There was, in truth, something so spirited and uncommon, yet of so antique a cast, in the travels, or pilgrimage, that he had undertaken, in search of materials for the history of his art, that curiosity was awakened to the subject, and expectation was earnest for its execution: and it was no sooner published, than orders were received, by most of the great booksellers of the day, for its purchase; and no sooner read, than letters the most flattering, from the deepest theorists of the science, and the best judges of the practice of the art of music, reached the favoured author; who was of too modest a character to have been robbed of the pleasure of praise by presumptuous anticipation; and of too natural a one to lose any of its gratification by an apathetic suppression of its welcome. And the effect, impulsive and unsophisticated, of his success, was so ardent an encouragement to his purpose, that while, mentally, it animated his faculties to a yet more forcible pursuit of their decided object, it darted him, corporeally, into a travelling vehicle, which rapidly wheeled him back again to Dover; where, with new spirit and eagerness, he set sail upon a similar musical tour in the Low Countries and in Germany, to that which he had so lately accomplished in France and Italy.
With respect to the French and Italian tour, the restraint from all but its professional business, was much lamented by the friends to whom the sacrifice of the miscellaneous matter was communicated.
Upon the German tour not a comment will be offered; it is before the public with an approvance that has been stamped by the sanction of time. At the period of its publication, Dr. Burney, somewhat assured, though incapable of being rendered arrogant by favour, ventured to listen only to the voice of his first friend and monitor, who exhorted him to mingle personal anecdotes with his musical information.
The consequence was such as his sage adviser prognosticated; for both the applause and the sale of this second and more diffuse social diary, greatly surpassed those of its more technical predecessor.
Nevertheless, the German tour, though thus successful for narration to the public, terminated for himself in sickness, fatigue, exorbitant expense, and poignant bodily suffering.
While yet far away from his country, and equally distant from accomplishing the purpose of his travels, his solicitude not to leave it incomplete, joined to his anxiety not to break his professional engagements, led him to over-work and over-hurry his mental powers, at the same time that he inflicted a similar harass upon his corporeal strength. And while thus doubly overwhelmed, he was assaulted, during his precipitated return, by the rudest fierceness of wintry elemental strife; through which, with bad accommodations, and innumerable accidents, he became a prey to the merciless pangs of the acutest spasmodic rheumatism; which barely suffered him to reach his home, ere, long and piteously, it confined him, a tortured prisoner, to his bed.
Such was the check that almost instantly curbed, though it could not subdue, the rising pleasure of his hopes of entering upon a new species of existence, that of an approved man of letters; for it was on the bed of sickness, exchanging the light wines of France, Italy, and Germany, for the black and loathsome potions of the Apothecaries’ Hall; writhed by darting stitches, and burning with fiery fever; that he felt the full force of that sublunary equipoise, that seems evermore to hang suspended over the attainment of long-sought and uncommon felicity, just as it is ripening to burst forth into enjoyment!
Again he retired to Chesington, to his care-healing, heart-expanding, and head-informing Mr. Crisp: and there, under the auspices of all that could sooth or animate him; and nursed with incessant assiduity by his fondly-attached wife and daughters, he repaired his shattered frame; to fit it, once again, for the exercise of those talents and faculties, which illumine, in their expansive effects, the whole race of mankind; long after the apparent beings whence they have issued, seem faded, dissolved away; leaving not, visibly, a track behind.
In Dr. Burney, disease was no sooner conquered, than the vigour of his character brought back to him pleasure and activity, through the spirited wisdom with which he dismissed Regret for Anticipation.
There are few things in which his perfect good-humour was more playfully demonstrated, than by the looks, arch yet reproachful, and piteous though burlesque, with which he was wont to recount a most provoking and painful little incident that occurred to him in his last voyage home; but of which he was well aware that the relation must excite irresistible risibility in even the most friendly of his auditors.