Of his ancient and long-attached friend, Mr. Greville, little and merely melancholy is what now can be added. His death was rather a shock than a loss; but it considerably disturbed the Doctor. Mr. Greville had gone on in his metaphysical career, fatiguing his spirits, harassing his understanding, and consuming the time of his friends nearly as much as his own, till, one by one, each of them eluded him as a foe. How could it be otherwise, when the least dissonance upon any point upon which he opened a controversial disquisition, so disordered his nervous system, that he could take no rest till he had re-stated all his arguments in an elaborate, and commonly sarcastic epistle? which necessarily provoked a paper war, so prolific of dispute, that, if the adversary had not regularly broken up the correspondence after the first week or two, it must have terminated by consuming the stores of every stationer in London.
His wrath upon such desertions was too scornful for any appeal. Yet so powerful was still the remembrance of his brilliant opening into life, and of his many fine qualities, that his loss to society was never mentioned without regret, either by those who abandoned him, or by those whom he discarded.
Dr. Burney was one of the last, from the peculiarity of their intercourse, to have given it up, had it not been, he declared, necessary to have had two lives for sustaining it without hostility; one of them for himself, his family, and his life’s purposes; the other wholly for Mr. Greville;—who never could be content with any competition against his personal claims to the monopoly of the time and the thoughts of his friends.
Yet whatever may have disturbed, nothing seems to have shortened his existence, since, though nearly alienated from his family, estranged from his connexions, and morbidly at war with the world, the closing scene of all his gaieties and all his failures, did not shut in till some time after his 90th year.
Lady Mary Duncan bequeathed to Dr. Burney the whole of her great and curious collection of Music, printed and manuscript, with £600.
PACCHIEROTTI.
Upon the death of this liberal and honourable old friend, the Doctor re-opened a correspondence with his faithful and most deservedly cherished favourite, Pacchierotti, which the difficulties of communication from the irruption of Buonaparte into Italy, had latterly impeded, though not broken.
The answer of Pacchierotti to the account of his loss of this his earliest and greatest benefactress in England, was replete with the lamentation and sorrow to which his susceptible heart was a prey, upon every species of affliction that assailed either himself or those to whom he was attached; and for Lady Mary, his gratitude and regard were the most devoted; for though he saw, with keen perception, her singularities, he had too much sense to let them outweigh in his estimation her benevolence, and her many good qualities.