This memoir sur la vie de Haydn, sent by M. le Breton, drew from the Doctor, nearly at the close of his own annals, the following paragraph upon that great musician, who, for equal excellence in science and invention, he held to be at the head of all his compeers:
“Haydn, 1810.
“It has been well observed, by Haydn’s excellent biographer, at Paris, M. le Breton, that the public everywhere, by whom his works were so enthusiastically admired, took more care of his fame than of his fortune. He, however, himself, always modest, upright, and prudent, supposed it possible that he might survive his talents; and wished, by rigid economy and self-denial, to accumulate a sufficiently independent income for old age and infirmities, when he might no longer be able to entertain the public with new productions. This humble and most rational wish he was unable, in his own country, from the smallness of remuneration, to accomplish.
“I began an intimate intercourse with him immediately on his arrival in England; and was as much pleased with his mild, unassuming, yet cheerful conversation and countenance, as with his stupendous musical merit. And I procured him more subscribers to that sublime effort of genius—the Creation, than all his other friends, whether at home or abroad, put together.”
Of the year 1811, no species of event, nor detail of circumstance, has reached this Memorialist, except the following letter, which is copied from Doctor Burney’s own handwriting near the conclusion of his Journal:
“To Mr. Kollman, who had left a parcel for me.
“March 24, 1811.
“Dear Sir,
“I was sorry when you did me the favour to call, that I had not left my bedroom, where I had been confined, and unable to see my friends ever [Pg 394] since the beginning of the present year; and I was then in daily fear of the baleful ides of March: but on opening the valuable parcel which you had been so good as to leave with my servant, I have found the contents to be such as to furnish my eyes and my mind with agreeable employment ever since. I have often admired your musical science and ingenuity; but I think your fugues and double counterpoint in four parts, for two performers on one piano-forte, considerably surpass in clearness, contrivance, and pleasing melody, any of your former elaborate and learned productions that I have seen. And if it is so considered, and we count how many folio pages there are of letter-press in your introductory explanations, the works which you left for me would be a cheap purchase at £1. 1s., which I have the pleasure to send, with thanks for my entertainment.
“Your different harmonics to the original melody of the 100th psalm is a work of great study and knowledge.
“I am very seldom, now, in health and spirits to read or comment on works of complication in music, or of speculation in literature, as age, infirmities, and sickness, have made the use of a pen a very heavy task, and rendered me only fit to peruse old authors, that were in high estimation when I was young; but, being now forgotten, are become new to me again; or at least interesting by their antiquity to one who has wholly quitted the modern world.
“The above was written last night to Mr. Kollman. The following is a memorandum of what I have long thought concerning Parochial Psalmody. After justly estimating the varied harmonies which the ingenious organist of his Majesty’s German chapel has found for the original melody of the 100th psalm, I add the following record of an idea of my own long since conceived.
“If the simple tune which is sung in our parish churches throughout [Pg 395] the kingdom, in notes of the same length, without the least discrimination of lōng and shŏrt syllables, (bad in prose, but worse in metre,) was sung in the same measure of 3/2 as the 100th psalm, which is in favour everywhere, the objection would be removed against calvinistical psalmody, which is drawled out, and bawled out, as long and as loud as possible. Indeed, all our old psalm tunes, in simple counterpoint of note against note, received and established at the time of the Reformation, might be correctly accented, without losing the idea of the old melodies when sung in 2, 3, 4, or more parts.”
NAPOLEON.
On the opening of April, 1812, ten years of hard-borne absence were completed between Dr. Burney and his second daughter; after a parting which, in idea, and by agreement, had foreseen but a twelvemonth’s separation. Grievously dejecting in that long epoch, had been, at times, the breach of intercourse: not alone they never met; that, in a season of war, however afflicting, was but the ordinary result of hostile policy; not alone the foreign post-office was closed, and all regular and authentic communication was annihilated; that, again, was but the common lot of belligerent nations while under arms, and was sustained, therefore, with that fortitude which all, save fools and madmen, must, sooner or later, perforce acquire, the fortitude of necessity.
But these prohibitions, however severe upon every national or kindred feeling that binds the affections and the interests of man to man, were inefficient to baffle the portentous vengeance of Napoleon, who suddenly, in one of his explosions of rage against Great Britain, issued a decree that not a letter, a note, an address, or any written document whatsoever, should pass from France to England, or arrive from England to France, under pain of death.
It was then that this dire position became nearly insupportable; for, by this fierce stroke of fiery despotism, all mitigation of private anodyne to public calamity was hopelessly destroyed; all the softening palliatives of billets, or memorandums, trusted to incidental opportunities, which hitherto had glided through these formidable obstacles, and found their way to the continental captive with a solace utterly indescribable, were now denied: the obscure anxiety of total ignorance of the proceedings, nay, even of the life or death, of those ties by which life and death hold their first charm, was without alloy; and hope had not a resting place!
The paroxysm of hatred or revenge which urged Napoleon to this harsh rigidity, passed, indeed, after a while, it may be presumed, away, like most other of his unbridled manifestations of unbounded authority; since its effect, after a certain time, seemed over; and things appeared to go on as they had done before that tremendous decree. But that decree was never annulled! what, then, was the security that its penalty might not be exacted from the first object, who, in disobeying it, should incur his suspicion or ill-will? or of whom, for whatever cause, he might wish to get rid?