Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/627

Rh upon him, on 23d June 1769, the degrees of bachelor and doctor of music, on which occasion he presided at the performance of his exercise for these degrees. This con sisted of an anthem, with an overture, solos, recitatives, and choruses, accompanied by instruments, besides a vocal anthem in eight parts, which was not performed. His friend, C. P. E. Bach, requested a copy of this exercise, and had it performed in St Catharine s Church at Hamburg, under his own direction, in 1773. It was repeatedly performed at Oxford, &quot; after it had fufilled its original destination,&quot; as Burney tells us (Hist, of Music, vol. iii. p. 329) ; and he apologizes as follows for saying so much about it : &quot; It is hoped that the reader will pardon this egotism, which has been extorted from me by occasional and sinister assertions, that I neither liked nor had studied church music. &quot; (Ibid). In 1769 he published A n Essay towards a History of Comets. Amidst his various professional avocations, Burney never lost sight of his favourite object, his History of Music, and therefore resolved to travel abroad for the purposs of collecting materials that could not be found in Great Britain. Accordingly, he left London in June 1770, furnished with numerous letters of introduction, and proceeded to Paris, and thence to Geneva, Turin, and the principal cities of Italy. The results of his observations he published in The Present State of Music in France and Italy (1 vol. 8vo, London, 1771). Dr Johnson thought so well of this work, that, alluding to his own Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, he said, &quot; I had that clever dog Burney s Musical Tour in my eye.&quot; In July 1772 Burney again visited the Continent, to collect further materials, and, after his return to London, published his tour under the title of The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces (2 vols. 8vo, London, 1773). In 1773 he was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1776 appeared the first volume (in 4 to) of his long-projected History of Music ; in 1782 the second volume; and in 1789 the third and fourth. Though severely criticised by Forkel in Germany and by the Spanish ex-Jesuit, Requeno, who, in his Italian work Sagr/j sul Ristabilimento dell Arte Armonica de Greci e Romani Canton, Parma, 1798 (2 vols. 8 vo), attacks Burney s account of the ancient Greek music, and calls him lo scompigliato Burney, the History of Music was generally recognized as possessing great merit. The least satisfactory volume is the fourth, the treatment of Handel and Bach being quite inadequate. Burney s first Tour was translated into German by Ebeling, and printed at Hamburg in 1772 ; and his second Tour, translated into German by Bode, was published at Hamburg in 1773. A Dutch translation of his second Tour, with notes by J. W. Lustig, organist at Groningen, was published there in 1786 The Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients, in the first volume of Burney s History, was translated into German by J. J. Eschenburg, and printed at Leipsic, 1781. Burney derived much aid from the first two volumes of Padre Martini s very learned Storia della Musica, Bologna, 1757-1770. One cannot but admire his persevering industry, and his sacrifices of time, money and personal comfort, in collecting and preparing materials for his History ; and few will be disposed to condemn severely errors and oversights in a work of such extent and difficulty. In 1779 he wrote for the Royal Society an account of the infant Crotch, whose remarkable musical talent excited so much attention at that time In 1784 he published, with an Italian title- page, the music annually performed in the Pope s chapel at Rome during Passion Week. In 1785 he published, for the benefit of the Musical Fund, an account of the first commemoration of Handel in Westminster Abbey in the preceding year, with an excellent life of Handel. In 1796 he published Memoirs and Letters of Metastasio, 3 vols. 8vo. Towards the close of his life, Burney contributed to the Rev. Dr Rees s Cyclopaedia all the musical articles not belonging to the department of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics. For these articles he received 1000, which seems a remarkable remuneration, considering that most of his materials were merely transcribed from his own History of Music. In 1789, through the treasury influence of his friend Edmund Burke, he was appointed organist to the chapel of Chelsea Hospital, and he resided in the hospital for the remainder of his life. He was made a member of the Institute of France, and nominated a correspondent in the class of the Fine Arts, in the year 1810. He died at Chelsea College on the 12th of April 1814, and was interred in the burying-ground of the college on the 20th of the same month. Burney had a wide circle of acquaintance among the distinguished artists and literary men of his day. At one time he thought of writing a life of his friend Dr Samuel Johnson ; but he retired before the crowd of biographers who rushed into that field. His character in private as well as public life appears to have been very amiable arid exemplary. Dr Burney s eldest son, James, was a distinguished officer in the royal navy, and died a rear-admiral in 1821. He published several works of merit. A notice of his second son, the Rev. Charles Burney, D.D., an eminent Greek scholar, will be found below, and of his second daughter Frances (Madame D Arblay) under the heading. The Diary and Letters of Madame D Arblay contain many minute and interesting particulars of her father s public and private life, and of his friends and contemporaries. A life of her father, by Madame D Arblay, appeared in 1832.

1em  BURNEY, (1757-1817), son of the preceding, an eminent classical scholar, was born at Lynn, in Norfolk, in 1757. At the age of eleven he was sent to the Charter house in London, whence he removed to Caius College, Cambridge. He quitted the university without taking his degree ; but in 1791 he received the diploma of LL.D. from Aberdeen, and in 1808 that of D.D. from Cambridge. In 1783 he married the daughter of Dr Rose, the trans lator of Sallust, and continued for some time to assist his father-in-law in the management of his academy. He con tributed at. this time many articles to the Monthly Review, and afterwards edited for two or three years the London Magazine. Some of his contributions to the first of these periodicals gained him much credit not only among English but among Continental scholars. In the course of time he realized a handsome fortune, great part of which ho expended in the formation of his splendid library. The manuscripts and rare books collected by him were con sidered so valuable that at his death, which happened in 1817, they were purchased by the nation and deposited in the British Museum.  BURNEY,. See.  BURNLEY, a manufacturing town and municipal and parliamentary borough of England, 22 miles N. of Manchester, in a valley on the River Burn, from which it derives it name, and in the immediate vicinity of the Leeds and Liverpool canal. Its streets are well paved, and there is an abundant supply of water. Among its buildings of note are the frequently restored church of St Peter s; a market hall, erected in 1866; and a literary institution 