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 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. His rhymes
are sometimes unsuitable; in his Melancholy, he makes _breath_ rhyme to
_birth_ in one place, and to _earth_ in another. Those faults occur but
seldom; and he had such power of words and numbers as fitted him 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 recall the verses of some
former poet. Sometimes he copies the most popular writers, for he seems
scarcely to endeavour at concealment; and sometimes he picks up
fragments in obscure corners. His lines to Fenton,

Serene, the sting of pain thy thoughts beguile,
And make afflictions objects of a smile,

brought to my mind some lines on the death of queen Mary, written by
Barnes, of whom I should not have expected to find an imitator;

But thou, O muse! whose sweet nepenthean tongue
Can charm the pangs of death with deathless song,
Canst _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
seldom makes worse; and he cannot be justly thought a mean man, whom
Pope chose for an associate, and whose cooeperation was considered by
Pope's enemies as so important, that he was attacked by Henley with this
ludicrous distich:

Pope came off clean with Homer; but they say
Broome went before, and kindly swept the way[107].

-----

[Footnote 107: Henley's joke was borrowed. In a copy of verses, entitled
the Time Poets, preserved in a miscellany called Choice Drollery, 1656,
are these lines:
Sent by Ben Jonson, as some authors say,
Broom went before, and kindly swept the way.
J. B.]

POPE.

Alexander Pope was born in London, May 22, 1688, of parents whose rank
or station was never ascertained: we are informed that they were of
"gentle blood;" that his father was of a family of which the earl of
Downe was the head; and that his mother was the daughter of William
Turner, esquire, of York, who had, likewise, t