1791.
The life of Dr. Burney was now almost equally distributed in literary, professional, and amical divisions.
In literature, his time, ostensibly, was become his own; but never was time less so than when put into his own hands; for his eagerness was without either curb or limit to devote it to some new pursuit. And scarcely had that elastic bound of renovated youth, of which he speaks to Mr. Repton, been capered, than a fresh, yet voluntary occupation, drove his newly-restored leisure away, and opened a course of bookish and critical toil, that soon seized again upon every spare moment. This was constituting himself a member amongst the Monthly Reviewers, under the editorship of the worthy Mr. Griffith.
Of the articles which were Dr. Burney’s, no list has been found; and probably none was kept. The ardour of sincerity in pointing out faults and failures, is so apt to lead to a similar ardour of severity in their censure, that, in those days, when the critics were not, wisely, anonymous, the secret and passive war of books and words among authors, menaced the more public and tumultuous one of swords and pistols.[21]
The articles which, occasionally, to a small circle, he avowed, were written with a spirit that made them frequently bright with entertainment, and sometimes luminous with instruction.
In his professional department, he has almost with exultation recorded, in the following passage of his journal, the happy commencement of the year 1791.
“1791.—This year was auspiciously begun, in the musical world, by the arrival in London of the illustrious Joseph Haydn. ’Tis to Salomon that the lovers of music are indebted for what the lovers of music will call this blessing. Salomon went over himself to Vienna, upon hearing of the death of the Prince of Esterhazy, the great patron of Haydn, purposely to tempt that celebrated musical genius hither; and on February 25, the first of Haydn’s incomparable symphonies, which was composed for the concerts of Salomon, was performed. Haydn himself presided at the piano-forte: and the sight of that renowned composer so electrified the audience, as to excite an attention and a pleasure superior to any that had ever, to my knowledge, been caused by instrumental music in England. All the slow middle movements were encored; which never before happened, I believe, in any country.”
In his amical career, he still possessed Mr. Twining, to whom he clung with every species of high esteem and fond regard. And he yet retained his early and excellent old friend, Mr. Hayes; who preserved his memory and his faculties unimpaired, though his body was sunk into a state of debility the most deplorable.
The friendship of Sir Joshua Reynolds the Doctor constantly cultivated with the ardour, as well as pleasure, that always rapidly cements connexions that owe their origin to the attraction of sympathy.
With Sir Joseph Bankes he was now upon terms of lively intimacy; and had the satisfaction of seeing both his sons, from their nautical or classical eminence, share with him in the sprightly, as well as learned and lettered pleasures of the president’s good fellowship.