Charles Burney

“ In the French capital, Charles Burney found many friends, and under the influence of Paris air, Paris clothes, Paris festivities and the Comédie Italienne, began speedily—like Garrick in the same place a few months afterwards—to recover his spirits, and interest himself once more in his old pursuits. Either now or later, he set to work upon a version of Rousseau’s musical intermède, the Devin du Village, under the title of The Cunning Man. [7] Towards the end of June, he left Hetty and Susan in the care of a certain Mme. St. Mart. They remained at Paris for about two years, returning in 1767. ”

“ Lamb has not quite represented the poet's meaning, which is a profession of independence in regard to popular applause.
* * * * *
Page 91. Sonnet to Miss Burney....
First printed in the Morning Chronicle, July 13, 1820. The Burney family began to be famous with Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814) , the musician, the author of the History of Music, and the friend of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Among his children were the Rev. Charles Burney (1757-1817) , the classical scholar and owner of the Burney Library, now in the British Museum ”

“ Joseph Burney, however, soon squandered his estate, and afterwards gained his living as a dancing-master. James Burney was twice married, his second wife being a Miss Ann Cooper, an heiress and celebrated beauty. A year after this marriage James Burney adopted the profession of a portrait-painter, and some short time later left Shrewsbury and settled at Chester. Charles Burney and his twin sister Susanna were the youngest children by the second wife. ”

“ After the fashion of his day, he had doubted whether any musician could possibly be a gentleman, but Charles Burney undeceived him. The result was that Greville paid three hundred pounds to cancel Burney’s engagement to Arne, and attached his new friend to his own establishment in the capacity of musical companion. This curious conjunction, which seems to have included a fair experience of Greville’s other diversions, did no harm to Charles Burney. ”

“ I shall write to our dear father, and Etty, and James, and send to Norbury Park - but I shall wait till to-morrow, not to infect them with what I am infected.. . .
O my Susan! that I could come to you! But all must depend on Mr. Keirnan's decision. If you can come to us with perfect safety, however slowly, I shall not dare add to your embarrassment of persons and package. Else Charles's carriage—O, what a temptation to air it for you all the way! Take no more large paper, that you may write with less fatigue, and, if possible, oftener;—to any one will suffice for all. ”

“ Thrale’s letter mentioned at page 86 of this volume, and of Burke’s letter mentioned at page 124. Archdeacon Burney is the possessor of Edward Burney’s portrait of his cousin (page 88) ; of the Reynolds portraits of Dr. Burney and Garrick from the Thrale Gallery (page 94) ; of a very fine portrait of Dr. Charles Burney by Lawrence; and of a group by Hudson of Hetty Burney, her husband, Charles Rousseau Burney, and her husband’s father, Richard Burney of Worcester. ”

“ Greville magnanimously released him from his engagement, and left him to marry the woman of his choice.
She was a Miss Esther Sleepe, very attractive and very amiable. Her mother, although of Huguenot origin, was a Roman Catholic. Esther herself was a Protestant. She married Charles Burney about 1748, and they went to live in the City. In 1749, her husband was appointed organist of St. Dionis Backchurch, which had been rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire. Burney’s modest salary was £30 per annum. But he composed music, and soon found many pupils. ”

“ But those immense men, whose single praise was fame and security—who established, by a word, the two elder sisters-are now silent, Johnson and Sir Joshua are no more, and Mr. Burke is ill, or otherwise engrossed; yet, even without their powerful influence, to which I owe such unspeakable obligation, the essential success of "Camilla" exceeds that of the elders. The sale is truly astonishing. Charles has just sent to me that five hundred only remain of four thousand, and it has appeared scarcely three months. ”

“ But then off as well as on the Stage, he is always an Actor; for he thinks it so incumbent on him to be sportive, that his gaiety becomes mechanical from being habitual, and he can exert his spirits at all times alike, without consulting his real disposition to hilarity.” [29]
Previous to Dr. Johnson’s visit to St. Martin’s Street, Miss Burney had been staying at Chessington, whence, to the disgust of Mr. Crisp, she had been hastily recalled to meet her uncle, Mr. Richard Burney of Worcester, whose son Charles her sister Hetty had married. ”

“ And when he found me stout, he said to Dr. Johnson,—“Sir, is not this very hard? Nobody thinks me very young, yet Miss Burney won't give me the privilege of age in letting me see her home? She says I a'n't old enough." [165]
I had never said any such thing.
“Ay, sir,” said the doctor, “did I not tell you she was a writer of romances?”
MRS. WALSINGHAM.
December 15.—To-day, by an invitation of ten days standing, I waited upon Mrs. Walsingham. She is a woman high in fame for her talents, [166] and a wit by birth, as the daughter of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. ”

“ Thrale bid him good night, longing, she said, to call Miss Thrale first, and say, ‘So you won’t speak to my daughter?—why, she is no author.’ ”
Some of the persons sketched in Miss Burney’s journal are less known to fame than those who have been mentioned, but they are not less cleverly drawn. There is Mr. Seward, one of the Streatham habitués, and the later author of Biographiana. Mr. Seward is a brewer’s son, who dabbles in letters, and seems like an earlier real-life version of Sir Charles Coldstream in Used Up. ”

“ He waits in the river for his passport, and will, when he obtains it, hasten, I need not say, to Westhamble.
HOME MATTERS. (Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Westhamble, September i, 1801. A carpet we have-though not yet spread, as the chimney is unfinished, and room incomplete. Charles brought us the tapis-so that, in fact, we have yet bought nothing for our best room—and meant,—for our own share—to buy a table . . . and if my dearest father will be so good—and so naughty at once, as to crown our salle d'audience with a gift we shall prize beyond all others, we can think only of a table. ”

“ Martin Burney was the grimy-fisted whist-player to whom Lamb once observed, "Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!" ”

“ R. of Wickham Bishops, Essex 1848 to death; gave sum of £6,000 to establish a Clergy relief fund for his diocese; F.R.S. 22 Dec. 1814; F.L.S. 21 Jany. 1823. d. Brighton 1 Nov. 1864.
BURNEY, James. Entered navy 6 Jany. 1807; captain 10 Dec. 1835, retired 1 July 1851; retired admiral 18 Oct. 1867. d. 1 Montpellier terrace, Teddington, Middlesex 30 Oct. 1884 aged 91.
BURNEY, Martin Charles (only son of James Burney, rear admiral R.N.) b. 1788; solicitor in London; assisted in drawing up population and poor law returns; barrister I.T. 20 June 1828 ”

“ Burke, William, i. 115-9. Burney, Charles, Mus. Doc., his early life, marriage, position, and friends, i. xiii-xvii; his second marriage, xviii; authorises the publication of "Evelina," xxiv; peruses it, xxv, 65-8; appointed organist at Chelsea, xxxvii; takes Fanny to Streatham, 75; visits Reynolds, 115; meets Murpby, 129; visits Mrs. Paradise, 224; dines with Reynolds, 228; Visits Chesington, 233; chides Mrs. Thrale, 237; distressed at Crisp's death, 271; at Johnson's deathbed and funeral, 285-8; is commended by the queen, 295; misses a Court appointment, 323-6 ”

“ We returned home just in time to be hastily dressed before192 the royals came back. I was a little, however, distressed on being told, as I descended to dinner, that Mr. Richard Burney288 was in my parlour. The strict discipline observed here, in receiving no visits, made this a very awkward circumstance, for I as much feared hurting him by such a hint, as concurring in an impropriety by detaining him. Miss Planta suffers not a soul to approach her to this house ”

“ Saturday, July 26.—The royal party were to be Out the whole day, and I had her majesty’s permission to go to the play at night with Miss Port and her friends, and to introduce MISS Planta to them for the same purpose. The breakfast was at seven o’clock; we were all up at half after five. How sorry was I to see Colonel Gwynn enter alone, and to hear that Mr. Fairly was again ill.
Soon after the king came into the room and said, “So, no Mr. Fairly again?”
“No, sir; he’s very bad this morning.”
“What’s the matter? His face?”
“No, sir; he has got the gout. ”

“ I am really, therefore, sorry for you, my dear Alex.
Your determination to give way to no sudden impulse in future is quite right. Nothing is so pleasant as giving way to impulse; nothing so hazardous.
But this history must double your value for Messrs. Jones Musgrave, Jacobs, Ebden, Theobald, and Whewell. "Cling to those who cling to you!" said the immortal Johnson to your mother, when she uttered something that seemed fastidious relative to a person whose partiality she did not prize.
Your padre was prevailed upon to go to the play. ”

“ The king, at the instance of Sir George Baker, had consented to sleep in the next apartment, as the queen was ill. For himself, he would listen to nothing. Accordingly, a bed was put up for him, by his own order, in the queen’s second dressing-room, immediately adjoining to the bed-room. He would not be further removed. Miss Goldsworthy was to sit up with her, by the king’s direction.
I would fain have remained in the little dressing-room, on the other side the bed-room, but she would not permit it. She ordered Sandys, her wardrobe-woman, in the place of Mrs. Thielky, to sit up there. ”

“ She carries on the business, with the help of her daughter, a girl about fifteen.
I inquired of her if she had seen the royal family when they visited Devonshire? “Yes, sure, ma’am!” she cried; “there was ne’er a soul left in all this place for going out to see ‘em. My daughter and I rode a double horse, and we went to Sir George Young’s, and got into the park, for we knew the housekeeper, and she gave my daughter a bit to taste of the king’s dinner when they had all done, and she said she might talk on it when she was a old woman.” ”

“ Nov. 6.—This morning happened my first disgrace of being too late for the queen—this noon, rather; for in a morning 'tis a disaster that has never arrived to this moment.
The affair thus came to pass. I walked for some time early in Kew gardens, and then called upon Mrs. Smelt. I there heard that the king and queen were gone, privately, to Windsor, to the Lodge—probably for some papers they could not intrust with a messenger. Mr. Smelt, therefore, proposed taking this opportunity of shewing me Richmond gardens, offering to be my security that I should have full time. ”

“ Jan. 10.—When we were summoned to the tea-room I met Miss de Luc coming out. I asked if she did not stay tea? “O How can I,” cried she, in a voice of distress, “when already, as there is company here without me, Mrs. Schwellenberg has asked me what I came for?” I was quite shocked for her, and could only shrug in dismay and let her pass. When there is no one else she is courted to stay!
Mr. and Mrs. Fisher came soon after; and the Princesses Augusta and Amelia fetched away Mrs. Delany.
Soon after Colonel Wellbred came, ushering in Mr. Fairly and his young son, who is at Eton school. ”

“ At Magdalene college, Frances was left for a moment in a parlour, where she sank down on a chair. A good-natured equerry saw that she was exhausted, and shared with her some apricots and bread which he had wisely put into his pockets. At that moment the door opened; the queen entered; the wearied attendants sprang up; the bread and fruit were hastily concealed. “I found,” says poor Miss Burney, “that our appetites were to be supposed annihilated at the same moment that our strength was to be invincible.” ”

“ He darted from her with the same rapidity, though wide from the same ferocity, as that with which he had at first approached her: vain was every soft appeal, lost was every gentle blandishment; in an instant he was out of sight, out of hearing,—she scarcely saw him go ere he was gone. Faithful creature! she cried, 'tis surely his master who calls! A new tie may excite his benevolence; none can shake his fidelity, nor slacken his services.
Alone and unaided, she had now to pierce a passage through the thicket, uncertain whither it might lead, and filled with apprehensions. ”

“ Chelsea, Tuesday, three o'clock. Not a moment could I get to write till now; and I am afraid of forgetting some part of my history, but I ought not, for the events of this visit are very memorable.
When the king and queen, arm in arm, were approaching the place where the Herschel family and I had planted ourselves, one of the Misses Parry heard the queen say to his majesty, "There's Dr. Burney," when they instantly came to me, so smiling and gracious that I longed to throw myself at Page 186
their feet. "How do you, Dr. Burney?" said the king, "Why, you are grown fat and young." ”

“ Was it to be expected that George III. and Queen Charlotte should understand the interest of Frances Burney better, or promote it with more zeal, than herself and her father? No deception was practised. The conditions of the house of bondage were set forth with all simplicity. The hook was presented without a bait; the net was spread in sight of the bird, and the naked hook was greedily swallowed, and the silly bird made haste to entangle herself in the net.
It is not strange indeed that an invitation to Court should have caused a fluttering in the bosom of an inexperienced woman. ”