his house in queen-square had been relinquished from difficulties respecting its title; and mrs.

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burney, assiduously and skilfully, purchased and prepared another, during his confinement, that was situated in st. martin’s-street, leicester-fields.

if the house in queen-square had owed a fanciful part of its value to the belief that, formerly, in his visits to alderman barber, it had been inhabited occasionally by dean swift, how much higher a local claim, was vested in imagination, for a mansion that had decidedly been the dwelling of the immortal sir isaac newton!

dr. burney entered it with reverence, as may be gathered from the following lines in his doggrel chronology.

“this house, where great newton once deign’d to reside,

who of england, and all human nature the pride,

sparks of light, like prometheus, from heaven purloin’d,

which in bright emanations flash’d full on mankind.”

this change of position from queen-square to st. martin’s-street, required all that it could bestow of convenience to business, of facilitating fashionable and literary intercourse, of approximation to travelling foreigners of distinction, and of vicinity to the opera house; to somewhat counter-balance its unpleasant site, its confined air, and its shabby immediate

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neighbourhood; after the beautiful prospect which the doctor had quitted of the hills, ever verdant and smiling, of hampstead and highgate; which, at that period, in unobstructed view, had faced his dwelling in queen-square.

st. martin’s-street, though not narrow, except at its entrance from leicester-square, was dirty, ill built, and vulgarly peopled.

the house itself was well-constructed, sufficiently large for the family, and, which now began to demand nearly equal accommodation, for the books of the doctor. the observatory of sir isaac newton, which surmounted its roof, over-looked all london and its environs. it still remained in the same simple state in which it had been left by sir isaac; namely, encompassed completely by windows of small old-fashioned panes of glass, so crowded as to leave no exclusion of the glazier, save what was seized for a small chimney and fire-place, and a cupboard, probably for instruments. another cupboard was borrowed from the little landing-place for coals.

the first act of dr. burney, after taking possession of this house, was to repair, at a considerable expense, the observatory of the astronomical chief of nations: and he had the enthusiasm, soon afterwards,

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of nearly re-constructing it a second time, in consequence of the fearful hurricane of 1778, by which its glass sides were utterly demolished; and its leaden roof, in a whirl of fighting winds, was swept wholly away.

dr. burney, who was as elevated in spirit as he was limited in means, for being to all the arts, and all the artists, a patron, preferred any self-denial to suffering such a demolition. he would have thought himself a ruthless goth, had he permitted the sanctum sanctorum of the developer of the skies in their embodied movements, to have been scattered to nonentity through his neglect or parsimony; and sought for, thenceforward, in vain, by posterity.

amongst the earliest hailers of this removal, stood forth the worthy and original mr. hutton, who was charmed to visit his enthusiastically esteemed new friend in the house of the great newton; in which he flattered himself with retaining a faint remembrance that he had been noticed, when a boy, by the niece of that most stupendous of human geniuses.

in shaking hands around with the family upon this occasion, mr. hutton related that he had just

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come from the apartment of m. de solgas, sub-preceptor to his royal highness the prince of wales;[45] in which he had had the high honour of being permitted to discourse with his majesty; whom he had found the best of men, as well as the best of kings; for, in talking over the letters of lord chesterfield, and his lordship’s doctrines, and subtle definitions of simulation and dissimulation, his majesty said, “it is very deep, and may be it is very clever; but for me, i like more straight-forward work.”

this tribute to the honour of simple truth excited a general plaudit. mr. hutton then, with a smile of benevolent pleasure, said that the subject had been changed, by mr. smelt, from lord chesterfield’s letters to dr. burney’s tours, which had been highly commended: “and then i,” added the good old man, “could speak my notions, and my knowledge, too, of my excellent friend the tourist, as well as of his writings; and so, openly and plainly, as one honest man should talk to another, i said it outright to my sovereign lord the king—who is as honest a man himself as any in his own three kingdoms. god bless him!”

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all the party, greatly pleased, smiled concurrence; and mrs. burney said that the doctor was very happy to have had a friend to speak of him so favourably before the king.

“madam,” cried the good man, with warmth, “i will speak of him before my god! and that is doing much more.”

the stranges, who lived in the immediate neighbourhood of st. martin’s-street, were speedy welcomers to the new dwelling; where heartily they were welcomed.

the doctor’s worthy and attached old friend, mr. hayes, rejoiced in this near approach to his habitation, which was in james-street, westminster; though the fast advancing ravages and debilities of time and infirmities, soon bereaved him of all other advantage from the approximation, than that which he could court to his own house.

mr. twining, when in town, which was only for a week or two every year, loved not to pass even a day without bestowing a few minutes of it upon a house at which he was always hailed with delight.

but mr. crisp, though unalterably he maintained that first place in the heart of dr. burney, to which priority of every species entitled him, had become

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subject to such frequent fits of the gout, that to london he was almost lost: he dreaded sleeping even a night from chesington, which now was his nearly unbroken residence.

the learned and venerable mr. latrobe, and his two sons, each of them men of genius, though of different characters, were frequent in their visits, and amongst the doctor’s warmest admirers; and, in the study of the german language and literature, amongst his most useful friends.

the elegant translator of tasso, mr. hoole, and his erudite and poetical son, the rev. samuel hoole,[46] to form whose characters worth and modesty went hand in hand, were often of the social circle.

the doctor’s two literary italian friends, martinelli and baretti, were occasional visitors; and by the rapidity of their elocution, the exuberance of their gestures, and the distortion of their features, upon even the most trivial contradiction, always gave to the doctor a divertingly national reminiscence of the italian, or volcanic, portion of his tours.

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mr. nollekens, the eminent sculptor, was one of the travelled acquaintances of dr. burney, with whom he had frequently assorted while in italy; and with whom now, and through life, he kept up the connexion then formed.

nollekens was one of those who shewed, in the most distinct point of view, the possible division of partial from general talent. he was uncultivated and under-bred; his conversation was without mark; his sentiments were common; and his language was even laughably vulgar; yet his works belong to an art of transcendant sublimity, and are beautiful with elegance and taste.