was now a profpect of eafe and plenty; for Fenton had merit, and Craggs had generofity but the small-pox fuddenly put an end to the pleafing expectation.

When Pope, after the great fuccefs of his Iliad, undertook the Odyssey, being, as it seems, weary of tranflating, he dẹtermined to engage auxiliaries. Twelve books he took to himself, and twelve he diftributed between Broome and Fenton: the books allotted to Fenton were the first, the fourth, the nineteenth, and the twentieth. It is obfervable that he did not take the eleventh, which he had before tranflated into blank verse, neither did Pope claim it, but committed it to Broome. How the two affociates

per

performed their parts is well known to the readers of poetry, who have never been able to diftinguifh their books from those of Pope..

In 1723 was performed his tragedy of Mariamne; to which Southerne, at whose house it was written, is faid to have contributed fuch hints as his thea-trical experience supplied. When it was fhewn to Cibber 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 fupport 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 fhamed, by general:

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1

general applause. Fenton's profits are faid to have amounted to near a thousand pounds, with which he discharged a debt contracted by his attendance 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 verfe is fo uniform that it cannot be thought cafual, and yet upon what principle he fo conftructed it, is difficult to difcover.

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 clergy

man,

man, at that time too well known, whose abilities, inftead 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 ftage-door; where the doorkeeper 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 cor

rected

rected the prefs, was fuppofed capable

of amendment. To this edition he prefixed a fhort and elegant account of 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 should be made by reference rather than transcription.

The latter part of his life was calm and pleasant. The relict of Sir William Trumbal invited him, by Pope's reconmendation, to educate her fon; whom he first instructed at home, and then attended to Cambridge. The lady afterwards detained