All this comic English he pronounces in a manner the most comically pompous. Nevertheless, my father thinks he will soon speak better, and that he seems less to want language than patience to assort it; hurrying on impetuously, and any how, rather than stopping for recollection.
He diverted us all very much after dinner, by begging leave of Mrs. Thrale to give “one toast;” and then, with smiling pomposity, pronouncing “The great Vagabond!” meaning to designate Dr. Johnson as “The Rambler.”
This is the last visit remembered, or, at least, narrated, of Streatham.
Streatham thus gone, though the intercourse with Mrs. Thrale, who now resided in Argyle-street, London, was as fondly, if not as happily, sustained as ever, Dr. Burney had again his first amanuensis and librarian wholly under his roof; and the pleasure of his parental feelings doubled those of his renown; for the new author was included, with the most flattering distinction, in almost every invitation that he received, or acquaintance that he made, where a female presided in the society.
Never was practical proof more conspicuous of the power of surmounting every difficulty that rises against our progress to an appointed end, when Inclination and Business take each other by the hand in its pursuit, than was now evinced by the conduct and success of Dr. Burney in his musical enterprize.
He vigilantly visited both the Universities, leaving nothing uninvestigated that assiduity or address could ferret out to his purpose. The following account of these visits is copied from his own memorials:
“I went three several years to the Bodleian and other libraries in that most admirable seminary of learning and science, the Oxford University. I had previously spent a week at Cambridge; and, at both those Universities, I had, in my researches, discovered curious and rare manuscript tracts on Music of the middle ages, before the invention of the press, not mentioned in any of the printed or manuscript catalogues; and which the most learned librarians did not know were in existence, from the several different Treatises in Latin, French, and obsolete English, being bound up in odd volumes, and only the first of them mentioned in the lettering, or title of the volume. At Christ Church, to which Dr. Aldrich had bequeathed his musical library, I met with innumerable compositions by the best Masters of Italy, as well as of our own country, that were then extant; such as Carissimi, Luigi, Cesti, Stradella, Tye, Tallis, Bird, Morley, and Purcel. I made a catalogue of this admirable collection, including the tracts and musical compositions of the learned and ingenious Dean, its founder; a copy of which I had the honour to present to the college.”