BROOKE, Stopford Augustus, English clergyman and huthor: b. Letterkenny, Donegal, Ireland, 14 Nov. 1832; d. Ewhurst, Surrey, Eng land, 18 March 1916. After a brilliant course' at Trinity College, Dublin, he was ordained in the Anglican Church in 1857. From that year till 1859 he officiated as curate of Saint Mat thew's, Marylebone (London) ; and in 1876, after having held various other clerical appoint ments, he became minister of Bedford Chapel, Bloomsbury, where he officiated till his retire ment from regular ministerial work in 1894. In 1872 he was appointed one of the chaplains in-ordinary to the Queen. Having become a Unitarian in his views he left the Church of England in 1880, but till 1894 still continued to occupy the same pulpit, Bedford Chapel being private property. He gained a high reputation as a preacher and writer on religious subjects, and also as a poet, but more especially as a literary critic and historian of English litera ture. His chief works are 'Life and Letters of the Late Frederick W. Robertson of Brigh
ton' (1865); in Modern Life' (1872); 'Theology in the English Poets' (1874) ; (Primer of English Literature' (1876) ; of the Tuf 0 (1880), a love drama; (The Early Life of Jesus' (1888) ; (Poems' (1888) ; 'His tory of Early English Literature: from Its Beginning to the Accession of Alfred' (1892), the only work in English treating adequately its special subject; (Tennyson: His Art and Re lations to Modern Life' (1894) ; (The English Poets from Blake to Tennyson' (1894) ; 'Jesus and Modern Thought' (1W4); (The Old Tes tament and Modern Life' (1896) ; 'The Gos pel of Joy' (1898) ; 'English Literature to the Norman Conquest' (1898) ; 'On Ten Plays of Shakespeare' (1905) ; (A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue' (1901), edited in collaboration with T. W. Rolleston; 'Poetry of Robert Browning' (1902) ; (Studies in Poetry' (1907) ; (Four Poets' (1908) ; 'On ward Cry: Addresses' (1911) ; 'Ten More Plays of Shakespeare' (1913).