AKENSIDE, MARK (1721-1770).—­Poet, s. of a butcher at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, gave early indications of talent, and was sent to the University of Edinburgh with the view of becoming a dissenting minister.  While there, however, he changed his mind and studied for the medical profession.  Thereafter he went to Leyden, where he took his degree of M.D. in 1744.  While there he wrote his principal poem, The Pleasures of the Imagination, which was well received, and was subsequently translated into more than one foreign language.  After trying Northampton, he settled as a physician in London; but was for long largely dependent for his livelihood on a Mr. Dyson.  His talents brought him a good deal of consideration in society, but the solemn and pompous manner which he affected laid him open to some ridicule, and he is said to have been satirised by Smollett (q.v.) in his Peregrine Pickle.  He endeavoured to reconstruct his poem, but the result was a failure.  His collected poems were pub. 1772.  His works, however, are now little read.  Mr. Gosse has described him as “a sort of frozen Keats.”

ALCOTT, LOUISA M. (1832-1888).—­Writer of juvenile and other tales, dau. of Amos Bronson Alcott, an educational and social theorist, lecturer, and author, was b. in Pennsylvania.  During the American civil war she served as a nurse, and afterwards attained celebrity as a writer of books for young people, of which the best is Little Women (1868).  Others are Little Men and Jo’s Boys.  She also wrote novels, including Moods and Work.

ALCUIN or EALHWINE (735-804).—­Theologian and general writer, was b. and ed. at York.  He wrote in prose and verse, his subjects embracing educational, theological, and historical matters.  Returning from Rome, to which he had been sent to procure the pallium for a friend, he met Charlemagne at Parma, and made upon him so favourable an impression that he was asked to enter his service as preceptor in the sciences to himself and his family.  His numerous treatises, which include metrical annals, hagiographical and philosophical works, are not distinguished by originality or profundity, but he is the best representative of the culture and mental activity of his age, upon which, as the minister of education of the great emperor, he had a widely-spread influence.

ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY (1836-1906).—­Poet and novelist, b. at Portsmouth, N.H., was for some time in a bank, and then engaged in journalism.  His first book was The Bells, a Collection of Chimes (1855), and other poetical works are The Ballad of Babie Bell, Cloth of Gold, Flower and Thorn, etc.  In prose he wrote Daisy’s Necklace, The Course of True Love, Marjorie Daw, Prudence Palfrey, etc.