes later, holding the Review in his 
 hand, while inspecting the table of contents, he 
 beckoned to Charlotte to approach ; and pointing to 
 " Evelina," * you know,' he said, in a whisper, * that
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 137 
 
 book ? Send William for it to Lowndes', as if for 
 yourself; and give it to me when we are alone.' 
 
 Charlotte obeyed ; and, joyous in sanguine 
 expectation, delivered to him the little volumes, 
 tied up in brown paper, in his study, when, late at 
 night, he came home from some engagement. 
 
 He locked them up in his bureau, without speak- 
 ing, and retired to his chamber. 
 
 The kindly impatient Charlotte was in his study 
 the next morning with the lark, waiting the descent 
 of the Doctor from his room. 
 
 He, also, was early, and went straight to his 
 desk, whence, taking out and untying the parcel, he 
 opened the first volume upon the little ode to him- 
 self, " Oh author of my being ! far more dear," &c. 
 
 He ejaculated a * Good God ! ' and his eyes 
 were suffused with tears. 
 
 Twice he read it, and then re-committed the 
 book to his writing desk, as if his mind were too full 
 for further perusal ; and dressed, and went out, 
 without uttering a syllable. 
 
 All this the affectionate Charlotte wrote to 
 her sister ; who read it with a perturbation inex- 
 pressible. It was clear that the Doctor had dis- 
 covered the name of her book ; and learned, also,
 
 138 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 that Charlotte was one of her cabal : but how, was 
 inexplicable ; though what would be his opinion of 
 the work absorbed now all the thoughts and sur- 
 mises of the clandestine author. 
 
 From this time, he frequently, though privately 
 and confidentially, spoke with all the sisters upon 
 the subject ; and with the kindliest approbation. 
 
 From this time, also, daily accounts of the pro- 
 gress made by the Doctor in reading the work ; or 
 of the progress made in the world by the work itself, 
 were transmitted to recreate the Chesington invalid 
 from the eagerly kind sisters ; the eldest of which, 
 soon afterwards, wrote a proposal to carry to Ches- 
 ington, for reading to Mr. Crisp, ' an anonymous 
 new work that was running about the town, called 
 Evelina.' 
 
 She came ; and performed her promised office 
 with a warmth of heart that glowed through every 
 word she read, and gave an interest to every detail. 
 
 With flying colours, therefore, the book went 
 off, not only with the easy social circle, but with 
 Mr. Crisp himself; and without the most remote 
 suspicion that the author was in the midst of the 
 audience ; a circumstance that made the whole 
 perusal seem to that author the most pleasant of
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 139 
 
 comedies, from the innumerable whimsical incidents 
 to which it gave rise, alike in panegyrics and in 
 criticisms, which alternately, and most innocently, 
 were often addressed to herself j and accompanied 
 with demands of her opinions, that forced her to per- 
 plexing evasions, productive of the most ludicrous 
 confusion, though of the highest inward diversion. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dr. Burney, uninformed of this 
 transaction, yet justly concluding that, whether the 
 book were owned or not, some one of the little com- 
 mittee would be carrying it to Chesington ; sent an 
 injunction to procrastinate its being produced, as he 
 himself meant to be its reader to Mr. Crisp. 
 
 This touching testimony of his parental interest 
 in its success with the first and dearest of their 
 friends, came close to the heart for which it was 
 designed, with feelings of strong and yet living 
 gratitude ! 
 
 Equally unexpected and exhilarating to the 
 invalid were all these occurrences : but of much 
 deeper marvel still was the narrative which follows, 
 and which she received about a week after this time. 
 In a letter written in this month, June, her 
 sister Susanna stated to her, that just as she had 
 retired to her own room, on the evening preceding
 
 140 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 its date, their father returned from his usual weekly 
 visit to Streatham, and sent for her to his study. 
 
 She immediately perceived, by his expanded 
 brow, that he had something extraordinary, and of 
 high agreeability, to divulge. 
 
 As the Memorialist arrives now at the first men- 
 tion, in this little transaction, of a name that the 
 public seems to hail with augmenting eagerness in 
 every trait that comes to light, she will venture to 
 copy the genuine account in which that honoured 
 name first occurs ; and which was written to her by 
 her sister Susanna, with an unpretending simplicity 
 that may to some have a certain charm ; and that 
 to no one can be offensive. 
 
 After the opening to the business that has just 
 been abridged, Susanna thus goes on. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " * Oh my dear girl, how shall I surprise you ! 
 Prepare yourself, I beseech, not to be too much 
 moved. 
 
 " * I have such a thing,' cried our dear father. 
 * to tell you about our poor Fanny ! ' 
 
 " * Dear Sir, what ? ' . cried I ; afraid he had been 
 betraying your secret to Mrs. Thrale ; which I know 
 he longed to do.
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 141 
 
 " He only smiled but such a smile of pleasure I 
 never saw ! Why to night at Streatham,' cried he, 
 while we were sitting at tea, only Dr. Johnson, Mrs. 
 Thrale, Miss Thrale, and myself. ' Madam,' cried 
 Dr. Johnson, see-sawing on his chair, * Mrs. Cholmon- 
 deley was talking to me last night of a new novel, 
 which she says has a very uncommon share of merit ; 
 Evelina. She says she has not been so entertained 
 this great while as in reading it ; and that she shall 
 go all over London to discover the author.* 
 
 " Do you breathe, my dear Fanny ? 
 
 " ' Odd enough ! ' cried Mrs. Thrale ; ' why 
 somebody else mentioned that book to me t'other 
 day Lady Westcote it was, I believe. The modest 
 writer of Evelina, she talked about.' 
 
 " * Mrs. Cholmondeley says,' answered the Doc- 
 tor, * that she never before met so much modesty 
 with so much merit in any literary production of the 
 kind, as is implied by the concealment of the author.' 
 
 " * Well, ' cried I, continued my father, smiling 
 more and more, * somebody recommended that book 
 to me, too ; and I read a little of it which, indeed 
 seemed to be above the commonplace works of 
 this kind.' 
 
 " Mrs. Thrale said she would certainly get it.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " * You must have it, madam ! ' cried Johnson, 
 emphatically ; ' Mrs. Cholmondeley says she shall 
 keep it on her table the whole summer, that every 
 body that knows her may see it ; for she asserts that 
 every body ought to read it ! And she has made 
 Burke get it and Reynolds.' 
 
 " A tolerably agreeable conversation, methinks, 
 my dear Fanny ! It took away my breath, and made 
 me skip about like a mad creature. 
 
 " ' And how did you feel, Sir?' said I to my father, 
 when I could speak. 
 
 " ' Feel ? why I liked it of all things ! I wanted 
 somebody to introduce the book at Streatham. 'Twas 
 just what I wished, but could not expect ! ' 
 
 " I could not for my life, my dearest Fanny, help 
 saying that even if it should be discovered, shy as 
 you were of being known, it would do you no dis- 
 credit. * Discredit ? ' he repeated ; ' no, indeed ! 
 quite the reverse ! It would be a credit to her and 
 to me ! and to you and to all her family ! 
 
 " Now, my dearest Fanny pray how do you 
 do? " 
 
 Vain would be any attempt to depict the asto- 
 nishment of the author at this communication the 
 astonishment, or the pleasure !
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 143 
 
 And, in truth, in private life, few small events 
 can possibly have been attended with more remark- 
 able incidents. That a work, voluntarily consigned 
 by its humble author, even from its birth, to obli- 
 vion, should rise from her condemnation, and, 
 
 " ' Unpatronized, unaided, unknown,' 
 
 make its way through the metropolis, in passing from 
 the Monthly Review into the hands of the beautiful 
 Mrs. Bunbury; and from her*s arriving at those of 
 the Hon. Mrs. Cholmondeley; whence, triumphantly, 
 it should be conveyed to Sir Joshua Reynolds ; made 
 known to Mr. Burke ; be mounted even to the 
 notice of Dr. Johnson, and reach Streatham ; and 
 that there its name should first be pronounced by 
 the great lexicographer himself ; and, by mere 
 chance, in the presence of Dr. Burney ; seemed 
 more like a romance, even to the Doctor himself, 
 than anything in the book that was the cause of 
 these coincidences. 
 
 Very soon afterwards, another singular circum- 
 stance, and one of great flutter to the spirits of the hid- 
 den author, reached her from the kind sisters. Upon 
 the succeeding excursion of Dr. Burney to Streat- 
 ham, Mrs. Thrale, most unconsciously, commis-
 
 144 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 sioned him to order Mr. Lowndes to send her down 
 Evelina. 
 
 From this moment, the composure of Chesing- 
 ton was over for the invalid, though not so the hap- 
 piness ! unequalled, in a short time, that became 
 unequalled as it was wonderful. Dr. Burney now, 
 from his numerous occupations, stole a few hours for 
 a flying visit to Chesington ; where his meeting with 
 his daughter, just rescued from the grave, and still 
 barely convalescent, at a period of such peculiar 
 interest to his paternal, and to her filial heart, was 
 of the tenderest description. Yet, earnestly as she 
 coveted his sight, she felt almost afraid, and quite 
 ashamed, to be alone with him, from her doubts how 
 he might accept her versified dedication. 
 
 She held back, therefore, from any tete d tete 
 till he sent for her to his little gallery cabinet j or 
 in Mr. Crisp's words, conjuring closet. But there, 
 when he had shut the door, with a significant smile, 
 that told her what was coming, and gave a glow to 
 her very forehead from anxious confusion, he gently 
 said, ' I have read your book, Fanny ! but you need 
 not blush at it it is full of merit it is, really, 
 extraordinary ! ' 
 
 She fell upon his neck with heart-throbbing
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 145 
 
 emotion ; and he folded her in his arms so tenderly, 
 that she sobbed upon his shoulder j so moved was 
 she by his precious approbation. But she soon 
 recovered to a gayer pleasure a pleasure more like 
 his own j though the length of her illness had made 
 her almost too weak for sensations that were mixed 
 with such excess of amazement. She had written 
 the little book, like innumerable of its predecessors 
 that she had burnt, simply for her private recreation. 
 She had printed it for a frolic, to see how a produc- 
 tion of her own would figure in that author-like 
 form. But that was the whole of her plan. And, 
 in truth, her unlocked for success evidently sur- 
 prised her father quite as much as herself. 
 
 But what was her start, when he told her that 
 her book was then actually running the gauntlet at 
 Streatham j and condescended to ask her leave, if 
 Mrs. Thrale should happen to be pleased with it, 
 to let her into the secret ! 
 
 Startled was she indeed, nay, affrighted; for con- 
 cealment was still her changeless wish and unalterable 
 purpose. But the words : ' If Mrs. Thrale should 
 happen to be pleased with it,* made her ashamed to 
 demur ; and she could only reply that, upon such 
 a stipulation, she saw no risk of confidence, for 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 146 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale was no partial relative. She besought 
 him, however, not to betray her to Mr. Crisp, whom 
 she dreaded as a critic as much as she loved as a 
 friend. 
 
 He laughed at her fright, yet forbore agitating 
 her apprehensive spirits by pressing, at that moment, 
 any abrupt disclosure ; and, having gained his im- 
 mediate point with regard to Mrs. Thrale, he drove 
 off eagerly and instantly to Streatham. 
 
 And his eagerness there received no check j he 
 found not only Mrs. Thrale, but her daughter, and 
 sundry visitors, so occupied by Evelina, that some 
 quotation from it was apropos to whatever was said 
 or done. 
 
 An enquiry was promptly made, whether Mrs. 
 Cholmondeley had yet found out the author of 
 Evelina ? * because/ said Mrs. Thrale, ' I long to 
 know him of all things/ 
 
 The Him produced a smile that, as soon as they 
 were alone, elicited an explanation ; and the kind 
 civilities that ensued may easily be conceived. 
 
 Every word of them was forwarded to Chesing- 
 ton by the participating sisters, as so many salutary 
 medicines, they said, for returning health and 
 strength. And, speedily after, they were followed
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 147 
 
 by a prescription of the same character, so potent, 
 so superlative, as to take place of all other mental 
 medicine. 
 
 This was conveyed in a packet from Susanna, 
 containing the ensuing letter from Mrs. Thrale to 
 Dr. Burney ; written two days after she had put 
 the first volume of Evelina into her coach, as Dr. 
 Johnson was quitting Streatham for a day's resi- 
 dence in Bolt Court. 
 
 " * Dear Doctor Burney, 
 
 " * Doctor Johnson returned home last night 
 full of the praises of the book I had lent him ; pro- 
 testing there were passages in it that might do 
 honour to Richardson. We talk of it for ever ; and 
 he, Doctor Johnson, feels ardent after the denoue- 
 ment. He could not get rid of the Rogue ! he 
 said. I then lent him the second volume, which he 
 instantly read ; and he is, even now, busy with the 
 third. 
 
 " * You must be more a philosopher, and less a 
 father than I wish you, not to be pleased with this 
 letter; and the giving such pleasure yields to no- 
 thing but receiving it. Long, my dear Sir, may 
 you live to enjoy the just praises of your children !
 
 148 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 And long may they live to deserve and delight such 
 a parent ! * " 
 
 This packet was accompanied by intelligence, 
 that Sir Joshua Reynolds had been fed while read- 
 ing the little work, from refusing to quit it at table ! 
 and that Edmund Burke had sat up a whole night 
 to finish it ! ! ! It was accompanied, also, by a letter 
 from Dr. Burney, that almost dissolved the happy 
 scribbler with touching delight, by its avowal of 
 his increased approbation upon a second reading : 
 " Thou hast made," he says, " thy old father laugh 
 
 and cry at thy pleasure I never yet heard of a 
 
 novel writer's statue ;* yet who knows ? above all 
 things, then, take care of thy head, for if that 
 should be at all turned out of its place by all this 
 intoxicating success, what sort of figure wouldst 
 thou cut upon a pedestal ? Prens y Men garde !' 
 
 This playful goodness, with the wondrous news 
 that Doctor Johnson himself had deigned to read 
 the little book, igo struck, so nearly bewildered the 
 author, that, seized with a fit of wild spirits, and 
 not knowing how to account for the vivacity of 
 her emotion to Mr. Crisp, she darted out of the 
 
 * Sir Walter Scott was then a child.
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 149 
 
 room in which she had read the tidings by his side, 
 to a small lawn before the window, where she danced, 
 lightly, blithely, gaily, around a large old mulberry 
 tree, as impulsively and airily as she had often done 
 in her days of adolescence : and Mr. Crisp, though 
 he looked on with some surprise, wore a smile of the 
 most expressive kindness, that seemed rejoicing in 
 the sudden resumption of that buoyant spirit of 
 springing felicity, which, in her first visits to Liberty 
 Hall Chesington, had made the mulberry-tree the 
 favourite site of her j uvenile vagaries. 
 
 Dr. Burney sent, also, a packet from Mr. 
 Lowndes, containing ten sets of Evelina very hand- 
 somely bound : and the scribbler had the extreme 
 satisfaction to see that Mr. Lowndes was still in the 
 dark as to his correspondent, the address being the 
 same as the last ; 
 
 To MR. GRAFTON, 
 
 Orange Coffee House, 
 and the opening of the letter still being, Sir. 
 
 When Chesington air, kindness, and freedom, had 
 completely chased away every symptom of disease, 
 Dr. Burney hastened thither himself; and arrived 
 in the highest, happiest spirits. He had three 
 objects in view, each of them filling his lively heart
 
 150 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 with gay ideas ; the first was to bring back to his 
 own roof his restored daughter : the second, was to 
 tell a laughable tale of wonder to the most revered 
 friend of both, for which he had previously written 
 to demand her consent : and the third, was to carry 
 that daughter to Streatham, and present her, by 
 appointment, to Mrs. Thrale, and to Dr. Johnson ! 
 
 No sooner had the Doctor reached Liberty Hall, 
 than the two faithful old friends were shut up in 
 the conjuring closet where Dr. Burney rushed at 
 once into " the midst of things," and disclosed the 
 author of the little work which, for some weeks 
 past, had occupied Chesington Hall with quotations, 
 conjectures, and subject matter of talk. 
 
 All that belongs, or that ever can belong, in 
 matters of small moment, to amazement, is short of 
 what was experienced by Mr. Crisp at this recital : 
 and his astonishment was so prodigious not to have 
 heard of her writing at all, till he heard of it in a 
 printed work that was running all over London, 
 and had been read, and approved of by Dr. Johnson 
 and Edmund Burke ; that, with all his powers of 
 speech, his choice of language, and his general 
 variety of expression, he could utter no phrase but 
 " Wonderful ! "which burst forth at once on the
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 151 
 
 discovery ; accompanied each of its details ; and was 
 still the only vent to the fullness of his surprise 
 when he had heard the whole history. 
 
 That she had consulted neither of these parents 
 in this singular undertaking, diverted them both : 
 well they knew that no distrust had caused the con- 
 cealment, but simply an apprehension of utter insuf- 
 ficiency to merit their suffrages. 
 
 What a dream did all this seem to this Memo- 
 rialist ! The fear, however, of a reverse, checked all 
 that might have rendered it too delusive ; and she 
 earnestly supplicated that the communication might 
 be spread no further, lest it should precipitate a spirit 
 of criticism, which retirement and mystery kept 
 dormant : and which made all her wishes still unal- 
 terable for remaining unknown and unsuspected. 
 
 The popularity of this work did not render it 
 very lucrative; ten pounds a volume, by the addition 
 of ten pounds to the original twenty, after the third 
 edition, being all that was ever paid, or ever offered 
 to the author ; whose unaffectedly humble idea of 
 its worth had cast her, unconditionally, upon any 
 terms that might be proposed. 
 
 Dr. Burney, enchanted at the new scene of life 
 to which he was now carrying his daughter, of an
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 introduction to Streatham, and a presentation to 
 Dr. Johnson, took a most cordial leave of the con- 
 gratulatory Mr. Crisp ; who sighed, nevertheless, 
 in the midst of his satisfaction, from a prophetic 
 anticipation of the probable and sundering calls from 
 his peaceful habitation, of which he thought this 
 new scene likely to be the result. But the object 
 of this kind solicitude, far from participating in 
 these fears, was curbed from the full enjoyment of 
 the honours before her, by a well-grounded appre- 
 hension that Dr. Johnson, at least, if not Mrs. Thrale, 
 might expect a more important, and less bashful 
 sort of personage, than she was sure would be found. 
 
 Dr. Burney, aware of her dread, because aware of 
 her retired life and habits, and her native taste for 
 personal obscurity, strove to laugh off her appre- 
 hensions by disallowing their justice ; and was him- 
 self all gaiety and spirit. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale, who was walking in her paddock, 
 came to the door of the carriage to receive them ; 
 and poured forth a vivacity of thanks to the Doctor 
 for bringing his daughter, that filled that daughter 
 with the most agreeable gratitude ; and soon made 
 her so easy and comfortable, that she forgot the 
 formidable renown of wit and satire that were
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 153 
 
 coupled with the name of Mrs. Thrale ; and the 
 whole weight of her panic, as well as the whole 
 energy of her hopes, devolved upon the approach- 
 ing interview with Dr. Johnson. 
 
 But there, on the contrary, Dr. Burney felt far 
 greater security. Dr. Johnson, however undesign- 
 edly, nay, involuntarily, had been the cause of the 
 new author's invitation to Streatham, from being the 
 first person who there had pronounced the name of 
 Evelina; and that previously to the discovery that 
 its unknown writer was the daughter of a man whose 
 early enthusiasm for Dr. Johnson had merited his 
 warm acknowledgments ; and whose character and 
 conversation had since won his esteem and friend- 
 ship. Dr. Burney therefore prognosticated, that 
 such a circumstance could not but strike the vivid 
 imagination of Dr. Johnson as a romance of real 
 life ; and additionally interest him for the unob- 
 trusive author of the little work, which, wholly by 
 chance, he had so singularly helped to bring forward. 
 
 The curiosity of Dr. Johnson, however, though 
 certainly excited, was by no means so powerful as 
 to allure him from his chamber one moment before 
 his customary time of descending to dinner; and 
 the new author had three or four hours to pass in
 
 154 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 constantly augmenting trepidation : for the pros- 
 pect of seeing him, which so short a time before 
 would have sufficed for her delight, was now che- 
 quered by the consciousness that she could not, as 
 heretofore, be in his presence only for her own grati- 
 fication, without any reciprocity of notice. 
 
 She was introduced, meanwhile, to Mr. Thrale, 
 whose reception oF her was gentle and gentleman- 
 like j and such as shewed his belief in the verity of 
 her desire to have her authorship unmarked. 
 
 She saw also Miss Thrale,* then barely entered 
 into adolescence, though full of sense and cultivated 
 talents ; but as shy as herself, and consequently as 
 little likely to create alarm. 
 
 One visitor only was at the house, Mr. Seward, 
 afterwards author of Biographiana ; a singular, but 
 very agreeable, literary, and beneficent young man. 
 
 The morning was passed in the library, and, to the 
 Doctor and his daughter was passed deliciously : Mrs. 
 Thrale, much amused by the presence of two persons 
 so peculiarly situated, put forth her utmost powers of 
 pleasing ; and though that great engine to success 
 flattery, was not spared, she wielded it with so much 
 
 * Now Viscountess Keith.
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 155 
 
 skill, and directed it with so much pleasantry, that 
 all disconcerting effects were chased aside, to make 
 it only produce laughter and good humour j through 
 which gay auxiliaries every trait meant, latently, for 
 the fearful daughter, was openly and plumply ad- 
 dressed to the happy father. 
 
 " I wish you had been with us last night, Dr. 
 Burney, she said ; " for thinking of what would 
 happen to-day, we could talk of nothing in the world 
 but a certain sweet book ; and Dr. Johnson was so 
 full of it, that he quite astonished us. He has got 
 those incomparable Brangtons quite by heart, and 
 he recited scene after scene of their squabbles, and 
 selfishness, and forwardness, till he quite shook his 
 sides with laughter. But his greatest favourite is 
 The Holbourn Beau, as he calls Mr. Smith. Such a 
 fine varnish, he says, of low politeness ! such strug- 
 gles to appear the fine gentleman ! such a determi- 
 nation to be genteel ! and, above all, such profound 
 devotion to the ladies, while openly declaring his 
 
 distaste to matrimony ! All this Mr. Johnson 
 
 pointed out with so much comicality of sport, 
 that, at last, he got into such high spirits, that he 
 set about personating Mr. Smith himself! We all 
 thought we must have died no other death than that
 
 156 
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 of suffocation, in seeing Dr. Johnson handing 
 about any thing he could catch, or snatch at, and 
 making smirking bows, saying he was all for the 
 ladies, every thing that was agreeable to the 
 ladies, &c. &c. &c., ' except,' says he, ' going to 
 church with them I and as to that, though marriage, 
 to be sure, is all in all to the ladies, marriage to a 
 man is the devil ! ' And then he pursued his per- 
 sonifications of his Holbourn Beau, till he brought 
 him to what Mr. Johnson calls his climax j which is 
 his meeting with Sir Clement Willoughby at Ma- 
 dame Duval's, where a blow is given at once to his 
 self-sufficiency, by the surprise and confusion of seeing 
 himself so distanced ; and the hopeless envy with 
 which he looks up to Sir Clement, as to a meteor such 
 as he himself had hitherto been looked up to at 
 Snow Hill, that give a finishing touch to his portrait. 
 And all this comic humour of character, he says, 
 owes its effect to contrast ; for without Lord 
 Orville, and Mr. Villars, and that melancholy 
 and gentleman-like half-starved Scotchman, poor 
 Macartney, the Brangtons, and the Duvals, would 
 be less than nothing ; for vulgarity, in its own un- 
 shadowed glare, is only disgusting." 
 
 This account is abridged from a long journal
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 157 
 
 letter of the Memorialist ; addressed to Mr. Crisp ; 
 but she will hazard copying more at length, from 
 the same source, the original narration of her subse- 
 quent introduction to the notice of Dr. Johnson; 
 as it may not be incurious to the reader, to see that 
 great man in the uncommon light of courteously, 
 nay playfully, subduing the fears, and raising the 
 courage, of a newly discovered, but yet unavowed 
 young author, by unexpected sallies and pointed 
 allusions to characters in her work ; not as to beings 
 that were the product of her imagination, but as to 
 persons of his own acquaintance, and in real life. 
 
 " To SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ. 
 
 " Chesington, Kingston, Surrey. 
 
 * * * * # 
 
 Well, when, at last, we were summoned to dinner, 
 Mrs. Thrale made my father and myself sit on each 
 side of her. I said, I hoped I did not take the 
 place of Dr. Johnson ? for, to my great consterna- 
 tion, he did not even yet appear, and I began to 
 apprehend he meant to abscond. * No, J answered 
 Mrs. Thrale ; * he will sit next to you, and that, I 
 am sure, will give him great pleasure.'
 
 158 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Soon after we were all marshalled, the great 
 man entered. I have so sincere a veneration for 
 him, that his very sight inspires me with delight as 
 well as reverence, notwithstanding the cruel infir- 
 mities to which, as I have told you, he is subject. 
 But all that, outwardly, is so unfortunate, is so 
 nobly compensated by all that, within, is excelling, 
 that I can now only, like Desdemona for Othello, 
 * view his image in his mind.' 
 
 Mrs. Thrale introduced me to him with an em- 
 phasis upon my name that rather frightened me, for 
 it seemed like a call for some compliment. But he 
 made me a bow the most formal, almost solemn, in 
 utter silence, and with his eyes bent downwards. I 
 felt relieved by this distance, for I thought he had 
 forgotten, for the present at least, both the favoured 
 little book and the invited little scribbler ; and I 
 therefore began to answer the perpetual addresses to 
 me of Mrs. Thrale, with rather more ease. But by 
 the time I was thus recovered from my panic, 
 Dr. Johnson asked my father what was the compo- 
 sition of some little pies on his side of the table j 
 and, while my father was endeavouring to make 
 it out, Mrs. Thrale said, 'Nothing but mutton, 
 Mr. Johnson, so I don't ask you to eat such poor 
 patties, because I know you despise them.'
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 159 
 
 * No, Madam, no ! ' cried Doctor Johnson, * I 
 despise nothing that is good of its sort. But I am 
 too proud now, [smiling] to eat mutton pies ! Sit- 
 ting by Miss Burney makes me very proud to-day ! ' 
 
 " If you had seen, my dear Mr. Crisp, how wide 
 I felt my eyes open ! A compliment from Doctor 
 Johnson ! 
 
 ' Miss Burney,' cried Mrs. Thrale, laughing, 
 * you must take great care of your heart, if Mr. 
 Johnson attacks it for I assure you he is not often 
 successless ! ' 
 
 * What's that you say, Madam ? ' cried the Doc- 
 tor ; * are you making mischief between the young 
 lady and me already ? ' 
 
 A littlewhile afterwards, he drank Miss Thrale's 
 health and mine together, in a bumper of lemonade ; 
 and then added : * It is a terrible thing that we 
 cannot wish young ladies to be well, without wishing 
 them to become old women ! ' 
 
 * If the pleasures of longevity were not gradual,' 
 said my father, * If we were to light upon them by 
 a jump or a skip, we should be cruelly at a loss how 
 to give them welcome ! ' 
 
 " * But some people,' said Mr. Seward, ' are young 
 and old at the same time ; for they wear so well, 
 that they never look old.'
 
 160 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 ' No, Sir, no ! ' cried the Doctor ; * that never 
 yet was, and never will be ! You might as well say 
 they were at the same time tall and short. Though 
 I recollect an epitaph, I forget upon whom, to that 
 purpose. 
 
 " ' Miss such a one lies buried here, 
 So early wise, and lasting- fair, 
 That none, unless her years you told, 
 Thought her a child or thought her old.' 
 
 My father then mentioned Mr. Garrick's epi- 
 logue to Bonduca, which Dr. Johnson called a 
 miserable performance ; and which every body agreed 
 to be the worst that Mr. Garrick had ever written. 
 * And yet,' said Mr. Seward, ' it has been very 
 much admired. But it is in praise of English 
 valour, and so, I suppose, the subject made it po- 
 pular.' 
 
 ' I do not know, Sir/ said Dr. Johnson, * any 
 thing about the subject, for I could not read till I 
 came to any. I got through about half a dozen 
 lines ; but for subject, I could observe no other than 
 perpetual dullness. I do not know what is the 
 matter with David. I am afraid he is becoming 
 superannuated j for his prologues and epilogues 
 used to be incomparable.'
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 161 
 
 * Nothing is so fatiguing," said Mrs. Thrale, " as 
 the life of a wit. Garrick and Wilkes are the oldest 
 men of their age that I know ; for they have both 
 worn themselves out prematurely by being eternally 
 on the rack to entertain others." 
 
 " David, Madam, ' J said the Doctor, " looks much 
 older than he is, because his face has had double the 
 business of any other man's. It is never at rest ! 
 When he speaks one minute, he has quite a different 
 countenance to that which he assumes the next. I 
 do not believe he ever kept the same look for half 
 an hour together in the whole course of his life. 
 And such a perpetual play of the muscles must cer- 
 tainly wear a man's face out before his time." 
 
 While I was cordially laughing at this idea, the 
 Doctor, who had probably observed in me some little 
 uneasy trepidation, and now, I suppose, concluded 
 me restored to my usual state, suddenly, though 
 very ceremoniously, as if to begin some acquaint- 
 ance with me, requested that I would help him to 
 some brocoli. This I did ; but when he took it, he 
 put on a face of humorous discontent, and said, 
 * Only this, Madam ? You would not have helped 
 Mr. Macartney so parsimoniously ! ' 
 
 He affected to utter this in a whisper j but to 
 
 VOL. II. M
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 see him directly address me, caught the attention 
 of all the table, and every one smiled, though in 
 silence ; while I felt so surprised and so foolish ! so 
 pleased and so ashamed, that I hardly knew whether 
 he meant my Mr. Macartney, or spoke at random 
 of some other. This, however, he soon put beyond 
 all doubt, by very composedly adding, while con- 
 temptuously regarding my imputed parsimony on 
 his plate : " Mr. Macartney, it is true, might have 
 most claim to liberality, poor fellow! for how, as 
 Tom Brangton shrewdly remarks, should he ever 
 have known what a good dinner was, if he had never 
 come to England ? " 
 
 Perceiving, I suppose for it could not be very 
 difficult to discern the commotion into which this 
 explication put me; and the stifled disposition to a 
 contagious laugh, which was suppressed, not to add 
 to my embarrassment j he quickly, but quietly, went 
 on to a general discourse upon Scotland, descriptive 
 and political ; but without point or satire though I 
 cannot, my dear Mr. Crisp, give you one word of it : 
 not because I have forgotten it for there is no 
 remembering what we have never heard ; but because 
 I could only generally gather the subject. I could 
 not listen to it. I was so confused and perturbed
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 
 
 between pleasure and vexation pleasure, indeed, in 
 the approvance of Dr. Johnson! but vexation, and 
 great vexation to find, by the conscious smirks of 
 all around, that I was betrayed to the whole party ! 
 while I had only consented to confiding in Mrs. 
 Thrale ; all, no doubt, from a mistaken notion that 
 I had merely meant to feel the pulse of the public, 
 and to avow, or to conceal myself, according to its 
 beatings : when heaven knows and you, my dear 
 Mr. Crisp, know, that I had not the most distant 
 purpose of braving publicity, under success, any 
 more than under failure. 
 
 From Scotland, the talk fell, but I cannot tell 
 how, upon some friend of Dr. Johnson's, of whom 
 I did not catch the name ; so I will call him Mr. 
 Three Stars, * * * ; of whom Mr. Seward related 
 some burlesque anecdotes, from which Mr. * * * 
 was warmly vindicated by the Doctor. 
 
 " Better say no more, Mr. Seward," cried Mrs. 
 Thrale, " for Mr. * * is one of the persons that 
 Mr. Johnson will suffer no one to abuse but himself! 
 Garrick is another : for if any creature but himself 
 says a word against Garrick Mr. Johnson will 
 brow-beat him in a moment." 
 
 " Why, Madam, as to David," answered the 
 
 M 2
 
 164 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Doctor, very calmly, * it is only because they do not 
 know when to abuse and when to praise him ; and 
 I will allow no man to speak any ill of David, that 
 he does not deserve. As to * * *, why really I 
 believe him to be an honest man, too, at the bottom. 
 But, to be sure, he is rather penurious ; and he is 
 somewhat mean j and it must be owned he has some 
 degree of brutality ; and is not without a tendency 
 to savageness, that cannot well be defended.' 
 
 We all laughed, as he could not help doing 
 himself, at such a curious mode of taking up his 
 friend's justification. And he then related a trait of 
 another friend who had belonged to some club* that 
 the Doctor frequented, who, after the first or second 
 night of his admission, desired, as he eat no supper, 
 to be excused paying his share for the collation. 
 
 " And was he excused, Sir ? " cried my father. 
 
 " Yes, Sir j and very readily. No man is angry 
 with another for being inferior to himself. We all 
 admitted his plea publicly for the gratification of 
 scorning him privately ! For my own part, I was 
 
 * The Editor, at the date of this letter, knew not that the 
 club to which Dr. Johnson alluded, was that which was denomi- 
 nated his own, or The Literary Club.
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 165 
 
 fool enough to constantly pay my share for the wine, 
 which I never tasted. But my poor friend Sir John, 
 it cannot well be denied, was but an unclubbable 
 man." 
 
 How delighted was I to hear this master of lan- 
 guages, this awful, this dreaded lexiphanes, thus 
 sportively and gaily coin burlesque words in social 
 comicality ! 
 
 I don't know whether he deigned to watch me, 
 but I caught a glance of his eye that seemed to shew 
 pleasure in perceiving my surprise and diversion, 
 for with increased glee of manner he proceeded. 
 
 " This reminds me of a gentleman and lady with 
 whom I once travelled. I suppose I must call them 
 gentleman and lady, according to form, because they 
 travelled in their own coach and four horses. But, 
 at the first inn where we stopped to water the cattle, 
 the lady called to a waiter for a pint of ale ! And, 
 when it came, she would not taste it, till she had 
 wrangled with the man for not bringing her fuller 
 measure! Now Madame Duval could not have 
 done a grosser thing ! " 
 
 A sympathetic simper now ran from mouth to 
 mouth, save to mine, and to that of Dr. Johnson ; 
 who gravely pretended to pass off what he had
 
 166 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 said as if it were a merely accidental reminis- 
 cence of some vulgar old acquaintance of his 
 own. And this, as undoubtedly, and most kindly, 
 he projected, prevented any sort of answer that 
 might have made the book a subject of general dis- 
 course. And presently afterwards, he started some 
 other topic, which he addressed chiefly to Mr. 
 Thrale. But if you expect me to tell you what it 
 was, you think far more grandly of my powers of 
 attention without, when all within is in a whirl, than 
 I deserve ! 
 
 Be it, however, what it might, the next time 
 there was a pause, we all observed a sudden play of 
 the muscles in the countenance of the Doctor, that 
 shewed him to be secretly enjoying some ludicrous 
 idea : and accordingly, a minute or two after, he 
 pursed up his mouth, and, in an assumed pert, yet 
 feminine accent, while he tossed up his head to ex- 
 press wonder, he affectedly minced out, " La, Polly ! 
 only think I Miss has danced with a Lord ! " 
 
 This was resistless to the whole set, and a general, 
 though a gentle laugh, became now infectious j in 
 
 which, I must needs own to you, I could not, with 
 all my embarrassment, and all my shame, and all my 
 unwillingness to demonstrate my consciousness, help
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 167 
 
 being caught so indescribably ludicrous and unex- 
 pected was a mimicry of Miss Biddy Brangton 
 from Dr. Johnson ! 
 
 The Doctor, however, with a refinement of 
 delicacy of which I have the deepest sense, never 
 once cast his eyes my way during these comic traits ; 
 though those of every body else in the company had 
 scarcely for a moment any other direction. 
 
 But imagine my relief and my pleasure, in play- 
 fulness such as this from the great literary Levia- 
 than, whom I had dreaded almost as much as I had 
 honoured ! How far was I from dreaming of such 
 sportive condescension ! He clearly wished to draw 
 the little snail from her cell, and, when once she 
 was out, not to frighten her back. He seems to 
 understand my queer -alities as some one has called 
 my not liking to be set up for a sign-post with 
 more leniency than any body else." 
 
 This long article of Evelina, will be closed by 
 copying a brief one upon the same subject, written 
 from memory, by Dr. Burney, so late in his life as 
 the year 1808.
 
 168 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Copied from a Memorandum-book of Dr. Burneys % written 
 in the year 1808, at Bath. 
 
 " The literary history of my second daughter, 
 Fanny, now Madame d'Arblay, is singular. She 
 was wholly unnoticed in the nursery for any talents, 
 or quickness of study : indeed, at eight years old 
 she did not know her letters ; and her brother, the 
 tar, who in his boyhood had a natural genius for 
 hoaxing, used to pretend to teach her to read ; 
 and gave her a book topsy-turvy, which he said 
 she never found out ! She had, however, a great 
 deal of invention and humour in her childish sports ; 
 and used, after having seen a play in Mrs. Garrick's 
 box, to take the actors off, and compose speeches for 
 their characters ; for she could not read them. But 
 in company, or before strangers, she was silent, 
 backward, and timid, even to sheepishness : and, 
 from her shyness, had such profound gravity and 
 composure of features, that those of my friends who 
 came often to my house, and entered into the dif- 
 ferent humours of the children, never called Fanny 
 by any other name, from the time she had reached 
 her eleventh year, than The Old Lady. 
 
 Her first work, Evelina, was written by stealth,
 
 PUBLICATION OF EVELINA. 169 
 
 in a closet up two pair of stairs, that was appropri- 
 ated to the younger children as a play room. No 
 one was let into the secret but my third daughter, 
 afterwards Mrs. Phillips ; though even to her it was 
 never read till printed, from want of private oppor- 
 tunity. To me, nevertheless, she confidentially 
 owned that she was going, through her brother 
 Charles, to print a little work, but she besought me 
 never to ask to see it. I laughed at her plan, but 
 promised silent acquiescence; and the book had 
 been six months published before I even heard its 
 name ; which I learnt at last without her knowledge. 
 But great, indeed, was then my surprise, to find 
 that it was in general reading, and commended in 
 no common manner in the several Reviews of the 
 times. Of this she was unacquainted herself, as she 
 was then ill, and in the country. When I knew its 
 title, I commissioned one of her sisters to procure it 
 for me privately. I opened the first volume with 
 fear and trembling ; not having the least idea that, 
 without the use of the press, or any practical know- 
 ledge of the world, she could write a book worth 
 reading. The dedication to myself, however, brought 
 tears into my eyes ; and before I had read half the 
 first volume I was much surprised, and, I confess,
 
 170 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 delighted; and most especially with the letters of 
 Mr. Villars. She had always had a great affection 
 for me ; had an excellent heart, and a natural sim- 
 plicity and probity about her that wanted no teach- 
 ing. In her plays with her sisters, and some 
 neighbour's children, this straightforward morality 
 operated to an uncommon degree in one so young. 
 There lived next door to me, at that time, in Po- 
 land street, and in a private house, a capital hair 
 merchant, who furnished peruques to the judges, 
 and gentlemen of the law. The merchant's female 
 children and mine, used to play together in the 
 little garden behind the house j and, unfortunately, 
 one day, the door of the wig magazine being left 
 open, they each of them put on one of those digni- 
 fied ornaments of the head, and danced and jumped 
 about in a thousand antics, laughing till they 
 screamed at their own ridiculous figures. Unfortu- 
 nately, in their vagaries, one of the flaxen wigs, said 
 by the proprietor to be worth upwards of ten gui- 
 neas in those days a price enormous fell into a 
 tub of water, placed for the shrubs in the little gar- 
 den, and lost all its gorgon buckle, and was declared 
 by the owner to be totally spoilt. He was extremely 
 angry, and chid very severely his own children j
 
 STREATHAM. 
 
 when my little daughter, the old lady, then ten 
 years of age, advancing to him, as I was informed, 
 with great gravity and composure, sedately says; 
 " What signifies talking so much about an accident ? 
 The wig is wet, to be sure ; and the wig was a good 
 wig, to be sure ; but its of no use to speak of it any 
 more ; because what's done can't be undone." 
 
 " Whether these stoical sentiments appeased the 
 enraged peruquier, I know not, but the younkers 
 were stript of their honours, and my little monkies 
 were obliged to retreat without beat of drum, or 
 colours flying." 
 
 STREATHAM. 
 
 From the very day of this happy inauguration of 
 his daughter at Streatham, the Doctor had the 
 parental gratification of seeing her as flatteringly 
 greeted there as himself. So vivacious, indeed, was 
 the partiality towards her of its inhabitants, that 
 they pressed him to make over to them all the time 
 he could spare her from her home ; and appropri- 
 ated an apartment as sacredly for her use, when she 
 could occupy it, as another, far more deservedly, 
 though not more cordially, had, many years previ- 
 ously, been held sacred for Dr. Johnson.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 The social kindness for both father and daughter, 
 of Mrs. Thrale, was of the most endearing nature j 
 trusting, confidential, affectionate. She had a sweet- 
 ness of manner, and an activity of service for those 
 she loved, that could ill be appreciated by others ; 
 for though copiously flattering in her ordinary ad- 
 dress to strangers, because always desirous of uni- 
 versal suffrage, she spoke of individuals in general 
 with sarcasm ; and of the world at large with sove- 
 reign contempt. 
 
 Flighty, however, not malignant, was her sar- 
 casm ; and ludicrous more frequently than scornful, 
 her contempt. She wished no one ill. She would 
 have done any one good ; but she could put no 
 restraint upon wit that led to a brilliant point, or 
 that was productive of laughing admiration : though 
 her epigram once pronounced, she thought neither 
 of that nor of its object any more ; and was just as 
 willing to be friends with a person whom she had 
 held up to ridicule, as with one whom she had 
 laboured to elevate by panegyric. 
 
 Her spirits, in fact, rather ruled than exhilarated 
 her ; and were rather her guides than her support. 
 Not that she was a child of nature. She knew the 
 world, and gaily boasted that she had studied man-
 
 STREATHAM. 
 
 kind in what she called its most prominent school- 
 electioneering. She was rather, therefore, from her 
 scoff of all consequences, a child of witty irreflection. 
 
 The first name on the list of the Streatham coterie 
 at this time, was that which, after Dr. Johnson's, 
 was the first, also, in the nation, Edmund Burke. 
 But his visits now, from whatever cause, were so 
 rare, that Dr. Burney never saw him in the Streat- 
 ham constellation, save as making one amongst the 
 worthies whom the pencil of Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 had caught from all mundane meanderings, to place 
 there as a fixed star. 
 
 Next ranked Sir Joshua Reynolds himself, and 
 Mr. Garrick. 
 
 Dr. Goldsmith, who had been a peculiar favourite 
 in the set, as much, perhaps, for his absurdities as 
 for his genius, was already gone ; though still, and 
 it may be from this double motive, continually 
 missed and regretted : for what, in a chosen coterie, 
 could be more amusing, many as are the things that 
 might be more edifying, than gathering knowledge 
 and original ideas in one moment, from the man 
 who the next, by the simplicity of his egotism, 
 expanded every mouth by the merriment of ridi- 
 cule?
 
 174 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Boscowen, Mrs. Crewe, Lord 
 Loughborough, Mr. Dunning,* Lord Mulgrave, 
 Lord Westcote, Sir Lucas and Mr. Pepys,t Major 
 Holroyd,}: Mrs. Hinchcliffe, Mrs. Porteus, Miss 
 Streatfield, Miss Gregory, || Dr. Lort, the Bishops 
 of London and Peterborough (Porteus and Hinch- 
 cliffe), with a long et ccetera of visitors less marked, 
 filled up the brilliant catalogue of the spirited asso- 
 ciates of Streatham. 
 
 MR. MURPHY. 
 
 But the most intimate in the house, amongst the 
 Wits, from being the personal favourite of Mr. 
 Thrale, was Mr. Murphy ; who, for gaiety of spirits, 
 powers of dramatic effect, stories of strong humour 
 and resistless risibility, was nearly unequalled : and 
 they were coupled with politeness of address, gentle- 
 ness of speech, and well-bred, almost courtly, de- 
 meanour. 
 
 He was a man of great erudition, without one 
 
 * Afterwards Lord Ashburton. f Afterwards Sir William 
 
 Weller Pepys. J Afterwards Lord Sheffield. 
 
 || Now Mrs. Alison, of Edinburgh. 
 ( Translator of Tacitus.
 
 MR. MURPHY. 
 
 particle of pedantry; and a stranger not only to 
 spleen and malevolence, but the happiest promoter 
 of convivial hilarity. 
 
 With what pleasure, and what pride, does the 
 editor copy, from an ancient diary, the following 
 words that passed between Dr. Johnson and Mr. 
 Murphy, relative to Dr. Burney, upon the first meet- 
 ing of the editor with Mr. Murphy at Streatham ! 
 
 Mrs. Thrale was lamenting the sudden disappear- 
 ance of Dr. Burney, who was just gone to town 
 sans adieu ; declaring that he was the most com- 
 plete male-coquet she knew, for he only gave just 
 enough of his company to make more desired. 
 
 " Dr. Burney," said Mr. Murphy, " is, indeed, a 
 most extraordinary man. I think I do not know 
 such another. He is at home upon all subjects ; and 
 upon all is so highly agreeable ! I look upon him as 
 a wonderful man." 
 
 "I love Burney!" cried Dr. Johnson, emphati- 
 cally : " my heart, as I told him goes out to meet 
 Burney ! " 
 
 " He is not ungrateful, Sir," cried the Doctor's 
 bairne, " for heartily indeed does he love you !" 
 
 " Does he, Madam ? " said the Doctor, looking at 
 her earnestly : " I am surprised at that ! "
 
 176 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " And why, Sir ? Why should you have doubted 
 it?" 
 
 " Because, Madam," answered he, gravely, " Dr 
 Burney is a man for every body to love. It is but 
 natural to love him ! " 
 
 He paused, as if with an idea of a self-conceived 
 contrast not gaifying ; but he soon cheerfully added, 
 " I question if there be in the world such another 
 man, altogether, for mind, intelligence, and manners, 
 as Dr. Burney." 
 
 Dr. Johnson, at this time, was engaged in writing 
 his Lives of the Poets ; a work, to him, so light and 
 easy, that it never robbed his friends of one moment 
 of the time that he would, otherwise, have spared 
 to their society. Lives, however, strictly speaking, 
 they are not ; he merely employed in them such 
 materials, with respect to biography, as he had 
 already at hand, without giving himself any trouble 
 in researches for what might be new, or unknown ; 
 though he gladly accepted any that were offered to 
 him, if well authenticated, The critical investiga- 
 tions alone he considered as his business. He himself 
 never named them but as prefaces. No man held 
 in nobler scorn, a promise that out-went perform- 
 ance.
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 177 
 
 The ease and good humour with which he ful- 
 filled this engagement, made the present a moment 
 peculiarly propitious for the opening acquaintance 
 with him of the new, and by no means very har- 
 dened author ; for whose terrors of public notice 
 he had a mercy the most indulgent. He quickly 
 saw that whether wise or not they were true ; 
 and soothed them without raillery or reprehension ; 
 though in this he stood nearly alone! Her fears 
 of him, therefore, were soon softened off by his 
 kindness ; or dispelled by her admiration. 
 
 The friendship with which so early he had ho- 
 noured the father, was gently and at once, with 
 almost unparalleled partiality, extended to the 
 daughter : and, in truth, the whole current of his 
 intercourse with both was as unruffled by storm as 
 it was enlightened by wisdom. 
 
 While this charming work was in its progress, 
 when only the Thrale family and its nearly adopted 
 guests, the two Burneys, were assembled, Dr. John- 
 son would frequently produce one of its proof sheets 
 to embellish the breakfast table, which was always 
 in the library ; and was, certainly, the most sprightly 
 and agreeable meeting of the day ; for then, as 
 no strangers were present to stimulate exertion, or 
 
 VOL. II. N
 
 178 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 provoke rivalry, argument was not urged on by the 
 mere spirit of victory ; it was instigated only by 
 such truisms as could best bring forth that conflict 
 of pros and cons which elucidates opposing opinions. 
 Wit was not flashed with the keen sting of satire ; 
 yet it elicited not less gaiety from sparkling with an 
 unwounding brilliancy, which brightened without 
 inflaming, every eye, and charmed without tingling, 
 every ear. 
 
 These proof sheets Mrs. Thrale was permitted to 
 read aloud ; and the discussions to which they led 
 were in the highest degree entertaining. Dr. Bur- 
 ney wistfully desired to possess one of them ; but 
 left to his daughter the risk of the petition. A hint, 
 however, proved sufficient, and was understood not 
 alone with compliance, but vivacity. -Boswell, Dr. 
 Johnson said, had engaged Frank Barber, his negro 
 servant, to collect and preserve all the proof sheets ; 
 but though it had not been without the knowledge, 
 it was without the order or the interference of their 
 author : to the present solicitor, therefore, willingly 
 and without scruple, he now offered an entire life ; 
 adding, with a benignant smile, " Choose your 
 poet ! " 
 
 Without scruple, also, was the acceptance j and,
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 179 
 
 without hesitation, the choice was Pope. And that 
 not merely because, next to Shakespeare himself, 
 Pope draws human characters the most veridically, 
 perhaps, of any poetic delineator ; but for yet 
 another reason. Dr. Johnson composed with so 
 ready an accuracy, that he sent his copy to the 
 press unread ; reserving all his corrections for the 
 proof sheets : * and, consequently, as not even Dr. 
 Johnson could read twice without ameliorating some 
 passages, his proof sheets were at times liberally 
 marked with changes j and, as the Museum copy 
 of Pope's Translation of the Iliad, from which Dr. 
 Johnson has given many examples, contains abun- 
 dant emendations by Pope, the Memorialist secured 
 at once, on the same page, the marginal alterations 
 and second thoughts of that great author, and of his 
 great biographer. 
 
 When the book was published, Dr. Johnson 
 brought to Streatham a complete set, handsomely 
 bound, of the Works of the Poets, as well as his 
 own Prefaces, to present to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. 
 And then, telling this Memorialist that to the King, 
 and to the chiefs of Streatham alone he could offer 
 
 * Dr. Johnson told this to the Editor. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 so large a tribute, he most kindly placed before her 
 a bound copy of his own part of the work ; in the 
 title page of which he gratified her earnest request 
 by writing her name, and " From the Author." 
 
 After which, at her particular solicitation, he gave 
 her a small engraving of his portrait from the pic- 
 ture of Sir Joshua Reynolds. And while, some time 
 afterwards, she was examining it at a distant table, 
 Dr. Johnson, in passing across the room, stopt to 
 discover by what she was occupied ; which he no 
 sooner discerned, than he began see-sawing for a 
 moment or two in silence ; and then, with a ludi- 
 crous half laugh, peeping over her shoulder, he 
 called out : " Ah ha ! Sam Johnson ! I see thee ! 
 and an ugly dog thou art ! " 
 
 He even extended his kindness to a remembrance 
 of Mr. Bewley, the receiver and preserver of the 
 wisp of a Bolt-court hearth-broom, as a relic of the 
 Author of the Rambler ; which anecdote Dr. Bur- 
 ney had ventured to confess : and Dr. Johnson now, 
 with his compliments, sent a set of the Prefaces to 
 St. Martin's-street, directed, 
 
 " For the Broom Gentleman .-" 
 which Mr. Bewley received with rapturous gratitude. 
 
 Dr. Johnson wrote nothing that was so imme-
 
 DH. JOHNSON. 181 
 
 cliately popular as his Lives of the Poets. Such a 
 subject was of universal attraction, and he treated 
 it with a simplicity that made it of universal com- 
 prehension. In all that belonged to classical 
 criticism, he had a facility so complete, that to 
 speak or to write produced immediately the same 
 clear and sagacious effect. His pen was as luminous 
 as his tongue, and his tongue was as correct as his 
 pen. 
 
 Yet those and there are many who estimate 
 these Prefaces as the best of his works, must surely 
 so judge them from a species of mental indolence, 
 that prefers what is easiest of perusal to what is most 
 illuminating : for rich as are these Prefaces in ideas 
 and information, their subjects have so long been 
 familiar to every English reader, that they require 
 no stretch of intellect, or exercise of reflection, to 
 lead him, without effort, to accompany the writer in 
 his annotations and criticisms. The Rambler, on 
 the contrary, embodies a course equally new of 
 Thought and of Expression ; the development of 
 which cannot always be foreseen, even by the deep- 
 est reasoner and the keenest talents, because eman- 
 ating from original genius. To make acquaintance, 
 therefore, with the Rambler, the general peruser
 
 182 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 must pause, occasionally, to think as well as to read ; 
 and to clear away sundry mists of prejudice, or igno- 
 rance, ere he can keep pace with the sublime author, 
 when the workings of his mind, his imagination, 
 and his knowledge, are thrown upon mankind. 
 
 MR. CRISP. 
 
 The warm and venerating attachment of Dr. Bur- 
 ney to Mr. Crisp, which occasional discourse and 
 allusions had frequently brought forward, impressed 
 the whole Thrale family with a high opinion of the 
 character and endowments of that excelling man. 
 And when they found, also, that Mr. Crisp had as 
 animated a votary in so much younger a person as 
 their new guest ; and that this enthusiasm was gene- 
 ral throughout the Doctor's house, they earnestly 
 desired to view and to know a man of such eminent 
 attraction ; and gave to Dr. Burney a commission 
 to bring on the acquaintance. 
 
 It was given, however, in vain. Mr. Crisp had 
 no longer either health or spirit of enterprize for so 
 formidable, however flattering, a new connexion ; and 
 inexorably resisted every overture for a meeting. 
 
 But Mrs. Thrale, all alive for whatever was piquant
 
 MR. CRISP. 183 
 
 and promising, grew so bewitched by the delight 
 with which her new young ally, to whom she became 
 daily more attached and more attaching, dilated on 
 the rare perfections of Daddy Crisp ; and the native 
 and innocent pleasures of Liberty Hall, Chesington, 
 that she started the plan of a little excursion for 
 taking the premises by surprise. And Dr. Burney, 
 certain that two such singularly accomplished per- 
 sons could not meet but to their mutual gratification 9 
 sanctioned the scheme ; Mr. Thrale desired to form 
 his own judgment of so uncommon a Recluse ; and 
 the Doctor's pupil felt a juvenile curiosity to make 
 one in the group. 
 
 The party took place ; but its pleasure was nearly 
 marred by the failure of the chief spring which would 
 have put into motion, and set to harmony, the vari- 
 ous persons who composed its drama. 
 
 Dr. Burney, from multiplicity of avocations, was 
 forced, when the day arrived, to relinquish his share 
 in the little invasion j which cast a damp upon the 
 gaiety of the project, both to the besieged and the 
 besiegers. Yet Mr. Crisp and Mrs. Thrale met with 
 mutual sentiments of high esteem, though the genius 
 of their talents was dissimilar ; Mrs. Thrale de- 
 lighted in bursting forth with sudden flashes of wit,
 
 184 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 which, carelessly, she left to their own consequences ; 
 while Mr. Crisp, though awake to her talents, and 
 sensible of their rarity and their splendour, thought 
 with Dr. Fordyce, that in woman the retiring graces 
 are the most attractive.* 
 
 Nevertheless, in understanding, acuteness, and 
 parts, there was so much in common between them, 
 that sincere admiration grew out of the interview ; 
 though with too little native congeniality to mellow 
 into confidence, or ripen into intimacy. 
 
 Praise, too, that dangerous herald of expectation, 
 is often a friend more perilous than any enemy ; and 
 both had involuntarily looked for a something inde- 
 finable which neither of them found ; yet both had 
 too much justness of comprehension to conclude that 
 such a something did not exist, because no oppor- 
 tunity for its development had offered in the course 
 of a few hours. 
 
 What most, in this visit, surprised Mrs. Thrale 
 with pleasure, was the elegance of Mr. Crisp in lan- 
 guage and manners ; because that, from the Hermit 
 of Chesington, she had not expected. 
 
 And what most to Mr. Crisp caused a similar 
 
 * Dr. Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women.
 
 MR. CRISP. 185 
 
 pleasure, was the courteous readiness, and unassum- 
 ing good-humour, with which Mrs. Thrale received 
 the inartificial civilities of Kitty Cooke, and the old- 
 fashioned but cordial hospitality of Mrs. Hamilton ; 
 for these, from a celebrated wit, moving in the 
 sphere of high life, he also in his turn had not 
 expected. 
 
 The Thrales, however, were all much entertained 
 by the place itself, which they prowled over with gay 
 curiosity. Not a nook or corner ; nor a dark passage 
 " leading to nothing ;" nor a hanging tapestry of 
 prim demoiselles, and grim cavaliers ; nor a tall 
 canopied bed tied up to the ceiling ; nor japan 
 cabinets of two or three hundred drawers of different 
 dimensions ; nor an oaken corner cupboard, carved 
 with heads, thrown in every direction, save such as 
 might let them fall on men's shoulders j nor a win- 
 dow stuck in some angle close to the ceiling of a 
 lofty slip of a room ; nor a quarter of a staircase, 
 leading to some quaint unfrequented apartment j 
 nor a wooden chimney-piece, cut in diamonds, 
 squares, and round nobs, surmounting another of 
 blue and white tiles, representing, vis d vis, a dog 
 and a cat, as symbols of married life and harmony 
 missed their scrutinizing eyes.
 
 186 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 They even visited the attics, where they were 
 much diverted by the shapes as well as by the quan- 
 tity of rooms, which, being of all sorts of forms 
 that could increase their count, were far too hete- 
 rogeneous of outline to enable the minutest mathe- 
 matician to give them any technical denomination. 
 
 They peeped, also, through little window case- 
 ments, of which the panes of glass were hardly so 
 wide as their clumsy frames, to survey long ridges 
 of lead that entwined the motley spiral roofs of the 
 multitude of separate cells, rather than chambers, 
 that composed the top of the mansion ; and afforded 
 from it a view, sixteen miles in circumference, of the 
 adjacent country. 
 
 * * * # * 
 
 Mr. Crisp judged it fitting to return the received 
 civility of a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, what- 
 ever might be the inconvenience to his health ; or 
 whatever his disinclination to such an exertion. 
 From habitual politeness he was of the old school in 
 the forms of good breeding ; though perfectly equal 
 to even the present march of intellect in the new one, 
 if to the present day he had lived, and had deemed 
 it a march of improvement. He was the last man not 
 to be aware that nothing stands still. All nature
 
 MR. CRISP. 187 
 
 in its living mass, all art in its concentrated aggre- 
 gate, advances or retrogrades. 
 
 He took the earliest day that one of his few gout 
 intervals put at his own disposal, to make his appear- 
 ance at Streatham ; having first written a most 
 earnest injunction to Dr. Burney to give him there 
 the meeting. The Memorialist was then at Ches- 
 ington, and had the happiness to accompany Mr. 
 Crisp j by whom she was to be left at her new third 
 home. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, in compliment to his friend Dr. 
 Burney, and by no means incurious himself to see 
 the hermit of Chesington, immediately descended to 
 meet Mr. Crisp j and to aid Mrs. Thrale, who gave 
 him a vivacious reception, to do the honours of 
 Streatham. 
 
 The meeting, nevertheless, to the great chagrin of 
 Dr. Burney, produced neither interest nor pleasure : 
 for Dr. Johnson, though courteous in demeanour 
 and looks, with evident solicitude to shew respect 
 to Mr. Crisp, was grave and silent j and whenever 
 Dr. Johnson did not make the charm of conversation, 
 he only marred it by his presence ; from the general 
 fear he incited, that if he spoke not, he might listen j 
 and that if he listened he might reprove.
 
 188 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Ease, therefore, was wanting; without which 
 nothing in society can be flowing or pleasing. The 
 Chesingtonian conceived, that he had lived too long 
 away from the world to start any subject that might 
 not, to the Streathamites, be trite and out of date ; 
 and the Streathamites believed that they had lived 
 in it so much longer, that the current talk of the day 
 might, to the Chesingtonian, seem unintelligible 
 jargon : while each hoped that the sprightly Dr. 
 Burney would find the golden mean by which both 
 parties might be brought into play. 
 
 But Dr. Burney, who saw in the kind looks and 
 complacency of Dr. Johnson intentional good will to 
 the meeting, flattered himself that the great philo- 
 logist was but waiting for an accidental excitement, 
 to fasten upon some topic of general use or impor- 
 tance, and then to describe or discuss it, with the 
 full powers of his great mind. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, however, either in health or in 
 spirits was, unfortunately, oppressed ; and, for once, 
 was more desirous to hear than to be heard. 
 
 Mr. Crisp, therefore, lost, by so unexpected a 
 taciturnity, this fair and promising opportunity for 
 developing and enjoying the celebrated and extra- 
 ordinary colloquial abilities of Dr. Johnson j and
 
 MR. CRISP. 189 
 
 finished the visit with much disappointment ; lowered 
 also, and always, in his spirits by parting from his 
 tenderly attached young companion. 
 
 Dr. Burney had afterwards, however, the conso- 
 lation to find that Mr. Crisp had impressed even 
 Dr. Johnson with a strong admiration of his know- 
 ledge and capacity ; for in speaking of him in the 
 evening to Mr. Thrale, who had been absent, the 
 Doctor emphatically said, " Sir, it is a very singular 
 thing to see a man with all his powers so much alive, 
 when he has so long shut himself up from the world. 
 Such readiness of conception, quickness of recollec- 
 tion, facility of following discourse started by others, 
 in a man who has long had only the past to feed 
 upon, are rarely to be met with. Now, for my 
 part," added he, laughing, " that /should be ready, 
 or even universal, is no wonder ; for my dear little 
 mistress here," turning to Mrs. Thrale, " keeps all 
 my faculties in constant play." 
 
 Mrs. Thrale then said that nothing, to her, was 
 so striking, as that a man who so long had retired 
 from the world, should so delicately have preserved 
 its forms and courtesies, as to appear equally well 
 bred with any elegant member of society who had 
 not quitted it for a week.
 
 190 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Inexpressibly gratifying to Dr. Burney was the 
 award of such justice, from such judges, to his best 
 and dearest loved friend. 
 
 From this time forward, Dr. Burney could scarcely 
 recover his daughter from Streatham, even for a few 
 days, without a friendly battle. A sportively comic 
 exaggeration of Dr. Johnson's upon this flattering 
 hostility was current at Streatham, made in answer 
 to Dr. Burney's saying, upon a resistance to her 
 departure for St. Martin's-street in which Dr. 
 Johnson had strongly joined, " I must really take 
 her away, Sir, I must indeed ; she has been from 
 home so long." 
 
 " Long? no, Sir! I do not think it long," cried 
 the Doctor, see-sawing, and seizing both her hands, 
 as if purporting to detain her : " Sir ! I would have 
 her Always come. . . and Never go ! " 
 
 MR. BOSWELL. 
 
 When next, after this adjuration, Dr. Burney 
 took the Memorialist back to Streatham, he found 
 there, recently arrived from Scotland, Mr. Boswell ; 
 whose sprightly Corsican tour, and heroic, almost
 
 MR. BOSWELL. 191 
 
 Quixotic pursuit of General Paoli, joined to the 
 tour to the Hebrides with Dr. Johnson, made him 
 an object himself of considerable attention. 
 
 He spoke the Scotch accent strongly, though by 
 no means so as to affect, even slightly, his intelligi- 
 bility to an English ear. He had an odd mock 
 solemnity of tone and manner, that he had acquired 
 imperceptibly from constantly thinking of and imi- 
 tating Dr. Johnson ; whose own solemnity, never- 
 theless, far from mock, was the result of pensive 
 rumination. There was, also, something slouching 
 in the gait and dress of Mr. Boswell, that wore an 
 air, ridiculously enough, of purporting to personify 
 the same model. His clothes were always too large 
 for him ; his hair, or wig, was constantly in a state 
 of negligence ; and he never for a moment sat still 
 or upright upon a chair. Every look and movement 
 displayed either intentional or involuntary imitation. 
 Yet certainly it was not meant as caricature ; for his 
 heart, almost even to idolatory, was in his reverence 
 of Dr. Johnson. 
 
 Dr. Burney was often surprised that this kind of 
 farcical similitude escaped the notice of the Doctor ; 
 but attributed his missing it to a high superiority 
 over any such suspicion, as much as to his near-sight-
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 edness ; for fully was Dr. Burney persuaded, that 
 had any detection of such imitation taken place, 
 Dr. Johnson, who generally treated Mr. Boswell as 
 a school boy, whom, without the smallest ceremony, 
 he pardoned or rebuked, alternately, would so 
 indignantly have been provoked, as to have instanta- 
 neously inflicted upon him some mark of his dis- 
 pleasure. And equally he was persuaded that Mr. 
 Boswell, however shocked and even inflamed in 
 receiving it, would soon, from his deep veneration, 
 have thought it justly incurred j and, after a day or 
 two of pouting and sullenness, would have com- 
 promised the matter by one of his customary simple 
 apologies, of " Pray, Sir, forgive me ! " 
 
 Dr. Johnson, though often irritated by the officious 
 importunity of Mr. Boswell, was really touched by 
 his attachment. It was indeed surprising, and even 
 affecting, to remark the pleasure with which this 
 great man accepted personal kindness, even from the 
 simplest of mankind ; and the grave formality with 
 which he acknowledged it even to the meanest. 
 Possibly it was what he most prized, because what 
 he could least command ; for personal partiality 
 hangs upon lighter and slighter qualities than those 
 which earn solid approbation ; but of this, if he had
 
 MR. BOSWELL. 193 
 
 least command, he had also least want : his towering 
 superiority of intellect elevating him above all com- 
 petitors, and regularly establishing him, wherever 
 he appeared, as the first Being of the society. 
 
 As Mr. Boswell was at Streatham only upon a 
 morning visit, a collation was ordered, to which all 
 were assembled. Mr. Boswell was preparing to 
 take a seat that he seemed, by prescription, to con- 
 sider as his own, next to Dr. Johnson ; but Mr. 
 Seward, who was present, waived his hand for Mr. 
 Boswell to move further on, saying, with a smile, 
 " Mr. Boswell, that seat is Miss Burney's." 
 
 He stared, amazed : the asserted claimant was 
 new and unknown to him, and he appeared by no 
 means pleased to resign his prior rights. But, after 
 looking round for a minute or two, with an im- 
 portant air of demanding the meaning of this inno- 
 vation, and receiving no satisfaction, he reluctantly, 
 almost resentfully, got another chair; and placed it 
 at the back of the shoulder of Dr. Johnson ; while 
 this new and unheard of rival quietly seated herself 
 as if not hearing what was passing ; for she shrunk 
 from the explanation that she feared might ensue, 
 as she saw a smile stealing over every countenance, 
 
 VOL. II. O
 
 J94< MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 that of Dr. Johnson himself not excepted, at the 
 discomfiture and surprise of Mr. Boswell. 
 
 Mr. Boswell, however, was so situated as not to 
 remark it in the Doctor ; and of every one else, 
 when in that presence, he was unobservant, if not 
 contemptuous. In truth, when he met with Dr. 
 Johnson, he commonly forbore even answering any- 
 thing that was said, or attending to any thing that 
 went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound 
 from that voice to which he paid such exclusive, 
 though merited homage. But the moment that 
 voice burst forth, the attention which it excited in 
 Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His eyes 
 goggled with eagerness ; he leant his ear almost on 
 the shoulder of the Doctor ; and his mouth dropt 
 open to catch every syllable that might be uttered : 
 nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but 
 to be anxious not to miss a breathing; as if hoping 
 from it, latently, or mystically, some information. 
 
 But when, in a few minutes, Dr. Johnson, whose 
 eye did not follow him, and who had concluded him 
 to be at the other end of the table, said something 
 gaily and good-humouredly, by the appellation of 
 Bozzyj and discovered, by the sound of the reply,
 
 MR. BOSWELL. 195 
 
 that Bozzy had planted himself, as closely as he 
 could, behind and between the elbows of the new 
 usurper and his own, the Doctor turned angrily 
 round upon him, and, clapping his hand rather 
 loudly upon his knee, said, in a tone of displeasure, 
 " What do you do there, Sir ? Go to the table, 
 Sir!" 
 
 Mr. Boswell instantly, and with an air of affright, 
 obeyed : and there was something so unusual in 
 such humble submission to so imperious a command, 
 that another smile gleamed its way across every 
 mouth, except that of the Doctor and of Mr. Bos- 
 well; who now, very unwillingly, took a distant 
 seat. 
 
 But, ever restless when not at the side of Dr. 
 Johnson, he presently recollected something that he 
 wished to exhibit, and, hastily rising, was running 
 away in its search ; when the Doctor, calling after 
 him, authoritatively said : " What are you thinking 
 of, Sir? Why do you get up before the cloth is 
 removed ? Come back to your place, Sir ! " 
 
 Again, and with equal obsequiousness, Mr. Bos- 
 well did as he was bid j when the Doctor, pursing 
 his lips, not to betray rising risibility, muttered half
 
 196 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 to himself: " Running about in the middle of 
 meals ! One would take you for a Brangton ! " 
 
 " A Brangton, Sir ? " repeated Mr. Bos well, with 
 earnestness ; " What is a Brangton, Sir? " 
 
 " Where have you lived, Sir," cried the Doctor, 
 laughing, "and what company have you kept, not 
 to know that ? " 
 
 Mr. Boswell now, doubly curious, yet always ap- 
 prehensive of falling into some disgrace with Dr. 
 Johnson, said, in a low tone, which he knew the 
 Doctor could not hear, to Mrs. Thrale : " Pray, 
 Ma'am, what's a Brangton ? Do me the favour to 
 tell me ? Is it some animal hereabouts ? " 
 
 Mrs. Thrale only heartily laughed, but without 
 answering : as she saw one of her guests uneasily 
 fearful of an explanation. But Mr. Seward cried, 
 " I'll tell you, Boswell, I'll tell you ! if you will 
 walk with me into the paddock : only let us wait till 
 the table is cleared ; or I shall be taken for a Brang- 
 ton, too ! " 
 
 They soon went off together ; and Mr. Boswell, no 
 doubt, was fully informed of the road that had led to 
 the usurpation by which he had thus been annoyed. 
 But the Brangton fabricator took care to mount to
 
 ANNA WILLIAMS. 197 
 
 her chamber ere they returned ; and did not come 
 down till Mr. Boswell was gone. 
 
 ANNA WILLIAMS. 
 
 Dr. Burney had no greater enjoyment of the little 
 leisure he could tear from his work and his profes- 
 sion, than that which he could dedicate to Dr. John- 
 son j and he now, at the Doctor's most earnest 
 invitation, carried this Memorialist to Bolt-court, to 
 pay a visit to the blind poetess, Anna Williams. 
 
 They were received by Dr. Johnson with a kind. 
 ness that irradiated his austere and studious features 
 into the most pleased and pleasing benignity. Such, 
 indeed, was the gentleness, as well as warmth, of his 
 partiality for this father and daughter, that their 
 sight seemed to give him a new physiognomy.* 
 
 It was in the apartment a parlour dedicated to 
 Mrs. Williams, that the Doctor was in this ready 
 attendance to play the part of the master of the 
 
 * This was so strongly observed by Mrs. Maling, mother to 
 the Dowager Countess of Mulgrave, that she has often exclaimed 
 to this Memorialist, " Why did not Sir Joshua Reynolds paint 
 Dr. Johnson when he was speaking to Dr. Burney or to you ? "
 
 198 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 ceremonies, in presenting his new guest to his 
 ancient friend and ally. Anna Williams had been 
 a favourite of his wife, in whose life-time she had 
 frequently resided under his roof. The merit of her 
 poetical talents, and the misfortune of her blind- 
 ness, are generally known ; to these were now super- 
 added sickness, age, and infirmity : yet such was the 
 spirit of her character, that to make a new acquaint- 
 ance thus rather singularly circumstanced, seemed to 
 her almost an event of moment ; and she had inces- 
 santly solicited the Doctor to bring it to bear. 
 
 Her look, air, voice, and extended hands of recep- 
 tion, evinced the most eager, though by no means 
 obtrusive curiosity. Her manner, indeed, shewed 
 her to be innately a gentlewoman ; and her conver- 
 sation always disclosed a cultivated as well as think- 
 ing mind. 
 
 Dr. Johnson never appeared to more advantage 
 than in the presence of this blind poetess ; for the 
 obligations under which he had placed her, were 
 such as he sincerely wished her to feel with the plea- 
 sure of light, not the oppression of weighty grati- 
 tude. All his best sentiments, therefore, were 
 strenuously her advocates, to curb what was irri- 
 table in his temper by the generosity of his princi-
 
 ANNA WILLIAMS. 199 
 
 pies ; and by the congeniality, in such points, of 
 their sensibility. 
 
 His attentions to soften the burthen of her exist- 
 ence, from the various bodily diseases that aggravated 
 the evil of her loss of sight, were anxious and un- 
 ceasing ; and there was no way more prominent to 
 his favour than that of seeking to give any solace, 
 or shewing any consideration to Anna Williams. 
 
 Anna, in return, honouring his virtues and abili- 
 ties, grateful for his goodness, and intimately aware 
 of his peculiarities, made it the pride of her life to 
 receive every moment he could bestow upon her, 
 with cordial affection ; and exactly at his own time 
 and convenience ; to soothe him when he was dis- 
 posed to lament with her the loss of his wife ; and 
 to procure for him whatever was in her power of 
 entertainment or comfort. 
 
 This introduction was afterwards followed, through 
 Dr. Johnson's zealous intervention, by sundry other 
 visits from the Memorialist ; and though minor 
 circumstances made her compliance rather embar- 
 rassing, it could not have been right, and it would 
 hardly have been possible, to resist an entreaty of 
 Dr. Johnson. And every fresh interview at his 
 own home showed the steady humanity of his assi-
 
 200 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 duity to enliven his poor blind companion ; as well 
 as to confer the most essential services upon two 
 other distressed inmates of his charitable house, 
 Mrs. Desmoulins, the indigent daughter of Dr. 
 Swinfen, a physician who had been godfather to 
 Dr. Johnson ; and Mr. Levet, a poor old ruined 
 apothecary, both of whom he housed and supported 
 with the most exemplary Christian goodness. 
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC, 
 
 Dr. Burney was daily more enchanted at the 
 kindness with which his daughter was honoured by 
 Dr. Johnson ; but neither parental exaltation, nor 
 the smiles of fortune ; nor the enticing fragrance of 
 those flowery paths which so often allure from vigo- 
 rous labour to wasting repose, the votary of rising 
 fame ; could even for a day, or scarcely for an hour, 
 draw the ardent and indefatigable musical historian 
 to any voluntary relaxation from his self-appointed 
 task ; to which he constantly devoted every moment 
 that he could snatch from the multitudinous calls 
 upon his over-charged time.
 
 GARRICK. 201 
 
 MR. GARRICK. 
 
 But the year that followed this still rising tide of 
 pleasure and prosperity to Dr. Burney, 1779, opened 
 to him with the personal loss of a friend whom the 
 world might vainly, perhaps, be challenged to re- 
 place, for agreeability, delight, and conviviality, 
 Garrick ! the inimitable David Garrick ! who left 
 behind him all previous eminence in his profession 
 beyond reach of comparison j save the Roscius of 
 Rome, to whose Ciceronian celebrity we owe the 
 adoption of an appropriate nomenclature, which at 
 no period could have been found in our own domi- 
 nions : Garrick, so long the darling and unrivalled 
 favourite of the public ; who possessed resistlessly, 
 where he chose to exert it, the power of pleasing, 
 winning, and exhilarating all around him : Gar- 
 rick, who, in the words of Dr. Johnson, seemed 
 " Formed to gladden life/' was taken from his 
 resplendent worldly fame, and admiring worldly 
 friends, by " that stroke of death," says Dr. Johnson, 
 " which eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impover- 
 ished the stock of harmless pleasure.*' 
 
 He had already retired from the stage, and retired 
 without waiting for failing powers to urge, or preci-
 
 202 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 pitate his retreat ; for still his unequalled animal 
 spirits, gaily baffling the assaults of age, had such 
 extraordinary exuberance as to supply and support 
 both body and mind at oncej still clear, varying, 
 and penetrating, was his voice ; still full of intelli- 
 gence or satire, of disdain, of rage, or of delight, 
 was the fire, the radiance, the eloquence of his eye ; 
 still made up at will, of energy or grace, of com- 
 mand or supplication, was his form, and were his 
 attitudes; his face alone ah! "There was the 
 rub I " his face alone was the martyr of time : or 
 rather, his forehead and cheeks ; for his eyes and 
 his countenance were still beaming with recent, 
 though retiring beauty. 
 
 But the wear and tear of his forehead and cheeks, 
 which, as Dr. Johnson had said, made sixty years in 
 Garrick seem seventy, had rendered them so wrink- 
 led, from an unremitting play of expression, off as 
 well as on the stage, that, when he found neither 
 paint nor candle-light, nor dress nor decoration, 
 could conceal those lines, or smooth those furrows 
 which were ploughing his complexion ; he preferred 
 to triumph, even in foregoing his triumphs, by 
 plunging, through voluntary impulse, from the daz- 
 zling summit to which he had mounted, and heroi-
 
 Mil. GARR1CK. 203 
 
 cally pronouncing his Farewell ! amidst the universal 
 cry, echoed and re-echoing all around him, of " Stop, 
 Garrick, stop ! yet a little longer stop ! " 
 
 A brief account of the last sight of this admired 
 and much loved friend is thus given in a manu- 
 script memoir of Dr. Burney. 
 
 " I called at his door, with anxious inquiries, two days before 
 he expired, and was admitted to his chamber ; but though I saw 
 him, he did not seem to see me, or any earthly thing I His 
 countenance that had never remained a moment the same in con- 
 versation, now appeared as fixed and as inanimate as a block of 
 marble ; and he had already so far relinquished the world, as 
 I was afterwards told by Mr. Wallace, his executor, that 
 nothing that was said or done that used to interest him the 
 most keenly, had any effect upon his muscles ; or could extort 
 either a word or a look from him for several days previously to 
 his becoming a corpse." 
 
 Dr. Burney, in the same carriage with Whitehead, 
 the poet laureate, the erudite Mr. Beauclerk, and 
 Mr. Wallace, the executor, attended the last remains 
 of this celebrated public character to their honourable 
 interment in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Long, and almost universally felt was this loss : 
 to Dr. Burney it was a deprivation of lasting regret. 
 In his doggrel chronology he has left the following 
 warm testimony of his admiration.
 
 204 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 1779. 
 
 " This year joy and sorrow alike put on sable 
 For losses sustained by the stage and the table, 
 For Garrick, the master of passion, retired, 
 And Nature and Shakespeare together expired. 
 Thalia's as well as Melpomene's magic, 
 With him at once vanished both comic and tragic. 
 Long, long will it be, now by Death he is slain, 
 Before we shall see his true likeness again. 
 Such dignified beauties he threw in each part, 
 Such resources of humour, of passion, and art ; 
 Hilarity missed him, each Muse dropped a tear, 
 And Genius and Feeling attended his bier." 
 
 YOUNG CROTCH. 
 
 Just as this great dramatic genius was descending 
 to the tomb, young Crotch, a rising musical genius, 
 was brought forward into the world with so strong 
 a promise of eminence, that a very general desire 
 was expressed, that Dr. Burney would examine, 
 counsel, and countenance him ; and at only three 
 years and a half old, the child was brought to St. 
 Martin's- street by his mother. 
 
 The Doctor, ever ready to nourish incipient 
 talents submitted to his investigation, saw the child
 
 YOUNG CROTCH. 205 
 
 repeatedly ; and was so forcibly struck by his uncom- 
 mon faculties, that upon communicating his remarks 
 to the famous Dr. Hunter, who had been foremost 
 in desiring the examination, Dr. Hunter thought 
 them sufficiently curious to be presented to the 
 Royal Society; where they were extremely well 
 received, and printed in the Philosophical Transac- 
 tions of the year 1779. 
 
 For some time after this, the Doctor was fre- 
 quently called upon, by the relations and admirers 
 of this wonderful boy, for assistance and advice ; 
 both which he cheerfully accorded to the best of his 
 ability : till the happy star of the young prodigy 
 fixed him at the University of Oxford, where he 
 met with every aid, professional or personal, that his 
 genius claimed ; and where, while his education was 
 still in progress, he was nominated, when only four- 
 teen years of age, organist of Christ Church. 
 
 This event he communicated to Dr. Burney in a 
 modest and grateful letter, that the Doctor received 
 and preserved with sincere satisfaction; and kindly 
 answered with instructive professional counsel. 
 
 In his chronological lines, the Doctor says 
 
 " Little Crotch, a phenomenon, now first appeared, 
 
 And each minstrel Surprised, howe'er gray was his beard :
 
 206 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 To my learned associates who write F. R. S. 
 Both the why and the wherefore I humbly address ; 
 And endeavour to shew them, without diminution, 
 What truly is strange in this bard Lilliputian : 
 What common, what wanting, to make him surpass 
 The composers and players of every class. 
 
 MR. THRALE. 
 
 The event next narrated in the Memoirs of Dr. 
 Burney, proved deeply affecting to the happiness and 
 gaiety of his social circles ; for now a catastrophe, 
 which for some time had seemed impending, and 
 which, though variously fluctuating, had often struck 
 with terror, or damped with sorrow, the liveliest 
 spirits and gayest scenes of Streatham, suddenly took 
 place ; and cut short for ever the honours and the 
 peace of that erst illustrious dwelling. 
 
 Mr. Thrale, for many years, in utter ignorance 
 what its symptoms were foreboding, had been har- 
 bouring, through an undermining indulgence of im- 
 moderate sleep after meals, a propensity to paralysis. 
 .The prognostics of distemper were then little observed 
 but by men of science ; and those were rarely called 
 in till something fatal was apprehended. It is,
 
 MR. THRALE. 207 
 
 probably, only since the time that medical and 
 surgical lectures have been published as well as 
 delivered ; and simplified from technical difficulties, 
 so as to meet and to enlighten the unscientific 
 intellect of the herd of mankind, that the world at 
 large seems to have learned the value of early atten- 
 tion to incipient malady. 
 
 Even Dr. Johnson was so little aware of the insa- 
 lubrity of Mr. Thrale's course of life, that, without 
 interposing his powerful and never disregarded ex- 
 hortations, he often laughingly said, " Mr. Thrale 
 will out-sleep the seven sleepers ! " 
 
 Strange it may seem, at this present so far more 
 enlightened day upon these subjects, that Dr. 
 Johnson, at least, should not have been alarmed at 
 this lethargic tendency ; as the art of medicine, 
 which, for all that belongs to this world, stands the 
 highest in utility, was, abstractedly, a study upon 
 which he loved to ruminate, and a subject he was 
 addicted to discuss. But this instance of complete 
 vacuity of practical information upon diseases and 
 remedies in Dr. Johnson, will cease to give surprise, 
 when it is known that, near the middle of his life, 
 and in the fullest force of his noble faculties, upon 
 finding himself assailed by a severe fit of the gout
 
 208 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 in his ancle, he sent for a pail of cold water, into 
 which he plunged his leg during the worst of the 
 paroxysm a feat of intrepid ignorance incon- 
 gruous as sounds the word ignorance in speaking of 
 Dr. Johnson that probably he had cause to rue 
 during his whole after-life ; for the gout, of which 
 he chose to get rid in so succinct a manner a feat 
 in which he often exulted might have carried off 
 many of the direful obstructions, and asthmatic 
 seizures and sufferings, of which his latter years 
 were wretchedly the martyrs. 
 
 Thus, most unfortunately, without representation, 
 opposition, or consciousness, Mr. Thrale went on in 
 a self-destroying mode of conduct, till, 
 
 " Uncall'd unheeded unawares " 
 
 he was struck with a fit of apoplexy. 
 
 Yet even this stroke, by the knowledge and expe- 
 rience of his medical advisers,* might perhaps have 
 been parried, had Mr. Thrale been imbued with 
 earlier reverence for the arts of recovery. But he 
 slighted them all ; and fearless, or, rather, incredu- 
 
 * Dr. Lawrence, Sir Richard Jebb, Dr. Warren, Sir Lxicas 
 Pepys.
 
 STltEATIIAM. 209 
 
 lous of danger, he attended to no prescription. He 
 simply essayed the waters of Tunbridge ; and made 
 a long sojourn at Bath. All in vain ! The last and 
 fatal seizure was inflicted at his own town house, in 
 Grosvenor-square, in the spring of 1781 : and at an 
 instant when such a blow was so little expected, 
 that all London, amongst persons of fashion, talents, 
 or celebrity, had been invited to a splendid enter- 
 tainment, meant for the night of that very dawn 
 which rose upon the sudden earthly extinction of 
 the lamented and respected chief of the mansion. 
 
 STREATHAM. 
 
 Changed now was Streatham ! the value of its 
 chief seemed first made known by his loss ; which 
 was long felt ; though not, perhaps, with the imme- 
 diate acuteness that would have been demonstrated, 
 if, at that period, the deprivation of the female chief- 
 tain had preceded that of the male. Still Mr. 
 Thrale, by every friend of his house and family ; and 
 by every true adherent to his wife, her interest, her 
 fame, and her happiness, was day by day, and week 
 by week, more and more missed and regretted. 
 
 Dr. Burney was one of the first and most earnest 
 
 VOL. II. P
 
 210 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 to hasten to the widowed lady, with the truest 
 sympathy in her grief. His daughter, who, for some 
 previous months, had been wholly restored to the 
 paternal roof, the Thrales themselves having been 
 fixed, for the last winter season, in Grosvenor Square, 
 flew, in trembling haste, the instant she could be 
 received, to the beloved friend who was now tenderly 
 enchained to her heart ; and at this moment was 
 doubly endeared by misfortune ; and voluntarily 
 quitting all else, eagerly established herself at 
 Streatham. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, who was one of Mr. Thrale's execu- 
 tors, immediately resumed his apartment ; cordially 
 and gratefully bestowing on the remaining hostess 
 every minute that she could desire or require of his 
 time and his services. And nothing could be wiser 
 in counsel, more zealous in good offices, or kinder 
 of intention, than the whole of his conduct in per- 
 forming the duties that he deemed to devolve upon 
 him by the will of his late friend. 
 
 But Dr. Burney, as he could only upon his stated 
 day and hour make one in this retirement, devoted 
 himself now almost exclusively to his
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 
 
 So many years had elapsed since the appearance 
 of the first volume, and the murmurs of the subscri- 
 bers were so general for the publication of the 
 second, that the earnestness of the Doctor to fulfil 
 his engagement, became such as to sicken him of 
 almost every occupation that turned him from its 
 pursuit. Yet uninterrupted attention grew more 
 than ever difficult ; for as his leisure, through the 
 double claims of his profession and his work, dimi- 
 nished, his celebrity increased ; and the calls upon 
 it, as usual, from the wayward taste of public fashion 
 for what is hard to obtain, were perpetual, were even 
 clamorous ; and he had constantly a long list of 
 petitioning parents, awaiting a vacant hour, upon 
 any terms that he could name, and at any part of 
 the day. 
 
 He had always some early pupil who accepted his 
 attendance at eight o'clock in the morning ; and a 
 strong instance has been given of its being seized 
 upon even at seven ; * and, during the height of the 
 season for fashionable London residence, his tour 
 
 * By the Countess of Tankerville. 
 p 2
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 from house to house was scarcely ever finished sooner 
 than eleven o'clock at night. 
 
 But so urgent grew now the spirit of his diligence 
 for the progress of his work, that he not only de- 
 clined all invitations to the hospitable boards of his 
 friends, he even resisted the social hour of repast at 
 his own table; and took his solitary meal in his 
 coach, while passing from scholar to scholar ; for 
 which purpose he had sandwiches prepared in a flat 
 tin box ; and wine and water ready mixed, in a wick- 
 ered pint bottle, put constantly into the pockets of 
 his carriage. 
 
 If, at this period, Dr. Burney had been as intent 
 and as skilful in the arrangement and the augmenta- 
 tion of his income, as he was industrious to procure, 
 and assiduous to merit, its increase, he might have 
 retired from business, its toils and its cares, while 
 yet in the meridian of life ; with a comfortable com- 
 petence for its decline, and adequate portions for his 
 daughters. With regard to his sons, it was always 
 his intention to bestow upon them good educations, 
 and to bring them up to honourable professions ; and 
 then to leave them to form, as he had done himself, 
 a dynasty of their own. But, unfortunately for 
 all parties, he had as little turn as time for that
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 213 
 
 species of speculation which leads to financial pros- 
 perity ; and he lived chiefly upon the principal of 
 the sums which he amassed; and which he merely, 
 as soon as they were received, locked up in his 
 bureau for facility of usage ; or stored largely at 
 his bankers as an asylum of safety : while the cash 
 which he laid out in any sort of interest, was so little, 
 as to make his current revenue almost incredibly 
 below what might have been expected from the 
 remuneration of his labours ; or what seemed due to 
 his situation in the world. 
 
 But, with all his honourable toil, his philosophic 
 privations, and his heroic self-denials, 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE HISTORY OF MUSIC, 
 
 from a continually enlarging view of its capability 
 of improvement, did not see the light till the year 
 1782. 
 
 Then, however, it was received with the same 
 favour and the same honours that had graced the 
 entrance into public notice of its predecessor. The 
 literary world seemed filled with its praise ; the 
 booksellers demanded ample impressions ; and her 
 Majesty Queen Charlotte, with even augmented 
 graciousness, accepted its homage at court.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Relieved, by this publication, from a weight upon 
 his spirits and his delicacy, which, for more than six 
 years had burthened and disturbed them, he pru- 
 dently resolved against working any longer under 
 the self-reproachful annoyance of a promised punctu- 
 ality which his position in life disabled him from 
 observing, by fettering himself with any further 
 tie of time to his subscribers for the remaining 
 volumes. 
 
 He renounced, therefore, the excess of studious 
 labour with which, hitherto, 
 
 his toil 
 O'er books consum'd the midnight oil ; 
 
 and restored himself, in a certain degree, to his 
 family, his friends, and a general and genial enjoy- 
 ment of his existence. And hailed was the design, 
 by all who knew him, with an energetic welcome. 
 
 And yet, in breathing thus a little from so unre- 
 mitting an ardour ; and allowing himself to bask 
 awhile in that healing sunshine of applause which 
 administers more relief to the brain-shattered, and 
 mind-exhausted patient, than all the materia medico, 
 of the Apothecaries' Hall ; so small still, and so 
 fugitive, were his intervals of relaxation, that the
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 215 
 
 diminished exertion which to him was gentle rest, 
 would, to almost any other, have still seemed over- 
 strained occupation, and a life of drudgery. 
 
 With no small pleasure, now, he resumed his 
 wonted place at the opera, at concerts, and in cir- 
 cles of musical excellence ; which then were at their 
 height of superiority, because presided over by the 
 royal and accomplished legislator of taste, fashion, 
 and elegance, the Prince of Wales ; * who frequently 
 deigned to call upon Dr. Burney for his opinion 
 upon subjects of harmony : and even condescended 
 to summon him to his royal vicinity, both at the 
 opera and at concerts, that they might "compare 
 notes," in his own gracious expression, upon what 
 was performing. 
 
 Not, however, to his daughter did the Doctor recom- 
 mend any similar remission of penmanship. The ex- 
 traordinary favour with which her little work had 
 been received in the world j and which may chiefly, 
 perhaps, be attributed to the unpretending and unex- 
 pecting mode in which, not skilfully, but involuntarily, 
 it had glided into public life ; being now sanctioned 
 by the eclat of encouragement from Dr. Johnson 
 
 * Afterwards George the Fourth.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 and from Mr. Burke, gave a zest to his paternal 
 pleasure and hopes, that made it impossible, nay, 
 that even led him to think it would be unfatherly, 
 to listen to her affrighted wishes of retreat, from her 
 fearful apprehensions of some reverse ; or suffer her 
 to shrink back to her original obscurity, from the 
 light into which she had been surprised. 
 
 And, indeed, though he made the kindest allow- 
 ance for her tremors and reluctance, he was urged 
 so tumultuously by others, that it was hardly pos- 
 sible for him to be passive : and Mr. Crisp, whose 
 voice, in whatever was submitted to his judgment, 
 had the effect of a casting vote, called out aloud : 
 " More ! More ! More ! another production ! " 
 
 The wishes of two such personages were, of course, 
 resistless ; and a new mental speculation, which 
 already, though secretly, had taken a rambling pos- 
 session of her ideas, upon the evils annexed to that 
 species of family pride which, from generation to 
 generation, seeks, by mortal wills, to arrest the 
 changeful range of succession enacted by the immu- 
 table laws of death, became the basis of a composition 
 which she denominated Memoirs of an Heiress.* 
 
 * Cecilia.
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 217 
 
 No sooner was her consent obtained, than Dr. 
 Burney, who had long with regret, though with 
 pride, perceived that, at Streatham, she had no time 
 that was her own, earnestly called her thence. 
 
 He called, however, in vain, from the acuter, 
 though fonder cry of Mrs. Thrale for her deten- 
 tion ; and, kind and flexible, he was yielding up 
 his demand, when Mr. Crisp, emphatically exclaim- 
 ing : 
 
 " There is a tide in the affairs of men " 
 
 " and " comically adding " and of girls, too ! " 
 charged him not to risk that turn for his daughter, 
 through a false delicacy from which, should she 
 become its victim, he would have the laugh against, 
 and nothing for him. 
 
 The Doctor then frankly revealed to Mrs. Thrale, 
 the tide-fearing alarm of Mr. Crisp. 
 
 Startled, she heard him. Unwelcome was the 
 sound to her affection, to her affliction and, it may 
 be, to her already growing perplexities ! but justice 
 and kindness united to forbid any conflict : though 
 struck was the Doctor, and still more struck was the 
 Memorialist, by the miserable " Adieu ! " which she 
 uttered at parting.
 
 218 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mr. Crisp himself hastened in person to Streatham, 
 to convey his young friend alike from that now mo- 
 nopolizing seclusion, and from her endlessly increas- 
 ing expansion of visits and acquaintance in London ; 
 all which he vehemently denounced as flattering 
 idleness, to the quiet and exclusive possession of 
 what he had denominated The Doctor's Conjuring 
 Closet, at Chesington. 
 
 And there, with that paternal and excellent friend, 
 and his worthy associates, Mrs. Hamilton and Miss 
 Cooke, in lively sociality, gay good-humour, and 
 unbounded confidence, she consigned some months 
 to what he called her new conjuring. And there 
 she proposed to remain till her work should be 
 finished : but, ere that time arrived, and ere she 
 could read any part of it with Mr. Crisp, a tender 
 call from home brought her to the parental roof, to 
 be present at the marriage of a darling sister : * 
 after which, the Doctor kept her stationary in St. 
 Martin's- street, till she had written the word Finis, 
 which ushered her " Heiress " into the world. 
 
 * Miss Susanna Burney, afterwards Mrs. Phillips.
 
 MR. BURKE. 219 
 
 MR. BURKE. 
 
 The time is now come for commemorating the 
 connection which, next alone to that of Dr. John- 
 son, stands highest in the literary honours of Dr. 
 Burney, namely, that which he formed with Edmund 
 Burke. 
 
 Their first meetings had been merely accidental 
 and public, and wholly unaccompanied by any pri- 
 vate intimacy or intercourse ; though, from the time 
 that the author of Evelina had been discovered, 
 there had passed between them, on such occasional 
 junctions, what Dr. Burney playfully called an 
 amiable coquetry of smiles, and other symbols, that 
 showed each to be thinking of the same thing : 
 for Mr. Burke, with that generous energy which, 
 when he escaped the feuds of party, was the dis- 
 tinction of his character, and made the charm of 
 his oratory, had blazed around his approbation of 
 that happy little work, from the moment that it had 
 fallen, incidentally, into his hands : and when he 
 heard that the author, from her acquaintance with 
 the lovely and accomplished nieces of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, was a visitor at the house of that English 
 Raphael, he flatteringly desired of the Knight an 
 appointed interview.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 But from that, though enchanted as much as 
 astonished at such a proposal from Mr. Burke, she 
 fearfully, and with conscious insufficiency, hung 
 back ; hoping to owe to chance a less ostentatious 
 meeting. 
 
 Various parties, during two or three years, had 
 been planned, but proved abortive ; when in June, 
 1782, Sir Joshua Reynolds invited Dr. Burney and 
 the Memorialist to a dinner upon Richmond Hill, to 
 meet the Bishop of St. Asaph, Miss Shipley, and 
 some others. 
 
 This was gladly accepted by the Doctor; who 
 now, upon his new system, was writing more at his 
 ease ; and by his daughter, who was still detained 
 from Streatham, as her second work, though finished, 
 was yet in the press. 
 
 Sir Joshua, and his eldest niece,* accompanied by 
 Lord Cork, called for them in St. Martin's-street ; 
 and the drive was as lively, from the discourse 
 within the carriage, as it was pleasant from the 
 views without. 
 
 Here the editor, as no traits of Mr. Burke in 
 conversation can be wholly uninteresting to an Eng- 
 
 * Miss Palmer.
 
 MR. BURKE. 
 
 lish reader, will venture to copy an account of this 
 meeting, which was written while it was yet new, 
 and consequently warm in her memory, as an offer- 
 ing to her second father, 
 
 SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ. 
 
 Chesington. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " My dear Mr. Crisp. 
 
 " At the Knight of Plympton's house, on Rich- 
 mond Hill, next to the Star and Garter, we were 
 met by the Bishop of St. Asaph, who stands as high 
 in general esteem for agreeability as for worth and 
 learning ; and by his accomplished and spirited 
 daughter, Miss Shipley. My father was already 
 acquainted with both ; and to both I was introduced 
 by Miss Palmer. 
 
 " No other company was mentioned ; but some 
 smiling whispers passed between Sir Joshua, Miss 
 Palmer, and my father, that awakened in me a 
 notion that the party was not yet complete ; and 
 with that notion an idea that Mr Burke might be 
 the awaited chief of the assemblage ; for as they 
 knew I had long had as much eagerness to see Mr.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Burke as I had fears of meeting his expectations, 
 I thought they might forbear naming him to save 
 me a fit of fright. 
 
 " Sir Joshua who, though full of kindness, dearly 
 loves a little innocent malice, drew me soon after- 
 wards to a window, to look at the beautiful pros- 
 pect below ; the soft meandering of the Thames, 
 and the brightly picturesque situation of the elegant 
 white house which Horace Walpole had made the 
 habitation of Lady Diana Beauclerk and her fair 
 progeny ; in order to gather, as he afterwards laugh- 
 ingly acknowledged, my sentiments of the view, that 
 he might compare them with those of Mr. Burke on 
 the same scene ! However, I escaped, luckily, fall- 
 ing, through ignorance, into such a competition, by 
 the entrance of a large, though unannounced party, 
 in a mass. For as this was only a visit of a day, 
 there were very few servants ; and those few, I 
 suppose, were preparing the dinner apartment ; for 
 this group appeared to have found its own way up 
 to the drawing room, with an easiness as well suited 
 to its humour, by the gay air of its approach, as to 
 that of Sir Joshua ; who holds ceremony almost in 
 horror, and who received them without any form or 
 apology.
 
 MR. BURKE. 223 
 
 " He quitted me, however, to go forward, and 
 greet with distinction a lady who was in the set. 
 They were all familiarly recognized by the Bishop 
 and Miss Shipley, as well as by Miss Palmer ; and 
 some of them by my father, whose own face wore an 
 expression, of pleasure, that helped to fix a conjecture 
 in my mind that one amongst them, whom I pecu- 
 liarly signalised, tall, and of fine deportment, with 
 an air at once of Courtesy and Command, might be 
 Edmund Burke. 
 
 " Excited as I felt by this idea, I continued at 
 my picturesque window, as all the company were 
 strangers to me, till Miss Palmer gave her hand to 
 the tall, suspected, but unknown personage, saying, 
 in a half whisper, " Have I kept my promise at 
 last ? " and then, but in a lower tone still, and point- 
 ing to the window, she pronounced " Miss Burney." 
 
 As this seemed intended for private information, 
 previously to an introduction, be the person whom 
 he might, though accidentally it was overheard, I 
 instantly bent my head out of the window, as if not 
 attending to them : yet I caught, unavoidably, the 
 answer, which was uttered in a voice the most em- 
 phatic, though low, " Why did you tell me it was 
 Miss Burney? Did you think I should not have 
 known it ? "
 
 224 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " An awkward feel, now, from having still no cer- 
 tainty of my surmise, or of what it might produce, 
 made me seize a spying glass, and set about re-exa- 
 mining the prospect; till a pat on the arm, soon 
 after, by Miss Palmer, turned me round to the com- 
 pany, just as the still unknown, to my great regret, 
 was going out of the room with a footman, who 
 seemed to call him away upon some sudden summons 
 of business. But my father, who was at Miss Pal- 
 mer's elbow, said, " Fanny Mr. Gibbon ! " 
 
 This, too, was a great name ; but of how different 
 a figure and presentation ! Fat and ill-constructed, 
 Mr. Gibbon has cheeks of such prodigious chubby- 
 ness, that they envelope his nose so completely, as to 
 render it, in profile, absolutely invisible. His look 
 and manner are placidly mild, but rather effeminate ; 
 his voice, for he was speaking to Sir Joshua at a 
 little distance is gentle, but of studied precision of 
 accent. Yet, with these Brobdignatious cheeks, his 
 neat little feet are of a miniature description ; and 
 with these, as soon as I turned round, he hastily des- 
 cribed a quaint sort of circle, with small quick steps, 
 and a dapper gait, as if to mark the alacrity of 
 his approach, and then, stopping short when full 
 face to me, he made so singularly profound a bow,
 
 MR. BURKE. 
 
 that though hardly able to keep ray gravity I felt 
 myself blush deeply at its undue, but palpably in- 
 tended obsequiousness. 
 
 This demonstration, however, over, his sense of 
 politeness, or project of flattery, was satisfied ; for he 
 spoke not a word, though his gallant advance seemed 
 to indicate a design of bestowing upon me a little 
 rhetorical touch of a compliment. But, as all eyes 
 in the room were suddenly cast upon us both, it is 
 possible he partook a little himself of the embarrass- 
 ment he could not but see that he occasioned ; and 
 was therefore unwilling, or unprepared, to hold forth 
 so publicly upon he scarcely, perhaps, knew what ! 
 for, unless my partial Sir Joshua should just then 
 have poured it into his ears, how little is it likely 
 Mr. Gibbon should have heard of Evelina ! 
 
 But at this moment, to my great relief, the 
 Unknown again appeared ; and with a spirit, an air, 
 a deportment that seemed to spread around him the 
 glow of pleasure with which he himself was visibly 
 exhilarated. But speech was there none ; for din- 
 ner, which I suppose had awaited him, was at the 
 same instant proclaimed ; and all the company, in a 
 mixed, quite irregular, and even confused manner, 
 descended, sans ceremonie, to the eating parlour. 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 The Unknown, however, catching the arm and 
 the trumpet of Sir Joshua, as they were coming 
 down stairs, murmured something, in a rather re- 
 proachful tone, in the knight's ear ; to which Sir 
 Joshua made no audible answer. But when he had 
 placed himself at his table, he called out, smilingly, 
 " Come, Miss Burney ! will you take a seat next 
 mine?" adding, as if to reward my very alert com- 
 pliance, " and then Mr. Burke shall sit on your 
 other side." 
 
 " O no, indeed ! " cried the sprightly Miss 
 Shipley, who was also next to Sir Joshua, " I sha'n't 
 agree to that! Mr. Burke must sit next me! I 
 won't consent to part with him. So pray come, and 
 sit down quiet, Mr. Burke." 
 
 Mr. Burke for Mr. Burke, Edmund Burke, it 
 was ! smiled, and obeyed. 
 
 " I only proposed it to make my peace with 
 Mr. Burke," said Sir Joshua, passively, " by giving 
 him that place ; for he has been scolding me all the 
 way down stairs for not having introduced him to 
 Miss Burney ; however, I must do it now Mr. 
 Burke ! Miss Burney ! " 
 
 We both half rose, to reciprocate a little saluta- 
 tion; and Mr. Burke said : " I have been complaining
 
 MR. BUKKE. 227 
 
 to Sir Joshua that he left me wholly to my own 
 sagacity, which, however, did not here deceive me !" 
 
 Delightedly as my dear father, who had never 
 before seen Mr. Burke in private society, enjoyed 
 this encounter, I, my dear Mr. Crisp, had a delight 
 in it that transcended all comparison. No expecta- 
 tion that I had formed of Mr. Burke, either from 
 his works, his speeches, his character, or his fame, 
 had anticipated to me such a man as I now met. 
 He appeared, perhaps, at this moment, to the high- 
 est possible advantage in health, vivacity, and spirits. 
 Removed from the impetuous aggravations of party 
 contentions, that, at times, by inflaming his passions, 
 seem, momentarily at least, to disorder his character, 
 he was lulled into gentleness by the grateful feelings 
 of prosperity ; exhilarated, but not intoxicated, by 
 sudden success ; and just risen, after toiling years 
 of failures, disappointments, fire, and fury, to place, 
 affluence, and honours ; which were brightly smiling 
 on the zenith of his powers. He looked, indeed, as 
 if he had no wish but to diffuse philanthropy, plea- 
 sure, and genial gaiety all around. 
 
 His figure, when he is not negligent in his car- 
 riage, is noble ; his air, commanding ; his address, 
 graceful ; his voice clear, penetrating, sonorous,
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 and powerful ; his language, copious, eloquent, and 
 changefully impressive ; his manners are attractive ; 
 his conversation is past all praise ! 
 
 You will call me mad, I know ; but if I wait 
 till I see another Mr. Burke for such another fit of 
 ecstacy I may be long enough in my very sober 
 good senses ! 
 
 Sir Joshua next made Mrs. Burke greet the 
 new comer into this select circle j which she did with 
 marked distinction. She appears to be pleasing and 
 sensible, but silent and reserved. 
 
 Sir Joshua then went through the same intro- 
 ductory etiquette with Mr. Richard Burke, the 
 brother ; Mr. William Burke, the cousin j and 
 young Burke, the son of THE Burke. They all, in 
 different ways, seem lively and agreeable j but at 
 miles, and myriads of miles, from the towering 
 chief. 
 
 How proud should I be to give you a sample of 
 the conversation of Mr. Burke ! But the subjects 
 were, in general, so fleeting, his ideas so full of 
 variety, of gaiety, and of matter ; and he darted 
 from one of them to another with such rapidity, that 
 the manner, the eye, the air with which all was pro- 
 nounced, ought to be separately delineated to do
 
 MR. BURKE. 229 
 
 any justice to the effect that every sentence, nay, 
 that every word produced upon his admiring hearers 
 and beholders. 
 
 Mad again ! says my Mr. Crisp j stark, staring 
 mad ! 
 
 Well, al! 4 the better; for " There is a pleasure 
 in being mad," as I have heard you quote from Nat 
 Lee, or some other old play-wright, " that none but 
 madmen know." 
 
 I must not, however, fail to particularize one 
 point of his discourse, because 'tis upon your own 
 favourite hobby, politics : and my father very much 
 admired its candour and frankness. 
 
 In speaking of the great Lord Chatham while he 
 was yet Mr. Pitt, Mr. Burke confessed his Lordship 
 to have been the only person whom he, Mr. Burke, 
 did not name in parliament without caution. But 
 Lord Chatham, he said, had obtained so preponde- 
 rating a height of public favour, that though, occa- 
 sionally, he could not concur in its enthusiasm, he 
 would not attempt to oppose its cry. He then, 
 however, positively, nay solemnly, protested, that 
 this was the only subject upon which he did not talk 
 with exactly the same openness and sincerity in the 
 house as at the table.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 He bestowed the most liberal praise upon Lord 
 Chatham's second son, the now young William Pitt, 
 with whom he is acting ; and who had not only, he 
 said, the most truly extraordinary talents, but who 
 appeared to be immediately gifted by nature with 
 the judgment which others acquire by experience. 
 
 " Though judgment," he presently added, " is not 
 so rare in youth as is generally supposed. I have 
 commonly observed, that those who do not possess 
 it early are apt to miss it late." 
 
 But the subject on which he most enlarged, and 
 most brightened, was Cardinal Ximenes, which was 
 brought forward, accidentally, by Miss Shipley. 
 
 That young lady, with the pleasure of youthful 
 exultation in a literary honour, proclaimed that she 
 had just received a letter from the famous Doctor 
 Franklin. 
 
 Mr. Burke then, to Miss Shipley's great delight, 
 burst forth into an eulogy of the abilities and cha- 
 racter of Dr. Franklin, which he mingled with a 
 history the most striking, yet simple, of his life ; 
 and a veneration the most profound for his emi- 
 nence in science, and his liberal sentiments and skill 
 in politics. 
 
 This led him, imperceptibly, to a dissertation upon
 
 MR. BUHKE. 231 
 
 the beauty, but rarity, of great minds sustaining 
 great powers to great old age ; illustrating his re- 
 marks by historical proofs, and biographical anec- 
 dotes of antique worthies ; till he came to Cardinal 
 Ximenes, who lived to his ninetieth year. And here 
 he made a pause. He could go, he said, no further. 
 Perfection rested there ! 
 
 His pause, however, producing only a general 
 silence, that indicated no wish of speech but from 
 himself, he suddenly burst forth again into an ora- 
 tion so glowing, so flowing, so noble, so divinely 
 eloquent, upon the life, conduct, and endowments of 
 this Cardinal, that I felt as if I had never before 
 known what it was to listen ! I saw Mr. Burke, and 
 Mr. Burke only ! Nothing, no one else was visible 
 any more than audible. I seemed suddenly organ- 
 ized into a new intellectual existence, that was wholly 
 engrossed by one single use of the senses of seeing 
 and hearing, to the total exclusion of every object 
 but of the figure of Mr. Burke ; and of every sound 
 but of that of his voice. All else my dear father 
 alone excepted appeared but amalgamations of the 
 chairs on which they were seated ; and seemed placed 
 round the table merely as furniture. 
 
 I cannot pretend to write you such a speech but
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 such sentences as I can recollect with exactitude, I 
 cannot let pass. 
 
 The Cardinal, he said, gave counsel and admoni- 
 tion to princes and sovereigns with the calm courage 
 and dauntless authority with which he might have 
 given them to his own children : yet, to such noble 
 courage, he joined a humility still more magnani- 
 mous, in never desiring to disprove, or to disguise 
 his own lowly origin j but confessing, at times, with 
 openness and simplicity, his surprise at the height of 
 the mountain to which, from so deep a valley, he 
 had ascended. And, in the midst of all his great- 
 ness, he personally visited the village in which he 
 was born, where he touchingly recognised what 
 remained of his kith and kin. 
 
 Next, he descanted upon the erudition of this 
 exemplary prelate ; his scarce collection of bibles ; 
 his unequalled mass of rare manuscripts ; his cha- 
 ritable institutions ; his learned seminaries ; and his 
 stupendous University at Alcala. " Yet so untinged," 
 he continued, "was his scholastic lore with the bigo- 
 try of the times ; and so untainted with its despotism, 
 that, even in his most forcible acts for securing the 
 press from licentiousness, he had the enlargement of 
 mind to permit the merely ignorant, or merely needy
 
 MR. BURKE. 233 
 
 instruments of its abuse, when detected in promul- 
 gating profane works, from being involved in their 
 destruction ; for though, on such occasions, he caused 
 the culprits' shops, or warehouses, to be strictly 
 searched, he let previous notice of his orders be 
 given to the owners, who then privily executed 
 judgment themselves upon the peccant property ; 
 while they preserved what was sane, as well as their 
 personal liberty: but if the misdemeanour were 
 committed a second time, he manfully left the 
 offenders, unaided and unpitied, to its forfeiture. 
 
 " To a vigour," Mr. Burke went on, " that 
 seemed never to calculate upon danger, he joined a 
 prudence that seemed never to run a risk. Though 
 often the object of aspersion as who, conspicuous 
 in the political world, is not ? he always refused to 
 prosecute ; he would not even answer his calum- 
 niators. He held that all classes had a right to 
 stand for something in public life ! " We,*' he said, 
 " who are at the head, Act ; in God's name let those 
 who are at the other end, Talk ! If we are Wrong, 
 'tis our duty to hearken, and to mend ! If we are 
 Right, we may be content enough with our supe- 
 riority, to teach unprovoked malice its impotence, 
 by leaving it to its own fester."
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 "So elevated, indeed," Mr. Burke continued, 
 " was his disdain of detraction, that instead of suf- 
 fering it to blight his tranquillity, he taught it to 
 become the spur to his virtues ! " 
 
 Mr. Burke again paused ; paused as if overcome 
 by the warmth of his own emotion of admiration ; 
 and presently he gravely protested, that the multifa- 
 rious perfections of Cardinal Ximenes were beyond 
 human delineation. 
 
 Soon, however, afterwards, as if fearing he had 
 become too serious, he rose to help himself to some 
 distant fruit for all this had passed during the 
 dessert j and then, while standing in the noblest 
 attitude, and with a sudden smile full of radiant 
 ideas, he vivaciously exclaimed, " No imagination 
 not even the imagination of Miss Burney ! could 
 have invented a character so extraordinary as that of 
 Cardinal Ximenes j no pen not even the pen of 
 Miss Burney ! could have described it adequately ! " 
 
 Think of me, my dear Mr. Crisp, at a climax 
 so unexpected ! my eyes, at the moment, being 
 openly rivetted upon him ; my head bent forward 
 with excess of eagerness ; my attention exclusively 
 his own ! but now, by this sudden turn, I myself 
 became the universally absorbing object ! for instan-
 
 MR. BURKE. 235 
 
 taneously, I felt every eye upon my face ; and my 
 cheeks tingled as if they were the heated focus of 
 stares that almost burnt them alive ! 
 
 And yet, you will laugh when I tell you, that 
 though thus struck I had not time to be discon- 
 certed. The whole was momentary; 'twas like a 
 flash of lightning in the evening, which makes every 
 object of a dazzling brightness for a quarter of an 
 instant, and then leaves all again to twilight obscu- 
 rity. 
 
 Mr. Burke, by his delicacy, as much as by his 
 kindness, reminding me of my opening encourage- 
 ment from Dr. Johnson, looked now everywhere 
 rather than at me ; as if he had made the allusion by 
 mere chance ; and flew from it with a velocity that 
 quickly drew back again to himself the eyes which 
 he had transitorily employed to see how his superb 
 compliment was taken : though not before I had 
 caught from my kind Sir Joshua, a look of congra- 
 tulatory sportiveness, conveyed by a comic nod. 
 
 My dear Mr. Crisp will be the last to want to be 
 told that I received this speech as the mere efferves- 
 cence of chivalrous gallantry in Mr. Burke : yet, to 
 be its object, even in pleasantry, O, my dear Mr. 
 Crisp, how could J have foreseen such a distinction?
 
 236 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 My dear father's eyes glistened I wish you could 
 have had a glimpse of him ! 
 
 " There has been," Mr. Burke then, smilingly, 
 resumed, " an age for all excellence ; we have had 
 an age for statesmen ; an age for heroes ; an age 
 for poets ; an age for artists ; but This," bowing 
 down, with an air of obsequious gallantry, his head 
 almost upon the table cloth, " This is the age for 
 women ! " 
 
 " A very happy modern improvement I " cried 
 Sir Joshua, laughing ; " don't you think so, Miss 
 Burney? but that's not a fair question to put to 
 you j so we won't make a point of your answering it. 
 However," continued the dear natural knight, "what 
 Mr. Burke says is very true, now. The women 
 begin to make a figure in every thing. Though I 
 remember, when I first came into the world, it was 
 thought but a poor compliment to say a person did a 
 thing like a lady I " 
 
 " Ay, Sir Joshua," cried my father, " but, like 
 Moliere's physician, nous avons change tout 
 cela!" 
 
 " Very true, Dr. Burney," replied the Knight ; 
 " but I remember the time and so, I dare say, do 
 you when it was thought a slight, if not a sneer, to
 
 MR. BURKE. 237 
 
 speak any thing of a lady's performance : it was only 
 in mockery to talk of painting like a lady ; singing 
 like a lady ; playing like a lady " 
 
 " But now," interrupted Mr. Burke, warmly, 
 " to talk of writing like a lady, is the greatest com- 
 pliment that need be wished for by a man ! " 
 
 Would you believe it, my daddy every body 
 now, himself and my father excepted, turned about, 
 Sir Joshua leading the way to make a little playful 
 bow to. . .can you ever guess to whom ? 
 
 Mr. Burke, then, archly shrugging his shoul- 
 ders, added, " What is left now, exclusively, for 
 US j and what we are to devise in our own defence, 
 I know not ! We seem to have nothing for it but 
 assuming a sovereign contempt ! for the next most 
 dignified thing to possessing merit, is an heroic 
 barbarism in despising it ! " 
 
 I can recollect nothing else so adieu ! 
 One word, however, more, by way of my last 
 speech and confession on this subject. Should you 
 demand, now that I have seen, in their own social 
 circles, the two first men of letters of our day, how, 
 in one word, I should discriminate them ; I answer, 
 that I think Dr. Johnson the first Discourser, and
 
 238 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mr. Burke the first Converser, of the British 
 empire. 
 
 MR. GIBBON. 
 
 It may seem strange, in giving an account of 
 this meeting, not to have recited even one speech 
 from so celebrated an author as Mr. Gibbon. But 
 not one is recollected. His countenance looked 
 always serene ; yet he did not appear to be at his 
 ease. His name and future fame seemed to be 
 more in his thoughts than the present society, or 
 than any present enjoyment : and the exalted spirits 
 of Mr. Burke, at this period, might rather alarm 
 than allure a man whose sole care in existence seemed 
 that of paying his court to posterity ; and induce 
 him, therefore, to evade coming into collision with 
 so dauntless a compeer ; from the sage apprehension 
 of making a less splendid figure, at this moment, as 
 a colloquial competitor, than he had reason to ex- 
 pect making, hereafter, as a Roman historian. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, however, gave, sportively, 
 and with much self-amusement, another turn to his 
 silence ; for after significantly, in a whisper, asking 
 the Memorialist, whether she had remarked the taci-
 
 MR. BURKE. 239 
 
 turnity of Mr. Gibbon ? he laughingly demanded 
 also, whether she had discovered its cause ? 
 " No," she answered ; " nor guessed it." 
 " Why, he's terribly afraid you'll snatch at him 
 for a character in your next book !"
 
 240 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 It may easily be imagined that the few words, but 
 highly distinguishing manner in which Mr. Burke 
 had so courteously marked his kindness towards 
 Evelina ; or, A Young Lady's Entrance into 
 the TVorld) awakened in the mind of Dr. Burney 
 no small impatience to develop what might be his 
 opinion of Cecilia ; or, the Memoirs of an Heiress, 
 just then on the eve of publication. 
 
 And not long was his parental anxiety kept in 
 suspense. That generous orator had no sooner 
 given an eager perusal to the work, than he condes- 
 cended to write a letter of the most indulgent, nay 
 eloquent approvance to its highly honoured author ; 
 for whom he vivaciously displayed a flattering parti- 
 ality, to which he inviolably adhered through every 
 change, either in his own affairs, or in hers, to the 
 end of his life. 
 
 All the manuscript memorandums that remain of 
 the year 1782, in the hand-writing of Dr. Burney, 
 are teeming with kind exultation at the progress of 
 this second publication ; though the anecdote that 
 most amused him, and that he wrote triumphantly
 
 MR. BURKE. 241 
 
 to the author, was one that had been recounted 
 to him personally at Buxton, whence the then Lord 
 Chancellor, Thurlow, went on a visit to Lord 
 Gower,* at Trentham Hall ; where, on being con- 
 ducted to a splendid library, he took a volume of 
 Cecilia out of his pocket, exclaiming, " What sig- 
 nify all your fine and flourishing works here ? See ! 
 I have brought you a little book that's worth them 
 all ! " and he threw it upon the table, open, comically, 
 at the passage where Hobson talks of " my Lord 
 High Chancellory and the like of that" 
 
 From the time of the Richmond Hill assemblage, 
 the acquaintance of Dr. Burney with Mr. Burke 
 ripened into a regard that was soon mellowed into 
 true and genial friendship, such as well suited the 
 primitive characters, however it might clash, occa- 
 sionally, with the current politics, of both. 
 
 Influenced by such a chief, the whole of the family 
 of Mr. Burke followed his example ; and the son, 
 brother, and cousin, always joined the Doctor and 
 
 * Now Marquis of Stafford. 
 VOL. II. R
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 his daughter upon every accidental opportunity : 
 while Mrs. Burke called in St. Martin's-street to fix 
 the acquaintance, by a pressing invitation to both 
 father and daughter, to pass a week at Beaconsfield. 
 
 Not to have done this at so favourable a juncture 
 in the spirits, the powers, and the happiness of Mr. 
 Burke, always rested on both their minds with con- 
 siderable regret ; and on one of them it rests still ! 
 for an hour with Mr. Burke, in that bright halcyon 
 season of his glory, concentrated in matter, and em- 
 bellished in manner, as much wit, wisdom, and infor- 
 mation, as might have demanded weeks, months, 
 perhaps more to elicit from any other person : 
 and even, perhaps, at any other period, from him- 
 self: Dr. Johnson always excepted. 
 
 But the engagements of Dr. Burney tied him to 
 the capital ; and no suspicion occurred that the same 
 resplendent sunshine which then illuminated the for- 
 tune, the faculties, and the character of Mr. Burke, 
 would not equally vivify a future invitation. Not 
 one foreboding cloud lowered in the air with misty 
 menace of the deadly tempests, public and domestic, 
 that were hurtling over the head of that exalted but 
 passion-swayed orator ; though such were so soon to 
 darken the refulgence, now so vivid, of his felicity
 
 MRS. THRALE. 243 
 
 and his fame j the public, by warping his judgment 
 the domestic, by breaking his heart ! 
 
 MRS. THRALE. 
 
 Dr. Burney, when the Cecilian business was ar- 
 ranged, again conveyed the Memorialist to Streatham. 
 No further reluctance on his part, nor exhortations 
 on that of Mr. Crisp, sought to withdraw her from 
 that spot, where, while it was in its glory, they had 
 so recently, and with pride, seen her distinguished. 
 And truly eager was her own haste, when mistress 
 of her time, to try once more to soothe those sorrows 
 and chagrins in which she had most largely partici- 
 pated, by answering to the call, which had never 
 ceased tenderly to pursue her, of return. 
 
 With alacrity, therefore, though not with gaiety, 
 they re-entered the Streatham gates but they soon 
 perceived that they found not what they had left ! 
 
 Changed, indeed, was Streatham ! Gone its chief, 
 and changed his relict! unaccountably, incomprehen- 
 sibly, indefinably changed ! She was absent and agi- 
 tated ; not two minutes could she remain in a place j
 
 44 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 she scarcely seemed to know whom she saw; her 
 speech was so hurried it was hardly intelligible j her 
 eyes were assiduously averted from those who sought 
 them ; and her smiles were faint and forced. 
 
 The Doctor, who had no opportunity to commu- 
 nicate his remarks, went back, as usual, to town ; 
 where soon also, with his tendency, as usual, to view 
 every thing cheerfully, he revolved in his mind the 
 new cares and avocations by which Mrs. Thrale was 
 perplexed j and persuaded himself that the altera- 
 tion which had struck him, was simply the effect of 
 her new position. 
 
 Too near, however, were the observations of the 
 Memorialist for so easy a solution. The change in 
 her friend was equally dark and melancholy: yet 
 not personal to the Memorialist was any alteration. 
 No affection there was lessened ; no kindness cooled ; 
 on the contrary, Mrs. Thrale was more fervent in 
 both ; more touchingly tender ; and softened in dis- 
 position beyond all expression, all description : but 
 in every thing else,- in health, spirits, comfort, 
 general looks, and manner, the change was at once 
 universal and deplorable. All was misery and mys- 
 tery : misery the most restless ; mystery the most 
 unfathomable.
 
 MRS. THRALE. 245 
 
 The mystery, however, soon ceased ; the solicita- 
 tions of the most affectionate sympathy could not 
 long be urged in vain ; -the mystery passed away 
 not so the misery ! That, when revealed, was but to 
 both parties doubled, from the different feelings set 
 in movement by its disclosure. 
 
 The astonishing history of the enigmatical attach- 
 ment which impelled Mrs. Thrale to her second 
 marriage, is now as well known as her name : but its 
 details belong not to the history of Dr. Burney ; 
 though the fact too deeply interested him, and was 
 too intimately felt in his social habits, to be passed 
 over in silence in any memoirs of his life. 
 
 But while ignorant yet of its cause, more and 
 more struck he became at every meeting, by a spe- 
 cies of general alienation which pervaded all around 
 at Streatham. His visits, which, heretofore, had 
 seemed galas to Mrs. Thrale, were now begun and 
 ended almost without notice : and all others, Dr. 
 Johnson not excepted, were cast into the same 
 gulph of general neglect, or forgetful ness ; all, 
 save singly this Memorialist ! to whom, the fatal 
 secret once acknowledged, Mrs. Thrale clung for 
 comfort ; though she saw, and generously pardoned } 
 how wide she was from meeting approbation.
 
 246 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 In this retired, though far from tranquil manner, 
 passed many months ; during which, with the acqui- 
 escent consent of the Doctor, his daughter, wholly 
 devoted to her unhappy friend, remained uninter- 
 ruptedly at sad and altered Streatham ; sedulously 
 avoiding, what at other times she most wished, a 
 tdte a tdte with her father. Bound by ties indisso- 
 luble of honour not to betray a trust that, in the 
 ignorance of her pity, she had herself unwittingly 
 sought, even to him she was as immutably silent, 
 on this subject, as to all others save, singly, to the 
 eldest daughter * of the house ; whose conduct, 
 through scenes of dreadful difficulty, notwithstand- 
 ing her extreme youth, was even exemplary ; and 
 to whom the self-beguiled, yet generous mother, 
 gave full and free permission to confide every 
 thought and feeling to the Memorialist. 
 
 And here let a tribute of friendship be offered up 
 to the shrine of remembrance, due from a thousand 
 ineffaceably tender recollections. Not wildly, and 
 with male and headstrong passions, as has currently 
 been asserted, was this connexion brought to bear 
 on the part of Mrs. Thrale. It was struggled against 
 
 * Now Viscountess Keith.
 
 MRS. THRALE. 247 
 
 at times with even agonizing energy ; and with 
 efforts so vehement, as nearly to destroy the poor 
 machine they were exerted to save. But the subtle 
 poison had glided into her veins so unsuspectedly, 
 and, at first, so unopposedly, that the whole fabric 
 was infected with its venom ; which seemed to 
 become a part, never to be dislodged, of its system. 
 
 It was, indeed, the positive opinion of her phy- 
 sician and friend, Sir Lucas Pepys, that so excited 
 were her feelings, and so shattered, by their early 
 indulgence, was her frame, that the crisis which 
 might be produced through the medium of decided 
 resistance, offered no other alternative but death or 
 madness ! 
 
 Various incidental circumstances began, at length, 
 to open the reluctant eyes of Dr. Burney to an im- 
 pelled, though clouded foresight, of the portentous 
 event which might latently be the cause of the alter- 
 ation of all around at Streatham. He then natu- 
 rally wished for some explanation with his daughter, 
 though he never forced, or even claimed her confi- 
 dence ; well knowing, that voluntarily to give it him 
 had been her earliest delight.
 
 248 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 But in taking her home with him one morning, 
 to pass a day in St. Martin's Street, he almost invo- 
 luntarily, in driving from the paddock, turned back 
 his head towards the house, and, in a tone the most 
 impressive, sighed out : " Adieu, Streatham ! 
 Adieu!" 
 
 His daughter perceived his eyes were glistening ; 
 though he presently dropt them, and bowed down 
 his head, as if not to distress her by any look of 
 examination ; and said no more. 
 
 Her tears, which had long been with difficulty 
 restrained from overflowing in his presence, through 
 grief at the unhappiness, and even more at what she 
 thought the infatuation of her friend, now burst 
 forth, from emotions that surprised away forbearance. 
 
 Dr. Burney sat silent and quiet, to give her time 
 for recollection ; though fully expecting a trusting 
 communication. 
 
 She gave, however, none : his commands alone 
 could have forced a disclosure ; but he soon felt 
 convinced, by her taciturnity, that she must have 
 been bound to concealment. He pitied, therefore, 
 but respected her secrecy ; and, clearing his brow, 
 finished the little journey in conversing upon their 
 own affairs.
 
 DR. JOHNSOX. 249 
 
 This delicacy of kindness, which the Memorialist 
 cannot recollect and not record, filled her with ever 
 living gratitude. 
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 
 
 A few weeks earlier, the Memorialist had passed a 
 nearly similar scene with Dr. Johnson. Not, how- 
 ever, she believes, from the same formidable species 
 of surmise ; but from the wounds inflicted upon his 
 injured sensibility, through the palpably altered 
 looks, tone, and deportment, of the bewildered lady 
 of the mansion ; who, cruelly aware what would be 
 his wrath, and how overwhelming his reproaches 
 against her projected union, wished to break up 
 their residing under the same roof before it should 
 be proclaimed. 
 
 This gave to her whole behaviour towards Dr. 
 Johnson, a sort of restless petulancy, of which she 
 was sometimes hardly conscious ; at others, nearly 
 reckless j but which hurt him far more than she 
 purposed, though short of the point at which she 
 aimed, of precipitating a change of dwelling that 
 would elude its being cast, either by himself or the 
 world, upon a passion that her understanding blushed
 
 250 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 to own ; even while she was sacrificing to it all of 
 inborn dignity that she had been bred to hold most 
 sacred. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, while still uninformed of an entan- 
 glement it was impossible he should conjecture, 
 attributed her varying humours to the effect of way- 
 ward health meeting a sort of sudden wayward 
 power : and imagined that caprices, which he judged 
 to be partly feminine, and partly wealthy, would 
 soberize themselves away in being unnoticed. He 
 adhered, therefore, to what he thought his post, in 
 being the ostensible guardian protector of the relict 
 and progeny of the late chief of the house ; taking 
 no open or visible notice of the alteration in the 
 successor save only at times, and when they were 
 tete d tdte, to this Memorialist; to whom he fre- 
 quently murmured portentous observations on the 
 woeful, nay alarming deterioration in health and 
 disposition of her whom, so lately, he had signalized 
 as the gay mistress of Streatham. 
 . But at length, as she became more and more dis- 
 satisfied with her own situation, and impatient for 
 its relief, she grew less and less scrupulous with 
 regard to her celebrated guest : she slighted his 
 counsel ; did not heed his remonstrances ; avoided
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 
 
 his society ; was ready at a moment's hint to lend 
 him her carriage when he wished to return to Bolt 
 Court ; but awaited a formal request to accord it for 
 bringing him back. 
 
 The Doctor then began to be stung ; his own 
 aspect became altered ; and depression, with indig- 
 nant uneasiness, sat upon his venerable front. 
 
 It was at this moment that, finding the Memo- 
 rialist was going one morning to St. Martin's Street, 
 he desired a cast thither in the carriage, and then 
 to be set down at Bolt Court. 
 
 Aware of his disturbance, and far too well aware 
 how short it was of what it would become when 
 the cause of all that passed should be detected, it 
 was in trembling that the Memorialist accompanied 
 him to the coach, filled with dread of offending 
 him by any reserve, should he force upon her any 
 inquiry; and yet impressed with the utter impossi- 
 bility of betraying a trusted secret. 
 
 His look was stern, though dejected, as he fol- 
 lowed her into the vehicle ; but when his eye, 
 which, however short sighted, was quick to mental per- 
 ception, saw how ill at ease appeared his companion, 
 all sternness subsided into an undisguised expression 
 of the strongest emotion, that seemed to claim her
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 sympathy, though to revolt from her compassion ; 
 while, with a shaking hand, and pointing finger, he 
 directed her looks to the mansion from which they 
 were driving; and, when they faced it from the 
 coach window, as they turned into Streatham Com- 
 mon, tremulously exclaiming: " That house, .is 
 lost to me for ever ! " 
 
 During a moment he then fixed upon her an in- 
 terrogative eye, that impetuously demanded : " Do 
 you not perceive the change I am experiencing ? " 
 
 A sorrowing sigh was her only answer. 
 
 Pride and delicacy then united to make him leave 
 her to her taciturnity. 
 
 He was too deeply, however, disturbed to start or 
 to bear any other subject ; and neither of them uttered 
 a single word till the coach stopt in St. Martin's- 
 street, and the house and the carriage door were 
 opened for their separation ! He then suddenly 
 and expressively looked at her, abruptly grasped her 
 hand, and, with an air of affection, though in a low, 
 husky voice, murmured rather than said : " Good 
 morning, dear lady ! " but turned his head quickly 
 away, to avoid any species of answer. 
 
 She was deeply touched by so gentle an acquies- 
 cence in her declining the confidential discourse upon
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 253 
 
 which he had indubitably meant to open, relative to 
 this mysterious alienation. But she had the comfort 
 to be satisfied, that he saw and believed in her sincere 
 participation in his feelings ; while he allowed for 
 the grateful attachment that bound her to a friend 
 so loved; who, to her at least, still manifested a 
 fervour of regard that resisted all change ; alike 
 from this new partiality, and from the undisguised, 
 and even strenuous opposition of the Memorialist to 
 its indulgence. 
 
 The " Adieu, Streatham !" that had been uttered 
 figuratively by Dr. Burney, without any knowledge 
 of its nearness to reality, was now fast approaching 
 to becoming a mere matter of fact ; for, to the 
 almost equal grief, however far from equal loss, of 
 Dr. Johnson and Dr. Burney, Streatham, a short 
 time afterwards, though not publicly relinquished, 
 was quitted by Mrs. Thrale and her family. 
 
 Both friends rejoiced, however, that the library 
 and the pictures, at least, on this first breaking up, 
 fell into the hands of so able an appreciator of litera- 
 ture and of painting, as the Earl of Shelburne.* 
 
 * Afterward Marquis of Lansdown, who first rented Mrs. 
 Thrale's house at Streatham.
 
 254 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale removed first to Brighton, and next 
 repaired to pass a winter in Argyll Street, previously 
 to fixing her ultimate proceedings. 
 
 GENERAL PAOLI. 
 
 The last little narration that was written to Mr. 
 Crisp of any party at Streatham, as it contains a 
 description of the celebrated Corsican General, 
 Paoli, with whom Dr. Burney had there been 
 invited to dine ; and whom Mr. Crisp, also, had 
 been pressed, though unavailingly, to meet ; will 
 here be copied, in the hope that the reader, like 
 Dr. Burney, will learn with pleasure General Paoli's 
 own history of his opening intercourse with Mr. 
 Boswell. 
 
 To SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ., 
 Chesington. 
 
 How sorry am I, my dear Mr. Crisp, that you 
 could not come to Streatham at the time Mrs. 
 Thrale hoped to see you ; for when are we likely to 
 meet at Streatham again ? And you would have 
 been much pleased, I am sure, with the famous
 
 GENERAL PAOLI. 255 
 
 Corsican General, Paoli, who spent the day there, 
 and was extremely communicative and agreeable. 
 
 He is a very pleasing man ; tall and genteel in 
 his person, remarkably attentive, obliging, and polite ; 
 and as soft and mild in his speech, as if he came 
 from feeding sheep in Corsica, like a shepherd; 
 rather than as if he had left the warlike field where 
 he had led his armies to battle. 
 
 I will give you a little specimen of his lan- 
 guage and discourse, as they are now fresh in my 
 ears. 
 
 When Mrs. Thrale named me, he started back, 
 though smilingly, and said : ' I am very glad enough 
 to see you in the face, Miss Evelina, which I have 
 wished for long enough. O charming book ! I give 
 it you my word I have read it often enough. It is 
 my favourite studioso for apprehending the English 
 language ; which is difficult often. I pray you, Miss 
 Evelina, write some more little volumes of the 
 quickest.' 
 
 I disclaimed the name, and was walking away ; 
 but he followed me with an apology. * I pray your 
 pardon, Mademoiselle. My ideas got in a blunder 
 often. It is Miss Borni what name I meant to 
 accentuate, I pray your pardon, Miss Evelina. I
 
 56 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 make very much error in my English many times 
 enough.' 
 
 My father then lead him to speak of Mr. 
 Boswell, by inquiring into the commencement of 
 their connexion. 
 
 " He came," answered the General, " to my 
 country sudden, and he fetched me some letters of 
 recommending him. But I was of the belief he 
 might, in the verity, be no other person but one 
 imposter. And I supposed, in my mente, he was 
 in the privacy one espy ; for I look away from him 
 to my other companies, and, in one moment, when 
 I look back to him, I behold it in his hands his 
 tablet, and one pencil ! O, he was at the work, I 
 give it you my honour, of writing down all what I 
 say to some persons whatsoever in the room ! In- 
 deed I was angry enough. Pretty much so, I give 
 it you my word. But soon after, I discern he was 
 no impostor, and besides, no espy ; for soon I find 
 it out I was myself only the monster he came to 
 observe, and to describe with one pencil in his 
 tablet ! O, is a very good man, Mr. Boswell, in 
 the bottom 1 so cheerful, so witty, so gentle, so 
 talkable. But, at the first, O, I was indeed fache of 
 the sufficient. I was in one passion, in my mente, 
 very well,"
 
 GENERAL PAOLI. 
 
 He had brought with him to Streatham a dog, of 
 which he is exceeding fond ; but he apologised for 
 being so accompanied, from the safety which he owed 
 to that faithful animal, as a guard from robbers. " I 
 walk out," he cried, " when I will one night, and 1 
 lose myself. The dark it comes on of a blackish 
 colour. I don't know where I put my foot ! In a 
 moment comes behind me one hard step. I go on. 
 The hard step he follow. Sudden I turn round ; a 
 little fierce, it may be. I meeted one man : an ogly 
 one. He had not sleeped in the night ! He was so 
 big whatsoever ; with one clob stick, so thick to my 
 arm. He lifted it up. I had no pistollettos ; I call 
 my dog. I open his mouth, for the survey to his 
 teeth. My friend, I say, look to the muzzle ! Give 
 me your clob stick at the moment, or he shall de- 
 stroy you when you are ten ! The man kept his clob 
 stick ; but he took up his heels, and he ran away 
 from that time to this moment I." 
 
 After this, talking of the Irish giant who is now 
 shewn in town, he said, " He is so large, I am as a 
 baby ! I look at him, and I feel so little as a child ! 
 Indeed my indignation it rises when I see him hold 
 up one arm, spread out to the full, to make me 
 walk under it for my canopy ! I am as nothing ! 
 
 VOL. ir. s
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 and it turns my bile more than whatsoever to find 
 myself in the power of one man, who fetches from 
 me half a crown for looking at his seven feet ! " 
 
 All this comic English he pronounces in a man- 
 ner the most comically pompous. Nevertheless, 
 my father thinks he will soon speak better, and that 
 he seems less to want language than patience to 
 assort it j hurrying on impetuously, and any how, 
 rather than stopping for recollection. 
 
 He diverted us all very much after dinner, by 
 begging leave of Mrs. Thrale to give " one toast ;" 
 and then, with smiling pomposity, pronouncing " The 
 great Vagabond !" meaning to designate Dr. Johnson 
 as " The Rambler." 
 
 This is the last visit remembered, or, at least, 
 narrated, of Streatham.
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 2,59 
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 
 
 Streatham thus gone, though the intercourse 
 with Mrs. Thrale, who now resided in Argyle-street, 
 London, was as fondly, if not as happily, sustained 
 as ever, Dr. Burney had again his first amanuensis 
 and librarian wholly under his roof; and the plea- 
 sure of his parental feelings doubled those of his 
 renown ; for the new author was included, with the 
 most flattering distinction, in almost every invitation 
 that he received, or acquaintance that he made, 
 where a female presided in the society. 
 
 Never was practical proof more conspicuous of the 
 power of surmounting every difficulty that rises 
 against our progress to an appointed end, when 
 Inclination and Business take each other by the hand 
 in its pursuit, than was now evinced by the conduct 
 and success of Dr. Burney in his musical enter- 
 prize. 
 
 He vigilantly visited both the Universities, leaving 
 nothing uninvestigated that assiduity or address 
 could ferret out to his purpose. The following 
 account of these visits is copied from his own memo- 
 rials : 
 
 " I went three several years to the Bodleian and other libra- 
 
 s 2
 
 260 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 ries in that most admirable seminary of learning and science, the 
 Oxford University. I had previously spent a week at Cambridge ; 
 and, at both those Universities, I had, in my researches, dis- 
 covered curious and rare manuscript tracts on Music of the 
 middle ages, before the invention of the press, not mentioned in 
 any of the printed or manuscript catalogues ; and which the most 
 learned librarians did not know were in existence, from the several 
 different Treatises in Latin, French, and obselete English, being 
 bound up in odd volumes, and only the first of them mentioned in 
 the lettering, or title of the volume. At Christ Church, to which 
 Dr. Aldrich had bequeathed his musical library, I met with innu- 
 merable compositions by the best Masters of Italy, as well as of 
 our own country, that were then extant ; such as Carissimi, 
 Luigi, Cesti, Stradella, Tye, Tallis, Bird, Morley, and Purcel. 
 I made a catalogue of this admirable collection, including the 
 tracts and musical compositions of the learned and ingenious 
 Dean, its founder ; a copy of which I had the honour to present 
 to the college." 
 
 The British Museum Library he ransacked, pen 
 in hand, repeatedly : that of Sir Joseph Bankes was 
 as open to him as his own : Mr. Garrick conducted 
 him, by appointment, to that of the Earl of Shel- 
 burne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne ; which 
 was personally shewn to him, with distinguished 
 consideration, by that literary nobleman. To name 
 every other to which he had access would be pro- 
 lixity j but to omit that of his Majesty, George the
 
 SAM'S CLUB. 261 
 
 Third, would be insensibility. Dr. Burney was per- 
 mitted to make a full examination of its noble con- 
 tents ; and to take thence whatever extracts he 
 thought conducive to his design, by his Majesty's 
 own gracious orders, delivered through the then 
 librarian, Mr. Barnard. 
 
 But for bringing these accumulating materials 
 into play, time still, with all the vigilance of his 
 grasp upon its fragments, was wanting ; and to 
 counteract the relentless calls of his professional 
 business, he was forced to superadd an unsparing 
 requisition upon his sleep the only creditor that 
 he never paid. 
 
 SAM'S CLUB. 
 
 Immediately after vacating Streatham, Dr. Burney 
 was called upon, by his great and good friend of 
 Bolt-court, to become a member of a club which he 
 was then instituting for the emolument of Samuel, 
 a footman of the late Mr. Thrale. This man, who 
 was no longer wanted for the broken establishment 
 of Streatham, had saved sufficient money for setting 
 up a humble species of hotel, to which this club 
 would be a manifest advantage. It was called, from 
 the name of the honest domestic whom Dr. Johnson
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 wished to serve, Sam's Club. It was held in Essex- 
 street, in the Strand. Its rules, &c. are printed by 
 Mr. Boswell. 
 
 To enumerate all the coteries to which the Doctor, 
 with his new associate, now resorted, would be unin- 
 teresting, for almost all are passed away ! and nearly 
 all are forgotten ; though there was scarcely a name 
 in their several sets that did not, at that time, carry 
 some weight of public opinion. Such of them, never- 
 theless, that have left lasting memorials of their 
 character, their wit, or their abilities, may not un- 
 acceptably be selected for some passing observations. 
 
 BAS BLEU SOCIETIES. 
 
 To begin with what still is famous in the annals 
 of conversation, the Bas Bleu Societies. 
 
 The first of these was then in the meridian of its 
 lustre, but had been instituted many years previously 
 at Bath. It owed its name to an apology made by 
 Mr. Stillingfleet, in declining to accept an invita- 
 tion to a literary meeting at Mrs. Vesey's, from not 
 being, he said, in the habit of displaying a proper 
 equipment for an evening assembly. " Pho, pho," 
 cried she, with her well-known, yet always original
 
 BAS BLEU SOCIETIES. 263 
 
 simplicity, while she looked, inquisitively, at him 
 and his accoutrements ; '* don't mind dress ! Come 
 in your blue stockings ! " With which words, hu- 
 mourously repeating them as he entered the apart- 
 ment of the chosen coterie, Mr. Stillingfleet claimed 
 permission for appearing, according to order. And 
 those words, ever after, were fixed, in playful stigma, 
 upon Mrs. Vesey's associations.* 
 
 This original coterie was still headed by Mrs. 
 Vesey, though it was transferred from Bath to Lon- 
 don. Dr. Burney and this Memorialist were now 
 initiated into the midst of it. And however ridi- 
 cule, in public, from those who had no taste for this 
 bluism ; or envy, in secret, from those who had no 
 admission to it, might seek to depreciate its merit, 
 it afforded to all lovers of intellectual entertainment 
 a variety of amusement, an exemption from form, 
 and a carte blanche certainty of good humour from 
 the amiable and artless hostess, that rendered it as 
 agreeable as it was singular : for Mrs. Vesey was as 
 
 * Sir William Weller Pepys, when he was eighty -four years 
 of age, told this Memorialist that he was the only male member 
 then remaining of the original set ; and that Mrs. Hannah More 
 was the only remaining female.
 
 264 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 mirth-provoking from her oddities and mistakes, as 
 Falstaff was wit-inspiring from his vaunting coward- 
 ice and sportive epicurism. 
 
 There was something so like the manoeuvres of a 
 character in a comedy in the manners and movements 
 of Mrs. Vesey, that the company seemed rather to 
 feel themselves assembled, at their own cost and 
 pleasure, in some public apartment, to saunter or to 
 repose j to talk or to hold their tongues ; to gaze 
 around, or to drop asleep, as best might suit their 
 humours ; than drawn together to receive and to 
 bestow, the civilities of given and accepted invitations. 
 
 Her fears were so great of the horror, as it was 
 styled, of a circle, from the ceremony and awe which 
 it produced, that she pushed all the small sofas, as 
 well as chairs, pell-mell about the apartments, so as 
 not to leave even a zig-zag path of communication 
 free from impediment : and her greatest delight was 
 to place the seats back to back, so that those who 
 occupied them could perceive no more of their 
 nearest neighbour than if the parties had been sent 
 into different rooms : an arrangement that could 
 only be eluded by such a twisting of the neck as to 
 threaten the interlocutors with a spasmodic affection. 
 
 But there was never any distress beyond risibility :
 
 BAS BLEU SOCIETIES. 265 
 
 and the company that was collected was so generally 
 of a superior cast, that talents and conversation 
 soon found as when do they miss it ? -their own 
 level : and all these extraneous whims merely served 
 to give zest and originality to the assemblage. 
 
 Mrs. Vesey was of a character to which it is 
 hardly possible to find a parallel, so untrue would it 
 be to brand it with positive folly ; yet so glaringly 
 was it marked by almost incredible simplicity. -, 
 
 With really lively parts, a fertile imagination, and 
 a pleasant quickness of remark, she had the unguard- 
 edness of childhood, joined to an Hibernian bewil- 
 derment of ideas that cast her incessantly into some 
 burlesque situation ; and incited even the most partial, 
 and even the most sensitive of her own countrymen, 
 to relate stories, speeches, and anecdotes of her asto- 
 nishing self-perplexities, her confusion about times 
 and circumstances, and her inconceivable jumble of 
 recollections between what had happened, or what 
 might have happened j and what had befallen others 
 that she imagined had befallen herself; that made 
 her name, though it could never be pronounced 
 without personal regard, be constantly coupled with 
 something grotesque. 
 
 But what most contributed to render the scenes
 
 266 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 of her social circle nearly dramatic in comic effect, 
 was her deafness ; for with all the pity due to that 
 socialless infirmity; and all the pity doubly due 
 to one who still sought conversation as the first 
 of human delights, it was impossible, with a grave 
 face, to behold her manner of constantly marring 
 the pleasure of which she was in pursuit. r~ 
 
 She had commonly two or three, or more, ear- 
 trumpets hanging to her wrists, or slung about her 
 neck ; or tost upon the chimney-piece or table ; with 
 intention to try them, severally and alternately, upon 
 different speakers, as occasion might arise ; and the 
 instant that any earnestness of countenance, or ani- 
 mation of gesture, struck her eye, she darted for- 
 ward, trumpet in hand, to inquire what was going 
 on j but almost always arrived at the speaker at the 
 moment that he was become, in his turn, the hearer ; 
 and eagerly held her brazen instrument to his mouth 
 to catch sounds that were already past and gone. 
 And, after quietly listening some minutes, she would 
 gently utter her disappointment, by crying : " Well ! 
 I really thought you were talking of something?" 
 
 And then, though a whole group would hold it 
 fitting to flock around her, and recount what had 
 been said ; if a smile caught her roving eye from
 
 BAS BLEU SOCIETIES. 267 
 
 any opposite direction, the fear of losing something 
 more entertaining, would make her beg not to 
 trouble them, and again rush on to the gayer talkers. 
 But as a laugh is excited more commonly by sportive 
 nonsense than by wit, she usually gleaned nothing 
 from her change of place, and hastened therefore 
 back to ask for the rest of what she had interrupted. 
 But generally finding that set dispersing, or dis- 
 persed, she would look around her with a forlorn 
 surprise, and cry : "I can't conceive why it is that 
 nobody talks to-night ? I can't catch a word ! " 
 
 Or, if some one of peculiar note were engaging 
 attention ; if Sir William Hamilton, for example, 
 were describing Herculaneum or Pompeii ; or Mrs. 
 Carter and Mrs. Hannah More were discussing 
 some new author, or favourite work ; or if the then 
 still beautiful, though old, Duchess of Leinster, was 
 encountering the beautiful and young Duchess of 
 Devonshire j or, if Mr. Burke, having stept in, and, 
 marking no one with whom he wished to exchange 
 ideas, had seized upon the first book or pamphlet 
 he could catch, to soothe his harassed mind by 
 reading which he not seldom did, and most incom- 
 parably, a passage or two aloud ; circumstances of 
 such a sort would arouse in her so great an earnest-
 
 268 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 ness for participation, that she would -hasten from 
 one spot to another, in constant hope of better fare ; 
 frequently clapping, in her hurry, the broad part of 
 the brazen ear to her temple : but after waiting, 
 with anxious impatience, for the development she 
 expected, but waiting in vain, she would drop her 
 trumpet, and almost dolorously exclaim : " I hope 
 nobody has had any bad news to night ? but as soon 
 as I come near any body, nobody speaks!" 
 
 Yet, with all these peculiarities, Mrs. Vesey was 
 eminently amiable, candid, gentle, and even sensible ; 
 but she had an ardour to know whatever was going 
 forward, and to see whoever was named, that kept 
 her curiosity constantly in a panic ; and almost dan- 
 gerously increased the singular wanderings of her 
 imagination. 
 
 Here, amongst the few remaining men of letters 
 of the preceding literary era, Dr. Burney met 
 Horace Walpole, Owen Cambridge, and Soame 
 Jenyns, who were commonly, then, denominated the 
 old wits ; but who rarely, indeed, were surrounded 
 by any new ones who stood much chance of vying 
 with them in readiness of repartee, pith of matter, 
 terseness of expression, or pleasantry in expanding 
 gay ideas.
 
 MRS. MONTAGU. 269 
 
 MRS. MONTAGU. 
 
 " Yet, while to Mrs. Vesey, the Bas Bleu 
 society owed its origin and its epithet, the meetings 
 that took place at Mrs. Montagu's were soon more 
 popularly known by that denomination ; for though 
 they could not be more fashionable, they were far 
 more splendid. 
 
 Mrs. Montagu had built a superb new house, 
 which was magnificently fitted up, and appeared to 
 be rather appropriate for princes, nobles, and cour- 
 tiers, than for poets, philosophers, and blue stocking 
 votaries. And here, in fact, rank and talents were 
 so frequently brought together, that what the satirist 
 uttered scoffingly, the author pronounced proudly, 
 in setting aside the original claimant, to dub Mrs. 
 Montagu Queen of the Blues. 
 
 This majestic title was hers, in fact, from more 
 flattering rights than hang upon mere pre-eminence 
 of riches or station. Her Essay on the Learning 
 and Genius of Shakespeare ; and the literary zeal 
 which made her the voluntary champion of our im- 
 mortal bard, had so national a claim to support and 
 to praise, that her book, on its first coming out, had 
 gained the almost general plaudits that mounted her,
 
 270 MEMOIRS OF DR. BUUNEY. 
 
 thenceforward, to the Parnassian heights of female 
 British literature. 
 
 But, while the same bas bleu appellation was 
 given to these two houses of rendezvous, neither 
 that, nor even the same associates, could render them 
 similar. Their grandeur, or their simplicity, their 
 magnitude, or their diminutiveness, were by no 
 means the principal cause of this difference : it was 
 far more attributable to the Lady Presidents than to 
 their abodes : 'for though they instilled not their 
 characters into their visitors, their characters bore 
 so large a share in their visitors' reception and ac- 
 commodation, as to influence materially the turn of 
 the discourse, and the humour of the parties, at 
 their houses. 
 
 At Mrs. Montagu's, the semi-circle that faced the 
 fire retained during the whole evening its unbroken 
 form, with a precision that made it seem described 
 by a Brobdignagian compass. The lady of the cas- 
 tle commonly placed herself at the upper end of the 
 room, near the commencement of the curve, so as to 
 be courteously visible to all her guests ; having the 
 person of the highest rank, or consequence, properly, 
 on one side, and the person the most eminent for 
 talents, sagaciously, on the other ; or as near to her
 
 MRS. MONTAGU. 271 
 
 chair, and her converse, as her favouring eye, and a 
 complacent bow of the head, could invite him to that 
 distinction.* 
 
 Her conversational powers were of a truly superior 
 order ; strong, just, clear, and often eloquent. Her 
 process in argument, notwithstanding an earnest 
 solicitude for pre-eminence, was uniformly polite 
 and candid. But her reputation for wit seemed 
 always in her thoughts, marring their natural flow, 
 and untutored expression. No sudden start of talent 
 urged forth any precarious opinion ; no vivacious 
 new idea varied her logical course of ratiocination. 
 Her smile, though most generally benignant, was 
 rarely gay j and her liveliest sallies had a something 
 of anxiety rather than of hilarity till their success 
 was ascertained by applause. 
 
 Her form was stately, and her manners were dig- 
 nified. Her face retained strong remains of beauty 
 throughout life ; and though its native cast was 
 evidently that of severity, its expression was softened 
 off in discourse by an almost constant desire to 
 please. 
 
 * This only treats of the Blue Meetings ; not of the general 
 assemblies of Montagu House, which were conducted like all 
 others in the circles of high life.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 If beneficence be judged by the happiness which 
 it diffuses, whose claim, by that proof, shall stand 
 higher than that of Mrs. Montagu, from the muni- 
 ficence with which she celebrated her annual festival 
 for those hapless artificers, who perform the most 
 abject offices of any authorized calling, in being the 
 active guardians of our blazing hearths ? * 
 
 Not to vain glory, then, but to kindness of heart, 
 should be adjudged the publicity of that superb 
 charity, which made its jetty objects, for one bright 
 morning, cease to consider themselves as degraded 
 outcasts from society. 
 
 Not all the lyrics of all the rhymsters, nor all the 
 warblings of all the spring-feathered choristers, 
 could hail the opening smiles of May, like the fra- 
 grance of that roasted beef, and the pulpy softness 
 of those puddings of plums, with which Mrs. Mon- 
 tagu yearly renovated those sooty little agents to 
 the safety of our most blessing luxury. 
 
 Taken for all in all, Mrs. Montagu was rare in 
 her attainments j splendid in her conduct j open to 
 
 * Every May- day, Mrs. Montagu gave an annual breakfast in 
 the front of her new mansion, of roast beef and plum pudding, to 
 all the chimney sweepers of the Metropolis.
 
 MRS. MONTAGU. 
 
 the calls of charity ; forward to precede those of 
 indigent genius ; and unchangeably just and firm 
 in the application of her interest, her principles, and 
 her fortune, to the encouragement of loyalty, and 
 the support of virtue. 
 
 In this house, amongst innumerable high person- 
 ages and renowned conversers, Dr. Burney met the 
 famous Hervey, Bishop of Derry, late Earl of 
 Bristol ; who then stood foremost in sustaining the 
 character for wit and originality that had signalised 
 his race, in the preceding century, by the current 
 phrase of the day, that the world was peopled with 
 men, women, and Herveys. 
 
 Here, also, the Honourable Horace Walpole, 
 afterwards Lord Orford, sometimes put forth his 
 quaint, singular, often original, generally sarcastic, 
 and always entertaining powers. 
 
 And here the Doctor met the antique General 
 Oglethorpe, who was pointed out to him by Mr. 
 Walpole for a man nearly in his hundredth year ; 
 an assertion that, though exaggerated, easily gained 
 credit, from his gaunt figure and appearance. The 
 General was pleasing, well bred, and gentle. 
 
 Horace Walpole, sportively desirous, as he whis- 
 pered to Dr. Burney, that the Doctor's daughter 
 
 VOL. II. T
 
 274" MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 should see the humours of a man so near to counting 
 his age by a century, insisted, one night at this 
 house, upon forming a little group for that purpose ; 
 to which he invited, also, Mr. and Mrs. Locke : 
 exhibiting thus the two principal points of his own 
 character, from which he rarely deviated : a thirst 
 of amusement from what was singular ; with a taste 
 yet more forcible for elegance from what was ex- 
 cellent. 
 
 At the side of General Oglethorpe, Mr. Walpole, 
 though much past seventy, had almost the look, and 
 had quite the air of enjoyment of a man who was 
 yet almost young: and so skeleton-like was the 
 General's meagre form, that, by the same species of 
 comparison, Mr. Walpole almost appeared, and, 
 again, almost seemed to think himself, if not abso- 
 lutely fat, at least not despoiled of his embonpoint; 
 though so lank was his thinness, that every other 
 person who stood in his vicinity, might pass as if 
 accoutred and stuffed for a stage representation of 
 Falstaff.* 
 
 * It was here, at Mrs. Montagu's, that Doctor Burney had 
 the happiness to see open to this Memorialist an acquaintance 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Locke, which led, almost magically, to an 
 intercourse that formed, and still forms, one of the first felicities 
 of her life.
 
 MRS. THRALE. 275 
 
 MRS. THRALE. 
 
 But previously to the late Streatham catastrophe 
 blither, more bland, and more gleeful still, was 
 the personal celebrity of Mrs. Thrale, than that of 
 either Mrs. Montagu or Mrs. Vesey. Mrs. Vesey, 
 indeed, gentle and diffident, dreamed not of any 
 competition: but Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Thrale 
 had long been set up as fair rival candidates for 
 colloquial eminence ; and each of them thought the 
 other alone worthy to be her peer. Openly, there- 
 fore, when they met, they combatted for precedence 
 of admiration ; with placid, though high-strained 
 intellectual exertion on one side, and an exuberant 
 pleasantry of classical allusion or quotation on the 
 other, without the smallest malice in either; for so 
 different were their tastes as well as attributes, that 
 neither of them envied, while each did justice to the 
 powers of her opponent. 
 
 The blue parties at Mrs. Thrale's, though neither 
 marked with as much splendour as those of Mrs. 
 Montagu, nor with so curious a selection of distin- 
 guished individuals as those of Mrs. Vesey, were yet 
 held of equal height with either in general estima- 
 tion, as Dr. Johnson, ." himself a host," was usually 
 
 T 2
 
 276 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 at Mrs. Thrale's ; or was always, by her company, 
 expected : and as she herself possessed powers of 
 entertainment more vivifying in gaiety than any of 
 her competitors. 
 
 Various other meetings were formed in imitation 
 of the same plan of dispensing with cards, music, 
 dice, dancing, or the regales of the festive board, to 
 concentrate in intellectual entertainment all the 
 hopes of the guest, and the efforts of the host and 
 hostess. And, with respect to colloquial elegance, 
 such a plan certainly is of the first order for bringing 
 into play the highest energies of our nature ; and 
 stimulating their fairest exercise in discussions upon 
 the several subjects that rise with every rising day ; 
 and that take and give a fresh colour to Thought as 
 well as to Expression, from the mind of every fresh 
 discriminator. 
 
 And such meetings, when the parties were well 
 assorted, and in good-humour, formed, at that time, 
 a coalition of talents, and a brilliancy of exertion, 
 that produced the most informing dissertations, or 
 the happiest sallies of wit and pleasantry, that could 
 emanate from social intercourse.
 
 HONT. MISS MONCTON. 
 
 HON. MISS MONCTON.* 
 
 One of the most striking parties of this description, 
 after the three chief, was at the residence of the 
 Hon. Miss Moncton ; where there was a still more 
 resplendent circle of rank, and a more distinguished 
 assemblage of foreigners, than at any other ; with 
 always, in addition, somebody or something uncom- 
 mon and unexpected, to cause, or to gratify curiosity. 
 
 Not merely as fearful of form as Mrs. Vesey was 
 Miss Moncton ; she went farther j she frequently 
 left her general guests wholly to themselves. There 
 was always, she knew, good fare for intellectual 
 entertainment ; and those who had courage to seek 
 might partake of its advantages ; while those who 
 had not that quality, might amuse themselves as 
 lookers on. And though some might be discon- 
 certed, no one who had candour could be offended, 
 when they saw, from the sprightly good-humour of 
 their hostess, that this reception was instigated by 
 gay, not studied singularity. 
 
 Miss Moncton usually sat about the middle of the 
 room, lounging on one chair, while bending over the 
 
 * Now Countess of Coi'k.
 
 278 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 back of another, in a thin fine muslin dress, even 
 at Christmas ; while all around her were in satins, 
 or tissues ; and without advancing to meet any one, 
 or rising, or placing, or troubling herself to see 
 whether there were any seats left for them, she 
 would turn round her head to the announcement of 
 a name, give a nod, a smile, and a short " How do 
 do? " and then, chatting on with her own set, 
 leave them to seek their fortune. 
 
 To these splendid, and truly uncommon assem- 
 blages, Dr. Burney and his daughter accepted, occa- 
 sionally, some of the frequent invitations with which 
 they were honoured. 
 
 And here they had sometimes the happiness to 
 meet, amidst the nobles and dames of the land, with 
 all the towering height of his almost universal supe- 
 riority, Mr. Burke ; who, sure, from the connexions 
 of the lady president, to find many chosen friends 
 with whom he could coalesce or combat upon 
 literary or general topics, commonly entered the 
 grand saloon with a spirited yet gentle air, that 
 shewed him full fraught with the generous purpose 
 to receive as well as to dispense social pleasure j 
 untinged with one bitter drop of political rancour ; 
 and clarified from all acidity of party sarcasm.
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 279 
 
 And here, too, though only latterly, and very 
 rarely, appeared the sole star that rose still higher 
 in the gaze of the world, Dr. Johnson. Miss Monc- 
 ton had met with the* Doctor at Brighton, where 
 that animated lady eagerly sought him as a gem to 
 crown her coteries ; persevering in her attacks for 
 conquest, with an enthusiasm that did honour to her 
 taste ; till the Doctor, surprised and pleased, re- 
 warded her exertions by a good-humoured compli- 
 ance with her invitations. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 But of these coteries, none surpassed, if they 
 equalled, in easy pleasantry, unaffected intelligence, 
 and information free from pedantry or formality, 
 those of the Knight of Plympton. Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds was singularly simple, though never inelegant 
 in his language ; and his classical style of painting 
 could not be more pleasing, however more sublimely 
 it might elevate and surprise, than his manners and 
 conversation. 
 
 There was little or no play of countenance, be- 
 yond cheerfulness or sadness, in the features of Sir
 
 280 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Joshua ; but in his eyes there was a searching look, 
 that seemed, upon his introduction to any person of 
 whom he had thought before he had seen, to fix, in 
 his painter's mind, the attitude, if it may be so 
 called, of face that would be most striking for a 
 picture. But this was rarely obvious, and never 
 disconcerting ; he was eminently unassuming, un- 
 pretending, and natural.* 
 
 Dr. Burney has left amongst his papers a note of 
 an harangue which he had heard from Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, at the house of Dudley Long, when the 
 Duke of Devonshire, and various other peers, were 
 present, and when happiness was the topic of dis- 
 cussion. Sir Joshua for some time had listened in 
 silence to their several opinions ; and then impres- 
 sively said : " You none of you, my lords, if you 
 will forgive my telling you so, can speak upon this 
 subject with as much knowledge of it as I can. Dr. 
 
 * The present Memorialist surprised him, one day, so pal- 
 pably employed in such an investigation, that, seeing her startled, 
 he looked almost ashamed ; but, frankly laughing at the silent de- 
 tection, he cried : " When do you come to sit to me ? I am quite 
 ready ! " making a motion with his hand as if advancing it with 
 a pencil to a canvass : " All prepared ! " intimating that he had 
 settled in his thoughts the disposition of her portrait.
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 281 
 
 Burney perhaps might; but it is not the man who 
 looks around him from the top of a high mountain 
 at a beautiful prospect on the first moment of 
 opening his eyes, who has the true enjoyment of 
 that noble sight : it is he who ascends the mountain 
 from a miry meadow, or a ploughed field, or a 
 barren waste ; and who works his way up to it step 
 by step ; scratched and harassed by thorns and 
 briars ; with here a hollow, that catches his foot ; 
 and there a clump that forces him all the way back 
 to find out a new path ; it is he who attains to it 
 through all that toil and danger ; and with the 
 strong contrast on his mind of the miry meadow, or 
 ploughed field, or barren waste, for which it was 
 exchanged, it is he, my lords, who enjoys the 
 beauties that suddenly blaze upon him. They cause 
 an expansion of ideas in harmony with the expansion 
 of the view. He glories in its glory ; and his mind 
 opens to conscious exaltation ; such as the man who 
 was born and bred upon that commanding height, 
 with all the loveliness of prospect, and fragrance, 
 and variety, and plenty, and luxury of every sort, 
 around, above, beneath, can never know; can have 
 no idea of; at least, not till he come near some 
 precipice, in a boisterous wind, that hurls him from
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 the top to the bottom, and gives him some taste of 
 what he had possessed, by its loss ; and some plea- 
 sure in its recovery, by the pain and difficulty of 
 scrambling back to it." 
 
 MRS. REYNOLDS. 
 
 Mrs. Reynolds also had her coteries, which were 
 occasionally attended by most of the persons who 
 have been named ; equally from consideration to her 
 brother, and personal respect to herself. 
 
 Mrs. Reynolds wrote an essay on Taste, which 
 she submitted, in the year 1781, to the private 
 criticism of her sincere friend, Dr. Johnson. 
 
 But it should seem that the work, though full of 
 intrinsic merit, was warpt in its execution by that 
 perplexity of ideas in which perpetual ponderings, 
 and endless recurrence to first notions, so subversive 
 of all progression, cloudily involved the thoughts, as 
 well as the expressions, of this ingenious lady ; for 
 the award of Dr. Johnson, notwithstanding it con- 
 tained high praise and encouragement for the re- 
 vision of the treatise, frankly avows, " that her 
 notions, though manifesting a depth of penetration, 
 and a nicety of remark, such as Locke or Pascal
 
 MRS. CHAPONE. 
 
 might be proud of, must everywhere be rendered 
 smoother and plainer ; and he doubts whether many 
 of them are very clear even to her own mind." 
 
 Probably the task which he thus pointed out to 
 her of development and explanation, was beyond the 
 boundary of her powers ; for though she lived 
 twenty years after the receipt of this counsel, the 
 work never was published. 
 
 MRS. CHAPONE. 
 
 Mrs. Chapone, too, had her own coteries, which, 
 though not sought by the young, and, perhaps, fled 
 from by the gay, were rational, instructive, and 
 social ; and it was not with self-approbation that 
 they could ever be deserted. But the search of 
 greater gaiety, and higher fashion, rarely awaits that 
 award. 
 
 The meetings, in truth, at her dwelling, from 
 her palpable and organic deficiency in health and 
 strength for their sustenance, though they never 
 lacked of sense or taste, always wanted spirit ; a 
 want which cast over them a damp that made the 
 same interlocutors, who elsewhere grouped audi- 
 ences around them from their fame as discourses,
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 appear to be assembled here merely for the grave 
 purpose of performing a duty. 
 
 Yet here were to be seen Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. 
 Carter, Hannah More, the clever family of the 
 Burroughs, the classically lively Sir William Pepys, 
 and the ingenious and virtuous Mrs. Barbauld. 
 
 But though the dignity of her mind demanded, 
 as it deserved, the respect of some return to the 
 visits which her love of society induced her to pay, 
 it was a tte a tdte alone that gave pleasure to the 
 intercourse with Mrs. Chapone : her sound under- 
 standing, her sagacious observations, her turn to 
 humour, and the candour of her affectionate nature, 
 all then came into play without effort : and her 
 ease of mind, when freed from the trammels of 
 doing the honours of reception, seemed to soften off, 
 even to herself, her corporeal infirmities. It was 
 thus that she struck Dr. Burney with the sense of her 
 worth ; and seemed portraying in herself the original 
 example whence the precepts had been drawn, for 
 forming the unsophisticated female character that 
 are displayed in the author's Letters on the improve- 
 ment of the mind.
 
 SIR WILLIAM WELLE K PEPYS. 285 
 
 SIR WILLIAM WELLER PEPYS. 
 
 But the meetings of this sort, to which sarcasm, 
 sport, or envy have given the epithet of blueism, 
 that Dr. Burney most frequently and the latest 
 attended, were those at the house of Mr., since 
 Sir William Weller Pepys. 
 
 The passion of Sir William for literature, his ad- 
 miration of talents, and his rapturous zeal for genius, 
 made him receive whoever could gratify any of those 
 propensities, with an enchantment of pleasure that 
 seemed to carry him into higher regions. The par- 
 ties at his house formed into little, separate, and 
 chosen groups, less awful than at Mrs. Montagu's, 
 and less awkward than at Mrs. Vesey's : and he 
 glided adroitly from one of these groups to another, 
 till, after making the round of politeness necessary 
 for the master of the house, his hospitality felt ac- 
 quitted of its devoirs ; and he indulged, without 
 further restraint, in the ardent delight of fixing his 
 standard for the evening in the circle the most to 
 his taste : leaving to his serenely acquiescent wife 
 the more forbearing task of equalizing attention. 
 To do that, indeed, beyond what was exacted by 
 good breeding for the high, and by kindness for
 
 286 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 the insignificant part of his guests, would have been 
 a discipline to all his feelings, that would have con- 
 verted those parties, that were his pride and his joy, 
 into exercises of the severest penitence. 
 
 But while an animated reciprocation of ideas in 
 conversation, a lively memory of early anecdotes, 
 and a boundless readiness at recital of the whole 
 mass of English poets, formed the gayest enjoyment 
 of his chosen and happiest hours, the voice of justice 
 must raise him still higher for solid worth. His 
 urbanity was universal. He never looked so charmed 
 as when engaged in some good office : and his cha- 
 rities were as expansive as the bounty of those 
 who possessed more than double his income. So 
 sincere, indeed, was his benevolence, that it seemed 
 as much a part of himself as his limbs, and could 
 have been torn from him with little less difficulty.* 
 
 * The means for charitable contributions upon so liberal a 
 scale as those of Sir W. W. Pepys, may, perhaps, be deduced, 
 by analogy, from his wise and rare spirit of calculation : how to 
 live with the Greater and the Richer, and yet escape either the 
 risk of ruin, or the charge of meanness. " When I think it 
 right," said he, in a visit which he made to this Memorialist, after 
 walking, and alone, at eighty-five, from Gloucester-place to Bol- 
 ton-street, about three weeks before his death, " When I think
 
 SOAME JENYNS. 287 
 
 SOAME JENYNS. 
 
 Amongst the Bouquets, as Dr. Burney denomi- 
 nated the fragrant flatteries courteously lavished, in 
 its day, on the Memoirs of an Heiress, few were 
 more odorous to him than those offered by the famous 
 old Wits, Soame Jenyns and Owen Cambridge. 
 
 Soame Jenyns, at the age of seventy-eight, con- 
 descended to make interest with Mrs. Ord to 
 arrange an acquaintance for him, at her house in 
 Queen Ann-street, with the father and the daughter. 
 
 it right, whether for the good of my excellent children, or for 
 my own pleasure, or for my little personal dignity, to invite 
 some wealthy Noble to dine with me, I make it a point not to 
 starve my family, or my poor pensioners, for a year afterwards, by 
 emulating his lordship's, or his grace's, table-fare. I give, there- 
 fore, but a few dishes, and two small courses ; all my care is, that 
 every thing shall be well served, and the best of its kind. And 
 when we sit down, I frankly tell them my plan ; upon which my 
 guests, more nattered by that implied acknowledgment of their 
 superior rank and rent-roll, than they could possibly be by any 
 attempt at emulation ; and happy to find that they shall make no 
 breach in my domestic economy and comfort, immediately fall to, 
 with an appetite that would surprise you ! and that gives me the 
 greatest gratification. I do not suppose that they anywhere make 
 a more hearty meal."
 
 288 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Soame Jenyns is so well known as an author, and 
 was in his time so eminent as a wit ; and his praise 
 gave such pleasure to Dr. Burney, that another 
 genuine letter, written for Mr. Crisp at the moment, 
 with an account of the meeting, will be here abridged, 
 as characteristically marking the parental gratifica- 
 tion of the Doctor. 
 
 To SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ. 
 Chesington. 
 
 My dear Mr. Crisp will be impatient, I know, 
 for a history of the long-planned rencounter with 
 the famed Soame Jenyns. 
 
 My father was quite enchanted at his request j 
 and no wonder ! for who could have expected such 
 civil curiosity from so renowned an old wit ? 
 
 We were late ; my father could not be early : 
 but I was not a little disconcerted to find, instead 
 of Mr. Soame Jenyns all alone by himself, a room 
 full of company ; not in groups, nor yet in a circle, 
 but seated square ; i. e. close to the wainscot, 
 leaving a vacancy in the middle of the apartment 
 sufficient for dancing three or four cotillons. 
 
 Mrs. Ord almost ran to the door to receive us,
 
 SOAME JENYNS. 289 
 
 crying out, " Why have you been so late, Dr. Bur- 
 ney ? We have been waiting for you this hour. I 
 was afraid there was some mistake. Mr. Soame 
 Jenyns has been dying with impatience for the 
 arrival of Miss Burney. Some of us thought she 
 was naughty, and would not come ; others thought 
 it was only coquetry. But, however, my dear Miss 
 Burney, let us repair the lost time as quickly as we 
 can, and introduce you to one another without fur- 
 ther delay." 
 
 You may believe how happy I was at this " some 
 thought," and " others thought," which instantly be- 
 trayed that every body was apprised they were to 
 witness this grand encounter : And, to mark it still 
 more strongly, every one, contrary to all present 
 custom, stood up, as if to see the sight ! 
 
 I really felt so abashed at meeting so famous an 
 author with such publicity ; and so much ashamed 
 of the almost ridiculously undue ceremony of the 
 rising, that I knew not what to do, nor how to 
 comport myself. But they all still kept staringly 
 upright, till Mr. Jenyns, who was full dressed in a 
 court suit, of apricot-coloured silk, lined with white 
 satin, made all the slow speed in his power, from the 
 
 VOL. n. u
 
 290 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 other end of the room, to accost me ; and he then 
 could he do less thus urged? began an harangue 
 the most elegantly complimentary, upon the plea- 
 sure, and the honour, and the what not ? of seeing, 
 my dear daddy, your very obedient and obsequious 
 humble servant, and spinster, F. B. 
 
 I made all possible reverences, and endeavoured 
 to get to a seat ; but Mrs. Ord, when I turned from 
 him, took my hand, and led me, in solemn form, to 
 what seemed to be the group of honour, to present 
 me to Mrs. Soame Jenyns, who, with all the rest, 
 was still immoveably standing ! The reverences were 
 repeated here, and returned ; but in silence, how- 
 ever, on both sides ; so they did very well that is, 
 they were only dull. 
 
 I then hoped to escape to my dear Mrs. Thrale, 
 who most invitingly held out her hand to me, and 
 said, pointing to a chair by her own, "Must I, too, 
 make interest to be introduced to Miss Burney ?" 
 
 This, however, was not allowed ; for my dear 
 Lady Clement Cotterel, Mrs. Ord, again taking my 
 hand, and parading me to a sofa, said, " Come, Miss 
 Burney, and let me place you by Mrs. Buller."
 
 SOAME JENYNS. 291 
 
 I was glad by this time to be placed any where ; 
 for not till I was thus accommodated, did the com- 
 pany, en masse, re-seat themselves ! 
 
 Mr. Cambridge, senior, then advanced to speak 
 to me ; but before I could answer, or, rather, hear 
 him, Mrs. Ord again summoned poor Mr. Jenyns, 
 and made him my right hand neighbour on the sofa, 
 saying, " There, Mr. Jenyns ! and there, Miss Bur- 
 ney! now I have put you fairly together, I have 
 done with you ! " 
 
 This dear, good Mrs. Ord ! what a mistaken road 
 was this for bring us into acquaintance ! I verily 
 think Mr. Jenyns was almost out of countenance 
 himself; for he had probably said all his say; and 
 would have been as glad of a new subject, and a new 
 companion, as I could have been myself. 
 
 To my left hand neighbour I had never before 
 been presented. Mrs. Buller is tall and elegant in 
 her person, genteel and ugly in her face, and abrupt 
 and singular in her manners. She is, however, very 
 clever, sprightly, and witty, and much in vogue. 
 She is, also, a Greek scholar, a celebrated traveller 
 in search of foreign customs and persons, and every 
 way original, in her knowledge and her enterprising 
 way of life. And she has had the maternal heroism 
 
 u 2
 
 292 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 which with me is her first quality of being 
 the guide of her young son in making the grand 
 tour. 
 
 Mr. Soame Jenyns, thus again called upon, re- 
 solved, after a pause, not to be called upon in 
 vain ; and therefore, with the chivalrous courtesy 
 that he seemed to think the call demanded, began 
 an eulogy unrivalled, I think, in exuberance and 
 variety of animated phraseology. All creation in 
 praise seemed to open to his fancy ! No human 
 being had ever begun Cecilia, or Evelina, who had 
 power to lay them down unread : pathos, humour, 
 interest, moral, contrast of character, of manners, 
 of language O ! such millejolis choses ! 
 
 I heard, however, but the leading words which 
 for I see your arch smile ! you will say I have 
 not failed to retain ! though every body else, the 
 whole room being attentively dumb, probably heard 
 how they were strung together. And indeed, my 
 dear father, who was quite delighted, says the pane- 
 gyric was as witty as it was flattering. But for 
 myself, had I been carried to a theatre, and perched 
 upon a stool, to hear a public oration upon my sim- 
 ple penmanship, I could hardly have been more 
 confounded. 1 bowed my head, after the first three
 
 SOAME JENYNS. 293 
 
 or four sentences, by way of marking that I thought 
 he had done : but done he had not the more ! I 
 then turned away to the other side, hoping to re- 
 lieve him as well as myself; for I am sure he must 
 have been full as much worried ; but I only came 
 upon Mrs. Buller, who took up the eloge just where 
 Mr. Jenyns, for want of breath, let it drop ; splen- 
 didly saying, how astonishing it was, that in a nation 
 the most divided of any in the known world, alike 
 in literature and in politics, any living pen could 
 be found to bring about a universal harmony of 
 opinion. 
 
 You will only, as usual, laugh, I know, my dear 
 Mr. Crisp, and rather exult than be sorry for my 
 poor embarrassed phiz during this playful duet. So 
 also do I, too, now it is over ; and feel grateful to 
 the inflictors : but, for all that, I was tempted to 
 wish either them or myself in the Elysian fields for 
 I won't say at Jericho during the infliction, And 
 indeed, as to this present evening, the extraordinary 
 things that were sported by Mr. Jenyns, and seconded 
 by Mrs. Buller, would have brought blushes into 
 the practised cheeks of Agujari or of Garrick. I 
 changed so often from hot to cold, between the 
 shame of insufficiency, and the consciousness that
 
 294 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 while they engaged every ear themselves, they put 
 me forward to engage every eye, that I felt now in 
 a fever, and now in an ague, from the awkwardness 
 of appearing thus expressly summoned to 
 
 " Sit attentive to my own applause ! " 
 
 and my dear father himself, with all his gratified 
 approbation, said I really, at times, looked quite 
 ill. Mrs. Thrale told me, afterwards, she should 
 have come to naturalize me with a little common 
 chat, but that I had been so publicly destined for 
 Soame Jenyns before my arrival, that she did not 
 dare interfere ! 
 
 At length, however, finding they seemed but 
 to address a breathing statue, they entered into 
 a discussion that was a most joyful relief to me, 
 upon foreign and English customs ; and especially 
 upon the rarity, in England, of good conversation ; 
 from the perpetual intervention of politics, always 
 noisy ; or of dissipation, always frivolous. 
 
 Here they were joined by Mr. Cambridge, who, 
 as all the world * knows, is an intimate friend of 
 
 * Mr. Cambridge was a potent contributor to the periodical 
 paper called The World ; for which Mr. Jenyns, also, occasionally 
 wrote.
 
 SOAME JENYNS. 295 
 
 Soame Jenyns ; and who is always truly original 
 and entertaining : but imagine my surprise surprise 
 and delight ! in a room and a company like this, 
 where all, except Mr. Cambridge and Mr. Jenyns, 
 were of the beau monde of the present day, sud- 
 denly to hear pronounced the name of my dear Mr. 
 Crisp ! for, in the midst of this discourse upon cus- 
 toms and conversations in different countries, Mr. 
 Cambridge, who asserted that every man, possessing 
 steadiness with spirit, might live in this great nation 
 exactly as he pleased ; either with friends or with 
 strangers, either in public or in solitude, smilingly 
 illustrated his remark, in calling upon my father to 
 second him, by reciting the example of Mr. Crisp ! 
 I almost jumped with pleasure and astonishment at 
 the sound of that name, and the praise with which, 
 from the mover and the seconder, it was instantly 
 accompanied. How eloquent grew my father ! but 
 here, I know, I must stop. 
 
 When the party broke up, Mr. Jenyns thought it 
 necessary or, at least, thought it would so be deemed 
 by Mrs. Ord, to recapitulate, though with concentra- 
 tion, his panegyric of the highly-honoured Cecilia. 
 And Mrs. Buller renewed, also, her civilities, and 
 hoped " I would not look strange upon them !" for
 
 296 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 I looked, my dear father told me afterwards, all the 
 colours of the rainbow ; adding, " Why Fanny, 
 
 " ' I'd not look at all, if I couldn't look better I '" * 
 
 But how I blush when I think of Mrs. Boscawen, 
 Mrs. and Miss Thrale, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Garrick, 
 Miss More, Mrs. Chapone, Miss Gregory t nay, 
 Mrs. Montagu herself being called upon to a scene 
 such as this, not as personages of the drama ; but as 
 auditresses and spectatresses ! I can only hope they 
 all laugh, for, if not, I am sure they must all scoff. 
 
 Dear, good mistaken Mrs. Ord ! But my father 
 says such panegyric, and such panegyrists, may well 
 make amends for a little want of tact. 
 
 But I have not told you what was said by 
 Mr. Cambridge, and I dare not! lest you should 
 think that fervent friend a little non-compos! for 
 'twas higher and more piquant in eulogy than all 
 the rest put together. 'Twas to my father, how- 
 ever, that he uttered his lively sentiments ; for he 
 studies little me as much as my little books ; and he 
 knew how he should double my gratification,' by 
 
 * Swift's Long- Eared Letter, 
 f Now Mrs. Alison, of Edinburgh.
 
 SOAME JENYNS. 29? 
 
 wafting his kind praise to me secretly, softly, and 
 unsuspectedly, through so genial a channel. 
 
 How I wish you could catch a glimpse of my 
 dear father upon these occasions ! and see the con- 
 scious smiles, which, however decorously suppressed 
 by pursing his lips, gleam through every turn, every 
 line, every bit and morsel of his kind countenance 
 during the processes of these agreeable flummeries 
 for such, I know, my dear Mr. Crisp will call them 
 and, helas! but too truly! Agreeable, however, 
 they are ! 'twere vain to deny that. And here O 
 how unexpected ! I am always trembling in fear of 
 a reverse but not from you, my dearest Mr. Crisp, 
 will it come to your faithful, F. B. 
 
 Pleasant to Dr. Burney as was this tide of favour, 
 by which he was exhilarated through this second 
 publication of his daughter, it had not yet reached 
 the climax to which it soon afterwards arose ; which 
 was the junction of the two first men of the country, 
 if not of the age, in proclaiming each to the other, 
 at an assembly at Miss Moncton's, where they seated 
 themselves by her side, their kind approvance of this 
 work ; and proclaiming it, each animated by the
 
 298 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 spirit of the other, " in the noblest terms that our 
 language, in its highest glory, is capable of emit- 
 ting/' 
 
 Such were the words of Dr. Johnson himself, in 
 speaking afterwards to Dr. Burney of Mr. Burke's 
 share in this flattering dialogue ; to which Dr. 
 Burney ever after looked back as to the height of 
 his daughter's literary honours ; though he could 
 scarcely then foresee the extent, and the expansion, 
 of that indulgent partiality with which each of them, 
 ever after, invariably distinguished her to the last 
 hour of their lives. 
 
 Thus salubriously for Dr. Burney had been cheered 
 the opening winter of 1782, by the celebrated old 
 Wits, Owen Cambridge and Soame Jenyns ; through 
 the philanthropy and good humour which cheered 
 for themselves and their friends the winter of their 
 own lives : and thus radiant with a warmth which 
 Sol in his summer's glory could not deepen, had 
 gone on the same winter to 1783, through the 
 glowing suffrage of the two first luminaries that 
 brightened the constellation of genius of the reign 
 of George the Third, Dr. Johnson and Edmund 
 Burke- 
 But not in fair harmony of progression with this
 
 MRS. DELANY. 299 
 
 commencement proceeded the year 1783 1 its April 
 had a harshness which its January had escaped. It 
 brought with it no fragrance of happiness to Dr. 
 Burney. With a blight opened this fatal spring, 
 and with a blast it closed ! 
 
 MRS. THRALE. 
 
 All being now, though in the dark, and unan- 
 nounced, arranged for the determined alliance, Mrs. 
 Thrale abandoned London as she had forsaken 
 Streatham, and, in the beginning of April, retired 
 with her three eldest daughters to Bath ; there to 
 reside, till she could complete a plan, then in agita- 
 tion, for superseding the maternal protection with 
 all that might yet be attainable of propriety and 
 dignity. 
 
 Dr. Burney was deeply hurt by this now palpably 
 threatening event: the virtues of Mrs. Thrale had 
 borne an equal poize in his admiration with her 
 talents ; both were of an extraordinary order. He 
 had praised, he had loved, he had sung them. Nor 
 was he by any means so severe a disciplinarian over 
 the claims of taste, or the elections of the heart, as
 
 300 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 to disallow their unalienable rights of being candidly 
 heard, and favourably listened to, in the disposal of 
 our persons and our fates; her choice, therefore, 
 would have roused no severity, though it might 
 justly have excited surprise, had her birth, fortune, 
 and rank in life alone been at stake. But Mrs. 
 Thrale had ties that appeared to him to demand 
 precedence over all feelings, all inclinations in five 
 daughters, who were juvenile heiresses. 
 
 To Bath, however, she went ; and truly grieved 
 was the prophetic spirit of Dr. Burney at her depar- 
 ture ; which he looked upon as the catastrophe of 
 Streatham. 
 
 MRS. DELANY. 
 
 From circumstances peculiarly fortunate with 
 regard to the time of their operation, some solace 
 opened to Dr. Burney for himself, and still more to 
 his parental kindness for this Memorialist, in this 
 season of disappointment and deprivation, from a 
 beginning intercourse which now took place for 
 both, with the fairest model of female excellence 
 of the days that were passed, Mrs. Delany.* 
 
 * Daughter of John Granville, Esq., and niece of Pope's 
 Granville, the then Lord Lansdowne, " of every Muse the 
 Friend."
 
 MRS. DELANY. 301 
 
 Such were the words by which Mrs. Delany had 
 been pictured to this Memorialist by Mr. Burke, at 
 Miss Moncton's assembly ; and such was the impres- 
 sion of her character under which this connexion 
 was begun by Dr. Burney. 
 
 The proposition for an acquaintance, and the 
 negociation for its commencement between the par- 
 ties, had been committed, by Mrs. Delany herself, 
 to Mrs. Chapone ; whose literary endowments stood 
 not higher, either in public or in private estimation, 
 than the virtues of her mind, and the goodness of 
 her heart. Both were evinced by her popular writ- 
 ings for the female sex, at a time when its education, 
 whether from Timidity or Indolence, required a spur, 
 far more certainly than its cynic traducers can prove 
 that now, from Ambition or Temerity, it calls for a 
 bridle. 
 
 As Dr. Burney could not make an early visit, 
 and Mrs. Delany could not receive a late one, Mrs. 
 Chapone was commissioned to engage the daughter 
 to a quiet dinner ; and the Doctor to join the party 
 in the evening. 
 
 This was assented to with the utmost pleasure, 
 both father and daughter being stimulated in curi- 
 osity and expectance by Mr. Crisp, who had formerly
 
 302 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 known and admired Mrs. Delany, and had been 
 a favourite with her bosom friend, the Dowager 
 Duchess of Portland ; and with some other of her 
 elegant associates. 
 
 As this venerable lady still lives in the memoirs 
 and correspondence of Dean Swift,* an account of 
 this interview, abridged from a letter to Mr. Crisp, 
 will not, perhaps, be unwillingly received, as a 
 genuine picture of an aged lady of rare accomplish- 
 ments, and high bred manners, of olden times ; who 
 had strikingly been distinguished by Dean Swift, and 
 was now energetically esteemed by Mr. Burke. 
 
 Under the wing of the respectable Mrs. Chapone, 
 this Memorialist was first conveyed to the dwelling 
 of Mrs. Delany in St. James's Place. 
 
 Mrs. Delany was alone ; but the moment her 
 guests were announced, with an eagerness that seemed 
 forgetful of her years, and that denoted the most 
 flattering pleasure, she advanced to the door of her 
 apartment to receive them. 
 
 Mrs. Chapone presented to her by name the 
 Memorialist, whose hand she took with almost 
 youthful vivacity, saying : " Miss Burney must 
 
 * See Sir Walter Scott's Life of Swift.
 
 MRS. DEL ANY. 303 
 
 pardon me if I give her an old-fashioned reception ; 
 for I know nothing new ! " And she kindly saluted 
 her. 
 
 With a grace of manner the most striking, she 
 then placed Mrs. Chapone on the sofa, and led the 
 Memorialist to a chair next to her own, saying : 
 " Can you forgive, Miss Burney, the very great liberty 
 I have taken of asking you to my little dinner ? But 
 you could not come in the morning j and I wished 
 so impatiently to see one from whom I have received 
 such very extraordinary pleasure, that I could not 
 bear to put it off to another day : for I have no days, 
 now, to throw away ! And if I waited for the even- 
 ing, I might, perhaps, have company. And I hear 
 so ill in mixt society, that I cannot, as I wish to 
 do, attend to more than one at a time ; for age, 
 now, is making me more stupid even than I am by 
 nature. And how grieved and mortified I should 
 have been to have known I had Miss Burney in 
 the room, and not to have heard what she said ! " 
 
 Tone, manner, and look, so impressively marked 
 the sincerity of this humility, as to render it, her 
 time of life, her high estimation in the world, and 
 her rare acquirements considered, as touching as it 
 was unexpected to her new guest.
 
 304 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mrs. Delany still was tall, though some of her 
 height was probably lost. Not much, however, for 
 she was remarkably upright. There were little re- 
 mains of beauty left in feature ; but benevolence, 
 softness, piety, and sense, were all, as conversation 
 brought them into play, depicted in her face, with a 
 sweetness of look and manner, that, notwithstanding 
 her years, were nearly fascinating. 
 
 The report generally spread of her being blind, 
 added surprise to pleasure at such active personal 
 civilities in receiving her visitors. Blind, however, 
 she palpably was not. She was neither led about the 
 room, nor afraid of making any false step, or mis- 
 take ; and the turn of her head to those whom she 
 meant to address, was constantly right. The ex- 
 pression, also, of her still pleasing, though dim eyes, 
 told no sightless tale ; but, on the contrary, mani- 
 fested that she had by no means lost the view of 
 the countenance any more than of the presence of 
 her company. 
 
 But the fine perception by which, formerly, she 
 had drawn, painted, cut out, worked, and read, was 
 obscured ; and of all those accomplishments in which 
 she had excelled, she was utterly deprived. 
 
 Of their former possession, however, there were
 
 MRS. DEL ANY. 305 
 
 ample proofs to demonstrate their value ; her apart- 
 ments were hung round with pictures of her own 
 painting, beautifully designed and delightfully 
 coloured ; and ornaments of her own execution 
 of striking elegance, in cuttings and variegated 
 stained paper, embellished her chimney-piece ; partly 
 copied from antique studies, partly of fanciful inven- 
 tion ; but all equally in the chaste style of true and 
 refined good taste. 
 
 At the request of Mrs. Chapone, she instantly and 
 unaffectedly brought forth a volume of her newly- 
 invented Mosaic flower-work j an art of her own 
 creation ; consisting of staining paper of all possible 
 colours, and then cutting it into strips, so finely and 
 delicately, that when pasted on a dark ground, in 
 accordance to the flower it was to produce, it had 
 the appearance of a beautiful painting ; except that 
 it rose to the sight with a still richer effect : and 
 this art Mrs. Delany had invented at seventy-five 
 years of age ! * 
 
 It was so long, she said, after its suggestion, be- 
 fore she brought her work into any system, that in 
 
 * This invaluable unique work has lately been purchased by 
 
 Hall, Esq.; a son-in-law of Mrs. Delany's favourite niece, 
 
 Mrs. Waddington. 
 
 VOL. II. X
 
 306 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 the first year she finished only two flowers : but in 
 the second she accomplished sixteen ; and in the 
 third, one hundred and sixty. And after that, 
 many more. They were all from nature, the fresh 
 gathered, or still growing plant, being placed imme- 
 diately before her for imitation. Her collection 
 consisted of whatever was most choice and rare in 
 flowers, plants, and weeds ; or, more properly speak- 
 ing, field flowers ; for, as Thomson ingeniously 
 says, it is the " dull incurious " alone who stigmatise 
 these native offsprings of Flora by the degrading 
 title of weeds. 
 
 Her plan had been to finish one thousand, for a 
 complete herbal ; but its progress had been stopped 
 short, by the feebleness of her sight, when she was 
 within only twenty of her original scheme. 
 
 She had always marked the spot whence she took, 
 or received, her model, with the date of the year 
 on the corner of each flower, in different coloured 
 letters ; " but the last year," she meekly said, " when 
 I found my eyes becoming weaker and weaker, and 
 threatening to fail me before my plan could be com- 
 pleted, I cut out my initials, M. D., in white, for 
 I fancied myself nearly working in my winding 
 sheet!"
 
 MRS. DELANY. 307 
 
 There was something in her smile at this melan- 
 choly speech that blended so much cheerfulness with 
 resignation, as to render it, to the Memorialist, 
 extremely affecting. 
 
 Mrs. Chapone inquired whether her eyes had 
 been injured by any cold ? 
 
 Instantly, at the question, recalling her spirits, 
 " No, no ! '* she replied ; " nothing has attacked 
 them but my reigning malady, old age ! 'Tis, how- 
 ever, only what we are all striving to obtain ! And I, 
 for one, have found it a very comfortable state. Yes- 
 terday, nevertheless, my peculiar infirmity was rather 
 distressing to me. I received a note from young 
 Mr. Montagu,* written in the name of his aunt,t 
 that required an immediate answer. But how could 
 I give it to what I could not even read ? My good 
 Astleyt was, by great chance, gone abroad j and 
 my housemaid can neither write nor read ; and my 
 man happened to be in disgrace, so I could not do 
 him such a favour [smiling] as to be obliged to 
 him ! I resolved, therefore, to try, once more, to 
 read myself; and I hunted out my old long-laid-by 
 magnifier. But it would not do ! it was all in vain ! 
 
 * Since Lord Rokeby. f Mrs. Montagu. 
 
 ^ Now Mrs. Agnew, the amanuensis and attendant of Mrs* 
 Delany. 
 
 x 2
 
 308 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 I then ferretted out a larger glass ; and with that, I 
 had the great satisfaction to make out the first word, 
 but before I could get at the second, even the 
 first became a blank ! My eyes, however, have served 
 me so long and so well, that I should be very un- 
 grateful to quarrel with them. I then, luckily 
 recollected that my cook is a scholar ! So I sent for 
 her, and we made out the billet together which, 
 indeed, deserved a much better answer than I, or my 
 cook either, scholar as she is, could bestow. But my 
 dear niece will be with me ere long, and then I shall 
 not be quite such a bankrupt to my correspondents." 
 
 Bankrupt, indeed, was she not, to gaiety, to good 
 humour, or to polished love of giving pleasure to 
 her social circle, any more than to keeping pace with 
 her correspondents. 
 
 When Mrs. Chapone mentioned, with much 
 regret, that a previous evening engagement must 
 force her away at half-past seven o'clock, " Half-past 
 seven?" Mrs. Delany repeated, with an arch smile; 
 " O fie ! fie ! Mrs. Chapone I why Miss Larolles 
 would not for the world go anywhere before eight 
 or nine ! " * 
 
 And when the Memorialist, astonished as well as 
 
 * Miss Larolles, now, would say eleven or twelve.
 
 MKS. DEL A NY. 309 
 
 diverted at such a sally from Mrs. Delany, yet 
 desirous, from embarrassment, not to seem to have 
 noticed it, turned to look at some of the pictures, 
 and stopped at a charming portrait of Madame de 
 Savigne, to remark its expressive mixture of sweet- 
 ness, intelligence, and vivacity, the smile of Mrs. 
 Delany became yet archer, as she sportively said, 
 " Yes ! she looks very enjouee, as Captain Aresby 
 would say." 
 
 This was not a speech to lessen, or meant to 
 lessen, either surprise or amusement in the Memo- 
 rialist, who, nevertheless, quietly continued her 
 examination of the pictures ; till she stopped at a por- 
 trait that struck her to have an air of spirit and genius, 
 that induced her to inquire whom it represented. 
 
 Mrs. Delany did not mention the name, but only 
 answered, " I don't know how it is, Mrs. Chapone, 
 but I can never, of late, look at that picture without 
 thinking of poor Belfield." 
 
 This was heard with a real start though certainly 
 not of pain! But that Mrs. Delany, at her very 
 advanced time of life, eighty-three, should thus have 
 personified to herself the characters of a book so 
 recently published, mingled in its pleasure nearly 
 as much astonishment as gratification.
 
 310 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mrs. Delany still clear-sighted to countenance, 
 at least seemed to read her thoughts, and, kindly 
 taking her hand, smilingly said : " You must forgive 
 us, Miss Burney ! it is not quite a propriety, I own, 
 to talk of these people before you ; but we don't 
 know how to speak at all, 'now, without naming 
 them, they run so in our heads ! " 
 
 Early in the evening, they were joined by Mrs. 
 Delany's beloved and loving friend, the Duchess 
 -Dowager of Portland ; a lady who, though not as 
 exquisitely pleasing, any more than as interesting by 
 age as Mrs. Delany, who, born with the century, 
 was now in her 83d year, had yet a physiognomy 
 that, when lighted up by any discourse in which she 
 took a part from personal feelings, was singularly 
 expressive of sweetness, sense, and dignity ; three 
 words that exactly formed the description of her 
 manners ; which were not merely free from pride, 
 but free, also, from its mortifying deputy, affability. 
 
 Mrs. Delany, that pattern of the old school in 
 high politeness, was now, it is probable, in the 
 sphere whence Mr. Burke had signalized her by 
 that character ; for her reception of the Duchess of 
 Portland, and her conduct to that noble friend, 
 strikingly displayed the self-possession that good
 
 MRS. DELANY. 311 
 
 taste with good breeding can bestow, even upon the 
 most timid mind, in doing the honours of home to 
 a superior. 
 
 She welcomed her Grace with as much respectful 
 ceremony as if this had been a first visit ; to manifest 
 that, what in its origin, she had taken as an honour, 
 she had so much true humility as to hold to be 
 rather more than less so in its continuance ; yet she 
 constantly exerted a spirit, in pronouncing her op- 
 posing or concurring sentiments, in the conversation 
 that ensued, that shewed as dignified an independence 
 of character, as it marked a sincerity as well as hap- 
 piness of friendship, in the society of her elevated 
 guest. 
 
 The Memorialist was presented to her Grace, 
 who came with the expectation of meeting her, in 
 the most gentle and flattering terms by Mrs. De- 
 lany ; and she was received with kindness rather than 
 goodness. The watchful regard of the Duchess for 
 Mrs. Delany, soon pointed out the marked partiality 
 which that revered lady was already conceiving for 
 her new visitor ; and the Duchess, pleased to abet, 
 as salubrious, every cheering propensity in her be- 
 loved friend, immediately disposed herself to second 
 it with the most obliging alacrity.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mrs. Delany, gratified by this apparent approv- 
 ance, then started the subject of the recent publica- 
 tion, with a glow of pleasure that, though she uttered 
 her favouring opinions with the most unaffected, 
 the chastest simplicity, made the "eloquent blood" 
 rush at every flattering sentence into her pale, soft, 
 aged cheeks, as if her years had been as juvenile as 
 her ideas, and her kindness. 
 
 Animated by the animation of her friend, the 
 Duchess gaily increased it by her own ; and the 
 warm-hearted Mrs. Chapone still augmented its 
 energy, by her benignant delight that she had 
 brought such a scene to bear for her young com- 
 panion : while all three sportively united in talking 
 of the characters in the publication, as if speaking of 
 persons and incidents of their own peculiar know- 
 ledge. 
 
 On the first pause upon a theme which, though 
 unavoidably embarrassing, could not, in hands 
 of such noble courtesy, that knew how to make 
 flattery subservient to elegance, and praise to deli- 
 cacy, be seriously distressing ; the deeply honoured, 
 though confused object of so much condescension, 
 seized the vacant moment for starting the name of 
 Mr. Crisp.
 
 MRS. DELANY. 313 
 
 Nothing could better propitiate the introduction 
 which Dr. Burney desired for himself to the corres- 
 pondent of Dean Swift, and the quondam acquaint- 
 ance of his early monitor, Mr. Crisp, than bringing 
 this latter upon the scene. 
 
 The Duchess now took the lead in the discourse, 
 and was charmed to hear tidings of a former friend, 
 who had been missed so long in the world as to be 
 thought lost. She inquired minutely into his actual 
 way of life, his health and his welfare ; and whether 
 he retained his fondness and high taste for all the 
 polite arts. 
 
 To the Memorialist this was a topic to give a 
 flow of spirits, that spontaneously banished the re- 
 serve and silence with strangers of which she stood 
 generally accused : and her history of the patriarchal 
 attachment of Mr. Crisp to Dr. Burney, and its 
 benevolent extension to every part of his family, 
 while it revived Mr. Crisp to the memories and 
 regard of the Duchess and of Mrs. Delany, stimu- 
 lated their wishes to know the man Dr. Burney 
 who alone, of all the original connexions of Mr. 
 Crisp, had preserved such power over his affections, 
 as to be a welcome inmate to his almost hermetically 
 closed retreat.
 
 314 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 And the account of Chesington Hall, its insulated 
 and lonely position, its dilapidated state, its nearly 
 inaccessible roads, its quaint old pictures, and 
 straight long garden paths ; was as curious and 
 amusing to Mrs. Chapone, who was spiritedly awake 
 to whatever was romantic or uncommon, as the des- 
 cription of the chief of the domain was interesting 
 to those who had known him when he was as emi- 
 nently a man of the world, as he was now become, 
 singularly, the recluse of a village. 
 
 Such was the basis of the intercourse that thence- 
 forward took place between Dr. Burney and the 
 admirable Mrs. Delany ; who was not, from her 
 feminine and elegant character, and her skill in the 
 arts, more to the taste of Dr. Burney, than he 
 had the honour to be to her's, from his varied 
 acquirements, and his unstrained readiness to bring 
 them forth in social meetings. While his daughter, 
 who thus, by chance, was the happy instrument of 
 this junction, reaped from it a delight that was soon 
 exalted to even bosom felicity, from the indulgent 
 partiality with which that graceful pattern of olden 
 times met, received, and cherished the reverential 
 attachment which she inspired ; and which imper- 
 ceptibly graduated into a mutual, a trusting, a
 
 MR. CRISP. 315 
 
 sacred friendship ; as soothing, from his share in its 
 formation, to her honoured Mr. Crisp, as it was 
 delighting to Dr. Burney from its seasonable miti- 
 gation of the loss, the disappointment, the breaking 
 up of Streatham. 
 
 MR. CRISP. 
 
 But though this gently cheering, and highly hon- 
 ourable connexion, by its kindly operation, offered 
 the first mental solace to that portentous journey to 
 Bath, which with a blight had opened the spring of 
 1783 ; that blight was still unhealed in the excoria- 
 tion of its infliction, when a new incision of anguish, 
 more deeply cutting still, and more permanently 
 incurable, pierced the heart of Dr. Burney by 
 tidings from Chesington, that Mr. Crisp was taken 
 dangerously ill. 
 
 The ravages of the gout, which had long laid waste 
 the health, strength, spirits, and life-enjoying nerves 
 of this admirable man, now extended their baleful 
 devastations to the seats of existence, the head and 
 the breast ; wavering occasionally in their work, 
 with something of less relentless rigour, but never 
 abating in menace of fatality. 
 
 Susanna, now Mrs. Phillips, was at Chesington
 
 316 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 at the time of the seizure ; and to her gentle bosom, 
 and most reluctant pen, fell the sorrowing task of 
 announcing this quick-approaching calamity to Dr. 
 Burney, and all his house : and in the same unison 
 that had been their love, was now their grief. Sor- 
 row, save at the dissolution of conjugal or filial ties, 
 could go no deeper. The Doctor would have aban- 
 doned every call of business or interest, for pleasure 
 at such a period, had no call to make ! in order to 
 embrace and to attend upon his long dearest friend, 
 if his Susanna had not dissuaded him from so mourn- 
 ful an exertion, by representations of the uncertainty 
 of finding even a moment in which it might be safe 
 to risk any agitation to the sufferer ; whose pains 
 were so torturing, that he fervently and perpetually 
 prayed to heaven for the relief of death : while the 
 prayers for the dying were read to him daily by his 
 pious sister, Mrs. Gast. 
 
 And only by the most urgent similar remonstrances, 
 could the elder * or the younger t of the Doctor's 
 daughters be kept away ; so completely as a fond 
 father was Mr. Crisp loved by all. 
 
 * Mrs. Burney, of Bath. 
 
 f Charlotte, now Mrs. Broome ; the youngest daughter, Sa- 
 rah Harriet, was still a child.
 
 MR. CRISP. 317 
 
 But this Memorialist, to whom, for many pre- 
 ceding years, Mr. Crisp had rendered Chesington 
 a second, a tender, an always open, always inviting 
 home, was so wretched while withheld from seeking 
 once more his sight and his benediction, that Dr. 
 Burney could not long oppose her wishes. In some 
 measure, indeed, he sent her. as his own representa- 
 tive, by entrusting to her a letter full of tender 
 attachment and poignant grief from himself; which 
 he told her not to deliver, lest it should be oppres- 
 sive or too affecting ; but to keep in hand, for read- 
 ing more or less of it to him herself, according to 
 the strength, spirits, and wishes of his dying friend. 
 
 With this fondly-sad commission, she hastened 
 to Chesington ; where she found her Susanna, and 
 all the house, immersed in affliction : and where, 
 in about a week, she endured the heartfelt sorrow 
 of witnessing the departure of the first, the most 
 invaluable, the dearest Friend of her mourning 
 Father ; and the inestimable object of her own 
 chosen confidence, her deepest respect, and, from 
 her earliest youth, almost filial affection. 
 
 She had the support, however, of the soul-sooth- 
 ing sympathy of her Susanna ; and the tender con- 
 solation of having read to him, by intervals, nearly
 
 318 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 the whole of Dr. Burney's touching Farewell ! and 
 of having seen that her presence had been grateful 
 to him, even in the midst of his sufferings ; and of 
 inhaling the balmy kindness with which his nearly 
 final powers of utterance had called her " the dearest 
 thing to him on earth !" 
 
 This wound, in its acuteness to Dr. Burney, was 
 only less lacerating than that which had bled from 
 the stroke that had torn away from him the early 
 and adored partner of his heart. But the submissive 
 resignation and patient philosophy with which he 
 bore it, will best be exemplified by the following 
 extract from a letter, written, on this occasion, to 
 his second daughter ; whose quick feelings had as 
 yet! only once been strongly called forth; and 
 that nearly in childhood, on her maternal depriva- 
 tion j who knew not, therefore, enough of their force 
 to be guarded against their invasion : and who, in 
 the depth of her grief, had shut herself up in mourn- 
 ful seclusion ; for, blind to sickly foresight ! 
 neither the age nor the infirmities of Mr. Crisp had 
 worked upon her as preparatory to his exit. 
 
 His age, indeed, as it was unaccompanied by the 
 smallest diminution of his faculties, though he had 
 reached his seventy-sixth year, offered no mitigation
 
 MR. CIUSP. 319 
 
 to grief for his death ; though a general one, un- 
 doubtedly, to its shock. What we lament, is what 
 we lose ; what we lose, whether young or old, is 
 what we miss : it may justly, therefore, perhaps, be 
 affirmed, that youth and beauty, however more ele- 
 giacally they may be sung, are only by the Lover and 
 the Poet mourned over with stronger regret than 
 age and goodness. 
 
 The animadversions upon the excess of sorrow to 
 which this extract may give rise, must not induce 
 the Memorialist of Dr. Burney to spare herself from 
 their infliction, by withholding what she considers it 
 her bounden duty to produce, a document that stri- 
 kingly displays his tender parental kindness, his 
 patient wisdom, and his governed sensibility. 
 
 " To Miss BURNEY. 
 
 " * * I am much more afflicted than surprised at the 
 violence and duration of your sorrow for the terrible scenes and 
 events you have witnessed at Chesington ; and not only pity you, 
 but participate in all your feelings. Not an hour in the day has 
 passed as you will some time or other find since the fatal 
 catastrophe, in which I have not felt a pang for the irreparable 
 loss I have sustained. However, as something is due to the 
 living there is, perhaps, a boundary at which it is right to 
 endeavour to stop in lamenting the dead. It is very difficult, as
 
 320 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 I have found ! to exceed that boundary in our duty or atten- 
 tion, without its being- at the expense of others. I have experi- 
 enced the loss of one so dear to me as to throw me into the 
 utmost affliction of despondency which can be suffered without 
 insanity. But I had claims on my life, my reason, and my acti- 
 vity, which, joined to higher motives, drew me from the pit of 
 despair, and forced me, though with great difficulty, to rouse and 
 exert every nerve and faculty in answering them. 
 
 " It has been very well said of mental wounds, that they must 
 digest, like those of the body, before they can be healed. The 
 poultice of necessity can alone, perhaps, in some cases, bring on 
 this digestion ; but we should not impede it by caustics or corro- 
 sions. Let the wound be open a due time but not kept bare 
 with violence. 
 
 " To quit all metaphor, we must, alas ! try to diminish our 
 sorrow for one calamity to enable us to support another I A 
 general peace gives but time to refit for new war ; a mental blow, 
 or wound, is no more. So far, however, am I from blaming 
 your sorrow on the present occasion, that, in fact, I both love 
 and honour you for it ; and, therefore, will add no more on 
 that melancholy subject. With respect to the other, - - &c. &c. 
 
 It would be needless, it is hoped, to say that this 
 mild and admirable exhortation effected fully its 
 benevolent purpose. With grateful tears, and im- 
 mediate compliance to his will, she hastened to his 
 arms, received his tenderest welcome, and, quitting 
 her chamber seclusion, again joined the family if
 
 MR. CRISP. 321 
 
 not with immediate cheerfulness, at least with com- 
 posure : and again, upon his motion, and under his 
 loved wing, returned to the world j if not with in- 
 ward gaiety, with outward, yet true and unaffected 
 gratitude for the kindness with which it received her 
 back again to its circles : but Mr. Crisp was not 
 less gone, nor less internally lamented ! 
 
 What the Doctor intimates of the proofs she 
 would one day find of the continual occupation of 
 his thoughts by his departed friend, alludes to an 
 elegy to which he was then devoting every instant 
 he could snatch from his innumerable engagements j 
 and which, as a memorial of his friendship, was 
 soothing to his affliction. It opens with the following 
 lines. 
 
 "ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND. 
 
 " The guide and tutor of my early youth, 
 Whose word was wisdom, and whose wisdom, truth, 
 Whose cordial kindness, and whose active zeal 
 Full forty years I never ceas'd to feel ; 
 The Friend to whose abode I eager stole 
 To pour each inward secret of my soul ; 
 The dear companion of my leisure hours, 
 Whose cheerful looks, and intellectual powers, 
 VOL. II. Y
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Drove care, anxiety, and doubt away, 
 And all the fiends that on reflection prey, 
 Is now no more ! The features of that face 
 Where glow'd intelligence and manly grace ; 
 Those eyes which flash'd with intellectual fire 
 Kindled by all that genius could inspire 
 Those, those and all his pleasing powers are fled 
 To the cold, squalid mansions of the dead ! 
 This highly polished gem, which shone so bright, 
 Impervious now, eclips'd in viewless night 
 From earthly eye, irradiates no more 
 This nether sphere ! " 
 
 What follows, though in the same strain of genuine 
 grief and exalted friendship, is but an amplification 
 of these lines ; and too diffuse for any eyes but 
 those to which the object of the panegyric had been 
 familiar ; and which, from habitually seeing and 
 studying that honoured object, coveted, like Dr. 
 Burney himself, to dwell, to linger upon its excel- 
 lencies with fond reminiscence. 
 
 Mrs. Gast, the sister of Mr. Crisp, and Mrs. 
 Catherine Cooke, his residuary legatee, put up a 
 monument to his memory in the little church of 
 Chesington, for which Dr. Burney wrote the fol- 
 lowing epitaph.
 
 MR. CHISP. 323 
 
 To THE MEMORY 
 
 OP 
 
 SAMUEL CRISP, ESQ., 
 
 Who died April 24, 1783, aged 76. 
 May Heaven through our merciful REDEEMER receive his soul ! 
 
 Reader ! This rude and humble spot contains 
 The much lamented, much revered remains 
 Of one whose learning, judgment, taste, and sense, 
 Good-humour'd wit, and mild benevolence 
 Charm'd and enlighten'd all the hamlet round, 
 Wherever genius, worth, or want was found. 
 
 To few it is that bounteous heaven imparts 
 Such depth of knowledge, and such taste in arts ; 
 Such penetration, and enchanting powers 
 Of brightening social and convivial hours. 
 Had he, through life, been blest, by nature kind, 
 With health robust of body as of mind, 
 With skill to serve and charm mankind, so great 
 In arts, in science, letters, church, or state, 
 His fame the nation's annals had enroll'd, 
 And virtues to remotest ages told. 
 
 C. BURNEY. 
 
 And the following brief account of this event the 
 Doctor sent, in the ensuing May, to the news- 
 papers. 
 
 Last week died, at Chesington, in Surrey, whither he had 
 Y 2
 
 324 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 long- retired from the world, Samuel Crisp, Esq., aged 75, whose 
 loss will be for ever deplored by all those who were admitted 
 into his retreat, and had the happiness of enjoying his conversa- 
 tion ; which was rendered captivating by all that wit, learning, 
 profound knowledge of mankind, and a most exquisite taste in 
 the fine arts, as well as in all that embellishes human life, could 
 furnish. 
 
 And thus, from the portentous disappearance of 
 Mrs. Thrale, with a blight had opened this fatal 
 spring ; and thus, from the irreparable loss of Mr. 
 Crisp, with a blast it closed ! 
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 
 
 Even to his History of Music the Doctor knew 
 not, now, how to turn his attention ; Chesington 
 had so constantly been the charm, as well as the 
 retreat for its pursuit, and Chesington and Mr. 
 Crisp had seemed so indissolubly one, that it was 
 long ere the painful resolution could be gathered 
 of trying how to support what remained, when they 
 were sundered. 
 
 Of the two most intimate of his musical friends 
 after Mr. Crisp, Mr. Twining of Colchester came 
 less frequently than ever to town j and Mr. Bewley 
 of Massingham was too distant for any regularity
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 325 
 
 of even annual meetings. And those friends still 
 within his reach, in whom he took the deepest 
 interest, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, and Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, were too little conversant in music to be 
 usefully sought at this music-devoted period. They 
 had neither taste nor care for his art, and not the 
 smallest knowledge upon its subject. Yet this, 
 though for the moment, nearly a misfortune, was 
 not any impediment to friendship on either side : 
 Dr. Burney had too general a love of literature, as 
 well as of the arts, to limit his admiration, any more 
 than his acquirements, to his own particular cast ; 
 while the friends just mentioned regarded his musical 
 science but as a matter apart ; and esteemed and 
 loved him solely for the qualities that he possessed 
 in common with themselves. 
 
 Compelled was he, nevertheless, to endure the 
 altered Chesington ; where, happily, however, then 
 resided his tender Susanna ; whose sight was always 
 a charm, and whose converse had a balm that en- 
 abled him again to return to his work, though it had 
 lost, for the present, all voluntary influence over his 
 spirits. But choice was out of the question ; he 
 had a given engagement to fulfil ; and there was 
 no place so sacred from intrusion as Chesington.
 
 326 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Thither, therefore, he repaired ; and there, in 
 laborious study, he remained, till the season for his 
 professional toils called him again to St. Martin's- 
 street. 
 
 The first spur that urged his restoration to the 
 world, and its ways, was given through the lively 
 and frequent inquiries made after him and his 
 history by sundry celebrated foreigners, German, 
 Italian, and French. 
 
 BACH OF BERLIN. 
 
 Amongst his German correspondents, Dr. Burney 
 ranked first the super-eminent Emanuel Bach, com- 
 monly known by the appellation of Bach of Berlin ; 
 whose erudite depths in the science, and exquisite 
 taste in the art of music, seemed emulously com- 
 batting one with the other for precedence j so equal 
 was what he owed to inspiration and to study. 
 
 Dr. Burney had the great satisfaction, publicly 
 and usefully, to demonstrate his admiration of this 
 superior musician, by successfully promoting both 
 the knowledge and the sale of his works.
 
 EBEL1NG. 327 
 
 HAYDN. 
 
 With the equally, and yet more popularly cele- 
 brated Haydn, Dr. Burney was in correspondence 
 many years before that noble and truly CREA- 
 TIVE composer visited England ; and almost en- 
 thusiastic was the admiration with which the musical 
 historian opened upon the subject, and the matchless 
 merits, of that sublime genius, in the fourth volume 
 of the History of Music. "I am now," he says, 
 " happily arrived at that part of my narrative where 
 it is necessary to speak of HAYDN, the incompa- 
 rable HAYDN ; from whose productions I have 
 received more pleasure late in life, when tired of 
 most other music, than I ever enjoyed in the most 
 ignorant and rapturous part of my youth, when 
 every thing was new, and the disposition to be 
 pleased was undiminished by criticism, or satiety." 
 
 EBELING. 
 
 The German correspondent to whom Dr. Burney 
 was most indebted for information, entertainment, 
 and liberal friendship, was Mynhere Ebeling, a 
 native of Hamborough, who volunteered his services
 
 328 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 to the Doctor, by opening a correspondence in 
 English, immediately upon reading the first, or 
 French and Italian tour, with a zeal full of spright- 
 liness and good-humour; solidly seconded by well 
 understood documents in aid of the Musical His- 
 tory.* 
 
 PADRE MARTINI. 
 
 Amongst the Italians, the most essential to his 
 business was Padre Martini ; the most essential and 
 the most generous. While the Doctor was at Bo- 
 logna, he was allowed free access to the rare library 
 of that learned Padre, with permission to examine 
 his Istoria della Musica, before it was published. 
 And this favour was followed by a display of the 
 whole of the materials which the Padre had collected 
 for his elaborate undertaking : upon all which he 
 conversed with a frankness and liberality, that ap- 
 peared to the Doctor to spring from a nature so 
 completely void of all earthly drops of envy, jea- 
 lousy, or love of pre-eminence, as to endow him 
 with the nobleness of wishing that a fellow-labourer 
 in the same vineyard in which he was working him- 
 
 * See Correspondence.
 
 METASTASIO. 329 
 
 self, should share the advantages of his toil, and 
 reap in common its fruits. 
 
 With similar openness the Doctor returned every 
 communication ; and produced his own plan, of 
 which he presented the Padre with a copy, which 
 that modest man of science most gratefully re- 
 ceived ; declaring it to be not only edifying, but, 
 in some points, surprisingly new. They entered 
 into a correspondence of equal interest to both, 
 which subsisted, to their mutual pleasure, credit, 
 and advantage, through the remnant life of the good 
 old Padre; and which not unfrequently owed its 
 currency to the friendly intervention of the amiable, 
 and, as far as his leisure and means accorded with 
 his native inclination, literary Pacchierotti. 
 
 i 
 METASTASIO. 
 
 With Metastasio, who in chaste pathos of senti- 
 mental eloquence, and a purity of expression that 
 seems to emanate from purity of feeling, stands 
 nearly unequalled, he assiduously maintained the 
 intercourse which he had happily begun with that 
 laureate-poet at Vienna.
 
 330 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 M. BERQUIN. 
 
 Of the French correspondents, M. Berquin, the 
 true though self-named children's friend, was fore- 
 most in bringing letters of strong recommendation 
 to the Doctor from Paris. 
 
 M. Berquin warmly professed that the first in- 
 quiry he made upon his entrance into London, was 
 for the Hotel du Grand Newton ; where he offered 
 up incense to the owner, and to his second daughter, 
 of so overpowering a perfume, that it would have 
 derogated completely from the character of verity 
 and simplicity that makes the charm of his tales for 
 juvenile pupils, had it not appeared, from passages 
 published in his works after his return to France, 
 that he had really wrought himself into feeling the 
 enthusiasm that here had appeared overstrained, 
 unnatural, and almost, at least to the daughter, 
 burlesque. In an account of him, written at this 
 time to her sister Susanna, are these words : 
 
 " To MRS. PHILLIPS. 
 
 " We have a new man, now, almost always at the 
 house, who has brought letters to my father from 
 some of his best French correspondents, M. Berquin j
 
 M. BERQUIN. 331 
 
 author of the far most interesting lessons of moral 
 conduct for adolescence or for what Mr. Walpole 
 would call the betweenity time that intervals the 
 boy or girl from the man or woman, that ever 
 sprang from a vivid imagination, under the strictest 
 guidance of right and reason. But to all this that 
 is so proper, or rather, so excellent, M. Berquin 
 joins an exuberance of devotion towards I 'Hotel du 
 Grand Newton, and its present owner, and, above 
 all, that owner's second bairne, that seems with diffi- 
 culty held back from mounting into an ecstacy really 
 comic. He brought a set of his charming little 
 volumes with him, and begged my mother to present 
 them to Mademoiselle Beurnie ; with compliments 
 upon the occasion too florid for writing even, my 
 Susan, to you. And though I was in the room the 
 whole time, quietly scollopping a muslin border, and 
 making entreating signs to my mother not to betray 
 me, he never once suspected I might be the demoiselle 
 myself, because I am much afraid ! he saw nothing 
 about me to answer to the splendour of his expec- 
 tations ! However, he has since made the discovery, 
 and had the gallantry to comport himself as if he 
 had made it poor man ! without disappointment. 
 Since then I have begun some acquaintance with
 
 332 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 him ; but his rapture every time I speak is too great 
 to be excited often ! therefore, I am chary of my 
 words. You would laugh irresistibly to see how 
 enchante he deems it fit to appear every time I open 
 my mouth ! holding up one hand aloft, as if in sign 
 to all others present to keep the peace ! And yet, 
 save for this complimentary extravagance, his manners 
 and appearance are the most simple, candid, and un- 
 pretending." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Dr. Burney himself was seriously of opinion that 
 all the superfluity of civility here described, was the 
 mere effervescence of a romantic imagination ; not 
 of artifice, or studied adulation.* 
 
 MM. LES COMTES DE LA ROCHEFAUCAULT. 
 
 Messieurs les Comtes de la Rochefaucault, sons 
 of the Due de Liancourt, when quite youths, were 
 brought, at the desire of their father, to a morning 
 visit in St. Martin's-street, with their English tutor, 
 
 * M. Berquin, some years later, was nominated preceptor to 
 the unfortunate Louis XVII., but was soon dismissed by the 
 inhuman monsters who possessed themselves of the person of 
 that crownless orphan King.
 
 DUC DE LI AX COURT. 333 
 
 Mr. Symonds, by Arthur Young ; to whose super- 
 intending care and friendship they had been com- 
 mitted, for the study of agriculture according to the 
 English mode. 
 
 The Duke had a passion for farming, for England, 
 for improvement ; and above all, for liberty, 
 which was then rising in glowing ferment in his 
 nation ; with little consciousness, and no foresight, 
 of the bloody scenes in which it was to set ! 
 
 THE DUC DE LIANCOURT. 
 
 The Due de Liancourt himself, not long after- 
 wards, came over to England, and, through the 
 medium of Mr. Young, addressed letters of the 
 most flattering politeness to Dr. Burney ; soliciting 
 his acquaintance, and, through his influence, an in- 
 terview with Mademoiselle Berney. The latter, 
 however, had so invincible a repugnance to being 
 singled out with such undue distinction by strangers, 
 that she prevailed, though with much difficulty, upon 
 her father, to consent to her non-appearance when 
 this visit took place. The Duke was too well bred 
 not to pardon, though, no doubt, he more than mar- 
 velled at this mauvaise honte Anglaise. 
 
 He made his visit, however, very agreeable to the
 
 334 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Doctor, who found him of lofty manners, person, 
 and demeanour j of liberal and enlightened senti- 
 ments and opinions ; and ardent to acquire new, 
 but practical notions of national liberty ; with the 
 noble intention of propagating them amongst his 
 countrymen : an intention which the turbulent hu- 
 mour of the times warpt and perverted into results 
 the most opposed to his genuine views and wishes. 
 
 BRISSOT DE WARVILLE. 
 
 Brissot de Warville had begun an acquaintance 
 with Dr. Burney upon meeting with him at the 
 apartment of the famous Linguet, during the resi- 
 dence in England of that eloquent, powerful, unfor- 
 tunate victim of parts too strong for his judgment, 
 and of impulses too imperious for his safety. 
 
 At this time, 1783, Brissot de Warville announced 
 himself as a member of a French committee employed 
 to select subjects in foreign countries, for adding to 
 the national stock of worthies of his own soil, who 
 were destined to immortality, by having their por- 
 traits, busts, or statues, elevated in the Paris Pan- 
 theon. And, as such, he addressed a letter to Dr. 
 Burney. He had been directed, he said, to choose,
 
 BRISSOT DE WARVILLE. 335 
 
 in England, a female for this high honour ; and he 
 wrote to Dr. Burney to say, that the gentlewoman 
 upon whom it had pleased him to fix was no other 
 than a daughter of the Doctor's ! * 
 
 At that astonished daughter's earnest supplication, 
 the Doctor, with proper acknowledgments, declined 
 accepting this towering compliment. 
 
 M. Brissot employed his highest pains of flattery 
 to conquer this repugnance ; but head, heart, and 
 taste were in opposition to his pleadings, and he had 
 no chance of success. 
 
 Speedily after, M. Brissot earnestly besought per- 
 mission to introduce to V 'Hotel du Grand Newton 
 his newly-married wife ; and a day was appointed on 
 which he brought thither his blooming young bride, 
 who had been English Reader, he said, to her Serene 
 Highness Mademoiselle d'Orleans, t under the aus- 
 pices of the celebrated Comtesse de Genlis.t 
 
 Madame Brissot was pretty, and gentle, and had 
 a striking air of youthful innocence. They seemed 
 to live together in tender amity, perfectly satisfied 
 
 * See Correspondence. 
 
 j- Now Madame Adelaide, sister to Louis Philippe. 
 ^ Madame de Genlis, in her Memoirs, mentions this appoint- 
 ment in terms of less dignity.
 
 336 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 in following literary pursuits. But it has since ap- 
 peared that Brissot was here upon some deep political 
 projects, of which he afterwards extended the prac- 
 tice to America. He had by no means, at that time, 
 assumed the dogmatizing dialect, or betrayed the 
 revolutionary principles, which, afterwards, contri- 
 buted to hurl the monarchy, the religion, and the 
 happiness of France into that murderous abyss of 
 anarchy into which, ill-foreseen ! he was himself 
 amongst the earliest to be precipitated. 
 
 This single visit began and ended the Brissot 
 commerce with St. Martin's-street. M. Brissot 
 had a certain low-bred fullness and forwardness of 
 look, even in the midst of professions of humility 
 and respect, that were by no means attractive to 
 Dr. Burney ; by whom this latent demagogue, who 
 made sundry attempts to enter into a bookish in- 
 timacy in St. Martin's-street, was so completely 
 shirked, that nothing more was there seen or known 
 of him, till his Jacobinical harangues and proceed- 
 ings, five years later, were blazoned to the world by 
 the republican gazettes. 
 
 What became of his pretty wife in aftertimes ; 
 whether she were involved in his destruction, or 
 sunk his name to save her life, has not been re-
 
 LE DUC DE CHAULNES. 
 
 corded. Dr. Burney heard of her no more ; and 
 always regretted that he had been deluded into shew- 
 ing even the smallest token of hospitality to her 
 intriguing husband : yet great was his thankfulness, 
 that the delusion had not been of such strength, 
 as to induce him to enrol a representation of his 
 daughter in a selection made by a man of principles 
 and conduct so opposite to his own ; however, indi- 
 vidually, the collection might have been as flattering 
 to his parental pride, as her undue entrance into 
 such a circle would have been painfully ostentatious 
 to the insufficient and unambitious object of M. 
 Brissot's choice. 
 
 LE DUC DE CHAULNES. 
 
 Of the Due de Chaulnes, the following account 
 is copied from Dr. Burney's memorandums : 
 
 " In 1783, I dined at the Adelphi with Dr. Johnson and the 
 Due de Chaulnes. This extraordinary personage, a great tra- 
 veller, and curious inquirer into the productions of art and of 
 nature, had recently been to China ; aud, amongst many other 
 discoveries that he had made in that immense and remote region, 
 of which he had brought specimens to Europe, being a great 
 chemist, he had particularly applied himself to the disclosure of 
 the means by which the Chinese obtain that extraordinary bril- 
 VOL. IT. Z
 
 338 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 liancy and permanence in the prismatic colours, which is so much 
 admired and envied by other nations. 
 
 " I knew nothing of his being in England till, late one night, 
 I heard a bustle and different voices in the passage, or little hall, 
 in my house in St. Martin's-street, commonly, from its former 
 great owner, called Newton House; when, on inquiry, I was 
 informed that there was a foreign gentleman, with a guide and 
 an interpreter, who was come to beg permission to see the obser- 
 vatory of the grand Newton. 
 
 " I went out of the parlour to speak to this stranger, and to 
 invite him in. He accepted the offer with readiness, and I pro- 
 mised to shew him the observatory the next morning ; and we 
 soon became so well acquainted, that, two or three days after- 
 wards, he honoured me with the following note in English ; 
 which I shall copy literally, for its foreign originality. 
 
 " ' The Duke of Chaulnes' best compliments to Doctor Bur- 
 ney : he desires the favour of his company to dinner with Doctor 
 Johnson on Sunday next, between about three and four o'clock, 
 which is the hour convenient to the excellent old Doctor, the 
 best piece of man, indeed, that the Duke ever saw.' " 
 
 This dinner took place, but was only productive 
 of disappointment ; Dr. Johnson, unfortunately, 
 was in a state of bodily uneasiness and pain that 
 unfitted him for exertion ; and well as his mind was 
 disposed to do honour to the civilities of a distin- 
 guished foreigner, his physical force refused consent 
 to his efforts. The Duke, however, was too en- 
 lightened and too rational a man, to permit this
 
 LE DUC DE CHAULNES. 
 
 failure of his expectations to interfere with his pre- 
 viously formed belief in the genius and powers of 
 Dr. Johnson, when they were unshackled by disease. 
 Another note in English, which much amused 
 Dr. Burney, was written by the Duke in answer 
 to an invitation to St. Martin's- street. 
 
 " The Duke of Chaulnes' best compliments to Doctor Burney. 
 He shall certainly do himself the honour of waiting- on him on 
 Thursday evening- at the English hour of tea. He begs him a 
 thousand pardons for the delay of his answer, but he was himself 
 waiting another answer which he was depending of." 
 
 Dr. Burney received the Duke in his study, which 
 the Duke entered with reverence, from a knowledge 
 that he was treading boards that had been trodden 
 by the great Newton. He then developed at full 
 length his Chinese researches, discoveries, and 
 opinions : after which, and having examined and 
 discoursed upon the Doctor's library, he made an 
 earnest request to be brought to the acquaintance of 
 Mademoiselle BeurnL 
 
 The Doctor, who was never averse to what he 
 thought expressive of approbation, with quite as 
 much pleasure, and almost as much eagerness as the 
 Duke, ushered his noble guest to the family tea-
 
 340 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 table ; where an introduction took place, so pompous 
 on the part of the Duke, and so embarrassed on that 
 of its receiver, that finding, when it was over, she 
 simply bowed, and turned about to make the tea, 
 without attempting any conversational reply, he 
 conceived that his eloquent eloge had not been un- 
 derstood ; and, after a little general talk with Mr. 
 Hoole and his son, who were of the evening party, 
 he approached her again, with a grave desire to the 
 Doctor of a second presentation. 
 
 This, though unavoidably granted, produced no- 
 thing more brilliant to satisfy his expectations ; 
 which then, in all probability, were changed into 
 pity, if not contempt, at so egregious a mark of 
 that uncouth malady of which her country stands 
 arraigned, bashful shyness.* 
 
 BARRY. 
 
 Amongst the many cotemporary tributes paid to 
 the merits of Dr. Burney, there was one from a 
 
 * This maladie du pays has pursued and annoyed her 
 through life ; except when incidentally surprised away by pecu- 
 liar persons, or circumstances.
 
 BARRY. 341 
 
 celebrated and estimable artist, that caused no small 
 diversion to the friends of the Doctor ; and, per- 
 haps, to the public at large ; from the Hibernian 
 tale which it seemed instinctively to unfold of the 
 birth-place of its designer. 
 
 The famous painter, Mr. Barry, after a formal 
 declaration that his picture of The Triumph of the 
 Thames, which was painted for the Society of Arts, 
 should be devoted exclusively to immortalizing the 
 eminent dead, placed, in the watery groupes of the 
 renowned departed, Dr. Burney, then full of life 
 and vigour. 
 
 This whimsical incident produced from the still 
 playful imagination of Mr. Owen Cambridge the 
 following jeu d' esprit ; to which he was incited by 
 an accident that had just occurred to the celebrated 
 Gibbon ; who, in stepping too lightly from, or to a 
 boat of Mr. Cambridge's, had slipt into the Thames j 
 whence, however, he was intrepidly and immediately 
 rescued, with no other mischief than a wet jacket, 
 by one of that fearless, water-proof race, denomi- 
 nated, by Mr. Gibbon, the amphibious family of the 
 Cambridges.
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " When Chloe's picture was to Venus shown," &c. 
 
 PRIOR. 
 
 " When Burney's picture was to Gibbon shown, 
 The pleased historian took it for his own ; 
 ' For who, with shoulders dry, and powder 'd locks, 
 E'er bath'd but I ? ' He said, and rapt his box. 
 
 " Barry replied, ' My lasting colours show 
 What gifts the painter's pencil can bestow ; 
 With nymphs of Thames, those amiable creatures, 
 I placed the charming minstrel's smiling features : 
 But let not, then, his bonne fortune concern ye, 
 For there are nymphs enough for you and Burney.' " 
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 
 
 But all that Dr. Burney possessed, either of spi- 
 rited resistance or acquiescent submission to misfor- 
 tune, was again to be severely tried in the summer 
 that followed the spring of this unkindly year ; for the 
 health of his venerated Dr. Johnson received a blow 
 from which it never wholly recovered ; though fre- 
 quent rays of hope intervened from danger to danger; 
 and though more than a year and a half were still 
 allowed to his honoured existence upon earth. 
 
 Mr. Seward first brought to Dr. Burney the 
 alarming tidings, that this great and good man had
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 343 
 
 been afflicted by a paralytic stroke. The Doctor 
 hastened to Bolt Court, taking with him this Memo- 
 rialist, who had frequently and urgently been desired 
 by Dr. Johnson himself, during the time that they 
 lived so much together at Streatham, to see him 
 often if he should be ill. But he was surrounded 
 by medical people, and could only admit the Doctor. 
 He sent down, nevertheless, the kindest message of 
 thanks to the truly-sorrowing daughter, for calling 
 upon him ; and a request that, " when he should 
 be better, she would come to him again and 
 again." 
 
 From Mrs. Williams, with whom she remained, 
 she then received the comfort of an assurance that 
 the physicians had pronounced him not to be in 
 danger ; and even that they expected the illness 
 would be speedily overcome. The stroke had been 
 confined to the tongue. 
 
 Mrs. Williams related a very touching circum- 
 stance that had attended the attack. It had hap- 
 pened about four o'clock in the morning, when, 
 though she knew not how, he had been sensible to 
 the seizure of a paralytic affection. He arose, and 
 composed, in his mind, a prayer in Latin to the 
 Almighty, That however acute might be the pains
 
 344 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 for which he must befit himself, it would please him, 
 through the grace and mediation of our Saviour, to 
 spare his intellects, and to let all his sufferings fall 
 upon his body. 
 
 When he had internally conceived this petition, 
 he endeavoured to pronounce it, according to his 
 pious practice, aloud but his voice was gone ! He 
 was greatly struck, though humbly and resignedly. 
 It was not, however, long, before it returned; but 
 at first with very imperfect articulation. 
 
 Dr. Burney, with the zeal of true affection, made 
 time unceasingly for inquiring visits : and no sooner 
 was the invalid restored to the power of reinstating 
 himself in his drawing-room, than the Memorialist 
 received from him a summons, which she obeyed the 
 following morning. 
 
 She was welcomed with the kindest pleasure ; 
 though it was with difficulty that he endeavoured to 
 rise, and to mark, with wide extended arms, his 
 cordial gladness at her sight ; and he was forced to 
 lean back against the wainscot as impressively he 
 uttered, " Ah ! dearest of all dear ladies ! " 
 
 He soon, however, recovered more strength, and 
 assumed the force to conduct her himself, and with 
 no small ceremony, to his best chair.
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 345 
 
 " Can you forgive me, Sir," she cried, when she 
 saw that he had not breakfasted, " for coming so 
 soon ? " 
 
 " I can less forgive your not coming sooner ! " he 
 answered, with a smile. 
 
 She asked whether she might make his tea, which 
 she had not done since they had left poor Streatham ; 
 where it had been her constant and gratifying 
 business to give him that regale, Miss Thrale being 
 yet too young for the office. 
 
 He readily, and with pleasure consented. 
 
 " But, Sir," quoth she, " I am in the wrong 
 chair." For it was on his own sick large arm chair, 
 which was too heavy for her to move, that he had 
 formally seated her ; and it was away from the table. 
 
 " It is so difficult," cried he, with quickness, "for 
 any thing to be wrong that belongs to you, that it 
 can only be I that am in the wrong chair to keep 
 you from the right one ! " 
 
 This playful good-humour was so reviving in 
 shewing his recovery, that though Dr. Burney could 
 not remain above ten minutes, his daughter, for 
 whom he sent back his carriage, could with difficulty 
 retire at the end of two hours. Dr. Johnson endea- 
 voured most earnestly to engage her to stay and
 
 346 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 dine with him and Mrs. Williams ; but that was not 
 in her power j though so kindly was his heart 
 opened by her true joy at his re-establishment, that 
 he parted from her with a reluctance that was even, 
 and to both, painful. Warm in its affections was 
 the heart of this great and good man ; his temper 
 alone was in fault where it appeared to be other- 
 wise. 
 
 When his recovery was confirmed, he accepted 
 some few of the many invitations that were made to 
 him, by various friends, to try at their dwellings, 
 the air of the country. Dr. Burney mentioned to 
 him, one evening, that he had heard that the first of 
 these essays was to be made at the house of Mr. 
 Bowles ; and the Memorialist added, that she was 
 extremely glad of that news, because, though she 
 knew not Mr. Bowles, she had been informed that 
 he had a true sense of this distinction, and was de- 
 lighted by it beyond measure. 
 
 " He is so delighted," said the Doctor, gravely, 
 and almost with a sigh, " that it is really 
 shocking ! " 
 
 " And why so, Sir ? " 
 
 " Why?" he repeated, " because, necessarily, 
 he must be disappointed ! For if a man be expected
 
 MR. BE W LEY. 347 
 
 to leap twenty yards, and should really leap ten, 
 which would be so many more than ever were leapt 
 before, still they would not be twenty j and conse- 
 quently, Mr. Bowles, and Mr. every body else 
 would be disappointed." 
 
 MR. BEWLEY. 
 
 The grievous blight by the loss of Mrs. Thrale ; 
 and the irreparable blast by the death of Mr. Crisp, 
 in the spring of 1783 ; followed, in the ensuing 
 summer, by this alarming shake to the constitution 
 and strength of Dr. Johnson ; were now to be suc- 
 ceeded, in this same unhappy year, by a fearful 
 and calamitous event, that made the falling leaves 
 of its autumn corrosively sepulchral to Dr. Burney. 
 
 His erudite, witty, scientific, and truly dear friend, 
 Mr. Bewley of Massingham, though now in the 
 wane of life, had never visited the metropolis, ex- 
 cept to pass through it upon business ; his narrow 
 income, and confined country practice, having 
 hitherto stood in the way of such an excursion. 
 Yet he had long desired to make the journey, not 
 only for seeing the capital, its curiosities, its men 
 of letters, and his own most highly-prized friend,
 
 348 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Dr. Burney, but, also, for calling a consultation 
 amongst the wisest of his brethren of the ^Escula- 
 pian tribe, upon the subject of his own health, 
 which was now in a state of alarming deterioration. 
 
 Continual letters, upon the lighter and pleasanter 
 part of this project, passsed between Massingham 
 and St. MartinVstreet, in preparatory schemes on 
 one side, and hurrying persuasion on the other, 
 before it could take place ; though it was never- 
 ceasingly the goal at which the hopes and wishes 
 of Mr. Bewley aimed, when he permitted them to 
 turn their course from business or science : but now, 
 suddenly, an occult disease, which for many years 
 had been preying upon the constitution of the too 
 patient philosopher, began more roughly to ravage 
 his debilitating frame : and the excess of his pains, 
 with whatever fortitude they were borne, forced 
 him from his Stoic endurance, by dismembering it, 
 through bodily torture, from the palliations of intel- 
 lectual occupation. 
 
 Irresolution, therefore, was over ; and he hastily 
 prepared to quit his resident village, and consult 
 personally with two surgeons and two physicians of 
 eminence, Messrs. Hunter and Potts, and Doctors 
 Warren and John Jebb, with whom he had long
 
 MR. BEWLEY. 349 
 
 been incidentally and professionally in correspon- 
 dence. 
 
 There is, probably, no disease, save of that malig- 
 nantly fatal nature that joins, at once, the malady 
 with the grave, that may not, for a while, be par- 
 ried, or, at least, diverted from its strait-forward 
 progress, by the indefinable power of those inward 
 impellers of the human machine, called the animal 
 spirits ; for no sooner was the invalid decided upon 
 this long-delayed journey, than a wish occurred to 
 soften off its vital solemnity, by rendering it mental 
 and amical, as well as medicinal : and from this wish 
 emanated a glow of courage, that enabled him to 
 baffle his infirmities, and to begin his excursion by a 
 tour to Birmingham ; where he had long promised 
 a visit to a renowned fellow-labourer in the walks of 
 science, Dr. Priestley. And this he accomplished, 
 though with not more satisfaction than difficulty. 
 
 From the high gratification of this expedition, he 
 proceeded to one warmer, kindlier, and closer still 
 to his breast, for he came on to his first favourite 
 upon earth, Dr. Burney ; with whom he spent about 
 a week, under an influence of congenial feelings, 
 and enlivening pursuits, that charmed away pains
 
 350 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 that had seemed insupportable, through the magic 
 controul of a delighted imagination, and an ex- 
 panded heart. 
 
 His eagerness, from the vigour of his fancy, was 
 yet young, notwithstanding his years, for every 
 thing that was new to him, and, of its sort, inge- 
 nious. Dr. Burney accompanied him in taking a 
 general view of the most celebrated literary and 
 scientific institutions, buildings, and public places ; 
 and presented him to the Duke de Chaulnes, with 
 whom a whole morning was spent in viewing speci- 
 mens of Chinese arts and discoveries. And they 
 passed several hours in examining the extensive 
 paintings of Barry, which that extraordinary artist 
 elucidated to them himself: while every evening 
 was devoted to studying and hearing favourite old 
 musical composers of Mr. Bewley ; or favourite new 
 ones of Dr. Burney, now first brought forward to 
 his friend's enraptured ears. 
 
 But that which most flattered, and exhilarated 
 the Massingham philosopher, was an interview ac- 
 corded to him by Dr. Johnson ; to whom he was 
 presented as the humble, but devoted preserver of 
 the bristly tuft of the Bolt Court Hearth-Broom.
 
 MR. BEWLEY. 351 
 
 He then left St. MartinVstreet, to visit Mr. 
 Griffith, Editor of the Monthly Review, who re- 
 ceived him at Turnham Green. 
 
 Here, from the flitting and stimulating, though 
 willing hurries of pleasure, he meant to dedicate a 
 short space to repose. - - - But repose, here, was 
 to be his no more ! The visionary illusions of a 
 fevered imagination, and the eclat of novelty to all 
 his sensations, were passed away ; and sober, severe 
 reality, with all the acute pangs of latent, but ex- 
 cruciating disease, resumed, unbridled, their sway. 
 He grew suddenly altered, and radically worse ; 
 and abruptly came back, thus fatally changed, to 
 St. Martin's-street ; where Dr. Burney, who had 
 returned to his work at Chesington, was recalled by 
 an express to join him ; and where the long 
 procrastinated consultation at length was held. 
 
 But nor Hunter, nor Potts, nor Warren, nor 
 Jebb could cure, could even alleviate pains, of which 
 they could not discern the source, nor ascertain the 
 cause. Nevertheless, from commiseration for his suf- 
 ferings, respect to his genius, and admiration of his 
 patience, they all attended him with as much zeal and 
 assiduity as if they had grasped at every fee which, 
 generously, they declined : though they had the mor-
 
 352 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 tification to observe that they were applied to so tar- 
 dily, and that so desperate was the case, that they 
 seemed but summoned to acknowledge it to be beyond 
 their reach, and to prognosticate its quick-approach- 
 ing fatality. And, a very short time afterwards, Dr. 
 Burney had the deep disappointment of finding all 
 his joy at this so long-desired meeting, reversed into 
 the heartfelt affliction of seeing this valued friend 
 expire under his roof ! 
 
 Mrs. Bewley, the excellent wife of this man of 
 science, philosophy, and virtue, was fortunately, 
 however unhappily, the companion of his tour ; and 
 his constant and affectionate nurse to his last mo- 
 ment. 
 
 It was afterwards known, that his pains, and their 
 incurability, were produced by an occult and dreadful 
 cancer. 
 
 He was buried in St. Martin's church. 
 
 The following account of him was written for the 
 Norwich newspaper by Dr. Burney. 
 
 " September 15, 1783. 
 
 " On Friday last died, at the house of his friend, Dr. Burney, 
 in St. Martin's-street, where he had been on a visit, Mr. William 
 Bewley, of Massingham, in Norfolk ; whose death will be sin- 
 cerely lamented by all men of science, to whom his great abili-
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 353 
 
 ties, particularly in anatomy, electricity, and chemistry, had 
 penetrated through the obscurity of his abode, and the natural 
 modesty and diffidence of his disposition. Indeed, the depth and 
 extent of his knowledge on every useful branch of science and 
 literature, could only be equalled by the goodness of his heart, 
 simplicity of his character, and innocency of his life ; seasoned 
 with a natural, unsought wit and humour, of a cast the most 
 original, pleasant, and inoffensive. 
 
 " Hobbes, in the last century, whose chief writings were 
 levelled against the religion of his country, was called, from the 
 place of his residence, the Philosopher of Malmsbury ; but with 
 how much more truth and propriety has Mr. Bewley, whose life 
 was spent in the laborious search of the most hidden and useful 
 discoveries in art and nature, in exposing sophistry, and display- 
 ing talents, been distinguished in Norfolk by the respectable title 
 of the Philosopher of Massingham."* 
 
 HISTORY OF MUSIC. 
 
 After this harrowing loss, Dr. Burney again 
 returned to melancholy Chesington ; but still its 
 inmate to his soothingly reviving Susanna. 
 
 These two admirable and bosom friends, the one 
 of early youth, the other of early manhood, Mr. 
 
 * " Mr. Bewley, for more than twenty years, supplied the 
 editor of the Monthly Review with an examination of innume- 
 rable works in science, and articles of foreign literature, written 
 with a force, spirit, candour, and, when the subject afforded oppor- 
 tunity, humour, not often found in critical discussions." 
 
 VOL. II. 2 A
 
 354> MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Crisp and Mr. Bewley, both thus gone ; both, in 
 the same year, departed ; Mr. Twining only now, 
 for the union of musical with mental friendship, 
 remained : but Mr. Twining, though capable to 
 exhilarate as well as console almost every evil ex- 
 cept his own absence, was utterly unattainable, save 
 during the few weeks of his short annual visit to 
 London ; or the few days of the Doctor's yet shorter 
 visits to the vicarage of Fordham. 
 
 Alone, therefore, and unassisted, except by the 
 slow mode of correspondence, Dr. Burney prose- 
 cuted his work. This labour, nevertheless, however 
 fatiguing to his nerves, and harassing to his health, 
 upon missing the triple participation that had light- 
 ened his toil, gradually became, what literary pursuits 
 will ever become to minds capable of their develop- 
 ment, when not clogged by the heavy weight of 
 recent grief; first a check to morbid sadness, next 
 a renovator of wearied faculties, and lastly, through 
 their oblivious influence over all objects foreign to 
 their purposes, a source of enjoyment. 
 
 To this occupation he owed the re-invigora- 
 tion of courage that, ere long, was followed by a 
 return to the native temperature of tranquillity, 
 that had early and intuitively taught him not to
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 355 
 
 sully what yet he possessed of happiness, by incon- 
 solably bemoaning what was withdrawn ! and he 
 resolved, in aid at once of his spirits and of his work, 
 to cultivate more assiduously than ever his connexions 
 with Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 and Mrs. Delany. 
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 
 
 When at the end, therefore, of the ensuing au- 
 tumn, he re-entered Newton House, his first volun- 
 tary egress thence was to Bolt-court ; where he had the 
 heart-felt satisfaction of finding Dr. Johnson recovered 
 from his paralytic stroke, and not more than usually 
 afflicted by his other complaints ; for free from 
 complaint Dr. Burney had never had the happiness 
 to know that long and illustrious sufferer; whose 
 pains and infirmities, however, seemed rather to 
 strengthen than to deaden his urbanity towards 
 Dr. Burney and this Memorialist. 
 
 It had happened, through vexatious circumstances, 
 after the return from Chesington, that Dr. Burney, 
 in his visits to Bolt Court, had not been able to 
 take thither his daughter ; nor yet to spare her his 
 carriage for a separate inquiry ; and incessant bad
 
 356 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 weather had made walking impracticable. After a 
 week or two of this omission, Dr. Johnson, in a 
 letter to Dr. Burney, enclosed the following billet. 
 
 " To Miss BURNEY. 
 
 " Madam, 
 
 "You have now been at home this long time, 
 and yet I have neither seen nor heard from you. 
 Have we quarrelled ? 
 
 " I have met with a volume of the Philosophical 
 Transactions, which I imagine to belong to Dr. 
 Burney. Miss Charlotte* will please to examine. 
 
 " Pray send me a direction where Mrs. Chapone 
 lives j and pray, some time, let me have the honour 
 of telling you how much I am, Madam, your most 
 humble servant, 
 
 " SAM. JOHNSON." 
 
 " Bolt Court, Nov. 19, 1783." 
 
 Inexpressibly shocked to have hurt or displeased 
 her honoured friend, yet conscious from all within 
 of unalterable and affectionate reverence, she took 
 
 * Now Mrs. Broome.
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 357 
 
 courage to answer him without offering any serious 
 defence. 
 
 " To DR. JOHNSON. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " May I not say dear? for quarrelled I am sure 
 we have not. The bad weather alone has kept me 
 from waiting upon you : but now, that you have 
 condescended to give me a summons, no * Lion 
 shall stand in the way* of my making your tea this 
 afternoon unless I receive a prohibition from your- 
 self, and then I must submit ! for what, as you 
 said of a certain great lady,* signifies the barking 
 of a lap-dog, if once the lion puts out his paw ? 
 
 * This bore reference to an expression of Dr. Johnson's, upon 
 hearing that Mrs. Montagu resented his Life of Lord Lyttleton. 
 
 The Diary Letter to Susannah, whence these two billets are 
 copied, finishes with this paragraph. 
 
 " Our dear father, as eager as myself that our most reverenced 
 Dr. Johnson should not be hurt or offended, spared me the 
 coach, and to Bolt Court I went in the evening : and with out- 
 spread arms of parental greeting to mark my welcome, was I 
 received. Nobody was there but our brother Charles and Mr. 
 Sastres : and Dr. Johnson, repeatedly thanking me for coming, 
 was, if possible, more instructive, entertaining, and exquisitely 
 fertile than ever ; and so full of amenity, and talked so affection-
 
 358 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " The book was right. 
 " Mrs. Chapone lives in Dean-street, Soho. 
 " I beg you, Sir, to forgive a delay for which I 
 can * tax the elements only with unkindness,' and 
 to receive with your usual goodness and indulgence, 
 " Your ever most obliged, 
 " And most faithful humble servant, 
 
 " F. BURNEY." 
 " 19th Nov. 1783, St. Martin's Street." 
 
 A latent, but most potent reason, had, in fact, 
 some share in abetting the elements in the failure 
 of the Memorialist of paying her respects in Bolt 
 Court at this period ; except when attending thither 
 her father. Dr. Burney feared her seeing Dr. John- 
 son alone ; dreading, for both their sakes, the sub- 
 ject to which the Doctor might revert, if they 
 should chance to be tete d tdte. Hitherto, in the 
 
 ately of our father, that neither Charles nor I could tell how to 
 come away. While he, in return, soothed by exercising- his noble 
 faculties with natural, unexcited good humour and pleasantry, 
 would have kept us, I believe, to this moment 
 
 " You have no objection, I think, my Susan, to a small touch 
 
 of hyperbole ? 
 
 if the coachman and the horses had been as well entertained as 
 ourselves."
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 359 
 
 many meetings of the two Doctors and herself that 
 had taken place after the paralytic stroke of Dr. 
 Johnson, as well as during the many that had more 
 immediately followed the retreat of Mrs. Thrale to 
 Bath, the name of that lady had never once been 
 mentioned by any of the three. 
 
 Not from difference of opinion was the silence ; 
 it was rather from a painful certainty that their 
 opinions must be in unison, and, consequently, that 
 in unison must be their regrets. Each of them, 
 therefore, having so warmly esteemed one whom 
 each of them, now, so afflictingly blamed, they 
 tacitly concurred that, for the immediate moment, 
 to cast a veil over her name, actions, and remem- 
 brance, seemed what was most respectful to their 
 past feelings, and to her present situation. 
 
 But, after the impressive reproach of Dr. Johnson 
 to the Memorialist relative to her absence ; and after 
 a seizure which caused a constant anxiety for his 
 health, she could no longer consult her discretion 
 at the expense of her regard ; and, upon ceasing to 
 observe her precautions, she was unavoidably left 
 with him, one morning, by Dr. Burney, who had 
 indispensable business further on in the city, and 
 was to call for her on his return.
 
 360 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Nothing yet had publicly transpired, with cer- 
 tainty or authority, relative to the projects of Mrs. 
 Thrale, who had now been nearly a year at Bath ; 
 though nothing was left unreported, or unasserted, 
 with respect to her proceedings. Nevertheless, how 
 far Dr. Johnson was himself informed, or was igno- 
 rant on the subject, neither Dr. Burney nor his 
 daughter could tell ; and each equally feared to 
 learn. 
 
 Scarcely an instant, however, was the latter left 
 alone in Bolt Court, ere she saw the justice of her 
 long apprehensions ; for while she planned speaking 
 upon some topic that might have a chance to catch 
 the attention of the Doctor, a sudden change from 
 kind tranquillity to strong austerity took place in 
 his altered countenance ; and, startled and affrighted, 
 she held her peace. 
 
 A silence almost awful succeeded, though, previ- 
 ously to Dr. Burney 's absence, the gayest discourse 
 had been reciprocated. 
 
 The Doctor, then, see-sawing violently in his 
 chair, as usual when he was big with any power- 
 ful emotion whether of pleasure or of pain, seemed 
 deeply moved j but without looking at her, or speak- 
 ing, he intently fixed his eyes upon the fire : while his
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 361 
 
 panic-struck visitor, filled with dismay at the storm 
 which she saw gathering over the character and con- 
 duct of one still dear to her very heart, from the 
 furrowed front, the laborious heaving of the pon- 
 derous chest, and the roll of the large, penetrating, 
 wrathful eye of her honoured, but, just then, terrific 
 host, sate mute, motionless, and sad ; tremblingly 
 awaiting a mentally demolishing thunderbolt. 
 
 Thus passed a few minutes, in which she scarcely 
 dared breathe ; while the respiration of the Doctor, 
 on the contrary, was of asthmatic force and loud- 
 ness ; then, suddenly turning to her, with an air 
 of mingled wrath and woe, he hoarsely ejaculated : 
 " Piozzi ! " 
 
 He evidently meant to say more ; but the effort 
 with which he articulated that name robbed him of 
 any voice for amplification, and his whole frame 
 grew tremulously convulsed. 
 
 His guest, appalled, could not speak ; but he soon 
 discerned that it was grief from coincidence, not dis- 
 trust from opposition of sentiment, that caused her 
 taciturnity. 
 
 This perception calmed him, and he then exhi- 
 bited a face " in sorrow more than anger." His 
 see-sawing abated of its velocity, and, again fixing
 
 362 
 
 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 his looks upon the fire, he fell into pensive rumi- 
 nation. 
 
 From time to time, nevertheless, he impressively 
 glanced upon her his full fraught eye, that told, 
 had its expression been developed, whole volumes 
 of his regret, his disappointment, his astonished 
 indignancy : but, now and then, it also spoke so 
 clearly and so kindly, that he found her sight and 
 her stay soothing to his disturbance, that she felt as 
 if confidentially communing with him, although they 
 exchanged not a word. 
 
 At length, and with great agitation, he broke 
 forth with : " She cares for no one ! You, only 
 You, she loves still! but no one and nothing 
 else ! You she still loves " 
 
 A half smile now, though of no very gay charac- 
 ter, softened a little the severity of his features, 
 while he tried to resume some cheerfulness in add- 
 ing : "As - - - she loves her little finger ! " 
 
 It was plain by this burlesque, or, perhaps, play- 
 fully literal comparison, that he meant now, and 
 tried, to dissipate the solemnity of his concern. 
 
 The hint was taken ; his guest started another 
 subject ; and this he resumed no more. He saw 
 how distressing was the theme to a hearer whom he
 
 Dtt. JOHNSON. 363 
 
 ever wished to please, not distress ; and he named 
 Mrs. Thrale no more ! Common topics took place, 
 till they were rejoined by Dr. Burney, whom then, 
 and indeed always, he likewise spared upon this 
 
 subject. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Very ill again Dr. Johnson grew on the approach 
 of winter ; and with equal fear and affection, both 
 father and daughter sought him as often as it was in 
 their power ; though by no means as frequently as 
 their zealous attachment, or as his own kind wishes 
 might have prompted. But fullness of affairs, and 
 the distance of his dwelling, impeded such continual 
 intercourse as their mutual regard would otherwise 
 have instigated. 
 
 This new failure of health was accompanied by a 
 sorrowing depression of spirits ; though unmixt with 
 the smallest deterioration of intellect. 
 
 One evening, the last but one of the sad year 
 1783, when Dr. Burney and the Memorialist were 
 with him, and some other not remembered visitors, 
 he took an opportunity during a general discourse 
 in which he did not join, to turn suddenly to the 
 ever-favoured daughter, and, fervently grasping her 
 hand, to say : " The blister I have tried for my
 
 364 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 breath has betrayed some very bad tokens! but I 
 will not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah ! 
 priez Dieu pour moi ! " 
 
 Her promise was as solemn as it was sorrowful ; 
 but more humble, if possible, than either. That 
 such a man should condescend to make her such a 
 request, amazed, and almost bewildered her : yet, to 
 a mind so devout as that of Dr. Johnson, prayer, 
 even from the most lowly, never seemed presump- 
 tuous j and even where he believed in its sincerity, 
 soothed him for a passing moment with an idea 
 that it might be propitious. 
 
 This was the only instance in which Dr. Johnson 
 ever addressed her in French. He did not wish so 
 serious an injunction to reach other ears than her own. 
 
 But those who imagine that the fear of death, 
 which, at this period, was the prominent feature of 
 the mind of Dr. Johnson ; and which excited not 
 more commiseration than wonder in the observers 
 and commentators of the day ; was the effect of con- 
 scious criminality ; or produced by a latent belief 
 that he had sinned more than his fellow sinners, 
 knew not Dr. Johnson ! He thought not ill of him- 
 self as compared with his human brethren : but he 
 weighed, in the rigid scales of his calculating justice,
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 36.5 
 
 the great talent which he had received, against the 
 uses of it which he had made - 
 
 And found himself wanting ! 
 
 Could it be otherwise, to one who had a con- 
 science poignantly alive to a sense of duty, and 
 religiously submissive to the awards of retributive 
 responsibility ? 
 
 If those, therefore, who ignorantly have marvelled, 
 or who maliciously would triumph at the terror of 
 death in the pious, would sincerely and severely bow 
 down to a similar self-examination, the marvel would 
 subside, and the triumph might perhaps turn to 
 blushes ! in considering not the trembling inferi- 
 ority, but the sublime humility of this ablest and 
 most dauntless of Men, but humblest and most 
 orthodox of Christians. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 While thus with Dr. Johnson, the most reverenced 
 of Dr. Burney's connexions, all intercourse was shaken 
 in gaiety and happiness, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 save from grief for Dr. Johnson, gaiety and happi- 
 ness still seemed almost stationary. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds had a suavity of disposition
 
 366 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 that set every body at their ease in his society ; 
 though neither that, nor what Dr. Johnson called 
 his " inoffensiveness" bore the character of a tame 
 insipidity that never differed from a neighbour ; or 
 that knew not how to support an opposing opinion 
 with firmness and independence. On the contrary, 
 Sir Joshua was even peculiar in thinking for himself: 
 and frequently, after a silent rumination, to which 
 he was unavoidably led by not following up, from 
 his deafness, the various stages of any given ques- 
 tion, he would surprise the whole company by start- 
 ing some new and unexpected idea on the subject in 
 discussion, in a manner so imaginative and so origi- 
 nal, that it either drew the attention of the interlo- 
 cutors into a quite different mode of argument to 
 that with which they had set out ; or it incited them 
 to come forth, in battle array, against the novelty 
 of his assertions. In the first case, he was frankly 
 gratified, but never moved to triumph ; in the 
 second, he met the opposition with candour j but 
 was never brow-beaten from defending his cause 
 with courage, even by the most eminent antagonist. 
 Both father and daughter shared his favour alike ; 
 and both returned it with an always augmenting 
 attachment.
 
 MRS. DEL A NY. 367 
 
 MRS. DELANY. 
 
 The setting, but with glory setting, sun of Mrs. 
 Delany, was still glowing with all the warmth of 
 generous friendship, all the capabilities of mental 
 exertion, and all the ingenuous readiness for enjoy- 
 ment of innocent pleasure, or nearly all that had 
 irradiated its brilliant rise. 
 
 She was venerated by Dr. Burney, whom most 
 sincerely, in return, she admired, esteemed, and 
 liked. She has left, indeed, a lasting proof of her 
 kind disposition to him in her narrative of Anastasia 
 Robinson, Countess of Peterborough ; which, at the 
 request of Dr. Burney, she dictated, in her eighty- 
 seventh year, to her much-attached and faithful 
 amanuensis, Anna Astley ; and which the Doctor 
 has printed in the fourth volume of his History. 
 
 Mrs. Delany had known and loved Anastasia 
 Robinson while she was a public concert and opera 
 singer. The uncommon musical talents of that 
 songstress were seconded by such faultless and sweet 
 manners, and a life so irreproachable, that she was 
 received by ladies of the first rank and character 
 upon terms nearly of equality ; though so modest 
 was her demeanour, that the born distance between
 
 368 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 them was never by herself forgotten. She was pecu- 
 liarly a favourite with the bosom friend of Mrs. 
 Delany, the Duchess of Portland, whose mother, 
 the Countess of Oxford, had been the first patroness 
 of Anastasia, and had consented to be present, as a 
 witness, as well as a support, at the private and con- 
 cealed marriage of that syren of her day with the 
 famous and martial Earl of Peterborough. 
 
 A narrative such as this, and so well authenticated, 
 could not but cause great satisfaction to Dr. Burney, 
 in holding to view such splendid success to the power 
 of harmony, when accompanied by virtue. 
 
 This increase of intercourse with Mrs. Delany, 
 was a source of gentle pleasure in perfect concord 
 with the Doctor's present turn of mind j and trebly 
 welcome on account of his daughter, to whose poig- 
 nant grief for the loss of Mr. Crisp it was a solace 
 the most seasonable. Her description of its soothing 
 effect, which is gratefully recorded in her diary to 
 her sister at Boulogne, may here, perhaps, not un- 
 acceptably be copied for the reader, as a further 
 picture of this venerable widow of one of the most 
 favourite friends of Dean Swift. 
 
 " July 18, 1783. I called again, my dear Susan, 
 upon the sweet Mrs. Delany, whom every time I
 
 MRS. DEL A NY. 369 
 
 see I feel myself to love even more than I admire. 
 And how dear, how consolatory is it to me to be 
 honoured with so much of her favour, as to find her 
 always eager, upon every meeting, to fix a time for 
 another and another visit I How truly desirable are 
 added years, where the spirit of life evaporates not 
 before its extinction! She is as generously awake 
 to the interests of those she loves, as if her own 
 life still claimed their responsive sympathies. There 
 is something in her quite angelic. I feel no cares 
 when with her. I think myself with the true image 
 and representative of our so loved maternal Grand- 
 mother, in whose presence not only all committal 
 of evil, even in thought, was impossible, but its suf- 
 ferance, also, seemed immaterial, from the higher 
 views that the very air she breathed imparted. This 
 composure, and these thoughts, are not for lasting 
 endurance ! Yet it is salubrious to feel them even 
 for a few hours. I wish my Susan knew her. I 
 would not give up my knowledge of her for the 
 universe. I spend with her all the time I have at 
 my own disposal ; and nothing has so sensibly 
 calmed my mind, since our fatal Chesington depri- 
 vation, as her society. The religious turn which 
 
 VOL. II. 2 B
 
 370 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 kindness, united to wisdom, in old age, gives, in- 
 voluntarily, to all commerce with it, beguiles us out 
 of anxiety and misery a thousand times more suc- 
 cessfully than all the forced exertions of gaiety from 
 dissipation." 
 
 If such was the benefit reaped by the daughter 
 from this animated and very uncommon friendship, 
 the great age of one of the parties at its formation 
 considered, who can wonder at the glad as well as 
 proud encouragement which it met with from Dr. 
 Burney ? 
 
 MR. BURKE. 
 
 But the cordial the most potent to the feelings 
 and the spirits of the Doctor, in this hard-trying 
 year, was the exhilarating partiality displayed towards 
 him by Mr. Burke ; and which was doubly soothing 
 by warmly and constantly including the Memorialist 
 in its urbanity. From the time of the party at Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds' upon Richmond Hill, their inter- 
 course had gone on with increase of regard. They 
 met, and not unfrequently, at various places ; but 
 chiefly at Sir Joshua Reynolds', Miss Moncton's, 
 and Mrs. Vesey's. Mr. Burke delighted in society
 
 MR. BURKE. 
 
 as much as of society he was the supreme delight : 
 and perhaps to this social disposition he owed that 
 part of his oratorical excellence that made it so 
 entertainingly varying, and so frequently interspersed 
 with penetrating reflections on human life. 
 
 But to the political circle to which Mr. Burke 
 and his powers were principally devoted, Dr. Burney 
 was, accidentally, a stranger. Accidentally may be 
 said, for it was by no means deliberately, as he was 
 not of any public station or rank that demanded 
 any restrictions to his mental connexions. He was 
 excursive, therefore, in his intercourse, though fixed 
 in his principles. 
 
 But besides the three places above named, Mr. 
 Burke himself, from the period of the assembly at 
 Miss Moncton's, had the grace and amiability to 
 drop in occasionally, uninvited and unexpectedly, 
 to the little tea-table of St. MartinVstreet ; where 
 his bright welcome from the enchanted Memorialist, 
 for whom he constantly inquired when the Doctor 
 was abroad, repaid him in some measure, perhaps 
 for almost always missing the chief of whom he came 
 in search. 
 
 The Doctor, also, when he had half an hour to 
 spare, took the new votary of Mr. Burke to visit 
 2 B 2
 
 372 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 him arid his pleasing wife, at their apartments at 
 the Treasury, where now was their official residence. 
 And here they saw, with wonder and admiration, 
 amidst the whirl of politics and the perplexities of 
 ministerial arrangements, in which Mr. Burke, then 
 in the administration, was incessantly involved, how 
 cheerfully, how agreeably, how vivaciously, he could 
 still be the most winning of domestic men, the 
 kindest of husbands, the fondest of fathers, and the 
 most delightful of friends. 
 
 During one of these visits to the Treasury, Mr. 
 Burke presented to Miss Palmer a beautiful ink- 
 stand, with a joined portfolio, upon some new con- 
 struction, and finished up with various contrivances, 
 equally useful and embellishing. Miss Palmer ac- 
 cepted it with great pleasure, but not without many 
 conscious glances towards the Memorialist, which, 
 at last, broke out into an exclamation : " I am 
 ashamed to take it, Mr. Burke ! how much more 
 Miss Burney deserves a writing present I " 
 
 "Miss Burney?" repeated he, with energy; 
 " Fine writing tackle for Miss Burney ? No, no ; 
 she can bestow value on the most ordinary. A 
 morsel of white tea-paper, and a little blacking from 
 her friend Mr. Briggs, in a broken gallipot, would
 
 MR. BURKE. 373 
 
 be converted by Miss Burney into more worth than 
 all the stationery of all the Treasury." 
 
 This gay and ingenious turn, which made the 
 compliment as gratifying to one, as the present 
 could be to the other, raised a smile of general arch- 
 ness at its address in the company ; and of compre- 
 hensive delight in Dr. Burney. 
 
 The year 1783 was now on its wane ; so was the 
 administration in which Mr. Burke was a minister ; 
 when one day, after a dinner at Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds', Mr. Burke drew Dr. Burney aside, and, with 
 great delicacy, and feeling his way, by the most 
 investigating looks, as he proceeded, said that the 
 organist's place at Chelsea College was then vacant : 
 that it was but twenty pounds a year, but that, to a 
 man of Dr. Burney's eminence, if it should be worth 
 acceptance, it might be raised to fifty. He then 
 lamented that, during the short time in which he 
 had been Paymaster General, nothing better, and, 
 indeed, nothing else had occurred more worthy of 
 offering. 
 
 Trifling as this was in a pecuniary light, and 
 certainly far beneath the age or the rank in his 
 profession of Dr. Burney, to possess any thing 
 through the influence, or rather the friendship of
 
 374 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Mr. Burke, had a charm irresistible. The Doctor 
 wished, also, for some retreat from, yet near London ; 
 and he had reason to hope for apartments, ere long, 
 in the capacious Chelsea College. He therefore 
 warmly returned his acknowledgments for the pro- 
 posal, to which he frankly acceded. 
 
 And two days after, just as the news was pub- 
 lished of a total change of administration, Dr. 
 Burney received from Mr. Burke the following notice 
 of his vigilant kindness : 
 
 "To DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " I had yesterday the pleasure of voting you, my dear Sir, a 
 salary of fifty pounds a year, as organist to Chelsea Hospital. 
 But as every increase of salary made at our Board is subject to 
 the approbation of the Lords of the Treasury, what effect the 
 change now made may have I know not ; but I do not think any 
 Treasury will rescind it. 
 
 " This was pour faire la bonne bouche at parting with office ; 
 and I am only sorry that it did not fall in my way to shew you 
 a more substantial mark of my high respect for you and Miss 
 Burney. " I have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 " EDM. BURKE." 
 
 " Horse Guards, Dec. 9, 1783." 
 
 " I really could not do this business at a more early period, 
 else it would have been done infallibly." 

 
 MR. BURKE. 375 
 
 The pleasure of Dr. Burney at this event was 
 sensibly dampt when he found that la bonne bouche 
 so kindly made for himself, and so flatteringly uniting 
 his daughter in its intentions, was unallied to any 
 species of remuneration, or even of consideration, 
 to Mr. Burke himself, for all his own long willing 
 services, his patriotic exertions for the general good, 
 and his noble, even where erroneous, efforts to sti- 
 mulate public virtue. 
 
 A short time afterwards, Mr. Burke called him- 
 self in St. Martin's-street, and, for the Doctor, as 
 usual, was not at home, Mr. Burke, as usual, had 
 the condescension to inquire for this Memorialist ; 
 whom he found alone. 
 
 He entered the room with that penetrating look, 
 yet open air, that marked his demeanour where his 
 object in giving was, also, to receive pleasure ; and 
 in uttering apologies of as much elegance for break- 
 ing into her time, as if he could possibly be ignorant 
 of the honour he did her ; or blind to the delight 
 with which it was felt. 
 
 He was anxious, he said, to make known in person 
 that the business of the Chelsea Organ was finally 
 settled at the Treasury. 
 
 Difficult would it be, from the charm of his man-
 
 376 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 ner as well as of his words, to decide whether he 
 conveyed this communication with most friendliness 
 or most politeness : but, having delivered for Dr. 
 Burney all that officially belonged to the business, 
 he thoughtfully, a moment, paused ; and then im- 
 pressively said : " This is my last act of office ! " 
 
 He pronounced these words with a look that 
 almost affectionately displayed his satisfaction that 
 it should so be bestowed ; and with such manly self- 
 command of cheerfulness in the midst of frankly 
 undisguised regret that all his official functions were 
 over, that his hearer was sensibly, though silently 
 touched, by such distinguishing partiality. Her 
 looks, however, she hopes, were not so mute as 
 her voice, for those of Mr. Burke seemed respon- 
 sively to accept their gratitude. He reiterated, then, 
 his kind messages to the Doctor, and took leave.
 
 DR. JOHNSON'S CLUB. 377 
 
 1784. 
 
 The reviving ray of pleasure that gleamed from 
 the kindness of Mr. Burke at the close of the fatal 
 year 1783, still spread its genial warmth over Dr. 
 Burney at the beginning of 1784, by brightening 
 a hope of recovery for Dr. Johnson ; a hope which, 
 though frequently dimmed, cast forth, from time to 
 time, a transitory lustre nearly to this year's con- 
 clusion. 
 
 DR. JOHNSON'S CLUB. 
 
 Dr. Burney now was become a member of the 
 Literary Club ; in which he found an association 
 so select, yet so various, that there were few things, 
 either of business or pleasure, that he ever permitted 
 to interfere with his attendance. Where, indeed, 
 could taste point out, or genius furnish, a society to 
 meet his wishes, if that could fail which had the 
 decided national superiority of Johnson and Burke at 
 its head ? while Banks, Beauclerk, Boswell, Colman, 
 Courtney, Eliot (Earl,) Fox, Gibbon, Hamilton (Sir 
 William,) Hinchcliffe, Jones, Macartney (Earl,) 
 Malone, Percy, Reynolds, Scott (Lord Sewel,)
 
 378 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Sheridan, Spencer (Earl,) Windham, and many 
 others of high and acknowledged abilities, succes- 
 sively entering, marked this assemblage as the pride 
 not of this meeting alone, but of the Classical 
 British Empire of the day. 
 
 It had been the original intention of Dr. Johnson, 
 when this club, of which the idea was conceived by 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, was in contemplation, to elect 
 amongst its members some one of noted reputa- 
 tion in every art, science, and profession ; to the end 
 that solid information might elucidate every subject 
 that should be started. This profound suggestion, 
 nevertheless, was either passed over, or overruled. 
 
 It is probable that those, so much the larger 
 portion of mankind, who love light and desultory 
 discourse, were persuaded they should find more 
 amusement in wandering about the wilds of fanci- 
 ful conjecture, than in submitting to be disciplined 
 by the barriers of systemized conviction. 
 
 Brightly forward at this club came Mr. Windham, 
 of Felbrig, amongst those whose penetration had 
 long since preceded the public voice in ranking Dr. 
 Burney as a distinguished Man of Letters. And 
 from the date of these meetings, their early esteem 
 was augmented into partial, yet steady regard.
 
 HANDEL'S COMMEMORATION. 379 
 
 Mr. Windham was a true and first-rate gentle- 
 man ; polite, cultivated, learned, upright, and noble- 
 minded. To an imagination the most ardent for 
 whatever could issue from native genius in others, he 
 joined a charm of manner that gave an interest to 
 whatever he uttered himself j no matter how light, 
 how slight, how unimportant j that invested it with 
 weight and pleasure to his auditor: while in his 
 smile there was a gentleness that singularly qualified 
 an almost fiery animation in his words. To speak, 
 however, of his instantaneous powers of pleasing, 
 though it be conferring on him one of the least com- 
 mon of Nature's gifts, as well as one of the fairest, 
 is insufficient to characterize the peculiar charm of his 
 address ; for it was not simply the power of pleasing 
 that he possessed it was rather that of winning. 
 
 HANDEL'S COMMEMORATION. 
 
 In the ensuing spring and summer, a new and bril- 
 liant professional occupation fell, fortunately, to the 
 task of Dr. Burney, drawing him from his cares, and 
 beguiling him from his sorrows, by notes of sweetest 
 melody, and combinations of the most intricate, yet 
 sound harmony ; for this year, which completed a
 
 380 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 century from the birth of Handel, was alloted for a 
 public Commemoration of that great musician and 
 his works. 
 
 Dr. Burney, justly proud of the honour paid to 
 the chief of that art of which he was a professor, was 
 soon, and instinctively wound up to his native spirits, 
 by the exertions which were called forth in aid of this 
 noble enterprize. He suggested fresh ideas to the 
 Conductors ; he was consulted by all the Directors ; 
 and his advice and experience enlightened every 
 member of the business in whatever walk he moved. 
 
 Not content, however, to be merely a counsellor 
 to a celebration of such eclat in his own career, he 
 resolved upon becoming the Historian of the trans- 
 action ; and upon devoting to it his best labours gra- 
 tuitously, by presenting them to the fund for the 
 benefit of decayed musicians and their families. 
 
 This offer, accordingly, he made to the honourable 
 Directors ; by whom it was accepted with pleasure 
 and gratitude. 
 
 He now delegated all his powers to the furtherance 
 of this grand scheme ; and drew up a narrative of the 
 festival, with so much delight in recording the disin- 
 terestedness of its voluntary performers ; its services 
 to the superannuated or helpless old labourers of his
 
 HANDEL'S COMMEMORATION. 381 
 
 caste; and the splendid success of the undertaking; that 
 his history of the performances in Commemoration of 
 Handel, presents a picture so vivid of that superb en- 
 tertainment, that those who still live to remember it, 
 must seem to witness its stupendous effects anew : and 
 those of later days, who can know of it but by tradi- 
 tion, must bewail their little chance of ever personally 
 hearing such magnificent harmony ; or beholding a 
 scene so glorious of royal magnificence and national 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Dr. Johnson was wont to say, with a candour that, 
 though admirable, was irresistibly comic, "I always 
 talk my best ! " and, with equal singleness of truth it 
 might be said of Dr. Burney, that, undertake what 
 he would, he always did his best. 
 
 In writing, therefore, this account, he conceived 
 he should make it more interesting by preceding it 
 with the Memoirs of Handel. And for this purpose, 
 he applied to all his German correspondents, to 
 acquire materials concerning the early life of his 
 hero ; and to all to whom Handel had been known, 
 either personally or traditionally, in England and 
 Ireland, for anecdotes of his character and conduct 
 in the British empire. Mrs. Delany here, and by 
 the desire of the King himself, supplied sundry par-
 
 382 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 ticulars ; her brother, Mr. Granville, having been one 
 of the patrons of this immortal composer. 
 
 And next, to render the work useful, he inserted 
 a statement of the cash received in consequence of 
 the five musical performances, with the disbursement 
 of the sums to their charitable purposes ; and an 
 abstract of the general laws and resolutions of the 
 fund for the support of decayed musicians and 
 their families. 
 
 And lastly, he embellished it with several plates, 
 representing Handel, or in honour of Handel ; and 
 with two views, from original designs,* of the interior 
 of Westminster Abbey during the Commemoration : 
 the first representing the galleries prepared for the 
 reception of their Majesties, of the Royal Family, 
 of the Directors, Archbishops, Bishops, Dean and 
 Chapter of Westminster, heads of the law, &c. &c. 
 
 The second view displaying the orchestra and 
 performers, in the costume of the day. 
 
 Not small in the scales of justice must be reckoned 
 this gift of the biographical and professional talents 
 of Dr. Burney to the musical fund. A man who 
 held his elevation in his class of life wholly from 
 
 * By Edward Burney, Esq., of Clipstone-street.
 
 HANDEL'S COMMEMORATION. 383 
 
 himself; a father of eight children, who all looked 
 up to him as their prop ; a professor who, at fifty- 
 eight years of age, laboured at his calling with the 
 indefatigable diligence of youth; and who had no 
 time, even for his promised History, but what he 
 spared from his repasts or his repose ; to make any 
 offering, gratuitously, of a work which, though it 
 might have no chance of sale when its eclat of novelty 
 was passed, must yet, while that short eclat shone 
 forth, have a sale of high emolument ; manifested, 
 perhaps, as generous a spirit of charity, and as ardent 
 a love of the lyre, as could well, by a person in so 
 private a line of life, be exhibited. 
 
 Dr. Burney was, of course, so entirely at home on 
 a subject such as this, that he could only have to 
 wait the arrival of his foreign materials to go to 
 work ; and only begin working to be in sight of his 
 book's completion : but the business of the plates 
 could not be executed quite so rapidly ; on the con- 
 trary, though the composition was finished in a 
 few weeks, it was not till the following year that 
 the engravings were ready for publication. 
 
 This was a laxity of progress that by no means 
 kept pace with the eagerness of the Directors, or 
 the expectations of the public : and the former fre-
 
 384 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 quently made known their disappointment through 
 the channel of the Earl of Sandwich ; who, at the 
 same time, entered into correspondence with the 
 Doctor, relative to future anniversary concerts upon 
 a similar plan, though upon a considerably lessened 
 scale to that which had been adopted for the Com- 
 memoration. 
 
 The inconveniences, however, of this new labour, 
 though by no means trifling, because absorbing all 
 the literary time of the Doctor, to the great loss 
 and procrastination of his musical history, had com- 
 pensations, that would have mitigated much superior 
 evil. 
 
 The King himself deigned to make frequent inquiry 
 into the state of the business ; and when his Majesty 
 knew that the publication was retarded only by the 
 engravers, he desired to see the loose and unbound 
 sheets of the work, which he perused with so strong 
 an interest in their contents, that he drew up two 
 critical notes upon them, with so much perspicuity 
 and justness, that Dr. Burney, unwilling to lose their 
 purport, yet not daring to presume to insert them 
 with the King's name in any appendix, cancelled the 
 two sheets to which they had reference, and embodied 
 their meaning in his own text. At this he was cer-
 
 COMMEMORATION OF HANDEL. 385 
 
 tain the King could not be displeased, as it was with 
 his Majesty's consent that they had been communi- 
 cated to the doctor, by Mr. Nicolai, a page of the 
 Queen's. 
 
 Now, however, there seems to be no possible 
 objection to giving to the public these two notes from 
 the original royal text, as the unassuming tone of their 
 advice cannot but afford a pleasing reminiscence to 
 those by whom that benevolent monarch was known ; 
 while to those who are too young to recollect him, 
 they may still be a matter of laudable curiosity. 
 And they will obviate, also, any ignorant imputation 
 of flattery, in the praise which is inserted in the 
 dedication of the Work to the King ; and which will 
 be subjoined to these original notes. 
 
 From the hand-writing of his Majesty George III. 
 
 " It seems but just, as well as natural, in mention- 
 ing the 4th Hautbois Concerto, on the 4th day's 
 performance of Handel's Commemoration, to take 
 notice of the exquisite taste and propriety Mr. Fischer 
 exhibited in the solo parts ; which must convince his 
 hearers that his excellence does not exist alone in 
 performing his own composition ; and that his tone 
 
 VOL. II. 2 C
 
 386 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 perfectly filled the stupendous building where this 
 excellent concerto was performed." 
 
 From the same. 
 
 " The performance of the Messiah. 
 
 " Dr. Burney seems to forget the great merit of 
 the choral fugue, * He trusteth in God,' by assert- 
 ing that the words would admit of no stroke of 
 passion. Now the real truth is, that the words con- 
 tain a manifest presumption and impertinence, which 
 Handel has, in the most masterly manner, taken 
 advantage of. And he was so conscious of the moral 
 merit of that movement, that, whenever he was de- 
 sired to sit down to the harpsichord, if not instantly 
 inclined to play, he used to take this subject ; which 
 ever set his imagination at work, and made him 
 produce wonderful capriccios." 
 
 From Dr. Burners Dedication. 
 
 " That pleasure in music should be complete, 
 science and nature must assist each other. A quick 
 sensibility of melody and harmony is not often origi- 
 nally bestowed ; and those who are born with this 
 susceptibility of modulated sounds are often ignorant
 
 MRS. THRALE. 387 
 
 of its principles, and must, therefore, in a great degree 
 be delighted by chance. But when your Majesty is 
 present, the artists may congratulate themselves upon 
 the attention of a judge, in whom all requisites concur, 
 who hears them not merely with instinctive emotion, 
 but with rational approbation ; and whose praise of 
 Handel is not the effusion of credulity, but the ema- 
 nation of science." 
 
 With feelings the most poignant, and a pen the 
 most reluctant, the Memorialist must now relate an 
 event which gave peculiar and lasting concern to Dr. 
 Burney ; and which, though long foreseen, had lost 
 nothing, either from expectation or by preparation, 
 of its inherent unfitness. 
 
 MRS. THRALE. 
 
 About the middle of this year, Mrs. Thrale put 
 an end to the alternate hopes and fears of her family 
 and friends, and to her own torturing conflicts, by a 
 change of name that, for the rest of her life, pro- 
 duced nearly a change of existence. 
 
 Her station in society, her fortune, her distin- 
 guished education, and her conscious sense of its dis- 
 2 c 2
 
 388 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 tinction ; and yet more, her high origin* a native 
 honour, which had always seemed the glory of her 
 self-appreciation ; all had contributed to lift her so 
 eminently above the witlessly impetuous tribe, who 
 immolate fame, interest, and duty to the shrine of 
 passion, that the outcry of surprise and censure 
 raised throughout the metropolis by these unex- 
 pected nuptials, was almost stunning in its jarring 
 noise of general reprobation ; resounding through 
 madrigals, parodies, declamation, epigrams, and 
 
 irony. 
 
 And yet more deeply wounding was the concen- 
 trated silence of those faithful friends who, at the 
 period of her bright display of talents, virtues, and 
 hospitality, had attached themselves to her person 
 with sincerity and affection. 
 
 Dr. Johnson excepted, none amongst the latter 
 were more painfully impressed than Dr. Burney ; for 
 none with more true grief had foreseen the mischief 
 in its menace, or dreaded its deteriorating effect on 
 her maternal devoirs. Nevertheless, conscious that 
 
 * Hester Lynch Salusbury, Mrs.Thrale, was lineally descended 
 from Adam of Saltsburg, who came over to England with the 
 Conqueror.
 
 MRS. THRALE. 38Q 
 
 if he had no weight, he had also no right over her 
 actions, he hardened not his heart, when called upon 
 by an appeal, from her own hand, to give her his 
 congratulations ; but, the deed once irreversible, 
 civilly addressed himself to both parties at once, with 
 all of conciliatory kindness in good wishes and re- 
 gard, that did least violence to his sentiments and 
 principles. 
 
 Far harder was the task of his daughter, on re* 
 ceiving from the new bride a still more ardent ap- 
 peal, written at the very instant of quitting the altar : 
 she had been trusted while the conflict still endured ; 
 and her opinions and feelings had unreservedly been 
 acknowledged in all their grief of opposition : and 
 their avowal had been borne, nay, almost bowed 
 down to, with a liberality of mind, a softness of af- 
 fection, a nearly angelic sweetness of temper, that 
 won more fondly than ever the heart that they rived 
 
 with pitying anguish, till the very epoch of the 
 
 second marriage. 
 
 Yet, strange to tell ! all this contest of opinion, 
 and dissonance of feeling, seemed, at the altar, to be 
 suddenly, but in totality forgotten ! and the bride 
 wrote to demand not alone kind wishes for her peace 
 and welfare those she had no possibility of doubt-
 
 390 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 ing but joy, wishing joy ; but cordial felicitations 
 upon her marriage ! 
 
 These, and so abruptly, to have accorded, must, 
 even in their pleader's eyes, have had the semblance, 
 and more than the semblance, of the most glaring 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 A compliance of such inconsistency such false- 
 hood the Memorialist could not bestow; her an- 
 swer, therefore, written in deep distress, and with 
 regrets unspeakable, was necessarily disappointing ; 
 disappointment is inevitably chilling ; and, after a 
 painful letter or two, involving mistake and misap- 
 prehension, the correspondence though not on the 
 side of the Memorialist abruptly dropt. 
 
 The minuter circumstances of this grievous catas- 
 trophe to a connexion begun with the most brilliant 
 delight, and broken up with the acutest sorrow, 
 might seem superfluous in the Memoirs of Dr. Bur- 
 ney : yet, in speaking of him Biographically, in his 
 Fatherly capacity, it is necessarily alluded to, for 
 the purpose of stating that the conduct of his daugh- 
 ter, throughout the whole of this afflicting and com- 
 plex transaction, from the time he was acquainted with 
 its difficulties, had his uniform, nay, warmest sanction. 
 
 And not more complete in concurrence upon this
 
 THE LOCKES. 391 
 
 subject were their opinions than was their unhappi- 
 ness ; and the Doctor always waited, and his daugh- 
 ter always panted, for any opportunity that might 
 re-open so dear a friendship, without warring against 
 their principles, or disturbing their reverence for 
 truth. 
 
 THE LOCKES. 
 
 Fortunately, and most seasonably, just about the 
 time that these extraordinary nuptials were in agi- 
 tating approach, an intercourse the most benign was 
 opened between the family of Dr. Burney and that 
 of Mr. Locke, of Norbury Park. 
 
 The value of such an intercourse was warmly 
 appreciated by Dr. Burney, to whose taste it was 
 sympathy, and to whose feelings it was animation : 
 while the period at which it took place, that of a 
 blight the most baneful to himself and his second 
 daughter, gave to it a character of salubrity as re- 
 storative to their nerves as it was soothing to their 
 hearts. 
 
 What, indeed, of blight, of baleful, could adhere 
 to, could commix with the Lockes of Norbury Park ? 
 All that could be devised, rather than described, of 
 virtue with hilarity, of imagination with wisdom,
 
 392 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 appeared there to make their stand. A mansion of 
 classical elegance ; a situation bright, varied, be- 
 witching in picturesque attraction j a chief in whom 
 every high quality under heaven seemed concen- 
 trated ; a partner to that chief uniting the closest 
 mental resemblance to the embellishment of the 
 most captivating beauty ; a progeny blithe, bloom- 
 ing, and intelligent, encircling them like grouping 
 angels exhibited, all together, a picture of happi- 
 ness so sanctified by virtue ; of talents so ennobled 
 by character ; of religion so always manifested by 
 good works ; that Norbury Park presented a scene 
 of perfection that seemed passing reality I and even 
 while viewed and enjoyed, to wear the air of a 
 living vision of ideal felicity. 
 
 The first visit that Dr. Burney paid to this incom- 
 parable spot was in company with Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 No place would be more worthy the painter's eye, 
 and painter's mind of thejmight of Plympton than 
 this ; and he entered into all the merits of the man- 
 sion, its dwellers, and its scenery, with a vivacity of 
 approvance, as gratifying to his elegant host and 
 hostess, as to himself were the objects of taste, fancy, 
 and fine workmanship, with which he was encircled 
 in that school, or assemblage of the fine arts which
 
 THE LOCKES. 393 
 
 seemed in Mr. Locke to exhibit a living Apollo at 
 their head : while the delicacy, the feeling, the 
 witching softness of his fair partner, expanded a 
 genial cheerfulness that seemed to bloom around her 
 wherever she looked or moved. 
 
 The conversation of Mr. Locke was a source 
 inexhaustible of instruction, conveyed in language at 
 once so sensitive and so pointed ; with a tone, a man- 
 ner, a look so impressively in harmony with every word 
 that he uttered ; that observations of a depth and a 
 novelty that seemed to demand the most lengthened 
 discussion, obtained immediate comprehension, if his 
 hearer examined the penetration of his countenance 
 while he listened to that of his voice. 
 
 His taste, alike in works of nature and of art, was 
 profound in itself and illuminating to others : yet, 
 from his habitual silence in mixt companies, the most 
 strikingly amiable parts of his character could be 
 developed only on his own domain, amidst his family, 
 his friends, his neighbours, and the poor : where the 
 refinement of his converse, and the melting humanity 
 of his disposition, reflected genial lustre on each 
 other.* 
 
 * The late Sir Thomas Lawrence, in speaking- of Norbury
 
 394 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 Here, too, the knight of Plympton made a leisurely 
 survey of the extraordinary early sketches of the 
 eldest son of the mansion's Apollo ; who, for bound- 
 less invention, exquisite taste, and masterly sketches 
 of original execution, was gifted with a genius that 
 mocked all cotemporary rivalry. * 
 
 Dr. Burney himself, at home in all the arts, partook 
 of this entertainment with his usual animated pleasure 
 in excellence ; while in all that accompanied it of lite- 
 rary or social description, he as often led as followed 
 these distinguished conversers. 
 
 But the exhilaration of this almost heavenly 
 sojourn for such, to its guests, it had appeared 
 was succeeded by an alarm to the heart of Dr. 
 Burney the most intense, perhaps, by which it could 
 be attacked ; an alarm deeply affecting his comforts, 
 his wishes, and the happiness of his whole house, 
 
 Park to this editor, while he was painting his matchless picture 
 of Mrs. Locke, senior, in 1826, said " I have seen much of the 
 world since I was first admitted to Norbury Park, but I have 
 never seen another Mr. Locke 1" 
 
 * This, also, was the opinion of Sir Thomas Lawrence.
 
 THE LOCKES. 3Q5 
 
 from a menace of consumption to his daughter 
 Susanna, which demanded a rapid change of air, 
 and forced a hasty and immediate trial of that of 
 Boulogne sur Mer. 
 
 The motive, however, of the little voyage, with 
 its hope, made Dr. Burney submit to it with his 
 accustomed rational resignation ; though severe, 
 nearly lacerating, was every separation from that 
 beloved child j and though suspense and fear ho- 
 vered over him unremittingly during the whole of 
 the ensuing winter. 
 
 Doubly, therefore, now, was felt the acquisition 
 of the Lockes, the charm of whose intercourse was 
 endowed with powers the most balsamic for allevi- 
 ating, though it could not heal, the pain of this 
 fearful wound, through their sympathizing know- 
 ledge of the virtues of the invalid ; their appreciation 
 of her sweetness of disposition, their taste for her 
 society, their enjoyment of her talents, and their 
 admiration of her conduct and character ; of her 
 patience in suffering, her fortitude in adversity ; 
 her mild submission to every inevitable evil, with 
 her noble struggles against every calamity that firm- 
 ness, vigour, or toil, might prevent, or might distance.
 
 396 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 They loved her as she merited to be loved! and 
 almost as she loved them in return ; for their souls 
 were in unison of excellence. 
 
 MRS. DELANY. 
 
 But while the Lockes thus afforded a gentle and 
 genial aid towards sustaining the illness and absence 
 of Mrs. Phillips, it was not by superseding, but by 
 blending in sweet harmony with the support afforded 
 by Mrs. Delany : and if the narration given of that 
 lady has, in any degree, drawn the reader to join in 
 the admiration with which she inspired Dr. Burney, 
 he will not be sorry to see a further account of her, 
 taken again from the Diary addressed to Mrs. Phillips. 
 
 " To MRS. PHILLIPS. 
 
 " I have just passed a delicious day, my Susanna, 
 with Mrs. Delany ; the most pleasing I have spent 
 with her yet. She entrusted to me her collection 
 of letters from Dean Swift and Dr. Young ; and 
 told me all the anecdotes that occurred to her of 
 both, and of her acquaintance with them. How 
 grievous that her sight continues enfeebling ! all her
 
 MRS. DELANY. 397 
 
 other senses, and all her faculties are perfect 
 though she thinks otherwise. * My friends/ she 
 said, ' will last me, I believe, as long as I last, 
 because they are very good j but the pleasure of our 
 friendship is now all to be received by me ! for I 
 
 have lost the power of returning any ! ' 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 " If she spoke on any other subject such untruths, 
 I should not revere her, as I now do, to my heart's 
 core. She had been in great affliction at the death 
 of Lady Mansfield ; for whom the Duchess Dowager 
 of Portland had grieved, she said, yet more deeply : 
 and they had shut themselves up together from all 
 other company .-V But to-day,' she added, with a 
 most soft smile, 4 her Grace could not come ; and I 
 felt I quite required a cordial, so I sent to beg for 
 Miss Burney.' 
 
 " * I have been told,' she afterwards said, * that 
 when I grew older, I should feel less ; but I do not 
 find it so ! I am sooner, I think, hurt and affected 
 than ever. I suppose it is with very old age as with 
 extreme youth, the effect of weakness ; neither of 
 those stages of life have firmness for bearing mis- 
 fortune with equanimity.'
 
 398 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 " She keeps her good looks, however, unimpaired, 
 except in becoming thinner ; and, when not under 
 the pressure of recent grief, she is as lively, gay, 
 pleasant, and good-humouredly arch and playful, as 
 she could have been at eighteen. 
 
 " * I see, indeed,' she said, * worse and worse, 
 but I am thankful that, at my age, eighty-four, I 
 can see at all. My chief loss is from not more 
 quickly discerning the changes of countenance in my 
 friends. However, to distinguish even the light is a 
 great blessing ! ' 
 
 " She had no company whatever, hut her beauti- 
 ful great niece.* The Duchess was confined to her 
 home by a bad cold. 
 
 " She was so good as to shew me a most gracious 
 letter from her Majesty, which she had just received, 
 and-which finished thus condescendingly : 
 
 " Believe me, my dear Mrs. Delany, 
 
 " Your affectionate Queen, 
 
 " CHARLOTTE/' 
 
 * Miss Port, now Mrs. Waddington of Llanover House.
 
 MR. SMELT. 399 
 
 MR. SMELT. 
 
 Fortunately, also, now, Dr. Burney increased the 
 intimacy of his acquaintance with Mr. Smelt, for- 
 merly sub-governor to the Prince of Wales ;* a man 
 who, for displaying human excellence in the three 
 essential points of Understanding, Character, and 
 Conduct, stood upon the same line of acknowledged 
 perfection with Mr. Locke of Norbury Park. And 
 had that virtuous and anxious parent of his people, 
 George III., known them both at the critical instant 
 when he was seeking a model of a true fine gentle- 
 man, for the official situation of preceptor to the 
 heir of his sovereignty ; he might have had to cope 
 with the most surprising of difficulties, that of 
 seeing before his choice two men, in neither of 
 whom he could espy a blemish that could cast a 
 preference upon the other. 
 
 The worth of both these gentlemen was known 
 upon proof: their talents, accomplishments, and 
 taste in the arts and in literature, were singularly 
 similar. Each was soft and winning of speech, but 
 
 * Afterwards George IV.
 
 400 MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY. 
 
 firm and intrepid of conduct ; and their manners, 
 their refined high breeding, were unrivalled, save 
 each by the other. And while the same, also, was 
 their reputation for integrity and honour, as for 
 learning and philosophy, the first personal delight of 
 both was in the promotion and exercise of those 
 gentle charities of human life, which teach us to 
 solace and to aid our fellow-creatures. 
 
 END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
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