while this revival of intercourse with the garricks, and partial return to public life and affairs, necessarily banished the outward and obvious marks of the change of existence, and lost happiness of mr. burney, they operated also, gently, but effectively, in gradually diminishing his sufferings, by forcing him from their contemplation: for in that dilapidated state of sorrow’s absorption, where the mind is wholly abandoned to its secret sensations, all that innately recurs to it can spring only from its own concentrated sources; and these, though they may vary the evil by palliatives, offer nothing curative. new scenes and objects alone can open

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to new ideas; and, happily, a circumstance now occurred that brought on a revival of intercourse with the only man who, at that time, could recall the mourner’s faculties to genial feelings, and expand them to confidential sociality.

his earliest favourite, guide, philosopher, and friend, mr. crisp, he now, after a separation of very many years, accidentally met at the house of mr. vincent, a mutual acquaintance.

their satisfaction at the sight of each other was truly reciprocal; though that of mr. burney was tinctured with dejection, that he could no longer present to his dearest friend the partner whom, by such a judge, he had felt would have been instantly and reverentially appreciated.

mr. crisp joined in this regret; but was not the less desirous to see and to know all that remained of her; and he hastened the following day to poland-street; where, from his very first entrance amidst the juvenile group, he became instinctively honoured as a counsellor for his wisdom and judgment, and loved and liked as a companion for his gaiety, his good-humour, and his delight in their rising affections; which led him unremittingly, though never obtrusively, to mingle instruction with their most sportive intercourse.

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as mr. crisp was the earliest and dearest friend of the subject of these memoirs, the reader will not, it is probable, be sorry to be apprised of the circumstances which, since their separation, had turned him from a brilliant man of the world to a decided recluse.

the life of mr. crisp had been exposed to much vicissitude. part of it had been spent in italy, particularly at rome, where he took up his residence for some years; and where, from his passion for music, painting, and sculpture, he amassed, for the rest of his existence, recollections of never-dying pleasure. and not alone for his solitary contemplations, but for the delight that the vivacity of his delineations imparted to his friends, when he could be induced to unfold his reminiscences; whether upon the sacred and soul-pervading harmony of the music of the pope’s chapel; or upon the tones, mellifluously melting or elevating, of sinesino, custini, or farinelli: or by bringing to view through glowing images, the seraphic forms and expressions of raphael and correggio; and the sculptural sublimity of michael angelo. or when, animated to the climax of his homage for the fine arts, he flitted by all else to concentrate the whole

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force of his energies, in describing that electrifying wonder, the apollo belvedere.

on this he dwelt with a vivacity of language that made his hearers wish to fasten upon every word that he uttered; so vividly he portrayed the commanding port, the chaste symmetry, and the magic form—for which not a tint was requisite, and colouring would have been superfluous—of that unrivalled production, of which the peerless grace, looking softer, though of marble, than the feathered snow; and brightly radiant, though, like the sun, simply white, strike upon the mind rather than the eye, as an ideal representative of ethereal beauty.[28]

and while such were his favourite topics for his gifted participators, there was a charm for all around in his more general conversation, that illumined with instruction, or gladdened with entertainment, even the most current and desultory subjects of the passing hour.

thus rarely at once endowed and cultivated, there can be little surprise that mr. crisp should be distinguished, speedily and forcibly, by what is

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denominated the great world; where his striking talents, embellished by his noble countenance and elegant manners, made him so much the mode with the great, and the chosen with the difficult, that time, not friends, was all he wanted for social enjoyment.

high, perhaps highest in this noble class, stood margaret cavendish harley, duchess dowager of portland, the friend of mrs. delany; by whom that venerable and exemplary personage, who was styled by mr. burke, “the pattern of a real fine lady of times that were past,” had been herself made known to mr. crisp.

mrs. montagu, also, who then, mr. crisp was wont to say, was peering at fame, and gradually rising to its temple, was of the same coterie. but most familiarly he resided with christopher hamilton of chesington hall, and with the earl of coventry.

with this last he was intimately connected, at the time of that earl’s marriage with the acknowledged nonpareil of female beauty, the youngest miss gunning.

mr. crisp had already written his tragedy of virginia; but garrick, though he was the author’s

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personal friend, thought it so little equal to the expectations that might await it, that he postponed, season after season, bringing it out; even though lord coventry, who admired it with the warmth of partial regard, engaged the first mr. pitt[29] to read it, and to pronounce in its favour. roscius still was adverse, and still delayed the trial; nor could he be prevailed upon to prepare it for the stage, till mr. crisp had won that venus of her day, the exquisite lady coventry, through his influence with her lord, to present a copy of the manuscript, with her own almost sculptured hand, to the then conquered manager.

the play neither succeeded nor failed. a catastrophe of so yea and nay a character was ill suited to the energies and hopes of its high-minded author, who was bitterly disappointed; and thought the performers had been negligent, mr. garrick unfriendly, and the public precipitate.

the zealous lord coventry, himself a man of letters, advised sundry changes, and a new trial. mr. crisp shut himself up, and worked indefatigably at these suggestions: but when his alterations were

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finished, there was no longer a radiant countess of coventry to bewitch mr. garrick, by “the soft serenity of her smile,” to make a further attempt. lady coventry, whose brief, dazzling race, was rapidly run, was now already fast fading in the grasping arms of withering consumption: and mr. garrick, though, from unwillingness to disoblige, he seemed wavering, was not the less inexorable.

mr. crisp then, disgusted with the stage, the manager, and the theatrical public, gave up not alone that point, but every other by which he might have emerged from private life to celebrity. he almost wholly retired from london, and resided at hampton; where he fitted up a small house with paintings, prints, sculpture, and musical instruments, arranged with the most classical elegance.

but the vicinity of the metropolis caused allurements such as these, with such a chief to bring them into play, to accord but ill with the small, though unincumbered fortune of their master; and the grace with which, instinctively, he received his visitors, made his habitation so pleasant, as soon to produce a call upon his income that shattered its stability.

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his alarm now was such as might be expected from his sense of honour, and his love of independence. yet the delicacy of his pride forbade any complaint to his friends, that might seem to implicate their discretion in his distress, or to invite their aid; though his desire to smooth, without publishing, his difficulties, urged him to commune with those of his connexions who were in actual power, and to confess his wishes for some honourable place, or occupation, that might draw forth his faculties to the amelioration of his fortune.

kind words, and enlivening promises, now raised his hopes to a favourable change in his affairs; and, brightly looking forward, he continued to welcome his friends; who, enchanted by his society, poured in upon him with a thoughtless frequency, which caused an increase of expenditure that startled him, ere long, with a prospect, sudden and frightful, of the road to ruin.

shocked, wounded, dismayed, he perceived two ways only by which he could be extricated from the labyrinth into which he had been betrayed by premature expectation; either vigorously to urge his suit for some appointment, and persecute, pester his friends to quicken his advancement; or cut off

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approaching worldly destruction by an immediate sacrifice of worldly luxury.

a severe fit of the gout, that now, for the first time—hastened, probably, by chagrin—assailed him, decided his resolution. he sold his house at hampton, his books, prints, pictures, and instruments; with a fixed determination of relinquishing the world, and retiring from mankind.

within a few miles of hampton stood chesington hall, his chosen retreat; and thither, with what little of his property he had rescued from the auctioneer and the appraiser, he transplanted his person; and there buried every temporal prospect.

chesington hall was placed upon a considerable, though not rapid eminence, whence two tall, antique trees, growing upon an old rustic structure called the mount, were discernible at sixteen miles distance. the hall had been built upon a large, lone, and nearly desolate common; and no regular road, or even track to the mansion from epsom, the nearest town, had, for many years, been spared from its encircling ploughed fields, or fallow ground.

this old mansion had fallen into the hands of the hamiltons from those of the hattons, by whom its erection had been begun in the same year upon

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which cardinal wolsey had commenced raising, in its vicinity, the magnificent palace of hampton court.

every thing around chesington hall was now falling to decay; and its hereditary owner, christopher hamilton, the last male of his immediate branch of the hamilton family, was, at this time, utterly ruined, and sinking in person as well as property in the general desolation.

this was precisely a sojourn to meet the secluding desire of mr. crisp; he adopted some pic-nic plan with mr. hamilton; and chesington hall became his decided residence; it might almost be said, his fugitive sanctuary. he acquainted no one with his intentions, and communicated to no one his place of abode. firm to resist the kindness, he determined to escape the tediousness, of persuasion: and, however often, in after-life, when renovated health gave him a consciousness of renovated faculties, he might have regretted this intellectual interment, he was immoveable never more to emerge from a tranquillity, which now, to his sickened mind, made the pursuits of ambition seem as oppressively troublesome in their manœuvres, as they were morbidly bitter in their disappointments.

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his fondness, however, for the arts, was less subordinate to the casualties of life than his love of the world. it was too much an integral part of his composition to be annihilated in the same gulph in which were sunk his mundane expectations. regularly, therefore, every spring, he came up to the metropolis, where, in keeping pace with the times, he enjoyed every modern improvement in music and painting.

rarely can a re-union of early associates have dispensed brighter felicity with more solid advantages, than were produced by the accidental re-meeting of these long separated friends. to mr. burney it brought back a congeniality of feeling and intelligence, that re-invigorated his social virtues; and to mr. crisp it gave not only a friend, but a family.

it operated, however, no further. to mr. burney alone was confided the clue for a safe route across the wild common to chesington hall; from all others it was steadfastly withheld; and from mr. greville it was studiously and peculiarly concealed.

that gentleman now was greatly altered, from the large and larger strides which he had made, and was making, into the dangerous purlieus of horse-racing

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and of play; into whose precincts, from the delusive difference of their surface from their foundation, no incursions can be hazarded without as perilous a shake to character and disposition, as to fortune and conduct. and mr. greville, who, always honourable, was almost necessarily a frequent loser, was evidently on the high road to turn from a man of pleasure to a man of spleen; venting his wrath at his failures upon the turf and at the clubs, by growing fastidious and cavilling in general society. mr. crisp, therefore, bent to maintain the dear bought quiet of his worldly sacrifices as unmingled with the turbulent agitations of querulous debate, as with the restless solicitudes of active life, shunned the now pertinacious disputant almost with dread.

yet mr. greville, about this period, was rescued, for a while, from this hovering deterioration, through the exertions of his friends in the government, by whom he was named minister plenipotentiary to the court of bavaria; in the hope that such an appointment, with its probable consequences, might re-establish his affairs.

no change, however, of situation, caused any

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change in mr. greville to his early protegé and attached and attaching friend, mr. burney, to whom he still shewed himself equally eager to communicate his opinions, and reveal his proceedings. a letter from munich, written when his excellency was first installed in his new dignity, will display the pleasant openness of their correspondence; at the same time that it depicts the humours and expenses of the official ceremonials then in use, with a frankness that makes them both curious and entertaining.[30]

a letter to the earl of eglinton from the celebrated david hume, written also about this time, gave mr. burney very peculiar satisfaction, from the sincere disposition to esteem and to serve him, which it manifested in that dangerously renowned philosopher; whose judgment of men was as skilfully inviting, as his sophistry in theology was fearfully repelling.

yet upon the circumstances of this letter hung a cutting disappointment, which, in the midst of his rising prospects, severely pierced the hopes of mr. burney; and, from the sharpness of its injury, and its future aggravating repetitions, would permanently

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have festered them, had their composition been of less elastic quality.

to be master of the king’s band, as the highest professional honour to be obtained, had been the earliest aim of mr. burney; and, through the medium of warm friends, joined to his now well approved and obvious merit, the promise of the then lord chamberlain had been procured for the first vacancy. this arrived in 1765; but when the consequent claim was made, how great, how confounding to mr. burney was the intelligence, that the place was disposed of already.

he hastened with a relation of this grievance, as unexpected as it was undeserved, to the celebrated historian, to whom his rights had been well known at paris. and mr. hume, whose sense of justice—one fatal warp excepted—was as luminous as it was profound, shocked by such a breach of its simplest and most unchangeable statutes, instantly undertook, with the courage imbibed by his great abilities and high moral character, to make a representation on the subject to lord hertford.

failing, however, of meeting with an immediate opportunity, and well aware of the importance of expedition in such applications, he addressed himself

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to the countess; and from her he learnt, and with expressions of benevolent concern, that it was the duke of york[31] who had demanded the nomination to the place.

it now occurred to mr. hume that the present applicant might possibly be himself the object for whom his royal highness had interfered, as mr. burney had frequently been seen, and treated with marked kindness, by the royal duke at private concerts; which were then often, at the sudden request of that prince, formed by the earl of eglinton; and at which mr. burney, when in london, was always a principal and favoured assistant. with this in his recollection, and naturally concluding lord eglinton, who always shewed an animated partiality for mr. burney, to be chief in the application to the lord chamberlain, mr. hume wrote the following letter.

to the earl of eglinton.

“my lord,

“not finding an opportunity of speaking yesterday to lord hertford, in favour of mr. burney, i spoke to my lady, and told her the whole case. she already knows mr. burney, and has an esteem for him. she said it gave her great uneasiness, and was

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sure it would do so to my lord, that he was already engaged, and, she believed, to the duke of york.

“it occurred to me, that his royal highness’s application might, also, be in favour of mr. burney; in which case the matter is easy. if not, it is probable your lordship may engage his royal highness to depart from his application; for really mr. burney’s case, independently of his merit, is very hard and cruel.

“i have the honour to be,

“my lord, your lordship’s

“most humble and most obedient servant,

“david hume.”

“p. s. if your lordship honour me with an answer in the forenoon, please send it to general conway’s, in little warwick street; if in the afternoon, at miss elliot’s, brewer street, golden square.”

a reclamation such as this, from a man who was then almost universally held to be at the head of british literature, could not be read unmoved; and an opinion so positive of the justice and merits of the case, manifested by two directions for an immediate reply, both given for the same day, and without any apology for such precipitancy, shewed a warmth

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of personal zeal and interest for the welfare of mr. burney, that was equally refreshing to his spirits, and stimulating to his hopes.

the place, however, was decidedly gone. the first word from the duke had fixed its fate; though, from the real amenity of the character of the prince, joined to the previous favour he had shewn to mr. burney, there cannot be a doubt that, had the history of the affair reached the ear of his royal highness, he would have been foremost himself, as mr. hume suggested, to have nominated mr. burney.

here the matter dropped; and the expressed regret and civilities of the countess, with the implied ones of the earl, somewhat softened the infliction: but the active services, and manly appeal of david hume, conduced far more to awaken and to fortify the philosophy that so unexpected a mortification required.

in mingling again with the world upon its common terms of cultivating what was good, and supporting what was evil, mr. burney now, no longer bewitched by beauty, nor absorbed by social sympathies, found literature and its pursuits without rival in his estimation; yet, in missing those vanished delights, he deemed that he had the world to re-begin: for though prosperity met his professional toils with heightened reputation and reward, they were joyless, however essential, since participation was gone!

the time had arrived, and now was passed, for the long-settled project of mr. burney of conveying to

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paris his second and, then, youngest daughters, frances and charlotte, to replace his eldest and his third, esther and susanna; now both returned thence, with every improvement that a kind parent could reasonably desire.

the time had arrived—and was passed.—but if no man can with certainty pronounce what at any stated period he will perform, how much less is he gifted with fore-knowledge of what, at any stated period, he may wish!

six heartless, nearly desolate, years of lonely conjugal chasm, had succeeded to double their number of nearly unparalleled conjugal enjoyment—and the void was still fallow and hopeless!—when the yet very handsome, though no longer in her bloom, mrs. stephen allen, of lynn, now become a widow, decided, for promoting the education of her eldest daughter, to make london her winter residence.

mr. burney was, of course, applied to for assistance in the musical line; and not less called upon as the most capable judge and counsellor in every other.

the loss that had been sustained by mrs. allen was that of a very worthy man, whom she esteemed, but to whom she had been married by her parents early in life, without either choice or aversion. in her situation, therefore, and that of mr. burney,

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there was no other affinity than that each had been widowed by the hand of death.

highly intellectual, and fond even to passion of books, mrs. allen delighted in the conversation of mr. burney; and the hour for his instructions to miss allen was fixed to be that of tea-time; to the end that, when he was liberated from the daughter, he might be engaged with the mother.

the superior grief of mr. burney, as deep as it was acute, was not more prominent than the feeling admiration that it inspired in mrs. allen: and if moved by his sorrows, while charmed by his merit, mrs. allen saw him with daily increasing interest, mr. burney was not less moved by her commiseration, nor less penetrated by her sympathy; and insensibly he became solaced, while involuntarily she grew grateful, upon observing her rising influence over his spirits.

to the tender sentiments of the heart, the avenues are as infinite for entrance as they are difficult for escape; but there are none so direct, and, consequently, none so common, as those through whose gentle mazes soft pity encounters soothing sensibility.

the task of consoling the sorrower seems, to its participator, nearly a devout one; and the sorrower, most especially where beauty and spirit meet in that

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participator, would think resistance to such benevolence might savour of ingratitude.

those who judge of the sincerity of pristine connubial tenderness merely by its abhorrence of succession, take a very unenlightened, if not false, view of human grief; unless they limit their stigma to an eager or a facile repetition of those rites which, on their first inauguration, had seemed inviolable and irreplaceable.

so still, in fact, they may faithfully, though silently continue, even under a subsequent new connexion. the secret breast, alive to memory though deprived of sympathy, may still internally adhere to its own choice and fondness; notwithstanding the various and imperious calls of current existence may urge a second alliance: and urge it, from feelings and from affections as clear of inconstancy as of hypocrisy; urge it, from the best of motives, that of accommodating ourselves to our lot, with all its piercing privations; since our lot is dependent upon causes we have no means to either evade or fathom; and as remote from our direction as from our wishes.

if, by any exertion of which mortal man is capable, or any suffering which mortal man can sustain, mr. burney could have called back his vanished

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esther to his ecstatic consciousness, labour, even to decrepitude, endurance even to torture, he would have borne, would have sought, would have blessed, for the most transient sight of her adored form. but she was taken away from him by that decree against which there is no appeal.

he who loses a parent, a brother, a sister, a friend, however deeply and deservedly they may be lamented, is never branded with want of feeling if he seek another counsellor and guide, if he accept another companion and favourite. it is but considered to be meeting his destiny as a man who knows he must not choose it; it is but consenting to receive such good as is attainable, while bowing down submissively to such evil as is unavoidable.

succession is the law of nature; and, as far as her laws are obvious, it is that which stands foremost.

the angel whom mr. burney had lost—for an angel both without and within she had seemed to him—had the generous disinterestedness, on the bed of death, to recommend to her miserable husband that he would marry again; well knowing that the tenderness of female friendship would come nearest,—however distant,—to the softness of consolation: and, maternally weighing, no doubt, that

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a well chosen partner might prove a benediction to her poor children. and this injunction, though heard at the time with agony scarcely supportable, might probably, and strongly, influence his future conduct, when the desperation of hopelessness was somewhat worn away by all-subduing time, joined to forced exertions in business.

his esther had even named to him the lady whom she thought most capable to suit him as a companion, and most tenderly disposed to becoming a mother to his children,—miss dorothy young, who was her most valued friend. mrs. allen, dorothy’s nearest competitor, was not then a widow. but mr. burney, sacred as he held the opinions and the wishes of his esther, was too ardent an admirer of beauty to dispense, in totality, with that attractive embellishment of the female frame. he honoured and esteemed, with a brother’s affection, the excellent dorothy young: but those charms which awaken softer sensations, were utterly and unhappily denied to that estimable woman, through her peculiarly unfortunate personal defects.

not early, and not easily, did mr. burney and mrs. allen reveal their mutual partiality. the wounded heart of mr. burney recoiled from such

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anodyne as demanded new vows to a new object: and mrs. allen, at that period, lived in a state of affluence that made such a marriage require severe worldly sacrifices. only, however transiently; for by an unfortunate trust in an unfortunate, though honourable speculatist, dr. king, she completely lost all that, independently, was at her own disposal of fortune. and the noble disinterestedness of mr. burney upon this occasion, rivetted to him her affections, with the highest esteem.

yet even when these scruples were mutually overwhelmed by increasing force of regard, so many unlooked for obstacles stood in the way of their union, that, wearied by delays that seemed at once captious and interminable, mr. burney earnestly entreated that an immediate private marriage might avert, at least, a final breach of their engagement: solemnly promising, at the same time, that they should keep the alliance secret, and still live apart, till all prudential exactions should be satisfied.

as they were each wholly independent, save from the influence of opinion,—which, however, is frequently more difficult to subdue than that of authority,—mrs. allen saw no objection of sufficient force to counteract her pleasure in compliance.

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their plan was confided to four persons, indispensably requisite for its execution; mrs., afterwards lady strange, miss young, mr. crisp, and the rev. mr. pugh, curate of st. james’s church.

mr. pugh, who was of very long standing a friend of mr. burney, aided personally in promoting such measures as secured secrecy with success; and in st. james’s church, mr. pugh tied that indissoluble knot, which, however fairly promising, is inevitably rigorous, since it can be loosened only by crime or by death: but which, where it binds the destinies of those whose hearts are already knit together by reciprocated regard, gives a charm to captivity that robs liberty of regret.

at the porch of st. james’s church, mrs. strange and mr. pugh whispered their congratulations to the new married couple, as they entered a prepared post-chaise; which, in a very few hours, galloped them to the obscure skirts of the then pathless, and nearly uninhabited, chesington common; where mr. crisp had engaged for them a rural and fragrant retreat, at a small farm-house in a little hamlet, a mile or two from chesington hall.

the secret, as usual in matrimonial concealments, was faithfully preserved, for a certain time, by

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scrupulous discretion in the parties, and watchful circumspection in the witnesses: but, as usual also, error and accident were soon at work to develop the transaction; and the loss of a letter, through some carelessness of conveyance, revealed suddenly but irrevocably the state of the connexion.

this circumstance, however, though, at the time, cruelly distressing, served ultimately but to hasten their own views; as the discovery was necessarily followed by the personal union for which their hands had been joined.

mrs. burney,—now no longer mrs. stephen allen—came openly to town to inhabit, for a while, a house in poland-street, a few doors from that of her husband; while alterations, paintings, and embellishments were progressively preparing the way for her better reception at his home.

the two families, however, awaited not the completion of these improvements for a junction. the younger branches, who already, and from their birth, were well known to one another, were as eager as their parents for a general union; and the very amiable miss allen,[32] the most important personage in the juvenile group,

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conducted herself upon the disclosure of the marriage, with a generous warmth of kindness that quickened the new establishment. and her example would forcibly have weighed with her deserving brother, stephen allen,[33] had such example been wanting; but he entertained so true and affectionate a respect for mr. burney, that he required neither duty nor influence to reconcile him to the match.

the four daughters of mr. burney,—esther, frances, susan, and charlotte,—were all earnest to contribute their small mites to the happiness of one of the most beloved of parents, by receiving, with the most respectful alacrity, the lady on whom he had cast his future hopes of regaining domestic comfort.

the paris scheme for the two daughters, who were to have followed the route of their sisters, long remitted, from the fluctuating affairs and feelings of mr. burney, was now finally abandoned. the youngest daughter, charlotte, was sent to a school in norfolk. the second, frances, was the only one of mr. burney’s family who never was placed in any seminary, and never was put under

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any governess or instructor whatsoever. merely and literally self-educated, her sole emulation for improvement, and sole spur for exertion, were her unbounded veneration for the character, and affection for the person, of her father; who, nevertheless, had not, at the time, a moment to spare for giving her any personal lessons; or even for directing her pursuits.[34]