Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition

BROME, ALEXANDER

(1620-1666), English poet, was by profession an attorney, and was the author of many drinking songs and of satirical verses in favour of the Royalists and against the Rump. He published in 1661 Songs and other Poems, containing songs on various subjects, followed by a series of political songs; ballads, epistles, elegies and epitaphs; epigrams and translations. Izaak Walton wrote an introductory eclogue for this volume in praise of the writer, and his gaiety and wit won for him the title of the "English Anacreon" in Edward Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum. Brome published in 1666 a translation of Horace by himself and others, and was the author of a comedy entitled The Cunning Lovers (1654). He also edited two volumes of Richard Brome's plays.