When the new married pair went through the customary routine of matrimonial elopers, namely, that of returning home to demand pardon and a blessing, Mr. Macartney coolly said: “Mr. Greville has chosen to take a wife out of the window, whom he might just as well have taken out of the door.”
The immediate concurrence of the lovely new mistress of Wilbury House, in desiring the society, even more than enjoying the talents, of her lord and master’s favourite, occasioned his residence there to be nearly as unbroken as their own. And the whole extensive neighbourhood so completely joined in this kindly partiality, that no engagement, no assemblage whatsoever took place, from the most selectly private, to the most gorgeously public, to which the Grevilles were invited, in which he was not included: and he formed at that period many connections of lasting and honourable intimacy; particularly with Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Boone, and Mr. Cox.
They acted, also, sundry proverbs, interludes, and farces, in which young Burney was always a principal personage. In one, amongst others, he played his part with a humour so entertaining, that its nick-name was fastened upon him for many years after its appropriate representation. It would be difficult, indeed, not to accord him theatrical talents, when he could perform with success a character so little congenial with his own, as that of a finical, conceited coxcomb, a paltry and illiterate poltroon; namely, Will Fribble, Esq., in Garrick’s farce of Miss in her Teens. Mr. Greville himself was Captain Flash, and the beautiful Mrs. Greville was Miss Biddy Bellair; by which three names, from the great diversion their adoption had afforded, they corresponded with one another during several years.
The more serious honour that had been conferred upon young Burney, of personating the part of father to Mrs. Greville, was succeeded, in due season after these gay espousals, by that of personating the part of god-father to her daughter; in standing, as the representative of the Duke of Beaufort, at the baptism of Miss Greville, afterwards the all-admired, and indescribably beautiful Lady Crewe.
Little could he then foresee, that he was bringing into the christian community a permanent blessing for his own after-life, in one of the most cordial, confidential, open-hearted, and unalterable of his friends.
ESTHER.
But not to Mr. Greville alone was flung one of those blissful or baneful darts, that sometimes fix in a moment, and irreversibly, the domestic fate of man; just such another, as potent, as pointed, as piercing, yet as delicious, penetrated, a short time afterwards, the breast of young Burney; and from eyes perhaps as lovely, though not as celebrated; and from a mind perhaps as highly gifted, though not as renowned.
Esther Sleepe—this memorialist’s mother—of whom she must now with reverence, with fear—yet with pride and delight—offer the tribute of a description—was small and delicate, but not diminutive, in person. Her face had that sculptural oval form which gives to the air of the head something like the ideal perfection of the poet’s imagination. Her fair complexion was embellished by a rosy hue upon her cheeks of Hebe freshness. Her eyes were of the finest azure, and beaming with the brightest intelligence; though they owed to the softness of their lustre a still more resistless fascination: and they were set in her head with such a peculiarity of elegance in shape and proportion, that they imparted a nobleness of expression to her brow and to her forehead, that, whether she were beheld when attired for society; or surprised under the negligence of domestic avocation; she could be viewed by no stranger whom she did not strike with admiration; she could be broken in upon by no old friend who did not look at her with new pleasure.
It was at a dance that she first was seen by young Burney, at the house of his elder brother, in Hatton Garden; and that first sight was to him decisive, for he was not more charmed by her beauty than enchanted by her conversation.