Various

Arranged from his own Manuscripts, from Family Papers, and from Personal Recollections. By his Daughter, Madame D’ARBLAY. Moxon, Bond-street, 9 vols. 8vo.

HAD we supposed, after so long a delay, that Madame D’Arblay really meant to publish a life of her father, we certainly should have delayed our memoir of Dr. Burney till enabled to profit by so authentic an account as the present, which was written under advantages that only one of his family could have possessed, and which give an interest to it that could not have been imparted by any other pen.

In the year 1782, while yet in his prime, and possessing in full vigour his intellectual faculties, Dr. Burney contemplated and even commenced writing memoirs of his own life. An introduction which he began to draw up for his intended work, says, ‘Perhaps few have been better enabled to describe, from an actual survey, the manners and customs of the age in which he lived, than myself; ascending from those of the most humble cottagers, and lowest mechanics, to the first nobility, and most elevated personages with whom circumstances, situation, and accident, at different periods of my life, have rendered me familiar. Oppressed and laborious husbandmen; insolent and illiberal yeomanry; overgrown farmers; generous and hospitable merchants; men of business and men of pleasure; men of letters; men of science; artists; sportsmen and country squires; dissipated and extravagant voluptuaries; gamesters; ambassadors; statesmen; and even sovereign princes, I have had opportunities of examining in almost every point of view: all these it is my intention to display in their respective situations; and to delineate their virtues, vices, and apparent degrees of happiness and misery.’

It must be acknowledged that this bill of fare is marked by self-confidence, and that it would have required no common observation and talent to fulfil the promises held out. Unfortunately we are left in the dark how far Dr. Burney could have kept his word, for the plan appears to have been abandoned as rapidly as it was conceived, and never returned to till the year 1807, when the doctor was already an octogenarian, and a paralytic attack had perhaps acted on his mind as it certainly had on his body. From this time, however, he is said to have composed many manuscript volumes of various sizes, containing the history of his life, from his cradle nearly to his grave.—Whether in these memoirs the doctor displayed the characters, and entered into the concerns of the cottagers, mechanics, husbandmen, yeomanry, farmers, or even artists (of the same profession) according to the promises of his own prospectus, the present work affords us no means of judging: it is essentially, and from title-page to colophon, a book of the drawing-room and the boudoir; it is conversant alone with the Corinthian order of society, the porcelain clay of humanity; not an individual undistinguished either by rank, title, fashion, or literary fame, is judged worthy the honours of the sitting, and although the enumeration of dinner and evening parties, visitings and conversazioni, is far from scanty, yet, for all that appears in these three volumes, the historian of music may never have formed an acquaintance with, or received at his table, a brother musician in the course of his long life; except, indeed, some foreign singers, of whose private performances at his house we shall presently have to extract an account.

A list of some dozen celebrated names is given, indeed, as always happy to accept Dr. Burney’s invitations, and assist at his musical parties; but of the private familiar intercourse which must have taken place between him and his fellow-professors, we have not a trace. If this is his own omission, we must say it is in bad taste; he may have wished towards the close of his life to be considered rather as a literary man and a wit than as a musician; but, if so, he forgot that it was the union of the two characters which rendered his case remarkable, and called so much of public attention to him.

The memoirs, however, form a very amusing book, full of anecdotes, which if sometimes a little too long, and at others scarcely of importance enough to have merited recording at this distance of time, are always lively and well told, and are the more interesting, as they introduce the reader to the familiar society of Dr. Johnson, Garrick, Burke, Bruce the traveller, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the whole constellation of wits and literary characters both male and female, which shone with such lustre from fifty to sixty years ago. The picture of parental and family attachment, too, which these volumes display, is in the highest degree charming in itself, and honorable to the parties concerned, who must all have been highly amiable to have been thus, without exception, beloved and loving.

Our readers are aware that Dr. Burney’s first introduction to London was as an articled scholar to Dr. Arne, who appears to have given him very little instruction, but to have, on the other hand, worked him very hard in the monotonous drudgery of music copying; nevertheless, the young apprentice, drawing upon his own resources, both of genius and industry, contrived to compose anonymously a part of the music for a revival of Thomson’s Masque of Alfred, and two other small pieces, a burletta of Robin Hood, and a pantomime called Queen Mab. From this unworthy servitude the doctor was at length rescued before the expiration of his articles, by an event so odd in itself, so creditable to the good sense and manly feeling of two, at least, of the parties concerned in it, and so well told by the authoress, that we extract her account at length.

A Mr. Fulke Greville, a near relation of Lord Warwick, and a man of large fortune and high fashion,—

Of Mr. Greville, young Burney soon became a confidential companion; he accompanied his patron into all companies; was introduced to all his friends and associates; and, of course, made many connexions that were highly valuable in after life. After Mr. Greville’s marriage, Burney still continued to reside in the family, and was to have accompanied it on a foreign tour, but love had by this time taken possession of his heart, and instead of travelling on the continent, he, while still in his minority, married his first wife, Miss Esther Sleepe, a lady, whose personal charms and genuine worth are beautifully enshrined by the eloquence and affection of her daughter.

The account given of Dr. Burney’s first settlement in London after his marriage, and of his migration to Lynn, affords us no opportunity of altering or adding, in any material point, to the biographical article in our number for last October. His residence in Norfolk was fruitful in new and valuable connexions, and contributed to the full restoration of his health. It was while thus an exile from the capital and its circles, however, that Mr. Burney laid the foundation of his intimacy with Dr. Johnson; an intimacy which never suffered interruption or diminution, and ended but with the life of the latter. Burney had always been an enthusiastic admirer of Johnson’s writings, and when his dictionary was announced, exerted himself so strenuously in its favour throughout his Norfolk circuit, that he soon collected a little list of subscribers, which afforded him an opportunity of expressing his admiration to the object of it; and the following letter made the opening to a connexion he always considered as one of the greatest honours of his life.

MR. BURNEY TO MR. JOHNSON.

In 1760, Mr. Burney returned to London, and fixed his residence in Poland-street, soon collecting round him a circle of pupils, in the highest degree encouraging to his prospects. The anxiety displayed in this part of the Memoir to satisfy the reader that Poland-street was not then the vulgar despised thoroughfare that it is now, but that even dukes and right honourable ladies shared it with Dr. Burney and his family, is rather amusing; but we are too speedily called to a much more serious subject, the death of the first Mrs. Burney, who appears to have been most tenderly loved, and most deeply regretted by her husband. After a widowhood of six years’ duration, however, Mr. Burney entered a second time into the pale of matrimony with a Mrs. Stephen Allen, a lady who was at the head of society in Lynn, while the Burneys resided there, and had been the intimate friend of the first Mrs. Burney.

The next musical record of the doctor’s life, while it obliges us to correct a passage in our own Memoir, awakens something like a painful feeling. We have stated what has hitherto been the received account, that the idea of the General History of Music suggested itself to Dr. Burney, and that the foundation of his collections for that task were laid, during his residence at Lynn. From these Memoirs it appears that it was not till 1769 that Dr. Burney had any idea of undertaking such a work. Now this revives, and seems to give some countenance to the complaint of Sir John Hawkins’s friends, that it was undertaken in direct rivalry to the learned knight’s work, which, though not published till some years after, the literary world well knew that he had long been employed on it. The immediate result of this plan was the two Musical Tours to Italy and Germany. And here we must express our regret and disappointment at not finding one word in the Memoirs relative to these journies, except a story, in which we own we can see no joke, that on his return from one of them the Doctor was so exhausted with sea-sickness, that when the packet reached Dover, instead of going ashore, he went to sleep, and awoke just in time to find himself half way over to Calais again. The reason given for this omission; viz. that the Doctor published detailed accounts of them during his lifetime, we venture to submit, is no reason at all; to say nothing of the books referred to being out of print, and consequently out of the reach of a majority of readers, these tours form important eras in his literary and professional life, and an abstract of them at least should surely have found a place in his Memoirs, except the work now before as is intended only as a contribution towards the labours of some person who shall hereafter compile a complete life of Dr. Burney.

He had been so pleased with the Conservatorios or Musical Schools of the Continent, that very soon after his return he made strenuous efforts to establish a similar foundation in London. He proposed to the directors of the Foundling Hospital to engraft his plan on their institution and select the pupils from the objects of that charity; but notwithstanding the friendly assistance of Sir Charles Whitworth, the president, it was eventually negatived by the general body, and the Doctor gave up the attempt.

The History of Music procured Dr. Burney also the acquaintance of Bruce, the celebrated Abyssinian traveller, who had brought home with him a drawing, made on the spot, of the Theban harp, as beautiful in its execution as in its form, though copied from a model at least 3000 years old. This led to two or three interviews, first at the house of a musical friend, then at the Doctor’s own residence. These are described in letters from the authoress, then very young, to a Mr. Crisp, her father’s oldest friend. The letters do infinite credit to the young lady’s quick observation of manners, and her power of graphic and lively description, and prove her command of her pen. They are, however, too long for quotation; and the parts really relating to Mr. Bruce are so interspersed with the complete details of long tea-table and after-supper conversations, that it is no easy task to pick them out. The following description, however, of the great traveller’s personal appearance, will give our readers some idea of the powers of the writer:—

MEETING THE FIRST

took place at the tea-table, of Mrs. Strange, to which my mother, by appointment, had introduced her Lynn friends, Mr. and Mrs. Turner, who were extremely curious to see Mr. Bruce. My dear father was to have escorted us; but that provoking Marplot, commonly called Business, came, as usual, in the way, and he could only join us afterwards.

The Man-Mountain, and Mr. and Mrs. Turner, were already arrived; and no one else was invited, or, at least, permitted to enter.

Mr. Bruce, as we found, when he arose—which he was too stately to do at once—was placed on the largest easy chair; but which his vast person covered so completely, back and arms, as well as seat, that he seemed to have been merely placed on a stool; and one was tempted to wonder who had ventured to accommodate him so slightly. He is the tallest man you ever saw in your life—at least, gratis. However, he has a very good figure, and is rather handsome; so that there is nothing alarming, or uncomely, or I was going to say, ungenial—but I don’t think that is the word I mean—in his immense and authoritative form.

My mother was introduced to him, and placed by his side; but, having made her a cold though civilish bow, he took no further notice even of her being in the room. I, as usual, glided out of the way, and got next to Miss Strange, who is agreeable and sensible: and who, seeing me, I suppose, very curious upon the subject, gave me a good deal of information about Man-Mountain.

As he is warmly attached to Mrs. Strange and her family, he spends all his disengaged evenings at their house, where, when they are alone, he is not only chatty and easy, but full of comic and dry humour; though, if any company enters, he sternly, or gloutingly, Miss Strange says, shuts up his mouth, and utters not a word—except, perhaps, to her parrot, which, I believe, is a present from himself. Certainly, he does not appear more elevated above the common race in his size, than in his ideas of his own consequence. Indeed, I strongly surmise, that he is not always without some idea how easy it would be to him—and perhaps how pleasant—in case any one should dare to offend him, to toss a whole company of such pigmies as the rest of mankind must seem to him, pell-mell down stairs,—if not out of the window.

There is some excuse, nevertheless, for this proud shyness, because he is persuaded that nobody comes near him but either to stare at him as a curiosity, or to pick his brains for their own purposes: for, when he has deigned to behave to people as if he considered himself as their fellow-creature, every word that has been drawn from him has been printed in some newspaper or magazine, which, as he intends to publish his travels himself, is abominably provoking, and seems to have made him suspicious of some dark design, or some invidious trick, when anybody says to him “How do you do, Sir?” or “Pray, Sir, what’s o’clock?”

And, after all, if his nature in itself is as imperious as his person and air are domineering, it is hardly fair to expect that having lived so long among savages should have softened his manners.

There was, however, no conversation. Mr. Bruce’s grand air, gigantic height, and forbidding brow, awed everybody into silence except Mrs. Strange, who, with all her wit and powers, found it heavy work to talk without reply.

[To be continued.]