With Dr. Hawkesworth Mr. Burney renewed an acquaintance that he had
begun at Wilbury House, where he who could write the Adventurer, was
not likely to have wanted the public voice to awaken his attention to
a youth of such striking merit. Long before that voice had sounded, Dr.
Hawkesworth had formed the most liberal and impartial opinion of the
young favourite of Mr. Greville. And when, upon the occasion of the
Doctor’s writing a hymn for the children of the Foundling Hospital,
Mr. Burney, through the medium of Mr. Greville, was applied to for
setting it to music, the expressions, incidentally dropt, of genius and
judgment, in a letter of thanks from Dr. Hawkesworth, would have been
in perfect accord with the attributes of the composer, had they been
bestowed after the History of Music had stamped them as his due.
No opportunity was omitted by Mr. Burney for cultivating the already
established kindness of Mr. Mason and of Dr. Armstrong.
Mr. Burney had frequent relations also, with that scientific diver into
natural history, and whatever was ingenious, quaint, and little known,
the Hon. Daines Barrington.
Arthur Young, the afterwards famous agriculturist, who had married a
younger sister of Mr. Burney, was, when in London, all but an inmate of
the Poland-street family; and the high, nay, at that time, volatile
spirits of Arthur Young, though always kept within certain bounds by
natively well-bred manners, and instinctive powers of pleasing, made
him, to the younger group especially, the most entertaining guest that
enlivened the fire side.
Amongst those whom neither literature nor science, but taste and
choice, taught to signalise Mr. Burney, foremost in the list of
youthful beauty, native talents, and animated softness, appeared Mrs.
Pleydell, daughter of Governor Holwell; so highly celebrated for the
dreadful sufferings, which he almost miraculously survived to record,
of incarceration, in what was denominated the Black Hole of Calcutta.
Mrs. Pleydell, like the first, or Mrs. Linley Sheridan, was encircled
with charms that, but for comparison with Mrs. Sheridan, might, at that
time, have been called unrivalled; charms at once so personal, yet so
mental, that they seemed entwined together by a texture so fine of
beauty and sensibility, that her first glance was attraction, and her
first speech was captivation.
Nothing could surpass the sweetness with which this lovely East Indian
attached herself to Mr. Burney; nor the delicacy of her arrangements
for appearing to receive favours in conferring them upon his
daughters; who were enamoured of her with an ardour that, happily, he
escaped; though his admiration was lively and sincere.
This lady, in taking leave of Mr. Burney, upon her return to India,
presented to him a Chinese painting on ivory, which she had inherited
from her father; and which he, Governor Holwell, estimated as a sort
of treasure. The following is the description of it, drawn up by Mr.
Burney, from the account of Mrs. Pleydell.
“It is the representation of a music gallery over a triumphal
arch, through which the great Mogul passed at Agra, or Delhi,
before his fall. The procession consists of the Emperor,
mounted on an elephant, and accompanied by his wives,
concubines, and attendants; great officers of state, &c., all
exquisitely painted. The heads of the females, Sir Joshua
Reynolds and Sir Robert Strange, to whom this painting was
shewn, thought sufficiently highly finished to be set in
rings.”