But, in the midst of these preliminary measures, he was called upon, by an agent of the Duke, to draw up an estimate of the expense.
This he did, and delivered, with the cheerfulest confidence that his selection fully deserved its appointed retribution, and was elegantly appropriate to the dignity of its purpose.
Such, however, was not the opinion of the advisers of the Duke; and Mr. Burney had the astonished chagrin of a note to inform him, that the estimate was so extravagant that it must be reduced to at least one half.
Cruelly disappointed, and, indeed, offended, the charge of every performer being merely what was customary for professors of eminence, Mr. Burney was wholly overset. His own musical fame might be endangered, if his composition should be sung and played by such a band as would accept of terms so disadvantageous; and his sense of his reputation, whether professional or moral, always took place of his interest. He could not, therefore, hesitate to resist so humiliating a proposition; and he wrote, almost on the instant, a cold, though respectful resignation of the office of composer of the Installation Ode.
Not without extreme vexation did he take this decided measure; and he was the more annoyed, as it had been his intention to make use of so favourable an opportunity for taking his degree of Doctor of Music, at the University of Cambridge, for which purpose he had composed an exercise. And, when his disturbance at so unlooked for an extinction of his original project was abated, he still resolved to fulfil that part of his design.
He could not, however, while under the infliction of so recent a rebuff, visit, in this secondary manner, the spot he had thought destined for his greatest professional elevation. He repaired, therefore, to Oxford, where his academic exercise was performed with singular applause, and where he took his degree as Doctor in Music, in the year 1769.
And he then formed many connexions amongst the professors and the learned belonging to that University, that led him to re-visit it with pleasure, from new views and pursuits, in after times.
So warmly was this academic exercise approved, that it was called for at three successive annual choral meetings at Oxford; at the second of which the principal soprano part was sung by the celebrated and most lovely Miss Linley, afterwards the St. Cecilia of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the wife of the famous Mr. Sheridan; and sung with a sweetness and pathos of voice and expression that, joined to the beauty of her nearly celestial face, almost maddened with admiring enthusiasm, not only the susceptible young students, then in the first glow of the dominion of the passions, but even the gravest and most profound among the learned professors of the University, in whom the “hey-day of the blood” might be presumed, long since, to have been cooled.
From this period, in which the composer and the songstress, in reflecting new credit, raised new plaudits for each other, there arose between them a reciprocation of goodwill and favour, that lasted unbroken, till the retirement of that fairest of syrens from the world.
The Oxonian new lay-dignitary, recruited in health and spirits, from the flattering personal consideration with which his academical degree had been taken, gaily returned to town with his new title of Doctor.
The following little paragraph is copied from a memorandum book of that year.
“I did not, for some time after the honour that had been conferred on me at Oxford, display my title by altering the plate on my street door; for which omission I was attacked by Mr. Steel, author of an essay on the melody of speech. ‘Burney, says he, ‘why don t you tip us the Doctor upon your door?’ I replied, in provincial dialect, ‘I wants dacity! —— — ‘I’m ashaeemed!’
‘Pho, pho,’ says he, ‘you had better brazen it.’”
HALLEY’S COMET.
No production had as yet transpired publicly from the pen of Dr. Burney, his new connexion having induced him to consign every interval of leisure to domestic and social circles, whether in London, or at the dowry-house of Mrs. Burney, in Lynn Regis, to which the joint families resorted in the summer.
Rut when, from peculiar circumstances, Mrs. Burney, and a part of the younger set, remained for a season in Norfolk, the spirit of literary composition resumed its sway; though not in the dignified form in which, afterwards, it fixed its standard.
The long-predicted comet of the immortal Halley, was to make its luminously-calculated appearance this year, 1769; and the Doctor was ardently concurrent with the watchers and awaiters of this prediction.
In the course of this new pursuit, and the researches to which it led, Dr. Burney, no doubt, dwelt even unusually upon the image and the recollection of his Esther; who, with an avidity for knowledge consonant to his own, had found time — made it, rather — in the midst of her conjugal, her maternal, and her domestic devoirs, to translate from the French, the celebrated Letter of Astronomical renown of Maupertuis; not with any prospect of fame; her husband himself was not yet entered upon its annals, nor emerged, save anonymously, from his timid obscurity: it was simply from a love of improvement, and a delight in its acquirement. To view with him the stars, and exchange with him her rising associations of ideas, bounded all the ambition of her exertions.
The recurrence to this manuscript translation, at a moment when astronomy was the nearly universal subject of discourse, was not likely to turn the Doctor aside from this aerial direction of his thoughts; and the little relic, of which even the hand-writing could not but be affecting as well as dear to him, was now read and re-read, till he considered it as too valuable to be lost; and determined, after revising and copying it, to send it to the press.
Whether any tender notion of first, though unsuspectedly, appearing before the public by the side of his Esther, stimulated the production of the Essay that ensued from the revision of this letter; or whether the stimulus of the subject itself led to the publication of the letter, is uncertain; but that they hung upon each other is not without interest, as they unlocked, in concert, the gates through which Doctor Burney first passed to that literary career which, ere long, greeted his more courageous entrance into a publicity that conducted him to celebrity; for it was now that his first prose composition, an Abridged History of Comets, was written; and was printed in a pamphlet that included his Esther’s translation of the Letter of Maupertuis.
This opening enterprize cannot but seem extraordinary, the profession, education, and indispensable business of the Doctor considered; and may bear upon its face a character contradictory to what has been said of his prudent resolve, to avoid any attempt that might warp, or wean him from his own settled occupation; till it is made known that this essay was neither then, nor ever after avowed; nor ever printed with his works.
It was the offspring of the moment, springing from the subject of the day; and owing its birth, there scarcely can be a doubt, to a fond, though unacknowledged indulgence of tender recollections.
The title of the little treatise is, “An Essay towards a History of Comets, previous to the reappearance of the Comet whose return had been predicted by Edmund Halley.”
In a memorandum upon this subject, by Dr. Burney, are these words:
“The Countess of Pembroke, being reported to have studied astronomy, and to have accustomed herself to telescopical observations, I dedicated, anonymously, this essay to her ladyship, who was much celebrated for her lore of the arts and sciences, and many other accomplishments. I had not the honour of being known to her; and I am not certain whether she ever heard by whom the pamphlet was written.”
This Essay once composed and printed, the Doctor consigned it to its fate, and thought of it no more.
And the public, after the re-invisibility of the meteor, and the declension of the topic, followed the same course.
But not equally passive either with the humility of the author, or with the indifferency of the readers, were the consequences of this little work; which, having been written wholly in moments stolen from repose, though requiring researches and studies that frequently kept him to his pen till four o’clock in the morning, without
exempting him from rising at his common hour of seven; terminated in an acute rheumatic fever, that confined him to his bed, or his chamber, during twenty days.
This sharp infliction, however, though it ill re-compensed his ethereal flights, by no means checked his literary ambition; and the ardour which was cooled for gazing at the stars, soon seemed doubly re-animated for the music of the spheres.
A wish, and a design, energetic, though vague, of composing some considerable work on his own art, had long roved in his thoughts, and flattered his fancy: and he now began seriously to concentrate his meditations, and arrange his schemes to that single point. And the result of these cogitations, when no longer left wild to desultory wanderings, produced his enlightened and scientific plan for a
GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC.
This project was no sooner fixed than, transiently, it appeared to him to be executed; so quick was the rush upon his imagination of illuminating and varying ideas; and so vast, so prolific, the material which his immense collection of notes, abridgments, and remarks, had amassed, that it seemed as if he had merely to methodize his manuscripts, and entrust them to a copyist, for completing his purpose.
But how wide from the rapidity of such incipient perceptions were the views by which, progressively, they were superseded! Mightier and mightier appeared the enterprize upon every new investigation; more difficult, more laborious, and more precarious in all its results: yet, also, as is usual where Genius is coupled with Application, more inviting, more inciting, and more alluring to the hope of literary glory. ’Tis only where the springs of Genius are clogged by “the heavy and retarding weight” of Indolence; or where they are relaxed by the nervous and trembling irresolutions of timidity, that difficulties and dangers produce desertion.
Far, however, from the desired goal, as was the measured distance of reality compared with the visionary approaches of imagination, he had nothing to lament from time thrown away by previous labours lost: his long, multifarious, and curious, though hitherto unpointed studies, all, ultimately, turned to account; for he found that his chosen subject involved, circuitously, almost every other.
Thus finally fixed to an enterprize which, in this country, at least, was then new, he gave to it all the undivided energies of his mind; and, urged by the spur of ambition, and glowing with the vivacity of hope, he determined to complete his materials before he consigned them to their ultimate appropriations, by making a scientific musical tour through France and Italy.
A letter, of which a copy in his own hand-writing remains, containing the opening view of his plan and of his tour, addressed to the Reverend William Mason, will shew how fully he was prepared for what he engaged to perform, before he called for a subscription to aid the publication of so expensive a work.
Through various of his friends amongst persons in power, he procured recommendatory letters to the several ambassadors and ministers from our Court, who were stationed in the countries through which he meant to travel.
And, through the yet more useful services of persons of influence in letters and in the arts, he obtained introductions, the most felicitous for his enterprize, to those who, then, stood highest in learning, in the sciences, and in literature.
None in this latter class so eminently advanced his undertaking as Mr. Garrick; whose solicitations in his favour were written with a warmth of friendship, and an animation of genius, that carried all before them.
Here stops, for this period, the pen of the memorialist.
From the month of June, 1770, to that of January, 1771, the life of Doctor Burney is narrated by himself, in his “Tour to France and Italy.”
And few who have read, or who may read that Tour, but will regret that the same pen, while in its full fair vigour, had not drawn up what preceded, and what will follow this epoch.
Such, however, not being the case, the memorialist must resume her pen where that of Dr. Burney, in his narrative, drops, — namely, upon his regaining the British shore.
QUEEN’S SQUARE.
With all the soaring feelings of the first sun-beams of hope that irradiate from a bright, though distant glimpse of renown; untamed by difficulties, superior to fatigue, and springing over the hydra-headed monsters of impediment that every where jutted forth their thwarting obstacles to his enterprize, Dr. Burney came back to his country, his friends, his business, and his pursuits, with the vigour of the first youth in spirits, expectations, and activity.
He was received by his longing family, enlivened by the presence of Mr. Crisp, in a new house, purchased in his absence by Mrs. Burney, at the upper end of Queen-square; which was then beautifully open to a picturesque view of Hampstead and Highgate. And no small recommendation to an enthusiastic admirer of the British classics, was a circumstance belonging to this property, of its having been the dwelling of Alderman Barber, a friend of Dean Swift; who might himself, therefore, be presumed to have occasionally made its roof resound with the convivial hilarity, which his strong wit, and stronger humour, excited in every hearer; and which he himself, however soberly holding back, enjoyed, probably, in secret, with still more zest than he inspired.
CHESINGTON.
This new possession, however, Dr. Burney could as yet scarcely even view, from his eagerness to bring out the journal of his tour. No sooner, therefore, had he made arrangements for a prolongation of leisure, that he hastened to Chesington and to Mr. Crisp; where he exchanged his toils and labours for the highest delights of friendship; and a seclusion the most absolute, from the noisy vicissitudes, and unceasing, though often unmeaning persecution, of trivial interruptions.
THE MUSICAL TOURS.
Here he prepared his French and Italian musical tours for the press; omitting all that was miscellaneous of observation or of anecdote, in deference to the opinions of the Earl of Holdernesse, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Garrick; who conjointly believed that books of general travels were already so numerous, and so spread, that their merits were overlooked from their multiplicity.
If such, at that distant period, was the numerical condemnation of this species of writing, which circumscribed the first published tour of Dr. Burney to its own professional subject, what would be now the doom of the endless herd of tourists of all ranks, qualifications, or deficiencies, who, in these later times, have sent forth their divers effusions, without sparing an idea, a recollection, or scarcely a dream, to work their way in the world, through that general master of the ceremonies, the press? whose portals, though guarded by two vis à vis sentinels in eternal hostility with each other, Fame and Disgrace, open equally to publicity.
Mr. Crisp, nevertheless, saw in a totally different light the miscellaneous part of the French and Italian tours, and reprehended its rejection with the high and spirited energy that always marked his zeal, whether of censure or approbation, for whatever affected the welfare of his favourites. But Dr. Burney, having first consulted these celebrated critics, who lived in the immediate world, was too timid to resist their representations of the taste of the moment; though in all that belonged not to the modesty of apprehended partiality, he had the firmest persuasion that the judgment of Mr. Crisp was unrivalled.
The work was entitled:
THE PRESENT STATE OF MUSIC
IN FRANCE AND ITALY:
OR THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR THROUGH THOSE COUNTRIES,
UNDERTAKEN TO COLLECT MATERIALS FOR A
GENERAL HISTORY OF MUSIC,
BY CHARLES BURNEY, MUS. D.
II Canterono allor si dolcemonte Che la dolcerra ancor destra mi suona.
DANTE.
The motto was thus translated, though not printed, by Dr. Burney.
“They sung their strains in notes so sweet and clear
The sound still vibrates on my ravished ear.”
The reception of this first acknowledged call for public attention from Dr. Burney, was of the most encouraging description; for though no renown had yet been fastened upon his name, his acquirements and his character, wherever he had been known, had
excited a general good-will that prepared the way to kindly approbation for this, and indeed for every work that issued from his pen.
There was, in truth, something so spirited and uncommon, yet of so antique a cast, in the travels, or pilgrimage, that he had undertaken, in search of materials for the history of his art, that curiosity was awakened to the subject, and expectation was earnest for its execution: and it was no sooner published, than orders were received, by most of the great booksellers of the day, for its purchase; and no sooner read, than letters the most flattering, from the deepest theorists of the science, and the best judges of the practice of the art of music, reached the favoured author; who was of too modest a character to have been robbed of the pleasure of praise by presumptuous anticipation; and of too natural a one to lose any of its gratification by an apathetic suppression of its welcome. And the effect, impulsive and unsophisticated, of his success, was so ardent an encouragement to his purpose, that while, mentally, it animated his faculties to a yet more forcible pursuit of their decided object, it darted him, corporeally, into a travelling vehicle, which rapidly wheeled him back again to Dover; where, with new spirit and eagerness, he set sail upon a similar musical tour in the Low Countries and in Germany, to that which he had so lately accomplished in France and Italy.
With respect to the French and Italian tour, the restraint from all but its professional business, was much lamented by the friends to whom the sacrifice of the miscellaneous matter was communicated.
Upon the German tour not a comment will be offered; it is before the public with an approvance that has been stamped by the sanction of time. At the period of its publication, Dr. Burney, somewhat assured, though incapable of being rendered arrogant by favour, ventured to listen only to the voice of his first friend and monitor, who exhorted him to mingle personal anecdotes with his musical information.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 386
