ON HER MAJESTY'S BIRTH DAY, Ye spirits bright, that æther rove, that give the flowers to shine, the birds to sing; O muse, awake! ascend, and sing! To woodland honours woodland hymns belong; the season sheds a trepid ray. The storms of Boreas rave no more; BROOME. William Broome was born of obscure parents in Cheshire, and was educated upon the foundation of Eton, where he had the misfortune of being captain of the school during the year 1707, without a vacancy occuring by which he might have obtained a scholarship in King's College, Oxford. By this delay be ing superannuated, his friends sent him to St. John's College, Cambridge, where by their assistance and a small exhibition, he was maintained till he entered into orders. He was early known to the world as the translator of the "Iliad" in prose, in conjunction with Ozell and Oldisworth. He was engaged by Pope in furnishing the notes from Eustathius for his Iliad, and when the Odyssey was undertaken, Broome was not thought unworthy, by his poetic friend, of sharing his labours and his success. The 2d, 6th, 8th, 11th, 12th, 16th, 18th, and 23d, with all the notes were written by Broome, who, for this laborious contribution received the small sum of 500l, and 100 copies. But literary friendship is too often of short duration, and while Broome considered his services as ill repaid, Pope not only disregarded his discontent, but meanly exihibited him to public ridicule, both in the Dunciad and in the Bathos. In 1727 he published a small Miscellany of Poems with à dedication to Lord Townshend. He was at that time rector of Sturton in Suffolk, and chaplain to Charles Lord Cornwallis. At this place he married a widow lady who had a good fortune, which enabled him to take the degree of LL. D. when the King went to Cambridge, April 25, 1728. In August 1733 he was presented by the crown to the rectory of Pulham in Norfolk, and Lord Cornwallis added the vicarage of Eye in Suffolk; he then resigned Pulham, and retained the other two to his death. In the lat ter part of his life he amus'd himself with translating "Odes of Anacreon," which he published in the Gentleman's Magazine," under the signature of Chester, He died at Bath, November 16, 1745, and was buri ed in the Abbey Church. He left an only son, Charles, who died of the small-pox in 1747, an under-guaduate of St. John's College, Cambridge. Dr. Robert Anderson says, " As a poet, the compositions of Broome are characterized by correctness of judgment, elegance of diction, and harmony of numbers, rather than by force of genius, or grace of fancy; neither of which are however wanting. His translations are smooth, classical, and spirited. Dr. Warton thinks the books he translated for Pope, in the Odyssey are inferior to Fenton's; but it is no small honour to him, that the readers of poetry have never been able to distinguish his books from those of Fenton and Pope. "The character of Broome," continues Dr. Anderson," tho' he never rose to a very high dignity in the church, seems to have been amiable and respectable. At college he was universally beloved, and in more advanced life he was distinguished by his exemplary observance of the social and domestic duties, and his piety and diligence in the exercise of his pastoral function. He is mentioned by Shuckford in the "Sacred and prophane History connected, vol. iii, p. 60, under the appellation of the ingeni ous Annotator on the English Homer, whose real worth, as well as learning, makes it a pleasure to me to say, that I have a friendship for him." "Of Broome," says Johnson," tho' 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. He had such power of words and numbers, as peculiarly fitted him for translations; but in his original works, recollection seems to have been his business more than invention. What he takes he seldom makes worse; and he cannot be 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. Pope came off clean with Homer; but they say, MELANCHOLY: Occasioned by the Death of a beloved Danghter, 1723. Adieu vain mirth, and noisy joys! By tombs, where sullen spirits stalk, familiar with the dead I walk; while to my sighs and groans by turns, from graves the midnight echo mourns. Open thy marble jaws, O tomb, tho' earth conceal me in thy womb! and you, ye worms, this frame confound, ye brother reptiles of the ground! O life, frail offspring of a day! 't is puff'd with one short gasp away! swift as the short-liv'd flower it flies, it springs, it blooms, it fades, it dies. With cries we usher in our birth, with groans resign our transient breath; while round, stern ministers of fate, pain, and disease, and sorrow wait. While childhood reigns, the sportive boy learns only prettily to toy; and while he roves from play to play the wanton trifles life away. When to the noon of life we rise, the man grows elegant in vice; When youth and strength in age are lost, man seems already half a ghost; wither'd and wan to earth he bows, a walking hospital of woes. Oh happiness, thou empty name! say, art thou bought by gold or fame? what art thou, gold, but shining earth? い I thou, common fame, but common breath? |