A philosophical poem patterned on Virgil and Horace. Akenside was a physician who practiced in London and in 1761 became physician to the queen. He also published Odes on Several Subjects (1745) and Hymn to the Naiads (1746) and other verse. Akenside worked for Edward Cave on the Gentleman's Magazine. Holbach translated and published a French edition in 1759.

Published in London. Adair was an American trader who was born in Ireland. He lived for almost 40 years among the Indians, primarily in the Chickasaw region in what is now the southeastern part of the US. Adair’s History is one of the best firsthand accounts of Indian tribes of the region. It also includes an incomplete but valuable vocabulary of various Indian dialects. Adair offered twenty-three arguments for regarding the Indians as the descendants of one of the tribes of Israel. There racial characteristics did not strike Adair as being of paramount importance; their colour, he suggested, was merely the result of a sunny climate and the excessive use of oil.