The sole circumstance that excited him to any exertion, was the
election of the eldest son of Mr. Locke, of Norbury Park, to be a
member of the Literary Club.
It was to Dr. Burney that the idea of this election first occurred; no
one else at the club, at that period, being equally acquainted with the
claims of Mr. William Locke to confraternity with such a society. The
Doctor communicated this project, in which he felt great interest, to
West Hamble.
“Fanny Phillips[59] and I,” he says, “have dined thrice
lately with your excellent neighbours, the Lockes, who
rise in my esteem and affection at every visit. I have
been long thinking of putting up Mr. William Locke at our
club, but would not venture without his permission. After
the last dinner, therefore, I drew him aside, and fairly
asked him whether he would give me leave to try for
his election at a club, established under Dr. Johnson,
Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Mr. Burke? and he said, after
some modest scruples of being unworthy, that nothing
would flatter him more. Yesterday, therefore, I began to
canvass Malone, at his own house, and Lord Macartney, _a
sotto voce_, in the club-room, before dinner. Malone was
readily _de mon avis_; but Lord Macartney, following up
the known plan of Dr. Johnson, to select the first man
in every profession, for the more exact information of
the rest upon those points of which they were ignorant,
argued that we ought to have a great painter to supply,
as well as he could, the loss of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
“‘And you will have one, my Lord,’ I cried. ‘The painters
all honour themselves in being of that mind with respect
to Mr. William Locke. He only happens, by chance, to
be heir to a considerable estate; he would else have
been a painter by profession, as well as by talent and
excellence. In Mr. William Locke we shall have every
gratification we can wish for in a new member; he is
a scholar, a traveller, a gentleman; and, when he can
be prevailed with to talk, the best informed and most
pleasing converser with whom men of cultivated minds can
wish to associate.’
“This gave me Lord Macartney as well as Malone; and,
after dinner, on that very day, Lord Macartney himself,
seconded by Mr. Langton, put up your dear friend’s
‘eldest hopes.’ I was applied to for giving the
Christian name, and an assurance that the election was
desired by the proposed new member. An entry then was
made in the books, and the election will come on at the
next club.”
The ensuing letter to West Hamble, will shew the happy effect of the
Doctor’s success upon his spirits:
“I went to the club to-day with fear and trembling,
lest I should have involved Mr. William Locke in any
disappointment. Langton, though he had willingly seconded
Lord Macartney’s motion, could not be there: it was a
great day at the House, where they were debating the
Adultery Bill, which lost us Windham, Canning, Bishop
Douglas, Lords Spencer, Ossory, Palmerston, and Mr.
Frere, of all whose suffrages I was sure. There were only
nine members present; and I saw, on entering the room,
with fear and dismay, the person suspected as a general
black-baller. I’ll try to recollect the nine members:
Lord Macartney, Sir Robert Chambers, Malone, Sir Charles
Bunbury, Marsden, Dr. Fordyce, Mr. Thomas Grenville, Dr.
Vincent, and your humble servant. Canning, whose turn
it was to be President, being away, Lord Macartney, and
two or three more, invited me to take the chair; but I
modestly declined the honour! Well, we all seemed in
perfect good-humour, and I hobbed a nob; and got two or
three more to hob a nob, with the Knight of the Negro
Ball; and, after dinner, when the box went round, Sir
Charles Bunbury acted as Vice President, and opened
it,—and—would you think it?—all was as white as milk!—and
Mr. William Locke, jun. was declared duly elected.
“Sir Charles wrote the usual letter of inauguration, and
I one of congratulation; and I sent my own man with both
to Manchester Square. And so that fright, at least, is
happily over.
“If Mr. and Mrs. Locke are with you, pray lay my best
respects at their feet; and my love at the hearts of your
two Alexanders. And so good night. It is past twelve, and
time for all but owls and bats to be at roost.
“C. B.”
1801.
In 1801, also, there was but a single event that the Doctor thought
worth committing to paper: and that, indeed, was of a kind that no one
who knew him could read, first without trembling, and next without
rejoicing; for, in the summer of 1801, and in his seventy-sixth
year, he had an escape the most providential from sudden and violent
destruction.
He had accompanied Mrs. Crewe, and some of her friends, to a review
on Ascot Heath, when, in returning home by water, as the boat was
disembarking its crew at Staines, feeling himself light and well, and
equal to a small leap, he jumped incautiously from the boat on what he
believed to be a tuft of grass; but what proved to be a moss-covered
stone, or hillock, which, far from bending, as he had expected, to the
touch of his foot, struck him backwards into the boat with frightful
violence, and a risk the most imminent of breaking his neck, if not of
fracturing his skull. Happily, no such dreadful evil ensued! and every
species of care and kindness were vigilantly exerted to keep aloof
further mischief than accrued from a few bruises.
Mr. Windham, who was of the party, had the Doctor conveyed immediately
to the nearest inn, to be blooded, and to have all the injured parts
examined and bathed. The Doctor’s carriage came to him there, and he
got back to Chelsea, slowly, but tolerably well: and nothing more
followed from this dangerous accident than a confinement of several
days.
That the mind, however, was far stronger than the frame, became now
indisputably evident, from the spirit with which he supported the
fright, the pain, and the mortification of this untoward experiment
upon his remnant and unsuspectedly failing corporeal force. But who
discovers the exact moment of arriving defalcation either of body or
mind, till taught it by one of those severe instructors, Disease, or
Accident?