JOHN

See also:

• AIKIN, ARTHUR (1773-1854)
• JOHN AIKIN (1747-1822)

AIKIN (1747-1822)  , English doctor and writer, was born at Kibworth-Harcourt, and received his elementary education at the Noncomformist academy at Warrington, where his father was tutor . He studied medicine in the university of Edinburgh, and in London under Dr William Hunter . He practised as a surgeon at Chester and Warrington . Finally,he went to Leyden, took the degree of M.D . (1780), and in 1784 established himself as a doctor in Yarmouth . In 1792 he re-moved to London, where he practised as a consulting physician . But he concerned himself more with the advocacy of liberty of conscience than with his professional duties, and he began at an early period to devote himself to literary pursuits . In con-junction with his sister, Mrs Barbauld (q.v.), he published a popular series of volumes entitled Evenings at Home (6 vols., 1792-1795), excellently adapted for elementary family reading, which were translated into almost every European language . In 1798 Dr Aikin retired from professional life and devoted himself with great industry to various literary undertakings, among which his General Biography (to vols., 1799-1815) holds a conspicuous place . Besides these, he published Biog . Memoirs of Medicine (178o) ; Lives of John Selden and Archbishop Usher (1812) and other works . He edited the Monthly Magazine from 1796 to 1807, and conducted a paper called the Athenaeum from 1807 to 1809, when it was discontinued .

Aikin died in 1822 . His daughter,

LucY AIKIN (1781-1864), born at Warrington on the 6th of November 1781, had some repute as a historical writer . After producing various books for the young, and a novel, Lorimer (1814), she published in 1818 her Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, which passed through several editions . This was followed by Memoirs of the Court of James I . (1822), Memoirs of the Court of Charles I . (1833) and a Life of Addison (1843) . Miss Aikin died at Hampstead, where she had lived for forty years, on the 29th of January 1864 . See a Memoir of John Aikin, with selections of his miscellaneous pieces (1823), by his daughter; and the Memoirs, Miscellanies and Letters of Lucy Aikin (1864), including her correspondence (1826-1842) with William Ellery Channing, edited by P . H . Le Breton .