Page:EB1911 - Volume 04.djvu/666

 were exquisite works of art, ingeniously and tastefully constructed. They are often of gold, with a central boss, exquisitely decorated, the flat part of the brooch being a mosaic of turquoises, garnets on gold foil, mother of pearl, &c. arranged in geometric patterns, and the gold work enriched with filigree or decorated with dragonesque engravings.



The Scandinavian brooches of the Viking period ( 800–1050) were oval and convex, somewhat in the form of a tortoise. In their earliest form they occur in the form of a frog-like animal, itself developed from the previous Teutonic T-shaped type. With the introduction of the intricate system of ornament described above, the frog-like animal is gradually superseded by purely decorative lines. The convex bowls are then worked à jour with a perforated upper shell of chased work over an under shell of impure bronze, gilt on the convex side. These outer cases are at last decorated with open crown-like ornament and massive projecting bosses. The geographical distribution of these peculiar brooches indicates the extent of the conquests of the Northmen. They occur in northern Scotland, England, Ireland, Iceland, Normandy and Livonia.



The Celtic group is characterized by the penannular form of the ring of the brooch and the greater length of the pin. The penannular ring, inserted through a hole at the head of the long pin, could be partially turned when the pin had been thrust through the material in such a way that the brooch became in effect a buckle. These brooches are usually of bronze or silver, chased or engraved with intricate designs of interlaced or dragonesque work in the style of the illuminated Celtic manuscripts of the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries. The Hunterston brooch, which was found at Hawking Craig in Ayrshire, is a well-known example of this style. Silver brooches of immense size, some having pins 15 in. in length, and the penannular ring of the brooch terminating in large knobs resembling thistle heads, are occasionally found in Viking hoards of this period, consisting of bullion, brooches and Cufic and Anglo-Saxon coins buried on Scottish soil. In medieval times the form of the brooch was usually a simple, flat circular disk, with open centre, the pin being equal in length to the diameter of the brooch. They were often inscribed with religious and talismanic formulae. The Highland brooches were commonly of this form, but the disk was broader, and the central opening smaller in proportion to the size of the brooch. They were ornamented in the style so common on Highland powder-horns, with engraved patterns of interlacing work and foliage, arranged in geometrical spaces, and sometimes mingled with figures of animals.

BROOKE, FRANCES (1724–1789), English novelist and dramatist, whose maiden name was Moore, was born in 1724. Of her novels, some of which enjoyed considerable popularity in their day, the most important were The History of Lady Julia Mandeville (1763), Emily Montague (1769) and The Excursion (1777). Her dramatic pieces and translations from the French are now forgotten. She died in January 1789.

BROOKE, FULKE GREVILLE, (1554–1628), English poet, only son of Sir Fulke Greville, was born at Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire. He was sent in 1564, on the same day as his life-long friend, Philip Sidney, to Shrewsbury school. He matriculated at Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1568. Sir Henry Sidney, president of Wales, gave him in 1576 a post connected with the court of the Marches, but he resigned it in 1577 to go to court with Philip Sidney. Young Greville became a great favourite with Queen Elizabeth, who treated him with less than her usual caprice, but he was more than once disgraced for leaving the country against her wishes. Philip Sidney, Sir Edward Dyer and Greville were members of the "Areopagus," the literary clique which, under the leadership of Gabriel Harvey, supported the introduction of classical metres into English verse. Sidney and Greville arranged to sail with Sir Francis Drake in 1585 in his expedition against the Spanish West Indies, but Elizabeth peremptorily forbade Drake to take them with him, and also refused Greville’s request to be allowed to join Leicester’s army in the Netherlands. Philip Sidney, who took part in the campaign, was killed on the 17th of October 1586, and Greville shared with Dyer the legacy of his books, while in his Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney he raised an enduring monument to his friend’s memory. About 1591 Greville served for a short time in Normandy under Henry of Navarre. This was his last experience of war. In 1583 he became secretary to the principality of Wales, and he represented Warwickshire in parliament in 1592–1593, 1597, 1601 and 1620. In 1598 he was made treasurer of the navy, and he retained the office through the early years of the reign of James I. In 1614 he became chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer, and throughout the reign he was a valued supporter of the king’s party, although in 1615 he advocated the summoning of a parliament. In 1618 he became commissioner of the treasury, and in 1621 he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Brooke, a title which had belonged to the family of his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Willoughby. He received from James I. the grant of Warwick Castle, in the restoration of which he is said to have spent £20,000. He died on the 30th of September 1628 in consequence of a wound inflicted by a servant who was disappointed at not being named in his master’s will. Brooke was buried in St Mary’s church, Warwick, and on his tomb was inscribed the epitaph he had composed for himself: "Folk Grevill Servant to Queene Elizabeth Conceller to King James Frend to Sir Philip Sidney. Trophaeum Peccati."

A rhyming elegy on Brooke, published in Huth's Inedited Poetical Miscellanies, brings charges of extreme penuriousness against him, but of his generous treatment of contemporary writers there is abundant testimony. His only works published during his lifetime were four poems, one of which is the elegy on Sidney which appeared in The Phoenix Nest (1593), and the Tragedy of Mustapha. A volume of his works appeared in 1633, another of Remains in 1670, and his biography of Sidney in 1652. He wrote two tragedies on the Senecan model, Alaham and Mustapha. The scene of Alaham is laid in Ormuz. The development of the piece fully bears out the gloom of the prologue, in which the ghost of a former king of Ormuz reveals the magnitude of the curse about to descend on the doomed family. The theme of Mustapha is borrowed from Madeleine de Scudéry's Ibrahim ou l'illustre Bassa, and turns on the ambition of the sultana Rossa. The choruses of these plays are really philosophical dissertations, and the connexion with the rest of the drama is often very slight. In Mustapha, for instance, the third chorus is a dialogue between Time and Eternity, while the fifth consists of an invective against the evils of superstition, followed by a chorus of priests that does nothing to dispel