The deep public interest which Doctor Burney, whether as a citizen of the world, or a sound patriot, took in the disastrous situation of France, was ere long destined to goad yet more pungently his private feelings, from becoming, in some measure, personal.

At the elegant mansion of the friend, whose sight she never met but with mingled tenderness and reverence, Mr. Locke, the Doctor’s second daughter, began an acquaintance that, imperceptibly, led to a connexion of high esteem and genial sympathy, that no opposition could dispirit, no danger intimidate, and no time—that impelling underminer of nearly all things—could wither.

But though to the strong hold of an attachment of which the basis is a believed congeniality of character, no difficulties are ultimately unconquerable; the obstacles to this were more than commonly formidable. M. d’Arblay was at that time so situated, that he must perforce accompany the friend with whom he acted, Count Louis de Narbonne, to Switzerland; or decide to fix his own abode permanently in England, in the only manner which appeared desirable to him, a home connexion with a chosen object.

Not a ray of hope opened then to point to any restoration in France of Order and Monarchy with Liberty, to which M. d’Arblay inviolably adhered; and exile from his country, his family, and his friends, seemed to him a lot of blessedness, in comparison to joining the murderous and regicidical republic.

Dr. Burney, it may well be believed, was startled, was affrighted, when a proposition was made to him for the union of his daughter with a ruined gentleman—a foreigner—an emigrant; but the proposition came under the sanction of the wisest as well as kindest of that daughter’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Locke, of Norbury Park; and with the fullest sympathies of his cherished Susanna, who already had demonstrated the affection, and adopted the conduct, of a sister to M. d’Arblay. The Doctor could not, therefore, turn from the application implacably; he only hesitated, and demanded time for consideration.

The dread of pecuniary embarrassment, secretly stimulated and heightened by a latent hope and belief in a far more advantageous connexion, strongly opposed a free and happy consent to an alliance which, otherwise, from all he heard or could gather of the merits, the character, and rank in life of M. d’Arblay, he would have thought, to use his own words, “an honour to his daughter, to himself, and to his family.”

Fortunately, about this time, the Prince de Poix and the Comte de Lally Tolendahl, wrote some letters, in which were interspersed their personal attestations of the favour in which they knew M. d’Arblay to have stood with Louis XVI.; mingled with their intimate conviction of the spotless honour, the stainless character, and the singularly amiable disposition for which, in his own country, M. d’Arblay had been distinguished.

These letters, with their writers’ permission, were shewn to Dr. Burney; whom they so touched, nay, charmed, as to conquer his prudence of resistance: and at the village of Mickleham, in the vicinity of Norbury Park, the marriage took place.

Mr. Locke, whose unerring judgment foresaw what would make both parties happy; and whose exquisite sensibility made all virtuous felicity a bosom joy to himself, took the responsible part of father to M. d’Arblay, at the altar, where, in the absence of the Doctor, Captain Burney gave his sister to that gentleman: who quickly, or rather immediately, won from his honoured new relation, an esteem, a kindness, and an affection, that never afterwards failed or faded.

Of sterner stuff than entered into the composition of Dr. Burney must that heart have been moulded, that could have witnessed the noble conduct of that truly loyal sufferer in the calamities of his king and country, General d’Arblay; and could have seen the cheerful self-denial with which he limited his expenditure to his wants, and his wants to the mere calls of necessity; save where he feared involving his partner in his privations,—in one word, who could have beheld him, at the opening of his married career, in the village of Bookham, turn instantly from the uncontrolled restlessness, and careless scorn of foresight, of the roving military life, into a domestic character of the most sage description; renouncing all foreign pleasures; retiring from even martial ambition, though it had been the glory of his hopes, and the bent of his genius, without a murmur, since he no longer thought it coalesced with honour; for home occupations, for family economies, for fireside enjoyments,—and not be struck by such manly self-command, such active, such practical virtue.