The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 08: The Lives of the Poets, Volume IIJohnson, Samuel
General
The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 08: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II
Johnson, Samuel
Poets, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Poets, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography
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_.
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