Who wrote like an angel—but talked like poor Poll!”
Goldsmith, immeasurably piqued, vowed he would retaliate; but, never ready with his tongue in public, though always ready with his pen in private, he hurried off in a pet; and, some time after, produced that best, if not only, satirical poem, that he ever wrote, “Retaliation.”
This was Dr. Goldsmith’s final work, and did not come out till after his death. And it was still unfinished; the last line, which was upon Sir Joshua Reynolds, being left half written;
“By flattery unspoil’d—”[63]
To a very general regret, Dr. Johnson had not yet been named. Probably, he was meant to form the climax of the piece.
His character, drawn by a man of such acute discrimination, who had prospered from his friendship, yet smarted from his wit; who feared, dreaded, and envied; yet honoured, admired, and loved him; would doubtless have been sketched with as fine a pencil of splendid praise, and pointed satire, as has marked the characteristic distiches upon Mr. Burke and Mr. Garrick.
Footnotes
[1] The year of Dr. Burney’s decease.
[2] Afterwards Mrs. Phillips.
[3] Afterwards Dame d’Atour to the celebrated sister of Frederick the Great.
[4] Upon its revival; not upon its first coming out.
[5] Even to Thomson, young Burney had appeared but as a delegate from that nominal society.
[6] His late Majesty, George the Fourth, when Prince of Wales.
[7] Now the mansion of the Marquis of Londonderry.
[8] Troilus and Cressida.
[9] The bride’s sisters, the Misses Macartney, were privately present at this clandestine ceremony.
[10] The rich citizens, at present, generally migrate to the west; leaving their eastern dwelling, with its current business-control, to their partners or dependents.
[11] This resistless filial tribute to such extraordinary independent and individual merit, must now be offenceless; as the family of its honoured object has for very many years, in its every Male branch, been, in this world, utterly extinct.—And, for another world,—of what avail were disguise?
[12] The word almost must here stand to acknowledge the several exceptions that may be offered to this paragraph; but which, nevertheless, seem to make, not annul, a general rule.
[13] Miss Young’s were the kind arms that first welcomed to this nether sphere the writer of these memoirs.
[14] The whole of this finest gallery of pictures that, then, had been formed in England, was sold, during some pecuniary difficulties, by its owner, George, Earl of Orford, for £40,000, to Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia.
[15] This name alludes to that which young Burney had acquired from imitating Garrick in Abel Drugger, during the theatricals at Wilbury House.
[16] It is written with a flow of tender but harassed sensations, so natural, so unstrained, that it seems to have been penned merely because felt; though clearly to have been incited by acute disappointment to heart-dear expectations.
I ask no kind return in love;
No melting power to please;
Far from the heart such gifts remove
That sighs for peace and ease!
Nor peace nor ease the heart can know
That, like the needle true,
Turns at the touch of joy and woe—
But, turning—trembles too![17] And subsequently, through this partial regard, the writer of these memoirs had the honour of being a god-daughter of Mrs. Greville.
[18] Afterwards Mrs. Charles Burney, of Bath.
[19] See correspondence.
[20] The letters of Dr. Johnson were made over to Mr. Boswell by Dr. Burney, and have already been published; but the modesty which withheld his own, will not, it is hoped, be thought here to be violated by printing them in his memoirs; as they not only shew his early and generous enthusiasm for genius, but carry with them a striking proof of the genuine urbanity with which Dr. Johnson was open to every act of kindness that was offered to him unaffectedly, even from persons the most obscure and unknown.
[21] The eldest daughter.
[22] Charlotte.
[23] Afterwards Rear-Admiral James Burney.
[24] Afterwards the celebrated Greek scholar.
[25] In his letters.
[26] Dryden.
[27] See Correspondence.
[28] And such it appeared to this memorialist when it was exhibited at the Louvre in 1812.
[29] The first Earl of Chatham.
[30] See correspondence.
[31] Edward, brother to his Majesty George III.
[32] Afterwards Mrs. Rishton.
[33] Now Rector of Lynn Regis.
[34] No truth can be more simply exact than that which is conveyed in four lines of the stanzas which she addressed to him in the secret dedication of her first work, Evelina, viz.
If in my heart the love of virtue glows
’Twas kindled there by an unerring rule;
From thy example the pure flame arose,
Thy life my precept; thy good works my school.[35] His son, George Colman the younger, still happily lives and flourishes.
[36] See Correspondence.
[37] Forty-three years after the date of this publication, the Countess Dowager of Pembroke acquainted this memorialist, that she had never known by whom this Essay was dedicated, nor by whom it was written.
[38] See Correspondence.
[39] This Editor.
[40] Daughter of Lord Mulgrave.
[41] More known by the title of the Hon. Polar Captain. Afterwards Lord Mulgrave.
[42] Mr. Seward, author of Biographiana, was wont to say, that those three initial letters stood for a Fellow Remarkably Stupid.
[43] There seems here to be some word, or words, omitted.—Ed.
[44] Mrs. Doctor Burney accompanied the Doctor in this visit to Mr. and Mrs. Bewley.
[45] Afterwards George IV.
[46] Now rector of Abinger, mentioned several times in Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson.
[47] These little narrations, selected and transcribed from a large packet of letters, written by the Editor, at a very early period of life, to Mr. Crisp, were by him bequeathed to his sister, Mrs. Gast; at whose death they became the property of Mrs. Frodsham, their nearest of kin; who, unsolicited, most generously and delicately restored the whole collection to its writer. She is gone hence before this little tribute of gratitude could be offered to her; but she has left two amiable daughters, who will not read it with indifference.
[48] This familiar, but affectionate, appellation, had been given by Dr. Burney, during his own youth, to Mr. Crisp; and was now, by prescription, adopted by the whole of the Doctor’s family.
[49] Dr. Russel, after this meeting, procured for Dr. Burney some curious information from Aleppo, of the modern state of music in Arabia.
[50] The eldest was afterwards Marchioness of Thomond; the second is now Mrs. Gwatken.
[51] An afterpiece of Mrs. Brookes’s composition.
[52] Afterwards Sir William Weller Pepys.
[53] Afterwards Earl of Cardigan.
[54] Father of the second Mrs. Sheridan.
[55] See Correspondence.
[56] His brilliant successor in deserved renown, Sir Thomas Lawrence, was then scarcely in being.
[57] To this Editor.
[58] Susanna.
[59] Charlotte.
[60] Frances.
[61] Where then stood the Bethlem Hospital.
[62] “He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he would he could whistle them back.”[63] This last circumstance was communicated to the Editor by Sir Joshua himself.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.