Alexander Brome, courtesy Find a Grave.
Alexander Brome (1620 - 30 June 1666) was an English poet.
Life[]
Brome was born and raised in Dorset. He came to London around 1640. He entered Grays Inn in 1648 and Lincolns Inn in 1649.[1]
About 1650 he married Martha Whitaker, a widow with 3 children, and they settled in the City of London. The couple had several more children.[1]
He was an attorney in the lord mayor's court (according to Langbaine) and in the court of king's bench (according to Richard Smith's "Obituary," published by the Camden Society. During the civil wars he distinguished himself by his attachment to the royalist cause, and was the author of many songs and epigrams in ridicule of the Rump Parliament.[2]
In 1653 he edited, in an 8vo volume, Five New Playes by Richard Brome (to whom he was not related), and in 1659 5 more New Playes, 1 vol. 8vo. He published, in 1654, a comedy of his own, entitled The Cunning Lovers.[2]
Brome was a contributor to, and editor of, a variorum translation of Horace, published in 1666. He had formed the intention of translating Lucretius, as we learn from an epigram of Sir Aston Cokaine (Poems, p. 204); but he did not carry out his project.[3]
Commendatory poems by Brome are prefixed to the 1st folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's works (1647), and to the 2nd edition of Walton's Angler, 1655.[3]
Brome died on 30 June 1666. An Alexander Brome, who died before 25 September 1666 (and therefore may have been the same person), was a member of the New River Company.[3]
There are songs of Brome's in Wit's Interpreter, Wit restored, Wit and Drollery, Westminster Drollery, The Rump, and other collections. The Covent Garden Drollery, 1671, edited by A.B., has been wrongly attributed to Brome.[3]
Brome died a wealthy man, leaving many bequests to his wife and family. He is buried in an unmarked grave in St. Stephen Walbrook Churchyard in the City of London.[1]
Writing[]
Brome's Songs and Poems were collected in 1661, 8vo, with commendatory verses by Izaak Walton and others[2], and a dedication to Sir J. Robinson, lieutenant of the Tower. The 2nd edition, "corrected and enlarged," appeared in 1664. To this edition are prefixed a prose commendatory letter signed "R.B." (probably the initials of Richard Brathwaite), additional verses by Charles Strynings and Valentine Oldys, and a prose letter signed "T.H." Among the new poems in this edition are an epistle "To his friend Thomas Stanley, Esq., on his Odes," and "Cromwell's Panegyrick." A 3rd edition, with a few additional poems and with elegies by Charles Cotton and Richard Newcourt, appeared in 1668, 8vo.[3]
Brome was a spirited song-writer, and his bacchanalian lyrics have always the true ring. Phillips, in his Theatrum Poetarum, says that he "was of so jovial a strain that among the sons of Mirth and Bacchus, to whom his sack-inspired songs have been so often sung to the spritely violin, his name cannot choose but be immortal; and in this respect he may well be styled the English Anacreon." His satirical pieces are sprightly without being offensively gross.[3]
Recognition[]
His poem "The Resolve" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse (1250-1900).[4]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- Rump, or, An exact collection of the choycest poems and songs relating to the late times. London : Henry Brome, 1662.
- Poems (edited by Roman R. Dubkinski). 2 volumes, Toronto & Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press, 1982.
For General Monk, His Entertainment At Clothworkers' Hall (Alexander Brome Poem)
See also[]
References[]
Bullen, Arthur Henry (1886) "Brome, Alexander" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 6 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 392-393 . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 2, 2020.
Notes[]
External links[]
- Poems
- Books
- Alexander Brome at Amazon.com
- About
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Brome, Alexander
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