He was not liked at St. Thomas's Hospital. The gentle Lettsom, whose mild poetic nature had surrounded the author of "The Pleasures of Imagination" with a halo of romantic interest, when he entered himself a student of that school, was shocked at finding the idol of his admiration so irritable and unkindly a man. He was, according to Lettsom's reminiscences, thin and pale, and of a strumous countenance. His injured leg was lengthened by a false heel. In dress he was scrupulously neat and delicate, always having on his head a well-powdered white wig, and by his side a long sword. Any want of respect to him threw him into a fit of anger. One amongst the students who accompanied him on a certain occasion round the wards spat on the floor behind the physician. Akenside turned sharply on his heel, and demanded who it was that dared to spit in his face. To the poor women who applied to him for medical advice he exhibited his dislike in the most offensive and cruel manner. The students who watched him closely, and knew the severe disappointment his affections had suffered in early life, whispered to the novice that the poet-physician's moroseness to his female patients was a consequence of his having felt the goads of despised love. The fastidiousness of the little fellow at having to come so closely in contact with the vulgar rabble, induced him sometimes to make the stronger patients precede him with brooms and clear a way for him through the crowd of diseased wretches. Bravo, my butcher's boy! This story of Akenside and his lictors, pushing back the unsightly mob of lepers, ought to be read side by side with that of the proud Duke of Somerset, who, when on a journey, used to send outriders before him to clear the roads, and prevent vulgar eyes from looking at him. On one occasion Akenside ordered an unfortunate male patient of St. Thomas's to take boluses of bark. The poor fellow complained that he could not swallow them. Akenside was so incensed at the man's presuming to have an opinion on the subject, that he ordered him to be turned out of the hospital, saying, "He shall not die under my care." A man who would treat his _poor_ patients in this way did not deserve to have any _rich_ ones. These excesses of folly and brutality, however, ere long reached the ears of honest Richard Chester, one of the governors, and that good fellow gave the doctor a good scolding, roundly telling him, "Know, thou art a servant of this charity."