_Of Lindsey House, Chelsea_.
Dr. Burney, who felt that his veracity had that unsullied honour that,
like the virtue of the wife of Cæsar, must not be suspected, read
this letter with the amazement, and answered it with the indignation,
of offended integrity. He could not, he said, be the dupe of
misrepresentation, for he had related only what he had experienced.
His narrative was all personal, all individual; and he had documents,
through letters, bills, and witnesses in fellow-travellers, and in
friends or inhabitants of the several places described, that could
easily be produced to verify his assertions: all which he was most able
and willing to call forth; not so much, perhaps, for the satisfaction
of Mr. Hutton, who so hastily had misjudged him, as for his own; in
certifying, upon proof, how little he had deserved the mistrust of his
readers, as being capable of giving hearsay intelligence to the public.
Mr. Hutton instantly, and in a tone of mingled alarm and penitence,
wrote a humble, yet energetic apology for his letter; earnestly
entreating the Doctor’s pardon for his officious precipitancy; and
appealing to Dr. Hawkesworth, whom he called his excellent friend, to
intercede in his favour. He took shame, he added, to himself, for not
having weighed the subject more chronologically before he wrote his
strictures; as he had now made out that his hasty animadversion was
the unreflecting result of the different periods in which the Doctor
and himself had travelled; his own German visit having taken place
previously to the devastating war between the King of Prussia and the
Empress Queen, which had since laid waste the whole country in which,
unhappily, it had been waged.
Dr. Burney accepted with pleasure this conceding explanation. The good
offices of Dr. Hawkesworth were prompt to accelerate a reconciliation
and an interview; and Mr. Hutton, with even tears of eager feelings
to repair an unjust accusation, hastened to Queen-Square. Dr. Burney,
touched by his ingenuous contrition, received him with open arms. And,
from that moment, he became one of the Doctor’s most reverential and
most ardent admirers.
He made frequent visits to the house; conceived the most friendly
regard for the whole family; and abruptly, and with great singularity,
addressed a letter, that was as original in ideas as in diction, to
one of the daughters,[39] with whom he demanded permission of the
Doctor to correspond. And in a postscript, that was nearly as long
as the epistle, to obviate, probably, any ambiguous notions from his
zeal—though he was already a grey and wrinkled old man—he acquainted
his new young correspondent that he had been married four-and-thirty
years.
Mr. Hutton was one of the sect of the Moravians, or Hurnhuters, and
resided at Lindsey House, Chelsea, as secretary to the united brethren.
He was author, also, of an Essay towards giving some just ideas of the
character of Count Zinzendorf, the inventor and founder of the sect.
Mr. Hutton was a person of pleasing though eccentric manners. His
notions were uncommon; his language was impressive, though quaint:
his imagination, notwithstanding his age, was playful, nay, poetical.
He considered all mankind as his brethren, and himself, therefore, as
every one’s equal; alike in his readiness to serve them, and in the
frankness with which he demanded their services in return.
His desire to make acquaintance, and to converse with every body to
whom any species of celebrity was attached, was insatiable, and was
dauntless. He approached them without fear, and accosted them without
introduction. But the genuine kindness of his smile made way for him
wherever there was heart and observation; and with such his encounter,
however uncouth, brought on, almost invariably, a friendly intercourse.
Yet where, on the contrary, he met not with those delicate developers
and interpreters, heart and observation, to instil into those he
addressed a persuasion of the benevolence of his intentions in seeking
fair and free fraternity with all his fellow-creatures, he suffered not
his failures to dishearten him; for as he never meant, he never took
offence. And even when turned away from with rudeness or alarm, as a
man conceived to be intrusive, impertinent, or suspicious, he would
neither be angry nor affronted; but, sorrowfully shaking his head,
would hope that some happy accident would inspire them with softer
feelings, ere some bitter misfortune should retaliate their unkindness.
The immediate, it might, perhaps, be said, the instinctive cause of
any rebuff that he met with in public, namely, his extraordinary
appearance, and apparel, never seemed to occur to him; for as he
looked not at the finest garb of the wealthy or modish with the
smallest respect, he surmised not that the shabbiness of his own could
influence his reception. By him, the tailor and the mantua-maker were
regarded merely as manufacturers of decency, not of embellishment; and
he had full as much esteem for his own clumsy cobbler or second-hand
patching tailor, as the finest beau or belle of Almack’s could have for
their Parisian attirers.
Nevertheless, so coarse was the large, brown, slouching surtout, which
infolded his body; so rough and blowsy was the old mop-like wig that
wrapt up his head; that, but for the perfectly serene mildness of his
features, and the venerability of his hoary eye-brows, he might at all
times have passed for some constable, watchman, or policeman, who had
mistaken the day for the night, and was prowling into the mansions of
gentlemen, instead of public-houses, to take a survey that all was in
order.
That a man such as this, with every mark of a nature the most
unstained, and of a character the most unsophisticated, could belong
to a sect, which, by all popular report at least, was stampt, at that
time, as dark and mystic; and as being wild and strange in some of its
doctrines even to absurdity; must make every one who had witnessed
the virtuous tenor of the life of Mr. Hutton, and shared in the
inoffensive gaiety of his discourse, believe the sect to have been
basely calumniated; for not a word was ever uttered by this singular
being that breathed not good will to all mankind; and not an action
is recorded, or known of him, that is irresponsive of such universal
benevolence.
* * * * *
Dr. Burney, now, without a single black-ball, was elected a fellow
of the Royal Society; of which honour his first notice was received
through the amiable and zealous Miss Phipps,[40] who, knowing the
day of election, had impatiently gathered the tidings of its success
from her brother, Sir Constantine Phipps:[41] and before either the
president, or the friend who had nominated the Doctor for a candidate,
could forward the news, she sportively anticipated their intelligence,
by sending to Queen-Square a letter directed in large characters, “For
Dr. Burney, F. R. S.”[42]