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Updated: June 1, 2025
Burney's admiration of the powers which had produced Rasselas and The Rambler, bordered on idolatry. He gave a singular proof of this at his first visit to Johnson's ill-furnished garret. The master of the apartment was not at home. The enthusiastic visitor looked about for some relique which he might carry away; but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs and the fire-irons.
Johnson the partiality which his writings had excited in a friend of Dr. Burney's, the late Mr. Bewley, well known in Norfolk by the name of the Philosopher of Massingham : who, from the Ramblers and Plan of his Dictionary, and long before the authour's fame was established by the Dictionary itself, or any other work, had conceived such a reverence for him, that he urgently begged Dr.
Thrale's friends Baretti, Burke, Burney, Chambers, Garrick, Goldsmith, Johnson, Murphy, Reynolds, Lord Sandys, Lord Westcote, and in the same picture Mrs. Thrale and her eldest daughter. Mr. Thrale's portrait was also there. Dr. Burney's Memoirs, ii. 80, and Prior's Malone, p. 259. Pr. and Med. p. 214.
Burney's face was working, for after the excitement of the fight and its sudden ending he felt hysterically emotional, and in a broken voice the truth came pouring forth. "I can't help it, sir, and if he bullies me afterwards for speaking I must tell all. Slegge's been jealous of both the new boys ever since they came.
"It is a book for all classes of readers; and we have no hesitation in saying, that it only requires to be generally known to become exceedingly popular. In our estimation it has far more attractions than Miss Burney's celebrated, but overestimated, novel of 'Cecilia." Herts County Press.
There were also other difficulties. Miss Burney's extreme sensitiveness to her own dignity operated as a hindrance to herself as well as her friends. Never can I forget her expression on hearing that a bell was to be the means of her summons to attend her Royal Mistress.
'Walmsley was a Whig, wrote Johnson, 'with all the virulence and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart. I honoured him, and he endured me. See ante, ii. 169, note 2. Miss Burney described an evening spent by Johnson at Dr. Burney's some weeks earlier: 'He was in high spirits and good humour, talked all the talk, affronted nobody, and delighted everybody.
Burney, afterwards an intimate friend, had introduced himself to Johnson by letter in consequence of the Rambler, and the plan of the Dictionary. The admiration was shared by a friend of Burney's, a Mr. Bewley, known in Norfolk at least as the "philosopher of Massingham." When Burney at last gained the honour of a personal interview, he wished to procure some "relic" of Johnson for his friend.
She held out her shaking hands. I knew this shockingly disordered Miss Burney's notions of propriety and that a lady out of favour with the great world should be seen by me thus familiar with her, and she at Court. She barely touched the hand. "It was to the memory of those days your friends looked to keep you in a becoming path," said she.
He was particularly fond of Dr. Burney's concerts. They had, indeed, been commenced at his suggestion, and when he visited London he constantly attended them.
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