IN the poetical works of Dr. Swift there is not much upon which the critick can exercise his powers. They are often humorous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend fuch compofitions, eafinefs and gaiety. They are, for the most part, what their author intended. The diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhymes exact. There feldom occurs a hard-laboured expreffion, or a redundant epithet; all his verfes exemplify his own definition of a good style, they confift of " proper words in proper places."

To divide this collection into claffes, and fhew how fome pieces are grofs, and fome are trifling, would be to tell the reader what he knows already, and to find faults of which the author could not be ignorant, who certainly wrote not often to his judgment, but his humour.

It was faid, in a Preface to one of the Irish editions, that Swift had never been known to take a fingle thought from any writer, ancient or modern. This is not literally true; but perhaps no writer can eafily be found that has borrowed fo little, or that in all his excellences and all his defects, has fo well maintained his claim to be confidered as original.

BROOME.

BROOM E.

WILLIAM BROOME was born in Cheshire, as is faid, of very mean parents. Of the place of his birth, or the firft 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 fcholarfhip at King's College. Being by this delay, fuch as is faid to have happened very rarely, fuperannuAted, 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 fome time in the fame chamber with the well-known Ford, by whom I have formerly heard him defcribed as a contracted. scholar and a mere verfifier, unacquainted with life, and unfkilful in converfation. His addiction to metre was then fuch, that his companions familiarly called him Poet. When he had opportunities of mingling with mankind, he cleared himfelf, as Ford likewife owned, from great part of his fcholaftick

ruft.

VOL. III.

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He appeared early in the world as a tranflator of the Iliads" into profe, in conjunction with Ozell and Oldifworth. How their feveral parts were diftributed is not known. This is the tranflation of which Ozell boafted as fuperior, in Toland's opinion, to that of Pope: it has long fince vanished, and is now in no danger from the criticks.

He was introduced to Mr. Pope, who was then vifiting Sir John Cotton at Madingley near Cambridge, and gained fo much of his efteem, that he was employed, I believe, to make extracts from Euftathius for the notes to the tranflation of the "Iliad;" and in the volumes of poetry published by Lintot, commonly called "Pope's Mifcellanies," many of his early pieces were inferted.

Pope and Broome were to be yet more closely connected. When the fuccefs of the "Iliad" gave encouragement to a verfion of the " Odyffey," Pope, weary of the toil, called Fenton and Broome to his affistance; 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 fecond, fixth, eighth, eleventh, twelfth, fixteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-third, together with the burthen of writing all the notes.

As this tranflation is a very important event in poetical hiftory, the reader has a right to know upon what grounds I eftablish my narration. That the verfion was not wholly Pope's, was always known; he had mentioned the affiftance of two friends in his propofals, and at the end of the work fome account is given by Broome of their different parts,

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which

which however mentions only five books as written by the coadjutors; the fourth and twentieth by Fenton; the fixth, 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 curiofity, after the real conduct of fo great an undertaking, incited me once to enquire 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 feveral 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 affiftance 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 eftimate, 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 fix.

Broome probably confidered himself as injured, and there was for fome time more than coldness between him and his employer. He always spoke of Pope as too much a lover of money; and Pope purfued him with avowed hoftility; for he not only named him difrefpectfully 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 diftinguithed for the profound, he reckons Broome among "the Parrots who repeat another's words in fuch a “hoarse odd tune as makes them feem their own.' I have been told that they were afterwards reconciled; but I am afraid their peace was without friendship.

He afterwards published a Mifcellany of Poems, which is inferted, with corrections, in the late compilation.

He never rofe to a very high dignity in the Church. He was fome time rector of Sturfton in Suffolk, where he married a wealthy widow; and afterwards, when the King vifited Cambridge (1728) became Doctor of Laws. He was (in Auguft, 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 refigned Pulham, and retained the other two.

Towards the close of his life he grew again poetical, and amufed himself with tranflating Odes of Anacreon, which he published in the "Gentleman's Magazine," under the name of Chefter.

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He died at Bath, November 16, 1745, and was buried in the Abbey Church.

Of Broome, though it cannot be faid that he was a great poet, it would be unjust to deny that he was an excellent verfifier; his lines are fmooth and fonorous, and his diction is felect and elegant. His rhymes are fometimes unfuitable; in his "Melancholy," he makes breath rhyme to birth in one place, and to earth in another. Thofe faults occur but feldom;