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 county, but have not obtained it.
He was born near Newcastle, in Staffordshire, of an ancient family[22]
whose state 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[23],
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 publick 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 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 Sevenoaks, 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
elegiack pastoral on the marquis of Blandford, which could be prompted
only by respect or kindness; for neither the duke nor dutchess 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[24] 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 own want of literature, desired Pope to procure him an
instructer, 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 claim 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 shamed, by general applause. 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 tenour 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[25], 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
determined all to see the Merry Wives of Windsor, which was acted that
night; and Fenton, as a dramatick poet, took them to the stage-door;
where the door-keeper, 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 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[26], at East Hampstead, in Berkshire, the seat of lady
Trumbal; and Pope, who had been always his friend, honoured him with an
epitaph, of which he borrowed the two first 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 books 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 prognosticated; for Pope says, in his
letters, that "he died of indolence;" but his immediate 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[27]; and such were the
suffrages of all who could boast of his acquaintance.
By a former writer of his life[28], 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 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
written 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 comick
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 topicks
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 Asiatick,
at least not Judaical:
Returning peace,
Dove-ey'd, and rob'd 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 one, would be tedious. His
translation from Homer into blank verse will find 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'd. Mr. BROOME,
At PULHAM, near HARLESTONE NOR [By BECCLES Bag.] SUFFOLKE
D'r SIR,
I intended to write to you on this melancholy subject, the death of Mr.
Fenton, before y'rs came; but stay'd to have inform'd myself & you of
y'e 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 y'e approaches of his Dissolution (as I am told) or with less
ostentation yielded up his Being. The great modesty w'ch you know was
natural to him, and y'e great Contempt he had for all Sorts of Vanity
and 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 (w'ch 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 died poor, but honest, leaving no Debts, or
Legacies; except of a few p'ds 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, & w^d rather show their own Fine
Parts, y^n Report the valuable ones of any other man. So the Elegy I
renounce.
I condole with you from my heart, on the loss of so worthy a man, and a
Friend to us both. Now he is gone, I must tell you he has done you many
a good office, and set your character in y^e fairest light, to some who
either mistook you, or knew you not. I doubt not he has done the same
for me.
Adieu: Let us love his Memory, and profit by his example. I am very
sincerely
D^r SIR,
Your affectionate
& real Servant,
A. POPE.
Aug. 29th 1730.
-----
[Footnote 22: 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 of the county of Stafford. His father died in
1694; and his grave, in the church-yard of Stoke upon Trent, is
distinguished by the following elegant Latin inscription from the pen of
his son:
H.S.E.
JOHANNES FENTON,
de Shelton
antiqua stirpe generosus:
juxta reliquias conjugis
CATHERINÆ
forma, moribus, pietate,
optimo viro dignissimæ:
Qui
intemerata in ecclesiam fide,
et virtutibus intaminatis enituit;
necnon ingenii lepore
bonis artibus expoliti,
ac animo erga omnes benevolo,
sibi suisque jucundus vixit.
Decem annos uxori dilectee superstes
magnum sui desiderium bonis
omnibus reliquit,
anno{salutis humanai 1694,
{ætatis suffi 56.
See Gent. Mag. 1791, vol. lxi. p. 703. N.
]
[Footnote 23: He was entered of Jesus college, and took a bachelor's
degree in 1704: but it appears, by the list of Cambridge graduates, that
he removed, in 1726, to Trinity hall. N.]
[Footnote 24: 1717. M.]
[Footnote 25: Ford was Johnson's relation, his mother's nephew, and is
said to have been the original of the parson in Hogarth's Modern
Midnight Conversation. See Boswell, i. and iii. ED.]
[Footnote 26: July 16.]
[Footnote 27: Spence.]
[Footnote 28: Shiels, Dr. Johnson's amanuensis, who says, in Cibber's
Lives of the Poets, that he received this anecdote from a gentleman
resident in Staffordshire. M.]