A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Fenton, Elijah
Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730).—Poet and translator, ed. at Camb., for a time acted as sec. to the Earl of Orrery in Flanders, and was then Master of Sevenoaks Grammar School. In 1707 he pub. a book of poems. He is best known, however, as the assistant of Pope in his translation of the Odyssey, of which he Englished the first, fourth, nineteenth, and twentieth books, catching the manner of his master so completely that it is hardly possible to distinguish between their work; while thus engaged he pub. (1723) a successful tragedy, Marianne. His latest contributions to literature were a Life of Milton, and an ed. of Waller's Poems (1729).