“Broom” is RICHARD BROME (died 1652), whose racy comedies have been, like Dekker’s, lately reprinted. The insinuation that Ben Jonson had “sent him before to sweep the way,” alludes, no doubt, to the fact of Brome having earlier been Jonson’s servant, and learning from his personal discourse much of dramatic art. Neither was it meant nor accepted as an insult, when, (printed 1632,) Jonson wrote (“according to Ben’s own nature and custom, magisterial enough,” as their true friend Alexander Brome admits), _I had you for a Servant once, ~Dick Brome~;_ _And you perform’d a Servant’s faithful parts:_ _Now, you are got into a nearer room_ _Of ~Fellowship~, professing my old Arts._ _And you do doe them well, with good applause,_ _Which you have justly gained from the Stage_, &c. It is amusing to mark the survival of the old joke in our text, about sweeping (it came often enough, in _Figaro in London_, &c., at the time of the 1832 Reform Bill, as to Henry Brougham and Vaux); when we see it repeated, almost literally, in reference to Alexander Pope’s fellow-labourer on the Odyssey translation, the Rev. William Broome, of our St. John’s College, Cambridge:— _~Pope~ came off clean with ~Homer~, but they say,_ _~Broome~ went before, and kindly swept the way._ Leaving a few words on the matchless BEN himself for the “Sessions of the Poets” Additional Note, we end this commentary on our book’s chief poem with a few more stanzas from the Beswick Manuscript, by George Daniel, (written in great part before, part after, 1647,) in honour of Ben Jonson, but preceded by others relating to Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Beaumont, and Donne:— _I am not bound to honour antique names,_ [8th verse] _Nor am I led by other men to chuse_ _Any thing worthy, which my judgment blames;_ _Heare better straines, though by a later Muse;_ _The sweet ~Arcadian~ singer first did raise_ _Our Language current, and deserv’d his Baies._ _That Lord of ~Penhurst~, ~Penhurst~ whose sad walls_ _Yet mourne their master, in the ~Belgicke~ fray_ _Untimely lost; to whose dear funeralls_ _The ~Medwaie~ doth its constant tribute paye;_ _But glorious ~Penhurst~, ~Medwaies~ waters once_ _With ~Mincius~ shall, and ~Mergeline~ advance;_ _The ~Shepherds Boy~; best knowen by that name_ _~Colin~: upon his homely Oaten Reed._ _With ~Roman Tityrus~ may share in ffame;_ _But when a higher path hee strains to tread,_ _This is my wonder: for who yet has seene_ _Soe cleare a Poeme as his ~Faierie Queene~?_ _The sweetest ~Swan of Avon~; to the faire_ _And cruel ~Delia~, passionatelie sings:_ _Other mens weaknesses and follies are_ _Honour and Wit in him; each Accent brings_ _A sprig to crowne him Poet; and contrive_ _A Monument, in his owne worke to live._