ELIJAH

See also:

• FENTON
• FENTON, EDWARD (d. 1603)
• ELIJAH FENTON (1683-1730)
• FENTON, LAVINIA (1708-1760)
• FENTON, SIR GEOFFREY (c. 1539-1608)

FENTON (1683-1730)  , English poet, was born at Shelton near Newcastle-under-Lyme, of an old Staffordshire family, on the 25th of May 1683 . He graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1704, but was prevented by religious scruples from taking orders . He accompanied the earl of Orrery to Flanders as private secretary, and on returning to England became assistant in a school at Headley, Surrey, being soon afterwards appointed master of the free grammar school at Sevenoaks in Kent . In 1710 he resigned his appointment in the expectation of a place from Lord Bolingbroke, but was disappointed . He then became tutor to Lord Broghill, son of his patron Orrery . Fenton is remembered as the coadjutor of Alexander Pope in his translation of the Odyssey . He was responsible for the first, fourth, nineteenth and twentieth hooks, for which he received 300 . He died at East Hampstead, Berkshire, on the 16th of July 1730 . He was buried in the parish church, and his epitaph was written by Pope . Fenton also published Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems (1707) ; Miscellaneous Poems (1717) ; Mariamne, a tragedy (1723) ; an edition (1725) of Milton's poems, and one of Waller (1729) with elaborate notes . See W . W .

Lloyd, Elijah Fenton, his Poetry and Friends (1894) .