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AKENSIDE, MARK (1721-1770)

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 455 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AKENSIDE, See also:MARK (1721-1770) , See also:English poet and physician, was See also:born at See also:Newcastle-on-See also:Tyne on the 9th of See also:November 1721. He was the son of a See also:butcher, and was slightly lame all his See also:life from a See also:wound he received as a See also:child from his See also:father's cleaver. All his relations were dissenters, and, after attending the See also:free school of Newcastle, and a dissenting See also:academy in the See also:town, he was sent (1739) to See also:Edinburgh to study See also:theology with a view to becoming a See also:minister, his expenses being paid from a See also:special fund set aside by the dissenting community for the See also:education of their pastors. He had already contributed " The Virtuoso, in See also:imitation of See also:Spenser's See also:style and See also:stanza " (1737) to the See also:Gentle-See also:man's See also:Magazine, and in 1738 " A See also:British Philippic, occasioned by the Insults of the Spaniards, and the See also:present Preparations for See also:War" (also published separately). After he had spent one See also:winter as a student of theology, he entered his name as .a student of See also:medicine. He repaid the See also:money that had been advanced for his theological studies, and with this See also:change of mind he seems to have drifted to a mild See also:deism. His politics, says Dr See also:Johnson, were characterized by an " impetuous eagerness to subvert and confound, with very little care what shall be established," and he is caricatured in the republican See also:doctor of See also:Smollett's Peregrine See also:Pickle. He was elected a member of the Medical Society of Edinburgh in 1740. His ambitions already See also:lay outside his profession, and his gifts as a See also:speaker made him See also:hope one See also:day to enter See also:parliament. In 1740 he printed his " See also:Ode on the Winter See also:Solstice " in a small See also:volume of poems. In 1741 he See also:left Edinburgh for Newcastle and began to See also:call himself surgeon, though it is doubtful whether he practised, and from the next See also:year See also:dates his life-See also:long friendship with See also:Jeremiah Dyson (1722-1776). During a visit to See also:Morpeth in 1738 he had conceived the See also:idea of his didactic poem, " The Pleasures of the See also:Imagination." He had already acquired a considerable See also:literary reputation when he came to See also:London about the end of 1743, and offered the See also:work to See also:Dodsley for £120.

Dodsley thought the See also:

price exorbitant, and only accepted the terms after submitting the MS. to See also:Pope, who assured him that this was' no everyday writer." The three books of this poem appeared in See also:January 1744. His aim, Akenside tells us in the See also:preface, was " not so much to give formal precepts, or enter into the way of See also:direct argumentation, as, by exhibiting the most engaging prospects of nature, to enlarge and harmonize the imagination, and by that means insensibly dispose the minds of men to a similar See also:taste and See also:habit of thinking in See also:religion, morals and See also:civil life." Akenside's See also:powers See also:fell See also:short of this lofty See also:design; his imagination was not brilliant enough to surmount the difficulties inherent in a poem dealing so largely with abstractions; but the work was well received by the See also:general public. 'His success was not unchallenged. See also:Gray wrote to See also:Thomas See also:Wharton that it was " above the middling," but " often obscure and unintelligible and too much infected with the See also:Hutchinson' See also:jargon." Into a See also:note added by Akenside to the passage in the third See also:book dealing with ridicule, See also:William See also:Warburton See also:chose to read a reflexion on himself. Accordingly he attacked the author of the Pleasures of the Imagination—which was published anonymously—in a scathing preface to his Remarks on Several Occasional Reflections, in See also:answer to Dr See also:Middleton . . . (1744). This was answered, nominally by Dyson, in An See also:Epistle to the Rev. Mr Warburton, in which Akenside no doubt had a See also:hand. It was in the See also:press when he left See also:England in 1744 to secure a medical degree at See also:Leiden. In little more than a See also:month he had completed the necessary dissertation, De ortu et incremento foetus humani, and received his diploma. Returning to England he attempted without success to establish a practice in See also:Northampton.

In 1744 he published his Epistle to See also:

Curio, attacking William Pulteney (afterwards See also:earl of See also:Bath) for having abandoned his liberal principles to become a supporter of the See also:government, and in the next year he produced a small volume of Odes, on Several Subjects, in the preface to which he See also:lays claim to correctness and a careful study of the best See also:models. His friend Dyson had meanwhile left the See also:bar, and had become, by See also:purchase, clerk to the See also:House of See also:Commons. Akenside had come to London and was trying to make a practice at See also:Hampstead. Dyson took a house there, and did all he could to further his friend's See also:interest in the neighbourhood. But Akenside's arrogance and pedantry frustrated these efforts, and Dyson then took a house for him in Bloomsbury Square, making him See also:independent of his profession by an See also:allowance stated to have been £300 a year, but probably greater, for it is asserted that this income enabled him to " keep a See also:chariot," and to live " incomparably well." In 1746 he wrote his much-praised " Hymn to the Naiads," and he also became a contributor to Dodsley's Museum, or Literary and See also:Historical See also:Register. He was now twenty-five years old, and began to devote ' The reference is to See also:Francis See also:Hutcheson (1694-1746), author of an Inquiry into the See also:Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725).himself almost exclusively to his profession. He was an acute and learned physician. He was admitted M.D. at See also:Cambridge in 1753, See also:fellow of the Royal See also:College of Physicians in 1754, and See also:fourth See also:censor in 1755. In See also:June 1755 he read the Gulstonian lectures before the College, in See also:September 1756 the Croonian lectures, and in 1759 the Harveian oration. In January 1759 he was appointed assistant physician, and two months later See also:principal physician to See also:Christ's See also:Hospital, but he was charged with harsh treatment of the poorer patients, and his unsympathetic See also:character prevented the success to which his undeniable learning and ability entitled him. At the See also:accession of See also:George III. both Dyson and Akenside changed their See also:political opinions, and Akenside's See also:conversion to Tory principles was rewarded by the See also:appointment of physician to the See also:queen. Dyson became secretary to the See also:treasury, See also:lord of the treasury, and in 1794 privy councillor and cofferer to the See also:household.

Akenside died on the 23rd of June 1770, at his house in See also:

Burlington See also:Street, where the last ten years of his life had been spent. His friendship with Dyson puts his character in the most amiable See also:light. See also:Writing to his friend so See also:early as 1744, Akenside said that the intimacy had " the force of an additional See also:conscience, of a new principle of religion," and there seems to have been no break in their See also:affection.. He left all his effects and his literary remains to Dyson,. who issued an edition of his poems in 1772. This included the revised version of the Pleasures of Imagination, on which the author was engaged at his See also:death. The first book of this work defines the powers of imagination and discusses the various kinds of See also:pleasure to be derived from the See also:perception of beauty; the second distinguishes See also:works of imagination from See also:philosophy; the third describes the pleasure to be found in the study of man, the See also:sources of ridicule, the operations of the mind, in producing works of imagination, and the See also:influence of imagination on morals. The ideas were largely borrowed from See also:Addison's essays on the imagination and from Lord See also:Shaftesbury. See also:Professor See also:Dowden complains that " his See also:tone is too high-pitched; his ideas are too much in the See also:air; they do not nourish them-selves in the See also:common See also:heart, the common life of man." Dr Johnson praised the See also:blank See also:verse of the poems, but found See also:fault with the long and complicated periods. Akenside's verse was better when it was subjected to severer metrical rules. His odes are very few of them lyrical in the strict sense, but they are dignified and often musical, while the few " See also:inscriptions " he has left are felicitous in the extreme. The best edition of Akenside's Poetical Works is that prepared (1834) by See also:Alexander See also:Dyce for the Aldine Edition of the British Poets, and reprinted with small additions in subsequent issues of the See also:series. See Dyce's Life of Akenside prefixed to his edition, also Johnson's Lives of the Poets, and the Life, Writings and See also:Genius of Akenside (1832) by See also:Charles Bucke.

End of Article: AKENSIDE, MARK (1721-1770)

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