IF the life of a humble individual, on whom neither splendid
appointments, important transactions, nor atrocious crimes have called
the attention of the public, can afford amusement to the friends he
leaves behind, without being offered either as a model to follow, or
a precipice to shun, the intention of the writer of these Memoirs
will be fully accomplished. But there is no member of society who, by
diligence, talents, or conduct, leaves his name and his race a little
better than those from which he sprung, who is totally without some
claim to attention on the means by which such advantages were achieved.
My life, though it has been frequently a tissue of toil, sickness,
and sorrow, has yet been, upon the whole, so much more pleasant and
prosperous than I had a title to expect, or than many others with
higher claims have enjoyed, that its incidents, when related, may,
perhaps, help to put mediocrity in good-humour, and to repress the
pride and overrated worth and expectations of indolence.
Perhaps few have been better enabled to describe, from an actual
survey, the manners and customs of the age in which he lived than
myself; ascending from those of the most humble cottagers, and lowest
mechanics, to the first nobility, and most elevated personages, with
whom circumstances, situation, and accident, at different periods of my
life, have rendered me familiar. Oppressed and laborious husbandmen;
insolent and illiberal yeomanry; overgrown farmers; generous and
hospitable merchants; men of business and men of pleasure; men of
letters; men of science; artists; sportsmen and country ’squires;
dissipated and extravagant voluptuaries; gamesters; ambassadors;
statesmen; and even sovereign princes, I have had opportunities of
examining in almost every point of view: all these it is my intention
to display in their respective situations; and to delineate their
virtues, vices, and apparent degrees of happiness and misery.
A book of this kind, though it may mortify and offend a few persons
of the present age, may be read with avidity at the distance of some
centuries, by antiquaries and lovers of anecdotes; though it will have
lost the poignancy of personality.
My grandfather, James Macburney, who, by letters which I have seen of
his writing, and circumstances concerning him which I remember to have
heard from my father and mother, was a gentleman of a considerable
patrimony at Great Hanwood, a village in Shropshire, had received a
very good education; but, from what cause does not appear, in the
latter years of his life, was appointed land steward to the Earl of
Ashburnham. He had a house in Privy Garden, Whitehall. In the year
1727, he walked as esquire to one of the knights, at the coronation of
King George the Second.
My father, James, born likewise at Hanwood, was well educated also,
both in school learning and accomplishments. He was a day scholar
at Westminster School, under the celebrated Dr. Busby, while my
grandfather resided at Whitehall. I remember his telling a story of the
severe chastisement he received from that terrific disciplinarian,
Dr. Busby, for playing truant after school hours, instead of returning
home. My grandfather, who had frequently admonished him not to
loiter in the street, lest he should make improper and mischievous
acquaintance, finding no attention was paid to his injunctions, gave
him a letter addressed to the Reverend Dr. Busby; which he did not
fail to deliver, with ignorant cheerfulness, on his entrance into the
school. The Doctor, when he had perused it, called my father to him,
and, in a very mild, and seemingly good-humoured voice, said, “Burney,
can you read writing?” “Yes, Sir,” answered my father, with great
courage and flippancy. “Then read this letter aloud,” says the Doctor;
when my father, with an audible voice, began: “Sir, My son, the bearer
of this letter, having long disregarded my admonitions against stopping
to play with idle boys in his way home from school—” Here my father’s
voice faltered. “Go on,” says his master; “you read very well.” “I am
sorry to be under the necessity of entreating you to—to—to—to cor—”
Here he threw down the letter, and fell on his knees, crying out:
“Indeed, Sir, I’ll never do so again!—Pray forgive me!” “O, you read
perfectly well,” the Doctor again tells him, “pray finish the Letter:”
And making him pronounce aloud the words, “correct him;” complied with
my grandfather’s request in a very liberal manner.
Whether my father was intended for any particular profession, I know
not, but, during his youth, besides his school learning, he acquired
several talents and accomplishments, which, in the course of his life,
he was obliged professionally to turn to account. He danced remarkably
well; performed well on the violin, and was a portrait painter of no
mean talents.
Notwithstanding the Mac which was prefixed to my grandfather’s name,
and which my father retained for some time, I never could find at what
period any of my ancestors lived in Scotland or in Ireland, from one of
which it must have been derived. My father and grandfather were both
born in Shropshire, and never even visited either of those countries.
Early in his life, my father lost the favour of his sire, by eloping
from home, to marry a young actress of Goodman’s-fields’ theatre,
by whom he had a very large family. My grandfather’s affection was
completely alienated by this marriage; joined to disapproving his
son’s conduct in other respects. To the usual obduracy of old age,
he afterwards added a far more than similar indiscretion himself, by
marrying a female domestic, to whom, and to a son, the consequence
of that marriage, he bequeathed all his possessions, which were very
considerable. Joseph, this son, was not more prudent than my father;
for he contrived, early in life, to dissipate his patrimony; and he
subsisted for many years in Norfolk, by teaching to dance. I visited
him in 1756, in a tour I made to Yarmouth. He lived then at Ormsby, a
beautiful village near that town, with an amiable wife, and a large
family of beautiful children, in an elegant villa, with a considerable
garden; and he appeared, at that time, in perfectly restored and easy
circumstances.
N. B.—The fragment whence this is taken here stops.
* * * * *
This Introduction, which is copied literally from the hand-writing
of Dr. Burney, was both begun and dropped, as appears by a marginal
note, in the year 1782; but, from what cause is unknown, was neither
continued, nor resumed, save by occasional memorandums, till the year
1807, when the Doctor had reached the age of eighty-one, and was under
the dejecting apprehension of a paralytic seizure. From that time,
nevertheless, he composed sundry manuscript volumes, of various sizes,
containing the history of his life, from his cradle nearly to his grave.
Out of the minute amplitude of this vast mass of matter, it has seemed
the duty of his Editor and Memorialist, to collect all that seemed to
offer any interest for the general reader; but to commit nothing to the
public eye that there is reason to believe the author himself would
have withheld from it at an earlier period; or would have obliterated,
even at a much later, had he revised his writings after the recovery of
his health and spirits.