MEMOIRS OF DOCTOR BURNEY. (continued 4)

Mr. Hutton instantly, and in a tone of mingled alarm and penitence, wrote a humble, yet energetic apology for his letter; earnestly entreating the Doctor’s pardon for his officious precipitancy; and appealing to Dr. Hawkesworth, whom he called his excellent friend, to intercede in his favour. He took shame, he added, to himself, for not having weighed the subject more chronologically before he wrote his strictures; as he had now made out that his hasty animadversion was the unreflecting result of the different periods in which the Doctor and himself had travelled; his own German visit having taken place previously to the devastating war between the King of Prussia and the Empress Queen, which had since laid waste the whole country in which, unhappily, it had been waged.

Dr. Burney accepted with pleasure this conceding explanation. The good offices of Dr. Hawkesworth were prompt to accelerate a reconciliation and an interview; and Mr. Hutton, with even tears of eager feelings to repair an unjust accusation, hastened to Queen-Square. Dr. Burney, touched by his ingenuous contrition, received him with open arms. And, from that moment, he became one of the Doctor’s most reverential and most ardent admirers.

He made frequent visits to the house; conceived the most friendly regard for the whole family; and abruptly, and with great singularity, addressed a letter, that was as original in ideas as in diction, to one of the daughters,[39] with whom he demanded permission of the Doctor to correspond. And in a postscript, that was nearly as long as the epistle, to obviate, probably, any ambiguous notions from his zeal—though he was already a grey and wrinkled old man—he acquainted his new young correspondent that he had been married four-and-thirty years.

Mr. Hutton was one of the sect of the Moravians, or Hurnhuters, and resided at Lindsey House, Chelsea, as secretary to the united brethren. He was author, also, of an Essay towards giving some just ideas of the character of Count Zinzendorf, the inventor and founder of the sect.

Mr. Hutton was a person of pleasing though eccentric manners. His notions were uncommon; his language was impressive, though quaint: his imagination, notwithstanding his age, was playful, nay, poetical. He considered all mankind as his brethren, and himself, therefore, as every one’s equal; alike in his readiness to serve them, and in the frankness with which he demanded their services in return.

His desire to make acquaintance, and to converse with every body to whom any species of celebrity was attached, was insatiable, and was dauntless. He approached them without fear, and accosted them without introduction. But the genuine kindness of his smile made way for him wherever there was heart and observation; and with such his encounter, however uncouth, brought on, almost invariably, a friendly intercourse.

Yet where, on the contrary, he met not with those delicate developers and interpreters, heart and observation, to instil into those he addressed a persuasion of the benevolence of his intentions in seeking fair and free fraternity with all his fellow-creatures, he suffered not his failures to dishearten him; for as he never meant, he never took offence. And even when turned away from with rudeness or alarm, as a man conceived to be intrusive, impertinent, or suspicious, he would neither be angry nor affronted; but, sorrowfully shaking his head, would hope that some happy accident would inspire them with softer feelings, ere some bitter misfortune should retaliate their unkindness.

The immediate, it might, perhaps, be said, the instinctive cause of any rebuff that he met with in public, namely, his extraordinary appearance, and apparel, never seemed to occur to him; for as he looked not at the finest garb of the wealthy or modish with the smallest respect, he surmised not that the shabbiness of his own could influence his reception. By him, the tailor and the mantua-maker were regarded merely as manufacturers of decency, not of embellishment; and he had full as much esteem for his own clumsy cobbler or second-hand patching tailor, as the finest beau or belle of Almack’s could have for their Parisian attirers.

Nevertheless, so coarse was the large, brown, slouching surtout, which infolded his body; so rough and blowsy was the old mop-like wig that wrapt up his head; that, but for the perfectly serene mildness of his features, and the venerability of his hoary eye-brows, he might at all times have passed for some constable, watchman, or policeman, who had mistaken the day for the night, and was prowling into the mansions of gentlemen, instead of public-houses, to take a survey that all was in order.

That a man such as this, with every mark of a nature the most unstained, and of a character the most unsophisticated, could belong to a sect, which, by all popular report at least, was stampt, at that time, as dark and mystic; and as being wild and strange in some of its doctrines even to absurdity; must make every one who had witnessed the virtuous tenor of the life of Mr. Hutton, and shared in the inoffensive gaiety of his discourse, believe the sect to have been basely calumniated; for not a word was ever uttered by this singular being that breathed not good will to all mankind; and not an action is recorded, or known of him, that is irresponsive of such universal benevolence.

Dr. Burney, now, without a single black-ball, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; of which honour his first notice was received through the amiable and zealous Miss Phipps,[40] who, knowing the day of election, had impatiently gathered the tidings of its success from her brother, Sir Constantine Phipps:[41] and before either the president, or the friend who had nominated the Doctor for a candidate, could forward the news, she sportively anticipated their intelligence, by sending to Queen-Square a letter directed in large characters, “For Dr. Burney, F. R. S.”[42]

HISTORY OF MUSIC.

From this period, the profession of Dr. Burney, however highly he was raised in it, seemed but of secondary consideration for him in the world; where, now, the higher rank was assigned him of a man of letters, from the general admiration accorded to his Tours; of which the climax of honour was the award of Dr. Johnson, that Dr. Burney was one of the most agreeable writers of travels of the age. And Baretti, to whom Dr. Johnson uttered this praise, was commissioned to carry it to Dr. Burney; who heard it with the highest gratification: though, since his bereavement of his Esther, he had ceased to follow up the intercourse he had so enthusiastically begun. Participation there had been so animated, that the charm of the connexion seemed, for awhile, dissolved by its loss.

Letters now daily arrived from persons of celebrity, with praises of the Tours, encouragement for the History, or musical information for its advantage. Mr. Mason, Mr. Harris of Salisbury, Dr. Warton, Dr. Thomas Warton, Dr. Harrington, Mr. Pennant, Montagu North, Mr. Bewley, Mr. Crisp, and Mr. Garrick, all bestowed what Dr. Burney sportively called sweet-scented bouquets on his journals.

But amongst the many distinguished personages who volunteered their services in honour of the History of Music, the Doctor peculiarly valued the name of Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, father of the preserver, not alone of England, and of France, but of Europe, at the awful crisis of general—almost chaotic—danger.

This nobleman, the Earl of Mornington, with the most liberal love of the arts, and most generous admiration of their high professors, upon being addressed by his friend, Mr. Rigby, in favour of Dr. Burney’s pursuit, came forth, with a zeal the most obliging, to aid the Doctor’s researches concerning the antiquity of music in Ireland; and the origin of the right of the Irish for bearing the harp in their arms.

Some of his lordship’s letters will be found in the correspondence, replete with information and agreeability.

The Doctor held, also, a continental correspondence, enlightening and flattering, with the Baron d’Holbach, Diderot, the Abbé Morellet, M. Suard, M. Monnet, and Jean Jacques Rousseau himself.

Of this last-named, and certainly most rare of his epistolary contemporaries, Jean Jacques Rousseau, the following note is copied from the Doctor’s memorandums.

“Five years after the representation of ‘The Cunning Man,’ when, in 1770, I had visited Rousseau at Paris, and entered into correspondence with him, I sent him, in a parcel with other books, a copy of ‘The Cunning Man,’ as it was performed and printed in England to my translation of his ‘Devin du Village,’ and adjusted to his original music; and I received from him the following answer.

“A Monsieur,

“Monsieur le Docteur Burney,

“A Londres.

“Je recois, Monsieur, avec bien de la reconnoissance, les deux pièces de musique gravée, que vous m’avez fait remettre par M. Guy. ‘La Passione de Jomelli,’ dont je vous suppose l’editeur, montre que vous savez connoître et priser le beau en ce genre. Cet ouvrage admirable me paroit plein d’harmonie et d’expression. Il merite en cela d’être mis à côté du Stabat Mater de Pergolese. Je le trouve seulment au dessous en ce qu’il a moins de simplicité.

“Je vous dois aussi des remercimens pour avoir daigné vous occuper du ‘Devin du Village’; quoiqu’il m’ait paru toujours impossible à traduire avec succés[43] dans une autre langue. Je ne vous parlerai pas des changemens que vous avez jugé apropos d’y faire. Vous avez consulté, sans doute, le goût de votre nation; et il n’y a rien à dire à cela.

“Les ouvrages, Monsieur, dont vous m’avez fait le cadeau, me rappelleront souvent le plaisir que j’ai eu de vous voir, et de vous entendre; et nourriront le regret de n’en pas jouir quelque fois.

“Agreez, Monsieur, je vous supplie, mes bien humbles salutations.

“J. J. Rousseau.”

JOEL COLLIER.

The quick-spreading favour with which the Tours were received; the celebrity which they threw around the name and existence of Dr. Burney; the associations of rank, talents, literature, learning, and fashionable coteries, to which they opened an entrance, could not fail, ere long, to make their author become an object of envy, since they raised him to be one of admiration.

The character, conduct, and life of Dr. Burney were now, therefore, no doubt, critically examined, and morally sifted, by the jealous herd of contemporary rivals, who had worked far longer, and far more laboriously, through the mazes of science; yet, working without similar genius, had failed of rising to similar heights.

Nevertheless, the immediate path in which Dr. Burney flourished was so new, so untrodden, that he displaced no competitor, he usurped no right of others; and the world, unsought and uncanvassed, was so instinctively on his side, that, for a considerable time, his palpable pre-eminence seemed as willingly accorded, as it was unequivocally acknowledged.

But the viper does not part with its venom from keeping its body in ambush; and, before the History came out, though long after the publication of the Tours, a ludicrous parody of the latter was sent forth into the world, under the name of Joel Collier.

The Doctor, delicately anxious not to deserve becoming an object for satire, was much hurt, on its first appearance, by this burlesque production. It attacked, indeed, little beyond the technical phraseology of the Tours; the tourist himself was evidently above the reach of such anonymous shafts.

It was generally supposed to be a jeu d’esprit of some enemy, to counteract his rapid progress in public favour; and to undermine the promising success of his great work.

But the Doctor himself did not give way to this opinion: he had done nothing to incur enemies; he had done much to conciliate friends; and, believing in virtue because practising it, he knew not how to conceive personal malice without personal offence. He imagined it, therefore, the work of some stranger, excited solely by the desire of making money from his own risible ideas; without caring whom they might harass, or how they might irritate, provided, in the words of Rodrigo, he “put money in his purse.”

The Doctor, however, as has been said, from the unimpeachable goodness of his heart and character, had the fair feelings of mankind in his favour. The parody, therefore, though executed with burlesque humour, whether urged or not by malevolence, was never reprinted; and obtained but the laugh of a moment, without making the shadow of an impression to the disadvantage of the tourist.

MR. TWINING.

But the happiest produce to Dr. Burney of this enterprise, and the dearest mede of his musical labours, was the cordial connexion to which it led with Mr. Twining, afterwards called Aristotle Twining; which opened with an impulsive reciprocation of liking, and ended in a friendship as permanent as it was exhilarating.

Mr. Twining, urged by an early and intuitive taste, equally deep and refined, for learning and for letters, had begun life by desiring to make over the very high emoluments of a lucrative business, with its affluence and its cares, to a deserving younger brother; while he himself should be quietly settled, for the indulgence of his literary propensities, in some retired and moderate living, at a distance from the metropolis.

His father listened without disapprobation; and at the vicarage of Colchester, Mr. Twining established his clerical residence.

His acquaintance with Dr. Burney commenced by a letter of singular merit, and of nearly incomparable modesty. After revealing, in terms that showed the most profound skill in musical science, that he had himself not only studied and projected, but, in various rough desultory sections, had actually written certain portions of a History of Music, he liberally acknowledged that he had found the plan of the Doctor so eminently superior to his own, and the means that had been taken for its execution so far beyond his power of imitation, that he had come to a resolution of utterly renouncing his design; of which not a vestige would now remain that could reflect any pleasure upon his lost time and pains, unless he might appease his abortive attempt by presenting its fruits, with the hope that they would not be found utterly useless, to Dr. Burney.

So generous an offering could not fail of being delightedly accepted; and the more eagerly, as the whole style of the letter decidedly spoke its writer to be a scholar, a wit, and a man of science.

Dr. Burney earnestly solicited to receive the manuscript from Mr. Twining’s own hands: and Mr. Twining, though with a timidity as rare in accompanying so much merit as the merit itself, complied with the request.

The pleasure of this first interview was an immediate guarantee of the mental union to which it gave rise. Every word that issued from Mr. Twining confirmed the three high characters to which his letter had raised expectation,—of a man of science, a scholar, and a wit. Their taste in music, and their selection of composers and compositions, were of the same school; i.e. the modern and the Italian for melody, and the German for harmony.

Nor even here was bounded the chain by which they became linked: their classical, literary, and poetical pursuits, nay, even their fancies, glided so instinctively into the same channel, that not a dissonant idea ever rippled its current: and the animal spirits of both partook of this general coincidence, by running, playfully, whimsically, or ludicrously, with equal concord of pleasantry, into similar inlets of imagination.

The sense of this congeniality entertained by Dr. Burney, will be best shewn by the insertion of some biographical lines, taken from a chronological series of events which he committed to paper, about this time, for the amusement of Mrs. Burney.

The whole family participated in this delightful accession to the comfort and happiness of its chief; and, Mr. Crisp alone excepted, no one was received by the Burnean tribe with such eagerness of welcome as Mr. Twining.

A correspondence, literary, musical, and social, took place between this gentleman and the Doctor, when they separated, that made a principal pleasure, almost an occupation, of their future lives. And Dr. Burney thenceforward found in this willing and accomplished fellow-labourer, a charm for his work that made him hasten to it after his business and cares, as to his most grateful recreation. While Mr. Twining, exchanging a shyness that amounted nearly to bashfulness, for a friendly trust that gave free play to his sportive and original colloquial powers, felt highly gratified to converse at his ease with the man whose enterprise had filled him with an admiration to which he had been almost bursting to give some vent; but which he had so much wanted courage to proclaim, that, as he afterwards most humorously related, he had no sooner sent his first letter for Dr. Burney to the post-office, than he heartily hoped it might miscarry! and had hardly, though by appointment, softly knocked at the door of the Doctor, than he all but prayed that he should not find him at home!

MR. BEWLEY.

During a visit which, at this time, Dr. Burney made to his old friends and connexions in Norfolk, he spent a week or two with his truly-loved and warmly-admired favourite, Mr. Bewley, of Massingham; whose deep theoretical knowledge of the science, and passion for the art of music, made, now, a sojourn under his roof as useful to the work of the Doctor, as, at all periods, it had been delightful to his feelings.

Of this visit, which took place immediately after one that had been fatiguingly irksome from stately ceremony, he speaks, in his chronological rhymes, in the following manner.

Mr. Bewley, now, was the principal writer for scientific articles in the Monthly Review, under the editorship of Mr. Griffith. He was, also, in close literary connexion with Dr. Priestley, Mr. Reid, and Padre Beccaria; with whom to correspond he had latterly dedicated some weeks exclusively to the study of Italian, that he might answer the letters of that celebrated man in his own language.

In company with this learned and dear friend, Dr. Burney afterwards passed a week at Haughton Hall, with the Earl of Orford, who invariably received him with cordial pleasure; and who had the manly understanding, combined with the classical taste, always to welcome with marked distinction the erudite philosopher of Massingham; though that obscure philosopher was simply, in his profession, a poor and hard-working country surgeon; and though, in his habits, partly from frugal necessity, and partly from negligent indifference, he was the man the most miserably and meanly accoutred, and withal the most slovenly, of any who had ever found his way into high society.

Lord Orford, with almost unexampled liberality, was decidedly blind to all these exterior imperfections; and only clear-sighted, for this gifted man of mind, to the genius that, at times, in the arch meaning of his smile, sparkled knowledge from his eye, with an intelligent expression that brightened into agreeability his whole queer face. And to call into play those rugged features, beneath which lurked the deepest information, and the most enlightened powers of entertainment, was the pleasure of the noble host; a distinction which saved this unknown and humble country practitioner from the stares, or the ridicule, of all new-arrived guests; though secretly, no doubt, they marvelled enough who he could be; and still more how he came there.

DR. HAWKESWORTH.

At Haughton Hall these two friends found now a large assembled party, of which the Earl of Sandwich, then first lord of the Admiralty, was at the head. The whole conversation at the table turned upon what then was the whole interest of the day, the first voyage round the world of Captain Cooke, which that great circumnavigator had just accomplished. The Earl of Sandwich mentioned that he had all the papers relating to the voyage in his hands; with the circumnavigations preceding it of Wallace and Byron; but that they were mere rough draughts, quite unarranged for the public eye; and that he was looking out for a proper person to put them into order, and to re-write the voyages.

Dr. Burney, ever eager upon any question of literature, and ever foremost to serve a friend, ventured to recommend Dr. Hawkesworth; who though, from his wise and mild character, contented with his lot, Dr. Burney knew to be neither rich enough for retirement, nor employed enough to refuse any new and honourable occupation. The Adventurer was in every body’s library; but the author was less generally known: yet the account now given of him was so satisfactory to Lord Sandwich, that he entrusted Dr. Burney with the commission of sending Dr. Hawkesworth to the Admiralty.

Most gladly this commission was executed. The following is the first paragraph of Dr. Hawkesworth’s answer to its communication:

“Many, many thanks for your obliging favour, and the subject of it. There is nothing about which I would so willingly be employed as the work you mention. I would do my best to make it another Anson’s Voyage.

Lord Sandwich, upon their meeting, was extremely pleased with Dr. Hawkesworth, to whom the manuscripts were immediately made over; and who thus expressed his satisfaction in his next letter to Dr. Burney.

“I am now happy in telling you, that your labour of love is not lost; that I have all the journals of the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour in my possession; that the government will give me the cuts, and the property of the work will be my own.

“Is it impossible I should give you my hand, and the thanks of my heart, here? i.e. at Bromley.”

CAPTAIN COOKE.

Some time afterwards, Dr. Burney was invited to Hinchinbroke, the seat of the Earl of Sandwich, to meet Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, Dr. Hawkesworth, and the celebrated circumnavigator, Captain Cooke himself.

It was the earnest request of James, the eldest son of Dr. Burney, to be included in the approaching second expedition of this great seaman; a request which Lord Sandwich easily, and with pleasure, accorded to Dr. Burney; and the young naval officer was invited to Hinchinbroke, and presented to his new commander, with a recommendation that he should stand foremost on the list of promotion, should any occasion of change occur during the voyage.

The following note upon Captain Cooke, is copied from a memorandum book of Dr. Burney’s.

“In February, I had the honour of receiving the illustrious Captain Cooke to dine with me in Queen-Square, previously to his second voyage round the world.

“Observing upon a table Bougainville’s Voyage autour du Monde, he turned it over, and made some curious remarks on the illiberal conduct of that circumnavigator towards himself, when they met and crossed each other; which made me desirous to know, in examining the chart of M. de Bougainville, the several tracks of the two navigators; and exactly where they had crossed or approached each other.

“Captain Cooke instantly took a pencil from his pocket-book, and said he would trace the route; which he did in so clear and scientific a manner, that I would not take fifty pounds for the book. The pencil marks having been fixed by skim milk, will always be visible.”

This truly great man appeared to be full of sense and thought; well-mannered, and perfectly unpretending; but studiously wrapped up in his own purposes and pursuits; and apparently under a pressure of mental fatigue when called upon to speak, or stimulated to deliberate, upon any other.

The opportunity which thus powerfully had been prepared of promotion for the Doctor’s son, occurred early in the voyage. Mr. Shanks, the second lieutenant of the Discovery, was taken ill at the Cape of Good Hope, and obliged to leave the ship. “In his place,” Captain Cooke wrote to Lord Sandwich, “I have appointed Mr. Burney, whom I have found very deserving.”

DOCTOR GOLDSMITH.

Dr. Goldsmith, now in the meridian of his late-earned, but most deserved prosperity, was projecting an English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, upon the model of the French Encyclopædia. Sir Joshua Reynolds was to take the department of painting; Mr. Garrick, that of acting; Dr. Johnson, that of ethics: and no other class was yet nominated, when Dr. Burney was applied to for that of music, through the medium of Mr. Garrick.

Justly gratified by a call to make one in so select a band, Dr. Burney willingly assented; and immediately drew up the article “Musician;” which he read to Mr. Garrick; from whom it received warm plaudits.

The satisfaction of Dr. Goldsmith in this acquisition to his forces, will be seen by the ensuing letter to Mr. Garrick; by whom it was enclosed, with the following words, to Dr. Burney.

“June 11, 1773.

“My dear Doctor,

“I have sent you a letter from Dr. Goldsmith. He is proud to have your name among the elect.

“Love to all your fair ones.

“Ever yours,

“D. Garrick.”

To David Garrick, Esq.

“Temple, Jan. 10, 1773.

“Dear Sir,

“To be thought of by you, obliges me; to be served by you, still more. It makes me very happy to find that Dr. Burney thinks my scheme of a Dictionary useful; still more that he will be so kind as to adorn it with any thing of his own. I beg you, also, will accept my gratitude for procuring me so valuable an acquisition.

“I am,

“Dear Sir,

“Your most affectionate servant,

“Oliver Goldsmith.”

The work, however, was never accomplished, and its project sunk away to nothing; sincerely to the regret of those who knew what might be expected from that highly qualified writer, on a plan that would eminently have brought forth all his various talents; and which was conceived upon so grand a scale, and was to be supported by such able coadjutors. And deeply was public regret heightened that it was by the hand of Death that this noble enterprise was cut short; Death, which seemed to have awaited the moment of the reversal of poverty and hardship into prosperity and fame, for striking that blow which, at an earlier period, might frequently, for Dr. Goldsmith, have taken away a burthen rather than a blessing. But such is the mysterious construction of Life—that mere harbinger of Death!—always obedient to the fatal knell he tolls, though always longing to implore that he would toll it a little—little later!

DOCTOR HAWKESWORTH.

The sincere satisfaction that Dr. Burney had experienced in having influenced the nomination of Dr. Hawkesworth to be editor of the first voyage of Captain Cooke round the world, together with the revisal and arrangement of the voyages of Captain Wallace and Admiral Byron, was soon overcast by sorrow, through circumstances as impossible to have foreseen as not to lament.

Dr. Hawkesworth, though already in a delicate state of health, was so highly animated by his election to this office, and with the vast emolument which, with scarcely any labour, promised to give the dignity of ease and comfort to the rest of his life; that he performed his task, and finished the narratory compilation, with a rapidity of pleasure, resulting from a promise of future independence, that filled him with kind gratitude to Dr. Burney; and seemed to open his heart, temper, and manners, to the most cordial feelings of happiness.

But the greatness of his recompense for the smallness of his trouble, immediately disposed all his colleagues in the road of renown to censure; and all his competitors in that of profit, to jealousy and ill-will. Unfortunately, in his Introduction to the Voyages, he touched upon some controversial points of religious persuasion, which proved a fatal opening to malignity for the enemies of his success; and other enemies, so upright was the man, it is probable he had none. His reasoning here, unhappily, was seized upon with avidity by his infuriated enviers; and the six thousand pounds which flowed into his coffers, brought six millions of pungent stings to his peace, by arraigning his principles.

A war so ungenial to his placid nature, and hitherto honoured life, breaking forth, with the offensive enmity of assumed superior piety, in calumnious assertions, that strove to blacken the purity of his faith and doctrine; occurring at the moment when he had thought all his worldly cares blown away, to be succeeded by soft serenity and easy affluence; made the attack so unexpected, that its shock was enervating; and his wealth lost its charms, from a trembling susceptibility that detached him from every pleasure it could procure—save that of a now baneful leisure for framing answers to his traducers.

In his last visit, as it proved, to Queen-Square, where he dined and spent the evening, Dr. Burney was forcibly struck with concern at sight of the evident, though uncomplaining invalid; so changed, thin, and livid was his appearance.

He conversed freely upon the subject of his book, and the abuse which it had heaped upon him, with the Doctor; who strongly exhorted him to repel such assaulters with the contempt that they deserved: adding, “They are palpably the offsprings of envy at your success. Were you to become a bankrupt, they would all turn to panegyrists; but now, there is hardly a needy man in the kingdom, who has ever held a pen in his hand for a moment, who, in pondering upon the six thousand pounds, does not think he could have done the work better.”

Dr. Hawkesworth said that he had not yet made any answer to the torrent of invective poured upon him, except to Dalrymple, who had attacked him by name; for a law-suit was then impending upon Parkinson’s publication, and he would write nothing that might seem meant to influence justice: but when that law-suit, by whatever result, should be decided, he would bring out a full and general reply to all the invidious aspersions that so cruelly and wantonly had been cast upon him, since the publication of the Voyages.

He then further, and confidentially, opened to Dr. Burney upon his past life and situation: “Every thing that I possess,” he cried, “I have earned by the most elaborate industry, except this last six thousand pounds! I had no education, and no advantage but such as I sedulously worked to obtain for myself; but I preserved my reputation and my character as unblemished as my principles—till this last year!”

Rallying a little then, from a depression which he saw was becoming contagious, he generously changed the subject to the History of Music; and begged to be acquainted with its progress; and to learn something of its method, manner, and meaning; frankly avowing an utter ignorance of the capabilities, or materials, that such a work demanded.

Dr. Burney read to him the dissertation,—then but roughly sketched,—on the Music of the Ancients, by which the History opens: and Dr. Hawkesworth, confessing its subject to be wholly new to him, warmly declared that he found its treatment extremely entertaining, as well as instructive.

After a visit, long, and deeply interesting, he left his friend very anxious about his health, and very impatient for his promised pamphlet: but, while still waiting, with strong solicitude, the appearance of a vindication that might tranquillize the author’s offended sensibility, the melancholy tidings arrived, that a slow fever had robbed the invalid of sleep and of appetite; and had so fastened upon his shattered nerves, that, after lingering a week or two, he fell a prey to incurable atrophy; and sunk to his last earthly rest exactly a month after the visit to Dr. Burney, the account of which has been related.

Had the health of Dr. Hawkesworth been more sound, he might have turned with cold disdain from the outrages of mortified slanderers; or have scoffed the impotent rage of combatants whom he had had the ability to distance:—but, who shall venture to say where begins, and where ends, the complicate reciprocity of influence which involves the corporeal with the intellectual part of our being? Dr. Hawkesworth foresaw not the danger, to a constitution already, and perhaps natively, fragile, of yielding to the agitating effects of resentful vexation. He brooded, therefore, unresistingly, over the injustice of which he was the victim; instead of struggling to master it by the only means through which it is conquerable, namely, a calm and determined silence, that would have committed his justification to personal character;—a still, but intrepid champion, against which falsehood never ultimately prevails.

KIT SMART.

If thus untimely fell he who, of all the literary associates of Dr. Burney, had attained the most prosperous lot, who shall marvel that untimely should be the fate of the most unfortunate of his Parnassian friends, Christopher Smart? who, high in literary genius, though in that alone, had a short time previously, through turns of fortune, and concurrences of events, wholly different in their course from those which had undermined the vital powers of Dr. Hawkesworth, paid as prematurely the solemn debt relentlessly claimed by that dread accomptant-general, Death!—of all alike the awful creditor!—and paid it as helplessly the victim of substantial, as Dr. Hawkesworth was that of shadowy, disappointment.

With failure at the root of every undertaking, and abortion for the fruit of every hope, Kit Smart finished his suffering existence in the King’s Bench prison; where he owed to a small subscription, of which Dr. Burney was at the head, a miserable little pittance beyond the prison allowance; and where he consumed away the blighted remnant of his days, under the alternate pressure of partial aberration of intellect, and bacchanalian forgetfulness of misfortune.

His learning and talents, which frequently, in his youth, had been crowned with classical laurels at the University of Cambridge, had seemed to prognosticate a far different result: but, through whatever errors or irregularities such fair promises may have been set aside, he, surely, must always call for commiseration rather than censure, who has been exposed, though but at intervals, to the unknown disorders of wavering senses.

Nevertheless, whenever he was master of his faculties, his piety, though rather fanatical than rational, was truly sincere; and survived all his calamities, whether mental or mundane.

He left behind him none to whom he was more attached than Dr. Burney, who had been one of his first favourite companions, and who remained his last and most generous friend.

Alike through his malady and his distresses, the goodness of his heart, and his feeling for others, were constantly predominant. In his latest letter to Dr. Burney, which was written from the King’s Bench prison, he passionately pleaded for a fellow-sufferer, “whom I myself,” he impressively says, “have already assisted according to my willing poverty.”

Kit Smart is occasionally mentioned in Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson, and with anecdotes given to Mr. Boswell by Dr. Burney.

Mrs. Le Noir, the ingenious daughter of Mr. Smart, is authoress of a pleasing production entitled Village Manners, which she dedicated to Dr. Burney.

QUEEN-SQUARE.

Dr. Burney now, in the intervals of his varied, but never-ceasing occupations, gently, yet gaily, enjoyed their fruits. All classes of authors offered to him their services, or opened to him their stores. The first musical performers then in vogue, Millico, Giardini, Fischer, Cervetto, Crosdill, Barthelemon, Dupont, Celestini, Parke, Corri, the blind Mr. Stanley, La Baccelli, and that composer for the heart in all its feelings, Sacchini; with various others, were always eager to accept his invitations, whether for concerts, which occasionally he gave to his friends and acquaintance; or to private meetings for the regale of himself and family.

OMIAH.

But his most serious gratification of this period, was that of receiving in safety and honour, James, his eldest son, the lieutenant of Captain Cooke, on the return from his second voyage round the world, of that super-eminent navigator.

The Admiralty immediately confirmed the nomination of Captain Cooke; and further, in consideration of the character and services of the young naval officer, promoted him to the rank of master and commander.

The voyagers were accompanied back by Omiah, a native of Ulitea, one of the Otaheitean islands. Captain Burney, who had studied the language of this stranger during the voyage home, and had become his particular favourite, was anxious to introduce the young South-Sea islander to his father and family; who were at least equally eager to behold a native of a country so remote, and of such recent discovery.

A time was quickly fixed for his dining and spending the day in Queen-Square; whither he was brought by Mr., afterwards Sir Joseph, Bankes, and Dr. Solander; who presented him to Dr. Burney.

The behaviour of this young Otaheitean, whom it would be an abuse of all the meaning annexed to the word, to call a savage, was gentle, courteous, easy, and natural; and shewed so much desire to please, and so much willingness to be pleased himself, that he astonished the whole party assembled to receive him; particularly Sir Robert Strange and Mr. Hayes; for he rather appeared capable to bestow, than requiring to want, lessons of conduct and etiquette in civilized life.

He had a good figure, was tall and well-made; and though his complexion was swarthy and dingy, it was by no means black; and though his features partook far more of the African than of the European cast, his eyes were lively and agreeable, and the general expression of his face was good-humoured and pleasing.

He was full dressed on this day, in the English costume, having just come from the House of Lords, whither he had been taken by Sir Joseph Bankes, to see, rather than to hear, for he could not understand it, the King deliver his speech from the throne. He had also been admitted to a private audience of his Majesty, whom he had much entertained.

A bright Manchester velvet suit of clothes, lined with white satin, in which he was attired, sat upon him with as much negligence of his finery, as if it had been his customary dress from adolescence.

But the perfect ease with which he wore and managed a sword, which he had had the honour to receive from the king, and which he had that day put on for the first time, in order to go to the House of Lords, had very much struck, Sir Joseph said, every man by whom it had been observed; since, by almost every one, the first essay of that accoutrement had been accompanied with an awkwardness and inconvenience ludicrously risible; which this adroit Otaheitean had marvellously escaped.

Captain Burney had acquired enough of the Otaheitean language to be the ready interpreter of Omiah with others, and to keep him alive and in spirits himself, by conversing with him in his own dialect. Omiah understood a little English, when addressed in it slowly and distinctly; but could speak it as yet very ill; and with the peculiarity, whether adopted from the idiom of his own tongue, or from the apprehension of not being clearly comprehended, of uttering first affirmatively, and next negatively, all the little sentences that he attempted to pronounce.

Thus, when asked how he did, he answered “Ver well; not ver ill.” Or how he liked any thing, “Ver nice; not ver nasty.” Or what he thought of such a one, “Ver dood; not ver bad.”

On being presented by Captain Burney to the several branches of the family, when he came to this memorialist, who, from a bad cold, was enveloped in muslin wrappings, he inquired into the cause of her peculiar attire; and, upon hearing that she was indisposed, he looked at her for a moment with concern, and then, recovering to a cheering nod, said, “Ver well to-morrow morrow?”

There had been much variation, though no serious dissension, among the circumnavigators during the voyage, upon the manner of naming this stranger. Captain Burney joined those officers who called him Omai; but Omiah was more general; and Omy was more common still. The sailors, however, who brought him over, disdaining to scan the nicety of these three modes of pronunciation, all, to a man, left each of them unattempted and undiscussed, and, by universal, though ridiculous agreement, gave him no other appellation than that of Jack.

His after visits to the house of Dr. Burney were frequent, and evidently very agreeable to him. He was sure of a kind reception from all the family, and he was sincerely attached to Captain Burney; who was glad to continue with him the study of the Otaheitean language, preparatory to accompanying Captain Cooke in his third circumnavigation, when Omiah was to be restored to his own island and friends.

In the currency of this intercourse, remarks were incessantly excited, upon the powers of nature unassisted by art, compared with those of art unassisted by nature; and of the equal necessity of some species of innate aptness, in civilized as well as in savage life, for obtaining success in personal acquirements.

The diserters on the instruction of youth were just then peculiarly occupied by the letters of Lord Chesterfield; and Mr. Stanhope, their object, was placed continually in a parallel line with Omiah: the first, beginning his education at a great public school; taught from an infant all attainable improvements; introduced, while yet a youth, at foreign courts; and brought forward into high life with all the favour that care, expense, information, and refinement could furnish; proved, with all these benefits, a heavy, ungainly, unpleasing character: while the second, with neither rank nor wealth, even in his own remote island; and with no tutor but nature; changing, in full manhood, his way of life, his dress, his country, and his friends; appeared, through a natural facility of observation, not alone unlike a savage, but with the air of a person who had devoted his youth to the practice of those graces, which the most elaborately accomplished of noblemen had vainly endeavoured to make the ornament of his son.

MR. CRISP.

Another severe illness broke into the ease, the prosperity, and the muse of Dr. Burney, and drove him, perforce, to sojourn for some weeks at Chesington, with his friend, Mr. Crisp; whose character, in the biographical and chronological series of events, is thus forcibly, though briefly, sketched.

To this inestimable Mentor, and to Chesington, that sanctuary of literature and of friendship, Dr. Burney, even in his highest health, would uncompelled have resorted, had Fortune, as kind to him in her free gifts as Nature, left his residence to his choice.

But choice has little to do with deciding the abode of the man who has no patrimony, yet who wishes to save his progeny from the same hereditary dearth: the Doctor, therefore, though it was to the spot of his preference that he was chased, could not, now, make it that of his enjoyment: he could only, and hardly, work at the recovery of his strength; and, that regained, tear himself away from this invaluable friend, and loved retreat, to the stationary post of his toils, the metropolis.

ST. MARTIN’S STREET.

His house in Queen-Square had been relinquished from difficulties respecting its title; and Mrs. Burney, assiduously and skilfully, purchased and prepared another, during his confinement, that was situated in St. Martin’s-street, Leicester-fields.

If the house in Queen-Square had owed a fanciful part of its value to the belief that, formerly, in his visits to Alderman Barber, it had been inhabited occasionally by Dean Swift, how much higher a local claim, was vested in imagination, for a mansion that had decidedly been the dwelling of the immortal Sir Isaac Newton!

Dr. Burney entered it with reverence, as may be gathered from the following lines in his doggrel chronology.

This change of position from Queen-Square to St. Martin’s-street, required all that it could bestow of convenience to business, of facilitating fashionable and literary intercourse, of approximation to travelling foreigners of distinction, and of vicinity to the Opera House; to somewhat counter-balance its unpleasant site, its confined air, and its shabby immediate neighbourhood; after the beautiful prospect which the Doctor had quitted of the hills, ever verdant and smiling, of Hampstead and Highgate; which, at that period, in unobstructed view, had faced his dwelling in Queen-Square.

St. Martin’s-street, though not narrow, except at its entrance from Leicester-square, was dirty, ill built, and vulgarly peopled.

The house itself was well-constructed, sufficiently large for the family, and, which now began to demand nearly equal accommodation, for the books of the Doctor. The observatory of Sir Isaac Newton, which surmounted its roof, over-looked all London and its environs. It still remained in the same simple state in which it had been left by Sir Isaac; namely, encompassed completely by windows of small old-fashioned panes of glass, so crowded as to leave no exclusion of the glazier, save what was seized for a small chimney and fire-place, and a cupboard, probably for instruments. Another cupboard was borrowed from the little landing-place for coals.

The first act of Dr. Burney, after taking possession of this house, was to repair, at a considerable expense, the observatory of the astronomical chief of nations: and he had the enthusiasm, soon afterwards, of nearly re-constructing it a second time, in consequence of the fearful hurricane of 1778, by which its glass sides were utterly demolished; and its leaden roof, in a whirl of fighting winds, was swept wholly away.

Dr. Burney, who was as elevated in spirit as he was limited in means, for being to all the arts, and all the artists, a patron, preferred any self-denial to suffering such a demolition. He would have thought himself a ruthless Goth, had he permitted the sanctum sanctorum of the developer of the skies in their embodied movements, to have been scattered to nonentity through his neglect or parsimony; and sought for, thenceforward, in vain, by posterity.

Amongst the earliest hailers of this removal, stood forth the worthy and original Mr. Hutton, who was charmed to visit his enthusiastically esteemed new friend in the house of the great Newton; in which he flattered himself with retaining a faint remembrance that he had been noticed, when a boy, by the niece of that most stupendous of human geniuses.

In shaking hands around with the family upon this occasion, Mr. Hutton related that he had just come from the apartment of M. de Solgas, sub-preceptor to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales;[45] in which he had had the high honour of being permitted to discourse with his Majesty; whom he had found the best of men, as well as the best of Kings; for, in talking over the letters of Lord Chesterfield, and his Lordship’s doctrines, and subtle definitions of simulation and dissimulation, his Majesty said, “It is very deep, and may be it is very clever; but for me, I like more straight-forward work.”

This tribute to the honour of simple truth excited a general plaudit. Mr. Hutton then, with a smile of benevolent pleasure, said that the subject had been changed, by Mr. Smelt, from Lord Chesterfield’s letters to Dr. Burney’s Tours, which had been highly commended: “And then I,” added the good old man, “could speak my notions, and my knowledge, too, of my excellent friend the tourist, as well as of his writings; and so, openly and plainly, as one honest man should talk to another, I said it outright to my sovereign lord the King—who is as honest a man himself as any in his own three kingdoms. God bless him!”

All the party, greatly pleased, smiled concurrence; and Mrs. Burney said that the Doctor was very happy to have had a friend to speak of him so favourably before the King.

“Madam,” cried the good man, with warmth, “I will speak of him before my God! And that is doing much more.”

The Stranges, who lived in the immediate neighbourhood of St. Martin’s-street, were speedy welcomers to the new dwelling; where heartily they were welcomed.

The Doctor’s worthy and attached old friend, Mr. Hayes, rejoiced in this near approach to his habitation, which was in James-street, Westminster; though the fast advancing ravages and debilities of time and infirmities, soon bereaved him of all other advantage from the approximation, than that which he could court to his own house.

Mr. Twining, when in town, which was only for a week or two every year, loved not to pass even a day without bestowing a few minutes of it upon a house at which he was always hailed with delight.

But Mr. Crisp, though unalterably he maintained that first place in the heart of Dr. Burney, to which priority of every species entitled him, had become subject to such frequent fits of the gout, that to London he was almost lost: he dreaded sleeping even a night from Chesington, which now was his nearly unbroken residence.

The learned and venerable Mr. Latrobe, and his two sons, each of them men of genius, though of different characters, were frequent in their visits, and amongst the Doctor’s warmest admirers; and, in the study of the German language and literature, amongst his most useful friends.

The elegant translator of Tasso, Mr. Hoole, and his erudite and poetical son, the Rev. Samuel Hoole,[46] to form whose characters worth and modesty went hand in hand, were often of the social circle.

The Doctor’s two literary Italian friends, Martinelli and Baretti, were occasional visitors; and by the rapidity of their elocution, the exuberance of their gestures, and the distortion of their features, upon even the most trivial contradiction, always gave to the Doctor a divertingly national reminiscence of the Italian, or Volcanic, portion of his tours.

Mr. Nollekens, the eminent sculptor, was one of the travelled acquaintances of Dr. Burney, with whom he had frequently assorted while in Italy; and with whom now, and through life, he kept up the connexion then formed.

Nollekens was one of those who shewed, in the most distinct point of view, the possible division of partial from general talent. He was uncultivated and under-bred; his conversation was without mark; his sentiments were common; and his language was even laughably vulgar; yet his works belong to an art of transcendant sublimity, and are beautiful with elegance and taste.

MR. BRUCE.

But more peculiarly this new residence was opened by the distinction of a new acquaintance, who was then as much the immediate lion of the day, as had been the last new acquaintance, Omiah, who had closed the annals of the residence in Queen-Square.

This personage was no other than the famous Mr. Bruce, who was just returned to England, after having been wandering, and thought to be lost, during four years, in the deserts and sands of the hitherto European-untrodden territory of Africa, in search of the source, or sources, of the Nile.

The narrations, and even the sight of Mr. Bruce, were at this time vehemently sought, not only by all London, but, as far as written intercourse could be stretched, by all Europe.

The tales spread far and wide, first of his extraordinary disappearance from the world, and next of his unexpected re-appearance in the heart of Africa, were so full of variety, as well as of wonder, that they raised equal curiosity in the most refined and the most uncultivated of his contemporaries.

Amongst these multifarious rumours, there was one that aroused in Dr. Burney a more eager desire to see and converse with this eminent traveller, than was felt even by the most ardent of the inquirers who were pressing upon him, in successive throngs, for intelligence.

The report here alluded to, asserted, that Mr. Bruce had discovered, and personally visited, the long-famed city of Thebes; and had found it such as Herodotus had described: and that he had entered and examined its celebrated temple; and had made, and brought home, a drawing of the Theban harp, as beautiful in its execution as in its form, though copied from a model of at least three thousand years old.

Mr. Bruce had brought, also, from Egypt, a drawing of an Abyssinian lyre in present use.

The assiduity of Dr. Burney in devising means of introduction to whosoever could increase, or ameliorate, the materials of his history, was not here put to any proof. Mr. Bruce had been an early friend of Mrs. Strange, and of her brother, Mr. Lumisden; and that zealous lady immediately arranged a meeting between the parties at her own house.

As this celebrated narrator made the opening of his career as an author, in the History of Music of Dr. Burney; to the éclat of which, on its first appearance, he not slightly contributed, by bestowing upon it the two admirable original drawings above-mentioned, with a letter historically descriptive of their authenticity; some account of him seems naturally to belong to this place: and the Editor is persuaded, that two or three genuine, though juvenile letters which she wrote, at the time, to Mr. Crisp, may be more amusing to the reader, from their natural flow of youthful spirits, in describing the manners and conversation of this extraordinary wanderer, than any more steady recollections that could at present be offered from the same pen. And, led by this persuasion, she here copies a part of her early and confidential correspondence with her father’s, her family’s, and her own first friend.[47]

“To Samuel Crisp, Esq.

“Chesington, near Kingston, Surrey.

“St. Martins Street, 1775.

“Well, now then, my dear Daddy,[48] I have got courage to obey your call for more! more! more! without fear of fatiguing you, for I have seen the great man-mountain, Mr. Bruce; and have been in his high and mighty presence three times; as I shall proceed to tell you in due form and order, and with all the detail you demand.

“MEETING THE FIRST

took place at the tea-table, at 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 mar-plot, 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 gloatingly, 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 any body 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.

“Well, when all the placements, and so forth, were over, we went to tea. There’s an event for you, my dear Sir!

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

“But Mr. Turner suffered the most. He is, you know, a very jocular man, and cannot bear to lose his laugh and his bon mot. Yet he durst not venture at either; though he is so accustomed to indulge in both, and very successfully, in the country, that he seemed in blank dismay at finding himself kept in such complete subordination by the fearful magnitude of Mr. Bruce, joined to the terror of his looks.

“Mrs. Turner, still less at her ease, because still less used to the company of strangers, attempted not to obtain any sort of notice. Yet, being gay in her nature, she, too, did not much like being placed so totally in the back ground. But she was so much impressed by the stateliness of this renowned traveller, that I really believe she sat saying her prayers half the evening, that she might get away from the apartment without some affront.

“Pray have you happened to read a paragraph in the newspapers, importing that Mr. Bruce was dying, or dead? My father, who had seen him alive and well the day before it appeared, cut it out, and wafered it upon a sheet of paper, and sent it to him without comment.

“My mother now inquired of Mr. Bruce whether he had seen it?

“‘Yes,’ answered he, coolly; ‘but they are welcome to say what they please of me. I read my death with great composure.’ Then, condescending to turn to me,—though only, I doubt not, to turn away from my elders,—he added: ‘Were you not sorry, Miss Burney, to hear that I was dead?’

“Finding him thus address himself, and rather courteously, for he really smiled, to so small a personage as your very obedient servant, Mr. Turner, reviving, gathered courage to open his mouth, and, with a put-on air of easy jocularity, ventured to exclaim, with a laugh, ‘Well, sir, as times go, I think, when they killed you, it is very well they said no harm of you.’

“‘I know of no reason they had!’ replied Mr. Bruce, in so loud a tone, and with an air of such infinite haughtiness, that poor Mr. Turner, thus repulsed in his first attempt, never dared to again open his lips.

“Soon afterwards, a servant came into the room, with General Melville’s compliments, and he begged to know of Mrs. Strange whether it was true that Mr. Bruce was so dangerously ill.

“‘Yes!’ cried he, bluffly; ‘tell the General I am dead.’

“‘Ay, poor soul! poor mon!’ cried Mrs. Strange, ‘I dare say he has been vexed enough to hear such a thing! Poor honest mon! I dare be sworn he never wronged or deceived a human being in all his life.’

“‘Will you, faith?’ cried Mr. Bruce: ‘Will you be sworn to that? It’s more than I would dare to be for any man alive! Do you really think he has risen to the rank of General, with so little trouble?’

“‘Troth, yes,’ she answered; ‘you men, you know, never deceive men! you have too much honour for that. And as to us women,—ah, troth! the best among you canno’ deceive me! for whenever you say pretty things to me, I make it a rule to believe them all to be true: so the prettier the better!’

“Miss Bell Strange, the youngest daughter, a very sensible little girl, about ten years old, now brought him his tea. He took it, in chucking her under the chin; which was evidently very annoying to her, as a little womanly consciousness is just stealing upon her childhood: but, not heeding that, he again turned to me, and said, ‘Do you know, Miss Burney, that I intend to run away with Bell? We are going to Scotland together. She won’t let me rest till I take her to Gretna Green.’

“‘La! how can you say so, sir,?’ cried Bell, colouring, and much fidgetted. ‘Pray, Ma’am, don’t believe it!’

“‘Why, how now, Bell?—What! won’t you go?’

“‘No, sir, I won’t!’ answered Bell, very demurely.

“‘Well,’ cried he, with a scoffing smile, and rising, ‘this is the first lady that ever refused me.’

“He then inquired of Mrs. Strange whether she had heard any thing lately of Lord R., of whom they joined in drawing a most odious character; especially for his avarice. And when they had finished the portrait, Mr. Bruce, advancing his great figure towards me, exclaimed, ‘And yet this man is my rival!’

“‘Really?’ cried I, hardly knowing what he expected I should say, but afraid to affront him by a second total silence.

“‘O, it’s true!’ returned he, in a tone that implied though not credible; ‘Is it not true, Mrs. Strange, that he is my rival?’

“‘Troth, they say so,’ answered she, calmly.

“‘I wonder he should dare!’ cried my mother. ‘I wonder he should not apprehend that the long residence in Egypt of Mr. Bruce, had made him so well acquainted with magic, that’—

“‘O,’ interrupted Mr. Bruce, coolly, ‘I shall not poison him. But I may bribe his servant to tie a rope across his staircase, on some dark night, and then, as I dare say the miserly wretch never allows himself a candle to go up and down stairs, he may get a tumble, and break his neck.’

“This idea set him into a fit of laughter quite merry to behold; and as I caught, from surprise, a little of its infection, he was again pleased to address himself to me, and to make inquiry whether I was musical; expressing his hopes that he should hear me play, when Mrs. Strange fulfilled her engagement of bringing him to our house; adding, that he had a passionate love of music.

“‘I was once,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘with a young lady, a friend of mine, when she was at a concert for the first time she ever heard any music, except nursery lullabys, or street holla-balloos, or perhaps a tune on a fiddle by some poor blind urchin. And the music was very pretty, and quite tender; and she liked it so well, it almost made her swoon; and she could no’ draw her breath; and she thrilled all over; and sat sighing and groaning, and groaning and sighing, with over-much delight, till, at last, she burst into a fit of tears, and sobbed out, ‘I can’t help it!’

“‘There’s a woman,’ said Mr. Bruce, with some emotion, ‘who could never make a man unhappy! Her soul must be all harmony.’

“My dear father now arrived; and he and Mr. Bruce talked apart for the rest of the evening, upon the harp and the letter.

“But when the carriage was announced, imagine my surprise to see this majestic personage take it into his fancy to address something to me almost in a whisper! bending down, with no small difficulty, his head to a level with mine. What it was I could not hear. Though perhaps ’twas some Abyssinian compliment that I could not understand! It’s flattery, however, could not have done me much mischief, after Miss Strange’s information, that, when he is not disposed to be social with the company at large, he always singles out for notice the youngest female present—except, indeed, a dog, a bird, a cat, or a squirrel, be happily at hand.

“As I had no ‘retort courteous’ ready, he grandly re-erected himself to the fullest extent of his commanding height; setting me down, I doubt not, in his black book, for a tasteless imbecile. Every body, however, as all his motions engage all attention, looked so curious, that my only gratitude for his condescension, was heartily wishing him at one of the mouths of his own famous Nile.

“Will you not wish me there too, my dearest Mr. Crisp, for this long detail, without one word of said Nile, and its endless sources? or of Thebes and its hundred gates? or of the two harps of harps that are to decorate the History of Music? But nothing of all this occurred; except it might be in his private confab. with my father.

“You demanded, however, an account of his manner, his air, and his discourse; and what sort of mode, or fashion, he had brought over from Ethiopia.

“And here, so please you, all that is at your feet.

“I have only to add, that his smile, though rare, is really graceful and engaging. But his laugh, when his dignity is off its guard, and some sportive or active mischief comes across his ideas—such as the image of his miserly rival, Lord R., dangling from a treacherous rope on his own staircase; or tumbling headlong down,—is a chuckle of delight that shines his face of a bright scarlet, and shakes his whole vast frame with a boyish ecstacy.

“But I forgot to mention, that while Mr. Bruce was philandering with little Miss Bell Strange, who, with comic childish dignity, resented his assumed success, he said he believed he had discovered the reason of her shyness; ‘Somebody has told you, I suppose, Bell, that when I am taken with a hungry fit in my rambles, I make nothing of seizing on a young bullock, and tying him by the horns to a tree, while I cut myself off a raw beef-steak, and regale myself upon it with its own cold gravy? according to my custom in Abyssinia? Perhaps, Bell, you may think a young heifer might do as well? and are afraid you might serve my turn, when my appetite is rather keen, yourself? Eh, Bell?’

“You have accepted Meeting the First with so much indulgence, my dear Mr. Crisp, that I am all alertness for presenting you with

MEETING THE SECOND,

which took place not long after the First, already recorded in these my elaborate annals.

“My father invited Mr. Twining, the great Grecian, to said meeting. What a contrast did he form with Mr. Bruce, the great Ethiopian! I have already described Mr. Twining to you, though very inadequately; for he is so full of merits, it is not easy to find proper phrases for him. There is only our dear Mr. Crisp whom we like and love half as well.

“Mr. Twining, with all his excellencies,—and he is reckoned one of the first scholars living; and is now engaged in translating Aristotle,—is as modest and unassuming as Mr. Bruce is high and pompous. He came very early, frankly owning, with a sort of piteous shrug, that he really had not bronze to present himself when the party should be assembled, before so eminent, but tremendous a man, as report painted Mr. Bruce; though he was extremely gratified to nestle himself into a corner, as a private spectator.

“Mrs. Strange, with her daughter, arrived next; and told us that his Abyssinian Majesty, as she calls Mr. Bruce, had dined at General Melville’s, but would get away as quickly as possible.

“We waited tea, in our old-fashioned manner, a full hour; but no Mr. Bruce. So then we—or rather I—made it. And we all united to drink it. There, Sir; there’s another event for you!

“Mr. Twining entreated that we might no longer postpone the concert, and was leading the way to the library, where it was to be held; but just then, a thundering rap at the door raised our expectations, and stopt our steps;—and Mr. Bruce was announced.

“He entered the room with the state and dignity of a tragedy giant.

“We soon found that something had displeased him, and that he was very much out of humour: and when Mrs. Strange inquired after General Melville, he answered her, with a face all made up of formidable frowns, that the General had invited a most stupid set of people to meet him. He had evidently left the party with disgust. Perhaps they had asked him whether there were any real men and women in Abyssinia, or only bullocks and heifers.

“He took his tea in stern silence, without deigning to again open his lips, till it was to demand a private conference with my father. They then went together to the study,—erst Sir Isaac Newton’s—which is within the library.

“In passing through the latter, they encountered Mr. Twining, who would hastily have shrunk back; but my father immediately, and with distinction to Mr. Twining, performed the ceremony of introduction. Mr. Bruce gravely bowed, and went on; and he was then shut up with my father at least an hour, in full discussion upon the Theban harp, and the letter for the history.

“Mr. Twining returned, softly and on tiptoe, to the drawing room; and advancing to Mrs. Strange and my mother, with uplifted hands and eyes, exclaimed, ‘This is the most awful man I ever saw!—I never felt so little in all my life!’

“‘Well, troth,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘never mind! If you were six feet high he would overlook you; and he can do no more now.’

“Mr. Twining then, to recover breath he said, sat down, but declared he was in fear of his life; ‘for if Mr. Bruce,’ he cried, ‘should come in hastily, and, not perceiving such a pitiful Lilliputian, should take the chair to be empty—it will soon be over with me! I shall be jammed in a moment—while he will think he is only dropping down upon a cushion!’

“As the study confab. seemed to menace duration, Mr. Twining petitioned Mr. Burney to go to the piano-forte; where he fired away in a voluntary with all the astonishing powers of his execution, and all the vigour of his genius.

“He might well be animated by such an auditor as Mr. Twining, who cannot be a deeper Grecian than he is a refined musician. How happy is my dear father that the three best, and dearest, and wisest, of his friends, should be three of the most scientific judges of his own art,—Mr. Twining, Mr. Bewley, and Mr. Crisp.

“Dear me! how came that last name into my head? I beg your pardon a thousand times. It was quite by accident. A mere slip of the pen.

“Mr. Twining, astonished, delighted, uttered the warmest praises, with all his heart; but that fervent effusion over, dropped his voice into its lowest key, to add, with a look full of arch pleasantry, ‘Now, is not this better than being tall?’

“My poor sister, Burney, was not quite well, and had a hurt on one of her fingers. But though she could not exert herself to play a solo, she consented to take her part in the noble duet for the piano-forte of Müthel; and she was no sooner seated, than Mr. Bruce re-appeared in our horizon.

“You well know that enchanting composition, which never has been more perfectly executed.

“Mr. Twining was enraptured; Mrs. Strange listened in silent wonder and pleasure; and Mr. Bruce himself was drawn into a charmed attention. His air lost its fierceness; his features relaxed into smiles; and good humour and complacency turned pride, sternness, and displeasure, out of his phiz.

“I begin now to think I have perhaps been too criticising upon poor man-mountain; and that, when he is not in the way of provocation to his vanity, he may be an amiable, as well as an agreeable man. But I suppose his giant-form, which makes every thing around him seem diminutive, has given him a notion that he was born to lord it over the rest of mankind; which, peradventure, seems to him a mere huddle of Lilliputians, as unfit to cope with him, mentally, in discourse, as corporeally in a wrestling match.

“Mr. Twining had been invited to supper; and as it now grew very late, my mother made the invitation general; which, to our great surprise, Mr. Bruce was the first to accept. Who, then, could start any objection?

“So softened had he been by the music, that he was become all courtesy. Nobody else was listened to, or looked at; and as he scarcely ever deigns to look at any body himself, he is a primary object for peering at.

“The conversation turned upon disorders of the senses; for Mrs. Strange has a female friend who is seized with them, from time to time, as other people might be seized with an ague. She had been on a visit at the house of Mrs. Strange, the day before, where she had met Mr. Bruce. When it was perceived that a fit of the disorder was coming on, Miss Strange took her home; for which extraordinary courage Mr. Bruce greatly blamed her.

“‘How,’ said he, ‘could you be sure of your life for a single moment? Suppose she had thought proper to run a pair of scissors into your eyes? Or had taken a fancy to cutting off one of your ears?’

“Miss Strange replied, that she never feared, for she always knew how to manage her.

“Mr. Bruce then inquired what had been the first symptom she had shewn of the return of her malady?

“Mrs. Strange answered, that the beginning of her wandering that evening, had been by abruptly coming up to her, and asking her whether she could make faces?

“‘I wish,’ said Mr. Bruce, ‘she had asked me! I believe I could have satisfied her pretty well that way!’

“‘O, she had a great desire to speak to you, sir,’ said Miss Strange, ‘she told me she had a great deal to say to you.’

“‘If,’ said Mr. Bruce, ‘she had come up to me, without any preface, and made faces at me,—I confess I should have been rather surprised!’

“‘Troth,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘if we are not upon our guard, we are all of us mad when we are contradicted! for we are all of us so witty, in our own ideas, that we think every mon out of his head that does not see with our eyes. But when I tried to hold her, poor little soul, from running into the street, while we were waiting for the coach, she gave me such a violent scratch on the arm, that I piteously called out for help. See! here’s the mark.’

“‘Did she fetch blood,’ cried Mr. Bruce, in a tone of alarm; ‘if she did, you will surely go out of your own senses before a fortnight will be over! You may depend upon that! If you are bit by a wild cat, you will undoubtedly become crazy; and how much more if you are scratched by a crack-brained woman? I would advise you to go forthwith to the sea, and be well dipped. I assure you fairly I would not be in your situation.’

“I thought this so shocking, that I felt a serious impulse to expostulate with his giantship upon it myself, and almost the courage; but, whether perceiving my horror, or only imagining it, I cannot tell; he deigned to turn his magnificent countenance full upon me, to display that he was laughing. And he afterwards added, that he knew there was nothing in this case that was any way dangerous; though how he obtained the knowledge he kept to himself.

“My mother then expressed her hopes that the poor lady might not, meanwhile, be removed to a private asylum; as in these repositories, the patients were said to be goaded on to become worse, every time a friend or a physician was expected to visit them; purposely to lengthen the poor sufferer’s detention.

“‘Indeed!’ cried Mr. Bruce, knitting his brows, ‘why this is very bad encouragement to going out of one’s senses!’

“The rest of the conversation was wholly upon this subject; and so, as I know you hate the horrors, I must bid good night to Meeting the Second with his Abyssinian Majesty.

“The tête à tête in the study had been entirely upon the two drawings; and in settling the points upon which Mr. Bruce had best expatiate in his descriptive and historical epistle.

“My father has great satisfaction in being the first to bring forth the drawings and the writings of this far-famed traveller before the public. The only bad thing was, that it kept him away from us all supper-time, to put down the communications he had received, and the hints he wished to give for more.

“Mr. Twining, too, wrapt himself up in his own observations, and would not speak—except by his eyes, which had a comic look, extremely diverting, of pretended fearful insignificance.

“Well, now, my dear Sir, to

MEETING THE THIRD.

“It was produced by a visit from Mrs. Strange, with a petition from his Majesty of Abyssinia for another musical evening; as he had spoken with so much rapture of the last to Mr. Nesbit, a great amateur, ‘that the poor honest lad,’ Mrs. Strange said, ‘could no’ sleep o’ nights from impatience to be inoculated with the same harmony, to prevent the infection Mr. Bruce carried about with him from doing him a mischief.’

“Well, the time was fixed, and the evening proved so agreeable, that we heartily and continually wished our dear Mr. Crisp amongst us. Mr. Twining, too, was gone. All one likes best go quickest.

“The first who arrived was Mr. Solly. He, also, is a great traveller, though not a renowned one; for nothing less than the Nile, and no place short of Abyssinia, will do, at present, for the taste of the public. My father had met with Mr. Solly at four several cities in Italy, and all accidentally; namely, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples. Since that time, Mr. Solly has been wandering to many more remote places; and at Alexandria, and at Grand Cairo, he had met with Mr. Bruce. He is a chatty, lively man; and not at all wanting in marks of his foreign excursions, i.e. shrugs, jerks, and gestures. John Bull, you know, my dear Mr. Crisp, when left to himself, is so torpid a sort of figure, with his arms slung so lank to his sides, that, at a little distance, one might fancy him without any such limb. While the Italians and French make such a flourishing display of its powers, that I verily believe it quickens circulation, and helps to render them so much more vivacious than philosopher Johnny.

“Yet I love Johnny best, for all that; as well as honour him the most; only I often wish he was a little more entertaining.

“Mr. Solly and my father ‘fought all their battles o’er again’ through Italy; and kept fighting them on till the arrival of Dr. Russel, a learned, and likewise a travelled physician, who seems droll and clever; but who is so very short-sighted, that even my father and I see further a-field. He loses nothing, however, through this infirmity, that trouble can supply; for he peers in every body’s face at least a minute, to discover whether or not he knows them; and, after that, he peers a minute or two more, to discover, I suppose, whether or not he likes them. Yet, without boldness. ’Tis merely a look of earnest investigation, which he bestowed, in turn, upon every one present, as they came in his way; never fastening his eyes, even for an instant, upon the ground, the fire, the wainscot, or any thing inanimate, but always upon the ‘human face divine.’

“He, also, is another travelled friend of Mr. Bruce, whom he knew at Aleppo, where Dr. Russel resided some years.[49]

“Then came Mrs. and Miss Strange, and his Abyssinian majesty, with his companion, Mr. Nesbit, who is a young Scotchman of distinction, infinitely fade, conceited, and coxcombical. He spoke very little, except to Mr. Bruce, and that, very politely, in a whisper. I cannot at all imagine what could provoke this African monarch to introduce such a fop here. We heartily wished him back in his own quarters; or at least at ‘the Orkneys,’ or at ‘the Lord knows where.’

“Mr. Bruce himself was in the most perfect good-humour; all civility and pleasantry; and his smiles seemed to give liberty for general ease.

“Having paid his compliments to my mother, he addressed himself to my sister Burney, inquiring courteously after her finger, which Miss Strange had told him she had hurt.

“‘Mrs. Burney’s fingers,’ cried Dr. Russel, snatching at the opportunity for a good gaze, not upon her finger, but her phiz, ‘ought to be exempt from all evil.’

“Your Hettina smiled, and assured them it was almost well.

“‘O, I prayed to Apollo,’ cried Mr. Bruce, ‘for its recovery, and he has heard my prayer.’

“‘I have no doubt, sir,’ said Hetty, ‘of your influence with Apollo.’

“‘I ought to have some, Madam,’ answered he grandly, ‘for I have been a slave to him all my life!’”

“He then came to hope that I should open the concert; speaking to me with just such an encouraging sort of smile as if I had been about eleven years old; and strongly admonishing me not to delay coming forward at once, as he was prepared for no common pleasure in listening to me.

“Next he advanced to Susanna, begging her to exhibit her talent; and telling her he had had a dream, that if she refused to play, some great misfortune would befall him.

“When he had gone through this little circle of gallantry, to his own apparent satisfaction, he suffered Mr. Nesbit to seize upon him for another whispering dialogue; in which, as Mrs. Strange has since told my mother, that pretty swain lamented that he must soon run away, a certain lady of quality having taken such an unaccountable fancy to him at the opera of the preceding night, that she had appointed him to be with her this evening tête à tête!

“Mr. Bruce gave so little credit to this bonne fortune, that he laughed aloud in relating it to Mrs. Strange.

“Mr. Bruce then called upon Dr. Russel to take a violin, saying he was a very fine performer; but adding, ‘We used to disgrace his talents, I own, at Aleppo; for, having no blind fiddler at hand, we kept him playing country dances by the hour.’

“Dr. Russel mentioned some town in those parts, Asia or Africa, where a concert, upon occasion of a marriage, lasted three days.

“‘Three days?’ repeated Mr. Bruce; ‘why marriage is a more formidable thing there than even here!’

“Then came music, and the incomparable duet; which, as they could not forbear encoring, filled up all the rest of the evening, till the company at large departed; for there were several persons present whom I have not mentioned, being of no zest for your notice.

“Mr. Bruce, however, with the Stranges, again consented to stay supper; which, you know, with us, is nothing but a permission to sit over a table for chat, and roast potatoes, or apples.

“But now, to perfect your acquaintance with this towering Ethiopian, where do you think he will take you during supper?

“To the source, or sources, you cry, of the Nile? to Thebes? to its temple? to an arietta on the Theban Harp? or, perhaps, to banquetting on hot raw beef in Abyssinia?

“No such thing, my dear Mr. Crisp, no such thing. Travellers who mean to write their travels, are fit for nothing but to represent the gap at your whist table at Chesington, when you have only three players; for they are mere dummies.

“Mr. Bruce left all his exploits, his wanderings, his vanishings, his re-appearances, his harps so celestial, and his bullocks so terrestrial, to plant all our entertainment within a hundred yards of our own coterie; namely, at the masquerades at the Haymarket.

“Thus it was. He inquired of Mrs. Strange where he could find Mrs. Twoldham, a lady of his acquaintance; a very fine woman, but remarkably dissipated, whom he wished to see.

“‘Troth,’ Mrs. Strange answered, ‘she did not know; but if he would take a turn to a masquerade or two, he would be sure to light upon her, as she never missed one.’

“‘What,’ cried he, laughing, ‘has she not had enough yet of masquerades? Brava, Mrs. Twoldham! I honour your spirit.’

“He then laughed so cordially, that we were tempted, by such extraordinary good-humour, to beg him, almost in a body, to permit us to partake of his mirth.

“He complied very gaily. ‘A friend of mine,’ he cried, ‘before I went abroad, had so often been teazed to esquire her to some of these medleys, that he thought to give the poor woman a surfeit of them to free himself from her future importunity. Yet she was a very handsome woman, very handsome indeed. But just as they were going into the great room, he had got one of her visiting cards ready, and contrived, as they passed through a crowded passage, to pin to the back of her robe, Mrs. Twoldham, Wimpole Street. And not three steps had she tript forward, before some one called out: “Hah! Mrs. Twoldham! how do you do, Mrs. Twoldham?”—“Oho, Mrs. Twoldham, are you here?” cried another; “Well, Ma’am, and how do all friends in Wimpole Street do?” till the poor woman was half out of her wits, to know how so many people had discovered her. So she thought that perhaps her forehead was in sight, and she perked up her mask; but she did not less hear, “Ah! it’s you, Mrs. Twoldham, is it?” Then she supposed she had left a peep at her chin, and down again was tugged the poor mask; but still, “Mrs. Twoldham!” and, “how do you do, my dear Mrs. Twoldham?” was rung in her ears at every step; till at last, she took it into her head that some one, who, by chance, had detected her, had sent her name round the room; so she hurried off like lightning to the upper suite of apartments. But ’twas all the same. “Well, I declare, if here is not Mrs. Twoldham!” cries the first person that passed her. “So she is, I protest,” cried another; “I am very glad to see you, my dear Ma’am! what say you to giving me a little breakfast to-morrow morning? you know where, Mrs. Twoldham; at our old haunt in Wimpole Street.” But, at last, the corner of an unlucky table rubbed off the visiting card; and a waiter, who picked it up, grinned from ear to ear, and asked whether it was hers. And the poor woman fell into such a trance of passion, that my friend was afraid for his eyes; and all the more, because, do what he would, he could not refrain from laughing in her face.’

“You can scarcely conceive how heartily he laughed himself; he quite chuckled, with all the enjoyment in mischief of a holiday school boy.

“And he harped upon the subject with such facetious pleasure, that no other could be started.

“‘I once knew,’ he cried, ‘a man, his name was Robert Chambers, and a good-natured little fellow he was, who was served this very trick the first masquerade he went to in London, upon fresh coming from Scotland. A gentleman who went to it with him, wrote upon his black domino, with chalk, “this is little Bob Chambers, fresh come from Edinburgh;” and immediately some one called out, in passing him, “What Bob? little Bob Chambers? how do, my boy?” “Faith,” says Bob, to his friend, “the people of this fine London are pretty impudent! I don’t know that I know a soul in the whole town, and the first person I meet makes free to call me plain Bob?” But when he went on, and found that every creature in every room did the same, he grew quite outrageous at being treated with so little ceremony; and he stamped with his foot at one, and clenched his fist at another, and asked how they dared call him Bob? “What! a’n’t you Bob, then?” replies one; “O yes, you are! you’re Bob, my Bob, as sure as a gun! Bob Chambers! little Bob Chambers. And I hope you have left all well at Edinburgh, my Bob?” In vain he rubbed by them, and tried to get on, for they called to him quite from a distance; “Bob!—Bob! come hither, I say!—come hither, my Bobby! my Bob of all Bobs! you’re welcome from Edinburgh, my Bob!” Well, then, he said, ’twas clear the devil owed him a spite, and had told his name from top to bottom of every room. Poor Bob! he made a wry face at the very sound of a masquerade to the end of his days.’

“To have looked at Mr. Bruce in his glee at this buffoonery, you must really have been amused; though methinks I see, supposing you had been with us, the picturesque rising of your brow, and all the dignity of your Roman nose, while you would have stared at such familiar delight in an active joke, as to transport into so merry an espiegle, the seven-footed loftiness of the haughty and imperious tourist from the sands of Ethiopia, and the waters of Abyssinia; whom, nevertheless, I have now the honour to portray in his robe de chambre, i.e. in private society, to my dear Chesington Daddy.

“What says he to the portrait?”

With fresh pleasure and alacrity, Dr. Burney now went on with his work. So unlooked for a re-inforcement of his means could not have arrived more seasonably. Every discovery, or development, relative to early times, was not only of essential service to the Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients, upon which, now, he was elaborately engaged, but excited general curiosity in all lovers of antiquity.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Amongst other new friends that this new neighbourhood procured, or confirmed, to Dr. Burney, there was one of so congenial, so Samaritan, a sort, that neighbour he must have been to the Doctor from the time of their first acquaintance, had his residence been in Dorset-square, or at Botolph’s Wharf; instead of Leicester-square, and scarcely twenty yards from the Doctor’s own short street.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, this good Samaritan, was, like Dr. Burney, though well-read and deeply studious, as easy and natural in discourse as if he had been merely a man of the world; and though his own art was his passion, he was open to the warmest admiration of every other: and again, like the Doctor, he was gay though contemplative, and flew from indolence, though he courted enjoyment. There was a striking resemblance in the general amenity of their intercourse, that not only made them, at all times, and with all persons, free from any approach to envy, peevishness, or sarcasm themselves, but seemed to spread around them a suavity that dissolved those angry passions in others.

In his chronological doggrels, Dr. Burney records that he now began his intimacy with the great English Raphael; of whom he adds,

MRS. REYNOLDS.

Sir Joshua had a maiden sister, Mrs. Frances Reynolds; a woman of worth and understanding, but of a singular character; who, unfortunately for herself, made, throughout life, the great mistake of nourishing that singularity which was her bane, as if it had been her blessing.

She lived with Sir Joshua at this time, and stood high in the regard of his firm and most honoured friend, Dr. Johnson; who saw and pitied her foible, but tried to cure it in vain. It was that of living in an habitual perplexity of mind, and irresolution of conduct, which to herself was restlessly tormenting, and to all around her was teazingly wearisome.

Whatever she suggested, or planned, one day, was reversed the next; though resorted to on the third, as if merely to be again rejected on the fourth; and so on, almost endlessly; for she rang not the changes in her opinions and designs in order to bring them into harmony and practice; but waveringly to stir up new combinations and difficulties; till she found herself in the midst of such chaotic obstructions as could chime in with no given purpose; but must needs be left to ring their own peal, and to begin again just where they began at first.

This lady was a no unfrequent visitor in St. Martin’s-street; where, for her many excellent qualities, she was much esteemed.

The Miss Palmers,[50] also, two nieces of Sir Joshua, lived with him then occasionally; and one of them, afterwards, habitually; and added to the grace of his table, and of his evening circles, by the pleasingness of their manners, and the beauty of their persons.

Mrs. Frances Reynolds desired to paint Dr. Burney’s portrait, that she might place it among certain other worthies of her choice, already ornamenting her dressing-room. The Doctor had little time to spare; but had too natively the spirit of the old school, to suffer No! and a lady, to pair off together.