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 re