William Broome was born in Cheshire, as is said, of very mean parents.
Of the place of his birth, or the first part of his life, I have not
been able to gain any intelligence. He was educated upon the foundation
at Eton, and was captain of the school a whole year, without any
vacancy, by which he might have obtained a scholarship at King's
college. Being, by this delay, such as is said to have happened very
rarely, superannuated, he was sent to St. John's college, by the
contributions of his friends, where he obtained a small exhibition.
At his college he lived for some time in the same chamber with the
well-known Ford, by whom I have formerly heard him described as a
contracted scholar and a mere versifier, unacquainted with life, and
unskilful in conversation. His addiction to metre was then such, that
his companions familiarly called him poet. When he had opportunities of
mingling with mankind, he cleared himself, as Ford likewise owned, from
great part of his scholastick rust.
He appeared early in the world as a translator of the Iliads into prose,
in conjunction with Ozell and Oldisworth. How their several parts were
distributed is not known. This is the translation of which Ozell boasted
as superiour, in Toland's opinion, to that of Pope: it has long since
vanished, and is now in no danger from the criticks.
He was introduced to Mr. Pope, who was then visiting sir John Cotton, at
Madingley, near Cambridge, and gained so much of his esteem, that he was
employed, I believe, to make extracts from Eustathius for the notes to
the translation of the Iliad; and, in the volumes of poetry published by
Lintot, commonly called Pope's Miscellanies, many of his early pieces
were inserted.
Pope and Broome were to be yet more closely connected. When the success
of the Iliad gave encouragement to a version of the Odyssey, Pope,
weary of the toil, called Fenton and Broome to his assistance; and,
taking only half the work upon himself, divided the other half between
his partners, giving four books to Fenton, and eight to Broome. Fenton's
books I have enumerated in his life; to the lot of Broome fell the
second, sixth, eighth, eleventh, twelfth, sixteenth, eighteenth, and
twenty-third, together with the burden of writing all the notes.
As this translation is a very important event in poetical history, the
reader has a right to know upon what grounds I establish my narration.
That the version was not wholly Pope's, was always known: he had
mentioned the assistance of two friends in his proposals, and, at the
end of the work, some account is given by Broome of their different
parts, which, however, mentions only five books as written by the
coadjutors; the fourth and twentieth by Fenton; the sixth, the eleventh,
and the eighteenth, by himself; though Pope, in an advertisement
prefixed afterwards to a new volume of his works, claimed only twelve. A
natural curiosity after the real conduct of so great an undertaking,
incited me once to inquire of Dr. Warburton, who told me, in his warm
language, that he thought the relation given in the note "a lie;" but
that he was not able to ascertain the several shares. The intelligence
which Dr. Warburton could not afford me, I obtained from Mr. Langton, to
whom Mr. Spence had imparted it.
The price at which Pope purchased this assistance was three hundred
pounds paid to Fenton, and five hundred to Broome, with as many copies
as he wanted for his friends, which amounted to one hundred more. The
payment made to Fenton I know not but by hearsay; Broome's is very
distinctly told by Pope, in the notes to the Dunciad.
It is evident, that, according to Pope's own estimate, Broome was
unkindly treated. If four books could merit three hundred pounds, eight,
and all the notes, equivalent, at least, to four, had certainly a right
to more than six.
Broome probably considered himself as injured, and there was, for some
time, more than coldness between him and his employer. He always spoke
of Pope as too much a lover of money; and Pope pursued him with avowed
hostility; for he not only named him disrespectfully in the Dunciad, but
quoted him more than once in the Bathos, as a proficient in the Art of
Sinking; and in his enumeration of the different kinds of poets
distinguished for the profound, he reckons Broome among "the parrots who
repeat another's words in such a hoarse odd tone as makes them seem
their own." I have been told that they were afterwards reconciled; but I
am afraid their peace was without friendship.
He afterwards published a Miscellany of Poems, which is inserted, with
corrections, in the late compilation.
He never rose to a very high dignity in the church. He was some time
rector of Sturston, in Suffolk, where he married a wealthy widow; and
afterwards, when the king visited Cambridge, 1728, became doctor of
laws. He was, in August, 1728, presented by the crown to the rectory of
Pulham, in Norfolk, which he held with Oakley Magna, in Suffolk, given
him by the lord Cornwallis, to whom he was chaplain, and who added the
vicarage of Eye, in Suffolk; he then resigned Pulham, and retained the
other two.
Towards the close of his life he grew again poetical, and amused himself
with translating Odes of Anacreon, which he published in the Gentleman's
Magazine, under the name of Chester.
He died at Bath, November 16,1745, and was buried in the abbey church.
Of Broome, though it cannot be said that he was a great poet, it would
be unjust to deny that he was an excellent versifier; his lines are
smooth and sonorous, and his diction is select and elegant. His rhymes
are sometimes unsuitable; in his Melancholy, he makes _breath_ rhyme to
_birth_ in one place, and to _earth_ in another. Those faults occur but
seldom; and he had such power of words and numbers as fitted him for
translation; but, in his original works, recollection seems to have been
his business more than invention. His imitations are so apparent, that
it is part of his reader's employment to recall the verses of some
former poet. Sometimes he copies the most popular writers, for he seems
scarcely to endeavour at concealment; and sometimes he picks up
fragments in obscure corners. His lines to Fenton,
Serene, the sting of pain thy thoughts beguile,
And make afflictions objects of a smile,
brought to my mind some lines on the death of queen Mary, written by
Barnes, of whom I should not have expected to find an imitator;
But thou, O muse! whose sweet nepenthean tongue
Can charm the pangs of death with deathless song,
Canst _stinging plagues_ with easy _thoughts beguile_,
_Make_ pains and tortures _objects of a smile_.
To detect his imitations were tedious and useless. What he takes he
seldom makes worse; and he cannot be justly thought a mean man, whom
Pope chose for an associate, and whose coöperation was considered by
Pope's enemies as so important, that he was attacked by Henley with this
ludicrous distich:
Pope came off clean with Homer; but they say
Broome went before, and kindly swept the way[107].
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[Footnote 107: Henley's joke was borrowed. In a copy of verses, entitled
the Time Poets, preserved in a miscellany called Choice Drollery, 1656,
are these lines:
Sent by Ben Jonson, as some authors say,
Broom went before, and kindly swept the way.
J. B.]