- Frances Greville
Frances Greville (c 1724-1789) was an Irish
poet and celebrity in GeorgianEngland .She was born in
Longford ,Ireland in the mid-1720s; by the early 1740s, she was inLondon , accompanyingSarah Lennox, Duchess of Richmond .Horace Walpole 's poem "The Beauties" (1746) mentions her as among the most prominent women of court.Frances married Fulke Greville of Wilbury House (
Wiltshire ) in 1748. Greville was a gambler and a dandy, but that he loved his wife is witnessed by her presence (under the character of "Flora" in his "Maxims, Characters, and Reflections" (1756). Frances is believed to have contributed to the volume herself.Frances Greville's own career as an amateur poet was marked by one resounding success: the "Prayer for Indifference." This poem, first published in the "Edinburgh Chronicle", offers an attack on the cult of
sensibility . It was reprinted regularly in the following decades, often paired with a poem in praise of sensibility. Her output otherwise was light, and mostly within the confines ofVers de société .She spent the 1760s and 1770s in travel. Her husband was named
envoy toBavaria in 1764. She spent her age in conversation, befriending Charles andFrances Burney , as well asRichard Brinsley Sheridan , who dedicated his "The Critic" to her.Her daughter became a prominent Whig hostess. Frances died in 1789.
References
*Fuller, Joyce, ed. "British Women Poets, 1660-1800". Troy, New York: Whitson Publishing Company, 1990.
*Lonsdale, Roger. "Eighteenth Century Women Poets". Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.External links
*Betty Rizzo, ‘Greville , Frances (1727?–1789)’, "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", (Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/66076] , accessed 15 Sept 2008.
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