BROOKLYN, Battle of See vol. I. p. 636. 13ROOME, NVILLinim, an English poet, was born in Cheshire, of poor parents ; and after being educated upon the foundation at Eton, was, by the contribution of his friends, sent to St John's college Cambridge, where he obtained a small exhibition During his education in that university, he was so fond of writing verses, that, among his companions, he was known by the name of Poet, although his juvenile pieces by no means entitled him to that appellation. Ile next ap peared as a translator of Homer into prose, in conjunc tion with Ozell and Oldisworth ; but that work has long ago fallen into oblivion.
lt, however, paved the way for his introduction to Pope, who employed him to make extracts from Eusta thius, for the notes to the translation of the Iliad ; and in the volumes of poetry published by Lintot, commonly called "Pope's Miscellanies," many of his early pieces are inserted. Pope afterwards employed him, in con junction with Fenton, in translating the Odyssey, and assigned him the 2d, 6th, 8th, l Ith, 12th, 16th, 18th, and 23d books of that poem; together with the task of writing all the notes. For the four books translated by Fenton, Pope paid, 3001. ; while Broome received no more for the whole of his part of the work than 6001. This scanty payment produced a quarrel betwixt him and his employer, which ended in a complete breach of their friendship. Broome charged Pope with an avaricious spirit ; and Pope, in revenge, gave him a place in the Dunciad ; quoted him in the Bathos as a proficient "in the art of sinking ;" and compared him to a " parrot, who repeats another's words in such a hoarse old tone, as to make them seem his own."
He afterwards published a miscellany of poems ; and, in the latter part of his life, amused himself with tran slating odes of Anacreon, which appeared in the Gentle man's Magazine, under the name of Chester. In the. church, he never rose higher than a rector, and died at Bath in 1745.
" Of Broome," says Johnson, " 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. Ile had such power of words and numbers, as fitted hint 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 recal the verses of some former poet.
His assistance was deemed so necessary to Pope, in the translation of the Odyssey, that it gave occasion to this humorous distich : " Pope came clean off with Homer ; but they say " Broome went before, and kindly swept the way." Johnson's Lives of the Poets, vol. iii. (A. F.)