But gone, ere arrived that renewal, was the power of its enjoyment! A meeting, indeed, took place, and with unalterable friendship on both sides. Immediately after the Western tour, Dr. Burney carried the Memorialist to Leicester-square; first mounting to the drawing-room himself, to inquire whether Sir Joshua were well enough for her admission. Assent was immediate; and she felt a sprightly renovation of strength in again ascending his stairs.
Miss Palmer came forward to receive her with warm greeting cordiality; but she rapidly hastened onward to shake hands with Sir Joshua. He was now all but quite blind. He had a green bandage over one eye, and the other was shaded by a green half bonnet. He was playing at cards with Mr. William Burke, and some others. He attempted to rise, to welcome a long-lost favourite; but found himself too weak. He was even affectingly kind to her, but serious almost to melancholy. “I am very glad indeed,” he emphatically said, though in a meek voice, and with a dejected accent, “to see you again! and I wish I could see you better! But I have only one eye now,—and hardly that!”
She was extremely touched; and knew not how to express either her concern for his altered situation since they had last met, or her joy at being with him again; or her gratitude for the earnest exertions he had made to spur Dr. Burney to the step that had been taken.
The Doctor, perceiving the emotion she both felt and caused, hurried her away. And once more only she ever saw the English Raphael again. And then he was still more deeply depressed; though Miss Palmer good-humouredly drew a smile from him, by gaily exclaiming, “Do pray, now, uncle, ask Miss Burney to write another book directly! for we have almost finished Cecilia again—and this is our sixth reading of it!”
The little occupation, Miss Palmer said, of which Sir Joshua was then capable, was carefully dusting the paintings in his picture gallery, and placing them in different points of view.
This passed at the conclusion of 1791; on the February of the following year, this friend, equally amiable and eminent, was no more!
Dr. Burney, extremely unwell at that period himself, could not attend the funeral; which, under the direction of Mr. Burke, the chief executor, was conducted with the splendour due to the genius, and suitable to the fortune of the departed. Dr. Charles Burney was invited in the place of his father, and attended at the obsequies for both.
In the retirement of this mournful interval of personal sickness and mental dejection, Dr. Burney composed the following elegy to the memory of Sir Joshua.
“Farewell, farewell, illustrious friend!
Sent here thy art, and men, to mend;