But neither the pain of his illness, nor the pleasure of his recovery,
nor even the loved labours of his History, offered sufficient
occupation for the insatiate activity of his mind. No sooner did he
breathe again the breath of health, resume his daily business, and
return to his nocturnal studies, than a project occurred to him of a
new undertaking, which would have seemed to demand the whole time and
undivided attention of almost any other man.
This was nothing less than to establish in England a seminary for the
education of musical pupils of both sexes, upon a plan of which the
idea should be borrowed, though the execution should almost wholly be
new-modelled, from the Conservatorios of Naples and Vienna.
As disappointment blighted this scheme just as it seemed maturing to
fruition, it would be to little purpose to enter minutely into its
details: and yet, as it is a striking feature of the fervour of Dr.
Burney for the advancement of his art, it is not its failure, through
the secret workings of undermining prejudice, that ought to induce his
biographer to omit recounting so interesting an intention and attempt:
and the less, as a plan, in many respects similar, has recently been
put into execution, without any reference to the original projector.
The motives that suggested this undertaking to Dr. Burney, with the
reasons by which they were influenced and supported, were to this
effect.
In England, where more splendid rewards await the favourite votaries
of musical excellence than in any other spot on the globe, there was
no establishment of any sort for forming such artists as might satisfy
the real connoisseur in music; and save English talent from the
mortification, and the British purse from the depredations, of seeking
a constant annual supply of genius and merit from foreign shores.
An institution, therefore, of this character seemed wanting to
the state, for national economy; and to the people, for national
encouragement.
Such was the enlarged view which Dr. Burney, while yet in Italy, had
taken of such a plan for his own country.
The difficulty of collecting proper subjects to form its members,
caused great diversity of opinion and of proposition amongst the
advisers with whom Dr. Burney consulted.
It was peculiarly necessary, that these young disciples should be free
from every sort of contamination, mental or corporeal, upon entering
this musical asylum, that they might spread no dangerous contagion of
either sort; but be brought up to the practice of the art, with all its
delightful powers of pleasing, chastened from their abuse.
With such a perspective, to take promiscuously the children of the
poor, merely where they had an ear for music, or a voice for song,
would be running the risk of gathering together a mixed little
multitude, which, from intermingling inherent vulgarity, hereditary
diseases, or vicious propensities, with the finer qualities requisite
for admission, might render the cultivation of their youthful talents,
a danger—if not a curse—to the country.
Yet, the length of time that might be required for selecting little
subjects, of this unadulterate description, from different quarters;
with the next to impossibility of tracing, with any certainty, what
might have been their real conduct in times past; or what might be
their principles to give any basis of security for the time to come;
caused a perplexity of the most serious species: for should a single
one of the tribe go astray, the popular cry against teaching the arts
to the poor, would stamp the whole little community with a stain
indelible; and the institution itself might be branded with infamy.
What, abstractedly, was desirable, was to try this experiment upon
youthful beings to whom the world was utterly unknown; and who not only
in innocence had breathed their infantine lives, but in complete and
unsuspicious ignorance of evil.
Requisites so hard to obtain, and a dilemma so intricate to unravel,
led the Doctor to think of the Foundling Hospital; in the neighbourhood
of which, in Queen-Square, stood his present dwelling.
He communicated, therefore, his project, to Sir Charles Whitworth, the
governor of the hospital.
Sir Charles thought it proper, feasible, desirable, and patriotic.
The Doctor, thus seconded, drew up a plan for forming a Musical
Conservatorio in the metropolis of England, and in the bosom of the
Foundling Hospital.
The intention was to collect from the whole little corps all who had
musical ears, or tuneful voices, to be brought up scientifically, as
instrumental or vocal performers.
Those of the group who gave no decided promise of such qualifications,
were to go on with their ordinary education, and to abide by its
ordinary result, according to the original regulations of the charity.
A meeting of the governors and directors was convened by their chief,
Sir Charles Whitworth, for announcing this scheme.
The plan was heard with general approbation; but the discussions to
which it gave rise were discursive and perplexing.
It was objected, that music was an art of luxury, by no means requisite
to life, or accessary to morality.
These children were all meant to be educated as plain, but essential
members of the general community. They were to be trained up to useful
purposes, with a singleness that would ward off all ambition for what
was higher; and teach them to repay the benefit of their support by
cheerful labour. To stimulate them to superior views might mar the
religious object of the charity; which was to nullify rather than
extinguish, all disposition to pride, vice, or voluptuousness; such
as, probably, had demoralized their culpable parents, and thrown these
deserted outcasts upon the mercy of the Foundling Hospital.
This representation, the Doctor acknowledged, would be unanswerable,
if it were decided to be right, and if it were judged to be possible,
wholly to extirpate the art of music in the British empire: or, if the
Foundling Hospital were to be considered as a seminary; predestined
to menial servitude; and as the only institution of the country where
the members were to form a caste, from whose rules and plodden ways no
genius could ever emerge.
But such a fiat could never be issued by John Bull; nor so flat a stamp
be struck upon any portion of his countrymen. John Bull was at once
too liberal and too proud, to seek to adopt the tame ordinances of the
immutable Hindoos; with whom ages pass unmarked; generations unchanged;
the poor never richer; the simple never wiser; and with whom, family
by family, and trade by trade, begin, continue, and terminate, their
monotonous existence, by the same pre-determined course, and to the
same invariable destiny.
These children, the Doctor answered, are all orphans; they are
taken from no family, for by none are they owned; they are drawn
from no calling, for to none are they specifically bred. They are
all brought up to menial offices, though they are all instructed in
reading and writing, and the females in needle-work; but they are
all, systematically and indiscriminately, destined to be servants
or apprentices, at the age of fifteen; from which period, all their
hold upon the benevolent institution to which they are indebted for
their infantine rescue from perishing cold and starving want, with
their subsequent maintenance and tuition, is rotatorily transferred
to new-born claimants; for the Hospital, then, has fulfilled its
engagements; and the children must go forth to the world, whether to
their benefit or their disgrace.
Were it not better, then, when there are subjects who are
success-inviting, to bestow upon them professional improvement,
with virtuous education? since, as long as operas, concerts, and
theatres, are licensed by government, musical performers, vocal and
instrumental, will inevitably be wanted, employed, and remunerated. And
every state is surely best served, and the people of every country are
surely the most encouraged, when the nation suffices for itself, and no
foreign aid is necessarily called in, to share either the fame or the
emoluments of public performances.
Stop, then; prohibit, proscribe—if it be possible,—all taste for
foreign refinements, and for the exquisite finishing of foreign melody
and harmony; or establish a school on our own soil, in which, as in
Painting and in Sculpture, the foreign perfection of arts may be
taught, transplanted, and culled, till they become indigenous.
And where, if not here, may subjects be found on whom such a national
trial may be made with the least danger of injury? subjects who have
been brought up with a strictness of regular habits that has warded
them from all previous mischief; yet who are too helpless and ignorant,
as well as poor, to be able to develop whether or not Nature, in her
secret workings, has kindled within their unconscious bosoms, a spark,
a single spark of harmonic fire, that might light them, from being
hewers of wood, and brushers of spiders, to those regions of vocal and
instrumental excellence, that might propitiate the project of drawing
from our own culture a school for music, of which the students, under
proper moral and religious tutelage, might, in time, supersede the
foreign auxiliaries by whom they are now utterly extinguished.
The objectors were charged, also, to weigh well that there was no law,
or regulation, and no means whatsoever, that could prevent any of this
little association from becoming singers and players, if they had
musical powers, and such should be their wish: though, if self-thrown
into that walk, singers and players only at the lowest theatres, or at
the tea and cake public-gardens; or even in the streets, as fiddlers
of country dances, or as ballad squallers: in which degraded exercise
of their untaught endowments, not only decent life must necessarily be
abandoned, but immorality, licentiousness, and riot, must assimilate
with, or, rather, form a prominent part of their exhibitions and
performances.
Here the discussion closed. The opponents were silenced, if not
convinced, and the trial of the project was decreed.
The hardly-fought battle over, victory, waving her gay banners, that
wafted to the Doctor hopes of future renown with present benediction,
determined him, for the moment, to relinquish even his history, that he
might devote every voluntary thought to consolidating this scheme.
The primary object of his consideration, because the most
conscientious, was the preservation of the morals, and fair conduct of
the pupils. And here, the exemplary character, and the purity of the
principles of Dr. Burney, would have shone forth to national advantage,
had the expected prosperity of his design brought his meditated
regulations into practice.
Vain would it be to attempt, and useless, if not vain, to describe his
indignant consternation, when, while in the full occupation of these
arrangements, a letter arrived to him from Sir Charles Whitworth,
to make known, with great regret, that the undertaking was suddenly
overthrown. The enemies to the attempt, who had seemed quashed,
had merely lurked in ambush, to watch for an unsuspected moment to
convene a partial committee; in which they voted out the scheme, as an
innovation upon the original purpose of the institution; and pleading,
also, an old act of parliament against its adoption, they solemnly
proscribed it for ever.
Yet a repeal of that act had been fully intended before the plan,
which, hitherto, had only been agitating and negotiating, should have
been put into execution.
All of choice, however, and all of respect, that remained for Dr.
Burney, consisted in a personal offer from Sir Charles Whitworth, to
re-assemble an opposing meeting amongst those friends who, previously,
had carried the day.
But happy as the Doctor would have been to have gained, with the
honour of general approbation, a point he had elaborately studied to
clear from mystifying objections, and to render desirable, even to
patriotism; his pride was justly hurt by so abrupt a defalcation; and
he would neither with open hostility, nor under any versatile contest,
become the founder, or chief, of so important an enterprize.
He gave up, therefore, the attempt, without further struggle; simply
recommending to the mature reflections of the members of the last
committee, whether it were not more pious, as well as more rational, to
endeavour to ameliorate the character and lives of practical musical
noviciates, than to behold the nation, in its highest classes, cherish
the art, follow it, embellish it with riches, and make it fashion and
pleasure—while, to train to that art, with whatever precautions, its
appropriate votaries from the bosom of our own country, seemed to call
for opposition, and to deserve condemnation.
Thus died, in its birth, this interesting project, which, but for
this brief sketch, might never have been known to have brightened the
mind, as one of the projects, or to have mortified it, as one of the
failures, of the active and useful life of Dr. Burney.