Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/809

BRO almost selfishly, refusing the aid and comfort of those nearest and dearest—sternly in the bleak December, in the bleak parsonage she would never leave. Anne's claim to memory rests on a novel, "Wildfell Hall," a short tale, and a few verses. The former cannot be called successful. The subject was alien to her genius, and the grace of its style does not remove a feeling of the distaste the authoress herself must have had in the composition. "Agnes Grey" is a quiet romance of her own experience. Emily has left behind her "Wuthering Heights," which with all its imperfections is one of the most wonderful creations of female genius. It is a rude, but colossal monument of power; a terrible transcript of some of the strangest of the strange scenes which the manners and traditions of that wild country had made familiar to her mind. The tale itself is of thrilling interest; if it has a too pervading power, it is full also of touches of exquisite simplicity. The characters are vivid, and if we may hope they are singular, we also feel that they are real. The style is abrupt but vigorous, and it has words that cling to our memory. Some one has well said—"Let the critic lay down the book in what mood he will, there are some things in it he can lay down no more." It impresses us with a remembrance of grandeur, like a "granite block on a solitary moor." The poems written by Ellis Bell display more grace and melody than her sister's verses. Some of them ought not to be forgotten. That entitled "Remembrance" is perhaps the finest, and may well be associated with the whole tragedy of the Brontës.—A. J. N.  BRONZINO,, a Florentine painter, born in 1511. He studied under Pontormo, and learned to imitate his brush with apish exactness, although Caracci was morose and kept his finishing tricks a secret. The industry and good-nature of Bronzino, however, softened the millstone, and made him beloved by his master. He imitated Michel Angelo in his draperies, though certainly that great prophet's mantle did not fall on Bronzino's shoulders, for he painted leaden and chalk flesh, and used rouge instead of the life-blood of Titian's carnations. Kugler praises his "Descent of Christ into Hell," which, though cold, is carefully painted and not over-mannered. He is known too as a friend of earnest, chatty Vasari, the pleasantest of all art chroniclers. On the death of Pontormo, Bronzino was employed to finish the chapel of St. Lorenzo in Florence. He also painted for Francis I. a Venus embracing Cupid, surrounded by jealousy, fraud, and other allegorical nonentities. A Nativity of his was also much praised. He excelled greatly in portraits. His pencil was neat and free, but his figures are stalky and stilted.—W. T.  BROOKE,, was the first to collate the scattered poems in the Celtic language, and translating them into English verse, in the year 1787 published them, together with the originals, in a volume entitled "Reliques of Irish Poetry." She was the last surviving child of Henry Brooke, the poet, and was born at his house of Rantavan, in the county of Cavan. She had much of her father's turn in poetry—some brightness and pathos, side by side with the inflation of the day. At one time she was enthusiastically attached to the drama—a hereditary inconsistency—and wrote "Belisarius," a tragedy, the MS. of which her friends accuse John Kemble of having pirated. Died in Dublin in 1793.—R. S. B.  BROOKE,, poet, politician, dramatist, novelist, and divine, was born in 1706, at his father's house of Rantavan, in the county of Cavan. His family came from Cheshire, where the name is still found among the oldest gentry, and settled in Ulster in the time of Elizabeth. His father, the Rev. William Brooke, was a scholar of Trinity college, Dublin, and rector of the large union of Killinkere, &c., in Cavan. His mother was Lettice, daughter to Simon Digby, bishop of Elphin. From his father he inherited his love of study; from his mother—one of the handsome Digbys, whose features are immortalized by Vandyck—he had a royal descent, and probably his good looks; and no doubt he derived a strain of talent from the Sheridans, who were his near cousins. While yet a boy. Swift had in his father's house prophesied his future eminence, while deprecating his predilection for poetry, which the dean designated "a beggarly calling." He was educated by Dr. Sheridan, and at the age of eighteen we find him in London at the temple; and noticed and caressed by Lord Lyttleton and Pope, he seems to have won his own way into society by the engaging sweetness of his manner, his vivacity, his truthfulness, and his genius. We have this record of him:—"Mr. Brooke was young, fresh-looking, slenderly formed, and exceedingly graceful. He had an oval face, ruddy complexion, and large soft eyes, full of fire. He was of great personal courage, yet never known to offend any man. He was an excellent swordsman, and could dance with much grace." With these attractions, and at the imprudent age of twenty, Brooke wooed and wed his first cousin, Catherine Meares, before she had left school, or attained her fifteenth year; and the result of these precocious hymeneals was fifty years of unbroken happiness, and a family of twenty-two children, all of whom died young, except Charlotte the poetess, and Arthur a captain in the army. From 1728 to 1740 Brooke spent much time in London literary life. He had been called to the bar, and practised as a chamber counsel, but loved rhyme better than law, and in 1735 published his "Universal Beauty," under the auspices of Pope; and being introduced by Lord Chatham to Frederick, prince of Wales, he became warmly attached to the company as well as to the cause of his royal patron, who repaid his devotion by "caressing him with great familiarity." When "Gustavus Vasa" was forbidden to be acted in 1739, because of its reflections upon the prime minister, Walpole, Brooke published it by subscription. Lord Chesterfield had 40 copies, the prince took 400; and so popular was the play between its own merit and the political heat of the times, that Brooke netted 1000 guineas from its sale, and Dr. Samuel Johnson honoured him by publishing his "Complete Vindication"—a sarcastic brochure, which, while it eulogized his tragedy, keenly satirized the government, which had prohibited its representation. In 1740 Brooke, through ill health, retired to his property at Rantavan, whence he corresponded with his kind patron and prince. A letter from Mr. Pope to him is to be found in the second volume of Brookiana—a little work full of gossip and sparkle, published in London in 1804, author unknown. Here, in rural leisure, he flung from his pen poetical tales, translations from the Italian, tragedies, comedies, and tracts, political and agricultural. In 1745 appeared his "Farmer's Letters," which drew from Garrick the well-known Address to Mr. Brooke, beginning "Oh thou, whose artless, free-born genius charms." In 1766 he published "The Fool of Quality," which in one year ran through three editions in the London press. With many faults, it has rare beauties of style and incident. It is thoroughly original, and written in the purest English. In these latter days, John Wesley published an edition of it, and spoiled it. Southey styled its author "a man of undoubted genius." Charlotte Brontë made it the study of her youth, and the Rev. Charles Kingsley, in his Two Years Ago, pronounces the mind of the man who wrote it as a hundred years in advance of his time in political and religious questions. Brooke died in 1783, full of piety and years. His judgment was below his genius, and thus he made mistakes in life; but his walk was so pure and so noble, and his temper so engaging, that the love of his friends amounted almost to a vain idolatry. His works were published in 4 vols. octavo, in 1792, by his daughter.—R. S. B.  BROOKE,, rajah of Sarawak and governor of Labuan, was born in 1803. His father held an appointment in the Indian civil service, and was thus enabled to procure for his son a cadetship. At the age of sixteen he went to India, and had obtained considerable distinction in the first Burmese war, when he received a wound in the lungs of so serious a nature as to necessitate his return home. He spent the subsequent ten years in travelling, which so far restored his strength as to permit him to re-embark for India in 1829. The vessel in which he sailed was wrecked on the Isle of Wight, and, in consequence of the delay, his furlough had expired ere he reached his destination. It was on the homeward voyage that he first saw Borneo; its fertility and beauty impressed him deeply; he read and inquired, and became more and more convinced of the practicability of the suppression of piracy and the overthrow of the slave trade. Looking back on his career, on the great work he began in 1839, and the conquests he achieved, can we regard that shipwreck as nothing more than a chance detention? His father does not appear to have believed in his adaptation for the mighty enterprise; but in a mother's sympathy he found that support which has so often been the foundation of a son's greatness. After his father's death had left him possessed of a considerable fortune, finding his appeals to government for aid fruitless, he resolved to try what one man could do. In a spirit of adventure, worthy of the old discoverers, he purchased and manned the yacht Royalist, and set sail with a picked crew from 