To
it Akenside contributed afterwards a fable, called "Ambition and
Content," a "Hymn to Science," and a few more poetical pieces
(written not, as commonly said, in Edinburgh, but in Newcastle, in
1739). It has been asserted that he composed his "Pleasures of
Imagination" while visiting some relations at Morpeth, when only
seventeen years of age; but although he himself assures us that he
spent many happy and inspired hours in that region,
"Led
In silence by some powerful hand unseen,"
there is no direct evidence that he then fixed his vague, tumultuous,
youthful impressions in verse. Indeed, the texture and style of the
"Pleasures" forbid the thought that it was a hasty improvisation.
When nearly eighteen years old, Akenside was sent to Edinburgh, to
commence his studies for the pulpit, and received some pecuniary
assistance from the Dissenters' Society. One winter, however, served
to disgust him with the prospects of the profession--which he
resigned for the pursuit of medicine, repaying the contribution he
had received from the society. We know a similar case in the present
day of a well-known, able _litterateur_--once the editor of the
_Westminster Review_--who had been educated at the expense of the
Congregational body in Scotland, but who, after a change of
religious view and of profession, honourably refunded the whole sum.
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