Nevertheless, though no further episodical event occurred in 1801, that year must by no means be passed over without record in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney; for it was marked by such extraordinary intellectual exertion as may almost be called unparalleled, when considered as springing from volition, not necessity; and from efforts the most virtuously philosophical, to while away enervating sadness upon those changes and chances that hang upon the very nature of mortal existence: for now, to tie his activity to his labours, he entered into a formal agreement with the editors of the then new Encyclopedia, to furnish all its musical articles at stated periods.

He thus, in a letter of which he has left a copy, though not the address, speaks of this enterprise to some friend:

“I have entered now into concerns that leave me not a minute, or a thought, to bestow on other matters. Besides professional avocations, I have deeply engaged in a work that can admit of no delay; and which occupies every instant that I can steal from business, friends, or sleep. A new edition, on a very enlarged plan, of the Cyclopedia of Chambers, is now printing in two double volumes 4to, for which I have agreed to furnish the musical articles, on a very large scale, including whatever is connected with the subject; not only definitions [Pg 303] of the musical technica, but reflexions, discussions, criticism, history, and biography. The first volume is printed, and does not finish the letter A. And in nine months’ hard labour, I have not brought forth two letters. I am more and more frightened every day at the undertaking, so long after the usual allowance of three score years and ten have expired. And the shortest calculation for the termination of this work is still ten years.”

And in his letters to West Hamble on the same subject, he mentions, that to fulfil his engagement, he generally rises at five or six o’clock every morning—! in his seventy-sixth year.