All being now, though in the dark, and unannounced, arranged for the
determined alliance, Mrs. Thrale abandoned London as she had forsaken
Streatham, and, in the beginning of April, retired with her three
eldest daughters to Bath; there to reside, till she could complete a
plan, then in agitation, for superseding the maternal protection with
all that might yet be attainable of propriety and dignity.
Dr. Burney was deeply hurt by this now palpably threatening event:
the virtues of Mrs. Thrale had borne an equal poize in his admiration
with her talents; both were of an extraordinary order. He had praised,
he had loved, he had sung them. Nor was he by any means so severe a
disciplinarian over the claims of taste, or the elections of the heart,
as to disallow their unalienable rights of being candidly heard, and
favourably listened to, in the disposal of our persons and our fates;
her choice, therefore, would have roused no severity, though it might
justly have excited surprise, had her birth, fortune, and rank in
life alone been at stake. But Mrs. Thrale had ties that appeared to
him to demand precedence over all feelings, all inclinations—in five
daughters, who were juvenile heiresses.
To Bath, however, she went; and truly grieved was the prophetic spirit
of Dr. Burney at her departure; which he looked upon as the catastrophe
of Streatham.