Dr. Burney still, as he had done nearly from the hour that his History
was finished, composed various articles for the Monthly Review.
But so precarious and irregular a call upon his fertile abilities,
sufficed not for their occupation; and he soon started a new work, on
a subject peculiar and appropriate, that came singularly home to his
business and bosom; though it was offered to him only by that fatal
power which daily and unfailingly lavishes before us subjects for our
discussions—and for our tears!—Death; which, some time previously to
the liberation of the Doctor’s mind from the arcana of musical history,
had cast the Life and Writings of the Abate Metastasio upon posterity.
No poet could be more congenial to Dr. Burney than Metastasio, the
purity of whose numbers was mellifluously in concord with the purity
of his sentiments; while both were in perfect unison with the taste
of the Doctor. He considered it, professionally, to be even a duty,
for the Historian of the Art of Music, to raise, as far as in him lay,
a biographical monument to the glory of the man whose poetry, after
that which is sacred, is best adapted to inspire the lyric muse with
strains of genial harmony, in all the impassioned varieties that the
choral shell is capable to generate for the musical enthusiast.
The first object of Dr. Burney in his visit to Vienna, at the period of
his German Tour, had been to see and to converse with Metastasio; whose
resplendent lyrical fame had raised him, in his own dramatic career, to
a height unequalled throughout Europe.
The benign reception given to the Doctor by this amiable and venerable
bard; the charm of his converse; the meekly borne honours by which he
was distinguished and surrounded; and the delightful performances, and
graceful attractions of his Niece, Mademoiselle Martinez, are fully and
feelingly set forth in the third volume of the Musical Tours.
When decided, therefore, upon this subject for his pen and his powers,
he employed himself without delay in preparatory measures for his new
undertaking: and procured every edition of the Poet’s works; to glean
from each all that might incidentally be interspersed of anecdote, in
letters, advertisements, prefaces, or notes.
He was kindly assisted in getting over various documents from Vienna,
by the late Lord Mansfield, who, while Lord Stormont, had been British
Ambassador at that capital when it was visited by Dr. Burney.
The present Earl Spencer, also, liberally aided the passage to England
of some works much wanted, but difficult of attainment.
From Haydn, with whom the Doctor was in constant commerce, and who
chiefly resided at Vienna, he received considerable local and agreeable
help.
And through the generous and judicious friendship of the faithful
Pacchierotti, he was furnished with every species of assistance that
judgment, zeal, and a perfect acquaintance with the calls of the
subject, could suggest.
“In short,” says the Doctor, in a letter to Bookham, “I am prodigiously
hallooed on in my Metastasio mania by all sorts of poets and critics;
and, to bring all to a point, I have a letter, which I inclose for your
perusal, from the enchanting Mademoiselle Martinez.”
Thus powerfully encouraged, the Doctor consigned himself to this new
composition. Not, however, as when working at his History, to the
sacrifice of his ease, his comfort, and his friends: with these, on
the contrary, his spring and winter intercourse were now lively and
frequent; and with some of them he indulged himself in spending a
portion of his summer.
1795.
While he had been blessed by the preservation of Messrs. Crisp, Bewley,
and Twining, he had neither inclination nor time for any diffusion that
would have robbed him of their incomparably endearing and enlightening
society. A few days in rotation were all that he could bestow on his
many other claimants; but the two first of these heart, head, and
leisure-monopolizers, Messrs. Crisp and Bewley, were gone; and had
left a chasm that the third only could fill; and he, Mr. Twining, was
now almost unremittingly occupied in kindly attendance upon a sick and
suffering wife.
The next who, now, ranked nearest to Dr. Burney for consolation and
confidence, was Mrs. Crewe; to whom he would willingly have dedicated
the greatest part of his wandering holidays, but that her country
residence, at Crewe Hall, in Cheshire, exacted two journeys so
incommodious and fatiguing, that it was rarely, and with difficulty,
they could be undertaken.
To his valuable old friend, Mr. Coxe, he gave a week or two, at his
pleasant villa, near Southampton, every season. And he made rambling
visits, of a few days, to Lady Mary Duncan, Sir Joseph Bankes, Mrs.
Boscawen, Mrs. Garrick, Lady Clarges, and several others.
With his two sons, and his eldest daughter, as their residences were
within a few miles of his own abode, he was in constant commerce; but
to his Susanna, since she had been separated from the paternal roof, he
devoted a fortnight every year; and he gratified his fourth daughter,
Charlotte, now resident in Norfolk, with visits rather longer, because
her greater distance from Chelsea made them necessarily less frequent.