It formerly concluded "O just escap'd the faithless main, "When these are blended on your brow, Your dress has much a better air Than all that ever bridegroom wore." In the Ode "On Lyric Poetry" we now find: "Yet then did Pleasure's lawless throng, Oft rushing forth in loose attire, The lines were originally : "But oft amid the Grecian throng, While I frequent thy tuneful shade, 1745 When this collection first appeared, the Odes of Collins and Gray had not been published; and it therefore formed (with all its imperfections) the most valuable accession which the lyric poetry of England had received since Dryden's time, if we except the single Ode of Pope.1 Concerning the Ode "Against Suspicion," we are told by Mr. Bucke that it was addressed to a self-tormenting friend, who had been seized with groundless jealousy, because his wife used to indulge in certain "innocent freedoms" with her male acquaintances, and who, in his distress, had applied to Akenside for advice.2 1 Of the mass of nonsense, which, under the title of " Pindaric Odes," was poured out towards the close of the seventeenth and during the early part of the eighteenth century, the reader who has not examined it can have no conception. The very worst piece of the kind I ever met with is a long Ode by Theobald, "On the Union," printed in 1707, which begins: "Haste, Polyhymnia, haste; thy shell prepare; But to the car a salamander tie; Thou canst not on a sunbeam play," &c. Yet, in an intimate acquaintance with Grecian and early English poetry, Theobald excelled most of his contempora ries! 2 Life of Akenside, 49. Mr. Bucke does not give his autho rity for the anecdote. That our author, after quitting Northampton, proceeded to try his fortune as a physician at Hampstead, has been already noticed. In February, 1747, Mr. Hardinge resigned his office of Clerk to the House of Commons, in favor of Mr. Dyson, for six thousand pounds; and the latter, bidding adieu to the bar, purchased a villa at North End, Hampstead, for the purpose of introducing Akenside to the chief persons in the neighbourhood. "There," says Sir John Hawkins, "they dwelt together during the summer season, frequenting the long room, and all clubs, and assemblies of the inhabitants."2 But, if we may believe the statements of this writer, who knew him well, Akenside, by a want of "discretion," frustrated the kind endeavours of Mr. Dyson to forward his views. At the meetings just mentioned, which were attended by wealthy persons of ordinary endowments, who could only talk of the occurrences of the day, he made an ostentatious display of that talent for conversation which had distinguished him in more enlightened society, became involved in disputes that betrayed him into a contempt of those who differed from his opinions, was tauntingly reminded of his low birth and dependence on Mr. Dyson, and was reduced to the necessity of asserting in plain terms that he was a gentle 1 See an account of this gentleman, Mr. Nicholas Hardinge, in Nichols's Illust. of Lit. Hist. iii. 5. 2 Life of Johnson, 243, ed. 1787. man. By a residence of about two years and a half at Hampstead, he gained nothing but the conviction that he had chosen a situation which did not suit him. Mr. Dyson, therefore, parted with his villa at North End; settled his friend in a small but handsome house in Bloomsbury Square, London; and, with a generosity almost unexampled, allowed him annually such a sum of money (stated to have been three hundred pounds)1 as enabled him to keep a chariot, and to command the comforts and elegancies of life. Mr. Bucke has suppressed the observations of Hawkins on Akenside's want of success at Hampstead, and attributes it entirely to the insolence of the purse-proud inhabitants, whom the highminded poet would not stoop to court. They were, perhaps, not a little supercilious and overbearing; but the tone assumed by Mr. Bucke in treating the subject could only be warranted by his having resided among them at the period in question, and having frequently witnessed their behaviour towards Akenside.2 1 The sum was probably greater. Sir John Hawkins says, that Mr. Dyson "assigned for his support such a part of his income as enabled him to keep a chariot," Id. 244; and Mr. Justice Hardinge, in some anecdotes which will be afterwards given in this Memoir, asserts that Akenside "lived incomparably well." "They required to be sought; their wives and daughters expected to be escorted and flattered, and their sons to be treated with an air of obligation," &c. - Life of Akenside, 70. Dadsley's mussum ) In 1746 To return to the notice of his works. he wrote his truly classical" Hymn to the Naiads,"1 and (according to Mr. Bucke) his Ode "To the Evening Star; " he also contributed to Dodsley's excellent periodical publication, "The Museum, or Literary and Historical Register," several prose-papers, which deserve to be reprinted, and from which I regret that the necessary shortness of this Memoir will not allow me to offer some extracts; viz. On Correctness, The Table of Modern Fame a Vision, Letter from a Swiss Gentleman on English Liberty, and The Balance of Poets. In 1747 he composed a couple of stanzas "On a Sermon against Glory," and an 7 1 First printed in Dodsley's Coll. of Poems, vol. vi. 1758. 2 Life of Akenside, 52. - Printed, without a date, in Mr. Dyson's edition of his Poems, 1772. 8 Museum, i. 84.- Two passages of this Essay are cited by J. Warton (Pope's Works, i. 264, iv. 190); and Mr. Bucke, not knowing from what piece they were derived, supposes that Warton quoted from the conversation of Akenside! — Life of Akenside, 105. 4 Museum, i. 481. - It is an imitation of the eighty-first number of "The Tatler." J. Warton (Pope's Works, ii. 83), attributing it to Akenside, says, "The guests are introduced and ranged with that taste and judgment which is peculiar to the author." It is strange that Akenside should have omitted to introduce (though he quotes) Shakespeare in this Vision. 5 Museum, ii. 161. On the authority of Mr. A. Chalmers (Biog. Dict. art. Akenside), who possesses J. Warton's copy of "The Museum:" see Brit. Poets, xviii. 76. 6 Museum, ii. 165 (mispaged). — On the authority of Isaac Reed. 7 Printed in Mr. Dyson's edition of his Poems, 1772. |