“——20, 1805.—The King, the Queen, and all the Royal
Family in England, I believe, except the Prince and
Princess of Wales, visited and inspected Chelsea College.
They went over every ward, the Governor’s apartments, and
all the offices; with the chapel, refectory, and even
the kitchen. I was graciously summoned when they entered
the chapel, and most graciously, indeed, received. The
first thing the King said on my appearance, was, holding
up both his hands as if astonished, ‘Ten years younger
than when I saw you last, Dr. Burney!’ The first words of
the Queen were, ‘How does Madame d’Arblay do?’ And after
my answer, and humble thanks, she added in a low voice,
‘I am extremely obliged to you, Dr. Burney, for the hymn
you sent me.’ ‘What? what?’ cried the King. Her Majesty
answered: ‘The Russian air, Sir.’ ‘Ay, ay; it’s a very
fine thing; but they performed it too slow. It wanted
more spirit in the execution. They commonly perform too
slow, and make things of that sort languid that should be
animated.’
“He then illustrated his observation by examples taken
from the sluggish performance of Acis and Galatea; in
which I heartily coincided; particularising in my turn
the trio of, ‘The Flocks shall leave the Mountains,’
‘which loses,’ I said, ‘all its effect by being performed
slowly. The two lovers are not complaining, nor
accusing one another of infidelity or of cruelty; they
are perfectly happy, and promising each other eternal
constancy; the time, therefore, ought to mark liveliness,
not melancholy: and the envy and jealousy of Polypheme
while exclaiming, “Rage! Fury! I cannot, cannot bear
it!” sound so tame, when sung without the fire of quick
expression, that they seem quite ridiculous: for he
_does_ bear it! and looks on to the sight of the lover’s
happiness with very commendable patience and composure.’
“Their Majesties then both condescended to make some
inquiries after my family, though by name only after
my daughter d’Arblay. I heard from her very seldom, I
answered; I was afraid of writing to her; and I saw she
was afraid of writing to me. Buonaparte, I said, was so
outrageous against this country, that I doubted not but
that a sheet of blank paper that should pass between us,
would be turned into a conspiracy! My grand-daughter
Fanny Phillips, I mentioned, now lived with me: for
she had often and most condescendingly been noticed
by the Royal Family, during the time that my daughter
d’Arblay had had the honour of belonging to the Queen’s
establishment. The Queen said she had heard of my
young companion from Lady Aylesbury. When I left their
Majesties, I went in search of my grand-daughter, and
brought her under my arm into the governor’s great room.
“The Queen no sooner perceived, than she graciously
addressed her: while the King held up his hands at her
growth since he had seen her, at the Palace, in her
childhood. All the Princesses remembered, and spoke to
her with the most pleasing kindness.
“‘And what are you doing now, Dr. Burney?’ said the King.
“‘I am writing for the new Cyclopedia, Sir.’
“‘I am glad the subject of music,’ he answered, ‘should
be in such good hands.’
“And then, with an arch smile, he added: ‘For the essay
writers, and the periodical writers—are all, I believe,
to a man, at this time, Jacobins.’
“And afterwards, with a good-humoured laugh, he said:
‘That disease (the Jacobin) was first caught here, I
believe, by the poets; and then by the actors; and now
the infection has caught all the singers, and dancers,
and fiddlers!’
“‘Tis the shortest cut, Sir,’ I answered, ‘to make
them all, what they all want to be, chiefs and masters
severally themselves.’
“More seriously, then, the King said the contagion was so
general only from the want of religion; without which all
men were scrambling savages. ‘Religion,’ he added, ‘alone
humanizes us.’
“Something being said, I forget what, about the
Jew’s-row, Chelsea, his Majesty seemed fully apprised
of its Bacchanalian character for the pensioners, as he
directly quoted from Dryden,
“‘Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure!’
“And added, ‘when that ode is performing, and that line
is singing, before Sir William Howe—I always give him a
nod!’
“The King then resumed again his old favourite topic of
amusement, my daughter d’Arblay’s concealed composition
of Evelina; inquiring again and again into the various
particulars of its contrivance and its discovery.
“I could not have been honoured with so much of his
Majesty’s notice, but that, being at home at Chelsea
College, I was naturally permitted to follow in his suite
the whole morning; and all I have written passed at
different intervals, between matters of higher import.”
“_May 25._—I heard, with much musical concern, from
Salomon, of the sudden death of young Pinto, who was
infinitely the most extraordinary early violin player,
I believe, of any age or country. When quite a child,
he used to lead and direct private concerts at Lady
Clarges’; not only correcting old performers from the
Opera band, who played under him, with his tongue, but
with his instrument; informing them of the time and
the expression of various movements and passages, just
as Geminiani used to do at sixty; and which professors
would then bear from nobody else. When he first set
about studying composition, he read everything he could
lay hold of; and taught himself the piano-forte; and
found out the most commodious manner of fingering the
most difficult and extraneous keys. He composed a set of
lessons in six of the most unusual keys in the system,
which no one but himself could play. It is generally
believed that this most ingenious youth, who would
listen to no control, shortened his existence by extreme
irregularity of life. A matter worth recording, as a
warning to check the ill-judged and fatal presumption of
genius.”
The ensuing accounts, written by Dr. Burney, of the next successors to
Sir George Howard, as Governors of Chelsea Hospital, are without date: