Craggs, when he was advanced to be fecretary of ftate (about 1720), feeling his own want of literature, defired Pope to procure him an inftructor, by whofe 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 profpect of ease and plenty; for Fenton had merit, and Craggs had generofity: but the fmall-pox fuddenly put an end to the pleasing expectation.

When Pope, after the great fuccefs of his Iliad, undertook the OdyJey, being, as it feems, weary of tranflating, he determined to engage auxiliaries. Twelve books he took to himself, and twelve he diftributed between Broome and Fenton: the books allotted 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 verse, 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 whose house it was written, is faid to have contributed fuch hints as his theatrical experience fupplied. When it was fhewn to Cibber it was rejected by him, with the additional infolence of advising Fenton to engage himself in fome employment of honest labour, by which he might obtain that support 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 said to have amounted to near a thousand pounds, with which he difcharged 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 discover.

VOL. III.

I

The

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, inftead of furnishing convivial merriment to the volup→ tuous 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 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 press, was fuppofed capable of amendment. To this edition he prefixed a fhort and elegant account of Milton's life, written at once with tendernefs and integrity.

He published likewise (1729) a very splendid edition of Waller, with notes often use

ful,

ful, 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 plea fant. The relict of Sir William Trumbal 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 conversation of his friends.

He died in 1730, at Eafthampstead in Berkshire, the feat of the lady Trumbal; 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 sedentary, 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 she said, 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 be died of indolence; but his immediate distemper was the gout.

Of his morals and his converfation the account is uniform: he was never named but with praise and fondness, as a man in the highest degree amiable and excellent. Such was the character given him by the earl of Orrery, his pupil; fuch is the testimony of Pope*, and fuch were the fuffrages of all who could boaft of his acquaintance.

By a former writer of his Life a story is told, which ought not to be forgotten. He ufed, in the latter part of his time, to pay his relations in the country an yearly visit. At an entertainment made for the family by his elder brother, he observed that one of his fifters, who had married unfortunately, was abfent; and found, upon enquiry, that diftress had made her thought unworthy of

• Spence.

invitation.