distinguished writer. After an honoured life, the duchess de Broglie died in 1838, and her remains were borne to Coppet, to be laid beside those of her illustrious mother.—J. F. C.
BROGLIE, Achille Leonce Victor Charles, duc de, son of Prince Claude Victor de Broglie, who, for having, while serving as marechal-de-camp on the Rhine, refused to recognize the decree depriving the king of his rights, was guillotined in 1794. His son was born 28th November, 1785, and consequently only nine years of age when his father perished on the scaffold. His mother was at the same time a prisoner at Vesoul, but having providentially escaped the fate of her husband, she married the marquis d'Argenson, who took charge of his stepson's education. Upon the return of the Bourbons, the duc de Broglie, raised to the peerage, made his entry into public life, one of his first acts being to vote for the acquittal of Marshal Ney. In 1816 he married the daughter of the illustrious Madame De Stael. Throughout the government of the elder branch of the Bourbons, his conduct in the chamber of peers was marked by constant advocacy of generoue principles and decided opposition to the unpopular course of the court. He combated a pretended act of amnesty, which, under cover of promised pardon, preserved, and as it were ratified, a long list of proscriptions; and when the slave-trade question was brought forward in 1822 he took a foremost part in the cause of emancipation. With such antecedents his place in the government of July, 1830, seemed marked. Louis Philippe named him minister of public instruction, which he held not more than three months. In October, 1832, he was nominated to the post of foreign minister, which he held until the 4th April, 1834, when terminated the public and official life, but not the political influence, of this distinguished personage. As the animating principle of Louis Philippe's foreign policy was to preserve the status quo, and to keep out of differences with foreign powers, he made repeated attempts to induce the duc de Broglie to return to a post in which he had proved how perfectly he could fill it to the king's satisfaction. His majesty wanted a minister who, while little inclined for hardy adventures, could yet impose, by the hauteur of his manners, upon the representatives of powers disposed to take prudence for weakness. To all appeals from the monarch the unambitious duke would plead the resolution he had formed, to devote his whole attention to the education of his children. He himself loved the cultivation of letters, and to him turned for advice in all questions of difficulty, that semi-political, semi-philosophical sect called the Doctrinaires. Whatever opinion may be entertained of the political conduct of M. Guizot, must apply to the duc de Broglie, who, although avoiding the responsibilities of office, secretly supported the views of his friend. After the revolution of 1848, and as soon as the republican government had made apparent its equitable intentions not to molest the old servants of the monarchy, as long as they conformed to the new state of things, the duc de Broglie, like many others, presented himself as a candidate for popular suffrages, and was elected member for the department of the Eure, and as such took his seat in the legislative assembly. His voice was never heard in any debate, but he voted invariably with that party of order, which, divided amongst themselves on some grave questions of principle, yet agreed in hostility to republican government. The duke, consulted occasionally, along with Count Molé and others, by the prince-president Louis Napoleon (afterwards emperor), gave support to a ruler, believed capable only of removing difficulties out of the way of a monarchical restoration. Discovering his mistake too late, he, with admirable fidelity to his old friend, M. Guizot, allowed the latter to lead him into that curious combination called the fusion—a party whose object was to reconcile the house of Bourbon and that of Orleans, at the price of the latter's surrender of prior right to future hypothetical succession. In 1861 he prosecuted the prefect of police for having illegally published a work of his entitled "Considerations on the Government of France," but which was not designed for publication; and succeeded in recovering most of the copies which had been seized in the hands of his printer. The duke's resolution to keep from public life for the sake of his children's education has, it must be acknowledged, been deservedly rewarded. His son, Prince Albert de Broglie, has distinguished himself as a thoughtful philosophical historian. The duc de Broglie was a member of the French Academy. He died in February, 1870.—J. F. C.
BROME, Alexander, born in 1630; died in 1666. Brome was an attorney. He was faithful to the royal cause through the civil wars and the protectorate. His songs, almost numberless, were in the highest degree popular with his party. Walton, the author of the Complete Angler and the Lives of Donne, George Herbert, &c., speaks of them as
" Those cheerful songs which we
Have sung with mirth and merry glee,
As we have marched to fight the cause
Of God's anointed and his laws."
Of the "Songs and other Poems" there have been several editions—the earliest is that of 1660. Alexander Chalmers has reprinted them in the English Poets, vexatiously omitting "a few of" what he calls "his inferior pieces." This kind of discretion cannot be too severely condemned, and goes far to render any collection where it is exercised worthless for the purpose of a student. He wrote a comedy called "The Cunning Lovers," and published in the last year of his life a translation of Horace, by himself and others. Brome's love of wine and song gave him among the cavaliers the name of the English Anacreon. We have a poem addressed to him by Cotton, in which he is called upon to join in the festivities for the king's return:—
" Anacreon come, and touch thy jolly lyre,
And bring in Horace to the choir."
He edited the plays of Richard Brome, whom Ellis calls his brother, but who is said by other biographers not to have been related to him.—J. A., D.
BROME, James, an English traveller of the eighteenth century, author of "Travels in England, Scotland, and Wales," London, 1700; and "Travels through Portugal, Spain, and Italy," London, 1712.
BROME, Richard. The date of his birth is unknown. In the title of a copy of verses addressed to him by Ben Jonson, the old poet speaks of him as "my faithful servant, and by his continued virtue my loving friend;" and in the poem describes him as having learned the art of dramatic writing in an apprenticeship of many years. From this poem it is inferred, perhaps rightly, that Brome was Jonson's menial servant; yet we should think it more probable that clerk or amanuensis was meant. Brome wrote several comedies, fifteen of which remain. His plots are said to be well conceived, and his own. Most of his plays were successful on their first appearance. One of them, "The Jovial Crew," printed in Dodsley's Collection, was revived in 1731, and, aided by Arne's music, then and in succeeding seasons brought crowded houses. The comedy of "The Northern Lass, or a Nest of Fools," is one of his best pieces. When it was first published (1632), it was accompanied, according to the fashion of the period, with commendatory poems, among which the most remarkable is that of his old master. Ben ascribes the success of the new aspirant to the long apprenticeship which he had served under him. He speaks of Brome's
" Observation of those comic laws,
Which I, your master, first did teach the stage."
Fifteen comedies of Richard Brome's remain, ten of which were published by Alexander Brome in two volumes. Some of them are amusing, but have the fault of grossness, from which few of the dramatic pieces of the age in which Brome lived are free. Brome assisted Heywood in his comedies of the Lancashire Witches; the Life and Death of Sir Martyn Skink, with the warres of the Low Countries; and the Apprentice's Prize.—J. A., D.
BROMEL, Olaf, a Swedish physician and botanist, was born in 1639 in the province of Nericia, and practised in Stockholm, where he died in 1705. He was much attached to the study of botany, but published nothing upon that science with the exception of a small work entitled "Chloris Gothica," Gothemburg, 1694. Nevertheless, Plumier applied his name to a genus of plants—Bromelia—which includes the pine-apple.—His son, Bromel, Magnus von—born 1678; died 1751—was distinguished as a physician.—W. S. D.
BROMFIELD, William Arnold, a physician and botanist, was the son of a clergyman, formerly fellow of new college, Oxford, and was born at Boldre in the New Forest, Hants, in the year 1801. He attended school at Tunbridge and Ealing, and subsequently prosecuted his studies at the university of Glasgow. He showed at that time a great taste for botany. He graduated at the university of Glasgow in 1826. He then visited the continent, and after travelling through France, Germany, and Italy, returned to England in 1830. He resided first at Hastings, then at Southampton, and finally took up his
