the visits of mr. burney to massingham, and his attachment to its philosopher, contributed, more than any other connection, to stimulate that love and pursuit of knowledge, that urge its votaries to snatch from waste or dissipation those fragments of time, which, by the general herd of mankind, are made over to lethe, for reading; learning languages; composing music; studying sciences; fathoming the theoretical and mathematical depths of his own art; and seeking at large every species of intelligence to which either chance or design afforded him any clew.
as he could wait upon his country pupils only
[pg 108]
on horseback, he purchased a mare that so exactly suited his convenience and his wishes, in sure-footedness, gentleness and sagacity, that she soon seemed to him a part of his family: and the welfare and comfort of peggy became, ere long, a matter of kind interest to all his house.
on this mare he studied italian; for, obliged to go leisurely over the cross roads with which norfolk then abounded, and which were tiresome from dragging sands, or dangerous from deep ruts in clay, half his valuable time would have been lost in nothingness, but for his trust in peggy; who was as careful in safely picking her way, as she was adroit in remembering from week to week whither she was meant to go.
her master, at various odd moments, and from various opportunities, had compressed, from the best italian dictionaries, every word of the italian language into a small octavo volume; and from this in one pocket, and a volume of dante, petrarch, tasso, ariosto, or metastasio, in another, he made himself completely at home in that language of elegance and poetry.
his common-place book, at this period, rather merits the appellation of uncommon, from the assiduous
[pg 109]
research it manifests, to illustrate every sort of information, by extracts, abstracts, strictures, or descriptions, upon the almost universality of subject-matter which it contains.
it is without system or method; he had no leisure to put it into order; yet it is possible, he might owe to his familiar recurrence to that desultory assemblage of unconcocted materials, the general and striking readiness with which he met at once almost every topic of discourse.
this manuscript of scraps, drawn from reading and observation, was, like his italian dictionary, always in his great-coat pocket, when he travelled; so that if unusually rugged roads, or busied haste, impeded more regular study, he was sure, in opening promiscuously his pocket collection of odds and ends, to come upon some remark worth weighing; some point of science on which to ruminate; some point of knowledge to fix in his memory; or something amusing, grotesque, or little known, that might recreate his fancy.
