The next year he became Fellow of the
College of Physicians.
In June 1755 he read the Galstonian lectures in anatomy before the
College of Physicians, and in the next year the Croonian lectures
before the same institution. The subject of the latter course was
the "History of the Revival of Letters," which some of the learned
Thebans thought not germane to the matter; and, consequently, after
he had delivered three lectures, he desisted in disgust. This fact
seems somewhat to contradict Dr. Johnson's assertion, that "Akenside
appears not to have been wanting to his own success, and placed
himself in view by all the common methods." Had he been a thoroughly
self-seeking man, he never would have committed the blunder of
choosing literature as a subject of predilection to men who were
probably most of them materialists, or at least destitute of
literary taste. The Doctor says also, "He very eagerly forced
himself into notice, by an ambitious ostentation of elegance and
literature." But surely the author of such a popular poem as the
"Pleasures of Imagination" had no need to claim notice by an
ostentatious display of his parts, and had too much good sense to
imagine that such a vain display would conciliate any acute and
sensible person.
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