And it must be granted that an
hospital--especially of that age--was no congenial atmosphere for a
poet so Platonic and ideal as Akenside.
In October 1759 he delivered the Harveian oration before the College
of Physicians, and by their order it was published the next year. In
1761 Mr. T. Hollis presented him with a bed which had once belonged
to Milton, on the condition that he would write an ode to the memory
of that great poet. Akenside joyfully accepted the bed, had it set
up in his house, and, we suppose, slept in it; but the muse forgot
to visit _his_ "slumbers nightly," and no ode was ever produced.
We think that Akenside had sympathy enough with Milton's politics and
poetry to have written a fine blank-verse tribute to his memory,
resembling that of Thomson to Sir Isaac Newton; but odes of much
merit he could not produce, and yet at odes he was always sweltering
"With labour dire and weary woe."
In 1760, George the Third mounted the throne, and the author of the
"Epistle to Curio" began to follow the precise path of Pulteney. In
this he was preceded by Dyson, who became suddenly a supporter of
Lord Bute, and drew his friend in his train.
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