the workings of his own mind in his production, and the manners
and sentiments of the age in which he wrote. It was fitting that he who
had portrayed for us such beautiful gardens of English nature, should
people them instead of leaving them solitary.

THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.--This is an allegory, written after the manner of
Spenser, and in the Spenserian stanza. He also employs archaic words, as
Spenser did, to give it greater resemblance to Spenser's poem. The
allegorical characters are well described, and the sumptuous adornings and
lazy luxuries of the castle are set forth _con amore_. The spell that
enchants the castle is broken by the stalwart knight _Industry_; but the
glamour of the poem remains, and makes the reader in love with
_Indolence_.

MARK AKENSIDE.--Thomson had restored or reproduced the pastoral from
Nature's self; Akenside followed in his steps. Thomson had invested blank
verse with a new power and beauty; Akenside produced it quite as
excellent. But Thomson was the original, and Akenside the copy. The one is
natural, the other artificial.

Akenside was the son of a butcher, and was born at New Castle, in 1721.
Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he studied medicine, and
received, at different periods, lucrative and honorable professional
appointments. His great work, and the only one to which we need refer, is
his _Pleasures of the Imagination_. Whether his view of the imagination is
always correct or not, his sentiments are always elevated; his language
high sounding but frequently redundant, and his versification correct and
pleasing. His descriptions of nature are cold but correct; his standard of
humanity is high but mortal. Grand and sonorous, he constructs his periods
with the manner of a declaimer; his ascriptions and apostrophes are like
those of a high-priest. The title of his poem, if nothing more, suggested
_The Pleasures-of Hope_ to Campbell, and _The Pleasures of Memory_ to
Rogers. As a man, Akenside was overbearing and dictatorial; as a hospital
surgeon, harsh in his treatment of poor patients. His hymn to the Naiads
has been considered the most thoroughly and correctly classical of
anything in English. He died on the 23rd of June, 1770.

THOMAS GRAY.--Among those who form a link between the school of Pope and
that of the modern poets, Gray occupies a distinguished place, both from
the excellence of his writings, and from the fact that, while he
unconsciously conduced to