RALPH BROOKE, Rouge Croix pursuivant, and York herald, was contemporary with Camden and his violent adversary. His skill as a herald has rarely been questioned, but his whole career exhibits the character of a petulant, envious, mean, and dishonest person. He pretended to be a descendant of the antient family of Brooke of Cheshire; but it is unfortunate for his pretensions that his father's name was not Brooke, but _Brokesmouth_. He was bred to the trade of a painter-stainer, and became free of that company in 1576. How he obtained his introduction to the College does not appear, though it is certain that it would have been better, both for himself and that body, had he never entered it. Noble characterizes him as "so extremely worthless and perverse that his whole mind seemed bent to malice and wickedness:" unawed by virtue or by station, none were secure from his unmerited attacks. His enmity towards Camden arose out of the circumstance of the antiquary's having been appointed, on the demise of Richard Lee, to the office of Clarenceux, to which, from a long connexion with the College, and greater professional knowledge, he considered himself entitled; and it is but justice to admit that he certainly had some ground for complaint, though the mode in which he chose to give vent to his spleen cannot be defended. Camden's great work, the 'Britannia,' had passed through several editions unimpeached as to its general accuracy, when Brooke endeavoured to bring its well-deserved popularity into contempt by a work entitled 'A Discoverie of certaine Errours published in print in the much-commended Britannia,' a production overflowing with personal invective. To this spiteful book Camden replied in Latin, treating his opponent with the scorn he deserved, exposing his illiteracy, and at the same time adroitly waiving such of the charges as were really well founded. Never was reviewer more severely reviewed. 'A second Discoverie of Errours' followed, and, as it remained unanswered, Brooke might in some sort have claimed a triumph, particularly as Camden, recognizing the maxim "Fas est ab hoste doceri," availed himself, in the subsequent editions of the 'Britannia,' of his adversary's corrections. In 1619 Brooke published a 'Catalogue and Succession of Kings, Princes, and Nobilitie since the Norman Conquest,' a work of considerable merit, though it did not escape censure, for Vincent, Rouge Croix, an adherent of Camden, in a 'Discovery of Errors,' printed three years afterwards, controverted many of its statements. Brooke still continued his paltry and litigious proceedings, and was twice suspended from his office; and it was even attempted to expel him from the College.[292] He closed his unenviable life in 1625, and was buried in the twin-towered church of Reculver, co. Kent, where a mural monument informs us that