This worthy gentleman was born at Shelton, near Newcastle under the
Line, in Staffordshire[A]. In this county, though there are several
families of the name of Fenton, yet they are all branches from one
flock, which is a very antient and opulent family: Our author's mother
being immediately descended from one Mare, an officer in William the
Conqueror's army.
Our poet was the youngest of twelve children, and was intended by his
parents for the ministry: He was sent to the university of Cambridge,
where he embraced the principles very opposite to the government, by
which he became disqualified for entering into holy orders. We find
him soon after his quitting the university, secretary to the earl of
Orrery, but how long he remained in that station we cannot ascertain.
After he quitted the service of this noble peer, it was his custom to
perform a visit annually to his eldest brother's house in the country,
who possessed an estate of 1000 l. per annum. He was caressed in the
country, by all his relations, to whom he endeared himself, by his
affable and genteel behaviour. Mr. Fenton was a man of the most tender
humanity, and discovered it upon every proper occasion: A gentleman
resident in that county, who has transmitted to us some account of Mr.
Fenton, has given us the following instance of his humane disposition.
He had a great number of sisters, some of whom were less happy in
their marriages than others; one in particular was exposed to many
misfortunes, by the indiscretion and extravagance of her husband. It
is the custom of some people to make very great distinctions between
their rich and poor relations; Mr. Fenton's brother was of this stamp,
and it seems treated his unfortunate sister with less ceremony than
the rest. One day, while Mr. Fenton, was at his brother's house, he
observed the family going to dinner without this sister, who was in
town, and had as good a right to an invitation, as any of the rest who
dined there as a compliment to him. He could not help discovering his
displeasure at so unnatural a distinction, and would not sit down to
table till she was sent for, and in consequence of this slight shewn
her by the rest of the family, Mr. Fenton treated her with more
tenderness and complaisance than any of his sisters.
Our author carried through life a very fair reputation, he was beloved
and esteemed by Mr. Pope, who honoured him with a beautiful
epitaph. Mr. Fenton after a life of ease and tranquility, died at
East-Hampstead-Park, near Oakingham, the 13th of July 1730, much
regretted by all men of taste, not being obnoxious to the resentment
even of his brother writers.
In the year 1723, Mr. Fenton introduced upon the stage his Tragedy of
Mariamne, built upon the story related of her in the third volume of
the Spectator, Numb. 171, which the ingenious author collected out of
Josephus. As this story so fully displays the nature of the passion of
jealousy, and discovers so extraordinary a character as that of Herod,
we shall here insert it, after which we shall consider with what
success Mr. Fenton has managed the plot. In a former paper, the author
having treated the passion of jealousy in various lights, and marked
its progress through the human mind, concludes his animadversions with
this story, which he says may serve as an example to whatever can be
said on that subject.
'Mariamne had all the charms that beauty,
birth, wit, and youth could give a woman, and
Herod all the love that such charms are able to raise
in a warm and amorous disposition. In the midst of
his fondness for Mariamne, he put her brother
to death, as he did her father not many years
after. The barbarity of the action was represented
to Mark Anthony, who immediately summoned
Herod into Egypt, to answer for the crime
that was laid to his charge: Herod attributed the
summons to Anthony's desire of Mariamne, whom
therefore before his departure, he gave into the custody
of his uncle Joseph, with private orders to
put her to death, if any such violence was offered
to himself. This Joseph was much delighted
with Mariamne's conversation, and endeavoured
with all his art and rhetoric to set out the excess
of Herod's passion for her; but when he still
found her cold and incredulous, he inconsiderately
told her, as a certain instance of her lord's affection,
the private orders he had left behind him, which
plainly shewed, according to Joseph's interpretation,
that he could neither live nor die without
her. This barbarous instance of a wild unreasonable
passion quite put out for a time those little
remains of affection, she still had for her lord:
Her thoughts were so wholly taken up with the
cruelty of his orders, that she could not consider
the kindness which produced them; and therefore
represented him in her imagination, rather
under the frightful idea of a murderer, than a
lover.
'Herod was at length acquitted, and dismiss'd
by Mark Anthony, when his soul was all in flames
for his Mariamne; but before their meeting he was
not a little alarmed at the report he had heard
of his uncle's conversation and familiarity with
her in his absence. This therefore was the first
discourse he entertained her with, in which she
found it no easy matter to quiet his suspicions.
But at last he appeared so well satisfied of her
innocence; that from reproaches, and wranglings,
he fell to tears and embraces. Both of them
wept very tenderly at their reconciliation and
Herod pour'd out his whole soul to her in the
warmest protestations of love and constancy; when,
amidst all his sighs and languishings, she asked
him, whether the private orders he left with his
uncle Joseph were an instance of such an enflamed
affection? The jealous king was immediately
roused at so unexpected a question, and concluded
his uncle must have been too familiar with her,
before he would have discovered such a secret.
In short he put his uncle to death, and very difficultly
prevailed on himself to spare Mariamne.
'After this he was forced on a second journey
into Egypt, when he committed his lady to the
care of Sohemus, with the same private orders he
had before given his uncle, if any mischief befel
himself: In the meantime Mariamne had so won
upon Sohemus, by her presents and obliging behaviour,
that she drew all the secret from him,
with which Herod had entrusted him; so that
after his return, when he flew to her, with all the
transports of joy and love, she received him coldly
with sighs and tears, and all the marks of indifference
and aversion. This reception so stirred up
his indignation, that he had certainly slain her
with his own hands, had not he feared he himself
should become the greater sufferer by it. It
was not long after this, when he had another
violent return of love upon him; Mariamne was
therefore sent for to him, whom he endeavoured
to soften and reconcile with all possible conjugal
caresses, and endearments; but she declined his
embraces, and answered all his fondness, with bitter
invectives for the death of her father and
her brother.
'This behaviour so incensed Herod, that he
very hardly refrained from striking her; when
in the heat of their quarrel, there came in a
witness, suborned by some of Mariamne's enemies,
who accused her to the king of a design
to poison him. Herod was now prepared to hear
any thing in her prejudice, and immediately ordered
her servant to be stretched upon the rack;
who in the extremity of his tortures confest, that
his mistresses aversion to the king arose from
something Sohemus had told her; but as for any
design of poisoning, he utterly disowned the least
knowledge of it. This confession quickly proved
fatal to Sohemus, who now lay under the same
suspicions and sentence, that Joseph had before
him, on the like occasion. Nor would Herod
rest here; but accused her with great vehemence
of a design upon his life, and by his authority
with the judges had her publickly condemned
and executed.
'Herod soon after her decease grew melancholy
and dejected, retiring from the public administration
of affairs, into a solitary forest, and there
abandoned himself to all the black considerations,
which naturally arise from a passion made up of
love, remorse, pity and despair. He used to rave
for his Mariamne, and to call upon her in his distracted
fits; and in all probability, would have
soon followed her, had not his thoughts been
seasonably called off from so sad an object, by
public storms, which at that time very nearly
threatened him.'
Mr. Fenton in the conduct of this design, has shewn himself a very
great master of stage propriety. He has softened the character of
Herod, well knowing that so cruel a tyrant as the story makes him,
could not be born upon the English stage. He has altered the character
of Sohemus, from an honest confident, to a crafty enterprising
statesman, who to raise his master to the throne of Judea, murthered
the natural heir. He has introduced in his drama, a character under
the name of Salome, the king's sister, who bore an implacable hatred
to Mariamne; and who in league with Sohemus pursues her revenge, at no
less a price than that of her brother's and the queen's life.
After the wars, which had subsided between Cæsar and Anthony, had
subsided, and the world fell to the share of the former; Herod is
represented as having just returned from Rome, where, as an hostage
to the emperor, he has stipulated to send his younger son there, and
Flaminius, a noble Roman accompanies him into Jewry, to carry off the
young prince. The day in which this dramatic action begins, is upon a
grand festival, appointed in honour of Herod's safe return from Rome,
and being still permitted to enjoy his kingdom. The hard condition of
sending the prince to Rome, greatly affects the heart of the queen,
whom the poet has drawn a most tender mother. This throws a cloud over
the ceremony, and furnishes an opportunity for Sohemus and Salome, to
set their infernal engines at work; who, in conjunction with Sameas
the king's cup bearer, contrive to poison the king and queen at the
feast. But the poisoned cup is first tasted by Hazeroth, a young lord
related to the queen, and the sudden effect which it has upon him
discovers the villainy.
The queen's absence from the feast proves a fatal circumstance, and
as managed by Sohemus, fixes the appearance of guilt upon her. While
Herod was absent at Rome, Sohemus made addresses to Arsinoe, a Roman
lady, confidant to Mariamne; to whom in the ardour of his passion he
revealed the secret entrusted to him by Herod, of putting Mariamne
to death, in case he by any calamitous accident should lose his life.
Arsinoe from a motive of affection communicated this to Mariamne; as
an instance of the violent passion which Herod had for her. This she
did immediately before her departure for Rome, with Flaminius the
Roman envoy, who proved to be the lord of her wishes, whom she
imagined to have been killed in fighting against Mark Anthony.
Mariamne thrown into this imminent danger, orders Arsinoe to be
intercepted, whose return clears up her innocence, as she declares
that no correspondence had ever been carried on between the queen and
Sohemus, of whom he was now jealous, as Mariamne had upbraided him
with his cruel resolutions of putting her to death, entrusted to that
minister. Herod is satisfied of her innocence, by the evidence of
Arsinoe; but as he had before given the cruel orders for patting the
queen to death, she, to prevent the execution of such barbarity, drank
poison. The Queen is conducted in by the high priest in the agonies
of death, which gives such a shock to Herod, that not able to survive
her, he dies in the sight of the audience.
Sohemus, who knew what tortures would be reserved for him, kills
himself, after having sacrificed Sameas, by whose treachery the plot
was discovered, and who in his falling stabs Salome to the heart, as
the last effort of his revenge.
As the plan of this play is regular, simple, and interesting, so
are the sentiments no less masterly, and the characters graphically
distinguished. It contains likewise many beautiful strokes of poetry.
When Narbal, a lord of the queen's party, gives an account to
Flaminius the Roman general, of the queen's parting with her son; he
says,
----A while she stood,
Transform'd by grief to marble, and appear'd
Her own pale monument;
Flaminius consistent with his character as a soldier, answers,
Give me, ye gods! the harmony of war,
The trumpet's clangor, and the clash of arms,
That concert animates the glowing breast,
To rush on death; but when our ear is pierc'd
With the sad notes which mournful beauty yields;
Our manhood melts in symphathising tears.
The character of Sameas the king's cup-bearer, is one of the most
villainous ever shewn upon a stage; and the poet makes Sohemus, in
order to give the audience a true idea of him, and to prepare them for
those barbarities he is to execute, relate the following instance of
his cruelty.
----Along the shore
He walk'd one evening, when the clam'rous rage
Of tempests wreck'd a ship: The crew were sunk,
The master only reach'd the neighb'ring strand,
Born by a floating fragment; but so weak
With combating the storm, his tongue had lost
The faculty of speech, and yet for aid
He faintly wav'd his hand, on which he wore
A fatal jewel. Sameas, quickly charm'd
Both by its size, and lustre, with a look
Of pity stoop'd, to take him by the hand;
Then cut the finger off to gain the ring,
And plung'd him back to perish in the waves;
Crying, go dive for more.--I've heard him boast
Of this adventure.
In the 5th act, when Herod is agitated with the rage of jealousy, his
brother Pheroras thus addresses him,
Sir, let her crime
Erase the faithful characters which love
Imprinted on your heart,
HEROD. Alas! the pain
We feel, whene'er we dispossess the soul
Of that tormenting tyrant, far exceeds
The rigour of his rule.
PHERORAS. With reason quell
That haughty passion; treat it as your slave:
Resume the monarch.
The observation, which Herod makes upon this, is very affecting. The
poet has drawn him so tortured with his passion, that he seems almost
sufficiently punished, for the barbarity of cutting off the father and
brother of Mariamne,
HEROD. Where's the monarch now?
The vulgar call us gods, and fondly think
That kings are cast in more than mortal molds;
Alas! they little know that when the mind
Is cloy'd with pomp, our taste is pall'd to joy;
But grows more sensible of grief or pain.
The stupid peasant with as quick a sense
Enjoys the fragrance of a rose, as I;
And his rough hand is proof against the thorn,
Which rankling in my tender skin, would seem
A viper's tooth. Oh blissful poverty!
Nature, too partial! to thy lot assigns
Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace,
Her real goods; and only mocks the great
With empty pageantries! Had I been born
A cottager, my homely bowl had flow'd
Secure from pois'nous drugs; but not my wife!
Let me, good heav'n! forget that guilty name,
Or madness will ensue.
Some critics have blamed Mariamne, for yielding her affections to
Herod, who had embrued his hands in her father and brother's blood; in
this perhaps she cannot be easily defended, but the poet had a right
to represent this as he literally found it in history; and being the
circumstance upon which all the others depended. Tho' this play is
one of the most beautiful in our language, yet it is in many places
exposed to just criticism; but as it has more beauties than faults, it
would be a kind of violence to candour to shew the blemishes.
The life of Fenton, like other poets who have never been engaged in
public business, being barren of incidents, we have dwelt the longer
on his works, a tribute which his genius naturally demanded from us.
Mr. Fenton's other poetical works were published in one volume 1717,
and consist chiefly of the following pieces.
An Ode to the Sun, for the new year 1707, as a specimen of which we
shall quote the three following stanza's.