“Barry replied, ‘My lasting colours show
What gifts the painter’s pencil can bestow;
With nymphs of Thames, those amiable creatures,
I placed the charming minstrel’s smiling features:
But let not, then, his bonne fortune concern ye,
For there are nymphs enough for you—and Burney.’”
DR. JOHNSON.
But all that Dr. Burney possessed, either of spirited resistance or acquiescent submission to misfortune, was again to be severely tried in the summer that followed the spring of this unkindly year; for the health of his venerated Dr. Johnson received a blow from which it never wholly recovered; though frequent rays of hope intervened from danger to danger; and though more than a year and a half were still allowed to his honoured existence upon earth.
Mr. Seward first brought to Dr. Burney the alarming tidings, that this great and good man had been afflicted by a paralytic stroke. The Doctor hastened to Bolt Court, taking with him this Memorialist, who had frequently and urgently been desired by Dr. Johnson himself, during the time that they lived so much together at Streatham, to see him often if he should be ill. But he was surrounded by medical people, and could only admit the Doctor. He sent down, nevertheless, the kindest message of thanks to the truly-sorrowing daughter, for calling upon him; and a request that, “when he should be better, she would come to him again and again.”