Akenside Mask

Akenside, Mask, poet and physician, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1721, his father being a butcher and a Dissenter. He was educated at the Universities of Edinburgh and Leyden, and took the degree of M.D. in 1744, in which year he published his chief poem, "The Pleasures of the Imagination." Pope had read it in manuscript and praised it, and Johnson highly commended the intellectual ability of the poet and his skill in blank verse. By the generous help of Jeremiah Dyson the author started in medical practice at Northampton, moving later on to Hampstead, then to Bloomsbury Square, and lastly to Burlington Street. His vanity and overbearing disposition made enemies, but his undoubted abilities caused his speedy professional advancement. He became physician to St. Thomas's Hospital and to the Queen. Among other poetical works his Odes, and Epistles to Warburton and Curio, deserve notice. He died of putrid fever in 1770. Smollett drew him in the character of "The Doctor" in Peregrine Pickle.