MEMOIRS OF DR. BURNEY, BY HIS DAUGHTER MAD. D’ARBLAY.
[Continued from [page 75].]
Of the publication of Volume II. of Dr. Burney’s great work we have the following account:—
“So many years had elapsed since the appearance of the first volume, and the murmurs of the subscribers were so general for the publication of the second, that the earnestness of the doctor to fulfil his engagement became such as to sicken him of almost every occupation that turned him from its pursuit. Yet uninterrupted attention grew more than ever difficult; for as his leisure, through the double claims of his profession and his work, diminished, his celebrity increased; and the calls upon it, as usual, from the wayward taste of public fashion for what is hard to obtain, were perpetual, were even clamorous; and he had constantly a long list of petitioning parents, awaiting a vacant hour, upon any terms that he could name, and at any part of the day.
“He had always some early pupil who accepted his attendance at eight o’clock in the morning; and a strong instance has been given of its being seized upon even at seven[50]; and, during the height of the season for fashionable London residence, his tour from house to house was scarcely ever finished sooner than eleven o’clock at night.
“But so urgent grew now the spirit of his diligence for the progress of his work, that he not only declined all invitations to the hospitable boards of his friends, he even resisted the social hour of repast at his own table; and took his solitary meal in his coach, while passing from scholar to scholar; for which purpose he had sandwiches prepared in a flat tin box; and wine and water ready mixed, in a wickered pint bottle, put constantly into the pockets of his carriage.
“If, at this period, Dr. Burney had been as intent and as skilful in the arrangement and the augmentation of his income, as he was industrious to procure, and assiduous to merit, its increase, he might have retired from business, its toils and its cares, while yet in the meridian of life; with a comfortable competence for its decline, and adequate portions for his daughters. With regard to his sons, it was always his intention to bestow upon them good educations, and to bring them up to honourable professions; and then to leave them to form, as he had done himself, a dynasty of their own. But, unfortunately for all parties, he had as little turn as time for that species of speculation which leads to financial prosperity; and he lived chiefly upon the principal of the sums which he amassed; and which he merely, as soon as they were received, locked up in his bureau for facility of usage; or stored largely at his banker’s as an asylum of safety: while the cash which he laid out in any sort of interest was so little, as to make his current revenue almost incredibly below what might have been expected from the remuneration of his labours; or what seemed due to his situation in the world.
“But, with all his honourable toil, his philosophic privations, and his heroic self-denials, The Second Volume of the History of Music, from a continually enlarging view of its capability of improvement, did not see the light till the year 1782.
“Then, however, it was received with the same favour and the same honours that had graced the entrance into public notice of its predecessor. The literary world seemed filled with its praise; the booksellers demanded ample impressions; and her Majesty Queen Charlotte, with even augmented graciousness, accepted its homage at court.
“Relieved, by this publication, from a weight upon his spirits and his delicacy, which, for more than six years had burthened and disturbed them, he prudently resolved against working any longer under the self-reproachful annoyance of a promised punctuality which his position in life disabled him from observing, by fettering himself with any further tie of time to his subscribers for the remaining volumes.
He renounced, therefore, the excess of studious labour with which, hitherto,
his toil
O’er books consum’d the midnight oil;
and restored himself, in a certain degree, to his family, his friends, and a general and genial enjoyment of his existence. And hailed was the design, by all who knew him, with an energetic welcome.
“And yet, in breathing thus a little from so unremitting an ardour; and allowing himself to bask awhile in that healing sunshine of applause which administers more relief to the brain-shattered and mind-exhausted patient, than all the materia medica of the Apothecaries’ Hall; so small still, and so fugitive were his intervals of relaxation, that the diminished exertion, which to him was gentle rest, would, to almost any other, have still seemed overstrained occupation, and a life of drudgery.
“With no small pleasure, now, he resumed his wonted place at the opera, at concerts, and in circles of musical excellence; which then were at their height of superiority, because presided over by the royal and accomplished legislator of taste, fashion, and elegance, the Prince of Wales[51]; who frequently deigned to call upon Dr. Burney for his opinion upon subjects of harmony: and even condescended to summon him to his royal vicinity, both at the opera and at concerts, that they might ‘compare notes,’ in his own gracious expression, upon what was performing.”
In the following year the Doctor, through the influence of Mr. Burke, obtained the situation of organist to Chelsea College, to which chambers are attached, and of which the salary was raised upon this occasion from 20l. to 50l. per annum. The appointment was announced in the following handsome letter by Mr. Burke himself:—
“To Dr. Burney.
“I had yesterday the pleasure of voting you, my dear Sir, a salary of fifty pounds a year, as organist to Chelsea Hospital. But as every increase of salary made at our Board is subject to the approbation of the Lords of the Treasury, what effect the change now made may have I know not;—but I do not think any Treasury will rescind it.
“This was pour faire la bonne bouche at parting with office; and I am only sorry that it did not fall in my way to show you a more substantial mark of my high respect for you and Miss Burney.
“I have the honour to be, &c.
“EDM. BURKE.
“Horse Guards, Dec. 9, 1783.
“I really could not do this business at a more early period, else it would have been done infallibly.”
It is known that Doctor Burney wrote an account of the Commemoration of Handel: on this subject his memorialist is more diffuse than on most others which relate alone to music. The following remarks on his presenting the copyright to the Musical Fund are very just, and the following details respecting the interest his Majesty took in the progress and matter of the work, not only new, but highly interesting.
“Not small in the scales of justice must be reckoned this gift of the biographical and professional talents of Dr. Burney to the musical fund. A man who held his elevation in his class of life wholly from himself; a father of eight children, who all looked up to him as their prop; a professor who, at fifty-eight years of age, laboured at his calling with the indefatigable diligence of youth; and who had no time, even for his promised history, but what he spared from his repasts or his repose; to make any offering, gratuitously, of a work which, though it might have no chance of sale when its éclat of novelty was passed, must yet, while that short éclat shone forth, have a sale of high emolument, manifested, perhaps, as generous a spirit of charity, and as ardent a love of the lyre, as could well, by a person in so private a line of life, be exhibited.
“Dr. Burney was, of course, so entirely at home on a subject such as this, that he could only have to wait the arrival of his foreign materials to go to work; and only begin working to be in sight of his book’s completion: but the business of the plates could not be executed quite so rapidly; on the contrary, though the composition was finished in a few weeks, it was not till the following year that the engravings were ready for publication.
“This was a laxity of progress that by no means kept pace with the eagerness of the directors, or the expectations of the public; and the former frequently made known their disappointment through the channel of the Earl of Sandwich; who, at the same time, entered into correspondence with the Doctor, relative to future anniversary concerts upon a similar plan, though upon a considerably lessened scale to that which had been adopted for the Commemoration[52].
“The inconveniences, however, of this new labour, though by no means trifling, because absorbing all the literary time of the Doctor, to the great loss and procrastination of his musical history, had compensations, that would have mitigated much superior evil.
“The King himself deigned to make frequent inquiry into the state of the business; and when his Majesty knew that the publication was retarded only by the engravers, he desired to see the loose and unbound sheets of the work, which he perused with so strong an interest in their contents, that he drew up two critical notes upon them, with so much perspicuity and justness, that Dr. Burney, unwilling to lose their purport, yet not daring to presume to insert them with the King’s name in any appendix, cancelled the two sheets to which they had reference, and embodied their meaning in his own text. At this he was certain the King could not be displeased, as it was with his Majesty’s consent that they had been communicated to the Doctor, by Mr. Nicolai [Nicolay], a page of the Queen’s.
“Now, however, there seems to be no possible objection to giving to the public these two notes from the original royal text, as the unassuming tone of their advice cannot but afford a pleasing reminiscence to those by whom that benevolent monarch was known; while to those who are too young to recollect him, they may still be a matter of laudable curiosity. And they will obviate, also, any ignorant imputation of flattery, in the praise which is inserted in the dedication of the work to the King; and which will be subjoined to these original notes.
“From the Hand-writing of his Majesty, George III.
“It seems but just, as well as natural, in mentioning the 4th Hautbois Concerto, on the 4th day’s performance of Handel’s Commemoration, to take notice of the exquisite taste and propriety Mr. Fischer exhibited in the solo parts; which must convince his hearers that his excellence does not exist alone in performing his own composition; and that his tone perfectly filled the stupendous building where this excellent concerto was performed.”
“From the same.
“The performance of the Messiah.
“Dr. Burney seems to forget the great merit of the choral fugue, ‘He trusteth in God,’ by asserting that the words would admit of no stroke of passion. Now the real truth is, that the words contain a manifest presumption and impertinence, which Handel has, in the most masterly manner, taken advantage of. And he was so conscious of the moral merit of that movement, that, whenever he was desired to sit down to the harpsichord, if not instantly inclined to play, he used to take this subject; which ever set his imagination at work, and made him produce wonderful capriccios.”