Charles Burney FRS (4 December 1757 – 28 December 1817) was an English writer and scholar. He was best known for his works on Greek literature. He was well-known for his Appendix to the Graeco-Latin lexicon (1789) and Remarks on the Greek Verses of Milton (1790). He was also a schoolmaster, clergyman, and chaplain to King George III. He kept a school for boys in Hammersmith and later Greenwich.
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Early life and education
A native of London, he was the son of Charles Burney, a music historian, and his first wife, Esther Sleepe. He was a brother of the novelist and diarist Fanny Burney and the explorer James Burney, and a half-brother of the novelist Sarah Burney.
Burney was educated at Charterhouse School, London and at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge. He was accused of stealing books from the university library to pay debts and sent down in 1778. He obtained an LLD degree from King's College, Aberdeen in 1781. Burney collected 13,000 rare books and manuscripts, which he sold to the British Museum in 1817 for £13,500. This Burney Collection is housed in the British Library.