infant musician, who has since been honoured with the Professorship of Music in the University of Oxford, and is considered the most learned composer of the present generation. The grand musical festival which took place in commemoration of Handel, during the year. 1785, at Westminster Abbey, was considered deserving of a particular description, and the Historian of Music was fixed upon as the most competent person to draw up an authoritative notice of a solemnity at which he acted a professional part.* A splendid volume in 4to. was accordingly produced by Dr. Burney within the year. In these pages, the profits of which he bestowed upon the Musical Fund, he displayed eminent talents in biography, and the life of Handel has been estimated as one of the best specimens of a memoir to be found in the ample circle of our language. In 1796, he published an account of the life of Metastasio, in 3 vols. 8vo.-a work which has been censured as destitute of that critical arrangement and judicious novelty which characterised his former publications. Besides the labours already mentioned, Dr. Burney is known in literature for an Essay towards the History of Comets,' and a 'Plan of a Public Music School.' To the musical compositions by Dr. Burney which have been already noticed, there remain to be added a copious catalogue of Sonatas for two violins and a bass, in two parts; six cornet pieces, with an introduction and fugues for the organ; a canzonet and songs; six duetts for two German flutes; six concertos for the violin, &c. in eight parts; two sonatas for a pianoforte, violin, ** Among the many talented men associated together upon this signal occasion, was Edmund Ayrton, Mus. Doc. to whose memory, as he was interred in the cloisters of Westminster, a short space is here devoted. He was born at Rippon, in Yorkshire, and has been much commended for his compositions of Cathedral Music. He was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and a Vicar Choral of St. Paul's Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey. During the year 1784 he took his degree as Doctor of Music, in the University of Cambridge, composing as his exercise, a grand anthem for a full orchestra, which was highly praised, and afterwards performed with an enlarged band at the general thanksgiving celebrated in St. Paul's, for the peace of 1784. At the commemoration of Handel, he officiated as a director, and died honourably regarded in 1808. and violoncello, in two parts; and six lessons for the harpsichord, &c. &c. For many years Dr. Burney resided in the house once occupied by the immortal Newton, in St. Martin's-street, Leicester-square; but during the last twenty-five years of his life, he dwelt at the chambers appropriated to the organist of Chelsea College,— a situation to which, it should have been mentioned in another place, he was honourably appointed at the special instigation of his majesty George III. Here he spent the close of his life in easy circumstances, until death terminated his career at the full age of 88 years. His remains were deposited in the burial ground belonging to the establishment; and his funeral was respectfully attended by the Governor, Deputy Governor, and chief officers of the college-by his family, and friends too many for enumeration. Dr. Burney is chiefly to be considered for the variety of his labours, and rather to be approved as an author than a musician. His literary works are still read and quoted, but his musical compositions seem to have been finally neglected. As a scholar, he was not only soundly proficient in classical study, but conversably intimate with the polite languages of modern Europe. Personally acquainted with all the distinguished characters who flourished during his life-time, he possessed a fund of anecdote, which made his conversation as interesting at the table, as his lucubrations were engaging in the closet. In private life he appeared with corresponding excellence: exemplary as a husband, a father, and a friend, spirited and easy in his manners, he combined, according to his biographer, "all the graces, without the formality of the Chesterfield politeness, and led a life of utility to others, with honour and happiness to himself." Dr. Burney was twice married, and had eight children, of whom four are deserving of particular record, for the superior abilities they inherited from him. It has already been observed how his eldest daughter was celebrated for extraordinary attainments in music; the second, married to Monsieur d'Arblay, is the authoress of Evelina, Cecilia, Camilla, and the Wanderer— novels too popular to need praise here. His eldest son, James, entered the navy, sailed round the world with Captain Cook; 2 B edited two voyages by that memorable circumnavigator; published some judicious tracts upon the best means of a national defence against invasion; and died with the rank of Rear-Admiral in 1821. His second son was the Reverend Charles Burney, LL.D., who has a monument in Westminster Abbey, and is therefore entitled to a notice more exact and lengthened in these pages. Born on the 6th of December, 1757, during his father's residence at Lynne, Dr. Burney the divine was admitted on the foundation of the Charter-house school, in February, 1768. Removing in due course to Caius College, Cambridge, he grew remarkable for patient study and a deep familiarity with the Greek classics. At this university, however, he made no great stay, but proceeded to King's College, Aberdeen, where he took his degree of A. M. in 1781. During the ensuing year he adopted the vocation of a schoolmaster, and became assistant at an academy near Highgate. From this station he was quickly advanced to be under master at a school kept by Dr. Rose, a translator of Sallust, at Chiswick. His introduction to the latter gentleman was effected by the friendship of Dr. Dunbar, the Professor of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen, and the acquaintance prospered so honourably, that he married Miss Rose in 1783. Her father had been one of the earliest contributors to the Monthly Review, and by this intervention Burney became a critic in the same miscellany. His first papers were on the Monostrophica of Mr. afterwards Bishop Huntingford: they attracted immediate attention, and thus he continued to write equally to the advantage of the publication, and the improvement of his own reputation. In June, 1783, he opened a school on his own account at Fairlawn House, Hammersmith, whence, after a lapse of seven years, he removed his establishment to Greenwich, where it flourished until his death under every circumstance of respectability. After receiving the degree of LL.D. from the universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, in 1792, he entered into holy orders during the year 1807. His first preferment in the Church took place during the year 1811, when he was nominated to the vicarage of Herne Hill, and appointed Chaplain to his Majesty. In the course of the following year, the Archbishop of Canterbury presented him to the affluent rectory of St. Paul's, Deptford, and gave him a mandate for the honours of Doctor of Divinity. He afterwards received a prebend in the Cathedral of Lincoln, and was also inducted to the rectory of Cliffe, in the county of Surrey. To this series of posts are to be added the avocations of Professor of Antient Literature in the Royal Academy, and Honorary Librarian to the Royal Institution. Dr. Burney's ecclesiastical distinctions were not conferred upon him, until the vigour of his constitution was nearly worn out:he began to feel a slow but certain decline of strength soon after his retirement to Deptford. On the morning of Christmas day, 1817, he sunk with apoplexy as he was preparing for the pul pit, and expired after a struggle of three days. He was buried at Deptford, where a monument, executed by Goblet, and inscribed by Archdeacon Thomas, was erected to his name by a subscription among the inhabitants. In literature, Dr. Burney held a high rank as a critic and a scholar. Of the publications by which he acquired this reputation, the following are the principal.—An Appendix to Scapula's Greek Lexicon, from the manuscripts of Dr. Askew; an edition of the Choral Odes of Eschylus; Philemon's Greek Lexicon; Remarks on the Greek Verses of Milton; an Abridgment of Pearson's Exposition of the Creed; Sermons, and a small impression of Latin Epistles by Dr. Bentley, and some others. These were valuable works, but perhaps he was even more celebrated for the judgment he displayed in the collection of a library, which was purchased after his death by Parliament, and is now preserved in the British Museum: it consisted of 14,000 volumes, bound with great richness, and arranged upon the plan of beginning with the earliest copies, and carrying each author down to the last edition of his works. Among the more conspicuous treasures of this selection, were the Townly Homer, valued at so high a price as a thousand pounds; and the Codex Crippsianus of the Greek orators. Many of his classics were additionally estimable for the manuscript notes attached to them by Bentley, Markland, and H. Stephens. Talents and erudition are doubly praiseworthy when found in connexion with gentle manners and private virtues: it is therefore most interesting to be able to add that Dr. Burney was equally admirable as a man and a scholar. Sociable and hospi table, witty, and yet good-natured; he is described as one courted by those above him, loved by those beneath him, and immeasurably prized by his equals. Excellence so varied and considerable deserved many honours, and accordingly a monument was placed to the memory of Dr. Burney, as well in Westminster Abbey as in the church of St. Paul, Deptford. It stands in the north aisle, and consists of a good bust surmounting a pedestal tablet of marble by S. Gahagan, on which appears a Latin epitaph to this effect: * A. £. 2. TO CHARLES BURNEY, LL.D. S.T.P. A.Ş. and R.S.S. In the Royal Academy of London, Chaplain to George the Third, King of Britain, Rector of Cliff, and the Church of St. Paul, at Deptford, Master of Greenwich School, during xviii years, Died on the fifth kalend of January, in the holy year (1) 15 CCC XVIII. His scholars by a pecuniary subscription placed this monument. Was varied and profound erudition, * A. £. 2. CAROLO. BURNEIO. LL.D. S.T.P. A.S. Et. R.S. Sodali Georgio. Tertio. Britanniarum. Regi. A. Sacris Scholæ. Grenovicensis. Per. xviii. Annos. Magistro Decessit. Quinto. Cal. Januar. Anno. Sacro. ciɔ iɔ ccc xviii. Discipuli. Ejus. Hoc. Monumentum. Pecunia. Collata. Posuerunt Inerant. In. Hoc. Viro Plurimæ. Et. Reconditæ. Litteræ |