Akenside was not only the son of a butcher--but, worse still, a Nonconformist butcher; and from an early period of his life he was destined to be a sectarian minister. In his nineteenth year he was sent to Edinburgh to prosecute his theological studies, the expenses of this educational course being in part defrayed by the Dissenters' Society. But he speedily discovered that he had made a wrong start, and persuaded his father to refund the money the Society had advanced, and to be himself at the cost of educating him as a physician. The honest tradesman was a liberal and affectionate parent. Mark remained three years at Edinburgh, a member of the Medical Society, and an industrious student. On leaving Edinburgh he practised for a short time as a surgeon at Newcastle; after which he went to Leyden, and having spent three months in that university took his degree of doctor of physic, May 16, 1744. At Leyden he became warmly attached to a fellow-student named Dyson; and wonderful to be related, the two friends, notwithstanding one was under heavy pecuniary obligations to the other, and they were very unlike each other in some of their principal characteristics, played the part of Pylades and Orestes, even into the Valley of Death. Akenside was poor, ardent, and of a nervous, poetic temperament. Dyson was rich, sober, and matter-of-fact, a prudent place-holder. He rose to be clerk of the House of Commons, and a Lord of the Treasury; but the atmosphere of political circles and the excitement of public life never caused his heart to forget its early attachment. Whilst the poet lived Dyson was his munificent patron, and when death had stepped in between them, his literary executor. Indeed, he allowed him for years no less a sum than £300 per annum. Akenside was never very successful as a physician, although he thoroughly understood his profession, and in some important particulars advanced its science. Dyson introduced him into good society, and recommended him to all his friends; but the greatest income Akenside ever made was most probably less than what he obtained from his friend's generosity. Still, he must have earned something, for he managed to keep a carriage and pair of horses; and £300 per annum, although a hundred years ago that sum went nearly twice as far as it would now, could not have supported the equipage. His want of patients can easily be accounted for. He was a vain, tempestuous, crotchety little man, little qualified to override the prejudices which vulgar and ignorant people cherish against lawyers and physicians who have capacity and energy enough to distinguish themselves in any way out of the ordinary track of their professional duties.