BROME, RICHARD (_d._ 1652?).--Dramatist, the servant and friend of Ben
Jonson, produced upwards of 20 plays, some in conjunction with Dekker and
others. Among them are _A Fault in Friendship_, _Late Lancashire Witches_
(with Heywood and Dekker), _A Jovial Crew_ (1652), _The Northern Lass_
(1632), _The Antipodes_ (1646), _City Wit_ (1653), _Court Beggar_ (1653),
etc. He had no original genius, but knew stage-craft well.


BRONTÉ, CHARLOTTE (1816-1855).--Novelist, _dau._ of the Rev. Patrick B.,
a clergyman of Irish descent and of eccentric habits who embittered the
lives of his children by his peculiar theories of education. Brought up
in a small parsonage close to the graveyard of a bleak, windswept village
on the Yorkshire moors, and left motherless in early childhood, she was
"the motherly friend and guardian of her younger sisters," of whom two,
Emily and Anne, shared, but in a less degree, her talents. After various
efforts as schoolmistresses and governesses, the sisters took to
literature and _pub._ a vol. of poems under the names of Currer, Ellis,
and Acton Bell, which, however, fell flat. Charlotte then wrote her first
novel, _The Professor_, which did not appear until after her death, and
began _Jane Eyre_, which, appearing in 1847, took the public by storm. It
was followed by _Shirley_ in 1849, and _Villette_ in 1852. In 1854 she
was married to her father's curate, the Rev. A. Nicholls, but after a
short though happy married life she _d._ in 1855. EMILY B.
(1818-1848).--a woman of remarkable force of character, reserved and
taciturn, _pub._ in 1848 _Wuthering Heights_, a powerful, but somewhat
unpleasing, novel, and some striking poems; and ANNE (1820-1849), was the
authoress of _The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_ and _Agnes Grey_ (1848). She
had not the intellectual force of her sisters. The novels of Charlotte
especially created a strong impression from the first, and the _pub._ of