The success of the
Iliad naturally suggested an attempt upon the Odyssey. Pope, however,
was tired of translating, and he arranged for assistance. He took into
alliance a couple of Cambridge men, who were small poets capable of
fairly adopting his versification. One of them was William Broome, a
clergyman who held several livings and married a rich widow.
Unfortunately his independence did not restrain him from writing poetry,
for which want of means would have been the only sufficient excuse. He
was a man of some classical attainments, and had helped Pope in
compiling notes to the Iliad from Eustathius, an author whom Pope would
have been scarcely able to read without such assistance. Elijah Fenton,
his other assistant, was a Cambridge man who had sacrificed his claims
of preferment by becoming a non-juror, and picked up a living partly by
writing and chiefly by acting as tutor to Lord Orrery, and afterwards in
the family of Trumball's widow. Pope, who introduced him to Lady
Trumball, had also introduced him to Craggs, who, when Secretary of
State, felt his want of a decent education, and wished to be polished by
some competent person. He seems to have been a kindly, idle, honourable
man, who died, says Pope, of indolence, and more immediately, it
appears, of the gout. The alliance thus formed was rather a delicate
one, and was embittered by some of Pope's usual trickery. In issuing his
proposals he spoke in ambiguous terms of two friends who were to render
him some undefined assistance, and did not claim to be the translator,
but to have undertaken the translation.
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