208 BROOKE. with the knowledge of human life and manners, and in which are admirable traits of moral feeling and propriety; but, towards the close, there is too much of religious dis- cussion for a work of this nature. It became, however, when completed in 5 vols. in 1770, a very popular novel ; and has gone through several editions. In 1772 he pub- lished " Redemption," a poem; in which that great mys- tery of our religion is explained, with a boldness and amplification seldom bazarded; and it must be admitted, that sometimes his enthusiasm surmounted his better judgment, and in this poem the introduction of rhymes, which must be read according to the vulgar Irish, de- ducted considerably from the merit of the performance. His last work was"Juliet Grenville," a novel in three volumes, which appeared in 1774; and is very justly entitled "The History of the Human Heart," the secret movements of which few novelists have better displayed; but there is such a mixture of the most sacred doctrines of religion with the common and trifling incidents of modern romance, that his best friends could not but lament the absence of that genius, spirit, and judgment which once enlightened his mind. It has been said, that, in this year, Garrick pressed him earnestly to write for the stage; but there are so many reasons for supposing this to be incorreet, that it is needless to mention contradic- tory reports. Our author's tendernss of heart, and unsuspecting temper, involved him in pecuniary difficulties. He could not be deaf to a tale of distress; his purse was ever ready, and he relieved their necessities, and added to his own. At length he was compelled, first to mortgage, and then to sell his paternal lands, and remove to Kildare. Here he resided some time, and then took a farm near his former residence. Not long after his removal, his mind received a shock, by the death of his wife, which it never wholly recovered; they had been happily united for nearly fifty years. This calamity, aggravated by the decease of
