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