That gentleman now was greatly altered, from the large and larger strides which he had made, and was making, into the dangerous purlieus of horse-racing and of play; into whose precincts, from the delusive difference of their surface from their foundation, no incursions can be hazarded without as perilous a shake to character and disposition, as to fortune and conduct. And Mr. Greville, who, always honourable, was almost necessarily a frequent loser, was evidently on the high road to turn from a man of pleasure to a man of spleen; venting his wrath at his failures upon the turf and at the clubs, by growing fastidious and cavilling in general society. Mr. Crisp, therefore, bent to maintain the dear bought quiet of his worldly sacrifices as unmingled with the turbulent agitations of querulous debate, as with the restless solicitudes of active life, shunned the now pertinacious disputant almost with dread.
Yet Mr. Greville, about this period, was rescued, for a while, from this hovering deterioration, through the exertions of his friends in the government, by whom he was named minister plenipotentiary to the court of Bavaria; in the hope that such an appointment, with its probable consequences, might re-establish his affairs.
No change, however, of situation, caused any change in Mr. Greville to his early protegé and attached and attaching friend, Mr. Burney, to whom he still shewed himself equally eager to communicate his opinions, and reveal his proceedings. A letter from Munich, written when his Excellency was first installed in his new dignity, will display the pleasant openness of their correspondence; at the same time that it depicts the humours and expenses of the official ceremonials then in use, with a frankness that makes them both curious and entertaining.[30]
A letter to the Earl of Eglinton from the celebrated David Hume, written also about this time, gave Mr. Burney very peculiar satisfaction, from the sincere disposition to esteem and to serve him, which it manifested in that dangerously renowned philosopher; whose judgment of men was as skilfully inviting, as his sophistry in theology was fearfully repelling.
Yet upon the circumstances of this letter hung a cutting disappointment, which, in the midst of his rising prospects, severely pierced the hopes of Mr. Burney; and, from the sharpness of its injury, and its future aggravating repetitions, would permanently have festered them, had their composition been of less elastic quality.
To be Master of the King’s Band, as the highest professional honour to be obtained, had been the earliest aim of Mr. Burney; and, through the medium of warm friends, joined to his now well approved and obvious merit, the promise of the then Lord Chamberlain had been procured for the first vacancy. This arrived in 1765; but when the consequent claim was made, how great, how confounding to Mr. Burney was the intelligence, that the place was disposed of already.
He hastened with a relation of this grievance, as unexpected as it was undeserved, to the celebrated historian, to whom his rights had been well known at Paris. And Mr. Hume, whose sense of justice—one fatal warp excepted—was as luminous as it was profound, shocked by such a breach of its simplest and most unchangeable statutes, instantly undertook, with the courage imbibed by his great abilities and high moral character, to make a representation on the subject to Lord Hertford.
Failing, however, of meeting with an immediate opportunity, and well aware of the importance of expedition in such applications, he addressed himself to the Countess; and from her he learnt, and with expressions of benevolent concern, that it was the Duke of York[31] who had demanded the nomination to the place.
It now occurred to Mr. Hume that the present applicant might possibly be himself the object for whom his Royal Highness had interfered, as Mr. Burney had frequently been seen, and treated with marked kindness, by the Royal Duke at private concerts; which were then often, at the sudden request of that prince, formed by the Earl of Eglinton; and at which Mr. Burney, when in London, was always a principal and favoured assistant. With this in his recollection, and naturally concluding Lord Eglinton, who always shewed an animated partiality for Mr. Burney, to be chief in the application to the Lord Chamberlain, Mr. Hume wrote the following letter.