ABSTRACT
Fenton (1683-1730), schoolmaster, poet, and assistant to Pope, alluded to Donne in a commentary on Waller's 'Song: Stay, Phoebus, stay!' (The Works cifEdmund Waller (1729), 1730, p.lxi). Fenton had in his library a copy of the 1633 edition of Donne's poems, a copy of the 1650 edition of the poems, and a copy of the 1670 edition of Walton's Lives. The library came up for sale on 17 February 1731 and the three volumes are listed in the catalogue. (See Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons, v, ed. S. Parks, 1972, pp. 54, 63, 66.)
The latter Stanza of these verses (which are certainly of Mr. Waller's earliest production) alludes to the Copernican system, in which the earth is suppos'd to be a planet, and to move on its own axis round the sun, the centre of the universe. Dr. Donne and Mr Cowley industriously affected to entertain the fair sex with such philosophical allocutions; which in his riper age Mr. Waller as industriously avoided.
