MR. CRISP.
While this revival of intercourse with the Garricks, and partial return to public life and affairs, necessarily banished the outward and obvious marks of the change of existence, and lost happiness of Mr. Burney, they operated also, gently, but effectively, in gradually diminishing his sufferings, by forcing him from their contemplation: for in that dilapidated state of sorrow’s absorption, where the mind is wholly abandoned to its secret sensations, all that innately recurs to it can spring only from its own concentrated sources; and these, though they may vary the evil by palliatives, offer nothing curative. New scenes and objects alone can open to new ideas; and, happily, a circumstance now occurred that brought on a revival of intercourse with the only man who, at that time, could recall the mourner’s faculties to genial feelings, and expand them to confidential sociality.
His earliest favourite, guide, philosopher, and friend, Mr. Crisp, he now, after a separation of very many years, accidentally met at the house of Mr. Vincent, a mutual acquaintance.
Their satisfaction at the sight of each other was truly reciprocal; though that of Mr. Burney was tinctured with dejection, that he could no longer present to his dearest friend the partner whom, by such a judge, he had felt would have been instantly and reverentially appreciated.
Mr. Crisp joined in this regret; but was not the less desirous to see and to know all that remained of her; and he hastened the following day to Poland-street; where, from his very first entrance amidst the juvenile group, he became instinctively honoured as a counsellor for his wisdom and judgment, and loved and liked as a companion for his gaiety, his good-humour, and his delight in their rising affections; which led him unremittingly, though never obtrusively, to mingle instruction with their most sportive intercourse.
As Mr. Crisp was the earliest and dearest friend of the subject of these memoirs, the reader will not, it is probable, be sorry to be apprised of the circumstances which, since their separation, had turned him from a brilliant man of the world to a decided recluse.
The life of Mr. Crisp had been exposed to much vicissitude. Part of it had been spent in Italy, particularly at Rome, where he took up his residence for some years; and where, from his passion for music, painting, and sculpture, he amassed, for the rest of his existence, recollections of never-dying pleasure. And not alone for his solitary contemplations, but for the delight that the vivacity of his delineations imparted to his friends, when he could be induced to unfold his reminiscences; whether upon the sacred and soul-pervading harmony of the music of the Pope’s chapel; or upon the tones, mellifluously melting or elevating, of Sinesino, Custini, or Farinelli: or by bringing to view through glowing images, the seraphic forms and expressions of Raphael and Correggio; and the sculptural sublimity of Michael Angelo. Or when, animated to the climax of his homage for the fine arts, he flitted by all else to concentrate the whole force of his energies, in describing that electrifying wonder, the Apollo Belvedere.
On this he dwelt with a vivacity of language that made his hearers wish to fasten upon every word that he uttered; so vividly he portrayed the commanding port, the chaste symmetry, and the magic form—for which not a tint was requisite, and colouring would have been superfluous—of that unrivalled production, of which the peerless grace, looking softer, though of marble, than the feathered snow; and brightly radiant, though, like the sun, simply white, strike upon the mind rather than the eye, as an ideal representative of ethereal beauty.[28]
And while such were his favourite topics for his gifted participators, there was a charm for all around in his more general conversation, that illumined with instruction, or gladdened with entertainment, even the most current and desultory subjects of the passing hour.
Thus rarely at once endowed and cultivated, there can be little surprise that Mr. Crisp should be distinguished, speedily and forcibly, by what is denominated the Great World; where his striking talents, embellished by his noble countenance and elegant manners, made him so much the mode with the great, and the chosen with the difficult, that time, not friends, was all he wanted for social enjoyment.