Bright again with smiling success and gay prosperity was this period
to Dr. Burney; but not more bright than brittle! for, almost at its
height, its serenity was broken by a stroke that rent it asunder!—a
wound that never could be healed!
The peculiar darling of the whole house of Dr. Burney, as well as
of his heart; whose presence always exhilarated, or whose absence
saddened every branch of it, his daughter Susanna, was called, by
inevitable circumstances, from his paternal embraces and fond society,
to accompany her husband and children upon indispensable business, to
Ireland; then teeming with every evil that invasion, rebellion, civil
war, and famine, could unite to inflict.
The absence was fixed for only three years; but the dreadful state
of that unfortunate country, joined to the delicate, if not already
declining health of this beloved daughter; with his own advance in
years, made this parting a laceration of gloomy prognostic, almost
appalling. He suffered, however, no vent to these sensations before her
whom they would nearly have demolished: he only permitted them to break
out afterwards to some of his children; and strained her to his bosom,
at the cruel instant of separation, with all he could assume of smiling
hope for her speedy return. While she, though trembling throughout her
shattered frame with the acutest filial tenderness, set off without
a murmur. She wished to sustain her beloved father, not to forsake
herself; and she quitted his honoured presence with excited spirits,
and apparent cheerfulness.
Mixed with some of the Doctor’s poetical effusions, there remains an
elegiac fragment upon this voyage to Ireland, from which the following
lines are extracted.
“_On the departure of my daughter Susan to Ireland._
“My gentle Susan! who, in early state,
Each pain or care could soothe or mitigate;
And who in adolescence could impart
Delight to every eye, and feeling heart;
Whose mind, expanding with increase of years,
Precluded all anxiety and fears
Which parents feel for inexperienc’d youth,
Unguided in the ways of moral truth—
* * * * *
On her kind nature, genially her friend,
A heart bestow’d instruction could not mend:
Intuitive, each virtue she possess’d,
And learn’d their foes to shun and to detest.
“Nor did her intellectual powers require
The usual aid of labour to inspire
Her soul with prudence, wisdom, and a taste
Unerring in refinement; sound and chaste.
“Yet of her merits this the smallest part—
Far more endear’d by virtues of the heart,
Which constantly excite her to embrace
Each duty of her state with active grace.
* * * * *
“Such was the prop and comfort of my age
Whose filial tenderness might well assuage
The sorrows which infirmities produce.
* * * * *
“My vital drama’s now so near its end,
That the last act’s unlikely to extend
Till she return.——
* * * * *
“And yet—
The few remaining scenes to me allow’d
Shall not on useless murmurs be bestow’d;
But, patiently resign’d, I’ll act my part;
Try each expedient——
* * * * *
And, till the curtain drop, and end the play,
For my dear Susan’s welfare ardent pray!”
This virtuous resolution the Doctor put in practice with his
utmost might; and, having finished with Metastasio, he turned his
thoughts, with all their functions, critical, elucidating, inventive,
etymological, and didactive, upon a work which he purposed to make the
basis of a composition, or compilation, explanatory of every word,
phrase, and difficulty belonging to the science, the theory, and the
practice of music.
From the impossibility to find place in his History for the whole of
his vast accumulation of materials, there remained in his hands matter
amply adequate for forming the major, and far most abstruse part of a
theoretical dictionary of this description. And, from this time, at
intervals, he laboured at it with his usual vigour.
But not here ended the sharp reverse of this altered year; scarcely had
this harrowing filial separation taken place, ere an assault was made
upon his conjugal feelings, by the sudden, at the moment, though from
lingering illnesses often previously expected, death of Mrs. Burney,
his second wife.
She had been for many years a valetudinarian; but her spirits, though
natively unequal, had quick and animated returns to their pristine
gaiety; which, joined to an uncommon muscular force that endured to the
last, led all but herself to believe in her still retained powers of
revival.
Extremely shocked by this fatal event, the Doctor sent the tidings by
express to Bookham; whence the female recluse, speeded by her kind
partner, instantly set off for Chelsea College. There she found the
Doctor encircled by most of his family, but in the lowest spirits,
and in a weak and shattered state of nerves; and there she spent with
him, and his youngest daughter, Sarah Harriet, the whole of the first
melancholy period of this great change.
It was at this time, during their many and long _tête à têtes_, that he
communicated to her almost all the desultory documents, which up to the
year 1796, form these Memoirs.
His sole occupation, when they were alone, was searching for, and
committing to her examination, the whole collection of letters, and
other manuscripts relative to his life and affairs, which, up to that
period, had been written, or hoarded. These, which she read aloud to
him in succession, he either placed alphabetically in the pigeon-holes
of his bureau, or cast at once into the flames.
The following pages upon this catastrophe are copied from his after
memorandums.
Having briefly mentioned that his second son, Dr. Charles, prevailed
with him to accept a secluded apartment at Greenwich, till the mournful
last rites should be paid to the departed, with whose remains his
daughters continued at Chelsea College, he thus goes on.
“On the 26th of October, she was interred in the burying
ground of Chelsea College. On the 27th, I returned to
my melancholy home, disconsolate and stupified. Though
long expected, this calamity was very severely felt. I
missed her counsel, converse, and family regulations; and
a companion of thirty years, whose mind was cultivated,
whose intellects were above the general level of her sex,
and whose curiosity after knowledge was insatiable to
the last. These were losses that caused a vacuum in my
habitation and in my mind, that has never been filled up.
“My four eldest daughters, all dutiful, intelligent, and
affectionate, were married, and had families of their
own to superintend, or they might have administered
comfort. My youngest daughter, Sarah Harriet, by my
second marriage, had quick intellects, and distinguished
talents; but she had no experience in household affairs.
However, though she had native spirits of the highest
gaiety, she became a steady and prudent character, and
a kind and good girl. There is, I think, considerable
merit in her novel, Geraldine, particularly in the
conversations; and I think the scene at the emigrant
cottage really touching. At least it drew tears from me,
when I was not so prone to shed them as I am at present.”
Afterwards, recurring again to his departed wife, he says:
“In the course of nature, she should not have gone
before me. She was the admirer and sincere friend of
that first wife, whose virtues and intellectual powers
were perhaps her model in early life. Without neglecting
domestic and maternal duties, she cultivated her mind in
such a manner by extensive reading, and the assistance
of a tenacious and happy memory, as to enable her to
converse with persons of learning and talents on all
subjects to which female studies are commonly allowed to
extend; and through a coincidence of taste and principles
in all matters of which the discussion is apt to ruffle
the temper, and alienate affection, our conversation and
intercourse was sincere, cordial, and cheering.
“She had read far more books of divinity and controversy
than myself, and was as much mistress of the theological
points of general dispute as reading and reflection
could make her; but, within a few days, if not hours,
of her death, she lamented having perused so many
polemical works; and advised a female friend, fond of
such researches, who was with her,[44] not to waste her
time on such inquiries; saying, ‘they will disturb your
faith—by leading to endless controversy: they have done
me no good!’”
In the same memorandum book, occurs, afterwards, the following
paragraph:
“I shut myself up for some weeks; and, during part of
that time, while sorting and examining papers with my
daughter d’Arblay, she found among them the fragment
of a poem on Astronomy, began at the period of the
first ascent from balloons, and formed on the idea
that, by their help, if, in process of time, a steerage
was obtained, and the art of keeping them afloat, and
ascending to what height the steersman pleased, was also
discovered, parties might easily and pleasantly undertake
voyages to the moon; and, perhaps, to the planets nearest
to the earth, such as Mars and Venus: without considering
that each planet and satellite must have its vortex and
atmosphere filled with different beings and productions,
none of which can subsist in another region.
“This wild fancy put it into my daughter d’Arblay’s
head to persuade me to attempt a serious historical and
didactic poem on the subject of astronomy; in order to
employ my time and thoughts during the first stages of my
sorrow for the losses I had sustained: and, having been a
dabbler almost all my life in astronomy, I was not averse
to the proposition.”
To the great satisfaction of this daughter, from the recreative
employment of time to which it led, this idea was neither forgotten nor
set aside; it was, in truth, but a return to the original propensity to
astronomy which had been nourished by his first conjugal partner, who
enthusiastically had shared his taste for contemplating the stars.
In his letters, after the return of the Memorialist to her cottage, the
sadness of his mind is touchingly portrayed. In the first of them he
says:
“_Nov._—I have been writing melancholy, heart-rending
letters this day or two, which have oppressed me greatly:
yet I am still more heartless in doing nothing. The
author of the poem on The Spleen, says, ‘Fling but a
stone, the giant dies:’ but such stones as I have to
fling will not do the business. James and Charles[45]
dined here yesterday, and kept the monster at a little
distance; but he was here again the minute they were
gone. I try to read; but ‘pronounce the words without
understanding one of them,’ as Dr. Johnson said, in
reading my Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients.”