Fanny Burney and Her Friends: Select Passages from Her Diary and Other Writings. Burney Fanny

      CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      Birth—Parentage—The Macburneys—Early Life of Dr. Burney—Fulk Greville—Esther Sleepe—Lynn—Poland Street—Frances Burney’s Brothers and Sisters—Her Backwardness in Childhood—Her Mother’s Death—David Garrick—The Old Lady—The Wig-maker—Neglect of Fanny’s Education—Her Taste for Scribbling—Samuel Crisp—His Early Life—His Tragedy—Its Failure—His Chagrin—His Life at Hampton—His Retirement from the World—Crisp renews his Acquaintance with Burney—Becomes the Adviser of the Family—Burney’s Amiable Temper—Chesington Hall—Its Quaint Interior—Contrast between Fanny and her Elder Sister—Burney’s Second Marriage—Change of Plans—Mrs. Burney lectures Fanny—An Auto da Fé—Origin of ‘Evelina’—Burney takes his Doctor’s Degree—His Essay on Comets—Preparations for the ‘History of Music’—Musical Tour in France and Italy—House in Queen Square—German Tour—Fanny’s Occupation during his Absence—Removal to St. Martin’s Street—Newton’s House—The Observatory—Fanny’s Arrival at Womanhood.

      Frances Burney was born at King’s Lynn on the 13th of June, 1752. She was the second daughter, and third child, of Dr. Charles Burney, author of the well-known ‘History of Music,’ by Esther Sleepe, his first wife.

It has been stated,^[1] we know not on what authority, that Dr. Burney was a descendant in the fifth degree of James Macburney, a native of Scotland, who attended King James I. when he left that country to take possession of the English throne. The doctor himself was certainly unacquainted with this fact, if fact it be. His grandfather and father were each named James Macburney, but they were both born at the village of Great Hanwood, in Shropshire, where the former inherited a considerable estate; there was no trace in their connections of Celtic extraction; and Charles has recorded that he could never find at what period any of his ancestors lived in Scotland or Ireland. Doubtless it was the adventures of the two historical James Macburneys which led Macaulay to conclude that the family was of Irish origin. James the younger offended his father by eloping with an actress from the Goodman’s Fields Theater. ‘The old gentleman could devise no more judicious mode of wreaking vengeance on his undutiful boy than by marrying the cook.’ He married some sort of domestic, at any rate, who brought him a son, named Joseph, to whom he left all his property. Joseph, however, soon ran through his fortune, and was reduced to earn his bread as a dancing-master in Norfolk. His elder brother James survived the actress, and though a poor widower with a swarm of children, gained the hand of Miss Ann Cooper, an heiress and beauty, who had refused the addresses of the celebrated Wycherley. After his second marriage, James followed the profession of a portrait-painter, first at Shrewsbury, and later at Chester. The number of his children rose to twenty-two; the youngest being Charles, afterwards Dr. Burney, and a twin sister, Susannah, who were born and baptized at Shrewsbury on the 12th of April, 1726; at which date their father still retained the name of Macburney. When and why the Mac was dropped we are not informed, but by the time Charles attained to manhood, the family in all its branches—uncles and cousins, as well as brothers and sisters—had concurred in adopting the more compact form of Burney.

The musical talents of Charles Burney showed themselves at an early age. In his eighteenth year, the proficiency he had acquired under his eldest half-brother, James Burney, organist of St. Mary’s, Shrewsbury, recommended him to the notice of Dr. Arne, the composer of ‘Rule, Britannia,’ who offered to take him as a pupil. In 1744, accordingly, Charles was articled to the most famous English musician of that day, and went to live in London. At the house of the no less famous Mrs. Cibber,^[2] who was sister of Dr. Arne, he had opportunities of mixing with most of the persons then distinguished by their writings or their performances in connection with the orchestra and the stage. At the end of his third year with Arne, Burney acquired a still more useful patron. Among the leaders of ton in the middle of last century was Fulk Greville, a descendant of the favorite of Queen Elizabeth and friend of Sir Philip Sidney. To a passion for field sports, horse-racing, and gaming, this fine gentleman united an equally strong taste for more refined pleasures, and his ample possessions enabled him to gratify every inclination to the utmost. Greville met Burney at the shop of Kirkman, the harpsichord-maker, and was so captivated with his playing and lively conversation, that he paid Arne £300 to cancel the young man’s articles, and took him to live with himself as a sort of musical companion. The high-bred society to which he was now introduced prepared Burney to take rank in later years as the most fashionable professor of music, and one of the most polished wits of his time. In Greville’s town circle, and at his country seat, Wilbury House, near Andover, his dependent constantly encountered peers, statesmen, diplomatists, macaronis, to whose various humours this son of a provincial portrait-painter seems to have adapted himself as readily as if he had been to the manner born. So firm a hold did he gain on his protector, that neither the marriage of the latter, nor his own, appears in any degree to have weakened his favour. When Greville chose to make a stolen match with Miss Frances Macartney,^[3] or, as the lady’s father expressed it, ‘to take a wife out of the window whom he might just as well have taken out of the door,’ Burney was employed to give the bride away. When Burney himself became a benedict, Mr. and Mrs. Greville cordially approved both the act and his choice, and Mrs. Greville subsequently stood as godmother to Frances Burney.

It was in 1749 that Charles Burney took to wife the lady before mentioned, who, on her mother’s side, was of French origin, and grandchild of a Huguenot refugee named Dubois. Esther Sleepe herself was bred in the City of London, and her future husband first saw her at the house of his elder brother, Richard Burney, in Hatton Garden. To his fashionable friends the marriage must have seemed an imprudent one, for Miss Sleepe had no fortune to compensate for her obscure parentage.