LIFE The palæontologist who reconstructs the skeleton of a dinosaur from two tail-vertebræ and a claw, and then from the skeleton writes a book on his habits, has a greater chance of coming near the truth than the literary historian vho must base his conjectures respecting the life of his subject on the half dozen surviving references, usually to personal circumstances of more interest to the subject himself than to anybody else. Richard Brome,1 though no Elizabethan dinosaur, has left us a few scattered fossil facts from which to reconstruct his life. Such are the early biographical sketches of Phillips (1675), Winstanley (1687), and Langbaine (1691)—all drawn chiefly from the title-pages, prefaces, and commendatory verses of Brome's plays, which, with the prologues and epilogues, still remain the principal sources of evidence. There are also two or three references in Jonson, half a dozen in contemporary works, Brome's verses prefatory to his friends' works, Sir Henry Herbert's office-book, and a single legal document. Most of the scanty references we have concerning Richard Brome associate him with Ben Jonson. In fact, his place in literature is that of the closest and most successful follower of the great dramatist. The first mention of Brome occurs in 1614 in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, where the stage-keeper says: 'But for the whole play, will you have the truth on't?—I am looking lest the poet hear me, or his man, Master Brome, behind the arras-it is like to be a very conceited scurvy 1 The fact that the form Broome sometimes occurs, and that Brome is punningly alluded to as 'sweeping,' indicates the pronunciation of the name. а one, in plain English.' Dr. Faust1 suggests that to be called 'man' he must have been born late in the sixteenth century. Besides this, the statements that he is 'full of age and care' in 1640,2 and that the Jovial Crews (1641) is the issue of his old age, put 1590 as certainly the latest date. This is as near as it is possible to come at present to the date of his birth. His birthplace does not admit of even so much conjecture. One more reference in Jonson's works, probably not far removed from the previous one in time, shows what one of the duties of his 'man' was, though Brome is not mentioned by This occurs in Epigram 101,4 Inviting a Friend to Supper: name. Howsoe'er, my man Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus, Of which we 'll speak our minds amids our meat. This would seem to indicate that Jonson's servant was not absolutely a menial, but was either a man of some education or of such intelligence that Jonson might educate him. A parallel case is that of Nathaniel Field, the boy-actor who later became a playwright, who, Jonson told Drummond,5 had been his scholar, and had read Horace and Martial to him. 6 The Rev. Ronald Bayne, following a suggestion of Dr. Faust's, considers that Brome was a secretary or amanuensis' rather than a valet. To support this he 1 E. K. R. Faust, Richard Brome (Halle dissertation, 1887), p. 3. Practically all that is of value in this thesis is reprinted in Herrig's Archiv, Vol. 82 (1889). 2 Court Begger, Prologue. 3 Jovial Crew, Dedication. 4 Folio of 1616. Ben Jonson, Works, ed. Wheatley and Cunningham, 8. 204. 5 Works 9. 379. • Cambridge Hist. Eng. Lit. 6. 252. 'Colley Cibber in 1740 was the first to speak of Brome as an amanuensis (Apology, 4th ed., 2. 203). cites the epigram just mentioned, and a ' sonnet of some literary merit' prefixed to the Northern Lass, and signed 'St. Br.,'1 in which the writer declares himself to be the poet's brother-a fact which should make us beware of assuming low rank for Brome. This is rather slight evidence, for, in an age in which watermen wrote verses, why might not cooks and valets? And then, besides Jonson's address to him as his former servant,' Alexander Brome, his friend, and the editor of his posthumous works, says: Poor he came into th' world." Again, in defending Richard from detractors who belittled him for his relations with Jonson, he says, in the midst of a long list of classic writers of humble origin nay (to instance in our Authors own order), Nævius the Comedian [was] a Captains mans man.' And Brome himself, in his commendatory verses in the folio of Beaumont and Fletcher (1647), says: Why, what are you, cry some, that prate to us? T' inform young masters, as in land, in wit. These passages, and others scattered through his prologues, which show that he always considered himself somewhat an intruder in the realm of Parnassus,' outweigh, I am inclined to think, the evidence of the fraternal 1 Stephen Brome (?). 2 See below, prefatory verses to Northern Lass. 3 Prefatory verses to octavo of 1659. |