Christopher Brooke This is the last and shortest of the six dedicatory poems by George Chapman, William Browne, George Wither, and others prefixed to The Ghost of Richard the Third (1614), by C[hristopher] B[rooke] (c. 1578–1628), the friend of Donne and Browne. Brooke’s poem was entered in the Stationers’ Register 14 May 1614. It is an undistinguished revival of the style of A Mirror for Magistrates of the last but one poetic generation. It may register some of the anti-absolutist pressures in the 1614 parliament, in which Brooke was an MP; see O’Callaghan (1998). Jonson’s interest in the work may have been fuelled by the fact that he had received payment from Henslowe for writing Richard Crookback in 1602; see Note on Richard Crookback, lost play, in vol. 1.

Italic in Brooke.

1 these the other authors of dedicatory verses.

2 void empty. (Could be used of blank paper, OED, 4†d.)

3 broad seals warrants to its value. The Broad, or Great, Seal of England, was used to sign royal warrants.

5 For] Brooke; To H&S (apparently in error)

6 they’re] Brooke (1614) (th’are)

7 suffrage vote. The Ghost of Richard the Third becomes an elected monarch among poems by virtue of the abundance of praise which it receives. This plays on the reputation of the historical Richard Ⅲ as a usurping tyrant, and might suggest a parallel between the flattering poet and the flatterer Dr Shaw, who, in Brooke’s poem, is the first to insist in public that Richard ‘alone / Was pattern of each princely quality’, sig. F2v.