On the 20th of the month of April, 1814, the solemn final marks of religious respect were paid to the remains of Doctor Burney; which were then committed to the spot on which his eye had last been fixed, in the burying-ground of Chelsea College, immediately next to the ashes of his second wife.
The funeral, according to his own direction, was plain and simple.
His sons, Captain James Burney, and Doctor Charles Burney, walked as chief mourners; and every male part of his family, that illness or distance did not impede from attendance, reverentially accompanied the procession to the grave: while foremost among the pall-bearers walked that distinguished lover of merit, the Hon. Frederic North, since Earl of Guildford; and Mr. Salomon, the first professional votary of the Doctor’s art then within call.
A tablet was soon afterwards erected to his memory, in Westminster Abbey, by a part of his family; the inscription for which was drawn up by his present inadequate, but faithful Biographer.
When a narratory account is concluded, to delineate the character of him whom it has brought to view, with its failings as well as its excellencies, is the proper, and therefore the common task for the finishing pencil of the Biographer. Impartiality demands this contrast; and the mind will not accompany a narrative of real life of which Truth, frank and unequivocal, is not the dictator.
And here, to give that contrast, Truth is not wanting, but, strange to say, vice and frailty! The Editor, however, trusts that she shall find pardon from all lovers of veracity, if she seek not to bestow piquancy upon her portrait through artificial light and shade.
The events and circumstances, with their commentary, that are there presented to the reader, are conscientiously derived from sources of indisputable authenticity; aided by a well-stored memory of the minutest points of the character, conduct, disposition, and opinions of Dr. Burney. And in the picture, which is here endeavoured to be portrayed, the virtues are so simple, that they cannot excite disgust from their exaggeration; though no conflicting qualities give relief to their panegyric.
But with regard to the monumental lines, unmixed praise, there, is universally practised, and calls for no apology. Its object is withdrawn, alike from friends and from foes, from partiality and from envy; and mankind at large, through all nations and all times, seems instinctively agreed, that the funereal record of departed virtue is most stimulating to posterity, when unencumbered by the levelling weight of human defects.—Not from any belief so impossible as that he who had been mortal could have been perfect; but from the consciousness that no accusation can darken the marble of death, ere He whom it consigns to the tomb, is not already condemned—or acquitted.