77 



AKENSIDE, MARK. 



ALARCON Y MENDOZA, DON JUAN RUIZ DE. 



78 



on Pulteney, recently created Earl of Bath, which was published by 

 Dodsley in a quarto pamphlet in 1744. While at Leyden, Akenside 

 had formed an intimacy with one of his fellow-students, Jeremiah 

 Dyson, a man of fortune, who afterwards became clerk of the House 

 of Commons, then one of the members for Horsham, subsequently 

 secretary to the Treasury and a lord of the Treasury, and ultimately 

 cofferer to the household and a privy councillor. They had returned 

 from Holland together, and on Akenside, shortly after the publication 

 of his great poem, being attacked by Warburton in a preface to a new 

 edition of hia * Divine Legation,' for something he had said in a note 

 in support of Shaftesbury's notion about ridicule being a test of truth, 

 Dyson took up his pen in defence of his friend, and published, anony- 

 mously, ' An Epistle to the Reverend Mr. Warburton, occasioned by 

 his Treatment of the Author of the " Pleasures of Imagination." ' 

 Warburton took no notice of this appeal ; but he afterwards reprinted 

 his strictures at the end of his ' Dedication to the Freethinkers ' in 

 another edition of his work. Dyson now gave Akenside a more sub- 

 stantial proof of his friendship by making him an allowance of 300Z. 

 a year, to be continued till he should be able to live by his practice. 

 Thus secured in an income, he came up to London, and established 

 himself in the first instance at Hampstead, and after being two years 

 and a half there he removed to London, and fixed himself in Blooms- 

 bury-square, where he resided till his death. This change of residence 

 occurred in 174S. In 1745 he had published, in quarto, ten of his odes, 

 under the title of ' Odes on Several Subjects ;' hU ' Ode to the Earl of 

 Huntingdon' appeared in 1748 in the same form; and several others 

 of his poems appeared afterwards from time to time in ' Dodsley's 

 Collection,' then in course of publication. An ' Ode to the Country 

 Ocntlemen of England, 1 4to., 1753, and an 'Ode to Thomas Edwards, 

 Esquire, on the late Edition (by Warburton) of Mr. Pope's Works,' 

 fol. 1766, are almost his only separate poetical productions after this 

 late. Besides being admitted by mandamus to the degree of M.D. in 

 the University of Cambridge, he became in course of time physician 

 to St. Thomas's Hospital, a Fellow of the College of Physicians, and 

 one of the physicians to the Queen ; but he was probably indebted for 

 these honours as much to his literary as to his professional reputation. 

 His practice is said never to have been considerable. The late Dr. John 

 Aikin, who himielf attempted to combine the pursuit of literature 

 witli the practice of physic, says, in his ' Select Works of the British 

 Poets,' " It is affirmed that Dr. Akenside assumed a haughtiness and 

 ostentation of manner which was not calculated to ingratiate him with 

 his brethren of the faculty, or to render him generally acceptable." 

 Another account that has been given is, that his manner in a sick*oom 

 was so grave and sombre as to be thought more depressing and inju- 

 rious to hia patients than his advice or medicines were serviceable. 

 Tet his latest and most elaborate biographer, Mr. Bucke, has noted 

 that he had practice enough to enable him, with his pension, to keep 

 a carriage ; and he also sustained his reputation at a respectable point 

 by various professional publications. In 1755 he read the Qulstonian 

 Lectures before the College of Physicians ; and an extract from them 

 containing some new views respecting the lymphatic vessels being 

 afterwards read before the Royal Society (of which he was elected a 

 fellow in 1753) was published in the ' Philosophical Transactions' for 

 17">7. This publication drew Akenside into a controversy with Dr. 

 Alexander Monro of Edinburgh, who in a pamphlet, entitled ' Obser- 

 vations Anatomical and Physiological," both accused him of some 

 inaccuracies, and also insinuated a charge of plagiarism from a treatise 

 of his own published the preceding year. Akenside replied to these 

 charges in a small pamphlet published in 1758. In 1759 he delivered 

 the Harveian Oration before the College of Physicians ; and it was 

 published by Dodsley, ia 4to, in the beginning of the next year, under 

 the title of ' Oratio Anniveraaria,' &c. An ' Account of a Blow on the 

 Heart, and its Effects/ by Akenside, appeared in the ' Philosophical 

 Transactions' for 1763. In 1764 he published, in 4to, what is 

 accounted the most important of bis medical works, his treatise on 

 dysentery, in Latin, 'De Dysenteria Commentarius,' "considered," 

 says Johnson, "as a very conspicuous specimen of Latiuity, which 

 entitled him to the game height of place among the scholars as he 

 -^ed before among the wits." It has been translated into English 

 both by Dr. Dennis Kyan and by Motteux. To these performances 

 are to be added several papers in the first volume of the ' Medical 

 Transaction^,' published by the College of Physicians in 1767; and, 

 having been appointed Krohnian Lecturer, he also delivered three 

 lectures before the college on the history of the revival of learning, 

 which have not been printed. He might probably have risen to 

 greater professional eminence and more extended practice if his life 

 'en protracted ; but he was cut off by a putrid fever on the 23rd 

 of June, 1770, in his forty-ninth year. 



As a poet, Akenside has been very differently estimated. He must 

 be judged of principally by hi* ' Pleasures of Imagination, 1 which is 

 admitted on all hands to be bis greatest work. Johnson, who hated 

 Ij'.tli the kind of verse in which it was written and the politics of the 

 author, which, always whig, were at the time when it was composed 

 almost republican, admits that " ho is to bo commended as having 

 fewer artifices of disgust than most of his brethren of the blank song;" 

 but seern to regard the poem on the whole as having more splendour 

 than substance, more sound than sense. Akenside had a warm and 

 susceptible, but not a creative imagination ; there is probably not in 



bis whole poetry a thought which can properly be called his own, or 

 even a new and striking image or metaphor, or a felicity of expression 

 not borrowed or imitated. He interests and affects his readers chiafly 

 through the sympathetic glow which he excites by his enthusiasm in 

 behalf of truth and beauty, and other elevating conceptions ; he has 

 no touches of nature, no pathos, no dramatic power, little or no 

 invention ; and even his pictures of natural scenery, which are 

 perhaps what he has done best, are brought out always by an elabo- 

 rate accumulation, of details, never by those happy characteristic 

 strokes which flash forth at once the lineaments and spirit of a scene 

 like sudden sunshine. All is operose, cumbrous, and cloudy, witli 

 abundance of gay-colouring and well-sounding words, but filling the 

 eye oftener than the imagination, and the ear oftener than either. 

 Something of all this was natural enough in a poem written at so 

 early an age as the ' Pleasures of Imagination ; ' and Akenside him- 

 self, after a time, became so dissatisfied with the work, that he 

 proceeded not so much to rewrite it as to compose a new poem on the 

 same subject. Of this second poem, which was to have been much 

 more extended than the first, he had finished three books and part of 

 a fourth before his death ; and he had eveu printed the first and 

 second books, although he did not publish them. Both poems were 

 published by his friend Mr. Dyson, in a complete edition of Akenside'e 

 works, 4to and also 8vo, London, 1773 ; but his admirers have con- 

 tinued to prefer their original favourite, its rapid flow being felt to 

 have more of pleasurable excitement than the greater correctness and 

 more matured thought of the later composition. Akenside's minor 

 pieces have the same beauties and defects with his chief work. They 

 are mostly odea and hymns, and are full of lofty sentiments and 

 swelling verse, which are farther made impressive by a spirit of 

 earnestness and ardour coming from the thorough conviction and 

 sincerity of the writer. A few are in a less ambitious style, consisting 

 of plain sense neatly expressed ; but, although he sometimes 

 attempted the gayer flights of the muse, he had no wit or humour, 

 and what he has done in this way is wholly unsuccessful. 



(Kippis, Siograpltia Britannica ; Johnson, Lives of the Poets; Bucke, 

 ft, Writingt, and Qeniut of Aktmide, 8vo, London, 1832.) 

 AKEKBLAD, JOHN DAVID, a Swedish scholar, who distin- 

 guished himself by his researches in Runic, Phoenician, Coptic, and 

 hieroglyphic literature. He enjoyed in early life an opportunity of 

 travelling over several countries in the East in consequence of being 

 appointed secretary to the Swedish embassy at Constantinople. While 

 holding this appointment he made a journey to Jerusalem, in 1792. 

 In 1797 he visited the Troad. Some years after he was appointed 

 Charg<5 d' Affaires to the king of Sweden in France. He spent his last 

 days in Rome, where he was supported by the bounty of the Duchess 

 of Devonshire and other admirers of his talents. He died in that 

 city at an early age, on the 8th of February, 1819. The following 

 are the titles of some of hia publications : ' Lettre h, M. Silvestre de 

 Sacy sur 1'Ecriture cursive Copte,' published in the 'Magasin Ency- 

 clope'dique ' for 1810. ' Inscriptionis Phosnicise Oxouiensis Nova 

 Interpretatio,' Paris, 1802; 31 pp. 8vo. 'Lettre sur 1'Inscription 

 Egyptienne de Rosette, adressde a M. Silvestre de Sacy,' Paris, 1802 ; 

 70 pp. 8vo. ' Notices sur Deux Inscriptions en Caracteres Runiques, 

 trouv<Ses a Venise, et sur les Varanges ; avec les Remarques de 

 M. d'Ansee de Villoison,' Paris, 1804 ; 55 pp. 8vo. ' Inscrizione 

 Greca sopra una Lamina di Piombo, trovato in uno Sepolcro nelle 

 Vicinanze d'Atene,' 4to, Rome, 1813. He was preparing a new and 

 enlarged edition of this work at tho time of his death. ' Lettre sur 

 une Inscription Phdnicienne trouvde Ji Athenes," Rome, 1817 ; 23 pp. 

 4 to. M. Akerblad is said to have been able to speak as well as read 

 various eastern and European languages. He was a corresponding 

 member of the French National Institute, and a member of several 

 other learned societies. 



ALARCON Y MENDOZA, DON JUAN RUIZ DE, a Spanish 

 dramatic writer of the reign of Philip IV. Of the writers of Spain, 

 unless pre-eminent in reputation as well as talent, biographical notices 

 are by uc means abundant. Nicolas Antonio did not know the place 

 of his birth nor the time of his death, but supposed him to have been 

 a native of Mexico. Ferdinand Denis however, in the ' Nouvelle 

 Biographic Universelle,' states, that he was born towards the end of 

 the 16th century, at Tlasco, or Tlachco, in the ancient province of 

 Mexico, of a noble family, which was originally from the little town 

 of Alarcon, in the province and diocese of Cuenza in Spain. His 

 time is generally fixed about the middle of tho 17th century ; but in 

 a preface to a second volume of his 'Comedias,' published in 1634, he 

 says that he is the author of twenty pieces, aud complains that some 

 of them had been attributed to others, as indeed they had, by certain 

 booksellers, to Lope de Vega and Montalvau. This fact carries back 

 his labours to a much earlier date, and places him among the compe- 

 titors of the most celebrated dramatists of his country ; and it also 

 indicates the reputation he enjoyed. It has been conjectured that he 

 was an actor ; but of this there is no sufficient evidence. He xvas a 

 licentiate, a jurisconsult by profession, and instances appear in his 

 dramas of research into the ancient laws of Spain. Though without 

 positive data, we have a strong persuasion that he was a cadet of the 

 noble family of Ruiz de Alarcon ; but his best history is In his works. 

 They show, not only that his attainments wore of a very high order, 

 but that he was deservedly esteemed for his noble qualities and 



