THE intentions, or, rather, the directions of Dr. Burney that his
Memoirs should be published; and the expectation of his family and
friends that they should pass through the hands of his present Editor
and Memorialist, have made the task of arranging the ensuing collations
with her own personal recollections, appear to her a sacred duty from
the year 1814.[1]
But the grief at his loss, which at first incapacitated her from such
an effort, was soon afterwards followed by change of place, change of
circumstances—almost of existence—with multiplied casualties that,
eventually, separated her from all her manuscript materials. And these
she only recovered when under the pressure of a new affliction that
took from her all power, or even thought, for their investigation.
During many years, therefore, they have been laid aside, though never
forgotten.
But if Time, as so often we lament, will not stand still upon
happiness, it would be graceless not to acknowledge, with gratitude
to Providence, that neither is it positively stationary upon sorrow:
for though there are calamities which it cannot obliterate, and wounds
which Religion alone can heal, Time yet seems endowed with a secret
principle for producing a mental calm, through which life imperceptibly
glides back to its customary operations; however powerless Time
itself—earthly Time!—must still remain for restoring lost felicity.
Now, therefore,—most unexpectedly,—that she finds herself
sufficiently recovered from successive indispositions and afflictions
to attempt the acquittal of a debt which has long hung heavily upon her
mind, she ventures to re-open her manuscript stores, and to resume,
though in trembling, her long-forsaken pen.
That the life of so eminent a man should not pass away without some
authenticated record, will be pretty generally thought; and the
circumstances which render her its recorder, grow out of the very
nature of things: she possesses all his papers and documents; and,
from her earliest youth to his latest decline, not a human being was
more confidentially entrusted than herself with the occurrences, the
sentiments, and the feelings of his past and passing days.
Although, as biography, from time immemorial, has claimed the privilege
of being more discursive than history, the Memorialist may seek to
diversify the plain recital of facts by such occasional anecdotes
as have been hoarded from childhood in her memory; still, and most
scrupulously, not an opinion will be given as Dr. Burney’s, either of
persons or things, that was not literally his own: and fact will as
essentially be the basis of every article, as if its object were still
lent to earth, and now listening to this exposition of his posthumous
memoirs with her own recollections.
Nevertheless, though nothing is related that does not belong to Dr.
Burney and his history, the accounts are not always rigidly confined to
his presence, where scenes, or traits, still strong in the remembrance
of the Editor, or still before her eyes in early letters or diaries,
invite to any characteristic details of celebrated personages.
Not slight, however, is the embarrassment that struggles with the
pleasure of these mingled reminiscences, from their appearance of
personal obtrusion: yet, when it is seen that they are never brought
forward but to introduce some incident or speech, that must else
remain untold of Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, Mrs. Delany, Mrs. Thrale,
Mr. Bruce—nay, Napoleon—and some other high-standing names, of
recent date to the aged, yet of still living curiosity to the youthful
reader—these apparent egotisms may be something more,—perhaps—than
pardoned.
Where the life has been as private as that of Dr. Burney, its history
must necessarily be simple, and can have little further call upon
the attention of the world, than that which may belong to a wish of
tracing the progress of a nearly abandoned Child, from a small village
of Shropshire, to a Man allowed throughout Europe to have risen to
the head of his profession; and thence, setting his profession aside,
to have been elevated to an intellectual rank in society, as a Man of
Letters—
“Though not First, in the very first line”
with most of the eminent men of his day,—Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke,
soaring above any contemporary mark, always, like Senior Wranglers,
excepted.
And to this height, to which, by means and resources all his own,
he arose, the Genius that impelled him to Fame, the Integrity that
established his character, and the Amiability that magnetized all
hearts,—in the phrase of Dr. Johnson—_to go forth to meet him_, were
the only materials with which he worked his way.