the custom of the Dutch Universities, published a thefis or differtation. The fubject which he choose was, the Original and Growth of the Human Foetus; in which he is faid to have departed, with great judgement, from the opinion then established, and to have delivered that which has been since confirmed and received.

Akenfide was a young man, warm with every notion, that by nature or accident had been connected with the found of liberty, and by an excentricity which fuch difpofitions do not easily avoid, a lover of contradiction, and no friend to any thing established. He adopted Shaftesbury's foolish affertion of the efficacy of ridicule for the discovery of truth. For this he was attacked by Warburton, and defended by Dyson: Warburton afterwards reprinted his remarks at the end of his dedication to the Freethinkers.

The refult of all the arguments which have been produced in a long and eager discuffion of this idle question, may be easily collected. If ridicule be applied to any position as the test of truth, it will then become a question, whether fuch ridicule be just; and this can only be decided by the application of truth, as the test of ridicule,

Two men, fearing, one a real, and the other a fancied danger, will be for a while equally exposed to the inevitable confequences of cowardice, contemptuous cenfure, and ludicrous reprefentation; and the true ftate of both cafes must be known, before it can be decided whofe terror is rational, and whofe is ridiculous; who is to be pitied, and who to be despised.

In the revifal of his poem, which he died before he had finished, he omitted the lines which had given occalion to Warburton's objections.

He

He publifhed, foon after his return from Leyden (1745), his firft collection of odes; and was impelled by his rage of patriotism to write a very acrimonious epistle to Pulteney, whom he stigmatizes, under the name of Curio, as the betrayer of his country.

Being now to live by his profeffion, he firft commenced phyfician at Northampton, where Dr. Stonehouse then practifed, with fuch reputation, and fuccefs, that a ftranger was not likely to gain ground upon him. Akenfide tried the conteft a while; and, having deafened the place with clamours for liberty, removed to Hamstead, where he resided more than two years, and then fixed himself in London, the proper place for a man of accomplishments like his.

At London, he was known as a poet, but was still to make his way as a phyfician; and would perhaps have been reduced to great exigencies, but that Mr. Dyfon with an ardour of friendship, that has not many examples, allowed him three hundred pounds a year. Thus fupported he advanced gradually in medical reputation, but never attained any great extent of practice, or eminence of popularity. A physician in a great city, seems to be the mere play-thing of fortune; his degree of reputation is, for the most part, totally cafual they that employ him, know not his excellence; they that reject him, know not his deficience. acute obferver, who had looked on the transactions of the medical world for half a century, a very curious book might be written on the Fortune of Physicians.

By an

Akenfide appears not to have been wanting to his own fuccefs: he placed himself in view by all the common methods; he became a Fellow of the Royal Socie ty; he obtained a degree at Cambridge, and was admitted into the College of Phyficians; he wrote little

poetry

poetry, but publifhed from time to time medical ef fays and obfervations; he became physician to St. Tho mas's Hospital; having read the Gulftonian Lectures in Anatomy, he began to give, for the Cronian Lecture, an history of the revival of Learning, from which he foon defifted; and, in converfation, he very eagerly forced himself into notice by an ambitious oftentation of elegance and literature.

His Discourse on the Dysentery (1764) was confidered as a very confpicuous fpecimen of Latinity, which intitled him to the fame height of place among the scholars as he poffeffed before among the wits, and he might perhaps have rifen to a greater elevation of character, but that his studies were ended with his life, by a putrid fever, June 23. 1770. in the forty-ninth year of his age.

Akenfide is to be confidered as a didactick and ly rick poet. His great work is the Pleasures of Imagination; a performance which, published, as it was, at the age of twenty-three, raised expectations, which were not afterwards very amply fatisfied. It has undoubtedly a juft claim to very particular notice, as an example of great felicity of genius, and uncommon ampli tude of acquifitions, of a young mind stored with images, and much exercised in combining and comparing them.

With the philofophical or religious tenets of the author, I have nothing to do; my business is with his poetry. The subject is well-chofen, as it includes all images that can strike or please, and thus comprifes every species of poetical delight. The only difficulty is in the choice of examples and illustrations and it is not easy in such

exuberance of matter, to find the middle point between penury and fatiety. The parts feem artificially disposed, with fufficient coherence, so as that they cannot change their places without injury to the general defign. His images are displayed with fuch luxuriance of expreffion, that they are hidden, like Buttler's Moon, by a Veil of Light; they are forms fantastically loft un der fuperfluity of dress:

Pars minima eft ipfa puella fui.

The words are multiplied till the fenfe is hardly perceived; attention deferts the mind, and settles in the ear. The reader wanders through the gay diffufion, fometimes amazed, and fometimes delighted; but, af ter many turnings in the flowery labyrinth, comes out as he went in. He remarked little, and laid hold on nothing.

To his verification, juftice requires, that praile Thould not be denied. In the general fabrication of his lines, he is perhaps fuperior to any other writer of blank verse; his flow is smooth, and his paules are mufical; but the concatenation of his verses is com monly too long continued, and the full clofe does not recur with fufficient frequency. The fenfe is carried on through a long intertexture of complicated claufes, and as nothing is distinguished, nothing is remembred, The exemption which blank verse affords from the neceffity of clofing the fenfe with the couplet, betrays luxuriant and active minds into fuch indulgence, that they pile image upon image, ornament upon orna nent, and are not easily perfuaded to close the sense at all. Blank verfe will therefore, I fear, be too often found in defcription exuberant, in argument loqua cious, and in narration tiresome.

1

His diction is certainly fo far poetical as it is not profaick, and so far valuable as it is not common. He is to be commended as having fewer artifices of disguft than most of his brethern of the blank fong. He rare ly, either recalls old phrases or twists his metre into harfh inverfions. The fenfe however of his words is strained, when he views the Ganges from Alpine heights, that is, from mountains like the Alps. And

the pedant furely intrudes, but when was blank verse without pedantry? when he tells how Planets abfolve the stated round of Time.

It is generally known to the readers of poetry, that he intended to revife and augment this work, but died before he had completed his defign. The reformed work, as he left it, and the addition, he had made, are very properly retained in the late Collection. He seems to have some what contracted his diffusion; but I know not, whether he has gained in clofeness what he has loft in fplendor. In the additional book, the Tale of

Solon is too long.

His other poems are now to be confidered; but a fhort confideration will dispatch them. It is not easy to guefs, why he addicted himself fo diligently to Ly. rick poetry, having neither the ease and airiness of the lighter, nor the vehemence and elevation of the grander ode. When he lays his ill fated hand upon his harp, his former powers feem to defert him; he has no long. er his luxuriance of expreffion, nor variety of images. His thoughts are cold, and his words inelegant. fuch was his love of Lyricks, that, having written with great vigour and poignancy his Epiftle to Curio, he transformed it afterwards into an ode, disgraceful on. ly to its author.

Yet

Of his odes nothing favourable can be faid; the Lentiments commonly want force, nature or novelty;

the