(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Passy, April 11, 1804. We live in the most quiet, and, I think, enviable retired merit. Our house is larger than we require, but not a quarter furnished. Our view is extremely pretty from it, and always cheerful; we rarely go out, yet always are pleased to return. We have our books, our prate, and our boy—how, with all this, can we, or ought we to suffer ourselves to complain of our narrowed and narrowing income? If we are still able to continue at Passy, endeared to me now beyond any other residence away from you all, by a friendship I have formed here with one of the sweetest women I have ever known, Madame de Maisonneuve, and to M. d'Arblay by similar sentiments for all her family, our philosophy will not be put to severer trials than it can sustain. And this engages us to bear a thousand small privations which we might, perhaps, escape, by shutting ourselves up in some spot more remote from the capital. But as my deprivation of the society of my friends is what I most lament, so something that approaches nearest to what I have lost affords me the best reparation.
(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Passy, May 29, 1808. Before I expected it, my promised opportunity for again writing to my most dear father is arrived. I entirely forget whether, before the breaking out of the war stopt our correspondence, M. d'Arblay had already obtained his retraite: and, consequently, whether that is an event I have mentioned or not. Be that as it may, he now has it—it is 1500 livres, or 62 pounds, 10 shillings. per annum. But all our resources from England ceasing with the peace, we had so little left from what we had brought over, and M. d'Arblay has found so nearly nothing remaining of his natural and hereditary claims in his own province, that he determined upon applying for some employment that might enable him to live with independence, how ever parsimoniously. This he has, with infinite difficulty, etc., at length obtained, and he is now a rdacteur in the civil department of les Btimens, etc.(209) This is no sinecure. He
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attends at his bureau from half-past nine to half-past four o'clock every day; and as we live so far off as Passy he is obliged to set off for his office between eight and nine, and does not return to his hermitage till past five. However, what necessity has urged us to desire, and made him solicit, we must not, now acquired, name or think of with murmuring or regret. He has the happiness to be placed amongst extremely worthy people; and those who are his chefs in office treat him with every possible mark of consideration and feeling. We continue steady to our little cell at Passy, which is retired, quiet, and quite to ourselves, with a magnificent view of Paris from one side, and a beautiful one of the country on the other. It is unfurnished-indeed, unpapered, and every way unfinished; for our workmen, in the indispensable repairs which preceded our entering it, ran us up bills that compelled us to turn them adrift, and leave every thing at a stand, when three rooms only were made just habitable.
THE PRINCE OF WALES EULOGIZED.
(Dr. Burney to Madame d'Arblay.) July 12, 1805. . . . Your brother, Dr. Charles, and I have had the honour last Tuesday of dining with the Prince of Wales at Lord Melbourne's at the particular desire of H.R.H. He is so good-humoured and gracious to those against whom he has no party prejudice, that it is impossible not to be flattered by this politeness and condescension. I was astonished to find him, amidst such constant dissipation, possessed of so much learning, wit, knowledge of books in general, discrimination of Character, as well as original humour. He quoted Homer to my son as readily as if the beauties of Dryden or Pope were under consideration. And as to music, he is an excellent critic; has an enlarged taste— admiring whatever is excellent in its kind, of whatever age or country the composers or performers may be; without, however, being insensible to the superior genius and learning necessary to some kinds of music more than others.
The conversation was general and lively, in which several of the company, consisting of eighteen or twenty, took a share, till towards the heel of the evening, or rather the toe of the morning; for we did not rise from table till one Page 244
o'clock, when Lady Melbourne being returned from the opera with her daughters, coffee was ordered; during which H.R.H. took me outside and talked exclusively about music near half an hour, and as long with your brother concerning Greek literature. He is a most excellent mimic of well-known characters: had we been in the dark any one would have sworn that Dr. Parr and Kemble were in the room. Besides being possessed of a great fund of original humour, and good humour, he may with truth be said to have as much wit as Charles II., with much more learning—for his merry majesty could spell no better than the bourgeois gentilhomme.
DR. BURNEY AT BATH.
(Dr. Burney to Madame dArblay.) June 12, 1808. . . . Last autumn I had an alarming seizure In my left hand and, mine being pronounced a Bath case, on Christmas Eve I set out for that city, extremely weak and dispirited-put myself under the care of Dr. Parry, and after remaining there three months, I found my hand much more alive, and my general health considerably amended.