son, named Charles, well known as the author of the "History of
Music" and as the father of two remarkable children, of a son
distinguished by learning and of a daughter still more honourably
distinguished by genius.

Charles early showed a taste for that art of which, at a later
period, he became the historian. He was apprenticed to a
celebrated musician(1) in London, and He applied himself to study
with vigour and success. He early found a kind and munificent
Patron in Fulk Greville, a highborn and highbred man, who seems
to have had in large measure all the accomplishments and all the
follies, all the virtues and all the vices, which, a hundred
years ago, were considered as making up the character of a fine
gentleman. Under such protection, the young artist had every
pros-
Page xiv

pect of a brilliant career in the capital. But -his health
failed. It became necessary for him to retreat from the smoke and
river fog of London to the pure air of the coast. He accepted the
place of organist at Lynn, and settled at that town with a young
lady who had recently become his wife.(2)

At Lynn, in June, 1752, Frances Burney was born.(3) Nothing in
her childhood indicated that she would, while still a young
woman, have secured for herself an honourable and permanent place
among English writers. She was shy and silent. Her brothers and
sisters called her a dunce, and not altogether without some show
of reason ; for at eight years old she did not know her letters.