The Memoirs of Metastasio, with all their interest to a man whose love
of literary composition was so eminently his ruling passion, surmounted
not—for nothing could surmount—the parental benevolence that welcomed
with encouragement, and hailed with hope, a project now communicated
to him of a new work, the third in succession, from the author of
Evelina and Cecilia.
That author, become now a mother as well as a wife, was induced to
print this, her third literary essay, by a hazardous mode of publicity,
from which her natively-retired temperament had made her, in former
days, recoil, even when it was eloquently suggested for her by Mr.
Burke to Dr. Burney; namely, the mode of subscription.
But, at this period, she felt a call against her distaste at once
conjugal and maternal. Her noble-minded partner, though the most
ardent of men to be himself what he thought belonged to the dignity
of his sex, the efficient purveyor of his own small home and family,
was despoiled, by events over which he had no control, of that post of
honour.
This scheme, therefore, was adopted. Its history, however, would be
here a matter of supererogation, save as far as it includes Dr. Burney
in its influence and effect; for neither the author, nor her partner
in all, could feel greater delight than was experienced by Dr. Burney,
from the three principal circumstances which emanated from this
undertaking.
The first of these was the honour graciously accorded by her Majesty,
Queen Charlotte, of suffering her august name to stand at the head of
the Book, by deigning to accept its Dedication.
The second was the feminine approbation marked for the author by three
ladies, equally conspicuous for their virtues and their understanding;
the honourable and sagacious Mrs. Boscawen, the beautiful and zealous
Mrs. Crewe, and the exemplary and captivating Mrs. Locke; who each kept
books for the subscription, which the kindness of their friendship
raised as highly in honour as in advantage.
And the third circumstance, to the Doctor the most touching, because
now the least expected, was the energetic interest, to which the
prospect of seeing this Memorialist emerge again from obscurity,
re-animated the still generous feelings of the now nearly sinking,
altered, gone Mr. Burke! who, on finding that his charges against Mr.
Hastings were adjudged in Westminster Hall to be unfounded, though
he was still persuaded himself that they were just, had retired from
Parliament, wearied and disgusted; and who, on the following year, had
lost his deeply-attached brother; and, almost immediately afterwards,
his nearly idolized son, who was “the pride of his heart, and the joy
of his existence,” to use his own words in a paragraph of a letter
written to the mutually respected and faithful friend of himself and of
Dr. Burney, Mrs. Crewe.
That lady, well acquainted with the reverence of Dr. Burney for Mr.
Burke, and the attachment with which Mr. Burke returned it, generally
communicated her letters from Beaconsfield to Chelsea College; and not
unfrequently with a desire that they might be forwarded on to Bookham;
well knowing that the extraordinary partiality of Mr. Burke for its
female recluse, would make him more than pardon the kind pleasure of
Mrs. Crewe in granting that recluse such an indulgence.
The letter, whence is taken the fond sad phrase just quoted, was
written in answer to the first letter of Mrs. Crewe to Mr. Burke, after
his irreparable bereavement; and the whole of the paragraph in which it
occurs will now be copied, to elucidate the interesting circumstance
for Dr. Burney to which it led. Beautiful is the paragraph in the
pathetic resignation of its submission. No flowery orator here expands
his imagination; nothing finds vent but the touching simplicity of a
tender parent’s heart-breaking sorrow.
“TO MRS. CREWE.
“We are thoroughly sensible of your humanity and
compassion to this desolate house.
* * * * *
“We are as well as people can be, who have nothing
further to hope or fear in this world. We are in a state
of quiet; but it is the tranquillity of the grave—in
which all that could make life interesting to us is
laid—and to which we are hastening as fast as God
pleases. This place[38] is no longer pleasant to us! and
yet we have more satisfaction, if it may so be called,
here than anywhere else. We go in and out, without any
of those sentiments of conviviality and joy which alone
can create an attachment to any spot. We have had a loss
which time and reflection rather increase the sense of.
I declare to you that I feel more this day, than on the
dreadful day in which I was deprived of the comfort and
support, the pride and ornament of my existence!”
* * * * *
Mrs. Crewe, extremely affected by this distress, and as eager to draw
her illustrious friend from his consuming grief, as to serve and to
gratify the new Recluse, sent to Beaconsfield the next year, 1795,
the plan, in which she took so prominent a part, for bringing forth
Camilla, or a Picture of Youth; in the hope of re-exciting his interest
for its author.
The following is the answer which, almost with exultation of kindness,
Mrs. Crewe transmitted to the Hermits.
“TO MRS. CREWE.
* * * * *
“As to _Miss Burney_—the subscription ought to be,
for certain persons, five guineas; and to take but a
single copy each. The rest as it is. I am sure that it
is a disgrace to the age and nation, if this be not a
great thing for her, If every person in England who
has received pleasure and instruction from Cecilia,
were to rate its value at the hundredth part of their
satisfaction, Madame d’Arblay would be one of the richest
women in the kingdom.
“Her scheme was known before she lost two[39] of her
most respectful admirers from this house;[40] and this,
with Mrs. Burke’s subscription and mine, make the paper I
send you.[41] One book is as good as a thousand: one of
hers is certainly as good as a thousand others.”
* * * * *
The reader will not, it is hoped, imagine, that the emotion excited
by these words at Bookham sprang from a credulity so simple, or a
vanity so insane, as that of arraigning the judgment of Mr. Burke by
a literal acceptation of their benevolent, rather than flattering
exaltation:—No! the emotion was to find Mr. Burke still susceptible
of his old generous warmth of regard: and that emotion was of the
tenderest gratitude in the Recluse, upon seeing herself still, in
defiance of absence, of distance, of time, and even of deadly sorrow,
as much its honoured object as when she had been sought by him in her
opening career.
The felicitations of Dr. Burney to Bookham upon this extraordinary
effusion of heart-affecting kindness, were so full of happiness, as to
demand felicitations in return for himself.