Far easier to conceive than to delineate was the rapture of the young bridegroom when, upon a meeting that, unavoidably, must have been somewhat tremendous, he saw the exertions of his lovely bride to substitute serenity for bashfulness; and read, in the piercing eyes of Mrs. Greville, the fullest approbation of such native self-possession.
From that time all inferiority of worldly situation was counteracted by intellectual equality.[17]
But the intercourse had for several years been interrupted from the Grevilles living abroad. It was renewed, however, upon their return to England; and the Burneys, with their eldest daughter,[18] visited Wilbury House upon every vacation that allowed time to Mr. Burney for the excursion. And every fresh meeting increased the zest for another. They fell into the same train of observation upon characters, things, and books; and enjoyed, with the same gaiety of remark, all humorous incidents, and all traits of characteristic eccentricity. Mrs. Greville began a correspondence with Mrs. Burney the most open and pleasantly communicative. But no letters of Mrs. Burney remain; and two only of Mrs. Greville have been preserved. These two, however, demonstrate all that has been said of the terms and the trust of their sociality.[19]
DOCTOR JOHNSON.
How singularly Mr. Burney merited encouragement himself, cannot more aptly be exemplified than by portraying the genuine ardour with which he sought to stimulate the exertions of genius in others, and to promote their golden as well as literary laurels.
Mr. Burney was one of the first and most fervent admirers of those luminous periodical essays upon morals, literature, and human nature, that adorned the eighteenth century, and immortalized their author, under the vague and inadequate titles of the Rambler and the Idler. He took them both in; he read them to all his friends; and was the first to bring them to a bookish little coterie that assembled weekly at Mrs. Stephen Allen’s. And the charm expanded over these meetings, by the original lecture of these refined and energetic lessons of life, conduct, and opinions, when breathed through the sympathetic lips of one who felt every word with nearly the same force with which every word had been dictated, excited in that small auditory a species of enthusiasm for the author, that exalted him at once in their ideas, to that place which the general voice of his country has since assigned him, of the first writer of the age.
Mr. Bewley more than joined in this literary idolatry; and the works, the character, and the name of Dr. Johnson, were held by him in a reverence nearly enthusiastic.
At Haughton, at Felbrig, at Rainham, at Sir A. Wodehouse’s, at Major Mackenzie’s, and wherever his judgment had weight, Mr. Burney introduced and recommended these papers. And when, in 1755, the plan of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary reached Norfolk, Mr. Burney, by the zeal with which he spread the fame of that lasting monument of the Doctor’s matchless abilities, was enabled to collect orders for a Norfolk packet of half a dozen copies of that noble work.
This empowered him to give some vent to his admiration; and the following letter made the opening to a connection that he always considered as one of the greatest honours of his life.[20]