Oakley Magna and the vicarage of Eye, whereupon he resigned Sturston and Pulham. He was also chaplain to Lord Cornwallis, who attempted, but without success, to obtain him promotion in the church.
Pope had been annoyed by popular exaggeration of the part Broome had enjoyed in the preparation of the 'Odyssey.' Henley had given expression to this scandal in a stinging couplet:
Pope came off clean with Homer; but they say
Broome went before, and kindly swept the way.
Pope thought that Broome should have positively denied this vague indictment of Pope's originality, and when he was silent he revenged himself meanly by a line in the 'Dunciad:'
Hibernian politics, Swift, thy doom,
And Pope's, translating four whole years with Broome.
After several editions of the 'Dunciad' had appeared, Broome, in September 1735, broke his long silence by writing an obsequious letter to Pope, not mentioning the impertinent line, but intended to suggest that bygones should be bygones. Pope altered the line to
thy fate,
And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate.
Pope, however, found Broome exacting and tiresome, and allowed the correspondence to lapse once more. Broome only appeared in public on one more occasion, with an 'Assize Sermon' in 1737. In his later years he amused himself by translating Anacreon for the 'Gentleman's Magazine.' He died at Bath on 16 Nov. 1745, and was buried in the abbey church. He was exactly a year younger than Pope, and he outlived him about the same length of time. His only son, Charles John Broome, died at Cambridge, as an undergraduate, in December 1747, and, in accordance with the poet's will, his property reverted to Lord Cornwallis.
Broome was a smooth versifier, without a spark of originality. His style was founded upon Pope's so closely that some of what he thought were his original pieces are mere centos of Pope. He was therefore able, like Fenton, but even to a greater extent, to reproduce the style of Pope with marvellous exactitude in translating the 'Odyssey.' Of that work the eighth, eleventh, twelfth, sixteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-third books, as well as all the notes, are Broome's. His early rudeness of manner gave way to a style of almost obsequious suavity,and his letters, though ingenious and graceful, do not give an impression of sincerity. Of his own poems not one has remained in the memory of the most industrious reader, and he owes the survival of his name entirely to his collaboration with Pope.
[Dr. Johnson wrote a memoir of Broome in his Lives of the Poets. A short life was published by T. W. Barlow. In Elwin and Courthope's Pope's Correspondence will be found a minute account of Broome's relations with the poet, and the text of the letters which passed between them.]
BROOMFIELD, MATTHEW (fl. 1550), was a Welsh poet. His poems are preserved in manuscript in the collections of the Cymmrodorion Society and of the Welsh School, both in the British Museum.
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.: Williams's Dictionary of Eminent Welshmen; Dept. of MSS., British Museum.]
BROTHERS, RICHARD (1757–1824), enthusiast, was born on 25 Dec. 1757 at Placentia, Newfoundland. His father was a gunner. He had several brothers and a sister still living in Newfoundland in 1826. At the time of his public appearance he had, according to his own statement, no relatives in England. He came to England when young, and was partly educated at Woolwich. At the age of fourteen he entered the royal navy as midshipman on board the Ocean; as master's mate he served under Admiral Keppel in the engagement off Ushant. Next year he was transferred to the Union, and in 1781 to the St. Albans, a 64-gun ship, despatched in June 1781 to the West Indies, where he was in the engagement between Admiral Rodney and Comte de Grasse. He became lieutenant with seniority of 3 Jan. 1783, and was discharged to half-pay (54l. a year) from the St. Albans on 28 July 1783 at Portsmouth. After leaving the service he visited France, Spain, and Italy. On 6 June 1786 he married, at Wrenbury, near Nantwich, Elizabeth Hassall. He soon ceased to live with her. The story current among the representatives of his friend Finlayson is that he joined his ship on his way from church after the ceremony, and, returning a few years later, found his faithless wife already the mother of children. In September 1787 Brothers came to London. Here he lived very quietly on a vegetarian diet, and worshipped at Long Acre chapel or at a baptist chapel in the Adelphi. He continued to draw his half-pay till 1789. An objection to the oath required as a qualification for receiving pay led him to address, on 9 Sept. 1790, a letter to Philip Stephens (afterwards Sir P. though ingenious and graceful, do not give ' Stephens) of the admiralty, which appeared at an impression of sincerity. Of his own poems I the time in the 'Public Advertiser.' Brothers
