Dr. Burney, meanwhile, from the time that the St. Domingo commission was annulled, was in daily expectation of the return of his son-in-law, and the re-establishment of the little cottage of West Hamble:—but mournfully, alas, was he disappointed! The painful news arrived from M. d’Arblay, that, from the strangeness of the circumstances in which he was involved, he could not quit France without seeming to have gained his wish in losing his appointment. He determined, therefore, to remain a twelvemonth in Paris, to shew himself at hand in case of any change of orders. And he desired, of course, to be joined there by his wife and son.

M. d’Arblay, however, wrote to that wife, to Dr. Burney, and to his dearly reverenced friend, Mr. Locke, the most comforting assurance, that, one single year revolved, he would return, with his little family, to the unambitious enjoyment of friendship, repose, and West Hamble.

By no means gaily did Dr. Burney receive the account of this arrangement. Gloomy forebodings clouded his brow; though his daughter, exalted by joy and thankfulness that the pestilential climate of St. Domingo was relinquished; and happily persuaded that another year would re-unite her with her honoured father, her brethren, and friends, assented with alacrity to the scheme. Almost immediately, therefore, it took place; though not before the loyal heart of Dr. Burney had the soothing consolation of finding, that the step she was taking was honoured with the entire approbation of her benevolent late Royal Mistress; who openly held that to follow the fortune of the man to whom she had given her hand, was now her first duty in life.

And something of pleasure mixed itself with his parental cares, and a little mitigated the severity of his concern at this event, when the Doctor heard that she was not only admitted by that most gracious Queen to a long and flattering farewell audience; and to the high honour of separate parting interviews with each of the Princesses; but also to the unspeakable delight of being graciously detained in her Majesty’s white closet till the arrival there, from some review, of the benign King himself; who deigned, with his never-failing benevolence, to vouchsafe to her some inappreciable minutes of his favouring and heart-touching notice: while the Queen, with conscious pleasure at the happiness which she had thus accorded to her, smilingly said, “You did not expect this, Madame d’Arblay.”

With this high honour and goodness exhilarated, her spirits rose to their task; with the support of hope, she parted from her family and friends; with the resolution of remembering the escape from St. Domingo, should she be pursued by any misfortune, she quitted her loved cottage; and even from her thrice-dear father she separated without participating in his alarm, while seeking to dissipate it by her own brighter views.

Yet moved was she to her heart’s core when, on the evening preceding her departure, which took place after a long sojourn at Chelsea College, he suddenly broke from her, as if to stir the fire; but pronounced, in a voice that shewed he merely sought to hide his emotion, his fears, nay belief, that M. d’Arblay, though twice he had returned with speed from Paris when he had visited it alone, would probably be tempted to lengthen, if not fix his abode there, when the chief ties to his adopted country became a part of that of his birth.

Nevertheless, even this apprehension, such was her faith in the sacred influence of Camilla Cottage over the mind of her partner in life, she courageously parried, though impressively she felt; and at the leave-taking moment, she was happily able to cheer the presentiments of the Doctor, by the lively sincerity of the feelings that cheered her own.

One point only combatted her courage, and was too potent for her resistance; she could not utter an adieu to her matchless friend, Mr. Locke!—his frame had always seemed to her as fragile as his virtues were adamantine; and the tender partiality with which he had ever met her reverential attachment, made his voice so meltingly affecting to her, that she feared lest her own should betray how little she already thought him of this world! she cheerfully bade adieu to her father, her family, and her friends—but she retreated without uttering a farewell to Mr. Locke,—whom, alas! she never saw more!

No further narrative, of which the detail can be personal or reciprocal with the Editor, can now be given of Dr. Burney. What follows will be collected from fragments of memoirs, and innumerable memorandums in his own handwriting; from his letters, and those of his family and friends; and from various accidental, incidental, and miscellaneous circumstances.

Yet, at the period of this separation, the Memorialist had the solace to know, that many as were the ties already dissolved of his early affections; numerous the links already broken of his maturer attachments; and wholly incalculable the mass of losses or changes in the current objects of pursuit that, from year to year, had eluded his grasp, flown from his hopes, or betrayed his expectations; he still possessed a host of consolers and revivers, added to what yet remained of his truly attached family, who strove, with equal fidelity and vivacity, to lighten and brighten the years yet lent to their friendly efforts.

At the head of this honourable list, and, for Dr. Burney, of every other, since the loss of Mr. Crisp and Mr. Bewley, would have risen Mr. Twining, had his society been attainable: but Mr. Twining was so seldom in London, that their meetings became as rare as they were precious. His correspondence however, still maintained its pre-eminence; and it is hardly too much to say, that the letters of Mr. Twining were received with a brighter welcome than the visits of almost any other person.

First, therefore, now, in positive, prevailing, and graceful activity of zeal to serve him in his own way, and furnish food to his ideas, with temptation to his spirits and humour for its welcome, must be placed his ever faithful and generous friend, and, by proxy, his god-child, Mrs. Crewe; who prized him equally as a counsellor and a companion.

Far different from all that belongs to this lady are the records that further unfold his broken intercourse with Mr. Greville; and most painful to him was it to turn from the fairness of right reason, and the steadfastness of constancy, which were unvaryingly manifested in the attachment of Mrs. Crewe, to the wayward character, and irrational claims of his erst first patron and friend, her father; who, emerging, nevertheless, from the apathetic gloom into which he had fallen on the first public breaking up of his establishment, had started a spirited resolution to hit upon a new, unknown, unheard-of walk in life, to give recruit to his fortune, and lustre to his name.

Eagerly he looked around for some striking object that might fix him to a point; but all was chaos to the disturbed glare of his ill-directed vision. His internal resources were too diffuse and unsystematized, to fit him for being the chief of any new enterprise; yet, to be an agent, a deputy, a second, he thought more intolerable than danger, distress, debt, difficulty, nay, destruction.

Sick, then, at heart, and self-abandoned for every purpose of active life, partly from despair, partly from ostentation, he plunged all he could yet command of faculty into the study of metaphysics; a study which, from his nervous irritability, soon made all commerce with his friends become impracticable rather than difficult.