conjunction with Ozel and Oldifworth. How their several parts were distributed is not known. This is the tranflation of which Ozel boafted as fuperior, in Toland's opinion, to that of Pope: it has long fince vanifhed, and is now in no danger from the criticks.

He was introduced to Mr. Pope, who was then vifiting Sir John Cotton at Madingly near Cambridge, and gained fo much of his efteem that he was employed, I believe, to make extracts from Euftathius for the notes to the tranflation of the Iliad; and in the volumes of poetry published by Lintot, commonly called Pope's Mifcellanies, many of his early pieces were inferted.

Pope and Broome were to be yet more closely connected. When the fuccefs of the Iliad gave encouragement to a verfion of the Odyffey, Pope, weary of the toil, called Fenton and Broome to his affiftance; and, taking only half the work upon himself, divided the other half between his partners, giving four books to Fenton, and eight to Broome. Fenton's books I have enumerated in his Life; to the lot of Broome fell the fecond, fixth, eighth, eleventh, twelfth, fixteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-third, together with the burthen of writing all the notes.

As this tranflation is a very important event in poetical hiftory, the reader has a right to know upon what grounds

I efta

I establish my narration. That the verfion was not wholly Pope's was always known he had mentioned the affiftance. of two friends in his proposals, and at the end of the work fome account is given by Broome of their different parts, which however mentions only five books as written by the coadjutors; the fourth and twentieth by Fenton; the fixth, the eleventh, and the eighteenth by himself; though Pope, in an advertifement prefixed afterwards to a new volume of his works, claimed only twelve. A natural curiofity after the real conduct of fo great an undertaking, incited me once to enquire of Dr. Warburton, who told me, in his warm language, that he thought the relation

given in the note a lie; but that he was not able to afcertain the feveral fhares. The intelligence which Dr. Warburton could not afford me, I obtained from Mr. Langton, to whom Mr. Spence had imparted it.

The price at which Pope purchased this affiftance was three hundred pounds paid to Fenton, and five hundred to Broome, with as many copies as he wanted for his friends, which amounted to one hundred more. The payment made to Fenton I know but by hearfay; Broome's is very diftinctly told by Pope, in the notes to the Dunciad.

It is evident, that, according to Pope's own eftimate, Broome was unkindly treated. If four books could

merit three hundred pounds, eight and all the notes, equivalent at least to four, had certainly a right to more than fix.

Broome probably confidered himself as injured, and there was for fome 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 hoftility; 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 diftinguished for the profound, he reckons Broome

among