from a continually enlarging view of its capability of improvement, did
not see the light till the year 1782.
Then, however, it was received with the same favour and the same
honours that had graced the entrance into public notice of its
predecessor. The literary world seemed filled with its praise;
the booksellers demanded ample impressions; and her Majesty Queen
Charlotte, with even augmented graciousness, accepted its homage at
court.
* * * * *
Relieved, by this publication, from a weight upon his spirits and his
delicacy, which, for more than six years had burthened and disturbed
them, he prudently resolved against working any longer under the
self-reproachful annoyance of a promised punctuality which his position
in life disabled him from observing, by fettering himself with any
further tie of time to his subscribers for the remaining volumes.
He renounced, therefore, the excess of studious labour with which,
hitherto,
his toil
O’er books consum’d the midnight oil;
and restored himself, in a certain degree, to his family, his friends,
and a general and genial enjoyment of his existence. And hailed was the
design, by all who knew him, with an energetic welcome.
And yet, in breathing thus a little from so unremitting an ardour;
and allowing himself to bask awhile in that healing sunshine of
applause which administers more relief to the brain-shattered,
and mind-exhausted patient, than all the _materia medica_ of the
Apothecaries’ Hall; so small still, and so fugitive, were his intervals
of relaxation, that the diminished exertion which to him was gentle
rest, would, to almost any other, have still seemed overstrained
occupation, and a life of drudgery.
With no small pleasure, now, he resumed his wonted place at the opera,
at concerts, and in circles of musical excellence; which then were at
their height of superiority, because presided over by the royal and
accomplished legislator of taste, fashion, and elegance, the Prince
of Wales;[38] who frequently deigned to call upon Dr. Burney for his
opinion upon subjects of harmony: and even condescended to summon him
to his royal vicinity, both at the opera and at concerts, that they
might “compare notes,” in his own gracious expression, upon what was
performing.
Not, however, to his daughter did the Doctor recommend any similar
remission of penmanship. The extraordinary favour with which her little
work had been received in the world; and which may chiefly, perhaps,
be attributed to the unpretending and unexpecting mode in which, not
skilfully, but involuntarily, it had glided into public life; being now
sanctioned by the _eclât_ of encouragement from Dr. Johnson and from
Mr. Burke, gave a zest to his paternal pleasure and hopes, that made
it impossible, nay, that even led him to think it would be unfatherly,
to listen to her affrighted wishes of retreat, from her fearful
apprehensions of some reverse; or suffer her to shrink back to her
original obscurity, from the light into which she had been surprised.
And, indeed, though he made the kindest allowance for her tremors and
reluctance, he was urged so tumultuously by others, that it was hardly
possible for him to be passive: and Mr. Crisp, whose voice, in whatever
was submitted to his judgment, had the effect of a casting vote, called
out aloud: “More! More! More!—another production!”
The wishes of two such personages were, of course, resistless; and
a new mental speculation, which already, though secretly, had taken
a rambling possession of her ideas, upon the evils annexed to that
species of family pride which, from generation to generation, seeks, by
mortal wills, to arrest the changeful range of succession enacted by
the immutable laws of death, became the basis of a composition which
she denominated Memoirs of an Heiress.[39]
No sooner was her consent obtained, than Dr. Burney, who had long with
regret, though with pride, perceived that, at Streatham, she had no
time that was her own, earnestly called her thence.
He called, however, in vain, from the acuter, though fonder cry of Mrs.
Thrale for her detention; and, kind and flexible, he was yielding up
his demand, when Mr. Crisp, emphatically exclaiming:
“There is a tide in the affairs of men”— — —
“and—” comically adding—“and of girls, too!” charged him not to risk
that turn for his daughter, through a false delicacy from which, should
she become its victim, he would have the laugh against,—and nothing
for him.
The Doctor then frankly revealed to Mrs. Thrale, the tide-fearing alarm
of Mr. Crisp.
Startled, she heard him. Unwelcome was the sound to her affection,
to her affliction—and, it may be, to her already growing
perplexities!—but justice and kindness united to forbid any
conflict:—though struck was the Doctor, and still more struck was the
Memorialist, by the miserable “Adieu!” which she uttered at parting.
Mr. Crisp himself hastened in person to Streatham, to convey his
young friend alike from that now monopolizing seclusion, and from
her endlessly increasing expansion of visits and acquaintance in
London;—all which he vehemently denounced as flattering idleness,—to
the quiet and exclusive possession of what he had denominated The
Doctor’s Conjuring Closet, at Chesington.
And there, with that paternal and excellent friend, and his worthy
associates, Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Cooke, in lively sociality, gay
good-humour, and unbounded confidence, she consigned some months to
what he called her new conjuring. And there she proposed to remain
till her work should be finished: but, ere that time arrived, and ere
she could read any part of it with Mr. Crisp, a tender call from home
brought her to the parental roof, to be present at the marriage of a
darling sister:[40] after which, the Doctor kept her stationary in St.
Martin’s-street, till she had written the word Finis, which ushered her
“Heiress” into the world.