(1876) with the lease of Bedford chapel, Bloomsbury, where he remained, drawing large congregations, till 1895. Meanwhile he had found that none of the accepted systems of theology could give him the complete freedom of self-expression which he desired; and in 1880 he seceded from the Church of England. Though sympathizing to a certain extent with the tenets of Unitarians, he never attached himself definitely to any religious denomination.
During this period Brooke produced his Life and Writings of Milton (1879) and a lyrical drama, Riquet of the Tuft (1880), and during the ’eighties he was preparing his History of Early English Literature (1892). He also published at this time selections of sermons and a volume of Poems (1888). For a short time (1881-1884) he was principal of the Men and Women’s College in Queen Square. But as he approached the age of sixty, his health failed, and preaching became more and more arduous to him, till in 1895 he was compelled to give up his work at Bedford chapel. In a few years, however, the vitality of youth returned to him, and he continued his literary work with renewed vigour. Between 1893 and 1918 he published seventeen volumes, and from 1900 to 1905 he gave a memorable series of lectures on English poetry at University College, London. For many years he continued occasionally to preach in Unitarian churches both in London and in the provinces. In the later years of his life he took up painting, in which he attained a high degree of excellence. He continued to live in London till 1913, when he retired to Ewhurst, where he died 18 March 1916 in his eighty-fourth year.
Of Brooke’s other literary works the most important are: Theology in the English Poets—Cowper, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Burns (1874), Notes on Turner’s ‘Liber Studiorum’ (1885), Tennyson, his Art and Relation to Modern Life (1894), The Poetry of Robert Browning (1902), On Ten Plays of Shakespeare (1905), Studies in Poetry (1907), Ten more Plays of Shakespeare (1913). He also published several volumes of sermons.
[L. P. Jacks, Life and Letters of Stopford Brooke, 2 vols., 1917. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1905.]
BROUGHTON, RHODA (1840-1920), novelist, was born near Denbigh 29 November 1840. She was the daughter of the Rev. Delves Broughton, a younger son of an old Staffordshire family, by his wife, Jane, daughter of George Bennett, Q.C., of Dublin. When Rhoda was still a child her father was presented to the living of Broughton, Staffordshire, where the Elizabethan manor-house, which was one of the family seats, was placed at his disposal. Here Rhoda, who was the youngest of a family of three daughters and one son, passed her girlhood. The old house which forms the background of her first story was drawn from Broughton Hall, and her life in the Staffordshire village furnished her with material for some of the best scenes in her novels. Under the guidance of her father, a man of wide reading, she acquired the intimate knowledge of English poetry which makes itself apparent throughout her work.
Mr. Broughton died in 1863, his wife having predeceased him, and Rhoda made her home, first with her two sisters at Surbiton, and afterwards with her sister Eleanor, who married Mr. William Charles Newcome, of Upper Eyarth, near Ruthin, Denbighshire, in 1864.
In 1867 she began her literary career with the publication of two novels, Cometh Up as a Flower and Not Wisely but too Well. The first of these books captivated the reading public with the freshness of its dialogue and the frank abandonment of its characters to emotions which the novels of the period usually treated with greater discretion. Its successor struck the same note more emphatically, and these early works gave Miss Broughton a reputation for audacity which she lost in later years when literary fashions had overtaken her and passed her by.
From this time she published on an average a novel every two years. Among the best known are: Good-bye, Sweetheart (1872), Nancy (1873), Joan (1876), Belinda (1883), Doctor Cupid (1886), Foes-in-law (1900), and A Waif's Progress (1905). Her private life was uneventful. In 1878 she took a house at Oxford with Mrs. Newcome, then a widow. The two sisters made for themselves a distinguished position in Oxford society, and Rhoda’s vitality, sincerity, and pungent wit gained her the friendship of some of the most notable people of her day. Her freedom of speech was combined with a marked conventionality of outlook; and her deep regard for the manners and breeding of the class into which she was born made her a keen and amusing critic of modern fashions.
In 1890 the sisters moved to Richmond. Mrs. Newcome died there in 1894, and after a few years Miss Broughton joined a cousin at Headington Hill, near
69
