During their sojourn in England, according to the Tatler, of May 13, 1710, one of the kings fell ill. The landlord, Mr. Thomas Arne, was unremitting in his attentions to the sufferer, who, having never slept in a bed before, felt great admiration for the skilful upholsterer who had constructed “that engine of repose, so useful and so necessary in his distress.” When, therefore, the patient was recovered, he and his brother kings consulted among themselves how they should evince their appreciation of the kindness shown them, and it was decided that to honour their host befittingly, they must confer upon him the name of the strongest fort in their country. The upholsterer accordingly was summoned, and, on entering the room, he was received by the four kings standing, all of them addressing him as “Cadaroque!”
After a month’s sojourn in King Street, the Indians returned to their own land, and Thomas Arne was able once more to devote himself exclusively to his business and his family.
Four years afterwards a baby girl was born and received the name of Susan, and, later there were some more children who, however, have no particular interest for us.
Thomas Arne was determined to give his son every advantage, so when the boy, Thomas Augustine, was old enough he sent him to Eton. But Master Tommy had no mind for learning, and gave his professors considerable trouble. When he should have been studying his lessons, he was found playing the flute, and the upshot of it all was, that when the time came for him to leave college, neither he nor anyone else was very sorry.
He was now articled to a solicitor, for his father’s ambition was to see him a lawyer, but he managed to smuggle a spinet into his bedroom, and, having muffled the strings with a handkerchief, he practised when the family was asleep. He also contrived to get violin lessons from a man called Festing, and in the evenings he used to borrow a livery and, thus disguised, visit the opera, where the servants of the aristocracy were allowed free access to the gallery.
His progress in violin-playing was so rapid that he was soon able to lead a small orchestra, and we can imagine what the surprise of the upholsterer must have been when one evening, having been invited to a musical party, he found that his own son had been engaged to provide the entertainment.
Thomas had an uncomfortable walk home that night with his angry parent, but the good man was too sensible not to recognise that it was better that his son should be a fair musician than a bad lawyer. Finally, harmony was restored to the family circle, and the young performer was allowed to follow the bent of his genius.
Before long he found that his sister Susan had a beautiful voice, which he trained so carefully, that in 1732, when she was eighteen, she was able to appear in an opera by Lampe, called Amelia.
Encouraged by her success, he now set to work to compose music for Addison’s play, Rosamund, in which she sang when it was produced at Lincoln’s Inn Theatre in 1733. A year later, Susan Arne married Theophilus Cibber, the son of the poet laureate, Colley Cibber. She was not happy in her married life, but it would have been impossible for any girl to be happy with such a husband. The music historian, Dr. Burney, has said of Susan that she captivated every ear by the sweetness and expression of her voice in singing; but her principal charm seems to have consisted in her exquisite simplicity. With Händel she was a great favourite. He wrote for her the contralto songs in the Messiah, and the part of Micah in Samson, and she was the first Galatea in his Acis and Galatea. She died in 1766, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.
In 1736 young Arne—now twenty-six years of age—married Cecilia Young, a daughter of the organist of All Hallows, Barking. She was a pupil of Geminiani, and was called “the nightingale of the stage,” her voice being considered matchless “for melody, fulness and flexibility.”