height
of place among the scholars as he possessed before among the wits; and
he might, perhaps, have risen to a greater elevation of character, but
that his studies were ended with his life, by a putrid fever, June 23,
1770, in the forty-ninth year of his age[196].

Akenside is to be considered, as a didactick and lyrick poet. His great
work is the Pleasures of Imagination; a performance which, published as
it was, at the age of twenty-three, raised expectations that were not
very amply satisfied. It has undoubtedly a just claim to very particular
notice, as an example of great felicity of genius, and uncommon
amplitude of acquisitions, of a young mind stored with images, and much
exercised in combining and comparing them.

With the philosophical or religious tenets of the author, I have nothing
to do; my business is with his poetry. The subject is well chosen, as it
includes all images that can strike or please, and thus comprises every
species of poetical delight. The only difficulty is in the choice of
examples and illustrations; and it is not easy, in such exuberance of
matter, to find the middle point between penury and satiety. The parts
seem artificially disposed, with sufficient coherence, so as that they
cannot change their places without injury to the general design.

His images are displayed with such luxuriance of expression, that they
are hidden, like Butler's Moon, by a "veil of light;" they are forms
fantastically lost under superfluity of dress. "Pars minima est ipsa
puella sui." The words are multiplied till the sense is hardly
perceived; attention deserts the mind, and settles in the ear. The
reader wanders through the gay diffusion, sometimes amazed, and
sometimes delighted; but, after many turnings in the flowery labyrinth,
comes out as he went in. He remarked little, and laid hold on nothing.

To his versification, justice requires that praise should not be denied.
In the general fabrication of his lines he is, perhaps, superiour to any
other writer of blank verse: his flow is smooth, and his pauses are
musical; but the concatenation of his verses is commonly too long
continued, and the full close does not recur with sufficient frequency.
The sense is carried on through a long inter-texture of complicated
clauses, and, as nothing is distinguished, nothing is remembered.

The exemption which blank verse affords from the necessity of closing
the sense with the couplet, betrays luxuriant and activ