neither pleasure, however, nor literary pursuits, led young burney to neglect the cultivation of his musical talents. the mask of alfred was by no means his sole juvenile composition: he set to music the principal airs in the english burletta called robin hood, which was most flatteringly received at the theatre; and he composed the whole of the music of the pantomime of queen mab.
he observed at this time the strictest incognito concerning all these productions, though no motive for it is found amongst his papers; nor does there remain any recollective explanation.
with regard to queen mab, it excited peculiar remark, from the extraordinary success of that diverting pantomime; for when the uncertainties of the representation were over, there was every stimulus to avowal that could urge a young author to come forward; not with adventurous boldness, nor yet with trembling timidity, but with the frank delight of unequivocal success.
queen mab had a run which, to that time, had never been equalled, save by the opening of
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the beggar’s opera; and which has not since been surpassed, save by the representation of the duenna.
its music, pleasing and natural, was soon so popular, that it was taught to all young ladies, set to all barrel organs, and played at all familiar music parties. it aimed not at italian refinement, nor at german science; but its sprightly melody, and utter freedom from vulgarity, made its way even with john bull, who, while following the hairbreadth agility of harlequin, the skittish coquetries of columbine, and the merry dole of the disasters of the clown and pantaloon, found himself insensibly caught, and unconsciously beguiled into ameliorated musical taste.
in the present day, when english singers sometimes rise to the italian opera, and when italian singers are sometimes invited to the english, the music of queen mab could be received but in common with the feats of its pantomime; so rapidly has taste advanced, and so generally have foreign improvements become nearly indigenous.
to give its due to merit, and its rights to invention, we must always go back to their origin, and
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judge them, not by any comparison with what has followed them, but by what they met when they first started, and by what they were preceded.
why, when success was thus ascertained, the name of the composer was concealed, leaving him thus singularly as unknown as he was popular, may the more be regretted, as his disposition, though chiefly domestic, was not of that effeminately sensitive cast that shrinks from the world’s notice with a dread of publicity. his mind, on the contrary, belonged to his sex; and was eminently formed to expand with that manly ambition, which opens the portals of hope to the attainment of independence, through intellectual honours.
the music, when printed, made its appearance in the world as the offspring of a society of the sons of apollo: and oswald, a famous bookseller, published it by that title, and knew nothing of its real parentage.[5]
sundry airs, ballads, cantatas, and other light musical productions, were put forth also, as from
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that imaginary society; but all sprang from the same source, and all were equally unacknowledged.
the sole conjecture to be formed upon a self-denial, to which no virtue seems attached; and from which reason withdraws its sanction, as tending to counteract the just balance between merit and recompense, is, that possibly the articles then in force with dr. arne, might disfranchise young burney from the liberty of publication in his own name.
