“That, while such was his character, and such his loss in
public, he, (Dr. Burney,) and his daughter, to whom Mr.
Burke had been so unremittingly and singularly partial,
must be ungrateful indeed not yet more peculiarly to
lament his departure, and honour his character in
private.”
In her answer, she sorrowingly assures the Doctor that there was
nothing to fear of her want of sympathy in this affliction. “I feel
it,” she cries, “with my whole heart, and participate in every word you
say of that truly great man. That he was not, as his enemies exclaim,
perfect, is nothing in the scale of his stupendous superiority over
almost all those who are merely exempt from his defects. That he was
upright in heart and intention, even where he acted erroneously, I
firmly believe: and that he asserted nothing that he had not persuaded
himself to be true, even from Mr. Hastings being the most rapacious
of villains, to the King’s being incurably insane.[47] He was as
liberal in sentiment as he was luminous in intellect, and extraordinary
in eloquence; and for amiability, he was surely, when in spirits
and good-humour—_all but_ the most delightful of men. Yet, though
superior to envy, and glowing with the noblest zeal to exalt talents
and merits in others, he had, I believe, an unavoidable, though not
a vain consciousness of his own greatness, that shut out from his
consideration those occasional and useful self-doubts that keep the
judgment in order, by making us, from time to time, call our motives
and our passions to account.”
The Doctor was amongst the invited who paid the last homage to the
manes of Mr. Burke by attending his funeral.
“Malone and I,” he says, “went to Bulstrode together,
in my carriage, with two added horses. We found there
the Dukes of Portland and Devonshire. Windham arrived to
dinner. The Lord Chancellor and the Speaker could not
leave London till four o’clock, but were at Bulstrode by
seven. All set off together for Beaconsfield, where we
found the rest of the pall-hearers, Lords Fitzwilliam
and Inchiquin, Sir Gilbert Elliot, Frederick North, Drs.
King and Lawrence, Dudley North, and very many of the
great orator’s personal friends; though, by his repeated
injunctions, the funeral was ordered to be very private.
He left a list to whom rings of remembrance were to be
sent, in which my name honourably occurs; and a jeweller
has been with me for my measure.
“After these mournful rites, the Duke of Portland
included me in his invite back to Bulstrode, with the
Duke of Devonshire, the Chancellor, the Speaker, Windham,
Malone, and Secretary King: and there I continued the
next day.
“The Duke pressed me to stay on, and accompany him and
his party to a visit, the following morning, in honour of
Mr. Burke, that was to be made to the school, founded by
that enlarged philanthropist, for the male children of
the ruined emigrant nobility, now seeking refuge in this
country. But it was not in my power to prolong my absence
from town.”