From the Doctor’s Journal.
“In 1804, in the month of April, I completed my 78th year, and decided to relinquish teaching and my musical patients; for both my ears and my eyes were beginning to fail me. I could still hear the most minute musical tone; but in conversation I lost the articulation, and was forced to make people at the least distance from me repeat everything that they said. Sometimes the mere tone of voice, and the countenance of the speaker, told me whether I was to smile or to frown; but never so explicitly as to allow me to venture at any reply to what was said! Yet I never, seemingly, have been more in fashion at any period of my life than this spring; never invited to more conversaziones, assemblÉes, dinners, and concerts. But I feel myself less and less able to bear a part in general conversation every day, from the failure of memory, particularly in names; and I am become fearful of beginning any story that occurs to me, lest I should be stopped short by hunting for Mr. How d’ye call him’s style and titles.
“I was very near-sighted from about my 30th year; but though it is usually thought that that sort of sight improves with age, I have not discovered that the notion was well founded. My sight became not only more short, but more feeble. Instead of a concave glass, I was forced to have recourse to one that was convex, and that magnified highly, for pale ink and small types.”
The Editor must here remark, that Dr. Burney never required the convex glass of which he speaks, for the perusal of either printed or written characters, except when they were presented to him at a distance. He read to his very last days every book and every letter that he could hold near to his eyes, without any species of spectacles.
“30th April. I finished this month by a cordial domestic dinner at Mr. Crewe’s; where, in the evening, was held the ambulatory ladies’ concert.”
In the month of the following May, a similar ebullition of political rancour with that which so difficultly had been conquered for Mr. Canning, foamed over the ballot box of the Literary Club to the exclusion of Mr. Rogers; by whom it was the less deserved, from its contrast to that poet’s own widely opposite liberality, in never suffering political opinions to shut out, either from his hospitality or his friendship, those who invite them by congenial sentiments on other points.
The ensuing page is copied from Dr. Burney’s own manuscript observations upon this occurrence:
“May 1st. I was at the Club, at which Rogers, put up by Courtney, and seconded by me, was ballotted for, and blackballed; I believe on account of his politics. There can, indeed, be nothing else against him. He is a good poet, has a refined taste in all the arts; has [Pg 337] a select library of the best editions of the best authors in most languages; has very fine pictures; very fine drawings; and the finest collection I ever saw of the best Etruscan vases; and, moreover, he gives the best dinners to the best company of men of talents and genius of any man I know; the best served, and with the best wines, liqueurs, &c. He is not fond of talking politics, for he is no Jacobin-enragÉ, though I believe him to be a principled republican, and therefore in high favour with Mr. Fox and his adherents. But he is never obtrusive; and neither shuns nor dislikes a man for being of a different political creed to himself: it is therefore, that he and I, however we may dissent upon that point, concur so completely on almost every other, that we always meet with pleasure. And, in fact, he is much esteemed by many persons belonging to the government, and about the court. His books of prints of the greatest engravers from the greatest masters, in history, architecture, and antiquities, are of the first class. His house in St. James’s Place, looking into the Green Park, is deliciously situated, and furnished with great taste. He seemed very desirous of being elected a member of the club, to which, in fact, his talents would have done honour; few men are more fitted to contribute to its entertainment.”
The Doctor, long afterwards, in talking over this anecdote, said:
“There is no accounting for such gross injustice in the club; except by acknowledging that there are demagogues amongst them who enjoy as the highest privilege of an old member, the power of excluding, with or without reason, a new one.”
In the same month Dr. Burney had the professional gratification of receiving a perpetual ticket of admission to the Concerts of Ancient Music, enclosed in the following letter from the Earl of Dartmouth:
“Berkeley Square,
May 27th.
“Lord Dartmouth is happy to have it in charge from his brother-Directors of the Ancient Concerts, to present the enclosed General Ticket to Dr. Burney; and to beg his acceptance of it as a token of their sense of his merits in the cause of Music; and especially that part of it which is more immediately the object of their attention: as well as of the respect in which they all hold his person and character.”
A copy of his thanks remains, written in a very fair hand, and on the same day:
“To the Right Honourable the Earl of Dartmouth, Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty’s Household, and one of the Directors of the Concerts of Ancient Music.
“Dr. Burney presents his most humble respects to the Earl of Dartmouth, and to the rest of the Right Honourable and Honourable Directors of the Concerts of Ancient Music; and feels himself flattered beyond his powers of expression, with the liberal testimony of the esteem and approbation with which he has been honoured by the illustrious Patrons of an Establishment at the formation of which he had the honour to be present; and for its prosperity constantly zealous.
[Pg 339]
“So uncommon and unexpected a token of approbation of his exertions in the cultivation and cause of an art which he has long laboured, and still labours to improve, as well as to record its progress, and the talents of its Professors, from the time of Orpheus to that of Handel; will gild his latter days, and generate a flattering hope that his diligence and perseverance have been regarded in a more favourable light than, in his vainest moments, he had ever dared to hope or imagine.
“Chelsea College,
27th May, 1804.”
Here stop all journals, all notes, all memorandums of Dr. Burney for the rest of this year. Not another word remains bearing its date.
The severest tax upon longevity that, apart from his parental ties, could be inflicted, was levied upon him at this time, by the heart-harrowing stroke of the death of Mr. Twining.
It was not merely now, in the full tide of sorrow, that Dr. Burney could neither speak nor write upon the loss of this last-elected bosom friend; it was a subject from which he shrunk ever after, both in conversation and by letter: it was a grief too concentrated for complaint: it demanded not a vent by which, with time, it might be solaced; but a crush by which, though only morbidly, it might be subdued: religion and philosophy might then lead, conjointly, to calm endurance.
And not alone, though from superior sorrow aloft, stood this deprivation. It was followed by other strokes of similar fatality, each of which, but for this pre-eminent calamity, would have proved of tragic effect: for he had successively to mourn, First, the favourite the most highly prized by his deplored early partner, as well as by her successor; and who came nearest to his own feelings from the tender ties in which she had been entwined—Dolly Young; for so, to the last hour, she was called by those who had early known and loved her, from a certain caressing pleasure annexed to that youthful appellation, that seemed in unison with the genuine simplicity of her character.
Second, Mr. Coxe, the oldest and most attached of his associates from early life.
Third, Lord Macartney, a far newer connexion, but one whose lively intelligence, and generous kindness, cut off all necessity for the usual routine of time to fasten attachment. And with Lord Macartney, from the retired life which his Lordship generally led after his embassy to China, the Doctor’s intercourse had become more than ever amical. This, therefore, was a loss to his spirits and exertions, as well as to his affections, which he felt with strong regret.
Fourth, that distinguished lady whose solid worth and faithful friendship compensated for manners the most uncouth, and language the most unpolished,—Lady Mary Duncan.
Fifth, the celebrated Elizabeth Carter; in whom he missed an admiring as well as an admired friend, the honour of whose attachment both for him and for his daughter, is recorded by her nephew, Mr. Pennington, in her Memoirs.
The Doctor truly revered in Mrs. Carter the rare union of humility with learning, and of piety with cheerfulness. He frequently, and always with pleasure, conveyed her to or from her home, when they visited the same parties; and always enjoyed those opportunities in comparing notes with her, on such topics as were not light enough for the large or mixed companies which they were just seeking, or had just left: topics, however, which they always treated with simplicity; for Mrs. Carter, though natively more serious, and habitually more studious than Dr. Burney, was as free from pedantry as himself.
By temperance of life and conduct, activity of body, and equanimity of mind, she nearly reached her 90th year in such health and strength as to be able to make morning calls upon her favourite friends, without carriage, companion, or servant. And with all her modest humility upon her personal acquirements, she had a dignified pride of independence, that invested her with the good sense to feel rather exalted than ashamed, at owing her powers of going forth to her own unaided self-exertion.
And Sixth, the man who, once the most accomplished of his race, had for half his life loved the Doctor with even passionate regard—Mr. Greville.
All these sad, and truly saddening catastrophes were unknown, in their succession, to the Memorialist; whom they only reached in the aggregate of their loss, when, after a long, unexplained, and ill-boding silence, Dr. Burney imposed upon himself the hard task of announcing the irremediable affliction he had sustained through these reiterated and awful visitations of death. And then, to spare his worn and harassed sensibility any development of his feelings, he thus summed up the melancholy list in one short paragraph:
“Time,” he says, “has made sad havoc amongst my dearest friends of late——Twining!——Dolly Young; Mr. Coxe; Lord Macartney; Lady Mary [Pg 343] Duncan;—poor Elizabeth Carter a few months ago;—Mr. Greville only a few weeks!”
And, kindly, then to lighten the grief he knew he must inflict by a catalogue that included Mr. Twining and Dolly Young, he hastens to add:
“Mr., Mrs., and Miss[69] Locke, however; Mrs. Angerstein; Mrs. Crewe; Miss Cambridge; Mrs. Garrick; Lady Templetown; Lady Keith, ci-devant Miss Thrale; the Marchioness of Thomond, ci-devant Miss Palmer; Mrs. Waddington; and many more of your most faithful votaries, still live, and never see me without urgent inquiries after you. Your dear Mrs. Locke, who has had a dreadful fit of illness, and losses enough to break so tender a heart, is perfectly recovered at last; and, I am told, is as well, and as sweet and endearing a character to her friends as ever.”
He then permits himself to go back to one parting phrase:
“But though, in spite of age and infirmities, I have lately more than doubled the number of friends I have lost—the niches of those above-mentioned can never be filled!”
From this time he reverted to them no more.
Of his ancient and long-attached friend, Mr. Greville, little and merely melancholy is what now can be added. His death was rather a shock than a loss; but it considerably disturbed the Doctor. Mr. Greville had gone on in his metaphysical career, fatiguing his spirits, harassing his understanding, and consuming the time of his friends nearly as much as his own, till, one by one, each of them eluded him as a foe. How could it be otherwise, when the least dissonance upon any point upon which he opened a controversial disquisition, so disordered his nervous system, that he could take no rest till he had re-stated all his arguments in an elaborate, and commonly sarcastic epistle? which necessarily provoked a paper war, so prolific of dispute, that, if the adversary had not regularly broken up the correspondence after the first week or two, it must have terminated by consuming the stores of every stationer in London.
His wrath upon such desertions was too scornful for any appeal. Yet so powerful was still the remembrance of his brilliant opening into life, and of his many fine qualities, that his loss to society was never mentioned without regret, either by those who abandoned him, or by those whom he discarded.
Dr. Burney was one of the last, from the peculiarity of their intercourse, to have given it up, had it not been, he declared, necessary to have had two lives for sustaining it without hostility; one of them for himself, his family, and his life’s purposes; the other wholly for Mr. Greville;—who never could be content with any competition against his personal claims to the monopoly of the time and the thoughts of his friends.
Yet whatever may have disturbed, nothing seems to have shortened his existence, since, though nearly alienated from his family, estranged from his connexions, and morbidly at war with the world, the closing scene of all his gaieties and all his failures, did not shut in till some time after his 90th year.
Lady Mary Duncan bequeathed to Dr. Burney the whole of her great and curious collection of Music, printed and manuscript, with £600.
