Nature, too partial! to thy lot aſſigns
Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace,
Her real goods; and only mocks the great
With empty pageantries! Had I been born
A cottager, my homely bowl had flow’d
Secure from pois’nous drugs; but not my wife!
Let me, good heav’n! forget that guilty name,
Or madneſs will enſue.
Some critics have blamed Mariamne, for yielding her affections to Herod, who had embrued his hands in her father and brother’s blood; in this perhaps ſhe cannot be eaſily defended, but the poet had a right to repreſent this as he literally found it in hiſtory; and being the circumſtance upon which all the others depended. Tho’ this play is one of the moſt beautiful in our language, yet it is in many places expoſed to juſt criticiſm; but as it has more beauties than faults, it would be a kind of violence to candour to ſhew the blemiſhes.
The life of Fenton, like other poets who have never been engaged in public buſineſs, being barren of incidents, we have dwelt the longer on his works, a tribute which his genius naturally demanded from us.
Mr. Fenton’s other poetical works were publiſhed in one volume 1717, and conſiſt chiefly of the following pieces.
An Ode to the Sun, for the new year 1707, as a ſpecimen of which we ſhall quote the three following ſtanzas.
I.
Begin celeſtial ſource of light,
To gild the new revolving ſphere;
And from the pregnant womb of night;
Urge on to birth the infant year.
