, whose maiden name was Moore, was the daughter of a clergyman, and
, whose maiden name was Moore,
was the daughter of a clergyman, and the wife of the rev.
John Brooke, rector of Colney in Norfolk, of St. Augustine in the city of Norwich, and chaplain to the garrison of
Quebec. She was as remarkable for her gentleness and
suavity of manners as for her literary talents. Her husband died on the 21st of January 1789, and she herself
expired on the 26th of the same month, at Sleaford, where
she had retired to the house of her son, now rector of
Folkingham in Lincolnshire. Her disorder was a spasmodic complaint. The first literary performance we know
of her writing was the “Old Maid,
” a periodical work,
begun November 15, 1755, and continued every Saturday
until about the end of July 1756. These papers have
since been collected into one volume 12mo. In the same
year (1756) she published “Virginia,
” a tragedy, with
odes, pastorals, and translations, 8vo. In the preface to
this publication she assigns as a reason for its appearance,
“that she was precluded from all hopes of ever seeing the
tragedy brought upon the stage, by there having been two
so lately on the same subject.
” “If hers,
” she adds,
“should be found to have any greater resemblance to the
two represented, than the sameness of the story made unavoidable, of which she is not conscious, it must have been
accidental on her side, as there are many persons of very
distinguished rank and unquestionable veracity, who saw
hers in manuscript before the others appeared, and will
witness for her, that she has taken no advantage of having
seen them. She must here do Mr. Crisp the justice to
say, that any resemblance must have been equally accidental on his part, as he neither did, nor could see her
Virginia before his own was played; Mr. Garrick having
declined reading hers till Mr. Crisp’s was published.
” Prefixed to this publication were proposals for printing by
subscription a poetical translation, with notes, of il Pastor
Fido, a work which probably was never completed.