wit, Akenside had no tolerance, yet he felt unwilling to go where he
would be outshone by inferior men. His strutty arrogance of manner, like
excessive prudery in a woman, may have been a fortification to a
garrison too weak to fight in the open field. And it must be admitted
that, as so often happens, Akenside's outward _ensemble_ was eminently
what the vulgar world terms "guyable." He was not a little of a fop. He
was plain-featured and yet assuming in manner. He hobbled in walking
from lameness of tell-tale origin,--a cleaver falling on his foot in
childhood, compelling him to wear an artificial heel--and he was
morbidly sensitive over it. His prim formality of manner, his sword and
stiff-curled wig, his small and sickly face trying to maintain an
expression impressively dignified, made him a ludicrous figure, which
his contemporaries never tired of ridiculing and caricaturing.
Henderson, the actor, said that "Akenside, when he walked the streets,
looked for all the world like one of his own Alexandrines set upright."
Smollett even used him as a model for the pedantic doctor in 'Peregrine
Pickle,' who gives a dinner in the fashion of the ancients, and dresses
each dish according to humorous literary recipes.

But there were those who seem to have known an inner and superior
personality beneath the brusqueness, conceit, and policy, beyond the
nerves and fears; and they valued it greatly, at least on the
intellectual side. A wealthy and amiable young Londoner, Jeremiah Dyson,
remained a friend so enduring and admiring as to give the poet a house
in Bloomsbury Square, with L300 a year and a chariot, and personally to
extend his medical practice. We cannot suppose this to be a case of
patron and parasite. Other men of judgment showed like esteem. And in
congenial society, Akenside was his best and therefore truest self. He
was an easy and even brilliant talker, displaying learning and immense
memory, taste, and philosophic reflection; and as a volunteer critic he
has the unique distinction of a man who had what books he liked given
him by the publishers for the sake of his oral comments!

The standard edition of Akenside's poems is that edited by Alexander
Dyce (London, 1835). Few of them require notice here. His early effort,
'The Virtuoso,' was merely an acknowledged and servile imitation of
Spenser. The claim made by the poet's biographers that he preceded
Thomson in reintroducing the Spenserian stanza is groundless.