we hear the loudest cries for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?"), Brooke was mortified by Johnson's parody and changed the line for his Collected Works. Brooke had a difficult life and made a very poor living. The Licensing Act robbed him of his primary avenue to making a living, for, after the Act, he was the first man banned by it. Whatever fame this lent him was made up for by his inability to get new plays performed. His greatest commercial successes came from the Earl of Essex and his two novels, The Fool of Quality (1760-1772) and Juliet Grenville (1774), which are two of the finest sentimental novels. John Wesley was so fond of The Fool of Quality, in which Brooke declares his belief in universal salvation, that he sought to have a copy of it given out to all new Methodist churches. He had twenty-two children. Of these, only Charlotte survived adolescence. She shepherded his Works through the press after his death. References External links Brooke at Princess Grace Irish Library 1703 births 1783 deaths 18th-century Anglo-Irish people Irish male dramatists and playwrights People from County Cavan 18th-century Christian universalists 18th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 18th-century Irish novelists Irish male novelists 18th-century Irish male writers