Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/398

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Broke
386
Broke

According to the Stationers' Register, Tottell obtained a license to reprint the work in 1582, but no edition of that date has been met with. Ralph Robinson reissued the original edition in 1587, and added to the title the words: 'Contayning in it a rare example of true constancie, with the subtill counsells and practises of an old fryer and their ill event.' Modern reprints are numerous. Malone issued it (without the prefatory notices) in his 'Supplement to Shakespeare,' 1780, and struck off twelve separate copies for private distribution. It reappeared in the Shakespeare variorum edition of 1821; in J. P. Collier's 'School of Shakespeare,' 1843; in W. C. Hazlitt's 'School of Shakespeare,' 1874; and in the New Shakspere Society's 'Originals and Analogues,' pt. i. (1875), edited by P. A. Daniel.

Broke died in the year following the production of his chief work. In 1563 was published 'An Agreement of sundry places of Scripture seeming in shew to Iarre, seruing in stead of commentaryes, not only for these but others lyke. Translated out of French and nowe fyrst publyshed by Arthure Broke.' The printer, Lucas Harrison, states in his address to the reader at the beginning of the book that Broke was out of the country while it was passing through the press; but on the last page some verses headed 'Thomas Broke the younger to the reader' state that Broke had recently perished at sea. Among George Turberville's 'Epitaphes and other Poems' (1567) is one 'On the death of Maister Arthur Brooke, drownde in passing to New Haven.' Turberville writes very pathetically of Broke's sudden death, and praises very highly his tale of

Julyet and her mate;
For there he shewde his cunning passing well,
When he the tale to English did translate.

Turberville describes Broke as a young man, and notes that he was crossing the seas to serve abroad in the English army.

[Introduction to Broke's Komeo and Juliett in J. P. Collier's School of Shakespeare (1843); Broke's Agreement (1563); Turberville's Epitaphes (1567); Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

S. L.

BROKE, Sir PHILIP BOWES VERE (1776–1841), rear-admiral, of an old Suffolk family, was born at Broke Hall, near Ipswich, on 9 Sept. 1776. He early manifested an inclination for the sea, and at the age of twelve was entered at the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth Dockyard, from which, in June 1792, he was appointed to the Bulldog sloop under the command of Captain George Hope, whom, in August 1793, he followed to the Éclair, then in the Mediterranean, and afterwards employed during the occupation of Toulon and the siege of Bastia. In May 1794 he was discharged into the Romulus, and was present when Lord Hood chased the French fleet into Golfe Jouan 11 June 1794, and in the action off Toulon 13-14 March 1795. In June he was appointed to the Britannia, flagship of the commander-in-chief, was in her in the engagement off Toulon on 13 July 1795, and on the 18th was appointed third lieutenant of the Southampton frigate under the command of Captain Macnamara. During the next eighteen months the Southampton was actively employed on the coast of Italy, often with the squadron under Commodore Nelson, and was with the fleet in the action off Cape St. Vincent 14 Feb. 1797. In the following June she was sent home and paid off. Broke was almost immediately appointed to the Amelia frigate in the Channel fleet, and in her was present at the defeat and capture of the French squadron on the north coast of Ireland 12 Oct. 1798. On 2 Jan. 1799 he was made commander and appointed to the Falcon brig, from which a few months later he was transferred to the Shark sloop, attached to the North Sea fleet, under Lord Duncan, and employed for the most part in convoy service. On 14 Feb. 1801 he was advanced to the rank of captain, after which he remained unemployed for four years. His father died shortly after his promotion, and on 25 Nov. 1802 he married Sarah Louisa, daughter of Sir William Middleton, bart. When the war again broke out, he immediately applied for a ship, but without success, till in April 1805 he was appointed to the Druid frigate, which he commanded in the Channel and on the coast of Ireland for the next sixteen months. On 31 Aug. 1806 he was appointed to the Shannon, a fine 38-gun frigate, carrying 18-pounders on her main deck, 32-pounder carronades on quarter-deck and forecastle. During the summer of 1807 the Shannon was employed on the coast of Spitsbergen, protecting the whalers, and in December was with the squadron at the reduction of Madeira. During the greater part of 1808 she was cruising in the Bay of Biscay, and on the night of 10-11 Nov., attracted by the sound of the firing, arrived on the scene of action in time to witness the capture of the French Thétis by the Amethyst, Captain Michael Seymour a capture which this unfortunate arrival of the Shannon, as well as of the line-of-battle ship Triumph, deprived of some of its brilliance. The Shannon afterwards towed the prize to Plymouth, but Broke, as a recognition that the capture was due to the Amethyst alone, obtained the con-