The motto was thus translated, though not printed, by Dr. Burney.
“They sung their strains in notes so sweet and clear
The sound still vibrates on my ravished ear.”
The reception of this first acknowledged call for public attention from
Dr. Burney, was of the most encouraging description; for though no
renown had yet been fastened upon his name, his acquirements and his
character, wherever he had been known, had excited a general goodwill
that prepared the way to kindly approbation for this, and indeed for
every work that issued from his pen.
There was, in truth, something so spirited and uncommon, yet of so
antique a cast, in the travels, or pilgrimage, that he had undertaken,
in search of materials for the history of his art, that curiosity was
awakened to the subject, and expectation was earnest for its execution:
and it was no sooner published, than orders were received, by most
of the great booksellers of the day, for its purchase; and no sooner
read, than letters the most flattering, from the deepest theorists of
the science, and the best judges of the practice of the art of music,
reached the favoured author; who was of too modest a character to have
been robbed of the pleasure of praise by presumptuous anticipation;
and of too natural a one to lose any of its gratification by an
apathetic suppression of its welcome. And the effect, impulsive and
unsophisticated, of his success, was so ardent an encouragement to his
purpose, that while, mentally, it animated his faculties to a yet more
forcible pursuit of their decided object, it darted him, corporeally,
into a travelling vehicle, which rapidly wheeled him back again to
Dover; where, with new spirit and eagerness, he set sail upon a similar
musical tour in the Low Countries and in Germany, to that which he had
so lately accomplished in France and Italy.
With respect to the French and Italian tour, the restraint from all but
its professional business, was much lamented by the friends to whom the
sacrifice of the miscellaneous matter was communicated.
Upon the German tour not a comment will be offered; it is before the
public with an approvance that has been stamped by the sanction of
time. At the period of its publication, Dr. Burney, somewhat assured,
though incapable of being rendered arrogant by favour, ventured to
listen only to the voice of his first friend and monitor, who exhorted
him to mingle personal anecdotes with his musical information.
The consequence was such as his sage adviser prognosticated; for both
the applause and the sale of this second and more diffuse social diary,
greatly surpassed those of its more technical predecessor.
Nevertheless, the German tour, though thus successful for narration to
the public, terminated for himself in sickness, fatigue, exorbitant
expense, and poignant bodily suffering.
While yet far away from his country, and equally distant from
accomplishing the purpose of his travels, his solicitude not to leave
it incomplete, joined to his anxiety not to break his professional
engagements, led him to over-work and over-hurry his mental powers, at
the same time that he inflicted a similar harass upon his corporeal
strength. And while thus doubly overwhelmed, he was assaulted, during
his precipitated return, by the rudest fierceness of wintry elemental
strife; through which, with bad accommodations, and innumerable
accidents, he became a prey to the merciless pangs of the acutest
spasmodic rheumatism; which barely suffered him to reach his home, ere,
long and piteously, it confined him, a tortured prisoner, to his bed.
Such was the check that almost instantly curbed, though it could not
subdue, the rising pleasure of his hopes of entering upon a new
species of existence, that of an approved man of letters; for it was on
the bed of sickness, exchanging the light wines of France, Italy, and
Germany, for the black and loathsome potions of the Apothecaries’ Hall;
writhed by darting stitches, and burning with fiery fever; that he felt
the full force of that sublunary equipoise, that seems evermore to hang
suspended over the attainment of long-sought and uncommon felicity,
just as it is ripening to burst forth into enjoyment!
Again he retired to Chesington, to his care-healing, heart-expanding,
and head-informing Mr. Crisp: and there, under the auspices of all that
could sooth or animate him; and nursed with incessant assiduity by his
fondly-attached wife and daughters, he repaired his shattered frame; to
fit it, once again, for the exercise of those talents and faculties,
which illumine, in their expansive effects, the whole race of mankind;
long after the apparent beings whence they have issued, seem faded,
dissolved away; leaving not, visibly, a track behind.
In Dr. Burney, disease was no sooner conquered, than the vigour of
his character brought back to him pleasure and activity, through the
spirited wisdom with which he dismissed Regret for Anticipation.
There are few things in which his perfect good-humour was more
playfully demonstrated, than by the looks, arch yet reproachful, and
piteous though burlesque, with which he was wont to recount a most
provoking and painful little incident that occurred to him in his
last voyage home; but of which he was well aware that the relation
must excite irresistible risibility in even the most friendly of his
auditors.
After travelling by day and by night to expedite his return, over
mountains, through marshes, by cross-roads; on horseback, on mules, in
carriages of any and every sort that could but hurry him on, he reached
Calais in a December so dreadfully stormy, that not a vessel of any
kind could set sail for England. Repeatedly he secured his hammock,
and went on board to take possession of it; but as repeatedly was
driven back by fresh gales, during the space of nine fatiguing days and
tempestuous nights. And when, at last, the passage was effected, so
nearly annihilating had been his sufferings from sea-sickness, that it
was vainly he was told he might now, at his pleasure, arise, go forth,
and touch English ground; he had neither strength nor courage to move,
and earnestly desired to be left awhile to himself.
Exhaustion, then, with tranquillity of mind, cast him into a sound
sleep.
From this repose, when, much refreshed, he awoke, he called to the man
who was in waiting, to help him up, that he might get out of the ship.
“Get out of the ship, sir?” repeated the man. “Good lauk! you’ll be
drowned!”
“Drowned?—What’s to drown me? I want to go ashore.”
“Ashore, sir?” again repeated the man; “why you’re in the middle of the
sea! There ar’nt a bit of ground for your toe nail.”
“What do you mean?” cried the Doctor, starting up; “the sea? did you
not tell me we were safe in at Dover?”
“O lauk! that’s two good hours ago, sir! I could not get you up then,
say what I would. You fell downright asleep, like a top. And so I told
them. But that’s all one. You may go, or you may stay, as you like; but
them pilots never stops for nobody.”
Filled with alarm, the Doctor now rushed up to the deck, where he had
the dismay to discover that he was half-way back to France.
And he was forced to land again at Calais; where again, with the next
mail, and a repetition of his sea-sickness, he re-embarked for Dover.
* * * * *
On quitting Chesington, upon his recovery, for re-entering his house
in Queen-Square, the Doctor compelled himself to abstain from his pen,
his papers, his new acquisitions in musical lore, and all that demanded
study for the subject that nearly engrossed his thoughts, in order to
consecrate the whole of his time to his family and his affairs.
He renewed, therefore, his wonted diurnal course, as if he had never
diverged from it; and attended his young pupils as if he had neither
ability nor taste for any superior occupation: and he neither rested
his body, nor liberated his ideas, till he had re-instated himself in
the professional mode of life, upon which his substantial prosperity,
and that of his house, depended.
But, this accomplished, his innate propensities sprang again into
play, urging him to snatch at every instant he could purloin, without
essential mischief from these sage regulations; with a redundance of
vivacity for new movement, new action, and elastic procedure, scarcely
conceivable to those who, balancing their projects, their wishes, and
their intentions, by the opposing weights of time, of hazard, and
of trouble, undertake only what is obviously to their advantage, or
indisputably their duty. His Fancy was his dictator; his Spirit was his
spur; and whatever the first started, the second pursued to the goal.