Yet, save in speaking of that propensity, Strife and John Hayes ought never to come within the same sentence; for in character, disposition, and conduct, he was a compound of benevolence and liberality.
There was a frankness of so unusual a cast, and a warmth of affection, that seemed so glowing from the heart, in Mr. Hayes for Lord Orford; joined to so strong a resemblance in face and feature, that a belief, if not something beyond, prevailed, that Mr. Hayes was a natural son of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Earl of Orford, and, consequently, a natural uncle of his Lordship’s grandson.
RAINHAM.
To name the several mansions that called for, or welcomed, Mr. Burney, would almost be to make a Norfolk Register. At Rainham Castle he was full as well received by its master, General Lord Townshend, as a guest, as by its lady, the Baroness de Frerrars in her own right, for an instructor; the lady being natively cold and quiet, though well bred and sensible; while the General was warm-hearted, witty, and agreeable; and conceived a liking for Mr. Burney, that was sustained, with only added regard, through all his lordship’s various elevations.
FELBRIG.
But there was no villa to which he resorted with more certainty of finding congenial pleasure, than to Felbrig, where he began an acquaintance of highest esteem and respect with Mr. Windham, father of the Right Honourable Privy Counsellor and orator; with whom, also, long afterwards, he became still more closely connected; and who proved himself just the son that so erudite and elegant a parent would have joyed to have reared, had he lived to behold the distinguished rank in the political and in the learned world to which that son rose; and the admiration which he excited, and the pleasure which he expanded in select society.
WILLIAM BEWLEY.
A name next comes forward that must not briefly be glided by $ that of William Bewley; a man for whom Mr. Burney felt the most enlightened friendship that the sympathetic magnetism of similar tastes, humours, and feelings, could inspire.
Mr. Bewley was truly a philosopher, according to the simplest, though highest, acceptation of that word; for his love of wisdom was of that unsophisticated species, that regards learning, science, and knowledge, with whatever delight they may be pursued abstractedly, to be wholly subservient, collectively, to the duties and practice of benevolence.
To this nobleness of soul, which made the basis of his character, he superadded a fund of wit equally rare, equally extraordinary: it was a wit that sparkled from the vivid tints of an imagination as pure as it was bright; untarnished by malice, uninfluenced by spleen, uninstigated by satire. It was playful, original, eccentric: but the depth with which it could have cut, and slashed, and pierced around him, would never have been even surmised, from the urbanity with which he forbore making that missile use of its power, had he not frequently darted out its keenest edge in ridicule against himself.
And not alone in this personal severity did he resemble the self-unsparing Scarron; his outside, though not deformed, was peculiarly unfortunate; and his eyes, though announcing, upon examination, something of his mind, were ill-shaped, and ill set in his head, and singularly small; and no other feature parried this local disproportion; for his mouth, and his under-jaw, which commonly hung open, were displeasing to behold.
The first sight, however, which of so many is the best, was of Mr. Bewley, not only the worst, but the only bad; for no sooner, in the most squeamish, was the revolted eye turned away, than the attracted ear, even of the most fastidious, brought it back, to listen to genuine instruction conveyed through unexpected pleasantry.
This original and high character, was that of an obscure surgeon of Massingham, a small town in the neighbourhood of Haughton Hall. He had been brought up with no advantages, but what laborious toil had worked out of native abilities; and he only subsisted by the ordinary process of rigidly following up the multifarious calls to which, in its provincial practice, his widely diversified profession is amenable.
Yet not wholly in “the desert air,” were his talents doomed to be wasted: they were no sooner spoken of at Haughton Hall, than the gates of that superb mansion were spontaneously flung open, and its Chief proved at once, and permanently remained, his noble patron and kind friend.
LYNN REGIS.
The visits of Mr. Burney to Massingham, and his attachment to its philosopher, contributed, more than any other connection, to stimulate that love and pursuit of knowledge, that urge its votaries to snatch from waste or dissipation those fragments of time, which, by the general herd of mankind, are made over to Lethe, for reading; learning languages; composing music; studying sciences; fathoming the theoretical and mathematical depths of his own art; and seeking at large every species of intelligence to which either chance or design afforded him any clew.
As he could wait upon his country pupils only on horseback, he purchased a mare that so exactly suited his convenience and his wishes, in surefootedness, gentleness and sagacity, that she soon seemed to him a part of his family: and the welfare and comfort of Peggy became, ere long, a matter of kind interest to all his house.
On this mare he studied Italian; for, obliged to go leisurely over the cross roads with which Norfolk then abounded, and which were tiresome from dragging sands, or dangerous from deep ruts in clay, half his valuable time would have been lost in nothingness, but for his trust in Peggy; who was as careful in safely picking her way, as she was adroit in remembering from week to week whither she was meant to go.
Her master, at various odd moments, and from various opportunities, had compressed, from the best Italian Dictionaries, every word of the Italian language into a small octavo volume; and from this in one pocket, and a volume of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto, or Metastasio, in another, he made himself completely at home in that language of elegance and poetry.
His common-place book, at this period, rather merits the appellation of uncommon, from the assiduous research it manifests, to illustrate every sort of information, by extracts, abstracts, strictures, or descriptions, upon the almost universality of subject-matter which it contains.
It is without system or method; he had no leisure to put it into order; yet it is possible, he might owe to his familiar recurrence to that desultory assemblage of unconcocted materials, the general and striking readiness with which he met at once almost every topic of discourse.
This manuscript of scraps, drawn from reading and observation, was, like his Italian Dictionary, always in his great coat pocket, when he travelled; so that if unusually rugged roads, or busied haste, impeded more regular study, he was sure, in opening promiscuously his pocket collection of and ends, to come upon some remark worth weighing; some point of science on which to ruminate; some point of knowledge to fix in his memory; or something amusing, grotesque, or little known, that might recreate his fancy.
THE GREVILLES.
Meanwhile, he had made too real an impression on the affections of his first friends, to let absence of sight produce absence of mind. With Mr and Mrs. Greville he was always in correspondence; though, of course, neither frequently nor punctually, now that his engagements were so numerous, his obligations to fulfil them so serious, and that his own fireside was so bewitchingly in harmony with his feelings, as to make every moment he passed away from it a sacrifice.
He expounds his new situation and new devoirs, in reply to a letter that had long been unanswered, of Mr. Greville’s, from the Continent, with a sincerity so ingenuous that, though it is in rhyme, it is here inserted biographically.
“TO FULK GREVILLE, ESQ., AT PARIS.
“Hence, ‘loathed business,’ which so long
Has plunged me in the toiling throng.
Forgive, dear Sir! and gentle Madam!
A drudging younger son of Adam,
Who’s forc’d from morn to night to labor
Or at the pipe, or at the tabor:
Nor has he hope ‘twill e’er be o’er
Till landed on some kinder shore;
Some more propitious star, whose rays
Ah, think for rest how he must pant
Whose life’s the summer of an ant!
With grief o’erwhelm’d, the wretched Abel
Is dumb as architect of Babel.
— Three months of sullen silence — seem
With black ingratitude to teem;
As if my heart were made of stone
Which kindness could not work upon;
Or benefits e’er sit enshrin’d
Within the precincts of my mind.
But think not so, dear Sir! my crime
Proceeds alone from want of time.
No more a giddy youth, and idle,
Without a curb, without a bridle,
Who frisk’d about like colt unbroke,
And life regarded as a joke. —
No! — different duties now are mine;
Nor do I at my cares repine:
With naught to think of but myself
I little heeded worldly pelf;
But now, alert I act and move
For others whom I better love.
Should you refuse me absolution,
Condemning my new institution,
’Twould chill at once my heart and zeal
For this my little commonweal. —
O give my peace not such a stab!
Nor slay — as Cain did — name-sake Nab.
This prologue first premis’d, in hopes
Such figures, metaphors, and tropes
For pardon will not plead in vain,
We’ll now proceed in lighter strain.
* * * * *
The epistle then goes on to strictures frank and honest, though softened off by courteous praise and becoming diffidence, on a manuscript poem of Mr. Greville’s, that had been confidentially transmitted to Lynn, for the private opinion and critical judgment of Mr. Burney.
Mr. Greville, now, was assuming a new character — that of an author; and he printed a work which he had long had in agitation, entitled “Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, Moral, Serious, and Entertaining;” a title that seemed to announce that England, in its turn, was now to produce, in a man of family and fashion, a La Bruyere, or a La Rochefaucault. And Mr. Greville, in fact, waited for a similar fame with dignity rather than anxiety, because with expectation unclogged by doubt.
With Mrs. Greville, also, Mr. Burney kept up an equal, or more than equal, intercourse, for their minds were invariably in unison.
The following copy remains of a burlesque rhyming billet-doux, written by Mr. Burney in his old dramatic character of Will Fribble, and addressed to Mrs. Greville in that of Miss Biddy Bellair, upon her going abroad.
WILLIAM FRIBBLE, ESQ.
“TO HER WHO WAS ONCE MISS BIDDY BELLAIR.
“Greeting.
“No boisterous hackney coachman clown,
No frisky lair nymph of the town
E’er wore so insolent a brow
As Captain Flash, since Hymen’s vow
To him in silken bonds has tied
So sweet, so fair, so kind a bride.
Well! curse me, now, if I can bear it! —
Though to his face I’d not declare it —
To think that you should take a dance
With such a roister into France;
And leave poor Will in torturing anguish
To sigh and pine, to grieve and languish.
’Twas — let me tell you, Ma’am — quite cruel!
Though Jack and I shall fight a duel
If ever he to England come
And does not skulk behind a drum.
But — apropos to coming over,
I hope you soon will land at Dover
That I may fly, more swift than hawk,
With you to have some serus talk.
The while, how great will be my bliss
Should you but deign to let me kiss —
O may these ardent vows prevail! ——
Your little finger’s vermeil nail!
Who am,
Till direful death to dust shall crumble,
My dearest cretur! yours,
most humble,
“WILL FRIBBLE.”
Mrs. Greville, too, had commenced being an author; but without either the throes of pain or the joys of hope. It was, in fact, a burst of genius emanating from a burst of sorrow, which found an alleviating vent in a supplication to Indifference.
This celebrated ode was no sooner seen than it was hailed with a blaze of admiration, that passed first from friend to friend; next from newspapers to magazines; and next to every collection of fugitive pieces of poetry in the English language.
The constant friendship that subsisted between this lady and Mr. Burney had been cemented after his marriage, by the grateful pleasure with which he saw his chosen partner almost instantly included in it by a triple bond. The quick-sighted, and quickfeeling author of that sensitive ode, needed nor time nor circumstance for animating her perception of such merit as deserved a place in her heart; which had not, at that early period, become a suppliant for the stoical composure with which her wounded sensibility sought afterwards to close its passage.
She had first seen the fair Esther in the dawning bloom of youthful wedded love, while new-born happiness enlivened her courage, embellished her beauty, and enabled her to do honour to the choice of her happy husband; who stood so high in the favour of Mrs. Greville, that the sole aim of that lady, in the opening of the acquaintance, had been his gratification; aided, perhaps, by a natural curiosity, which attaches itself to the sight of any object who has inspired an extraordinary passion.
Far easier to conceive than to delineate was the rapture of the young bridegroom when, upon a meeting that, unavoidably, must have been somewhat tremendous, he saw the exertions of his lovely bride to substitute serenity for bashfulness; and read, in the piercing eyes of Mrs. Greville, the fullest approbation of such native self-possession.
From that time all inferiority of worldly situation was counteracted by intellectual equality.
But the intercourse had for several years been interrupted from the Grevilles living abroad. It was renewed, however, upon their return to England; and the Burneys, with their eldest daughter, visited Wilbury House upon every vacation that allowed time to Mr. Burney for the excursion. And every fresh meeting increased the zest for another. They fell into the same train of observation upon characters, things, and books; and enjoyed, with the same gaiety of remark, all humorous incidents, and all traits of characteristic eccentricity. Mrs. Greville began a correspondence with Mrs. Burney the most open and pleasantly communicative. But no letters of Mrs. Burney remain; and two only of Mrs. Greville have been preserved. These two, however, demonstrate all that has been said of the terms and the trust of their sociality.
DOCTOR JOHNSON.
How singularly Mr. Burney merited encouragement himself, cannot more aptly be exemplified than by portraying the genuine ardour with which he sought to stimulate the exertions of genius in others, and to promote their golden as well as literary laurels.
Mr. Burney was one of the first and most fervent admirers of those luminous periodical essays upon morals, literature, and human nature, that adorned the eighteenth century, and immortalized their author, under the vague and inadequate titles of the Rambler and the Idler. He took them both in; he read them to all his friends; and was the first to bring them to a bookish little coterie that assembled weekly at Mrs. Stephen Allen’s. And the charm expanded over these meetings, by the original lecture of these refined and energetic lessons of life, conduct, and opinions, when breathed through the sympathetic lips of one who felt every word with nearly the same force with which every word had been dictated, excited in that small auditory a species of enthusiasm for the author, that exalted him at once in their ideas, to that place which the general voice of his country has since assigned him, of the first writer of the age. —
Mr. Bewley more than joined in this literary idolatry; and the work
s, the character, and the name of Dr. Johnson, were held by him in a reverence nearly enthusiastic.
At Haughton, at Felbrig, at Rainham, at Sir A. Wodehouse’s, at. Major Mackenzie’s, and wherever his judgment had weight, Mr. Burney introduced and recommended these papers. And when, in 1755, the plan of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary reached Norfolk, Mr. Burney, by the zeal with which he spread the fame of that lasting monument of the Doctor’s matchless abilities, was enabled to collect orders for a Norfolk packet of half a dozen copies of that noble work.
This empowered him to give some vent to his admiration; and the following letter made the opening to a connection that he always considered as one of the greatest honours of his life.
MR. BURNEY TO MR. JOHNSON.
“Sir,
“Though I hare never had the happiness of a personal knowledge of you, I cannot think myself wholly a stranger to a man with whose sentiments I hare so long been acquainted; for it seems to me as if the writer, who was sincere, had effected the plan of that philosopher who wished men had windows at their breasts, through which the affections of their hearts might be viewed.
“It is with great self-denial that I refrain from giving way to panegyric in speaking of the pleasure and instruction I have received from your admirable writings; but knowing that transcendent merit shrinks more at praise, than either vice or dulness at censure, I shall compress my encomiums into a short compass, and only tell you that I revere your principles and integrity, in not prostituting your genius, learning, and knowledge of the human heart, in ornamenting vice or folly with those beautiful flowers of language due only to wisdom and virtue. I must add, that your periodical productions seem to me models of true genius, useful learning, and elegant diction, employed in the service of the purest precepts of religion, and the most inviting morality.
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