He was a great admirer of Gothic architecture, and would frequently sit by moonlight on the benches in St. James's Park, to gaze on Westminster Abbey; "and I remember," adds Mr. Meyrick, "he once told me that he seldom thought of the passage in his own poem, The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,' &c. but he thought of a still finer one in Pope's Homer: 'As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,'" &c.1 It has been rashly supposed, that, in the following passage of the "Pleasures of Imagination," he alludes to Pope: "Thee, too, facetious Momion, wandering here;2 Bewilder'd unawares," &c. &c.-B. II. 179. But there is every reason to believe that Akenside never saw Pope, who died a few months after the appearance of the poem, for which he had advised Dodsley to make a handsome offer.3 With Thomson's Castle of Indolence" he was enraptured: among many stanzas, to which, in his own copy, he had put an emphatic mark of approbation, was that beginning "I care not, fortune, what you me deny," &c.4 1 Bucke's Life of Akenside, 212. 2 [By Momion is probably intended Richard Dawes, Master of the Newcastle Grammar School, and author of Miscellanea Critica. See note on p. 109.] See p. 20 of this Memoir. 4 Bucke's Life of Akenside, 31. X He repeatedly mentioned Fenton's "Ode to Lord Gower," as "the best in our language, next to Alexander's Feast;" and, at his desire, Welsted's Ode, "The Genius, written in 1717, on occasion of the Duke of Marlborough's Apoplexy," was inserted in the fourth volume of Dodsley's Collection of Poems.2 That he was on terms of intimacy with the author of "The Fleece," and lent him some assistance in the composition of that poem, appears from a letter of Dyer to Duncombe, November 24th, 1756: "Your humble servant is become a deaf and dull and languid creature; who, however, in his poor change of constitution, being a little recompensed with the critic's phlegm, has made shift, by many blottings and corrections, and some helps from his kind friend Dr. Akenside, to give a sort of finishing to the Fleece,' which is just sent up to Mr. Dodsley." Johnson informs us that Akenside declared "he would regulate his opinion of the reigning taste by the rule of Dyer's Fleece; for, if that were ill-received, he should not think it any longer reasonable to expect fame from 1 Warton's edition of Pope's Works, ii. 401. 2 Id. v. 198. With Welsted, who died in 1747, Akenside is said to have been acquainted. His Works, published by Nichols in 1787, contain several pieces which show that his talents at least did not deserve the contempt of Pope. 8 Letters by several Eminent Persons, including the Correspondence of Hughes," iii. 58. Yet Mr. Bucke says it does not appear that Akenside was intimate with Dyer!- Life of Akenside, 90. "1 excellence." The works of Dyer, though neglected by the multitude, will be always esteemed by the reader of taste and feeling, for the true poetic fancy and the love of natural objects which they everywhere display. A passage in the "Pleasures of Imagination," "To muse at last amid the ghostly gloom Of graves and hoary vaults," &c. - B. 1. 396. and a stanza in "Preface" to the Odes, a "Nor where the boding raven chaunts," &c. are said to have been aimed at Young, though I cannot perceive in them such " a palpable stroke as Mrs. Barbauld 2 has discovered. It has not, however, been noticed, that, in the first edition of the "Hymn to Cheerfulness," Akenside mentions the author of the "Night Thoughts" by name: "Let Melancholy's plaintive tongue Instruct the nightly strains of Young;" a couplet which he afterwards altered thus: "Let Melancholy's plaintive tongue The Ode "On Lyric Poetry" closes with a stanza remarkable for its allusion to an epic poem which the author meditated, as well as to a celebrated work of the same kind' by a contemporary writer: 1 Life of Dyer. 2 Essay on the Pleasures of Imagination. But when from envy and from death to claim When to throw incense on the vestal flame Of Liberty my genius gives command, Nor Theban voice nor Lesbian lyre From thee, O Muse, do I require, Conscious of powers she never knew, Astonish'd grasps at things beyond her view, Nor by another's fate submits to be confin'd." Akenside had selected Timoleon1 for the hero of his poem, in which, it appears, he had even made some progress. The last line of the stanza (as he told Warton) is pointed at the "Leonidas" of Glover.2 From this digression I return to the regular annals of the Poet's life. Among Birch's MSS. is the following note, which shews that he accom 1 Warton's edition of Pope's Works, ii. 73. A writer who signs himself Indagator, in the Gent. Mag. for October, 1793, (lxiii. 885), says, "I have proof, though it has never been mentioned to the world, that he had made some progress in an Epic Poem, the plan of which I know not; the title of it was "Timoleon." An Epic Poem on the same subject was once designed by Pope, and was also proposed by Lord Melcombe to Thomson. 2 Warton's edition of Pope's Works, ii. 73. I may add here, that Akenside agreed with Warton, Lowth, and Harris, in thinking that no critical treatise was better calculated to form the taste of young men of genius than Spence's "Essay on Pope's Odyssey, Id. Life," xxxvi., and that he considered "The Memoirs of Lord Bolingbroke" as a worthless production. Letter from Birch to Wray, in Nichols's Ill. of Lit. Hist. panied the deputation sent by the University of Cambridge to congratulate the king and queen on their nuptials: "Dr. Akenside presents his compliments to Dr. Birch, and begs the favour that he would lend him a band, in order that he may attend the Cambridge address to-morrow. About two years before this date, Akenside had quitted his house in Bloomsbury Square for one in Craven-street; and, after having stayed in the latter about twelve months, he removed to Burlington-street, where he continued to reside till his decease.1 The MSS. of Birch 2 furnish one more note from our author's pen: · "Dr. Akenside presents his compliments to Dr. Birch, and returns many thanks for his kind present. He has left an unpublish'd letter of Ld. Bacon, which he thinks a valuable one, and which he had leave from Mr. Tyrwhitt to communicate to Dr. Birch; and desires, that, when he has done with it, he would be so good as to send it to Burlington-street. "Nov. 29, 1762." 1 According to the "Sheet Catalogues of the Fellows, &c. of the College of Physicians" (in the Brit. Mus.), his residence, from 1759 to 1761 inclusive, was in Craven street; from 1762 till his decease, in Burlington-street. 2 Letters to Birch, 4300, in the Brit. Mus |