dr. arne, professionally, has been fully portrayed by the pupil who, nominally, was under his guidance; but who, in after-times, became the historian of his tuneful art.
eminent, however, in that art as was dr. arne, his eminence was to that art alone confined. thoughtless, dissipated, and careless, he neglected, or rather scoffed at all other but musical reputation. and he was so little scrupulous in his ideas of propriety, that he took pride, rather than shame, in being publicly classed, even in the decline of life, as a man of pleasure.
such a character was ill qualified to form or to protect the morals of a youthful pupil; and it is probable that not a notion of such a duty ever occurred to dr. arne; so happy was his self-complacency in the fertility of his invention and the
[pg 13]
ease of his compositions, and so dazzled by the brilliancy of his success in his powers of melody—which, in truth, for the english stage, were in sweetness and variety unrivalled—that, satisfied and flattered by the practical exertions and the popularity of his fancy, he had no ambition, or, rather, no thought concerning the theory of his art.
the depths of science, indeed, were the last that the gay master had any inclination to sound; and, in a very short time, through something that mingled jealousy with inability, the disciple was wholly left to work his own way as he could through the difficulties of his professional progress.
had neglect, nevertheless, been the sole deficiency that young burney had had to lament, it would effectually have been counteracted by his own industry: but all who are most wanting to others, are most rapacious of services for themselves; and the time in which the advancement of the scholar ought to have been blended with the advantage of the teacher, was almost exclusively seized upon for the imposition of laborious tasks of copying music: and thus, a drudgery fitted for those who have no talents to cultivate; or those who, in possessing them, are driven from their enjoyment by
[pg 14]
distress, filled up nearly the whole time of the student, and constituted almost wholly the directions of the tutor.
