Neither pleasure, however, nor literary pursuits, led young Burney to
neglect the cultivation of his musical talents. The mask of Alfred
was by no means his sole juvenile composition: he set to music the
principal airs in the English burletta called Robin Hood, which was
most flatteringly received at the theatre; and he composed the whole of
the music of the pantomime of Queen Mab.
He observed at this time the strictest incognito concerning all these
productions, though no motive for it is found amongst his papers; nor
does there remain any recollective explanation.
With regard to Queen Mab, it excited peculiar remark, from the
extraordinary success of that diverting pantomime; for when the
uncertainties of the representation were over, there was every stimulus
to avowal that could urge a young author to come forward; not with
adventurous boldness, nor yet with trembling timidity, but with the
frank delight of unequivocal success.
Queen Mab had a run which, to that time, had never been equalled, save
by the opening of the Beggar’s Opera; and which has not since been
surpassed, save by the representation of the Duenna.
Its music, pleasing and natural, was soon so popular, that it was
taught to all young ladies, set to all barrel organs, and played at
all familiar music parties. It aimed not at Italian refinement, nor
at German science; but its sprightly melody, and utter freedom from
vulgarity, made its way even with John Bull, who, while following the
hairbreadth agility of Harlequin, the skittish coquetries of Columbine,
and the merry dole of the disasters of the Clown and Pantaloon, found
himself insensibly caught, and unconsciously beguiled into ameliorated
musical taste.
In the present day, when English singers sometimes rise to the Italian
opera, and when Italian singers are sometimes invited to the English,
the music of Queen Mab could be received but in common with the feats
of its pantomime; so rapidly has taste advanced, and so generally have
foreign improvements become nearly indigenous.
To give its due to merit, and its rights to invention, we must always
go back to their origin, and judge them, not by any comparison with
what has followed them, but by what they met when they first started,
and by what they were preceded.
Why, when success was thus ascertained, the name of the composer was
concealed, leaving him thus singularly as unknown as he was popular,
may the more be regretted, as his disposition, though chiefly domestic,
was not of that effeminately sensitive cast that shrinks from the
world’s notice with a dread of publicity. His mind, on the contrary,
belonged to his sex; and was eminently formed to expand with that
manly ambition, which opens the portals of hope to the attainment of
independence, through intellectual honours.
The music, when printed, made its appearance in the world as the
offspring of _a society of the sons of Apollo_: and Oswald, a famous
bookseller, published it by that title, and knew nothing of its real
parentage.[5]
Sundry airs, ballads, cantatas, and other light musical productions,
were put forth also, as from that imaginary society; but all sprang
from the same source, and all were equally unacknowledged.
The sole conjecture to be formed upon a self-denial, to which no virtue
seems attached; and from which reason withdraws its sanction, as
tending to counteract the just balance between merit and recompense,
is, that possibly the articles then in force with Dr. Arne, might
disfranchise young Burney from the liberty of publication in his own
name.