or revolution in nature.—Burnet has farther claims. His ingenuity and mental energy were undoubted; and he was a consummate master of style. His paragraphs are often as spacious as Bacon's: they are the adequate expression of majestic thought.—J. P. N.
BURNET, William, royal governor, first of New York and New Jersey, and subsequently of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, was the eldest son of the celebrated Bishop Burnet, and was born at the Hague in March, 1688. In 1720 he was appointed governor of New York and New Jersey, and in September of that year, arrived at New York and assumed the government, which he held for eight years, his administration in the main being popular and prosperous. He obtained from the Mohawk Indians a grant of a strip of land; established in 1722 an English trading post at Oswego, building a small fort for its protection at his own expense; and thus got possession of the south shore of Lake Ontario for his government, being the first to erect the English flag upon the great lakes. He was involved in a quarrel with the assembly, because they refused to grant the standing revenue for a longer period than three years, and in consequence was removed from his office, the government of Massachusetts and New Hampshire being given him in exchange. In consequence of an early quarrel with the general court, his position at Boston was most uncomfortable. He died in 1729.
BURNETTUS or BRUNETTUS, Latinus, a native of Florence, died in 1295. He was the master of Dante, who is said to allude to him in the 15th canto of the Inferno.—T. J.
BURNEY, Charles, Mus. D., was born of respectable parents in the city of Shrewsbury, on the 7th April, 1726. The first part of his education he received at the free school of that city, and was subsequently removed to the public school at Chester, where he also commenced his musical studies under Mr. Baker, the organist of the cathedral, and a pupil of the celebrated Dr. Blow. When about fifteen years of age, he returned to his native town, and for three years longer pursued the study of music, as a future profession, under his elder brother of the half blood, Mr. James Burney, organist of St. Mary's, Shrewsbury; when, by the advice of Dr. Arne, he was sent to London, and placed under that celebrated master for another term of three years. In 1749 he was elected organist of St. Dionis-Backchurch in Fenchurch Street, and, in the winter of the same year, engaged to preside at the harpsichord in a subscription concert, then recently established at the King's Arms in Cornhill. In the season of 1749-50, he also composed for Drury Lane theatre the music of three dramas, namely. Mallet's tragedy of Alfred, Mendez's Robin Hood, and Queen Mab. Being threatened with consumption, however, he could not continue these exertions, and, in 1751, accepted the situation of organist at King's Lynn in Norfolk, where he remained for the succeeding nine years. In this retreat he formed the design, and laid the foundation of his future great work, the "General History of Music." In 1760, his health being completely re-established, Burney returned to London, and entered upon the exercise of his profession with increased profit and reputation. He had by this time a large young family, and his eldest daughter, about eight years of age, obtained great celebrity in the musical world by her surprising performances on the harpsichord. Soon after his arrival in London, Burney published several concertos which were much admired. In 1766 he brought out at Drury Lane, with considerable success, a musical piece entitled "The Cunning Man," founded upon, and adapted to the music of J. J. Rousseau's Devin du Village. It was a playful and spirited free translation, not a mere version, of the original, and was highly praised by contemporary critics. On the 23rd of June, 1769, the university of Oxford conferred on Mr. Burney the degrees of bachelor and doctor of music, on which occasion he performed an exercise consisting of an anthem of considerable length, with an overture, solos, recitatives, and choruses, which continued long to be a favourite at the Oxford music meetings, and was frequently performed in Germany under the direction of the doctor's friend, Emanuel Bach. In the meantime, neither the assiduous pursuit of his profession, nor the multiplied engagements to which musical men are liable, had interrupted Dr. Burney's collections for his "General History of Music." He had now exhausted all the information that books could afford him; but these, as he remarks in the introduction to his travels, are in general such faithful copies of each other, that he who reads two or three has the substance of as many hundreds, and were far from furnishing all the information he wanted. Even if the past history of the art could have been accurately and completely detailed by a digest of previous publications, its actual and present state could be ascertained only by personal investigation and familiar converse with the most celebrated performers in foreign countries as well as in his own. For this purpose he resolved to make the tour of Italy, France, and Germany, determined to hear with his own ears, and see with his own eyes; and, if possible, to hear and see nothing but music. He accordingly quitted London in the beginning of June, 1770, furnished by the earl of Sandwich (a distinguished amateur of music) with recommendatory letters in his own handwriting, to every English nobleman and gentleman who resided as a public character at the several cities through which he intended to pass. Proceeding first to Paris, he spent several days in that city; and then went by the route of Lyons and Geneva (where he had an accidental interview with Voltaire), to Turin, and visited, in succession, Milan, Padua, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples, consulting everywhere the libraries and the learned; hearing the best music and most celebrated, both sacred and secular; and receiving everywhere the most cheerful and liberal assistance toward the accomplishment of his object. On his return to England, Dr. Burney published an account of his tour, in one volume, which was exceedingly well received, and deemed by the best judges so good a model for travellers who were inclined to give a description of what they had seen or observed, that Dr. Johnson professedly imitated it in his own Tour to the Hebrides, saying, "I had that clever dog Burney's musical tour in my eye." In July, 1772, in order to complete his original plan. Dr. Burney again embarked for the continent, to make the tour of Germany and the Netherlands, of which, on his return, he also published an account in two volumes. At Vienna he had the good fortune to make the intimate acquaintance of the celebrated poet Metastasio—a circumstance the more honourable to Dr. Burney, as Metastasio was then at an age when new friendships are not frequently formed, and was, besides, remarkably difficult of access to strangers, and averse alike to new persons and new things. Here he also found two of the greatest musicians of that age, Hasse and Gluck. From Vienna he proceeded through Prague, Dresden, and Berlin, to Hamburg, and thence by the way of Holland to England, where he immediately devoted himself to the arranging the invaluable mass of materials which his laborious and expensive travels had enabled him to collect. In 1773 Dr. Burney was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; and in 1776 he published the first volume of his "General History of Music," in quarto. In the same year, the complete work of Sir John Hawkins appeared. The subsequent volumes of Burney's work were published at unequal intervals, the fourth and last appearing in 1789. Between the two rival histories, the public decision was loud and immediate in favour of Dr. Burney. Time has modified this opinion, and brought the merits of each work to their fair and proper level—adjudging to Burney the palm of style, arrangement, and amusing narrative, and to Hawkins the credit of minuter accuracy and deeper research, more particularly in parts interesting to the antiquary, and to the literary world in general. Burney's first volume, which treats of the music and poetry of the ancient Greeks, the music of the Hebrews, Egyptians, &c., is a masterpiece of profound learning and critical acumen. The second and third volumes are admirable in the materials and their arrangement, comprising all that was then known of the biographies of the great musicians of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The fourth volume is perhaps less entitled to praise. Whole pages are given to long-forgotten and worthless Italian operas, whilst the great works of Handel and Sebastian Bach remain unchronicled. When the extraordinary musical precocity of the infant Crotch (afterwards Dr. Crotch) first excited the attention, not only of the musical profession, but of the scientific world, Burney at the request of Sir John Pringle, drew up an account of the infant phenomenon, which was read at a meeting of the Royal Society in 1779, and published in the Philosophical Transactions of that year. The commemoration of Handel in 1784 again called forth the literary talents of the historian of music; his account of those magnificent performances, published in quarto for the benefit of the musical fund, is well-known to every musical reader; and the "Life of Handel," by which it is prefaced, still holds a distinguished rank in English biography. The author received for this
