Broome, William

(1689-1745)

   Broome was from a poor background but through benefit he attend Eton College and St. John's College, Cambridge, and was the rector of several churches in Suffolk and Norfolk. With John Ozell and William Oldisworth he translated the Iliad (1712). He collaborated with Alexander Pope and Elijah Fenton to translate Homer's Odyssey (1713 to 1725); he translated eight of the books. He also made translations from the Greek of Anacreon. His own Poems on Several Occasions was published in 1727. The Samuel Johnson website lists several poems: "An Epistle to My Friend Mr. Elijah Fenton, Author of Mariamne, a Tragedy," "Melancholy: An Ode, Occasion'd by the Death of a Beloved Daughter," "On the Death of My Dear Friend, Dr. Elijah Fenton," "Prologue to Mr. Fenton's Excellent Tragedy Mariamne," "To Mr. A. Pope, Who Corrected My Verses." Some of his other poems: "Chap. 43 of Ecclesiasticus," "Courage in Love," "From the Eleventh Book of the Iliads of Homer, in Milton's Style," "The Battle of the Gods and Titans," "The Coquette," "The Rose-Bud," "The Widow and Virgin Sisters."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology. Roger Lonsdale, ed. Oxford University Press, 1989. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets (1747) (http://www2.hn.psu.edu/Faculty/KKemmerer/poets/preface.htm). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Book of English Verse. Christopher Ricks, ed. Oxford University Press, 1999. The Poetical Works of William Broome. C. Cooke, 1796.