On quitting Chesington, upon his recovery, for re-entering his house in Queen-Square, the Doctor compelled himself to abstain from his pen, his papers, his new acquisitions in musical lore, and all that demanded study for the subject that nearly engrossed his thoughts, in order to consecrate the whole of his time to his family and his affairs.
He renewed, therefore, his wonted diurnal course, as if he had never diverged from it; and attended his young pupils as if he had neither ability nor taste for any superior occupation: and he neither rested his body, nor liberated his ideas, till he had re-instated himself in the professional mode of life, upon which his substantial prosperity, and that of his house, depended.
But, this accomplished, his innate propensities sprang again into play, urging him to snatch at every instant he could purloin, without essential mischief from these sage regulations; with a redundance of vivacity for new movement, new action, and elastic procedure, scarcely conceivable to those who, balancing their projects, their wishes, and their intentions, by the opposing weights of time, of hazard, and of trouble, undertake only what is obviously to their advantage, or indisputably their duty. His Fancy was his dictator; his Spirit was his spur; and whatever the first started, the second pursued to the goal.
ENGLISH CONSERVATORIO.
But neither the pain of his illness, nor the pleasure of his recovery, nor even the loved labours of his History, offered sufficient occupation for the insatiate activity of his mind. No sooner did he breathe again the breath of health, resume his daily business, and return to his nocturnal studies, than a project occurred to him of a new undertaking, which would have seemed to demand the whole time and undivided attention of almost any other man.
This was nothing less than to establish in England a seminary for the education of musical pupils of both sexes, upon a plan of which the idea should be borrowed, though the execution should almost wholly be new-modelled, from the Conservatorios of Naples and Vienna.
As disappointment blighted this scheme just as it seemed maturing to fruition, it would be to little purpose to enter minutely into its details: and yet, as it is a striking feature of the fervour of Dr. Burney for the advancement of his art, it is not its failure, through the secret workings of undermining prejudice, that ought to induce his biographer to omit recounting so interesting an intention and attempt: and the less, as a plan, in many respects similar, has recently been put into execution, without any reference to the original projector.
The motives that suggested this undertaking to Dr. Burney, with the reasons by which they were influenced and supported, were to this effect.