Akenside, Mark

(1721-1770)

   Northumbrian poet and physician from a Presbyterian family. He published his first poem, "The Virtuoso," in Gentleman's Magazine at the age of sixteen and went on to publish over sixty poems in his short life. Although sent to Edinburgh by the Presbyterians of Newcastle in 1739 to study for the ministry, he decided on medicine and qualified at Leiden, Holland, in 1744. He published The Pleasures of Imagination in 1744 (in three books and 2000 lines). He was editor of the magazine Museum, to which he contributed a large number of essays in prose. He died of a fever, it is said, in the bed in which John Milton (see entry) died, a bed which a friend had given to Akenside nine years before. In "Ode XII: On Recovering from a Fit of Sickness, In the Country," he reminisces about his favorite place, called Goulder's Hill. Some of his other poems: "Amoret," "The Complaint," "For a Column at Runnymede," "Hymn to Science," "Ode IX, To Curio," "Ode on a Sermon Against Glory," "Ode to the Country Gentlemen of England," "The Nightingale."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author. html). Mark Akenside, James Macpherson, Edward Young. S.H. Clark, ed. Fyfield Books, 1994. Oldpoetry (www.oldpoetry.com). Poemhunter (www.poemhunter.com). Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets, 1779-1781 (http://www2.hn.psu.edu/Faculty/KKemmerer/poets/preface.htm). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry. Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Literary Encyclopedia (www.LitEncyc.com). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside and John Dyer. Robert Aris Willmott, ed. George Routledge and Co., 1855.