In 1760 Mr. Burney, with his wife and young family, returned to
London; but no longer to the city, which has the peculiar fate, whilst
praised and reverenced by the many who to its noble encouragement owe
their first dawn of prosperity, of being almost always set aside and
relinquished, when that prosperity is effected. Is it that Fortune,
like the sun, while it rises, cold, though of fairest promise, in the
East, must ever, in its more luxuriant splendour, set in the West?
The new establishment was in Poland-street; which was not then, as it
is now, a sort of street that, like the rest of its neighbourhood,
appears to be left in the lurch. House-fanciers were not yet as
fastidious as they are become at present, from the endless variety
of new habitations. Oxford-road, as, at that time, Oxford-street was
called, into which Poland-street terminated, had little on its further
side but fields, gardeners’ grounds, or uncultivated suburbs. Portman,
Manchester, Russel, Belgrave squares, Portland-place, &c. &c., had not
yet a single stone or brick laid, in signal of intended erection: while
in plain Poland-street, Mr. Burney, then, had successively for his
neighbours, the Duke of Chandos, Lady Augusta Bridges, the Hon. John
Smith and the Miss Barrys, Sir Willoughby and the Miss Astons; and,
well noted by Mr. Burney’s little family, on the visit of his black
majesty to England, sojourned, almost immediately opposite to it, the
Cherokee King.
The opening of this new plan of life, was as successful to Mr. Burney
as its projection had been promising. Pupils of rank, wealth, and
talents, were continually proposed to him; and, in a very short time,
he had hardly an hour unappropriated to some fair disciple.
Lady Tankerville, amongst the rest, resumed her lessons with her early
master, obligingly submitting her time to his convenience, be it what
it might, rather than change her first favourite instructor. Ere long,
however, she resided almost wholly abroad, having attached herself with
enthusiastic fervour to the Princess Amelia, sister to Frederick the
Great of Prussia. The Countess even accepted the place of Dame d’Atour
to that accomplished princess; whose charms, according to poetical
record, banished for a while their too daring admirer, Voltaire, from
the Court of Berlin.
This enterprising Countess retained her spirit of whim, singularity,
and activity, through a long life; for when, many years later, she
returned to her own country, quite old, while Dr. Burney had not yet
reached the zenith of his fame, she again applied to him for musical
tuition; and when he told her, with regret, that his day was completely
filled up, from eight o’clock in the morning; “Come to me, then,”
cried she, with vivacity, “at seven!” which appointment literally, and
twice a week, took place.
All the first friends of Mr. Burney were happy to renew with him
their social intercourse. Mrs. Greville, when in town, was foremost
in eagerly seeking his Esther; and Mr. Greville met again his early
favourite with all his original impetuosity of regard: while their
joint newer friends of Norfolk, Mrs. Stephen Allen and Miss Dorothy
Young in particular, warmly sustained an unremitting communication by
letters: and Lords Orford, Eglinton, and March, General Lord Townshend,
Charles Boone, and many others, sought this enlivening couple, with an
unabating sense of their worth, upon every occasion that either music
or conversation offered, for accepting, or desiring, admission to their
small parties: for so uncommon were the powers of pleasing which they
possessed, that all idea of condescension in their worldly superiors
seemed superseded, if not annihilated, by personal eagerness to enjoy
their rare society.