In this same spring, a very serious misfortune befel Dr. Burney, which,
though not of the affecting cast that had lately tainted his happiness,
severely attacked his worldly comforts.
Early one morning, and before he was risen, Mrs. Burney’s maid, rushing
vehemently into the bedroom, screamed out: “Oh, Sir! Robbers! Robbers!
the house is broke open!”
A wrapping gown and slippers brought the Doctor down stairs in a
moment; when he found that the bureau of Mrs. Burney, in the dining
parlour, had been forced open; and saw upon the table three packets
of mingled gold and silver, which seemed to have been put into three
divisions for a triple booty; but which were left, it was supposed,
upon some sudden alarm, while the robbers were in the act of
distribution.
After securing and rejoicing in what so fortunately had been saved from
seizure, Dr. Burney repaired to his study; but no abandoned pillage
met his gratulations there! his own bureau had been visited with equal
rapacity, though left with less precipitancy; and he soon discovered
that he had been purloined of upwards of £300.
He sent instantly for an officer of the Police, who unhesitatingly
pronounced that the leader, at least, of the burglary, must have been
a former domestic; this was decided, from remarking that he had gone
straight forward to the two bureaus, which were the only depositories
of money; while sundry cabinets and commodes, to the right and to the
left, had been passed unransacked.
The entrance into the house had been effected through the area; and
a kitchen window was still open, at the foot of which, upon the sand
on the floor, the print of a man’s shoe was so perfect, that the
police-officer drew its circumference with great exactitude; picking
up, at the same time, a button that had been squeezed off from a coat,
by the forced passage.
Dr. Burney had recently parted with a man-servant of whom he had much
reason to think ill, though none had occurred to make him believed
a house-breaker. This man was immediately inquired for; but he had
quitted the lodgings to which he had retired upon losing his place; and
had acquainted no one whither he was gone.
The officers of the police, however, with their usual ferretting
routine of dexterity, soon traced the suspected runaway to Hastings;
where he had arrived to embark in a fishing vessel for France; but he
had found none ready, and was waiting for a fair wind.
When the police-officer, having intimation that he was gone to an inn
for some refreshment, entered the kitchen where he was taking some
bread and cheese, he got up so softly, while the officer, not to alarm
him, had turned round to give some directions to a waiter, that he
slid unheard out of the kitchen by an opposite door: and, quickly as
the officer missed him, he was sought for in vain; not a trace of his
footsteps was to be seen; though the inward guilt manifested by such an
evasion redoubled the vigilance of pursuit.
The fugitive was soon, however, discerned, on the top of a high brick
wall, running along its edge in the midst of the most frightful danger,
with a courage that, in any better cause, would have been worthy of
admiration.
The policeman, now, composedly left him to his race and his defeat;
satisfied that no asylum awaited him at the end of the wall, and that
he must thence drop, without further resistance, into captivity.
Cruel for Dr. Burney is what remains of this narration: the runaway
was seized, and brought to the public office, where a true bill was
found for his trial, as he could give no reason for his flight; and
as the button picked up in the area exactly suited a wanting one in
a coat discovered to be in his possession. His shoe, also, precisely
fitted the drawing on the kitchen floor. But though this circumstantial
evidence was so strong as to bring to all the magistrates a
conviction of his guilt that they scrupled not to avow, it was only
circumstantial; it was not positive. He had taken nothing but cash; a
single bank note might have been brought home to him with proof; but to
coin, who could swear? The magistrates, therefore, were compelled to
discharge, though they would not utter the word acquit, the prisoner;
and the Doctor had the mortification to witness in the court the
repayment of upwards of fifty guineas to the felon, that had been found
upon him at Hastings. The rest of the three hundred pounds must have
been secured by the accomplices; or buried in some place of concealment.
But Dr. Burney, however aggrieved and injured by this affair, was
always foremost to subscribe to the liberal maxim of the law, that it
is better to acquit ten criminals, than to condemn one innocent man.
He resigned himself, therefore, submissively, however little pleased,
to the laws of his noble country, ever ready to consider, like Pope,
“All partial evil universal good.”
* * * * *
Would it be just, could it be right, to leave unqualified to the grief
of his friends, and to the rage of the murmurers against destiny, a
blight such as this to the industry and the welfare of Dr. Burney; and
not seek to soften the concern of the kind, and not aim at mitigating
the asperity of the declaimers, by opening a fairer point of view for
the termination of this event, if fact and fair reality can supply
colours for so revivifying a change of scenery?
Surely such a retention, if not exacted by discretion or delicacy,
would be graceless. A secret, therefore, of more than forty-seven
years’ standing, and known at this moment to no living being but this
Memorialist, ought now, in honour, in justice, and in gratitude, to be
laid open to the surviving friends of Dr. Burney.
About a month after this treacherous depredation had filled the
Doctor and his house with dismay, a lady of high rank, fortune,
and independence, well known in the family, mysteriously summoned
this Memorialist to a private room, for a _tête à tête_, in St.
Martin’s-street.
As soon as they were alone, she scrutinizingly examined that no one was
within hearing on the other side of either of the doors leading into
the apartment; and then solemnly said that she came to demand a little
secret service.
The Memorialist protested herself most ready to meet her request; but
that was insufficient: the lady insisted upon a formal and positive
promise, that what she should ask should be done; yet that her name in
the transaction should never be divulged.
There seemed something so little reasonable in a desire for so
unqualified an engagement upon a subject unknown, that the Memorialist,
disturbed, hesitated and hung back.
The lady was palpably hurt; and, dropping a low curtsey, with a
supercilious half smile, and a brief, but civil, “Good morrow, ma’am!”
was proudly stalking out of the room; when, shocked to offend her, the
Memorialist besought her patience; and then frankly asked, how she
could promise what she was in the dark whether she could perform?
The lady, unbending her furrowed brow, replied, “I’ll tell you how,
ma’am: you must either say, I believe you to be an honest woman, and
I’ll trust you; or, I believe you to be no better than you should be,
and I’ll have nothing to do with you.”
An alternative such as this could hardly be called an alternative: the
promise was given.
The smile now of pleasure, almost of triumph, that succeeded to that
of satire, which had almost amounted to scorn, nearly recompenced the
hazarded trust; which, soon afterwards, was even more than repaid by
the sincerest admiration.
The lady, taking a thick letter-case from a capacious and
well-furnished part of the female habiliment of other days, yclept a
pocket, produced a small parcel, and said, “Do me the favour, Ma’am,
to slip this trifle into the Doctor’s bureau the first time you see
him open it; and just say, ‘Sir, this is bank notes for three hundred
pounds, instead of what that rogue robbed you of. But you must ask no
questions; and you must not stare, Sir, for it’s from a friend that
will never be known. So don’t be over curious; for it’s a friend who
will never take it back, if you fret yourself to the bone. So please,
Sir, to do what you please with it. Either use it, or put it behind
the fire, whichever you think the most sensible.’ And then, if he
should say, ‘Pray, Miss, who gave you that impertinent message for me?’
you will get into no jeopardy, for you can answer that you are bound
head and foot to hold your tongue; and then, being a man of honour, he
will hold his. Don’t you think so, Ma’am?”
The Memorialist, heartily laughing, but in great perturbation lest the
Doctor should be hurt or displeased, would fain have resisted this
commission; but the lady, peremptorily saying a promise was a promise,
which no person under a vagabond; but more especially a person of
honour, writing books, could break, would listen to no appeal.
She had been, she protested, on the point of _non compos_ ever since
that rogue had played the Doctor such a knavish trick, as picking his
bureau to get at his cash; in thinking how much richer she, who had
neither child nor chick, nor any particular great talents, was than
she ought to be; while a man who was so much a greater scholar, and
with such a fry of young ones at his heels, all of them such a set of
geniuses, was suddenly made so much poorer, for no offence, only that
rogue’s knavishness. And she could not get back into her right senses
upon the accident, she said, till she had hit upon this scheme: for
knowing Dr. Burney to be a very punctilious man, like most of the
book-writers, who were always rather odd, she was aware she could not
make him accept such a thing in a quiet way, however it might be his
due in conscience; only by some cunning device that he could not get
the better of.
Expostulation was vain; and the matter was arranged exactly according
to her injunctions.
Ultimately, however, when the deed was so confirmed as to be
irrevocable, the Memorialist obtained her leave to make known its
author; though under the most absolute charge of secrecy for all
around; which was strictly observed; notwithstanding all the resistance
of the astonished Doctor, whom she forbade ever to name it, either to
herself, she said, or Co., under pain of never speaking to him again.
All peculiar obstacles, however, having now passed away, justice seems
to demand the recital of this extraordinary little anecdote in the
history of Dr. Burney.
Those who still remember a daughter of the Earl of Thanet, who was
widow of Sir William Duncan, will recognize, without difficulty, in
this narration, the generosity, spirit, and good humour, with the
uncultivated, ungrammatical, and incoherent dialect; and the comic, but
arbitrary manner; of the indescribably diverting and grotesque, though
munificent and nobly liberal, Lady Mary Duncan.
* * * * *