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).
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