This whimsical incident produced from the still playful imagination of Mr. Owen Cambridge the following _jeu d’esprit_; to which he was incited by an accident that had just occurred to the celebrated Gibbon; who, in stepping too lightly from, or to a boat of Mr. Cambridge’s, had slipt into the Thames; whence, however, he was intrepidly and immediately rescued, with no other mischief than a wet jacket, by one of that fearless, water-proof race, denominated, by Mr. Gibbon, the amphibious family of the Cambridges.
“When Chloe’s picture was to Venus shown,” &c.
“When Burney’s picture was to Gibbon shown, The pleased historian took it for his own; ‘For who, with shoulders dry, and powder’d locks, E’er bath’d but I?’ He said, and rapt his box. “Barry replied, ‘My lasting colours show What gifts the painter’s pencil can bestow; With nymphs of Thames, those amiable creatures, I placed the charming minstrel’s smiling features: But let not, then, his _bonne fortune_ concern ye, For there are nymphs enough for you—and Burney.’”
But all that Dr. Burney possessed, either of spirited resistance or acquiescent submission to misfortune, was again to be severely tried in the summer that followed the spring of this unkindly year; for the health of his venerated Dr. Johnson received a blow from which it never wholly recovered; though frequent rays of hope intervened from danger to danger; and though more than a year and a half were still allowed to his honoured existence upon earth.
Mr. Seward first brought to Dr. Burney the alarming tidings, that this great and good man had been afflicted by a paralytic stroke. The Doctor hastened to Bolt Court, taking with him this Memorialist, who had frequently and urgently been desired by Dr. Johnson himself, during the time that they lived so much together at Streatham, to see him often if he should be ill. But he was surrounded by medical people, and could only admit the Doctor. He sent down, nevertheless, the kindest message of thanks to the truly-sorrowing daughter, for calling upon him; and a request that, “when he should be better, she would come to him again and again.”
From Mrs. Williams, with whom she remained, she then received the comfort of an assurance that the physicians had pronounced him not to be in danger; and even that they expected the illness would be speedily overcome. The stroke had been confined to the tongue.