FEW English poets of the eighteenth century are to be ranked before the author of "The Pleasures of the Imagination." He was born on the 9th of November, 1721, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh. His parents designed him for the ministry, but as his education progressed, other views governed him, and he devoted himself to the study of medicine as his future profession. After remaining three years at the Scottish capital, he went to Leyden, where he also studied three years, and took his degree of M. D. in 1744. Returning home the same year, he published his poem, "The Pleasures of the Imagination." On offering the copy to Dodsley, he demanded £120 for the manuscript, but the wary publisher hesitated at paying such a price for the work of an unknown youth of twenty. three. He therefore showed the work to Pope, when the latter, having glanced over a few pages, said, "Don't be niggardly about the terms, for this is no every-day writer." No sooner was it published than it excited great attention, and received general applause. But he could not reap from it "the means whereby to live," and he betook himself to the practice of his profession. He first settled in Northampton; but finding little encouragement there, he removed to Hampstead, and thence finally to London. Here he experienced the difficulty of getting into notice in a large city, and though he acquired several professional honors, he never obtained any large share of practice. He was busy in presenting himself to public notice, by publishing medical essays and observations, and delivering lectures, when his career was terminated by a putrid fever, on the 23d of January, 1770. The Pleasures of the Imagination is written in blank verse, with great beauty of versification, elegance of language, and splendor of imagery. Its object is to trace the various pleasures which we receive from nature and art to their respective principles in the human imagination, and to show the connection of those principles with the moral dignity of man, and the final purposes of his creation. This task Akenside has executed in a most admirable manner. If his philosophy be not always correct, his general ideas of moral truth are lofty and prepossessing. He is peculiarly eloquent in those passages in which he describes the final causes of our emotions of taste; he is equally skilful in delineating the processes of memory and association; and he gives an animating view of Genius collecting her stores for works of excellence. Of this poem Dr. Johnson remarks, "It has undoubtedly a just claim to a very particular notice, as an example of great felicity of genius and uncommon amplitude of acquisitions, of a young mind stored with images, and much exercised in combining and comparing them. The subject is well chosen, as it includes all images that can strike or please, and thus comprises every species of poetical delight." He complains, however, with equal justice, of the poet's amplitude of language, in which his meaning is frequently obscured, and sometimes wholly buried. In maturer life Akenside intended to revise and alter the whole poem, but he died before he had completed his design. The portion that he did "improve" is contracted in some parts and expanded in others; but if it be more philosophically correct, it is shorn of much of its beauty and poetic fire; and 1 Campbell's Specimens, vol. vi. p. 128, the original inspiration, under which he had written the work, does not ap. pear to have been ready at his call.1 INTRODUCTION.THE SUBJECT PROPOSED With what attractive charms this goodly frame Your gifts, your honors, dance around my strain. Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf She blends and shifts at will, through countless forms, And join this festive train? for with thee comes Be present, all ye genii, who conduct The wandering footsteps of the youthful bard, New to your springs and shades: who touch his ear With finer sounds: who heighten to his eye The bloom of nature; and before him turn Oft have the laws of each poetic strain High as the summit; there to breathe at large Immortal sons of praise. These flattering scenes, And to most subtle and mysterious things Give color, strength, and motion. But the love 1 Read-Mrs. Barbauld's elegant Essay, prefixed to an edition of his poem, published in 1796; in which she characterizes his genius as lofty and elegant, chaste, classical, ana correct. Of nature and the muses bids explore, Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts, Is this great scene unveil'd. For since the claims The active powers of man; with wise intent MAN'S IMMORTAL ASPIRATIONS. Say, why was man so eminently raised As on a boundless theatre, to run To chase each partial purpose from his breast, Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent Of nature, calls him to his high reward, Th' applauding smile of heaven? Else wherefore burns In mortal bosoms this unquenched hope, That breathes from day to day sublimer things, Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave Through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade, And continents of sand; will turn his gaze To mark the windings of a scanty rill That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul The fated rounds of time. Thence far effused, Power's purple robes, nor pleasure's flowery lap, Through all th' ascent of things enlarge her view, CAUSE OF OUR PLEASURE IN BEAUTY. Then tell me, for ye know, To hide the shame of discord and disease, The bloom of nectar'd fruitage ripe to sense, Accomplish'd. Thus was beauty sent from heaven, In this dark world: for truth and good are one, Or where the seal of undeceitful good, To save your search from folly! Wanting these, And with the glittering of an idiot's toy Did fancy mock your vows. THE SUPERIORITY OF MORAL OVER NATURAL BEAUTY.1 Thus doth beauty dwell There most conspicuous, e'en in outward shape, 1 Our poet is exceedingly infelicitous in giving, as an illustration of this fine subject, the historical fact of the assassination of Julius Cæsar by Brutus and the rest of the conspirators. In a moral point of view, it was an atrocious murder, utterly unjustifiable: and in a political point of view, it was highly inexpedient. For however unscrupulous Cæsar was in his means to attain power; when obtained, few men have used it with more wisdom or clemency. In every great quality how superior was he to the hollow-hearted, selfish Augustus! The former, for instance, spared Cicero, his enemy, and the main stay of the party of Pompey; the latter sacrificed him, though professedly a friend, to the vengeance of Antony. |