the first entrance of young burney into wilbury house was engraven, ever after it took place, in
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golden characters of sacred friendship upon his mind, for there he first met with mr. crisp. and as his acquaintance with mr. greville had opened new roads and pursuits in life to his prospects, that of mr. crisp opened new sources and new energies to his faculties, for almost every species of improvement.
mr. crisp, by birth and education a gentleman, according to the ordinary acceptation of that word, was in mind, manners, and habits yet more truly so, according to the most refined definition of the appellation, as including honour, spirit, elegance, language, and grace.
his person and port were distinguished; his address was even courtly; his face had the embellishment of a strikingly fine outline; bright, hazel, penetrating, yet arch eyes; an open front; a noble roman nose; and a smile of a thousand varied expressions.
but all that was external, however attractive, however full of promise, however impossible to pass over, was of utterly inferior worth compared with the inward man; for there he was rare indeed. profound in wisdom; sportive in wit; sound in understanding. a scholar of the highest order; a critic of the clearest acumen; possessing, with equal
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delicacy of discrimination, a taste for literature and for the arts; and personally excelling, as a dilettante, both in music and painting.
it was difficult to discuss any classical or political work, that his conversation did not impregnate with more information and more wit than, commonly speaking, their acutest authors had brought forward. and such was his knowledge of mankind, that it was something beyond difficult, it was scarcely even possible, to investigate any subject requiring worldly sagacity, in which he did not dive into the abysses of the minds and the propensities of the principals, through whom the business was to be transacted, with a perspicuity so masterly, that while weighing all that was presented to him, it developed all that was held back; and fathomed at once the intentions and the resources of his opponents.
and with abilities thus grand and uncommon for great and important purposes, if to such he had been called, he was endowed with discursive powers for the social circle, the most varied in matter, the most solid in reasoning, and the most delighting in gaiety—or nearly so—that ever fell to favoured mortal’s lot.
the subject of these memoirs was but seventeen
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years of age, when first he had the incalculable advantage of being attracted to explore this mine of wisdom, experience, and accomplishments. his musical talents, and a sympathy of taste in the choice of composers, quickly caught the responsive ears of mr. crisp; which vibrated to every passage, every sound, that the young musician embellished by graces intuitively his own, either of expression or execution. and whenever mr. crisp could contrive to retreat, and induce his new orpheus to retreat, from the sports of the field, it was even with ardour that he escaped from the clang of horses and hounds, to devote whole mornings to the charms,
softly sweet, in lydian measures,
of harmony. and harmony indeed, in its most enlarged combinations, united here the player and the auditor; for they soon discovered that not in music alone, but in general sentiments, their hearts were tuned to the same key, and expanded to the same “concord of sweet sounds.”
the love of music, in mr. crisp, amounted to passion; yet that passion could not have differed more from modern enthusiasm in that art, if it had been hatred; since, far from demanding, according
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to the present mode, every two or three seasons, new compositions and new composers, his musical taste and consistency deviated not from his taste and consistency in literature: and where a composer had hit his fancy, and a composition had filled him with delight, he would call for his favourite pieces of bach of berlin, handel, scarlatti, or echard, with the same reiteration of eagerness that he would again and again read, hear, or recite chosen passages from the works of his favourite bards, shakespeare, milton, or pope.
mr. greville was sometimes diverted, and sometimes nettled, by this double defection; for in whatever went forward, he loved to be lord of the ascendant: but mr. crisp, whose temper was as unruffled as his understanding was firm, only smiled at his friend’s diversion; and from his pique looked away. mr. greville then sought to combat this musical mania by ridicule, and called upon his companions of the chase to halloo the recreant huntsman to the field; affirming that he courted the pipe and the song, only to avoid clearing a ditch, and elude leaping a five-barred gate.
this was sufficient to raise the cry against the delinquent; for man without business or employment
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is always disposed to be a censor of his neighbour; and whenever he thinks his antagonist on the road to defeat, is always alert to start up for a wit. mr. crisp, therefore, now, was assailed as a renegado from the chase; as a lounger; a loiterer; scared by the horses; panic-struck by the dogs; and more fearful of the deer, than the deer could be of the hunter.
in the well-poized hope, that the less the sportsmen were answered, the sooner they would be fatigued and depart, mr. crisp now and then gave them a nod, but never once a word; even though this forbearance instigated a triumph, loud, merry, and exulting; and sent them off, and brought them back, in the jovial persuasion that, in their own phrase, they had dumb-founded him.
with this self-satisfied enjoyment, mr. crisp unresistingly indulged them; though with a single pointed sentence, he could rapidly have descended them from their fancied elevation. but, above all petty pride of superiority in trifles, he never held things of small import to be worth the trouble of an argument. still less, however, did he choose to be put out of his own way; which he always pursued with placid equanimity whenever it was opposed without irrefragable reason. good-humouredly, however,
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he granted to his adversaries, in whose laughs and railing he sometimes heartily joined, the full play of their epigrams; internally conscious that, if seriously provoked, he could retort them by lampoons. sometimes, nevertheless, when he was hard beset by gibes and jeers at his loss of sport; or by a chorus of mock pitiers shouting out, “poor crisp! poor fellow! how consumedly thou art moped!” he would quietly say, with a smile of inexpressible archness, “go to, my friends, go to! go you your way, and let me go mine! and pray, don’t be troubled for me; depend upon it there is nobody will take more care of samuel crisp than i will!”
in this manner, and in these sets, rapidly, gaily, uncounted, and untutored, glided on imperceptibly the first youth of the subject of these memoirs: surrounded by temptations to luxury, expense, and dangerous pleasures, that, in weaker intellects, might have sapped for ever the foundations of religion and virtue. but a love of right was the predominant feature of the mind of young burney. mr. greville, also, himself, with whatever mockery he would have sneered away any expression tending either to
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practice or meditation in piety, instinctively held in esteem whatever was virtuous; and what was vicious in scorn: though his esteem for virtue was never pronounced, lest it should pass for pedantry; and his scorn for vice was studiously disguised, lest he should be set down himself for a fogrum.
