- the sermon, saying that he had made himself to be Jairus, England his daughter, and the queen Christ (Strype, Eccl. Memorials, iii. 74, fol.)
- Oration in St. Mary's Church, Oxford, on 12 March 1555, addressed to Archbishop Cranmer.
- Oration at the close of Archbishop Cranmer's examination.
These two orations are printed in Foxe's 'Acts and Monuments.'
[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), 829; Cotton. MS. Vespasian, A, xxv. 13; Cranmer's Works (Cox), ii. 212, 214, 225, 383, 446, 447, 454, 455, 456, 541; Dodd's Church Hist. i. 498; Foxe's Acts and Monuments; Godwin, De Præsulibus (Richardson), 552; Jewell's Works (Ayre), iv. 1199, 1201; Lansd. MS. 980, f. 250; Latimer's Works (Corrie), ii. 283; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), i. 437, iii. 540; Machyn's Diary, 58; Philpot's Examinations and Writings (Eden), p. xxviii; Ridley's Works (Christmas), pp. xii, 255, 283, 427; Rudder's Gloucestershire, 156; Rymer's Fœdera (1713), xv. 389, 489; Strype's Works (see general index); Wood's Annals (Gutch), ii. 130-131; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 314, ii. 791; Zurich Letters, i. 12.]
BROOKS, JOHN (fl. 1755), engraver, was a native of Ireland, and his first known work was executed in line-engraving at Dublin in 1730. The skill and industry of Brooks in his early years appeared in a copy which he made in pen and ink from a plate of Richard III by Hogarth, who is said to have mistaken it for his own engraving. The earliest engraved portrait of Mrs. Woffington is that by Brooks, and bears the date of June 1740. Between 1741 and 1746 Brooks produced at Dublin several mezzotinto portraits and engravings. About 1747 he settled in London, and engaged in the management of a manufactory at Battersea for the enamelling of china in colours by a process which he had devised. The articles produced were ornamented with subjects chiefly from Homer and Ovid, and were greatly admired for the beauty of the designs and the elegance and novelty of the style in which they were executed. The manufactory was for a time successful, but led eventually to the bankruptcy of its chief proprietor, Stephen Theodore Janssen, lord mayor of London for 1754-5. Brooks continued in London as an engraver and enameller of china. He is said to have spent much of his later years in dissipation, and there are no records of his works during that period, or of the date of his death. Some of the pupils of Brooks highly distinguished themselves as engravers in mezzotinto. Among them was James MacArdell, one of the most eminent masters of that art. A catalogue of the works of Brooks was for the first time published some years since by the writer of the present notice, and to it some additions were made in 1878 in the work by J. C. Smith on British mezzotinto portraits.
[Dublin Journal, 1742-6; Anthologia Hibernica, 1793; Hist. of Dublin, 1856.]
BROOKS, THOMAS (1608–1680), puritan divine, was probably of a pious puritan family settled in some rural district. He matriculated as pensioner of Emmanuel on 7 July 1625. He was doubtless licensed or ordained as a preacher of the gospel about 1640. In 1648 he was preacher at St. Thomas Apostle. At an earlier date Brooks appears to have been chaplain to Rainsborough, the admiral of the parliamentary fleet; he was afterwards chaplain to the admiral's own son, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, whose funeral sermon he preached in November 1648. In the same year (26 Dec.) he preached a sermon before the House of Commons, and a second sermon to the Commons on 8 Oct. 1650. In 1652-3 he was transferred to St. Margaret's, Fish-street Hill. There he met with some opposition, which occasioned his tract, 'Cases considered and resolved; … or Pills to purge Malignaiits,' 1653, and in the same year he published his 'Precious Remedies.' In 1662 he was one of the ejected. After preaching his farewell sermon (an analysis of which is in Palmer's 'Memorial') in 1662, he continued his ministry in a building in Moorfields. In the plague year he was at his post, and published his 'Heavenly Cordial' for such as had escaped. The extreme rarity of this little volume is said to be owing to the great fire of London, which destroyed the entire stock of so many books. His thoughts on this 'fiery dispensation' are recorded in his 'London's Lamentations,' published in 1670. Baxter mentions Brooks respectfully as one of the independent ministers who held their meetings more publicly after the fire of London than before. About 1676 his first wife died, and he published an account of her 'experiences,' with a funeral sermon preached by a friend. Shortly afterwards he married a young woman named Cartwright. His will is dated 20 March 1680. He died on 27 Sept., aged 72. A copy of his funeral sermon, by John Reeve, dated 1680, is in Dr. Williams's library. More than fifty editions of several of his books have been published. The Religious Tract Society long continued to reprint some of Brooks's writings; the greater part of his smaller pieces were also constantly kept in stock by the Book Society. Dr. Grosart's notes on the early editions contain much information. The first editions are as follows:
