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⚫ commoner of Nature, excluded from the regular modes of profit and profperity, and reduced to pick up a livelihood uncertain and fortuitous; but it must be remembered that he kept his name unfullied, and never fuffered himself to be reduced, like too many of the fame fect, to mean arts and difhonourable fhifts. Whoever mentioned Fenton, mentioned him with honour.

The life that paffes in penury, muft neceffarily pass in obfcurity. It is impoffible to trace Fenton from year to year, or to discover what means he used for his fupport. He was a while fecretary to Charles earl of Orrery in Flanders, and tutor to his young fon, who afterwards mentioned him with great efteem and tenderness. He was at one time affiftant in the school of Mr. Bonwicke in Surrey; and at another kept a school for himself at Sevenoaks in Kent, which he brought into reputation; but was perfuaded to leave it (1710) by Mr. St. John, with promifes of a more honourable employment.

His opinions, as he was a Nonjuror, feem not to have been remarkably rigid. He wrote with great zeal and affection the praifes of queen Anne, and very willingly and liberally extolled the duke of Marlborough, when he was (1707) at the height of his glory.

He expreffed ftill more attention to Marlborough and his family by an elegiac Paftoral on the marquis of Blandford, which could be prompted only by refpect or kindefs; for neither the duke nor dutchefs defired the praife, or liked the cost of patronage.

The elegance of his poetry entitled him to the company of the wits of his time, and the amiableness of his manners made him loved wherever he was known.

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known. Of his friendship to Southern and Pope there are lafting monuments.

He published in 1707 a collection of poems.

By Pope he was once placed in a station that might have been of great advantage. Craggs, when he was advanced to be secretary of state (about 1720), feeling his own want of literature, defired Pope to procure him an instructor, by whose help he might fupply the deficiencies of his education. Pope recommended Fenton, in whom Craggs found all that he was feeking. There was now a prospect of ease and plenty; for Fenton had merit, and Craggs had generofity: but the finallpox fuddenly put an end to the pleasing expectation.

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When Pope, after the great fuccefs of his Iliad, undertook the Odyssey, being, as it seems, weary tranflating, he determined to engage auxiliaries. Twelve books he took to himself, and twelve he dif- · tributed between Broome and Fenton: the books alloted to Fenton were the firft, the fourth, the nineteenth, and the twentieth. It is obfervable, that he did not take the eleventh, which he had before tranflated into blank verfe; neither did Pope claim it, but committed it to Broome. How the two affociates performed their parts is well known to the readers of poetry, who have never been able to distinguish their books from thofe of Pope.

In 1723 was performed his tragedy of Mariamne; to which Southern, at whofe house it was written, is -faid to have contributed fuch hints as his theatrical exWhen it was fhewn to Cibber, perience fupplied. it was rejected by him, with the additional infolence of advifing Fenton to engage himself in fome employment of honeft labour, by which he might obtain that

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Tupport which he could never hope from his poetry. The play was acted at the other theatre; and the brutal petulance of Cibber was confuted, though, perhaps, not shamed, by general applaufe. Fenton's profits are faid to have amounted to near a thousand pounds, with which he discharged a debt contracted by his attend

ance at court.

Fenton feems to have had fome peculiar fyftem of verfification. Mariamne is written in lines of ten fyllables, with few of those redundant terminations which the drama not only admits but requires, as more nearly approaching to real dialogue. The tenor of his verse is fo uniform that it cannot be thought cafual; and yet upon what principle he fo conftructed it, is diffi cult to discover.

The mention of his play brings to my mind a very trifling occurrence. Fenton was one day in the company of Broome his affociate, and Ford, a clergyman, at that time too well known, whose abilities, instead of furnishing convivial merriment to the voluptuous and diffolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wife. They determined all to fee the Merry Wives of Windfor, which was acted that night; and Fenton, as a dramatick poet, took them to the stage-door; where the door-keeper enquiring who they were, was told that they were three very neceffary men, Ford, Broome, and Fenton. The name in the play, which Pope restored to Brook, was then Broome.

It was perhaps after his play that he undertook to revise the punctuation of Milton's Poems, which, as the author neither wrote the original copy nor corrected the prefs, was fuppofed capable of amendment. To this edition he prefixed a fhort and elegant account of 0 3 Milton's

Milton's life, written at once with tenderness and integrity.

He published likewife (1729) a very fplendid edition of Waller, with notes often useful, often entertaining, but too much extended by long quotations from Clarendon. Illuftrations, drawn from a book fo eafily confulted, fhould be made by reference rather than tranfcription.

The latter part of his life was calm and pleasant, The relict of Sir William Trumbull invited him, by Pope's recommendation, to educate her fon; whom he first instructed at home, and then attended to Cambridge. The lady afterwards detained him with her as the auditor of her accounts. He often wandered to London, and amufed himself with the converfation of his friends.

He died in 1730, at Easthampstead in Berkshire, the feat of the lady Trumbull; and Pope, who had been always his friend, honoured him with an epitaph, of which he borrowed the two firft lines from Crafhaw.

Fenton was tall and bulky, inclined to corpulence, which he did not leffen by much exercife; for he was very fluggish and fedentary, rofe late, and when he had rifen fat down to his book or papers. A woman that once waited on him in a lodging, told him, as fhe faid, that he would lie a-bed, and be fed with a spoon. This, however, was not the worst that might have been prognofticated; for Pope fays, in his Letters, that he died of indolence; but his immediate diftemper was the gout.

Of his morals and his converfation the account is uniform: he was never named but with praife and fondness as a man in the highest degree amiable and excellent. Such was the character given him by the

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carl of Orrery, his pupil; fuch is the teftimony of Pope; and fuch were the fuffrages of all who could boaft of his acquaintance.

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By a former writer of his Life a story is told, which ought not to be forgotten. He used, in the latter part of his time, to pay his relations in the country an yearly vifit. At an entertainment made for the family by his elder brother, he observed, that one of his sisters, who had married unfortunately, was abfent; and found, upon enquiry, that distress had made her thought unworthy of invitation. As fhe was at no great distance, he refused to fit at the table till fhe was called, and, when she had taken her place, was careful to fhew her particular atention,

His collection of poems is now to be confidered. The ode to the Sun is written upon a common plan, without uncommon fentiments; but its greateft fault is its length. No poem fhould be long of which the purpose is only to strike the fancy, without enlightening the understanding by precept, ratiocination, or narrative. A blaze first pleases, and then tires the fight.

Of Florelio it is fufficient to fay that it is an occafional paftoral, which implies fomething neither natural nor artificial, neither comick nor ferious.

The next ode is irregular, and therefore defective. As the fentiments are pious, they cannot easily be new; for what can be added to topicks on which fucceffive ages have been employed!

Of the Paraphrafe on Isaiah nothing very favourable can be faid. Sublime and folemn profe gains little by a change to blank verfe; and the paraphraft has deferted his original, by admitting images not Afiatick, at least not Judaical:

* Spence.
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