Brooke, HENRY

Brooke, HENRY, dramatist and novelist, was born in the year 1708, at Rantavan, County Cavan, Ireland, the son of a wealthy clergyman. In 1720 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1724 went to study law in London, where he became the chosen friend of Pope and Lyttelton. From the heart of this brilliant literary society he was recalled to Ireland by a dying aunt, who left him guardian of her child, a girl of twelve, whom he afterwards married. His poem, Universal Beauty (1735), is supposed to have supplied the foundation for Erasmus Darwin's Botanic Garden. In 1739 he published his play, Gustavus Vasa, full of the noblest sentiments and the most inconceivable characters, the acting of which was prohibited at Drury Lane; Dr Johnson writing a satire in vindication of the licensors of the stage. It was afterwards produced in Dublin as the Patriot. In 1740 Brooke was taken ill, and returned finally to his native country, where he published several books. He died at Dublin, in a state of mental debility, 10th October 1783. The sonorous eloquence of his plays has not saved them from oblivion; and his novel, The Fool of Quality, is the sole survivor of his numerous works. It is distinguished by humour, close observation, simplicity of style, and a religious and philanthropic tone that highly commended it to John Wesley. A new edition was published in 1859, with a preface by Kingsley, who considered that the reader, in spite of the defects of the book, would learn more from it of what was pure, sacred, and eternal, than from any book since Spenser's Faerie Queene.