A Newly Discovered Manuscript Dedication by Mark Akenside

Mark Akenside was one of a number of eighteenth-century men who rose to prominence as both a poet and a doctor. He was born in 1721 in Newcastle upon Tyne, and in 1738 attended Edinburgh University, initially to prepare for becoming a Presbyterian clergyman, but switching after a year to the study of medicine. During his student career, he wrote a long philosophical poem, The pleasures of imagination, which became one of the most successful poems of its time, going through four editions within a year, and a further four during his lifetime (not counting various pirated editions emanating from Scotland and Ireland). Apparently using the proceeds from this, he travelled to Leiden to complete his MD, as many Edinburgh students did at this date, returning in late May 1744, when he tried, unsuccessfully, to establish himself as a physician. Having failed in this endeavour, he devoted himself to a literary career for the rest of the decade, enjoying various notable successes, although nothing quite on the scale of The pleasures of imagination. In the 1750s, however, he turned his attention to medicine once more. He was elected to the Royal Society on 8 February 1753, having obtained in the previous month (4 January) an MD by Mandamus from Cambridge, allowing him to practise legally as a doctor in London. In 1754, he became a Fellow of the Royal