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Sir Brooke Boothby

Born 3 June 1744[1]
Ashbourne, Derbyshire[2]
Died 23 January 1824[1]
Boulogne
Burial place Ashbourne
Nationality English
Education unknown
Occupation landowner and poet
Title 6th Boothby Baronet of Broadlow Ash
Predecessor Sir Brooke Boothby, 5th Baronet (1710-1789)
Successor Sir William Boothby, 7th Baronet (1746-1824)
Spouse Susanna Bristoe
Children Penelope
Parents Sir Brooke Boothby, 5th Bt. and Phoebe Hollins

Sir Brooke Boothby was a minor poet and landowner in Derbyshire. He was part of the many people in the intellectual circles of Lichfield who welcomed Jean-Jacques Rousseau to England in 1766-7. After his return from exile Boothby visited Rousseau in Paris where he obtained a copy of his autobiography. Boothby was instrumental in the book being published in Lichfield in 1780 after the authors death. Many well-off people had their portraits rendered by Joseph Wright of Derby and Boothby's unusual portrait shows a copy of that book.[3]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Boothby was born in 1744 and he inherited his unusual surname from the second wife of the first Boothby Baronet of Broadlow Ash, William Boothby. William's third son by his second marriage was named Brooke after his mother and his eldest son passed the name on to his eldest son. Boothby became the 6th baronet although he is sometimes referred to as the seventh as there was some confusion over the appointment of the first baronet.

Boothby was involved with intelligencia in Lichfield and from those connections he met the free-thinking Jean-Jacques Rousseau who had been exiled from France in 1766-7. Boothby later visited Rousseau in Paris and arranged that he would organise the publication of Rousseau's autobiography titled "Discourses". The book was published by Boothby in Lichfield (in French) in 17??.

He married Susanna Bristoe, daughter of Robert Bristoe and Susanna Philipson, in 1784 and in the following April, his only daughter, Penelope, was born.

On 19 Marfch 1791, disaster struck when Boothby's young daughter, Penelope, died aged five. This sad event effected Boothby a great deal and his poetry dwelt on this event.

It was said that he never recovered from the loss of his daughter and he died in poverty in Boulougne in 1824.

Well has thy classick chisel, Banks, express'd
The graceful lineaments of that fine form,
Which late with conscious, living beauty warm,
Now here beneath does in dread silence rest.
And, oh, while life shall agitate my breast,
Recorded there exists her every charm,
In vivid colours, safe from change or harm,
Till my last sigh unalter'd love attest.
That form, as fair as ever fancy drew,
The marble cold, inanimate, retains;
But of the radiant smile that round her threw
Joys, that beguiled my soul of mortal pains,
And each divine expression's varying hue,
A little senseless dust alone remains[4]

[edit] Major works

  • Sorrows. Sacred to the Memory of Penelope, (1796)
  • Fables and Satires, 1809, Edinburgh

[edit] See also

Boothby Baronets

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b George Edward Cokayne, editor, The Complete Baronetage, 5 volumes (no date (c. 1900); reprint, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1983), volume III, page 83.
  2. ^ baptised here
  3. ^ Sir Brooke Boothby, Joseph Wright of Derby (1781), Jonathan Jones, 28 April 2001, The Guardian, accessed 25 May 2008
  4. ^ [Sorrows. Sacred to the Memory of Penelope (1796)]

[edit] External links