“Chelsea College, April, 1813.
“Why, my dear F. B. d’Arblay! what a happy effect has the kindness of your dear, accomplished, and elegant friend, Mrs. Locke, produced! She has poured balm into all your mental wounds, and healed every sore, which, having had no leonine tincture of March in it, now only breathes zephyrs, and the comforts of Favonius; after your anxiety for the success of Alexander’s election[94], your own feeble state of health, and your uneasiness at the alarming silence of your kind and worthy husband.
“I thought the weather was about to mend its manners! but to-day it has been more wet and blustering than for some time past. For the rain, however, as April is begun, it is to be hoped it will bring forth May flowers: and as to the fury of the wind, it seems to have purified the air of its noxious vapours, which have been supposed to have produced the symptoms of influenza.”
&c. &c.
1814.
Nothing new, either of event or incident, occurred thenceforward that can be offered to the public reader; though not a day passed that teemed not with circumstance, or discourse, of tender import, or bosom interest, to the family of the Doctor, and to his still surviving and admitted friends.
That Dr. Burney would have approved the destruction, or suppression of the voluminous records begun under his sickly paralytic depression, and kept in hand for occasional additions to the last years of his life, his Biographer has the happy conviction upon her mind, from the following paragraph, left loose amongst his manuscript hoards.
It is without date; but was evidently written after some late perusal of the materials which he had amassed for his Memoirs; and which, from their opposing extremes of amplitude and deficiency, had probably, upon this accidental examination, struck his returning judgment with a consciousness, that he had rather disburthened his memory for his own ease and pastime, than prepared or selected matter from his stores for public interest.
The following is the paragraph:
“These records of the numerous invitations with which I have been honoured, entered, at the time, into my pocket-books, which served as ledgers, must be very dry and uninteresting, without relating the conversations, bon mots, or characteristic stories, told by individuals, who struck fire out of each other, producing mirth and good-humour: but when these entries were made, I had not leisure for details—and now—memory cannot recall them!”
What next—and last—follows, is copied from the final page of Dr. Burney’s manuscript journal: and closes all there is to offer of his written composition.
Sir Joshua Reynolds desired that the last name he should pronounce in public should be that of Michael Angelo: and Dr. Burney seems to purpose that the last name he should transmit—if so allowed—through his annals, to posterity, should be that of Haydn.