NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.
Yet, in the midst of this total and voluntary retreat from public life, a new honour, as little expected by Dr. Burney as, from concomitant circumstances, it was little wished, sought, in 1810, to encircle his brow.
M. le Breton, Secretaire perpetuel de la Classe des Beaux Arts de l’Institut National de France, had, some years previously, put up the name of Dr. Burney as a candidate to be elected an honorary foreign member of the Institute: but the interrupted intercourse between the two countries caused a considerable time to elapse, before it was known whether this compliment was accepted or declined.
Not without much disturbance, from such a doubt, passed that interval in the breast of the Doctor’s absent daughter. She was deeply sensible to a mark so flattering of the literary fame of her father, which she could not but consider as peculiarly generous, the long and public hostility of the Doctor against French music, being as notorious as his passion for Italian and German.
But, on the other hand, knowing the excess of horror conceived against the French, Nationally, though not Individually, by Dr. Burney from the epoch of the Revolution, she was full of apprehension lest he should reject the offering; and reject it with a contempt that might involve her husband and herself in the displeasure which such a species of requital to offered homage might excite.
So keen, indeed, was this alarm upon her mind, that when M. le Breton called upon her to announce, with good-humoured exultation, tidings that he naturally imagined must give her the proudest satisfaction, she involuntarily shrunk from the communication; and, though she ventured not positively to decline, she procrastinated being the organ for conveying the purposed favour to England. M. le Breton was too observant not to perceive her embarrassment, though too well-bred to augment it by any remark.
He soon, however, for he had means and power, found a more willing coadjutrix[86] to forward his proposal to Dr. Burney; who, after a short pause, accepted this new tribute to his renown with due civility.
The parental motives by which this acquiescent conduct was influenced, his daughter could not doubt; but she had the comfort to know how much his repugnance to his new dignity must be lessened, in considering his respected and intimate friend, Sir Joseph Bankes, as his colleague in this new association.
These preliminary measures, with all that belonged to the honour of the offer, passed in the year 1806; but it was not till the year 1810 that Dr. Burney received the official notification of his election; which he has thus briefly marked in his last volume of Journal:—
“Nov. 23, 1810.
“Received from the National Institute at Paris, with a letter from Madame Greenwood Solvyns, my diploma, or patent, as a Member of the Institute, Classe des Beaux Arts.”
And three weeks afterwards:—
“Jan. 14, 1811.
“I received a packet from M. Le Breton, &c., addressed,
“A Monsieur le Docteur Burney,
“Correspondant de l’Institut de France.
“This packet found its way to my apartment at Chelsea College, by means of Mr. West, President of the Royal Academy. Its contents were—
“Notices historiques sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Pajon. Par M. Joachim le Breton. Du. 6 Otto. 1810.
“Notices historiques sur la vie, et les ouvrages, de Jos. Haydn. Par le même.
This memoir sur la vie de Haydn, sent by M. le Breton, drew from the Doctor, nearly at the close of his own annals, the following paragraph upon that great musician, who, for equal excellence in science and invention, he held to be at the head of all his compeers:
“Haydn, 1810.
“It has been well observed, by Haydn’s excellent biographer, at Paris, M. le Breton, that the public everywhere, by whom his works were so enthusiastically admired, took more care of his fame than of his fortune. He, however, himself, always modest, upright, and prudent, supposed it possible that he might survive his talents; and wished, by rigid economy and self-denial, to accumulate a sufficiently independent income for old age and infirmities, when he might no longer be able to entertain the public with new productions. This humble and most rational wish he was unable, in his own country, from the smallness of remuneration, to accomplish.
“I began an intimate intercourse with him immediately on his arrival in England; and was as much pleased with his mild, unassuming, yet cheerful conversation and countenance, as with his stupendous musical merit. And I procured him more subscribers to that sublime effort of genius—the Creation, than all his other friends, whether at home or abroad, put together.”
Of the year 1811, no species of event, nor detail of circumstance, has reached this Memorialist, except the following letter, which is copied from Doctor Burney’s own handwriting near the conclusion of his Journal:
“To Mr. Kollman, who had left a parcel for me.
“March 24, 1811.
“Dear Sir,
“I was sorry when you did me the favour to call, that I had not left my bedroom, where I had been confined, and unable to see my friends ever [Pg 394] since the beginning of the present year; and I was then in daily fear of the baleful ides of March: but on opening the valuable parcel which you had been so good as to leave with my servant, I have found the contents to be such as to furnish my eyes and my mind with agreeable employment ever since. I have often admired your musical science and ingenuity; but I think your fugues and double counterpoint in four parts, for two performers on one piano-forte, considerably surpass in clearness, contrivance, and pleasing melody, any of your former elaborate and learned productions that I have seen. And if it is so considered, and we count how many folio pages there are of letter-press in your introductory explanations, the works which you left for me would be a cheap purchase at £1. 1s., which I have the pleasure to send, with thanks for my entertainment.
“Your different harmonics to the original melody of the 100th psalm is a work of great study and knowledge.
“I am very seldom, now, in health and spirits to read or comment on works of complication in music, or of speculation in literature, as age, infirmities, and sickness, have made the use of a pen a very heavy task, and rendered me only fit to peruse old authors, that were in high estimation when I was young; but, being now forgotten, are become new to me again; or at least interesting by their antiquity to one who has wholly quitted the modern world.
“The above was written last night to Mr. Kollman. The following is a memorandum of what I have long thought concerning Parochial Psalmody. After justly estimating the varied harmonies which the ingenious organist of his Majesty’s German chapel has found for the original melody of the 100th psalm, I add the following record of an idea of my own long since conceived.
“If the simple tune which is sung in our parish churches throughout [Pg 395] the kingdom, in notes of the same length, without the least discrimination of lōng and shŏrt syllables, (bad in prose, but worse in metre,) was sung in the same measure of 3/2 as the 100th psalm, which is in favour everywhere, the objection would be removed against calvinistical psalmody, which is drawled out, and bawled out, as long and as loud as possible. Indeed, all our old psalm tunes, in simple counterpoint of note against note, received and established at the time of the Reformation, might be correctly accented, without losing the idea of the old melodies when sung in 2, 3, 4, or more parts.”