William Broome had been educated at Eaton as a foundation scholar, and at Cambridge by the subscription of friends, and was Vicar of Sturston in Suffolk. He had a turn for verse, and, with repute as a Greek scholar, had begun his literary life by taking part in a prose translation of the “Iliad.” Introduced to Pope at Sir John Cotton’s, in Cambridgeshire, Broome pleased the poet, and was employed in selecting extracts for notes to the “Iliad.” Upon the “Odyssey” Broome was a chief helper. He translated eight books,—the second, sixth, eighth, eleventh, twelfth, sixteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-third, and compiled all the notes…. Broome published a volume of “Miscellaneous Poems” in 1727, married a rich widow, and became LL.D. at the beginning of the reign of George II. He had several good preferments, and died in 1745.

—Morley, Henry, 1879, A Manual of English Literature, ed. Tyler, p. 540.    

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Personal

  A clergyman who held several livings and married a rich widow. Unfortunately his independence did not restrain him from writing poetry, for which want of means would have been the only sufficient excuse.

—Stephen, Leslie, 1880, Alexander Pope (English Men of Letters), p. 77.    

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General

  The Parrots are they that repeat another’s words, in such a hoarse odd voice, as makes them seem their own.

—Pope, Alexander, 1727, Treatise on the Bathos, ch. vi.    

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  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.

—Johnson, Samuel, 1779–81, Broome, Lives of the English Poets.    

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  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.”… 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.

—Gosse, Edmund, 1886, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. VI, p. 442.    

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  He possessed no spark of genius, but was an admirable imitator of other men’s style.

—Courthope, William John, 1889, The Life of Alexander Pope, Works, eds. Elwin and Courthope, vol. V, p. 197.    

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  Is chiefly known from his association with Pope…. His verses are mechanically correct, but are empty of poetry.

—Dennis, John, 1894, The Age of Pope, p. 243.    

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