Henry Brooke

born c. 1703, County Cavan, Ire.
died Oct. 10, 1783, Dublin
Irish novelist and dramatist, best known for The
Fool of Quality, one of the outstanding English
examples of the novel of sensibility—a novel in
which the characters demonstrate a heightened
emotional response to events around them. After
attending Trinity College, Dublin, Brooke went
to London in 1724 to study law. There he became
friendly with Alexander Pope; he had already met
Jonathan Swift in Ireland.
In 1739 Brooke wrote a celebrated drama,
Gustavus Vasa, the Deliverer of His Country,
performance of which was forbidden because of
the supposition that Sir Robert Walpole, the
prime minister, was depicted in the part of the
villain. Brooke returned to Ireland, and the
play was printed and later performed in Dublin
as The Patriot. Brooke’s own patriotic
sentiments led to his involvement in the
establishment of the influential newspaper The
Freeman’s Journal in 1763.
Brooke’s novel, The Fool of Quality
(1765–70), is a rambling and digressive
narrative centred on the education of an ideal
nobleman. Its moral message recommended it to
John Wesley, a founder of Methodism, who edited
an abridged version in 1780, and, later, to the
clergyman–author Charles Kingsley, who published
it with an enthusiastic biographical preface in
1859. Brooke’s daughter Charlotte continued the
literary tradition in the family, publishing
Reliques of Irish Poetry (1789), the first major
collection of traditional poems translated from
the Irish language.