THE EDITOR's PREFACE.*

MRS. FRANCES BROOKE, the author of the Comic

Opera of Rosina, was the daughter of a clergyman of the name of Moore. Her husband was the Rev. John Brooke, D.D. rector of Colney near Norwich, and of St. Augustine's in that city. He was also chaplain to the garrison of Quebec. He died Jan. 21, 1789.

Mrs. Brooke's first publication was in 1755-6, a periodical work called The Old Maid. In 1756 she published also an 8vo. volume, containing Odes, Pastorals and Translations, and Virginia, a Tragedy. the year 1760, she published Lady Catesby's Letters, translated from the French of Madame Riccoboni. But the work which gained her most reputation was The History of Lady Julia Mandeville, a novel in two volumes, 12mo. published in 1763, a work concern66 ing which there were various opinions, but which 66 every body read with eagerness. It has been often "wished that she had made the catastrophe less melan"choly; and we believe that she afterwards was of the 66 same opinion, but she thought it bencath her charac"ter to alter it." (Encyc. Brit.)

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It appears from her Preface to The Siege of Sinope, that she was abroad, probably in Canada, at the time when Mr. Hull's Opera of Pharnaces was performed at Drury Lane, which was in the year 1765,

In 1770 she published a translation of the Memoirs of the Marquis de St. Forlaix, by Mr. Framery, in four volumes 12mo. and, in the following year, a translation of the Abbé Millot's Elements of the General History of England.

These particulars of the Life of Mrs. Brooke are taken princi pally from the Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. IV. p. 731.

Her next work was Emily Montague, a novel in four volumes 12mo. the scene of which is laid in Canada, and of which I am informed that it gives a very lively description. Mrs. Pilkington, in her Memoirs of Celebrated Female Characters, attributes to her another novel, translated from the French, intitled Lady Henrietta Campley. I have not read any of these works.

On Mrs. Brooke's return from Canada she resided for some time at Pimlico, near Mrs. Yates, the celebrated actress; with whom she formed an intimacy, which terminated only with the life of that lady. Through her, Mrs. Brooke became acquainted with Garrick; and, being dissatisfied with his conduct, in 1777 she published The Excursion, a novel, in two volumes 12mo., in which she exhibited to the public her complaints and anger against him. The precise ground of her displeasure is not known; Davies makes no mention of it; and, even had her resentment been just, her censure seems to have been too severe, as she herself afterwards lamented and retracted it. The Monthly Review for September, 1777, (Vol. 57, p. 141,) is very severe against Mrs. B. and warm in the defence of Garrick.

Jan. 31, 1781, the Tragedy of The Siege of Sinope was performed at Covent Garden. It is taken from Metastasio, whose opera has been translated by Mr. Hull, and performed at Drury Lane in 1765. It was calculated chiefly to display the powers of Mrs. Yates, and, by her exertions, was received with considerable applause. In the Preface she speaks in the following terms of that lady: "My friendship for her, a friend66 ship founded not more on my admiration of her un66 common talents, than on the worthy qualities of her << heart, with which a series of years have made me per"fectly acquainted, render it as hard a task for me to 66 speak of her as of myself. I feel a diffidence which <l impedes my wish to do her justice, even at the moment "when I am most sensible how much my feeble attempts "to touch the nobler passions of the soul owe to her " astonishing exertion in the character of THAMYRIS.

"But the public have spoken for me; have given just

applause to that sublime sensibility, that enthusiastic fire, those exquisite graces of action, which compel even FRANCE itself, however tenacious of native merit, "to rank her with a DUMESNIL and a CLAIRON." p. iv.

In the same Preface she speaks in high terms of the liberality and taste of Mr. HARRIS, the manager of Covent Garden Theatre.

In 1782 Rosina was acted at Covent Garden, and Marian, a comic opera, in two acts, at the same theatre, May 22, 1788. The celebrity of an author frequently operates to his disadvantage: the expectation which is founded on established excellence is often either too high in its demands, or too fastidious in its decisions; equal merit will scarcely be acknowledged, inferior will be certain of censure or contempt. Thus it was the misfortune of Marian to succeed Rosina. Had Marian been the first musical production of our author, the praise bestowed upon it might have been nearly equal to that given to Rosina, which, following, would have extended her reputation. Or, had it been by another author, it might have been set up in rivalry against its sister drama. Inferior to Rosina it certainly is; but it is a piece of great merit, of beauty and simplicity, and evidently the work of the same master; it is a proper companion to Rosina, though we may give the preference to that. Boaz and Ruth, and Palemon and Lavinia lend their aid to interest us for Rosina.

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Mrs. Brooke died at Sleaford in Lincolnshire, when on a visit to her sister Mrs. Digby, Jan. 26, 1789, only five days after the death of her husband. "The domes"tic happiness which subsisted between Mrs. Brooke "and her husband, was of the most tender and lasting "kind." (Mrs. Pilkington's Fem. Biog.) She was as ❝ remarkable for her virtues and suavity of manners as "for her great literary accomplishments."-" She was "esteemed by Dr. Johnson, valued by Miss Seward, "and her company courted by all the first characters "of her time." Encyc. Brit.