Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/214

 203 HENRY BROOKE, THE author of " Gustavus Vasa," and "The Fool of Qua lity" was born in Ireland in 1706. His father, a man of considerable talent and great worth, was rector of the parishes of Kollinhare, Mullough, Mybullough, and Li- cowie: his mother's name was Digby. He was for some time the pupil of Dr. Sheridan, and from thence removed to Trinity College, Dublin, and when only seventeen, he commenced the study of the law in the Temple. In this situation, his genius, vivacity, and amiable temper, en- deared him to the first characters there, and he was gene- rally admired and beloved; and the friendship of Swift and Pope conferred a lustre on his name. He was recalled to Ireland by the illness of his aunt, who, on her dying bed, committed to his care and guardianship her daughter, a beautiful girl not twelve years old. Pleased with the trust, he was assiduous in his care, he placed her at a boarding school in Dublin, visited her often, with tender anxiety, thought only of her happiness, until he found bis own was connected with it, and the guardian lost in the lover. He found the enchanting girl sensible of his worth and ready to return his affection, and at length prevailed on her to consent to a private marriage, before she had reached her fourteenth year. It is not easy, or pleasant to believe, what some have affirmed, that she was a mother before that period. When the marriage was discovered, the ceremony was again performed in the presence of the family. Happy, and with no cares but to please each other, it was not until after the birth of their third child, that they began to think seriously how a family was to be provided for. Brooke had long given up the law, and he felt no inclination to resume a profession, which excluded the pleasures of imagination, and was so opposite to the feelings of a mjnd, tender, benevolent, and romantic. A