it was in the city, in consequence of his wife’s connexions, that mr. burney made his first essay as a housekeeper; and with a prosperity that left not a doubt of his ultimate success. scholars, in his musical art, poured in upon him from all quarters of that british meridian; and he mounted so rapidly into the good graces of those who were most opulent and most influential, that it was no sooner known that there was a vacancy for an organist professor, in one of the fine old fabrics of devotion which decorate religion in the city and reflect credit on our commercial ancestors, than the fullers, hankeys, and all other great houses of the day to which he had yet been introduced, exerted themselves in his service with an activity and a warmth that were speedily successful; and that he constantly recounted with pleasure.
anxious to improve as well as to prosper in his profession, he also elaborately studied composition, and brought forth several musical pieces; all of
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which that are authenticated, will be enumerated in a general list of his musical works.
and thus, with a felicity that made toil delicious, through labour repaid by prosperity; exertions, by comfort; fatigue, by soothing tenderness; and all the fond passions of juvenile elasticity, by the charm of happiest sympathy,—began, and were rolling on, equally blissful and busy, the first wedded years of this animated young couple;—when a storm suddenly broke over their heads, which menaced one of those deadly catastrophes, that, by engulphing one loved object in that “bourne whence no traveller returns,” tears up for ever by the root all genial, spontaneous, unsophisticated happiness, from the survivor.
mr. burney, whether from overstrained efforts in business; or from an application exceeding his physical powers in composition; or from the changed atmosphere of cheshire, shropshire, and wiltshire, for the confined air of our great and crowded city; which had not then, as now, by a vast mass of improvement, been made nearly as sane as it is populous; suddenly fell, from a state of the most vigorous health, to one the most alarming, of premature decay. and to this defalcation of strength was
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shortly added the seizure of a violent and dangerous fever that threatened his life.
the sufferings of the young wife, who was now also a young mother, can only be conceived by contrasting them with her so recent happiness. yet never did she permit grief to absorb her faculties, nor to vanquish her fortitude. she acted with the same spirited force of mind, as if she had been a stranger to the timid terrors of the heart. she superintended all that was ordered; she executed, where it was possible, all that was performed; she was sedulously careful that no business should be neglected; and her firmness in all that belonged to the interests of her husband, seemed as invulnerable as if that had been her sole occupation; though never, for a moment, was grief away from her side, and though perpetually, irresistibly she wept,—for sorrow with the youthful is always tearful. yet she strove to disallow herself that indulgence; refusing time even for gently wiping from her cheeks the big drops of liquid anguish which coursed their way; and only, and hastily, almost with displeasure, brushing them off with her hand; while resolutely continuing, or renewing, some useful operation, as if she were but mechanically engaged.
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all this was recorded by her adoring husband in an elegy of after-times.
the excellent and able dr. armstrong, already the friend of the invalid, was now sent to his aid by the hon. and rev. mr. home, who had conceived the warmest esteem for the subject of these memoirs. the very sight of this eminent physician was medicinal; though the torture he inflicted by the blister after blister with which he deemed it necessary to almost cover, and almost flay alive, his poor patient, required all the high opinion in which that patient held the doctor’s skill for endurance.
the unsparing, but well-poised, prescriptions of this poetical æsculapius, succeeded, however, in dethroning and extirpating the raging fever, that, perhaps, with milder means, had undermined the sufferer’s existence. but a consumptive menace ensued, with all its fearful train of cough, night perspiration, weakness, glassy eyes, and hectic complexion; and dr. armstrong, foreseeing an evil beyond the remedies of medicine, strenuously urged an adoption of their most efficient successor, change of air.
the patient, therefore, was removed to canonbury-house; whence, ere long, by the further advice, nay, injunction, of dr. armstrong, he was compelled
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to retire wholly from london; after an illness by which, for thirteen weeks, he had been confined to his bed.
most fortunately, mr. burney, at this time, had proposals made to him by a norfolk baronet, sir john turner, who was member for lynn regis, of the place of organist of that royal borough; of which, for a young man of talents and character, the mayor and corporation offered to raise the salary from twenty to one hundred pounds a year; with an engagement for procuring to him the most respectable pupils from all the best families in the town and its neighbourhood.
though greatly chagrined and mortified to quit a situation in which he now was surrounded by cordial friends, who were zealously preparing for him all the harmonical honours which the city holds within its patronage; the declining health of the invalid, and the forcibly pronounced opinion of his scientific medical counsellor, decided the acceptance of this proposal; and mr. burney, with his first restored strength, set out for his new destination.
