Meanwhile, he had made too real an impression on the affections of
his first friends, to let absence of sight produce absence of mind.
With Mr. and Mrs. Greville he was always in correspondence; though, of
course, neither frequently nor punctually, now that his engagements
were so numerous, his obligations to fulfil them so serious, and that
his own fireside was so bewitchingly in harmony with his feelings, as
to make every moment he passed away from it a sacrifice.
He expounds his new situation and new devoirs, in reply to a letter
that had long been unanswered, of Mr. Greville’s, from the Continent,
with a sincerity so ingenuous that, though it is in rhyme, it is here
inserted biographically.
“TO FULK GREVILLE, ESQ., AT PARIS.
“Hence, ‘loathed business,’ which so long
Has plunged me in the toiling throng.
Forgive, dear Sir! and gentle Madam!
A drudging younger son of Adam,
Who’s forc’d from morn to night to labor
Or at the pipe, or at the tabor:
Nor has he hope ’twill e’er be o’er
Till landed on some kinder shore;
Some more propitious star, whose rays
Benign, may cheer his future days.
Ah, think for rest how he must pant
Whose life’s the summer of an ant!
With grief o’erwhelm’d, the wretched Abel[15]
Is dumb as architect of Babel.
—Three months of sullen silence—seem
With black ingratitude to teem;
As if my heart were made of stone
Which kindness could not work upon;
Or benefits e’er sit enshrin’d
Within the precincts of my mind.
But think not so, dear Sir! my crime
Proceeds alone from want of time.
No more a giddy youth, and idle,
Without a curb, without a bridle,
Who frisk’d about like colt unbroke,
And life regarded as a joke.—
No!—different duties now are mine;
Nor do I at my cares repine:
With naught to think of but myself
I little heeded worldly pelf;
But now, alert I act and move
For others whom I better love.
Should you refuse me absolution,
Condemning my new institution,
’Twould chill at once my heart and zeal
For this my little commonweal.—
O give my peace not such a stab!
Nor slay—as Cain did—name-sake Nab.
* * * * *
This prologue first premis’d, in hopes
Such figures, metaphors, and tropes
For pardon will not plead in vain,
We’ll now proceed in lighter strain.
* * * * *
The epistle then goes on to strictures frank and honest, though
softened off by courteous praise and becoming diffidence, on a
manuscript poem of Mr. Greville’s, that had been confidentially
transmitted to Lynn, for the private opinion and critical judgment of
Mr. Burney.
Mr. Greville, now, was assuming a new character—that of an author; and
he printed a work which he had long had in agitation, entitled “Maxims,
Characters, and Reflections, Moral, Serious, and Entertaining;” a title
that seemed to announce that England, in its turn, was now to produce,
in a man of family and fashion, a La Bruyere, or a La Rochefoucaul. And
Mr. Greville, in fact, waited for a similar fame with dignity rather
than anxiety, because with expectation unclogged by doubt.
With Mrs. Greville, also, Mr. Burney kept up an equal, or more than
equal, intercourse, for their minds were invariably in unison.
The following copy remains of a burlesque rhyming _billet-doux_,
written by Mr. Burney in his old dramatic character of Will Fribble,
and addressed to Mrs. Greville in that of Miss Biddy Bellair, upon her
going abroad.
“WILLIAM FRIBBLE, ESQ.
“TO HER WHO WAS ONCE MISS BIDDY BELLAIR.
“_Greeting._
“No boisterous hackney coachman clown, No frisky fair nymph of
the town E’er wore so insolent a brow As Captain Flash, since
Hymen’s vow To him in silken bonds has tied So sweet, so fair,
so kind a bride. Well! curse me, now, if I can bear it!—
Though to his face I’d not declare it— To think that you
should take a dance With such a roister into France; And leave
poor Will in torturing anguish To sigh and pine, to grieve and
languish. ’Twas—let me tell you, Ma’am—quite cruel! Though
Jack and I shall fight a duel If ever he to England come And
does not skulk behind a drum. But—apropos to coming over, I
hope you soon will land at Dover That I may fly, more swift
than hawk, With you to have some _serus_ talk. The while, how
great will be my bliss Should you but deign to let me kiss— O
may these ardent vows prevail!— Your little finger’s vermeil
nail! Who am, Till direful death to dust shall crumble, My
dearest _cretur_! yours,
most humble,
“WILL FRIBBLE.”
Mrs. Greville, too, had commenced being an author; but without either
the throes of pain or the joys of hope. It was, in fact, a burst of
genius emanating from a burst of sorrow, which found an alleviating
vent in a supplication to Indifference.
This celebrated ode was no sooner seen than it was hailed with a blaze
of admiration, that passed first from friend to friend; next from
newspapers to magazines; and next to every collection of fugitive
pieces of poetry in the English language.[16]
The constant friendship that subsisted between this lady and Mr. Burney
bad been cemented after his marriage, by the grateful pleasure with
which he saw his chosen partner almost instantly included in it by
a triple bond. The quick-sighted, and quick-feeling author of that
sensitive ode, needed nor time nor circumstance for animating her
perception of such merit as deserved a place in her heart; which had
not, at that early period, become a suppliant for the stoical composure
with which her wounded sensibility sought afterwards to close its
passage.
She had first seen the fair Esther in the dawning bloom of youthful
wedded love, while new-born happiness enlivened her courage,
embellished her beauty, and enabled her to do honour to the choice of
her happy husband; who stood so high in the favour of Mrs. Greville,
that the sole aim of that lady, in the opening of the acquaintance,
had been his gratification; aided, perhaps, by a natural curiosity,
which attaches itself to the sight of any object who has inspired an
extraordinary passion.
Far easier to conceive than to delineate was the rapture of the young
bridegroom when, upon a meeting that, unavoidably, must have been
somewhat tremendous, he saw the exertions of his lovely bride to
substitute serenity for bashfulness; and read, in the piercing eyes of
Mrs. Greville, the fullest approbation of such native self-possession.
From that time all inferiority of worldly situation was counteracted by
intellectual equality.[17]
But the intercourse had for several years been interrupted from the
Grevilles living abroad. It was renewed, however, upon their return
to England; and the Burneys, with their eldest daughter,[18] visited
Wilbury House upon every vacation that allowed time to Mr. Burney
for the excursion. And every fresh meeting increased the zest for
another. They fell into the same train of observation upon characters,
things, and books; and enjoyed, with the same gaiety of remark, all
humorous incidents, and all traits of characteristic eccentricity.
Mrs. Greville began a correspondence with Mrs. Burney the most open
and pleasantly communicative. But no letters of Mrs. Burney remain;
and two only of Mrs. Greville have been preserved. These two, however,
demonstrate all that has been said of the terms and the trust of their
sociality.[19]