It was as singular as it was fortunate, that, in this long space of ten
years, the Doctor had lost, in England, but one part of his family,
Mrs. Rebecca Burney, an ancient and very amiable sister. In India he
was less happy, for there died, in the prime of life, Richard Thomas,
his only son by his second marriage; who left a large and prosperous
family.[93]
His eldest son, Captain James Burney, who had twice circumnavigated the
globe with Captain Cooke, and who had always been marked for depth of
knowledge in his profession as a naval officer, had now distinguished
himself also as a writer upon naval subjects; and, after various
slighter works, had recently completed an elaborate, scientific, yet
entertaining and well written, General History of Voyages to the South
Sea, in five volumes quarto.
His second son, Dr. Charles, had sustained more than unimpaired the
high character in Greek erudition which he had acquired early in life,
and in which he was generally held, after Porson and Parr, to be the
third scholar in the kingdom. The fourth, who now, therefore, is
probably the first, was esteemed by Dr. Charles to be Dr. Blomfield,
the present Bishop of London. Dr. Charles still toiled on in the same
walk with unwearied perseverance; and was, at that time, engaged in
collating a newly found manuscript Greek Testament; by the express
request of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Manners Sutton.
His daughters, Esther and Charlotte, were well and lively; and each was
surrounded by a sprightly and amiable progeny.
His youngest daughter, by his second marriage, Sarah Harriet, had
produced, and was still producing, some works in the novel path of
literature, that the Doctor had the satisfaction of hearing praised,
and of knowing to be well received and favoured in the best society.
And the whole of his generation in all its branches, children,
grand-children, and great-grand-children, all studied, with proud
affection, to cherish the much-loved trunk whence they sprang; and
to which they, and all their successors, must ever look up as to the
honoured chief of their race.