He afterwards published a Miscellany of Poems, which is inserted, with corrections, in the late compilation. He never rose to 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. 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 versifyer; 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. 44 Mr. Cunningham points out that this is a mistake, as Broome, in his Will, dated Qet. 1745, styles himself Rector of Puham. 66 Serene, the sting of pain thy thoughts beguile, 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; 66 "But thou, O Muse, whose sweet nepenthean tongue Can charm the pangs of death with deathless song; 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 co-operation was considered by Pope's enemies as so important, that he was attacked by Henley with this ludicrous distich: 66 'Pope came off clean with Homer; but they say 1 A couplet like this had been applied before to Richard Broome, the dramatic poet and servant of Ben Jonson : "Sent by Ben Jonson, as some authors say, Broom went before and kindly swept the way." Choyce Drollery, 12mo, Lond. 1656.-P. CUNNINGHAM. PREFATORY NOTE. Pope's Poetical Works were published by Lintot in 1717 and 1735 in folio and quarto. His own edition of his correspondence appeared in 1737, the second volume in 1741, folio and quarto, After his death Warburton published (1751) the Works in 9 vols. 8vo, and editions followed in quick succession, the most important being Warton's 9 vols. 8vo, 1797. The references throughout the notes to this Life are contracted as follows: Ald. P. The Aldine Edition of the British Poets. Poetical Works, Pope, 3 vols. with Memoir by Dyce. Carruthers. The admirable Life of Pope, by Robert Carruthers. Bohn's Library. 1857. E. and C. Elwin and Courthope's great edition just completed by Courthope's Life of Pope, which bears testimony to the judicial excellence of Johnson's delineation of the character of Pope, notwithstanding the later discoveries. The notes signed A. Milnes are from this Life in the Clarendon Press Series. |