Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he studied medicine, and
received, at different periods, lucrative and honorable professional
appointments. His great work, and the only one to which we need refer, is
his _Pleasures of the Imagination_. Whether his view of the imagination is
always correct or not, his sentiments are always elevated; his language
high sounding but frequently redundant, and his versification correct and
pleasing. His descriptions of nature are cold but correct; his standard of
humanity is high but mortal. Grand and sonorous, he constructs his periods
with the manner of a declaimer; his ascriptions and apostrophes are like
those of a high-priest. The title of his poem, if nothing more, suggested
_The Pleasures-of Hope_ to Campbell, and _The Pleasures of Memory_ to
Rogers. As a man, Akenside was overbearing and dictatorial; as a hospital
surgeon, harsh in his treatment of poor patients. His hymn to the Naiads
has been considered the most thoroughly and correctly classical of
anything in English.
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