How singularly Mr. Burney merited encouragement himself, cannot more
aptly be exemplified than by portraying the genuine ardour with which
he sought to stimulate the exertions of genius in others, and to
promote their golden as well as literary laurels.
Mr. Burney was one of the first and most fervent admirers of those
luminous periodical essays upon morals, literature, and human nature,
that adorned the eighteenth century, and immortalized their author,
under the vague and inadequate titles of the Rambler and the Idler. He
took them both in; he read them to all his friends; and was the first
to bring them to a bookish little coterie that assembled weekly at
Mrs. Stephen Allen’s. And the charm expanded over these meetings, by
the original lecture of these refined and energetic lessons of life,
conduct, and opinions, when breathed through the sympathetic lips of
one who felt every word with nearly the same force with which every
word had been dictated, excited in that small auditory a species of
enthusiasm for the author, that exalted him at once in their ideas, to
that place which the general voice of his country has since assigned
him, of the first writer of the age.
Mr. Bewley more than joined in this literary idolatry; and the works,
the character, and the name of Dr. Johnson, were held by him in a
reverence nearly enthusiastic.
At Haughton, at Felbrig, at Rainham, at Sir A. Wodehouse’s, at
Major Mackenzie’s, and wherever his judgment had weight, Mr. Burney
introduced and recommended these papers. And when, in 1755, the plan
of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary reached Norfolk, Mr. Burney, by the zeal
with which he spread the fame of that lasting monument of the Doctor’s
matchless abilities, was enabled to collect orders for a Norfolk packet
of half a dozen copies of that noble work.
This empowered him to give some vent to his admiration; and the
following letter made the opening to a connection that he always
considered as one of the greatest honours of his life.[20]