s very ill state of health and the resolution
he said he had taken. He thought there might yet be hope, and went
immediately to Dr. Radcliffe, with whom he was well acquainted, told
him Mr. Pope's case, got full directions from him, and carried them
down to Pope in Windsor Forest. The chief thing the Doctor ordered
him was to apply less, and to ride every day. The following his
advice soon restored him to his health."--POPE (ibid.).

124 MR. POPE TO THE REV. MR. BROOME, PULHAM, NORFOLK.

"Aug. 29, 1730.

"DEAR SIR,--

"I intended to write to you on this melancholy subject, the death of
Mr. Fenton, before yours came, but stayed to have informed myself
and you of the circumstances of it. All I hear is, that he felt a
gradual decay, though so early in life, and was declining for five
or six 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 the approaches of
his dissolution (as I am told), or with less ostentation yielded up
his being. The great modesty which you know was natural to him, and
the 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, and unpretending to more than his own. So he died 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 when 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 have heard of none, except some few further remarks on Waller
(which his cautious integrity made him leave an order to be given to
Mr. Tonson), and perhaps, though it is many years since I saw it, a
translation of the 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 pounds