The visits of Mr. Burney to Massingham, and his attachment to
its philosopher, contributed, more than any other connection, to
stimulate that love and pursuit of knowledge, that urge its votaries
to snatch from waste or dissipation those fragments of time, which,
by the general herd of mankind, are made over to Lethe, for reading;
learning languages; composing music; studying sciences; fathoming the
theoretical and mathematical depths of his own art; and seeking at
large every species of intelligence to which either chance or design
afforded him any clew.
As he could wait upon his country pupils only on horseback, he
purchased a mare that so exactly suited his convenience and his wishes,
in sure-footedness, gentleness and sagacity, that she soon seemed to
him a part of his family: and the welfare and comfort of Peggy became,
ere long, a matter of kind interest to all his house.
On this mare he studied Italian; for, obliged to go leisurely over the
cross roads with which Norfolk then abounded, and which were tiresome
from dragging sands, or dangerous from deep ruts in clay, half his
valuable time would have been lost in nothingness, but for his trust in
Peggy; who was as careful in safely picking her way, as she was adroit
in remembering from week to week whither she was meant to go.
Her master, at various odd moments, and from various opportunities,
had compressed, from the best Italian Dictionaries, every word of the
Italian language into a small octavo volume; and from this in one
pocket, and a volume of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto, or Metastasio,
in another, he made himself completely at home in that language of
elegance and poetry.
His common-place book, at this period, rather merits the appellation of
_un_common, from the assiduous research it manifests, to illustrate
every sort of information, by extracts, abstracts, strictures, or
descriptions, upon the almost universality of subject-matter which it
contains.
It is without system or method; he had no leisure to put it into order;
yet it is possible, he might owe to his familiar recurrence to that
desultory assemblage of unconcocted materials, the general and striking
readiness with which he met at once almost every topic of discourse.
This manuscript of scraps, drawn from reading and observation, was,
like his Italian Dictionary, always in his great-coat pocket, when he
travelled; so that if unusually rugged roads, or busied haste, impeded
more regular study, he was sure, in opening promiscuously his pocket
collection of _odds and ends_, to come upon some remark worth weighing;
some point of science on which to ruminate; some point of knowledge to
fix in his memory; or something amusing, grotesque, or little known,
that might recreate his fancy.