Stopford A. Brooke (1832-1916)

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Bibliographical details

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Criticism
L. P. Jacks, The Life and Letters of Stopford Brooke (1917); Irish Book Lover Vol. VII (April-May 1916), p.165; Leon Ó Bróin, Protestant Nationalists: The Stopford Connection (1985). QRY, L. P. Jacks, The Life and Letters of Stopford Brooks [sic, Whelan Cat. 32].

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Commentary
W. P. Ryan, The Irish Literary Revival (1894), writes: ‘Stopford Brooke dealt with one important side of its intellectual mission [2]; long-deferred Irish Literary Society inaugural lecture: a ‘masterly lecture’ by Rev Stopford Brooke, Bloomsbury House, March 1893, impressing on the audience need of ‘getting Irish literature into the English tongue’ he showed how they might prove their distinctive national feeling, and the continuity of their national being by showing that there has been a continuous literature existing in Ireland; ‘“Translation, then”, said Mr Brooke, “is our business. We wish to get the ancient Irish literature well and statelily afloat on the world-wide ocean of the English language, so that it may be known and loved wherever the English language goes”; further, “the duty of taking pains that this coming Ireland has ready to her hand all the material for such a literature out of her own fresher and more individual life, but new literary ought be linked back to the old; and the beautiful work of our country in the past will kindle her into the creation of beauty in the present” When we had got the old Gaelic stories into fine prose and verse, we may send, he said, another imaginative force on earth, which may (like Arthur’s Tale) create poetry for another thousand years. Noble words like these from a critic of Mr Brooke’s reputation could not fail to produce a lasting effect upon the young Society. Dr Douglas Hyde had a word to say for Gaelic literature through the medium of the Irish language [a speech] accredited with being the force which led to the formation later on of an Irish class [conducted by T. J. Flannery]’ [73].

See also Ryan’s literary sketch of Brooke: native of Donegal, ed. TCD; conscientious motives caused him to give up his Church of England living; now a Unitarian and a popular preacher in London; critic and authority on early English Literature; advanced thinker and lecturer on social and industrial questions; Riquet of the Tuft (1880), a love drama; Poems (1888); the lofty programme, the fine spheres of labour, which he urged upon the members at the inaugural lecture [94-95].

David Cairns & Shaun Richards, Writing Ireland, colonialism, nationalism and culture (Manchester 1988), As Stopford Brooke so clearly say in 1893, the Irish literature written after the English invasions was ‘nationalist as well as national. It was forced to conceive Ireland as a whole and as set over against England’, whereas that written in ‘the earliest and noble part’ of the literature was national but not nationalist, so providing a place where ‘we can forget our quarrels of party, and quarrels of religion.’ (Brooke, The Need and Use of getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue, T. Fisher Unwin 1895 [sic for 1893], pp.11-12) [51]. (NCBE 1970 Edn. lists The Need and Use [... &c.] as 1893.

Dominic Daly, The Young Douglas Hyde (1974): ‘On 1 March 1893, [Hyde] is in London, ‘this evening I went to the London [sic] Literary Society. Graves in the chair. We had a lecture by Stopford Brooke on the English language as a medium for the Irish people. It was well done. I was the first speaker after the lecture. I didn’t do too well or too badly. Mrs Bryant spoke after me, and then W. Wilde and Crooke. ... went to National Liberal Club ... eating and drinking ... went home with Rolleston about 1 a.m.’ On the following day, he takes dinner at Brooke’s with Rolleston, ‘Interesting and amusing conversation. I liked the Brookes very much.’ [161]

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Quotations
English Literature, by Rev. Stopford Brooke, M.A. (London & NY: Macmillan & Co. 1887), [chap.:] ‘The English and the Welsh’ [sect. 2]: ‘This literature is written in English, the tongue of our fathers. They lived, while this islnd of ours was still called Britain, in Sleswick, Jutland, and Holstein; but, either because they were pressed from the island, or for pure love of adventure, they took to the sea, and, landing at various parts of Britain at various times, drove back, after 150 years of hard fighting, the Britons, whom they called Welsh, to the land now called Wales, and to Cornwall. It is well for those who study English literature to remember that in these two places the Britons remained as a distinct race with a distinct literature of their own, because the stories and the poetry of the Britons crpt afterwards into English literature and had a great influence upon it. The whole tale of King Arthur, of which English poetry and even English prose is so full, was a British tale. The imaginative work of the conquered afterwards took captive their fierce conquerors.’ (p.6.) [Note: Brooke spells Shakespere passim.] [Cont.]

English Literature (1887) - cont.: His book ends with Browning and Tennyson. Of the former: ‘He has set himself more [183] than any other English poet to answer the question - What is the end of life, and what its explanation - and he has answered this in a number of poems [...] The principles laid down in reply are always the same, but their exposition is continually varied. [...] his imagination has wrought hand in hand with Thought which, inventing as it winds through its subject, has perhaps too much scientific pleasure in itself. [... He has excelled, when he chose, in light narrative [...] He is an intellectual poet, but neither imagination nor passion of this subject fail him.’ Of Tennyson: ‘[...] he has for more than forty years remained at the hed of modern poetry. All the great subjects of his time he has touched poetically, and nelightened. [...] He makes true songs [...] It is by the breadth of his range that he most conclusively takes the first place among the modern poets.’ [Cont.]

English Literature (1887) - cont.: ‘Within the last ten years, the impulse given in ’32 has died away and the same thing which we find in the case of Keats has again taken place. A new class of literary poets has arisen, who have no care for a present they think dull, for religious questions to which they see no end. They too have gone back to Greek and mediæval and old Norse life for their subjects. They find much of their inspiration in Italy and in Chaucer; but they continue the love poetry and the poetry of natural description. It is some pity that so much of their work is apart from English subjects, but we need not be ungrateful enough to complain, for Tennyson has always kept us close to the scenery, the traditions, the daily life and the history of England ; and his last poem, the drama of Harold, 1877, is written almost exactly twelve hundred years since the date of our first poem, Cædmon’s Paraphrase. To think of one and then of the other, and of the great and continuous stream of literature that has flowed between them, is more than enough to make us all proud of the name of Englishmen.’

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A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue (1900), Introduction, pp.[vii]-xxiv: ‘Although a great many of the poets can be called Irish poets, since their work directly concerned Ireland or its people, they were for the most part utterly unoriginal in form or diction, aping slavishly the English poets.’ (p.x.). Further: ‘As yet, in modern Ireland, the larger religion is untouched, the religion of the greater poets - not their personal religion which is often limited - but that which poetry of its own will creates; which answers for the unformulated aspiration of the soul towards the eternal love; which is neither Catholic nor Protestant, but includes both; which has no fixed creed, no necessary ritual, no formulas; and no church but that invisible Church with which the innumerable spirits of the universe are in communion, and whose devies bears the words, ‘The Letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.’ It is my hope that the spiritual tendency of Irish poetry will embody that conception.’ (p.xxxii.) [Cont.]

A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue (1900), Introduction - cont.: ‘This new movement took two lines, which ran parallel to one another, like two lines of railway. But now and again, as lines of railway meet and intersect at stations, these two mingled their motives, their subjects, and their manner. But, on the whole, they ran without touching; and one followed the English and the other the Irish tradition. The poets who kept the first line ... have been so deeply influenced by Wordsworth, Keats, and in part by Shelley, that even when they write on Irish subjects the airs of England breathe and the waters of England ripple in their poetry ... . The other line on which Irish verse ran was backward to the recovery of the old Celtic stories and their modernising in poetry, and forward to the creation of a new form of the Celtic spirit ... . Amid the varied aims of these poets there is one element common to them all. It is their Nationalism.’ (Introduction, Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue, 1900; rep. in The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, gen. ed., Seamus Deane, Derry: Field Day 1991, Vol. 2,, pp.969-70; cited in Edna Longley, The Living Stream, Bloodaxe, 1994, p.17. (See Table of Contents - supra.)

Lyric impulse: At the inaugural lecture of the Irish Literary Society in London, Brooke advocated ‘the recasting into modern form and in literary English of the old Irish legends, preserving the atmosphere of the original tales as much as possible, but clearing them from repetitions, redundant expressions, idioms interesting in Irish but repellent in English, and above all, absurdities, such as the sensational fancy of the later editors and bards have added to the simplicities of the original tales’ (xv). Brooke notes the existence of an ancient Irish ‘lyric impulse’, much focused on nature and her colours, and comments: ‘One would think that poetry which arose so early in a nation’s life, would have developed fully. But this was not the case in Ireland. No narrative, dramatic, didactic, or epic poetry of any importance arose, and many questions and answers might be made concerning this curious restriction of development. The most probably solution of this problem is that there was never enough peace in Ireland or continuity of national existence or unity to allow of a continuous development of any one of the arts in all its forms. Irish poetry never advanced beyond the lyric. In that form it lasted all through the centuries; it lasts still at the present day, and Douglas Hyde has proved how much charm belongs to it in his book on the Love Songs of Connacht.’ (p.xliv).

Note: These passages were formerly cited as part of Brooke's Introduction to The High Deeds of Finn (1910) by T. W. Rolleston [q.v.] - but are given in the form of reported and recorded - or otherwise quoted - speech, and seem more likely to originate in the prefatory pages of W. P. Ryan's Irish Literary Revival (1894), which conjecture squares with the citation of Hyde's Love Songs of Connacht, first published in 1893 and greeted as an embodiment of the lyric spirit of Irish poetry. Note, further, that James Joyce seems to have echoed the above phrase when he sad that Irish drama had never advanced beyond the miracle play (Critical Writings).

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References
Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America 1904), bio-data: b. Letterkenny, Co. Donegal; ed. Kidderminster, Kingstown, and TCD; ord. 1857; chaplain to the British Embassy in Berlin, and several English livings; Life of D. Robertson [sic, in notice], poems, and religious works; he turned to Unitarianism and was widely known as a teacher of ‘light and leading’. McCarthy gives an extract from Frederick William Robertson [sic in extract] (‘So lived and died, leaving behind him a great legacy of thought, a noble gentleman, a Christian minister. to the tenderness of a true woman he ajoined the strong will and undaunted courage of a true man ...’); also some short poems, ‘The Earth and Man’; ‘A Moment’; ‘Desert is Life’.

D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912), Riquet of the Tuft (1880), love drama in prose and verse, 3 acts, anon.; ed., Christian Hymns (1881), for his own congregation; Poems (Lon. 1888); O’Donoghue calls his Treasury (1900), with Rolleston, as ‘perhaps the best collection of English verse by Irish poets that has yet been made.’

Geoffrey Taylor (Irish Poets of the Nineteenth Century, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1951; 1958), relates the story of Brooke’s co-habitation with a German ‘watersprite’.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol.. 2 , 969 selects his pref. to A Treasury, together with D. P. Moran’s attack on it (The Leader, 22 Dec. 1900); T. W. Rolleston’s counterblast (5 Jan. 1901), and Moran’s further offering (idem.); 728; 971-72 [‘We are belonging to a school of thought that has left all that preface behind us ... yet we are aware that for a large number, perhaps the majority of Anglo-Ireland that preface is a star that would beckon them from the West. But once you have crossed the bar between Anglo-Ireland and Ireland, an anthology of this kind will have little or no interest for you. What is not real Irish you would as life, in fact you would prefer, to have real English’, FDA2 971; see more extensively under Moran, infra]; 974; BIOG 1019, chaplain-in-ordinary to Queen Victoria; his Primer of English Literature sold half-a-million copies; became Unitarian in 1880; lecturer, writer, organiser.

British Library holds A Discourse on War [...] Reprinted from the ‘Hibbert Journal,’ &c., pp.18. British & Foreign Unitarian Association: London [1916] 12o. [2] A Memorial Sermon on the Funeral of the Queen, &c., pp.15. Truslove, Hanson & Comba: London, 1901. 8o. [3] A Study of Clough, Arnold, Rossetti and Morris. With an introduction on the course of poetry from 1822 to 1852. pp.260. Sir I. Pitman & Sons:; London, 1908. 8o. [4] Children’s Holiday Fund: a sermon, &c., pp.16. R. Clay & Sons: London & Bungay [1891] 8o. [5] Christ in Modern Life: sermons [...] Second edition. Fifth edition. Sixth edition. pp.viii. 408. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1872. 8o. pp.; viii. 408. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1873. 8o. pp.viii. 408. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1873. 8o. [6] Christian Hymns. [By S. A. Brooke] [Another issue] Christian Hymns [...] Edited and arranged by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke. pp.230.; Women’s Printing Society: London, 1881. 8o[...]. Women’s Printing Society: London, 1881. 8o [...]. [7] Christian Hymns. Edited and arranged by the Rev. S. A. Brooke. [A reissue, with an index]. pp.358. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1891. 8o.; pp.362. London, 1893. 8o. [8] Christianity and Social Problems.. [9] Clough, Arnold, Rossetti, and Morris: a study, etc. (Second edition.) [With portraits] [Another edition] Four Poets. Clough, Arnold, Rossetti, Morris. pp.296. Sir I. Pitman & Sons: London, 1910. 8o. pp.296. Duckworth & Co.: London, 1913. 8o. [10] Die Kriegserklärung. Predigt, &c., pp.16. München, 1870. 8o. [11] ‘Die to Live.’ Selections from Stopford Brooke, arranged by [...] Olive Jacks, etc. [With a portrait]. pp.215. Hodder & Stoughton: London [1924] 8o. [12] Dove Cottage. Wordsworth’s home from 1800-1808, etc. [A reissue] Dove Cottage, etc. [With a plate]. pp.75. Macmillan & Co.: London; & New York, 1890. 8o. pp.76. London, 1920. 8o. [13] English Literature. [Another issue] L.P. [Another edition] (Third edition.) Partly rewritten and largely revised and corrected.; [A reissue] L.P. [A reissue] [Another edition] With chapters on English literature, 1832-1892, and on American literature, by George; R. Carpenter. [Another edition] With a chapter on literature since 1832 by George Sampson. pp.167. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1876. 16o.; London, 1876. 8o. pp.vi. 209. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1880. 8o. pp.191. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1896. 16o. London, 1897. 8o. London,; 1900. 16o. pp.viii. 358. Copp, Clark Co.: Toronto, 1901. 8o. pp.251. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1924. 12o. [14] English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest. pp.ix. 340. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1898. 8o. [15] Eternal Punishment, etc.-The Resurrection of Jesus.-Sinful & Unsinful Wrath, &c. [1883, 85]. [16] Freedom in the Church of England. Six sermons, &c., pp.vi. 109. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1871. 8o. [17] God and Christ. Sermons, &c., pp.359. Philip Green: London, 1894. 8o. [18] Jesus and Modern Thought. Discourses, &c., pp.58. Philip Green: London, 1894. 8o. [19] King Alfred, as educator of his people and man of letters [...] With an appendix of passages from the writings of Alfred, selected and translated from; the Old English by Kate M. Warren. pp.xiii. 56. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1901. 8o. [20] Loyalty. A sermon, &c., pp.22. Printed for private circulation: London [1871] 8o. [21] Milton. [Another copy] Milton. L.P. pp.167. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1879. 8o. London, 1879. 8o. [22] Naturalism in English Poetry. [With a portrait] [Another edition]. pp.vii. 310. J. M. Dent & Sons: London & Toronto, 1920. 8o. pp.254. J.; M. Dent & Sons: London & Toronto [1922] 16o. [23] Notes on the Liber Studiorum of J. M. W. Turner [...] With illustrations. pp.xix. 266. Autotype Co.: London, 1885. 8o. [24] On Ten Plays of Shakespeare [...] Second impression. Sixth impression. pp.311. A. Constable & Co.: London, 1905. 8o. London, 1919. 8o. [25] Poems. pp.viii. 284. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1888. 8o. [26] Précis de l’histoire de la littérature anglaise [...] Traduction française [...] accompagnée de résumés historiques, par M. George Elwall. pp.224. Paris,; [1892] 8o. [27] Reasons for Secession from the Church of England, etc. (Points of doctrine.-The Prayer Book.). 2 pt. British & Foreign Unitarian Association:; London, 1891. 8o. [28] Religion in Literature and Religion in Life. Two lectures. pp.96. Philip Green: London, 1900. 8o. [29] Second series. pp.viii. 421. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1875. 8o. [30] Sermons [...] preached in Bedford Chapel, 1883. 2 pt. For private circulation: London [1884] 8o.; . [31] Sermons [...] Preached in Bedford Chapel, 1883 (1884, 1885). 31 pt. Napier: London, 1883-85. 8o. [32] Sermons [...] preached in Bedford Chapel, 1884 (1885). [London:] Napier [1884, 85]. no. 121-182. 22 cm.. [33] Sermons preached in St. James’s Chapel, York Street, London [...] Second edition. Sixth edition. Seventh edition. pp.ix. 346. Hamilton,; Adams & Co.: London, 1869. 8o. pp.ix. 346. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1871. 8o. pp.ix. 346. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1873. 8o. [34] Short Sermons. pp.viii. 331. Macmillan & Co.: London & New York, 1892. 8o. [35] Studies in Poetry. [With a portrait]. pp.253. Duckworth & Co.: London, 1907. 8o. [36] Sunshine and Shadow: meditations from the sermons of [...] S. A. Brooke, etc. [With a portrait]. pp.215. David Stott: London, 1886. 8o. [37] Ten More Plays of Shakespeare. [A reissue]. pp.313. Constable & Co.: London, 1913. 8o. London, 1919. 8o. [38] Tennyson. His art and relation to modern life. (Second edition.) [With portraits]. pp.vi. 490. Isbister & Co.: London, 1894. 8o. 2 vol.; Isbister & Co.: London, 1900. 8o. [39] The Declaration of War. A sermon preached [...] July 17, 1870. pp.20. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1870. 8o. [40] The Development of Theology, as illustrated in English poetry from 1780 to 1830. (The Essex Hall Lecture, 1893). pp.55. Philip Green: London,; 1893. 8o.; . [41] The Early Life of Jesus. Sermons, &c., pp.260. David Stott: London, 1888. 8o. [42] The Fight of Faith. Sermons [...] Second edition. pp.vii. 417. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1877. 8o. [43] The Good Fight of Faith. A welcome to the ministry.. [44] The Gospel of Joy. pp.378. Isbister & Co.: London, 1898. 8o. [45] The gospel of joy [...] Second edition. London: Isbister & Co., 1899. pp.378. 20 cm.. [46] The History of Early English Literature. Being the history of English poetry from its beginnings to the accession of King AElfred. 2 vol. Macmillan &; Co.: London & New York, 1892. 8o. [47] The Inaugural Address to the Shelley Society. [Another copy]. pp.22. Privately printed: London, 1886. 8o. [48] The Kingdom of God Within. A sermon, etc. [Another edition]. pp.24. Ulster Unitarian Christian Association: Belfast, 1901. 8o. pp.22.; British & Foreign Unitarian Association: London [1902] 8o. [49] The Kingship of Love. pp.vii. 351. Isbister & Co.: London, 1903. 8o. [50] The Late Rev. F. D. Maurice. A sermon, &c., pp.31. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1872. 8o.; . [51] The Life Superlative. [With a portrait]. pp.xii. 314. Sir I. Pitman & Sons: London, 1906. 8o. [52] The Moral Aspect of Home Rule. A lecture, &c., pp.14. Cassell & Co.: London [1886] 8o. [53] The Need and Use of Getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue. An address, etc. L.P. pp.66. T. Fisher Unwin: London, 1893. 4o. [54] The New Aspect of Christian Theology. A sermon, &c., pp.21. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1873. 8o. [55] The Old Testament and Modern Life. [Sermons]. pp.352. Isbister & Co.: London, 1896. 8o. [56] The Onward Cry, and other sermons. [With a portrait]. pp.viii. 385. Duckworth & Co.: London, 1911. 8o. [57] The Poetry of Robert Browning. (Second edition.) [With portraits]. pp.447. Isbister & Co.: London, 1902. 8o. 2 vol. Sir I. Pitman & Sons:; London, 1905. 8o. [58] The Sea-Charm of Venice. pp.113. Duckworth & Co.: London, 1907. 8o. [59] The Ship of the Soul, and other papers. pp.118. J. Clarke & Co.: London, 1898. 8o. [60] The Spikenard, and other sermons [...] Introduction by J. H. Weatherall. pp.138. Lindsey Press: London, 1919. 8o.; . [61] The Spirit of the Christian Life. Sermons [...] Second edition. pp.xi. 363. Kegan Paul & Co.: London, 1881. 8o. [62] The Story of Nain. 1885.. [63] The Unity of God and Man, and other sermons, &c., pp.223. David Stott: London, 1886. 8o. [64] Theology in the English Poets. Cowper-Coleridge-Wordsworth and Burns. Second edition. [Another edition]. pp.vii. 339. H. S. King &; Co.: London, 1874. 8o. pp.vii. 339. H. S. King & Co.: London, 1874. 8o. pp.xii. 275. J. M. Dent & Sons: London; E. P. Dutton & Co.: New York [1910] 8o[...]. [65] What Think Ye of Christ? A sermon, &c., pp.16. British & Foreign Unitarian Association: London [1884] 8o. [66] A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English tongue. Edited by S. A. Brooke and T. W. Rolleston. pp.xliii. 578. Smith, Elder & Co.: London, 1900. 8o. [67] The Golden Book of Coleridge (With an introduction by Stopford A. Brooke.). pp.xii. 289. J. M. Dent & Co.: London; E. P. Dent & Co.: London;; E. P. Dutton & Co.: New York [1906] 8o[...]. [68] The Golden Book of Coleridge. Edited with an introduction by Stopford A. Brooke. pp.xii. 289. J. M. Dent & Co.: London, 1895. 8o. [69] Last Studies [...] With a poem by Stopford A. Brooke, and an appreciation by Henry James. [With a portrait]. pp.xxiii. 223. William Heinemann:; London, 1897. 8o. [70] The Rev. Stopford Brooke’s reason for his total abandoment of orthodoxy. A sermon, &c., pp.16. J. Robertshaw: Sheffield, 1880. 8o.; . [71] All Religion supernatural, M. Müller v. the Anti-religionists, and a popular preacher put to the proof (s. Brooke on the ground and growth of faith).; Articles extracted from ‘The Study and Homiletic Monthly.’. [London?] 1879. 8o. [72] Life and Letters of Stopford Brooke. [With illustrations]. pp.ix. vi. 748. John Murray: London, 1917. 8o. [73] With the Wild Geese. [Verses] With an introduction by Stopford A. Brooke. pp.xxvi. 95. Isbister & Co.: London, 1902. 8o. [74] Old Paris. Ten etchings by C. Méryon. Reproduced on copper by the autogravure process, and accompanied with preface and illustrative notes by; Stopford A. Brooke. Autotype Co.: London, 1887. fol.. [75] Future Probation: a symposium on the question ‘Is Salvation possible after Death?’ By S. Leathes [...] J. Cairns [...] E. White, S. A. Brooke [...] R.; Littledale [...] D. MacEwan [...] and others. pp.324. 1886.. [76] Riquet of the Tuft. A love drama. [By Stopford A. Brooke. In three acts, in prose and verse]. pp.172. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1880. 8o. [77] Friedrich Wilhelm Robertson. Sein Lebensbild in Briefen. Nach S. A. Brooke und F. Arnold. Nebst einem Anhang religiöser Reden. Mit einem [...] Vorwort von E. Frommel, &c., pp.xvi. 434. Gotha, 1888. 8o. [78] Lectures, Addresses, and other literary remains. [...] A new edition. [Edited by Stopford A. Brooke]. London, 1876. 8o. [79] Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson [...] Edited by Stopford A. Brooke [...] With portraits. Second edition. 2 vol. London, 1865. 8o. new edition. 2 vol. London, 1866. 8o. Second edition. London, 1868. 8o. another edition London, 1872. 8o. another edition 2 vol. London, 1873. 8o. [80] The High Deeds of Finn, and other Bardic romances of ancient Ireland [...] With an introduction by Stopford A. Brooke [...] and with sixteen illustrations; by Stephen Reid. pp.lv. 214. George G. Harrap & Co.: London, 1910. 8o.; . [81] Epipsychidion. By P. B. Shelley. A type fac-simile reprint of the original edition [...] published in 1821. With an introduction by [...] Stopford A. Brooke; [...] and a note by A. C. Swinburne. Edited [with a bibliography] by R. A. Potts. pp.lxvi. 31. 1887.. [82] Poems from Shelley, selected and arranged by Stopford A. Brooke. [Another copy] L.P. pp.lxvi. 340. Macmillan & Co.: London, 1880.; 8o. [83] Stopford Brooke. New York: Twayne Publishers [1972]. pp.158. 20 cm.. [84] A Selection from the Liber Studiorum of J. M. W. Turner [...] For artists, art students, and amateurs. A drawing-book suggested by the writings of Mr.; Ruskin. With [...] introduction by F. Wedmore [...] notes by F. Short, and extracts from the writings of [...] Stopford A. Brooke, etc. [Edited by A. Ward]. 4; pt. [1890]. [85] Autotype Reproductions. The Liber Studiorum [...] edited by, and each plate accompanied with a critical notice by [...] Stopford Brooke, &c., The; Autotype Company: London, 1882, etc. obl. fol.. [86] The Liber Studiorum of J. M. W. Turner, R.A. Reproduced in facsimile by the autotype process from examples of the best states in possession of the; Rev. Stopford Brooke, M.A.; each plate accompanied with a critical notice by him. 2 vol. H. Sotheran & Co.: London, 1899. obl. fol.. [87] A Treasury of English Literature, from the beginning to the eighteenth century. Selected and arranged with translations and glossaries by Kate M. Warren [...] With an introduction by Stopford A. Brooke. pp.lviii. 973. Archibald Constable & Co.: London, 1906. 8o. [88] Poems by William Wordsworth. Selected with an introduction by Stopford A. Brooke. Illustrated by Edmund H. New. London: Methuen & Co.,; 1907. pp.xliv, 327. 23 cm.. [89] Poems dedicated to national independence and liberty [...] With an introduction by Stopford A. Brooke. London: Isbister & Co., 1897. pp.96. 19; cm.

Encyc. Britannica: Wikipedia refers to the Encyclopedia Britannica (1911) as a source of information.

University of Ulster Library (Morris Collection) holds A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue (1900), 578pp.

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Notes
Matthew Arnold, half-heartedly endorsed Stopford Brooke’s A Primer of English Literature in a review: ‘To get to know the best in English literature and to know that best well, nothing can be more helpful to us than a guide that will show us, in clear view, the growth of our literature, its series of productions, and their relative value’. He also criticised Brooke for confusing periods of literature with periods of political history. (Quoted by Peter Keating, reviewing The Short History of English Literature (OUP [1994]), in Times Literary Supplement, 22 April 1994.) Keating notes that the comparable work of Legouis and Cazamian appeared from Dent in 1926, while Legouis’s Short History of English Literature appeared in 1934.

W. B. Yeats writes: ‘The reader who would begin a serious study of modern Irish literature should do so with Mr. Stopford Brooke’s and Mr. Rolleston’s exhaustive anthology.’ (Concluding sentence of Preface attached to 1900 rev. edn. of Book of Irish Verse, 1st. edn. 1895.)

Daniel Corkery: The triadic definition of Irish culture which figures in Corkery’s Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature was first formulated by Brooke in his Introduction to A Treasury of Irish Poetry (1900) according to which the salient ingredients are Nationality (p.ixx), Religion, and Rebellion (xxi) - and is so acknowledged by Corkery himself in writing: ‘We may be reminded that a good critic, the late Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, having examined Anglo-Irish poetry, named the notes of Religion, of Nationality, of the Peasant as chief among them - the very notes we have been naming as having had most to do with making the Thurles crowd into what they appeared and into what they were. Therefore, it seems, it is not right to say that these notes are absent in Anglo-Irish literature. (See Corkery, Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature [Chap. 1] - under Corkery, Quotations, infra; rep. in part in The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 1992, Vol. 2, pp.1008-13.) The comparison with Corkery was first broached by Patrick Rafroidi in Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, Vol. 1 (Gerrards Cross 1980). See Joyce - as seq.)

James Joyce: it is probably that James Joyce derived his account of the main forces of Irish society - ‘family, religion, and language’ in the Portrait - last term being variously ‘nationality’ in Stephen Hero - from Stopford Augustus Brooke just as Corkery did [see supra] ... or, at least, the habit of triadic definitions where Irish culture was concerned.

Thomas Kinsella: in “The Dual Tradition”, Kinsella quotes Brooke’s judgement of Moore as ‘a master of fancy’ being ‘full of that power which plays with grace and brightness on the surface of Nature and man but which never penetrates ...’ [?Introduction to Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Language, 1900]. (See Kinsella, ‘The Divided Mind’, in Sean Lucy, Irish Poets in English, 1973, under Kinsella, infra).

Spellcheck: MS Word Spellcheck renders ‘Stopford Augustus Brooke’ as ‘Stopover August Broke’.

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