gree; but I never heard that the enthusiasm of oppofition impelled him to feparation from the church.

By this perverseness of integrity he was driven out a 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 unsullied, and never fuffered himself to be reduced, like too many of the fame fect, to mean arts and dishonourable shifts. Whoever mentioned Fenton, mentioned him with honour.

The life that paffes in penury, must neceffarily pafs in obfcurity. It is impoffible to trace Fenton from year to year, or to dif cover 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 esteem and tenderness. He was at one time afsistant 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 praises 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 kindness; for neither the duke nor dutchefs defired the praise, or liked the coft 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. Of his friendship to Southern and Pope there are lafting monu

ments.

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,

H 3

Craggs, when he was advanced to be fecre tary 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 profpect of ease and plenty; for Fenton had merit, and Craggs had generofity: but the small-pox fuddenly put an end to the pleasing expectation.

When Pope, after the great fuccefs of his Iliad, undertook the Odyley, 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 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 performed their parts is well known to the readers of poetry, who have never been able to distinguish their books from those 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 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 fhamed, by general applause. Fenton's profits are, faid to have amounted to near a thousand pounds, with which he dif charged 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.

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, whofe 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 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 reftored 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 short and elegant account of Milton's life, written at once with tendernefs and integrity.

He published likewife (1729) a very fplendid edition of Waller, with notes often ufe

ful