He had found their Majesties together, without any attendants or any
state, in the library; where he presented both to the King and to the
Queen a copy of his Commemoration.
They had the appearance of being in a serene _tête à tête_, that bore
every mark of frank and cheerful intercourse. His reception was the
most gracious; and they both seemed eager to look at his offerings,
which they instantly opened and examined.
“You have made, Dr. Burney,” said his Majesty, “a much more
considerable book of this Commemoration than I had expected; or,
perhaps, than you had expected yourself?”
“Yes, Sire,” he answered; “the subject grew upon me as I proceeded, and
a continual accumulation of materials rendered it almost daily more
interesting.”
His Majesty then detailed his opinion of the various performers; and
said that one thing only had discredited the business, and that was the
inharmonious manner in which one of the bass singers had sung his part;
which had really been more like a man groaning in a fit of the cholic,
than singing an air.
The Doctor laughingly agreed that such sort of execution certainly more
resembled a convulsive noise, proceeding from some one in torture, than
any species of harmony; and that, therefore, as he could not speak of
that singer favourably in his account, he had been wholly silent on his
subject; as had been his practice in other similar instances.
The Queen seemed perfectly to understand, and much to approve, the
motive for this mild method of treating want of abilities and powers
to please, where the will was good, and where the labour had been
gratuitous.
The King expressed much admiration that the full _fortes_ of so vast a
band, in accompanying the singers, had never been too loud, even for
a single voice; when it might so naturally have been expected that the
accompaniments even of the softest pianos, in such plenitude, would
have been overpowering to all vocal solos. He had talked, he said, both
with musical people and with philosophers upon the subject; but none of
them could assign a reason, or account for so astonishing a fact.
Something, then, bringing forth the name of Shakespeare, the Doctor
mentioned a translation of his plays by Professor Eichenberg. The King,
laughing, exclaimed: “The Germans translate Shakespeare! why we don’t
understand him ourselves: how should foreigners?”
The Queen replied, that she thought Eichenberg had rendered the
soliloquies very exactly.
“Aye,” answered the King, “that is because, in those serious speeches,
there are none of those puns, quibbles, and peculiar idioms of
Shakespeare and his times, for which there are no equivalents in other
languages.”
The Doctor then begged permission to return his most humble thanks to
his Majesty, for the hints with which the work had been honoured during
its compilation. The King bowed; and their Majesties both re-opened
their books to look at the engravings; when the King, remarking to
several of them the signature of E. F. Burney,[2] said: “All your
family are geniuses, Dr. Burney. Your daughter—”
“O! your daughter,” cried the Queen, lifting up one of her hands, “is a
very extraordinary genius, indeed!”
“And is it true,” said the King, eagerly, “that you never saw Evelina
before it was printed?”
“Nor even till long after it was published;” answered the Doctor.
This excited a curiosity for the details that led, from question to
question, to almost all the history that has here been narrated;
and which seemed so much to amuse their Majesties, that they never
changed the theme during the rest of a long audience. And, probably,
the parental pleasure obviously caused by their condescension,
involuntarily augmented its exertions. Certainly it sent home the
flattered father as full of personal gratitude as of happy loyalty.