Not to break into the little history which mentally, during the last
five years, had almost absorbed Dr. Burney, no mention has been made
of a personal event of as much moment to his peace as to his fame;
namely, the publication, in 1789, of the third volume of his History
of Music; nor that, before the end of the same year, he had the
brain-relieving satisfaction of completing his long impending work, by
bringing out the fourth and last volume.
All the details, whether thorny or flowery, of the progress to this
conclusion, were unknown, in their passage, to the Memorialist; whose
intricate situation and disordered health chased, from every paternal
interview, all subjects that had not reference to her precarious
position.
Unnarrated, however, and undescribed, it will not be difficult to
imagine the load of care, thought, and anxiety that were now removed
from the nearly overburthened historian.
It seemed to him a sort of regeneration to feel freedom restored to his
reflections, and liberty to his use of time, by arriving at the close
of this literary labour; which, though in its origin voluntary, had of
late become heavily fatiguing, because shackled by an engagement, and
therefore obligatory.
His first feelings upon this relief he has expressed, with his
characteristic pleasantry, in a letter to Mr. Repton, the successor to
Capability Brown, and cotemporary and brother rival park-embellisher
with Uvedale Price and Gally Knight.
“Did you ever see, dear Sir,” says the Doctor in this letter, “a child,
when musing over his playthings, with seeming quiet sobriety, give an
involuntary jump from the mere ebullition of animal spirits? a few
nights ago, when I had just sent the last copy of the last chapter of
the last volume of my Work to the compositor, I caught myself in the
fact; and, if you were here, I would exhibit to you how I jumped for
joy at the thought of an enterprise being terminated, that had been
thirty years in meditation, and twenty in writing and printing; and
for which I had previously taxed every amusement and social enjoyment;
and even, in order to gain more time, had drawn deeply upon my sinking
fund—Sleep.”
1791.
The life of Dr. Burney was now almost equally distributed in literary,
professional, and amical divisions.
In literature, his time, ostensibly, was become his own; but never was
time less so than when put into his own hands; for his eagerness was
without either curb or limit to devote it to some new pursuit. And
scarcely had that elastic bound of renovated youth, of which he speaks
to Mr. Repton, been capered, than a fresh, yet voluntary occupation,
drove his newly-restored leisure away, and opened a course of bookish
and critical toil, that soon seized again upon every spare moment. This
was constituting himself a member amongst the Monthly Reviewers, under
the editorship of the worthy Mr. Griffith.
Of the articles which were Dr. Burney’s, no list has been found; and
probably none was kept. The ardour of sincerity in pointing out faults
and failures, is so apt to lead to a similar ardour of severity in
their censure, that, in those days, when the critics were not, wisely,
anonymous, the secret and passive war of books and words among authors,
menaced the more public and tumultuous one of swords and pistols.[21]
The articles which, occasionally, to a small circle, he avowed,
were written with a spirit that made them frequently bright with
entertainment, and sometimes luminous with instruction.
In his professional department, he has almost with exultation recorded,
in the following passage of his journal, the happy commencement of the
year 1791.
“1791.—This year was auspiciously begun, in the musical
world, by the arrival in London of the illustrious
Joseph Haydn. ’Tis to Salomon that the lovers of music
are indebted for what the lovers of music will call this
blessing. Salomon went over himself to Vienna, upon
hearing of the death of the Prince of Esterhazy, the
great patron of Haydn, purposely to tempt that celebrated
musical genius hither; and on February 25, the first of
Haydn’s incomparable symphonies, which was composed for
the concerts of Salomon, was performed. Haydn himself
presided at the piano-forte: and the sight of that
renowned composer so electrified the audience, as to
excite an attention and a pleasure superior to any that
had ever, to my knowledge, been caused by instrumental
music in England. All the slow middle movements were
encored; which never before happened, I believe, in any
country.”
In his amical career, he still possessed Mr. Twining, to whom he clung
with every species of high esteem and fond regard. And he yet retained
his early and excellent old friend, Mr. Hayes; who preserved his memory
and his faculties unimpaired, though his body was sunk into a state of
debility the most deplorable.
The friendship of Sir Joshua Reynolds the Doctor constantly cultivated
with the ardour, as well as pleasure, that always rapidly cements
connexions that owe their origin to the attraction of sympathy.
With Sir Joseph Bankes he was now upon terms of lively intimacy; and
had the satisfaction of seeing both his sons, from their nautical or
classical eminence, share with him in the sprightly, as well as learned
and lettered pleasures of the president’s good fellowship.
Mr. Windham, in every walk, whether of literature or sentiment, was
amongst those with whom he most delightedly associated.
The elegant Mr. Smelt kept steadily his rank in the first line of the
admired friends of the Doctor; but Mr. Smelt, though affectionately
retaining for him the most faithful esteem and regard, was now nearly
lost to all, except his immediate family; for he had himself lost
the partner of his life, and the world faded before him with daily
diminishing interest in its pleasures, pains, pursuits, or transactions.
The unfortunate, but truly amiable and high-minded Mr. Beckford was
amongst the greatest favourites and most welcome visitors to Dr.
Burney; whose remembrance of the friendly zeal of that gentleman in
Italy, was a never-failing call for every soothing return that could
be offered to him in the calamities which, roughly and ruinously, had
now changed his whole situation in life—leaving his virtues alone
unalterable.
The two Wesleys, Charles and Samuel, those born rather than bred
musicians, sought, and were welcomed by the Doctor, whenever his
leisure agreed with his estimation of their talents. With Samuel he was
often in musical correspondence.
Horace Walpole invariably delighted in the society of Dr. Burney; and
had himself no admirer who carried from his company and conversation a
larger or more zested portion of his lordship’s _bon mots_; or who had
a higher taste for his peculiar style of entertainment.