AKENSIDE, MARK, an English physician and poet, born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, November 9, 1721; died in London, June 23, 1770. He studied at the Grammar School at Newcastle, and at the Universities of Edinburgh and Leyden, at the latter of which he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1744. He practised his profession first at Northampton, and afterward in London. His poem, "Pleasures of the Imagination," appeared in 1744, and the author received a pension of £300 a year from Mr. Dyson, to be paid until "his practice should support him." Besides his "Pleasures of the Imagination" he wrote a number of odes and minor poems and some medical essays.
FROM THE EPISTLE TO CURIO.
THRICE has the spring beheld thy faded fame,
And the fourth winter rises on thy shame,
Since I exulting grasped the votive shell,
In sounds of triumph all thy praise to tell;
Blest could my skill through ages make thee shine,
And proud to mix my memory with thine.
But now the cause that waked my song before
With praise, with triumph, crowns the toil no more.
If to the glorious man whose faithful cares,
Nor quelled by malice, nor relaxed by years,
Had awed Ambition's wild audacious hate,
And dragged at length Corruption to her fate;
If every tongue its large applauses owed,
And well-earned laurels every muse bestowed;
If public Justice urged the high reward,
And Freedom smiled on the devoted bard:
Say then, to him whose levity or lust
Laid all a people's generous hopes in dust,
Who taught Ambition firmer heights of power
And saved Corruption at her hopeless hour,
Does not each tongue its execrations owe?
Shall not each Muse a wreath of shame bestow?
And public Justice sanctify the award?
And Freedom's hand protect the impartial bard?
There are who say they viewed without amaze
The sad reverse of all thy former praise;
That through the pageants of a patriot's name,
They pierced the foulness of thy secret aim;
Or deemed thy arm exalted but to throw
The public thunder on a private foe.
But I, whose soul consented to thy cause,
Who felt thy genius stamp its own applause,
Who saw the spirits of each glorious age
Move in thy bosom, and direct thy rage, -
I scorned the ungenerous gloss of slavish minds,
The owl-eyed race, whom Virtue's lustre blinds.
Spite of the learned in the ways of vice,
And all who prove that each man has his price,
I still believed thy end was just and free;
And yet, even yet believe it—spite of thee.
Even though thy mouth impure has dared disclaim,
Urged by the wretched impotence of shame,
Whatever filial cares thy zeal had paid
To laws infirm, and liberty decayed;
Has begged Ambition to forgive the show;
Has told Corruption thou wert ne'er her foe;
Has boasted in thy country's awful ear,
Her
gross delusion when she held thee dear;
How tame she followed thy tempestuous call,
And heard thy pompous tales, and trusted all —
Rise from your sad abodes, ye curst of old
For laws subverted, and for cities sold!
Paint all the noblest trophies of your guilt,
The oaths you perjured, and the blood you spilt;
Yet must you one untempted vileness own,
One dreadful palm reserved for him alone:
With studied arts his country's praise to spurn,
To beg the infamy he did not earn,
To challenge hate when honor was his due,
And plead his crimes where all his virtue knew.
When they who, loud for liberty and laws,
In doubtful times had fought their country's cause,
When now of conquest and dominion sure,
They sought alone to hold their fruit secure;
When taught by these, Oppression hid the face,
To leave Corruption stronger in her place,
By silent spells to work the public fate,
And taint the vitals of the passive state,
Till healing Wisdom should avail no more,
And Freedom loath to tread the poisoned shore:
Then, like some guardian god that flies to save
The weary pilgrim from an instant grave,
Whom, sleeping and secure, the guileful snake
Steals near and nearer thro' the peaceful brake,—
Then Curio rose to ward the public woe,
To wake the heedless and incite the slow,
Against Corruption Liberty to arm,
And quell the enchantress by a mightier charm.
Lo! the deciding hour at last appears;
The hour of every freeman's hopes and fears!
See Freedom mounting her eternal throne, The sword submitted, and the laws her own! See! public Power, chastised, beneath her stands, With eyes intent, and uncorrupted hands! See private life by wisest arts reclaimed! See ardent youth to noblest manners framed! See us acquire whate'er was sought by you, If Curio, only Curio will be true.
'Twas then-O shame! O trust how ill repaid! O Latium, oft by faithless sons betrayed!'T was then- What frenzy on thy reason stole? What spells unsinewed thy determined soul? Is this the man in Freedom's cause approved? The man so great, so honored, so beloved? This patient slave by tinsel chains allured? This wretched suitor for a boon abjured? This Curio, hated and despised by all? Who fell himself to work his country's fall?
O lost, alike to action and repose! Unknown, unpitied in the worst of woes! With all that conscious, undissembled pride, Sold to the insults of a foe defied!
With all that habit of familiar fame,
Doomed to exhaust the dregs of life in shame!
The sole sad refuge of thy baffled art
To act a stateman's dull, exploded part,
Renounce the praise no longer in thy power,
Display thy virtue, though without a dower,
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