among the Parrots who repeat another's words in fuch a hoarfe odd tone as makes them feem their own. I have been told that they were afterwards reconciled; but I am afraid their peace was without friendship.

He afterwards published a Mifcellany of Poems, which is inferted, with corrections, in this compilation.

He never rose to very high dignity in the church. He was fome time rector of Sturfton in Suffolk, where he married a wealthy widow; and afterwards, when the king vifited Cambridge (1728), became Doctor of Laws. He was (1733) 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 refigned Pulham, and retained the other

two.

grew

Towards the clofe of his life he again poetical, and amufed himself with tranflating 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 faid that he was a great poet, it would be unjuft to deny that he was an excellent verfifyer; his lines are fmooth and fonorous, and his diction is felect and ele

(

gant.

gant. His rhymes are fometimes unsuitable; in his Melancholy he makes breath rhyme to birth in one place, and to earth in another. Thofe faults occur but feldom; and he had fuch power of words and numbers as fitted him for tranflation; but, in his original works, recollection feems to have been his bufinefs more than invention. His imitations are fo apparent, that it is part of his reader's employment to recal the verfes of fome former poet. Sometimes he copies the most popular writers, for he feems fcarcely to endeavour at concealment; and fometimes he picks up fragments in obfcure corners. His lines to Fenton,

Serene,

Serene, the fting of pain thy thoughts

beguile,

And make afflictions objects of a fmile; brought to my mind fome lines on the death of queen Mary, written by Barnes, of whom I fhould not have expected to find an imitator;

But thou, O Mufe, whofe fweet nepenthean tongue

Can charm the pangs of death with deathlefs fong;

Canft stinging plagues with easy thoughts beguile,

Make pains and tortures objects of a Smile.

To detect his imitations were tedious and useless. What he takes he feldom

makes

makes worse; and he cannot be juftly thought a mean man whom Pope chose for an affociate, and whofe co-operation was confidered by Pope's enemies as fo important, that he was attacked by Henley with this ludicrous distich :

Pope came off clean with Homer; but they fay

Broome went before, and kindly fwept the way.