But the happiest produce to Dr. Burney of this enterprise, and the dearest mede of his musical labours, was the cordial connexion to which it led with Mr. Twining, afterwards called Aristotle Twining; which opened with an impulsive reciprocation
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of liking, and ended in a friendship as permanent as it was exhilarating.
Mr. Twining, urged by an early and intuitive taste, equally deep and refined, for learning and for letters, had begun life by desiring to make over the very high emoluments of a lucrative business, with its affluence and its cares, to a deserving younger brother; while he himself should be quietly settled, for the indulgence of his literary propensities, in some retired and moderate living, at a distance from the metropolis.
His father listened without disapprobation; and at the vicarage of Colchester, Mr. Twining established his clerical residence.
His acquaintance with Dr. Burney commenced by a letter of singular merit, and of nearly incomparable modesty. After revealing, in terms that showed the most profound skill in musical science, that he had himself not only studied and projected, but, in various rough desultory sections, had actually written certain portions of a History of Music, he liberally acknowledged that he had found the plan of the Doctor so eminently superior to his own, and the means that had been taken for its execution so far beyond his power of imitation,
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that he had come to a resolution of utterly renouncing his design; of which not a vestige would now remain that could reflect any pleasure upon his lost time and pains, unless he might appease his abortive attempt by presenting its fruits, with the hope that they would not be found utterly useless, to Dr. Burney.
So generous an offering could not fail of being delightedly accepted; and the more eagerly, as the whole style of the letter decidedly spoke its writer to be a scholar, a wit, and a man of science.
Dr. Burney earnestly solicited to receive the manuscript from Mr. Twining’s own hands: and Mr. Twining, though with a timidity as rare in accompanying so much merit as the merit itself, complied with the request.
The pleasure of this first interview was an immediate guarantee of the mental union to which it gave rise. Every word that issued from Mr. Twining confirmed the three high characters to which his letter had raised expectation,—of a man of science, a scholar, and a wit. Their taste in music, and their selection of composers and compositions, were of the same school; i.e. the modern and the Italian for melody, and the German for harmony.
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Nor even here was bounded the chain by wh............