a compact, where there are no articles of obligation, nothing stipulated, nothing impos'd, it be not very becoming to promise too much, yet I think one may venture to ingage for himself, that he is capable of being a friend: for tho' in our voluntary affairs this be indeed the main article, yet it luckily happens that this pretension, like all those that regard the heart and will, is neither difficult to be made good, nor liable to the censure of vanity; quite differently from all pretensions to what is valuable in the understanding, or in any other respect of nature or fortune. "Mr. Anderson says he was told you had been somewhat indispos'd since you got home. I hope you are by this time perfectly strong and healthy, so as to continue without fear in your resolution of spending next winter at Leyden. I heartily wish I could spend it with you, but am as yet undetermin'd. Mr. Archer, besides next winter at Edinburgh, intends, I hear, to pass another with Mr. Hucheson in my opinion he putts off his settling in business too late, if he spend as many years as he talks of in an academical way. It was always my desire to be fix'd in life, as they say, as soon as I could, consistently with the attainments. necessary to what I should profess. "A letter from you, whenever you are at leisure, will be extremely welcome: you will direct it to be left at Mr. Akenside's, Surgeon, in Newcastleupon-Tyne. "I desire you to excuse this blotted scrawl; it is past midnight, and Mr. Anderson goes away early to-morrow. I am, Sir, with the greatest esteem and sincerity, your very affectionate and obedient servant, "MARK AKINSIDE." This letter was the prelude to a friendship memorable for the fervour and the constancy with which it was maintained on both sides, as well as for its beneficial results to the poet. At the time it was written, I apprehend that Akenside was busily occupied in the composition of the great didactic poem, over which his genius seems to have brooded even from his boyish days; and that, though he styles himself "Surgeon," he had not commenced any regular practice in that capacity. Mr. Dyson's "resolution of spending next winter at Leyden,” in order to prosecute the study of civil law, was carried into effect. On his return to England, in 1743,' he entered himself at one of the Inns of Court (I believe, Lincoln's Inn), and, in due time, was called to the bar. The "Pleasures of Imagination" being now ready for the press, we may suppose that Akenside brought the precious manuscript to London about the middle, or towards the close, of 1743. "I have heard," says Johnson, "Dodsley relate, 1 As appears from a letter of Professor Alberti to him, dated December 1st, 1743, in the possession of his son, J. Dyson, Esq. that, when the copy was offered him, the price demanded for it, which was a hundred and twenty pounds, being such as he was not inclined to give precipitately, he carried the work to Pope, who, having looked into it, advised him not to make a niggardly offer; for this was no every-day writer.'" In consequence of this imprimatur from Twickenham, the work was published by Dodsley in January, 1744.2 Notwithstanding its 1 1 Johnson's Life of Akenside. 2 Quarto, price 4s.: see the Daily Post for January 16, 1744. Mr. Bucke says it was printed by Richardson, the celebrated novelist: a letter addressed to him by Akenside will be afterwards given, and is, I suspect, Mr. Bucke's sole authority for such an assertion! The motto on the title-page is 'Aoeßous μέν ἐστιν ἀνθρώπου τὰς παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ χάριτας ἀτιμάζειν. Epict. apud Arrian, ii. 23. A second edition, 8vo, price 2s. is announced in the Gent. Mag. for May next. In a copy of the first edition (now in the British Museum), presented by Akenside to Dyson, is the following MS. dedication, which probably the modesty of the latter would not allow to appear in print :"Viro conjunctissimo Jeremiæ Dyson, Vitæ morumque suorum duci, Cujus amicitia Neque sanctius habet quicquam, Hocce opusculum (Vos, O tyrannorum impuræ laudes Dat, dicat, consecratque xvii. Calendas Jan. A. A. C. MDCCXLIV." This dedication was not first printed by Mr. Bucke, as that gentleman supposes: it had previously appeared in Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. i. "The Pleasures of Imagination" was published anony metaphysical subject, so little adapted to the taste of common readers, this splendid production was received with an applause' which at once raised mously. Johnson told Boswell, that, when it originally came out, Rolt (a now forgotten author) went over to Dublin, and published an edition of it in his own name; upon the fame of which he lived for several months, being entertained at the best tables as "the ingenious Mr. Rolt;" and that Akenside, having been informed of this imposition, vindicated his right by publishing the poem with its real author's name. Boswell adds in a note, "I have had enquiry made in Ireland as to this story, but do not find it recollected there. I give it on the authority of Dr. Johnson, to which may be added that of the Biographical Dictionary and Biographia Dramatica, in both of which it has stood many years. Mr. Malone observes, that the truth probably is, not that an edition was published with Rolt's name in the title-page, but that, the poem being then anonymous, Rolt acquiesced in its being attributed to him in conversation." - Life of Johnson, i. 342, ed. 1816. 1 Gray, however, who was not yet known to the world as a poet, passed a depreciating criticism on it in a letter to Dr. Wharton, from Cambridge, April 26, 1744: "You desire to know, it seems, what character the poem of your young friend bears here. I wonder that you ask the opinion of a nation where those who pretend to judge do not judge at all; and the rest (the wiser part) wait to catch the judgment of the world immediately above them, that is, Dick's and the Rainbow Coffee Houses. Your readier way would be to ask the ladies that keep the bars in those two theatres of criticism. However, to show you that I am a judge, as well as my countrymen, I will tell you, though I have rather turned it over than read it (but no matter; no more have they), that it seems to me above the middling; and now and then, for a little while, rises even to the best, particularly in description. It is often obscure, and even unintelligible, and too much infected with the Hutchinson jargon. In short, its great fault is, that it was published at least nine years too early And so methinks in a few words, 'à la mode du Temple,' I have pertly dispatched what perhaps the author, who had only completed his twentythird year, to a distinguished station among the poets of the day. When it first appeared, Pope was sinking under the malady, which, a few months after, removed him from the poetic throne; Swift was still alive, but in the stupor of idiotcy; Thomson had won by "The Seasons" an unfading laurel, to which he was destined to add another wreath by "The Castle of Indolence;" Young was in the fulness of fame, though the four concluding portions of the "Night Thoughts" were yet unpublished; Glover enjoyed a very high reputation from "Leonidas;" Johnson was known only as the author of an admired satire, "London;" Dyer had put forth "Grongar Hill," and "The Ruins of Rome," with little success, "Fleece" was yet to come; Collins had vainly endeavoured to attract notice by his " Eclogues" and "Epistle to Hanmer," his "Odes" being of a later date; Shenstone had produced little, but among that little was "The Schoolmistress ;" Blair had published "The Grave;" and Armstrong, who had only a disgraceful notoriety from a licentious poem,1 was soon to rival Akenside as a didactic writer. - his may for several years have employed a very ingenious man worth fifty of myself." — Mason's Memoirs of Gray, 178, ed. 1775. His still more unfavourable opinion of some of Akenside's minor poems will be afterwards cited. 1 The "Economy of Love." His "Art of Preserving Health" was published in April, 1744: see the Daily Post for the 12th of that month. |