Summary
The wealthy MacBurneys, of Shropshire, who could probably claim descent from the Irish O'Byrnes, of Wicklow, were the ancestors of Frances Burney. The large landed property of the family was all gone, however, long before she was born. Her grandfather, James, ran away with an actress, was cut off with a shilling, dropped his Irish Mac, and became portrait-painter at Chester; whilst his more favoured brother, Joseph, turned dancing-master, after squandering a noble inheritance. James had a son, Charles Burney, who wrote a history of music, and whose daughter, Frances, will long be remembered as the first English authoress of real celebrity.
She was born at Lynn Regis, of which her father was then organist, on the 13th of June, 1752, and she died in 1840, having in the course of her long life produced but four novels, though leaving behind her a great name.
Her father, Dr. Burney, was an author and an agreeable man. Frances, his second daughter, was a shy, demure, grave little creature, whom the friends of the family called “the old lady,” and who beneath that solemn exterior concealed, not merely an unusual amount of talent, but an exquisite sense of the ridiculous, and a rare and penetrating knowledge of character. Her father relates that “she used, after having seen a play in Mrs. Garrick's box, to take the actors off, and compose speeches for their characters, for she could not read them.”
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- Information
- English Women of LettersBiographical Sketches, pp. 79 - 118Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1863