How some in winds blow with impetuous | Hence springs the oak, the beauty of the force, And carry ruin where they bend their course, He sung, how earth's wide ball, at Jove's command, Did in the midst on airy columns stand; Till with the Spring's warm beams almost released Erom the dull weight with which it lay oppress'd, Its vigour spreads, and makes the teeming earth Heave up and labour with the sprouting birth: Till, having form'd its living house, it rears Its head, and in a tender plant appears. grove, Whose stately trunk fierce storms can scarcely move. FENTON. THE brevity with which I am to write the account of ELIJAH FENTON, is not the effect of indifference or negligence. I have sought intelligence among his relations in his native country, but have not obtained it. He was born near Newcastle, in Staffordshire, of an ancient family, whose estate was very considerable; but he was the youngest of eleven children, and being therefore necessarily destined to some lucrative employment was sent first to school, and afterwards to Cambridge +, but, with many other wise and virtuous men, who at that time of discord and debate consulted conscience, whether well or ill informed, more than interest, he doubted the legality of the government, and refusing to qualify himself for public employment by the oaths required, left the university without a degree; but I never heard that the enthusiasm of opposition impelled him to separation from the Church. By this perverseness of integrity he * He was born at Shelton, near Newcastle, May 20, 1683 and was the youngest of eleven children of John Fenton, an attorney at law, and one of the coroners for the county of Stafford. His father died in 1694; and his grave, in the churchyard of Stoke upon Trent, is distinguished by an elegant Latin inscrip tion from the pen of his son. He was entered of Jesus College, and took a Bachelor's degree in 1704; but it appears that he removed in 1726 to Trinity Hall. was driven out a commoner of Nature, excluded from the regular modes of profit and prosperity, and reduced to pick up a livelihood uncertain and fortuitous; but it must be remembered that he kept his name unsullied, and never suffered himself to be reduced, like too many of the same sect, to mean arts and dishonourable shifts. Whoever mentioned Fenton, mentioned him with honour. The life that passes in penury must necessarily pass in obscurity. It is impossible to trace Fenton from year to year, or to discover what means he used for his support. He was awhile secretary to Charles earl of Orrery, in Flanders, and tutor to his young son, who afterwards mentioned him with great esteem and tenderness. He was at one time assistant in the school of Mr. Bonwicke, in Surrey; and at another kept a school for himself at Seven Oaks, in Kent, which he brought into reputation; but was persuaded to leave it (1710) by Mr. St. John, with promises of a more honourable employment. His opinions, as he was a Nonjuror, seem 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 expressed still more attention to Marlborough and his family by an elegiac Pastoral on the marquis of Blandford, which could be prompted only by respect or kindness; for neither the duke nor duchess desired the praise, 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. Of his friendship to Southern and Pope there are lasting 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 want of literature, desired Pope to procure him an instructor, by whose help he might supply the deficiencies of his education. Pope recommended Fenton, in whom Craggs found all that he was seeking. There was now a prospect of ease and plenty, for Fenton had merit, and Craggs had generosity: but the smallpox suddenly put an end to the pleasing expectation. When Pope, after the great success of his Iliad, undertook the Odyssey, being, as it seems, weary of translating, he determined to engage auxiliaries. Twelve books he took to himself, and twelve he distributed between Broome and Fenton: the books allotted to Fenton were the first, the fourth, the nineteenth, and the twentieth. It is observable, that he did not take the eleventh, which he had before translated into blank verse; neither did Pope clain it, but committed it to Broome. How the two associates 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 whose house it was written, is said to have contributed such hints as his theatrical experience supplied. When it was shown to Cibber, it was rejected by him, with the additional insolence of advising Fenton to engage himself in some 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 ashamed, by general applanse. Fenton's profits are said to have amounted to near a thousand pounds, with which he discharged a debt contracted by his attendance at court. Fenton seems to have had some peculiar system of versification. Mariamne' is written in lines of ten syllables, 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 so uniform that it cannot be thought casual; and yet upon what principle he so constructed 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 associate, and Ford, a clergyman, at that time too well known, whose abilities, instead of furnishing convivial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise. They deter mined all to see the Merry Wives of Windsor, which was acted that night; and Fenton, as a dramatic poet, took them to the stage door; where the doorkeeper inquiring who they were, was told that they were three very necessary 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 supposed to be capable of amendment. To this edition he prefixed a short and elegant account of Milton's life, written at once with tenderness and integrity. He published likewise (1729) a very splendid edition of Waller, with notes often useful, often entertaining, but too much extended by long quotations from Clarendon. Illustrations drawn from a book so easily consulted, should be made by reference rather than transcription. 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 son; 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 amused himself with the conversation of his friends. He died in 1730, at Easthampstead in Berkshire, the seat of Lady Trumbull; and Pope, who had been always his friend, honoured him with an epitaph, of which he borrowed the first two lines from Crashaw. Fenton was tall and bulky, inclined to corpulence, which he did not lessen by much exercise; for he was very sluggish and sedentary, rose late, and when he had risen, sat 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 abed, and be fed with a spoon." This, however, was not the worst that might have been prognosti cated; for Pope says, in his Letters, that | one would be tedious. His translation " he died of indolence;" but his imme- from Homer into blank verse will find diate distemper was the gout. Of his morals and his conversation 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; such is the testimony of Pope; and such were the suffrages of all who could boast of his acquaintance. few readers, while another can be had in rhyme. The piece addressed to Lambarde is no disagreeable specimen of epistolary poetry; and his ode to the lord Gower was pronounced by Pope the next ode in the English language to Dryden's Cecilia. Fenton may be justly styled an excellent versifier and a good poet. Whatever I have said of Fenton is confirmed by Pope in a letter, by which he communicated to Broome an account of his death. "TO "THE REV. MR. BROOME. "AT PULHAM, NEAR HARLESTONE 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 a yearly visit. At an entertainment made for the family by his elder brother, he observed, that one of his sisters, who had married unfortunately, was absent; and found, upon inquiry, that distress had made her thought unworthy of invitation. As she [BY BECCLES bag.] was at no great distance, he refused to sit at the table till she was called, and, when she had taken her place, was careful to show her particular attention. His collection of poems is now to be considered. The ode to the Sun is writ ten upon a common plan, without uncommon sentiments; but its greatest fault is its length. No poem should 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 sight. Of Florelio it is sufficient to say, that it is an occasional pastoral, which implies something neither natural nor artificial, neither comic nor serious. The next ode is irregular, and therefore defective. As the sentiments are pious, they cannot easily be new; for what can be added to topics on which successive ages have been employed? Of the Paraphrase on Isaiah nothing very favourable can be said. Sublime and solemn prose gains little by a change to blank verse; and the paraphrast has deserted his original, by admitting images not Asiatic, at least not Judaical: -Returning Peace, Dove-eyed, and robed in white Of his petty poems some are very trifling, without any thing to be praised either in the thought or expression. He is unlucky in his competitions; he tells the same idle tale with Congreve, and does not tell it so well. He translates from Ovid the same epistle as Pope; but I am afraid not with equal happiness. To examine his performances one by • Spence. " Dr SIR, 66 NOR "SUFFOLKE "I INTENDED to write to you on this melancholy subject, the death of Mr. Fenton, before yrs came; but stay'd to have inform'd myself and you of ye circumstances of it. All I hear is, that he felt a Gradual Decay, tho so early in Life, & was declining for 5 or 6 months. It was not, as I apprehended, the Gout in his Stomach, but I believe rather a Complication first of Gross Humours, as he was naturally corpulent, not discharging themselves, as he used no sort of Exercise. No man better bore ye approaches of his Dissolution (as I am told) or with less ostentation yielded up his Being. The great Modesty wch you know was natural to him, and ye great Contempt he had for all Sorts of Vanity & Parade, never appeared more than in his last moments: He had a conscious Satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, in feeling himself honest, true, & unpretending to more than was his own. So he dyed, as he lived, with that secret, yet sufficient, Contentment. "As to any Papers left behind him, I dare say they can be but few; for this reason, he never wrote out of Vanity, or thought much of the Applause of men. I know an instance where he did his utmost to conceal his own merit that way; and if we join to this his natural Love of Ease, I fancy we must expect little of this sort: at least I hear of none except some few further remarks on Waller (wch his cautious integrity made him leave an order to be given to Mr. Tonson) and perhaps, tho' 'tis many years since I saw it, a Translation of ye first Book of Oppian. He had begun a Tragedy of Dion, but made small progress in it. "As to his other Affairs, he dyed poor, but honest, leaving no Debts, or Legacies; except of a few pds to Mr. Trumbull and my Lady, in token of respect, Gratefulness, and mutual Esteem. "I shall with pleasure take upon me to draw this amiable, quiet, deserving, unpretending Christian and Philosophical character, in His Epitaph. There Truth may be spoken in a few words: as for Flourish, & Oratory, & Poetry, I leave them to younger and more lively Writers, such as love writing for writing sake, & wd rather show their own Fine Parts, yn Report the valuable ones of any other So the Elegy I renounce. man. JOHN GAY, descended from an old family that had been long in the possession of the manor of Goldworthy in Devonshire, was born in 1688, at or near Barnstaple, where he was educated by Mr. Luck, who taught the school of that town with good reputation, and, a little before he retired from it, published a volume of Latin and English verses. Under such a master he was likely to form a taste for poetry. Being born without prospect of hereditary riches, he was sent to London in his youth, and placed apprentice with a silk-mercer. Goldworthy does not appear in the Vil lare. DR. J. How long he continued behind the counter, or with what degree of softness and dexterity he received and accommodated the ladies, as he probably took no delight in telling it, is not known. The report is, that he was soon weary of either the restraint or servility of his occupation, and easily persuaded his master to discharge him. The duchess of Monmouth, remarkable for inflexible perseverance in her demand to be treated as a princess, in 1712 took Gay into her service as secretary: by quitting a shop for such service he might gain leisure, but he certainly advanced little in the boast of independence. Of his leisure he made so good use, that he | Hanover. This was a station that natupublished next year a poem on Rural rally gave him hopes of kindness from Sports,' and inscribed it to Mr. Pope, every party; but the queen's death put who was then rising fast into reputation, an end to her favours, and he had dediPope was pleased with the honour; and, cated his Shepherd's Week' to Bolingwhen he became acquainted with Gay, broke, which Swift considered as the found such attractions in his manners crime that obstructed all kindness from and conversation, that he seems to have the House of Hanover. received him into his inmost confidence ; and a friendship was formed between them which lasted to their separation by death, without any known abatement on either part. Gay was the general favourite of the whole association of wits; but they regarded him as a playfellow rather than a partner, and treated him with more fondness than respect. Next year he published The Shepherd's Week,' six English pastorals, in which the images are drawn from real life, such as it appears among the rustics in parts of England remote from London. Steele, in some papers of the Guardian,' had praised Ambrose Philips, as the Pastoral writer that yielded only to Theocritus, Virgil, and Spenser. Pope, who had also published pastorals, not pleased to be overlooked, drew up a comparison of his own compositions with those of Philips, in which he covertly gave himself the preference, while he seemed to disown it. Not content with this, he is supposed to have incited Gay to write The Shepherd's Week,' to show, that if it be necessary to copy nature with minuteness, rural life must be exhibited such as grossness and ignorance have made of it. So far the plan was reasonable; but the Pastorals are introduced by a Proeme, written with such imitation as they could obtain of obsolete language, and by consequence in a style that was never spoken nor written in any age or in any place. He did not, however, omit to improve the right which his office had given him to the notice of the royal family. On the arrival of the princess of Wales, he wrote a poem, and obtained so much favour, that both the prince and princess went to see his 'What d'ye call it,' a kind of mock-tragedy, in which the images were comic, and the action grave; so that, as Pope relates, Mr. Cromwell, who could not hear what was said, was at a loss how to reconcile the laughter of the audience with the solemnity of the scene. Of this performance the value certainly is but little; but it was one of the lucky trifles that give pleasure by novelty, and was so much favoured by the audience, that envy appeared against it in the form of criticism; and Griffin, a player, in conjunction with Mr. Theobald, a man afterwards more remarkable, produced a pamphlet called 'The Key to the What d'ye call it ;' which, says Gay, "calls me a blockhead, and Mr. Pope a knave." But Fortune has always been inconstant. Not long afterwards (1717) he endeavoured to entertain the town with Three Hours after Marriage;' a comedy written, as there is sufficient reason for believing, by the joint assistance of Pope and Arbuthnot. One purpose of it was to bring into contempt Dr. Woodward the Fossilist, a man not really or justly contemptible. It had the fate which such outrages deserve: the scene in But the effect of reality and truth be- which Woodward was directly and apcame conspicuous, even when the inten-parently ridiculed, by the introduction tion was to show them groveling and of a mummy and a crocodile, disgusted degraded. These Pastorals became po- the audience, and the performance was pular, and were read with delight as just driven off the stage with general conrepresentations of rural manners and demnation. occupations, by those who had no interest in the rivalry of the poets, nor knowledge of the critical dispute. In 1713 he brought a comedy called 'the Wife of Bath' upon the stage, but it received no applause: he printed it, however, and seventeen years after, having altered it, and, as he thought, adapted it more to the public taste, he offered it again to the town; but, though he was flushed with the success of the Beggar's Opera,' had the mortification to see it again rejected. In the last year of Queen Anne's life, Gay was made secretary to the earl of Clarendon, ambassador to the court of Gay is represented as a man easily incited to hope, and deeply depressed when his hopes were disappointed. This is not the character of a hero; but it may naturally imply something more generally welcome, a soft and civil companion. Whoever is apt to hope good from others is diligent to please them; but he that believes his powers strong enough to force their own way, commonly tries only to please himself. What He had been simple enough to imagine that those who laughed at the d'ye call it' would raise the fortune of its author; and, finding nothing done, sunk into dejection. His friends endea |